a dissertation on the downward spiral

written by James Salvatore & Brian Cancellieri

original dissertation concept by Brian Cancellieri, Charles Pierce,
& James Salvatore

...continued from here...

The final step taken on the road to "the downward spiral" occurs at this stage where he has accepted death but still cannot pull the trigger. Indecision causes him to once again look for another way out. It seems as if the character went to a prostitute, or a woman with the same degree of indifference as one, in order to find some alternative kind of control; one that requires him to give nothing, and yet harms nobody. However, what he finds within her and within himself only serves to utterly disgust him.

His description of her in "reptile" is cold and unflattering, to say the least.

"she spreads herself wide open to let the insects in
she leaves a trail of honey to show me where she's been
she has the blood of reptile just underneath her skin
seeds from a thousand others drip down from within...
oh my precious whore"

In the reptile he finds the icy indifference he is fleeing from within himself. She is a liar who will submit to his desires and say what he wants to hear, but means none of it. She is incapable of feeling anything towards him and supplies him with sex as freely as she did for the man before him and will for the man after.

When he says, "my disease my infection, i am so impure," he realizes that he is once again being driven by his disease and impurity (his need to control others) and accepts the fact that he has lost all his options. In the midst of the song there is a cut back to the music of "a warm place," once again signifying realization.

"angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress, need to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness, i now know the depths i reach are limitless."

"the downward spiral" begins with static followed by an acoustic guitar striking the end notes of "closer," establishing the link we demonstrated earlier between the two songs, illustrating the way in which his false notions about God, sex and control led him to the events described in "the downward spiral."

"he couldn't believe how easy it was
he put the gun into his face
bang!
(so much blood for such a tiny little hole)..."

The mechanical side of the character observes the suicide in a detached manner, as if it isn't affected; watches as the gun is now aimed at its wielder just as it was once aimed at another in "big man with a gun". The recurring imagery of the gun (a phallic symbol which represented his idea of godlike control through sex) being pointed to someone's head shows that the violent nature of the ruiner he had become is now completely focused upon himself, actually becoming the agent of his demise.

"problems have solutions
a lifetime of fucking things up fixed in one determined flash..."

All is still the same, detached...

"everything's blue
in this world
the deepest shade of mushroom blue
all fuzzy
spilling out of my head"

But now something has changed. There has been a shift, from "he couldn't believe how easy it was," to "spilling out of my head." The man is doing more than escaping the mechanical voice through suicide -- more importantly, he is killing it along with him. The man knew that, due to his inability to relinquish his need for control, he had no chance to escape indifference, so he sacrificed his life rather than letting it overcome him, thus unknowingly affirming a solid value, a meaning: Human feeling over nihilistic indifference. The tragedy is that he could only make this affirmation through an act that is essentially nihilistic.

As the mechanical voice describes the scene, the human voice screams out, releasing all the suffering and agony that plagued his existence.

"i hurt myself today
to see if i still feel
i focus on the pain
the only thing that's real"

So begins the final song of the album, "hurt," the most solitary manifestation of the human voice. In theory this is a triumph, a victory for humanity, but in reality it was too costly. Even though the human side of the character is what somehow survives beyond death, it is still scarred, unfamiliar with anything other than pain.

"the needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting, try to kill it all away, but i remember everything." The drug reference is used as a metaphor for any form of self-destructive behavior that one pursues in hope of escape while somewhere knowing the consequences, and even welcoming them. There is no peace because he knows that it was all his fault -- he knows what he has done.

"what have i become?
my sweetest friend
everyone i know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
i will let you down
i will make you hurt"

Addressing some friend that never existed within his life, he finally surrenders his control completely. He no longer has the strength to do otherwise. His inability to deal with anything but extremes is once again noted. When he lets go, he lets go completely ("you could have it all"). This notion of his obsession with extremes is one of the most important themes of the album -- from "closer," where he says "you can have my everything," to his desires as outlined in "i do not want this," where he declares that he wants to know everything, be everywhere, and fuck everyone. His desire for control eventually leads to his loss of it.

The purity and unity that he sought in life still hasn't been found.

"i wear my crown of shit
on my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
i cannot repair
beneath the stain of time
the feeling disappears
you are someone else
i am still right here"

Here he makes an allusion to the throne of God, which he tried to claim as his own -- and remembers with regret his violence, which he can never forget.

And finally we come to the last lines of the album, which express the man's desire to keep himself, a desire that only can be fulfilled and affirmed if he allows others to do the same.

"if i could start again
a million miles away
i would keep myself
i would find a way"

This final "verse" is proof of the character's growth. Tragically, it is after his death that he reaches this point. He boldly affirms his desire to keep his humanity as a value and a meaning that human beings can realize.

These final words are swept away in an electric chord that shatters the quiet and fades into a mechanical drone that in turn fades away, signifying an end -- or perhaps a new beginning.

In the dark heat of the arena, before thousands of people, the climax of "eraser" -- the desperate plea for death -- comes to a close. The projection screen, which had shown a setting desert sun, goes black. A muffled but steady wind from another rusty and barren landscape is heard faintly. Trent Reznor, backlit so that he is visible through the screen, begins to sing, as the first few notes of the song arise from an acoustic guitar: "i hurt myself today."

As the essay opened, we discussed the prospect of shifting the focus back onto the downward spiral in order to find some insight into our times. To some, the connection may already be all too clear; they see similar trends in both themselves and the world. However, to most the connection may still seem too vague to make sense of; the world of indifference and nihilism described by Reznor is still too far away. That is why we are going to end this with an examination of the live version of "hurt".

In the context of the album, "hurt" is the purest statement of the man's feelings, the most personal song Reznor claims to have written. Now, open before thousands of others, he begins to sing it. But whereas the song was personal on the album, it now reaches beyond that level and addresses all of humanity.

The screen shows us black-and-white images -- images of decay, of nuclear holocaust, and horrifying images of a war- torn land where woman and children stand in front of their devastated homes; the corpses of young soldiers lie out in the open, uncared for; and concentration camp victims are heaped into piles devoid of any humanity. A child trapped in the bloody kingdom of man stares out at the audience accusingly as if asking "why?" "what have i become?" now seems to be "what have we become?"

The lyrics to "hurt" now become an indictment of all of modern society and its "empire of dirt." "we hurt ourselves, to see if we still feel...try to kill the memory of it all away, but we remember everything."

"Just cast a glance at the history of mankind; well, what do you see?
Is it majestic?" 6

Self-destructive control doesn't just belong to the character of the album; it is a whole society's desire. The goal of the modern world has been to replace the kingdom of God with the kingdom of man. The so-called "Age of Reason," which promised humanity control over the world through science and technology, has given rise to the same terror and destruction of previous ages, and more of it. We gain the power to do more and more at the price of becoming estranged from life. Our absolute ideologies have betrayed us. Our desires have betrayed us. In short, we have betrayed us.

So now what? Are we condemned to continue our desperate cycle until the end. Have we, like the character, gone to far. No. Even in the bleakest situations there is some hope. It is time to bring the modern age to an end; it is time to accept responsibility for what we've done. As human beings, we must learn to live as human beings and to do without the absolutes we can never obtain. It is time to forget about the absolute freedom that can only be obtained at the expense of others (whether in the guise of Marxist utopia or Libertarian Capitalism). In order to experience freedom, real human freedom, we must let others be free, allow them to have what we want for ourselves. Only then can our lives as humans affirm any real value, only then will relationships, whether personal or societal, stop being tyrannical and be based on free and mutual giving as well as receiving. We must find ourselves; learn once again how to care for others as well as ourselves, and then, only then, can we escape nihilism and violence.

Now how many albums that have been on Billboard's Hot 100 chart can you say that about?

1 The Rebel, Albert Camus

2 the "annie, hold a little tighter i might just slip away" line of this section may be a reference to the book Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, which is about a man's downward spiral into indifference and nihilism.

3 ENO

4 The Rebel

5 The Rebel

6 Notes From The Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky