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, hum

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ility that there is no meaning to life more than a pile of excrement. He understands perspectives compete against one another because each holds out some hope for the miracle of existence to be made different than its reality, instead of embracing the reality that all remains at odds, in competition, when there is no transcending humanity. This knowledge is freeing to the narrator, he is clean as a skeleton after searching for a spirituality that would transcend reality. In order to put meat back onto his flesh, he must dive into life with all the acceptance and embrace as one posits on a true love. "On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal" (Miller 103). The views of Miller's narrator are similar to the existentialism of Nietzsche, particularly his depiction of the heroic soul, the one that embraces the joys and pains of life equally, knows there is no absolute or end state, and yet adopts to live a life of continually defining and refining the self in spite of it. Accepting this challenge is what makes the narrator recognize he is all too human despite the former hopes and illusions of somehow transcending that dilem

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