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Passion And Darkness in “The Passion”

 


Winterson’s “Passion” presents vivid imagery of war and its ramifications in which she explores a variety of themes and concepts, focusing on passion. The novel takes passion into its core and draws subtle connections to other concepts such as gamble, death, war, and most importantly freedom. Such connections appear most prominent as the plot unfolds and the novel’s point of view alters to different characters. The shifting viewpoint of the characters unveils what forms passion take and how such variety contributes to the essence of passion which provides a unique state of freedom. In this essay, I will dwell on the concept of passion, freedom, and darkness. I shall argue that concepts are inherently interconnected due to passion’s and darkness’s viscous and possessive nature that frees the individual from the burden to choose.

                Passion in the novel lays the fundamental ground for obsession which bestows the individual’s life a meaning/value, and through that, the individual’s power to choose is drastically diminished which draws a similarity between passion’s impact and darkness's impact on the individual. Henri’s first real glimpse into army life demonstrates the powerful and blinding nature of passion. After the soldiers receive orders from Napoléon which leads a surplus number of soldiers into sheer suffering in the rain, Henri serves Napoleon which makes him forget about the war scenery. “I had to serve him that night and his smile pushed away the madness of arms and legs that pushed in at my ears and mouth”(p.25). Henri’s blinding passion for Napoleon serves Henri as an escape from reality. His following words “I was covered in dead men”(p.25) reinforces the contrasting image of Henri’s contentment and the vexing image of soldiers despairingly dying. It also complements Henri’s blindness toward the war imagery. The blindness concept carries utmost importance as it is tied to the concept of darkness and how darkness encloses the individual within it. Henri’s contemplation on darkness spotlights this connection,

“The Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can't come up for air” (p.33).

 

Dark is portrayed to be possessive and subtly assertive in the sense that it captures the individual and forces him to take a “step” into it. This portrait of darkness imitates the essential pillars of passion which also possesses the individual and surrounds him in a way that the individual becomes only focused on the passion and everything else becomes invisible “Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it”(p.33). When Henri is subjected to a dilemma where he is given the choice to serve someone else, Henri’s passion gives direction to his decision. “I was horrified. Had I come all this way just to lose him?”(p.36). This rhetorical question ascertains the connection between darkness and passion; they both force the individual in one direction and they both ephemerally enthrall the individual.

Both passion and darkness do not imprison the individual, rather they force the individual to take a “step” that alleviates the individual’s burden to choose. At the beginning of the novel, passion’s pragmatist aspect is revealed in series of questions posed for Napoléon “Would soldiers become numbers? Would battles become diagrams? Would intellectuals become a threat? Would you end your days on an island where the food is salty and the company bland?” (p.13) These questions show that being an emperor or a leader in a war requires the individual to lose a big portion of his sentimentality. Henri displays the demand for such cruel devotion later in the story when he says “It's the heart that sickens us at night and makes us hate who we are” (p.82) and because of that reason they “made a pyre of our hearts put them aside for ever”(p.82). Both passion and darkness do not imprison the individual, rather they force the individual to take a “step” that alleviates the individual’s burden to choose. Napoleon’s passion drives him to be cruel, however, it is the darkness that governs the soldiers and deadens their heavy burden that strikes their consciences. Such a difference is prominent because darkness different than passion, is associated with agony, “Stand still in the Dark in a field or down a track. It’s then you know you’re there on sufferance” (p.33). And to evade the agony one must go further into the darkness which in soldier’s despairing situation, deprives them of sentimentality. In a way, passion and darkness free the individual from the heavy burden to make cruel decisions.

All in all, “The Passion” demonstrates the ramifications of war with very vivid imagery. The novel accommodates a variety of concepts and themes that are all interconnected. Although gambling, darkness, and passion are different from one another, they inherently decide for the individual. In gambling, the individual is given a choice whether to play or not. Even in the story, gambling is described to be the core nature of humanity; “Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression for our humanness. We gamble. Some do it at the gaming table, some do not.” To put it another way, gambling explains the fundamental structure of decision making that is; you decide to gamble meaning to decide to do something, and then passion or darkness direct you in the way.

Winterson, J. (1988). The Passion. London: Penguin Books.

 

 

 

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