What Worth Is a Man Who Cannot Be Haunted
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ABSTRACT WHAT WORTH IS A MAN WHO CANNOT BE HAUNTED Ghost stories are trying to teach us something about our Selves. Human beings seem to have been creating stories about haunting for as long as we’ve been telling any kinds of stories. I think this is because ghost stories are one way of making sense of our connection to other human beings. They tell us that without the Other, the Self cannot exist. In very real ways, the Self and the Other are constantly creating one another, and so each inevitably contains traces of the other. The marks of the Other and their traces within the Self are what lead to the experience of haunting. These ideas are echoed in the philosophical writings of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas; the psychoanalytic literary criticism of Julia Kristeva; writings on mimetic human behavior from a range of disciplines, including cognitive neuroscience; and the feminist rhetorical theory of Christina Mason Sutherland and Krista Ratcliffe. Through a combination of these different theories, I have constructed a lens through which to look at ghost stories. one that takes into account their biological, psychological and sociological implications. When this lens is applied to the metafictional ghost stories, “The Forbidden,” by Clive Barker, and Ghost Story by Peter Straub, we see that ghost stories and the phenomenon of haunting can be terrifying, but they can also be life-affirming in that they remind us of the profound connection that we share with one another. Kevin Jensen May 2019 WHAT WORTH IS A MAN WHO CANNOT BE HAUNTED by Kevin Jensen A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2019 APPROVED For the Department of English: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Kevin Jensen Thesis Author Steven Adisasmito-Smith (Chair) English Tim Skeen English Robert Maldonado Philosophy For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me. Signature of thesis author: Kevin Jensen TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ........................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: TO BE HUMAN IS TO BE HAUNTED .................... 5 CHAPTER 2: A STORY TO TELL – CLIVE BARKER’S “THE FORBIDDEN” ....... 18 CHAPTER 3: I AM YOU, AND YOU ARE ME, AND SHE IS WE, AND WE ARE ALL TOGETHER – PETER STRAUB’S GHOST STORY ................................. 27 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 40 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................... 44 PREFACE Sometimes I wonder Why I spend the lonely nights Dreaming of a song The melody Haunts my reverie And I am once again with you . The themes of Hoagy Carmichael’s song “Stardust,” like the themes of the texts on which I will be primarily focusing here, resonate with something deep inside of people: love, loss, memory, obsession, haunting. The song feels primordial. Ghosts, and their attendant theme of haunting, have been an important part of the narrative traditions of human cultures around the world since antiquity. I argue that ghost stories have not stuck with us for so long for simply arbitrary reasons. Rather, these stories of haunting have played a significant role in our evolving understanding of ourselves as human beings. Ghost stories are trying to teach us a few different things about our selves. First, that the autonomous Self does not exist because our constructions of our Selves are always inextricably tied up with our interactions with, and constructions of, that which we perceive as the Other; this is where the feeling of haunting originates. Secondly, the best of ghost stories also teach us that there are two types of haunting: one that is the experience of a genuine lingering, a mark left by a person or an event or a place on oneself, and another that is merely a reflection of oneself. And finally, they can teach us the importance of listening to one another. Truly listening, and attempting to understand another human being on their own terms, which is a selfless act, as the central protagonists of Peter Straub’s Ghost Story learn; instead of only listening to your own interpretation of another, which just leaves an understanding of something inside yourself, which you then delude yourself into believing is an understanding of the Other, 2 2 as is illustrated by the character of Helen in Clive Barker’s “The Forbidden.” The latter is an example of the phenomenon that, I believe, leads to the more negative experience of haunting: the feeling of being oppressed by invisible, unknown forces, leading ultimately to obsession, and madness. As far as I know, “Stardust” has not typically been read as a tale of obsession. It is one of the most frequently recorded popular American songs, and I’ve yet to hear a version that really embraces the possible darkness of these lyrics. Most versions are certainly melancholy, as is appropriate. Whether I am projecting this or not, I cannot help but see obsession in these lines; I see someone who chooses to live in a dream instead of sharing reality with other human beings; I see someone alone in their room, hearing this one song over and over again, trying desperately to hold onto some feeling that seems to have disappeared. But I didn’t choose to begin with this song only because of what I see as its inherent darkness; I chose, “Stardust,” because it is such a tender song. Ghost stories, indeed ghosts themselves should not simply be horrifying. Living with ghosts need not be a harrowing experience always. As I hope to make clear in the following pages, I believe that ghost stories are extremely hopeful, positive stories. That they attempt to confront aspects of human nature and experience that can be very unsettling only makes the sense of hope that much stronger. I see hope in this idea of, “the stardust of a song.” I don’t know if Hoagy Carmichael was only thinking of stardust as a metaphor for a lingering of the past in the present, or if he was also thinking about the fact that stardust, so to speak, is quite literally a part of human beings, even though it seems fantastical. This thing that feels so distant, that exists in the past, yet that is simultaneously a very real part of you in the present. The stardust is just a remnant of something, but that remnant is not imaginary, and it haunts all of us. I know that most peoples’ first reaction to ghost stories is not positive. Ghost stories force us to confront some of the most unpleasant realities of life. Of course, above 3 3 all, they are stories about our mortality. They make us think about death, and about grieving the dead. They make us think about things we’ve done to others, and about things that have been done to us, and the places where it happened. Often, ghost stories have to do with guilt, or regret on the part of the living with regard to the dead. And it strikes me that the importance we place on our past actions, sometimes to the point of all- consuming obsession, has something to do with mortality, as well. Our knowledge of our mortality places a particular kind of pressure on our lives. Since we have finite life spans, we need to try to get things right while we’re here, which is why some of us obsess over things we’ve done wrong in the past, even if it is irrational. Ghost stories remind us of all these things, and I am not attempting to gloss over or deny that this can be deeply disturbing, depending on the story, and one’s own particular temperament. But these things are still a part of being human, and we all will have to deal with these things in some way or another. Certainly, ghost stories are not the only option for healing psychic wounds. I’m just saying I think they’re an especially useful vehicle for conveying information about these experiences, and the very act of storytelling can be extremely helpful in allowing someone to better manage emotional trauma. In fact, once we have confronted our ghosts and fashioned more honest stories about them by recognizing the extent to which they both are and are not a part of our selves, I believe the experience ceases to be the negative one most traditionally associated with haunting. Instead, it is no more nor less than the experience of being human. I know that someone may object to my insistence on using the word, haunting, to describe what I see as a positive experience. But I insist on still using this word because, while I do believe that the experience, if looked at and listened to honestly, can be more positive than negative, I do not want to deny that there also exists pain, and even horror, in this experience alongside beauty. For me, ghost stories have always seemed to be the most beautiful and hopeful of all the subgenres of horror. Ghost stories presuppose that there is 4 4 more to our lives than material reality, than this flesh and blood and bone, that our lives and our relationships endure beyond our bodies, and this is essentially optimistic.