In my first post Female initiation through reading, I gave a short introduction on what initiation is and how it can be found in literature. In this post, I will explain the concept of initiation a bit more in detail and also show how initiation plays an important part in some of our most beloved novels.
Initiation – The origins
The term initiation comes originally from religion and describes a religious change of status by means of a secret ceremony of admission and conversion, which usually unfolds as a tripartite process consisting of the novices ‘moving out’ of their previous existence, their ‘crossing over’ the decisive threshold after their proof of worth through appropriate tests, and their ‘going into’ a new, purified, and elevated existence and which is commonly acted out as a process of symbolic ‘death’ and ‘rebirth’.
Although the term has a rather long tradition, it is Jesuit Jospeh François Lafitau who gives a new dimension to it in 1724. He used the term to describe certain ceremonies of Canadian Indians. He is the first to divide initiation into three phases which he calls le principe, le commencement and l’entree de la vie. There are many anthropological definitions of the term initiation but in this blog series, I only want to use the definition by Arnold van Gennep. In his work Les rites de passage from 1909, he describes how every individual in society moves from one stage to the next with the help of rituals. He emphasises that the individual goes through changes while moving from stage to stage. He is the first to take Lafitau’s three phases and to adapt them to anthropology:
Van Gennep’s model of initiation
According to Van Gennep’s model, an individual follows three phases: An exit (rite de séperation, 1) takes place which separates the individual from society. This spatial as well as mental and emotional separation of the initiate from his family, especially from the mother, equates van Gennep with the death of the novice. The initiator must pass quests during this time to test and strengthen the initiate before he can rejoin society. The time of separation is called crossing (rite de marge, 2). Upon his return (rite d’agrégation, 3) into the “new” society, his life has to follow new rules and norms. His position in society has changed. The return can be seen as a rebirth.
Until Van Gennep, initiation as such was limited to the age of puberty. He is the first to broaden this view and to claim that initiation can take place at any age. He also is the first to include a psychological initiation in the definition which was before purely based on physical rites.
Initiation in literature – a fairly new concept
First of all, most definitions for initiation in literary texts focus on short stories. Furthermore, on American short stories. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Warren adapted the religious and anthropological term for literary texts in their work Understanding Fiction in 1943. The initiation is now more of a process which can contain many steps and the initiate can also only take one step and stay in this group without initiating further.
Mordecai Marcus versus Peter Freese
Mordecai Marcus’ essay What is an initiation story? defines in 1960 two different types of initiation stories:
- Initiation is described as a passage of the young from ignorance about the external world to some vital knowledge
- Initiation as an important self-discovery and a resulting adjustment to life or society
Marcus completely moves away from the three-phase definition of anthropology:
An initiation story may be said to show its young protagonist experiencing a significant change of knowledge about the world or himself, or a change of character, or of both, and this change must point or lead him towards an adult world. It may or may not contain some form of ritual, but it should give some evidence that the change is at least likely to have permanent effects.
In contrast, the three phases (exit, crossing, return) are vital for Peter Freese, who coined the term initiation journey. For both, initiation is not bound to rituals anymore.
A critical examination of society as initiation
Initiation can happen in various ways: Sexually, intellectually or via a critical examination of society. The ladder is one of the main characteristics of initiation in literary texts. When looking at the initiate, one must also always look at the society surrounding the person. And society is also the main factor that has an impact on female and male initiation. Above mentioned definitions are solely valid for male protagonists. Female protagonists undergoing initiation are barely visible in literary texts. While male initiation in literature is being studied since 1940, female initiation is only looked into since the 1970s.
In the next post, I will write about female initiation through literature in novels and show you how initiation can be found in works by Jane Austen, Marguerite Radclyff-Hall, Pearl Abrahams, Daj Sijies and Lloyd Jones.
