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Khairul Hisyam Bin Baharuddin

BBL5305

20 September 2009

The notions of Life, Arcadia and Death in Ben Okri’s In Arcadia

Ben Okri’s In Arcadia is the story of a group of London film-makers who travel to

mainland Europe to shoot a documentary on the subject of ‘Arcadia’. The search for this

elusive world of pastoral innocence and fulfillment involves eight people: Lao himself, the

struggling film director Jim, sound man Propr, researcher Husk, garrulous chief cameraman

Sam, assistant camera-person Rile, administrator and accountant Jute, and Lao’s companion

Mistletoe. The filming journey is scheduled to end, appropriately enough, in Greece, where

the original mythical and/or geographical Arcadia is said to have existed, but in fact the novel

ends before Greece is reached, with the characters bound for Switzerland, as “the train bore

them towards Arcadia” (Okri, 2002: 230). The European setting fits well with the novel’s

central preoccupation: the difficulty, in a cynical and materialistic age, of returning to a

‘paradise’, whatever that may mean (Skidelsky, 2002: 55).

In an interview with the newspaper The Independent, referring to In Arcadia, Ben

Okri declared that “We inhabit a middle track that we call our lives, but on either side

Arcadia and Death are also running concurrently, and we are never far away from either

plane. The book tries to encompass all three layers” (Patterson, 2002). In other words, all the

possibilities of our lives run parallel to one another.

The first part of this paper focuses on explaining the notions of life, Arcadia and death

while the second section of this paper focuses on explaining what these representations reveal

about the spiritual realm of human nature.

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The notion of life represented in the novel In Arcadia is the notion of idealism versus

reality in which by following idealism wholeheartedly, it will lead to despair. This notion can

be seen clearly in two characters which are Propr and Sam.

Propr is the sound man of the crew and is completely fanatic about noise. He goes

crazy about the slightest sound ten miles away, but spends all his time listening to garbage.

He hasn’t been working on film for five years and has been working with sheep up in the

North on an allotment. He is a practical man and according to him he doesn’t understand

things that he cannot see or hear (Okri, 2002: 134). He is only interested in money and

contentment (Okri, 2002: 135) and believes that the best way to achieve contentment is by

working for money (Okri, 2002: 137). In other words, Propr is suspicious of happiness and

pleasure and believes that money is the only ideal that one should aspire to in life. In an

epiphany at the Louvre, Propr found himself in the Forest of Arden, among exiled kings and

their courtiers and among them he was a farmer. In this epiphany, the exiled kings mentioned

to him that he should focus on living his life instead of just pursuing his ideal:

My Dear Propr, you do not like happiness, you are suspicious of pleasure, you think

leisure a waste of time, and you frown on us kings who are exiled and ought to be

miserable and yet we seem to be happier…But being king [being rich with money] is

not everything. Being Human is…Those who walk their days on earth but never sing,

never laugh, never caper, are but those who have lived with their feet only, but not

their hearts. (Okri, 2002: 194).

Sam is the first cameraman of the crew. He lives to talk and talks to live. He believes

in the senses and in sensual things. He believes that he can only be happy when he is

“seeking for impossible things, and never finding them” and “things that are easy to do and

easy to get bore him” (Okri, 2002: 140). This is his ideal and it has caused him great pains in

looking for his ‘elusive something’ as he can never be satisfied with what he has gotten in his

life as according to him, “It isn’t money, career, family, success or achievement” (Okri, 2002:

140). In an epiphany at the Louvre, Sam found himself journeying through the desert with

camels that would not let him ride on them:

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And through the long trek, and the greet thirst…all he could think of was how to film

the world from the back of a camel. He spent the journey filming the sameness of the

desert dunes and the expanse of sand and the storms…And after a long time walking

on the shifting sands, he spied a distant oasis…But the camels were not interested in

the oasis and travelled far away from it. Sam was torn between the camels and the

oasis, and couldn’t decide between them. Eventually, he chose to follow the camels,

and then he turned back again and went towards the oasis, and then turned again

towards the departing camels, till the sand storms came and obliterated the world…

(Okri, 2002: 197-198)

This epiphany portrays Sam as indecisive on whether he should satisfy his urge for

filming an elusive even at the desert or seek for water from the oasis to quench his thirst and

in the end he neither gets the first nor the latter. Sam’s epiphany carries the message that he

should not be too obsessed with his ideal in finding his ‘elusive something’ as this will make

him lose sight of other important things in life.

Hence, the notion of life in the novel In Arcadia is to warn the readers of the dangers

of putting too much emphasis on idealism in one’s life compared to living life in reality.

The notion of Arcadia presented in the novel In Arcadia is the notion of paradise

versus hell. Arcadia appears in two forms which are paradise and hell.

Arcadia can take the form of a paradise as it can be seen from the following Virgil’s

description: “Arcadia became an imaginary landscape of lovers…A place of dreaming, an

oasis…a qualified paradise” (Okri, 2002: 65) and also from Marie Antoinette’s creation of a

hamlet in which to “escape the rigidity of…life and to indulge in fantasies” (Okri, 2002:

176). In other words, Arcadia is a Utopian landscape.

Arcadia can also take the form of a hell as it can be seen from the following

description of the splendor of Versailles:

The sign of the great stairs, the dreaming lake, and the rich fountains was still

shimmering in their minds. They had been touched by the lovely space of l’Hameau,

but there was still sadness…But their sadness came from the fact that they had just

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passed into and emerged from one of the saddest things of all: a false Arcadia amidst

splendor and glory. (Okri, 2002: 181)

This is further elaborated by the following explanation of a false Arcadia: “A place

with the quietly troubling presence of death, and exile…and suicide, and a sinister shadow”

(Okri, 2002: 65). In other words, the description of Versailles and the descriptions of a false

Arcadia are an allusion to hell.

These two forms of Arcadia portray the light (good) and dark (bad) side of Arcadia

and this is explained by Mistletoe’s intuition: “Arcadia is the chiaroscuro [interplay of light

and shadow] of the mortal and the immortal, of happiness and death, of eternity and

transience, beauty and the grave” (Okri, 2002: 179).

People who look for Arcadia, according to Propr’s intuition are people who want “a

hiding place from reality” (Okri, 2002: 178). They want to be distracted from the hardships of

life and Arcadia can be likened as a holiday for the body and spirit. The type of people

constantly looking for Arcadia is seekers.

Seekers can be divided into two types which are travel seekers and book seekers.

Travel seekers, according to Sam, are people who “are always back-packing their way around

the world. They are always hurrying to see things…take part in some ritual or other…carry

on their journey to the next place, and only have what little they did as their experience.”

(Okri, 2002: 139). Propr also mentioned about this and according to him, travel seekers

“don’t want to work…They want easy cures and miracles” (Okri, 2002: 135) and “They are

always flying off in meditation and talking about peace and freedom” (Okri, 2002: 137). In

other words, travel seekers are people who are very insecure and restless. Another type of

seeker is book seekers. Book seekers are “seekers that stay at home, seeking for things in

books, in history [and] in the past….They think that books are more important than life”

(Okri, 2002: 139). In other words, book seekers are people who take little interest in activities

outside the realm of information found in books.

These two types of seekers have their own focus. Travel seekers do not want to work

or think things thoroughly. They collect experiences but never integrate what they collect into

their own practical life. Book seekers, on the other hand, are overwhelmed with too much

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knowledge. The knowledge that they have acquired is neither useful nor practical to them in

their own life. Thus, these two types of seekers produce juxtaposition in their search for a

complete Arcadia through experience and knowledge. These two things are usually what

people are looking for when they are looking for Arcadia: ‘new experiences and new

knowledge’ (outer and inner paradise) that will help them escape the harsh reality of their

own lives. A clear example of this can be seen from Marie Antoinette’s hamlet to escape her

own rigid life:

She went there to be free. It was her Arcadia…she created an artificial oasis. And

when she came here, with her chosen ones and attendants, it wasn’t to be a queen, but

a shepherdess…She fished seas bass from the lake and acted in pays with her

friends…The hamlet was her dream of freedom. (Okri, 2002: 176-177).

Although seeking new experiences and new knowledge might seem to be a good thing

at first sight, there is danger in spending too much time in Arcadia and ignoring reality as

“Arcadia cannot be a denial of reality, for reality cannot be denied…It cannot protect you

from truth, or injustice, or poverty…It can only delay your death by the truth you don’t face”

(Okri, 2002: 179). Marie Antoinette infuriated the French by ignoring the famine and misery

in the land by indulging herself in her Arcadia and this proves to be a bad decision as she gets

killed by the guillotine: “Her Arcadia [temporarily] concealed from her the guillotine that

would chop off her head” (Okri, 2002: 177).

Hence, the notion of Arcadia in the novel In Arcadia is to warn the readers of the

dangers of spending too much time in search for escape from the hardships of life. Arcadia

can become both a paradise and a hell. It can become a paradise to escape the hardships in

life and it can become a hell (unpleasant and inescapable situation) as it cannot prevent but

only delay truth or death.

The notion of death represented in the novel In Arcadia is the notion of limited

possibilities versus fear of being forgotten.

Death causes limitations on living for the individual. Nicolas Poussin’s painting in

Mistletoe’s dream with the inscriptions ET IN ARCADIA EGO on an enormous tomb (Okri,

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2002: 192) through Ringrose’s interpretation (2009) which means “I too lived in Arcadia”

states the following:

I, with consciousness heightened to life’s innumerable beauties, sufferings and

marvels; I, a celebrant of life’s mysteries…I too was once like you, happy, unhappy,

alive and in love. I too was wild and young and loved. And now I’m dead.

(Okri, 2002: 208)

This interpretation by Daphnis states the fact and reality of Death. Death is considered

the end of life. This fact leaves the person who is still living with two limited possibilities on

how to interpret death which is either to learn to live life knowing that death will eventually

occur or escape to a fantasy world: “The mind either learns to live within the closed labyrinth

of the conjoining of death and life: Or the mind develops wings and soars” (Okri, 2002: 209).

A character that has been affected by death’s limitations is Jute. Jute’s characteristics

are described as “expressionless as a mirror…Everything about her is terrifyingly neat…She

is a Gorgon of moral rectitude, a Medusa of propriety…the lifelong killjoys, all rolled into

one fanatical obeyer of corporation edicts” (Okri, 2002: 15). Jute is described in such a way

because she leads her life by the ideal that work is everything: During a discussion about

private Arcadias, she states, “I like work. I think work is everything. I think work is Arcadia”

(Okri, 2002: 143). Her obsession with making work both as her ideal and her Arcadia makes

her become ‘bored and boring’ (a dull person) comparable to the English proverb “All work

and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. It is only in an epiphany at the Louvre that she begins to

realize the errors of her way of living life:

She was looking for her mother in the winter of her being and could not find her. And

winter grew worse while the beautiful music grew more haunting from the increasing

distance. Soon Jute found herself a prisoner of the ice of her own being. She had

become the block of ice. And the party and the music were her mother.

(Okri, 2002: 198)

This epiphany portrays Jute as a prisoner in a block of ice (her deathbed) in her old

age which is coincidentally the way she chooses to embrace her life: a life lived as if one is

very old and dying. Instead of choosing to live her life knowing that she should enjoy it too

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(represented by the music and laughter from the increasing distance), she chooses to live by

her fantasy world (her Arcadia) which is work. This realization carries the message that life

should be lived to the fullest as one might not know how much time one has to live life on

Earth as death will eventually happen.

In relation to the above, death brings the thought and realization of being forgotten

after one’s death. Jute believes the aforementioned by stating that “when someone dies

nothing of them remains, they went to nowhere land, they vanished completely, devoured or

erased by the gods of the vacuum. Not even memory keeps them alive, because eventually,

memory too dies” (Okri, 2002: 77). This is one way of viewing the effects of death. Another

way is to view death as a reminder that a full life had been lived and other people can benefit

by learning from it: “Living ought to be the unfolding masterpiece of the loving spirit. And

dying ought to set this masterpiece free. Set it free to enrich the world” (Okri, 2002: 230).

During Jim and Lao’s conversation about Riley’s disappearance (presuming that she

is dead), Lao said that “I think it is good for people to live posthumously…as it taught me

how much or how little other people’s opinion of one matters” (Okri, 2002: 99). The

aforementioned brings into question how one should be remembered once one is no longer

alive. It is undeniable that not everyone will keep remembering a person and how that person

lived his or her life when the person is dead. It is only trough the legacy the person leaves

behind that one can remember a person that had once lived. Thus, the novel highlights two

important mediums in which a person can be remembered by which is the medium of writing

and painting.

The medium of writing and painting are permanent mediums and not only inform the

reader of its creator but also his or her contribution to life and this is noticed by Lao and

Mistletoe. Lao who was reading Virgil’s Eclogues (a piece of writing) noticed something

beyond the words. He noticed a reality lurked behind them: “Life, the world, society, reality,

history is a sprung text that we endlessly learn how to read better” (Okri, 2002: 154).

Meanwhile, Mistletoe who was drinking her coffee and thinking much the same thing but in

paintings: “She was thinking how reality is one vast complex painting…full of riddles and

meaning, of enigmas and hinted fates” (Okri, 2002: 155).

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Hence, the notion of death in the novel In Arcadia is the fear of being forgotten versus

limited possibilities.

The notions of life, Arcadia and death reveal that the spiritual realm of human nature

goes through three steps which are ‘breakdown, breakthrough and emergence’. This concept

is adapted from Rosemary Gray (2009) in Apologia pro Ben Okri’s In Arcadia: A neglected

masterpiece?

First is the breakdown stage. The breakdown stage according to Steven Harrison

(2005: 20-21) makes spiritual transformation possible when one is faced with the notion of

death:

The fundamental deception we construct is the idea of the self. This prime organizing

assumption is the progenitor of all other deceptions, and it is generated thought itself

as an integral part of the arising thought form…While we are in the center of this

projected universe, the lack of full dimensionality in the flat world of thought suggests

to us that there is something fundamentally untrue about everything. The subtle

disturbance is the actuality of the universe impinging on our dream world. The

awakening from the dream appears from the perspective of the dream as death.

Lao realizes this by stating that hope is born of the recognition that “in living there are

no resolutions at all” (Okri, 2002: 30). This is further emphasized in the closing section of

Book One as it closes with: “And so this journey must be sort of a dying for me; a dying of

the old self; a birth of something new and fearless and bright and strange” (Okri, 2002: 32).

Second is the breakthrough stage. The breakthrough stage follows the realization of

death from the first stage and informs the spirit of what to look out for in life in the form of

awakenings (insights). An example of an awakening is the realization that “Creation and

destruction were both part of the same song” (Okri, 2002: 42), and the natural world:

Had chosen joy at self’s existence, and freedom followed…had chosen the love of

self’s regenerativeness, and prosperity followed; the necessity of self’s presence, and

stillness followed; the certainty of self’s growth, and power followed. (44)

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This awakening mentions that there is dual perspective in viewing life and death as

these two aspects bring both good and bad qualities and the spirit should choose to enjoy and

savor life.

Third is the emergence stage. After gaining an awakening on the notion of life and

death, the spirit should emerge knowledgeable about the dangers of trying to live

wholeheartedly in Arcadia. This can be noted as while the film crew examines Poussin’s

painting, they receive a warning given to the producer in a dream:

Don’t forget that the landscape is greater than the tomb. Death is merely time’s

inscription, a beautiful absence. Don’t dwell too long in Arcadia. This is fatal. For if

you dwell too long there, you will become the tomb, and your life its inscriptions.

_______________________________________________________(Okri, 2002: 193)

Besides warning the danger of living wholeheartedly in Arcadia, the emergence stage

informs the spirit to remake its view of the world from within the mind in order to make life

meaningful:

We are the sickness. We harbor our own malaise, and then we project it onto the world. And

then we sink into apathy and hopelessness, into self-centeredness, and self-protectiveness.

We stop seeing. We no longer notice the signs that are sent [to] us…intended to wake us up,

to remind us of who we are…We become the totality of our disease. We become the

condition that we harbor, that we project, that we blame the world.

(Okri, 2002: 223)

Furthermore, the spirit should realize that it belongs to a certain extent, ‘everywhere it

can be happy’ (life, Arcadia and death) as “Home is here, in time and in timelessness. Exile

ends when we sense that home is everywhere that the soul can sing from” (Okri, 2002: 224).

In conclusion, the notions of life, Arcadia and death in Ben Okri’s In Arcadia become

a recommendation for a better appreciation of life.

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Works Cited

Gray, Rosemary. "Apologia pro Ben Okri's In Arcadia: A neglected masterpiece?" English

Academy Review. Routledge, 1 May 2009. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10131750902768408>.

Harrison, Steven. What's Next After Now: Post-Spirituality and the Creative Life? Boulder,

Colorado: Sentinent, 2005. Print.

Okri, Ben. In Arcadia. London: Phoenix, 2002. Print.

Patterson, Christina. Ben Okri: 'Great art tries to get us to the place of true enchantment' The

Independent, 2 Sept. 2002. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-

entertainment/books/features/ben-okri-great-art-tries-to-get-us-to-the-place-of-true-

enchantment-641793.html>.

Ringrose, Peter. In Arcadia. The Literary Encyclopedia, 13 Jan. 2009. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

<http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23026>.

Skidelsky, William. "Novel thoughts." New Statesman. Wilson Web, 7 Oct. 2002. Web. 15

Sept. 2009.