The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapter 13-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Complexities of Identity

The Empusium is set in 1913, with Europe on the cusp of World War I. Longstanding tensions between nation-states are about to explode into unimaginable bloodshed. For the men sitting around Opitz’s dinner table, many of the tensions in Europe can be traced back to the question of national and religious identity. In examining the men’s assumptions and Wojnicz’s own experiences, the novel explores the complexities of identity.

When introduced to the other guests, Wojnicz is immediately quizzed about his national identity. Wojnicz is Polish, and for many of the other characters, this is a key aspect of how to define a person: Wojnicz becomes the Polish “delegate” in this small social circle. His father, a keen nationalist, embodies much of the spirit of nationalism that Wojnicz is eager to reject. Wojnicz knows that there are fellow Poles in the village, but he avoids them. He does not want to be surrounded by people like himself, as he rejects the fixed identity of nationalism. He feels at home in the spaces between nationalities, languages, and ethnic identities. By refusing to have his complicated identity reduced to a geographic happenstance of his birth, Wojnicz indicates that he believes that identity is too complex and nuanced to be fixed.

Each night, the men in Opitz’s guesthouse engage in a debate about everything from philosophy to politics to gender. They wrangle back and forth; in particular, August August and Longin Lukas emerge as diametrically opposed representatives of competing identities. August is a socialist and a classicist, while Lukas is a Catholic traditionalist. Their identities are built through opposition and, each night, they ratify their identities by reengaging in the ongoing debate. Neither man ever manages to convince the other to change his mind. The purpose of the debate is not to achieve some kind of synthesis of ideas, but to reiterate an identity based on a fixed political and national position. August and Lukas thus represent the nationalist and ideological forces that will soon define the conflict of World War I.

Wojnicz, meanwhile, is reduced to the role of an observer. He, with his more nuanced positions, can never truly enter into the debate. As the Epilogue states, Lukas and August die in the early days of World War I. They die a short time apart and are buried alongside each other, reaching a quiet synthesis in death after a life of fixed polemical identity. Their deaths suggest that such rigid, chauvinistic ideas of identity are ultimately destructive.

The Societal Construction of Gender

Wojnicz is an intersex person who has been shamed and marginalized throughout his life because of his physical form. While staying in the town, Wojnicz is also confronted by the deeply sexist, patriarchal assumptions of the men around him. Through Wojnicz’s internal conflicts and experiences at the sanitorium, the novel interrogates the societal construction of gender.

For all of August and Lukas’s disagreements, the only point they agree on is gender. They both believe that women are inferior to men. Like so many of their debates, their discussion of women’s role in society is made up of personal grievances masquerading as philosophy. Wojnicz notes how so many of the men’s debates end up addressing the question of women, which suggests the deep-seated anxieties around gender that the other male guests have. The men’s persistent reversion to stereotypes and sweeping generalizations about what it means to be a woman or “feminine” exposes the construct of gender and gender roles in this society, with the men constantly seeking to marginalize women by dismissing their intellectual abilities or worth as individuals.

For Wojnicz, this is a particularly complex subject. His relationship with his father has disintegrated in part due to his intersexuality and the way his mere existence challenges his father’s rigid ideas about masculine identity and the worthlessness of anything his father deems “female,” such as emotions like tenderness and empathy. Wojnicz feels alienated and unsure of himself, while the other men’s prejudices against women leave him unhappy and unsettled. Wojnicz’s intersexuality has confounded his doctors and, through his father’s displeasure, he has come to feel ashamed of his own body. He is reluctant to undress in front of his doctor, feeling as though he has long been treated as a horrific aberration in other examination rooms. As the novel progresses, however, Wojnicz starts to feel more drawn to exploring the female part of his identity. He begins to spend more time in Frau Opitz’s room, trying on her clothes and feeling at peace in her space.

Wojnicz’s questioning of gender constructs comes to a climax when the Tuntschi recognize his female identity and reject him as a sacrifice. After surviving his encounter with them, Wojnicz returns to Frau Opitz’s room, dons her clothes, and embraces his new identity as Klara. The narrative shifts to referring to Klara using “she/her” pronouns, reflecting the significance of this new identity and the peace it brings to the protagonist. In presenting an intersex protagonist who becomes comfortable with her identity, The Empusium criticizes rigid gender roles and exposes gender as a societal construct.

The Tensions Between “Rational” and “Irrational”

The Empusium introduces Wojnicz as he emerges from the steam in a train station. Later, he passes through the thick mists that separate the small town of Görbersdorf from the thick forests that surround it. This sense of passing between worlds creates a delineation between the forest and the town, “an unofficial border between the savage forest and the civilized village” (60). However, as the novel progresses, the tensions between what is “rational” or “irrational” heighten and the lines between them become blurred.

Görbersdorf is an isolated settlement, far removed from the big city and the recent technological innovations of the early 20th century. Nevertheless, the small town has been turned into a resort for wealthy people to be treated for tuberculosis, and Dr. Semperweiss enjoys showing off his new Mercedes. This ostensibly modern, “rational” world is also explicitly—and exclusively—associated with the male inhabitants. Female characters are rarely seen and, when they are glimpsed, they are usually silent and marginalized figures. The men’s discussions each night are heavily centered upon the idea of what constitutes “progress” or “rational” development in the world, with the men presenting themselves as intellectual agents of human development and the inherently superior sex.

In contrast, the forest that surrounds the town is regarded as a strange place, which the male inhabitants associate with the supposedly “irrational” and feminine. Wojnicz hears of folklore and legends that claim local women have been known to escape into the forest and remain there, becoming “feral.” Furthermore, while walking in the forest he encounters the Tuntschi—female figures made of stone and moss by the all-male community of charcoal burners to have sex with. The forest thus becomes associated with the repressed female inhabitants of the town and the attempted domination of the feminine by the male inhabitants.

At the novel’s climax, however, the boundaries between “rational” and “irrational,” and between the town and the forest, completely collapse. Wojnicz discovers the annual ritual the men of the town perform, with the men entering into a frenzied state and killing a man as a sacrifice to the spirits of the forest, whom the men associate with the Tuntschi. The men thus behave in a way that, to Wojnicz, appears highly emotional and irrational, while the Tuntschi become the dominant, vengeful force. Significantly, the Tuntschi then rationally recognize what the male characters have not: Wojnicz has a female as well as male identity.

The Empusium thus suggests that the boundaries between what is “civilized” or “savage,” or what is “rational” or “irrational” are never as clear or firm as they may initially seem, particularly in societies based on hierarchies that seek to dominate and exclude others. In ultimately giving the Tuntschi a vengeful power and depicting the men as living in fear of the forest, The Empusium suggests that what is “rational” is often determined by those who have the dominant voice in a society, and that it is often not inherently rational at all.