Psycho Sexuality of the Characters You & She in Soul Mountain

Sarah Omar
Ms. Fareeda Chisti
Chinese literature
1st July 2013
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
Psycho-Sexuality of the characters of ‘You’ & ‘She to Represent the Quest towards Wholeness
In the novel, Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian the significant themes like ‘loss of self’, ‘division and integration of self’, ‘timelessness’, and ‘transcendence’ are recurrent in Xingjian’s writing. Xingjian brings these themes to life by the unique network of images, metaphors, and symbols which float throughout the text taking clear precedence over language. Xingjian expounds these images, knitting them into different patterns, putting those patterns into several clusters and then holding those clusters up in an intricate net. One such image cluster, abundantly found in his writing, deals with sexual liaisons. To explain these sexual instances, Xingjian takes aid of images rather than words. Words are descriptive and belong to the language where as the images belong to the reader. Running parallel to these sexual or psycho-sexual images, are the over powering waves of ‘energy’ with their respective crests and troughs. It is through these high and lows of energy that Xingjian illustrates how creativity emerges. Therefore, he clearly lifts his text up, reeling it away from the clasp of language, strong hold of words and dropping it slowly into the hands of the reader where the images, swirling with life, help evoke the reader’s senses. The reader the, becomes a willing partner in this expedition where his task is to decipher the image patterns, and their fluctuating energies.
Energy processes, their rise, their fall, is what seems to govern not only the text but also its characters: ‘You’ and ‘She’- projections of the fictional self ‘I’. Xingjian in creating his novel, it appears is working between the different energy levels, treating ‘you’ and ‘she’ as pawns, placing them at a particular energy level then sliding them up, gradually increasing the energy, reaching the peak- the highest energy point and then finally rolling them down a steep slope which represents the rapid dissipation of energy. But it is not always Xingjian who is making them do this because a point comes where these two characters i.e. ‘you’ and ‘she’ slip out of Xingjian’s control, gain a life of their own and start meandering their way through the constructing text.
Moreover, the two characters ‘you’ & ‘she’, task is to observe the ‘unity, ‘oneness’ and likeness’ in all things. This fundamental belief in unity leads naturally to the further belief that all things about us (mankind) are but “forms or manifestations of the one Divine life”. Everything then yearns to go back to its original source, to its harbor to achieve unity, coherence and wholeness. This world’s life is but a continuous journey, a journey to seek the truth. Xingjian’s authorial ‘I’s’ into ‘you’ and ‘she’ and then the integration of ‘you’ and ‘she’ into each other and then finally back into I also seems to be governed by this unity principle. By the harmonious amalgamation of the male & female elements ‘I’ is able to have his desired vision.
Furthermore, ‘you’ & ‘she’ are characters who reach these peaks and in doing so achieve their goals. But one needs energy to ponder over the energy, the creative force that propels these characters and helps them to achieve their task or desired vision. These characters are continuously, traveling back & forth in time. The structure of the novel – the stream of consciousness technique makes this movement possible. In such a movement, one encounters moments where past, present, and future coexist- moments of timelessness where the unconscious becomes an important commodity.
This debate about the energy and unconscious brings us to the theory and definition of libido. Sigmund Freud is the first person who ‘popularized’ the term libido. He defines “libido as the instinct energy or force”, in the “id, the largely unconscious structure of the psyche”. Freud, in construction of his theory of the unconscious and the libido, elaborates this point further. For Freud libido is the ‘sexual drive’ or “an individual’s urge to engage in sexual activity.
But, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psycho analyst, disagrees with Freud’s theory stating that such a theory is narrow and limited. He refers to libido “as the free – or psychic—energy an individual has to put towards personal development or individuation”. Jung, further states that “Duality” or “opposition”, which a person faces “creates the energy (or libido) of the psyche, which he” asserts expresses itself only through symbols: “It is the energy that manifests itself in the life process and is perceived subjectively as striving and desire”. Jung, then, clearly “desexualizes” “libido broadening the range of psychic, creative energies and pursuits”. Hence, Xingjian, it seems, conform to Jung’s ideas and views concerning the libido. Like Jung Xingjian separates the libido from sexuality-use of sexual images but de-sexualizes them. De-sexualizing the libido turns it into raw, and pure form of energy.
In his novel, Soul Mountain, Xingjian and his short story “Instantly plunged into the darkness”(98 Xingjian), seems to be celebrating the return of these feminine energies or the feminine consciousness. In his narratives, this feminine consciousness can be seen as a motivational force responsible for the outpour of masculine creativity. Using sexual images he shows how male & female elements integrate in order to yield their combined creative product. Xingjian divides his creative endeavors into two categories. The first one is the creative construction of the text while the second one is an active reconstruction of the self. In “Instantly plunged into the darkness” he employs the first category whereas the second category i.e. the soul search is taken up in Soul Mountain along with the creative course of writing fiction.
In the beginning of the story “he is sitting at the desk” before his computer and “she" is lying across the bed”. He “senses the tide swelling. The seawater surges around the legs of the chair, swirls around” but then “recedes” (98 Xingjian). The sea water which can be taken as a symbol of the feminine energy or the female consciousness tends to recede. This going back of the seawater, perhaps point towards the fact that ‘He’ is trying hard to express himself creatively but something or some obstacle is stopping him from achieving his goal. ‘He’, then, in his desperation asks ‘she’, if ‘she’ will cope & ‘she’ replies that “she loves being squashed “(100 Xingjian). Through this conversation, it seems as if ‘ he’ is asking himself whether he will be able to cope with all the hard work required for writing a book & on this ‘she’ who is an extension of his self replies, that she can take all the burden, the pressure till she is “squashed” (100Xingjian). At this point in the story “the sea has risen to the seat of the deck chair and is “swaying”. The image of the chair legs being fully immersed in the sea point towards the act of penetration but since Xingjian de-sexualizes his images, they do not evoke any sexual feelings. Right after this penetration, this coming together of male & female elements, there is this rigorous effort on the part of ‘he’ to understand his thought process. After this effort, the ash on his “cigarette is about to drop&, flicking it into the ashtray, he deletes each of the words of the uncompleted sentence” (101 Xingjian). The ash falling off the cigarette is the phallic symbol, can be a hint to demonstrate that maybe ‘he’ is wearying down, is exhausted, lacks energy or, perhaps, has tried using his energy, ‘He’ pleads her to tell him a story. ‘He’ wants a beginning, some inspiration or stimulus but his mind like the “empty chair” (102 Xingjian) remains empty, devoid of all ideas. Thence, he is portrayed only at the surface level at this stage & has not plunged into creativity.
Throughout these chunks of writing which seems disjointed but in fact are very well knit together. Xingjian states; “to lose images is to lose space & to lose sound is to lose language (351 Xingjian). Losing language, losing words & instead, working with images is what Xingjian does while describing these sexual liaisons. His using images confirms Jung’s thesis where he states the libido essentially expresses itself through symbols and images.
In Soul Mountain the visions which ‘you’ & ‘I’ have are also utmost important. Xingjian in describing the sexual liaisons make sure that the reader is able to “see the images” (117 Xingjian). To understand these images one has to decipher ‘you-she relationship’. The you-she relationship is governed by power dynamics. You & she keeps oscillating between different energy levels till the point where their respective energies are equal & hence they merge homogenously into one another. This is precisely the point where the attainment of higher realities & visions is possible. In the beginning of these encounters it is ‘you’ who gives her strength but as the narrative proceeds, ‘she’ comes forward with a greater energy, which then dominates & directs ‘you’. ‘You’ first wants ‘she’ to enter into the “darkness” i.e. to deconstruct herself. When ‘you’ enters “her moist body” (201 Xingjian), ‘you’ wants “her to abandon herself”. At the same time ‘she’ has the urge of being possessed and “owned by a man” (325 Xingjian). Through this description one is able to get the sense that ‘she’ has to deconstruct herself in order to integrate the male principal into her being. In this instance, the male is trying to stimulate the female creative principal.
Another important instance is where ‘you’ loses his “key” (390 Xingjian) Even though the key is placed on the table in front of ‘you’; ‘you’ is unable to find it. “She” is holding the key in her hand & standing in his room (378 Xingjian) can symbolize that although the feminine consciousness is present inside him, he is unfortunate enough not to sense it. Then to make ‘you’ understand his dilemma ‘she; is blunt (405 Xingjian) enough to say; “A woman: you need a woman”. And for herself, she says, the same that ‘she’ needs a man. Her thesis here clearly shows the fact that for a “great Mind” which is “androgynous”, it is essential that both the male & female elements exist in harmony together. But to reach this harmony ‘you’& ‘she’ have to go through several oppositions & contradictions. And these oppositions, according to Jung, are necessary for the production of the libido. Both ‘you’ & ‘she’ tell stories at the same place, both reach equal energy level but in this process conflicts arise & they dissociate. However, a point comes where these binaries or oppositions eventually converge: ‘her inventions & your fabrications merge are indistinguishable’ (303 Xingjian). Such a union is accompanied by “nonexistence”, when “the world no longer exists” (405 Xingjian). This “non-existence” state is where there is a presence of ‘real time’- a time where past, present, & future coexist & where a person is able to transcend the physical world.
In short, ‘you’ & ‘she’, through their relationship, are able to achieve this “non-existence”, this transcendence for ‘I’. Then ‘I’ in the realms of the world where past, present, & future coexist, is able to experience his epiphanic moments- the moments which are eternal in space & time or in other words a sense of “wholesomeness”. And it is through these revelations that ‘I’ achieves his desired vision to see “God in a small green frog” (505 Xingjian). Thence, through this vision ‘I’ attains subjective reality which reveals ‘All’ knowledge & truth of Man & the cosmoses.
Works Cited
Xingjian, Gao. Soul Mountain. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2001. Print
Fuller,R. Andrew. Psychology & Religion: Eight Points of View. England: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 1994, Print.

Cited: Xingjian, Gao. Soul Mountain. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2001. Print Fuller,R. Andrew. Psychology & Religion: Eight Points of View. England: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1994, Print.