The Other’s Intrusion

by Wim Staat

Picture an elderly white man in a Polynesian beach cabin. The movie camera registers palm trees,clear blue water,and sandy beaches. These seem the conditions of luxu- rious retirement. In this film,however,exotic surroundings do not provide the protago- nist with the comforts of a tourist resort. In fact,the man would likely consider himself less a tourist than a traveler. His wanderings are purposeful; the stakes are high. He may consider himself a soul searcher,attempting to migrate from the familiarity of his home toward a landscape in which a new identity can be imagined. He may want to invest in dreams of a new life. But there will be no payoff. Picture no romantic reward. He will be shown destitute, unable to author his own life. His dreams will be night- mares, his imagined migrations haunted by sleeplessness. In the real places of his travels, our protagonist will be confined to his bed. Is this a migratory setting? This essay will argue that the bed is indeed a real place of imaginative migration. I claim that the imagined identity of the protagonist is real and inescapable for him. Yet,the protagonist will not be the originating subject of his own imaginings.

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