14

Literary Filters

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

—William Shakespeare

All critical interpretations of literature raise specific filters through which stories, poems, and songs are perceived. In relationship to trickster stories, it is important to keep in mind that these tales are often from preliterate oral traditions (and translated into English from oral accounts) and would traditionally have ranked as belonging to “low” culture (even though most in academia would reject that assessment now). The stories often deal with base bodily functions and overt sexual acts. Like most myths, they don’t make logical sense, even though there may be a “Why” story included (such as why bear lost his tail, or why men have a penis). In myths, the usual rules of daily life don’t have to be followed—the dead don’t have to stay dead for example. The following critical perspectives have both determined what texts were allowed into the literary canon (and taught at universities), and these theories have also created a historical body of meaning for texts. For this reason, I want to touch on some important critical positions over the last century that have had a large role in defining the nature and meaning of literature, and the validity of trickster tales as art worthy or not of critical commentary.

New Criticism (coming before Structuralism, arising in the 1920s and prominent through the 1960s) was itself a reaction against previous literary criticism that was seen as too subjective and lacking intellectual vigor. In trying to capture a more systematic method for evaluating literary works (once again, we see the constant attempt to ground literary studies in science), the founders of New Criticism developed what they saw as unbiased criteria from which to assess literature. Literature was to be examined through a “close reading” of the text alone, with everything outside the text, such as biography, history, culture deemed irrelevant. Attention to technique, and unity of effect, was called for, which was allegorically revealed in the title of Cleanth Brooks’s treatise The Well-Wrought Urn. Literary art was to be constructed in the same way as a well-wrought urn should be—with symmetry, oppositional tensions, and aesthetic balance—and judged according to these properties. (No attention need be paid to who made the urn or for what purpose it was to be used.) New Criticism was a kind of formalism, in that the main critique and aesthetic concern had to do with formal properties. But in terms of analyzing trickster tales, New Criticism doesn’t work. For the most part, these stories were told in cultures in which there was no word or concept for art. Authorship is usually not part of the mindset of storytellers, and there is nothing wrong when multiple versions of stories exist between storytellers who live right next to each other. The tales were not crafted with the design elements of New Criticism in mind and do not often follow such things as symmetry of design or balance that New Criticism saw as essential to art.

New Criticism focuses upon each art object but was replaced overall by Structuralism, which focuses upon larger categories. Structuralism itself was replaced by Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction, terms that stand for a loosely aligned set of theories that saw Structuralism as supporting power elites. The French theorists Derrida, Lacon, Barthes, and Foucalut argued that language itself evaded “all systems and logics” with a “‘continual flickering, spilling and defusing of meaning,’” called by Derrida, “‘dissemination’—which cannot be easily contained with categories to the text’s structure, or within the categories of a conventional critical approach to it.”1 Ronald Barthes believed that any suggestion that language signs were natural was a sham, authoritarian, and ideological. The trickster figure, because of his distaste of power and his flexible nature, became a popular character for those in these camps. New Criticism held firm that there were empirical differences between high and low culture—Art/art, as did Frye within Structuralism (academia was always supposed to be concerned with high culture, as it was the role of the studied critic to interpret the literary “jewels”). But from the viewpoint of Deconstruction, language itself was seen as arbitrary, and the assertions of New Critics and Structuralists seemed completely indefensible. Trickster was a product of “low” culture, yet that did not mean he was not intriguing, entertaining, or an artistic creation. Postmodernist thinking revealed that the techniques of any critical approach could be applied to any work of art or to any artifact of culture, and any slotting of high or low was always a biased political act of categorization. This allowed for a reinterpretation of what “literature” is, for if the designation of literary itself was a political stance based on class and power; there was certainly no scientific validity to the process of privileging some texts over others. This led to a great opening up, for now the “literary canon” could no longer be justified in excluding texts of women, minorities, and oral cultures, for anything from a trickster tale from an illiterate tribe to a shopping list could be examined through creative acts of interpretation. This revelation had a profound (and I would say positive) affect on the academy, even though the overall affect of Deconstruction turned out to be an insane rejection of science.

The other dominant critical theory in the study of literature, since the 1970s, has been feminist theory, of which numerous branches have developed. Overall, feminist theory, arising during the same time period as Post-Structuralism, initially rejected the deconstructive approach of the French theorists, for Deconstruction did not include the “body,” did not account for the experience of interacting with texts—emotion and feeling. The feminist movement showed that the perspective of women, their voices, their stories, literary production, and interpretation of literature, had been largely eliminated from the male-dominated academy and canon, and feminist theory rightfully set about to change that. Not only were many female literary voices resurrected, there was also a reinterpretation of all texts, male and female, from feminist perspectives. Feminism brought to light prejudice as well as the horrific and dominate patterns of male violence against women in societies around the world, which put feminism in conflict with male-dominated fundamentalist traditions worldwide. It was against broad misogynistic thinking that various streams of feminist literary criticism were born, and these eventually fractured into various “schools,” a few different strains of which follow:

Liberal feminism, starting in the eighteenth century, takes the stance that “no special privileges for women [should be given] and demand[s] that everyone receive equal consideration without discrimination on the basis of sex.”2 Socialist feminism, is in stark contrast to liberal feminism, and sees “all knowledge as socially constructed and emerging from practical human involvement in production that takes a definite historic form.”3 African-American feminism comes from the position that race is the greatest oppressor, and rejects the individualism of liberal feminism as well as the Marxist assumption that class is at the heart of power struggles.4 Socialist feminism is in stark contrast to liberal feminism, and sees “all knowledge as socially constructed and emerging from practical human involvement in production that takes a definite historic form.”5 Essentialist feminism takes the position that men and women are biologically different (based upon Darwinism). In the late 1800s, followers of this branch believed women to be inferior to men in some respects but superior in others. Contemporary followers of essentialist feminism have altered this to the belief that “biologically based differences between the sexes might imply superiority and power for women in some arenas.”6 Many feminist critics, however, have rejected Darwinian theory, including evolutionary psychology and biology, as it applies to differences between genders, for they see science itself as upholding traditional male prejudices against women. Some have joined in the Deconstructive belief that science itself is just another myth. As the work in cognitive science and evolutionary biology and psychology has become more dominant, this is changing in some quarters. Essentialist feminism, with its belief in the female mind being different than the male, has led to reinterpretations of the way science is conducted, while still believing overall in science. For instance, from this perspective such a question as this can be asked: Would Jane Goodall’s ground-breaking, patient work with chimpanzees, taking place over decades, have ever been initiated by a man? Or are some kinds of research, approaches, even questions themselves, different when originating in the minds of women and men? Essentialists would answer yes. (Matt Ridley, in The Red Queen, objects, saying that “there is a contradiction at the heart of most feminism—or, one that few feminists have acknowledged. You cannot say, first, that men and women are equally capable of all jobs, and second, that if jobs were done by women, they would be done differently.”7)Radical feminism also sees most forms of knowledge as male-based, and therefore suspect.

Queer Studies came about from various other branches of feminist critique uniting, giving a positive voice to homosexuality, both male and female, as well as to all forms of sexual preference, taking a libertine stance, while also taking on the study of cultural reactions to sexuality. Queer studies, and its feminist links, have been one of the few feminist factions to embrace evolution and cognitive science, as science has continually shown that sexual preference is, in most cases, unlikely to be a matter of choice, but of biology—taking the stain of religious-based “sin” away from non-monogamous and homosexual acts.

As we have seen, Tricksters and Trickstars can be viewed in numerous ways, depending upon the theoretical lens from which one observes them. That Trickster often changes sex could be seen as inclusive to those in Queer studies, allowing androgyny, homosexuality, and transgenderism openly into narrative. But other feminists see Trickster as an abomination, another oppressive expression of male dominance. To Essentialists, a Darwinian view is accepted; to many Feminists, however, the Darwinian view contradicts social constructionist theory, that it is culture that shapes our lives, not genes, and feminism was founded upon 1960s ideals that males and females were different only because of society’s instruction, not genes.

Cultural Studies and Semiotics (where much Trickster scholarship resides), are critical areas that combine elements of Post-Modernism, Post-Structuralism, and Deconstruction, with the focus usually being upon the question of how texts exist within larger cultural concepts of ideology, nationality, ethnicity, and the distribution of power. In semiotics, the interpretation of symbols, or signs, allows the researcher to mine below the surface of imagery and assess unconscious psychological motives and cultural signifiers not readily apparent on the surface (interestingly enough, also a Structuralist goal).

Cognitive Narrative Theory (as my own inquiry entails) takes scientific gleanings from neuroscience and biology on how the brain works to examine language, texts, and story structure. Literature is examined for insights into the cognitive and evolutionary processes they might reveal.

There are others modes of literary interpretation of course, but the study of Trickster has been impacted in numerous ways by all of the theoretical positions discussed. Trickster was interpreted as a Jungian “archetype”; seen as evidence of Structuralist validity; embraced by Post-Structrualism and Deconstruction for his liminal quality (the fact that he can shape-shift and change form, inhabiting numerous environments with multiple meanings, simultaneously, in the same way that language is seen to be constantly in flux without core meaning). Trickster has been seen in some feminist camps as representing the nightmare of male excess and penetration, while other feminists see the male trickster as a kind of cautionary tale, warning females of men’s motives and desires, while the Trickstar, the female version of Trickster, has been perceived as a champion who often prevails through greater wit and intelligence, through subverting the world of men. Cultural Studies scholars often use the trickster archetype to explain the existence of comedic and rebellious characters from I Love Lucy to The Simpsons to Wile E. Coyote. Semiotics writers revel in Trickster as signifying multiple perspectives that are dynamic and in constant flux, while Deconstructionists (and Marxists) will also see in Trickster a political force who is continually challenging the status quo, turning the tables on the rich and powerful, on hierarchy itself. For a Cognitive Narrative Analysis, the workings of the brain are sought after through examining ways in which language and stories are created and transferred to the community: Trickster is seen here as a manifestation that allows us a glimpse into both our current and ancient selves rooted in the biological process of evolution.