EN IO JOSÉ DITTERICH

Earth's - an Allegory of the fictional Creation

Dissertação apresentada ao Curso de Pós- Graduação em Letras do Setor de Ciên- cias Humanas, Letras e Artes da Universi- dade Federal do Paraná para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Letras na área de Lite- raturas de Língua Inglesa.

Orientadora: Prof.a Dr.a Brunilda Tempel, Reichmann

CURITIBA Ï" 9 9 0 Dedico este trabalho a todos aqueles que, de alguma forma, con- tribuíram para sua consecução bem como a todos que se sentiram "rouba- dos" durante a sua realização, espe- cialmente Cida, Rafael e Wagner. AGRADECIMENTOS

A Deus por mais um "talento" e a força de vontade em desenvolvö-1 o.

- A orientadora, Profa. Dra. Bruni Ida Tempel Reichmann,

pela amizade, apoio, orientação e bibliografia.

- Aos professores de Curso de Pós-Graduação em Letras da

UFPRj, e em especial à F'rofa. Dra. Sigrid Paula Rénaux

pelos valiosos livros emprestados e á Profa. Dra. Anna

Stegh Camatti pela prestatividade constante.

- A Profa. Putin Buffara, pelo incentivo e bibliografia.

- Ao Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica do Paraná

pela colaboração na realização do Curso.

- Ao CNPq por seis meses de bolsa. ABSTRACT

Through the present thesis we intend to demonstrate how the North-American writer uses his fiction as a vehicle for his aesthetic and literary doctrines as well as his philosophical and moral interpretation of modern society. The .introduction provides a background of the post-war panorama in the United States of America, emphasising the changes that were happening, mainly in the literary field, where the nihilistic as well as existentialist doctrines would influence most young writers, including John BARTH. Next we make a summary of Barth's literary production from 1956 to 1979, showing a possible project the author had in mind while writing his books, stressing his scholar/wr.iter characteristics. Then we concentrate more and more in Barth's nove1 The End of the Road, which is the core of this work. Interpreting the as an allegory of the fictional creation we analyse it as part of that project, where the author uses it in order to demonstrate the opposite tendencies in North-American literature during the 50's, with one group looking backwards and still developing neo- realistic , while another one was looking forwards, trying to find out new alternatives which would form the basis for Post-Modernism. Analyzing the characters in more details, we try, then, to prove their possible use by the author as his own avatars as well as representatives of the current theories, while the plot is shown as art allegory of the struggle between the opposite currents. In the conclusion we stress John Barth's theory that the traditional literary genres are exhausted and the modern writer should face the fact that he can only use them in a farcical way, through conscious imitation, a technique which demands knowledge, research, capacity and craftsmanship.

ii RSBUMÖ

A presente tese pretende demonstrar o uso que o escritor norte-americano John Barth fas da ficção como veiculo de propagação de seus principios estéticd- J. i terários, bem como de sua interpretação filosófico-moral da sociedade con temporánea. A .introdução apresenta as transformações ocorridas no panorama intelectual norte-americano de pós- guerra, mormente no plano literário, onde? as doutrinas niilistas e existencialistas exerceriam grande influência, delineando o arcabouço filosófico do escritor e pensador. A seguir, faz-se um apanhado geral da obra de BARTH, mostrando um possível projeto do autor ao escrever seus livros; destaca-se aí a dualidade pensador/escritor, concentrando-se cada vez mais na obra The Ein d of the Road, que ê a base da tese. Interpret.ando-se esse romance como uma alegoria da criação ficcional, analisa-se a mesma como parte de um projeto maior, tendo-se o autor utilizado dela com o fito de confrontar as tendências antagônicas da .literatura norte americana dos anos 50, onde duas correntes se destacam: uma voltada para a ficção neo-realista já existente e outra, onde BARTH se inclui, buscando novas alternativas, que formariam as bases do Pôs-Modernismo. Através da análise» especifica das personagens, procura-se, então, comprovar sua possível utilização pelo autor como porta-vozes das correntes vigentes e servindo a trama do romance? como uma alegoria do conflito tanto externo quanto interno entre as duas tendências dominantes. Conclui-se enfatizando a teoria de BARTH de que os gêneros literários tradicionais estariam exauridos, restando ao escritor moderno uma reutilização - ou "revisita" - das formas existentes, uma imitação conscient e, ou paródia, como solução, o que requer conhecimento, pesquisa, capacidade e perícia por parte daqueles que se dispuserem a aceitar o desafio.

i. i. i CONTENTS

Abstract i i

Resumo . » . i i i

I. INTRODUCTION Ol

1. Historical Background 02

1.1 In Search of New Values - the New Theories. 04

1.2 Reflections in American Society ...... 06

2. The Influence of the New Theories on Fiction. . 08

2.1 Some Examples 12

3. Fiction at the Crossroad. . 14

3.1 A New Foregrounding for Language 18

3.2 Formal Character i sti 20

4. John Barth - Scholar and Writer 22

II THE END OF THE ROAD - THE NOVEL AS A

THEORETICAL VEHICLE 27

1. Exploring Form for Theoretical Purposes .... 27

2. Naming or Baptizing his Characters? ...... 37

3. Sex and Writing: Acts of Creation ...... 45

4. The End of the Road -- Different Levels of

Reading 57

iv III - THE CHARACTERS AS LITERARY AVATARS

.1 . Jacob Horner - a Hero with Many Masks and

Tasks .

.l.*l The Writer as the Hero.

1.2 The Hero inside his Furihouse

1.3 Jacob Horner A Rebel who Admires

Discipline . . . .

1.4 The Hero under the Law of Cyclology . . . .

2. Joseph Morgan - a "Don Quixote" of

Traditional Fiction ......

2.1 The Attraction of the Op pos i tes ......

2.2 Joseph Morgan an Idol with Feet of Clay .

2.3 Demanding Authenticity in a World of

Phoniness . . . .

3. Rennie Morgan - the Disputed Literature . . . .

3.1 From Domina tor to Domines

3.2 Rennie's Death The Phoenix Fiebern . . . .

4. The Doctor - the Personification of Knowledge .

CONCLUSION ......

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERMCES

V

biblioteca Ünivwâtfisíâe rade? I . INTRODUCTION

History is a bloody business, after all. As one character observes, the twentieth century may be turning out to be a disaster, but the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries were horrors too. And the other centuries hardly compare f svorabl y »

The panorama in American fiction during the last four decades is so puzzling that even today many books and articles are being written trying to clarify such a cloudy and certainly stormy period. John Barth, a worldwide expressive name of , twenty-four years after the publication of his first novel, TheFloatingOpera (1956), published a widely known article, "The Literature of

Replenishment", where he presents a historical background that sends the reader as far back as Cervantes' DonQuixote in order to clear up the complex evolution of the postmodernist novel, as well as to rectify some misunder- standings of one of his most polemic articles, "The

Literature of Exhaustion", published in 1967,, lhe impact of that article was so strong that John BARTH has been questioned about it until today and tie gives a historical justification for it: "It was a time that invited thinking. I wrote the essay in 1967 in Buffalo, in the middle? of a very apocalyptic time in the history of our republic."-^

In fact, to,understand the turbulent transitional literary scene in which the postmodern novel was incubated or to place any fictional production of the time, especially John Barth's works, it is necessary to recur to History. 1. Historical Background

On e thi n k s .i. m m eel i a t e 1 y o f Marx's famous observation that important events .in History tend to occur twice s the first as a tragedy, the second time as a farce,^

We shall not go too far back in our hi s tor .1 ca .1 research, otherwise we may discover that Postmodernist is riot., so "post" at all*. Let us observe the recent historical background that

prepared the so.il for the new current that was arising.

The World War I, by its cruelties and absurdities

against human kind, destroyed not only half of the civilized eastern world, b ut also f a i t: h in human beings . Not. o n 1 y t. h e

noble rules of chivalry had been broken, but also the

elementary christian and human principles had not been

respected. For the young generations, part of which had been

forced to participate of those cruelties arid part that had

run away from the.war, the old world had fallen and with it

the blind faith in archaic absolute principles that might

still exist in Politics, Art and Literature. There was no

room for ideologies like Positivism, Determinism or an

"exhausted" academic art, since they represented .imposed

values from a decadent: social structure.

A climate of rebellion against any kind of imposed

t If one observes the history of Nestern Literature, he discovers that he is entering a labyrinth of either conscious or unconscious iisitation of already used literary structures, Like and endless chain, even the up-to-datest novels of John Barth show influences of Sterne's Trist ran Shandy (1759), which reminds us of Don Quixote (1605), which echoes fliaadlsd e Gaula (XIV century) and so on... Good references can be found in BOOTH, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicaqo, The University ot Chicago Press, 1975, values swept the Continent in search of new a .1 terna tí ves that should substitute the principles of a world that had proven itself rotten. Novelty, original i ty , individua 1 .i ty were the buzz words - since anything new ought to be better than the old values. In such a fertile land for creative minds, many artistic movements .like Cubism, Dad a i sin, Surrealism and

Futurism spread throughout. Europe and soon reached the

American young generations. Although they were movements that sheltered many different artistic manifestations, probably one of the strongest, influences on the New World artist occurred in I iterature, which broke the academic ropes and was encouraged to search new formulae, especially in Poetry, where s u b m i. s s i o n t. cd t r a d i t í o n a 11 y e s t a b 1 i. s h e d p a 1.1 e r n s h a d always been stronger. Influenced by a world that was excited b y t h e p o s s .i b i 1 i t. i. es of recen t t. e c h r i o 1 o g i ca.l dis c o ver.i.es, language and literature also paid technology their tribute: besides the content, which expressed man's relation with the new reality, the exaltation of progress and mechanical strength, language itself, as the "instrument" of c o m m u ri i c a t .i. o n w as f o r e g r o u n d e d . In d .i. v i d u a 1 ism, r e s e a r c h joined to linguistic experiments pushed most artists away from their readers, gradually isolating them in untouchable ivory towers and the art that once intended to be simple and popular became so hermetic arid elitist: that only a few n e o p h y t e s c o u 1 d un d e r s t. a n d .i. t.

Two decades later, the World War II, in spite of dividing the world politically, had a kind of opposite effect from the first: war. Perhaps the need of everyone in the? rebuilding of a more devastated world and the awareness that somewhere Humanity had failed again, for a new and crude war- had been reenacted contributed to make people more prudent.

The radicalism that had marked the movements of the twenties was gradually going to be substituted by an atmosphere of tolerance, for a new consensus had ripened: no absolute value is to be trusted and Nazism as well as Fascism had confirmed it.

1.1 In Search of New Values - the New Theories

P a r a 1 1 e .1 t o t h e p h y s .i c al re b u .i 1 d i n g , t h e c u 11 u r a 1 scenery also began to be restored. Many philosophers began to spread their 'ideas throughout Europe by means of essays, novels or plays. Nietzsche's words stating that God was dead, reinforced the generalized feeling of loss and man had actually to assume that he was the only responsible for his d e s t i. n y . S a r t r e ' s a n d G a m u s ' existe n t i a 1 p h i 1 o s o f:) h y r a i. s e d a strong skepticism towards life and social living among the

.intellectual circles of Europe and North America. Besides, restricting our analysis to the United States, a large number of psychologists, sociologists, and other schollars linked to eminent: universities began a massive publication of old and new concepts which clearly stimulated people to be suspicious of the society they belonged to. Among them, we can mention

Wilhelm REICH^, who still in the beginning of the century had stated that man's character .is like an armour against the outer world; it is gradually dissolved by society, which gives it its final shape, the shape of a preexisting order.

Another one was John B. WATSON^, whose behav.i.or.ist.ic pi ri ne.i pl. es had been largely diffused and discussed .in the

United States during the forties and fifties, when most of

the young novelists were attending universities. Thus a whole generation had become afraid of being manipulated., domesticated by the environment, against, what, they ought to

be on guard. During the sixties, a new philosopher, Herbert

MARCOSE6, preached young men intolerance against the official

and tolerance towards the non-official. He warned American

citizens about the risks of blindly believing in the official version and .labelling. Even Democratic societies have strong official indoctrination instruments and one of their most

subtile artifices consists in stimulating the personal and

private freedom, for that private rebellion of the "Id" is easily overcome by personal rationalization, with no change

of the established order. Soon after, Irving OOF FM A N''

interpreted man as a performer. He stated that the character

in man .is that part of the self .in charge of performances in

the various stages of society, working as a kind of shield in

order to protect one's individual ity. As a crowning to such

an anti-society (more than anti-social) behavior, came the

prophet of modern communication, Marshall McLUHAN®, affirming

that man is conditioned by thechnology irt a world that. has

become so small and man's concept of universe so large that,

unable? to embrace and to understand the whole universe, man

sometimes runs away to remote places, to a simpler world he

can understand. A second alternative is to begin a trip

towards himself, because this is another discovery modern man

has made: many people know too much about everyone and too

little about oneself. 1.2 Reflections .in American Society

Deep social revolutions, however, do not occur at once and so, after the World War II, in the United States two diverse worlds would grow side by side. One was the apparent., superficial world: the one composed by the war winners, the

"pillars of democracy", who had saved humanity from the horrors of tota 1 i tar.ism and were now welcome everywhere like new Greek gods; it was the world of wealth, of Capitalism, of goods consuming, of a never before seen industrial booming? a world where once more the burgeois values had been restored and the "American dream" could be lulled again; a world that had only one enemy: Communism, against which they had

Machartism and the cold war. It was the world of bestsellers, of musicals, of soap-operas, of an easy digestable and non- questioning art. However there was another world, not easily detected yet, which had began to emerge from the shadows of the universities and would .invade the whole country. It was a world that, in spite of having been invited to the party, had

been alerted against its dangers; a world of undesired questioners whom Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Watson, Marcuse and others had made suspicious of that selfpraised society.

Art and Literature in their many different manifestations were the weapons they had to show society another face of

reality. In opposition to the "American dream" they would

show the "nightmares" of the common Americans, forgotten or, worse, explored by the wheel of progress; against the myth of

fortune and personal success, they would present the

frustrations of so many that had failed to achieve it; against the exaltation of an organised democratic society, they would protest by showing its boredom and phoniness. The

American democracy was going to be accused of pat: te ruing individuality as well as of developing an external policy that was far away from democratic principles»

I n s u c h a n e b u 1 1 i e n t. war 1 d t h e y o u n g w r i t e r s ' personality was being educated. They were in a kind of tug- of war between the many theories they had learnt at the universities and the many artifices society had to harass them, for it would be impossible for the-?m to pass immune through the environmental influences. In order to balance this game,, the great sense of tolerance had developed an atmosphere of relativism towards everything and the absence of absolute truths had brought, with it a chronic: confusion of val.ues as well, as the fear of looking anti-democratic. The best: pol. icy was then to know something about everything, to a c c e p t p a r t i a 11. y eve r y t h .i. n g , n o t t o c u 11 i v a t e a b s o 1 u t. e

truths... The? immediate consequence was the sensation of

chaos: , suspicion, relativism, tolerance, a shapeless world that would become the writer's raw material.

How would he write about such a world without falling in the

pits of prejudice or radicalism and how cou 1 d lie give? shape

to a world that seemed shapeless and chaotic to him?

Perhaps that would be a task for a new type of writer;

the one who could embody the knowledge of the scholar as well

as the imagination of the artist, the "scholar/writer". 2. The Influence of the New Theories on Fiction

Why d on ' t you read Sartre and b e c: o m e a n d e x i s t. e n t .i. a 1 .i. s t ? It will keep» you moving until we find s o m e t h i n g m ore su .i. t able f o r y o u • ^

The conjunction of sociological, psychological, and even

1 .i. n g u i s t. i c t h e o r i e s h a d c o r n e r e d t h e p o s t w a r w r .i. t er-, forci n g

hi m to face? himself, to search for his own identity in a

disordered surrounding, a task he will also transfer to his

heroes. Being at the same time a scholar and a writer, the new fict.ioni.st is aware of the complex relationship between

the self and the society in which he lives. Thus, little will

be said about society as an abstract entity, for it is the

individual that counts now. "Now we? get novels in which

society is me?rely a backdrop to the a 1 oneness of the hero,"

says Alfred KAZIN.10

N o V el is t. s probabl y f e 11. t h a t s o c i e t y h a d bee n

exhaustively and excessively portrayed and the real task they

had now was to explore the chaotic multiplicity of meanings

modern society offered them. In the center of this chaos was

the writer himself and the problem he had now in his hands to

solve consisted in analysing the relationship between self

and society instead of the great social wounds the XIX

century novelist had. As states Herbert GOLD: "He will not

have a mediocre subject. himself. He will have a subject

with grandiose boundary and tangled .interior - himself"^.

Each novel, then, may be seen as an attempt the writer makes

in order to find a clue for that relationship, focusing the

same problem from different perspectives. One? of the strongest influences comes from the French

Existentialism, whose heroes are the? archetype of man in search for existential values. Lost, in the "jelly" mass in w h j. c h m o d e r n ko cie? t y h a s b e e n t. r a n s f o r m e d , u n c o rifo r' m e d , t h e y g row from an apparent apathy or a philosophical inn cd ce nee into a state where they question even the nature of creation and human existence.

Having rejected the image of Bod, who in a final

.instance? was considered responsible for human destiny and established precise concepts of "right and wrong", man had now to face this new re pon sib.i 1 .i ty. He had become his own god and, as an extension, his own devil as well. Man builds now his own moral, his own law; independent, he belie?ves himself able of manipulating good and evil, right and wrong. There?

.is, thus, no reason to accept the established order, for sur:h man will only be? Ii. eve in what he has experienced or sensed.

According to Richard LEHAN, "without family, outsiders, physically dislocated, they are? the sensualist who desire the all consuming experience".^- However, their behavior must not be? seen as an open confrontation to the social rules. They are? aware? of their limitations and, being usually well educated people?, they know there is no complete .individual f reed o m in any society on the face of earth. Be? s i des, living in an e?clet.ic, tolerant, chaotic society such herejes have learnt to establish the boundaries of their actions, besides being affected by constant .indoctrination. That will restrain their actions towards society and lead them more and more towards themselves, towards the individual, in an attempt to becom e? i m m une f r o m t he? enviro n m e n t a 1 i. n f 1 u e n ces. T h .i. s p e r h a p s explains the obsession for escaping one can see in the novels of the period. The heroes are always in movement, but most times circular movements which lead them back to the starting point, because the external movement, is in fact a consequence of an internal movement towards themselves. From this trip ~ usually the hero joins a physical trip to a psychological

trip -- they will emerge either with a new identity which accepts the social values, their "roles" in society, or, more

frequently, destroyed by a complete impotence against the forces which surround them, in an nihilistic in terpretation of life. The hero may have learnt a new .lesson, he may have

been transformed from ignorance into experience but that, has not changed the basic facts: society is the same and his martyrdoom --• when it. happens -- is useless.

More recently, Robert LIF ION ' analysed this

confrontation of the hero and the world and, according to the

w a y (H a n behaves t cd w a r d s t. h e e n v i r o n m e n t., L. i f t o n c I a s s i f .i. e s

him as either a "protean man" or a "rigidified man", concepts

that fit perfectly the heroes of the fifties.

The first. one - the protean hero -- is the hero with a

flowing self, who changes constantly, who is eager to live

new experiences and who does not hesitate in abandoning them

.in favor of new quests. He is always looking for the new, the

different., developing ut.opi.an expectations ... Who is he??

Where does he come from? Usually there are no previous

informations about him. "No biograpohy", he will say. He does

riot have a family, a father, a mother, the organized superego

which limits his possibilities and castrates his

potentialities. Always anxious to be "at ease", he may run away when he faces the impossibility of complete autonomy and the intolerable state of total enslavement in social life.

This may be questioned as not being new in Literature and in fact it is not. It reminds us of a large number of picaresque

heroes (or anti-heroes) that have been inhabiting fiction

from Romanticism and even before. The difference is that such a hero was an uncommon type in classic fiction, whereas in modern fiction it has become the common type. This hero

represents chaos that, does not only exist .in the external world, but also inside himself: no fixed rules, no strict

principles, empiricism, pragmatism, epicurism; sensuality,

the joy of living the present moment; "seize the day"...

The second one - the " rig id .i. f .ied man" possesses a

fixed self. Owner of a "one-dimensional" identity, he will

never accept the inconsistent personality of the protean man.

This does not me?an he accepts society as it. is, especial ly

such a disorganized and chaotic society. While the protean

man advances and recedes, or attacks it. tangent.1 y , through

mockery, disguising himself, or playing the appropriate

roles, the rigidified man just goe?s straight forwards, makes

frontal attacks, shows the epic: courage. He believes paths

should be laid where one passes and not vi ce-versa, and this

is his mistake, because that will usually lead him to

destruction, since modern society secerns» to be suspicious of

tragic: heroes. Sometimes both are g o .i. n g to exist in the same

novel and their confrontation will be the plot itself. 2.1 Some Examples

For many writers American society, mainly during the fifties, had become a modern Sphinx that ate the incautious and challenged those who were aware of its dangers; or maybe a new Hydra with so many heads that writers should join their efforts in order to attack everywhere at the same time to destroy it. Ordinary people constituted the "mass" society, unaware of what was going on. Irving Howe defines it;

By the mass society we mean a relatively comfortable, half welfare a n d h a .1 f g a r r í s o n s o c i e t y i n w h i c h t h e p o p u 1 a t. i o n g r a w s p a s s i. v e , indifferent and atomised ... in w h i c ti m a n b e c o m e s a c a n s u m e r , h i m s e .1 f mass -- p r o d u c e d 1 i k e t h e products, diversions and values that: he absorbs.^

Just. to exemplify it, let us take a few of the well k n a w n n o v e .1 s of t ft e p e r i. o d a n d o tí s e r v e t h e i r c o n t. e n t.

I n The Catcher 1 n the Rye ( 1.9 51 ) H o .1 d e n C a u 1 fie .1 d expresses his revo.lt against a society he classifies as

"phony", where he is forced to live. He aims to run away from it because he fears to be absorbed by that society, which gradually robs his innocence. He must. save himself and prevent other children of falling in that abyss. In

Henderson, ...the Rain King (.1959) a wealthy American jew who grows pigs (î), a prototype of the successful self ••-•made man, the fulfilment of the "American dream", cannot bear his society anymore?. He begins to express his re?be 1 1 .ion by breaking all social conventions and becoming a misanthrope, but. it. is only in the heart of the remotest place on earth,

isolated from the so-called civilization that: he begins to

appreciate human company again and discovers his identity.

R a 1 p h Ell i son's I nvisi ble Man ( .1.9 5 2.) de f i n e s s o c i e t.. y a s a m a n i p u 1 a t. o r, w h e r e ma n i s a m e r e i n s t. r u men t in i t s h a n cl s f

"invisible", or not considered as and .individual. at all.

Sylvia F'la th in her The Bel 1 Jar ( 1963) describes her

p e r s o n a 1 e >i p e r i e n c e i n a n o p p r e s s i v e s o c i e t. y w Iii r:: h m e a s u r e s

the individual's progress in terms of social norms. Looking

for a place at the suri, one must rank with his or her mates,

get "A"s which will, at the end, lead nowhere. To escape

from such oppression meant, in her case, literally death. In

The End of the Road ( .1958) , John Barth sets his hero in a

complete paralysis in front of the many options society

offers him, where he, like most people, will, feel completely

lost and unable? to make any choice ...

Thus, in different ways, through various designations,

based upon a wide range? of theories, the basic theme of the

f .i. c t i on produce? d during the fifties and sixties will be the

same: the confrontation .individual X society. As man cannot

escape from living in society, as he cannot live without

rules and conven ti an s, what can he? do to avoid beincj

completely ass i mi 1 a ted and an .i. hi 1 a ted as an individual?

Should he rule his life in a deterministic way, accepting

being molded by the environment, totally dependent of it,

offering no op pos.i t. i on or in an in deterministic: way, trying

to be independent, preserving his .individual i ty? This same

ci uest.ion in g will enlarge?, reaching other fie? Ids as the

•fictional structure? itself. 3. Fiction at the Crossroad

There?'s only one direction to go in. Ugh. We must make something oi.it o f n o t h j. n g . 1 m p o s s i b 1 e . M y s t i c s do. Not only turn contradiction into parado;!, but employ it, to go on 1 .i. v i n g a n d w o r k .i n g . ^ °

Besides the concern about, content, which was already following a common path, the postwar writers were also concerned with fiction itself. That is: they were not. only worried about what to write about, but also how to write it.

As an immediate consequence, implicitly, fiction would become many times, if not the plot of tales and novels, at least part, of them. The psychological and sociological theories had also reached the linguistic and fictional fields with .its suspicion, forcing writers to rethink their task as well as the? process of communication as a whole.

The matter is not new in literature and has been ex terna 1 i zed many time? s in different, places arid eras. John

BARTH quotes an ancient Egyptian w r i. t e r who expressed this same concern two thousand years ago, or more: "Would I had phrases that are riot known, utterances that are strange, in new languages that had not been used.In American

literature, examples could be? taken from Mark Twain or from

Hawthorne, whose The Scarlet Letter (.1850) provides us a good example of how writers suffer with the limitations of

language in expressing reality. Interpreting the novel as an

allegory of the art of writing, the conclusion Hawthorne

presents is not basically different from that of the modern writer: if he cannot avoid using a pattern - , codes, etc. - he shall use it in a way that it. becomes an adornment.

That was surely what moved the later innovations in fiction writing developed by great names of the eastern literature, like James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis

Borges and the new theories of the Russian formalists who were now being discovered and whose influences would soon be felt.

Writers now, deeply affected by an enlarging circle of t. h e o r i e s w h i c: h le d t. o .i n d i v i d u a 1 i z a t .i o n a n d t h a t h a d m a d e them aware of the risks of patterning, faced the same old problem, but in a more coercitive way. Like their hero, they looked for a freedom that: would neither transform them .into a

"jelly" mass with no identify nor establish an identity which could imprison them. How could they tell the "new", the

"creation" through old exhausted forms? Forced by new means of communication by far most effective in attracting public than the old-fashioned printed books, lost among a sort of diverse theories, impelled by their anguish for literary freedom and creative spirit, writers asked themselves whether they could find a stylistic freedom which would not: simply be a meaningless incoherence?, or a stylistic form that would not trap them insicie the existing forms of previous literature.

All they had at hand were patterns: the linguistic code, with its eroded symbols, known metaphors, common places, limited vocabulary and exhausted fictional structures, like novels,

romances etc. What to do then? Should the artist, like the

mentioned "rigidified mari" 1 ook only forwards, develop new genres, a new "language", or should he? behave? like the "protean man", using every thing he had at his disposal, according to the moment and to his pleasure; without, worrying about being original in the traditional sense, or even making experiments which could lead nowhere, or even redress old structures .in new clothes?

It. is in such a climate that John Barth begins his literary career. He had been writing since .1950, but it was only in 1956 that his first novel , The Fl oat i. rig Opera was published, and with the publishers interference. By this time he was already a scholar and, thus, influenced by the current theories. However, in spite of clear existentialist and n i h i. 1 i. s t. .i. c t r a c e s , T h e F1 o a 11 n g 0 [3 e r a a n d The End of the Road also show the germs of Barth's basic philosophical and

literary concepts, which he will develop over and over in his f o 1 1 o w i. n g t) o o k s .

The next two books, The S o t - W e e? d F' a c t. o r (.1.960) arid Gl les

Goat-Boy (1966) show a more mature writer, and a more complex too. That is perhaps why in .1.967 he comes to the fore with his "The Literature of Exhaustion", trying to explain what had happened in Literature in the .last, two decades. However

the article only provided more fuel for discussion and Barth once-? meare felt compe 1. .1 ed to retake? the subject, publishing a second article, "The Literature of Replenishment" in .1980.

Beside?s explaining what, is Postmodernism, this article

confirms the dilemma writers faced those days: they did not want to reproduce genres they considered exhausted, like the

XIX century novel, and, though they appreciated the advances of their predecessors, the Modernists, they did not want. to

fol lc.7w their steps either. Going backwards was .impossible. The? evolution of both, society and 1 :i te ra ture?, did not allow t h e e >; i s t e n c e oft. h e? t r a d i t i. o n a 1 Realist i. c or N a t. u r a 1 i s t i c novel anymore. It had only been possible? in a s o c i e t y where? t. he? re was one i deo 1 o cj y - at le? a s t. a dominant: one - one cause a n d s t r a i g h t m o r a 1 a r g u m e n t s , 1 i k e F' o s .i t .i. v i s (n a n d D e t e r m .i n i s m preached. Buch novels had a 1 ready been abandoned in favour of new experiences with Beckett, Kafka, Borges, Joyce, among others, Be?sj.dc?s, the modern novel had to face not. one but: many ideologies, not. one cause, but several causes and relativist!c attitudes ... In relation to the Modernists, in spite of admiring their work, the young writers considered that their shift. had been too rough; worried about, foregroLinding language, they fell .in another extreme?! the.ir message had become too hermetic. Here is what: John BARTH wrote about them:

We are tcslcl that Berthold Brecht, out of socia 1 ist. conviction, kept on his writing desk a toy donkey bearing the sign Even .1 m u s t u n d e s t a n d i t ; t. h e h i g h m o cl e? r n i. s t. might aptly have put on their desks a professor of literature doll bearing, unless its specialty happened to be the 1 ite? ra tu re of high modernism, the sign Not even J. c a n u »de rsta nd i t . * 7

Such literature had shown a respectful command of

technique, but lack of communication and communication was one of the main concerns of the new writers. 3.1 A New Foregrounding for Language

Once upon a time you were satisfied with .incidental felicities and niceties of technique: the unexpected .image, the ref reshing ly accurate wordchoice, the? memorable simile that yields deeper and subtler significances upon reflect- .i. on, like a m e m o r a b 1 e s i m i 1 e. *

Like their predecessors, who had foregrounded language, especially by exploring its technical potentialities, the postwar novelists were also concerned with the use erf

.language, though in an opposite way. Their problem was that they had in front erf them a shapeless world, an unconventional reality and a conventional means o f representing its language?. How could language with its conven ti on a 1 .i ty and .immaterial i ty reproduce the world and its reality in a faithful way? Could words in fact represent reality? When one sends language into the world, what he brings back is language? and, therefore, convention, fiction, not reality ... But isn't life - or at 1 east human life just. fiction? ORTEGA y GASSET19 deffends the .idea that man may be the fictionist of his own life, since he created what

.is called "human .life", a life that transcends the reality of nature. So, fiction marks the human trace in what was just, an animal. Because, the greater his culture, the bigger are his existential problems and questiesnings; the farer man goes from his animal condition, the more he becomes the fictionist of his own life, performing different, roles instead of living by instincts... This leads to another questions "What is fiction and what, is reality?", which was in the minds c?f many writers. Naturally they do not have answers for all those questions. What. happens is that these concerns ©bout. the .limitations and possibilities of language will become part of literature. Nabu ko v , Ba r t. h, among o the? rs, will explore the subject through their characters and sometimes talking directly ten the reader, interrupting the narrative flows

Where were we? I was going to comment on the significance of the (•' i z . I u s e d earl i er, w a s I ? 0 r explain my " pi an CD- tun i rig " metaphor? Or my weak heart? G CD o ci heavens, how does one write? a novel ! . . . As for me, I see already that storytelling isn't my cup of tea: every new sentence I set down is full of f i g u r e s a n d i. m p 1 .i. c a t. i cd n s t h a t I'd love nothing better than to chase to t hei. r d e? n s w i. t: h y o u , Id u t s u c h chasing would .involve new figures a n d n e w chases...

The new fore g round ing , then, consists in calling the? reader's attention to the writer's work with language, his e i t. h e r r e? a 1 CD r p r e t e n d e d el i f f i c: u 11. i e s w h .i. 1 e w r i. t i. n g ,, .i. n s t: e a d of a "show" of technical arrangements one finds in the foregrounding which marked the literature produced in the beginning of this century.

Neither this artifice is ne?w, nor the problem. But novelty is not what the writers seemed to be after arid perhaps the greatest, "novelty" was the awareness that there is nothing new in literature: everything has already been said, all forms already used, and what rests to the new writer is a new .interpretation of old exhausted forms, the same? way the chaos modern world is living is the sum erf the same old existential problems which have been afflicting humanity for centuries, now a 1.1 owed to coexist in a syncretism that had never existed before. •3.2 Formal Characteristics

No clima:;. There's the story. Finished? Not quite. Story of our lives. T he las t. wo r cJ .i. n f i. c t i cdn « i. n fact..21

Structural 1 y speaking, the postwar novels d cd not present, great advances either. After the remarkable innovations of the recent past, with the Modernists, the formal did not seem

TCD be artist's great concern anymore and even some retrocession can be felt. Besides, it. was a period of research which could send writers to the past as well as to the future, from imitation of old structures to experiments in new ones. A current detectable formal device the postwar novels present is the use of the first person point of view.

The story is usually told by the main character, what. Norman

FRIEDMAN classifies as the "I as a protagonist"-'^.

The use? of the first person point of view is indeed very old, probably the first cd ne to be used. It has also deserved long studies in literature, due to its importance in the concept of verisimilitude, a concept which also varies according to time and other circumstances. What. calls the reader's attention in the postwar novels is the fact that most, of them are written in the first person.

By the observations we have already made at the beginning, stressing the strong ideological influences most writers show in their novels, perhaps one of the classifications -- if we want, one - accordincj to the point of view, that best fits most nove?Is is what BOOTH calls the

"Implied Narrator""-^. In such cases the author does not disappear, but wears masks of one character or one narrative voice which represents him. Nothing better, then, to mark his presence than using the "I as a protagonist" , or in other- words, to wear the protagonist's mask*. If in this case the author lose? s the ad van tage? s of omniscience, since? the main character does not have? access to the inner mind of the other characters, on the other hand he gains in several aspects.

Firstly he establishes a close? link between the narrator (the? storyteller) and the reader (the audience), creating an atmosphere of primitive authenticity -- one of the buzz words of the time - when stories were told around the fire by the hero himself. Second 1 y, it improves verisimilitude, since it

.is the hero himself that invites the re? ad er to f o 1 1 ow him in a private? jour ne? y inte? his self, where he? will open his p e r s o n al w o rid, h i s i n t e r p r e t a t .i o n o f 1 i f e , s h a r e h i s secrets in a mood of complicity. It is a ne?w concept of realism, that, like other con ce pi: s o f Postmodernism, does not intend to he original, but competent in achieving its goal. It may have been a mere coincidence that so many writers preferred the first person point of view, but it was more likely a conscious choice.

% There are, of course, many other possibilities of using the point of view to get this sane effect, ft very good work about the matter is Boris USPENSKY's ft Poetics of Coiposition, University of California Press, 198-3, especially Chapter 4, where the point of view on the plane of psychology is analysed. 4. John Ba r t. h - Sc: ho 1. a r and Writer

My own novels seen* to me to have both modernist and p o s t: m o d e r n i. s m a t: tributes; my s h o r t s t o ries ser .i e s , . strikes me as mainly 1 a t e m o d e r n i st., t h o u g h s o m e c: r i t i c: s have praised or damned it. as c: o n s p .i c: u o u sly p o s t m o d er ni s m - ^

J o tt n B a r t. h o n 1 y b e c: ame a w o r 1 d w .i d e k n own nam e i n s i d e t: h e

.literary circles after his article "The Literature of

Exhaustion" puzzled many scholars in the United States as well as abroad. Later on, his work as a University professor, the publication of sr>ome interviews and his second polemic: article, "The Literature of Replenishment" would confirm his qualities as a scholar who does not run away from commenting on his own work. Those publications, however, represent a production that:, besides being critical or theorical , show

Barth's scholarly side analysing an already finished product while what interests us in the present work is to observe

John Barth the author, who mixes both sides, the writer and the t. h e o r i s t.. F' o 11 ow .1. n g h :i. s bas i c p r i n c i. p I e , a c c: o r d i. n g t o which "an artist doesn't merely exemplify an ultimacy; he employs it,"^-^ Barth used his books as theoretical vehicles, discussing and, at the same time, exemplifying and employing his literary creeds through them.

Reading John Barth's books, one immediately identifies old philosophical principles, which remit the reader to the ancient Greek philosophers, put him in contact with the

German humanists, the French existentialists and so on.

According to Jac THARF'E "Though Barth is a master of language, he appears to find the mystery of language overpowering"^ and that, may be a reason why he repeats the same philosophical and literary principles over and over, as if language could never translate his thoucjhts thoroughly.

Therefore the reader will soon learn to be familiar to

Barth's ideas and revive them in ever y new book. In fact, it. becomes almost .impossible to isolate the fictionist from the philosopher, because Barth embodies both and they are inseparable.

In spite of the difficulties for isolating both the writer and the thinker as well as of the strong attraction that both aspects exert over us, our aim is to concentrate

11) e r e sear c h i n Bar t h 's fi c t .i. o n a 1 p r o d u c t .i o n , more specifically in the metafictional and metalinguistics

.implications of his work. Even so, to analyse his whole production would be a too extensive task. Therefore, with some references to his main works, we w.i..ll concentrate our analysis on The End of the Road, which, having been published in 1958, and already written in 1955, according to the author, represents an important mark .in Barth' s career, since:?

"The end of one r o a d might be? the beginning o f another, in his aut.hor ' s own words. That was a time? when writers were

looking for new .literary alternatives, being, as we? already said, highly influenced by a wide range? of doctrines that had

been discussed throughout their University education and were

still in frank evolution concomitantly with their literary

careers. As John Barth began his career both as a scholar and

a writer in such a turbulent atmosphere, we thought it useful

to provide the reader with some background .information. Thus, having provided an overview of the literary scennery of the fifties in the United States, let us concentrate now on John Barth's work. We can advance that

Barth's main traces can be identified since his very first production: a questioning on the hero's role either in modern

1 i t. e r a t u r e o r- i. n m o d e r n wor 1 d ¡ t h e u s e o f 3. a n g u a g e w i t. ft its potentialities and limitations in reproducing reality and, most important, the fictional process itself. However, as a result of his education as well as of the close contact with the world he lives professionaIy as scholar and art instructor of creative writing, his novels will be strongly influenced by his personal quest.. Like? his heroes; - probably his own avatars - he also must pass from .ignorance to knowledge, to struggle in order to achieve self-reliance in what he is doing and, at the same time, to depict this struggle to his readers. The author, like his heroes;, must face the fact that o n t o g e n y r e c a p .i t u 1 a t es p h i 1 o g e n y .

Let. us begin then, observing how Barth used his novel, mainly T he End of the Road , having in mind met.af.ic tio rial purposes. NOTES

1. REILLY, Charlie. An Interview with John Barth. Contemporary Literature 22 (1): 19, 1981. 2. F\' El ILLY, Charlie. An Interview with John Barth. Con temporary Li terature 22 (1): 7, .1.981. 3. RE" I LLY, Charlie. An Interview with John Barth. Con temporary L.i terature 22 (1): 10 , 198.1. 4. REICH, Wilhe1 m. Character Analysis. Lond on, Vision Press, 1950. 5. WATSON, John B. Behaviorism. Chicago, Phoenix Bo o k ra ; On .i. vers i t y of C hic a g o P r e? S S , .1959 „ 6. MARCOSE, Herbert.. Tolerância Repressiva, em Critica da Tolerância Pura , Rio de Janeiro, Zaliar , 1970. 7. GOF F M AN, Irving . The Presentation of the Se? If in Everyday Life , New Y o r k , D o u b 1 e d a y A n c: h or, 19 59 . E). M CI... U H AN, Mar" s ha i .1 . Medium is the? Massage . New York, Bantam Books, .1967, 9. BARTH, John. The End of the Road. London, Brown, Watson, 1964. All the references in this work will be on this edition and will be? represented by the letters ER followed by the page. 10. KAZIN, Alfred. The Alone Generation. Ins W AI... D M EIR, Joseph. Recent American Fiction - Some Critical Views. Boston, Michigan State University, 1963, p. 18. 11» GOLD, Herbert.. Fiction o f the F i ties;. Ins WALDMEIR, Joseph. Recent... p. 44 12. LE:" H AN, Richard. in Recent American F i c t ion s The Demonic 9uest. Ins WAL DMEIR, J os e p h Recen t.. . . p . 79 . .13 . t.. IF T 0 N , R C3 b e r t.. P r- o t e? a n Ma n - P a r t i s a n Rev le? w , 35 (1) s 13 - 27, Winter 1968. 14 . H 0 W E- , Irving. Mas s; S o c: i e? t: y a n d P o s t - M es d e r- n Fiction. Ins WALDME IF^, Joseph. Recent... p. 8. 15. BARTH, John. Lost in the Funhouse - Fiction for print. tape. live voice. Garden City, NY, 1968, p. Ill. 16. REILLY, Charlie. An Interview with John E

1. E-x pi or in g Form for Theoretical Purposes

The ideal postmodernist novel will somehow I rise above the quarrel between realism and irrealism, formalism and "contentism", pure and c o m m i 11 e d 1 i t e r a t u r e , c: o t e r i e f i c t .i. o n a n d . j u n k f .i c t i o n . '

If the reader's contact with John Barth's production occurs through The End of the Road, he won't: certainly be too much .impressed and, in a first reading as least, if he is fond of Philosophy, he will probably enjoy the confrontation b e t w e e n J a c o b H o r n e r and J o s e f 3 h M cd r g a n . E x c 1 u d .i n g t h e first and the last sentences of the book, he? surely won ' t: find anything special C CD n c e r n i n g t CD S t y 1 i s t i. c devices e i t h ER.

However, if the reader has already read the previous novel,

The Floating Opera or any of the following, like TheSot-Weed

Factor, Giles Goat Boy, or even his tales, he? will certainly feel highly uncomfortable and he will perhaps classify it as a minor work.

In fact., literarily speaking, The End of the Road is an easy novel to classify. Its structure represents a retrocess if CCD ni p a r e d t. o its p r e d e c ess CD r , The Floating Opera. Like a well built XIX century novel, it has a prologue where the narrator explains to the reader how he had arrived at

Wicomico; a complication, which is based on the growing contact between Jake and Rennie, culminating with their sexual intercourse and having the climax when she gets pregnant; an epi logue, Rennie's tragic death from abortion, a death clearly announced throughout the novel. The use of time and space is as traditional as the? structure: there is chronological sequence of facts, helped by some dates which work as chronological devices. The on 1 y flashback happens in chapter VI, where the narrator tells how he had met. the

Doctor and provides further information about himself and why he .is in the Wicomico Teaching Cea liege. The place could be anywhere?, but nothing better than a small town, like in so many Realistic Naturalistic nove 1 s of the .last century. Even the point. of view is a widely explored cane?, in Marcel

Proust's way à la recherche du temps perdu... Be si. rie?s , if one? would like he could find many other traces which are familiar to the Natura 3. i st i c novels, .like an obsession for details, the comparison or association with animals, even the symbolic presence of animals and the impressionistic description of

Rennie's death, which owes nothing to the best novels of the genre.

But... should that be seen as an artistical failure, a backwards movement, an author's lapse, the end of the line, or the end erf the road? Or... was John Barth alre?ady beginning to apply his postmodernist, theories? Couldn't he be making a "farce"* of the traditional novel, using it as a frame to very up-to-date problems, like the? discussion of existentialism, of nihilism, absolute values, social chaos,

.literary chaos, philosophical chaos, etc?... The answer only the author could give us and maybe he himself may have done

* According to THARPE, 1977 John Barth prefers the use of "FARCE" rather than "PARODY". He avoids "parody" because of its implications of "satire" and "criticism". What Barth intends is to record in a way as neutral as possible, even if his theory of "farce" Bay suggest fabulation and the unrealistic. it in an unconscious way, although we believe more .in a conscious work, since? John Barth has proved to be always very aware that literary production is n o t a question of mere inspiration but of hard work, what does not necessarily mean dull work.

Besides, Existential ism as well a s Nihilism had come as doctrines, the same way Positivism and Determinism had a p p e a r e? d d u r i. n cj t h e XIX c e? n t u r y . What abo u t, t herí, w r i t. i n g a novel which, starting from a similar structure of that kind of nove? 1 s that use?d to present, absolute values, would show the weaknesses of those doctrines too, when taken as absolutes? What, one concludes at. the end of the story is that

Joseph Morgan as well as Jacob Horner have be?en used to show t. h e? s hi o r t. c o it) i n g s of t. h e e x i. s t. e n t. i a 1 i s t. d c:) c t. r i n e -

Since his first nove? 1 , T h e F .1 o a t i n g 0 p era (.1956), John

Barth seems to have had a clear literary framework in his mind; he was knitting the? rope which would take? him out of the labyrinth. Through this first work, Barth, who believes in a cyclical representation of life and History, seems to be beginning a backwards movement into the art of writing fiction. Preaching imitation as a solution for the

"exhaustion" of genres in Literatures "The imitation (.like the Dadaist echoes in the works of the "intermedia" types) is something new and may be quite serious and passionate despite its farcical aspect,"^ as we11 as concerned about proving his theories through actual work, Barth begins by imitating the novels which are closer to him. So, in its formal aspect, The

Floating Opera is a typical novel of the first half of this century, imitating what, had been the best production of the period, echoing James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus among others. It narrat.es one day in the hero's life, the clay he almost committed suicide. There is coherence between form and content, a quality Barth demanded from any good novel, but there are also Barth's basic components: farcical traces, the process of fiction writing as a parallel theme - in a v. deeper analysis undoubtedly the main theme - and the writer as the hero. This wr .i. ter / hero, writing in the first person point of view, spends many pages to apologize to the reader for his personal limitations to write a novel, a new genre for him. He also explains that in order to write an ordinary inquiry about his father's suicide he had spent almost a whole life. Besides, Barth includes many symbols that are implicitly related to writing, like the boat Todd had been building, a metaphor for either the .inconsistent world

Literature was crossing, or the flimsy world of language and fiction itself. A second symbol .is the "Opera", which includes the paradox of "work" and "entertainment", since? .it is work for the author as well as for the players, but entertainment. for the audience. Another symbol could be the play itself, marked by clichês, bad players and a middle class audience, which is not prepared for great art, a possible criticism against commercial art., against the "best, sellers" writers and the middle class consumer.

"The F1oatinq Opera was written in the first three months of 1955; its companion-piece, The? End of the Rostd, in the last three months of the same year, explains their author, but one does not. need to go straight to John Barth to discover that his two first novels are a kind of twin novels, or part and countepart of the same core. Both have as their central theme a case of adultery, or a love triangle; the difference .is that in the first case it ends well, while in the second it. ends in tragedy, in both cases due to the way the "angles" behave. Introducing themselves, both heroes show diametrically opposite behaviors! while Todd goes to bed and sleeps deeply in spite of a storm, Jacob does not sleep well, answers a telephone call and leaves the place in despair.

With The End of the Road (.1.958), John Barth moves one more step backwards. As we have already mentioned, the form imitates the traditional XIX century novel and its content, at least in a superficial reading, fits perfectly in the most usual theme of the period: adultery. Since this novel is the basis of the present work as a whole, besides the considerations we have made at the beginning of this chapter,

.it will be thoroughly analysed in the next chapters and we go to John Barth's next novel.

The Sot.-Weed Factor ( J. 960 ) marks n o t o n 3. y t. h e c o n t i. n u i t y of its author's backwards movement, but also the maturity of his concept of farce making. In "The Literature of

Exhaustion" BARTH himself classifies the? novel as one of

those "novels which imitate the form of the Novel, by an

Author who imitates the role of Author.Its extension - 756 pages - allows the author to include in it most of his

philosophical concepts, which in fact are repeated in any of

his books, with different emphasis. Just to e?xemplifiy,

Ebenezer suffers the same cosmo ps .i s as Todd Andrews and Jacob

Horner and, like the previous heroes, he also has to pass

from ignorance to knowledge through personal experience?, which, by one side makes him lose innocence, but on the other- hand provides him knowledge, the knowledge of the world or cosmology. F o r m a 1 .i s t i c a 11 y speaking, The Sot-Weed Factor is a combination of genres which goes from the Odyssey to the romance, since it includes al least some of their basic characteristics. The reader will not find originality in the traditional sense, since it can be considered a pastiche of many novels and characters widely known .in universal

1 i t e r a t. u re* . It. s o r i g i n a 1 i t y c o n s i s t s i. n B a r t h ' s a p plie a t .i. o n of one of h.is main principles: composing a Beetijoyen ' s symphony in the XX century, but conscious of what the composer is doing. Looking for coherence between form and content, he uses an archaic language that fits the the?me and the time the e vent s happen. There had been an E be:; en er Cooke, a poet who actually lived in the XVIII century**, from there on he integrates language - imitating the way people spoke at the t i. m e , a n d style - b u i 1 d i n g a "pi. c ares q u e" novel, the literary form of the period, in a pe r f e c: t. parody of the

Biblical Genesis as well as of the literary creation.

Written by a computer, GiIes Goat~Boy or The Revised New

Sy 11 abus (1966) is divided in reels ins te? a d of chapters.

WESCAC, the giant computer, represents the collective unconscious, which is the source of myth, ritual and story.

# Jac THARPE, 1977, especially in Chapter 4, "The Po®ology of Paradise" presents a more conplete analysis about the different genres as well as the relationship with known characters in universal literature. it ic 1672-1732) ficierican poet, who was the author of The Sot-Weed Factor; or, ftVoyag e to Haryland (1708),.. The facts of his life are unclear, but he was probably born in England. The Sot-Heed Factor represents him as an Englishman visiting Haryland, but he was probably a colonist and seess to have lived in until his death in 1732. The Sot-üeed factor is a wittily scurrilous satire attacking the crudities of colonial life..." THE ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA, 1970, P. 713. In fact, the computer in modern life represents the accumulation of human knowledge, a kind of new G o ci, which knows everything and overcomes human ability to s tore culture, information, knowledge. It could be compared to a kind of an "artist-god", who, fed by all the necessary i nfor m a ti ans , b e c: o mes a b le to repr o d u c: e t: h e m a n d b u .i 1 d s its own stories. However, in spite? of being a novel of the future, a farce on science fiction which transcends the novels of the period it was w ri 11e n, 6iles Goat Boy will basically repeat John Barth's same philosophical concerns of the? previous novels. Using the character "Bray" as a possible? persona, Barth "introduces himself into his own fiction as a figure who con tro I s events because he? is inventing them"'-', an expedient he will use again in .

What CCD me s after is Lost in the Fun house s F i c t .i on f or

Print., Tape, Live Voice (1968), a book of short s tor-.les, rich in language? as we? 11 as fictional experiments as the title itself suggests. More than in his novels, John Barth invites t h b re a d e? r s t o e n t e r h i s " fun hou s e " , t. he? w o r 1 d o f f i. c t i o n a n d

language, where? he? amuses himself but where he may also get lost. In each of the fourteen tales he emphasises one topic of his literary creeds. Like? in his novels, though repeating old themes, he? goes on saying the same things over and over, as if in his search for craftsmanship there? is always something to be said, due? perhaps to the limitations of

language.

Chimera (1972), his next work, is a col I ectiori of thre?e novellas, which contain numerous references to Arabic. and

Greco-Roman mythology. Earth's admiration for the Greeks and Arabs , who, a c c o r d .i. n g t o h i s o p p .i n i o n , t h r o u g h t h e for m ers' mythology and the latters' One Thousand Nights and One had already exhausted all literary genres, challenged him to imitate his masters. He could only do that, however, .in a farcical way, in order to be faithful to his own principles.

Like Sheherazade, whose imagination cannot know any limits in order to go on telling stories which will keep her alive,

John Barth also frees his imagination, making possible unlimited interpretations. Besides, in a possible reference to the chaotic world in which the artist lives, he plays with language-?, creating puns, neologisms and conundrums, showing the reader how he amuses himself in his "funhouse".

"Bo I decided to return to the earliest form of English fiction, the epistolary novel, and out of that came

Letters.6" Nothing better than listening to the author himself explaining the? genesis of one? of his books. Letters was published .in .1.979 and represents John Barth's return to long fiction writing. In its 772 pages, seven characters,

.including the author, change letters among themselves. Some well known Barth's characters out of previous novels will be

"recycled", like Tod d An d rews an d Jan e Ma c k, f rom The

F 1 oat: in q 0 pera . or Bray, from 0 i 1 es Goa t -Boy . That reinforces our previous observations and we may reach the conclusion that Barth, since his first one, used his books as vehicles

for his literary principles, exploring the coherence between form and content with one basic purposes his theory of

recycling the exhausted forms of Literature through farce was

possible. Besides, the repetition of basic themes, always

.involving adultery, love triangles, existentialism, ontology, etc. intends, perhaps to be a proof that either in life or .in

Literature the concerns are basically the saune and that in at

.least four thousand years of Literature little change has occured inside man. Technologically speaking, man may have developed and been set free .led by a centrifugal force is his cycle, but individually, man is still bound to a centripetal force which always leads him back to the same points his personal experiences through successes and failures. NOTES

1. BARTH, John. The? Literature? of Replenishment - The Atlantic 245 (1): 70, Jan. 1980. 2. The Literature of Exhaustion - The Atlantic 220 (2):33, Aug. 1967. 3. The Floating Opera. New York, Bantam Books, 1972. Prefactory Note.

4. The Literature of Exhaustion, p. 33.

5. THARPE, Jac. John Barth — I he Com .i c Su b 1 .im i t y of Paradox. Car bonda le, Southern University Press, .1977, p. 73.

6. RE ILLY, Charlie?. An Interviews with John Barth. Con temporary Li terature. 22(1): 3, Win ter 1981. 2. Naming or Baptising his Characters?

I intend directly to introduce myself, caution you against certain possible interpretations of my name. .. Todd Andrews is my name... Tod is German for death... Todd is almost Tod, that is, almost death.1

As the reader can see from the excerpt above, John Barth demonstrates a great concern about the names of his characters. In real life a name can be chosen casually, unconsciously just for euphonic reasons, but it may - and that is its prime function - be chosen consciously for qualities one hopes to be either present or developed in the child's personality. Besides, a name can also be used in order to honor somebody special, like a friend, an ancestral in the family stock and so on.

Knowing John Barth's education and the conscious

"building" of his novels, result of much research and thinking*, the reader can take for granted that Barth - the father/author - chose all names of his main characters diligently and intentionally. Furthermore he has a great, advantage over "carnal" fathers, for he previously knows into what his "sons" will be transformed and, thus, can name them more coherently.

* In REILLY, Charlie, fin Interview with John Barth. Contemporary Literature. 22(1): 17, Hinter 1981, the author hinself says: "In this sense a novelist like me can be contrasted with an iceberg: nine tenths of what I know is right there in the novel. That knowledge is picked up by inglorious though, I hope, diligent-homework..." One could find inumerous examples of this perfect integration between the name and the character in John

Barth's work, but, since our aim is to deepen the analysis on

The End of the Road,, let us restrict our observations to the main characters in this novel, beginning with the protagonist arid narrator, Jacob Horner»

"In a sense, I'm Jacob Horner. "•*'•• That is the way the narrator introduce? s h i ms c-? If to his readers. exactly the o p p o s .i t. e? a 11 i t u d e of B a r t h ' s f o r mer hero, To d d And rows , that, spent almost two pages in a careful ex pi aria t icon of the meaning of his name and .its relationship to the story he was going to tell, or of his further protagonist in Gl 1 es Goat.--

Boy, who is very objective by sayings "George is my

name..

After he? finishes reading the novel, the reader-

discovers that a probable reason for being so vague is

because the narrator does not. want, to be identified, though

he feels compelled to tell his story. Thus, as a story needs

characters and characters need names; if things and people

must be labele?d, here you are, this is a name?, a pos s i hie

name. Wearing different masks, playing différents roles, even

suggesting the possibility of moving to a new place and

changing his name? in order to begin a new life, Jacob however

chose? a name - or Barth chose? a name for him - "Jacob

Horner" . Was it., however, a gratuitous choice, as vague as

his first sentence? For the character himself maybe, but

surely not for the? author, John Barth. In order to disccDver

what may be behind this name, let us .imitate Barth and do

some research and speculations. Who was the first known Jacob? The Biblical one, one of

Isaac's twin sons».. the one who was not the father's favourite, for he was not as strong as his brother and did not appreciate the family's tradition of shepherds and farmers. He had to use a trick, a suggestion of this mother

(the doctor?!) in order to get. his father's blessing and then run away from the anger of his brother*. A Christian -•- or jewish - version of Proteus, thus he embodies the figure of the "protean hero" about whom we have talked in the i n t. r cd d u c t i. o n . T tic? sec o ri d n ame, o r t h e ' ' f a m .i. 1 y " name i. s

Horner, and what does such a name mean but "the one? that puts horns" or "one who cuckolds", according to the Webster's New

Twentieth Century Dictionary, a f CD res had owing of what will actually happen in the story? Putting horns, or seducing somebody ! s wife .implies taking away the faithfulness she devotes to her husband, though it does not necessarily mean

cutting all the previous laces. Besides if in early (!)

civilizations it meant death or public punishment, in modern

society, though not open 1 y accepted, .it: has become in most

cases tolerable. It is a sign of new times, where, according

to the hippies' philosophy, nobody belongs to nobody... In

the present case, the husband's anger is riot against the act

.itself, but: it is a question of principles: he wants a

reason, he must find out causes: "What reasons do you

think you might have had?"^,

ft In the Holy Bible, Genesis 27, 36, Esau, after having discovered that his brother had deceived him says: "Is he not rightly nased Jacob? For he has supplanted ne these two times..," And in fact, according to the Webster's Dictionary, the name Jacob aeans the supplanter. asks (.'Joseph Morgan to Horner. It is Joe's incapability to accept that not every act does necessarily have an explanation, or a cause, that leads to the final tragedy.

Transfering this to the? literary field, it could mean the possible ecletical coexistence of literary genres, the exhaustion of original styles and those writers who, due to rigid principles and the insistence in stereotyped forms, will die. Since every form has already been exhaustively explored through the times and after the Greeks and "The One

Thousand Nightsand One" nothing new has been written in

Western Literature, being original and authentic is a concept

that must be rethought.

"Horner" becomes the one that comes and, by his competence - Jacob's articulation power - overcomes what is old, archaic::, surpassed. Smart, enough to sec? that it is

impossible to get originality just by "erasing" the past, one's individuality, the new hero "shares" his opponent's woman, respecting what is good in her, like her discipline and logic, but. also exerts his influence, o pen in g her eyes

for the risks erf absolut.es, or radical pos i Lions and arousing

her individuality, originality; these? are? the "horns" he puts

in his opponent and, thus, he is a "horner".

If "Jacob Horner", especially the family name, may call

the reader's attention while the? story develops, certainly

"Joseph Morgan" doe?s not. However, if one is patient enough

to go to a dictionary he will find out that, according to the

Webster's Dictionary "morgan" is a word that has been used to

designate "any of a breed of strong, .light trotting horses",

originated from the name of the man who introduced that type of horses in the United States of America. If one speculates a little bit. more on the adjective, which apparently is a cognate from German origin "morgen", "morganatic", he discovers it is related to the marriage of a man of the nobility with a woman of .inferior rank... Probably the author was aware of such meaning, for Jacob .is going to use the adjective "morgartesque" and even the expression "Morgan ethics"?, which sounds like "morganatic", referring to the behavior of the Morgans. It is also easy to note that through the whole novel Joseph Morgan will be put in a superior rank either by himself, by Rennie or even by Jacob Horner, the narrator.

The name "morgan" marks the stock, the family name with its .inherent characteristics, its cromossomes arid genes, which determine one's physical appearance and basic behavior.

Descending from a noble breed, Joseph .is molded by tradition, grown in discipline, governed by rules, balanced by a self- control that restrains the personal strength. It is the mixture of all these qualities t:hat will provide him with the b e s t p e r f o r m a n c e . The sai» e h a p p e n s wit h t h e c 1 a s s i c a 1 literature: traditional genres taught to generation after generation, strict rules, objectivity, imitation of nature, impassibility are its basic: principles, with some adaptations according to the historical moment.

The first name, "Joseph" could also be considered a casualty, one of the most popular names in the Western culture, but, coincidence or not, it. is also a biblical name.

There .is more than one Joseph in the Bible, but two of them are more known: Joseph from Egypt, the son of Jacob, who, having been sold by his brothers, saves his people from starvation. The second one .is the one who marks the time of transition from the Old to the New Testament. He was chosen to be Christ's father, but. a stepfather, since his wife, still a virgin for him, had been made pregnant by the Holy

Spirit. Here we may also establish some inferences, since we believe John Barth has intentionally chosen this second

Joseph in order to nominate his fictional character. In the

Bible, Joseph's reaction when he discovered his fiancée was pregnant of a child that, wasn't his was of anger, until the angel came and explained to him what had happened. Mary had been made pregnant by the "Divine Nord", that made himself man, human, concrete. Besides it would mark the passage to a new era... Thus, .in the Bible, "words", through Mary's pregnancy, were transformed into something "real",

"concrete", since Christ's mission was to proclaim a new era to the world, to transform abstract, words into reality...

Inside the great allegory that we have been trying to demonstrate The End of the Road is, the considerations above form, by their allegorical implications, a smaller frame which corroborates the big one. As in the Bible, the postwar period of American literature also means a time of transition from the old to the new; it meant incarnation of the new ideas, of new styles that were being transformed from the merely plan of ideas into a new literary school. And, like any transition, it would only be defined in the years to come, because it also had to live its childhood. And Joseph

Morgan, the character, seems also be a representative of that transitional age, representing the old, that is in charge of .looking after the young, feed them and then be defied by them,. .

" Renn .i. e . Okay? My name's Renée, but nobody calls me that."6 Those are the words through which Rennie Morgan introduces herself, by phone, to Jacob Horner.

The same way we've developed some conjectures about

Jacob and Joseph's names, we are compelled to analyse

Rennie's name. "Renée" is a French word from Latin origin which means "reborn". Since we believe •••- and have tried to demonstrate it John Barth has carefully chosen all the names of his representative characters in the novel, according to what they actually represent; "Renée" corroborates Rennie's symbolical function of Literature itself. Being one angle? of the equilateral triangle, where

Jacob plays the new literary tendencies, Joseph the old or traditional Literature, she represents the personification of

Literature itself, the object of their dispute. "Renée" or

"reborn" would mean the rebirth of 1 .iterature, of a new form, style or genre .of literature. We cannot, forget that. when

Rerinie met Joseph, she erased her past and .individuality to follow him, accepting all his principles. Later Jacob is going to influence her, trying to make her believe in other principles, opposite to those she was blindly following. At the end of the story she dies and here is in fact, where her name grows in significance. In a symbolic world, pagans as well as christians believe in the same paradoxical myth: that death is rebirth; the Greek Phoenix was reborn from the ashes more beautiful than she was before dying and Christ had also to die in order to be reborn in all his power and glory. Therefore., Rennie's death, by the name she carries, means the end of the old Rennie, dominated by Joseph, following him not. because she believed in him, but for gratitude and the beginning of a new Rennie, conscious of her individuality and keeping her inate virtues that had been improved by Joseph's influence: her discipline.

Another important, character in the novel is the Doctor.

While reading the novel, one expects his name will be revealed, but, like in Jacob's case, after having read the whole story, for a question of verisimilitude, the reader- agrees that he should not have a name. Interpreting The End of the Road as an a 11 egory o f f i c t i on w r i t i n g, there is no reason why he Doctor should have a name. "Doctor" itself contains the meaning of his role? .in the story: wisdom, knowledge, study, research, etc.

Thus we conclude? that John Barth, like he had already made in his previous novel and will go on d o .i. n g in his future ones, did not name his characters casually but very conscious 1 y„ 1 choking, through this one mo re artifice, for coherence, a virtue of the writer who pursues craftsmanship.

It also reïirvforcc?s the author's idea that arty good written work is like good jazz music or classic music, where every new "listening" makes possible new discoveries, since one develcDps his musical perception. 4ü:.

3.Sex and Writing: Acts of Creation

On our planet, sir, males and females copulate. Moreover, they enjoy copulating. But for various reasons they cannot do this whenever, wherever ¡,-and with whomever they choose. Hence all this running around that you observe1.

Reading John Barth s books, one becomes puzzled with the many situations .involving sex. Sex seems to be the core of his novels as well as it is the main trace of his book of s ho r t st o ries, Lost in the Funhouse. However, an y c a re fu1 reader would not dare to label Barth as either an erotic or a pornographic writer. Instead of the easy eroticism of subí.i terature, Barth seems to be after the mystery of sex, an experience through which - like writing - man never ceases

.learning. Perhaps that could be an explanation for such a f i X a t. i. o n o n t hi e t h e m e : it is a s t: r u g g 1 e b e t w e e n t f) e instinctive attraction and the intellectual compulsion to understand the process. Besides, there can be established a close relationship between sex and writing, especially when writing involves the "instinctive" search for new possibilities, which .include the new, the unknown, "Sex allows for all the possible quirks of instinct, wish and desire and thus literally incarnates the irrational, something that artists have always wished to do"'-, says Jac

THARPE.

Focusing sex and writing as arts to which one may be introduced just once, but which require a continuous learning throughout the whole of one s life and where only experience, knowledge, and personal sensibility can lead to success, the relationship between both acts, the sexual act and the act. of writing will be a constant in Barth's works. A deep analysis of this theme would deserve a special thesis, therefore, let us give some few examples and then go straight to what is our aim: how Barth explores sex in 7'he End of the Road for his theoretical purposes. In Chimera, a farce based upon The One

Thousand Nights and One, S h e h e r e z a d e only survives joining both acts: the sexual act. and the storytelling act. In Lost

in the Fun house. Barth mixes stories of different, growths: biological growth, intellectual growth and sexual maturity.

In the specific tale "Night-Sea Journey" Barth describes the

trip of a sperm till it fecundates the female egg, meaning,

according to John Barth himself-', the intellectual

fecundation of an idea. Besides that., if one observes the evolution of John Barth's heroes in his tales and novels, he

will discover that their main transformations occur in two

fields: in art and in love, A good example would be Ebenerer

Cooke, the protagonist of The Sot-Weed Factor, who evolves

from a false poetical ability and casual virginity to

maturity in both fields through experience and knowledge of

the world.

Since our aim is to observe how John Barth explored such

relationship .in The End of the Road, let us begin by

analysing more specifically Jacob Horner, the narrator and

protagonist, under a sexual perspective.

Jacob does not escape the general rule in E«arth s

novels, - where all protagonists show, in a way or another,

some sexual disturbance. Todd Andrews, in The Flooting Opera, has a prostate .infection through which he ..justifies his low

sexual appetite; Jacob Horner affirms! ". . .for I was not., as a

rule, heavily sexed."^ and Ebenerer Cooke is a virgin and so

on. Jacob, the character that actually interests us here, demonstrates an unusual behavior concerning sex, as we can

deduce from his intercourses with Miss E'amkin as well as with

Fv'ennie Morgan, where he shows some «sadism. But sex, in the

present case, only matters while it can be related to

Li terature.

The relationship between sex and writing is not Barth s

privilege, though probably few writers have explored such

relationship as exhaustively as he did* . A11egori ca11y

speaking, both acts can be seen as acts of creation as well

as both can lead to either .infinite pleasure or deep

f r u strati o n ; in s e x we have the p ft y s .i. c a 1 c r e a t i. o n , while i n

writing we have the intellectual creation. Returning to Jacob

Horner, at the beginning of his staying irt Wicomico, he had

the chance of meeting Peggy, the teacher of English. She was,

according to Jacob's words, "such an obvious target"*1 that,

in spite of having been looking for a sex affair, the

development of their relation becomes a real fiasco. In

literary terms, she could be classified as "easy 1 iterature":

no challenge, no attraction at all. Even when, later on,

excited by the classroom environment, by the "smell" of sex,

Jacob goes to Peggy's home, his motivation is only physical

*. Gustave FLAUBERT, «hose work is frequently isentioned by John Barth as one of the marks of literature, already used the isetaphor by saying: "Reserve ton priapisne pour le style, foutre ton encrier..." in: FONSECA, Rubens. Bufo & Spailanzani. RJ, Francisco Alves, 19B5, p. 2. 48

and, in order to get her laid, he plays Morgan s role. He is not himself, he is applying mythotherapy, imitating, in a farcical way. He socks her, saying he respects her and .it works. This can be interpreted again as an allusion to easy literature making: an archaic technique (from the caveman...) allied to a bad subject. - form and content. -- may work, but it has no consistency, it can only be a farce, a fake.

With Ren rile it was different. Although the narrator dennies any attraction to her, he is disturbed by her since their first contact. Her first call to him, without having personally met him yet, intrigued Jacob and arose in him a feeling of anger ; perhaps even the fact of Jacob being naked in his room when she called him up may be seen as a connotation of being disarmed, giving her some advantage.

Jacob s insistence in denn y i ng any attraction to her: "1 f e 11: fine, Rennie Morgan, to whom I was introduced, was by no means my idea of a beautiful woman may also suggest, exactly the opposite, for if he had not been attracted, he did not have to justify it. Step by step Jacob is going to change his opinion and her "clumsy force", as he classifies, allied to

Rennie s discipline in riding - a quality Peggy lacked ("The lady had talent but no discipline")'7 - will provoke in him at least the intention of deserving some consideration from

Rennie. In order to achieve his goal, he uses all his masterys the power of articulation.

During long talks at the pine grove, where they used to rest. and talk, he is going to do his best to seduce Rennie, not in sexual, but in philosophical terms. Their sexual intercourse might nest have been premeditated, but they had been so much involved that .it could be seen as a natural consequences sex, or physical contact was the only inner part of their selves they hadn't shared yet. Renriie had exposed herself, had wept, had re-evaluated her behavior, had shared her anguishes, though always deffending Joseph, and Jacob had been touched by her fragility, had felt himself responsible for having destroyed her illusions. In a way they had become accomplices sharing secrets they could never talk about with

Joseph.

In literary terms, Renriie may represent to Jacob (the narrator/the author) the attraction of the new, the challenging of the difficult conquest. 'The? writer does not know exactly what is in front of him. He has a vague idea, a germ - like iri the "Night-Sea Journey" - that puzzles him, not ripened yet, a mystery he feels compelled to clarify and suddenly it. happens,, with no logical explanation, like the sexual .intercourse .involving Jacob and Renriie. After it has been caught, worked out, like in Jacob s case, it loses immediate? interest, unless there is art extra motivation. The developing of the imposed relationship by Joseph on Jacob and

Rennie serves the purpose of this extra motivations Jacob only becomes excited when in a contrary mood of that of

Rerinie and the repetition of their sexual act becomes a real farce, marked by irony, sarcasm, arid sadism on Jacob s part.

Re-enacting their sexual affair as a farce, with malice, sadism, masoquism, guilt, it becomes a farce that will lead to a real tragedy, Rennie s death. It did not affect Jacob, but .it was a disaster for Renriie. The difference is that

Jacob, by his characteristics, was conscious it was a farce and he could even transform that farce into good art, with a competent performance: he takes Rennie in his arms, puts her on bed and makes sex - but certainly not love - to her. For

Rennie, however it was impossible?, because she could not see it as a farce and that would destroy her. Their first and certainly unique sexual affair had finished there?, in bed;

it had been complete and exhausted - it had been a whole night of hard sex making. T o force? its re? enactment was a s t u p i d i t y , like m cd d e r n w r i t ers c cd u 1 ci d o b y f o r c i n g t. h e? use of thoroughly explored genres, unless they d i d it. intentionally as a farce. What makes the? difference is that they know, they are conscious it. is a farce and deal with it in a farcical way. Barth exemplifies this in his "The Literature of

Exhaustion", where he states that to compound a Beethoven's

symphony today would be? ridiculous, unless the author were

doing .it in a conscious imitation, that is: a farcei::!.

The only time Jacob tells he became? sexually very

excited was in h.is first day as a teacher at the Wicomico

Teaching College?, as we have mentioned before. Then he makes

some considerations about the human obsession for sex. It is

what people most enjoy doing, spend most of time thinking

about, but which paradoxically also offers more restrictions s

one? cannot. do it. "whenever, wherever and with whomever he

wants". It is one more.of the many human paradoxes, perhaps

compared to that. of communication, especially written

communication: the? re are too many norms, to CD many constraints

that it becomes a too difficult task, a restricted pleasure.

Bes.ide?s, Jacob's excitement began .inside? the classroom - a

place of in te 1 lect.ua! activity, what, linkes the two aspects once? more?. It was also Jacob s success .in defeating an impertinent pupil inside the classroom with his power of artieu1 ation that prepared his positive mood and made him successful in his sexual perfarmance when Rennie visited him the second time. As it. had also been his articulation that convinced Peggy Ramkin to have a second sexual intercourse •- a real farce, we must stress -••• making her believe he respected her more than any man had before,, after having socked h e r , i. n a t e s t o f Jo s e p h Morgan s p r .i. n c .i. p 1 e s .

T h e r e f o r e, e i t h e r f o r s e x o r m e n t a 1 e x e r c i s e , J a c: c:» b

Horner had to be, in a way or another, challenged, what approaches both aspects once more. He could become a long time "weatherless" , .if no specific demand was made on him as we?ll as he would be "as unarousable as a gelding"''' unless a

"target worth the a m m u n .i t. .i. o ri " ^ a p p e a r e d .

Let us analyse also the other characters' behavior k e e p i n g .in m i n d t his sexual p e r spec t .i v e.

Having been written in the first person point of view,

Joseph Morgan s and Rennie Morgan s par t i ei pa t: i en is restricted to Jacob s narration and limited to the love triangle they've lived. Little is known about Joseph Morgan s oppinion, unless that he wanted an explanation for what had happened and both, Jacob and Rennie, had none. Again the mystery of sex. Jacob tries to find out, and so does Rennie, what could have led the?m to make love, but there is not a clear answer. For Rennie it might have been an unconscious revenge against Joseph s behavior, when she and Jacob caught

him masturbating : "Jake, you know what? I wish I'd been struck blind before I looked in that window. That s what started everything»"'-1 Joseph Morgan s behavior towards se:-; seems to be a very controlled and pragmatic one» According to the narrative he makes to Jacob when he tells him how he? had met Rennie, Joseph was a largely experienced man concerning to se:;» Ile had been able to bathe Rennie when lie first met her, sleep beside her without bothering her and he only made

love to her when she decided to follow him as a kind of disciple. The "new sweetness" he showed af ter coming back from Washington and his tenderer behavior to Rennie seemed to be for the purpose of developing in her the feeling of gui.lt in order to make tier confess her weakness and dépendance on

11 i m , :i. n s t e a d o f 1 o ve»

However, in spite-? of his apparent control, Jacob also hides some sexual disturbance, since he is caught masturbating, a habit; he? probably grows when he is alone, which may suggest that his sexual relationship with his wife

or with women in general does not satisfy him. It may also be .interpreted as a distorted idea of sel f sufficiency :

he considers himself a complete and perfect prototype of the

American Pragmatism, who belongs to a superior rank of

people?. Among his values, faithfulness is a very important, o n e, t h u s m a s t u r b a t i. o n s o 1 v e s h i s f r u s t r a t i o n s ». » P e r h a p s

inside? such a behavior one could include those? many writers

which have developed two paralel types of art; one for their

public and another, a very p r .i. v a t e one, usually published

after their death, where their frustrations, their inner

selves are revealed ; an art that is free of 1 iterary, social

or moral rules, but that most. readers would certainly

classify pejoratively as "mental "... Such kind of art, the trad.i tiona .1 literature which Joseph Morgan \ represents does not dare to show, since it goes against, their very concept of literature, but BARTH, with his long novels, his exhaustive repetitions etc. suggests that the act. of writing itself, as well as the man behind the writer, should be part of any literary work and, thus nothing should be

hidden.

Rennie, according . to her husband s words was still a maiden when she met him. She had tried a sexual intercourse

with a young friend, after being completely drunk and which

became a vexation. Therefore, Joseph Morgan, her husband and

master, had .in fact been her first man. All Rennie knew about

sex as well all she believed in had been provided to her by

Joseph. Her husband s pragmatism had given her two children

and sexual balance, but probably she lacked something else,

as her wild behavior shows in her love making to Jacob the

night, they spent together.

From Joseph words! "...she'd never slept, with any man

before." we can deduce that he appreciated the fact that.

Rennie had been only his. Thus she was the pure muse of the

classics; the pure marble stone that could be transformed

into a Venus, a behavior that certainly fitted perfectly to

the Greeks, but could not. be accepted in modern society,

unless in a farcical way. In fact, Rennie was already ' a

virgin when Joseph met. her only because she had not been

audacious enough to lay with a man, because she was ignorant

in terms of sex, what confirms BARTH s concept of virginity

as a synonym for ignorance. Thus, .in spite of being se« just a secondary theme inside the story, it is sex that will start the wheel of new experiences for all the characters, mainly the hero s.

Although Jacob defines himself as "lightly" sexed, it is his

.insubordination to sex that will lead him to a tragic relationship which destroys a friendship and kills a woman.

It .is also sex that opens all the characters' eyes, forcing them to face the facts and to re-evaluate the;ir lives. Even though nobody .in the novel considers sex as an important value in their lives, it is exactly sex that will force them to grow.

Jacob learnt he ought to be more rational and careful in acting, thinking to which extent he could act without destroying values like friendship: "God, I feel weak! I said.

The enormity of the? injury I'd done Joe was almost too painful to bear"*-*. Joseph Morgan should have learnt that blind rationalism does not explain everything and may lead to disaster, for human beings are not necessarily logical beings. Rennie had to die to "learn" that ontology precedes cosmology and, thus, she had to follow her individuality, things in which she actually belived instead of following and parroting rules which anihilated her personality.

Inside the great allegory in which John Barth transforms his novel The End of the Road, sex and writing become almost synonyms. Like sex, writing, as an act, may have mysterious developments. Once the writer begins a line, the result is usually unknown and may lead to several interpretations, affecting people in different ways. Even the sexual

"fragility" of John Barth's protagonists - who usually represent the writer as the hero - is the artist s options he chooses to tell stories instead of making love. It is a

choice for .intellectual rather than physical pleasure. It is

the choice Ambrose - an avatar of the invention of fiction as well as John Barth s codename when writing autobiographical

tales - had to make in Lost in the Funhouse, where if on one

hand he fails in sex, on the other hand he .is successful in dealing with language. It is also the same choice Jacob

Horner had to make, for using language and his articulation

power he was successful, while making love led him always

into problems. NOTES

1. BARTH. ER, p. 106

2. THARF'E, Jac. John Barth - The Comic Sublimity of Car bonda le and Edwardsvi11e, Southern "~ï 11 inois University Press, 1977, p. 5-6.

3. REILLY, Charlie. An Interview with John Barth. Contemporary Literature 22 (.1)! 21, 1991.

4. BARTH. ER, p. 98

5 . . ER, p. 30

6. . ER, p. 37

7. . ER, p. 36

Q• • John. The Literature of Replenishment. The Atlantic. 245 (.1) : 31, 1980.

9. . ER, P- 112

10. . ER, P- 28

11. . ER, P- 156

12. . ER, P* 129

13. . ER, P- 117 4. The End of the Road - Different Levels of Reading

My own analogy would be with good jazz or classical musics one finds much on successive listenings or close examination of the score that, one didn't catch the first time through; but the first time through should be so ravishing - and not just to specialists •-- that one delights in the replay*.

A superficial reading of The End of the Road would present one more of the traditional love triangles which usually end in tragedy, a theme as old as Literature itself*.

A more mystical reader could perhaps find .in it a perfect allegory of the biblical Genesis: God, performed by Joseph

Morgan, testing human kind in the figure of Eve, represented by Rennie Morgan, who is tempted by a disguized Satan - Jacob

Horner. A third possible interpretation, following John

Barth s recipe, could be seeing the whole plot as an allegory of the fictional genesis, the building of a literary piece of work .

The first reading does not deserve any special analysis, since it represents the interpretation of the ordinary reader, to whom probably only two main aspects would be significant and remain in his minds, at least until a new novel would be read: the strong impressionistic scenes and the cathartic effect of its reading.

# In TANNER, Tony. Adultery in the Novel - Contract and Transgression. Baltisore, The John Hopkins University Press, 1981, p. 12 ne read: "Adultery as a phenosenon is in evidence in literature fro« the earliest tistes, as in Hoaer (and indeed we sight suggest that it is the unstable triangularity of adultery, rather than the static syaetry of sarriage, that is the generative fors of Hestern literature as we know it)." The second interpretation would be reinforced throughout the novel, where Joseph Morgan acts like God and, according to his wife s classification: "He s God, she said. He s just

Godhe is. In fact Joe looks like God; not the half-human gods the Greek mythology has created, with eventual falls due to their human part, but the original and unique Jew or

Christian God: strong, correct, no vices at all - not even the small ones like smoking - superior,with the power of relief and punishment in his hands; an uncommon and bright intelligence to whom everything must have a reason, a cause and, thus, an explanation. Like the biblical God, he also created a being according to his own image - Renriie -, gave her his spirit, molded her from mud, for, before knowing

Joseph, Rennie was nothing but a disformed mass, a disorientated and desperate young girl with no spiritual values at all. He took her out of the gutter and offered her a reason for living. Like God - in a Christian concept however, he does riot accept neither a meaningless adoration nor a blind and irrational love. He gave his creation the

free-will, and free-will must be tested. But the test will only be worthy if the opponent is also a superior man. Then

"Satan" - Jacob Horner - appears. Clever, persuasive, he

fools everybody at the College and dares to subestímate God s

- Joe s - intelligence, throwing irony, his well known

weapon, against him. He shows an unusual power of

articulation allied to a compulsive questioning. He deserves

the job. The next step .is an easy task, just a question of

logic: friendship to a lonely newcomer, good talking,

curiosity, intellectual challenge, some strategy, like the riding lessons, and time...

Jacob Horner fits perfectly in Satan's role and the

"satanic hero" was a common labeling to many of the existential heroes of the postwar period, according to

Richard LEHAN^. His role becomes even explicit, when Rennie

.identifies him as the devil about whom she had dreamt. In the referred dream Joe had become friendly to the devil and had

.invited him to test her. Jacob himself had already suspected of his role and after Rennie tells him her dream he confirms it: "Am I supposed to be a devil's advocate then? I'd be a damned good one"^. In spite of knowing both what may be going on, they continue playing their roles and the result, we know, is like the one in the biblical genesis: the fall. Eve

(Rennie) succumbs and when God (Joe) asks her the ultimate question: "why", like the first. EEve, she answers with evasives, an attitude which does not satisfy the creator.

From this point on, like in the Edible, Eve (Rennie) grows .in

importance and will be the center of the plot. But, differently from the original fall, where a promise of

redemption is made, here, in a nihil.istc-existential world,

there is no final salvation and no hope as well. It is just one more cycle in the history of human failures, where there are personal experiences, private learning but. no collective

evolution in the basic human values...

Although a second "listening" may suggest to us the

interpretation above, a "close examination" of the novel and

a deeper analysis on John Barth's work will surely .induce us

to .interpret. The End of The Road as an allegory of the

fictional creation. In a chaotic world, with a mess of different theories and no fixed values, Joseph Morgan represents the traditional or classic literature, Jacob Horner, the new literature that is arising and Rennie, literature itself, disputed by two opposing forces or tendencies. And more than the final result of this dispute, what, counts is how John Barth - the author - mainly through his characters' speeches and also through the plot, impregnates the novel with his fictional concepts and the current theories of his time.

Writing his story in the 1st., person point of view, narrating a fact that had already happened involving himself as the main character, the novel uses what Gérard Genette called the "Autodiegetic narrator"'5, which, through the name and mask of Jacob Horner, may, in a wider sense, represent

John Barth himself. As the creator of all the characters, the author, looking for verisimi1 itude, wears all their masks, but one or some of them may be used as an extension of his own creeds, of his own self. Besides, for an author that seems to believe that human life is in fact a constant performance during which one must wear different masks and play roles he is assigned with, being this one of the main philosophical subjects from his two first novels, it is also possible that, like his heroes, he changes his Jacob Horner's mask to put on his Joseph Morgan's one. Both characters, Joe and Jake, on the other hand, could also, by their $ntagonism¡¡ represent not. only an external fight that was happening in the fictional field, but also the internal and personal struggle John Barth was facings at one end his school and familiar education, his superego, a kind of Joseph Morgan, with his rules, principles and American pragmatism; at the other end his anxiety for freedom, his suspicion of the imposed values, a questioning about his education, his Id, an existentialist Jacob Horner exciting his instincts, building his own laws and principles.

Rennie, the third angle of the equilateral triangle one of John Barth's recurrent motives - represents the mask of the literary "ego". When she meets Jacob Horner she is already doomed by Joseph's influence; she had accepted his indoctrination and Jacob will find just, a little germ of individuality in her. She is also married to Joseph Morgan, what., in a traditional view at least, means she is linked to him, submissive to him and dependant on him, like Literature has usually been linked to and dependant upon academic rules throughout History*. After having met. Jacob and being apparently sure at the beginning, Rennie's eyes will be gradually opened by Jacob. He will finally possess her too, having sexual .intercourses with her, divide her pregnancy with Joseph in a possible allusion to a mutual influence of

two apposite literary currents on the same piece of work which ends in tragedy because of the radicalism of Joseph

Morgan who behaves against the rules of a tolerant modern

"cosmos" . „ .

As secondary characters, but. not less important in the

whole context, we can mention the Doctor and Laocoon, even

# In spite of several examples of insubordination to the "status quo", which marked great nanes of literature as exceptions to the rule, like Cervantes, Chaucer, Sterne and others, most writers have been slaves of literary norss established by Literary schools. being the latter a simple plaster bust. The Doctor - either a wise or a crank in Jacob's own words - represents a very common figure of the postwar novels and a permanent one in

Barth's novels. The Doctor plays the same role as "Dahfu" in

Samuel Bellow's Henderson the Rain King or "Burlingame" in

The Sot-Weed Factor. to whom we can attribute the personification of knowledge, wisdom and to whom the protagonist usually runs when he needs advices, informations and so on.

Among the few objects that Jacob Horner had taken with him to Wicomico there were a record-player, some Mozart records and a plaster bust of Laocoon, the Trojan priest that had advised his people not to accept the wooden horse from the Greeks, since he suspected it was a trap. In spite of his comic connotations, for the bust had been sculpted by an uncle who died of influenza in the First World War, Laocoon's image works as a kind of Jacob's "alter ego". Jacob transfers to him his own characteristics and the face of the bust

changes according to Jacob's suspicious side, or his conscience, the voice which alerted him against, the risks he was running, though, like the Trojans, Jacob did not listen to him and the result, like what happend to them, was d e a t h.

At the end, having not listened to him, Jacob abandons the

bust, the same way the Trojans abandoned their priest to be

killed by the twin serpents, for there was nothing to do unless learning the lesson and, having finished a cycle,

begin everything again.

If one intends to give a literary meaning to Laocoon, he

could, perhaps, represent .instinctive knowledge, or intuition, since that was the way he "suspected" the presence of the Greeks inside the wooden horse. Such a quality would

close the main characteristics John Barth seems to expect

from a writer and each of the main characters in the novel is

important according to the importance Barth gives to what he

represents. Thus, Jacob Horner, representing the new cycle of

Literature, modern, rebel, with a new proposal, is the

protagonist 5 Joseph Morgan, the traditional Literature,

dislocated, fighting to keep his values, but forced to leave

the? sceru?ry, occupies a shorter though important place;

Rennie Morgan, Literature itself, will be disputed and die

since she did not accept the new Literature and could not. go

on living a farce; her death would mean the birth of a new

era. She? is also in a lower rank if one considers the battle

between Jacob and Joseph. The Doctor, through his sporadic

appearances, shows the limits of his; importance, the eventual

consultations to books, the intellectual .improvement, always

necessary and of basic importance, but: which can never-

overcome personal knowledge and experience. Finally, Laocoort,

who means: intuition, se?lf reflexion, ..one's inner self, which

must be also consulted, which prescribes prudence, suspicion

against: undeserved gifts, appears more or less ten times,

mentioned by the narrator, indicating it must exist and be

respected, but as the least important of the qualities,

otherwise .it may increase the risk of cosmopsis and work

against the writer by inhibiting his production.

Now, in order to organize the detailed analysis the

present work requires, let us begin with the protagonist and

narrator, Jacob Horner, whrj, we believe, represents in the

novel the new fiction that is rising among the chaos in which

had been transformed the literary field of the fifties. <••1

NOTES

i. BARTH, John. The Literature of Replenishment, The Atlantic., 245 < 1 ) s 70, Jan. .1980.

2. BARTH. ER, p. 155.

3. L..EHAN, Richard' Existentialism in Recent American Fictions The Demonic Quest. In: WALDHE IR, Joseph. Recen t American 'Fiction - Some? Critical Views . B o s ton, Michigan State Uni vers .i ty , 1963.

4. BARTH. ER, p. 73.

5 » 6 E N E T T E , Gera r d . F .1 g u r e s o f L1 terar y Discours e. Oxford, Blackwell, 1982

i III - THE CHARACTERS AS LITERARY AVATARS

J.. Jacob Horner - a Hero with Many Masks arid Tasks

It's ex treme? 1 y .i. (n p o r tan t t h a t you learn to assume these masks wholeheartedly. Don't think there's anything behind them! there isn't. Ego means I, and I means ego, and the ego by definition is a mask.*

Instructing his client, the Doctor seems to be antecipating Irving Goffman's theory of man as a performer, mainly when he talks about wearing masks and role playing. On the? other hand, John Barth can also be showing some possible

.influence of J o s e p h CAMPBEL. ' s The Hero with a Thousand

Faces.2 The fact is that John Barth designates his hero,

Jacob Horner, so many tasks that he seems the Greek hero

Hercules and the several works he had to perform. If the

1 a iter had to carry on su per human jobs that. required an uncommon physical effort allied to intelligence and sagacity, this new hero must use all his articulation power in order to preach his creator's ideas to an incredulous audience .in a chaotic wor1 d.

Jacob Horner confesses himself unable to act. as one self and considers himself a sum of many different selves. His behavior demonstrates a paradoxical persjona.li.ty ruled by

"weathered" arid "unweathered" days as well as with a very personal concept of "good and bad" or "right and wrong". Such a hero seems to be the avatar of the rebel author himself, who wears different masks in order to make his ideas known.

When Jacob introduces himself by saying: "In a sense, I'm Jacob Horner"-* he may be suggesting this epbernera 1 and

circumstantial existence of the fictional character who only

exists while verbalizing, or while the author keeps him alive

for any specific reason.

While telling his story, making himself known to his

listener, the reader, this character is going to reveal his

secrets, his feelings and opinions, as a vehicle of the

author himself, because he is a product of the author's mind.

This fictional existence can be confirmed by Rennie's words:

"I think you don't even exist at allor "You are not real

like Joe is"^.

Though Jacob Horner does not give the reader a

biography, there is one consistent information about him: he

was going to take a master's degreee in English literature,

and it was literature that he intended to teach at the

Wicomico Teaching College, but. the Doctor forbade it because

of its potential, dangers for his cosmopsis, since Literature

suggests too many choices, exactly what, was happening to

postwar 1 .i tera ture.

The idea of Jacob's cosmopsis itself may refer to the

paralysis the writer was feeling in front of so many

possibilities: different genres, styles, subjects, theories,

but no fixed values and nobody sure enough to show the way.

In Jacob's words: "There is an art. that my diffuse education

had schooled me in perforce: the art of composing a telling

.letter of appl i cation we can see an allegation to the

technical competence of the writer with his also "diffused"

education, undecided about what to do with it. This

competence will be reinforced when, faced with a practical situation, where he does not need to choose but merely apply his ability, Jacob shows a brilliant: performance, convincing the teachers at the Wicomico Teaching College, overcoming even the most, renitent, Joseph Morgan, and getting the job.

Such an ability to deal with words, or the obsession for the right word, a sign of artistry and craftsmanship so many times observed in Barth's work is also present .in Jacob when he examines the furniture in his new room and classifies the beds "The adjective corn petent came at once to my mind rather than, say, efficientBesides, Jacob Horner is going to show through the? story a large and well made use of metaphors which corroborates his care in using words.

The very fact of being Jacob Horner the character who arrives at a place may suggest the advent, of a new genre, as well as of somebody with a specific mission. As we have already said before, Jacob seems to be representing a new literary solution, a new direction for a fiction that seemed to be in a crossroad. Therefore, his many tasks are going to be showing his author's literary creeds, through the roles he plays. As he represents the author, we have, then, the writer as the hero...

1.1 The Writer as the Hero

"In life, he said, there are no essentially major or minor characters. To that extent, all fiction and biography, and most historiography, are a lie. Everyone .is necessarily the hero of his own .life story."8 Though it is not our aim, as we explained at the beginning of the present, work, to enter the phi. losophical issues strongly discussed in Barth's novels, we cannot escape from it when it involves the fictional process. One of the cyclic slogans in John Barth's work .is that "ontology

recapitulates cosmology", and thus, the knowledge of the world is the basis for knowing one's self and for attaining maturi ty.

At. a first, glance that, would not look different from the many stories one has read since his youth: a young man leaves his village to perform an uncommon feat which proves he can be considered a man and enjoy the advantages of manhood.

Parallel to adultery, it. has certainly been one of the most ancient themes in Literature, as Oedipus Rex can exemplify.

Originality here consists in taking the writer as the hero as well as emphasizing not. the heroic actions but the formative process of the hero.

Probably Barth's novel which gives more relevance to this topic is Giles Goat-Boy, that can be summarized as a

tale of a hero's experiences. However one can also discover it very easily in The Floating Opera, where, according to Jac

Tharpe, "flesh and devil are Todd's tutors..."9 or in The

Sot-Weed Factor, with the .ingenuous Ebenezer Cooke being taught by the experient Henry Burlingame and especially by

the several tragicomic adventures in which he .is involved.

The End of the Road would certainly be not an exception to

the rule and there Jacob, in spite of being a cynic, is in

fact an ignorant one, since the only knowledge he has is the

theoretical one, acquired from the books he had read. If in The Floating Opera the relationship writer/hero is easily identified, since we have a narrator who tells explicitly how difficult he finds to write a novel, for he had failed in writing an ordinary Inquiry, in The End of the

Road t his r e 1 a t i o n s h i p i s i m p 1 .i c i t.. 11 i s t h e n a r r a t o r ' s passage from ignorance to knowledge,, through actual experiences which suggest the writer's evolution.

When Jacob Horner meets the-? Doctor and begins his therapies with him, he .is lost in a well of paradoxes which p a r a 1 y s e ti i m . H e t) a d d e v e 1 o p e d t. h e a b i 1 i t y t. o s e e t) o t h s .i. des of everything; for any good reason, he could find a bad one; any virtue could be? seen as a vice, depending on the point of view. He takes absurd attitudes like doing everything, putting all possible obstacles not. to ho 1 d the room that he had in fact liked very much; all that for a "normal" person would be "right", he considers "wrong", and "good" for him meant, "bad"... Higly individualistic, Jacob's main concern is

"to be at ease?", a recurrent, expression one finds; throughout, the • book, mainly at the beg .inn .ig, which is also a sign of personal evolution or ontology. A manic depressive, or a

"woofer without a tweeter", according to his own classification, he? can sit for hours ir» his room:: as he? believes that "nothing has intrinsic value" (one of the main maxims Todd Andrews had dis;cove?red in The? Floating Opera ) , nothing deserves his enthusiasm or his feelings. He only reacts when he is chai1enqed: by the whole school staff, by

Dr. Schott's secretary, by Joseph Morgan, by Rennie?, by a pupil, etc. The little we know from Jacob's biography .informs us that he has read and studied to write a thesis in English .70

literature, but he gave up at the moment of turning .ideas

into action. Thus, he has the theories, the abstract,

knowledge acquired from books, but he is not going to achieve

his goal, because he lacks practice and the knowledge of life

that the Doctor will demand from him afterwards. John Barth's words in "The Literature of Exhaustion" would serve Jacob as

an advice: "It's easier and sociabler to talk technique than

it is to make art.Jacob Horner may represent the "fresh"

or potential writer, who knows a lot about literature,

philosophy, etc. but who actually never wrote a line. The

more he reads, the more he discovers that all .literary forms

a n d s u b j e c t. s have al r e a d y b e e n ex p 1 o red and e :: h a usted.

Stucked by such a "cosmopsis", the medicine is going back to

the Doctor, who will prescribe "mythotherapy", or the

imitation of a model. This has been the basis of all the

Western Literature since Aristotle; it is the mimetic school

that has dominated art for centuries, a good therapy for

those who do not: know how to start, but. that is not: enough

for great art, at least if it lacks .improvement or an

individual, original touch.

In his second visit to the Doctor, which may be

interpreted as the writer's consultation to books, his study,

his research, Jacob was orientated towards "Informational

Therapy", or the "knowledge or the world"; instead of logic

he should dedicate himself to study practical, objective

things, even if they were of no .immediate application.

Couldn't that be interpreted as a prescription for young

writers that should direct their efforts towards concrete

work, towards the act or writing itself in order to overcome their paralysis? The Doctor also recommends: "Take long walks, but always to a previously determined destination..." H and that, sounds as an advice John Barth himself has applied in his books: long novels, compulsive writing that. talks about the art. of writing, but sure of where that will .lead him, because he does have a predetermined goal. Mythotherapy is, then, a means but not an end, as recognizes Jacob; it works, but it also lacks value, when it is a simple imitation, like the one he was performing in front, of the Doctor. It had been necessary a real experience to open Jacob's eyes, to shake his feelings and operate the transformation from ignorance into knowledge in him. First, he is forced by Joseph to assume his participation in the triangle and later by the Doctor, who obliged him to watch and help Rennie's abortion, suf fering and death. Not. only the Morgans, by their lack of .imagination had been led to destruction, but he also, by his inconsequence had contributed to .it. And, though he may externally sound cynic- after Rennie's death: "At. the moment Rennie was lowered into

the earth, I believe I was explaining semicolons to my students"-*-*', Jacob is for the first time touched in his

inner; a change had happened and he confirms .it: "We've come

too far and learned too much', I said to Laocoon - 'Of those of us who have survived to this age, who can live any longer in the war Id?" Laocoon ' s bust, left behind is certainly the

symbol of the abandoned mythotherapy, which will be substituted by the "scriptotherapy" , that. Jacob lives and

applies while writing his story. At the end of his experience, Jacob could finally perform the task he had not been able before with his

theoretical knowledge: writing a book. That does not imply

that study, culture, research are not important, and Efarth uses his novel to stress that too, but it roa y suggest that

practice becomes essential in writing. Besides the content,

however, that suggests the personal experience, or the

process of wri.tt.ing itself as a possible theme, the writer

shall not forget the formal aspect, for both are the main structures of literature.

.1.2 The Hero inside his Funhouse

He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But. he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator - though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed.*^

It is certainly in his Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera

that. John Barth liberates his creative geniality. Ambrose,

the author's persona .in the first one, as well as the

narrator of the tale "Anonymiad" have the power of inventing

fiction. In the second book, the author himself can travel

through time and appear, centuries before his real existence,

to Sheherazade and her sister to help the former inspiring

her with her own stories, since - like the omniscient author

- he already knew them all... Through short, stories and

novellas, Barth summarizes his artistic universe in those two

books, ranging from linguistic motifs, like in the already mentioned "Night-Sea Journey", stressing the writer's concern about form and content in any literary production; linguistic ambiguity, or the limitation as well as the conventionality of language?, in "Ambrose, his Mark", to thematic and philosophical motifs, which include the iridescences of love and art.

However, if not: with the same audacity, probably due to the prudence of a writer who was beginning his career and even suffering the editors' influence to have his books published, Barth's first two novels make clear references to form and content, showing the artist inside his "funhouse".

Therefore, Jacob Horner, among his many tasks as the author's avatar, bearing the fate of being an "artist/hero", will also be in charge of exposing his creator's concepts concerning form an d con ten t..

At the beginning of the book the narrator says s "Bu t I'd forgotten my pen and my briefcase, which, though empty, 1 thought it fitting to carry."-'"-"', before going to his interview with Dr. Schott, the College director, whom he wanted to .impress. It can be seen as an allusion to the values - although false -•• modern society gives to formal i ty, to appearance and, by extension, to .literary form. Modern man may have lost the meaning of rites but still appreciates the rituals.

Reading John Barth's articles and interviews, one will understand it as an allusion to a literature which is displaced from its time. In "The Literature of Exhaustion", for instance, he talks about a literature that still cultivates exhausted forms, following or "aping" the XIX .74

century movei, and in "The Literature of Replenishment", thirteen years later, he criticises those writers who, during

the first half of this century, had foregrounded language and technique so much that they forgot the content. Both, in John

Barth's opinion, are mistaken. The first ones by using exhausted forms, which would only be valid if used in a

"farcical way"; the latters because they were also carrying an "empty briefcase", a bright new form,' but. with no content, or so hermetic nobody would understand.

A second task the narrator undertakes is discussing the use of language .in literature: .its possibilities as well as

its restrictions to perform the act of communication. Playing with words, which are his "funhouse", Barth many times admits getting lost inside it. and, since his first novel, The

Floating Opera, he brings language and the process of

communicating to the fore?, foregrounding language not. by

doing linguistic experiments like his predecessors, but discussing it. in its possibility of expressing what man

actually wants to say. In |'he End of the Road Barth uses ..the

narrator - not for chance a teacher of English Grammar ~ to discuss the linguistic subject.. The incident during one

Grammar class is put in the book with the purpose of

discussing the conventionality of language, which restricts

its ability of designating things, of representing reality.

The narrator's behavior, playing the "ex-catedra" teacher is

fallacious and will end with the paradox that: "The great

rebel is the man who wouldn't change society for anything in

the world"16. The? passage is highly ironic:. The teacher-

disliked the student and was looking for a chance to humiliate him, for he was one of those "impertinent Joe

Morgan type"-'"'7, who, being pragmatic, wanted to lay paths where people walk, instead of using the existing ones. The

"lesson" that remains is that language is a code and, thus, must have rules and that the personal, the original cannot overcome the "common", otherwise it will not. be understood.

In literary terms it reinforces Barth's basic premisses: that tradition and the existing literary forms cannot be forgotten and disdained and that originality and individualism may be virtues while they improve the existing forms, but never when they mean a new language or a new form which nobody but their creators understand, as happened in the 1st. half of this century and was beginning to occur again with the so-called

"pop art".

Another moment when language and its potentialities is analysed happens when Rennie visits Jacob for the third time and they discuss the possibility of having existed love

between them. After Rennie left, Jacob analyses their discussion arid concludes: "... and so the trouble started only when she attempted to label it with a common noun such as Jove or abhorrence."At the same time he discusses the whole aspect of paradox, one of E-iarth's preferences, either

the human or the linguistic, associating the philosopher and

the writer in him.

Inside his "funhouse", the artist, may, like Ambrose, get.

lost or stuck, especially when all ways of the labyrinth seem

to lead either to the same escape or to a dead end and the

result will be a literary "cosmopsis". Sometimes he may also

feel tired, not .inspired to go on with the fun, even if it. may mean his death. It is the old discussion of the inspired artist and the craftsman artist. John Barth puts Jacob Horner in charge of one more task; to present his creator's opinion.

Probably the use of a "weathered" persona3 i ty tie attributes to Jacob Horner serves that purpose. Besides his paralysis, Jacob states many times he is "weather!l ess", which means he is in conditions of doing nothing at. all. Before narrating the episode with the Metheorol ogy Departmen t he says: "My mind was empty". That also seems to be an a tt.it u d e o f the w r .i. t er w h CD S orne t. i me s , f o r n o s p e c .i. f i c r e a s o n m a y ID e s t. u c k ,, p a r a 1 y s e d , n o t. f o r t. h e m a n y c h o i. c c? s a n y m o r e , but because he finds no reason to go on with his work. Like the narrator, he feels as if "there was no ego, no I"""'-'.

T h e r e f CD r e, i n s p i t. e o f a dvi s i. n g a c t i. CD n , s u g g e s t. i. n g t h a t li title writing is better than mue: h discussion , Barth ¿a I s CD considers that the artist can be; affected by " we? a the red" or

"weather le s s " days, wh i c h w i 1.1 a f f e c t h i s p r o ci u c t .i. o n .

The? conclusion is that craftsmanship, compulsive? writing

or inspiration - are associated, and the successful writer is the CD ne who is able to get the balance? between both: it is the c o m m a ID d <:> f t e c h n i q u e a 1 J. i e d t o t h «? f e r til i t y o f i via g i vat i. on, Thus, when the artist is in a "weathered" day, he should enjoy his "manic", dance like a furious cossak, produce and, when in a we at. her less day, the best would be sit on his rocking chair, .listen to classic music, or "receive" information that could help him fear furthc?r production. . „ 1.3 Jacob Horner - A Rebel who Admires Discipline

Eiut 1 was weary of dramatics, genuine or not, amusing or not, and when things reached natural dénouement I was glad enough to make my exit, forgetting entirely about Miss Ramkin's keys. The lady had talent, but no discipline. I'm sure we neither wished to see the other again. 21

In his already mentioned article "The Literature of

Exhaustion", John Barth defines himself as the kind of rebel who prefers expertise and artistry rather than the radical rebellion shown by the so-called "pop art" of the fifties and sixties. Once more Jacob Horner, the narrator in The End of

the Road, assumes the task of making this clear. Although

Jacob is individualist, existentialist and nihilist., a

compulsive questioner, the "protean mari", avid of new experiences, he paradoxically appreciates discipline;,

respects conventions, since, of course, they do not represent absolutes or unquestionable dogmas. As a "protean hero", he

dances according to the tune, but there must be a tune.

According to Barth, in the same article, though

technique changes throughout History, it must exist, for it

is the basis for expertise and, furthermore, it does not

inhibit further exploitations and .improvements, but it

stimulates them and provides the starting point. Human

culture is the sum of the acquired and stored knowledge that

should never be disdained and there is no need to reinvent

the wheel... Jacob Horner became deeply frustrated in his intercourse with Peggy Ramkin because she could riot control herself, demonstrating lack of discipline and exerting no attraction on him in spite of still having some charm. The opposite happened with Rennie Morgan, who, though lacking physical beauty, being unsure and clumsy when walking, transformed herself when riding, because riding requires technique, it is a sport, which has some basic; rules. When riding, Rennie also grows in Jacob's concept and it is then that he begins to admire and respect hers "At such times she assumed a strong kind of beauty. But she could not handle her body in situations where there? were no rules."21

Jacob's riding lessons with Rennie may also imply his own initiation in discipline^ in using technique, in spite of having been already oriented to it by the doctor. Here, however, Jacob has a concrete and plausible situation: he is learning something useful, though, as for anything, he .is not highly motivated. Besides, taking Jacob as an avatar of the writer himself, there are other inferences. The horses may be representing free imagination, compulsive writing, which, if not. controlled, disciplined, lead nowhere and may even be dangerous, but, when under some elementary rules, and the expertise of the horseman, cart perform wonders. "Stop digging her in the barrel, she'd blurt out as we trotted along.

You're telling her to go with your heels and holding her back with your hands."22 Those are the words through which Rennie corrects Jacob, but they could also be applied to any young writer who does not command his work... Joseph Morgan, in spite of representing a kind of antagonist to Jacob Horner is praised by the latter for some virtues he could see in him, among which was discipline.

Unfortunately evert a virtue, if taken as an absolute, can be transformed .into a vice. Joseph Morgan ' s discipline was the discipline of the "rigidified mart", the kind of discipline which blinds man, inhibits his tolerance and may become his tragic trait, his fatality. This is also a recurrent motive

.in John Barth's work and he will explore it more deeply in

6i 1 es Goat-Boy through the character "Eierkopf" a symbol of the traditional Prussian rationalism and discipline. But such a discipline Jacob does not accept, especially because it

lacks technique and, believing he has got. perfection in everything he does, such a man is not open for improvement artd experimentation. Modern world does not admit that

behavior anymore. Being a Dickensian character, Joe Morgan

himself will recognize he is probably in the wrong cosmos,

because he can feel there is no place for such a rigidified

attitude towards everything. He is physically living in the

XX century, but. men tally behaving as if he were in the XVIII

century. Such a conduct exemplifies what John Barth would

criticize nine years later in his "The Literature of

Exhaustion" referring to those writers who do not adapt

themselves to the new times.

Another character with whom Jacob learns the importance

of discipline is the Doctor, whose therapies are mostly based

upon it. Prescribing art apparently silly occupation to Jacob,

like studying the World Almanac for 1951, the Doctor sayss

"This is intended as a discipline, and you'll have to pursue .it diligently, perhaps for a number of years."iJ When Jacob runs to the Doctor and confesses him his troubles asking for

help, he reproves him for his lack of discipline in following

the Doctor's therapies. And it. is in fact Jacob's undisciplined attitude that contributes to the tragic end,

Rennie's death. Had he been more disciplined and followed the

Doctor's instructions, he would have avoided any troubles with the Morgans.

Like most of his basic themes, John Barth will retake

the problem of discipline and its limits .in his following

books. In The End of the Road, with a paradoxical character

like Jacob Horner, who admires it, but. does not apply it.

himself, or with Joseph Morgan, who takes .it as an absolute,

the author probably intends to demonstrate two misunderstood

.interpretations. Probably the best attitude is Rennie's one

while riding: the use of discipline, of rules in the correct

proportion.

.1.4 The Hero under the Law of Cyclology

So in this sense fiction isn't a lie at all, but. a true repre- sentation of the distortion that everyone makes of life.24

Another recurrent motif in John Barth's writing is the

ancient question that has tormented writers, perhaps since

the first "lie" was told around the fire in order to please?

an astonished audiences "story" or "history", or to which

extention fiction is reality and vice-versa. .81

That may be one reason why Barth shows himself to be fond of History, a subject usually present, in his books, through characters - Joseph Morgan is a teacher of History; through historical references - in The Floating Opera ; through the plot itself - in The Sot-Weed Factor. starting from actual historical references; through historical suppositions, based upon the traditional confrontation

East/West - in Giles Goat-Boy.

Barth interprets the world as well as the human history in the ancient Greek way, which held that History was a series of cultural cycles. Different societies, in different, places, grow upwards to fall again, returning to the starting point, repeating the whole cycle over and over. In such a society, man's striving is . alone, individual and internalized. Though society may be living its peak. - for its cycle is .longer - its individuals may be out of step in their personal and individual evolution, dealing with their own existential conflicts. Thus, in spite of any external advances, man has not been able to amme?l iorate the simplest facts of life. That, is why, during his life cycle, man, living either in an underdeveloped country or in a high capitalist nation will face similar individual problems, concerning to his personal evolution. That, may be a good reason for the modern writer to adress his work not to society itself, but to their individuals. Besides, a society that has became a "jelly mass", where antagonic theories live side by side; where there is not. one truth, but many truths; where there are different realities or interpretations of reality, becomes almost impossible to describe. The only fact that .i.s real .is the relationship of the individual and the society in which he lives, and rather through the

individual's eye. That may explain Efarth's preference for the

first person point, of view. However, being not a moralist and affirming in his first novel that "nothing has instrinsic value", his books are intended to be? interpreted as "farces" and nothing should be taken seriously.

Therefore, when the Doctor says that: "... all fiction and biography, and most historiography, are a lie"-^ and goes on stating that history only makes sense if linked to the

individual, he is in fact repeating the law of cyclology: one

life is one history, the only real history, the fiction that

is reality,

Jacob Horner, like Todd Andrews or George, or Ambrose,

is telling his own story, or better, the story of one

happening, of one cycle of his life. It. is .in fact a complete

cycle, with its up and down movement, with internal

transformations due to the experience the hero has lived, but

with no consequences in the? great social or historical wheel.

There is even the? implied connotation of such movement since

the novel begins with Jacob's arrival to Wicomico and ends with his leaving of the town.

At the end of the? novel, it. is the s>ame? Jacob Horner

that leaves Wicomico. He thinks over the possibility of going

to a new place, perhaps getting married, changing his name

arid he .is dominated by the same cosmopsis of the beginning;

the only concrete action or decision he makes is to follow

the Doctor's instructions. Inside himself, however, Jacob

certainly was not the same anymore. He? had passed from ignorance to knowledge. He concluded that "Existence not only precedes essence: in case of human beings it rather defies essence"The transformation, however had happened just. inside himself, for the external facts did not change: life went on in Wicomico, with classes being given at the college,

Joseph Morgan moving to a new place, Rennie's children being looked after by their grandparents, the Doctor moving to a new Remobilisation Farm arid so orí.

The individual, thus, does not change the cycle of life, does riot .interfer in the larger wheel of the world, what makes useless any act of heroism or martyrdoom, justifying the modern hero's apathy and apparent cowardice, denoting the influences of nihilism arid existentialism.

Jacob Horner closes his narrative with the phrases

"Terminal"2/, Like the first sentence of the book ("In a sense I'm Jacob Horner."), it puzzles the reader and may suggest different: interpretations. As Jacob has just, taken a taxi, .it certainly means, .in a denotative .level, the "bus terminal" where he was supposed to meet, the Doctor's people in order to move with them to a new farm. It may also have an implicit meaning of "end" - the end of the road, .implying death or suicide. However since the narrator is telling his own story, it. means that he actually followed the Doctor and, by relating his experience, he is applying another of the

Doctor's therapies, the "scriptotherapy", one of the branches of the large "mytotherapy". On the other hand, as "terminal" was written at the end of his story, or of this task, it.

could still .imply suicide, but .it is a less probable

hypothesis, since in an existentialist and relativistic world killing ciñese If or going on living d CD es riot change anything and, thus, no radical acts shall be expected from the hero; a very clear example of it is Todd Andrews, the protagonist of

T he F1 oa t i ri q Opera.

Since our basic: objective in the present, work is to observe how John Barth uses his novel with metafictional intention, let us see how we can establish the relationship between the observ a t. i CD n s a b o v e a n d f i c t i o n w r i t i. n g .

The Doctor (who symbolises theories, studies, etc.) emphasizes the .individual rather than the social to attribute validity to a story in order to consider it. a "history", for it would not be a lie. The narrator in The Endof the Road is telling his story, where he is in fact the hero of his own life, thus this story is not a lie, but, paraphrasing the

•Doctor's already quoted words, it .is a representation that the hero made of his own life. Besides, it: is the corrf.irmation of what we have already observed: a tendency towards the individual, the inner self, instead of social analysis, a common trend among the writers of the period.

Therefore, the modern hero, governed by the law of cyclology, being just a drop in the bucket in his cosmos, prefers to tell the fiction of his own life. Unable to solve the universal problems, since he most times does not even understand his own limited universe, he concentrates in himself and his struggle to adaptate in society. This is what he understands as reality: the fiction of his own life. Under

this angle, perhaps universal problems should be better discussed and solved through the individual. There are no great "social" problems, but great "individual" problems. Differently from the intended "objectivity" and

"impassibility" that marked the Realistic novel, which had an omniscient but "absent" author, the modern writer transforms himself into the hero of his own story, using fiction as part of the subject, or as the main subject and thus most of what is written must be considered as truth, at least the writer's truth .., NOTES

1. BARTH. ER, p. .1.03 2. CAMPBEL, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand . E.§.£es « New Jersey. P r i n e: e t. o n U niversit y P res s", 1 97~ 7l s 17 ed. 1949)

3. BARTH. ER, p. S 4. . ER. p. 77 5. ER, p. 79

6. . LR, P. .10 7. . ER. p. 13 8. . ER. p. .100-101

— • John. The Floating Opera. New York,

Bantam Books, 1972, p. 20

- • The Literature of Exhaustion - The

Atlantic. 220 (2) ! 29, Aug. 1967.

11. ER, p. 97 12. . ER. p. 220 13. . ER, p. •"•.» '-•» O 14. . ER. p. 16 15. ER, p. 155 16. . ER. p. 152 17. . ER, p. 160 18. . ER. p. 42 19. ER,. p. 42 20. . ER, p. 36 21 . . ER, p. 62

X. JÍ- e . ER. P- 61 2. Joseph Morgan ~ a "Don Quixote" of Traditional Fiction

...and Mr. Joseph Morgan, scroti ts-master an ci teacher of ancient European, and American history, a tall, bespectacled, athletic young man, terribly energetic, with whom one was so clearly expected to be charmed, he was so bright, busy and obvious 1 y in his way up, that cane had his hands full simply trying to be civil to him, and realized at once that the invidious comparisons to oneself that he could not for the life of him help inviting would effectively prevent one's ever being really tranquil about, the mere fact of his existence, to say nothing of becoming his friend.*

That is the way Jacob Horner, the narrator, introduces

Joseph Morgan to his readers. Differently from the other teachers, to whom he dedicates just a few lines, Jacob spends a long space .in order to describe Joseph Morgan, arid one can observe some irony arid perhaps anger in his words, for in fact, in spite-? of being Jacob's first physical contact with

Joseph, he? already knew him by name. It is Joseph Morgan ' s absence which provokes Jacob's first problem in Wicomico and thus, even as an abstract being, for only his "name" is mentioned, Joseph interfers .in Jacob's world, foreshadowi.ng their future antagonism.

We have already mentioned that Jacob Horner is the foreigner who comes to the town and intends to enter the

Wicomico Teaching College, representing by his movement the advent of the new. On the other hand, Jose?ph Morgan .is already a teacher ¿it the crol lege and, as we can see by

Jacob's own words, by the incident which did not allow Jacob's te? st, as we .1.1 as by the respect he deserves f rom h.i. s col leagues, a highly considered one. Thus, if Jacob Horner r e p r e s e? n t s a n c-? w g e n r e? o r I i t e r a r y s t y I e , J o s e p h M c? r g a n , may suggest the? opposite?: a traditional and established and - why not? praised and dominant style.

From the few informations we get about J o se? p h Morgan, either through Mr. Schott, the school director, or through

Jacob's description, it is possible? to del ineate Joseph's psychotype. His personal ity could be classified as

"somatotonic", the man whose behavior is centred in his body rather than in his intellect. Joseph is a scoutsmari; fie e? n j o y s p h y s i c a 1 a c: t i v i. t: i e? s, 1. i k e c:: a n) p .i. n g , f o o t b a 11 a n d d i r e c t con tact with nature, as Jacob observes from Joe?'s we .11 --tanned skin. In spite of being brilliant in logic rationalizing, he? d e m o n s t r a t. e s .1 a c k o f .i m a g i n a t i o n . H .i s k n c? w .1 e d g e i s t h e r e s u .11 o f s t u d y a n d p ers o n a 1 e? f f CD r t. : h e k n CD W S , h e? d I s c u s s e s f a c t. s ,

- he- p CD s s e s s e? s a m a r v e I o u s 1 o g i c: a .1 a b .i. 1 .i. t y , b u t, a c c o r d .i n g t o the narrator, "...philosophising was no game to Mr. Morgan."-1--

Rationalizing is his absolute, though he affirms he does not believe in absolutes. To the French Existentialism he says to prefer the Amer .1 can Pragmatism : "Energy's what makes the difference between American pragmatism and French existentialism - where the? he II else? but in A me? rica could you have a cheerful nihilism, for God ' s sake??"-' Joe .is a man of action, who be?lieves that what, man doe?s is always; what. he? actually meant to do and w h CD se? only concern is to be? able? to explain his actions, at least for himself. He cloe?s not expect, forgiveness -from the others, for their point of view may be cl i f f e? r e? n t. f r CD m h i. s ; h e w i. 1 1 a .1 w a y s h ave a c 1 e? a r a n swer, an. exp.lanat.icDn to give, but never an apology. At. this point we? would like? to emphasize that the character Joseph Morgan is riot used by John Barth, the author, as a kind of scapegoat, or a mean H; to condemn traditional literature, but as we have already said - as, perhaps, another voice inside? the author himself. Joseph Morgan may represent, the voice of John

B a r t h ' s b a c k g r o u n d e d u c a t i. o n , w h e r e? r u 1 e s;;, d i © c i p 1 i n e , action, genres and the c1 ose contact with thousands of years of trac.fi tion and imitation cannot be thrown away from the?

literary scenery of his mind. l"he reader of The End .of the

Road will see, if he cares to observe?, that Joseph Morgan is built by the author in a continuous "crescendo", in a positive atmosphere towards him, until the moment he does not accept an "I don't know" as an honest an s we? r. that, is: until he leads his questioning and reasoning to an absoluti?, to a radical position which starts a sequence of actions that show a personality not as n o bIe as we thought he was and he frustrates our expectation. With the same speed that he? had

reached the peak of our consideration he, now, runs downwards,, But what immed i ate 1 y interests us is t o analyse?

how John Barth used his character Jo se pit Morgan to represent

t h e-? t r a d .i. t i o n a 1 1 i t e r a t u r e? * , o b s e r v .i. n g h i s b e h a v i o r a n d speech throughout the novel. Thus, after these general

observations, let us set our attention towards the

relationship between J ose? p h and Jacob, because it is through

their d.i. a logues and philosophical positions that we? are going

to see Joseph's reasoning in order to defend the 1 iterature

we believe? he? represents.

* By "traditional literature" we intend to classify the literary structure that has its origin in the Greek classics, which irap 1 i e d objectivity, impassibility, clarity and formal structure and that influenced almost all the Western academic art, It is the basis of modern novel, mainly the XVIII century novel,which copied the old structure of "prologue", "duplication* and *epi/o««e*.Such forsal structure would be reinforced by the XIX century Realistic Novel, which, with its pseí.idD~5cientificisG>-, considered objectivity, impassibility, etc, as absolute values. It also had the French Positit'iss as its philosophical support, a doctrine which had a strong partner in dientan Pragtat is», It dominated American literature from 1865 to 1900 and after the World liar li, SOPÍP American writers intended to retake its principles, in a "neo-realistic" tendency, a behavior that John Barth criticizes. See: HOLMAN, C, Hugh, ft Handbook to Literature. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merril Company., 1972 . 2 . .1 T h e A 1.11" a c t. i o n o f t h c? 0 p p o s .i t e s

We took to each other at once: it was clear in a very short time that if I remained in Wicomico we would be ri 1 ose f r i end s .

The first actual contact. between Joseph and Jacob occurred when the former was being examine?d by the teaching staff at. the College in orde?r to be? come a teacher, but, as we h a v e a .1 r e a d y m e? n t i o n e? d , J o s e p h M o r g a n , e v e n b e .i. n g a b s e? n t., h a d meant a worry for Jacob, establishing some relationship bet we? en both even before knowing each other. If we consider the Wicomico Teaching College? as a s pa ci a 1 eel '1 where? action is going to be developed and the starting point of the compl i cation, then Joseph grows in importance? and becomes essential for Jacob's existence? as well, since? Jacob only exists for the college as a "name?", a "candidate", therefore a "fiction", which can only be?come real a "teacher", a

"member" of the col lege after Joseph Morgan returns from his camping on and Jacob can be finally tested. Therefore only with Joseph's arrival, the wheel could move on.

D u ring J a c o b ' s e? v a 1 u a t i o n .i t .i. s J o s e p h M o r g a n who w i 11 impose the rhythm, going straight to the? facts that actually m a 11 e r e? d , e x p .1 a ring J a c o b ' s p a s t. a n d c a p a c i t. y , g i v ï n g impor tance? to his biography, demc3nst.rat.ing the? ob..i ecti vj. ty and impassibility of the classics, differently from the? rest o f t h e g r o up, t h at was g a r r u 1 o u s a n d f r i e? n d 1 y , t r y i. n g t o p u t the candidate at ease. The narrator says: "Joe? liar g an brought t h e? carivers a t. i on back t. o m y q u a 1 i f i. c a t i. c? n s f or a m i n u t e? c:» r two, but it was plainly in the nature of an anticlimax." and Jacob could feel he was not only in front of an "abstract" anymore, but. a really concrete obstacle.

However Joseph's attitude did not intimidate Jacob. On the contrary, it. awoke his feeling of challenge. Jacob's man.iehei.st spirit could not: resist provocations, as opposi te forces do not resist each other. Having already convinced the whole audience by his articulation power, he now concentrates all h i 55 cynism and, through an apparently ingenuous example, he hits Joseph Morgan "where he lived".6 Both contendors had already studied each other and the actual duel could begin...

Soon after Jacob's evaluation was over, Morgan approached Jacob friendly and then we have a more detailed description of him, though in an ironical tone:

He was.; well t a n n e d from his stay at camp and had a marked Boy S c o u t .1. o o k a b o u t h .i. rn , a h e a 11 h i n e s e; that suggested early rising, a nutritious diet, and other sorts of V i r t u e •- t o b e s p e c i f i c , p a t. r i o t i. s m , c o u r age, self - r e I i a ri c e, s t r e? n g t h , alertness, moral straightness, trust w o r t: h i. n e s s , 1 o y à 11 y , h e p f u 1 n e s s , f rien d .1 i n e s s, c o u r-1 e s y , k i n d n e s s, o b e d à. e n c e, c h e e r f u 1 n e s s , t. h r- i. f t, b r a V e r" y , cleanl i n e s s f a n d r eve r e n c e . His eyes were clear.'

Nobody would deny those are the virtues one finds in the great epic heroes, or at least expects them to fulfill.

However, stimulated by the previous behavior Morgan had shown, as we? 11 as by his question to Jacob, whether Jacob had been making furi of him, which follows the description above,

.it may include? satire, expressed through the exagerated sequence? of words that sounds like the flow of words in the theater of absurd. Besides, suc:h a logorrheic catalog of

virtues in a single person he had known that day is more?

likely the result of Jacob's inner anger translated into

sarcasm, especial 1 y if we consider that he is narrating facts

that had already happened and, in fact, he? already knew the?

"other" Joseph Morgan when he? wrote? the story and made the

d e s c r .i p t .i o n , theref ore c e r t a i n 1 y b .i a sed.

I f we confront, the in f ormations J a c o b gave about: himself

with Morgan's description, both characters are g oin g to look

like black and white, p a r t and cou ter part. or, literarily

speaking, the hero and the? ant i-he ro, though .in a time of

paradoxes it. becomes; difficult to determine? Mho .is who, Jacob

discovers that Joe "was the sort who heads directly for his

destination».."'"', exactly the op pos.i t.:e of him, domin a te? d by

cosmo psi s. and who literally enters the school through the

back door. From their ta I kings and increasing friendship

Jacob de?dut:es Joe's personality had be?en formed by self-

d i sei pi ine : "He spoke slowly and soi 11 y as a rule?, with a

slight Southern accent, but CD ne? had always the feeling that

this slowness and sof tri ess did not come natural to him; that

they were controls that he? maintained over his normal

e b u .1 1 i. e? rice?. " 9 T h i s CD b s c? r v a t: i. CD ri r e? .i. n f CD r c: e; s w h a t. we have

a 1 r- e a d y m e? ri t i CD ri e d a b o u t J o s e p h ' s fa m i 1 y name "m o r g a ri " : h .i s

breed as well as his "noble", or aristocratic origin is

revealed by his accent, since we consider the South as the

birthplace of the American ar i s to era cy . The? sum of so many

'qualities Joseph embodies impresses Jacob, mainly because

J CD s e? p h r e? p r e? s e n t. e d h i. s o p p o site: "M o r e o v e? r , f CD u r CD f m y 1 e a s; t;

fortunate? traits -•- shyness, fear of appearing ridiculous, affinity for many sorts of nonsense, and almost complete i n c o n s i s t e n c y - h e s e e m e d n o t. t o sha r e a t ail.," ••'•A s t h e n o v e 1 is written in the first person point of view, we do not have

Joseph's explicit oppinion about Jacob, but his attitude of a p p i" o a c h j. n g him after the interview and later inviting him to have dinner with the Morgans, proves he was also deeply attracted to Jacob, perhaps in order to use him as well as to study him, knowing him better for the purpose of defeating his opponent,

However, as Jacob is a cynic and a manicheist, he automatically observes both sides of everything. He believes

in a world of opposit.es and paradoxes and is excite?d by thern,

thereto re he does n a t be? come? blind in his admiration for

Joseph Morgan's personality i Though he praises him and puts

him in a higher rank, Jacob can also se?e? some failures in his

personal ity, 1 ike the difficulty Joseph has in expressing

f e? e 1 i n g s , 1 i k e a f f e c t i o n t o his c h i 1 d r e-? n , f r .i e n d s h i p o r

simple? congratulations. Representing the traditional art,

Joseph .is objective, balanced, controlling his feelings, that

should ríe? ver be ef f usively ex terna 1 j. zed , but only shown in a

universal and formal way. No personal emotion, just the

a r t i. s t. i. ci a e? s the s i a .

This same attraction of opposit.es, by their intense

acquaintanceship, like in Physics, will repel them.

Opposites, when taken as; absolutes car in their farthest,

levels, may become very similar and provoke a repulsion. That

is what Rennie observes, when she? says: "What scares me

some? time s is that in a lot of ways you're not totally

different, from Joe: you're? just, like him. I've even heard the same sentences from each of you at different times. You work from a lot of the? same premisses. Bes.ide?s, .it is when

Joseph uses his "articulaticDn power", and talks compulsively, using a quality that is inherent to Jacob, that Jacob begins to become more critical tea Joseph.

2.2 Joseph Morgan - an Idol with Feet of Clay

Rennie? was destroyed. She closed her eyes and pressed her fcDrehead acjainst. the window sill. I stood beside her, out of the light from the brilliant 1 i.ving-room, and stroked in her ear the wordless, grammarless lancjuage? she'd taught me to calm horses with.

Having a closer contact with the Morgans, Jaccjb has the chance of analysing them more carefully and gradually develops a more critical concept about, their behavior. His

•first enthusiasm will fade, though he still admires his new acquaintances. Almost forced to have dinner with them, Jacob describes their apartament, which reveals a Spartan standard of life: clean, functional and bare; no rugs, ncj curtains and just the e?ssent.ial furniture. There could not be a better description tcD corroborate the use the author makes of his

characters as his own metafict.iona 1 avatars. The Morgans with

their world and creeds represent, the classic: Iite?rature and, more especificaily the traditional fiction: plain structure,

clear language, economic use of the ornamental devices, more

under service of logic than of imagination. Even the dinner

itself and the children's behavior will reinforce the

impression of a methodic style of life which ruled the Morgans. The long talk after dinner will be the closing of

Joseph Morgan's revelation to Jacob and the? beginning of

Jacob's dissatisfaction and conflict against Joseph's

ideological positions. Jacob classifies Joe's speech as an

"harangue" - a pejorative word - and describes his listening

attitude as guest 's dutyt agreeing with Joe just, in order to

be civil. What rests from that long talking a monologue in

fact - is Joe's philosophy that "what a man did is in fact

what he wanted to do"*-1', which awakes Jacob from his

daydreaming. Even so, Jacob is impressed by Joseph's

personal j. ty .

After his "grand finale", Joseph Morgan 1 eaves the

stage, giving his place to Rennie, who will begin to teach

Jacob riding lessons, an arrangement, that had been made by

Joseph. It is now that the real confrontation between Joseph

Morgan and Jacob Horner begins. Joseph, who had apparently

disappeared, grows in importance for he .is going to be the

center of Jacob's and Rennie's conversations. By means of an

.intelligent artifice he begins to build a myth around him.

Joseph Morgan actually becomes a myth. Rennie had erased

her past in order to look at least as a "rough copy of him",

to paraphrase her words. Jacob imitated him twice,

consciously, and unconsciously. The first time was with the

purpose of laying Peggy and the second as a defiance to the

Doctor, who guessed Jacob was .imitating somebody stronger

than him and disarmed Jacob. The difference between both,

Rennie and Jacob, is that the latter had a background which

permitted him to suspect, of Joe's disclosed authenticity,

since he started from the relativistic principle that there are no absolutes and being authentic or riot does not have intrinsic value. Depending orí the point, of view, most of

Joe's "virtues" could also be .interpreted as "vices". That is why if by one side he does not. condemn Joe, even when he proves Rennie he is not as authentic as she had thought, by the other, he ' cannot accept him playing God eit.he?r . Rennie, however, had been a futile, silly yourig girl that had no individuality and no interior strength to stand the

revelation. In the conscious level, she will play the ostrich, pretending she had not seen anything; in the unconscious level, however, her reactions will be of despair- arid revenge.

Shifting this relationship to the allegorical plan,

Jacob, represen ting the new .literature, though lost ¿among the many possibilities of thematic: as well as formal approaches,

possessed a theoretical background which assured him a deeper-

analysis and a wider vision of what Joseph represen ted. With

Peggy, the imitation had worked, hut Jacob «as conscious it was a parody. With the Doctor, however, it. did not work for

he was smarter. Even so, the Doctor does not. condemn him, but

sees it as a positive beginning that stresses once more John

Barth's idea that any concrete work is much better than

unproductive talking. As we have emphasized, however, it may

be a beginning, but must show evolution arid le?ad to

indépendance, with the personal arid original touch which is

the mark of expertise. That is why Jacob criticizes Rennie's

total dépendance upon Joe as well Joe's obsession for pure?

rational izatiori, but he never ceased to admire Joe arid for

the? first time in his life Jacob felt guilty for having offended somebody and unintentionally destroyed his life. Joe is like the "rigidified man" in literature, that. em bodies; virtues, like knowledge, logic, and rationalisation, but who cannot: adapt himself to the new times and wi.1.1 fatally be led to ostracism.

If he wanted, Joseph could also have worn Jacob's mask, for he was, according to Rennie, "so strong he can even afford to be a caricature of his strength sometimes and not care," but: he had made his option for a pre tende? d authenticity. His disciple and wife, however, could never do that.; she? was not strong enough. When Joseph sends her back to Jacob in order to re_enact their sexual act, she confesses to the latter: "I'm not as strong as Joe ear even you. I'm n o t strong enough tea get caught in this ! "

Both, Joseph and Rennie, fall in the trap of their own absolute: authenticity. Joseph, who demanded authenticity frcDm Rennie?, had proved neat to be authentic and disappointed

Rennie; and Rennie was never strong enough to reveal her husband what she had seen him doing. He would certainly have an answer, a cause, an explanation; he? would neither apologize nor expect he?r understanding, and perhaps that, was her reason to disguise, otherwise? s tie? would have to take a decision that would be only hers, individual, personal, and she haci been trained just to imitate... So, both go on living: Joseph --• without knowing he had bee?n watched in his privacy - still demands authenticity from the? others, while?

Rennie, shocked by her discovery, tries to rationalise it:. 2.3 Demanding Authenticity in a World of Phoniness

" Rea 1 people aren't. any different when they're alone. No masks. What you see of them is authentic." ' ' H o r s e s h i. t. No b o d y ' s a u t. h e n t i c . Let's look."16

Rennie, lost in a world of phoniness, when she met Joe and was "rescued" by him, decided to imitate her savior. Her

choice, however, according to the narrator, was the same

choice one had in taking position .in the "Advice and Progress

Room" at the Doctor's remobi 1 izatiort farm, where orte was led

to "choose" the only possible position... Lacking background

knowledge, having er asse? d he?r past, Ren nie? becomes more

radical than her master. But her structure .is weak and when

Jacob opens her e?ye?s, her wor 1 d falls down like? a castle of

sand. Perhaps her despair and subsequent passivity, even

facing the possibility of death, results from having seen the

two ends of the line for the first time and, thus, to die or

cj)o ort living meant the same thing. Her eyes had been so blind

that she? had not been able t CD see that Joe?'s be h a v.i o r was a

paradox : the same time he wanted her to be authentic, he? did

not respect her .individuality 5 he wanted her to choose, but

gave her just CD rte? c h CD i ce. Even so, that choice should be

personal and free? if she? intended to live with him. What

Rennie made? was to copy him, without, putting her heart, in it.

That is why Joe tests her. After a long indoctrination, she

was going - like arty other hero - to be submitted to a test;

passing it, she would deserve her husband; flunking, she?

would have to find concrete reasons and clear answers. As Jacob .is gradually going to discover, Joseph Morgan does not need to defend his doctrine anymore for he has a disciple to perform the task, what she actually does with strength and determination. Little by little, however,

Rennie's compulsive use of appraising adjectives and metaphors: "He's genuine!"-'''7 or "... just like God might do.

»18 or fier incompetence to rationalise: "Oh, God, I wish Joe was here.1"*''' reveals she was failing in her argumentation.

Her coup de grâce occurs in the Peeping Tom scene, when Joe, her model, myth and God, proves to be a fake.

Joseph's principle, according to which what man does is what he actually .intended to do, forces him to send Rennie back to have sexual intercourses with Jacob until she has a concrete answer to his "why", for to any "why" there is always a "because" in his rational mind. Jacob and Rennie's treachery could be forgiven since both had a good explanation for it.. Joe even says to Jacob: "I'm glad it did happen, because it uncovered real problems that I didn't know existed."20

Joseph Morgan's behavior makes one think he had premeditated every thing in order to test Rennie's sincerity and observe to which extent: she was able to stand on her own feet. Joe and the world he represents do not accept the weak.

Theirs is a world for heroes, for strong people, who do not act just by sympathy or admiration as a principle, but also demands perfectionism, self-reliance, personal dedication and

total acceptance of its values, erasing one's .individuality

for the purpose of objectivity. However Joseph's own behavior

proves that he is demanding an authenticity he himself does :!. oo

not show. That may also suggest that what he actually wished was to test whether his disciple praised him so much that she would never question neither the principles of his doctrine nor her faithfulness to him.

Admitting that Joseph had premeditated Jacob and

Rennie's relationship since the beginning: "I put the car in reverse and eased out the clutch. "Be seeing you". But there was a point still unsettled .in Joe Morgan's mind."2*, he begins by leaving his wife the task of inviting Jacob to have dinner with them. When the reluctant guest, arrives, Joseph leaves Jacob and Rennie alone:?, throwing the football ball to t?ach other, .in a possible metaphor of a first physical contact between them, a foreshadowing of their future liason.

After dinner, .it is Joseph who suggests riding lessons with

Rennie. In order to stimulate Jacob's questioning compulsion,

Joseph talks most of the time, providing Jacob with a good dea.1 of background information he could use later or» to attack him, being sure that Rennie, his disciple, would defend him. Joseph certainly felt that Rennie, was hiding him part of the conversations she had with Jacob during the riding lessons. Then Joseph arrange?s his trip to Washington and asks the friend to keep Rennie company, what Jacob classifies as "... a very morganesque attitude."22 That would undoubtedly be the final test..

Joe's possible premeditation is reinforced by his behavior when he returns from Washington. Rennie confesses to

Jacob that her husband had demonstrated a new sweetness and confirms it. later: "All this week he's been wonderful. Not.

like he was just after he came back from Washington - That .101

n K wasn't, normal for him. "jCO Joe's behavior looks like? a psychological deviation, a means to show his superiority : both, Rennie? -- a mere instrument. - and Jacob - the end - had failed, had not deserved his friendship. Joe's sweetness would increase Rennie? ' s feeling of guilt. His friend and wife, through their sin had proved to be infericDr to him. By demonstrating friendship, affectionj , Joe was humiliating them, killing their possible reactions, their ability to confront him. Showing nobility, self-confidence won.1 d be? more? effective than showing despair. But, if it had worked fine with Rennie, the same did neat happen with Jacob and that. is why Joe changes his tactics. Joseph Morgan had in his hands a traditional case of love triangle and now, like the

F'ositivists and the XIX century novelists, he wants the reasons, he needs to find out the causes; there must be explanations, clear and objective? answers. Jacob, however, represents a man of another time, a man to whom "I don't, know" must be seen as an honest answer and who tells Joe:

"... people - maybe yourself excluded - aren't going to have conscious motives for everything they do, " Once defied, Joe reacts with violence?: he is not interested in regrets and responsibilities, but in reasons. For him man has to face the facts, because what he did is «hat he actually meant to do - one? of his maxims 5 he must find out the reason, it does not mind wherever it is and whom he will hurt. He is only reason ,

cause and effect, no inag.inat.ion, fancy at all. Like the tragic hero, he will lead the happenings to a disastrous end,

to the end of the road. Joe's final telephone call to Jake was only in order to con firm that, in some way, he had wort the battle. He was calm, Jacob nervous. He was controlled,

Jacob burst. into tears. He knew what, he was going to do, while Jacob confessed himself lost. Nude as he was when

Rennie established her first telephone contact with him,

Jacob had completed his cycle - from nothing to nothing in a nihilistic view -••• and Joseph Morgan, with somei losses and wounds, had won the final battle, apparently at least.

From this episode, involving Jacob Horner, Rennie Morgan and Joseph Morgan, stressing the latter's behavior, which demanded authencity and faithfulness from his disciple, some

metafictional inferences can be drawn. First, criticising

Joseph's radicalism in demanding rational answers for

everything, Barth was probably sending a message to those

radical ist. who were against: any improvement; in fiction and

were still imitating the traditional XIX century novel,

especially the bad imitators, who, like Rennie were surely

not convinced of what they were doing. Secondly, considering

Jacob's behavior, whose irresponsibility and inconsequence

had also contributed to the tragic end, Barth could be

sending also a message to those inconsequent rebels whose

only concern was to destroy the past with no concrete or

coherent production at. all.

Besides that, due to the sociological and historical

moment, Barth could be using his novel, and more

especificaily Joseph Morgan, to criticize any absolute values

in a relativistió and ecletic society, but which sometimes

also suffered pernicious indoctrinations, like Machartism. In

the social field Barth could be attacking the demand for

authenticity in a world where it had become impossible to be "one self". Otherwise society, even the most ecletic, would cert a i n 1 y r e j e c t the m a n w h o p r' e ach e d a u t h e n t i. c i. t. y , 1 i k e i t had done with Joseph Morgan.

But certainly the most important inference refers to the artistic a 1 ., e s p e c i. a 11 y t. h e f i c t i o n a 1 . a u t h e n t i. c .i t y o r linguistic authenticity. Even those who, like Joseph Morgan, demanded authenticity from their disciples, following traditional schools, would fail in the essence, for there are no original, authentic genres anymore. Fiction has been exhausted and what. rests is to make a farce about. what already exists, something Jacob was doing, but he had not been strong enough to accomplish and that made everything end in a disaster. "... in short, my inability to play the same ro.le long enough - could give me as well as others pain. . . are Jacob's words a little before Rennie's death. In fact he had failed by taking things too seriously, like the Morgans.

For a while he had been strong enough to deal with the situation he had in his hands, but later on, after Rennie's pregnancy, he lost control. Thus, to make a farce requires strength and the young writer needs experience and knowledge of the world to p1 a y his role long enoug h in order to per form his task, to achieve that strength. NOTES

.1. · BARTH . EF< ~ p · 20 2. p. ~.\'7 -'''------' · EH~ ::::; . EF< ~ p. ~;6 "'-~"--'''--'- · 4 · .... _--_ ...... · ER~ p. ~~4 !"i,- ER p 2:3 · -.. --.. --".-". · ~ · 6. ~.M ..._ ...... _ ...__ •• · ER, p. 2:3 '7 ...... p. 24 · _ _._--- · ER ~ 8. ... _...... -.-- .. · ER~ p. 26 9. _.. ... _.. :2)4 __ · EH~ p · lO...... _-.. -..... · H:"', P · 1.0 1.1. · --_... - · ER, p. '14 J;'2 · .. _...... -.... EF< ~ p. B:;;:~ .1 :~~ • -_._ ... · EH~ p · ~58 14 · .. _...... -...... · EF~ ~ p. T~; 1 ~) . _...... __ ...... -· ER, p · 141 16. _..... _...... _-- · ER, p. BO 1'1...... -_ ..... _.... · ER, p. 79 18...... -..... _-_.- · ER~ p. 7f3 .19. ER~ P 7Cf -~---.. ~- · · 20 · ...... _.---- · ER, p. L;:~8 2.1. _...... EF, p. ~~?5 · _-_ - ~ ,.. ,.-) ..::.~: . ... _...... _.. _- ER~ p · 112 ... ,> .. ~ 1 ,,- .- ..:..,. .. : E~, p • • t..... ,-' ... ------~ 24 · ... --_ ...... _-· ER, p. 1 ~:~~~ ~~ ~'j · .. -._-_... · ER~ p. 20<:7 3. Rennie Morgan - the Disputed Literature

Now for the first time she saw the real nature of her dilemmas she had to choose between going to bed with me, which was repugnant to her, and lying to Joe, which was also repugnant to her...*-

The links that tie the three main characters are so tight that it becomes almost impossible to separate them.

Jacob is only important. in the story because of his relationship to Joseph and Rennie - what makes the fulcrum of the narrative - the same happening with the Morgans. Thus, while analysing Jacob's behavior, Joseph as well as Rennie were constantly mentioned; talking about Joseph, his attitudes towards both Jacob and Rennie had to be observed and now, trying to delineate Rennie's role and her possible allegoric use? by the author, we will perhaps .incur in some repetition, because the three? characters formed, paraphsing

Jacob's words s "a perfect equilateral triangle"'- and .in such a geometrical figure all the angles are the? same,

inseparable, touched by two lines which have the same

length...

However, Rennie's behavior throughout the story will

have a reversal from dominator to dom.inc~?e in her relationship with Jacob and that is the first aspect of our analysis. 3 .1 From Domina t o r t o D o m .i. n e e

"Don't be a chicken •- it doesn't make a damn to us if you don't like us." So caught, flagrante delicto, I flushed and sweated... I heard Joe Morgan's wife? b re? a thin g in my naked ear0.

Rennie's first contact with Jacob can be? seen as a foreshadowing of what .is going to happen in their future relationship -- a literary artifice? John E

When Rennie called Jacob up the first time, he was in the ini.c:ld 1 e of one of his pleasant: "manies" and her call disturbed him. His words are crude, though said to himself: "Why not?

Bitch of an Eagle Scout's Hausfrau, you spoiled my first, real manic .in a month of Sundays! I sp.it on your dinner! Jacob's anger is justified by the fact that he? considered Sundays the wcDrst days of the we?ek, because they increased his

"cosmopsis", since he? had to take his own decisions, make his joices. Under such circumstances he many times entered .in a kind of "autist" trance?, 1 .isterling to his records» or rocking on a large rocking chair for hours„

Rennie's interruption makes Jacob hate her, for she had

"aborted his .infant, manic"5" - in his own classification

what can also be taken as a foreshadowing of what will happen

to Rennie in the future, with ari i rivers ion o f the roles».

Since we are interpreting Rennie in an a I .1 egori cal

level, being her role literature itself arid Jacob the new

writer, with a new proposal, Rennie, who came? to take Jacob

out of his manic, or his; selfishness, his apathy, his easiness, suggests the appeal to work, to produce, to leave inertia and start, acting. She is the appeal of literature,

inviting, stimulating the writer to leave the comfort of just

theorizing and start writing. As a matter of fact, Rennie will always be involved with action and it is when she is in action that she is sei f -confident and exerts attraction on

Jacob. In his first physical contact, with her, when throwing

the football ball to each other, though Jacob affirms she is

not his type of woman, he recognizes her competence. During

the riding lessons Jacob will begin to admire Rennie and feel

some attraction to her by the way she behaves when riding,

t h a t: i. s , when s h e i s in a c:: t i o n .

However in spite of the apparent self-reliance and

superiority Rennie had shown to Jacob, when he met her she

was already completely dominated by Joseph Morgan, her

husband, what. is observed through Jacob's words: "Rennie?

Morgan, though lively, seemed to be just a triffle unsure of

herself; her mannei risms. . . were borrowed directly from Joe?,

as were both the matter and the manner of her thinking^," As

we have considered Joseph a representation of the traditional

literature, Rennie had, therefore, become a faithful disciple

of that literature. Jacob also observes how Joseph controls

and watches Rennie? during his first dinner with the Morgans ;

"... his attention was that of a tutor listening to his

favourite protégé7." Such dépendance on her husband will be

confirmed later on by Rennie's behavior as well as by the

narration of how she had bee: CD me Joseph's wife, a story he

repeats to Jacob in his own version. Renriie, through such episode, can be seen as a good example of the chaotic literature of the fifties. She

confesses Jacob that when she met Joseph she was completely

lost; she? did not know what to do or where to go. She was

paralysed by the same cosmopsis that had overcome Jacob arid

o ve? reame the writers of that times too many offers, too many

V a I u e s , h u t n o f i x e d o n e s a n d a c o n s e q u en t u n c e rt a .i n t y i n which way to take, which values to accept. Joseph, in

Rennie's case, appeared arid gave? her a direction, offered her

the values in which he believed and served her as a model. In

order to follow him, however, she had to eliminate her past,

ariihilate her individuality, her self... It was not

difficult, because the fascination of having found something

she? did not. be?lieve ex i s ted anymore made everything easy.

Renriie converts herself from that moment orí into a Joseph

Morgan's clone„ imitating him physically and intellectually.

The same way, many young writers were also looking for models

to imitate and the traditional formulae of the Romantic and

Realistic novels from the XIX century offered them a good set

of rules, of fixed values that could give them sel f-re 1 i an ce?

as well as a pattern to be copied.

Jacob, having noticed a little germ of individuality in

Renriie; "It pleased, perversely, to see Renriie squirm a

little too; she? was apparently not. so well educated by her

husband..."0, will be excited arid stimulated to try to regain

her, or, literarily speaking, to recover her originality that

was hidden under the copy of Joseph Morgan. The latter,

trying to give his wife and disciple a set of "authentic"

values, had transformed her into a pupptet thai t. only imitated her creator's behavior, parroted his words and principles.

When Rennie tells Jacob how she had been saved by

Joseph, she emphasizes she was drunk, aimless besides being a selfish and silly girlf and still a virgin. Thinking in

.literary terms, Rennie was the portrait of a decadent literature, marked by excess of individualism, being rescued by the classic principles of order, objectivity, discipline, self control and so on.

Therefore, Rennie may represent, the personification of literature that has been shown throughout the History of

Literatures a naked maiden, who has been dressed an undressed, wearing .less or more adornments according to the principles of the different literary schools.

Having been "saved" by Joseph and accepted his principles, Rennie will do her best to follow her master, to imitate him s "I think I completely erased myself, Jake, right down to nothing, so I could star over. And you know, the thing is I don't, think I'll ever really get to be what. Joe wants..."9 It. is the principle of the classic arts no

.individuality but a model to imitate and an ideal to achieve, but that, is usually impossible? to reach...

However Jacob does not give up trying to convince Rennie that there arc? other interpretations of life. In spite of her apparent strength and first impression of superiority, Rennie begins to show her weakness through the dialogues both Jacob and she had during the riding lessons. Jacob's natural opposition to Joseph and his paradoxical and manicheist personality are stimulated by the possibility of changing

Rennie's position. He? had discovered that she still had some :l. :i.()

individuality and disliked the absolute anihilation of her personality in favor of things she hardly believed in.

After Rennie had praised her husband for a long while, stressing that she was better now than she had been before knowing Joseph, Jacob tells hers "I suppose I should say something about your individuality, Rennie. People are supposed to mention individuality at times .like this."*'-' Such observation reveals strong metafictional connotations. The first aspect is the reaction against, the classic principles which anihilate individuality and originality; the second one is the chronological reference implied in the words "in times like this". It i.s certainly an allusion to the time the novel was being written, or the fifties, when the struggle between either imitating the past or exploiting new genres was occuring in American fiction, emphasizing the originality in literature on Jacob's part, since he represents a new

1 i terature.

John Barth may also be using the opportunity to send his message, through Rennie's answer, to those who saw originality as an absolute valuet "Does it. follow that because a thing .is unique it's valuable? You're saying that it's better to be a real Rennie McMahon than an imitation Joe

Morgan, but that's not self-evident, Jake; not at all. It's just, romantic. I'd better be a lousy Joe Morgan than a first- rate Rennie McMahon. That way, John Barth expresses his dissat..isf action against those writers who were against traditional values for no other reason than that it was a tradition to rebel against tradition, as one can observe in his "The Literature of Exhaustion". Besides, Rennie justifies the value of imitating a good model, since she believes she would be a poor, rough original. In her case the virgin,

the unexperienced perhaps it would be correct, as well as

it would serve as an advice for too anxious beginners : for

those who have neither knowledge nor experience, thus no

content, it. would be better, perhaps to begin with imitation,

to try to become "good copies" rather than empty and

meaningless originals. For those however, who already pos s ess s

knowledge and experience, individuality, originality, and

expertise should be the recipe, and that is what John Barth

states in his both articles already mentioned.

Rennie's arguments may not be wrong as premisses; the

problem begins when she, following Joseph's doctrine,

transforms them into absolutes, what will lead her to self

destruction. And that .is also the problem Barth sees with

literature: the use? of a genre out of its time and as the

only truth, or the perfect model to be imitated.

Jacob, in spite of Rennie's renitency (no pun

.intended!), persisted in his decision of making Rennie

discover her individuality. He observed her behavior had

changed. She was hiding part of their conversations to

Joseph; she insisted upon praising her husband's virtues; she

confessed Jacob she did not like him for what he was doing to

h e r a n d J o s e p h ' s m a r r i a g e . S h e d e? mon str a t. e s bei. n g d o m i n a t e? d

and Jacob concludes : "She was caught."*2 In order to

accelerate the happenings,, she discovers that her husband's

authenticity was also a fake ¿and from that moment on she

could not be the same anymore. To accomplish her submission

to Jacob, she? gives herself to him.

From dominator she had become the dominee. The Phoenix Reborn

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, - the maiden phoenix, Her ashes rmw-create another heir As great in admiration as her sel f .

In one of their dialogues, Rennie tells Jacob that

Joseph is so strong that. he can even af ford to be a caricature of his own strength sometimes» in 1 iterar»/ terms it may be a reference to the ability of making a farce, which requires; capability and expertise and only those who have actual knowledge can do it,, Joseph, in spite of being Jacob's opposite, could imitate him if he wanted,'the same way Jacob had imitated Joseph before. The same, however, does not happen with Rennie. Forced by her bus; ban d to re-enact the? sexual relationship with Jacob until she discovers the reason why she liad done it:,, she becomes; desperates "I can 't ! Please, please, either throw me out or rape me, Jáke! I can't do any thing !" In her second visit, still forced by her- bus band, she tried to make the farce. Pretending to be at ease, she drinks, but once more she fails. In her third visit

- or the third one Jacob describes - both respect each other, they talk about their first intercourse and begin to suspect the?re might have been 1 ove between them. For the first time there is some tenderness in their relationship, because they had respet: t e d e ach o n e ' s .1 i. m i t s a n d t r" .i e d a .1. s o t o u n d e r s t. a n d each other.

It is important to remember that Jacob had gone through the farce and had no scruple?® to perform it. That was his J 13

revenge against Joseph and also a characteristic of his manichei.st.ic personality: "her suffering exerted a powerful physical attraction on me."^ Jacob had the expertise for making a farce. Besides, he had learnt to wear masks f to play different roles, to live the scripts 1 i fe of fe red h.iw.T because he was the "protean man", quite different from

Rennie,, who, afraid of abandoning the values in which she once believed, will go back to them, f orgett ing what, she had s een , r e s u ming he r 11 u s b a n d 's; principles and, para d o xi cal 1 y performing a tragical farce, for she was going to live according to rules that, in her inner self, she did not b e 1 i e v e :i. n a n y m o r e .

Rennie was afraid of bearing a son that could be the lively remembrance of other values and, thus, she preferred the abortion. She could not face the fact that she had accepted a "foreigner" - the new literature laid with him and had been made? pregnant, by him, what. wnu .1 d mean tier- spiritual death. In her despair site was even ready to dies

"Is he safe? Joe asked, a little suspiciously,., 'That doesn't matter', Rennie said quickly, and went back to the stove."'^

In fact Ren nie dies* and with her the 1 i terature she was; forced to represent. I t was impossible for Iter ei ther to abandon Joseph and to f o I .1 ow Jaccsb's standar d of living or to go on living under Joseph's suspicious watching. As any end means; the beginning of something new, or' the old simile of the seed that must die? in order to bear a new being, Rennie's death suggests the arising of a new literature, and it wouldn't certainly be the old literature, but a new one, perhaps a genre which, .like the reborn phoenix, would keep the same skeleton, but new and brighter feathers... MOFES

.1. „ BARTH. ER. p . 142 . ER. p. 168 3. . ER. p. 28 4. ER, p. 27 5. . ER, p. 29 6. . ER. p. 38 7. . ER. p. 45 8. „ ER, p. 58 9. . ER. p. 71 10. . ER, p. 72 .1.1 . . ER, p. 72 12. ER, p„ 76 f; a u SHAKESPEARE W i 1 1 i a m . J h® ° ^ i s of the i.fe. of Henry .the Ei.gh.tl Act V, Scene v". .14 . BARTH. ER « p. 144 15. ER, p. 144 16 . ER, p. 209 4. The Doctor - the Personification of Knowledge

" WI ) a t. ' s y o u r n a me?" "Jacob Horner. I'm a graduate student, at John Hopkins " "Ah, ah, he warned» No biography, Jacob Horner »„."•'•

In spite of the Doctor's warning, the reader expects that at any moment the narrator will tell the Doctor's name, but Jacob only gives a few hints about him. "No biography" is a slogan he applies to his patients as well as to himself.

Jacob even does not know for sure whether the Doctor is a wise or a quack, but the fact is that he always runs back to the Doctor when he sees no escape for his problems.

The first time, when Jacob had been completely dominated by cosmopsis, it was the Doctor who came and offered him some help. It was the Doctor who orientated him, prescribing a set o f t. h e r a p i e t. h a t. c o u 1 d p r o v ide h i m w i. 11 > a n o r" m a 1 1 i f e . TI"* e

Doctor knew hi.m so well he cou.ld even read his thoughts, as it happened when Jacob had de? ci de d to play the sel f- sufficient and defy the Doctor. It was the Doctor who finally decided - against his wi11 - to accomplish Rennie's abortion, forcing Jacob to face facts and take an active role? in that disaster. It was the Doctor who led Jacob from ignorance to k n o w 1 e d g e , f r o m n a i v .i t y t o e : : p e r i e n c e?. !.... i. k e J o s e? p h li o r g a n , the Doctor was also a tutor, Jacob Horner's tutor» Ho we ver- bis view of the world was different from the former ' s one?.

The Doctor près c::ri be? d the behavior, but he did not in ter fer; he-? did nCDt demand a final test after years of indoctrination, he preferred self experience from his disciple; he? knew his apprentice would make mistakes, but he believed in the knowledge of the world rather than logic: s "The world is everything that is the case, and what is the case is not a m a 11 e r o f 1 o g i c:. 1 '

The lacking of a name for the Doctor suggests two possibilities: first, in a denotative level, it is a question of veri s i mi 1 i tu cie , for after the reader finishes reading the novel, he deduces the narrator is intentional, iy hiding the

Doctor's identity in order to protect him, since the narrator is still .living in one of his remobi ligation farms, where he writes the story. The second i n t e r p re tat i on , in a con no ta tive level, suggests the Doctor as an abstrae:!: being. Considering the whole plot, as an allegory of the art of fiction writing, the Doctor represents knowledge itself. He may be the books, the theories,, the research the writer does in order to pas;s from theory to action. He is wisdom. He owns all the therapi.es and secret formulae. However he cannot interfer in the writer's individuality; he just provides the means, prescribes the medicines, the behavior, but does not force h i s p a t i. e n t s to take t h e m . He may c 1 eve r 1 y .in d u c e t o a c h o i c: e when it is the only way of getting a result, like the uneasy position irrt.CD which he puts his patients inside the Progress and Advice room, in order to initiate them in the art. of discipline, the s CD urce of all knowledge.

Like many other aspects we have already observed in The

End of the Road, the Doctor's figure d CD es not represent any novelty in the world of 1 iterature. He is found instructing the young king Arthur by the name of Her ,1. in as well as in many other fables or novels. In the? Postwar nove?Is such figure will appear with more frequency, as we already mentioned. According to Jaç Tharpe, they incarnate the idea of mystery and magic, perhaps the new "God ex machina" of the modern epics;

But all Barth's works suggest an old combination of Sterne and Gide dealing with the theme of a writer composing a work of art about an incipient hero who is antiheroic because he reveals so much of his formative process his own mistakes. A mentor is implied even w hie r e lie d o e s n o t. e x .i. s t 1 i. t e r a 3 1 y . And since the menthor is usually a •figure of either mystery or magic, the writer is, vaguely at least, a s o r c e r e r ' s a p p r e n t i. c e . -•'

In The En cl of the Road, the absen ce of a name contri.but.es to increase the atmosphere of mystery that involves the Doctor, who is a paradoxical figure: a negro doctor with a white clientele in a time when raciEm and

"apartheid" were very strong in the United States. According to Jacob's description, the Doctor was an un common negros bald, with a moustache and with a mild but com m ¿an din g voice..

Like most autodidacts, he seems to disdain universities, especially the graduating courses; "Argh I the Doctor said, as if hawking to spit on the graduate? school . D.ic:l you s t. u ci y lock-picking in the graduate school ? Fornication? SaiImaking?

Cross-examination?'"^ His behavior certainly has to den with h i s b e I i e f s , a e: c o r d i n g t o w h i c h t h c? 1 ' k n o w 1 e? d g e o f 1h e w o r 1 d " i s; t h e? o n e? t. h a t. mat t. ers.

The? Doctor ho we? ver, in spite? of his antagonism against universities, appreciates rituals: he? does not talk pro fi BE-i on a I ly unless inside the Progress and Advice room in appropriate suits: "He had donned a white medical looking jacket and appeared entirely official and competent."'- Buch a behavior,, if transferred to literature, may suggest the concern with the formal aspects, which were a constant worry for John Barth too: "... it might be conceivable to rediscover validly the artifices of language and literature •••- such farout notions as grammar, punctuation... even characterization ! Even plot ! ... The Doctor also behaves like a scientist, being objective in his professional relationship with his clients: "But don't think I have an equal love for them. They're more or less interesting p r o b .1 e m s :i. n i mm o b i 1 i t y » " ''

Besides, the doctor forces Jacob to be more specific: in his answers, to go straight to the point, to make choices and be d i. sc :i. p> 1 i ned .

Thus, in spite of being a secondary character with a few and fast appearings, the Doctor is a first rank character for the author's main pur pose : to véhicula te his literary anc.1 philosophical ideas. Certainly if one would exclude the chapters which involve? the relationship between the Doctor and Jacob Horner, little dammage would be done against. the plot or the story itself, but the same could not be said about the allegory the novel presents, Jacob Horner and

Joseph Morgan, through their behavior as well as by their i n t e 1 1 e c: t. u a 1 c o n f r ont a t i a n s .i. m p 1 i. c i t .1 y e x p o s e J o h n B a r t. h ' s basic theoretical and p>hi .1 osopliica 1 principles;, but it is the

Doctor who explicitly confirms them, ft is the Doctor, for instance, that. states that modern man is a "role p>layer" , that one must wear masks to go on !i v i n g, a synthesis of

Irving Goffman's theories» It is the Doctor who clearly says that "ontogeny recapitulates cosmology" by stating that the world is everything that is the case. It is also the Doctor who stimulates the y ou rig writer to write compulsively: "It doesn't matter whether you act construct!ve1 y or even consistently,, so long as you act. it is the Doctor who recommends "mythotherapy" or imitation for beginners and so on. Eve n t. h e D o c t. o r 's fi n a 1 b e h a v i o r , a p p a r e n 11 y e >¡ p 1 o r i n g

Jacob in his despair, by taking all his money, can be seen as a drastic means of making him face his responsibility. And so, in the allegory we intended to demonstrate The End of the

Road is, the innominate Doctor actually plays the role of abstract, knowledge, which em bo die? s the author's doctrines and principles, and in spite of appearing as a "minor" character

in the novel, the Doctor's performance is of prime

importance. And once more we must agree with the Doctor: "In

life, he said, there are? no essentially major or minor

characters... MOTES

1. BARTH, ER, p, 89 ER, p. 93 TH AR PE , Clac. John Barth -- TheComicSublimity of Paradox : C a r b o n d a 1 e a n d E d w a r c:l s v i 11 e, S o u t h e r n 111 i n o i s University Press, .1977, p„ 9. 4. BARTH. ER, p. 8 5. _ ER, p. 90 6. BARTH, T h e t.. .i. t e? r a t u r eo f Exhalation T he Atlantic, 220 (2) s 3.1., Aug. 1967. 7. ER, P' 90 8. ... ER, p, 95 9. ER, p, 100 CONCLUSION

After finishing to read the present work, we expect the reader to conclude that John Barth, in spite of the chaotic time in which he began his literary career and when most w r i t. e r s we r e s t ill 1 o o k i. n g f o r al t. e; r n a t i v e s in f i c t i o n , already had a more or less defined project in mind, or a new

1 i t. e r a r y p r o p o s a .1. .

Being a man of his time, he was deeply influenced by the many philosophical doctrines that were being discussed and taught during his university education. Besides, with an early teaching career, directing him towards research and study, his work shows the alliance of both the writer and the scholar, in a production which paradoxically and paradox is o n e o f h .i. s p r e d j. 1 e c t i o n s -- 1 .i. n k s e; x p e r i m e n t a 1 i s m w i t h tradition .in Literature and very up-to-date doctrines with a n c i e ri t CD n c? s i. n P h i. 1 o s o p h y ..

A s w e m e n t. .i. o n e? d i ri t. h e .i. n t r o d u c t. ion, t r y i ri g t o i s o 1 a t c?

Barth the thinker from Barth the writer is not an easy task, since his books become vehicles for both, where his p h .i 1 o s CD p Ii i c al c r- e e d s a s w e 11 a s h i s 1 i t e r" a r y t h e CD r e tica 1 principles arc-? presented or discussed. However, we tried to emphasize the 1 i t. e r a r y as p e c t o f B a r t h ' s b o o k s .i. n a n attempt t CD show how he had a project since his first book, T he

Floating Opera, which, by the allegory it contains, marked

the "launching" of his project. His second book arid the main

body of the present thesis represented the discussion of such

project., since it. can be interpreted as an allegory of

fiction writing, and, from its title as well as from its plot one may deduce the exhaustion of literary forms and the idea that something new should begin.

The next step in John Barth's project was to show through concrete work what he actually intended as; a new proposal for fiction writing: the revival of existing forms in a farcical interpretation. The Sot-Weed Factor exemplified it by going back to the past, in a historical farce of the?

literature of the XVIII century, while GilesGoat-Boy travels to the future and reinterprets scientific fiction. It. was time, then, to ex plain what, ht? was doing, and Barth pub li s; he d his "The Literature of Exhaustion", followed by two other- twin books, Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera. that would represent the crowning of his bas i. c project and a c o r r o b ora t .i a n o f t h a t. f a m o u s a r t .i. c 1 e . His n e x t w o r k , Letters would be? an example? of the " 1 i ter ature of replenishment", re c:l i s co ve? ring the epistolary genre as well as retaking the

I .i. ne? of his t w o 1 a s t novels.

Inside? his new proposal Barth also includes a new vision of the hero, which is "the writer as the hero". He embodies the? current consensus of a struggle that occurs between the self and the society where? one lives, where traditional values like? family, biography do not. matter anymore? and the demand is to live? the present mo m en t being aware of the social patt.erni.ngs which occur in innumerable ways, including the new hero's restricted field: language and literature. In such a world the hero must, also be aware? of an ancient platonic principle: that on tog en y recapitulates ph.il age? ny and thus, as a man as well as a writer, he must. pas;s through experience, or the knowledge of the world, in order to get maturity, for educa ti can must begin again in each member of the human race, in spite of all the stored knowledge humanity has as a whole. Living in such a paradoxical world where everything has already been done, all the? forms of literature have already been explored and nothing new seems to exist to be said, where, paradoxically, one has to learn everything f i" o m 11") e b e g i n n i n g , the o n 1 y c h a n c e s e e m s t o t a 1 k b b o u t o n e ' s own experience. If the great epic of modern life is to go on living day after day, the great hero is the one that can see, interpret, and write about what is; happening around him. If there is not enough matter to write about, for all values are relative and everything has already been said, what about, saying it again over and over or talking about the difficulties one has to express it? That is what John Barth's he? re? does.

Therefore, having concluded that. everything in

Literature had already been done, all the possible forms of fiction already exhaustively explored, John Barth opted for farce as the ideal form to reinterpret those exhausted forms.

He could have chosen satire, or parody, or even fantasy, which are genres which also offer possibilities of reinterpretation, however, since Barth never intended to be a moralist, due to his existentialist principles, he preferred farce, which he certainly con c; 1 uded to be the most balanced form in order to express this paradoxical world where things are? between the ridiculous and the hilarious. Jac:: l'harpe ' s words define Barth's choice very well: "But Barth does not write? fantasy. As he says, he writes fair ce. He? deals with the

•f a n t a s t i c a n d g r o t e? s q u e b y o b s e r v i n g t h e m r e a 1 .i. s t i c a 11 y . Satire and parody may be elements in the composition. The serious may be there too, as well as the ordinary and the rea 1 isti c. " *

John Barth justifies his choice in one of his int e rviews, where he compares himself more 1o an "arranger" or "orchestrator" than to a "composer" or a "performer", referring to his musical background, which includes some experience in jazz as well as a first intention of be? com.i rig a musician rather than a writer arid a teacher. In fact he be? came a kind of or che s traitor, and usually an orchestrator who enjoys rearrangements of notorious classical pieces.

One: must also keep iri mind Barth's obsession for craftsmanship and expertise, which he stresses in his famous articles arid interviews and axpplies in his books. In this sense, he? must be seen not as an ordinary "orchestrator", but as a refined one, whose arrangements will fatally awake both fee?lings from his audiences appraisal as we 11 as criticism, what does n o t: worry the writer, who is cons ci ou s of both pos sib i 1 i tie? s .

Through the specific: interpretation of the The End of the Road. we tried to show the reader how the novel re?present:s the? "moment" in which John Barth wa\s writing it.

First we observed se? me? general aspects that are also d e t e? c t. a b 1 e? i n B a r t: h ' s o t: h e? r boo k s w rit t en e i t: h c? r t: e f c? r e o r after The End of the Road. Next we tried to demonstrate how the author used both the plot and the characters in order to serve as a vehicle for his theore ti ca 1 creed, transforrning the? novel inte? an allegory c>f fiction writing. Iii e E n d o f t h e Raa d meant .in fact for hin author the end of an era in Literature, which had been marked either by the

repetition of old and exhausted forms as if they were brand new or the search for totally original ones, something that,

had proved useless, since they were also repeating models

that had already been tried in the past. Literature should

face the fact that Literature was exhausted, at least its

traditional genres. The new writer should be that one who

actually knew the past, had a deep knowledge of the history

of art as the frame of his work, allied with the search for

eraftsmanship. Only such an expert would be able to re-write

t. h e e x .i. s t. i n g f o r m s i. n a f a r c:: i c a 1 w a y .

Thus, The End of the Road would actually mean the end

for those who took tradition as absolute, as well as for

t h o s e w f i o o n 1 y s a w val u e i ri an a 1 1 e g e cl o r i g .i. n a I .i. t. y . F o r

those, however, who were able of seeing the world under a

r e 1 a t i v i s t i c p e r s p e c tive, wh o t) e .1 i e v e d i n s t u cl y a n ci r e s e a r c: h ,

and were intelligent enough to improve what had already been

done, it meant a new Literature, the "literature of

r e p1en ishmen t", NOTES

1 » TI-I AF< F'E , Jac . JohnBarth The Comic Sub.1 im.it y of Paradox : Car bon d a.le? and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1977, p. 91»

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