When asked about the image of the mythic, what jars the mind is usually a breed of beauty, of eloquence and grace. Those stories which span the centuries speak to the modern generations of a past so romantic, it simply cannot be repeated. And so we weave the chaste mythic into our lives seamlessly; it paints frescoes of nude lovers in the homes of our CEOs, it sits primly in the background of our novels, it whispers sweetly as sunsets and moonrises follow their unyielding cycles. To contrast our terrible reality we blind ourselves with the pristine tales of those long dead. Except….expect when the mythic escapes our gilded cage and breaks its careful conditioning. The bloody, the lustful, the boorish, the erratic, the cataclysmic, the flaming, the American mythology. In living with the real beast of mythology, there is perhaps a prime victim, and he goes by the name Henderson. It is in Saul Bellow’s genius to give the public a novel whose protagonist is so unbearable that it is his duty to display the mythic in its true form. Henderson the Rain King is not simply the tale of a man who lived life too passionately, it is recapitulation of the all-encompassing myth of the Phoenix.
It should be stated first and foremost that Henderson embodies the nature of a ruler from the very start, and as such, he bears the weight of a kingdom‘s life cycle. As it so happens Henderson’s kingdom is in a state of want. Henderson, being king of first his own domestic domain, is a king who is slowly reaching the end of his days. The constant push to feed his starving heart has left Henderson’s home in a state of decay. Though he is well-off, a father of five, married twice, and a war veteran, Henderson desires more. “But the voice within me continued, I want, I want!”(Frazer 32), it is from this insatiable wanting that Henderson makes his first large step into the spirit of the phoenix. Leaving his decaying life behind him, Henderson begins to build his funeral pyre; he enters the realm of Adonis, and from there the domain of the Fisher King.
The likeness between Henderson and the mythical Adonis resides partially in love. According to James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, Adonis was originally under the same tale as Tammuz and Ishtar. It is from the core of this tale that Henderson’s trip to Africa is spurred. “…but we gather from them that every Tammuz was believed to die, passing away from the cheerful earth to the gloomy subterranean world, and that every year his divine mistress(Ishtar)journeyed in quest of him..”(Frazer 392). How does this fit into Henderson’s journey? Looking at Henderson’s driving passion in life, his unbearable wanting, it can be said that Henderson is “dying” in a sense when he makes the journey to Africa. In an abandonment of his wife, children and beloved pigs, Henderson has shed himself of his former life in order to descend “into the underworld”, aka, Africa. As Pythagoras explained of the phoenix’s life cycle, the bird first begins it’s death with the building of a funeral pyre. Henderson’s descent could be seen as a variation of this mythic preparation. And Henderson’s Aphrodite, his Ishtar? Henderson’s own wounded heart follows him to Africa. It is this bleeding aspect of his persona that further links Henderson to Adonis, the groin and the heart are far too easily exchanged in mythology. But in both respects the failure of the source of fertility has left the king with a barren land, as Aphrodite suffered at the death of Adonis, so Lily suffered at Henderson’s failing content with life.
“Am I responsible?” I said. “what’s the matter with you?”
“You and I have got to be together,” she said.
“Who says so?”
“we’ll die if we’re not,” she said.(Bellow 13)
Death upon separation from her loved one, Lily plays the role of Aphrodite, but it is not her journey into the underworld that need occur. Henderson’s salvation and rebirth lie with his journey into Africa, and his emulation of the tale of the Phoenix using the same route the Fisher King used.. He must heal his failing land by seeking out a replacement to bring fertility back , the mythological purification and renewal has begun.
In entering Africa, Henderson has retreated to yet another mythological plane, he has engaged himself in cosmogony. The power in the return to beginnings plays a powerful role for our Phoenix; the purity and clarity of the origin is a crucial spark to the spice nest of the ailing Henderson. “I have a feeling from it. Hell, it looks like the original place. It must be older than the city of Ur.” Even the dust had a flavor of great age, I thought, and I said, “I have a hunch this spot is going to be very good for me.”(Bellow 47). The home of the Arnewi tribe offers Henderson a place to essentially rebirth himself. Stripped down to the origin, Henderson’s intense longing finally dissipates, and he is granted the potential for redemption and renewal through both the woman of Bittahness Willatale and Mtalba. With Willatale, Henderson is able to find some manner of the remedy he seeks, “Grun-tu-molani. Man want to live.”(Bellow 85). As revealed by Wiilatale Henderson seeks life, and when Mtalbaegomaniacal tendencies to stall his quest. The mythology of destruction following the convivial beginnings requires little in the way of analyzing. Henderson must engage himself in the next stage of the Phoenix’s life if he is to complete his heart’s remedy.
Upon entering the land of the Wariri and meeting with King Dahfu, Henderson is allowed another chance at rebirth. Faced with a king who is as much a captive of his people, Henderson takes it upon himself to once more set the world right by his standards. In moving the statue of Mummah, Henderson exposes himself to the stage of rape in his relationship with the mythic. In becoming Sungo, the rain king, Henderson begins his process of burning. “My spirit was awake and it welcomed life anew. Damn the whole thing! Life anew!”(Bellow 193). In the process of Henderson’s renewal, Dahfu reveals a similar Phoenix-like cycle of metamorphoses; his cycle revolving around the lion of course.
The external soul presented as an animal is but another expression of the phoenix cycle; “The lad dies as a man and comes to life again as an animal, the animal’s soul is now in him, and his human soul is in the animal.”(Frazer 830). It is of some interest then to mention Henderson’s connection with his swine. Swine are well known for their ability to suffer with great exaggeration, they are noisome, and they protest quite avidly. Henderson bears a certain resemblance to the swine he keeps, one might suggest he embodies the spirit of the swine before his quest for renewal. It is Dahfu’s interest then to help to convert Henderson to embody the lion; “And he took me for an instance, and was determined that I should absorb lion qualities from his lion.”(Bellow 254). For with Henderson’s promotion to sungo, Dahfu must look towards his potential successor. The ritualistic killing of the king in the face of impending weakness also serves to emulate the burning Phoenix, and it is a threat Dahfu takes quite seriously. But Henderson too has a need to be wary, should he take the king’s place, he will fall under the same mandate. Frazer expands on the subject of the ritualistic killing of the king, perhaps worse off is the Rain King himself; “The Khor -Adar Dinka told Dr. Seligman that when they have dug the grave for their rain-maker, they strangle him in his house…Even if a rain-maker is quite young he will be put to death should he seem likely to perish of disease.”(Frazer 326). Henderson’s lessons with Atti the lioness forward his own cycle of rebirth, in slow measures, this Tammuz is making his way out of the underworld.
As the Phoenix ends its existence in a fiery conflagration, so too does Henderson. Indeed, the spark given off from his disaster with the Arnewi people has grown ever so slightly. The near-constant reference to flames, burning or heat in the text supports Henderson’s immanent change. It is heat which provides the catalyst for change in Henderson’s time with King Dahfu, especially present is Henderson’s growing fever. At first a mild affliction, the fever has increased in severity and persistence by the time the hunt for Gmilo occurs. And it is the lion hunt which provides the all-consuming inferno that cocoons Henderson in his final change. Dahfu’s death as the result of the botched lion hunt propels Henderson into the fire. The very world he has come to integrate himself into has perished, and with the death of his “mentor” Henderson has no choice but to burn. As the Phoenix writhes in its sheaf of flames, so must Henderson in grief. The consuming fires do to Henderson what they did to Hercules, scorched by love the great hero succumbs to his pyre only to have the impurities of humanity burned away. What is left after such a conflagration? The makings of a god.
“…the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts which blasts all the noxious elements , whether spiritual or material… According to one theory the fire is a stimulant , according to the other it is a disinfectant; on one view its virtue is positive, on the other it is negative.”(Frazer 771). The purifying qualities of fire lend themselves well to Henderson’s transformation. Like the Roman Hercules, the endless need, the impurities, of Henderson have been done away with. When he is escorted back to the village, Henderson enters the stage of indifference with the mythical underworld he’s bound himself to. Isolation next to Dahfu’s body marks the period in the life-cycle of the Phoenix where none but ashes lay, after dying in the light of creation, the darker period of rebirth must commence. The stirrings of life within Henderson’s nest of ash occur when he claims the lion cub; following Pythagoras’s teachings, Dahfu;s soul has transmigrated from man to maggot to lion. What can be assumed is that the lion cub actually represents Henderson’s rebirth, once a pig he has become a lion. From the ruins of a dying king, there issues forth life. And it is this new life which Henderson zealously protects and carries with him back to America.
The final images left near the end of Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King is that of vitality and promise. The lion cub, child and even the image of Henderson prancing about at the novel’s end signal the completion of the Journey of Adonis, the emergence of Tammuz and the placement of Hercules among the stars. Henderson has brought fertility back to his kingdom, back to his heart which pleads and nags no more. The myth of the phoenix suits Henderson so well in the fact that death has no purchase. Life and death, cosmogony and eschatology, retreating a swine and emerging a lion, Henderson encapsulates the myth of the phoenix. And in the beauty of rebirth, the boorish American who suffered so exquisitely is able witness the wonder of the never-ending mythic. “Two smoothly gray eyes moved at me, greatly expanded into the whites-new to life altogether. They had that new luster. With it they had ancient power, too. You could never convince me that this was for the first time”(Bellow 339)
Works Cited
Bellow, Saul. Henderson the Rain King. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin, 1976. Print.
Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough. [Sioux Falls, SD]: Nuvision Publications, 2006. Print.
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