.diana

.

There will be thick sleep tonight. Drugged on the dull anaesthesia of lullabies,
even the anchorless feel the tug of the deep, consuming like a love, a hunger.
Above, the moon sucks in the sky like a craving, wide-eyed. Dilate. Diana ditched
the forest for the midnight; she's stitched herself to the undersides of stars.
She spears and speaks through the mouths of clouds. Moondrunk, she's sunk
into the currents of our mumbled conversations; our fumbled demonstrations
of humanity. Hunting a heartbeat amongst a fleet of ghosts.

Sleep is her uncountry; the estuary that feeds her sea of sky. She steers
past the arms of drowned suns and daughters that reach from the waters.
Taking names, notes. Traces of heartbreak in the wake of her boat.

War-torn wishers, we flit and fall like sycamore seeds, feeling not high, but afloat.
Even here she hounds us, smiling like a child, dog-hearted. She is ellipsis, eclipse,
the call of the wild slipped behind the scythes of her fingernails. We close
on the guise of the city, the immutable face of a father, and collapse back
to our tiny premature deaths: sleepscorched breath and the smell of surgery.
Flight, distilled. Diana sits and sighs, the virgin queen, unravelling the night
into morphine; saline; the salt of sleepdust rusting round the eyes.

.

* * *

I wrote a lot about sleep whilst I was away. This is largely made up of ideas I salvaged from the wreckage of my attempt at a longer project...
Anyway, at least Greece (and its amazing mythology) was inspirational. I might make a series of these.

Also, some exciting news! Guess who's been given the chance to join the questioning panel for dA's An Audience with Margaret Atwood as part of their 10th birthday celebrations? Hell yes. :D

Cursed Handmaids And Cursive Eves

The amazing industrial band I:Scintilla. Can't wait for new album 'Dying and Falling'!

You can find the lyrics to 'Cursive Eve' here.

As I already discussed in my previous article on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, Gilead, the land in which the novel is set, is a dystopian world founded on extremist Puritan Christian principles – a patriarchal misogynistic society. But how does something so twisted and evil emerge out of the words of a Bible that supposedly teaches us the righteousness of equity, to love our neighbours and to live peaceful lives?

Let’s rephrase that: the words of a Bible that supposedly preaches goodwill to all men, the importance of brotherhood and to love our Father.

The song ‘Cursive Eve’ by I:Scintilla is one interpretation of Christianity which highlights how such a sexist, unjust society as Gilead could have been conceived. In the words of Briony, the lead singer, ‘the song is about the oppressive Christian views of women, and the rigid roles and moulds many women feel they are forced into, from birth to adulthood’. She also comments that ‘these outlooks seem to have a profound consequence on a woman’s self-esteem, mental stability, creativity and sexuality’ – all consequences that are shown in a devastating light in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ through the experiences of Offred and her fellow handmaids.

So, how does religion have such profound consequences on women from birth till adulthood? Well, at birth, as well as the significant pre-determination of various aspects of your life dependent on your gender, who you become is also dependent on your parents, and the society you grow up in. If you grow up in a society founded on religious beliefs, this will impact your identity. In ‘Cursive Eve’, this factor is not presented as simply a passive factor of your surroundings, but as something that confines and suppresses individuality: ‘you were born wrapped in the pages / the words bind your mind and body’. However, this is not something that all children are subjected to. I:Scintilla say that despite the ‘false comfort of thin paper’ every child is wrapped in, they are distinguished and differentiated by gender. And if you’re female, this means that ‘you’re claimed as unclean property’, and ‘classified as a nameless mass’.

The next verse introduces the idea of ‘they’ – ‘they’ representing those whose views are presented in the Bible, and those who enforce ‘the Word’. In ‘Cursive Eve’, ‘they’ are always the active group, whilst ‘you’ (women) are passive (here I:Scintilla’s use of second-person address has an ‘othering’ effect that isolates the addressee, reciprocating the effect of misogynistic Christian beliefs on women). ‘They say you need guilt to be good’ shows how the Bible dictates how women need to suffer guiltiness (regardless of individuality) to be considered ‘good’. Why? ‘They say in you lives an Eve’. Eden lost – Eve’s fault. Eve fell first, dragging Adam down with her.

Timothy 2:13-14 – ‘For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression’.

Thus womankind is forever seconded in the eyes of Christianity, subjected to patriarchal control, and made to feel guilty, whilst ‘your brothers all remain blameless’. This male interpretation of ‘the Word’ turns Biblical belief into the ‘heart of snares and nets’ to incarcerate and restrain women, whilst the hands of believers become restrictive ‘bands’.

The beginning of the third verse reads like a sermon:

‘They say “in you lives an Eve” and
“Thy desire rules over thee”
“Thou shall not let witches live”’

The line ‘thy desire rules over thee’ is, in fact, a subverted version of a passage from Genesis (3:16). The actual line is ‘thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee’ – even more patriarchal and demeaning of women than I:Scintilla’s version! I:Scintilla highlight Eve, witches, and later, ‘male angels’ – all Christian icons; all very paternal and misogynistic in nature. ‘Witches’ were any woman in some way alienated from society and thus labelled ‘evil’. They were feared by people in many Christian societies around the world, and any suspect was subject to a witch trial – inevitably ending in the murder of the woman in question, regardless of actual guilt. After all, a woman needs guilt to be good, so if she doesn’t die a witch, she should be glad to die an innocent, right? Again, I:Scintilla reiterate how constricted women are by such beliefs: ‘the fiction binds your mind and body’. It is significant that this is almost a direct repeat from an earlier phrase, the only difference being that ‘the words’ has now been changed to ‘the fiction’ – showing how really ‘the Word’ is fictitious in nature.

The ideas of the salvation the religion supposedly offers and the actual bondage in its place are directly juxtaposed in the lyrics of the chorus, where Biblical devotion is even likened to BDSM:

‘Kneel - here you’re not scared to die

Beg - those dogs will lick and drink you dry

Kneel - eat the pretty cursive lie

Beg - and you will not be scared to die’

Kneeling and begging are both submissive positions, used when pleading for something. The idea of kneeling here is contrasted to kneeling during prayers, and begging is likened to the behaviour of a dog trying to appease its master. But this time the dogs are superior to women: the lyric ‘those dogs will lick and drink you dry’ not only highlights the low position women have been assigned by the Bible, but how they are (ab)used, subjected to the whim of the patriarchy. The ‘pretty cursive lie’ that women are forced to eat is, obviously, the words of the Bible; the word ‘cursive’ highlighting the handwritten (and therefore man-made and fictitious) nature of the Bible, and the flow of how these words are continually interpreted and reinterpreted and misinterpreted to further repress and demean women. Women are also presented with a threat: only if they accept and ‘eat’ these lies, will they ‘not be scared to die’ – i.e. only by conforming to the restricted lives the Bibles states they can live, can they reach heaven.

And so women are forced into the ‘rigid roles and moulds’ that Biblical teachings have created for them. They are totally overwhelmed by ‘the Word’, turned into possessions of the Church. The lyric ‘give you away to male angels’ shows this possession (women can be given, and can thus be ‘held’), but it is also shown to be a possession that is unwanted. Women are given away to ‘male angels’ (another patriarchal symbol: men are powerful, heavenly beings) for reformation, to combat their evil whilst ‘the leaders’ (the mysterious ‘they’) ‘all remain shameless’, despite the unjust, sexist treatment they are perpetrating. To allow this reformation, women are told they must ‘wash away rain’s ancient marking’ – in other words, erase the Eve-mould which they are cast in from the dawn of time (impossible, as it is not a role they have ascribed to themselves), and ‘beg [themselves] for forgiveness’ – also impossible; how can one forgive themselves for something they have never done? Thus reformation is inconceivable, and women must remain ‘evil’ and unclean forever – but of course, this is their fault – after all, they were given guidance on how to go about their spiritual rejuvenation.

The final section of the song contains further subverted passages from Genesis: ‘must thy sorrow multiply / thy conception in sorrow’ is a play on the words of the same passage in Genesis as referenced earlier: ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children’. I:Scintilla shows how these words of God before the Fall can be reinterpreted to shift the cause of this sorrow from God (in the Bible, God is the active personage ‘I will...’) to women themselves (‘thy sorrow multiply’, ‘thy conception in sorrow’ – the sorrow belongs solely to women instead of being borne upon them by someone else). This shows how interpretations of the Bible can really subvert the meaning of the text, and how interpretations can be used to condemn and oppress women. They can easily be told ‘thou shall live in the silence / with all subjection’ (a subversion of ‘let the wom[e]n learn in silence with all subjection’ – Timothy 2:11, which is also used by a Commander at the opening of a Pravaganza in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’), and will remain voiceless victims, controlled and repressed by the will of ‘the Word’. The passage from Timothy continues ‘notwithstanding, she shall be saved by childbearing’ – just one of the ‘rigid roles’ prescribed for women by Christian doctrine, and the principle upon which Gilead is based.

And what of man – the leaders, the male angels? I:Scintilla present him far from the fallen-heroic image of Adam in Genesis, who was tricked by Eve into evilness. Although they admit that ‘he may hear false answers’, and be influenced by ‘evil’ outside himself, I:Scintilla point out that ‘he lets the voices in’ – it is his choice what to believe. Thus they claim that Adam was equally to blame for the Fall, and that men are no more sacred than women.

The last couple of lines of ‘Cursive Eve’ I perceive as a question, posed to women: ‘must thy sorrow follow / visions in his head?’. Must women’s oppression and misery be caused by men’s fictions - men’s religions? It is not a question for women to take upon themselves, but one to make them think: is this what I want to be told to believe; do I want to have such ‘sorrow’ forced upon me? It is an offer of escape.

* * *

Of course, ‘Cursive Eve’ is just one interpretation of the effects of Christianity – and everyone is entitled to their own view. My point is, the Bible, as with any literature, is there to be interpreted, and so it has been – by Christians and non-Christians alike. As with any form of organised religion, different factions of Christianity have emerged, all believing slightly different things under the huge banner of ‘Christianity’. This is nothing to object to – but it allows extremist groups to emerge. Those groups of people who twist and subvert the words of their ‘god’, or ‘prophet’, or whoever, until they bear little resemblance to the words out of which they were borne. This is what happened in Gilead, where the extremists took over the country and used their power to enforce their beliefs on everyone else, persecuting and executing those of opposing religions. They twisted the words of the Bible to enforce their misogynistic beliefs on an entire population (almost everything Aunt Lydia says is a clear example of this), and to perpetrate evil, all in the name of God. All from the Word of God.

From the Word, anything is possible.

Tulips

i.
The day after death, the flowers appeared.
A line of them; three crimson tulips standing proud and serene in the corner of my room, each surrounded by a little frayed halo of darkness where the carpet had been split. Fragile sapling tongues bejewelled with crowns dipped in blood.
Nobody watched me before: now I am watched. There is something conspiratorial about their existence, as if they have been sent to observe me, and whisper secrets behind my back. They stare like the blank eyed statues of angels you find in graveyards; immutable, wholly absorbed in their vigil. I don’t like to take my eyes off them for long in case they move.
The nurses don’t seem to notice my visitors: they bustle in, take my temperature, check my pulse, feel my forehead. To them I am a procedure, one of many that must be completed over the course of the day. No point in asking questions, prompting friendship – they know I woke up mute, and that my voice is just one of my missing parts. When the ritual is completed, they leave without so much as a glance at the tulips, their skirts rustling like autumn leaves.
The tulips are too much, their colour too sudden – they hurt my eyes. Against the white hospital walls they’re like blood drops on snow – sacrilege. I tried to hide, shoved my head beneath the sheets and pressed myself flat against the mattress, but it just reminded me how deflated I now was; how empty. Like a cut-paper doll, ridiculous, pressed between the eyes of the tulips and the eyes of the nurses.

And I have no face – I have wanted to efface myself.
But it is frightening, living as a shadow.


ii.
At night, they scream.
Every night they seal themselves, close up their buds, and wail wordlessly into the darkness. It frightens me, this inner crying. It’s as if the voices aren’t theirs but are coming from within, inside the petals, closed like fists.
Mother once told me that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants.

Oh God, what have I done?
I bury my head beneath the pillow, try to block my ears, but it’s no use. I’m screaming inside too.


iii.
Before they came, the air was calm. Breathing was a rhythm, in out, in-out, inout like the clockwork mechanics of a machine. No sentiment; no fuss. But the tulips filled it up with noise. Now my breath snags and catches in my throat, my tongue feels dry and swollen. I’m breaking down, I know it.
I stretch out, supine, on the bed, feeling my bones sink down into the mattress like roots into earth. I would like to stay here forever, a permanent part of the furniture, immovable and silent. I could haunt the ward; wrap myself in white sheets like a corpse. Scare the doctors to death. Here they’re so used to doling it out, like medicine; it would be nice to turn the tables for once.
Or I could just lie – lay, passive tense now, remember, now it’s all out of my hands - here and melt into the sheets. Let my blood seep into the floorboards.
Perhaps that’s why the tulips glint like rubies.


iv.
I keep my eyes fixed on them. I know they’re up to something; playing some game with my mind, working their twisted magic on me. Their whisperings have turned into sinister spells, a chanting that undulates like the beat of my heart. My second pulse – two again, I should be happy – but choking; my throat’s constricted and I’m retching, retching. Retching air because I’m already empty, oh God, so empty, nothing else left. From fruitful to barren. The blossoms died and withered inside me, and now they’re sprouting out my throat: I’m screaming flowers – crimson like blood.
I saw red, couldn’t take it any longer. Leapt out of bed and pitched a jug of water over their heads, watched it seep into the carpet, turning it black. I thought it would drown out their awful voices, strangle my awful new tongue.
Murder, cold and blue.
Like you, baby.
My baby.

The tulips rotted, shrivelled, their petal heads collapsing in on themselves, their screams caving in. I fell to the floor, pushed my knees to my forehead, clutching my sides, crying hollow words. Shrivelling too.

* * *

A short fiction prose-poem inspired by the poem of the same name by Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' - both texts I'll be studying next year.

You & I, Amplified: Craziness and Individuality in the Dystopian World of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

Recently we’ve begun our study of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in English Lit classes. This article is about something that came up in discussion when my English group looked at the first two chapters of the novel, which I have then elaborated on (unfortunately, I’m afraid these elaborations are likely to be highly incoherent, so be prepared!). We were discussing dystopian fiction and social satires through looking at these chapters and the epigrams at the start of the book, and got onto the question of what exactly is Gilead. Yes, it’s a dystopian world set in the future, but it is by no means alien: Atwood clearly bases it on precepts in the current world like government surveillance, the role of women in society and the Biblical concepts that Gilead is founded on. She herself in fact wanted this novel to be called ‘speculative fiction’ and not science fiction. So is this dystopian world really so far from what we live in now?

The fact is, Gilead is not that different from the current world, and this is what makes it so chilling. It is the present day world, with all its imperfections and prejudices, amplified. The different factions of men and women are basically an exaggerated version of the separation of social classes and clique-y labels; the slogans and catchphrases used to promote the regime are similar to the rhetoric of advertising in our capitalist culture; and the delegation of jobs (men as ‘Commanders’, controlling state affairs and business, or as Angels/Guardians [army, policing or manual work]; women as household maids and reproduction vessels) are really, unfortunately, only an amplified version of the typified gender-occupation divide in the world today.

It’s shocking how grotesque the world looks when exaggerated in this way.

One of the characters enforcing the new Gilead law is Aunt Lydia, who says:

"Ordinary … is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary."

Surely this means that anything, however seemingly outrageous, crazy, unjustified, etc, can become ‘normal’ and accepted within time. How, then, does one decipher the difference between what is normal and what is abnormal, what is acceptable and what is not? How can one draw the line between the possible and the impossible? The world of Gilead may seem like a nightmare alternative reality, but is it really beyond the realms of possibility?

This reminded me of a quote from ‘Girl, Interrupted’, when Susanna is contemplating whether or not she was actually ever ‘crazy’:

"Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is. Crazy isn’t being broken, or swallowing a dark secret – it’s you or me, amplified."

Is this really all that ‘crazy’ or ‘abnormal’ is – ordinary, amplified? Taking a person or a concept or a set of principles and augmenting them? If you think about it, it makes sense. Aren’t people who are considered ‘mad’ just ordinary people, but with one or more characteristic or emotion within themselves magnified? Take bi-polars for example: everyone experiences moodswings between happiness and sadness; the cycles between mania and depression are surely more defined versions of these. And anorexics: everyone experiences some lack of confidence with regards to their body-image at some time during their life; anorexics have a more in-depth, concentrated version of this. Of course this is a generalisation, and I am by no means attempting to ‘simplify’ or belittle any mental illnesses here, far from it, but it is a notable general trend.

And so the question can be asked ‘what is normal?’ with regards to craziness. The saying goes that ‘everyone’s a little bit crazy’ – and so they should be! This ‘craziness’ is just a little bit of our personality, typical of human beings, that has been magnified out of proportion and is turned into a ‘quirk’ or trait. And, as ‘ordinary is what you’re used to’, this state of mind will seem normal to the individual experiencing it, as they don’t know of a different mind set. And thus individuality is born!

In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, individuality is repressed: everyone is prescribed a delegated uniform, code of conduct, manner of speech, etc. It gets to the stage where Offred, the main protagonist, feels that she even has to control her thoughts:

‘Like other things now, thought must be rationed. There’s a lot that doesn’t bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.'

This is because thinking can give her away; betray her individuality, and her will for rebellion and freedom against the oppressive Gilead system. Her feelings – her individual amplified quirks interacting and responding to her surroundings, put into words inside her head – are dangerous because they betray her individual ‘craziness’, her personal amplifications, and this is exactly what the Gilead regime wishes to repress. Offred is afraid that if she accidently voices her innermost thoughts (which would mostly be considered treasonous), she will be punished for working against a system that enforces uniform roles, and treats women more as child-bearing machines than as people.

And this is where the Gilead world becomes a true dystopia. Whilst our current Western world may not exactly be a constant celebration of individuality, especially with the rise of consumerist culture, it is certainly a world where people’s differing dynamics are taken into account and used for the advantage of society as a whole. If you are good at a particular skill, for instance, photography, you are able to use that skill to your own personal advantage, through making money out of it or simply enjoying it as a hobby, and to the advantage of society as a whole, providing art for people. People are able to specialise within almost every different area of work ('the division of labour’, as it’s known by economists), so people make the most of their ‘quirks’ and talents, and the economy works as efficiently as possible. What frightens us about Gilead is the repression of this individuality that we so depend on to shape our societies into communities we wish to belong to. Because whilst personal amplifications may not be the most utilitarian way of exploiting ‘resources’ – which is what the Gilead regime aims for – it is certainly a far better way for the world to work.