War is Hell

A Critique of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front

In 1928, World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque penned All Quiet on the Western Front as a scathing denouncement of the horrors of war. Through the fictional first-hand account of a young German soldier (Paul Bäumer) fighting in the trenches, Remarque portrayed the bitter fruits of war: the alienation of an entire generation, the destruction of former beliefs and values, and the eventual dehumanization of the individual. Ultimately, Remarque challenged antebellum Enlightenment ideals and presented a worldview of Postmodernism in which man is doomed to an existence of despair and can find peace only in death.

Prior to World War I, optimism reigned. The Enlightenment philosophy taught that man was progressing and would eventually be able to solve all the world’s problems. Yet the horror and carnage of the war revealed that this progress had led to technology with the ability to take rather than prolong human life. The war struck a blow to the belief in the superiority of Western civilization and destroyed any idea of the innate goodness of man. Postmodernism soon took hold and swept away the modernist Enlightenment worldview. It emphasized a bleak disillusionment for the things of the past. While the characters of Remarque’s novel might look back with yearning for their former life, they ultimately conclude that such a life had been nothing but an innocent and naïve lie that had not yet been tested by the fires of war.

First, Remarque attacked the senseless idealism of the previous age and emphasized the alienation of those soldiers who would return from the war. When Paul Bäumer is given several days on leave, he finds himself unable to cope with civilian life. He struggles to rekindle his former dreams and the ideals of his youth, but discovers they have all been violently shattered. Bäumer observes, “Today we would pass through the scenes of our youth like travelers. We are burnt up by hard facts…We might exist there; but should we really live there? We are forlorn like children and experienced like old men—I believe we are lost.” He describes his memories of the past as looking at a photograph of a fallen comrade. Bäumer attributes this alienation to his rejection of the identity that was created for him by society. He must reject the generation that called him a hero for willingly sacrificing his life in a meaningless war. In a discussion with his fellow soldiers, he tries to determine why the war is being fought at all. His friend exclaims, “A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France.” Essentially, they are asking – for what are we dying? Lashing out against his former teachers Bäumer exclaims, “The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief …We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.” Rather than uniting the young men and their teachers in a common cause, the war had widened the divide between these two generations.

Second, as these soldiers were alienated from the previous generation and way of life, they were also forced to abandon their former beliefs and values. Even their faith in God was tested. Many ended up placing their lot with chance rather than trusting in the providence of God. Bäumer wryly observes, “It is just a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I may have been hit…No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.” This idea of chance is contrary to the teachings of the Enlightenment. Most Enlightenment thinkers had been deists. They theorized that God was like a watchmaker. Just as a watchmaker designs the watch, winds it up, and then lets it run by itself, so too God had created the world and now let it run according to the rational and orderly laws he had established (with no divine intervention by him). Bäumer, on the other hand, sees World War I as proof of irrationality rather than order and logic. He declares, “It must be all lies…when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood…these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands… The keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring.” The Enlightenment had elevated reason and professed a belief in man’s ability to progress to perfection. But had this progress accomplished perfection? Was it perfection to develop weapons that would kill and maim your fellow human beings? Uninhibited reason had not led to a utopia. Rather, it had led to the hellish reality of trench warfare and exposed the darker side of human nature.

Third and, finally, World War I dehumanized the individual. Dehumanization is often an excellent propaganda technique. Warring nations are quick to demonize their enemies. This stirs patriotic fervor. After all, the German soldiers and French soldiers had never had a personal quarrel. An innocent peace-loving French writer had no desire to fight a German farmer. Thus, the German farmer must be deceived into thinking that the French writer is evil and bloodthirsty. Bäumer discovers this reality when he becomes lost in the trenches, murders a French soldier, and then must wait in the trench with the dying Frenchman. He laments, “Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us…Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?” But the war does not only dehumanize Bäumer’s enemies. It dehumanizes him as well and turns him into a killing machine. He admits, “What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing; -- it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death.” He understands nothing but how to kill. Alienated from civilian life, it is doubtful whether he could ever abandon his life as a soldier. Indeed, while many would hail World War I as the war to end all wars, Bäumer scoffs at such a belief. World War I has simply triggered a cycle of killing. He declares, “The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us…we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march: -- against whom, against whom?” Bäumer understands that even though they may put away their weapons, the world has been transformed into a society where death and killing are the only realities. With the Enlightenment beliefs destroyed, the world is doomed to an existence of irrationality and desolation. Reason no longer distinguishes man from the animal. Men have been “transformed into unthinking animals.”

Ultimately, Remarque’s novel gives no answer and no hope for how to begin building back the ruins of war torn Europe and the Enlightenment viewpoint. Nearly all of the main characters die, almost hinting that it is meaningless to continue to live in the wake of such destruction and despair. Commenting on Bäumer’s death, Remarque writes, “His face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.” Indeed, death is the only thing that can bring the postmodern man seeming peace. It is the one thing that is always sure and cannot be escaped.

[See Photos of the Great War for more original pictures from WWI]

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 12:10 PM |

A Case for Free Markets

Adam Smith’s Revolutionary Economic Theory in Wealth of Nations

[Analytical Essay written for a college Western Civilization class]

In 1776, Adam Smith penned An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in order to discover the best economic policy a nation should follow. Ultimately, he concluded that a free-market system (in which the government had limited intervention in the marketplace) would lead to the most productive nation. Developing such revolutionary theories as the division of labor, the invisible hand, and freedom of trade, Smith successfully challenged mercantilist ideas and established capitalism as the policy that would bring the most wealth to a nation.


Up until the 18th century the policies of mercantilism had been adopted by nearly all European nations. Mercantilism taught that government regulation and intervention in the marketplace was essential for increasing national wealth. Europeans believed that the nation with the most capital was the wealthiest. For instance, Spain established its overseas colonies primarily to mine for gold and silver. Indeed, they focused on extraction, rather than colonization. But when Great Britain adopted the policies advocated by Adam Smith, their colonies prospered whereas Spain soon lost its standing as the preeminent world power.

First, Smith believed that one of the most important elements of a free society was the division of labor. Adam Smith explained the concept using the example of a pin factory. Each worker was able to specialize in the part of making a pin that he did best, instead of having to construct an entire pin on his own. Smith observed,

Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin a day.

Thus, the division of labor allowed an increase in production and would be a driving force behind progress, as evidenced when Henry Ford invented the assembly line and revolutionized the factory. Smith’s argument for the division of labor was also an argument for machinery. He writes, “I shall only observe, therefore, that the invention of all those machines by which labor is so much facilitated and abridged seems to have been originally owing to the division of labor.” Further, Smith’s concept of the division of labor need not only be applied to the individual worker. Indeed, his analogy of the pin factory is applicable to entire nations as well. If Holland is better at fishing and Britain is better at growing wheat, they should not try to out produce each other or compete at fishing or the growing of wheat. Rather, Britain should concentrate on growing wheat and Holland should perfect their fishing. They can then trade those commodities with each other. In that way, Britain will be able to devote its time to a trade that it does best and Holland will be able to devote its time to the trade that it does best. Ultimately, Smith’s theory benefits the individual and the nation as a whole.

Second, Smith argued that the reason the division of labor worked so well was because of a principle he called the Invisible Hand. Smith writes, “By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” Self-interest, according to Smith, was the guiding principle in a free market system. He noted that the division of labor worked so efficiently because, “It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” Smith’s theory can be explained with the following illustration. A person has two loaves of bread, but he only wants one and would also like a glass of water. Another person has two glasses of water, but would like a loaf of bread as well. Thus, these two people can exchange the glass of water and the loaf of bread. Each person acted out of self-interest. If the second person did not have a glass of water, the first person would not have traded his loaf of bread with him but found another person with whom he could have traded for something that he wanted. Ultimately, this small transaction mirrors what happened in Smith’s pin factory and in other business in the marketplace. Each individual transaction may seem disconnected, but Smith believed they were all guided by an invisible hand and worked together to bring about the ultimate good for society. It is important that Smith pointed to the invisible hand and not to the government. It was not the government’s job to meddle in the individual transactions or try to divide up labor on its own. The government should not step in and appoint one man to the job of shoe maker and another to the job of baker. They lacked the knowledge to oversee such a vast and impossible task. Rather, the market place must be left to its own design. People’s self-interest was enough to benefit the nation.

Third, and, finally, as partly seen in the preceding paragraph, Smith advocated the freedom of trade. In one instance, he writes, “Labor, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities…The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” Thus, Smith argued against the government fixing a price on commodities. It would be impossible for the government to decide what the price milk or butter or any other commodity should be, because that was the realm of the consumer. Only the consumer could put a price on a commodity and the producer alone should decide if it was worth him selling his commodity at such a price. Further, Smith argued against the giving of bounties, pointing out that “the real effect of the bounty is not so much to raise the real value of corn as to degrade the real value of silver” and forces “some part of the industry of the country into a channel less advantageous than that in which it would run of its own accord.” Smith saw both bounties and treaties of commerce as destructive, because they gave merchants an unfair monopoly. Ultimately, the price of goods would be negatively affected. As previously stated, prices should be fixed by the individual producer and consumer. By giving a nation an unfair monopoly, another nation was unable to compete in the marketplace. The nation with the monopoly could then raise its prices. This would be destructive to the consumers.

In conclusion, Smith’s economic work established free-market capitalism as superior to mercantilism. While mercantilism urged extensive intervention and regulation in the marketplace, Smith proved that this would be destructive to the wealth of the nation. If a nation truly wanted to build up its wealth and make itself prosperous, it would allow its citizens to interact according to their own self-interest, progressing through the division of labor, and working towards the good of society by the oversight of an invisible hand. Nations did not need to increase their wealth by storing up capital but by exercising free trade. Indeed, the nations that adopted Smith’s economic theory, like Britain, soon became the leading world powers.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 5:52 PM |

The Forest of Arden

A Transforming Power in Shakespeare's As You Like It

[Critical Dialogue Essay written for a Western Literature class]

In his critical paper “No Exit from Arden,” Ralph Berry claims that the Forest of Arden does not act as a restorative power on the hostile relationships in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Berry concludes, “The idyll of Arden is an idea as much under fire as the denizens of the forest; and the final path that leads away from forest to court is a change of milieu, not a way out of those problems.” However, I contend that rather than remaining unchanged, the characters’ relationships are transformed at play’s end – Arden helps them to overcome their shortcomings, reverse their bad fortune, and see the world through different eyes.

First, Berry argues “that Arden is no paradise.” This is correct. Arden is not a place where animals and humans coexist peacefully. Indeed, a poisonous snake and a lioness threaten Oliver’s life. Yet, this does not mean that Arden cannot transform the characters of the play. Rather, the very fact that it is not a paradise forces them to experience situations that test their character, restore their broken relationships, and allow them to return to court with a better understanding of their world.

Second, Berry writes that the reason for the character’s hostile relationships is an “underlying recognition that other people’s qualities parallel and subtly menace one’s own…a simple will to dominate.” This is correct also, but if the characters abandon these perspectives, Arden has been a path out of those problems.

Such change is witnessed in the two most hostile relationships of the play: Orlando and Oliver, and Duke Frederick and Duke Senior. Oliver declares of Orlando, “I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he.” His malice forces Orlando to flee to Arden. Similarly, Duke Frederick usurps Duke Senior’s throne, banishing him to the same forest. Yet, Oliver and Duke Frederick undergo a complete transformation when attempting to kill their brothers in the forest. Orlando rescues the sleeping Oliver from a lioness. Oliver, overcome by this selfless act, repents of his cruelty and filial love is restored between the two brothers. Indeed, Oliver insists that he is a different man than the one who tried to kill his brother. Further, Duke Frederick, attempting to invade the forest with an army, is met by an old religious man who converts him. Berry scoffs at these conversions, writing, “An impulse to protect themselves…accounts for [their] sudden conversions … [having] earlier given indications that Duke Senior and Orlando represent threats to their psyches.” But, then, why do they convert at all? If their thinking is unchanged, their brothers still are threats. It is because they have undergone a deep transformation that erases any need for such protection and reconciles them with their brothers.

Third, Arden restores the chaotic world of the court back to a proper order. Rosalind, banished from the court, is forced to flee to the forest disguised as a young man. This gender bending disrupts the natural order God created in the world. So, too, Duke Frederick’s usurpation of his brother’s throne is a revolt against established authority. Yet, when the characters exit the forest by play’s end, Rosalind abandons her disguise, marrying Orlando, and resuming her proper role as a woman. Duke Frederick willingly cedes the throne to Duke Senior.

In conclusion, when the characters exit Arden they are truly free from the hostile relationships and the disorder that had created all of their problems. Hymen declares, “Then is there mirth in heaven / When earthly things made even / Atone together.” The themes of forgiveness, compassion, and love govern the world of Arden, giving the characters a way to order their lives and solve their problems outside the forest as well. Arden is not merely a change of scene, but a place in which the characters come to a better understanding of godly virtues and how to interact in the real world.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 11:48 AM |

"Lord of all, Servant of all"

Martin Luther’s Paradox of the Inward and Outward Man

[Analytical Essay written for a college Western Civilization class]

Martin Luther, one of the foremost leaders of the Protestant Reformation in Europe, penned his treatise “Concerning Christian Liberty” in 1520 in order to explain his belief that faith alone, to the exclusion of any good works of man, is necessary for salvation. Yet, Luther is adamant that this belief does not diminish the importance of good works for the Christian, writing, “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.” Through this seeming paradox, Luther argues that the Christian is two men: the inward man who is free from the condemnation of the law and, thus, does not have to do good works in order to earn salvation, and the outward man who, after being saved, does good works as a reflection of Christ. Ultimately, Luther’s division of the Christian into the inward man of faith and the outward man of good works emphasized the individual’s role in salvation and reaffirmed the sovereignty of Christ.

At the beginning of “Concerning Christian Liberty” is a letter from Martin Luther to Pope Leo X which laments the corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. In Luther’s day the Roman Catholic Church taught that faith alone was not sufficient for salvation. Citing biblical passages like James 2, verses 20 and 22, they posited that faith without works was dead. Yet, many Christians took this teaching to its logical extent, losing assurance in their salvation. They could not know with absolute certainty whether they had done enough good works to earn salvation. This led to many errors, not the least of which was the creation of doctrines like Purgatory – a spiritual place where souls of those who died as Christians could perform further penance and be thoroughly purified before entering heaven. The Catholic Church also used their doctrine of salvation through works to their own advantage, selling indulgences as a way to raise money to fund the building of their elaborate cathedrals and their transformation of Vatican City.

Yet, although Luther disagreed with the Catholic view of salvation, he does not negate good works entirely. In his treatise, he asserts the duality of the Christian nature, its spirituality and physicality, and argues that good works have a place outside of salvation. The treatise draws on passages like 2 Corinthians 4:16 to support Luther’s position, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” In explanation of the verse, Luther writes, “As regards the spiritual nature, which they name the soul, he is called the spiritual, inward, new man; as regards the bodily nature, which they name the flesh, he is called the fleshly, outward, old man.” Essentially, good works have no place with the spiritual nature, but are necessary to the bodily nature.

The inward man is the embodiment of the first line of Luther’s paradox. He is the most free lord of all and subject to none. Luther argues that the only thing necessary for the soul is the word of God, as was established in Matthew 4:4: that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. Luther writes, “As the soul needs the word alone for life and justification, so it is justified by faith alone, and not by any works. For if it could be justified by any other means, it would have no need of the word, nor consequently of faith.” The Christian understands, in light of passages like Romans 3:23, that every seeming good work of his is actually “utterly guilty, sinful, and damnable.” Every action of man, even those that appear good to sinful eyes, is defiled. It is impossible for him to attain the perfection that God’s holiness demands. Ultimately, then, it is the merits of Christ alone that save, not a man’s good works.

Luther points out that the Bible is divided into precepts and promises. The law of the Old Testament was a precept to “show us what we ought to do, but [did] not give us the power to do it.” Rather, it convicted the man of sin and showed him that thousands of good works were ineffectual at earning salvation. The promises, however, in the gospel message of the New Testament offered man salvation through faith alone, declaring, “If you wish to fulfill the law…believe in Christ, in whom are promised to you grace, justification, peace, and liberty.” In the words of Luther, the Christian takes on the “wedding-ring of faith”: his soul is united with Christ’s, as the husband and wife are united in one flesh, each taking on the possessions of the other – Christ, the sin, death, and condemnation of man, and man, the grace, life, and salvation of Christ. The inward man, clothed in the salvation of Christ, is freed from the judgment of the law, the bondage of sin, the fear of death, and the torments of hell.

This is, however, not the end of the Christian story. While the inward man through the sacrificial work of Christ is now lord of all, the outward man becomes the servant of all. And it is here in the outward man that good works find their proper place. Luther writes, “Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works.” Thus, the good works are a reflection of the moral state of the man. Luther uses the analogy of a house. A badly made house does not make a bad builder, but a bad builder will make a house badly. So, too, if a man is good, he will do good works. But if he is bad, he will produce bad works. A man should not do good works as a way to gain justification, but he should embrace good works as a way to glorify and honor God. Thus, the outward man becomes the servant of all in imitation of Christ who forsook the glory of heaven to redeem fallen man. Luther adjures that it is the duty of the outward man to live for others, “he must needs speak, act, and converse among men, just as Christ was made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man, and had His conversation among men.” Importantly, all of these works must be done freely and voluntarily and not as if man was looking forward to any reward. He is a servant, not a slave, doing all things to the best of his ability in an effort to thank God for the wonderful gift of faith and salvation. He is both reigning and serving with Christ.

Ultimately, Luther’s teaching of faith alone in “Concerning Christian Liberty” was revolutionary for its time. It overturned many of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, limiting the power of the papacy, and strengthening the faith of millions of Christians. No longer would they fear that their salvation was not sure: the belief in faith alone meant that salvation was no longer dependent on man, but on the work of Christ. Yet, when Luther described Christian liberty, he did not mean Christian anarchy in which a man was saved, but could continue to indulge in the sins of his former lifestyle. Rather, Luther merely rediscovered the true goal of good works: they could not save a man, but they would identify him as a man who had been saved. For though man is instantly justified, he is in the process of being sanctified. Thus, the inward man relies solely on the efficacious power of Christ while the outward man is being transformed into a perfect reflection of God’s divine holiness.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 11:17 PM |

The Madness of the King

A Worldview of Despair in Virgil’s Aeneid and William Shakespeare’s King Lear

[Literary Criticism Paper written for a college Western Literature class]

Virgil’s Aeneid and William Shakespeare’s King Lear are stories of kings who, in an act of madness, forsake their kingly duties and overturn the moral order. The former relates the travels of Aeneas as he flees from his conquered homeland and seeks to establish a new kingdom in a distant country. The latter details the downfall of Lear when, in a fit of rashness, he divides up his kingdom and is ultimately exiled from his own country. Both stories deal with the importance of fulfilling one’s kingly roles and the consequences of trying to abandon one’s duties. And both stories have gods that are fickle and not accountable to any ultimate moral standard. Yet, Aeneas knows that by following his fate ultimate good will result, even though this may mean abandoning those he loves. The concluding act of King Lear, however, offers little hope for a restoration of the moral order: the characters must suffer the consequences of their actions, with no intervention by the gods, and often the innocent die with the guilty. Yet, while King Lear may have a more pessimistic ending than The Aeneid, it is merely taking the worldview of The Aeneid to its logical extent: if life is a roulette wheel, justice is destroyed and man is doomed to an existence of despair.

The Aeneid is a more optimistic tale than King Lear because fate is on Aeneas’ side. However, this does not mean his task of founding a kingdom is an easy one. Many of the gods continually plot trouble for Aeneas and his followers, but their scheming meets with little success. Jupiter, although he is on the side of Aeneas, at one point refuses to get involved, declaring, “The effort each man makes will bring him luck or trouble. To them all King Jupiter is the same king. And the Fates will find their way.” Clearly, the gods cannot kill whoever they wish. Thus, fate could be seen as a sort of power that the gods are subjected to. Yet, importantly, it is not because of any personal merit that Aeneas is destined to survive. Fate is just as fickle as the gods. The Aeneid easily could be a pessimistic tale if it were told from the viewpoint of a minor character that is not destined to survive: Dido, the queen of Carthage.

When Aeneas lands in Carthage to rebuild his wrecked fleet, his mother, Venus, worried that the other gods will use Dido for evil, inflames the Carthaginian queen’s heart with passionate love for Aeneas. Aeneas without thought for his people or his son or even the gods, returns this love. His madness impels him to abandon his destiny and stay with Dido, even helping her lay the foundations of her city—until Jupiter becomes angered. A god comes to Aeneas and reproaches him for forgetting his own kingdom. Aeneas’ love of the gods and love of his son override his devotion to Dido. Placing his destiny above his passion, he leaves Dido behind and continues towards his new homeland. This does not mean there are no consequences to his actions. Devastated, the scorned queen burns herself alive. In her last speech, she observes, “I lived my life out to the very end and passed the stages Fortune had appointed.” Fate was not kind to Dido. Though an innocent character that bore no ill will towards Aeneas and was merely a victim of a goddess’ divine spell, Dido suffers a terrifying and tragic death. Aeneas, however, emerges from the whole ordeal unscathed. Once he realizes that his destiny is more important than his passion, he repents of his actions, overcoming his moment’s madness and resuming his role as the leader of his people to find a new homeland.

Contrast this to the title character of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Like many tragic heroes of literature, Lear is burdened with a “hamartia” – a flaw in his character. Lear is rash, stubborn, and often acts without thinking. When his daughter Cordelia cannot find words to express her love for her father and refuses to flatter him, he flies into a rage, disowning her and exiling her from England. His plans to divide up his kingdom and give his authority into the hands of his daughters also appear ill thought out. Indeed, it is clear that he did not ask the opinion of his councilors for Kent calls his actions “mad.” Ultimately, his two eldest daughters banish him from their houses and condemn to death anyone who attempts to give the former king refuge. Lear now begins to truly go insane, but before completely losing his senses, he repents of his previous actions. Driven by his daughters to fend for himself during a storm, he decides to pray. Importantly, he prays not for himself but for “poor naked wretches” and declares, “O, I have ta’en too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, that thou mayst shake the superflux to them, and show the heavens more just.” Lear realizes that his plight is small compared to others’ in the world. The audience might find irony in this – Lear’s plight is great, not small. He was once king of all of England and now is an exile and a beggar. Yet, Lear understands that his character is flawed, even though he thinks he is a man “more sinned against than sinning.” He regrets that he was not more kindhearted as a king and gazing on the ragged figure of Edgar, tries to rend his own garments as well, realizing that man is no different in rags or in robes. “Is man no more than this?” he asks, “Consider him well…Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.” Lear is experiencing true humility and, like Aeneas, will ultimately realize that it was wrong to abandon his kingly duties. Later on he will declare, “Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.”

But Lear’s repentance does not mean that the moral order will be restored. As he observed when seeing Edgar, all men are equal: rags, robes, vice, or virtue are all the same to Fate. Indeed, although Lear reconciles with his daughter, Cordelia, and gains humility, he is not able to resume his kingly duties. And while Lear begins to overcome his insanity in the last act of the play, the murder of his daughter, Cordelia, drives all reason from him. His grief ultimately kills him. One character Gloucester declares, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport.” Indeed, Cordelia’s death seems unnecessary for the plot of the play. Hers is not a sacrificial death in order to defeat evil. Rather, she is a casualty of the evil characters’ ambition and malice. In the same scene, a moral order seems to be reestablished when the character Edmund repents of his wickedness and is lead away to be executed. His brother Edgar, who had supported the king, observes, “The gods are just.” But when he hears of the plot to kill Cordelia, Edgar exclaims, “The gods defend her!” However, the gods do no such thing. Cordelia’s death is pointless and leads to no ultimate good. Rather, King Lear is broken by his suffering, dying as well, and leaving his kingdom without a ruler, having destroyed the authority structure.

Thus, both works exemplify a worldview that denies an ultimate moral standard in the universe. The end result of this is chaos and despair. It is true that, while both kings underwent periods of madness, Aeneas was rescued by a “deus ex machina” and was able to continue his kingly duties. Yet, Aeneas was only able to accomplish this because he was favored by the gods and his fate dictated that he would succeed. Fate could just as easily have favored another character and Aeneas could have met an untimely death. Indeed, this is the fate of King Lear, of Cordelia, and of Dido. Ultimately, the momentary madness of King Lear and Aeneas is reflective of the larger madness of their world – a bleak world of despair where characters live or die based on the whims of Fate.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 7:03 PM |

"And all shall be well..."

An explication of T. S. Eliot's "Little Gidding"

Modernism professed that man was living in a post-Enlightenment era. It emphasized a bleak disillusionment for the things of the world. The Enlightenment philosophy had taught that man was progressing and would eventually be able to solve all the world’s problems. Yet the horror and carnage of two world wars revealed that this progress had lead to technology with the ability to take rather than prolong human life. The wars struck a blow to the belief in the superiority of Western civilization and destroyed any idea of the innate goodness of man.

T. S. Eliot’s (1888-1965) early poetry, especially The Waste Land and “The Hollow Men”, stood at the forefront of the Modernist movement, powerfully developing the deep darkness and despair of Modernistic thought. Indeed, he had often been hailed as the defining poet of the Modernist literary movement. Yet, in order for him to claim this title, a very important event in his life must be overlooked – his conversion to Christianity in 1927. His exploration of Modernistic thought was only his search for an answer to all the despair and hopelessness of mankind’s fallen condition. Indeed, it was not until after his conversion to Christianity that he reached the pinnacle of his poetic height in the most overtly Christian of all his poems – “Little Gidding.” The poem sets at odds the redemptive power of the Holy Spirit and the destructive power of man, following the outline of Dante’s Divine Comedy – the hopelessness of the Inferno (a world without God), the refining fires of Purgatorio (the journey to an understanding and faith in Christ), and, finally, the glorious eternal communion with God in Paradiso.

“Little Gidding” is the last in a series of a poems from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Though the poems act as a unified whole, each symbolizing a movement in a musical piece, it is possible to read them individually. This particular poem draws its name from a small village in Huntingdonshire where T. S. Eliot served as an air-raid warden during World War II. It opens on a scene in “midwinter spring” when “the brief sun flames the ice” and “there is no earth smell / Or smell of living thing” (1, 5, 12-13). Though filled with a sense of despair, there is a small glimmer of hope charged through these images. The speaker of the poem has not come without purpose to this village, but, rather, “You are here to kneel / Where prayer has been valid” (45-46). It is necessary to descend before he can ascend. In the beginning of The Divine Comedy, Dante attempted to reach heaven by simply climbing a steep hill out of the darkness into the light of heaven, but found it impossible. Instead, he had to journey back into the darkness and into the deepest darkness of all: the center of Hell. Dante had to realize fully his sinful state, dying to sin before he could be reborn in Christ. The first part of “Little Gidding” is a picture of Hell, a world removed from the light of God. T. S. Eliot describes what the village was like during the Blitz bombings, using “the dark dove with the flickering tongue” (the German dive bomber) as a symbol of all this desolation and hopelessness, the source of the destruction. After the houses were bombed, the ash would linger in the air for hours, covering people and their clothing,

Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended. (54-57)

With this background of Hell, Eliot continues to follow the pattern of Dante, evoking a type of image from The Inferno. Indeed, lines 78 to 149 have been considered as near to Dante's terza rima form as is possible in English. In The Inferno, Dante met the shades of many of the dead, who would stop to offer him some word of warning. After a bombing in Eliot’s poem, the narrator seems to see a ghost hurrying past him, who stops to talk with him. In all of this darkness and devastation, he summarizes the Modernist view of death.

First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit as body and soul begin to fall asunder.
[…]
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of things ill done and done to others’ harm. (131-141)

The Modernist has no hope in his future afterlife – there are no answers to all his previous mistakes. Actually, he can look forward to nothing. Man is sinful and unable to perfect himself. He cannot stop the destruction on this earth. But there is another answer. “From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit / Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire / Where you must move in measure, like a dancer” (144-146). On these words, the ghost disappears.

Purgatorio followed Dante’s journey through the Catholic Purgatory, the spiritual realm where man was purified from his sin after death. Eliot evokes this with these words of a “refining fire.” He writes,

What they had to leave us—a symbol
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well....
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching (194-199).

Purification does not happen over night. It is a gradual process, a journey – just as one must come to the deepest understanding of his depraved condition before he can travel upward to the light. Augustine, one of the early Church fathers, wrote The City of God, in which he described two different cities: that of man and that of God. Eliot uses this type of imagery in this part of the poem, exclaiming,

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire (200-206).

In these lines, Eliot pits the symbols of the “dark dove” (the German plane) against the “dove descending” (the Holy Spirit). Man can either experience hope in the refining fire of the Holy Spirit or despair in the dark dove’s destruction. Yet, he admits that this is not always an easy decision. Being refined sometimes can be a “torment” (207). Both decisions are a fire, but the former is the only one that can lead to ultimate peace and happiness. At last, Eliot begins to build to the culmination of his poem,

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time (238-242).

When man is refined, his eyes are opened and he sees the world as if for the first time. The destruction around him can be fitted into the larger picture of God’s perfect plan. He knows that this not the end of everything for in the end “all shall be well and / All manner of thing shall be well” (255-256). There will be perfect unity and perfect peace.

When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one (257-259).

The ‘rose’ was the greatest image in Dante’s Paradiso. It was made of circles and circles, tiers on tiers of the Saints. He described it as “the rose that blooms eternal, rank on rank, in incense of praise it sends up to the Sun forever vernal.” Ultimately, it was a symbol of the eternal communion of God and man.

In “Little Gidding,” T. S. Eliot described the spiritual journey in passionate and stirring terms. To classify him as a Modernist poet when he offers such hope to the world is a terrible error. Many writers of literary criticism will go so far to classify even this poem as an example of Modernist thought. While the first half does over a bleak view of the world, the poem hardly ends there. Yet, it is true that in a world devoid of God, Modernism is indeed the only answer. There can be no hope, no peace, and no love without a God ordering and controlling the universe. History will spin out of control with no point and no purpose. The dark dove will continue its desolation with no one to stop him. Unless man is burned by “the flame of incandescent terror,” he will continue to live in a wasteland, unable to see the world with new eyes and a new soul and say from the depths of his heart, “And all shall be well.”

Works Cited

Eliot, T. S. “Little Gidding.” 1943. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors. Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. 8th edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006, pgs. 2507-2534.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 1:16 PM |

The Disguise of Civilization

Critical Thoughts on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

(Conrad's novel was loosely adapted in 1979 into the major motion picture Apocalypse Now that takes place during the Vietnam War. But such a movie deserves its own critical essay and that would be another post for another time).

Joseph Conrad, though Polish by birth, grew up in 19th century Russia. He did not learn English until his sea voyages during his teenage years. After sailing on several English ships, he decided to become a naturalized English citizen in 1886 at the age of twenty-nine. Five years later, he left the sea and took up writing as a career. Even though English was Conrad’s third language (he learned French as his second), he soon became one of the most prominent English novelists of the 20th century and was even offered a knighthood. T. E. Laurence exclaimed that Conrad was “the most haunting thing in prose that ever was.” Nowhere does his genius shine more vividly than in his most famous novella, The Heart of Darkness.

The story describes the adventures of a seaman, Christopher Marlow, during his journey down the Congo to find an ivory trader, Kurtz. Symbolism plays an integral part in the story, especially in the conclusion. Indeed, one of the most controversial literary discussions centers on the closing pages where Marlow lies to Kurtz’s fiancée about Kurtz’s last words. If a close reading of the text is taken, however, his motives are obvious. The entire story revolves around the theme of darkness – darkness being Africa, the uncivilized world. When Marlow deceives Kurtz’ fiancée, it is his attempt to protect the civilized world from this darkness.

To understand the importance of this deception, however, it is necessary to see how the symbolism of darkness develops throughout the story. The first several paragraphs open on a scene on the deck of a cruising yawl anchored on the Thames River. Several of the members of the board are sitting about, watching the sun set. It is Marlow who breaks the silence by exclaiming suddenly, “And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth” (2330). He explains,

I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago -- the other day. . . . Light came out of this river since — you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. (2331)

What does Marlow mean by “darkness”? The word seems have two distinct meanings throughout the novel. In this first part, it represents an absence of civilization. Before Marlow begins to speak, the sky “without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light” (2329). This symbolizes the England of Marlow’s day, glorious and powerful and dominating much of the world. Yet, he warns that it was not so long ago that England was inhabited only by barbaric tribes. It was Rome, and not England, that was the center of civilization. Subtly, he begins to compare these conquering Romans to the people of his own civilized world, remarking sardonically, “They [the Romans] were no colonists …. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force” (2332). Though he says that the Romans were different from the Europeans because they were conquerors, he is ironically implying that the civilized nations of his day are conquerors, too, and not mere colonists. Indeed, he scornfully remarks, “The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much” (2332). Later on in the novel, when he relates his adventures in Africa, he points out the death that the colonists have brought to the Africans, describing a heart-rending picture of the black laborers,

They were dying slowly — it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom (2339-2340).

The other symbolism of darkness is an inability to see things clearly. As Marlow starts to tell his story, darkness begins to cover England. It symbolizes the civilized world’s failure to understand the violence and cruelty that are going unpunished in Africa; and, also, their refusal to view the Africans as fellow human beings. When Marlow pilots his steamboat down the Congo River, he catches glimpses of the Africans dancing in the villages. His impression is one of revulsion and he exclaims,

It was unearthly and the men were …. No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it — this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you, was just the thought of their humanity — like yours — the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar (2354).

It is not in darkness that Marlow faces this realization, but in the full light of day. He remarks, however, that “there was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine” (2352). Faced with the truth, he can only think of “the long stretches of waterway that ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances.” He is traveling away from this light into the heart of darkness – away from the civilized world and even the truth in Africa – into the darkness of an uncivilized world where no one can be certain of what is true and what is a lie. Indeed, when he reaches his destination, his steamboat is shrouded in fog. “The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept off without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind” (2357).

This is where Marlow is confronted by Kurtz: the ivory trader who displayed the decapitated heads of natives on poles outside his hut, who took his ivory by force and violence, who exclaimed in an essay “Exterminate all the brutes!” Kurtz is a symbol of what the civilized world is really doing in Africa.

…Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind--as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness (2332).

Kurtz is the embodiment of the ultimate extent of a Nihilistic philosophy. Without any true God, Kurtz becomes god, ruling his ivory trading post with fear and horror. He cuts off the heads of those who refuse to submit to his will. Thus, Conrad overturned the belief of the Romantics. Man in a state of nature is not essentially good. In fact, it is society that serves as a disguise to the evil in man's heart.

Marlow brings Kurtz back up the river on his steamboat, but the trader begins to die. “One evening coming in with a candle I [Marlow] was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, ‘I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.’ The light was within a foot of his eyes” (2379). It is here that all of the symbolism in the book reaches its culmination. Kurtz is trying to hide in the darkness of the uncivilized world even while the light of truth – the truth of all his despicable practices – is burning before his eyes. As Marlow watches his face, it seems as if a veil has been rent.

I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror -- of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: “The horror! The horror!”(2379)

When Kurtz dies, it is left to Marlow to decide whether he will tell this great secret to the world, or keep it hidden in darkness as Kurtz has done. His test comes when he visits Kurtz’s fiancée. She is a symbol of the civilized world, of the naïve blindness to what is going on in Africa. Even she cannot understand who Kurtz really was though she says she knew him best. Declaring “Men looked up to him -- his goodness shone in every act,” (2384) she proves that she has no knowledge of his barbarous actions. Then she begs Marlow to tell her Kurtz’s last words. If he tells her the truth, he will shatter all her blind trust and innocent belief.

I was on the point of crying at her, “Don't you hear them?” The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. “The horror! The horror!” (2385).

Yet, Marlow keeps the truth in darkness and says instead, “The last word he pronounced was -- your name.”

And here is the great question: why does he lie? He answers it in the next breath,

It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape …. But nothing happened. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark -- too dark altogether. . . .

By refusing to reveal Kurtz’s last words, Marlow is refusing to reveal what really happened in Africa. He does not wish to darken the light of the civilized world by exposing the cruel European practices that have until then been shrouded in secrecy. Marlow is a symbol of Europe because he turns a blind eye toward what is going on in Africa. At one point in the novel, he finds a sketch that Kurtz had drawn. It depicts a blindfolded woman bearing a torch, but the effect of the light “on the face was sinister” (2346). This woman embodies the European world. The torch she holds symbolizes the customs and civilized practices Europe is bringing to Africa. Her eyes are blindfolded, however, because she refuses to see the violent practices they have also brought. Thus, her face is threatening. Because of its blindness, the civilized world is just as much a horror as all of Kurtz' inhuman actions. This is the main message of The Heart of Darkness: the contrast between dark and light, barbarity and civilization, blindness and the ability to see.

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. 1899. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Gen. Ed. New York, W. W. Norton & Co. 2006.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 11:24 PM |

Five Arguments Against Slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin

[Analytical Essay written for a college US History class]

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin presented the thesis that Southern chattel slavery was immoral. To establish this assertion, Stowe incorporated the five major abolitionist arguments into the framework of her novel in order to reveal the impossibility of political compromise over something intrinsically evil.

The first major argument of the abolitionists was that slavery was anti-Christian. Genesis 1:27 stated that man was created in the image of God. Indeed, all of the heroes of Stowe’s tale are portrayed as devout Christians. Thus, Stowe essentially argued that the only way to be a good Christian was to be anti-slavery. Yet she went even further than that. Many abolitionists of her day would not have argued for the racial equality of the African, but Stowe did. In the character of Miss Ophelia, she developed a typical Northern woman of the 1850’s. Miss Ophelia considered herself a Christian, yet admitted she had a prejudice against the slaves and couldn’t bear to have them touch her. The young child Eva had no prejudice at all, however, which forced Miss Ophelia to comment, “She’s no more than Christ-like. I wish I were like her.” Stowe expanded this Biblical argument to contend that it was the Christian’s duty to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act, a law that mandated that Northerners could not help runaway slaves and must aid in their capture. The character of Mrs. Bird quoted Scripture to support her opinion that it was her Christian duty to oppose the Act. Her husband, a senator who voted for the Act, argued with her at first, but later when Eliza and her child (two runaway slaves) beg for their protection, he sided with his wife and broke the law. Thus, Stowe essentially argued that a person was anti-Christian if he acted in any way to uphold the institution of slavery.

Second, abolitionists supported their position by drawing on the ideals upon which the nation had been founded. Slavery (and especially race based slavery) denied that all men were created equal as stated in the Declaration of Independence. Thus, slavery was anti-American. This was a similar argument to the Biblical one, but it also touched on the topic of patriotism. Slavery had transformed America into a nation where men had to flee in order to gain their freedom. Stowe used irony to prove her point. When she illustrated the slave George’s escape to Canada, she noted that if he had been a Hungarian fugitive escaping for his freedom, it would have been seen as heroism, but “when despairing African fugitives do the same thing, —it is—what is it?” Earlier, however, when George noted that he would fight for his liberty, he stated, “You say your fathers [American patriots] did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!” Thus, Stowe paralleled the plight of runaway Africans with one of the most momentous events in American history: the Revolutionary War. With the denial of the Africans’ liberty, Americans had become what they most hated— a tyranny.

Third, abolitionists attacked the economic benefits of slavery. They reasoned that the slave’s only incentive to work was out of fear for his master. Stowe illustrated this in the plantation of Simon Legree – a plantation ruled solely by fear. Slaves could not skimp on the cotton they placed in their baskets or they would face a fierce flogging. She contrasted this with St. Clare’s household where the slaves were generally left alone. St. Clare admitted that his slaves were like spoiled children, but commented that “whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline” which ultimately led to a dehumanizing of slave and master. Indeed, George was one of the only slaves who did not work out of fear when he labored in a factory. But this was mainly because he was one of the most educated and desired to work to gain his freedom. Thus, Stowe contended that the African will only be the most industrious if he is educated, but such education will ultimately lead to the African seeking his freedom. Consequently, the slaveholder must keep the African debased and in fear in order to continue to enslave him.

This led into the fourth abolitionist argument. The institution of slavery put unlimited power into the hands of the slave-holder. There were no laws protecting the slave. A master could treat his ‘property’ with as much cruelty or benevolence as he saw fit. As a result, the institution corrupted the white slave-owner’s moral values. Stowe relied heavily on historical exaggeration to prove this point, especially with her description of the plantation of Legree. Legree was the most evil of all the characters in the book. He was stripped of any morals or ability to show kindness and worked his slaves to death in order to gain a profit. Historically, Southerners argued that this would not have been in the slaveholder’s best interest, but Stowe illustrated that there was nothing to stop them from doing it. Even further, Legree attempted to destroy the saintly Uncle Tom’s faith in God. Thus, the slaveholder became the ultimate picture of depravity. St. Clare sneered that slavery ultimately amounted to “Quashy [doing] my will, and not his, all the days of his mortal life, and [having] such chance of getting to heaven, at last, as I find convenient…The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!”

Fifth, and finally, abolitionists declared that slavery transformed the South into a perpetual state of fear and instability. This argument applied first to the Southerners themselves. Stowe included a conversation between St. Clare and his brother in which they talked about slave uprisings. St. Clare believed such an uprising was inevitable. Stowe, however, did not refrain from painting such a rebellion in glowing terms. After all, such an uprising would only be natural in a nation that upheld liberty as one of its highest values, even if it had degenerated to mean liberty only for the white man. Stowe expanded upon this argument, however, to refer also to the tragedy of the enslaved Africans. While the master lived in fear of his slave, the slave lived in fear of his master. Legree’s plantation was governed like a prison camp. Stowe also exaggerated the extent to which slave families were broken up and sold to different plantations, which ultimately led to the slave’s psychological torment and despair.

These five arguments of abolitionists were often viewed as fanatical. Yet, by presenting them through the vehicle of a story that appealed to the emotions and reason of her readers, Stowe was able to change the thinking of many Americans. Her compassionate portrayal of the Africans impelled Americans to look upon them as fellow human beings. Ultimately, her arguments proved that Southern slavery was inherently immoral. Previously, the institution had been regulated and compromised on by politicians like Stowe’s Senator Bird, but the novel brought the issue into American homes and forced them to rethink their Christian duty. Slavery was no longer the realm of politics but a moral issue.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 2:05 PM |

The Living Dead

Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

[Literary Criticism paper written for a college Western Literature class]

Ecclesiastes 6:12 asks, “For who knows what is good for a man in life, during the few and meaningless days he passes through like a shadow? Who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?” This verse sums up the heart of two famous novels of Western Literature: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Both deal with the inescapability of man’s mortality. And, reiterating the philosopher in Ecclesiastes, both ask what it means to be truly alive. Yet, while Kafka’s central character is doomed to be forever one of the living dead (a man who only attains to a shadow-like existence), Tolstoy offers his readers a glimmer of hope and a way by which they can leave an imprint on the world they leave behind.

Kafka’s novel deals with an unfortunate businessman (Gregor Samsa) who wakes up one morning to discover he has been transformed into an enormous insect, while Tolstoy’s novel centers on another businessman (Ivan Ilyich) who discovers that a minor injury has turned life-threatening and he has only a short time to live. The plots might seem extremely different at first, but this is actually where the similarities begin. Both have businessman as their main characters and both businessman are relatively satisfied with their jobs and their lives – at least they have found a way to put on the façade of satisfaction. Their very different injuries are similar in the sense that they force them to give up these jobs, to become alienated from their families, and face the question of their existence head on.

Interestingly, Samsa is not alarmed by his metamorphosis into an insect. Instead, he takes the transformation in stride, trying to figure out how to get out of bed and hurry as quickly as he can so that he can make his train. This is similar to Ilyich who ignores his injury for a while and refuses to believe that he is dying. Both Tolstoy and Kafka agree then that man often tries to avoid the truth of his mortality. Yet it is with each man’s response to his injury that the worldviews of Tolstoy and Kafka begin to diverge. Although they agree that man will fight to stay alive, they portray the conclusion of this struggle very differently.

Samsa is caught in a battle between the truth of his insect body and his still human soul. The insect desires to crawl along ceilings and eat rotten food, but his human soul desires beauty and, most of all, love. This is brought to a climax in the scene where Samsa is drawn to the music of his sister’s violin. Insects have no appreciation for art, but Gregor does. However, his family reacts with horror towards him. His sister denies his humanity, declaring, “You have to try to stop thinking this is Gregor. Our true misfortune is that we’ve believed it for so long. But how can it be Gregor?” With his family’s rejection, Samsa dies alone and his body is disposed of with the trash. Thus, Kafka reveals that man’s struggle to be more than an insect is utterly futile.

Contrast this with Tolstoy’s Ilyich. As Ilyich realizes that he is dying, he too longs for the love and sympathy of his family. Yet, Ivan has never shown such kindness towards anyone in his life (throughout the book he is continually portrayed as a particularly selfish person) – how can he expect such kindness now? It is this despair that leads him to contemplate whether he has “lived as [he] should have.” This is one thing Samsa never does, although if he had he probably would have reacted similarly with Ilyich – refusing to admit (as Ilyich does at first) that his life had been a lie, mere formality and convention. Yet, this is exactly what Ilyich comes to realize. Tolstoy noted, “As a student he had done things which, at the time, seemed to him extremely vile and made him feel disgusted with himself; but later, seeing that people of high standing had no qualms about doing these things, he was not quite able to consider them good but managed to dismiss them and not feel the least perturbed when he recalled them.” Indeed, Ivan has sacrificed his own conscious for earthly treasures – as Matthew 16: 26 warns, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” To a certain extent, this is exactly what Samsa has done too – forfeiting his soul and becoming an insect in the process.

But while Samsa’s life ends in tragedy, Ilyich comes to the realization that he can reverse what his life has become even in the very seconds before he dies. When he realizes that his life has not been a "good one," he stops screaming and stops resisting death. He sees his family around him and suddenly feels truly sorry for them. No longer is he grieving for himself, but for them. No longer does he fear death for “there was no death.” As he asks God to “forgive” him, Ivan is reborn and able to die in peace. He is already alive in Christ.

Samsa, however, cannot find such redemption, even though it could be argued that he deserved the redemption more than Ilyich. While he had lost his identity to the business world, he still cared for those around him, even if he was unable to spend time with them. Throughout the story his selfless acts are constantly appearing, contrasted against his family’s selfishness. After being transformed, he continues to sympathize with them. Indeed, he hides himself under a sofa and covers himself with a sheet so that they would not have to see his hideous form.

In Tolstoy’s world, however, even these acts of Samsa’s would have fallen short of earning such redemption. The message of The Death of Ivan Ilyich is clear – no man deserves redemption. Redemption is not earned, but is a gift of God. Indeed, as a foil to Ivan is Gerasim, a servant boy who is not afraid of death. He is the only character in the story that is selfless and truly shows compassion for others. As Gerasim cares for the dying Ilyich, Tolstoy writes, “By this [Gerasim] meant that he did not find his work a burden because he was doing it for a dying man, and he hoped that someone would do the same for him when his time came.” Ivan, however, cannot look back on any moments of servitude in his life that might justify him a bit of kindness. And, yet, Gerasim is willing to care for him even though Ivan does not deserve it. This is a true reflection of Christ.

In Kafka’s world there is no such agent of redemption for Samsa. His sister at first cares for him, but gradually she grows to abhor him and is the first to deny his humanity. But truly there is no other answer for the people who hold to an atheistic worldview. If there is nothing after death, how can there be any meaning in life? What gives man worth if he is but dust and a passing shadow?

Thus, the similarities between The Death of Ivan Ilyich and The Metamorphosis are similar in that they are the representation of everyman, but their differences are those of two contrasting worldviews. Those who deny God can have no existence but that of an insect. They are alienated from the world and, especially, from their Maker. Death will be the most horrifying for them (Samsa’s body is treated as a piece of garbage). Yet, those who accept Christ, as Ilyich did, will be able to experience what love truly is and will no longer be one of the living dead, but truly alive. Their existence may be short, but it will have new meaning, especially in the eyes of God. Indeed, man is not an insect, but made in the image of his Creator.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 2:32 PM |

"He Seen His Opportunities, and He Took ‘Em"

The Blessings and Curses of the Urban Political Machine

[Analytical Essay written for a college US History class]

William L. Riordon’s Plunkitt of Tammany Hall compiles numerous talks that New York Senator, George Washington Plunkitt, gave in defense of his political career as a ward boss in the political machine known as Tammany Hall. While progressive reformers decried this urban political machine as a cancer on American democracy, Plunkitt presents the thesis that the machine’s existence is justified because it never participated in illegal activities and actually significantly helped the struggling working class immigrants. However, this claim proves vacuous when it is revealed that Tammany Hall was actually rank with corruption and probably did more harm than good for the people of New York City.

First, the heart of a political machine is based on a patronage system. Special favors are performed for constituents who show their gratefulness by voting for the machine. In essence, they are bribed to vote. Progressive reformers saw this as anti-democratic. It directed the constituents’ focus away from the political issues of the day, using the people simply as a means to an ultimate end of political empowerment and wealth for those who ran the machine. Indeed, although all politicians court their voters to a certain extent, there usually still exists a dialogue on political issues. In Tammany Hall’s case, however, it was nearly nonexistent.

Second, although Plunkitt vehemently denied that he owned one “dishonest dollar,” the political machine did grow rich on graft. Plunkitt attempted to make a distinction between honest and dishonest graft, but he could not redefine the term itself. Graft is the abuse of one’s position of public trust for personal gain. Plunkitt admitted that, while he never used his political position to levy “blackmail on disorderly houses” or rob “the city treasury,” he had gotten “tips” from the inside. In other words, once his party was in power, he would find out that they were going to undertake numerous public works, perhaps a park or a bridge. He would then buy up all the land that he could in that neighborhood, making a large profit when the demand for that land skyrocketed after the public work was implemented. Clearly, this was an abuse of his political position. In the end, those who originally owned the land were disadvantaged because they sold it for less than it was really worth.

Third, positions in Tammany Hall were often gained by corrupt means. Plunkitt denied that they would actually “sell nominations” and attempted to draw distinctions by insisting that “There’s no auction and no regular biddin’. The man is picked out and somehow he gets to understand what’s expected of him in the way of a contribution, and he ponies up—all from gratitude to the organization that honored him.” However, whichever way the money was acquired, it was still a corrupt practice. Essentially, Tammany Hall “arranged” the nomination – they knew who would pay them back for a favor and they acted accordingly. This undermined the whole process of a democratic government. Organizations should not put a person in office, as Plunkitt seemed to believe, but rather the informed voter. Indeed, the politician should be indebted to no one except the electorate.

Fourth, and finally, Plunkitt wished for a monopolization of the political system in New York City. He admitted that his fondest dream was of the city becoming its own state. He commented, “The people wouldn’t have to bother about nothin’. Tammany would take care of everything for them in its own quiet way.” This was the kind of talk that probably alarmed progressive reformers. Plunkitt’s vision would have transformed New York City into an oligarchy. Once the other political parties were ousted, there would be no reason for Tammany Hall to even try to provide favors for its constituents. As Plunkitt observed, the people would not have to partake in the political system. Ultimately, rule by and for the people would be abolished and transferred into the hands of a governing elite.

Thus, the progressive reformers were correct in their assessment that men like Plunkitt were a cancer on the American government. The machine’s practices were eliminating the vision of the founders of America that the voters would be sufficiently represented by the politicians. Instead, machines like Tammany Hall blurred the lines between honesty and corruption.

Yet, it is important to consider whether the machine did any good for the electorate and whether this good outweighs its corruption. Plunkitt commented on the numerous favors he performed for the struggling poor in order to purchase votes, observing “What tells in holdin’ your grip on your district is to go right down among the poor families and help them in the different ways they need help.” Clearly, Plunkitt was a major benefactor to these lower class citizens. Before the emergence of the nationalized welfare state, this could be seen as a form of localized welfare. Plunkitt would secure jobs for the immigrants or provide them assistance if they lost their house and belongings to a fire or had problems paying their rent. Further, the machine made sure that the lower class immigrant vote was valuable, often times in defiance of the racist policies of many other political platforms of that time period. Essentially, political machines had to be attentive to the desires of their constituents or they would lose their votes. Yet, while Plunkitt’s policies may have benefitted the poor economically, he could only accomplish this by ignoring the needs of the general populace. In the end, an uneven favoritism would be exhibited towards one section of the electorate (the immigrant and working class) at the expense of the other (the wealthy).

To conclude, then, it would be unfair to state that Plunkitt and his political machine Tammany Hall did no good for the people of New York City. Indeed, the poor gained a much needed friend and political ally. Plunkitt helped to awaken politicians to the needs of their constituents and, ultimately, personalized the electorate. Yet, while these were certainly benefits to the machine, they could not outweigh its corruption and threat to democracy. These seeming ‘benefits’ were not the ultimate goal of politicians like Plunkitt. Rather, as he stated, he saw politics as a “game” and he was “gettin’ richer every day.” Ultimately, then, while the poor may have benefitted in the short term, they had no long term security. They were simply pawns in the hands of the bosses of New York City, men who abused their positions to slowly erode the foundations of democracy.

Posted by Nicole Bianchi at 3:45 PM |