Gene Wolfe by Michael Andre-Driussi

Author:Michael Andre-Driussi
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Sirius Fiction
Published: 2016-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Bear (Threshold) Killed By

Agilus (Death and Resurrection) Legal execution

Hildegrin (The Past) Apu Punchau

Alzabo (Fatherhood) Zoanthrops

Sorcerers (Sacrifice) Hethor’s pet

Master Ash (Ragnarok: the Future) Severian pulling him

Trainer (War) n/a

Bear-Man (Yesod) Severian stabbing him

The bears are linked to severity, whereas their polar opposites the big cats are linked to mercy/compassion. Once its gem casing is shattered (III, ch. 38), the Claw of the Conciliator is revealed to be a claw indeed, a claw which, by one account, appears to be that of a cat or bird (IV, ch. 8, 63) — even though it is ultimately shown to be a rose thorn, still there is this linking of Conciliator to cat; and when Severian becomes the Conciliator, he practices healing (like the Pelerines who carried the Claw; like the women-cats who carried Severian) and mercy, with fewer outbursts of severity (the storm of Os; the killing of Prefect Prisca), thus becoming more catlike (as opposed to being just anti-bear).

Because Severian (the wolf) is becoming the Conciliator (the cat), it is fitting that each threshold guardian be a bear (the polar opposite of the cat and the superior enemy of the wolf). This bear threshold is less a station of the cross than a position on the clock: an “hour of the bear” that is repeated over and over again. But this repetition is not that of a closed circle of stasis, nor an inward spiral of regression, instead it is an expanding spiral of progressive evolution.

Starting from the resonances of one puzzling scene I have traced a hidden structure to the Urth Cycle, a series of bearish threshold guardians who recede into the background, yet continue to mark the personal growth of Severian. The inclusion of both the magicians and Agia within the initial quote for this essay seems far more than merely an allusion to the bearers of claw-like weapons, rather, it is a powerful link to the polar opposites of bear and big cat.

****

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. Viking Penguin: New York, 1976. [paperback]

Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. Philosophical Library: New York, 1962.

Wolfe, Gene. The Shadow of the Torturer. Simon & Schuster: New York, 1980.

———. The Claw of the Conciliator. Simon & Schuster: New York, 1981.

———. The Sword of the Lictor. Simon & Schuster: New York, 1981.

———. The Citadel of the Autarch. Simon & Schuster: New York, 1983.

———. The Urth of the New Sun. Tor: New York, 1987.

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