The Tree of Knowledge: Binary Oppositions

 

"You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will 

be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

                                                                      (Genesis 3: 4-5)

            The word “blue” can only mean ‘blue’ if there is also not-blue.  The word “good,” anticipates and implies that “evil” exists; “male,” “female,”; “day,” “night,” and so on with every word.  Language, by nature, separates. Paired binary oppositions, relying on each other for meaning, are called “binary oppositions.” To know, by some philosophical perspectives, is ‘to have words for.’  In this light, Adam and Eve’s eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was the moment they acquired language.

            Linguists Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Derrida wrote extensively on this dynamic, showing that language “privileges” or gives "dominance" to one of each pair.  Using a numerical analogy, we would then have the privileged, dominant word as numerator and the subordinate word as denominator:

good         male           day

evil           female        night

           

            Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.” Binary oppositions, as all words do, embody the history of how they were used, including the prejudices and power struggles of those who used and use them.  Notice that “male” is favored over “female” in too many languages; and “good,” assumes a common or dominant view of what “good” means. Even though, for some, day is a dangerous time, and night, as for nocturnal animals, a refuge, English privileges “day” over “night.” Here is another pair that often, insidiously, reinforces destructive prejudices:   

                                                                white

                                                                black

The expression “it’s not all black and white” normally assumes “black” to be negative and “white” positive.  In her book White Women Writing White, R. Curry shows that, for example, Sylvia Plath regularly uses the image of blackness to depict evil.  In our racially rich and diverse world, we cannot afford to reinforce in our daily language the hegemony of white people over people of color. It behooves us to become aware of these patterns and to both undermine and abandon them. A long time ago I abandoned using the word “black” pejoratively in contrast to “white.”  Instead, I prefer the neutral “it’s not one extreme or another.”

            Traditionally, literature was interpreted through a standard identification of conflicts. Note the gender bias:

                        Man against Himself

                        Man against Man

                        Man against Society

                        Man against Nature

                        Man against Machine

                        Man against Fate

                        Man against the Supernatural

These are much too general and, at the same time, restrictive.  On the other hand, identifying binary oppositions to explore is a generative way to engage with and to interpret literature—inspiring surprising points of entry and creative perspectives.  We can clearly see how our language favors the numerator and decide to favor the denominator as our point of entry.

            Here, for example, is a core binary opposition cited by Derrida:

                                                            presence

                                                            absence

Let’s see how we can favor not what is present in the text of a piece of literature, but what is absent.  For example, in Bran Stoker’s Dracula, there is a scene in which three vampire women are descending on Jonathan Harker, an as-yet not undead protagonist, to sexually and hematologically ravage him. Dracula rushes into the room and says, “Get off him.  He’s mine!”  The text at this point goes blank.  When the words resume, we are off onto another topic.

            The absence of what might have happened between Dracula and Harker is significantly more evocative and tension producing in the reader, than any explicit scene might have been, and can produce more interesting interpretations that will then enliven the reading of the rest of the text. Hence, we privileged “absence” over “presence.”  Similarly, the absence of a mother in “Cinderella,” and in its structurally parallel King Lear, can provide us with new and textured interpretations to enliven of our readings of the works.

            The Bible, as popularly interpreted, creates this binary opposition,

                                                                 Adam

                                                                  Eve,

with Eve having all the denominators in the language attributed to her: Evil, instead of Good; Disobedient, instead of Obedient; Weak, instead of Strong; and more.  Let’s rehabilitate her, favor her over Adam, instead, as the one who was courageous and insightful enough to embrace language as our source of power and civilization.  Because of her, we left the paradise where survival was enough, to enjoy a world in which, through language, we can be co-creators of our lives.

            In another post, we will consider how we can use various critical perspectives to manage binary oppositions.  For now, next time you read a piece of literature, see a film, or experience a personally dramatic situation, name some binary oppositions you might use to interpret it.  Privilege the denominator as your source of power and meaning, and notice the freedom you enjoy, thereby.

                                                              Works Cited

Curry, R.. White Women Writing White: H.D., Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and Whiteness. Westport: Greenwood, 2000. 

Goltzius, Hendrik.  "The Fall of Man."  Painting frontispiece. 1616.

Stoker, Bram.  Dracula.  Ed. John Paul Riquelme.  Boston: Bedford, 2002.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig.  Philosophical Investigations. 4^th Ed. Indianapolis: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.

First Words First

 

 

                                             …fruits that blossom first will first be ripe

                     Iago, Othello (2.3)

“First place,” “first glance,” "first" anything"—birthday, date, car, taste of pomegranate—is “first and foremost.”  In other words that embody firstness: we forefront priorities—primarily prize what’s premium.  Once there is that first mark on a blank page, the paper is forever transformed.  First impressions last.

This is especially true in reading literature.  Let's take Horatio's first word in Hamlet: “Friends” is Horatio’s first word Hamlet.  Throughout the play, he is, scene after scene, Hamlet’s only and most abiding friend.  Using the concept of friendship as our first-word point of entry—we can read Hamlet through the character of Horatio.  We can characterize Horatio either deductively—identify core characteristics of friendship and find examples of them in Horatio’s words and actions.  Or, we can interpret inductively—discern what friendship means by describing Horatio’s character as he moves through the play.  The most interesting interpretations combine both a deductive and an inductive approach.

For those who prefer to interpret Horatio deductively, it’s helpful to find what experts have to say about friendship.  In his book Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships, Geoffrey Greif identifies four levels of friends: must, trust, just, and rust.  The must friend is the go-to guy for all things earth-shattering.  The trust friend is less close than the must.  The just friend is just that—a casual acquaintance.  The rust friend floats in and out of the relationship.  Which kind of friend might Horatio be, and what’s our proof?

When, at the beginning of the play, Horatio sees the ghost of Hamlet’s father, he is the one who says

Let us impart what we have seen tonight

Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. (1.1.175-6)

A just or rust friend might run away both from the ghost and having to “get involved.”  A trust friend might be hesitant to get involved.  But must friend identifies the crisis, is aware of the context, informs his friend, and “has his back,” as they say.  The bearer of bad news is always at risk of the receiver’s reaction.  But Horatio will go boldly to his friend’s side. 

In the one expression “upon my life,” we can see how much Horatio would risk to empower his friend with information.  Note, as well, that Horatio does not say I will impart what I have seen tonight.  Horatio speaks in terms of us and we. He is a man who values connection.  He doesn’t say “Go tell him” or “I will tell him,” he says “Let us”—collaborative, respectful, inviting.

            And so we would proceed, seeking out scenes that either include or refer to Horatio, and considering each as proof or disproof of Horatio’s friendship.  We would apply Greif’s categories, deductively; and articulate, inductively, the various traits of friendship Horatio displays.  We might ask the question: “Is Hamlet a friend to himself?” We might compare and contrast how others treat Hamlet.  When we arrived at the scenes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, we would further appreciate, because of their treachery, what a courageous friend Horatio is, in contrast.  In most productions of Hamlet, Hamlet dies in his arms at the end of the play.  How much more poignant and meaningful becomes Horatio’s final address to Hamlet because of our close attention to the course of their friendship:

                        Now cracks a noble heart.  Good night, sweet prince,

                        And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! (5.2.361-2)

Notice that he uses thee and thy, instead of you and yours.  Originally, the form you instead of thou was used by the elite English to align them with the fashionable French tu and vous. It was distancing and asserted power positions above inferiors. Thee and thy were more intimate uses of the second person pronoun, as would be used in prayers.  In our time, philosopher Martin Buber used the more archaic thou to distinguish a reverent from a casual regard for another.  Interesting, especially in this context, is that those who practice Quakerism use the thee, thy, thou, thine form address during meetings, and call themselves “The Friends.”

            Because of the nature of interpretation and Shakespeare’s genius, first words will dependably clue us into his characters.  Horatio would never begin with I, as Katharina does in The Taming of the Shrew, nor would she be prompted to start with “Friends.”  And that makes sense.  Traditionally, readers have interpreted Katharina as the shrew of the play (for an alternate reading, check out the Titles chapter on pages #-#).  “Shrew,” when designating a person, means ‘violent, scolding, argumentative.’  Such a person would be self-centered, self-satisfied, selfish—all about “I” instead, as in the case of Horatio, “we.” 

When we trace Katharina through the first couple of scenes, we see her displaying what doctors Leonard C. Groopman and Arnold M. Cooper call “narcissistic personality disorder.”  Conducting a brief search, we find that the symptoms of this disorder include these:

• envious
• requires constant attention and admiration
• calculating and manipulative
• has no empathy for others 
•  arrogant
• expects special treatment

In 1.1, father Bapista calls Bianca, Katharina’s sister, “good,” and “my girl.” As we learned in the chapter on Rhythm, how a line varies from the classic ten syllable iambic pentameter is meaningful.  Katharina hesitates before she delivers these words, starting with a seven-syllable line:

                              A pretty peat! It is best

Put finger in the eye, an she knew why. (1.1. 78-9)

We can read that hesitation as proof of Katharina’s envy.  She feels slighted, and is calculating how to strike back at her father and sister.  Even without knowing what “peat” means, we can already discern the ‘scratch her eyes out’ violence of “put finger in the eye.” A quick dictionary check tells us that, in this context, “peat” means ‘a merry young girl’ and that “an” means ‘if.’ Katharina’s remark is sarcastic, devoid of empathy, angry that Bianca has their father’s affection.  In 2.1, Katharina ties up her sisters hands—in a gesture of bondage—and interrogates her as if Bianca were a criminal.  And does not relent when her sister pleads

                        Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,

                        To make a bondmaid and a slave of me. (1-2)

In her book Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality, Elsa F. Ronningstam articulates the painful shame and insecurity that underlies the narcissist’s bravado.  In the rest of the play, we will see Petruchio humiliate, starve, isolate, and shame Katharina—thus reducing her to her underlying insecurities.  In the chapter on Dismounts, we will ask whether Katharina is ultimately tamed.

How do first words affect your life experiences?  How can focus on first words enrich your literary experiences?