S C H W E I Z E R A N G L I S T I S C H E A R B E I T E N S W I S S S T U D I E S I N E N G L I S H Philipp Gwerder Gothic Identities War, Atrocities and Doubles in Philip Caputo’s Fiction Schweizer Anglistische Arbeiten Swiss Studies in English Begründet von Bernhard Fehr Herausgegeben von Andreas Fischer (Zürich), Martin Heusser (Zürich), Daniel Schreier (Zürich) Band 139 Philipp Gwerder Gothic Identities War, Atrocities and Doubles in Philip Caputo’s Fiction Bibliographical information of the Deutsche Nationalibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographical information is available at http: / / dnb.dnb.de This thesis was accepted as a doctoral dissertation by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zurich in the autumn semester 2011 on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Martin Heusser and Prof. Dr. Fritz Gutbrodt. Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. © 2013 Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen All rights, including the rights of publication, distribution and sales, as well as the right to translate, are reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping, or information and retrieval systems - without written permission of the publisher. Internet: http: / / www.francke.de E-Mail: info@francke.de Satz: typoscript GmbH, Walddorfhäslach Printed and Bound by Hubert & Co., Göttingen Printed in Germany ISSN 0080-7214 ISBN 978-3-7720-8460-7 Cover illustration: Philipp Gwerder Cover design: Martin Heusser, Zürich For Lucie and Kilian Lars Acknowledgements My profound interest in modern American literature in general and in literature related to the Vietnam War in particular was sparked by a seminar taught by Prof. Dr. Heusser in 2001, entitled “ From Disneyland to Da Nang: Visualizations and Verbalizations in Post-War America ” . Among all the books that I subsequently read, Philip Caputo ’ s works have been among those that have intrigued me the most. Their gripping contents and unusual stylistic qualities have never let me escape them completely. My thanks go to Prof. Dr. Martin Heusser not only for his willingness to act as my supervisor and his excellent support during the whole writing and publishing process, but also for his instrumental role in my getting acquainted with the works of Philip Caputo many years past. Further, concerning the English Department at the University of Zürich, I would like to express my appreciation to all lecturers, from whom I have been able to learn since the beginning of my English studies in 1998, and all staff who have offered support, but in particular Prof. Dr. Fritz Gutbrodt, who became my co-supervisor, Dr. Simone Heller-Andrist, from whose experience in publishing a dissertation I have been able to benefit greatly, and Dr. Shane Walshe for proofreading my text. In addition, my appreciation goes to the Swiss National Science Foundation for supporting this publication financially, and the Francke Verlag for taking my dissertation up in their Swiss Studies in English Series. Furthermore, I would like to express gratitude to all who have directly or indirectly contributed to my effort, among them the members of my family, who have been very encouraging during the whole process, and also many of my work colleagues, in particular Patrick Gmünder and Jürg Stadler; their sense of humour has helped to take me even through the toughest and most demanding stages of the process. Inhumanity is exclusively human C. F. Keppler The Literature of the Second Self What am I supposed to do? . . . I ’ m scared of myself, . . . what I ’ m capable of. I was not this way before. “ Thanks for the Memories ” , Episode 45 Tour of Duty Table of Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles . . . . . . . . . 41 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs: DelCorso ’ s Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles: Three Short Novels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 1. Introduction When Philip Caputo ’ s work is the subject of a critical text, it is, in most cases, treated as part of Vietnam War literature. Indeed, with A Rumor of War as his first longer published work, he started his critical and commercial success in 1977 as a war-story teller with a memoir in which he conveys his personal experience in the Vietnam War. In addition to his extensive work as a journalist, he has subsequently released several other non-fictional pieces of literature. There is his autobiographical account of his assignments as a war correspondent, Means of Escape: A War Correspondent ’ s Memoir of Life and Death in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Vietnam (1991); a piece on his travels to Africa to investigate the myth of man-eating lions in Kenya, Ghosts of Tsavo: Stalking the Mystery Lions of East Africa (2002); an anthology of travel essays, In the Shadows of the Morning: Essays on Wild Lands, Wild Waters, and a Few Untamed People (2002); a treatment of one of the most controversial domestic occurrences in the USA in the 1970 s, 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings (2005); as well as an historical treatment of the Indochinese Conflict, 10,000 Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War (2005). It comes as no surprise, then, that, as Tobey C. Herzog mentions, Caputo ’ s and other veterans ’ “ war experiences made them writers, influenced the content of several of their stories, but also unfortunately pigeonholed them with the misleading label of ‘ war writer. ’” ( “ War Stories ” xxi). While it may well be stated that A Rumor of War has become part of the canon of war literature, Caputo ’ s fictional works are considerably less well known. His longer works of fiction so far include Horn of Africa (1980), DelCorso ’ s Gallery (1983), Indian Country (1987), Equation for Evil (1996), Exiles: Three Short Novels (1997), The Voyage (1999), Acts of Faith (2005) and Crossers (2009). Most of them are also closely linked to wars in general and to the Vietnam War in particular. He has, however, not published a full-length novel which is set in the Vietnam War itself. Horn of Africa deals with, among other characters, two American Vietnam veterans who become involved in the illegal arms trade in war-torn Ethiopia. DelCorso ’ s Gallery features a former Vietnam War photographer, who now covers the fall of Saigon and the Lebanese Civil War. Indian Country comes closest to the label of Vietnam War novel in that it focuses on a veteran ’ s return to the United States and the subsequent reconstruction of his life, but it is entirely set within the USA. The same applies to Equation for Evil, a novel that treats the many problems surrounding the situation of Indochinese refugees and features two characters who have served in the Vietnam War as well as a veteran ’ s son. Exiles is a work comprised of three short novels: “ Standing In ” , “ Paradise ” and “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” . “ Standing In ” was, up to then, the work with the loosest connection to the war theme, even if the main character ’ s father was a Vietnam veteran and the story deals with a mystery surrounding a dead character, who, incidentally, was to be sent to the Persian Gulf War. “ Paradise ” retains a closer connection to the theme and revolves around two Vietnam veterans, one of whom has emigrated to an island off the Australian coast, where the story is set. “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , the final short novel in that collection, holds a special position, in that in treating an American squad ’ s attempt to hunt down a man-eating tiger in the Vietnamese jungle, it is the only longer work of fiction by Caputo to be set in the Vietnam War itself. With The Voyage, the war theme moves further into the background. Its plot shifts to several temporal levels in the USA and in Cuba. However, the American Civil War and its aftermath are relevant themes in the narrative. Acts of Faith, then, returns to the subject of war, dealing with mainly American characters involved in humanitarian aid missions in the Sudanese conflict. Only with Caputo ’ s most recent work is the topic finally abandoned. Crossers tells the tale of a group of people who are inadvertently involved in the machinations of drug traffickers on the Mexican - US border. Whereas Caputo has never written an actual war novel, most of his other longer works are somehow always related to war. It would certainly be simplistic to view Caputo ’ s author role solely within the confines of war writer. Nevertheless, many of his works fulfil the criteria of war fiction. In his treatment of the work by Ambrose Bierce, a writer, as we shall see, in many ways comparable to Caputo, David M. Owens suggests that a “ war story ” is “ not necessarily set in a scene of combat; in fact, it need not take place during a time of war at all ” (x). Concerning his own study, he adds that “ . . . the far more general term war fiction includes (but is not necessarily limited to) novels, novellas, short stories, tales, and sketches. The still more general term war literature includes both the fictional representations already mentioned as well as non-fictional texts such as histories, memoirs, and letters ” (xi). Within this frame, Caputo ’ s war novels would include Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Indian Country and Acts of Faith, as well as Equation for Evil and perhaps The Voyage with looser connections to the topic. “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” and, less clearly so, “ Paradise ” would be war novellas. War histories would include 10,000 Days of Thunder and perhaps 13 Seconds. His war memoirs would be A Rumor of War, Means of Escape and several essays in In the Shadows of the Morning. As can be seen, Caputo has not often ventured away from the war theme. Even so, the term war writer would be too narrow a categorisation. His principal achievement, I would argue, cannot be measured by the times he has focused on other topics, but rather by his particular literary treatment of war itself. 12 1. Introduction Only few critics, so far, have attempted to analyse Caputo ’ s works of fiction in a comprehensive way. A Rumor of War is by far the most widely discussed work, obviously because it lends itself to a treatment in connection with other works on the Vietnam War. Of the fictional works, Indian Country is the one that has received the most attention and has been the subject of a few critical essays, apparently again due to the fact that it can be readily compared to other pieces of Vietnam War literature and fits into the category of homecoming novel. Of the major analyses of Vietnam War literature, it is Philip D. Beidler ’ s Re-Writing America: Vietnam Authors in Their Generation which has paid the closest attention to other works. Beidler remarks that “ Novelists such as Tim O ’ Brien, Philip Caputo, James Webb, Robert Olen Butler, Winston Groom, and Larry Heinemann have now produced among themselves a body of more than twenty-five works of major importance ” (Re-Writing America 4). He, too, however, mainly keeps the treatment of Caputo ’ s works within the established confines of Vietnam War literature and in connection to other writers treating the same conflict. An inherent problem with this stance is that, even though Caputo makes extensive use of the Vietnam War as a backdrop to his stories, it becomes increasingly difficult to view the wider implications of his writing. It has become commonplace not only to view the Vietnam War as a break from a traditional American hero myth, but also to see the bulk of Vietnam War literature as the inscription of that break, the writers referring back to an old, decidedly “ American ” value system that must be discarded in light of the horror experienced in Vietnam. As Cornelius A. Cronin puts it, “ Indeed, virtually all the work that has been published so far on Vietnam War literature tends to locate the uniqueness of that literature either in the contemporary culture or in some larger American myth ” (203). Even though, or, in fact, precisely because, it sets out to destroy that myth, Vietnam War literature is thought to be understood only within that mythic frame. In one of his discussions of war literature, Philip K. Jason states that “ From this beginning (though we could go back further to James Fenimore Cooper ’ s great romance of the French and Indian War), the war literature of American writers has been a mixture of testimony, commentary, and imaginative reconstruction ” (Acts and Shadows 8). The characteristics mentioned can also be viewed as generic to Vietnam War literature. In his comprehensive study, Beidler correspondingly restricts himself to treating Caputo ’ s and many of his contemporaries ’ works within this frame of American literary - mythic tradition. In Re-Writing America, in which he includes all of Caputo ’ s works published up to the finalisation of the study, he states that The novels of Philip Caputo, likewise arising out of a watershed work in American personal narrative, A Rumor of War, embrace, in Horn of Africa, the latest version, post- Vietnam and now in mercenary dress, of the American myth of the frontier hero run amok; in Del Corso ’ s Gallery [sic], equally inspired by the experience of Vietnam, of the 1. Introduction 13 myth of the celebrity adventurer-journalist; and in Indian Country, of the traumatized veteran ’ s attempts to return to some common sense of origin in a suspenseful drama of friendship and family set against the mythic forest landscape of the northern midwest. (6) In the novels, he locates “ a fundamental and complex pattern of literary-mythic reinscription, a re-writing of major archetypal forms of American consciousness into new dimensions of imaginative possibility ” (38), and “ the ‘ neotraditionalist ’ character of Caputo ’ s work as well as the experience out of which it was derived ” (38). Beidler specifically focuses on all the elements of classical (American) war literature that can be found in Caputo as well as in other Vietnam War writers: And as with all the great survivor-moderns, American and international, Caputo takes his fundamental function as the post-Vietnam American novelist to be the work of literature as both personal odyssey of knowledge and quest for mythic self-reconstitution: the characters in his spare, disciplined realism are always, unknowingly or otherwise, both intensely themselves and in the same moment the full-blown embodiment of cultural archetype. Indeed, as the evolution of Caputo ’ s writing has now revealed, the nature of his particular project of literary-cultural revision could not seem more clear: like his Vietnam contemporary Robert Stone, whose work his own frequently resembles, Caputo seizes exactly upon the explicit embrace of literary tradition - in this case the direct political lineage of Cooper-Crane-Conrad-Hemingway-Greene - to make complex mythic reinscription a major achievement of art. (39) Caputo himself has mentioned that Joseph Conrad has greatly influenced him, also adding that he “ would have called Hemingway an influence many years ago ” ( “ A Rumor of War: A Conversation with Philip Caputo at 58 ” 9). Beidler recognises the impact that Conrad has had on Caputo ’ s work, particularly in his first novel: From the initial page onward of Horn of Africa, the chastened, somber witness bearing of Charlie Gage reinvokes Conrad ’ s Marlow in eerily precise and arresting reecho. Likewise, as to Marlow, Kurtz, so to Gage, Jeremy Nordstrand: the latter from his first entry into the narrative line becomes the new American representative of empire literarily inscribed into in his much older literary-mythic role as well. And presiding over all, the ghost-tone is eerily exact, its echolalic strangeness precisely familiar. (Re- Writing America 42 - 43) A prominent parallel to Heart of Darkness, which is not mentioned by Beidler, is the actual hearts, which come to play a significant role in Horn of Africa. However, he insists on the relevance of a Hemingwayan style with reference to the second and third novels. In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, he sees the protagonist as “ the particular mythic provenance of the Hemingwayan adventurer-artist as culture hero and cultural mythmaker ” (45). Discussing the third and final novel treated 14 1. Introduction in his study, Beidler points to the obvious connections to Hemingway: it is set “ up in Michigan ” and Oak Park is Christian Starkmann ’ s birthplace (48). Correspondingly, another major critic of Vietnam War literature, Thomas Myers, emphasises the novel ’ s place in view of wider American (literary) history: “ . . . Indian Country is the novel as healing ritual, a work in which Caputo becomes shaman for personal and collective historical afflictions ” (225). Beidler remarks about Vietnam War authors, . . . to look at that work of achievement is to see a single recurrent focus: the desire, born of their immediate sense of the impact of the American experience of Vietnam upon American cultural mythology at large, to reconstitute that mythology as a medium both of historical self-reconsideration and, in the same moment, of historical selfrenewal and even self-reinvention. (Re-Writing America 5) Focusing on how Vietnam War literature exposes, “ reinvents ” and consequently re-constitutes traditional American mythology is certainly one way to explain the work of many Veteran writers. The problem is that it eclipses other themes treated by accomplished writers such as Caputo. Besides Beidler ’ s Re-Writing America and, on the fringe, Thomas Myers ’ s Walking Point: American Narratives of Vietnam, only two other major studies have focused on Caputo ’ s work of fiction: the dissertations by Joe Basil Fenley (1990) and Samantha Jayne Ward (1999). In his study Posthumous Selves: The Autobiographical War Literature of Philip Caputo, Fenley manages to offer a detailed analysis of all longer works published until then, but he, too, restricts himself to treating Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery and Indian Country within the frame of the widespread criticism triggered by the impact that the memoir A Rumor of War had. He also recognises Caputo ’ s exceptional achievement in the novels but deals with their autobiographical implications and does not attempt to go far beyond the boundaries set by the established view of Caputo as being primarily a representative of eye-witness narration. Ward, on the other hand, treats several Vietnam War writers and works, and devotes the large part of a full chapter to Indian Country. There, she leaves the confines of autobiography but stays firmly within the equally well-established concept of Vietnam War literature being a critique of America ’ s Frontier Myth. As these two studies as well as Beidler ’ s treatment manifest, the association of Caputo with the two areas of criticism — autobiography, initiated by the critical and popular success of A Rumor of War, and the Frontier Myth, with respect to the general view of literature by Vietnam War veterans — is prevalent. What is missing is a recognition of Caputo ’ s achievement with regard to other literary fields. Even so, there is no denying that his work needs to be considered in view of his role as a Vietnam veteran writer, as, despite everything, most of his works fit the description of (Vietnam) war literature. 1. Introduction 15 In spite of the previously quoted argumentation in Re-Writing America, Beidler and the vast majority of the other major critics of Vietnam War literature agree that this war caused a lasting change in the nature of how war is written about, following up on a well-established style that had emerged in World War II literature, which Vietnam caused to “ look absurd ” (Beidler, Re-Writing America 72). As Myers states, “ Clusters of small, aberrant narratives within a larger one, the Vietnam War seemed from the outset unlikely historical data for the wellworn contours and conventions of the traditional war novel ” (4), adding that “ More than anything else, the war was perceived through time as a national aberration, an unwanted conflict so strikingly different in content and style from previous American stories of men at arms that its future in traditional history or fiction was more than problematic ” (4 - 5). The view of the Vietnam War as an “ aberration ” , particularly with respect to the Frontier Myth, has been a dominant theme in the criticism of Vietnam War literature in the last couple of decades. However, Philip H. Melling has criticised this stance: “ The idea that America ’ s involvement in Vietnam was an aberration, the extended reaching out of some insanely resourceful mind, serves no useful purpose anymore — and the better writers, in many cases, have discarded it ” (112). If one examines Caputo ’ s works of fiction in greater detail, it becomes clear that he is one of the representatives that have mainly left this theme behind, and that an analysis merely within these confines does not go far enough. As Caputo is much better known for his first memoir, novels by other authors are more readily put into the foreground when questions about the new style developed by Vietnam veteran writers are discussed. Beidler uses the examples of three classical Vietnam War writers to describe the new style of war writing: Heinemann ’ s, Durden ’ s, and Hasford ’ s novels . . . incline toward a vision more explicitly experimental, extend themselves more than occasionally into the domain of the “ new ” novel of war as written by Heller, Vonnegut, and Pynchon. The first, for example, while decidedly the most conventional of the three — indeed in more ways of a piece not with them but rather with Better Times Than These and Fields of Fire — nonetheless plays itself out in many moments of focal intensity in something like a reality warp, a dimension where the actual itself seems to have become at one with stoned chaotic imagining. (American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam 169) The Vietnam War novels of the more conventional type, Winston Groom ’ s Better Times Than These and James Webb ’ s Fields of Fire, are used as examples of more out-of-date narratives. Philip K. Jason poses the new main question asked by Vietnam writers as “ Under what conditions is war an ethical choice, an ethical pursuit or means? Representations show the human cost - which when less than death is so often the disintegration of the soldier ’ s very humanity - 16 1. Introduction while they pay some attention to the cause or causes that have led to war ” (Acts and Shadows 163). Lloyd B. Lewis also mentions that “ Of utmost importance . . . is that a significant number of those who actually fought the Vietnam War rejected the conventional image of noble killing and insisted upon calling it collective murder ” (xii), and he asks himself, “ How did the Vietnam War defy interpretation as meaningful combat ritual? ” (xii, italics in original). In this way, Vietnam War narratives have shown a tendency to treat war as detached from ideological grounds. Beidler emphasises that in the literature of the Vietnam War this focus became predominant: “ To be sure, a giving over of the soul to horror in warfare is not an exclusively American trait. Rather consistently, however, in the novels just mentioned [Charles Durden ’ s No Bugles, No Drums, Larry Heinemann ’ s Close Quarters, Winston Groom ’ s Better Times Than These, James Webb ’ s Fields of Fire, Gustav Hasford ’ s The Short-Timers], it supplies an obsessive center ” (American Literature 162). Jason agrees in that “ The human capacity for violence is nothing new, though the actors and victims change. What seems different in the literature of the Vietnam War is how directly and minutely atrocities are described and how conscious the writer (witness or perpetrator) is of the horror and of the moral implications of the event and of its record in language ” (Introduction [to Fourteen Landing Zones], xv). Cronin echoes the notion that this stance is generic to Vietnam War literature: “ What is different about the representations of personal experience in this war is not so much the nature and number of the atrocities but rather the self-awareness of those writing about them ” (201). In other words, the veteran writers do not necessarily tend to see the war as evil and themselves as detached from that evil anymore, but rather tend to reveal themselves as “ evil ” . The Vietnam War narrators generally do not exempt themselves from the evil that war is. According to Myers, “ The finest of the literary point men of Vietnam share a key narrative project — to re-create fully and imaginatively how the American soldier became both agent and victim of the narrow interpretive spectrum by which the conflict was illuminated ” (26). One of the general achievements of Vietnam War literature is then to explain how one can be “ both agent and victim ” at the same time. This perspective has at times gone to the other extreme in that the Vietnam War veteran has been represented as an insane killing machine. Cronin mentions that the actual situation cannot be explained in such simplistic ways: “ The public perception of the American soldier in Vietnam as an out-of-control killer is well established, and most attempts to rehabilitate this image have turned on re-creating the soldier in the image of a hapless victim or portraying the VC and NVA as devil-figures. . . . [R]eality is infinitely more complex than either of these views ” (201). Indeed, many outstanding representatives of Vietnam War literature have gone to great lengths to portray reality in all its complexity. Beidler has had the unconven- 1. Introduction 17 tional thought that “ a very serious policy consideration in the final decision to withdraw seems to have been that our military killing power would never exceed the annual birthrate of North Vietnam. So we gave up and went home ” (Late Thoughts 204). This reasoning is close to Gunnar Heinsohn ’ s interpretation of war as a consequence of “ youth bulge ” . He purports the thesis that war is less the consequence of clashing ideologies or political crises but rather the effect of a surplus of young men. He bases his theory on two grounds: first, societies affected by youth bulge have a lack of respectable positions that could be offered to all of their sons, making them try to achieve such positions in war (11); second, such societies and their families can still function when sons are lost in battle, as there are always others who can take their place (16). The lack of meaning in war, from Heinsohn ’ s point of view, is then realised as an overarching theme in the literature of the Vietnam War. One does not fight for someone or something (whether concrete or abstract), and the fighters do not necessarily define themselves in a way opposed to how their enemies do. Replacing traditional literary representations of war, there is a strong tendency, not only in Caputo ’ s works, towards focusing on the graphic descriptions of atrocities. These portrayals strive to convey the stark, unmitigated reality as experienced by the fighters, irrespective of wider political or cultural issues. In Vietnam War literature, this sometimes appears to be excessive, even though it builds on a longer tradition, which goes back at least to the American Civil War. In his treatment of the works by Ambrose Bierce, David M. Owens affirms that “ As in the army joke, successful war fiction places a premium on achieving the quality of authenticity or verisimilitude ” (xi), and that “ Clearly a central concern of war fiction is creating the impression that it could, or did, happen ” (xii). Correspondingly, with reference to John William De Forest ’ s and Ambrose Bierce ’ s fiction, Michael W. Schaeefer writes, “ If the enemy does appear, the soldier gives little thought to the cause for which he is ostensibly fighting. He uses his weapons not to free the slaves or defend states ’ rights or advance any other high purpose but simply to keep from being killed ” (xiv). Thomas Myers states, “ Bierce ’ s gallery of horrors was an aesthetic breakthrough in Civil War fiction, but Henry Fleming ’ s battlefield initiation in Stephen Crane ’ s The Red Badge of Courage cast the mold of the American Bildungsroman that would become the primary narrative structure of war writers from World War I through Vietnam ” (16). He, too, is aware of how Vietnam changed the general tone of war literature: “ From Crane and Bierce onward, there has been a pronounced tendency in the American war novel to present the final form of the inexperienced initiate of the battlefield Bildungsroman more as the victim of war than as its deadly agent. Vietnam, however, forced a remixing of the proportional make-up of the assailant - victim equation ” (Myers 26). Even so, one can go even further back. Steven Bruhm 18 1. Introduction affirms the shift to the stark representation of war atrocities in Romantic literature: “ Whereas for [Edmund] Burke, the excessive physical stimulation of war was in the discursive effects of debate and propaganda - what Byron detests as ‘ cant ’ - for Byron the horror of war is precisely in its materiality, in the fleshand-blood presence of battle ” (Gothic Bodies 139, italics in original). The general tendency to view the Vietnam War as “ senseless ” must have contributed to the spread of representations that focus on the graphic rather than on the ideological point of view concerning the war, even if this type of literary treatment goes back at least to the times of the American Civil War, as we have seen. What a great amount of Vietnam War literature strives to present is not how war would become a mere atrocity when devoid of “ meaning ” (as often proposed with reference to the Vietnam War), but rather what wars in general look like when the view is not obscured by a proclaimed purpose of such wars. The focus that many Vietnam War narratives lay on the graphic depiction of atrocities is in many cases an instrument to show that the reality of (any) war is first and foremost its uncompromising brutality. As Lewis puts it, “ . . . social life in Vietnam — including role formation and role adoption — was based almost exclusively upon the only value recognized as carrying general authority: survival ” (136). Not the causes or effects of the war are of interest, but the war in all its unmediated horror itself. Representative of this stance was the “ body count ” mentality. Lewis explains, “ The most obvious explanation for the occurrence of atrocities is the reliance on the body count as the sole measure of military effectiveness ” (100). Keith Beattie observes that “ It is inescapable: an object of war is to wound. War is blood, war is body fragments, war is the dismemberment of the body — though not the body ’ s absence ” (11). Compared to earlier representations of war, “ . . . the difference lay in the fact that the Vietnam War preserved the fact of war by maintaining the visibility of the injured or disfigured body ” (Beattie 12). These atrocious bodies do not only have implications on the portrayal of how a war is waged but also on how the warriors themselves are portrayed. As the combatants did not generally have strong values for orientation, they were lost in the stark brutality of warfare and in the atrocities committed to improve their body count: “ In a sense, the soldiers were ‘ thrown back ’ upon organismic, rather than cultural, knowledge for guidance ” (Lewis 111). The warriors became devoid of an abstract sense of who they were and what they were to do. Instead, the lack of values put their “ organismic ” starkness of the mutilated body into the foreground. In this context, the numerous, and often distinct, examples of individuals ’ telling “ their story ” of Vietnam are exemplary cases of trauma literature. Cathy Caruth explains that “ In its general definition, trauma is described as the response to an unexpected or overwhelming violent event or events that are not fully grasped as they occur, but return later in repeated flashbacks, nightmares, 1. Introduction 19 and other repetitive phenomena ” (91). Kalí Tal has dealt extensively with Vietnam War literature as representations of literature of trauma. She focuses on the importance of the individualistic way of veterans ’ telling their war experiences, and states that “ One of the strongest themes in the literature of trauma is the urge to bear witness, to carry the tale of horror back to the halls of ‘ normalcy ’ and to testify to the people the truth of their experience ” (Worlds of Hurt 120). The fact that many veterans focus on their personal and immediate experiences is to her the main difference to many critics ’ attempts to read their works within the frame of the war ’ s wider historical and ideological background: Critics ’ inability to recognize the inaccessibility of the survivor ’ s symbolic universe seems to lead them to dismiss the “ real ” war and its devastating effect on the individual author. They replace the war with a set of symbols - metaphors of “ experience ” or “ syndrome ” - which denote instead an internal crisis of the “ American character. ” This problem is rooted in the conflation of two very different, but constantly intersecting, kinds of myth: national and personal. (Worlds of Hurt 115) She adds that War literature by nonveterans can be critiqued in the same manner as other genre literatures. These works are the products of the authors ’ urge to tell a story, make a point, create an aesthetic experience, to move people in a particular way. Nonveteran literature is, in short, the product of a literary decision. The war, to nonveteran writers, is simply a metaphor, a vehicle for their message - just as the war is a metaphor in the eyes of literary critics such as [James C.] Wilson, [John] Hellman[n], and [Thomas] Myers. (116, italics in original) She emphasises that veteran writers do not generally tend to make a point with reference to anything that is not the war. A crucial concern also within the study of trauma is the idea of identity. According to Caruth, “ In trauma, . . . the outside has gone inside without any mediation ” (59). Indeed, Susan J. Brison mentions that “ Such loss of control over oneself — one ’ s memories, one ’ s desires — can explain, to a large extent, what a survivor means in saying ‘ I am no longer myself. ’ Trauma survivors long for their former selves not only because those selves were more familiar and less damaged, but also because they were controllable, more predictable ” (45). One has lost any former sense of identity and has become one ’ s trauma. Corresponding to Tal ’ s views, Michael Bibby mentions that “ For GI poets, the war is never metaphor; mutilation is paradigmatic of the war experience, but the politics of the movement demands that its literature describe the witnessed details of that experience ” (152). As Caputo ’ s war stories are mainly set outside war, they use the war theme rather as a mode to treat subjects which have more universal relevance. The frequent depictions of horrific crimes committed on human bodies, in most cases 20 1. Introduction without their having any direct relation to a war, indicate how the state of war is present in human beings rather than in abstract political ideologies. In Caputo, the protagonists have become “ trauma ” , atrocities, abominations. The war theme is individualised and displaced from countries to people. Indeed, in many of his fictional works, there is no war at all; instead, there are people, and the state of war is represented in what people are, in their identities. A concrete war setting is discarded as too distant. With respect to the traumatic aspects in his works, trauma is itself individualised and freed of its ideological confines. In Caputo, this tendency is particularly strong. Perhaps the fact that many of his works do not lend themselves to a reading within American mythology, the theme with which the Vietnam War is often associated, is one of the main reasons why his works have not been extensively discussed. Instead, Caputo ’ s wars, as depicted in his fiction, deal with aspects that have so far been neglected. The focus in Caputo ’ s war-related books is on war-related themes, which are, in Caputo ’ s case, people; people from any milieu and of all types. Caputo ’ s wars are directly represented in people, also those that stand outside war. People are part of war, and war is part of people, but not by means of any political indoctrination. As most of Caputo ’ s stories are only partly war stories, the main focus is not laid on action in war as such. Instead, atrocities are committed outside war and also by characters without any connection to a war. It is people who commit atrocities (both within and without war). The virtually ceaseless and often gruesome graphic depictions of atrocities in most works stand in direct correlation to the picture that is painted of the human beings who are the characters. In the plotlines, the detailed descriptions increasingly tend to dominate the portrayal of the essence of what people actually are. Not only the perpetrators of hideous crimes but also their victims come to be revealed as atrocious entities. Concerning people, the conclusions of Caputo ’ s works are comparable on many accounts. The reprehensible acts which are presented to the readers in direct and unmediated form offer a perspective to contemplate human existence in its starkest form. Human beings turn out to commit atrocities not because they are philosophically misled or have lost their reason, but simply because they are hideous entities and inseparably part of a world that is similarly awful. They are not “ degenerated ” or “ perverted ” , as there has never been a favourable stage from which such a degeneration or perversion could take place. It is these final revelations in the novels that offer the characters an inescapable, unfavourable view of themselves and others. They come to be confronted by their true identities, of which war is a part; and, conversely, they are part of war, whether they are in it or outside of it. While, in all of Caputo ’ s novels published in the 1980 s and 1990 s, characters are eventually confronted with the undeniable reality of human identity as that of abominations, they start in wholly different situations in 1. Introduction 21 which, however, they are already greatly concerned with questions about their identities. The various settings of the individual works provide a wide range of perspectives from which the theme is treated, namely with the representatives of these perspectives, the protagonists who have varied backgrounds. The characters in the various novels differ widely from one another initially. In Horn of Africa, Charlie Gage and Patrick Moody question their ability to be decent human beings in view of their war experiences in the past and of their antagonist, Jeremy Nordstrand, who is striving to become the most accomplished representative of the purest form of masculinity. In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Nick DelCorso is concerned with the moral ambiguity of his role as a professional war photographer as well as his social status in relation to his originally upper-class wife. In Indian Country, Christian Starkmann is torn between his statuses as a son to a militant-pacifist cleric and as a friend to a culturally estranged Native American. In Equation for Evil, Asian American Gabriel Chin and his colleague Leander Heartwood get involved in the case of a racially motivated mass murder against Asian children. In The Voyage, the members of the Braithwaite family struggle with the changing roles of their established New England clan. Towards the end, though, there is one element which is uniformly present in all works: atrocious bodies. Whereas ideologically speaking, war has many different faces and its participants have many different predilections, all wars are the same in that their eventual result is a stark omnipresence of atrocities. In Caputo ’ s works, more concerned with people and their relation to war than with war itself, these concepts have an intriguing connection. All of the main characters are initially concerned with abstract concepts surrounding their identities, but are eventually confronted with the undeniable aspects of human identity in atrocities. Whereas the final revelation leaves no doubt or room for discussion about what human identity is, all of the 20 th -century works start off with the characters ’ conventional ideas of identity, particularly with reference to their social surroundings. These concepts are originally of great concern to the protagonists, but the world in which they live, and of which war is equally a part, compels them to reform their views and eventually confronts them with a horrific but undeniable cognition of what they are. The development that concerns the characters ’ views of identity originates in their social backgrounds and environments, which are, as mentioned above, conflicted to begin with. The protagonists start off in problematic relationships and are unsure of their places in the world and their roles in relation to other people around them. The question of who they are is originally thought answerable within this framework which relates to the concept of social identity. With regard to identity, Richard Jenkins offers a general definition: “ As a very basic starting point, identity is the human capacity - rooted in 22 1. Introduction language - to know ‘ who ’ s who ’ (and hence ‘ what ’ s what ’ ). This involves knowing who we are, knowing who others are, them knowing who we are, us knowing who they think we are, and so on ” (Social Identity 5). The related term identification is defined as “ the production and reproduction during interaction of the intermingling, and inseparable, themes of human similarity and difference ” (Jenkins, Social Identity 118). More specifically, identity can be viewed within psychology as well as within sociology. Harriet Bradley states, . . . we might first of all make a distinction between ‘ personal identity ’ , which is primarily studied by psychologists, and ‘ social identity ’ , which concerns sociologists. Personal identity refers to the construction of the self: our sense of ourselves as unique individuals, how we perceive ourselves and how we think others see us. Personal identity evolves from the whole package of experiences that each individual has gone through, and is highly complex and individualized. Social identity is also a complex issue, but is somewhat more limited. It refers to the way that we as individuals locate ourselves within the society in which we live and the way in which we perceive others as locating us. Social identities derive from the various sets of lived relationships in which individuals are engaged . . . (24) The two concepts are closely interrelated, though. According to Jenkins, “ . . . all human identities are, by definition, social identities. Identifying ourselves, or others, is a matter of meaning, and meaning always involves interaction: agreement and disagreement, convention and innovation, communication and negotiation ” (Social Identity 17, italics in original). As it is evident here, identity is to be viewed as something that is constantly adapted and reformed. In his theoretical text “ Identity Structure Analysis ” , Peter Weinreich points to the fact that “ Continuity from past experiences through current episodes towards future aspirations links together the component parts of one ’ s identity . . . ” (26, italics in original). A similar stance is taken by Kath Woodward, who affirms that “ Continuity is important to our understanding of who we are, but changes suggest that identities are not fixed and constant; they change too ” ( “ Questions of Identity ” 9). As Richard Jenkins mentions, “ It is a process - identification - not a ‘ thing ’ . It is not something that one can have, or not; it is something that one does ” (Social Identity 5, italics in original). Eduardo Mendieta also supports this view of identity evolvement: “ Our identities are never discovered. They are always constituted, constructed, invented, imagined, imposed, projected, suffered, and celebrated. Identities are never univocal, stable, or innocent. They are always an accomplishment and a ceaseless project ” (407). Identity is therefore not something that is hidden in a human being. This view is also apparent in Woodward ’ s definition of the distinction between personality and identity, as “ Personality describes qualities individuals may have, such as being outgoing or shy, internal characteristics, but identity requires some element of choice ” ( “ Questions of Identity ” 6). The idea of “ choice ” indicates that identity has the 1. Introduction 23 potential to be shaped and reshaped, whereas one ’ s personality stands for more or less given qualities of a human being. Linda Martín Alcoff agrees that identity is a process, rather than a state. However, she does not share the opinion that “ choice ” is the principal factor in forming an identity, for “ Individuals make their own identity, but not under conditions of their choosing. In fact, identities are often created in the crucible of colonialism, racial and sexual subordination, and national conflicts, but also in the specificity of group histories and structural position ” (3). In Woodward ’ s view, the development of identity happens under some kind of authority of the individual, whereas Alcoff argues that identity is imposed on a person. These two opinions are not mutually exclusive, as identity, being a complex phenomenon, can easily be understood as integrating elements of both sides. Whether an individual is primarily able to choose on how to act or is subjected to uncontrollable influences that shape identity, this individual must therefore have the possibility to act. With reference to internal and external definition of identity, Jenkins introduces the terms of group and category: “ In terms of collectivities, a group is internally defined and a category externally defined ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 80). Even so, he is aware that these two ideas are not readily distinguishable: “ Identity is never unilateral ” (Social Identity 42, italics in original). As Woodward puts it, “ Identity offers a way of thinking about the links between the personal and the social; of the meeting place of the psychological and the social, of the psyche and the society. It is the embodiment and location of the psycho-social ” (Understanding Identity vii). The achievement of a personal goal is dependent on the wider social context. Only if others agree to see me as what I want to be seen as can choice of an identity element be successful. Peter Weinreich sees identity as an overarching concept. He terms the active aspect of identity the self and defines the relationship between identity and self: “ Identity is more than the self is. Self is the central agency expressing intention, appraising the day-to-day social and material world, experiencing it emotionally in respect of its relevance to self ’ s aspirations ” (42). His concept of the self is based on the studies by Rom Harré, who affirms the view that the self is an acting part within what can be called “ identity ” : “ Someone ’ s ‘ identity ’ , in much contemporary writing, is not their singularity as a unique person but the group, class or type to which they belong ” (Harré 6). Weinreich ’ s “ . . . ISA [Identity Structure Analysis] adopts Harré ’ s elucidation of the fundamental agentic character of the singular self, but allows that the person operates with limited and variable autonomy ” (42). Therefore, the question of whether the individual has the opportunity to “ choose ” or not is neutralised by Weinreich ’ s interpretation, as the individual ’ s “ autonomy ” varies. Considering the question of how one person ’ s identity distinguishes itself from another ’ s, the term difference is frequently applied. Woodward states that “ Often, identity is most clearly defined by difference, that is by what it is not. 24 1. Introduction Identities may be marked by polarization, for example in the most extreme forms of national or ethnic conflict, and by the marking of inclusion or exclusion - insiders and outsiders, ‘ us ’ and ‘ them ’” (Introduction [to Identity and Difference] 2). Jenkins affirms that similarity is equally relevant: “ . . . emphasising difference misses the utter interdependence, whether in abstract logic or messy everyday practice, of similarity and difference. Neither makes sense without the other, and identification requires both ” (Social Identity 21). He stresses that “ To say who I am is to say who or what I am not, but it is also to say with whom I have things in common ” (Social Identity 21). If “ Identity is marked by similarity, that is of the people like us, and by difference, of those who are not ” (Woodward, “ Questions of Identity ” 7), it is again up to the individual to decide how they choose to consider similarity and difference. Simply distinguishing between “ same ” and “ other ” fails to take the complexity of the issue into account, as few people would be likely to agree on where “ same ” and where “ other ” applies. The interaction of several identity elements can cause conflict among them. To Woodward, “ A sense of conflicting identities may result from the tensions between having to be a student, a parent, and an employee at the same time: these are examples of the multiple identities which people have ” ( “ Questions of Identity ” 7, italics in original). The idea of multiple identity is easily discernible, but represents a simplistic view. According to Weinreich, it is “ a mistaken conception when investigators refer to the ‘ multiple identities ’ of a person. A person has only the one identity, but experiences multiple aspects of identity that relate to gender, ethnicity, socio-economic class and so on ” (34). Even if identity groups/ categories with distinct boundaries cannot be established, there are concepts that have greater relevance than others when the constitution of an identity is in question. Jenkins presents several examples of what he terms “ primary identities ” : “ Selfhood is not the only identity which may be conceptualised as primary, in the sense of developed during primary socialisation and subsequently exhibiting great solidity. Gender is also best understood as a primary identity, organising the earliest experience and integrated into the individual sense of selfhood. Depending on local context, ethnicity may be, too ” (Social Identity 70). He adds that “ . . . whether kinship or ethnicity is a primary identification is always a local question. Unlike human-ness, selfhood and gender, they are not universal primary identities ” (87, italics in original). He emphasises the relevance of gender, ethnicity and kinship with respect to social identity. For the reasons outlined above, I will not treat selfhood as an aspect that is on the same level as the other three mentioned. As Jenkins mentions, “ Even the intimacies of selfhood incorporate identifications such as gender, ethnicity and kinship which, whatever else they are, are also definitively collective ” (Social Identity 103). Gender, ethnicity and kinship are obvious social identity elements in that they refer to a group of people of whom one can or cannot be a member. 1. Introduction 25 As with selfhood, human-ness is less useful here, as it by nature encompasses all people and therefore does not have the potential to define a group as the other three do. With reference to the definition of further groups that can be considered relevant parts of one ’ s social identity, Woodward claims that Identities in the contemporary world derive from a multiplicity of sources - from nationality, ethnicity, social class, community, gender, sexuality - sources which may conflict in the construction of identity positions and lead to contradictory fragmented identities. Each of us may experience some struggles between conflicting identities based on our different positions in the world, as a member of a particular community, ethnicity, social class, religion, as a parent, as a worker or as unemployed. However, identity gives us a location in the world and presents the link between us and the society in which we live . . . (Introduction [to Identity and Difference] 1) She mentions that “ . . . gender, class and culture (using the example of nation) are particularly important ” (Introduction [to Questioning Identity] 1) with “ . . . work, gender and nation, ethnicity and place . . . being useful examples ” of “ social structures ” which have “ significant influences on identity ” ( “ Questions of Identity ” 21). In Understanding Identity, she adds that the “ . . . understanding of social divisions has been expanded to include race[,] ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability and generation ” (164). These should therefore also be considered relevant dimensions that influence the idea of identity, but are not always clearly distinguishable. Weinreich lists a number of what he calls “ social identities ” , namely “ ethnicity, gender, socio-economic class and occupation, familial circumstances and race ” , mentioning that these “ are significant in contemporary times ” , for this reason excluding other aspects such as “ generation, religion, language, career ” (32). Even though religion can be expected to be an aspect of Woodward ’ s idea of “ culture ” , neither she nor Weinreich mentions it as being one of the central dimensions of social identity; according to Eduardo Mendieta, “ . . . religion seems to predate the order of nation and class, yet there is a way in which Irish Catholicism, American Judaism, Southern Baptism, or Midwestern evangelical Protestantism are very unique formations that emerged from the interaction between class, race, and nationality ” (408). Mendieta affirms that a single one of these aspects, such as religion, cannot be regarded as a separate element of identity distinct from others. In modern times, religion as an easily distinguishable concept seems to have receded into the background, having been overtaken by notions such as “ class, race, and nationality ” , which are all elements in Woodward ’ s or Weinreich ’ s predominant dimensions of identity features. We can see that there are elements which recur when dealing with the question of what identity is. It is, however, not always clear how such dimensions can be properly defined. Weinreich ’ s listing is particularly useful 26 1. Introduction and specific. His concepts of ethnic identity (27), racial identity (30), gender identity (31), socio-economic class or occupational identity (31), and familial identity (32) are also reflected in Bradley, Woodward, as well as in Alcoff and Mendieta. Bradley deals with social groups as “ aspects of inequality ” and treats “ class, gender, ‘ race ’ / ethnicity and age ” (13), eschewing only familial identity. Woodward ’ s Questioning Identity is subtitled Gender, Class, Nation, with nation being a popular substitute for ethnicity, as we shall see. She omits race, which, as will be discussed below, is often understood within the concept of ethnicity, and, like Bradley, family. Alcoff and Mendieta ’ s Identities bears the subtitle Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality, also making use of nationality instead of ethnicity and leaving out family. Weinreich ’ s aspects are more concrete and distinctive than others, but he is equally aware of their complexity. His understanding of ethnic identity represents an especially problematic issue. As he explains, “ The greater proportion of people, who are born into and experience their childhood within a well-defined peoplehood with a shared socio-cultural history, has the ethnic identity of that peoplehood. Often the term ‘ nation ’ or ‘ ethnic group ’ is used to refer to a peoplehood of this kind ” (27 - 28). He equates the ideas of “ nation ” and “ ethnic group ” while making a sharp distinction between “ ethnicity ” and “ race ” . The latter, to him, indicates an aspect of identity made visible on the body, such as skin colour. Bradley, in contrast, treats the two in one chapter. Being aware of the fact that a clear definition of race is often impossible, Weinreich concludes that “ . . . although few peoples retain thoroughly homogeneous racially typed genes given intermixing, there remain some relatively homogeneous groupings with a degree of racial distinctiveness ” (30). On the other hand, “ Ethnic identity for those who know they belong to a coherent peoplehood constitutes a pre-eminent feature of the totality of their identity because it is based in a time-span continuity of generations that tends to eclipse all other aspects of identity ” (28). By referring to “ time-span continuity ” , ethnicity or nation must be understood as a community based on the idea of a common history. As it is “ unnatural ” , in contrast to race, it comprises the notion of being — at least in part — consciously created not only for the creators themselves, but also for subsequent generations, and has therefore a greater potential to “ eclipse ” other identity aspects, as these can generally be expected to be younger and rather more coincidental, being in part — in the case of race for example — subjected to nature. To Jenkins, ethnicity is also “ possibly [a] primary identification ” (Social Identity 87). He is equally aware of its frequent pre-eminence: “ Ethnicity, when it matters to people, really matters. The circumstances under which it matters are relevant, however. Ethnicity depends on similarity and difference rubbing up against each other collectively: ‘ us ’ and ‘ them ’” (Social Identity 87, italics in original). In Rethinking Ethnicity, he further stresses the relevance of ethnicity to identity: 1. Introduction 27 In a social setting where ethnic differentiation is sufficiently salient and consequential to intrude into the social world of children, ethnicity may be acquired in this way, as an integral part of the individually embodied point of view of selfhood. Thus, ethnicity may, under local circumstances, be characterisable as a primary, although not a primordial, dimension of individual identity. (47, italics in original) He tends to view race as a part of ethnicity but is equally aware of how the two concepts are still frequently distinguished. He mentions, “ Although ‘ race ’ is likely to be more visible than ethnic differentiation based on behavioural cues, either may be established relatively early, albeit probably not as early as gender ” (Social Identity 87). In Rethinking Ethnicity, he emphasises ethnicity ’ s problematic distinction from race: “ . . . ethnicity is a ubiquitous, general mode of social identification, and . . . homologous phenomena such as racism and nationalism can be understood as historically specific allotropes or versions of the wider principle of ethnic affiliation and classification ” (74); and “ National identity and nationalism involve, almost by definition, group identification and social categorization: inclusion and exclusion. Whatever they may be, they are perhaps most usefully regarded, therefore, and in much the same way as ‘ race ’ and racism, as a historically specific manifestation of ethnicity ” (84). Ellis Cashmore ’ s point of view is similar. About ethnicity, he states that “ Distinct languages, religious beliefs, political institutions become part of the ethnic baggage and children are reared to accept these ” (121). He claims, In its contemporary form, ethnic still retains this basic meaning [of the Greek ethnos] in the sense that it describes a group possessing some degree of coherence and solidarity composed of people who are, at least latently, aware of having common origins and interests. So, an ethnic group is not a mere aggregate of people or a sector of a population, but a self-conscious collection of people united, or closely related, by shared experiences. (119) With respect to race, he concludes, . . . “ race ” stands for the attributions of one group, ethnic group stands for the creative response of a people who feel somehow marginal to the mainstream of society. There is no necessary relationship between the two concepts [ethnicity ad race], though, in actuality, there is often a strong overlap in the sense that a group labeled a race is often pushed out of the main spheres of society and made to endure deprivations; and these are precisely the conditions conducive to the growth of an ethnic group. (120) In spite of all these points, ethnicity and race have widely sustained relevant differences in the way they are perceived. Woodward ’ s view of ethnicity is similar to Weinreich ’ s. According to her, “ Ethnicity marks cultural and social differences between groups of people, rather than invoking spurious biological fixity where visible and embodied differences might be seen to determine and 28 1. Introduction circumscribe identity ” (Understanding Identity 146). Weinreich ’ s “ nation ” , to him a concept very similar to ethnicity, is equally different from race, but must not be confused with nation-state. Guibernau and Goldblatt understand “ nations ” as “ communities of people who feel they possess the same identity by virtue of shared cultures, histories, languages; and the geography of those communities does not necessarily correspond to the geography of political borders ” (125). A nation-state can help to establish the confines of a nation, but it is rather too concrete a tool, as a nation/ ethnicity — in contrast to race — is a mental concept. Even so, there is obviously the problem of overlap when considering aspects of social identity. Nationality, for instance, can apparently be applied to members of a nation or nation-state. In addition, we have seen that religion as an aspect of identity is not always easily distinguishable from ethnicity/ nation or indeed other categories. Identification with a religion is, as mentioned above, often indistinguishable from or linked to ethnicity/ nation, since it also entails the ideas of a community based on culture and history. The concept of place — mentioned by Woodward — equally has connections to nation-state and history, as it is in itself bound to the idea of geographical location, a factor which is often considered crucial in the establishment and definition of a nation or, more concretely, nation-state. Ethnicity, despite being a particularly complex dimension of identity, is certainly not the only one with the potential of conflicting views. In Weinreich ’ s category of familial identity, “ The child ’ s experience of growing up in an extended, or close-knit nuclear, or a single-parent family is a formative feature of one ’ s identity. Later in adulthood, familial identity may embrace the experience of exercising responsibility for the welfare of dependent children within whatever family form one participates ” (32). The aspect of “ generation ” , mentioned by Woodward, appears to be closely linked to the idea of familial identity. There is no consensus as to what age group belongs to what generation, and it seems problematic to treat it as an identity aspect by itself, but, within a family, generation is likely to have the greatest impact on the concept of identifying oneself as opposed to older or younger members of the same family. While Jenkins mentions kinship as a primary identification (Social Identity 86), Bradley eschews the theme, and whereas her other concepts, which she uses as the categories according to which inequalities between human beings are warranted, are otherwise widely congruent with Weinreich ’ s aspects of social identity, she additionally includes age: “ Age is viewed here as a dimension of inequality because, like class, gender and ethnicity, it involves the construction of social differences which in turn bring differential access to social resources, such as wealth, power and status ” (Bradley 147). She claims that “ . . . age is an important aspect of individual identity . . . ” (168), but acknowledges that “ . . . the movement of individuals through the various 1. Introduction 29 age-groups prevents lasting age identification ” (168). For this reason, Weinreich ’ s social identity dimensions appear to be more practical and comparable. Whereas one ’ s family is likely not only to have an essential role in determining one ’ s identity, but also in constructing groups of which one becomes and stays a member, thereby distinguishing oneself from other families, age is a concept about which one truly has no “ choice ” , and with reference to which one cannot “ act ” . All human beings go through the same ages at the same speed. In the case of what could be summarised as occupational/ class identity, several aspects can again be considered part of such a concept. As with ethnic identity, there have been tendencies to consider class the overarching dimension of identity: “ The Marxist contribution to the debate rests largely on collective identity and in particular on class identity rather than any notion of a reflective self ” (Woodward, Understanding Identity 4). Weinreich equates socio-economic class and occupation, also taking further elements into account: Everyday efforts towards providing sustenance and shelter for survival are highly organised and co-ordinated in contemporary times, and can be generally conceptualised as ‘ work ’ . Work is another central activity of everyday being-in-the-world, hence the importance of occupational identity as another salient component of the totality of one ’ s identity. Social resources, education, aptitude, application and opportunity contribute to the class of work that may be undertaken, with ramifications for one ’ s lifestyle. ” (31 - 32) The elements mentioned are obviously intertwined. One ’ s available resources are widely determined by occupation or work. Getting into a profession requires a specific education. Even though it often happens that the levels of education and subsequent occupational position do not match, they are certainly closely related. A particular education is frequently chosen in respect to a desired type of employment. It is therefore linked to the idea of payment, which then greatly influences the way one thinks about one ’ s class status. In addition, a worker will interact with colleagues: “ Paid work is also a source of collective identity through relationships with colleagues at work ” (Mackintosh and Mooney 80). They are the people whose class is likely to be similar to one ’ s own. Jenkins mentions that Occupational identities are among the most important of social identities. For many people they provide the basis on which their livelihood is secured. They are also closely connected to social status. This was so in the pre-modern world and it remains so today. In modern industrial societies, there is an element of election involved in the assumption of an occupational identity. (Rethinking Ethnicity 59) There is also some complexity in identifying with class or work, but occupational/ class identity can still be viewed as a relatively stable and comprehensible concept. 30 1. Introduction In hardly any other aspect of identity is the temptation to use a simple distinguishing device between “ same ” and “ other ” greater than in the last frequently mentioned aspect of social identity: that of sex and gender. Referring to the popular concept of sex denoting the biological differences between male and female, and gender the social (Bradley 82; Warnke 3), Gove and Watt state that “ . . . often biological and social influences are very tangled ” (44), complicating this seemingly simple relation. Weinreich, who does not clearly distinguish between the two concepts, gives a detailed description: Included in one ’ s gender identity are experiences of forms of sexual arousal from childhood through puberty and adolescence into adult phases of the lifecycle. Gender identity also encompasses biological differences in body and build according to sex, and in particular the potential for the female to give birth to infants. It incorporates diverse social norms governing the usually acceptable conduct between the genders, which vary according to culture and subcultures, including gay and lesbian. (31) Indeed, even an indisputable biological difference between male and female is often unclear. In the debate about the question of whether sexual orientations such as hetero-, homo-, trans-, biand asexuality are socially or biologically motivated, an exact explanation seems impossible. Warnke mentions examples of when it has been unclear whether a person is a man or a woman (1). The nonbiological aspect of gender is even harder to distinguish: “ Behind the apparent simplicity of two genders, there is a diversity of gender characteristics, and many different influences are at work ” (Gove and Watt 44). With regard to gender, Jenkins affirms that, . . . it differs from kinship or ethnicity, which are in the first place - and by definition - principles of group identification. Furthermore, the gender of every individual must be established at birth, it isn ’ t predictable from the local co-ordinates of birth, unlike kinship or ethnicity. One is not born into a gender in the same way, for example, that one is born into a family, a lineage, a community or an ethnie. (Social Identity 82 - 83) He emphasises that “ . . . the primary identifications of selfhood and gender are much more robust than most other identities ” (Social Identity 85). The debate about what makes males and females act the way they do, or the opinions on what is typically male and what is typically female seems infinite. Despite such confusion, sex is inscribed on the body. It is visible and therefore more easily definable than other aspects of identity. For this reason, Woodward assigns sex/ gender a place in a special category of identity: “ Along with race and disability, gender is the most notable visible difference ” (Understanding Identity 105). Gender/ sex is indeed the most evident of all, since, as we have seen, races mix, and disability is not always visible. In addition, treating disability as a separate category of social identity seems problematic on all accounts. Disability will in 1. Introduction 31 most cases manifest itself in many different areas of life, but it is hardly likely to be instrumental in the designation of a social group. As with diseases, disability will affect each person afflicted in an individual way. Weinreich ’ s group of five social identity dimensions has proven the most useful, in that they are fairly distinguishable and probably applicable to virtually all human beings. None of the aspects is easily defined, and with some, particularly ethnicity and race, any distinction is highly controversial. As Jenkins states, A and B may be different from each other at one level, but both are members of the meta-category C. Classification is also hierarchical interactionally and socially: one may be identified as a C in one context, but as an A in another. In addition, because identification makes no sense outside relationships, whether between individuals or groups, there are hierarchies or scales of preference, of ambivalence, of hostility, of competition, of partnership and co-operation, and so on. (Social Identity 6) In view of all these points, Weinreich ’ s ethnicity, gender, occupation/ class, family and race are those aspects of identity that can be applied and compared more readily than others. He states that “ Qualities such as one ’ s ethnicity, gender, socio-economic class and occupation, familial circumstances and race are not simply social variables that have set contributions to make to one ’ s sense of identity. They are experienced in complex interrelationship in accordance with one ’ s biography in socio-historical context ” (32). These five factors are not “ identities ” , but they are concepts that greatly contribute to a person ’ s understanding of their identity. As Caputo suggests, war entails many different struggles, on many levels, with many different aims, by many different participants. Identity as it appears in his works is best matched by Weinreich ’ s ideas on its being a vast presence, complex in nature and composed of many intertwined elements. In addition, each of the five dimensions of social identity proposed by Weinreich functions as the basis of the treatment of identity in one of the five novels published in the 1980 s and 1990 s, respectively. Horn of Africa focuses on gender identity, DelCorso ’ s Gallery on occupational/ class identity, Indian Country on ethnic identity, Equation for Evil on racial identity, and The Voyage on familial identity. These themes also widely correspond to classical identity elements that are relevant in representations of war. Woodward and Scarry treat war as an extreme aspect in which they see the concept of “ same ” and “ other ” manifested. To Woodward, “ . . . what is understood as war is a time when this distinction [ ‘ us ’ and ‘ them ’ ] must be clearly marked in a most conflictual manner ” (Understanding Identity viii); Scarry claims that “ The distinction between ‘ friend ’ and ‘ enemy ’ . . . is in war converted to an absolute polarity . . . ” (88). Even if on the surface such a distinction appears to be justified, this division into 32 1. Introduction two sides does not necessarily apply, as Caputo ’ s treatment of the theme shows. In the case of the Vietnam War, there is a particularly strong awareness of social identity aspects. According to Myers, “ Unlike Heller ’ s Yossarian and Hemingway ’ s Frederic Henry, . . . the Vietnam protagonist finds the prospect of the separate peace impossible, the likelihood of physical, psychological, or spiritual disengagement a dangerous myth ” (31). This probably has to do with the fact that Vietnam veterans were frequently shunned by the groups with which they typically identified. Their status as “ losers ” made them appear to be “ unmanly ” , bad soldiers and “ un-American ” , considering that the Vietnam War is regarded as the first war from which the Americans did not emerge as winners. They were also commonly deemed racists in cases of defamation of the Vietnamese enemies. Correspondingly, there was the potential of having a difficult status within their families, where they may have been viewed as “ unworthy ” of their forefathers ’ achievements in other wars of which they may have been veterans. Weinreich ’ s five dimensions of social identity are therefore relevant to war literature in general and Vietnam War literature in particular. Gender identity is a major theme that the latter “ inherited ” from the former. In his discussion of Vietnam War works by Winston Groom and James Webb, both of whom are generally seen as authors who distanced themselves from a newer, more experimental treatment of the war in their works and adhered to a more traditional mode of war representation, Beidler mentions, Both writers, like Jones, and Hemingway and Crane before him, find their great theme in relating the experience of war to the acquisition of some basic sense of moral manhood. Their structural strategies — the interweaving, for instance, of the novel ’ s action with elements of social documentary, the microcosmic impulse that calls attention to the representativeness of the individual case — would also seem to place them in the line of Dos Passos, William March, and Norman Mailer. (American Literature 169) Lloyd B. Lewis treats the theme of manhood with respect to the Vietnam War in more detail. He states that “ . . . manhood is a socially bestowed identity only won through demonstration of role-specific knowledge. The definitive arena for that demonstration is, in American culture, on the field of battle ” (131). He explains how closely the ideas of manhood and war are related: Manhood, like heroism, finds its best area of application and display in war. Unlike heroism, however, it relies on much more accessible human energies for definition. In the narratives, manhood and masculinity are equated with overcoming adversity, a kind of diluted, quiet heroism. Being a “ man ” consists of demonstrating endurance. This ability to prevail in the face of hardship, discomfort, fear, and pain, to be durable and resilient, is an index of masculinity. (34) 1. Introduction 33 In Vietnam, this view was apparently less commonly present in the combatants ’ minds. As Lewis states, “ In America, males learned to regard death as preferable to relinquishing the social identity of ‘ man. ’ In Vietnam, however, this meaning lost the power to shape behavior when compared to the privileged meaning invested in survival ” (116). A strong view of gender identity was therefore apparently subjected to the ubiquitous danger and fear of death. Philip K. Jason emphasises that, correspondingly, the enemy was frequently feminised: “ In the mythos of Vietnam War representation, Vietnam is always a woman, and the theme of regeneration through violence (in combat) has had a peculiar issue in violence toward Vietnamese women ” (Acts and Shadows 83). More concretely, “ In the crude semantic equations of the battlefield, killing gooks is the same as fucking them — and being a man in the military environment means being a killing and fucking machine. The metaphor of fucking the enemy, of course, turns the enemy into women, and vice versa. Thus, in a sense, all enemies are surrogate women ” (30). Lewis, on the other hand, points to the greater complexity of the subject: “ A male who subdues or at least separates himself from the fearful being inside earns the social identity ‘ a man. ’ The opposite of a man in this usage is not a woman but a coward, a degraded form of humanity relinquishing the rights and privileges of the male gender while qualifying for none of those conferred upon the other ” (34). Caputo ’ s first novel, Horn of Africa, treats gender identity in a way closer to Lewis ’ s stance. The characters are constantly concerned with ideas of masculinity, but, perhaps surprisingly, it is the only one of Caputo ’ s novels so far that does not have a female protagonist. Neither are the male characters inclined to perform violence against women. Verbal defamations towards the female sex, almost a sine qua non in many literary representations of the Vietnam War, are widely absent. Instead, the males appraise their masculinity with reference to the other men present. The main identity theme of the second novel, occupational/ class identity, is equally relevant in other representations of war. As Cornelius A. Cronin observes, “ . . . becoming a soldier or sailor is in itself a transforming experience. The training is designed to break down the trainee ’ s identity and replace it with a group identity. It is designed to replace preexisting social ties with much more intense, if shallower, ties to the immediate group — the fire team, the squad, the platoon ” (203). Elaine Scarry mentions war as having the potential to create the view of extreme identification in this context: “ . . . the boy in war is, to an extent found in almost no other form of work, inextricably bound up with the men and materials of his labor: he will learn to perceive himself as he will be perceived by others, as indistinguishable from the men of his unit, regiment, division, and above all national group . . . ” (83). In Scarry ’ s view then, the soldier is not only bound to identify with his nation, but also with his fellow soldiers. Jonathan Shay, who has treated traumatised Vietnam War veterans, observes that 34 1. Introduction “ . . . soldiers sometimes lose responsiveness to the claims of any bonds, ideals, or loyalties outside a tiny circle of immediate comrades. An us-against-them mentality severs all other attachments or commitments ” (23, italics in original). He adds that “ The soldier ’ s grief helps us comprehend the powerful bond that arises between men in combat. This bond may be so intense as to blot out the distinction between self and other, leading each to value the other ’ s life above his own ” (69). Members of several originally distinct social classes are made into one group in which just the occupation, that of being a soldier, is relevant, while they keep their gender (male), their ethnicity (US-American), their race (European/ African American etc.) and also retain some contact to their respective families. In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, the protagonists are identified by their occupation as war photographers. The related topic of class is equally relevant considering the main character ’ s status as a working-class man who has an upper-class wife. Besides gender, ethnicity is probably the most relevant identity aspect in war literature. Wars are often viewed and depicted as conflicts between nations or nation-states, which are themselves frequent representatives of what many people perceive to be an ethnicity. Thomas Myers stresses the tight interconnections between ideas of ethnicity and war: Beyond its obvious dramatic possibilities, war makes readable and testable the deepest structures of national myth and belief. The facts of war, the lived drama of national trauma, bring into high relief complexes and intersections of ideological presupposition, collective purpose, and group identity that might otherwise recede into perceptions of apparent national harmony or constancy. (10) As we have seen, the Vietnam War and its literary representations have been particularly prone to interpretation on the grounds of American myth. This theme is a central aspect in Caputo ’ s third novel, Indian Country. Closely connected to ethnicity, race is a controversial topic and is often treated within the concept of ethnicity. With reference to the Vietnam War, it is of particular relevance, however, corresponding again to Weinreich ’ s treatment of race as a separate dimension of social identity. In many literary works on Vietnam, racial defamations addressed to the Vietnamese are about as frequent as those targeted against women. D. Michael Shafer explains that “ . . . in Vietnam the issue of race was all-pervasive . . . and made little distinction between our allies and the enemy — they were all ‘ slopes, ’ ‘ dinks, ’ ‘ gooks, ’ and so below human consideration ” (85 - 86). Caputo ’ s fourth novel, Equation for Evil, treats the sensitive topic of races and racism, despite not being set in the Vietnam War itself. Instead, it revolves around the conflicts arising in the war ’ s aftermath, including the difficult situation of Indochinese refugees in the USA. 1. Introduction 35 The least frequently mentioned of Weinreich ’ s social identity dimensions, familial identity, is treated in Caputo ’ s fifth novel, The Voyage. It hardly has a connection to the Vietnam War, but the conflict within the Braithwaite family, around which the key plot elements revolve, is rooted in another American war, namely the American Civil War. Besides the fact that many Vietnam War veterans apparently felt excluded from their families upon their return, their traumatic experiences making it impossible for them to re-integrate themselves, Aaron Sheehan-Dean exemplifies the significance of family to soldiers in his study on Virginian soldiers in the American Civil War. He emphasises that “ Because Confederate soldiers participated fully in both the battlefront and the home front, they did not distinguish the political nation from the domestic nation. At times, the obligations of family and nation conflicted with one another . . . ” (2); and “ Their new military habits and responsibilities modified but never supplanted their base identities as citizens, fathers, husbands, and sons ” (2). Familial relations also have great relevance with reference to the Vietnam War. With respect to the father - son relationship, Lloyd B. Lewis claims, “ The fathers invariably taught their sons to view the Vietnam War as a chance, an opportunity not to be missed, an experience designed to replicate the epic grandeur of their own coming-of-age ” (44 - 45). Weinreich ’ s five dimensions of social identity are, as we have seen, of particular relevance in the treatment of war. In Caputo ’ s first five novels, each of these aspects functions as the basis to the development of the plots. The sense of social identity, which is of particular relevance to the characters initially, moves into the background in Caputo ’ s novels as the plots turn to the gruesome. The proliferation of devastated human bodies represents the emergence of a new sense of identity that becomes prevalent towards the end in all cases. Indeed, as critics frequently mention, it is the body that retains a large amount of absoluteness concerning identity; and the bodies that appear throughout and cannot be ignored in their repulsiveness state how some aspects of human identity are to be accepted unconditionally and are not subject to abstract deliberation. As Woodward puts it, “ The bodies that we inhabit clearly offer limitations to what is possible, to the identities to which we might like to lay claim ” (Understanding Identity 104), and “ At times the body is associated with the flesh and is devalued in relation to the mind, which is seen as the source of human agency. At other times the body is seen to secure certainty, the certainty that comes with scientific knowledge. The body might be seen as the ultimate source of truth about human identity . . . ” (133). If the body is considered to be both inferior to the mind and representing the absolute “ truth about human identity ” , we can conclude that however “ good ” our mind may be at its search for identity, it will eventually be stopped at the borders of the body, whose (dis) abilities set the frame for identity construction: “ Size, shape, disability, sex, all 36 1. Introduction influence our experience of who we are and who we can be ” (Woodward, “ Questions of Identity ” 9). Bodily restrictions are the final authorities deciding over what can be achieved and what not. Woodward ’ s view of disability as an aspect of identity would play a significant role in this context. Jenkins is equally aware of the body ’ s relevance: “ . . . selfhood is routinely entangled with identities that are definitively embodied, such as gender/ sex, ethnicity/ ‘ race ’ or disability/ impairment . . . ” (Social Identity 72, italics in original). He states that “ Identification in isolation from embodiment is unimaginable ” (41) and that “ Identification is always from a point of view. For individuals this point of view is, in the first instance, the body. Individual identification is always embodied, albeit sometimes imaginatively, as in fiction or myth, or Internet chat rooms ” (48, italics in original). Chris Shilling affirms that “ The body offers potential boundaries to the self and presents both the uniqueness of each individual and a site for the marking of difference. Common sense might suggest that the body which each of us occupies offers some certainty in the search for an understanding of identity ” (65). This idea of absoluteness of the body is strongly supported by Elaine Scarry. In her analysis The Body in Pain, she points to the fact that especially when the body is in pain, all visions of uncertainty disappear: “ . . . for the person in pain, so incontestably and unnegotiably present is it that ‘ having pain ’ may come to be thought of as the most vibrant example of what it is to ‘ have certainty, ’ while for the other person it is so elusive that ‘ hearing about pain ’ may exist as the primary model of what it is ‘ to have doubt. ’” (4). Nothing other than the body has the potential to send out signals that are on all accounts unmistakable. For a person ’ s sense of identity, all other aspects are then nullified. Contrary to ethnicity, as hinted at by Weinreich, it is the body that is capable of “ eclipsing ” all other aspects of identity. If the body is in pain, no other concept needs looking after. Scarry explains that bodily functions are more deeply rooted in a person ’ s identity than other possible aspects of identity: The human animal is in its early years “ civilized, ” learns to stand upright, to walk, to wave and signal, to listen, to speak, and the general “ civilizing ” process takes place within particular “ civil ” realms, a particular hemisphere, a particular nation, a particular state, a particular region. Whether the body ’ s loyalty to these political realms is more accurately identified as residing in one fragile gesture or in a thousand, it is likely to be deeply and permanently there, more permanently there, less easily shed, than those disembodied forms of patriotism that exist in verbal habits or in thoughts about one ’ s national identity. (109) The body ’ s habits are independent of subsequent social identifications. What the body has once acquired, it keeps permanently. It epitomises the one aspect of identity that is unquestionable; and inside this undeniable aspect of identity resides an element, pain, that one wants to expel, but apparently cannot, as it is 1. Introduction 37 part of one ’ s body. This concept is of particular relevance to the treatment of identity in war literature. Indeed, Steven Bruhm has applied Scarry ’ s The Body in Pain to romantic treatments of the war theme (Gothic Bodies). As discussed above, these social identity dimensions, volatile as they are, prove, however, to be subjected to that one concept. Indeed, the shift of identity from a relatively stable view of a social identity aspect to the undeniable presence of abominable bodies is consistently present in all of Caputo ’ s 20 th century works of fiction. Such horrific uncompromising reality is accompanied, perhaps paradoxically, by apparently unrealistic, fantastical occurrences. With reference to A Rumor of War, Caputo claims that he “ wanted readers to see, feel, and experience Vietnam as I had, as much as is possible ” ( “ Conversation ” 23). Perhaps surprisingly, this longed-for proximity to actuality in Vietnam War literature is often achieved not by sticking to pure facts, but rather by applying elements that tend to alienate the reader. Referring to the mode of several works of literature on the Vietnam War published after the end of the war, Beidler locates “ more than occasional strangeness and difficulty and their seeming diversity of shape and intention ” (American Literature 139). In them, he senses “ the penetration of a strange midworld of consciousness, . . . a precinct of memory and imagining, the two caught in some curious, perpetual suspension ” (171, italics in original). In connection with Gustav Hasford ’ s The Short- Timers and Tim O ’ Brien ’ s Going after Cacciato, both recognised major works of the genre, he observes that “ elements of surreal fantasy are more authoritatively interfused with a sense of close realistic observation, evidence of having considered Vietnam on its own terms as experience as well ” (53 - 54). Apparently, the horrors of war are not done justice by restricting oneself to realistic or even naturalistic points of view. In accordance with trauma, Cathy Caruth states that “ Traumatic experience, beyond the psychological dimension of suffering it involves, suggests a certain paradox: that the most direct seeing of a violent event may occur as an absolute inability to know it; that immediacy, paradoxically, may take the form of belatedness ” (91 - 92). This view conforms well to several writers ’ tendencies to depict the undeniably real by applying “ unrealistic ” ways of representation. In Caputo ’ s fiction of the 1980 s and 1990 s, the proliferation of gross depictions is in all cases accompanied by a shift into a corresponding classical literary genre or mode, namely the Gothic. His graphic and realistic representations of war and its consequences are infiltrated by Gothic elements, which makes the plot develop into the uncanny, at times even the supernatural. Starting off with characters who have a strong, though perhaps conflicted, conventional sense of what their identity is, the graphic depiction of atrocities, starkly presented in most works, represents the shift of the view of identity from an abstract to a concrete concept. This Gothic mode, at first sight, clashes with the otherwise perhaps almost too realistic descriptions 38 1. Introduction of atrocities. As it turns out, they make perfect sense, however. Corresponding to Caruth ’ s statement of how “ the most direct seeing of a violent event may occur as an absolute inability to know it ” (91 - 92), the Gothic is, in Caputo, the only possibility at all to show the horror of war. Indeed, war is described as so terrible that it cannot be grasped by intellectual or conventional means. According to Steven Bruhm, “ Trauma collapses the ability to render experience in a narrative . . . ” ( “ The Contemporary Gothic ” 269), and “ . . . the Gothic itself is a narrative of trauma. Its protagonists usually experience some horrifying event that profoundly affects them, destroying (at least temporarily) the norms that structure their lives and identities ” (268). This relation between trauma and identity is partly echoed in Laurie Vickroy and Kalí Tal, both of whom refer to the Vietnam War in their studies. Vickroy states that “ Trauma is the ultimate consequence of the invalidation of self and self-knowledge, which is manifested in restrictive defenses like repression, silence, and dissociation ” (49). Kalí Tal affirms, . . . combat soldiers are physically removed from the civilian communities with which they identify; they are relocated to a new and foreign environment where previous notions of self are rendered useless and the development of a new set of personal myths is required. Basic training is designed to traumatize recruits, to systematically strip them of their civilian identity. ( “ Speaking the Language of Pain ” 238) In Caputo, the themes of war, trauma and the destruction of identity are treated in combination with an overarching Gothic mode. Caputo ’ s six longer fictional works published in the 1980 s and 1990 s share a strong common tendency in that their protagonists are compelled to substitute a new identity — that of unseemly, horrific creatures — for their own original definition within established concepts of social identity. This happens in connection with a plotline that assumes ever more Gothic elements, indicating how the result of the characters ’ identity developments will equally be Gothic views of themselves. With reference to the theme of identity, the Gothic manifests itself primarily in two aspects: first, abominable Gothic bodies are revealed as the truest form of human identity; second, a classical representative of identity that has turned uncanny appears throughout the works treated: the doppelgänger, or double. This figure appears on numerous occasions within Caputo ’ s fiction of the 1980 s and 1990 s and almost invariably marks the culmination of the development of the protagonists ’ identities. Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Indian Country, Equation for Evil, Exiles: Three Short Novels and The Voyage all feature abundant depictions of atrocities, human bodies in abominable states as well as numerous domineering Gothic elements and several doubles. With The Voyage, a significant change in style is initiated. Its world is much less Gothic and the war theme has receded into the background, but the 1. Introduction 39 abominations are still prominently there — if less abundant — and so are the questions on identity and doubles. Philip Caputo himself claimed that “ I meant it [The Voyage] to be different. In previous books, my theme was mainly war or its aftereffects, its aftermath. The first two novellas, in Exiles, were my first baby steps out of that theme ” ( “ Rumor ” 11). He added that “ . . . I couldn ’ t go back to telling war stories now even if I wanted to. I don ’ t know what else I could say about it. For me war is a topic that ’ s exhausted. It holds no mystery for me ” (12). Even if the first two short novels of Exiles as well as The Voyage are no longer typical war stories, they still share a lot with their predecessors in terms of identity development and the Gothic mode. The Voyage also initiates the start into Caputo ’ s new style, so far represented by Acts of Faith and Crossers. Whereas identity is still a theme, particularly in the former, these works are now widely devoid of Gothic elements, including the doubles, despite the fact that Acts of Faith is for all practical purposes still a war story. Thus, I have decided to include The Voyage in this study as, in terms of identity and the Gothic, its relation to the earlier works is just as significant as its role of the initiator of the new style continued by the two most recent novels. In the following chapter, I shall discuss the Gothic literary tradition as it is relevant to the further treatment of Caputo ’ s works, particularly with reference to identity. 40 1. Introduction 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles If one considers the literature by (Vietnam War) authors such as Caputo from the point of view of identity, the realm of the Gothic is not far away. According to Linda Dryden, “ Gothic fiction is often a literature of transformations where identity is unstable and sanity a debatable state of being ” (19). Cyndy Hendershot mentions that, “ The Gothic fragments stable identity and stable social order ” (1), while Jerrold E. Hogle states that, “ The Gothic mode begins . . . by employing the deliberate fictionality of the ‘ terror sublime ’ to both draw us toward and protect us from virtually all that we might associate with the destruction of our presumed identities ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 15, italics in original). Fred Botting affirms that Gothic representations are a product of cultural anxieties about the nature of human identity, the stability of cultural formations, and processes of change. As a result the representations are influenced by the cultures that produce them: evil is located in the past or the future, whether it be aristocratic excess for an eighteenth-century bourgeoisie or genetic experimentation for a late twentieth-century consumer culture. ( “ Aftergothic ” 280, italics in original) If one considers major definitions and explanations of Gothic, it becomes clear how it represents a fitting way to act as a messenger for something that is not intellectually understandable by readers unaffected by a traumatising experience. The Gothic has always striven to transcend reason and rationality. According to Linda Dryden, “ The Gothic novel was lurid and emotionally fraught, a counterpoint to the Enlightenment Age of Reason: it was a fiction of the senses ” (25). Fred Botting explains, Indeed, it is as explorations of mysterious supernatural energies, immense natural forces, and deep, dark human fears and desires that gothic texts apparently found their appeal. Emerging at a time when enlightenment reason, science and empiricism were in the ascendancy, the attraction of Gothic darkness, passion, superstition or violence came from prohibition and taboos, and was not the positive expression of hidden natural instincts and wishes: the newly dominant order produced, policed and maintained its antitheses, opposites enabling the distinction and discrimination of its own values and anxieties. ( “ The Gothic ” 2 - 3) If a traumatic experience is not compatible with an “ enlightened ” worldview, the Gothic offers an alternative in that it is anti-Enlightenment, anti-rational. Gothic literature was frequently the target of unfavourable criticism, at first being viewed as a mere device to evoke a cheap thrill in the reader. It was a term of critical abuse in contemporary reviews perturbed by the rise and rapid spread of a new species of fiction that refused neoclassical realistic and didactic aesthetic rules. The Gothic genre - or modern romance as it was often called - was regularly attacked: its subject matter, its form, themes, modes of representation and its perceived effects on readers, were seen as a ‘ flood ’ , a ‘ deluge ’ , an ever-encroaching sea eroding the rocks of good taste and decorum and leaving only a pernicious and depraved appetite for adventures, thrills and sensations in its wake. Hostile critical tones denounce the threat of fiction as endangering not only aesthetic values, but moral and social values as well: painting vice in attractive colours, romances encouraged readers to eschew the virtues of order and decency, of respect for social mores and familial duties, of chaste habits and disciplined, rational reflection. (Botting and Townshend 1) With reference to the traumatic, however, it appears inappropriate to be limited by “ aesthetic values ” or the portrayal within the frame of “ order and decency ” . In its place, the Gothic offers an alternative to the realistic representative mode, which is in itself unable to present this too-realistic experience of the traumatic: for an age that imagined itself civilised, ordered, enlightened, Gothic productions harked back to a barbaric, feudal, wild era, unformed, if not deformed. Eighteenthcentury reviewers consistently complained at the deformity of works from or in the style of the ‘ Gothic ’ period (the word comes to embrace anything that is not classical in inspiration). This deformity, both aesthetic and moral, is a mark of monstrosity, of the complete otherness of Gothic and romantic works. In fiction, it is allied to tales that have no relation to reality or nature, that offer impossible and supernatural events, over-idealised characters and improbable plots. They are, it is repeatedly affirmed, ‘ out of nature ’ , unnatural according to the neoclassical models of mimetic representation by which nature is already subsumed within an ordered perspective. (Botting and Townshend 4) If something that is real but not portrayable in a realistic way, then something “ out of nature ” remains the only option to depict what is actual in nature but not visible to those who are not traumatised. Linda Dryden explains, “ The Gothic is infinitely suggestive, and the fact that so much of the horror is left unarticulated, unspeakable, is symptomatic of the genre, because Gothic horror is meant to be beyond human understanding . . . ” (28). If it is “ beyond human understanding ” , it is apparently the right tool for describing something that is equally beyond human understanding, for instance the effects of modern warfare. Incidentally, a shift from “ good ” to “ bad ” taste is equally discernible within popular culture in the 1970 s. Richard Slotkin argues that the demise of the western movie and its replacement by the horror film did not accidentally happen during the time of the Vietnam War. Movies representing traditional virtue were no longer in demand. Instead, modern versions of traditional Gothic tales proliferated (Slotkin 634 - 35). Correspondingly, Carol Clover argues that the then new slasher film undermined conventional views of masculine bravery. Indeed, the similarities between reports from the Vietnam 42 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles War and the plots of films such as Wes Craven ’ s Last House on the Left (1972) or Sean S. Cunningham ’ s Friday the 13th (1980) seem to be too great to be merely coincidental: teenagers in the wilderness, hunted down by ruthless enigmatic killers, mercilessly stabbed to death, and all of this shown on movie and television screens. Later on, there were cases where the Vietnam War theme was incorporated into horror movies, such as Steve Miner ’ s House (1986) and Adrian Lyne ’ s Jacob ’ s Ladder (1990). Indeed, the Gothic mode is not restricted to an historical time frame, even if originally there was a strong tendency to set Gothic stories in a pre-Enlightenment era: “ The setting of the first Gothic novels in a remote historical time seems in itself an almost symbolic reenactment of the need to go back from the concealing refinements of civilization to the fundamentals of human nature ” (MacAndrew 47). Corresponding to the graphic violence in the post-western late twentieth-century horror film, “ The medieval setting was soon abandoned for a contemporaneous one, . . . as if to bring home the depicted evil to the reader ’ s own time ” (MacAndrew 48). Even so, the idea of the Gothic retains a close connection to past events or primitive states that the present has for some reason not overcome: . . . a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space - be it a castle, a foreign palace, an abbey, a vast prison, a subterranean crypt, a graveyard, a primeval frontier or island, a large old house or theatre, an aging city or urban underworld, a decaying storehouse, factory, laboratory, public building, or some new recreation of an older venue, such as an office with old filing cabinets, an overworked spaceship, or a computer memory. Within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story. (Hogle, “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 2) Correspondingly, Gothic works of literature have proliferated at several stages in literary history: “ Gothic in particular has been theorized as an instrumental genre, reemerging cyclically, at periods of cultural stress, to negotiate the anxieties that accompany social and epistemological transformations and crises ” (Hurley 5). Indeed, it can be regarded as a literary tool that is applicable in otherwise entirely non-Gothic circumstances: “ The Gothic ’ s disruptive potential is partly predicated on its lack of respect for generic boundaries . . . while the Gothic may have been a genre at the end of the eighteenth century, it increasingly became a mode in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The disruptive Gothic resists territorialization by invading other genres ” (Hendershot 1); and “ . . . the Gothic works not so much to break entirely with realism but slowly to contaminate it by introducing an unassimilable force ” (Hendershot 2). Gothic elements can therefore infiltrate a reasonable story and pervert it to a less reasonable one. This is what happens in Caputo ’ s 1980 s ’ and 1990 s ’ 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 43 works of fiction. While the plots of the novels start off in rational narrative frames with characters who find themselves well situated within an intellectually definable identity, Gothic elements appear and affect the characters, particularly with respect to their identities, at an increasing rate. While the novels cannot be attributed to the Gothic genre, they certainly feature elements of a Gothic mode. The Gothic mode in Caputo is especially noteworthy in that is has to be considered as part of American literary history. Eric Savoy has observed that “ an optimistic country founded upon the Enlightenment principles of liberty and ‘ the pursuit of happiness, ’ a country that supposedly repudiated the burden of history and its irrational claims, has produced a strain of literature that is haunted by an insistent, undead past and fascinated by the strange beauty of sorrow ” (167). Donald A. Ringe suggests that compared to their British counterparts, American writers who made use of the Gothic, tended more towards rational explanations of the originally inexplicable Gothic events depicted in their works: “ The world is rationally ordered and operates by natural law. It is only in the minds of men that frightening apparitions — the phantoms of the imagination — appear ” (Ringe 27); and “ Since most American readers were thoroughly imbued with a fundamental rationalism, those writers could simply dismiss with a reasonable explanation whatever Gothic effects they had created to satisfy the literary taste of their audience ” (Ringe 133). In Caputo ’ s works, instances of truly inexplicable events are also rare, and if they are there — as happens briefly in Horn of Africa, but more prominently in Indian Country, “ Standing In ” and “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , the first and third stories of Exiles: Three Short Novels — it is left open whether there is a logical explanation or not. In this context, Caputo stands in line with his compatriots. Whereas they employ some of the paraphernalia of Gothic fiction — presentiments, prophetic dreams, the haunted house, the mysterious picture, and assorted apparitions — these elements are seldom given the prominence they had previously had in Gothic writing. Usually underplayed and made subordinate to the predominant realism of the stories, they serve as suggestive hints that the occult is at least possible. But the main focus of attention is most often the character who has the unusual experience, and the major interest in the tale is in his psychological condition. (Ringe 183) The Gothic in Caputo shows not only that such ungraspable influences are ubiquitous in the world, but also that such unrealistic representations, perhaps paradoxically, maintain that what appears to be real and reasonably comprehensible turns out to be unreal, a figment in the minds of those who have never had the misfortune to be affected by the über-reality of events such as war, at whose description a conventional realistic mode fails. 44 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles Indeed, the war theme can in many ways be regarded as related to the Gothic. In this context, it is essential to mention the distinction between the concepts of Terror Gothic and Horror Gothic. Hogle states that Terror Gothic “ holds characters and readers mostly in anxious suspense about threats to life, safety, and sanity kept largely out of sight or in shadows or suggestions from a hidden past . . . ” . Horror Gothic “ confronts the principal characters with the gross violence of physical or psychological dissolution, explicitly shattering the assumed norms (including the repressions) of everyday life with wildly shocking, and even revolting, consequences ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 3). The new style of war fiction, as discussed in the Introduction, is closely akin to both. The frequent acts of atrocities that are integral parts of any war, however, are clearly “ horrors ” that non-veterans are unable to visualise, for they cannot be simply told, but have to be sensed in other ways. More so than “ terror ” , they are directly correlated to trauma literature. Caputo himself admits that “ I ’ m very visceral; I try to get across the physical reality and, through an appeal to the physical senses, the emotional reality of a particular situation ” (Caputo, “ Conversation ” 40). Such a perspective has frequently been neglected in typical criticism of Vietnam War literature: “ Trauma literature demonstrates the unbridgeable gap between writer and reader and thus defines itself by the impossibility of its task — the communication of the traumatic experience. This inherent contradiction within literature by Vietnam veterans has been ignored or misunderstood by all of the critics of Vietnam War literature ” (Tal, “ Speaking the Language of Pain ” 218). If veteran writers strive to achieve that “ we [the readers] too will see as they see ” (Tal, “ Speaking the Language of Pain ” 243), the effort at first seems pointless. Tal affirms that . . . the task of the traumatized author is an impossible one. For if the goal is to convey the traumatic experience, no second-hand rendering of it is adequate. The horrific events that have reshaped the author ’ s construction of reality can only be described in literature, not recreated. Only the experience of trauma has the traumatizing effect. The combination of the drive to testify and the impossibility of recreating the event for the reader is one of the defining characteristics of trauma literature. (Worlds of Hurt 121) If the traumatic experience can “ only be described in literature, not recreated ” , an alternative to description and recreation must be attempted. In Caputo ’ s case, this is the Gothic, and, in its uncompromising brutality, particularly the Horror Gothic. It seems ironic that, of all people, Tal has described Caputo as a “ mediocre pop-trash novelist ” (Worlds of Hurt 73), which seems indicative of the way many Gothic works were originally dispraised. 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 45 We have already seen that the literature of the American Civil War is in many ways related to that of the Vietnam War. More concretely, Ringe mentions Ambrose Bierce as an author who used horror in war tales (185) and made use of “ the Gothic mode ” (186). David M. Owens asserts that “ Many of [Bierce ’ s] war stories produce a fundamental, visceral reaction from his readers . . . ” (xii), recalling Horror Gothic. Considering the use of unrealistic elements when dealing with a too realistic situation, Bierce ’ s achievement is partly comparable to Caputo ’ s: “ Specifically, when Bierce tells a ghost or supernatural story, he tends to set it in a very specific location. The details of the setting are very trueto-life, and there are no significant modifications to extant features ” (Owens 66). These circumstances correspond well to the aim of depicting something that is too real to be realistically portrayed. Supernatural elements infest the realist surroundings. In his comparison of the Civil War literature by John William De Forest and Ambrose Bierce, Michael W. Schaefer affirms that, with De Forest, “ despite its undeniable horrors — a terrifying lack of understanding of one ’ s circumstances and the imminent prospect of ghastly wounds and sudden death — battle is rationally assimilable and intellectually manageable for the individual combatant through a recourse to history, whether that history is presented on its own or embedded in a work of fiction ” (69). He emphasises that “ . . . while De Forest refuses to dwell extensively on battle ’ s ghastliness, Bierce often seems to focus on nothing else ” (76). Bierce, as Caputo, combines the use of irrational occurrences and graphic descriptions of atrocities, whereas In De Forest ’ s view the good soldier remains in control of himself by managing battle intellectually, through recourse to his reading of realistic military history and other forms of preparatory training. In Bierce ’ s view, on the other hand, such preparation does no good, for battle has no meaning that can be managed intellectually, either in the heat of the moment or later in a history book. History is pointless, and conventional concepts of heroism or “ coolness ” are pointless; the good soldier controls himself not through any such notions or through concepts of the rightness of his cause, but rather simply because . . . the only alternative is to lose control. (Schaefer 127) In this way, Bierce can somewhat be regarded as the creator of what would become the general tone of Vietnam War literature, where a large number of authors have focused on the immediate gruesome reality of the war instead of its implications within an intellectualised concept of history, recalling the ideological gap between veteran writers and non-veteran critics as described by Tal. Schaefer is well aware of the implications that Bierce ’ s style has on the literature of the war that occurred a century after the one in which he had participated: The knowledge and assumptions of a modern American audience of engaged readers, as well as their understanding of the nature and conventions of the genre of the war 46 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles story, are derived largely from the literature of the Vietnam War, including the reportage and fiction of Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford, and Tim O ’ Brien, as well as the films of Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, and Oliver Stone, to name just a few examples. Given this intellectual and aesthetic background, a modern audience would seem likely to accept as both accurate and true Bierce ’ s explicitly subjective, hallucinatory representations, in which conventional, traditional ideals of honor and duty are the paths to despair and death, and concomitantly to reject De Forest ’ s largely impersonal, calmly straightforward depictions, with their implicit message that in their emphasis on duty and honor they provide models for future combatants. (Schaefer 133) To many Vietnam War authors as well as to Bierce, “ . . . combat is an ahistorical nightmare that every man must confront anew ” (132), and Bierce “ create[d] a body of work that for the first time in American literary history does not to the slightest extent gloss over the physical and psychological terrors of battle ” (130). In Caputo ’ s case, as in Bierce ’ s, the use of Gothic elements is not limited to descriptions of war as such. We have seen that few of his fictional works are set in a war itself. Indeed, what is most remarkable in comparison with his contemporaries, some of whom are mentioned by Schaefer, is that these horrific elements are taken out of the context of war and turn out to be lurking underneath everywhere. Even though most works are somewhat related to the Vietnam War, they present a world which is Gothic as such. The horror turns out to be inescapable for the simple reason that human beings are the most genuinely Gothic occurrences of all. This is realised in that the characters ’ identities change. Laurie Vickroy mentions that “ Each text depicts oral testimonials; voices end silences that disguise the heretofore unspeakable and reassert marginal lives by re-creating their racial, class, and gender identities ” (168). This fact corresponds well with a typical Gothic maxim: “ To assert that something is too horrible to be spoken of is the privileged utterance of the Gothic . . . ” (Hurley 48). With the über-reality of war, a depiction of the originally “ unspeakable ” , here viewed in relation to three major dimensions of social identity, is attempted. The characters develop from a concept easily definable within the sphere of social identity into a state of utter ghastliness. To Elizabeth MacAndrew, “ Gothic fiction gives shape to concepts of the place of evil in the human mind ” (3). War is depicted as inherently evil because people are generically revealed as uncanny apparitions and abominable figures. There are numerous Gothic elements and occurrences throughout the six works. Some typical themes, however, have a recurring character, among them the concepts of mental illness, sexual violence and mysterious family heritage. According to Elizabeth MacAndrew, “ Gothic novels reflect the association of mental illness with violent crime ” (147). In several stories, there are characters 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 47 affected by mental illnesses. In Horn of Africa, Jeremy Nordstrand emphasises his contempt toward his mother, who suffered from mental problems, whereas it appears as likely that his strong egomania may have been caused by psychological problems inherited from his mother. In keeping with MacAndrew ’ s statement, Nordstrand is the perpetrator of numerous hideous crimes. In Indian Country, a mental illness also stands at the centre of the plot development, in that the protagonist Christian Starkmann is afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which causes him to perform acts of violence against others. The crime that is the focus of Equation for Evil is so awful that it can hardly be thought possible without its being the consequence of insanity. One of the murderers, Mace Weathers, is indeed afflicted by several neuroses, and he is eventually found out by an investigation which involves a psychiatrist, Leander Heartwood. In the plot of “ Standing In ” , the strings are pulled by an at first seemingly sympathetic character, Greer Rhodes, who turns out to be greatly disturbed, living in an imaginary world. Even if she does not perform physical violence, she assaults the protagonist, Dante Panetta, psychically and cunningly attempts to take over his life. A second major Gothic element that frequently occurs is sexual violence. As MacAndrew states, “ From the beginning, Gothic fiction is preoccupied with sexual assault ” (168). In almost all works, there is at least one sex scene, but it is hardly ever presented as an aesthetically pleasing, harmonious act. Perhaps surprisingly, the only full-length novel in which it does not appear is Horn of Africa, the one that focuses on gender identity. This fact indicates that the role of sex in Caputo ’ s fiction is not related to any “ chauvinist ” display of masculinity. Instead, the way in which it is depicted is readable as a Gothic occurrence. As Cyndy Hendershot mentions, “ For the Victorians sexuality frequently was troped as the animal within. Man could distance himself from his origins in all other areas of life, but sexuality reminded him of his base origin, reminded him that he copulated in a manner similar to animals ” (103). Indeed, in Caputo ’ s fiction, sexuality is treated as being reminiscent of humanity ’ s beastliness. In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, the sexual element is fairly weak, but the protagonists ’ sexual desires are repeatedly referred to. Indian Country is considerably more graphic in this respect. Several scenes are depicted in detail, including the protagonist Christian Starkmann ’ s gruesome sexual violation of his wife. Equation for Evil also has recurring graphic descriptions of sex scenes, even though they are not as destructive as those in the preceding novel. In “ Standing In ” , the sexual act is in one instance compared to an impalement (Caputo, Exiles 127). “ Paradise ” features a scene in which the lack of passion in the sexual act is emphasised (Caputo, Exiles 223), whereas the theme is again absent in “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , which does not feature any female characters. Finally, The Voyage, which is “ less Gothic ” in 48 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles style than the others, also features a graphic scene and a character who has been sexually abused by a member of her family. The third classical Gothic aspect to recur throughout the works, mysterious family relations, is perhaps the most significant. Hogle mentions that “ . . . the features of the Anglo-European-American Gothic have helped to prefigure and shape Freud ’ s notion of Oedipal conflict in the middle-class family. In some way the Gothic is usually about some ‘ son ’ both wanting to kill and striving to be the ‘ father ’ and thus feeling fearful and guilty about what he most desires . . . ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 5). MacAndrew views the theme as the basis of the original Gothic novel: “ The incest motif fits with precision into the central theme of Otranto — that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children ” (85). Even in Horn of Africa, familial heritage is of great concern to some characters. Jeremy Nordstrand ’ s only fear is that he may be too much like his father, whom he despises as a weakling, whereas Patrick Moody ’ s goal is to become worthy of the role as his father ’ s son, to which he feels committed. One of Indian Country ’ s major causes of conflict is the protagonist ’ s difficult relationship to his father and his struggle to rebel against him, an undertaking which eventually turns out to have been futile. In Equation for Evil, the investigators find themselves in the position of having to expose the dark background of an adopted child ’ s mysterious ancestry; the secret that will lead them to solve the murder case turns out to be hidden in Mace Weathers ’ s relationship to his biological parents, which is revealed to have been quite distressing. “ Standing In ” also revolves around an adopted young man. In contrast to Mace, both his origin and his death remain shrouded in mysterious circumstances; a greater mystery ensues when the protagonist, who is his exact look-alike and has incidentally had a troublesome relationship with his own father, enters the life of his adoptive parents. The two sons ’ relationships to their one surrogate mother is at least in part Oedipal. Not surprisingly, however, the work that treats the theme in greatest detail is The Voyage, the novel with a main focus on familial identity. Its plot revolves around members of several generations of the Braithwaite family, one of whom has taken on the task to shed light onto a controversial occurrence in her family ’ s history, and who ends up exposing several scandalous secrets related to the parenthood of a number of her relatives. This concept of “ the sins of the fathers ” and the inability to escape its influence turns out to be one of the strongest links between Caputo ’ s fiction and Gothic literature. Whereas numerous Gothic elements abound in all the works treated besides those introduced above, the principal focus of the Gothic in Caputo ’ s works is closely related to identity. The first way in which this relation is made is represented in the stark and frequent depiction of atrocious bodies. In Caputo, the body assumes pre-eminence in the revised realisation of identity. It is all- 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 49 pervasive. The self, the partly independent element of identity, is marginalised in the overwhelming reality of the body, and the body virtually turns out to reveal itself as the principal determining factor with reference to identity. Whereas it was stated in the Introduction that two dimensions of social identity, gender and race, were strongly linked to the body, they, too, turn out to be too abstract to be considered in this context. They are equally irrelevant in the face of the deformed and pained body, where all abstract thinking comes to an end. In his treatment of Elaine Scarry ’ s view of the body in pain, Steven Bruhm states that . . . what pain effects is a return of the body to a pre-Cartesian body - where mind and body are inseparable - at the same time as it pits the mind firmly against the body. Pain confounds one aspect of dualism (the primacy of mind over body) by evoking another aspect of dualism (the body ’ s perceived estrangement from the self). What is perhaps most singularly remarkable about this confusion, then, is the way pain destabilizes Cartesian thinking, in which the mind is separated from and privileged over the body. (Gothic Bodies 9, italics in original) Correspondingly, Pain reinscribes in our experience the mind/ body division, and gives the body a mastery that bourgeois society at least since the seventeenth century (if not since Plato) has tried to resist. This mastery gets expressed, I think, in both the Romantic emphasis on the imagination and the post-structuralist emphasis on discursive constructivism: nothing exists but as it is perceived. But pain, by attacking the body, attacks this antihumanist assumption, and poses serious questions about the limits that discourse can have on the body. (149) The body in pain is oblivious of rationality, and “ For all the thinking that we have devoted to pain at least since the mid-eighteenth century, pain is still a phenomenon that remains to a large degree anti-intellectual, antihumanist, and anti-antihumanist ” (150). Edmund Burke mentions that “ . . . the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labour, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime; and nothing else in this sense can produce it ” (127). The Gothic body stands as the antithesis to earlier, culturally motivated notions and constructions of identity. According to Bruhm, “ [Norman] Bryson argues that for Delacroix, as for Freud, culture is a move away from primal urges, but only to have those urges return as various forms of discontent ” (Gothic Bodies xiv). Social concepts of identity are part of that culture. In a Gothic version of identity, however, human beings show that they are incessantly able to regress to a non-cultured state. Commenting on trauma literature, Laurie Vickroy states that “ Many of the characters portrayed struggle with experiences of dehumanization so raw that holding onto their humanity becomes a precarious and conflicted process, and inevitably an 50 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles ambivalent sense of identity and conscience arise [sic] out of such traumatic contexts, where humans were daily reduced to animal or object status ” (34). Late nineteenth-century Gothic offers a fitting literary treatment of this subject: “ The motif of human devolution occurs again and again in the finde-siècle Gothic, sometimes as a means of literalizing the ‘ beastliness ’ of which humans are capable, sometimes as a means of demonstrating the cruel randomness of motiveless Nature ” (Hurley 63), for “ . . . urgent rage and sexual desire, the love of hunting and killing, are still as strong in ‘ civilized ’ humanity as they were in Stone Age peoples; the civilized person only keeps these strong emotions in check through the ‘ artificial ’ devices of social breeding and education ” (64). Hendershot states that “ Gothic bodies disrupt stable notions of what it means to be human ” (9); and Elizabeth MacAndrew affirms that Gothic novels make “ monstrosity the outward show of the terrible inner distortion of man ’ s innate good nature into evil ” (24). Correspondingly, the Gothic body can be viewed as a manifestation of Freud ’ s uncanny. Bruhm explains the relation in closer detail: This fear of bodily violation, Freud argues, displaces another, more primal, yet equally physical dread: the fear of castration. The castration complex, he suggests, is symptomatic - indeed a foundation - of our fear of injury, death, and the dead body that constitutes our experience of the uncanny. In one sense, then, it is a repressed body - the eye, the penis, physical power in general - that returns in our daily experience to be defined as the uncanny. (Gothic Bodies xv, italics in original) With identity ’ s shift from abstract social concepts towards the deformed body, human identity also becomes uncanny to the bearers of that identity. The atrocities depicted in Caputo ’ s fiction find their counterparts in older Gothic representations, particularly with reference to the ubiquitous identity theme. As Bruhm affirms, “ . . . the pained body in Gothic fiction becomes the conduit through which one ’ s identity vacillates - now felt, now numbed; now empowered, now silenced; now self, now other - and through which one relates to others and invites others to relate to oneself ” (Gothic Bodies 148). Succinctly put, “ I hurt, therefore I am ” (Bruhm, Gothic Bodies 119). This statement is also made in Equation for Evil (36) and indicates one of the final revelations of what identity is in Caputo ’ s fiction. The body is still uncontrollable and therefore remains a prime element in Gothic stories. Hogle acknowledges that “ . . . the body, albeit in different ways, is just as much the focus of horror and hidden potentials in a great deal of the Anglo-American and British Gothic of the 1980 s-90 s ” ( “ The Gothic at Our Turn of the Century ” 164). In Caputo the body is, first, undeniably real, and, second, undeniably Gothic. True human identity and the atrocities that one is able to perform simply because of who and what one is can therefore only be understood by making use of the 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 51 Gothic mode. It represents the unreasonable and the illogical but is the only way to describe what cannot be described reasonably and tastefully. As Hogle states, “ The Gothic clearly exists, in part, to raise the possibility that all ‘ abnormalities ’ we would divorce from ourselves are a part of ourselves, deeply and pervasively (hence frighteningly), even while it provides quasi-antiquated methods to help us place such ‘ deviations ’ at a definite, though haunting, distance from us ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 12). The human being is the most Gothic occurrence of all; war and comparable atrocities are the logical consequences of this fact. The role that (often devastated) human bodies play in Caputo ’ s works is comparable to how the subject is treated by Kelly Hurley in her study The Gothic Body. She describes how in late nineteenth century Gothic literature the human body was frequently depicted as an abominable apparition to shock the reader. In Caputo as well as in Victorian Gothic fiction, the importance of the body in the reformation of identity is epitomised in the graphic depiction of atrocities: “ More graphic than before, soliciting a more visceral readerly response than before, the fin-de-siècle Gothic manifests a new set of generic strategies . . . which function maximally to enact the defamiliarization and violent reconstitution of the human subject ” (Hurley 4). The focus on the effect that such repulsive portrayals have are echoed in Caputo: Nausea throws the subject back into the immediate and unmistakable experience of his own body, affording the subject concrete proof of his own reality, his own undeniable, material Thing-ness, if not of his meaningfulness. As the outlines of the human body dissolve - indeed, as the whole universe around it threatens to dissolve into Thing-ness - the reader is consoled with bodily sensation, however fleeting, however nauseating. (Hurley 51) In Caputo ’ s fiction, “ the whole universe around ” the characters equally “ threatens to dissolve into Thing-ness ” . The whole world, not only the war-torn portions, assumes numerous Gothic qualities. Within this sphere, the body is correspondingly to be of “ undeniable, material Thing-ness, if not of . . . meaningfulness ” . Previous conceptions of identity are thus rendered void. In its place steps the reality of the body, which is abominable, Gothic in nature. We human beings lose control over identity not merely by having others impose a view of identity on us, but by being confronted with a view that is too real to be questioned by ourselves or others and that is not open to compromise or perspective. That reality is undeniable yet at the same time uninterpretable: In place of a human body stable and integral (at least, liable to no worse than the ravages of time and disease), the fin-de-siècle Gothic offers the spectacle of a body metamorphic and undifferentiated; in place of the possibility of human transcendence, the prospect of an existence circumscribed within the realities of gross corporeality; in place of a 52 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles unitary and securely bounded human subjectivity, one that is both fragmented and permeable. (Hurley 3) The body that reveals itself cannot be reconstructed into a new from of controllable identity. Instead, it remains unapproachable in its hideousness: Matter is no longer subordinate to form, because attempts formally to classify matter, such as the attempt to stabilize the meanings of “ human identity, ” are provisional and stop-gap measures at best. Within such a reality, in other words, bodies are without integrity or stability; they are instead composite and changeful. Nothing is left but Things: forms rent from within by their own heterogeneity, and always in the process of becoming-Other. (Hurley 9) The idea of what is “ other ” is firmly established here, but is not fully comprehensible, as believed within the bounds of social identity: “ A ‘ fully human ’ identity requires the subject to be one thing or the other, male or female, the essential qualities of each defined through their relation of contradistinction. To take on the non-identity of a Thing is to be removed from the traditional field of sexual difference, to become an It, rather than a him or her ” (Hurley 149). The Gothic body is at the same time same and also not same. It affirms that one is what one strives not to be. Botting affirms that “ Horror is supposed to engender rapid recoil from extreme images of otherness, but a lingering fascination testifies to its proximity ” (Gothic Romanced 144). In Caputo ’ s “ Horror Gothic ” , several uncanny figures are not only the sad product of war, but they are already present everywhere, also in circumstances unaffected by war. Human beings turn out to always have been such abominable creatures who are naturally capable of committing atrocities in war and elsewhere. According to Botting, “ Formless, vile, shapes of revulsion and recognition, abhumanity defines the outer limits of monstrosity, corporeal ‘ Things ’ from supernatural and scientific dimensions that include vampires, chimeras, hybrids and zombies ” (Gothic Romanced 144). Chimera-, hybridand zombie-like apparitions abound in Caputo ’ s fiction and epitomise the innate ghastliness that is present in the human being. In his Late Thoughts on an Old War, Beidler describes a dead body in a particularly Gothic way: “ I zip open the body bag, and out he comes, face first, the rest of him in a fetal crouch, arms and legs drawn up in front like some dreadful insect mutation. Later I find out that is what dead bodies often do. Everything — head, limbs, torso — is covered in a kind of viscous, translucent slime, the stuff used in monster movies ” (38). Michael Bibby states, “ . . . once having witnessed the atrocity of war, the soldier can never again see human bodies as normal ” (151). In Caputo, such entities appear at any time and in any place and question any favourable view of identity on the part of the onlooker. With reference to trauma, Laurie Vickroy affirms 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 53 that “ Survivors ’ painful connection to past trauma is also displayed and replayed through the body, even branded into their flesh ” (32); and “ Trauma writers make the suffering body the small, focused universe of the tormented and a vehicle for rendering unimaginable experience tangible to readers ” (32 - 33). Caputo goes a step further. A stark representation of an abominable body still has too weak an effect, so he makes use of additional Gothic elements to tell the story which would be too real to be understood by readers who have not experienced something comparable. The second major Gothic feature in relation to identity which is ubiquitous in Caputo ’ s fiction of the 1980 s and 1990 s is the doppelgänger or double. Linda Dryden affirms the importance of the role that the double has with reference to identity in Gothic literature: “ This double, or doppelgänger, is the recurring trope that writers of Gothic fiction utilized in their exploration of the issue of identity ” (38). More evidently than what concerns the Gothic body, “ The literature of duality is, at its most obvious level, a literature about identity, or even lack of identity ” (39). Whereas a body represents an inescapable reality, “ Fictions of duality . . . remind us of who we know we are, and also of who we do not know we are . . . ” (42). Even so, in accordance with the deformed body, the double portrays that part of identity that was previously hidden, as it was hidden within the artificially made-up body. The relevance of the theme of “ doubleness ” in Caputo ’ s body of work has already been recognised by Cornelius A. Cronin with reference to A Rumor of War, about which he states, What separates Caputo ’ s Vietnam soldiers from the soldiers of World War II is this doubleness, this clear sense that evil and good are inextricably mixed in war, and that the soldiers must see themselves as individuals capable of acting and therefore capable of performing evil actions. World War I and II soldiers tended to see themselves as passive, as being acted upon by the war and by their societies. The anger that the soldier-writers of earlier wars turn upon their societies the Vietnam soldier-writers tend to turn upon themselves. (215) Whereas the deformed body epitomises the depravity of a human being, a sense of “ doubleness ” additionally indicates that evil is present in characters who are seemingly unaffected by deformation. In contrast to the body, there can be the sense of ambivalence concerning the identity of such people. Caputo himself has said that “ I saw a horror and . . . it happened to be myself ” (Philip Caputo Interview). With regard to A Rumor of War, he has also mentioned, “ Well, about my experience, it illustrates how you can become something you never thought you would become, without being aware of the transformation. That there is evil in you, or violence in you, or both — which you ’ re not fully aware of — and that it can sneak up and in effect posses you, or snatch your soul ” ( “ Conversation ” 16). He admits that “ I had found a darkness within myself, a kind of 54 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles evil twin I hadn ’ t realized was in me ” ( “ The Coils of Memory ” 181), and refers to “ . . . my own personal Mr. Hyde, the secret sharer of my soul ” (184). Within the frame of American war literature, the figure of the double was prominently used by Ambrose Bierce. In his dissertation The Double Motif in the Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Damian Nacco writes extensively about the theme in the Civil War writer ’ s body of work. He states that “ Bierce extends the figure of the double, which appears in many of his stories, to reflect his dissatisfaction with the limitations of contemporary realistic aesthetic and to express his pessimistic perspective on developing nineteenth century concepts of human psychology and his philosophical view of the double-edged human psyche ” (1). Additionally, Foremost, Bierce ’ s original concept of the doppelganger is based on his deterministic view of human psychology and biology. That is, rather than regarding the double in the traditional sense as strictly a wraith or some daemon spirit that exists entirely in the spiritual world, Bierce ’ s stories almost exclusively deal with the conflict between the rational mind of humankind and the primitive, entirely atavistic, superstitions and fears that surface during the moment of crisis. (25 - 26) Nacco proposes that the double is not in particular to be conceived of as an element typical of Gothic literature and he would not consider Bierce a Gothic writer (220). In view of Hendershot ’ s statement about the Gothic having become a mode rather than a genre (1), this affirmation by Nacco about Bierce seems irrelevant. The double ’ s manifold incarnations have been psychologically interpreted in various ways. As Paul Coates states, “ The figure of the Double is a recurrent one in folk legend. As a rule its appearance marks the imminence of death ” (32). According to Otto Rank, it was originally believed to be a representation of the soul and therefore symbolised eternal life after death: “ The thought of death is rendered supportable by assuring oneself of a second life, after this one, as a double ” (85). Freud also supports the thesis that “ . . . it seems likely that the ‘ immortal ’ soul was the first double of the body ” ( “ The Uncanny ” 142). This originally positive connotation of the double developed into a negative one, as the focus shifted to the soul leaving the body being a representation of impending physical death (Rogers 9). Having changed its role from being the immortal spiritual representation of a person whose mortal body is no longer capable of living to being seen as the vision of one ’ s own death, the double took on a new function: “ . . . originally created as a wish-defense against a dreaded eternal destruction, he [the double] reappears in superstition as the messenger of death ” (Rank 86). Correspondingly, Coates names it “ the emissary of death ” (3). In literature, the double was also originally positively connoted: “ Jean Paul Richter invented the term doppelgänger, and studied the 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 55 notion of fellowship, of the friend as alter ego . . . ” (Miller 49). Ralph Tymms affirms that “ Jean Paul ’ s characteristic Doppelgänger are pairs of friends (in the original sense of ‘ fellows, two of a pair ’ ), who together form a unit, but individually appear as a ‘ half ’ , dependent on the alter ego ” (29). Indeed, Karl Miller points out that in this type of duality, “ . . . the component parts may complete, resemble or repel one another ” (21). According to Ralph Tymms, Robert Rogers and Gordon E. Slethaug, two basic types of doubling in literature are discernible: doubling by division and doubling by multiplication. Rogers explains, . . . division involves the splitting up of a recognizable, unified psychological entity into separate, complementary, distinguishable parts represented by seemingly autonomous characters. Illustrative of doubling by multiplication would be the appearance in a story of several characters, all of whom are father figures representing a single concept of, or attitude toward, the father. (5) Slethaug states that “ In the process of doubling by multiplication, different characters represent the working out of a single ideal, problem, or attitude as opposed to doubling by division in which several characters represent opposing qualities ” (14). With doubling by division, one person ’ s characteristics are split onto two, with one of them now representing some of the original unified person ’ s qualities, and the second having acquired the opposing ones. It leads to two individuals with contrasting personalities but each without wholeness. Doubling by multiplication, on the other hand, results in several people who differ in their approach to their roles. The term “ multiplication ” , in particular, indicates that more than two entities can be created by doubling (Rogers 4). Doubling by division also appears to have the potential to yield more than two people onto whom opposing qualities can be distributed. These concepts indicate how doubles can in principle be good, bad or something in between. The double in literature is not a homogeneous appearance. Karl Miller emphasises that “‘ Duality ’ is a word which means that there are two of something, and which has also meant that some one thing or person is to be perceived as two ” (21). A frequently used distinction is that between the subjective and the objective double. To C. F. Keppler, the objective second self is the likeness of two separate bodies — corresponding to Miller ’ s “ two of something ” (21) — whereas the subjective second self is represented by one ’ s person ’ s split personality — what Miller describes as “ one thing or person . . . perceived as two ” (21). Keppler favours the representation of the double as that of a “ second self ” : “ Like ‘ Double ’ it suggests twofoldness without implying duplication; like ‘ inner self ’ it suggests a deeper relationship but not one that is confined to a state of mind ” (3). The actual “ second self ” , to Keppler, is a combination of both: 56 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles The objective second self possesses external reality, clearly independent of the first self, but lacks any sort of inward linkage or continuity with the latter; it is “ second, ” but not “ self. ” The subjective second self does share a basic psychical identity with the first self, but lacking external reality lacks any convincing simultaneous identity of its own; it is “ self, ” but not “ second. ” Therefore as the true second self is never either of these alone, so he is always, in some combination, and always at the same time, both together. (9 - 10) Rogers also uses the two terms, but in a partly different sense: “ . . . subject doubling represents conflicting drives, orientations, or attitudes without respect to their relation to other people, whereas object doubling displays inner conflict expressed in terms of antithetical or incompatible attitudes toward other people ” (5). The two views of subject doubling are similar, representing ambivalence of a person ’ s inner characteristics. In terms of object doubling, however, Keppler emphasises the role of (physical) similarity between different people, whereas Rogers views it as a case of inner relationship to others. Rogers ’ s treatment of doubles, like Miller ’ s, relies therefore to a lesser degree on cases of outward similarity than Keppler ’ s, but rather focusses mainly on inward affinities between characters, which he calls latent doubles as opposed to manifest doubles. When referring to subject doubling or object doubling, I will be applying Keppler ’ s distinction. In accordance with Keppler ’ s views, literary doubles frequently present a combination of outward similarity and inner relation, and several literary devices have come to serve as indications of doubling. On the one hand, there are certain visualisations that are frequently applied in this way. Rogers states that “ Of special interest is the widespread belief that shadows, reflections, and portraits of the body are the same as souls, or are at least vitally linked with the well-being of the body ” (7), and that “ A special genre of the manifest double is the mirror image, the projected self being not merely a similar self but an exact duplicate ” (19). Keppler mentions “ the shadow, the mirror image, the statue or bust, the portrait, and the waxen copy ” as “ non-human duplicates ” (6 - 7). On the other hand, there are physical objects and beings that take on the role of doubles: “ Figures resembling the primitive soul-double are ghosts, revenants, vampires, werewolves, the dolls of necromancy, the golem (and his modern counterpart, the robot), the mannikin, the thumbling, and the homunculus ” (Rogers 9). Rank affirms that sometimes “ . . . the uncanny double is clearly an independent and visible cleavage of the ego (shadow, reflection) . . . ” , and this is opposed to “ actual figures of the double who confront each other as real and physical persons of unusual external similarity, and whose paths cross ” (12). Such occurrences have developed into “ the most famous of all types of physical dualism, where the twofoldness is not between body and reflection or body and object but between body and body, as in cases of identical twinship or those 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 57 rarer and subtler cases where the linkage is not one of likeness but one of contrast ” (Keppler 4). The twin, as argued by Keppler, is considered the original occurrence of the physical literary double: . . . the Twin Brother, alone so far as I know among the figures of this ancient and primitive material, is genuinely an example of the second self, and the sole ancestor of the second self of creative literature. He is a product of the apparently age-old tendency of the human imagination to think of many of its subjects as a basic oneness divided into a simultaneous twoness, while still retaining the oneness and using it as a cohesive force to counterbalance the divisive force. He is unmistakably outside, but just as inescapably inside; his reality is always that of one in a pair. (18) The concept of the twin entails the still popular frequent rendering of the double as a look-alike, although over time the double has come to be represented in less obvious forms. In any case, the role of the double as a negative aspect is the one that has become predominant. In literary terms, Tymms credits the German Romantic E. T. A. Hoffmann with the “ innovation ” of “ the projection of the unconscious, and hitherto latent second self as a physical Doppelgänger, apparent to the senses ” (35). Corresponding to Nacco ’ s statement that “ Unique among doppelganger writers, Bierce accounts for his doubles scientifically by virtue of remote ancestral bonds in which physical as well as psychological and emotional traits resurface in distant generations of descendants ” (217), Hoffmann also repeatedly explained his doubles ’ physical likeness as being rooted in ancestry. What had once been a mental concept was turned into physical reality. The double ’ s appearance as a physical being has come to dominate over the earlier symbol of the spiritual soul. The double, then, has mainly been viewed as a sinister apparition. Keppler mentions that “ . . . predominantly the second self is a figure of menace and loathing . . . ” (189). As Rogers puts it, “ The conventional double is of course some sort of antithetical self, usually a guardian angel or tempting devil. Critics oriented toward psychology view the diabolic double, which predominates, as a character representing unconscious, instinctual drives ” (2). Paul Coates states that “ The Double can be said to crystallise under the concurrence of two conditions: when other people begin to be viewed as akin to ourselves; and when the self is projected into a space hitherto defined as other ” (32). The literary appearance of the double is sometimes viewed in connection with Jung ’ s Shadow. In Jung, “ The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real ” (8). More frequently, occurrences of doubles are related to Freud ’ s theory of the ego and the id. As “ The ego represents what may be called 58 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions ” ( “ The Ego and the Id ” 25), the ego and the id widely correspond to Keppler ’ s first and second selves, respectively. The conscious ego — or first self — of any human being “ strives to be moral ” , whereas the id — or second self — “ is totally non-moral ” ( “ The Ego and the Id ” 54). As we have seen, the term self is used by Weinreich as the partly autonomous aspect of the person, which constructs and deconstructs identity. Whereas the acting first self may have had greater autonomy in finding its way around identity before the arrival of the double, it is now restricted and compelled to take the second self into account. With the appearance of the double, a person ’ s identity assumes the classical quality of uncanniness. According to Freud, “ . . . the uncanny derives from what was once familiar and then repressed ” ( “ The Uncanny ” 153). The double makes such repressed elements resurface. It presents an inherent potential that one would like to disown. In Coates ’ s words, “ Fear of the Double is fear of self-knowledge ” (3). With reference to literature, Elizabeth MacAndrew explains the doubles figure, as she frequently terms it, as “ a horrifying, misshapen reflection of the distorted self ” (93). She affirms that The doubles figure showed that it was the nature of every man that the good in him must struggle in unending battle against the distortions of evil. It did so in a way that would make the reader accept their terrible certainty that this was true of himself, for it not only prevented him from rejecting the central character as evil; but, to the extent that he sympathized with that character, the double became a potential mirror image of himself as well. (50 - 51) As with deformed bodies, the double has the potential to negatively alter one ’ s view of identity. It, too, is an undeniable presence that is too terrible to acknowledge, yet, despite its irrationality, too real to be denied. Botting comprehensively explains, Like evil, the doubles that appear do not sustain the self in its narcissistic reflection on its other but loose a violently interrogative spiral of reflections and attempted exclusions. Evil, as it disrupts the defining limits of inside and outside, comes to signify a violence without origin, a violence that is at once constitutive and destructive, attractive and repulsive. The glimpse of an other face in the mirror which is and is not that of the selfsame also offers an askance reflection on the intimacy of the Other. ( “ Signs of Evil ” 310) Like the abominable body, the double is too much the same to be other. With the appearance of the double, any views of association and identification with a social group are extinguished, and original ideas of social identity are rendered immaterial. Benjamin Eric Daffron explains how a well-known aspect of social identity can be called into question by a double: “ . . . early Gothic 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 59 literature invented the double to represent an extreme effect of sympathy: a hypothetical moment when two sympathizers feel, think, and act so much alike that they appear virtually the same. This phenomenon, which often occurs before an international or an imperial backdrop, links the loss of self-possession to the loss of national identity ” (1). The double inevitably weakens the notion of national identity. Daffron emphasises that “ . . . Gothic literature placed threats to national and other identities at the forefront of the literary scene ” (9). As with the body, the double extinguishes any sense of social identity and confronts the self with what he or she undeniably is, irrespective of any abstract deliberation. Keppler makes a similar point: “ . . . the second self most often encountered in creative literature is akin to the most primitive concept of the Twin Brother in that he is the evil second self, whose malevolence, however, is not directed against the tribe as a whole but concentrated upon the person of his first-self counterpart ” (28). The double does not redefine “ the tribe as a whole ” . Identification as doubling relies neither on the self ’ s nor on other people ’ s supporting this new view of identity. Nacco affirms that “ When confronting death, corpses, ghosts or even one ’ s own double, human beings are incapable of acting in any way other than that dictated by inherited emotion. His [Ambrose Bierce ’ s] characters ’ behavior when confronting death and the prospect of their own extinction is entirely the result of primordial instincts ” (23). The double does not tell one how to act, but only makes one realise how one will act, irrespective of how one should act according to an abstract sense of identity. In whichever way and to whatever degree the double influences the first self ’ s identification process, its entry into the first self ’ s life is likely to happen without motivation from the first self. Whether it is a manifest or a latent double, through its embodiment it shows the potential of what the first self must be. Keppler views the double ’ s appearance as an act of fate: “ As every second-self story is a story of growth in the first self, so every second-self story is likewise a story of fate, the fate that demands this growth ” (196). The idea of fate is therefore inherent in the literature of the double. Jacqueline R. Smetak affirms that “ Caputo ’ s vision is fatalistic ” (163), and both Caputo and his precursor Ambrose Bierce share an interest in the Stoics (Nacco 89; Caputo, “ Rumor ” 14), who can equally be considered susceptible to fatalism. Even Beidler acknowledges that “ I am not so foolish as to think we can live lives other than the ones we are dealt ” (Late Thoughts 176). Caputo ’ s 20 th -century literature is fatalistic in that its characters are compelled to acknowledge unfavourable views of who they are. Gothic occurrences, including bodily abominations and doubles, abound throughout his works, but their proliferation invariably culminates in a final epiphanic revelation involving particularly uncanny and unpleasant doubles, indicating the final recognition of the protagonists ’ identities, the final stage of the “ growth ” to which Keppler 60 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles refers. Even though war is a major theme (at times in the background) in all the works treated, it is never linked to political issues, but always to the human being, who turns out to be an abominable creature that is necessarily able and prone to commit horrific atrocities. As William Broyles Jr. mentions, “ War is not all aberration; it is part of the family[,] the crazy uncle we try - in vain - to keep locked in the basement ” ; and “ War, like death, is always with us, a constant companion, a secret sharer ” . War is the people ’ s double. In Caputo, the characters are initially concerned with their social identity, but invariably are confronted with what was always hidden under their social identity: just as the human body is an abominable entity, so are they. In addition, their confrontations with various doubles affect their identity developments most profoundly, and they are left with the stark reality that they, firstly, are abominations, and, secondly, have evil second selves. The five full-length novels published in the 1980 s and 1990 s treat these topics in various ways. As mentioned above, each starts off with its own dimension of social identity: Horn of Africa with gender identity, DelCorso ’ s Gallery with occupational/ class identity, Indian Country with ethnic identity, Equation for Evil with racial identity, and The Voyage with familial identity. What they share is their increasing focus on Gothic bodies and doubles, which take the place of such social identity aspects. Manifest doubles occur only in The Voyage, but they play a crucial role in “ Standing In ” , the first short novel in Exiles, the anthology published between Equation for Evil and The Voyage. While latent doubles have a strong presence in all the works, each of them, apart from “ Standing In ” , culminates with a particularly revealing confrontation between a protagonist and a previously unknown or unexpected double. These instances clinch the developments of a rational towards a Gothic world as well as a reasonable towards a Gothic identity, which is focused on in all works and in which bodily abominations equally play a significant role. Horn of Africa is perhaps the most merciless of all the novels. The reader is relentlessly confronted with myriad graphic depictions of atrocities committed in the mercenary war in the fictional Ethiopian province of Bejaya. It is these graphic images that set the framework for the overwhelming Gothic presence to which the characters are subjected. Masculinity, and, with it, gender identity is the primary focus concerning the main characters, even though, almost uniquely to Caputo ’ s fiction, there are no female protagonists. There are numerous occurrences of doubling throughout the novel, but, as in the subsequent works, the most revealing and devastating view of a double occurs towards the end, where two human hearts, the only remains of Jeremy Nordstrand ’ s and Patrick Moody ’ s devastated bodies, unexpectedly turn out to be identical. DelCorso ’ s Gallery, whose protagonist Nick DelCorso is concerned about his status as a war photographer and about a class conflict concerning his wife ’ s 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 61 background, is partly set within the wars in Vietnam and Lebanon, so deformed bodies are frequent occurrences. The novel makes use of two typical representations of doubling: the photograph and the mirror image. As in the previous work, the most shocking of all encounters with doubles is presented at the end, where Nick DelCorso encounters a ruthless fighter. The photographic and the mirror image are here combined and projected onto his nemesis, whom he sees through his camera, making him look like a reflection of himself. Fittingly, this double turns out to be his killer, thus epitomising the double ’ s classical role as a representation of impending death. After the pre-industrial setting of the first novel, DelCorso ’ s Gallery applies a more modernised version of Gothic, in which the city and the cyborg come into play. As Linda Dryden explains, “ This modern metropolitan Gothic shifts the scene of terror from the rural landscape to the inner city, and imagines horrible human mutations taking place in the heart of the city ” (30). The novel is mainly set in New York, Saigon and Beirut, with the latter two, in particular, representing “ the modern city . . . as a labyrinth, harbouring mysteries and secrets that were deeply disturbing and spoke of a metropolis in chaos ” (Dryden 34). This labyrinthine chaos is to be expected, given the wars that are being fought within them. Kelly Hurley states that “ In the fin-de-siècle Gothic novel . . . it is the entire metropolis itself, not just its relatively delimited slum neighborhoods, that is figured alternately as a labyrinth, a ‘ seething mass, ’ an ‘ awful slough, ’ an uncharted wasteland ” (162). In these surroundings, not only the city itself but its denizens are of a more modern kind, yet still helpless in view of the Gothic occurrences that emerge. With their photographic equipment, the protagonists are akin to cyborgs, part natural, part machine. A description of the current significance of cyborgs is offered by Donna J. Haraway: By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of ‘ Western ’ science and politics - the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other - the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. (150) The cybergothic equally has its roots in more traditional Gothic fiction. Coates states how early literary doubles occurred at a time when human-like machines were first created. It was again E. T. A. Hoffmann who first connected the concept of doubles with machines (2). In criticism, the role of the (partly) artificial human being is frequently viewed as negative. According to Fred 62 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles Botting, “ . . . the new economic and political structures reduc[ed] humanity to slaves or automata, and ravag[ed] familial and natural balances . . . ” (Gothic Romanced 136). Also, “ Cloaked as vampires, monsters, zombies, ‘ cybergothic ’ manifests the emergence of an order in which humanity and its supporting institutions are discarded, rendered obsolete by the speed, processing power and multiplicity of utterly machinic networks ” (Botting, Gothic Romanced 150). Elizabeth MacAndrew proposes, “ An automaton is a monstrous creation, suggesting the more horrifying possib[i]lity of human beings worked mechanically, without volition, spirit, heart, or soul ” (162). In Caputo, however, the opposite is the case. The artificial holds the naturally Gothic body of the human being in check. Its depiction is more in line with Thomas Reed West, who claims that “ . . . the machine is the most logical of symbols for the fact of Law [sic]; it stands in conflict with a range of impulses, and its imagery of discipline is perfect ” (134). Anne Balsamo agrees that “ Machines are rational, artificial and durable; humans are emotional, organic and mortal ” (149), even though she affirms that “ . . . cyborgs are a product of cultural fears and desires that run deep within our psychic unconscious. Through the use of technology as the means or context for human hybridization, cyborgs come to represent unfamiliar ‘ otherness, ’ one which challenges the connotative stability of human identity ” (149, italics in original). This rationality as opposed to impulsiveness is, in Caputo, the positive counterpart to a human being ’ s naturally abominable body. It is a chance to, at least temporarily, escape an eventually inescapable, atrocious bodily identity and it widely stands in accordance with Donna J. Haraway ’ s findings that “ The cyborg incarnation is outside salvation history. Nor does it mark time on an oedipal calendar, attempting to heal the terrible cleavages of gender in an oral symbiotic utopia or post-oedipal apocalypse ” (150). Cyborgs offer the chance to escape a wild past and enter into a modern, civilised world: The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, preoedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity. In a sense, the cyborg has no origin story in the Western sense - a ‘ final ’ irony since the cyborg is also the awful apocalyptic telos of the ‘ West ’ s ’ escalating dominations of abstract individuation, an ultimate self untied at last from all dependency, a man in space. (Haraway 150 - 51) The artificial is the rational, the conceivable, the understandable and therefore the controllable; the natural, on the other hand, is, with reference to Freud, the uncanny. Indian Country goes back from the modern to the pristine setting, this time to an American wilderness. Even though it is not set in a war, it comes closest to 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 63 being a Vietnam War novel, as its protagonist, Christian Starkmann, is a returning veteran. As it is partly a war novel set outside a war, it most prominently portrays how the Gothic world that is war is equally present, if less visible, in other surroundings. The characters ’ environment is decidedly Gothic, and doubles occur throughout, even though they are somewhat less distinct compared to the other works. Here, however, there is also a culminating encounter with an unlikely double, Christian ’ s psychologist. This double is more benevolent than elsewhere, but equally has a determining effect on the protagonist, causing him to accept an identity that he has always tried to escape. Equation for Evil is also set in contemporary America, but in more modernised surroundings, taking up the theme of the cybergothic from DelCorso ’ s Gallery. Treating racial identity, it also stands in close relation to Horn of Africa ’ s gender identity, as these are the two dimensions of social identity that are already deeply rooted in the body. Accordingly, graphic depictions of atrocities are particularly frequent, while the abominable states of the natural uncanny human body is constantly juxtaposed to artificially enhanced renderings. In keeping with the other works, latent doubles occur abundantly, and there is a final encounter portraying the confrontation of an unexpected case of doubling, here in its starkest representation, namely between the hero, Leander Heartwood, and the villain, Mace Weathers. Again as in DelCorso ’ s Gallery, this scene of revelation involves the mirror image in which the character who represents the “ good ” first self sees himself projected onto a “ bad ” uncanny second self and is immediately killed by this person whom he then only sees as his mirror image/ reflected self. The Voyage initialises Caputo ’ s shift away from the treatment of war and its effects and is stylistically more akin to the subsequent works, Acts of Faith and Crossers. In contrast to these two novels but in accordance with the previous ones, the Gothic mode still has a strong presence, and The Voyage is the only full-length novel to feature manifest doubles, members of the Braithwaite family with strong physical resemblances, although the doubling theme, along with other Gothic elements, is absent in the follow-up works. In spite of those look-alikes, who are aware of each other throughout the plot, the most shocking encounter among doubles is again realised as an unexpected confrontation towards the end of the plot, in this case between two families who are more alike than is at first conceivable. In its fullest form, however, the Gothic mode is represented in one of the shorter works. Exiles is Caputo ’ s culminating achievement in the field of Gothic identities. The first part, “ Standing In ” , is a fully accomplished piece of literature about the double. It features two look-alike characters — one of them already deceased — with uncertain backgrounds and numerous questions about the uncanniness of identity. The second part, “ Paradise ” , is set in more rational 64 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles surroundings and is somewhat lighter. Even so, a double already interferes with the protagonist early on and throws his life into chaos. The third and last part, “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , could well be considered not only a work of literature making use of the Gothic mode, but a piece of Gothic literature itself. It is also Caputo ’ s only longer work of fiction thus far to be entirely set in the Vietnam War, and it represents the Gothic-ness of war to the fullest. Exiles unites the identity themes of the five other novels and reproduces them in their most striking form. Gender, occupational/ class and familial identity are major topics in “ Standing In ” , whereas “ Paradise ” strongly focuses on ethnic and racial identity. In these first two parts, social identity is already deflated, particularly also with the use of doubles; while in “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , the development of identity towards the Gothic is finalised. This last part features several cases of atrocious human bodies and, as in the five novels, includes a devastating final encounter with an unexpected occurrence of a double, which is again realised as a mirror image of the first self, the hero, projected onto what was originally conceived of as other, a deadly predator. Thematically speaking, Exiles represents a microcosm comprising many of the relevant themes in the five novels published in the 1980 s and 1990 s. In the following chapters, I shall treat each dimension of social identity with reference to its corresponding novel separately. Due to its overarching relevance, I shall use Exiles as the basis for my concluding remarks. 2. Identity and the Gothic: Abominations and Doubles 65 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa Philip Caputo ’ s earliest work of fiction, Horn of Africa (HoA), deals with that aspect of social identity which is considered to possibly be the most stable: gender identity. Its stability stems from the fact that it is more closely related to a manifest element, namely the body. This relationship is expressed in the novel in that it is the only one which features exclusively male protagonists, and, of all works, the starkest forms of bodily representations. Modern sociology, however, is decidedly sceptical about relating the idea of gender identity, and particularly masculinity, to its manifestation in the body. In his introduction to the second volume of Men and Masculinities, Stephen M. Whitehead remarks that “ Fundamentally, masculinity is only ever a performance. It is a mask of reality. What it is not is a biological imprint on the minds of males which they must, at whatever cost, express and render real in the world. Masculinity is a socially given understanding of what it means to be a man, a boy, a male ” (1). Whitehead and Barrett affirm that “ the idea that men and masculinities are either locked in a genetic combination, or determined by a fixed, unchangeable, biological set of conditions or factors ” is widely rejected (10). Similarly, Kathy J. Phillips states that critical authors generally believe masculinity to be “ a social construct ” (10). However, despite the endless affirmations about masculinity being socially constructed, sociologists widely agree on generally understood elements that define masculinity and men. In her study of changes in Vietnam War representations in late 1960 s ’ , 1970 s ’ and early to mid-1980 s ’ America, Susan Jeffords states how the state of war and masculinity are linked: “ . . . while race, class, and ethnic variety populate Vietnam, one difference is not presented, one boundary is not broken, and that is the difference of gender ” (59), as armies are still male dominated. She even goes so far as to claim that, “ As long as there is gender, there will be war ” (73). This notion is echoed by Joane Nagel, who claims that “ The intimate historical and modern connection between manhood and nationhood is forged through the construction of patriotic manhood and exalted motherhood as icons of nationalist ideology — in which the nation is a family with men as its defenders and women as the defended embodiment of home and hearth . . . ” (397). War is therefore the event that prevents traditional gender roles from dissolving. Nagel adds that “ . . . the congruence of masculinism and nationalism is reflected in the embeddedness in nationalist ideology of such masculine preoccupations as honor, cowardice, strength, face-saving, and manliness on playgrounds and battlefields, as well as in sports arenas and international affairs . . . ” (398). In his essay “ Why Men Love War ” , William Broyles, Jr. rejects the idea of nationalism ’ s role in the fighting of wars, but reaffirms the role of masculinity, and states that “ War is the enduring condition of man, period ” . Jeffords stops short of excluding nationalism or national identity as critical elements in Vietnam War representations, but sustains the privileged role of “ . . . masculine bonding in wartime that disregards such barriers as class, race, and demography . . . ” (135). David Morgan also sees a strong link between war/ the military and masculinity. Describing a soldier ’ s typical appearance, he states that “ The stance, the facial expressions, and the weapons clearly connote aggression, courage, a capacity for violence, and, sometimes, a willingness for sacrifice. The uniform absorbs individualities into a generalized and timeless masculinity while also connoting a control of emotion and a subordination to a larger rationality ” ( “ Theater of War ” 444). To him, a military uniform expresses masculinity above all else. If masculinity really is nothing but a social construct, Morgan sees its strong connection to the military in that it is the predominant institution which separates men from women: “ It is a separation that reaches deep into a man ’ s sense of identity and self . . . ” (445). Soldierly behaviour can therefore be equated with masculinity, as the military is the only institution in which men are mainly only in each other ’ s company. Indeed, this appears to be the only argument that could sustain a stable theory of why common views of masculinity are the way they are; even though sociologists do not seem to tire of affirming how gender identities are abstract constructs, most of them fail to explain why some ways of behaviour have had the power to assert themselves as “ typically ” masculine and feminine, and others have not. For instance, according to Whitehead, masculinity is established and expressed “ through the enactment of previously established codes, roles, movements and languages ” (Introduction [to Volume 2], Men and Masculinities 1); and “ . . . the masculine subject is not innately male/ man, it can only become this through being positioned in and positioning itself within those discourses that speak of and suggest maleness/ masculinity ” ( “ Desires of the Masculine Subject ” 71, italics in original). Whitehead does not reveal, however, how these “ previously established codes ” or “ those discourses ” came to be. With the military as the only authority to uphold such differences and fill masculinity with meaning, it appears too weak an element to keep such social views in place, especially since there are a huge number of men who have no military experience, and women who have, and since not only women but many men are critical of military institutions. Victor J. Seidler correspondingly remarks that “ Within the human sciences it has become almost common sense to argue that gender differences do not have their basis in nature but are socially and culturally constructed ” (243), but he goes on, claiming that “ Gender differences seem to have endured in a way that brings into question traditional theories of socialization ” (243). As we can see, several critics have been aware of the fact that gender/ sex 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 67 differences are indeed more manifest than others as they present themselves physically in bodies. Again in connection with Vietnam War representations, Jeffords affirms the importance not only of abstract masculinity concepts, but also states that “ The aesthetic of the male body as spectacle, enacted through the technologies of performance, produces the subject of Vietnam representation ” (15). In this regard, Thomas J. Gerschick offers a solution to the problem of the manifest body in that “ . . . for social constructionists, bodies physically exist along a continuum rather than as a dichotomy ” (371). Thus, whereas there are, of course, significant varieties among male and female bodies, the large majority are nevertheless clearly marked as one or the other. Bodily features and abilities therefore do distinguish men from women. In Horn of Africa, bodies play a dominant role in the identity constructions of the exclusively male protagonists, even though there is one element which the novel lacks entirely, again in contrast to all other works of fiction by Philip Caputo: sexuality. This may seem unusual, as sex is frequently seen as a predominant metaphor for male domination. Lynne Segal claims that “ Sexuality in and of itself, it was suggested, is at the heart of male dominance ” (102). Ken Plummer adds that “ For some, sexuality is almost defined as male; for others, it is seen as a major device through which men maintain their positions of power and keep women under a constant state of threat ” (182). Phillips, in contrast, argues for a differentiated view. She emphasises two contradictory concepts discernible in the treatment of masculinity and sexuality: the “ Apollo Syndrome ” , which suggests that “ sexual ‘ aggression ’ promises well for the fight and that both activities prove a man masculine ” , and the “ Antony Syndrome, the view that copulating with women feminizes a man and hence interferes with his (still masculine) ability to fight ” (33). Horn of Africa ’ s main characters adhere to the latter; the physical abilities which render them masculine do not rely on their relation to women. They comply with Broyles ’ s view that “ . . . a male who has helped create life is war's natural enemy ” . Their masculinities define themselves through war only, which, for Broyles “ is, for men, at some terrible level, the closest thing to what childbirth is for women: the initiation into the power of life and death ” . Indeed, the “ most masculine ” of all the characters, Jeremy Nordstrand, likes to forge his gender identity on the basis of “ evolutionary psychology ” , which stipulates a close connection between male behaviour based on natural impulses (Whitehead and Barrett 10 - 11). Disregarding the aspect of sexuality, several critics concede that the principal elements that are widely considered typical of masculinity are based on men ’ s greater physical abilities. According to Scott Fabius Kiesling, “ Power is usually cited as the most important factor when discussing the ways in which men ’ s identities are constructed ” (112). Very similar is Michael S. Kimmel ’ s view that “ Manhood is equated with power - over women, over other men ” (282), while 68 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa Whitehead and Barrett, though affirming that there are many variations, admit that “ . . . it is evident that certain behaviours have come to characterize males - sexual and physical assertiveness, competitiveness, aggression . . . ” (19). A further useful collection of generally acknowledged elements of masculinity is offered by Alan Peterson. They are “ aggressivity, competitiveness, and emotional detachment ” (53). Comparable conclusions are drawn by Jeff Hearn, who claims that “ Being violent is an accepted, if not always an acceptable, way of being a man ” (385), and Michael S. Kimmel, who agrees in that “ Violence is often the single most evident marker of manhood. Rather it is the willingness to fight, the desire to fight ” (278). Violence and fighting are indeed seen as the quintessential indicators of masculinity. Walter S. DeKeseredy and Martin D. Schwartz go as far as to state that “ . . . much of what is bad in the world, from genocide to terrorism, and including interpersonal violence, is essentially the product of men and some of their masculinities ” (353). This view has come to be a stable convention and is also seen as such by Morgan who believes that “ Despite far-reaching political, social, and technological changes, the warrior still seems to be a key symbol of masculinity ” ( “ Theater of War ” 444). James Messerschmidt similarly acknowledges that “ Men and boys dominate crime. Arrest, self-report, and victimization data reflect that men and boys perpetrate more of the conventional crimes, including the more serious of these crimes, than do women and girls ” (197). He explains this fact by arguing that “ . . . different crimes are chosen as means for doing masculinity and for distinguishing masculinities from each other in different social settings ” (198). Even though it is clear that most men are not criminal or perform such violent acts, he concedes that it is still unresolved why violence remains a strong way of “ doing masculinity ” . Despite various sociological attempts to attach male violence to the influence of other factors such as social environments, no such model has yet managed “ to explain why particular men identify with the crime option and other men, from similar milieux, do not ” (200). Messerschmidt recognises the importance of the male body in this context, stating that “ . . . an important question for future research is, What is the relationship among the body, masculinities, and crime? ” (209), as to him, the body is instrumental in the imposition of a masculine hierarchical system. Morgan equally sees the strong bond between masculinity, the body and war: “ At times of combat, the body is placed at risk, threatened with danger or damage, and subjected to unmediated physicality in confined quarters, deprivation of food or sleep, and exposure to fire or the elements. Physicality may become finality in the remains enclosed in a body bag ” ( “ Theater of War ” 445 - 46). He adds that “ It could be argued that war and the military represent one of the major sites where direct links between hegemonic masculinities and men ’ s bodies are forged. Indeed, it is the disciplining and control of the body and exposure to risk and sheer physicality 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 69 that distinguishes many features of military life from everyday civilian life ” (446). Focusing on the military and the body then appears to be the closest that one can come to defining masculinity and demarcating it from “ other ” . Horn of Africa and its essentially all-male cast deal with exactly this resolution. The protagonists are men and men only, viewing themselves in the frame of their war experiences and are constantly assaulted by bodily apparitions and their own embodiedness. In the novel, the three central characters ’ masculinity/ bodies is all that is left to them of potential identity elements. Primarily due to their traumatic war experiences, the protagonists have lost allegiance to their social backgrounds in general, and indeed to occupation/ class, ethnicity, race and family, all those elements that have the potential to function as identity indicators, in particular. The central character, Charles Gage, in the role of first-person narrator, hardly reveals anything from his past. With respect to occupation/ class, we find out that he has a “ blue-collar background ” (HoA 15) and that he was wounded in Vietnam and transferred to an intelligence unit (HoA 55). In several instances in the narrative, we learn about his having worked as a correspondent, but being unable to continue due to the traumatic experience he had when his secretary was gruesomely killed in her office during a Lebanese Civil War attack. Indeed, for his mercenary service on Operation Atropos, which dominates the novel, he takes on a false identity as a journalist again, though his actual role is that of an arms deliverer. Thomas Colfax, one of the initiators of Operation Atropos, is at first critical of Gage as he believes that some journalists are primarily loyal to their profession as opposed to their country. In fact, Gage is loyal to neither, even though Colfax believes him, a Vietnam veteran, to be “ a fine American ” (HoA 52). Gage, however, has no ambitions as a journalist or a patriot, and has never had any aspirations apart from being a hero (HoA 440), mentioning such a goal while discussing careers. It seems that for him the concept of heroism is not related to the common view of nationalism, but rather is motivated by a desire to fill the gap left by his lack of interest in work. His motives are in no way based on a sense of idealism, but simply boil down to the following thought: “ One good thing about the army — you always knew who you were and where you belonged ” (HoA 457). Thus, there is just “ one ” thing that is positive about being a fighter for one ’ s country. His views of any community that can be considered to have a common ethnic identity are decidedly weak. As the narrator, main character and American, he occasionally refers to supposedly typically American characteristics, but this is mainly done in ironical ways or with acknowledgment of over-generalisation, and these characteristics do not show a potential to function as a focal point with which a group could identify. Early in the story he mentions a certain American way of articulation in that American executives have an “ athleticism ” in speech 70 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa (14). Such a minute side comment has no relevance to the plot and is apparently intended as a statement to devalue the establishment of national characteristics rather than to take them seriously. Another such comment is one that he makes describing David Harris, an American businessman and the only character that comes close to being a friend to Gage, who is to him “ the eternally innocent — or, more accurately, stupid — American ” (HoA 74). Gage ’ s comments assume more substance when he describes the behaviour shown by the second American protagonist, Jeremy Nordstrand. Gage refers to him as “ all-American ” (HoA 307). He explicitly refers to Nordstrand ’ s “ inclination toward violence ” that appears to him just as all-American as Nordstrand ’ s descent (HoA 307). But Gage does not just look at other Americans condescendingly; he compares himself to Nordstrand in the way that they both had no “ self-control ” (HoA 29), to him a typically American attribute. However, Gage attests Nordstrand a “ fascination with the myth of the western outlaw ” , whom Gage regards as a common criminal, but still as inherently American (HoA 316). Gage ’ s other comments about American mythological elements related to the Old West also appear as nothing more than clichés. He once describes Thomas Colfax as one of “ those old daguerreotypes of the American frontier ” (HoA 37). He talks about how he, Nordstrand and Patrick Moody, the third protagonist, are “ Three men in a wilderness ” (HoA 151), and how, towards the end of the novel, they plan to escape to the Sudan “ just like the heroes in the westerns ” (HoA 438), albeit by stealing a Land Rover. Having lost his last belief in a romantic escape by then, the irony in this statement is undoubtedly deliberate. What is more, his reference to constant “ high noon ” (HoA 468) on the walk to the Sudan is therefore likely to be a feeble attempt to strengthen himself with ironical comments on the devastating march. The statements about American qualities which are made by other characters are equally flippant. Moody, an Englishman, ironically calls America “ the home of the brave and the land of the free ” (HoA 169). At a later stage he claims to believe that it is typically American to do nothing for selfless motives (HoA 273). He also refers to what he calls “ a splendid example of contemporary American double-talk ” (HoA 357). To the drug seller Ismail Hijazi, “ . . . an American is his money, his money him ” (HoA 63), while Henry Carr compares Nordstrand to a cowboy (HoA 482). Such side comments again expose supposed ethnic characteristics as hollow concepts, smack of superficiality and rather present national characteristics as void concepts that are too weak to give anyone the chance to identify with them. Correspondingly, we also find out that in the Bejayans ’ struggle for independence, Americans can be hated not only for their being American but also for their race and class (HoA 176). The statuses of national characteristics as the basis for ethnic identification are further weakened by the omnipresence of sublayers. Though at first 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 71 recognising an American frontiersman in Colfax, Harris classifies him as Virginia aristocracy (HoA 89). He is now defined by his region, which could also be the critical defining factor of ethnicity, and his class rather than his nation. Harris uses the same method with Gage, calling him an “ old Michigan country boy ” (HoA 98). We learn that what connects Nordstrand to Gage the most is not the fact that they are Americans, indeed the only ones on Atropos, but that they both are from the upper Midwest of the United States (HoA 196); and in some ways, Midwesterners are explicitly un-American. Gage supposes that “ . . . the Midwest was settled by people who gave up on the idea of manifest destiny, people who were bound for California ’ s gold or Oregon ’ s green, but despaired . . . ” (HoA 309 - 10). Even though they live in the geographical centre of the USA, they represent the opposite of what the classic American stands for. They adjusted to the land around them: “ The conservatism of middle westerners is not, as many easterners believe, a political philosophy, but rather an emotional reaction to their monotonous flatlands, rolling on forever ” (HoA 309). In this context, an analogy with a situation in the fictional Ethiopian province of Bejaya, in which the novel is mainly set and Operation Atropos is conducted, and one of its equally fictional tribes, the Beni-Hamid, occurs: “ Living there had hardened the Beni-Hamid, forcing them to survive either by mining salt from the Sink or by the more interesting pursuit of raiding and robbing those who did ” (HoA 284). Such a description is reminiscent of the way in which American Midwesterners were described. They chose to be what the land surrounding them forced them to be. The Midwesterners founded farming communities, and the Beni-Hamid become nomads as this proved to be the best way of survival. We also read that The Beni-Hamid “ retained their ancestors ’ cavalry spirit ” (HoA 378), another analogy to the American West, while their lawless lifestyle parallels the American outlaws ’ . Gage also refers to Nordstrand as “ Natty Bumppo in Africa ” (HoA 253; 397). The Beni- Hamid are as strong and unrelenting as the pioneers in America who made it to the west coast. However, they are also like the Midwesterners, adapting to their physical abilities and the land around them. Basic distinctions between different ethnicities almost dissolve here; and like the Americans, the Bejayans cannot be seen as a homogeneous entity. Within the Bejayans, we know that there are many factions in conflict with each other. According to Gage, the narrator, ethnic identification is non-existent and close to impossible in his circumstances, as there are no stable concepts with which one could identify ethnically. One further element clinches this state. The way in which several languages and dialects are used proficiently in Horn of Africa indicates weak adherence to one, and swift switching from one to another ethnic identity. In addition, Gage ’ s and Harris ’ s loose friendship indicates the lack of sympathy between the two Americans. Their socialising is based on what 72 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa Gage calls “ shared circumstances ” (HoA 7). There is no “ commonality of needs and interests ” (HoA 7). It is only for comfort that they spend time together, as they have a similar background in the foreign city of Cairo. Not long into the novel, Gage feels ready to “ sacrifice ” Harris for his own needs, showing that there is no deep feeling of solidarity between the two Americans. Little is revealed about Gage ’ s familial background. We find out that Marquette, Michigan, is his hometown (HoA 300). We do not know much about his childhood, however. At one point, he reveals that he went to mission school (HoA 211). At a later stage, he tells the reader that his grandfather was “ a displaced Irishman who had wound up among the Swedes and Finns of upper Michigan ” (HoA 385) and that the song “ The Minstrel Boy ” used to be sung to him by his grandfather (HoA 385). Gage ’ s war experiences seem to have estranged him from his family. What is more, his unhappy marriage did not give him the opportunity to build identity in a new family. He was never able or willing to put his traumas behind him and let his wife build him up. His failed marriage is indeed the only stage in his life about which he becomes more concrete. He sometimes reflects on this episode in a nostalgic way, but is always aware that the union with is former wife Allison never stood a chance of being successful. Occupation/ class, ethnicity, race (which, perhaps surprisingly, is hardly ever an issue in this novel about white Americans and an Englishman in Africa) and family have no substance to Gage the main character, and lack any potential to function as aspects with which he could identify. The reader never learns if and how such elements are linked to one another. They are left there interspersed throughout the text, leaving the reader no choice but to speculate about any coherence in Gage ’ s personal development. His way of devaluing his past by not giving it any consideration affirms his lack of identification with any social group. As it turns out, his masculinity is all that is left to him. Jeremy Nordstrand, the other American protagonist in Horn of Africa, shows similarities to Gage in that he retains little allegiance to such identity aspects as occupation/ class, ethnicity, race or family. Unlike Gage, however, it has always been Nordstrand ’ s ambition to lose these connections. Gage establishes that “ . . . he was a man unmoved by idealism, by greed, by ambition, or by any of the usual motives ” (HoA 303). Early in the novel it is mentioned that he is an ex-football player and an ex-infantry officer (HoA 3). Such functions would be regarded as respectable by many, and they state that he was once a part of a societal order. However, they are both “ ex ” , stages to run through on the way to what he really wants. Nordstrand also joined the army to fight in Vietnam. His goal, however, was not to become a romantic hero or to perform a patriotic duty. He merely wanted to put into practice what he can do best: performing violence; unlike Gage, who takes this role on in the hope that 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 73 it will prove to be a possibility to be seen as a hero of some kind. Moody calls Nordstrand a “ common murderer ” (HoA 360). Though officially “ a U. S. agent ” (HoA 480), a murderer is indeed what Nordstrand wants to be. Also a child of the Midwest, Nordstrand was abhorred by its monotonous lifestyle. However, he is not an American patriot; instead he is more fond of another distinctive subgroup, namely the Chippewa (HoA 311). It should be noted that Indians are at least as typically American as frontiersmen. However, even though it would appear more natural for Nordstrand to identify with the latter, he does not. National ideology not only means nothing to him, it does not even exist. Gage sees Nordstrand as “ a one-man melting pot, Norwegian and German on his father ’ s side, English and Swedish, with a trace of Chippewa Indian, on his mother ’ s ” (HoA 307). The irrelevance of a stable ethnic identity is also discernible in his great-great-grandfather ’ s ways. Even though Isaac Bennett, Nordstrand ’ s great idol, is described as a “ man of the old northwest frontier ” , he had no reservations in betraying frontier ideology, having left to support the building of a new country by joining the Confederacy (HoA 312). As with Isaac Bennett, it becomes clear that switching allegiances is not a break with identity, but rather a part of it. Identity is flexible, and depending on the circumstances it is constantly redefined, as we can see in the Midwesterners ’ abandoning manifest destiny and adjusting to the plains, or in Isaac Bennett ’ s desertion. Incidentally, in spite of all these things, it is stated that “ Bennett had been a man ” (HoA 317). Even so, Nordstrand ’ s place of origin in the United States has somehow influenced him. His voice is as “ level as the northern prairies that had helped to form him ” (HoA 3). However, it is not an element based on common values that makes him a “ prairie man ” . It is the landscape aspect of the USA that formed him. Gage remarks at one point that Nordstrand was “ made in the USA ” (HoA 168). The USA is, however, simply a place where he was made; it is not an American that he was made. Nordstrand is the main source of the few comments about race made in the novel. He often uses racist slogans when talking about Africans. He is convinced that Africans still see whites as conquerors, and therefore as their superiors (HoA 158). On the other hand, he strives to become part of one of their tribes. As an ego-maniac, he does not despise Africans more than other white Americans; and with regard to his two companions, he does not consider their being whites as a reason to stick together (HoA 246). Nordstrand goes to great lengths to distinguish himself from his familial heritage. He particularly hates his father, whom he despises as a weakling (HoA 306), but he worries about the potential influence of his parents ’ ways: “ . . . he was aware of a force binding him to his hometown. . .. It was, he decided, a weakness and timidity passed on to him by his father ” (HoA 317). Family ties are the one element that causes Nordstrand to worry about his capabilities. If 74 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa anything manages to prevent the successful completion of his plans in Africa, it is his family ’ s legacy from which he feels unable to free himself completely. On the other hand, Nordstrand admires his “ wild ” great-great-grandfather Isaac Bennett. His idol makes it impossible for him to want to sever himself from his family. His mother ’ s having preserved Bennett ’ s diaries indicates how impossible it is to escape such a legacy, even to a deeply religious person such as her who must abhor Bennett ’ s deeds. Nordstrand knows that his mother is the biological link between him and Bennett. If he wants to see Bennett as his true ancestor, he must also accept his mother, who was obsessively orderly and whom he despised as “ the crazy lady ” (HoA 309). He will therefore never be able to “ purely ” be the person he wishes to be. Even so, Nordstrand has divorced himself maximally from the potential identity elements occupation/ class, ethnicity, race and family. He strives to be the quintessential man, and, relinquishing other social identity aspects, he hopes to fulfil his wishes on Operation Atropos. Considering social identity, Patrick Moody — an Englishman and the third protagonist in Horn of Africa — also finds himself at a stage where he has lost all allegiances apart from gender identity. Having fought for the UK in Oman, he originally had a well-developed conscience and sense of duty, which he lost when, out of an impulse, he killed prisoners of war after being spat at by one of them. As with the Americans, comments about Englishness are superficial and ironic. Gage is convinced that Moody ’ s fear of malnutrition originates in his English background (HoA 241). At another point, Gage attests that “ Moody now sounded very much the British officer ” when investigating how the food bag had broken open (HoA 245). The English are referred to as “ cool ” (HoA 113) and “ polite ” (HoA 403), while everyone is aware of the history of atrocities related to British colonialism. Nordstrand sees this as a positive attribute and affirms that Gordon of Khartoum, his other great idol apart from Isaac Bennett, “ was an Englishman ” but Moody merely “ hold[s] a British passport ” (HoA 110). Nordstrand, comparing Gordon with Moody, notes the “ rapid change in national traits ” (HoA 110). There is no reason though to regard the difference between these two individuals as a “ change ” . It is more likely to be evidence that there are no reliable “ national traits ” , which would allow general identification. Moody himself feels his ancestors ’ legacy and somehow has a bad conscience for the colonisers ’ cruelty (HoA 199). In Oman, seeing mutilated bodies in a village “ offended ” Moody ’ s “ good old sense of British decency ” (HoA 280). However, we know that it is Moody himself who once broke the code of decency by committing a war crime. All these comments on Britishness occur as platitudes, even to the people mentioning them. In addition, Moody ’ s Englishness appears to be a fraud, as we learn that Moody ’ s original Anglo-Irish accent was put into shape at boarding school (HoA 276). 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 75 The social group to which Moody originally adhered most was apparently his family. His allegiance to his father and the rest of his family, however, was broken by the atrocity that he unwillingly committed. Moody ’ s identification with his family, as with other aspects of social identity, was based on a belief in the idea of duty. His father performed his duty, among other things, as a father who looked after his son in an exemplary way, saw to his respectful development based on the familial tradition. This idea was shattered together with Moody ’ s belief in his own righteousness. Unwilling to face his father after the atrocity that he had committed, Moody, in his own mind, was the one who had broken the bond by betraying his duty, but he also felt as if he were the betrayed person, as he had not been prepared for what awaited him in Oman. Moody ’ s view of family is that of just one more social community into which he can regain admission only by purging himself first. Like Gage and Nordstrand, Moody retains no ties to social groups based on occupation/ class, ethnicity, race (which he hardly mentions) or family. Only Nordstrand has had the conscious aim of identifying as a man. Nevertheless, gender identity is all that is left to all of them after their loss of allegiance to the other four social identity aspects. Gage and Moody do not overtly categorise themselves as men, but this aspect is the one that haunts them, no matter what their ambitions originally were. In fact, the other social identity factors are presented as so weak that identification with them causes the downfall of the only other potential main character at the end of the Cairo episode: David Harris. He is the only one who focuses on another element, namely occupational identity, and hopes for it to be the way to reach his goals. His main interest is his professional career, and he has sacrificed all other potential identity aspects for it. Harris describes his life story as a sequence of hoops, which he has “ jumped through ” . He went through “ the Jewish liberal hoop ” , “ the Jewish radical hoop ” and “ the Jewish banker hoop ” (HoA 8). We learn that he went to Hebrew and Jesuit schools before joining the “ WASPism ” of Endicott bank (HoA 8). As with Nordstrand, he does not take such social identities seriously, but simply as stages through which he has to go until he can reach his goal. In contrast to Nordstrand, however, he pursues a professional career. Harris solely defines himself through his occupation (HoA 9), and occupational identity is what concerns him most. Potential identity aspects in his past are as shallow and interchangeable to him as they are to Nordstrand. His downfall occurs early, the reason being that he has relied on the weak social identity aspect of occupation. Harris only takes his identity as a banker seriously, but such a view is not shared by the people with whom he deals, as they “ did not see life as a circus or themselves as performers jumping through hoops ” (HoA 9). His career is doomed due to his part-Jewish ancestry. The threat that his descent will be uncovered to extremists forces him to resign from 76 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa his post, even though identification with his Jewishness never occurred to him as a relevant aspect of his life. Gage realises that Harris ’ s world-view has no substance. When he sets out to ruin him, he believes that Harris ’ s ambitions in life were mere “ illusions ” (HoA 82). The only identity aspect that does not prove to be an illusion so early in the novel is gender identity. It is seldom hinted at directly, but is omnipresent and underlies the storyline constantly. Again and again, the characters are made aware that they are measured exclusively by their manhood. It starts as early as in the author ’ s note, where Caputo states that the aim of this novel is “ . . . to show what happens when a certain kind of man is free to exceed the bounds of acceptable human conduct ” (HoA vii). Even though he does not necessarily address all men here, it is clear that manhood is a prerequisite to the development later on. By venturing into the fictional Ethiopian province of Bejaya and joining the equally fictional tribe of the Beni-Hamid, the European/ American protagonists enter a society that defines itself primarily through manhood. Even to these indigeneous people, other social identities such as religion, treated here as an integral part of ethnic identity, are comparatively shallow concepts, despite the religious undercurrent of the conflict. The Beni- Hamid are described as warriors (HoA 45) and “ . . . a very loyal people to the strong man. They have one fault, though. They ’ re not a constant people. They have no mercy for the weak and no tolerance for failure ” (HoA 409). It is immaterial how else a “ strong man ” could be categorised. Manhood and its bodily capacities are most relevant. They follow the belief that men must not drink water from the flatlands, even though it is pure, as “ It will make a woman of you ” (HoA 197). To cry out was considered “ unmanly ” and a blasphemy, since “ . . . they believed God made man suffer pain to purify his soul . . . ” (HoA 349). In order to become a Beni-Hamid, we find out, it is necessary to kill a man and skin him (HoA 397). Identification with the tribe is purely based on the idea not only of the man but of the man ’ s body. The Beni-Hamid ’ s V-shaped tribal markings are compared by Gage to “ sergeant ’ s stripes ” (HoA 210). The tribe ’ s male members assert their masculinity not, as might be conjectured, by their number of wives or children — i. e. sexual capabilities. Instead, a boy turns into a man by killing another man. To the Beni-Hamid, it is Kathy Phillips ’ s “ Antony Syndrome ” that is applicable, as opposed to her “ Apollo Syndrome ” . As the most constructive side of masculinity, that of procreation, is hardly a relevant aspect, such a vision is exclusively destructive, corresponding to William Broyles ’ s view that “ . . . a male who has helped create life is war's natural enemy ” . The American/ European protagonists are conscious of their all-male environment and latently aware of the problem inherent in this situation. When Gage reads Nordstrand ’ s diaries, he comes to think that “ . . . we can never be absolutely certain of our vision when we peer into another man ’ s 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 77 heart ” (HoA 303). The reference to the heart forebodes the gruesome culmination of Operation Atropos, but Gage also states that it is a man ’ s, not a human ’ s heart that is the problem. A similar statement is made earlier: “ The devil ’ s in a man ’ s heart ” (HoA 206). Such remarks indicate the way in which masculinity in Horn of Africa is constructed. Not only is sexuality immaterial to the vision of manhood; femininity is indeed virtually absent in the novel and therefore does not take on the role of the “ other ” to which masculinity can be contrasted. What is more, defamations of Patrick — the only sensitive (male) character — with expressions such as “ weak sister ” or “ Cunt. Pussy ” (HoA 235, italics in original) — by Gage — are merely occasional insults without great substance. In spite of these aspects, the whole storyline is surveyed by a female element: Atropos, after whom the operation is named and whom also Gage consciously recognises as the “ last of the three fates who control the destinies of men, the daughter of the night who severs the thread of life ” (HoA 127). However much the men try to segregate themselves completely, they are latently under the inescapable influence of that female, or, rather, non-male element. Their masculinity is under constant external observation. Even so, masculinity is not considered the opposite of femininity, but is realised overwhelmingly in the only aspect that is also acknowledged by sociologists as the widely accepted view of masculinity: power in general and violence in particular. The characters are not afraid of being turned into women but rather of not becoming enough of a man. Gage is conscious of the problematic state of his masculinity early on. Considering the terror that has afflicted him since his traumatic war experiences, he is afraid that “ If allowed to go unchecked, I thought, it would eventually unman me entirely and I would end up cringing at everything in existence ” (HoA 150). On their odyssey in Bejaya, the three protagonists — Gage, Nordstrand and Moody — are rendered hyper-masculine, a development that is also represented in terms of address. Charles Gage, Jeremy Nordstrand and Patrick Moody would, in regular circumstances, be known either as Charles/ Charlie or Mr. Gage, as Jeremy or Mr. Nordstrand, as Patrick/ Pat or Mr. Moody. In Bejaya these uses of names are inverted. They are known either as Gage or Mr. Charlie, as Nordstrand or Mr. Jeremy, as Moody or Mr. Patrick. Last-name-only address is typical of a military institution, a prominent example of a particularly masculine environment. Conversely, by being referred to as Mr. Charlie, Mr. Jeremy and Mr. Patrick, their masculinities are doubled. Both the term Mr. and their given names identify them as men. 1 In either case, their masculinity is emphasised beyond common usage. In this environment of hyper-masculinity, Nordstrand has the chance to be accepted into the Beni-Hamid tribe: “ Mr. Jeremy ’ s not of our 1 It should be noted though that Moody is sometimes androgynously addressed as Pat. 78 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa blood or of our faith, but we believe a man can be our brother by the covenant of the deed ” (HoA 392). All he needs to do in order to become a Beni-Hamid is to be a full “ man ” . It is the only absolute prerequisite and therefore is congruent with Nordstrand ’ s ambitions. His eloquence, which is seen as “ a measure of manhood ” (HoA 292), is a similarly suitable qualification. Eventually, though, physical violence is so prominently implemented as the main denotation of masculinity that no “ other ” is required to establish a concrete opposite to manhood. Bodies so unmistakably masculine are responsible for the atrocities committed, so there remains no doubt that masculinity is violence. The strong sense of identification with the masculine body is represented in Horn of Africa in a way reminiscent of Elaine Scarry ’ s The Body in Pain. We learn that Nordstrand “ was lost in a state in which pain is relished because it produces the ecstasy of overcoming it. He was one of those men destined to thrive on resistance ” (HoA 255). Pain, according to Scarry, makes all other concepts fade. Pain, for Jeremy Nordstrand, makes him “ one of those men ” , one of the few chosen ones who are complete men. Physicality in general is then the ultimate indicator of maleness, and bodily apparitions are ubiquitous throughout the novel. There are frequent occurrences of bodily adjustments to make Nordstrand who he wants to be. We know that in Vietnam he was wounded by shrapnel. The scar, which looks like the tattoo of a serpent (HoA 198), stays with him, “ ugly and indelible, like the mark of Cain ” (HoA 427). It is a physically existent proof of what he wants to present himself as: his longed-for status as an anti-god is branded into his body. On Operation Atropos, his will to look like the Beni-Hamid appears almost childishly comic. He shaves his hair, which apparently reveals his northern European ancestry, and paints his head black (HoA 373). His aspirations culminate in the Beni-Hamid initiation scene, in which the initiated warrior must prove his manhood by presenting the skin of another man, whom he has killed, including the penis (HoA 397). In contrast to Nordstrand, Gage, at first, still has hopes that masculinity is not pure physicality: “ . . . a man was what he did ” (HoA 15), he says. All elements of the novel contradict this view, however. Men entering the narrative can — provisionally — be recognised and categorised immediately. New characters ’ arrivals are usually announced by a detailed description of their bodies, which immediately identify them as men. According to Hendershot, “ In the modern and postmodern Euro-American world the body has traditionally been used as a means of representing masculine superiority and feminine inferiority ” (9). The way in which the “ most masculine ” protagonist, Jeremy Nordstrand, is introduced confirms his status of physical superiority, while it is left open to what or whom he is superior. Women, as we have seen before, are not critical to such a definition. Hendershot also mentions that “ Readings of the body are crucial to gender identity because through them the body serves as the visible 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 79 image of the subject ’ s ego ” (9). The dominant role that bodies play in the description of characters indicates how they can indeed be immediately categorised by their gender identity, no doubt remaining. Nordstrand ’ s appearance is announced pre-emptively in this way. The novel starts with a description of his body, which goes on for half a page, before even his name is mentioned. It is described as being designed by nature to inflict violence (HoA 3). Such a tendency has apparently no socially explicable motivation. Gage asserts about Nordstrand ’ s ordinary original social environment and his parents, The odd thing, the thing to make you question the theory that criminals are the products of social conditioning, was how such a normal couple produced the son they did. Paradoxically, their very ordinariness was responsible for Jeremy Nordstrand ’ s being what he was. It was the quality he most despised in them and, early on, he decided to make his life a contradiction of theirs. (HoA 307) In contrast to Nordstrand ’ s situation, little is revealed about Gage ’ s appearance and build (as was also the case with regard to his social background). To the reader, he, as the narrator, presents Nordstrand as the domineering figure, the giant monster. Only by a side comment do we find out that Gage is taller than Nordstrand (HoA 120) and, aware of Gage ’ s strength, Harris remarks that Gage is “ big enough to wipe the walls with me ” (HoA 102). Gage is a potential source of even greater destructive energy, but, perhaps the most desperate character of all, he does not appear to be acting out his physical potential. Neither is he a rehabilitated destroyer, successful at keeping himself under control. Instead, his size seems to have become a heavy burden, which he has to carry for the rest of his life. Furthermore, he has had the Scarry-esque experience that “ . . . there is nothing more isolating that deep bone pain. The whole world ceases to exist and there is only you and your agony ” (HoA 471). He therefore recognises that the body has ultimate authority in “ isolating ” , in defining a person. It isolates one from all social identities. Gage, then, is apparently ashamed of the inescapability of his physicality, also in connection with the traumas he lived through. His war experience in Beirut is dominated by a vision of horrific bodily deformation, particularly by the image of how his secretary literally exploded. In contrast, Nordstrand has infinite trust in his bodily capabilities and bases his whole development on them. We learn that he originally was “ thin and sickly ” , was bullied at school, and hated himself for being weak (HoA 304). It is his willingness, almost an obsession to completely succumb to his physical abilities that drives him on and eventually leads him to join Operation Atropos. Social identification that would have been possible in the Jesuit college or in the US Army means nothing to him. He wants to do what his body tells and allows him to do. 80 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa Of the three protagonists, Moody seems to be the one who is least prone to identifying with his body in such a universal way. It was he, after all, who used to see the greatest value in his social environment. He held great respect for his father, who is said to be “ a man of old-fashioned, jut-jawed British rectitude ” (HoA 275). Moody joined the British army, as it “ promised to combine adventure with respectability ” (HoA 277). He apparently wanted to be respected both for being a good Briton and a good officer. He lays value on both ethnic and occupational identity and hopes that conscientiously identifying with these ways will allow him to develop in a favourable way. Like Harris, he shows a willingness to pursue a career. The Moody family was suspicious, however, of uncompromised human integrity. His father had “ a dim view of human nature ” as he knew “ our base impulses ” due to his police experience, despite the family ’ s conventional life in Essex. He called for “ a rigid code of social behavior ” to subdue such tendencies (HoA 276), apparently aware that even people with a respectable background were prone to evil given the circumstances. Moody himself was not fond of the unrefined men whom he met in the army (HoA 277), but he must have sensed that it was only his father ’ s “ code of social behavior ” that distinguished him from them. He was aware of human baseness before his killing of three prisoners of war. As with Nordstrand, we learn about Moody ’ s bodily features immediately after his first appearance. It is revealed that he is of “ average height ” , has a “ fine nose ” and an “ English jaw ” , an “ undergraduate appearance ” and “ flawless skin ” making him look younger (HoA 108) than he is. Later, we also find out that he has “ grey English schoolboy ’ s eyes ” (HoA 240). However, it is not his physical appearance that Gage, who describes him, becomes aware of first, but rather his orderliness when preparing for the Operation (HoA 107), which is described before his bodily features. Later, Gage ’ s descriptions are dominated by Moody ’ s being the physical opposite of Nordstrand. Otherwise, comments on his appearance are few. Moody retains his hope that his body is not the prime factor in determining his identity and his body manages to keep up its integrity for a long time. However, his having instinctively killed prisoners of war in Oman shattered his view of how social identities can prevail. All the decency that he was taught as an officer, as an Englishman and as a Moody was defeated by his bodily reaction to an insult. Even though this incident was officially declared to have been caused by a medical condition, and he was given a medical discharge to prevent a political scandal in Britain (HoA 280), Moody was unwilling to face his father afterwards. As we have seen, the three main characters have all been through identity developments that resulted in comparable situations. Gage lost all allegiance to social identity due to his traumatic experiences of physical trauma in a war. Nordstrand chose to leave all social relations behind him and succumb to the 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 81 impulses of his body. Moody would have liked to keep up his social identities, but was overwhelmed by his body ’ s instincts. All three have been compelled to define themselves by their bodies and their bodies only, Nordstrand willingly, Gage and Moody unwillingly so. Their identities have been reduced to a masculinity defined by physical violence experienced in war. Nordstrand echoes some of Broyles ’ s concepts on that matter: “ . . . the beautiful thing about war is that it strips a man of his pretenses. He discovers just what he ’ s capable of, and some men discover they ’ re capable of anything if they ’ re given the chance. Once a man learns that, none of the rules mean a thing to him, and he can never be the same again ” (HoA 121 - 22). War epitomises a point of no return. As Broyles puts it, “ War is the enduring condition of man, period ” ; or as Horn of Africa ’ s protagonists have experienced: a man is war. This equating of manhood/ male bodies with war at this stage appears to be a convenient, if fatalistic explanation of the causes of war, also in consideration of modern sociology ’ s views. As it turns out in Horn of Africa, this would be too easy an explanation, however. Caputo ’ s representations of war are more devastating than can be understood as the result of something that is still somehow graspable intellectually. In fact, in Caputo ’ s work war is so horrific that even the manifested violence of masculine monstrosity is a belittlement of the effects of war. The only way in which war can be presented in a way approaching its horror is through the use of the Gothic. Horn of Africa, like all of Caputo ’ s 1980 s ’ and 1990 s ’ works of fiction, is not a Gothic novel in its entirety; it starts on a realist basis, but develops further and further into the Gothic mode, particularly at the point when characters appear to have reached their goals and have come to accept their masculinity for what they think it is. Corresponding to Hendershot ’ s views, Caputo applies Gothic elements to disrupt and invade what started as a fairly conventional war novel and to hurl the characters into an unforeseen development that ends their beliefs not only in societal order in general, but also in what they thought they had realised was their inescapable masculinity. The shocking brutality depicted in Horn of Africa serves the purpose of coming as close as possible to a realistic representation of war; and only the most gruesome literary device — Gothic elements — can create such a vision. The reader is not spared the details, as any omission of an atrocity would belittle war ’ s effects. Philip D. Beidler describes Horn of Africa as “ a vast, sprawling spectacle of violence, intrigue, and adventure ” (Re-Writing America 43). Such attributes could easily be applied to any Gothic text. Caputo ’ s war literature, which shows perhaps its starkest representation in the culmination of Operation Atropos, suggests the equating of Gothic horror and terror with the actuality of war atrocities. Unmediated presentations of bodies being mutilated is the most prominent, though not the only element of classic Gothic literature to be used in Horn of 82 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa Africa. They represent a stark manifestation of Horror Gothic. Further aspects are introduced at several points in the novel. Elizabeth MacAndrew emphasises that among the main characteristics of Gothic, “ The evocation of ‘ terror ’ is a feature shared by all Gothic literature . . . ” (xi). This is also the case for Horn of Africa. Gage, the central character/ narrator, explains his participation in Operation Atropos as follows: “ Nordstrand had personal reasons for going into Bejaya; so did I. I saw there a chance, a hope for a homeopathic cure. One war had suddenly infected me with baseless terror; therefore another war would just as suddenly rid me of it ” (HoA 150). This terror controls him. It keeps him separated from the rational world and locks him into a Gothic environment. Caused by the killing of his secretary in Beirut, his terror results in a state of “ malady ” which, incidentally, he “ could not name ” (HoA 13). This incapability to “ name ” the terror is a further explicit Gothic element, as Dryden explains: “ . . . the fact that so much of the horror is left unarticulated, unspeakable, is symptomatic of the genre, because Gothic horror is meant to be beyond human understanding . . . ” (28). Gage is aware of this situation, and it is the fact that he fails to explain his terror that makes it so unbearable: “ . . . how lucky are those who can name their dread; for in naming it they objectify it, and are therefore better able to fight it. Mine was a dread without object or sense, a free-floating horror of something I could not name ” (HoA 150). The horrors in Gothic literature are too terrible to be explained and the same applies to Horn of Africa. Indeed, it is not only Gage ’ s terror that forbids rational deliberation; the whole frame of the novel turns out to be in some way “ beyond human understanding ” . Target readers of Horn of Africa are likely to be familiar with American/ European character types as they appear in the novel. These are displaced, however, not just to an alien but even to a non-existent land. As early as in the Author ’ s Note, we are made aware that the novel ’ s main setting, the Ethiopian province of Bejaya, is a fictional construct of the author ’ s (vii). This corresponds to MacAndrew ’ s observation that “ To present this phantasmagoria as the world of the mind, Gothic authors from Walpole to Henry James and beyond, enclose the strange beings they invent in the exotic settings of a world of their own ” (107). Horn of Africa ’ s world is not only strange in that it is fictional. It is also related to Gothic modes in that it is primeval: “ The setting of the first Gothic novels in a remote historical time seems in itself an almost symbolic reenactment of the need to go back from the concealing refinements of civilization to the fundamentals of human nature ” (MacAndrew 47). Bejaya, situated in Africa, the continent on which human beings originally developed, represents this “ remote historical time ” in its most extreme form. Joe Basil Fenley emphasises this role of Horn of Africa ’ s setting: 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 83 The “ Horn of Africa ” is one of the sites where primitive man first emerged. These connotations are clearly related to the book ’ s focus on mankind ’ s primordial nature. In it . . . Caputo maintains that the primordial element is still very much a part of the essential nature of modern man which, given the necessary circumstances, easily overcomes the conditioning of civilization. (111) Gage ’ s description of Bejaya confirms this impression: “ . . . I would find in its deserts and primeval mountains the formless beast that haunted my days and troubled my nights. I would name my dread, face it, fight it, subdue it, and win a personal victory ” (HoA 150). Not only the setting is foreign, but also the atmosphere. It is easy to imagine a Gothic plot developing in such an environment. Even Cairo is presented in a comparable way. It is described as a decaying city. The building that houses the Arab Digest, the company which officially employs Gage, has a particularly Gothic appearance. Gage remarks, “ Groping my way up in the darkness, I had an uneasy feeling, mingled with giddiness, that reminded of the way [sic] I had felt in the amusement-park haunted houses of my boyhood. But underneath those emotions was the depression, the sense of death and decay that building always aroused in me ” (HoA 79). It appears as a modernised version of a haunted Gothic mansion. Considering the situation of the primitive lands of Bejaya and the partly modern world of Cairo, the situation corresponds to MacAndrew ’ s view of a Gothic environment in that “ . . . the closed world lies within the familiar one. The contrast between country and city is used to set off the world of sensibility from venal society. Frequently, the hero or heroine writes letters from the inner world of the novel to an understanding friend in the ‘ outside ’ world, thus placing the reader in the same position as the friend — outside, reading a report from inside ” (MacAndrew 112). The atmosphere in Cairo is likely to be at least in part familiar to a typical reader of Horn of Africa. The readers in the outside world only find out about Bejaya, however, through what is conveyed to them by the “ hero ” , Gage, who, at one point, even mentions that he suspects that Nordstrand wants Moody to stay alive so that he can act as “ a witness from the outside world ” (HoA 343) who will testify to Nordstrand ’ s uncompromising resolve to act out his every fantasy. On a smaller scale, Jeremy Nordstrand is confronted with the aspect of his family history which fascinates him from the beginning in an equally Gothic environment. He found Isaac Bennett ’ s diaries in “ a padlocked trunk covered by a tarp and hidden beneath a pile of boxes ” in the attic (HoA 312). This atmosphere corresponds well to Jerrold E. Hogle ’ s statement that . . . a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space - be it a castle, a foreign palace, an abbey, a vast prison, a subterranean crypt, a graveyard, a primeval frontier or island, a large old house or 84 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa theatre, an aging city or urban underworld, a decaying storehouse, factory, laboratory, public building, or some new recreation of an older venue, such as an office with old filing cabinets, an overworked spaceship, or a computer memory. Within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story. ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 2) In this hidden space, Nordstrand finds ominous secrets about his family ’ s own past, which have haunted his mother and now haunt him. This atmosphere is a fitting environment for such concealment and Nordstrand ’ s unravelling of Bennett ’ s acts of violence, which act as the main inspiration to Nordstrand ’ s willingness to commit atrocities. He finds the foundation on which he develops into a monster that is in itself Gothic: his motives are in no way understandable to a rationally thinking person. This “ strange world ” , however, is not only represented in the place itself. Narrative structure can make the reader equally lost in the text as can unfamiliar surroundings. According to MacAndrew, authors of Gothic texts “ achieve the sense of a strange world through systems of narration that amount to structural principles and are perhaps their most important device. It is through the method of telling that Gothic tales reveal their meaning ” (107). More concretely, “ The system of narration is frequently first-person and sometimes also epistolary. Both systems lend themselves easily to these narrative devices and simultaneously produce another effect. They help create confusion and ambiguity. A first-person narrator may be assessed for his reliability if the author supplies the necessary ironic clues ” (111). In this regard, Gage ’ s reliability as a character and first person narrator is certainly not always absolute. Despite his central role, he is very reluctant to reveal details about his background. In addition, many plot elements conveyed through him have not been witnessed by him. Horn of Africa is also partly epistolary, especially concerning the long inserted narrative about Nordstrand ’ s past, which Gage, and the reader, learn about from his diaries only. Additionally, the plot is seemingly a chaos, interspersed with flashbacks and subnarratives, confusing the reader further. The main characters ’ backgrounds frequently interrupt the storyline. Moody and Kasu Murrah reveal their pasts in long-section monologues. In addition, the reader is often given essential information of the story at later stages. The episode in which Nordstrand cold-bloodedly kills a group of Kunama FLN hostages (HoA 340) is told by Moody after his return from the excursion on which the weapons were received. Most notably, however, the frame to the whole storyline is revealed only at the very end, as we learn that Thomas Colfax instigated Atropos as a “ renegade operation ” (HoA 481), without the support of the American government, as was originally believed. Such a construction is congruent with MacAndrew ’ s view that “ . . . the narrative 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 85 method is always used to make the world of the [Gothic] novel strange ” (111). It is not only strange to the characters but also to the readers, who can easily become lost in the text. Finally, MacAndrew claims that the Gothic is “ a literature of nightmare ” (3). In addition to the whole novel appearing like one long Gothic nightmare from which the characters and the reader would like to awake, both the beginning and the end entail such references. When he starts his tale, Gage talks about what haunts him: There are the faces of the villagers who died in the bombing, the face of the man I killed in what is usually called the heat of battle, and the faces of the men Nordstrand killed in another kind of heat. The last trouble me most of all. Their ghosts haunt my dreams because they know I should have seen Nordstrand for what he was much sooner than I did, and done something to prevent their slaughter. (HoA 6) Commenting on Nordstrand ’ s victims, he adds, “ Whenever I see their hideously grinning mouths and blind staring eyes, I also see, in a kind of waking nightmare, the earth opening into a chasm as black as the desert when there is no moon and the dust clouds raised by the wind have extinguished the stars ” (HoA 6). At the other end of the story, the most gruesome part of the novel is presented in a concretely nightmarish way, as if it were too horrific to be told unmediatedly. Before we learn about the ghastly occurrences on the protagonists ’ attempted escape to the Sudan, we are presented with Gage ’ s gaining consciousness in a Sudanese hospital (HoA 457), the final episode of Operation Atropos first having been faded out. Gage ’ s waking up indicates the final Gothic nightmare, which is then, again, told in retrospect by the convalescing Gage, who gradually regains the memory of what happened. Near the end, he equates Operation Atropos to “ the nightmare ” when he thinks back to it (HoA 480). On a smaller scale, Gage is afflicted by nightmares in other circumstances as well. Towards the end, he dreams that the painful Beni-Hamid initiation ritual is performed on him (HoA 421). Earlier on, he had a nightmare before he notices Nordstrand handling his diaries. Even though he fails to remember the details after waking, he senses that it “ had only been a trigger for an assault of the nameless, formless terror ” (HoA 193). The exact content of this nightmare remains a mystery, not only to Gage but also to the reader. Nordstrand also went through a recurring nightmare in his childhood after he was severely beaten by Mr. Knudsen, who wrongfully accused him of capsizing his boat (HoA 305). Besides all these Gothic elements, the one that stands out is the one which most readily combines masculinity and the Gothic, namely the Gothic body. Within the wider frame of Gothic surroundings, the absoluteness of bodily representations in Horn of Africa, which supposedly indicates the prevalent role 86 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa of a supposedly stable gender identity, is increasingly compromised as the novel develops towards its final stages. To all three central characters, the body has become the focal point through which they define themselves. Their bodies ’ integrity, however, is threatened in two (Gothic) ways: fragmentation of the body and doubling. These two elements confuse the process of identification to the limits. Fragmentation in the form of mutilation is presented in all its brutality at several points in the book, and this process culminates in the final episode: the escape from Operation Atropos to the Sudan. It is paralleled, however, by a counter-process, in that two of these bodies become doubles, namely Nordstrand ’ s and Moody ’ s. In their oppositeness, they are at first prime examples of doubling by division, representing contrast above all else. Towards the end, however, they come to present to each other the horror in a way that only doubles can do. It turns out that they are, indeed, the same, even though this sameness is realised only when they are reduced to “ gross corporeality ” , as Kelly Hurley (3) would term it. The manifest doubles become visible only towards the end of Horn of Africa. Their appearance is preceded by the process of bodily fragmentation, which initiates the final descent of the plotline towards the Gothic. While the main characters have reached a state devoid of occupational/ class, ethnic, racial and familial identity, they have acquired an awareness of supposedly absolute embodied gender identity. This bodily manifestation, which at first seems to represent stable identity, is then compromised and eventually dissolved. The masculinised bodies turn into Gothic bodies. The protagonists turn into abominations, losing their human shape entirely. In her study of masculinity and the Gothic, Hendershot states that “ Masculinity as a masquerade may be articulated through Gothic texts, which frequently reveal the fragility of traditional manhood ” (4). This also happens in Horn of Africa, another text focused on gender identity. She goes on, affirming that Lacan deepens Freud ’ s argument, suggesting that the body reflected in the already culturally framed mirror of the infant ’ s world is a misrecognition, an illusion of stability to which the subject clings yet which is undermined at every point by psychic forces that threaten to reveal the body in bits and pieces. Stable gender identity is predicated on the stability of the body itself. Since the eighteenth century the division of the human body into two sexes has been taken a priori, yet the stable, clearly sexed body is haunted by an older epistemological model. (9) The body, which came to be represented as an absolute measure in Horn of Africa, equally turns into “ bits and pieces ” . The “ stability ” of the body vanishes, causing the end of “ Stable gender identity ” . Carol Clover also realises the connections between the dismantling of assumed stable manhood and Gothic elements in a popular modern version of the Gothic: “ Traditional masculi- 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 87 nity . . . does not fare well in the slasher film; the man who insists on taking charge, or who believes that logic or appeals to authority can solve the problem, or (above all) who tries to act the hero, is dead meat ” (326). In slasher films, the survivors are those who manage not to act according to their gender conventions (Clover 355). Masculinity in its bodily absoluteness, as it is presented in Horn of Africa, dissolves as the male bodies, which have been described in all their durability, fall apart. This method is reminiscent of late nineteenth century Gothic tales, described by Hurley: In place of a human body stable and integral (at least, liable to no worse than the ravages of time and disease), the fin-de-siècle Gothic offers the spectacle of a body metamorphic and undifferentiated; in place of the possibility of human transcendence, the prospect of an existence circumscribed within the realities of gross corporeality; in place of a unitary and securely bounded human subjectivity, one that is both fragmented and permeable. (3) In Horn of Africa, bodily representations are not limited to the construction of manifest masculinity. On the contrary: the supposedly achieved goal of personal subjection to the powers and impulses of that male body turns out to be a fiction. The masculinised bodies become dehumanised, in keeping with Hurley ’ s view: “ The abhuman subject is a not-quite-human subject, characterized by its morphic variability, continually in danger of becoming notitself, becoming other ” (Hurley 3 - 4). This “ other ” , significantly, is not the “ other ” gender. In this novel which deals with masculinity but eclipses femininity, the “ other ” is not the feminine but the Gothic. The bodies lose their human form and with it the last element of social identity, namely gender identity, as gender dissolves with the body representing it: “ Gothic plotting, working to invert and more radically admix gender and sexual attributes within a variety of abhuman bodies, unfixed the binarism of sexual difference, exploding the construct of ‘ the human ’ from within ” (Hurley 11). Gender/ sexuality, deeply rooted in the (human) body, dissolves in that bodies lose their humanity altogether. In this dissolution, the last remnant of conventional identity is lost: “ A ‘ fully human ’ identity requires the subject to be one thing or the other, male or female, the essential qualities of each defined through their relation of contradistinction. To take on the non-identity of a Thing is to be removed from the traditional field of sexual difference, to become an It, rather than a him or her ” (Hurley 149). Gothic dispenses with identity in that it strips characters of their humanness and turns them into “ Things ” . Hendershot ’ s views are widely congruent with Hurley ’ s: “ Gothic bodies disrupt stable notions of what it means to be human. They break down the demarcations between animal and human, death and life, and male and female. Sexual difference is called into question by Gothic bodies that challenge the most 88 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa accepted hard facts about what it means to be a sexed human ” (Hendershot 9). In a novel that focuses so much on corporeality, it is this corporeality that is eventually compromised. Not even the manifested body is strong enough to uphold a sense of identity, as the body, too, can — and will, given the circumstances — disintegrate. Gothic stories that make use of bodies turning into abominations and “ Things ” may be criticised for maximising their “ bloodand-guts ” effects, while keeping the readers from finding a meaning in such representation, but the fragmentation of bodies appears to be an inescapable development, and the characters do, indeed, devolve into “ Things ” and are stripped of any meaningfulness that might still have been conceived at earlier stages in the novel. Of the three protagonists, Gage is the one with the most stable body. He survived the attack on his Beirut office unscathed while his secretary was blown to pieces. At later stages in Horn of Africa, his body compromises some of its integrity, although to a limited extent. On the walk to the Sudan, the sharp lava disintegrates his shoes and punctures his feet (HoA 255), and his face, like his companions ’ faces, is “ scorched and peeling ” (HoA 284). In the end, though, lying in hospital, it turns out that he has not caught a disease (HoA 459), and he apparently recovers from the hardships swiftly. He stands in stark contrast to his two companions, Nordstrand and Moody. When the former has supposedly reached his aim and is initiated as a Beni-Hamid, he is wearing the skin of the man whom he had to kill in order to qualify as a member of the tribe. He hides his own light body behind an African ’ s skin. His body is physically adjusted to the Beni-Hamid ’ s when the V-shaped Beni-Hamid tribal markings are branded into his cheeks (HoA 396). This inscription of his supposed status as a Beni- Hamid onto his body, incidentally, is also the turning point in his development. In a reversal of cause and effect, the supposed final step in his aspirations to become a member of a wild nomad tribe becomes the first step of his actual expulsion from them. His body, in which he has always had infinite confidence, lets him down. It refuses to bend to his will in two ways. Firstly, he cannot completely become a Beni-Hamid. His eyes are the first indication that changing his body to assume a desired identity is an impossibility. Despite his shaved and painted head, and his markings, his eyes are as green as ever, giving his ancestry away (HoA 374). His body does not allow him to completely become a Beni-Hamid. The fact that this would be the case is foreshadowed before the attack on Umm-Tajer, when Nordstrand says to the Beni-Hamid, “ . . . I look like one of you. And after tonight, I will be one of you ” (HoA 373), but Gage replies, “ You can ’ t be. You ’ re one of us ” (HoA 374). Nordstrand ’ s body marks him as not being a Beni-Hamid. This is something which Kasu Murrah, a Beni-Hamid, also affirms, when he says to Moody, it is “ your Mr. Jeremy ” (HoA 405, emphasis added), eventually concluding, “ He is still yours a little ” 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 89 (HoA 406, emphasis in original). Secondly, and most significantly, Nordstrand ’ s body betrays him in that he is infected with several serious diseases. The knife used to carve the tribal markings into his face, the ultimate symbol of his tribal initiation, infects him with Tetanus, blood poisoning and Rift Valley Fever (HoA 423 - 24). Through these illnesses, he loses his strength and with it his god-like status with the Beni-Hamid. Having put all his confidence in his bodily abilities, he is forced to relinquish them at a critical moment, making it impossible to achieve what he has pursued all his life. Having lost part of his eyesight and become sensitive to the sun (HoA 412), most notably, though, having lost his physical strength, he finally also loses his status as a hero with the Beni-Hamid when Gage repeatedly hits him hard until he screams out (HoA 451). As pain must not be shown by the Beni-Hamid, such behaviour is not going to be condoned. His illnesses are also the beginning of his body ’ s fragmentation. On the walk to the Sudan, his leg has to be amputated (HoA 469); and eventually he ends as Moody does: only his heart is left, carried out of the desert by Gage, who has killed him. The way in which Nordstrand ’ s body disintegrates is different from Moody ’ s. The latter ’ s development already starts at the beginning of the novel, his state deteriorating slowly, while Nordstrand starts successfully, reaching a threshold which causes his swift downfall. Moody, despite his problems keeping up with the physical and psychological hardships on Operation Atropos, keeps the hope that he will have the chance to save himself up until the end, but his body cannot comply with his aspirations. Catching a sunburn, the skin around his eyes looks like a mask (HoA 327), an early indication that below his harmless outer appearance something lies hidden. In the incident involving the can of peaches, Nordstrand tortures him with a scalding spoon (HoA 366). He loses parts of his body on the walk to the Sudan, as it is mentioned that his skin is peeling off (HoA 469). The heat and the thirst make him desperate, and the strain on his body eventually causes it to act on its own, as it did back in Oman, when he instinctively killed prisoners of war after being spat at. In the perhaps most shocking scene in a book filled with “ inhumane ” acts, Moody is again overcome by the same impulse and, in a state of despair, kills the Bejayan guides that were to lead them to the Sudanese border after one of them, again, spits at him (HoA 476). This incident proves to him that he still does not have his body under control. He then sees suicide as the only possible reaction to the self-revelation that he is still unable to prevent himself from committing atrocities. As with Nordstrand, Gage, the only survivor, cuts out Moody ’ s heart and takes it with him. Both of them have finally fragmented into “ abominable Things ” . The graphic descriptions of violent acts that dominate the whole novel but reach their culmination in these final episodes widely correspond, in their effect, to late nineteenth-century 90 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa Gothic conventions: “ More graphic than before, soliciting a more visceral readerly response than before, the fin-de-siècle Gothic manifests a new set of generic strategies . . . which function maximally to enact the defamiliarization and violent reconstitution of the human subject ” (Hurley 4). This “ defamiliarization and violent reconstitution ” is realised, in Horn of Africa, in the processes of fragmentation. Bodies, originally the stronghold of gender identity in general and masculinity in particular, turn into abominations, “ Things ” . To present this “ Thing-ness ” , the Gothic device of the double has its most compelling appearance towards the novel ’ s end, but the characters are assaulted by doubles on numerous occasions. However, Gage, the narrator and central protagonist, is not directly involved in this process of fragmentation and doubling himself. In fact, it seems as if he has already gone through a comparable development, which apparently has caused his infinite state of despair. He is aware of uncanny instances of subject doubling within himself. He feels that “ The only connection I could make between my own boyhood and the man I had become was purely biological; two different personalities united only by a tenancy in the same body ” (HoA 195). His war experience must have enhanced such awareness. When consuming Hashish, Gage ’ s mind doubles. It arouses his “ violent, irrational side ” while his other side reminds him to “ Stay calm ” . He mentions that he had similar experiences under extreme conditions in the war (HoA 73). Hoping that he will be able to cure the “ baseless terror ” that afflicts him, he constructs a supposed case of object doubling between himself and what he thinks/ hopes represents his evil side. His fascination with Nordstrand, which is apparent throughout the novel, originates in his hope that Nordstrand is his conventional, evil double, his second self. Gage states that Nordstrand “ aroused the fascination we often feel toward rogues and renegades and even cold-blooded killers, toward all those who do things we publicly condemn but privately admire because they are our surrogates, acting out criminal fantasies we dare not act out ourselves ” (HoA 376). He seems to view Nordstrand as a classic example of an evil double and uses mainly aspects of social identity to allot such a role to Nordstrand. He applies an element of occupational identity — both of them were once soldiers in the same army — one of ethnic identity — not only are both of them Americans, they are even from the same region — one of racial identity — they are two of the few white people on Operation Atropos — and also familial identity — we learn that Nordstrand ’ s parents “ were not unlike [Gage ’ s] own ” (HoA 307). His aim on Operation Atropos, as he states himself, is to “ name my dread, face it, fight it, subdue it, and win a personal victory ” (HoA 150). Whereas the double in literature usually appears unexpectedly, Gage actively searches for his until he finds it in Nordstrand. The double as the second self is supposed to help him to understand and come to terms with his 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 91 identity. His comments about how he sees himself in Nordstrand ’ s destructive nature, inserted repeatedly into the plot, take on an obsessive nature, indicating that in reality he may not be sure whether Nordstrand really is what he was looking for. According to Nordstrand, whose remarks are of course conveyed to the reader by Gage himself, he and Gage have quite a few things “ in common ” (HoA 119), considering their experiences in the Vietnam War. Gage bases this fact on the idea of “ sympathy ” (HoA 321) for fellow Vietnam veterans, an expression used to describe the transfer of identity away from a social concept to a double (Daffron 1). In the narrative, however, Gage often lets Nordstrand state their similarities, representing perhaps Gage ’ s hope that his view of Nordstrand as his double is not just an illusion he has created. At the start of Operation Atropos, the latter is said to be convinced that he can count on Gage ’ s support in trying to become the leader, a role officially held by Moody. Gage then relentlessly informs the reader about the similarities between him and Nordstrand: There is “ some malignant element within me that understood Nordstrand instinctively. We did have a few things in common, more than I had thought, more than I wanted ” (HoA 120). Subliminally, he seems contented in this situation. Only if Nordstrand and he had more in common could Gage hope for a chance to confront his double. He is adamant about presenting Nordstrand as an almost mystic embodiment of his primal fears when describing him as a metaphysical entity that has finally appeared: Padding almost soundlessly across the floor, a dark shape darker than the blackened room was moving from the doorway toward the table. In a near-delusional state, I thought for an instant that my bête noire had at last materialized. At last I was going to see the thing that made me quake like a frightened child, see it, face it, and fight it. My muscles tensed, ready to spring and wrestle with the phantom. . .. Both terror and elation drained from me when, in the match light, I saw that it was Nordstrand. (HoA 193) Here, Gage reverts to a classical representation of the double: the shadow. Furthermore, when reading Nordstrand ’ s diaries, he stresses an intimate affinity between the two: “ Like me, Nordstrand came from the upper Middle West, that gloomy land of flat plains and flat pine forests encompassing small farms. Even more haunting was the last phrase of the last entry. It was as though I had written it, for I too saw myself on a threshold, about to embark on a mission of self-rescue ” (HoA 196). Their similarities fall into place almost too readily. Gage emphasises how they share intimate thoughts and communicate on a subliminal level, each knowing what the other thinks and intends to do. He suspects Nordstrand to have left the lock on the bag containing his diaries open on purpose, “ because there was something in those books he wanted me to see ” 92 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa (HoA 197). To excuse himself, he contradicts Nordstrand when the latter says, “ I knew you would understand because you and me, Charlie Gage, you and me, we ’ ve got more in common than you think ” . Gage replies, “‘ And less than you think, ’ I said, more to assert myself than to state a fact. For I was all too aware of the things that made for a kinship between us ” (HoA 374). In addition, Gage and Nordstrand, but not Moody, paint their faces black for the attack on Umm- Tajer (HoA 373). Gage emulates Nordstrand, artificially constructing a likeness in order to prepare to overcome it. Gage, however, is not satisfied at presenting Nordstrand as merely his own exclusive double. Instead, he presents him as the double to all (seemingly virtuous) men. Considering Nordstrand ’ s views, Gage says, “ I realized that it was a picture of myself, not as I was, but as I could have been. . .. The demons who dwelled in him dwelled in me, as they do in all men: the attraction to violence, the need to be free from all restrictions, the impulse to follow one ’ s desires wherever they may lead and without regard for others ” (HoA 303). He sees his role as a missionary ’ s, delivering all men from their unconscious presence of evilness. In what Gage hoped would be the final confrontation between the two, he believes his chance has come to vanquish his double. Nordstrand, weakened by disease, “ became the material manifestation of the thing that threatened to destroy me, and he gave me the chance to fight and subdue it ” (HoA 478). Beating Nordstrand until he screams (HoA 451), Gage hopes to find rest once and for all. Here he hopes to have won over his evil double. After killing Nordstrand, the question of whose double Nordstrand really is, becomes even less easy to answer: “ I had to kill to gain it, to cast myself into the darkness to see, but at least I saw him for what he was: neither madman nor monster, but the embodiment of all that was wrong with me, all that is wrong with our crippled natures ” (HoA 398). Gage uses a plural pronoun. He is still focused on masculinity and its implications on violence and brutality. Not only Gage, but also Nordstrand shows a tendency to construct “ convenience doubles ” . According to Gage ’ s narration, Nordstrand also feels torn apart into subjective doubles. Aware of his parents ’ legacy in him, he sees himself as a person split into two: “ If a part of him was like Isaac Bennett, another part was like [his father] Thomas Nordstrand; and these segments of his divided self warred with each other. He believed the former was the greater part, his true self, but the latter exerted enough pull to inhibit him from acting ” (HoA 317). Nordstrand himself states that “ The Dionysian in me must destroy the Apollonian ” (HoA 320). He believes in “ destiny ” (HoA 319) and hopes to be able to lose his family ’ s legacy by becoming independent of their inhibitions, assuming his ideal, god-like state. Eventually he will come to learn, however, that his supposed doubles do not represent his destiny, but that his real double acquaints him with destiny ’ s counterpart, namely fate, as Keppler (196) has 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 93 mentioned. Eventually, the outcome turns out to have been doomed from the start. The name of the operation already indicates this fact: “ Atropos ” , one of the three Fates, was “ the Inevitable ” (March). At first, though, Nordstrand believes he can see his doubles readily, believes them to be his guides. He feels that Gordon of Khartoum and his great-great-grandfather Isaac Bennett are his doubles. Standing in the place where Gordon died, he feels an affinity to him: “ . . . it ’ s like I know him ” . He feels a sense of “ Being in touch ” with Gordon (HoA 115) and calls him “ A spiritual ancestor ” of his (HoA 117). With Bennett, he feels a “ spiritual kinship ” (HoA 316). Thinking back to Colfax ’ s briefing on the Operation, Gage senses the affinity between Colfax and Nordstrand: “ I can still see those two at that moment, making their vague gestures, their silent signals of a mutual understanding. I see them, not as two individuals, but as two aspects of the same entity, as the mind and the will . . . ” (HoA 131). To Gage, Colfax is “ the mind ” , ostensibly running a respectable business. Nordstrand is “ the will ” . He is to carry out what lurks in Colfax ’ s mind. On Operation Atropos, he hopes to fulfil his dream of becoming a god to the Beni-Hamid. In order to be their manifest double, he paints his face black (HoA 348). His aspiration to become a member of that tribe is to be the culmination of his role in Operation Atropos, but, as Gage has already stated, “ You ’ re one of us ” (HoA 374). He acknowledges somehow that doubles cannot be chosen. Both Gage and Nordstrand have got some awareness of instances of doubling. Gage believes in his evil double, hopes it to be Nordstrand and to be able to defeat that double. Nordstrand himself, on the other hand, hopes to turn into his doubles Gordon, Isaac Bennett and the Beni-Hamid. These aspirations of both men turn out to be illusions. While they are busy building up would-be doubles, they are oblivious to the existence of real doubles, who cannot be exploited for the sake of rehabilitation. They are entities that enter a life without notice, destroy the first self ’ s illusion of what he is and present to him what he never wanted to see. Their inevitable task is not to lead the first self back to integrity, but rather to forever pre-empt any further social identification and sever the first self from his supposed group. Nordstrand is not Gage ’ s double; just as Gordon, Isaac Bennett or the Beni-Hamid are not Nordstrand ’ s doubles. Real doubles are less easily grasped, confronted and defeated, and can certainly not be exploited for the first self ’ s own needs. The two hearts cut out by Gage represent the final atrocity in Horn of Africa, and also its final revelation. As inner parts of two bodies taken to the surface, they reveal what has been hidden from view all the time: Nordstrand and Moody are not just doubles by division, they are manifest doubles, their hearts indistinguishable from one another (HoA 478), with each of them representing to the other what they refused to acknowledge about themselves when still alive. The processes of Nordstrand ’ s and Moody ’ s physical fragmentation ends 94 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa in their doubling, encompassing two typical devices of Gothic literature. Whereas the two characters do not overtly admit to their status as doubles, such indications haunt them while they are driven towards their fate. Moody ’ s turning point is the peach incident. When Nordstrand, having tortured him with a scalding spoon and beaten him severely, asks who the boss is, Moody answers, “ You are ” (HoA 367). This short sentence can also be read as “ You are ” . Moody acknowledges that Nordstrand is. Shortly before, it was Nordstrand who stated to Moody that “ The very fact that you are offends me ” (HoA 366, italics added). In this scene, the two recognise that their respective antagonists are indeed real, and the existence of what they despise cannot be denied. At this point, Moody surrenders. Having officially been in charge of Operation Atropos up to then, he willingly concedes this role to Nordstrand. He recognises his double, which he cannot subdue. Here, Moody ’ s inescapable descent begins, culminating in his killing of Yassin and Rashid, the Bejayan guides, and his committing suicide. His final acts make it clear to him that he cannot not be like his double Nordstrand. He is unable to prevent himself from killing cold-bloodedly, and this revelation can, in his view, only be reacted to by killing himself. The double has acted out its potential, having presented to the first self, Moody, what he really is and caused his death. Indications that Nordstrand consciously recognises Moody as his double occur at a later stage. His last hours before being killed by Gage are almost mystical. His diseases take him into a delirium where he sees faces. Even though he has virtually lost all his eyesight, these invisible, ghostly, “ Gothic ” apparitions which assault him in his mind finally make him exclaim, “ I see! I see! ” (HoA 471). It is not revealed what he sees; Moody thinks it is the people whom he murdered (HoA 459), and his physical agony “ had put him in contact with the current of human suffering that flows through the world ” (HoA 472). Gage believes Nordstrand sees his own soul, and that “ . . . he saw himself for what he was. That ’ s what terrified him ” (HoA 472). The use of the soul in this scene before Nordstrand ’ s death is a fitting culmination of his identification process. The soul, as the original interpretation of the philosophical double, appears as one of the last doubles in the plot. It announces death, as many a proper double would, and it shows the first self who he is; but in contrast to later classic representations of the double, it is also good-natured. This juncture is the counterpart to Moody ’ s cognisance in the peach incident. Whereas Moody recognises Nordstrand ’ s existence as his double when he is being tortured with the scalding spoon, Nordstrand recognises his own double here. Gage is right in stating that Nordstrand “ saw himself for what he was ” (HoA 472). At that point, Nordstrand probably sees Moody nursing him, in a pose “ like an ambulance attendant ” (HoA 455). Moody frightens Nordstrand, as he represents weakness, which he could never accept about himself, but which has now 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 95 afflicted him with his diseases. Moody is the original double: the good soul, but in Nordstrand ’ s view, the good is the mischievous counterpart. Moody is therefore not only any double, he is the original double who still catapults the first self, Nordstrand, into devastation. Nordstrand ’ s world is destroyed at this point; his aspirations have failed as his body has grown as weak as — or even weaker than — Moody ’ s, the person whom he most despises, and he recognises that Moody with his moral imperatives may have been right. His double, the soul, is good, but by becoming visible it indicates his impending death, which is only accelerated by Gage ’ s shooting him. As, according to Freud, the fear of losing an eye is related to the fear of castration ( “ The Uncanny ” 139 - 40), Nordstrand has, with his diminished eyesight, finally lost all remnants of male identity inscribed in the body. Ironically, the only part that is eventually left of him is his heart, which, representing emotion rather than reason, is commonly associated with the female (Bibby 3). However, just as the decaying bodies of Moody and Nordstrand have become de-masculinised, so are their hearts now devoid of any emotional, female connotation. As the Sudanese border police commander asserts, “ No one can identify a heart ” (HoA 464). They are nothing but disgusting, indistinguishable extractions from human bodies, and manifest doubles. Gage cuts out Moody ’ s and Nordstrand ’ s hearts, “ their most essential part ” (HoA 464), with the emphasis on the singular form of the noun. Not only Nordstrand ’ s and Moody ’ s aspirations are obliterated during the escape to the Sudan. Even though he is a survivor, Gage has failed in his attempt to subdue his evil side, which is supposedly represented by Nordstrand. Operation Atropos has turned out to be even more horrific than he could have anticipated. Nordstrand ’ s mystical, and unresolved, final exclamations as well as his own continuing nightmares of all the dead attest to a predominating ungraspable Gothic world that for those who have seen it proves to be insuperable, incomprehensible and also inescapable. Gage remains doomed to continue his gloomy existence, and, Ishmael-like, to tell his tale: “ I was destined, by the caprice that governs the universe, to survive and bear witness and to perform my own final act of loyalty to Jeremy Nordstrand ” (HoA 456). Horn of Africa is constructed as a tale in which identity is shown as going through several phases until invariably ending in its own obliteration. Its protagonists lost their adherence to occupational/ class, ethnic, racial and familial identity before the starting point of the plotline and have become compelled to fixate their identities on the supposed stability of the (gendered) body. Whereas the male body, commonly linked to the performance of violent acts, is at first presented as the most likely cause of war atrocities, the novel continues in an increasingly Gothic way in order to present war. In its “ unspeakability ” , in the way in which reason fails to explain the true horrors of war, the Gothic remains the only suitable method to describe it. War is not 96 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa initiated by reasonable human beings, but strips those human beings of all their outward appearance and reveals them to be “ Things ” , “ abominations ” , which are hardly ever again as starkly represented as in the two hearts that stand at the culmination of Operation Atropos. They function as the first prominent appearance of doubles in Caputo ’ s fiction, equating the supposed opposites of “ good ” (Moody) and “ bad ” (Nordstrand). They are what C. F. Keppler would call second selves. There is an inner linkage between the two characters as well as an outward similarity, both of which were long obscured, however. This combination of identity deconstruction with the surge of Gothic elements culminating in the appearance of the double continues to play a dominant role in all of Caputo ’ s 1980 s ’ / 1990 s ’ works of fiction. 3. Gender Identity and the Disintegration of the Human Body: Horn of Africa 97 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs: DelCorso ’ s Gallery Philip Caputo ’ s second novel, DelCorso ’ s Gallery (DCG) focuses on another one of the five main categories of social identity: occupational/ class identity. As the term indicates, this aspect of identity comprises two dimensions which are closely related. Accordingly, they are treated in combination in this novel. With regard to the meaning of “ class ” , Stephen Edgell states that “ Originally the term class referred to the division of the Roman population on the basis of property for fiscal and military purposes. This pre-modern usage was a static one in the sense that classes were regarded as ascriptive groupings of people who inherited a shared rank in society ” (1). The key indicators of class are therefore property and rank. In more modern times, Edgell affirms that, according to the most prominent theorists of class, Karl Marx and Max Weber, property is the main indicator of class (Edgell 116). Harriet Bradley, however, uses a broader definition: “ Those inequalities which are related to the production, distribution and exchange of wealth we have come to know by the complex and rather controversial shorthand term of class ” (11). She does not mention property specifically, instead focusing on “ production, distribution and exchange of wealth ” , referring to the cycle of the modern economy, which has become more flexible due to the increased importance of money, which seems to have widely replaced property, and in the form of “ abstract property ” has become the main economic indicator of someone ’ s class. Kath Woodward states that “ Class is a large grouping of people who share common economic interests, experiences and lifestyles ” ( “ Questions of Identity ” 21). David Morgan emphasises the distinction between class and what he calls status: “ Roughly speaking, class in this instance refers to the unequal distribution of life chances; status refers to the social distribution of honor or prestige ” ( “ Class and Masculinity ” 167). If property is indeed the main factor that defines class, status is independent of class in that “ honor or prestige ” are more subjective and transient concepts, and therefore less stable ones. Rosemary Crompton is also aware of this difference: The association of class with hierarchy has led to a second common use of the term - to indicate social standing or prestige. Thus the term ‘ upper class ’ or ‘ lower class ’ is frequently used as a shorthand to describe an individual ’ s social attributes. In contemporary usage, however, the use of the term ‘ class ’ in this sense would not carry with it any indication of legal status or formal entitlements. When occupations are ranked according to their perceived levels of prestige or social standing, these are described as status scales. (10, italics in original) In modern democracies, neither class nor status, at least officially, has an impact on the treatment of people by the law or the administration, and “ status ” is merely “ perceived ” as high or low, whereas “ class ” is more easily defined by the actual value of a person ’ s possessions. Crompton relates the concept to occupation: . . . in modern societies, unequally rewarded groups are often described as ‘ classes ’ . These groupings, however, are not characterized by any formal, legal distinctions; rather, they summarize the outcome, in material terms, of the competition for resources in capitalist market societies. ‘ Classes ’ may correspond to income groups, but a very common basis for classification in modern societies is occupation . . . These occupational groupings are amongst the most useful indicators of patterns of material advantage and disadvantage in modern societies, and are widely used in social-policy, market and advertising research, and so on. (10) Occupation is so closely linked to class as it is perhaps the most prominent and decisive factor that provides a person with “ property ” and eventually determines their class. The connection between class and occupation is not absolute, however. Bradley proposes a more comprehensive definition of class, which includes occupation not as a main indicator, but merely as one of many factors: . . . it is a label applied to a nexus of unequal lived relationships arising from the social organization of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. These include: the allocation of tasks in the division of labour (occupation, employment hierarchies); control and ownership relationships within production; the unequal distribution of surplus (wealth, income, state benefits); relationships linked to the circulation of money (markets, shareholding, investment); patterns of consumption (lifestyle, living arrangements); and distinctive cultures that arise from all these (behavioural practices, community relations). Class is a much broader concept, then, than occupational structure, though the latter is often taken as a measure of it. (46) Whereas occupation is mentioned as one factor, Bradley does not use the term property at all in this definition. Instead, she focuses on “ the social organization of production, distribution, exchange and consumption ” , which are concepts clearly based on the material and economic potential of a person and therefore again a more modern equivalent to the idea of property. Crompton acknowledges this weakness in the relation between class and occupation: “ First, despite its utility as a summary measure, employment and occupational titles do not, in fact, adequately incorporate the many different dimensions of inequality in modern societies. Secondly, it has been argued that ‘ occupation ’ by itself cannot adequately capture the actualities of class relations in either a Marxist or a Weberian sense ” (51, italics in original). Of course, money/ property etc. can also be inherited, stolen or acquired in many other ways, but occupation and its 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 99 monetary reward are, in modern societies, the usual way in which many people achieve their place in the economy. As Crompton concludes, . . . there is a widespread assumption within the social sciences that ‘ class ’ is described by the occupational structure - indeed, ‘ class structure ’ and ‘ occupational structure ’ are often taken to be synonymous. This convention stems from the practice established by turn-of-the-century statisticians such as Stevenson of dividing up the population into unequally-rewarded occupational orders of ‘ classes ’ . (77) Class and occupation are closely linked and the two terms are useful complements in the denomination of the corresponding category of identity. In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, occupational/ class identity is the most prominent identity aspect. The focus is on the main characters ’ work as war photographers. In addition, the class difference between the protagonist Nick DelCorso and his wife Margaret is a principal theme. These two focal points nicely correspond with the double denotation of this identity category. While occupation and class stand at the centre, other identity aspects are treated only on the fringe. In contrast to Horn of Africa, gender identity is hardly ever referred to and not a particularly relevant subject in DelCorso ’ s Gallery. The idea of ethnic identity is more often referred to, particularly with respect to national and religious groups. To Nick DelCorso, the protagonist, the idea of identifying with a country/ nation is not his primary concern. He is obsessed with a sense of “ mission ” which takes on almost mystic qualities. His self-proclaimed mission is, however, not linked to the idea of nation, even though his coverage of the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the Lebanese Civil War in the following year stand in the centre of the novel. He does not fight for or against the USA; neither as a soldier nor as a war photographer. Indeed, patriotism is what he criticises most in his former mentor ’ s work: P. X. Dunlop manipulates his pictures so that “ You could look at those pictures and still think it fitting and proper to die for your country ” (DCG 47). By this, he does not mean the USA, however, but any country. DelCorso ’ s aim as a photographer is to show that wars and the atrocities committed in them are comparable no matter who the warring factions are. His work is often interpreted differently and he has been said to have “ dishonored the American soldier ” (DCG 49). That was never his intention. His mission is in no way anti-nationalist; it is purely non-nationalist. Dunlop, on the other hand, is the character who represents traditional values and has made his name covering wars in rather conventional ways. He is annoyed at American photographers intent on reporting atrocities only if they are committed by Americans (DCG 135), and he retains a belief in “ the values that help a civilization defend itself against its enemies: loyalty to country, courage, the nobility of sacrifice, endurance in the face of overwhelming odds ” (DCG 136). To him, there are clearly discernible sides in a conflict. Some of the 100 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs photographers whom he criticises also focus on the conflict between Americans and North Vietnamese, the only difference being that they overeagerly condemn the American side while Dunlop strives to defend it. Eventually, Dunlop realises, however, that the situation is not as simple as he would like to believe. Being accused of glorifying war, “ Dunlop knew, even as he fought off such attacks on his work, that they would not have stung if they hadn ’ t contained an element of truth, if he hadn ’ t felt a failing in his coverage of Vietnam, if he hadn ’ t realized, within his innermost self, that he had avoided seeing certain truths about the war because he found them unacceptable ” (DCG 136). Apparently, he once saw his occupation as a means to spread patriotic feelings. Instead, it has turned his own views around and now makes him question what he originally wanted to assert. Other photographer characters are consciously aware of their nationality but do not take it seriously enough to establish it as a measure of ethnic identity. Mark Wilson comments on America in his usual cynical way. He and DelCorso were trained by actors and directors of patriotic television shows to teach at Escape-and-Evasion School (DCG 146). He compares this experience and “ typical ” Americanness with a children ’ s television show: “ Captain Midnight was a pilot who fought for truth, justice, and the American way ” (DCG 146). Harry Bolton is another cynic among the photographers. Also an American, he is being ironic when he mentions to Purcell, an English correspondent, that one should do “ Anything for the mother country ” (DCG 38). He identifies more with Vietnam than with the USA. Realising that he would miss Vietnam after returning home, he is aware that “ He had complained about this country often enough and sometimes hated it more than any place on earth, but this alien land would always claim a part of him, for he had come to manhood here ” (DCG 153). He sees himself as a part of Vietnam, not for nationalist feelings but for what he experienced there. The main element of American identity which he comments on is the Beirut Holiday Inn, one of the most embattled landmarks in the Lebanese Civil War: “ It ’ s a big story because the editors at home think the Holiday Inn is a symbol Americans can identify with ” (DCG 232). American identity is therefore not a deeply rooted concept but comparable to something as indistinct as a hotel. The Holiday Inn should supposedly have the potential to make Americans unify in their view of the conflict. According to Bolton, this is an illusion and the war is in reality “ one big family feud ” (DCG 234). In his opinion, Americans would not understand such a view: “ You can ’ t write it because the editors in New York can ’ t understand it. To them, it ’ s Right versus Left, rich versus poor, the cross versus the crescent. That makes sense to them. A blood feud on a national scale doesn ’ t ” (DCG 234). Warring ethnic groups are a fiction to him. Instead, it is familial identity that is capable of evoking armed conflicts. In addition, there are many internal wars 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 101 (DCG 229), with countless factions fighting each other (DCG 231 - 32). Bolton compares broadcast journalism to Hollywood (DCG 241), which apparently represents an identity concept about as shallowly as the Holiday Inn. A further relevant subcategory of ethnic identity is religion. It occurs repeatedly and is a stronger element than national identity, but still remains in the background, even though a large part of the novel is set in the Lebanese Civil War, in which religious differences are apparently a key conflict issue. When religion is mentioned, it is mainly with reference to the individual main characters, with religious groups as such being widely ignored. DelCorso and Margaret are both Catholic, but DelCorso is a Jesuit Catholic (DCG 121) whereas Margaret is an Irish Catholic (DCG 29). When in Margaret ’ s company, he acts as an atheist (DCG 278), even though he admits to himself that the Jesuits and St. Ignatius school, where he was educated, “ had captured him for life ” (DCG 63). He even prays in moments of crisis (DCG 84). Among the other characters, Bolton refers to religion but sees his adherence in a similarly empty way as he sees national identity. He terms himself “ a backwoods Southern Baptist Christian ” (DCG 309), which apparently means nothing to him. It is a categorisation as hollow as Americanness. On the broader level, he appraises the atrocities that he witnesses in Beirut, whether committed by Christians or Moslems, in a similar way (DCG 228). There is, however, another level of ethnic identity that is more prominent not only in DelCorso ’ s but also in other characters ’ views. This can be called a sub-level of national identity. When DelCorso somehow identifies with an ethnicity, it is not with the USA but with his being an Italian American. Walking to his laboratory, he describes the atmosphere in New York ’ s Italian quarter as a place where he feels comfortable: “ Little Italy — its resemblance to the Valley made him feel at home ” (DCG 217). The “ Valley ” , the Chicago neighbourhood in which he grew up, is a stronger element with which identification is possible. Other characters also tend to see him as an Italian American. For example, Wilson says to DelCorso, “ You have a responsibility not to be taken lightly — upholding the reputation of your ethnic group as cocksmen ” (DCG 54), and, at one point, he calls him an “ Italian troll ” (DCG 156). DelCorso ’ s wife Margaret also focuses on his roots: “ My Italian macho man hasn ’ t washed a dish or wiped a table in his life ” (DCG 211). Upon their first encounter, it already becomes clear, however, that such a view of ethnicity is linked to other aspects of identity; in their case, occupation/ class. The subjects of DelCorso ’ s first conversation with Margaret are their occupations and the country from which his family originally came. When she asks, “ Are your people from Rome originally? ” , DelCorso “ hadn ’ t cared for the way she said ‘ your people, ’ as though he belonged to some exotic Indian tribe ” (DCG 289). Margaret is interested because she thinks, “ . . . Italians are a very visual people . . . ” (DCG 102 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 289), implying that DelCorso is predestined to work as a photographer. To her, sub-national origin influences occupation. Most other American photographer characters also identify ethnically at least on a sub-level, if not necessarily with their ancestors ’ countries. Tim McCafferty is proud of his origins in the Boston slums. He has the accent (DCG 53) and refers to his “ Irish ass ” (DCG 350). Frank Conklin, from whom we know that he is also Catholic, constantly wallows in his memories of Baltimore where he comes from and where his children live (DCG 57). The character with the most developed sense of sub-national identity is Bolton, who feels a strong connection to his home state: “‘ North Carolina. ’ Bolton ’ s excitement subsided for a moment, and he spoke the name of his native state in the way a man speaks the name of a former mistress he thought he had loved. ‘ Nothing has happened in North Carolina since the Civil War. Harry the Horseman doesn ’ t belong in one of the most boring states in the Union. ’” (DCG 189). He is a part of North Carolina even though he neither necessarily loves it nor has chosen it as something with which to identify. He is a North Carolinian whether he likes the idea or not. Therefore he is drawn back to it even though he cannot see a particular reason why he should do so: “ he still thought of Bryson City, North Carolina, as his home, though he hadn ’ t been there in years ” (DCG 153). It remains his home, no matter whether or not he is happy with this situation. Like DelCorso, he identifies with a sub-layer of ethnic identity, which, however, is of a different kind. DelCorso ’ s main referent of ethnic identity is his family ’ s country of origin whereas Bolton ’ s is a region within the USA, but ethnic identity on a national level is irrelevant to either of them. DelCorso ’ s wife Margaret mainly shares her husband ’ s view about subnational identity. She is a devout member not primarily of Catholicism but of “ Irish Catholicism ” (DCG 29). Indeed, she even accompanied him on an assignment to Ireland because she wanted to see where her family originally came from (DCG 6). It is clear, however, that Irishness as such is again subjected to other elements: “ . . . the sort of Irish Margaret came from were not the Irish of fiery maids, mad poets, and saloon brawlers, but the laciest of lace-curtain Irish, people who had turned themselves into Catholic imitations of the Cabots and the Lodges . . . ” (DCG 15 - 16). Her ethnicity both as being Irish and as being Catholic is compromised by the idea of class, even though she can also become the “ fiery Irish maid ” (DCG 26). The fact that she proposes her ancestors left Ireland due to the climate (DCG 24) affirms that she has no idealised views of Americanness. To both DelCorso and his wife, a sub-national level of ethnic identity has some importance, but it is strongly connected to the idea of occupation — as in DelCorso ’ s being an “ Italian ” photographer — and class — as in Margaret ’ s family ’ s social standing in Ireland. 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 103 Perhaps surprisingly, the identity aspect of race is hardly present in this novel set in several places in the world and in wars where one would expect conflict to be based at least partly on racial difference. Instead, it is familial identity that is treated in a more prominent way. As mentioned before, the Lebanese Civil War, one of the main events portrayed in DelCorso ’ s Gallery, is “ one big family feud ” (DCG 234) to Bolton. To him, it is familial identity that is capable of evoking armed conflicts. With regard to the main characters, familial identity is also an issue, and many of them are aware that they have been unable to uphold a family structure. Wilson went through three divorces (DCG 45) and married a Vietnamese prostitute not long before being killed (DCG 90). As with many things, he takes neither family nor occupation seriously: “ . . . Wilson approached photography as he did the act of getting married: it gave him something to do when he got bored ” (DCG 45). Apparently he does not want to identify with either aspect. His colleague McCafferty did not have a family growing up (DCG 146) or the possibility to identify with a family as a child. Now he is twice divorced and has children (DCG 57). Similarly, Conklin is divorced and has children (DCG 57). Even though his marriage has failed, his children appear to be the most important aspect in his life, which annoys Wilson, who thinks that Conklin is “ a displaced suburban father dreaming of picket fences and little ones on his lap ” (DCG 142). Bolton is also divorced, but he is primarily concerned with his forefathers. Dreaming about returning to live a quiet life in North Carolina, he thinks back to his father, who, with real estate scams, lost the family ’ s land that had been granted to them by George Washington (DCG 310). He wants to buy the lost land back (DCG 311), even though there is still land for him that belonged to his mother ’ s family (DCG 310). He calls himself “ an up-country boy with no English or French Huguenot in his blood lines, and no money in his checking account ” (DCG 198). Therefore, even though connected to his family, what troubles him most is the thought about his land, i. e. property, one of the principal markers of class. Nick DelCorso ’ s wife Margaret also puts great emphasis on familial identity. She had to choose between two families: her ancestors ’ or DelCorso ’ s. She married DelCorso against her father ’ s wishes and consequently had to give up her privileged environment. In choosing a family, she also chose a class. She is unwilling or unable, however, to give up her original surroundings. She constructs a life which looks as civilised as her original milieu. In other words, she has left her original family ’ s class environment, but tries to hold on to her status. The link between familial and occupational/ class identity is a central aspect in Margaret ’ s world-view. When DelCorso asks Margaret who he is, she replies, “ You ’ re my husband and a photographer and a very good one ” (DCG 211), meaning he is a good husband and a good photographer (DCG 212). To her, familial and occupational/ class identity are equally strong elements and 104 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs apparently linked. DelCorso is annoyed at having to assume the responsibilities of a family man the way Margaret expects from him. He thinks she wants him to become a man of whom her father can approve (DCG 283). On the other hand, he is obviously proud of having been able to win Margaret but feels unworthy of her and unable to adapt to her wishes: “ The anger that sometimes caused their quarrels was, he saw now, an anger toward himself and whatever it was in his nature that prevented him from living up to her image of what he ought to be. Why couldn ’ t he have bent his principles a bit and compromised on the matter of going to mass? ” (DCG 291 - 92). He needed “ to get away from her because he didn ’ t like himself when he was around her ” (DCG 292). Even though he loves her, he is afraid that something in his marriage is not as it should be, but “ Finding out would require painful self-examination, for which he had not the time, the talent, or the inclination ” (DCG 29). His identification with his family is not as absolute as Margaret ’ s. He is often annoyed at her ways and sceptical about whether they belong together. Even so, and despite what Wilson suggests, he does not believe that, as a war photographer, he is on the run from his married life: “ The stresses to which his marriage had been subject — his absences, Margaret ’ s drinking, her father ’ s efforts to break it up during its first year — were not signs that it was flawed but proof that it was sound ” (DCG 62). His familial environment, especially his house, gives him the feeling of permanence, which he needs. It stands in opposition to what he sees in his job (DCG 63). It is the house that gives him something to cling to, which is again a symbol of property and therefore of class, rather than family. His emotional link to his parentage also appears to be less strong than Margaret ’ s. We find out that Frank, his father, who is a construction carpenter, helped to repair the house that he and Margaret had bought. DelCorso respected him: “ The principal attribute DelCorso inherited from his father wasn ’ t physical strength but a sense of social responsibility: Frank DelCorso advocated the now almost extinct idea that a man owed it to society to turn in the best job he could ” (DCG 63). In this case, feelings for one ’ s family are connected to occupation, again a determiner of occupational/ class identity. What DelCorso and many other characters mainly identify with is occupation/ class. Whereas the conflict between him and Margaret is the main example of class difference, the relationships between the various photographer characters emphasise the differing views about occupation. Besides DelCorso, the novel focuses on several other war photographers, who have already been mentioned, the most prominent ones being Bolton, Dunlop, Wilson, Conklin and McCafferty. DelCorso himself has strong convictions as to what concerns his profession. He is adamant about true photography not being an art form and does not like being called an “ artist ” by Margaret (DCG 12). Upon meeting her for the first time, he declares, “ . . . 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 105 photography isn ’ t art. It ’ s applied science. Any photographer who calls himself an artist is a fraud ” (DCG 289). His intention is “ to take the war photograph to end all wars ” (DCG 42). By comparing photography with art, he is insulted in that he believes art to be an elitist concept, which again shows the strong connections between the ideas of class and occupation. The views of Del- Corso ’ s colleagues differ widely, as they all represent different approaches to their profession. Bolton is introduced with his professional merits being mentioned. He “ considered himself a war correspondent first and foremost . . . ” (DCG 30). Unlike DelCorso, he is not an idealist. Like DelCorso, however, he compares his role to a soldier ’ s: “ Being a good soldier, he had done as he was told ” (DCG 30), and “ . . . professionalism was his religion ” (DCG 36). In addition to having won journalism prizes, he is also a decorated war hero, even though he has no respect for institutions awarding such prizes (DCG 37). He learnt his skills not at the Citadel, from where he was expelled, but in his boyhood by hunting and fishing. He joined the army (DCG 37) and considers DelCorso ’ s intention “ to take the war photograph to end all wars ” laughable. According to Joe Basil Fenley, “ In Bolton human compassion and moral commitment languish. His type of art is devoid of true humanity and, in the literature of war, tends to perpetuate the phenomena by fostering the notion that it is inevitable ” (154). In the course of the novel, Bolton changes his mind as he starts thinking about what the point of such work is. He does not find one and therefore thinks of giving it up. He dreams of his homeland, North Carolina, and wants to write a book there (DCG 179), but feels unable to leave his job: “ Journalism. He was married to her for better or worse, and even the vision of writing books in a woodland cabin was not attractive enough to seduce him into leaving the bitch ” (DCG 188). Unconsciously, Bolton identifies with his occupation more deeply than expected. His experiences in Beirut change his mind. The brutality there makes him realise that there are limits to his willingness to get the best story (DCG 240). Even though he was the only journalist to be able to enter the embattled Holiday Inn, he refuses to send a report home (DCG 311), which causes him to be fired. Such assignments now occur to him merely as stunts (DCG 295). Dunlop used to be DelCorso ’ s mentor, but they have broken their bonds mainly for ideological reasons (DCG 49 - 50). He is highly respected, having won numerous prestigious prizes. DelCorso has come to despise Dunlop, who is too much of an institution, for now having others do the hard work for him and standing for “ war-is-hell-but-it ’ s-dramatic ” (DCG 41). Dunlop recognises that DelCorso has great talent: “ He had a special gift, Dunlop had to admit, but it rankled that it had been bestowed on such an insolent, half-educated, disloyal son of a bitch ” (DCG 137). Dunlop acknowledges the brutality in war, but, in 106 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs contrast to DelCorso, also believes that it can evoke redeeming qualities in the people concerned. Fenley states that “ The art represented by Dunlop is more human than Bolton ’ s, but guilty of making war seem acceptable, even epic and heroic ” (154 - 55), but his aim is not war propaganda; he tries to see the good sides of the human beings in war, not of war as such, even if it means manipulating the pictures, to which he frequently resorts. Dunlop does not distinguish between DelCorso ’ s aims and those of photographers who take pictures for sensationalist purposes. In contrast to DelCorso, for Dunlop photography is an art, and it helps to show decency even in the cruellest of moments. Dunlop attributes “ philosophical cowardice ” to photographers who focus on showing atrocities in war (DCG 134). Later on, however, he is equally shocked at the seemingly purposeless brutality in Vietnam and Beirut, so he partly loses his belief in the moral soundness of his aims. In view of the countless atrocities, he is no longer able to simply discard the methods of people like DelCorso as unprofessional. He then recognises that his own view of photography is called into question. Besides Bolton, Wilson is the prime cynic among the photographers. Having been DelCorso ’ s “ classmate in Army Photographer ’ s School ” , photographing, like marriage, is to him only a way of having something to do (DCG 45). He apparently sees no goal in it. As he is rich (DCG 45), a profession is not necessary to take him into a different class. In the photographers ’ circle, Wilson primarily hoped to have some fun: “ I got into this business expecting boon companions, comrades cheerful in the face of adversity, jolly buccaneers of the working press . . . ” (DCG 142). In his new profession, he counsciously found a new identity: “ We ’ ve got journalism. We ’ ve got that and each other ” (DCG 58), Wilson says about the merits of their jobs, but he does not put any value on the work itself. To him, his profession is nothing more than an act. Fittingly, he and DelCorso once were lay actors in the army as part of escape-and-evasion school (DCG 145). Conklin is a photographer who does not have an idealised picture of the profession as DelCorso or Dunlop do, nor is he cynical about it like Bolton or Wilson. He is more of a philosopher: “ We call ourselves photographers, photojournalists when we get high-toned about it, but what are we really? Mercenaries who carry cameras instead of guns ” (DCG 56). He believes they do the job “ so we don ’ t have to stop and think how empty our lives are ” (DCG 58). He misses his children in Baltimore (DCG 57), and his prime goal in photography is to support his family. Anxious to leave the profession, he is told by Wilson, “ You ’ re trapped. You ’ ve got mouths to feed ” (DCG 143). Conklin does not join the others when they are shown the climactic atrocities in Beirut (DCG 321), and finally, with DelCorso wounded, he does not want to save him at first (DCG 343), but then organises the car to rescue DelCorso (DCG 346). 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 107 McCafferty shows similarities with DelCorso in that his profession takes him away from his original environment, South Boston (DCG 57). Unlike Del- Corso, McCafferty does not pursue a noble goal. He works for the magazine Mercenary, which Dunlop calls “ a war comic for middle-age gun nuts with fantasies of high adventure ” (DCG 255). Like Conklin, he does not take pictures of the final atrocity, but only because no one would buy them (DCG 331). Even so, despite his dubious morals, it is McCafferty who attempts to save DelCorso in the end (DCG 343): DelCorso appraises McCafferty ’ s act with the words “ When you ’ re in a whorehouse, count on a whore to do the right thing ” (DCG 344). The differing views of the profession of photography that are treated in the novel highlight the importance of the occupation aspect in occupational/ class identity. The way in which it is presented also affirms its relation to class itself. DelCorso, in particular, uses occupation to rise in the class system. War photography is not only an idealistic cause for him. He was aware early on that a respectable profession would be his way out of his original environment: “ When I was ten, a kid three years older than me broke a clay sewer pipe over my head for no reason. That ’ s when I figured out that the only thing life was going to give me was a ration of shit unless I put up my hands and started swinging first ” (DCG 274). He was originally looking for something that allowed him to escape his neighbourhood, which threatened to become a lifelong prison: “ That was all he had ever wanted: to flee the smothering confines of that village within a city ” (DCG 65). He saw himself as having had the choice between two careers: “ the tricky path of organized crime, or the dull, safe Interstate that led through a year or two of night school, a stint in the reserves or the National Guard, then back to school for a degree in, say, accounting, followed by a job and a move to the suburbs: tenement to split-level in a generation — the American dream ” (DCG 66). What he chose was a different way and he is proud of it. At times, though, he is unsure whether he was able to sever himself from the “ village within a city ” . Having caught Lutter, Dunlop ’ s assistant, stealing his exclusive, he attacks him, but then accuses Lutter of being the attacker and has him arrested, aware that “ . . . dirty tricks . . . were as common in journalism as they were in politics ” (DCG 120). Later he develops a guilty conscience, “ The incident now struck DelCorso as sordid and stupid, a manifestation of the part of him that still lived in the alleys and gutters the rest of him had left behind long ago ” (DCG 120). Becoming a photographer journalist, he has not really escaped the shady methods of his origins. He continues seeing himself as what he originally was. Despite everything, becoming respected and rising in status remains a principal aim in DelCorso ’ s profession. At times, he realises that his work is often no more to him than a job. He needs a great deal of money to support his 108 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs family ’ s lifestyle and is also prepared to take up commercial appointments, even though he is not fond of them (DCG 6). In New York, “ . . . it again occurred to him that he wasn ’ t very different from these men in three-piece suits — just another businessman trying to relax with a few drinks at the end of the day, but anxious about getting home ” (DCG 272 - 73). He is not sure whether his job is a meaningful mission or just a necessary source of money. After his coverage of the fall of Saigon, he is annoyed at neither getting the Pulitzer Prize nor being voted in by Northstar, “ . . . a cooperative agency, owned by its members, a select circle of senior photographers ” (DCG 276). He does not quite take them seriously, but he still aspires to join them: “ . . . selection was based less on merit and more on what Kaplan [his colleague in New York] had called ‘ your qualities as a human being. ’ DelCorso took that to mean, if the members liked you, you got to be one of them ” (DCG 277). Even so, DelCorso has hopes that he will be admitted. Being able to join Northstar, he would finally have escaped the “ village ” . We have already seen that DelCorso believes in his having a “ mission ” to show the truth about war. Besides his view of photography as something that can help him to escape from the “ village ” , comparable to his having married Margaret in order to reach a higher social status, he believes in his work ’ s having a purpose. DelCorso left, or betrayed, his original mentor, Dunlop, because he did not approve of the latter ’ s method of handling photographs, especially because he manipulates pictures in order to make them appear heroic. After photographing atrocities in the battle of Rach Giang in Vietnam a few years before, DelCorso fell into discredit with the American military and was consequently expelled. He himself, however, also feels guilt for having photographed Rach Giang and still sees no purpose in taking pictures of such a senseless atrocity (DCG 224). He feels guilt for his presence alone, and the shocking scenes that he witnessed and photographed are the prime catalyst in his endeavour to atone. It was his experience there that compelled him to try to reveal the horrors of war to the public. He believes that for war photographers, “ The critical difference was made by purpose in the photographer ’ s mind, the purpose above all ” (DCG 223), and is convinced that “ . . . he would have to use his talents to make the indictment he had failed to make in Rach Giang ” (DCG 225). In the climax scene of the novel, he believes that the chance has come to make up for his moral complicity in the massacre, i. e. his having been there and photographed it. His opportunity for redemption arrives when he and some of his colleagues get the chance to take pictures of gruesomely and deliberately decapitated and disfigured bodies in the Lebanese Civil War. Here he believes to have found what he has been looking for: an undeniable representation of the brutality of war. He hopes that he will be able to take his “ war photograph to end all wars ” . Having no intention to sell the pictures in order to become rich and famous, he wants to keep them to include them in a future book (DCG 333). He 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 109 sees himself as the messenger of the truth that nobody wants to see, and he even describes his studio in New York as a place that “ looked like the lair of a shady private detective ” (DCG 218). This shows how he is intent on achieving justice. While DelCorso calls his neighbourhood of origin a “ village within a city ” (DCG 65), village is the word that haunts him throughout the novel (DCG 332). In addition to his village of origin, the word recalls the traumatising image of the battle at the village of Rach Giang. For DelCorso, village represents not only his humble beginnings in America but also a state of human depravity in the Vietnam War. As an occupation primarily offers a way out of the “ village ” , as it did to DelCorso, it is then also the element that takes a human being out of barbarity. Here, the main difference between occupational/ class identity as portrayed in DelCorso ’ s Gallery and gender identity as treated in Horn of Africa becomes discernible. Gender identity is widely based on bodily elements, and the body causes human beings to regress to a state of savagery, whereas occupational/ class identity is a concept founded on more abstract concepts and presumably allows a person to escape this savagery. The village is savage. Occupation is the way to leave the village and enter the city. In connection with this rise of the human being that progresses from the village to the city, the human body, generally an abomination, is altered in DelCorso ’ s Gallery to accommodate respectable elements of occupation/ class. The most prominent representative of this new, improved human body is the protagonist himself. DelCorso ’ s body, reminiscent of those in Horn of Africa, is not an element that would represent a human being ’ s goodness. Its deficiencies are more prominent than its abilities. DelCorso is described as having an “ overly muscled physique, perpetual five o ’ clock shadow, and eyebrows joined by a tuft of hair on the bridge of a nose that had been flattened in a Golden Gloves fight years before ” (DCG 20). His skin is olive (DCG 206). His picture is that of a macho man, but it seems unpleasant and hardly attractive. He has had attacks of nerves when thinking of Rach Giang, which he cannot keep at bay (DCG 207). The most telling feature is his bad leg, injured by a machine gunner in Vietnam (DCG 8). In the fight and the war, his body was severely deformed at least twice, giving him the appearance of an uncanny goblin. Even though he uses painkillers, he is a slave to his physical deficiencies. The only way to overcome them would be to agree to artificial body parts. When his leg hurts, “ . . . he almost wished they had amputated the damn thing, given him a brand-new, indestructible fiber-glass prosthetic device, immune to pain. For the lump of throbbing meat with which they had left him, a needle would do nicely now . . . ” (DCG 163). The “ lump of throbbing meat ” , as he describes a part of his body, is a burden that he has to bear. It is attached to him, a part of him. His defunct body is his primary weakness. A prosthesis would be superior in his opinion. He does not have one, but his body is completed with an artificial part of a different 110 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs nature: his camera. Having become almost inseparable from it, his role as a photographer, symbolised by the camera, complements his deficient natural body. The mechanical instrument gives him what was taken from him in the fight and the war: “ He was good at estimating how far he could run in a given span of time for the simple reason that his life had often depended on it; and because his livelihood depended on his ability to estimate the ranges at which various lenses were most effective, he was good at that as well. Too far and you don ’ t have the picture, too close and you won ’ t be alive to take it ” (DCG 4). He guarantees his safety on the basis of mathematics, aided by his camera. In this way, he regains the ability to maintain control over his environment in times of danger, a state that his body does not secure him anymore. The camera provides him with a sense of assurance, as he is aware that he is not in control of his surroundings, merely of his camera (DCG 5). The camera provides him with the sense of being in control over the world. Compared to Horn of Africa, the link between the body and identity is reversed. In the earlier novel, the characters crumble under the pressure put on them by their bodies. In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, the body is adjusted, even improved with artificial elements. The photo camera also has its deficiencies, however, producing only unmoving pictures and being unable to portray sound. Representing “ applied science ” (DCG 289), it cannot portray reality in all its complex aspects. Overall, though, the camera as the most prominent artificial element epitomises DelCorso ’ s occupation, the occupation that helped him to improve himself and leave the “ village ” . At times, DelCorso seems to be living in symbiosis with his camera: “ That ’ s all his cameras were: instruments, creations of applied optical physics. He loved the feel of them in his hands, but his most valuable equipment was in his head and heart, the camera devices that recorded not only the object but whatever was going on inside him when he pressed the button ” (DCG 83). His hands, head and heart complement the camera ’ s mechanical functions: “ . . . he had to be thinking clearly, his feelings had to be in harmony with those of the moment, his intimacy with his camera had to be such that his use of it at the decisive instant was reflex action, an immediate union of the tangible and intangible, of hand and eye, mind and heart ” (DCG 83). It is more than an instrument to him. He sees its functions as organs, making him an entity fundamentally different from those in Horn of Africa, who were slaves to their bodily impulses. DelCorso has become something like super-human, but also only partly human. He has turned into what is commonly referred to as a cyborg, “ a shorthand term for ‘ cybernetic organism, ’ [which] usually describes a humanmachine coupling ” (Balsamo 148). 1 The concept of the cyborg sets the tone for 1 Other terms commonly applied to cyborgs are androids, replicants and bionic (Balsamo 149). 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 111 the development of human identity in DelCorso ’ s Gallery and also stands in direct relation with the emergence of Gothic elements. According to Balsamo, “ . . . cyborgs are a product of cultural fears and desires that run deep within our psychic unconscious. Through the use of technology as the means or context for human hybridization, cyborgs come to represent unfamiliar ‘ otherness, ’ one which challenges the connotative stability of human identity ” (149, italics in original). She adds that “ In the history of human supremacy, that which is non-human is understood as the other, that which is mechanical is understood as artificial. Cyborgs, as simultaneously human and mechanical, complicate these ancient oppositions ” (150). Identity is challenged in that it is made ambiguous. One can be human and mechanical at the same time. Even though one remains “ same ” (human/ natural), one is also “ other ” (non-human) and “ artificial ” (mechanical) at the same time. Such artificiality stands in opposition to humanity as “ Machines are rational, artificial and durable; humans are emotional, organic and mortal ” (Balsamo 149). With regard to Frankenstein ’ s monster, Fred Botting states that “ . . . Mary Shelley ’ s novel turns out to be a prospective story of the advent of cyborgs ” (Gothic Romanced 195), and he uses the term cybergothic which represents “ the emergence of an order in which humanity and its supporting institutions are discarded, rendered obsolete by the speed, processing power and multiplicity of utterly machinic networks ” (Gothic Romanced 150). While such a view entails a feeling of fear of and threat by machines, the connotation also has the potential to be viewed positively. As Thomas Reed West states, “ . . . the machine is the most logical of symbols for the fact of Law; it stands in conflict with a range of impulses, and its imagery of discipline is perfect ” (134). In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, such a view is dominant. The person that DelCorso has become by entering this symbiosis with his camera is apparently superior to his original state. As a photographer, he has been able to escape his “ village within a city ” , marry Margaret, and become a controversial but respected member among his colleagues. The senses with which the camera provides him have apparently saved his life on numerous occasions. He is now superior to a completely natural person. Whereas in Horn of Africa, the characters identified with an element rooted in their natural body — gender — DelCorso, at first, manages to transcend such limitations by using artificial elements. Machines are not subject to “ impulses ” but are able to subject themselves to “ discipline ” , in contrast to the natural bodies in Horn of Africa. This notion stands in opposition to Kelly Hurley ’ s view of the Gothic body, about which she says, In place of a human body stable and integral (at least, liable to no worse than the ravages of time and disease), the fin-de-siècle Gothic offers the spectacle of a body metamorphic and undifferentiated; in place of the possibility of human transcendence, the prospect 112 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs of an existence circumscribed within the realities of gross corporeality; in place of a unitary and securely bounded human subjectivity, one that is both fragmented and permeable. (3) Unlike the natural body, a machine/ cyborg is much more “ stable and integral ” and much less “ metamorphic and undifferentiated ” . In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, machines are not uncanny; neither would they control people. On the contrary: they are sympathetic as they can be controlled by human beings, in contrast to natural bodies which are subject to all kinds of impulses, can turn into abominations at any given time and not be kept in check by authority. Whereas gender identity is deeply rooted in corporeality, occupational/ class identity — most prominently represented by DelCorso ’ s camera — is a much more artificial concept, and therefore stands in contrast to human baseness from which it presumably provides an escape, as it originally did for the protagonist. The darkness that is repeatedly mentioned in connection with DelCorso ’ s appearance then finds its lighter counterpart in the camera. Indeed, every camera makes use of light. Even if DelCorso is the most prominent representative of a cyborg, at least one other artificially enhanced human being is present in the novel. Margaret is described as beautiful, civilised and therefore not quite natural. She is almost too perfect: “ . . . the lack of defect was the problem, for it made her appear like an artist ’ s ideal conception of a woman, a masterpiece of human architecture so smooth and symmetrical that she aroused that stasis of awed admiration rather than the kinesis of passion ” (DCG 285). Her movements sometimes seem artificial to DelCorso (DCG 282); and when she became ill with an “ acute anxiety reaction ” (DCG 17), he suspects that her breakdown was not quite genuine (DCG 18). She intoxicates herself to keep her impulses at bay, often consuming too much alcohol. In addition, “ Valium . . . helped Maggie Del- Corso play Margaret Delaney Fitzgerald ” (DCG 27). As with DelCorso, Margaret needs external elements to enable her to maintain her class adherence. One contrast to such cyborgs is the character of Harry Bolton, known as the “ Horseman ” . His nickname stems of his “ horse sense to know the difference between far and too far, fast and too fast ” (DCG 38). We learn that “ Nature had designed Bolton for his work. He was a big man, nearly six-feet-four and twotwenty. Growing up in the mountains of western North Carolina had made his legs hard as ironwood . . . ” (DCG 37). Not meant to shed what nature designed him for, he is a prime example of a non-artificial person. While DelCorso aspires to compensate for his physical deficiencies using a mechanical tool, Bolton exceeds the nicely controllable abilities of the camera: his sense of hearing, which “ he considered more important than sight ” , is well developed 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 113 (DCG 38). It is one sense that a photo camera cannot convey. Indeed, he is an early indication of the deficiencies of machines, foreboding the fact that DelCorso can eventually not uphold his state of being a better person simply by relying on his camera. In DelCorsos ’ s Gallery, the division between the natural and the cyborg body is emphasised in several ways, one of the most prominent being the one aspect that — perhaps surprisingly — played no role in Horn of Africa, a novel which focuses on gender identity. That aspect, which also features in all other subsequent works, is sexuality. Several of DelCorso ’ s sexual thoughts and fantasies are described, corresponding to the view that the act of procreation is generally seen as a reminder of humanity ’ s animalistic origins (Hendershot 103). DelCorso, though only part human and part machine, is still prone to this instinct. He describes himself as an “ impulsive ” person (DCG 23). We learn that he is occasionally unfaithful to Margaret, but, as he claims, not emotionally (DCG 52), and that he “ . . . appeared to have a fondness for genital wounds ” (DCG 334). In the whole novel, sexuality reflects a destructive disposition, corresponding to what Elizabeth MacAndrew refers to as “ that ancient ‘ death ’ which is literature ’ s term for the sexual climax ” (238). Seeing a female body in Xuan Loc, DelCorso notices how it looked “ as though she were copulating with an invisible lover ” (DCG 107), and he calls sensationalist photographers “ pornographers of violence ” (DCG 126). These portrayals are congruent with William Broyles ’ s experience that “ . . . there is something to that power in your finger, the soft, seductive touch of the trigger ” . In the novel, the only element that has the power to act as a substitute for such destructive impulses is, again, the camera. DelCorso compares developing pictures in a darkroom to a birth (DCG 120), and sexual fantasies connected to the camera contrast natural sexuality as an aesthetic alternative: A fashion photographer had once told him that he made love to models with his camera. DelCorso wanted to make a kind of love to the soldier [in his picture] — to achieve a union with the man ’ s terror and pain, to embrace with his lens the bleeding arm, to kiss with his lens the mouth that was ajar, like an exhausted athlete ’ s, to penetrate the man ’ s soul with his lens and see the panic that widened the eyes into a wild stare. (DCG 112) Similarly, to DelCorso, “ . . . his work was his mistress . . . ” (DCG 22). When he uses his cameras, the products are objects of beauty. His photographs are his perfect, hybrid children. This kind of offspring itself stands in stark contrast to his actual children Danny and Angela. Even though conceived with his wife Margaret, who in her beauty is almost as perfect as the understandable, predictable natural science of a photo camera, their children show uneasy aspects: “ . . . Danny ’ s voice was an imitation of his father ’ s, its inflections and 114 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs intonations those of a street-bred wise guy ” (DCG 207) even though he has “ his mother ’ s hair and fair skin ” (DCG 208). Angela “ had his [DelCorso ’ s] temper as well as his coloring, and he knew she would be trouble when she grew older ” (DCG 208). No one can be sure how the now cute kids will develop, in contrast to the pictures, whose development is a scientific processes that can even be manipulated, as in Dunlop ’ s case. Generally, the artificial elements are those that are positively connotated. The cyborg in DelCorso ’ s Gallery is different from what one might expect from what is partly a war novel, a genre in which one might assume that it would deal with men/ weapon combinations. Fred Botting states that “ Cyborgs . . . emerge from military research: upgraded bodies, enhanced weaponry and battle systems, from cybernetic research into automated anti-aircraft tracking, to the ‘ Pilot ’ s Associate ’ that links human to the jet, military application of communications theory is extensive ” (Gothic Romanced 199); and according to MacAndrew, “ An automaton is a monstrous creation, suggesting the more horrifying possib[i]lity of human beings worked mechanically, without volition, spirit, heart, or soul ” (162). In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, such expectations are reversed. It is precisely not the mechanical part that makes a human being uncanny. Instead, humanity in its natural state is the ghastliest occurrence, technology making it, at least superficially, a little more pleasant. The camera represents an improvement to humanity. An achievement of intellectual and technological progress, it is part of humanity ’ s enlightenment as it works with light itself. The idea of a photographer ’ s occupational identity is then based on that product: “ We must all do our work while there is light to do it ” (DCG 164). DelCorso also values photography in a moment of crisis such as Wilson ’ s death: “ He wanted to remain forever in the dim quiet where events were governed by predictable chemical reactions, where a man could correct his mistakes, where, in general, things made sense ” (DCG 170). Apparently, things make “ sense ” only for artificial objects. Humanity ’ s natural aspects are much more complicated and less easily understood. Human beings work with modern achievements of the enlightenment, but they cannot escape their origins. Supposedly “ enlightened ” characters are prone to pre-enlightenment thoughts. DelCorso is part machine, but he remains part human. As he used to be a photographer in the US Army (DCG 45), he has not purely become a photographer. He was — and still is — a soldier at the same time. His movements are compared to an infantryman ’ s (DCG 4), and the fact that he shoots pictures is another parallel. He is aware that war photography is not unlike a soldier ’ s task: “ death, destruction, and suffering were DelCorso ’ s bread and butter ” (DCG 6), but it is the camera that absolves him of direct involvement. He shoots, but his shots do not kill. Nonetheless, he is where the deaths take place: “ Maybe all photographers were accomplices to an extent ” (DCG 324), he thinks. Without wars, war photographers would be out of work. He has a bad 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 115 conscience at times and believes that some war photographers become obsessed with danger and overreach themselves (DCG 218 - 19), not knowing at this stage that this is what is going to happen to himself. Whereas his artificial part makes DelCorso rise in his profession and class, he also adheres to his uncontrollable true humanness. Despite everything, he states about himself that he is a representative of a “ gothic, guilt-ridden Catholicism ” (DCG 63). In keeping with a Gothic view of the state of humanity, DelCorso had a psychological crisis after witnessing the traumatising events at Rach Giang. He heard voices. Even though they could be explained away scientifically, he remains adamant that they were real: They spoke to him as the ancient gods had spoken to ancient men, directly, without the intercession of clergy, and told him he had incurred a debt too heavy to be paid all at once. He would have to reduce it in installments, he would have to use his talents to make the indictment he had failed to make in Rach Giang. That was the assignment his gods had given him on a sultry, flare-lit night in Vietnam a decade ago. He had heard them, and no matter what the psychiatrist had said, DelCorso knew their voices were not imaginary.. . . (DCG 225) His belief in his being the chosen one to expose the true nature of war already makes him take on superstitious traits. He somehow believes that his personal mission has prevented him from being killed. Even this modern representative of the human species turns out not to have escaped the superstitious inclinations of his ancestors, and freely admits to it. He is unable to lose this tendency. Towards the conclusion of the novel, DelCorso ’ s superstition is described as follows: “ It was a spirit he feared, a malignant spirit that inhabited these gutted buildings and deserted streets, howling its cry, audible only to the soul ’ s ear, through the rocket holes in the walls, round and black as chancres, expelling its breath from the graveyard sewers whose stench made the nostrils burn, gazing with the cracked doll ’ s eyes of storefront dummies ” (DCG 325 - 26). In spite of his enlightened background and his “ scientific ” work as a photographer, he has remained susceptible to ancient and basic human fears and illogical, superstitious conclusions: “ The world was full of signs and portents if you were open to them, and nothing happened without a reason ” (DCG 106). Of his colleagues, Bolton names his radio journalism manipulation “ electronic sorcery ” (DCG 246), referring to an activity apparently dispensed with after the spread of science and technology. Still, the camera is supposed to dispose of ideas of the inexplicable. To DelCorso, “ The camera doesn ’ t lie, but there are plenty of photographers who do ” (DCG 122). The machine is trustworthy and honest. The person remains unpredictable and unreliable. Occupational/ class identity in DelCorso ’ s Gallery is firmly linked to the idea of cultural and scientific progress. This progression is also epitomised prominently 116 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs in the contrast of “ village and city ” , a central theme in the novel. The primitive origins of humanity turn out not to have been overcome and are omnipresent. Already at the very beginning, the reader is confronted with a picture of civilised characters who have returned to where they originally came from. DelCorso, accompanied by Margaret, is on a commercial assignment in Ireland. Out in the country, a flock of sheep appear unexpectedly and they remind him of the early days of man (DCG 5). It is a pastoral image of a time in which man supposedly lived in harmony with a supposedly benign nature. This scene stands in stark contrast to the true original state of man toward which DelCorso regresses in the novel. Already at that stage, Caputo makes use of a device that is typical of the mode towards which DelCorso ’ s Gallery increasingly shifts: the Gothic. As MacAndrew states, “ The idyllic life in nature appears again in Gothic fiction, where it is invaded and destroyed by a dark, albeit ambiguous, force ” (35). This destruction of a supposedly civilised world, this dark force represented by the wars in Vietnam and Lebanon goes hand in hand with the dissolution of the artificially constituted, and therefore unreal, concept of occupational/ class identity. As Kelly Hurley puts it, “ . . . urgent rage and sexual desire, the love of hunting and killing, are still as strong in ‘ civilized ’ humanity as they were in Stone Age peoples; the civilized person only keeps these strong emotions in check through the ‘ artificial ’ devices of social breeding and education ” (64). “ Social breeding ” and, especially, “ education ” are closely connected to occupation (and consequently class), and since these aspects are artificial, human beings can never integrate them into themselves as much as they might want to. The village, which DelCorso thought he had left behind, not only reappears within the city, but a whole city turns into a state comparable to a primitive “ village ” . Kelly Hurley describes this notion: “ . . . it is the entire metropolis itself, not just its relatively delimited slum neighborhoods, that is figured alternately as a labyrinth, a ‘ seething mass, ’ an ‘ awful slough, ’ an uncharted wasteland ” (162). The whole environment regresses to a basic primitive state, and numerous Gothic devices are used to describe this development. According to Linda Dryden, “ The Gothic novel was lurid and emotionally fraught, a counterpoint to the Enlightenment Age of Reason: it was a fiction of the senses ” (25). The Gothic takes characters out of their enlightened “ city ” , and takes them back to an earlier time and state. MacAndrew emphasises that modernised Gothic settings tend “ to bring home the depicted evil to the reader ’ s own time ” (48). In DelCorso ’ s Gallery, such “ evil ” indeed appears in the shape of war, which destroys prime representatives of the achievements of the enlightenment: cities, places of light. Human beings eventually prove that they do not act according to logic, but to their base impulses, as represented in the two wars. In this new, contemporaneous setting of the Gothic, modern cities have been used as the setting for Gothic stories: “ the modern city was frequently 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 117 figured as a labyrinth, harbouring mysteries and secrets that were deeply disturbing and spoke of a metropolis in chaos ” (Dryden 34). The two cities, in which the novel is mainly set, are prime examples of how primitive human instincts in the form of war overcome centuries-old achievements. Saigon in 1975 is a decadent metropolis on the verge of collapse, “ a burned-out city waiting for death ” (DCG 61), nothing and no one able to prevent its downfall. According to Dryden ’ s statement that “ This modern metropolitan Gothic shifts the scene of terror from the rural landscape to the inner city, and imagines horrible human mutations taking place in the heart of the city ” (30), its streets are interspersed with crippled war veterans (DCG 35), disfigured to almost animal-like goblins who are overwhelming the former “ Paris of the Orient ” (DCG 314). It is Beirut in 1976, the “ Paris of the Middle East ” (DCG 314), however, that marks the culmination of this development. The war itself is compared with a human being and described as a Jack-the-Ripper-like figure: “ . . . it wandered around the city with the capricious vagrancy of a psychopathic killer . . . ” (DCG 320). Hurley writes, with reference to H. G. Wells, “ . . . one may read the city as an unheimlich space: familiar and yet alien, labyrinthine, unknowable ” (159). Similarly, for DelCorso, the city assumes a classic uncanny double appearance in the Freudian sense: “ It had something to do with the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary, the familiar into the strange. He knew streets and cities; they were his natural element. But the streets of this city were more alien than all the deserts he ’ d been on, all the bush through which he ’ d stumbled and sweated ” (DCG 322). The uncanny is what was once familiar. One of the elements that especially haunt DelCorso is an elegant villa. Deprived of its façade, it appears like a dollhouse, exposing its innards (DCG 321). Its artificial exterior is collapsing. The city inverts itself. All elements are still there, but in their disfigured state, they take on a new appearance. The ubiquitous destruction dismantles all elegant façades and reveals what lies hidden beneath, in both the literal and the figurative sense. By building cities, humanity has supposedly progressed to a new class. After all, professional people live and work in cities. However, war destroys this image and reveals it as a thin layer imposed on its remaining dark depths. Not only do the cities themselves shed their artificial, pleasant exterior and reveal their original state of village, there is further confusion between natural and artificial entities. DelCorso, who fuses with his camera in order to escape his primitive background, is haunted by impressions of other natural and artificial human bodies. He is particularly distressed at dismembered mannikins lying in the streets of Beirut. To him, they “ looked more human than the humans, who, dead, looked more like dummies than the dummies ” (DCG 319). Indeed, he compares mutilated children to dolls (DCG 52), and a murdered woman that he sees in Beirut looks like “ a bloated dummy ” (DCG 323). The 118 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs two types are not interchangeable. Instead, the idealised perfected images of human beings, represented by the mannikins, are destroyed as the city, a symbol of civilisation, is destroyed. They seem to him “ more human than the humans ” . What makes humans human is here revealed as artificial, whereas real human beings are seen as non-human entities in the dolls. In DelCorso, “ The dismembered mannikins aroused a horror that was not the horror of death, but of something he could not name ” (DCG 319). This recognition corresponds to the concept that “ . . . the fact that so much of the horror is left unarticulated, unspeakable, is symptomatic of the genre, because Gothic horror is meant to be beyond human understanding . . . ” (Dryden 28). Without their artificial beauty, pictures, mannikins and elegant town houses reveal, as they are destroyed, what they were designed to conceal. People ’ s views of themselves as members of a modern urban society or a respectable profession are replaced by their unavoidable regression into the state of darkness, which has always been lurking underneath, ready to reveal itself as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Other characters are also assaulted by the revelation of what a human being really is. Of the photographers, it is Wilson who meets a terrible end. When he is gored by a water buffalo, his body is opened up. Dying, he acknowledges how ugly he is inside (DCG 167). It is stated that “ The panic in his face mounted when he looked at the coiled heap forcing its way out of him like some monstrous infant ” (DCG 165). He gives birth to an uncanny changeling. This comparison with a birth — like the description of DelCorso ’ s children — stands in contrast to the clean “ birth ” of a photograph, which was always a delightful experience for DelCorso. Wilson, the “ enlightened ” photographer, described as vain (DCG 169), is eventually taken to the depths of reality, having to contemplate what he really is: an abomination. The description of his devastated body stands in line with several more. DelCorso ’ s own demise at the end of the novel is described in a similarly graphic way (DCG 344). More generally, the casualties of the battles and massacres portrayed in the novel are specifically described as abominations. A particularly gruesome example is the graphic descriptions of the dead bodies after the battle of Xuan Loc (DCG 109). Here, as well as in other instances, people have invariably turned into what Kelly Hurley would term Things. The bodies are depicted as rapidly decomposing abominations. Even Dunlop eventually has to confront the true image of humanity. He, the artist who manipulates photographs in order to embellish them, and who believes in the idea of honourable fighting, has something artificial about him as well: “ Bull-necked, gray hair shaved to a stubble, dressed in camouflage trousers and safari jacket, he looked like one of the generals whose portraits he was fond of taking ” (DCG 46). This image of a civilised fighter that he makes 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 119 himself look like is exposed as a fraud. This revelation occurs to him in Beirut in the company of a masked Phalangist fighter nicknamed Steve McQueen, apparently a look-alike of the actor: “ . . . he ’ d seen nothing of the man ’ s face except his thin lips and his eyes — two blue-gray metal disks that reflected light but gave off no warmth whatever. Perfect sniper ’ s eyes ” (DCG 251). These eyes are comparable to a camera. They deal with light and are perfect. This man who represents something like a natural camera is now confronted by its mechanical counterpart: “ Dunlop tried to see in the image in his viewfinder some measure of the redemptive qualities he ’ d always discovered in the worst of wars: a hint of courage, of endurance, of duty, but all he saw was a masked killer ” (DCG 252). His camera fails to improve, to “ enlighten ” this aspect of human nature. The product of civilisation — the camera/ professional photographer — capitulates in view of its original counterpart: the eye/ the killer. Like other aspects of civilisation ’ s achievements — the villa, the mannikins — the camera also loses its power and reveals what has been hiding below. According to Dryden, the way in which cities turn into a ghastly Gothic environment is related to the appearance of doubles. The deconstruction of a city and its turning into a primitive village spreads to individual characters: “ The destabilized identities and predatory doubles of modern Gothic fiction were seen to be symptomatic of the city itself, precisely because that city was out of control ” (Dryden 43). She finds this coupling typical of Victorian Gothic: “ Duality is more than a psychological condition: it is a factor of late nineteenthcentury metropolitan life that can be identified in the physical geography of the city as well as in the individual existence ” (18). Since the city represents the achievements of an increasingly sophisticated society, it offers people the environment in which to take on a profession that allows them at least partial entry into this circle. When the city dissolves and regresses to a village, the characters ’ identification with their occupation/ class is repeatedly assaulted by doubles that, as doubles do, make them question their perceived identity. There are numerous ways in which the motive of the double appears in DelCorso ’ s Gallery. There is a classical case of doubling by multiplication in relation to DelCorso and his photographer colleagues. In addition, the role of the copy/ image is omnipresent in a story in which photographs play such a central role. This is complemented by occurrences of double-related mirror images in several instances. The principle photographer characters in the novel — DelCorso, Bolton, Dunlop, Wilson, Conklin and McCafferty — seem to nicely fit a classical understanding of doubles by multiplication where “ . . . different characters represent the working out of a single ideal, problem, or attitude . . . ” (Slethaug 14). They all represent partly idealised and simplified roles of “ the ” war photographer. DelCorso is the idealist, the missionary who strives to better the 120 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs world by making use of his skills and depicting atrocities in order to shock people. His contact with his colleagues potentially undermines this understanding of his profession. Each of them presents to him another version of a photographer ’ s identity. They have further qualities of doubles in that the members of the group of photographers appear to be inseparable. In both Saigon and Beirut they all appear sooner or later and have no choice but to deal with each other. As soon as one character has arrived on the action scene, others are also invariably present. They primarily fulfil their roles as doubles showing DelCorso views of his profession that do not correlate with his idealist vision. They automatically obscure his sense of identification with his occupation as they present to him aspects in himself which do not correspond with his ideas of what a photographer like him should be. Bolton, his closest friend and ally among the photographers, is the least problematic double, and they have a common history: “ A special bond united them, the bond that unites all survivors: the intimate knowledge of death ” (DCG 45). Bolton is, however, not the idealist that DelCorso claims to be. He is mainly on the job because he is particularly good at it (DCG 37). More so than DelCorso, he has an apparently natural talent to get the best photo reports, even if Bolton loses his will to put his life at risk for the sake of a story eventually. DelCorso is annoyed at Bolton ’ s plans to resign from his post, as, in Bolton, he sees the fruitlessness of his own efforts. The photographer that DelCorso despises most is apparently Dunlop. In him, he sees his own will to pursue a career, unmindful of his moral goals. Among DelCorso ’ s aims are a membership with Northstar and prestigious prizes such as the Pulitzer Prize. Dunlop, who has already achieved the highest recognition, makes him consider whether his own prestige will eventually turn out to be more important to him than his intention to shoot the picture that will end all wars. The bond between them is also strong: “ It occurred to DelCorso that the feelings the man [Dunlop] excited in him, though the polar opposite of passionate love, imitated the intensity of love; they obsessed him, seized his heart at unexpected moments, and tempted him to betray his own ideal self ” (DCG 92). Though repelled by one another, they are inseparable as apparently only doubles can be. These contradictory emotions are mutual as we learn about Dunlop that “ . . . DelCorso always had, somehow, some way, aroused the pettiest, basest aspects of his nature, and this mysterious power heightened Dunlop ’ s hatred of him, intensifying the very desire he found so reprehensible ” (DCG 336). Dunlop ’ s personal philosophy is somehow even dependent on the existence of duality. This becomes apparent in his views about war: “ That it brought out the best and worst in men was no less true for being a cliché. Nor were the best and the worst separate and distinct. They were intertwined, symbiotic, interdependent, two faces of the same being ” (DCG 134). In his 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 121 pictures, Dunlop tries to portray two sides of a doubled entity: “ . . . no good is possible without evil, no mercy without cruelty, no heroism without cowardice, no hope without despair. That each of these required for its existence the existence of its adversary opposite was a mystery, which was why Dunlop found war eternally mysterious and never tried to present it as anything else ” (DCG 134). With this view, he is compelled to recognise that the characteristics that he despises in DelCorso are also present within himself. In this way, he is a more advanced character, aware of all the negative connotations that DelCorso and others are still denying and aware that such contradictions can never be resolved. The other photographers show lesser double relations to DelCorso. In Wilson, he is confronted with his own tendency to take on photography assignments simply to be able to leave home for a while. It helps him to achieve some diversity in his life, which is too well structured by Margaret. Conklin is the character who sees his job principally as a source of monetary income. His job apparently caused his marriage to fail, but he mainly keeps it to be able to support his children and ex-wife. Such a view is also present in DelCorso ’ s perception. He needs a lot of money to guarantee Margaret the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. McCafferty represents the voyeur. He works for a disrespected magazine and hopes to be able to portray weapons in action. In this regard, DelCorso is also at times unsure about whether his own inclination to depict especially gruesome scenes is in some way related to a lust for witnessing atrocities. It is difficult to draw the line between shocking for purpose, as DelCorso claims to do, and shocking for effect, as is McCafferty ’ s aim. All the photographer colleagues are partly unpleasant but still fairly graspable doubles. They also show their emergence from the original literary double as created by German romanticist Jean Paul, who “ studied the notion of fellowship, of the friend as alter ego . . . ” (Miller 49), in that they are companions, and some of them are also friends. Besides them, there are a number of more uncanny, more haunting doubles that severely question DelCorso ’ s identity as a photographer and member of a professional class. In one of his doubles that DelDorso encounters, he is immediately reminded of the weakness of social identity aspects. Exiting the New York underground railway, he sees a black ghetto teenager, who reminds him of himself: “ He saw, under the dull film, the same anger in the eyes: street anger, which was a special rage in that it was democratic. It wasn ’ t directed at a particular social class, race, sex, or nationality, though any one of these might serve as its temporary object ” (DCG 276). Social class, race, sex and nationality are among the prime examples of social identification elements. However, his double here attributes no value to such concepts but acts independent of them. The teenager is an earlier version of DelCorso, who has managed to escape to the (en)lightened world. 122 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs In this novel that deals with photographers and photographs, doubles primarily appear not in flesh and blood but as the product of lighting effects. The shadow and especially the reflection as original symbols of the double (Rank 12) have a strong presence in the plot. We learn that DelCorso practices shadow boxing (DCG 64). In the same scene, that shadow comes to take on a more refined shape and the mirror image occurs: “ As he looked in the mirror, there came over DelCorso that fascination with himself he had experienced when he first saw his reflection as a small boy and realized he had an identity all his [sic] own ” (DCG 65 - 66). According to Robert Rogers, “ A special genre of the manifest double is the mirror image, the projected self being not merely a similar self but an exact duplicate ” (19). In this memory, DelCorso is reminiscent of Narcissus, and the mirror image stands in direct relation to the idea of identity. In contrast to his integration into an occupational/ class identity, his identification with his own mirror image was unmotivated. This double entered DelCorso ’ s life unexpectedly and portrayed, even at such an early stage, who he was, without regard to previous ideas that he had had. This image of the double is the only true sculptor of identity. It was this confrontation alone that made him aware of such a concept as identity in the first place. The fact that his current mirror image turns into that of Dunlop (DCG 67) stresses how his values as a photographer can be compromised. Even Dunlop, one of the people whom he most despises, can be his double. Correspondingly, at a later stage, DelCorso equates one of his pictures of Margaret with a mirror: “ The photograph had turned out as he ’ d wanted it, Maggie had turned out as he had wanted, her looks and innocence intact. Her innocence: she wore it like a suit of armor and DelCorso kept the metal bright. He saw in that mirror a reflection of his own innocence, an image of himself untarnished by the guilt of his filthy little secret . . . ” (DCG 222), meaning the horrific pictures that he took at Rach Giang. The mirror image has inverted its role. Instead of seeing in the mirror what he really is, he sees what he will never be. No matter how high he rises in his social environment with a respectable family and a respectable profession, he will always remain his original himself. The most prominent examples of doubles in this novel that deals with photographers are, perhaps not surprisingly, the photographs themselves. DelCorso has high expectations of the products of his work: “ The only effect DelCorso sought was a duplication of the moment as it had actually occurred ” (DCG 122), and “ He had wanted a photograph that would duplicate what his eyes saw . . . ” (DCG 161). Robert Rogers states that “ Of special interest is the widespread belief that shadows, reflections, and portraits of the body are the same as souls, or are at least vitally linked with the well-being of the body ” (7). DelCorso is aware of the cultural implications of the reproduced picture: “ Those New Guinea tribesmen who believed they lost their souls when their 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 123 photograph was taken were half right; what they didn ’ t know was that the man behind the lens sometimes lost his ” (DCG 105). Again there is a mentioning of the double as the good soul, one of its original connotations. The photographer can lose his soul as the dark, unenlightened counterpart. The picture, as one of the basic representations of the double, is the product of the camera. Its ability to produce doubles is based on its being dependent on perspective. The photographers ’ constant search to find the right angle to take their pictures indicates that there are always innumerable ways of how something can be seen, as doubles are generally entities that make one see oneself in a different way. Correspondingly, DelCorso meets his end in the face of a particularly disturbing mirror image in his camera. It acts in the classical way of a double, causing the first self ’ s death as the two finally confront each other. First, DelCorso reaches his goal and manages to shoot what he thinks will be the “ picture that would end all wars ” , photographing horribly disfigured and decapitated bodies in Beirut. Taking the pictures, “ . . . with each frame exposed, he felt himself grow a little lighter . . . ” (DCG 334). He “ grows lighter ” losing a heavy weight but is also growing out of the darkness into the light. He hopes to have finally left his dark background behind, to have established himself as a member of Northstar and secured a lasting reputation as a world-renowned representative of the professional class of photographers. Eventually, though, he causes himself to fail. What Beidler claimed about DelCorso is still true at this late stage: “ For although he once again survives Vietnam, safe at home with his beautiful, brittle, upper-class wife, his bright, remarkable children, his townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, his work loft in Soho, the ‘ monster ’ will not sleep ” (Re-Writing America 47 - 48). The “ monster ” that is a part of himhelf makes him go to Lebanon. Though he receives the chance to survive this war, he is incapable of taking it. Leaving the site of the atrocity, DelCorso cannot resist being drawn into another fight which he feels compelled to photograph. There he comes face to face with an armed Lebanese fighter, the final occurrence of the double: “ Had he seen the pointed Kalashnikov with his naked eye, he would have taken cover instantly, but the interposing lens detached him from the reality of its danger. Framed by the viewfinder, gunman and rifle looked like a photograph ” (DCG 341). What he sees is not just “ a photograph ” , but a reflection of himself: “ Kneeling again to steady the Leica, he leveled the lens, through which he saw, like a mirror image of himself, the Mourabitoun kneeling with leveled rifle ” (DCG 340). It is this fighter who will shoot and fatally wound him. In his camera, in which he has always put his confidence, which was his way out of his original environment and which he has used to construct his new occupational/ class identity, he is compelled to see a devastating truth. The final picture/ double in this story about pictures presents him with a horrific “ mirror image ” . The scene is a recreation of the 124 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs confrontation between Dunlop and the masked Phalangist killer. DelCorso is unable to retire after supposedly shooting his pictures that would end all wars, and he is equated with a merciless killer unmoved by higher purposes and devoid of civilisation ’ s refinements. His supposed atonement, experienced just minutes before, has been pulverised. The final double will not let him become what he wanted to become. DelCorso dies in the face of his ghastly counterpart, as he could not relinquish his lust for witnessing atrocities. In this Gothic world of exposed exteriors, where all achievements of modern civilisation disintegrate and people regress to their primitive, savage origins, adherence to an abstract concept such as occupational/ class identity cannot be maintained. In contrast to its predecessor Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery focuses on an identity aspect with a lesser connection to the body, which is therefore conceived to be more abstract and less stable. This conception is nicely represented in the occurrence of artificial elements such as cameras, which epitomise the artificiality of this identity element. As treated in the novel, occupational/ class identity is only constructible with the use of artificial elements. In this way, human beings turn into cyborgs; villages turn into cities. These ideas of identity are thus more easily destroyed than gender identity in Horn of Africa, and the wars depicted in DelCorso ’ s Gallery are treated as Gothic events which quickly dismantle all the achievements of human civilisation. Gothic is what is natural in human beings. Pleasant is what is artificial. War dispenses with all artificial aspects and exposes humanity in all its natural horror. The way in which the Gothic directly addresses identity is represented even more blatantly than in Horn of Africa, in that doubles show themselves more readily and in ways more closely related to the their original occurrences. Doubles are companions or reflections: shadows, mirror images, pictures. Their most prominent and most troubling representative — true to its traditional mode — appears at the time of the protagonist ’ s death. With the protagonist, his constructed sense of identity also dies. His hopes of reaching a respected professional status and finally becoming a member of a higher class are exposed as pure fiction in view of the terrible truth about humanity. Here, too, human beings are revealed to be abominations, war being a consequence of this state, not the escalation of rationally graspable conflicts. 4. Occupational/ Class Identity and Cities, Villages and Cyborgs 125 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country Indian Country (IC) deals primarily with the concept of ethnic identity. Referring to that notion, Weinreich claims that “ Ethnic identity for those who know they belong to a coherent peoplehood constitutes a pre-eminent feature of the totality of their identity because it is based in a time-span continuity of generations that tends to eclipse all other aspects of identity ” (28). As dominant as the idea of ethnic identity may be, its definition is very elusive. According to Weinreich, “ Often the term ‘ nation ’ or ‘ ethnic group ’ is used to refer to a peoplehood of this kind ” (28). This terminology constitutes one of the principal confusions about the definition of ethnic identity. To Harriet Bradley, “ The concept of a ‘ nation ’ (although often linked to ethnicity) implies a distinct politically defined territory ” (123), in which case nation is more closely linked to a legally constructed unit. As Richard Jenkins claims, “ The ‘ nation ’ and ‘ national identity ’ or ‘ nationality ’ are, respectively, varieties of ethnic collectivity and ethnicity, and are likely to be historically contingent, context-derived, and defined and redefined in negotiation and transaction ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 143). Nation can therefore be seen as a subcategory of ethnicity, and national identity “ is the ethnicity to which nationalist ideological identification refers ” (Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity 160). This is the case, as “ Nationalism and the construction of national identity are, after all, explicit projects of the state ” (Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity 15). National identity, however, is less comprehensive than ethnic identity, as it is tied to a “ state ” , whose boundaries are apparently more variable. A nation ’ s consequence, nationalism, is generally seen as the product of industrialization and bureaucratic government (Gellner); of the convergence of capitalism and the information technology of printing (Anderson); of all these things plus the French Revolution ’ s recasting of political membership as citizenship (Hobsbawm). Viewed in this light, nationalism is the modern new broom that sweeps ethnicity clean out the door of the nation-state. (Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity 144, italics in original) This view reflects a contemporary, though not necessarily transcendent, vision of ethnicity and ethnic identity. As Anthony D. Smith states, “ Benedict Anderson, in his sensitive study, has defined the new nation of our imagination as a sovereign but limited community, an essentially abstract mental construct ” (169). Even though, as we have seen, all aspects of social identity can be regarded as “ mental constructs ” , this applies to nation more than to ethnicity, as the latter is apparently less dependent on contemporarily fixed political boundaries. Ethnicity itself, according to many critics, refers to a less easily defined community. As Bradley mentions, “‘ Ethnos ’ and ‘ ethnicity ’ . . . were employed in social anthropology to describe social groups with a shared culture . . . ” (121). Richard Jenkins agrees, claiming that “ ethnicity emphasizes cultural differentiation ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 40, italics in original). These cultural views stem from the idea of “ common descent ” (Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity 9 - 10). In this case it is important to affirm Max Weber ’ s view that “ common descent ” is not equal to “ common blood ” , the latter not being a relevant element in the idea of ethnicity (Nagel 400). “ Common blood ” is more readily linked to the concept of racial identity (treated in the next chapter), even if “ The idea of ‘ race ’ is characteristically linked to the broader category of ethnicity ” (Bradley 17). Incidentally, “ . . . the notion of ethnicity allows for consideration of conflicts and hierarchies among groups which are not distinguished only on racial grounds but by culture, language or religion . . . ” (Bradley 122) instead. Bradley affirms that Ethnic groups may be defined (or define themselves) on the basis of language, religion or nationality, but the idea of shared culture is perhaps the crucial issue. Also very important . . . is the idea of a common origin. This origin may be mythical or real, based on a religious text, on historical events or the idea of a (sometimes lost) homeland, or a mix of all of these. The crucial point is that it binds the members of the group together in a sense of belonging and constructs boundaries between them and the rest of the world. (121 - 22) Besides the importance of culture, Bradley ’ s idea of origin — connected to a type of homeland — reflects Max Weber ’ s concept of descent. Defining culture is equally controversial. According to Keith Beattie, “ Culture involves the shared lifestyles, personal dispositions, beliefs, values, codes, and language of a small group or a society ” (5). As mentioned by Bradley and Beattie, determiners of culture as well as ethnic identity are language and religion/ beliefs. Richard Jenkins offers an even wider scope of culture with respect to ethnicity: Any cultural trait in common can provide a basis and resources for ethnic closure: language, ritual, economic way of life, lifestyle more generally, and the division of labour, are all likely possibilities in this respect. Shared language and ritual are particularly implicated in ethnicity: mutual ‘ intelligibility of the behaviour of others ’ is a fundamental prerequisite for any group, as is the shared sense of what is ‘ correct and proper ’ which constitutes individual ‘ honour and dignity ’ . (Rethinking Ethnicity 10) While he focuses on language/ mutual understanding, he also stresses the relevance of other aspects, referring to “ territorial occupation, religion, and a shared history (particularly, perhaps, a history of conflict with other ethnic 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 127 groups) ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 110) as elements to distinguish ethnicities. He also emphasises religion as “ an important dimension of ethnic identity ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 110). Though a critical aspect, religion does not necessarily stand as a separate category of social identity. Instead, it greatly contributes to the constitution of the wider concept of ethnic identity, as he explains in the example that “ Catholic and Protestant are ethnic identities which derive only part of their content from religion ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 120). This view is in many ways comparable to Weinreich ’ s, as mentioned in the first chapter. Discussing ethnos, Anthony D. Smith also draws the attention to “ history and culture ” (14), history again referring to descent/ origin. He mentions that “ The nearest we get in modern Western languages to the common denominator of Greek usages is the French term ‘ ethnie ’ , which unites an emphasis upon cultural differences with the sense of an historical community ” (21 - 22). To him, the central elements of ethnic identity are not necessarily language or religion (as mentioned by Beattie, Bradley and Jenkins). Indeed, he discusses the language situations in Scotland and Wales to affirm that the use of a specific language (Celtic languages vs. English) is not critical to the inclusion in an ethnic group such as the Scots or the Welsh (27). Concerning religion, he states that “ . . . we find ‘ religions ’ often reinforcing, if not igniting, ethnic sentiments with which they have coalesced to form distinctive religio-ethnic communities ” (35). In addition to language and religion, Smith focuses on other principal factors in the determination of ethnicity: “ In many ways the sine qua non of ethnicity, the key elements of that complex of meanings which underlie the sense of ethnic ties and sentiments for the participants, myths of origins and descent provide the means of collective location in the world and the charter of the community which explains its origins, growth and destiny ” (24). Again echoing Max Weber ’ s descent, he goes as far as to state that “ Ethnie are [sic] nothing if not historical communities built up on shared memories ” (25). Even so, he refers to other concepts that have the potential to function as determiners of ethnicity, including the two mentioned above: “ The most common shared and distinctive traits are those of language and religion; but customs, institutions, laws, folklore, architecture, dress, food, music and the arts, even colour and physique, may augment the differences or take their place ” (26). “ Colour ” and “ physique ” , of course, will be allocated their own social identity due to reasons elaborated above and in the next chapter; but Smith also refers to the fact that a group often described by colour/ physique can become an ethnicity by focusing not on their outer appearance but on their cultural achievements: The present unity among the Black population in the United States is based, not upon language or even religion, but upon pigmentation and the sufferings and prejudice which it has come to express and symbolize . . . and even though the Blacks lost much of 128 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country their African ethnic heritages and have become culturally almost Americanized, yet a yearning for a Black American culture all their own, apart from the White ethnic cultures around them, persisted and latterly flourished to produce a counter-culture with its own special flavour and traits, such as jazz, Black studies and the cult of Black physical beauty. (26) To Smith, the constitution of culture also entails many aspects, some critical, others complementary. Besides shared memories and myths of origin, he contributes great relevance to a further aspect, namely homeland. He is adamant, though, in affirming that an ethnicity ’ s homeland is not necessarily contiguous or, indeed, inhabited by that ethnicity: Ethnie always possess ties to a particular locus or territory, which they call their ‘ own ’ . They may well reside in that territory; or the association with it may be just a potent memory. An ethnie need not be in physical possession of ‘ its ’ territory; what matters is that it has a symbolic geographical centre, a sacred habitat, a ‘ homeland ’ , to which it may symbolically return, even when its members are scattered across the globe and have lost their homeland centuries ago. Ethnie do not cease to be ethnie when they are dispersed and have lost their homeland; for ethnicity is a matter of myths, memories, values and symbols, and not of material possessions or political power, both of which require a habitat for their realization. (28) An ethnicity ’ s homeland does not have practical but rather symbolic value. It represents the idea that, in principle, the members of one ethnic group have a common home, even if this homeland is only in the mind. Even so, this place ties a people together and has the potential to mentally unite them. Smith concludes in stating that “ . . . ethnie (ethnic communities) may now be defined as named human populations with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity ” (32). Such a definition is bound to remain vague to a certain extent, but it offers a view that is both comprehensive and distinctive. With ethnic identity, a particular issue is that of the numerous levels on which ethnicities can be conceived. According to Jenkins, “ . . . the communal, the local, the national and the ‘ racial ’ are to be understood as historically and contextually specific social constructions on the basic ethnic theme, allotropes of ethnic identification ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 43). As I exclude the racial from the concept of ethnicity, it remains important to state that the “ communal ” , the “ local ” and the “ national ” are more or less distinguishable layers which can all function as the focus of the constitution of an ethnic identity. Keeping in mind that the “ national ” is often equated with a legal entity only, it is merely one of the levels on which ethnicity can be placed. Smith also stresses the importance of seeing nation as only one of many possible levels of ethnicity, and as a particularly unstable one: 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 129 Even federations are always federations of nations. At the same time, few states today are full ‘ nation-states ’ , in the sense of being congruent and co-extensive. Not only are the ethnic populations of most states ‘ mixed ’ , for most states have significant ethnic minorities and many are deeply divided; but the boundaries of these states do not often coincide with the extent of a single ethnic population. (129) Jenkins affirms how several levels of locality can all assume the role of ethnicity: “ . . . ethnic identity is . . . likely to be segmentary and hierarchical. Although two groups may be differentiated from each other as A and B, in a different context they may combine as C in contrast to D (which they may combine in yet other circumstances) ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 40). In this example, A and B can be considered distinct ethnicities on a more local level, whereas on a wider one they have the potential to be regarded together as ethnicity C. Smith solves this problem by rejecting an absolute conclusion: “ Quite simply, many individuals today belong simultaneously to two ‘ nations ’ - Catalan and Spanish; Breton and French; Croat and Yugoslav; Scots and British; even Yoruba and Nigerian, perhaps ” (166). Which of these levels are to be regarded as an ethnicity depends on the subject and focus of the discussion. Philip Caputo ’ s Indian Country deals with ethnicity in that it is set in a philosophical context which asks the question of where the distinction between ethnicities lies. Native Americans, representatives of whom are among the protagonists, are shown to be in the situation in which it is unclear whether they are to identify ethnically with their tribe, with Native Americans in general or with the USA. One major theme of the novel is war, which is closely linked to the idea of the ethnic identity level of nation. Jenkins has mentioned that “ a shared history (particularly, perhaps, a history of conflict with other ethnic groups) ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 110) is a pricipal determiner of ethnicity; and Nagel states, “ The maintenance and exercise of statehood vis-à-vis other nation-states often takes the form of armed conflict. As a result, nationalism and militarism seem to go hand in hand ” (400). Militarism/ war is often a consequence of nationalism, which is itself a consequence of the concept of nation, which is a dimension of ethnic identity. Indeed, Smith mentions the importance of the nation level in this respect: “ Though wars have occurred between every kind of group from the family to the empire, it is those that have been waged between different kinds of political authority, using a fairly centralized corps of professional soldiers under monarchial and/ or bureaucratic control, that have had the greatest impact upon ethnic formation and persistence ” (37 - 38), adding that “ It is state-prosecuted wars that tend to enhance a sense of identity in a differentiated population, and to reinforce its centralizing drives, if the wars do not soon overwhelm the state apparatus ” (39). In Indian Country, such conflicts are elaborated in further detail. Not only is the war between the two political nations of the USA and North Vietnam depicted; 130 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country so too is ethnic identity on another layer, namely the cultural differences between white and Native Americans. As in many other American works of fiction about the Vietnam War, a considerable amount of emphasis is laid on those elements that constitute an ethnicity according to the concepts quoted so far. Focusing on its American protagonists, the ways of language use and religion as well as the ideas of common history, myths of origins and the relations to territory are critical in many such novels. In the following paragraphs, I shall elaborate the relevance of such concepts in US culture in so far as they are relevant to the Vietnam War in general and Indian Country in particular. One aspect of common history and myths of origins that constitutes an ethnicity is what Smith terms a past golden age, which functions as memory of a once achieved glory to which members of one ethnicity are to aspire also at this current “ modern ” state. The contemporary representatives should strive to adhere to values that are specifically identified with their ethnic identity: The hero assumes importance not because of some recent attachment to abstract virtue (or virtues), but because he exemplifies a golden age of communal achievement in the past, which moderns hope to emulate and for which he and his associates offer inspiration and direction. He sums up an atmosphere and a milieu which by its splendour and challenge can help to unite and mobilize those who claim him as their spiritual and kin ancestor. Above all, he embodies in a pure form the allegedly ‘ real ’ qualities of the community, which modern complexity has obscured and tainted. (Smith 196) It is this supposed golden age that provides ethnic identity with a meaning. The ethnic group as a whole must attempt to reconstruct this former greatness, and they can do so only as a unified entity. In the American case, the ideas of myths of origins and a golden age are closely interrelated. According to Richard Slotkin, “ Myths are stories drawn from a society ’ s history that have acquired through persistent usage the power of symbolizing that society ’ s ideology 1 and of dramatizing its moral consciousness — with all the complexities and contradictions that consciousness may contain ” (5). Elliott Gruner states that “ Myth is a fabulous narrative that becomes operative when experience falls short of our needs. Myth is a kind of Godzilla, an ensemble of what we need and fear assembled to thrill and entertain us ” (170), while John Hellmann explains myth as the stories containing a people ’ s image of themselves in history. Extreme simplifications, myths may always be debunked as falsifications of reality. But simplification is 1 Slotkin explains ideology as “ the basic system of concepts, beliefs, and values that defines a society ’ s way of interpreting its place in the cosmos and the meaning of its history ” (5). 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 131 their strength, since only by ignoring the great mass of infinite data can we identify essential order. A people cannot coherently function without myth. The narrative structures of myths articulate salient patterns that we see in our past and hold as our present value and purpose. A myth is our explanation of history that can also serve as a compelling idea for our future. (ix) The USA, as a relatively young country, potentially showed particular weaknesses when constructing a myth that would function as the basis of its ethnic identity, as it was . . . a nation without a past, [and had] a people of diverse customs, a territory without clear boundaries, an economy without a stable center — variously agrarian, urban, preindustrial, and in transition toward industrialism — and a free-enterprise system that was endangered by the very doctrine of self-interest it sought to encourage, and, if anything, endangered still more by the values of independence and revolt upon which the nation was founded. (Bercovitch 41) There was one group of immigrants that had the potential to bequeath a myth to America: the Puritans, who were only one of many groups of immigrants, from Jamestown to Philadelphia, that brought the spirit of capitalism to the New World; but more than any others it was they who gave that spirit a distinctive New World identity — gave it a local habitation, the continental “ wilderness ” ; a name, “ American ” ; and an ideology, the New England Way, that would in time fuse both terms, in providing a distinctive rhetoric for the major free-enterprise culture of the modern world. (Bercovitch 32) In this “ new ” country, “ . . .Puritanism gave it the myth of America. And no culture . . . ever stood more in need of a myth ” (Bercovitch 40). Even though, as Micheal X. Delli Carpini claims, “ In the United States consensus ideology is liberal democracy ” (304), the principal elements of this myth were greatly influenced by the Puritans ’ faith: The Puritans conceived of their “ errand into the wilderness ” as the journey of a Chosen People to found a “ shining city on a hill ” destined to be an exemplary “ beacon to the world. ” Notions of America as the “ redeemer nation ” thus came to pervade the culture even before the proclamation of universally applicable political, social, and economic ideals in the Declaration of Independence. America was the leader of the Forces of Light and its enemies necessarily the Forces of Darkness, agents of Satan, a role first assigned to the monarchies of Europe and the native inhabitants of the western forests. (Hellmann 6) Whereas Puritan ideology seems to have become an early marker of similarity (which is critical in defining social identity), already early on the native inhabitants of the North American continent were excluded from the newly conceived ethnic identity. The Indians do not share in the Puritans ’ or other 132 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country white Americans ’ myth of origin. Instead they are other. Slotkin even refers to the exclusion of Indians as a central concept in the constitution of a new American identity: “ The invocation of Indian wars as a primary cause of metropolitan (and post-colonial) violence serves to diminish, obscure, or excuse the operation of more proximate social, economic, and political causes by ‘ scapegoating ’ the supposed ancestors of ‘ American national character. ’” (558). Indians served as an original marker of difference, which, like similarity, is used to establish the borders between social identities. This myth of origin has developed into the Frontier Myth, which goes back to the historian Frederick Jackson Turner: “ According to Turner ’ s thesis, the existence of the free land of the frontier permitted the realization of those features (most notably individualism) that imbue and reinforce American democracy ” (Beattie 32). As Slotkin states, “ . . . the original promise of the Frontier Myth and of American history . . . was to provide the basis for an exceptional future, a new departure from the fatal limitations of human nature and European society ” (656 - 57). Hellmann mentions that “ The prototypical myth features stalwart frontiersmen, entering the vast wilderness alone or in small bands, who draw on the virtues of nature while battling its savage denizens in order to make way for settlements of yeoman farmers ” (8). Apparently, at some point the Frontier Myth as the basis of American ethnic identification was closely linked to racial concepts, as it was also represented in popular culture: . . . the twentieth century Frontier Myth was developed in reaction against racial and cultural heterogeneity to sanction an exclusive, völkisch definition of American nationality. Although immigrants and their immediate descendants shaped developments in the new culture industry of Hollywood, the Western films they made were informed by a desire (and a commercial need) to imitate, and so to acquire for themselves, “ real Americanism. ” They accepted without question the idea that the Old West was an Anglo-Saxon preserve, just as they generally accepted WASP good looks as the standard for casting screen heroes. (Slotkin 638, italics in original) Although Indians were at first not part of this concept, Bercovitch affirms that no one would be categorically excluded: “ Nation meant Americans, Americans meant the people, and the people meant those who, thanks to the Revolution, enjoyed a commonplace prosperity: the simple sunny rewards of American middleclass life ” (46, italics in original). In general, then, whoever aspires to “ commonplace prosperity ” in the way in which it was introduced by the Puritans can have access to American culture: “ Blacks and Indians could also learn to be True [sic] Americans, when in the fullness of time they would adopt the tenets of black and red capitalism. On that provision, Jews and even Catholics could eventually become sons and daughters of the Revolution ” (Bercovitch 51). Eventually, being a part of the ethnicity that is America as it 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 133 developed from Puritanism was not dependent on race. In short: “ Genealogy, boundaries, and a certain form of religion were precisely what American nationhood has not meant ” (Bercovitch 51, italics in original). American ethnicity is then based precisely on such concepts as myth of origin, common history and territory from the point of view of the Frontier Myth. In comparison, language and religion play somewhat subordinate roles. The establishment of a stable American ideology by the Puritans and its developments into concepts such as the Frontier Myth apparently have close ties with the USA ’ s rise in world politics in the twentieth century: “ The exchange of an old, domestic, agrarian frontier for a new frontier of world power and industrial development had been a central trope in American political and historiographical debates since the 1890 s ” (Slotkin 3). The Vietnam War, with which Indian Country is in part concerned, functioned as a landmark event in which the validity of American ideology was severely questioned: Although initially defined in racially and sexually exclusive terms, the mythic “ American nation ” was always the broadest and most inclusive of our imagined communities; and the most successful movements for democratic reform — abolition, labor and welfare legislation, civil rights — have usually acted in the name of a national community and have achieved their ends through national legislation. The historical experiences of 1965 - 75 broke up the consensus and discredited the “ public myth ” of liberal progressivism. . .. (Slotkin 654) The war itself and major events such as the Civil Rights Movement that paralleled it in the USA managed to put American myths of origin into perspective. Many works of literature published then or in the aftermath placed their focus on this development. In connection with America as an emerging world power in the middle of the twentieth century, the Frontier Myth played a critical role in American foreign policy. As Philip K. Jason has observed, “ . . . America ’ s frontier myth was alive and well in Vietnam as a late stage both of manifest destiny and of domino theory rationalizations of the drive to restore national (perhaps racial) virility through combat and conquest ” (Acts and Shadows 90). Here, too, in keeping with Nagel ’ s statement, militarism and nationalism go “ hand in hand ” . The picture of the supposedly savage Indian as the non-American that is to be defeated so that the “ forces of light ” can expand their influence is then referred to on a number of occasions. According to Slotkin, Conflict was also a central and peculiar feature of the process. To establish a colony or settlement, the Europeans had to struggle against an unfamiliar natural environment and against the non-European, non-White natives for whom the wilderness was home. Violence is central to both the historical development of the Frontier and its mythic 134 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country representation. The Anglo-American colonies grew by displacing Amerindian societies and enslaving Africans to advance the fortunes of White colonists. As a result, the “ savage war ” became a characteristic episode of each phase of westward expansion. (11, italics in original) Jason credits William Crawford ’ s Korean War novel Gresham ’ s War with the first use of the “ Vietnam-era term ‘ Indian Country ’” (Acts and Shadows 128). According to Slotkin, “ The Indian-war metaphor became increasingly prominent in the rhetoric of counterinsurgency after 1961, in part because of the parallels between these two kinds of fighting — both of which took place in a ‘ wilderness ’ setting against a racially and culturally alien enemy ” (493). Fittingly, “ The Indian wars provided the only historical case in which the connection between progress and violence could be acknowledged; and the Indian-war metaphor acquired new significance after 1960, when American engagement in the ‘ underdeveloped world ’ seemed to reproduce the basic elements of frontier conflict ” (492). Perhaps paradoxically, the advancement of the frontier involved the Americans themselves assuming characteristics associated with the enemy. Whereas cultural and economic “ progress ” was the stated goal of pushing the frontier further and further off, this process could not be started without the performance of violent, “ uncivilised ” acts, as only they would have the power to move the frontier. According to Slotkin, “ . . . the Myth represented the redemption of American spirit or fortune as something to be achieved by playing through a scenario of separation, temporary regression to a more primitive or ‘ natural ’ state, and regeneration through violence ” (12, italics in original). Progress is commendable, but it is linked to decadence, which can then only be overcome by shedding all adherence to modernity and regressing towards what one originally was. In this way, the hero of the golden age re-emerges. The civilised citizen turns into a warrior who is able and ready to go to any lengths to repel all forces that stand in the way of progress. The application of violence is the unavoidable means by which to reach a higher end. This “ regeneration through violence ” was therefore also expected from the American fighters in Vietnam. The belief in the absolute goodness of American intentions in world politics was still widespread at the beginning of the Vietnam War, also due to American achievements in the Second World War (Lewis 22). Up to the time of the Vietnam War, such concepts of American ideology in general and the Frontier Myth in particular had not been seriously challenged. The time of the Vietnam War and the war itself have come to be interpreted as the critical turning point. As Hellmann claims, Vietnam is an experience that has severely called into question American myth. Americans entered Vietnam with certain expectations that a story, a distinctly 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 135 American story, would unfold. When the story of America in Vietnam turned into something unexpected, the true nature of the larger story of America itself became the subject of intense cultural dispute. On the deepest level, the legacy of Vietnam is the disruption of our story, of our explanation of the past and vision of the future. (x) The Vietnam War had the potential not only to question the morality of regeneration through violence, but also American identity, which was widely based on this concept, as such. As Lewis states, “ Like the idea of heroism, the belief in Americans ’ intrinsic goodness vs. Communists ’ natural wickedness fared miserably once it encountered the reality of the Vietnam War ” (30 - 31, italics in original). Lloyd Gardner mentions that “ What can be said about the dominant American self-perception is that its assumption of uniqueness had not really been challenged until Vietnam ” (12). This turning point also functions as the theme to many literary representations of the Vietnam War: “ The more provocative stories that unfold in the earlier literature of the Vietnam War are not simply or finally stories of armed conflict in a distant land. They are stories about American society as it evolved through the sixties and seventies. They are understandings, and sometimes underminings, of American myths ” (Jason, Acts and Shadows 11). From early on, the Vietnam War came to be understood in terms of American mythology and ideology. The classic Vietnam tale became the story of American soldiers learning the “ truth ” about their cultural background: “ Indeed, a close examination of the Vietnam War narratives reveals that the dominant image to which Americans automatically appealed was that of saviors. This role was one they had been socialized to adopt, and, like so much else, it fell apart in Vietnam ” (Lewis 32, italics in original). Consequently, all of American history became subject to reinterpretation. The meaning of American ideology could now be viewed as the opposite to how it was originally conceived. Philip D. Beidler claims that “ . . . as a country we have become at least somewhat more honest in looking at the hard facts of our racist and imperialist history, beginning with the enslavement of Africans and the wars of annihilation against native peoples and our subsequent adventurism in the Caribbean, Central and South America, Asia and the Pacific, and now the Middle East ” (Late Thoughts 8). The tragic culmination of such a development came to be epitomised in the My Lai massacre: “ More than any other single event, the revelation [of the My Lai massacre] transformed the terms of ideological and political debate on the war, lending authority to the idea that American society was in the grip of a ‘ madness ’ whose sources might be endemic to our ‘ national character. ’” (Slotkin 581). Liberal democracy or cultural and economic progress as the focus of the meaning of America came to be replaced by “ madness ” . These considerations gave rise to a “ counter-myth ” , elements of which are conceivable in many literary works about the Vietnam War. To Slotkin, 136 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country The cultural authority of the Myth of Vietnam is augmented by its continuity with the myth/ ideology it seems to have displaced. Allusions to the Frontier and to the Western continually recur in recent treatments, both documentary and fictional. Such references are appropriate to the historical subject, since, as we have seen, the Myth of the Frontier provided so much of the war ’ s original symbolism. (637) What is particular in its treatment is that “ . . . the Mylai counter-myth follows the scenario of the old ‘ Cult of the Indian ’ : the standard Western mythology of captivities, rescues, and regenerative violence is reproduced, with the ‘ normal ’ racial referents reversed, so that the Whites are savages and the Indians are pure and hapless victims ” (590). The critical issue with counter-myth representation is that it fails to deliver a new perspective. Though it may serve a noble cause in trying to fathom the roots of war atrocities, it does not manage to introduce new concepts that are unrelated to the ideas of the Frontier Myth. Slotkin puts it succinctly: Mylai thus became the central trope of the “ counter-myth ” through which Americans expressed their growing disillusionment and disgust with the myth/ ideology of counterinsurgency. But it is vital to note that this counter-myth merely reproduced, in inverted form, the moral/ political symbolism of the original myth. The appeal of the counter-myth hinges on a misrepresentation of Mylai ’ s politics that exactly reproduces — albeit with an opposite political intention — the original fallacy of counterinsurgency in Vietnam, which was to treat indigenous political culture as a nullity. (590, italics in original) As counter-myth does not widen the interpretative scope, it must remain part of the myth that it tries to expose. Consequently, it is not an independent phenomenon and remains unable to sustain itself without the support of the original myth. As Hellmann has observed about related films, “ The Vietnam western was a short-lived genre; antimyth has no substance beyond the myth it is consuming ” (95). A novel with Indian Country as its title seems to be prone to be preconceived as a counter-culture narrative, and some of its elements certainly refer to such concepts. In any case, it is as close to a “ typical ” Vietnam War novel as Caputo has come so far, as it deals with the impact that the war has had on the protagonists, even though no actual part of the plot is set in the war itself. Jason terms Indian Country, along with Robert Bausch ’ s On the Way Home and Larry Heinemann ’ s Paco ’ s Story, as one of the “ major novels of the returned veteran ” , which “ pretty much leave out the war to get at its consequences ” (Acts and Shadows 46). He adds that novels of the returned veteran such as Indian Country “ explore not only the veteran ’ s condition but also the represented America the veteran reentered. Many of these titles have a temporal sweep that overlaps the chronology of the war itself ” (77). In this way, it can be considered a Vietnam War novel; and even though it sets expectations 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 137 of a counter-myth story by its title alone, it goes far beyond that concept. Indian Country is a tale about identity, but it does not restrict itself to American ethnic identity. Instead, it breaks down the confinements set by the long history of American myth that were reinforced by the short-lived counter-myth phenomenon. It is a particularly complex piece of work that opens up new perspectives concerning the understanding of identity. As Indian Country deals with ethnic identity, the other aspects of social identity remain in the background. Gender identity is not a principal element, even though it is latently present in the protagonist ’ s last name Starkmann, German for “ strong man ” , which Joe Basil Fenley interprets more blatantly: Christian “ Starkman[n] is representative. His plight is the plight of all mankind. . .. He is interesting and relevant as a character because his condition is the condition of all persons in ‘ stark ’ vividness. He is the ‘ stark-man. ’” (169). To Fenley, the man in his name does not refer to the male gender but rather to any “ person ” . We also learn that one of the things about which Christian is uncomfortable concerning his deferment is that his masculinity is compromised (IC 23). Gender identity does not emerge into the foreground at any point, however. Occupational/ class identity has a somewhat stronger presence. Bonny George, one of the principal Native American characters, has plans for his future. He wants to be an archaeologist (IC 7) and therefore indicates a vision of possible identification with a profession. This intention, however, is not elaborated on and does not play a relevant role in the novel. Christian ’ s place in the world of occupation and class is more concrete and a vital part in the appraisal of his circumstances. From early on, he is influenced by his father ’ s professional status: “ He was the son of a Missouri synod minister, after all, possessed of an emotional reticence that prohibited extravagant displays of feeling ” (IC 10). His father Lucius ’ s occupational background strongly affects Christian ’ s world and the way he behaves. After his return from Vietnam, it is, partly, another occupation that offers him new chances and allows him to rise socially. He manages to take on the position of “ Assistant District Lands Manager ” (IC 71) on Michigan ’ s Upper Peninsula. This work, however, is closely linked to his relationship with the land. To him, it symbolises how little white Americans live in harmony with the country around them, and how their principal aim is to make money by selling wood. Occupational identity is subordinated to the wider treatment of ethnic identity, represented here by the territory, which plays a central role in the constitution of ethnic identity. With regard to class, the situation is similar. The only person to be fully aware of her class situation appears to be Christian ’ s wife June. After Erickson, a lawyer, offers himself to her as a boyfriend, she replies with, “ I ’ m no lawyer ’ s lady, or any kind of lady. Front seats of cars and cheap motels are my style. I ’ m a 138 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country low-rent mama, always have been. I wouldn ’ t be worth a damn, passing out canapés to the guests at the cocktail parties ” (IC 355, italics in original). She cannot and does not want to escape her class identity. Such statements, however, have little relevance to the developments in the novel. Nonetheless, Tobey C. Herzog takes up class as a theme in Indian Country, highlighting the fact that the draft affects Bonny George, not Christian: “ The poor, proud Native American, raised by his grandfather, is drafted into the Army, while Chris, a middle-class white kid with a deferment to attend divinity school, can ignore military obligations ” (Vietnam War Stories 178). Visiting Bonny George and his grandfather Louis for the first time, Christian is negatively surprised at the miserable conditions in which the two Indians live (IC 12). As a small child, before the death of his parents, Bonny George had had easier access to modern conveniences, however: “ You shoulda seen my home. My pa built it hisself. Had runnin ’ water, ’ lectricity, a TV even ” (IC 15). As the distribution of wealth can be considered a major indicator of class, the living conditions of the Indian characters is a clear indication that class is also treated within the view of ethnic identity. The Natives ’ social misery is shown on two levels. Bonny George ’ s parents had given up their ancestors ’ culture and taken on many economic ways of a white immigrant ’ s life. Even so, they did not manage to lead happy lives. On the other hand, Bonny George ’ s grandfather Louis has decided to remain as true as possible to traditional Ojibwa ways of life. As a result, he lives in poverty and social misery. In either case, their class status is related to their problematic situation concerning ethnic identity. Perhaps surprisingly, racial identity plays no role whatsoever in Indian Country. Nevertheless, Tobey C. Herzog views the fact that Bonny George (the Indian) but not Christian (the white man) is drafted as being partly racially conditioned (Vietnam War Stories 178). Even if conflicts between Native Americans and immigrants are a central theme in the novel, such conflicts are never based on race, i. e. bodily differences between peoples. Caputo emphasises the cultural aspects of Indians and immigrants, not the racial ones. With reference to Indian Country, he states the point of view that African Americans basically share European Americans ’ “ values ” , which stand in opposition to those of Native Americans (Philip Caputo Interview). Bonny George ’ s parents even echo Bercovitch ’ s statement that “ Blacks and Indians could also learn to be True Americans, when in the fullness of time they would adopt the tenets of black and red capitalism ” (51). The one aspect of social identity that plays the greatest role besides ethnic identity is family. Indeed, familial relations are relevant to many characters, but they, too, are mainly treated in combination with ethnicity. Bonny George is an orphan, but he has strong ties with his grandfather Louis, who has taken him in. Thinking about ways to avoid the draft, he is not prepared to flee to Canada, 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 139 also for his grandfather ’ s sake, as he is afraid that he would never be able to see him again (IC 23). Otherwise, the Starkmann family and the relationships of its members, particularly the conflicts between Christian and his father Lucius, are crucial themes in Indian Country. Christian strongly disapproves of his father ’ s dictatorial treatment of the family. The latter ’ s behaviour at Christian ’ s sister Anne ’ s wedding (IC 242 - 44), where Lucius made his dislike of his new son-inlaw evident to everyone, epitomises Lucius ’ s questionable view of his position as head of the family. Although Christian leaves the family home to, at first, live something like a hermit ’ s life on Michigan ’ s Upper Peninsula, he remains aware that he cannot mentally separate himself from his family in general and his father in particular. He even becomes aware of his father ’ s views within himself when thinking about his wife June ’ s ways: “ It occurred to him then that he was his father ’ s son, no matter what: a part of him disapproved of June ” (IC 192). As he is certain that Lucius would not have approved of his son ’ s wife, just as he did not approve of his daughter ’ s husband, he notices that he is in “ part ” his father, and that he can somehow understand him better than he would like to do. When Lucius is on his deathbed, unconscious, Christian feels the urgent need to make peace with him, despite the hate that he has felt towards him for years (IC 245). Even though familial identity plays a vital role in Indian Country, it is also linked to ethnic identity in general. Lucius sees his only son ’ s role primarily in that he expects him to follow his path and go to divinity school (IC 36). Christian, whose given name already infers the religion bequeathed to him by his parents, has no such interest. He does not see why he should take up a profession simply because his father had. This decision is less of a case of occupational/ class identity, and more one of ethnic identity. Lucius is a hardboiled anti-war activist, a militant pacifist. His profession is, literally, his religion, a principal element in the constitution of culture and therefore ethnic identity. His main aim is to fight involvement in war, and his beliefs are his primary driving force. Christian reacts in that he insults his father ’ s faith in the most devastating way. He joins the army and goes to Vietnam as a volunteer, accompanying Bonny George, who was drafted. In another instance in the novel, familial identity is again subjugated to ethnic identity in the form of war. June notices on the Vieux Desert memorial that “ . . . most of the surnames of the men who ’ d been to Vietnam matched those who ’ d fought in the other wars. Grandfathers, fathers, and sons — it was as if fighting in distant conflicts were a kind of legacy, passed from one generation to the next. That told her something about small-town patriotism . . . ” (IC 332). Familial identity takes on a subordinate role to ethnic identity in times of conflict between political entities. Elements relevant to ethnic identity occur in numerous circumstances throughout the novel. They are the primary focus of the novel ’ s original setting, even though they are realised in many distinct forms. 140 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country The novel ’ s title, Indian Country, already refers to an important element of ethnic identity. On the one hand, there are the Indians and their cultures in opposition to white Americans and theirs. On the other hand, there is country, which, in ethnic identification, can be relevant in relation to a political entity or a physical territory with which an ethnicity can identify. In this case, the protagonists are all citizens of the USA. As is common in novels of the Vietnam War, if Indian Country is to be seen as such, one can expect an elaboration on the role of the Vietnam War in the course of American history, particularly with respect to the Frontier Myth. At the beginning of the novel, Christian and Bonny George are on a trip deep in the “ wilderness ” (IC 9), a term inseparable from this classic American concept. Indeed, they are on their way to what Bonny George calls a “ frontier fort ” (IC 6), and on the track of white explorers keen on civilising the wild land. The trapper ’ s fort makes Christian feel uneasy, however, and a kind of ghostly atmosphere prevails in the place (IC 7), an early indication of the Gothic mode to which the novel is to turn. Later on, when Christian comes to stay in Michigan, he at first lives “ like an Indian or frontiersman ” (IC 103). Correspondingly, the Hermansons ’ residence in this wilderness reminds June of a frontier settlement (IC 166); and June is concerned, as in Vieux Desert, where the family had settled down, the Starkmanns “ lived like some pioneer family ” (IC 112 - 13). Christian, the chief protagonist, is aware of the USA ’ s traditional role as the land of opportunities, but realises that choices are limited when considering Bonny George ’ s situation as a draftee: “ Go to war, go to jail, or go into exile — it seemed to him that his friend should have had more options than those. This was America, the land of options and choices, hundreds of them, arrayed like snack foods and breakfast cereals on a supermarket shelf. Yet, even in America, a man ’ s fundamental nature imposed limits on the courses of action he could take ” (IC 23). The novel mainly plays with widespread views of the Frontier Myth and the classic conflict between whites and Indians and integrates them into a wider sphere to present its complexity. These brief references to elements of the Frontier Myth merely indicate its existence as the basis for its own literary genre. It is never developed into a major relevant concept. The allusions to the myth are kept short and they give way to other elaborations, which will be discussed later on. The ill treatment of the returning veterans is another classical theme in the genre of which the novel is a part. Again, however, there are only few instances in which these situations are developed; and, indeed, the now almost stereotypical idea of the USA as the “ bad guy ” in the Vietnam War is not one of the main focuses. We learn that Christian felt “ convinced he had returned to a land as alien and hostile as the one he had left ” , like an “ ex-convict ” and a “ fugitive ” (IC 94). Having been assaulted several times after being recognised as a veteran, 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 141 Christian mentions that “ He was living in a dangerous land, where he was hated . . . ” (IC 99). At times, he even misses Vietnam, especially his friends there, D. J., Ramos and Hutchinson (IC 97). Christian realises that “ His country was not as he remembered it. It was pulling itself apart. Had it changed that much in the year or so he ’ d been gone, or had he? ” (IC 102). Even though such thoughts occur to him, he never follows them for a longer period. With regard to his case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he is even oblivious of the Veterans Administration, about which Jim Eckhardt, his psychologist, expects Christian to be critical (IC 210). Eckhardt also mentions that many Vietnam War veterans were “ made to feel like outcasts ” after returning to the USA (IC 321). This, again, is not Christian ’ s main concern. The often tragic way in which returning Vietnam veterans were treated is, like the Frontier Myth, only hinted at. As it forms one of the cornerstones of the returning veteran genre, in which Indian Country can be placed, it does not do much more apart from setting the frame, before the novel proceeds a different way. The inclusion of Indian protagonists introduces a further aspect that may be conceived to smack of counter-myth, in which the original “ savage ” is now turned into a victim by the “ true savage ” , the white American. Several elements in the novel tend to go in this direction. On his first visit to the St. Germaines, the Indian family which he befriends, Christian feels uncomfortable and is distressed at the poor environment in which they live. Christian and Bonny George ’ s first meeting is a childish version of clashing cultures. Their fight (IC 17) appears to be a reminder of the violent past between the two peoples they represent. Soon, however, they go the same way as did Christian ’ s father Lucius and Bonny George ’ s grandfather Louis before them: they become intimate friends, and the cultural boundary separating their ethnicities dissolves readily, as it is likely to have done with Lucius and Louis. Bonny George ’ s situation appears to be a classic case of split loyalties, as he is both a US citizen and a member of the Ojibwa Indian tribe, which can be looked at as two ethnicities. However, Bonny George is almost too conscious of what is expected of him as an Indian: “ I ’ m an Indian, a maker of myths, a dreamer of dreams ” (IC 6); and he is ironic about his background and calls himself “ a backwoods blanket-ass ” (IC 10), a derogatory expression for an Indian (IC 17). Nonetheless, the situation of the Natives is not presented in a simplistic way. Considering fleeing to Canada, Bonny George does not believe that he would be able to stay hidden there and is convinced that he could not count on sympathy from Indian tribes (IC 22 - 23). In this case, it is apparently not just a situation of Indian vs. white. It is also Indian vs. Indian. Subgroups of ethnic units are not only discernible among Indians; the white American characters are equally aware of their more distinct ethnic backgrounds. The Finnish origins of many of the Upper Peninsula ’ s inhabitants are frequently 142 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country hinted at. For example, June is aware that her Finnishness influences her (IC 231), and her family is rooted in their Finnish heritage (IC 308 - 09). Again, however, the boundaries of such groups are not absolute, and certain “ national characteristics ” are seen to be typical of such “ subethnicities ” . With regard to June, we know that at times, “ Her Finnish side surrendered to the Canuck, forbearance to fury ” (IC 316). The Starkmanns, in contrast, are German and English in origin and therefore said, unlike Latins, to be not “ emotional ” (IC 254). Thus, one can clearly say that the protagonists are not simply Americans. Nor are there white Americans on one side and Native Americans on the other. Instead, they can also be distinguished as US-Ojibwa, Finnish/ Canuck or English/ German, respectively. None of these levels functions as the dominant one. A character ’ s identification as an American is not stronger than, for instance, as a Finnish American. Neither is it weaker. These concepts merely exist in interplay, and, depending on the context, one or the other is temporarily put into the foreground. Distinction between groups is also represented by another principal aspect of ethnic identity: religion. To Lucius, his religious imperatives are far more critical than his duties as a citizen. He is mad at Christian ’ s hitting Bonny George on their first meeting and reminds him of his name: “ What does it mean to be a Christian? ” (IC 18), Lucius asks. He is deeply distressed that his son did not act according to his religious imperatives. Christian, on the other hand, does not identify with Christianity as Lucius would like him to. Joe Basil Fenley explains the protagonist ’ s first name in that “ The character ’ s world view and experience comes to embody many elements of the traditional faith, but still resists an orthodox interpretation. In Christian there is much which is pagan ” (168). Nevertheless, Christian cannot escape his religious upbringing even if he wanted to. He often stresses his contempt for his father and his profession as a minister. Even though he does not care to identify with such elements, he is still trapped by them. He later names his daughter Christine and also gives her a religious education (IC 272). Afraid of losing June, he searches for help in the religion into which he was born, and remembers his father preaching: “ We need Christ as our savior and guide, but the pleasures of this world, whether of the mind or body, charge their own price and inflict their own punishment. If he never took anything for granted and never allowed himself to become too happy, perhaps he could hold on to her and all he had ” (IC 132 - 33, italics in original). In addition, Christian as an adult still reads the Bible out of habit (IC 135); and June was also raised a Catholic and often acts according to it (IC 225). With the Indian characters, the religious situation is even more complex. Just as the Starkmanns constitute a family deeply rooted in their religion, so does the novel ’ s other principal family, the St. Germaines. We learn that Ka ’ wa, 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 143 Louis ’ s son and Bonny George ’ s father, adopted Christianity, calling himself Clement (IC 260). Louis is actually the Christian name of Wawiekumig, “ Round Earth ” (IC 56), who continues to practice as a Mide priest. The St. Germaines are not only torn between belonging to two nations, but also between two religions, which seems to be the main source of conflict for them. After Clement ’ s death, Louis, who was “ worried that his son ’ s soul might not be admitted to the Christian heaven, held the Ghost Rites, guiding Clement ’ s spirit down the Path of the Dead ” (IC 261). Afterwards, Louis took the orphaned Bonny George out of school to teach him his original religion (IC 15) and his tribe ’ s culture (IC 20). So there are several major dimensions of ethnic identity that have the potential either to unite or to separate (or do both). Considering common descent/ history/ memories, the Indians probably have to be regarded as an ethnicity separate from white Americans, as they have completely different customs and traditions. In relation to nationality, they are all members of one ethnicity, whose culture is dominated by the original European immigrants and from which Indians are not categorically excluded if they are prepared to fulfil the necessary prerequisites. Finally, there is religion, which, in this case, can both separate and unite the white and the Indian characters, as Bonny George and Louis (and even Clement, according to Louis) seem to appraise themselves and each other in relation to the religion of the immigrants and that of their ancestors. Even to the Mide, a certain religion is not seen as an absolute imperative. In addition to the difficulty of setting boundaries between ethnic identities, the novel also treats various types of territory. At one point, Christian sees himself as situated between two such territories: “ The reservation was another country, and he did not belong in it any more than he belonged in town. He belonged right where he was: between the two ” (IC 133). The reservation is separated from white America; but apparently Christian also regards the town as a country of its own. This fragmentation does not solely apply to such concrete unities as an Indian Reservation. The regions within the USA that feature as the settings of the novel are as distinct from one another as political countries can be. The Upper Peninsula is compared to a Third World country (IC 110); and both its physique and its inhabitants bear little resemblance to life in the Chicago suburbs in which Christian grew up. There are many such countries within one country, and they can even reach out beyond national boundaries, as Christian finds out when looking over the Canadian border, where the land hardly changes (IC 39). Such territories can also be minute. After his return from Vietnam, Christian hopes that “ in his own house, on his own land ” (IC 108) he will find comfort. He turns his own property into a fortress, stating, “‘ I belong here, June, and you belong here with me, ’ he said . . . ‘ Right here on these forty acres. Nowhere else. ’” (IC 234). There is no minimal 144 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country size that such a country must have. Even a small piece of land can be separated further. June considers her vegetable garden to be her own property (IC 271). Territory in general is thus a primary aspect of ethnic identity as treated in Indian Country. In contrast to Horn of Africa, a novel about gender identity and strongly focused on the body, this book does not start with a description of a person ’ s physicality, but with that of the country, the woods of the northern Midwest. Christian ’ s and Bonny George ’ s friendship is based on how they deal with the same land: “ He supposed they made an odd pair, but the adventures they had shared in the vast forests, where they had to rely on each other, had drawn him closer to the Indian than to his classmates in high school and college ” (IC 19). If it is the country that shapes identity, it is not a political entity ’ s ideology that unites a group of people. It is the country ’ s topography. Cultural or political boundaries dissolve in view of geographical features: “ It dawned on Starkmann then that he and Bonny George were not on a ridge at the northern edge of the United States but in the heart of a continent. And what a wild heart it still was, a heart the white man had ravaged but never completely conquered, home to the bear and the coyote, the wolf and the wildcat, Indian country ” (IC 39). It is this “ country ” that impresses Christian greatly whereas the relevance of political entities diminishes. In general, Indian Country repeatedly refers to representations of the Frontier Myth. However, the importance of the definition of a US culture that functions as the basis for ethnic identification is considerably weakened by a multitude of alternatives. On the one hand, the characters have ethnicities on other levels to identify with: not only Ojibwa but also Finnish or German. On the other hand, the mental presence of political boundaries is overwhelmed by the sheer might of physical topography that makes up the continent. A traditional view of Americanness, particularly embodied in the Frontier Myth, is, in Indian Country, a weak concept to start with. It does not epitomise that strict imperative which the future Vietnam veterans were perhaps thought to have had in mind when they took off to fight. Instead, it is relatively distant from the very beginning. As a consequence, the war zones in Vietnam that were controlled by the enemy are hardly ever referred to as “ Indian Country ” , even though, as we have seen, this has frequently been done elsewhere. Correspondingly, the Vietnamese are never equalled with supposedly savage Indians; in fact, since the novel is not set in Vietnam, there are no Vietnamese characters at all. Consequently, the novel does not give itself up to counter-myth, which, as we have seen earlier, does little more than support the distinction between white Americans and Indians or, in other cases, Vietnamese. Even though such representations were often grounded on a view “ that Native American culture might be a morally superior alternative to ‘ civilization. ’” (Slotkin 629), they “ once again construed Native Americans as ‘ the Other, ’ the opposite or 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 145 negation of Anglo-American culture — only now that difference was seen as healthy opposition to a sick society ” (630). Caputo does not blatantly present Native culture as a superior alternative. Instead, he emphasises the importance of sorting out the conflicts that his culture has with Indian culture. He affirms that American “ society ” cannot become “ whole ” , “ healed ” and “ healthy ” unless it manages to acknowledge the role of Native culture in America (Philip Caputo Interview). The Ojibwa are not treated as either better or worse than European Americans. Central themes are their world views as such, not necessarily differences between them. The novel has not always been viewed in this way. Thomas Myers suggests that Christian Starkmann finds the beginning of true expiation only in a new American vision quest — the confession of his transgression to Wawiekumig deep within the Indian ’ s ancestral lands and the cleansing of self within the cold, rapid waters from which he was saved by Bonny George. Caputo ’ s aesthetic resolution not only completes a small, personal circle, but also links Indian Country — and all the works by the finest Vietnam point men — with a larger native tradition. (225 - 26) Maria S. Bonn states that “ In Philip Caputo ’ s Indian Country we see a Vietnam veteran-protagonist working from disintegration to reintegration through the acceptance and creation of an alternative American mythology ” (9). A weakness of such criticism is the fact that it remains within the confines set by widespread counter-mythical reception, and it fails to acknowledge the full scope of a complex work such as Indian Country. In her extensive study on the Frontier Myth and Vietnam War literature, in which Indian Country is the main focus, Samantha Jayne Ward also mainly remains within these confines. She accuses the genre of creating and supporting an “ anti-myth ” (Ward ’ s term) to the Frontier Myth, making the Vietnam War look like “ a slight anomaly in the way American culture narrates itself ” (Ward 66). Her main argument is that disgraced war veterans are equated with Indians in that “ Both groups (and anyone who would belong to both groups) are perceived as ‘ other. ’” (122), since they are the only Americans ever to have lost wars (Ward 8). She perceives characters such as Christian Starkmann as adopting “ an identity of their own choosing ” (23), i. e. a Native American identity. Again, such a treatment only works if one refuses to go beyond the set frame of the Frontier Myth, eclipsing that one of Indian Country ’ s principal achievements is precisely the fact that it offers a way out of this metaphorical corset. The way Indian Country deals with supposed differences between ethnic groups, particularly white and Native Americans, is that it latently dissolves the cultural differences between them. At first, however, Christian is susceptible to counter-mythical views, idealising the Ojibwa, apparently in an early attempt to mentally separate himself from his father: “ Christian had little knowledge of 146 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country the old man ’ s [Louis ’ s] pagan creed, but found in the camp an atmosphere of tranquillity that made him feel the way he was supposed to feel in church but never did: at peace with himself, in touch with some greater force or power ” (IC 20). In turn, Bonny George rejects the view that white Americans can adopt Indian spirituality: “ Blanket-ass philosophy is for blanket-asses, not for honkies ” (IC 52), he says. Conversely, according to Louis, whites cannot be influenced by evil spirits of the Indian world: “ . . . while whites had their own diseases of the soul, they were not subject to the influence of sorcerers or tricksters ” (IC 406), but both Indians and whites have their demons with which they need to deal; and both have their own ways of solving such problems. At the end of the novel, when Christian seeks full rehabilitation, he still insists that he meet Louis (IC 385), even though Eckhardt, his psychologist, is sceptical about the use of such a visit: “ He might not give you what you ’ re asking for. Even if he does, it won ’ t make much difference, because you ’ ve got to give it to yourself first ” (IC 400), which is what is about to happen. Christian searches for and eventually finds Louis, but in this meeting, he does not achieve what he originally hoped for. Indeed, he remains true to the imperative of his Christian upbringing and asks for the Indian ’ s forgiveness for his guilt in Bonny George ’ s death (IC 406), a concept that does not exist in Ojibwa culture, and that Louis can therefore not grant him. Consequently, his salvation does not lie within a supposedly spiritual Indian rite. Louis ’ s sweat-lodge ceremony, in which he passes the border between conscious and unconscious and enters the spirit world, is not much different from modern European psychotherapy. We even learn that not only Louis but also Eckhardt deals in “ riddles ” (IC 398), and the Mide, like the psychologist, is concerned with dreams (IC 50) and he can “ heal diseases of the mind and spirit ” (IC 152). Eventually, Christian has to admit that traditional European psychology is no less spiritual than Ojibwa lore, as he discovers in his final conversation with Louis. Told that he unconsciously willed himself to be partly guilty in Bonny George ’ s death, he realises that The observation that he held himself responsible because he wanted to was the same as the one the psychologist had made the other day in somewhat different language. It sounded more profound on the old man ’ s untutored lips, bearing the weight of a wisdom learned through hard experience, rather than the glibness of something plucked out of a textbook. But it wasn ’ t in reality any more profound. (IC 411) The achievements of white and Native American culture are in general equal. In other circumstances, even more similarities are revealed, as Caputo intended to present “ a weaving of Native American and . . . pre-Christian European mythology ” (Caputo, Philip Caputo Interview). Both the Indians and the whites have a similar sense of philosophy: “ Everything comes around back to you. You give plenty of kids bloody noses — now you got one ” (IC 17). This is what Louis 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 147 tells Bonny George after the latter ’ s fight with Christian on their first meeting. It is reminiscent of the soldiers ’ saying “ Payback is a bitch ” (IC 158). Both views acknowledge that there is some invisible power that instigates acts of retribution. Fenley mentions that both Christian and Louis are subject to “ moral fatalism ” (170). Furthermore, ancient beliefs about the mystical force of the bear are present in both peoples ’ thoughts. The bear as the trespasser of the border between the worlds appears as a both mystical and profane figure in the novel. To the Ojibwa, the bear is the guardian of the Sacred Lodge, “ where they will come to heal sickness or get rid of bad luck ” (IC 144). Finnish folklore attributes a similar meaning to the bear where it was traditionally not looked at as an animal, but as the son of the sky-god (IC 164). The relation between animal and gods is also represented in the Ojibwa belief that “ Otters were kind of go-betweens between man and God ” (IC 127). Indian culture is not portrayed as being superior to the whites ’ , and despite its regression, it cannot even be completely subjugated, as it is presented in the incident in which an actual bear is cold-bloodedly killed by June. Such an act, according to Ojibwa belief, causes disaster on the violating clan if the bear is not killed in a way prescribed to avert this curse (Caputo, Philip Caputo Interview). Here, the European imposers still fall victim to their failure to acknowledge elements of Native wisdom. Even though European and Indian cultures are not marked in their differences, their relationship has never been resolved. This shows that the conflict between the two cultural spheres is profoundly complex. It is not explained away in a simplistic way of “ We believe this while they believe that ” . The book does not try to scrutinise and evaluate differences between the two ethnicities ’ traditions. The principal aspect is how people deal with such mythology, which is here, and here to stay. It does not call for abandonment of some cultural imperatives or the adoption of others. The question is how one arranges oneself with one ’ s heritage as well as with the heritage of the original people living in the country into which one has moved. Similarities between Indians and whites are not only represented in their rites and philosophical views. War also has a similar status in both cultures, as described in Indian Country. At first, a further counter-mythical tendency is again discernible in one of the characters. Lucius tells Christian that the Ojibwa are peaceful and “ never fought a war with white people ” (IC 11). This is obviously wrong, as Christian learns from Bonny George that they at least once fought the U. S. Army (IC 42). In addition, Bonny George proudly tells Christian about his tribe ’ s past and about their wars, concluding that, “ We ’ re not pacifists. We ’ re not cowards. We don ’ t run ” (IC 42). These are some of the reasons that make him decide not to dodge the draft. He is not concerned about politics or a war ’ s moral rightfulness. It would be conceivable to assume that his primary conflict would be the decision on whether he 148 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country principally sees himself as an American or as an Ojibwa. Being American, he might decide to fight with his countrymen in a war that his democratically elected government believes to be justified. As an Ojibwa, he is likely to see himself as a member of an ethnicity suppressed by that government. According to Ward, “ Bonny George thinks of participation in the war not as an act of solidarity with the United States[ ’ ] political position but one which places him in a position akin to his Indian ancestors ” (114). Furthermore, the battles fought by the Ojibwa are not described in a political way (IC 262). Louis contemplates: The Seven Grandfathers, Red Sky had said, had taught that war was natural to man. So was peace. There was a time for each, just as there was a time when the Big Lake should be calm, a time when it should be wild with storms. But the Grandfathers had also taught that war was natural only when fought against natural enemies; engagement in the conflict of others was an offense. Red Sky had witnessed the consequences of such a trespass during the Civil War, when many young Ojibwa joined the American Army. Almost none came back, and those who did returned without arms, legs, eyes, and some were crazy. (IC 263) There is the idea of “ natural enemies ” , but even so there is no mention of fighting for a purpose. Louis asks himself about Bonny George, “ Who were his grandson ’ s natural enemies? The question prompted another: What was his grandson, Ojibwa or American? Or both? ” (IC 263). The question about which ethnicity Bonny George belongs to is relevant in that his “ natural enemies ” must be recognised. There is no notion of fighting or sacrificing oneself for a purpose. The question of the righteousness of war is like the question of forgiveness. These concepts do not exist. If Bonny George is American, he will have to fight in an American war, but only if the enemy is natural, not if the purpose is justified. Bonny George ’ s political views, or rather the lack thereof, are expressed as he talks to Christian about the Vietnam War: “ I don ’ t think it ’ s right or wrong. I think it just is, like a blizzard or one of those storms that come up on the lake in the fall ” (IC 40, italics in original). No political or ideological concepts based on ethnic identity are prerequisites to enter a war. Instead, war is part of humanity, unconditioned by a will, a goal or a belief. Reacting to this statement, Christian insists that the Vietnam War is wrong, but for equally nonpolitical reasons: “ What ’ s wrong with it is that guys like you have to go and guys like me get out of it ” (IC 41). War is a personal thing to Christian: “ Of course this war would end immediately if every soldier laid down his rifle; nevertheless they did not, for whatever reasons — perhaps for as many reasons as there were soldiers ” (IC 27). The reasons for war are individual. A general purpose does not exist. Eventually, after his return, “ That knowledge of senseless evil was all he had ever gotten out of the war. It was all he had now ” (IC 376). Never did 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 149 political considerations influence Christian ’ s decision to join the army. Neither was his decision based merely on the simplistic idea of loyalty towards Bonny George. Eckhardt, his psychologist, does not believe that Christian joined the army because he found it unfair that only Bonny George was drafted. Neither does he believe in people joining for traditional values: “ I smell bullshit. The same bullshit as when some guy tells me he joined up to fight for the flag, Mom, and apple pie ” (IC 398). By the same token, Lucius ’ s activism against war is decidedly non-political. He is not interested in whether involvement in a war is politically justifiable. His strong views are based on his religion. This is where his loyalty lies. A political system or national ideology does not exist for him. Even so, Lucius reminds Bonny George that there are parallels between the Vietnam War and Indian wars (IC 27). Political and moral elaborations are not Christian ’ s way of assessing a war ’ s rightfulness, just as Bonny George does not seem to know anything about the motives that the Ojibwa had for their battles in the past (IC 42). This stance stands in contrast to many classical novelists of the Vietnam War, about whom Lewis states, “ We have investigated, from their own reports, how a particular generation of Americans ‘ learned war. ’ They did so by exposure to a variety of enculturating agencies which made armed aggression meaningful in terms of culturally constituted values ” (60). This is not the case in Indian Country. In no circumstance are the warriors to be, Christian and Bonny George, exposed to “ enculturating agencies which made armed aggression meaningful ” . Bonny George does not talk about any moral purposes in his tribe ’ s past, and no one expected Christian to give up his deferment. Such ideological indoctrination is neither treated nor even referred to in the novel. The lack of meaning in war emerges from a lack of meaning in classical views of American ideology. War is not conceived of as part of a moral duty to the homeland. Lewis mentions that The abstracted components of the idea of “ duty ” look roughly like this: since they first set foot in the New World, the people of America have had to engage in bloody conflicts to ensure their survival. (The wars against the original Americans, the Indians, would be an example.) These wars crop up periodically — approximately every generation. Each generation has answered the call to arms, fought successfully, and guaranteed biological survival and hence cultural continuity. In order that this continuity be preserved, it is necessary for each generation to form an unbroken chain with the preceding one, upholding the same meanings by attaching them to the same activities. (46) The characters in Indian Country were, incidentally, not called to go to war in order to ensure “ cultural continuity ” . Even if, in the end, the simple fact that “ wars were fought now becomes sufficient reason for wars to continue being fought ” (Lewis 46), fighting such a war is not connected specifically to white 150 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country American ideology. In Ojibwa history, war seems to have had a comparable role. In view of all these cases, the status of the Vietnam War is contemplated on a level different from many classical renderings. In general, it is agreed that “ The idea of the divisive impact of the war continues to circulate in various places within American culture ” (Beattie 151). It was a turning point that severely questioned American ideology based on the Frontier Myth. Transposed onto the individual, the Vietnam War is thought to have had the effect that “ . . . the meanings which the soldiers brought with them from home disintegrated in the war zone ” (Lewis 110). We have already seen that in Indian Country such “ meanings ” never had any relevance in the protagonists ’ lives. In this way, the novel again stands out, compared to many classical tales. Lewis states that We contend that the experience of soldiers in Vietnam, as recounted in the literature, can best be grasped as a massive exercise in the de-objectivation of the meanings associated with warfare brought to Vietnam from the United States. More specifically, we wish to show that the conditions under which the fighting in Vietnam took place caused a massive and systematic disconfirmation of those meanings, what we shall refer to throughout as “ the retreat from meaning. ” (69) In Indian Country, there is no “ de-objectivation of the meanings associated with warfare ” , as warfare was never seen as related to American ideology. Neither is there a “ systematic disconfirmation of those meanings ” or a “ retreat from meaning ” , simply because there has never been any such “ meaning ” at all. A case in point is the role of Christian ’ s father Lucius. According to Lewis, “ The fathers invariably taught their sons to view the Vietnam War as a chance, an opportunity not to be missed, an experience designed to replicate the epic grandeur of their own coming-of-age ” (44 - 45). Quite the opposite is the case in Indian Country. The traumatised veteran ’ s father, Lucius, is a confirmed antiwar activist; and Christian goes to Vietnam not for but in spite of his father. The statement that “ . . . Vietnam made a whole generation of fathers look like liars and betrayers, and a whole generation of sons victims of their own initiation ” (Lewis 50) does not apply to this novel. Instead, it seems that this father has been proven right, as he was not concerned with the politics or the morals in the Vietnam War or any other conflict. War is not treated as a state of crisis between cultures, as nations/ ethnic groups do not base their decisions to go to war on ideological concepts based on their ethnic identity. Instead, it is depicted as too horrible to be explained away in such easily conceivable terms. There are no clearly defined ethnic groups that fight for (or in spite of) their values or nonvalues, but the elaboration of war and its effects literally opens up new worlds in the novel. These worlds are “ Indian Countries ” in their own way. They are not merely a war zone controlled by the enemy, or the wilderness inhabited by Native Americans. They are “ countries ” occupied by entities borrowed from 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 151 the Gothic; and it is they that take the place of supposed concepts of identity. The “ other ” is never in reality a member of a different ethnicity, but a member of a world, an “ Indian Country ” that is accessible from anywhere, by anyone. In Indian Country, Gothic elements are posited as the focal point of what war is. The movement from a (part) Vietnam War novel to a (part) Gothic novel was paralleled in a cinematic development. According to Slotkin, the Western movie, once the preferred messenger of the Frontier Myth, was superseded by horror movies in the 1970 s, indicating “ that our world is out of control, pervaded by an evil against which we feel helpless, an evil that affronts us from without in the form of disfigured, bloodthirsty strangers and from within in the form of perverse dreams and desires or nightmare versions of the generation gap — our own children suddenly revealed as alien monstrosities, Rosemary ’ s babies ” (634 - 35). Indian Country has a similar effect. It depicts the evil of war precisely as something “ against which we feel helpless ” , as coming both “ from without ” and “ from within ” . At its dramaturgic centre lie both a “ nightmare ” and a “ perverse dream ” . “ Alien monstrosities ” appear on a number of occasions, and several major themes of the novel enhance the connection between war and Gothic. Christian Starkmann, the main protagonist and Vietnam War veteran, suffers from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). The horror is not an event in a faraway land. It is in the character himself. Steven Bruhm puts it similarly: “ . . . the Gothic itself is a narrative of trauma. Its protagonists usually experience some horrifying event that profoundly affects them, destroying (at least temporarily) the norms that structure their lives and identities ” ( “ The Contemporary Gothic ” 268). The trauma to which Christian falls victim is a Gothic element with the power to destroy “ lives and identities ” , just as it does in Indian Country. The sources of such trauma or horrifying events, however, can be anywhere. They are not limited to a defined war. The significance of the role of mythology and the fact that the characters are helplessly subjected to it already imply a Gothic environment. A particularly compelling example is the curse of the bear to which the Starkmanns are subjected. The bear, which is primarily seen as an icon of cultural symbolism, steps into the characters ’ real lives in flesh and blood. In Ojibwa lore, the ruthless killing of a bear without the application of the proper Indian rites causes misery to befall the violators (Caputo, Philip Caputo Interview). When a bear appears at the Hermansons ’ house, June kills it cold-bloodedly (IC 177). As a result, the Starkmanns ’ happiness deteriorates considerably in the aftermath of the killing (Caputo, Philip Caputo Interview). People ’ s actions are controlled by unseen forces, to which reason and logic are subjected. Indian Country is a fitting title not only to a Vietnam War novel or a novel about Native Americans. It is also an appropriate choice for a book which 152 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country applies Gothic elements, as the choice of setting is a relevant aspect in the realisation of a Gothic environment: . . . a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space - be it a castle, a foreign palace, an abbey, a vast prison, a subterranean crypt, a graveyard, a primeval frontier or island, a large old house or theatre, an aging city or urban underworld, a decaying storehouse, factory, laboratory, public building, or some new recreation of an older venue. . .. (Hogle, “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 2, italics added) In Indian Country, the American wilderness is taken out of its meaning within the Frontier Myth and re-used as a “ primeval frontier ” in the Gothic sense. The novel ’ s title itself, however, has a wide range of meanings, which are explained to the reader at the beginning. The epigraph of the book features two dictionary definitions, which are themselves multi-dimensional. Firstly, we learn that Indian Country is a “ term used by American soldiers during Vietnam conflict (1961 - 75) to designate territory under enemy control or any terrain considered hostile and dangerous ” . Secondly, it refers to “ a place, condition or circumstance that is alien and dangerous ” . This seemingly double meaning entails many more, and in the novel, several potential Indian Countries are depicted. The Vietnamese war zone is the most obvious one, but no part of the novel is set in Vietnam; and the country of the plot — the USA — appears to the returning veteran as hostile and as dangerous as any place, albeit on a different level. Then, of course, the US territory was once a country that belonged to Indian tribes such as the Ojibwa, whose representatives play major roles in the novel. However, North America has apparently become just as hostile and dangerous to its original inhabitants as it has to disgraced war veterans. “ Indian Country ” in its first definition has therefore at least three different aspects. It is a country ravaged by war, the home country of disrespected veterans, and the land where Indians have lived for centuries, but which has become estranged from them. The second dictionary definition is even more complex, as many “ places, conditions and circumstances ” that are “ alien and dangerous ” are discernible. There are actual “ places ” such as the Starkmanns ’ Chicago suburb, the dense Northern Peninsula woods — inhabited by unreliable husbands and fathers as well as inbreds — with bears, deadly streams and icy winters. There are “ conditions ” such as Christian ’ s mental illness, his nightmare and visions of his dead war comrades, and the Indians ’ rites dealing with apparently supernatural forces that influence the physical world. Finally there are the unpleasant “ circumstances ” under which many of the protagonists live: poverty-stricken Indians faced by the ruins of their culture, white villagers without jobs or physical or social security, desperate abandoned wives and children, seemingly forsaken American citizens in 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 153 despair and driven to perform reprehensible acts such as rape, murder, abandonment or adultery. The structure of the novel also indicates that there are a large number of Indian Countries/ worlds to deal with. An obvious aspect is the separation of two distinct plotlines. Firstly, there are the longer parts which deal with actual happenings and sustain a more or less linear plot — even though it is frequently interrupted by flashbacks — telling Christian ’ s story from his childhood to his convalescence. Interspersed in it are the shorter parts, depicting Louis ’ s (alias Wawiekumig ’ s) mystical rites and his coming to terms with Bonny George ’ s death. It is metaphysical in nature and complements the “ real-world ” developments. In addition, there is a third element, namely the large holes in the plot, which leave the story unfinished. Most prominently, Christian and Bonny George ’ s time in Vietnam is eclipsed completely. The only thing that the reader learns are the circumstances of Bonny George ’ s death. Otherwise, questions are left unanswered. We only know from Wawiekumig that Bonny George apparently did not write in his letters that he was with Christian in Vietnam (404). One of the other main interpersonal relationships in the novel, the one between Christian and Lucius, also remains partly elusive. We know that Christian ’ s hate toward his father mainly originated in the latter ’ s behaviour at his daughter ’ s wedding, where he disapproved of the groom. However, it is never revealed what lies at the bottom of this disapproval. Consequently, Christian (as well as the reader) never finds out what the basis for his hate was. These structural weaknesses, or strengths, set the basis for a number of additional, mysterious “ countries ” which are Gothic in nature, to which all characters, regardless of their ethnicity, find access, and which function as the real “ other ” . The most prominent of these “ Indian Countries ” is the state of mental illness, which afflicts the protagonist Christian Starkmann. He suffers from PTSD (IC 311), apparently a consequence of his guilt over the death of Bonny George. Describing the syndrome, D. Michael Shafer states that . . . PTSD manifests itself in two basic forms. For some the war continues; mistrust, hypera[le]rtness and aggressiveness — the requirements for survival in combat — continue to dominate. For most, however, it is the mourning that never ends, mourning related to guilt at having survived when friends died, or guilt over actions committed or witnessed in Vietnam. (92) Christian ’ s state widely corresponds with these symptoms. He shows mistrust and hyperalertness and grows increasingly aggressive. He also feels, perhaps rightly so, guilty for having outlived Bonny George. This focus is in itself Gothic already. Keith Beattie states, “ The construction of the veteran as psychopath was predicated upon the notion of an unspeakably horrific 154 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country ‘ Vietnam ’ that led to psychosis in all those unlucky enough to be sent there. (In this sense the term ‘ Vietnam ’ is used to evoke both the war and the alien and threatening country in which the war was fought.) ” (61). In being “ unspeakably horrific ” , Vietnam (the war and the country) is a Gothic land to those returning, as Gothic occurrences are traditionally referred to as unspeakable (Dryden 28; Hurley 48). Furthermore, “ Gothic novels reflect the association of mental illness with violent crime ” (MacAndrew 147). Christian was already treated in a mental hospital in Vietnam after the incident which caused Bonny George ’ s death. Back home, he is less and less able to keep his violent impulses under control and repeatedly assaults June. His paranoia makes him believe that King, his co-worker, knows about his temporary madness and wants to get him fired, and that June and Eckhardt, his psychologist, are having an affair. The most uncanny symptom of his illness, at least to the reader, is the ghostly apparitions of his friends D. J., Hutchinson and Ramos, who died in Vietnam. They literally take him into two “ Indian Countries ” . On the one hand, he mentally returns to Vietnam. On the other hand, he succumbs to his madness and loses his sense of reality. Notified of his father ’ s impending death, the ghosts of his best friends in Vietnam represent the uncanny world inside his diseased mind, with which Christian is unable to deal: “ Starkmann would have screamed but he was too horrified to make a sound, horrified not by the figments themselves as much as by the insanity they represented. He could see the snow, the pines, the river — the real world — and yet he also saw them, not six feet from him, so clearly it was as if they had been reincarnated ” (IC 247, italics in original). Christian fails in his trials to dispel the images. Eventually he succumbs to them and is mentally transported back to the war. The truly scary place is not another country. It is what lurks within a human being. Christian lives in a country whose boundaries he cannot control: “ You ’ re imagining us, but that doesn ’ t mean we aren ’ t real. We ’ re real to you ” (IC 248), “ Hutchinson ” says. The ghosts turn out not to be benevolent. They urge him to kill himself, at first against his will. Then they even want Christian “ to take as many with you as you can ” (IC 363). Christian eventually agrees but insists that he die alone (IC 364). Due to their “ advice ” , Christian almost destroys himself in the end, so that he can join them. These scenes reverse the common view of comradeship as the one redeeming element in war. It becomes negatively associated, corresponding to Tobey C. Herzog ’ s statement that “ . . . even this re-created Vietnam with its ‘ musk of brotherhood ’ also turns into a frightening place ” (Vietnam War Stories 183). This way, Christian turns into a Gothic body as Cyndy Hendershot describes it: “ A Gothic body is frequently a possessed body, a body inhabited by an alien other ” (43), and the “ other ” is not an enemy, it is his intimate friends/ himself. When June finds out how Christian planned to die — “ Blow up the house, shoot at the police, force them to kill him ” (IC 379) — she concludes that 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 155 “ He wasn ’ t a monster, but there was one inside him, a lethal parasite; and she wanted to see it, slithering up his throat, over his tongue, and out his mouth ” (IC 379 - 80). She has a distinct vision of a Gothic monster that inhabits Christian. As Elizabeth MacAndrew states, “ Gothic fiction gives shape to concepts of the place of evil in the human mind ” (3). The “ place ” or “ country ” of evil is not to be found in Vietnam or, indeed, in a counter-mythical view of the USA, but in the protagonist himself. The uncanny beings are human beings, who are unable to control the Gothic monsters as they are part of themselves. The central occurrence within Indian Country, and obviously related to Christian ’ s mental illness, is his recurring nightmare, in which he is forced to live through the incident which killed Bonny George over and over. According to Philip K. Jason, “ Chris Starkmann ’ s dream is revealed to us as a refashioning of the scene in which he is rescued. In the dream, everything is idealized and otherworldly. The helicopter is not green, but white ” (Acts and Shadows 72). Its central role, though, is that of the strongest link between Indian Country and Gothic fiction, which “ is a literature of nightmare ” (MacAndrew 3). It is applied not as an almost stereotypical vision that assaults the traumatised veteran, but it indicates how “ . . . each Gothic tale is itself a dream and also a mirror showing the reader his mind . . . ” (MacAndrew 213). Its relevance is underpinned by the fact that Christian ’ s nightmare of his war is not the only one in the novel. June has experienced a dream in which she is “ a mortal bride of the bear-god ” (IC 119) as part of a fertility rite told in the Finnish folk tales which she had heard from her mother. In the dream, she then gives birth to a horrific creature “ part deity, part animal, and part human ” (IC 164). Like Christian ’ s nightmare, June states that her dream “ had been so vivid, so, well, real ” (IC 165, italics in original). With these two nightmares, the readers themselves are confronted with a true “ Indian Country ” . To Christian, the nightmare is a place “ where he had gone ” (IC 64). He believes that he can even smell the elements of his dream after waking up (IC 65). It is indeed a physical presence to him: “ It had smells. It was not a muddle of confusing images but clear and coherent, a reproduction of an actual event so faithful that it was more like a video-taped replay than a dream ” (IC 66). It is a particularly uncanny country as it cannot be left. No matter what precautions he takes, he eventually has to sleep and helplessly live through the nightmare again. While it appears to be becoming more and more vivid, his real life turns more and more into a nightmare. Christian is not the only victim of mental illness. We learn that June ’ s mother ’ s mind was haunted by strange stories (IC 164). It is hard to tell whether her telling of the Finnish folk tales such as the one involving a girl being raped by a bear is merely based on her interest in and knowledge of her native culture, or whether a diseased mind accentuates them and feels pleasure in frightening 156 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country her daughter. When she says “ And what happened afterwards cannot be spoken of by any decent Christian ” (IC 164) after she has told the story of the bear-god and the maiden whose clothes are removed, we are reminded once again of Gothic unspeakability. The character of Edith Hermanson, one of the welfare recipients whom June visits on her field days as a social worker, is another victim of a mental disorder. Her madness even causes her to imagine that she talks to her husband, who has abandoned his family (IC 172). Indeed, mental illness affects several inhabitants of the Upper Peninsula, which is in itself the gateway to yet another “ Indian Country ” , one that is more mystical than mental illness but just as powerful in its devastating effects. Besides the metaphysical Indian Country of mental illness and nightmare, Michigan ’ s Upper Peninsula, where the novel is mainly set, is a slightly more concrete one. It is teeming with threatening subworlds. The Indian view of the woods is not just that of a fascinating mysterious spiritual world. They are also haunted by uncanny creatures such as the Firedog, the “ huge, red-eyed dog that led lost men out of the forest ” (IC 68). Bonny George tells Christian that Windigo, the name of the river where they go fishing, means “ cannibal ” : “ It ’ s an evil spirit that gets into people and drives ’ em so insane they eat other people ” (IC 49). The uncanniness of the Upper Peninsula ’ s forest is not restricted to metaphysical perception. The forests are haunted, not only by Indian spirits, but also by the uncanny animals and people living there. Christian, after being fired and driving off with the company truck, feels as if he is being watched by a wild animal in the forest. He thinks it may be a panther (IC 303), although “ . . . they were supposed to be extinct on the Upper Peninsula . . . ” (IC 302). When he loses his way, the forest appears more and more threatening to him: These woods did not seem anything like the woods he ’ d entered just a short time ago; they were darkened somehow, but in a way that had nothing to do with the lowered angle of the sun. He could do nothing but keep running north. Roots thrust out of the ground, tripping him. Branches tugged at the sleeves of his jacket, clutching as if to hold him, and then, as if angered by his headlong rush to escape, slapping him in the face. Up ahead, a huge, wind-shaken hemlock leaned over his path. Starkmann slowed, half-certain the tree would fall and crush him the moment he passed under it. He circled around it, its exposed roots like the nest of coiled snakes. (IC 304) These impressions, particularly Christian ’ s fear of a panther, reflect what Edmund Burke would consider sublime: We have continually about us animals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious. Amongst these we never look for the sublime: it comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the form of the lion, the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros. Whenever strength is only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never sublime; for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 157 not act in conformity to our will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us; and therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding conception. (Burke 109) Besides the panther that he mentions, the Upper Peninsula woods are a stark representation of a “ gloomy forest ” and a “ howling wilderness ” haunted by ghastly creatures. As we find out, there are again similar legends concerning Finnish forests, which are described as “ mist-bound and crawling with witches and hobgoblins ” (IC 164). To Christian, the Upper Peninsula forest takes revenge on him for the work that he does in the logging industry: “ men with chain saws had followed the paths he ’ d blazed with his ribboned stakes, had entered the forest to murder the trees. Now the wild had roused itself against this violation, and was expelling him ” (IC 305). These emotions are not just a consequence of PTSD, as his fear of the Upper Peninsula country does not only surface after his traumatic stay in Vietnam. Even before he decides to enlist, on his trip to the woods with Bonny George before the latter ’ s induction in the army, he becomes uneasy and is not sure how to explain his reaction to the atmosphere: “ His unfamiliarity with the woods in this season, the raw, bleak appearance that made them look wilder than they did in the summer, did not satisfy him as an explanation ” (IC 8). The uncanny element is present without any preconditions. The land is mysterious in that it is threatening: “ Starkmann wasn ’ t sure if beautiful described it: haunted or primeval would have been more like it ” (IC 38, italics in original). June also feels insecure in the woods. She has heard about a woman who got stuck on a road in the woods and disappeared without a trace. This makes her uneasy: “ The woods gave her the creeps ” (IC 162 - 63). The actual bear that she has killed appeared to her like the mystical figure of her dream come to life, and when she drives out of the forest through the darkness after killing the bear, she notices “ pairs of green eyes that stared out from the forest with supernatural iridescence. Deer? Bobcat? Fox? Bear? What sorts of creatures did those eyes belong to? She half-expected to see the ghost of the bear she ’ d killed, she was so spooked. Or maybe its mate, towering on its hind legs in the middle of the road, a vengeful beast bent on clawing and crushing the life out of her ” (IC 182, italics in original). She has more experience than most in what lies hidden in the forests; and the most uncanny creatures are not necessarily spirits or wild animals. On her field days as a social worker, June goes out to visit the people, usually abandoned women (IC 160), who are eligible for government support. Her journeys to the places where they live, often with children, are virtual expeditions. The woods are so thick and far reaching that they appear to be almost impenetrable. June finds her way through a maze of primitive roads until she reaches the homes where the welfare recipients live. Her journeys have the air of an odyssey about them; 158 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country she leaves the confines of the relative civilisation in the town of Marquette to go out into the murky depths that surround it. Although those human tragedies are almost completely concealed by the seemingly unending forests, they seem to haunt the whole area. Even where one would not expect to find human beings living anymore, they are there. They are deeply rooted in the woods but at the same time out of place. Instead of having developed and civilised the woods, as would be expected in accordance with the Frontier Myth, they have become part of the forests ’ uncanniness. June thinks, “ What we ’ ve got up here . . . are people who live about as hard as people did on the frontier, but without the promise that had made the frontier ’ s hardships bearable, the sense of great possibilities waiting over the horizon; if things didn ’ t work out in one place, there was always someplace else to go ” (IC 161). They have adapted by becoming representatives of the frightening aspects of nature. We learn that there are a number of “ social and genetic ills ” to be found there (IC 161); inbreeding and domestic violence are common occurrence (IC 161), resulting in bodily abominations typical of Gothic literature. Abominations abound in the novel. Bonny George ’ s statement that war is not “ right or wrong . . . it just is . . . ” (IC 40, emphasis in original), is echoed in Kelly Hurley ’ s view of the use of bodily abominations in Gothic literature: “ The novel does not seek to infuse these abominations with meaningfulness . . .: they simply exist, the disgusting products of a natural world both chaotic and fertile in expedient ” (158, italics in original). Hurley states, “ In place of a human body stable and integral (at least, liable to no worse than the ravages of time and disease), the fin-de-siècle Gothic offers the spectacle of a body metamorphic and undifferentiated; in place of the possibility of human transcendence, the prospect of an existence circumscribed within the realities of gross corporeality . . . ” (3); human beings come to be equated with “ Things: forms rent from within by their own heterogeneity, and always in the process of becoming- Other ” (9). In Indian Country, human beings, no matter of which culture, turn out to primarily be abominable creatures. The role of war in the novel is to make them visible as such. Wars do not occur due to “ immoral ” nationalist or imperialist imperatives. Instead, in war a Gothic sub-world, which is latently present anywhere, emerges more readily than in other circumstances. Soldiers turn horrific by their experiences and woundings. A first such occurrence is Lucius ’ s grandfather who was “ horribly disfigured ” in World War I (IC 24). The Ojibwa who fought in the Civil War and did not die returned “ without arms, legs, eyes, and some were crazy ” (IC 263). After his death in Vietnam, Bonny George only appears again once, his deformed body with the face burnt almost beyond recognition stolen by Louis and others to give him an Ojibwa funeral (IC 265 - 66). Eckhardt ’ s therapy group with traumatised veterans reveals more of their horrific experiences in the war. Mike Flynn ’ s tale of 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 159 how he inadvertently held a dead soldier ’ s brain in his hands is especially gruesome (IC 327). Lucius claims that good soldiers are not human beings, but “ half man and half beast ” . He terms such an entity “ homo furens ” (IC 98). However, not only those committing atrocities are monsters; the victims also appear as such. In war, this underworld can only reveal itself, though, because it has always been there to start with. Consequently, war, as it is portrayed, is not the only critical factor that produces abominations. Human beings are already potential monsters without war interfering. War creates changelings, but others are already spread out everywhere and can make themselves visible at any time. The way Christian looks after his fight with Sam LaChance is reminiscent of a monstrous entity (IC 301) and a typical case is LaChance himself. He is a truly horrific apparition: huge in size, his skin an ethnic mix, he has an eternal fiveo ’ clock shadow (IC 86), eyes “ like two dabs of tar stuck beneath his brow ” (IC 87) and, above all, a missing ear and a huge scar which “ curved from his temple to just under his hooked Canuck nose ” (IC 87) as reminders of his fight with a bear (IC 86 - 87). A true man of the wilderness, he is not someone to be looked at with a pitiful anxiety, but rather is a menacing creature proud of his ghastliness. Christian ’ s eyes in his final showdown remind June of the eyes that she once saw in her reflecting headlights (IC 357), which occurred to her like a wild animal ’ s, and she terms Christian a “ thing ” (IC 357, italics in original). In Indian Country, war is, and abominations are. They are not just related to each other; they are each other, parts of the world. The Hermanson family, who are among June ’ s clients, are a further case in point. The most elaborated characters among those whom June visits, they once had promising plans for the future, setting up a resort in the wilderness. Now Henry, the father, has abandoned the family; Edith, the mother, is mentally disturbed, believing her husband to still be there; Henry junior and Tommy, the sons, appear to be demented, and Freya, the daughter, is set on leaving. Eventually the family is exterminated by Henry, the elder son, their rotting bodies having partly decomposed before being found (IC 350). Other uncanny people found in the Upper Peninsula woods are the “ Finndians ” , who are on June ’ s checklist. Unseemly results of inbreeding, they represent Gothic bodies on the one hand, but also the dissolution of ethnic identity confines on the other. They are related to Indians, the original inhabitants of the area, and to the Finnish, from whom many whites on the Upper Peninsula — including June — descend. Both Indians and whites therefore have the potential to become such unpleasant creatures. June is distressed at their existence (IC 161), but they are an undeniable presence and confirm how short the genetic distance is for humans to become abominable figures. “ Indian Country ” here is Finndian country. What they are, all of us can be, Indian or white. They are the real “ other ” and also the “ other ” everyone can be, irrespective of ethnicity. 160 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country Urban civilisation is not a safe way out of such an unpleasant state. The town of Marquette, June ’ s regular work place, is engulfed by the monstrous human and spirit entities in the forests and can easily turn into an uncanny place itself, even if it appears to be attractive and inviting on a beautiful day: Marquette was really a pretty town. The sandstone walls of the county courthouse were rust-red in the late-afternoon light, and its copper dome glowed like a miniature sun, except that it was streaked with green here and there. The domes of the archdiocesan church, where she occasionally attended Mass, gleamed just beyond, and there were the roofs of the houses and then some wooded hills, Mount Marquette the highest one, with a taillight park at the top where high-school and college kids steamed up car windows at night. It was such a fine, bright day that even the stacks of the state maximum-security prison, way off in the distance, looked cheerful as they leaked smoke into the pale northern sky. (IC 111) This picture stands in stark contrast not only to the land surrounding the town, but also to what is going on within the town, the tragedies that June witnesses in court, where women are often disadvantaged by male judges prejudiced in favour of the men (IC 111), or also her own questionable relationship to her friend Sandy, whose husband is involved in drug-trafficking (IC 227). The urban is prone to Gothic influences: “ As soon as people entered the standardized, franchised world of the urban borders, they lost a measure of their distinguishing features. Like lizards or fish camouflaging themselves to blend in with their environment, they assumed the uniformed appearance of their surroundings, their faces all merging into a common face ” (IC 84). In town, people literally turn into unpleasant entities. In effect, the differences between the rural and the urban spheres are minimal, as Christian notices: “ . . . it occurred to him that, in these monotonous outskirts, he could escape society as completely as any hermit in the mountains ” (IC 84). With regard to civilisation, he thinks “ . . . instead of jungle, he was looking at factories, motels, apartment buildings, houses, and automobiles. Everything should have been comfortably familiar, but it wasn ’ t. All of it looked stranger than those hills on the far side of the earth ” (IC 95). He mentions a typical Freudian case of something that is uncanny because it was once familiar. In the end, there is no essential difference between town and forest in their uncanniness. Anywhere can become other. Even the privileged living environment of the Starkmanns ’ Chicago suburb is called into question, as underneath Lucius ’ s high moral values lies his dictatorial treatment of his family. The occurrence of doubles in Indian Country is closely connected with the ideas of ethnic identity disappearing, giving way to the emergence of a Gothic underworld that takes on the role of the characters ’ identification. Compared to the other works, the doubles in Indian Country are less obvious and less 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 161 “ manifest ” , but there are several different types of prominent doubles. Firstly, there are instances when representatives of Native and immigrant America act as doubles. Secondly, the opposition of male and female is a major concern. Connected with this point is the recurring similarity between human beings and animals. Finally, corresponding with the treatment in Horn of Africa and DelCorso ’ s Gallery, the main appearance of a particularly disturbing double occurs towards the concluding stages of the novel, representing the identity which has now emerged and been confirmed. In Indian Country, major doubling also occurs in its second main incarnation. We not only have instances in which two characters come to uncannily resemble each other, there are also cases of subject doubling, where one character appears to be two. Allusions to this situation are interspersed throughout the book. A relatively innocuous case involves June. When she prepares to leave Christian and starts to pack her suitcases, “ . . . the old phrase beside oneself assumed a new meaning for her; she felt that one part of her had literally separated from the other, that she was watching herself stuffing clothes into suitcases ” (IC 317 - 18). In this scene, she appears to herself as two people. She has a similar experience with Christian. After Lucius ’ s death, he is to her “ a man who ’ d deserted her in his heart and soul but whose outward form remained with her. It was, she thought, somewhat like sharing a house with a ghost ” (IC 276). The association of the double with a ghost affirms the emergence of Gothic elements into the otherwise rational world. Christian makes a similar impression to other people. At Lucius ’ s funeral, his sister Anne says to June, “ My brother left for the war in 1969, but somebody else came back, and we ’ ve never found out who that is ” (IC 275). Here, Christian changed from being one person to another over time. Such a view of Christian ’ s duality is not limited to other people ’ s perception of him. Being driven home by Eckhardt, he hopes to be “ all one piece again ” when he thinks of June (IC 214), an indication that he feels as though he is more than one. Correspondingly, when at his father ’ s deathbed, he mentions that he is “ kind of not in one piece — split in two ” (IC 254). Similarly, June becomes more and more aware of Christian ’ s unattractive bodily features, whereas at first she was attracted by his looking like a “ Viking god ” (IC 114). The protagonist and his wife become doubles by themselves. Christian ’ s case, in particular, provides a fitting basis for a tale that turns to the Gothic. According to MacAndrew, “ The madman, however withdrawn or hallucinated or violent, is felt to be in the grip of something that is not his true self. One who has committed a hideous crime is still seen as having a sacred central being who is himself and who deserves compassion ” (147). With his mental illness, Christian closely corresponds to this Gothic occurrence. He becomes a madman, but is also “ in the grip ” of his war trauma. In his own mind, he “ has committed a hideous crime ” due to his involvement in Bonny George ’ s death, and he is also seen as “ having a 162 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country sacred central being who is himself and who deserves compassion ” , as June and Eckhart attempt to heal him. Another person who represents two people in one also shifts the focus to the interrelation of ethnic identity and the double. Louis, Bonny George ’ s grandfather, is also known by his Ojibwa name Wawiekumig. In accordance with his having two names, according to Bonny George, “ . . . you wouldn ’ t think he was the same guy ” (IC 42), when he practices his religion. Toward the end of the novel, Louis notices the same thing himself. When Christian comes to visit him, he feels “ that he was dividing into two persons, each with its own name; there was Louis, conversing in English with the young man, and Wawiekumig, thinking in the old tongue, pursuing the meaning of the mystery . . . ” (IC 404). Louis/ Wawiekumig, of all characters, does fairly well keeping his life under control. As he is more successful living in unison with his “ other ” , he manages to live in greater harmony with himself than most others. He does so by uniting the two major ethnicities treated in the novel: Ojibwa and European America; but doubling that involves a white and a Native American also occurs among separate persons. There are Louis and his good friend Lucius, on the one hand, and Louis ’ s grandson Bonny George and Lucius ’ s son Christian, on the other. The two pairs function as doubles in two classical ways: duality of Indians and Whites and duality of friends. The Indian as the double to the white American is a typical occurrence related to the Frontier Myth. On the one hand, the Indian is thought to be “ the uniquely American race-enemy ” (Slotkin 47). We have already seen that, in order to civilise the wilderness, the civiliser at first has to become part of this wilderness. More concretely, The heroes of this myth-historical quest must therefore be “ men (or women) who know Indians ” — characters whose experiences, sympathies, and even allegiances fall on both sides of the Frontier. Because the border between savagery and civilization runs through their moral center, the Indian wars are, for these heroes, a spiritual or psychological struggle which they win by learning to discipline or suppress the savage or “ dark ” side of their own human nature. Thus they are mediators of a double kind who can teach civilized men how to defeat savagery on its native grounds — the natural wilderness, and the wilderness of the human soul. (Slotkin 14) Whites must “ know ” Indians. They must “ discipline the savage ” that is found in themselves and that corresponds to savagery in the wilderness. Whites and Indians can have even more similarities: “ Admiration is reserved for those Indians whose thoughts mirror the Whites ’ understanding of the terms of conflict — either civilization or savagery must be wiped out — and whose actions are consistent with that belief ” (Slotkin 449). Conflict, even for the sake of progress, involves turning to the wild, becoming the Indian. The 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 163 connection to the Gothic mode has traditionally been affirmed in cinematic representations in that Indians have been represented as “ horror ” in Westerns (Slotkin 357). Indians are the horrifying “ other ” , but they are also “ same ” in their supposed savagery to which whites turn. In Indian Country, not only the white characters are prone to such a point of view: “ Everything has its opposite twin ” (IC 145), Red Sky, Wawiekumig ’ s mentor, said. The Indians, too, are aware of the existence of their opposing double. The second classic situation of duality between Christian/ Bonny George and Lucius/ Louis is that of friendship, from which the literary term doppelgänger originated: “ Jean Paul Richter invented the term doppelgänger, and studied the notion of fellowship, of the friend as alter ego . . . ” (Miller 49). To Ralph Tymms, “ Jean Paul ’ s characteristic Doppelgänger are pairs of friends (in the original sense of ‘ fellows, two of a pair ’ ), who together form a unit, but individually appear as a ‘ half ’ , dependent on the alter ego ” (29). These concepts apply to both cases of white/ Indian friendship in the novel. About the younger pair, Jacqueline R. Smetak states that “ In Indian Country, Indian victim, ‘ mythhaunted heroes, ’ and the totally other Vietnamese merge in the relationship between Christian Starkmann and Bonny George — the two as close as brothers or even closer, the same ” (161). This situation relates to Benjamin Eric Daffron ’ s view that “ . . . early Gothic literature invented the double to represent an extreme effect of sympathy: a hypothetical moment when two sympathizers feel, think, and act so much alike that they appear virtually the same. This phenomenon, which often occurs before an international or an imperial backdrop, links the loss of self-possession to the loss of national identity ” (1). Christian and Bonny George act the same in that they join the army for non-nationalist reasons and go to fight in Vietnam, and there is indeed both an “ international ” as well as an “ imperial backdrop ” , the USA having been accused of fighting the war in a faraway country for imperialist reasons. The fact that Lucius and Christian are white Americans and Louis and Bonny George American Indians seems to clinch the classic double situation. Lucius and Louis have similar names which are easily confused by the reader. With regard to last names, the two families also have something in common. The Starkmanns are of German descent (IC 51), and the official family name of the Indian protagonists is St. Germaine. The civilised settlers are supposed to see themselves in the savage Indians and vice-versa. However, their relationships do not correspond to “ Frontier Myth views ” but rather to “ antiimperialist views ” of doubles, as proposed by Daffron. Their relationships develop favourably at an early stage. Especially telling is the case of Lucius and Louis. They are leading representatives of their respective religions, which is a primary epitome of ethnic identity. Lucius is a minister, Louis a Mide. Despite this potential source of ethnic conflict, they are long-time friends, and 164 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country considering friendship, the four characters readily fulfil the criteria of doubles. Towards the end of the novel, when Louis is visited by Christian on the same day on which he tries to come into contact with Bonny George ’ s ghost, he even suspects that Bonny George might be trying to speak through Christian (IC 405), who says about Bonny George, “ . . . he was more than just a friend to me. I loved him ” (IC 407). The doubling situation is here presented from the Indian point of view, rather than from a white ’ s perspective. Christian, however, had started to feel like Bonny George ’ s double already early on, especially due to his decision to follow Bonny George to Vietnam. Thinking about the latter ’ s draft, he realises that “ His friend might not have a future, and that possibility, a probability for all Starkmann knew, somehow diminished his own future ” (IC 22). They are intimate and to Christian they even seem to be inseparable. He believes that “ . . . he could not imagine their lives following separate paths. It seemed impossible. No, it was impossible ” (IC 51, italics in original). The intimacy between the two friends, their status as “ brothers in arms ” in the Vietnam War and Christian ’ s final reunion with Louis are reminiscent even of a familial relation. Jacqueline R. Smetak compares the roles of the two young men as Cain — Christian — and Abel — Bonny George (161). Bonny George dies early, partly at the hands of Christian. This occurrence would also favour the view that the two are uncanny doubles, their meeting resulting in one ’ s death. This situation again puts the Indian perspective in the foreground, as Bonny George would be the first, and Christian the second self. In addition, Wawiekumig reaches the insight that Bonny George ’ s death was a punishment for his own earlier wish for the death of Bonny George ’ s parents, so that he could become his substitute father and teach him Ojibwa culture and religion (IC 262). Christian himself, however, has further, more threatening doubles. In terms of these four characters, another classical occurrence of Gothic doubling appears between Christian and Lucius. Louis believes that the son bears a likeness to his father (IC 403), and they act as doubles in that they are natural antagonists. Christian goes to war in order to sever himself from Lucius, towards whom he feels uncompromising hate. Considering Lucius ’ s history, it seems unlikely that there is anything that could insult him more. According to Smetak, “ Christian Starkmann goes to war to enact what his father had repressed, specifically, the desire to wage war ” (163); and “ . . . Chris Starkmann is sick because he contains within himself two irreconcilable beings. . .. Chris ’ s problem is that he has internalized the code of his father who is himself split between pacifist and warrior ” (162). Despite such conflicts, Christian is dependent on his father. He seeks his forgiveness at his deathbed, but is unable to receive it as Lucius dies unconscious and therefore unaware of Christian ’ s presence and his needs. This incident destroys Christian ’ s last hopes of salvation, and his madness intensifies. In spite of himself, he is forced 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 165 to recognise that he craves his father ’ s approval. Even after Lucius ’ s death he feels the need to come to terms with him. In this sense, Lucius and Christian are genuine doubles. They are father and son, “ familiar ” , while at the same time mysterious, their motives, inner lives and feelings forever out of the other ’ s reach. They deliberately cause each other great pain and forcibly influence their identifications in disfavoured directions, making each other realise that they will not let themselves be what the other wants him to be. The only confrontation we learn about between the two after Vietnam takes place in Christian ’ s room as he prepares to leave home. In this scene, they confront each other by seeing their mirror images (IC 102). This prime example of two doubles meeting reveals that however much hurt they try to cause, they cannot sever themselves from each other. Even if they would like to see their counterpart as the “ other ” , they remain “ same ” . Their relationship is an undeniable part of their identities, even if they go to great lengths to destroy it. The Indians as potential second selves are eclipsed by a member of the first self ’ s own family. They are not treated as white America ’ s “ other ” . A further classical treatment of doubling that occurs in Indian Country is that of the sexes. Karl Miller states that “ Man and wife are among the most compelling of all dualities — opposites of a sort, a pair who may become the parents of a pair of opposing subsidiary selves ” (24). June believes in men and women being doubles. She was attracted to Christian as she noticed how he must have suffered in the war and saw it as her duty to care for him (IC 115). The presence of doubling is explicitly linked to her view of the male and the female: “ Beast and angel. Mud and sky. She had always believed that every human soul was split in two at birth, and that the longing of men for women, women for men, was a longing for reunion with the missing half ” (IC 119). Conversely, Christian had had similar feelings upon their first meeting. He felt June to be a “ kindred spirit ” (IC 106), as they had both had hard lives. Originating in these mainly positive connotations, the relationship between the two doubles, man and woman, soon takes on the now more common use of the double as a threatening occurrence. The sexual act, which symbolises the unification of such doubles, holds a prominent role in the novel. Its description is graphic and detailed at several points. Its depiction grows more and more violent, from the wild but passionate night of love early on in their relationship (IC 118 - 19) to June ’ s memories of her sexual dream involving the Finnish bear-god, which she confesses to have mainly enjoyed, to the time “ . . . when his lovemaking bordered on cruelty, Chris kneeling between her thighs and pinning her wrists to the bed with his hands, she ’ d felt as if she ’ d been raped ” (IC 220) up to Christian ’ s final act of sodomising her (IC 358). Such descriptions of sexuality have little in common with William Broyles ’ s view that “ Sex is the weapon of life, the shooting sperm sent like an army of guerrillas to 166 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country penetrate the egg's defenses is the only victory that really matters. War thrusts you into the well of loneliness, death breathing in your ear. Sex is a grappling hook that pulls you out, ends your isolation, makes you one with life again ” . In Indian Country, it is not part of the war wounds ’ healing process. Instead, June has different feelings when she is confronted with a real bear, which she kills cold-bloodedly. In the act of killing, she is apparently reminded of her nightmare, in which she was raped by the Finnish bear-god, and compares the two situations with one another. She sees a link between sex and killing, feeling “ as if, between the transcendence of that beautiful act and the transcendence of this brutal one, there existed some bizarre connection ” (IC 177). The association of sex with death has a long tradition (MacAndrew 238); and sexuality plays a prominent role in Gothic literature: “ From the beginning, Gothic fiction is preoccupied with sexual assault ” (MacAndrew 168). Correspondingly, to June, Christian ’ s assault was “ an unspeakable violation ” (IC 358). The increasing sexual violence depicted in Indian Country goes hand in hand with the development of the story towards the Gothic. It represents the one part that remains unaffected by human progress: “ . . . urgent rage and sexual desire, the love of hunting and killing, are still as strong in ‘ civilized ’ humanity as they were in Stone Age peoples . . . ” (Hurley 64). It is a primitive impulse that cannot be overcome: “ Within Christianity sexuality is coded as a sign of original sin; within Darwinism it is coded as a sign of the animal origins of man ” (Hendershot 103). Corresponding to this statement, it sustains humanity ’ s undeniable link to the animal world. Consequently, animals come to take on roles of doubles in the novel. Early on, Bonny George mentions that in Ojibwa belief, “ . . . the Indian and the wolf are brothers ” (IC 29), but the relationship between human beings and animals becomes visible particularly in the recurrence of the bear theme. The bear itself is decidedly not just a symbol of human savagery. On the contrary: its role in both Finnish and Ojibwa traditions is that of a being related to spirituality. In Finnish folklore, it is the son of the sky-god (IC 164); in Ojibwa belief, it is a divine representative and the guardian of the Sacred Lodge (IC 144). At one point, June compares Christian to that Finnish bear-god (IC 119), and Christian ’ s pleading voice when she prepares to leave him reminds her of a bear (IC 318). On the night of his assault on her, “ His eyes took on a light like the iridescence of the bestial eyes she ’ d seen glowing in her headlights the night she ’ d driven Edith Hermanson to the hospital ” (IC 357). After the assault, she shouts at Christian, “ You animal! You filthy animal! ” (IC 359). Here, Christian has succumbed to an impulse more readily associated with the wildness of a predator such as a bear. After June has driven off, he thinks about himself, “ He was an animal, a beast from the jungle, and if he ’ d had the power, he would fly to the jungle this moment ” (IC 362). In a way, he already is in a jungle; the 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 167 surroundings of his home on Michigan ’ s Upper Peninsula are frequently described as a jungle-like environment. Human beings live in habitats similar to an animal ’ s. Conversely, after June kills an actual bear, it reminds her of a human being (IC 181). As sexuality represents the persistence of animalistic impulses in humanity, it can also have different results. A beautiful child can be born, like Christian ’ s and June ’ s daughter Christine (IC 66). She appears as an angel-like figure, the culmination of evolution. On the other hand, there are also human abominations, among them genetic “ failures ” such as the Finndians, whose undeniable presence in the woods question the validity of the human body ’ s integrity. The creature resulting from the sexual act in June ’ s nightmare must be at least as horrific as a genetic mutation. The act of procreation turns into a disharmonious act of savagery. Its products are often frightening monstrosities, abominations, Gothic bodies, which Hendershot says “ disrupt stable notions of what it means to be human. They break down the demarcations between animal and human, death and life, and male and female ” (9). As Hurley claims, “ If humans derived from beasts, then they might still be abhuman entities, not yet ‘ fully evolved, ’ not yet ‘ fully human. ’ And worse, the evolutionary process might be reversible: the human race might ultimately retrogress into a sordid animalism rather than progress towards a telos of intellectual and moral perfection ” (56). Indian Country is not concerned with progress in human evolution. Corresponding to Bonny George ’ s view on war, human beings, like animals, simply are. The occurrence of all these doubles indicates the uncanniness of the world and human beings as such. A simplistic notion of white vs. Indian is not present. Comparable to Horn of Africa and DelCorso ’ s Gallery, there is a final, main occurrence of a double that virtually eclipses all previous others. Again, it makes itself apparent toward the final stages of the book and evokes an unpleasant sense of revelation in the main character about his own identity. In this case, it is Christian ’ s psychologist Eckhardt, whom Samantha Jayne Ward treats as an integral element of myth/ anti-myth, representing the ability to switch identity from European American to Indian: “ In fact, the ability of individual characters to consciously choose aspects of their own identity is one of the most interesting factors in Indian Country. It seems as though the concept of the Vietnam veteran ‘ becoming ’ Indian leads to an exploration of all manner of hybrids ” (Ward 169). In her view, “ Eckhardt has achieved a hybridized identity of veteran/ Indian ” (172) as he shows an affinity to Indian ways, for instance in his interest in “ bowhunting, fishing, and being in ‘ wild country. ’” (Ward 171). In her reading, Christian, too, slowly turns into a part-Indian: . . . when I say that Christian (or other Vietnam veterans) adopt Native American identities (at least when I am speaking about this shift in identity in a positive way), I 168 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country mean to say that this adoption is a real, tangible choosing of a set of signifiers to equal (in part) the self which does not result in a kind of “ fake ” role playing but in an actual change in identity, perhaps even a spiritual or metaphysical kind of change. (Ward 179) Indeed, Christian consciously abolishes any remaining distinctions between European American and Indian. His appearance when he prepares to extinguish himself and his house is that of a combination of an Indian warrior and a soldier in Vietnam, which evokes a Gothic feeling in June, namely a “ supernatural terror ” (IC 357). In Ward ’ s anti-myth reading, Christian ’ s development culminates in his becoming part-Indian, which is also represented in the fact that “ There are several examples in which Christian ‘ looks ’ Indian in various ways ” (Ward 176). In the final stage, “ He saw himself as a kind of halfbreed: his hair and skin were pale, but the war had made him an outsider in the land of his birth. The war had reddened his heart ” (IC 413). In the book ’ s tone, though, all characters are somehow “ outsiders in the land of their birth ” . Here, he appears as one of Ward ’ s “ hybrids ” . Like Maria S. Bonn, Ward concludes that “ . . . Christian Starkmann and a number of other fictional representations of Vietnam veterans manage to achieve a measure of individual healing through the process of adopting a Native American identity ” (Ward 183 - 84). She correctly criticises Christian ’ s supposed turn to Ojibwa mythology as a “ potentially racist move to ‘ become ’ Indian simply by taking on signs which may only amount to an Indian costume. In this way, Christian Starkmann embodies the cowboy-to-Indian transformation in ways that can be read as both healing for himself and as racist in terms of the culture at large ” (Ward 199). This reading offers a satisfying conclusion only when considered within the traditional confines of the Frontier Myth/ counter-myth opposition. In this Gothic reading of Indian Country, anti-myth explanations of Christian ’ s resolution must be rejected. He cannot turn into an Indian, simply because there is nothing concrete to turn into. We have seen that European and Native American culture share many similarities, and that the Ojibwa are not simplistically portrayed as “ better ” . Instead, the conflicts between the two ethnic groups are represented as considerably more complex. A resolution can only be achieved if the two cultural spheres find an arrangement that take into account the needs, traditions and mythologies of both. The “ other ” that one is or becomes is therefore not another cultural sphere, as they are all too similar, but the Gothic underworld, which is “ other ” to, but still part of, all cultures. The final vision of identity, therefore, also lies within the network of uncanny underworlds by which both cultures are haunted and from which no one can escape. There is no way to shed unwanted elements of one culture and to immerse oneself in the preferred ones of another. If one regards Indian Country as a Vietnam War novel that has escaped the limitations of the Frontier Myth/ 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 169 counter-myth doctrine, Eckhardt eventually reveals himself as a double in a truly Gothic sense, in that he is the one that destroys all perceived views of identity as opposed to simply representing the choice between identities. The way in which Eckhardt enters the plot is worthy of any Gothic double: mysterious, unexpected and foreboding far-reaching consequences. In the Anchor Inn where Christian first confronts Sam LaChance, he passes out and, in his mind, perceives that “ For an instant the bar transformed itself into the inside of a helicopter, the faces of LaChance and the others into those of D. J., Ramos, Hutchinson, and someone else — another man whose features were hidden in the darkness at the rear of the aircraft ” (IC 199). In contrast to the three dead comrades that he sees, the fourth person is present in reality. When he comes to again, he sees “ only Treadwell [the bartender] standing next to a man he did not recognize ” (IC 201). It is Eckhardt, who enters the story abruptly, originating in and stepping out of Christian ’ s horrific vision of his dead comrades, literally his nightmarish vision come to life. At first, the fact that Christian and Eckhardt are veterans of the Vietnam War (IC 203) appears to be the only element linking them. Then, Eckhardt talks to Christian about his blue-collar origins, his past as “ a delinquent and high-school dropout ” , and also how “ The war and the marines had given him ‘ religion. ’” (IC 211), echoing Christian ’ s religious upbringing with his father. The psychologist is generally a likeable person, but already at this early stage, there is an uncanny element that further qualifies him as a double. When Eckhardt drives Christian home after the first incident with Sam LaChance at the Anchor Inn, “ . . . the dim glow of the panel lights gave a somewhat diabolical cast to Eckhardt ’ s face ” (IC 213). This impression is obviously related to the fact that Christian mistrusts his psychologist/ double from the beginning, as he is constantly afraid of being committed to a mental hospital. Later, as June teams up with the psychologist to find a solution to her husband ’ s problems, Christian starts to believe that he and Eckhardt have more in common than he would like. He accuses the psychologist of being attracted to June and the two of having an affair. Confronted with such accusations, however, Eckhardt, like a true double, shows his more threatening side: “ For the first time, Starkmann saw the hard-nosed little marine he once had been. His eyes went as stony and level as a sniper ’ s. The transformation was sudden and disconcerting, like watching a man you thought weaker than yourself peel off a baggy shirt to reveal a body roped with sinew and muscle ” (IC 341). Eckhardt represents duality within himself but he also acts as a true double to Christian. The critical point is reached when Eckhardt confronts Christian with the (accurate) theory that the wrong coordinates in the fatal air attack which killed Bonny George were his mistake. This conversation takes place on an evening that is highly Gothic in its representation. Eckhardt ’ s office, in which they 170 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country confront each other, is engulfed by a violent thunderstorm. At the flash of a thunderbolt, Eckhardt literally appears in a different light that reveals his status as Christian ’ s double: “ . . . lightning cracked so close that it shook the building, its flash igniting the room with a pale-blue fire in which Eckhardt appeared as a figure in a photographic negative and the potted ferns became palm trees, the shadows of their wind-tossed fronds twitching on the walls ” (IC 344). Eckhardt is the negative, Christian apparently the “ positive ” representation of the same picture. Another flash of lightning with a similar effect mentally takes Christian back to the Vietnam War, where Eckhardt turns into a North Vietnamese and Christian assaults him (IC 345 - 46). This is the critical scene not only in the novel ’ s treatment of the Vietnam War but also of identity. The war is directly transplanted into a white American ’ s house. Philip D. Beidler mentions that “ . . . Starkmann realizes . . . the acceptance of his place now in this place where he has so long dwelt, the world of water and fire, fire and water, as hideous and time bound as a terrible accident of war, as grand and timeless as the elements themselves ” (Re-Writing America 51, italics in original). War alone is not the abomination. It is part of a wider “ hideousness ” that is the essence of country, of people, of a Gothic world. Correspondingly, the second self is not a member of a different ethnicity. Instead, culturally speaking, it is very much like the first self, but, in a way, a grotesque representation of it. Christian recognises his double, first attacks but then runs away from it. His true identity has been revealed to him, and it is not a pleasant sight. Though professional in his ways and likeable, Eckhardt ’ s most distinguishing feature is his physical unattractiveness, particularly his shortness. In this, he is reminiscent of Gothic occurrences: “ Dwarfed and hunchbacked figures, which are traditionally grotesques, appear in Gothic tales and are often also doubles figures symbolizing haunting guilt, paranoia, the split personality, and madness ” (MacAndrew 161 - 62). Eckhardt is dwarfed, if not hunchbacked; in the thunderstorm he does indeed appear grotesque, and, as a psychologist, he is a good representative of “ haunting guilt, paranoia, the split personality, and madness ” , all of which afflict Christian: He is haunted by his guilt over Bonny George ’ s death. He is paranoid about his conviction that Bill King, his superior, has tried to get him fired. He has a split personality in that he holds “ an imaginary conversation with his dead buddy, as though his brain had divided in two, the one half speaking in the voice of Christian Starkmann, the other in the voice of Delbert Jones Fishburn ” (IC 187); 2 and he falls victim to madness due to his PTSD. 2 There are in fact several characters who talk to people who are not present, representing further cases of subject doubling. There is Edith Hermanson talking to her husband (IC 172), who has abandoned her, and also Christine who starts to have an imaginary friend (IC 273). Christian eventually holds actual conversations with the deceased D. J., Hutch and Ramos that his daughter Christine listens to (IC 274). 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 171 Eckhardt is a Gothic figure, and in his role of double to Christian, the latter recognises his own state of Gothic existence. Eckhardt fulfils the role of a double most convincingly. He makes Christian confront all that is in himself but that he has tried to run away from. He is the one who makes Christian confront his past and offers the only, if painful, access to it. Only he manages to make Christian acknowledge what he has done and who he is. It is the psychologist who makes Christian realise that his mistake that killed Bonny George in Vietnam somehow also caused him pleasure, as it was the fulfilment of what he had been looking for, “ seeking an experience so awful there could be no coming back from it, one that would cut him off entirely from Lucius. He ’ d wanted to return, a creature incapable of loving him or being loved by him, a creature beyond forgiving and forgiveness, scorched and scarred by war ” (IC 418). Christian ’ s horrific memories, the inevitable truth about himself, are aroused by Eckhardt, and Christian must pass this point if he wants to be able to continue living in a relatively orderly way. Eckhardt makes him realise what he is, makes him finally see and acknowledge his own uncanny side. An unseemly goblin and psychologist who plunges into the uncanny depths of the human mind, he represents all these unpleasant elements from which his double Christian cannot escape simply by trying to become like an Indian, to detach himself from his father or to move away from his original surroundings. At the final stage in the novel, having returned to the river where Bonny George once saved his life, Christian beholds his reflection in the water, at which point he admits to himself that Eckhardt was right and that he really felt a kind of pleasure when he caused Bonny George ’ s death. Only now, when he finally acknowledges his own failings unconditionally, can he resolutely confront his “ manifest double ” , his mirror image in the water. The one representative that was never treated as a horrific “ other ” is a supposed cultural opposite. In Indian Country, it was never the case that “ In Vietnam, the warrior not only came to ‘ know the Indian ’ — the other who threatened to destroy or contaminate one ’ s kind — but to become the Indian: an abomination ” (Jason, Acts and Shadows 90). “ Indian Country ” , the “ other ” , the “ abomination ” is represented not in a different culture/ territory but by the nature of one ’ s uncanny surroundings that have no borders and by one ’ s inner states. It is not that “ . . . the Vietnamese are cast as the threatening Other stalking the last sealed frontier ” (Beattie 32). The protagonist himself is the abomination. Cultural conditioning never was a decisive element in the contemplation of war. Instead, war is explainable as an intrinsic element of the uncanny country that is the world and the human mind. This situation is revealed to Christian in the night of the thunderstorm that he spends at Eckhardt ’ s. Here, the exotic Vietnam War zone is equated with other most mysterious and frightening “ countries ” . In this scene, they all merge: the land 172 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country devastated by war, the uncanny Upper Peninsula woods, the repulsive condition of the human body and mind. All these things are represented in their scariness by the one character, Eckhardt — war veteran, inhabitant of the backwoods, aesthetically challenged, psychologist — who is really “ just the same ” as the protagonist, Christian. What stands out in Indian Country is the fact that it is the only one of Caputo ’ s novels so far with a positive ending. Christian ’ s convalescence is successful and he manages to reconstitute an intact family life and to forgive his father. Caputo ’ s original intention was apparently to let Christian kill himself in the manner in which he had prepared his own destruction. Caputo decided against it because he wanted to come away from the “ darkness ” omnipresent in Horn of Africa and DelCorso ’ s Gallery. He also thought that the public had heard enough of violent Vietnam veterans and that the reader should get a new type of story (Caputo, Philip Caputo Interview). As sad as the thought of such an ending is, it would have been more fitting and more in line with the other novels. As in many typical instances, Christian would have died after the devastating revelations when confronted by his second self, Eckhardt. Both he and Bonny George would have been victims of the same conflict. War would have fulfilled its purpose in that it was never a fight between two cultures, in which one of the two would have succeeded. As neither white nor Native Americans had ideological views on war, its results on the representatives of both ethnicities would have been equal: a mere temporary conclusion in never-ending, ongoing conflicts in whatever country. Despite Caputo ’ s noble intentions of offering a brighter outlook with the culmination of Indian Country, he went straight back to his original “ darkness ” in his subsequent novel Equation for Evil. 5. Ethnic Identity and Gothic Lands: Indian Country 173 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil After the relatively positive ending of Indian Country, compared to Horn of Africa and DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Caputo ’ s fictional work goes right back to the uncompromising starkness and brutality of the first two novels. Equation for Evil (Ef E) deals primarily with racial identity, the second identity aspect besides gender to be mainly visible on the body. Correspondingly, corporeality plays a role comparable to the one in Horn of Africa, the novel concerned with gender identity. The plot, which revolves around the murder of several school children, is apparently loosely based on the Patrick Purdy case of 1989 (see below). Equation for Evil is, at the time of writing, the only one of Caputo ’ s works of fiction to be out of print. This may or may not be related to the graphic brutality portrayed in the book, which is made even more appalling as most victims of the massacre are children, or to the fact that it treats the one dimension of identity that comes close to being a taboo. Hardly any aspect of social identity is as controversial as racial identity. Among scholars, there are diverse views of what race is and why it is a sensitive subject. Jorge J. E. Gracia comments, “ One argument notes that racial and ethnic labels generally have negative connotations ” (11). This statement is easy to follow considering the large number of crimes against humanity that have been committed on the basis of race. Pierre L. van den Berghe claims that “ Societies that recognize social races are invariably racist societies, in the sense that people, especially members of the dominant racial group, believe that physical phenotype is linked with intellectual, moral, and behavioral characteristics. Race and racism thus go hand in hand ” (298, italics in original). Apparently, this same problem is one of the reasons for the confusions about ethnicity and race. If one can take up van den Berghe ’ s comment on “ physical phenotype ” that marks race but not ethnicity, which is based on cultural grounds (as discussed in the previous chapter), it is still not easy to make a clear distinction. Gracia mentions that Historical discussions of race always include ethnic elements, and racial divisions have always involved cultural differences. Blacks have generally been characterized as being different from Whites not just in terms of descent and physical phenotypes, but also in terms of customs, attitudes, and achievements, indicating that the notion of race always involves ethnic factors. (7) Even so, the argument remains that one can indeed view human beings in groups defined by culture or in groups defined by physical appearance. This stance corresponds to the most commonly held one, as Gracia confirms: “ The common folk view of race and ethnicity in the United States appears to be that the first has to do with biology and genetics and the second with culture ” (1). The idea of a biological factor is popular in these circumstances. According to Harriet Bradley, “‘ Race ’ as a common-sense usage refers to the idea that human beings can be divided into sub-groups which have different origins and are distinguished by biological differences. Such differences can be seen as ‘ phenotypical ’ (relating to physical appearances such as skin colour or hair type) or ‘ genotypical ’ (relating to underlying genetic differences) ” (120). The phenotype (looks) is seconded by genotype (biology/ genetics). Naomi Zack adds a third dimension: “ Aside from a population basis for race, the other promising anthropological candidate has been geographical origin ” (104). Indeed, looks that determine race are thought to give evidence of what part of the world the person in question originally stems from. All of these concepts which are grounded on biological evidence are highly controversial. Zack states that “ The present scientific consensus appears to be that there is no scientific justification for ordinary ideas of race, insofar as those ideas are based on the assumption that human biological races exist ” (106). Richard Jenkins correspondingly makes a distinction between phenotype and race: “ . . . phenotype is the material product of the interaction of genetic endowment (genotype) and environment, ‘ race ’ is a cultural fiction ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 78). He acknowledges the influence that genetics and environmental/ geographical origin have on a person ’ s appearance, but he rejects the view that a separate social identity dimension can be constructed upon this basis. Jenkins views race as part of the wider idea of ethnicity: My argument is that racism(s) and categories of ‘ racial ’ classification and differentiation are most usefully conceptualized as historically specific allotropes of the general, ubiquitous, social phenomenon of ethnicity. They arise in the context of situations in which one ethnic group dominates, or attempts to dominate, another and, in the process, categorizes them in terms of notional immutable differences, often couched in terms of inherent inferiority and construed as rooted in different biological natures. (Rethinking Ethnicity 83) To him, race is the category into which people are pressed by others, not a group with which they care to identify themselves: “ Identifications of ‘ race ’ are typically rooted in categorization rather than group identification, in ascription and imposition rather than subscription, in the external rather than the internal moment of identification ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 167). Confronted with the fact of physical differences between people of different origin, Jenkins rejects such concepts as social constructs: Whether explicit or implicit, and however formulated, this basic model underlies most social science discussions of the topic: ‘ racial ’ differentiation is something - the 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 175 contentious issue is what - to do with physical differences between people. However, the ‘ physical differences ’ with which we are concerned in matters of ‘ race ’ are only differences which make a difference because they are culturally or socially signified as such. (Rethinking Ethnicity 74, italics in original) According to his argument, races cannot be classified. There are no boundaries where one race finishes and where another one starts. It is society alone that defines such hypothetical boundaries. Van den Berghe acknowledges the role of social conditioning: “ . . . a ‘ race ’ can mean a group of people who are socially defined in a given society as belonging together because of physical markers such as skin pigmentation, hair texture, facial features, stature, and the like ” (297, italics in original). Apparently only social factors define why some physical markers on a human body should be seen as relevant to the attribution to a race, and why others should not. Van den Berghe puts it more concretely: Physical anthropologists used to speak of human “ races ” in the sense of subspecies, the most common scheme being the great tripartite division of mankind into Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid. Over the last forty to fifty years, however, it became increasingly clear that no meaningful taxonomy of human races was possible. Not only were numerous groups not classifiable as belonging to any of the three main groups, but physical anthropologists could not agree with each other as to where the genetic boundaries between human groups were to be drawn, or even on how many such groups there were. The essential condition for subspeciation is breeding isolation, often maintained by ecological barriers. (296 - 97) These points are echoed in many other statements. Georgia Warnke mentions that “ Indeed, a particular person can be a black in the United States and a white in Latin America and the possibility of his or her being either black or not-black depends upon the particular histories of the particular racial traditions involved ” (7). Echoing this point, Gracia states that “ . . . what might appear to be dark skin to someone might appear as lighter skin to another, and factors such as lighting and context surely affect judgment ” (3 - 4); besides that, “ . . . genetic differences between races are minuscule if compared with what the races have in common. The bases used to establish racial distinctions are insignificant insofar as there can be greater genetic difference between two individual human beings who presumably belong to the same race than between two races ” (Gracia 2). Furthermore, “ The epistemic challenge to race and ethnicity argues that we have no effective criteria to establish membership in races or ethne [sic] ” (Gracia 3). To this point, Zack adds that First, there is nothing in human physiology, in blood or anything else of that sort, that could constitute determining racial essences for distinctive racial groups. And second, human biological variety within recognized social racial groups, which is greater than 176 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil the variety between groups, precludes the possibility of necessary and sufficient conditions for racial membership. (103) These arguments are very valid, of course. However, all other aspects of social identity are subject to the same weaknesses. It is equally impossible to define absolute boundaries between occupational/ class groups, ethnic groups, familial groups, sometimes even gender groups, as argued by Warnke. In spite of all these facts, racial identity remains no less a social identity factor compared to all the others. Thus, Jenkins states that just because something is not clearly definable does not mean that it has no relevance: “‘ Race ’ is likely to be at least as consequential as ethnicity in everyday experience, and historically it has been an organizing principle of domination almost without parallel ” (Rethinking Ethnicity 167). The idea of race has indeed a significant role in social understanding. Robert Bernasconi criticises attempts to ignore race: “ To my mind what is most problematic about the current rigidity of philosophical thinking on race is the dogmatic air of those who insist that race has no warrant except as a biological concept and that it is a concept that biology has renounced, with the obvious consequence that the term should be summarily abandoned ” (135). Zack approves of the view that race, even if it does not exist at all, influences social interaction: “ . . . there is no necessary or inevitable link between racist attitudes and behavior and the existence of races ” (119). People can indeed behave in a certain way based on what they perceive to be true, even if scientifically this perception is not sustainable. If race does not exist, it has never existed. However, discrimination on the grounds of race has a long history in the world, and it therefore seems odd to stipulate that even race as a concept is of no relevance. Indeed, Gracia states that “ . . . race and ethnicity have influenced, and still influence, the course of human history in significant ways and have substantially affected the lives of individual persons ” (12). Even if race as a scientific reality does not exist to him either, racial identity does. He explains the difference in detail: The conditions of racial identity are three: ascription by others, self-identification by the labeled, and a set of descriptions that has a historical association to a label involving a racial essence. These descriptions are used for ascriptions and as norms for action. It does not signify for racial identity, then, whether race is real or not, or even whether there is a consistent concept of race. What matters is that people label some other people and themselves and that the labels include a notion of inherited racial essence. A racial essence consists of a set of conditions regarded as necessary and sufficient for a particular race, whether in fact such a set exists or not. (6) Here, it is evident how racial identity is certainly a main aspect of social identity, if not a biological reality. Such a view is shared by Stephen M. Quintana and Clark McKown: “ Others may prefer to use the language of race because they 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 177 believe that even if biological conceptions of race are incorrect, how people think about groups and how intergroup dynamics unfold and affect people rests on a commonly held, if erroneous, assumption that race reflects true biological boundaries ” (4 - 5). More concretely, Whether race accurately draws boundaries between genetically similar groups or not, the idea of race as a biological dividing line between people is commonly held, and powerful in its consequences. The conception of race as a bright-line biological boundary between groups has no doubt amplified intergroup tensions, magnified social distance (indexed by intermarriage rates and residential segregation), and has been used to justify discrimination towards “ inferior ” races. (Quintana and McKown 3, italics in original) Kwame Anthony Appiah explains this stance in the greatest detail. Concerning the relevance of the topic to this chapter, Appiah mentions: “ . . . you can ’ t show that an identity is unimportant just by showing that people have importantly false beliefs about it ” (43). Indeed, race is an essential aspect of social identity considering not only the way people view it but also the way they act: “ An agent acts as an X when the thought ‘ because I am an X ’ figures in her reasons for acting ” (Appiah 27, italics in original); and “ What makes it a social identity of a relevant kind is not just that people identify themselves or others as X ’ s but that being-an-X figures in a certain typical way in their thoughts, feelings, and acts ” (26 - 27). Notwithstanding scientific evidence and the fact that it is in part a taboo topic, many people identify with a (perhaps hypothetical) group about which they believe that it is defined by physical markers indicating common geographical origin. Besides gender, then, race is the second dimension of social identity to be based on the body ’ s appearance, which makes it particularly hard for people not to identify with it. As Michael Banton states, Physical differences catch people ’ s attention so readily that they are less quick to appreciate that the validity of race as a concept depends upon its use as an aid in explanation. From this standpoint the main issue is not what “ race ” is but the way it is used. People draw upon beliefs about race, as they draw upon beliefs about nationality, ethnicity, and class, as resources for cultivating group identities. (294) The fact that race and, its consequence, racism have a notorious part in human history is also reflected in its treatment in Equation for Evil. The plot focuses on a racist crime that is reminiscent of an actual incident. The Time article “ Slaughter in a School Yard ” in the January 30 th 1989 issue describes how 26year-old Patrick Purdy killed five Southeast Asian six to nine year olds and wounded 30 other people including one teacher in a school in Stockton, CA that was predominately attended by children of refugees. He had carved the words “ freedom ” , “ victory ” and “ Hezbollah ” into his weapon, set his car on fire 178 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil and, after the assault, shot himself. These deeds correspond closely to those of the Duane Boggs character in Equation for Evil. The novel is mainly set in the fictional city of San Joaquin, which is situated in the Stockton area of California. Duane did not attack a school as such, but ambushed a school bus on a field trip to the nearby gold fields. The word Hezbollah was found painted in the motel room where he prepared for the massacre (Ef E 110). He was heard shouting “ Victory ” at the crime scene (Ef E 34; 35), set his car on fire (Ef E 31 - 32), killed many Southeast Asian children, wounded others including the teacher Joyce DeLuca, and committed suicide immediately afterwards (Ef E 35). The school bus massacre in Equation for Evil was undoubtedly a racist crime. Duane Boggs appraised his victims by their Asian appearance rather than by their cultural conditioning, even though, again in this case, it is not too easy to differentiate between ethnicity and race. James W. Tollefson describes how conflicts between Americans and refugees arose in the aftermath of the Vietnam War: “ Although many Americans work hard to help resettle refugees, others have attacked Indochinese children in schools, burned their fishing boats and vandalized their cars ” (269). Apparently there was a considerable lack of cultural integration concerning many who had fled their Southeast Asian homelands: “ . . . many refugees live in areas with a high concentration of other Indochinese, who may exert pressure in the form of gossip and community censure against anyone who violates traditional community standards ” (Tollefson 270). There also seems to have been a lack of readiness among the refugees to become too familiar with Americans. The social consequences were considerable: “ The result in many urban areas is an increasing number of youth gangs, especially among the thousands of Vietnamese males who were resettled as ‘ free cases ’ — individuals alone without other family members ” (Tollefson 269). Such situations are also described in Equation for Evil when dealing with the social reality in San Joaquin. There is a great deal of tension between Asians and Americans, and Tollefson states that “ . . . for most Americans the refugees are not us ” (276). It remains unclear at this stage whether the distinctions between “ us ” and “ them ” are made on ethnic or on racial grounds. As we have seen, there is a considerable amount of overlap between the two concepts; and according to Tollefson ’ s statements, the conflicts may well have arisen out of cultural incompatibilities, which would refer to ethnicity rather than race. However, the criminal minds in the novel do not make any effort to explain integration culturally. They categorise people by their physical appearance, and therefore correspond well to some scholars ’ views that racial identity is relevant even if race does not exist or cannot be universally defined as the factor that causes such perspectives. In addition, Equation for Evil treats race from an additional main perspective. The two protagonists, tough-cop Gabriel Chin and forensic psychiatrist Leander Heartwood, obviously see themselves as 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 179 belonging to two different races. Chin is Chinese American, Heartwood European American. Conversely, they can be considered to have the same ethnicity, as they are, culturally speaking, “ typical ” Americans. Chin, who is a member of a racial minority, retains hardly any cultural ties to his Chinese origins and is “ ethnically ” indistinguishable from the white American majority. These facts in particular make Equation for Evil a novel about racial identity, contrasting it with Indian Country, which focused on the cultural differences between groups of people, rendering it a novel about ethnic identity. The other aspects of social identity again take on subordinate roles. Gender identity is an issue with several characters. We find out that Heartwood has been concerned with the status of his masculinity and learn that his father made several “ attempts to make a man of him ” (Ef E 118). After their traumatic boyhood canoe trip, in which he cried and yearned for the comfort of his mother, he was “ forever afraid of appearing weak or soft in the eyes of other men ” (Ef E 126). He also has a strong sexual urge, which caused him to be unfaithful to his wife, and resulted in divorce (Ef E 105). With regard to Chin, we also learn that he once had a one-night affair with “ a half-Irish, half-Korean wild woman ” (Ef E 299). The two murderers in the novel are equally concerned with their gender. Duane ’ s masculinity is questioned in that he was once arrested for homosexual prostitution (Ef E 108). Mace Weathers, the “ coordinator ” of the school bus massacre, is homosexually attracted to those whom he compels to “ perform ” his murderous fantasies, namely Duane and later Ben Pickering. We also find out that “ . . . women never had made a difference to him . . . ” (Ef E 275). The main female character, Joyce DeLuca, who was severely wounded in Duane ’ s assault, has similar concerns. Married to a considerably older man, who left his wife and family for her, and aware that her husband thinks himself too old to have more children, she at first feels envious of those women who have had the experience of childbirth, even though she sees the toll it takes on her mother ’ s body: “ . . . she found something to be admired and envied in her mother ’ s loss of beauty, as a handsome but untested young man might admire and envy a warrior ’ s disfigurements. Was childbirth the fullest expression of womanhood? ” (Ef E 11). Her opinion echoes Broyles ’ s statement that war “ . . . is, for men, at some terrible level, the closest thing to what childbirth is for women: the initiation into the power of life and death ” . Such thoughts are premonitions of the eventual development of racial identity in Equation for Evil. The deformity of the human body is already alluded to in this statement about the only identity aspect besides racial identity that is firmly marked on the body. Gender identity is treated in the novel but never fully developed as a central theme. Considering occupational/ class identity, the situation is similar. Gabriel Chin, in particular, wants to identify strongly with his being a police officer. 180 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil Having to deal with the most appalling crimes performed by human beings, though, he is aware of the moral ambivalence in which he finds himself as a consequence: “ Not only his livelihood, but his happiness depended on the abnormal, on the existence of murderers and rapists and gangbangers and other violators of the laws of God and man. That strange symbiosis between cop and criminal ” (Ef E 42). Chin is an almost stereotypical hard-boiled policeman, having once been suspended from his special duties for his treatment of a crime suspect (Ef E 92). His wife, Adrienne, apparently retains a greater distance to her occupation as a dental hygienist: “ Her work was a job and nothing more; it wasn ’ t her life, as his work was his ” (Ef E 349). Connected with these feelings about his occupation, as in many cases, is the idea of class. We learn that “ Having grown up a postal clerk ’ s son on the lower end of Sacramento, he ’ d always aspired to a house in the suburbs, with rooms that looked like those in the home improvement magazines ” (Ef E 56). He is most happy to have been able to climb the metaphorical social ladder and to become a member of a class higher than his parents ’ : “ Though he had a low opinion of lawyers, he was pleased to have lawyers for neighbors, and doctors, and a couple of state assemblymen, though he didn ’ t think much of politicians, either ” (Ef E 59). His counterpart character, forensic psychiatrist Leander Heartwood, is less certain about the status of his profession, even though he emphasises how significant it is to him: “ If I ’ ve got a religion, it ’ s medicine. Medicine and science ” (Ef E 103). Underneath, however, he is unsure whether psychiatry is as relevant a discipline as he would like it to be. His occupational identity is questioned by acts of atrocity which his father experienced in World War II as a battlefield surgeon (Ef E 125), and which he experienced as a psychiatrist in the Vietnam War. His knowledge of the atrocity of war makes him question his belief in the importance of his work: “ Classical psychiatry was sufficient when it confined itself to treating bundles of Woody Allen neuroses, but when confronted by the truly dangerous acts, he had to admit that it was what his father had called it — witch-doctoring . . . ” (Ef E 96). Besides, Heartwood values “ classy ” appearance, but due to his financial obligations towards his ex-wife and his son, he sometimes struggles to keep up his image as a member of an elevated social class. Other characters are also partly viewed in terms of occupation and class. Mace Weathers is a student aspiring to be a psychologist (Ef E 217) and has had a few jobs on the side which do not appear to have satisfied him. The cannery job where he met Duane seems most unpleasant, and his position as acting security guard at the San Joaquin rehab clinic makes him unhappy (Ef E 208). His class position is equally questioned, as his parents only pay for his tuition, not for his support, due to their conflict concerning Mace ’ s leaving the Mormon Church (Ef E 208 - 09). Duane himself comes from a poor family 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 181 (Ef E 2) and has not succeeded in keeping a job (Ef E 1). Correspondingly, Pickering, the second character to be trimmed by Mace to perform a horrid crime, comes from an equally low background. Even though he received job training in prison (Ef E 218), he has not been able to build a life for himself. Ethnic identity is an issue with several characters, which is not surprising as it is often connected to the idea of racial identity. Gabriel Chin is ethnically speaking a true American. He retains few connections to his Chinese ancestry (Ef E 44). He proudly speaks of having no knowledge of Chinese languages, apart from one word (Ef E 44). He does not eat with chopsticks, but with cutlery, even in a Chinese restaurant (Ef E 123 - 24). Considering religion, he retains no bonds to predominately Asian faiths (Ef E 104). He was married in a Lutheran church, not because he would be concerned with religion, but because it “ just happened to be available on the date we ’ d set ” (Ef E 105). Apparently, he feels contempt towards “ those blond hippie-dippies from the sixties turned Buddhist, ringing gongs . . . ” (Ef E 104 - 05). Even so, he cannot sever himself completely from its heritage. For example, he holds some interest in the role of the Chinese in California history: it is with some pride that he learns that Chinese immigrants were not only instrumental in the construction of the railways but also in building farmland (Ef E 104). He also practices martial arts as a balance to his police work (Ef E 57), and while his father had already lost access to Chinese culture (Ef E 61), his maternal grandmother made him go to a Chinese school and marry a Chinese woman (Ef E 61). Additionally, he still takes pride in being somehow connected to a culture that is different from a decadent majority: “ You grow up in a Chinese family, you know who your parents are, grandparents, even great-grandparents. You ’ re taught not to let the family down, and you ’ ve got six thousand years of history to fall back on when things get tough. These American kids, it ’ s like they ’ re floating around in the middle of the ocean. No compass, no rudder ” (Ef E 223). Even so, he sees himself as an American, and culturally speaking, he is as American as any descendent of European immigrants. To Heartwood ethnic identity is hardly an issue. Culturally, he does not represent any “ deviation ” from modern Americanness. In contrast to Chin, however, religion has some significance to him. He was raised as a Catholic, but has left the church. Still, he feels unable to sever himself from it completely: “ You can take the boy out of the church, but you can ’ t take the church out of the boy ” (Ef E 442), Heartwood says to Mace, referring to the latter ’ s Mormon upbringing, but undoubtedly seeing parallels within himself. In an incident in which he is afraid that his plane will crash, Heartwood “ underwent a sudden reconversion and began reciting Hail Marys ” (Ef E 193). In addition, a religious element has a genuine impact on his feelings: Gregorian chants help him to calm down (Ef E 103). His ambivalent relation to his religious upbringing, 182 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil however, apparently makes him even more the typical modern secularised American. As mentioned before, Mace Weathers also left his religion, in his case the Mormon Church. Unlike the other main characters, he is not seen as a typical American in general but rather as a typical Californian: “ A true California son, Mace loved fast cars and handled one with ease ” (Ef E 331). His use of language also fits this picture; he speaks in a “ Southern California ” way (Ef E 125). Duane Boggs ’ s family has a particular view of its ethnic identity. Clovis Boggs, Duane ’ s grandfather, calls him and his wife Addy “ migratory workers ” (Ef E 332), as they came from Arkansas to California, where they were disappointed as it “ proved a purgatory where the rich ranchers and growers who called themselves ‘ native sons of the Golden West ’ scorned Clovis and his kind ” (Ef E 332). The two states are seen as virtually two countries or cultural spheres. Even so, Clovis and Addy ’ s grandson is apparently not considered a foreigner anymore. The prelude to Equation for Evil, which focuses on Duane, is entitled “ A Native Son of the Golden West ” (Ef E 1). Perhaps even if his ancestors are not “ native ” , Duane is, maybe because he was born there. This view of ready assimilation to a new culture is not shared by Duane ’ s sister Sara Jane Pittman. She is the only member of the family who has managed to build a respectable life for herself. She thinks that “ It ’ s like nothing was right in our family after they got pulled out of their roots ” (Ef E 434). Unlike her relatives, she has been able to re-identify ethnically in terms of religion, as she has chosen to become a “ born again ” Christian (Ef E 292). Her conviction is apparently strong enough to have let her settle down and lead a relatively pleasant life, unlike her grandmother, about whom she says that she “ was getting drunk on that holy-rolling religion of hers and just like a whiskey drunk, she started to see things that weren ’ t there — devils in her own three boys ” (Ef E 434). The Indochinese refugees ’ problematic situation in a foreign land is somewhat paralleled in Duane ’ s family ’ s problems. Such unpleasant experiences are reflected in another character: Joyce DeLuca. She originally comes from the prairies and is said to have a “ prairie sense of democracy ” (Ef E 8), and it is the prairie landscape that appears to have coined her most. In a way, she is a “ native daughter ” of the prairies, and she still views Minnesota as her home state despite having left it many years before (Ef E 15). California, despite its being part of the same political country, is foreign to her. Asian refugee characters are particularly relevant to ethnic identity in this novel. They have widely remained culturally isolated by their own choosing, and they do not appear to have any interest in becoming American — culturally or officially. Joyce ’ s friend Sokhim ’ s husband, Pandra, has found no satisfaction living in the USA. He has no job and all he thinks of is going back to Cambodia some day (Ef E 30 - 31). In Weinreich ’ s terms, the refugees represent typical 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 183 examples of migrant ancestral identity (33). They identify with a country/ culture from which they have been expelled. Most other characters in the book cohere with the same ethnic identity subcategory. They also came from other places, originally other continents, but for mainly different reasons. Motivated primarily by their own will, searching for a better life in America, the results are partly comparable. The effects are painful, even if, as in Joyce ’ s case, the cultural differences between the place of origin and the target place are minimal and the physical distance is relatively short. Ethnic identity is present in the novel as it shows how people from different cultural backgrounds have problems interacting, even if they come to a new place of their free will. Ethnicity, however, is eclipsed by race in Equation for Evil. The true conflicts that arise are represented in a racist crime, motivated by ideas about physical differences between people, rather than cultural ones. Ethnicity is less rigid than race, as represented in an original brief scene. When Chin and Heartwood visit the Alvarez couple, who are Riley ’ s — Mace ’ s biological father ’ s — former landlords, a John Wayne movie dubbed in Spanish is shown on television (Ef E 415), a stark example of how a genuinely American cultural symbol can easily be adapted to immigrant culture. Race cannot be “ voiced over ” so readily. Familial identity also has some relevance to the characters. Chin is particularly concerned with so-called paper sons, Chinese immigrants who had their birth certificates falsified to “ prove ” that their parents were born in the USA in order to be allowed into the country (Ef E 347). Chin wonders if he is also the descendant of illegal immigrants (Ef E 348). He questions the stability of his familial identity in particular and that of Chinese families, of whom he has such a high opinion, in general. Heartwood ’ s sense of familial identity is similarly ambivalent. His father was a down-to-earth doctor and hobby outdoorsman tough guy, unlike himself. Their imparity has been the source of many conflicts. His father “ had come home from the [Second World] war a bitter man at twenty-eight . . . His wartime experiences made it impossible for him to take emotional disorders seriously ” (Ef E 182 - 83), which is problematic, as emotional disorders are the ones with which his son, the psychiatrist, deals. Even so, he cannot ignore their relation. They both have a “ prominent nose ” (Ef E 97) and a similar metabolism (Ef E 184). Heartwood ’ s sensitive disposition must have been inherited from his mother, who came “ from near Chicago — River Forest, a reservation for lacecurtain Irish and other well-off Catholics. She had certain pretensions toward cultural refinement, an avid subscriber even in her college days to operas and concerts and poetry readings ” (Ef E 182). However, she was prone to depression (Ef E 149) and committed suicide (Ef E 181), for which he could never forgive 184 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil her. His attempts to construct a family of his own were equally difficult. His wife divorced him due to his having had an affair (Ef E 105). Mace ’ s familial relations are the most complex of all the protagonists. Since Mace was adopted by Mormons as a small child, Chin compares his situation to his own: “ Weathers adopted. In a way, he was a paper son, the natural son of a murderer ” (Ef E 417 - 18). Mace ’ s leaving the Mormon Church was the cause of a great conflict, but he could never completely accept Lewis and Anne Weathers as his parents. He once said to Lewis, “ Stop calling me son. I ’ m not your son, you pious asshole ” (Ef E 211). The situation concerning his natural parents is even more troublesome. His biological father, Riley Kincannon, is a Vietnam veteran, who was once arrested for having shot several and killed two Vietnamese refugees in a fit of insanity (Ef E 413). After having managed to find him, Mace was extremely distressed to find that Riley had no interest in him: “ You got your life and I got no place in it and I ’ m building a new life for myself and you got no place in it, don ’ t want to set eyes on you again ” (Ef E 271), Riley said to Mace. His biological mother is described as an exceptionally beautiful woman, but she divorced Riley after his arrest and gave Mace up for adoption. Even so, Mace is drawn to her. In his final analysis of Mace ’ s motive for orchestrating the school bus massacre, Heartwood implies that Mace may have thought, “ Perhaps I was the monstrous child of a monstrous woman, a whore ” (Ef E 470); whore is indeed the word written on a photograph Mace kept of her (Ef E 304). He is not sure how to identify with any family, particularly not with the one that he was given when he was adopted, even if he couldn ’ t renounce his Mormon upbringing altogether, as Heartwood notices in his statement that “ You can take the boy out of the church, but you can ’ t take the church out of the boy ” (Ef E 442). Conversely, he was and remained unwanted by his original family. However, this relationship cannot be completely destroyed either. Riley sent all his belongings to Mace when dying of cancer, and Mace assumes his name to fraudulently cash welfare checks for Duane and Pickering in his machinations to have them more under control (Ef E 418). Mace literally takes on the identity of his biological father, who rejected him. His familial relation can best be described within Weinreich ’ s concept of yearning identity (33). He belongs at the same time to two families but also to neither one. Mace ’ s instruments in the killings, Duane and Pickering, have similarly troubled familial relations. Duane ’ s mother has had several husbands, one of whom abused Duane (Ef E 128). She thinks that he hated her from the beginning, and that she then started to hate him (Ef E 354). He was then raised by his grandparents (Ef E 128). Pickering does not know at all where his mother or father live (Ef E 207). 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 185 Joyce DeLuca is also critical of her familial situation. She has married a considerably older divorced man who already has a family. She does not appear to feel part of a family anymore, and she is prevented from establishing a new family for herself. At first, she is annoyed at her husband ’ s refusal to have more children; but after her survival of the school bus massacre, she does not want to have children herself, due to her traumatic experiences concerning the murdered pupils. These aspects of social identity are all present in the characters, but in this novel they are all less prominent than racial identity, as the protagonists are all affected by a racist crime, its causes and its aftermath. As already mentioned, race is such a controversial concept that it is impossible for an enlightened person to identify with it. To do so equals being racist, at least concerning those who are part of a racial majority. Unlike the identity aspects in the other novels, race can therefore not be purported by all protagonists as their main dimension of identification. More concretely, there is just one type of group who is “ allowed ” to identify with race without being labelled racist: racial minorities. This group is represented by Chin. He is a “ good guy ” . His ancestors are Chinese and he lives in predominately white America and is therefore entitled to be aware of his race. Concerning the racial majority, those who identify racially are bound to be the “ bad guys ” . Indeed, the other protagonists closely adhere to this “ rule ” . The “ good ” white main characters — Heartwood and Joyce — are not concerned with their race; the “ bad ” ones — Mace, Duane and Pickering — are. In the cases of Heartwood and Joyce, the situation is particularly problematic. They cannot identify with race, but they have considerable difficulty identifying with any other aspect. Despite all these issues, Equation for Evil manages to treat this highly sensitive theme skilfully. Racism and racial conflicts are not presented in the terms of two nicely distinguishable sides. There is not only the conflict of white vs. “ other ” . The novel is set in the year following the Los Angeles race riots of 1992, about which it is said that “ Black people, Spanish people, Asian people, [were] all burning each other ’ s business, all fighting each other ” (Ef E 283). We also learn that there was “ A gang for almost every color and nationality ” (Ef E 82 - 83). The principal dividing line between races in the novel is the one between European Americans and Asians, whereas it is again made clear that these are not homogeneous entities. We have already seen that white Americans are not all “ the same ” ; and we also learn that “ the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians in the city . . . segregate themselves into ethnically pure enclaves a Balkan politician would envy ” (Ef E 22). Chin is often annoyed at being confused with Cambodians or Vietnamese. Again, it is not easy to make a clear distinction between differences in ethnicity and in race. With the groups treated in the novel, it is often unclear with which they are primarily associated. 186 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil Chin ’ s remark that “ Most people think that the Chinese in this country are nice and polite and passive. That we aren ’ t dangerous ” (Ef E 105), leaves it open whether the Chinese are thought to be so by their culture/ ethnicity or by nature/ race. Even so, the main focus remains on race. Chin ’ s main concerns about his own person are based on race; the school bus massacre was committed by a white person against Asians because he recognised them as Asians due to their looks; and the theory that Duane committed his crime due to supposed contacts to white supremacist groups was sustained for a longer time. The main Asian protagonist is Gabriel Chin, but there are others such as Celia Kim, Mace ’ s girlfriend, as well as various refugees and their children. Even though culturally a “ full ” American, Chin has been unable to completely close the gap between him and his compatriots due to his looks. The descendant of a Chinese labourer who came to the USA as a cheap railway worker (Ef E 60), one of his ancestors was attacked by stone-throwers upon his arrival and almost died (Ef E 61). We also learn that “ Chinese forty-niners had been ambushed and murdered for their gold by Anglo miners whose luck had played out or who were too lazy to work their own claims ” (Ef E 175). At least once, Chin has been made aware of how racial affiliation matters to some people: “ A militant Chinese once called him a ‘ Twinkie, ’ yellow on the outside, white on the inside. What did it mean to be white on the inside? Gabriel thought it meant to be an American. It meant that although your blood ancestors came from Canton or Shanghai, your spiritual ancestors were Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln ” (Ef E 61). Despite his and his ancestors ’ successes at becoming American culturally, the visibility of his Asianness remains. With regard to his children, he thinks that “ They were fifth generation, they had typical American desires for success, cars, a house bigger than their parents[ ’ ], but none of that could protect them from hate. The same hate that had flung stones at his ancestor over a hundred years ago but flung bullets now ” (Ef E 62). The reason for such conflict is not their culture but their appearance. He can never become completely American, as his body stays Chinese. Heartwood acknowledges that he is “ still a foreigner to some. The Other ” (Ef E 130), and says, “ You like to think of yourself as an all-American guy, you live in a perfect little whitebread neighborhood, but you can ’ t forget you ’ re different. It ’ s there in the mirror every morning ” (Ef E 105). His looks make him remain “ other ” to the white American majority. The persistence of the significance of race is represented in other circumstances as well. In one case, Chin “ was going to pose for a recruiting poster designed to show that the Bureau was an equal opportunity employer. In a group that included two female agents, two white men, one Hispanic, and one black, he was to be the token Asian ” (Ef E 44). Additionally, one of the reasons why Chin was chosen to be Heartwood ’ s partner in the search of the motive and 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 187 the causes of the massacre is that he is Asian, for if it turned out that there was no racist group behind it, there would have to be an Asian to confirm such findings (Ef E 49). Race remains an issue, even if it is positively connoted in such cases. Celia Kim, Mace Weathers ’ s girlfriend, is a similar example of a wellintegrated Asian. Even though she is only second generation, she is, culturally speaking, as conventionally American as any descendent of European immigrants. Chin and Celia are ethnically American; racially, they are considered Asian. In contrast to them, the Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in the novel are seen as Asian both ethnically and racially. The racial element must here be considered the predominent one. The way the conflicts are treated in the novel, they mainly occur between two racially perceived groups; Chin, Celia and the refugees on the one side, white Americans on the other. Chin has been made aware of his “ otherness ” to white Americans in the cases mentioned above. Mace, for his part, was attacked by racists due to his having Celia as his girlfriend. As with the school bus massacre, the crime was apparently not performed due to cultural differences between Celia and the American mainstream. The remaining protagonists belong to the white majority. Therefore they cannot identify with their race unless they are racist. However, California is described as a place in which people are aware of brooding conflicts between races. Paula, Heartwood ’ s ex-wife, is annoyed and “ getting tired of people saying things about us Wasps they wouldn ’ t dare say about Jews or Latinos ” (Ef E 255). The woman whom Chin and Heartwood talk to at the Coloma gold discovery site affirms that everybody is “ angry ” at the refugees and migrants who come into the country. She explains in more detail: “ Take the Bay Area. Folks from there are moving out this way in droves because there are too many minorities where they are. But when they come out here they want all their modern conveniences, like shopping malls, and that ’ s just marring up our beautiful country ” (Ef E 175). Again, it is not quite clear whether she is talking about ethnic or racial “ minorities ” . Still, to non-racist members of a racial majority, identifying with race is unacceptable. The main character in this respect is Heartwood. We have already seen that he partly identifies or tries to identify with all other aspects of social identity. He has succumbed to his masculinity in his infidelity (gender identity). He values his profession and relative wealth (occupational/ class identity). He fails to sever himself completely from his religious upbringing (ethnic identity) and his problematic relationships with his parents, his ex-wife and his son have troubled him greatly (familial identity). The only aspect remaining — racial identity — is not an issue to him; and nor can it be to a respectable member of a racial majority. Heartwood is well aware of the sensitivity of the issue. One of his former colleagues, Walt Apetheker, was once accused of racism due to his being one of the scientists who organised a conference “ On the biological and neurological 188 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil roots of violence ” . Immediately there was criticism as they were thought to base their findings on racial differences (Ef E 97), which was not the case. In their search for the equation for evil, he and Heartwood are still unsuccessfully attempting to find the source of acts of violence, not in relation to race, however, but in neurological and chemical reactions. Joyce DeLuca is in a similar situation. She has a sense of gender identity (asking herself how having/ not having children affects her status as a woman), of occupational/ class identity (she is a dedicated teacher), of ethnic identity (she is aware of the differences between California and her home state) and of familial identity (she has caused a man to leave his family for her and contemplates starting a new family). Like Heartwood, she shows no tendency to identify with her race. The case is different with the other white main characters. Consequently, they are racists. This label applies to Mace, Duane and Pickering. Concerning social identity aspects, Mace is in a situation that is similarly complicated to Heartwood ’ s. He has homosexual tendencies (gender identity); he is still aspiring to a superior professional status (occupational/ class identity); he has left the Mormon Church (ethnic identity); he was rejected by his biological parents and is also emotionally separated from his adoptive parents (familial identity). Unlike Heartwood, Mace endorses racial identity. His name even rhymes with race. The two words have indeed been confused. After the massacre, Joyce believes Duane to have shouted something sounding like “ Race! ” and “ Victory! ” (Ef E 34). Starting to suspect that Mace was involved, Chin and Heartwood at one point come to ask themselves whether Duane might have said “ Mace! Victory! ” (Ef E 241). The core of Heartwood ’ s analysis of Mace is that “ He hated Duane, he hated his father and mother, but that hatred was combined with a paradoxical desire to avenge certain wrongs his father suffered, which led to the mastermind ’ s other hatred — racial hatred of Asians ” (Ef E 467). Mace is not overtly racist, but it is he who initiates racist crimes. He represents the fact that people belonging to a racial majority are not expected to openly express identification with their race. On the surface, Mace presents himself as an example of tolerance, by having an Asian girlfriend. Underneath, however, he is not only a racist but also a mass murderer. Duane and Pickering, who are supposed to perform the crimes which Mace has planned, make no attempts to hide their racist attitudes. Duane and his halfbrother Jacob Tipton had contacts to the racist White Aryan Resistance group (Ef E 70); and at Duane ’ s former work place, the United Foods cannery, the foreman remembers that he thought “ they came here from Cambodia and Veetnam [sic], and first thing they do is go on welfare, but he ’ s gotta bust butt in a cannery ” (Ef E 119). Correspondingly, Pickering frequently expresses his racist views. 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 189 The idea of racial identity has a strong presence in Equation for Evil, even if the “ good ” white characters ignore it. Corresponding with the other identity aspects in the other novels, however, it disappears within an emergence of Gothic elements that take the place of social identity. Even if Equation for Evil shows fewer typically Gothic elements than the other novels, there are a considerable number of such occurrences. Indeed, Heartwood ’ s search for an equation for evil and his eventual failure to find scientific grounds for an inclination towards violence makes the story Gothic in part. Science, a method of the Enlightenment, proves to be fruitless in the explanation of the causes of atrocious crimes and the dark side of humanity. Consequently, people ’ s identities are subject to stark reform towards a state anterior to the emergence of enlightened science. As racial identity is the second aspect of social identity — besides gender — to be generally associated with the body, it disappears in a way similar to gender identity in Horn of Africa, succumbing to the realisation of a corporeality which is Gothic in nature and unconnected to the idea of race. In Equation for Evil, this happens in two ways, the first of which is stark and immediately overwhelming, the second one subtle. The school bus massacre, which occurs at an early stage in the novel, is the main realisation of the first way in which racial identity is abolished. It represents the immediate dissolution of physical markers that could be related to a racial identity. Even though Asian school children are primarily targeted, there are also other victims, including whites. This scene is utterly repellent in its graphic depiction. The narration of the crime corresponds to principles of Horror Gothic. The reader is shocked and overwhelmed by the gruesomeness of the acts portrayed. The detailed way in which the murders are conveyed somehow “ speak out ” the “ unspeakable ” . In addition, Duane ’ s appearance is uncanny in nature. It is described that “ The man suddenly appeared, as if he had risen out of the smoke or as if the smoke, like the stuff that whirls out of a fairy tale genie ’ s bottle, had composed itself into the figure of a man ” (Ef E 33). The happenings are virtually too horrific to be understood in a rational way. In this act of violence, the identities of the people involved move away from whatever they were originally seen as and become abominations. In its emphasis on physicality, it is also the victims ’ races that immediately turn irrelevant and disappear. All that is left to the reader is a gruesome picture of bodies that have become indistinguishable in their destruction and distortion, “ Things ” , to speak in Kelly Hurley ’ s terms. An abstract sense of identity is brought to a sudden end in the face of massacred human bodies that take up the role of the only identity which is still relevant. Besides this early occurrence of revelation, identity is redone in a second, slower and subtler way, also affecting characters who were not present at the crime scene. To this end, the human body is reviewed in several instances in the 190 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil novel until its eventual state is revealed at the conclusion. In contrast to the uncompromising immediacy of human corporeality in the massacre scene, the reader is presented with several different types of human bodies over a considerable length of time and in much detail. Indeed, this development takes up most of the remainder of the novel. In this context, Caputo applies elements similar to the cybergothic tendencies in DelCorso ’ s Gallery. The bodies treated differ from one another primarily in the degree to which they are complemented by artificial elements. This artificiality is used as a method to hide the ugly truth which lurks underneath, and is, slowly but thrustfully, dismantled. The setting of Equation for Evil is interspersed with artificial elements. Again in keeping with DelCorso ’ s Gallery, it is the cities which provide a basis as partly artificial, and Gothic, constructs. Jerrold E. Hogle mentions that “ an aging city or urban underworld ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 2) is one of the typical settings of a Gothic story. Linda Dryden is more concrete: “ This modern metropolitan Gothic shifts the scene of terror from the rural landscape to the inner city, and imagines horrible human mutations taking place in the heart of the city ” (30), adding that “ the modern city was frequently figured as a labyrinth, harbouring mysteries and secrets that were deeply disturbing and spoke of a metropolis in chaos ” (34). In this way, Equation for Evil differs from its three predecessors. Horn of Africa is set in a pre-industrialised region of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery amid the ferocity of two wars, and Indian Country in an underdeveloped area of the USA. Gothic elements, which are primarily concerned with a primitive stage of human civilisation, fit into such surroundings readily. Conversely, Equation for Evil ’ s setting is one of the world ’ s most prosperous places. The urban landscapes in which Equation for Evil is partly set correspond widely to such a modernised version of the Gothic, particularly the fictional city of San Joaquin and the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Even so, the connection with the original medieval theme in Gothic literature is maintained in a key scene. As Chin and Heartwood arrive to begin their research at the motel where Duane prepared for the massacre, their first glimpse of the crime scene is accented by the Gregorian chants which Heartwood is playing in the car on their arrival (Ef E 106). This juxtaposition powerfully places icons of modern civilisation back within the realm of the Dark Ages. Chin even describes Heartwood ’ s investigation of the motel room as a “ séance ” (Ef E 117). The place where Duane made the final preparations for the massacre is presented as some kind of black hole within the modern world, a gateway to a dark, Gothic human background that modernity has failed to overcome. Incidentally, the whole state of California is depicted as an exemplary case of a widely incomplete shift from the primitive to the modern. The prelude, which 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 191 deals with Duane ’ s preparations for the massacre, is subtitled “ A Native Son of the Golden West ” (Ef E 1). The adjective “ Golden ” has a double meaning. One of the main settings of the plot is the California Gold Country, the origin of the state ’ s reputation as a refuge to those seeking a better life. Phil Youngblood, the Gold Country sheriff, who appears to Heartwood as though “ he were trying to maintain the image of the mythical western lawman ” (Ef E 258), is a lone element upholding the image of a seemingly heroic past. The gold rush initiated mass migration of whites to California. At the same time it epitomises the exploitation of the land. The state was literally built on gold, a physically present element which triggered its reputation of a promised land. While there is still affluence, it is now based upon less concrete things. Nowadays, the land is “ golden ” in another sense, primarily concerning the cities, as they promise a brighter future to those going there. Compared to Coloma, the origin of the gold rush, “ San Francisco, only a three-hour drive away, seemed in another country, L. A. in another universe ” (Ef E 172). This new type of gold is artificial, having taken the form of well-paid jobs or fame in the movie industry. The DeLucas are a prime example of those who have had success there. Californian cities are presented as examples of artificiality, “ unnaturalness ” and the deception associated with such concepts. One of the prime representatives of an artificial world, Disneyland, was also first opened in California. It plays a side role in the plot, with Chin having to leave his criminal investigations for a family outing (Ef E 398 - 99). However, the bright cities have a dark underbelly. Heartwood calls Los Angeles “ the Vatican of Illusions ” (Ef E 192). The suburb of Fontana, which is described as “ . . . desolate and mean, sunk in white-trash bitterness and blue-collar angst ” (Ef E 462), and a decaying Hollywood stand in contrast to the Chin family ’ s visit to Disneyland. 1 Fontana, where Chin spent some time, is lawless and depraved (Ef E 197). The “ Trolls ” , the group of male prostitutes with whom Duane ’ s half-brother Jacob Tipton works, live under a bridge (Ef E 222). With regard to the degenerate Hollywood atmosphere, Chin thinks, “ This wasn ’ t an ambience of faded glamour, this was implosion. The vacant dreamland was collapsing into the hollowness that had always been at its core ” (Ef E 221). It turns out that the core not only of the film industry, which works around creating illusions, but of every entity, human or geographical, is partly depraved and merely constructs an image of decency around itself. The way cities are dealt with in the novel represents the idea that originally wild land was ostensibly civilised; but that the underlying wildness remains omnipresent. Cities are presented as artificial constructs which are not in the 1 In a side comment, Jean Sheldon, Chin ’ s colleague, ironically mentions that it is “ Un- American ” not to like Disneyland (Ef E 297). 192 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil position to maintain themselves, but decay readily. The fictional San Joaquin is a case in point, with its suburbs sprawling out ever farther from its original nucleus, which is now described as a wasteland. The central area has been completely transformed back into a pre-civilisation state, unsafe and a no-go area for average people. It spreads a virus that contaminates its surroundings. The suburban layers have to be built further and further away from the centre as all of them eventually regress toward that same state. Building a civilised city is nothing more than a temporary measurement to keep unfavourable primitive states at bay. Related to the idea of artificiality is television coverage, which also holds a prominent role in the novel. In two Interludes (Ef E 37 - 40; 189 - 91) and the Postlude (Ef E 487 - 88), the goings-on are conveyed through what is shown on television: “ Their televisions helped them fit the event into their understanding of the world by reducing it to images that fit within a screen. Their televisions made the alien familiar through the familiar ceremonies of coverage ” (Ef E 38, italics in original). The way in which television is described is like an inversion of Freud ’ s uncanny being what was once familiar. The shocking truth reveals itself when we see the familiar as something uncanny. Television does the opposite. It makes something uncanny appear familiar. Television, being technological and therefore artificial, hides the full truth in that it conceals the fact of how Duane Boggs ’ s crime is incomprehensible. The artificial, the modern, the civilised is at the same time a denial of the deeper truth behind the things portrayed. Dual perception of places is present not only concretely but also metaphysically, intensifying the Gothic atmosphere. Corresponding to the Gothic appearance of Duane ’ s motel room, the main crime scene presents itself in a similar way in its aftermath. Chin thinks, Where blood had been spilled, the ground was cursed, sacred, or both. Here it was cursed. Gabriel did not have a fanciful imagination and no belief in the occult . . . If he didn ’ t know what had happened in this clearing, it would seem no different than any other patch of woods. Nevertheless, he couldn ’ t quite convince himself that something wasn ’ t here, some malevolent spirit, hovering in the air. (Ef E 141) When Chin revisits the crime scene near Coloma in the darkness, the place seems especially uncanny: “ The venerable tree in its static writhing looked as if it had sprung out of some Gothic folk tale. Small animals scratched and rustled in the semidarkness, and when a hawk or owl flapped loudly from a branch at the clearing ’ s edge, his heart jumped and his hand went reflexively for the Glock ” (Ef E 172 - 73). In this scene, the distinction between primitiveness and modernity is connected to another country which serves as a backdrop to the novel ’ s plot. The atmosphere takes Chin back to his earlier life, his time in Vietnam: “ . . . at such an hour the woods reminded him too much of the Delta, 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 193 another place where ghosts and demons dwelled ” (Ef E 173). Even though the Vietnam War takes on a less prominent position than in Caputo ’ s earlier novels, it is present in the minds of several characters — as well as being hinted at by the actual presence of many Indochinese refugees. Chin, Heartwood and Mace are all linked by the legacy of the Vietnam War. The two main protagonists, Chin and Heartwood, both served in the war, while Mace is a product of it. The Vietnam War connection surfaces in the plot when Chin, Youngblood and Jean Sheldon search Mace ’ s room. Hidden in Mace ’ s footlocker under a false bottom are Riley ’ s Vietnam relics, whose smell has an immediate effect on Chin, in whom it triggers a memory (Ef E 302). Here, the Vietnam War is the Gothic element in the protagonists ’ pasts that at some point re-emerges from where it was hidden, without ever having completely disappeared. It corresponds to Hogle ’ s statement that in a Gothic setting, there “ are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story ” (Introduction 2). The Vietnam War certainly haunts many of the protagonists, and finding these concealed objects is the key event that delivers the necessary clues to Chin and Heartwood to disclose Mace ’ s “ secrets ” and solve the riddle of his complicity in the school bus massacre. The war made Mace ’ s biological father mad and caused his premature death due to the effects of Agent Orange. Duane, on the other hand, was fascinated by the Vietnam War, although his father was not in Vietnam, but still in the army. He and his half-brother, Jacob Tipton, used to play war games with the toy soldiers that he had in his motel room when getting prepared for the massacre (Ef E 234). The legacy of the war stays with the next generation, even though they were not directly affected by it. Physically far away, Vietnam still has a firm grip on the supposedly disconnected happenings in California. It haunts the subplot and, in its ghastliness, embeds the novel in a particularly uncanny, Gothic atmosphere. In a scene at the state war memorial in central Sacramento, the setting suddenly turns into a surreal world dominated by the ghosts of the Vietnam War: there is a veteran, “ a survivor surrounded by the carved names of the thousands of Californians who had not survived. The brave and the cowardly, the brutal and the gentle, the weak and the strong were all together now and equal, fused by the common dignity that death in battle confers ” . Then, after the sun has set, a man marches to salute in front of the memorial. He is a ghostly figure, a relic of a war that is over but still present (Ef E 278) and which returns in the twilight atmosphere. The main theme of the novel, racism, is directly linked to the Vietnam War as well. The American intervention, which history has mainly condemned as illegal and futile, is often considered to have been influenced by racist attitudes: “ . . . stereotyping the enemy took on a new racial dimension in Vietnam. In World War II American propaganda, military planning, and soldiers ’ attitudes 194 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil also reflected a sharp distinction between Western, white Germans and the ‘ yellow hordes ’ of Japan; in Vietnam the issue of race was all-pervasive . . . ” (Shafer 85). Also the concepts of primitiveness and modernity are related to this view: “ To the extent that the myth/ ideology of ‘ modernization ’ invokes the Frontier as a historical precedent, it denigrates as ‘ primitive ’ the cultural character of the emerging nations with (in some expressions) an implication of racial deficiency ” (Slotkin 496). Racism as a potential catalyst of the Vietnam War haunts the world and its people in its aftermath. The questionable status of the artificial in the novel is not limited to places. Indeed, it greatly affects the people as well. Sokhim, one of the Cambodian refugees, tells Joyce that “ Women here so free [sic] ” , to which Joyce counters, “ . . . we ’ re not as free as you think. Nobody is. We ’ re all trapped by biology ” (Ef E 28). Joyce is apparently referring to the fact that she is approaching the end of child-bearing age. Her statement has wider implications, however. What one is, is not principally a choice: “ She supposed it was the glory and the curse of the American to live by the illusion that all things were possible, that anything you get into can be gotten out of, that the idea of fate or destiny belonged in a stale Old World museum ” (Ef E 28). Even at this stage, before being attacked by Duane, she realises that “ illusion ” is present when thinking about what can be achieved, what one is or rather what one ’ s identity is. Heartwood says to Chin, “ One thing I ’ ve learned is that most people ’ s self-portraits are flattering fakes ” (Ef E 106). Identity is artificiality. Human beings are really what they are trying to hide by trying to identify with an abstract concept. Joyce realises this after the massacre: “ She had died out there on the road and had been reborn. Now, like any newborn, she needed time to figure out who she was ” (Ef E 51). Like Horn of Africa ’ s Charles Gage, her horrific experience has destroyed her identity, not in that she has decided to change the way she looks at herself but in that she has seen that she was wrong in what she thought was true. The sense that one ’ s identity is in reality less pleasant than what one would like to acknowledge is latently present throughout the novel, even if the characters strive to ignore this concept. One way in which Equation for Evil dismantles common views of identity is in its rejection of the notion of perspective. This concept is already implied in the role of television, mentioned above, but in several other respects as well. Heartwood says to Mace, “ Perceptions. Men are disturbed not by things but by the view which they take of them. Epictetus ” (Ef E 442). Whereas all the artificial parts that occur in the novel are just that — perceptions — the unveiling truth goes far beyond it, as it has already done so overwhelmingly in the massacre scene. Equation for Evil ’ s Gothic mode forces the characters to take on a perspective of which they were unaware. As Steven Bruhm explains, 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 195 Pain reinscribes in our experience the mind/ body division, and gives the body a mastery that bourgeois society at least since the seventeenth century (if not since Plato) has tried to resist. This mastery gets expressed, I think, in both the Romantic emphasis on the imagination and the post-structuralist emphasis on discursive constructivism: nothing exists but as it is perceived. But pain, by attacking the body, attacks this antihumanist assumption, and poses serious questions about the limits that discourse can have on the body. (Gothic Bodies 149) In Equation for Evil, this development from artificiality/ originally-perceived identity — including race, as argued by the critics — towards actuality/ undeniable identity is represented by the one bodily organ with which human beings mainly perceive, and which offers the comfort of perspective: the eye. The eye takes on a particularly prominent position among the novel ’ s themes. For example, Mrs. Or, one of the Cambodian refugees, became blind having to watch her last living child brutally killed by the Khmer Rouge. According to Joyce, she suffers from “ Hysterical blindness ” (Ef E 20). To Mrs. Or, it means, “ The world has become too terrible for me to look at. It is too terrible for you to look at, but you can because you do not see the truth of things ” (Ef E 20 - 21). Those who have the possibility to still succumb to a chosen perspective have the comfort of living in an artificial dream world. The others, who have been made to suffer as much as Mrs. Or, see the true world without actually seeing at all. The eye betrays the viewer, or in keeping with Bruhm, Mrs. Or ’ s pain has devalued all previous notions of perception. The undeniable presence of pain makes all other conceptions meaningless. Of the main characters, there are three who represent three stages along the development of identity from artificiality to actuality: Heartwood, Mace and Duane. Heartwood is mainly artificial, someone who subdues his natural instincts as much as possible. Mace, on the other hand, lives in a state in which he tries to balance actuality and artificiality, while Duane is a mainly natural person, retaining only little artificiality. Consequently, Heartwood is the most pleasant of the three characters. He is most able to hold up an agreeable image of what a human being should be. Mace, in contrast, manages to maintain a respectable surface, but turns out to hide a human abyss beneath this appearance, while Duane is the most depraved, and incarnates nothing that is generally considered “ human ” . With these three characters, a principal theme treated in DelCorso ’ s Gallery reappears: the cyborg, a being which is in part natural and in part artificial. As Anne Balsamo mentions, Variously used as a symbol of anti-technological sentiments or of the possibilities of “ better living through chemistry ” cyborgs are a product of cultural fears and desires that run deep within our psychic unconscious. Through the use of technology as the means or context for human hybridization, cyborgs come to represent unfamiliar 196 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil “ otherness, ” one which challenges the connotative stability of human identity. (149, italics in original) She emphasises not only the impact that cyborgs have on identity, but also the fact that they can be positively or negatively connoted. She adds that “ Machines are rational, artificial and durable; humans are emotional, organic and mortal ” (149). Correspondingly, Equation for Evil ’ s characters are more “ rational ” the more artificial elements they have. However, this applies only until they reach the undeniable actuality of human corporeality. Eventually they must all succumb to what their bodies are, as has already been seen in the massacre. The state of the brutally murdered victims reveals what all human beings eventually are. Deprived of artificial elements, they are Gothic bodies. As Kelly Hurley states, there is “ in place of the possibility of human transcendence, the prospect of an existence circumscribed within the realities of gross corporeality ” (3); and “ Nothing is left but Things: forms rent from within by their own heterogeneity, and always in the process of becoming-Other ” (9). This is what happens to those killed in the school bus massacre, and, more subtly and at a later stage, to those who are forced to shed their artificiality after they have had to acknowledge that “ . . . the civilized person only keeps these strong emotions in check through the ‘ artificial ’ devices of social breeding and education ” (Hurley 64). The characters do indeed lose their artificial elements towards the conclusion. Incidentally, Hogle establishes a connection between the ideas of race and cyborgs. Considering Frankenstein ’ s monster, he stresses that its horror is the artificiality (Hogle ’ s term) of its body, “ the monstrous ways in which human reproduction has been replaced by a seemingly mechanical substitute, an automaton manufactured from multi-racial fragments ” ( “ The Gothic at Our Turn of the Century ” 156). In Equation for Evil, however, race is subordinated to a stark corporeality as such. Cyborgs eventually fall victim to the same concept. Among the protagonists, Heartwood is arguably the most “ civilised ” character. He is respectable in almost all aspects and has acquired a social status which he continually tries to maintain. Heartwood is the epitome of the modern civilised person. As Donna J. Haraway states, By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of ‘ Western ’ science and politics - the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other - the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. (150) 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 197 Heartwood is one of these modern people. He most successfully represents a human being who, by ways of his education and civilised behavioural conduct, has managed to realise a seemingly harmonious union of what he was born and what he has made of his life and opportunities. Nevertheless, the image that he attempts to convey to others is in constant state of decay as he hardly has the money to keep up the extravagant lifestyle that he craves (Ef E 65). On his investigations into the motive behind the school bus massacre, he comes into contact with the darker sides of life that are equally present in such an advanced civilisation. An anonymous phone call which he receives inadvertently (Ef E 180) sets him off onto a trip into the racist underworld of white supremacist groups, where he expects to find out more about Duane ’ s background. The tipoff, however, turns out to have, perhaps deliberately, set him on the wrong track. In addition, the one element which he is unable to control has ruined part of his life: “ . . . I may not look it, but I ’ m a man with large physical appetites. I have a problem with fidelity ” (Ef E 105). One of the main aspects in the novel that stands in contrast to civilisation/ artificiality is again sexuality/ procreation. As in the other novels apart from Horn of Africa, the obligatory graphic references to the sexual act occur frequently throughout the book. Childbirth is presented in an equally unpleasant way. What Joyce calls “ the fullest expression of womanhood ” is a painful disfiguring experience: “ . . . she found something to be admired and envied in her mother ’ s loss of beauty . . . ” (Ef E 11). Once she overheard her mother describing that giving birth was “ Like shitting a watermelon ” , and she has been unable to forget this picture of herself as a “ giant turd ” (Ef E 11). The impulses of Heartwood ’ s body have destroyed his family and his status. Still, he is more successful at remaining the type of person that he thinks one should be. In this way, he is a cyborg-like character, both artificial and natural. The prime cyborg in the novel is Mace Weathers, the “ brain ” behind the massacre, who is a victim of racist violence himself and lost an eye in that attack. No other character ’ s physical appearance is described in such detail. Mace is “ a tall, tanned young man with hair the color of freshly cut maple and a torso that strained against his oxford shirt. Except for the patch worn over his left eye, he looked like a Laguna surfer who ’ d ridden a freak wave a hundred miles inland ” (Ef E 145). We also learn that he has long eyelashes, giving him a feminine touch (Ef E 147). However, his body is not completely natural. Earlier in his life, he was a successful missionary, due to the fact that he had a talent to convince people of things in which he did not believe himself (Ef E 209). His talent to change faces is compared to a “ collection of masks ” (Ef E 441). It is mentioned that “ There was something impenetrable about him, something that took in light but let none out. The handsome but wooden face, the automaton ’ s speech ” (Ef E 151). He speaks in a “ monotone ” that he tries to vary (Ef E 151), 198 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil and “ His whole body seemed a thing powered by pneumatics and hydraulics, projecting not a supple, animal power but mechanical advantage ” (Ef E 152). He engages in a great deal of body-building, which is compared to “ sculpting ” , and has “ Shoulders that rose like ramps to meet his neck, [a] lamp-tanned torso so plated with muscle it did not look quite like human flesh but as if he were wearing a bronze breastplate stolen from the prop room of a biblical epic ” (Ef E 162). Through his physical exercise, he has the power to shape his own body and to make it admirable. Even though he does not use steroids (Ef E 162 - 63), he deals in them (Ef E 379). His efforts to enhance his body, however, are countered by his missing left eye (Ef E 300), which “ transfigured him completely . . . ” (Ef E 359). Heartwood thinks that “ He was a very handsome guy, though in the unremarkable, unmemorable way of a male fashion model. Without the eye patch, he would leave a pleasing but fleeting impression . . . And his voice went with his appearance . . . ” (Ef E 149). However much he tries to perfect his looks, they are ruined by a part that is invariably his: the place where an eye — the most significant organ in the novel — should be, but is not. Covering up his actual ugliness can only be done by creating an illusion: The Los Angeles surgeon who repaired film stars ’ faces was going to rebuild his occipital bones, then do skin grafts and fit him with a glass eye that would duplicate God ’ s original except, of course, it wouldn ’ t move or see. The surgeon had promised that all traces of the injury would be removed. No one would be able to tell the difference. “ It ’ ll be a long process, Mace, but when it ’ s done you ’ ll be yourself again, ” Anne [his adoptive mother] had said in the breathless voice that sometimes sounded ethereal and sometimes spooky. She hadn ’ t said that he would look like himself again, but be himself, as if his very nature and identity were functions of his appearance. (Ef E 267, italics in original) Anne, who is mentioned in connection with attributes such as “ ethereal ” and “ spooky ” , confirms the view of how artificial elements determine common views of identity. In Mace ’ s case, this would not have been the first time for him to be subjected to artificial alterations. Heartwood notices that “ He ’ d had orthodontic work when he was young, a shoddy job. The two teeth, misaligned with the front, looked like incipient fangs ” (Ef E 148). The correction of his teeth has not completely had the desired effect. It has not quite turned out as he had hoped. Artificially influencing the build of the body cannot hide what the body is. Mace can only maintain his image of a respectable human being on the surface. Behind this image, an uncanny mass murderer remains hidden. Mace is also known by the nickname Weatherman (Ef E 318). This name may have been transferred from a comic-book cyborg character: “ In the Image comic, StormWatch, the United Nations sends teams of super-powered agents to various trouble spots to act as peacekeepers. The man coordinating these many teams in various global locations is codenamed Weatherman One ” 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 199 (Oehlert 222). Mace, too, is a coordinator, namely of racist massacres. Indeed, “ The Weatherman is a classic implant/ controller who utilizes cyber-technology in concert with the data-processing and decision-making ability of the human brain ” (Oehlert 222). Mace, too, is a cyborg-like character that is in control of certain operations. As we have seen, the main artificial implant that Mace is due to get is a new eye. Since he has lost a genuine one, he is compared by Heartwood to Phineas Gage, the 19 th -century railway worker who was badly wounded in the head, lost his left eye — like Mace — and was never again able to “ make moral decisions ” (Ef E 243). With a missing genuine eye and a new glass eye, however, Mace also becomes, besides a cyborg, an Oedipus-like figure. To Donna J. Haraway, concepts of the cyborg are closely linked to the Oedipus complex: “ The cyborg incarnation is outside salvation history. Nor does it mark time on an oedipal calendar, attempting to heal the terrible cleavages of gender in an oral symbiotic utopia or post-oedipal apocalypse ” (150); and, “ The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity ” (150). In Mace ’ s case, however, the status as a cyborg does not absolve him from his Oedipus complex, even if he would like it to. His girlfriend Celia reminds him of his mother: “ Her [Celia ’ s] profile on the wall looked like the black constructionpaper cutout of the whore ’ s [his biological mother ’ s] profile. It had been among Riley ’ s meager things. A shadow-drawing, Riley had written on the back, made on his honeymoon in Hawaii ” (Ef E 378). Here, the photograph of Mace ’ s biological mother is equated with his girlfriend ’ s image. In keeping with Oedipus, Mace also had to lose his eye to see clearly. This happened when he was attacked by skinheads, which thus reformed his worldview (Ef E 165; 285). He echoes Jeremy Nordstrand ’ s situation of “ seeing ” after having turned blind. In contrast to Oedipus, however, seeing reality is not the way out of misery, but misery is a consequence of the acknowledgment of truth. Mace inverts Oedipus ’ s revelation. By seeing who he really is himself, he readily initiates devastation on a large scale, instead of ending it. The organ which is primarily responsible for assuming a perspective, for giving in to illusions, has been removed. As for Mrs. Or, the real world is too terrible for Mace to look at. Unlike Mrs. Or, Mace voluntarily becomes part of the underlying starkness of the world. He leads a double life for which he builds up an artificiality that he uses to present himself to the surface world, but which does not manage to eclipse his Oedipal feelings and his underlying brutality. This becomes apparent when he visits Duane ’ s mother with Chin and Heartwood. In her shabby apartment, Mace is reminded of his own biological mother and loses his temper (Ef E 356). This is one of the incidents in which his self-control fails: 200 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil “ Mace threw his head back and laughed. There was something stiff and mechanical about the movement, and the laugh sounded artificial. The more Gabriel thought about it, the more everything about him seemed artificial, the one exception having been his outburst in Karen ’ s ratty apartment. That had been authentic ” (Ef E 361). Mace ’ s status as Oedipus/ cyborg is one of the strongest elements in Equation for Evil that cause the novel to turn to the Gothic. As Hogle states, “ . . . the features of the Anglo-European-American Gothic have helped to prefigure and shape Freud ’ s notion of Oedipal conflict in the middle-class family. In some way the Gothic is usually about some ‘ son ’ both wanting to kill and striving to be the ‘ father ’ and thus feeling fearful and guilty about what he most desires . . . ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 5). After being adopted, Mace grew up in a middle-class family. Even if his biological father has already died due to the effects of Agent Orange, he still takes on his name when cashing welfare checks and somehow emulates him in his attacks on Asian children, since his father once attacked Asians in Vietnam and also in America. He, too, wants “ to kill ” but feels “ fearful and guilty about what he most desires ” , and thus attempts to hide his criminal intents. In addition, he is a prime example of a Gothic case in which “ the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children ” (MacAndrew 85). He cannot escape his biological father ’ s legacy, as Heartwood eventually reveals. Even if artificial elements partly substitute for his body parts, his status as a cyborg does not let him transcend his body, as mentioned by Haraway. In contrast, he remains a Freudian cyborg: This fear of bodily violation, Freud argues, displaces another, more primal, yet equally physical dread: the fear of castration. The castration complex, he suggests, is symptomatic - indeed a foundation - of our fear of injury, death, and the dead body that constitutes our experience of the uncanny. In one sense, then, it is a repressed body - the eye, the penis, physical power in general - that returns in our daily experience to be defined as the uncanny. (Bruhm, Gothic Bodies xv, italics in original) Corresponding to the idea of “ Blindness being a common oedipal metaphor for castration ” (Hendershot 158), Mace is a prime example of a “ repressed body ” . Even more than Heartwood, he attempts to falsify the unattractiveness of his body by implementing artificial elements, but he fails miserably. His actual “ gross corporeality ” (Hurley 3) stands in closer relation to what he really is, a mass murderer, than his tamed appearance. Compared to Heartwood, he is somewhat less artificial and somewhat more actual. His artificial parts serve to present him as a respectable and attractive person, but they fail in covering up the starkness that lies at his core. The third character who is relevant to the artificiality/ actuality opposition is Duane Boggs. Unlike Heartwood, who is able to maintain his artificiality most 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 201 of the time, and Mace, who can do so some of the time, Duane is apparently an entirely non-artificial person. Besides the prelude, there are two interludes primarily concerned with him, subtitled “ Inside Duane Leonard Boggs ” . Each of them consists of two parts. First, there is an autopsy report including a physical description, which is almost a definition reminiscent of an ID card and “ identifies ” him in a conventional way (Ef E 290 - 91; 432). On the other hand, there are excerpts of Heartwood ’ s interview with Duane ’ s sister, Sara Jane Pittman (Ef E 291 - 93; 432 - 35), who appears to be searching for a spiritual explanation and description of her brother, and at whose home he lived for a while. He was, however, not able to adapt to a “ civilised ” life there. More than others, he is dependent on what he is at his core. Mace describes Duane as “ Feral ” (Ef E 156). 2 Already as a child, Duane was traumatised by gross corporeality. His stepfather compelled him to have oral sex with him (Ef E 128). Later on, he and his half-brother Jacob Tipton earned money as homosexual prostitutes because “ It ’ s easy money ” , according to Tipton (Ef E 233). In contrast to Mace, Duane was never able to “ repress ” the body. On Chin ’ s and Heartwood ’ s investigation of the school bus massacre, the bodily organ with the most prominent role in the novel, the eye, is again treated, this time with reference to Duane. When Chin looks at a photo of Duane, “ It gave him the same chill he ’ d felt earlier. That frosty breath from a morgue freezer. Boggs ’ s eyes were unnaturally pale and bright, but it was the brightness of a doll ’ s eyes or the eyes in a hunter ’ s trophy . . . Boggs was another mutant, a carrier of the alien evil ” (Ef E 88). The waitress who met him shortly before the crime echoes this notion, saying, “ His eyes? I never seen [sic] eyes that color before. Didn ’ t look real. Like they ’ d been bleached or something? ” (Ef E 112). To Joyce, Duane had “ soulless eyes, green and cold as fish scales ” (Ef E 160). Heartwood also sticks to the theme: “ What went on behind those pale green eyes? How did those prisms distort what they saw, bending and twisting the light of the world into a scheme to slaughter innocents? ” (Ef E 115). Duane ’ s eyes look artificial, but they are not, in contrast to the glass eye which Mace is to receive. The real is confused with the artificial, and vice versa, as it is the case with the dead bodies and the mannikins in DelCorso ’ s Gallery. The world is not what it “ looks ” like. It is not the artificial that is bad and uncanny, but the actual. The mistake is made again by Heartwood and Chin, as they are reminded by Duane of “ an alien being ” (Ef E 127), not of someone human. Duane is in fact one of the most overtly human figures of all, and Heartwood ’ s hope that he will find a scientific explanation for evil is destroyed by Duane, 2 This description corresponds with Mace ’ s assessment of Pickering, about whom he thinks, “ Another feral human ” (Ef E 208). 202 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil about whose brain he finds nothing anatomically unusual (Ef E 432). There is indeed nothing all too extraordinary about him. Only when we meet Duane at the very beginning of the novel do we find out about remaining elements of artificiality within him. He practices a type of “ art ” , drawing cartoons: “ Drawing always relaxed him, made him feel more in control of things ” (Ef E 4). Having once had ambitions to become a professional cartoonist (Ef E 4), he has had the potential to build up an aspect of social identity. The only thing remaining is that his drawing gives him a sense of control. Artificial elements can be better controlled than non-artificial ones, also by Duane. The presentation of the privileged state of the artificial over the horror of the non-artificial continues up to the final stages of the novel. After Mace has shot Heartwood, he at first escapes but is then chased, wounded and eventually arrested by Chin on the premises of Funland Reclamation, an amusement park scrapyard where Jacob Tipton works (Ef E 451). In this final “ mock-Gothic ” scene, Chin is at first alarmed “ when a shape suddenly loomed in front of him ” (Ef E 485). Then he notices that they are surrounded by a specific type of artificial figures: disused spook house dummies, vampires, werewolves, witches, bogeymen and monsters (Ef E 485). Their task was once to frighten people for pleasure, but their artificial scariness is harmless and trivial, even if they look ghastly. Unlike them, actual people are truly scary, and the horrific creature that tries to escape arrest in this scene is Mace, who has finally shed his artificial cover. Artificiality holds such a prominent position in Equation for Evil that even though the plot is centred on a mass-murder, depictions of atrocities are relatively few, compared to the earlier novels, and are mainly restricted to the massacre scene — which is intense and gruesome, but relatively short, in terms of the full length of the novel — and the assault on Mace (Ef E 275) and his missing eye. This relation indicates how artificial elements have come to assume a dominant role. Scientific analysis and the search for the motive and the perpetrators take up the bulk of the plot line, but it never manages to eclipse views into abominable situations and beings altogether. As Heartwood eventually admits, undertakings such as his investigation merely obfuscate the real brutality that lies in such crimes (Ef E 475). This is the final submission to the Gothic. There are cases for which science and reason fail to have an explanation. What goes on in the human mind, and what human beings are capable of is eventually rationally incomprehensible. Equally, artificial improvements do not manage to eradicate the monstrosity that lies at the core. Such a construct can be imposed on an atrocity in order to explain/ justify it, but what it mainly does is hide reality, just as human beings constantly attempt to hide their own abominable state of being. Instead, those people 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 203 deprived of their artificial elements are revealed as abominations. The essence of human existence is expressed in Joyce ’ s recognition that “ I hurt, therefore I am ” (Ef E 36) which is phrased in the same wording in Bruhm (Gothic Bodies 119). In this way, stark corporeality comes to dominate social identities, such as race, for the second time. Whereas the characters and the reader were immediately hurled into the uncompromising horror of its omnipotence at an early stage, in the school bus massacre, it resurfaces with the slow but consistent dismantling of elements of artificiality. In these two ways, the body as such gains unconditioned importance over a (perhaps partly) social construct such as race. The figure of the double as the eventual destroyer of social identity makes its appearances in ways typical of Caputo ’ s work of fiction, and its final appearance finalises the dissolution of the artificial and the emergence of the non-artificial. As in the three preceding novels, there are numerous occurrences of doubles, who continually question the characters ’ views of identity. The culmination is reached with the appearance of a final vision of the double that obliterates any remaining views on identity. We have already seen that the novel ’ s Gothic elements are realised in modernised form: modern cities are in a process of constant decay, and the Gothic lurks everywhere underneath. This situation also applies to doubles, which in classical literature have also been transferred into cities: “ The destabilized identities and predatory doubles of modern Gothic fiction were seen to be symptomatic of the city itself, precisely because that city was out of control ” (Dryden 43). Equation for Evil features several cities “ out of control ” , and the doubles haunt their inhabitants, whose identities turn similarly unstable. Occurrences of doubling are frequent in Equation for Evil and are particularly elaborated on in Heartwood ’ s psychological analysis of Mace Weathers. However, doubling manifests itself in a number of ways. There are instances of subject doubling with characters literally splitting in two, of doubling by division, where two characters complement each other, and of doubling by multiplication. In addition, classical icons of doubling, such as mirror images and shadows, hold prominent positions in the novel. The character who experiences subject doubling most overtly is Joyce DeLuca. Badly wounded after Duane ’ s assault on the school bus, she has her first experience “ . . . as she lay bleeding in the culvert, thinking she was dying, her own life forces created that intensity of consciousness, that beatific instant when she felt that she had become almost pure consciousness, released from the material world and her corporeal self ” (Ef E 158). This incident is reminiscent of the double ’ s original meaning of the good soul that leaves the deceased body. She sees herself in the instant when she almost dies. This effect is repeated when she recovers from her trauma in a hospital bed. Sedated by painkillers, she 204 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil feels as if she has left her body and is floating at the top of her hospital room: “ The drug did not numb the pain; it divorced her from it by separating her from her body ” (Ef E 51). She is divided into a metaphysical and a bodily half; but even if her consciousness manages, at this stage, to be separated from her body, it eventually has to return to the part that hurts: the body, which functions here as her true identity, the double to her once so pleasant life. Eventually, she is unable to separate herself from her body in pain. At a later stage, after an argument with her husband Alex, who is annoyed at the fatalistic world view that Joyce acquired after the school bus massacre, the image of an unstable self again occurs to Joyce: “ As the door shut behind him, she had a sudden feeling that her head was going to separate itself from her neck, that her arms were about to fall off, that she was already a shattered mirror still in its frame and the frame about to break ” (351 - 52). Joyce compares herself to a mirror, one of the most traditional symbols of doubling. In this fictional mirror, she sees who she really is, and that person is a mere combination of body parts, which can decay just as her double can in the imagined mirror image. Concerning doubles as types of reflections, several classical representatives are used in the novel. Corresponding with Robert Rogers ’ s statement that “ Of special interest is the widespread belief that shadows, reflections, and portraits of the body are the same as souls, or are at least vitally linked with the well-being of the body ” (7), the novel prominently features shadows, mirror reflections as well as portraits, i. e. photographs, of some characters. The mirror plays a particularly significant role in Equation for Evil and will be discussed in greater detail below. The shadow occurs in one of Mace ’ s and Celia ’ s sex games. Celia plays an Asian prostitute and is doubled with Mace ’ s biological mother, who gave him up for adoption: “ Her profile on the wall looked like the black construction-paper cutout of the whore ’ s profile. It had been among Riley ’ s meager things. A shadow-drawing, Riley had written on the back, made on his honeymoon in Hawaii. Riley had gone there on R & R and she met him and they got married ” (Ef E 378). The references to the Oedipus complex have been discussed above, but in a novel that is so strongly focused on psychoanalysis, it comes as no surprise that references to Freud have prominent positions. Incidentally, the Freudian concept of the “ ego ” and the “ id ” is prominently realised within Mace and Duane. We learn about Mace ’ s former activities as a Mormon missionary and that He could deceive people easily because, until that moment of white pain in a Bakersfield gas station [where he was attacked by racists], he ’ d deceived himself about who and what he truly was. He ’ d behaved as a creature of his image: the image others had of him, the image he had of himself, which were one and the same. Yet he ’ d been aware that another personality dwelled within him, a secret Mace, a darker, more interesting Mace, whom he ’ d wanted to get to know better but had been afraid to. (Ef E 210) 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 205 The assault on him made him “ become completely himself ” (Ef E 165). It had the effect that “ He ’ d made friends with his other half, the familiar he ’ d always sensed at his side but had been too timid to embrace ” (Ef E 165), the id. A further classical representation of doubling clinches this view. Mace has a habit of keeping a photographic record of himself (Ef E 300 - 01). This realisation of subject doubling is also present in Duane. At one point, Heartwood has the theory that Duane became two people when in prison: “ Boy victim = adult victimizer. Duane as Duane = Duane as Ortiz [his stepfather who abused him] ” (Ef E 130). Even so, Mace and Duane readily turn into doubles of each other, rather than representing subject doubling. Mace primarily takes on the role of the ego, Duane the one of the id. Mace remains as orderly as ever on the surface. He plans atrocities but does not commit them. Instead, depraved human beings such as Duane and, later on, Pickering act as his executioners. Heartwood describes Mace and Duane as having “ A master-slave relationship, and the master must by definition despise his slave. A relationship with some sadomasochistic, homoerotic undertones . . . ” (Ef E 468). Duane represents the part that Mace hates about himself: “ Had it not been for a particular turn of circumstances, our protagonist could very well have turned out like Duane — child of an atomized family, a rootless, drug-addicted, white-trash loser ” (Ef E 468), but, by giving him up for adoption, “ . . . his mother did him a favor ” (Ef E 471). Duane appears to Mace as the person who he would have been without his privileged upbringing. Duane is the actual Mace, the Mace devoid of artificial attributes. In this sense, he is the second self, and as such shows a further typical element of the uncanny double: he is the “ darker ” realisation of the first self. Indeed, when the reader meets him at the very beginning of the novel, we can see that Duane is more taken to night time: “ Often, before going to sleep, he would walk the streets till well past midnight or drink himself into a stupor just to make sure he didn ’ t see even a minute of the hour when the sun extended its bright arms over the world and held out its phony promise of a fresh beginning “ (Ef E 1). This makes him almost a vampire-like figure, again a classical representation of the double. The relation between Mace and Duane has a significant parallel in the novel ’ s Vietnam subplot. It is based on Heartwood ’ s memory of the five marines with exceptional records who murdered eight Vietnamese in a peaceful village. They are the most mysterious and uncanny characters in the book — even more so than Mace and Duane whose crime can eventually be explained — and they also represent subject doubling as well as object doubling. The marines dominate the plot on a subliminal level, as their behaviour influences Heartwood ’ s actions, initiating his desire to find an equation for evil. They had been unfailing civilians. In court they did not make statements or try to explain themselves but remained quiet (Ef E 307). Unlike Duane ’ s/ Mace ’ s massacre, 206 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil the killings could not have been planned as they entered the village on short notice (Ef E 308). What makes them uncanny is the fact that they seem to be exemplary human beings and that Heartwood has never been able to find a motive, even though he talked to all the perpetrators. When asked why he killed those people, Darryl Adams, the one who told Heartwood the most, answered, “ If you have to ask that, sir, then you ’ ll never understand the answer ” (Ef E 314), which is reminiscent both of the Gothic ’ s unspeakability and the inability of enlightened science to make things understandable. Mace believes that with Darryl Adams, “ Good and evil had become united in him . . . Straight out of the Tao. Not that there ’ s no difference between good and evil but that they can ’ t be separated ” (Ef E 314). Priming soldiers to be disciplined and orderly, on the one hand, and cold-blooded and merciless, on the other, stands in direct relation to what Mace does with his “ instruments ” Duane and Pickering. Disciplined soldiers, as presented here, unite within them the two opposing sides of the most uncanny double that is conceivable. Referring to Freud, Heartwood, the psychiatrist, mentions “ The great craving amoral id ” (Ef E 308), when talking about the incident. Each of the marines in Vietnam appears to be two persons. They have behaved formidably as civilians and as marines, but their imposed orderliness eventually cannot prevent atrocious outbursts in the face of the horrors of war. Just as the traditional double enters the first self ’ s life out of the blue, so too did the marines react in the war. No one has an explanation for who they became at that moment or for what they did. The marines ’ transformations into their doubles happen at a point where no outward break is discernible. General Taylor, the division commander, mentioned to Heartwood, “ . . . each one of those boys, each damn one of them was an outstanding individual. He was one of us ” (Ef E 309, italics in original), referring to the Marine Corps. To the general, they acted as true doubles would. They destroyed his identity and eventually destroyed him. Heartwood remembers, “ He ’ d called on me to help him hold on, to help him maintain his faith in the validity of shiny buttons, shiny boots, and medals as manifestations of virtue ” (Ef E 310). It was of no use; the general committed suicide (Ef E 309), which corresponds with death being the usual consequence of a confrontation with one ’ s double. Representatives whom he regarded as “ same ” have turned “ other ” , meaning that he himself was “ other ” . Disciplining soldiers is presented as a metaphor of the double in that it is a generally accepted but unsolvable paradox. People have to become the most orderly human beings in order to perform the most gruesome acts. Reminiscent of the drilling of soldiers, Mace ’ s motto is, “ Break them down, raise them up . . . ” (Ef E 404), which he applies to his “ grooming ” (Ef E 423) Pickering and, in all likelihood, Duane as well. In the motel room, when Duane is preparing himself for his assault, he contemplates his toy soldiers: “ He was a soldier now, a sacrificial warrior with a purpose, a 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 207 direction, a mission ” (Ef E 2), and seeing Duane on a photograph after his suicide at the massacre scene, Chin thinks he is “ lying like a fallen soldier ” (Ef E 142). Corresponding to the Vietnam subplot, Mace is the disciplinced part, Duane and Pickering the undisciplined ones. With reference to the actual toy soldiers in Duane ’ s motel room, soldiers are used as toys by the civilian world, and, in this way, represent doubles to civilians. Besides the instances of doubling between Mace/ civilians and Duane/ soldiers, the soldiers themselves are presented, on the one hand, as doubles united and, on the other hand, as cyborgs. Duane ’ s toys are of course artificial, and there is the pleasant, artificial element, the “ purpose ” , the “ direction ” , the “ mission ” ; and there is their counterpart: Duane himself, a self-proclaimed “ soldier ” (Ef E 2) without the artificial benefit of restraint, a dark figure with apparently no noble motives, preparing to commit mass-murder, and unable to be stopped by any artificial concepts. Chin says that “ Boggs was a kind of human weapon, operated by remote control ” (Ef E 259). As the “ weapon ” has turned out to be a non-artificial human, it has become natural, whereas the operator of the weapon, Mace, is a partly artificial person, acting as a decent human being. The roles are reversed. Usually, non-artificial beings kill using artificial weapons, reflecting a cyborg situation. Here, an artificial being, Mace, kills using a non-artificial weapon, Duane. Even though Mace and Duane fulfil their respective roles of the first and the second self fairly obviously, the situation is more complex. We have already seen that both the ego and the id are prominent within each character. Consequently, the roles can be reversed and Mace regarded as the second self to Duane. Usually, first selves are powerless when encountered by their double, but Mace is actively on the lookout for his doubles — substituting Pickering for Duane after the latter ’ s death — who are then supposed to commit a crime and kill themselves. He is also the second self, however, as Duane was relatively harmless before meeting him. Incidentally, it was Mace who inadvertently stepped into Duane ’ s life to turn him into a mass murderer. Duane is also the first character to appear in the novel; Mace enters the plot at a later stage, which suggests that it is rather Duane who is the first self and Mace the second. Furthermore, the collaboration with Mace causes Duane ’ s death. In this way, each complements the other. Neither Mace nor Duane would apparently have been able to perform the massacre on their own. Mace plans the atrocity but would not have carried it out. Duane executed the killings but would not have come up with the idea in the first place. Here, the double does not represent the evil side of an otherwise good character; it represents another evil of an already evil character. Such a view is apparent in Mace when he goes to see Pickering at night. There, he thinks, “ No one knows I ’ m here, no one will ever know, I move through this wasteland, leaving no tracks, I move through here as do all the 208 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil faceless inhabitants of this marginal world, anonymously. Yet I am not of it. Only a night traveler, a brief sojourner ” (Ef E 387). Even though he has selected Pickering as Duane ’ s successor, he is himself as Duane was presented in the prelude: a dark creature of the night. While the relationship between Mace and Duane is the most obvious occurrence of doubling in the novel, it is not the most compelling. These two characters have already been confronted by their state of gross corporeality. The most significant and, again, final instance of doubling affects the one person who has until the late stages of the novel been able to uphold the artificial attributes that hide his true abominable state: Heartwood. He is at first doubled in a fairly innocuous way with his counterpart Chin. They represent the classic doubling-by-division situation. Even to Mace they make such an impression: “ . . . each became the incarnation of the two emotions pulling him in opposite directions. Heartwood, with his protuberant nose, his kinky hair thick on the sides but almost gone on top, looked comical, like a clown without his greasepaint, while Chin ’ s squashed boxer ’ s nose and penetrating eyes were terrifying ” (Ef E 437). This is not a case of an identity-devastating confrontation with an evil second self. Whereas Chin unites opposing sides within himself more evidently — we can conceive these in a scene when “ Gabriel turned slightly, his head moving part way out of the table lamp ’ s light so that his face became divided like a half-moon. Its illuminated side had a brutal look ” (Ef E 340) — Heartwood at first remains oblivious of such a state concerning himself. However, he is not spared this ultimate revelation about his identity. The final confrontation is delayed up to the end, but the development that leads to the dismantling of Heartwood ’ s identity starts at an early stage of the investigation. A focal point of doubling is Duane ’ s motel room, that Gothic enclave in the modernised surroundings. When Heartwood enters it, he steps into a kind of reflected, darker world: “ The curtains were drawn and Heartwood ’ s eyes took several seconds to adjust; then the details began to reveal themselves one by one, like objects in a developing negative. The juxtaposition of the bizarre with the banal, the deadly with the commonplace was disorienting ” (Ef E 110). The inside of the room is like a photographic negative, showing the same as the proper photo, but inverted. Likewise, the objects that Heartwood finds there complement each other in an uncanny way: photo calendar and camouflage tarp, empty box of shotgun shells and deodorant, bullets and an alarm clock, toy soldiers and beer bottles (Ef E 110). The one object that induces the revelation of Heartwood ’ s identity is one of the most typical icons of doubling: a mirror. As Robert Rogers states, “ A special genre of the manifest double is the mirror image, the projected self being not merely a similar self but an exact duplicate ” (19). Indeed, the motel-room mirror already plays a prominent role when Duane is preparing for the massacre: “ The mirror threw 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 209 back an image of a young man whose knobby shoulders, prominent collarbone, and nearly meatless ribs showed through his tight-fitting army T-shirt. Boggs set the gun down momentarily and pulled a flak jacket out from under the bed. He put it on and looked in the mirror again. Okay, he looked okay now, bigger and bulkier ” (Ef E 4 - 5). When the investigation is underway, Heartwood is startled by his own reflection in what is apparently the same mirror (Ef E 110). He may have half-expected it to be Duane ’ s ghost. Already at this early stage, the image of Heartwood ’ s double has the typical effect of frightening the first self. He confuses the image of himself with that of a mass-murderer. By leaving the Gothic atmosphere of the motel room — and, with it, the mirror — behind, Heartwood manages to flee from the reflection that shows him in the same frame in which Duane once modelled himself to become a mass murderer. The picture, however, cannot be shed and it is presented to him again at the end of the investigation, when, of all people, he is doubled in Mace. Early indications that Mace could be Heartwood ’ s double are represented in the facts that both of them have left their churches and studied psychology. The final revelation occurs at the end of the novel, however, as Heartwood ’ s mirror image becomes visible again when he and Chin set a trap for Mace and catch him at Jacob Tipton ’ s house. Attempting to find out what Tipton knew from Duane about Mace ’ s involvement in the massacre, Mace hopes to be able to question Tipton and prevent himself from being arrested. Disguised as a reporter, wearing reflective sunglasses to hide his missing eye, he is caught there by the two investigators, and realises that he has been found out. Here, the final stage is reached: “ Whatever emotions he [Mace] was feeling at the moment were masked by the glasses, in which Heartwood could see his own face reflected ” (Ef E 463). In this confrontation, Heartwood, the man who said “ . . . most people ’ s self-portraits are flattering fakes ” (Ef E 106), stands opposed to Mace and again sees his own mirror image, as he saw it in Duane ’ s motel room before, this time reflected in another epitome of evil: Mace, who, in his disguise, is just as smartly dressed as Heartwood usually is (Ef E 463). Heartwood sees his own face reflected on a murderer ’ s who can outwardly present himself in just as smart a way as he himself. When he confronts Mace with his psychological analysis of Mace ’ s motive in the school bus massacre, based on his original familial relations, his biological father ’ s past as a crazy Vietnam veteran who killed Vietnamese refugees and his biological mother ’ s leaving her husband when he was in prison and giving Mace up for adoption, he mentions, “ . . . if it were me feeling this old, old rage anew, I ’ d look into the mirror and see in my disfigured face the incarnation of the monster I secretly believe myself to be. Here, I would say, is my true self at last, and because I ’ ve grown up in a society that considers self-expression to be the highest human endeavor, I would allow this Other Self to express itself ” (Ef E 471). In these words, he 210 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil focuses on subject doubling within Mace, but in actuality, Heartwood has reached a state of object doubling involving himself and Mace. Having confused himself with Duane in the motel room mirror and now seeing himself in Mace ’ s sunglasses, Heartwood experiences comparable visions. At these points, there are no features in Duane or Mace that would mark them as “ other ” . Instead, they have become “ same ” , even to the one character who has almost always managed to present himself as the “ good ” , civilised person, with the aid of his artificial accessories. His face is eventually reflected on an equally smartly dressed person, but it is not he himself; it is Mace, confronting him with the revelation that such accessories form only a thin camouflage which conceals what lies beneath: monstrosity. The occurrence of such a classical situation of doubling takes its inevitable consequence. Heartwood is shot and fatally wounded by his double, Mace. Even he himself is, in the end, only a representative of stark human corporeality, which is hidden underneath all fancy clothing, and provides any person with the most horrific capabilities. The final double reveals to the first self their common state as abominations, in view of which social identity loses its significance altogether. As Jean Sheldon, a colleague of Chin ’ s, once put it: “ . . . if people could see the way they ’ ll look when they die, maybe they ’ d live their lives differently ” (Ef E 176). Artificial elements are nothing more than a travesty hiding what death will eventually bring to light: human beings are abominable creatures. The true view of Heartwood ’ s identity has finally caught up even with him. The second self has done its reputation justice, revealed its shocking existence to the first self and then killed him, the harmless scientist, who, unlike Chin, does not show his uncanny side, constantly trying to hide it by fixing himself up with artificial elements. Like Horn of Africa, which deals with the other aspect of social identity closely related to the body, gender identity, racial identity is equally dissolved in Equation for Evil as gross corporeality takes on the dominant role. Unlike Horn of Africa, this development is realised in two ways. There is the massacre early on in the novel, which makes the victims ’ races disappear underneath their “ Thing ” -ness; and there is the slow but inevitable loss of the protagonists ’ artificial elements, culminating in the “ good ” , mainly artificial person ’ s gruesome death. In both novels, and also in DelCorso ’ s Gallery and Indian Country, however, there is a final, unexpected occurrence of doubling which finalises the dissolution of any sense of gender, occupational/ class, ethnic or racial identity. The two subsequent works of fiction, Exiles and The Voyage, differ from these four in the way in which identity development is realised. In both works, manifest doubles are present early on. Whereas The Voyage treats the final one of the five main aspects of social identity, familial identity, it already represents a change in style, the Gothic mode shifting into the 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 211 background. In the two subsequent — and Caputo ’ s most recent — works of fiction, Acts of Faith and Crossers, it will have been abandoned altogether. Therefore, The Voyage marks a turning point in Caputo ’ s body of work. Exiles, a trilogy of three short novels and published shortly before The Voyage, can be considered the culmination of Caputo ’ s treatment of identity and the Gothic. Consequently, even though I have generally treated the works in chronological order, I will deal with familial identity and The Voyage in the next chapter, since — even though it is the last of Caputo ’ s (partly) Gothic works — it represents an anti-climax after Exiles, which comes over as a genuinely Gothic work and which I have therefore chosen as the basis to my concluding analysis. 212 6. Racial Identity and the Emergence of Cyborgs: Equation for Evil 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage The Voyage (TV) marks the most significant point of change in Philip Caputo ’ s works of fiction so far. It is the last book to treat Gothic identities as a major theme, but the fact that it was published after Exiles, which is his definitive work on the subject, makes it appear to be somewhat anti-climactic. Indeed, compared to all the other 1980 s/ 1990 s works of fiction, The Voyage seems to make the least use of Gothic devices. Overtly, it represents Caputo ’ s farewell to the Gothic mode. Focusing on familial identity, however, it takes the reader right back to the beginnings of the genre, which is closely connected to the family concept: “ . . . the features of the Anglo-European-American Gothic have helped to prefigure and shape Freud ’ s notion of Oedipal conflict in the middleclass family. In some way the Gothic is usually about some ‘ son ’ both wanting to kill and striving to be the ‘ father ’ and thus feeling fearful and guilty about what he most desires . . . ” (Hogle, “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 5). It treats the remaining one of Peter Weinreich ’ s social identity aspects, which is arguably the least controversial one in that it is less prone to conflict-laden academic discourse when compared to gender, occupational/ class, ethnic and racial identity; but, as the Myles Braithwaite character in The Voyage argues, “ . . . poking around in family history can be a Gothic enterprise sometimes ” (TV 28). Correspondingly, C. F. Keppler suggests that the original literary representation of the double is that of a family member, namely the twin (Keppler 18). E. T. A. Hoffmann, arguably the inventor of the literary Gothic double, made use of complex familial lineages to explain the existence of his doubles on more than one occasion. The Voyage features the most obvious, the most “ manifest ” doubles in Caputo ’ s works — besides some that appear in Exiles. Succeeding that anthology of short novels, The Voyage is the work that closes the cycle which started with Horn of Africa. Familial identity in its conception and meaning has been less subject to controversy than other aspects of social identity. According to Vittorio Cigoli and Eugenia Scabini, “ . . . for several centuries the family successfully combined the two distinct concepts of ‘ living under the same roof ’ and ‘ living under the same head of household. ’” (7). Considering the changes that have affected the common view of the family, they add that . . . from the household — the paternally led domestic and social unit, variously composed of relatives and servants in which the modern idea of privacy was totally unknown — we see a gradual and wholly nonlinear shift to the house — a domestic and economic unit consisting of a father, a mother (with an unequal role and position), their children, and the father ’ s family of origin. In time, the father ’ s family of origin would gradually be excluded from the picture, to the obvious benefit of the married couple and its special relationship with its children. The modern family was born, and with it the childcentered home whose borders are determined by affective inclusion and exclusion. (13, italics in original) While the perceived confines of a family unit have gradually narrowed, the focus has remained virtually the same. A family is a group of people united by their close genetic relation over several generations. Familial identity therefore refers to a sense of identity with such a group. Even though easily defined, the meaning of family has wider implications. According to Cigoli and Scabini, Genders, generations, and lineage; faith, hope, and justice; gifts, duties, and debts; affection, responsibility, and generativity; values, secrets, and objectives; transmissions and transitions: These are the main family themes. This refers to what the family relationship builds in terms of organization structure, motives, and objectives. It assumes different forms and attire according to culture and the passage of time, but there are seeds that pass constantly through the millstone of family relationships and make up its identity. (xiii) Even though some concepts are flexible and liable to change, the essence of what the family stands for is relatively stable. Commenting on the principal aspects of what familial identity consists of, Cigoli and Scabini state that “ The characteristics of the family prototype can be inferred from the three relational principles discernible in family relationships: organizational (gender, generation, family history), symbolic (trust, hope, justice), and dynamic (giving, receiving, reciprocating) ” (48). The very nature of these principles indicates that they constitute an aspect of social identity in which the members of one group share more intimate relationships with each other than in any other social identity group. As the relative stability of the family concept seemingly entails an equally stable sense of familial identity, it could be assumed that the danger of a breakdown in familial identity is minimal. As literature shows, however, the opposite is the case. There is a particularly early form of European literary tradition which presents the family as a source of conflict: “ In Greek tragedy it is as if the family relationships that unravel across generations harbor a sort of ‘ tragic soul, ’ an irreducible core of violence, hate, abuse, deceit, and mortal envy that can develop and spread at any moment, contaminating family relationships and leading family members ineluctably toward violent death, ignominy, and horror ” (Cigoli and Scabini 3 - 4). Greek tragedies, but also more recent examples, show how conflict readily results from a sense of familial identity. It was Ambrose Bierce who applied not only military conflict but also the figure of the double to the concept. David M. Owens states how in some of Bierce ’ s war tales, “ . . . son kills father, brother kills brother, and husband kills wife. In all of 214 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage those, the parties involved are on opposite sides of the conflict ” (42). Incidentally, the American Civil War and its aftermath play a significant role in The Voyage, which treats the effects that this war has had on families. Indeed, familial identity appears to have been a major concern to the combatants, as Aaron Sheehan-Dean argues in his case study (Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia) on Virginian soldiers in the Civil War. The strength of the idea of family in The Voyage is represented in its centring on the Braithwaite family history and their representatives in various generations as well as in the way in which other aspects of social identity are subjected to it. Gender identity is the starkest example. It plays a role primarily in Elizabeth ’ s fear that Cyrus would leave her if she bore him no children, but her role as a woman is focused on that of her position within a family. It is apparently the major reason why she starts an affair with her husband ’ s eldest, illegitimate son, assuming that Cyrus is infertile. Occupational/ class identity is somewhat important in its relation to the characters ’ understanding of family, but again is closely related to the family concept. The Braithwaite brothers ’ friend Will Terhune is a member of a privileged circle and well aware of it. Cyrus has similarly been born into the same social sphere but, as Sybil, who conducts the research into her family ’ s history, presumes, was expelled from it for his affair with a Roman Catholic woman and his decision to keep Lockwood after the mother ’ s death. Consequently, Cyrus had to rebuild his class status himself, and has succeeded, within a newly constructed family. Connected to class, occupation plays a vital role in the family concept. This becomes most apparent in Cyrus ’ s view on professional hierarchies. He is against unions: “ The rights of labor would be safeguarded by men like him . . .; by good Christian men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom had entrusted control of the nation ’ s capital, and not by socialists and agitators ” (TV 96). The way he deals with his workers has strong implications on what he expects from his sons, as they, too, are expected to work under Cyrus in order to earn their status. The brothers relate the theme to their familial situation. As members of the family, they cannot go on strike: “ So we ’ re worse off than those quarry hands ” (TV 48). Cyrus views his relationship towards his workers as similar to the one towards his presumed sons. For the brothers, working in the quarries is primarily a stage through which they must go in order to become worthy members of the family. Being the presumably oldest legitimate son, Nathaniel ’ s professional career is specified from the beginning on. He is supposed to gain experience in hard work in Cyrus ’ s Black Island quarries, should then go to an elite university and finally do an apprenticeship at his father ’ s business, which he will eventually inherit (TV 47). All these steps are subordinated to his status of a family member. Nathaniel is quite taken by such a view of himself: 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 215 The Braithwaites belonged in North Haven ’ s social circle (closer to the rim than to the center; they were barons, as opposed to dukes and princes, of America ’ s mercantile aristocracy), but Nathaniel liked to think of himself as an outsider — rougher and tougher, in spirit more one with the people of Vinalhaven, he who had breathed quarry dust and grown calluses last year. (TV 83) In addition to hard physical labour, a Braithwaite ’ s skills as a sailor are equally relevant to their place within the family. We learn from Myles that Nathaniel and his brothers Eliot and Drew “ were Braithwaites to the marrow. Learned how to hand, reef, and steer before they ’ d learned to tie their shoes ” (TV 27). Correspondingly, they have difficulty in winning Cyrus ’ s respect if they do not live up to his expectations concerning their professional skills. Drew has the greatest problems gaining his approval. Since he is not too talented a sailor, Cyrus finds it harder to value him as a son. This view of occupational/ class identity connected with family identity also supersedes ethnic identity in its relevance. The fact that the workers in the quarry have several different native languages is compared to the “ foundation of the Tower of Babel ” (TV 48); but “ Whatever their native language, all spoke the common vernacular of the quarryman — the wheeze that come from breathing silicate dust ten hours a day, six days a week, year upon year ” (TV 48). Ethnic identity is subordinated to occupational/ class identity which is in itself viewed from the perspective of familial identity. Supposedly ethnic/ national characteristics are used frequently to describe a character ’ s behaviour, but ethnic identity is not treated as an axiom according to which beliefs are constructed and action is taken. As in the preceding novels, it is rather an explanation of how people behave, and not an imperative from which a certain way of behaviour is deducted. Ethnicities are defined by their people, not the other way round. With regard to the Braithwaites, we learn that there is “ reserve ingrained in their Yankee natures ” (TV 37). Cyrus in particular is said to have held on to “ his Yankee enterprise ” (TV 403) despite his being expelled from his family and the many years spent in the South. He also features “ his Yankee taciturnity ” (TV 125), revealing little about what happened when referring to the elusive incident involving the Annisquam, the ship that he once failed to salvage. Furthermore, “ . . . he possessed a sense of justice rove into the fibers of his puritan soul . . . ” (TV 75); and we know that Cyrus ’ s maternal grandfather, Alexander Wallace, came from the Outer Hebrides (TV 12). This part of him is said to have influence on his behaviour: “ It was as if the war had erased his upbringing and conjured up the ‘ mad wild ’ blood in him, the blood of those mutinous, pugnacious Scots from whom she herself [his mother] was descended and whose heritage she had struggled to eradicate by teaching her son good manners and poetry and to say his prayers morning and night ” (TV 394). Concerning Nathaniel, the situation is similar. He “ possessed in full 216 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage the Anglo-Saxon male ’ s love of activity and disdain for introspection ” , and says, “ I don ’ t think about why I do things ” (TV 126). Here, too, it is not the culture that tells Nathaniel to be a certain way. It is Nathaniel who co-defines culture. The one character to oppose such a fixed vision of himself is, as Sybil thinks, Will, about whom she conjectures, There used to be, and perhaps still is . . ., a type of patrician Anglo-Saxon who felt at odds with what he was. He fancied himself possessed of a dusky, sensual, and passionate soul imprisoned within pallid skin, of a heart Latinate and tropical, beating in opposition to the hymnal rhythms of the stern Protestant virtues. He was drawn to the sun, dark-skinned women, and exotic landscapes, where he imagined his true nature, liberated at last, would blossom in all its brilliant hues. Willard Terhune was of that romantic type. (TV 339 - 40) Will is not successful in his enterprise. His quest ends tragically in that he is murdered. He was unable to assert his own cultural view of himself. Ethnic identity as a concept in itself is weakened considerably by the fact that homogeneity among ethnic groups is almost constantly negated. The most readily discernible groups that are treated in the novel are US-Americans and Cubans, since the brothers ’ voyage climaxes in their arrival on the Caribbean island. These spheres are in themselves split up into several subgroups which in effect eradicate any relevance that the large groups may have. Again, it is made clear that the USA ’ s culture is predominately made up of several hardly congruent immigrant groups. Above all, the roles of the Southern states and of the Civil War indicate that “ America ” is not seen as an indicator of a set of common values with which one would identify ethnically. Nathaniel “ felt like an immigrant ’ s son returning to an ancestral homeland ” (TV 234) when the boys on their voyage arrive at the places in the South which Cyrus and Lockwood had described. Among “ Yankees ” , considerable differences are also accentuated. It was impossible for Cyrus to marry Lockwood ’ s mother, a Roman Catholic (TV 395), but there are insurmountable conflicts even among Protestant denominations. Cyrus ’ s father Theophilus “ made his wife renounce Presbyterianism before he would marry her, because Congregationalists thought Presbyterians were the next thing to the devil himself, and Roman Catholics were the devil himself ” (TV 395, italics in original). The relevance of the Civil War to the plot indicates starkly how the USA is not simply one country for whose ideals one can fight. The boys know that “ If their father and the father of their mother had met forty years ago, each would have done his level best to kill the other ” (TV 209). They are descendents of Northerners as well as Southerners. Thinking about their maternal grandfather, Pardon Lightbourne, “ It was hard, was in truth impossible, for them to reconcile their admiration for his courage with their repugnance, instilled by their father, 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 217 for the cause he had died for ” (TV 209). The Braithwaites are not true Yankees anymore. They are also part of a region which wanted its independence from the USA. After their defeat in the Civil War, the Southern states, as presented in The Voyage, do not appear to be part of the same cultural sphere as the North. The war did not manage to eradicate the differences. The Southerners in the novel are presented from Yankees ’ perspectives, and common characteristics are consequently based on their presuppositions: “ These Southerners, [Nathaniel] thought, were oversensitive to slight ” (TV 217). When he thinks about his mother, he remembers that “ She lived according to a code of gracious speech and impeccable manners that (Nathaniel ’ s father had told him) Southern women seemed to absorb into their very beings from the moment they drew breath . . . ” (TV 64). As Aunt Judith thinks, Cyrus was “ blind to shadings. Things were either one way or the other, and people, too ” (TV 212); she expects that he did not like her for seeing in her “ a Southern woman of a certain kind ” (TV 212). Comparable views are also present on the contemporary narrative level. Sibyl marks the differences between North and South within the family situation. She realises that Southern families “ are supposed to be dysfunctional by nature — asylums without walls, swamps of forbidden desires and passions populated by drunks, drug addicts, beautiful but self-destructive females who depend on the kindness of strangers, murderers, suicides, and idiot cousins . . . ” (TV 380); on the other hand, Yankee families “ are expected to be ruthlessly functional, composed of virtuous pragmatists immunized to the more destructive promptings of the libido and the id ” (TV 380). Sybil ’ s mother is a McDaniel from the South (TV 380), and she thinks, “ the real difference between the Braithwaites and the McDaniels is her father ’ s family ’ s greater talent for concealing their Gothic pathologies ” (TV 380). Supposed ethnic characteristics are treated within the wider frame of family. The Braithwaite family itself is at times directly compared to a country. The family tree is a “ Wheel Chart ” . The count starts with Joshua Caleb and Sarah Siddons Braithwaite, twelve generations before Sybil, who describes it as “ a solar system, ordered and impregnable ” (TV 380). She realises that “ With one glance, she can find her position within her family ’ s history, her coordinates, so to speak. Any other Braithwaite can do the same, and that gives them, in a time of deracination, an abiding sense of place ” (TV 380 - 81). Indeed, this structure of the Braithwaite family is directly related to that of a state. To the family members, their existence starts with the immigration of the first Braithwaites, Joshua Caleb and his wife Sarah (TV 37), to America. Their development has parallels to a country ’ s or whole culture ’ s: . . . Sybil had often thought the Braithwaites were more a tribe than a family, and more than a tribe, a consanguineous commonwealth of patriarchs and matriarchs, aunts, 218 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage uncles, first, second, and third cousins. They didn ’ t have an army, constitution, or formal borders, but they possessed most of the other attributes of a state. They had their own capital at Mingulay (to which Braithwaites still made yearly pilgrimages to renew blood ties and remind themselves of who they were), their own pantheon of heroes, and their own national epic presenting their best image of themselves: They were courageous, pers[ev]ering, sober, industrious; they made sacrifices on the altar of principle, above all they served — their country, their Protestant God, and the cause of improving humanity. (TV 22, italics in original) “ Serving ” their country in reality means serving their family. The anonymous narrator notices that on the meeting on the Fourth of July, 1974, the Braithwaites had “ that air of belonging to an America that belonged to them ” (TV 381). Their family is the predominant element. American culture does not define them, but they define it. This way, they also put into perspective a supposedly typical attribute of American culture: For the most part, the Braithwaites did not scatter themselves across the American wilderness, as if they feared that they would lose themselves in the raw vast vacancy of the continent, would forget who they were and from whom they had sprung if they lost sight of one another and the tombstones of Joshua and Sarah and of all the Seths and Hannahs and Enochs and Abigails who followed. (TV 381) A supposedly strong ethnic imperative such as the Frontier Myth is subjected to the idea of family. This well-ordered state is a fiction, however. Myles ’ s daughter Allyson hates the Braithwaites: “ She started off hating our family, ended up hating the whole country ” (TV 31); but as Sybil then finds out through her research, her family had hardly ever been unified and there had been numerous conflicts among members, some of them destructive. Racial identity is relevant for the Braithwaite family especially because the voyage takes place at a time when the Civil War is still remembered by several characters and because, without knowing, the boys themselves are descendents of slaves. As Sybil concludes on the contemporary narrative level, Cyrus ’ s wife Elizabeth is the result of Pardon Lightbourne ’ s relationship with his slave Julietta, who was then freed by the Unionists and left Elizabeth. Even so, Elizabeth looks “ white ” , as Julietta ’ s father was a mulatto, and her mother half Creek Indian, half black (TV 400 - 02). In this situation, race is also subjected to family, and Elizabeth ’ s race, in connection with her family lineage, made it impossible for her to be married to a Southerner: “ For all her beauty, for all the charms and manners and French phrases and domestic skills Aunt Judith had taught her, there wasn ’ t a white man in the country who would have considered marrying her, or a black man who would have dared to take to wife a woman who looked and was, for all practical purposes, white ” (TV 403). The black element is still present in future generations. Nathaniel is once mistaken for a 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 219 Cuban, as he is the darkest of the brothers and has acquired a suntan (TV 236). This racial mix is mirrored in Cuba. In Cárdenas, the boys are readily aware that there are “ Bare-chested men — some black, some brown, some white, some a fusion of all three races ” (TV 330); and considering Will ’ s love for Elvira, Nathaniel thinks that he must not get involved with a coloured girl, even if she may be only half coloured (TV 338). Nathaniel is, of course, unaware of his own complex racial background. As has been made evident in the preceding paragraphs, gender, occupational/ class, ethnic and racial identity are subordinated in relevance to the overriding aspect of familial identity in The Voyage. The fact that family is perceived as a particularly strong element of identification is confirmed in Myles ’ s definition of identity: “ We know who we are because we know from whom we come ” (TV 30, italics in original). In the succeeding pages, we soon learn from whom we come. When Nathaniel watches the maid washing his mother ’ s bloody underwear, she tells him, “ You ’ re lookin ’ at what you came from, and what all of us came from. You ’ re lookin ’ , lad, at the dark powers of Mother Nature herself. And you ’ re lookin ’ at God ’ s own curse on woman for temptin ’ Adam ” (TV 45). This scene makes the clearest statement about what people are, what their identity is. It is already negatively associated. Myles — a clergyman (TV 37), Sybil ’ s cousinuncle and Eliot ’ s son (TV 388), who has the best knowledge of the Braithwaite family ’ s history (TV 22) — himself is greatly concerned with the idea of Original Sin to which this brief episode alludes. He states that he has “ Been reading about all those ribbons of DNA, literally billions of miles of them in each one of us, coiling back through the generations. You, me, your brother, Allyson, we are what our ancestors have made of us, virtues and vices, warts, sins, and all. Yes, I believe therein lies a scientific explanation for what the scriptures mean by the sins of the fathers ” (TV 36 - 37). Here, it is indeed familial identity that has the potential to eclipse all other aspects. Sybil widely agrees: “ Blood is destiny. We can change our fates if we are wise enough and strong enough, but before the wisdom, before the strength, there must come knowledge of the blood and all that is in it, the poisoned and the pure ” (TV 39). In her opinion, people can influence their lives only within the confines of their heritage. Family is the frame of identity which cannot be escaped. It is Sybil, Drew ’ s granddaughter, who takes on the task of researching the Braithwaites ’ family history. She is especially interested as she is apparently unlikely or unable to procreate (TV 28). The Braithwaites are not aware of merely the “ organizational ” aspects of familial identity, as outlined by Cigoli and Scabini. Sybil also realises the relevance of their “ symbolic ” elements; in their case, moral imperatives according to which her ancestors lived (TV 22). The Braithwaites were instrumental in the imposition of idealist values, and these ideals are passed 220 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage on to succeeding generations: “ Such was Nathaniel ’ s legacy, along with those bequeathed by the grandfather who had risked jail to help fugitive slaves to freedom, by the great-uncle who had remained on the quarterdeck of his clipper ship for an entire day and an entire night till she was safely through the typhoon ” (TV 329). In general, the family members are expected to set a moral example, no matter what the circumstances: “ Don ’ t quit, his father had told [Nathaniel] before his first boxing match two years ago. You can win, you can lose, Nat, but no son of mine quits ” (TV 274, italics in original). Nathaniel is supposed to behave in a certain way because he is — supposedly — Cyrus ’ s son, a Braithwaite. Besides the “ organizational ” and the “ symbolic ” aspects of family identity, the “ dynamic ” is particularly relevant to the Braithwaites. It comes into focus especially when the rigidity of the “ symbolic ” is called into question. Such a dynamic is caused when moral controversies occur among the members. For example, Cyrus was excluded from the family for having an illegitimate child, Lockwood, whose mother died in childbirth and whom he did not want to give away. In this situation, he decided to neglect the traditional moral views of his family and act according to his own beliefs in virtue. He raised Lockwood himself and at first managed to regain his social position through hard work. However, in the end things did not turn out as he had anticipated. In fact, Cyrus inadvertently caused an uncontrollable development that made the Braithwaite ’ s family history turn into something which corresponds strongly to Myles ’ s statement that “ . . . poking around in [it] can be a Gothic enterprise sometimes ” (TV 28). Thus, in The Voyage, the Gothic also appears to stand in contrast to the supposedly manageable views of the protagonists ’ identities. The Gothic state of familial identity becomes apparent within a still remarkably Gothic frame, even if, overtly, The Voyage is “ less ” Gothic than the previous works. The novel is set in an environment with which its typical readers will be more familiar than with some of the settings of the preceding novels. Nevertheless, in addition to Myles ’ s reference to the Gothic-ness of family histories, several principal elements widely correspond with Gothic conventions. One the one hand, there is the complex structure. The Voyage is set on two temporal levels. The frame narrative is a contemporary story in which Sybil wants to come to terms with her own family ’ s history. The main parts of the plot, however, are set in a past that features numerous mysteries and uncertainties. Elizabeth MacAndrew states that “ The setting of the first Gothic novels in a remote historical time seems in itself an almost symbolic reenactment of the need to go back from the concealing refinements of civilization to the fundamentals of human nature ” (47). The novel ’ s plot takes Sybil back to a time which is not that remote temporally, but more so when considering the emotional ties to her ancestors. In addition, Sybil leaves behind some 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 221 “ refinements ” of her perceived (familial) environment to contemplate its (shady) “ fundamentals ” . This situation also corresponds to Steven Bruhm ’ s statement that “ Since its inception in 1764, with Horace Walpole ’ s The Castle of Otranto, the Gothic has always played with chronology, looking back to moments in an imaginary history, pining for a social stability that never existed, mourning a chivalry that belonged more to the fairy tale than to reality. And contemporary Gothic does not break with this tradition . . . ” ( “ The Contemporary Gothic ” 259). In The Voyage, chronology is also a main theme, and the “ chivalry that belonged more to the fairy tale than to reality ” can be readily associated with the idealised vision of the Braithwaites ’ family history. This situation is echoed in Jerrold E. Hogle ’ s observation that “ . . . a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space . . . Within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story ” ( “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 2). Here, the “ antiquated space ” is the past itself with its “ hidden . . . secrets ” about the Braithwaites which “ haunt the characters . . . at the main time of the story ” , namely Sibyl, who finds scattered evidence of her family ’ s past “ from Myles, from the trunks and boxes at Mingulay, from the Williams family, and from a Boston genealogist ” (TV 385). Not only the time structure, but also the form of the narration itself is Gothic in nature. As MacAndrew observes, in Gothic stories, “ The system of narration is frequently first-person and sometimes also epistolary. Both systems lend themselves easily to these narrative devices and simultaneously produce another effect. They help create confusion and ambiguity ” (111). Indeed, the “ frame narrator ” is an anonymous person. It is only revealed, at a late stage, that it is a former roommate of Sybil ’ s and that they knew each other already in their childhoods (TV 381; 388), therefore not omniscient or greatly involved with the main characters, and not making his/ her position clear. Within this frame, the research of the family history is conducted by Sybil. She herself is relying on Double Eagle ’ s logbook, diary entries by her ancestors, newspaper articles, letters and stories conveyed orally via her cousinuncle Myles and other people. She first hears about the three boys ’ voyage from her mother, who heard it from Emily Williams (TV 21), apparently a descendant of Gertrude Williams, who was Will Terhune ’ s aunt, who heard about it from Nathanial, Eliot and Drew themselves when they visited her (TV 100). Corresponding to MacAndrew ’ s observations, the narrative structure is indeed both “ first-person ” , in the case of the frame narrator, and “ epistolary ” , as with the documents which offer dubious information about what happened, causing “ confusion and ambiguity ” in relation to the reliability of what is recounted. Sybil concocts a theory based 222 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage on loosely connected shreds of evidence, and it is never clear how much of what “ happens ” on the past time level, as it is conveyed in the novel, is based on Sybil ’ s imagination, as “ . . . Sybil has had to fill in the vast empty spaces in the chronicle by making things up . . . ” (TV 20). The narrative structure never makes it absolutely clear whether what is told about the voyage is what really happened or only a reflection of Sybil ’ s thoughts. In relation to family, there are further basic Gothic elements which feature prominently in The Voyage. MacAndrew makes it clear that “ From the beginning, Gothic fiction is preoccupied with sexual assault ” (168). In this regard, we have to assume that Elizabeth was conceived due to her father ’ s raping his slave Julietta. The most significant typically Gothic elements with connections to the idea of family, however, are the frequent references to Oedipus. We have already seen how an Oedipal family conflict often functions as a basis to a Gothic story (Hogle, “ The Gothic in Western Culture ” 5). To MacAndrew, a constellation of this sort also constitutes the grounds of the original Gothic novel: “ The incest motif fits with precision into the central theme of Otranto — that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children ” (85). The incest issue is strongly reminiscent of the relationship between Elizabeth (Cyrus ’ s wife) and Lockwood (Cyrus ’ s son), even though they are not blood relatives. Whereas Elizabeth and Lockwood do not actually commit incest — the narrator refers to it as “ not-quite-incest ” (TV 412) — their affair is Oedipal due to their positions in relation to Cyrus. In addition, the “ sins of the fathers ” are among Myles ’ s primary concerns (TV 37), and they haunt the descendents for several generations. Myles says, “ The family that conceals certain truths about itself, or denies those truths, or in some other way falsifies its history, is going to suffer consequences, but those won ’ t necessarily fall on the creators and bearers of the falsehoods, nor even on those who belong to the same generation as the creators, the bearers ” (TV 384). Future generations are also prone to be influenced by their ancestors ’ acts. Sybil calls the three brothers “ the issue of her [Elizabeth ’ s] unspeakable treachery ” (TV 415, italics added), another reference to a Gothic concept. In addition, incestuous tendencies are implied in the brothers ’ slightly Oedipal feelings towards their mother. It is said that Drew sometimes misses her “ with a physical ache, remembering long-ago winters when the sleighing season opened on Beacon Street and he snuggled beside her under a buffalo robe in the backseat of the family sleigh ” (TV 263). The incestuous tendencies also foreshadow the situation in which the boys are to find themselves with the Casamayor family in Cuba. Again with reference to Oedipus — and to the preceding full-length novel Equation for Evil — it is the eye that plays a central role in The Voyage. According to Cyndy Hendershot, “ Blindness [is] a common oedipal metaphor for 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 223 castration ” (158). We learn that Cyrus has a cockeyed eye which is blind (TV 5), and he is unable to beget children with his wife Elizabeth. The fact that his son Lockwood has sexual relations with Elizabeth clinches the Oedipus-like situation, even if none of the characters epitomises Oedipus ’ s fate to the full: it is Lockwood who has an affair with his step-mother, but Cyrus who is partly blinded and infertile. Myles makes a corresponding comment to Sybil: “ Parents who destroy their children, unless the kids get to them first, that ’ s us ” (TV 382). As Sybil eventually suspects, Lockwood is likely to have revealed his relation with Elizabeth because Cyrus refused to help him out with more money again. Cyrus destroys Lockwood, but Lockwood also destroys Cyrus ’ s world telling him everything for spite. In turn, his shame then makes him commit suicide, so he destroys himself as well. The eye also plays a prominent role elsewhere in the novel. The episode in which the boys attempt to retrieve an object from the wreck of the Annisquam, the ship which Cyrus once failed to salvage properly on a disastrous journey causing him to lose his wrecking licence, entails several references. Two of Cyrus ’ s former shipmates who were trying to save as much as possible from the Annisquam are visually impaired: Artemis Lowe, whom the boys have sought out and who helps them in their attempt to retrieve the Annisquam ’ s escutcheon, can see with just one eye, while Jimmy Wakefield, who was among those who had wanted to save the Annisquam ’ s crew and cargo, has lost his sight almost completely (TV 256). The boys ’ effort to penetrate the shipwreck and to retrieve its supposed cargo of golden candlesticks as trophies ends disastrously. Artemis Lowe is killed by a shark, and Eliot disparagingly calls the expedition “ This whole cockeyed thing ” (TV 287). Eliot seems to sense what his son Myles would state on the contemporary narrative level: that the sins of the fathers, Cyrus, befall subsequent generations, him and his brothers. Correspondingly, Eliot is aware of yet another eye. Feeling helpless afterwards, mad at the world for letting this disaster happen, “ This continuing on of things outraged [Eliot]. He felt like loading the shotgun and blasting the sun ’ s indifferent eye ” (TV 288); but the eye does not only watch them; it is instrumental in the further development of their fate. The actual turning point in the boys ’ voyage is the eye of a hurricane, which destroys their boat and leaves them stranded off the Cuban coast. In their desperate situation and having no choice but to surrender to the mercy of the hurricane ’ s eye, Nathaniel is the one who feels especially helpless and is disappointed in himself: “ He had failed Will and his brothers, as he had earlier failed Artemis; worst of all, he had failed himself and his own best image of himself. He had proved wanting in the first grave crisis of his life ” (TV 321). In his contemplation, the eye takes on yet another role. In contrast to him, so he thinks, the others “ had found the resources to look the beast in the eye, while he had searched his own heart and found only an emptiness, a hollow, a 224 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage shameful lack. He could not face his father now. He wasn ’ t sure he could face his own reflection in a mirror without spitting at it ” (TV 321). The hurricane has turned into the “ beast ” ; the eye — the epitome of the sins of the fathers — as part of that beast will not let him be. Drew, the intellectual among the brothers, is equally under the impression of an “ eye ” , but assesses the situation differently: “ He had learned one big thing on the voyage: that the first necessity in life was to face necessity with a clear eye and a cold head. You ignored what you wished were so, looked only at what was so, and then acted — ruthlessly, if ruthlessness was demanded by the situation ” (TV 322, italics in original). By realising that he has “ to face necessity with a clear eye ” , he implicitly acknowledges the power that the “ sins of the fathers ” have over him. His readiness to look “ at what was so ” echoes Indian Country ’ s Bonny George, who mentions about war that “ it just is ” (IC 40). Correspondingly, when the boys realise how their voyage has turned to disaster, they compare their situation to the “ resignation of townsfolk bes[ie]ged by a barbarian army ” (TV 306). As with the disasters of war, their family ’ s past cannot be evaded. The numerous eyes that appear throughout the novel take on the functions of the observing “ fathers ” who have “ sinned ” and whose gaze the descendents cannot escape. As we have seen, several fundamentally Gothic elements set the frame for The Voyage; but there are also other occurrences in which the characters come into contact with Gothic elements, which are normally hidden from them in their presumably rational world. In their epic voyage, the boys become forced to acknowledge that they cannot reconstitute the stability that they thought they once had. With the voyage, the novel takes on characteristics of a bildungsroman. What they are learning on their odyssey is that their world is a Gothic world that makes their views of their (familial) identity impossible to sustain. Moving on the sea without reaching a destination, without experiencing a change, corresponds with the view that, in the end, there is no direction and no progress in the development of a human being. This movement is contrasted with the acts of migration depicted in the novel. The boys ’ whole “ voyage ” can be read as a reference to people who migrate, especially as the early European immigrants in America arrived by ship. It is not described as a voyage to a promised land but as a journey away from what is “ familiar ” . It is a journey on which they have to deal with several disasters, and at the end of which they are confronted by a distorted mirror image, an uncanny version of their own family. At first, the characters are unaware of which way their voyage is going to turn. The idea of what a voyage is, originally differs quite substantially from what is about to happen. Nathaniel ’ s planned career is described as a “ voyage ” early in the novel: “ Every mark was there, as clear as the marks plotted on a 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 225 chart; so clear that sometimes Nathaniel felt as if he had already made the voyage and was looking back on it, full of years and respectability. In those moments, the sense of inevitability and predictability pressed against this ribs like a steel corset ” (TV 47). Nathaniel attempts to choose his own way. He hopes for an exciting life with the marines: the buds on the trees and the scent of the spring air and the headlines screaming WAR! , trumpeting DEWEY TRIUMPHS AT MANILA! . . . stirred in him an unbearable restlessness and discontent with Back Bay Boston — Back Bay not as a neighborhood but as a way of being — the restlessness and unhappiness impelling him to filch a dollar from his mother ’ s household petty cash and buy a trolley fare to Cambridge. (TV 87) The actual voyage that then takes him to Cuba disillusions him; but he still has hopes “ that life, in its infinite justice and mercy, would someday offer another challenge to his courage, one that he would meet and overcome and prove himself to be the man he thought he was. And if life did not present it to him, then he would be required to seek it ” (TV 321). He is willing to leave his past behind in order to build his own life. He believes in ideals such as the Frontier Myth, but particularly loves the sea: Three years ago, while walking him to the trolley stop, the recruiting sergeant told him about fighting Apaches out in Arizona. He spoke longingly of the West and urged Nathaniel to head that way when he was old enough. The frontier was a thing of the past, but there was still room among the red deserts and dun plains and shining mountains two miles high for a man to grow or roam in, as he saw fit. Was there as much room as on the ocean? Nathaniel had asked, and the sergeant answered, No, not as much room as that; if it was ocean he sought, he would have to go all the way west, to the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington. Okay, then it would be California or Oregon or Washington, if it was to be west at all, for he could not conceive of living hundreds of miles inland, never to look upon or touch the great blue mother ’ s breast. It would be like an exile to an alien country, and if ever he was to find himself stuck in such a place with no chance of escape, well, he reckoned he would just have to shoot himself. (TV 92 - 93) Nathaniel is looking for a country where he has a “ chance of escape ” , and he believes the sea to be a place of adventure with infinite opportunity for him. His hopes, however, are not redeemed as he dies young, of Malaria in the Philippines (TV 417). The ideas of achieving something in life, of going on any “ voyage ” in order to find one ’ s way by acting bravely is discredited in The Voyage. The actual knowledge that the protagonists gain is that their world is chaotic, and they must submit to it. The experiences that the boys have both at sea and on land are unpredictable and the voyage lacks a purpose and a goal from the beginning. Travelling on the sea, the boys go backward towards the past instead of forward 226 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage to a promising future, again echoing a Gothic situation. They go into their family ’ s past, their country ’ s past, but, most significantly, humanity ’ s past. The sea is where life as such originated: “ Nathaniel liked to think that the atoms in every man ’ s veins yearned to rejoin those in the sea, that all men were orphans separated from what Dad, in one of his rare flights into poetic imagery, called ‘ our great blue mother. ’” (TV 92). The sea as a major theme in the novel is related to family, which turns out to be as uncanny as the sea. Having originally developed from sea creatures, human beings are now part of the land. Going back upon the sea means going back to the origins, to the remote “ mother ” and “ forefathers ” (and to be affected by their “ sins ” ), to the Gothic past. The sea has an unconquerable frontier. In contrast to the land, which can ostensibly be civilised, the sea is not liable to change through human intervention. It is not only an eternal frontier, it is also an inverted one. It does not represent progress and future but recess and past, and the insurmountable. Even though Drew, the intellectual, comes to believe that “ The sea was a domain of purity; land, the province of violence, irrationality, suffering, loneliness, strange passions ” (TV 268), he is equally aware how such “ purity ” does not necessarily have a favourable effect on the people. To him, land is the “ familiar ” (TV 140), while the sea makes him think that “ When you were far out upon it, every part of the ocean looked like every other part; although your wake or the dial on a log said that you were moving, you did not seem to be going anywhere but floating on a monotonous circle of infinite dimensions, its horizons ever receding and never reached ” (TV 149). It is not a playground that awaits the entrepreneurship of idealists. Drew thinks, “ The sea . . . was like mathematics in the sense that it was pure and incorruptible. It was governed by its own laws, which men might learn but never master, nor bend nor twist to suit themselves ” (TV 267). His stance stands in contrast to his father ’ s: “ He had heard his father speak of the ocean as if it had mind, heart, and will: It was cruel or kind, raging or serene, but in truth, it was none of those things. The sea simply was, in the same way that an equation or law of physics was, regardless of what men thought about it or wished it to be ” (TV 268, italics in original). Correspondingly, there is widespread awareness of somewhat naïvely romantic ideas about seafaring. There is the conception of the sailing vessel as a human-like being and a friend and reliable partner to the seafarer: “ Between the laying of . . . a vessel ’ s keel and the moment she slipped down a launching ramp to receive her baptism, she was transubstantiated from man-made to living thing. It was as if the men who designed and built her somehow endowed her with aspects of themselves . . . ” (TV 54). At a later stage, it is mentioned that “ Double Eagle was owned by a man who loved triumph and detested defeat, and that love, that loathing, were in her now, impregnated into her very wood, mystical as that might sound ” (TV 80). Similarly, Cyrus believes that “ A fine sextant is a moral object ” (TV 55, italics in 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 227 original). Drew is considerably more critical when considering both the world and its human inhabitants: “ . . . there were mysteries in men ’ s hearts more impenetrable than any in mathematics, and in the world beyond the one from which he and his brothers had been exiled, as many perils as there were upon the sea. The latter, he thought, were to be preferred, for they could be explained ” (TV 266). Eventually, the sea does not benevolently “ admit ” the boys or “ respect ” them as its conquerors. Two major incidents dissolve any remaining beliefs in the basic goodness of the sea as playground: the episode at the wreck of the Annisquam and the hurricane which follows it. When going out to search for the wreck, the boys have already been made aware that the Annisquam never carried the legendary golden candlesticks (TV 259), which they originally wanted to bravely retrieve. They opt to search for the escutcheon instead, but their undertaking fails miserably. Already when they penetrate the sea to reach the wreck, they enter a world that is new and incomprehensible to them. There are strange creatures living under water, something which astonishes Nathaniel once he realises it (TV 275). Eliot is made uncomfortable at the Annisquam by “ these dazzling waters in whose depths hammerhead sharks swam and big green eels lunged out of coral caves ” (TV 277). Artemis Lowe, who was on the Annisquam when she sank and helped the boys to get there, finds his death, killed by a shark (TV 285). He has to pay for their naïve lust for adventure with his life. This incident, however, is only the preliminary event to the final disaster. It is the ensuing hurricane which obliterates all remaining views of romantic bravery. It destroys the boat and seriously hurts the boys. Drew concludes, “ It was a hurricane, not a punishment. It was a natural phenomenon, without mercy or cruelty, without a heart or mind ” (TV 301). All of the boys, including Nathaniel, are compelled to confront the true nature of the sea. They abandon the boat and most things that were once essential to them: “ A whole chanderly of items that had once seemed indispensible [sic] either went to the bottom, or drifted off on the tide ” (TV 318). This bleak ending concludes a series of events that were unpleasant in their own ways. On their voyage, the boys have already gained knowledge of the uncanniness both of the sea and the land. Indeed, some experiences that they have had could be considered Gothic. It is said that “ . . . the sea is home to spirits all its own, the immaterial correlatives of its fishes, whales, and squids, and these spirits enter the minds of sleeping voyagers ” (TV 293). Once when surrounded by thick fog, they find themselves in a mysterious and threatening environment. They become aware of a ship suddenly appearing close to them (TV 151 - 52) and a whale appears and disappears (TV 153). At times, Will sleepwalks (TV 176). On an island where they go hoping to retrieve Trajan, their lost cat, they have to find their way through a swamp and are attacked by a wild boar (TV 228 - 29). In Florida, Nathaniel and Eliot feel “ as though they had sailed 228 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage out of their hemisphere and out of the new century, back to some primordial Eden innocent of the tread of man, ruled by reptiles and wild birds ” (TV 232). Both the sea and the land turn out to be part of a Gothic world. Although less prominently so than in the preceding novels, the abominable state of the human body, as corresponding with the Gothic nature of the land and the sea, is treated in several episodes. Even though war as a theme is mainly absent from the plot, the American Civil War is a significant issue to many characters, and abominable bodies are generally associated with war. From their mother, the boys have learnt that in the town of Beaufort in the time after the Civil War there were “ Confederate veterans with empty sleeves and trouser legs and barely a dollar in their pockets ” (TV 217). On the voyage, when the boys land to visit Aunt Judith, who raised Elizabeth after her father and presumed mother had died, they meet a woman who knew the horrors of the Civil War. She was confronted with human abominations when she volunteered in a military hospital established in a church. There she witnessed “ doctors sawing off limbs on tombstones torn from the church graveyard to be used as operating tables, Southern blood and Yankee blood mingling to stain and blot the names of the long dead ” (TV 208 - 09). Aunt Judith ’ s views on life epitomise the counterpart to Nathaniel ’ s idealism: “ I don ’ t have to do anything except breathe, eat, move my bowels, and die . . . ” (TV 206). Nathaniel refuses to acknowledge such a view, even though it is the essence of what he learns from the disasters with which he is continually confronted on the voyage, right until his own meaningless end when he dies of Malaria. In other instances, the boys are directly confronted with the unpleasant state of humanity. On their visit to New York, the city at first looks like a haven of civilisation, and the optimism of the beginning of the twentieth century is hinted at (TV 160 - 61). Not long after their arrival, however, the boys ’ visit turns dangerous at the German Lager Bier Haus. There, Nathaniel and Drew discover their violent sides (TV 166 - 67). They are drawn into a fight and need to run away so as to save themselves. Even though they have the impression that in New York, “ . . . nature had not been conquered but annihilated, and yet here the hand of man had fashioned something equal to a natural wonder in its capacity to make you feel insignificant ” (TV 157), the technical universe created by human beings has not managed to influence the world for the better. It is still hostile and destructive. Nathaniel feels “ a brutal joy ” (TV 166) when he injures his adversary, and Drew saves Nathaniel by almost killing his attacker. He affirms that he did not act consciously but out of a reflex (TV 169; 171). Even Drew, who has committed himself to science, cannot subdue his instincts: “ Drew ’ s scientific chants did not prevent his heart from leaping when lightning flashed, nor his body from flinching when thunder cracked, but they did give him mastery over his fears. He no longer hid under the bed with Trajan. That 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 229 was the difference between being a human and a cat ” (TV 148 - 49). As suggested here, the differences even between an educated human being and an animal are minimal. Further unpleasant states of human bodies are encountered in several episodes. When the boys call at Snead ’ s Landing, not far from Beaufort, they meet Phineas Talmadge and his foster daughter Clara, whose parents died of malaria (TV 190) and who is deaf and apparently retarded. Talmadge found her “ floatin ’ midst the bulrushes like a girl Moses ” (TV 190). She is apparently interested in Will, who is disconcerted by her way of looking at him: “ Like being looked at by a stuffed head that happens to be alive ” (TV 188). In a later episode, Doris, the supervisor at Lower Keys Sponge and Fruit Company, tries to abuse Drew (TV 265). The starkest revelation of human existence occurs towards the end when Will is stabbed. This occurrence is presented in an especially unpleasant way. Not only does Will ’ s body begin to emit an unpleasant odour soon after his death, but it decomposes visibly: “ . . . that wasn ’ t Will, it was a mass of decomposing flesh and chemicals breaking down. Whatever had made Will Will [sic] was gone — to heaven, to hell, or into thin air, but gone ” (TV 368). Very quickly the body of a sympathetic character turns into an abomination that has to be dispensed with. The essence of the human existence is best summarised by Gertrude Williams, an acquaintance of the Braithwaites, Will ’ s aunt and Elizabeth ’ s friend. When Elizabeth is admitted to hospital, apparently to have an abortion since she seems to have conceived a child by Lockwood again and their affair has finally been disclosed, Gertrude mentions to the boys that their mother had “ a growth on her uterus ” (TV 104). This is what human beings basically are. The voyage has shown the boys that no matter what they try, they are unable to influence their developments in any favourable way. The trip to the Annisquam, the hurricane, the loss of the Double Eagle and, finally, the conflicts in the Casamayor family in Cuba and Will ’ s death illustrate the fact that however bad things are they can always get worse. Their inability to improve themselves is reflected in the use of doubles, which is more prominent in The Voyage than in all the other full-length novels. Whereas several manifest doubles loom over the plot throughout, a final and particularly distressing occurrence of doubling is again spared up to the end. Corresponding with the idea of family as the domineering identity theme in The Voyage, the manifest doubles occurring in the novel are those who share family resemblances. These representatives of Caputo ’ s last doubles are the most obvious and the most classical ones: members of the family betraying a dubious genealogical history. Cyrus, Lockwood and Drew, who turn out to be representatives of three generations in one family, are particularly prominent look-alikes. The double motif, however, is a more general theme. Nathaniel is 230 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage aware of cases of subject doubling when he is confronted with his parents Elizabeth and Lockwood, without knowing that the latter is his father: Strands of black hair had fallen across her [Elizabeth ’ s] forehead, a tendril tumbled alongside an ear. Nathaniel never had seen her looking so wild, so fierce, quite ungoddesslike now, and he felt the same vicarious shame as he had watching Lockwood last night, the shame then not so much in seeing his half brother ’ s private parts but in seeing a previously private aspect of his personality suddenly revealed, and the shame now in beholding a heretofore hidden aspect of his mother ’ s character: the violence bequeathed by her ancestors, for when she ’ d swung the parasol into Lockwood ’ s cheek, Nathaniel had seen, with imagination ’ s eye, her father or grandfather raising a whip over a black back. For the first time ever, he was afraid of her. (TV 73) The boys ’ pleasant pictures of their mother and presumed half-bother are not absolute. There are mysteries discernible beneath the nice surfaces. Nathaniel himself is affected by cases of subject doubling. We learn that “ . . . there was a duality in his nature that the sea brought out. His conservative voices argued that it was better to err on the side of caution, while his daredevils prodded him to clap on all the canvas the craft could bear ” (TV 137). When he feels guilty for having lost the Double Eagle, he cannot deny the existence of a negative aspect within himself. In an episode also treated earlier, he thinks that his brothers and Will, unlike him, “ had found the resources to look the beast in the eye, while he had searched his own heart and found only an emptiness, a hollow, a shameful lack. He could not face his father now. He wasn ’ t sure he could face his own reflection in a mirror without spitting at it ” (TV 321). The mentioning of the mirror indicates how he is assaulted by a second vision of himself, which he makes responsible for his failure. In contrast to Caputo ’ s first four novels, easily discernible examples of doubles feature throughout the plot of The Voyage. Cyrus and Lockwood are evident representatives: “ Lockwood could be the younger Cyrus reincarnated. The only noticeable differences are in the breadth of Lockwood ’ s head and the shade of his eyes: darker than his father ’ s ” (TV 391). They are, however, more than mere look-alikes. Lockwood truly incarnates his role as a double in that he is also an uncanny character. He is described as . . . the mystery man born of a mystery woman who had surrendered her life giving him his, she whose name was never spoken, as if she had never lived at all. Lockwood (so Cyrus had christened him in homage to his dead shipmate) looked so much like the old man that when the two stood side by side, it was as if Cyrus were accompanied by his reincarnated youth, Lockwood by his not-yet-incarnate middle age. (TV 44 - 45) In addition to his illegitimate birth, he does indeed have an air of “ mystery ” about him. In the Braithwaite Genealogy, Sybil finds out that there is “ No birth certificate that [she] know[s] of, no records of any kind of when or where he was 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 231 born, and he ’ s not in there ” (TV 391). In other instances, he is described as an “ enigma ” (TV 60), a “ wraith ” (TV 63) and a “ phantom ” (TV 67). Aunt Judith remembers him as a “ strange quiet boy ” (TV 212), and we hear that “ Eliot dubbed him ‘ the Magi ’ for the gifts he always bore on his visits . . . ” (TV 62). The mystery that he represents is not only enigmatic but also fascinating, especially to the brothers: If he was a remote figure to the boys, he was also fabulous, a transmundane phantom of the sea, face browned by exotic suns that had etched spidery lines into the corners of his eyes, and his whole person wreathed in the scent, in the romance of fabled ports like Maricaibo and Jakarta and Dakar. The stories he told about those places and about the things that happened at sea were his most valuable gifts. He loosened up when he spun yarns, and the yarns brightened the drab Boston days, bringing to the common world of school and home a vicarious one of adventure and the uncommon. Nathaniel envied him his sailor ’ s life, as he also envied the youth Lockwood had lived, sailing with Dad in the wild old wrecking days on the Florida reefs — a youth painted in bold hues beside which his, Nathaniel ’ s, seemed a pallid watercolor. (TV 63) These descriptions surely qualify him as a typical character of a Gothic story. What makes him even more uncanny is the fact that he merely exists as a memory. The reader never meets Lockwood directly. He is not even present on the 1901 narrative level. When the boys go to visit his home in New York on their shore trip, they do not find him there. Later it is revealed that he had committed suicide the day before the brothers ’ attempted visit. His elusiveness leaves all questions about him open. It appears almost as if he existed solely in the characters ’ imagination. Despite his virtual non-existence, he is a key figure in the family ’ s past. The double destroys the most important identity aspect of the work — familial identity — in two ways. Born illegitimately, he caused his father to be excluded from his family. As he is his father ’ s double, however, Cyrus is forced to see that it was not just Lockwood but an aspect of himself who caused this difficult situation, as he had a relationship with a woman whom his family could never accept. On the other hand, Lockwood is also the one who makes Cyrus ’ s wife Elizabeth commit adultery. As the double, he also destroys the new family. Whereas Cyrus betrayed the Braithwaites ’ virtues by entering a relationship with Lockwood ’ s mother and keeping the illegitimate child, Lockwood does not remain the mere product of one “ misstep ” but replaces Cyrus in his role of the paterfamilias and becomes the father of Nathaniel, Eliot and Drew, who Cyrus believed were his own legitimate children; thus, he completely cuts Cyrus off from any familial relationships. He is the link between what was regarded as only two generations. The fact that Lockwood “ continues ” the illegitimate family lineage started by Cyrus, he as the double represents the undeniable fact that Cyrus himself is the one who originally betrayed his family. Lockwood appeared to be ungrateful for what Cyrus had 232 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage done for him; but Sybil thinks he made Cyrus feel guilty about his mother ’ s dying in childbirth (TV 397 - 98), meaning that Lockwood constantly also reminds him of his failure to save his girlfriend. To complicate matters further and to clinch the Gothic-ness of family lineages, all subsequent generations now not only descend from illegitimate children, but also from an uncanny and highly mysterious double. This is the Braithwaites ’ heritage that they will not be able to ignore. Lockwood is the fully accomplished double, the elusive lookalike intruder and interferer that cannot be completely grasped but that eventually redefines the honourable characters ’ identity. Lockwood, the betrayer, is not Cyrus ’ s only manifest double; one of the products of that betrayal takes on this role as well: “ . . . Drew bore the closest resemblance to [Cyrus]. Not as close a resemblance as did [Lockwood] . . . ” (TV 44). Among Elizabeth ’ s three sons, Drew is not only the one with the closest resemblance to Cyrus, who turns out to have been his grandfather as opposed to his father, but also the one who has the most difficult relationship with him, as he is not a naturally talented sailor (TV 49). Drew even turns out to be the more persistent double to Cyrus, if merely for the fact that he outlives him, whereas Lockwood commits suicide. Drew represents a different kind of double. In contrast to Lockwood, he is not whom Cyrus took him for, as Cyrus always believed that Drew was his son, but then finds out that he is his grandson, the illegitimate son of his own illegitimate son. In him, Cyrus is eventually forced to see the falsehood behind what he had always thought to be true. Cyrus sends Drew and his brothers away just as his father had once sent him away for his decision to keep Lockwood, and thus in this situation he suddenly acquires a further double, his own father. Drew is a prime double in that he makes Cyrus acknowledge that his family is not what it looks like. He is the proof that Cyrus ’ s attempts to reconstruct a respectable family have failed. The relatives who are his manifest doubles are actually his illegitimate son and his illegitimate grandson. Whereas Cyrus has Lockwood and Drew as his manifest doubles, Nathaniel takes on the role of a latent double: “ If Lockwood and Drew looked most like the old man on the outside, Nat was his twin on the inside ” (TV 77). Like Drew and Eliot, Nathaniel turns out to be Lockwood ’ s son and Cyrus ’ s grandson. The fact that Nathaniel dies young is particularly tragic for Cyrus, as he loses the one son/ grandson who would at least have been able to convey Cyrus ’ s inner values to subsequent generations. In addition, Aunt Judith sees Elizabeth ’ s resemblance in Nathaniel (TV 203); and, as we find out, Sybil also looks very much like Elizabeth (TV 398), even though she is Drew ’ s granddaughter (TV 385 - 86). Elizabeth, Nathaniel and Sybil show how their family heritage is not lost over time and still influences descendents at a much later stage. If one goes back far enough, yet other implications surface. Aunt Judith ’ s first 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 233 husband was called Caleb Maxey (TV 208). He had the same first name as the first Braithwaite in America (TV 37). As Sybil finds out on the contemporary narrative level, the Braithwaite family lineages are even more complex. She is the one to reveal that the dubious relations did not start with Cyrus ’ s relationship with Lockwood ’ s mother. His marriage to Elizabeth introduced an older case of illegitimacy. He became part of another family with a questionable background. Elizabeth ’ s father is said to have died on the battlefield when she was less than one year old, and her (supposed) mother died of consumption only a few years later (TV 64). The fact that Elizabeth is the product of a relation between Pardon Lightbourne and one of his slaves is withheld from Cyrus. All these aspects (former enemy, improper relation, slavery) import new dimensions into the Braithwaite family with implications on the identity of all subsequent generations. The fact that the most sensitive of these elements happened without Cyrus ’ s knowing states that families are not controllable entities but can quickly become random mixes of genes. Taking a further illegitimate child, Lockwood, into his family merely complicates the situation; and since the father of Elizabeth ’ s sons turns out not to be Cyrus but Lockwood, the consequences are even greater. We can assume that Cyrus found out about Nathaniel, Eliot and Drew being Elizabeth ’ s and Lockwood ’ s illegitimate children, as this is the apparent reason why he sends his presumed sons on their voyage. In addition, he is of course aware that Lockwood is his own illegitimate son. What he has probably not found out is that Elizabeth is also illegitimate. The three brothers are therefore the illegitimate children of two other illegitimate children. These things happen because of what Cyrus imagines to be the original moral deed on his part: keeping Lockwood. This act has ironically set in motion a chain of events that eventually destroy Cyrus ’ s attempts to reconstruct a respectable family circle. In the tone of the novel, such uncontrollable aspects come to take on the overriding significance in the view of familial identity. Cyrus is eventually marginalised by his doubles from the family that he has established. Lockwood takes away the chance for Cyrus to reconstruct a respectable existence, not only by his illegitimate birth but also in the way in which he takes Cyrus ’ s role as Elizabeth ’ s mate and renders all of his offspring illegitimate. These aspects make The Voyage genuinely Gothic. Some kind of curse seems to befall any generation of a family, without their being even aware of what the cause could have been. Even so, they are powerless in the face of the overwhelming force that stems from their inescapable background. This development finds its culmination at the boys ’ final destination. In accordance with the preceding novels, the protagonists are confronted with a final instance of doubling towards the end of the plot. The boys ’ ultimate, and shocking, doubles are the members of the Casamayor family, whom they 234 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage encounter in Cuba. They turn out to be a mirror image of themselves, with the main difference that the Braithwaites are yet unaware of the similarities. Cuba, where the boys ’ voyage ends, is the seemingly exotic counterpart to the USA. Considering the people in general, many elements of Cuban culture are presented as not so different from the situation in the United States, however. Drew is uncomfortable there: “ He hated, most of all, being among strangers whose language he could not understand and whose lives were a mystery ” (TV 339). On the voyage, however, he is also confronted with several dialects of his own language; and it occurrs to him that his own family ’ s life is the most mysterious of all. Concerning his newly found girlfriend Elvira, Will notices that “ Evidently, there were proprieties in Cuba as stringent as those in Boston, but where the latter suppressed desire, the other inflamed it ” (TV 340). Elvira says to Will, “ I have heard it said about you yanquis that you are always making jokes. I think that is so because you yanquis are rich and do not see that most things end badly ” (TV 348). However, in reality, Cyrus once became poor like the Casamayors; and in his case, things also ended badly. In addition, both these American countries are predominantly populated by immigrant groups or their descendents. Religion and language came to Cuba not only with the Spanish conquerors but also with the slaves who were transported there from Africa by the Spanish (TV 336). The American Civil War has its counterpart in the Cuban insurgency, which is equally an issue in the novel. It is revealed that the patriarch of the Casamayor family died fighting the Spanish with the guerrillas and the Americans (TV 331; 341). Not only did he and many others fight alongside US citizens, they even had the same enemy that the US soldiers then had in the Spanish-American War (which is also a minor topic in the novel). Even the situation concerning religion in the two countries is comparable. We have already seen that there are conflicts between faiths in the USA. In Cuba, the Casamayors ’ Christianity is mixed with pagan elements. Rosaria, Elvira ’ s aunt who practices pagan healing rituals (TV 326 - 27), claims that they are both Catholic and orisha (TV 337). Eliot is reminded of home when he reluctantly lets himself be treated by Rosaria: “ A soothing warmth penetrated his skin, like the camphor rubs his mother gave when he had a cough ” (TV 335). The methods of the two peoples are similar, and the Cuban characters ’ witch doctoring and superstitions have their counterpart in superstitious rituals occurring in the USA. Earlier on in the plot, the boys follow the rules of a superstition when they present donations to the dead “ Aunt Phrony ” on Isle Au Haut (TV 136 - 37) in order to achieve favourable weather conditions on the continuation of their voyage. Visiting Aunt Phrony ’ s grave makes Nathaniel think that “ It was like what you feel in a church ” (TV 141). Even on the contemporary narrative level of the novel, we learn that Sybil ’ s mother “ had been raised in New Orleans on legends of Confederate ghosts and bayou witches . . . ” (TV 21). 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 235 Further similarities between the Braithwaite and the Casamayor families are highlighted. Elvira ’ s father, Tomas, was fair-skinned; her mother, Mercedes, was black (TV 341). She is therefore comparable to Elizabeth. Elvira ’ s father died in the insurrection against the Spanish (TV 341), Elizabeth ’ s in the American Civil War. Elvira was taken in by her aunt, Rosaria, Elizabeth by hers, Judith. Elvira has been abused by her uncle Enrique (TV 351 - 52). Elizabeth is apparently the product of abuse committed by her father on one of his slaves. Elvira also partly descends from slaves and she is to become a practitioner of the African religion brought to Cuba by her ancestors (TV 340 - 41). This religious aspect echoes Cyrus ’ s conflict with his family due to his relation with Lockwood ’ s Catholic mother. In Cuba, Will is to take Elvira to Havana, where she will become a priestess, and marry her in order to save her from Enrique (TV 344 - 45). Their situation is comparable to Elisabeth and Cyrus ’ s, in that Cyrus was the one that could save Elizabeth by taking her away from her original environment in which she would never have found a husband. The Braithwaite boys are shocked and saddened at the situation in the Casamayor family, unaware, however, that their background is strikingly similar to theirs. The Braithwaites have no justification to regard their own family lineages as more honourable than the Casamayors ’ . The Cuban family act as doubles in that they overtly represent what the protagonists themselves are. With their encounter with the Casamayor family, the boys ’ disastrous voyage finds its conclusion. In the end, it was a journey on which they learnt that the world is not as orderly as they may have thought. After several disastrous experiences on the way, the ultimate revelation is saved until the end. Without being aware of it, they are forced to deal with a family that resembles their own much more than they are able to realise at that point. In that confrontation, they literally return to their origins, to what they, in effect, are, and it is not a pleasant truth. The Voyage marks the end of Philip Caputo ’ s treatment of the question of identity and the Gothic, and it is the last work to date that features the element that combines the two concepts so intriguingly: the double. It, too, is presented in its “ original ” surroundings, namely within the sphere of Gothic family relationships. In no other full-length novel are doubles as “ manifest ” as in The Voyage. Even so, this novel already sets the tone continued in Acts of Faith and Crossers. The book that was published shortly before is the author ’ s most comprehensive work on Gothic identities and treats its issues with particular sensitivity. A collection of three short novels, Exiles reaches back to Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Indian Country and Equation for Evil, and forward to The Voyage, to conclude the theme. It unites most subjects that are frequently treated as separate aspects in the full-length novels and presents a comprehensive realisation of the idea of Gothic identities. 236 7. Familial Identity and Manifest and Latent Doubles: The Voyage 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles: Three Short Novels Even though it was published before The Voyage, Exiles: Three Short Novels (ETSN) stands as Philip Caputo ’ s culminating achievement in his treatment of identity and the Gothic. In this anthology, all the five main aspects of social identity are treated as central themes. In addition, the work features a genuine narrative of doubles in its opening story “ Standing In ” as well as the author ’ s only work of fiction so far to be completely set in the Vietnam War, which can equally be considered his only straightforward Gothic tale. These main themes are finally realised here in their fully developed form. The status of Exiles as a definite work on the subject is realised also in that it concludes a circle that he started in his earliest longer work, the memoir A Rumor of War. In his interview with Kay Bonetti, Caputo states that he intended to present in that work a “ Danteesque journey from light into darkness into a newer and clearer light ” (Philip Caputo Interview). Exiles is indeed Danteesque. Equally separated into three parts, one of them is entitled “ Paradise ” , whereas the protagonist of “ Standing In ” bears the first name Dante. In a later interview, Caputo affirms that his treatment of war had come to a close with Exiles, and that The Voyage had been intended as the starting point to a new narrative style ( “ Rumor ” 11). As I have argued before, The Voyage still features many quintessential elements of Gothic identities, while at the same time introducing a new type of writing. Exiles is therefore the last work to fully incarnate ideas of identities in the way of the previous works. Since the concepts of social identity, the Gothic body and the double, are all present in their most comprehensive form in this anthology, I have selected it as the basis of my concluding analysis of Caputo ’ s works of fiction from the 1980 s and 1990 s. The first piece in Exiles, “ Standing In ” , has two manifest doubles, Caputo ’ s only straightforward ones besides those in The Voyage, and the mysteries surrounding them as its central feature. It is mainly set in contemporary New England and skilfully transfers the concept of the Gothic double into modernised surroundings. The second story, “ Paradise ” , takes the reader to a somewhat more exotic location, an island off the Australian coast, where the protagonists struggle with their places in this partly modern, partly archaic environment. The main characters, who are used to modern conveniences, are struggling to find their way around the indigenous cultural sphere in which they find themselves. The last short novel, “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , follows a group of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, which is presented in a classically Gothic way. Even though it is comprised of three separate tales whose plots are not linked, the work as a whole features the same developments with reference to Gothic identities as the novels. In keeping with the other works, the setting is at first familiar, to the characters as well as to the reader, but Gothic elements start to interfere ( “ Standing In ” ). Then, the familiarity is increasingly compromised with the shift to a more exotic place ( “ Paradise ” ). Finally, the Gothic surroundings are all that is left ( “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” ). In the last part, the war story and the Gothic story are straightforwardly equated, representing in the starkest form how war is portrayable only by applying a mode such as the Gothic. The most genuine war story is also the only readily recognisable Gothic story. The main themes which haunt all of Caputo ’ s other 20 th -century long fiction are manifested here, making Exiles a work of Vietnam War fiction, of Gothic fiction, of doubles and of identity, while the stark representations of Gothic bodies remain a central feature, albeit a slightly toned down one when compared to some of the novels. The opening short novel, “ Standing In ” , features the first and — considering The Voyage — also penultimate appearance of manifest doubles. The entire story revolves around the mystery of the two look-alikes Dante Panetta, the lower-class and recently orphaned hairdresser, and the adopted, upper-class, but deceased Clay Braithwaite-Rhodes. The author explains how a story conveyed to him by his father-in-law about a hairdresser who encountered a couple that said that he looked exactly like their son (a pilot who was shot down and killed in Vietnam) and who consequently assumed a surrogate position for that son, inspired him to write this story ( “ Rumor ” 13). Describing the tale, he states that “ It was gothic ” (13). He has not been able to assertain the truthfulness of this account (13), but the short novel that ensued about identities of two doubles and their acquaintances is also Gothic precisely for that reason, thereby corresponding to Elizabeth MacAndrew ’ s view that “ The system of narration is frequently first-person and sometimes also epistolary. Both systems lend themselves easily to these narrative devices and simultaneously produce another effect. They help create confusion and ambiguity. A first-person narrator may be assessed for his reliability if the author supplies the necessary ironic clues ” (111). The ways in which the story must have been told and retold constitute a fine Gothic narrative structure. The manifest doubles in “ Standing In ” are, as in The Voyage, introduced at an early stage of the narrative. Correspondingly, questions of identity are also raised at the beginning. Dante Panetta, the protagonist, is concerned with three main aspects of social identity: gender, occupation/ class and family. Ethnicity and race are not main themes in the story. We learn that Dante has never had a serious relationship with a girlfriend (ETSN 34), and his problematic gender identity is latently questioned by his job. As a barber/ hairdresser, he deals in a trade often associated with homosexual men. Even though he likes to see himself as a musician and “ barber ” (ETSN 8), as opposed to hairdresser, and considers barbering his day job while his passion is playing music (ETSN 103), 238 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles he cannot escape the fact that he feels at ease when he works as a barber; and he only has limited talent as a musician, as he misses his cues at times (ETSN 66) and apparently lacks the feeling for the right tempo (ETSN 71). His gender is therefore closely linked to his occupational identity. His main aspiration is to be able to join DeGrasso ’ s, an old-fashioned barbershop devoid of effeminacy. When he gets the chance to help out there, he is happy and looks into the future with some confidence: Dante was bewildered by himself: he was where he thought he no longer wanted to be, behind a barber ’ s chair, and he was happy. He rang up his final sale and took a dollar tip, feeling a brotherhood with the other barbers, with their broad, open faces, their warm voices, and their liking for the thick, hot sandwiches served by the deli around the corner on Atlantic Street, men who were experts on boxing, football, and baseball but also on the longings and sorrows of the heart, listeners and confessors, and, above all else, men who earned their living with their skilled hands. (ETSN 139) At DeGrasso ’ s, he has found a truly masculine version of his profession, where he is supposedly immune to the suspicion of homosexuality. His occupational identity can be secured in combination with his gender identity: “ now he saw himself for what he was and should be, a workingman, and knew that he was where he belonged ” (ETSN 140). The notion of class, which is closely linked to that of occupation, is equally present in this meditation. He appears to be happy by remaining part of his original working class environment, whereas his dead double ’ s adoptive parents introduce him to upper-class surroundings. There he gets the chance to start a career at Diskant Plaice & Parsons, the securities firm where Julian Rhodes works (ETSN 120 - 21). It, too, has a macho atmosphere with a strong hierarchy based on the amounts that the brokers make in commissions (ETSN 122). Dante never manages to fully adapt to such surroundings; and even close to the end he feels like “ a captive in the camp of an alien tribe ” (ETSN 157) when attending Illumination Night with the Rhodeses ’ high-society acquaintances. Connected to these two aspects of social identity is family. With regard to his wife, Greer, Julian thinks that “ When it came to her own life and the people in it, she was the family Tory, cleaving slavishly to the antiquated customs, traditions, and attitudes of her class ” (ETSN 73). Her family is firmly rooted in the upper class. To working-class Dante, family is also of great importance, but his familial situation is just as problematic as his gender and occupational/ class situations. The recent loss of his mother and his ensuing train journey to her funeral, on which he encounters the parents of his dead double Clay Braithwaite-Rhodes for the first time, puts his ideas of familial identity into focus. Reminiscent of Equation for Evil and The Voyage, Dante has Oedipal feelings. His relation to his mother was obviously the strongest of all and he 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 239 compares his feelings of losing her to that of falling in love: “ Just as a young man who falls in love for the first time feels that he is the first ever to fall in love, so Dante felt that he was the first young man ever to have lost his mother ” (ETSN 30). Having once tried to gain more distance from her, he concluded that he was eventually not able to do so: “ He supposed his flight to Florida had been an attempt to win his independence, but it hadn ’ t worked. With each weekly call, each monthly letter, he realized anew that his life was linked to hers by bonds as firm as the long tether of concrete that lay between them: bonds of love, of obligation, of his own need for her, that above all. Well, they were broken now ” (ETSN 38). Even so, when he moves into the Rhodeses ’ house, he hangs up a picture of her (ETSN 90). His negative opinion of his father, who is described as an irresponsible person who left his wife and son many years before, is equally reminiscent of Oedipus. We also learn that Dante ’ s grandparents on his father ’ s side separated early, even if Italian families were thought to be “ close-knit ” (ETSN 22). There does not seem to have been a strong family feeling, tying them together. His family is now virtually obliterated, but his emotions remain the same, and the feelings that he directed toward his mother are replicated in Greer Braithwaite-Rhodes, his double ’ s adoptive mother. On several occasions, Dante is aroused by her appearance. Comparing her to his mother, the latter was less attractive: “ He remembered Mom ’ s lumpy thighs and upper arms when he took her to the beach on her visit to Miami, the matronly sag of her breasts beneath her bathing suit, the coarse thickening that was stealing into her face. He didn ’ t like himself for remembering her this way, or for awarding her second place in his private beauty contest: it was like a betrayal ” (ETSN 91). The sexual implications in the way Dante describes his mother are still present after her death but now applied to Greer, who has taken the role of a new, but more attractive motherly figure. He notices about himself that “ . . . pleasing her made him happy ” (ETSN 88). He is drawn towards her even if he has strong doubts about what he is supposed to do. A sense of ethnic or racial identity is hardly present in “ Standing In ” . We learn that Dante ’ s mother came from a Catholic family (ETSN 14), but if ethnic identity has relevance, it does so for other characters, namely those of the upper classes. Fair Harbor, the Rhodeses ’ home town, is described as having “ a couple of modern places with plenty of glass and skylights invitingly aglow; sprawling colonials that made Dante think of founding fathers in wigs and buckle shoes ” (ETSN 44). Stamford, in contrast, where Julian and, later, Dante work, is described as follows: “ From the turnpike, the impression given was of a city trying to hide its sooty, Yankee past behind the soaring, sparkling architecture of the sunbelt ” (ETSN 121). The ethnic heritage of these surroundings is multifaceted. One can both be proud of and feel ashamed about it. Greer is “ a woman with Yankee granite in her marrow ” (ETSN 72), has “ her Yankee Doodle 240 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles directness ” (ETSN 8) and that “ Protestant Yankee ’ s heritage, both gift and curse — that old, rigorous restraint of emotions ” (ETSN 82). As with the main characters in The Voyage, her family is called Braithwaite; it can be traced back almost to the Mayflower (ETSN 49). 1 Despite Greer ’ s pride in her well-documented ancestry, there are controversial elements about it. Penny, Dante ’ s upper-class quasi girlfriend whom he meets at the Rhodeses ’ country club (ETSN 93), states that the Colonial Dames, of whom Greer is apparently a member, are “ a snooty band of females descended from loyalist officers — officers, not sergeants or corporals — who fought against George Washington and all the blessings of freedom we hold dear ” (ETSN 128, italics in original). An ethnic identity element is also revealed about Penny herself. Her mother has French ancestry (ETSN 97). Such an aspect, however, is irrelevant compared to family traditions and is only hinted at on the side. Ethnicity is here subordinated to family. Pride in one ’ s family as such is preferred over pride in its role in American history. For example, with regard to Greer, we learn that “ She was a Braithwaite after all, and that family were talented revisionists, rewriting the chapters of their family history they found sordid or shameful or in some way disconsonant with their high conception of themselves ” (ETSN 78). History is primarily a history of the family, not of the nation. The greater importance given to family as opposed to ethnicity is aptly represented in namings. Of all her family members, Greer is especially proud of her father, who was a bomber pilot in World War II (ETSN 76). He was called Clayton (ETSN 78), and Greer named her adopted son after him. Correspondingly, her refusal to acknowledge Clay ’ s homosexual tendencies is at least in part based on her wish for someone to continue the family line. Penny enlightens Dante, “ Clay was a hyphen, you know. Clayton Braithwaite- Rhodes ” (ETSN 114). Generally, “ hyphenated ” Americans are thought of as those who care to identify with their ethnic ancestry. The symbolic hyphen is inverted to family, which takes the principal place in determining identity. Whatever implications there are, ethnic identity has little relevance to the characters, while racial identity is not treated at all. More so than in the five full-length novels, the protagonist in “ Standing In ” is generally uncertain about his identity, about who he is. Several of his insights attest to such uncertainties and to how he is unable to resolve them, irrespective of the turns that his life takes. When Dante receives his mother ’ s inheritance, 1 Despite the re-use of the name Braithwaite in The Voyage, no direct connections between the two families are implied. Even if one of Greer ’ s ancestors was called Elliott Braithwaite, it is stated that he was born in an English town called Fastnet (ETSN 51), whereas the Eliot Braithwaite of the subsequent novel spells his first name differently and was born in America much later than the Elliott of “ Standing In ” . 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 241 which is supposed to open new doors to him, it makes him “ come into possession of all the things that proclaimed you had a place in the world. Odd, then, that he felt as displaced on these familiar streets as he did in Miami ” (ETSN 37). The opportunity which he expected would help him to assert himself fails to fulfil its promise. He is still unsure about his role in the world and suffers from a lack of ambition. On one occasion, his situation is compared to that of one of his relatives. Working as a delivery boy earlier in his life, Dante “ knew even then that his America was not going to be like his Uncle Will ’ s, that he was in his place . . . ” (ETSN 45 - 46). His uncle ’ s name apparently refers to the fact that, unlike Dante, he had a “ will ” to achieve something. Dante, however, having acquired modest wealth through what his mother left him in her “ will ” , is still unable to see a direction or a goal in his life. He is in his place, where fate has put him. At a point later on, he finds that “ He was adrift in his own life, a landscape bare of prominent features ” (ETSN 64). The only one who seems to be able to change this situation is Greer. It starts on their very first encounter on the train which inadvertently stops during the night. Already at this early stage, before either of them has found out about Dante ’ s and Clay ’ s likeness, fate has already decreed the way which Dante ’ s and Greer ’ s lives are about to turn: “ Oh, you ’ re one of us ” (ETSN 5, italics in original), Greer utters as she becomes aware of Dante ’ s presence, meaning that he is one of the travellers, not a member of the train staff. Standing in the darkness, neither is yet aware of the implications that their meeting is to have, namely Greer subsequently striving to take over Dante ’ s life. Later on, when talking to her on the phone after having lost his job, he feels “ as if he were hooked up to her, like a transfusion patient to a donor ” (ETSN 64). He can exist only in connection to this one person. Things do not change considerably after he is introduced in the Rhodeses ’ circle of friends, however. Becoming ever more deeply involved with Penny and her social circle, who are bewildered by his resemblance to Clay, Dante does not come closer to answering the question of who he is to himself. Penny is aware of the strange situations that could arise when Dante meets people who knew his double Clay. Talking to Dante, she recommends that her parents should “ Just take you for who you are, not who you look like ” (ETSN 105). It is not clear here, however, who determines who Dante is. It is definitely not Dante himself: “ You must have a strong sense of yourself, Penny had said. But who was the self he was supposed to have a strong sense of? And what was so precious about that self that he should fear losing it? The only places it had taken him were behind a barber ’ s chair and onto a stage with a third-rate band, whereas he now had something like a real future ” (ETSN 122). With this notion of “ future ” , Dante becomes reluctantly optimistic about being able to become someone who is not only respectable but also graspable. Even so, he is oblivious to how such a development could progress: “ Of all the possibilities opening 242 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles before him, the greatest was the chance to become someone else. He didn ’ t yet know who that would be, only that it would be a new and more estimable self, a Dante Patrick Panetta that perhaps always had dwelled within him, waiting for the right moment to crack its shell and take wing ” (ETSN 122). Even this vague hope is not fulfilled. Not long afterwards he realises that climbing the social ladder has not affected who he is: “ He was nothing but a human conduit through which information was passed into the data bases of Diskant Plaice & Parsons ” (ETSN 124). This feeble self-image is mirrored in the way in which he sees the company ’ s customers: “ At first, he amused himself by trying to imagine what the new clients were like ” , but later, “ He couldn ’ t picture what the people and their lives might be like; they became mere names, and then account numbers ” (ETSN 124). He is dissatisfied with this great chance in life that he has received from Greer and Julian and is unable both to indulge in and to resist it, even if he has doubts: “ Maybe . . . he suffered from a lack of nerve or an excess of conscience that was an enduring legacy from his mother and eight years of parochial school ” (ETSN 135), but “ Such doubts and questions struck him as somehow unworthy of who he conceived himself to be, and even a little dangerous. They were the thoughts of a loser, and he tried to repress them . . . ” (ETSN 137). It still remains unresolved, however, as to who it is that “ he conceived himself to be ” . His lack of certainty about his identity remains up to his culminating confrontation with Greer and the memories of his double. Having reluctantly consented to pose for pictures in Clay ’ s military uniform, Dante remarks, “ So that isn ’ t me in those pictures — it ’ s me in a dead man ’ s skin ” (ETSN 148). Greer, on the other hand, asks, “ And just who and what are you, Dante? ” (ETSN 150), answering herself that “ Whoever you were before, you ’ re not him anymore ” (ETSN 151). Dante affirms that the picture of him “ isn ’ t me ” , and even Greer only manages to state that “ you ’ re not him ” . In the end, he resorts to the conclusion that “ Maybe he never would find his place; maybe his place was always to be out of place. He wondered, too, if he had changed too much to step back into his old way of life ” (ETSN 155). Despite everything, he acknowledges that he has changed, even though he has not found out who he is and who determines who he is, in spite of all the deliberations about it. He is not who he once was, but nor has he become someone new. The presence of Dante ’ s dead double has been looming over his life and over the questions about his identity ever since he learnt about this uncanny situation. In no other work by Caputo does the double take on a more prominent role than in “ Standing In ” . It comes to represent a human being ’ s Gothic identity virtually to the full while the depictions of abominable human bodies are confined to a minimum. This is generally the case in Exiles, but “ Standing In ” is the “ mildest ” of the three short novels, showing an unpre- 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 243 cedented restraint in the portrayal of atrocities, even though the description of Clay ’ s death comes close. Maddox, his murderer, “ Hit him so hard and often in the face that he pushed Clay ’ s nose to one side and his mouth to the other, and one of his eyes was hanging out. . .. he broke three of his ribs and ruptured his kidney, the probable cause of death, so said the navy autopsy. . .. He died in his own piss and shit on a bathroom floor ” (ETSN 152). Secondly, the obligatory sex scene is again explicitly described, and the sexual act is compared to an impalement (ETSN 127), paralleling the homosexuality scene which turned into a kind of massacre. More generally, the uncanniness of human existence is again presented in relation to the uncanniness of war. Dante ’ s father, the somehow also mysterious Vietnam veteran who abandoned his family and has not been heard of for many years, and the much more mysterious circumstances involving Clay ’ s death on the aircraft carrier where he prepared to be sent to the Persian Gulf War (ETSN 153) make both doubles find themselves in a world latently haunted by war, which is in its incomprehensibility as much an inseparable part of the world as they are in theirs. Even so, hardly any occurrences of abominations allow a distraction from the uncanniness of identity as it is represented in the doubles. Dante and Clay are the most obvious doubles, but the Rhodes and Panetta families have several commonalities. Even before finding out that he looks exactly like Greer ’ s son, when he meets her on the train for the first time, Dante notices “ a scent of cologne and soap that reminded him of his mother when she came out of the shower ” (ETSN 8). If Greer is an unlikely double to Dante ’ s mother, her husband Julian complements the family in that he is a different version of Dante ’ s father, a Vietnam veteran who was a violent person and left the family many years before (ETSN 21 - 22). Dante ’ s only fond memories of him involve their fishing trips (ETSN 21); Julian reveals that he takes an interest in the same pastime (ESTN 50). A supposedly accurate image of the Panetta family is recreated when Dante finds out about Greer ’ s involvement in getting him fired and Julian ’ s subsequent demand that Greer reveal the truth about Clay ’ s death. In this scene, Julian forces Greer, which reminds Dante of his father ’ s violent outbreaks (ETSN 152). In addition, Greer represents subject doubling. The way she has deceived herself about Clay ’ s homosexual tendencies and about the circumstances of his death proved to Julian “ that it was possible to be sane and insane at the same time ” (ETSN 72). Recalling Elizabeth MacAndrew ’ s statement that “ Gothic novels reflect the association of mental illness with violent crime ” (147), Greer ’ s madness is a main theme in “ Standing In ” , even if she frequently applies psychological rather than physical violence, once with Clay, denying his homosexual tendencies and planning an unrealistic future for him, now with Dante, deliberately cutting him off from all his original surroundings, making him lose his job so he will have no choice but to 244 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles accept Greer ’ s offer to take him in. Her mental state is, besides Dante ’ s resemblance to Clay, a second uncanny feature. At times she talks to her dead son in his room (ETSN 79). Additionally, she appears as a Gothic figure with her “ bloodless fingertips ” (ETSN 147), caused by smoking. Her behaviour is incomprehensible to Julian the mathematician (ETSN 72 - 73), who admits to himself that he “ had condemned him [Clay] to a double life ” (ETSN 75), so that Greer can continue to live happily in her imaginary world. With the knowledge that Dante gains about Clay, his gender, occupational/ class and familial identity are subject to further confusion. Benjamin Eric Daffron states that doubles represent, among other things, homophobia (1), and that “ Gothic doubling, which occurs always between sympathizing members of the same sex and almost always between members of the male sex, places characters in a state of intimacy ” (14). Dante and Clay are indeed Caputo ’ s most obvious as well as most uncanny and manifest doubles. Corresponding to Daffron ’ s view, Clay deepens Dante ’ s fear of being homosexual, which is grounded in his ambiguous feelings toward his occupation as a hairdresser and his troubles sustaining a relationship with a woman, and is brought into the foreground by his double ’ s homosexual tendencies. Further uncertainty is presented in Clay ’ s status as a member of the navy. When the Rhodeses inform Dante about his likeness to their dead son shortly after their first meeting on the train, they show him a picture of Clay in a military uniform (ETSN 13), an icon of masculinity and the antithesis to homoerotic inclinations. The picture, a classical incarnation of the double and the first and main place of confrontation between Dante and Clay, soon turns into reality, with the double seemingly coming back to life. After moving in with the Rhodeses, Greer gives Dante all of Clay ’ s clothes (ETSN 148), which he wears without knowing that they belonged to his dead double, but the picture of Clay in his uniform is replicated already on Dante ’ s first visit to Greer and Julian, when Greer asks him to put it on, so that she could replace a lost picture of Clay in the same pose, to which he reluctantly consents (ETSN 54). Already at this early stage, he takes on the looks of the first picture that he saw of Clay. Aware of the awkward situation, he thinks, “ Looking into the lens, he had the unsettling sensation of not recognizing himself; the still more unsettling sensation that his very identity was somehow being drawn out of him, soaking through the uniform with his sweat, evaporating into the cool spring air ” (ETSN 55). Claiming that the uniform takes away his identity, a notion that has become almost a cliché, this situation has stronger implications considering Dante ’ s general view of himself. As we learn from his many deliberations, his life has been a permanent search for identity. He has never managed to find out what it is, so the uniform can hardly draw something out of him that has never been there. Again, Dante ’ s identity is, if at all, defined not by what he is but by what he is not. He becomes 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 245 aware of it especially when looking at the other photos of Clay: “ . . . the photos of Clay . . . were reminders of all the things he wasn ’ t ” (ETSN 100); and even towards the end of the story, he has not made any progress in building up an identity: “ Whatever I am, I can tell you who I ’ m not, and that ’ s Clayton Braithwaite-Rhodes come back to life. The new, improved version, better breeding stock to make those grandkids you want ” (ETSN 151), he says to Greer. Having taken Dante ’ s picture in Clay ’ s uniform, she has on the one hand attempted to recreate Clay in a — probably — heterosexual man. On the other hand, she has provided Dante with a view of himself as a military man, which hides the suspicions about his own sexuality for the moment. In both cases, however, the confrontation between the doubles has not been able to reform identity in the field of gender. Both he and Clay are prone to uncertainty regarding their sexual orientation, as the doubles that would dispense with any doubts have equally uncertain identities. Despite what Dante felt, the uniform was not able to draw Clay ’ s sexual identity out of him. He did not become “ a real man ” in the navy. His homosexuality eventually even cost him his life, as he was apparently murdered by a violent homophobe, even though it is not exactly clear what happened at the scene. The court-martial records confirm that his killer, Hiram Maddox, was obsessed with homosexuality: “ . . . if ever one of them messed with him, he would show him the wrath of God ” (ETSN 154). Greer, on the other hand, cares to believe that Maddox himself had “ repressed homosexual desires ” (ETSN 154) and was refused by Clay. While it remains unclear which version is the accurate one, it is not relevant to the basic question. Dante ’ s double incarnates the opposites of homosexual and soldier, offering him no enlightenment in the question of who his double is or also who he himself is, just as Clay ’ s identity cannot be resolved with Dante ’ s “ standing in ” for him, as Dante does not see what his own identity could be either. This case of opposites united is also hinted at in another instance. Gil, one of the homosexual hairdressers and a colleague of Dante ’ s, is described as having “ the priggish good looks of a British officer in a World War II movie ” (ETSN 56). A homosexual is a double to a military man. Dante as well as Clay are in a similarly ambiguous situation. In Dante ’ s case, it is unclear how much he really is in love with Penny and how interested he is in a relationship with her. Both Dante and Clay represent latent homosexuality and act only as a feeble indication to their counterpart that he may not be homosexual after all. With regard to occupational/ class identity, Dante ’ s situation also remains unresolved in spite of his double. Early on in the story, before he is made aware of his likeness to, or indeed the existence of, Clay Rhodes, Dante notices that he is being observed by Julian, whose acquaintance he has not yet made. He cannot imagine why a stranger would take an interest in him, thinking that he is just “ common clay ” (ETSN 11). This thought implies that he is clay/ Clay, his 246 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles double, but that he is a “ common ” version of him, not the Clay that has grown up in a privileged environment, but the one that stayed “ common ” . Dante receives the opportunity to rise to a higher social class and to receive well-paid work in Greer ’ s and Julian ’ s environment. Up to the end, however, he remains unsure as to whether this is the right way for him. He is still willing to trade his comfortable and promising new life for work in DeGrasso ’ s barbershop. In this case, the double offers no help either, as, by the same token, Clay never completely succeeded in overcoming his commonness. He was never able to live up to the expectations that a family like Greer ’ s had and he prevented himself from successfully pursuing a military career in the navy. Considering familial identity, Dante and Clay ’ s situations are particularly mysterious. Dante has the thought that Clay may have been his mother ’ s illegitimate son, as this is the only way to explain his resemblance to him and also her, even if he considers it unlikely. This question is never resolved, but the mysteries surrounding them correspond to a concept observed by Karl Miller: orphans representing instances of doubling. Even though Miller is primarily concerned with cases of doubling within one character as opposed to look-alikes, the idea is readily applicable to Dante and Clay: “ Where the double is, the orphan is never far away, with secrecy and terror over all. To bring together the orphan and the double is to unite submission and aggression, freedom and impediment. Theirs is a proximity which is sometimes an identity, and it depicts the place of the individual in one or more of the environments which befall him ” (Miller 39). Indeed, both Dante and Clay qualify as orphans. Dante ’ s mother dies shortly before Dante meets Greer and Julian at the beginning of “ Standing In ” . His father ’ s status is unknown, but he left the family and retains no contact, so to Dante, for all practical purposes, he is equally “ dead ” . Clay, on the other hand, was adopted by Greer and Julian as an infant, indicating that, even if he was no orphan but perhaps given away by his biological parents, his situation, too, was that of an orphan. Corresponding to Miller ’ s conception, there is a great deal of “ secrecy ” , particularly concerning Clay ’ s past, as well as some notion of “ terror ” , especially in the way Greer takes over Dante ’ s life. There is “ submission and aggression, freedom and impediment ” ; both Clay and Dante have had the experience of being “ locked ” into their environment but have also rebelled against it, Clay by having boyfriends, Dante by moving to Florida, with modest success. They do indeed represent “ freedom and impediment ” . Both Clay and Dante have been offered new lives in which they would probably have had greater freedom than in their original environments. At the same time, they are kept in their place, particularly by Greer. Miller states, In his capacity as author, and in the context of his life and work, the imaginary orphan presents himself as alone and not alone, as lost and found, bound and free. The result 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 247 has been a literature of confinement which tells of escape and which also says that escape is futile and confining, which tells both of escape and of the determined and conditioned life, of the facts of life and the laws of physics, and of the claims which a community makes upon its members. Duality has thus taken up the impossible task of showing that the same person can be both at home and away. (40) As orphans, Dante and Clay have been “ both at home and away ” . They are “ lost ” , by their original parents, and “ found ” , by Greer. “ Standing In ” is a fitting example of “ literature of confinement ” , showing the reader how “ escape is futile ” in that Dante did not manage to escape his mother and his maternal environment, as he was caught by Greer instead, and it is uncertain whether he will be able to sever himself from that substitute mother and her surroundings. Fittingly, the Rhodeses ’ residence bears the name Fastnet. The manifest doubles in “ Standing In ” are typical literary doubles in that they cause serious doubt about a character ’ s identity. What is different from the full-length novels is that the protagonist even had a weaker sense of identity to start with. Considering the state of uncertainty about his gender, occupational/ class and familial identity, the fact that Dante is confronted by a manifest double makes the situation even more confusing to him. As Linda Dryden notes, “ To be haunted by another, by a spectre, is uncanny enough, but to be haunted by yourself strikes at the foundations of identity ” (41). With Dante and Clay, it is unclear from the beginning who the first and who the second self is. Dante is the main character in the story; therefore he seems predestined to act as the first self. Fittingly, it is Clay, who acts as the uncanny entity: the circumstances of his birth are unknown, he was adopted as a baby without any knowledge about his biological family, Dante gets to know him only through the recollections of the people who knew him, he was killed under mysterious circumstances. However, it is Dante who takes on the classic function of the double/ second self in that he is the one who inadvertently steps into the world of his look-alike and causes turmoil in it. It is his appearance that forces Greer and Julian to face their past again. Dante ’ s resemblance to the late Clay is revealed as they step into the light of the train after the delay in the dark woods (ETSN 8 - 9), where Greer seemed to have become “ a different person altogether ” (ETSN 9) to Dante. Equally indicative of Clay ’ s role as a first and Dante ’ s as a second self is the fact that Clay was the first of them to die. What is more, considering how his existence is being reformed at Greer ’ s hand, Dante compares himself to “ a talking dummy ” (ETSN 101) and, realising how she manipulated his life getting him fired, names himself “ Greer ’ s little puppet ” (ETSN 147). He seems to have an existence only in relation to someone else. Thus, both Dante and Clay have characteristics of the first as well as the second self. “ Standing In ” is unique in that its end leaves the protagonist with a choice of what identity he wants to take on, in spite of its manifest doubles. In the final 248 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles stage, Dante is required to decide between becoming his double and accepting the job at DeGrasso ’ s. If he chooses the former, he would have to become the person who was in Greer ’ s picture, enter a heterosexual relationship with Penny, start a professional career at Diskant Plaice & Parsons, and act as the ersatz son to Greer and Julian. If he chooses the latter, he would have to stay single in a masculinised version of a profession associated with homosexuality, adhere to a working class environment, and retain his status as orphan. On the brink of making his decision, Penny calls Dante to join her and her friends and family in the final scene. The fisherman with whom Dante is sitting says, “ Looks like you ’ d better go ” , to which Dante replies, “ Looks that way ” (ETSN 160). These final statements are ambiguous, for Dante could “ go ” where he is called to go by Penny, or “ go ” away to start a new life at DeGrasso ’ s. The verb to look is used effectively in these last two sentences of the story. The plot is all about two look-alikes, and Greer and Julian are especially concerned with what their circumstances look like. Whichever way Dante chooses, he will take on an identity with which he looks like something, but where it remains unclear what he is. Dante ’ s mysterious double affirms that identity is eventually not only uncanny but also forever ungraspable. The identity that the double stands for is as ambiguous as Dante ’ s original identity. Continuing as Dante Panetta offers him no certainty about his gender, occupational/ class and familial identity. He can work in a male environment, but remain single and his sexuality will still be in question as his profession will never be quite immune to the suspicions of homosexuality. He can find a steady job as a barber but also remain unsure about his musical career. He can accept his status as an orphan but forever be in doubt about Clay being his mother ’ s illegitimate son. If he stands in for Clay Braithwaite-Rhodes, his situation will remain equally unresolved. He can be a replacement of a macho soldier who was, probably, homosexual. He can start a career at Diskant Plaice & Parsons but will have to renounce his passions for barbering and playing music. He can become part of a new family but will always be merely replacing his deceased mysterious predecessor. Whether he chooses or refuses to be his double Clay makes no difference. What his double stood for remains as ambiguous as the feelings that he has about himself. He is always the other/ Other, but also not the other/ Other. Whatever choice he makes, he will not become something, but only look like something. He will always remain torn between being homosexual and heterosexual, a stand-in to a macho soldier and an effeminate worker, a son and an orphan, just as his double ’ s situation has always remained unresolved. He can choose to be either of these, but whichever way he chooses, he will at the same time always remain neither, just as his double did. Clay as Dante ’ s double reveals his true identity to him, and the truth is that there is no identity. The only sense of identity that somehow remains unchallenged is what Dante notices at the beginning of the 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 249 story, before the mysteries unfold. He is “ common clay ” (ETSN 11), “ clay ” not simply like his double ’ s first name, but clay like the non-descript original material out of which human beings and other creatures are originally sculpted. Clay Rhodes is clay; Dante is Clay ’ s double, and therefore also clay. They are a part of the earth. No ambitions by themselves or others change that fact. Even if, in this relatively peaceful story, the abominable human state is mainly represented in the equally harmless notion of human beings as clay, its followups address the theme more directly again. It is a fitting opening to an anthology, in that it also leaves its protagonist ’ s final decision open, and the questions on identity are instantaneously readdressed in “ Paradise ” and “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” . Whereas “ Standing In ” deals with the aspects of gender, occupational/ class and familial identity, its follow-up story, “ Paradise ” , focuses on the two remaining ones, ethnic and racial identity. The short novel is set on the fictional Nettles Island — named after its American discoverer Jim Nettles, but also known by its original name Kailag (ETSN 163) — off the coast of Australia and is concerned with its state as an exotic place mainly inhabited by its native people but prone to cultural influences from its Australian motherland. The plot revolves around the protagonist David MacKenzie, an American Vietnam veteran, who has found a new home on the island and is trying to come to terms with his past. The main representative of the island people is Uncle Elias Nettles, the grandson of “ Yankee Jim ” (ETSN 163), the original coloniser who began populating the island (ETSN 163) and an American who managed to integrate himself into native society: “ Yankee Jim had come to know them and to become one with them. What was his secret? ” (ETSN 241), David thinks. With ethnic and racial identity being predictable themes in a piece somewhat related to colonial literature, “ Paradise ” puts these concerns into focus. Gender, occupation/ class and family are hardly issues in “ Paradise ” . David, the protagonist, is aware of his sexual deficiencies/ gender identity in connection with his drinking problem: “ Was it his drinking that had turned him from ardent lover into this husk of a husband? Didn ’ t he love or want her [his wife Dale] anymore? Had he lost his manhood? ” (ETSN 222). Equally, there is hardly a notion of occupational/ class or familial identity. Even though, as the manager of “ Nettles Is. Fish & Seafood Ltd. ” (ETSN 174), one of David ’ s tasks is to improve the island ’ s economy, it does not seem to have great significance to him. To Uncle Elias, the problematic economic development of Nettles Island is linked to the fact that the natives “ were to learn to manage a modern economy, but only in the ways the whites wanted ” (ETSN 197). He sees it primarily as a cultural phenomenon. Concerning David ’ s family, nothing is revealed about his background, and he does not appear to feel that it is of any importance to him. His wife Dale, from whom he has become estranged, is the 250 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles only relation of his that is ever mentioned. On the other hand, Uncle Elias ’ s illustrious ancestry is of some interest and also introduces the theme of family heritage that is passed on to future generations in “ Paradise ” . The role that his family has played in the history of Nettles Island is relevant to the plot in that it represents aspects of ethnicity and how island culture has changed, but not in the roles and relations of the family members as such. The island natives ’ identity is widely defined by language, religion and customs, all related to the ethnic aspect of social identity. From a superficial perspective, Uncle Elias is presented as a stereotypical representative of the sympathetic and subservient native, a member of a subjected and placated wild tribe. He speaks a kind of Pidgin English which stands in contrast to the supposedly accurate use of English by the white characters. The islanders in general are presented as a people lacking an actual ethnic identity and torn between their traditions and the innovations brought on by the colonisers. They were converted to Christianity a few generations past, and now stand on the brink of establishing an economic system based on market capitalism, a change which is compared to their religious conversion (ETSN 175). The Nettles islanders are almost too clear-cut examples of Peter Weinreich ’ s displaced indigenous identity (34) with all its foreseeable problems. Many of the inhabitants apparently prefer living off welfare to working (ETSN 176). This situation is commented on in an ironical way, and the money which the islanders get in welfare are “ their wages for allowing an alien government to rule them ” (ETSN 177). While some of their original culture has been preserved, most has been lost: “ . . . in gaining the gospels, the islanders had lost their language, recalled now in only a few phrases, had lost their ancient rituals and customs, commemorated now only in dances full of ceremony but empty of spiritual meaning ” (ETSN 196). The Christmas celebration on the island seems to be connected to an indigenous ritual (ETSN 181), however, and Uncle Elias retains pride in his great-grandfather Kebisu, who was the “ last of the great head-hunting warrior chiefs ” (ETSN 165), though he later became a deacon in the Anglican Church (ETSN 167). The old myths have not completely vanished, and there are still legends of ghostly figures roaming the island (ETSN 164). Uncle Elias has hopes that the creation of a strong sense of identity is possible by the fusion of several ethnicities. He has no vision of preserving or reinstating his original culture in the way it used to be: “ He was sure he could have influenced the change to European ways, married the two cultures as Yankee Jim had married Kebisu ’ s youngest daughter, and helped create a people who were whole and complete and not as they were now — half one thing, half the other, submitting to laws imposed from afar and taking handouts from the white man ” (ETSN 197). Uncle Elias acknowledges that identity is in constant flux and that it is not an abstract concept that one should 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 251 live up to, but a combination of choice and imposition with a dynamic of its own. He is ready to adjust it and be adjusted by it. Ethnicity is a theme of perhaps more significance to the white protagonists than to the native islanders. As an American who has immersed himself almost completely in Australian society, David has taken the liberty of determining what he wants to be, ethnically speaking. His exile is a foreign, faraway country. Even though he still maintains emotional ties to his original homeland — meeting a few Americans in Cairns makes him feel homesick (ETSN 217) — he has become very Australian and “ spoke more Aussie than most Aussies ” (ETSN 168). Perhaps paradoxically, his reason for leaving the USA was his identification with some of its traditional values. He left America because it had become too un-American for him. Having been assaulted by anti-war activists on his return from Vietnam and having not found a job, he chose Australia, which he had come to know on R & R, for “ He thought it would be the way America had been a hundred years ago: a last frontier where an ordinary man could fulfill extraordinary dreams. By the time he realized that that was a fantasy, he ’ d acquired a job, Dale, and his Aussie accent; it was too late to go back to the U. S. ” (ETSN 171). It is unclear here what is meant by “ fantasy ” . It could refer to Australia ’ s being the new America, or also to the idea that America itself once was such a place. Apparently both notions are put into question. The significance of concepts that constitute ethnic identity is already questioned at this stage. Correspondingly, national characteristics, which could function as potential indicators of identity, are mainly referred to ironically. With regard to David ’ s ideas on how to run Nettles Island ’ s fishing enterprise more efficiently, Tunstall, his superior, mentions that this is “ An enterprising idea, Dave. Must be that Yank blood in you ” , to which David replies that “ It was Uncle ’ s idea, maybe on account he ’ s got Yank in him too . . . ” (ETSN 201). To David, building up a new life, a new identity basically means trying to become part of a different culture/ ethnicity. He would like to lose his Americanness and does everything to be Australian, but he does not succeed in becoming a Nettles Islander altogether. He is jealous of Yankee Jim, who even managed to become part of the island people and to transcend a seemingly insurmountable barrier, namely the bodily identity element of race. Yankee Jim married into an island family and thus influenced the complexion of his descendents, who now have slightly lighter skin. David ’ s wife is white like himself, and a conversion as comprehensive as Yankee Jim ’ s seems impossible to achieve. Fittingly, race is present in David ’ s mind as something of which he is ashamed. Dale ’ s habit of dancing nakedly is observed by Uncle Elias ’ s nephew Julius, which drives David crazy: “ And though he liked to think of himself as open-minded, he supposed that Julius ’ s race had a lot to do with the depth of his jealousy ” (ETSN 180). The islanders ’ blackness overtly shows David that he can never be one of them, but, 252 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles as it turns out, his ethnic identity is also eventually determined by factors which he cannot control. More so than in Equation for Evil, the treatment of race is closely linked to ethnicity. Whereas there is, as we have seen, a great amount of overlap between ethnicity and race, differences in the identity of the colonisers and the colonised are considered both on ethnicity and on race level. Prominently, one of the protagonists ’ naming is indicative of the general attitude. Elias is commonly known as “ Uncle Elias ” , which is reminiscent of Uncle Tom and connected to the expectation that he is a benevolent, obsequious black man. However, Uncle Elias is critical of his Nephew Joseph for behaving like “ Uncle Tom “ (ETSN 178) when dealing with his white superiors. Neither is he fond of white people being in charge of the operation on Nettles Island (ETSN 210). Even though the islanders were the ones to be subjected, they retain power of a different type. Whites colonised the island, but it is mainly these colonisers who get into trouble, discussing how to develop the island. David ’ s predecessor failed and was sent away after having drunk a local drug, joined a native dance and shot an arrow at a member of the Queensland parliament (ETSN 170). The current main representatives of the colonisers — David and Northfield, both of them white, American by birth and Vietnam veterans — are the ones who eventually fail on the colonised island, whereas the islanders continue their journey to a future that is uncertain yet secure. The imposing forces are the losers in the end, as their endeavours elicit conflict with those who have other ideas on how to implement identity. The main ethnicity conflict turns out to arise not between coloniser and colonised but between two representatives of the colonisers. In “ Paradise ” , the destroyer of identity also arrives in the role of a double. In contrast to “ Standing In ” , however, this double is less well recognisable as such. The role of the double in colonial literature has been described by Paul Coates. Commenting on colonisers and colonised, he states, “ As they interact, these processes create the climate of colonialism. The sentimental cultivation of sympathy with the noble savage in the eighteenth century helps define members of other races as men like ourselves, with whom we can do business ” (32). In “ Paradise ” , the main occurrence of doubling does not involve a representative of the coloniser and one of the colonised, even if instances of doubling are present between islanders and whites. The Nettles islanders ’ past as cannibals is juxtaposed by America ’ s and Australia ’ s legacy of warfare, represented by David ’ s and Northfield ’ s status as Vietnam veterans. More prominently, the Pidgin English used on the island can be compared to David ’ s and Northfield ’ s failure to use proper Australian English, reflecting that there is no comprehensive version of standard English at all. More generally, Americans and Australians, both of them descendents of English colonisers, tend to 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 253 take on the roles of doubles. Though culturally very similar, Australia is experienced by David as an “ upside-down world ” (ETSN 180), while the seascape surrounding him is widely unsurveyed (ETSN 193). He appears to be unable to find his way on the culturally assimilated Nettles Island, and the differences to his own cultural background seem to become clearer to him as he gets to know it better: “ Weird how the island had seemed more familiar and comfortable the first day he saw it than it did after months of living on it . . . The longer he stayed, the odder the place became, as if its essential, hidden strangeness were bleeding through its superficial appearances ” (ETSN 181). Life on the island is partly same, partly other. The MacKenzies are among Christians on the island, but they feel displaced (ETSN 181). The island turns into something uncanny because it was once familiar. The same happens when he contemplates his own Anglo-Saxon culture: “ . . . returning to Cairns after six months ’ absence had been a strange experience ” (ETSN 216), as he was not used to being surrounded by people “ like him ” . In contrast to what would perhaps be expected, the natives do not appear as uncanny doubles to the “ civilised ” colonisers, with the latter finding familiar elements in those “ uncivilised ” foreign cultures. Instead, the natives are no more the colonisers ’ second selves than the colonisers are the natives ’ . In the island myth of the markai, the natives recognise the whites as a part of themselves: “ . . . in the Beforetime all whites were considered markai because they were so pale: wandering evil spirits of dead men who were not properly dead and had not gone contented to the afterworld island of Boigu. They had to be killed proper and sent off to their proper place ” (ETSN 167). Even though Uncle Elias thinks that the markai may have been symbols of early European intruders (ETSN 196), they have quickly made their way into local folklore. They are not dangerous because they come from without, but because they come from within. The evil deeds that they perform have been long present in their culture before the arrival of the colonisers, who, in their uncanniness, were not other but same. “ Paradise ” does not settle for a simplistic view of self-complacent colonisers conquering a wild native tribe and coming to see in their “ primitiveness ” the defects in their own culture, but the natives equally recognise the uncanniness in their own society when dealing with the colonisers. Correspondingly, the frightening stories of spirits on the islands are compared to American horror movies (ETSN 164). The greatest conflict between doubles, however, arises not out of a confrontation between colonisers and colonised at all, but in the relationship between members of the colonising group. In the end, the native islanders ’ culture remains relatively intact, whereas the colonisers destroy each other. Even though, as we have seen, there are instances of doubling between the two cultural spheres, neither of the main doubles is a native islander. The 254 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles principal turning point in “ Paradise ” is the arrival of John Northfield. His name is reminiscent of Horn of Africa ’ s Jeremy Nordstrand, and he quickly reveals himself to be a latent double to David, fittingly being the one who messes up the latter ’ s world and views on identity. As a double, he is not manifest, but has attempted to adjust his own identity in various ways. He is known by two names to start with: John Northfield and Jack Norgate (ETSN 226). He has a criminal record, which he tried to escape by literally trying to take on another identity and a third name, namely that of his shipmate Anson Barlow, whom he killed, so as to escape prosecution for having murdered two prostitutes (ETSN 226 - 27; 249). He also adjusted his physical appearance with plastic surgery, and has bleached hair and a tattoo covering a scar (ETSN 248). His arrival charges the atmosphere negatively right from the beginning. When Northfield lands on Nettles Island, he appears to be a wild creature: “ Something alive rolled out of the craft and began to crawl on all fours through the shallows, making funnykind [sic] noise, like a pig ’ s grunting, only the creature was too large to be a pig ” (ETSN 166). Even though he has tried everything to cover up his criminal past, he still makes an uncanny impression. To David, “ There was something fantastic about him; he had just appeared on the beach, as if he ’ d been spawned by the sea itself ” (ETSN 206). He is uneasy, even though he is unaware that this man is his double. When David first meets Northfield, he is worried without knowing why. Besides Northfield ’ s rugged appearance, his scar and the tattoos of wild animals, “ There was something else about the muscular man with the blond mane sun-bleached to platinum, something whose presence MacKenzie sensed from the moment he looked down on his young, partly ruined face: the aura of an evil more complex and menacing than the evil of a simple roughneck ” (ETSN 169). David is reminded of the islanders ’ legends of demons, and he thinks, “ . . . maybe their superstitious nonsense was leaking into his brain ” (ETSN 169). Northfield ’ s entry is worthy of any double ’ s. He is the one who inadvertently sails into the life of the first self, David, and immediately calls forth a negative “ foreboding ” (ETSN 170). He is then confronted by David, where his role as a double is confirmed, for the two are more alike than David would care to acknowledge. Both are American Vietnam veterans posing as Australians. Both use Australian English but their origins are unintentionally revealed by spontaneous lapses into American vocabulary. Most notably, Northfield betrays himself using the word truck (ETSN 212), which reminds Uncle Elias of David (ETSN 247). Both characters have taken on virtually the same new (Australian) identity, one by force (Northfield) the other by work (David). Additionally, the two are similar in that they are attracted to the same woman, David ’ s wife Dale. On being confronted with this, “ MacKenzie normally would have reacted with fear or rage or a little of both; but instead, there poured into him that absolute, sure, 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 255 tranquil murderousness he could not recall feeling in his veins since the war ” (ETSN 234). David ’ s double, as a double would, elicits the worst in him. Seeing his situation reflected in the evil Northfield, he regresses to a savage creature and loses all ideals that have contributed to his building a new identity in Australia and on Nettles Island. Having been haunted and now finally confronted by his double, who has come the same way, David is compelled to learn that his new identity is as unstable as ever and that his past clings to him in spite of all his efforts to reinvent himself. Northfield being such an efficient example of a double, the inevitable consequence of David ’ s meeting him is hardly delayed. David is murdered by Northfield without even having found out how alike they are. At the time of the killing, he does not know that Northfield is not Anson Barlow and that his killer is, like him, an American Vietnam veteran turned a would-be Australian. He is not aware how his own life story is neatly inverted into the story of a criminal, Northfield. Correspondingly, the fact that Northfield arrives on the island at the very beginning indicates that David ’ s fate is already determined before any conflicts have had the chance to develop. The double fulfils its inevitable duty, that of causing the first self ’ s death, even before he is consciously recognised as a double. Only instinctively did David sense the destructive effects that Northfield ’ s arrival on Nettles Island were to have. In this respect, “ Paradise ” is markedly different from its predecessor “ Standing In ” . Whereas Dante Panetta manages to gain insight into more and more mysteries, and was in the end even left with a choice of identity (leaving aside the fact that there were no substantial alternatives to choose from), David MacKenzie is killed by his double before having received a chance to fully appreciate his double ’ s uncanniness and the impact that this confrontation is to have on his views about his identity. Similarly, however, Dante Panetta remarked early on that he was “ common clay ” , equally unaware at the time that he had a double called Clay, and that he would remain unable to identify with anything else apart from common clay. The two stories share a premise in that the protagonist ’ s real identity, and his fate, is already consolidated early on, without his having the opportunity to recognise, let alone to influence its development in any way. Again in keeping with “ Standing In ” , “ Paradise ” features relatively few depictions of atrocities. There is, however, again a sex scene in which violence is implied. The sexual act is presented as unconnected to passion, merely a natural habit implemented to secure procreation: “ He pulled off his shirt, stripped his shorts, and went to her, without zeal or passion but with the resolve of a warrior about to enter some desperate struggle, knowing he would lose, yet compelled to try ” (ETSN 223). It is compared to war and depicted again as a reminder of uncontrollable, violent impulses. Above all, though, the description of Northfield ’ s murdering David is especially chilling, presented to the reader from the 256 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles victim ’ s point of view. The act of killing itself is not described, but the final sensation that David feels: “ He couldn ’ t see anything, could only feel the pressure of Barlow ’ s [Northfield ’ s] knees pinning his arms and then the bite of the Ruger ’ s muzzle against his temple ” (ETSN 243 - 44). “ Paradise ” does not end, however, with the evil murderer as the victor. When Northfield tries to flee the island, abducting Uncle Elias and attempting to force him to help him get away, as he is the one that could safely get him to another island (ETSN 245 - 46), the native islander kills him instead so as to save himself from being killed (ETSN 253 - 54). The island has rid itself of the colonisers, not by forcing them out, however; instead, David is murdered by his counterpart, and Northfield is tricked by Uncle Elias when he tries to flee from the latest crime that he has committed himself. Both representatives have encountered the same fate. While David unsuccessfully tried to adjust to the island culture, Northfield searched for a place where he could become someone else in order to avoid being arrested for his crimes. Both of them failed. Conversely, the “ oppressed ” natives have subjected themselves to the erratic flow of fate, which has secured their lives a certain consistency and stability, whereas the coloniser-protagonists could not succeed in their attempts to consciously shape their or others ’ identities and died after being confronted by their own doubles, who came out of their own cultural sphere and were of the same race. Only those who acknowledge their “ markai ” prevail, whereas the others are bound to be destroyed. “ Standing In ” and “ Paradise ” take up the five aspects of social identity which Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Indian Country, Equation for Evil and The Voyage treat in more comprehensive ways, respectively. The short novels focus on the essence of the identity concept as it is portrayed in Philip Caputo ’ s body of work. In contrast to the full-length novels, the most revealing doubles are present or sensed early on in the plotline, and the deconstruction of social identity aspects is initiated already at the beginnings. The final piece in Exiles, “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , builds upon the ground prepared by its two predecessors, leaves social identity on the side, and instead focuses directly on what was the core of all the other works treated. It is a story finally set in the Vietnam War itself, featuring a greater concentration of Gothic elements than any other work, several graphic depictions of gross corporeality and numerous abominable human figures. In keeping with the full-length novels, a final revelation of a shocking double is saved for the story ’ s conclusion. In this final instalment of Exiles, the environment corresponds with the fulllength novels ’ developments towards the Gothic in their late stages. “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” epitomises what is left in Philip Caputo ’ s literary world after false conceptions of social identity have been cast aside. Commenting on “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , Caputo states that Vietnam is merely a “ setting ” , and the short novel is not about the war as 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 257 such ( “ Rumor ” 15). He states that it is “ an allegory: ‘ America in Vietnam. ’” , but “ also a story about America ’ s — maybe even mankind ’ s — relationship with the natural world ” (7). Indeed, the plot, which revolves around an American squad who chase a tiger that has killed and eaten one of their comrades, represents a war story in that it is set in the war, but the function of that war is that of a prime setting of a fully accomplished Gothic tale. It is the third and last piece in Exiles, and accordingly represents an advanced stage in the identity development of the main characters. As experienced soldiers, the characters are already beyond the stage of having lost their adherence to social identity aspects, and the world that surrounds them is a truly uncanny Gothic world to start with. The tiger, around which the storyline is centred, can be read as a representation of the Vietnamese enemy — the species having been used to represent Vietnamese rebels as well as North Vietnamese (Herzog, Vietnam War Stories 50; 218n15). However, Caputo reveals that he really “ had heard these tales during the time [he] was in Vietnam — about tigers ” ( “ Rumor ” 6). In this war story, which is really a Gothic story, the predator epitomises a more generalised uncanny Gothic character, rather than a straightforward enemy figure. On his obsessive hunt for the tiger, which has eaten Valesquez, the mess sergeant, the story ’ s protagonist, Lincoln Coombes, is accompanied by three other squad members, Thomas Pearce Bledsoe, known as “ Teepee ” , Eric “ the Red ” Swenson and Jimmy Neville as well as Han, their Vietnamese guide. The fifth squad member — Gauthier, referred to as the “ Goat ” — dies at the opening of the story, drowning in a river (ETSN 257). As mentioned above, the American characters have already been widely stripped of their social identity adherences. At this stage, they retain mere fragments of what they have once been. Lincoln Coombes has a strong idea of what he is, but without any reference to social identity aspects. The reader finds out little about his background. We knew that he once “ stalked deer in the woods by the Cedar River ” (ETSN 344), but it remains unclear where this is or what his connections to it are. He also has some memories of high school where he played basketball but was “ gawky and awkward ” (ETSN 345) and girls teased him with a song (ETSN 345). The most notable element revealed about his past concerns his father: “ Hunting was the old man ’ s only release from the Rath meat-packing plant and the world of tick-tock, bong-bong. On bird-hunting trips up north, in the Minnesota woods, he would park the car on a logging road, disappear into the boonies for five or six hours, and come out within, at most, a hundred yards from where he ’ d started ” (ETSN 345). Here, we find out something about his familial, ethnic and class identity, the three main dimensions of social identity with little connection to the body. Apparently Coombes had some relationship with his father, but we do not know of what nature. He has a past in Minnesota, but his home state is apparently Iowa (ETSN 311); and as his father worked in 258 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles an unskilled job, it seems likely that he — and, therefore, presumably his family — was a member of a lower social class. The members of his squad apparently know even less about him, having heard conflicting information about what his home state is (ETSN 298). He has managed to adapt to life in the jungle almost completely and retains very few connections to social identity. With reference to Coombes, Robert W. Burns, commenting on “ In the Forest ” , states that “ The story has almost all of the elements of the traditional hero myth — a journey into a dark place, a guide and, most significantly, a hero who is both figuratively and literally wounded ” (102). Coombes ’ s intention to kill the tiger with a crossbow instead of a firearm, both for fear that it would smell a gun and to be “ worthy to kill him ” (ETSN 328, italics in original), seems like an almost too obvious depiction of a macho hero. Indeed, Coombes is well aware of America ’ s frontier history, but considering how detached he is — or would like to be — from his origins, his statement about American myth appears hollow: “ Us. Americans. We subdue the wild. We overcome. It ’ s what we ’ ve been all about since Plymouth Rock ” (ETSN 330). Such a view is immediately questioned by Teepee, who is black and replies, “ My people didn ’ t come over on any goddamned Mayflower ” (ETSN 330), whereupon Coombes states that “ It ’ s in you too ” (ETSN 330). This short part of a conversation, however, is the only element that addresses any notion of a predictable view of Americanness. Instead, what matters to Coombes is his near-perfect adaptation to jungle life, with which he has lost his sense of time and therefore his fear of death: “ Coombes ’ [s] indifference to time had made him indifferent to death — the end of time for each human being — and that indifference had given him mastery over fear . . . ” (ETSN 259). Only by relinquishing his background of social identity and living in a timeless jungle has he come close to fulfilling a wish of becoming something like an übermensch, immune even to the ravages of time. Correspondingly, he has decided to stay in Vietnam indefinitely: “ Far as I could see there were mountains and jungles, and mists coming up out of the trees. It all looked old, old, [sic] but it looked young at the same time, like the world did when dinosaurs were around . . . I was in a place that was very old and very young, where time didn ’ t make any difference ” (ETSN 288). In accordance with these surroundings, Coombes ’ s body also reveals him to be a natural part of the jungle. Even though he has been in the war for years, and contrary to Burns ’ s statement quoted above, his body is whole, without a scratch (ETSN 299), like an infant ’ s, indicating, besides his fierceness, eternal youth and the non-existence of death. He is a strong, savage man, but also has an orderly appearance, having sharply drawn lines between the tanned and untanned parts of his body (ETSN 258), “ intransigent eyes like metal disks ” and a “ mustache the color of iron shavings ” (ETSN 337). The non-existence of time and aging is indicative of a lack of maturing, which would already be 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 259 reminiscent of a Gothic situation. Even to the reader, it is not revealed in what exact year the story is set, and the paper crumbling in Teepee ’ s fingers in the leper colony (ETSN 312) is reminiscent of the decaying books in H. G. Wells ’ s The Time Machine. Coombes ’ s complacent existence in the timeless jungle is challenged only by the tiger, which has reinstated his fear of death and has thus affirmed that he is unable to define himself according to his wishes. In contrast to Ahab, whose chase of Moby Dick is in part comparable to Coombes ’ s hunt for the tiger, Coombes was not severely injured but merely frightened by the animal. His quest is less readable as a search for revenge and more so as a pure attempt to reinstate his own view of himself. The tiger has reminded him of something that he has not completely managed to extinguish. Concerning social identity, the other members of the squad are in positions comparable to Coombes. Jimmy Neville is the most extreme case. Known only by his real name “ In a society where most men were known only by their nicknames, that was tantamount to not having an identity ” (ETSN 260). Even though Coombes does not seem to have a nick name either — if he does, it does not appear to be too well known, as it is not used by anyone in the story — the only other fact about Jimmy that is mentioned is that he is from Pensacola, Florida (ETSN 349). No aspects of his past or his views are revealed. Indeed, he does not have an identity. Eric “ the Red ” — so called due to the fact that his skin gets burned easily (ETSN 260) but also referred to as “ Dolores ” — shows some identity awareness. He is a devout Christian, retains strong connections with his home state of Washington, to which he frequently refers, has memories of going on a deerhunt with his father (ETSN 272) and of his former position as a tuba player in his high-school marching band (ETSN 267), but he once wanted to make the other soldiers believe that he had been a footballer (ETSN 266). He is the one to question Coombes ’ s tiger-hunt strategy the most, thinking that they should discontinue the search for Valesquez ’ s remains and the tiger, obey their orders and return to base camp in time to meet the deadline that was given to them. He remarks, “ What else we [sic] got to go by but orders? Gotta follow ‘ em, gotta try ” (ETSN 303). He is ready to act according to the role that was assigned to him and refuses to give it up, even when all the others decide to stay with Coombes. Still confident, Eric tries to return on his own, going in the direction where he hears bombing noise as he is sure that God sent the sound of the war that would bring him “ home ” (ETSN 300). Home, to him, is where he is officially supposed to be. He is susceptible to imposed identity and ready to accept it. Even so, by detaching himself from his group, the squad, he comes to question such feelings: “ For the first time in his twenty years, there was no one — not father, mother, minister, teacher, sergeant, or captain — to tell him where to go or what to do ” (ETSN 304). Taking off into the jungle by himself 260 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles causes him to feel free of those who helped him to set the boundaries of his identity. His father, mother, minister, teacher, sergeant and captain must have been instrumental in defining his familial, ethnic and occupational identity, respectively. Again, there are the main three non-bodily elements of social identity, which he relinquishes in the jungle. Teepee, like Eric, has a stronger sense of social identity concerning his past. His nickname alludes to a Native American abode, even though he is black. He has apparently had a good education and uses a wide range of vocabulary (ETSN 260). Besides English, he has knowledge of some Latin, Greek and Louisiana French (ETSN 333). He went to St. Martin ’ s Catholic Preparatory School in New Orleans (ETSN 266), but, unlike Eric, “ was a skeptic ” (ETSN 264) with regard to his religious education. It is also revealed that he used to box (ETSN 295). The only black soldier in the squad, he is also prone to racial identification. It is revealed that for him as a black person, his education did not suffice to avoid the draft by going to college (ETSN 266). He affirms, “ I ’ m African as a Zulu, African as the tsetse fly ” (ETSN 260). His way of retaining his connections to his class (education), ethnic and racial identity is more pragmatic than Eric ’ s. He does not base his behaviour and decisions in the war on the doctrines of the groups with which he identifies. Nor does his fear of the tiger, in contrast to Coombes ’ s, represent an incompatibility with his view of himself. It is a concrete fear which disturbs the sense not necessarily of what he is but of how he should behave: “ Teepee saw himself and all his comrades as more than mere men; they were warriors, the proudest and bravest of men. Yet the tiger had shown no fear of them, sneaking into the camp right under their noses . . . ” (ETSN 281). Here, he alludes to gender identity, but his status as a man is not questioned by his fear. Instead, he questions only his bravery (ETSN 295). Teepee ’ s identity is more flexible than the others ’ , and the extreme situations of the war have also changed his views in some way: It was impossible to imagine himself or his companions as anything other than the soldiers they now were. They had lost their pasts here. They knew each other more by the nicknames they ’ d given each other than by the names their parents had given them and had consecrated over baptismal fonts. It was as if they had died and been reborn: infants without memory, children of the forest. They were not its legitimate children, like Han, but its bastards, lacking all claim to its inheritance. Except for Coombes. The jungle had adopted him. (ETSN 267) Teepee recognises how his companions have been robbed of their backgrounds, which is comparable to what Gage thinks in Horn of Africa, and what Joyce feels in Equation for Evil. The war and the Gothic world of which it is a part obliterate all previous identities. Unlike the others, Teepee manages to sustain a degree of intellectual distance between what he was and what he is doing. He does not try 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 261 to explain his situation too rigidly with reference to his past, his positions as a Louisianan, a Catholic, a well-educated person or a black man: Teepee, following Coombes, watched the forest close in behind him with each step, even as, ahead, it cloaked where he was going. He felt shut off from his past, barred from any vision of his future, trapped in a present in which he ’ d become a stranger to himself. He couldn ’ t be doing this, abandoning a fellow soldier [Eric “ the Red ” ], disobeying his commanding officer ’ s orders, going over the hill on a renegade mission. He wondered if he would have returned with Red if he ’ d not seen what the tiger had done to Valesquez. But he had seen, so now it would not be enough merely to kill the animal. He intended to annihilate it, make it disappear, boil its heart and liver and organs in a stew, give its meat to Han ’ s tribesmen for a feast, leave its guts to the vultures, grind its teeth, claws, and bones into powder and scatter the powder to the four winds so there would be no sign remaining on earth that the tiger ever had drawn a breath. (ETSN 305) Teepee does not understand why he acts the way he does and where it could lead, but he is not incapable of dealing with it altogether, unlike Coombes or Eric. This flexibility serves him to the end. With Coombes dead and the tiger leaving without hurting him or Han, the only two survivors of the mission, Teepee “ felt within himself the same lightness that had buoyed him as a kid when he exited the confessional, his sins acknowledged and absolved ” (ETSN 353). Finally, he has found some kind of access point to his identity again. He is able to integrate this experience in his life history and his identity development. He has proven to be able to survive the tiger hunt. As Caputo states, Teepee has managed to learn “ that there ’ s a point at which you submit, where you must submit to survive ” ( “ Rumor ” 7, italics in original). Teepee does not try to justify his behaviour by referring to a way he was supposed to be. Instead, he has successfully made this experience part of his identity, also by adjusting the sense of who he is. In this world of lost identities, the soldiers are completely overwhelmed by the uncanniness of their environment, and Gothic elements are more starkly presented than in any other of Caputo ’ s works. The sense of timelessness in the jungle suggests the absence of humanity ’ s “ enlightened ” progress in the course of history. In contrast to the two preceding short novels, “ In the Forest ” is set in the past, indicating that the thematic structure of the work has not progressed but rather regressed. The characters are confronted with the past that is all of humanity ’ s past, and it does not appear to have been overcome here. The war and the alien land are the main Gothic presences in the story, but the Gothicness of the Vietnamese jungle is enhanced by the fact that several elements in this presumably foreign world are in reality “ uncanny because they were once familiar ” . The tiger itself is a prime example of something that Edmund Burke would consider sublime: 262 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles We have continually about us animals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious. Amongst these we never look for the sublime: it comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the form of the lion, the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros. Whenever strength is only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never sublime; for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity to our will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us; and therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding conception. (Burke 109) With its strength and its not acting “ in conformity to our will ” it is a sublime entity. Correspondingly, the tiger is presented as a superior figure: “ The tiger had been only a word, an abstraction. Now the track allowed them to give it form and substance in their minds, and each of them was flooded with a consciousness of his smallness and frailty in this soaring wilderness, of whose might and majesty the great cat seemed the incarnation ” (ETSN 270). It turns out not to be as exotic as it may appear at first. In Vietnam, it is initially a mythic being. According to local lore, the “ Ghostiger ” gains supernatural powers by eating, besides a person ’ s body, the angry soul of his victim and should not be killed as that soul would be transferred to another tiger, which would then prey on the killer and his family (ETSN 263). The relentless killings performed in wars by soldiers with “ angry ” souls and equally their horrific deaths which fail to quieten their own souls (ETSN 326) are presented here as a frightening, Gothic occurrence which cannot be understood rationally. The Americans are not fond of such supernatural explanations. The tiger ’ s eyes, however, are repeatedly compared to a jack-o ’ -lantern ’ s (ETSN 262; 275; 290), indicating that such predatory ghostly figures exist also in European/ American mythology and are a firm part of cultures around the world, not restricted to a supposedly backward jungle tribe ’ s. The tiger is a nightmarish figure, and Teepee once dreams of seeing it right on top of himself (ETSN 339 - 40). At a later stage, the uncanniness of the atmosphere is heightened when the squad approach the leper colony. This Gothic episode is skilfully introduced when the squad members become aware of ghostly voices singing through the supposedly savage jungle (ETSN 308 - 09). In this spooky atmosphere, Teepee is reminded of an encounter with a ghost in Vietnam earlier on. It is revealed that according to legend, a brutally murdered teacher at times returns to haunt his abandoned schoolhouse. Teepee ’ s squad once rested there and were assaulted by violent banging on the door. When they eventually shot through that door destroying it, they did not find blood or footprints outside (ETSN 309). This story is based on one of the author ’ s experiences. He describes a situation very similar to the one told by Teepee where he and a few other marines were using an old schoolhouse as a shelter in a night of rain. The building was said to be haunted by a teacher executed by Viet Minh guerrillas, and there started to be violent 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 263 banging on and shaking of the door “ as though someone were trying to force his way inside ” , but no one outside ever saw anyone at the door, nor were there any footprints apart from the marines ’ . Some said that they had heard footsteps though, and “ The next day, a villager told us that when he ’ d left his hut the previous night . . . he ’ d seen a wraithlike form, drifting down a ravine toward the schoolhouse ” (Caputo, “ The Coils of Memory ” 178 - 79). The adaptation and integration of this mysterious occurrence into “ In the Forest ” clinches the fusion of reality and Gothic fiction and the fact that a supernatural, not rationally understandable presence cannot be denied. Once Teepee becomes aware that the voices which reminded him of this experience originate in living human beings, he thinks that “ . . . it was stranger than all the ghosts in the world ” (ETSN 309). He becomes aware that the songs are sung not in a Vietnamese dialect but in Latin. What is uncanny is not only the foreignness of the tropical jungle but equally the language on which European/ American culture was widely founded and which equally recalls a bygone age, as is typical of a Gothic tale. When the members of the squad enter the leper colony, there is a further element that reminds them of their own culture: “ The mud-brick church was as small as the clapboard country churches in Coombes ’ [s] Iowa and Teepee ’ s Louisiana, yet it possessed, in that brooding Asian wilderness, the fantastic quality of a fairy castle ” (ETSN 311). In the middle of the jungle, the Americans are most unexpectedly reminded of their home country. The soldiers are trapped in a world not their own but still somehow their own. Reminiscent of Indian Country, Gothic elements unite the world and its peoples. The jungle and the war fulfil their function of the setting to this Gothic story in that they represent an unavoidable uncanny presence by which the characters are overwhelmed. They are frightening to human beings also because human beings ’ concepts play no relevant roles in them. In the jungle, described as “ a kingdom ruled by trees ” (ETSN 259), human beings are indeed subjected by uncanny plants. At one point, the squad members are caught in Cambodian mimosa which is virtually lunging for them (ETSN 268). The soldiers turn into small, seemingly inferior creatures. In connection with the fact that history is non-existent in the Vietnam War zone, the war does not have a meaning as a determiner of history. Instead, war is equated with the uncanny. It is terrible because it is part of a terrible world. It is its starkest incarnation and universal, not an exception to otherwise benevolent surroundings. Fittingly, none of the characters dies due to his involvement in the war. Indeed, “ . . . they almost missed the familiar dangers of snipers and booby traps. Better to die that way than to be pounced on by a cat that could crush a man ’ s skull like an eggshell and shred him into a bloody slaw ” (ETSN 271). We have already seen that Coombes, the most obvious incarnation of a war hero, has an unscathed body (ETSN 299); and even the dead Vietnamese whose helmet Eric takes does 264 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles not have a wound (ETSN 316). In the story, the soldiers die one after the other, but they are not hurt by enemy activity. Neither are their deaths caused by the other enemy, the tiger itself, apart from Valesquez ’ s, who died prior to the beginning of the story. Other circumstances, accidental ones, cause them to die due to their own carelessness. The deaths occur in regular intervals and are as meaningless as the numbers by which the survivors are regularly counted (ETSN 257; 304; 348). Gauthier the Goat falls off a bridge and drowns in a river at the very beginning of the story (ETSN 257). Eric the Red — taken for a Vietnamese for wearing an enemy helmet while waiting in an unofficial war zone beyond the national border (ETSN 342) — is killed by gunfire from an American helicopter (ETSN 343), making him a true casualty of mistaken identity. Jimmy Neville is crushed to death by a python which he mistook for a liana (ETSN 324 - 25). Coombes dies after having accidentally hurt himself with the poisoned arrow with which he wanted to kill the tiger (ETSN 348). There is no notion of struggle, actual or symbolic, no sense of being the winner or the loser in a fight. The Vietnam War is not portrayed as an American failure due to cultural misunderstanding or lack of strength. Instead, they lose as individuals for pointless reasons. The uncanniness of the jungle and the war comes to be reflected in the characters themselves. Reminiscent of Horn of Africa, the human beings are compelled to assume identities as uncanny figures. The lepers are the most obvious examples in the story of decaying Gothic bodies. It is mentioned that “ There was about them all a suggestion of maimed corpses abandoning a crypt as they emerged blinking from the church, the corpses of the damned risen on Judgment Day, souls reunited to repulsive bodies beyond all hope of restoration to the full glory of their youth and beauty ” (ETSN 314). Their comparison to zombies (ETSN 336) is again reminiscent of a horror film. The leading figure in the colony, Père Pascal, is described as “ the zombiemaster ” (ETSN 314), a “ being ” and a “ wraith ” (ETSN 313). The encounter with lepers is also based on the author ’ s experience (Caputo, “ Rumor ” 7), but the fragmenting bodies are horrifying reflections of the soldiers ’ own humanity. In a further event reminiscent of Wells ’ s The Time Machine, the lepers assault Coombes and Teepee after the killing of Père Pascal, echoing the morlocks chase of the time traveller (ETSN 335 - 36). The morlocks are among the classic representatives of doubles to civilised human beings. In this story, which also takes place outside a fixed time frame, such doubles return in the shape of revolting disintegrating bodies of people who practice a culture strongly related to the Americans ’ , whereas in other instances, the healthy bodies of some soldiers equally disintegrate. Of Valesquez ’ s body, the tiger ’ s prey that initiated the hunt, only parts are found along the way: 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 265 . . . all that remained of him now were his head and shoulders, half of one arm, a few fragments of ribs and thighbones. Consumed. Devoured. As Teepee stood staring, a stream of water splashed into Valesquez ’ s face. One of the monkeys was relieving itself. Of course, it intended no irreverence, but Teepee could not help but see its act as deliberate — untamed nature ’ s final insult. (ETSN 299) Later on, they find “ Valesquez transformed by digestive chemistry into cat shit ” (ETSN 305). Correspondingly, Jimmy Neville ’ s state after being crushed by the snake is described in gruesome detail: “ . . . his shape transformed into that of a giant beehive — narrow at the top and bottom, bulging hugely in the middle . . . His face was a gray blue, his eyes were open and still; blood trickled from his nostrils and ears and mouth, and his tongue stuck out. Off to one side lay a head shaped a little like a gator ’ s head and half as big, a head with gaping jaws and twin fangs ” (ETSN 324). Coombes attempts to keep his body under control up to the very end, after, having killed Père Pascal, he was wounded in the fight with the lepers: “ Forehead bruised, knee throbbing, a cold ache in his jaw. Pain. The pain was not distracting in any way; on the contrary, it kept his senses on the keenest of edges and helped him concentrate. The pain was good, a mortification of the flesh that purified the warrior-hunter ” (ETSN 343). As in Elaine Scarry, physical pain is all that is left, but Coombes still tries to overcome it and necessarily fails when he is eventually caught up by the tiger. Besides the physical abominations, doubles also appear as significant indicators of identity. Unlike The Voyage and “ Standing In ” , where manifest doubles are present, there are only latent doubles in “ In the Forest ” . In this story which features an animal “ protagonist ” it is this animal that takes on the main function of the double. As Keppler mentions, The uncanny Twin . . . is the Twin of half-spirit parentage, spirit originally in animal form (in the broad sense of any subhuman creature, including birds and reptiles). The result is that the uncanny Twin often himself retains certain animal characteristics, such as the shagginess of Esau and Enkidu. And it is interesting that in . . . recent and modern literature . . . the second self as Pursuer not only sometimes is animalistic, but sometimes is literally an animal. (28 - 29) In his studies of doubles in Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Damien Nacco observes that animals as doubles depict the fact that “ Though it certainly can be said that nonhuman doubles themselves generally exist in the role of pursuer for the purpose of shocking the reader, the real horror is the somewhat unsavory implication that such grotesque figures as robots, panthers and savage dogs are in fact what Bierce perceives to be doppelganger reflections of the human psyche ” (191 - 92). He emphasises that “ . . . humankind invariably behaves even more reprehensibly than their counterparts in the animal world ” (182), and that “ The primitive mind ineluctably undermines all attempts for rationality and 266 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles points out the futility in any effort to rise above the baser nature of these animalistic tendencies ” (192). Kelly Hurley emphasises the Victorian fear that “ . . . the evolutionary process might be reversible: the human race might ultimately retrogress into a sordid animalism rather than progress towards a telos of intellectual and moral perfection ” (56). Indicative of the animal ’ s roles as humanised doubles in “ In the Forest ” are words for animals which are realised like names, capitalised and without articles, as repeatedly in “ Tiger ” , but also in “ Panther ” (ETSN 258), “ Deer ” and “ Pig ” (ETSN 327). Coombes is the one who is most obsessed with a relation to the tiger and even refers to it using a masculine pronoun instead of a neuter one — “ I want him to see me when I kill him ” (ETSN 301). Conversely, the other members of the squad come to think of themselves as animal-like. For example, in accordance with the use of capitalised words for animals, Gauthier was known as “ Goat ” (ETSN 260). Similarly, Coombes compares the tiger ’ s first victim, Valesquez, to a mouse which is dragged away by a cat (ETSN 262), and he accepts Han ’ s theory that the many dead bodies produced by war have become easy prey for the Tiger (ETSN 344). When Jimmy Neville is crushed by a snake, Teepee at first mistakes his scream for a bird ’ s cry (ETSN 323), and eventually Coombes uses Jimmy ’ s body like animal bait to attract the tiger (ETSN 329). Teepee, considering how indifferent the tiger is toward human beings, becomes increasingly aware of humanity ’ s non-humanness: “ Did they know that no matter how brilliant or beautiful or important you are, sometimes you ’ re just lunch? ” (ETSN 349). He also compares his African origin to that of a tsetse fly (ETSN 260), and when the squad hear the tiger ’ s terrifying roar, “ A million years of human evolution fell away. He felt naked and diminished, a puny halfape, shuddering through the predator ’ s night without weapons or fire or the intelligence to invent a god to call on for deliverance ” (ETSN 293). He readily makes the connection between himself and humanity ’ s common origins with apes. The way in which he reinstates his status as a human being is ironic, however. Holding on to a rifle, which gives him a sense of assurance towards the danger posed by the tiger, he realises that “ He was not some puny half-ape without weapons and fire ” (ETSN 294, italics in original). Holding a killing device apparently makes him more human. The main difference between a human being and an animal predator is therefore not something like a sense of morality but merely the type of instrument that is used to perform killings. The tiger has its teeth and its muscles; the human being has technology. Most notable in this respect is Eric “ the Red ” , however. At one point, he has the impression that “ . . . the giant trees made him as blind to landmarks as a beetle in a cornfield ” (ETSN 265), and Coombes mentions that he has “ the smarts of a tree snail with a brain tumor ” (ETSN 269). As we learn, though, he lived through his greatest moment of fear when he saw something most terrible 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 267 when he got stuck while searching a tunnel. It is later revealed that what Eric saw was the face of an enemy soldier who had been “ killed by the grenade someone had tossed into the tunnel ” (ETSN 341). When he saw it, he believed he was looking at the face of the devil. It was presumably full of blood — red — and thus Eric the Red ’ s double. The devil is of course the original “ beast ” , and it is especially telling that Eric, of all people, with his strong moral and religious imperatives sees himself doubled in a satanic image. All the members of the squad, including Coombes as we shall see, come to a point of doubling with animals, which are the prime examples of the characters ’ doubles, whereas more predictable doubles such as enemy soldiers have secondary status. Even though it is a dead enemy fighter whom Eric encounters in the tunnel and he himself is eventually killed for being mistaken for a Vietnamese, his prime double is a devilish figure, an image related to his own culture, not the enemy ’ s. In keeping with the full-length novels, the most overwhelming case of doubling occurs at the conclusion, which depicts the final confrontation of the main protagonist, Coombes, with his antagonist, the tiger. As with the other squad members, Coombes comes to be doubled with animals. Considering the tiger ’ s eyes, “ He could see them still, as he ’ d seen them the night before, burning with no expression in them except serenity. Yes, serene, and malignant in their serenity, looking at him as he might at an ant or a worm. He ’ d never seen anything so terrible, for he could not believe there was anything in creation capable of looking upon him as if he were an ant or a worm ” (ETSN 262, italics in original). The tiger, however, is eventually revealed as Coombes ’ s proper antagonistic double in its most frightening incarnation. Coombes “ had learned to live outside time, like the tiger . . . ” (ETSN 258), but whereas he holds the belief that he can overcome all his fears by overcoming the tiger, he is eventually forced to experience the opposite. The tiger is not a “ convenience ” double against which the first self, Coombes, can measure himself. Instead, it is the Gothic one that forever abolishes the hope to be what one hopes and aspires to be. As with Dante and Clay, however, it is not absolutely clear who the first and who the second self is. Coombes appears as the first self, as he is human and the main protagonist. He first meets his double, the tiger, as it steps into his life unexpectedly, indicating that he is the first and the tiger the second self. At one point, however, Coombes is described as “ a man who had no certain date or place of birth, nor verifiable history of any kind, a man who was not a man so much as the sum of the stories that were told about him. A shadow ” (ETSN 299). This description is again indicative of how Coombes has no social identity. Instead he is described as a “ shadow ” , a prime representative element of the classic double. Keppler has mentioned that the second self as pursuer is sometimes an animal. Coombes, however, is the literal pursuer of the tiger. He takes on the function of the second self to reverse the roles, make the tiger fear 268 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles him and cause his death. He wants to take the tiger out of its self-complacency. Such a role would traditionally be taken by the second, not the first self. As the story develops, however, the tiger does indeed become a more traditional second self. Even the roles of pursuer/ pursued are inverted: “ T. P. Bledsoe had begun to feel that they were not pursuing the tiger but being pulled by it, Coombes leashed to it and he, Han, and Neville shackled to Coombes by immaterial chains ” (ETSN 305). The tiger does not turn into a literal pursuer but rather a haunter. The others chase after it because it is always present — physically or in their minds. The final encounter between Coombes and the tiger is a prime example of two doubles confronting each other as mirrored images. Having reached a pool in the stream along which he tracked the tiger, Coombes first contemplates his own reflection in the water in his canteen. Immediately afterwards, “ The ripples vanished as Coombes capped his canteen, and then he saw its head mirrored so clearly in the pool it seemed to be staring up at him from underwater instead of down from the boulder behind him ” (ETSN 346). This scene of unexpected revelation recalls the mirror images with which DelCorso ’ s Gallery and Equation for Evil culminate. Looking at the reflection in the water, Coombes is a would-be Narcissus who does not see what he expected — his reassured self. However, it would be simplistic to view the mirrored image of the tiger only as either an indication of Coombes ’ s animality or his affinity to the official enemy, the Vietnamese rebels. Instead, it represents more. The tiger epitomises the amalgamation of all that is other, but same, to Coombes: his animalistic origin, his equivalence to the enemy, his mortality, his subjectedness to his surroundings. The tiger represents how Coombes is equally a part of this uncontrollable Gothic world that is, among other things, the war. The tiger is everything that both physically and metaphysically haunts not only him but human existence in general. As the tiger is never described as an inspiring wild animal but a ghastly entity, the same is now revealed about Coombes as a human being. He is a predator, but not in a romantic way. According to legend, as we have seen, the “ Ghostiger ” is primarily the incarnation of troubled human souls, and this is also what Coombes is revealed to be. Like the tiger, he is a somewhat accidental part of the Gothic-ness of the world in general and the war in particular. Coombes ’ s hunt for the tiger has always been a hunt to confirm the image of what he would like himself to be but is afraid that he is not, and his longed-for self-image of strength and courage is literally turned into its opposite in the face of the tiger. At first confident that he can outwit and subdue it, he eventually panics and is merely frightened by it, forced to acknowledge not only his own failure but the futility of his undertaking and the senselessness of all human ambition as well as the non-superiority of human existence. In short: the tiger as a reflection of himself indicates that what he is afraid of is 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 269 actually within himself, his mortality being perhaps the main weakness that he cannot shed. Corresponding with the conventional use of the double, he dies shortly after the confrontation, but at his own hands, not being eaten but accidentally injuring himself with the arrow poisoned to be used as a deadly weapon (ETSN 348). This sequence of events makes him realise just before his death that in reality he is a fearful inept man as well as a Gothic body in Gothic surroundings and the epitome of all of humanity ’ s ruthlessness and pointlessness. This realisation cannot be ignored. The tiger prevails. As Teepee realises, there is a “ mystery, eternal and insoluble, of the human mind and its capacities for evil ” (ETSN 349). This statement, which could be seen as a brief description of what Gothic literature in general has been proposing, is a fitting culminating recognition in Caputo ’ s most evidently Gothic work. Exiles finishes in a way similar to the full-length novels. After the relatively pleasant environments of “ Standing In ” and “ Paradise ” , the reader is taken into the Gothic world of uncanny presences, abominable bodies and further doubles. In its three parts, Exiles most comprehensively assesses the state of its characters ’ identities. Whereas abominations assert their presence as ever, the subtler representatives of Gothic identity, the doubles, are presented in all their various incarnations. There are manifest doubles — Dante and Clay — in “ Standing In ” , intriguing human latent doubles — David and Northfield — in “ Paradise ” , and an animalistic latent double — the tiger — in “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” . They starkly redefine the protagonists ’ identities in distinctive but comparable ways. The manifest double, Clay, reveals to Dante that he has no identity at all. The human latent double, Northfield, represents David ’ s evil counterpart. The animalistic latent double, the tiger, confronts Coombes with what he fears. In this way, these primary doubles in Exiles unite the principal revelations that have occurred with the final doubles in the fulllength novels. Corresponding with the doubles in “ Paradise ” , which most directly reflect the classical situation of the double as the evil antagonist, four of the full-length novels equally make use of this situation. In Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Equation for Evil and The Voyage, good, represented by Moody/ DelCorso/ Heartwood/ the Braithwaites, are reflected in bad, Nordstrand/ the Lebanese fighter-killer/ Mace/ the Casamayors, just as in “ Paradise ” good (David) is reflected in bad (Northfield). Indian Country, whose final doubles are of a somewhat different nature, concludes in a way comparable to “ In the Forest ” , the protagonist, Christian/ Coombes, being assaulted by the character who is not necessarily evil but represents unpleasant truths about himself, Eckhardt/ tiger. “ Standing In ” , with its most recognisable doubles, makes a more general statement about what identity is in a way never realised in this form in any full-length novel, not even in The Voyage with its family resemblances. Dante and Clay represent the overarching principle that identity 270 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles is eventually immaterial. Clay is one of the most benevolent of Caputo ’ s doubles. He is mysterious but harmless and represents the least of all evil that can be the consequence of a confrontation with one ’ s double. In his case, identity is not distorted but simply obliterated. This being the conclusion of the first of three parts in Exiles, it can never be the final recognition. The manifest double is followed by the less easily recognisable but more destructive latent double, which eventually reforms identity as in “ Paradise ” (or Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Equation for Evil and The Voyage) in that one ’ s evil side is incarnated, or as in “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” (or Indian Country) in that it elicits all that one represses and threatens to destroy the first self. Being latent as opposed to manifest, the evil double is the one that creeps up unnoticed, and then overwhelms the first self inadvertently, as it was originally not recognisable as a double. 8. War, Atrocities, Social Identity, Abominations and Doubles in Exiles 271 9. Conclusion Caputo ’ s five full-length novels published in the 1980 s and 1990 s appear as stages towards — or, in case of The Voyage, away from — a definite amalgamation of several themes until they finally occur in their most accomplished form in Exiles: Three Short Novels. The war theme, social identity and Gothic elements occur in all works as related concepts that accompany the main characters ’ identity developments. Even though each of the full-length novels focuses on one dimension of social identity, the shift in the conceptions of identity is invariably induced and enhanced with the proliferation of bodily abominations and doubles, which come to stand as the incarnations of a surfacing Gothic identity. Abominations occur readily and epitomise the ubiquity of a horrific human identity that swiftly supersedes any abstract, civilised image of social identity. Doubles come to represent the protagonists ’ new Gothic identities in a subtler way. Even though there are numerous doubles throughout the works, a devastating confrontation with an unexpected double always occurs towards the final stages, offering, besides abominations, a second, but no more optimistic view of human identity. Horn of Africa starts with the main characters exploring their male gender. Relying on their physical strength, they strive to achieve the highest and purest form of masculinity. Even Jeremy Nordstrand, who at first appears to have reached his goal, eventually fails in the war-torn Gothic African environment. His body literally dissolves; he turns into a human abomination, and his heart, the only part of him that is left in the end, is revealed as an identical double to his prime antagonist ’ s, Patrick Moody ’ s. DelCorso ’ s Gallery, with its class-conscious, ambitious photographer-protagonist Nick DelCorso, takes a turn towards the cybergothic. Those who attempt to build their identity on occupational and class aspirations are revealed as “ fakes ” , artificial creatures exposed in their gross corporeality in the equally Gothic world of the wars in Vietnam and Lebanon. DelCorso ’ s final confrontation with a ruthless fighter-killer manifests the latter as his perceived mirror image which mortally wounds him. In Indian Country, the characters are well aware of their ethnic identity, particularly concerning their cultural and religious backgrounds. The novel depicts latent conflicts between Native and European Americans, but reveals such perceived conflicts as simplistic. Instead, all cultures turn out to be part of a hidden common Gothic world to which the Vietnam War is presented as a prevalent but not the only point of access. America itself is infested with frightening, abominable human and non-human creatures and spirits. The protagonist Christian Starkmann is eventually confronted with his double in the form of his psychologist, a goblin-like human being who represents all Christian would like to escape but cannot: his past in Vietnam, his problems with sustaining relationships, his fits into madness, and also his own cultural sphere in its Gothic manifestations from which he cannot simply absolve himself in the hope of leading a more pleasant life in a supposedly less Gothic Indian environment. Equation for Evil uses the taboo theme of racial identity in order to present the Gothic-ness which is inherent in human bodies without respect to ideas of race. Again using elements of cybergothic to present the opposition of artificial and actual bodies, in addition to its setting in Gothic cityscapes, it is revealed that artificial elements merely manage to hide the abominable state of a human being and body. Its use of graphic violence makes the relativity of the attractiveness of human bodies, whatever their race, dissolve into abominable images of deformed and fragmented body parts. The main doubling scene at the conclusion is that between the two prime cyborgs, the respectable and smartly-dressed psychologist Leander Heartwood and the physically mutilated but artificially reconstructed orchestrator of racist mass killings Mace Weathers. The good character, Heartwood, sees himself reflected in his evil counterpart ’ s sunglasses, mirroring his made-up appearance in a mass-murderer, revealing how appearance, onto which he places such great value, merely hides his own and everybody else ’ s uncanniness that lies beneath. The Voyage follows the members of the proud Braithwaite dynasty with a firm sense of familial identity. Unique among the full-length novels, it features easily recognisable manifest doubles, most notably Cyrus Braithwaite and his illegitimate son Lockwood, who seriously questions the family ’ s values, as he turns out to have been instrumental in producing further illegitimate offspring with his father ’ s wife Elizabeth. Their three sons, Nathaniel, Eliot and Drew, are sent on a voyage where they encounter the Gothic worlds of the sea, their ancestors ’ homelands and the exotic island of Cuba, where the confrontation with their final doubles takes place: the members of the Casamayor family, who are equally victims of sexual assault, incest-like situations, dubious relations and conflicts, but, compared to the Braithwaites, are more aware of it. Exiles unites these themes — eschewing cybergothic, which is relevant in DelCorso ’ s Gallery and Equation for Evil — and offers their definite representation. The three short novels together mark the same development that is recognisable in the other works. The characters start off in a familiar environment — as in the modern civilised surroundings of “ Standing In ” — then the world around them grows stranger — corresponding to the exotic but not too exotic world of “ Paradise ” — and finally reaches a state of Gothic uncanniness — as realised in the ghostly atmosphere of “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” . Similarly, Exiles condenses the identity themes of the four preceding and one succeeding novels and addresses them in the same way. As in the early stages of the novel 9. Conclusion 273 plots, the first two stories are still concerned with social identity aspects. “ Standing In ” features characters with views of their gender, occupational/ class and familial identity, reflecting Horn of Africa, DelCorso ’ s Gallery and The Voyage, respectively. “ Paradise ” involves protagonists aware of their ethnic and racial identity, echoing Indian Country and Equation for Evil. In the final story, “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , virtually only the Gothic versions of identity are left, corresponding to the late stages in the plots of the full-length novels. This fully accomplished Gothic story is also the only conclusive piece of war fiction in Philip Caputo ’ s body of work. Whereas war is an unholy presence in the background of all the other works, it finally reaches the foreground here, just as straightforward Gothic elements, which otherwise loom underneath, come to the surface in the same work. “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” openly articulates what the full-length novels, regarding war, hint at: it can only be depicted in Gothic terms; it is primarily a stark expression of what human beings are; it is because human beings are; and it is the way it is because human beings are the way they are, namely too real to be realistically described and too abominable to be rationally understood. No matter with what one originally cares to identify — with one ’ s gender (Horn of Africa), occupation/ class (Del- Corso ’ s Gallery), ethnicity (Indian Country), race (Equation for Evil) or family (The Voyage) — the result of identity development is invariably an abominable state of humanity. Corresponding with the treatment in the full-length novels, not only the perpetrators but also the victims of horrible crimes are revealed as abominations. The ceaseless killings and agonies in Horn of Africa; the war casualties in DelCorso ’ s Gallery, Indian Country, “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” and The Voyage; the crime victims in Equation for Evil, “ Standing In ” and “ Paradise ” ; animals ’ human prey and the lepers in “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” ; these and many other cases are examples of gross corporeality as the basic abominable human condition. War discloses people ’ s true identity; and, like war, it turns out to be too terrible to be explained and recounted tastefully and in a way that can be understood intellectually. All people, however they initially identified, are eventually revealed as Gothic entities simply for the fact that they are part of a world that is in its essence Gothic, rationally incomprehensible as well as chaotic and horrific. War is, not because of conflicts that can be grasped by reason, but merely because the world in which it occurs is Gothic. The doubles that usually occur in a final, epiphanic turn in the story and frequently remain concealed and unrecognisable during the build-up to the climax hold prominent positions and send out messages similar to the human abominations. They confirm beyond doubt the characters ’ true horrific identities as individuals. The fact that the doubles often interact throughout the plots but are revealed as doubles only towards the end of the plotlines 274 9. Conclusion indicate that the characters are already in the grasp of their true identity long before they manage to recognise it. Jeremy Nordstrand and Patrick Moody; Nick DelCorso and the Lebanese fighters; Christian Starkmann and Eckhardt the psychologist; Leander Heartwood and Mace Weathers; David MacKenzie and John Northfield; Lincoln Coombes and the tiger; the Braithwaites and the Casamayors; these characters, which are invariably revealed as doubles in a culminating scene, have known and interacted as antagonists long before it was revealed that they are uncanny reflections of each other. Unusual examples are Horn of Africa, “ Paradise ” and The Voyage, in which the prime doubles never manage to recognise each other as such, and their statuses as doubles are revealed only after their deaths. Special positions are held by the readily recognisable manifest doubles in “ Standing In ” and They Voyage, which are, of course, obvious doubles and can therefore not release their devastating potential unexpectedly. Correspondingly, these manifest doubles are present from the very beginning. In the case of Cyrus, Lockwood and Drew Braithwaite, the three family look-alikes in The Voyage, however, their descendent Sybil finds out about all the shady relationships within the family only a century later. The latent doubles, the Casamayors, are revealed to be an even starker representation of the questionable familial relations within the Braithwaite family. The characters, however, fail to recognise this at the time. The truth to which these doubles attest is too terrible for the characters to recognise up to the end. These main ways of how doubles are used are again united in Exiles. The manifest doubles in “ Standing In ” leave open what meaning the resemblance between Dante Panetta and Clay Rhodes has. The mystery is not resolved, as the true familial relationships within the Braithwaite family in The Voyage are not disclosed to all protagonists affected by them. The relation between Dante and Clay is even less graspable than the one between the Braithwaite look-alikes, but they do not pose a significant threat to each other, particularly since Clay died some time before Dante learned about his existence. The ending of “ Standing In ” leaves the protagonist in an unpleasant, but not completely hopeless situation concerning his identity. Even if he must realise that he has no chance of receiving an identity, he can at least choose between two relatively pleasant ways of living. Fittingly, the story ends without a conclusion, and in its two follow-ups, the doubles are more dangerous and, correspondingly, less recognisable. In “ Paradise ” , David MacKenzie and John Northfield are classical antagonists. Compared to “ Standing In ” , the protagonist ’ s double is considerably more malevolent and eventually kills him, just as Nick DelCorso in DelCorso ’ s Gallery and Leander Heartwood in Equation for Evil are killed by their doubles. Also to Patrick Moody and Jeremy Nordstrand in Horn of Africa, and to Lincoln Coombes in “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” , the confrontation with 9. Conclusion 275 their doubles takes its classical toll in that they have to pay for it with their lives. Only Christian Starkmann in Indian Country manages to survive in spite of his double, as Dante Panetta has survived despite his, but his doubling situation is comparable to the final one in Exiles. “ In the Forest ” , and therefore Exiles, again concludes in that uncanny characters are suddenly revealed as doubles at a climactic epiphany. Coombes and the tiger that he has been hunting have interacted for some time before Coombes sees the tiger ’ s reflection instead of his own in the water. This occurrence is particularly similar to that of Indian Country in that the final double represents a state in which the protagonist is trapped. Both Christian Starkmann and Lincoln Coombes are unwilling to accept their fears and pathologies, but they are faced with them in the forms of Eckhardt and the tiger, respectively. Whereas Christian is allowed to be healed and to continue his life, Coombes is destroyed like many of his predecessors in the full-length novels. Besides Christian Starkmann, only characters with straightforward manifest doubles, Dante Panetta, Cyrus und Drew (but not Lockwood) Braithwaite, are allowed to go on living. Their manifest doubles do not have a potential that is as destructive as latent doubles. In all cases, doubles reform a character ’ s identity more subtly and also more individually, whereas abominations rather attest to the Gothic identity of human beings as such. Caputo ’ s treatment of the war theme represents an alternative way to explain war in literature, and it stands out even in the bulk of American Vietnam War literature, which is well known for its stylistic variety and experimentalism. With his departure from the subject, however, Caputo also leaves behind the Gothic elements, including the frequent graphic depictions of atrocities and the use of the double motive. The Voyage marks the turning point. On the one hand, it appears to be anticlimactic after Exiles: Three Short Novels. On the other hand, it features prominent manifest doubles and treats the element of mysterious family relations, which is closely related to the Gothic, in its fullest form. This is also the element which continues to prevail after The Voyage. It was present already in Horn of Africa with Jeremy Nordstrand ’ s relationship to his parents. Whereas it did not play a major role in DelCorso ’ s Gallery, it grew more prominent again in the destructive relationship between Indian Country ’ s Christain Starkmann and his father. The subject then develops into a main theme in Equation for Evil with reference to Mace Weathers and his situation as an unwanted child. In Exiles, the theme is at least hinted at in the unknown parentage of Clay Rhodes, before it is realised in its most accomplished form in The Voyage, which treats familial identity. Whereas its follow-up work, Acts of Faith, is a traditionally plotted epic work about individual experiences and interpersonal interactions by a colourful cast of characters in the war in the Sudan, the plot of the most recent novel, Crossers, revolves around a range of complicated familial relationships in which the subsequent generations act 276 9. Conclusion under the spell of their ancestors. 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See counter-myth Antony Syndrome 68, 77 Apollo Syndrome 68, 77 Appiah, Kwame Anthony 178 artificiality 51, 54, 62 - 64, 93, 110 - 13, 115 - 19, 125, 191 - 93, 195, 196 - 204, 206, 208 - 09, 211, 272 - 73 atrocious 19, 21 - 22, 49, 63, 65, 190, 207 atrocity 17 - 19, 21 - 22, 38 - 39, 45 - 46, 51 - 53, 61, 64, 75 - 76, 79, 82, 85, 90, 94, 96, 100, 102, 107 - 09, 121 - 22, 124 - 25, 137, 160, 181, 203, 206, 208, 244, 256, 276 autobiography 11, 15 Balsamo, Anne 63, 111 - 12, 111 n, 196 - 97 Banton, Michael 178 Barrett, Frank J., and Stephen M. Whitehead 66, 68, 69 bear 145, 148, 152, 156 - 58, 160, 166 - 68 Beattie, Keith 19, 127, 128, 133, 151, 154 - 55, 172 Beidler, Philip D. 13 - 18, 33, 38, 53, 60, 82, 124, 136, 171 Bercovitch, Sacvan 132, 133 - 34, 139 van den Berghe, Pierre L. 174, 176 Bernasconi, Robert 177 Bibby, Michael 20, 53, 96 Bierce, Ambrose 12, 18, 46 - 47, 55, 58, 60, 214 - 15, 266 - 67 bildungsroman 18, 225 blindness 86, 196, 200 - 01, 218, 223 - 24, 267 Bonn, Maria S. 146, 167 Botting, Fred 37, 53, 59, 62 - 63, 112, 115 Botting, Fred, and Dale Townshend 42 Bradley, Harriet 23, 27, 29 - 30, 31, 98, 99, 126, 127, 128, 175 Brison, Susan J. 20 Broyles, William, Jr. 61, 66 - 67, 68, 77, 82, 114, 166 - 67, 180 Bruhm, Steven 18 - 19, 38, 39, 50, 51, 152, 195 - 96, 201, 204, 222 Burke, Edmund 19, 50, 157 - 58, 262 - 63 Burns, Robert W. 259 Butler, Robert Olen 13 Cambodians 186, 188, 195 - 96 camera 62, 107, 111 - 16, 118, 120, 124 - 25 Caputo, Philip 14, 38, 40, 45, 54, 60, 139, 146 - 48, 152, 173, 237 - 38, 257 - 58, 262, 265 Acts of Faith 11 - 12, 40, 64, 212, 236, 276 - 77 Crossers 11 - 12, 40, 64, 212, 236, 276 - 77 DelCorso ’ s Gallery 11 - 15, 22, 32, 35, 39, 48, 61 - 62, 64, 98, 100 - 25, 162, 168, 173 - 74, 191, 196, 202, 211, 236, 257, 269 - 71, 272 - 76 Equation for Evil 11 - 12, 22, 32, 35, 39, 48 - 49, 51, 61, 64, 173 - 74, 178 - 211, 223, 236, 239, 253, 257, 261, 269, 270 - 71, 272 - 76 Exiles: Three Short Novels 11, 39 - 40, 44, 61, 64 - 65, 211 - 13, 236, 237 - 71, 272 - 73, 275 - 76 “ In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant ” 12, 44, 49, 65, 237 - 38, 250, 257 - 270, 271, 273, 274, 275 - 76 “ Paradise ” 12, 48, 64 - 65, 237 - 38, 250 - 57, 270 - 71, 274 - 75 “ Standing In ” 11 - 12, 44, 48 - 49, 61, 64 - 65, 237, 238 - 50, 253, 256 - 57, 266, 270, 273 - 75 Ghosts of Tsavo: Stalking the Mystery Lions of East Africa 11 Horn of Africa 11 - 15, 22, 32, 34, 39, 44, 48 - 49, 61, 64, 66, 68, 71 - 97, 100, 110, 111 - 12, 114, 125, 145, 162, 168, 173, 174, 190 - 91, 195, 198, 211, 213, 236, 255, 257, 261, 265, 270 - 71, 272, 274 - 76 Indian Country 11 - 15, 22, 32, 35, 39, 44, 48 - 49, 61, 63 - 64, 126, 138 - 173, 174, 180, 192, 211, 225, 236, 257, 264, 270 - 71, 272, 274, 276 In the Shadows of the Morning: Essays on Wild Lands, Wilds Waters, and a Few Untamed People 11 - 12 “ The Coils of Memory ” 54 - 55, 263 - 64 Means of Escape: A War Correspondent ’ s Memoir of Life and Death in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Vietnam 11 - 12 A Rumor of War 11 - 13, 15, 38, 54, 237 10,000 Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War 11 - 12 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings 11, 13 The Voyage 11 - 12, 22, 32, 36, 39 - 40, 48 - 49, 61, 64, 211 - 12, 213, 215 - 36, 237 - 39, 241, 241 n, 257, 266, 270 - 71, 272 - 76 Caruth, Cathy 19, 20, 38, 39 Cashmore, Ellis 28 castration 51, 96, 201, 224 children 22, 28 - 29, 49, 77, 101, 103 - 104, 107, 114, 118 - 19, 122, 124, 152 - 53, 158, 174, 178 - 80, 186 - 87, 189 - 90, 201, 213 - 15, 223 - 24, 232 - 34, 261 Chinese 180, 182, 184, 186 - 87 Cigoli, Vittorio, and Eugenia Scabini 213 - 14, 220 city 43, 62, 73, 84 - 85, 108, 110, 112, 117 - 20, 125, 132, 153, 179, 186, 191 - 93, 204, 229, 240, 273 Civil War 12, 18 - 19, 36, 46, 55, 103, 149, 159, 215, 217 - 19, 229, 235 - 36 Clover, Carol 42, 87 - 88 Coates, Paul 55, 58, 59, 62, 253 colonialism 21, 75, 134 - 35, 250 - 51, 253 - 54, 257 Conrad, Joseph 14 Cooper, James Fenimore 13 - 14 corporeality 52, 87 - 89, 113, 174, 190 - 91, 197, 201 - 02, 204, 209, 211, 257, 272, 274 counter-myth 136 - 38, 142, 145 - 46, 148, 156, 168 - 69, 200 Crane, Stephen 14, 18, 33 Crawford, William 135 Crompton, Rosemary 98 - 100 Cronin, Cornelius A. 13, 17, 34, 54, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 208, 273 Cuba 12, 217, 220, 223 - 24, 226, 230, 235 - 36, 273 culture 14 - 15, 18 - 19, 22, 26, 28 - 29, 31, 33, 41, 43, 50, 62 - 63, 67, 87, 99, 112, 116, 123, 127 - 29, 131 - 33, 135 - 37, 139 - 42, 144 - 48, 150 - 53, 156, 159, 165, 169, 171 - 73, 174 - 76, 179 - 80, 182 - 84, 187 - 88, 195 - 97, 214, 217 - 19, 235, 237, 250 - 52, 254, 257, 263 - 65, 268, 272 - 73 cyborg 62 - 63, 111 - 15, 111 n, 125, 196 - 201, 208, 273 Daffron, Benjamin Eric 59 - 60, 92, 164, 245 decay 43, 84 - 85, 96, 153, 192 - 93, 198, 204 - 05, 260, 265 defamiliarization. See familiarity DeKeseredy, Walter S., and Martin D. Schwartz 69 Delli Carpini, Michael X. 132 descent 71, 76, 127 - 28, 144, 164, 174. See also origin destiny 93, 128, 195, 220 disability 26, 31 - 32, 37 Disneyland 192, 192 n doppelganger. See double double 39 - 40, 54 - 61, 62, 64 - 65, 87, 91 - 96, 120 - 25, 161 - 68, 170 - 72, 288 Index 204 - 11, 213 - 14, 230 - 34, 236, 237 - 40, 242 - 50, 253 - 57, 265 - 71, 272 - 77. See also first self and second self doubling by division 56, 87, 204, 209 doubling by multiplication 56, 120, 204 latent double 57 - 58, 60 - 61, 64, 233, 255, 266, 270 - 71, 275 - 76 manifest double 57, 60 - 61, 64, 87, 94, 96, 123, 161 - 62, 172, 209, 211, 213, 230, 233, 236, 237 - 38, 245, 248, 255, 266, 270 - 71, 273, 275 - 76 objective double 56 - 57, 91, 206, 211 subjective double 56 - 57, 91, 93, 162, 171, 204, 206, 211, 231, 244 Dryden, Linda 41, 42, 54, 62, 83, 117 - 18, 119, 120, 155, 191, 204, 248 Durden, Charles 16, 17 Edgell, Stephen 98 enlightenment 41, 44, 115, 117, 190 epiphany 60, 274, 276 ethnie 31, 128, 129 ethnos 28, 127, 128 evolutionary psychology 68 eye 51, 81, 86, 89 - 90, 95 - 96, 111, 114, 116, 120, 122 - 24, 149, 157 - 60, 167, 170, 180, 185, 196, 198 - 203, 209 - 10, 223 - 25, 231 - 32, 244, 259, 263, 266, 268 familiarity 14, 20, 53, 56, 84, 91, 112, 118, 134, 158, 161, 166, 193, 196, 206, 225, 227, 238, 242, 254, 262, 264, 273 family history 49, 84, 213 - 15, 218, 220 - 23, 230, 241 fatalism 60, 82, 148, 205 fate 60, 93, 95, 195, 220, 224, 242, 256 - 57 Fates 78, 94 father 12, 36, 49, 56, 74, 76, 81, 93, 104 - 05, 114, 138, 140, 142 - 44, 146, 151, 153 - 55, 160, 162, 165 - 66, 170, 172 - 73, 180 - 82, 184 - 85, 189, 194, 201, 210, 213 - 15, 217 - 21, 223 - 25, 227, 229, 231 - 34, 236, 238, 240 - 41, 244, 247, 258, 260 - 61, 273, 276 Fenley, Joe Basil 15, 83, 106 - 07, 138, 143, 148 fictional places 61, 72, 77, 83, 179, 191, 193, 250 first self 57, 59 - 60, 64 - 65, 94 - 96, 124, 166, 206 - 08, 210 - 11, 255 - 56, 268 - 69, 271 forefathers 33, 104, 227 forest 14, 92, 132, 145, 153, 157 - 61, 168, 173, 193, 248, 258, 261, 263 fragmentation 87, 89 - 91, 94, 144 Frankenstein ’ s monster 112, 197 Freud, Sigmund 49, 50, 51, 55, 58 - 59, 63, 87, 96, 118, 161, 193, 201, 205, 207, 213 Friday the 13th 43 Gage, Phineas 200 Gardner, Lloyd 136 Gerschick, Thomas J. 68 ghost 14, 46, 57, 60, 86, 95, 141, 144, 155, 158, 162, 165, 194, 210, 235, 251, 263 - 64, 269, 273 goat 258, 265, 267 Goldblatt, David, and Montserrat Guibernau 29 golden age 131, 135 golem 57 Gothic 41 - 49 cybergothic 62 - 64, 112, 191, 272 - 73 Gothic bodies 51, 53 - 54, 61, 63, 86 - 88, 112, 155, 160, 197, 237 - 38, 265, 270 Gothic literature 41, 43 - 44, 49, 52, 54, 55, 60, 65, 82 - 83, 95, 159, 164, 167, 191, 270 Gothic mode 38 - 40, 41, 43 - 44, 46, 52, 55, 64 - 65, 82 - 83, 117, 141, 164, 195, 211, 213, 238 Horror Gothic 45 - 46, 53, 83, 190 metropolitan Gothic 62, 118, 191 nineteenth-century Gothic 51 - 52, 88, 90 - 91, 120 Terror Gothic 45 Gove, Jennifer, and Stuart Watt 31 Gracia, Jorge J. E. 174 - 75, 176, 177 Groom, Winston 13, 16 - 17, 33 Gruner, Elliott 131 Guibernau, Montserrat, and David Goldblatt 29 Index 289 Haraway, Donna J. 62, 63, 197, 200, 201 Harré, Rom 24 Hasford, Gustav 16 - 17, 38, 47 Hearn, Jeff 69 Heinemann, Larry 13, 16 - 17, 137 Heinsohn, Gunnar 18 Hellmann, John 20, 131 - 32, 133, 135 - 36, 137 Hemingway, Ernest 14 - 15, 33 Hendershot, Cyndy 48, 51, 55, 79 - 80, 82, 87, 88 - 89, 114, 155, 167, 168, 201, 223 - 24 Herzog, Tobey C. 11, 139, 155, 258 history 29, 44, 46, 127 - 34, 131 n, 136, 142, 144, 182, 194, 241, 259, 262, 264 Hoffmann, E. T. A. 58, 62, 213 Hogle, Jerrold E. 41, 43, 45, 49, 51, 52, 84 - 85, 153, 191, 194, 197, 201, 213, 222, 223 homosexuality 31, 180, 189, 202, 238, 241, 244 - 46, 259 horror film 42 - 43, 152, 254, 265 House 43 Hurley, Kelly 43, 47, 51, 52 - 53, 62, 87, 88, 91, 112 - 13, 117, 118, 119, 155, 159, 167, 168, 190, 197, 201, 267 hurricane 224 - 25, 228, 230. hybrid. See cyborg identity 20 - 26 difference 23 - 25, 27 - 29, 31, 37, 53, 66 - 68, 88, 100, 102, 104 - 05, 128, 131, 133, 139, 146, 148, 161, 174, 175 - 76, 178, 180, 184, 188 - 89, 217 - 18, 230, 235, 253 - 54, 267 similarity 23, 25, 27, 57, 132 - 33, 147 - 48, 162 - 63, 169, 235 - 36 social identity 23, 25 - 26, 29 - 36, 38, 39, 47, 50, 53, 59 - 61, 65, 66, 75 - 76, 81, 88, 91, 98, 122, 126, 128, 132, 139, 174 - 75, 177 - 78, 180, 186, 188 - 90, 204, 211, 213 - 15, 237 - 39, 251, 257 - 61, 268, 272, 274 ethnicity 24 - 32, 35, 37, 61, 65, 66, 70 - 77, 81, 87, 91, 96, 100 - 03, 126 - 34, 138 - 49, 151 - 52, 154, 160 - 61, 163 - 64, 169, 171, 173, 174 - 80, 182 - 84, 186 - 89, 211, 213, 216 - 20, 238, 240 - 41, 250 - 53, 258, 261, 272, 274 family 14, 22, 27, 29 - 32, 36, 42, 47, 49, 61, 63 - 65, 66, 70, 73 - 76, 81, 84 - 85, 87, 91, 93, 96, 101 - 05, 107, 109, 123, 130, 139 - 43, 157, 160 - 61, 164 - 66, 173, 177, 179 - 86, 188 - 89, 192, 198, 201, 206, 210 - 12, 213 - 16, 218 - 23, 225, 227, 230, 232 - 36, 238 - 41, 244, 247 - 52, 258 - 59, 261, 263, 270, 273 - 76 gender 25 - 29, 31 - 35, 37, 47 - 48, 50, 61 - 65, 66 - 68, 75 - 77, 79 - 80, 87 - 88, 91, 100, 110, 112 - 14, 125, 138, 145, 174, 177 - 78, 180, 188 - 90, 200, 211, 213 - 15, 220, 238 - 39, 245 - 46, 248 - 50, 261, 272, 274 occupation/ class 22, 24 - 27, 29 - 30, 32, 34 - 35, 47, 61, 65, 66 - 67, 70 - 73, 75 - 76, 81, 87, 91, 96, 98 - 108, 110 - 11, 113, 115 - 18, 120 - 25, 127, 133, 138 - 40, 177 - 78, 180 - 81, 188 - 89, 211, 213, 215 - 16, 220, 238 - 41, 245 - 50, 258 - 59, 261, 272, 274 race 22, 26 - 29, 31 - 32, 35, 37, 47, 50, 61, 64 - 65, 66 - 67, 70 - 71, 73 - 76, 87, 91, 96, 104, 122, 127, 129, 133 - 35, 137, 139, 163, 168, 174 - 77, 179 - 80, 182, 184, 186 - 90, 194 - 97, 204, 211, 213, 219 - 20, 238, 240 - 41, 250, 252 - 53, 257, 261, 267, 273, 274 ideology 66, 74, 131 - 32, 131 n, 134 - 37, 145, 150 - 51, 195 illegitimate children 215, 221, 231 - 34, 247, 249, 273 incest 49, 223, 273 Indians 13, 22, 74, 102, 130 - 39, 141 - 57, 160, 162 - 69, 172 - 73, 219, 261, 273. See also Ojibwa Ishmael 96 290 Index Jacob ’ s Ladder 43 Jason, Philip K. 13, 16 - 17, 34, 134, 135, 136, 137, 156, 172 Jeffords, Susan 66, 67, 68 Jenkins, Richard 22 - 23, 24, 25, 27 - 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37, 126, 127 - 28, 129, 130, 175 - 76, 177 Jung, C. G. 58 jungle 12, 161, 168, 259 - 65, 267 Keppler, C. F. 56 - 58, 59, 60, 93, 97, 213, 266, 268 Kiesling, Scott Fabius 68 Kimmel, Michael S. 68, 69 language 17, 23, 26, 28 - 29, 72, 127 - 28, 131, 134, 147, 177, 182 - 83, 216, 235, 251, 264 Last House on the Left 43 Lebanese Civil War 11, 70, 100 - 02, 104, 109 Lewis, Lloyd B. 17, 19, 33 - 34, 36, 135, 136, 150, 151 MacAndrew, Elizabeth 43, 47, 48, 49, 51, 59, 63, 83, 84, 85 - 86, 114, 115, 117, 155, 156, 162, 167, 171, 201, 221, 222, 223, 238, 244 machine. See cyborg Mackintosh, Maureen, and Gerry Mooney 30 madness 136, 155, 157, 165, 171, 244, 273. See also mental illness manhood 33, 66, 68 - 69, 77 - 79, 82, 87, 101, 180, 198, 250 manifest destiny 72, 74, 134 manikin 57, 118 - 20, 202 March, Jenny 94 marines 170, 206 - 07, 226, 263 - 64 Marx, Karl 30, 96 - 97 masculinity 22, 33 - 34, 48, 61, 66 - 69, 73, 77 - 79, 82, 86 - 88, 91, 93, 98, 138, 180, 188, 245, 272 master-slave relationship 206 McKown, Clark, and Stephen M. Quinntana 177 - 78 medieval 43, 191 Melling, Philip H. 17 Mendieta, Eduardo 23, 26, 27 mental illness 47 - 48, 153 - 57, 160, 162, 170, 244 - 45. See also madness Messerschmidt, James W. 69 Miller, Karl 56, 57, 122, 164, 166, 247 - 48 mirror. See mirror image mirror image 57, 59, 62, 64 - 65, 120, 123 - 25, 156, 166, 172, 187, 204 - 05, 209 - 11, 225, 231, 235, 269, 272 - 73 Mooney, Gerry, and Maureen Mackintosh 30 Morgan, David 67, 69 - 70, 98 mother 48 - 49, 74 - 75, 85, 101, 104, 115, 156, 160, 180, 184 - 85, 189, 198 - 200, 205 - 06, 210, 213, 215 - 24, 226 - 27, 229 - 36, 239 - 44, 247 - 49, 260 - 61 Myers, Thomas 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 35, 146 myth 11, 13 - 16, 20 - 21, 33 - 35, 37, 39, 62, 71, 127 - 29, 131 - 38, 141 - 42, 145 - 48, 151 - 53, 156, 159, 163 - 64, 168 - 70, 192, 195, 197, 219, 226, 251, 254, 259, 263 Frontier Myth 13 - 16, 71, 133 - 35, 137, 141 - 42, 145 - 46, 151 - 53, 159, 163 - 64, 169, 195, 219, 226, 259 Nacco, Stephen Damian 55, 58, 60, 266 - 67 Nagel, Joane 66, 127, 130, 134 names 78, 81, 113, 120, 132, 138, 140, 143 - 44, 158, 163 - 64, 185, 189, 194, 199, 201, 229, 231, 234, 237, 241 - 43, 241 n, 248, 250, 255, 260 - 61, 267 narrative structure 18, 85, 132, 222 - 23, 238 narrator 17, 70, 72, 80, 83, 85, 91, 219, 222 - 23, 238 nation 26 - 27, 29, 34 - 37, 66, 72, 100, 122, 126, 129, 130, 132 - 34, 144, 151, 159, 195, 241 national characteristics 70 - 71, 135, 143, 216, 218, 252 nationalism 28, 66 - 67, 70, 100 - 01, 134, 164 Native Americans. See Indians and Ojibwa nightmare 19, 47, 86, 96, 152 - 53, 156 - 57, 167 - 68 Index 291 Oedipal. See Oedipus Oedipus 49, 63, 200 - 01, 205, 213, 223 - 24, 239 - 40 Oedipus complex. See Oedipus Oehlert, Mark 199 - 200 offspring 114, 234, 273. See also children Ojibwa 139, 142 - 43, 145 - 53, 159, 163, 165, 167, 169 origin 14, 48, 49, 59, 63, 74, 103, 110, 127 - 29, 133 - 34, 143, 175, 178, 184, 192, 214, 267, 269. See also descent Original Sin 167, 220, 277 otherness 25, 31 - 32, 42, 51, 53, 58 - 59, 62, 65, 70, 78 - 79, 88, 112, 133, 145 - 46, 152, 154 - 55, 159 - 60, 163 - 64, 166, 169, 172, 186 - 88, 197, 207, 211, 249, 254, 269 Owens, David M. 12, 18, 46, 214 - 15 panther 157 - 58, 263, 266 - 67 Peterson, Alan 69 Phillips, Kathy J. 66, 68, 77 photograph 62, 106, 109, 114, 119 - 20, 123 - 24, 185, 200, 205 - 06, 208. See also picture photographer 11, 22, 35, 61, 100 - 01, 103 - 09, 111 - 12, 114 - 15, 118 - 24 photographic negative 171, 209 photography 104 - 09, 115, 122 physicality 69, 79 - 80, 145, 190 picture 44, 100, 107 - 09, 111, 114 - 15, 119, 121 - 25, 171, 240 - 41, 243, 246, 249. See also photograph and portrait Plummer, Ken 68 portrait 57, 119, 123, 205. See also picture Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) 48, 142, 152 primitive 43, 55, 57 - 58, 60, 84, 117 - 18, 120, 125, 135, 167, 191, 193, 195, 266. See also savage primitiveness. See primitive Purdy, Patrick 174, 178 Quintana, Stephen M., and Clark McKown 177 - 78 race riots 186 racism 28, 31, 33, 35, 62, 74, 136, 169, 174 - 75, 177 - 79, 184, 186, 188 - 89, 194 - 95, 197 - 98, 200, 205, 273 racist. See racism Rank, Otto 55, 57, 123 reflection 57, 59, 62, 123 - 25, 172, 197, 205, 210, 225, 231, 265 - 66, 269, 275 - 76 regeneration through violence 34, 135 - 36 regression 50, 110, 117, 119 - 20, 125, 135, 148, 193, 256, 262 religion 26, 28 - 29, 75, 77, 100, 102, 106, 127 - 28, 134, 140, 143 - 44, 150, 163 - 65, 170, 181 - 83, 188, 235 - 36, 251, 261, 268, 272 Richter, Jean Paul 55 - 56, 122, 164 Ringe, Donald A. 44, 46 Rogers, Robert 55, 56, 57, 58, 123, 205, 209 Romantic literature 19, 38, 42, 50, 58, 122, 196 sameness 25, 31 - 32, 57, 59 - 60, 87, 112, 164, 166, 173, 186, 207, 211, 254, 269 savage 110, 125, 133 - 35, 137, 142, 145, 163 - 64, 167 - 68, 253, 256, 259, 263, 266. See also primitive savagery. See primitive and savage Savoy, Eric 44 Scabini, Eugenia, and Vittorio Cigoli 213 - 14, 220 Scarry, Elaine 32, 34, 37 - 38, 50, 79, 80, 266 Schaefer, Michael W. 46 - 47 Schwartz, Martin D., and Walter DeKeseredy 69 sea 225 - 29, 231 - 32, 255, 274 second self 56 - 61, 64, 91, 97, 165 - 66, 171, 173, 206, 208 - 09, 211, 248, 254, 266, 268 - 69. See also double Second World War 16, 54, 135, 181, 184, 194, 241, 246 Segal, Lynne 68 Seidler, Victor J. 67 sexuality 26, 48, 68, 74, 88, 114, 166 - 67, 168, 198, 246, 249 292 Index shadow 57 - 58, 92, 123, 125, 171, 200, 204 - 05, 268 Shafer, D. Michael 35, 154, 194 - 95 Shay, Jonathan 34 - 35 Sheehan-Dean, Aaron 36, 215 Shilling, Chris 37 sins of the fathers 49, 201, 220, 223 - 25 slasher film 42, 88 “ Slaughter in a School Yard ” 178 - 79 Slethaug, Gordon E. 56, 120 Slotkin, Richard 42, 127, 127 n, 133, 134 - 35, 136 - 37, 145 - 46, 152, 163 - 164, 195 Smetak, Jacqueline R. 60, 160, 165 Smith, Anthony D. 126, 128 - 30, 131 soldier 16 - 19, 33 - 36, 39, 46, 53 - 54, 67, 91, 100, 106, 114 - 15, 130, 136, 148 - 49, 151, 153, 159 - 60, 169, 194, 207 - 09, 215, 235, 237, 246, 249, 258, 260 - 65, 268 Spanish-American War 235 Stoics 60 Epictetus 195 storm 149, 171, 172. See also hurricane sublime 41, 50, 157 - 58, 262 - 63 suicide 90, 95, 179, 184, 207 - 08, 218, 224, 232 - 33 Tal, Kalí 20, 39, 45, 46 television 43, 101, 184, 193, 195 territory 126, 129, 131 - 32, 134, 138, 141, 144 - 45, 153, 172 Thing-ness 23, 52 - 53, 88 - 91, 97, 119, 159 - 60, 190, 197, 211 thunderstorm. See storm tiger 12, 157, 258 - 63, 265 - 70, 275 - 76 timeless 67, 171, 259 - 60, 262 Tollefson, James W. 179 Townshend, Dale, and Fred Botting 42 trauma 14, 19 - 21, 34 - 36, 38 - 39, 41 - 42, 45, 51, 53 - 54, 70, 73, 78, 80 - 81, 110, 116, 151 - 52, 154, 158 - 59, 162, 180, 186, 202, 204 trauma literature 19, 45, 50 twin 55, 57 - 58, 60, 164, 213, 233, 266 Tymms, Ralph 56, 58, 164 uncanniness 38 - 39, 47, 51, 53, 57, 59 - 60, 63 - 64, 91, 110, 113, 115, 118 - 19, 122, 155 - 62, 165, 168 - 70, 172 - 73, 190, 193 - 94, 199, 201 - 02, 206 - 07, 209, 211, 225, 227 - 28, 231 - 33, 243 - 45, 248 - 49, 254 - 56, 258, 262 - 66, 270, 273, 275 - 77 uncanny. See uncanniness unfamiliarity. See familiarity uniform 67, 243, 245 - 46 vampire 53, 57, 63, 203, 206 Vickroy, Laurie 39, 47, 50 - 51, 53 - 54 Vietnamese 33 - 35, 101, 104, 145, 164, 171 - 72, 179, 185 - 86, 188, 206, 210, 258, 260 - 61, 268 - 69 Vietnam War 11 - 13, 16 - 17, 19, 21, 33 - 36, 39, 42 - 43, 47, 62, 65, 66 - 68, 92, 110, 131, 134 - 36, 140 - 41, 145 - 46, 149 - 51, 154 - 55, 165, 170 - 72, 179, 181, 194, 195, 237, 257, 264 - 65, 272 Vietnam War literature 11, 13, 15 - 20, 33, 41, 45 - 47, 136, 146, 151, 276 Vietnam War veterans 11 - 12, 14 - 17, 20, 33 - 34, 36, 45 - 46, 64, 70, 92, 137, 141 - 142, 145 - 46, 151 - 54, 156, 159, 168 - 70, 173, 185, 194, 210, 244, 250, 253, 255, 256 village 75, 108 - 12, 117 - 18, 120, 125, 153, 206 - 07 Walpole, Horace The Castle of Otranto 49, 222, 23 Ward, Samantha Jayne 15, 146, 149, 168 - 69 war literature 11 - 15, 18, 20, 33, 35, 38, 55, 106. See also Vietnam War literature Warnke, Georgia 31, 176, 177 war photographer. See photographer war photography. See photography Watt, Stuart, and Jennifer Gove 31 Webb, James 13, 16 - 17, 33 Weber, Max 98 - 99, 127 - 28 Weinreich, Peter 23, 24, 25, 26 - 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 59, 126, 128, 183, 213, 251 Wells, H. G. 118 The Time Machine 260, 265 Index 293 werewolves 57, 203 West, Thomas Reed 63, 112 Western 42, 71, 133, 137, 152, 164, 192 Whitehead, Stephen M. 66, 67 Whitehead, Stephen M., and Frank J. Barrett 66, 68, 69 wilderness 43, 63, 71 , 132 - 35, 141, 151, 153, 157 - 58, 160, 163, 219, 263 - 64 Woodward, Kath 23, 24 - 25, 26, 27, 28 - 29, 30, 31, 32, 36 - 37, 98 Woods. See forest Zack, Naomi 175, 176 - 77 294 Index Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH+Co. KG • Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen Tel. +49 (07071) 9797-0 • Fax +49 (07071) 97 97-11 • info@francke.de • www.francke.de JETZT BESTELLEN! Simone Heller-Andrist The Friction of the Frame Derrida’s Parergon in Literature Schweizer Anglistische Arbeiten, Band 138 2012, 277 Seiten geb. €[D] 58,00/ SFr 77,90 ISBN 978-3-7720-8426-3 This study is the first that systematically applies the Kantian and Derridean parergon to English literature. The parergon is a specific type of frame that interacts with the work it surrounds in a fashion likely to influence or even manipulate our reading of the work. On the basis of this interaction, Derrida’s parergon becomes a valid methodological tool that allows a close analysis of the mechanisms involved in the reading process. The manipulative force of a textual construct is apparent through the occurrence of friction, namely incongruities or gaps we notice whilst reading. Friction is thus, on the one hand, the main indicator of parergonality and, on the other, the prime signal for a potential conditioning of the reader. As readers, we not only have to analyze the interaction between work and parergon but must also constantly reflect upon our own position with regard to the text that we read. Whereas Philip Caputo has achieved recognition particularly through his Vietnam War memoir, his fictional works have not received the same amount of attention. While most of these are closely tied to the Vietnam War theme, they are set in many different places in the world and in different time periods. This book is the first to treat his works of fiction comprehensively. It takes account of how Philip Caputo’s war-related works focus on the role of human identity in violent acts such as war, and elaborates links to the Gothic tradition in fiction to find an explanation for the frequent occurrences of doppelgangers as well as graphic depictions of atrocities and the dissolution of the human body. It explains how classical, rationalising representations of war fail at an accurate depiction of its horrors, how the narrative devices of classical Gothic literature offer a way of making the horrors of war better conceivable, and how graphic descriptions of atrocities as well as the use of doppelgangers manage to present human beings as atrocious entities who make war possible in the first place.