Geek Love: Arturism and the Salvation of Deformity

One of the most interesting ideas put forth in Katherine Dunn's novel Geek Love is the notion of salvation through deformity. Particularly compelling is the psychology of a mass of “normal” (young, healthy adults that do not suffer from mental illness as outlined by Arty’s rules on page 228) people being interested in something like drastically physically altering themselves. Dunn’s exploration of the freakshow reveals the freakery within normal populations. I didn’t even find it to be necessarily unbelievable, since I make no assumptions about the limits, if there are any, that people will go to in order to escape misery, insecurity or even boredom. But I did find it to be disturbing, which was likely Dunn's intent. The carnival spotlight is turned back toward the audience, to the so-called “normal”. In many ways their experiences are normal, and completely relatable, which is what makes the cult so disturbing.

The “normal” people who visit the carnival are unhappy enough with their lives as regular human beings to go through with amputations of their physical limbs and other physical mutilation in the hope of overcoming “regular’ human suffering and achieving some other state of being; Peace, Isolation and Purity. Perhaps few things are more isolating and peaceful than being lobotomized. What Dunn reveals through this religion/cult is the overwhelming amount of pain that comes along with mere existence. The “normal” people in her novel are tortured, to the point where their very normalcy is called into question; is it “normal” to be so full of pain that you’re willing to annihilate your physical capabilities in order to escape it? The question of normal is hard enough to answer, and this novel does nothing to clarify the term, however if it isn’t “normal” to be so distressed then an argument could be made that the transformation of the Admitted’s bodies is merely a reflection of the internal “freak” that exists in every one of them; the truly “normal” people would, naturally, scoff or respond in horror to the idea that cutting off their legs would make them more capable of surviving happily in the world.

Yet, this idea is not completely foreign, it’s sort of the inverse of a more widely, quietly held belief. The experience of the world through the point of view of “not-normal” people is perceived by “normals” as somehow enhanced; Arty recognizes this perception and exploits it. If the idea did not exist before his church came along, his church would never have worked at all. He says; “We have this advantage, that the norms expect us to be wise... Freaks are like owls, mythed into blinking, bloodless objectivity. The norms figure our contact with their brand of life is shaky. They see us as cut off from temptation and pettiness... And the more deformed we are, the higher our supposed sanctity” (Page 114). So the amputation of their limbs is their attempt to reach the sanctity of the freaks they observe; whether this is successful is debatable. In addition, the idea of permanently occupying the “sick role”, which involves relinquishing personal responsibility and self-care, can perhaps be tempting to overwhelmed people who are longing to escape their lives. It’s a state that mirrors that of royalty; they live “the lives of gold-plated pumpkins: bathed, fed and wheeled around by servants” (229). Sounds understandably tempting, but one has to be truly miserable to consider this state beyond a momentary fantasy.

Arty talks of the balance between hope and risk (115-6) and clearly the misery must be profound for such risks to be taken. The hope is the escape from it, based on the idea that physically deformed people are insusceptible to the insecurities of “normal” living because they already exist outside of the boundaries; they are either invisible or lauded, but not quite viewed as “human”, at least not in the same way as everyone else. They are freaks that have a different reality. What is the nature of "normal" reality, that which is so grotesque people do everything they can to flee it? It's quite mundane, but that doesn't make it painless. The first lady is lured in by this speech:

“You just want to know that you’re all right. You just want to feel all right... That's all you need other people's love for... So, let’s get to the truth here! You don’t want to stop eating! You love to eat! You don’t want to be thin! You don’t want to be beautiful! You don’t want people to love you! All you really want is to know that you’re all right! That’s what can give you peace! If I had arms and legs and hair like everybody else, do you think I’d be happy? NO! I would not! Because then I’d worry did somebody love me! I’d have to look outside myself to find out what to think of myself! And you! You aren’t ever going to look like a fashion queen! Does that mean you have to be miserable all your life? Does it? Can you be happy with the movies and the ads and the clothes in the stores and the doctors and the eyes as you walk down the street all telling you there is something wrong with you? No. You can’t. You cannot be happy. Because, you poor darling baby, you believe them” (178).

Arty’s trick is that he understands their psychology so well that he can accurately isolate all of their fears, hopes, and desires. Once they are vulnerable, once he has made them feel vulnerable, and desperate, they are open to his manipulation and suggestion. It’s similar to the trick that is used in advertising, exposing people’s weaknesses and then claiming to have the ability to fill them, which is something that humans are definitely vulnerable to. Dunn only really changes the scale of the solution, from buying whitening toothpaste or joining Jenny Craig to complete physical mutilation, but she doesn’t change the scale of the problem of Western human misery, which I find to be realistically portrayed. Perhaps that is why it’s so disturbing.