The Death of Odjigh

 

Nebachadnezzar, William Blake (1795)
Marcel Schwob, "The Death of Odjigh" in The King in the Golden Mask translated by Kit Schluter (Wakefield Press, 2017).

Schwob's story can be read through the lens of Thomas Ligotti or Peter Wessel Zapffe, that is, as a work of philosophical pessimism. As the dying world comes to its end, the wolf slayer Odjigh faces his own personal crises of an emerging conscience. Odjigh, by gaining a kind of self-awareness, regrets his role as a hunter and positions himself as an observer and critic standing outside of nature. As he sees the violence around him and pities the suffering of living creatures, he laments existence itself:

"Odjigh, deep in his heart, regretted the jigging of the nacreous fish in the meshing of the nets, the serpentine swimming of the conger eels, the heavy gait of the tortoises, the sidelong trot of the gigantic wall-eyed crabs, and the lively yawns of the earthly beasts, hairy beasts decked in scales, beasts spotted in an irregular fashion pleasing to the eyes, beasts who loved their young and bounded adroitly, or twirled curiously, or took to perilous flight. But above all the other animals, he regretted the ferocious wolves, their coats of grey fur and their familiar howls, having been accustomed to hunting them with club and stone axe, through misty nights, by the red glow of the moon."
--The King in the Golden Mask (pp. 25-26). Wakefield Press.

He ends up occupying an untenable position; one that eventually leads Odjigh to a literal dead-end (a wall of ice) that he breaks through only to usher back in the violence and suffering that he has discovered to be so deplorable. Setting himself apart, Objigh not only is struck down by lightning, but the wolf proves just how out of touch with nature Odjigh has become. 


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