Differences between the Two Ghosts - Literature review Example

Compare and Contrast This Report compares the ghosts from the following two works, i.e., “The story of Salome” and “The Weir”. The general similarities and dissimilarities between the two ghosts are taken into question and specific comparison areas include (a) the evocation of the ghost (b) the haunted man and (c) the haunting and its purpose. The similarity between the two stories is the location; both of them occur in a graveyard. In the story of Salome, the protagonist meets a young, nun-like woman but in the Wier, the ghost is a dead man. In both the stories, the ghosts appear to the story tellers with the intent of providing some instructions about specific graves and lead them on to the grave which is the objective of their interest. In both the cases, the ghosts appear only until the time that their purpose is achieved and only in the graveyard. While the protagonist in the Salome story searches in other places in town for a glimpse of the ghost, he does not succeed in locating it and knows intuitively that the location of the ghost’s presence is the graveyard because the purpose for which the ghost appears is linked to the graveyard. The purpose for which the ghosts in both stories appear is also linked to the after life, and indicates that in both stories, there is a clear indication that death is not seen as a final ending, rather the ghosts appear to be fashioning and rearranging the placement and rituals associated with the graves so that the individuals in them are better positioned for the kind of after life they wish to enjoy. Both the stories thus reveal the importance of the rituals that are associated with funeral ceremonies; in death people want to be buried with those they love. Since religion is such a private matter, the story of Salome appears to demonstrate the importance of the Christian ritual to a Christian soul. In the Weir, the ghost is insistent that he does not want to be buried with his parents but would rather be buried with the little girl that he molested. He tells Jim “That’s the wrong grave” and when Jim corrects him, saying that the priest had verified it so, the ghost is described as “breathing hard through hard through his nose. Like he was holding his temper”. (McPherson, 1998:32). So strong is his attraction and feelings for the little girl that he does not appear to view death as the final ending of life, so that his placement in the grave is immaterial; rather this is an issue that appears to be of prime importance, suggesting that he wants the pattern established during his lifetime to also continue into death and the after life. Similarly, the ghost in the Salome story also does not appear to view death as a final act, so that the body in the grave is already dead, with the spirit having left the body ; rather the ghost appears to feel that it is vital importance to ensure that the body in the grave is exposed to the Christian rituals. She is described as looking at the narrator with “so strange and piteous an expression in her eyes” (Edwards, 2006:40) and when he meets her again “with the same sorrowful meaning in her eyes; with even more than the same entreating expression” (Edwards, 2006: 41). Hence, this is obviously an issue that causes the ghost considerable pain and sorrow; she is so anxious to set it right that she lingers on at the graveyard for an extra day. She tells the narrator: “A Christian soul lies there.....laid in earth without one Christian prayer – with Hebrew rites – in a Hebrew sanctuary. Will you stranger, perform an act of piety towards the dead?” (Edwards, 2006:41). There are also some salient differences between the two ghosts, such as the gender. In the Salome story, the ghost is a female, but in the Wier, the ghost is a middle aged man. Their characters are also quite different. The female ghost is portrayed as a nun like figure: “Her head drooped slightly forward; her hands were clasped together; her eyes were fixed upon the ground. It was the attitude of a nun.” (Edwards, 2006:40). The male ghost is revealed as a pervert who sexually abused young girls: “The fella who’d died had had a bit of a reputation for em … being a pervert. And Jesus, when I heard that, you know? If it was him. And he wanted to go down in the grave with the … little girl” (McPherson, 1997:33). It may be noted that while the character of the former is almost saintly because she is depicted as nun-like, the character of the latter is anything but saintly; rather the portrayal of his character reveals that he has a terrible vice; he appears to seek to continue his aberrant pervert behaviour even in death. His desire to perpetrate and continue his sin even in death suggests that he has no spirit of repentance whatsoever about what he has done. On the contrary, the ghost in the Salome story is insistent on Christian funeral rites being accorded to the dead person in the grave, possibly because the Christian spirit is associated with the repentance of one’s sins, so that when death happens, the spirit of the individual in question can rise to heaven rather than being consigned to hell, due to a failure to repent of one’s sins. Hence, the most striking difference between the two stories lies in the purpose for which the respective ghosts appear to the protagonists who are narrating the stories. As opposed to the purpose for which the ghost in The Weir appears, which is selfish and sinful, the purpose for which the ghost in the Salome story appears is an altruistic one; which is completely selfless. The woman ghost seeks to perform a service for the dead person, while the male ghost only seeks to continue with his lustful actions in spirit. The manner in which the ghosts appear is also different. It is significant that the haunting process is more slow and long drawn out in the Salome story, because the ghost appears over the duration of two days. During her earlier appearance at the gravesite, she does not mention the purpose for which she is present; she only gives the narrator sorrowful looks, perhaps expecting him to understand what she wants him to do. As opposed to this, the ghost in the Weir immediately articulates his questions and his demand, he does not wait. The realization of the haunting process is also different in both the stories; in the Salome story, the narrator is quite clearly aware that he is in the presence of a ghost, but this is not the case in the Weir, because Jim’s realization only dawns after he has seen the obituary in the paper. Thus, it could be concluded that the process of haunting is long drawn out in both the stories because in Jim’s case, the realization that he is in the presence of a ghost is long drawn out and occurs after many days of actually seeing the ghost, while in the Salome story, the process is long drawn out because the ghost appears on two successive occasions. Moreover, the presence and awareness of the ghost lingers on in the narrator of the Salome story, because his thoughts are fully occupied with the presence of the ghost that he has seen, to the extent that he wanders around several different places, searching incessantly for the ghost. Jim, on the other hand, is very ill and hardly registers the presence of the man as a ghost because of his condition, although the ghost did not appear as a flesh and blood person. Evocation is the act of calling forth a spirit or supernatural person/agent and in the novel titled “A Fire upon the deep”, the word evocation is used in the context of compression of communication into very high level information, so that it is the words themselves rather than the sounds and concomitant motions which bring forth the presence of the other-worldly beings (Vinge, 1993). The evocation of the ghosts in both stories is also linked to the words they utter, especially in “The Weir” , where the presence of the ghost becomes manifest to Jim when he speaks and asks Jim a question. As opposed to this, in the other story, the evocation of the ghost is linked to the expectations of the author and the ghost’s movements. When the author sees her in the earlier non speaking context, his own inner expectations of meeting the ghost and the combined unease and anticipation fuelling his thoughts appear to cause the ghost to emerge, and then speak to him on the second occasion. The evocation of the male ghost is also somewhat different from the evocation of the female ghost in the manner of appearance to the protagonists. The man ghost in effect, passes for a real man in the initial and only appearance, for two primary reasons. The first reason is Jim’s feverish state as mentioned above, whereby he was not fully aware of the identity of the man as a ghost. The second reason contributing to this deception is the appearance of the man in a bulky suit, so that it provided an impression of flesh and blood which would not have been the case with the woman ghost clad in more sparse clothes, through which the non existence of a material, physical body would be evident. Where the haunted man was concerned, the perception of him as a real man lingers on in the story until the end, where the proof of the man’s death as revealed in the orbituary is required, in order for him to register that the man he saw was actually ghost. The presentation of the male ghost in the story of The Weir is chilling, because even in death, he remains a pervert (Fiengold, 1999). The naming of the girl as Niamh also appears to suggest that the male ghost is the nemesis she can never ever escape from, even in death. It suggests the prevailing and persistent plight of numerous innocent young girls worldwide, who remain the target of perverts and are never able to really escape from it at any time. The nature of the haunting is also different. As discussed earlier, the ghost man is obsessed with contact with the girl he abused while the woman ghost is obsessed about ensuring that the Christian man has a Christian man has a Christian burial. But the haunting is stronger and more compelling in the case of the ghost man, to the extent that he is prepared to force his way upon Jim, to try and compel him into carrying out the action he desires. The primary emotion registered in the man haunted by the desire to be placed in the same grave as the little girl he abused is one of anger and frustration because the objective that haunts him so deeply is not being fulfilled. Where the woman ghost is concerned however, the nature of the haunting is one that is far more patient. Her primary emotion is one of sorrow and appeal, she is not anxious to force her objective on the narrator, rather she is willing to wait for him to understand her mute appeal first rather than entering into an actual communication with him. It is only when he fails to understand what she wants that she proceeds to actually speak to him. References: Feingold, Michael, 1999. “Talking Points”, Retrieved June 29, 2010 from: http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/215394 Vinge, Vernor, 1993. “A Fire upon the deep”, Tor Science Fiction Read More

She is described as looking at the narrator with “so strange and piteous an expression in her eyes” (Edwards, 2006:40) and when he meets her again “with the same sorrowful meaning in her eyes; with even more than the same entreating expression” (Edwards, 2006: 41). Hence, this is obviously an issue that causes the ghost considerable pain and sorrow; she is so anxious to set it right that she lingers on at the graveyard for an extra day. She tells the narrator: “A Christian soul lies there.....laid in earth without one Christian prayer – with Hebrew rites – in a Hebrew sanctuary. Will you stranger, perform an act of piety towards the dead?” (Edwards, 2006:41). There are also some salient differences between the two ghosts, such as the gender. In the Salome story, the ghost is a female, but in the Wier, the ghost is a middle aged man. Their characters are also quite different. The female ghost is portrayed as a nun like figure: “Her head drooped slightly forward; her hands were clasped together; her eyes were fixed upon the ground. It was the attitude of a nun.” (Edwards, 2006:40). The male ghost is revealed as a pervert who sexually abused young girls: “The fella who’d died had had a bit of a reputation for em … being a pervert. And Jesus, when I heard that, you know? If it was him. And he wanted to go down in the grave with the … little girl” (McPherson, 1997:33). It may be noted that while the character of the former is almost saintly because she is depicted as nun-like, the character of the latter is anything but saintly; rather the portrayal of his character reveals that he has a terrible vice; he appears to seek to continue his aberrant pervert behaviour even in death. His desire to perpetrate and continue his sin even in death suggests that he has no spirit of repentance whatsoever about what he has done. On the contrary, the ghost in the Salome story is insistent on Christian funeral rites being accorded to the dead person in the grave, possibly because the Christian spirit is associated with the repentance of one’s sins, so that when death happens, the spirit of the individual in question can rise to heaven rather than being consigned to hell, due to a failure to repent of one’s sins. Hence, the most striking difference between the two stories lies in the purpose for which the respective ghosts appear to the protagonists who are narrating the stories. As opposed to the purpose for which the ghost in The Weir appears, which is selfish and sinful, the purpose for which the ghost in the Salome story appears is an altruistic one; which is completely selfless. The woman ghost seeks to perform a service for the dead person, while the male ghost only seeks to continue with his lustful actions in spirit. The manner in which the ghosts appear is also different. It is significant that the haunting process is more slow and long drawn out in the Salome story, because the ghost appears over the duration of two days. During her earlier appearance at the gravesite, she does not mention the purpose for which she is present; she only gives the narrator sorrowful looks, perhaps expecting him to understand what she wants him to do. As opposed to this, the ghost in the Weir immediately articulates his questions and his demand, he does not wait. The realization of the haunting process is also different in both the stories; in the Salome story, the narrator is quite clearly aware that he is in the presence of a ghost, but this is not the case in the Weir, because Jim’s realization only dawns after he has seen the obituary in the paper. Thus, it could be concluded that the process of haunting is long drawn out in both the stories because in Jim’s case, the realization that he is in the presence of a ghost is long drawn out and occurs after many days of actually seeing the ghost, while in the Salome story, the process is long drawn out because the ghost appears on two successive occasions. Read More