From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #59 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Tuesday, April 10 2001 Volume 03 : Number 059 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/redridinghood ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/divinetwins ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/pooh ["Donald G. Keller" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 00:36:51 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/redridinghood The short version is, I've been in one of those stretches where I'll have not enough sleep over a 24-hour period (due to an overnight shift) and then a compensating excess of sleep over the next 24 hours. Or even shorter, my sleep/waking cycle has been messed up, which leaves me mentally susceptible to fugue states. Late last night I got up for an hour or so and had something to eat (having been asleep since early afternoon), and as I settled down to sleep again, thinking about archetypes and (as usual) what an archetypal figure Hannibal Lecter is, my mind went click! and I suddenly realized: =The Silence of the Lambs= is a version of "Little Red Riding Hood." Think about it: Clarice Starling with her dark red hair venturing into the den of the wolf in grandmother's clothing (i.e. the cannibal with old-fashioned manners). Can't you just =hear= Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins: "What big eyes you have, Dr. Lecter." "The better to see you with, Clarice." Symbolically, it's the same moment. The =rest= of the plot plays out with doubles of the two key characters: Jame Gumb, Lecter's double, makes clothing out of women's skins; Starling's double, the senator's daughter, is "in the belly of the wolf" (imprisoned in a deep pit). And Starling, in the manner of the current trope (or mytheme or archetype) of the warrior-woman, is =both= Red Riding Hood and the woodcutter who cut open the wolf and freed Red Riding Hood and her grandmother: Starling kills Gumb and frees the senator's daughter. The =Buffy= episode "Helpless" is in this way isomorphic with both the fairytale and the novel/movie: Buffy is of course Red Riding Hood/Clarice, and Kralick the vampire is Lecter/Gumb/the wolf. Note how Buffy's red =hooded= jacket plays an important role in the episode: Kralic takes it, finds Buffy's house with it, and =puts it on= to fool Joyce (Red Riding Hood and her grandmother being doubles of one another). Note also how (as Giles put it in "Ted") the subtext becomes text when Kralick, cornering Buffy in the hall, does Red Riding Hood riffs. Again, it's Buffy (Slayer = FBI agent = warrior), despite her lost powers, who saves her mother (senator's daughter/grandmother); but note the last-minute doubling where Giles (woodcutter) shows up to stake the =other= vampire. Some time ago, in an essay (or essay-fragment) probably titled "The Triple Father as Adversary," I explored another set of isomorphisms (the proliferation of father-figures) between =Silence= and "Helpless" (no parallels to "Riding Hood" there), so I'll not repeat it just now. But as a coda, I'll mention that in "Fear Itself," the 4th-season Halloween episode, Buffy dresses as Red Riding Hood; though the episode doesn't play out the fairytale plot, there is a resonance set up with both the 2nd-season episode "Halloween" (where the characters became their costumes) and the semi-subtextual use of the fairytale in "Helpless" that firmly underlines the symbolic identity of Buffy and Red Riding Hood. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 00:39:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/divinetwins It turned out that I didn't need to go back and peruse Donald Ward's monograph =The Divine Twins=: in a sheaf of papers containing stuff I'd photocopied or written out on mythological topics I found a couple pages of notes on the Ward, as well as notes on an essay by Stig Wikander (a pupil of Dumezil's who has done very important work on his own) on Nakula and Sahadeva, the Divine Twin figures who are two of the five Pandava brothers, said brothers being the heroes of the =Mahabharata=. What follows is a narrative version of my notes on those two sets of notes. Keep in mind that, while I am mostly looking for ways in which Glory and Ben embody the Divine Twins, it is my theory that Xander and Willow are Divine Twin figures as well. In many cases in mythology, one twin is divine and one mortal: Glory is a god, and Ben is at least passing for human (just as Willow has magical powers and Xander is an ordinary human being). Wikander notes that Nakula is warriorlike and aggressive, his other salient quality being beauty (just as Glory can beat Buffy in a fight and is obsessed with her looks), while Sahadeva is "virtuous, modest, patient, intelligent, and just" (me quoting Ward quoting Wikander) as well as having an affinity for science (Ben is the quiet one who works in a hospital). Another way of expressing this difference is: one twin provides divine help in battle, while the other is a healer and miracleworker. In the other pairing, it's Xander, Buffy's frequent lieutenant/sidekick, who is the soldierly one, and Willow the quiet scientific type. The twins are frequently close friends, though occasionally hostile antagonists. (Willow and Xander are lifelong friends; Glory and Ben seem to be in opposition.) Often one twin is clever and capable, while the other is lazy and foolish: here we can see Ben's easy competence (especially in interpersonal relatioships) and Glory's indolent airheadedness, as well as Willow's skilfulness contrasted with Xander's bumbling. One twin can be symbolized by sun/day (Glory's name and blond hair proclaim her sunlike, and we usually see her in the daytime), the other by moon/night (Ben conjured the moon-demon, and he works the night shift). As far as the classical humors go, one twin is sanguine/choleric (Glory is superficially cheerful and quick to anger), the other phlegmatic/melancholic (Ben is even-tempered and pensive). (Xander is more sanguine, and Willow more melancholic, than their counterparts.) (Consider also Faith/Buffy: Buffy is not phlegmatic--she's more melancholic/choleric--but Faith makes a close match to Glory in her sanguine/choleric temperament.) Ward mentions briefly a theriomorphic (turning-into-animals) aspect of the Twins. We haven't seen this yet with Glory and Ben, apart from the fact that they turn into each other; but there's Glory's sarcastic reference to "Gentle Ben," the name of a bear in an old TV series; add to that the =previous= occurrence of that pop-culture reference, in "Pangs," where Buffy so addresses the bear the ghost-Indian =turned into=...so if it does happen later you heard it here first. Finally, in some myths the Morning Twin kills the Evening Twin. Will Glory kill Ben? Or will the tables turn and Ben will kill Glory? And what about that =third= underworld god? Is he/she the third factor that transcends the opposition of the other two? We'll find out before long. P.S. One more prediction. I was thinking about the similarity between Glory and the Wicked Witch of the West in =The Wizard of Oz=; in this schema Buffy would correspond to Dorothy, and Dawn the Key to the Ruby Slippers; and I flashed on the scene where the Wicked Witch tries to take the slippers and recieves an "electric shock." So if Glory discovers that Dawn is the Key, look for there to be some stricture on Glory making use of it, or for her to suffer some kind of damage if she tries to. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 00:42:32 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/pooh Pooh = Xander Piglet = Willow Owl = Giles Rabbit = Cordelia(1) Kanga = Joyce Roo = Dawn Eeyore = Anya(2) Tigger = Faith(3) C. Robin= Buffy(4) (1) "Rabbit is clever...Rabbit has brain...I guess that's why he never understands anything." (2) Or Angel. Or Jonathan. Or Spike, now. (3) In a good mood. She "bounced" Xander just like Tigger bounced Pooh. (4) Since Christopher Robin is absent a lot of the time, the Pooh stories are mostly like "The Zeppo" (speaking of "The Zeppo"). ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #59 ****************************