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The Role of Mythology in Modern LiteratureAuthor(s): Mark E. WorkmanSource: Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. - Apr., 1981), pp. 35-48Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814186 .

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THE ROLE OFMYTHOLOGYIN MODERN LITERATUREMark E. Workman

Oedipus in Thebes is problematicenough, but how are we to dealwith his reappearancesin Polanski'sChinatownor in Pynchon'sneigh-boring San Narcisco?l Nor does Oedipus walk alone: figures of my-thology continue to parade through the pages of modern literatureand film with a vitalitywhich belies their age. Daedalusstill practiceshisartifice,Icarussoarsanew, Pan maintainshis dwellingin the forest,andOvidian metamorphoses continue unabated.Despite the vigor of this procession, traditionalapproachesto thestudy of the relationshipbetween folklore and literature are not ade-quate for dealing with the presence of myth in many worksof modernliterature. To begin with, the initial step of"identification,"which isendorsed by many writers on the subject,2is often eliminated by theauthors who themselves provocativelysupply us with this information.Thus, Joyce'sUlysses,Hamsun'sPan, and Pynchon'scharacterOedipaMaas all clearly signal their traditionalcorrelatives.However identification is achieved- whether by author orcritic it is when he gets to the next and more significant phase ofinterpreting that the folklorist especially finds himself without re-course to adequate theory. Judgments based on criteria such as theauthor's "sincerity,"or the "degree of modification"of the "originalmyth"simplydo not do justice to workssuch as those mentionedabove.And to note that Pynchon and Joyce utilize myth as (among otherthings) a structuraldevice or a point of symbolicreference is merely tostate the obvious. Confronted with the most profound question of not

how but why the modern writer resorts to myth in his work, theindividual folklorist is left enti-relyto his own critical devices.

35


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36 MarkE. WorkmanThis assertion demands immediate qualification.While the focus

of attention of processually-orientedfolklorists has naturally shiftedtowards the study of traditional expressive eventsin which dynamicsmay be observed, insightsderived therefrom have been applied as wellto artisticproductsfor which actual performancedata for one reasonor another is lacking. One example of this approach is Peter Seitel'sanalysisof the proverbsin the novels of Chinua Achebe on the basisofprinciples central to the ethnography of speaking.3The study of folklore and literature, too, has profited from thischange in perspective. Roger Abrahams has described some of themotivationsbehind, and limitationsof, the "loreof lit"approachto thesubject,and gone on to reinterpret a poem of Herrick'sfrom a morecontemporary,performance-centeredpoint of view. Productiveas hismethod of analysisis, however, there are two reasons why its applica-bilityto workssuch as those cited aboveis restricted.Firstly,the authorsof these works do not necessarilygravitateto mythic materialbecauseof its associationwith "an image of life which is familiarand comfort-able, static and uncomplicated, and which therefore represents anattractivealternativeto modernity and its attendantcomplexity.'4Onthe contrary,it is fair to say that the literaryattractivenessof mythologyis due to its enduring depiction of significant and sometime veryuncomfortable relationships, some admittedly between man and hisenvironment,but others of at least equal importancebetween man andhis fellow men, and between man and his deities. Secondly, whereasAbrahamspartiallydirects his remarkstoward regional writers,manymodern authors who emply mythic themes, structuresand images, ifthey focus on a "region"at all, do so only incidentally.Just as often, thelocationand boundariesof the worldswhichthey constructare difficultto establish,and the pulses of these fictionaluniversesare anythingbutrhythmic.These limitations notwithstanding, the critical path chosen byAbrahamswarrantsfurther exploration since it does lead us to lookupon folklore in literatureas fulfilling a dynamicrole. The use here ofthe word role is not haphazard. What it suggests in this situation ispatterned performance governed by conventions determined byauthorial obligation and execution and audience expectations andresponse.5Whatis needed now is a set of terms and concepts accordingto which these patterns may be identified and studied.To find this conceptual apparatus it is instructive for reasonsal-readydiscussed-to step outside the domainof folkloreand into thatof literarycriticism.Of the many theoristswho have attempted in one


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MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 37

way or another to systematizeliterature, there are two in particularfrom whose ideas it willbe especiallyuseful to borrowselectivelyhere.These are Northrop Frye and RomanJakobson.Frye is familiarto most folkloriststhrough his exhaustive treat-ment of the archetypalnatureof literaturein the Anatomyof Criticism.Accordingto Frye'sformulation,Biblicaland classicalmythologypro-videsa basicsetof structuresand imagerywhichareineluctablyrepro-ducedinincreasinglymore"plausible"or "realistic"contexts(thetermsare Frye's)in allof post-mythologicalwesternliterature.Eachperiodisthuscharacterizedbythe degree to whichit hasbeen "displaced"fromthe apocalypticur-literature,myth. "Wehave,"says Frye,

three organizationsof mythand archetypalsymbolsin literature.First,thereis undisplacedmyth.... Second,we havethe generaltendencywehavecalledromantic,the tendencyto suggestimplicitmythicalpatternsin a world more closely associatedwith human experience. Third, wehave the tendency of"realism"to throwthe emphasison content andrepresentationratherthan on the shape of the story. Ironic literaturebeginswithrealismandtendstowardmyth,its mythicalpatternsbeingasa rule more suggestiveof the demonic than of the apocalyptic.... 6

As noted, there is a correlation in Frye's scheme between thedegree to whicha workof literatureis displaced(unlessit is purposely"sentimental")and the period of literaryhistoryto which it belongs.Romance,forinstance,inwhichthe herois"superiorindegree toothermen and his environment"7is peculiar to the age of"chivalry andknight-errantry,"and is only slightly removed from its apocalypticancestry.The "lowmimetic,"on the other hand, in whichthe hero is"one of us,""superiorneither to other men or to his environment,"8belongs to the middle-classculture of the nineteenth century andexhibits substantialdisplacement.The other two modes identified byFryeare the "highmimetic"of the Renaissanceand the "ironic"of thepresent.The AnatomyofCriticismis, quite simply,a tour de force. Fromthepointof viewof thecontemporaryfolklorist,however,thereareaspectsof Frye'stheory which are troublesome. His criticismis purportedlystrictlygrounded in the universe of literature;at the same time, thenotion of displacement that force whichprogressivelymovesnewly-emerging literaturefurther awayfrom its mythicorigins appearstobe generated not by literature itself but by the continuallyevolvingsocietyin whichliteratureis produced.Thus, Frye'scriticismis in factas much sociologicalas archetypal.Howeverthis mayconform to his


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38 MarkE. Workmanstated intentions (and according to my understanding it does not),neither type of criticismaccommodatesthe interest of the folkloristinthe actual participants in the literary experience: the writers, thereaders, and the art which bring them together. Furthermore,insofaras displacement(whoeverproducesit) is said to categoricallydefine thenature of any given literaryperiod it does not adequatelyallow for thevariety of ways in which myth may be incorporated into modern andcontemporaryliterature.This literature is not, as Frye would have usbelieve, all ironic, nor is its mythic imagery totally demonic.Disregarding these problematic areas, Frye's analysis of mythicstructuresand images remains most relevant to a study of the role ofmythology in literature. Before attempting to adapt his scheme to suitthe present purpose, however, it will be useful to consider some relatedideas put forth by RomanJakobson. Actually,the concepts in questionwere derived not from a study of literature but from Jakobson'sin-vestigation into a kind of language disorder called aphasia.Jakobsondiscovered that aphasics suffered from "some impairment, more orless severe, either of the faculty for selection and substitutionor forcombinationand contexture."9Jakobson termed these faculties meta-phoric and metonymic, respectively,based on the two ways in whichdiscourse develops: through similarityas in lyricalsongs, or contiguity

. . . .as ln nerolc eplcs.It is Jakobson'scontention that different genres of literature, aswell as different periods, exhibit greater affilnityfor one or the other ofthese alternative means of composition. Reference to a related situ-ation in film technique will help make clear this dichotomy:Ever since the productionsof D. W. Griffith,the art of the cinema, withits highly developed capacity for changing the angle, perspectiveandfocus of "shots,"has broken with the traditionof the theater and rangedan unprecedented variety of synechdochic"close-ups"and metonymic'iset-ups"in general. In such pictures as those of CharlieChaplin, thesedevices in turn were superseded by a novel, metaphoric"montage"withits "lap dissolves" the filmic similes.10

Jakobsongoes on to saythat "thedichotomy . . . appearsto be of primalsignificance and consequence for all verbal behavior and for humanbehavior in general.''11What I would like to suggest here is that there is a manner in whichthe terminology and concepts of Frye and Jakobson may be combinedin order to produce a useful framework for the study of the role ofmythologyin modern literature.Divorcedfrom its historicaland socio-


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MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 39

logicalassociations,Frye'sformulationleavesus witha basicallytripar-tite divisionof literatureinto: (1) those workswhich are so obviouslymythicallybased as to be set in a fabulous universe; (2) those workswhichcontainmythicmovementsor reflectionsbut are set in a factualuniverse; (3) those works in which mythic melodies and harmonieshave become cacophonousand whose universesare correspondingly

. .Oppresslveor meanlngess.It is apparentthatthe firstof thesecategoriesmaybe describedbythe term"metonymic"in thesensethatJakobsonemploysit, suggestinghere that the mythicand literaryuniversesare contiguous with oneanother so that charactersmay step from one to the other withoutundergoing any radicaldistortion in appearanceor behavior. Frye'ssecond category is best describedby Jakobson'sterm "metaphoric,"indicativeof the substitutabilitywhichexistsbetweenmythicplotsandthemesand theircontemporarycounterpartsin literatureof thismorerealisticvariety. WhileJakobson has no term which adequatelyde-scribesFrye'sthird category,I would propose "metamorphic"as par-ticularlyappropriate.Not only does it fit nicely withJakobson'ster-minology,butit alsoeffectivelyconveysthe senseof changeanddistor-tion worked upon the mythicmaterialsin literatureof this type.12Whatthese terms represent, then, is a system less theoreticallycumbersomethan Frye'sand more refined thanJakobson's13 whichaccountsfor the spectrumof possibleroles which myth may play inmodern literature. It must be emphasized again that to give thesepossibilitiesnames is to do more than describea staticphenomenon.Rather,to saythata mythfunctionsmetonymically,or metaphorically,or metamorphically,is to describea processwhichextendsbeyondtheworkitselfto encompassthe reasonandsentimentof the readerfor thepurpose of constructinga particularkind of fictionaluniverse.14An illustrationof the metonymicuse of mythis providedfor us byHermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha.Siddhartha,as a young boy, dis-satisfiedwith the spiritualcomplacencyof those around him, under-takesa quest"topresstowardsthe Self, towardsAtman.''l5Hisjourneyfirst leads him into a life of physicaldeprivation with a wanderinggroup of ascetics;he rebounds from there to satiate his senses in acareer as a merchant and a paramour of a courtesan; glutted, heretreatsin disgustto experiencea spiritualdeathatthe bankof a river.Reawakening,reborn,hejoins a localferrymanto spend the restof hislife in contemplation.It is from the riverand his humblefellowferry-manthatSiddharthaacquiresthe wisdomwhichhe hasso long soughtafter:


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40 MarkE. WorkmanSiddhartha listened.... He had often heard all this before, all thesenumerousvoicesin the river,but todaythey sounded different.... Theyall belonged to each other: the lamentof those who yearn,the laughterofthe wise, the cry of indignationand the groan of the dying. They were allinterwoven and interlocked,entwined in a thousand ways. And all thevoices,all the goals, all the yearnings,all the sorrows,all the pleasures,allthe good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of themtogether was the streamof events, the music of life. Siddharthalistenedattentivelyto this river,to this song of a thousandvoices; . . . [it]consistedof one word: Om perfection."Do you hear?"asked Vasudeva'sglance once again.

Vasudeva'ssmile was radiant;it hovered brightlyin all the wrinklesof his old face, as the Om hovered over all the voices of the river. Hissmile was radiant as he looked at his friend, and now the same smileappeared on Siddhartha'sface.... his Self had merged into unity.l6The hero'sjourney clearly recapitulatesthose of numerous otherspiritualseekers. For Siddhartha,thisjourney takes him beyond salva-tion to the point of actualgodhood, for it is as a god that he is reveredbythe Brahminmonks who make pilgrimagesto his dwelling by the river.

What is of especial interest here is that the novel, like its hero, has alsofully realized the potential of its inheritance to become, for manyreaders, mythic in its own right. Thus, not only has the "metonymichero"stepped directlyfrom the world of myth into the worldof fiction,but many readers have been moved to make the opposite transition:from an encounter with literature, they have experienced myth.Unlike Siddhartha,Lt. Glahn, the mercurialhero of Knut Ham-sun's novel Pan, is not a god himself but does share many similaritieswith his traditionalcounterpartfrom the forests of Arcadia.Moody ashe is, Glahn is not unpredictable;rather, his temperament correlateson a day-to-daybasiswith the weather,and over a longer durationwiththe seasonalround. He too is "spirited,impulsive,and amorous,''17andcauses a kind of panic amongst those less unbridled than himself.But in equally significantways Glahn is distinctfrom Pan. Goatishas he may be, he is not part goat. Furthermore, unlike Pan, Glahnemerges on occasion from the sanctuary of the forest to confrontcivilization, and when he does he is humbled, humiliated and ulti-mately destroyed by it. At times such as these, Pan does not motivatethis behavior but instead provides the adverse commentary on it:

Was Pan sitting in a tree watchingto see how I would act? And was hisbellyopen; and was he crouchingso that he seemed to sit and drink fromhis own belly?But all this he did just to keep one eye cocked on me; and


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41MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATUREthe whole tree shook with his silent laughterwhen he saw all my thoughtsrunning away with me.l 8

The relationshipbetweenPan and Glahnis a metaphoricone.AccordingtoJamesFernandez,"themetaphoricassertionsmen makeaboutthemselvesor others. . . provideimagesin relationto whichtheorganizationof behaviorcantakeplace.''19The natureof the behaviorthuseffectedis a testimonyto the powerof the metaphor;if one istoomovedby metaphor,however,the behaviorisjudged to be abnormal.In the movieMorgan,for instance,the hero dons a monkeysuit oncetoo often and finds his identitymergedwith that of the animalwithwhoseskinhe is in contact.Metaphorhasbecomemetonym;for Mor-gan, but not for Glahn,a fictionhas becomea fact.Anothercontemporaryhero who managesto sustaina distancebetweenhimselfandhis metaphoricalcounterpartsis LeopoldBloom.Likenedto the ghostof Hamlet,likenedto Elijah,likenedto ChristtheSavior,likenedaboveall to wilyand much-sufferingUlysses,at timesdiminishedandattimesennobled,Bloomemergesfromhisodysseyhisown man.Thatwe areembarkingon an expeditionwithsucha many-faceted hero is signalledfor us in the very beginningof Bloom'sdisproportionatelylargethirdof Ulysseswhenhe explainsto Mollythemeaningof "thatword"whichshe laterrecallsas "metsomethingwithhosesin it:"20

Here, she said. What does that mean?He leaned downwardsand read near her polished thumbnail.Metempsychosis?Yes. Who's he when he's at home?Metempsychosis,he said, frowning. It's Greek; from the Greek. Thatmeans transmigrationof souls.2l

Multi-facetedas he is, Bloom himselfdoes not get lost in thisshuffleof souls.Boththe structureof the book,whichleadsthe travel-lerbackto a stateof equanimityby the sideof Penelopein his Ithakaat7 EcclesStreet,andBloom'sownawarenessof the immutabilityof life,mitigateagainstthispossibility.Appropriately,we find Bloomdisplay-ingjust thiskindof contemplativedetachmentlaterin the dayafterhehas been inspiredto masturbationby GertyMacDowellnot far fromthe hill wherehe proposedto Mollyseventeenyearsbefore:

June that was too I wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself. Yecrags and peaks I'm with you once again. Life, love, voyage round your


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MarkE. Workman42own little world.... All quiet on Howth now. The distanthill seems.Wherewe.The rhododendrons.I ama fool perhaps.He gets the plumsand I get the plumstones.Where I come in. All that old hill has seen.Names change: that'sall. Lovers:yum, yum.... So it returns.Thinkyou'reescapingand runintoyourself.Longestway rounc}isthe shortestwayhome.... Circushorse walkingin a ring.22

As RichardEllmanhasnoted, "Wheneverconfrontedby a choicebetweentwopossiblethingsto include,Joycechoseboth."23Partof thedifficulty andthedelight- inreadingUlyssescomesfromthe factthatJoyce'schoicesusuallyextended farbeyondthe two. But he wasinclu-sivenot becausehe wascompulsivelyretentive,norbecausehe wishedto massivelyparade his erudition, but because he was attemptingtodescribea new conceptionof languageequallyapplicableto things aswellaspeople. Here, for instance,isBloom(aliasDonPoldode laFlora)reading a letter writtenin the language of flowers:

Then, walkingslowlyforward,he readtheletteragain,murmuringhereandtherea word.Angrytulipswithyoudarlingmanflowerpunishyourcactusif you don't please forgetmenothow I long violetsto dear roseswhen we soon anenome meet all naughtynightstalkwife Martha'sper-fume. Havingreaditall he tookit fromthe newspaperandputit backinhis sidepocket.24

To the uninitiatedreaderthis lettermakeslittlesense. Butit is notthe uninitiatedfor whomthisletteris intended;rather,the recipientisBloom, thatquintessentialparadigmatichero, and it is over his shoul-der that we are looking here. It is for this reasonthat RobertScholesassertsabout Ulyssesthat, "In reading it we learn how to read it; ourcomprehensionis exercisedand stretched."25Whatwe learn, accord-ing to Scholes,is somethingaboutthe natureof communicationin themodern world:Bloom is homeostaticman, centripetal,his equilibriumachieved.AndStephenisyoung,thereforecentrifugal,andthereforeto be forgiven.Intimehetoowillreturn,likeShakespearereadingthebookof himself,andwritingit too. Stephenand Bloomand Mollyhaveother rolesto playinFinnegansWake,permutationsand combinationshardlydreamedof in1922.And for thistotalachievement,we maysayof JoycewhatBatesonsaid of Socrates.As a bioenergeticindividualhe is indeed dead. "Butmuch of him still lives in the ecology of ideas."2fi

The contributionof metaphortotheecologyof ideasissubstantial.Ithasthecapacitytobotherectand transcendcategoriesof time,space


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MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 43and cognition. And it is in just this way that myth functions in Ulysses:Joyce manipulatesit to extend Bloombackwardsand forwardsin timeand space, thereby amplifying his hero's and his reader's-consciousnessin and out of the present.If myth can be used metaphoricallyto juxtapose- and hencestretch-our categoriesof cognition, it can also be used metamorphi-cally to altogether dissolve these same patterns of perception. It isemployed in just this manner in Chinatownand TheCryingof Lot 49,albeit to different ends. Nowhere is the distortionof mythic materialmore extreme and unsettling than in the first of these two works, inwhich Polanskitakes the story of Oedipus and stands it on its head.The inversionsare numerous. As in Sophocles'rendition of themyth, there isan incestuousrelationshipin the film;here, however,it isbetween daughter and father ratherthan mother and son. To com-pound this perversity,the father-ominously namedNoah Cross hasentered wilfullyand demonicallyinto this affair. Nor is this the onlywilful perversitywhich he fosters. He induces Los Angeles' Thebanplague by cuttingoff its supply of water. He is not a victimof patricidebut instead murders his own son-in-law.Possessingmore knowledgethan any other characterin the film, he acts only to hinder the processof detection undertaken by the private-eye whom he himself at one

* .polnt attemptsto nlre.One of the most strikingfeaturesin OedipusRexis the relationshipbetween eyesight and vision. It is only when he destroysthe one thatOedipus acquires the other. While there are frequent blindings inChinatown,contraryto expectationsthey end merely in blindness. R.Barton Palmerenumerates these occurrences:Cross1sglasses,the final clue to the murder, found with one lens shat-tered, the one taillight on Mrs. Mulwray'scar which Gittes breaks inorder to followher through the mysteriousnight, and, mostimportantly,the imperfectionin Mrs. Mulwray'seye. Gittes discoversa dark spot inher left iris,which she explainsis a birthmark,a flaw. In the film's finalscene, Mrs.Mulwrayattemptsto flee with her daughter from the evilrepresentedby her father, but is stopped by a policeman'sbullet, a bulletwhich piercesher left eye.27

If there is anyone in Chinatownwho gains knowledgeas a result ofhis experienceit is the privatedetectiveJ. J. Gittes.Like everythingelsein the film, however,learning too is inverted, producingonly negativeresults. Gittesbecomes involved in what appearsto bejust another caseof matrimonialinfidelity only to discover that the offense is much


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44 MarkE. Workmandifferent, and much worse. He is informed by a handbill on his carwindow that "Los Angeles is dying of thirst"only to discover that twomen have drowned in one of its dry riverbeds.28He is hired by someonewho claims to be Evelyn Mulwrayonly to discover that she is a fraud,and then proceeds to locate and expose the alleged adulteressonly todiscover that she is the sister-in-law/daughter-in-lawof the man towhom she is supposedly romanticallylinked.Gittes' greatest discovery is also his least: for what he learns,ultimately,is that man is profoundly evil, and that this evil is unfathom-able. Driven into the heart of the glittering metropolis, made to con-front what he has so long tried to deny, he is crushed by the inscrutablehorror which he "sees" there. Unlike Oedipus, who overcomes theirony of his existence through an act of self-detection, Gittes'universe which in many ways looks suspiciously like our own-remainsone in which the meaning of life is dictatedwhollyby irony. Itsmyths have collapsed, and with them have gone all possibilityof salva-tion. That the Oedipus story is used ironicallyin Chinatown,as Frye'sscheme suggests it would be, is beyond dispute. The manner in whichitis used in Thomas Pynchon'sTheCryingof Lot49, on the other hand,can not be so easily characterized.It has undergone a metamorphosis,of course: Oedipus is replaced by a female counterpart,Oedipa Maas.She too attempts to expose a mystery,but the results of her efforts areneither as consistentnor as conclusiveas those of literature'sfirst greatdetective.Oedipa'squest begins when she is made the executrix of an estatebelonging to her former lover, Pierce Inverarity.To fulfill this obliga-tion she must travel to the center of Pierce's financial empire, SanNarciso. One of the things she comes to discover is that San Narciso isnot located on any traditional map:

San Narciso was a name; an incident among our climatic records ofdreams and what dreams became among our accumulateddaylight, amoment's squall-lineor tornado'stouchdown among the higher, morecontinental solemnities storm-systemsof group suffering and need,prevailingwindsof affluence. There wasthe true continuity,San Narcisohad no boundaries. No one knew yet how to draw them.29Once in San Narciso, Oedipa initiates her investigation intoPierce'sextensive holdings; however,just as the boundariesof the cityare in doubt, so too are the patterns of communicationwithin it. Forcommunication in San Narciso does not follow the normal routes of


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MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 45converse; instead, it is surreptitiouslycarried on by both Inverarityemployeesaswellas bythosewho havenothingat allto do withhim,bymeans of a mysteriouspostal networkcalled the "Tristero."30Try asshe might to unravel this network, Oedipa repeatedly fails to make

.

sense ot lt.Frustratedin her endeavor, abandoned by husband, lover, andpsychiatrist,Oedipa is led to the brink of madness, whereupon shereviewsthe alternativeexplanationsavailableto her:Eitheryou have stumbledindeed,withoutthe aid of LSDor otherindolealkaloids,onto a secretrichnessand concealeddensityof dream;onto anetwork by which X number of Americansare truly communicatingwhilstreservingtheir lies, recitationsof routines,avidbetrayalsof spir-itual poverty,for the official governmentdeliverysystem;maybeevenontoareal alternativeto theexitlessness,to theabsenceof surpriseto life,that harrowsthe head of everybodyAmericanyou know,and you too,sweetie.Or you arehallucinatingit. Or a plot has been mountedagainstyou, so expensive and elaborate, involving items like the forging ofstamps and ancient books, constant surveillanceof your movements,plantingof post hornimagesallover SanFrancisco,bribingof librarians,hiringof professionalactorsand PierceInverarityonly knowswhat-allbesides, all financedout of the estate in a way either too secretor tooinvolved for your non-legal mind to know abouteven though you areco-executor, so labrinthinethat it must have meaning beyondjust apracticaljoke. Or you are fantasyingsome such plot, in whichcase youare a nut, Oedipa,out of your sku11.31Oedipa must rejectthese alternatives,for each either fails to ac-countfor all the factsor isriddledwithinconsistencies.It isat thispointof despondency, however,that Oedipa comes to a significantrealiza-tion: if the answerswhichshe is receivingare inadequate,it is perhapsbecause her questionsare not properlyphrased;and if they are notproperly phrased, it is perhaps because she does not command alanguagein whichshe mayproperlyphrasethem. The availablemeta-phors, in other words,have lost their meaning:"The actof metaphorthen wasa thrustat truthand a lie, depending whereyou were:inside,safe, or outside, lost.Oedipadid not knowwhere she was.Trembling,

unfurrowed, she slipped sidewise.... 32Oedipa'sfinalstrategyistowait:shewillgo forthwithstrengthandpatience if not with language and understanding. Like the spiritualseekerwhoknowsthathe hasexhaustedthe relevanceof the prevailingsystemof belief but not yet replaced it with one which is more func-tional, Oedipa decides, in the words of George Levine, "to risk the


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46 Mark E. Workman

moment."33There is, at least for the time being, no irony in thissituation, for while the received mythology has proven to be defunct,Oedipa is neither confused nor oppressed. And this is as true for thereader as it is for Ms. Maas. Forjust as Oedipa has tried and failed tomake sense of her experience, we too have been disconcerted anddisoriented right along with her in a work which conforms only mar-ginally to our expectationsof how a novel should behave. But whereasin the metamorphosedworld of Chinatownnothing remains possible,here everything does.This concludes the illustrationof the spectrum of possibilitiesforthe inclusion of mythology in modern literature. As each reading hasmade apparent, the myths function both within and beyond the workof literature to establishcertain premises and to mobilize appropriateresponses. This paper, also, ideally will serve a dual function: practi-cally, for those of us engaged in teaching folklore in literaturedepart-ments, it may provide a useful scheme wherebycourses on this subjectmay be organized; and theoretically,it may serve to generate furtherdiscussion about an aspect of folklore which is as fascinating as it iscomplex.OaklandUniversityRochester,Michigan

NOTESl This is a revised and expanded versionof a paper presented to theAmerican FolkloreSociety in Los Angeles, October 27, 1979. I would

like to thank my colleagues Joe DeMent, David Mascitelli,and ChuckWebster for their critical readings of this essay.2 For variousexpressionsof the traditionalapproachto the study offolklore in literaturediscussedin this and the following paragraph,see"Folkloreand Literature:A Symposium,"Journalof AmericanFolklore70 ( 1957); and Alan Dundes, "The Study of Folklorein LiteratureandCulture:Identificationand Interpretation,"JournalofAmericanFolklore78 (1965): 136-41.3 Peter Seitel, "Proverbs:A SocialUse of Metaphor,"Genre2 ( 1969):143-6 1.4 Roger D. Abrahams, "Folkloreand Literature as Performance,"Journalof theFolkloreInstitute9 (1972): 85.5 For a similarlyconceived discussionof"role" see ElizabethBurns,Theatricality:A Studyof Conventionin theTheatreand in SocialLife (New


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MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 47York:Harper and Row, 1972), especiallychapter 5, "ConventionsofPerformance."6 Northrop Frye,Anatomyof Criticism(Princeton:PrincetonUniv.Press, 1973), pp. 139-40.

7 Ibid., p. 338 Ibid., p. 34.9 RomanJakobson, "TwoAspectsof Language and Two Types ofAphasicDisturbances,"inFundamentalsofLanguage,RomanJakobsonand Morris Halle (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1956), p. 76.Ibid., p. 78.

11 Ibid.,p.79.12 For a complementaryperspectiveon the applicationofJakobson'sconcepts to modern literature, see DavidLodge, TheModesof ModernWriting(Ithaca:Cornell Univ. Press, 1977), parts two and three.13 Jakobson himself points to the strictlyexploratorynature of hisobservations:"TwoAspectsof Language and Two Types of AphasicDisturbances,"in Jakobsonand Halle, pp. 78-79.14 On the role of the reader see Wolfgang Iser, TheImpliedReader(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1974), especially chapter 11,"The Reading Process."15 HermannHesse,Siddhartha(NewYork:New Directions,1951), p.4.16 Ibid , pp. 110-11.17 MarkMorfordand Robert Lenardon,ClassicalMythology,2d ed.(New York:Longman, 1977), p. 212.18 Knut Hamsun,Pan (NeavYork:Noonday, 1969), p. 34.19 JamesFernandez,"Persuasionsand Performances:Of the Beast inEverybody. . . And the Metaphorsof Everynlan,"in Myth,SymbolandCulture,ed. CliffordGeertz(NewYork: W. W.Norton and Co.,1971),p. 42.20 JamesJoyce, Ulysses(New York:The Modern Library,1961), p.754.21 Ibid., p. 64.22 Ibid, pp. 376-7723 Richard Ellman, Ulysseson theLiffey (New York: Oxford Univ.Press, 1972), p. 34.24 Joyce, p. 78.25 Robert Scholes, "Ulysses:A StructuralistPerspective,"in Ulysses:FiftyYears,ed. Thomas F. Stanley(Bloomington:Indiana Univ. Press,1974), p. 165.26 Ibid., pp. 170-71


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27 R. Barton Palmer, ''Chinato7lJnand the Detective Story,"LiteraturelFilmQuarterly5:2 ( 1977): 117.28 Robert Eberwein,unpublishedmanuscript.p. 2.29 Thomas Pynchon,TheCryingof Lot49 (New York:BantamBooks,1967), pp. 133-34.30 For an interesting reading of the Tristero see Frank Kermode,4'TheUse of the Codes,4'in ApproachestoPoetics7ed. SeymourChatman(New York:ColumbiaUniv. Press, 1973), pp. 51-80.31 Pynchon,p. 128.32 Ibid., p. 95.33 George Levine,"Riskingthe Moment:Anarchyand PossibilityinPynchon's Fiction,"in MindfulPleasures:Essayson ThomasPynchon,George Levine and David Leverenz(Boston: Little, Bro^snand Co.,l 976), pp. 1 13-36.

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