Many of the set texts involve a physical journey of some kind (Perfume and The Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) Choose two texts and examine the significance of these journeys in the relation to the philosophy that informs each text.

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Alan Torcello        

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Many of the set texts involve a physical journey of some kind (Perfume and The Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) Choose two texts and examine the significance of these journeys in the relation to the philosophy that informs each text.

Any physical journey is coerced and guided by cognitive processes and societal influences; this paper will follow and critique the journey of two authoratic constructions, Suskind’s Grenouille (Perfume) and Murakami’s Calcutec (Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), . The physical journey that is undertaken by our two character constructions is initiated by the Deleuzian notion of ‘Desire’, and quickly becomes not only a physical journey but a psychological journey to a state of consciousness.  It is an attempt on the part of the authors to create a conundrum for their character representations. The authors explore the processes of how the protagonists might be seen as attempting to find their connection within the societal structure that has become the closed or restrictive. Herein the creative force of desire is destined by definition to destroy that same structure, and ultimately reterritorialise the protagonist. In the case of the construct Grenouille, his starting point in the story, his conception and entrance into the world mirror his exit; the absence of bodily odour destroys his ability to achieve an identity within standard society. His exit has been reterritorialised/modified in that through desire and the attainment of consciousness his exit is just as violent as his entrance (surrounded by a backdrop of violent death) however the presence he leaves on society is vastly different, as is his odour. Murakami’s Calutec is also reterritorialised in a created and modified reality. In relation to the journey presented to us by the authors via their constructs I overlay the Nietzschean concept of a society in which God is dead. Therefore man (asexual) takes on a central role in the in the quest for motivation and meaningfulness of existence. A critique will be made of the society that surrounds and coerces the constructs and the author’s (using the constructs) reaction to the coercion from the super structure, utilising the philosophical thoughts of Nietzsche, Delueuze, Guattari, Jung and Freud, with fleeting references to others.  

Murakami’s book is framed within a Freudian philosophical thought of the conscious and the subconscious. He introduces his readers to a juxtaposition of seemingly two unrelated worlds: The mystical world with unicorns and an impenetrable wall, and a high tech world wherein man has become machine. We later find out that the Calutec is the patron of both these worlds; in one he has been created (via parents) and in the second he has created himself in the subconscious of his mind, hence the Freudian paradigm. For the sleuths Murakami gives us many clues prior to the professor’s explicit explanation of events. When the Calutec is being lead through the corridors of the featureless building the construct displays a sense of confusion as he is taken around and around identical corridors, this feeling of repetition alludes the reader that we are entering a post-modern environment. The absence of language on the part of the professor’s daughter also indicates an environment wherein the state of consciousness will be questioned, for example how does the Calutec perceive himself in an environment with no language; and hence the initiation of the journey. As Lacan believes, “the unconscious is structured like a language” (class handout “Superstructuralism”), the absence of language in this case creates the post-modern environment the Calutec is now entering.  After being introduced to the post-modern environment the readers are now descending through the caverns of the earth to find the meaning of this part of the journey. To the sleuths this portion of the physical journey is a representation of a journey down to the subconscious—with the ultimate reason to find enlightenment (whose representation in the physical is the Professor). There are perils accompanying the progression of this journey to the underground laboratory/subconscious, wherein there is a breed of beings (not human) that are trying to prevent the decent, the INKings. These beings project horror, although the reader never comes into contact via the text with them. The Macquarie Dictionary relates this word as intimation or an illusion, yet this illusion forms an alliance with the physical (being the Semiotecs). It is quite plausible taking all of the events into account one can view this milieu of the text as a journey to the subconscious (psychoanalytical), with the Semiotec as the devious nature of Society’s superstructure and the INKings as its perceived enforcers trying to stop or hamper this journey to enlightenment.

In the subconscious at this time we are introduced another construction, the Calutec’s ultra ego entering a mystical, dream type environment. As we find later we are entering a constructed parallel world, formed in the subconscious of our protagonist. Upon entering this world we are introduced to the ‘Gatekeeper’. His function is that of enforcer of the strict laws that enable this world to exist. His first act towards our protagonist is to separate him from his shadow. In a Jungian perspective the metaphoric removal of a shadow relates to the removal of an archetype that is oppressively steeped in societal and cultural structure. Jung believes that the shadow is that which is the hidden or unconscious the aspects of oneself, both good and bad; which the ego has either repressed or never realized, both rejected aspects of ones self as well as undeveloped potential. The function of the shadow and the Gate-Keeper is the juxtaposition from which the reader is able to critique the societal debate that rages in all of its proponents. The removal of the shadow is significant to the construction and survival of this subconscious world. The question is asked, why does the desiring machine construct this world and hence why is the removal of the shadow so important? In my view the shadow represents the social construction that manufactures our existence. In the case of the Calutec, he has been constructed as an industrial money making machine. There are fleeting references to a life prior his mechanical transformation, all alluding to him being an outcast from a society (a mechanical society), where even the names people have become indexed employment references. His transformation into this society was performed by a medical procedure; herein one can see a critique of the burgeoning industrial society and its power to manufacture and socialise people into nameless components of an industrial society, especially relevant considering Murakami’s beginnings in the revolutionary thinking of the hippy sixties.

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This is why I believe that the Calutec is the embodiment of a Deleuzian desiring machine. His representation does not maintain a desire of lack, yet desire in Deleuzeian and Guattarian terms is revolutionary within the Calutec, operating at the unconscious level. So much so desire creates a parallel world in this realm. Desire destroys the scientific world that surrounds the Calutec in the conscious due to the restrictedness nature of such a society. In other words it destroys the closed order that subverts its creativity. This is why the Gate-Keeper is so important; this representation is portrayed as ...

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