Subject: (urth) Severian's reticence

From: adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 15:07:30 +0000

One of Severian's quirks as a narrator, and one which makes it quite
difficult to get a grasp of his character, is his sometimes withholding an
important fact about a situation until long after he has seemingly
finished narrating that situation.  The most prominent example is his not
revealing that he and Thecla had been lovers until long after Thecla has
breathed her last.  (I am ashamed to say that I completely missed this
in my earlier reading of BotNS.)  There are a couple of other important
examples, also concerned with Severian's love life.

1)  In Sword, ch. 25, very near the beginning, Severian discloses that
Dorcas had had strong feelings for Jolenta and had been very depressed at
her death, that he believes that Dorcas and Jolenta had engaged in "sexual
play" at some time, and that he had been jealous of Dorcas's feeling for
Jolenta, though not, he claims, sexually.  I don't think that
any of this had been mentioned at the time it happened: certainly not
Dorcas's depression at Jolenta's death, and to my recollection no hint of
any relationship between Dorcas and Jolenta beyond Dorcas's natural
goodness and compassion on the one side and Jolenta's contempt on the
other.

2)  My other example I'm less sure of.  In Citadel, ch. 2, Severian loses
himself in his memories, and "Dorcas's voice whispered in my ears:
'Sitting in a window ... trays and a rood.  What will you do, summon up
some Erinys to destroy me?"  The first of these sentences is close to
what are almost the first words Dorcas speaks in the text (though not
identical; another can of worms).  The second I was unable to find.
Severian's thoughts immediately following suggest that this sentence was
spoken to Severian, and its juxtaposition with the first sentence suggests
that it may have come near the end of their last conversation, in which
case their parting was stormier than Severian let on at the time.  Or it
may have had something to do with Severian's jealousy, discussed above.

Having noted this recurring pattern, I have some questions:

1) Are there any other examples I've missed?  (One may be his disclosure
late in the book of the very high mortality rate among the apprentices,
but I don't remember if Severian had mentioned this at the time.)

2) What does this quirk tell us about Severian?  Other quirks in his
narration have been explained by his allegedly perfect memory, but I don't
see how that would account for this.

3) What explains, in particular, his suppression of the sexual
relationship between himself and Thecla?  (Severian's motives for the
other two omissions are more obvious.)  I can think of two, not
necessarily exclusive, possibilities.  Severian, as we know, has a rather
unhealthy attitude towards women.  He may not have wanted to contaminate
the "purity" of his relationship with Thecla by admitting it had a sexual
component.  Or: Severian was ashamed enough of having "betrayed his guild"
by giving Thecla a knife, but he had to narrate it because it was crucial
to his story.  He may have wanted to keep quiet about his earlier
"betrayal" in having sex with Thecla against Master Gurloes' strict
orders.

--Adam

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

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From: Peter Stephenson <pws at ifh.de>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:47:28 +0000

adam louis stephanides wrote:
> relationship between himself and Thecla?

This is certainly a fascinating question.  I would hazard that in the
cases of Dorcas and Thecla it shows Severian has a mental quirk of
pigeonholing people, and particularly women.  So, as you say, he likes
to think of his relationship with Thecla as entirely pure, and that
with Dorcas as entirely loving, and writes the narrative in this
fashion.  (Maybe the Chekhov's Gun principle would say, if a character
has a perfect memory you expect them to abuse it by the end of volume
IV.)

Where he admits to feeling strong sexual desire (Agia, the undine on
the sandbar) it sometimes causes associated negative feelings, though
I can't remember well enough to say how Jolenta fits into this.
There's probably a lot of pop psychology to get out of all this ---
blah blah repressed childhood blah blah substitute mother figures blah
blah need for understanding blah blah vell, severian's just zis guy,
you know? --- but before I fall into the deep end I'll just point out
the connection with Silk, his feelings towards sex described on the
airship and his selective view of (damn, I can't remember her name now
and the book's across town, but you know who I mean, the one with the
catachrest), as described, rather startingly, by Horn at the end of
Exodus.  (So, you ignore her bad points, do you?  Vell, zis is
certainly very interesting behaviour for a Calde.)

pws

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From: Neal Smith <nsmith at micro.ti.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 14:24:20 +0000

I think that in spite of Severian's continuing assurance
that he has perfect recall, that he might as well not have it.
He intentionally omits enough information in the account
that it is almost as if a nearly identical character who does not
have perfect recall has been substituted, and occasionally remembers
and adds details at a leter time.  (Perhaps Severian does not have
perfect memory - but has forgotten that fact.  No, just joking.)

	Anyway, I can see on the part of the author the need to do
this to maintain suspense, and a few mysteries, but why would 
Severian leave these things out in general?  A few of the instances
probably have unique reasons: for instance, Adam's comment about
Severian hiding his tryst with Thecla to avoid admitting another
betrayal of his guild is dead on.  In general, though, I think that
it is simply a matter of style:  Severian tends to include details
only when they directly affected the *actions* that he saw, or took,
and leaves out his emotions, what he considers trivia, and side
issues, no matter how interested we readers may be in some of these
other details.  For example, the conversation with Dorcas that Adam
mentioned:  in the first part, he narrates enough to show how she
left one way, he another, and enough reasons.  Later, he adds the
rest, when it is relevant to what he is doing at the time - being
lost in his memory.  

Neal Smith