(Disclaimer: This paper is largely unfinished and is just as much a reader response as an analysis of two forms. I do not have the time to do a deep reading of all the texts necessary- which would include Jung and more Frye as well as writings by Wolfe, Capote, and many others to get certain facts correct. However, I think that I may make some good points.)The New Mythology
“Well when I had thus put mine ends together, I shew'd them others that I might see whether they would condemn them, or them justifie, and some said, let them live, some, let them die; some said, John, print it; others said, Not so; Some said it might do good, others said, No.”
-The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
“In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and the deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.”
-Excerpt from the introduction of the first printing of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
The mode of the Bible, as described by Northrop Frye, is one of Kerygma, or the balancing space between Proclamation and Revelation. Through the interplay of these two modes, the writers of the Bible avoided the abject moralizing of pure mythology while only tangentially serving the purpose of the historical. Extending past the three steps of literacy as outlined by Frye earlier in The Great Code, The Bible is a text out of time that has an awareness of its own intertextuality yet doesn't become suspended in its own symbols and narratives such that it exists outside of the people who wrote it. It can be used as an illustrative text of history that contains enough detail and parallel to it resemble a history, and enough firman to make it a legal document, however, it would never mistaken as either. I believe that this parallels the rhetorical mode of New Journalism, and by treating the former as Kerygma and the latter as literature, I will present a relationship between the two.
The Bible is the western world's seminal mythological text. Its modes, images, and symbols are adopted by and referenced in thousands of other texts. It has also directly influenced the world itself to a greater degree than any other work. As a subject of history, its influence is boundless. Considered as a literary work, the bible is a rich bastion of experience and story. It is in this literary consideration that many of the bible's indirect influences are found.
The indirect societal influence of the Bible is far too expansive for systematic categorization. Every day, its influence is felt. However, its rhetorical influence is rarely considered in day-to-day discourse. One form of day-to-day discourse, Journalism, has become a ubiquitous influence on humanity. In modern society, it shapes perception and has taken on a rhetorical styling of its own, one that assumes and pursues objectivity. Recently, this styling has been questioned by media theorists and participants such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. Their efforts to analyze and react to the changing demands of society on media have given birth to the field of New Journalism.
At the head of this movement is the novelist, Truman Capote whose magnum opus, In Cold Blood changed the journalistic landscape by melding fiction and reportage. Oft criticized for its authenticity, I seek instead to use this text as a model of the Bible's rhetorical mode of Kerygma, treating the good book as a mythological master text to Capote's storytelling. The two texts' parallels in rhetoric, symbols, and narrative will hopefully illustrate the mode of new journalistic writing as a close cousin to the old mythological styling.
In Cold Blood was famous for its blending of ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ a thing that elicited both derision and admiration from Capote’s readers. Similarly, The Bible also blends ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ in its rendering of stories. However, the differences between the two are easily identified. Similarities are more interesting and many of the similarities in the two works go to the very effect that they create.
Simply equating the subjective tendencies of New Journalism to mythology would be a mistake. Mythology, as a classification, has a distinct purpose of recounting the experience of the living in as many realms as possible. This is only one of the functions of Journalism. Likewise, Kerygma transcends mythology, including langage which enacts laws, draws comparisons, and furthers a metaphysical discourse past the metaphors of the biblical stories from which they are drawn.
Northrop Frye characterizes Kerygma as a linguistic category between proclamation and revelation. Usually associated with the Gospels, Frye generalizes the concept for the entire Bible citing that the lyrical and linguistic difference between the Gospels and the rest of the Bible are minimal. He urges us to consider the rhetorical mode for its two aspects, concern and metaphor. These two elements are the things which set the bible apart from simple existence as either pure Metaphorical, Metynomic, or Demotic modes. In Kerygma is a complex interaction of imagery, metaphor, language, and narrative. Extrapolating upon Frye's original concept, it is also the tendency for the Bible to use literary aspects to outline complex moral and philosophic concepts while making said discussion neither the intent nor purpose of the story.
Job is a god fearing man and a small scale landowner who has a family and spends his time at humble pursuits. Yet, he is punished for crimes unspoken. Later, his friends come to him in order to convince Job to repent for his sins. However, their arguments are prudential, repent and be forgiven, whereas the God's actual intent is for Job to engage in a complex moral and philosophical introspection. This clashes with the end of the story where Job is rewarded for his suffering, seemingly undermining the philosophical discussions which occurred earlier.
Within this story is the basis for a complex discussion of morality, the will of God, and justice while also granting the simplified, more prudential, wisdom that people must maintain their faith even in the heart of darkness. However, the language also grants a story in which the reader may project their own experiences upon the text. While one interpretation states that “all is vanity” thus drawing a distinct line between the physical and divine, the next seems to say that God rewards fealty and that suffering is a test. This is another defining trait of Kerygma which is its literary use of common and contradictory metaphors to personalize a story, reflecting a kind of “poetic dissidence” that allows for a multitude of interpretations while also granting the contradicting elements against those interpretations.
It is a common mistake for readers of nonfiction to mistake the words of the text as direct truth. If it says tree, the image is tree. If the story talks of a house, the house is a house is a house. There is little consideration to the composite of the words, the images. All writing establishes an edifice in the reader’s mind where characters or concepts interact. In fiction this edifice is always under question, the poetics and reasons for a character’s placement or dialogue in a story are packets that can be considered for their very location in the text. In non-fiction it is assumed that those packets are arranged in such a manner that they simulate reality and retell a story. This is not the case. The writer of nonfiction places characters and ideas in a story map just as meticulously as a fiction writer, doing so to create an effect, often one that is just as varied from the reality or actual happening as an account considered fictional.
Consideration of words themselves and their effects and placement belongs to the literary. All writing has a poetic aspect and that poetic aspect reflects a desire to place life on page. This is the goal of the New Journalist, to bring life to a page and show what one thing is like, not, how it is. The former is attainable through craft, the latter: impossible. I believe all writing to be this way. Traditional Journalism, as a writing craft, is the struggle against this subjective style. New Journalism is its embracement. New Journalism’s demotic tendencies are balanced with metaphor and metonymy.
The Bible’s words, although metaphorical, sometimes describe a true occurrence in metaphorical terms. If a kingdom fell to god’s hand, it was a rival burning their capital to the ground. Frye claims that the demotic parts of Kerygma are few, however, if the entire bible, according to Frye, has a mythological bent, then where do non story books such as Leviticus fall into the rhetorical mode?
Within In Cold Blood’s prose is a mode of rhetoric that parallels the styling of Kerygma.
//I need to do a more analytical reading of In Cold Blood for this section… however I am very confident that the assertion stands…//
Mythological symbols are resilient memes that work their way into works thousands of years past their conception. For instance, in the House of the Fawn located in the lost city of Pompeii, a fresco of the guardian aspect, Priapus stands to scare away evil spirits. In Roman poetry, Priapus is a boastful soldier who threatens to sodomize to death the enemies of his wards. This character type inspired his anti-type: the Milas Gloriousis or the braggart soldier. The medieval playwrights of the thirteenth century used the Milas as a model in their writing of Herod, and In Paradise Lost, Milton portrays Satan with many of the same boastful characteristics. In more recent times, American westerns have adopted the anti-type, for instance, Stephen Crane's in The Blue Hotel, the character of the Swede is entranced by frontier myths and acts as a braggart while failing to live up to his claims. Although considered a realist, Crane used the literary archetype to illuminate the absurdities of the old west's impact on the other.
Cited as contradictory and confusing by the popular writer, David Plotz, the God of the Old Testament displays traits that could be concurrent with the Milas Gloriousis. Although capable of typological classification, God is a much more complicated figure than that.
In the Bible, God is neither a complete anthropomorphized legislator nor a pure avatar for order. He defies simple typology, a metaphor for an incorporeal truth that dictates understanding to reality’s murk. Paradoxically, God attains anima through writing, yet, in those writings, he only exists through an oral mythology. Only exposing his back to his witnesses, God becomes a symbol for the word whose influence is felt in even the most dry, dictatorial, sections of the good book. However, the defiance of typological analysis does not free the figure of that very thing, and the added aspects of divinity and symbolic verisimilitude may only serve to increase the usefulness of an archetypal and symbolic analysis of the figure.
God, in the Bible, represents order, he is a father figure, a patriarchal presence that has been the foundation of many a monarchy. Capote alludes to the father figure archetype as the primary catalyst for the Clutter family murders. He also draws upon the Milas Gloriousis for the character of Dick Hickock. He draws comparisons between Dick Hickock and Perry Smith’s upbringings which contrast with the idyllic Clutter household. Here he is outlining a conflict between two segments of society: those amongst fatherly stability and those whose fathers left.
Capote’s characters are psychologically sound as well as archetype-based. Jung was influenced by literature and the archetypal theories of Frye are based upon the interactions outlined by the psychologist. This alludes to deeper strands between literature and the humans it portrays. According to Frye, literature is the direct descendent of Mythology, and In Cold Blood contains more literature than most travel stories. Here, the lack of the father figure is shown to create a power dynamic between Hickock and Smith such that their inevitable act of murder was a product of a duo with an unstable past.
Although it would be easy to say, “that’s just how it was”, the fact remains that Truman Capote chose to focus on the fatherly dynamic and the masculine roles. This is a literary choice and it reflects a mind that, although not necessarily formally educated, is one that understands how the familial structure works, and also understands that the father figure, as a literary symbol, is a compelling one and thus is an aspect worth drawing from.
I think the patriarchal symbolism of the God-figure and the Christ-figure go without saying—that the culture which reads and bred the Capote work is heavily influenced by this male dynamic. A lack of either creates an imbalance for characters, a discomfort which, In In Cold Blood, leads to a burst of violence.
Though many of the congruence between the two works may be coincidental, the literary elements of Capote’s book seem to point to that unmistakable shared thread that all literature has. Whether the Bible influenced the scenes that Capote chose to highlight, the coincidences between the story of Esau and Jacob and the story of Hickock and Smith are undeniable.
When Esau received word of his brother’s deception, he was furious. Almost bursting into a homicidal rage, he was calmed after Rebecca sent Jacob away. Here, two brothers have a power dynamic based on a masculine figure which is actually influenced by a feminine one. The feminine mother, an archetype for the instrumentalist element of the family, both causes and assuages the situation. The masculine figures, in a constant struggle for power, are forced into a situation where loyalties are tested and blessings are the ultimate reward.
In the Capote piece, the interplay between Dick Hickock as the hyper masculine figure, and Perry as the masculine-feminine figure creates a power play similar to the story. Where Hickock limits his thinking to that of a single goal, Smith becomes the instrumentalist side of the relationship, and while aimed towards the same ends, his timidity seems to leave Smith as a side-kick or less powerful figure to Hickock. However his biblically feminine wit allows him hidden agency. At least this is how Capote portrays the two.
However, as the two approach the moment of instrumentality, where they meet the catalyst for their eventual demise, the masculine role becomes dominant as Hickock cajoles Smith into the robbery by emasculation (notably In Cold Blood seems to follow a 4 act structure: the set up for the climax, wherein the characters are introduced and the conflict, in this case the authority’s pursuit, is at the end of the first act, which goes out with the murders of the Clutters). This complete disempowering of the female aspect after its initial introduction leads to the murders, leaving one to ask, what would have happened if Rebecca had not stopped Esau’s fury?
Although a possible coincidence, it is also possible that literature draws from a wellspring of mythology and prior stories as well as basic human commonality. The breaking piece for the clutter murders spoke of the family, their murder, and the necessary details. Capote turned this into a story of power dynamic and gender-play. By introducing literary (and possibly biblical) elements, he managed to create a psychologically sound representation of two killers. His creation of a portrayal of two murderers that is empathetic at most and impartial at worst undermines the prudential morality that killers are inhuman while introducing a complex discussion of what makes a killer. This is a piece of “poetic dissidence” that also shows characteristics of the Kerygmatic modes: specifically, the inversion of expectation characteristic of the parables.
Similar to archetypal symbols, there exist archetypal narratives in the Bible. Built from ‘divine’ inspiration, the biblical narrators created narrative types that are in use, and are referenced by more recent writings as well as other bible stories. As well as being foundational elements in the creation of antitypes, the model narratives provide thematic similarities that, like archetypal symbols, are useful to later writers.
In the Cain and Abel narrative, God bestows to Cain a mark which protects him as he moves throughout the world. This is after Cain has slain his younger brother. The story of Cain and Abel presents a model narrative, the narrative of an empathetic fugitive, where justice becomes a grey area and the just, possible villains.
The entire book of In Cold Blood creates sympathy for the devil. From its portrayal of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock as fatherless wanderers to the Clutter’s degenerating hold on the American Dream, the interactions between the murderers, the victims, and the indirect participants suggest an outlook that once again questions the common assumptions about morality and justice brought by the reader. It educates ( a type of revelation) while asking for reconsideration (another component of revelation) ultimately, having a moral intent of its own (proclamatory) that is done through story (a characteristic of the Gospels).
We live in a time of revelation. The fog which has beset mankind for much of its development has lifted. Fields stretch into the distance, stopping at snow capped peaks whose dire precipices intimidate the soul. The hypertextuality of the internet and the mass consciousness cultivated by other forms of global media have allowed us to gaze upon the full enormity of the world. A metaphor of exploration: we stand upon a summit. We witness our accomplishments and the full value of our minds. However, with elucidation comes the realization of our own ignorance. In all its splendor, our vast psychic landscape itself creates a new kind of fog. The magnanimity of knowing stands to remind us of our everyday myopia. Here, a point of view becomes a prejudice and an opinion, a bigotry. With great information comes a need for consideration, but more importantly, with great information comes the responsibility, not just to self and family but also to society, to reconsider how our actions shape our future, our present, and our conceptions of past.
Tied to the acquisition of knowledge is the questioning of truth. In a society where citizens become journalists and law acquiesces to circumstance, the written word holds sway over the land. We also live in a time of proclamation.
Writing is the defiance of temporality. Many have suffered under this assumption. However, as many literary critics have reminded us, there are no right readings, only a collection of interpretive variations, and these variations are products of the very temporality writing supposedly undermines. Time changes meaning, so meaning is a shifting thing; our pretensions to understanding come from a misunderstanding of permanence.
This misunderstanding has created a hierarchical valuing of written words and has also colored how people consume media. This following ranking mirrors the epochs of literacy outlined by Northrop Frye, however, they are perceived media designators, not an associative linking of forms with Frye's theory. Based on a criteria of veracity, at the top of the hierarchy is descriptive writing, manifested in journalism and nonfiction. Under that, is literature which supposedly takes from subjective and moralistic sources. On the “bottom” is the mythological, which, under common definition, equates to complete fabrication. Texts are considered under this strict ranking and their relevance to everyday life is dictated by their proximity to “reality” or an agreed upon set of integers which are assumed to exist outside of interpretive communities. Just as the novel in Victorian times was considered a distraction, often, the two lower sections get considered as “lesser” forms.
Lives are carried out in the realm of the descriptive. Few would consciously admit to leading their lives based on the seemingly fallacious stories of the mythological. Few would also admit that their understanding of the world is dictated by a metaphorical understanding of the world. Written mass media has assumed an edifice of perceived objectivity, where words enact their subjects one-to-one. People live their lives by this edifice. And understandably so, who would interpret a newspaper article as allegory?
Concepts such as authorial intent and interpretive communities dictate that meaning exists between the the author, the word, the signified, and the audience. Within linguistic layers is a broad space for interpretation to take many forms, and this doesn't even take into account the conclusions drawn by the readers themselves. Ultimately, the first hierarchical structure is fallacious.
If words cannot encapsulate an objective reality then writing, in some sense, is always enacting the questions which surround the very concepts of truth and reality. This kind of questioning lends itself to the realm of literary criticism. Journalism, especially new journalism, which is a genre created in response to these paradoxes, becomes a literary form. According to Northrop Frye, literature is a direct descendant from mythologies, and so in their forms or intent or otherwise, the modern journalistic writing modes meant to educate have inherited characteristics of the mythological. When considering their intent: to elucidate and inform, journalistic writings, in a mythological context, begin to appear kerygmatic. With this in mind, the journalistic intent expands to include the chronicling and interpretation of the human experience, a murky thing filled with ambiguities and half truths. This expanded intention is wholly mythological.
Memetic whispers become echos which resonate through the halls of time, ingraining themselves in the folk tales, the chronicles, and the laws of society's pillars. In any pursuit of truth, they are elements that a journalist or storyteller or politician draws from in order to recount the human experience. As the mechanisms which deliver information become more complicated, old forms are remembered and the question itself of how truth emanates with a people becomes a foundation for the very relationships those people have with and within that society. New Journalism, a recent form, in its combination of proclamation, questioning, and illumination is a recipient of Biblical storytelling, the old form. It is the new mythology.
