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The Themes of Emasculation and Loss of Identity
The Themes of Emasculation and Loss of Identity
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"I'm a person, and my name is Anakin!" -- Anakin Skywalker, The Phantom Menace

If Episodes IV-VI of the Star Wars saga are Luke Skywalker's rite of passage from simple farmboy to Jedi Knight, then Episodes I-III focus on his father Anakin's rite of passage from slave boy to Jedi to Sith Lord.  The second episodes of both trilogies focus on the difficult initiation rituals both heroes must face that determine their eventual fates.  These initiations are painful, humiliating, and even terrifying.  While Luke's journey ends in victory, personal growth, and redemption, Anakin's journey through this part of the cycle ends in imprisonment by his shadow self.

Early on in my many viewings of Attack of the Clones, I had noticed that the theme of emasculation is repeated over and over again in regards to Anakin Skywalker.  Upon greater thought, I realized this is a theme that extends over the entire saga.  As a child, he has struggled to be accepted as an individual.  As a young adult, complete acceptance as a man constantly eludes him, until he loses his humanity in Episode III.  The humiliating struggles he endures lead him to crave power to compensate for his perceived failures and to protect against his fears.

Like many young men coming of age, Anakin is anxious to stand on his own feet and be regarded by others as an adult.  This particularly comes into play in his relationships with Obi-Wan and with Padmé; the father figure and the potential mate.  It's interesting to see that these two relationships seem intertwined at the beginning of the film, where Anakin is trying to prove himself to the both of them at the same time.  Taking charge of Padmé's protection by taking the initiative to find those behind the assassination attempts, for example.  Here Anakin is not only trying to show Padmé that he cares for her and wants to solve this problem for her, he is also trying to show Obi-Wan his independence and readiness for Knighthood.  But it puts Anakin into conflict with Obi-Wan.  And Anakin voices his frustrations to Padmé.  "Master Obi-Wan manages not to see it," Anakin says when Padmé notes how he's grown.

It is quite apparent Anakin desperately wants Obi-Wan's approval.  The scene where Obi-Wan tells Anakin, "Good call, my young Padawan," during the Geonosis battle speaks volumes as you see Anakin's slight, satisfied smile.  But like a lot of tough-love-type fathers, Obi-Wan is the sort of person who does not hand out compliments easily yet can be quite generous with criticisms, which frustrates Anakin.  The young man can be rebellious and in an Order where authority just isn't challenged, Obi-Wan frequently reminds Anakin of where he is on the food chain: "my young Padawan (learner)," "you will learn your place, young one," etc.  Even in the heat of pursuit, Obi-Wan still has time to lecture Anakin on losing his lightsaber.

I theorize that Obi-Wan is hiding a lot of his own fears and anxieties in training one so powerful and so different from behind the "tough dad" persona.  Anakin, on his part, lacks the patience and the maturity to give much consideration to the reasons behind Obi-Wan's actions.  So Anakin attributes them to petty reasons like jealousy.

Another source of Anakin's frustrations with Obi-Wan is the feeling he has outgrown the Master/Padawan relationship.  He is well-aware his skills and affinity for the Force outmatch pretty much everyone else's.  He's confident in his ability to make his own decisions.  He thinks he is ready for the trials to become a full-fledged Knight, but either the Jedi Council or Obi-Wan -- possibly both -- do not agree.  Undoubtedly, the pace of Obi-Wan's teaching is too slow for a prodigy not known for his patience, as well.

The tensions between Anakin and Obi-Wan lead the Padawan to search for another father figure, a more sympathetic one.  Unfortunately he finds that figure in Palpatine.  Palpatine is aware of Anakin's frustrations and uses them to manipulate him.  The future Emperor strokes Anakin's ego, telling him that he's destined to be the greatest of all the Jedi and that he's even more powerful than Yoda.  Because Palpatine tells Anakin what he wants to hear, Anakin trusts him and considers him another mentor ("it is your guidance more than my patience").  This will of course play a significant role in the young Jedi's downfall.

The first step Anakin takes along his path of initiation is his first solo mission to protect Padmé.  Here he is afforded his first opportunity to not only prove himself a worthy Knight to Obi-Wan and to the Jedi Council but also the opportunity to court Padmé.

Padmé is the only character who truly accepts Anakin as a man by the end of Attack of the Clones.  This is why she not only takes him as a lover but as her husband at the end of the film.  In myth and fairy tale, the hero must often prove his worthiness to his lady, or in many cases, to her father, in order to win her love.  This is usually accomplished by completing a difficult and dangerous task; take the old story about the knight who must rescue the princess from the dragon in order to marry her.  In The Phantom Menace, Anakin slays the dragon -- the Trade Federation control ship -- that was holding Queen Amidala's world (and literally her castle) hostage.  However, he accomplishes this task as a child.  When he meets again with Senator Padmé Amidala 10 years later, he has grown into a man.  He is forced into the position of proving himself again, for Padmé cannot reconcile the boy she knew with the young man he has become.  "You'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine," she says.  In explaining her character's relationship with Anakin, Natalie Portman says in the book Mythmaking, "It starts out that her relationship with Anakin is one of mentor...she's known him only as a little boy prior to this episode, so when they reencounter each other, she treats him like a little kid...she would boss him around and look at him as a little boy."  For about the first half of the film, Padmé struggles with her attraction to Anakin, partially because of their social circumstances and partially because she is getting acquainted with this new Anakin.  One minute she tells him, "You've grown up," the next she's counseling him not to "grow up too fast."  On the ship she's amazed at how Anakin has changed as a Jedi, but in the palace in front of Queen Jamilla's court, she cuts down his authority by reminding everyone he's "just a Padawan learner."

So this is Anakin's task -- to have Padmé accept him as a man and a paramour.  While it is difficult at first -- with his headstrong ways and his obvious feelings for her conflicting with her strong will and denial of her own feelings -- over the course of their time together, Padmé and Anakin accept each other as equals and partners.

The Jedi through their strict rules forbidding personal attachments attempt to emasculate Anakin by interfering with his sexual development and his ability to procreate.  Early in the film, at times when Anakin looks at Padmé or mentions her in front of Obi-Wan, the Jedi Master reminds him of his "commitment to the Jedi Order" and warns him to "don't do anything" without permission.  The Code is for a time an issue that prevents Padmé and Anakin from pursuing a romantic relationship.  But Anakin disregards the Code to follow his own biological and emotional instincts and pursues marriage with Padmé.

Palpatine emasculates Anakin in his own way.  Return of the Jedi tells us he feared the possibility of Anakin having children and presumably he does something to ensure that doesn't happen.  The Sith in their own way are every bit as sexless as their Jedi counterparts, if not more so.  The Sith seem to base their whole existence on power.  At least the Jedi have each other for companionship, a community.  The Sith are utterly alone.  With Padmé out of the picture by the end of Episode III and Anakin completely under Palpatine's thrall, that Darth Vader costume becomes one big chastity belt, cutting Anakin off from this aspect of his humanity.

One final note in regard to Anakin's relationships.  Briefly, Anakin comes to find acceptance as a man with his mother Shmi.  When he encounters her again after 10 years apart, she is dying.  She uses the last bit of strength she has to marvel at how he has grown and to express her pride in him.  Like any mother, she doesn't ask much of Anakin to show her he has reached manhood; she can see it plainly in front of her.  Yet when Shmi dies, this affirmation isn't enough to console the grief-stricken and angered Jedi.  All that she has just said no longer matters, only his emotions.  He lashes out and though he doesn't realize it, he dishonors his mother's memory by avenging her death with random, thoughtless violence.  He has failed this test of initiation.

Emasculation is expressed through failure.  Anakin just misses getting information out of Zam Wesell before she is killed.  Shmi's life slips away from him just as he's finally able to rescue her.  Part of his anger at the Tusken Raiders arises out of his perceived failure to protect and save his mother's life -- he swears at her grave not to fail her again.  He fails to save Padmé when she falls out of the gunship during the Geonosis battle.  The anger he feels at that situation contributes to his headstrong rush at Count Dooku minutes later.  He is then unable to stop Dooku and needs Yoda to rescue him.  Given Darth Vader's intolerance for failure by his underlings in the classic trilogy ("you have failed me for the last time..."), this is a significant issue for Anakin.  Everyone in life fails at something and sometimes things happen beyond our control.  Failure makes one feel helpless, and ex-slave Anakin cannot tolerate helplessness.  He believes his own special abilities and powers are a shield against any sense of helplessness.  So when he fails, or believes he has failed, he assumes it's because he's not powerful enough.

The theme of emasculation is expressed symbolically throughout Attack of the Clones, mostly through images associated with symbolic castration.  In some societies, young boys are either circumcised or threatened with castration as part of their initiation into manhood.  By taking the pain or resisting the fear of true castration, the adolescent or prepubescent is accepted as a man.  Stories have often used images associated with those fears.  One such image is falling.  In the Star Wars films, characters routinely fall down deep or bottomless shafts.  In Attack of the Clones both Obi-Wan and Anakin fall down Coruscant's canyon-like byways (though in Anakin's case it was a controlled fall), Obi-Wan falls off the landing platform on Kamino during his fight with Jango Fett; both Anakin and Padmé fall onto the Geonosis factory's conveyor belts and Threepio takes a tumble moments later; Padmé falls out of the gunship.

A more obvious symbolic castration involves the frequent loss of lightsabers.  Anakin loses his lightsaber while pursuing Zam Wesell.  Obi-Wan retrieves it and -- not accidentally -- lectures Anakin like a stern father talking to a young boy.  Anakin loses his lightsaber again while on the factory conveyor belt; this time the weapon is sliced in half (ouch!) and when Anakin tries to use it again, it sparks impotently in his hand.  "Not again," he moans like a teenager who has just wrecked his father's car, "Obi-Wan is going to kill me."  Anakin gains another lightsaber during the Geonosis battle only to lose it in his fight with Dooku.  In fact, he loses two lightsabers in this scene, including Obi-Wan's.

The entire factory sequence is filled with images associated with symbolic castration.  First Anakin and Padmé fall onto the conveyor belts.  After trying in vain to rescue Padmé, Anakin is trapped on the conveyor belt, held down by a robotic device bolted over his arm.  He is unable to reach his weapon.  Interestingly enough, it's the arm that is later amputated.  This is foreshadowing Anakin's destiny, trapped by the machinery of the system.  But in the more immediate sense he is helpless to protect or save Padmé from attacking Geonosians or from flowing vats of molten metal.  Artoo has to save her life.  Then after his lightsaber is ruined, he and Padmé are captured.  This helplessness is carried over initially to the sequence in the arena, where the protagonists are bound to posts and left to be maimed or consumed by monstrous creatures.  Being eaten or consumed alive is another image associated with symbolic castration.

The loss of Anakin's arm in his fight with Count Dooku is the ultimate in symbolic castration.  Vader does the same thing to his son in The Empire Strikes Back -- who returns the favor in Return of the Jedi -- in a twisted sort of initiation.  It is fitting the older traitorous Jedi performs this ritual because Dooku is Anakin's predecessor on the path to darkness.  Anakin will one day soon take Dooku's place as the Jedi who sells out to the Sith, becoming Darth Sidious's servant.  It is also the greatest of Anakin's humiliations in the film; the young Chosen One who holds so much power is still bested by an elderly man.  After Anakin is literally disarmed, left powerless and impotent, Dooku casually throws him aside with the Force.  No doubt if and when Anakin confronts Dooku again in Episode III, retribution will be deeply personal.

Anakin's prosthetic arm, seen at the very end of Attack of the Clones, is meant to be a shocking and stark contrast with the replacement hand Luke receives at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.  The hand we see is a metallic skeleton, creepy and more droid-like than human.  The hand reminds us that while Luke is in touch still with his humanity after his brush with darkness in Empire, Anakin is losing touch with his own humanity, evolving into Darth Vader.

Attack of the Clones shows us how Anakin's struggles leave him feeling helpless and powerless along his journey of initiation.  This will feed his desire for control and power, which will ultimately lead him to the dark side.

Episode III promises to be a deeply tragic tale, with the greatest tragedy of all the complete loss of Anakin's humanity.  Everything associated with being a man, he will lose: his wife, his children, his status within his community.  He will become trapped within a sarcophogus, most of his body gone and replaced with machinery.  It is an ironic fate for someone long fascinated with mechanics, one so skilled he constructs a droid as a child.  He will become little more than a tool for the Emperor, his name and personality subsumed under the new identity of Darth Vader.

In Return of the Jedi, Anakin's redemption restores his humanity.  His son is returned to him and by proxy, Padmé's love is returned to him as well.  Luke returns his father's name, one Vader claims no longer had any meaning for him.  In a scene of rebirth, his mask is removed, revealing his human face to the world for the first time in decades.  Even though he lives on in the physical world only briefly, we see at the very end of the film Anakin's spirit restored to its full human form.  All traces of Vader are gone and here is the most bittersweet reality of the saga -- only at the end of his life does Anakin find the individual identity he has long sought.