‘THE EMPEROR OF THE CITY’ BY MARK CHIN
Mark Chin’s ‘The Emperor Of The City’ disturbs our conscience with its bleak images of an allegorical dystopian state on the verge of an apocalypse. The theme of dystopia runs like a leitmotif throughout the novel, enabling Chin literary opportunities to explore within the motif the moral vacuum that has pervaded all aspects of life in a fast degenerative society.
The vacuum is evoked noxiously through the voice of the narrator. Like the protagonists of Gothic horror, the depraved circumstances have hardened the narrator into an aloof, grave and complex recluse who isolates himself from the maddening crowd in the upper levels of a Tower at Russian Hill. He chooses to remain nameless throughout. Nor does anyone care to know his name. In his interactions with the depravity outside his confines, he is not only nameless, but faceless too, having suffered a disfigurement from a raging fire that he, in a muddled state of panic, fear and rage, ignited. The narrator’s disfigurement, figuratively speaking, bespeaks the pervasive decadence that has eroded individual and human values. His ‘withered, blackened face’, ‘lipless skull’s grin’, ‘cauliflower ears’, wicked beady eyes and a bald cap with ‘wisps of white hair’ and the ugly black hole that occupies the centre of his face make him so hideous that he is compelled to go about mysteriously hooded. Like the rest in the bleak landscape, he is anonymous, without any known identity.
By depriving the narrator of an identity, Chin, is, perhaps, indicating that in a divided fractured state on the brink of a total collapse, there is really no one. The multitudes only wonder in aimlessness and constant fear, finding every possible means to survive an almost animal like existence in a human jungle.
The city that the narrator observes from his balcony and confronts when he ventures out has degenerated into a disaster zone. Basic items, especially water and petrol, have become so acutely scarce that they have become coveted as currency in barter trade. Rival groups sprout up to monopolise these essential items. Chief among them are the police and looters, both of whom use brutal force to seize control. Violent clashes between them over the scarce items are a daily occurrence. Their gun shots deafen the air, and the fires they ignite rage everyday till the city turns orange. ‘The night glow remained stubbornly orange’ until it ‘pervades the mist and low clouds’ laments the narrator in hopeless disgust. Acrid smell of burnt oil drums, burning buildings, plastics and piles of tires, and vehicles ablaze in violence and accidents, hang stiflingly in the air daily.
Equally suffocating is the stench of dead rats and other carcasses, and the unbearable odour of human waste and trash in heavily polluted and murky rivers and waters. The fact that the police are involved in the illegal trade of water and that gasoline is smuggled illegally from Los Angeles tells us of the uncontrollable state of chaos and corruption that has swept the country into a state of terminal fear, panic and pollution.
In a city scarred by violence, shortages of essential items are a daily menace. The populace have had to resort to hoarding and looting to survive. The narrator helps himself to many of the possessions and useful items belonging to the family of his neighbour, Leibowitz, after his neighbour fled with his family and was never heard of again. Besides helping himself in his neighbour’s apartment, he would go down the city daily before 4am to rummage for essentials before the rioters and looters make their presence felt. Obviously there is no regard for rules or laws. Smudge, a notorious teen girl from the lower storeys of the Tower that are peopled by criminals, breaks into the narrator’s apartment, brazenly opening fridges and cupboards to search for water and other useful items. The Piranhas, a deadly gang in the lower floors too, prise open doors and bolts along staircases to loot, as well as to make it easy for them to attack the narrator who had earlier killed one of their guys.
Many flee to the more civilized world of New York and California by buses and boats because the planes are always full, but most of them are inhumanely killed by young criminals and factions named after striking animals, such as the Punkies and Piranhas, indicating the bestial mentality of the people. Leibowitz who failed to get a plane to join his family was killed by the Piranhas in his bid to escape. His body was found afloat in a murky river.
So low has the morality sunk in this debased society that the people behave like animals in their daily grind without any regard for humanity. The narrator is seen looting at pre-dawn like an animal that forages for food. Whenever he is stunned by any heart-jolting clamour, noise or encounter, he reacts like a spooked deer. When angered or frustrated, he would throw furniture down towards the lower storeys, without any regard for law or life, with a grunt like he did when he threw his chair to the crowd below on learning that the Piranhas were after him. Water being scarce and a prized item, the narrator, and Cyrus and Ana, the two powerful tycoons of a gasoline empire, would drink blood to survive as though they are deadly insects sucking blood. They also drink it as a toast in celebrations! Once, badly disfigured and trapped in a filthy sewage tunnel, the narrator ate rats as though he was a carnivorous animal and licked trickling water on walls like a thirsty dog. Even the people behave like animals. They would rush past the narrator like frightened cattle. So frightened have they become under the thumbs of the police and looters that they do not even dare to reply to the simple questions of the narrator when he stumbles into them in the encampments where they live huddled in deplorable states like hunted refugees. Chin uses animal imagery, perhaps, to show behaviour debasement among a people who have grown up with depravity and conditioned into non-thinking by tyrannical mafias.
Such being the state of affairs, meaningful or caring relationships do not surface. Rather they are defined by indifference, brutal force and power, and suspicion. Smudge, the delinquent teen from the lower floors, suffers from a black eye punched unfeelingly on her by a Piranha she loves. Despite the violence, she still clings to him as seen in the jacket she puts on which belongs to her violent lover. She also obeys the Piranhas to find any useful items the narrator may have and to study other routes to break into his house. Perhaps, she does have a heart for she informs the narrator that the Piranhas are after him. But she makes it clear she is loyal to the Piranhas though they treat her like scum. Frequent break ins and rioting make it difficult for the middle class to go out. They remain starving in their living rooms, waiting endlessly by their TVs for help. The poor and hungry too wait in desperation for any kind of aid. Those who dare to venture out to trade or seek to survive are treated with indifference and suspicion. The old boatman who ferries the narrator to the gasoline empire looks at the narrator with suspicion. The narrator has had to pay him well with freshwater, a prized scarce item, to keep his mouth shut. A thirty-five year old the narrator encounters keeps a knife by his side in case his trade deal with the narrator over water fails. Ana, who partners Cyrus in the running of the gasoline empire, throws a tank mercilessly at the narrator as she leads him to their grand storage building. Daily interactions and trade are defined by force and violence, and not by humanity and integrity.
Violence is a way of life for the poor and homeless. Joanne escapes harrowingly from enforcement officers together with the narrator, who was pursued for having water and perhaps, trespassing into the encampments for the down trodden. Had they remained, they would have been killed for daring to escape. It tells that people live in subjugation and fear in a hostile and ruthless regime.
Yet there are sparks of tenderness in this raging fire of mayhem and hatred. The narrator remembers his late mother when he sees a portrait of a woman with a black man at a museum. It indicates that his conscience probably hates all these looting. Similarly, he refuses to steal the toys of his neighbours’ child probably out of a guilt conscience. He escapes with Joanne, but he helps her find shelter and makes her do his bidding in getting water as a paid service though he keeps her at a distance. His barter trade though is done with integrity. We don’t see him cheating the old boat man or any of the barter traders.
Yet power and ruthless control, rampant hatred and violence, and lifestyle distortions due to unnatural acts like drinking blood take their toll on the people, even those superior in wealth and intellect like Cyrus, Ana and the narrator. Cyrus and Ana seal the eyes and mouths of their slaves, starve them, bully them into forced labour and drink their blood. When the narrator refuses to join hands with him in the combined monopoly trade of water and gasoline, Cyrus destroys the generators of the narrator that were installed to distil water. Never once did they show compassion. The narrator, despite the clarity of his thoughts, did not hesitate to kill a boatman to stow away the boat to load gasoline barrels belonging to the vast estate of Cyprus. Neither does he feel any guilt in looting and hoarding the items. Towards the close of the novel, he turns into an addictive blood sucking monster, killing even Joanne who was sort of his accomplice, especially in getting water, by biting her to suck her blood. His anger goes so far as to make him destroy Cyrus, Ana and their wicked empire. Perhaps, these gory incidents show that prolonged subjugation in a ruthless regime can lead to distorted moral values.
But it is in anarchy and chaos that new leaders and ideas emerge that give hope to the suffering masses. The narrator almost torches the city when he burns down the towering empire of Cyrus and Ana. He feels no remorse at destroying a brutally cruel force. Perhaps, Chin is indicating that histories have proven that rebellions and justified angst are crucial in breaking down tyranny and oppression. The narrator does feel remorse though over the horrifying death of Joanne. Perhaps, through her, the narrator has nullified whatever evil that resides in him for we see no monstrous urge in him to live and behave like a vindictive animal. Instead, he joins a procession of people fleeing the city to seek a new life. This time he promises to protect them from any kind of banditry and inhumanity. Chin ends the story on his intended reformation, inversely implying that peace and order will only prevail if the Emperor is, not a ruthless tyrant, but a people united in their aim to build a just and peaceful ordered society. It is the people who should reign as the emperors of their city.
