As Climate change with Indian summer
conspires, to keep autumnal winds away,
I set my mind to poetry, for a lesson come
Monday. . .
Sorry.
That’s in aid of saying I’m preparing a poetry lesson for Monday. Digging
through old volumes, looking for examples of personification, or figurative
language, or whatever soulless term the GED insists poetry can be understood
by, I stumble across “The Spider and the Fly: a Fable” by Marry Howitt. You
probably know the first line:
“Won’t
you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly
The classic line by which every lecherous
predator attempts to woo a witless victim. It goes on in this fashion for some
while, my favourite passage concerning the pantry:
Said
the cunning spider to the fly, “Dear friend, what shall I do?
To
prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?
I’ve
within my pantry good store of all that’s nice; I’m sure you’re very welcome;
will you please to take a slice?”
“Oh
no, no,” said the little fly, “kind sir that cannot be;
I’ve
heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.”
I was struck by a couple things, and not just the direct inspiration
for “Cobweb Hotel”. First, was Howitt’s masterful use of rhythm to create a
sense of dread. Little poem it may be, it reads like a prototypal horror story:
in the very use of one of nature’s most terrifying arrangements (ask any
arachnophobe), silvery words spilling from an obvious danger. Be it a spider,
or a big bad wolf, or a witch with a gingerbread house, or a Dracula, or a well
dressed Mephistopheles or any number of saucy succubi occupying our silver
screens, disguised menace is one of horror’s most prevalent themes. The
spider’s words may as well come from Hannibal Lector, they are so obviously a
means to an evil end. The knowledge tickles the spidey senses, warning of
impending menace, or imminent doom. Even in a little poem like this, it’s
titillating (at least until one remembers the darker implications – see below).
Alas, it also takes patience and imagination on the part of the reader
to work – jaded modern audiences need to co-operate if they are to feel
anything, and saddly so few of them do. These days, folks are more likely to
say “to hell with the poem, show me what the spider does!” They don’t want
their senses pricked, or to flirt with vague dread – they want the immediate
visceral experience of violence. They want to see someone skinned alive, or
disembowelled or deflowered, to watch it happening, and not merely hinted at. It seems more sadistic than anything else;
I’ve never understood the appeal. Such spectacles may contain the rush of an
intense physical experience, but don’t allow the imagination to create its own terrors,
and leave nothing else for the mind to contemplate. They certainly have no
allegorical value.
Which is not what anybody wants these days, which is exactly my
point.
The second, probably more important thing: this is definitely the
archetypical cautionary tale adults have been foisting on children since time
immemorial. Basically, “don’t talk to strangers”. Least of all the ones who
flatter you. This mantra was drilled into our head again and again growing up –
they never specified what the strangers wanted with you, but they were to be
avoided at all cost. (And the message doesn’t go away in adulthood, it just
reverses itself: social norms demand you don’t talk to strange children).
Horrible world that we live in, this conditioning is sadly necessary. But I
think about all those other archetypes of children’s horror stories –
orphanages, wicked step-moms etc. – and wonder if they would be archetypal
fears at all if adults didn’t insist on trotting them out so often.
Do children really fear their step-moms so much? Why are they being
taught to do so?
When I was little, I of course feared losing my parents, but I did
not dwell on it, and even then wondered why so many cartoon and storybook
writers insisted on reminding me of the possibility. What I actually feared
most though, prodded by Pinochio, American Tale and others, was being
sold into slavery. (To this day it pisses me off that Pinochio never went back
to rescue the other donkeys). Sadly this
happens as well in many parts of the world, not with western indifference, but
active participation: how many of our clothes and shoes are stitched together
by child-slaves in the third world?
Does no one notice the hypocrisy?
But getting back to “The Spider and the Fly”: the spider could stand
in for just about anyone who would abuse your trust. He could be a record
executive who wants to exploit your talent for all we know. But let’s face it:
nine times out of ten, the spider is a sex predator. It is our instinctive
conclusion any time someone tries to lure you into his lair. Is this a modern
preoccupation, or did it occur to readers in Howitt’s day? It cannot be a
coincidence that the Spider is male and the Fly female. Maybe Howitt was only
thinking of a maiden’s modesty. I don’t know. But these days, we have a pretty
good idea of what goes on in the spider’s pantries, and it’s far worse than anything that could be
hinted at in a mere poem.
