Relation is All: Affirming Identity through Narrative

In “Knowledge and the Image of Man,” Warren writes that “man’s process of self- definition” requires that he “distinguishes himself from the world and from other men” so that

“he disintegrates his [. . .] sense of unity” and “discovers separateness.” And “in this process he discovers the pain of self-criticism and the pain of isolation. But in the pain may, if he is

fortunate, develop its own worth, work its own homeopathic cure” (241). Jack’s rebirth, the way in which he starts to know himself anew, begins a process of “self-definition” initiated by the death of Judge Irwin. Though Jack has isolated himself through his theories of impersonality for much of the narrative, the Judge’s death necessitates a new type of isolation in which Jack must distinguish himself from himself. In other words, once Jack learns the identity of his father, he must wade back through his past in order to reposition himself and his memories with his new knowledge. He must redefine or re-know himself in the context of this new knowledge, but this redefinition requires that he reevaluate how his understanding of the past as well as his past actions will help to shape his new identity. Jack must then dispense of his belief in the “Great Twitch” and become self-conscious, and more importantly self-critical in order to make sense of himself as the son of Judge Irwin.

The process of self-definition or rebirth is slow and painful for Jack because he must dismantle his entire way of knowing the world; and this too requires time as well as relation. In other words, Jack must first come to understand how and why people are more than just

impersonal “peculiarly complicated mechanisms” and in turn overcome his fear of the reproach of the truth. Shortly after Judge Irwin’s death, Jack reflects that

By the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it is too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which he cannot lie or stand or sit, hung up in the justice to be viewed by the populace. Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can

the self make a new self when the selfness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made? (529)

Up until this point in Jack’s story, his identity has been defined impersonally through his life philosophies as well as his disengagement and disinterest in others and life more generally. His belief in the “Great Twitch” is the crux of the identity he has crafted for himself. Jack has sustained this “pattern” of self-definition impart because of his constant avoidance of new forms of knowledge that would interfere with this pattern, but also because of what Warren calls in the later essay the “incompleteness of knowledge” (243). According the Emersonian ideal of double consciousness, an individual only has access to incomplete knowledge as multiple modes of knowing the self are unable to be reconciled and integrated to decipher a complete picture of the self. Jack confirms this for much of his story by reminding the reader and himself that complete knowledge equates to death.

Yet, Judge Irwin’s death frustrates both the logic of double consciousness as well as Jack’s theories of impersonality that dismiss particular forms of knowing as it forces Jack to acknowledge that an alternative construction of his self-definition is not only possible, but

necessary. This alternative self depends upon the knowledge of his particularity whereby he is no longer just an impersonal “heave of the nerve” in order to propel the “Great Twitch,” but rather a son who now possesses the knowledge he has been searching for in order to make sense of his complicated family dynamics and of himself. The Judge’s death thus provides a more complete version of who Jack is though this knowledge contradicts his previous notion of self. Jack’s dilemma then when he asks how a new self can be made out of the existing self is really a question of how one can know the self in two ways. And Jack’s two selves in this instant resemble the Emersonian ideal of double consciousness in that the selves Jack is trying to

reconcile and integrate are not just his past and present selves, but versions of himself that relied upon his respective rejection and acceptance of impersonal and particular forms of knowledge.

It is worth noting that Jack’s process of self-definition is slow and painful because the Judge’s death merely triggers the process. Jack’s dilemma is a result of the “Great Twitch” failing to make sense of the knowledge he has acquired through the Judge’s death. The “Great Twitch” does not provide the evasion for which he typically takes comfort and thereby forces him to possess the “truth” of his paternity. Because he cannot escape the “truth” produced by the “facts” that he himself discovered, Jack has no choice but to accept and possess this new and uncomfortable knowledge. In possessing the knowledge that Judge Irwin was his father, Jack must acknowledge the ways in which this information may alter his identity. Jack though still fears the “reproach of the truth” and complete forms of knowing. The Judge’s death then initiates the process of self-definition for Jack because it forces a new way of knowing upon him;

however, Jack continues to live and define himself “in terms of the definition” from which he has previously constructed his identity. He returns to work for Willie, though he requests work that doesn’t involve the blackmail of particular persons and concentrates solely on finding “facts” for bills Willie hopes to pass into law. He remains relatively disengaged from Willie, Anne, and Adam Stanton until Willie’s son, Tom Stark, is hospitalized from a football injury. He continues to possess his newfound knowledge, but does not integrate the knowledge in order to redefine himself as he is unsure of how to do so. His possession and acceptance of this

knowledge, rather than his typical avoidance, triggers his process of self-definition because it starts to challenge his previous forms of knowing such as the “Great Twitch” and “Life is Motion towards Knowledge.”