In “The Great God Pan” (1894) Machen uses ancient Greek god Pan to serve as a symbol of spiritual reality that lies beyond human perception and knowledge. Machen’s use of this divine entity and his success in rediscovering a minor figure of the classical pantheon, yet “mostly neglected by earlier authors of English literature” (Pasi 69), provide what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari argue to be the significant value of a minor author, “…by using a number of minority elements, by connecting, conjugating them, one invents a specific, unforeseen, autonomous becoming” (106). “The Great God Pan” uses a detective plot and English upper class male characters’ search for an elusive figure, Helen Vaughan, who travels by assuming various identities. Helen, through her changeability of her identity destabilises the humanistic notion of identity as a stable phenomenon, and enters into the domain of becoming Pan. This fluidity and indeterminacy of Helen’s character is Machen’s attempt to undo the established notion of canonical subjectivity, and propose an alternative possibility of becoming. Helen’s insistence on entering into the zone of inhuman – god Pan- involves a position of alliance with the elements of her desire, which are beyond human accessibility and control. Helen, with this alliance with the god Pan, which has multiple forms and identities, enters into the flux of becoming Pan.
Machen, through the experiment of Dr. Raymond, invokes to reveal the reality behind the veil in his supernatural tale “The Great God Pan”. In this attempt of removing the veil, Dr. Raymond’s practice of “transcendental medicine” provides the means to reach out the reality behind the veil: Dr. Raymond surgically changes the structure of a woman’s brain...
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...e. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernatics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Hillman, James. "An Essay on Pan." Pan and the Nightmare. Trans. A.V. O'Brien. New York: Spring Publications, 1972.
Jackson, Kimberly. "Non-evolutionary Dageneration in Arthur Machen's Supernatural Tales." Victorian Literature and Culture 41 (2013): 125-135.
Navarette, Susan J. "The Word Made Flesh: Protoplasmic Predications in Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan"." The Shape of Fear: Horror and the Fin de Siecle Culture of Decadence. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 178-201.
Machen, Arthur. The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006.
Pasi, Marco. "Arthur Machen’s Panic Fears: Western Esotericism and the Irruption of Negative Epistemology." Aries 7 (2007): 63-68.
In his book, An Imperfect God, Henry Wiencek argues in favor of Washington being the first true president to set the precedent for the emancipation of African-American slaves. Wiencek delves into the evil paradox of how a nation conceived on the principles of liberty and dedicated to the statement that all men are created equal was in a state that still preserved slavery for over seven decades following the construction of the nation. Washington’s grandeur estate at Mount Vernon at its peak had the upkeep of over 300 slaves 126 of which were owned by Washington. First, it must be understood that Washington was raised on slavery receiving ownership of 10 slaves at the age of 11 years old and that Washington was a man of his time. However, it must also be understood that Washington’s business with slavery was in the context of a constrained social and political environment. Weincek maintains that this does not exonerate the fact that Washington maintained slavery however; it does help to quantify the moral shortcoming by which Washington carried until his last year of life.
The concerns of Victorian England about the status of faith and manhood have left a deep mark in the literature of the period. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula are good examples of this concern. In both books there is an emphasis in the corruption of the body and of the soul as maladies that haunt the greatness of England. The aristocracy is pointed as the social strata from where this decadence will spread. These books show a population of youth that lacks the guidance of parents and are apparently deprived of fertility as a consequence of the disorientation that reigns among them. This corruption is shown in conjunction with a lack of religious faith and an excess of sin that will result in the transference of England to the forces of evil.
Williams, David. Cain and Beowulf: A Study In Secular Allegory. Toronto; University of Toronto Press; 1982.
Pimple, Kenneth D. Studies in the Novel. Vol. 45 ed. Denton: Studies in the Novel, University of North Texas, 1993. Print.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
“All experiences shone differently because a God glowed from them; all decisions and prospects concerning the different as well, for one had oracles and secret signs and believed in prophecy. ‘Truth’ was formerly experienced differently because the lunatic could be considered its mouthpiece”
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tale as Myth/myth as Fairy Tale. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1994. Print.
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. New York: Oxford UP, 1958. Print.
Bloomfield, Morton W. New Literary History. Winter ed. N.p.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Print. Vol. 2 of Allegory as Interpretation. 3 vols. First.
William Gibson’s Neuromancer is a science fiction novel that is seen by many as the preeminent work of the “cyberpunk” genre. Neuromancer, like the countless others of its kind to follow, addresses themes concerning identity and/or lack there of. The “cyberpunk” genre as argued by Bruce Sterling was born out of the 1980's and was due in part to the rapid decentralization of technology. With the influx of computers, the internet, and virtual reality into the everyday household came technological discoveries that affected the individual. Certain themes that are central to “cyberpunk” involve implanted circuitry, cosmetic surgery, and mind invasions such as brain computer interfaces and artificial intelligence. (Sterling 346) With these issues in mind one must wonder what affect they have on the self or one’s identity. Within Neuomancer, Gibson creates a future where identities can become obscure/ambiguous, due to the sophisticated technology available which may alter various facets of a person’s physical or mental identity.
Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Print.
Abrams, M.H. and Greenblatt, Stephen eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Baldick, C. "Making Monstrous - 'Frankenstein', Criticism, Theory - Botting,F." Review Of English Studies 45 (1994): 90-99.
In Conclusion William Gibson created a cyberpunk/ postmodernism tale that has blurred not only the physical state between mechanics and human anatomy, but has as well blurred the line between the natural and virtual world. He is making the reader contemplate how both software and hardware have influenced the natural world. Gibson’s fictional world would have not been possible without the existence of software and hardware, that is why the distinction between them is very crucial and play a different part within the text. Without these two things, the reader would not be able to comprehend and relate to Gibson’s view on how our society is interlocking with the advances of technology and the normality of today will no longer exist in the future.