"Don't touch me"

[thoughtcube]

Suddenly, this quote of Thomas Covenant's looks different to me. This has probably been discussed to death elsewhere, of course... but anyhow, here is what I think now:

One the one hand, the perhaps immediate meaning, which I've thought about for years, is his desire to remain 'distant' and uninvolved. He doesn't want to be moved by the land, because he fears it's a delusion; he doesn't want to be drawn in. So, 'don't touch me', in the emotional sense - don't make me care.

On the other hand, and this is what just came to me, this may be a reference to his disease - which is a contagious one. True, the chance to pass it on is very small, and the chronicles don't deal too much with TC's fear of infecting anyone. Still, it seems to me that there may be something here, because this is a typical thing for someone infected with a contagious disease to feel.

Make sense to anyone?

[Fist and Faith]

I imagine the younger the person he said it to was, the more he meant it that way. He had been taught that it wasn't particularly contagious unless you were exposed to it often as a child.

Welcome to the Watch!

[dlbpharmd]

On the other hand, and this is what just came to me, this may be a reference to his disease - which is a contagious one. True, the chance to pass it on is very small, and the chronicles don't deal too much with TC's fear of infecting anyone. Still, it seems to me that there may be something here, because this is a typical thing for someone infected with a contagious disease to feel.

Yes, welcome to KW!

I agree with the above explanation of why Covenant says "don't touch me." This goes along with the historic cry "Outcast unclean!" It also reflects his bitterness at the turn his life has taken.

[High Lord Tolkien]

In addition I always thought of it as physical protection too.
If he isn't touched he doesn't have to worry about unseen cuts and bruises.

[wayfriend]

I've always thought "Don't touch me!" is akin to "Leave me alone!" or "Go Away!" On the surface level, it's whining or an expletive. Just underneath, it's an honest warning delivered with bitterness, "You don't want to touch me." Underneath that, it is a pariah conveying the verdict of the society, urged to do so by social pressure - perhap unconsciously - "You shouldn't touch me." And underneath that, the author is illustrating the double irony of the leper pariah - of not touching someone who cannot feel, and the denial of contact which the leper suffers from lacking.

[exnihilo]

Interesting thoughts all. I just started rereading LFB at this time and I have been paying particular attention to the emotional impact of leprosy on TC. Reading this thread, something occurred to me that seems to be hinted at in the books: perhaps, on some level, TC needs the ostracism and rejection in order to survive, at least in his initial mental state (when suicide looms as the most attractive option).

Viewed in this light, perhaps what he is seeking on his trip to town is not really sympathetic acknowledgement or pity, but the active renewal of ostracism and rejection. The townspeople on the other hand are trying to avoid not only his physical but his moral presence; though their horror compels them to reject him, the guilt they feel becomes a heavy burden of which he is a perpetual reminder. They wish to convert the labor of active rejection into something passive and abstract: they most earnestly desire to forget him.

TC, on the other hand, finds it much easier to survive being rejected and ostracized than being deliberately forgotten. Rejection at least spurs the will to defy the heartlessness and cruelty of society; being erased from memory can only point to despair and the embrace of oblivion, of which suicide would merely be the final consummation. I think that is why he went into town: to force the townspeople to at least acknowledge his existence, to do him the service of ostracism and antipathy, so that he can find the rage to keep going. Later on, as TC is spritually transformed by his experiences, this would no longer be necessary.

So, I think that bitter cry of "don't touch me!" can be understood as an aspect of this reality. TC needs the adversarial relationship with society to give him the rage to continue. As hope is fatal, only rage and bitterness can keep him alive.

[Variol Farseer]

Well said, exnihilo! I think you're onto something important.

In effect, by saying 'Don't touch me' (and thinking the biblical 'Outcast unclean!'), Covenant is forcing people to acknowledge their treatment of him. They aren't touching him in any case, but when he is present and reciting his litany, they have to think about not touching him. Covenant cannot change the cruelty of the people around him, but he can force them to recognize that they are being cruel. He dispels their comfortable illusions about their own essential goodness by reminding them of one way in which they are being downright evil. That's a kind of revenge, and as I know from experience, a peculiarly powerful and sustaining kind when you can get it.

[CovenantJr]

Good posts, both of you - particularly exnihilo.

[Renegade of Funk]

The funny thing is, I always thought of it being a kind of warning about leprosy first - it only occured to me that it could be the wanting-to-be-distant thing after quite a way through reading it.

[Marv]

i always thought it the saying of bitter cynic. almost telling people that they should't want to touch him because he was unclean and dirty because of his disease. the same way that he would call himself 'unclean' with what i always imagined to be dripping sarcasm.

[Digital Thought]

I thought it was part of his extreme emotionalism. I believe that Tomas is 95% emotional in his responses & 5% mental. ALmost everything he does is based on some extreme feeling he has about the issue. This is a man driven by emotion itself.

So I think, how would he feel when he says, "Don't touch me!"

It is a lonely, 3 word sentence. It implies scorn and self-reproach. It is the cry of a man who is afraid of everything and tired and angry because of it. "I'm poison. I'm so alone. Don't touch me!"

What a beautiful picture of human nature and a mirror with which to peer directly at ourselves and say there's a little of that there in me & this too & I see that this is something I would feel & I admire that character's response and would do the same & we identify with the realism of the story.

ANyway, it is quite fun to think about how certain phrases or things affect each reader. To me, it was little more than him flinching. I didn't read too much more than that to it at first. Truly a good story when you can open up more and more each time you read through it. I look forward to these bouts of anger from him as I reread now.

[Zarathustra]

TC, on the other hand, finds it much easier to survive being rejected and ostracized than being deliberately forgotten. Rejection at least spurs the will to defy the heartlessness and cruelty of society; being erased from memory can only point to despair and the embrace of oblivion, of which suicide would merely be the final consummation. I think that is why he went into town: to force the townspeople to at least acknowledge his existence, to do him the service of ostracism and antipathy, so that he can find the rage to keep going. Later on, as TC is spritually transformed by his experiences, this would no longer be necessary.

Damn insightful. Well said.

[Nerdanel]

I've been thinking that Linden may have caught leprosy...

TC, on the other hand, finds it much easier to survive being rejected and ostracized than being deliberately forgotten. Rejection at least spurs the will to defy the heartlessness and cruelty of society; being erased from memory can only point to despair and the embrace of oblivion, of which suicide would merely be the final consummation. I think that is why he went into town: to force the townspeople to at least acknowledge his existence, to do him the service of ostracism and antipathy, so that he can find the rage to keep going.

It struck me that this attitude feels a lot like Lord Foul and goes with what hints about him SRD has given us.

[exnihilo]

Nerdanel has given me a thought. Pardon me for asking a potentially stupid question, but is Lord Foul a leper also? Or, at least, the avatar of that condition within the *Landscape* of Covenant's psyche?

Thanks for the kind words of so many of you on this thread, but I am sorry to report that I cannot claim originality for those ideas (well, perhaps for a few ). Subsequent to my original post, I re-read The Illearth War, and I observed that Donaldson said in part and hinted towards something very similar to the remainder of my remarks in that novel. (Wish I had written down the quote or a reference to it!) I am glad my perceptions seem to line up with his intent.