The Wasp - Volume II Fall 2015

Over the Dead Body

The American Studies Center Student Journal Volume II | Fall 2015

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ALEKSANDRA BARCISZEWSKA Editor-in-chief PAULINA NIEWIADOMSKA Art director NATALIA OGÓREK Associate editor JULIAN HORODYSKI ADRIAN WESOŁOWSKI Editorial board MAGDA KRZEMIŃSKA

v The next issue’s theme: Color-Blind, Gender-Deaf We’re still recruiting! If you’re interested in writing for the Wasp, please contact us: thewaspjournal@gmail.com

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Illustrations: pages 9, 19, 27

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KAMILA MARIA WYSZYŃSKA The Wasp logo Illustrations: page 14

American Studies Center: http://asc.uw.edu.pl/

Body Politics of Death – Editorial Notes

Paulina Niewiadomska Aleksandra Barciszewska

Suicide in Paradise:

The Phenomenon of High Suicide Rates in Las Vegas, Nevada Aleksandra Kamińska

Over the Perfumed Body:

Patrick Süskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and the Return to the Primitive Aleksandra Chodecka

Interdependence of Sex and Death:

5 9 14

Sexualization of a Dead Female Body in Palahniuk’s “Exodus” and Clive Barker’s Galilee excerpt P. K.

19

The Real Monsters

23

Taking the High Road:

27

Demons

33

Dominika Grotek

Literary Character Analysis Aleksandra Borowa

Dominika Kowalska

Banished from Sanity Marta Pytka

Yours Faithlessly Anonymous

Love at the Time of Cholera Imran Hossain

*** Adrian Wesołowski

38 42 45 46

Paulina Niewiadomska

"- And here we have a fine specimen of a politically correct body.

- Mhmm‌"

5 The WASP

Aleksandra Barciszewska

Body Politics of Death Human body as the entity around which cultural, social, anthropological, and even political disputes revolve, has been exploited throughout centuries. Through those incessant and irresolvable debates, the body has gained a tremendous significance, casting a shadow upon everything within the radius of the reasonable and the unreasonable. Body matters no matter what. Body is the canvas upon which the political and cultural is reflected, while the political and cultural is the shroud from which one can read all about the bodies it has so far embraced. Body is often used as the ultimate reference which supports inequality among social classes, races, and sexes. The body matters as a complex apparatus, but sometimes its separate (but equal?) parts have been personified to achieve certain goals. Like when the passive biological behavior of a female egg was found to have been the fundamental proof for women’s passive sexuality, while male sperm – the active, strong, and energetic element – began to justify its owner’s superiority. As much as sexist, chauvinistic and Freudalicious this line of argumentation is, perhaps there is, indeed, something to it. After all, natural science is irrefutable and melancholia of biology - inescapable.

Yet the most powerful body there is - is the dead body. Dead body paradoxically speaks loud and clear, and it is fanatically worshipped and given another level of significance. Death transcends the meaning of the body in a necrophilic and spiritual form of admiration. Dead bodies are equal, they are all superior to the living machines; death grants them with force and authority. The hoi-polloi express puissance similar to the crème de la crème of the world; each gains supernatural significance when death shrouds them with its transforming embrace.

While the concept of the body can be spiritual, it can also be deadly and realistically material. The body thus will be taken literally and presented as an abject – threatening its own existence and playing within and outside its boundaries object, and a politically and culturally determined subject. It will transgress and subvert; it will dream of finding itself in an over-the-rainbow sanctuary; it will exist and cease to exist. Drawn by death, the body is always ambiguous, and always on the verge, right between deadly continuity and discontinuity. Thus, we invite you to indulge in the festival of continuity because the Wasp is back, and we present to you our deadly still-alive bodies! Bon appétit!

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7 The WASP

8 Volume II Fall 2015

Suicide in Paradise: The Phenomenon of High Suicide Rates in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Aleksandra Kamińska

Las Vegas is the unique center of gambling, sex, consumption, an original urban setting built from a scratch in the middle of the desert, a hyperrealistic place that seems to be a paradise city. Yet this fairyland, the “Disneyland for adults” has a much higher suicide rate – both among residents and visitors – than any other metropolis in the whole United States. Is Las Vegas just a failed utopia where isolation and a sense of detachment caused by the unreal surroundings become unbearable? There are several premises why suicide is one of the main health issues in Clark County – some of them seem to be direct and evident: easy access to firearms, drugs and alcohol, or numerous hotels that guarantee solitude. Yet the issue is much more complex as it is linked to many interwoven social and environmental conditions of Las Vegas. One of the theses presented by sociologist Matt Wray (2008) is called the “selection argument” (p. 1882). It says that high suicide rates in Clark County are connected to the fact that people predisposed to suicide disproportionally choose Las Vegas to visit or to live in. However, in his research Wray does not explain what makes places like Las Vegas chosen so much more often than any other locations. I argue that the hyperreal and heterotopic conditions of Las Vegas are the characteristics that individuals are primarily drawn to – and which contribute to high suicide rates.

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Aleksandra Kamińska Hyperreality is a concept described by philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1995) as “a real without origin or reality” (p. 1). He also presents the famous idea of simulacra – signs that have no relation to reality that simulate the simulation.

Hyperreality is a condition in which “reality” has been replaced by simulacra. There are several elements of Las Vegas, a city that has a real fake at its core, a city which architecture and landscape are based on an illusion – that blur the real and unreal.

For the example the painting of the sky on a ceiling (in Caesars Palace Hotel & Casino) gives an illusion of never-ending and constant daylight inside the building.

Located in the middle of the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas does not offer rich flora. The natural environment is replaced by the “fake” – tourists are exposed to plastic rainforests (MGM Grand Hotel & Casino: Rainforest Cafe), artificial volcanoes and waterfalls. The desert itself does not fit into the fantasy and even its dominant existence is denied as in the names of residential complexes in Las Vegas that suggest a waterside vacation, such as Westgate Flamingo Bay or Riviera Hotel. There are also complexes of buildings that imitate famous cities such as Venice or New York – with all of the most popular constructions that bring to mind the original buildings well-known from postcards and movies. Another perfect example of Las Vegas hyperreality is the New York-New York Hotel & Casino – a place that does not even try to approximate the “real” New York City; instead, it mimics the already idealized image of New York known from pictures and movies. Even if few visitors get deceived for a moment that what they see is the real Venice or New York, the tourists predominantly and consciously go to Las Vegas to witness the allure of the unreal and experience this breathtaking fake and plastic world.

Considering the unique hyperrealistic characteristics of the place, it is important to notice that many see Las Vegas as a utopian place that offers endless possibilities and where dreams come true. But since we define utopia as an ideal but non-existent place, I would suggest identifying Las Vegas as a heterotopia. Michel Foucault in his article “Of Other Spaces” defines several principles of heterotopia; for the purpose of my analysis I will examine only some of them. Las Vegas fits Foucault's (1986) concept of “heterotopias of deviation” defined as “those in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed” (p. 25). In Las Vegas gambling, sex tours, alcohol and drugs abuse are not seen as something improper – they are treated as normal or even praised; the values of the dominant culture are inverted. In the next principle Foucault presents the idea that “the heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible” (p. 25). He gives the example of a garden as a space turned to a micro-cosmos of different environments, with plants from all around the world. The analogy between the garden and Las Vegas would be quite simple – in Vegas we have many spaces that would not exist side by side under any different conditions. The very modern MGM Grand Hotel & Casino is situated only steps away from the luxurious Caesars Palace; inside there are numerous examples of mixed styles. Objects taken from the “real” world that would normally operate in totally separate spheres are put together. Elaborating on yet another principle, Foucault (1986) claims that heterotopias have a function in relation to all the space that remains. This function unfolds between two extreme poles. Either their role is to create a space of illusion that

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Suicide in Paradise exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory (perhaps that is the role that was played by those famous brothels of which we are now deprived). Or else, on the contrary, their role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled. (p. 27)

Las Vegas can fulfill both these functions, depending on how close we look, but I would opt for the second one; the “fakeness” of all buildings and objects on the Strip creates a new and real space that is supposed to be a better version of reality.

As it was previously argued Las Vegas can be characterized as a heterotopic and hyperrealistic city. I will proceed to examine certain social and environmental conditions that can increase suicide rate, as well as their connection to the unique characteristics of Las Vegas. Suicide is a very complex phenomenon and can be analyzed from different perspectives, including psychological, medical or cultural.

For the purpose of this analysis I want to focus on the sociological and environmental aspects of suicide that are relevant to Las Vegas. There is a substantial body of research analyzing those aspects of suicide – remarkably, most of that research is influenced by the classic work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim and his 1897 book Suicide. Durkheim investigates several aspects of the phenomenon such as: social integration in connection to suicide or its geographical clusters. Furthermore, he distinguishes four types of suicide: fatalistic, anomic, altruistic and egoistic suicide, all of which are caused by the feeling of alienation from the community, the feeling of isolation. Durkheim observes that suicide rates are higher in places, where there is more social isolation, whereby individuals are not connected with a larger community, also due to the weakening of traditional bonds. Social support is one of the most important factors in preventing suicides, therefore weakened social links are commonly found in cases of geographical clusters with high suicide rates.

Durkheim states that true social bonds and an integrated community can decrease the danger of suicide. Looked at in this context, Las Vegas seems to be lacking a genuine community or values that would glue the society together.

Instead, Las Vegas is, as urban scholars Malcolm Miles and Steven Miles (2004) observe, “an accidental space” (p. 122) where people of many diverse backgrounds happen to live or visit – a random group that is not rooted in city's history and not held together by any specific values. The lack of social integration is magnified by the efforts of the entertainment and gambling industry to make the individuals feel as if they were is the “epicenter of the city's life” (p. 120). Miles and Miles (2004) observe that casinos built without windows and clocks are designed to entrap, disorient and confuse (p. 108), and can further detach the individual from reality and the outside world. The only sense of community to be found in Las Vegas is that located within the gaming halls, conclude Miles and Miles (2004). Indeed, gamblers might feel a certain sense of camaraderie with their peers, but even this is an illusion created by the profit-oriented gambling industry, a feature that brings us back to the hyperreal features of Las Vegas.

Apart from social integration there are other, more tangible social issues connected to suicide rates. There are several researches showing how access to certain goods such as guns, drugs, alcohol, and activities such as gambling increase 11 The WASP

Aleksandra Kamińska the suicide rate. Las Vegas – the city of entertainment made especially for tourists – has an extremely large number of hotel rooms (approximately 145,000). The link between suicides and hotel room abundance is not to be neglected. Professors Kjersti Gemar, Paul Zarkowski and David Avery (2008) observe that: “A total of 933 people committed suicide in Clark County during the years 2003 through 2005, sixty-one cases involved a hotel room” (p. 26). By registration in a hotel room an individual lowers the chances of rescue; most suicides attempted in hotel rooms were successful, both among visitors and residents. From that we can conclude that the number of hotels in Clark County can attract potential suicides as a place where they cannot be interfered with. Gemar, Zarkowski and Avery (2008) further explain that “hotel associated suicides showed a trend toward increased proportion of drug and alcohol related cases” (p. 26), which may suggest that suicide in Las Vegas is also connected with easy access to the stimulants mentioned above. Alcoholism and drug abuse are not the only addictions that contribute to high suicide rates. Wray (2007) points out that: “addictions related to gambling, cigarettes, and sex are hard to control or treat in an environment that offers unlimited 24 hour access to all three,” and as all addictions these can cause mental and physical health issues, a raised feeling of isolation and financial problems which can further encourage individuals to commit suicide. Pathological gambling is an especially important factor contributing to high suicide rates. This view is corroborated by Professors Bruno Pfuhlmann and Armin Schmidtke (2002) who argue that “according to the existing findings the rate of suicide attempts among pathological gamblers seems to be markedly elevated in comparison to the estimated rates in the general population” (p. 264), which is crucial in a place where gambling is the most popular entertainment. Gemar, Zarkowsky and Avery's research (2008) reveals that even though only 5 percent of travelers reported gambling as a primary aim, 87 percent gambled during their stay in Las Vegas (p. 26); consequently, there is something in the city that attracts visitors to take risks.

As I have previously stated, Las Vegas fits Foucault’s characteristics of the “heterotopia of deviance,” since it is populated by individuals whose behavior deviates from the general norms and standards. Professor Hal Rothman observes that Las Vegas has witnessed “the transformation of socially unacceptable 'gambling' into the recreational 'gambling'” (as cited in Miles and Miles, 2004, p. 17).

Although it should have been considered an immoral activity prompting to selfdestruction, gambling has been regarded as an innocent fun; a great way to spend leisure time at weekends. All this thanks to the restless efforts of the Las Vegas gambling industry. Also, the elevated consumption of drugs, alcohol, and paid sex is not condemned or socially stigmatized – it is an accepted and celebrated part of the Las Vegas experience. Unfortunately, the easy availability of addictive substances and widespread access to gambling not only reinforce the image of Las Vegas’ frantic entertainment, but has also been proven to be linked to suicides. Therefore, the elevated rates of suicide can be described as a tragic byproduct of the hyperreal heterotopia of deviance.

At first, the fact of an extremely high suicide rate in Las Vegas can be shocking – how is it possible that people take their lives in a place famous for its entertainment? However, the heterotopic and hyperreal characteristics of Las Vegas that are responsible for its legend and allure, have its dark side as they are also the 12 Volume II Fall 2015

Suicide in Paradise explanatory factors for the high suicide rates. Clark County tempts the unstable individuals with its numerous hotel rooms; the heterotopia of deviance accepts addictive stimulants and immoral behaviors which, in turn, are significant factors in suicides. The unreal, hyperrealistic environment of Las Vegas enhances the detachment from reality, which connected with drugs and alcohol can be especially dangerous. I have investigated only some particular characteristics of Las Vegas in relation to the suicide rate. Of course, the phenomenon is much more complex and leaves room for further research that, for example, might involve investigating the psychological characteristics of gamblers.

Bibliography: Baudrillard, J. (1995) Simulacra and Simulation. (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). The University of Michigan Press.

Gemar, K., Zarkowski, P., & Avery, D. (2008) Hotel Room Suicide: Las Vegas and Clark County. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology 43, 25–27.

Foucault, M. (1986) Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec Trans.). Diacritics, 16(1), 22-27.

Miles, S., & Miles, M. (2004) Consuming Cities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pfuhlmann, B., & Schmidtke, A. (2002) Pathological Gambling and Suicidal Behavior.

Archives of Suicide Research 6(3), 257-267.

Wray, M., et al. (2008) Leaving Las Vegas: Exposure to Las Vegas and Risk of Suicide.

Social Science & Medicine 67: 1882–1888.

Wray, M. (2007) Leaving Las Vegas: Suicide And Self-Harm In The Neon Metropolis.

Conference Papers -- American Sociological Association: 1.

13 The WASP

Over the Perfumed Body: Patrick S端skind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and the Return to the Primitive Aleksandra Chodecka

Reading Patrick S端skind's book Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is an almost tangible experience. One feels mustiness in his or her mouth, and feels stench coming from the very pages of this novel with a return to primitiveness in the peak of the 18th century Enlightenment frenzy at its center. This return is showed at two levels. Firstly, descriptions of Paris, its inhabitants, and the main character, Grenouille, show uncleanliness, filth, and animalism. Secondly, a series of transgressions committed by Grenouille and other people evoke some archaic, primitive rituals, closely linked to some primeval urges and the sphere of body and sexuality.

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Over the Perfumed Body The action of Perfume takes place in the 18th century Paris and the choice of time and place is meaningful in the novel. Paris, as the center of fashion, art, and philosophy, is usually associated with elegance, refinement, and sophistication, but this is only a surface of the city, a facade that hides what is low, dirty, corporeal, stinking, and disgusting. The streets and houses of 18th century Paris stink of manure, urine, moldering wood, rat droppings, spoiled cabbage, stale dust, greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and chamber pots. Parisians only complement this stinking palette of odors: they stink of sweat and unwashed clothes and they have bad breath because of onions and rotting teeth. In highly stratified, feudal French society, people are equal in the stench they produce as simply everyone stinks, regardless of their class: peasants, priests, apprentices, or aristocrats. Both males and females stink: men of urine, sour sweat and cheese, and women of rancid fat and rotting fish. Even the king and the queen, supposedly the richest and the most refined people, stink: the king stinks like a rank lion and the queen like an old goat.

Nobody cares about hygiene and personal cleanliness – the signs of human progress, development, and civilization. People are depicted as carnal beings: their bodies produce and excrete – blood, mucus, pus, sweat; they also suffer from different diseases, which manifest themselves in pustules, blisters, boils, ulcers that disfigure physical appearance. People and their surroundings are presented as disgusting and repulsive, and the border between what is human (elevated, developed, advanced) and what is animal (low, unclean, improper) is blurred. This is especially interesting taking into account the time when the action takes place. The 18th century is the era of Enlightenment with its omnipresent discourse of reason, rational thinking, humanity, and civilization. This general intellectual atmosphere is contrasted with people who resemble animals and live in repellent conditions.

In this time and place, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born – in sweltering heat, at a fish stall among stinking fish and fish guts. When labor pains begin, his mother squats down under the table and gives birth cutting the umbilical cord with a gutting knife. It is her fifth labor in such circumstances. All previous labors have been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. They resembled another piece of bloody meat, so they were shoveled away together with fish guts and thrown away to the river. The labors were primitive, animal-like, with no doctors, nurses, hospitals, and white sheets. There was also no place for maternal care, tenderness, affection, and happiness with the newborn child. The birth was treated as something exclusively physical or even animal and as a bothersome consequence of female sexuality.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is definitely not a Prince Charming figure; he is an abominable and ambiguous creature: like a human but there is also something animal about him. Even his name evokes this ambiguity: grenouille in French means frog, an amphibian that lives somewhere in the swamps or river silt, hidden in the thicket, and hard to distinguish from its surrounding. Furthermore, it is also associated with something ugly, slimy, and repulsive. Interestingly enough, Grenouille is quite different from other people for he does not smell at all. He is also indestructible and nothing can defeat him, neither poor nutrition nor diseases.

His appearance is disgusting: he has chafing, scabs, scars from the large black carbuncles, a bulbous nose, and a crippled foot. The narrator often compares him to a tick or to a black fat spider, that is, repulsive insects preying on others. Grenouille does not have any emotional needs, e.g., for security, love, tenderness. He is an 15 The WASP

Aleksandra Chodecka abomination standing in opposition to ordinary people “out of sheer spite and sheer malice” who “[gives] the world nothing but his dung” (Süskind, 2007, 24-25).

Nevertheless, the most peculiar feature of Grenouille is his extraordinary sense of smell. From the early childhood, he has been sensing the world through smell. He learned new words only when he could associate them with a certain smell and he had great difficulty in learning abstract ideas—he could not remember them because they did not smell. Concepts such as conscience, God, justice, or responsibility remain unclear to him and he does not know what they mean.

Consequently, being unable to grasp their meaning, he uses them unwillingly and even starts doubting in the sense of language. He senses the world using the most primitive organ and “the basest of the senses” (ibid., 16). The developed sense of smell is an animal trait that gradually disappeared in human beings throughout the process of evolution. And such a creature as Grenouille was born in the 18 th century when the emphasis was very much on reason, abstract thinking, and language, that is, everything what makes human beings superior to animals. In opposition to this dominant discourse, Grenouille assumes that “[h]e who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men” and in his course of action it turns out he is right (ibid., 180). He succeeds in creating perfumes that make people act according to his needs – to love him, not to notice him, or to avoid him. In this way he proves that human beings are rather primitive creatures, guided by the primordial sense of smell and he denies an optimistic belief in human progress, so characteristic for the Enlightenment.

What is more, Grenouille decides to isolate himself from society, to abandon culture and go back to nature. He starts living like a wild animal. For seven years he lives alone in the cave on the mountain, eating salamanders, ring snakes, bats, grass, and moss and licking water running across the rock. After these seven years, he looks like a primitive man or a caveman: hair reaching down to his knees, beard to his navel, his nails were like talons, and his skin was peeling off in shreds. When Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse decides to transform him into human, it turns out that there is very little needed to do that: clothes, make-up, and the most important thing – perfumes were enough to make him human. Grenouille's “metamorphosis” casts doubt on human superiority to animals as it turns out that these are only accessories that make humans different from animals.

Süskind's suggestive depiction of Paris, its inhabitants, and Grenouille, clearly corresponds with Julia Kristeva's ideas about the abject. What she associates with abjection are violence and darkness “ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable” (Kristeva, 1982, 1). Lack of cleanliness may cause abjection but as Kristeva argues, it is not the unclean itself that lies behind it, but it is rather the unclean that “disturbs identity, system, order . . . does not respect borders, positions, rules” (ibid., 4). It creates the sense of ambiguity, confusion, and being somewhere in-between. This division between the clean and unclean, the proper and the improper is crucial as it leads to the notions of the abject and taboo – something disgusting and hidden, something that should not be discussed openly, and something to be ashamed of. The control of the abject draws a line between human and animal and anything unclean is considered animal.

Description of Paris, Parisians, and Grenouille are the source of abjection in Perfume. Paris shown as a dirty, stinking, pigsty-like city shatters the deeply-rooted associations with it as a romantic center of elegance, and causes a sense of 16 Volume II Fall 2015

Over the Perfumed Body displacement. Parisians are portrayed as low, carnal creatures who are looked at through the prism of what their bodies produce. Grenouille, the main character, is a human-animal hybrid. This character and the portrayal of the city and its people as degraded, contemptible, low, especially while confronted with the 18 th-century and Enlightenment time-setting, blur the borders between the human and the animal, nature and culture, primitivism and civilization. They destroy order, show disrespect for the rules, and cause uneasiness by threatening our sense of cleanliness and propriety.

Death and eroticism, both lying in the realm of violence, are intertwined in Süskind's Perfume and they directly correspond to Georges Bataille's ideas, especially with his interpretations of taboo and transgression. According to him, there are two strongest taboos in our culture: death and sex, and both are broken by Grenouille who commits a series of transgressions. Because establishing norms and taboos is treated by society as a means of progress, it is very meaningful that Grenouille as a perpetrator is a primitive creature and there is something animal about him. Breaking norms and taboos is considered a return to the primitiveness.

First of all, in his pursuit of creating an ideal perfume, Grenouille becomes a murderer and he kills twenty-five women. His victims are always young, virgin, innocent girls of exquisite beauty. They are lovely girls “of the languid, raven-haired sort,” “sugary,” and “just approaching womanhood” (Süskind, 2007, 226). He kills the girls bludgeoning them in the backs of their heads and he leaves them “naked and shorn and lying in a flower field” (ibid., p. 226). There is no blood that would disrupt the perfect picture of a dead beautiful woman. This image of the desecrated beauty makes Grenouille's transgression seem even more primitive and cruel. As Bataille argues, “[b]eauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake . . . The greater the beauty, the more it is befouled” (Bataille, 1962, 144-145). He also associates the profanation of the clean and the beautiful with the abandonment of the realm of reason and with the return to the realm of nature. It confirms Grenouille's return to the primitiveness by his transgression against social norms: murdering young beautiful women, he withdraws from human progress based on reason and he goes back to nature.

Grenouille, having power over people's sense of smell, makes them commit transgressions against taboos of sex and death. Preparing for his execution, Grenouille puts on his new ideal perfume, supposed to arouse love in people, and the whole spectacle ends in an orgy. As Bataille claims, an orgy is connected with archaic religious feasts and rituals, transcending animal sexuality and overthrowing social order and norms (Bataille, 1962, p. 112). The orgy caused by Grenouille is “the largest orgy the world had seen since the second century before Christ” (Süskind, 2007, 277). Ten thousand “human beasts” copulate in the most strange combinations: “grandfather with virgin, odd-jobber with lawyer's spouse, apprentice with nun, Jesuit with freemason's wife” (ibid., 277). So basically, a typical Sunday after-church special. After that, Grenouille returns to Paris, puts on his perfume again, and makes people commit an act of cannibalism on him. As Bataille argues, the desire to eat human flesh vanished but it was very much characteristic for archaic societies, especially in religious rituals in which the human flesh that was eaten was treated as something sacred and prohibited. As a forbidden fruit, it aroused desire and in this sense was connected to eroticism (Bataille, 1962, p. 7117 The WASP

Aleksandra Chodecka 72). The scent of Grenouille's perfume is so intense and the desire aroused in people is so great, that they want to devour Grenouille: “They tore away his clothes, his hair, his skin from his body, they plucked him, they drove their claws and teeth into his flesh, they attacked him like hyenas.” The desire is so overwhelming that they are unable to realize the seriousness of their transgression and they do not have the tiniest pangs of conscience.

The return to the primitive in Süskind's Perfume works at two levels. Paris, Parisians, and Grenouille are portrayed as primitive and it can be associated with Kristeva's idea of abjection. Transgressions committed by Grenouille and other people show their return to archaic rituals and primitive urges, and it clearly corresponds with Bataille's descriptions of eroticism and death, taboo, and transgression. Süskind in Perfume presents human primitiveness in the peak of Enlightenment fascination with the ideas of civilization, progress, and development.

His highly suggestive descriptions of people, focused only on the physical side of human existence, show that in fact there is no such thing as the advancement of man. The primitive is inside every human being and it remains inescapable; all the rest is only a facade. Social norms may regulate people's behavior but they are unable to eradicate animal inclinations and urges.

Bibliography: Bataille, G. (1962). Death and sensuality: a study of eroticism and the taboo. New York: Walker and Company.

Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: an essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.

Süskind, P. (2007). Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. London: Penguin Book.

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Interdependence of Sex and Death: Sexualization of a Dead Female Body in Palahniuk’s “Exodus” and Clive Barker’s Galilee excerpt P.K.

The woman was lying on the bed. Her name was Melodic, he'd been told (though he doubted any woman who sold her body for this kind of purpose used the name they'd been brought with to God). There she lay, under a sheet, perfectly still, her eyes closed. There were a dozen white and yellow lilies on the pillow around her head; a nice funereal touch, courtesy of the man who arranged these scenarios for Garrison, Fred Platt. The smell of the flowers was not strong enough to compete with the other scent in the room however: that of disinfectant. (…) the scent was an indispensable part of the fantasy. (…)

He could believe she was dead with very little difficulty. Dead and cold and unresisting. (…) [t]his was his special pleasure, his most-anticipated bliss. I can't tell you why. I don't know what strange twist his psyche took that made this ritual so arousing to him: or who put it there. But there it was; and there I'll leave him, covering the pseudo corpse with kisses in preparation for the so-called act of love.

(Barker, 1999, 147-148)

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P.K. The female body has been in the center of attention in many fields, including literature, paintings, visual media, and even politics. The problem of sexual objectification of the female image is fervently discussed in contemporary debates with regard to movies, video games, and advertisements. For the female body is not merely a biological apparatus that allows women to breathe, walk, talk – to live. It stands for the mythical and symbolic representation of what is considered female and feminine. More importantly, the female body gains its literary importance while it is dead. To continue Edgar Allan Poe’s statement in The Philosophy of Composition, “[t]he death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world” (Poe, 1846, 6). Representations of femininity focusing on the materiality of the fetishized dead female body are not new to literature and art. The late nineteenth century art and Gothic culture were characterized by the fascination with female death as exemplified in the numerous live burial short stories and newspaper articles of the period. This article discusses the interdependence of death and sex embodied in the female corpse in two works: Chuck Palahniuk’s short story “Exodus” and the excerpt presented above from Clive Barker’s novel Galilee with reference to theories of two well-known literary theorists: Julia Kristeva and George Bataille.

In Palahniuk’s “Exodus” and Clive Barker’s Galilee excerpt, the dead body of a woman becomes somewhat of a sexualized inanimate object, which becomes an ultimate taboo. Women are turned into objects and reduced to being merely sex dolls, sex dolls, which are willingly motionless, ready to be used and abused by men.

To start, Chuck Palahniuk’s cover (Figure 1) of the collection of short stories Haunted that includes the story “Exodus,” is the very embodiment of the interdependence of death and the sexualization and objectification of the female body. The female body, here: her face, is presented as a mask, “the death mask” of a sex doll’s face, as Palahniuk terms it. A woman is reduced to her sole sexual purpose, for she is an open-mouthed, red-lipped, ready-to-be-fucked toy, aimed at men’s pleasure. A woman becomes more than a mere object to be used, she is deprived of her humanity and symbolically killed in order to fulfill her destiny.

Therefore, she becomes a sexualized corpse. Julia Kristeva in her very influential work Powers of Horror presented the concept of “abjection,” which becomes crucial to understand the power of a dead female body in literature and art as a whole. In her definition, abjection refers to the unnamed, the unimagined, the intangible, un-object. It only has “one quality of the object – that of being opposed to I” (Kristeva, 1980, 1). The reactions, which are characteristic to the abject, are horror, nausea, or vomit, and they are the typical responses to a potential breakdown in meaning. Furthermore, the abject draws towards “the place where meaning collapses,” (ibid., 2) it does not respect rules, borders, or positions, and it both repels and attracts the subject. Moreover, Kristeva points out that the corpse becomes the ultimate site of abjection (ibid., 3-4). Dolls presented in Palahniuk’s Figure 1. Palahniuk, Chuck. (2006) Haunted: A Novel. London: Vintage.

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Interdependence of Sex and Death short story “Exodus” and the woman’s body in the Galilee’s excerpt, express the very concept of abjection.

The first doll in Palahniuk’s short story, Breather Betty, is a dummy, on which people in the county staff are to practice CPR. Precisely, the dummy, which stands for the dead body in the story, and its act of excreting sperm, is the very essence of Kristeva’s concept of abjection. In the short story, the bodies of the dolls become constantly filled with sperm, and they themselves excrete fluids: And a fat bubble swells between Betty’s blue rubber lips. Some liquid, some salad dressing, thin and milky white, the bubble swells big. A greasy gray pearl. Then a Ping-Pong ball. A baseball. Until it pops. Spattering the greasy off-white soup everywhere. This thin, watery culture, puffing a cloud of stink into the room. (…) a drip, drip, drip, then a thin stream of creamy gruel runs out. Some of the watery mess washes down her pink rubber cheek. Some of it webs between her lips and plastic teeth. Most of it pools on the linoleum side. (Palahniuk, 2006, 157)

This quality of being a “cum bucket,” filled with stinky fluids which spill over, contribute to the “abjectification” of the dolls. The female doll is here presented as a post-fellatio real woman, full of sperm on and in her mouth, albeit dead. Moreover, the very fact that dolls come in a coffin-like box and that Betty should have been put in a “plastic bag” to “ferment” just like a real dead body, all that again points to the death-like character of the bodies of the dolls. However, the dolls are not only of women but also of “anatomically correct” children at “the age of Easter-Egg hunts and First Communion and Santa’s lap” (ibid., 162). This sexualization of both children and women turns the innocent, the pure, into something perverse and unclean.

The very central theme in the story and Galilee’s excerpt is the body and “deadly” objectification of the body. Palahniuk’s Betty the dummy is a model of a suicide girl who got pulled from Seine years ago, thus, violating the doll put the story in a necrophilic ambience. She is a girl who by committing suicide “turned herself into an object,” (ibid., 156) and “[t]his is what human beings do – turn objects into people, people into objects” (ibid., 158). Through her very own death, she became an object, an object of desire, fantasy, essence of abjection. For the death she embodies is what perhaps unconsciously attracts people. Therefore, death becomes an aphrodisiac and the lifeless body becomes the fantasy, for death itself is an overwhelmingly exciting force. This fascination with death represents what Bataille connected to drive for continuity. “We are discontinuous beings, individuals who perish in isolation in the midst of an incomprehensible adventure, but we yearn for our lost continuity” (Bataille, 1962, 15). Continuity is to signify death and through erotic dissolution and annihilation we desire to merge into that state of continuity. Therefore, intercourse with a dead body is a sexual connection with continuity and sexual dissolution merges human discontinuity with deathly continuity. Body becomes simply a channel, a medium through which we manage to do so.

The dolls in the story and the prostitute in the excerpt show perfectly what Palahniuk emphasized many times in his short stories: human beings tend to turn objects into people and people into objects. This adds to the peculiar relationship between death and sex: corpses are shown as sexually stimulating and they are used 21 The WASP

P.K. as merely sex dolls. Dolls and people are read as physical representations of death itself. Death that draws people but also pushes them away. “Back and forth. Tit for tat� (Palahniuk, 2006, 171). Through sexual realization they want to get closer to put themselves in the discourse of death, to merge within the continuous search for fulfillment. Back and forth, and tit for tat.

Bibliography: Barker, Clive. (1999) Galilee. London: HarperCollins Publishers.

Bataille, Georges. (1962) Death and Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo.

New York: Walker and Company.

Kristeva. Julia. (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.

Palahniuk, Chuck. (2006) Haunted: A Novel. London: Vintage.

Poe, E. A. (1846) The Philosophy of Composition shortstoryamerica.com http://shortstoryamerica.com/pdf_classics/poe_philosophy_of_compositio n.pd

22 Volume II Fall 2015

The Real Monsters Dominika Grotek

Since George A. Romero introduced his Night of the Living Dead to the world, zombies have become an attractive competition for vampires, which until then had been the favorite horror movie characters. Zombies were not only fearsome monsters that viewers did not want to meet in a dark alley. Romero gave them also a metaphorical meaning, which revealed problems of contemporary American society.

Each subsequent movie starring zombies – an independent movie, a sequel, or a remake of Romero's work – was not focused on the creatures themselves but depicted the relationships between people in the face of danger (Posey, 2014).

The aforementioned approach is also used in today's culture (Posey, 2014).

However, movies about zombies ceased to play a key role. Now, leaders are TV shows, in which the zombie apocalypse is the background for the main action. The two crucial series are The Walking Dead and Z Nation. Both shows, though vastly different in terms of style, focus on the relationships between the characters and situations, which have arisen from the complex human interactions.

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Dominika Grotek Let’s start with what catches the eye immediately – the title. During the first seasons of The Walking Dead, fans sometimes argued about who these “walking dead” are. Are they the monsters that have taken over Kirkman’s universe? Or maybe these are the characters themselves? Robert Kirkman, one of the co-creators of the comic books of the same title, on which the series is based, dispelled all doubts admitting that “walking dead” are the characters from the show. In the universe that he created, all humans are carriers of the virus that transforms them in creatures seeking human flesh after their death. Therefore, they are the walking bombs that when exploding, trigger mechanism for carrying the destruction of mankind. The title suggests that the TV show, in the interpretation of Frank Darabont, is about people who live in a world overrun by zombies, knowing that after death they will turn into “walkers.” Unless someone destroys their brain before the “turn.” Moreover, the title of Z Nation tells the viewer that the show is about people, the American nation, which has to learn to exist in a world, in which man must submit to the new rules created by Z's – the zombies. It is not, of course, the situation, in which intelligent creatures take power over people. Likewise, the characters are dealing with mindless creatures who are guided only by instinct that tells them to eat people. Z's are everywhere, they do not adhere to any rules, and they cannot be controlled. The only way out is to avoid places where they are staying or simply to kill them.

The basic unit that allows for survival in the worlds of both series is some form of community. If you are alone, you will die. You are responsible only for yourself, no one will slow you down, and there is no one who will observe the area while you sleep. There is no one who can protect you when you loot the deserted shop. Nobody will take care of your wounds and carry you to a safe place. It is just you and them, the zombies. However, when you are in a group, it is very likely that you will manage to survive. Together, you can take an empty building and make it your shelter. What is the most crucial, together, you can stand up to people who want to take your supplies. Main groups in Z Nation and The Walking Dead make sure that they stay together. They refer to themselves as “family.” Therefore, they protect each other and develop relationships within their groups. Some of them are brother-sister relationships but there are also romances, parents-children relationships, and pure friendships. What is important here is that most of these people were complete strangers before the apocalypse, or they even hated each other. But due to certain circumstances, they developed a bond with each other followed by natural calling to “stay together no matter what because only then they have chances to rebuilt their future.” It is a situation known from real life when the whole nation is able to unite in the face of misfortune or danger such as war or national tragedy. But what happens if some other group wants to join you? What happens if it does not believe in the same principles as you do? What if they want to hurt you, take your place for themselves as well as your supplies? What if they want to kill you in order to survive? Or worse, they want to kill you just because they can?

In the first seasons of The Walking Dead, the characters were convinced that zombies were monsters. They outnumbered men, conquered the city, and were lurking even in the deep woods. Also, their appearance immediately increased fear.

Over time, however, it turned out that zombies are not any threat if you are hidden in a hideout, which is well-protected by strong walls. Moreover, zombies can be 24 Volume II Fall 2015

The Real Monsters deceived, distracted, or killed one after the other. In Z Nation, zombies themselves also do not pose any threat to the well-organized people. As McCabe (2011) suggests, all you have to know is how to kill the zombies. Fast car or the ability to distract zombies so they would go in the other direction, are enough to be reasonably safe. The real monsters in both series turned out to be... people.

The Latin sentence “homo homini lupus est” is an accurate description of the current situation in both TV series. The main characters of The Walking Dead, hidden safely within the walls of Alexandria, settlement protected by walls, with beautiful and well-equipped houses, supplies, and access to fresh water from the tap, lose everything thanks to the enemy group that attacks them, kills some members of the community, and steals their weapons. This group called nomen omen “Wolves” also contributes to the destruction of the walls, which protected Alexandria from the zombies. It is a disaster for the group of main characters led by a former sheriff – Rick Grimes. On the other hand, despite the loss of members of their group, Wolves gain satisfaction from killing the people, taking their supplies and weapons. Wolves do not feel any stings of remorse. In Z Nation, the main characters are forced to rob people from their medications but they feel bad about it. Randal (2013) states that ability to feel empathy is a trait that helps to distinguish insane people from normal ones. Probably, Wolves are a group of degenerates for whom the art of survival is killing other survivors, taking their valuables, and then, looking for more victims. Why are they doing this? Because they can. There is no police or institutions that would prosecute them for it. It is also an important issue in The Walking Dead and Z Nation – the fall of organizations that tell people what is good, what is bad, how they should defend themselves, and where they should find the shelter. Now people rely only on themselves. There is no government or prisons.

Justice is meted out in accordance with one's conscience.

The end of the world may arouse primal instincts in people. There is nothing wrong in wanting to survive as that is a natural desire. The question is whether you need to survive at any cost? What is more important, life with the knowledge that I am alive because I killed and robbed others, or maybe my dignity? Zombie movies show different types of behavior of people during situations where the normal world, which everyone knew from birth, ceases to exist. Romero said that zombies are not important at all because they just symbolize some obstacle. They are only the background and they could be anything else. The most dangerous creatures are humans. People are intelligent but they are also unpredictable. They do not follow any pattern and no one can predict their performance like in case of steady in their actions, zombies.

Bibliography: Darabont, F. (Director). (n.d.). The Walking Dead [Television series].

McCabe, B. (2011, November 30). The Big Question: Why are zombies the hot metaphor?

Johns Hopkins Magazine.

Retrieved from http://archive.magazine.jhu.edu/2011/11/the-bigquestion-why-arezombies-the-hot-metaphor/

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Dominika Grotek Posey, S. (2014, February 27). A Country Walking Dead: The Zombie as Metaphor in American Culture and Film.

Retrieved from http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/country-walkingdead.html#.VmCvH79n1NQ Randall, P. (2013). The psychology of feeling sorry: The weight of the soul. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge.

Romero, G. (Director). (1968). Night of the Living Dead [Motion picture on DVD].

USA. Schaefer, K., & Engler, C. (Directors). (n.d.). Z Nation [Television series].

26 Volume II Fall 2015

Taking the High Road: Literary Character Analysis Aleksandra Borowa

Downtown New York City. The city that never sleeps seemed to have finally hit the sack. It was a numbingly cold night. The streets were exceptionally, almost disturbingly, quiet, and the air was filled with haze and uncertainty. Every source of light had disappeared, anyone could easily be tricked into thinking the city was going through a blackout. Every source of light except one hardly noticeable hint of luminosity coming from a window of a slightly rustic looking building. The window led into a small, somewhat claustrophobic room. That hint of pale luminosity was coming from a single light bulb attached to a thin, thread-like wire in the ceiling. The air was overwhelmed with fabricated tension and cigarette fog. As the cloud of suspense gradually defused, three faded silhouettes slowly emerged from the back of the room.

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Aleksandra Borowa Once in a blue moon do dreams and goals come effortlessly, without any setbacks or complications. It is far more natural having to overcome several obstacles before achieving any meaningful target. The persistence and determination in reaching a certain goal is fuelled by purpose. Purposes like love, justice, or rebellion are often motives portrayed in American literature. Authors construct characters granted with certain traits that allow them to reach their targets against all odds. These characters are strong willed and driven individualists. Internal motivation is one of the strongest forces that drive these literary figures to act as they do and place them behind certain occurrences. The understanding of their complex, mosaic psyche is essential for the understanding of their journey towards their destination as well as their behavior and actions.

JAY GATSBY The Great Gatsby, Scott F. Fitzgerald Probably the most memorable 'rags to riches’ storyline. Having experienced an impoverished childhood, Gatsby gained fabulous wealth and sophistication easily by taking part in organized crime. Shortly after that, he became the main subject of a whirlwind of gossip throughout New York City. We are introduced to Gatsby fairly late in the novel. Fitzgerald delays the character revelation to emphasize the caricatured quality of Gatsby’s distant approach to life. During his initial presentation he is surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He appears to be the type of person that men want to be, and women want to be with. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald performs character deconstruction exposing the weaknesses and vulnerability of his novel’s main personage.

The main purpose and devotion in Gatsby’s life was his love for Daisy Buchanan. After losing her, everything he did was for the single purpose of winning her back. "She [Daisy] vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby – nothing” (Fitzgerald, 1996). When Daisy wanted a life without Gatsby, he spent the rest of his life living with the illusion of her. He was utterly infatuated by her wealth, youth and beauty. “It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes” (Fitzgerald, 1996). In Gatsby’s eyes, Daisy was seen as idealistic perfection, something that she could not possibly attain in reality. Throughout his feelings towards Daisy, Fitzgerald effectuates the emotional deconstruction of Gatsby. He is no longer seen as a self-made man who has it all, and becomes an innocent, almost naive and childishly hopeful man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing they are unworthy of him. Gatsby’s blind pursuit of Daisy leads him to an internal conflict, being stuck between romanticism and realism. His unconditional focus on his dream of Daisy moves him further and further into a fantasy world: a foolish illusion, exposing him to high vulnerability.

Gatsby himself sees his devotion as noble and purposeful. “The love Gatsby has for Daisy seems to be the one pure impulse in a corrupt world” (Lehan, 1970). His inability to deal with reality set him outside the norm in his surrounding, making him a parody of his former self. Throughout the novel, Gatsby sinks deeper and 28 Volume II Fall 2015

Taking the High Road

deeper into fatal idealism, which results in being in love with the idea of Daisy and not Daisy herself.

Gatsby’s deep infatuation and self-destructive love towards Daisy led him to insanity, and eventually to death. Gatsby “had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald, 1996).

HOLDEN CAULFIELD The Catcher in The Rye, J.D Salinger Some call him the original rebellious teenager. “But I was feeling so depressed I didn’t even think. That’s the whole trouble. When you’re feeling very depressed, you can’t even think” (Salinger, 1973). The author creates a painful story of a highschool boy growing up in the 1940s decadent New York. Seventeen-year old Holden Caulfield takes on the role of the cynical narrator in Salinger’s highly controversial novel. The young protagonist tells a very introspective story reminiscing his few day exploration through the streets of New York. The story told in retrospective is characterized by specific and easily recognizable narration. Besides Holden’s obvious cynicism, his every action and decision originates a rather strong thought or opinion. The narrative in the novel immediately clues the reader in on Caulfield’s unbalanced psychological state.

Holden’s main focal point and basic conflict in life is corruption. Something that simultaneously drives him and disgusts him blocking several of his ambitions and desires, as well as building his complex and full of conflicting characteristics personality. Caulfield shows resentment towards the adult world and strongly withstands becoming a part of it. He believes that adulthood is synonymous with corruption, that a corrupt person is a “phony.” Holden’s mindset is contradictory to his behavior. He is attracted to the trappings of adulthood. Cigarettes, alcohol, meaningless sex: anything that brings him closer to the desirable feeling of independence. “I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do - but people never notice it. People never notice anything” (Salinger, 1973). On the contrary, Holden’s protection of innocence and sometimes childlike curiosity illustrate his struggle against growing up and contribute to the ironic nature of his personality.

He effortlessly finds corruption in almost everything he sees, being blind to the fact that he himself has become corrupt. By adhibiting certain behaviors, Holden is displaying a desire to grow up and gain maturity, however, he is restricted by his ideals of innocence and purity. Caulfield’s unconscious and involuntary motivation is his aspiration to help people but only in a very limited and specific way. His intention is to save innocent children, who are still untouched by the dirty hands of society, from a helpless cause that is corruption. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be 29 The WASP

Aleksandra Borowa the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be” (Salinger, 1973).

Salinger confronts his leading character on the journey from childhood to adulthood. Holden deals with problems relating to society alienation or self-inflicted loneliness, which eventually lead to a nervous breakdown. He falls ill and recovers in a mental institution in southern California from where he is telling his story. "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”( Salinger, 1973).

ATTICUS FINCH To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what” (Lee, 1960).

Atticus Finch is portrayed as both a father figure and an authority figure.

Harper Lee illustrates him with an even-hand throughout the majority of the story, with little character development and hardly any personality adjustments, making him a pleasantly complex literary character. Atticus is a strong representative of mortality and reason, and acts as the moral spine of Maycomb County, Alabama during the 1930s.

Atticus Finch shows unwavering dedication and devotion. He is driven by two main purposes: responding to the challenge of bringing up two small children as well as being a keen judge of human nature (lawyer). Atticus is a man known for his calm wisdom and deep intelligence. He adapts a strict but fair attitude, simultaneously with his children and in the courtroom. "Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets" (Lee, 1960).

As a father, Atticus is responsible and loving, setting a deceptively simple gathering of beliefs and values for his children and treating them as equals to himself and other adults in their surroundings. He has the ability to see good and potential in everybody and is strongly committed to making his children feel the same way. “Shoot all the blue jays that you want, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee, 1960). Atticus is a firm believer and stands rigidly committed to justice. Unlike the people surrounding him, he is not affected by racial prejudice and is willing to view every situation from the perspective of others. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (Lee, 1960). As a lawyer, Atticus tries to look at people as individuals. His understanding of equality and colorblindness separates him from those in the pride white community who are portrayed as racist and narrow-minded. Whilst defending a black man charged for rape of a white woman, Atticus shows compassion and courage withstanding every insult towards himself and his children with the intention of achieving his goal.

“You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change” (Lee, 1960).

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The result of Atticus’ struggle with the justice system as well as the narrowminded society, were less than satisfactory, triggering hopelessness in both him and his children. During the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man who allegedly raped a white woman, the innocent defendant was claimed guilty due to the racist justice system and the strong opposition of several white men. Atticus Finch firmly stood by his beliefs encouraging his children to do so as well. He continued to carry the reputation of a clear and ethical thinker, a brave man fully focused on essences, not externals. "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived” (Lee, 1960).

Downtown New York City. The city that never sleeps was slowly coming back to life.

The light coming from the small, somewhat claustrophobic room was no longer the only hint of luminosity. And as the sun nonchalantly rose above the architecture and cigarette fog, three faded silhouettes walked out of the rustic building in silence, and disappeared into a numbingly cold morning.

Bibliography: Fitzgerald, Scott F. (1996) The Great Gatsby. Rpt. of 1925 Scribner’s ed. Tokyo: HonNo-Tomosha Publishers.

Salinger, J.D. (1973) The Catcher in the Rye. London: Penguin Books.

Lee, Harper. (1960) To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company.

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32 Volume II Fall 2015

The demons Dominika Kowalska

Hell is empty. All the devils are here.

- William Shakespeare

‫واحد‬ It was that special time of the year when it’s cold outside and families decorate their Christmas trees. Winter evening, the snow keeps falling, forming gentle, sparkling downy drifts. The children will be overjoyed to make a snowman next morning. The smell of gingerbread and cinnamon rolls emerges from the oven, the fragrance of oranges and cloves fills the air, the dog is running like crazy wagging his tail left and right, barking cheerfully, seeking warm and busy hands to pet it. The house is loud, everyone has a story to share.

It was this special time of the year, but not for Lucy. Lucy’s family preferred bottles of vodka to gingerbread and silence or yelling to gentle talk. The smell of mustiness and unwashed bodies was the only smell there was. The dog was sitting outside in the snow with a chain around his neck, which made it nearly impossible for him to move, and to tell you the truth, where he was at wasn’t much colder than where Lucy was. The only thing made of wood in the house, except for the floor and the walls, was an old blood-stained baseball bat. If Lucy were to burn it in the fireplace to feel warmth for at least a couple minutes, she would be the next one to be burnt.

During that special time of the year, Lucy was sitting alone on the rotten wooden floor in her room and drawing by the only source of light there was, a candle stolen from the local church which was a place known for giving out one warm meal a day to the poorest.

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Dominika Kowalska Earlier that day, in front of the church, a homeless man saw that there wasn’t enough food for everyone, and especially not for those at the end of the queue, so he pushed Lucy aside. The man was old, cold and tiresome, but how strong one has to be to push away a brittle nine year old? Lucy fell on the ground, her bare legs covered in sludge - yesterday’s snow and dirt. The girl went inside the church to warm up a bit and she noticed the candles burning at one of the side altars. She reached out with her little hands to feel the warmth of the flame, but the old lady who was praying by the Saint Mary’s altar slapped her hand and told her not to touch anything: “You little thief, you just wanted to steal the holy candles! Well, over my dead body!”- The woman shrieked and her words echoed the building. The girl curled up. It was scary to look at the praying mouth screaming and then tightening into a one thin unpleased wrinkle. She retired from the altar to sit on the wooden bench and wait for the scary woman to leave. Lucy recognized her, she was the next door neighbor, Bianca’s grandmother who would forbid her granddaughter to play with Lucy. Bianca was the prettiest girl in the class, she was kind to everyone and had the best grades too, but Lucy was always wondering why does she fall from stairs and bruise herself or get sick and skip classes so often like she did?

While wondering about her classmate, Lucy looked at the frescos on the ceiling. There was one that appealed to her the most. An animal-like creature, with hooves of a horse, horns of a goat, mouth of a bull, tail of a shaved cat and wings of a bat, a creature about to eat a woman similar to the scary one that Lucy met by the altar. The woman was scared of the beast, there was fear in her eyes, her mouth wide open. Lucy looked to the side to verify the similarities between the two women, but the praying lady was already gone. Lucy approached the Saint May’s altar, took one candle and left the church.

‫اث نان‬ Now, empty-bellied as she was, Lucy started drawing the beautiful animal from that church ceiling. She believed that the animal liked her and helped her earlier that day.

When the picture was almost done, the candle suddenly burned out and Lucy was left alone in the darkness. The full moon was gazing through the unveiled window, yet it refused to give enough light to make further drawing possible. In one moment,

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Demons extreme sadness overwhelmed her. All she wanted to do was to finish the drawing of the only creature she thought to be nice to her and put it on the pillow so it would protect her while she slept. But now she couldn’t. What more there was to do?

Nobody to play with. Nobody to talk to. Lucy sat on her bed, pulled her knees up to her face and wept. "Beautiful animal, I wish you could come play with me." She wailed with her weak, childish voice.

“Aren’t you scared of me?”- Lucy heard a quiet, deep voice and raised her head. There he was, the animal from her drawing. Lucy was surprised that the animal looked more like a goat than a bull. She noticed that he had vast, marvelous, black, dragon-like wings that were now furled. The animal was bending over her, with something of a look of concern on his face. He was strange, but not scary. It took Lucy some time to get used to his view, so different from the humans or other animals she was familiar with.

“What are you doing here?”

“I… I was in the neighborhood… I was paying a visit to your dear neighbor.

Bianca’s grandmother… and then I saw you crying. What’s wrong?”

The animal sat on the bed next to the girl, and Lucy looked at him closer.

“I was crying because I couldn’t finish my drawing.”

The girl gave him her drawing.

“Is it supposed to be me?”

Lucy nodded.

“You quite caught it. Maybe except for the face and small details. You’re a fine painter, little lady.”

As the animal said it, Lucy put her head on his shoulder.

“What were you doing at Bianca’s house?”

“I was paying her grandma a visit. You see… It’s my job to possess people’s souls. My boss scheduled me with her today.”

“Are you Satan?”

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Dominika Kowalska The animal laughed with amusement.

“Oh, honey, no. I’m merely a junior executive in his company.”

“What does it mean?”

“I come from the cast of lower demons.”

“What’s your name then?”

“Zahhak Allal” “You have a weird name.”

“I’m an immigrant. I got used to hearing that.”

The animal lowered his head.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. You have a very beautiful name, very original. I’m Lucy. There are two more Lucies in my class. I wish my name was more like yours.”

“It’s okay Lucy. I find your name beautiful as well. I have a nickname for family and friends. If it’s easier for you, you can call me Zahi. Now, I still have some time before my shift ends. Do you want to play a game?”

And Zahhak Allal taught Lucy how to play chess. He was very proud of her as she was quick to learn.

‫ث الث ة‬ “I have to go now. My boss needs that neighbor of yours to be possessed by midnight.”

“Zahi, please don’t go!”

“I wish I could stay, but my boss is very strict about deadlines.”

“Please don’t leave me alone. Can I go with you?”

“Lucy, I can’t take you with me. But you can summon me whenever you need advice, want to play or need a friend. All you need to do is to the light a candle and whisper Zahhak Allal. Here’s my business card.“ 36 Volume II Fall 2015

Demons

Zahhak Allal stood on the windowsill and spread his magnificent wings ready to fly away.

“Zahi, wait! Before you go, I need to ask you something.”

Zahhak Allal turned his head towards Lucy giving her his full attention.

“You know, in school we are taught that demons are evil. And you're not evil.”

“We are taught that humans are evil. But you're not evil either.”

“But Zahi, if you're not evil then why are you possessing souls?”

“Honey, but what are these souls good for? Our company reclaims only the souls that cannot be fixed anymore. We take them with us to end the hell of other people.”

“If you do as you say, why are there still so many evil people?”

“It's because there's more evil souls on the earth than demons. We are being constantly trapped and killed by the qualified humans. There are special trainings for humans that teach killing demons.”

“You are bigger and stronger than any human. Why can't you fight back?”

“Precisely because of that. We're not violent. We don't want to hurt humans. We have signed a special convention against interspecies violence.”

“But if you wanted to hurt a human, what could you do?”

“The easiest way would be to burn them, lift them up and smash them against anything. I could shake the guts out of them. After all, humans are made of very thin and fragile material - very permeable, so vulnerable.”

“But if Satan is good, where does all the evil come from?”

“You're a smart girl, Lucy. You already know the answer.”

37 The WASP

Banished into Oblivion Marta Pytka

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

– Edgar Allan Poe I feel a compelling, undefined necessity to end the life of my lover. Is killing such an unforgivable act? He absolutely cannot walk on this earth a twitch of a minute hand longer. He cannot be allowed to. I have looked right through him, finding, with a trembling eye, an evil spirit squeezing his, as far back, not so pure heart, twisting his already shady soul, prepared to take the reign over his mind. I, who was such a seduced fool for whom noticing something besides his sorcerous tongue was a distanced imagination, detected that wicked and despicable spirit. Do not call me insane forasmuch I am perfectly sane, having both my mind and senses running smoothly. It is just that this evil being needs to be destroyed.

Having mentioned him, I am already deeply concerned about the damage he could do as I start my confession. I need to, I am obligated to think as precisely as I am able, for his own good, the people’s, and my own, at last. I will be condemned by heavens as they know my act is unpardonable, however, God ought to pity me whilst I am executing what has to be done.

Bittersweet has been the time of my enchanted imprisonment; yet, I will not evacuate the love I have carried in my poor heart. I am not the victor and not the loser nor any appellation would I dare to embrace, though I am certain that at this moment I have been chosen to be my lover’s executioner as a chastisement for my sin. I obtained the sin of being deceived when I met him, on the spot. Had I known the outcome, my actions would have differed, wouldn’t they? I would have been able to remain immune to the color of his eyes, his smile that hurt like blades at times it was shown to me and at times it was not anymore. Yes, I do admit I am obliviously clinging to those desperate “what if’s.” I should not have met such a man for whom I became willing to give up myself completely, even, and that is the significant part, after he had already disdained me. He was not who he had claimed to be under that bright moon. Why didn’t you tell me, you, who had watched us smiling?

I am assured of the wicked being’s presence inside his body forasmuch I can almost notice it sometimes when I observe my lover sleeping. We travel from place to place and I always wait hidden from the sight of a human eye, calculating the right moment. I remain still, forcing my muscles to do the grueling work of being strained for long hours even if they are absolutely seething with anger and indignation. After I obtain total 38 The WASP - Volume II Fall 2015

Banished into Oblivion quiescence, nothing escapes my notice. Seeing my lover’s ambivalent identity, I think of only one way to rectify the situation – snatching the evil spirit out of his body. For that, however, the right equipment is needed.

Residing in the third mansion where air is way too thick and silence not deafening anymore but excessive, I plan to occupy myself with a search for a murderous device. I already know where I should hit to cause a loss of consciousness, so help me God, I would rather forget this kind of knowledge.

Naturally, I behave perfectly correct while chatting with others, pretending that I am far from what I really feel about playing my role – tedium. Such a miraculous twist of fate that they are gone when I need them outside. By the time they return, I will have everything prepared.

I am tired of dreaming of the places we have been to. It is the sixth, no… the fifth house, oh, does it really matter? My expanding frustration has probably reached my brain. It is the third mansion, the one where I hear voices at night, calling me to wake up my sister who is obviously not here. I am completely sane, it is the house that is haunted and plays with my mind.

Reaching so far, I will not be deceived by something so amateurishly infantile. I search the kitchen and with a glorious grim I find a perfect knife. I cut my finger checking if it needs sharpening, yet it is perfectly deadly as it was waiting to serve me during my hunting. I will liberate my lover from the despicable and evil spirit who has been poisoning his heart, soul, and mind, forcing him to tell terrible lies to people who only cared about him. After it is done, both of us will find peace we were supposed to find much sooner, before this inhuman being lurks in my dearest’s precious body, mocking the love that has been growing between us.

I wait for the night, during which I, again, place myself hidden between shades and shadows. I watch my lover going to bed, the process of getting asleep with his breathing slowly deep-seating itself. However, I suddenly realize that an obstacle appeared about which I have not thought beforehand. The spot I was meant to hit to make him unconscious is positioned at the back of his head and since he is laying on his back, there is no way for me to reach it. I do not panic for I have been planning it precisely for half a year… It cannot be, I am here only three months. Surely, my sixth sense, which allowed me to see that evil spirit, is now giving me a glimpse into the future. Oh Heavens, let me finish this and proceed with my life as a decent, sane person should. Recalling my mind to order, I decide to bear the inconvenience and use a tape. I can congratulate myself for coming up with the idea so quickly. Somehow, the tape lies on the bedside cabinet as if it was a God’s hand, which put it there.

Not hesitating any longer, I reach for it, cut it with a knife, and place it on my lover’s lips. It would be impossible for him not to wake up even despite my ardent-fervent prayers. I ask God whether the ultimate punishment will be remembering the look he gave me when he realized my doing.

39 The WASP

Marta Pytka “Are you insane, woman?” I imagine him mutter with a strangled voice, with an exception that I don’t, he really says so. I feel the heat creeping up my veins, giving me a warning. I will not let the evil spirit treat me as I do not deserve it. I am perfectly, entirely, thoroughly SANE! I shout in my thoughts, however, remaining calm outside.

“You are not yourself my love.” I show him the knife, aware that it will scare him more, yet, I try to tell him with my eyes that there is no other way to free him from that parasite. Not once have I doubted my cause until now, as I noticed my head spinning again. I shut my eyes trying to get rid of some sonorous, deafening tone ringing in my ears. Am I losing my focus? Did this spirit find the way to possess me too?

“Silent, my dear, it is that vicious spirit talking. He sheltered himself right there.” I continue talking, having my sight compelled on the knife now pressed steadily on his chest. “He is aware that I will cut him out of you that is why he tries to…” I drag the blade gently from the chest up to the neck suddenly thrusting it in the shoulder. “…escape. I know you would feel him moving if you focused enough.”

I blink quickly a few times. My head is spinning and the walls of the common room are vanishing. After a second, everything comes back to its place. My lover is shivering, probably biting his tongue under the tape, and trying to block the pain. I rip the tape off to taste him before the evil being notices an escaping spot. I admit I was a little selfish stealing that kiss because I predicted before he would take his last chance of liberation. It takes three moves to block his way. Firstly, I stop the kiss, then, take the knife out of my lover’s shoulder, and finally, with one smooth attempt, I stab it straight into his wide open, ready to scream, mouth. I look at the clock noticing that somehow the hour hand reached six in the morning. I turn my eyes to my half dead lover whose body still agonizes in convulsion. With a prayer on my lips I do one last slash in his heart, hearing a piercing screech of a dying evil spirit.

After hiding the body under the floorboards, I lay back on my dear’s bed experiencing sudden relief. I am finally free from the wickedness I ripped through his heart so it could no longer proceed with poisoning any human being. Tears are welling up again in my eyes ready to make an intense downpour. I do not recognize whether those are tears of alleviation or sorrow, however, my lips cannot help themselves. They make space for my throat to obtain a sound not so much suitable for the situation – distressful laughter.

All of a sudden I hear steps. It is impossible for anyone to be awake at this hour. I glimpse at the clock once more to make sure I did not make a mistake. It was six, it is nine now. Fear is so immediate and pained that it snaps me to instant alertness. “Could I have fallen asleep for three hours?” I ask myself calculating what might have happened. Where the hell is the 40 Volume II Fall 2015

Banished into Oblivion sound of the steps coming from if the mansion does not have any stairs?!

Have I not murdered the evil spirit properly and he dares to play with me after I finally felt at ease?! I grab a knife, lift floorboards up, and tearing myself up I start to stab every inch of my lover’s body that the wicked parasite could conceal.

“Jesus Christ Joan! Wake up!” I feel someone shaking my shoulders with a strength that could be considered violent. I blink a couple of times finally noticing my sister’s face. I look around searching for the clock.

It’s nine.

I woke up – half a year after he had left me.

I have never murdered him or the evil spirit.

I sit on the bed losing the certainty of my sanity.

I realize I will never find them so for the first time…

I scream.

Aloud.

Lord, help my poor soul.

– Edgar Allan Poe

41 The WASP

Anonymous

42 The WASP - Volume II Fall 2015

Yours Faithlessly

43 The WASP

44 Volume II Fall 2015

#Love at the Time of Cholera Imran Hossain

Once upon a time my dear May be the time that we miss nowadays A lot of people used to die from cholera!

Now, they say The disease has been taken care of With a simple drop of science!

And you believed it Because they made you want to do so So that the belief can fill up the void!

But the scenario is now even worse More people get killed More than they used to die More than the days and nights We used to love at the time of cholera!

45 The Wasp

*** Adrian Wesołowski

My beloved philosopher Bald, thin, with face so elastic Asks how one should enjoy pleasure in an appropriate way

And so I wonder And between rough thoughts I see us again

I possess you frequently; soft and wanting Your eyes say that you would like it so much To be closer

In a snow I hold your hand, and you wouldn't ever want this to stop

You cuddle me, laying nearby We spend whole time together, so much time You could have given up everything for me Almost everything

Your eyes are shaking when I'm leaving

You laugh in the most happiest way and kiss me tender We laugh together You say you adore talking with me

You are scared, yet you shakily want me

46 Volume II Fall 2015

Adrian Wesołowski - *** You say "I love". You love.

You smell of sex and love

But - what if? what then?

You stop holding my hand, when someone is around Someone you know too well Or not too well Someone could have seen and pass the news What if? What then?

You bond your leg with mine in a way so elastic

My beloved philosopher Uses the word "stasiasthic" Which I do not understand

47 The WASP

CONTRIBUTORS: Aleksandra Kamińska - earned her MA at American Studies Center and is now a student at Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw. Her interests include graphic novels, American postmodernism, and images of girlhood.

Aleksandra Chodecka – student of ASC, graduate of law from University of Warsaw, fan of Bruce Springsteen, interested in American society, especially in life in American metropolis.

Dominika Grotek - most of her interests come and go in waves, and she can definitely say that she is interested in a bit of everything. But to give you some hints: she loves zombies and music (rap and deep house). Also, she is into dead lifts and YouTube.

Aleksandra Borowa - New Yorker at heart, temporarily misplaced in Warsaw (not admitting to being a Carrie Bradshaw wannabe). Lover of American and Russian literature, also Joyce and Murakami. Art history junkie. Inveterate tea drinker and book addict. Currently writing short stories, and hoping to become a journalist/writer.

Dominika Kowalska - in her spare time she plans a revolution, fights for women and minority rights, writes stories, and drinks coffee at midnight.

Marta Pytka - 2nd year student at ASC who does not give up on trying to embrace Korean Studies as her second faculty. Deeply convinced that the most effective time for a creative process of writing comes along with Spanish exams. She puts her interests inside a box of surprises and bets which gets picked: AsianAmericans, Assimilation Theories, Salem Trials History or Science Fiction mixed with Korean Dramas.

Imran Hossain - student of American Studies Center. Received his 1st MA in Literature from Jahangirnagar University. An observer of emotions; likes to see beyond the edges and express "tranquility" through prose and verse.

Adrian Wesołowski - long-loved collaborator of ASC and doctoral student in the Department of History of <<a very respectable university>>. Trying to keep up some not-boring characteristics of his profile, he has written a poem or two. Yet, on a daily basis his tedious past social patterns recognition is interrupted only by <<a trendy sport hobby>> and passionate reading of <<fancy names of hipster writers>>. One could say <<metaphor far too sophisticated for a byline>>.

48 Volume II Fall 2015