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The word ‘myth’ is derived from the Greek word ‘mythos’, which means a traditional tale common to the member of a tribe, race or nation. It usually involves the supernatural elements to explain some natural phenomenon in boldly imaginative terms. Today myth has become one of the most prominent terms in contemporary literature analysis. It was Northrop Frye, one of the most influential myth critics (others including Robert Graves, Francis Fersusson, Richard Chase, Philip Wheelwright), who discovered certain formulas in the word order.
He identified these formulas as the “conventional myths and metaphors” which he calls "archetypes".
C. G. Jung was of the view the materials of the myth lie in the collective unconscious of the race. The well-known legend of the lotus-eaters tells us the story of Greek mythology, in which the lotus-eaters, also referred to as the lotophagi or lotophaguses (singular lotophagus) or lotophages (singular lotophage), were a race of people living on an island near North Africa dominated by lotus plants.
The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of the island and were narcotic, causing the people to sleep in peaceful apathy.
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Tracing back to the ancient and pagan Greece for its origin, the story proves to be immensely popular and has gradually grown quite deeply rooted in European mythology. With its multiple potentialities, the story has been reused, revamped and reworked on in many formats. The writers of different centuries and countries have seen in it various possibilities and they all in turn have attempted to re-tell the same story, but with different perspectives and purposes.
Quite naturally, with its scope of multifaceted interpretations every such attempt brings in new effects, adding new layers to the original legend.
Or rather, one may so express it, every time such attempt of re-telling creates the story anew. But however new a facet it may take in every re-telling, it must always take on its meaning in a way by referring back to the original. In other words, every such re-telling must remain transtextually related to its source, creating a palimpsest on it.
The two terms ‘transtextual’ and ‘palimpsest’ have been mentioned about which we should have a clear conception. Texts have meaning. Reading is the process to extract that inlaid meaning from texts. Such an idea seems quite simple and obvious. Yet it faces today a kind of radical challenge. The contemporary literary and cultural theorists have questioned its validity from various points of view. After Saussure and others, a text is commonly seen as lacking any kind of independent meaning.
As the nature of sign becomes non-referential (in that it no longer possesses any capacity to refer directly to the objects of the world) as well as relational (in that it takes on its meaning depending only on the various relations that it holds with other elements that exist within the system) and differential (in that it takes on its meaning only through highlighting its difference from other elements within that system), all the meanings that we can produce or find in a language also become relativised and, therefore, are quite unstable regarding their reference to the world outside.
Consequently the texts are also robbed off their ability to refer to the objects of the world outside the linguistic and literary systems, since they are built from the same signs and systems as well as the codes and conventions established by the previous works of literature. Moreover, it is often argued, the systems, codes and conventions of other art forms and culture in general also play a crucial role in producing the meaning of a text.
In such a situation a text can no longer function today as the sole “container of meaning”; rather it becomes now a space wherein “a potentially vast number of relations coalesce” (Allen 12). The act of reading thus becomes an attempt that makes us plunge into the network of a vast number of textual relations. We interpret a text or discover whatever meaning it offers us only by tracing these relations. In the words of Graham Allen: “Reading thus becomes a process of moving between texts.
Meaning becomes something which exists between a text and all the other texts to which it refers and relates, moving out from the independent text into a network of textual relations. ” In opposition to the well-known theory of Intertextuality, which, having taken into its consideration various post-structural strands of criticism together or by turns, in effect disperses the meaning of a text into an indefinite array of possibilities, the contemporary French theorist and critic Gerard Genette uses the term transtextuality to denote “the textual ranscendence” (1), only through which, he argues, it is possible to reach the stable and viable significations of a text. The recognition of the nature of sign as non-referential and differential, as mentioned above, makes it quite impossible today to consider a text any more as an isolated and independent work, which takes on its meaning by referring to the things existing in the real world outside the system of language and thus either representing the reality by imitation or giving vent to the feeling, temperament and creative imagination of its author.
So, it is rather futile now to seek the meaning of an individual text only within that text itself, but to probe for it into the relation between that text and all the other texts which are on some level or other related to the previous one, as well as the implicit general system of literature, out of which it is constructed and takes on its signification. Now, “all that sets a text in relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts” is denoted by Genette as transtextuality (1).
As a study of relationships, which link a text with the transtextual network out of which it produces its meaning, it can be further divided into five more specific subcategories:
Whenever a text is rewritten, it undergoes certain hypertextual processes of imitation or transformation.
Thus through the process of rewriting a hypotext gets changed, giving birth to a new hypertext. Yet as a text derived from another preexistent text, such a hypertext also becomes quite naturally bound to betray its palimpsestuous nature. The word palimpsest is used here in the sense that we find in the second definition of the term in Concise Oxford English Dictionary: “something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form”.
In our context the term comes to mean, as Genette has expressed it quite well in the very subtitle of his above-mentioned work, “literature in the second degree”, that is, layers of writing, where the impression of the layer lying atop not only includes its own autonomous meaning, but also betrays erased yet still partly legible traces of what has been underwritten. Every hypertext, therefore, must show changes, in whatever direction it may like, but at the same time remains pinned at its origin.
For as a non-original rewriting of what has already been written, such a rewritten text, whether it foregrounds its relation to the earlier text it is grafted on or may try to conceal that, must in some way or other express its reliance upon its hypotext, missing which we can hardly expect to get at what it really comes to convey. In Odyssey IX, 84, when Odysseus and his men landed on the island of the lotus-eaters, they began doing as the natives did, eating the lotus flowers. This caused them to sleep and stop caring about ever going home.
Finally, Odysseus managed to rescue himself from the apathy and set sail. Ulysses tells how adverse north winds blew him and his men off course as they were rounding Cape Malea, the southernmost tip of the Peloponnesus, headed westwards for Ithaca: "I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of 9 days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships.
When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches.
Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars. " (Samuel Butler’s translation) This passage served as the source for Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Lotos-Eaters. " It is also referenced in the fifth chapter of Ulysses by James Joyce, also titled "Lotus Eaters," and in the sixth chapter of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Somerset Maugham’s “The Lotus Eater” is set in 1913 and is of a man Thomas Wilson who comes to the island of Capri in Italy for a holiday.
He is so enchanted with the place that he gives up his job at London and decides to live the rest of his life without any cares in Capri. Like a mythical lotus eater he settles a life of oblivion. An intrusive narrator interrupts the story to provide a commentary to the reader on some aspect of the story or on a more general topic. It is a kind of prologue to the story. It guides the readers about the purpose of the story. In Somerset Maugham's story 'The Lotus Eater' we get such an example of narrative intrusion when the narrator describes his purpose of writing the story.
It is the extraordinary life of Wilson whose life is not like a tram car and he is a ‘round peg in square holes’. It is exceptional. This narrative intrusion in the opening of the novel makes the rest of the story redundant. Maugham’s compelling story paints Thomas Wilson, the pivotal character of the story in minute analyses. A self retired English bank manager, Wilson, made the Italian island Capri his own abode, bidding adieu the life of hardship. Capri was an island of superb sights and sounds so much so that Wilson would njoy them heartily until the last day of his life. Like the mythical lotus eaters he led the life of oblivion and leisure. In that sense he becomes a lotus eater. However, after the expiry of his annuity, Wilson fell on worst days and lost the will-power to carry his life any further. With no hopes to live for, Wilson once made an attempt to commit suicide. Though he survived the mortal attempt, he was no longer in his right mind. Then one fateful morning of a moonlit night, he was found lying on the mountainside with his eyes closed for ever.
Symbolically lotus-eaters are the people who live in oblivion forgetting the hardships of life. Like the mythical lotus eaters Wilson had no future vision. He preferred a life of oblivious settle at Capri and argued that such a long time of twenty five years were enough to enjoy a life. But he had no vision that long days’ passivity would have crippled his will power and he remained a pity for others in his last days. When the author met him for the first time, Wilson, a middle-aged fellow, had already spent fifteen years on the island.
As Wilson himself revealed to the author, he fell in love with Capri at first sight. Mr. Wilson came to Capri and lived peacefully and leisurely doing nothing. He simply idled away his time in reading books, playing piano and enjoying the beauty of the place. After his retirement, he lived on an annuity that was to last for only twenty-five years, and he wished to live these years to his heart’s content. He was a man who would live in the present caring little about the future. To Wilson, he had justifiable reason to live after his own heart, since he had none on earth to worry about.
He loved nature, music and books, which alone could feed the thoughts of a lonely man like him. He preferred leisure to work, for he believed "Leisure, … If people only knew! It`s the most priceless thing a man can have and they`re such fools they don`t even know it`s something to aim at. Work? They work for work`s sake. They haven`t got the brains to realize that the only object of work is to obtain leisure. " Small wonder, after the expiry of his annuity, Wilson fell on worst days and lost the will-power to carry his life any further.
After the vain attempt of committing suicide when he was released from the hospital, he became mentally insane. He lived six more years thereafter. His maid servant, Assunta gave him shelter and meager food. Her husband made him work for them. Then one night he went out to see the beauty of a moonlit mountain and he was found lying on the mountainside with his eyes closed for ever. The author cynically comments that Wilson had breathed his last while feasting his eyes on a breath-taking sight in the moonlight.
The irony in this story is that Wilson traded a life of boring routine in London for an equally mundane life in Capri. However, this irony is only on the part of everyone else except Thomas Wilson, for he enjoyed his life on Capri thoroughly. What is definitely sad, is that he lived a wonderful 25 years of pleasure and ended the last 6 living like a wild animal. Somerset's stories are often rich with ironies, as well as other subtle lessons about human nature. Wilson's choice to leave his London life behind in exchange for a life of leisure on Capri is at once awesome as well as tragic.
It is awesome because it resonates with every young traveler who has gone abroad and marvelled at the comparison between some wonderful new place and the routine dullness of his familiar life at home but it is also tragic because he did not provide himself with enough funds to live well into his natural time of death. In this, Somerset reveals the downfall of making such hasty decisions such as the one Wilson made. If Wilson had carefully planned his retirement from his banking job, saving enough money in the process, the last 6 years of his miserable life might well have been avoided.
Myth in Literature: Northrop Frye's Discoveries. (2020, Jun 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-lotus-eater-new-essay
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