By Triton’s Tentacles: Mythology and Reality in “The Lighthouse”
*Aye Matey! There Be SPOILERS Ahead!*
“Are ye a praying man?” Willem Defoe’s Thomas Wake asks of Robert Pattinson’s Ephaim Winslow.
He answers that he is not much for the activity, but he considers himself “God-fearing.”
But to which God?
A Wickie’s Work
The Lighthouse is a current critical darling with its intense performances, innovative vintage cinematography, and visceral imagery. It is a film that is difficult to place. It’s horror, but most of the horror arises from the uncomfortable atmosphere. The black and white tight shots give it the appearance of an art house film. The attention to setting, accent, and costume make it a period piece. There are surreal cuts and imagery that would fit into 1930’s science fiction.
With such a tangled, convoluted piece, there will inevitably be a lot of commentary on its themes. There are the outward themes of conflict, isolation, loneliness, guilt, and violence that are laid bare in speech and plot. Beneath the surface, in forgotten, dramatic lines, and in casual dialog is the concept of myth-making. And the indoctrination into belief that can beget its own violence.
A fascinating thing can happen when you are steeped into a specialized career or situation. You may develop your own superstitions; making and reading patterns through frequent occurrences. These myths become true by repetition and repeated until they become true.
For instance, if you work at a restaurant, you may have the assertion that the customer that stays past closing will never leave adequate tip. Every instance this happens only reconfirms the myth. Every instance to the contrary is ignored, or excused. Because once a superstition becomes belief, it reshapes the reality of the believer. Actions, and reactions are interpreted by the framework of that belief. But first, you have to develop or be indoctrinated into that belief.
Queue The Lighthouse and the battle of wills between its two protagonists. Thomas Wake is an old “wickie” or keeper. Ephaim Winslow a first time lighthouse keeper and Wake’s unwilling protege. Their relationship is one of mutual disdain, with Wake wielding his authority over Winslow whenever possible. Wake charges him with all the menial work and critiques all his efforts to cower and subdue Winslow. Wake also serves as the keeper of myths.
This conflict lays itself out in three mythological-aligned acts. In the first, Winslow creates his own loose beliefs and resists Wake’s mythologies. In the second, the conflict rises as Winslow becomes susceptible to indoctrination. In the third, Winslow has rejected his other beliefs and usurps Wake’s position. Each section coincides with an increase in violence corresponding to this power struggle.
Siren Song
Some of Wake’s and Winslow’s earliest conflicts arise from Wake’s attempts to impose his lighthouse keeper superstitions on Winslow. All of these stem from Wake trying to establish himself as an authority on wickie ways and life. Part of Wake’s modus operandi is the power that comes from being the holder and executor of myth. He not-so-subtly sets himself up as the expert on being a wickie and consequently, one that should go unquestioned.
Wake’s beliefs verge on the banal to the routine to the disastrous. Concurrently, his indoctrination includes other power-driven movements. This includes refuting portions of the lighthouse manuel that may equalize Winslow’s status with his (taking turns in the night watch of the lighthouse) or make him less susceptible to manipulation (the rules against drinking).
He also tries to impose his superstitions and traditions on Winslow early on. Wake warns Winslow not to kill any seagulls since it will cause bad luck. He later reveals that it’s because gulls are the reincarnated souls of sailors.
Wake even has a regular toast at meal time that he recites like a prayer, it must be said before they eat:
“Should pale death, with treble dread, make the ocean caves our bed, God who hears the surges roll deign to save our suppliant soul.”
To contrast his steady mythology, Wake even reports on mythologies he may only partly believe or does not wish to fully have Winslow indulge in- those of his former keeper. This keeper believed in sirens that apparently drove him mad to the point of drowning. The deceased keeper also reported that the light in the lighthouse was lit directly from Saint Elmo’s fire. This dismissiveness of mermaids and the mention of the lighthouse light becomes another schism between the two keepers when Wake begins to adopt the former keeper’s myths like he does his bed.
While largely resisting the indoctrination into Wake’s wickie religion, Winslow begins to observe his own form of worship. When he first gets to the lighthouse, he finds a small mermaid statue. He uses it to masturbate to, and though we may first think of this as an simple item he uses as his pornography, the film begins to turn masturbation into a worshipping ritual. Wake masturbates in the lighthouse tower, and placates naked to the light. Winslow’s mermaid statue becomes his idol. The graphic depiction of semen make it into an offering.
One thing the film does well is destabilize “truth” and the shifting of “truth” in light of changing belief. Winslow is the audience’s main POV character and we are naturally given to sympathizing with him for it. Early on, we see what may be his dreams or hallucinations. These images change as Winslow descends into his own shifting beliefs spurned by the consistent stressors of lighthouse life.
In the first act, some of his visions concern his new mermaid idol. She swims towards him in one scene and wakes up some time later. The mermaid reappears at intervals, becoming both an object of lust and eventually one of scorn.
A Tempest
As we approach their previously established departure date, Winslow’s stoicism begins to wane. He begins to partake in some of Wake’s traditions, as his new belief is more flexible when he is content that he will soon be leaving. This coincides with the shift in Winslow’s and Wake’s relationship, that rapidly moves between affection and hatred. The change in their relational status is marked by Winslow agreeing to drink and trying to say Wake’s toast.
This does not mean that he stops rebelling or refuting some portions. Chief among those is the killing a seagull. After the cistern is contaminated by a dying gull, Winslow kills another in anger and frustration. This blasphemous act results in a storm delaying their leave and ruining their supplies. This action (killing the seagull) and reaction (the persistent storm) seems to confirm wickie beliefs as real beliefs, rooting them in Winslow’s reality. Whether or not he acknowledges this does not matter, as we see his behavior change to more align with Wake’s beliefs.
With no real water and a delayed ship to retrieve them, they resort to only drinking alcohol. This dehydration may be part to blame for the increased shifts in reality. It also makes him more susceptible to indoctrination to the wickie beliefs. This comes to a head when Winslow destroys his mermaid idol, remarking it has no power over him any more. He rejects his former beliefs and it makes him susceptible to Wake’s system.
Part of how we know there is a shift is the confession scene. While the two are still vacillating between combative and affectionate, Winslow makes a confession. It turns out he isn’t actually Ephaim Winslow, but Thomas Howard who murdered his chiding foreman Winslow and took his place. This only occurs as Winslow goes through his personal metamorphosis into instability. He has begun to see Wake as a trusted authority (part of the indoctrination), but it schisms with Wake’s rejection of the confession.
“Let Neptune Strike Ye Dead, Winslow!”
We crescendo at betrayal and conflict. Though Winslow has come to possess the obsessive belief in the mysticism of the lighthouse light, he has also begrudgingly acquiesced to seeing Wake as an authority. After a particularly dangerous storm, Winslow discovers that Wake planned to have him fired without pay.
This betrayal does not go unpunished. Winslow, at this point has been having increasingly erratic shifts in reality representative of his shifting beliefs. As Winslow beats Wake to a pulp, Wake’s image shifts through the real Winslow, the mermaid, and Wake as a sea king. His forceful pummeling results in a subdued Wake allowing Winslow to become the aggressive authority figure, now in charge of the mythology.
This is particularly prevalent in the burial scene. Throughout The Lighthouse, Wake has given sermonous rants of an evangelical preacher with a sea-shanty tone. He continues to do that, but rather than being lit dramatically with large shadows to establish his presence, Winslow stands over him, throwing dirt in his mouth to bury him alive. All his posturing is for not.
In the final scenes, we watch as Wake ascends the lighthouse. The structure up to this point had served as its own temple, and the lantern forbidden to the non-believer Winslow. We saw a number of scenes where Wake worshipped the light, perhaps becoming his own sea god in one such scene. Now that he has commandeered it, Winslow not only goes up to worship it, he opens the latch.
Winslow has made the mythology of its importance reality. In doing so, he has shifted his reality, his personal mythology, to make the light into something more powerful than himself. Therefore, opening the latch becomes another rule, another blasphemous violation. The light rebukes him, and he is given a punishment fit for wickie belief: that he is seagull food.
Requiem For a Sea King
The Lighthouse does not make any distinctions between “reality” and fantasy. Rather, as all films make a version of truth, this one is particularly acute in its assertion that truth is largely perception. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether mermaids are real or that a lighthouse light may be a god, as long as those responsible for action believe those truths, they will act on them. Reality is less a stony rock face and more a ship in a storm. And it can toss you about if you don’t have your sea legs.
For more film theory, check out this piece on Ad Astra.
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