#engl349

The Tempest and Forbidden Planet

‘loose adaptation’ the same way Clueless is a loose adaptation of Jane Austen

first big-budget Hollywood sci-fi film

Prospero is Morbius

has secret study

access to occult knowledge

Miranda is Alteira

‘stereotypical pretty dumb blond’

pure, innocent, has never seen a man before

not included in father’s activities

sexual knowledge comes to her over the course of the play

mother removed

Category of servants/slaves

Caliban and Ariel both exhibited to some extent by Robbie the Robot; he is like a conflation of the two

The cook

Like some mix of Trinculo and Stephano

humorous moments where he is looking for liquor

The captain

Ferdinand but reimagined as a more proactive hero

less passive; saves the day

important part of plot, his status is elevated

References/similarities to other readings from our coursework

echoes of the interest in anthropology found in New Atlantis/Man on the Moone

Morbius is a trained philologist; has figured out the hieroglyphics of the alien people

New Atlantis=meeting other people who don’t want them to land on their planet, encounter with the other

similarity to Solomon’s House—tour around all the scientific experiments and technologies, “look how much your tech sucks in comparison to ours”

“Now this is the time to talk about the bonkers parts of the film that are not related to our coursework”

‘2000 centuries’—why such an oddly specific large number instead of just saying infinity?

odd tension present between very large and very small numbers being used

tries to make a big show out of the fancy science but then there are these tiny laser blasters; like the film spent all its budget in certain places and not others

the set where Alteira is outside was the reused munchkin set from The Wizard of Oz

Portrayal of 1950s American values/conception of what it meant to be an American

white male cast with one white female; in line with the 1950s American vision of extreme whiteness, heteronormativity, etc

Only woman on the planet becomes ‘mother nature’

‘acceptable’ power for woman to have would be calling the animals

like Snow White

domestic figure, only woman in house, friends with animals

as she becomes corrupted by initiation into sexual knowledge the animals turn against her

reflection of the myth of Orpheus?

The krell

modelled on figures like King Kong and Godzilla

also called ‘id,’ related to/projection of Morbius’s id

when Morbius wakes up, the krell retreats

represents unmitigated passion that the crew ought to leave the planet

if the Krell is Morbius’s id, and the krell has killed before, is it possible that his unconscious wishes killed his wife?

very Freudian implications

when conscious, he suppresses his desires and the krell lives them out

father-daughter set-up by removing the mother figure; Electra complex

father does not want daughter having contact to other men

Morbius claims that his wife died in labour but if we believe him, we’re just subscribing to his narrative

What is the krell?

scene where scientist made mold of footprint; taloned feet but quadruped who only walks on two feet

Anthropological trajectory of The Man on the Moone

discovery of beings on moon followed quickly by return to Earth

Gonsales winds up in China, so he encounters another people shortly after meeting the people on the moon

Gonsales seems to want to leave everywhere that he winds up in so he can get back to his family

his narrative of his travels make it back to Europe before he does

he appears to be stuck in China for a while

irony that he spends the whole text talking about how he wants to get back to his family and yet his tale makes it back before he does

What Gonsales finds on the moon

importance of Gonsales being a dwarf is highlighted when he realizes that the moon is populated by a race of giants

giants’ height is proportionate to the amount of time that they live

morphology is an important marker of social hierarchy in the Lunar’s society

if you weren’t sufficiently tall, you would be exiled from their society

this social organization on the moon puts Gonsales at a significant disadvantage

The New Atlantis, The Man on the Moone and Utopia

societies in The New Atlantis and The Man on the Moone both seem utopian at first and then reveal sinister underbellies

mood of story moves from the utopia appearing to be an idyllic place to live to realizing that sketchy things are happening beneath the surface/seeming more ambiguous

people of ‘wicked disposition’ (usually marked by not being sufficiently tall) cast away

creates disturbing sense of ethnic cleansing/desire for genetic ‘purity’

idea people ought to be useful

both are portrayed as Christian utopias

p.112: society of Lunars is said to be modelled explicitly on Utopian ideal

in 1000 years we have had no war mongers, food grows without labour, man is provided with everything he needs and wants (including women), all women are beautiful and once a man has known (known=sexual knowledge) a woman, he has no desire to have any other ones

people are said to have no desire to murder and there are no wounds that cannot be cured

genre of Utopian writing seems anthropological in a way similar to Bacon; we have genre by which we encounter a new people and this is the set-up for our description of Utopia

Both Bacon’s people and Godwin’s people demonstrate an articulation of a potential problem that could cause social unrest, but the problem is always shut down effectively before it can have its negative impact

social non-cohesion is always ruled out

Both utopian societies are preoccupied with the prolonging of life

Lunar society seems to be interested in the same sorts of sciences that are listed at the end of The New Atlantis as the kinds of sciences that would be desirable for people to know

these similarities suggest this text engages with New Atlantis’s version of utopia

Strangeness of these utopian societies as Christian ideals

both Bacon and Godwin’s societies are preoccupied with trying to cheat death; but within Christianity, death is what brings you back to God’s kingdom

the human body is supposed to return to the ground

Christianity therefore seems superficial in these texts, especially because the types of knowledge that these characters seem to be concerned with are often occultist in nature

many passages do not fit into the dogma of then-present mainstream Christianity

both take place within “Another Paradise,” because they cannot return to the “Original Paradise (Garden of Eden)

trying to build a new one because they know the old one is no longer accessible to humanity

idea of alternate worlds implicit in this text

do alternate worlds exist?

how many alternate worlds are there?

how can we find out how many alternate worlds there are?

how many dimensions are there?

The Lunars’ associations with proto-eugenics and ethnic cleansing towards racial purity

height is determining factor of value to society/goodness

if you are not tall enough this is a common suggestion of an ‘imperfect disposition’

they don’t try to make them taller, they send them to Earth (their society does not use capital punishment)

Gonsales learns that he has likely already encountered other Lunars on earth before

the thing that has been discovered has been reversed (has already discovered them but just didn’t know it) and so the anthropological context changes as well

What are the lunars doing on Earth?

113: ordinary event for lunars to send their ‘wicked’ to North America

signifies there is a whole people that is descended exclusively from the Lunars—> implication that this is the Native American people

so, in Godwin’s account, Native Americans are the rejected Lunar people, which implies in turn that Native Americans are space aliens

second note on 113: continued use of tobacco, which is associated with English settlements in the Virginias

Thomas Harriot’s writings on Virginia

in tying to suggest that Native Americans are space aliens, Godwin is relying on Thomas Harriot’s 1588 publication that tries to depict the Native Americans of Virginia to European audiences in an anthropological manner

“late Elizabethan scientific weirdo”

involved in occult

interested in matters concerning telescopes, other magnifying lenses

1586/7, went on voyage with English people looking to survey lands in Virginia

Harriot discusses customs of the local people, with illustrations

early anthropological work

book depicts child raising

mothers carrying children on backs like backpacks is framed as unusual because it is not something that European mothers did

if you viewed the images from some angles, they would look chimerical

anthropological in nature because the images of the people are shown from both the frontal and dorsal view, as was typically done in anthropological works

what looks monstrous/chimerical from front (mother would look like she had extra arms and legs) looks loving and maternal from the back

also features anthropological images of warriors, religious figures

how the people cook and eat

what high feasts looked like

traditional Indigenous dance

vegetations

idols, tombs

Godwin’s descriptions of the Lunars seem to be based on the illustrations provided by Harriot’s book

strangeness of plate 22

elongated, unnatural body

very long legs

for Godwin, long legs define morphology of lunar people

long legs inspire Godwin’s sense of the lunar people—image like this feeds into the idea that Native Americans are morphologically distinct from European people

in a weird way, lunar voyage is framed by/actually about the new world, and ideas about what Indigenous people were like that were created by works such as Harriot’s

Gonsales’s return to Earth

uses magic stones to get off the moon; weird business about gravity

will need this magic stone to be able to land properly

lands in China, not Seville

in part, this could be because the earth rotated and so he landed somewhere unexpected

becomes Marco Polo-like narrative

Marco Polo=Medieval text

Godwin’s text takes huge leap forward to utopian vision for mankind then oddly reverts back to older, medieval formula for engagement with Eastern parts of the globe

in The New Atlantis, the sailors have their attention on China and Japan as well

fantasy of Christianizing new parts of the world

religious orders/missionaries

perhaps a reason why Gonsales would be made Catholic is reference to Jesuit missionary work

Jesuits considered themselves to be most educated of Catholics

Gonsales’s interactions with people of China

anthropological element of his interest in learning languages

The Man on the Moone: First impressions

begins like a travel narrative

feels like it’s repeating structure of New Atlantis

absurd and dream-like, but realistic at the same time

beginning tries to assert the realness of the text, use of ‘documentation’ to add sense of realism

author also stresses in introduction that it’s not his job to make you understand what’s going on

drops dates and names of recognizable characters, presumably to add to the sense of realism

Domingo associated with people the audience could have been expected to know

selling itself as recent history also to contribute to the realness effect

Why set in Spain? Why make the main character Spanish?

written by English Protestant bishop—why write about a protagonist who is Spanish and Catholic?

removes main character from the audience—perhaps adds believability?

reference to Columbus

imperfections of Domingo—maybe an English character wouldn’t have been allowed to be so flawed; could have given the author more creative license

would not have been bound by having to make the English character perfectly respectable

character is allowed to have more flaws, be a bit of a ‘scoundrel’ because that played into stereotypes the English held of the Spanish

At the time of its writing, Spain was more of a global colonial power than England was

England was settling the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean, but were nowhere near the global powerhouse they would come to be

England was participating in the Atlantic Slave Trade in this time as well

England and Spain had a complicated relationship

1588—Spain tried to invade England, 1605 their war officially ends

so, this could have been about Protestants and Catholics, it could have been about the English and the Spanish, it could have been recognition of Spain’s then-superior colonial forces

New Atlantis—the people of the island spoke Spanish; that was how they were able to converse with the settlers

Don Quixote—also published and translated into English around this time; could have been an influence (English version appeared 1612)

various adventures in global travel narrative

Domingo

always moving/travelling/on the run

begins in Seville and Antwerp

p71 strange act of war pillaging

confessional text? Is he telling us because he is trying to absolve himself of some sins

asking the reader to absolve him?

there reprover rules of conduct in war and he is not acknowledging them

perhaps there is a sentiment here of ‘he would not have done this if he was English/would have granted him mercy had he been an Englishman’

Implied that Domingo is a dwarf

many references to his height from the offset of the book

him being small is contrasted to others who are tall

“unlikely body”

unlikely benefit that the birds would have an easier time taking him to the moon because he is small

Domingo’s interest in science

interested in future, new technologies and innovations

says he will publish his findings

becomes increasingly like Prospero as the text goes on

has a penchant for trying to tame creatures

The island (St Helena)

St Helena was a real island where voyagers heading to the Indian Ocean often stopped for layovers

Relationship between Domingo and Diego

strange relationship

stay on opposite sides of island

Domingo takes residence in Portuguese chapel

Diego is not allowed in the chapel because he is Black, hugely racist implications of his having to reside in the cave

don’t verbally communicate

Domingo finds other ways to communicate with Diego

smoke

using the animals

strangeness of relationship is exemplified by the fact Domingo wants to communicate but not cohabit with Diego

perhaps the two should have bonded over being outsiders—Domingo a dwarf, and Diego being Black; but instead of bonding against ‘Normativity,’ they are differentiated by race as marked by skin colour

Domingo makes weak excuses for why he cannot live with Diego

‘if we lived together, we would have run out of food’ contradicts earlier descriptions about the island’s bounty

similarities present between Domingo’s treatment of animals and Domingo’s treatment of Diego

he seems to be applying his ‘training’ method to Diego

is training animals to speak to him

calls Diego “my Moore,” like he is one of his pets

The birds

first appear p77

chimera-like language used to describe them; engagement of chimerical imagination

creatures unknown to him

partly like fish, partly like bird, one foot with claw and one foot like water fowl

Why would Domingo want to fly?

transcend the limitations of his physical form

maybe greater wanting to transcend the body because of his discomfort in his own skin

flying brings him outside of himself

pragmatic

get around faster and easier

to prove that he can/colonial implication

glory, honour, wants to show off and perhaps even monetize what he is doing

importance that Diego sees the contraption

science had to be witnessed

he wants Diego to go tell others what he accomplished

amazement, magnificent aerial view of reality, omniscient perspective

offers freedom

physical and existential

Housekeeping

Midterms

wait 24 hours before asking the professor any questions about the grade you received and why you received it

highest grades went to people who stayed close to the passage they were discussing and kept it as focused on that as possible

people using the second passage often did not pay enough attention to the bit about Prospero breaking his staff and burning his book

John Donne

notorious for sexual innuendo

was a clergyman; delivered sermons

also known for his religious poetry

belonged to the movement of ‘metaphysical’ poets, who were concerned with:

man’s relation to the universe

epistemology of souls

religion

‘poetics of the miniature’

doing what a microscope would do

microscope was invented, most likely, after his death; he foresaw the work they would do in his writings

Song

1st stanza

much of the science in this poem takes place here

idea present that the heavens/the stars are in motion (“go and catch a falling star”)

could have been influenced by the sighting of the 1577 comet (also could have been influence on Bacon)

occultist quality to many of the references made, particularly in the first verse

mandrake root

uses

was used in witchcraft; connotes casting spells

could also be used as a psychoactive drug

could be poisonous

morphology

flowers and berries on top; root that extends into ground that looks vaguely humanoid

perennial

folklore

commonly seen in pop culture dealing with magic/witchcraft

Harry Potter, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

in traditional folklore, if you pulled one out of the ground, it would scream and the sound would be so bad it would kill you

mandrakes were classified as ‘male’ or ‘female’ depending on the number/layout of smaller roots on them

opens with a list of what sounds like impossible tasks that nobody would be able to accomplish

idea arises that these may have been the kinds of magic that Prospero might have been concerned with

the mermaid’s song

impossible to hear; the siren’s song killed those who heard it

famously, Odysseus heard it and survived; but he had to be tied to his mast so he couldn’t escape and follow their demands

making envy go away; perhaps the most impossible of all these tasks

2nd stanza

10 000 days/nights = ~27 years

basically what he’s saying is you are more likely to complete all these literally impossible tasks than you are to find a good woman; you can travel for 27 years and not find a single good one either

at the end of the second stanza you learn what the poem has actually been about the whole time; it is the misogynistic pursuit of a good woman, of which allegedly there are absolutely none

3rd stanza

uses religious language; language of making a pilgrimage to find this woman

if she existed, she would be a saint

Formal features of poem

whole poem has perfect, songlike meter

easy to remember (like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

but this is not a poem you would necessarily want to remember

implies a disconnect between the form and the content

Donne’s ideal woman

imagined as occult object in the natural world

is tied by the language of this poem to

falling star

mandrake root

devil’s foot

mermaid’s song

all of these are occult items but they are joined to idealized, true and fair women

occult knowledge is gendered as female

we also see this in Bacon

no abstraction of “mother Nature”; nature is embodied in real women

The Flea

1st stanza

poem largely concerned with what we would now see as sexual coercion; trying to convince woman to lose her virginity to him

she is denying him when he is asking her to lose her virginity to him

moves from discussion of their bodies to the bodies of the flea

the flea itself

how would you look at a flea, as he calls us to in this poem?

you would need some kind of optical instrument because they are so small

Donne sounds like he’s really interested in this flea; as if dazzled by its artistic beauty

he is trying to seduce the woman by appealing to the sense of wonder that the flea produces within himself

2nd stanza

religious allusions begin

marriage bed, marriage temple

cloistering—what nuns do

here, cloistering seems to imply the opposite

‘living walls of jet’ = the flea is black

3rd stanza

she squishes the flea

uses her nail; creates image like it is being hammered into the ground

in order for the poem to work, the flea must be alive, biting and in motion; moving between the two bodies

when she kills it, she destroys his scientific experiment

the body of the flea cannot be useful for his purposes anymore and so he needs to find the utility in the dead flea

The two lens microscope and the flea

could have been invented as early as 1590 or could have belonged to Galileo’s time

without the microscope, mostly what you would have been able to see about the flea is its extremely large backside (as compared to the rest of his body)

flea would have to be dead to be examined under microscope

The Ecstasy

Most ‘metaphysical’ of the poems we read from Donne

engages in 17th century dialogue concerning dualism

ecstasy—mind/body split, divine frenzy, soul is liberated from constraints of the body

also, religious ecstasy; or could be used to describe something you are very excited about

Housekeeping

paper

due end of day November 12

must have name, title, page numbers

MLA

4-5 pages double spaced

NOT a research paper—do not need to read anything that is not on the syllabus

wants to see close engagement with the literary text

we can use secondary readings on syllabus if we want but not required

professor wants to hear our thoughts on the material

focus on specific passages—textual analysis should be bedrock of what you are arguing for

argument should be based on detailed evidence

worth 30% of final mark

for topic involving comparing source material from adaptation: similarities help you formulate an argument and differences help you defend it

for next week

Donne poems

‘so hetero it’s sickening’—prof, lol

Ursula Leguin

The New Atlantis

More Christian Undertones

Miracles

miraculous acts are typically associated with bodies of deceased saints

believing in miracles an act of faith

you either believe in it or you don’t

Baconians=interested in phenomenons you could reliably reproduce

good scientific experiment=one with results that could be repeated again and again

i.e. dissection

you should expect to find the organs in the same place in many bodies

with miracles, you can’t expect them to ever repeat themselves

they are unique and exceptional

perhaps there is an irony in that this scientific society is founded on the occurrence of a miracle when science is supposed to produce a set of equal responses

Purity

epidemiologically speaking, the islanders are very concerned with keeping the diseases of foreigners away

only Christians, implicitly racist about who is allowed to come to island

insularity and isolationism; protection from unwanted influences by outsiders

they strongly control the external influence they let in to the island by picking and choosing the science and technologies of outsiders and do not allow for any free trade or exchange to occur

Where does the knowledge of the islanders come from?

books left behind from Bartholomew

but not sufficient—those would only cover old forms of knowledge, while theirs is continuously evolving

184-185: every 12 years 2 ships set forth out of Kingdom, fellows from Salomon’s house are supposed to bring back new knowledge

New Atlantian policy is basically espionage

ironic tension or perhaps even a contradiction in that they want the knowledge of others but they will not share any of their own

they don’t want new people/mass immigration in their land but they do want the ideas others have come up with and the technologies they have created

one-way directionality of knowledge

island is like ultimate storage facility of knowledge—they get all the perfected knowledge of others and do not have to engage in the messy work required to produce it

they want the products of everybody’s minds and nobody’s bodies—division between flesh/mind perhaps

the islanders also always know more than the strangers who they encounter about the strangers than the strangers will know about the islanders

one step ahead of anybody who would attempt to colonize them

why have all this knowledge and keep it?

maybe the fate of the old Atlantis is affecting the people of the new Atlantis; existential dread that they will suffer the same fate

doomsday preparation/perhaps they are afraid of an extinction event

the enemy they are fearing is amorphous, persuasive, hard-to-detect fear of death

do Atlantians know they are doomed for flooding?

parallel to Genesis; when God destroys the earth through flooding

they ought to know they will not face the same fate because God explicitly says that he will never destroy the earth through a flooding again

“The great works of Nature”—odd list at the end of the New Atlantis

perhaps speaks to fear of extinction

suggestions of eugenics/building a perfect race

ties into idea of racial purity

this list outlines the most valuable kinds of knowledges to the people of the New Atlantis; what is apparent is that they value the defiance of death, avoidance of disease and disability, human capacity for creation, and growing crops more easily

from the modern perspective, a list like this comes across as dystopian and highly alarming

“Baconian wishlist” is like a blueprint for 19th and 20th century scientific horrors

we now have a privileged, a posteriori understanding of the outcome of acting on many of these desires

maybe this text should be read with less suspicion if we are reading it from Bacon’s eyes; back then he would not have known what would come from the pursuit of what to him seemed like a description of a Christian science utopia

hierarchy of value of knowledges

some of these knowledges seem to be more important than others according to how they are featured in the text

there seems to be an impression that one guy invented everything; society based on collaboration, but each discovery boils down to one person

no real valuation of collectivism

does the Baconian scientist become God?

making of new species on the list

also, transplanting one species into another

Question arises; can you have all this power and remain a good Christian?

perhaps this is why the text remains unfinished

‘works of Nature,’ not ‘works of God,’ emphasized here

The occultist nature of knowledge as presented by this text and by this list

Occultist knowledge becomes more mainstream as it is popularized by people like Bacon

references to house of Salomon; when Solomon was a key figure of interest to occultists

occultists also were highly concerned with the types of knowledge made explicit by this list

The islanders’ fear of colonization

they seem to be prepared for the arrival of outsiders

having more knowledge of those who would come to colonize them then the colonizers would have of the islanders

prepared to put foreigners with diseases in quarantine

statue of Columbus

they are an extractive colonization—they extract knowledge from the people they colonize and use their science; are uninterested with their bodies

they would come out on top in a moment of first contact; they have engineered their society so this will be the case even though it seems like they do not come into contact with others often

implies a level of paranoia

The rhetoric of “Nature”

rhetorically often used by socially conservative viewpoints to deem something to be impure and immoral because it violates a system of “nature”

for instance, sodomy was long considered a ‘crime against nature’

idea that what was natural was good (socially and culturally speaking) but in this context, natural was co-opted to signify pertaining to a hetero-patriarchy

long history under conservative thought that causing crimes, or not belonging to the standard social order, was abnormal and marked you as something that went against nature

no polygamy on this island and no women

men probably had many wives who died after fulfilling their ‘natural’ function of reproducing; likely to have died during childbirth

relation between knowledge and nature and progress; progress leads to a more complete knowledge of nature

The importance of secrecy

island life is based on secrecy and privacy

hoarding knowledge

they pride themselves on

stealing knowledge from others

being hard to locate by others

only a very few people know about them

Housekeeping

for Thursday, finish reading The New Atlantis

next week, we will read a handful of Donne poems (link will be posted on Canvas) and the story by Ursula Leguin

due date of first paper likely to be pushed back to the 12th of November

topics will be released prior to class on Thursday

not required to answer every aspect of a topic

you will be allowed to pitch your own topic to prof

if you wish to write about The Tempest, you must have a very good reason for doing so and clear it with the prof in your pitch

The New Atlantis

does this text fit the model of Baconian science? What is its relation to Baconian science?

literally attached to his natural history works

persuasive text; Christian context

importance of the Atlantis being built in 6 days

role of gathering particulars

observation of natural phenomenon

concerned with the utility of nature for mankind

implicit understanding that God will always be the light at the end of the scientific tunnel

no tension between science and religion=they are one and the same

The New Atlantis as move from particulars to universal

Creation in Six Days

Christian Creation narrative

6 days to create all creatures of the universe and one day to rest

Creation is an act; literally manufacturing

manus=use hands

idea of God as artist as well as creator; what he makes are creatures

Bacon was Anglican; in Anglican culture, work>rest, “Protestant work ethic”

vision of science as an ongoing, never ending labour

perhaps this is why the work was left unfinished?

What’s in a title?

“New Atlantis” implies that there was an old Atlantis

“great Atlantis that you call America”

Atlantis—originally, the island that drowned

foundation for later texts that want to explore life under the sea

drowned by God—>their advanced technology went too far

exploration of hubris being punished by God’s wrath, destruction

must be significant the dream of the unfinished work is closely associated with a doomed/failed project

why imagine science as doomed to failure?

perhaps the role of science is to understand and interpret God’s creations but do not play God yourself (perhaps why Atlantis failed)

Further religious implications

pentecostal moment

people are made to understand languages that they could not originally speak

revelation of knowledge you do not need to work for

cedar chest opens itself to onlookers

green turbans

holy in Muslim culture

parallels between Islam and Christianity

angel of Gabriel miraculously teaches written language to Mohammed

so many parallels between this text and Islam, despite persistence of Christianity within this text as well

Solomon’s House

where endless progress occurs

Solomon=associated with forgotten knowledge, completion of knowledge

people of New Atlantis believe they have Solomon’s writings that were lost to Europeans concerning natural history

occultist associations with Solomon

figurehead for occult as well as science that renaissance scientists would have liked to uncover

return to more full, complete knowledge system

because scientists were not in possession of this knowledge system, they felt they were deprived

Travel narrative about the Pacific Ocean

travel markers: China, Peru

we are on the Pacific Rim

presumably taking route to South Seas for imperial trade but gets blown off course to the New Atlantis

Island of New Atlantis—>isolationist

cut off from land

inhabitants seem to want to maintain sense of insularity

‘please do not come here, please do not bring your diseases’

Japanese thread running throughout

broad-based Orientalism with Islamic, Japanese references

Orientalist fantasy (near/middle east); European projections about what they think “the Orient” ought to be like

The New Atlantis as a garden of Eden?

not allowed to come in and out

not allowed to return once they have left

have to be Christian to come in

you are allowed to leave

you are allowed to mention it exists

Why are the inhabitants so worried about disease?

policies followed very well to manage disease

much energy expended; clear sense of fear and anxiety

could be a part of their isolationist tendencies

civilization imagines that good bodily health is a prerequisite of the pursuit of knowledge

given the text’s broad-based Orientalism/secretive policy, could you argue the epidemiological context is working towards a notion of racial purity?

keep out foreign/strange elements and only let in Christian, healthy people