Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns) by Hieronymous Bosch

All of the below is quoted from the draft of my paper/book/chapter on Beckett's novel Watt:

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This curious duality of narrator being and not being like Watt comes up in another image and twist of language. In this section, the narrator describes Watt as Christ-like, and uses an image of Christ in a painting by Bosch (hanging in Trafalgar Square) as reference to how Watt looked. And through a turn of phrase, likens himself to the image and thus to Watt. The language does the same as earlier, allowing the narrator to become Watt, while at the same time asserting the narrator’s ‘actual’ existence and his authorial status; which in turn, forces Watt’s ‘actualness’ of being, and both of their non-being at the same time.

This moment occurs in the narrator and Watt’s meeting in the ‘void.’ This passage reads:

"His face was bloody, his hands also, and thorns were on his scalp. (His resemblance, at that moment, to the Christ believed by Bosch, then hanging in Trafalgar Square, was so striking, that I remarked it.) And at the same instant suddenly I felt as though I was standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I, and the very birds tossing in the wind, so that I looked at my hands, and felt my face, and glossy skull, with an anxiety as real as unfounded. (For if anyone, at that time, could be truly said not to resemble the Christ supposed by Bosch, then handing in Trafalgar Square, I flatter myself it was I.)" (159)

Again the narrator aligns himself with Watt; however, what is strikingly different about this episode is the dramatic realization of his similarity to Watt, and Watt’s situation. At first, Watt is separate, a “person” or thing to be described—Watt is Christ-like—not fully man—Watt is akin to an image of Christ, further removed from actual reality…when suddenly, Watt becomes the narrator’s double: “And suddenly I felt as though I was standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I”… (159). By asserting Watt’s likeness as that of an image in a painting, the narrator is disassociating himself from Watt—no longer is the narrator considered within the text, no longer is he a character trapped in textual reality, a mere textual fabrication. He is the narrative authority; after all, he saw this painting, this “real” painting (“Christ Mocked”) by a real painter (Hieronymous Bosch) in a real location (The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, London). Thus, through this disassociation from Watt, the narrator aligns himself with the author.

However, the switch is full circle via the mirror: “I felt as though I was standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I, and the very birds tossing in the wind” (159). Hence, the narrator’s panic, to prove to himself that he is indeed not Watt and is indeed something “actual”—not an image, like that in a painting. He does what only a ‘real’ person could; he notes: “I looked down at my hands, and felt my face, and glossy skull, with an anxiety as real as unfounded” (159). Unfounded, yes, because he could not really be like Watt; thus he asserts the validity of his emotion: the anxiety was “real.” Then, parenthetically, he quickly asserts that he, of course, does not at all resemble the Christ-image in Trafalgar Square—which only perpetuates his textual bind. Through this assertion, he attempts to, again, disassociate himself from Watt, but again, through this assertion he only inscribes himself more completely within the text. And having finally submerged within the text—in the textual landscape, is able to discover the ‘void’ and is able to find Watt in this space between.