The Contamination of Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

acts are needed. The populace, intoxicated by garbled gossip, has distorted the actual mesmerization of Valdemar. Poe, the narrator, assures us that in recording the facts via the written word, he offers us an orderly, direct and grounded account of the event. The spoken word is, of course, inferior. With one person spreading the juiciest bits of what they heard to another, an exaggerated account is the best that one could expect from any oral transmission of information. Because the spoken word claims no single authority, no one holds responsibility for the 'facts.' The written word is obviously more trustworthy. So it is with confidence in the written word and in his control over the written word, that Poe delineates his empirical observations.

At last the singular authority of Poe's written word will give us the facts. Or does it? In spite of his claims of singularity of voice, Poe's sources parallel the multiple sources of gossip. To inform us of the experiment, he depends on notes from the attending medical student, notes which initially are verbatim, then condensed and finally and admittedly interpreted by Poe. Additional sources of his 'facts' are the note written by Valdemar and comments given by the medical staff. Thus, "the distinction between Poe's text and the multi-authored versions of gossip begins to collapse." (Williams, p. 109)

The line between fact and fiction blurs even more when Poe describes Valdemar's medical condition before mesmerization. With the authority that most doctors command, Poe details the patient's symptoms using medical terminology. With confidence, we know that Valdemar's ossified lungs, adhering to his ribs in places, are not in good health. He obviously is a perfect candidate for this experiment. These bodily facts, however, are actually fiction. Descriptions of internal organs such as the lungs and aorta are available only after post-mortem. Some symptoms, in fact, only apply to a person already dead. Trust me, Poe says, and then he offers fictionalized 'facts'.

It is the written word that Poe has told us is so credible. Valdemar then, as a compiler of bibliography, as one who has control over the written word, is a most credible volunteer. In fact, Valdemar's pseudonym, Issachar Marx, when translated tells us that he brings gifts (Issachar) through the act of marking (Marx) or writing words on a page (Williams, p. 110). The words offer the gift of meaning. Therefore, Valdemar is a translator of meaning, in a similar way that the human body is the representation of the soul. The similarity is significant as we see Valdemar's body become more and more like text, like the written word, as it increasingly decomposes. Eventually, this body turned to text speaks in a meaningful way just as words on a page can.

The metamorphosis from man to text is a gradual one and both metaphoric and literal. The first comparison between Valdemar and the written word comes when the patient is subject to the reading of others. Both the doctors and Poe read his body's symptoms to detect his condition and the effects of mesmeric influence. Visually, Valdemar's white whiskers contrast sharply with the blackness of his hair to create the effect of black words on white paper. Poe's control of his patient at this point reinforces the narrator's initial argument that he has control of the written word.

Valdemar's body continues its startling transformation as Williams so wonderfully explains (p 111). Before mesmerization Valdemar's face wears a leaden hue. After hypnosis, the skin resembles 'not so much parchment as white paper' and from a hole in this paper erupts a 'swollen and blackened tongue.' Speech and text combine, as the tongue, the black word on white paper, speaks, 'I am dead.'

Control of the written word is now lost for Poe. His Valdemar text cries out for a quick end to the hellish purgatory between life and death. When Poe acts to awaken Valdemar, the tongue screams, 'dead!' and the body, that which delivered the message, rots instantly into a 'liquid mass of loathsome - of detestable putrescence.'

So, of Poe's 'succinct and objective' account of Valdemar's mesmerization, what is fact and what is fiction? Is the written word more trustworthy and controllable than the spoken word?

What is the fiction which hides within the words and ideas which we think are fact? And in what sense is fiction then true? Over what do we assume control when in fact it is impossible to 'recompose the patient?'