Subject: (urth) Symbolism of Dorcas

From: CRCulver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 18:43:30 +0000

I've long thought that the scene in the BotNS in which Dorcas is eating a
pomegranate (cannot remember the volume, but I believe it is the second), has
some interesting symbolism. Severian remarks that she looks like a vampire
because her lips are stained red, and as vampires are called the "undead,"
Dorcas herself has returned from death.
Also, I'm wondering if the pomegranate itself has any meaning in relation to
the myth of Persephone, who after eating a pomegranate was doomed to spend
half of the year in Hades before returning to the land of the living. Dorcas
herself has spent some time in the realm of the dead before her return to the
Earth.

- Christopher Culver <crculver at aol.com>

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 01:07:04 +0000

>>I've long thought that the scene in the BotNS in which Dorcas is eating a
pomegranate (cannot remember the volume, but I believe it is the second),
has
some interesting symbolism. Severian remarks that she looks like a vampire
because her lips are stained red, and as vampires are called the "undead,"
Dorcas herself has returned from death.<<

    Actually, it was the other way around. Sev had the pomegranate, Dorcas
an apple in _Shadow_, chapter XXXIV. Sev recalls the scene to her in
_Sword_, chapter X, where she remarks: "It always seems, though, that when I
wake up you're bending over me."
    Sev then says: "You said I reminded you of a vampire once, because I had
been eating a pomegranate and my lips were stained with red." Interestingly,
in the scene referred to she didn't actually say "vampire" but "like a black
bat bending over me." Sev's perfect memory falters (again?) or his
imagination is at work.

Roy

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From: CRCulver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 23:47:47 +0000

Roy C. Lackey said:
<<Actually, it was the other way around. Sev had the pomegranate, Dorcas
an apple in _Shadow_, chapter XXXIV.>>

Whoa, looks like I was way off. Anyway, if Dorcas had the apple, what can we
work in concerning the Garden of Evil motif? After all, Dorcas was the First
Woman in "Eschatology and Genesis."

- Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com>