Like a taxi throbbing waiting

kevin at limits.org kevin at limits.org
Wed Mar 14 11:31:30 CST 2001


> Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 17:35:52 -0600
> From: "Dave Monroe" <davidmmonroe at hotmail.com>
> Subject: VV(11): Soul-Transvestitism
> 
> "It did bring up, however, an interesting note of sexual ambiguity.  What a 
> joke if at the end of this hunt he came face to face with  himself afflicted 
> by a kind of soul-transvestitism.  How the Crew would laugh and laugh." (V., 
> Ch. 8, Sec. iv, p. 226)
> 
> Tiresias, anyone?
> 
> T.S. Eliot, "The Waste-Land," Note to Line 218, "Tiresias, though blind, 
> throbbing between two lives" ...
> 
> "Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a 'character,' is yet 
> the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the 
> one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and 
> the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all 
> the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias 
> sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem."
> 
Back when we were on VV3 (chapter 2, that is), there was some discussion
about whether Stencil, or a third person ominiscience, or some combination
of the two, is the narrator of the party scene.  That party scene, after
Stencil leaves, concludes with a rather funny scene of young people
getting together: Esther's "how long have you been in New York?" line.

What's interesting about this Tiresias/Stencil comparison is that, much
like Tiersias "at the violet hour," Stencil sits on the kitchen counter at
the party and perceives the scene; if you believe the "Stencil narrates
the entire party scene, even after he leaves" theory, he also foretells
the rest, that is the superificial interactions between Esther and her new
friend.

Also, Tiresias's "violet hour" concludes with the woman smoothing her hair
"with automatic hand" and putting a record on the gramaphone; this blends
into the next stanza, which describes music coming out of doors in public
bars of London (_WL_ l. 255-263).  The WSC's party in chapter 2, by
comparison, is followed by the somewhat eerie scene at the V-Note.

As for metempsychosis and "soul transvestism," see Ben Johnson's
_Volpone_, Act I, scene ii, in which Volpone's "creatures" perform a comic
paegant. In this mini-masque Androgyno, the hermaphrodite, plays a soul
who originated from Pythagoras, and he recounts his transmigrative
journeys. I cannot remember the name of the author, but the essay
"Johnson's Metempsychosis" in the Norton edition of Johnson's plays has a
thorough analysis.

Kevin Troy



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