The Role of Mythology in Modern Literature

Author(s): Mark E. Workman

Source: Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. - Apr., 1981), pp. 35-48
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814186 .
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 THE ROLE OF
MYTHOLOGYIN MODERN LITERATURE

Mark E. Workman

Oedipus in Thebes is problematicenough, but how are we to deal

with his reappearancesin Polanski'sChinatownor in Pynchon'sneigh-
boring San Narcisco?l Nor does Oedipus walk alone: figures of my-
thology continue to parade through the pages of modern literature
and film with a vitalitywhichbelies their age. Daedalusstillpracticeshis
artifice,Icarussoarsanew, Pan maintainshis dwellingin the forest, and
Ovidian metamorphosescontinue unabated.
Despite the vigor of this procession,traditionalapproachesto the
study of the relationshipbetween folklore and literatureare not ade-
quate for dealing with the presence of myth in many worksof modern
literature. To begin with, the initial step of"identification," which is
endorsed by many writers on the subject,2is often eliminated by the
authors who themselvesprovocativelysupply us with this information.
Thus, Joyce's Ulysses,Hamsun'sPan, and Pynchon'scharacterOedipa
Maas all clearly signal their traditionalcorrelatives.
However identification is achieved- whether by author or
critic it is when he gets to the next and more significant phase of
interpreting that the folklorist especially finds himself without re-
course to adequate theory. Judgments based on criteria such as the
author's "sincerity,"or the "degree of modification"of the "original
myth"simplydo not dojustice to workssuch as those mentioned above.
And to note that Pynchon and Joyce utilize myth as (among other
things) a structuraldevice or a point of symbolicreference is merely to
state the obvious. Confronted with the most profound question of not
how but why the modern writer resorts to myth in his work, the
individual folklorist is left enti-relyto his own criticaldevices.

35
36 MarkE. Workman

This assertiondemands immediatequalification.While the focus

of attention of processually-orientedfolkloristshas naturallyshifted
towards the study of traditionalexpressive eventsin which dynamics
maybe observed, insightsderived therefrom have been applied as well
to artisticproductsfor which actual performancedata for one reason
or another is lacking. One example of this approach is Peter Seitel's
analysisof the proverbsin the novels of Chinua Achebe on the basisof
principles central to the ethnography of speaking.3
The study of folklore and literature,too, has profited from this
change in perspective. Roger Abrahams has described some of the
motivationsbehind, and limitationsof, the "loreof lit"approachto the
subject,and gone on to reinterpreta poem of Herrick'sfrom a more
contemporary,performance-centeredpoint of view. Productiveas his
method of analysisis, however, there are two reasons why its applica-
bilityto workssuch as those cited aboveis restricted.Firstly,the authors
of these works do not necessarilygravitateto mythic materialbecause
of its associationwith "an image of life which is familiarand comfort-
able, static and uncomplicated, and which therefore represents an
attractivealternativeto modernityand its attendantcomplexity.'4On
the contrary,it is fair to saythat the literaryattractivenessof mythology
is due to its enduring depiction of significant and sometime very
uncomfortable relationships, some admittedly between man and his
environment,but others of at leastequal importancebetween man and
his fellow men, and between man and his deities. Secondly, whereas
Abrahamspartiallydirects his remarkstowardregional writers,many
modern authors who emply mythic themes, structuresand images, if
they focus on a "region"at all, do so only incidentally.Just as often, the
locationand boundariesof the worldswhichthey constructare difficult
to establish,and the pulses of these fictionaluniversesare anythingbut
rhythmic.
These limitations notwithstanding, the critical path chosen by
Abrahamswarrantsfurther exploration since it does lead us to look
upon folklorein literatureas fulfilling a dynamicrole. The use here of
the word role is not haphazard. What it suggests in this situation is
patterned performance governed by conventions determined by
authorial obligation and execution and audience expectations and
response.5Whatis needed now is a set of termsand conceptsaccording
to which these patterns may be identified and studied.
To find this conceptual apparatus it is instructive for reasons
al-readydiscussed-to step outside the domainof folkloreand into that
of literarycriticism.Of the many theoristswho have attempted in one
MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 37

way or another to systematizeliterature, there are two in particular

from whose ideas it will be especiallyuseful to borrow selectivelyhere.
These are Northrop Frye and RomanJakobson.
Frye is familiar to most folklorists through his exhaustive treat-
ment of the archetypalnature of literaturein the Anatomyof Criticism.
According to Frye'sformulation, Biblicaland classicalmythology pro-
vides a basicset of structuresand imagerywhich are ineluctablyrepro-
duced in increasinglymore "plausible"or "realistic"contexts (the terms
are Frye's)in all of post-mythologicalwesternliterature.Eachperiod is
thus characterizedby the degree to which it has been "displaced"from
the apocalypticur-literature,myth. "We have," says Frye,

three organizationsof myth and archetypalsymbolsin literature.First,

there is undisplacedmyth.... Second, we have the general tendencywe
have called romantic,the tendency to suggest implicitmythicalpatterns
in a world more closely associatedwith human experience. Third, we
have the tendency of"realism" to throw the emphasis on content and
representationrather than on the shape of the story. Ironic literature
begins with realismand tends towardmyth,its mythicalpatternsbeing as
a rule more suggestive of the demonic than of the apocalyptic.... 6

As noted, there is a correlation in Frye's scheme between the

degree to which a work of literatureis displaced (unless it is purposely
"sentimental")and the period of literary history to which it belongs.
Romance,for instance,in whichthe hero is "superiorin degree to other
men and his environment"7is peculiar to the age of"chivalry and
knight-errantry,"and is only slightly removed from its apocalyptic
ancestry.The "low mimetic,"on the other hand, in which the hero is
"one of us," "superiorneither to other men or to his environment,"8
belongs to the middle-class culture of the nineteenth century and
exhibits substantialdisplacement. The other two modes identified by
Frye are the "high mimetic"of the Renaissanceand the "ironic"of the
present.
The Anatomyof Criticismis, quite simply, a tour de force. From the
point of viewof the contemporaryfolklorist,however,there are aspects
of Frye's theory which are troublesome. His criticism is purportedly
strictlygrounded in the universe of literature; at the same time, the
notion of displacement that force which progressivelymoves newly-
emerging literature further away from its mythic origins appears to
be generated not by literature itself but by the continually evolving
society in which literatureis produced. Thus, Frye'scriticismis in fact
as much sociologicalas archetypal. However this may conform to his
38 MarkE. Workman

stated intentions (and according to my understanding it does not),

neither type of criticismaccommodatesthe interest of the folkloristin
the actual participants in the literary experience: the writers, the
readers, and the art which bring them together. Furthermore,insofar
as displacement(whoeverproducesit) is said to categoricallydefine the
nature of any given literaryperiod it does not adequatelyallow for the
varietyof ways in which myth may be incorporatedinto modern and
contemporaryliterature.This literatureis not, as Frye would have us
believe, all ironic, nor is its mythic imagery totally demonic.
Disregarding these problematic areas, Frye's analysis of mythic
structuresand images remains most relevant to a study of the role of
mythology in literature.Before attemptingto adapt his scheme to suit
the present purpose, however,it willbe useful to consider some related
ideas put forth by RomanJakobson.Actually,the concepts in question
were derived not from a study of literature but from Jakobson'sin-
vestigation into a kind of language disorder called aphasia.Jakobson
discovered that aphasics suffered from "some impairment, more or
less severe, either of the faculty for selection and substitutionor for
combinationand contexture."9Jakobson termed these faculties meta-
phoric and metonymic, respectively,based on the two ways in which
discoursedevelops: through similarityas in lyricalsongs, or contiguity
as ln nerolc eplcs.
. . . .

It is Jakobson'scontention that different genres of literature, as

well as different periods, exhibit greateraffilnityfor one or the other of
these alternative means of composition. Reference to a related situ-
ation in film technique will help make clear this dichotomy:

Ever since the productionsof D. W. Griffith,the art of the cinema, with

its highly developed capacity for changing the angle, perspectiveand
focus of "shots,"has brokenwith the traditionof the theaterand ranged
an unprecedented varietyof synechdochic"close-ups"and metonymic
'iset-ups"in general. In such picturesas those of CharlieChaplin,these
devices in turn were superseded by a novel, metaphoric"montage"with
its "lap dissolves" the filmic similes.10

Jakobsongoes on to saythat "thedichotomy . . . appearsto be of primal

significance and consequence for all verbal behavior and for human
behavior in general.''11
WhatI would like to suggest here is that there is a mannerin which
the terminologyand concepts of Frye andJakobson may be combined
in order to produce a useful framework for the study of the role of
mythologyin modern literature.Divorcedfrom its historicaland socio-
MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 39

logical associations,Frye'sformulationleaves us with a basicallytripar-

tite division of literature into: (1) those works which are so obviously
mythicallybased as to be set in a fabulous universe; (2) those works
which contain mythicmovementsor reflectionsbut are set in a factual
universe; (3) those works in which mythic melodies and harmonies
have become cacophonous and whose universes are correspondingly
Oppresslveor meanlng ess.
. .

It is apparentthat the firstof these categoriesmay be describedby

the term "metonymic"in the sense thatJakobsonemploysit, suggesting
here that the mythic and literary universes are contiguous with one
another so that characters may step from one to the other without
undergoing any radical distortion in appearance or behavior. Frye's
second category is best described by Jakobson's term "metaphoric,"
indicativeof the substitutabilitywhich exists between mythicplots and
themes and their contemporarycounterpartsin literatureof this more
realistic variety. While Jakobson has no term which adequately de-
scribes Frye'sthird category, I would propose "metamorphic"as par-
ticularlyappropriate. Not only does it fit nicely with Jakobson's ter-
minology,but it also effectivelyconveysthe sense of change and distor-
tion worked upon the mythic materialsin literature of this type.12
What these terms represent, then, is a system less theoretically
cumbersome than Frye'sand more refined than Jakobson's13 which
accounts for the spectrum of possible roles which myth may play in
modern literature. It must be emphasized again that to give these
possibilitiesnames is to do more than describe a static phenomenon.
Rather,to say that a myth functions metonymically,or metaphorically,
or metamorphically,is to describea processwhich extends beyond the
workitself to encompassthe reason and sentimentof the reader for the
purpose of constructing a particularkind of fictional universe.14
An illustrationof the metonymicuse of myth is provided for us by
Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha.Siddhartha, as a young boy, dis-
satisfied with the spiritualcomplacencyof those around him, under-
takesa quest "to press towardsthe Self, towardsAtman.''l5Hisjourney
first leads him into a life of physical deprivation with a wandering
group of ascetics; he rebounds from there to satiate his senses in a
career as a merchant and a paramour of a courtesan; glutted, he
retreatsin disgust to experience a spiritualdeath at the bankof a river.
Reawakening,reborn, he joins a local ferrymanto spend the rest of his
life in contemplation. It is from the river and his humble fellow ferry-
man that Siddharthaacquiresthe wisdomwhich he has so long sought
after:
40 MarkE. Workman

Siddhartha listened.... He had often heard all this before, all these
numerousvoicesin the river,but todaythey sounded different.... They
all belonged to each other:the lamentof those who yearn,the laughterof
the wise, the cry of indignationand the groan of the dying. They were all
interwoven and interlocked,entwined in a thousand ways. And all the
voices,all the goals, all the yearnings,all the sorrows,all the pleasures,all
the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them
together was the streamof events, the music of life. Siddharthalistened
attentivelyto this river,to thissong of a thousandvoices; . . . [it]consisted
of one word: Om perfection.
"Do you hear?"asked Vasudeva'sglance once again.
Vasudeva'ssmile was radiant;it hovered brightlyin all the wrinkles
of his old face, as the Om hovered over all the voices of the river. His
smile was radiant as he looked at his friend, and now the same smile
appeared on Siddhartha'sface.... his Self had merged into unity.l6

The hero'sjourney clearly recapitulatesthose of numerous other

spiritualseekers. For Siddhartha,thisjourney takes him beyond salva-
tion to the point of actualgodhood, for it is as a god that he is reveredby
the Brahminmonkswho make pilgrimagesto his dwellingby the river.
Whatis of especial interest here is that the novel, like its hero, has also
fully realized the potential of its inheritance to become, for many
readers, mythic in its own right. Thus, not only has the "metonymic
hero"stepped directlyfrom the worldof mythinto the worldof fiction,
but many readers have been moved to make the opposite transition:
from an encounter with literature, they have experienced myth.
Unlike Siddhartha,Lt. Glahn, the mercurialhero of Knut Ham-
sun's novel Pan, is not a god himself but does share many similarities
with his traditionalcounterpartfrom the forests of Arcadia.Moodyas
he is, Glahn is not unpredictable;rather, his temperamentcorrelates
on a day-to-daybasiswith the weather,and over a longer durationwith
the seasonalround. He too is "spirited,impulsive,and amorous,''17and
causes a kind of panic amongst those less unbridled than himself.
But in equallysignificantwaysGlahnis distinctfrom Pan. Goatish
as he may be, he is not part goat. Furthermore, unlike Pan, Glahn
emerges on occasion from the sanctuary of the forest to confront
civilization, and when he does he is humbled, humiliated and ulti-
mately destroyed by it. At times such as these, Pan does not motivate
this behavior but instead provides the adverse commentaryon it:

Was Pan sitting in a tree watchingto see how I would act?And was his
bellyopen; and washe crouchingso thathe seemed to sit and drinkfrom
his own belly?But all this he didjust to keep one eye cocked on me; and
MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 41

the whole tree shook with his silentlaughterwhen he sawall my thoughts

running away with me.l 8

The relationshipbetweenPan and Glahnis a metaphoricone.

AccordingtoJamesFernandez,"themetaphoricassertionsmenmake
aboutthemselvesor others. . . provideimagesin relationto whichthe
organizationof behaviorcantakeplace.''19 The natureof thebehavior
thuseffectedis a testimonyto the powerof the metaphor;if one is too
movedby metaphor,however,the behaviorisjudgedto be abnormal.
In the movieMorgan,for instance,the hero donsa monkeysuitonce
too often and finds his identitymergedwiththatof the animalwith
whoseskinhe is in contact.Metaphorhasbecomemetonym;for Mor-
gan, but not for Glahn,a fictionhas becomea fact.
Anothercontemporaryhero who managesto sustaina distance
betweenhimselfandhis metaphorical counterpartsis LeopoldBloom.
Likenedto the ghostof Hamlet,likenedto Elijah,likenedto Christthe
Savior,likenedaboveall to wilyand much-sufferingUlysses,at times
diminishedandattimesennobled,Bloomemergesfromhisodysseyhis
ownman.Thatwe areembarkingon an expeditionwithsucha many-
faceted hero is signalledfor us in the very beginningof Bloom's
disproportionately largethirdof Ulysseswhenhe explainsto Mollythe
meaningof "thatword"whichshe laterrecallsas "metsomethingwith
hosesin it:"20
Here, she said. What does that mean?
He leaned downwardsand read near her polished thumbnail.
Metempsychosis?
Yes. Who's he when he's at home?
Metempsychosis,he said, frowning. It's Greek; from the Greek. That
means transmigrationof souls.2l

Multi-facetedas he is, Bloom himselfdoes not get lost in this

shuffleof souls.Boththe structureof the book,whichleadsthe travel-
lerbackto a stateof equanimitybythe sideof Penelopein hisIthakaat
7 EcclesStreet,andBloom'sownawarenessof the immutability of life,
mitigateagainstthispossibility.
Appropriately, we findBloomdisplay-
ingjust thiskindof contemplativedetachmentlaterin the dayafterhe
has been inspiredto masturbation by GertyMacDowellnot far from
the hill wherehe proposedto Mollyseventeenyearsbefore:

June that was too I wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye
crags and peaks I'm with you once again. Life, love, voyage round your
42 MarkE. Workman

own little world.... All quiet on Howth now. The distant hill seems.
Wherewe. The rhododendrons.I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums
and I get the plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen.
Names change: that's all. Lovers: yum, yum.... So it returns. Think
you'reescapingand run into yourself.Longestway rounc}is the shortest
way home.... Circus horse walkingin a ring.22

As RichardEllmanhas noted, "Wheneverconfronted by a choice

between two possiblethings to include,Joyce chose both."23Partof the
difficulty and the delight- in reading Ulyssescomes from the factthat
Joyce'schoices usuallyextended far beyond the two. But he was inclu-
sive not because he was compulsivelyretentive, nor because he wished
to massively parade his erudition, but because he was attempting to
describe a new conception of language equally applicableto things as
wellas people. Here, for instance,is Bloom (aliasDon Poldode la Flora)
reading a letter written in the language of flowers:

Then, walkingslowlyforward,he read the letteragain, murmuringhere

and there a word. Angry tulips with you darlingmanflowerpunish your
cactus if you don't please forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses
when we soon anenome meet all naughty nightstalkwife Martha'sper-
fume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaperand put it backin
his sidepocket.24

To the uninitiatedreader this letter makeslittle sense. But it is not

the uninitiatedfor whom this letter is intended; rather,the recipientis
Bloom, that quintessentialparadigmatichero, and it is over his shoul-
der that we are looking here. It is for this reason that Robert Scholes
asserts about Ulyssesthat, "In reading it we learn how to read it; our
comprehension is exercised and stretched."25What we learn, accord-
ing to Scholes, is something about the nature of communicationin the
modern world:

Bloom is homeostaticman, centripetal,his equilibriumachieved. And

Stephenis young, thereforecentrifugal,and therefore to be forgiven. In
time he too willreturn,like Shakespearereadingthe book of himself,and
writingit too. Stephen and Bloom and Mollyhave other roles to play in
FinnegansWake,permutationsand combinationshardlydreamed of in
1922. And for this total achievement,we may say of Joyce what Bateson
said of Socrates.As a bioenergetic individual he is indeed dead. "But
much of him still lives in the ecology of ideas."2fi

The contributionof metaphorto the ecology of ideas is substantial.

It has the capacityto both erect and transcendcategoriesof time, space
MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 43

and cognition. And it is in just this way that myth functions in Ulysses:
Joyce manipulatesit to extend Bloom backwardsand forwardsin time
and space, thereby amplifying his hero's and his reader's-
consciousness in and out of the present.
If myth can be used metaphorically to juxtapose- and hence
stretch-our categories of cognition, it can also be used metamorphi-
cally to altogether dissolve these same patterns of perception. It is
employed in just this manner in Chinatownand The Cryingof Lot 49,
albeit to different ends. Nowhere is the distortion of mythic material
more extreme and unsettling than in the first of these two works, in
which Polanskitakes the story of Oedipus and stands it on its head.
The inversions are numerous. As in Sophocles' rendition of the
myth,there is an incestuousrelationshipin the film; here, however,it is
between daughter and father rather than mother and son. To com-
pound this perversity,the father-ominously named Noah Cross has
entered wilfully and demonically into this affair. Nor is this the only
wilful perversity which he fosters. He induces Los Angeles' Theban
plague by cutting off its supply of water. He is not a victimof patricide
but instead murders his own son-in-law. Possessing more knowledge
than any other characterin the film, he actsonly to hinder the process
of detection undertaken by the private-eyewhom he himself at one
polnt attempts to nlre.
* .

One of the most strikingfeatures in OedipusRexis the relationship

between eyesight and vision. It is only when he destroys the one that
Oedipus acquires the other. While there are frequent blindings in
Chinatown,contrary to expectations they end merely in blindness. R.
Barton Palmer enumerates these occurrences:

Cross1sglasses, the final clue to the murder, found with one lens shat-
tered, the one taillight on Mrs. Mulwray'scar which Gittes breaks in
order to followher through the mysteriousnight, and, mostimportantly,
the imperfectionin Mrs. Mulwray'seye. Gittes discoversa dark spot in
her left iris, which she explains is a birthmark,a flaw. In the film's final
scene, Mrs. Mulwrayattempts to flee with her daughter from the evil
representedby her father,but is stopped by a policeman'sbullet,a bullet
which pierces her left eye.27

If there is anyone in Chinatownwho gains knowledge as a result of

his experience it is the privatedetectiveJ. J. Gittes.Likeeverythingelse
in the film, however, learning too is inverted, producing only negative
results.Gittesbecomes involvedin whatappearsto bejust another case
of matrimonial infidelity only to discover that the offense is much
44 MarkE. Workman

different, and much worse. He is informed by a handbill on his car

window that "LosAngeles is dying of thirst"only to discover that two
men have drowned in one of its dry riverbeds.28He is hired by someone
who claims to be Evelyn Mulwrayonly to discover that she is a fraud,
and then proceeds to locate and expose the alleged adulteressonly to
discover that she is the sister-in-law/daughter-in-lawof the man to
whom she is supposedly romanticallylinked.
Gittes' greatest discovery is also his least: for what he learns,
ultimately,is that man is profoundlyevil, and that this evil is unfathom-
able. Driven into the heart of the glittering metropolis, made to con-
front whathe has so long tried to deny, he is crushed by the inscrutable
horror which he "sees"there. Unlike Oedipus, who overcomes the
irony of his existence through an act of self-detection, Gittes'
universe which in many ways looks suspiciously like our own-
remainsone in whichthe meaning of life is dictatedwhollyby irony. Its
myths have collapsed, and with them have gone all possibilityof salva-
tion.
That the Oedipus story is used ironicallyin Chinatown,as Frye's
scheme suggestsit would be, is beyond dispute. The mannerin whichit
is used in Thomas Pynchon'sTheCryingof Lot49, on the other hand,
can not be so easilycharacterized.It has undergone a metamorphosis,
of course: Oedipus is replaced by a female counterpart,Oedipa Maas.
She too attemptsto expose a mystery,but the resultsof her efforts are
neither as consistentnor as conclusiveas those of literature'sfirst great
detective.
Oedipa'squest begins when she is made the executrix of an estate
belonging to her former lover, Pierce Inverarity.To fulfill this obliga-
tion she must travel to the center of Pierce's financial empire, San
Narciso. One of the things she comes to discoveris that San Narcisois
not located on any traditionalmap:

San Narciso was a name; an incident among our climatic records of

dreams and what dreams became among our accumulateddaylight, a
moment'ssquall-lineor tornado'stouchdown among the higher, more
continental solemnities storm-systemsof group suffering and need,
prevailingwindsof affluence. There wasthe true continuity,San Narciso
had no boundaries. No one knew yet how to draw them.29

Once in San Narciso, Oedipa initiates her investigation into

Pierce'sextensive holdings; however,just as the boundariesof the city
are in doubt, so too are the patternsof communicationwithin it. For
communicationin San Narciso does not follow the normal routes of
 .

MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE
45

converse; instead, it is surreptitiouslycarried on by both Inverarity

employees as well as by those who have nothing at all to do with him, by
means of a mysterious postal network called the "Tristero."30Try as
she might to unravel this network, Oedipa repeatedly fails to make
sense ot lt.
Frustrated in her endeavor, abandoned by husband, lover, and
psychiatrist,Oedipa is led to the brink of madness, whereupon she
reviews the alternativeexplanations availableto her:

Eitheryou have stumbledindeed, withoutthe aid of LSDor other indole

alkaloids,onto a secret richnessand concealed density of dream;onto a
network by which X number of Americans are truly communicating
whilst reservingtheir lies, recitationsof routines, avid betrayalsof spir-
itual poverty, for the official government delivery system; maybe even
onto a real alternativeto the exitlessness,to the absenceof surpriseto life,
that harrowsthe head of everybodyAmericanyou know, and you too,
sweetie. Or you are hallucinatingit. Or a plot has been mounted against
you, so expensive and elaborate, involving items like the forging of
stamps and ancient books, constant surveillanceof your movements,
plantingof post horn imagesall over San Francisco,bribingof librarians,
hiring of professionalactors and Pierce Inverarityonly knows what-all
besides, all financed out of the estate in a way either too secret or too
involved for your non-legal mind to know about even though you are
co-executor, so labrinthine that it must have meaning beyond just a
practicaljoke. Or you are fantasyingsome such plot, in which case you
are a nut, Oedipa, out of your sku11.31

Oedipa must reject these alternatives,for each either fails to ac-

count for all the factsor is riddled with inconsistencies.It is at this point
of despondency, however, that Oedipa comes to a significant realiza-
tion: if the answerswhich she is receiving are inadequate,it is perhaps
because her questions are not properly phrased; and if they are not
properly phrased, it is perhaps because she does not command a
language in which she may properly phrase them. The availablemeta-
phors, in other words, have lost their meaning: "The act of metaphor
then was a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside,
safe, or outside, lost. Oedipa did not know where she was. Trembling,
unfurrowed, she slipped sidewise.... 32
Oedipa'sfinal strategyis to wait:she willgo forth with strengthand
patience if not with language and understanding. Like the spiritual
seeker who knowsthat he has exhausted the relevanceof the prevailing
system of belief but not yet replaced it with one which is more func-
tional, Oedipa decides, in the words of George Levine, "to risk the
46 Mark E. Workman

moment."33There is, at least for the time being, no irony in this

situation, for while the received mythology has proven to be defunct,
Oedipa is neither confused nor oppressed. And this is as true for the
reader as it is for Ms. Maas.Forjust as Oedipa has tried and failed to
make sense of her experience, we too have been disconcerted and
disoriented right along with her in a work which conforms only mar-
ginallyto our expectationsof how a novel should behave. But whereas
in the metamorphosedworld of Chinatownnothing remains possible,
here everything does.
This concludes the illustrationof the spectrum of possibilitiesfor
the inclusion of mythology in modern literature.As each reading has
made apparent, the myths function both within and beyond the work
of literatureto establishcertain premises and to mobilize appropriate
responses. This paper, also, ideally will serve a dual function: practi-
cally, for those of us engaged in teaching folklore in literaturedepart-
ments, it may provide a useful scheme wherebycourses on this subject
may be organized; and theoretically,it may serve to generate further
discussion about an aspect of folklore which is as fascinating as it is
complex.

OaklandUniversity
Rochester,
Michigan

NOTES

l This is a revisedand expanded versionof a paper presented to the

American FolkloreSociety in Los Angeles, October 27, 1979. I would
like to thank my colleaguesJoe DeMent, David Mascitelli,and Chuck
Webster for their critical readings of this essay.
2 For variousexpressionsof the traditionalapproachto the study of
folklore in literaturediscussedin this and the following paragraph,see
"Folkloreand Literature:A Symposium,"Journalof AmericanFolklore
70 ( 1957);and Alan Dundes, "The Studyof Folklorein Literatureand
Culture:Identificationand Interpretation,"Journal ofAmericanFolklore
78 (1965): 136-41.
3 Peter Seitel, "Proverbs:A SocialUse of Metaphor,"Genre2 ( 1969):
143-6 1.
4 Roger D. Abrahams,"Folkloreand Literatureas Performance,"
Journalof theFolkloreInstitute9 (1972): 85.
5 For a similarlyconceived discussionof"role" see ElizabethBurns,
Theatricality:A Studyof Conventionin theTheatreand in SocialLife (New
MYTHOLOGYIN MODERNLITERATURE 47

York: Harper and Row, 1972), especiallychapter 5, "Conventionsof

Performance."
6 Northrop Frye, Anatomyof Criticism(Princeton: Princeton Univ.
Press, 1973), pp. 139-40.
7 Ibid., p. 33
8 Ibid., p. 34.
9 RomanJakobson, "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of
Aphasic Disturbances,"in Fundamentals of Language,RomanJakobson
and Morris Halle (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1956), p. 76.
Ibid., p. 78.
11 Ibid.,p.79.
12 For a complementaryperspectiveon the applicationof Jakobson's
concepts to modern literature, see David Lodge, TheModesof Modern
Writing(Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977), parts two and three.
13 Jakobson himself points to the strictlyexploratory nature of his
observations:"Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic
Disturbances,"in Jakobson and Halle, pp. 78-79.
14 On the role of the reader see Wolfgang Iser, TheImpliedReader
(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1974), especiallychapter 11,
"The Reading Process."
15 Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha(New York: New Directions,1951), p.
4.
16 Ibid , pp. 110-11.
17 Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon, ClassicalMythology,2d ed.
(New York: Longman, 1977), p. 212.
18 Knut Hamsun, Pan (NeavYork: Noonday, 1969), p. 34.
19 James Fernandez,"Persuasionsand Performances:Of the Beastin
Everybody. . . And the Metaphorsof Everynlan,"in Myth,Symboland
Culture,ed. Clifford Geertz (New York:W. W. Norton and Co.,1971),
p. 42.
20 James Joyce, Ulysses(New York: The Modern Library, 1961), p.
754.
21 Ibid., p. 64.
22 Ibid, pp. 376-77
23 Richard Ellman, Ulysseson the Liffey (New York: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1972), p. 34.
24 Joyce, p. 78.
25 Robert Scholes, "Ulysses:A StructuralistPerspective,"in Ulysses:
FiftyYears,ed. Thomas F. Stanley (Bloomington:Indiana Univ. Press,
1974), p. 165.
26 Ibid., pp. 170-71
48 Mark E. Workman

27 R. Barton Palmer, ''Chinato7lJnand the Detective Story,"

LiteraturelFilmQuarterly5:2 ( 1977): 117.
28 Robert Eberwein, unpublished manuscript.p. 2.
29 Thomas Pynchon,TheCryingof Lot49 (New York:BantamBooks,
1967), pp. 133-34.
30 For an interesting reading of the Tristero see Frank Kermode,
4'TheUse of the Codes,4'in Approaches toPoetics7ed. SeymourChatman
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 51-80.
31 Pynchon, p. 128.
32 Ibid., p. 95.
33 George Levine, "Riskingthe Moment:Anarchy and Possibilityin
Pynchon's Fiction," in MindfulPleasures:Essayson ThomasPynchon,
George Levine and David Leverenz (Boston: Little, Bro^snand Co.,
l 976), pp. 113-36.