Sleeping on a Drunken Boat: Darden and Rimbaud

Clinic for Sleep Disorders by Douglas Darden

Of Darden's projects Clinic for Sleep Disorders stands out as a particularly significant one for today: October 20th, which was both Douglas Darden's and Arthur Rimbaud's birthday.

Clinic for Sleep Disorders was designed in 1987, and was designed in Liberty State Park, New Jersey. This is the same year Darden taught architectural design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He was the recipient of the Fellowship of the New Jersey Counsel of the Arts for this project, so the idea for it must have been on his mind for a couple of years, but drawings were executed for it in 1987. The NJCA usually awards  $1000 for this fellowship, but Darden received $4000; indicating that they regarded him and his work particularly promising.

I have addressed in a previous post (Dating Douglas Darden) Darden's use of deliberate dates in his designs and writings to add a little more significance and meaning into his work. When I first wrote that post I had not yet realized the deeper significance Darden put into the date October 20th provided in the doctor-patient interview in Condemned Building (pg. 56), nor some of the other aspects of that bit of text.

The date given is 20 October 1954. This is Darden's third birthday. It is also Rimbaud's 100th birthday.

The name of the doctor in the interview is Jean Nicholas, and the name of the patient is Arthur. Rimbaud's full name is Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud.

The name of the clinic where the interview is held is at the Charlesville Sleep Clinic in Marseilles, France. Rimbaud was born in Charleville, France, and died at the age of 37 in Marseilles, France.

The image provided on the same page with this interview is one of a young Rimbaud done by Pablo Picasso. Darden even writes that this is Rimbaud, though he conceals the name "Arthur" by simply writing "A. Rimbaud."

"Dreamed client profile: schematic representation of neurophysiological mechanisms of sleep states with Picasso lithograph of A. Rimbaud laid down to rest." —Condemned Building, pg. 56

Picasso's drawing of Rimbaud & portrait of 17-year-old Rimbaud.

Most of the patient's words in the interview are derived or taken completely from Rimbaud's poem, "The Drunken Boat." Without quoting the length of both texts, I will provide some examples (in parentheses will be the stanza followed by the line from that quartet):

Arthur: I have wept too much! (23:1)
This is a cold puddle (24:2). The sun is bitter and the moon atrocious (23:2).
I run (3:3), I am lighter than a cork (4:1).
Unbelievable Floridas! (12:1)
Immobile and blue (21:3).
I was on a boat hauling cotton (2:1-2).

Et cetera.

Ultimately, "The Drunken Boat" is the Archi-text for Clinic for Sleep Disorders—the piece of literature that in-forms and in-spires the project. It would have inspired the "ciphers" for the building elements and programs and the "stages" of a patient's progress through the clinic—from the bridges to the walls to the ferry boat that takes the patient out of the clinic.

Happy birthday Douglas Darden and Arthur Rimbaud.

Further reading:
Douglas Darden. Condemned Building. 1993.
Arthur Rimbaud. Complete Works.
Ben Ledbetter. Condemned Building (a book review), GSD News, Fall 1993. Pg. 42.

Sexy Sadie and Sadism: Douglas Darden's Sex Shop

Sex Shop by Douglas Darden

From MoMA Collection

One of the last (more or less) completed works of Douglas Darden was called Sex Shop, which was excluded from his 1993 book, Condemned Building, due to the controversial nature of the project. Prior to publication of Condemned Building Darden had not really worked on the project very much—though there was a completed Dis/continuous Genealogy with an ideogram, but not much else. He did not actually start working on the design and drawings until two years after publishing Condemned Building. After his death several finished drawings on yellow trace paper were found in portfolio boxes. Peter Schneider has written quite extensive on the project ("Douglas Darden's Sex Shop: An Immodest Proposal" is considerably the most informative of his writings on Sex Shop, of which I will reiterate some things). 

Darden construed the project to be an exploration of concepts of sin, shame, nakedness, pervertedness, and also redemption. In his Dis/continuous Genealogy he uses certainly images that have the potential of being perverted with a sort of middle school level mentality: the sex/tant, the fann(e)y coupler, the glass blow-ers, and the Marquis de Sade's Theater of Lubricity. He even dates the project by writing "Twenty-Sex June '95".

The client for the project is a woman named "Sexy Sadie", which Schneider discusses as a play on "Sade" for the Marquis de Sade—the man we name sadism after. Two of Darden's "Archi-text" he used for inspiration to the project are de Sade's Juliette and Justine (two books that make Fifty Shades of Grey look like a Disney story).

But in all I have read on Sex Shop I am amazed at how no one has put together that Sexy Sadie was also the name of a Beatles' song on The White Album—with lyrics like:

Sexy Sadie, what have you done
You made a fool of everyone
...
Sexy Sadie, you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see

Further, the name "Sexy Sadie" was given to Susan Atkins by Charles Manson after the song was released (prior to The White Album her nickname was Sadie Mae Glutz). She is the infamous vampiress of the Tate-LaBianca murders, as she claimed to have tasted the actress Sharon Tate's blood after she stabbed her sixteen times (Tate was eight months pregnant). She participated in the killing of the others in house, as well as the Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders the following night. Susan Atkins showed no remorse, and even boasted about the murders. 

Susan Atkins (AKA Sexy Sadie) on the stand for the Mason trials

Susan Atkins, the Sexy Sadie, was sexually wild and cute, but cruel and vicious. If Manson knew about the Marquis de Sade (which I doubt), he must have thought it clever to call this cute vampire "Sexy Sad(i)e."

I suppose Darden must have thought the same thing, at least somewhere in the back of his mind. Certainly Helter Skelter (or at the very least The White Album) must have been in his collection of books (and vinyls). Darden was seventeen when the Tate-LaBianca murders occurred, and I doubt he did not hear about them (my mother was only nine and living in Germany and she remembered hearing about the murders)... much less not read Vincent Bugliosi's famous book.

So it is that Sexy Sadie in Sex Shop probably has a further allusion in addition to the Marquis de Sade: that of Susan Atkins, that sadistic Manson girl, who murdered Sharon Tate and tasted her blood.

Further reading:

Douglas Darden. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.

Peter Schneider. "Douglas Darden's Sex Shop: An Immodest Proposal," Journal of Architectural Education, Volume 58, Number 2. November 2004.

Vincent Bugliosi. Helter Skelter. 1974.

The Laughing Girls from Troy, New York: Douglas Darden's Unfinished Work

The Delivery of Helen by Castor and Pollux
by Jean-Bruno Gassies, Prix de Rome 1817

Before Douglas Darden died one of the last projects he was working on was called The Laughing Girls from Troy, New York, or simply Laughing Girls. I have run across mentionings of this project several times: LaMarche's article "The Life and Work of Douglas Darden: A Brief Ecomium" mentions the project as an example of how not all of Darden's works were morbid; the obituary in The Rocky Mountain News said he was working on it for the three years before his death; and it comes up in his curriculum vitae 1995 as being published in Chora (publication never occurred, probably because of his illness).

Recently I was able to find a fairly obscure and hard-to-find student-run publication from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado at Denver, Installation, Volume 2, Fall 1993. In it is an article called "In/n Conversation", which is a three-track conversation between Darden and himself, Darden and a former student of his James Trewitt, and Darden and Keith Loftin III. It is in the second track between Darden and Trewitt that we find some information on Laughing Girls.

It was an "architectural novel" (Darden's widow told me is was a graphic novel of sorts): "What we are attempting is to design and make sites, spaces, forms, objects, details, etc. as the narrative itself." The project centers around three characters, i.e. "clients", who are two fourteen year-old sisters named Cass and Polly, and their nineteen year-old friend, Helen.

These names easily ring a bell: Cass and Polly are feminine versions of the heavenly twins of Greek mythology: Castor and Pollux (better known for being the constellation of Gemini), and their sister, the infamous Helen of Troy.

The idea of the project was to make laughter into buildings—the laughter of these three girls and how that may inform space and produce architecture. As Darden puts it in his part of the conversation with Trewitt: "How could we make an architecture that would not simply represent laughing, but would itself laugh?" It is an unfamiliar approach to architecture. Trewitt discusses in the conversation that architecture often times honors something: values, the site, the client, construction traditions, aesthetic principles, et cetera; so why not honor laughter? Another way the process of this project was stated was that it was not so much about "whether we have made the girls' laughs but whether we have found a way of laughing in approaching their laughs." They continue: "Process is really about finding a set of actions that then become part of the building." In this case, the process is laughter.

In this day and age in which the design of a building is more generated by process of design rather than design principles and elements (i.e. the Classical approach, program, tectonics, et cetera)—how it is designed is more important than the building itself—it is interesting to read about a project that was very much driven by process, but in an extraordinarily different manner: a laughing novel.

I don't know why laughing in particular was significant: perhaps it is a sort of reversa of Oxygen House, or perhaps Darden decided to do something less morbid or controversial.

Ultimately the project was never complete due to Darden's untimely death, and its contents have never been published in any form. I was told by Marc Neveu that about three banker's boxes worth of material for Laughing Girls exists, and that he intends to publish an essay on Laughing Girls in the 2015 Chora issue (the same journal Darden had intended Laughing Girls to be published in).

Further reading:
Douglas Darden and James Trewitt. "In/n Conversation", Installation, Volume 2, Fall 1993.

Dating Douglas Darden

Study for Oxygen House
From the collection at MoMA

I have written previously on some of the references to works of literature, art, architecture, and visionaries in Douglas Darden’s book, Condemned Building: Moby-Dick in the title image, Lequeu and Duchamp in thefrontispiece, quotes from Hamlet scattered throughout the book, et cetera. These demonstrate how deliberate and the extent to which he references and contrives meaning in every aspect of his work, not just in his drawings, but also in his writings, which are very playful in their own right—even in the dates he gives in the projects: for instance, in the sketches and notes of the project file for Sex Shop there was found the title, signature, and date for the project: "Twenty Sex, June '95."

Upon actually reading Condemned Building, and not just looking at the pretty pictures (for they certainly are magnificent), one will notice how much narrative and story Darden puts into his works. Darden regarded literature as his patron, and sees works of literature as clients—hence projects like Melvilla, which is inspired on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, or Oxygen House, which is inspired by William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Sex Shop inspired by the writings of the Marquis de Sade, et cetera. Darden called the pieces of writing and literature that inspired his architectural designs "archi-texts." So it is that Darden would, as part of the narrative of his designs, contrive his own stories and writings to accompany the designs (like Eisenman's essays on each of his houses, which are as much a part of the house as the house is of the essays). 

Peter Schneider quotes and notes in his "House at the End of Time" (2001) how Darden borrows and is inspired by the first chapter of As I Lay Dying in the letter Abraham Burnden (an anagram of Bundren, and sounds like "burden", and perhaps burn-den, i.e. destroy the living room) writes to the architect. So it is that the date of this letter, too, has some significance. The date Darden gives is "6 July 1979". Originally, in an early iteration of this letter Darden uses "6 July 1962"—which just so happens to be the day William Faulkner died.

Taken from Schneider's "House at the End of Time"

Why Darden switched it to 1979 is somewhat of mystery to me; though, most likely, it was something significant in Darden's life...perhaps it was because that was the year he was accepted into Harvard...I digress.

[EDIT: I have recently found in a fairly obscure and hard to find journal, Installation, Volume 1, Fall 1992 (a student run publication from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado at Denver—only 500 copies printed), a publication of Darden's on Oxygen House called: "Oxygen House: As I Lay Drawing", in which Darden uses the date "February 12, 1990." This is nearly two years after he finished designing and drawing Oxygen House (from his sketches the earliest date I can find is 20 March 1988). I am speculating here, but Darden had leukemia for five and half years before dying; having died 3 April 1996, this would place his diagnosis sometime in early- to mid-1990; it is possible that this was the date or roughly the time of his diagnosis—but this is pure conjecture.]

Even more thoughtful about this letter from Abraham Burnden is that it is written from Byhalia, Mississippi—the place where Faulkner died.

There is another playful date, and certainly one that has personal significance to Darden, in Clinic for Sleep Disorders. Darden writes a fictitious dialogue between a fictitious Doctor Jean Nicholas (perhaps the physician Jean Nicholas Corvisart, or the pathologist Jean Nicholas Marjolin) and a patient named Arthur, in the absurdly named clinic, Charlesville Sleep Clinic, in Marseilles. The date Darden gives for this interview is "20 October 1954." Why, I do not know, but this was Darden's third birthday—he being born 20 October 1951. [EDIT: see my post Sleeping on a Drunken Boat].

There is perhaps one other thoughtful date in Condemned Building, that of the architect's letter for Saloon for Jesse James. The date Darden writes is "1 April 1986." As best as I can tell this is probably when he began the project.

Douglas Darden was certainly an intense and thoughtful in every detail of his work and writings. Upon close examination of some of his drawings, one will notice that the exact direction his screwheads are turned. So it is that the dates he gives in his narratives for his projects have some meaning as well.

Further reading:

-Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.

-Schneider, Peter. "House at the End of Time: Douglas Darden's Oxygen House," Part 7. CUNY. 2001.

-Schneider, Peter. "Sex Shop: An Immodest Proposal," Journal of Architectural Education, V.58, N.2, Nov. 2004.

Douglas Darden: Two Resumes

For the last year I have been intensively researching the late Douglas Darden, that visionary architectural designer, architecture instructor, and author of the book Condemned Building. I have written on Darden and his work before in several previous blog postings. As I continue to dig deeper into his work and his life I find that a great deal of published information on him is speculative, poorly founded, or entirely false—and I, too, have been guilty of perpetuating faulty information. I would like to put together some factual information on this brilliant and visionary man to "set the record straight." This blog is probably a poor platform to undertake such a task, but it is nonetheless a starting point.

To begin "setting the record straight" I would like to present two of Darden's curricula vitae: the first one, typed on a typewriter, dates to 1987-1988; the second was written on a computer and dates to 1995. Both of these were given to me by Peter Schneider, Professor Emeritus at University of Colorado at Denver, former professor of mine at UCD, and friend and colleague of Darden's. The pages of these curricula vitae are posted with permission from Darden's widow, Allison.

I have supplied notes to some of the information in these curricula vitae, and links to online versions (if available) of his publications at the bottom.


Darden's 1987-1988 CV:

Darden's 1995 CV:

1995 CV:
Page 2:
- "Confidences of Spec-writer," OZ, Volume 14 (1992), pg. 53-62.
- "Three Letters to an Architect Dissolving," Places: M.I.T. Journal of Architecture, Volume 4, Number 2 (July 1987), pg. 16-20.
- "Architecture in the Age of Spatial Dissolution," OZ, Volume 9 (June 1987), pg. 20-23.

Page 3:
- "The Laughing Girls from Troy, New York," Chora, Volume 2 (1995) was actually never published—I assume there was some complications in finalizing publication for Laughing Girls due to Darden's illness.
- "Melvilla: An Architect's Reading of Moby-Dick," A+U (Japan) [May 1993, #272, 93:05], pg. 54-71.

Page 4:
- "Building Against the Grain," A+U (Japan) [February 1991, #245, 91:02], pg. 40-56.

Thanks to Peter Schneider for supplying me with these, and to Allison Darden for permission to post these.

I Am Forever Ahab: The Faustian Bargain and Other Infernal Themes in Moby-Dick

Destroying the Leviathan by Gustav Dore

Moby-Dick, that magnum opus of Herman Melville—often regarded by those who have never read it, or have not read it save an excerpt or two in high school, as the most boring book ever written—, is a work that is simultaneously comical (to the point of actual outburst of laughter at many points), witty, vulgar, seriously philosophical, allegorical, symbolic, and deeply complex—though, a level symbolism and complexity that is not out of reach for the layman. Throughout the book there are numerous allusions to Hell, demons, the Devil, and the Faustian pact with Satan—in fact, infernal themes and symbolisms pervade the text quite consistently.

For instance, the sea is often metaphorically represented as the classical Underworld: it contains monsters and demons (Moby-Dick himself is construed as a demon of sorts—possibly even the Devil himself), desolate and torturous (especially to human life) and totally unforgiving and harsh; and, yet, at the same time the sea possesses many riches: most notably the treasured spermaceti found in the heads of sperm whales, from whence we render candles, lamp oils, perfumes, cosmetics, and the likes.

Given the numerous infernal references and overtones throughout the book, it should come as little of a surprise that the Faustian bargain makes its way into the tale. There are several subtle Faustian themes throughout Moby-Dick—namely: Chapter XXXVI: The Quarter-Deck, in which Ahab raises a competition to whoever first spots the white whale gets the ounce of gold (loosely similar to Faust’s wager with Mephistopheles); Chapter LXI: Moby-Dick, which construes the white whale as a devil of sorts, possessing a deformed lower jaw (like Mephistopheles’ deformed leg), his ubiquity (like a demon who can quickly transport himself anywhere in the world at will—something Mephistopheles would do, and often take Faust on adventures by magical means of travel and arrive supernaturally quick), a reference to Ahab “chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world” (i.e. the Leviathan in Job 41:1); Chapter CXIII: The Forge, which is reminiscent of Faustus the alchemist or his assistant, Wagner, in his laboratory with crucibles and forge; et cetera.

But the chapter of most critical concern here is Chapter LXXIII: The Right Whale Killed, in which Flask and Stubb gossip as to what is so madly driving Captain Ahab to the White Whale. The supposition is put forth that Ahab sold himself to the Devil in exchange for the deliverance of Moby-Dick to Ahab’s harpoon:

“Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he’ll surrender Moby-Dick.”

Throughout Moby-Dick every person’s name has been thought out to some degree, if not totally appropriate to their character, as most of the characters’ names are taken from The Bible. Captain Ahab takes his name from King Ahab in I Kings 19-22. It is completely appropriate that Captain Ahab should have the Faustian bargain wrapped around his mythology (for he certainly is a man of mystery), for even King Ahab of the Old Testament is said to have made a Faustian pact of sorts:

“And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.”

—I Kings 21:20

Furthermore, this is not out of league with the Faustus legends either, for certainly Goethe saw King Ahab’s “selling himself to evil” as something aligned with Faust; in fact, Goethe makes an allusion to this very same scene in I Kings in Part II of Faust: Faust has acquired a track of land that was once underwater, but through magic and demonic aid has pushed back the sea and built for himself a great palace. On this track of land, what was once along the seashore, is a small cottage and chapel owned by an old couple, Philemon and Baucis (the same couple that offered hospitality to Zeus and Hermes in Book VIII of Ovid’s Metamorphoses). Faust desires that they be removed from his land, and has offered them money and new land and house at his expense, but they refuse. Faust complains to Mephistopheles, who says [to the audience], “The same old story, no doubt you / Have heard of Naboth’s vineyard too” (Faust, II:V.XIX.11286-7). This is a direct reference to King Ahab’s desire to remove Naboth from his lands so that Ahab can build on his lands. King Ahab complains to his wife, who then forges in the name of the king a letter than conspires to have Naboth put to death and his lands bequeathed to Ahab. This is done, and Ahab, like Faust, feels remorse for the wicked means by which he acquired the lands—this is the way in which Ahab is accused of selling himself to evil. And so Philemon and Baucis are murdered by Mephistopheles and his minions, and Faust despises the means to which he acquired their land.

Another point in which Moby-Dick appears to have some relations to Goethe’s Faust is in CXIX: The Candles, in which corpusant, or the phenomenon known as Saint Elmo’s Fire, is seen atop the masts. This is a phenomenon in which electrical charges build up at the tips of the masts on ships (or anything raised into the air) during storms, and thus begins to glow. Saint Elmo was the patron saint of sailors, and so to see this electrical burning on the ship’s masts is thought to be a sign of Saint Elmo’s guidance and good luck. Saint Elmo’s Fire also makes an appearance in Faust II:IV.XV.10693-10602, in which the tips of the soldiers’ spears begin to glow, which would be an indication of fortune for the Emperor’s soldiers, who will win the battle against the rival emperor; of course, with Faust’s magical assistance. Goethe, who uses Catholic saints and angels capriciously at his whims to suit poetic allegory, does not attribute this phenomenon to Saint Elmo, but to the heavenly twins, Castor and Pollux (commonly known as Gemini), who were the brothers of Helen of Troy (the subject of Faust’s amorous infatuation). Faust, however, does recognize that this electrical phenomenon has long been thought by sailors to be good luck and protection by the heavenly twins.

One might mark a few other similarities between Ahab and Faust, namely that both are wanders. Ahab wanders the seas in search of the monster (or is it only an animal?) that took his leg. Faust wanders with Mephistopheles throughout the world and takes on many adventures (both Goethe’s Faust, who is very different from any other Faustian figure by far, and the historical Doctor Faustus, and the Faustus that legends were built up around between the historical necromancer and Goethe’s telling of the tale).

One may also note that Ahab is marked by scars (Chapter XXVIII), which were caused by lightning striking his person. Cain, too, was marked by God and forced to wander and never settle in the Land of Nod (the “Land of Wandering”) for murdering his brother (Genesis 4:15). A parallel may be loosely drawn (with a great deal of conjecture and speculation) between Ahab and Cain through variations of the Faustus tradition. Matthew Lewis’ The Monk features several overtones to the Faustus tradition, namely Ambrosio’s dealings with the Devil’s minion, Matilda, and Ambrosio’s ultimately signing his soul over to Satan. In The Monk we encounter a tale featuring the Wandering Jew, who has the mark of the cross burning on his forehead (The Monk II:I). The Wandering Jew is a sort of contrivance in Biblical tradition: no such person in particular exists, but references to wanderers may be found in both the Old and New Testaments: “…and they shall be wanderers among the nations” (Hosea 9:17); “Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom” (Matthew 16:28); “…if I will that he remain till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me. Then this saying went forth among the brethren, that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus had not said to him that he would not die; but, if I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee?” (John 21:20-23); et cetera. Like Cain, the Wandering Jew is a person who is not allowed to die nor settle until Christ comes back. For many the Wandering Jew was cursed by Christ for some offence he committed against Jesus; many have long speculated that it is the guard who slaps Christ before the High Priest (John 18:22); it may also be a disciple who has betrayed Jesus, though clearly Judas is able to commit suicide, so it is not Judas. Whoever is specifically the Wandering Jew is a matter of debate, but there is nonetheless an archetype between the Wandering Jew (who is cursed and wanders), Cain (who is marked—though certainly cursed too—and wanders), and Faustus (who has cursed himself—either by selling his soul to the Devil or literally cursing himself and the world as he does in Goethe’s Faust I:7.1591-1607—and wanders).

So, back to Lewis’ The Monk: it possesses Faustian themes and the Wandering Jew. Then we come to Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, which melds Faust with the Wandering Jew: Melmoth perpetually wanders, and is ubiquitous—capable of being anywhere at any time at will, even places heavily guarded and locked—and he has sold his soul to the Devil for longevity and superhuman powers and intellect. Clearly Maturin saw something in the Wandering Jew that resonated with the Faustus legend in some way—certainly both being wanderers and cursed—, and sought to unite the two.

Whether or not Melville was thinking of Lewis and Maturin and Goethe and this strange Satanic tradition is a matter of great speculation; nonetheless, he must have seen something in the archetypes that are Cain, the Wandering Jew, and Faustus when he constructed the character of Ahab. Certainly Melville was a very well educated man, and undoubtedly he was familiar with the Faustus legend and probably Goethe’s Faust. The extent to which Goethe’s Faust was an influence on Melville’s Moby-Dick is up to conjecture, but one cannot deny the several striking similarities.

Further Reading:

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick.

Goethe, Wolfgang von. Faust, Part I & I.

Lewis, Matthew. The Monk.

Maturin, Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer.

Douglas Darden and Hamlet: Passages from Condemned Building

Hostel from Condemned Building

In Douglas Darden's Condemned Building there are a variety of passages scattered throughout the book—snippets, partial lines from some uncited, unsourced piece of literature. Douglas Darden had once commented in a handwritten note in the project file for Oxygen House that "Literature continues to create an agenda for representation which I deem to be pertinently as large as life. I want architecture to have that same agenda, and literature has thus been my inspiration and, effectively, my sponsor"; this is understandable given that he majored in literature and psychology while in undergraduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

So what are these strange passages? Where do they come from? One would expect (as I did) that they have come from Moby-Dick or anything else from Herman Melville (Darden's favorite book and author), or simply a variety of sources; but interestingly enough they all come from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. All the passages have some relevance to the various designs, their themes and program.

One may think of Condemned Building, not as a collection of projects, but as its own work of design and architecture, and that Hamlet served as the inspirational text for composing the book (the pre-text, con-text, sub-text, and archi-text, as Darden would term it).

Thus, here are the various passages, their places in Condemned Building, and their sources in Hamlet:

Page 10:

blow them
to their trials:
the bubbles are out.
—Act 5, Scene 2, lines 193-194

MUSEUM OF IMPOSTERS
Page 19:

they are actions that a man might play
—Act 1, Scene 2, line 84

Page 25:

I'll have grounds
More relative than this:
the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch
the conscience of the King.
—Act 2, Scene 2, lines 603-605

TEMPLE FORGETFUL
Page 32:

Yea, from the table of my memory
—Act 1, Scene 5, line 155

Page 39:

'For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'
—Act 3, Scene 2, line 135

CLINIC FOR SLEEP DISORDERS
Page 44:

some much watch, while some must sleep;
So runs the world away.
—Act 3, Scene 2, lines 273-274

Page 54:

and out of frame,
Colleagues with the dream
—Act 1, Scene 2, lines 220-221 (misquoted: "this dream")

Page 58:

makes the night
joint-labourer with the day
—Act 1, Scene 1, line 78 (misquoted: "make the night")

NIGHT SCHOOL
Page 69:

I am too much i' th' sun.
—Act 1, Scene 2, line 67

MELVILLA
Page 83:

That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft.
—Act 3, Scene 4, lines 187-188

HOSTEL
Page 101:

sit by me.
No, good mother,
here's metal more attractive
—Act 3, Scene 2, lines 115-116

A SALOON FOR JESSE JAMES
Page 114:

a custom
More honour'd in the breach, than
the observance
—Act 1, Scene 4, lines 15-16

Page 120:

So oft it chances in particular man,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them
—Act 1, Scene 4, lines 23-24

SEX SHOP
Page 122:

whilst this machine is to him,
—Act 2, Scene 2, line 124

Page 123:

this hot love on the wing.
—Act 2, Scene 2, line 132

Page 124:

As if increase of appetite had grown
—Act 1, Scene 2, line 144

CONFESSIONAL
Page 127:

May on be pardon'd
and retain th' offence?
—Act 3, Scene 3, line 56

Page 130:

And in the porches
of my ears did pour
—Act 1, Scene 5, line 63

OXYGEN HOUSE
Page 143:

That he might not beteem the winds
—Act 1, Scene 2, line 141

Page 147:

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath
—Act 1, Scene 2, line 79

Page 151:

Why do you go to recover the wind of me?
—Act 3, Scene 2, line 346 (misquoted: "go about to recover")

Page 154:

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly
—Act 3, Scene 4, lines 193-194

APPENDIX
Page 159:

Fall'n on the inventors' heads.
—Act 5, Scene 2, line 385

Further reading:
Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.

Schneider, Peter. "Douglas Darden's 'Sex Shop': An Immodest Proposal", Journal of Architectural Eduction, Vol. 58, No. 2, November 2004.

Melmoth the Wanderer and The Monk: The Lovers' Tale and Ambrosio and Matilda's Affair

Nun and Monk, by Cornelis van Haarlem (1591)

As already addressed in my previous writing on Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, there is a great deal of similarity between what may be called the Lover's Tale in Monçada's story and the affair between Ambrosio and Matilda in Matthew Lewis' The Monk.

Maturin gives a formal nod to Lewis' The Monk fairly early in Melmoth the Wanderer (Vol. I.I) when he references the tale of The Bleeding Nun (The Monk, Vol. II.I), and there are a few other instances in which he is borrowing very lightly from The Monk—such as the ex-Jesuit superior and his entourage of four monks resemble the Saint Clare's Convent's prioress and her entourage of four nuns, and each group abduct one of their votaries for breaking their monastic vows and imprison them in a dungeon under the monastery (Alonzo Monçada in Melmoth, and Anges in The Monk). Another example, though probably inspired by The Monk more than referencing or borrowing is how Melmoth the Traveler may be seen as something like the Wandering Jew, and the Wandering Jew makes a prominent appearance in The Monk (Vol. II.I) But the most notable "borrowing" from The Monk Maturin does could practically be regarded as plagiarism—but, of course, with his own spin.

Let us begin with Lewis' The Monk. In the city of Madrid, at the Monastery of Saint Francis is a very pious and virtuous abbot named Ambrosio (Lewis calls him an abbot, though he is actually, based on the description of him, a friar, even though the book is called The Monk—this complete disregard of accuracy in Catholicism is typical of Lewis), who is regarded as a saint by the citizens of Madrid: he captivates audiences when he gives sermons to the people, and has been chosen to be the confessor who all the nuns of Saint Clare's Convent confess to. While Ambrosio is certainly very pious, he is also a very vain and prideful man, and the monastery has safely guarded him from temptation until now. His origins are mysterious, as he was left abandoned on the steps of the abbey, and so the monks took him in and raised him as one of their own. He becomes very close to a novice, Rosario, who's origins and admittance into the monastery are a mystery. He has a soft voice, a fine and fair face, and never takes off his hood. Rosario eventually confesses to Ambrosio that he is actually a woman, and her real name is Matilda.

Matilda loves Ambrosio, but she loves him for his virtuosity, and tells him that she would no longer love him if she made him a sinner:

"Think not, Ambrosio, that I come to rob your Bride of your affections. No, believe me: Religion alone deserves you; and far is it from Matilda's wish to draw you from the paths of virtue. What I feel for you is love, not licentiousness; I sigh to be possessor of your heart, not lust for the enjoyment of your person."

"No, Father, No! I expect not to inspire you with a love like mine. I only wish for the liberty to be near you, to pass some hours of the day in you society; to obtain your compassion, your friendship and esteem."

"I love you for your virtues: Lose them, and with them you lose my affections. I look upon you as a Saint; Prove to me that you are no more than Man, and I quit you with disgust."
—The Monk, Volume I, Chapter II

Not only is Ambrosio vain, but the temptation of a woman has now shown him that he is lustful, and the temptation displeases him. When he curses her and tries to cast her out, she tears open her habit and places a dagger on her heart, her "beauteous Orb", which sexually excites Ambrosio. He remains strong and permits her to stay and to keep her secret, but desires to remain separate from her. While Ambrosio is picking a flower (as a parting gift) for Matilda a serpent bites him, and his recovery is regarded as a miracle, and Matilda never leaves his side.

Ambrosio has on the wall of his cell a painting of the Virgin Mary, which he holds a near-lustful admiration for. Matilda confesses to him that she herself was the model for this painting, and that she saw to it that he receive it—she clearly desired him long before she entered the monastery. Ambrosio's lust finally gets the best of him:

"No prying eye, or curious ear was near the Lovers: Nothing was heard but Matilda's melodious accents. Ambrosio was in the full vigour of Manhood. ...He forgot his vows, his sanctity, and his fame: He remebered nothing but the pleasure and opportunity.
"'Ambrosio! Oh! my Ambrosio!' sighed Matilda."
—The Monk, Volume I, Chapter II

Of course, he soon regrets his actions, and curses her, but being a lustful man he soon returns to her for many nights of carnal pleasure. He soon grows tired of her, and desires someone new. This someone new turns out to be a young girl, Antonia. He soon is asked to come to her home to give last rites to her mother; he having already broken his vow of chastity, he now decides to break his vow of never leaving the monastery. He visits Antonia's house a second time, and when he gets the chance to be alone in a room with Antonia, he tries to rape her, but Antonia's mother, having regained some strength catches him. Antonia is much too innocent to understand what the abbot was trying to do to her, and she still remains fond of him, while her mother forbids Ambrosio to ever come near her home or daughter again.

Matilda eventual resigns from Ambrosio: though she still dedicates herself to him, she will no longer have sex with him, as he does not love her, but is only trying to satisfy his appetite. Matilda helps design a scheme for Ambrosio to have Antonia, which she designs with some demonic assistance: she summons the Devil through black arts, sells her soul to the Enemy of Mankind, and he now serves her every command. While Ambrosio refuses to consort with Satan, he does accept Matilda's help via the Devil: "...as He employed her assistance, not that of Dæmons, the crime of Sorcery could not be laid to his charge. He had read much respecting witchcraft: He understood that unless a formal Act was signed renouncing his claim to salvation, Satan would have no power over him" (The Monk, Vol. II.IV). The plan they devise is for Ambrosio to sneak out of the monastery, touch the door of the house with a silver myrtle to unlock the door, and all in the house would be under a spell of deep sleep, and he may be permitted to have his way with his victim. All goes according to plan, but some how Elvira, Antonia's mother awakens and catches Ambrosio trying once again to rape her daughter. She tries to hold him and scream for help, but Ambrosio silences her by choking her to death (Vol. III.I).

Still determined to have his victim, he again gains the help of Matilda, who gathers a liquor from the laboratory in Saint Clare's Convent which causes a state of such deep sleep that the person is perceived to be dead (possibly digitalis); Ambrosio will poison her with it, and Antonia, now an orphan, will be buried in the catacombs under Saint Clare's Convent (which is connected to Saint Francis Monastery; Ambrosio's monastery), and once her body is there Ambrosio may have his way with her forever. The plan is executed and goes through like clockwork. Antonia is laid in a chamber deep in Saint Clare's catacombs, and when she awakens Ambrosio is there to comfort her, and then he overtakes and rapes her. Afterwards he immediately hates her and himself, curses her, and then refuses to ever let her go; though he would never desire her again, he must let her die in this tomb. Antonia tries to escape, but Ambrosio stabs her; the wound is fatal and she, like her mother, perishes (Vol. III.IV).

Ambrosio is caught after this murder and held prisoner by the Inquisition, as is Matilda. He is tortured and questioned. Eventually Matilda comes to his cell unaccompanied and with ease (some Melmoth the Traveler is capable of doing and does so for Monçada when he is held by the inquisition after escaping the convent): she has made a deal with the Devil (something she apparently had already done) and he is taking her away to a paradise until the end of her days, and that he, Ambrosio, too, can come, if only he denounce God and sell his soul to Satan. He eventually does this, but never makes any other terms with the deal other than to escape, so Satan takes him to a dark, mountainous region to torture and kill Ambrosio. The Devil reveals that Matilda is his minion that he sent her to tempt Ambrosio, and that Elvira was Ambrosio's mother, and that Antonia was his sister—he murdered his mother, and then raped and murdered his own sister (Vol. III.V).

"...a moment suffices to make him to-day the detestation of the world, who yesterday was its Idol."
—The Monk, Volume III, Chapter I

The Lovers' Tale—a story embedded in Monçada's Tale in Melmoth the Wanderer—shares a number of similarities with Ambrosio's downfall; and though many things are changed—e.g. who does what to whom has been changed—most of the elements are still there.

While Monçada is waiting in the catacombs with his guide—a man who murdered his own father—for the sun to set so they can escape the monastery through the garden, his guide tells him a tragic story of two lovers whose fate led them to their deaths in a chamber Monçada and his parricidal accomplice (who is never named) are sitting adjacent to.

In their ex-Jesuit monastery was a young monk—a pious and good monk—who was of a distinguished family of Spain, and, like Monçada, had taken up the monastic life because of his parents' marriage (the father had married below his rank). One day a young novice enters the monastery and becomes close friends with this young monk. This novice had peculiar mannerisms, and came under suspicion.

"The friendship of convents is always a treacherous league—we watch, suspect, and torment each other for the love of God."

"One evening as the young monk and his darling novice were in the garden, the former plucked a peach, which he immediately offered to his favourite; the latter accepted it with a movement I thought rather awkward—it seemed like what I imagined would be the reverence of a female. The young monk divided the peach with a knife; in doing so, the knife grazed the finger of the novice, and the monk, in agitation inexpressible, tore his habit to bind up the wound."
—Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume II, Chapter IX

The parricidal monk reports their behavior to the superior of the convent, who gives him permission to spy and report their actions and behavior back to him. One night, while waiting in the dark hallway the parricidal monk heard someone enter the young monk's cell, so he reported this to the superior and his four attendants. They entered the cell and found the novice to be a woman, and the two of them having sex: "The wretched husband and wife were locked in each others arms... to see two human beings of different sexes, who dared to love each other in spite of monastic ties..."

"Angels, as I had thought them, they had all proved themselves mortal..." The superior, wishing to give the lovers the strictest punishment, directed the parricidal monk to help them "escape" the convent through the catacombs under the monastery and out through the garden (the exact same route he was taking Monçada as he told the story). He leads the lovers into a chamber so they may rest, and then closes the door behind them—they figured he was being cautious and protecting them. The superior soon arrived and nailed the door shut, and the lovers cried out in terror: "...they knew their doom."

At first the lovers comforted each other, but after about twelve hours—as hunger sets in and the hard, cold floor begins to discomfort—the man blames and curses the woman. They soon grow to hate each other. On the fourth day: "I heard the shriek of the wretched female,—her lover, in the agony of hunger, had fastened his teeth in her shoulder;—that bosom on which he had so often luxuriated, became a meal to him now." The two lovers perished on the sixth day. All this time the parricidal monk had remained outside the door of the chamber to spy on them as "penance". After the lovers had died of starvation the door was ripped off and they were found on opposite ends of the chamber. When their bodies were removed from the chamber, our monk gets a good look at the woman's face and recognizes her as his own sister (Vol. II.IX).

Some similarities jump out immediate: both lovers (i.e. Ambrosio and Matilda, and the nameless lovers) are initially in state of bliss despite their knowledge of each others' sex, symbolized by their moment in the garden; this bliss is ended with the plucking of a fruit (a flower by Ambrosio and a peach by the young monk) and quickly followed by a bite (by a snake in The Monk and a knife in Melmoth the Wanderer). Both pairs of lovers soon engage in a sexual affair, which opens up the way to their doom.

Character roles are mixed up in Melmoth the Wanderer: for instance, the snake bites Ambrosio, while the knife bites the female novice (Matilda's equivalent).

Ambrosio is presented as a devilish figure—throughout The Monk he is described in a manner that is remarkably similar to Milton's descriptions of Satan in Paradise Lost, and when he was found on the doorstep of the monastery "The common People say, that He fell from heaven" (Vol. II.III; while this could easily be regarded as an endearing statement about his divinity and angelic nature, Lucifer, too, fell from Heaven); additionally, in Volume I.I of The Monk Lorenzo has a dream where he sees Ambrosio as a demon that rapes Antonia and pulls her down to Hell—while the nameless parricidal monk is more of the devilish figure—he is repeatedly called "demonic" by Monçada and generally regarded as evil. With this in mind, Ambrosio as a devil kills his own sister, and the parricidal monk as a devil also kills his sister; though neither knew their victims were their own sisters when they executed them. Thus Ambrosio and the parricidal monk are akin to one another.

The female novice in the Lovers' Tale is akin to Matilda in The Monk, because she had disguised herself and had sex with a monk; but Matilda is a servant of Satan, and was sent to tempt Ambrosio into perdition; and since the female novice was the murder victim of her own brother, she is also comparable to Antonia in The Monk. Thus, the female novice is both Matilda and Antonia. Likewise, since the parricidal monk also kills the young monk, he is also like Satan, because Satan killed Ambrosio. Thus our kinslaying monk is both Satan and Ambrosio.

While Maturin appears to be stealing almost completely from Lewis, Maturin does do something with Lewis' characters in his Lovers' Tale that makes it exceptional: he combines and mixes actions and personalities to create dualistic, if not contradictory characters. Matilda and Antonia are practically opposites of each other, and Maturin wraps them up in the same body. He reinforces the Satanic character of the Ambrosio character, while simultaneously he divides Ambrosio into two individuals: (i.e. the young monk and the parricidal monk). This dualistic and or contradictory nature of Maturin's characters further adds to his continuous theme of contradiction and dualism throughout Melmoth the Wanderer.

Further reading:
Lewis, Matthew. The Monk.
Maturin, Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer.

Melmoth the Wanderer: Jesuit Rites of Passage and Alonzo Monçada's Tale

The Expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, by Charles Maucourt

Most of us have met someone who, when they tell you a story, they go on many tangents; they tell you one story and then say, "I told you that story to tell you this story...", or while telling one story they break from it and tell a tangential story, then later come back and finish the initial story; some of us have met someone who will tell one story, break into a tangent, and while on that tangent they break it and go deeper into another tangent—somewhat like the film Inception. Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Maturin, is quite similar; it is composed primarily of embedded stories, all of which in some manner feature a strange man named John Melmoth "The Traveler", who is over a 150 years old and sold his soul to the Devil for longevity and variety of powers; but he wants out of his Faustian pact, and travels the world looking for sinners or easily corruptible individuals who are in a deplorable and hopeless situation (i.e. prison, mental asylum, near death) to take his place. Each story has its own theme, most of which are critiques and criticisms on religion, in particular Christianity, and specifically Catholicism (Maturin was an Irish Protestant clergyman); the criticisms generally center around human suffering to monasticism.

The story that is of particular interest here is the tale of Alonzo Monçada, who is forced from a young age to enter into a monastic life, which is greatly protests. The monastery he enters is that of ex-Jesuits (as Monçada's story takes place in Spain in the late 18th Century, presumably after the Spanish Jesuits were suppressed in 1767). While they are ex-Jesuits they still retain a lot of aspects of the Society of Jesus (i.e. Jesuits), such as their various titles, their strict religious observances, et cetera. Unlike Jesuits, these ex-Jesuits do not act like their former counterparts as a secret society with symbolic rites of passage and trails of trust of fraternal bondage. However, in Monçada's tale he does undergo trails that resemble rites of passage in the Society of Jesus.

To briefly summarize the beginning of Monçada's tale: he was the first son of one of Spain's first families, but he was born out of wedlock, and thus he is a child born of sin, which he must be punished for (this is Maturin's critical condemnation of Original Sin), and is forced to enter into monastic life, which he repeatedly detested. He opted to appeal to a council to have his vows nullified and to be freed—against the admonishment of his superiors and family—but this appeal is eventually denied. Reminiscent of Anges' story in Matthew Lewis' The Monk, Monçada is brought before the superior and his four closest monks, who take him into the bowels of the monastery and locked in a damp, dark dungeon as punishment, left with only a rosary, stale bread to "moisten with his tears", a mat to sleep on, and the reptiles the crawl on him. He is eventually freed from the dungeon, but everything has rendered Monçada an outcast in the monastery, and he is shunned amongst the other monks, who call him the Devil. Since he was of a prominent Spanish family, his room was originally well furnished, filled with books and beautiful prints and paintings, and everyday adorn with fresh flowers—none of which brought him any pleasure. The monks beginning to take away the flowers, the books, prints, furniture, et cetera, until he is left with only a bed and a mattress. He has also been denied entry into the church for mass and prayer, as well as denied food and water, save for the scraps that are  mixed with ash and hair that the cook throws at him.

After everything is taken from him, save for a bed to sleep on, Monçada awakes in the middle of the night in his cell to be greeted by demonic images:

"I awoke one night, and saw my cell in flames; I started up in horror, but shrunk back on perceiving myself surrounded by demons, who, clothed in fire, were breathing forth clouds of it around me. Desperate with horror, I rushed against the wall, and found what I touched was cold. My recollection returned, and I comprehended, that these were hideous figures scrawled in phosphorus, to terrify me. I then returned to my bed, and as the day-light approached, observed these figures gradually decline."
—Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume II, Chapter VI

He protests this prank by the monks to superior, who ignores him. The next night he is then greeted by an infernal voice in his cell that speaks blasphemes to him, and tells him to trample upon the crucifix and spit upon the image of the Virgin. (While the origin of the tempting voice is never addressed, it can be concluded to be either Melmoth the Traveler or the monks further torturing him). The voice never lets him sleeps, so he is perpetually tired, hungry, scared, and overall in poor health. At one point the demonic entity comes to Monçada as the blessed Virgin Mary, to which he feels relief until the voice returns and tells him to curse the Virgin, and she disappears.

All of this—the starvation, dehydration, solitary confinement, trails and pranks featuring demonic images and infernal voices—resemble the initiation of a novice into the Society of Jesus. Jesuits have four degrees (i.e. ranks): Coadjutores Temporaries, Scholastici, Coadjutores Spirituales, and Professi.

Initiations into the first degree, Coadjurotes Temporaries, begin with the candidate fasting for a prolonged period of time. Before the trail the candidate is given an intoxicating drink, and then he undergoes a twenty-four hour long trail of infernal scenes of "diabolical apparitions, evocations of the dead, representations of the flames of hell, skeletons, moving skulls, artificial thunder and lightning" (Heckethorn, Secret Societies, Book IX.VIII.335) and other images and dramatizations.

Monçada, after being denied his appeal to be released from his monastic vows, conspires with his brother, Juan Monçada, (who receives all the rites and benefits of a first born son, because he was the first born in wedlock—which is reminiscent of Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Ruben and Joseph) to escape the monastery. Juan finds a man within the monastery who could be bought and help Alonzo Monçada escape; problem is that this man murdered his own father for a small amount of money, and is now under the protection of the ex-Jesuits. This murderer leads Monçada through the catacombs under the monastery, and at one point tells Monçada to go down a narrow passage, which he nearly gets stuck in. Monçada is able to escape the snare and finds himself with his guide waiting for the sun to set again (as they were delayed a whole day by getting lost) and escape through the garden (Melmoth, Vol. II.VIII). While waiting by the exit, the murderer tells Monçada about the chamber they are sitting just outside of: it is a story that is practically stolen from Lewis' The Monk concerning the affair of Ambrosio and Matilda; according to the murderer: a very noble and pious monk becomes close friends with a younger monk, who turns out to be a woman in disguise; they have a love affair for some time until they are caught; their punishment, per the strict religious observances of Jesuits, is death, so our murderer gains their trust and makes them believe he is helping them escape, but instead leads them to this chamber in the catacombs to starve to death; our murderer locks them in the chamber and listens for days as they console each other, then turn on each other, then attacking each other, and finally die (Melmoth, Vol. II.IX).

(The similarities of this story of the monastic lovers is so strikingly similar to Ambrosio and Matilda in The Monk that I plan on discussing it in another post).

This passage through the monastery catacombs is similar to the rites of the second degree, Scholastici, of the Jesuits: the candidate undergoes a prolong session of fasting, is hoodwinked, and then led into a cave or catacomb where howling and roaring sounds are produced (presumably by other Jesuit monks), and finally enter a special chamber, called the Cave of Evocation or the Black Chamber. The candidate would pass the time praying, and all the while be watched by priests. If the priests found the candidate's behavior and demeanor acceptable, then two brethren would enter the chamber as angels, strip the neophyte naked and perform various rites (such as drawing crosses on his body in blood), and there will be a procession of "spectres, phantoms, angels and demons" (no, I am not exaggerating any of this), and have the candidate make an oath to his brethren (Heckethorn, Secret Societies, Book IX.VIII.335).

Monçada's tale goes on (and on and on and on... it is a long story), but what happens is irrelevant to this writing.

Now, clearly Maturin does not follow the Jesuit rites of passage point by point—if for no other reason than the fact that at the time the Jesuits were dissolved and could no longer perform their rites, but also because Monçada is the last person they would confer their rites upon—but it is easily recognizable that motifs and elements of Jesuit initiation rituals are present in Monçada's tale. Exactly why they are included in the tale is a bit of mystery to me. If anything, it seems Maturin placed them in his story for the purpose of demonstrating that he knew the rites of the Jesuits (something that became public knowledge after their dissolution). In his defense, Monçada's tale is both dark and condemning of Catholic Church's practices and the various practices they condoned, and these Jesuit rites add to his story and criticisms.

In a way, the ex-Jesuits only wanted Monçada to be a part of their monastery; they contrived "miracles" to make him believe it was God's will that he be a monk; they lie and manipulate his family to make him enter the monastery and remain there. The irony of this portion of Monçada's tale is that in order to escape his monastic life with the ex-Jesuits he had to undergo the rites of two Jesuit degrees. But this sort irony and contradiction is somewhat of a recurring theme in Melmoth the Wanderer: for instance, Melmoth the Traveler is a Faustian character, as he sold his soul to the Devil, but in order to get out of the pact he has to play the part of Mephistopheles and tempt others to take his place in the pact. A much simpler example: the Jesuit brethren curse and spit on and avoid Monçada, and he remarks how unchristian this is: "...how little of the spirit of Jesus was to be found in the house of his nominal brethren." Thus it is not capricious or whimsical for Maturin to have Monçada undergo Jesuit initiation rites, as it carries with his themes of dualism, contradiction, paradox, and irony that pervades every character, place, situation, object, and story.

"In some circumstances, where the whole world is against us, we begin to take its part against ourselves, to avoid the withering sensation of being alone on our own side."
—Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume II, Chapter VI

Further readings:
Maturin, Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer.
Heckethorn, Charles. The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries.