Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Assignment 3: The House in The Ghost Sonata
August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata is a surrealist play with many changing facets. It deals with sin and innocence, generational conflict, lies vs. truth, and false identities. Just about the only thing that remains stationary -- though not unchanging -- is the Colonel's house. What is the significance (or at least one significance) of the house in this play? Can you point to a particular passage where you see it?
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In my opinion, the house in August Strindberg’s play The Ghost Sonata represented a group of individuals - old man, mummy, student, daughter and staff - who were of different ages, social status and experienced different relationships.
These relationships and experiences were a façade highlighted by the student who noted, “…And when I saw you walk through the door for the first time, I thought it was Paradise…I saw a Colonel who was not a Colonel, I found a noble benefactor who turned out to be a crook…” (pg 208)
Secondly, the home can be viewed as one of the teachers of life’s experiences which assisted to make an individual wiser if he or she learned from these experiences. The student remarked, “Now I can feel that vampire in the kitchen beginning to suck up my blood... it’s always in the kitchen that children’s heart are nipped. If it hasn’t already happened in the bedroom…These are poisons which blind and poison which open the eyes. I must have born with the second kind in my veins…” (pg 208)
The house in the play The Ghost Sonata, basically connected each character in one way or another. The house was full of crimes, secrets, and lies. Each individual has some type of relation to each other and I believe the significance of the house was to still keep these people together knowing that one day the secrets will come out.
"Here, for example, in this respectable house, this exquisite home, where beauty, culture and wealth are united-..." (pg 200)
I think the home is there to represent good things as said in the play; wealth, tradition, values, culture, but somewhere along the line these people lost that idea, and now its time to throw out the old and start fresh. "That was why I came to this house; to burn out the weeds, expose the crimes, balance the ledger, so that these young people may start life afresh in this home..." (pg 201)
I believe that one of the readings of the play can be tht the house is in some form Hell. Or more specifically, a particular circle of Hell that holds all these lost, damaged souls that are tied to each other by the deceits and lies that they and society at large have foisted upon each other.
The crazed Mummy, once beautiful, is the mother of Daughter. The true father is Hummel, not the Colonel. The Colonel is a sham, neither nobleman or soldier. Hummel is a usurer, blackmailer, murderer.
Supernaturally there is the Milkmaid's ghost, the Dead Man walks, the vampiric household staff, themeselves HUmmels, who suck the nourishment from food and drink.
Daughter's speech towards the end of the play, the story of her father at the dinner party, later carted off to the madhouse, "stripped the company naked, flinging their hypocrisy in their faces....and told them all to go to hell.", can be understood as a reference to the house itself.
“We have erred, and sinned, like all mortals. We are not what we seem, for our true selves live within us, condemning our failings.” (pg. 201)
The Colonel’s house in the play represents a small branch of the “world.” The house is full of scandals, lies, and DRAMA. In a way it sort of reminds me of the real world or reality, but not in a literal sense, it also reminds of the drama and issues that we encounter in today’s world. When reading this play, the movie Crash came to mind in a sense that everyone is linked in one way or another. Throughout the entire play, the reader is deceived by many different things such as sin and innocence, generational conflict, lies vs. truth, and false identities. The house reassures the reader that in all of the falseness that they have encountered in the play, the house is somewhere they could always refer to as a vineyard of “truth” and reality although it is not in a literal sense.
The play speaks about the account of a young student named Arkenholz, who “idealizes” the lives of the residents of an apartment building in Stockholm. He makes the acquaintance of the mysterious Jacob Hummel, who helps him to find his way into the apartment, only to find that it is a place of betrayal, sickness and vampirism.
Another fascinating section I found in this play is a portion of the conversation between the student and the old man- Jacob found on page 186.
"Old Man: You think I’m not telling the truth.
Student: What else am I to think? My father never lied?
Old Man: True, true. One’s own father never lies. But I am a father, too; so-----"
This section stuck out to me, because we see from the beginning that this play would be full of lies and deceit. This play does not take place in what most people would call reality. There are ghost and vampires that around in broad daylight, a beautiful woman is changed into a mummy and lives in the closet (who’s literally known as Mummy) and the household cook sucks all the nourishment out of the food before she serves it to her masters. Strindberg seems to create his own world. In this “world” the student learns that it is hell, and that people must suffer in order to achieve salvation.
The significance of the house in this play entails the supernatural world. From my perpective, everything seemed so fake and unreal. How is a mummy alive? I also got a sense of unrealness especially when Hummel said why should we drink tea when we know that we dont like tea? In the beginning of the play, I had to ask myself, why does hummel wants the colonel to fire Bengtsson, and why does Hummel mention that colonel is the father of the daughter when he is the father. the house is old meaning that the people in it are from the past. Each of them are different in their own ways. The only simliarity is that they are all rich and was tricked by the old man. There are so many lies within this house. Hummel says on page 200. Nevertheless, the time sometimes comes when that which is most secret must be revealed, when the mask is stripped from the deceiver's face, when the identity of the criminal is exposed. he tries to expose the lies, when is the one lying. he himself is a murderer. he puts on the masks to hide himself. the house also represents the place where the old man will die.
I believe that the house represents the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover." The house is elegantly furnished with fine things, yet the secrets, the lies and all the suffering that has gone on in the house is hidden in the hearts and minds of it's occupants. All of these things are hidden, never spoken of and the old man has decided that it's his job to expose the truth and lift the curse from the life of the young people. On page 201, the Old Man says this is why he "came to this house; to burn out the weeds, expose the crimes, balance the ledger." It's just ironic that the person who is suppose to reveal these truths has secrets of his own that also become revealed by the Mummy.
i think that the house is there to represent that outer beauty can mask inner ugliness- like t. todd sais "don't judge a book by its cover." arkenholz would do almost anything to get into that house because of its wealth and beauty. however, the house is about the only consistentcy in the play. eveyone else is hiding deceit and lies and it all comes out in the house.the house is like greger's and eugene, in that it stirs up trouble and unveils the truth. "That was why I came to this house; to burn out the weeds, expose the crimes, balance the ledger, so that these young people may start life afresh in this home..." (pg 201) and ironically
the old man came to expose the truth about others and his truth was exposed as well. being that there seemed to be many dead characters, maybe this is what happenes when we die and our lives are exposed?
The house has a facade of beauty which represents a paradise and causes the boy to desire it (temptation). The Hyacinth flower when first seen also appears to be ideal although its perfection is nothing more than an illusion. The student says to the girl “I thought it was paradise itself the first time I saw you coming in here.” But the flowers in the “paradise” are poisonous.The flower could be alluding to the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Inside the house is a cursed, destitute, decaying place, that torments its inhabitants because of their past sins, guilt, and deceit. The house could be rendered as purgatory because the souls inside are not at their final resting place and cannot leave the house until their time has come. It’s rather ironic that the “innocent” girl is paying for the sins of her father so to speak. The house outer appearances symbolize life before Original Sin and the inside represents life after. Life that is full of imperfections and death. The boy supposedly was brought there to liberate the young girl but in the process he tries to close his eyes to the reality of what is actually going on. While she is withering away and explaining her everyday misfortune he asks her to sing, sing sweet songs. The ideal of real truth being hidden is idealism and the truth being revealed is modernism which presents itself throughout the play.
I really like what Gani said about the house representing all of the characters lives. Every individual in the play is connecting to the house in some way. That is why it is constant and stationary.
I also agree with what Nadine said. The house represents the supernatural world. This play reminds me of a fairy tale. This was discussed in the literary criticism for the Ghost Sonata. However, it is a twisted fairy tale. There is no happily ever after. The house represents that, this is something that Franciso touches on in his comment when he calls the house a representation of Hell.
I consider the home to be that which contains all of the lies. It is itself deceiving because it looks so nice on the outside as if it were a place where happiness and family community reigns. It is also a place where the Student so much wants to be. He looks at it from the outside in, wishing that he knew what it was like inside. This idea alone represents the notion of the people who appear to be one way on the surface, and once they are known are something else entirely. Naturally the Student has his ideals of what the house and the people in it are going to be like, and when he sees the reality of it all, it seems like nothing more than a dream of absurdities. The entire fairytale seems to revolve around this house because it is what binds the characters together as well as what seperates them from either the people inside who know the truth, or the people outside who wonder about it. In a sense the house is a place where both truth is unveiled and where the truth is also masked. (Such as the mummy, a completey masked character who is the one that unveils the truth completely the contrast here is very similar to the role of the house in the ghost Sonata.
The House in The Ghost Sonata functions as curious optical device of revelation/concealment, translucence/obfustication. At the play's start, figures and ghosts emerge and disappear within it's doors, casements, and balconies -- the house's orifices -- like instruments or liet-motifs weaving in and out of a sonata. Later, having gained entrance to the house, we find that, like a dali-esque advent calandar, it is filled with comparments that conceal and reveal surprises -- mummies, corpses, ghosts...
Thus, the house can be read as a symbol for the human mind, which hides away all that is unpleasant from the light of consciousness. Thus is the withered 'mummy' hidden away in a cupboard -- rather like Norman Bates in hitchock's psycho hide's his mother in the fruit-cellar (the psycho house, with the basement function as the subconscious, the attic as the ego, also symbolizes the human mind -- similarly, the set in endgame, where the two high windows represent the eye-holes as seen from the inside of a skull). Not only is the withered mother kept from the consciousness, but death, as we are told that a screen is brought out to hide anyway who is dying, which reminds me of the name of a Damien Hirst sculpture, which itself references existential philosophy: "The Impossibility of Death In the Mind of Someone Living"
The house to me serves as a mask of beauty on the outside but really holds a lot of ugly truths that are within. The student, when talking to the old man (p. 187) says, "Yes, I've noticed it before. I was walking past it yesterday, as the sun was shining in its windows. I thought of all the beauty and luxury there must be inside..." However, the old man gives us a little foreshadow of some of the ugliness and deception when the student asks about the marble statue on p. 188--"Ah, my dear boy, we must not judge our fellow mortals. If I were to tell you that he struck her, that she left him, that she came back to him, and re-married him, and that she now stis in there in the shape of a mummy, worshipping her own statue, you would think I was mad." What is inside this house is a world that holds sin, criminals, and liars.
The outside of the house is deceitful in that it gives the appearance of perfection and beauty, but instead is full of criminals and liars and evil. Even the furnture and interior is nice, just as the people apear normal and average, until they reveal the terrible things inside them.
Inside of the house is a paradigm for inside the tenants heads, becasue its filled with terrible things.
The Colonel’s house is a beautiful façade that holds beneath its surface deceit and malevolence: a marble statue shows the outside world how beautiful the Colonel’s wife is yet she is now sits in a cupboard to hide her mummification; the Colonel, who is a nobleman hides the fact that he in truth is not a nobleman or even a colonel; Bengtsson the footman is really a nobleman; the cook takes nourishment from the people in the house instead of giving; the maid just worsens things so that the daughter has to “clean up after her, dust behind her, and light the fire after her.” (206) As the Daughter dies the Student sums up the horrors of the house: “this world of delusion, guilt, suffering and death, this world for ever changing, for ever erring, for ever in pain!” (209) The reader may notice that the whole house is never visible throughout the entirety of the play but rather, “Only the corner of it is visible.” (184) I am puzzled by the meaning of this passage. If anyone has any ideas…
I have to agree with Chaim and today's discussion of the matter in class: the play is all about false appearances, hidden truths, and ugly secrets behind a pleasant veneer, and the house is the symbolic embodiment of those themes. To the outsider's eye, like the Student's, it is the "Paradise... [he is] pining his heart out to get in" (196), whereas on the inside it is a morgue, more or less, where the characters are either physically or emotionally dead.
Upon initial reading, however, while confused about who was dead and who alive in the play, I saw the house as a type of haunted mansion, where lost souls, trapped by lies and tied up in secrets, cannot cross over into their final destination. The Old Man and the Daughter both die/"die" (i.e., cross over) once their identities and vices are revealed.
The house represents a lot in this house. It represents good and evil, real and unreal, natural and supernatural, differences and similarities. The house also stand for truth. It is the place where everyone abides even the supernatural. The house also hides things from people on the outside, which is a very important point. There were so many devious thing going on here. Lies weretold, and feelings were repressed. Language hides things, we hide what we have inside us. Just think about repression and Freud. Silence is more truthful, because silence can't deceive. Also, someone once stated, "some things are better left unsaid.
One passage best descibes what the house represents, "We have erred, and sinned, like all mortals. We are what we seem, for our true selves live within us, condemning our failings."
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