Chapter 11: English summary
The wisdom of the clubfoot. An analysis of Henrik Pontoppidan’s novel The Kingdom of the Dead.
The Kingdom of the Dead draws a dark picture of Denmark some years after the introduction of democracy in 1901. Capitalism, industrial companies and the large city of Copenhagen are ingredients in the novel’s historical picture. The book is written out of a sorrow over the fact that Pontoppidans faith in a new and better society based on values such as freedom, equality and reason has been disappointed. In his letters he writes that he in The Kingdom of the Dead wants to describe a certain picture of the world, which for some reasons has turned into a picture of an ”underworld.” It is as a statement about this existential topic that the novel has my interest in this dissertation.
One of its main characters is the politician Tyge Enslev. He represents the culture, which is disintegrating in the novel, as it is he, who has introduced the values, on which the culture has been build. My thesis is that his mistake is that he does not recognize that the human being is a finite being. With the term ”finite” I think of the physical limitedness of a human being, but I also think of his historicity. With the term ”historicity” I think of the way in which a human being is determined by his feelings, experiences and memories, and on the fact that a person always is in a situation, in which he is emotionally engaged.
The first story of the book is the one of Torben and Jytte. Torben and Jytte both come from the upper part of society and are skilled and well-educated people, but they are not able to love eachother. I tell the story about their meeting under the chapter title ”The homeless individual.” I’ve chosen this title as I find that what caracterize them both and is the cause of the unhappy ending of their lovestory is that they both feel uneasy in the culture, they are a part of.
I turn to the politician Tyge Enslev in the chapter ”Enlightment and Middle Ages.” Here I show how his worldpicture looks. It is an unrealistic picture, where people are believed to be rational, free and young. For Enslev the ”light” is a symbol with an intellectual and an emotional meaning: Not only will the people in his imagined community be clever. He is also of the misconception that it is possible to create a life that consists in nothing but happiness.
I show how he actually himself is an exponent of the two phenomenons that he despises and fears the most; tyranny and superstition. The actual society that is build on his ideas is occupied with nothing else than power, succes, pleasure and empty entertainment. I point out that the mistake, Enslev has made, is that he has seen life as aesthetical instead of finite. He has not acknowledged that there is a difference between adventure and reality, as he has thought that it was possible to make his adventurous ideas into real life. By this aesthetic mistake his ideas have become empty superstition and he himself have become cruel and cynical.
Enslev does not want anybody to talk about his weak foot. This foot which is a family weakness that also is apparent in his nephew’s club foot symbolizes the finity of man. Enslev’s failure to recognize this foot is equally symbolic as it shows his fundamentally false consciousness: his failure to recognize that he is human and therefore weak, dependent and relative.
The mythical aspect of the Kingdom of the Dead is in my opinion to be understood as a counterlanguage to Enslev’s faith in rational knowledge. I see the myth as a ”warm” way of knowing something, as it in another way than a rational concept contains emotions and interpretations. The devil for instance is to be understood as a metaphor for a feeling of anxiety or aggression. I also see the mythical elements in the novel as representing what Pontoppidan himself in a letter calls ”eternal laws.” They represent an eternal dimension of life. The devil, for instance, represents an eternal dark side of existence, and the malaise of the actual danish society can be understood as the consequence of Enslev’s failure to appreciate this eternal side of life.
Torben feels alienated in the danish society, but he finds a way through the crisis by acknowledging his feeling. The way in which his new insight is dependent on his acceptance of his difficult emotion, is an example of how you, if you acknowledge your finity – your emotions and individual perspective on things – can live a good and true life. Torben wants to make his estate (he is a landowner) into a sort of Noah’s ark where people can survive the expected end of civilization. His alternative community is build on the thought that life is imperfect, and that you as a finite human being must live your life in loving acceptance of your conditions.