Loss of Light, Loss of Life

"... a figure of sorts in stone, aluminum, and bronze, displayed proudly in front of the school library: 'Solstice' was it's enigmatic name" (41)

The winter solstice occurs in December and brings with it the longest night. On this day, the sunlight hours are brief and we are submerged into a lengthy period of darkness. This time of year is associated for many with the beginning of a death/rebirth cycle. During the long nights of the winter months, there is traditionally more death, starvation, loss of energy, a general feeling of ennui, etc. The beautiful part of it though is that the world continues to turn and ultimately, the Earth comes through this dark time to face the bright sunny days of spring and summer again. Thus, from our darkest days, we are brought back into the light.

This symbolic look at the solstice provides some insight to the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates. Solstice traces the darkest days of Monica Jensen and Sheila Trask. The two women seem to repeat their own solstice cycles throughout the novel. Monica has recently gone through an abortion, a divorce, and a complete mental breakdown; Sheila has recently lost her husband and not recovered from this staggering blow. The two seemingly come through these dark times and find their worlds revolving necessarily together.

For a brief period, Monica and Sheila both seem stable and content together. They bring to each other a needed friendship yet they have their outside passions: Monica has found passion in her teaching while Sheila finds passion in her art. Sheila begins her descent into darkness as Monica watches and tries to understand it. Sheila explains, "it [is] just December: the approach of the solstice: the malaise of relentlessly darkening days and relentlessly lengthening nights" (75). During this time, Sheila begins to slip away, until ultimately Monica is afraid her friend will kill herself. Sheila develops an obsession with the idea of death which is spoken in chapter nine of part two: "Always and forever mortality. Nothing else engages me, nothing else terrifies me..." (110). During this time, Sheila loses her passion for her work and has to create an alter ego (Sherrill Ann) as a way to survive these dark times and maintain some sense of passionate abandon in her life.

Monica seems to be the one in control during these dark times for Sheila, but the balance shifts slowly as the world keeps spinning. At Sheila's lowest point on Christmas as we believe she may kill herself, Monica is arguably at her best. This balance begins to shift immediately after the episode at Sheila's door, which is almost exactly the mid point of the book. It is here that the dark side of the Earth's surface begins to spin in Monica's direction.

As Sheila comes out of the dark and regains her ability to travel, to work, to care about things - Monica loses it in equal proportion. She loses her passion for her work and for her students. She loses interest in her friendship with Sheila and in her relationship with her coworkers. Much as Sheila became singularly obsessed with her work and slid into darkness, Monica's slide into darkness focuses on a singular obsession with Sheila. As the world of the novel rotates, Sheila is working again and moving closer toward her show opening. Though she still needs Monica to help her organize her life and prevent her descent back into darkness, it is clear that she is on her way back to the light as Monica is falling: "falling asleep, falling sick. Falling" (214).

As the solstice falls on Monica's life, it is Sheila who has to act as the stabilizing force. On the night of Monica's personal solstice - on the darkest night - Sheila calls an ambulance and rides with Monica to the hospital. There is no indication in the last line: "...we'll be friends for a long, long time... unless one of us dies" (224) of exactly what is to happen to Monica, but from the meaning of the solstice imagery, it can be hoped that she will recover and start her ascent into the light again as she did after her divorce.

As the loss of light during the solstice is explored as equivalent to a loss of life, it is worthwhile to look at another "curious phenomenon" (194). Just before her final plunge into illness and near death, Monica notices daffodils outside in the school yard and reflects on the fact "that when daffodils pass their prime their petals become paper-thin. The colorful centers remain (yellow, orangish-yellow) but the outer petals turn transparent" (194). Monica is certainly facing her transparent stage, but the image she has in her head shows a sense of life still within her core. It is fitting then that the daffodil is a symbol much like the solstice. It is a flower representative of renewed life after a dark and troubling time.

The combined power of these images and the last line spoken by Sheila serves as an indication that the two women will live on to get each other through these natural life cycles for years to come. They will have their ups and downs, and hopefully while one is suffering their internal solstice, they will have the supporting "sunlight" of the other. The entire novel serves as a reminder that our darkest days in life are best reflected upon as a time of solstice... it does not end in darkness, because the world continues to spin and will come close to the sun again. A momentary loss of light does not mean we are doomed to a loss of life, but rather that we must weather these hard times so that we can rise up again and find our passion and joy.