Hatchetfish

The Hatchetfish appears in E. L. Doctorow's City of God as a striking example of the strange and wonderful creatures that inhabit the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean. The narrator describes it as a fish that "skulks about in the deep darkness with protuberant eyes on the top of its horned head and the ability to electrically light its anus to blind predators sneaking up behind it." This vivid description serves as a launching point for a broader meditation on the nature of divine creation and the hidden purposes that may lie behind even the most bizarre forms of life.

The Hatchetfish and the Universal Plan

The narrator introduces the Hatchetfish in the context of a discussion about the "Universal Plan," the idea that life does not require air, light, or warmth, and that whatever condition God provides, some sort of creature will invent itself to live in it. The narrator notes that thousands of unknown plant and animal beings live in the deepest canyons of the black, cold water, and that their biomass far exceeds that of sunlit, air-breathing life. At the very bottom of the sea are smoking vents of hydrogen sulfide gases where bacteria flourish, and feeding upon these are warty bivalves, viscous jellies, and spiny eels with the ability to fluoresce. The Hatchetfish is presented as one of these remarkable adaptations, a creature whose very existence seems to defy conventional expectations about the conditions necessary for life.

The Electric Anus and Its Symbiotic Secret

The narrator emphasizes that the Hatchetfish's most distinctive feature, its electric anus, is not an innate feature of the fish itself. Instead, it comes from a colony of luminescent bacteria that house themselves symbiotically in the fish's anus. This detail underscores the interconnectedness of life, even in the most unlikely places. The narrator suggests that there is a Purpose in this arrangement that has not yet been ascertained, hinting at a divine design that humans are not yet able to comprehend. The symbiotic relationship between the fish and its bacteria becomes a metaphor for the hidden, often inexplicable connections that sustain life in the natural world.

The Reincarnation of Adolf Hitler

The narrator takes the Hatchetfish's strange biology a step further, speculating that if one believes in God's divine judgment and countenances reincarnation, it may be reasonably assumed that a certain bacterium living in the anus of a particularly ancient Hatchetfish at the bottom of the ocean is the recycled and fully sentient soul of Adolf Hitler, glimmering miserably through the cloacal muck in which he is periodically bathed and nourished. This darkly comic and provocative speculation serves as a powerful commentary on the nature of evil and divine justice. The idea that the soul of one of history's most monstrous figures could be trapped in such a lowly and grotesque form is both a punishment and a profound statement about the ultimate fate of those who commit atrocities. The narrator's tone is matter-of-fact, treating this bizarre possibility as a logical extension of theological beliefs about reincarnation and divine judgment.

The Hatchetfish in the Context of the Novel's Themes

The Hatchetfish appears in a section of City of God that is part of a larger meditation on the natural world and its relationship to the divine. The narrator's observations about the fish are interwoven with reflections on other creatures, such as the ants in Central Park, which the narrator describes as "domesticated Central Park ants, the house sparrows of the ant species." The narrator explains to children that there are other ants in the jungles and rain forests of the world that build leaf bridges, cultivate crops, float across rivers on rafts, march, make war, and eat meat. These observations about the natural world serve to illustrate the narrator's broader philosophical concerns about the nature of life, purpose, and the limits of human understanding. The Hatchetfish, with its bizarre appearance and symbiotic bacteria, becomes a symbol of the unknowable and the mysterious, a reminder that the universe is full of wonders that defy easy explanation.

The Hatchetfish and the City of Birds

The narrator's fascination with the natural world extends to the City of Birds at Valdemingomez, an enormous garbage dump north of Madrid. This urban aviary is home to over a hundred thirty species of birds, including storks, hawks, egrets, linnets, kites, jackdaws, ravens, condors, and turkey buzzards. The birds of Valdemingomez do not migrate, and they lay their eggs in old Big Mac containers, line their nests with cassette tape, and huddle in TV cabinets. The narrator's description of the birds' adaptation to their garbage-filled environment parallels the Hatchetfish's adaptation to the deep sea, suggesting that life finds a way to thrive in even the most unlikely and degraded conditions. Both the Hatchetfish and the birds of Valdemingomez serve as examples of the resilience and adaptability of life, and both raise questions about the purposes that lie behind such adaptations.

The Hatchetfish as a Narrative Device

The Hatchetfish is one of several creatures that appear in City of God as part of the narrator's wide-ranging philosophical musings. The narrator's description of the fish is notable for its blend of scientific observation and theological speculation, a combination that is characteristic of the novel as a whole. The narrator's suggestion that the bacterium in the Hatchetfish's anus might be the reincarnated soul of Adolf Hitler is a particularly striking example of the novel's willingness to push ideas to their logical, and often absurd, extremes. This speculation serves to challenge the reader's assumptions about the nature of evil, the afterlife, and the divine plan, and it does so with a dark humor that is both unsettling and thought-provoking. The Hatchetfish, in all its strangeness, becomes a vehicle for exploring some of the novel's most profound and unsettling questions.