Apocalypse Always
Decentering Apocalypse through the Lens of the Leftovers
Lilian Kok
10013413
Supervisor: Dr. C.H.C.M vander Stichele
Second reader: Dr. J.W Kooijman
Master Thesis: Religious Studies | Religion and Identity in the Modern World
University of Amsterdam
Juli 2018 Table of Contents
Preface 2
Chapter 1: Beginnings & Endings 5
1.1 Theoretical framework & methodology 6
1.2 Apocalyptic representations as a barometer of society 8
1.3 From optimism to pessimism, from cinema to television 10
1.4 Research proposal & course of action 13
Chapter 2: Apocalypse: beyond the New Millennium 16
2.1 American apocalypses 17
2.2 Post- 9/11 apocalyptic cinema 20
2.3 The neo-apocalyptic paradigm & postmodern pessimism 23
2.4 The loop of apocalyptic dread 27
Chapter 3: Decentralising the Apocalypse: Trauma 30
3.1 Discontinuity 31
3.2 Continuity 40
Chapter 4: Decentralising the Apocalypse: Narrative 50
4.1 The Book of Matt: an old narrative 51
4.2 The Book of the Guilty Remnant: postmodern collapse of language 54
4.3 The Book of Kevin Senior: misappropriation of narrative 58
4.4 An alternative sign-system 59
4.5 The Book of Nora: (re)creating meaningful narrative 63
Conclusion 68
Bibliography 73
1 Preface
The first time I had seen the post-apocalyptic television series the Leftovers (White Rabbit
Productions) when it came out in 2014, it hit a snare. There was something uncomfortable about it, about the way it seems to put a finger right on the sore spots of our time. For as long as I can remember, I have felt a gnawing need to understand the world and my own place in it. This need to understand has taken me along many different paths, of which one has been an academic journey into Media & Culture. My eyes were opened to the ways in which our society and our perception of reality as a whole is structured and shaped continually by an immense amount of information, images, and narratives that reach us via media. But also, that by turning the focus around, it is possible to use almost any media object as a mirror of ourselves – a reflective surface which can tell much about what we think and how we perceive the world at a certain time in history. In 2012, I had written my bachelor thesis on the depiction of the (Muslim) Other in the subgenre of
Anglophone science fiction alien invasion films in the post 9/11 world. Undoubtedly, the shocking video images of the New York attacks on September 11th, 2001 had made a big impression on most people. For me personally, at twelve years old, the event marked the beginning of an awareness of - and interest in, (geo) politics, media, religion and what I would later understand as the realm of
'cultural studies'. Although the specific subject of 9/11 has kept my attention over the course of my studies, I came to realize that it was not so much the attacks themselves which had me fascinated, but more what the public response and political- and media circuses following such a crisis could tell about the constructs and shaping of collective (national) identity and the nation-state. I read a sociological academic article by Mark J. Landau et al.; ''Deliver Us from Evil'' (2004), in which the authors neatly analyze how, post 9/11, the particular religious and apocalyptic rhetoric of President
George W. Bush worked to dramatically increase his popularity as president. The article made me realize what tremendous psychological force (collective) narratives can have. These often absolutist, dualistic and somewhat simplistic stories, narratives and myths that demarcate between heroes and villains, good and evil, punishment and salvation, are perhaps as old as humanity itself
2 – and still prove to be central to the ways in which (national) identity, society, and history are constructed and remembered. Many of these narratives have in common that they tell of our origins, progress, and purpose; be it told in the book of Genesis, through the American frontier myth, or within the ideas of the Enlightenment. After finishing my bachelor's, I further pursued my interest in all of the above during the master Religion and Identity in the Modern World, with a specific interest to learn and understand more about the ways in which religion is able to saturate the lives of so many people with a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as the significant part religious narratives and myths have in constructing collective, national and individual identities.
During the course of this master, a cross-over between the disciplines of mediastudies and religious studies has always kept my attention; I got particularly interested in the religious narrative of
'apocalypse' and representations of apocalypse in media, and film specifically. Perhaps this is why I was so struck by the Leftovers; I experienced the series as a philosophical exploration of the same sentient questions on the meaning and purpose of life that had concerned myself. Even more so, the Leftovers is a contemplation on the ways in which we innately create and cling to myths and narratives to situate ourselves and the cosmos; to help us cope with the difficult and absurdist aspects of life and death, and to connect with one another through the beauty of storytelling. The series traces the connections between our experiences of the greatest catastrophes and our most intimate losses. The Leftovers reminds us of the splendor and significance of narratives, but also of the suffering and division they can cause when taken rigidly or dogmatic. Analysing the Leftovers, to me, was like diving into a rabbit hole. I've watched the series many times, and every time I found new references, layers, and subtexts, providing the series with a quite complex hypertext I was eager to sift through and understand. Admittingly, in following the 'breadcrumb trail' of subtexts and references the Leftovers leaves behind for whoever is interested in finding them (and I believe many more, different of these breadcrumb trails could be found, telling different stories) - I often found more than anticipated. I found myself deeply embedded in the works of Camus and Sartre,
Freud and Lacan, the Book of Job and Don Quixote, and many more old religious, pagan and secular myths. At least two notebooks with scribbles and thoughts on the series must have been filled, alongside which this thesis developed accordingly. I found it mind-boggling at times how
3 through all of its layers of meta- and subtexts, the idea of narrative is always present in this series - the Leftovers is a story about storytelling, and invites the viewer to immerse too in all the stories and myths we have created throughout history, which in turn, the series employed to create its own. This thesis can be seen as the result of a very modest exploration of our time and age, and the importance of (collective) myths and narratives - through the lens of the Leftovers. Many 'aha moments' have led to small or bigger shifts in the focus of this essay - as my own understanding of all that is discussed below expanded, this thesis has evolved organically with it to the following result. My dear mother and partner, who both patiently endured my rambles and doubts during the process of writing this thesis, and who continue to inspire me with stories and narratives of their own – thank you for that, and for believing in my capacity to create my own. I owe much gratitude also to my supervisor Dr. Caroline vander Stichele, for her great support, thoughtful comments and suggestions - and for being understanding always.
4 Chapter 1: Beginnings & Endings
Every story ends in apocalypse, Frank Kermode writes in The Sense of an Ending (1967), one of the leading literary works on apocalypse. Indeed, apocalypse has often been associated with marginal (millennial) groups, but this fails to acknowledge the immense influence the myth of apocalypse has always had on the human imagination. The end has inspired the oldest religious myths and has been impressively represented in god-fearing works of art. Apocalypse has been the subject of many dystopian novels and cinematic spectacles of doom. Although end-time thinking reaches back thousands of years, and perhaps would be expected to have withered in this modern age, different scholars have noted that apocalyptic thinking now in fact flourishes like never before.
The twentieth century had brought great technological progress - but with it came the possibility of complete annihilation into the hands of man. What the end could look like was made visual for the world by the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Much can be said, like David Domke and Kevin Coe have engagingly done in the God
Strategy (2008), on how apocalyptic thought has become increasingly intertwined with especially
American politics and culture since the twentieth century (12-13). Especially the growing influence of evangelical groups on American media as well as politics deserves serious attention, as this, at least in part, helps to contextualize the particular apocalyptic sensitivity of contemporary America.
As a staggering 61% of American adults believe the world will soon be brought to an end (3), as noted by Daniel Wojcick (1999) – apocalypse does definitively not reside at the margins of society anymore. Although different scholars have noted this particular American sensitivity, in
Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem (1997) Palmer and Robbins argue that this heightening of apocalyptic expectation may indeed represent a global phenomenon (4). With all the unrest in the world - reaching all corners of the earth more easily than ever in this global information age - this is quite understandable. One only has to turn on the television or computer and glance at the news headlines to get an idea of all the possible ways our world might end soon. This is a time of
5 continual (perceived) crises; climate change, renewed (nuclear) tensions between the East and the
West, the 2008 economic collapse, increasingly polarized societies and an unprecedented amount of people worldwide being displaced under the destructive impact of seemingly never-ending wars.
Perhaps then, it is not despite of, but because of the ever fast-changing world that the need for apocalyptic narratives has remained so strong.
1.1: Theoretical framework & methodology
The basis of the theoretical framework employed in this essay can be found in an overlap between the field of cultural studies and the field of religious studies. Writing this essay has again underscored how tightly interwoven the fields of religion and (popular) culture are – in fact, especially in today's world, separating the two seems to be neither sensible nor practically achievable. The main issue addressed in this thesis evolves around the idea of 'apocalypse' – a deceptively simple term. The more precise one attempts to pinpoint its meaning, the more elusive it tends to become. For the purpose of this essay, the term apocalypse will be used in several senses which often overlap each other. Apocalypse; stemming from Ancient Greek, literally means 'an uncovering'; 'disclosure' or 'revelation'. Over the course of history apocalypse has become identified dominantly with the Christian eschaton; the actual imagined end of times as presented in the New
Testament Apocalypse of John. In this same sense apocalypse has also become a chiffre for all kinds of (both religious and secular) actual imagined endings, such as in visions of nuclear - or environmental apocalypses.
A second understanding of apocalypse will be exemplified in chapter 2, where the 9/11 attacks will be discussed as an apocalyptisized event. Following James Berger in After the End
(1999), such a catastrophe resembles the imagined final ending and can, as such, be interpreted as definitive historical divide, a rupture, and an end to a way of life or thinking (5). Such apocalyptic interpretations of the world have always been abundant, and are still very much so today. ''Our daily lives are ingrained with the textures of apocalyptic belief '' (1), Lee Quinby observes in
Millenial Seduction (1999). Therefore, more than anything, apocalypse should be understood in
6 this thesis as part of our social consciousness, or in other words; '' a deeply etched cultural and epistemic condition immanent in the evolution of human civilization'' (ix) , as Jeff Lewis states in
Global Media Apocalypse (2013).
Depending on the text, I have seen this understanding of apocalypse indicated as either; the apocalyptic 'story', 'myth', 'narrative' or 'paradigm'. Somewhat confusing, these definitions usually mean to describe the same thing: apocalypse as a great, meaning-making myth, always hovering in our historical and cultural backgrounds as an organizing principle imposed on an otherwise overwhelming and seemingly chaotic cosmos. Apocalypse is then, in the words of
Elizabeth Rosen in Apocalyptic Transformation (2008), ''a means by which to understand the world and one's place in it'' (4). For the remainder of this essay, I find the term myth the most clarifying to indicate this overarching function of apocalypse. Myth should be understood here as it was proposed by scholars as Claude Lévi-Strauss and discussed in Cultural Theory and Popular
Culture (2009) by John Storey: as a widely held ancient idea, belief and story, functioning to explain and contextualize the origins, purpose and cosmic meaning of humankind and the world
(114-116). Myth is thus as an important tool to arrange the world and our lives, and follows, as such, specific narrative structures. When I use the term 'apocalyptic myth', I thus refer to the narrative structure of apocalypse, which is always comprised of: a beginning (Genesis) – a middle – an end (Apocalypse). Here the revelatory element of apocalypse is crucial, as the revelation serves to saturate 'the middle' with meaning and purpose, as well as a promise to a new, pure world. As such, the apocalyptic myth has also always served as a significant vehicle for social criticism, as it offers the possibility of representing the purifying destruction of all the world's illnesses, with a redemptive closure (for those who deserve it). Apocalypse is then, a comforting myth which provides a simple chronicity to an otherwise seemingly chaotic universe. It achieves, in the words of Kermode (1967); ''temporal integration'' (192) – it charges the ungraspable with meaning. Thus, when I use the term apocalypse in regard to the way in which events can be narrativised along the template of the apocalyptic myth, I refer to this specific narrative structure of apocalypse. Hence, the myth of apocalypse can be read through the specific narrativization of 9/11, but we can also read the same myth through, for example, a specific narrativization of World War II, the poetry of
7 W.B Yeats or through the song 4 Minute Warning by Radiohead.
1.2: Apocalyptic representations as a barometer of society
It is especially during times of (perceived) crises that cultural apocalyptic sensitivity heightens and particularly comes to the foreground in varied cultural representations as both a meaning-making myth and vehicle for social criticism. Apocalyptic imagination can then take on many forms, defined by the particular social, economic and political anxieties belonging to that time. In this sense, apocalyptic representations can be said to serve as a 'barometer of society'. Media and film in particular can function as excellent tools to gain more insight in the zeitgeist; the particular desires, terrors, hopes, and visions that live within a society. Since its inception, cinema has established a quite spectacular relationship with apocalypse. As the remainder of this chapter shows, apocalyptic anxieties and destructive doom have been acted out endlessly on the big screen for decades, especially from the 1980's on. Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo (2015) observes that especially in times of crisis a peak in apocalyptic cinema can be observed (159). This observation is neatly crystallized in the extensive statistical analysis done by Jerry Määttä (2015) on the historiography, canonization and historical fluctuations of Anglophone (post)-apocalyptic narratives. Määttä observes a general heightening in apocalyptic interest from the 19th century on, increasing significantly during the 20th century (420). During the Depression years of the 1930's a first noteworthy peak in apocalyptic representations can be observed which then almost doubled between 1950 and 1989 when the Cold War and Vietnam war tensions were at its highest (420).
Nuclear trauma and anxieties bubbled under through the 1950's, when the all-encompassing fear of nuclear annihilation took the shape of the Cold War. It was then that science fiction film entered its
'golden age'. Nuclear anxieties dominated many of these films (Day the World Ended, Corman
1955; On the Beach, Kramer 1959; Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick 1964) and paranoia was displaced in a number of alien invasion disaster films (the War of the Worlds, Haskin 1953; Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, Siegel 1958).
Whereas during the first half of the twentieth century, the Old Testament frequently served
8 as source of inspiration for novels and films, Lee Quinby and John Wallis (2010) observe a clear change in the second half of the century. Directors and writers now increasingly tap for inspiration from the New Testament and especially the Book of Revelation, which offered a more fitting framework for a world confronted with the possibilities of man-made (nuclear) annihilation (1). In the following decades, collective paranoia was further fed by the Watergate scandal and the
Vietnam war (acted out in the aptly named Apocalypse Now, Coppola 1979). As technological progression made film increasingly affordable, especially from the 1980's forward, film became an increasingly popular mode of expression for apocalyptic narratives (Määttä 2015, 422). During this time (nuclear) anxieties around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were reflected in movies such as
WarGames (Badham, 1983); The Day After (Meyer, 1983) and Threads (Jackson, 1984) (422). The
1978 zombie apocalypse Dawn of the Dead by George Romero reflected a new kind of anxiety taking hold around this time as increasing globalization and the (capitalist) consumerist society gained weight. The following decades saw further crystallization of these thematics, and climate anxiety was put firmly on the map of apocalyptic imagining with films such as Waterworld
(Reynolds, 1995).
It was not until the early 1990's that a notable decline in apocalyptic representations set in.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and nuclear disarmament treaties probably initiated this (short) period of 'apocalyptic relaxation'. It should be noted however, that meanwhile in America under mainly evangelical influence conservatism increased and a return to fundamentalist religion took hold. Thompson (2007) argues that this 'New Awakening' has had a significant potency on the apocalyptic obsession which has taken hold of America (7-8).
Conservative religious power added to the eventual election of president George W. Bush in 2001, who engaged in unprecedented religious and apocalyptic rhetoric, unabashedly serving his
Christian conservative voters. Thompson notes how during this time, the evangelical foothold began to reflect in mainstream theaters too. By targeting general audiences using high production value, evangelical film broke out of its niche with movies such as The Omega Code (Marcarelli,
1999). The growing commercial success of evangelical media stretched out over various media, like the successful book series Left Behind (1995-2007); which has sold over 65 million copies and was
9 adapted into multiple movies (10-11). Meanwhile, in what Thompson calls a 'religious turn',
Hollywood adopted the conservatives religious rhetoric and style - showing in films overloaded with religious symbolism such as End of Days (Hyams, 1999) and the controversial The Passion of the Christ (Gibson, 1999). Thompson notes how technological progress and bigger budgets again saw a new explosion of apocalyptic spectacles from the second half of the 1990's onwards – often loosely fiddling with millennial fears of the upcoming year 2000 (12). This time also saw the rise of fears of artificial intelligence, with films as the Matrix (Wachowski, 1999) and Artificial
Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001). Finally then, the 2001 September 11th attacks marked the definite end to the more cheerful and escapist '90's mood – and heralded a 'new wave' of post-apocalyptic narratives (Määttä 2015, 427).
1.3: From optimism to pessimism, from cinema to television
As chapter 2 will discuss in relation to the 9/11 events, these, especially Hollywood films, have in turn come to serve as a frame of reference in itself to understand and situate such crises. Cinema can thus be seen to work as a kind of mirror or soundboard of ourselves, always reflecting and magnifying the undercurrent of our collective mind. But, from the 1980's a change in these cinematic stories of apocalypse can be observed. Where the apocalyptic genre dominantly used to follow the 'original' optimistic narrative structure - ending with either revelation, or with no end at all; a so called 'almost apocalypse' – now a shift towards gloomy, solely destructive apocalypses has taken hold. Chapter 2 will discuss this turn towards 'neo-apocalypticism', as termed by Rosen
(2008, 5). Taking the upswing of postmodernism as a starting point of this apocalyptic pessimism,
I will move to 9/11 to discuss how a 'new wave' of both conservative and neo-apocalyptic narratives was heralded by this catastrophe, which would continue to stay dominant in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In his 2013 book Behind Apocalypse, Matthew Leggatt argues that this is now changing:
''Now, more than a decade on from the visitation of [the 9/11] catastrophe on the American people,
10 there have been hints that this cycle of films is coming to an end, as we have seen the beginnings of a recycling back towards escapist movies seen in the 90's'' (29).
I would posit that while Legatt's observation might be correct in regard to Hollywood cinema, an opposite trend has in fact been taking place on television.
While cinema continues to struggle with declining visitor numbers, television might well be experiencing a 'new Golden Age'. On demand video streaming services like Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix are booming worldwide. As these companies have invested heavily in creating original content, this in turn motivated cable networks to invest more in high quality scripted shows as well.
Research conducted by the American FX Networks points out that the production of scripted television series in America has roughly doubled between 2010 and 2015 (FXnetworks.com). This trend, dubbed 'peak TV', has had a significant impact on the (post) apocalyptic genre as well.
Around forty (post)apocalyptic television series have been released since the beginning of the decade, but all of them after 2005. Although not all of these have been equally commercially or critically successful, significant differences within the genre in previous decades can be observed.
Gerry Canavan (2010) remarks how the sub-genre of the zombie apocalypse is, for the first time, no longer living at the fringes of the mainstream and sees an unprecedented revival – most notably on television (431-432). Indeed, the Walking Dead (Idiot Box Productions, 2010) has since its start continuously been one of the most popular series in both America and Europe. Along the spectrum of the (post)-apocalyptic genre commercially and critically acclaimed television series are now created. In contrast to the majority of films made within this genre earlier this decade, I would pose that now especially the (post)-apocalyptic television genre is employed to engage in critical discourse on themes as 9/11, the construct of (American) identity, (neo)-apocalypticism, and
(capitalist) consumerism.
Although other recent television series might deserve to be included here, the Leftovers
(2014), the Handmaid's Tale (Daniel Wilson Productions, 2017) - created after the acclaimed 1985 novel, and the genre-blending series Black Mirror (Zappotron, 2011) and Westworld (Warner
Bros., 2016) specifically deserve attention for dealing with themes of (9/11) collective trauma,
11 politics, (construction of) identity, sociocultural anxieties and living in the age of postmodernity - both critically and self-consciously. In chapter 2 I will discuss how this shift stands in straight opposition to much of the post 9/11 apocalyptic film genre as it was during the first half of the decade of this century. The ways in which these series display a particularly self-conscious attitude towards the (post)-apocalyptic genre they themselves are part of, especially strikes me as both a novel and significant change within apocalyptic storytelling.
This raises the question of whether this substantive shift is connected to the move from cinema to television. The episodical television format does offer different and new possibilities for filmmakers and writers, as well as a different viewing experience for the audience. Not the least difference is time – these series are often able to spread out their story over the course of many hours. This means more room to deepen and expand on the different subjects, narratives and thematics. This presents a more immersive and in depth experience for viewers as well.
Furthermore, between seasons there is often a reasonable time gap which allows the makers to adjust their storylines to current topicalities, the general 'mood' in society as well as input from viewers and critics. The notable commercial and critical acclaim these recent (post)-apocalyptic series have received (based on the average combined ratings of leading online film-rating platform
Rotten Tomatoes, these series are rated as follows; the Leftovers: 91 percent, the Handmaid's
Tale: 94 percent, Black Mirror: 97 percent and Westworld: 89 percent) indicates that during the last decade the mood has been shifting. Children of Men (Cuarón 2006), which was a commercial flop at its time of release, has recently seen a remarkable popular resurgence. The film is now hailed, in retrospect, for its highly critical sociopolitical stance as well as the open-ended, no-frills artistic representation of a near future post-apocalyptic earth. The current wave of (post)- apocalyptic television too is mostly characterized by toned-down atmospheres in which lengthy dialogue or uncomfortable silence are preferred to bombastic action and special effects.
Rosen (2008) has made a similar observation on this substantive shift within the genre, although the body of work she considers spans (roughly) the last decade of the twentieth century, and as such does not include television series (instead, she focuses on (graphic) novels, with the addition of two films: 12 Monkeys (Gilliam, 1995) and the Matrix. Rosen has termed this shift
12 within the genre ''constructive postmodern apocalyptic storytelling'' (xi). In these stories, apocalypse is still an important instrument for criticism, but is characterized by a rejection of both the neo-apocalyptic and traditional sense-making narrative structure of apocalypse. Again, particularly interesting is the way in which these storytellings take their criticism to the apocalyptic myth itself (xii). Rosen observes that these artists tap into a growing psychological need in society for sense-making narratives and moral certitudes – even if these postmodernists resist the absolutes and certainties of traditional (modern) sense-making narratives (3). In doing so, the apocalyptic myth is acknowledged and used as the powerful cultural vehicle it is; while at the same time challenging and subverting the absolutes and systems of morality that underlie it. These postmodernists are interested in negotiating hope and optimism as it was found in the original apocalyptic narrative, even though ''their own lack of religious conviction or their postmodern style have obliged them to refigure that hope in other terms'', Rosen observes (2). For her analysis,
Rosen addresses a modest body of constructive postmodern works with a specific interest to:
''question whether and how the use of this constructive postmodern apocalyptic paradigm might be reflecting other concerns of this period, [..] and tell us something about the experience of 'being- in-the-world' at the end of the twentieth century'' (4).
1.4: Research proposal & course of action
For the remainder of this thesis, I will take Rosen's observation and questions on the shift towards constructive postmodern apocalyptic storytelling as a starting point, to discuss how the current emerging wave of (post)-apocalyptic television is moving towards this self-conscious, constructive postmodern paradigm. As television series are usually comprised of many more hours and thus content as opposed to film, an in-depth analysis of multiple series lies outside the intended scope of this essay. Therefore, I have chosen to limit my examination to one particular television series only, as this allows for a more substantive in-depth reading. Of the above mentioned series, the
Leftovers in particular catches attention for being an ambitious exploration of apocalypse as a
13 deeply culturally etched mode of consciousness in the West and America in particular. It should be noted that although the notion of apocalypse lies at the core of the series, the Leftovers allows, in line with its firmly postmodern roots, for many different focal points and readings. For instance, one could focus on the way in which the series subversively deals with race, gender and sexuality
(particularly male masculinity and the 'male-gaze'). The Leftovers also contains a mind-boggling amount of mythic, religious/Biblical, philosophical, literary, historical and otherwise intertextual references. Although some of these could count as postmodern pastiche, I would argue that most of these references are actually part of the substantive points the series attempts to convey, particularly on the notion of '(meaning-making) narratives'. In my view, many of the series characters can be read as allegories of other literary figures, from Don Quixote to the Biblical Job and Camus' surrealist stranger Meursault – a dissertation could easily be written on basis of this angle of approach. Even within the focal point 0f this thesis; apocalypse, many more things could be said. For example on the recurrent recitations of apocalyptic poetry written by Yeats, or on the many references to the Biblical book of Revelation as well as ancient apocalyptic narratives preceding Christianity. The series also makes many implicit references to the notion of religious
'cults', particularly the Branch Davidians and the 'Waco siege' in Texas, 1993. Although I would argue that most, if not all of the references and focal points are interconnected and serve to convey the same arguments, the scope of this paper does not allow for such an intricate and fairly massive analysis. For the purpose of this thesis, my research is focused upon examining how:
a. the Leftovers employs the apocalyptic myth to make some sharp observations on ''our experience of being-in-the-world'', at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century – especially the experience of living in a transitional time, moving from modernity into postmodernity.
b. how the Leftovers takes these observations and criticism to the apocalyptic myth itself. I will argue that the series problematizes the apocalyptic myth as dominant cultural meaning-making narrative structure and subsequently succeeds in decentralising apocalypse. Furthermore, I argue the series moves towards a constructive postmodern storytelling in attempting to find new ways of
14 creating meaningful narrative(s).
For my analysis and arguments, I will use two overarching theoretical frameworks: trauma and trauma theory, and the (postmodern) concept of the sign-system, within the framework of semiotics. These frameworks are used in respectively chapter 3 and chapter 4. Chapter 3 serves to discuss the psychoanalytic concept of trauma theory in relation to the Leftovers and the apocalyptic myth. Here, the concept of discontinuity/continuity and (American) exceptionality is placed in relation to the apocalyptic myth. In chapter 4 the concept of the sign-system is used to argue that according to the Leftovers a 'collapse of meaningful narrative(s)' is at the core of our current existential crisis. Furthermore, I argue that the apocalyptic myth can offer no motivated foundation for meaning-making and is as such decentralised in the series. Finally, chapter 4 also discusses how the Leftovers moves towards constructive postmodern storytelling by exemplifying the possibility for different, new ways to (re)create meaningful narrative(s).
15 2. Apocalypse: beyond the New Millennium
Before the September 11th, 2001 events sparked an increase in apocalyptic fever in the West, some expected a different kind of catastrophe. As the year 2000 approached, not just the beginning of a new millennium, but the inception of the Millenium – as Quinby emphasizes (1999, 18) – the change of the millennium worked to trigger a broad range of both old and new apocalyptic narratives. In Media and the Apocalypse (2009), Terry Patkin observes how an increase in globalization and fragmentation of society made sure that the coming year 2000 was met with a wide range of interpretations and expectations (4-5). Premillennialists prophesied the new millenium to be the beginning of the end – chaos and disaster would plague the Earth, with only the righteous taken up to Heaven at the moment of final Judgment. While some secular apocalypticists anticipated an all-destroying asteroid impact, again others had been stockpiling food and weapons in preparation for an expected ultimate battle with the government. Under the influence of crescendoing media reports, worldwide concerns about the Y2K bug (also called the
'Millenium bug') had reached frenzied heights as the end of the year came near. Worldwide, wild speculations circulated on the supposed catastrophic effects the bug would have – a staggering one-third of Americans felt worried enough to be stockpiling food and other supplies in preparation (6). Patkin notes how the global nature of the hype was unprecedented (8); the resulting confused flurry of apocalyptic interpretations exemplified a worldwide deeply embedded apocalyptic sensitivity and a blending of interpretations so characteristic of the postmodern age.
Although we know now that nothing cataclysmic happened at the onset of the new millennium, an unexpected catastrophe resonated throughout the world on September 11th, 2001.
Drawing upon James Berger's (1999) discussion on the portrayal of historical events as apocalyptic, chapter 2 will take the 9/11 events as the prime example hereof and draws attention to the way the events were dominantly interpreted as apocalyptic by the general public, the media and the
American government, which exposed again the deeply Western embeddedness in apocalyptic
16 thinking.
Continuing the discussion on the reciprocity between (perceived) crises and cinema, chapter 2.1 focuses on the post 9/11 wave of apocalyptic film. I will discuss how, in the first decade after 9/11, especially apocalyptic cinema recycled Cold War thematics characterized by a simplistic and patriotic representation of the events. This changed with the turn of the decade as the public opinion on the Iraq War and the Bush administration started to shift. In chapter 2.2 and 2.3 I will discuss how under the upswing of postmodernism a subsequent collective pessimism took hold, which was in turn reflected by a new cinematic appetite for destruction; but this time without the salvation, heroes and happy endings which characterized the genre in the first half of the decade.
2.1: American apocalypses
As we know now, nothing cataclysmic happened at the onset of the new millennium. The skies did not tear open and the impact of Y2k turned out to be minimal. A palpable sense of anti-climax was hanging in the air for some time - but as the year proceeded, that too faded away. How different this anti-climax was from the shock wave send across the world less than two years later, when the
September 11th, 2001 attacks in the America took place. It would be an event which would determine much of the political course of the West for years to come. Much can be said (and has already been said) about the implications of 9/11 on the apocalyptic imagining of the West, stretched out across the realms of politics, economics, and popular culture. A complexity of layered
'apocalypticisms' can be unraveled when the events, aftermath, and context are all taken into consideration. Newspapers on September 12th from around the globe could not have given a more clear example of James Berger's (1999) 'historical events being portrayed as apocalyptic (see fig. 1), while the Bush administration further strengthened and further amplified this apocalyptic rhetoric during the days and weeks following the attacks. Of course, one might argue that the attacks also had the intent of invoking apocalyptic imagery; the stage was very carefully choreographed – the attacks were part of a 'theater of terror' (Weimann 2008, 70): television screens in millions of homes made sure there was a global stage on which to perform - Jenkins underscores: “Terrorism
17 is aimed at the people watching, not at the actual victims” (1975, 4).
Fig. 1: front pages of three Anglophone newspapers of Sept. 12, 2001. Source: abc.net.au
Images of the Twin Towers covered in sky-high flames and people fleeing amongst thick clouds of ashes did indeed conjure up Biblical connotations for many. But perhaps even more so, many interpreted the events on the basis of perhaps the most spectacular frame of reference; Hollywood and its endless cycle of apocalyptic movies seen in the previous decades ('it looked just like a movie!'). Multiple scholars have noticed this blending between spectacle/ the image and reality
(also called 'hyperreality'). In turn, the narrative as it was formed by the Bush administration, media and public in the aftermath of 9/11, was shaped not unlike a classical 1950's Hollywood apocalyptic movie. Strict binaries of demarcating hero(es) vs. Other(s), victim vs. aggressor, good vs. evil and the threat of annihilation vs. the promise of salvation dominated the public discourse until well into the Iraq War when the public opinion started to shift.
The intention here is not so much to debate the range of consequences, outcomes, intends and history preceding the 2001 September 11th events, but to draw attention to the way narratives were formed around the event – specifically the ones using the template of the apocalyptic myth.
This paradigm can be, very simply put, read as an intricate culmination and entanglement of long- standing Western apocalyptic traditions. The 9/11 attacks made abundantly clear that, as Rosen
(2008) poses:
18 '' The story of apocalypse has become part of our social consciousness, part of our mythology about endings that hovers in the cultural background and is just as real and influential as our myths of origins'' (1).
In writing about the cultural implications and effects of 9/11, some difficulties arise when describing the 'Western' collective experience of the events. While the actual attacks took place in the United States only, and the proportion of Americans who directly experienced the attacks is even smaller, the events were also a global television spectacle like never seen before. Surveys indicated that television news ratings following the attacks reached all-time highs not just in
America, but Europe as well (Jenkins 1975, 72). The attacks, as well as the following War on Terror, felt like it hit close to home for many Westerners and non-Westerners outside of America. In the minds of Europeans too, Hollywood imagery of a destroyed New York immediately popped up, and many Europeans too felt deeply affected following the horrors they'd followed minutely on the television.
Over the course of the last century, American cultural, economic and political dominance on the world stage has grown so strong to the point that the line between the 'Dutch' 'European' or
'Western' identity and the 'American identity' has become increasingly opaque. Thus, especially in an essay like this, which addresses 9/11, collective trauma and the (Western) transition from modernity into postmodernity, it is fairly complicated to differentiate between the 'American' society/identity and the more broader 'Western' society/identity. Not in the least because the corpus of both academic and popular material used in an analysis like this, is dominantly American too. Thus, writing about the 'Western identity' becomes a complicated semantic issue of defining what 'we' and 'our society' exactly means. This is an issue that needs to be addressed more often, especially when the focus of the text is on collective identity, collective trauma and collective crises in the West. Of course, this issue becomes already visible in the obsessive and singular (both academic and popular) focus on 9/11 itself – as if that event actually caused America to 'lose its innocence'. 9/11 was, of course, neither the first nor the worst horror the world has experienced,
19 and yet it is often defined in such manners. At the same time, American dominance in most realms of society in the West is a reality, and as such, American identity, trauma and crises arguably become (partly) 'ours' too. The scope of this essay does not allow for a more refined and defined examination of this (semantic) issue. For now, it should suffice to say that for the remainder of this essay, terms as 'we' and 'our society' mean to encompass both the American and the broader
Western experience of this time in history. In chapter 3 an analysis of the recent American post- apocalyptic series the Leftovers will discuss how this series attempts to negotiate between its own inherently American-centered point of view, while simultaneously creating an awareness of the need to decenter this same point of view.
2.2: Post- 9/11 apocalyptic cinema
The 9/11 events were narrativised then, according to the culture of 'apocalyptic dread' - as Kirsten
Thompson (2007) describes the continual Western anxiety, fear, and ambivalence about global catastrophe and obsession with end-time stories (1). Thompson argues this dread became apparent first during the Cold War and reached new hysterical heights after 9/11 (2). In turn, the post-9/11 heightened apocalyptic anxiety was reflected in the creation of even more destructive stories;
Charles Derry (2009) remarks how the 9/11 attacks not only 'reinvigorated' the subgenre, but also firmly pulled it out of its niche (235). In an apparent repetition of Cold War anxieties, the hysteria and paranoia which characterized much of the 1950's sci-fi film genre now again dominated.
Cornea (2007) observes how, after 2001, the genre saw a splurge of apocalyptic invasion movies in which paranoia, fear of – and aggression towards, the unknown Other and black/white binaries are often at the center of the story (33). In the first decade after 9/11 a small revival of 1950's invasion classics has indeed been noticeable: both The War of the Worlds and Invasion of the Body
Snatchers were re-made as War of the Worlds, (Spielberg, 2005) and the Invasion, (Hirschbiegel,
2007). The commercially successful Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008) presented an apocalyptic monster- invasion scenario as well, essentially replaying the chaos and trauma of 9/11 using the same found footage style, resembling the many amateur cameras with which much of the actual attacks was
20 also filmed.
All of the above films have been criticized for painting an unequivocally simplistic picture of the events. In his essay ''Enjoying 9/11'' James Stone (2011) comments:
''If these films dwelled on the ideological complexities of 9/11, our experience might be completely ruined. And so, instead of Al Qaeda, we are offered a monster. Unlike terrorists, monsters are not driven by ideology. We do not have to think about why the monster wreaks destruction, it just does.
[..] These movies present us with an us-and-it scenario, the enemy reduced to an individual monster that is easily definable and visible'' (173).
In addition, Kirk Combe (2011) notes the strong patriotic nature of many of these films, in which we can see an abundance of American flags on display, close-knit suburban communities (which
Combe remarks to be ''conspicuously multi-racial''), a focus on the 'union man'; the hard-working all-American firefighter, and an air of solidarity, of; “we're all in this together” (938). Richard Gray
(2011) criticizes the striking focus on familial relationships (especially a fetishizing of parent/child relationships), thereby avoiding the politics, history and generally 'bigger picture' of 9/11 (25). In the 9/11 Novel (2014) Arin Keeble agrees and observes that many of these films ultimately
''reinforce the rhetoric of American heroism, American exceptionalism and the clash of civilizations theory which all had alarming currency after 9/11'' (96). To this might be added that during this period a minority of (post)-apocalyptic films did venture outside of these trends, like the critically acclaimed Children of Men which did not shun away from dealing with explicit post-9/11 socio- political thematics. As said though; the film was a commercial flop, not even earning back its budget – perhaps this validates the sense that the audience at that time was not ready for a less simplistic and more politically motivated perspective on this time in history. For much of the first decade of the twenty-first century then, the apocalyptic film genre mostly served to ruminate and act out on 9/11 trauma and apocalyptic dread in a simplistic manner, Stone argues as well:
21 ''TV channels could bring us the excitement of 9/11 by calling it news. Hollywood [..] could not easily revisit the famous images of destruction without facing accusations of exploitation.[..] By reconfiguring the event as a science-fiction monster movie, it allows us to experience the terrorist attacks as an exciting spectacle without any attendant feelings of guilt'' (170).
In the book What Changed When Everything Changed, John Markert (2011) notes that nearing the end of the decade, the patriotic mood in Hollywood starts to fade parallel to the public opinion; only 36 percent of Americans supported the Iraq war in 2010, as opposed to 85 percent in 2003
(57-59). No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, while many innocent lives were lost.
Atrocities in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons came to light, and ideas of 'American innocence' and bringing 'democracy' to the Middle-East were seriously questioned. As justifications of the wars waged in Iraq and Afghanistan were growing weaker, critique on both domestic and international post-9/11 policies was getting louder. A certain sense of disillusionment with the government took hold and the idea of America as 'land of the brave and home of the free' came under pressure. Jeff Birkenstein (2010) observes:
''[..] The simple story of Us versus Them had become muddled. [..] The narrative that Americans constructed to help make sense of 9/11 no longer seems as straightforward and uncomplicated as it so often does in the movies'' (xii).
The clear-cut role America had cast for itself to play in the post-9/11 world, could no longer hold the complexities and gray areas which had surfaced.
Multiple scholars have observed a reflection of this shift in public opinion in Hollywood cinema during the same period. On the sci-fi genre specifically, Will Brooker (2011) argues more films now place their viewers in a gray moral area where right and wrong, good and evil are not so clear-cut and show multiple perspectives on truth and history (147). The repetitive focus on trauma and dread is still dominant in these films, described by Brooker as ''being caught between past terror and a fear of greater terrors yet to come'' (147-148). This turn towards ambiguity and
22 pessimism is also noted by John Wallis and James Aston (2013). They argue that the apocalyptic genre shifted from the more playful representations in the 1990's – which often showed 'almost- apocalypses', including blockbusters such as Independence Day (Emmerich, 1996) and
Armageddon (Bay, 1998), in which the End is ultimately averted, to a much bleaker, often explicitly post-apocalyptic realm focusing on survivors rather than saviors and resignation rather than salvation (53 -64).
Rosen (2008) elaborates too on this pessimistic turn in apocalyptic storytelling. She observes that in this, what she describes as a 'neo-apocalyptic vision', a vital feature of the traditional apocalyptic narrative is missing. In this narrative, after the Great Tribulation, the
Second Coming of Christ, Armageddon and The Last Judgment, the New Jerusalem would descend from the sky – the New Heaven on Earth in which the saved will live eternally with God. Rosen emphasizes that this inheritance of the New Jerusalem is a crucial part of the story; the 'raison d'etrê' of the traditional apocalyptic narrative (135). Yet in these neo-apocalyptic representations this vital feature is absent; no New Jerusalem is offered or anticipated as these grim eschatological tales: ''[..] assume that mankind is beyond renovation. There is nothing beyond this ending, no hope of a New Heaven or Earth, precisely because there is nothing worth saving '' (7). These neo- apocalyptic narratives have the original message of hope mostly subsumed by an emphasis on destruction and an indifferent and chaotic universe– a bleak alteration from an ultimately optimistic narrative into a decisively pessimistic one. Rosen argues that the promise of a New
Jerusalem and the faith and hope it is supposed to bolster has always been such an integral part of the traditional apocalyptic model, that the radical and persistent alteration into the neo-apocalyptic paradigm has resulted in a ''complete new genus of eschatological tales'' (6). Furthermore, Rosen adds to this that: ''[..] this change in apocalyptic storytelling may be the response of a culture that is caught up by a crisis that challenges the very undergirdings of its make up'' (8).
2.3: The neo-apocalyptic paradigm & postmodern pessimism
23 Many scholars have made similar remarks on this idea of the contemporary Western society experiencing a deep state of crisis. Wheeler Dixon describes it as a ''global cultural meltdown''
(2003, 2), it is called a ''revolution of belief'' by Walter Anderson (1995, 2), and James Aho speaks of an ''apocalypse of modernity'' (1997, 12). All mean to describe the paradigmatic transition from modernity into postmodernity, which started to gain purchase during the 1980's. As early postmodern writing arose in the 1970's as a result from deep abhorrence of the atrocities of World
War II, the failure of Marxism and 1960's radicalism, postmodern thinkers like Foucault,
Baudrillard, and Derrida radically turned away from discourses of modernity and went on to deconstruct concepts as universality, truth, essence, revolution, the system and an overarching rejection of all grand narratives (Kellner & Best 1997, 6). The movement as such has not been without heavy criticism. With its tendency to extreme relativism, bordering on nihilism and a complete loss of belief in an objective world, postmodernism has successfully beaten away many of modernities' old meaning systems without offering a new foundation to put back in its place, leaving behind what Rollo May calls a 'mythless society'. There has been much debate on the different schools and movements that encompass the whole of what is described as
'postmodernism', and the term is therefore somewhat elusive and difficult to pinpoint – this constitutes part of the critique as well. But, as Anderson (1995) sharply remarks, it is especially because of this controversy that it is important to make a clear distinction here between postmodernism (the various associated schools and movements) and postmodernity – the time (or condition) in which we find ourselves (6). Postmodernisms ''may come and go'', its theories being endlessly debated or refused. But postmodernity - the 'postmodern condition' - will stay:
''It is a major transition in human history, a time of rebuilding of all the foundations of civilization, and the world is going to be occupied by it for a long time to come. [..] Surrounded by so many truths, we can't help but revise our concept of truth itself: our beliefs about belief'' (7-8).
The world is indeed growing smaller rapidly; with television and the internet now available to billions of people, all kinds of different realities are brought home in an instant while traveling to
24 the outskirts of the world is becoming easier every day. This means a constant commuting in and out of different ideas, perspectives and beliefs, making it harder and harder to live out a confined life within the traditional pre-modern or even modern conditions of society. One could say this is a time where more and more information is becoming available - while deciding on the meaning and value of it all is becoming increasingly difficult. Deconstructive postmodernism, with its tendency to extreme relativism bordering on nihilism and a complete loss of belief in an objective world, in combination with rapid globalization and the inception of the 'information age' through which we are bombarded with a plethora of new realities and truths – paved the way for a collective existential crisis. Notably, this time frame corresponds with the inception of the neo-apocalyptic paradigm Rosen indicates (2008, 4). The two share some significant similarities; both postmodernism and the neo-apocalyptic paradigm are preoccupied with envisioning the definitive end, and as such both inherently convey a total critique on the system and society as a whole.
Therefore, Rosen argues, the apocalyptic genre is a natural one to take up for postmodernists (8) – although this flirtation of postmodernism with the apocalyptic has been an important point of critique on the movement.
Especially problematic is the way in which an apocalyptic sensibility can work as a means to
'withdraw' from history. After all, apocalypse is the ultimate singular event; both predetermined and unique. Therefore Berger (1999) notes: ''Regardless of whether it imagines a wasteland or paradise as its aftermath, the apocalypse ushers in a condition of permanent ecstasy outside of history and time'' (35). This makes the historically detached apocalyptic paradigm escapist – and as such it can bring with it a certain apathy and loss of agency. Reliance on divine intervention to bring justice and set things right in the end can effectively take away any sense of personal responsibility towards the world. Real and possibly catastrophic (for example environmental) risks may then be passively approached by a fatalistic withdrawal from the world in the face of impending doom. Radical postmodernist Jean Baudrillard has extensively commented on this
'apocalypse-apathy', which he has interpreted not to be apathy, but the ultimate retaliation against the system. In his 1983 essay 'In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities' Baudrillard has termed this
''fatal strategy'' or ''hyper conformism'' (39); the unavoidable impending disaster brought upon by
25 the system is accepted and even welcomed by the masses through complete indifference, the only residual form of resistance that is left as all other narratives of resistance (such as protesting) have lost their meaning in this age of postmodernity. Furthermore, for Baudrillard the endless (re) producibility of the apocalypse signals that the world has already ended. From the Last Judgment to the Holocaust – the apocalypse has already played itself out endlessly and has as such become
''emptied of meaning'' and just a ''spectacle' in reruns'' (36-37). Thus, Baudrillard argues, we now inhabit a future that has no future; we are already beyond history and at the end of difference.
Because this radical postmodern envisioning of the end offers no alternatives, the movement is often accused of being apocalyptic in tone as well as making way for the dominant system to stay in place. As Lee Quinby (1994) argues:
''Despite his [Baudrillard's] critique of contemporary apocalypse as anachronistic, Baudrillard himself is a quintessentially apocalyptic thinker. [..] His already-too-late theme reinforces the antiactivist, apathetic stance of all ironic apocalypticians (xxii)''.
In Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), Frederic Jameson also critiques postmodern apocalypticism which he describes as: '' an inverted millenarianism in which premonitions of the future [..] have been replaced by a sense of the end of this or that'' (36).
The radical postmodernism that argues that this age is one of disintegration, exhaustion, meaninglessness and societal chaos shows many similarities to the neo–apocalyptic paradigm
Rosen outlines. It does not seem improbable that the upswing of radical postmodernism during the
1980's, combined with an already present apocalyptic dread, has come to be reflected in this neo- apocalyptic paradigm. As Frank Kermode (1967) already noted: 'Deconstructors write no gospels'
(102-103).
2.4: The loop of apocalyptic dread
26 Thompson (2007) argues that ''apocalyptic dread'' has taken on explicit narrative form in cinema since the late 1990's and the beginning of the new century (1). The way in which the subsequent
9/11 events where immediately narrativised according to an explicitly apocalyptic paradigm, definitively demonstrated how this dread extends to, and is deeply rooted in, American and
Western culture as a whole. The events also demonstrated clearly how in this media-saturated era the 'spectacle image' has become so tightly entangled with 'reality' to the extent that they essentially merge. Multiple scholars have noted the spectacular and cinematic elements that shaped the planning and stage of the attacks as well as the subsequent War on Terror. In ''The Unspeakable and Unimaginable'', Thomas Mitchell (2005) argues how terror works on the collective imagination to project or ''clone'' collective images of horror, with the goal of sowing collective
(lasting) dread and anxiety (300). He adds that many of these collective horror images and archetypes were already anticipated and acted out endlessly in Hollywood disaster movies (301).
This is a significant realization; a profound understanding of 9/11 and the War on Terror and the ways in which these events came to be narrativised, indeed also requires an understanding of the way our collective imagination continually shapes our (visual) media, our fictions, our reality – and vice versa. What seems clear is that over a long period of time the paradigm of apocalypse has developed to such a great extent in our collective imagination and consciousness that it has already become in this sense reality, manifested and acted out again and again within the cultural, political and economic realms of society.
Thompson (2007) notes how cinematic representations of apocalyptic dread move cyclically; Cold
War paranoia and anxiety re-emerged in Hollywood films of the seventies, rose again to prominence under Reagan's conservatism and reached new heights after September 11th, 2001 (2).
It seems then, that our sense of crisis is as persuasive as unremitting. The nature of these crises is subject to change, shifting along with specific pressing issues and fears belonging to that time and constantly re-imagining what the conclusive end will look like. Asserting moral certitudes, providing structure and ascribing cosmic meaning to a seemingly disordered world have always been important components of these apocalyptic re-tellings. During and right after acute periods of
27 crisis, such as roughly the first decade after 9/11, these certitudes become more polarized and lined with strong patriotic tendencies. While our collective apocalyptic anxiety has grown more acute from the mid-twentieth century onwards, our interpretive structures have grown more unsteady.
Accompanied by rapid globalization, postmodern deconstructivism has been successful at breaking out of many of modernists' dogma's and restrictions – but it also induced a collapse of many
Western meaning-making and stabilizing structures. Under the influence of these rapid changes, apocalyptic imagination started to shift as well. Kermode (1967) notes that while belief in the actual or imminent end of the world receded with the rise of modernity, the ''paradigms of apocalypse'' still lie under our ways to make sense of the world (26). In Post-Apocalyptic Culture (2008),
Teresa Heffernan exemplifies this point and notes that the Enlightenment narratives of ''History, the Nation and Man'' are still secured by the spirit of apocalypse; a narrative that posits an origin and moves progressively through a series of coherent and concordant events towards an end that will make sense of all that has come before it (4). The secular apocalyptic narratives that comprise the modern world still promise ''purpose, perfection and permanence'' (4).
As the stabilizing structures of the modern world are rapidly receding, so is the secular- traditional apocalyptic narrative on which this structure has been built. Postmodernism too is still saturated with apocalypticism, but without the elements of ''purpose, perfection, and permanence'', the world presented within this neo-apocalyptic paradigm is exhausted, senseless and utterly without hope. 'The power of the end to conjure up meaning, is spent', Heffernan writes (8). The paradigmatic transition from modernity into postmodernity therefore carries a somewhat worrisome sense of having reached an impasse. Backtracking into a more structured, simpler past is obviously not possible (and arguably not desirable either) but postmodernism has been preoccupied with breaking down, rather than building up. It is the loop of apocalyptic dread -the lack of a depiction of an alternative future- that is the greatest concern, and postmodern criticism seems to undercut any possibility for creating a foundation on which a new framework could be constructed. The first decade of the new century Hollywood has been dominated by patriotic
'almost-apocalypse' movies such as War of the Worlds, in which the world is ultimately saved, and neo-apocalyptic narratives such as Cloverfield which focuses solely on total annihilation. The bulk
28 of these films demonstrated a simplistic perspective on the time in history that these films reflect; the 9/11 events and the appurtenant apocalyptic dread which motivated the making of these films.
In other words, most of these films display little self-reflexiveness on both the subjects they
(implicitly) treat (post 9/11 trauma, anxiety, politics, identity and the loss of collective structures) and their own position in -and contribution to - the obsessive cycle of apocalyptic representations of which these films themselves are part. Yet, as discussed in chapter 1, I would pose that again a shift has taken place in Hollywood around the end of the first decade of the new millennium. Again, this is not to argue that in earlier works these themes were absent – on the contrary. As discussed, the apocalyptic genre lends itself particularly well to act out on themes like these. But, during the first decade of the twenty-first century, the majority of these themes is approached conservatively and (mainly) through Hollywood cinema (blockbusters). Now a shift towards the apocalyptic television genre is dominated by a much more progressive, critical and self-conscious approach.
Indeed, the conservatism that characterized much of the post 9/11 apocalyptic film genre is now subversively turned on its head, most notably on television.
29 3. Decentering the Apocalypse
in the Leftovers
''So we're all gonna have a nice walk through town, have a good cry, and then move on.
It's time. Everyone is ready to feel better'.
'You're wrong. Nobody's ready to feel better.
They're ready to fucking explode''.
- the Leftovers (S01E01)
The Leftovers is not a straightforward series and is not easy to pinpoint in terms of its premise and the message the series conveys. Over the course of its three seasons, critics have described the series premise in notably different terms. In its concluding review of the series, the Guardian described the show as a ''post-Rapture drama'' (Guardian.com), while Time (Time.com) has written that its ''post-apocalyptic plot [..] sounds like the Christian Rapture, but is in fact utterly random''. The Atlantic (theatlantic.com) has called the series' ''metaphysically minded'' and ''a genuine and profound work of modern surrealism''. Vulture (vulture.com) discusses whether the
Leftovers is an interesting series to watch for atheïsts, yet the Christian Post (christianpost.com) wonders if the series is worth viewing for Christians. This disagreement on what exactly constitutes the plot, premise, and message of the Leftovers, might very well confirm that the series' intend has hit exactly its mark. Although some criticized the series for being opaque or maybe unsatisfyingly open-ended, providing answers has never been the intention of this series – on the contrary. I would argue that the complete lack of clarity and definitive answers in practically every plotline of this series is exactly the point. It is tempting to assume that the Leftovers' plot revolves around the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of two percent of the world's population (dubbed 'the
Sudden Departure') – and about the different ways in which a group of grief-stricken characters
30 tries to cope with this apocalyptic event. It is true that the Leftovers focuses deeply on the experience of grief, despair and loss, which has earned it descriptions of being the ''saddest show on television'', and a series that ''hurts deeply''. It should be mentioned that the television series is created after a book of the same title (Perrotta, 2011). The book was written with a television adaptation already in mind, and Perrotta subsequently worked closely with Damon Lindelof in creating the television series.
In the following chapter I will argue that while the Sudden Departure is the initial starting point of the story the Leftovers tells, the event serves mostly as a tool to start a much more ambitious exploration of our time in history, contemporary sociocultural anxieties, the rise of extremist ideologies/philosophies, the experience of trauma, and the transition into an age of postmodernity. Most importantly, the series problematizes the concept of apocalypse and the worrisome influence of apocalyptic dread on American culture and history. Furthermore, I argue that the series makes an effort to decentralise apocalypse in a distinctly constructive postmodern manner. For my analysis, I use two overarching frameworks, namely; trauma and trauma theory, and the postmodern concept of (meta) narratives. These two frameworks will be discussed in relation to the Leftovers in respectively chapter 3 and chapter 4. In chapter 3.1 and 3.2 I will discuss the psychoanalytic concept of trauma theory, based on the work of Sigmund Freud, Jacques
Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. More specifically, the psychoanalytic concept of discontinuity/continuity is placed in relation to the concept of apocalypse and (American) exceptionality. 9/11 occasionally serves as a clarifying example of how history can be apocalyptisized, and why this is problematic.
Furthermore, again employing the Leftovers, I discuss how 9/11 serves to expose the constructs of
American identity, propelling a (already pre-existent) collective existential crisis.
3.1: Decentering Trauma: Discontinuity
A central focal point in the Leftovers is the experience of trauma, both on the collective and the individual level. Undoubtedly, this is what prompted some critics to describe the show to be the saddest on television. The narrative of the series is propelled by the earth- encompassing, collective
31 trauma of the Sudden Departure. Surely, such an event is indeed traumatic enough to fill the entire remaining ninety-eight percent of the population with a severe experience of loss, grief, and confusion. Even those who did not directly lose a friend, family member or colleague, are still deeply affected; if only because of the mere unfathomably strangeness and suddenness of the event.
Yet, the Sudden Departure is not the only trauma to befall the series' characters. In fact, trauma can be said to pervade the series in an array of different 'shapes and sizes'.
Before discussing trauma in connection to the Leftovers more deeply, an introduction into the relationship between trauma theory and apocalypse is needed. James Berger (1999) especially offers an insightful contribution to the subject. Using the psychoanalytic understanding of trauma,
Berger draws on the work of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and the contemporary psychoanalysis of Slavoj Žižek to argue that trauma and apocalypse:
''[..] both refer to shatterings of existing structures of identity and language, and both effect their own erasures from memory and must be reconstructed by means of their traces: remains, survivors, and ghosts: their symptoms'. [..] Therefore, every (post)-apocalyptic representation is simultaneously a symptom of historical trauma as well as an attempt to work through them'' (19).
Thus, trauma can be seen as the psychoanalytic form of apocalypse, ''its temporal inversion'' (20).
Additionally, Berger argues:
''Trauma produces symptoms in its wake, after the event, and we reconstruct trauma by interpreting its symptoms, obsessively reading back in time. Apocalypse on the other hand is preceded by signs and portents whose interpretation defines the event in the future. The apocalyptic sign is the mirror image of the traumatic symptom'' (20-21).
Keeble (2014) adds to this argument:
''Trauma is understood to involve a limit event or violent rupture, [..] an experience so unhinging
32 that it is unknowable and therefore un-representable'' (19).
In other words, the experience of trauma is inherently so overwhelming, that it is, as Berger puts it;
''fundamentally unreadable'' (21). In an effort to situate and 'anchor' the traumatic event, it will be interpreted ''through the portents and symptoms that precede and follow it'' (21). Trauma then reflects its mirror image of apocalypse, and becomes connected to notions of inevitability, determination and 'foreshadowing'. As a result, the traumatic event is given a central, singular position in history, now divided into a clear before and after, radically restructuring all events on either side. This means that trauma and its mirror image apocalypse are also highly paradoxical – for how can there be something after the end (or before the beginning, for that matter)? Although the oxymoron 'after-the-end' is just a figure of speech, this conflict within the discourse of trauma/apocalypse is of significance, Keeble explains. The conflict is ''central to the dialectic of trauma'', and might be defined as the paradigm of continuity/ discontinuity (27): a discontinuous, violent, definitive rupture occurred, the world has changed fundamentally – Yet, something also continues, remains - the end is never really the end. Berger notes how trauma theory has struggled with the paradigm of continuity/discontinuity since Freud, who elaborated on the concept of
'latency'; how memory of a trauma can be lost (or repressed) over time but regained in some symptomatic form when triggered by a different traumatic event (23). In this way, each (collective) catastrophe invokes and transforms memories of other catastrophes, ''so that history becomes a complex entanglement of crimes inflicted and suffered, with each catastrophe (mis)understood in the context of repressed memories of previous ones'' (23). In other words, at the moment trauma is inflicted, it is inherently experienced as shattering, discontinuous. At the same time though, the
'traces' or 'symptoms' of this trauma will continually shape and effect both individual and collective discourse, identity and history. As such, every trauma is continually in dialogue with – and is filtered through another. Thus, although discontinuity and continuity are experienced as conflicting, this dialectic is an inherent part of trauma. When trauma/catastrophe is apocalyptisized, continuity/latency is overshadowed to such an extent that it becomes problematic.
The event then, per definition, gains a status of singularity and exceptionality. By severing the
33 event from all that which occurred before and will occur afterwards, it is deprived of any historical context, and the psychoanalytic process of 'latency' remains unacknowledged.
The Leftovers immerses itself in this paradoxical relationship between trauma and apocalypse and the paradigm of continuity/discontinuity. In the series, The Sudden Departure is marked as an absolute, apocalyptic turning point. As such, a dividing line in history is created; before and after. The Sudden Departure is quickly renamed 'October 14th' or simply 'the 14th' as a shorthand and reference to that defining and dividing moment in history 'when everything changed'. Throughout the series, everyone refers to 'the 14th' followed by questions such as 'what were you doing? Where were you when it happened?' The central position the Sudden Departure takes in history is further cemented by public reminders such as the placement of memorial statues and the implementation of a 'Federal Holiday of Remembrance'. The way in which 'October 14th' is represented, framed and remembered as a moment of absolute temporal rupture, undoubtedly reminds one of how the 9/11 attacks were framed. In The Selling of 9/11 (2010), Dana Heller sharply reminds us that '9/11' is a shorthand too, a cultural trademark of some sorts to signify a new kind of identification with the apocalyptic turning point that the date represents (3). In Film and Television after 9/11 (2004), Isabelle Freda observes that the attacks were continually framed as ''absolute unique [..] and singular in its horror'' (227). In What Changed When Everything
Changed (2013) Joseph Margulies too points out the overall strong insistence that the attacks
''changed everything'' (ix). Keeble (2014) agrees and notes how a frame of discontinuity has thus been dominant in the depiction of the attacks by both the media and the American government
(18). As George Bush spoke to the American people of how the country would do ''God's will to rid the world of evil'' and: ''All of this was brought upon us in a single day – and night fell on a different world [..]'' (9), the idea of 9/11 as apocalypse was further strengthened. In ''Experiencing,
Constructing and Remembering 9/11'' (2014), Jack Holland notes that while the apocalyptic rhetoric employed by Bush had been particularly striking, the narrativation of 9/11 as apocalyptic turning point has continued to be dominant in political discourse over the course of the following two decades, including the Obama administration (3). In ''Entertainment Wars'' (2004), Lynn
Spigel focuses on the way discontinuity dominated television programming as well, as all
34 commercial breaks and standard programming were suspended as footage of September 11 took over American television completely for a full week following the attacks (237). Spigel points out that this disruption of the usually tightly scheduled and ritualized American television programming contributed further to the sense of discontinuity and estrangement from ordinary life
(237).
When the 9/11 attacks became apocalyptisized, the event was effectively stripped of any
(historical) context. As discussed in chapter two, this simplification of the 9/11 crisis was in turn reflected in cinematic representations of the event. Keeble (2014) problematizes this
''domesticating'' and depoliticizing of 9/11, in which most of the emphasis is on reinforcing ideas regarding the American Dream, American exceptionalism and the nuclear family as the cornerstone of society (96). Furthermore, Keeble notes that the vast majority of 9/11 fiction deployed a framework of trauma to situate and understand the attacks, with a pervasive focus on discontinuity (8). The notion of exceptionalism is especially relevant in the context of recent
American history. In ''American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History'' (1991), Ian
Tyrell observes that the idea of the United States as a special case 'outside' of the normal patterns and laws of history runs deep in the American experience (1031). Merging republican, liberal and millennial traditions, an ''exceptionalist ideology'' took form which persisted all the way into the contemporary United States of America (1031). Closely linked are the notions of 'American innocence' and 'the loss of American innocence', both of which, as Robert Strassfeld points out in
''American Innocence'' (2006), have been recurrent themes in the national self-depiction of
America (306). Indeed, after 9/11 cries about the loss of American innocence were again commonplace – propelled by an incomprehension of why anyone would bring harm to America; the ''brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world'', as Bush described the country shortly after the attacks. The Leftovers too deploys a framework of trauma to ruminate on the 9/11 attacks, but the series stands out in doing so very much self-consciously. Instead, the frameworks of trauma, discontinuity/continuity and (American) exceptionality function to expose and problematize the American fixation with these frameworks.
The series does so most poignantly with the character and story of Meg Abbot. She is shown
35 to have lost her mother to a heart attack, unexpected and suddenly, during a joint lunch on October
13th, the day before the Sudden Departure. We also see how the following day all heads turn the other way and little attention is left for the loss Meg suffered - some even say she should feel
''lucky'' that her mother ''at least not just disappeared'' during the Sudden Departure apocalypse.
As time continues and very little room is left to grieve her loss, Meg becomes increasingly frustrated and bitter. She suffers the same feelings of disenchantment and loss as many others during that time, but here pain goes mostly unacknowledged. In the perceptive words of Reverend
Matt Jamison: ''her grief has been hijacked'' (S01E08). As the worthiness of her own trauma is continually denied, Meg grows disconnected from the collective – eventually leading her to abandon her old life - including her fiancée - to join the Guilty Remnant. There is a painful irony to her joining this nihilist 'cult' organization, as the Guilty Remnant proclaim that, now that the apocalypse has arrived, nothing matters anymore - including all emotional attachments, trauma, and grief. Members of the Guilty Remnant believe the world ended on October 14th, so that all that is left is the 'Old world', now consisting of absolute emptiness and meaninglessness. Through persistently converting others to their 'church' of nihilism, the small organization quickly grows out to have thousands of members all over the country. Meg too becomes attracted by the stripped-of- any-feeling, nihilistic approach of the Guilty Remnant. If her trauma and grief are deemed non- exceptional and unimportant, neither should any other grief be considered as such.
This is an important crux in the story of Meg, for she does not actually care at all about the Sudden
Departure, nor about the philosophy of the Guilty Remnant. Even though she joins the Remnant, from the start she continually expresses not to understand what the point is of their extreme- nihilistic ideology – this is again ironic, since the core of the Remnant's philosophy is that there is no point to anything. Meg however, was in desperate need of some sense of community as well as a vehicle to express her disillusionment, sadness, and anger. The Remnant offered both. It is not long before Meg starts to deviate more and more from the rules and ways of the group, and (again ironically) communicatively strong as she is, she creates a schism within the organization. Over the course of season one and two, Meg slowly radicalizes. She regularly breaks the norms and values that represent the philosophy of the organization; the vow of silence, wearing only white clothing
36 and always remaining non-violent – in fact, completely non-reactive - towards other (non-
Remnant) inhabitants of their town. She says: ''why do I have to just stand there when I can put my cigarette out in their fucking eye?'' (S02E09). As Meg radicalizes further, she becomes the relentless leader of a splinter faction of Remnant members who discard most of the original philosophy of the organization and instead focus on actively terrorizing citizens. Meg gets especially fixated on terrorizing the inhabitants of Jarden, Texas. This target is not randomly chosen - her violent grudge towards the people of this 'exceptional' town lies exactly in the special status it was granted after the Sudden Departure. After all, the inhabitants of Jarden are the ''9, 261 who were spared''. Not a single soul departed here on October 14th, which is interpreted by many to be a true miracle, and thus the town has become a (very much commercialized) modern pilgrimage site. 'Miracle National Park' surrounds the town and ''protects its exceptional properties'', together with strict regulations implemented by the local government to control the influx of people trying to get into Jarden to get their share of this exceptional place. To Meg, Jarden stands for everything she is being denied. First, the Sudden Departure was granted an exceptional, apocalyptic status through which her own trauma lied forgotten. Jarden represents the other side of the same coin; the town became an epitome of exceptionality and innocence because its people were supposedly spared from the horror of the apocalypse. Nothing catastrophic happened on the '14th' to either the inhabitants of Jarden or Meg. The first were granted a special, exceptional status, while Meg's own catastrophe, the death of her mother, remained mostly unacknowledged. In a grand scheme Meg eventually successfully orchestrates the downfall of Jarden by both literally and figuratively destroying its 'protective' and 'untouched' boundaries and qualities – an attack for which she, very willfully, will eventually pay for with her life in a government drone attack.
With the story of Meg, the Leftovers explores the entanglement of trauma, the apocalyptic paradigm and (American) exceptionality/innocence, and how in response radicalization and extremist ideologies can take form. (The loss of) language and discourse is a returning motif in the
Leftovers, and a postmodern tool to demonstrate how meaning is inherently present in language.
Meg is said to be 'lucky' to not have lost her mother on the 14th, the people of Jarden are said to be
37 'spared'. These two words are intentionally used in opposition here: 'lucky' should be understood in the sense of a 'chance occurrence'. On the other hand, Jarden is 'spared'; bearing the opposite meaning of being granted this luck, being spared of punishment on account of exceptionality.
The story of Meg problematizes the apocalypticizing of history from the perspective of trauma theory. The story lays bare how the paradigm of apocalypse goes hand in hand with the problematic notions of exceptionality and uniqueness. Meg's story offers perspective on how violent radicalization can gain momentum under the weight of continually unacknowledged and unprocessed trauma combined with 'historical exceptionalism'. Thus, the Leftovers demonstrates that to apocalypticize is automatically to exceptionalize - bearing absolute judgment on what or who is included/excluded, special/not special, punished/spared, and so forth. This story is also a rumination of 9/11 and the 'age of terror'. The 9/11 targets: the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and presumably the White House as a failed third target, of course were highly symbolic – similar to
Meg's attack on Jarden. All the targeted buildings on 9/11 acted as absolute pinnacles of the representation of Western and especially American military, economic and cultural power, as Terry
Smith emphasizes in The Architecture of Aftermath (2006):
''[..] these had already become key symbols within the later twentieth-century society of spectacle, icons with the capacity to stand for crucial values, in these cases for entire sectors of U.S. society, for great formations of U.S. nationality'' (37).
It is no stretch of the imagination that the main goal of the terrorists was exactly to destroy
(literally – but mostly symbolically) these pinnacles of exceptionality. Ironically, it was also exactly because of this exceptionality that the event itself quickly gained its own unprecedented status of exceptionality. While, for example, the 'other' war, fought in Iraq, was never granted such a singular status – despite its staggering destructiveness and death toll.
In the Leftovers, the storyline of John and Erika Murphy shows how the notion of exceptionality can become a heavy burden not only for the ones that are 'excluded', but for those who are supposedly 'included' as well. John is a born and raised member of the Jarden community,
38 but during season two it gradually becomes clear that he does not cherish the same feelings of wonder towards his town as most people do. In fact, he makes a point out of stating that: ''there are no miracles in Miracle'' (S02E01), and he often does so violently. Taking on a (illegitimate) role as some sort of impromptu moral sheriff of Jarden, he makes work of personally cutting everyone off daring to state that Jarden is a place where miracles happen. When he hears of the work of Isaac – who claims he can read people's future by reading their palm print – he burns his house down.
When Reverend Matt claims his comatose wife Mary was temporarily healed within the boundaries of Jarden because of its exceptional properties, John banishes him from town with the words:
''It doesn't happen here. People don't get 'healed'. My wife lost her hearing here a long time ago and its still lost. So what, God likes your wife better than mine?''
(S02E05).
Little by little it becomes clear why John bears such an aversion towards the idea of Jarden being exceptional. As a child, his wife Erika was sexually molested by her father. Then she lost her hearing. Now their daughter Evie is missing. This all happened within the boundaries of Jarden.
To the Murphy's, Jarden is a place like everywhere else where, simply put, bad things happen, have happened, and will happen. Now that Jarden has attained an exceptionalist status, their trauma too is being denied, as Erika desperately claims:
''We are the 9. 261, and we are spared. We are spared. We're not spared! We're not safe! All this shit we're walking around doing here doesn't matter, it doesn't work. My daughter is gone!''
(S02E06).
Just as Meg, the Murphy's did not 'lose' anyone on the 14th - but neither of them was 'spared'; not before nor after the Sudden Departure. This is another aspect which is emphasized through the stories of all characters; long before the Sudden Departure, all of them struggled, were unhappy and experienced their own personal apocalypses – as they did after October 14th. Meg is shown to
39 have been a wealthy but miserable coke addict prior to the Sudden Departure, Erika was planning to leave her violent husband, Kevin was having an extramarital affair, just as Nora's departed husband - and so forth. These events and traumas are hardly, if ever, spoken about by the characters, and were subsequently snowed under by the Sudden Departure. The series makes very clear, though, that the experience of the Sudden Departure was coloured, experienced and
(mis)interpreted through the 'ghosts and symptoms' of these previous unprocessed personal and collective traumas. Furthermore, the event only gained its specific meaning through all of these past experiences and trauma's. Or, more accurately put, the event gained many different meanings through the plethora of interpretations that were given to it. The issue of ascribing meaning through language/narrative is significant to the way in which the Leftovers decentralises the apocalypse – I will further elaborate on this point in chapter 4. The life-stories of these characters serve to exemplify how no traumatic experience can be truly and solely discontinuous. By granting an exceptional, apocalyptic status to any event, it becomes detached from history. A clash occurs in which history, and the trauma's residing in history, are denied by equalizing discontinuity with the singular status of apocalypse. History will then silently linger in the subconscious of both the individual and the collective where it, by lack of the acknowledgment of history and historical trauma, will continue to affect and shape the present.
3.2: Decentering Trauma: Continuity
Discontinuity represents one side of the central dialectic of trauma; the violent rupture, the sense that something has abruptly ended and was shattered forever. But here the post-apocalyptic oxymoron creeps up again; something must and does continue - a new mode of existence must be negotiated. This can be defined as the frame of continuity, the other side of the central dialectic of trauma. While both are inherently part of every trauma, Keeble (2014) notes that this already conflicting dialectic can be complicated further by ''political imperatives'' (19). The tension between continuity and discontinuity can become especially problematic when ''political discourse and traumatic memory do not sit comfortably together, further creating a sense of disorientation'' (18).
40 Both Keeble and Spigel give substantial attention to this conflicting dialectic with regard to 9/11.
Spigel (2004) argues that, while the frame of discontinuity was continually invoked by both the
American government and media, the Bush administration also repeatedly urged the nation to ''go about their business'' ''go shopping'', to ''get down to Disney World in Florida'' and to ''enjoy life the way it wants to be enjoyed'' (238). Spigel criticizes the way in which on the one hand the American public was continually bombarded with a frame of rupture, while on the other the public was urged to go back to their 'normal' consumer pleasures (238-239). Keeble argues that these conflicting messages helped fuel ''post 9/11 disorientation'' (18), which can be best characterized as a collective sense of being torn between a shattering sense of discontinuity, post-apocalyptic anxiety and a need to adequately mourn this traumatic experience, while at the same time being urged to continue 'normal' life as soon as possible. This urge for a return to normalcy raises questions on what exactly constitutes this 'normal' to which Americans should quickly return – how does one enjoy life ''the way it wants to be enjoyed''?
These questions are prominent in the Leftovers. The series explores the idea of a return to
'normalcy' after the shattering experience of trauma, and in doing so specifically ruminates on the confusing politicized messages of continuity in post 9/11 America. This critical awareness is made clear immediately in the first episode of the series, which takes off three years after the Sudden
Departure. A federal day of remembrance, dubbed 'Heroes Day' is being imposed by the government. A tense conversation between Lucy, mayor of Mapleton, and Kevin, chief of police, makes clear what the political intention of this day of remembrance is:
Lucy: ''So we're all gonna have a nice walk through town, have a good cry, and then move on. It's time. Everyone is ready to feel better''.
Kevin: ''You're wrong. Nobody's ready to feel better. They're ready to fucking explode''
(S01E01).
In this conversation, friction between an expected return to normalcy and the shattering experience of trauma is put forward. 'Heroes Day' serves as a structuring tool to collectively mourn
41 the dead and ruminate on the inflicted trauma – but mostly, the anniversary serves to demarcate between a 'set' time to mourn (allowed and expected on Heroes Day), and a time to return to normalcy (expected the rest of the year). As it turns out, Kevin is right. Not only does the first
''Heroes Day Parade'' end in a violent clash between the audience and the (uninvited) Guilty
Remnant - Kevin's observation also echoes through the rest of the series.
In season two this conflict between continuity and discontinuity is played out in the side story of
Susan, who was persuaded by Laurie to leave the Guilty Remnant and make an effort to return to her 'old' life. Susan, after her break-away from the Remnant, is shown to wake up in her beautiful, suburban villa, is having dinner at a chic restaurant while listening to her husband rambling on about work, and is making breakfast for her son who seems to be glued to the television. Susan remains silent throughout the scene, contrasting sharply with the constant noise of her husband's rambling, the high-pitched cartoons on television and the muffled sound of music playing in the restaurant. The absence of communication or discourse between Susan and her surroundings creates a sense of isolation – with Susan standing on the outside of society, looking in (see fig. 2).
Susan expresses her bewilderment towards Laurie on how, despite the apocalyptic event of the
Sudden Departure, daily life continues the same way it did before, as if nothing happened. She states that to others, all that has happened already seems like ''water under the bridge''. Unable to bridge the growing gap between her sense of estrangement and rupture and the expected return to normalcy, Susan eventually ends her life in a tragic suicide when she purposely crashes her car on the highway, killing her son and husband as well.
42 Fig. 2: S02E03
A crux of this scene is in the details; Susan's 'old' life is shown to be a wealthy one, consisting of expensive houses and restaurants, with a focus on work, status and making money. That, the series implies, is what constitutes the expected return to normalcy in post 9/11 America. In this scene,
Susan is the imagined epitome of the post 9/11 disorientation Keeble (2014) describes:
''Essentially what we see is not a simple division between the political and the traumatic. [..] The trauma of the attacks represents both continuity and discontinuity, while the politics of 9/11 demand that we acknowledge epoch and then resume to the normal currents of capitalism'' (20).
Heller (2010) elaborates on the same observation and connects it with the construct of national identity. In the face of a collective crisis a natural impulse and response to the challenge of that crisis, is to tightly cling to the rituals, norms, and values belonging to that collective - both as a way to process the trauma and to re-establish the balance of society through the foundations that constitute it. Thus, a collective crisis will often serve as a reinforcement of (the construct of)
43 national identity. Heller explicates how the 9/11 crisis in this way rendered visible this construct of the American national identity, which she identifies as being: ''one that mirrors the individual and collective identities of shoppers: that of the American consumer'' (3). In this light, consumerism should not be seen as 'just' an economic system – but as the architectonics of (modern) American society and identity. Thus, when Bush was asked what Americans should do in the face of the 9/11 crisis, the 'natural' answer was to go shopping. Heller emphasizes that consumerism has been the modus operandi of American national identity already since the beginning of the 20th century
(since the triumph of capitalist industrialization) – the collective 9/11 crisis, because of its scope and political and economic importance, merely exposed this construct.
While the Leftovers clearly ruminates on the disorienting ways in which 9/11 was politicized, the series lifts the subject beyond 9/11 itself in order to problematize the construct of the American consumer identity. If the Sudden Departure serves as the series apocalypse, the renewed visibility of the construct of American identity is its revelation. For Susan, the Sudden
Departure laid bare the irrelevance of these 'normal currents' which constituted her old life; fancy dining and living an expensive lifestyle are no longer satisfying – the consumerist, capitalist identity is unable to provide the support desperately needed to adequately process the trauma.
Notably, a restaurant setting - the chic, expensive kind – is used on multiple occasions throughout the series. This setting is pre-eminently one to which a certain etiquette and behavior belong
(wearing clean cut clothing, using your cutlery the right way, behaving eloquently and so forth). A definite sense of unease is conveyed in each of these restaurant scenes – as to amplify the clash between the normalcy of the restaurant and the sudden inability to return to this normalcy.
A crux of the restaurant scenes lies in understanding what they serve to say about (the concept of) the ritual, and the relation it bears to the construct of (collective) identity. In A Secular
Ritual (1977) Barbara Myerhoff and Sally Falk Moore observe how rituals and the ritualization of objects and events have since long provided humans with interpretive frameworks for thinking about life, ascribing meaning and creating order in an otherwise apparently chaotic cosmos.
Myerhoff and Moore continue by conceptualizing the ritual or ceremony as a vessel or container which gives form and certain meaning to its contents (8). They state: ''Social life proceeds
44 somewhere between the imaginary extremes of absolute order, and absolute chaotic conflict and anarchic improvisation'' (3). In The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), Clifford Geertz expands on the symbolic approach to the ritual. He argues that within the ''system of symbols'' that makes up the ritual, messages are conveyed about the nature of our world; as to provide a 'model' of reality
(112). In other words, rituals serve the important function of providing tools on how to interpret the world and lived experiences. Furthermore, rituals also serve as a mirror for existing social arrangements and existing modes of thought (5). Thus, put in a somewhat simplified manner, the importance of the ritual is twofold: socially (a strong sense of 'belonging' is created in the process of collectively performing rituals), and existentially (providing support to which order and meaning can be ascribed to life and the world). Myerhoff and Moore emphasize that these symbols and rituals as such are part of a logical system in which the ritual itself makes sense (9). In the
Leftovers, this previously logical system now no longer makes sense. The Sudden Departure rendered visible the constructs of American identity and society. The rituals, behaviors, norms and values which are 'naturally' part of this construct became visible as well, thus exposing the construct as a construct. This argument might be clarified by yet another restaurant scene, in which Meg tries to communicate to her fiancée exactly this issue in regard to their upcoming wedding:
Darren: ''Honey, I know this is all a little... overwhelming. Planning a wedding is a big deal.''
Meg: ''It's not, actually. It's just a party, right? ''
Darren: ''We're exchanging vows.''
Meg: ''Yeah, but that's not the wedding.''
Darren: ''That's exactly what the wedding is.''
Meg: ''No, the wedding is picking fucking centerpieces.''
(S01E01).
In this short conversation, Meg poignantly brings forth a sense of emptiness and uselessness to the performance of this ritual, which to her is focused on appearances and consuming (''picking
45 centerpieces''), rather then providing meaning and creating a social bond. Note too how lack of communication and proper language is again of importance in this scene. Here, Meg and Darren symbolize the loss of being able to find 'common' narrative/language to express themselves as well as to provide common meaning to their world. Meg, meanwhile, makes eye contact with two
Remnants standing outside of the restaurant. It seems to be in this moment that Meg decides that there is no more use trying to express herself or find common language. There is no more use participating in a system constructed out of symbols, rituals, and narratives which are now exposed to be empty and arbitrary. It is not long after this conversation that Meg joins the Remnant, whom
– always wearing white, vowing silence - stand for this absolute, unspeakable void that they proclaim the apocalypse has brought with it.
The Leftovers unravels the reciprocal relationship between trauma and apocalypse, and exemplifies
Berger's argument of how the two can be read as each others ''mirror image''. Every trauma is an apocalypse, and every apocalypse is traumatic. Every ending is a kind of apocalypse, every apocalypse is a kind of ending. The world shatters; what was, is now gone. But, something continues nevertheless; the end is never really the end. From this perspective, the absolute qualities belonging to the traditional apocalyptic paradigm, particularly the notions of singularity and exceptionality, become obsolete. 9/11 has exposed the blueprint of the modern America society and identity to be that of the (capitalist) consumer. In my view, the Leftovers shows this identity as insufficient to provide the support needed to adequately process the inflicted trauma. The stories of
Meg and Susan show the inability to return to the modus operandi from before the Sudden
Departure as that previously logical system no longer makes sense to them.
This is, of course, not to say that the experience of trauma is not real, for discontinuity and continuity are an inherent part of trauma. However, I would pose that the Leftovers argues that the narratives that we 'attach' to experiences and events are the main cause of friction and suffering.
The series critiques the absolutist quality of apocalypse, and especially the idea of divine/objective judgment. The stories of Meg, John, and Erika serve to discuss the validity of these concepts. For
Meg, her apocalypse took place on October 13th, when her mother suddenly and unexpectedly
46 passed away – not that much different from the unexpected loss of many people the day after. But she, just as John and Erika, suffers from the feeling of being left out, as the importance of her own apocalypse is continually shoved aside. The series suggests that the absolutist, judgmental quality of apocalypse can subsequently degenerate into a wholly new traumatic experience for those who feel they are excluded from this narrative. I would argue that Meg's terrorist attack on Jarden can therefore be read as a mostly symbolic destruction of the idea of exceptionality. She threatens to blow up the bridge connecting Jarden with its surroundings– even though she actually carries no explosives. The threat is symbolic – when the bomb timer reaches zero – no bombs go off. Instead,
Remnants (belonging to Meg's radicalized splinter group) appear from all sides, storming the bridge and destroying Jarden's protective boundaries - and eventually the town itself, along the way. Noteworthy is the symbolical resemblance of the picture perfect 'miracle' town of Jarden, and the Biblical Garden of Eden (referenced to in the etymology of the word itself: 'Jarden' stems from the French word of jardin, meaning 'garden'). In just hours after the town is destructed, it now resembles the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah - upon which divine judgment was said to be passed (see fig. 3). In destroying Jarden, Meg and the Remnant wanted to expose the 'untouchable and exceptional' town and its inhabitants to be no more special or exceptional than any other. The story of Meg's radicalization and the eventual destruction of the symbolic target of Jarden, can also be read as a critical rumination on 9/11 and an effort to place the events of September 11th back into its (historical) context. In doing so, the event loses its exceptional, solely discontinuous - and thus apocalyptic status. This, of course, is not applicable to 9/11 only, but to any event that is granted an apocalyptic status. Therefore, using the framework of trauma theory and the according central dialectic of continuity/discontinuity, apocalypse is effectively decentralised in the Leftovers.
47 Fig: 3 (S02E01, S02E10)
The characters' backgrounds, lives, secrets, and (traumatic) experiences are only step-by- step and non-chronologically revealed (this method of storytelling has become somewhat characteristic of Lindelof – similar storytelling was employed in the (in)famous series Lost, 2004
-2010. So while the starting point of the series, and as such the initial focus, is the traumatic experience of the Sudden Departure, this focal point diffuses more and more as the series progresses. It becomes clear that all characters were already bearing pre-existent trauma and were struggling to find meaning in life prior to the Sudden Departure. They did so mostly in silence though, and most trauma laid subterranean until the impact of the Sudden Departure shook everything up. It is not until more context is revealed that it becomes clear how greatly unresolved trauma has affected everyone's response to the Sudden Departure. Further diffusion takes place as all these different trauma's start to merge; singular and plural, private and public, past and present.
For the characters and viewers alike, the nature of reality increasingly starts to blur as the series progresses. Flashbacks showing (traumatic) memories often come and pass in a flurry; not offering a time, place or explanation to contextualize the memory. Kevin Garvey represents this disorientating merging of repressed trauma most clearly; as a clean-cut, masculine police chief, he rarely talks about anything, let alone traumatic experiences. As the series progresses and Kevin continually suffers in silence, he starts to lose his mind. He perpetually relives his trauma's in (day)
48 dreams and suffers from severe paranoia, sleepwalking, insomnia, and amnesia. The figure/ghost of Patti haunting Kevin after she has died in his arms, might be read as a literal representation of
Kevin being chased by repressed and unprocessed trauma. The viewer too completely loses footing as to the differences between discontinuity/continuity, past/present, real/not real, singular/plural and so on. Watching the Leftovers, in this regard, reproduces the experience of being traumatized.
49 Chapter 4: De-centralizing the Apocalypse: Narrative
''Knock knock.''
''Who's there?''
''Broken pencil.''
''Broken pencil who?''
''Never mind, it's pointless.''
-The Leftovers (S02E01)
In chapter three I employed the framework of trauma theory to argue that the Leftovers decentralises apocalypse. In chapter four I will continue this argument by employing the concept of the sign-system, within the framework of semiotics. Following D.R Koukal in''Linguistic Innovation and the Practice of Phenomenology'' (2000), 'sign-system' in this chapter should be understood to refer to any system of signs and the relationship between signs. More specifically, the term refers to the way in which 'texts' (words, images, sounds, and so forth) create meaning through the creation, interpretation, and narration of signs (600-601). In other words, within the (dominant) tradition of Saussurian semiology, texts only become signs through an externally imposed meaning – the text itself bears no intrinsic meaning. Thus, anything can become a sign, when one interprets it to be 'signifying'; referring to something other than itself. It is only through commonly and communally accepted conventions on these otherwise arbitrary relationships that meaningful speech and narrative can take form. For the remainder of this chapter and following Koukal, the supposed arbitrary relationship between sign and concept/meaning, will be referred to as either ''unmotivated'', or ''abstracted'' (601). By employing the concept of the sign-system, I argue that the Leftovers displays that through the postmodern loss of universality, the arbitrary relationship between sign-signified has been exposed. In my view, the Leftovers shows that both (pre)modernist so-called ''meta-narratives'' and the (radical)
50 postmodern discard of all meaningful narrative(s) cannot hold in this age of postmodernity.
Chapter 4 will exemplify this argument through the lens of the specific characters of Matt, Patti
(the Guilty Remnant), and Kevin Senior. The Leftovers displays the collective deep embeddedness in the apocalyptic myth. In this chapter I will discuss how in the series two extremes emerge; those who maintain their claim on absolute truth, and those who discard all truth(s). I will discuss how both are essentially driven by the apocalyptic myth. Subsequently I will apply the concept of sign- signifier on the Leftovers, to argue that the apocalyptic myth can offer no motivated ground for meaning-making and is as such decentralised by the series. However, lastly I will argue that the
Leftovers moves towards constructive postmodernism. For in my view, the series recognizes the human need to create meaning through narrative, and offers an entry into the possibility to do so.
4.1: The Book of Matt: an old narrative
Some characters cling rigidly to an old narrative - unable to let go of a paradigm which contained all of their life's meaning. Reverend Matt Jamison is one of those characters. Matt is one of the few not to lose his faith after the Sudden Departure – if anything, the event made him only more persevering in his belief. Throughout the series, we follow Matt's obsessive search to find evidence of a divine order and his supposed path within that order. During season one, Matt is frantically preoccupied with convincing others that the Sudden Departure was not the Rapture by emphasizing in pamphlets the sinfulness of many of the Departed – and only 'good' people would have been taken if it were the Rapture. His faith cannot hold in Mapleton, though – his church has been standing as good as empty since the '14th', and his pamphlets have made him the town's most unpopular man. In season two, therefore, he (and his comatose wife Mary) move to Jarden; here, the churches are still filled, and people gladly hear Matt talk about salvation. When his comatose wife Mary temporarily wakes up within the boundaries of Jarden, he becomes preoccupied with preaching the miracle qualities of this 'Holy Land'. In season three, he becomes obsessed with the idea of Kevin being the Messiah. A thread through all of Matt's maniacal religious pursuits is his failure to see all the opportunities that are right in front of him. The titles of the two episodes
51 revolving specifically around Matt's story: 'Two Boats and a Helicopter' (S01E03), and 'It's a Matt,
Matt, Matt, Matt World' (S03E05), are both expressive of this point. The first refers to a well known religious joke:
A firmly religious man sits on his front porch during a flood. Someone comes by in a boat and offers him a spot. The man answers 'no, God will save me'. The water continues to rise and as the man moves to the second floor, another boat passes by and offers him a ride. Again he rejects the offer. The man now has to climb on his roof to survive, and a helicopter flies by dropping its ladder.
The man shouts, 'No, God will save me!' The man drowns and goes to heaven. He meets God and asks him: 'I believed that you would save me, why have you forsaken me?'. God replies: 'I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?
Matt too, is so completely blinded by his faith that he neglects to see what is in front of him.
Instead of taking up several helpful offers to obtain money to save his church, his course of action is instead led by self-interpreted signs (in the form of doves), moving him to gamble for his money
– an endeavor which ultimately fails (and has caused Matt only more suffering too).
This pattern repeats itself continually, and Matt, just as Job, eventually begins to lose his patience with the God who does not reply to his plea. At this moment of desperation (S01E03), Matt then has a dream in which all of his life's suffering passes in short sequences. His child leukemia, the premature death of both his parents and the accident that put his wife Mary in a coma. In the dream, Mary asks him; ''why do you persist?'', referencing to Job 2:9 (King James Bible), in which
Job's wife asks him to retain his integrity and curse God. In this dream, it is of course Matt himself who wonders why he still persists; desperate to receive some good from God to make his life and suffering meaningful – even though this God has never acknowledged him. This is a crux to the story of Matt, which is best understood when read as an allegory of the Biblical Book of Job, and a contemplation on what can be identified as the main issue of that text; the problem of human suffering, divine justice and divine wisdom. Following Job, Matt interprets all of his life's events as a continual test from God; if he can persevere through all of the inflicted suffering, God will reward
52 him in the end – and all will have been for a great purpose. But, along the way, Matt distances himself from his friends and family, who feel judged by his absolutist views on right and wrong, and feel deserted by Matt in favor of a God that has failed to ever demonstrate its existence. Even when Matt's wife Mary wakes up from her coma, this only works to strengthen Matt's belief that he needs to continue 'God's work'. Instead of being with her, he goes on yet another 'mission' he thinks God has laid out for him – leading eventually to his wife leaving him.
Matt's story can serve as a clear example of how meaning and structure is created through the formation of narrative and provides a good example of Berger's notion of the trauma/apocalypse mirror image. We learn that, as Matt was brought up in a pastor's family, religion had already become the main frame of reference in his childhood. A traumatic event occurs: Matt gets diagnosed with child leukemia. In an attempt to cope with this shattering experience, he attempts to reconstruct the trauma by interpreting its symptoms, 'reading back in time'. Matt concludes his leukemia must have been a harsh lesson from God since not long before this diagnosis, he prayed for receiving more attention from his parents (which he indeed obtained when he was diagnosed with cancer). When Matt is subsequently cured, he contributes this also to
God who must have decided he deserved a second chance. Trauma's mirror image; apocalypse, shows itself in all the signs and portents Matt continually interprets in an attempt to get grip on an otherwise elusive future. The particular narrative of Christianity and especially the story of Job, has come to narrativise Matt's life, and functions to create order and purpose in his universe. It is not until well into the last season, when Matt's leukemia has terminally returned, that he grows so desperate that he kidnaps the only 'God' he can find to answer his calls and take responsibility:
Matt: ''Everything in my life I've done for a reason''.
God/Burton: ''Why?''
Matt: ''To help people, to guide them, to ease their suffering – even though I suffered myself. I sacrificed my happiness, I let my family abandon me''
God/Burton: ''Why?''
Matt: ''For YOU!''
53 God/Burton: ''Everything you've done, you've done because you thought I was watching, because you thought I was judging. But I wasn't, I'm not. You haven't done anything for me, you did it for yourself''.
(S03E05).
One way to interpret the Book of Job is that absolute truth, wisdom, and knowledge of the divine plan and the universe are beyond human contemplation. It is in this conversation with 'God', that
Matt comes to realize this too – and sees how futile and arrogant his claims to truth actually are.
Matt has had such a tunnel vision formed around his narrative, his claim to truth, that he had become blind to the fact that these truths he thought were set in stone, are in fact 'just' one version of truth, one particular way of assigning meaning to the world.
4.2: The Book of the Guilty Remnant: a postmodern collapse of language
While Matt sees in Kevin the Messiah, Laurie Garvey sees in Kevin a psychotic in need of clinical help. Laurie's preferred narrative - being a successful psychiatrist - is rooted deeply in the paradigm of science. Science, another so-called ''meta-narrative'', can no longer hold either for science has no explanation for the Sudden Departure either – no meaning can be ascribed to the event through the narrative of science, for it does not fit into any of the conventions belonging to that particular narrative. Thus, Laurie is literally lost for words when, in the face of what has happened, patients ask her how to cope with the traumatic event. The narrative of science can no longer provide its meaning-making function, and the narrative subsequently collapses. After a suicide attempt during which she changes her mind at the last moment, Laurie then joints the
Guilty Remnant.
The Guilty Remnant takes in an interesting position in the series. In stark opposition to virtually all other characters, groups and organizations in the series, who are all desperately trying to hold on to the idea of meaning (through narrative) - the Guilty Remnant stand for the absolute breakdown of
54 all narrative. They believe the world ended on October 14, when the Sudden Departure obliterated all meaning-making structures. A witty knock-knock joke told by Meg shortly before she joins the
Remnant, perhaps best encapsulates what the Remnant symbolize:
''Knock knock.''
''Who's there?''
''Broken pencil.''
''Broken pencil who?''
''Never mind, it's pointless.''
(S02e01).
This radical or nihilist postmodern pun can be read as a rendition of the collapse of meaningful narrative/language. Before the two narrators can engage in discourse, it has already broken down, it's meaning exhausted. The joke also demonstrates the narrator's quick disintegration from engagement (through narrative/discourse) to apathy, or ''indifference'', as Baudrillard would term it. Before the dialogue has reached its purpose (the point), meaning already collapsed - the narrator realizes the narrative is pointless anyway. To the Remnant, the Sudden Departure has revealed the world to be incomprehensible, and any resolution to resolve this enigma is immediately obliterated within language/narrative itself, for narrative itself has become incomprehensible, meaningless.
Members of the Remnant ''proclaim their faith'' by wearing only white clothing, taking a vow of silence and stripping their existence completely of every attachment, every sign. They call themselves ''blank slates'', stripped of everything but their psychical presence which serves to demonstrate exactly the erasure of all meaning. The Remnant symbolizes a complete obliteration of the symbolic order, of meaning, of continuity and the end of difference (see fig. 4).
55 Fig. 4: S01E01
In my view, therefore, the Guilty Remnant can be read as a rendition of the emerge of radical postmodernism, or postmodern nihilism, as a reaction to the breakdown of the modern idea of universality. In Simulacra and Simulation (1981) Baudrillard argues:
'' [this is an age] in which there is no longer any God to recognize his own, nor any last judgment to separate true from false, the real from its artificial resurrection, since everything is already dead''
(81).
Thus, in this vision, the end has already taken place. Apocalypse here is a definitive end to any narrative – and with it any form of, meaning identity and authenticity that narrative made possible.
I would argue that, with the Guilty Remnant as rendition hereof, the Leftovers demonstrates that radical postmodernism, or postmodern nihilism, is another rendition of the apocalyptic myth.
Paradoxically, in announcing the absolute end to narrative (and thus, meaning), radical postmodernism has created another grand apocalyptic narrative and is as such a continuation of the 'apocalyptic cycle'. Thus, I would argue that through the Remnant, the Leftovers problematizes the post-apocalyptic paradox. In the Baudrillardian vision the Remnants embody, the world has already ended. However, the series demonstrates, this 'escape' from narrative, form, meaning, and
56 history, is simply not possible. The Remnant use sign boards to remind themselves and others of the fact that the world has ended. One of the recurring signs proclaims: ''It Won't Be Long Now'', elusively referring to the expectation of yet another end; the one final apocalypse to end all other apocalypses. Hence, in the very act of proclaiming the end (to all narrative structures), the
Remnant themselves cannot escape the use of narrative. In my view, their postmodern nihilism can thus be read as ''inverted millenarianism'', the apocalyptic myth narrativised in yet another form.
But, in the words of Berger (1999); ''The world, intolerably, continues to exist'' (55). Postmodern nihilism, therefore, offers only two alternatives. In the words of Berger: ''completing the destruction, or surrender to the night of the living dead'' (56). The second, the Leftovers suggests, is just as intolerable as the continuation of the world itself. For, in the words of Heffernan (2008):
''[what] is left in a narrative of a future without a future? '' (171). Indeed, both leaders of the Guilty
Remnant, Meg and Patti, eventually initiate their own death. In the last moments before Patti cuts her own throat, she breaks her vow of silence and speaks to Kevin, who is with her:
''[..] And we are ready. We are waiting. Cause it's not gonna be fucking long now.''
''[..] Purpose, that's all any of us want now, every single one of us. Not answers, not love, just a reason to exist. Something to live for. Something to die for ''
(S01E08).
Here, Patti expresses her apocalyptic desire, her longing for it to finally be all over. But the waiting has become unbearable, the sense of continuation without any narrative has become unbearable.
And thus, the final apocalypse must be self-fulfilled. In the act of killing herself she has created her own last, conclusive apocalypse to end all others – Her suicide is the definitive narrative closure she has been longing for, the final erasure of self.
It is not until the significant penultimate episode of season one, during which we see a glimpse of the characters' lives before the '14th', that Patti's apocalyptic longing is contextualized.
We learn that Patti had been a patient at Laurie's psychiatric practice, attempting to cope with long-term domestic abuse and subsequent heavy anxieties. Patti warns Laurie about the apocalypse
57 she can 'feel' is forthcoming; Laurie points out that she has been saying that more often over the years – why would now be any different? Patti then insists those were just ''tremors'', 'run-ups' to this forthcoming final end of the world. She describes this sensation: '' like a hand is inside my chest, and it's squeezing my heart, tighter and tighter, and he won't let me go until it's over ''
(S01E09). In this sentence, it becomes clear that a deeply seated longing for the end already lingered inside of Patti. Thus, when the Sudden Departure occurred, Patti interpreted the event to fit her narrative – the same way Matt interpreted the event to fit his narrative.
4.3: The Book of Kevin Senior: misappropriation of narrative
Just as Reverend Matt, Kevin Garvey Senior, former Mapleton chief of police too develops an obsession with saving the world in the face of the Sudden Departure. Being both the respected
Mapleton chief of police and the only living parent to take care of his son Kevin (jr.), Senior had been in a position of great responsibility for decades. His responsibility became his purpose; always protecting the ones around him from whatever went wrong. Thus, when the Sudden Departure occurred 'under his watch', without any possibility to prevent the catastrophe or the ability to prevent another such catastrophe, this triggered in him an extreme sense of losing control. Minutes after the Sudden Departure, as he helplessly stands by watching the horror unfold, he starts hearing voices. He is subsequently institutionalized, and during this time develops a fixation on saving the world.
During season three, Senior is released from the psychiatric facility by feigning that the voices are gone. After his release, the voices lead him to the Australian Outback, where, led by a wild flurry of signs and clues, he comes to believe that on the seventh year anniversary of the
Sudden Departure, ''a Great Flood'' will come and complete the world's destruction - yet another prophesied apocalypse to end all others. Senior has come to believe that only he can stop this flood
– by working his way through all of the Australian 'songlines'. In the ancient animist belief of the indigenous Australians, 'songlines' are rhythmic melodies functioning, among many other things, as a way of navigation to traverse the vast Outback.
58 Senior's story touches upon the issue of religious and cultural appropriation. We see Senior stumbling through the unforgiving Outback for two years, secretly spying on different indigenous tribes and tape recording the performances of their ritual songs. He never makes himself known nor has he asked the ingenious tribes for their permission to watch, record and use their sacred songs for his own purpose. When he subsequently gets arrested for defying sacred indigenous land, he demands from the officers ''respect for being an initiated elder'' who works in their ''best interest'' in preventing the apocalypse. So consumed by the importance of his own narrative, Senior is blind to the entitlement and arrogance with which he is thoughtlessly taking the sacred rites of the indigenous people, who had already been thoroughly mistreated and exploited. In a confused mix of beliefs, Senior cannot coherently explain (the episode is aptly titled ''Crazy Whitefella
Thinking'', S03E03) why the indigenous people would hold the key to preventing a very much
Westernized version of the apocalypse, or why he - the epitome of colonial white male privilege - would be the only one capable of saving the world from ruin. The point is not that Senior does so consciously or with ill intentions; it is clear that he himself means well and truly believes that only he can stop the Great Flood – in this sense, his determination is touching. Still, his unabashedly religious and cultural appropriation is a serious issue – perhaps not despite, but especially because
Senior is not aware of his own entitlement, whiteness and more generally, Western-centeredness.
A self-conscious remark is made here; a reminder or request to deal cautiously with the 'pick and choose' mentality so typical of the postmodern age. Of course, the Leftovers itself is a postmodern colourful collage of religious, mythic, literary, cinematic and philosophical elements and references. But the purpose of doing so lies exactly in displaying all these coexisting narratives and myths, thus questioning the superiority and validity of one above the other.
4.4: An alternative sign-system
In my view, though, the ''Crazy Whitefella Thinking'' episode addresses also an overarching issue concerning the (post)modern loss of meaningful (collective) narrative and identity which can be connected to Saussarian semiology. I would argue that the Leftovers juxtaposes this sign-system to
59 a fundamentally different sign-system of the indigenous Australians. To clarify my argument it is necessary to outline a brief explanation of the difference between the two.
In the thought-provoking book The Memory Code (2017), Lynne Kelly extensively maps out and researches diverse indigenous systems of knowledge, among which the Australian songline- system. At a basic conceptual level, the songline system can be seen a vast oral archive of knowledge, comprised of intricate geographical and cosmic knowledge, as well as a complete encyclopedic categorization of native flora and fauna. The songlines hold all the stories and myths of the people; they tell of their ancestors and the history of the land itself. In short, the songline system contains all the knowledge the indigenous people have gathered over thousands of years – all the information is ''coded'' and stored within many thousands of rhythmic melodies and dances
(2-4). Songlines serve many functions at the same time; they would be used to navigate the vast
Outback as the melodic and rhythmic variations tell of specific landmarks such as hills, valleys, and waterfalls - a specific tree can as such be described by the specific sounds it's leaves make when rustling in the wind. While navigating the landscape by a songline, the same rhythmic melody tells also of the creation of the land you are walking, the people who've walked there before, the animals that live there, but also tells of the law of caring for each other and the land. The sequences of the songlines do not need to be memorized as the landscape itself fixes the order and acts as a constant reminder of the information belonging to that specific place. Kelly emphasizes that research has pointed out that this indigenous mapping out of, for example, flora and fauna, has been much more extensive then attempts made by Western science, all the way throughout the twentieth century
(9). Every songline can span the territories of many different language groups; language is not a barrier because the rhythmic and melodic contours of the songlines contain all the necessary information. As such, Kelly observes: '' [..] the sound of plants, animals, moving water, the seasons and many other aspects of the environment can be taught through song in a way that is impossible in writing'' (5). Thus, the oral, cross-language quality of this system is an inherent, crucial part of it.
Distortion within the songlines cannot be tolerated, for uncontrolled changes would corrupt the information stored within the songs. Thus, the complete knowledge is considered sacred, and the collective memory is as such carefully guarded (10). The sung-narrative system is both a highly
60 inclusive and holistic one; all tribes have access to the cross-language knowledge. The songlines connect all aspects of the world; the landscape, the people, flora and fauna, the seasons and weather, the lessons learned by earlier generations; the history of the land and the people, and so forth. Continuity of the knowledge system is ensured by the virtue of the collective memory transcribed in the land itself – which functions as a 'memory palace'.
In Uncanny Australia (1998) Ken Gelder, drawing upon the work of phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merlau-Ponty, places the sung-narrative system in relation to Saussurian semiology. Gelder observes that – at least before they were dispossessed by colonialism – the indigenous people lived out a direct connection between language, place and time:
''Aboriginal people inscribed their signifiers directly onto their place, making one as real as the other. [..] The signifier as part of the sign which is the physical trace; that is, sound or marking, is not thought as abstractable from the signified (the 'other' part of the sign which is 'the meaning idea')'' (50).
In other words, within the songline-knowledge system, there is an inherent 'dialectical reciprocity' in which all relations organize themselves into a meaningful whole - and there is no need for an external meaning to be imposed. Furthermore, a sense of continuity is not restricted by the more formal transmissions but is embedded in the language itself:
''[..] The community of speaking subjects includes not only those present before us as we speak, but also all those who once spoke with the same tongue; phonology, lexis, and grammar are not tools of determinate use but have been formed and reformed in the living tradition of this speech – this way, language always carries forward its past ''(106).
This stands in straight opposition, Gelder continues, to Saussurian semiology, where the relationship between sign-signifier-signified is supposed to be arbitrary by definition. Thus, while speaking within a specific community one must conform to the conventions within this community
61 in order to be understood – for the relation between sign and signifier (concept/meaning) is
(usually) unmotivated. In other words, meaning is abstracted from what it is meant to refer to (50).
The bond between language and place has been interrupted, as well as the bond between language and time; past, present and future (49-59). This, as Merlau-Ponty argues, has turned our
''conventional expression'', into a ''dead language''; it's meaning already exhausted before expression (106).
With this knowledge in mind, Senior's tedious journey through the Outback attempting to find answers as well as attempting to find his way (both literally and symbolically), becomes quite ironic. He is completely shut off from his surroundings, he never 'listens' to the land – while the direct relationship between place and language is crucial to the working of the sung-narrative system - as he wears headphones all along with old recordings of him and his son, which supposedly contains signs that are guiding him. When he is not absorbed by interpreting signs and clues, he attempts to secretly record and copycat the songlines performed by the indigenous people
– which, again, is at odds with the workings of the sung-narrative sign-system. Otherwise said,
Senior's appropriation of the sung-narrative system is very much Western-centered. In my view, the Leftovers draws attention here to the fact that our Western ideas on semiotics, on the supposed fundamental workings of language and narrative, are not set in stone, and the relationship between sign-signifier-signified is not per definition arbitrary. Thus, the postmodern declaration of the final collapse of language/meaning is still very much a Western-centralised position, entitled in rejecting any possibility of an alternative, while this is only so when viewed from the Western dominant perspective on the relationship between language and meaning.
Chapter 3.1 and 3.2 have discussed how apocalypse, being singular by definition, resides in a permanent state outside of history and time. However, as subsequently concluded, no event in history can be solely discontinuous or singular for the present always carries the past. Although apocalypse is preoccupied with both past and future, it is only ever so on the basis of an indirect, unmotivated relationship between language, place and time. Apocalypse, therefore, is always
'floating' – apocalypse is fundamentally invisible, unreadable without externally imposed interpretation(s) and meaning(s) to 'anchor' it both spatially and temporally. This makes
62 apocalypse particularly 'malleable'; almost any sign, prediction or interpretation can be justifiably applied to it. I would argue that this is a significant part of what makes apocalypse so attractive as meaning-making myth, but is also why it should be problematized. This argument can be exemplified by the catastrophe of the Sudden Departure, which only gained meaning through indirect interpretation(s). In Mapleton, many interpreted the events on October 14th to be the
Biblical Rapture. Viewed through this lens, the 'Leftovers' are the ones who are 'punished' or 'left behind', while the Departed are thus 'saved'. In Jarden on the other hand, the people refer to themselves as 'spared', because no one Departed. The event itself, before it became a sign, bears no intrinsic meaning – it only gained meaning by virtue of externally imposed interpretations, resulting in a proliferation of meaning(s), one just as (in)valid as the other.
Thus, using the framework of Saussurian semiology, I would pose that the Leftovers exposes the apocalypse to be, per definition, in the eye of the beholder. Apocalypse only gains meaning when indirectly interpreted as such. Furthermore, this meaning, in turn, is in itself dependent on otherwise unmotivated conventions. To this should be added that from the perspective of the insider, the apocalypticist, these signs, interpretations and meaning are very much motivated. This
''semiotic arousal'' as Kenneth G.C Newport terms it in Expecting the End, takes place when ''the present is interpreted in terms of the future'' - timing is as such placed at the center of the apocalyptic rhetoric. Within the apocalyptic language, the ''apocalyptic semiosis'', all signs and interpretations are coherent and meaningful (4).
4.5: The Book of Nora: (re)creating meaningful narrative
In my view, the series makes a second, significant point on the overarching function of narratives, specifically in relation to the postmodern age. As established earlier, within Saussurian semiology, it is always only through the collective acceptance of conventions that meaningful language can take form. In the postmodern age, the absolute validity of these conventions has become increasingly diffused as we are constantly confronted with all kinds of different realities - this is, in the words of Anderson (1995), '' the age of over-exposure to otherness'' (6). Where, in the modern
63 age, there was still a firm belief in the possibility for universality, in the postmodern age, universality is now definitively put into question. However, the endless array of different versions of histories, truth(s), narratives and thus - the whole of our constituted reality - make any
(collective) meaningful interpretation of the world increasingly difficult. The Leftovers shows that by lack of a collective, solid, meaning-making foundation, subsequently, two extremes emerge - both different sides of the same coin: fundamentalists (those who maintain their claim on absolute truth) and postmodern nihilists (those who discard all truths). These have been exemplified in this chapter by the stories of Matt and Senior on the one hand (the fundamentalists) and Patti and the
Guilty Remnant on the other (the nihilists). The series, in my view, exposes both to be driven by the apocalyptic myth and as such cannot hold. For the apocalyptic myth - again from the perspective of the outsider, not taking part in ''apocalyptic semiosis'' - can offer no motivated ground for meaning-making (or in the words of Merlau-Ponty, it is part of a ''dead language'').
The Leftovers, however, recognizes and acknowledges the need for meaningful narratives as inherent to humanity; we simply cannot not think in terms of narrative and stories – without them, we would reside always only in utterly senseless chaos. However, in my view, the Leftovers argues these narratives should have a common ground – a common foundation not so inherently susceptible to 'noise'; arbitrarily imposed meanings that change, twist, distort and have become abstracted from that which it is meant to refer to.
I would pose that, by pointing to a fundamentally different sign system, exemplified by the sung- narrative system, the Leftovers throws light on the possibility of (re)creating meaningful narratives, and as such a 'way out' of the impasse between (pre)modernist 'grand narratives' and the radical postmodern discard of any meaningful narrative. In my view, the last episode of the
Leftovers, and particularly the last scene of that episode, can be understood to write such a narrative – a story in which, perhaps for the first time in the series, truly meaningful communication, language, and narrative takes form.
In the last episode (''The Book of Nora'', S03E08), we find Nora twenty years in the future, in the desolated countryside of Australia. Twenty years before, she climbed into a machine that two
64 scientists have convinced her ''will take her to where her Departed children went''. Testimonies of dozens of others who went through the machine before her and were never seen again, strengthens the scientists claim. Nora sensibly half-and-half expects the machine to kill her instead – but as that might account to essentially the same thing as being reunited with her family (because who knows where the Departed went?), goes through with it. Time fast-forwards twenty years, to
Australia – Nora is there. What happened after she enters the machine, is never shown. Instead, we see Nora live out a simple, isolated life on a farm in the countryside. One day, unexpectedly, her old lover Kevin – whom she has not seen since the abrupt ending to their relationship twenty years earlier - knocks at her door. Nora, in shock, listens to Kevin telling her a most unlikely story of how he ''bumped into her'' accidentally on vacation in a far corner of the vast country of Australia.
Furthermore, he claims that they barely ''even knew each other'', except for one conversation at a school dance decades ago. He then proceeds to ask Nora on a supposed ''first date''. Although she is angry and in a confused state, knowing the whole story Kevin tells is untrue, Nora takes up on his offer to go on a date. When Kevin maintains the same story throughout the date, she breaks it off - saying she cannot continue for the story is ''simply untrue''. The next day, Kevin shows up again at her house, and admits he fabricated the story. It turns out he has actively been looking for Nora all these years, until he had finally found her. In an attempt to ''fucking erase it [the past] all'', he had hoped to give them a ''second chance'' – a complete re-writing of their history. Nora then proceeds to tell Kevin what has happened when she went into the machine, twenty years before. This is an intimate scene, with close-ups alternating between his face and hers. For the duration of the story, no flashbacks or other imagery illustrate what Nora tells. She tells the machine send her to an alternate reality, virtually identical to her own – but with a profound difference. There, ninety-eight percent of the population has disappeared in the Sudden Departure. It is a lonely world, in which
Nora, after a tedious search, traces down her children – who are now teenagers. She observes them from a distance; they seem to live a happy life with their father and his new wife. For in a world where ninety-eight percent of the people disappeared, ''they had been the lucky ones'' to have 'only' lost their mother. Nora then realizes there is no place for her in this alternative world, that there, she is just a ''ghost'' – someone from the past who does not belong. She then decides to go again on
65 the tedious journey, back through the machine and back to this reality. Afraid it would be to late to make amends, Nora has lived out her isolated life in Australia ever since, she says:
Nora: ''So much time had passed...it was too late. And I knew that if I told you what happened, you would never believe me''.
Kevin: ''I believe you''.
Nora: ''You do?''
Kevin: ''Why wouldn't I believe you? You're here''.
Nora: ''I'm here''.
(S03E08).
Both smile through their tears, and take each others hand. With these words and gestures, the series ends. In my view, this last scene can be read as en entry into the possibility of (re)creating meaningful, communal narrative - not reliant upon 'reading signs' back in time, or by
'foreshadowing' the future, but based upon solidly 'integrating' history (the past) into the present.
Kevin's own narrative was, in his own words, an attempt to forget or erase the past. This denial of the past has characterized Kevin throughout the series. As discussed in chapter 3, Kevin represses the (traumatic) past continually; not ever speaking about it (and repeatedly states not to even think about the past or the Sudden Departure) – leading him to slip into a psychotic episode. Nora, on the other hand, has been rigidly 'clinging' to a past which is gone. She has been so determined to be reunited with her children, that she quite forcefully maneuvered herself into the LADR machine – only to find herself to be a 'ghost' from the past. In this present 'alternate reality', she has no place.
Her place is 'here and now', in a world without her children – how difficult that may be. Both
Kevin's denial of the past, and Nora's clinging to the past, have led to the breaking of their relationship (as well as their relationship with many others). Now, in this very last scene, both finally acknowledge and accept their past, and reconcile with it; giving it a place in both space and time. For perhaps the first time in the series, room is created for an 'anchored' present, a common ground in the here and now from which new, meaningful and communal narratives can be formed.
66 Conclusion
In this essy, I have attempted to unravel some of the many issues the Leftovers discusses throughout its dense, substantive three seasons. I have argued that while the series still employs the apocalyptic myth as a powerful vehicle of social criticism, the series also problematizes apocalypse as a culturally deeply embedded meaning-making myth. The series is firmly rooted in this time and age; presenting a world that is 'stuck in between' old paradigms belonging to the
(pre)modern age and a new paradigm we, at least for now, define as postmodern. The Leftovers represents this age of postmodernity as one of confusion and desillusion, unsure how to define and contextualize ourselves and the world. This is a time of (continual) perceived crises, and as I have argued, it is especially during times of crisis that meaning-making narratives and myths serve to properly process trauma and situate it (in history), and to find a collective way to move on.
Following Spigel and Heller, I discussed how 9/11 can be understood as exposure of the absence of such collective meaning-making myths, particularly in America. The event was dominantly narrativized along the template of two myths: that of apocalypse (discontinuation), and (capitalist) consumerism (continuation). In my view, the Leftovers suggests that neither can provide the nessecary support to process the inflicted trauma, for both are devoid of 'collective memory'; rituals, narratives, myths and knowledge that form a coherent system, to meaningfully connect the past, present and future. Different scholars, such as Žižek, have paid particular attention to this issue. Žižek has argued that by not properly situating (collective) traumatic experiences back in their historical context:
'' [..] The shadows of our victims will continue to chase us as 'living dead' until we give them a decent burial, until we integrate the trauma of their death into our historical memory'' ( qtd. in
Berger 1999, 25).
In this thesis, I have employed two frameworks; trauma theory and the Saussurian semiotic sign-
67 system, to argue how, in my view, the Leftovers deconstructs apocalypse as meaning-making myth.
Using trauma theory, and specifically the paradigm of continuity/discontinuity, I have discussed how apocalypse can be seen as the mirror image of trauma. As such, trauma has both continuity and discontinuity as its central dialectic. When a traumatic event is apocalypticized, only the discontinuous paradigm within trauma is acknowledged – apocalypse always assumes only discontinuity by its singular and unique definition. However, using the concept of 'latency' from trauma theory, I discussed how no (traumatic) event can be solely discontinious, for every
(traumatic) experience is colored, (mis)interpreted and experienced through the ('symptoms' of the) past. If trauma is illusionary placed outside history, this inherent mechanism remains unacknowledged and repressed. This implies also that there can be no such thing as a 'singular apocalypse' – for every apocalyptic/traumatic experience has been motivated by such earlier experiences. This means that it is simply not possible that 'apocalypse' implies the same thing to everyone. I argued, using the character of Meg in the Leftovers, how in granting an event the unique status of apocalypse, one essentially denies the validity or importance of óther traumatic events that did not receive such status; possibly leading to rancune and further desillusionment for those who feel 'left out'. When one looks at 9/11 in this light, an odd cycle of apocalyptically inspired violence can be observed. The 9/11 attacks - targeted on the economic and military pinnacles of American society - can be read as a symbolic attack on the status of exceptionality inherent to the identity of America. It is exactly this exceptional status which granted the attacks in turn also an exceptional, apocalyptic status; even in academic realms the attacks have often been described as a defining 'moment in history when everything changed'. When consequently two wars of catastrophic proportions were unleashed in the Middle-East, these never received the same apocalyptic status as 9/11 did, again confirming the supposed superior position of America which might have fueled the attacks in the first place. I have argued, using the example of the Leftovers, that this is one of the main reasons why apocalypse should, and can be decentralised.
A second way in which, in my view, the Leftovers can be said to decentralise apocalypse, is through the Saussurian semiotic sign-system. Apocalypse may be one of our oldest, most powerful meaning-making narratives, here too the absence of 'collective memory' within the myth obstructs
68 the possibility of creating a collective, communal foundation for meaning-making. We, as
Kermode (1967) posed, find ourselves inherently ''stuck in the middle'' of existence (192) - without the possibility to center ourselves in an inexplicable cosmos which has neither a (perceivable) temporal or spatial limit. The apocalyptic myth functions as an 'anchor', a structuring support providing a simple, lineair chronicity and narrative to our existence: Genesis - a middle –
Apocalypse. Genesis and apocalypse both serve to provide meaning to an otherwise ' free floating' middle. However, since for the outsider, apocalypse in itself is an externally imposed narrative structure, its meaning can also always only be externally and indirectly imposed. The present can only acquire through the interpretation of 'symptoms' that have supposedly led to it, while the future relies on the interpretation of 'signs' and omens. Apocalypse, thus, only gains meaning in the eye of the beholder. Seen in this light, it becomes clear why the myth of apocalypse could have endured tirelessly throughout the modern and postmodern age. As said, the Western modernist narrative of linear, coherent progress, moving indefinitely towards an end which will make sense to everything that came before, follows the same apocalyptic narrative structure as the 'original'
Christian myth. Heffernan (2008) reminds us that even the defeat of the ''old, primitive world'' by the French, British and American revolutions, out of which the 'new, modern world' arose, can in this light be seen as a continuation of the same apocalyptic structure (4). Here again, it becomes clear why the apocalyptic myth bears no motivated ground for existence. For the French monarchs, for example, the same revolution beared an entirely different connotation – for sure not one that ended in a optimistic Revelation. It might be that it is precisely the malleability of the apocalyptic myth which makes it fit hand in glove with the 'pick and choose' mentality which characterizes postmodernity. This makes an inflammable concoction of apocalyptic interpretations possible; such as when the approaching year 2000 was met -all at the same time and often overlapping- by religious apocalypticists, techno-apocalypticists who frenzied over the Y2K bug, and New Age apocalypticists drawing upon old (originally cyclical) myths such as the 'Mayan calender prophecy' in view of 2012. But this is where a significant burden of our time, and to my sense, an important ground for our current existential crisis, unavoidably comes into play. Modernism has effectively stripped the premodern narratives of much of their authority; truth is no longer collectively
69 believed to be revealed by God, channeled by the religious leadership. Modernism has left us disillusioned by the same progress which had promised a better, universal world. In the age of postmodernity then, we are largely left without the idols of religion and science – or at least without a collective sense of these foundations. One could say that this is, in some ways, also quite liberating. It offers the possibility to emerge oneself in all these different realities, versions of history and truth(s); our concept of the world has consequently become less rigid, and so has the concept of Self. But the loss of meaningful foundations has also induced a strong sense of spiritual and intellectual homelessness and absurdity to the world and our lives, as has been discussed by such existentialists as Camus and Sartre. The Leftovers has served to exemplify how, as a consequence, extremes will gain momentum – particularly fundamentalism and postmodern nihilism. However, these too are based upon the same apocalyptic myth that, as argued, can provide no long term, collective meaning-making foundation - for it lacks collective memory, and a direct and motivated relationship to our world. For, to return to the Leftovers for a moment, who is to say who is a sinner, and who is a saint? Who gets to be saved or punished – and who can even be sure that such differences exist? Does God reside in an all knowing chicken, in white doves, in self proclaimed guru's? The point of the Leftovers has never been to ridicule or reject either of these narratives, on the contrary. In my view, the series is an ode to the beauty of narratives and myths, and to the human capacity to create them. The series itself is such a creation, after all. The point is also not to say that these narratives are false or untrue per se, but the series suggests, following postmodern thought, that it is simply not possible from a human perspective to know absolute truth and wisdom.
It is therefore, as I argued, that the Leftovers ends its pessimist journey with a hopeful and significant note (and as such, with a small revelation of its own). This age now leaves us with the uncomfortable question: how to (collectively) move on? How do we (re)create (collective) narratives which provide us with a sense of meaning; solidly anchored in the present; not by foreshadowing the future, nor in a denial of the past or a rigid clinging to the past? Many scholars have argued that the emergence of 'constructive postmodernism', or 'epistemological pluralism', offers such an entrance. Currently, more and more popular and academic suggestions emerge
70 within this contemporary movement - but this is not the time nor place to discuss these often very interesting positions. However, in my view, the Leftovers has provided us with two necessary contributions in the move towards a constructive postmodern paradigm. Firstly, the series has critiqued the paradigm of postmodernism itself by recognizing (some of its) its limitations. In this thesis, I have made an attempt to demonstrate that the series does so specifically through decentralising the apocalyptic myth, which underlies deconstructive postmodernist thought.
Secondly, I have argued that the Leftovers offers an entry into the possibility of (re)creating meaningful (collective) narratives and myths, in which, a priori, a sense of continuity is embedded. In my view, the Leftovers suggests that forming such narratives becomes possible when endowing the present with meaning is not reliant upon interpreting the future, nor should these narratives be based on a denial of – or rigidly clinging to the past. Perhaps not unlike the indigenous songline system, we need a grounded, unified ''memory palace'', from which all
(collective) narratives and myths can take form.
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