Beauty in Darkness and Death
What is it about the lonely candlelit high-ceilinged halls of a dark gothic castle that we are so drawn to? What is in the fog that makes one want to go outside with a flashlight and pretend that familiar territory is unfamiliar? Why are spiked fences entwined with blood-red roses so haunting yet romantic? Why do so many Americans love Halloween and read ghost stories?
There is something captivating in the unknown realm of evil and the dead. It is a topic addressed in many forms of artistic expression, be it movies, music, or poetry. There is something oddly attractive about depictions of darkness, sadness, loneliness, and death. Fear and pain serve as a barrier to the beauty beyond them, but this fence has an unlatched gate. The viewer is invited to challenge the fear and pain to see the enchanted world of the supernatural on the other side of the gate. The paranormal can be quite normal. Death can be seen as another life. Within depictions of darkness and death, sometimes there is great beauty. When they are observed through the right lens, fear and pain are filtered, leaving only something mysterious and exciting to be admired.
Dealing with fear and pain is an obstacle, though. Simply and bluntly put, unless one is lucky enough to pass away while sleeping or while heavily medicated, when the human body is dying, there is usually pain. Studies have revealed in the past that death is one of the greatest human fears for obvious reasons. Aside from masochists, who honestly enjoys pain? It seems that those who are more willing to override the body's natural fear of pain, or at least to accept this pain as an inevitability and thus dismiss it, are the ones more likely to observe beauty embedded in depictions of darkness.
What are these scenes of darkness, and how are they associated with fear and pain? By looking first at a movie's depiction of a castle, and then at a poem by the Chinese poet Yang Lian, one might better understand how an artist can use darkness to disguise something wondrous or intensify something harmless.
Beauty disguised as evil and darkness is actually a motif in animated Disney films. Take "Beauty and the Beast," one of the most successful animated feature-length films. With delicate melancholy music, the film opens in a forest clearing. Bars of sun slant through the trees like spotlights, cutting through the haze. We hear birds. We hear running water. We are at peace. The animators slowly sail the viewer forward through the forest while a gently deep-voiced narrator begins sharing his tale. We sweep by a waterfall. Trees float by, just missing the screen, and then here it is: the Beast's castle. From the bottom, the animators glide the screen along the vertical span of the structure, while smoothly panning out to frame the whole castle. Brown and old, yet majestic, it stands flanked by sharp cliffs. Its spires pierce the clouds. Richly colored stain-glassed windows glint. As the narrator continues, we learn the history of the castle, and why a seemingly heartless beast lives within.
The knowledge of a beast within brings this castle a sense of evil. We feel forbidden from its interior. We are allowed to gaze at its exterior splendor, but are left to guess what is within. Before Disney's animators take the viewers into the castle later in the film, one can already imagine that the interior of the castle is grand, but has been left to wither in time. There are cobwebs in the chandeliers, and the silver no longer sparkles in the cabinets. All is dim amid the candles. All is dusty and quiet.
Why do viewers want to know what is in this castle? Why would one risk encountering a hideous beast to know what is beyond every locked door in every wing? This castle arouses awareness of the supernatural and the dead. Entering is truly inviting the possibility of confronting intense fear, pain, death, ghosts or beasts. Not entering is sacrificing the possibility of beholding something of immense beauty, mystery, and wonder. If one can dismantle his or her fear, as does Belle, the main character who becomes trapped in the castle and befriends the beast, one can break through the façade of evil and bear witness to the beauty beneath. Anyone familiar with "Beauty and the Beast" knows that in this ominous castle, there is a tale of hope, apology, forgiveness, magic, and love. Access is granted only to the curious and courageous willing to challenge fear.
The poetry of Yang Lian revolves around images of the grotesque, the sad, and the dead. Notes of a Blissful Ghost, a collection of his poetry, is like a witch's spell book in that it uses dark ingredients to conjure magic sometimes whimsical, sometimes hurtful, sometimes humorous, but always somehow beautiful.
In some of his poems, it even seems as if he embraces darkness for the purpose of refuting its evil reputation. What is so evil about the dark? What are we afraid of? Take Blood Orange, for example. This is a poem presumably about eating an orange.
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Blood Orange
- Girls conceal beneath flimsy skin
- Flowing blood with no outlet waiting for a wound
- A body, when it's sliced in half can weep, cry out
- Like a frog swimming in a dark red pond
- Exposed flesh always has a kind of sweetness
- Lets your lips guess at her heartbeat
- Suck it dry from that tiny womb
- Leaks out, drop by drop, greedy fruit it's too late to wipe away
- Sparrows tremble white birdshit falls on branches
- Lands on your teeth nonchalantly spit the pips out
- Forget tear open a smile once again
- What flows in our moistened throat is pus
"Like a frog swimming in a dark red pond, exposed flesh has a kind of sweetness, lets your lips guess at her heartbeat." This imagery is really quite beautiful when one knows the topic of discussion is an orange. Here sits the orange minus its peel. Its raw flesh sits there, skinned, not yet bleeding. You press your lips against its cool tender body. All that juice… it is as if there really is life's blood inside. Can you smell it?
Have you ever separated an orange segment's thin film of skin exposing the little seed-like capsules of juice within? I bet you have even gone so far as to pluck out one of those tiny wombs. How can one not marvel at how complex something so simple as an orange is? All those tiny wombs weave together and when we bite into an orange, it really is like we are bleeding it to death, "drop by drop." What about this white sparrow shit? Perhaps this is just as valid as any description of that bitter-tasting white inner layer that sometime remains after removing the orange rind.
You bite into an orange segment. You nonchalantly spit the seeds out. You tear off another bright orange smile-shaped segment. Its sweet honey oozes down your thirsty throat… like pus? Sure, why not? Clearly, this poem is not meant to summon fear. Instead, Yang Lian employs strong disturbing language to work in his favor. By linking powerful dark imagery with a regular everyday food item, one really might have a new appreciation of the natural wonder that is an orange. This dark imagery is really quite playful and humorous.
Even when a book, poem, or movie is created for the sole purpose of rousing a scare, is there not something beautiful about the excitement of a fright? It makes the heart race. It makes two lovers embrace tighter. It might make you scream, but how often does laughter follow the scream? Why do we watch scary movies? There is something natural about human enthusiasm for the dark and mysterious. It is always fun when an artist knows how to celebrate its existence, whether he or she does it consciously or subconsciously.
by Peter Cain