Unreliable Narration
The theme of the unreliable narrator is rarely explored to the degree that the author takes in The Purple Cloud. First there is a letter from Dr. Arthur Browne that accompanies a series of notebooks to the author of the novel. After this establishment of verisimilitude, the novel is thus framed as the transcript of one of these notebooks. The transcript is not the story told by the protagonist, but rather that of a medium named Mary Wilson who has used her precognitive abilities to produce a vision of what will at some point in the future be the account of Adam Jeffson. As if that weren’t confusing enough, Mary Wilson did not actually write down her vision, but recited the narrative which was then recorded—shorthand, mind you—by Dr. Browne. From this shorthand transcription of the medium’s vision of the future events that make up the narrative of the novel has the author of that novel finished a re-transcription of Mary Wilson’s vision into longhand. And that is only half the story of how the story one is reading comes to be told. It is actually even more complicated and ultimately any reader is going to be forced to reach a moment of decision: is Adam Jeffson’s story intended to be taken as a literal account or is it possible that Jeffson—whose appears quite close to madness very often—was totally insane. Or, indeed, does the madness actually stop with Mary Wilson who only thinks she sees visions. And even if both Jeffson and Wilson are to be taken at face value, there is always the trustworthiness of Dr. Browne who must be trusted to have accurately recorded Wilson’s vision despite the fact her communication is only through a unique language all her own made up of mostly of meaningless sounds. It is all rather more complicated that there could be any rational reason for it to be, by the end all these layers of narrative reliability enforce upon the story a mythic quality not far removed from that shared by its singular inspiration: the Holy Bible.
Apocalyptic Fiction
The novel is often categorized as science fiction within the subgenre of “the last person on earth” trope, but in reality it is far more expansive example of apocalyptic fiction. Informed by an allegorical connection to the Old Testament stories like the fall of Adam and Eve and the suffering of Job, there is more Judeo-Christian dogma here than is found in most science fiction. And yet the novel also presents the post-apocalyptic earth as a battleground between dualistic forces of good and evil more akin to something in an Eastern mystic religion than the early monotheistic power of Old Testament God of Abraham. The name of the protagonist—Adam Jeffson, with the Jeffson a derivation of “Jehovah’s Son” –situates the narrative firmly within the landscape of Old Testament figures while layering the suffering he endures within the thematic landscape of New Testament sin, guilt and redemption. It is the end of the world as we know it, but the apocalypse always turns out being just another name for starting all again.
Black vs. White
The forces of good and evil are at work in the world both before and especially after the apocalypse. The protagonist learns of The White and The Black even before he embarks upon his trip to the North Pole, but it is during his lonely life afterward that he realizes them most palpably. Becoming a pawn in their battle for supremacy does little to indicate which is which, however. The conventional approach of determining white is a symbol for good and black for evil may not necessarily apply as clearly as it seems. Further complicating any unambiguous interpretation of whether it was the White or the Black responsible for the end of the world is the matter what is ultimately the final determinant of what is an act of goodness and what is evil.
