16

Orphaned Language: Traumatic

Crossings in Literature
and History
Cathy Caruth

Thus I had lost at once my mother and her language, the only inalienable treasures -
and yet alienated, the only inalienable and yet alienated treasures. Kateb Yacine (Khatibi,
2002: p. 159)

In a well-known passage in Plato's Phaedrm, Socrates speaks co the younger Phaedrus

of the dangers and sufferings of written words, which, unlike spoken ones, come easily
unmoored:

[O}nce a thing is pur in writing, the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over
the place, getting into the hands not only of those who understand it, but equally of
those who have no business with it; it doesn't know how to address the right people,
and not address the wrong. And as it is ill-created and unfairly abused it always needs
its parent to come to its help, being unable to defend or help itself. (Plato, 1961:
p. 521)

Writing, detached from its parent, the speaking subject, wanders off; and wander-
ing away from its source, it is open to the abuse of those who cannot understand it,
co being set adrift, unsupported, out of irs own context, to being in the wrong
place at the wrong rime . Writing is not, Socrates says, like irs "brother" speech, of
"unquestioned legitimacy," because irs capacity to wander away from its context also
allows it to lose or hide its original source - the intention of the speaker, irs true
meaning, co which it is no longer attached. The illegitimacy of speech's sibling,
writing, is also a potential loss of family resemblance, a distress which, in the inter-
pretation of this passage by the 20'h century philosopher and theorist, Jacques Derrida,
is identified as:

A Co111panion to Co111paratit·e Literature. First Edition. Edited by Ali Behdad and Dominic Thomas.
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
240 Cathy Caruth

"the distress of the orphan ... who needs not only an attending presence but also a
presence that will attend to its needs." (Derrida, 1981: p. 77)

Writing loses the security of the paternal authority of authentic speech, and thus Ther
exposes language to the uncertainty of an endless wandering among false interpreca~ Engl
tions, interested manipulations, and, potentially, a final loss of the very capacity for of th
communication for which speech originally came into the world. Davi
The pathos of language, as writing, Plato suggests, is this loss of presence and a nai
parentage. But it is also the danger of the orphan, "which, being nobody's son at the In D
instant it reaches inscription, scarcely remains a son at all and no longer recognizes io upon
origins" (Derrida, 1981: p. 77). Writing, here, is orphaned language, communicating origi
the distress and potentially dangerous loss of legitimacy, not only of writing itself, In
but also of all language affected by the possibility of rootlessness introduced into the a sto:
linguistic family tree. ing c
Plato tells a family story about language, in Phaedrus, in order to distinguish exarr
authentic speech from its illegitimate brother. But we may also hear a literary story dead
in this philosophical speech, in which writing emerges as a figure, the figure of the
(as "
orphan, a figure that transmits a rift, or an orphaning, a rupture within language, like
signified by writing, that may be far less knowable than the categories and distinc- (like
tions the philosopher describes. The rootlessness of the orphan, after all, is a threat the ,
and a possibility that not only writing but all language may be hiding, and it is this initi.
inner rift, this wound at the heart of language, to which the figure of writing, the from
orphan, would seem to bear witness. The story of language turning into figure, as it of tb
attempts to articulate what "writing" is, is also the story of an uprooting, for which of tb
not only "writing" but its figure, and perhaps, more generally, figuration itself, inad- relat
vertently may testify. over
If, as the Moroccan critic, philosopher and novelist Abdelkebir Khatibi suggests, -hi!
the difference between speech and writing marks the "internal bilinguilism of every into
language" (Khatibi, 2008: p. 157), then the figure of the orphan is also the figure of (the
a language always foreign to itself, doubled on itself and always drifting - or torn (DC
away- from the mother tongue. It is a figure, in other words, that evokes the foreign- - th
ness of a language to itself, in its capacity to wander from its home, from the unifying cion
basis of its meaning or reference, which is also the capacity for all of its elements to orp~
drift apart, segmented, misread or transformed as it drifts across boundaries and times. liter
The orphan, I would suggest, is thus the figure of"comparative" literature at the heart Eng
of any literature, the possibility for a single language to become the site of its own ):
"comparison." Is the figure of the orphan, we might ask, ever written in a single of r
language? What would it mean to read the "bilinguilism" of language within the pres
literature of a single "mother tongue"? And to what does this figure of the orphaning pres
of language- or the history of the orphaning at the heart of any language- ultimately whc
bear witness? What is the relation between the inner orphaning that may leave its fact•
marks upon all language, on the one hand, and, on the other, what we ordinarily refer en vi
to, in the histories of ourselves and of nations, as the loss of the mother tongue? itsel
Orphaned Lang11age 24 1

Part One. Men of Letters

T here is no better place ro as k these guesrions, I would suggest, than at the heart of
Ent:lish letters, in the work of an undoubted master of the English language - and
of the orphan story - Charles Di ckens. One of Dickens's most well-known works,
DJnd Copperfield, is the srory of an orphan who grows up to write his autobiography,
a nMrative in which the protago nist claims to trace the roots of his orphaned past.
In Di ckens 's text , the orphan story is also the story of a literary writer reflecting
upon his own roots and of a literary language that tells the srory of irs own
on,L:ination.
Indeed, at the center of this novel, which Dickens names as "his favorite child," is
,1 scory of abandonment and survival that many critics interpret as the fictional reteli-

in,L: of Charles Dickens' own childhood and his emergence as a literary writer (see for
ex,1mple Tick, 1969). Orphaned by the death of his father before his birth and the
dea th of his mother at the age of 10, David Copperfield is sent ro a blacking factory
Lls IV<lS Dickens), eventually finds his way back into a family (though not hi s own,

lil.:e Dickens , but that of his Aunt Betsey). and learning robe a copyist in the courts
(ltb: Di ckens ) eventually becomes a successful novelist. Turning from an orphan into
rhe wrirer of Dat•id Copperfield, Dickens 's favorite child, David Copperfield - whose
iniri als mirror and reverse those of Charles Dickens- could be said to figure the shift
from illegitimacy ro legi timac y, from the child separated from his mother to a master
of rhe mother tongue . Likewise, the novel itself turns, as a figure, from the language
t)t' rhe orphan to the language of the "favorite child." The o rphan here thusfigureJ the
rchHion between figure (David Copperfield) and referent (Charles Dickens), and m ore-
mer <lppears to bear wirness to what some refer to as the "trauma" of Dickens' life
- hi s ;lbandonmenr in the blacking factory at the age of 12 - as it is precisely turned
imo th t• source of the mas ter of English letters. From the referent Charles Dickens
rrhc one who suffers early crauma) to the letters DC , or from the letters of an orphan
rDU ro the man of letters (CD), the text appears to situate and contain- co adopt
-· rhe figure of the orphan at the heart of the literary through the figural transfor ma-
t ion of a traumatic referent into the pleasurable wand ering of its protagonist. The
orphan, here, appears ro be the figure of the literary writer par excellence, and of a
lircrarure that would adopt tbe jig11re and thus recogni ze irself in irs own, uniquely
English, linguistic play.
Yet Ddl'id Copperfield also introduces another orphan, who is, himself, the doubl e
of David , and rhus, within rhe narrative, stages or fig ures Dav id Copperfield 's own
presumed mirroring of Charles Dickens. This is the eccentric and affable Mr. Dick ,
pres umed mad by all who meet him, 1 living under rhe protection of Aum Betsey, ro
,,·hom David Copperfield has finally escaped from his cruel stepfather and the blacking
I:Ictory, and who has also taken in this "distant relative " and saved him from an abusive
em·ironment just as she has done with David Copperfield. Mr. Dick's "madness" is
itself linked, by Aunt Betsey, to a trauma- his neglect and temporary confinement
242 Cathy Caruth

in an insane asylum after the death of his father and guardianship by his cruel brother hov
- and it is chis chat presumably prevents him from completing his "Memorial." But out
Mr. Dick's understanding of the interruption of his memorial in his own mind is
named only with the words "Charles the First," which keep unexpectedly entering poi
his text - a king whose "trouble" he believes has been put into his own head at the
his
rime chat the king was decapitated. Charles the First, a 17th century English King,
tha
had indeed lose his head because of the discontent of chose who felt his belief in the "th
divine right of kings and favoritism for Roman Catholics was interfering in the power ind
of the parliament and undermining the fair governing of his subjects. The reappear-
ance of his severed name in Mr. Dick's Memorial serves, itself, to cut off the possibility
of Mr. Dick's capacity to govern the narrative of his life. Mr. Dick is thus a second
orphan, represented not as the writer in progress, but as the one who cannot seem to sev•
write; not as the letters chat reflect an autobiographical identity, but as the name of
an impossible autobiography that undermines the continuity of the self.
If Mr. Dick appears as a double of David, then, he seems co move in the opposite Wfl
'i
direction in his own journey: rather than progressing forward, liked David, from Kit
orphaned youth to successful autobiographer and writer, Mr. Dick is an autobiographer
The~
who cannot complete his task and whose very attempt to do so seems to cause him to
regress co the past. At the moment David resumes the path to adulthood and success, Charl1
he encounters a man who seems to be moving in the opposite direction: who remains in Mem<
a regressed and child-like state, and whose repetitive breaking off of his narrative, as Th
Aunt Betsey will suggest, is an apparent repetition of an abusive past. Where David's which
autobiographical narrative emerges as the final conquest of his orphaned past, Mr. displa
Dick's memorial appears to be the site of an endless return co a past he has not simply in the
survived. Whereas David enacts a form of survival through his story, Mr. Dick intro- the UJ
duces a Memorial that carmot be written at che heart of the autobiographical text.

Part Two. Uprooted Words

What
What Mr. Dick is creating with his letters, as we discover, is not only one but two ration
texts, his unfinish(able) Memorial, and a kite, introduced at the first extended con- choug
versation berween David and Mr. Dick: broth
and h
"Well ," said Mr. Dick, in answer, "my compliments to her, and I- I believe I have made
a start. I think I have made a start," said Mr. Dick, passing his hand among his grey "H
hair, and casting anything but a confident look at his manuscript. You have been co she
school?" Wf(

"Yes, sir," I answered; "for a shore rime." cha

"'Do you recollect the date," said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and caking up hin
his pen to note it down, "when King Charles the First had his head cut off?" an}
I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forrynine.
"Well," returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking dubiously
at me. "So the books say; but I don't see how that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, illr.
Orphaned Language 243

how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble
out of his head, after it was raken off, into mine?"
I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information on this
point.
"It's very strange," said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his papers, and with
his hand among his hair again , "that I never can get that quite right. I never can make
that perfectly clear. But no matter, no matter!" he said cheerfully, and rousing himself,
"there's time enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well
indeed."
I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.
"What do you think of that for a kite ' " he said.
I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been as much as
seven feet high.
" I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and 1," said Mr. Dick. "Do you see this?"
He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and laboriously
wricren; bur so plainly, that as I looked along the lines I thought I saw some allusion to
King Charles the First's head again, in one or two places. " (Dickens, 1990[1850}: p. 177)

The writing of Mr. Dick's proper "Memorial" is interrupted by the appearance of

Charles the First's head, which, detached from its body, makes its way into the
Memorial and then onto the kite.
The Memorial, then, is the site of an interruption, the interruption of a trauma,
which, rather than being transformed into the figuration of a great autobiography,
displaces this work into a series of unread, unfinished writings. But these writings,
in their very unfinished state, are pasted onto the kite, itself, flying high, a figure of
the uprooted word.

Part Three. Autobiography as Be-Heading

What kind of document is this kite' Aunt Betsey has a theory, which binds the figu-
ration of the kite to the trauma of the Memorial that it displaces. She passes on her
thoughts to David after he has returned from his conversation with Mr. Dick. His
brother, it seems, "sent him away to some asylum-place," after the death of his father,
and his other remaining relative was pre-occupied in another manner:

"He had a favorite sister," said my aunt, "a good creacure, and very kind ro him. But
she did what they all do - rook a husband. And he did what they all do - made her
wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick (that's nor madness I hope!)
that, combined with his fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, ir threw
him inro a fever ... [T)he recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did he say
anything ro you about King Charles the First, child?"
"Yes, aunt."
"Ah!" said my aunt . .. "That's his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his
illness with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that 's the figure, or the simile,
2 Cathy Caruth
ofCh
or wllllrever it' call~. when he chooses ro usc. And why h uldn't he, if he rhinlu
proper! " (Dickens, 1990{ L 50}: p. L 9) not s
-an<
For Aunt Bersey, che traumatic return of rhe head is an "alle ory" for rhe abusive past and t
of Mr. Dick- indeed for his orph ning t che h nds o his brother. Bur the allegory
may also, she says, be a "simile," nd indeed the cutting off of the head is precisely a
imile of the cutting off from the family char Mr. Dick h under one, well . we
might add, rhe figure for rhe curring off of the name of h rles rhe First ch t inter-
rupts the authorirati e rendering of che rory of "Mr. Dick." It may also be cucring- Yet t
o o the memory since in Dicken · hild'1 [Link] of Engwnd h place in the mouth a refi
of the about-co-be-beheaded King the final word "Remember!", cue o by rhe [Link]- in th
rating sword. no lc
The ecapir cion of harle the First is, indeed, n r only political and historical its si
event- rhe first decapitation o European kin -bur so a lingui ric evem, co the both
xreoc ch c it di rupts rhe continuity o divine urhoriry rhat Charles rhe Fir t had
rrribuced to hi name, and position, chrou h che nocion of the Icing's ivine righc.- "1
A Charles is cur off from a posicion of divine and policicaJ power, hi name, deprived lo
It
f ics original aurhoriry, floors off into English history, acrivin uninvited ar rhe ice
rh
of Mr. Dick's Mem rial, cuccing it off as rhe name was irs lf r mo ed, in bodily
incerruprion of soru from che urhoriry of rhe King. The rrawna is rhus nor simply
In tl
referential realiry bur a realiry char rakes way the frame o reference in which lan-
float
gua e i rooted, allowing the collective hi rory to confu e nd interrupt the private
frorr:
hi rory of rhe man eemed mad.J
diffe
The kire recei es this unwanted ignifier of Charles rhe First (or hi head) - rhe
the
signifier cur off from reference yet impo ing rrnum tic ruprure over nd over ain
doul
- meroynmically, it is moved act rhe room from rh desk to the seven-foot high
ofd
omposirion of pasted heers, "the old I es of bortive Memorial " {Dickens
char
19 0( l 50): p. l 9). At rhe end o their con ersacion Mr. Dick, indeed, turn David
T
rom hi unfini hed tome:
Mr.
going y, when he dirtcc~ my attention to the kite. Did
"Wh t do you think of th c for !cite ?~ he id. ima;
I nsw red rh t it was beauti ul one. I h uJd think it mwr h r: been much us
seven feet high. It
"I made it. We'll •o and fly it, you and I," aid Mr. Dick. "Do you ec this?" u
He showed me chat it was cover~ with manuscript, very closely and laboriowly d
rirren; bur so plainly, that I looked along the lin , r chou he I saw some a!Jwion J\
ro King harlcs the First' head gain. in one r rwo places. I<
"Th re's plenry of rring," id Mr. Dick, "and when it Hie high, ic takes the(; crs I<
y. Th c' my manner of diffusin 'em. I don't know where rh y m y come down. s
It' ordin to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my ch n e f 11
that.- (Dickens, 1990[ 1850]: p. 177 )

Jn irs reception of rhe p ge wirh Charles the Firsr' name, the kire rv as nether
0
doubl in rhe cext, a kind of double of che MemoriaL For rhe kite, roo, like the head
r Orphm1ed Lang11age 245

of Charles the First and like the Memorial that his name imerrupts, appears as a place
not simply of meaning but of action- "Well go and fly it, you and 1," says Mr. Dick
- and an action that also, in its own way, reenacts the uprootedness of rhe history,
anJ rhe name, ir carries upon ir.

Part Four. Floating Signifiers

Yer rhe reappearance of Charles rhe First's name on the kite is also a rransformarion,
a refiguring of the language of trauma itself, or of the silencing of language reenacted
in the Memorial by the name (and performative "simile") of Charles the First. It is
no longer simply rhe return of the event, a cutting-off rhar imposes its violence, and
irs silence, again and again upon the author, but rather the floating of a signifier that
both repeats, and displaces, the violence of the original event:
I',;

'There's plenty of string," said Mr. Dick, "and when it flies high , it rakes the facts a
long way. That's my manner of diffusing'em. I don't know where they may come down.
It's according ro circumstances, and the wind, and so forrh; but I cake my chance of
chat. " (Dickens, 1990[1850])

In the movement from inside the room co outside in the air, the signifying kite also
tloats rhe facts rhar return incessantly as rhe cut-off name of the King. Moving
from facts that return to facts that tloat up and land by chance, the kite becomes a
different kind of memorial, a literary testimony that, in figuring the very uprooting of
the trauma, also frees the figure from rhe rerurn of the past. The kire, in its very
doubling of the Memorial, does not confme, but dijftms, and thus replaces the certainty
of the violent repetition of uprooting with the uncertainry of the rootless freedom of
chance.
The kite rhus serves as a new kind of figure, though it is not a form of language
Mr. Dick can enrirely possess. For at the moment that the kite fli es, in the text, Mr.
Dick, himself, rises up with the pasted sheets, in the eyes of the watching boy, who
imagines the older man's mind up in rhe sky as well :

It was quite an affecting sig ht, I used to think, to see him with the kite when it was
up a great height in the air. What he had told me, in his room, about his belief in its
disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were nothing bur old leaves of abortive
Memorials, might have been a fancy with him sometimes; bur not when he was out,
look ing up at rhe kite in the sky, and feeling ir pull and rug at his hand. He never
looked so serene as he did then. I used ro fancy, as I sat by him of an evening, on a green
slore , and saw him watch the kite high in the 4uiet air, that it lifted his mind out of
its confusion, and bore it (s uch was my boyish thought) into rhe sk ies. As he wound
the string in, ami it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it
fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed ro wake gradually
out of a dream; and I remember to have seen him take it ur. and look about him in a
2 6 athy Camth

c' if rh had bach orne down co erh r, so ch c I piued him wtth oH my heart. The
i ken , 19 [1850): p. 189) the aut

T: king Mr. Dick' mind up inro che kie , rhe kite become , in chi cene, in rhe Ada
boyish '"fancy" f the wicnes ing David, sire u n which rhe author o rhe Memorial info
i him elf borne up. The kire her i another double, supplemencary fi uce of the and
uprooted I ngu ge ch c no longer o ers i elf simple referent or ign, chat B cs SIX
o with r. Dick' mind while a! o ru ging, by its cring, r Mr. Dick' h nd. Mr. birr
Di k, on rhe kire, indeed rries with him both Da id and Dicken , who no longer
create rh I nguage chat repre ems rheir orphaning, bur become vehicle , r fi uc , The I
of the orphaned language char lso, in these rexr , tells irs own tory f vulnerability Docto
01nd urvival. 1 E caping rhe incarceration of the room, rhe kire floats our of rhe frame -also
f rhe no el ir carries wich ir, in ir trange figuration n unwriccen tory of rhe impm
fragility, and urvi al, o the lirerory, of literature a.J the (unwriroble) cory of irs own by th
impos ible urvi al. is tie<
origir
- the
Part ive. Icing for Root Engli
withi
How do we undersr nd the tory chi literary [Link] , which eems t end in th unfin
re c, wh n et the kite comes down? For David pities Mr. Dick, whenever he " .. . story
wound rhe tring in, and ic l-'llm lower nd lower down our o the beautiful li •hr y(
unci! it fluttered to rhe >round, and lay there like dead chin "(Di kens, 1990[ l 50): roots
p. 1 9). When it hie the ground the kire, now like dead thing ppears ro I e rhe of th
uty and freedom of the literary th r ir o r pte nc it come up ain r the the 1
hard facts o an unpleasant reality. Yet the I n uage of the literary, it appears, carries
on po thumous li e through the [Link] Mr. Dick's clo e friend, th holar, T
Dr. trong, ~ ho is the h d D i ' hoot. Where Mr. Dick likes to look up. an a1

end o rhe uproot d kite, Dr. cron • likes ro look down, in \ hat appears to be h
ery di rene kind a
a
I lt:arnc . ... hnw rhe r'rs c:o ••ratin, manner cui bur hie ro hi being alwu fi
t:"l,>a•r:J in looking ut for reck root ; ' hi h, in my inn en e nd ignorance. I sup- v
posed ro be bot ni I furor on the Doccor' pMC, e ially as he lway looked ar the
•round hen h w lked about - unnll understood rhat rb y were roots o rtls, ' ith
a view co new ictionary, which he had in conrempl tion. (Dicken , 2Q0<)(1850):
pp. -05-6)

The tl tin kire I nels on the •round of rhe "roor," nm the olid ground o t bur
rarher rh pi e of another hj rory, rhe hi tory I nguage itself it depart from its
o n forei'" roots and arrives in the langua •e rh t constirute the Mem ri I, rhe kire
and the no el ir elf. The rory o D id nd Mr. Di k, o h r1 Di kens nd f rhe Mr
literary ' ricer, i ins ribetl in the posthumous lifo of /an ua t An
hi roricity o the figure chat has fJurcered ro rhe ground.
Orphaned Lcmg!lage 2-17

The Dictionary, inJeed, se rves as yet another double, a different kind of Jouble of
rhe autobiographical cask:

Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was
informed, of the rime this Dictionary would cake in completing, on the Docror's plan,
and at the Doccor's rare of going. He considered that it might be done in one thousand
six hundred and fort y- nine years, couuting from the Docror's last , or sixty-second ,
birthday. (D ickens, l ')90[1 H50]: p . .:>06)

The Dicrionary, like the Memorial, is impossible to complete, at lease within the
Doctor's lifetime. But rhe number of years that indicates chis impossible cask- 1649
- also links the Dicrionary co the cutting off of Charles the First's head , making the
impossibility of the Memorial, anJ the impossibility of the Dictionary, bound rogether
by the strange temporality char markeJ the beheading. The hisroricity of language
is tied, through chis dace, w the posthumous history of the loss of rhe head, of rhe
origin and of the ground of amhority, transferring the hisrory to which language refers
- the history of the King , of Mr. Dick anJ of Dickens - ro the historicity of the
English language as it passes on the untold story of its own uprooted past. Containing
within it yet ;mother (shortened) namesa ke of Mr. Dick, the Dic-tionary is also an
unfinished (or unfinishable) Memorit!l to lallg,lttlge that c1nnot seem simp ly ro cell rhe
story of irs roots."
Yet the Dictionary is also a double of the kite, because Or. Strong 's searc h for Greek
roots puts Mr. Dick once again in tlight , and in parti cu lar, in tlight on the "wings"
of the Greek root. For Mr. Dick is rhus often found walking alongside the Donor in
rhe garden, hat in hand:

This veneration Mr. Dick extended ro the Docror, whom he thought the most subtle
and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before Mr. Di ck ever spoke co
him mherwise than bare-headed; and even when he and the Docror had struck up quire
•t friend ship, and would walk together by the hour .. , Mr. Dick would pull off his hat
at interval s , , . How it ever came about, that the Doctor began ro read oUt scraps of the
famous Dictionary, in these walks, I never knew . .. However, ... Mr. Dick, listening
with a t:tce shining with pride and pleasu re, in his heart ofhe<1rtS believed rhe Dictionary
ro be the mosr delightful book in the world.
As I think of them going up ,ltld down before those school-room windows-the
Doctor reading with his complacent sm ile. an occasional tlourish of rhe manuscript, or
grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick li stening, enchained by interest. with his poor
wits calmly wandering God knows where, upon rhe wings of hard words- I think of it
as one of the pleasantest things .. , that I have ever seen. (Dickens. l ')90[ I HSO} :
pp. 21 H-l '))

J\lr. Dick's pleasure in the Dicrionary doubles and echoes his pleasure in rhe kite .
And specifically, it seems, when the Diccionary leaves English and goes to the roots
- which is where, at rhe roots, Mr. Dick begins once again to soar: "and Mr. Dick
248 Cathy Caruth

listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering ... upon the The nu
wings of hard words." Flying on wings, Mr. Dick is flying not simply in English, forwarc
but in Greek-and specifically Homeric Greek, since "winged words" is a translation own U[
of em::a 7t'tEp6€V'ta (epea pteroenta) - one of the most common Homeric formulaic
epithets. 6 The figure here, by introducing the semantic meaning of the Homeric
metrical phrase (and dead metaphor) "winged words" as a figure for Mr. Dick's
listening (Mr. Dick's wits soar, as he listens, on the "wings of hard words"), suggests
that it is the foreign word chat lifts him, and precisely turns him into the head of I wa
the kite, into the signifier let loose from a single meaning- or language. He becomes
a figure himself, operating in the text as a site of the foreign within language that Thi
is also the heterogeneity of its own linguistic history. Untrained, himself, in foreign is insc
languages, we must assume that Mr. Dick listens, and flies along, with the sound birth,
of the roots, with the sound of the letters, a foreignness of the letter and of the alien have I
within English, an alien nature of a language that, in its wandering, interrupts his was n
own writing and marks him as mad, and yet also lets him fly along, carelessly, with (Dicke
the kite. 7 ning <
It is, however, not only Mr. Dick but also the passage in the novel David Copperfield of am
that gives a kind of posthumous life to the dead metaphor of "winged words," a future
metrical but meaningless formula in Homeric Greek chat comes alive belatedly in
Dickens's text. The phrase "winged words" is, in this text, itself uprooted and I "
get
orphaned, though it lives on posthumously in Dickens's novel. The roots of the words
151
turn out to be a dead metaphor with a past already lost to literary history, to a philol-
tar.
ogy that can only search for, but never simply arrive, at the roots to which it also
pal
gives belated life. Mr. Dick and Dr. Strong, in their friendship, which is also a shared
philo-logia, love of words, create not so much a scientific archive of the origin of words Salee
than the Homeric epic of war and wandering that constitutes the rootlessness and fictio
upheavals, the deaths and lives of literary languages. The word "orphan" itself comes
Copf
from Greek roots and remains, in English, a transliteration of Greek letters, thus exist:
inscribing in the very story of the orphan, which is the story of Dick and David,
Copr
Dickens and the Dictionary, another posthttmom Memorial of the literary as it survives chan
iri irs own unfinished autobiography.
on A
The Dictionary too, then, along with the kite- as both linguistic archive and liter- from
ary testimony - pass out of the containment of the novel and inscribe its language
upon them. As signifiers chat are no longer contained by the referent of a single life 0
or the sign of a single figure, these rootless letters retain some of the foreignness in n
their own signification. The men of letters, coo, searching to discover their roots, as
doubling and redoubling each other, find themselves inscribed on the kite they can
never pin down, telling a story of vulnerability and survival. Mr. Dick indeed finds a 1
place on the kite for another name as well, that of Dr. Strong: plac
Indi
I have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the kite, along the string, when it has also
been in the sky, among the larks. The kite has been glad to receive it, sir, and the day that
has been brighter with it. (Dickens, 1990[ 1850}: p. 5 50) orp
Orphaned Lang11age 249

The novel itself, like the characters in it, becomes the figure on the kite that takes it
forward in a history in which it, roo, will achieve significance at the moment of its
own uprooting.

Part Six. Midnight's Children

I was a posthumous child. (Charles Dickens, 1850)

This moment, we might argue, this unknowable history in which David Copperfield
is inscribed, pervades the entire novel, starring from David 's "recording" of his own
birth, at a tmly unlocatable moment, a time in between times: "I was born (as I
have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock, at night. It
was remarked that the clock began co strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously"
(Dickens, 1990(1850}: p. 9). For this beginning, this birth of the orphan and begin-
ning of the orphan story, begins again, posthumously, in another text, with the birth
of another orphan in another country, who is born, like David, between past and
future:

I was born in the city of Bombay ... once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no
getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August
15th, 1947. And the time> The time matters, roo. Well then: at night . No, it's impor-
tant to be more ... On the stroke of midnight , as a matter of fact. Clockhands joined
palms in respectful greeting as I came. (Rushdie, 2006(1981}: p. 3)

Saleem Sinai, the protagonist of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, begins his own
fictional autobiographical narrative as an orphan born at midnight, like David
Copperfield, and thus names himself as another double of the character who already
exists in the form of his many literary doubles . If the origin - the roots - of David
Copperfield's autobiography are doubled, here, they are doubled by a time (and a
character) that are themselves irrevocably split, since the night of Friday, at midnight,
on August 15th, 194 7, has a historical significance that is also the splitting of India
from England:

Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the prtcise instant of India's arrival at independence, I
tumbled forth inro the world. There were gasps. And , outside rhe window, fireworks
and crowds. (Rushdie, 2006[1981}: p . .))

The moment of midnight, the mark of the time, does not occur, any longer, in a
place in which a narrative can begin, bur is the origin of two places, the independent
India and the England no longer defined by its subcontinental colonization. It is
also, of course, the time of another splitting, the Partition into India and Pakistan
that takes place nearly simultaneously with Independence. The beginning of one
orphan narrative is thus repeated as a double splitting: the story of a new literary and
250 othy Camth

hi corical tory chat precisely d fines icself o er gainsc che namui e o colonial rule Tht
chac also framed che background o Dickens' text . anum
Thi i 1 o, we mi be rhus u •e c, the tory of a lingui ric plic wirbin the liter- the pr
ary language o En lish ir elf, ir los rhe auchoriry f rhe arem I colonizer's bound
tongue ( ee h roft, 2000) co become langua e wich the same Jeerers, bur uprooted
nd passing inm new, and different, policical concext, the conrexr o a new ·• peLt- Yes
In;
ing": "Oh, spell ic our, peU ic our: r rhe preci e inscanr of India's rrival r independ-
not
ence." The story of che orphan from within rhe English canon thus r pears it elf, or
urvives, pre isely t che moment o che plic within the I nguage and rhe hi rory
The c
rhac also uproots the narrati e of aleem from rh tradition rh t lives on posthumously
and i·
wichin ic.
that 1
En li h is rhus " pelted" anew. And Rushdie's novel m y indeed, eil Ten
earn~
Korrenaar argu , "implicitly (make] the claim char English is now an Indi n I n-
of its
ua e" (Kortenaar, _oo : p. 167). Bur chjs laim occurs nor only through a historical
langt
ace char can be located within n rrarive char the novel recounrs, but by the y in
futur
~ hich the literary texr becomes the new ire of an orphanin o Engli h char was
nam1
Iready at work in Dickens's text. The ucobi raphical child at the center of Aiidnight's
bind
Children i indeed also an orphan nd an orph n who, like his councr(ie ), is splir in
Abdo
cwo: e m inai, baby who i born ro a Hindu mother bur who is ecrecly witched
200:
uc birth with ch baby of a Muslim mother, gro' ing up in che househould of a mily,
a po
, nd with a cher, char is nor hi . the hild of che coloni Methwold who leave
a po
the country at independence, and a morher wich whom he is nor rai ed, aleem'
imp
rph nin also embodi the viol nee of coloni I history nd the craum o the
Pan:id n that coi ncided wirh [ndia' liberocion, rhe croum tic ch n e of Hindus
and Muslims cro s che new Partition line. c the heart o rhe figure of che "children
of midni he" is rhus n orphan who si nifi in an Engli h no lon er given
"mother tongue": who enacrs lingui ric split, within Engli h, th t is also the mark
of hi coricaJ rrouma th t cann t be named in any sin rle language. Midni hr' chil-
dren, in ocher words, are th orphan figures ch c cann r seccle in che mother tongue
or the farherl:tnd.

Part v n. rphan f the lmpo ible

Rushdie' text, like Dickens' , i also aid co be aurobio raphkal, nor only in irs fic-
tional form c bur also in relation to the urhor wh e trace may be found chrou hour
the novel. Yet rhe posthumous child :tr the heart of chis text, which borh carrie with
ic, nd unmoors, rhe history that ic tell , i n t co be limited to characters or urhors
but muse also be un ersrood rh literary langu e itself, orph ned in a world in
which langu ges nd hi tories bear che mark o the rraum they both arricipare in
an record . The orph n-figure - which is also the figure of literature - ulrimarely
bears witness to cbe internal and exrem l split between Ian u es, the fa t rh c we
peak "only one" and "ne er only one" language (Derrida, 199 : p. 7).
251
Orpbaned Lallglltlge

The death, and life, of literary language, as it passes through history, may rhus be
an underlying figure in the final words of Midnight's Children, which also prophecies
the protagonist's own death and the future of his posthumous children, potentially
bound co a similar t~1te:

Yes, they will trample me underf{)ot ... reducing me to specks of voiceless dust, JUSt as,
in all good time, they will trample my son who is not my son, and his son who will
not be his, ,mJ his who will not be his .. (Rushdie, 2006{1981}: p. ))'\)

The dispossession of the paternal line, here, is named simultaneously as destruction

and inheritance.H In this literary ending, we are told of the possibility of a language
that may survive precisely because it is inherently parted from itself, and because it
carries within it the historical marks of an impossible history that is also the history
of its own rootless past and future. The orphan figure, I would suggest, split between
languages, allows the protagonist to speak at the very moment he names his own
future silencing. The orphan bears witness, as such, to a history that may only be
named in orphaned words. Tied with the string of Mr. Dick's kite - the string that
binds and a umbilical cord that is always cut - these languages "burst forth," as
Abdelkebir Khatibi writes, "in the historical churning between peoples" (Khatibi,
2002: p. 158). We may see in the many languages that lie at rhe heart of all language
a possibility of literature that also lives on precisely in its orphaning, that carries on
a posthumous life as the literatures chat are also, in Khatibi's words, "orphans of the
impossible" (Khatibi, 2008: p. 120).

NoTES

Polhemus). Dickens was known to have an

Although Mr. Dick, when he is considered hy
01ftinity for the meld as well as a concern tor
critics at all (which is rare), is often referred to
their plight (see France, 2002). Rich••rd D,,dd
as "mad," or an "idor" (see for example
had killed his tinher, cmd in a very circuitous
Marchb,,nks, 200<'i), Aunt Betsey insists that
w••Y we might argLte for the "parricidal" de-
he is nor and C~ttributes his behavior to his
ments of the orphan figure via this ,,ssociarion
,,buse at the hands of his brother and his
(ami through Mr. Dick's elimination of his
response to his sister's abuse. He h,td been
surname). An outstanding essay on Mr. Dick
incarcerated in Bedlam, it appears, ,1nd his
links him m Charles Dickens through the lat-
.1ssociarion with m••dness from that perspective
ter's experience of the blacking factory, of
could be read, in the conrexr of this ;lrticle,
which he said, in his own broken-off autobiog-
with the incarceration of his speech and rhe
raphy, that neither he nor his parents had ever
madness of the langU<lge of whe1t he himself
spoken of these events until the day of the
describes as a "mad mad world." Robert
,wrobiography (which, like Mr. Dick, he does
Polhemus suggests in a hscinating piece that
not write, substituting t(Jr it, in Tick's argu-
Mr. Dick is an allusion to Richard Dadd, an
ment. the novel -thus bringing the novel very
;lCquainrance of Charles Dickens who W<LS
close to the kite from chat perspective as well)
imprisoned in Bedlam and who produced a
(see Tick, I ')<'i')). See also Anatole France on
masterful painting of O.n•iJ Coppcrfircl (see
252 Cathy Camth

Dickens and the mad. Regarding rhe question interesting (coincidentally) chat che Oxford
of Mr. Dick's incarceration, one might also English Dictionary was completed, famously,
consider che relation between che figure of with che help of a man incarcerated in an
incarceration in David Copperfold as discussed insane asylum (see Winchester, 2005). Ashcroft, B
brilliancly by David Miller (see Miller, 1989), 6 Milman Parry famously argued in the 20th The Cole
and extend chis figure co rhe incarceration of century char these epithets in Homer had Jacobson ,
language. On the more general association of purely metrical, rather chan semantic signifi- pp. 184-
literature and madness see Felman, 2003. cance (see Parry, 1971 ). Bennett, St
2 The execucion of King Charles che First was a 7 Lacer in the rexr, Mr. Dick decides to help Eikon E
radical event in the history of England, nor Aunt Betsey gee over her debt, into which she scevendt
only ending bur in ocher ways beginning years has fallen through the evil workings of Uriah charle!
of strife. After his beheading, Charles was Heep, by becoming a copyist to a law clerk. eikonocla
turned into a marryr by che church, with the This too echoes Dickens's own career. While Bocrurn, Joo
help of his own memorial written right before several critics have argued char Mr. Dick's David Co,
his execution (see Randall, 1947). Charles was copying of letters is a sign char he has been Nineteenth
himself, in chis sense, a cur-off autobiographer. "disciplined" into a capitalist form of labor and Cordery, G
See also Dickens, A Child's History of England, raken away from his more imaginative or tran- David C
on the execution of Charles che First and his scendent activities (see, for example, Cordery, Culture.
association wich the word "Remember!", 1998), it is clear chat Mr. Dick thinks of che 71-85 .
which Dickens pucs in his mouth as he is about money in ocher terms, arranging the first coins Derrida, Ja
co be beheaded (see also Tick, 1969; Dickens' he earns on a place in the form of a heart co Johnson ,
Tht Haunted Man). give ro Aunt Betsey. Mr. Dick also continues Press.
3 The confusion of personal and collective co move between the copying and the Derrida, J
history is a passing "joke" here (as Mr. Dick is Memorial, in a remarkable scene in which the Other or:
often seen as a bit of comic relief). However, it letters he copies are nor simply replacements Trans.).
opens co a larger question of trauma as a rela- for the memorial bur sic alongside the Dickens, (
tion to histories that are not possessed. Memorial and associate Mr. Dick with the lished, 1
4 The celation between Charles Dickens and written letter, a tradition in literature associ- London:
David Copperfield is, as was noced above, a aced with copyists of all sorts. Dickens, C
mirroring and inversion of letters, which cakes 8 While I have focused on the father-son- 1850). [
the form of a chiasmus, a traditional figure of wharever-Mr.-Dick-is in this line of inherit- Dickens, c
closure and roralizarion. Mr. Dick intervenes ance in both novels, I would like to note chat lished, .
in chis symmetrical figure with a new authorial the inheritance moves sidewise as well co a Bargain
namesake made of up cwo first names. He can series of women in both texts. Most interest- Dickens, 1
be understood in terms of the asymmecricaliza- ingly, the confusion of histories in Mr. Dick's lished,
rion of the chiascic, specular figure of autobi- life occurs not only between him and Charles Glouces
ography and with the supplement char he is the First, but also between him and Aunt Felman, S
and seems co keep producing. See also Tick on Betsey, who has also been abused in her past lished,
Dick Dick in The SetJen Poor Travellers with life by a previous husband. When Mr. D ick Philosop
reference co another man with cwo names who notices that she is being followed by someone Univen
is associated with a traumatic past. It should who scares her, he identifies che appearance of Forster, Jc
also be noted chat Mr. Dick is essentially a this man with the time that his own "trouble" Vol. I
belated first name (he replaces the paternal started in his head. The story of abuse and Lippinc
name, Babley, with his first name, Richard), trauma in the novel could also be passed France, A
rhus telling in a different way the story of the through the line of che sisters, and may be Ntw Er.
trauma. linked to Aunt Betsey's wish char David had Johnson,
5 The Oxford English Dictionary had been been born a girl. She roo, notably, changes her Traged)
scatted some years before che writing of David name back to her maiden name, removing the
Copperfold, though Dr. Strong's Dictionary may husband's name, and she refers to David as
also involve an allusion co Dr. Johnson. It is "Trotwood."
Orphaned Lang11age 253

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