The Gypsy Caravan by Malvinni David;

Author:Malvinni, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Woman disarms the touchstone of philosophy, the term “truth,” for in her distancing (her essence) which veils/covers, woman proposes the moment of the “untruth of truth.”16 We could add that womans distancing violates the principle of contradiction, what Kant calls “the universal, though merely negative, condition of all our judgments in general.”17

But what interests us here is the thinking of woman as Gypsy? Gypsy woman: what does she name? If distance is an out-distancing, what kind of distance is indicated by the song of the Gypsy, possible only through its reverberations in the off-stage chorus? The echoing occurs from off-stage, never on the scene, throwing into permanent disarray the fictional status of the work as a song cycle.

For Janáček, the seduction by Zefka cannot be untruth or non-identity—rather, these terms apply to Jans previous farming life, as in the ox and its cart. Woman, from a distance exercises a power to mold a man’s being. Through her closeness to earth (song eleven), Zefka transcends the settled life of the non-Gypsy in the dialectical process of Hegelian aufheben through pleroma, the excess of love beyond calculation.

Forgiveness, Pleroma, and Aufhebung

The figure of Zefka can be compared with Mary Magdalene, the prostitute who loved Jesus. Through their disruption of the reciprocity of the oath, both Zefka and Magdalena are the promise of a transcendent forgiveness outside of and beyond the law.18 In the house of the Simon, Mary anoints the feet of Jesus with an oily balm: Jesus says “for this reason I tell you that her sins, her many sins, are forgiven her, because she loved much. But one who is forgiven little loves little.” Derrida comments that “the extreme of love inundates, the pleroma always gives cause for action.”

In his love of Zefka, Jan’s actions go beyond (aufhebt) the law. He steals from another woman, his sister, not knowing whether or not the act is wrong. Jans love for his sister remains within the confines of the law — he has not yet experienced pleroma with regard to his natural family. Only through his new Gypsy family is he capable of freedom, where an act is no longer subject to the rules of the law, but is motivated by pure love.19 Thus Jan steals, but his conscience remains mute.

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