The Filth, Part Two-- (Spoiler Alert! This is not a Review) - Page 4

You were like some evil God there for a bit, weren't you? Fucking a whole world up. Turning a sugary heaven into a sexy hell. And they've had generations to plan revenge on their gods.

But The Filth is about ceasing to plan this revenge, accepting the pain of subjectivity without seeking to cathect it upon imaginary conspiracies/shit-monoliths/creators, and to channel all of that I-Life into a new and kinder appreciation of what is.


People generally hate the old "it was all a dream" scenario, because they get off on seeing resolution through conflict. We're a dialectical species. We're big on redemption-through-blood-sacrifice.

In The Filth, Morrison refuses to give it to us. Which side are you on? Neither. There are no sides. But there's no "wholeness" either. Morrison is no Buddhist. He doesn't hold up anti-bodies as a model for humans to aspire to. What would be the point of that? To be human is to have consciousness.


What does this all have to do with Hawthorne and "Young Goodman Brown"? Well, I don't have much time left, so I'd better say something about it. In case you don't know the story, here it is in a nutshell: a recently-married New Englander sets off on a journey into the forest, despite his wife Faith's plea not to go, in search of knowledge/an audience with the Devil. Brown hopes that, by indulging this one dark urge, he can silence the voices in his head and enter more fully into communion with his wife, whom he sees as "a blessed angel on earth;". "After this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.", he tells himself.

Except, of course, that all he learns from the devil is that everyone in the town, from the Deacon on down--and including Faith--is alienated from God. Sadly, this is the one thing he was unprepared to hear. People generally don't mind thinking that they are bad, as long as there are "saints" in the world to pick up the slack. Brown doesn't really know anything about his wife--she's just a bunch of pink ribbons to him. He returns home to a truly "fallen" world, and whether it was all a dream or not, he has learned a very important and counter-productive lesson:

Often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.

Article Author: David Fiore

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