(urth) Lame Protagonists
James B. Jordan
jbjordan4 at cox.net
Wed Jun 15 13:17:03 PDT 2011
IIRC it's also in The Hero as Werewolf.
JBJordan
At 03:07 PM 6/15/2011, you wrote:
>In a message dated 6/15/2011 2:41:10 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
>kierkegaurdian at gmail.com writes:
>
> > I just finished Peace (which was absolutely wonderful) and
> > am now reading the last half of The Book of the Long Sun.
> > I noticed when reading Peace, one short sentence in which
> > the narrator references his bad leg, which is dragging
> > behind him. Of course, Severian is famously lame, and
> > for the larger portion of Long Sun, Patera Silk has a
> > wounded leg that is mentioned several times. I was
> > wondering what people thought the significance is, and
> > if there were other protagonists in Wolfe novels who
> > are lame.
>
>My guess, without looking at it closely, would be that Wolfe might
>have Genesis 3 in mind. In God's curse on the serpent, we read that
>he will impose enmity between the serpent and the woman and between
>the serpent's seed (offspring) and the woman's seed (offspring), an
>enmity which will culminate this way: "He will bruise/crush your
>head and you will bruise/crush his heel."
>
>That verse is often called the protoevangelium, because it is seen
>by Christians as referring to Jesus' death on the cross, whereby he
>also crushed the head of the serpent (Satan). The cross is the
>crushing/bruising of Jesus' heel, the serpent's strike at Jesus,
>which results in Jesus' death ... but that death isn't final, and in
>the serpent's striking at Jesus, the serpent ends up with his own
>head crushed.
>
>Moreover, Paul applies that promise to the whole church in Romans 16
>when he promises the church in Rome that "the God of peace will
>crush Satan under your feet shortly." So it is not just that Jesus
>crushes the serpent's head. It is also that God crushes the serpent
>(Satan) under the feet of the church. And if that's the case, then
>it's not surprising that in crushing the serpent, the church also
>sustains a foot wound.
>
>So perhaps there's some connection between the lameness of these
>characters and the promise in Genesis 3. But I wonder if there
>isn't perhaps also a connection with the Jacob narrative: When Jacob
>wrestles the Angel, who turns out to be YHWH himself, he learns that
>all of his wrestling with man throughout his life (Isaac, Esau,
>Laban) has actually been wrestling with God ... and that in that
>wrestling, far from losing, he has actually been winning. Now,
>wrestling with the Angel, he is winning again. But the Angel simply
>touches Jacob's hip and the result is that Jacob limps for the rest
>of his life. That limp, though a weakness, is not a sign of his
>loss but of his victory. He is now Israel, the one who wrestles
>with God and prevails. And maybe these Wolfean characters are to be
>viewed as Jacobs, as those who are wrestling with God.
>
>I'll let others carry these thoughts further if they wish. (By the
>way, this sort of imagery is also present, even more strongly, in
>the works of Tim Powers. How many of Powers' characters are wounded
>in their heads, hands, and feet in the course of the story?)
>
>John
>
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James B. Jordan
Director, Biblical Horizons
Box 1096
Niceville, FL 32588
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com
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