The Body Artist
In the first chapter of The Body Artist, the characters’ relationship to one another is paradoxal. Physical closeness is described, but psychologically, both protagonists reside in a different world. Lauren, the narrator, and her elderly husband, Rey, are operating within the same physical space and time frame: the kitchen at breakfast time. Yet there is no sense of cohesion, as they go about their tasks. This division, unusual for a married couple, is conveyed through DeLillo’s language and grammar. In multiple instances, the author emphasizes the divide between his protagonists, with regards to possessions. He writes, about the couple: “it was his coffee and his cup. They shared the newspaper, but was actually, unspokenly, hers” (DeLillo, 8). Then, later: “the phone was his. The birds were hers…”(20). These sentences serve to divide the common sphere, the kitchen, into separate entities, representing two differentiated inhabitants. In so doing, distance between these inhabitants is accentuated.
Similarly, when Lauren and Rey exchange words, these are as incoherent as they are infrequent, which further accentuates the impression of division, or distance, between the characters. The grammatical structure in such dialogues is particularly important. The short, incomplete sentences indicate nonchalance, even annoyance, furthering the already-established distance between Lauren and Rey. It is as if the protagonists, who are supposed to share a bond, by virtue of their marital status, have nothing to say to one another, or even care about what the other has to say. As an example of this incongruity, DeLillo shares the following exchange with the reader, as Rey is getting ready to leave the house:
“She saw him standing in the doorway.
‘Have you seen my keys?’
She said, ‘what…which keys?’
He looked at her.
She said, ‘I bought some lotion yesterday…’
‘All my keys are on one ring,’ he said’” (25).
Though both protagonists are exchanging words, and responding to those words on cue, the conversation is randomized, through lack of understanding (‘what…which keys?’) and consistency (at one moment, keys are being discussed. The next, lotion). It is almost as if two strangers, who do not know each others’ patterns and habits, were having a conversation. Thus, Lauren and Rey’s relationship of husband and wife is heavily distorted, as even greater distance between them is forged.
Despite these observations, there is an underlying sense of connection between Lauren and Rey, but that connection divides the couple further. “Every time [Lauren] had to bend down and reach into the lower…parts of the refrigerator she let out a groan…She was too trim and limber to feel the strain and was only echoing Rey, identifying, groaning his groan, but in a manner so seamless and deep it was her discomfort too” (DeLillo, 9). Instead of dissipating the great divide between Lauren and Rey, bringing them closer together, this connection serves to amplify the divide. While Lauren feels connected to her husband, she is incapable of truly identifying with him, or feeling what he feels, by virtue of her age. He, at 64, will feel pain when bending down, but Lauren, being under half his age and a body artist, experiences no pain at all. Through an attempted psychological connection, the real, physical division is blatantly exposed, in all of its painful rawness.
Through language and grammatical structure, the paradoxal nature of Lauren and Rey’s relationship, the clear-cut division of the protagonists’ identity and their relationship’s lack of consistency becomes evident, as does Lauren’s attempted ersatz of a connection, which only serves to further the great divide.
On another level, it is worth noting that Lauren and Rey, while they are mentally separated from one another, are also secluded from the rest of the world. In Lauren’s words to Rey, the couple is “out of the city…off the calendar” (21). Lauren further goes to describe that they live so far out of town, that even their newspaper was “an old newspaper, Sunday’s, from town, because they were no deliveries [where they lived]” (14). The couple is physically and temporally removed from ‘civilization’, a distance that becomes apparent through Lauren’s use of language, as she describes this isolation to her husband and the reader.
Tristan and Isolde
When Tristan and Isolde first meet, they do not immediately fall in love. As in The Body Artist, Gottfried uses language to communicate the distance between the fated-to-be lovers. But unlike with Lauren and Rey, that distance is expected, even encouraged. At this moment, Tristan and Isolde are not lovers, while Lauren and Rey are man and wife. Language is used to formalize this distance. The early promise that Tristan makes to Isolde demonstrates this point: “Lovely woman, do not be downcast. I shall soon give you a king for your lord in whom you will find a good and happy life, wealth, noble excellence and honor for the rest of your days,” he exclaims (Gottfried, 153). Through his vociferous promise, Tristan establishes the appropriate distance between himself and Isolde. He cannot, nor does he desire to be more to her than the man designated to bring her to her future husband, King Mark.
In an even starker contrast, Isolde voices her repugnance for Tristan, while establishing her desired distance from him. When Tristan seeks to comfort Mark’s future bride, the following exchange ensues:
“‘Enough, Captain,’ she said. ‘Keep your distance, take your arm away! What a tiresome man you are! Why do you keep touching me?’
‘But lovely woman, am I offending you?’
‘You are—because I hate you!’” (152).
Through this violent exchange, Isolde blatantly communicates her hated for Tristan, which she justifies with the outcry that he killed her uncle. In so doing, she emotionally and psychologically distances herself from Tristan. More obviously, Isolde doesn’t want him to touch her, even to comfort her, something she communicates to him, primarily through verbalizing her thoughts, which amplifies the physical boundary between the two characters.
Indeed, it is through these above-described dialogues that light is shed on Tristan and Isolde’s relationship and their initial distance from one another, distance created both by Isolde’s repulsion for Tristan and by Tristan’s assigned mission. As with Lauren and Rey, communication, helps to define the relationship between the two young people, and the appropriate distance.
In another parallel to The Body Artist, it is interesting that, when Tristan and Isolde first have a significant exchange, they are isolated from the rest of the world. In The Body Artist, Lauren and Rey live out of town, and in Tristan and Isolde, the characters are on a ship. Evidently, both couples are secluded from the rest of the world. Additionally, Isolde, who has left her family and native Ireland behind, is distanced from everything she knows. Gottfried’s narrative language serves to demonstrate this point: “[Isolde] wept and she lamented mid her tears that she was leaving her homeland, whose people she knew, and all her…and was sailing away with strangers” (152). Once again, language, through Gottfried’s descriptions, is used to communicate Isolde’s feelings to the reader, and through those feelings, distance from the world is manifest.
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