ArchetypalAnalysisofOrpheus Descending

CHEN Xue-ting

(Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan Sichuan 618307)

Tennessee Williams was called by Roger Boxill, “the only genuine writer in the history of the American theatre.” (21) During his lifetime,he published at least sixty-three plays, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1955), Orpheus Descending(1957), A Streetcar Named Desire(1947), The Glass Menagerie(1944) were the representatives.Orpheus Descending was the revised version of Battle of Angles(1940), and its film adaptation was called The Fugitive Kind (1960).Although Battle of Angles was unsuccessful, Tennessee kept rewriting it, since he wanted to raise it (the matter of the wanderer) to the level to which he had already brought the master of the faded belle.(Boxill 121).

Frye said in “The Archetypes of Literature”, “The myth is the central informing power that gives archetypal significance to the ritual and archetypal narrative to the oracle.Hence the myth is the archetype[…] The crucial importance of this myth has been forced on literary critics by Jung and Frazer in particular.” (302) Tennessee borrowed the story of Orpheus and Eurydice from Greek myth, and even titled this play as Orpheus Descending.The structure of the new version was also similar to that of the myth, with Val corresponded to Orpheus, Lady to Eurydice,Two River County to Hades and townsmen to Ciconian women.Orpheus in Greek myth was a musician and the son of Apollo and Calliope.His beautiful music got people moved and charmed birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance and even diverted the course of river.He married a nymph called Eurydice, who was bitten by a snake on the very wedding day.Absorbed in deep mourning for Eurydice’s death, Orpheus couldn’t endure such great sorrow; therefore, he decided to go down to Hades to take his bride back.His music didn’t lose power even in Hades so that the guards were all moved and agreed him to take Eurydice away, but on the condition that he couldn’t look back at her on the way to the human world.However, Orpheus worried Eurydice was so weak that she couldn’t bear such a long journey, therefore he looked back.Suddenly, Eurydice fell into Hades.

Val’s full name “Valentine Xavier” suggested he served as both“valentine” and “savior” for the three “angels”——Lady, Vee and Carol,just like Orpheus was the valentine and savior of Eurydice.Vee, the visionary painter, had no common interests with her violent husband Sheriff.Val, an artist, comforted her while appreciating her paintings.Vee got consolation and belief from Val and even confused him with Christ.Val provided Vee’s artistic life with passion and saved her from her depressed marriage life.As for Carol, she was charged as vagrancy,because her involvement in civil right campaigns.She knew Val before he came to Two River County, but Val refused to admit and was unwilling to escape with her, since he didn’t want to get any attach with his “corrupted” past.After Val’s death, Carol held his snakeskin jacket and left the Two River County.She left that corrupted County and got rebirth, just like snake got its rebirth by exuviating its skin.Val“descended” to Two River County (Hades) to save Lady (Eurydice) from her loveless marriage.Before Val’s arrival, Lady was in deep repression and loneliness.Val consoled her, played guitar for her and helped her reopen the confectionary.When she knew she bore a child by Val, she was crying out, “I’ve won, I’ve won, Mr.Death.I’m going to bear! ”(Williams 638) Unfortunately, like, Orpheus, Val failed to save Lady from the corrupted Two River County.Finally, after knowing Lady was in love with Val, Jabe shot her to death and charged Val as a thief.Unlike Orpheus being torn to pieces by Ciconian women, Val was lynched by the townsmen with a blowtorch.Orpheus and Val also bear a striking similarity in terms of their deaths.After those Ciconian women killed Orpheus, they put his head and lyre into a river, but he kept singing and the lyre kept playing beautiful music.Deeply moved by such scene, a god picked up the lyre and put it among the stars to become Lyra.Similarly,Val’s snakeskin jacket was kept by Carol, which symbolized Tennessee’s hope for the triumph of innocence against violence and rebirth against death.

The story in this play took place in Two River County, which was the resemblance of Hades.This County was full of violence, false charges and racial discrimination.Lady’s father, an Italian immigrant, was burned alive in the fire set by a mob, only because he sold liquor to niggers.The beautiful orchard, which was planted on the north shore of Moon Lake, and was full of grape vines and fruit trees, white wooden arbors with tables and benches to drink in and carry on in, was soon disappear in blaze, leaving ashes to show the disorder of Two River County.Moreover, the barking of those chain-gang dogs was also a symbol of the violence.In act two, scene three, Val and Lady heard the sound of wild baying, and Lady said, “The chain-gang dogs are chasing some runaway convict… ” (Tennessee 602), which hinted the violence.Val showed his sympathy to the convict, “Run boy! Run fast, brother!If they catch you, you never will run again! ” (602) Then Tennessee commented, “The baying of the dogs changes, becomes almost a single savage note […] Pause.Baying continues.A shot is fired.The baying dies out.” (602) Here, Tennessee described the chase of a runaway convict by showing its two simple steps: dog chasing and shooting.There were no judgment, defense and justice.It was crueler than the Hades,whose guards even showed their sympathy to Orpheus by allowing him to take Eurydice back.While, Val’s music formed a sharp contrast with the barking of dogs.Once he sang a song called “Heavenly Grass”, one of the Blue Mountain ballads from Williams’ first collection of poems, to show a kind of loss.The “l(fā)oss” described in Heavenly Grass was a kind of life, which was full of peace, justice and happiness.By implying this song, Tennessee wanted to show the contrast between Heaven in his hope and the Hell (Two River County) in reality.

Vee Talbott was the wife of Sheriff Talbott.Vee was a visionary painter and claimed to have been blinded by a vision of the risen Charist.Sheriff, the representative of violence of Two River County, couldn’t fully understand his wife and even prevented her from talking with Val.To some degree, Vee was also another victim of the County’s violence.Another example was Carol, the reformer, who involved in civil right campaigns and protested by wearing nothing but a potato sack.She was charged as vagrancy by the local government.The townswomen abused her when she talked with the black man UnclePleasant, whom others even didn’t permit entering the dry goods store.Vee and Carol served to reveal the corruption of Two River County.They were two “angels”, who were desperately fighting against the injustice and hoping to be saved by Val.

The tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice was due to his looking back on the way to the human world.While, Val was suffered from staying too long in the Two River County.He was a wanderer, and had no root in any places.Therefore, he must keep moving, just like the bird kept flying and sleeping on the wind until it landed on the earth when it died.Val“l(fā)anded” in Two River County because of his “mission” of saving Lady,Vee and Carol, while, like Orpheus, he didn’t accomplish his mission and also ended his life tragically.

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