The Self-Reflecting Art Gallery: Lowry’s Consul and Goethe’s Faust
Have you ever seen yourself, peeking out between the strokes of colour on a canvas? Artists often portray the human condition as seen through their individual perceptions, so it is not unlikely that you, or I, or Faust may be trapped on a wall somewhere. Not literally of course, but some aspect of personality, desire, or behaviour has been captured in art and could be, when viewed, the key to self-understanding. Writer Malcolm Lowry was aware of this self-reflecting art gallery when he wrote Under the Volcano, as was Goethe when he created Faust. Lowry’s Consul has distorted his self-perception with alcohol and Goethe‘s Faust has distorted his self-perception with negativity, yet both are able to clarify their sense-of-self through viewing art and begin on a new path.
Like adolescents, who are caught in a “transitional period” of self discovery, Faust and the Consul are struggling under “the major task [of finding] a sense of self identity” (Richardson). Faust is unsatisfied with himself and his accomplishments, and the Consul is slowly losing his self to alcoholism. An aware self has “a sense of being in control of its actions, of continuity in time” claims Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California. The Consul’s control over his free will to act and his sense of time is compromised by his addiction to alcohol. The Consul is aware that his abuse of alcohol was a factor in his wife’s infidelity and her decision to divorce him, yet he cannot stop drinking once she returns to reconcile. When his ex-wife returns after a year of absence, his “first thoughts” are for a drink (Lowry 74). The Consul has enough self-awareness left to realize that this is inappropriate, and he tries to exercise his will to control his need for alcohol. “I have resisted temptation for two and a half minutes at least . . .” (74). His resistance will only last for a few more minutes as his will breaks down in steps; he uncorks and sniffs the whiskey, reaches and draws back from the other bottles and finally sneaks off to find a drink outside of the house while his wife bathes. (79-81). Though the Consul knows he should not have a drink, his addiction overcomes his free will and he is unable to stop himself. Who the Consul is, what he does and what he thinks is controlled by his addiction–his self-autonomy is compromised and his strength of will is weakened with tequila, mescal and beer.
The Consul also has a poor “sense of continuity of time”. While the Consul is debating with himself on whether he should have a before-breakfast drink, his wife is tells him “three times” to have a “decent drink” (75). The Consul does not hear her because his alcohol-diseased mind cannot keep track of time or reality. It is busy listening to his split conscience, which the Consul refers to as his first and second “familiars” (75). While the Consul is trying to sort out his thoughts about his wife, the familiars are harassing him about drinking. The confused, split state leaves the Consul barely able to carry on a conversation, much less make life decisions and act on them. The Consul moves in and out of reality and his thoughts and spoken words blur until he is not sure what he has said aloud.
Inner dialogues are not the Consul’s only distractions from time. He is unable to perform simple actions in the order required. “The Consul struck a match . . . for the cigarette he had somehow failed to place between his lips. . .” (80). This inability to manage actions and time is reflected in the run-down condition of the gardens and pool. “. . . the garden sloped off beyond into an indescribable confusion of briars from which the Consul averted his eyes” (72). The Consul’s main preoccupation is to find the next drink, and this single-minded purpose has left him living in a state of chaos and decay. The house and surrounding garden seem to reflect the condition of the Consul, who is rapidly deteriorating. “… the drooping plants, dusty and gone to seed . . . The stained hammock, … the bad melodrama of the broken chair … (73). and is caused by sleep depravation on top of alcoholism. The Consul warns his wife of his condition by stating that he is “in a frightfully jolly mess . . .” (76). He can recognize his situation so he is self-aware, but he has little self-control. This once competent Consulate of England, has become a struggling, diseased person, unable to care for his own health, or organize his thoughts. The deterioration of his abilities and personality leave the Consul with a confused sense-of-self.
The Consul’s confusion also stems from disturbed patterns of rest. Each morning, the Consul does not know what may have transpired the night before, because he is drunk on a daily basis. He speaks of the approaching memories of the “ursa horribilis of the night” and wonders where he has slept and what he has done (75). Walking to a cantina while his wife bathes, he completely passes out on the road (82). Later, within the same hour, he falls asleep “with a crash” and it is not even 10:00 a.m. yet (97). The Consul’s sense of time is not continuous nor reliable, as he moves in and out of reality and consciousness. His life’s clock tics and tocs between sobriety and drunkenness and each hour he loses, he loses a part of his self to his addiction. This deterioration confuses his sense of self in two ways; first by making him unable to concentrate long enough to think or understand, and second, by continuing the assault on his body. Therefore, the Consult cannot grasp who he is, has little self-worth or dignity left and perceives no life-goal other than getting the next drink.
Whereas the Consul is losing his sense of identity to alcoholism, Faust purposefully creates a negative sense of self with his destructive thinking. Ramachandran’s other aspects of self include “a sense of . . . worth, dignity and morality (or immorality)”, which are the aspects that Faust is struggling with. Faust, an aging man, will not allow himself to feel a sense of worth or dignity. Faust’s negativity leads him to despair over his state in “Night”. He bemoans his lack of “worthwhile knowledge” (Goethe 371) and disclaims his right to be a college teacher. He is regretful that he has neither money or land, and claims that he has no fame. Yet, when Faust walks among the peasants in “Outside the City Gate”, “Fathers lift boys up” and “all the caps go flying” as the people “genuflect and bend down low” (1015, 19-20). This is certainly a sign of fame, but Faust cannot apply this other’s view to himself because it conflicts with his own self-destructive thinking. This frustration is a result of his negative attitude and persists even in the presence of others’ praise.
While attending the Easter celebrations, Faust meets an old peasant who praises Faust and his father for showing care for the villagers during the plague. “You also did, a young man then, Attend each sick bed without fail” (1001-2). Even Faust’s acquaintance, Wagner, recognizes the peasant’s praise and says, “What sentiments, great man, must swell your breast” (1011). Yet, Faust refutes that he is worthy. He “indicates to Wagner (1026-55) that his ministrations had been futile, that the medicines created by his father had been the product of alchemical experiments that produced poisons rather than cures . . .” (interpretive 356). He lays no claim to heroic deeds or courage, but rather views the attempt at medical care as a decimating failure. His is highly critical of himself and his negative views eradicate any opportunity to be proud of his selfless ministrations during the plague.
Faust’s self-critical attitude extends to his learning of other disciplines as well. He claims that his many years of scholarly study were fruitless attempts to improve his intellect:
I have pursued, alas, philosophy,
Jurisprudence, and medicine,
And help me God, theology,
With fervent zeal through thick and thin.
And here, poor fool, I stand once more,
No wiser than I was before. (354-59).
After all these years, and all this educational effort, Faust feels that he has completed a full circle and has not gained wisdom. His sense of self-worth is so low, it is damaging, as we see in the “Night” scene when he contemplates drinking the poison (735). This unconstructive perception of himself stands in stark contrast to the esteem that a visiting student has for him. The young man comes to seek Faust’s advice about learning and addresses him with reverence:
I have been here but a short span,
And come with reverent emotion
To wait upon and know a man
Whom all regard with deep devotion.
(1868-71).
Not only does the student revere Faust as a learned scholar, but most others do too.
Faust does not have a realistic understanding of who he is, nor what he should be and feels no dignity for who and what he has been in the past.
It is at this stage of confused and distorted self-concept that the Consul and Faust are provided insight into their needs by art. The Consul recognizes his need for alcohol and decides that his relationship with his ex-wife is over through contemplating a prohibition poster called Los Borracones. The Consul carries within his shirt a postcard that “could be a talisman of immediate salvation” for his ruined marriage, yet he is not sure if can forgive his wife’s adulterous behaviour (Lowry 201). That is why he does not reveal the postcard when there is “God’s moment, the chance to agree, to produce the card, to change everything . . . (201). Due to his inability to think straight, he feels torn “like two halves of a counterpoised draw-bridge” (202) and cannot decide whether to return to his marriage or learn to live without his wife. To restore his marriage, he would have to forgive his wife’s adultery and quit drinking. Yet, just thinking about quitting drinking sends him off into his host’s bedroom searching for a bottle.
In the bedroom, the Consul discovers an ancient prohibition poster called Los Borrachones, which provides insight into his own life through the images. Upon examination, he considers the poster “terrifying” (202):
Down, headlong into hades, selfish and florid-faced, into a tumult of fire-spangled fiends, Medusae, and belching monstrosities, with swallow dives or awkwardly, with dread backward leaps, shrieking among fallen bottles and emblems of broken hopes, plunged the drunkards; up, up, flying palely, selflessly into the light toward heaven, soaring sublimely in pairs, male sheltering female, shielded themselves by angels with abnegating wings, shot the sober (202).
The Consul tries to laugh off the image, but then realizes that he has much in common with the falling drinkers. “With shocking surety,” the Consul feels that he is “in hell himself” (203). This realization does not bring him anguish, but calms him as he accepts his situation and gives himself up as lost to the alcoholism. Accepting his drunkenness will allow him to drink without anxiety and is a move into self-awareness.
Having accepted his drunkenness, the Consul can now decide about his wife. His mind wanders to Parián and the cantina Farolito. The idea of sneaking to the Farolito for a drink fills him “with an almost healing love” (203). He longs for the Farolito, where the proprietor is “reputed to have murdered his wife” just as the Consul is murdering the idea of reuniting with his wife. He is consciously making up his mind to release his wife, and allow her to float up to the heavens like the free wives of the drinkers in the image. “A few lone females on the upgrade were sheltered by angels only. It seemed to him these females were casting half-jealous glances downward after their plummeting husbands, some of whose faces betrayed the most unmistakable relief” (203). The Consul is one of the plummeting husbands, relieved to be escaping his wife and the pressure to quit drinking.
The Consul chooses to marry the bottle and take the fall, not to Medusa in the painting, but to the cantina. The Consul admits the cantina is a place of “sorrow and evil” but for him, it is also a place of “peace” (204). The Consul does not believe he is losing his soul, but rather that his “soul is locked “with the essence of the cantina” (204). He may be in hell, but to him, the evil cantina Farolito is surrounded by “the cool pure air of heaven” (204). This decision ends the struggle against his disease and releases a longing that the Consul compares with the feelings of a long absent husband who will soon “embrace his wife” (204). With the help of Los Borrachones, the Consul makes the decision to embrace his alcoholism at the cantina and give up on the salvation of his marriage. He slips the postcard that could have saved his marriage under the pillow on his host’s bed, and begins striving to reach the cantina.
Art is also the trigger that improves Faust’s self worth and sets him striving toward a new life goal. Faust has given himself up to the devil, Mephastopheles, in order to find satisfaction out of life, but Faust does not know what he wants, or what will cure his need to experience more. In the witch’s kitchen, Faust looks into a mirror and sees a rendering of art–an image of a woman so beautiful that he is transfixed. Since his deal with the devil, this is the first time Faust is emotionally struck by any of the “magic”. In the tavern scene Faust found the “magic-mongery abhorrent” (2337). He was likewise unimpressed in the witch’s kitchen, calling it a “hotchpotch of lunacy” (2339). Yet, when Faust sees the image of the beautiful woman, “presumably in the manner of paintings depicting the nude Venus”, he is inspired (370 Interpretive):
The loveliest woman in existence!
Can earthy beauty so amaze?
What lies there in recumbent grace and glistens
Must be quintessence of all heaven’s rays! (2436-9).
This image is a reflection of his own needs, which cannot be sated while he is an old man with a white beard. Through the image’s beauty, Faust is transformed from a despairing old scholar, unsatisfied with his life’s accomplishments into a lusting, rejuvenated man by his mirror vision. “A blaze is kindled in my bosom!” (2461). Strangely, the man who did not feel worthy of praise for his medical or scholarly achievements, now finds himself worthy of Venus. This shows the randomness of Faust’s self-worth as is swings from desperate, suicidal lows to encouraging, narcissistic highs. The vision of Venus has given Faust a goal to strive toward–that of ideal beauty. The image establishes . . . the erotic as a legitimate aspect of Faust’s essential striving . . . (Interpretive 372). With a new direction in which to pour his energies, Faust is motivated to drink the vile witch’s brew and complete the transformation so that his body matches his newfound spirit. Now Faust knows what he wants out of his deal with Mephistopheles, and Mephistopheles knows what might fulfill the deal. This search for ideal beauty and Faust’s new-found dignity will lead him to Gretchen, Helen of Troy and eventually embolden him to “beautify” the earth by damming up the sea. Both seem to be lacking an awareness of themselves, seem to be lost in that adolescent quest of finding the way, their worth and their place in the world.
Works Cited
By V.S. Ramachandran THE NEUROLOGY OF SELF-AWARENESS [1.8.07] Edge http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran07/ramachandran07_index.html July 24, 2008
Gwendolyn Richardson In Search of Self: Adolescent Themes in the Twentieth Century Short Story Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1983/3/83.03.02.x.html
Roed, ENGL401 Study Guide
Lawrence, Greene and Lowry: The Fictional Landscape of Mexico
By Douglas W. Veitch, Published 1978, Wilfrid Laurier, University Press
