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Sean Morrison

Dr. Lunberry

LIT 4650

December 5, 2022

Mirror of the World, Mirror of the Self

The core of what it means to be a flaneur is the exploration of the world as a means to

explore the self. Through this essential wandering, the flaneur becomes a mirror to the world that

offers a detached perspective, before turning the mirror inward so that they may consider what

these observations tell them about themself. There are two main aspects of this process:

observation and interpretation, each of them offering insight into the flaneur’s idea of themselves

based on the image constructed and the negative space of what’s implied.

The first of these concepts that lead the flaneur to explore the self is observation: entering

into a space with the intention of taking in as much information as they can. Often achieved by

changing their perspective or through interacting with the people that inhabit that space. This can

be seen in several stories, but two that make for good examples of this are Teju Cole’s Open City

and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke. In Open City, the protagonist

Julius is describing how Dr. Saito has helped him to understand people better, “I learned the art

of listening from him, and the ability to trace out a story from what was omitted.“ (Cole,9). This

scene is important to understanding the act of observation as a means of exploring the self,

because it shows the flaneur protagonist’s desire and ability to take in information from others as

a means to make observations about those people and places, and then turn that into deeper

meaning that can tell them about their own life. This act of listening for implication can also tell

us about the listener through the way that they curate what they listen to. An example of this can
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be found in the same story, with the protagonist Julius finding himself in positions where he

deliberately wants to avoid information that he finds unpleasant. In this scene, Julius is coming

out of a movie about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, and is recalling the times that he’s seen a

similar, gorier movie about the same subject “I wished to believe that things were not as bad as

they seemed. This was the part of me that wanted to be entertained, that preferred not to confront

the horror. But that satisfaction did not come: things ended badly, as they usually do.” (Cole,31).

The scene quoted here is able to tell us about the character’s exploration of themselves through

the implication in his thought process, that even though he wants to know more about the world,

he would rather avoid the tougher subjects. This implication is important because it informs

much of his actions throughout the story. Julius ostensibly wants to hear the story of the people

he meets in his wandering, but cannot see at first that he is still not able to get the full story from

these people because he curates his experience to avoid discomfort. Julius uses his observation of

the people around him as a tether to a shared reality that he feels disconnected from, but can’t see

that what he’s actually done is carve out a reality based on his own inner world. He can see the

mirror that he holds up to others, but can’t tell when it's turned around to face him.

The second example of this special type of observation comes from Rilke’s The

Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. In this story, the protagonist observes the world around them

alongside their own inner world, each of them becoming more distressing as his mental health

declines over the course of the book. One scene in particular that illustrates this idea of outward

observation turned inward comes from entry four, where the protagonist writes about how they

are discovering a world inside of themselves and how that discovery has made them a different

person that cannot exist in the same way anymore “I’m learning how to see. I don’t know what

the reason is, but everything enters into me more deeply and no longer stops at the point where it
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used to come to an end. I have an inner self that I knew nothing about. Now everything goes into

it. I don’t know what happens there.” (Rilke,4). This observation of the self, in the character’s

own words, talks about the inner world that they have discovered through their time in Paris and

how that has led to a change in the way that they see themselves and the world around them.

Through this change of perspective, the protagonist now has the ability to see things that are not

actually there, such as people ripping their own faces off and carrying them around, as a

reflection of the loss of self that they are experiencing in their wandering. These observations are

key to understanding the character and story of this book, by giving insight into the protagonist’s

mental and emotional state through the choice of imagery.

These observations on their own are a powerful tool to understanding the flaneur, but can

be made all the more powerful when paired with the character’s interpretation of their

observations, leading to a more complete picture of what it means to be a wanderer. What I mean

by this is that, in the same way that a flaneur’s observations can tell us about their character

through what they choose to mention, the implications made by their interpretation can also be

revealing. In Bill Brown’s The Pedal Powered Movie Tour, there is a moment where Brown is

riding through Ohio and noting the architecture of the farm houses that they pass, before trying

to make sense of what this observation may actually mean about the people who are connected to

these homes

“This morning is cut out of glass. Like the hole a diamond cuts in the plate glass window

of a jewelry store. Perfect and precise. We ride past old farm houses weighted down with

victorian woodwork. Windows with heavy wooden lids, and roofs perched on intricately

carved cornices. Surprising decorative flourishes on houses that in every other way are

stripped down and severe. Maybe this is where 19th century Ohio farmers hinted at the
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crazy, uncontrolled passions buried up inside them - in these little architectural details.”

(Brown).

What this interpretation of the surroundings can tell us about Brown is that there is a fascination

with the idea that the physical world that we construct is a reflection of our inner world; that

these 19th century Ohio farmers were imparting a piece of themselves into the structures they

created. The idea that the environment can tell a story about the people who live within it is a

recurring theme in this book, with Brown often taking the time to describe what he observes

before offering an interpretation that tries to find a deeper meaning. In the example of Ohio farm

houses, Brown specifically mentions the minute details of these buildings that are otherwise

fairly bare to create contrast and paint a picture of repressed farmers that expressed themselves

through these little features in ways that they neglected otherwise. The reason this is important is

that it illustrates in one scene how the flaneur can end up discovering things about themselves

through their time spent wandering; the act of observing and interpreting creating implications

about the flaneur based on what they choose to mention in detail.

The implications of these interpretations can be found in Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte

Laurids Brigge, where the protagonist is observing disturbing imagery of people removing their

faces like masks. In this scene, the protagonist is watching a poor woman who appears to be

thinking when he starts to describe the area around him

“The street was too empty, its emptiness was getting bored and pulled the noise of my

footfalls from under my feet and clanked it around all over the place, like the sound of a clog.

The woman was startled and lifted herself out of herself, too quickly, too fiercely, so that her

face remained stuck in her hands. I could see it lying there, its shape hollow. It cost me an

indescribable effort to go on looking at the hands and not to look at what had been ripped from
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them. I was terrified of seeing a face from the inside, but I was even more afraid of the naked,

raw head with no face.” (Rilke,5).

This scene is an interpretation of the protagonist’s observations, in that the scene that he’s

describing is not literally as described most likely. Instead this is a method for him to describe

the way people in Paris can put on different personas based on their situation, and that in some

cases the alienation that is caused by urban life can lead to a total loss of self. The important part

of this interpretation by the protagonist is that it’s unclear whether he means for it to be taken

literally, or if it is all metaphorical. The reason that this unclear interpretation of the scene is

important to understanding the character, is that it shows the reader that this character will blend

the outer world with the inner world and express them both as if they are existing in an

overlapped extrasensory reality. This reading of the scene also shows that the titular protagonist

of the book is an unreliable narrator, that is so fascinated with their inner world that they have

projected that onto the outer world as a means of exploring themselves in a physical space.

The theme of exploring the self through exploring the world is continued by Rilke, with a

scene where the protagonist is describing a hospital and the way that it has become a factory of

death

“Who nowadays pays for a well-constructed death? No one. Even the rich, who could

afford it, are starting to become neglectful and indifferent; the desire to have your own death is

becoming rarer and rarer. In a while it will be as rare as having your own life. Goodness,

everything is laid out for you. You come along, you find a life, ready-made, you only have to put

it on.” (Rilke,6).

This passage describes how the protagonist is bothered by the imposing hospital Hotel-Dieu,

which has so many people dying in it at any given point that the meaning behind their deaths is
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diminished due to the scale. The character is also working through what about the hospital

bothers them, which leads them to the impersonal way that death is handled. This bothers the

protagonist because it mirrors the way that his life had been up until the deaths of his family,

with his life being more or less chosen for him. The character’s interpretation of what the

hospital means and how it mass produces death are glimpses into the self; the protagonist is

using his description and admonishment of the hospital as a means to lament the lack of agency

that he’s had up until this point. Through this exploration of a place that exists in the real world,

the character is exploring themselves.

The flaneur is, at its core, an explorer that is searching for meaning and new ideas.

Through the exploration and observation of the world around them, the flaneur can bring to light

new interpretations that in turn allow them to discover new things about themselves. To the

flaneur, the physical world and their inner world are only separated by what they can learn from

them.