Tom Phillips: Explicating A Humument

Page 304

On page 304 of Tom Phillips’ A Humument, Phillips suggests that men solicit favors to a woman in order to court them but they will solicit favors to many a women by gifting them with elaborate gifts. Philip colors the page with black shadings with the edges being darker than its body of light goldenrod and as he maps out a body of land he encompasses it with words and phrases like water around an island. This island is the representation of men’s continuous journey to court the right woman.

Philip first begins the page by putting into light how moral are the ways men tries to purse women. The passage begins on the upper left side of the page. It starts with, “A Cruise in an Opium Clipper,” which is referencing Captain Lindsay Anderson’s book about the morality of trading Opium to China. This is the author’s way to introduce the reader to question men’s morality of how they try to woo women. By bringing up opium it is expressing the poisonous acts men perform to get what they want. Opium has properties to sooths the mind and emotions which is the way men will try to trick women into giving them what they please. The opium clipper is a ship that is used to transport opium over seas and for a man sailing on this boat leads one to question his morality to allow the trade of poison. Despite the British knowing opium is very addictive they kept on trading poison to get into the ports of China, just as men will do the same to get into the ports of women.

As the lines cruises above to the page it begins to describe male conquest as a long but adventurous journey. The description is addressed on top of the page where he writes, “Ten years travel.” The specified amount of years is to stress how long a male’s sexual conquest takes for them to find a settlement, which in this case is a woman. The whole process of a male selecting its mate is a, “sport in foreign lands.” The choice of word the author uses to explain the process is by sport. When a person sports they are performing an athletic activity to amuse themselves but in context it means performing a sexual act because it requires vigorous effort to perform this activity with the mystique of the female body.

Philips creates a lake where “Toge” follows a path to “soften…” a woman’s, “heart.” The line introduces the behavior of what Toge does to try to win the heart of a woman. This leads to more words surrounding Philips’ drawing. He takes her to “breakfasts luncheons and ball suppers,” which are display of his affection and it demonstrates men’s efforts to try to buy their way through to their lady with food. The first method to court a woman uses food as a sensual tool to arouse the senses of a woman. However if the first method doesn’t succeed men will try to appeal to a woman’s material desires by, “precious stones” of diamonds and gems. These acts are poisonous as described by the image that one can see in the window of pitch darkness. At close inspection a skull lies at the center of the framework, which is a symbol of poison and death. The window also has the skull lodged within a heart and the red surrounding it is spreading to other parts of the heart which is the heart being filled up with the acts of lustful men.

The chase of wooing women is a man’s, “marine engines and boilers.” Marine engines describe the driving force of men to woo women and as they woo other women their blood boils like a boiler that heat up water. The boiling describes men’s intense heat and passion when they spot an attractive mate as well as the blood that rushes to their sexual organ to allow it become erect. The process of wooing is only understood by a select few as described by “esoteric Buddhism.” Buddhism main principle is that desire causes suffering and that the whole process is repeated if a male has not realized their actions, “karma.” It explains that good deeds are the way to win a woman’s heart and not through food or material affections.

This is the end of the journey and where the words begin to repeat itself. The words traces around the drawing symbolizing the eternal cruising of the sea to woo a woman’s love. The drawing is an island that is colored in light goldenrod and separating it from the sea of words is a border colored in the dark shades of black. Along with a dark window located near the center of the land representing the deeds one has done to gain the chastity of a woman.

In conclusion Philips’ encompass image of words portrays the male behavior as eternal. It cannot be broken until lessons are learned from the past to find the proper way to court a woman because material gifts are nothing more than getting women addicted to poison acts of lust.

February 26, 2008 2:39 AM