"The Sphinx": A Closer Look Through Marxism and Reader-Response
When discussing "The Sphinx" by Edgar Allan Poe, there are many ways that we can interpret the text. Before even glimpsing at the five pages that compose the story, some readers may decide to focus first on the historical context or why the story came to be in the first place. They might even try to search the author's autobiography to make sense of why the story is set at a specific timeframe to understand any issues raised by the author. Others read and examine the narrative to interpret it in their way, without putting much thought into what the author wanted to say, and primarily focus on their vision or understanding of the story. According to Elizabeth Freund, "for the reader, the work is not partially created but, on the other hand, already complete and inexhaustible- one can read and reread without ever grasping completely what has already been made...". (153) The interpretation of stories can vary from reader to reader; with this essay, we will try to examine the words of Edgar Allan Poe by utilizing Reader-Response Theory and Marxism Theory.
"The Sphinx" at first glance is a story that explores our perceptions of how we interpret symbols and omens. It further tries to impact the reader by influencing their perception of the world in times of crisis. The story centers around the narrator and his relative. The narrator is invited to spend two weeks with his relative in upstate New York while the city is suffering from a cholera epidemic. As time passes, the narrator of the story starts seeing a monster, a giant moth, which he believes is a sign of his possible death. He then tells his relative about the situation, and his relative helps him see that what he thinks is a monster is actually a tiny insect. At first glance, that might be considered the interpretation of the story, but upon further inspection, it is clear that there is more depth to what Edgar Allan Poe wanted to express in his text.
The author starts the short story by presenting the reader with a man, the narrator of the story, who has decided to visit a relative that lives near the Hudson River north of New York City for two weeks. During this time, the two men witness the massive destruction that the cholera epidemic was causing in the city. Still, to them, it was something distant that they only experienced when "news of the decease of some acquaintance" (Poe 96) reached them on an almost daily basis. Both of the main characters can be considered upperclassmen, and they seem to be spectators of a crisis that is affecting the working world while they stay at the "cottage orneé on the banks of the Hudson." (Poe 96) If we try to interpret the story using Marxism theory, we can observe that the main characters seem to be removed from society and the working class; with that, the narrative shows a lack of recognition of the ones who support the lifestyle of the main characters. Parker comments, "If labor is invisible or rarely visible, its invisibility can interpellate readers into assuming that labor somehow matters less than other activities, and that people who labor in the working class somehow matter less than people whose class position separates them from the working class." (257) The author omits the fact that these men are from a high societal status but offers moments where he lets the reader see that they do consider themselves above the working class. "The Sphinx" neglects to show the working class, and it is as if the characters are oblivious to the labor that is present backstage and supports their privilege.
Furthermore, we see how the main characters have the option to escape the cholera surge existing in the city "as the fatality increased" (Poe 96) while they are safe in their cottage away from the city. Many of their friends do not have that possibility of escape, and neither do the lower class who cannot leave New York city to safeguard their lives. They need the struggles of their work in order for them to shelter themselves or help their family. According to Marxism, the world is divided "...between a class of people who labor to produce goods and who sell their labor, and a class of people who have capital, use their capital to purchase labor through wages, and exploit the labor to accumulate wealth for themselves." (Parker 230) The overlooking of the socio-economic ability of the main characters to escape the disease that was decaying New York romanticizes the idea that anyone could stay away for a "fortnight." When realistically, it would have been unattainable for the working class.
We can further explore the socio-economic status of the main characters by seeing how the narrator of the story presents the reader with a set of activities he and his relative were participating in while there was an epidemic. The narrator offers an "...ordinary means of summer amusement; and what with rambling in the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music, and books..." (Poe 96). "The Sphinx" is set around 1832, items like books were not easily attainable by the average person, and literacy was often reserved for the upper class; to this day, books are expensive, and so is art. Therefore, the main characters are "interpellated or hailed into unconsciously accepting the assumptions" that their activities are common to all. (Parker 243) We can also point out that the narrator mentions boating as something commonly done during the summer. The narrator assumes this a traditional pastime, even though, even in our time, boating is an expensive diversion.
Parting from that premise, we can further see how they are alienated from their labor and used to what Marx called commodities. According to Parker, "Some commodities achieve exchange value not so much because of their use for those who purchase them as because of the status they represent." (232) The assumptions made by the narrator that certain activities are the norm in their time only shows the elevated status they have in society and perpetuates the process that Marx called commodification. The main characters have the assumption that everyone can be a purchaser of commodities and not see how alienated they are from the labor. Even the mentioning of music and books can be considered commodities as Parker further elaborates that "...contemporary Marxists, have wondered about the role of art and literature as commodities as well as about the role of art and literature in competition with other commodities." (233)
In retrospect, we can also add that the character's political views are also observed in the story, even if not declared explicitly. We can support that by using what Parker presents us with the French Marxist Louis Althusser discussions on ideology. According to Althusser, "ideology refers to an unconscious set of beliefs and assumptions[...] In Althusser's sense of the term ideology, we mostly misrecognize the world around us, and so we misunderstand what makes us act the ways we act." (240) Edgar Allan Poe hints as to what the character's ideals were when he wrote, "the influence to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate." (Poe 99) In that instance, we get a sense of the unconscious sentiment towards democracy the characters have since they reflect on what political scholars write about the power of democracy but falter to mention the timeline for it to spread worldwide. Hence, giving the reader a glimpse into their unconsciousness and their beliefs on how perhaps democracy is overvalued or may even affect their societal status if it were to spread worldwide.
The characters in "The Sphinx" are upperclassmen and therefore "possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think." (Marx and Engels 1) They are aware of their socio-economic status, and when the narrator was seeing things or believed he was seeing a giant monster, his relative did not hesitate in pointing out that "The Death's-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar." (Poe 100) The fact that the narrator was seeing things and thinking that the moth was an omen meant that he was thinking as the working class, which was unacceptable. The narrator's relative pointed this out when he discovered his guest believed he was seeing a monster and thought it was an omen for his death, when in fact, it was a tiny insect.
Then again, that can be considered just one interpretation of certain aspects of the story, and as Parker established, "how we interpret that tangle will vary with our purposes and predilections..." (Parker 266). A different understanding of the story could be different from those around or what the author intended, or perhaps can be different from those who read the story fifty years ago. "Even if we could poll a cross-section of readers, what those readers say that they think, in a world of ideology, might not accurately reflect the emotional resonance that the story carries for them." (Parker 266)
On that note, we can now try to use the Reader-Response theory to examine other aspects of Edgar Allan Poe's short story. As the reader emerges into the story, there is a moment where perhaps the monster one of the characters is seeing becomes quite real. Stanley Fish says, "a reader is invited to make a certain kind of sense of only to discover (at the beginning of the next line) that the sense he has made is either incomplete or simply wrong." (147) In "The Sphinx," before the reader reaches the moment of clarity that the relative gives the narrator, the assumptions of the reader could be correct, but that moment is gone once the narrator's relative tells him that the monster is a mere insect. However, a reader could also argue that the monster is real, but only the narrator can see it, and the insect was made up by the relative to give peace to the narrator's mind. That being said, "my predisposition to execute different interpretative strategies will produce different formal structures." (Fisher 169) The decision to use Marxism to discuss parts of "The Sphinx" can very well be a mistake in the eyes of another group of readers, or perhaps the author did not write the story with that in mind, but that is also part of the literary criticism that Reader-Response gives, it gives the reader the chance to extend meaning to the text.
Every method or theory we utilize to try to interpret a text, in a way, is a Reader-Response method. When reading "The Sphinx," we can use the term implied reader to describe its readers. There is a part of the story where the reader may not know if the "living monster of hideous conformation" (Poe 97) is accurate, part of the narrator's imagination, or something completely different. When reading a text, readers create assumptions based on what they believe may happen in the story based on what was previously read. The story cannot be considered complete if the reader does not continue to read it. "In that way, a text sets up "gaps," inviting readers to fill in the gaps and inviting readers then to compare how they fill in the gaps to the way that the text itself eventually fills or does not fill in the same gaps." (Parker 357) A text is shaped by the expectations of the reader and the way the text makes the reader feel. "The Sphinx" most likely does not carry the same meaning from the day it was published, from five years ago, and probably the current reader interprets it differently because "the meaning of a text, then, comes not from the text alone (as the new critics thought) or from the reader alone, but from the two together." (Parker 357)
Furthermore, the text's impact on current readers could be completely different from those who read it years ago. The concept actual readers would now come to play as Norman Holland and David Bleich, according to Parker, "have called attention to the psychological process of readers." (357) If we were to go by Holland's beliefs, the reader would form a "primary identity based on early childhood and then projects the concerns of that identity onto a literary text." (Parker 358) This could mean that based on experiences and how the reader views his world in early stages of life could influence the way it interprets stories. A reader who perhaps had an imaginary friend at a young age would think that the monster the narrator sees is real. However, someone who maybe never experienced such things as a child might immediately say the monster is not real or that the real monster in the story is the death due to cholera. Bleich, on the other hand, believes that readers ground "...their view of a text in the ways that it connects to their personal experience." (Parker 358) In this case, someone that has picked up the story and read it in the past year, may find a deep connection with the story because of the topic of the epidemic and how current it feels because of current pandemic.
Moreover, when trying to utilize Reader-Response to interpret "The Sphinx," we can see how encoding and decoding could also be a way to evaluate the text. Parker explains that when a message is sent, it is encoded. It is that process that "...shapes the message, because the message gets mediated, influenced, by the encoders' discourses, ideologies, and technologies. When people receive a message, they decode it. And the decoding, like the encoding, shapes the message, because it too is mediated by discourses, ideologies, and technologies." (Parker 362) When deciding to use Marxism to explain aspects of the short story, the act of decoding was being made by closely examining parts of the story to better understand or give meaning to its author's message.
Additionally, we can also see it as "formal features do not exist independently of the reader's experience and ends by admitting that my account of the reader's experience is itself the product of a set of interpretative assumptions." (Fish 147) Edgar Allan Poe's "The Sphinx" tries to convey a man who is so afraid of a possible death caused by cholera that he imagines monsters, which presents a psychological impression to the reader. Someone who reads the story after living in the current pandemic could feel empathy for the story's narrator. A reader from the times of cholera would probably feel the same way or perhaps overwhelmed by the realization that what the author portrayed in his short story is their lives. If we apply the Reader-Response concept of reception history, we can further explore "the history of how readers respond to a given film or literary work, writer, or movement in literature or film." (Parker 369) As critics, we could go in-depth about how the world received the story and the different interpretations readers had over the years, though it can be challenging to do for older works.
In addition, we can say that with the evolution of Reader-Response over the years, due to all the technological advances, critics have gained a broader spectrum to further interpret texts by creating a participatory process for the audience. This growth has generated the creation of fanfiction, blogs, films, to mention a few. "The Sphinx" has had this type of Reader-Response since a movie was made in 1985. The readers during that year felt that a way to understand better the issues that Edgar Allan Poe was discussing his story through the visualization of it. The idea benefits its readers and perhaps attracts an audience that would prefer film over a text and expand the reach of the message the author established in his story.
Now, let us return to the premise that texts "...do not make meaning by themselves. Readers make meaning." (Parker 375) Even though there is a debate on whether that is true or not, we can agree that the act of reading is not just that. When reading "The Sphinx," we are not just reading the words of Edgar Allan Poe but also experiencing the emotions the characters might provoke and how it makes statements about society and mental health in a world where death is the news of the day. "The Sphinx" is, at its core is a story about fear, misrepresentation, psychological issues, and awareness of a time that the world suffered significant losses. Upon giving it a critical look, we can see how the text allows the readers the opportunity to explore the different questions that Edgar Allan Poe poses in his story; psychological, socio-economic, death, and omens. From a Marxist view, we can see how the author inconspicuously shows the reader some underlying socio-economic problems in the structure of the society where the characters are centered. Even if the author did not write the story as an expression of his views about society and the classes, there is still a chance that a "…text has a political unconscious, a set of social and political assumptions that it remains unaware of…" (Parker 372) On the other hand, we can also conclude that "The Sphinx" is a short story that urges the reader to explore and question the words in the paper. It also pushes the reader to explore the historical background, the implications of the story's events, and the relevance of the story to our current time even though the story was written more than a hundred years ago. Reader-Response theory allows the reader to explore different aspects of the story since, as Parker expressed in his book, "Every method […] is a reader-response method, whether or not it focuses on that dimension of its own method. If there is anything specific to reader-response criticism, then, it is not the use of readers' responses. It is the focus on the use of readers' responses. And that focus raises a host of provocative questions that continue to attract interest even while the vogue has diminished for reader-response criticism as a separate method." (354). As readers, we can use our own experiences to interpret stories and understand them. Marxism and Reader-Response theory gives us that opportunity. It lets us go in-depth into issues that were not recognizable or not visible at first glance and, upon closer examination, became more apparent and clear in the story.
Works Cited:
“Chapter 11: Reader Response.” How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies, by Robert Dale Parker, Oxford University Press, New York, 2020, pp. 354–376.
“Chapter 8: Marxism.” How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies, by Robert Dale Parker, Oxford University Press, New York, 2020, pp. 229–266.
Fish, Stanley. “Interpreting the Variorum.”
Freund, Elizabeth. “Reading Reading.”
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas.”
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Sphinx.” Jan. 1846.
