(to left: Eli Grasso's drawing of a Gothic castle (2010), which has nothing to do with Green Tea specifically, but I wanted to show off my 5 year-old's artistic prowess!)
1. “Green Tea” seems contradictory in its obsession both with quasi-scientific detail and more arcane spirituality, such as Swedenbourg’s Arcana Caelestia. How does the work reconcile these two points of view, and does one ultimately “cancel out” the other?
2. At the end of the story, Dr. Hesselius writes that “I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently opened…I have never yet failed” (39). Why do we get this extended disclaimer? How does this affect how we read Hesselius as a narrator?
3. How do Freud’s theories in “The Uncanny” play into this work? What passages or ideas from it can help us interpret Le Fanu's intentions? Note that Freud wrote quite a bit after “Green Tea” was written, so Le Fanu could not have read it…though the two may have been thinking along the same wavelength.
4. Consider the title, “Green Tea” itself: why does Le Fanu call our attention to it, when it plays a relatively minor role in the story? What does this say about the story or the characters who inhabit it? Is this all merely a case of bad tea?
Ben Nicolls
ReplyDelete1.) I think the aspects of spirituality versus science are reconciled in that the spiritual is referred to as a scientific matter. Demons are real and they roam the earth it is only a matter of opening one's inner eye in order to see them. Jennings opened his inner eye and is now subject to the horrors of the monkey. All he has to do is find a way to close the inner eye and his problem will be relieved. This is why he calls on Dr. Hesselis, he is a specialist in this sort of thing and he knows, or is more capable of finding, a remedy that will close Jennings eye and relieve him
4.) I think the green tea is definitely the cause for Jennings sufferings. They way he described his drinking of it "I had come to take it frequently but not stronger than one might take it for pleasure." I read this as green tea has the potential if brewed strongly enough to affect the drinker in a negative way, as we see with Jennings. At the end of the story I felt it was almost an anti-gothic story. A way of explaining the strange things we encounter in life scientifically. We know that not all things that happen are physical so it only makes sense that there is a spiritual realm and that this realm is subject to rules just as is the physical. Demons roam the world and we are blissfully unaware unless we open our inner eye. Once this is done there is no telling what horrors we may be subject to.
Question 1:
ReplyDeleteIn the world at large these years before the turn of the century there was a high degree of emphasis placed on the scientific and the spiritual answers to life's questions. The way they relate displays a large part of Freud's theory of "The Uncanny", in that there is a darker and lighter side, parallel lines on topics that relate to human and spiritual concerns.
I don't think that eithr the scientific or the arcane cancel each other out--one defines the elements of the natural world (one line of consideration) and the other defines the elements of the supernatural world (the parallel line of consideration). It is interesting, that the effects of "Green Tea" (considered a stimulant) seem to underlie the awakening of the interior eye in which the story speaks and I found myself wondering on the possibility of if Green Tea is literally a tea, or if it perhaps might not have been Absynthe, (also called the Green Faerie). In any case, the ingestion of this greenish liquid seems to induce an altered state of consciousness or physical status which allows for the paranoia and neurosis to rise, further exacerbated by the loss of sleep of the character.
Ultimately, the reconciliation of the points of view is in the death of Mr. Jennings--a death that is precipitated either by illness in the physical body or in the emotional/mental body within him. Perhaps, that death may have been a mix of a bit of them both--which would lead the reader to an understanding that IS a premise of arcane thought--that says, the balance must be maintained in all things.
Question 3:
Freud's theory of "The Uncanny" can be directly related to the story "Green Tea" if we look closely at the red, furious eyed monkey that seems to follow Mr. Jennings everywhere he goes. The uncanny at work in this story is that the monkey seems to be a hysterical projection of the shadow image of Jennings himself. Likewise, a biographical search on Le Fanu, revealed many of his own situations of life emerging in the character of Jennings as related in "Green Tea" which would also, support the rise and return of things that are repressed and turned away from. Throughout the story there are mirror imagery at work, a shadow that follows that seems to menace and hinder Jennings--and it becomes more agressive, the deeper that Jennings falls into his psychotic madness. There are months by which Jennings seems to be relieved of the presence, only to have it return once again. The numerous mentions of optic nerves seems to qualify the possibility that what Jennings was seeing may have been black spots perhaps, from a condition of the eyes, possibly a blindness beginning, which would of course, directly relate it to the story of "The Sandman" that Freud does a close reading of in "The Uncanny".
Aaron Buchanan -
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: I don't think that one cancels the other out, but that those within the realm of science often strive to do just that. Hesselius, though he is interested by the Arcane and the Latin books he reads at the Rev.'s place, in the end gives a strictly scientific explination for what is happening. In the end, he sounds more like Dr. Harley who they describe as a "mere materialist." Jennings is unsatisfied with Dr. Harley because of his inability to consider explinations/things outside of the material world and leads him to Dr. Hesselius, who again, gives a very science based/materialistic explination.
Question 2:
I read that last part almost as a sign of weakness as it seems he's trying to scare Van L- into seeing the treatment through his relapse. I saw it as part of the ego (not sure which part...infantile or adult) in that the letter has turned from Hesselius asking the patient to BE patient with his treatment to trying to scare him into seeing the treatment through. But more than that, it felt to me as if he is trying to make an excuse for the fact that Jennings died. "Poor Mr. Jennings I cannot call a patient of mine, for I had not even begun to treat his case, and he had not yet given me, I am convinced, his full and unrreserved confidence." I really feel like he is doing several things at once. Scaring Van L- into continuing the treatment, tooting his own horn about his success rate, and lastly trying to convince himself that Jennings was not his fault by shifting the blame to Jennings himself.
1. “Green Tea” seems contradictory in its obsession both with quasi-scientific detail and more arcane spirituality, such as Swedenbourg’s Arcana Caelestia. How does the work reconcile these two points of view, and does one ultimately “cancel out” the other?
ReplyDeleteThe two do not cancel out each other. True he gives a scientific sounding answer, but it is an explanation of how the supernatural element entered Mr. Jennings life. Scientificall he talks about fluidscreated in the body, “the nature of thast fluid is spiritual, though not immatererial” (39). By treating the body he could have healed Jennings by closing that inner eye. Le Fanu is combining the spiritual and physical, thus giving us a reason why some spirituasl eventys occur and a way to deal with those effects in a scientific manner.
2. At the end of the story, Dr. Hesselius writes that “I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently opened…I have never yet failed” (39). Why do we get this extended disclaimer? How does this affect how we read Hesselius as a narrator?
I think the insistance that he could have saved Jenning if Jennings had been a patient is a cop out. It is a away for him to avoid the appearance of failure and thus keep his record spotless.
In Aaron’s answer he suggests that Hesselius was attempting to scare Van Loo into sticking to the treatment. I like the idea. However, I then wonder about the whole account of Mr. Jennings. Could this story be intirely created solely for the purpose of scayying Van Loo? Could Hesselius realize he is so full of B.S. that he needs to resort to these tactics?
Awesome discussion today in class! :)
ReplyDeleteI know that I kept wondering "Why a monkey? What's the monkey? Why not a pink elephant or something?"
After the discussion today all I could think of was: "Damn, why didn't I think of that?"
Definitely one for the *D'oh!* Awards! :)
Amazing discussions/questions here on the blog as well! I'm glad to see people spontaneously posting and sharing their responses. And as for the "d'oh!" moment with the Monkey, remember, no one knows what he meant by it. But I think the Darwin or Indian connection is worth considering, especially in light of De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. But I like your absinthe angle as well. It's a fun story because it leaves so much open for interpretation, while still offering a thread of plausability. I look forward to more discussions of Le Fanu in the future, especially when we get to Carmilla.
ReplyDelete