37 pages • 1 hour read
Michael CrichtonEaters Of The Dead
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The Wendol
The wendol are a group of brutal cannibals which live on the periphery of human society. They may or may not be human—neither Ahmad nor the Editor can say definitively—but they have a symbolic value as a group rather than as individual characters. The wendol symbolize the horrors of life beyond the boundaries of civilization. They represent the most brutal, most violent elements of human behavior beyond any adherence to conventional laws or expectations. They engage in taboo, killing men, women, and children, and cannibalizing the people they murder. Unlike Ahmad or the Norsemen, the wendol seem to have no idea of peaceful society. To Ahmad, they represent the pure unbound horror of the darkest parts of humanity.
The symbolic importance of the wendol is conveyed through their living arrangements. They live in a system of caves underneath the ground. In a very literal sense, they are subhuman. Similarly, they only exit their underground dwelling at nighttime. The humans operate during the daylight hours and Hurot Hall is perched high up on a cliff, signifying the difference between the wendol and the other characters. The wendol are also physically different from the other characters and their clothes are markedly unfamiliar to even the Norsemen. In all instances, the wendol occupy an uncanny space which is nearly human but not quite, suggesting how life beyond the parameters of society corrupts and poisons.
The wendol eat the flesh of the people they kill and their living quarters are littered with human bones. The cannibalism is a symbol of the way the wendol break all social taboos. Cannibalism is abhorrent to all the cultures which Ahmad encounters, and in the novel cannibalism becomes a metaphor for life outside of society. Without civilization, the novel suggests, humans devolve into barely human symbols of horror and evil. Crucially, the cannibalism of the wendol is presented as the worship of violence, rather than attached to some deeper cultural significance. Crichton does not hint at any ideology beyond total dedication to their nefarious mother. The existence of the wendol is a symbolic endorsement of the societies portrayed in the novel. Baghdad, the Turkish tribes, and the Norsemen are all defined in opposition to the unbound horrors of the wendol.
The Towns and Cities
Towns and cities in Eaters of the Dead are important symbols of cultural differences. A variety of different cities and towns are portrayed and the contrasts between each helps to illustrate the differences between the Arabs, the Norsemen, and the wendol beyond the boundaries of human culture.
Though Ahmad spends little time in Baghdad, he references it constantly. His home is defined by writing, religion, and social etiquette. In Ahmad’s view, Baghdad is clean, pious, and civilized. Though he commits a social faux pas as the inciting incident of the novel, Ahmad never gives up his opinion that Baghdad represents the pinnacle of human achievement in a social sense. The city is rich, populous, bright, warm, and—most importantly for Ahmad—it is home.
Starting with the Turkish tribes and then the Norsemen, Ahmad is forced to come to terms with different interpretations of society. The towns and cities Ahmad encounters on his travels are distinct from Baghdad. They are cold, dirty, sparse, dangerous, and do not possess any link to the God in whom Ahmad believes. The endpoint of his travels is the kingdom of Rothgar, which is defined by Hurot Hall. The large, palatial space is vastly different to anything in Baghdad, but Ahmad is still impressed. Conversely, the Norsemen see this building as an affront to their gods. They believe Hurot Hall is a symbol of Rothgar’s arrogance. These cultural differences show that the Norsemen’s view of society is quite different to Ahmad’s view. While Ahmad wonders at the lavish achievements of societies as represented by cities, the Norsemen are more impressed by individual accomplishments, as represented by their legends and folklore.
The wendol lack any real town or city. Their existence is beyond the parameters of what Ahmad defines as society, so their lack of any social structure is symbolized by their lack of any real buildings. The wendol huts are haphazardly arranged and littered with bones, symbolizing the emptiness of their society. The wendol mother lives in a series of subterranean caves which lay even further beyond the perimeters of human society. Therefore, the edge of the town or the city becomes the delineating symbol between the civilized and the uncivilized. In the novel, towns and cities symbolize beneficial social order.
The Editor’s Footnotes and Annotations
Eaters of the Dead is not presented as a simple narrative. Instead, the frequent footnotes and interjections by the Editor become a motif of the novel. The footnotes provide context and expansion on Ahmad’s story, while the narrative is occasionally interrupted to indicate where Ahmad’s manuscript is incomplete or overly description. As such, the novel is filled with contextualization and omissions which change the meaning of the text. This recurring motif reminds the reader to question the nature of the story. Ahmad is not always a reliable narrator, and he admits to gaps in his knowledge; the footnotes show the audience that these errors or omissions can be a result of good faith mistakes, rather than a deliberate attempt to lie about the text, supporting Crichton’s exploration of myth and history. Ahmad’s account of Buliwyf’s story is intriguing, but the footnotes are a frequent demonstration of the fickle nature of truth in the context of a story which is hundreds of years old.
By providing a visible effort to edit Ahmad’s story, the novel questions the truth of Ahmad’s account as well as literature in general. The novel forces the reader to ask whether any account or translation can provide the depth of understanding needed to fully convey lived experiences, and how those efforts are further frustrated by time. Ahmad is not an unreliable narrator because he is trying to trick the audience, but because the audience lacks the cultural framework which Ahmad assumes them to possess. References to Islamic practices, the use of idioms, and the vagaries of translation mean that the footnotes become important tools. These tools are motifs which remind the reader that their understanding of the book should not be limited to the words on the page. Ahmad’s story takes place in a greater historical and cultural context and the footnotes are a compelling reminder to the reader to take this into consideration.
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By Michael Crichton
