"Why Don't You Be a Tiger?": The Performative, Transformative, and Creative Power of the Word in the Universes of Diana Wynne Jones
2011; Volume: 22; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0897-0521
Autores Tópico(s)Themes in Literature Analysis
ResumoI am knowledge, force That words of power have, science deep In the head, the arrowpoint that's made Exactly for its target, flight in form. I am fire in the mind. --Diana Wynne Jones, Sestina IF ONE WERE TO TELL A CHARACTER IN ANY OF DIANA WYNNE JONES's BOOKS for children and young adults to jump in a lake, he might well be compelled to do so. Magic is real, in Jones's universes, and often manifested through language. In Howl's Moving Castle, for instance, Sophie Hatter talks life into things; the mages in The Spellcoats can make things come true by weaving words into cloth; Nan, in Witch Week, has greater power as a writer--in making things up and writing things down--than she does as a witch. When, near the end of Charmed Life, Cat Chant meets Will Suggins in a magical duel, his weary Why don't you be a tiger? has an immediate effect without Cat's even knowing how he did it (202). Such power carries with it a great risk of abuse, especially when even the most attractive and charismatic of Jones's characters, such as the wizard Howl or the suave and debonair Chrestomanci, can be headstrong, domineering, or downright bossy. Such power can be coercive, even tyrannical, in the hands of someone with selfish motives. It is important, therefore, for those possessing power and authority to moderate their behavior, and for those subject to that power to be vigilant and critical and not follow blindly. Jones demonstrates, in fact, that thoughtless obedience can be as damaging as the thoughtless misuse of power, whether it be obedience to authority or to tradition, and that her characters, and her readers, have power--of the creative imagination--that will help them to modify and to extricate themselves from the potentially coercive power of words. The power and importance of language, writing, and storytelling in Jones's work has been widely noted by scholars. Deborah Kaplan, for example,1 has commented that who are able to write or tell stories have immense power over their own lives and the lives of others (53), and points out that those who can speak precisely have greater strength than those with more overt power but less ability to communicate. Kaplan suggests that this is emphasized through Jones's use of metatexts and metafiction. Indeed, it is remarkable how many of Jones's books are overtly metafictional: The Homeward Bounders, The Spellcoats, Deep Secret, The Merlin Conspiracy, Archer's Goon, Black Maria, Fire and Hemlock, and Hexwood all present in some form or another a story within a story, and all highlight the importance of narrative as a way of making sense of the world. I will argue, though, that through metafiction and through demonstration of the instability of language, Jones both presents and interrogates the power of words and reveals that freedom for characters and ultimately for us as readers comes through a healthy skepticism towards authority, whether that authority is institutional or comes less directly through the power of a storyteller. Freedom also comes from a willingness to accept alternate points of view and interpretations that explore the mercurial and multi-faceted possibilities of language. It is a fantasy trope that one must be extremely careful when talking to fairy folk (not to mention dragons): think about the many traditional fairy tales that depict the unfortunate consequences of ill-phrased wishes. However, Jones repeatedly demonstrates the potential pitfalls of the too literal use of language or interpretation, and in her presentation of spell-casting, highlights both the instability of text and the ways that the unconventional, or non-literal way of doing things can be effective. The Magicians of Caprona opens with the line Spells are the hardest things in the world to get right (9). Neither of the two main protagonists--Tonino Montana and Angelica Petrocci--is able to make spells work by conventional means. Angelica's spells always work with a mad kind of reasonableness (187), but they never turn out quite the way she expected. …
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