Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Szilvia Nagy: I Can Operate in the Dark—Bodies are Phosphorescent... Occult Modernism and Myth-Making in Djuna Barnes 's Nightwood

"the set, the property of an unseen dompteur, half lord, half promoter, over which one expects to hear the strains of an orchestra of woodwinds render a serenade which will popularize the wilderness" (34). Susana Martins suggests that "Robin is seen not so much as the primitive, but as the culturally defined, carefully placed in a theatrical mise-en-scene," and from the way Robin is presented to the spectator, I am further reminded of Barnes's 1915 "The Souls of Jungle Folk at the Hippodrome Circus" interview, even the title of which betrays Barnes's predisposition toward seeing the animals of the circus not as wild and unyielding but only culture's idea of the primitive, tailored for the masses. The presentation of nature as Barnes reads it into the new circus space is mere costume; one cannot escape the similarities between Barnes's "ritual of familiarity and respect" (Scott 43) with which she greets the animals at the basement of the Hippodrome on the one hand, and the Nightwood scene of Robin's visit to the circus. In this scene, the animals that are circling inside the ring "all but climbed over at that point" (49) where Robin is sitting. When the lions are brought in, one of them seems to communicate with Robin: ... as one powerful lioness came to the turn of the bars, exactly opposite the girl, she turned her furious great head with its yellow eyes afire and went down, her paws thrust through the bars and, as she regarded the girl, as if a river were falling behind impassable heat, her eyes flowed in tears that never reached the surface (49). This episode is like a mirror scene of Barnes's bewildered salute to the caged animals; both involve humanized circus animals, kept behind bars for the protective separation of humans from animals. Although still a majestic animal in appearance, the lioness has been domesticated so that she establishes eye contact with Robin: "the long unqualified range in the iris of wild beasts who have not tamed the focus down to meet the human eye" (36) is already gone. It is also significant that at the time of this scene, Robin is married to Felix, having bore him a child not long ago; in a sense, the lioness sees her own situation echoed in Robin who is just as domesticated as she is: one is society's version of the primitive, the other is culture's idea of woman. Robin returns the gaze of the lioness and is disturbed by the apparency of kinship and the sudden rush of prehistoric memory; she at once finds herself in the position of spectator and spectacle. 79