Alan Brooks LIT4184-01 04/03/13 New Ireland, New Hell: Science, Philosophy, and Politics in The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien's novel, The Third Policeman, takes the traditional Christian theology and Irish politics out of their context in the real world and blends them with 20th Century science and philosophy to create a hellish, dystopian world. Literary critics have explored this novel's relation to the works of Dante, Yeats, and Einstein and its position in the literary tradition as a post-modern Menippean satire. Less has been written about the philosophical and political implications of that satire with regard to O'Brien's understanding of history and his vision of the future. This paper attempts to look at the philosophical and political allegories and symbols in O'Brien's novel and understand their significance in the real world. O'Brien constructs a world in The Third Policeman that very closely resembles our own but with an alternative history and some different rules for time and space (a technique used by many science fiction writers). He has essentially created a parallel universe or alternate reality in which a scientist named de Selby has posited new theories of physics which include a world shaped like a sausage (with time moving around its circumference) and that the universe is made of a substance called omnium. These minor differences between the real world and the world of The Third Policeman allow O'Brien to play with traditional theology while covertly critiquing Irish politics. While O'Brien draws heavily on classical philosophers and writers, he does not simply recycle their works. Instead, he stands them on their heads and blends them with more modern thoughts. This is particularly clear in the novel with regard to philosophy in general and Catholic tradition in particular. The hell described in The Third Policeman is certainly not (as Maciej Ruczaj points out) Dante's hell, nor is it Milton's or Yeats'; it is instead a new conception of damnation incorporating modern ideas. It seems that there are four primary sources from which O'Brien draws in order to construct his hybrid philosophy. The first is Catholic Christian tradition, the second is the mysticism of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the, the third is Freudian psychology, and the last is Einstein's new theoretical physics. The allusions to Catholic tradition in O'Brien's work have been thoroughly discussed by other literary critics and O'Brien's fascination with Einstein's theories is well documented. However, the connections to Freud and the Golden Dawn have gone largely unmentioned. The connections to the Golden Dawn in The Third Policeman are subtle and yet significant points to address when discussing the novel's philosophical and political symbolism. The popularity of the Golden Dawn peaked at the end of the 19th Century and was ebbing when O'Brien penned The Third Policeman. However it was still having a reverberating effect in both England and Ireland. William Butler Yeats (who died in 1939 as O'Brien was writing this novel) had been a leader in the secretive and mystical organization until around the turn of the century but by the 1930s much of the mysticism (and Yeats' involvement with it) had been revealed. Many other Irish figures of note (including author Bram Stoker and revolutionary Maud Gonne) were members as well, but the only member overtly referenced in The Third Policeman is in fact not Irish, but English. Samuel Mathers was one of the founding members of the Golden Dawn and was its leader until 1900. In O'Brien's novel, old Mathers is the man that the narrator and Divney kill and rob, the sin that ultimately earns them their torment. The objective of the murder, Mathers' cash box, becomes the magical MacGuffin that drives the rest of the story. If we view Samuel Mathers as the source for the character of Mathers in the novel, then he represents both England and its influence on Ireland, and a mysticism that threatened the Irish-Catholic tradition. The narrator's lie to the policemen that he is looking for a book of Golden Hours is possibly a combination of the heretical Golden Dawn with a Catholic book of hours (a prayer book). Mathers' discussion of colors (or mystical/magical auras) along with the narrator's derogatory mention of

Freemasonry (which the Golden Dawn was loosely modeled after) in relation to Mathers (O'Brien, 1415) seems to support the theory that O'Brien was incorporating Golden Dawn mysticism into the philosophy of his alternate reality. The Freudian psychology in The Third Policeman is not as pronounced throughout the novel as some of the other themes, however it is certainly there and is important to O'Brien's fictional philosophy. Specifically, O'Brien supplants the idea of Cartesian Dualism with Freud's theory of the id, ego, and superego. When the narrator dies, he becomes aware of a voice (which he does not consciously control) that is him, but a better version of him which he believes to be his soul. The narrator says of this voice, I knew also that my soul was friendly, was my senior in years, and was solely concerned for my own welfare. For convenience I called him Joe. (O'Brien, 25) Since the narrator is dead, only his soul (and not his mind) should have survived according to the Cartesian philosophy. Perhaps what he believed to be his soul, Joe, was in fact his super-ego, and his ego is the narrator telling his tale. The missing component from Freud's theory of mind then is the id, which appears later in the character of Martin Finnucane. This concept of the narrator-as-ego makes sense as the narrator glosses over some of the less pleasant portions of his life, inflates his intellectual prowess, and paints himself as somewhat of a victim of Divney both before and after the murder. Joe is a bit more mature and a bit more calm and rational than the narrator himself and acts as a sort of conscience throughout the story as Freud's super-ego does for the mind. When the narrator meets Finnucane, he is looking at his true self, his id, his sub-conscious, his raw urges. He is understandably horrified by what he sees as it does not fit his own conscious conception of himself (his ego) or his better-self (his super-ego). The Freudian theory of the mind has thus replaced the dated Cartesian dualist theory. Messiah complexes are also a more recent (particularly in the author's time) feature of psychology, and the narrator in The Third Policeman seems to have several characteristics of a messiah figure. The narrator mentions that he is 30 years old around the time that he and Divney kill old Mathers (O'Brien, 12), which would make him about 33 at the time of his death. The narrator is also wounded in the chest by a spear and he descends into an underworld, both features of the story of the death of Jesus. Furthermore, the narrator is dead for three days before he returns to visit Divney. Altogether, this certainly seems to suggest a messiah-like (or rather anti-messiah-like, since his appearance condemns rather than saves Divney) nature to the character of the narrator. Despite O'Brien's obvious references to religious imagery, he also modernizes the theology of his story with science. Far from depicting the traditional lake of fire and devils with pitchforks, as many writers have, O'Brien sets his hell in rural Ireland, fills it with policemen and bicycles, and imbues his tale with a more modern, science fiction element. The character of de Selby (who is only referenced in the story) is used not as a stand-in for Einstein, but as more of a satirical H.P. Lovecrafttype mad scientist version of Einstein. As we learn in The Dalkey Archives (which Anne Clissmann questionably asserts is a rewriting of The Third Policeman (Cleissmann, 152)), de Selby is a physicist bent on destroying the world because of its wickedness. Einstein on the other hand was an physicist whose interest was in advancing the collective knowledge of the world and preventing evil. There is a correlation between de Selby's plan to destroy the world (by removing all oxygen from the atmosphere) and Einstein's theoretical atomic bomb. Prior to the detonation of the first atomic bomb to some speculation that the nuclear chain-reaction created by such a device would ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world. Still, the character of de Selby seems to be distinctly different from Einstein and he even goes so far (in The Dalkey Archives) as to call Einstein's theory of relativity mendacious and bogus (O'Brien, 14). De Selby's theory of time and his philosophical musings (interspersed throughout The Third Policeman primarily as footnotes) do serve the same purpose in the novel as Einstein's theories did in the real world. That is, to challenge the traditional view of the nature of the world as well as the philosophical theories of epistemology and empiricism.

The narrator relies on his senses throughout most of the novel to determine what is real and what is not (even though his senses are incorrect for the majority of the story). When he is confronted by an object like the spear that he cannot see, he is forced to admit that strict empiricism may fail when an object cannot be viewed directly, but its effects can be observed. Until Einstein and the advent of quantum mechanics, the only non-empirical knowledge we could have of the world was through divine revelation (via religion). Prior to the 20th Century, science was based strictly on observable and empirical evidence, but with the advent of Einstein's theories science gave man a way to understand the nature of reality beyond the directly observable world. All of these (inverted old and sometimes slightly skewed new) ideas about philosophy work together to build the philosophical framework of O'Brien's fictional world. His political commentary in the novel is not necessarily as obvious, but is just as complex and intricate as the philosophical structure. While the new hell that O'Brien has created may simply be an exercise in blending old ideas with new, it may also be a subtle cautionary message to the church to move out of the past and into the more relevant present. O'Brien's political message though seems to be a clear warning that Ireland's past will condemn its future if nothing is done to prevent it. There are some obvious political symbols in The Third Policeman. For example, the narrator is killed with a bomb (in stereotypical Irish fashion) and the mentions of artificial fertilizer salesmen may refer to the use of nitrate-based fertilizers in bombs during the civil war. If Mathers represents England, then Divney and the narrator killing Mathers would seem to be symbolic of the Irish Revolution resulting ultimately in removing the English control over the majority of Ireland. Somewhat less obvious is the parallel between the relationship of Divney and the narrator after the murder and the relationship of the pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions in Ireland after they won independence in 1921. Divney appears to represent the pro-treaty side of the argument, while the narrator represents the anti-treaty side. After the murder, Divney seizes the MacGuffin (money, political power, omnium, etc) and creates a tension between the narrator and himself that lasts for three years and culminates in Divney blowing up the narrator with a bomb. The exact timeline of the events that O'Brien lays out in the novel has some interesting parallels with history. The novel was written in 1939-1940 and there are several specific temporal references that can be used to create a timeline of events in the novel. We know that the narrator and Divney killed Mathers and then three years later he died. Sixteen years after that (from Divney's point of view) the narrator returns as a ghost and scares him to death. If the novel is set in 1940 (when Divney dies), that would place the time of Mathers' death in 1921 (the same year Michael Collins signed the treaty with England). Just shy of three years later, Liam Lynch (the commanding General of the anti-treaty IRA) was killed and the Civil War officially ended. Mathers (when the narrator first speaks with him) says that Sergeant Fox has been missing for 25 years which would put the time of his disappearance around 1915 when England was distracted from the Irish problem by the first World War. O'Brien is quite particular about numbers in this novel and it does not seem to large a stretch to suggest that the coincidence of the timeline in the novel with key events in Irish history was not unintended. Looking at the story through a lens of historical allegory then (with the characters each representing different factions) we can see what appears to be a sub-textual cautionary tale. The groups within the revolution that would later become the pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions (represented here by the narrator and Divney respectively) worked together during the civil war to get rid of England (Mathers) and gain their freedom (the MacGuffin). Instead of finding the peace, prosperity, and idyllic farm living that they had hoped for, they become divisive, suspicious, and greedy. This tension culminates in the death of the narrator (or the death of Liam Lynch and the end of the civil war) caused by Divney and the matter seems to be settled, at least from Divney's point of view. Sixteen years later though, the specter of the narrator (the IRA) comes back to haunt Divney and ultimately kills him, bringing him into the narrator's never-ending hell. The rich (and later fat) Mathers in the story may represent the ghost of imperialist England come back to haunt the Irish

people, or an English face on an Irish body (i.e. Northern Ireland). O'Brien calls attention to Mather's weight and goes to great length in the novel to point out the difference in the weights of the narrator and MacCruiskeen (who's surname might suggest that he is an Ulsterman). O'Brien reveals to the reader that the Sergeant weighs sixteen stone ten pounds while the narrator weighs an invidious nine stone six pounds (O'Brien, 128-129). It makes sense then to view Pluck and MacCruiskeen as representing the Irish who worked for England before the revolution (and/or Northern Irishmen), growing fat off of the wealth of the British Empire while the rest of the country suffered. The danger that draws Pluck and MacCruiskeen away before they can hang the narrator could be read as a prediction that British interest in Ireland will wane again as they are preoccupied with concern over the rise of Hitler in Germany. The cautionary portion of this tale then would be that Ireland cannot escape her past and is forced to repeat her mistakes over and over. The overarching theme of modernizing old ideas (particularly in religion and philosophy) could tie in with the idea of not living in the past socially and politically as well. This new hell that O'Brien has created is distinctly Irish, distinctly different from hells of the past, and distinctly futuristic all at the same time. It is, in a way, almost an early dystopian novel in that sense as O'Brien has re-imagined Yeats' quintessential image of the Irish countryside as a hellish and disturbing place created by the greed and infighting of Divney and the narrator. It is possible that part of the reason that O'Brien chose not to pursue publication of this novel after its rejection in Ireland and the trouble with the American publisher is that the political metanarrative it contains was time sensitive. Because of the apparent symbolic timeline in the novel and because of its particular relevance to the current events of 1940, the novel loses some of its effect over time. Once World War II was underway, O'Brien's novel was no longer current and he may have been concerned that the political imagery would be lost on his audience because of that, or perhaps he simply felt that people's interests may have shifted away from Irish politics in general. We see then that, while the roles of philosophy/theology and political commentary are different in the novel, they are inexorably connected in their symbolism. The meta-narrative of Irish history does not exist in the novel without a connection between the fictional character of Mathers to England through the real person of Samuel Mathers, a founder and leader of the Golden Dawn. Works Cited Clissmann, Anne. Flann O'brien: A Critical Introduction to His Writings : the Story-Teller's Book-Web. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1975. Print. O'Brien, Flann. The Dalkey Archive. London. MacGibbon & Kee, 1964. Print. O'Brien, Flann. The Third Policeman. New York: Walker, 1968. Print. Ruczaj, Maciej. Infernal Poetics/Infernal Ethics: The Third Policeman Between Medieval and (Post) Modern Netherworlds. The Review of Contemporary Fiction, 31.3. 2011. Print.