Hauntings and Ghosts

One of the more startling pages I came a cross while reading/enjoying/visualizing/watching Epileptic, was page 17. On that page David B. reveals to us the moment he stopped being afraid of what typically puts fear in most people’ minds; ghosts, witches, vampires, devils, etc. After being warned about going into a house that is said to be the Devil’s house, David B, announces,

“I’m not afraid. I’m no longer afraid ever since a dream I had.

I was sleeping at my grandparents. I was dreaming of Anubis, god of the dead.

H was walking toward me. I was terrified.

I woke up.

Anubis was still there, and he was closing in on me.

Suddenly everything froze. There was only the silhouette of the closet, which looked vaguely like a coyote.

Since then, I may fear people, life, the future.

But I no longer fear ghosts, witches, vampires, devils.”

This page intrigues me because so much of Epileptic is based around David’s interactions with ghosts. Can we extend what he is not afraid of to also include death? If he does fear life, and so much of his book is based in Yin and Yang, does it not suitably follow that he should not be afraid of death?

Throughout a large majority of the book, his imagined companions are indeed those things he has professed to have overcome a very human fear of- ghosts, the dead, and the devil.

David B. recounts how he used to escape into the forest surrounding his home, leaving the mental armor he has carefully constructed behind because “ I don’t need them where I’m going” (David B, 84), he says with a look of happiness on his face in the panel.

It is in those woods where he seems happiest. He writes of getting lost in the woods and it being a “magical moment” on which he gets drunk (85). It is in this forest where David is most happy that “his ghosts” join him and “provide me with an escort” (85).

David seems to be at home with these ghosts. Who are they? What are they? It is difficult to tell, until he meets the ghost of his grandfather, a goofy-looking long-billed bird.

This bird-ghost is a constant recurring figure throughout much of the rest of the book. Besides his family, ghosts offer the only other constant character.

On pg 112, we see a simple textual page. All it says is, “Olivet. I hurry to my room. The drainpipe. The park. The woods and the ghosts.” The words are sparse but the feeling conveyed in quite forceful; his ghosts provide him with a type of comfort he cannot get elsewhere.

On pg 134, David faces the bird-ghost and tells it, really telling himself, that it doesn’t exist, that he is all alone. It is a difficult panel because the bird-ghost was a comforting image that David forcibly buries. But it isn’t only a ghost that haunts him ( haunting is not always a bad thing) but it haunts his mother and his grandmother as well. This ghost, like many ghosts, are not specific to one person, they affect many people in many ways. We see the mother seek a medium to try to communicate with her father. Yet she is still haunted by the ghost of her father. How does he look to her?

The idea of ghosts haunting more than one person is a clear theme in this book. The epilepsy that preys on Jean-Christophe is a perfect example of a ghost that haunts not just his host, but the family as well. The entire book is the story of how the ghost of his brother’s epilepsy has affected and haunted David.

But how can something that is not dead, haunt you in the form of a ghost? I believe Simone Weil’s point about force having “the ability to turn a human being into a thing while he is still alive,” is exactly what has happened to Jean-Christophe. And it is the ghost of Jean-Christophe as thing, that haunts David. This ghost, he cannot completely master, because it is not a ghost like the others.