Maternal imagery: Mirka, Seth & Süleyman
May. 30th, 2008 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseMy thought for lunch today, other than that I really don’t like these brazil nut pieces in what’s some sort of healthy cereal mix, comes back to the maternal rhetoric of the Empire. In particular triggered due to a discussion of tarot symbolism on how to reassign those very superficial and often entirely unfitting official card images.
I’d come up with Mirka as the Emperor and Süleyman as the Empress since he’s just about the only Methuselah with any voluntary and genuinely maternal interaction with younger generations. Mirka of course may be an Emperor whose actions are unseen but she fits the role just as well through her definite, pragmatic and state-preserving acts. She in fact may be a perfect example of Machiavellian pragmatics as she attempts to preserve her state at all costs in the belief that the state itself is the best arena in which citizens can achieve self-actualisation. She certainly behaves as if The Prince was the manual for her upbringing after all.
Thus Mirka dominates the political and somewhat traditionally masculine arena of statecraft. I’ll admit that I’m uncomfortable calling statecraft a masculine preserve because so much of the movement of the mechanism of state goes on in subtle iterations which tends to be dubbed a female method of doing things would should be enough to cancel out the entire gender dichotomy anyway. But beyond her overt ‘hard power’ displays there’s little to no indication of just how Mirka fulfils her grandmother role and in fact she doesn’t seem to fill it with any great warmth at all. There’s no emphasis on her interactions with her grandson beyond her having sent him off on a highly risky mission and seemingly scaring him with that smiling mask of hers. Mirka then seems to have little by way of maternal interaction at all and what there is seems rather more about duty and family preservation than anything marginally tender.
Likewise, Seth builds up around herself the imagery of the great mother of her people but a mother without a face or identifiable traits isn’t really any sort of mother at all. Good portions of her ‘children’ don’t even believe that she’s real after all which means that that particular image has broken down somewhere along the line. And when she’s not being Empress and is running about as a tea seller/medical student she isn’t presenting anything like a maternal image either. Her physical form notwithstanding her behaviour alone isn’t that of a mother figure: she plays the role of the teasing, slightly more knowledgeable older friend or sister rather than anything else. In a sense Seth seems either to fail to realise or deliberately dismisses the fact that the power of the materfamilias is exercised by proxy, through the cultivating of viable children who are then sent out to enact her will regardless of whether or not they realise it. The latter doesn’t apply to Mirka simply because she sends Ion to Carthago for the sake of the state since Mirka as the Emperor ostentatiously is the state anyway which leaves the only viable maternal figure as Süleyman.
Süleyman granted appears to have no direct line descendants of his own, though I’m still very wary of the idea that Ion genuinely is Mirka’s grandson instead of a close relative of non-direct descent, and only really has a niece to his credit. Yet he does have established good relations with younger Methuselah who call him ‘uncle’ anyway. He’s shown taking an active interest in them, something which isn’t covered either way in regards to Mirka’s interaction with Ion. And in fact Mirka may rely on familial obligations a great deal to perform the task of parental guidance for her which would contrast with Süleyman’s interaction with children who don’t owe him any direct filial duty. In those cases those bonds have to be actively encouraged to take shape through Süleyman’s nurturing of the younger generation, which then as a by-product gives him that materfamilias ability to direct his ‘nieces’ about the board and accomplish his own ends silently through their actions. Of course why he does that may be open to debate though currently I’m leaning towards it being because he’s actively trying to avoid fathering his own progeny , though it may well be because this is the route to fulfilling his fanaticism.
Of course as with anything else, I may have gone horribly awry in following one logical connection to the next and in particular in anything that seems like an overt case of gender dichotomy I’m more than likely to deliberately flip things around just because I can but in this case that might actually be justified. Because the maternal image doesn’t have to be an entirely benevolent one after all and it seems that far too often in many areas that aspect is ignored.
I’d come up with Mirka as the Emperor and Süleyman as the Empress since he’s just about the only Methuselah with any voluntary and genuinely maternal interaction with younger generations. Mirka of course may be an Emperor whose actions are unseen but she fits the role just as well through her definite, pragmatic and state-preserving acts. She in fact may be a perfect example of Machiavellian pragmatics as she attempts to preserve her state at all costs in the belief that the state itself is the best arena in which citizens can achieve self-actualisation. She certainly behaves as if The Prince was the manual for her upbringing after all.
Thus Mirka dominates the political and somewhat traditionally masculine arena of statecraft. I’ll admit that I’m uncomfortable calling statecraft a masculine preserve because so much of the movement of the mechanism of state goes on in subtle iterations which tends to be dubbed a female method of doing things would should be enough to cancel out the entire gender dichotomy anyway. But beyond her overt ‘hard power’ displays there’s little to no indication of just how Mirka fulfils her grandmother role and in fact she doesn’t seem to fill it with any great warmth at all. There’s no emphasis on her interactions with her grandson beyond her having sent him off on a highly risky mission and seemingly scaring him with that smiling mask of hers. Mirka then seems to have little by way of maternal interaction at all and what there is seems rather more about duty and family preservation than anything marginally tender.
Likewise, Seth builds up around herself the imagery of the great mother of her people but a mother without a face or identifiable traits isn’t really any sort of mother at all. Good portions of her ‘children’ don’t even believe that she’s real after all which means that that particular image has broken down somewhere along the line. And when she’s not being Empress and is running about as a tea seller/medical student she isn’t presenting anything like a maternal image either. Her physical form notwithstanding her behaviour alone isn’t that of a mother figure: she plays the role of the teasing, slightly more knowledgeable older friend or sister rather than anything else. In a sense Seth seems either to fail to realise or deliberately dismisses the fact that the power of the materfamilias is exercised by proxy, through the cultivating of viable children who are then sent out to enact her will regardless of whether or not they realise it. The latter doesn’t apply to Mirka simply because she sends Ion to Carthago for the sake of the state since Mirka as the Emperor ostentatiously is the state anyway which leaves the only viable maternal figure as Süleyman.
Süleyman granted appears to have no direct line descendants of his own, though I’m still very wary of the idea that Ion genuinely is Mirka’s grandson instead of a close relative of non-direct descent, and only really has a niece to his credit. Yet he does have established good relations with younger Methuselah who call him ‘uncle’ anyway. He’s shown taking an active interest in them, something which isn’t covered either way in regards to Mirka’s interaction with Ion. And in fact Mirka may rely on familial obligations a great deal to perform the task of parental guidance for her which would contrast with Süleyman’s interaction with children who don’t owe him any direct filial duty. In those cases those bonds have to be actively encouraged to take shape through Süleyman’s nurturing of the younger generation, which then as a by-product gives him that materfamilias ability to direct his ‘nieces’ about the board and accomplish his own ends silently through their actions. Of course why he does that may be open to debate though currently I’m leaning towards it being because he’s actively trying to avoid fathering his own progeny , though it may well be because this is the route to fulfilling his fanaticism.
Of course as with anything else, I may have gone horribly awry in following one logical connection to the next and in particular in anything that seems like an overt case of gender dichotomy I’m more than likely to deliberately flip things around just because I can but in this case that might actually be justified. Because the maternal image doesn’t have to be an entirely benevolent one after all and it seems that far too often in many areas that aspect is ignored.
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Date: 2008-06-03 09:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
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