double mimesis: sensory representations in literature

Double MiMesis: sensory representations in literature

yael balaban

The regression of the masses today is their inability to hear the unheard-of with their own ears, to touch the unapprehended with their own hands—the new form of delusion which deposes every conquered mythic form.

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment

On a cold winter day, what could be better than to snuggle under a soft warm blanket, reading a good book while the wind blusters through the trees outside and the smell of my favorite pie in the oven makes my mouth water with anticipation?

If you could feel the warm softness of the blanket, if you could hear the wind in the trees, if you just had to swallow, thinking of the delicious pie—you unintentionally participated in what I call a double mimesis process: I tried to translate my sensory experiences into words and you recreated, mentally and maybe even physically, that experience, based on your own personal experience.1 By physically I mean, you may have recreated physical, corporeal experiences like sound, smell or taste; mentally means, you have let my words stimulate in your mind certain memories and open up a plethora of connotations and associations. “Double mimesis” refers to the double process of writing and reading, as the mimetic process depends on text and context, on words and their concretization. In this paper I propose that not only the creation of a work of art, but also its reception is a mimetic act.2 What makes a description of an event that did

1 The term “double mimesis” is my own. It is different from other concepts, such as Halliwell’s notion of “double-faced” or “dual-aspect mimeticism” (Halliwell 2002, 22–23, 172). Halliwell refers to the difference between mimesis as imitating, reflecting or “mirroring” the real world vs. “simulating” it, that is, creating a coherent world within the work of art, marking its status as a created artifact. His concept does not discern the making from the reception of the work.2 My use of ”mimesis” draws mainly on Adorno’s notion of the concept, as will be discussed bellow. Halliwell (2002) provides a comprehensive account of the diverse meanings of “mimesis” in Western tradition, from Plato to modern times. Mimesis

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not even happen—a fictitious event—influential for readers of diverse backgrounds, age-groups and characters? Can we identify the mechanisms that give sensory representations such power and use that knowledge to learn more about literature? Furthermore, the short demonstration above reveals the power of sensory representations to affect the reader, but also the risk of using sensory representations to manipulate readers, as often is done in marketing, pornography, and pulp fiction, the literary manifestation of culture industry. Can a better understanding of the ways sensory representations function lead us to a more informed reading? To suggest some possible answers to these questions I will first analyze what sensory representations are and how they function, and then describe the role they play in creating an aesthetic experience, following the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno.3 Finally, I will examine some of the sensory representations in “The Dead” by James Joyce.

What Are Sensory Representations, and How Do We Read Them?

As we shall see, sensory representations are constructs of corporeal, emotional and textual elements. Some words make our body react involuntarily, as in the case of sour lemons—never say “lemons” to a flute player before a concert! Though we may not react in a direct physical way, we are still subject to physical sensations stimulated by certain descriptions. For example, we don’t enjoy reading about a nail scratching a blackboard; and we enjoy a well-written erotic description.4 Sensory representations also bring up memories and feelings. Reading about a certain fragrance may recall the memory of a beloved person, while mentioning the smell of a hospital corridor might be irritating.5 At the same time, sensory

is basically thought of as a relation (or relations) between a work of art and the real world, and its influence on the recipient is considered an effect of these relations.3 To the best of my knowledge, a comprehensive theory of the nature and functions of sensory representations in literature has not been presented yet. I draw on some of the existing discussions of metaphor and cognitive poetics, as well as some fields of literary theory and aesthetics, as will be specified throughout this paper. 4 The question whether—and when—it slips into pornography exceeds the limits of this paper.5 This does not contradict the famous contention of Aristotle that we enjoy reading about things we find repulsive in real life. It is exactly the tension and relief of being repelled by the fictitious that creates the effect of catharsis.

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representations are words, which we decipher in the context of other words. As words, they evoke a different array of connotations. For instance, an apple pie alludes to America, while an apple strudel is definitely Austrian—even for readers who have never visited these countries. Many people—including those who haven’t read Proust’s novels—would recognize a “Madeleine cake” as related to À la Recherche du temps perdu (1913–1927, Remembrance of Things Past) and childhood memories. Indeed, Proust’s notion of involuntary memory exemplifies the first half of the double mimetic process. The aroma of the Madeleine, the “little phrase” from Vinteuil’s sonata and the stumbling over the loose paving stone, are all sensory experiences that evoke memories and associations within the realm of the represented world of the novels. Marcel and Swan are actually sensing something—a taste, a sound, or a kinesthetic movement. For a double mimesis to occur, the sensory experience must be translated into words and passed on to another person, namely the reader. This was done by Proust himself as he wrote about Marcel and Swan’s experiences. Once it is written, the metonym becomes a metaphor: the immediacy of the involuntary memory is mediated and transformed in ways we will explore below.

When we taste, smell, hear, see or touch, various sensations and feelings are stimulated. While reading a sensory representation, we reconstruct these experiences and associations using gestalts, or schemata, or “background-knowledge” that can be personal and idiosyncratic or collective, universal or culture-dependant.6 When we look at an apple from various angles, we see slightly different aspects of it. Smelling and tasting the apple provides us with more, non-visual aspects. All these fuse together in our minds to create a general schema of an apple—“an Apple.” When we read the word “apple” this frame is stimulated by the text, and qualified and supplemented by our former experiences. In my opening sentence I wrote the word “pie,” but there are many different kinds of pies, salty or sweet. Reading the sentence, each reader might fill the frame “pie” with his or her favorite filling: an apple pie, a shepherd’s pie or a lemon pie, etc. Different readers of the same text would react in a similar way—swallow, for example—while recalling completely different experiences. Still I assume none would think of the Greek letter π. This ambivalence—unity and diversity

6 For a discussion of various schema-theories, their origins in cognitive psychology and possible implementations in cognitive poetics, see Semino (1997). My “Apple” example draws mainly on Ingarden’s notion of “schematized aspects” discussed below. Semino does not follow Ingarden, but I find his ideas are adequate to the discussion of sensory representations.

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at the same time—is a basic element of any literary representation, and is intensely active in sensory representation. As I intend to demonstrate, in literature ambivalence can sometimes be very accurate.

Some of the frames we use are personal and idiosyncratic: a Madeleine dipped in chamomile tea would not bring up any childhood memories for me. Other schemes we use are collective and universal. These derive basically from biological or pre-historic origins.7 For example, smell is related to memory due to its physiology: it is easier to remember odors than to recall sounds, maybe because smell is produced by discrete molecules that create a stable ‘map’ in our brain (Goldstein 2007). Thus, very few people have “absolute pitch,” while most of us have an “absolute sense of smell.”8 Therefore Proust was not the only writer using aroma as a trigger for recalling childhood memories: Colette, Edna O’Brien and Graham Greene are some examples.9 It is important, though, to avoid a reductionist attitude: physiology tells us only a part of the story. Another example: In pre-historic times, warmth was an essential in cold environments; survival instincts gave heat a positive value. Nowadays, even in hot countries, “warmhearted” and a “warm welcome” are considered more positive than “a chilly greeting.” In addition, sensory representations in literature are always deciphered in a textual context. Cold, chilly, cool and frigid each carries its own array of connotations and meanings.10 Some schemata rely on what Bourdieu called “Cultural Capital,” as they depend on knowledge acquired and relevant in a certain cultural setting (Bourdieu 1984). Reading that “Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece, full of runs and difficult passages” (Joyce [1914] 1969, 186) we don’t think Mary Jane was running through corridors.11

Although writers and readers may share similar-enough backgrounds,

7 See Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 14–21; 56–68; 117–118); Johnson (1987), especially his idea of “embodied schemata” (28–30); and Semino (1997, 119–125).8 Most people can recognize intervals between pitches but not a single pitch. We can recognize the timber, or tone color of sounds—e.g. the difference between a piano and a flute playing the same note. 9 Aroma is not the only trigger for involuntary memory, Proust used music and kinesthesia as well, but smell is definitely used most extensively. See Porteous (1990, 37–43).10 Semino (1997) combines linguistic analysis with schema-theory to account for what she sees as two separate aspects of poetry interpretation. I refer to sensory representations as complex constructs, already containing the textual as well as the bodily and affectual aspects.11 See also Lakoff and Johnson’s discussion on cultural coherence (1980, 22–24).


representing sensory experiences in words is still highly problematic. Choosing “the right word” is limited because of lack of vocabulary. Our civilization is excessively visual-oriented, therefore sight is well equipped with adequate terms: we have abundant names for shapes, colors and textures. Even so, the various names for hues and shades (dark blue, pale blue, royal blue, steel blue, Prussian, navy, cobalt, cerulean, aquamarine, turquoise, ultramarine, etc.) do not cover the whole spectrum. Other senses are less privileged. For example, there are not as many words describing sounds. We have onomatopoeias such as ring, roar, clap, hiss, etc., but representing many sounds, including human voices and music, is complicated. We can describe music using professional language—“a violin sonata in A minor,” “Adagio”—and writers often mention well-known pieces, counting on common cultural knowledge of the reader. As we shall see, this method has its problems. How does one describe unknown or non-existent music, like Vinteuil’s sonata? Or a person’s voice? Olfaction is even more problematic: we only have words to discern good from bad odors (e.g. “fragrance” vs. “stench”) but no adjectives equivalent to “blue” or “rectangular” describe scents.12 Tastes have names, but these are too general: chocolate and strawberries are both sweet, but each has a completely different taste. Even “strawberry flavored” candy doesn’t taste the same as strawberries. In addition, other factors participate in tasting, such as smell, texture and softness. Tactility seems to have a vast vocabulary, but if we consider the diversity of sensations grouped under this one “sense”—pressure, texture, temperature, pain and kinesthesia—here too, we might find ourselves at loss for words.

Language, especially literary language, has found various ways to meet the challenge of representing sensory experiences and enable the mimetic process. The categories I will explore here are not unequivocal and sharp, like all literary categories they are concurrent and somewhat fuzzy, but they can help us understand the ways written text represents sensations. When we have adequate vocabulary we can use verbs, such as “The air of the room chilled his shoulders” (Joyce [1914] 1969, 223), but this is not always possible. As mentioned before, sometimes a professional terminology is used. Here the problem is that many readers lack the necessary knowledge. I admit I have no idea what wine connoisseurs mean by “smoky wood taste.” Similarly, some writers excessively trust their reader’s musical knowledge. Mann’s Doktor Faustus (1947, Doctor Faustus) is a good

12 See Robertson (2009).

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example.13 Consequently, the double mimetic process fails and the non-professional reader is excluded from the circle of the informed.

In many cases, an experience is represented by a description of the object that stimulates it. We are so accustomed to using sight as our main channel of information that we do not discern a statement on the existence of something from its visual description: reading that “there was an apple” we would “see an apple in our mind’s eye” rather than “smell” or “taste” it in our “mind’s nose” or “mouth.” Tastes and odors are also usually described using substances that cause them, or a similar sensation (“it smells like rotten eggs”). It seems logical to use names of substances for smell and taste, as these are actually molecules physically entering our body, but we do the same with sound, like in “hear a piano playing” or “listening to the skirts that swept against [the door]” (Joyce [1914] 1969, 179). Another—and in a way the opposite—form of representation is to describe the reaction of the experiencing subject. The reacting subject can be described in the first or third person, usually using metaphors and similes (to which we will turn subsequently) but sometimes in a direct way, e.g. “there was the poor fellow . . . shivering” (221). It is evident that both the description of the object and the subject is elliptic: you can’t really “hear skirts,” and “shivering” does not mark coldness in itself—one can shiver with excitement in a warm room.

In face of the many obstacles, it is not surprising that some sensory representations are completely elliptic, i.e. they do not describe at all. In the book of Genesis, witnessing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is so frightening that it turns Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Yet there is no description of what she actually saw.14 The actual sensory experience remains un-represented.

We examined the ways sensory experiences are represented through the

13 Mann’s book is full of sentences such as: “The A, which, forcing the resolution into G sharp, leads over from B major to E major, led him on, and so via the keys of A, D, and G he came to C major and to the flat keys, as he demonstrated to me that on each one of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale one could build a fresh major or minor scale” (Mann [1947] 1966, 46). Leverkühn’s fictitious music is described in detail in a manner that requires substantial knowledge from the reader.14 “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:24-6). As we learned from Auerbach ([1946] 1953), the Bible is an inexhaustible source for examples of ellipsis.


use of adequate terms and professional terminology; and in their absence, by a representing object or a reacting subject. Sometimes the experience is left un-described and the reader is called upon to fill in the gap. But the most common way to represent sensory experiences is by similes and metaphors.15 Johnson (1987) discusses at length the projection of meaning from bodily experiences to abstract concepts in metaphors, using “balance” as an example (65–100).16 Being dual constructs themselves, metaphors can sometimes express an experience when “the right words” are lacking or found insufficient. Sensory metaphors are often used even when terminology exists, in order to evoke extra connotations, give a better description or stimulate a closer sensation in order to enable the double mimetic process. Sensory metaphors are diverse: there are spatial (or orientational) metaphors, such as “deep tone” or “high voice”; synaesthetic metaphors, e.g. “sweet fragrance”; personifying metaphors, e.g. “an agonized roar”; and similes that link sensory experiences with objects, e.g. “soft as a pillow,” “dry as a bone.” The metaphors cited here, like many sensory metaphors, are “dead.” We read them as simple denotations. But an accurate denotation is rarely what literature looks for (or settles for). In order to activate the mimetic process, literary language stresses the gaps and tensions between tenor and vehicle and emphasizes them by defamiliarization (or schema-refreshment), rather than striving to eliminate them.17

Roman Ingarden’s notion of “schematized aspects” can help to fit our discussion into a comprehensive theory of reading literature (Ingarden 1973a, 255–287). Ingarden describes the literary work of art as a stratified formation made of four tightly interwoven strata: the stratum of phonetic formations, or word sounds (the stable essence of a word formation, regardless of the way it is pronounced by a specific reader);18 the stratum of semantic or meaning units (where the intentional and quasi-judgmental character of literature is evident); the stratum of schematized aspects, frames held-in-readiness by the text to re-produce the represented objects; and the stratum of represented objects, the world portrayed in the story (29–33). Schematized aspects are equivalent to “schemata,” or “background-

15 The difference between simile and metaphor is less important here, as the main issue is the semantic field rather than the linguistic form. 16 See also Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal book (1980), Tzur (1987), Eitan and Granot (2006), Shen and Gil (2008), and Semino (1997, 195–223).17 See Semino (1997, 212–223).18 The written word is also considered a “word sound.” In this case we ignore both the graphic appearance (e.g. the font) and different concretizations by different readers, such as intonation and speed of reading (Ingarden 1973a, 35).

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knowledge,” as discussed above in the “Apple” example. The schematized aspect is completely different from the Platonian idea. In fact it is quite the opposite, as it is not an independent perfect essence but a concrete and partial schema, which needs to be supplemented by specific memories, connotations, etc. (Ingarden 1973b, 55–63). Ingarden’s phenomenology discusses both text and the triad of world, writer and reader in as much as they are represented in the text (roughly in the strata of word sounds, portrayed objects, meaning units and schematized aspects, respectively). Therefore I find it useful in accounting for the double mimesis of sensory representations.

Let us “listen” to Aunt Julia’s singing at the party in “The Dead”:

Her voice, strong and clear in tone, attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow the voice, without looking at the singer’s face, was to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight. (193)

As is the case in many sensory representations, we have here a mixture of metaphors, professional language, descriptions of the object and the reaction of a perceiving subject. Still the representation is somewhat elliptic; despite the various descriptions we don’t know what Aunt Julia’s voice actually sounded like. Elsewhere the story mentions that she was an old lady and a trained soprano singer. We also know she sings “Arrayed for the Bridal” (193). This information requires some cultural knowledge.19 But let us examine the text more closely. We are told that Aunt Julia’s voice was “strong and clear in tone.” Strong and clear are synaesthetic metaphors, whose vehicles denote a physical and a visual quality, respectively. These are dead metaphors, but a voice “attacking with great spirit” is quite different—“attacking” strengthens the original denotation of “strong” and brings the metaphor back from the dead.20 Next, the singing is described in a straight-forward manner, as rapid and accurate. A bit of professional language is used, “runs” and “grace notes,” but the passage is accessible enough to an uninformed reader. Then we move to the reacting subject—a listener, probably (but not definitely) Gabriel, whose feeling is described by a simile: “to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight.” The speed of the singing, “very rapidly,” is complemented by the feeling

19 The reader is expected to recognize the song, appreciate its high technical demands and maybe even be acquainted with its origin in Bellini’s il puritani (Magalaner 1959, 170).20 In Semino’s terms the metaphor is “schema reinforcing,” but this does not convey the refreshing power of the metaphor.


of “swift” flight. Flying has nothing to do with singing, yet the shift is very convincing, maybe because we are accustomed to “high” representing sound, especially a soprano voice; maybe because we tend to relate sound to space, based on the practice of acoustics (Eitan and Granot 2006); and maybe because music is connected in our minds with celestial music and cosmology. All together, “the excitement of swift and secure flight” represents Aunt Julia’s singing better and more accurately than the fact that she was an elderly soprano singer. It helps us recreate the experience and identify with the listeners.

Adorno and the Ethics of Double Mimesis

According to Theodor W. Adorno, the aim of aesthetic experience is to give its recipient a unique opportunity to experience non-dominating relationships.21 Being always a fait social, a social fact, literature—like other forms of art—has a political and ethical role (Adorno [1969] 1997, 225, 245, 260; Adorno 1991, 2:76–94). In the administered world of late capitalism, art should strive to shatter the reification of contemporary society and suggest an alternative. Where conceptual thought subsumes the object to a universal principle, reducing it to an exemplar, art can create a non-dominating, non-violent relationship between subject and object, avoiding the repetition of the identical, the ever-same. This can be done by the mimetic process.

How is it that through mimesis art can create an object that is unique and non-identical? Obviously, Adorno’s notion of mimesis is very far from Plato’s notorious “imitation”; actually it is quite the opposite (Adorno [1969] 1997, 108, 238; Jay 1997).22 For Adorno, mimesis means the process of assimilating the subject to the object, giving the latter priority over the former. When a writer writes about an object he or she must choose “the right words” to describe that object—be it a man, a rose, or a dragon. The text is a consequence of both the objectivity of the described object and the words used, and the subjectivity of the writer. It is even more visible in painting: when a painter draws a model his hand must move in accordance with the lines of the model. Both painter and model are present in the finished work. Neither text nor picture is a replica, an imitation of an “original”

21 Jay (1984) provides a clear and accessible outline of Adorno’s aesthetic thought. 22 Halliwell contends that Plato himself was less unequivocal about mimesis than is generally realized (2002, 37–71).

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object. Rather, they are an object of a different order, one that contains and enacts the immense tensions built into it by the mimetic process: tensions between subjective spirit and objective materials, between convention and expression, form and content. This is the first half of the double mimetic process. When I look at a picture or read a poem I let that artistic object act on me, influence me as if it were a subject: this is the second half. “The subject who viewed, heard, or read a work was to lose himself, forget himself, extinguish himself in the artwork. The identification carried out by the subject was ideally not that of making the artwork like himself, but rather that of making himself like the artwork,” writes Adorno ([1969] 1997, 17). Making yourself like the artwork is far more demanding than liking or admiring it: it is indeed “losing yourself” in it. This is how mimesis gives the artistic object agency. Mimesis gives the object preponderance over the subject, thus evoking (if the work succeeds!) a real aesthetic experience, “the epiphany of [reality’s] shrouded essence and the merited shudder in the face of it” (259). Note that aesthetic experience should act between subject and object—just where sensory experiences occur. By emphasizing the mimetic process, sensory representations enhance the primacy of the object, so crucial in Adorno’s aesthetics.

Literature is based heavily on conventions—from genre to world representation to the conventional character of language itself. This conventionality is, at the same time, brought out and negated by sensory representations. The physical/textual tension built into sensory representation creates a tension between reader’s perception and reception. In Adorno’s view, the work of art, including the literary work of art, maintains a “precarious balance” or tight constellation of opposing forces. In it, subject and object, spirit and material, structure and expression, concept and mimesis create, reflect and negate each other in interminable and complex tensions. These conflicts are crucial for all works of art.23

The English word “experience” stands for both Erfahrung and Erlebnis in German. The difference is important: Erlebnis is the immediate feeling, or “lived experience.” Lived experience is important, but risky: it can be used to cause quick, technically-manipulated catharsis. You shed a tear when the beautiful heroine is saved and forget all about ugly, messy, and complicated things like politics. Aesthetic experience should not lead through pity and fear to a relieving catharsis, as in Aristotelian mimesis.24

23 See, for instance, Adorno ([1969] 1997, 166, 338); Jay (1984, 14–15).24 Halliwell objects to this simplification of the notion of catharsis, but its relieving action is undeniable. See Halliwell (2002, 207–259); cf. Zoran (1998).


Literature must maintain its complex tensions and rifts in order to depict a damaged, reified reality, thus admitting the guilt laid on art by the false consolation it offers to its recipients.25 To do this, art (including literature) should evoke a mediated, processed and processual experience—Erfahrung (Adorno [1969] 1997, 87, 135, 244–245, 346). Mediated experience, what sensory representations are, is not a diluted, weaker experience—on the contrary, it enhances the tensions in the artwork, essential to its success. Walter Benjamin defines Erfahrung as when “certain contents of the individual past combine in the memory with material from the collective past”: the particular should be mediated by the universal, and vice versa (Benjamin 1968, 161). Sensory representations do exactly that. Particular, intimate sensory experiences—more concrete than psychological principles—are mediated by words and concepts that are essentially collective and universal. The intimate sensation and the conventional verbal expression are both present in the double mimesis but neither can overshadow the other. So, the basic drawback of sensory representations—their being representations, and the impossibility of one sensing and feeling exactly what others feel—becomes an advantage: it may enable an aesthetic experience, through the double mimetic process, and give artworks the power to fulfill their ethical role (Adorno [1969] 1997, 53, 88).

In a world dominated by subjectivity, as Adorno and Horkheimer claim in Dialectic of Enlightenment, domination over nature became repressive and turned against Man himself: “Men pay for the increase of their power with alienation from that over which they exercise their power,” they write. “World domination over nature turns against the thinking subject himself”; and in a typical Adornian phrasing: “The curse of irresistible progress is irresistible regression” (Adorno and Horkheimer [1944] 1973, 9, 26, 36). To change this, objectivity must be given a chance to resist: the importance of the mimetic process lies with its giving preponderance to the object. Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are not “realistic” in the way Lukács (1981) defines realism, they do not portray typical life-like characters and situations in order to convey historical and psychological truths,26 but Adorno sees these seemingly-hermetic works as

25 This is Adorno’s admittedly partial and imperfect answer to the ethical problem of a beautiful work of art expressing human suffering—the famous dilemma of “writing poetry after Auschwitz” (Adorno 1991, 2:87–88). Art is always guilty in this sense, but this does not mean it should cease to exist. Poetry should be written after Auschwitz—but it should always be conscious of Auschwitz, conscious of the fragility and, in a sense, impossibility of its own existence. 26 Lukács’ model of realist writing is the nineteenth-century European novel and

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mimetic and highly committed to the reality of their (our) time. Beckett’s log-like characters walking-in-place in Godot, like Schönberg’s dissonant music and Picasso’s cubism, are mimetic because they reflect a broken, dissonant reality (Adorno [1969] 1997, 30). Abstract art can be mimetic by reflecting the empty, non-human relationships based on exchange-value, characteristic of our time: “Art is modern art through mimesis of the hardened and alienated” (21). Finnegans Wake is mimetic because it reproduces a reality impossible to understand in terms of liberal humanism. It is clear that Adorno gives great importance to the “how” rather than to the “what,” to the artistic procedure rather than—or at least, no less than—subject matter. This gives sensory representations a significant role in the mimetic process as viewed by Adorno.

Abstractness and Concretization: Feeling Hot and Cold in “The Dead”

To demonstrate how sensory representations can help us read literature, I will turn to a much more accessible work of Joyce—the story ending Dubliners, “The Dead.” Young Gabriel Conroy is attending with his wife a party held in 1904 Dublin. After the party Gabriel learns for the first time that his beloved wife Gretta once loved a boy named Michael, who died very young. Gabriel envies Gretta’s romantic, pure love. These memories are closely related to Gretta’s youth in western Ireland, and the story brings up the debate on Irish patriotism under English rule, an issue evident in many of Joyce’s stories. I do not pretend to offer here a comprehensive reading of the story, nor present the vast amount of existing scholarly research relating to it. I will present only some of the sensory representations in the story as keys to a different understanding of “The Dead.” The story is rich in sensory representations—guests at the party sing, dance and play music; food is described in detail; and heat and cold play an important role.

The abundance of food and drink tells of prosperity, and the dishes

Balzac in particular. His notion of “types” as embodiments of social and historical forces calls for comprehensible and intelligible descriptions. He therefore condemns modernist writing as decadent “l’art pour l’art.” On Adorno’s opposition to Lukács see Adorno’s “Extorted Reconciliation: On Georg Lukács’ Realism in Our Time” (1991, 216–240); translated also as “Reconciliation Under Duress,” Adorno et. al. ([1997] 2007, 155–176).


served are traditional. Yet, food is also an attribute of motherhood. Here it is served by the elderly spinsters, Aunts Julia and Kate. This is emphasized when Gabriel is called to carve the goose. Music also plays an important role in “The Dead”: for example, the appreciation of the merits of old-time and foreign opera singers over those of contemporary Irish ones—one of which, Mr. D’Arcy, is present—reflects a main issue in the story. Mr. D’Arcy himself refuses to sing, saying he is “as hoarse as a crow.” Earlier in the story, patriotic Miss Ivors told Gabriel she had “a crow to pluck” with him exactly over the preference of Europe to Ireland. We will return to Miss Ivors later. When Mr. D’Arcy does sing, he sings an old Irish ballad, which serves to stimulate Gretta’s memories. However, the ballad functions in a way similar to Proust’s involuntary memory, discussed above: emphasis is placed on the effect of the sensory experience on the character, rather than that of its representation on the reader. Of all this sensory abundance I would like to examine two scenes, focusing on Gabriel’s feelings—“feelings” qua emotions and qua sensory, tactile experiences.

During the party Gabriel dances a quadrille with Miss Ivors, a relentless patriot and she scolds Gabriel for writing for an English paper and for not spending his vacation in western Ireland. The conversation takes place during the very formal dance, which requires the couple to separate, change partners, etc., so the conversation—given in direct speech—is constantly interrupted by descriptions of Gabriel’s movements and feelings, and by sentences which refer to the action of the dancers, like “their turn to cross had come,” “come, we cross now,” or “they met in the long chain” (187–190). Some sentences, such as “They had to go visiting together,” stand for the dance, but also refer to the political questions under discussion—in this case, of visiting the Irish countryside or foreign countries. The meaning of “cross” as a verb (to pass from side to side) is supplemented by its meaning as an adjective (annoyed). The semantic content of the conversation is displayed and played against the performative action of the dance.

Why did the narrator choose to blend this conversation with constant physical movement? It could have been part of the lively talk around the supper table. The purpose might be that the narrator seeks to juxtapose the abstract and collective idea of patriotism with Gabriel’s intimate feelings and with the concreteness of everyday life in contemporary Dublin, as portrayed in the story. The reader is drawn into the discussion by identifying with the annoying feeling of dictated movement and interrupted speech. As the conversation seems to be constantly and arbitrarily cut, we can feel Gabriel’s irritation and lack of control. The dissonance between words and actions is enhanced by the similarity between to cross / to be cross and

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“visit” (in the dance) / visit (west Ireland). Gabriel’s feelings and sensations are the focus also at the end of the

story. On his way to the hotel with Gretta he is excited, mentally and sexually, and he is described through words expressing heat: “Gabriel’s eyes were still bright with happiness. . . . the warm palm of her glove. . . . A wave of yet more tender joy . . . went coursing in warm flood along his arteries. Like the tender fire of stars moments of their life together” (213; emphasis added). Heat means closeness, touch, sexual desire, and life. Note the difference between “life,” which is a symbolic meaning, and closeness, touch and sexual desire, which are sensory experiences: it is an example of the complex nature of sensory representation. Emphasized by the snowy environment, these words help readers identify with and share Gabriel’s feelings. But in a memory that comes to his mind the word “cold” is repeated:

He was standing with her in the cold, looking in through a grated window at a man making bottles in a roaring furnace. It was very cold. Her face, fragrant in the cold air, was quite close to his; and suddenly he called out to the man at the furnace: “Is the fire hot, sir?” (213; emphasis added)

In the cold atmosphere surrounding him, he is not sure of his own feelings. He needs assurance. It is worth noting that he asks for assurance for something that is self-evident: there is no question that the fire is hot—as there is no question about Gabriel’s emotions towards Gretta. Yet the question is asked, and left with no answer. The question is symbolic (“fire” symbolizing emotions) but the coldness, as a sensory experience, is concrete. The reader is called to reconstruct it, and sense the contrast with the heat of the furnace.

As the story proceeds and Gabriel learns of his wife’s past romance, the heat turns tepid: “the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins”; “‘Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?’ he said coldly”; “he tried to keep up his tone of cold interrogation” (218, 219, 220; emphasis added). This is added to the cold weather that caused Michael’s death (221), Mr. D’Arcy’s cold (211), the cold outside the window, and the coldness of dead bodies. And so,

it hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. . . . He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. . . .The air of the room chilled his shoulders. (222–223; emphasis added)

At the end of the story coldness finally takes over, and it seems as if the difference between dead and alive is effaced in the famous closing passage simulating the sound of falling snow:


His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. (224)

The abundance of words relating to temperature in this story has already been noted by critics, as has been the importance of the snow. Snow falling “upon the living and the dead” has been seen as a symbol of unity—and of death. Tate ([1950] 1969, 408) writes that “the snow is the story,” and it “stands as the symbol of the revelation of Gabriel’s inner life.” He even argues that “the snow reverses its meaning, . . . from naturalistic coldness it develops into a symbol of warmth, of expanded consciousness.” (409). For Burke ([1954] 1969, 415–416), snow starts as a realistic detail but turns into a “mythic image in the world of conditions, standing for the transcendence above the conditioned.” Ellmann ([1959] 1969, 400–401) sees the furnace scene as “a telling metaphor” of Gabriel’s deprivation and the snow as uniting “all human beings.” A more recent example is Kelman (1999, 62). Drawing on Bakhtinian heteroglossia, she describes “the opposition between the forces of white cold negation and the forces of warm voiced meanings” as subject to “infiltration and subversion” rather than being clearly defined. My reading is the closest to Kelman’s, as she refers to Irish political issues. Dollof (2008) studies the various intertextual relations between “The Dead” and other “snowy” literary works, such as Dostoyevsky’s Записки из Подполья ([1864] 1918, Notes from the Underground). For Brandabur, “the snow image throughout ‘The Dead’ is a symbol for Gabriel’s angelic self-image and, in this context, for the pseudo-purity which ultimately overwhelms his spirit” (1965, 115). In short, as Brandabur concludes: “There are almost as many interpretations of the snow-symbol as there have been critics of ‘The Dead,’ and it is possible to agree, to some extent, with most of them” (1965, 115). However, I would like to avoid the smooth passage to the symbolic tenor of the snow as a metaphor, and remain with the physical sensation of heat chilling slowly away. Furthermore, I would like to point out that the interplay between Gabriel’s bodily sensations and the abstract concept of romantic lost love is similar to the interplay between his movements and the political issues in the quadrille scene. In both scenes a very human Gabriel, not an angel, is faced with the conflict between faith and reality, sacred values and quotidian life. We, the readers, have to feel Gabriel’s feelings—first delight and then frustration—before we can fully grasp the process that leads him to surrender to the growing cold that “chilled his shoulders.” A living, craving Gabriel is torn between lofty loyalties and ideals, and a prosaic desire for life. The numerous representations of heat create an intimate, corporeal

174 Balaban

identification with Gabriel, “making [the reader] like the artwork” as Adorno demands (1997, 17). The seemingly peaceful acceptance of life’s frustrations, so Catholic in spirit, gives way to a troubled dead end. Instead of deciphering a series of symbols, the reader is drawn to reconstruct concrete and contradicting bodily sensations. The sensory mimetic process undermines the affirmative concept of snow covering everything and effacing all differences, revealing a non-bridgeable rift in Gabriel’s consciousness and in the story. The double mimesis cracks the neat closure. The conflict revealed here is present in Joyce’s work in later years, as can be seen, for example, in Ulysses.

Conclusion

As depicted above, the action of sensory representations penetrates all strata of the literary work—from immediate bodily feelings to history and politics, and from writing technique to the overall experience of the reader. This can be understood in terms of Ingarden’s interacting strata, or Adorno’s tight constellations and force-fields. It is the complex structure and flexible nature of sensory representations, examined above, which give them the power to convey fuller and more significant aesthetic experiences. Reading about heat and coldness, sound or movement, the reader is driven to reconstruct these experiences and enact the mimetic process. Connotations and associations, feelings and memories are combined and brought up by the printed text. As we learned from Adorno, this mediation activates the reader and gives sensory representations their power. At the same time, these expressions and descriptions can serve as important clues for analyzing literary works. The intimate, corporeal and emotional elements of the sensory representation can help us understand and identify with feelings and attitudes, while the cultural and collective elements can lead us to fascinating insights into ideas less evident on the surface, as I hope is displayed through my reading of “The Dead.” This does not mean that sensory representations are part of a deep infra-structure of the literary work. On the contrary—sensory representations are ways of expression: they belong to the lexis stratum of the work. Analyzing them means looking for logos not beyond, but rather in the lexis itself: revealing content in the form, subject in object, the “what” in the core of the “how.” Thus, sensory representations provide us with yet another key to understand literature.


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double mimesis: sensory representations in literature

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