What Does the Shadow Know?
Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of
man? The Shadow knows.
One we move away from the notion that a shadow is only a
dark nothingness, the blocking out of light, we can explore the nature and
implications of alternative concepts; and all the negativity, as in the
chiaroscuro of painting and the reversed alternations of light and shadow on a
photographic glass plate or chemical film, emerges as positive—creative and
dynamic.
The 1930s radio show with Lamont Cranston as The Shadow—
the title character both in pulp fiction by Walter P. Gibson and on radio in
various forms—is a mysterious and invisible person, and former aviator, who
lurks in the shadows and interprets the evil motives of criminals. He has a power, it was said, [1]
“to cloud men’s minds,” to mesmerize them and make them reveal themselves. He is also able, with a kind of double-jointed
dexterity, to squeeze through small openings in a door or wall. He could defy gravity, speak all languages
and unravel any code. He is, in other words, a phantom avenger, separate from
his own supposedly real existence as a man about town that is, someone with a
celebrity status, ostentatious display of wealth, and useless life, the persona
of the Shadow who is uncanny and canny at the same time.
The presence of shadows on a two-dimensional surface gives
the illusion of depth and volume to an image, and also suggests that there is
more to the picture than can be represented by normal traces of perception, the
shadows thus standing in for something tangible, that is, occupying a space
where other objects, actions and modes of reality cannot otherwise be
depicted. What is blocked out is not
just the source of light but the moment in which the beam is interfered with,
and it thus represents a past shaped into a silhouette captured as a silent and
petrified figure.
If the shadow is not the absence of light, but a form of
light, not an empty intangible illusion, but a thing that exists, then the
metaphors can be read in a new way. O?r
rather, in a suite of new ways.
Me and My Shadow
Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall,
Like the seashore clings to the sea,
Like you’ll never get rid of your shadow
You’ll never get rid of me.
Another version of the Shadow appears in the lyrics to a
popular song whose words are adjusted to the performer and the situation in
which it is sung. Here the voice singing
and identifying himself as a doublet of “me and my shadow.” He seems, on the one hand, to be an integral part of or manifestation of
the inner self and whoever he is in love with must accept both of these facets
of his personality, the supposedly normal figure who can be seen and heard, but
also the other more mysterious persona who sticks, clings and remains inseparable
from the woman he pursues. On the other
hand, however, the singing voice identifies himself with the shadow who
attaches himself to the love-object, always stalking her, always there in
public and private, his love a kind of manifestation of herself as the
beloved. The internal, tautological metaphor,
compares the pursuing lover to the woman’s shadow, the natural phenomenon that
shows itself when she is seen in the sunlight as a dark silhouette of herself
and in the artificial play of light in the dark as a more ambiguous presence chiaroscuro.
Because in this song the persona and the shadow are so close
together as to be the same with all distinctions of identity virtually absent,
invisible or merged into a new third version of both, there remains nonetheless
a difference, in that one seeks to be free of the other and the other seeks to
glue itself to the persona.
This game or dance of light and shadow, real image and
reflection or refractions, comes down to, as well, a bizarre play of the eye
trying to capture the prey-colours of the real world even as the elusive
creature creates its own camouflage out of the skin, hair, and other attributes
of its appearance. In recent years, new
insight into the concept of light, colour, perception and the evolution of the
eye has transformed how we can approach the question of shadows as both a
phenomenon in nature to be understood and as a metaphor to unlock the key to
many mysteries of Jewish history.
José Faur wrote about Conversos, Crypto-Jews and
Marranos as existing in the shadows of history, that is, out of the mainstream
accounts of European and world affairs at least since the fifteenth century. Others have puzzled over the ways in which
Judaism and Jews could be understood as existing in a pre-historical enclave,
away from the main currents of politics, philosophy, science and technology, as
well as social life shared by peoples inhabiting the Christian and Muslim
civilizations. Both by choice and by
coercion, Jews stepped or were -- swept aside after the Fall of the Jerusalem
Temple in 60 CE; by reason of their exile and dispersion—the Galut—and lived as
though virtually unaffected by what was going on around them. If they participated in world affairs, it was
not as a people or a nation, but as individuals or small family groups. Not only are these grossly exaggerated
generalizations, albeit offering some small insights into the actual events of
history, but they work with now outdated rhetorical figures of speech and
thought.
A dream world, that was yet realer than any reality; that, by the sheer
intensity of its, turned the real into the dream. A world in which appearances were unmasked,
pretences seen through: where stark truth reigned. Where soul spoke nakedly to soul, stripped of
convention’s veneer. —A terrible world. For the harsh white light of truth that was
its essence, shedding its beams on every hand, lit up one’s own poor life with
the rest.; and, playing full on things one had hugged to oneself as
virtues—compromises and concessions, pity and consideration for others—showed
them up for the shams they were. And so
remorselessly, that all one had hitherto one endured, connived at, made the
best of, seemed suddenly to row unbearable. —From the mirror here held up she
would between herself and the hideous reflection.[2]
Although
this paragraph speaks about a moment in Richard Wagner’s life when his
relationship to his future wife Cosima (née Liszt) at a time when she was still
married to Hans von Bulow, the complex conceit concerning perception, self-insight,
shadows may be unpacked in a different way and made to serve as a lens for the
subject of this series of essays.
[1]
Albie, “RKO Orson Wells: The Shadow—radio recordings: panstv” Reviews (19
November 2013) online at
http:archive.org/details/RkoOrsenWells-TheShadow-RadioRecording
No comments:
Post a Comment