There has been a debate in the world of representation for ages: Is art for teaching of for enjoyment? Should it lift us to a higher plane or dull the pain of days? Is it essentially useful or enjoyable? St. Augustine said, “There are things to be enjoyed and there are things to be used.” A film is a thing and its purpose falls into one of these two categories. When a film has as its goal teaching an ideal or moral it then falls in the realm of useful. Signs are useful. They signify something else to teach us something about that sign. Films are a collection of signs and as Augustine says, “Things are learnt by signs.” The Beasts of the Southern Wild full of signs. It is also intended to teach, through its polysemous text, a lesson. This it does by literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical means. Literal is that the sign in the film represents something in real life, a thing. Allegorical is a sign that represents something other than itself that exists. Moral is that the sign is signifying a lesson of behavior, what one aught to do. Anagogical signs represent the mysterious or metaphysical, the big picture outside of our world of signs. It is clear that the authors of Beasts of the Southern Wild are using signs to teach a Truth. By analyzing the literal, allegorical, moral, or anagogical signs in Beasts of the Southern Wild one can access the useful nature of the text and understand the Truth that the author is trying to express.
The protagonist is Hushpuppy who “lives with her father in the Bathtub.” This is the first sign. The literal is what we see. The Bathtub is a place in Louisiana that is populated by painfully impoverished families that are cut off from the outside world geographically. The images are of filth, trash, dilapidated homes, and poorly clothed scrawny human beings. All we can gather from this in a literal sense is that this means to represent those things that actually exist in our world.
The allegorical approach can reveal that the Bathtub is a microcosm of the highly impoverished anywhere. The separation created by the levee over which we can see the bastions of industry represents the metaphorical separation between the very poor and the industrialized capitalist world. The Bathtubbers did not build the levee. It was placed there by the others indicating that that separation is desired and maintained by the haves.
As a moral sign, the Bathtub, with its levee of separation represent a responsibility on the part of the haves. They ought to remove that separation and yet not try to rescue those in the Bathtub. They need to be freed but not condescended to. Interestingly, the Bathtubbers are the ones who break the levee perhaps referencing the proposition of Freire that the oppressors have not the power to liberate the oppressed.
The Bathtub is also a place of innocence. The adults and children have the same level of engagement with the earth and themselves. In this sense it is a Garden of Eden. (If one considers that in psychoanalytic theory things can be represented by their opposite.) The people live separated from the cares of the modern world. Also, children take baths, adults shower. When one bathes, one does so without the cumbrance of clothing, as Adam and Eve were in the garden. Young children bathe together without shame or concern, as Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. So, the Bathtub becomes the anagogic sign of that state in God’s eternal scheme. That state that is ultimately temporary and must be abandoned to progress into a higher state.
The next sign is the Auruch. Which in the literal is a large beast that is freed from arctic ice and comes to eat Hushpuppy. Auruchs actually existed and eventually went extinct in the 1600s. It can be assumed that they are a figment of Hushpuppies imagination.
The allegorical significance of the sign is that they signify the fears of Hushpuppy as she does not acknowledge her father’s imminent death. Hushpuppy strikes her father in the chest after he slaps her. He collapses to the ground and she sees strange markings on his chest which she determines to be a sign of illness. Shortly after, the Auruchs are shown breaking free of the ice and coming toward the Bathtub. Until this moment, Hushpuppy was frozen in a state of eternal childhood, no fear, death was not a reality. After seeing the sign of her father’s mortality, the reality of death is released and begins the convergence to confrontation. When Hushpuppy finally is face to face with her fear, she accepts them as “kind of friends” showing her progression into adulthood.
The Moral sense of the Auruchs is the necessity of all to face their fear. Every person will come to a point in their life when they have to choose to face teh reality of death or remain is a state of arrested development. Hushpuppy has to choose to make peace with her father or allow herself to be consumed. This is a choice all must make.
Anagogically, the Auruchs are the introduction of death into the world after the rebellion of Adam and Eve. Hushpuppy is given the fruit of knowledge as she rebels against her father and strikes him. That bite of fruit introduces the necessary element of death into the holy pageant that ultimately leads all mankind to God.
An additional sign, is the journey to Elysian Fields. Literally, the girls swim out into the ocean are picked up by boat and taken to a brothel. There they are loved and cared for by the women there and Hushpuppy speaks with a waitress who holds her. This is only the second time that that has happened to her.
As an allegory, it represents the drive that all people for love and affection. When in times of trial or struggle, people seek comfort and solace in others. People can at times receive guidance from others with more experience.
Morally the need for all to seek divine guidance for the strength to face fears and trials. Hushpuppy is fed, held, and advised by a waitress as sign of the power of God feed, heal, and advise those who seek him out. Those willing to put forth the effort to find that healing and comfort will be strengthened sufficiently to face death in the face and bring comfort to others. Hushpuppy is empowered by her experience to stare death in the face and bring healing food to her father.
In greek myth Elysium was a place of rest and corresponds in many ways with the christian heaven. The brothel is an anagogic sign of heaven, though less as a place of rest, than as a recourse. If Hushpuppy is Eve having brought death into the world, she must recur to heaven and thereby bring back redemption. In this way she is also a figure of Christ, returning from heaven to take back the sting of death, bringing the food of life to her father so that they can be reconciled.
By analyzing the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical one can determine the useful end of the signs utilized by the authors to teach Truth. The polysemous nature of text allows for these different types of metaphor. However many in our post-modern world don’t find one Truth in this text, as Roger Ebert said, “You can make "Beasts of the Southern Wild" into an allegory of anything you want. It is far too detailed and specific to fit easily into general terms.” (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/beasts-of-the-southern-wild-2012). Even so, it is valuable to use the Medieval approach to suss out possible good for the audience. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a rich text with a multiplicity of meanings, and that’s good. The truth found there will inevitably lead to the greatest good.
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