Erin Siemsen
105H
Rhetorical Analysis
Many years ago, Aldous Huxley wrote a short story entitled: “Hyperion
to a Satyr.” It is an interesting look at society and the relational boundaries
with in it based on a person’s dirt. Most of this commentary revolves around
one’s personal hygiene and how your smell, or lack-there-of, ranks you in
society. In all of this talk of cleanliness, a question of importance lies,
though it is seemingly unrelated. That is, can “Hyperion” be seen as a
metaphor for God?
To achieve my goal of answering this research question, I will begin
buy examining Huxley’s piece, “Hyperion to a Satyr,” as a whole, using
metaphoric criticism. I will do this so that a general sense of its meaning
may be obtained. I will then isolate the metaphors that relate to my topic.
Since my research question is so specific, it would be impossible to sort out
the metaphors pertaining to it any further than they already have been.
Therefore, I will skip the step of sorting these metaphors according to vehicle
or tenor. I will finally analyze the metaphors to discover their relation to
my research question.
Huxley’s “Hyperion to a Satyr” is a short story commentary on society’s
dirt. Huxley says, “Dirt…was once accepted as an unalterable element in the
divinely established Order of Things.” (Huxley p.139) Thankfully, people could
not live with the dirt. According to Huxley, society came up with the idea
that “filth is disgusting. Therefore, let us …get rid of the filth.” (Huxley
p.141) The basic rule that is explained by this story is thus: since dirt is
disgusting, get rid of it. If you are able to get rid of it, then you have
risen in society. If you cannot get rid of it, and live in it day by day, then
you are lower in society. Dirt is a parallel for sin. If you rise above it and
get rid of sin, you are higher in society, people look up to and respect you. You become basically perfect. On the other hand, if you wallow in sin day by day, you will be perceived as lower in society, because people look down and you and don’t respect you because of your immorality.
In “Hyperion to a Satyr,” Hyperion is the sewage treatment plant that
achieves the wonder of eliminating the sludge and dirt of the city. It is
mentioned many times in ways that suggest it is a metaphor for God. It is
described as a “marvel of modern technology.” (Huxley p.139) The way it works
is it takes in water from a river that runs through it. This river is 99.7%
pure and “exceeds [the purity] of ivory soap.” (Huxley p.147) It is mixed with
bacteria, sewage, and soap, and leaves Hyperion with a purity of 99.95%. The
water that goes through is cleaner when it comes out. Christians would say
that through God our sins are washed away and we are made clean. As was stated
earlier, if dirt is sin, Hyperion washes away dirt, and God washes away sin.
All of this dirt people carry in reality bears with it a lot of
illnesses. Better care of personal hygiene has lead to the reduction of
disease that previously had been solved “only by saints.” (Huxley p149)
Sinners with diseases would go to priests to receive a laying on of hands where
the priest blesses them and asks God to lift away the disease. For many people
this worked and their disease was gone. Saints supposedly solved the diseases
because it was the Will of God that it should be so. This example can be
paralleled to Hyperion being a metaphor for God. In this passage about the
saints, the image of God making people clean is again visible.
As said earlier, dirt is unalterable, but Hyperion (the sludge plant)
got rid of the dirt. This unalterable dirt creates symbols in our daily lives. Huxley says, “bad smells may stand for social inferiority, dirt for low IQ, vermin for immorality, sickness for a status beneath the human.” (Huxley p.49) These symbols are in essence social labels. Human nature is such that we tend to apply these labels to ourselves and others wontonly. In his conclusion Huxley says,
“ Symbols are necessary - for we could not think without them…. There is no way out, except for those who have learned to go beyond all symbols to a direct experience of the basic fact of the divine imminence.” (Huxley p.151-152)
Here, he is saying that symbols are unalterable, but we as a society can get around them if we learn to trust in “divine imminence.” In these two sections, dirt and symbols are compared with this metaphor. God and Hyperion are also ultimately compared.
There is a metaphor that relates God and Hyperion and it is in the name itself.
Hyperion was the titan of light according to Greek Mythology. He was one of
the children of Gaea and Uranus who were the first to exist. Hyperion was the
god who dispelled darkness with his sunlight as God dispels sin with grace and
mercy.
If we move from just the idea of God to bringing the idea of the Holy Trinity
into the argument, another connection can be made. Whereas the name Hyperion
was associated with a sludge plant and the treated water it produced, so Jesus
was associated with sinners and their ultimate redemption.
Redemption from sin and redemption from dirt have been paralleled in such a way
that it becomes a key part of Huxley’s “Hyperion to a Satyr.” Throughout this
criticism I have proved that Hyperion can be seen as a parallel for God. Some
may say that this metaphor is unimportant in Huxley’s commentary. The
metaphors that pertain to it are certainly not overwhelming in his story. A
reader would have to stop and think about the piece to go beyond its face value
and make this connection of greater thought. It is an important metaphor to
recognize though. Likening Hyperion to God puts “Hyperion to a Satyr” on a
different level. It makes a reader go back and read the text with a religious
view in mind. Comparing Hyperion to God implies a comparison between dirt and
sin. Talking about the amount of dirt in the world makes us examine the amount
of sin. Talking about ways to get rid of the dirt, leads to thoughts of getting
rid of the sin too. There is an element of Aldous Huxley’s piece, “Hyperion to a Satyr,” that could be telling his readers to examine the dirt in their own lives, and furthermore, challenges us to “get rid of it.”