Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

130. A Charmed Life: Trilby and Svengali!

                                                        Svengali: The Evil Genius Archetype

         When I think of young Trilby's unfulfilled love for Little Billy because of Svengali's jealousy, I am saddened by the thought of their terrible loss and emptiness. As Svengali's friend Gecko tells Taffy years after the heroine's death, "There were two Trilby's. There was the Trilby you knew, who could not sing one single note in tune. She was an angel of paradise. She is now! But she had no more idea of singing than I have of winning a steeple-chase at the Croix de Berny. She could no more sing than a fiddle can play itself! She could never tell one tune from another—one note from the next. . . Well, that was Trilby, your Trilby! That was my Trilby too—and I loved her as one loves an only love, an only sister, an only child—a gentle martyr on earth, a blessed saint in heaven! . . . And that was the Trilby that loved your brother, madame—oh! But with all the love that was in her! He did not know what he had lost, your brother! Her love, it was immense, like her voice, and just as full of celestial sweetness and sympathy! She told me everything! . . . But all at once . . . with one wave of his hand over her—with one look of his eye—with a word—Svengali could turn her into the other Trilby, his Trilby—and make her do whatever he liked . . . you might have run a red-hot needle into her and she would not have felt it . . ." (Du Maurier 267).  The young heroine's behavior sadly calls to mind the power of the subconscious in its hypnotic state and the duality of the human personality. Ironically, Svengali deprives Trilby of her one opportunity for true love by converting her into an instrument upon which he could play his own music. Since she will not love him for his personality or genius, the sinister character deceives her to achieve his goal. Tragically, as an abandoned young woman left to fend for herself, she unknowingly succumbs to the villain's charm. Hamlet asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern "if they would play upon him" as one manipulates the stops on an instrument to achieve the desired effect, but sadly, Trilby's case is much worse because she fails to recognize Svengali's treachery. At least, Hamlet refuses to be his friend's sponge, but Trilby's innocence serves to make her a much more maligned tragic victim. It is Hamlet that must act the part of the fool to conceal his knowledge, but Trilby lacks both the maturity and the understanding to recognize her own victimization. Her predicament is more like poor Ophelia, yet even Ophelia experiences love before her own madness and death. Just as Jekyll uses chemicals to transform himself into a monster, Svengali uses the power of hypnosis to transform Trilby into the voice of an angel. The effect here is just the opposite in that the earthly is transformed into the divine. Ironically, this heavenly attribute cannot be recognized by its owner, only by those who are enthralled by it. In essence, her suffering is more like the blindness of Oedipus; however, even he ultimately realizes the tragic nature of his fate. By controlling her subconscious activity, Svengali further deprives her of this awareness. Instead, her trance-like condition produces a zombie-like behavior void of free will or self-determination, much like the Shades or personalities of the dead that Odysseus encounters when he visits the Underworld and there find his unresponsive relatives and friends. Ironically, in another sense, the only trace of happiness that Trilby understands is in this physical or earthly realm with Little Billy and his friends. Just as the Muses inspire artists to create, so does Svengali, the sinister Muse, evokes the heavenly voice in his tone-deaf student. Strains of anti-Semitism also cloud Svengali's character, whose appearance and habits correspond with Fagin in Dickens' Oliver Twist and Isaac of York, the Jew in Scott's Ivanhoe. The greatest and saddest irony of all, however, stems from her untimely death, not long after her instructor's, a life cut short without the experience of true love or happiness, a life which even its final breath calls forth Svengali's name from the darkness of her own unconscious. Paradoxically, it is the dark nature of Svengali that perceives the heavenly radiance of Trilby's natural talent. In his own unnatural fashion, Svengali conjures the divine spirit of a dead woman to inspire the world and earn him the fame and reputation which his own natural predisposition denies. Just as the Evil Eye of the Ancient Mariner conjures the attention of the young sailor, so does Svengali command the audiences of kings and potentates who become rapt in awe and wonder. Paradoxically, in this strangely religious contrast, it is the evil within him that commands the good within her to come forth; and even worse, like Oedipus, it is the good, or knowledge, that destroys.  Can evil produce good? On another level, can evil perceive good or desire it? These same questions haunted Macbeth and Banquo.   In this case, Svengali's motives come into play. Was Trilby's performance purely for his fame and personal gratification, or was it truly to achieve that which is divine, or unattainable? It might even be argued that the purity of such a goal cannot be achieved through selfish motives. In any event, for Trilby, as well as Svengali, only through death can peace and happiness be secured, and only through death is justice weighed. By merely mentioning the word Dors, or Sleep, Svengali conjures Trilby into a realm more divine than human. As Wordsworth suggests, the "child may be father to the man," and our nearness to God may exist in that semi-conscious state which some religions believe continually begins and returns. In its symbolic sense, it is Svengali who beckons Trilby into the hereafter, that though art and imagination, she finds spiritual fulfillment. In this context, the physical and spiritual duality becomes more evident. Just as Heathcliff physically declines in order to grow spiritually in his final days before joining the ghostly Catherine on the heath, so does Trilby decline physically, in anticipation of that final epiphany with her master, as she utters his name and expires. Just as Catherine and Heathcliff's relationship unites a sinister yet powerful masculinity with a feminine spirit and imagination, so do Svengali and Trilby combine a dark creative masculinity with feminine innocence and purity. In Freudian terms, both male roles personify the dark, powerful forces of the subconscious Id, which provides strength and hope for their female counterparts. Psychologically, the latent potential within Trilby finds an avenue for expression through Art, but like the folk tale of the young girl with the magic dancing shoes, she cannot release herself from its hold.

                                                                               Works Cited for Trilby

Du Maurier, George. Trilby. London: The Folio Society, 1947.