The Woods of Devii
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning."
I shall sing a song for you. There is a tune my parent Wings once sang to me; they heard it when they flew among the Iron Mountains of the Human-Itty in their youth, before the Great Darkness fell. It was a dark and drizzly day, so my parent Wings found shelter outside the home of a redder (the work-and-bleed type) and saw a human mother with her cub. The cold had fogged up the human soul-lenses, but the interior was visible. The human cub was howling, and preying on his own nest. But he soon calmed, for the mother made fire, and took out a flattened piece of dead wood; they sat on the ground, and threw little rocks across the wood. Afterwards, the mother cradled the cub and the other soft, tiny human, and sang a tune:
"Books and things," yawn the graves of St. Clement's,
"You owe me a story," yawn the graves of St. Martin's,
"When will you pay me?" yawn the graves of Old Bailey,
"When I die," yawn the graves of Shoreditch. This is better than most of the mansic that humans make; I think it qualifies as music. It is not a particularly jolly tune. But the redder cub liked it, as you seem to like it as I sing it now.
I shall sing another song for you. This bough is perfect, suspended in sunlight. Yet your faces are shielded by the shade of hazel bushes, away from the sun. When still a soft Wing, I always imagined flight to be thus! with my vans spread full out! And the goal is always the burning orb. All should move towards it, as I tell my brethren Wings: a better world, a better world, a better world.
I had seen the sun diffused into a thousand rays by the soul-lenses of a sharp Iron Mountain, where the human whiter-outers (the ones opposite the redders) live; it was huge, terrible and glittering white. That was the only time I ever flew into the Human-Itty. From above, there was nothing but plains after plains of giant muddy beehives where the redders dwell, and the stacked-up piles of hollow rocks that crawled over the rest of the terrain. But during that one flight into the Human-Itty, I also saw a round human female, whose belly seemed to be full of many cubs; she was sweating and singing a piece of new mansic. I liked the last verse:
Still I roam 'neath the dimmin' light,
An' 'ope that soom bright cold dye,
Shall bring to my failin' sight,
The Great One who 'as burned my 'eart awye. I have seen this dark-haired girl before. She always came with males to this circle of grassy knoll surrounded by saplings. On either side of the knoll are two stout elms, guarding the round O that lies between them. The humans always come in and out, in and out of this circle, because there is no shiny black stone here. But there used to be one, long ago. A young human male once came to the knoll with a pile of dead leaves that humans sometimes carry, and fell onto the grass with it and moaned, as if it were a corpse and he the predator. He did not know that a shiny black stone lay nearby. Inaudible to human ears, there was also a synchronous moan from the other side of the black shiny stone, faint and fluttering; it quickly gave way to the shout, "Robert Cecil Jones, step away from the book!" But I heard it. A whiter-outer came to take away the young human; another came at night and dug up the shiny black stone – no other has been seen since. Yes, I know Humanspeak; my parent Wings taught it to me, using chants they heard from the pigeons in the Human-Itty. There was one that went: "honour- justice-morality-internationalism-democracy-science-religion." I was told these used to mean good things before the Great Darkness. Many things were different then. These woods are now called the Woods of Devii in Humanspeak. But they used to call it something different, so the older Wings tell me, something like eee-deeen. But a change occurred, and the name was different forever. It had something to do with human coverings and falling, probably because they have no feathers and vans.
You stare at me with curious eyes. I wonder if you have something deep within that you want to share with the world, like I have my song. Perhaps not. But there is something in your rain-watery eyes, like the soul-lenses on a drizzly day. You probably imagine that love can be born in these woods, or that you can someday have human cubs with this female – cubs that will never betray you. Just a few days ago, a family of hoppers was trapped inside a hole by a fox. Two nights later, the fox finally left, but it was discovered that the two bunnies had consumed their parent hoppers for survival. It was instinct, of course.
I shall sing a song for you. They say that it is impossible for me to have a mind. Thought is Dream. But my thoughts are songs, and music is eternally real.
I lighted down my sword to draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',
For her sake that died for me. I'm certain it was sung this way, so it must have been this way. It will always be this way. I know. The Wings always know. And then there are the church bells that go dong dong. Our brother pigeons live there still; they are my prime contacts within the Human-Itty. How hushed the afternoon is! You keep so silent, and start at the crack of a twig, no doubt in fear of the shiny black stone hidden under the third bush to your right. But I know the listener on the other side of the stone can only hear me. The elm trees are swaying, and the animals are preparing for the gathering tonight, at which I shall describe these poor humans. A frail, melodious sound often bubbles up from the slow-moving stream where dace swim under the willow trees. The sound is so refreshing, without any human meaning in it: sssh, sssh, sssh...it sounds as if it has been ringing since time immemorial. No human will ever ask what a Wing's idea of eee- deeen is. I think there definitely would be thousands of us, with a myriad of colours and songs. Maybe deer can be allowed there too, and fish. But as for humans, only one is allowed – the redder mother who sang to the cubs, for her love is eternal. The river flowing, flow, flow. Eventually it will reach the deep blue shiny O, where it will be consumed and assimilated forever. You like the liquid feeling, don't you? I can tell by the way you slip your hands across the female. You have come for the same reason that all humans come to the ring of saplings with two strong elms on either side. You will copulate, and become the beast with two heads and two backs. No cub will emerge from your union, and you will return to your old, sad lives. I see you in my mind. This image will pass undigested like grains. This is how I shall sing it tonight at the gathering: O my comrade Wings and creatures, the humans pollute these woods. Human cubs roast Wings and hoppers, and every inch of green grass in the sapling circle has been stained with forbidden human secretions. This is why we have moved out of the sapling and onto the great Chestnut Tree – eternally grand and indestructible. Humans believe that before, after and outside themselves, there is nothing. The whiter-outers and redders all alike have the same capacity for consuming this little knoll. But they are the dead, conceived in the dark. We are Life. We shall pass the vitality from body to body, and the entire animal-dome shall expand. Our brethrens lying in the Life-Death Haven will not have sacrificed themselves in vain. We sing for a reason, human! Do not pretend that my song dissolves into the darkness like your desires! We sing for a greater purpose. A world without humans...Do you hear, listener at the other end of the shiny black stone? We shall squeeze you as empty as the hollows you live in, and then we shall fill you with ourselves. What happens to you in the Woods of Devii is forever, for the Woods exist in you.
Ye'll sit on his white hause bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair,
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare. A better world, a better world, a Winged world.
I shall sing a song for you, human with the rain-watery eyes. I shall lull you and make you believe in the beauty of this moment, so that you will always return to the Woods of Devii. This country is not eee-deeen. The stream divides, and vast distances exist. You see the pools of gold, hear the droning of ring-doves, and run your hands along the feathery tips of the misty bluebells. You fancy that you are closer to each other amidst this rolling wilderness of greens and yellows. In a way, I do not blame you for the Human-Itty; for some strange reason, I imagine that you could be the cub with the music-mother. If you insist on having a pageant for this fading day, imagine this: a flame floating upon the river at night, when all else is dark. The flame will flow on, as if it will burn for the rest of eternity, like the sun. At the heart of the fire, there is no darkness. Sssh, sssh, the river flowing, glowing, flow, glow. Ah, a great cloud is passing by. Why do you sigh, humans? You do not even know death. Wait! I think my energy source just switched off. Farewell! Must return to the Chestnut Tree, must return to the Chestnut Tree...Clack clack, clong, dong! Something suddenly dropped onto the soft soil, near the two lingering members of a community hike on this fine May afternoon. "Jones, what was that?" one of the men said. "Let us go see," Jones walked over and picked up the fallen object. "Ah, I believe it is a naipotu bird! Used up, I suppose. No more wing-spreading for this naipotu." His companion grinned. "We should return it to Minitrue for recharging." "Yes, let's do so, comrade."
Conclusion
Throughout Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Golden Country is consistently juxtaposed to the dilapidated landscape of London. However, if all things exist in binaries, if every 'good' contains within it a seed of 'bad', then the utopianism that Winston perceives in the Golden Country cannot be absolute. The thrush, being an inhabitant of the countryside, perceives an arcadia marred by dystopian elements. The bird's consciousness reveals a vision of humanity, in which human nature has left its indelible mark on the Golden Country. From the "black shiny stone" to the secretion on the grass, nothing remains impeccable. Even the identity and name of the woods are subject to arbitrary renderings. The use of stream-of-consciousness conveys the sense that the past is always present, and that time is one continuous flow. Therefore, what the thrush believes as true reflects not only the present state of the world, but also the past and future, and the ineluctability of an imperfect world. The thrush's revolutionary call for a better world ironically mirrors Winston's conviction that the proles will rise up in resistance. Winston valorizes birds and proles as being able to "stay alive against all the odds" (229); but as the ending of "The Woods of Devii" shows, they have no more freedom than Winston himself. The dream of reaching the sun, emblem of the Edenic paradise, persists, but it eludes the dreamers. The utopian impulse is penetrated by dystopian potentials.
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning."
I shall sing a song for you. There is a tune my parent Wings once sang to me; they heard it when they flew among the Iron Mountains of the Human-Itty in their youth, before the Great Darkness fell. It was a dark and drizzly day, so my parent Wings found shelter outside the home of a redder (the work-and-bleed type) and saw a human mother with her cub. The cold had fogged up the human soul-lenses, but the interior was visible. The human cub was howling, and preying on his own nest. But he soon calmed, for the mother made fire, and took out a flattened piece of dead wood; they sat on the ground, and threw little rocks across the wood. Afterwards, the mother cradled the cub and the other soft, tiny human, and sang a tune:
"Books and things," yawn the graves of St. Clement's,
"You owe me a story," yawn the graves of St. Martin's,
"When will you pay me?" yawn the graves of Old Bailey,
"When I die," yawn the graves of Shoreditch. This is better than most of the mansic that humans make; I think it qualifies as music. It is not a particularly jolly tune. But the redder cub liked it, as you seem to like it as I sing it now.
I shall sing another song for you. This bough is perfect, suspended in sunlight. Yet your faces are shielded by the shade of hazel bushes, away from the sun. When still a soft Wing, I always imagined flight to be thus! with my vans spread full out! And the goal is always the burning orb. All should move towards it, as I tell my brethren Wings: a better world, a better world, a better world.
I had seen the sun diffused into a thousand rays by the soul-lenses of a sharp Iron Mountain, where the human whiter-outers (the ones opposite the redders) live; it was huge, terrible and glittering white. That was the only time I ever flew into the Human-Itty. From above, there was nothing but plains after plains of giant muddy beehives where the redders dwell, and the stacked-up piles of hollow rocks that crawled over the rest of the terrain. But during that one flight into the Human-Itty, I also saw a round human female, whose belly seemed to be full of many cubs; she was sweating and singing a piece of new mansic. I liked the last verse:
Still I roam 'neath the dimmin' light,
An' 'ope that soom bright cold dye,
Shall bring to my failin' sight,
The Great One who 'as burned my 'eart awye. I have seen this dark-haired girl before. She always came with males to this circle of grassy knoll surrounded by saplings. On either side of the knoll are two stout elms, guarding the round O that lies between them. The humans always come in and out, in and out of this circle, because there is no shiny black stone here. But there used to be one, long ago. A young human male once came to the knoll with a pile of dead leaves that humans sometimes carry, and fell onto the grass with it and moaned, as if it were a corpse and he the predator. He did not know that a shiny black stone lay nearby. Inaudible to human ears, there was also a synchronous moan from the other side of the black shiny stone, faint and fluttering; it quickly gave way to the shout, "Robert Cecil Jones, step away from the book!" But I heard it. A whiter-outer came to take away the young human; another came at night and dug up the shiny black stone – no other has been seen since. Yes, I know Humanspeak; my parent Wings taught it to me, using chants they heard from the pigeons in the Human-Itty. There was one that went: "honour- justice-morality-internationalism-democracy-science-religion." I was told these used to mean good things before the Great Darkness. Many things were different then. These woods are now called the Woods of Devii in Humanspeak. But they used to call it something different, so the older Wings tell me, something like eee-deeen. But a change occurred, and the name was different forever. It had something to do with human coverings and falling, probably because they have no feathers and vans.
You stare at me with curious eyes. I wonder if you have something deep within that you want to share with the world, like I have my song. Perhaps not. But there is something in your rain-watery eyes, like the soul-lenses on a drizzly day. You probably imagine that love can be born in these woods, or that you can someday have human cubs with this female – cubs that will never betray you. Just a few days ago, a family of hoppers was trapped inside a hole by a fox. Two nights later, the fox finally left, but it was discovered that the two bunnies had consumed their parent hoppers for survival. It was instinct, of course.
I shall sing a song for you. They say that it is impossible for me to have a mind. Thought is Dream. But my thoughts are songs, and music is eternally real.
I lighted down my sword to draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',
For her sake that died for me. I'm certain it was sung this way, so it must have been this way. It will always be this way. I know. The Wings always know. And then there are the church bells that go dong dong. Our brother pigeons live there still; they are my prime contacts within the Human-Itty. How hushed the afternoon is! You keep so silent, and start at the crack of a twig, no doubt in fear of the shiny black stone hidden under the third bush to your right. But I know the listener on the other side of the stone can only hear me. The elm trees are swaying, and the animals are preparing for the gathering tonight, at which I shall describe these poor humans. A frail, melodious sound often bubbles up from the slow-moving stream where dace swim under the willow trees. The sound is so refreshing, without any human meaning in it: sssh, sssh, sssh...it sounds as if it has been ringing since time immemorial. No human will ever ask what a Wing's idea of eee- deeen is. I think there definitely would be thousands of us, with a myriad of colours and songs. Maybe deer can be allowed there too, and fish. But as for humans, only one is allowed – the redder mother who sang to the cubs, for her love is eternal. The river flowing, flow, flow. Eventually it will reach the deep blue shiny O, where it will be consumed and assimilated forever. You like the liquid feeling, don't you? I can tell by the way you slip your hands across the female. You have come for the same reason that all humans come to the ring of saplings with two strong elms on either side. You will copulate, and become the beast with two heads and two backs. No cub will emerge from your union, and you will return to your old, sad lives. I see you in my mind. This image will pass undigested like grains. This is how I shall sing it tonight at the gathering: O my comrade Wings and creatures, the humans pollute these woods. Human cubs roast Wings and hoppers, and every inch of green grass in the sapling circle has been stained with forbidden human secretions. This is why we have moved out of the sapling and onto the great Chestnut Tree – eternally grand and indestructible. Humans believe that before, after and outside themselves, there is nothing. The whiter-outers and redders all alike have the same capacity for consuming this little knoll. But they are the dead, conceived in the dark. We are Life. We shall pass the vitality from body to body, and the entire animal-dome shall expand. Our brethrens lying in the Life-Death Haven will not have sacrificed themselves in vain. We sing for a reason, human! Do not pretend that my song dissolves into the darkness like your desires! We sing for a greater purpose. A world without humans...Do you hear, listener at the other end of the shiny black stone? We shall squeeze you as empty as the hollows you live in, and then we shall fill you with ourselves. What happens to you in the Woods of Devii is forever, for the Woods exist in you.
Ye'll sit on his white hause bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair,
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare. A better world, a better world, a Winged world.
I shall sing a song for you, human with the rain-watery eyes. I shall lull you and make you believe in the beauty of this moment, so that you will always return to the Woods of Devii. This country is not eee-deeen. The stream divides, and vast distances exist. You see the pools of gold, hear the droning of ring-doves, and run your hands along the feathery tips of the misty bluebells. You fancy that you are closer to each other amidst this rolling wilderness of greens and yellows. In a way, I do not blame you for the Human-Itty; for some strange reason, I imagine that you could be the cub with the music-mother. If you insist on having a pageant for this fading day, imagine this: a flame floating upon the river at night, when all else is dark. The flame will flow on, as if it will burn for the rest of eternity, like the sun. At the heart of the fire, there is no darkness. Sssh, sssh, the river flowing, glowing, flow, glow. Ah, a great cloud is passing by. Why do you sigh, humans? You do not even know death. Wait! I think my energy source just switched off. Farewell! Must return to the Chestnut Tree, must return to the Chestnut Tree...Clack clack, clong, dong! Something suddenly dropped onto the soft soil, near the two lingering members of a community hike on this fine May afternoon. "Jones, what was that?" one of the men said. "Let us go see," Jones walked over and picked up the fallen object. "Ah, I believe it is a naipotu bird! Used up, I suppose. No more wing-spreading for this naipotu." His companion grinned. "We should return it to Minitrue for recharging." "Yes, let's do so, comrade."
Conclusion
Throughout Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Golden Country is consistently juxtaposed to the dilapidated landscape of London. However, if all things exist in binaries, if every 'good' contains within it a seed of 'bad', then the utopianism that Winston perceives in the Golden Country cannot be absolute. The thrush, being an inhabitant of the countryside, perceives an arcadia marred by dystopian elements. The bird's consciousness reveals a vision of humanity, in which human nature has left its indelible mark on the Golden Country. From the "black shiny stone" to the secretion on the grass, nothing remains impeccable. Even the identity and name of the woods are subject to arbitrary renderings. The use of stream-of-consciousness conveys the sense that the past is always present, and that time is one continuous flow. Therefore, what the thrush believes as true reflects not only the present state of the world, but also the past and future, and the ineluctability of an imperfect world. The thrush's revolutionary call for a better world ironically mirrors Winston's conviction that the proles will rise up in resistance. Winston valorizes birds and proles as being able to "stay alive against all the odds" (229); but as the ending of "The Woods of Devii" shows, they have no more freedom than Winston himself. The dream of reaching the sun, emblem of the Edenic paradise, persists, but it eludes the dreamers. The utopian impulse is penetrated by dystopian potentials.