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Tropic of Cancer

Cancerous Manifesto or Liberating Theology?

Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s semi-autobiographical account of his days as a broke, ex-patriot in France faced immediate banning in the U.S. upon its release for its numerous graphic portrayals of sex. In reality, the book represents Miller’s discovery of the self, a self that recognizes there is no self except that which is invested into the active process of living, even if the meaning of life is two piles of shit on a platter, “One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The world must become flesh; the soul thirsts…The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself” (Miller 103).

The significance of Miller’s ruminations in the “bidet” scene equate to its representing his philosophy on life’s meaning and the purpose of existence. Miller has recognized that man’s existence is meaningless in the scheme of time, merely “the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and reality” (Miller 100). The meaninglessness of such an existence forces man to endure myriad sufferings because he holds out some illusion of hope for some miracle of meaning to make this reality bearable, “He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured—disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui—in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable” (Miller 101).

In other words, Miller is arguing much like Nietzsche, that man must have his myths and illusions that are mutually agreed upon (Catholicism, for example) in order to find some meaning to make the reality of existence tolerable. But, no miracle comes from a God who is insufficient in the face of real...

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Tropic of Cancer. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:40, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1686431.html