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Faramir -> I Have Called You... (7/25/2005 10:10:47 AM)
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One of my particular pleasures is when I stumble upon something in literature that especially or evocatively articulates some aspect of power exchange. You find these gems in the most unusual places – some author, in discussing non-sexual (or at least not explicitly erotic) relationships says something and you are struck dumb. “That’s it, that’s how it is,” you want to say.
One of my favorites is from Paradise Lost – the interaction between Eve and Adam before the Fall. In book IV she says to him, “my author and disposer, what thou bidd'st unargued I obey.” She also says, “God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.” *
What a graceful articulation of surrender on her part – she has her eyes fixed on him, and his will is her law. What man would not feel like a king, what woman would not feel a queen, with a lover so composed?
Another favorite of mine is from Jack London’s Whitefang. For anyone unfamiliar with the work, Whitefang is part wolf and part dog, and the story chronicles his enslavement under men.
His first god is Gray Beaver - dour, stoic, unemotional Gray Beaver, who beats and breaks White Fang as a puppy, enslaving him into service that is neither cruel nor loving. It is merely service, just and fair in a harsh sense, but without any emotional exchange beyond fealty for power.
White Fang is sold eventually to Beauty Smith, the hate god, who does add emotional content to White Fang’s slavery. White Fang’s servitude becomes one of torment, as he is tortured until he becomes a fiend, nothing good left in him, only savagery and the reality of his god, a god of evil, “the hate-god.”
Eventually White Fang is rescued by the love god, Weedon Scott (son of Judge Scott in TCotW). A new god replaces the old, and White Fang’s slavery is completely reshaped, given new meaning and dimension. Before his slavery was one-dimensional – the emotional content was a point: hatred. The love god adds a second point to that equation, and thus a second dimension – White Fang now knows love in counter-point to hate. A capacity undreamt of emerges. There is wonderful description of this love in physical action:
quote:
Having learned to snuggle, White Fang was guilt of it often. It was the final word. He could not go beyond it. The one thing of which he had always been particularly jealous, was his head. He had always disliked to have it touched. It was the Wild in him, the fear of hurt and of the trap, that had given rise to the panicky impulse to avoid contacts. It was the mandate of his instinct that the head must be free. And now, with the love-master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself into a position of hopeless helplessness. It was an expression of the perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: “I will put myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me.”
I love that, “It was the final word.”
Later he says:
quote:
White Fang allowed all the members of the family to pet him and make much of him; but he never gave to them what he gave to the master. No caress of theirs could put the love-croon into his throat, and, try as they would, they could never persuade him into snuggling against them. This expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved for the master alone.
I would imagine there are some here who would find those words, “It was an expression of the perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender…” resonant. How many people here know well “the fear of hurt and of the trap, that had given rise to the panicky impulse to avoid contacts,” only to have a love-master entice them into putting down their head in trust? There are many ways to skin the D/s cat, and this won’t make sense to everyone here. Still though, hell of thing to have a relationship where one could say “I will put myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me.”
My last favorite snippet is from the Book of Isaiah, 43-1: “I have called you by your name. You are mine now.” I love that powerful, bold expression, that ultimate state of possession. It was said to a people for whom names and naming was of paramount importance, and I think the statement can be borrowed from its original context in a way that retains power and meaning. Regardless of faith, many of us in M/s would find great meaning in being able to say, or have said to us, “I have called you by your name. You are mine now.”
Does anyone here have any favorite literary passages that articulate something in PE especially well for you?
*No doubt the mention of God will cause someone here to spaz out, but taken as a purely personal statement on her part it would take a mean spirit to take offense.
NB Parts of this are from a previous post at b.com
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