Berghahn Books Sartre Studies International: This Content Downloaded From 131.172.36.29 On Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
Berghahn Books Sartre Studies International: This Content Downloaded From 131.172.36.29 On Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
Berghahn Books Sartre Studies International: This Content Downloaded From 131.172.36.29 On Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Berghahn Books is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sartre Studies
International
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Horror
STUART HANSCOMB
'It doesn't take much for the world to fall apart does it?'
(Ben in Night of the Living Dead)
'I am no one'
(Regan MacNeil's possessing demon in The Exorcist)
'What filth! What filth!'
(Sartre, Nausea)
Introduction
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
I take my lead on the nature of the horror genre from Noël Carroll's
seminal work The Philosophy of Horror.5 In this he argues for a particular
definition of horror and then goes on to address some riddles of
aesthetic emotions, including the paradox of horror. There are three
aspects of his theory that are of particular relevance to my aims here.
The first is his analysis of what quality or qualities horror monsters will
typically possess in order to affect the audience in the appropriate ways.
The second is the matter of identifying the particular emotions that are
provoked by these monsters and by the narratives in which they are
situated. Since the elicitation of strong emotions in its audience is a
defining feature of horror, an understanding of what precisely these
responses are and what they mean should expedite a deeper
understanding of the genre. Third is Carroll's discussion of the
'paradox of horror'; the problem of why we seek out stories and images
that provoke these negative feelings. This last aspect will be the focus of
the final section of this article ('Explaining Horror's Appeal'), and in
what follows the first two aspects will be explored.
On the question of what makes a monster horrifying, Carroll's view
is that monsters are 'interstitial' or 'impure'. They are not entirely alien
to us, but rather fall between familiar categories: for example, living
and dead (vampires, zombies, Frankenstein's monster), human and
beast (werewolves, Kurt Neumann's / David Cronenberg's The Fly),
human and supernatural entity (William Peter Blatty's / William
Friedkin's The Exorcist, Richard Donner's The Omen, Alan Parker's
Angel Heart), the intelligent and the inert (Stephen King's Christine,
James Herbert's The Fog), the intelligent and the unintelligent organic
(golems, Hitchcock's birds, Wyndham's triffids, killer tomatoes,
blobs), innocence and corruption/insanity (King's Misery and The
Shining, child possessions and poltergeists), the young and the old
-2
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Horror
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuait Hanscomb
-4
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Horror
-5
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
Nausea
-6
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Hotror
•7
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
desire sense, and yet this most permanent and nonnegotiable aspect
of the world, when abstracted from everyday functionality, has none.
At bottom existence is unquestionably there, in many ways so
familiar, and yet at the same time unknowable. Things are 'thoughts
which stopped half way'.34
Even more revealing of this aspect of Sartre's philosophy is his
'psychoanalysis of things' in Part Four of Being and Nothingness.35 His
main interest is in the symbolic meaning of 'slime' or 'sliminess';
something he takes seriously enough to describe it as 'a great
ontological region'.36 The reason for its importance is its 'ambiguous',
'metamorphic' nature.
Sartre's phenomenological ontology allows for the 'moral' qualities
of substances to be as primary as their physical ones,37 and the
immediate response 'inspired' by sliminess is one of fear and disgust.38
This immediate, emotional response we can trace to a form of
ambiguity possessed by slime that is powerfully symbolic of the for
itself's peculiar relationship with the in-itself. Firstly it is an 'imitation
of liquidity', an 'aberrant fluid'. Liquid for Sartre is symbolic of the
for-itself (clear, formless etc.), but slime is a 'triumph of the solid over
the liquid';39 in other words of the 'indifferent' in-itself over the for
itself. In contrast with water, '[njothing testifies more clearly to its
ambiguous character as a "substance in between two states" than the
slowness with which the slimy melts into itself'.40 Essential to the
disgust evoked by slime is its 'softness' which is
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Honor
its foundation, but it does not furnish any foundation for me. ... Yet
here is the slimy reversing the terms; the for-itself is suddenly
compromised. I open my hand, I want to let go of the slimy and it
sticks to me ... sucks at me.41
Basic to our feelings about the slimy is its lack of stability. With little
encouragement it is on the move, like quicksand. Quicksand (though
not an example that Sartre himself uses) is indeed insidious. It is only
muddy sand, but it is deceptive; it is deep and shifting, and it sucks.
It is animated in a sense that allows it to easily become a monster in
the imagination. Sartre says,
If I sink in the slimy I feel that I am going to be lost in it; that is, that
I may dissolve in the slime precisely because the slimy is in the process
of solidification. ... In the very apprehension of the slimy there is a
gluey substance, compromising and without equilibrium, like the
haunting memory of a metamorphosis.**
At its heart what it symbolizes for Sartre is 'an ideal being in which
the foundationless in-itself has priority over the for-itself'.45 If
meaning inheres in all intentional objects, this truth must also have a
meaning, and here lie the roots of our nausea. The meaning of a
necessarily meaning-filled world is, firstly, that there is an external
world that exists independently of intentionality and secondly, that
the humanly dependent phenomenological world is subject to radical
alteration. The result is the antithesis of that other ideal being - the
in-itself-for-itself - an antithesis that Sartre calls an iantívalue\46
Just as the for-itself pursues the in-itself-for-itself, so it 'flees'
the possibility of antivalue. We are afraid of and repulsed by slime
because it symbolizes a disturbing ontological polarity. It incorpo
rates the tension between freedom and facticity; a tension that cannot
be overcome or undone, but which nevertheless 'haunts' conscious
ness. And thus, for example, 'the horror of the slimy is ... that
facticity might progress continually and insensibly and absorb the
-9
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Smart Hanscomb
Anxiety
Most who write on the subject agree that, in contrast with fear, we
experience anxiety in the face of something 'indefinite', 'diffuse' or
'uncertain'.51 Its source might be felt or intuited rather than perceived
or understood, or it might be ambiguous. In traditional psychoanalysis
the aim is to discover what eludes us in the form of repressed
memories, and though there is a partial analogue to this structure in
existential philosophy and psychology - anxiety is in part caused by our
avoidance of our condition - the origin of anxiety must in some sense
always remain slippery. There are several reasons why this is the case,
some of which were explored in the previous section, but perhaps most
fundamental is the insubstantial, free and changeable nature of the self.
If in nausea the in-itself reveals by way of contrast the fragility of the
for-itself (unstable, impermanent, intentional), then in anxiety the for
itself is confronted more directly.
Boundaries between one ontological category and another are
fundamental to existentialism as a whole. It might be facticity and
freedom; being and non-being; past, present and future; or, in its
religious forms, the finite and the infinite.52 Broadly understood, we
might say 'we both belong and do not belong in the world'.53
Sometimes dualisms are 'dissolved';54 sometimes we are haunted (and
sometimes tempted) by the ideal of such dissolution; sometimes
(such as in bad faith) we artfully conflate categories; sometimes we
-10
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Horror
[I]n what we shall call the world of the immediate, which delivers
itself to our unreflective consciousness, we do not first appear to
ourselves, to be thrown subsequently into enterprises. Our being is
immediately 'in situation'; that is, it arises in enterprises and knows
itself first in so far as it is reflected in those enterprises. We discover
ourselves then in a world peopled with demands, in the heart of
projects 'in the course of realization'.64
11
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
-12
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Honor
-13
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
So far the aim of this article has been to establish that the presence of
markedly art-horrifying ideas, metaphors and imagery in the
- 14
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Horror
-15
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
16
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Hoiror
Conclusion
17
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
Overall it can be concluded that the key affective state for both
horror and existentialism is anxiety. It captures the sense of threat
most obviously associated with fear; a situation's inherent unfamiliar
ity (or uncanniness) that has been shown to be linked to disgust and
nausea, and also a kind of curiosity or anticipation in the face of the
unknown and unknowable.
The third point is that besides the recognition of the horror
genre's pronounced suitability for expressing existentialism's
preoccupation with the unstable and interstitial nature of existence, it
can also be hypothesized that this connection can offer a solution to
the paradox of horror. Embedded in a graphic narrative and with
their very particular form of grotesque threat, horror monsters
engage us emotionally, but in a way that serves as a symbol. Like
Sartre's slime, they represent the division between major ontological
categories, and eventually the anxious nature of the for-itself. Horror
not only fascinates with its stories of interstitial life, it releases some
pressure on, and allows us to exercise, our existentially intelligent
emotionality.
Lastly the various responses to the human predicament explored by
existentialists can also be identified in horror fictions. Of particular
interest is the way that an on-going requirement for the authentic
individual to establish terms with, rather than defeat or deny, their
condition is mirrored in the narratives of heroic and aware protag
onists, particularly in some of the more sophisticated examples of
horrors. Lurther research could usefully assess the possibility that
horror plays a transitional role in the Western individual's existential
development, and in particular the movement towards disenchantment.
Let us suppose that teenagers are typically yet to fully understand our
disenchanted world. Let us also suppose that supernatural horrors are
like fairytales with an edge. And let us suppose further that that edge
-18
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Hotror
Acknowledgements
Notes
19
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stiiíift Hnnscomb
-20
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Horror
-21
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stuart Hanscomb
-22
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Existentialism and Art-Honor
90. Clearly more modern equivalents - novels, film and other media - could he
substituted for these existential classics. Possibilities might include Douglas
Coupland (Generation X, Girlfriend in a Coma) and David Fincher's Fight Club.
This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:03:34 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms