A Mythological Mapping of Aritha Van Herk's Fiction
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DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit Un/Covered Origins: A Mythological Mapping of Aritha van Herk’s Fiction Verfasserin Katrin M. Fennesz angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag. Phil) Wien, im September 2008 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 190 344 299 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: UF Englisch, UF Psychologie und Philosophie Betreuerin: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Carmen Birkle to lose oneself is not the same as not to find one’s way (Monty Reid, Dog Sleeps, 12) Impossible: somewhere to come from/ never to run away to. (Aritha van Herk, Places Far from Ellesmere, 15) You don’t ask where you are going; going is what you are there to do. (Robert Kroetsch, Alberta, 30) Acknowledgements Writing is an act done in solitude, but this paper would not be what it is today without the many people around me who have shaped my ideas in endless conversations and steered my thoughts along avenues less traveled by. I would like to begin where it all began. Thank you Prof. Carmen Birkle for making me read No Fixed Address – the world needs more of those eccentric, immoral, unconventional heroines. Also, thank you for allowing me the freedom to express my voice in my own style. I really appreciate it. In Calgary, a big thank you to the whole staff of the Special Collections Department at the University of Calgary, above all Apollonia Steele and Marlys Chevrefils. You know that the view of the Rockies is there for a reason. A very special thank you to Aritha van Herk. You made me think big. Thank you for all your time, wise words, and encouraging and inspirational thoughts. With you I discovered that Calgary too has its ghosts. I’ll never forget. And M., you were a definite instance of serendipity. Contents Acknowledgements 1. Introduction............................................................................................................ 1 2. More than Mothers and Muses............................................................................. 4 2.1. Myth means… – Towards a Definition............................................................. 7 2.2. Laughing Witches Refusing to Eat Shit.......................................................... 11 3. The Space of the Imagination or the Mythology of Landscape ....................... 17 3.1. Tumbling Giants and Undulating Prairies – The West ................................... 19 3.2. Elusive Silences and Imperialist Practices – The North ................................. 24 4. Of Pigs and Bears – Escaping ............................................................................. 30 4.1. “Pig shit” – Judith........................................................................................... 32 4.1.1. Judith on Circe’s Magic Island or Circe on Judith’s Enemy Territory.... 34 4.1.2. Refusing to be Victims............................................................................. 40 4.2. “Hearing the mountain shift” – The Tent Peg................................................. 45 4.2.1. The Diverse Mythological Levels in The Tent Peg ................................. 47 4.2.2. Transforming Realities............................................................................. 52 5. Magic Mountains – Landscape Renderings in Judith and The Tent Peg........ 58 6. Dead Reckoning or Map’s Myths ....................................................................... 65 7. “ALL STORIES ND” – Disappearing .............................................................. 68 7.1. “Movement without end” – No Fixed Address ............................................... 71 7.1.1. Witty Weavers.......................................................................................... 75 7.1.2. Arachne’s Odyssey .................................................................................. 80 7.1.3. Raki, the Rouge........................................................................................ 85 7.1.4. Landscape of Confusion........................................................................... 89 7.2. Tip, the Disappearing Maverick...................................................................... 96 7.3. “I want to become a ghost story” – Restlessness ............................................ 98 7.3.1. The Color of the Chinook ...................................................................... 100 7.3.2. Chosen Erasure or the Search for Something that Matters .................... 104 8. Malleable Myths................................................................................................. 111 9. “Then heroes are not all men?” – Conclusion................................................. 117 10. Appendix ........................................................................................................... 120 11. References ......................................................................................................... 135 12. Index.................................................................................................................. 149 1 1. Introduction [G]eography is also part of text in a strange way. (Robert Kroetsch, Labyrinths of Voice, 8) Restless travels, impatient movement, and never-before-seen vigor are characteristics, barely doing justice to Aritha van Herk’s heroines. Judith, J.L., Arachne, and Dorcas are women of the open road, refusing to stay at home and bake muffins, rejecting the monotony of normalcy, and discarding the offer of a life as “wife of.” They are female figures with the nerve to be repugnant, the self- confidence to be different, and the courage to go beyond well-trodden paths with allegedly accurate maps. All find themselves in unpromising situations but they neither answer with silent indifference nor timid submissiveness. Instead, they break out of the roles mythology has assigned for them and endeavor to re-define, however unrealistic their definitions may be. “[N]arrative is an archaeological dig, a multi-layered thing,” Aritha van Herk (Clayton, 169) tells us. Consequently, multiple layers allow for multiple readings, multiple voices, and multiple stories. Or, as Kroetsch puts it, “Archaeology allows the fragmentary nature of the story, against the coerced unity of traditional history. Archaeology allows for discontinuity. It allows for layering. It allows for imaginative speculation” (“Discovery,” 7). Both, van Herk and Kroetsch obviously draw on Michel Foucault’s concept of archaeology and its significance for a re-discovery and re-evaluation of supposedly fixed, historical patterns. Regarding structures as archaeological layers suggest that the same can, in fact, be dismantled and deconstructed, as van Herk proves in her works. Aritha van Herk’s novels are, if any classification is applicable, postmodern. Lyotard characterizes postmodernism as follows: “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives” (xxiv). However, this postmodernist incredulity does not imply downright refusal of meta- or master narratives. Instead, as Linda Hutcheon asserts, “it contests it from within its own assumptions” (Poetics, 6). Mythology is such a master narrative and one that van Herk very overtly uses and abuses in her works. For her, “[m]ythology […] is not just all the forerunners of the stories that we live with, but a kind of template for the way that we imagine the story of living” (“Personal Interview,” 120). Hence, mythology is very influential in our 2 lives and therefore often appears, as Barthes has it, “natural and goes without saying” (143). Postmodernism, now, according to Hutcheon again, “argues that such systems [as mythology] are indeed attractive, perhaps even necessary, but this does not make them any the less illusory” (Poetics, 6). Therefore, writers seek to undo these ostensibly natural, pre-given, illusory, mythological orders and subvert them, from within. Obviously, when considering mythology in connection with literature, the field of research is not clear-cut. In this paper, I will discuss mythology, as it is used in van Herk’s fiction, as a fusion of “many different and competing mythologies” (“Personal Interview,” 120). Very often, van Herk plays with this web of myth and truth, history and mystery, fact and fiction, the witnessed and the invented – and the sensation that one can never quite tell apart the one from the other. In particular, I will focus on mythology in connection with the depiction of women, the mythology of the landscape, and the interconnectedness of various mythologies of different cultures. Mythology gives shape to experience and provides a framework, in which to locate oneself. However, women, in classical mythology, were either denied representation and, thus, a history and genealogy, or were portrayed ambiguously, making it difficult for women to find their own identity. But Kroetsch knows that, “In a sense, we haven’t got an identity until somebody tells our story. The fiction makes us real” (Creation, 63). Aritha van Herk retells those habitually forgotten and frequently effaced, ancient stories of female figures, and I will analyze how she transports the women’s fictional lives into our postmodern world, “using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house” (Bloomberg, 13). By doing so, I will portray how she uncovers women’s original strengths and experiences. In particular, I will focus on the representation of women and the landscape in Judith, The Tent Peg, No Fixed Address: An Amorous Journey, and Restlessness. I aim to show how Aritha van Herk infiltrates male realms – be it classical