Myth and Carnival in Robert Coover's The Public Burning - aisna

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14 DainottoCope's suggestion further, I would argue that Coover's dialogismfunctions as much more than a carnival—i.e., as the carnivalization of apublic event which was not supposed to be a carnival.It might be useful here to distinguish between the ritual tensionand the carnivalesque tension in The Public Burning. On the one hand,we have Uncle Sam's monologic desire to assert his drama as "true"and absolute, using the Rosenbergs's execution as a ritual for therenewal of America's sinking spirit, to "make everything new again:after all, that was what light and darkness, the sacred and the diabolic,death and regeneration were all about!" (PB 95); on the other hand, wewitness the falling apart of Uncle Sam's metaphoric structures. Theuntenability of the"grand narrative" of his dossier on the Rosenbergs,which "grew and grew [l]ike Pinocchio's nose" (PB 368), transforms thecelebration into a farce in which the "whole nation is falling on its ass"(PB 363). As Coover sets fiction (dialogism) against myth (monologism),in exactly the same way the narrator of The Public Burning setsthe carnival against Uncle Sam's official mythologizing effort. As forFoucault's model, Coover's theater of the public burning can flip fromdiscipline into its opposite number when the sovereign's rhetoric isdenounced, its intention reversed, and "public execution allow[s] theluxury of... momentary saturnalia" (Foucault 60).Coover's exemplary narrative is rooted in his twofold way ofinterpreting the Rosenbergs's execution as official ritual (myth) or assubversive carnival (fiction), and in the dialogic tension therebycreated. It is, from a different perspective, an ecology of the public"place"—the literary topos of Times Square. What, he seems to beasking, are the uses of a public place such as the novel form or the citysquare? Should we use it for mythologizing purposes and therein stagethe theater of power, or should we use it to enact the drama of aliberating carnival? When Nixon tells us that Times Square "is themost paradoxical place in all America" (PB 164), we are ready toregister Times Square as an allegory (etymologically: allos-agora, placeof assembly) of fiction in general, that "vibrant space between the polesof paradox where all the exciting art happens" (Coover 1983, 67). Asparadoxical space, Times Square, that allegory of fiction, oscillatesbetween the two poles of ritual and carnival, myth and de-mythification,order and subversion, Law and saturnalia, the novel as
RSA Journal 315"policing power [and] regulation of social order" (Miller 207) andCoover's exemplary anti-novel, deregulation of social order and dialogue.Uncle Sam has gathered everybody in Times Square, hasrecruited everyone for the enactment of his mythologizing drama:Who could tell what was on Uncle Sam's mind? Certainly it was verytheatrical... everybody in this case from the Judge on down—indeed,just about everyone in the nation, in and out of government, myselfincluded—[was] behaving like actors caught up in a play... some largerscript ... (PB 117)That Uncle Sam's ritual drama and cathartic spectacle turns into acarnival is due primarily to its self-elected protagonist, Richard Nixonthe clown. 3 Exemplary character of Uncle Sam's American moralityplay—competitive, cynical, self-made man—Nixon is too paranoid andself-conscious to endorse completely Uncle Sam's narrative project:"The trouble with me... is that I'm too attentive, I see things tooclearly." 4 Himself a bad actor in his youth (in a drama entitled "TheFarting Quaker"), Nixon ends up denouncing the Rosenberg trial as "acarefully rehearsed professional drama" (PB 121), and eventually ruinsUncle Sam's spectacle:"You fool!" rasped Uncle Sam, dropping me back down on the stage.He glanced apprehensively up at the night sky, dark and starless."You're going too far!" I was frightened (how had it got so dark sosoon?), but I had passed the point of no return... (PB 484)Nixon's role as narrator of The Public Burning is twofold: he isboth metafictional consciousness and representative character. Firstly,he serves as a vehicle for Coover's distrust against hypostatizednarratives—for example, when he wonders if the whole Rosenbergstory might be a complete fabrication ("And then what if there were nospy ring at all? What if all these characters believed there was and actedout their parts on this assumption, a whole courtroom full of fantasies,"PB 135). Secondly, he allows Coover to give a portrayal of Nixon asboth caricature ("the caricature came first and the face followed,"Nixon says of himself, PB 187) and representative of the Americancharacter. McCaffery argues:
Page 1 and 2: ROBERTO MARIA DAINOTTOMyth and Carn
Page 3 and 4: RSA Journal 37fire purifies everyth
Page 5 and 6: RSA Journal 39order, hypostatized a
Page 7 and 8: RSA Journal 311matter, The New York
Page 9: RSA Journal 313Scenery, perspective
Page 13 and 14: RSA Journal 317Superhero Uncle Sam
Page 15 and 16: RSA Journal 319Ages" (PB 58). In a
Page 17 and 18: RSA Journal 321so she burns—and b

Myth and Carnival in Robert Coover's The Public Burning - aisna

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