Why does Severian make almost no effort to develop sustained empathy for Jolenta -- no interest in her roots, what made her who she was -- even as she features so much in the first part of the narrative? Her fate at the end is one sustained gross happenstance after another... Severian has repeated sex with her while she lay half drugged, an act he argues later he imagines she wanted -- even as he admits it could appear to some, bald "rape" -- but which certainly followed his discussion of her as someone whom he could hate so much it invited his desire to destroy her; Severian abandons her to Dr. Talus, who had threatened to kill her if she insisted on clinging to him; Baldanders robs her of her money; she's sucked at by blood bats, and, finally, left at death revealed discombobulated of all beauty... a hunk of junk, like that the Saltus citizens keep heaped away from their village for it ruining their preferred sense of themselves? If Book of the New Sun was ever made into a movie, no actress could agree to play her part without being susceptible to being accused of participating in someone else's sadistic fantasy... of being a masochist -- like Jennifer Lawrence was, for appearing in Aranofsky's "Mother!" Quite frankly, even the descriptions of her unrefusable beauty, make her seem a bit gross and clownish... thighs so wide they chaff against one another; breasts as big as heads. In fact, when Severian imagines that we would be surprised that he would admit desire for that wife of Abaia... I thought, well, no -- for just ten pages or so back you were delineating Jolenta as some kind of massively inflated, monstrous body... and so actually they kind of blend together.
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Sunyi Dn because he's not a very nice person, in a nutshell... :p I mean, there's a bit more to it than that, but Jolenta always embodied to me a kind of iconic figure of female struggle. She's taken advantage of, "rewarded" by allowing herself to be exploited, and discarded when her consumable value is used up. I thought she was very relatable in that sense. EDIT: Whether Wolfe intended her to be... who knows.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Thecla he identifies twice... or I think twice, and certainly once, as actually rather cruel, and a neat slit throat for her, is somewhat nicer than that long dance of humiliation Jolenta has visited upon her for her "sins," her fundamental not-niceness.
Our sense of her is not only as someone who has been exploited, though, or even, as she was at first, someone sensibly canny enough to look to her advantage... the waitress she was. Rather it's of someone who doesn't do much work... doesn't do much anything, while people worship and revolve around her, made helpless to make any actual demand of her or to protect their own self-respect while in her midst. She's made sort of grotesque yet somehow irresistible in the way that that actress was in an Evil Guest. I respect the sense you had of her... which must surely carry in the reading experience. But she was for me almost someone at the end you could take grim humour over, rather than regret as a casualty of consumer society (which, again, is a very interesting and true enough encapsulation of how the story of her is presented -- worth thinking on).
One does note, though, that the one character throughout who has unbroken love for the Autarch, who believes in him, his goodness, without question, is Jolenta -- and that it comes across as somehow... a bit worthy of her. Fits the stereotype Wolfe adheres to of the poor being righteous for believing in things that "the enlightened," only sneer over.
Our sense of her is not only as someone who has been exploited, though, or even, as she was at first, someone sensibly canny enough to look to her advantage... the waitress she was. Rather it's of someone who doesn't do much work... doesn't do much anything, while people worship and revolve around her, made helpless to make any actual demand of her or to protect their own self-respect while in her midst. She's made sort of grotesque yet somehow irresistible in the way that that actress was in an Evil Guest. I respect the sense you had of her... which must surely carry in the reading experience. But she was for me almost someone at the end you could take grim humour over, rather than regret as a casualty of consumer society (which, again, is a very interesting and true enough encapsulation of how the story of her is presented -- worth thinking on).
One does note, though, that the one character throughout who has unbroken love for the Autarch, who believes in him, his goodness, without question, is Jolenta -- and that it comes across as somehow... a bit worthy of her. Fits the stereotype Wolfe adheres to of the poor being righteous for believing in things that "the enlightened," only sneer over.
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Mike Bennewitz I think it speaks to Wolfe’s opinion on what he seems to see as a woman’s artifice. To GW and Sev, she is someone low and maybe unworthy who is built and propped up to beauty and value through cold calculated artifice.
Mike Bennewitz Most of the enemies severian fights are metaphrical examples of people rejecting God or god’s gifts. ( Zooanthropes, Sorcerers, Baldanders, Typhon ) Jolenta can be seen to tie into that obliquely as she’s using faked feminine allure. Of course I don’t personally blame Jolenta for any of that and see her as a tragic figure. Most of the women in the book are tragic figures come to think of it, save maybe Apheta.
David A Stockhoff There is a long tradition of denigrating the "artifice" of women (sometimes characterized as devious and deceptive or worse). Billy Shakespeare wrote some plays squarely in that tradition, but looking at it from both sides. So Wolfe is addressing/examining the tradition, with his picaresque and self-centered narrative, as well employing the thing itself. What does it say of us that we force a woman to fake herself before we look at her? and then use her like an object anyway.
Mike Bennewitz David A Stockhoff great point. I know I picked up some disdain for it along the way without realizing it. I don’t blame women for it though.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Mike Bennewitz... and yet she stands out, for all the others go out either rather quickly, or with their pride intact (arguably this is true for the sorcerer and for Baldanders). She alone takes on the burden of a repeated heaping-on of humiliation... and I think for reason for this, we might want to explore not so much Wolfe's conscious designs, his able-to-express opinions on things, but unconscious revenge. This isn't about undermining Wolfe, but about making bringing him within range of Severian, who worries too over such things... whether consciously or unconsciously moved in what he does.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston And speaking of artifice -- didn't Bishop describe Book of the New Sun as if reading through heaps of gems and jewels? You come out of reading it, certainly, feeling you've had a heady education as to what kind of fabric, what kind of tailoring, is worth your time, and which isn't.
David A Stockhoff Mike Bennewitz The funny thing is that, as far as I can tell, women do it for one another, whether it's competition or something else. Men tend to be secondary beneficiaries, or else they don't care at all how women ornament themselves. ;)
Patrick McEvoy-Halston What does Severian do over her rapidly decaying personhood -- naturally, he philosophizes... on the nature of love and desire... "love and desire are said to be no more than cousins... but it is not really true--," followed eventually by his declaration of love for her. It could almost by Python, or the Coen brothers recent take on westerns.... strumming a sweet song of remorse, over corpses of dead bodies.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston I'll allow one last observation. Something of genuine interest in her does begin to develop as they go along the path to the mountains, towards Thrax. We are brought into a concern over her, even if it had to brought to bear by first establishing "ourselves" as being in an empowered position over her. We begin a more entwined, profound involvement with her... and even over details of how she was a construct of a thousand and one adjustments of body, even over details of her AS A BODY, which suggests an observer who had grown up watching his mother dress herself up many, many times, Jolenta is being granted by us a status of being worthy of notice. And then it gets cut off, by the stark, titanic authority of the Cumean, who almost scolds attention away from those whom we were trying to attach respect to. Then after the spell of her involvement is gone, Jolenta is left absent "our" being with her during her final moments, and we try a desperate, pathetic recompense gesture of respect, but unlike as with the just-brought-back Apu-Panchau, we can't recover what had passed. Something of the same happens with little Severian. Something of the fact of Typhon's authority, of how Severian is made to feel before him, has us shrink away our willingness to defend our previous great interest in little Severian as still worth our standing up for... they, these titanic, bullying presences, take them away from us, as we scurry on. They both spank away our ability to stand up for the exposure in our admitting sensitive-attunement with the weak and vulnerable.
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Nicholas Jost Because Jolenta is a monstrous whore who made a diabolical deal? Such that she has become a caricature of herself? He talks about her character frequently.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Is there any account of her sexually servicing multiple men? If so, I didn't hear of it. What I heard is that, yes, she has character flaws... she's demanding -- something Severian gauges as surely not deserving that much punishment; she takes delight from others being delighted in her. I heard she's... a narcissist; someone who uses others captured attention to fill up her own absent sense of self. But so too Severian who presents himself so impressively... so theatrically, to Vodalus when he sits in his forest throne? One gets called on it, the other... doesn't?
Nicholas Jost Severian doesn't sell himself that short _and_ still suffers for it complete with getting to watch images of himself die. Jolenta dies by her own artifice.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Nicholas Jost The waitress shouldn't have taken the doctor up on his offer? I don't see how the blame is with her... more unfair ways society made it so that if you're not rich, there are only a couple ways in which the disadvantaged can climb a notch in class... and so thereby get away from a miserable and frightening, hand-to-mouth existence. It's not just survival instincts, admittedly; she WANTS attention -- mastery over other people... but when Severian stops being stuck on simply disliking her, it seems we are granted enough of her as a person of worth, to imagine Severian more wanting to help her work past her flaws, as Dorcas and Severian have been trying to entertain with one another.
Nicholas Jost The mere fact that you say, "he took an out from a miserable fate, like Severian himself did," shows your inability to compare the troubles of being a waitress with the troubles of being a State Torturer. If we swapped sex on Jolenta and made it a him with Jolens the good looking rake we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Nicholas Jost In that society, being a waitress would seem a much worse, much more precarious fate, than being a torturer. Severian himself was on a guaranteed path of authority over other people... toward privilege in a way. In his being outed for having earned retribution, he's granted a level of mastery and authority and income, which is baby boomerish. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you and you actually agree.
Nicholas Jost You are really tempting me to drop into full sarcasm. How does being under threat of dying by torture if you show mercy compare to serving drinks again? And how would we not view it differently if this was Jolens?
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Nicholas Jost There is no threat of dying by torture for the torturers, as almost none experience that level of involvement with "clients" as Severian finally manages. All there is is guaranteed road of increase of status -- captain, journeyman, master. The waitress... a person of no status, someone who is for a life of being seem due for such degradations of work as you offer, is in a poorer position than the shopkeeper, whose life of scapeing by for lentils, is delineated for us by Agia. Her precarious position, feels almost millenialish to Severian's baby boomerish life ahead of him. All my sympathy to her.
Nicholas Jost You keep saying "poorer" like it is a mantra of death. Poor does not mean "more dangerous".
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Nicholas Jostthe fact that she is a waitress, allows people to superstitiously imagine they are immune to her fate, for they can recollect that they are optimates, or guildsmen...people of status, and so ostensibly immune to likewise. The person in the lowest position, ends up subject to the cruelest fate, and is ready to be casually assumed as having earned her fate. If lots of people read her as having earned her fate, then I would assume they would today be the people who would assume that precariously setup women, earn their fate when society exploits and takes advantage of them; has them carry responsibility, guilt, over other people’s crimes. And if Wolfe overall is a factor in promoting the abandonment of the vulnerable, the suffering, it is for the critic to point this out. Borski I think argued that waitresses in Wolfe supplement their income through prostitution. If valid, we know just how credible it is to imagine their fated to be at risk of excused abuse. If people link them together regardless, the waitress is going to be doing much more than serving drinks; she’ll serve as a deposit where society can go... to seem justified in torturing women, through use of degrading language, through use of abusive handling Whore, is a horrible, offensive term. It justifies degradations of certain women, in retaliation for slights inflicted on men that they cannot without guilt retaliate against directly.
Dexter Van Zile Nicholas Jost I don't think she died by her own artifice, but from the artifice of Talos.
Dexter Van Zile I think Patrick McEvoy-Halston has made a good case for sympathy for Jolenta. I don't think it's reasonable to portray her as the sole author of her own suffering. I also think that at as Severian matures during the course of his journey, he becomes more morally ... competent. (Trying to find a better phrase, but that's what I got.) I think as the story progresses, Severian becomes more sympathetic to the suffering of people around him. He does try to use the Claw on Jolenta and seems to be unhappy at the suffering she endures before dying.
Dexter Van Zile Here is what Severian wrote at the end of The Claw of the Conciliator: "By lightning, I saw the dead face of the waitress who had served Dr. Talos, Baldanders, and me in the café in Nessus. It had been washed clean of beauty. In the final reckoning there is only love, only that divinity. That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin." This strikes me as a passage that underscores Severian's increasing maturity.
Dexter Van Zile I think the text supports the notion that Severian regrets the contempt he exhibited toward Jolenta that Patrick McEvoy-Halston has highlighted in his post. There is a passage in UTNS that talks about how he should have been more loyal to the women in his life. (And I'm not sure he mentions Jolenta! He lists the women he should have been more loyal to by name. The fact is, Severian is no innocent and is an exemplar only because he evolves as a person. I look at the people in my life in a manner similar to what Severian goes through in UTNS and wonder if they would fight on behalf of humanity in light of how I have treated them. In our relations with people we damage and are damaged. Severian seems to take responsibility for both sides of the coin as his story progresses.
David A Stockhoff Dexter Van Zile I love that phrase "washed clean" used in that context. As though false beauty is dirt.
Nicholas Jost She makes herself what she is by inviting the evil in. She is washed clean since the ultimate penalty is death and now she goes to her final resting place whatever that is and is free of mortal judgement. There can only be love because we need mercy as much as Jolenta now does.
Again you guys wouldn't even be mentioning this if it was Jolens. And I have no where said he was an innocent (do look above). I have answered the OP question on why there isn't sustained sympathy for her.
Again you guys wouldn't even be mentioning this if it was Jolens. And I have no where said he was an innocent (do look above). I have answered the OP question on why there isn't sustained sympathy for her.
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Cecilia Michel Lopez for once, I'm going to say NS is being over-read. I've always taken Jolenta's fate to be a fairly brutal indictment of the plastic surgery industry, which got to be mainstream in Houston and still was 15 years ago when I lived there. While I lived there, it was not unknown for yuppy parents to give a daughter breast enhancement as a high school graduation gift. https://www.chron.com/.../Local-invention-made-Houston...
CHRON.COM
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Yet the text argues more for its legitimacy -- what happens to you if you have high cheekbones: you're taken to be of the bloodline of an exultant. It helps you glide your way through the world A LOT BETTER than otherwise.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Maybe that's what Wolfe should have done to make it easier to not encapsulate the transformation of jolenta that way -- not had her become Jane Mansfield or whomever, but more Natalie Portman, a slim, high-cheekboned beauty. That way we'd be struck to read her transformation in a way that more justifies it, exults her, which I think warranted given that Wolfe has constructed a world that wasn't akin to mid 18th-century britain, where borders between classes were uncertain, but regency Britain, where social borders had solidified again, and at guard against any subsequent trespass... remember the armiger who knows the exact limits where the luxury of his garb would trespass outside his class. Wolfe loves America, and any world where social mixing is made difficult because external markers of class have too much legitimacy, and where they can't readily be mimicked, would deserve subversion of Jolenta's kind, it would seem.
Indeed, Wolfe himself is not exactly Able or Severian, and surely uses fiction to enhance himself rather grossly.
EDIT: Actually, thinking more on Jolenta... what happens to her, bears some similarity as to what happens to Able. Both become distinctively American emblems of beauty and power, bulk, big breasts, that "go beyond" European estimations of such... that went beyond European estimations of it when America had pushed past Europe in world power, post WW2. She's the Marilyn Monroe that entranced the world; he's the Hollywood hunk that did the same.
Indeed, Wolfe himself is not exactly Able or Severian, and surely uses fiction to enhance himself rather grossly.
EDIT: Actually, thinking more on Jolenta... what happens to her, bears some similarity as to what happens to Able. Both become distinctively American emblems of beauty and power, bulk, big breasts, that "go beyond" European estimations of such... that went beyond European estimations of it when America had pushed past Europe in world power, post WW2. She's the Marilyn Monroe that entranced the world; he's the Hollywood hunk that did the same.
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