CONTEXTS OF LOS'S FIRST CONFRONTATION WITH THARMAS


plex confrontation. Ahania identified the watery Shadow with Luvah
descending from a delusive cloud, and the absorption of the Man by this
"Shadow" took the form of Luvah's smiting Albion's Body with boils,
"the terrible smitings of Luvah" (41:16), an event which condensed into a
bodily image the vast human suffering lurking on the fringes of Urizen's
attempt at redemption in Night II. The Man's response to being absorbed
by the Shadow was to project his suffering onto Luvah (making the "smit-
ings of Luvah"simultaneously by him and enacted upon him) in the form of
turning Luvah's sense organs downward and outward. Luvah was thereby
condemned to "die the Death of Man" (42:1), that is, to live out the Man's
projected smitings. The confrontation between the Man and the
"Shadow," involving Luvah, presupposed and effected a division between
"Spirit" and "Body" analogous to the division between male and female.
When this shadowy reflection turned back into the narrative it generated
two male/female confrontations at the end of Night III, both of which
enacted a total rejection of the female who, in each case, like the narcissis-
tic revelation in Ahania's vision, embodied information the male refused
to acknowledge. In this dual casting out of females, Ahania replaced Enion
in the plot, just as Tharmas supplanted Urizen. Thus the confrontations
between Tharmas and Los and the Spectre of Urthona in Night IV analyze
the male/male strife for "dominion" in Ahania's vision and the Urizen/
Luvah power struggle emphasized in the account given by the Messengers
from Beulah in Night I as well as in the first part of Ahania's long speech in
Night III. This double function of the Tharmas/Los confrontation derives
from Ahania's vision of the Shadow as an indirect analysis of the direct
Urizen/Luvah power struggle that dominated the opening of her speech.
 Tharmas, however, self-righteously projects all guilt onto Urizen and
 Luvah: "The all powerful curse of an honest man be upon Urizen &
 Luvah" (48:2). When Los responds by claiming that he and Enitharmon
 "have drunk up the Eternal Man by our unbounded power" (48:13),
 thereby consciously, eagerly accepting responsibility for the present state
 of affairs, he is being equally reductive. And when Enitharmon shrieks
 that it is Tharmas' "fury" that has overthrown her "sweet world / Built by
 the Architect divine" (48:27-28), she reductively projects blame back onto
 Tharmas the "rash abhorred Demon" (48:29). Thus, while Tharmas
 throws blame onto the absent Urizen and Luvah, Los claims it for himself
 and Enitharmon, and Enitharmon projects it back onto Tharmas. The
 events being discussed, however, are perceived so differently by the three
 characters as to make them different acts.
 Tharmas approaches Los in a conciliatory fashion: he differentiates Los
 ("My Son Glorious in brightness comforter of Tharmas" [48:3]), from the
 guilty Urizen and Luvah. He then asks Los to "Go forth Rebuild this
 Universe beneath my indignant power" (48:4), a request which is simul-
 taneously an order, and his language reveals that Tharmas has now stepped
 into the role of the "Awful Man" in Ahania's vision in Night III, who was
 "Indignant" at the descent of Luvah. While in Night III the cloud pre-


Feedback between
Nights I, II, and III






















The Tharmas/Los
power struggle, phase 1














Tharmas'speech to Los
emphasizes Tharmas'
desire for Enion.


(41:4)