Mythologies 285

Today was the last day of class with the only thing being left is our final. We wrapped things up with the last of the final presentations and a quick overview of what to expect on the finals. We finished with our teacher evaluations. Throughout the course of this class, i have been taught to open my eyes to mythology and to never be satisfied with what is on the surface. So much more lies beneath. Myth is present in our everyday lives, if only we can see this. It is not the myths that need to be rememberd, they're still out there, but the people to be reawoken to them. I'll end with the very famous quote from the Magus: The past still posesses our present

Final Project

                                                                                   MYTH IN THE MAGUS                                                                                  

                In Illo Tempore…  In the beginning of this wonderful novel, Fowles is giving us a sense of the main character Nicholas Urfe. In some ways we can all relate to how Nicholas behaves at the beginning of the book. He seems to be stuck at a certain point in his life. He finds himself as a loner and is having a hell of a time fitting into society. He feels he has too act differently around certain people.  

“I led two lives…queasily playing at being Brigadier ‘Blazer’ Urfe’s son in public, and nervously reading Penguin New Writing and poetry pamphlets in private” (Fowles, Page 16).

                Nicholas also makes it quite clear in the beginning of this novel that he is ready for a change. Everything else up to this point seems obsolete to him. All the schooling and military experience was just motions that he had to take. The real Nicholas Urfe was ready for an adventure.  Just as Calasso refers to in his book, sometimes a mythical event can simply be a change in the landscape. Well, this is what Nicholas was ready for.

“I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew what I needed. I needed a new land, a new race, a new language; and, although I couldn’t have put it into words then, I needed a new mystery” (Fowles, Page 19).

                We also see a woman enter the scene in the beginning of this novel, Alison. Although she could be Nicholas’ immediate escape from reality, and his new mystery, Nicholas’ is too arrogant to see this. He is so focused on finding a new episode and adventure in his life, that he doesn’t realize he has one right in front of his eyes. He is offered the choice of either going to Phraxos to teach, or stay with Alison and make a life. We all know the decision he makes and the consequences that follow.

“You treated me as if I didn’t really belong to you” (Fowles, Page 36).

                In Media Res… We all know by now that the middles is the most painful part of our mythology lectures. It is here, that the hero must die and sadness takes ahold. Here, in the middles, you are housed inside the labyrinth with the Minotaur and you don’t know who you are or what’s going on. Here, in the middles, a painful initiation takes place.

                This is the part that Nicholas Urfe can relate to the most. It seems as though he is stuck inside the middles stage for the whole novel. He is so confused by all the events that unfold with Conchis, he doesn’t know what to make of them. Just when he feels as though he has a grasp on things, they take a turn for the worst.

                Throughout his whole experience with Maurice Conchis, Nicholas cannot get the idea out of his mind that everything is a big play write. He feels that a lot of the conversations with Conchis and Lily are acted out and scripted, which they are. Everything is said and done in a certain way so that it conveys a certain idea in Nicholas’ head. And Nicholas’ feels like this is all meant to be. Conchis is planting all this in his head. There is even a constant mention of Conchis placing them under hypnosis. This just all adds to the middles stage in which Nicholas doesn’t know what is going on. He is confused.

“A world where nothing is certain. That’s what he’s trying to create here” (Fowles, Page 339).

                Clearly, Nicholas also undergoes a painful initiation throughout this whole process. Through the actions of Lily and Conchis he is forced to come face to face with the demon he himself cast upon Alison. Alison was willing to give up everything to be with him and was fully committed. She poured her heart out and offered it to Nicholas. However, Nicholas was so wrapped up in the ongoing mystery with Conchis he wanted nothing to do with Alison. He was so selfish that he didn’t want to share his paradise with anybody. With all the mystery and confusion and adventure and lust that was going on with Lily, he wanted nothing to do with Alison. Little did he know that Alison was in on it all and everything he had just done to her was going to be done to him, through Lily. I guess myth really is the precedent behind every action.

“A physical confrontation, even the proximity that Alison’s coming to the island might represent, was unthinkable. Whatever happened, if I met her, it must be in Athens. If he invited me, I could easily make some excuse and not go. But if he didn’t, then after all I would have Alison to fall back on. I won either way” (Fowles, Page 203).

                In Inceptum Finis Est… Just like we talked about in our lectures in class the end includes the beginning. The end is to arrive at the beginning and to know the place for the first time. The end involves a return or transformation. The end is the apocalypse. But rather than the end of the world, we have to view it as the end of the world as we know it. A veil will be lifted and one will see the world as it really exists.

“I think I saw the star again for a while, the star as it simply was, hanging in the sky above, but now in all it’s being-and-becoming. It was like walking through a door, going all round the world, and then walking through the same door but a different door” (Fowles, Page 240).

                 At the end of this novel, Lily ends up ‘betraying’ Nicholas just in the sort of manner he himself did to Alison. Nicholas has worked up all these feeling for her and has forever longed to be with her, and just after it seems as though the moment is true and eternal, all hell breaks loose. Lily truly has no feelings for him; in fact she is in a dreamy romance with another man. Nicholas means nothing to her. Sound familiar?

Throughout all this confusion and mystery and agony and excitement that Nicholas is experiencing with Conchis and Lily, he undergoes a metamorphosis. It opens up his eyes and allows him to see in a new light. He sees that what he did to Alison was wrong and he longs for the moment to be with her again. He goes through some troubled times and even has moments where he thinks he’ll never see her again. However, he keeps faith and keeps on waiting for the moment. His experiences through Conchis have taught him to be patient. He now realizes that Alison is worth waiting for. What he wanted nothing to do with in the beginning, he was now desperately in need of.

The book ends with the highly anticipated meeting between Nicholas and Alison. Despite all the changes that Nicholas has taken on, he can’t get that feeling of Conchis still watching him out of his mind. And he can’t forgive Alison. He will forever long for Conchis to be watching him. This is what he wants. He began to see the world in a new perspective, but in the biggest moment he blew it again. Down to the last page Nicholas thought Conchis was watching. He failed to realize that it was all a big game and that nobody is watching anymore.

“Wednesday had been a sultry day with a veiled sun, an end-of-the-world day, very un-Aegean” (Fowles, Page 465).

APA CITATION

Calasso, R. (1994). The marriage of cadmus and harmony. New York: Vintage Books.

Fowles, J. (1966). The magus. New York: Little, Brown and Company.