Reading the Other. Bakhtin and the Topography of Arrival in Literature

Abstract

This chapter describes the topography of arrival in a literary work as determined by the coordination of time and space. Following upon a brief account of the existential meeting of Self and Other in The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. seventh century BCE), an exploration of the chronotopic changes in romance from Xenophon of Ephesus's An Ephesian Tale (c. second century CE) to Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian (1818) as outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin demonstrates how synchronic influences lead to significant diachronic changes in an otherwise consistent literary form. Then, a reading of Anton Chekhov's Lady with the Dog (1899) shows how variations in social space effectively reconstruct the topography of arrival. The result is a historical map of literary works that complicates the reading of difference in existential terms by illustrating the chronotopic manipulation that frames arrival.The demigod Gilgamesh is the young, unruly king of the city of Uruk. He meets the wild man Enkidu and attempts to overcome him in battle. The two are reconciled and become the best of friends. Gilgamesh and Enkidu set off to the Forest of Cedar to earn fame by slaying the guardian Humbaba and to destroy the sacred forest for timber. Gilgamesh later refuses the advances of the goddess Ishtar. In retaliation, a great bull is sent to wreak havoc in Uruk. It is killed by the combined efforts of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, but Enkidu dies shortly after as a result. Distraught, Gilgamesh wanders in search of immortality to Uta-napishti the Distant. On his journey, he imposes his will on others, but at the ends of the world, his mortality is revealed. Gilgamesh returns home to inscribe his journey on clay tablets and continue his reign as king over the city and people of Uruk.This ancient tale contributes to an understanding of the topography of arrival as the existential meeting of Self and Other in several ways. First, Gilgamesh' s discovery of the unknown at the ends of the world is emphasized in the prologue: [Gilgamesh] saw what was secret, discovered what was hidden, / he brought back a tale of before the Deluge. (Anon 1993: 2) The stress placed on the 'secret' and 'hidden' coincides with reference to the preservation of the tale in writing and instructions to read out / the travails of Gilgamesh [...] Who scoured the world ever searching for life, / and reached through sheer force Uta-napishti the (Anon 1993: 2). Second, Gilgamesh meets subjects, rivals, nature and animals, foreigners and a goddess in Uruk and on his travels. In each case, the young king affirms the priority and seeming invincibility of his own existence through violence. It is only when Enkidu dies that Gilgamesh faces that which cannot be conquered. But Gilgamesh, confronted with death, attempts to prevail over his own mortality anyway. Exhausted by his endless travels, he arrives at the ends of the earth, stripped of his royal robes, worn out and alone. Uta-napishti the Distant makes it clear that the divide between Self and Other cannot be overcome: No one at all sees Death,/no one at all sees the face [of Death,] / no one at all [hears] the voice of Death/Death so savage, who hacks men down. (Anon 1993: 86) The meeting with Uta-napishti reveals an ultimate displacement of the Self in relation to an Other that cannot be imposed upon. As such, Gilgamesh' s arrival at the ends of the earth may be viewed as the revelation of an existential human condition.Gilgamesh ends with a repetition from the prologue: O Urshanabi, climb Uruk' s wall and walk back and forth! / Survey its foundations, examine the brickwork! / Were its bricks not fired in an oven? / Did the Seven Sages not lay its foundations? / A square mile is the city, a square mile date -grove, a square mile is / clay-pit, half a square mile the temple of Ishtar: / three square miles and a half is Uruk's expanse. (Anon 1993: 99) Gilgamesh's final arrival is a return to Uruk, the return of an impetuous, wandering king to the wall that cannot be built alone, to the Seven Sages who commune with the gods on behalf of mortals, to a city centered about a place of worship and to the act of inscription. …