Clause of Congruency: a Possible Worlds Reading of Threenovelsofraybradbury

Home , Fahrenheit 451

THE CLAUSE OF CONGRUENCY:

A POSSIBLE WORLDS READING OF THREE

NOVELSOFRAYBRADBURY

Nicole Adamo

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

December 2002 Copyright by Nicole Adamo 2002

11 TIIE CLAUSE OF CONGRUENCY: A POSSIBLE WORLDS READING OF THREENOVELSOFRAYBRADBURY

by Nicole Adamo

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. Thomas L. Martin, Department of English, and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofMaster of Arts.

Mary E. Fa ci, Committee Member

Date

111 ABSTRACT

Author: Nicole Adamo

Title: The Clause of Congruency: A Possible Worlds Reading of Three Novels by Ray Bradbury

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Thomas L. Martin

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 2002

Using Marie-Laure Ryan' s definition of the law of minimal departure, I

propose an important addendum, the clause of congruency. It is necessary to

delve deeper into the connection a reader makes with a textual possible world and

its relation to the actual world. The textual world, with all its various rules and

mores, becomes just as accessible to the reader as the world he currently resides in, so long as it flows along in a logical manner. It is only when something appears that is incongruent with the reader's understanding of the textual world, the reader is forced to dissemble his current textual world and build a new one.

Ray Bradbury utilizes the clause of congruence to reveal meaning in three of his novels.

IV TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Clause of Congruency: A Brief Theoretical Background ...... 1

When Worlds Collide: Bradbury's Textual Worlds in The Martian Chronicles ...... II

Mere Reflections: The Clause of Congruency and The Characters of Fahrenheit 451 ...... 18

The Yin and the Yang: Bradbury Balances Textual Worlds in Something Wicked This Way Comes ...... 28

Purposeful Inconsistencies: The Need for The Clause of Congruence ...... 3 7

Notes ...... 40

Works Cited ...... 41 The Clause of Congruency: A BriefTheoretical Background

When literary theorists discuss the "possibility" and "impossibility" of fictional worlds, they inevitably turn to the discussion of intertextuality and minimal departure.

Their claim is that a reader grasps the textual world via a linguistical mimetic interplay of the textual world and the actual world. If the textual world closely resembles the actual world, then the reader is not forced to "leave" behind the trappings of the actual world in order to construct the textures, mores, and atmosphere of the textual world. If the textual world, however, is a completely alien landscape, it will be necessary for the reader to stretch their assumptions of the possible in order to understand the text. Marie

Lame Ryan defines this concept in no uncertain terms: "This law - to which I shall refer to as the principle of minimal departure - states that we (readers) reconstrue the central world of a textual universe in the same way we reconstrue the alternate possible worlds of nonfactual statements: as conforming as far as possible to our representation of the

A W (actual world)" (51). She goes on to illuminate that this idea has difficulty standing on its own. The theory of minimal departure must exist, not independently of intertextuality, but in a symbiotic relationship as a reader builds a possible world through textual clues and prior reading experience. "Intertextuality," she explains,

"replaces the world (actual world) with the written word as a frame of reference of the reading process" (54). This would allow the textual world authenticity even were it far removed from the actual world of the reader. I wish to contend that Ryan 's law reaches closure too quickly, and minimal and maximal departure in a linear fashion is too easily achieved by fictional texts.

To better understand Ryan's law of minimal departure, it is important to consider how she defines a fictional text. Ryan positions her argument in a gray area fashioned by a combination of other critical approaches. She begins her discussion with an explanation ofthe referential discourse ofGottlob Frege. The Fregean approach to fiction can be established, according to Ryan, in three distinct points.

(1 ) Reference can only be made to that which exists; (2) To exist is synonymous

with 'to occur in the real world' and (3) Only one world exists, the world we

regard as real" (14). The Fregean mode has obvious limitations, especially

concerninll fantastical elements of fiction that are non-referential in the FreQean ~ ~

"real world". Because of this limited scope, Ryan contends the Fregean critical

approach "turns any attempt at interpretive fiction into a ludicrous activity." (14)

Events, people, and places that arise in textual worlds may occur only in said textual world and, therefore, would not exist according to the Fregean mode. It would also be impossible to distinguish true statements about the text from false ones. Think of the following example concerning the text of The Wizard of Oz. According to the text,

Dorothy Gale lived in the state ofKansas. Baum is capable of writing about "Kansas" because, referentially speaking, it exists in the Fregean "real world." If Dorothy Gale lives in this "real" place, then is she also real? Or, if she does not exist, what is stopping a reader from making the statement that Dorothy Gale lived in the state of

New Mexico? Felix Martinez-Bonati states that literary language is not linguistical at

2 all. He contends there is an absolute distinction between "literary poetic and other

fonns of discourse" (77). In other words, literary discourse is imaginary and, by being

so, it is not constrained by linguistical "rules" that define other types of discourse.

Frege, according to Martinez-Bonati, can set up distinctions between the referential

"real" and the unreal because fiction is outside the rhetorical circles.

"Because poetic discourse is fictitious, it can be now similar to ordinary

discourse, now entirely dissimilar from any real utterance. The distinctive potentialities

of poetic discourse reside in the freedom of the imagination" (78). Narrative sentences are imitations of linguistical actual sentences. Martinez-Bonati describes this phenomenon as ordinary sentences being real but a poetic sentence being imaginary

(83 ). These imaginary poetic sentences are given the title of"pseudo-sentences."

But changing the referentially capable sentences into "pseudo-sentences" still does little to safeguard a textual world from being changed arbitrarily. Is Dorothy Gale from Kansas or New Mexico? If the statements concerning Miss Gale's home are not sentences in the linguistical sense, can one say whether they are true or false? At this point Ryan adds Thomas Pavel's ontological argument to the mix. Martinez-Bonati and

Pavel seem to converge on similar ideas but Pavel allows fiction to be actual, not imaeinarv..., "' . Pavel decides errors and lies are false statements about "real" entities

(occurring in the Fregean "real world"), while presenting fiction as truths about imaginary beings (Ryan 15 ). This way fictional texts can remain linguistically sound and still discuss things beyond the actual world. Pavel seems to have found an opening for literary critics to study fiction according to its own "imaginary" merits. But Ryan, once again, points out the inadequacies in this definition of fiction. Where do the

3 onto logically hybrid worlds belong? Returning to the previous example of fictitious

Dorothy Gale living in the referentially real place called Kansas, how can a reader

reconcile the two? The text of The Wizard of Oz only fits comfortably into Pavel's

definition of fiction when Dorothy Gale, a fictitious girl, land in the imaginary world of

Oz. Ryan proposes the concept of"possible worlds" or textual reference points built

through the synthesis oftextual clues and the reader's understanding of the actual

world. Because possible worlds exist on a plane between the reader's actual world and

the "semantic domain of the fictional text," there now exists "the possibility of making

truth-functional statements about a fictional universe" (16).

Ryan now begs the question, wherein resides the difference between the actual

world and the merely possible ones? Here she utilizes David Lewis' proposal that "our

actual world is only one world among others. Actual, he continues, is indexical. Every

possible world is actual but these terms are not interchangeable. 'To be actual' means

'to exist in the world from which I speak"' (Ryan 18). This allows a narrator speaking from the textual possible world of The Wizard of Oz to make the claim that Dorothy

Gale is from Kansas and not New Mexico. Because the narrator is speaking from the textual world where Dorothy Gale lives in Kansas, this is a true fact about an actual world. A reader speaking from the world where Dorothy Gale is a character in a children's book cannot change Miss Gale's point of origin without making his statement a falsehood.

Once a textual possible world has been established, there must exist a method by which a reader residing in the Fregean actual world can gain access to this new world.

The possible world exists with its own rules and limitations so that a reader cannot

4 fashion false statements concerning it. When a reader discusses the Kansas of The

Wizard ofOz, this is not the same Kansas as the state that exists in the reader's own

actual world. "Nonfictional texts describe a system of reality whose center is

occupied," Ryan asserts, "by the actually actual world; fictional ones refer to a system

whose actual world is from an absolute point of view in an actual possible world" (22).

Readers enter textual possible worlds via "bridges" or links created by the reader who combines clues from the text and ideas gleaned from their experience in the actual world to build and maintain a new sphere of reference. Now the reader becomes re centered in the textual world, and statements made about the world must be referenced only in that world. That Dorothy Gale lives in New Mexico is false when viewed from the center of the textual referential world of The Wizard of Oz. Ryan links the ideas of the "reality" of possible textual worlds and the re-centering of the reader to round out the indexical theory of David Lewis. She says, "A world is possible in a system of reality if it is accessible from the world at the center of the system" (31 ).

World spanning "bridges" and the mental re-centering of the reader seem to be the best way for a reader to understand a textual universe, but it is important to know how these phenomena function. It is, after all, the "bridges" that lead directly to the law of minimal departure and my own discomfort with its shortcomings. I agree with Ryan that there are various methods of accessing a textual referential world for a reader residing in the actual world. Ryan utilizes a different children's text, Lewis Carroll's

Alice 's Adventures in Wonderland, to explain world shifting and reader re-centering.

"In Alice in Wonderland, the world originally designated as the textual actual world is abandoned for the textual possible world of Wonderland through an internal gesture of

5 re-centering" ( 42). In other words, once a reader has successfully made the jump into the textual actual world of Alice's Great Britain where she is lazing about, not really listening to her sister reading to her, then the reader must re-center himself in the upside down world of Wonderland as Alice follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole.

These internal textual "bridges" relate to the law of minimal departure because the

"distance" a reader must now travel from the actual world to the new textual world increases as the world deviates from the actual world. "Since we regard 'the real world' as the realm of the ordinary, any departure from norms not explicitly stated in the text is to be regarded as a gratuitous increase of the distance between the textual universe and our own system of reality" (Ryan 51). So Wonderland is a further departure for a reader than the initial departure to fictitious Great Britain circa 1865. It is not unusual for a reader to use one textual referential world as the jumping off point to another textual actual world. Ryan tells us that "minimal departure may select not only one, but several different textual universes as frames of reference, thus permitting the migration of fictional characters out of their native environments" (51). The reader simply tags along. This is the juncture where the law of minimal departure seems to ignore what happens to the reader once he re-centers in the new textual universe. How does he acclimate himself to his new surroundings and build new textual reference points?

What happens when a concept or character fails to connect with the newly constructed textual possible world?

Ryan's Jaw of minimal departure constructs, in my mind, an analogy of an archaeologist and his in situ observations of a broken past. Archaeological sites, when viewed in a cross section, show a stacking striation of worlds. The most recent is

6 nearest the world currently established on the surface, and the most distant from that top layer is the oldest. The archaeologist sets about examining the artifacts left by the inhabitants of the other worlds and gives these artifacts a function and place in that world using his understanding of his own world and what he imagines to be true of that other world. As he investigates deeper and deeper into the striations, the worlds become more and more remote from his own world. He must call upon his imagination more to construct a viable past, but, once it is constructed, the possible world seems less removed for the archaeologist. For the archaeologist, the past world now has a shape and existence that maintains its order similar to the way the actual world maintains its order.

There are times during the excavation when the archaeologist faces various difficulties. In some striations, the archaeologist may be confronted with very few artifacts at all. Here he must call upon more of his imaginative capabilities to gain insight into that other world. Readers may encounter a similar problem. For a textual

"dig," the reader must confront what Lubomir Dolezel sees as "gaps" in the fictional record. In the same way that the archaeologist must be creative in his suppositions about the past, the reader must also be creative in his presumptions about the textual actual world. But as long as all the artifacts fit comfortably into the archaeologist's re construction of the past world, he finds as little trouble understanding this realm as he does understanding his own time and place. The reader experiences a similar phenomenon and is as comfortable with the nuances of the textual world as he is with the intricacies of his actual world so long as the text remains constant to its own rules.

At this point, Ryan 's contention of a minimally or maximally departed text becomes

7 less important as the reader moves easily to the textual world despite the world's deviance from actual world constraints.

A subsequent problem may arise for the archaeologist when he discovers an artifact that does not integrate productively into his carefully arranged reconstruction.

If, through conscientious research and probable deduction, the archaeologist has manufactured a plausible world, then the insertion of something that upsets this order would cause it to break down. To extend the metaphor, assume the archaeologist has construed a past world with a desert climate and a population of humans who had very little sophisticated technology. Suddenly, he comes across what looks to be a scuba tank and some flippers. The archaeologist "knows" that the scuba tank and flippers could not have existed in the world he has created. Since there are no other indications that would allow for a likely answer to this conundrum, the archaeologist is at a loss for a logical explanation. He must now dismantle his possible past world, or come up with some kind of creative manner to explain the appearance of the scuba tank and flippers.

In this instance, the scuba tank and flippers are easily understood within the actual world of the archaeologist and are thereby minimally departed, but the insertion of these items into the constructed world makes their existence maximally departed from the reconstruction. A11 parts of the newly envisioned world should fit together without difficulty in the textual worlds, regardless of the text's distance from the actual world.

Building on Ryan's law of minimal departure, I would like to present an addendum to account for the insertion of the unfamiliar artifacts unearthed in familiar territory and call the addendum the clause ofc ongruency.

8 The clause can be applied to literature by again using Ryan's own example of

Alice in Wonderland. Once the reader has established the possible world of

Wonderland, the textual world and all its idiosyncrasies are effortlessly understood, and the world becomes accessible and easily reached by the reader. The reader concludes that, in Wonderland, adhering to real world knowledge and constraints is futile (Ryan

57). The character of Alice never fullv assimilates this idea. She continuallv fiQhts to .I "" .,; - force Wonderland into actual world restraints and eventually becomes the further departure for the reader. She is incongruous with the rest of the textual world. The

Caterpillar perched on the mushroom, smoking a hookah and reciting poetry easily fits into the reader's understanding of Wonderland. Although she is the only character who could possibly exist in the actual world of the reader, Alice is the piece that never wants to fit into Wonderland, and the reader begins to mimic the Caterpillar as he asks Alice,

"Who are you?" She belongs in neither the textual world of Wonderland nor the actual world that prevents little girls from falling down rabbit holes. By applying the law of minimal departure to Lewis Carroll's fantastical tale, Ryan can effectively trace the reader's leap from the actual world to a maximally departed textual world, but the law cannot account for the character of Alice because it examines the world of Wonderland as a completed whole. The reader, like the archaeologist, must build Wonderland as he goes along, uncovering new artifacts and piecing the world together. Alice, incongruent to both the actual world and the textual world, could be viewed as either another alternate world, neither Wonderland nor reality, but a world called "Alice" or acting as a textual bridge for the reader.

9 If Alice is considered her own textual world, the reader understands that all

statements she makes are referential only according to the rules of the world of"Alice."

Her roundabout logic is comparable to the actual world in its language and

methodology, but is Wonderland in the conclusions he draws. To understand the

character of Alice, it is necessary for the reader to reference any text related to her

according to the rules set up by the textual world of Alice.

Alice could also be seen as the key for the reader into the zaniness that is

Wonderland. Because she belongs to neither world, the reader, identifYing with her

confusion in both textual worlds, can use Alice as a point of reference. She personifies

the reader' s inability to completely absorb the idyllic perfection of the English

countryside and the reader's subsequent confusion when the talking rabbit enters the

scene. Alice becomes the bridge the reader uses to span the gaps in understanding the two textual worlds. Either way, it is Alice's incongruent nature that calls attention to her and provides the reader with the questions to ask of the textual universe in order to construct it properly.

10 When Worlds Collide: Bradbury's Textual Worlds in The Martian Chronicles

Science fiction is a genre rife with alternate universes and incongruous lands.

Joe Patrouch, in his article on Symbolic Settings in Science Fiction, launches an interesting discussion of the nature of the two worlds clashing in Ray Bradbury's The

Martian Chronicles: "SF [science fiction]'s distinguishing characteristic is its use of scientifically plausible alternative settings as backgrounds for its stories" (37). The plausibility ofthese settings is what allows readers of the actual world to embrace the textual world, just as the plausibility of the constructed past worlds allow the archaeologist to immerse himself in those worlds. As far as intertextuality is concerned,

Patrouch applies the concept to science fiction by way of the degree realistic science is applied to the textual world. He explains that science fiction stories are grouped on a

"scale ranging from scientifically accurate to scientifically inaccurate" (38-39). Oddly enough, Patrouch goes on to juxtapose the distinctions by pairing them with understandings ofthe author's and reader's own actual world:

In the first case, since the reader is being asked to live in a completely different

setting than he is used to, the writer uses scientific accuracy as a method of

obtaining that "willing suspension of disbelief' so necessary to fiction. In the

second case, however, since the reader is not really being asked to live in a

totally new environment but rather in his old one in a new guise, that "willing

suspension" is not so difficult to obtain and the writers don't need scientific

11 accuracy as much. Baldly put: the less relevant the setting, the more important

the science; them more relevant the setting, the less important the science. (39)

If the author creates a world that is not mimetic of his current actual world, then he would tend to validate the creation of his alternate world by making it as scientifically accurate as possible. Worlds that are musings on the author's actual world need not adhere to actual world scientific constraints.

At first glance this would seem to negate both Ryan's law of minimal departure and my own addition of the clause of congruency. A science fiction writer, according to Patrouch, has a responsibility to his reader to create and maintain either scientifically viable alternate worlds or be relegated to the genre of pure fantasy. On the contrary, I would insist that Patrouch's ideas about the nature of actual world science in science fiction only helps to strengthen the argument for these concepts. Extrapolating on

Patrouch's terms of accuracy and inaccuracy, a reader will build a world through what he understands of science in his actual world and what the text offers as the capabilities of science in the textual world. Texts where the reader finds it difficult to understand the science must contain some kind of familiar (existent in the actual world) properties, i.e., the setting, social mores, or structure of inter-character relationships, in order for the reader to move to that possible world. In this case, the clause of congruency is necessary for a reader to fully understand the textual world so different from his own reality. The textual world is maximally departed from the reader's actual world, so much that it seems almost impossible to comprehend, and the points that are congruent with his "real world" are what anchor the reader in this possible world and lend it plausibility.

12 Science fiction and its plethora of possible worlds are made virtually real in

Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. It is easy to set up this novella into the dichotomy of the world of Earth versus the world ofMars. Noel M. Valis remarks, "critics of The

Martian Chronicles have usually noted the contrast made between two opposing civilizations, ours and the Martians. Our corrupted culture is generally juxtaposed to the higher more ideal Martian society" (57).1 For this alien world to become a moral idealized version of the reader's actual world, then the textual world of Mars must be construed according to the social mores of the actual world. Thereby, the Martian world is maximallv denarted from the actual world. but the social customs are hi!!hlv "" .l ~ """' J congruent to the actual world.

Besides Valis' two opposing worlds, I would argue there is a third world that bel!s to be considered when lookinl! deener into the text2 and that this idea of a triad of ~ ~ . worlds can be extended to the themes present in the book. This collection can be divided into three main textual categories: the encounter, the parallelism, and the assimilation. In stage one, the encounter, Earth-born space travelers interact with the alien world of Mars. Bradbury gives the reader the tools to build a viable Mars in the second and third chapter through vivid description of the Martian landscape and its people. A young Martian woman is troubled by dreams of strange men. She relays her unquiet visions to her husband, and he scoffs at her overactive imagination. Her description of the spacecraft ofthese dream men reveals much about the clause of congruency in the novella:

"He came in a metal thing that glittered in the sun," she remembered. She

closed her eyes to shape it again. "I dreamed there was the sky and something

13 sparkled like a coin thrown into the air, and suddenly it grew large and fell down

softly to land, a long silver craft, round and alien .... " (4)

The Martian woman, with her "fair brownish skin" and "yellow coin eyes," is a

perfect inhabitant of the textual world with "wine trees filled with green liquors" and

"seas of red steam" (2). Because the reader becomes thoroughly entrenched in the

possible Martian world, she, like the Martian characters, takes the Earth-born men as

interlopers. Through intrusion into a world highly accessible to the reader, these Earth-

born space men become more alien to the reader than the Martians despite the fact that

their characterizations depart less from the actual world than that of the Martian

characters.

As the book enters stage two, the parallelism, the textual world of the Martians

and the textual world of the Earthlings, begin to exist side by side. Martian characters

are reduced to the state of an aboriginal people who are conquered by a parasitic Earth

culture. Tomas Gomez, an Earthling living on Mars, starts a drive on Martian-built

hil!hwav over sixteen centuries old and meets a Martian. He is disconcerted because the '-' "' Martian population, to the best of his knowledge, is extinct. This begins an argument

that taps into the parallelism of this section:

"The Martian closed his eyes and opened them again. "This can mean

only one thing. It has to do with Time. Yes. You are a figment ofthe Past!"

"No, you are from the Past," said the Earth Man, having had time to

think of it now.

"You are so certain. How can you prove who is from the Past, who is

from the Future .. .. " (85 )

14 Both the Martian man and Tomas are caught in the world each knows to be the "true

world"; the reader is left to decipher truth on their own. It is unclear whether either

world is the textual world the reader has construed. The touching of the two worlds

becomes a melding of properties that exist in both worlds to create a whole new textual

world. This new textual world, despite the fact that it has properties from both pre

conceived textual worlds, is more incongruous than anything the reader has previously encountered.

Assimilation is the subject of stage three and effectively ends the collection.

The textual world of the Martians has been engulfed by the world of the Earthlings, and the home planet of the Earthlings is eradicated by war. The reader is left with only the newly constructed world of Earthlings without a home planet living on a planet that does not belong to them. However, as Bradbury brings the odyssey to a close, the reader realizes that this new textual world is not at all incongruous with the world he knows as reality; it is really a matter of perspective. The final story depicts a transplanted Earthling father taking his transplanted Earthling family on a picnic, with the promise to show his son the "Martians." The boy spends the entire day wondering where his father is going to find these fantastical creatures because Martians have long since died out on the planet. The father, finally, takes the family to a Martian river and bids them look into the clear reflective surface of the water:

"'There they are,' said Dad, and he shifted Michael on his shoulder and

pointed straight down.

The Martians were there. Timothy began to shiver.

15 The Martians were there-in the canal-reflected in the water. Timothy

and Michael and Robert and Mom and Dad.

The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the

rippling water .. .. " (181 )

The textual world has now come closest it has ever come to the realm of the

actual world. Bradburv leaves the reader with the disiointed sense that the denarture he ~ .., . has made from reality was simply the same reality approached from a different point of

view. In this final textual world, all the possibilities are congruous with one another

and yet the world, itself, is maximally departed from the actual world. If this is Mars,

are these inhabitants Earthlings or Martians? "The Martian never simply is what he is;

he is always in the process ofbecoming something else. There is no permanence to his

identity ... " (Valis 56). The definition of the word "Martian" changes as quickly as the

landscape of the textual world. Each new, incongruous depiction of a "Martian" causes a breakdown and re-building of the "textual encyclopedia" written for the world of

Bradbury's chronicles. This last theme of assimilation-and, with that, creation of something entirely new-is one that resounds once the reader has left the textual world

Bradbury envisioned:

The original Martian race is gone, but perhaps it existed as a glimpse into our

own possible future. If we are now the Martians, the Other, than once more the

dream is made reality, and the impossible possible. Or perhaps it is because, as

in Borges, "the world [is] dream, [and] the real and dream are one?" (Valis 57)

It is possible to dream a world of"Martians" that settled the planet closest to them, destroyed their home planet, and built a new world that is a replica of the old. Like

16 Tomas Gomez and his Martian counterpart, readers can argue ifthis dream is one of the

future, like Valis interprets, or one of a past too distant to recollect. By assimilating two vastly different worlds, Bradbury has presented the reader a place to call home. This new textual world may be closer to the actual world than we think.

17 Mere Reflections: The Clause of Congruency and The Characters of Fahrenheit 451

Critics ofBradbury's Fahrenheit 451 are quick to point out its dystopic

elements, the image of Earth readers will recognize but ultimately fear as possible. The recognition occurs as a direct result ofBradbury's ability to imbue his novel with scientifically feasible achievements of a future society that coincide with what the reader understands of technology in his actual world. Critic Rafeeq McGiveron explains Bradbury's textual prophecy of an ominous future by honing in on one of the more prominent themes that pervades the work: " .. .Bradbury shows throughout

Fahrenheit 451 the necessity of using a metaphorical mirror, for only through the self examination it makes possible can people recognize their own shortcomings" (282).

McGiveron uses Bradbury's own proposal of a "mirror factory" in Fahrenheit 451 placing metaphorical mirrors in front of the characters in order to divine their function in the novel and the reader's supposed reaction to them.

Using McGiveron's topic as a starting point, I will show how the clause of congruency operates within the textual world created by Bradbury. The Earth of

Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 shifts according to autonomous rules designed by the author and perpetuated by the characters and their responses to their surroundings. The thematic device of mirrors, metaphorical or actual, as explicated by McGiveron, most certainly exists, but McGiveron misses an important issue concerning the reversal nature of mirrors. I will take McGiveron's exposition and illustrate how the use of

18 textual mirrors in the universe of Fahrenheit 451 mimics their true nature in the reader's actual world, that of reflection.

Mv-' understandim!'-' of reflection harkens back to mv-' initial discussion ofRvan-' ' s use of Lewis Carroll's fantastical worlds, especially Carroll's invention of the Looking

Glass Land. Each character is a twisted representation of the actual world rules concerning their characterization; Alice, as usual, remains incongruous to the world and is therefore maximally departed from the text. The previous examination of multiple textual worlds and their distance from the actual world of the reader can be developed to cast a light on the nature of the characters of a particular textual world. These characters can be thought of as "textual spheres" unto themselves and as such capable of departing from the mores of the world designed for them.

Unlike The Martian Chronicles, where Bradbury fashioned "alien" textual worlds the reader pieced together from textual clues and the reader's understanding of his actual world, Fahrenheit 451 focuses on the various characters who are each a funhouse mirror image of their characterization in the reader's actual world. These characters become worlds built off of the main textual world of Fahrenheit 451 , but required to obey its rules or face maximal departure. The fictional Earth and Mars of

The Martian Chronicles both inhabit the textual sphere of the novel, but the descriptions of the two worlds vary according to the section of the book the reader is engaging. At the time of the assimilation, Earth and Mars have overlapped so that the "new" textual world is neither of the textual worlds the reader has become accustomed to but something the reader recognizes as it is the closest the book has come to the actual world. Characters are defined in the topsy-turvy world of Fahrenheit 451 by their

19 distorted reflective state of their actual world characterization, so there are two ways to

view the Bradbury's possible future. One way is to view the world from the bounds of

the reader's actual world. not making anv effort to engage the textual world and therebv .I "-' .I - "-' -' judging characters according to actual world rules. The other way is to understand and

accept the mirror quality of the text and view the characters operating in such a world according to the convex nature of mirrors.

Grasping the reflective attribute of Fahrenheit 451 is essential for any reader wishing to experience the textual world. Guy Montag, the main character, is a fireman who starts fires rather than putting them out. Instead of being respected for their intellectual achievement, Faber, Granger, and the other exiled professors are reviled by their contemporaries, and Clarisse McClellan is punished for her curiosity about the world around her. If a reader fails to adjust his reception of facts about these characters to take into consideration the mirror-like ambiance of Fahrenheit 451, then his understanding of these characters is limited to his experience with actual world definitions of firemen, intellectuals, and perceptive young people. This makes the characterization of the players in Bradbury's world maximally departed. However, for those readers who realize, as Mr. McGiveron did, that the entire book could be viewed as a metaphorical "mirror," the characters of Montag, Faber, and Clarisse make perfect sense and are minimally departed. These characters are congruent with the textual clues given to the reader by Bradbury about the textual world, and so they "fit" in. Using the view of the text as a mirror of actual world suppositions, I believe there is a character that breaks the mold set up for him and thereby becomes incongruent to the textual world and a maximal departure for the reader.

20 Before I elaborate on the character that dissembles from his designated role in the text, I will explore the mirror theme as it relates to characters congruent with it.

Montag, the fireman who bums books, is the obvious first example of a character whose depiction is a reflection, thus a reversal, of his actual world image. When the reader is first introduced to Montag, he has succeeded in burning illegal written material and is feeling elated and triumphant: "He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror" (4). McGiveron remarks upon this instance, declaring this "mirror" a "failed" one. Here, he claims,

Montag has the opportunity to examine himself, and yet "his glance is superficial rather than searching" (282). I would argue that the "metaphorical mirror" is Montag himself, and if he were to look in an actual textual mirror, he would most definitely see truth, the

"anti-intellectual stormtrooper" McGiveron claims he is. The key word in the sentence from the novel is the word might. It is important that Montag "knows" what he would see in the mirror rather than actually looking in a mirror and viewing his smoke blackened face. If Montag, as a character, were a reflection of truths commonly accepted in the reader's actual world, then a glance in a mirror would reveal a reflection of Montag. A reflection of a reflection becomes truth. Consider the following actual world example to clarify: A right-handed man has a left-handed reflection, but the subsequent reflection ofthe left-handed reflection becomes right-handed once again.

Montag is a reversal of actual world understandings and so is congruent with the textual world of Fahrenheit 451 , but his reflection would bring him closer to actual world criteria for an "anti-intellectual stormtrooper" and make him maximally departed from the text.

21 It isn't until he meets Clarisse that Montag gets a glimpse of this truth, the

reflection of his being. Clarisse, because she is a functioning character in the world, is a

reflection of actual world ideas; however, she has the capability to act as a mirror for

Montag:

"He saw himself in her eyes .. .himself dark and tiny, in fine detail, the lines

about his mouth, everything there ... " (7). McGiveron views Clarisse as a mirror

because she "has no ideological agenda". "For the most part", he says, "Clarisse

does not interpret or offer suggestions; she merely draws Montag' s attention to

facts he should already understand but does not. " (284)

I disagree. Clarisse is operating under a subtle but certainly not non-existent game. She

has a point to make with Montag about the absurdness of the world, but knows that a

direct approach would cause Montag to distrust or ignore her, so she is forced to

surreptitiously convince him to rebel by showing him the irrationality of the firemen' s

position but letting him think he arrived at the conclusion himself Furthermore, unlike

McGiveron, I believe the character of Clarisse is thematically closer to the character of

Montag because of their mirror-like qualities. The reader is introduced to Clarisse as a remarkably observant young person whose curiosity for the world around her is hardly satisfied by the stunted instruction offered to her. She tells Montag that she has been diagnosed as "antisocial" according to the dictates of her social setting in school: "I am antisocial, they say I don't mix. It is so strange. I am very social indeed" (29). In fulfilling my supposition of the theme of immersing the reader in a looking glass world,

Clarisse is a reflection of actual world understandings of what makes a social being.

Like Montag the fireman, the reader easily understands Clarisse's characterization

22 because she fits nicely into the reflective dictates ofBradbury's narrative. She and

Montag are congruent with the textual world of Fahrenheit 451 and thus are a minimal

departure for the reader once he has "re-centered" himself in the dystopic text.

Although it takes Montag a while to see, Clarisse realizes the ridiculousness of her

surroundings and because she has this ability to "see" the reflective nature of the textual

world, she becomes truth, a walking mirror. Clarisse the mirror reflects the reflections

present around her and reveals the original image, the image present in the reader's

actual world. It takes conversation and association with Clarisse for Montag to finally

"see" himself and fights to maintain "truth."

Professor Faber and his fellow intellectuals follow this pattern of involuntary reflection of actual world truisms accepted by the reader. The ousted professors are considered threats to humanity and must secret away knowledge until the world is ready for it again. Rather than being looked to for answers to thought-provoking questions and schooling young protegees as do their referential beings in the actual world, the professors run from the authorities, the worst possible criminals. Like Clarisse and

Montag, they are mirrors, not oracles. They hold within them the true image of mankind, the acquired written knowledge of the ages, and are ready to take in the reflection of the misguided masses ofthe textual world and distort it enough to allow these people a glimpse of actual world truth. Granger, the writer of an incendiary book, introduces Montag to this reflective, not didactic, philosophy. He tells Montag how imnortant it is for the nrofessors to remain low kev and act as mirrors instead of L L -' pendants.

23 .. . we'll just have to wait. We 'll pass the books on to our children, by

word of mouth, and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people. A lot will

be lost that way, of course. But you can't make people listen. They have to

come 'round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world

blew up under them. (153)

The professors and their potential children will show the other members of the textual world that the problems lie within human beings who refuse to read. They will act as inert transmitters of truth, mirrors that show the laymen what they actually are, and possibly, what they could be. McGiveron asserts that Faber and his ilk cannot be mirrors because they are "overtly didactic" (283). I would disagree once again and refer back to my argument that Clarisse, in order to become a mirror (according to my understanding of the reflective property of Bradbury's textual world), did indeed have an agenda to follow just as the professors have a master plan. Neither person(s) is outwardly trying to convert Montag to his way of thinking; as a matter of fact, Granger is explaining the importance of not forcing people to agree with the professors to

Montag. While it is evident that Clarisse, Faber, and Granger affect the thoughts and actions of Montag, they never instruct him as to what he should do. Even when Faber tries to openly instruct via the bug in Montag's ear, Montag frequently ignores Faber's commands and does just as he pleases. Faber, Granger, and Clarisse most definitely possess ideas about how the world of Fahrenheit 451 should be and talk about these ideas with Montag but always in the manner of a mirror showing a possibility rather than a list of instructions for Montag to follow.

24 The reversal theme in Fahrenheit 451 permeates the novel so deeply that even the minor characters exhibit its properties. The paramedics, who arrive at Montag's home to save his wife's life after she overdoses on drugs, are weird doppelgangers of their actual world representations. They smoke cigarettes nonchalantly while detoxifying Mrs. Montag, casually telling the fireman how often they have to perform the procedure: "We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. ... You don't need an MD, case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour" ( 15). These men are funhouse mirror reflections of their actual world counterparts; therefore, they meld right into the textual world. These paramedics are described with "eyes of puff adders"

(16). Here are the men who are employed to remove the toxins from Mildred Montag, and they are compared to animals that kill by injecting poisons into their prey. These characters are yet another reinforcement of the looking glass characteristics of the textual landscape ofFahrenheit 451 and its inhabitants.

There is a character that breaks this pattern and forces the reader to reconfigure his understanding of the textual world. Captain Beatty stands out as an anomaly when the reader uses the text as a referential universe. Susan Spencer, a critic concerned with this inconsistency in the text, points out that Beatty, the fire chief, is erudite and obviously well read:

Beatty's obnoxious confidence and habit of quoting famous works

strikes the reader immediately and leads to a question that Bradbury never

answers: why is this highly literate person permitted to survive, let alone hold a

position of high authority, in an aggressively oral society? Something is rotten

25 with the whole system. Evidently someone higher up, Beatty's shadowy

superior feels that there is some inherent value in a well-read man, in spite of all

the political rhetoric. (334?

To fit properly into the possible world, the reader understands a fire chief would

embody the reversal of actual world "being" exhibited by his subordinates.

Representatives and servants of the mass consciousness, the firemen are unquestioning,

unquenchable, fire starters. They know little of what they burn and care even less; it would only make sense for the fire chief to act the same way. But Beatty is not a reflection of his actual world counterpart; he is exactly as a reader, centered in the actual world, would understand him to be. Beatty chides Montag when he arrives to burn Montag' s home.

"It was pretty silly, quoting poetry around free and easy like that. It was the act of a silly damn snob. Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of All

Creation" ( 117 -18). Immediately recognized Montag's self-actualization, and rather than acting to squelch Montag's doubts and suspicions, Beatty seems to feed Montag's lust for truth. He taunts Montag with his store of quotes, revealing himself to be a voracious reader. The contradictory nature of Beatty's actions and words makes him a difficult character for a reader centered in the textual referential world to reconcile. A gifted intellectual embittered because he has to burn books to maintain his charade would behave exactly as Beatty does in the reader' s actual world. This is not the fire chief who fits comfortably into the mirror world of Fahrenheit 451 ; Beatty is incongruent with the text and causes the reader to rebuild his textual referential world to accommodate his character. In order to comprehend Beatty, his voice, and his actions,

26 the reader must depart from the reflective textual referential world center where he has resided comfortably and re-center himself in the actual referential world.

If the reflective nature of the novel were to stand fast, Captain Beatty would be unable to quote Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. But he can; he is incongruous with the textual landscape but is easily understood within the reader's actual world. He is Alice, fi2:htin2: the norms of a textual universe and drawin2: attention to himself. ~ ~ ~

Because of Captain Beatty, a reader can look at Fahrenheit 451 in two distinct ways. If the reader centers himself in the text, then Captain Beatty is incongruous to this textual universe and a maximal departure for the reader. If the reader remains centered in the non-reflective actual referential world, then Beatty is compatible with real world ideas and the other characters are maximal departure for the reader. Ryan's law of minimal departure must take into account the perspective and position of the reader's referential world and how the characters residing in that world obey its rules.

The only way to do so effectively is to apply the clause of congruency to each character and see what can be understood about the nature of that character. Bradbury utilizes the law of minimal departure to alert the reader to the inconsistencies in the textual world, like Captain Beatty, but the clause of congruency is vital to the organization of

Beatty's surroundings.

27 The Yin and The Yang: Bradbury Balances Textual Worlds in

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The clause of congruency operates in many different ways in the works of Ray

Bradbury. In The Martian Chronicles, incongruence between worlds helps maintain the

structure of the two textual worlds. Without the radical inconsistencies apparent in the

ever-changing Martian landscape, a reader would have difficulty understanding what

actually defines Mars as a world. Fahrenheit 451, on the other hand, utilizes the clause

of congruency in another way. The text sets up the world of Fahrenheit 451 as

reflective and draws attention to the character that does not abide by its rules. By not

fitting into his prescribed role, this character provides the incongruity that forces the

reader to closely examine the reflective nature of the textual world.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is the Bradbury novel that relies on the idea

of incongruent pieces of the textual world pushing the story along and, ultimately,

causing the climax. As one of the two Green Town Novels (the other is Dandelion ~ '

Wine), critics frequently refer to Something Wicked as "gothic" fantasy. David Mogen

goes so far as to call it "allegorical gothic fantasy." Mogen sees Something Wicked as

"Bradbury's own transition from childhood in symbolic terms, it also incorporates his

personal experiences into a larger mythical pattern" (113). The mythical pattern of the novel is introduced in the first chapter and is the device through which Bradbury

28 examines the issues central to the novel, age, mortality, and evil. It is resistance to the

mythic qualities of the antagonists, the "autumn people," that provides the protagonists,

namely Mr. Halloway and Will, the power to destroy the evil.

The allegorical nature of the novel is established in the prologue with the

introduction of the two main characters, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway. The boys

were born exactly one minute apart on the eve of Halloween. They also happen to be

next-door neighbors and best friends. The physical description of the boys lends itself

to a comparison to the yin and yang. Will is the light, born on the minute before the

witching hour, "with hair as blond-white as milk thistle" and eyes "as open, bright, and

clear as a drop of summer rain" (6). His companion is the dark, the negative to his

positive, the yang: "His hair was wild, thick, and the glossy color of waxed chestnuts.

His eyes, fixed to some distant point inside himself, were mint rock-crystal green" (6).

Jim was born the first minute of Halloween. His secretive nature is as necessary to the

textual universe as Will's unguarded one. This sense ofbalance is set up initially by the

introduction of these two opposing yet inseparable main characters and the arrival of

Tom Fury, the lightning-rod salesman, who sets in motion the influx of shadows into the boys' world. He proclaims Jim's house a target for the coming storm and upends the balance between the boys. Will jealously demands to know if something exciting will happen at his house.

"Hey, what about me?' said Will.

The salesman snuffed aQain at Will's house. "No. no. Oh. a few soarks'll ...... , " .l

jump on your rainspouts. But the real show's next door here, at the

Nightshades'!"' (9)

29 Because Tom singles out Jim Nightshade's house as the site of destruction, he is showing how the precarious balance of good and evil, dark and light is about to be tipped in the direction of the dark. He offers protection in the form of a lightening rod.

This conjures an image of grounding electricity and thus rendering it powerless. It is as if Tom is hoping to ground the evil before it can do any real damage.

Unfortunately for the boys, the evil approaches stealthily like calliope music carried on the wind rather than like the crash and boom of a summer storm. As the carnival rolls into town, it upsets the balance of dark and light in the favor of darkness.

To wit, the carnival arrives at night. It is a strange sort of carnival, to arrive at three o'clock in the morning and begin setting up. Ignoring Tom Fury's warning about an impending storm, Will and Jim sneak out of their bedrooms to see the carnival in the dead of night. But the boys notice immediately that this is no ordinary carnival; its eerie silence marks it as something unique:

" It was the silence that made Will pull back, even as Jim leaned

forward, eyes moon bright.

A carnival should be all growls, roars like timberlands stacked .... But

this was like an old movie, the silent theater haunted by silvery ghosts .. .. " (51)

The carnival is not what a reader centered in the actual world would comprehend, but a reader who has become accustomed to the fantastical nature of the textual world quickly understands the carnival must adhere to the unreal nature ofthe textual world. In this wav. the carnival. unrecoimizable in the reader's actual world. fits well into a world ,.1; " ...... " inhabited by Will and Jim. Will is repelled by the darkness of the carnival, pulling back, but Jim is drawn toward the carnival and its gloom. They remain in balance until

30 Jim, enamored of the darkness, abandons his friend to revel in the promises ofMr.

Dark, the Illustrated Man, who runs the malevolent carnival.

Mr. Hal1oway, Will 's father, is an integral piece ofthe fantastical textual world.

He possesses Merlin-like sage intuition and plays the foil to the enigmatic Mr. Dark. It

is no coincidence that the adult main characters are complete opposites. It is another example of the balance between contrasts that is so integral to the structure of the textual world. This precarious balance is not only tipped toward the dark by Jim

Nightshade's attraction to the evil incarnate encompassed by the carnival and the magical carousel, but also by the despondency ofMr. Halloway. Even before he meets

Mr. Dark, Mr. Halloway has begun to feel the cold breath of mortality and despairs. He awakes at 3:00a.m. the morning the carnival arrives, without knowing it has come, and feels his age: "We men tum terribly mean, because we can't hold to the world or ourselves or anything. We are blind to continuity; all breaks down, falls, melts, stops, rots, or runs away. So, since we cannot shape Time, where does that leave men?

Sleepless. Staring" (59). This lack of fighting spirit for the light side al1ows Mr. Dark and his minions the chance to infiltrate the town and upend the balance.

Once the carnival is open and ready for the boys to explore, a familiar Bradbury theme is revisited. One of the most interesting attractions of the carnival is the House of Mirrors. In Fahrenheit 451 , Bradbury employed the reflective nature of mirrors to build a textual referential world the mirror image of the reader' s actual world. The use of mirrors in Something Wicked is more subtle, but not unimportant, and focuses on the balance between image and reality. Mr. Halloway makes the point that the Mirror Maze holds "parts of someone's life, yet unborn ... trapped there, waiting to be lived" (56). So

31 long as these pieces, or shards, of the character's life remains trapped in the mirror, the

balance between fantasy and reality is maintained. But again, the scales are tipped, and

the fantasy world of the mirror images begins to engulf that of the textual actual world.

Jim and Will visit the carnival for the second time in the daylight, and the mystical

qualities it possessed by moonlight seem to have dissipated. The boys run into their

teacher, Miss Foley, who is headed for the Mirror Maze, and the trepidation of the

previous night creeps back into their consciousness. As they watch in horror, Miss

Foley enters the Mirror Maze and fades away without a trace:

Jim grabbed Will. "What was all that?"

"Gosh, Jim, it's the mirrors! They're the only things I don't like. I mean,

they're the only things like last night." (63)

When their teacher reappears, she is surrounded by numerous images of herself, so they

are unable to differentiate between the real Miss Foley and her many reflections. Miss

Foley comes out of the Mirror Maze in a frightened stupor and claims she saw an image of herself as a young girl and that she needed to be rescued before she, the reflection, drown. As the novel progresses, Miss Foley gives in to her urge to "save" her youth and will ride on the magical carousel backwards to return to her girlhood. In this way, the fantasy element of the novel takes precedence over the "reality" based textual world.

Jim Nightshade also experiences an image shifting in the Mirror Maze; however, he sees his image as a man. Jim wants to grow up and be able to do things he cannot do as a child. The mirrors show the characters what they desire most, despite the fear they have over obtaining their heart's desire.

32 Bradbury has built two fantasy worlds and has moved the reader from one into

the next through the textual "mirrors." The first world, the textual actual world, is

allegorical in nature, constructed on a concept of balanced imagery. By tipping the

scales of the balanced imagery in favor of the darkness, Bradbury uses the textual

mirrors to create the "bridge" between this first textual referential world and the world

that is an even further departure for the reader. The second textual world contains a

magical carousel that allows Miss Foley and Mr. Cooger to reverse Time and become

children again. In this second textual world, the carnival is no longer merely unusual; it

has become deadly. The oddities in the sideshow begin to leave the confines of the carnival and seem intent on capturing the boys and Mr. Halloway. As the reader adjusts his references to this new textual universe, Bradbury uses the concept of congruency to push the text towards its climax and the return of the reader to the allegorical and balanced world.

Mr. Halloway gives the reader the first clue that the return to the initial textual world will require a return to balance in the textual universe. Will, Jim, and Mr.

Halloway seek sanctuary in the library and search old newspapers in the hopes of learning something about the carnival. Mr. Halloway discovers numerous articles spanning at least 60 years that reference Mr. Dark and his carnival. At one point an article refers to the carnies as "the autumn people"(l92) and Will possess an important question to his father. He wants to know if that makes Jim, Mr. Halloway and him,

"summer people" ( 193 ). Mr. Halloway decides this is not necessarily the idea.

'"Not quite,' Charles Halloway shook his head. 'Oh, you're nearer summer than me. Ifi was ever a rare fine summer person, that's long ago. Most of us are half-and-

33 half. .. there are times when we are all autumn people'" (193). This is another call for balance in the textual world of the boys and Mr. Halloway. Mr. Halloway realizes that the carnival freaks are not so far removed from him and the boys, but their natures are out ofbalance. They are too much "autumn" people and not enough "summer." This small discovery indirectly leads to Mr. Halloway realizing the method he could use to stop the autumn people from harming the boys.

The turning point in the novel occurs when Mr. Dark and his minions enter the library, which had been a sanctuary for the boys and Mr. Halloway, and captures both boys. Mr. Halloway tries to save them, but he is overpowered by Mr. Dark and attacked by the blind Dust Witch. As she moves in for the kill, the Witch manages to inadvertently tickle him and Mr. Halloway giggles:

He [Mr. Halloway] caught this. "Why? Why am I .. . giggling ... at such a

time! ?"

The Witch pulled back the merest quarter inch as if some strange but

hidden electric light socket, touched with wet whorl, gave shock. (228)

Just when things could not get any worse, as the bleakness of their situation begins to close in on the three heroes, Mr. Halloway does the most incongruous thing imaginable, turning the textual world on its head. The clause of congruency in this novel plays a more viable role than it has in any of the other novels because it is the catalyst that drives the action forward to the resolution. The textual world the reader has now come to understand maintains an existence based on fear, Mr. Halloway's fear of mortality and the boys' fear ofthe carnival and Mr. Dark. In a textual world such as this, laughter is maximally departed. The second textual world has tipped the scale to far into the

34 dark side, requiring an action so far removed from unhappiness, uncontrollable laughter, to reverse the course and bring balance back to the text. It is this laughter, this inconsistency, that serves as the means by which the characters, and the reader along for the ride, return to their initial textual world based in harmonious balance.

Mr. Halloway succeeds in saving Will, and they set off to rescue Jim who is held captive on the carnival grounds. They become trapped in the Mirror Maze, which slowly begins to break Mr. Halloway down. As Will frantically tries to save his father,

Mr. Halloway is reminded of what action caused the Witch to retreat and laughs as loud and long as he can. When he does, every mirror in the maze breaks and crashes to the ground: "And lo ! Like Jericho and the trump, with musical thunders the glass gave up its ghosts, Charles Halloway cried out, released" (260). Mr. Halloway has effectively destroyed the "bridge" that connected the one balanced textual world with the textual world built on darkness. He has literally shattered the mirrors and figuratively shattered the coherence of the textual world. By doing the most incomprehensible thing, Mr.

Halloway has gained power over the movement of the text. Mr. Dark can no longer prey on Mr. Halloway and the boys because they have found joy and light among his shadows:

"Will! " His father savaeelv- "" ,Jiabbed a fineer'-' at him and at Jim. "Damn it.;

Willy, all this, all these, Mr. Dark and his sort, they like crying, my God, they

love tears! Jesus God, the more you bawl, the more they drink the salt off your

chin. Wail and they suck your breath like cats. Get up! Get off your knees,

damn it! Jump around! Whoop and holler! You hear! Shout, Will, sing, but

most of all laugh, you got that, laugh!" (282)

35 It is the singing and laughing of the Halloways that brings Jim Nightshade back from

the brink of death. This is an effective end to the story, an overt overcompensation that

returns balance to the textual world. The reader has traveled from one balanced textual

universe to a more lopsided one via textual "mirrors" and is returned because Mr.

Halloway shatters the coherency of the second through ridicule.

36 Purposeful Inconsistencies: The Need for The Clause of Congruency

Mv discussion of the clause of comrruencv seems to be most annlicable to the .; ...... ; .& .&

genre of science fiction and fantasy, and while I agree the law of minimal departure

does lend itself to explaining the inexplicable, both the law and its corollary can be

applied to any fictional universe where the reader leaves the confines of what he

"knows" (and can reference) in his actual world. Authors like Bradbury use

incongruence in textual universes to draw the reader's attention to specific characters or

concepts. It is therefore the responsibility of the reader to figure out the author's

purpose. Returning to my initial metaphor of an archaeologist may shed some life on

the author's purpose in such cases. Like the tireless archaeologist, the reader toils to build textual worlds where the characters he encounters might live and be understood.

Sometimes the inhabitants of past civilizations seem to be toying with the archaeologist,

daring him to comprehend the depth of their culture. The long dead peoples leave behind clues that could be construed as purposely misleading, but for what cause?

I believe there is an important reason why ancient cultures chose to be secretive and ambiguous. The untiring study of a particular culture lends it immortality. Scholars have studied the culture of ancient Egypt for centuries and modem-day "experts" on the subject can still offer little information about the Sphinx. Here is an example of the clause of congruency operating in a textual universe of ancient Egypt set up for laymen

37 by Egyptian scholars. As researchers perused dusty texts for clues to the monuments in the Giza desert, archaeologists pieced together a viable universe using the clues left behind by the civilization that buried their dead kings there. The archaeologists deduced that the huge pyramids were elaborate tombs constructed for the pharaohs.

Despite their best efforts to construct a flawless referential universe for ancient Egypt, and though they were supported by those who read ancient Egyptian texts, the "scuba tank and flippers" that confronted these archaeologists was a problem too large to quickly explain away. The Great Sphinx sat complacently in the desert, daring them to understand its purpose.

The archaeogists did not ignore the challenge, but set about constructing viable worlds that could contain an explanation for a giant stone monument, half man and half lion. Some had to deal with glaring problems. If this is a Sphinx, as we understand it to be, it does not coincide with other descriptions of Sphinx found in antiquity. The great

Sphinx that troubled Oedipus Rex in ancient Greek tragedy was half woman and half lion. What would cause the Egyptians to change the gender? Did they know of the mythical creature's existence in Greek culture? Is the gender change significant or merely accidental? Of course, once these questions are answered, more necessarily follow. If we are to assume that the pyramids of Giza are elaborate tombs, was the purpose of the Sphinx the same or different? Because its appearance is not like that of the other tombs, does it hold some special key to understanding more of the culture of its makers? Its unusual appearance and its inconsistency with the pyramids around it give the Great Sphinx importance. It becomes crucial for anyone who wishes to understand the entire picture of ancient Egyptian culture to contemplate the reason for

38 its existence and construct a viable reason within the confines of the world already accepted.

When presented with textual inconsistencies, the reader is required to do exactly as the archaeologist and attempt to explain the incongruent pieces of a text in order to understand the text in its entirety. And like the archaeologists who argue over even the smallest detail in building a possible past world, the various readers of a particular textual universe are bound to argue over the methodology and purpose of any inconsistency that universe. And like the cryptic inhabitants of the possible past world, the author's purpose in inserting incongruent pieces into a carefully constructed textual world may be purposeful and pointed. The author may be trying to make a specific point or stimulate conversation concerning the novel, or it might be completely accidental. But whatever the method behind the madness, the result is the same. The textual universe is built and then torn down by inconsistencies and dissidence. Then the world is rebuilt to compensate for incongruence, while generating discussion every step of the way. The novel gains immortality as the compounding discussion of the book increases the longevity of the novel and its writer. As the interest in ancient Egypt never wanes because no two researchers can agree on the function of the Great Sphinx, literary interest in Fahrenheit 451 will not fade as readers argue over the reason Captain

Beatty is an anomaly in the textual world. Bradbury utilizes the clause of congruency to involve his readers in the text andre-center the reader in his proposed textual universe.

The clause of congruency contributes to the author's technique and the reader's ability to understand the text, making it an invaluable addendum to Ryan's law of minimal departure, possible worlds literary theory, and the creation of textual universes.

39 Notes

1 Valis goes on to say, "readers tend to gloss over the deceit, treachery, and even homicidal tendencies" of the Martians (57). I feel readers do this because they apply actual world social rules to the Martian characters and see an oppressed people fighting an oppressor and allow the Martians their efforts to save themselves.

2 David Mogen also sees three distinct worlds in his commentary on The Martian Chronicles. I chose not to utilize his terminology of"Invasion and Exploration," "Colonization," and "Apocalypse (Rebirth?)" (145-81) for semantic reasons. These titles seemed to me to be "earth-centric," and I make the point that Bradbury's Earth is not a non-fictional accurate portrait of reality, but like his Mars, another possible world.

3 Spencer is more concerned with the ramifications of oral versus written societies than with the reflective nature of the entire novel. Her insight is important because it supports my own observation that Beatty is incongruent with the rest of the textual world.

40 Works Cited

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451 _,_ New York: Ballantine, 1995.

---. The Martian Chronicles. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.

---.Something Wicked This Way Comes. New York: Ballantine, 1995.

---."Why Mars?" Across the Board38.2 (March/April2001): 10-11.

Doleiel, Lubomir. Heterocosmica. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP,

1998.

Friedler, Leslie. "The Criticism of Science Fiction." In Rabkin, Schobs, and Slusser 2-

13 .

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