How the Past Possesses the Present in “Night-Sea Journey”

How the Past Possesses the Present in “Night-Sea Journey”

           

            When it comes down to it, John Barth’s “Night-Sea Journey” is little more than a tale of circles; and upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the humble circle and its story is something that has been passed down from generation to generation of literature.  If we take look through a brief survey of literature (and therefore, life) the theme of the circle, (a peculiar phrase, if ever there was one), makes itself amply apparent.

            In “Night-Sea Journey,” we see circles presented in multiple ways. These circles exist from the strikingly literal “gliding sphere” to the metaphorical “cyclic process of incarnation” or “cycles of catastrophes” to the phenomenological fact that, by understanding the text as a whole, the reader realized that this story is only one repetition in a series that continues ad infinitum.  Perhaps what I have developed, here, is nothing more than circular “referential mania.”  By exploring each of these concepts in turn (literal, metaphorical, phenomenological), we can gain a glimpse into the literary history of the circle and see, with little wonder, how the concept of the circle becomes so integral to the story of the “Night-Journey” and literature as a whole.

            Perhaps the simplest place to start is with the physical circle.  Chronologically, the oldest example I arrived at (through no manner of systematic examination) was from the Inferno of Dante.  What are not the levels of the Inferno if not “Circles?”  Led by Virgil, Dante progresses through the nine circles of Hell in which Dante finds rings of swamps, rivers of boiling blood, burning sand, and the eighth circle which is subdivided into eleven separate rings (Bolgias) including a ring wherein horned devils with lashes force its occupants to walk around the circle forever.  The circle also appears multiple times in Coleridge’s “Kubla Kahn.”  In the first stanza, we see “twice five miles of fertile ground/ With walls and towers were girdled round.” Then, in the final stanza, “weave a circle round him thrice.”  Interestingly, both of these circles are concerned with enclosing something.  Perhaps the seeming endless nature of the circle is what makes these barriers so effective.  Within the circle, there are no corners and no weak spots.  Because of the symmetrical and perfect nature of a circle, each point or segment is equal to any other point or segment of equal length and to follow a circle will lead on forever without landing on any end point and continue into infinity.  This idea of continuity of a circle is also seen in Marcel Proust’s À la recherché du temps perdu, Swann’s Way and The Guermantes Way (walking paths) seem to a young Marcel two distinct paths each with its own character and significance; but with age, Marcel learns that these two Ways are simply the same circle taken from two different directions.  The same confusion can be seen in Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” when mysterious caller continues to call the wrong number on the rotary phone.  The circular dialing device leads to confusion because the caller, presumably, can’t seem to get the proper point on the circle.  By confusing the “O” and the zero, (both circles) on the circle of the rotary the caller is lost in the circle.  Within a circle, either direction from any given point is identical and therein lies the terror of the circle: any point is as good as another, but when one finds himself stuck in (or on) a circle and must move, the overwhelming sameness of the circle is awe-inspiring, intimidating, confounding, exhilarating, and capable of devastating the human need for reference.  If one starts in a certain direction, he may travel into infinity before he realizes his mistake.  This potential for failure also makes the circle a symbol of great power, for if one is to start moving around the circle in the correct direction, then also will he travel into infinity in that direction.  We, as the readers, can imagine the island of the “Night-Sea Journey,” and after we realize that the narrator and protagonist is, himself, a sperm, we can see the shape of his counterpart: the round ovum.  In the circle is contained the infinity of life, and therefore, the swimmer’s instincts drive him forward, towards the circle, while his consciousness continues to make arguments against the circle (including the fact that the circle might not exist).  The swimmer attempts to use his limited perspective to understand his place in the cycle of life and death.  This circle of life, and cycle of life and death, falls into the category of the metaphorical circle.

            The following two categories are perhaps two of the most important concepts in literature.  Without them, it is my opinion that literature would not be capable of playing the social role that it does.  The metaphorical circle is a concept which is manifest in all literature, including the “Night-Sea Journey.”  These type of circles may not be as obvious as the literal circles, but can be seen working throughout all stories.  One of the oldest examples of an in-story cycle that is glaringly obvious is the myth of Sisyphus.  King Sisyphus boasted that he was cleverer than Zeus himself; as punishment for his hubris, Zeus condemned Sisyphus to an eternity of pushing a large boulder up a hill, but before he can reach the top, the boulder rolls to the bottom and Sisyphus must start over again.  Here is another example of circular punishment, a motif which was amply apparent in Dante’s work.  The circle works so well for punishment because of its inherent infinity.  This is what is so unsettling about circles, the infinity, the infinite loop.  Another common cycle that presents itself in literature and mythology is the resurrection, the cycle of life and death portrayed on a scale small enough to be employed as a literary device.  Death and rebirth is seen from Homeric epics, to the Christian mythology, to The Ballad of Tim Finnegan, to the Harry Potter story.  In the case of the “Night-Sea Journey,” we see nearly all of the swimmers drown during their quest and, as readers we understand that through a literal birth, the quest (or the swim) will one day start over anew.  This concept of a quest is also a common theme in the romances of the middle ages.  How many times has the “Knight Errant” defeated one foe and immediately set out after another?  Even in parody (e.g., Cervantes’s Don Quixote) the knight will face one task, save one damsel, and immediately pursue another challenge.  Sounds very similar to the concept of the Mario video game, doesn’t it?  No matter what obstacles are overcome, the quest beckons.  In T.S. Eliot’s For Quartets, the idea of cycles and resurrections become strikingly apparent.  From the first and last sentences of “East Coker,” “In my beginning is my end” and “In my end is my beginning,” to, in “Little Gidding,”  

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.  

 

These two passages could both be directly applied to the N.S.J..  The swimmers quest ultimately both begins and ends when he reaches the island.  The island is his beginning and his end.  He arrives, himself, on the island for the first time, but is it the first time?  I think we can say that it certainly is not, and that even though this isn’t the first time, the exploration is just beginning.  Another of the most inherent themes of the Four Quartets involves continued references to the seasons.  What are seasons, if not a continually repeating cycle?  These are all examples of circles that have manifested themselves from the past, through the literature of thousands of years, and both used the N.S.J. to manifest itself, and to continue to move the tradition onwards.

 

            The final cycle of this analysis is what I referred to as the phenomenological circles.  Viewing the text, and the story as a whole, we, the readers, understand that the end of the swimmer’s journey is only the beginning of a second (or a unit in an infinite series of) N.S. J.’s.  One of the most obvious parallels to this concept of phenomenological cycles is Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.  In order to properly finish the novel, one must also read the first sentence again.  And as simple as that, the reader has begun to read the novel for a second time and cycle (theoretically) continues ad infinitum.  This same idea, though not as glaringly obvious, is seen in Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman where, at the end of the novel, we, the readers, realize that this story is simply on a loop and we’re not exactly sure what number of the loop we have been privy to in the novel, perhaps one, perhaps all of them.  And to trace this forward through history a little further, we arrive at the film, Dead Man, which, in my opinion is some sort of hybrid of The Third Policeman and Dante’s Inferno.  Is William Blake’s journey simply a journey around one of the rings of Dante’s Hell, fated to begin anew after the viewer (I was half-tempted to write reader) has left the scene?  I think the answer is yes.  Just as the swimmer is on the infinite loop that he suspects, so is William Blake, so is the narrator (whose name we never learn) of The Third Policeman, so is the reader of Finnegans Wake.  The loop, set in motion by these stories, never stops for the reader.

           

            I think it is unfair to consider the past as possessing the present in the “Night-Sea Journey” as a culmination.  It needs to be viewed as a process, a process that existed and took place before, during, and after the story.  It is the circle that is life and literature.  Without these circles, literature would not be possible.  In a universe without circles and cycles, an event might only occur once; every event might only occur once and therefore, the only books that would be written are history books.  That is not the universe in which we live, no is it the universe in which I want to live.  Our universe, fortunately, is composes of circles and cycles, and perhaps only one circle that plays itself into infinity.  By writing and rewriting these cycles the Reader is able to tap into these cycles, whether consciously or not, and relate.  Without the ability to relate, there would be no literature.  I cannot say that I subscribe to the idea of stories being part of the human biology.  Stories are not inherent.  Instead, we have concepts, like the circle, that are inherent in every story.  From the story that will never be written, to epics, to airport novels, some concepts will never be left out.  The circle and cycle will never be left out of stories and that is what makes it seems inherent to our biology.  Barth’s “Night-Sea Journey” is one of the stories that propagate the motif of universal circle and cycle of life and death.  It is a link on the evolutionary chain that is literature.  The past possesses the present and then moves on, and “Night-Sea Journey” is no exception.