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VU University Amsterdam, Blaise Pascal Instituut > Studiekring René Girard > Online teksten
THE
MIMETIC PRAXIS OF RIDDLES AND TV QUIZZES
Michael
Elias
Paper
given at the Conference "Violence, Mimesis and the Subject of
Responsibility",
Loyola
University Chicago, June 1 1995
1 Introduction
I continue to be who I am
as long as you don't know who I am.
But when you know who I am,
I cease to be who I am.
A
crucial aspect of this riddle is identity and the relation with the other:
interdividuality. 'Do you ever know who you are?' The leaflet of this congress
gives an interesting answer: a picture of chaos with a painting that depicts a
16th century text 'Nobody knows himself'- in Dutch - "Niemat en kent he
selv".
Huizinga,
in his Homo Ludens, discussing riddle
contests in world mythology, observed that in ancient times riddling used to be
a more serious matter than nowadays - more of a wager than amusement. Modern
riddle scholarship posed the question why riddling in contemporary,
industrialized societies seems to have deteriorated from adult literary
entertainment into a passtime for children. and why - on the other hand - it
continues undaunted in rural communities of the Third World and elsewhere. The
answer commonly given is that traditional speech events like riddles - customary
in a wide range of cultures - have disappeared from 'modern life' as a
consequence of the spread of mass media. In a different form however riddling
has made a revival in quizzes, broadcast by television.
Before
I proceed, first some remarks on terminology. The English word riddle is
used in different ways. As a noun it refers in a general sense to mystery,
problem, secret, paradox, and the like. The Oxford English Dictionary gives
'Life is a riddle to me'. From another point of view it is considered as a
genre, among myths, sagas, legends, proverbs, jokes, curses, prayers, etc. But
the primary meaning is derived from 'doing things with words', from speech acts
and speech events, from the verb to riddle, with a riddler and a riddlee
and sometimes an assembled group. In the approach called 'ethnography of
speaking' it is assumed that riddling belongs to the linguistic competence of
language users.
It
depends on context, situation or intonation whether a speech act counts
as a riddle. The initial formula "Riddle me riddle me riddle me
ree" is not compulsary, nor the word order of a question. On the contrary,
when a riddle is a question it is often not a true riddle, but a so-called 'catch
riddle', more like a joke:
What's the difference between a baby and a coat?
Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: One you wear, one you were.
A: To get to the other side.
Riddling
will often comprise several speech acts; it relates to linguistic and
non-linguistic units. In riddle sessions the roles of the participants shift
continuously according to whether they act as riddler/performer or respondent.
Successive turn-taking depends on who knows more instances. One of the major
characteristics of the speech event is rivalry
- and when a respondent in the audience guesses the right anwer, the riddler
loses face, he is (metaphorically and for a short moment) dead, and the other
participant has the right to propound the next riddle. And so on.
2 Riddles in mythology
My
argument is as follows: I will briefly explore riddling as displaying wisdom in
myths, and riddling as a form of amusement. Next I consider TV quizzes: in my
view a continuation of this tradition. I try to interpret the different cultural
settings of this whole riddle complex from insights of mimetic theory - and in
these thirty minutes only on a few main points.
In
mythological narrative the death of the riddler who failed to answer, is no
metaphor. Riddle-contests in different myths of
classical antiquity, Greek, Roman, Scandinavian, or Asian, are steeped in
accounts of riddle contests between men, gods, and wise monsters. The
riddle-contest is an integral part of the ceremonial of sacrifice. With its
accompanying violence, the riddle at the heart of myth. - Let me give you some
examples.
The
Greek Sphinx used to ask riddles of passers-by and eat those who could not
answer them. Very well kown is the riddle of man that Oedipus solved, less known
is:
There are two sisters
one gives birth to the other,
and she in turn gives birth to the first.
A. Day and night
In
oldnorse Edda the god Odin, who disguises himself to conceal his identity,
matches his own lore with that of the giant Vafthrudnir. After an initial test,
they continue the wager with the loser's head at stake. In the verbal contest in
Vedic literature, the brahmodya, life of the Brahman is at stake. If he answers
correctly he receives the prize, if he fails he has to die. One of them
literally loses his head, which separates itself from his trunk and falls into
his lap - that's the mythic version.
Every
riddle shows its dangerous character by the fact that in mythological or ritual
texts it is practically every time a so-called 'neck
riddle' (AT 927). Folk tradition has
carried this motif further by embedding it in a narrative frame which tells
about people who are able to save their neck by propounding a riddle their judge
is unable to answer.
Comparable
contests occur before and during wedding
ceremonies. Samson's riddle in Judges is a very well known example - it is
selfreferential. Another, in a different context, is Turandot, the Chinese
princess, very literate and extremely beautiful, conversant with science and
humanities. Many, many lovers, but she despises them all. Only the man who will
be able to solve her riddles will be worthy of the princess - all the others
ones are beheaded. Prince Kalaf ceased to be who he was when he saw her portrait
- through the eyes of the painter, triangular! He falls in love. Although he is
aware of the risk, he submits himself to the riddling session at the court. - He
however outriddles her. But then he gives Turandot a chance to outriddle him as
well. What happens, so that man and woman unveil each others' secrets.
Riddles
have a connection to rites and ceremonies. James Frazer in part 6 of his Golden Bough, "The scapegoat", writes that among the
Bolang Mongondo on Sulawesi riddles are never asked except when there is a
corpse in the village. Elsewhere, while a corpse is uncoffined, watchers
propound riddles to each other. The explanation given is that the practice is
rooted in animism, and enigmatical language may be used to puzzle the spirit of
the departed. A better explanation is probably to consider these social events
as regulating rivalry, according to the cultural representation of the scapegoat
mechanism.
3 Amusement & quizzes
I
turn to riddles as a form of amusement, especially after dinner. Third century
Greek Deipnosofistai 'dinner of the sophists', written by Athenaeus tells
that the one who failed to give the right answer in riddle sessions, was
punished: he had to drink salt wine. This humiliation is no beheading, but still
a physical punishment; in later times it is just verbal: shouting, shrieking,
etc.
Israel
Abrahams, the author of the well-known Jewish
Life in the Middle Ages writes that riddles were a regular table game; all
the great Jewish poets of this period composed riddles. A very popular riddle:
Bake him with his brother
Place him in his father
Eat him in his son
And then drink his father.
The answer is: Bake the fish in salt, his brother (for salt water
comes with the fish from the sea), place him in his father (in water), eat him
in his son (the juice or gravy), and then take a draught of water.
The
point is not only finding the right reference. Underlying is the play with
confused family relations - like the incest-riddle of King Salomon and the Queen
of Sheba, referring to the daughters of Lot.
Take thirty from thirty and the remainder is sixty.
This
is an arithmetical riddle, the solution of which depends upon the numerical
value of the letters: Hebrew שלשים = 30. Take the
ל
= 30, and the remainder is ששים
= 60 (by Abraham Ibn EZRA, 1089-1164, Spanish Hebrew poet and grammarian from
Cordova).
A short EXCURSION
A Talmudic riddle that can be found in the Gospel as well:
Q Salt is good; but if the salt loses its saltness, how will you season
it?
A The Talmud says: with the afterbirth of a mule!
Q How can a mule have an afterbirth?
A Just as little as salt loses its saltness.
And Jesus says (Mark 9: 50): "You must have salt within yourselves,
and be at peace with one another." So, the tradition of riddling is taken
up by Jesus. - Now look further at 'I am the bread of life', 'Destroy this
temple and in three days I will rise it up again'. There is an interesting book
on riddles and misunderstandings in the Gospel of John by Herbert Leroy, Rätsel und Missverständniss. He argues that the misunderstandings
in the Gospel are hidden riddles. 'I am the bread of life' refers to the last
supper: take and eat: this is my body. A 'crucial' reference, in the double
sense of the word.
After
the invention of printing, two traditions run along each other. The Finnish
riddle scholar Aarne distinguishes between the literary riddle which springs
from mediaeval Latin tradition and the folk riddle in the vernacular. So on one
side there are riddle books like the German Strassburger Rätselbuch, the
French Les Adevineaux amoureux, on the other side literary riddles by
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Schiller, Voltaire.
From
the nineteenth century onwards, this picture changes. Literary riddles seem to
disappear and researchers apologize for their subject. After the Second World
War in industrialized societies riddles more or less disappear from the adult
domain, but the genre of folk riddles revives in TV programmes. One notes
"a strongly interactive relationship with the viewers" but the quizzes
themselves get a low rating in intellectual or literary circles.
There
are hundreds of different shows, all over the world. They form a major
television genre. However, there is an important difference between spontaneous
riddling and the ceremony of the TV quizzes. Whereas in riddle sessions
participants vie among themselves to get their riddles presented, in TV shows
participants are carefully selected by those in charge of the programmes. Let's
look at some fragments of quizzes.
[videofragments]
A
American quiz shows from the fifties
B
Wheel of fortune
C
Going for gold
(British, European participants)
*
ritual of entrance quiz master
*
introduction participants
*
prizes, 'shop'
*
elements of tension, winning/losing
4 Current interpretation
The
first quizzes in the fifties - the American $ 64.000 dollar question for
instance - are reported to have started with one person being examined by the
quiz master. A major innovation was the introduction of another participant,
which entails emulation. Another: a jury. Nowadays many combinations are
possible.
There
is extensive theory in communication studies on popular programmes - I
concentrate on John Fiskes book Television
Culture. He states that the narrative structure underlying the shows, lies
in the nonliterary forms of game and rituals. In his view there is a distinction
between aspects of game and ritual: in game participants start out equal and finish
differentiated, into winners and losers; in ritual differentiated groups receive equalizing identities. He
supposes quiz shows are primarily games, though there are important rituals
particularly at the beginning and sometimes at the end; the quizmaster is the
high priest in the ritual. The shows use knowledge to separate out winners from
losers; they display a hierarchy: the bigger the element of luck, the less
academic. The winner is "accorded a ritual of equality with the bearer of
social power, the questionmaster", who takes him or her, sometimes by the
hand into the reserved part of the studio, where the prizes are made the objects
of a ritualistic celebration. Apart from being British, we observed that in Going
for gold the master keeps more distance than in Wheel
of Fortune. Fiske says: the shows encourage materialism, and insert
participants and audience into the mainstream of social values.
On
the other hand there is a tension between social order on the one hand, and
freedom, anarchy or chance on the other. The reversal of normal power relations
between consumers and producers, the confusion of different roles in the
quizmaster (entertainer and examiner), could mean they convert into
carnivalesque practice - as theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin. The theory is: escape
from the constraints of everyday life frees from subjection to the powerful,
shapes ambivalence, of homogeneity and contradictions. It explains the
excitement and pleasure some shows produce. For Fiske this is a reason to
evaluate the shows positively - contrary to literary criticism. He observes the
same agression toward carnival as to the quizzical pleasures.
5 Mimetic Praxis
A
basic question is why the whole
mise-en-scène of quiz shows attracts so many people. Although one should be
careful in analyzing contemporary culture - in my opinion Fiske's paradoxes are
better understood if we consider the speech event of riddling as a mimetic
praxis, and consequently quizzes as well.
A
few remarks. If we trace the amusement and the supposed relaxation of the
quizzes back to the reported riddle contests of traditional societies, it is
significant to learn that a quiz like Wheel of fortune is based on the
parlour game 'Hangman'. The rule-governed competition reminds us of the rituals
in the riddle contest and the sacrificial acts that accompany it: the sacred is
present in the profane. Both ritual and play have a religious origin and
arbitrary prizes point to a history of victimization; metaphors like 'climbing
up' and 'falling down' have to do with expulsion. Aspects of the judge, king or
priest are represented in the quiz masters, who are offering themselves also as
a model for imitation.
Some
ethnographers look at riddling as a technique anciently and primitively employed
at times of crisis or on occasions when the fate of someone or of a whole tribe
hang in the balance. In the Oedipus-riddle this is very clear: the Theban
society is in disorder.
Concerning
the carnivalesque: riddles have the quality of merging what is in a certain
sense meant to remain separate or forbidden to conjoin. They compare an object
to another entirely different object. Riddles are qualitate
qua carnivalesque and formed part of the ritual at several festivals. It is
reported that the Latin riddles of Symphosius were originally devised for
recitation at the ancient feasts of Saturnalia, a traditional forum for enigmas
and jests, and the carnival atmosphere is reflected in the verse. James Frazer
in his Golden Bough was indignant at
the fact that a real man who personated Saturn suffered a real death in his
assumed character. Frazers conception of this murder has been developed - as we
know - by René Girard in La violence et
le sacré, where he states that society feels the constant need to
re-experience its own origins, albeit in veiled and transfigured form. By means
of rites the community manages to cajole and somewhat subdue the forces of
destruction.
Let's
look at a Dutch caricature of a quiz. It shows a loser, chaos and destruction.
[video]
fragment 'Koot en Bie'
The riddle games in TV shows gain attention and reflect values of society, principally by activating our cultural memory. They reiterate stages in the representation of the scapegoat mechanism, thus enabling the audience to live the situation of winners and losers in the victimization and to taste the sacred food of society. Ecstasy and attraction are to be understood as mimetic desire, connected to primitive sacralisation of violence. By differentiating the world into winners and losers, the quiz shows reestablish order.
Bibliography
in Neck
Riddles
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