Walid M Rihane

Literature and Culture

Professor Akram Hamade

May 5 2015

The Failure of Nationalism and the Transcendence of Individualism in William Styron's Lie

Down in Darkness

William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness is a 1951 novel that tells the story of a dys-

functional Virginian family- the Loftis. The story mainly revolves around Peyton, Milton and

Helen's elder daughter. The events of the story are told through the flashbacks remembered

by Milton and Helen on their journey to bury Peyton's body after she has committed suicide.

The flashbacks tell the reader about the past events and troubles that the family members

have passed through to explain their deteriorated present. Set in 1945, the book reveals many

aspects about the structure of modern American society and culture, reflected by the course

of events and the characters in the novel. The use of flashbacks and stream-of-consciousness

(in Chapter 7), Lie Down in Darkness helps on exposing the psychology of each character,

making it possible to approach the text from a psychoanalytic perspective. For many years,

the Psychoanalytic Theory, set by Sigmund Freud was used in literature to analyze the psyche

of fictional characters- focusing mainly on the sex drive and sexual desires of the characters.

However, the emergence of a new psychoanalytic theories, as those by Jung and Fromm, has

given this literary theory a wider range of work. One of the emerging psychoanalytic theories

is the Humanistic psychoanalysis, set by German philosopher and critic, Erich Fromm. In

fact, Humanistic psychoanalysis gives a clear understanding of human behavior and culture,
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taking into consideration many of Man's needs, other than the libido, as the search for identi-

ty, transcendence, and others.

The Sane Society by Erich Fromm was released in 1955 .i.e. four years after Styron's

Lie Down in Darkness was published. While the latter discusses the life of an American fami-

ly that is facing many conflicts in the modern society of 1945, Fromm's book psychoanalyses

conformed citizenry and alienated individuals of the modern industrial society.

This paper will then discuss Helen's portrayal of the failure of American Nationalism

in the 1945 in comparison to Peyton, the lost individual of the modern era who "transcends

nature" to achieve the rebirth of humans after one's realization of "[. . .] powerlessness, and

the limitation of his existence" (Fromm 23).

In order to prove the mentioned argument, this paper will use Humanistic psychoa-

nalysis of Fromm, to focus on the following aspects of human situation; Relatedness and

Narcissism, transcendence, rootedness, sense of identity, and reason vs. irrationality. These

aspects are, according to Fromm, "Man's needs- as they stem from the conditions of his exist-

ence" (26). This theory will be applied to the characters of Helen Lofti and her daughter Pey-

ton, to explain the complicated relationship between them through a humanistic scope. Also,

the theory will explain how Peyton, the lost modern human being, through her experience and

self-awareness, transcends nature, announcing the failure of modern American Nationalism

and society that is resembled by the mother, Helen.

The Twentieth-century witnessed severe changes in industrial technology and socio-

economic form. In the United States, Capitalism was- and still- very powerful as a system,

and it has affected and led European Capitalism since it was "freed from feudal remnants and

shackles" (Fromm 101). However, a greater change in the modern society of the United

States, according to Erich Fromm, is "the beginning of the use of atomic energy" (101). In
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fact, as it is historically known, countries since the 1940s and up till today are still investing

and working for the development of the nuclear power- along with the nuclear weapon.

Using his psychoanalysis, Fromm obviously disagrees with Sigmund Freud's theory

of the unconsciousness and the libido, as he clearly states that the sexual desires of humans

do not necessarily make him happy, and their shortage doesn't necessarily drive him insane

(24). Humanistic psychoanalysis' main focus is "man's needs stemming from the condition of

his existence" (24). In order to achieve the awareness of existence, human, according to

Fromm, has to explore love, acquire a sense of identity, and develop reason, in order to trans-

cend and "cease to be an animal" (25). According to theory of evolution, the first evolution

from animals was "Man's" first attempt to detach from the animal world, governed by nature.

Thus, whenever humans become more aware of their existence, they transcend more and

more from nature. Satisfying the animal needs, says Fromm, human will be driven by their

human needs.

Religion, to Fromm, is "an attempt to answer the problem of human existence", how-

ever, the answers given by religion can be either good or bad (28). Contrary to religion,

Fromm says that a person who is deviated from their cultural norms and regulations is also

someone who is searching for an answer of their existence as much as those searching in reli-

gion.

In commenting on relatedness, the humanistic psychoanalytic theory says that humans

need to "unite with other living beings" either by submission to a person, or an institution or

God, or by "dominating himself with the world by having power over it" (Fromm 29). An-

other form of belonging and relatedness is love, loving of a person or an object, including the

love of oneself and motherly love that can be "paradoxical [. . .] and tragic" (Fromm 32).
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In brief, the concept of Transcendence is the transcendence of human from being a

creature to becoming a creator. In this sense, Fromm explains that human raises himself be-

yond the passivity and accidentalness of his existence into the realm of purposefulness and

freedom" (35).

When he discusses the notion of rootedness, Erich Fromm says that an infant is "root-

ed in mother", while human "remains rooted in nature" (47). Man is always a part of nature,

yet he or she can depart from nature by creating a line between each other in order to separate

Man's life from that of the animal world. Through history, Man's gods have changed con-

stantly. Yet, Nature remained to be "The Great Mother Nature". Whether in Christianity, Is-

lam, Buddhism, or Islam, soil and nature play important role in explaining the existence of

human life and human beings. However, Fromm explains that in the Modern societies, "[t]he

average man [has] obtain[ed] his sense of identity from his belonging to a nation" (56). Hu-

mans, then, during the mid-Twentieth-century have departed their belonging to humanism

and shifted to Nationalism. Fromm describes Nationalism as our insanity, and denies its con-

nection to human love.

Identity, or self-finding, is an important situation in Humanistic psychoanalysis. In

times like the medieval period, Individualism had no value, yet development through history

reveals that Western societies in later periods have shifted towards individualism. Fromm

says that Nationalism, religion, class, and occupation are substitutes of "individual sense of

identity" (60). To Fromm then, identity is a vital aspect and factor that contributes in human

existence and self-awareness, leading to the higher transcendence.

A very important distinction between Reason and Intelligence is introduced by

Fromm in The Sane Society. The author looks at intelligence as a "service of biological sur-

vival" while he sees reason as "aims at understanding [of] what is behind the surface"
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(Fromm 165). While intelligence is used to reach physical ends, reason is rather a concept

which functions on the mental and spiritual existence. According to Fromm, "Reason is a

faculty which must be practice in order to develop" (62). He believes that contemporary soci-

ety (that of the mid-Twentieth-century) is "destructive to reason" (166). The modern human

beings, thus, lack the sense of reality, and they "are playing with weapons which may lead to

the destruction of all modern civilization" (165). What Fromm argues here is that the human

intelligence is used to destruct the society and the communities of human beings, through the

nuclear power that is considered one of the most influential discoveries of that era. He finds

ethics and reason inseparable, and the fact that intelligence and realism are being used to de-

molish civilization means that they lack any ethical behavior since they are not based on rea-

son.

In applying what have been mentioned and explained to William Styron's Lie Down in

Darkness will actually prove that Helen, the mother of Peyton, is the failing modern Nation

and culture, and that Peyton's death is in fact a transcendence in searching for another nation

or mother, by transcending to "The Great Mother Nature".

Helen Loftis, the conservative Protestant mother, has an unstable relationship with her

elder daughter, Peyton. The relationship between them develops to become a mutual hatred

between the daughter and the mother, as her Helen describes Peyton while talking to Carey as

"that tramp, that little whore" (Lie Down in Darkness 300). The cause of this hatred between

them is actually numerous; Helen's "religious" personality and Peyton's "rebellious" charac-

ter, Peyton's love to her father, Milton's indulgence to Peyton, and Helen's attachment to her

cripple daughter Maudie and her detachment from Peyton. Peyton goes further to describe her

mother as "the rest of the sad neurotics" and that she "can't even suffer properly" (Lie Down

in Darkness 311). The fact that Peyton describes her mother as a neurotic, and the fact that

Helen herself is a conservative religious American woman brings up Fromm's statement that
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"the insane person is the one who has completely failed to establish any kind of union" (29).

Helen is submissive to Christianity, and later she confesses that she is going insane: "God

help me please, I am going crazy" (Lie Down in Darkness 131). Her insanity is the result of

her failure in finding a union by being submissive to religion. This failure is exposed after

Maudie's and Peyton's death when Helen's doubts in God and religion begin to become more

visible in the text. Her separation from religion becomes obvious as well when she sins: when

she hates her own daughter. This is reflected when the symbol of the Church, her Pastor, Car-

rey Car tells her " 'Helen, poor Helen'[. . .] 'you are mad' " (Lie Down in Darkness 301).

Other than Helen's failure in being submissive to religion to establish a kind of unity,

the mother also fails in forming a union with her surrounding through power and domination.

She tries to dominate Peyton, but she fails. At the birthday party when Helen finds out that

Peyton is drinking, she goes and says to her: " 'Shut up. [. . .] I am going to take you home' "

(Lie Down in Darkness 82). Helen's character in the novel is obviously a bossy one who tries

to control the life of her daughter. Yet, she also fails in dominating Peyton as Peyton gets

married to a Jew and grows up to be the opposite of what Helen ever wished for.

The only "quasi-union" that Helen establishes is through love. Fromm says that love

is the "only one passion which satisfies man's need to unite himself with the world" (30). This

love is clear in Helen's relation with Maudie, the crippled daughter. However, Helen's failure

in transcending through this love is her hatred to Peyton that dominated the love feeling she

had to Maudie. In commenting on motherly love, Fromm says that motherly love is paradoxi-

cal and can be tragic. This tragedy is clearly shown in the troubled relationship between Pey-

ton and Helen. Another reason why Helen fails to transcend is because she has "taken deci-

sive step to emerge fully from nature" (Fromm 48). This emergence and separation from na-

ture is characterized by her devotion to religion on one hand, and her refusal of sex on anoth-
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er hand. Sex is one of nature's characteristics in animals, which humans evolve from. Helen

thus develops a passive relationship to nature that leads to her failure in transcending.

This paper claims that Helen is American Nationalism, the nation or the mother that

has replaced the initial and original mother .i.e. Mother Nature. And as Fromm discusses, the

Modern times human has structured their identity in belonging to a nation and not to the orig-

inal mother (56). Peyton, the daughter of her mother, Helen, fails to find an identity. Her re-

fusal of the identity of her mother, or that of Nationalism that has failed in transcending the

human existence, is clear in the text. Peyton goes through several relationships before and

during her marriage. These multiple relationships show that Peyton is not stable, and that she

is in a constant search for unity with someone, even when she is married to Harry. She has an

affair with the Tony, the milkman, and with a man of her father's age, Earl Sanders. Fromm

comments on the passions of humans as "attempts to find an answer to his existence" (27).

Peyton is the "deviate from culture" that Fromm talks about who is in search for an answer.

Unlike Helen, the daughter tries to unite with other living beings to avoid the insanity of her

mother. She had love to her father, to her sister, to her friends, her boyfriends, and her hus-

band Harry, although she cheats on him.

In analyzing Peyton's suicide in accordance to the Humanistic psychoanalysis, the

theory shows that her suicide is in fact a transcendence and a return to nature, the other moth-

er, the substitute of Nationalism, the identity she is in quest for. The fact that she commits

suicides as she is "naked, clean" means that she is going back to nature in the same way she

came to life. This is a recreation. Peyton commits suicide as she wishes "to rise at another

time" (Lie Down in Darkness 386). Thus, she transcends to "the role of the creature [. . .] by

becoming a 'creator' " (Fromm 35). She then achieves to raise herself beyond the existence.

Her suicide comes after the US nuclear bombing of Japan in 1945, during World War II. This

suicide is then an epiphany of the failing Nationalism, characterized by the failing mother
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Helen. Fromm says that the love of one country is not love for humanity, and Peyton chooses

to love herself, her human-self, and to return to nature, and transcend to a better place. This

shows that the substitutes of individual identity, like Nationalism, has failed in taking its

place. Individualism and the awareness of oneself existence is the only successful human

identity, not Religion, not Nationalism.

Intelligence has failed humans in Lie Down in Darkness. It is only Reason that helps

Peyton transcend and achieve individual awareness. Intelligence is what has led to the inven-

tion of the nuclear bomb, and intelligence is the reason why hundreds of thousands of souls

were taken in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reason, on the other hand, helped Peyton to discover

her oneself, to transcend over the "animal" acts of modern American society that is justified

by Nationalism. Ethics is the core of Reason, while intelligence lacks it, as Humanistic psy-

choanalysis shows.

Works Cited
Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. New York: Routledge, 1955.

Styron, William. Lie Down in Darkness. New York: Vintage, 1951.