# 18 = Volume 6, Part 2 = July 1979
John Ower
"Aesop" and the Ambiguity of Clifford Simak's City
Clifford Simak's City provides a trenchant attack upon human brutality, power-hunger and instability. Such condemnation is expressed directly by the doggish editor, by the robot Jenkins and by Jon Webster. Man's evil and immaturity are also emphasized through contrast with the dogs, who steadfastly pursue their noble ideals of non-violence and an animal brotherhood. These obvious aspects of City have recently been stressed both by its author and by Thomas Clareson.1 However, the pro-canine and anti-human stance of Simak's novel in fact constitutes only part of its meaning. The development of City reveals that human and doggish civilizations both have their weaknesses and their strengths, and that each culture underlines the shortcomings of the other. The ambivalence which characterizes City is conveyed with particular skill by "Aesop," the seventh of the eight tales that compose Simak's novel.2
The ambiguities of "Aesop" are in part generated structurally through the film technique of "rapid montage."3 Sudden time-shifts and changes of scene create a highly compressed narrative that weaves an intricate network of comparisons and contrasts. This process begins in section 1 of "Aesop" with the arrival upon earth of a "cobbly," a savage but keenly intelligent outworld predator. The alien intruder expresses Simak's notion, seen also in the mutants and in the conquest of earth by intelligent ants, that reality is fraught with peril and treacherous surprises.4 Scene I of "Aesop" relates such a danger to the "Darwinistic" idea of a struggle for survival in nature.5 Thus, the weasel-like form and mentality of the cobbly suggests the cunning and the ferocity necessary in the merciless battle for existence.
As scene 2 of "Aesop" begins, killings perpetrated by the cobbly are being discussed by Lupus and Bruin, animals whom the dogs have partially tamed and endowed with speech.6 Simak's abrupt shift from the cobbly to barely civilized terrestrial carnivores links the outworld predator with the "Blood hunger" that the dogs are striving to eliminate from earth. Although canine feeding stations have removed the harshest imperative of the battle for existence, the instincts bred into earthly carnivores by the struggle for survival are too deeply rooted to be easily effaced. The talk of Lupus and Bruin indicates that they are killing on the sly, and that an efficient system of wardens and spies is still necessary to prevent mayhem. Thus, the dogs have forced hypocrisy rather than virtue upon the other beasts, and the canine code of non-violence must — ironically enough — be maintained by the methods of the police state
Together, the first two scenes of "Aesop" suggest doggish ideals are dangerously out of keeping with a hostile reality as it is manifested in the battle for survival in nature. The precarious position of canine values is further emphasized by section 4, in which Peter Webster kills a robin with the bow he has just reinvented. Simak is now implying that the greatest threat to the benevolent plans of the dogs comes from man, who combines the killer instinct of the predatory beast with a powerful, mechanically inventive intelligence. Should such a technologized savagery become allied with the chafing ferocity of terrestrial carnivores,7 the animal brotherhood for which the dogs have labored would be speedily destroyed. Section 4 thus indicates man's fundamental barbarity, but it does so in a way which likewise suggests that doggish ideals are unrealistic and terribly threatened. The paradoxical duality of Simak's vision is accordingly beginning to emerge.
Such an ambivalence also arises in a different manner from scenes 1, 2 and 4 of "Aesop." Their juxtaposition of the savagery of cobbly, earthly carnivore and man has two contrasting effects: to show the perilous situation of doggish values, but also to imply that canine ethics represent the only hope for morality and civilization. This opposition is reinforced by the contrast of sections 1, 2 and 4 with 5 and 7. Through the musings of Jenkins, which have the special authority of a wisdom derived from seven millennia of experience, Simak explicitly praises doggish aspirations, and sets them against man's irredeemable barbarity.8 Scenes 5 and 7 thus join with 4 to indicate human savagery, but in a way that emphasizes the value rather than the precarious position of canine ideals. Only through the dogs can true civilization emerge from a Darwinistic nature.
However, a conflicting set of ideas is introduced by scenes 6, 8 and 9 of "Aesop." Section 6 evokes the horror of the cobbly, and implies that only man is able to deal with it. In parts 8 and 9, Simak emphasizes Peter's heroic courage in facing the alien intruder, a bravery that arouses the admiration of even the disillusioned Jenkins.9 When scenes 6, 8 and 9 are combined with 1, 2 and 4, they form an ironic frame that qualifies the conclusions of sections 5 and 7. Once again, Simak is indicating that canine ideals are dangerously out of keeping with dark actualities. By way of contrast, the author suggests that only man can cope with a hostile universe.
Thus, scenes 1-9 of "Aesop" create a double perspective upon both dogs and men through an intricate network of comparisons and contrasts. Simak's ambivalent vision is also conveyed in sections 8 and 9 by the complex symbolic connotations of Peter's victory over the cobbly. This suggests most obviously the traditional myth of the monster-killing hero, an interpretation which points to man's superiority over the dogs when dealing with an evil that stems from the basic conditions of existence. In the face of such a danger, the canine ideals of pacifism and brotherhood are ineffective, while human violence can no longer be seen as entirely reprehensible. Rather, as a defense of oneself and others against an implacable destroyer, brute force is both necessary and ethical.
However, another interpretation of Peter's victory over the cobbly is likewise possible: one that undercuts man rather than the dogs. This arises from seeing the monster not as an evil which confronts Peter and earthly animals from without, but rather as a projection of the killer lust within them.10 Such an idea is implied by the obvious parallel between the stealthy ferocity of the cobbly and the mixture of "Blood hunger and fear" perceived telepathically by Jenkins in the mind of a weasel (scene 7). The sinister connection between alien and terrestrial carnivores is extended to man through Jenkins' reflection that while the weasel does not kill for fear of the dogs, Peter has taken life, even if unintentionally. Thus, the cobbly represents not simply an external savagery which the human hero is able to conquer, but also a brutality within the boy's own makeup which he cannot overcome. Jenkins therefore has real justification for exiling man from earth to preserve the doggish ideal of an animal brotherhood.
The two opposing interpretations of Peter and the cobbly just outlined contribute to the ambiguity of "Aesop" not only by their obvious contrast, but also by their combination in a paradoxical synthesis. This may be approached through the incongruity that is implicit in Jenkins' perception of Peter's heroism:
Courage, thought Jenkins . . . to take on hell itself. Courage to go down into the pit and rip up the quaking flagstones and shout a lurid, obscene jest at the keeper of the damned. (pp. 220-221)
Jenkins obviously admires Peter's bravery, but also sees within it overtones of the infernal and the obscene. Such an equivocal awareness suggests neither a simple opposition nor yet a simple identity between Peter and the cobbly. Rather, Simak appears to be synthesizing both views in the perception that it is the savage hatred and anger within Peter which fuels the inspirational courage necessary to overcome his enemy. Thus, Simak is implying that the worst in man is inseparable from his highest potential, an idea also intimated by Peter's "invention" of the bow.11 Conversely, the author seems to believe that the elimination of the dogs of the "wolf" in themselves and other animals is a mixed blessing. While killing will be done away with, so will the capacity for self defense, and also much of the psychic energy that has produced man's diverse achievements. These penalties become evident in "The Simple Way," the story that follows "Aesop." The dogs could have stopped the ants conquering earth through the "simple" human method of poison. However, this solution would violate canine ideals, and in any case the dogs lack chemistry.
Thus, in "Aesop," Clifford Simak uses structure and symbolism to create an ironic ambivalence towards both human and doggish cultures. The story indicates that Clareson has oversimplified the meaning of City in concluding that its author, through his pejorative contrast of man with the dogs, employs the beast fable as "a perspective from which to make moral judgement" (p. 74). Clareson's statement is presumably intended to associate City with the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, a connection which implies that Simak is delivering clear-cut and definitive ethical pronouncements based upon a traditionalist sense of moral absolutes. However, the tension of opposing perspectives in "Aesop" suggests Simak's viewpoint in City may be closer to the outlook of those modern thinkers who assert the relative and conditional nature of all values, and the indifference or hostility of the universe to moral concerns.
NOTES
1. Clifford D. Simak, City (New York: Ace Books, 1976), pp. 1-4; and Thomas D. Clareson, "Clifford Simak: the Inhabited Universe," in Clareson, ea., Voices for the Future (Bowling Green: Bowling Green Univ. Popular Press, 1976), up 70-75
2. "Aesop" was first published in the December, 1947 issue of Astounding. It was collected with the other stories in novel form in 1952, when the introductions of the doggish editor were added.
3. Simak's interest in film is indicated by Jenkins' reference in scene 5 of "Aesop" to Walt Disney's Song of the South (1946), and by the ironic parallel between "Aesop" and the Disney version of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" (Make Mine Music, 1946).
4. This idea is expressed throughout City by the recurring images of wind and darkness. Such symbolism is especially prominent in "Aesop," where it is tied in with Simak's depiction of the cobbly as a fluid, snarling shadow.
5. This notion of course represents a popular rather than a scientific conception about biological evolution. For a distinction between such "Darwinistic" ideas and true Darwinism see Morse Peckham, "Darwinism and Darwinisticism," in The Triumph of Romanticism (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1 970), pp. 1 7 6-20 1.
6. The beginnings of this process of civilizing animal nature are seen in "Hobbies," the story that precedes "Aesop" in City. Here, a wolf that is just making its first contacts with canine civilization is still constrained to kill a rabbit out of hunger. The behavior of the animal provides a clear-cut connection between the barely suppressed savagery of Lupus and Bruin and the harsh imperatives of the struggle for survival in nature.
7. Such a sinister possibility is indicated at the end of scene 4 when Lupus first offers to kill Fatso the squirrel before he can tattle to the dogs, and then eats the "evidence" of Peter's crime.
8. However, in scene 5, Jenkins also worries about the problem of overpopulation among the animals that has been created by the eradication of killing and disease. Once again, Simak is showing that doggish values, however noble, are in many ways out of keeping with the intractable realities.
9. In part 8, we also see in Peter evidence of a growth to a genuinely heroic moral maturity. Lupus advises Peter to run away so as to make matters as difficult as possible for Jenkins and the dogs. Peter is however determined to own up to his crime and to face whatever consequences there may be.
10. In this connection, the cobbly could be identified with either the Freudian id or with the Jungian "shadow." The "shadowy" appearance of the cobbly suggests the latter reading.
II. Similarly, the ravening ferocity of the cobblies, expressed in the need to find new hunting grounds, provides the motivating force behind their invention of the formula for travailing between the "time" worlds.
ABSTRACT
Clifford Simak's City provides a trenchant attack upon human brutality, power-hunger, and instability. Such condemnation is expressed directly by the doggish editor, by the robot Jenkins, and by Jon Webster. Man's evil and immaturity are also emphasized through contrast with the dogs, who steadfastly pursue their noble ideals of non-violence and animal brotherhood. However, the pro-canine and anti-human stance of Simak's novel in fact constitutes only part of its meaning. The development of City reveals that human and doggish civilizations both have their weaknesses and their strengths, and that each culture underlines the shortcomings of the other. The ambivalence which characterizes City is conveyed with particular skill by "Aesop," the seventh of the eight tales that compose Simak's novel.
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