[Spring 9 (2000):125-131]
Three emblems in the cell receive particular attention and gain a life of their own, capturing the essence of what Cummings will find in the Enormous Room; their importance is emphasized since C identifies them as friends—"My friends:the silhouette and la lune,not counting Ça Pue, whom I regarded almost as a part of me" (The Enormous Room 21). Each of these provides C with a sense of companionship and foreshadows some of the wonderful people whom he will encounter in the Enormous Room. La lune (the moon) does not represent one of the Delectable Mountains, but it is nonetheless a significant reference to four prostitutes in the Enormous Room who demonstrate a determination to live in the midst of hardship; while their bodies are defeated, they refuse to surrender their souls. The silhouette (the rat) is Zulu; he embodies the essence of IS through his friendship. Ça Pue is the Christ-figure, Surplice; covered with excrement, he is a sacrifice, taking upon his own person the filth and stench of those around him.
Looking out of the small window in the cell, C notices the moon, and as he looks at it he is moved to sing: "I sang a song the ‘dirty Frenchmen’ taught us,mon ami et moi. The song says Bon soir,Madame la Lune . . . . I did not sing [end page 125] out loud,simply because the moon was like a mademoiselle,and I did not want to offend the moon" (The Enormous Room 21). The distinction that Cummings makes between Madame and mademoiselle is significant, for Madame not only suggests a married woman, but also a prostitute; mademoiselle, on the contrary, suggests a single woman, a virgin. This distinction echoes the contrast made between les putains (whores) and les femmes honnêtes in the Enormous Room; the former were arrested for practicing prostitution in the war zone and the latter were the wives of some of the men who were imprisoned at La Ferté (The Enormous Room 60). Significantly, following through with his desire to eliminate stereotypical and prejudicial viewpoints that feed the need for conformity, Cummings destroys these distinctions in the portrayal of The Machine Fixer, who initially holds strong convictions about the differences in character between prostitutes and honest women. However, like C, The Machine Fixer is lastingly affected by the heroism demonstrated by les putains, causing him to reconsider his oversimplified moral categories. It is this breakdown of signification that parallels C's hesitation to sing the song out loud. The moon is not fully defined in the character of Madame; its brilliance belies such a constricting definition. [1]
The moon, then, is an emblem of the women found in the Enormous Room,
particularly four prostitutes whom Cummings fully develops and who demonstrate
the struggles and triumphs of life itself. The most memorable of the four,
though, is Celina Tek. Significantly, Thomas Linehan explains that the
name "Celina" is derived from Selena, the Greek goddess of the moon, evoking
the connection with "Madame la Lune" (Linehan 48-49). [2]
Celina is described as "fearlessly alive," demonstrating a sheer determination
to live; she is "a kinesis"—she is action personified. Perhaps the most
incredible exhibition of strength and courage described by Cummings is
her refusal to allow her spirit to be broken. The four women—Lily, Renée,
Lena, and Celina—were in cabinot (isolation from the other inmates)
together and were being so loud that the guards feared that the Director
would be disturbed by the noise. To avoid confrontation, they sealed the
cracks in the doors with mats and lit them, waiting to see the results.
Soon afterwards, the women began screaming that one of them was dead, so
the guards finally opened the door and the women emerged, and in one of
the clouds of smoke stood Celina, "erect and tense and beautiful as an
angel . . . [she] stood, triumphantly and colossally young" (The Enormous
Room 124). Here, she stands in the presence of the Director, Apollyon
himself,
The death to which Cummings refers is not so much physical death
as it is the death of the soul. Celina Tek's spirit would not be destroyed;
she might have been [end page 126] physically beaten and destroyed,
but her soul would live on. In the face of such grandeur of spirit, even
the threat of physical death has no power. Raised from the stature of whores,
these women take their place among the truly alive who are the models with
which Cummings presents his readers.
C evokes the presence of another significant figure by leaving a piece of chocolate on the windowsill: "As I lay on my back,a little silhouette came along the sill and ate that piece of a piece,taking something like four minutes to do so. He then looked at me,I then smiled at him,and we parted,each happier than before" (The Enormous Room 18). The presence of this rat is comforting to C, who later hears but cannot see his newfound friend. This description of the rat anticipates the description of the Zulu, who demonstrates true friendship to both C and B, as well as a few others.
The Zulu's modesty and shyness, according to C, cause him to bestow
gifts upon his friends by unique means. He cannot bring himself to give
the gifts outright; rather, he prefers that they not seem like gifts at
all, in essence making the recipient less uncomfortable upon receiving
the gifts. For example, Zulu gives C and B some money to buy cheese, chocolate,
and other items from the canteen of La Ferté. Rather than allowing
them to give him the goods, Zulu insists that they keep them for him. As
C recalls, however, Zulu had an interesting way of asking for a nibble
of his purchase:
Likewise, Zulu is described as ephemeral and always unobtrusive—he
did not walk off, he "floated off." It is almost as if the quiet shadow
of the rat from C's cell were re-embodied in this man who painstakingly
desires to repay C for his earlier kindness.
The Zulu represents an ideal that Cummings establishes for himself and
for his readers, and we get a hint as to his significance in the title
of the chapter that focuses on him. Spelled "Zoo-loo," rather than "Zulu"
as in the text, the title stands out, puzzling the reader. However, once
C explains how he and B chose the name, the significance begins to come
clear. They chose the name Zulu "partly because he looks like what I have
never seen,partly because the sounds somehow relate to his personality
and partly because they seemed to please him" (The Enormous Room
168). The second reason, the sound of the name, provides a clue as to the
full significance of the name itself, for the title of the chapter is the
name spelled phonetically. In an essay entitled "The Secret of the Zoo
Exposed," Cummings discusses the significance of the animals in the zoo,
but he is careful to point out that most misinterpret the word zoo: [end
page 127]
The notion of "living" defined above best suits the character of
Zulu (Zoo-loo), for Cummings describes him early on as an IS, a form of
the verb "to be," to live, reiterated in Cummings’ paraphrase of Hamlet.
Living, for Cummings, includes, among other things, the manner in which Zulu bestows gifts; it is also evident in his concern over a young friend whose desire to impress the girls gets him beat-up more than once; it is perhaps most evident in his kindness to Orange Cap, who is friendless and lonely except for Zulu's kindness. Thus, more than chocolate and cheese, Cummings explains that Zulu gave "that Something whose discovery was worth to me more than all the round and powerless money of the world . . ." —himself, as a friend (The Enormous Room 184).
Even before he encounters the rat or la lune, C finds himself in the presence of something at once revolting and yet at the same time something quite friendly. He finds in the can located next to the window a "new human turd" that he names Ça Pue. After a short period, C admits that he regards Ça Pue with "complete friendliness" (The Enormous Room 20). One of the key reasons for this is that it gives C a sense of companionship; it is an indication of humanity, that he is not alone--as signified by Cummings’ own comparison with the single footprint in Robinson Crusoe. And, C's developing understanding of filth and the way that Cummings develops a relationship between filth and divinity—as explained in David Smith's article—create a relationship between Ça Pue and Surplice. Smith argues that Cummings turns the scatological imagery in The Enormous Room on itself, creating godliness that corresponds to filth. He claims that Cummings uses ". . . images of the erotic, urinary, and excremental to symbolize the most precious mysteries of Christian brotherhood" (124). The human turd that Cummings finds in his cell at Noyon, then, can be seen as a symbol of Surplice, who is described both in name and in deed as a Christ-figure, despite his infatuation with—or, perhaps, tolerance of—human feces.
The name "Surplice" has great significance, for inasmuch as it is the
robe of a priest, it is also in the garment of this lowly man that Christ
makes his appearance. Surplice is the embodiment of the love of Christ,
and this is demonstrated in the role that he plays in the Enormous Room,
for he provides the other prisoners with a scapegoat—even as Christ was—on
whom they can load all of their anxiety and fears. Cummings notes: [end
page 128]
Jeffery Walsh points out that by taunting Surplice and making him
do the menial tasks in the Enormous Room, the other inmates are actually
degrading themselves "by imitating the actions of their own oppressors"
(Walsh 40). But in the Enormous Room, these men have a sacrificial lamb
who is not only their sacrifice, but a willing one, who desires to take
their inadequacies upon his own back and bear them to make their lives
more bearable. For it is especially in the face of such misery that men
need to purge themselves of their inadequacies in order to survive.
In spite of the way the others treat him, Surplice always demonstrates a true interest in their lives. C points out that for Surplice, "of nobody can he say My Friend, of no one has he ever said or will he ever say My Enemy" (The Enormous Room 186). And to demonstrate this, Surplice always shows interest in those who leave the walls of La Ferté. No matter who they are, he is always anxious to know if they are going free or if they are going on to Précigné for the duration of the war. He is always pleased at news of the former and disappointed at news of the latter. He is concerned about all and wants them all to be free. This is the embodiment of Christ’s unconditional love.
That love is significant to Cummings' aesthetics is demonstrated in
an essay that he wrote as the foreword to a book celebrating the cartoon
Krazy
Kat. It is the ability to truly love that distinguishes Krazy for Cummings,
who sees her as a "living ideal" because of her love:
In spite of every attempt Ignatz makes to spoil her love, Krazy
continues to love. To love in this manner, as Krazy does, one must have
achieved "perfect selfhood," according to Friedman. Only one who can "give
freely, only a true individual can love." Unless one has complete faith
in himself, he cannot truly love because he needs the person he loves to
give him this faith; love, then, becomes a commodity for exchange, and
this is ‘love,’ not Love. Real love, Friedman continues, "makes no demands,
asks for no rewards, does not seek for control, and covets no possession"
(51-52).
This is precisely the kind of love that Surplice demonstrates toward his fellow prisoners. Surplice, as George Peek states, is an "ideal of goodness, an ideal sadly neglected in the modern world. Surplice suffers so that others might ease their burden of existence; he suffers so that others might live--greater love hath no man" (Peek 59). Playing the fool, he is the target of the metaphoric bricks of the other inmates' jeers and ridicule. But like Krazy, he continues to love and care for each of them, always interested in whether they are going free or going to another prison. Inasmuch as Krazy becomes an icon for Cummings' understanding of pure love, Surplice becomes its embodiment in the Enormous Room.
Concluding his essay on Krazy Kat, Cummings states, "Krazy Kat—who,
with every mangled word and murdered gesture, translates a mangling and
murdering world into Peace and Good Will—is the only original and authentic
revolutionary protagonist" (328). If this is true, then Cummings has created
another, perhaps not now original, revolutionary protagonist in Surplice—and
in Celina Tek and Zulu. And the end result of each of their actions is
precisely the goal that Cummings himself hopes to achieve in his works,
to create a world of Peace and Good Will by eliminating all of the prejudices
that exist. Thus, through these three encounters¾these
emblems¾C is initiated into the secrets
of what it is to truly live, to be Alive, to be an IS. C may not fully
understand the significance of these emblems when he leaves Noyon, but
they point him in the right direction; they provide him with clues for
finding those who can show him the way to full self-understanding and vitality,
the Delectable Mountains. Like Christian, he now has the key to understanding
the ideals that make up such a Romantic vision of the world and the individual;
more than this, he has been introduced to what is in store for him in the
Enormous Room.
[end page 130]
[1] In a letter to his sister, Cummings writes: "#(1) for Christ’s sake,this
is utterly important—it is the entire secret to being alive: NEVER
TAKE ANYONE’S WORD FOR ANYTHING." He follows this up with a practical example:
"A)e.g. I am taught to believe that prostitutes
are to be looked down on. Before believing that,I will,unless Iamafraid
to do it,make the following experiment:I will talk
with,meet on terms of perfect equality,without in the slightest attempting
to persuade,a prostitute. Through my own eyes and ears a verdict will arrive,which
is the only verdict for me in the entire world—unless I take somebody’s
word for something,which(because I desire to be alive)I do not" (Selected
Letters 84; 85-86).
[2] Linehan focuses specifically on the fact that the name evokes divine, goddess-like implications but does not relate Celina to the moon mentioned in the Noyon episode.
Cummings, E. E. The Enormous Room. Ed. George James Firmage. New York: Liveright, 1978.
---. "A Foreword to Krazy." E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany Revised, Ed. George J. Firmage. New York: October House, 1965. 323-328.
---. "The Secret of the Zoo Exposed." E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany Revised, Ed. George J. Firmage. New York: October House Inc., 1965. 174-178.
Dupee, F. W. and George Stade. eds. Selected Letters of E. E. Cummings. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1969.
Friedman, Norman. "The Meaning of Cummings." E. E. Cummings: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Norman Friedman. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1972. 46-59
Linehan, Thomas. "Style and Individuality in E. E. Cummings’ The Enormous Room." Style 13.1 (1979): 45-59.
Peek, George S. "The Narrator as Artist and the Artist as Narrator: A Study of E. E. Cummings' The Enormous Room." Forum 17.4 (1976): 50-60.
Smith, David. "The Enormous Room and The Pilgrim’s Progress." E. E. Cummings: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Norman Friedman. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972. 121-132.
Walsh, Jeffrey. "The Painful Process of Unthinking: E. E. Cummings' Social Vision in The Enormous Room." The First World War in Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Holger Klein. London: Macmillan, 1976. 32-42.
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