Behind the ontological and epistemological separation of the realm of the senses and the realm of Ideas, of sensuousness and reason, of necessity and beauty, stands not only the rejection of a bad historical form of existence, but also its exoneration. – Marcuse[1]

Marcuse’s essay on The Affirmative Character of Culture (1937) describes a culture where the concept of happiness excluded thoughts of a progressive and liberal sensuality, perceiving such ideas as threatening by their very nature.[2] They were also conducive to individual, ‘spiritualised’ experiences understood through the medium of the soul, itself defined as a Real and noncorporeal substance possessed by human beings. It was the soul that Marcuse would ultimately expose as the main product of the ‘bad historical form’ that must be rejected.

Marcuse explores the crisis of European civilisation by attempting to develop a ‘concrete historical ontology based on human finitude’ with which to replace the failed form.[3] In many ways Marcuse’s essay is a Marxist argument against elements in European culture most radicalised by Christian theology and inherited by a burgeoning bourgeoisie. Marcuse fundamentally claims that the effort to fulfill true human needs requires no justification because the struggle to overcome human misery has its own essential truth.

Culture is perceived as conservative, but containing revolutionary potential. Marcuse defines art as conservative because it takes an affirmative stance towards the defining values of culture, translated into ‘high art’ and embodying the liberatory values of bourgeois culture but never acting on them. Within private bounds individuals are permitted to enjoy unalienated production and violate bourgeois conventions without ‘any transformation of the state of fact’ (ie. disorientation of the dominant order). Social and political discontent are effectively neutralized through private pleasure and the artifacts of affirmative culture, “limited by temporal restriction to special occasions”. Marcuse insists on the critical and negative role of culture and his denigration of its affirmative function leads him to push the critical need for reason (theory) over the unifying role of the soul.

‘The unity represented by art and the pure humanity of its persons are unreal; they are the counter-image of what occurs in social reality.’ The implied anxiety of living is negotiated by the rule of the imagination, at the expense of the inconstant material world, leading to the exclusion of sensual reality and Individuals’ total concentration on values bolstering the dominant culture. Marcuse’s social critique of aestheticism (particularly affirmative culture) also finds application in a criticism of Modernism: it implicates art into self-contradiction by ‘(stabilising) the very social conditions against which it protests’.[4] Affirmative culture’s influence is pervasive and its roots go deep into antiquity.

Marcuse references Aristotle’s view that the quest for truth is the pursuit of pure knowledge to answer why sensuality has been so predominantly devalued by the Western philosophical tradition. Theory is elevated as the only realm of freedom; the practical life is a realm of unfreedom because matter and the sensuous world have no binding value. Attitudes that threaten the state are refined in the soul and made part of the individual’s internal existence. The Classical separation of necessity and beauty are identified as having ‘initiated a development’ ultimately resulting in bourgeoise materialism (necessity) and happiness, culture (beauty).

Continued demands for universal freedom are identified as having led to a bourgeoisie response in affirmative culture. This culture perpetuated Aristotelean dichotomies, the isolated individual/united humanity, bodily misery/the beautiful soul, brutal egoism/moral duty, sustaining the physical and psychic damages incurred by the Individual within society under the onus of abstract freedom. Concrete freedom for all involves literally dismantling the idealistically led culture and undermining all institutions of economic competition. By offering the illusion of immediate access to the abilities which allow individuals’ participation in economic and cultural activities, the assumption is that all possess the ability to realise the Self and become economically assertive. The existing inequality undermines these aims because the various means for sensuous fulfillment are socially controlled. Marcuse identifies the soul as the primary element in assertive culture’s ability to distinguish the material and aesthetic/spiritual worlds, creating the necessary mechanism for internalisation that keeps the unfree appeased, even exalted, in their state.

Hegel, originator of what Marcuse calls ‘the greatest system of bourgeois rationalism’, is unable to assert the independence of the soul. It is interesting to note that Marcuse considered Aristotle the ‘key’ to understanding Hegel: Marcuse develops this in Hegel’s Ontology and the Theory of Historicity published in 1932. For similar reasons Kant argues that empirical psychology has no place within metaphysics. Writing about the possibility of abstract thought ever comprehending the soul, Spengler says ‘one could sooner dissect with a knife a theme by Beethoven, or dissolve it with acid.’ For these reasons, the concept of the soul characteristic of affirmative culture was disregarded by its most integral philosophers even though the beauty of culture is primarily a movement of that most Real substance – it is unconcerned with material suffering because it can never become a material commodity.

The soul escapes concretisation and the economic law of value by instituting an omnipresent community of individuals united by their inherently shared humanity, in place of the material individual whose life can be commodified (slavery, serfdom, employment). The soul finds its home within the cultural expressions of such communities and culture is participated in by free, equal beings who transcend social and economic processes because ‘the internalisation of enjoyment through spiritualisation… becomes one of the decisive tasks of cultural education’. Access to this culture rests within those who have completely internalised its message, elevating the individual while offering no freedom from factual debasement.

Marcuse observes that freedom as the realisation of Self ultimately leads to freedom for all. The sickness of unhappiness originates in the struggle against ephemerality, malforming the personality in the process. ‘This unhappiness is not metaphysical’ writes Marcuse; it is not, in his estimation, a cultural concern. With the abolition of assertive culture’s ‘bad historical form’, Self-realisation becomes an actuality because the ‘totally other world’ dominated by the soul is negated.[5] Rather than reiterating the complicitous character of culture by nurturing the power of cultural affirmation, the institutions of such a system must be rejected entirely and find exoneration by reifying the soul and in the process, realising the Self.

Endnotes

[1] Marcuse, Herbert, ‘The Affirmative Character of Culture’ in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (London: Penguin, 1968)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Feenberg, Andrew, Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History (New York, London: Routledge, 2005)

[4] Buerger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Publishing, 1984)

[5] Marcuse, Herbert, ‘The Affirmative Character of Culture’ in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (London: Penguin, 1968)

References

Feenberg, Andrew, Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History (New York, London: Routledge, 2005)

Buerger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Publishing, 1984)

Marcuse, Herbert, ‘The Affirmative Character of Culture’ in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (London: Penguin, 1968)

Marcuse, Herbert, Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955)

Mills, James, Elements of Political Economy (3rd Edition) (London, 1826)

And yet it is untold, what feelings may unfold after a line is strongly uttered, or a phrase is attentively read. Irrelative of how those words reach your mind, they will keep on echoing there. Over and over, turning and swirling; his words intruding, my thoughts demurring.

Everyone meets people who leave imprints in our lives. Some are big, some are small and some are deep, that have the power to last for forever. Some words hit straight into the heart, more powerful than Cupid’s bow, that they will leave just an aftermath of shatters, which will gently fall, soundless, sometimes without people even realising.

You’ll go blind and deaf for a second. It will feel like your veins have stopped pulsating and your lungs have ceased to function. You will feel paralysed and if you try to move, you will feel like the whole room is swaying, that people are moving slowly around you, that your mouth has run dry and your eyes forgot how to blink. Then the pain will start to creep into your chest, slowly, like a marching doom, and you’ll try to breathe but no air will really feel like it is filling enough to replace the missing space. The empty, black and hollow space. You’ll half-smile at everything that is said, if you ever manage to do so. Your eyes will stop to shine. You may stop tasting and nibble instead of eating. You’ll lose track of time and won’t even stop to notice that outside is bright. That leading to the outside, there’s a door, with a handle and a lock and a key that you must find.

And this might take forever to find. To look in drawers, cupboards, jars of sand, forgotten pots and pans, cardboard boxes, dirty shelves, bags and books with hollow insides. At the bottom of a well, on top of a tree, in the pocket of your trousers, on the pillow where you sleep. Keys can be so small that you won’t see them. They may only glint if they hit a ray of light when that old dusty curtain is drawn open wide.

A gentle flame sprang to life as Lucille lit the cigarette she held between two perfectly manicured red-nailed fingers. The light outside was cold and bare, casting a ghostly veil over parts of her boudoir which now had wisps of cigarette smoke dangling in the air. Lucille leaned against the foot of her bed and took a few more contemplative drags before stubbing it out and stepping into the shower. Today was the day of her job interview at the local police station – the inspector needed a new secretary and she needed the work. She had rent to pay and vices to finance -namely shopping and cigarettes. What she didn’t have any more was a man to help support her. It’s not that she didn’t try; every night she preened herself into a vision of sultry refinement before heading over to some bar or lounge where she would then sip martinis and throw feminine glances over at well-to-do looking young men across the room. Every now and then, she’d strike gold and bring home a man whose pockets were weighed down with big banknotes. Sometimes they were single, sometimes they were married. Either way, she enjoyed the gifts, dinners and snazzy hotel rooms she was treated to. Eventually, the calls would stop and so would the gifts. One time, she woke up in her room only to be greeted by $200 on her nightstand, like some cheap harlot. That was when she resolved to make herself independent – or at least as independent as a desk job would make her. She stepped out of the shower and made her way to the wardrobe. She soon put together an outfit and began the beautification process that started with foundation and ended with a precise, luscious set of red lips. First impressions were crucial – that’s what her mother always said. As she sat at her dressing-table, she looked at the photo of a man with strong arms and kind eyes. She kissed the image before getting up to leave. Her eyes never abandoned the faded memory as she thought about the rest of her day. When she looked at the mirror and felt satisfied with what looked back, she grabbed her little patent leather purse and set out to meet her potential boss. Lucille Calvin: working woman.

Lucille waited for her turn patiently in the hall outside inspector Dawson’s office. She fired up another cigarette to calm her nerves; the intoxicating smell of tobacco wrapped itself around her like a security blanket. She never smoked around her ex-fiancé – he said that the smell was putrid and musty.

‘Miss Calvin? Inspector Dawson will see you now.’

Lucille thanked the rotund little man who called for her and extinguished the cigarette before stepping into the office. Inspector Dawson was, to his peers, a serious man. His office was a grey box littered with files, notebooks, records and papers dumped on any available surface, save the fifty centimetres of space the inspector required to rest his arms on the desk.

‘Miss Calvin, I presume? Please, take a seat. I won’t be taking up much of your time.’

He was about thirty-five years old with an aquiline nose, a strong jaw line and silky ink-black hair which he pushed back every couple of minutes. In short: he was one handsome son-of-a-gun. But Lucille just thought he was fidgety and had a seedy smile. She sat down on the generic office chair he motioned to, crossing her legs in such a way that her pencil skirt left the imagination with room in which to play. ‘Thank you, Mr.Dawson. Here are my references.’ She handed him the paper and waited.

Inspector Dawson looked over Miss Calvin’s references; she was ‘organised’ and ‘an excellent typist’ – what more was required of a secretary? His eyes glided down the paper and wandered up a slender stocking-covered leg. Miss Calvin was a pretty little parcel – someone he wouldn’t mind talking to and looking at on a daily basis. Maybe she’d be willing to work late…

‘All seems to be in order Miss…Calvin, was it?’ He laid the paper down on the desk and pushed his hair back, ‘Can you start tomorrow?’

Lucille couldn’t help but smile; she had what she wanted – what she needed. She was one step closer to her goal. However, she could have sworn that she’d caught the inspector’s eyes fixed on her ever-so-slightly exposed thigh-region. She wasn’t bothered by it. ‘Of course. Is there anything else we need to talk about before I leave, Mr. Dawson?’

‘Just sign a couple of these papers and we’ll be good to go, Miss Calvin.’

Lucille stood up and approached the desk, and the inspector walked over to her side to straighten out the official details. She took a pen and carefully made her mark on the dotted lines indicated by Dawson. It was then that she felt a warm pressure on her petite derriere as the inspector got a little too comfortable with his newest employee.  Being the type of woman she was, she decided to turn the tables.

‘I wonder, inspector, if you should like to accompany me to my place for coffee?’

‘Definitely.’ He couldn’t believe his luck – the last time he’d tried this, all he got was a slap in the face. Some people would call his office liaisons ‘inappropriate’ or down-right wrong, but he liked to think of women as he thought of wine: he had a fine palate, and longed to sample as many flavours as possible. Miss Calvin was a fine, fine red wine which he simply had to taste. He wanted to savour the deep flavour of her crimson lips, feel her sublime body and take in the sweet aroma of her alabaster skin.

They were at Lucille’s apartment in ten minutes flat. She shrugged off her jacket and flung her bag onto the sofa on her way to the kitchen.

‘I’m out of coffee. Care for some whisky instead?’

‘Sure. Nice place you’ve got here,’ the inspector called from the living room before sitting himself down on the plush sofa.

‘Thanks,’ answered Lucille, who had just reappeared wearing one-layer of clothing less than before. She was leaning against the doorframe with a glass of whisky in one hand while the other rested gracefully at her side. She glided towards him and set the drink down on the coffee table before draping herself over the chaise-lounge opposite her guest. She watched hungrily as her latest catch – with his eyes never leaving hers – drew the glass up to his lips and downed the whisky. He stood up, meaning to further his advances with the vision of beauty before him, when the room started to spin. He hit the floor with a thud almost immediately after that. Lucille approached the unconscious misogynist on her living room floor and smiled. Phase one was, indeed, complete.

When inspector Frank Dawson next opened his eyes, he found himself sitting in a chair with his hands and legs bounds in ropes. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could just barely make out a svelte figure at the other end of the room. It walked towards him, casually lighting up a cigarette and sending curls of smoke into the air. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t recognise my last name, Inspector,’ purred the liquid voice in front of him. ‘Miss Calvin – of course that isn’t my real name, you know. I’ll take you back precisely one year ago today, Frankie-boy.’ She took one long drag on the cigarette before continuing, blowing the smoke out of her mouth as she spoke. ‘My fiancé’ was Calvin Davis. Does the name ring a bell yet?’ The inspector replied with a trembling shake of the head. ‘I didn’t think so. Well, my fiancé’ was a real good guy, Frankie. He worked hard so we could have everything we needed. One fine day, his boss decided to let him go – you can imagine how bad things got, inspector. He wanted to get us back on our feet, so he took a job working for a certain Mr. Mancini, some Italian guy in a suit. Do you remember my Calvin yet, Frank?’ She slid over to her captive and stubbed the cigarette out – on his forearm. His anguished cries and curses were pleasing to her. Lighting yet another nicotine-stick, she continued, ‘I don’t want to take up much of your time, Inspector, so I’ll cut to the chase. My sweet Calvin was framed by the man he was working for. They pinned murder on him, Frank. All he was doing was delivering packages here and there – he told me so – and he got the death penalty, inspector.’

Inspector Dawson felt as though he had a ball of lead in his gut. Of course he remembered the case – it was one of the last he’d worked on before taking the post of Inspector at the station. The evidence had been clear enough – Mr. Davis’ prints were on the gun, and his alibi didn’t stick. The jury had been unanimous in their choice…and now Frank Dawson was in a ridiculously difficult situation because he thought he had a chance with the red-taloned woman before him. The burn on his arm stung as he struggled against the ropes. ‘Keeping me here won’t get you anywhere, you know,’ the inspector glanced around the darkened room in search for some hint of an escape. ‘We could get the case reviewed with a fresh set of eyes. I know it won’t bring him back, but his name will certainly be cleared. Let me go, and we can make some calls and get things moving. What do you say to that?’ Dawson knew that given the circumstances, he could either hope for a miracle to happen or try to talk her into releasing him. The woman was damn crazy.

Lucille laughed. In any other circumstances, it would have been contagious and beautiful, but her eyes were wild and the sound took on a demonic quality.  ‘Do you honestly believe that I care about what pathetic lies you come up with?’ She stubbed out another cigarette on his arm before continuing. ‘Would you like to know what really gets me, Frank?’ She moved closer to him and whispered the next string of words, ‘I lost a child, because of you. You killed my husband, and the heartbreak was so bad you killed my baby, Inspector. The psychiatrist said I had a ‘mental break’ or some shit like that. It’s understandable though, isn’t it? How would you react if the one you loved was killed by the very government that swore to protect you?’

‘They’ll know I’m missing. They’ll come looking for me – you’ve got no chance.’ He was in full-blown panic-mode right now, but was trying to keep his cool.

‘You know what, Inspector Dawson? You talk a little too much for my liking.’ She proceeded to gag the prisoner before retrieving a gun from the dresser. ‘This one is for Calvin,’ her voice quivered with the words before aiming for his knee-caps and squeezing the trigger. The muffled cries were enough to move the most insensitive of souls to anguished tears, but Lucille scarcely blinked. She savoured the sound of his pain before aiming at the other knee, ‘and this is for my baby.’ Another muffled gun shot, and another muffled scream.

With both knee-caps decimated, Lucille removed the gag from Frank Dawson’s whimpering mouth. ‘Please! Don’t! No, please, no!’ He pleaded with his captor, but to no avail. Lucille gagged him again, put the barrel of the gun against the middle of his forehead and said:

‘Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of Lucille. You do not have to say anything, because I’m going to kill you for what you did to me and my family.’

One final gunshot rang out through Lucille’s apartment. She didn’t bother cleaning up or getting rid of the body, because her plan had had its grand finale. She took a handful of her pills before lying down on her silk sheets for good. The comforting material caressed her skin as she felt relief wash over her. This was what had had to be done all along; for her love, for her baby, and for herself. She replayed the inspector’s final moments over again in her head and tingled with morbid delight, smiling to herself before closing her eyes and drifting off into an eternal slumber.

Calvin Davis had committed and was guilty of murder, by the way.

‘Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.’ ¹

- EB White (quoted in Gale 1996: xi)

Don Quixote famously saw furious giants on his travels where the rest of the world saw windmills. Cervantes’ brand of humour here is striking because it exhibits its creation through (unwittingly self-inflicted) deception. Indeed, the absurdity of this event ultimately seems to lie in the blurring of rationality’s crisp clarity – in this case, because of the protagonist’s preconceptions of his travels. Interestingly, the application of Lacanian theory to this might suggest that Don Quixote is a victim of a treacherous ‘mirror stage’²; within a Derridian paradigm, Reception theory can portray him as the ‘reader’ who ‘concretizes’ the ‘text’ in a way which undermines him³. Therefore, what at close dissection might deceive us into seeing the dark hues of tragedy, viewed from a distance it reveals itself – or rather ‘the reader’ identifies it – as comedy.⁴

Indeed, the analysis of humour in literature uncovers the rational workings behind a seemingly strange human behaviour – laughter. This is not surprising given Henri Bergson’s insistence in ‘Laughter: an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic’ that humour is derived from the intellect rather than the emotions. This is connected to what he terms the ‘absence of feeling’ that ‘usually accompanies laughter’. He explains how this works:

‘Now step aside, look upon life as a disinterested spectator: many a drama will turn into comedy. It is enough to stop our ears to the sound of music, in a room where dancing is going on, for the dancers to appear ridiculous. [...] To produce the whole of its effect, then, the comic demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the heart. Its appeal is to the intelligence, pure and simple.’⁵

In Bergson’s view, this is the bone of contention between tragedy and comedy. In a tragedy, the flaws and vices of the character are weaved closely within other aspects of the same character, but this is not so in a comedy. This distancing effect of comedy can be seen in the titles of literary works: Moliere’s L’Avare smacks of comedy but Othello could scarcely have been called Le Jaloux.⁶

In view of this single but great difference between the two genres, it can be therefore slightly surprising that throughout history, the ‘tragedy’ has stolen the limelight from ‘comedy’ in such a mockingly tragic way. Umberto Eco’s ‘Il Nome Della Rosa’ effectively and eloquently portrays some consequences of this disproportionately fragmented historical and academic interest. The three negative attributes of humour – irresponsibility, the blocking of compassion and the promotion of prejudice⁷ – are used by characters in this novel, and by some branches of philosophy, to dismiss the value of humour. Yet, humour can also be used positively and its ability to promote intellectual and moral development demonstrates this⁸. Edward De Bono argues that ‘humour shows how perceptions set in one way can suddenly be reconfigured in another way’ and this is ultimately ‘the essence of creativity’⁹. Strikingly, the sociological value of humour increases in situations of a serious group threat. This is evidenced by the resurgence of black humour among the Jews during the Holocaust, and by other oppressed groups under different oppressive regimes throughout history.¹⁰

This fact gains particular weight in view of the paradoxical and quasi anomalous nature of the success of humour in such a grim and desolate context. Yet, it can be understood via Bakhtin’s theory of the polyphonic text¹¹. Through Bakhtin’s brand of Russian Formalism, the equality that the polyphonic text gives to the divergent voices produces the ‘carnivalesque’ – a word that explicitly connotes the ‘carnival’ from which Bakhtin derived his idea. During this popular Western festival, the inversion of roles, ideas and things is celebrated in all its glory and merriment is derived out of what is normally deemed vulgar and improper. This fits in perfectly with Bergson’s theory of how comedy of this kind works within society:

‘Society will therefore be suspicious of all inelasticity of character, of mind and even of body, because it is the possible sign of a slumbering activity as well as of an activity with separatist tendencies, that inclines to swerve from the common centre round which society gravitates: in short, because it is the sign of an eccentricity.’ ¹²

This analysis places a lot of importance on the social context of comedy and its role therein. Indeed, it can be argues that it is this context which makes ‘carnival’ and ‘comedy’ work.  Alexander Leggatt postulates that ‘there is no such thing as comedy, an abstract trans-historical form; there are only comedies. But they accumulate to create a body of case law, a set of expectations to which writers and readers operate’¹³.

Such a statement places strong emphasis on perception; and this is where the image of Don Quixote and his giants gains a new relevance. Comedy, or indeed ‘comedies’, not only appear to play upon the reader of the text’s pre-conceptions, they also play upon the creativity that De Bono aptly highlights. Indeed, the importance of the ‘play’ or of ‘playing’ in this aspect of literary genre cannot be disregarded. Whilst ‘context’ of a situation can make the situation funny, a lot of the humorous is generated by the way in which human beings choose to relate to situations and to expect from them. These different ‘worlds’ are what sociologist Erving Goffmann dubs as ‘frameworks’¹⁴. As social animals, humans usually operate within the ‘serious’ framework but they make allowances to ‘bracket’ humorous instances within this structure. Interestingly, as the findings of the ethologist Jan van Hooff¹⁵ reveal, play is also important for animals and it instigates laughter among their groups. It is not unusual behaviour for primates to fake attacking or biting each other in a playful manner and this makes them emit the sound of laughter. The suggestion is that laughter in humans also evolved as a play signal and achieved its many forms as a result of bipedalism. This is remarkable considering the importance that the psychoanalyst’s D.W. Winnicott ascribes to play with respect to the development of the child’s psyche¹⁶. He argues that ‘play’ bridges the gap between the ‘inner psychic reality’ and the ‘external world’ in which the young individual finds him/herself in. As the individual matures, insightful exploitation of this midway terrain becomes what we understand by ‘creativity’. Therefore, it is perhaps the latter which makes this decision to shift between different frameworks possible – and therefore what makes comedy work and people laugh. Susan Purdie argues that

‘the use of vocabulary and delivery which entails reference to modes of discourse other than that which would be transparently ‘normal’ in the context: something is said or done in a manner which registers as intentionally excessive to the situation – ‘too much’ emotion or ‘too high/low’ a distinction’.¹⁷

This relies heavily on the use and exploitation of conventions and echoes subtly the theory of ‘Ostranenie’ or ‘Defamiliarisation’ postulated by the Shklovsky¹⁸.

As can be surmised from the above, there is more to comedy than meets the eye and literary theory and the social sciences can help us understand the mechanics of it, which in turn help us appreciate the power of the comic and the role this has in a ‘serious’ world. Perhaps rather aptly then, the Fool’s words to the tragic hero King Lear in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy seemingly encapsulate the tragic-comic nature of it all : ‘I am a fool, thou art nothing’.

Endnotes

[1] Quoted in: Brett Mills, The Sitcom (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 2009), p.8.

[2] Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 114.

[3] Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (London: Longman, 2005), p. 52.

[4] Eric Weitz, The Cambridge Introduction to Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 2.

[5] Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (Miami: HardPress Publishing, 2010), p. 2.

[6] Bergson, p. 6.

[7] John Morreall, Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 90-110.

[8] Morreall, pp. 111-124.

[9] Edward de Bono, Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 8.

[10] Morreall, pp.119-124.

[11] Selden, Widdowson and Brooker, pp.39-42.

[12] Bergson, p. 7.

[13] Alexander Leggatt, English Stage Comedy 1490-1990 (London: Rouotledge, 1998), p. 1.

[14] Weitz, p. 3.

[15] Morreall, p. 41.

[16] Weitz, p. 5.

[17] Susan Purdie, Comedy: The Mastery of Discourse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), p. 49.

[18] Selden, Widdowson and Brooker, pp.30-36.

[19] William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear, ed. by J. L. Halio, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), I. 4. 153

It is said that the fetal ape looks more human than a mature one, and some have suggested that humanity arose through a process of arrested development.[1]

-The Parallel World of Narnia, Chad Walsh.

The early twentieth century saw the rise of real and troubling issues, giving Eric Hobsbawm good reason to name the period between the start of the Great War and the years following the Second World War the ‘age of catastrophe’.[2] Literature written during this period is naturally rich in references and allusions to the way of life at the time, and the influences of war are recognised in all genres and writings, even children’s fiction. Among the authors who were directly influenced by the World Wars, the works of two good friends have stood the test of time, both on bestseller lists and in the hearts of their readers.  J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis each have a number of well-known children’s books to their name, but the two books which will be discussed here are Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) and Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950).

While most fantasies written up to and during the 1930s were set in our real world, there was a shift towards the end of the decade when authors began to write about other worlds, creating new landscapes and mythologies. This was most likely brought on by the looming threat of the Second World War, and writers like Tolkien (The Hobbit) and T. H. White (The Sword in the Stone – 1938) saw the creation of alternative realities as a means of escapism and consolation during times of hardship. As Tolkien himself wrote in the essay On Fairy Stories: ‘And lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape: the Escape from Death. Fairy-stories provide many examples and modes of this’.

C. S. Lewis also defends the fantasy genre in his various essays, which deliver the idea that stories allow children to experience different perspectives and to explore their imagination, and that they come back to their own world refreshed and better prepared for the reality of life. Lewis had written a number of impressive works, including literary criticism and Christian apologetics. Yet rather ironically, his most lasting works are the series of seven fairy tales that make up the ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’. They are written in a way that speaks to both children and adults alike, and are still read and loved today, sixty years on.

However Lewis had no children of his own, and had already published all seven books by the time his marriage to Joy Gresham gave him two stepsons. He never spent much time with children, which raises the question of how he managed to portray them so well in his fairy tales. Walsh suggests that the author held on to his childhood as he grew up, carrying his childhood dreams and interests with him until he developed the ability and courage to work them into his stories.[3] As Lewis himself wrote in one of his essays, ‘When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up’.[4] It is no wonder then that his chronicles can, and are, enjoyed by readers of all ages, provided they are still in touch with their childhood.

As a teenager, Lewis developed a mental image that kept coming back to him as he grew up – that of a faun carrying parcels in a snowy forest. He was always intrigued by the idea of alternative worlds and faraway lands, which may have arisen from his readings of influential authors like Beatrix Potter and Edith Nesbit. Eventually, Lewis began to play on the image of the faun, developing it and adding other images which would eventually form the world of Narnia. This process began around the same time that a few school girls went to stay at his house after being evacuated from London to escape the worst of the Second World War. Among these girls was June Flewett, on whom Lewis is said to have built the character of Lucy, as confirmed by the author’s stepson Douglas in a letter to June: ‘’I suppose you know you are the prototype for Lucy?’’.[5] One might speculate that it was the girls’ arrival that triggered Lewis’ writing of children’s stories, and he is said to have written: ‘I never appreciated children till the war brought them to me.’5

Having experienced trench warfare as a teenager during the First World War, Lewis was fully aware of the horrors taking place during the Second World War. The entire series, but particularly The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (to be referred to as The Lion from now on), is laced with references to war and religion. The Lion is in fact set in 1940, right in the middle of the conflict, which caused some critics to argue that the stories were too heavy for children.  Nevertheless, Lewis was convinced that fantasy was the ideal medium for preparing young minds to handle the world they live in, and insisted that the form of the fairy tale allows the author to convey messages to children in a way that other genres do not. As Lewis himself puts it:

Since it is so likely that [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker… Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.[6]

Like so many children’s adventure stories, The Lion begins with the separation of children from their parents during wartime. As the adventure of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy begins in their mystery world of Narnia, they encounter difficult and terrifying situations before finally reaching their happy ending. One might think this would frighten the child reader, however it has been suggested that children can handle these frightening experiences by being secure in the knowledge that their heroes only need to fight evil as long as they remain inside the magical world of Narnia, and that the real world is always on the other side of the wardrobe, ready to welcome them back safely should the adventure become too dangerous.[7]

Lewis was one of the members of the casual literary discussion group called the Inklings. Among other members was his close friend and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien. Unlike Lewis, however, Tolkien had four children of his own when his writing took off. He got into the habit of writing for them when they were young, starting with illustrated letters from Father Christmas and going on to a number of stories, some of which were published posthumously. The turning point in Tolkien’s storytelling, however, began while correcting student’s examination papers. Having come across a page left blank by a student, inspiration struck and he wrote: ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’. This developed into what was to become the bestselling fantasy novel The Hobbit, or There and Back Again which has been on lists of children’s recommended reading since its publication.  Lewis himself reviewed the book for The Times, saying that it encompassed a number of features that have never before worked so well together, including ‘a fund of humour, an understanding of children, and a happy fusion of the scholar’s with the poet’s grasp of mythology’.[8] Writing in the post-war periods, Tolkien doesn’t fit the typical mould of writers during this time. Rather than a simple retelling of personal wartime experiences, it is this mythologizing of his war stories that makes his work universally applicable.

Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a ‘traumatized author’, with the perspective of a veteran of the First World War.[9] This point of view is noticeable in the book, particularly in the comment made by the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, after the climactic battle at the end of his journey: ‘Victory after all I suppose! … Well, it seems a very gloomy business’.[10] The author went through a different experience during the Second World War, as this time it was his children who were actively involved in the conflict. The perspective of the anxious parent shows through very poignantly in the three-part sequel, The Lord of the Rings, which was written and released during and after World War II. A number of relationships between concerned parents and their children are explored in the trilogy, including those of Elrond and Arwen Half-Elven, Hamfast and Sam Gamgee and, most significantly, Denethor and his sons Boromir and Faramir.

The Hobbit, on the other hand, was published just before World War II broke out, which explains why this perspective is not so defined in the prequel. There are no relationships between parents and children, and the closest connections are those between cousins, uncles and nephews. Gandalf the wizard is the only character that comes close to playing the role of a parent, yet his concern for Bilbo is minimal next to his fussing over Frodo in the sequel. In The Hobbit there is no global war, and The Shire is a serene realm where ‘Swords…are mostly blunt, and aces used for trees, and shields as cradles or dish-covers’, because war is considered a thing of the past.

Although the protagonist in The Hobbit is 50 years old at the start of his adventure, the story could still be considered one of a ‘journey to maturity’.[11] Bilbo Baggins is shaken from his lazy, comfortable life free of responsibilities and sent on a quest, from which he returns an independent and capable hobbit with a sense of military leadership. This process is very similar to that of one’s coming of age, which could explain how the story is so relevant to children even without there being any child characters. This is particularly relevant to the children Tolkien was writing for, who at some point in their young lives needed to grow up very quickly because of the instability surrounding them during the time of unrest.

This construction of childhood is very similar in The Lion, where our main protagonist is little Lucy. Together with her three siblings, she is whisked away from her parents to live in a strange house in order to escape the blitz. As the youngest, she is the most sensitive to leaving home, and as she explores unfamiliar territory, Lucy also begins to explore feelings stirred in her by the absence of her mother. She ventures deep into the wardrobe and out into Narnia where she meets Mr. Tumnus, and as he plays his flute, Lucy wanted to ‘cry and laugh and dance and go to sleep all at the same time’.[12] This inner confusion marks the moment when Lucy begins to grow through her experience in Narnia, as she becomes aware of her own complexity. As she speaks to Mr. Tumnus, she finds out about his hypocritical actions in working for the white Witch. As a young girl dealing with the loss of everything she loved, her mother in particular, the reader senses that the Faun’s tale offers Lucy the option of submitting herself, like Mr. Tumnus, to the Witch’s tyranny in order to have some sort of connection with a maternal figure. In such a vulnerable emotional state, Lucy’s loyalty to the memories of her loving family is being tested, because even in knowing that she was sent away from home for her own safety, it is easy for an emotional girl to feel hurt and a sense of abandonment.

Lucy’s experiences might echo those of the child evacuees during the war. Some children took to country life as an opportunity to learn and explore. Most city children would have never seen a cow, much less know where milk came from; therefore Lucy’s wandering into a new world and her meeting with an unfamiliar creature could be a representation of these childhood experiences. This could also be said for the emotional aspect of her journey, as the fears and uncertainties felt by our heroine were undoubtedly shared by most of the evacuees, particularly the younger ones around Lucy’s age.

When Lucy returns to the real world to tell her siblings about Narnia, they refuse to believe her. Peter and Susan may shrug her off as a means of coping with their situation, trying to act as the mature adults in their parents’ absence. In Edmund, however, the reader realises that his sense of loss is similar to that felt by his younger sister. This is clear through his hostility towards Susan for assuming a maternal role as well as through his irksome teasing directed towards Lucy after hearing what she has to say about Narnia.

Edmund emerges as the weaker of the two, as contrary to Lucy’s firm footing during her first visit to Narnia, her brother cannot handle being alone in the wood and succumbs to the Queen’s tempting offer of Turkish Delight in exchange for information. The Queen recognizes Edmund’s loneliness and his longing for maternal affection, and plays on this by promising to bring his siblings to meet them, conjuring an image of a family gathering. She bewitches him with the Turkish Delight in a way that is reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel, appealing to his greed in order to entrap him. The children’s sentiments and state of mind are also represented in the motif of their reaction to the climate. Edmund suffers from the cold for most of his journey in Narnia, while the chill doesn’t seem to bother Lucy when she walks into the snowy woods without a coat on.

Children’s fiction in the first half of the twentieth century often features animals as main characters, and their anthropomorphic personas are often linked with misbehaviour. This is often the case in Beatrix Potter’s storybooks, and is seen in both Tolkien and Lewis’ fantasies. With Tolkien in particular, however, certain creatures are given completely evil attributes. The trolls and spiders in The Hobbit kill without a second thought, and certainly without mercy, and it may be suggested that Tolkien is here representing the horrors of the Great War. Orcs, or goblins, could be considered representations of German soldiers in both The Hobbit and the trilogy, with similarities seen in their overwhelming numbers, gray colour and their acts of mass genocide, implied in the comment: ‘It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once.’[13]

Representations of the real world by means of personification are not only seen in relation to humans. Smaug, the dragon who sleeps in Lonely Mountain on his bed of pillaged treasure, is the personification of capitalism. His hoarding greed for the dwarves’ precious fortune is also reflected in the dwarves themselves, as Thorin in particular becomes so possessive with his acquisition towards the end of the book that his refusal to share even a fraction of it leads them to the great Battle of Five Armies. Tolkien’s message here is blatantly obvious. The notion of capitalism was of significant importance at the time when the book was being written, as the worldwide effects of the Great Depression were only just beginning to subside.  The reckless, unnecessary murders by the wolves and the Orcs, and the fact that the once lush, green area surrounding Smaug’s lair is now desolate and barren while all the wealth is concentrated in one area may indicate Tolkien’s thoughts about the state of affairs during his time, and these images allow him to express his concern on such issues to his younger readers.

Such allusions are not as obvious in The Lion. Lewis maintains the fairytale atmosphere, even giving military and political affairs a fantastic quality. The battles in Narnia are not focused on action or bloodshed, but rather the temperaments of the characters fighting the war. Lewis demonstrates that battles are not meant to convince opponents of your beliefs, but to defend those beliefs against attack.

The separate messages being sent by the two authors are similar in the lessons they hope to teach their readers. While The Lion gives direct references to its child readers through the child characters, the depictions of childhood at the time of writing is similar to that depicted in The Hobbit in terms of the way of life in the early twentieth century. Both books were not only relevant to the children of the Second World War, but are also masterfully significant for any child, or adult, who has read them since.

Endnotes

[1] Chad Walsh, ‘The Parallel World of Narnia’, Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: The Chronicles of Narnia. (Infobase Publishing, 2006), p. 61.

[2] Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991, (Penguin, 1994).

[3] Chad Walsh, ‘The Parallel World of Narnia’, Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: The Chronicles of Narnia. (Infobase Publishing, 2006), p. 40.

[4] C. S. Lewis, ‘On Three Ways of Writing for Children’, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. (Bles, 1966).

[5] (author unknown), ‘This Old Lady was Lucy’, The Telegraph, 11 December 2005.

[6] C. S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1966).

[7] Rustin & Rustin, ‘Narnia: An Imaginary Land as Container of Moral and Emotional Adventure’, Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children’s Fiction, (Karnac Books, 2001) p.40.

[8] C. S. Lewis, ‘Professor Tolkien’s ‘Hobbit’’, The Times Literary Supplement, 02 October 1937.

[9] Janet Brennan Croft, War and the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien (Praeger Publishers, 2004) p.66.

[10] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, (Grafton, 1991) pp. 269.

[11] Janet Brennan Croft, War and the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien (Praeger Publishers, 2004) p.81.

[12] C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, (Collins,  2001) pp. 23

[13] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, (Grafton, 1991) pp. 69.

References

Primary Texts

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, (Collins, 2001)

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, (Grafton, 1991)

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Grafton, 1992)

Critical Texts

Anon. ‘This Old Lady was Lucy’, The Telegraph. (11 December 2005).

Chad Walsh, ‘The Parallel World of Narnia’, Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: The Chronicles of Narnia, ed. Harold Bloom. (Infobase Publishing, 2006)

Colin Manlove, ‘The Long Idyll: 1900-1950’, From Alice to Harry Potter: Children’s Fantasy in England. (Cybereditions Corporation, 2003).

C. S. Lewis, ‘Professor Tolkien’s ‘Hobbit’’, The Times Literary Supplement, (02 October 1937).

C. S. Lewis, ‘On Three Ways of Writing for Children’, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. (Bles, 1966).

C. S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1966).

Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991, (Penguin, 1994).

Janet Brennan Croft, War and the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien. (Praeger Publishers, 2004)

J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy Stories’, The Tolkien Reader (Del Rey, 1986)

Susan Hancock, ‘Fantasy, Psychology and Feminism: Jungian Readings of Classic British Fantasy Fiction’, Modern Children’s Literature – An Introduction, ed. Kimberly Reynolds. (Macmillan, 2004)

Rustin & Rustin, ‘Narnia: An Imaginary Land as Container of Moral and Emotional Adventure’, Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children’s Fiction. (Karnac Books, 2001)

It was my first of many visits to the U.K but still remains, to this day, the best. There was never a dull moment and I enjoyed every minute from when I stepped onto that loading bridge at Gatwick airport, to the walks in Edinburgh Park and the festive Military Tattoo. I will never forget the sense of wonder I felt when looking down at the breathtaking Scottish highlands from atop Stirling Castle.

It was on that same day that we visited Loch Katrine. It was early afternoon and the weather did not seem very promising so I prepared myself for disappointment. However, the rain on this particular day was something I enjoyed immensely. It made everyone scatter away to the nearest coffee shop for shelter, leaving the beautiful loch and its surroundings totally deserted.

Feeling particularly brave, I convinced my mother to let me rent a bicycle to take a ride along the loch while she checked out a souvenir shop.

I can still picture riding alongside the calm, clean, greyish water of the loch and the bright green trees of the wood. Soft drops of rain started to hit me, gradually at first, bouncing off as I glided slowly down the lakeside, taking in everything around me, trying not to miss a thing. The growing, swishing sound of rain falling into the lake sounded like a strange song sung by mermaids underwater: quiet, peaceful, contemplative, and mysterious.  I sniffed at the rich earthy smell of wet soil and could glimpse the wet shiny evergreen leaves as I rode under them.  I wondered how old this lake was, how old the trees were, and stupidly, if they could feel me.

I looked around, and saw that the whole area seemed to be quite deserted.

I had never really known this feeling before. This utter unity with nature and the proximity of the elements made me feel like there was more to life and this simple silent unity was it. I guess I did not really know what it meant at the time, being so young. But I’ve come to think of it as the day I stopped being engulfed by mundane life and started to really think about life itself; and the beauty of it.

The stillness, the near-silence seemed to make the rest of the world dissolve until I could not hear any of the nagging voices in my head, barking orders at me and planning out my life. I felt strange: dizzy, light and free and had a strange urge to ride the bike straight into the wood and lose myself inside it.

A strange fluttering had taken my heart, it was both lovely and frightening. However, I remember thinking that if I had died right there in that spot, I would have died a very happen person indeed.

I’ve never really explained this to anyone, but what I think I experienced that day was a touch of the sublime, that ethereal feeling, not religious per se, but more along the lines of epiphany. After that day, I came to regard the natural world as an extraordinary maternal force that has its roots inside every living being. I felt possessed by the positive energy that emanated from that amazing place, I wanted to be with it and adore it. I realised that we had all adored it at some point in our lives. Some of us called it God, others called it Krishna, but I called it the mystery of life.

I let go of a lot of things that day; fear, anger, regret. From that day onward, I became more receptive to things. I learnt to appreciate the people I love and to cherish impressive experiences such as this and learn from them in order to live a better, and a more rewarding life.

Did I have to go to Scotland to become aware of all this? No. I guess my mind was in such a state of peace at the time, that it became open and sensitive to things that it usually would have neglected. Sadly, I am left with but a memory of this tremendously precious experience, however, it impressed me so much that every time I feel like giving up, I look back on that day and I instantly feel like there is something in this world worth living for.

It was Ella’s tenth birthday, although you wouldn’t have known it unless she had told you so herself. There was no princess themed party at her house, no music, and no loud girls and boys. There was only little Ella sitting on a couch in front of the television next to her grandmother, and a little round cake on the dining table. Ella would have liked to have a castle cake, like the one she’d seen in one of her mother’s cookbooks, with snow white frosting, liquorice flags and a jelly bean drawbridge. But little  Ella knew that she shouldn’t expect too much, and Grandma’s round cake would have to do. Besides, the cake was chocolate, and chocolate just happened to be Ella’s favourite.

Ella sat on the couch watching her favourite cartoon on the television, waiting for her grandmother to come out of the kitchen with their slices of cake. Every few minutes, she laughed at the brown mouse on the screen. Her laughter was the only sound in the house. Ella and her mother had lived in silence ever since the little girl’s father had passed away suddenly.

The kitchen door swung open, and Ella’s grandmother walked in carrying two paper plates.

‘So, tell me my darling girl,’ Grandma said, as she handed Ella her slice of cake, ‘what would you like for your birthday?’

Little Ella pondered her grandmother’s question for a while. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She remembered that the girls from school usually got dolls and dresses for their birthdays. But Ella, although only ten years old, was a practical little girl. She had no one to play with, so she had no use for a new doll. And she and her mother hadn’t left the house in a long time, so she didn’t need a dress either.

‘I don’t know yet Grandma.’

‘That’s alright,’ Grandma said, ‘but why don’t I tell you a story until you figure it out?’

Little Ella smiled, showing off her chocolate covered teeth. Grandma covered them both up with a blanket and began to tell Ella the same story she had told her own daughter many years ago.

‘Some time ago, in a small village by the sea, there lived a little girl. She was not special, as most little girls in fairy tales are. She was no princess, no magician’s daughter, she did not live in a beautiful castle or have priceless jewels. In fact, she was a rather ordinary girl.

She lived in a very small house, so close to the beach that when she brushed her hair at night, sand and salt fell to the ground around her feet. The little girl had no brothers or sisters, and her father had mysteriously disappeared just months after she was born. For ten years, the little girl and her mother lived alone in their small cottage, with nothing and no one except each other. But despite what the village people thought, they were happy.

‘But it was not long before tragedy fell upon the little girl and her mother, as it always does in tales such as this. It started out slowly; one day, the little girl’s mother felt a little ill. She found that she could not stand up for too long, as she felt dizzy. After a while, it became difficult for her to get out of bed in the morning. She felt the room start to spin whenever she tried to sit up. Before long, the little girl’s mother could not get up from her bed. She slept for long hours, sometimes for whole days at a time, until finally there was nothing the little girl could do to wake her mother from her deep sleep.

‘The little girl ran into the village, feeling more frightened than ever before. She searched for the village doctor and when she had found him she pleaded with him to see her mother. The doctor took pity on the little girl, so he went with her back to the cottage.

‘The little girl waited outside her mother’s bedroom, hoping that the doctor knew what was wrong with her and, more importantly, knew how to fix her. When the doctor emerged from the bedroom, he had a grim look on his face.

‘”I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for your mother, little one. All we can do is wait, and hope that she awakes from the deep sleep that has taken over her.”

‘He left the little cottage and went back to the village, having promised the little girl that he would come back to check up on her mother in a few days time. In the meantime, his wife would bring some food and water for the little girl.

‘A few days later, the little girl was walking back to her cottage from the village and instead of taking the usual route, she decided to walk along the beach, kicking around pieces of driftwood and picking up seashells as she went along. After some time, the little girl looked up at the night sky and as she did so, she noticed a bright star shooting across the sky. The little girl quickly closed her eyes as tight as she could, and wished with all her heart that her mother would soon be well again. The little girl ran the rest of the way home. When she arrived, she went straight into her mother’s bedroom. Her mother was in her bed, still lost in a deep sleep. But the next morning, when the little girl went to her mother’s bedside to put a damp cloth on her forehead, the woman’s eyes fluttered open. She turned her head slowly, and smiled at her little girl.’

Little Ella listened to her grandmother’s story, fascinated. When Grandma finished, she looked down at Ella and asked,

‘Did you like the story?’ Ella smiled at her grandmother and nodded her head.

Grandma picked up their empty paper plates.

‘Good,’ she said, as she stood up from the couch. ‘Now how about another slice of cake?’

‘Bismarck’s opposition to the unification of Germany was based on protecting Prussia’s state of independence.’ I try to repeat this phrase in my head in a variety of tones, pitches and speeds, but it sounds just as dull as when it’s said in the flattest and slowest way possible.

What exactly was I on when I registered for the class? I mean, seriously, 19^th Century European History? In retrospect, it sounded sort of cool, y’know wars and death and stuff. Except that this class is not cool. Hell, it’s not even sort of cool. It’s plain boring. Like it’s not enough that the subject matter is utterly stale, it’s delivered to us by our proof of the living dead. I call our so-called educator Professor Whatshisface, mainly because we can’t ever really see his face, since he’s always looking down at his notepad. Interactive learning for the win.

I try to sit at the front to avoid getting distracted and to actually be able to hear, because Professor Whatshisface sounds more like he’s praying than giving a lecture. But no matter how hard I try, I just can’t focus.

‘Wanna go out for a fag?’ I turn my head and see a pair of dark green eyes staring back at me. Brian’s dark green eyes. Brian who always finds a way to cut in line at the cafeteria, and makes it a point to carve weird symbols on every desk he sits at. Do I want to get out of here? Yes. Do I want to get out of here with you, Brian? Hell no.

But then again, dead German dude or free tobacco? Tough call. Not.

I nod and say, ‘I’ll go first.’

I make my way to the door. I see that Professor Whatshisface shows no sign of having seen me get up and leave. The last thing I hear as the door swings shut is: ‘Bismarck then spent the following eight years in Frankfurt.’ And grew out an epic moustache. Or something.

Not long after I’ve walked out into the brisk winter air, Brian is standing beside me with an open pack of Marlboros in an outstretched hand. I take the cigarette closest to the corner of the box. I find that those tend to be the ones that keep the most.

‘Light, please,’ I say as the cigarette bobs up and down as it’s sat between my teeth.

‘Not much of a smoker?’ he asks, as he thumbs the ignition wheel. After a few tries, it finally sparks, and I light my cigarette. I don’t like carrying lighters, I’m always paranoid about the gas leaking out. But I’m not about to admit that to him.

‘Just once in a while, to blow off steam.’ That’s a lie. I started smoking regularly a few months ago, when I realised that nicotine works better than a shot of Jack at helping me relax, and there’s no campaign against smoking and driving, so I can’t really get into shit over it.

‘Little goody two shoes blowing off steam? What, like when you get an A instead of an A plus?’

Strike 1. This goody two shoes shtick is getting old. Why does everyone keep calling me that? And if I deserve an A plus, then I should totally get it. Well, anyone should.

‘What makes you think I’m a goody two shoes?’

‘Just a hunch,’ he says, then draws hard on the butt and shrugs.

Strike 2. How articulate. Could he be anymore of a prick?

‘I doubt your hunch is enough to go by.’

He exhales a small mass of smoke toward the sky, then says, ‘If you saw you walking around, you wouldn’t find it so hard to believe.’

Yes, he could. Strike 3. Asshole.

‘Y’know I’m pretty sure that if you saw yourself walking around, you’d think you were a dick-faced prat, so I guess we’re both somewhat deluded.’ I drop the cigarette and stub it forcefully with my boot. Fuck this, even Bismarck is better than being insulted like this.

I should’ve stayed in class. I mean, the free tobacco wasn’t even worth the trouble, especially now that I feel like I need another cigarette just to relax again. Some nerve he’s got, goody two shoes my ass. But he’s right, who wants to have fun with a goody two shoes? Nobody thinks ‘Awwh man, I need to get drunk off my ass, I should ask Miss Goody-Two-Shoes to join, because she’s totally wild.’ Except that if someone just asked once in a while, then they’d see that I can be wild. But I guess it’s just easier to assume that I’m a complete bore.

As I walk back into the room, I see that my return has gone unnoticed by Professor Whatshisface, who’s still going on about Bismarck. In just 18 minutes this day will be over and I can fuck off home. I hear the sound of a door slamming shut and look up to see Brian. Professor Whatshisface actually looks up too, but shrugs Brian off and continues to drone on. He’s gotten to the Crimean war now. How exciting.

Brian makes his way toward me. Well, actually he’s making his way to his seat, which happens to be next to mine. He sits down and bends to tie his shoelaces, or so I thought, because his foot’s just collided with my unzipped bag. Wanker! Soon enough all my belongings are on the floor. Well, not all of my belongings, because the four square-shaped wrappers lying in plain sight in the middle of the aisle are definitely not mine. If they were, I wouldn’t feel like a wet blanket most of the time. Technically, I wouldn’t feel like a sexually frustrated wet blanket most of the time, but that’s beside the point.

I open my mouth to speak, ‘Those ar-’ but I feel a hand wrap over my forearm. I look at the hand’s owner and Brian winks at me.

He then gets up, shoves everything back into my bag, and says, ‘Not quite as innocent as we thought, huh?’ loud enough for everyone to hear.

My jaw drops and I turn to see everyone in the vicinity mirroring my expression. Except for Professor Whatshisface. He just looks like he ate something sour.

Wanker, indeed.

Boni rests his head on my lap. He’s tired, he says. I start to ask him whether or not he’d like to join the others in their football match, or Kevin and Ruru in their dribbling. He sways his head and cuddles close. I contemplate the thinness of his neck. He’s scrawny, even for a seven-year old. The holes on the back of his T-shirt betray the rough, dry skin on his back, no doubt the result of too much work in the sun. I pat his shoulder and slowly massage his black skin without saying a word: a beautiful moment were it not for the welts under my fingers.

Somehow his hair and his head remind me of a memory which I sometimes remember but mostly forget. I was a toddler, in a cot which I guess lies somewhere in the attic now, far off in Germany, home to the spiders the maid never kills. My mother would have been young back then, obviously. But she was young in a different way too. She was happy, I think, which is probably why she put the figurine she got as a gift from my father on smug display. A Venetian soldier, standing proudly at attention, watching over my room.

Come night time he was still there, vigilant. I couldn’t see over the top of the credenza let alone notice the statuette. I was put in my cot, wrapped in baby blue and white sheets, the kind of hues you’d see on a Raphael Madonna. I guess my mother and father would have kissed me good night, though I don’t remember that. What does remain clear is the way the moonlight elongated the figurine’s shadow onto my bedspread. I found myself staring at a monstrously disfigured black shape, only vaguely resembling a head and hat, touching me silently. I’d kick and he’d still be there. I’d cover my eyes, thinking he’d be gone when I’d look once more, and he’d still be there. Only the white rays of the sun evaporated him off my sheets, and I was finally able to sob my way to my mother’s room, to the comfort of her bosom and her songs.

Boni shifts and starts fiddling with my prayer book. I let him at it, pretending not to notice. After a while he gets up to play. From the corner of my eye I see Joseph dawdling with a piece of rubber tire.

‘Come here, Joseph. Sit with me. I’d like to tell you a story of when I was young. It’s all about how God talks to each of us in mysterious ways. He talked to me through a statue.

December 21st 2012, 01.54

Brightness; flashes of white light, blinding me in the darkness, and yet…giving me hope. Coldness; embracing me like a cruel blanket, its fingers gripping tightly onto my skin and slithering slowly from one side of my body to the other. The silence; cutting through me like a knife. Why was I here? Why was I in this place, and who had brought me here? I could barely remember any of the events that had taken place that evening. Was it even that evening? I looked at my digital watch and pressed the button on the side. 01.54; 21/12…ok it was tomorrow, or rather today. So that was yesterday. Ok, I was confused. But most importantly; what had happened? I had blurred images in my mind. A car. A pair of strong hands covering my mouth. The smell of cologne…so distant and yet so very near.
The flashes again. I couldn’t decipher what was taking place. Was I going blind? No…in the short moments during which the brightness flashed before me, I could discern a couple of figures; male. There was no telling of their features but I knew the smell – that strong smell of cologne. Something clicked and I realised it had been one of them, flicking on a light switch at the far end of the room when the fluorescent light tubes flickered to life. The room was small and square with faded dark yellow walls, a floor which was covered with a cheap and dirty carpet, two boarded up windows and a bolted metal door. I glimpsed something that moved from the corner of my eye but I dared not look down at the floor. My eyes moved to the two figures standing before me.

‘What do you want?’ I managed to croak out of my dry throat.

‘You have something that belongs to me,’ the taller man said calmly. He wore shiny black dress shoes, finely tailored trousers, a white shirt that had a few buttons opened at the top, and a blazer which matched the trousers. There was no telling of the colour at that time; I was too focused on his face. His lips were curved upwards in a cruel and twisted victorious smile, revealing a set of pearly white teeth. His nose was not prominent in his face with its slightly upturned tip and its smooth and soft presence. He had a soft, pale, clean-shaven face and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunshades. His companion was much rougher than him. He wore a simple pair of jeans, a plain grey t-shirt and a denim jacket. The lower half of his face was covered in four-day-old stubble, his lips were fuller and he had dried spit in the corners. His nose was prominent and his eyes were behind a cheaper pair of sunshades. He stood with his feet spread apart, and his trainers getting soiled by the dirt that was on the floor, with a camera in his hand – the camera that had been taking my pictures and blinding my eyes. My eyes shifted back to his much better-looking friend. There was something distantly familiar about him and yet I couldn’t put my finger on it.

‘What do I have that you want?’ I asked.

‘Do you remember the 7th of July, 2011, at 9.17 pm?’

The guy was specific and about this there was no doubt, but there was no way I could remember something as specific as that unless it was of prime importance to me.

‘Should I remember it?’ I asked.

‘Why yes,” he replied, ‘Do you not remember me?’ He lifted his left hand to the sunglasses and slid them off his nose. And then I saw the eyes – those big, round eyes with bright, icy blue orbs floating in the middle, staring intensely at me; eyes that seemed to be as innocent as those of a doe and yet as cunning as those of a fox; eyes that mixed innocence with experience, love with hatred, pain with cruelty… A breath got caught somewhere in between my throat and the root of my tongue.

‘Y-yes,’ I managed to stammer out, ‘I remember you.’ My hands instinctively tried to push my body off of the floor but failed as my feet were tightly bound together.

‘And do you remember what you owe me? Or should I remind you?’ he asked. Of course I remembered.

The 7th of July 2011 had been a wonderful evening and a summer breeze caressed my skin, and yet my heart was filled with sadness – I had no place to stay and nobody to talk to. I had no relatives to speak of and only a few friends who had no idea of my poverty; I had always been good at playing charades. That night, I met him. He walked up to me and asked me for my name. I lied.

‘You took advantage of me,’ he told me, ‘You came to my apartment. You got your pleasure. And when I was asleep, you took my money with you. I want it back.’

‘I don’t have it,’ I replied, ‘It’s been ages. Why now?’

‘Because you lied,’ he told me, ‘I searched for you and I couldn’t find you…your name wasn’t real…so I had to depend on observing you. I have been following you for weeks.’

‘I will pay you back in a fortnight. I will get my paycheck then.’

‘Now.’

‘I don’t have it!’

‘Pay me now or you’ll have to suffer the consequences.’

I was silent. I knew I had no money to give back. He proceeded out of the room with his friend, and before he left said, ‘7.15’.
I looked at my watch. It was now three in the morning. That gave me four hours and fifteen minutes to try and break out, but I knew it was of no use to try. My feet were bound so tightly together, that there was no way my hands could unbind them and the door was bolted from the outside. I searched my pockets but there was nothing there. He had only left me my watch, and now I knew of its significance. 7.15.

I decided to spend my four hours and fifteen minutes thinking, and so I thought about everything that I had done in my life. I had always been a disappointment, and my parents had been telling me from a very young age that death would soon win me over if I kept indulging in my dangerous habits. I had always been a risk-taker. I had always been the one to break out of the classroom, the one to steal from the candy shop, the one to break my curfew, the one who did drugs, and the one who got thrown out of her home. I had been sixteen when my parents threw me out, and I had nowhere else to go. I made new friends, and all of them were misled by my lies – they all thought I lived in an apartment all by myself, but they never got invited because it didn’t exist. I lived solely on the money I stole and I never even thought of getting myself a job. When Joseph met me that night – that was his name – he had seemed kind and innocent and we had talked. I had always been smart as well as ruthless, so I played along and gave him the pleasure he wanted. And then, after taking his money, I left and I found myself a place to stay. It was a cheap apartment but it would do. I got myself a job at a supermarket and the cash started coming in. Almost a year and a half had passed now, and here I was back to the very beginning.

Ashes to ashes; dust to dust
to where we begin, return we must.

I looked at my watch; 7.14; 21/12. And then I remembered…it was the 21st of December, 2012 – the day that had been rumored to be the end of us all.

I didn’t know whether this was true or not, and I wasn’t sure whether there would ever be such a thing as the end of the world, but I knew one thing – your world may not end today, but mine will at the stroke of 7.15, which is – .