Welcome to part 33 of my study on Clive Barker. Today, we will be looking at his first novel, The Damnation Game.
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The Damnation Game is a Faustus story, a story about a man who makes a pact with the devil.
The story begins with a Character simply called 'The Thief' looking for a person by the title of 'The Card player.' 'The Card player' is a rumored figure is said to never have lost a poker game. The Thief's motivation for wanting to play and beat 'The Card Player' is simply that he wants to dethrone 'the king.'
The setting for the prologue takes places in Warsaw just after being liberated from Nazi control by the Russians. Barker paints a gruesome picture of the city as a place where women are raped, then killed if they complain, children are sold like cattle, gambling of all sorts take place, and C. Marlow's play 'Doctor Faustus' plays nightly (see that nice hint to what type of story this is going to be?)
As The Thief looks through the city trying to find The Cardplayer, he sees some disturbing graffiti of people who've painted pictures of the Card player (An idea used in his short story, The Forbidden) and becomes somewhat afraid.
He eventually finds a Russian Soldier who has played against The Card player called Mamoulian. The Solider is terrified to even talk about the poker game and tells the Thief not to seek him out. The soldier explains he is transferring out of the city as soon as possible but does tell the Thief where he can find Mamoulian.
A few days later, while stilling trying to find Mamoulian, The thief learns that the soldier had his throat slit and his body was found floating down a river of flaming shit (A result that occurred after a tank fired a shell into the sewer lines.)
The Theif eventually finds a woman who will take him to Mamoulian. The woman is described as having a mutilated face, a beautiful body, and would be naked if not for the giant fur coat she wears around herself.
The prologue ends The Thief meeting Mamoulian and the two sitting down to play poker against each other.
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There are a lot of great ideas that occur within this Prologue that I'd made note of and would use myself in my own writing.
1. Referencing the canon the story is based on by introducing it into the story (Like how the play Dr. Faustus appears in the opening scene.)
2. The use of Graffiti as a way to hint at the monstrous beings that exist in the world.
3. This one I've already began to incorporate into my work, but often, my characters don't have names, they have titles Examples: The Thief, The Card player.
4. Creating hell-like scenes using logical events. (A river of flaming shit is a hell-like scene. The idea that a tank blasting into a sewer line is the cause of this is a very logical event. I might use this formula to create my own type of Horror-based Rhetoric.)
5. Creating a Juxtaposition of having a beautiful woman with a mutilated face are the type of images I strive for. Juxtapositions, paradoxes, and compare & contrast are a big factor in my own writing, and I love it when I see other writers do such things.
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This concludes my look at the Prologue for The Damnation Game.
If you have a thought or a question, please leave a like or comment!
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