Rainbow

A better close-up?

2007-02-17T23:09:00.000-08:00

Foucault and Wilde

2006-06-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

1 The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde wrote plays, short stories, essays, and one novel. Though his first play proved to be a disaster, he continued to write plays, and achieved success. His plays “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, “AWoman of No Importance”, “An Ideal Husband”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, etc. have all the brilliance of the author’s wit, sarcastic treatment of the contemporary Victorian manners and prudery, and dry humor. Apparently his plays make a light playful reading.

The plays reveal the artificial lives that people belonging to the nobility and the higher class led. Each play has its scenes of the bright drawing rooms and the witty conversations that hide the real intentions of the characters. Someone enters their peaceful lives and brings the possibility of a revelation of a secret from the past, that may be some indiscretion done while young – love affair, some long lost child, etc. The crisis may involve an almost loss of position in the society if the secret is revealed, yet the resolution is glossed over as another normal incident in the lives of the characters. Upon being made public, besides providing solution to the original problem, usually a love affair, the secret helps in bringing the protagonists more closer. Eventually everything settles down to the advantage of the protagonists, and people resume their “normal” lives.

This is the basic structure that Wilde’s plays usually follow. Situations are funny, conversations between the protagonists are brilliant, entertaining, and epigrammatic. Another characteristic is the “goodness” of the central character. He is the wittiest as well as the most intelligent and resourceful person, who inspite of trying hard to be cynical and skeptical about everything in life – clothes, situations, relations, etc. is the one who helps in the crisis resolution.

In similar vein are the short stories, mostly fairy stories. However, the stories have more of poignancy than fun and laughter and humor of the plays. “The Happy Prince”, “The Selfish Giant”, “The Sphinx Without a Secret”, and even the “The Canterville Ghost” have a certain delicateness and sensitiveness of denouement. The sacrifice of the “Prince”, loneliness of the “Sphinx” as well as the “Giant” and, the unending torture of the “Ghost” have been brought out with compassion and finesse.

The one novel Wilde wrote, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, is in stark contrast to Oscar Wilde’s other writings. It is perceptibly darker and gloomier than his plays and short stories. The novel elucidates the life of Dorian Gray, the development of his character from a naive and gullible youth to the calculating, insincere and pretentious man. It traces the unraveling of a complex character, both the vital “Picture” as well as the living person. It is also as much the story of the artist. The novel can be read at another level also, as the study of sexuality and the power relations.

The novel unfolds the transformation of an unaffected young man of “extraordinary personal beauty”, Dorian Gray. Lord Henry sees the picture Basil Hallward is painting and gets curious to know the real person. When he meets Dorian he compliments him on his beauty, charm and beauty. He is an influential personality who captures the imagination of Dorian as much as the latter has fascinated him. He explicates on the advantages of possessing youth and beauty. One should return to the Hellenic ideal and revel in pleasures, for their negation is what makes the life miserable. “The only way to get rid of temptation is to get rid of it”, is what he tells Dorian. Repression and suppression of desires creates sin, and it is in “the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place”, as well as the “great events”. And since Dorian has the beauty and the youth he should enjoy life more fully, and seek to triumph, because youth and beauty are fleeting and once old age and wrinkles come he will have nothing to “triumph” over. These words of his act as a wake up call for Dorian. He suddenly becomes aware of the power of his beauty and youth. His wish for eternal youth is granted in the strangest of ways. Dorian’s painting that Basil has painted takes on the “soul” and Dorian becomes just the body. He doesn’t “feel” the emotions but lives the life of sensations making the most of the opportunity he had wished for and so amazingly granted to him. He remains youthful and handsome as ever, but the painting shows the signs of age as well as degradation and debauchery.

Sibyl is a young innocent girl who falls in love with the charming Dorian, who commits suicide after his bestial treatment of her when she fails to live up to his expectations in front of his friends. Therein starts the successive acts of savagery, licentiousness, and degradation. Apparently he is as charming and beautiful as he was years ago, but the painting, which he hides from everyone including Basil, shows the actual signs of his downfall. It becomes old, wrinkled, and bears every sign of Dorian’s profligacy.

Though stories abound as to his moral corruption, it becomes hard for the people to believe them because of his bewitching and charismatic face. However, except Lord Henry, those who become his friends leave him and avoid any further contact out of a mixture of fear and disgust. Dorian murders his friend Basil when in his horror and guilt at creating such a painting he urges the former to change. This crime acts as a catalyst in bringing Dorian to commit suicide. In a wrath, he stabs the painting for showing him who he really is. His body is found out next morning, old, wrinkled and bearing the signs of his sins, while the painting resumes its original form, that of a young, beautiful and charming young man.

2 History of Sexuality

Michel Foucault writes about knowledge, power and sexuality. Power comes not from above but from “below”, and from everywhere. The repression of talk about sex led to an increase of discourse about it, and perhaps initiation of “sexual heterogeneties”. It may be that the attention on sexuality in the 19th century was a means to ensure the proliferation of species, and increase labour capacity, i.e. to serve capitalistic interests. It also led to the legitimation of certain relationships – heterosexuality and marriage and to the exclusion and marginalization of others – homosexuality, infidelity, and suppression of sexuality in minors, mad people, as also criminals.

"He shows that what we think of as ”repression” of sexuality actually constituted sexuality as a core feature of our identities, and produced a proliferation of discourse on the subject."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

Important in this division is the form of power exercised. It operates not through the repression of sex, but through the production of discourse about sexuality. Knowledge is not object and cannot be separated from power. It is another way for classification, power brings marginalization, control and maintenance of “order”. A “normative” pattern of sexuality was established that the “deviant” behaviours could be eradicated from society. Power also contains the seeds of resistance in it. This is how Foucault elucidates the idea of power and inherent resistance in it,

"the desire of one’s own body... once power produces this effect, there inevitably emerge the responding claims and affirmations, those of one’s own body against power, of health against the economic system, of pleasure against the moral norms of sexuality, marriage, decency. Suddenly, what had made power strong becomes used to attack it. Power, after investing itself in the body, finds itself exposed to a counter-attack in that same body."
http://www.thefoucauldian.co.uk/bodypower.htm

"power is a technique or action which individuals can engage in. Power is not possessed; it is exercised. And where there is power, there is always also resistance."
http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-fou1.htm

Power in sexuality plays through four mechanisms, control over children’s sex, attribution of hysteria to women’s sex, exclusion of deviant behaviour and preference to heterosexual relations. Foucault argues for the kind of power the discourse on sexuality produces “on body and on sex”. This power acts through the multiplication of sexualities, that sex is there in the body and attracts “its varieties by means of spirals in which power and pleasure reinforced one other...pleasure and power do not cancel or turn back against one another; they seek out, overlap, and reinforce one another.” The discourses give rise to multiplicities of sexuality rather than repression and restrictions. And this is what happened in the nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Instead of repression of sexuality, it let to more talk and wider spread of power.

3 Foucault and Wilde
Foucault writes about knowledge being power. And that power is exercised, and that it comes from everywhere. Youth is juxtaposed with power in this novel by Wilde. Dorian Gray has the youth and the beauty. Lord Henry arouses his narcissistic desires with his talk of the charms of youth and the influence he can exert over people, and exhortations about “a new Hedonism”.

"The sense of his own beauty came to him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.

I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it."

However, youth being fleeting, he would soon part with his good looks and would become a wrinkled old man. When Dorian’s wish for eternal youth is miraculously answered, he commences on his mission of triumphing over the world. He is flamboyant and rules everybody’s mind. With his charm and charisma accompanied by his fascinating personality, he always attracts people to himself. Basil is drawn to his innocence and symmetry. Lord Henry is captivated by his beauty and unaffectedness of the picture even before he has met him, and the meeting affects him more.

Lord Henry is able to exert influence on Dorian because he has knowledge that the young man lacks when they first meet. He has the “power” to mould his mind, and he takes pleasure in stirring his soul. He exercises the power that he has by virtue of his having knowledge. He has the desire to control Dorian, and to this end he directs his fascinating voice and all of his thoughts.

"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul...Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing...Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him – had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that beautiful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of Love and Death."

He himself acknowledges the fact that he has the capability to influence to Dorian

"I represent to you all the sins that you have never had the courage to commit."

Dorian Gray with his “chiseled” features and beauty has the power to dominate gathering he is in. He dominates Basil because of his physical appearance. Lord Henry opens a completely new world to him.

"You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life...I had a passion for sensations.

He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations."

According to Foucault, sex lies in the body, and power and pleasure instead of remaining oppositions form spirals that reinforce each other through reinforcement. Dorian Gray seeks sensuous pleasure. He has come to love beauty first in himself through the painting which has “taught him to love his own beauty”. Now he seeks beauty, experience and pleasures outside. He has an obsessive and insatiable curiosity to seek every kind of experience. Pain as well as pleasure is there in every act, pleasure of experiencing an hitherto unknown experience, pain of being base and corrupt.

"Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins – he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame...Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous."

He doesn’t live on in one experience, rather flits from one to another. In his own words,

"But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or for mistaking, for a house in which to live in, an inn that is but suitable for the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in
which there are no stars and the moon is in travail."

Another juxtaposition in the novel is that of youth with sexuality. Youth has vitality and vivacity to allure, and to keep the interest from flagging. Dorian has attained “eternal” youth by a quirk of fate. He uses that youth, and the amazing fact that he can hide his real face from the world, to gain all kinds of experiences. He becomes debauch. And the expression of this sexuality is an exercise of Foucauldian power. No one can resist his harm, they fight against even their own better senses to associate with him. However, they lose reputation, relations, friends, position in society, as well as self respect. Yet he still has the power to make them fear even his name. And this dominance as well power and far is due to his sensuousness.

Dorian has the ability to attract beauty, makes friends with women and men, but he has also the uncanny ability not to feel the emotions himself, the picture does that and bears the permanent marks of his cruel, evil, and criminal acts. This makes him callous and calculating, not caring for anyone except his own pleasures. He yearns for never ending youth that he may continue with his pleasures and conquests. The portrait is the representation of all what he would have lost if he had become old as “normal” people do.

"It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty...The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience...life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. .. What did it matter what
happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything."

He does not conform, sexually or physically. Foucault argues that the repression of discourse about sexuality instead of silencing brings about a multiplicities of discourse. The nineteenth century is perceived to be prudish that put a muzzle on speaking about sex and sexuality. However, as seen through Wilde’s novel it is not so. Sexuality, sexual experiences and verbalization are there, of alternate sexualities as well, though not openly. Dorian indulges in all kinds of sexual relations, not necessarily in heterosexual, or even the more desirable marriage. He keeps experimenting as a result of his irrepressible curiosity. This is acceptable to some people like Lord Henry, who rather encourages him on in his endeavour to learn more as well as live more.

It is this tendency of deviation that is irksome to the people. People whisper about him, stories make round about his fallen ways and his ruthlessness, but he has the indescribable charm and a charming and disarming smile that makes it impossible for anyone to believe that he could do any wrong. When he feels guilt and remorse, besides being haunted by the murder he has committed, Dorian thinks of confessing his crimes. He has this weak moment when he wants to give up his way of life of being “different”, being pointed out as something of a phenomenon, being a “sinner” as society judges it. He thinks about confession as a way of embracing the “norms” of the society, and normalization. This is what Foucault describes when he talks about the four mechanisms through which power works through sexuality, conforming to the societal norm – preference for “procreative heterosexual” relationship, and the exclusion of deviant behaviour.

Dorian’s urge to confess, though short lived, and though it unknowingly becomes the cause of his suicide, is a manifestation of the chains that society binds people with. He has lived life on his own terms, has indulged in every kind of sexual relationship, yet when he feels hounded by his own crimes he tries to run towards conformity. He is a sort of social outcast who has no friends except Basil Hallward and Lord Henry, former he has already murdered in a fit of rage. Lord Henry is more of a mentor. Everyone else is either too afraid of him (former friends and partners in sin) or worship him (newer acquaintances). How aptly Lord Henry had said in the beginning that

"great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also"

The development of Dorian Gray’s character, from the simple, carefree youngman, through being the one who can still feel remorse, guilt and sympathy when he is reminded that he behaved cruelly with the girl he was madly in love with, to the remorseless man who has no qualms in murdering his best friend, and one who blackmails another to remove every trace of his handiwork, and ultimately kills himself by “mistake” makes for an interesting study of sexuality, and power relations. Youth, sexuality and power are equated in Foucauldian terms, and all are embodied in the protagonist. Dorian Gray has youth which he uses to gain power and use that power to dominate in every gathering and relationship he is in. Sexuality is in the body. It cannot be separated from the person – Dorian Gray. Power is simply not repressive,
but creative as well because it increases discourse and desire as a result of trying to repress discourse on sexuality.

4 References
1. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Class handout.

2. Collected Works of Oscar Wilde, Wordsworth Editions Limited(1997)

3. Sim, Stuart and Borin Van Loon, Appignanesi, Richard ed. “Introducing Critical Theory”. Totem Books, USA, 2001. pp 91-99.

4. Gutting, Gary, ”Michel Foucault”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/foucault/

5. http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-fou1.htm

6. http://web.utk.edu/~misty/AndersonFouc.html

7. http://www.thefoucauldian.co.uk/bodypower.htm

Want to keep looking at these at all the times

2006-06-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

Blooming glory near the hostel

2006-06-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

Beauty in the morning

2006-06-02T00:25:00.000-07:00

Natural and constructed vie for space in IITD

2006-05-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

Cannot catch him

2006-05-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Study guide

2006-05-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

One of the best things at Dilli Haat

2006-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

Lonely at the top

2006-05-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

Shklovsky's take on Sylvia Plath's "Cut"

2006-04-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

What a thrill —–
My thumb instead of an onion.

Sylvia Plath in the poem “Cut” illustrates an ordinary experience, of having one’s finger sliced while cutting vegetables, as something extraordinary. The physical wound, however painful, is exciting in the beginning but the blood flow brings on an illness that is mitigated only after taking medicine. Is Plath being sarcastic, or is she exhibiting a psychopathology? Is she authentic in this poem? After all it’s just a cut. Since the poet uses first person in the poem, it appears as if she is speaking from her own experience. Perhaps she describes the common in uncommon terms because of the pleasure she is feeling. Or is she putting a “hat” on the readers making them find some meaning in her meaningless poem?

Plato, Aristotle, Horace as well as Longinus all stressed different characteristics in a work of art, from function, structure, content, to intention. They did not question art. Shklovsky argues for innovation in art, in language as well as form, and seeks to bring poetry into the realm of science and emphasizes technique. He wants poetry to shock the readers into true perception. Plath has managed to do that. Her poem hardly fits in the conception of what a poem should be as envisioned by the former four.

The poetess draws from a mental picture of the incident that becomes palpable to the readers as a result of the imagery used to describe it. The sensation of getting one’s hand cut that gives a “thrill” in the beginning later on changes for the worse and a “pill” is taken to overcome the pain. The poem is rich in its use of imagery. The sight of finger top hanging loose is likened to “hinge”, “flap”, “hat”, and “wattle”. Flow of blood appears to be a “pilgrim”, “carpet” rolling forward, “soldiers” marching on. Even the act of taking medicine to suppress the pain becomes a “celebration”. Staining of the “gauze” in blood as well is shown by word pictures. The bandaged thumb becomes a ku klux klansman, a “babushka” clad woman and the scarf “darkens” because of the stain. Plath uses images of battle and death to make the readers see blood flowing from the Cut, and seems to do so in an alluring sort of a way as if she is fascinated by it, and wants us to be attracted too. The terse blank verse keeps the poem from becoming automatic. Usage of short words and breaking of sentences make the reading fast paced. A sense of hurry as well as urgency is conveyed by the use of such words as “rolls”, “run”, “confronts”, “jump”, etc. There is emphasis on the language used, words convey the felt pain as well as the seen blood.

Dead white.
Then that red plush...

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka...

Trepanned veteran,
Dirty girl,
Thumb stump.

According to Shklovsky, in his essay ‘Art as Technique’, when perception becomes routine it becomes automatic and over-automatization nulls life itself. He looked at art as a means of bringing sensations back to life. He also argued for the creation of a work of art “artistically” that its apprehension becomes difficult and its effect is lengthened. He talked about the technique of defamiliarization to promote ‘true perception’ of things and emotions as against ‘recognition’ promoted by arts. Defamiliarization is “the capacity of art to counter the deadening effect of habit and convention by investing the familiar with strangeness and thereby deautomatizing perception”. This is done by making the poetic speech rough and “tortuous”, which can be reflected either in the choice of style or words used.

Plath has used defamiliarization to make the readers jerk out of their automatic responses to a poem. Choice of an ordinary incident as the subject of the poem marks the beginning of this process. Treating of laceration of a thumb may be a subject of poetry in terms of what Shklovsky has propounded, Plato or Aristotle would have hardly thought this to be an apt subject for poetry, according to whom it should be either in the service of society or give pleasure by catharsis of like emotions. Horace and Longinus stress the place of sublime in and aesthetic experience of a poem while reading it. They emphasize effect of a poem. However the experience of cutting a finger and the pain arising out of it does not appear sublime or aesthetic. Does reading this poem give any pleasure? No. Does it help in purgation of painful feelings? Perhaps.

Further defamiliarization is achieved by the use of words like “hinge of a skin”, “axed your scalp”, “kamikaze”, “balled pulp” etc. that make the readers attend carefully to the poem. Why has Plath used these mechanical words, as well as words that conjure images of war, to describe the incident? Apparently she wants to see a serious look on the faces of those who read this poem, but it could may as well be that she is laughing at her readers, making them fall in her trap of taking it seriously. It does seem ridiculous to compare thumb to an onion and skin to flap and hat. Then the chopped off thumb becomes a pilgrim who looses his scalp to an Indian and blood is a marching company of soldiers. It then becomes “saboteur”, “kamikaze man”, “trepanned veteran” and “dirty girl”. These words and comparisons are so wildly out of context, of so fantastic proportions and something that one would not think of in the kitchen that though they do make defamiliarization possible, they also make one feel that Plath is so wrapped up in her phantasmagoria that she’s losing touch with reality. Perhaps the catch phrase is the first line of the poem “What a thrill—–”, as well as “A celebration this is”. The reader has fallen into the trap!

The critics from Plato to Shklovsky might all treat the poem differently. Plato makes the feeling artist important. He addresses authenticity in a work of art, otherwise artist not having experienced all that he writes about, would be a liar. Aristotle emphasized credulity, consistency, and emotional identification of the reader to the work of art. Horace and Longinus talk of moral, aesthetic experience and effect of and intention of the work. Shklovsky needs the artist to only express things in a way that arouses feelings in the audience, that his/her writing should defamiliarize the reader. Effect on the reader is important but he hardly addresses the issue of authenticity, and doesn’t say much about how genuine an artist’s feelings must be.

The poem appears credible and readers can relate to the pain of hurting one’s finger. But what if Plath did not cut herself, just wrote about it? Since the poem does arouse feelings of sympathy and does shock the readers into looking at a common experience differently, Shklovsky may still call reading it a moral and aesthetic experience. Plato and other critics would perhaps differ, and I would agree with them.

References
1. Plath, Sylvia. “Cut”. Electronic copy from question paper.
2. Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art as Technique” 1916. From course handout.
3. Plato. “Ion”. The Internet Classics Archive, 2000. MIT. January 2006
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/ion.html
4. Davis, Robert Con, and Finke, Laurie, eds. “Literary Criticism and Theory: The Greeks to the Present”. London: Longman, 1989. pp 60-83, 92-114.

Jean François Lyotard's "The Postmodern Condition"

2006-04-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

While growing up Lyotard was unclear about what he wanted to pursue in his life. At different times he wanted to be a monk, a painter, an historian, etc. All these aspirations gave way to a career in philosophy, and until the Second World War he led a life of solitary introspection mulling over the philosophy of indifference. The Second World War disrupted his way of life and jolted him into thinking about the external social world in which he lived. During the war he worked for the Liberation of Paris and helped on the streets. Indifference of his pre-war life where he hardly thought about the lives of other people and if and how they influence his’ gave way to a life of participation and commitment. After the war ended he took up a job teaching philosophy in French occupied Algeria. After reading Marx and after studying the political situation there he thought that the time was ripe for a social revolution in Algeria. He became involved in their struggle for liberation, writing pamphlets and providing a theoretical base to the struggle in collaboration with other thinkers.

However, the social revolution that Lyotard had hoped for, as predicted by Marxism, failed to materialize. He closely studied the prevailing power struggles in Algeria, and came to the conclusion that it is not possible for a single all encomapssing theory like Marxism to explain social reality. Since social interactions consist of many voices any revolution results in newer power struggles, and consequent suppression of these voices instead of any class based action.

In his attempt to find a theory that would take into account the many different voices, and multiplicities of the social reality he started developing his theory of “Paganism”. The way people believe in many gods in pagan religions, Lyotard’s theory also accounted for the differences and diversity of opinions. Instead of striving to club these differences within a single system of thought (consequently doing injustice to the opposing opinions) they must be taken separately. Lyotard gave up using the term “Paganism”, and introduced “postmodernism” instead. In 1979 he published “The Postmodern Condition” where he develops his idea of postmodernism in terms of the effect of rapid scietific developments on knowledge and the problem of legitimation.

Since reality consists of multiple points of view i.e. multiple narratives, no one narrative can be said to capture reality in its totality (something that other meta-narratives like Marxism were said to do). Each point of view or narrative takes into account only some aspects of reality and misses other different aspects. These aspects of reality missed in one point of view but present in another constitute the “differend”. And missing that aspect is doing injustice to that particular point of view. Hence Lyotard’s belief in multiple points or view or multiple narratives and not in some universalising priviledged narrative, which is how Lyotard defines the term postmodernism, “incredulity towards metanarratives”.

Lyotard borrows the term “language games” from Wittgenstien to explain how each narrative must be judged by its own set of rules. In Wittgenstein’s model, different language games are said to be judged by their own unique rules and these rules are legitimised by an understanding between the players, any changes in the utterances leads to the consequent changes in the rules. Similarly, because there exist multiple narratives in the world, a single criteria cannot be made to judge them all. When different points of view are judged against a single criterion, those that differ are excluded. This introduces an element of “terror” i.e. sidelining or making redundant of anything that cannot be justified by the existing legitimizing narrative.

Science pretends to be objective, but is it? Pursuit of scientific knowledge is legitimized by society and it’s objectives i.e. the prevailing narrative in the society. The Enlightenment justification was that pursuit of science leads to finding the “ultimate truth”. The modern justification is provided by the idea of production or narrative of “performativity”. The more the production, the better the progress, the better the idea that produces this progress and hence more is the legitimation for the existence of science. Science (the ”narrative”) seeks legitimation from society’s/societal trends (the ”metanarratives”); but since any metanarrative limits the understanding of reality, using any legitimization criteria will limit what science can uncover, it excludes other potential developments. So science needs to be delegitimized that it may uncover more facets of the real world Reality is too complicated to be captured by any legitimzing criteria.

At any time knowledge determines what is relevant in the world, and thus control the world opinion. Rapid developments in science and technology after the Second World War led to the transformation of knowledge into “information”. This transformation has in turn made it controlled more and more by big corporations. So these corporations get the power to determine what is relevant and important. They impose their own will upon the people and thus control the world.

Like scientific knowledge and politics, if art has to be legitimized by the dominant narrative, it will get restricted to finding out only those ideas about reality as are thought important and relevant by that narrative. The legitimizing narrative that art must have meaning, limits all art to whatever that has meaning. It leaves out the Kantian sublime. Lyotard borrowing from Kant writes that for something to be aesthetically beautiful i.e. sublime, it has to transcend understanding. Hence, art can be sublime when it is beyond understanding. But if art is to be legitimized it must be understood, so sublime art is one that cannot be justified or understood. And such art which cannot be justified is “postmodern”. For Lyotard only postmodern art is valuable since it discovers a new aspect of reality which was hidden from the legitimizing narrative.

Postmodern art once understood becomes ordinary art. Hence, postmodern in art is not a particular period but has been ever present in its history. It is something that challenges the existing notions, whenever such a form emerges, it is postmodern. Whence the phrase, “What is modern is first postmodern”.

Some of the tendencies Lyotard speaks about art can be gleaned from Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”. It is about two men waiting for someone. Though they know that that someone may not turn up, still they wait because they think their survival depends upon that person. The play opens on an evening with two tramps, Estragon and Vladimir, waiting in a deserted street for someone named “Godot”. They are involved in conversation that appears funny as well as disjointed at the same time. They are soon joined by two men Pozzo and Lucky passing by. The spectacle of their arrival startles Vladimir and Estragon, and they enter in conversation with Pozzo. They are amazed at the sight of Lucky being treated like an animal. He is on a leash, carries all the things needed by Pozzo on his journey and follows all the commands meekly and mutely. The converstation between Pozzo, Vladimir and Estragon is apparently strange. It seems to make no sense, jumping from one topic to other, funny at times, absurd at others. Upon being commanded to think aloud, Lucky delivers a speech that is the epitome of disjointed language that has been used throughout the play. Both Pozzo and Lucky leave after a short scuffle at this speech. Meanwhile Vladimir and Estragon receive a message to the effect that Godot will not be coming this evening but definitely the next one.

The second act also opens next evening at the same spot as in Act I. Estragon and Vladimir are still waiting for Godot. They again have the same kind of disjointed conversation as of the previous evening. Pozzo and Lucky again happen to pass by, but now Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Again after the latter have left, a message is received that Godot will not be coming this evening but the next.

Though the play manages to baffle understanding at times and appears difficult, it does keep the audience glued to it. It offers something that is not yet understood. It challenges the audience as to its meaning. It hardly fits into any existing narrative . The characters as well as their conversation appear “absurd” to the audience, but each character is very much sane and making sense to himself in the play. This represents Lyotard’s multiplicities of narratives. They are being reasonable, and maybe very intelligent according to the narrative to which they subscribe, but appear disjointed and perhaps crazy in the audience’s realm of justification. The play insinuates that reality is a construct, we can buy any narrative we want and live in a different reality – if we choose to believe the play, we can start believing godot and the characters’ world. It manages to show that reality is complex and totally out of comprehension. The play questions notions of god/meaning/existence/certainty etc. For example they believe in godot, and are sure of him; we believe in god (some people at least) and are sure of him, but we have only as much evidence as they have of godot. we believe in existence of several things (e.g. man landed on moon, that dinosaur fossils exist, that antarctica is cold) of which we have no evidence except other people talking about it – which is like people talking of godot – and yet we think didi and gogo are absurd and we are sensible. The characters are eternally hoping, waiting for Godot which gives them a motive to live until he comes. Lyotard wanted artistic experience to be sublime which can happen
if it manages to challenge, baffle and not to be justified by the existing narratives. This is what Samuel Beckett’s play manages to do. Like abstract art, it may not be interpreted into narrative of the audience except as ”experience”, when you ”interpret” abstract art you say, ”I have experienced it and find the experience good”, you can’t put music into words, or a picture into words, it’s like the sublime, you find it good, but can’t understand it (abstract is abstract because it defies interpretation).

Reality is too complex to be theorised to a conclusion. To the question “What is postmodernism?” asked by Bernard Blistene Lyotard’s reply was, “My work, in fact, is directed to finding out what that is, but I still don’t know. This is a discussion really, that’s only just beginning. It’s the way it was for the Age of Enlightenment: the discussion will be abandoned before it ever reaches a conclusion.”

References
1. Aylesworth, Gary, ”Postmodernism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta(ed.). April1, 2006.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2005/entries/postmodernism
2. Bernard Blistene. ”Les Immateriaux: A conversation with Jean-Francois Lyotard.” Henry Warwick’s website. 1985. Kether.com April 1, 2006
http://www.kether.com/words/lyotard/
3. Irvine, Martin. The Postmodern, Postmodernism, Postmodernity: Approaches to Po- Mo. 1998. April1, 2006.
http://georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/technoculture/pomo.html
4. Jean-Franois Lyotard. Wikipedia. April 2006. April 1, 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyotard
5. Lyotard, Jean-Francis, ”The Postmodern Condition, A Report on Knowledge”. Manchester University Press. 1984.
6. Postmodernism. Wikipedia. April 2006. April 1, 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
7. Postmodernity. Wikipedia. Feb 2006. April 1, 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernity
8. Woodward, Ashley. ”Jean-Francois Lyotard.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006. April 1, 2006.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/Lyotard.htm

Human Values and Human Rights in National Perspective

2005-03-11T04:11:00.000-08:00

This is the text of the paper presented at UGC sponsored "National Seminar on Human Rights and Human Values", held from March 10-12, 2005 at Government Post-Graduate College, Faridabad.

Introduction
Human rights are considered universal and irrevocable and exist because we are human beings. The governments irrespective of their ideologies have a duty to protect these rights. Universal Declaration of Human Rights covers the full spectrum of human rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural - that may be addressed at a local, national or international level. Human rights are the fundamental things in life that every person is entitled to. These provide dignity, humanity, respect and freedom to all people. Social and economic issues such as health, housing, employment and the right to an education are as much human rights as the political rights such as free speech and protection from torture.

Historical Background
The concept of human rights in some form has been present since ancient times in teachings of the philosophers. It has its roots in the moral universalism of Aristotle and the Stoics. Aristotle explains in his Nicomachean Ethics of existence of a universal and natural moral order, which forms the basis of various systems of justice, and involves application of reason free from prejudice. While distinguishing between ‘natural justice’ and ‘legal justice’, Aristotle writes, “the natural is that which has the same validity everywhere and does not depend upon acceptance.” (Nicomachean Ethics) The Roman Stoics Cicero and Seneca believe that morality originates from God's will, and since it transcends all local legal authority, this universal rule of conduct imposes an obligation on all to obey this will of God. This belief in the universality of a moral order was held in Europe over the centuries. In England “Rights of man” have their origin in Magna Carta. It contains origins of various modern human rights, as freedom of church from political authority, freedom to own property, and of equality before the law. From these beliefs emerge the notion of "natural rights" during the 17th and 18th century. These rights belong to a person not because he belongs to a particular country or religion, but because he is a human. Locke and Diderot elaborated upon natural rights. They argue that governments exist to preserve these natural rights of the people. The French Revolution of 1789 as well as the American War of Independence had their basis in this belief, which was expanded by Thomas Paine, Stuart Mill, and Thoreau. Kant on the other hand has given this right the basis of human reason instead of the will of God. He argues for the rationality and equality of human beings, and moral principles must have universal basis to be acceptable to all. Thoreau in his Civil Disobedience first used the term “human rights“. Various movements of 19th and 20th centuries, fight for equality of wages, humanized working conditions, equality of sexes, abolition of slavery, were fought on these ideals were essentially political in nature. Holocaust during WW II is the precipitating factor in the development of a framework of some universal rights that would be adhered to no matter what. This framework is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on 10th December 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly without a dissenting vote.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
Though necessarily considered political in nature, human rights came to include social and economic rights of people everywhere after the adoption of UDHR by the UN General Assembly in response to the horrors perpetrated during Holocaust. The preamble of UDHR recognizes human rights as "inherent", "fundamental" and "equal and inalienable" rights of human beings. It establishes the universality of human rights irrespective of “race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status… political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs” as stated in Article 2. It states that

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Article 3
“No one should be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Article 5
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Article 9
“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” Article 10
“Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.” Article 11
“Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” Article 28

Subsequently drafted and enacted international human rights agreements include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Declaration on the Right to Development, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and several dozens of other international documents which identify and codify human rights norms. Many countries of the world have signed these declarations and covenants, some have been ratified and become laws, or the basis of the enactment of various laws protecting civil, political, social and economic rights of the citizens in various countries. Though quoted in courts of law, these covenants have no legality unless respective state governments make laws based upon them.

Constitution of India assures dignity and equality of the individual and provides for the social, economic and political justice, freedom of speech, action, thought and religion, right against torture and inhuman and degrading punishment, as well as right to legal aid. National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Protection of Minorities, National Commission for Women, etc are lending a helping hand to report and redress human rights abuses.

US Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, speech and expression (1st Amendment) and right to legal advice (5th Amendment)
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...

Despite provisions in the constitutions and enactment of various laws to protect human rights of the citizens, countries do have ways and means of getting around those laws. These fundamental rights get suspended during the times of emergency.

Human Rights in National perspective
Human rights can be distinguished from the legal rights because of the fact that the latter can be upheld in any court of law by simply referring to the relevant law, while the former refer to moral claims that may or may not find a legal basis. Democracies like India, United Kingdom, United States of America, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, etc have made laws incorporating these human rights as legally binding. Institutions like police, judiciary and human rights commissions help in maintaining these guarantees. UDHR forms the basis of these laws. The Paris Principle, endorsed by UN Commission on Human Rights and UN General Assembly in 1992 and 1993 respectively, has become the frame of reference for setting up and managing human rights commissions in the member states. Its important points are

§ independence guaranteed by statute or constitution
§ autonomy from government
§ pluralism, including in membership
§ a broad mandate based on universal human rights standards
§ adequate powers of investigation
§ sufficient resources.

These measures ensure that the commissions are independent from the governments and powerful enough to regulate human rights cases in respective countries.

On the other hand, countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and China have totalitarian dictatorial regimes. The people do not have the freedom of speech, thought or expression, legal rights or to hold different religious opinion. Tiananmen Square and Tibet in China, Palestine in West Asia, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and more recently in Sudan, Northern Ireland and Jammu& Kashmir, all have become synonymous with rights abuses of one kind or another. Any infraction against governmental policies results in disproportionate punishment. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN Commission for Human Rights try to bring to light rights abuses in an attempt to redress the wrongs being perpetrated. Annual human development reports bear a witness to the deteriorating conditions despite the presence of international and national constitutional safeguards against any such abuse.

Governments have a duty towards their citizens to protect their human rights. However, human rights are not bound by national boundaries. Nations rich in resources must assist those countries that are not able to protect the rights of their citizens due to lack of enough adequate resources. The most important step in this direction would be respecting the sovereignty of other nations. International Court of Justice has been in operation since 1946 to settle legal disputes between two nations according to international law, and to give its advisory opinion to international agencies and organizations. Its jurisdiction applies to only those states that have accepted it. Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoner of War came into force in 1950. It will be upheld in peacetime as well as during war. It categorically forbids torture, mutilation, outrages and humiliation of prisoners of war, military personnel or general population, provides for proper care of the sick and the wounded, and access to legal aid.

However, the promise held by international covenants and declarations appears to have remained unfulfilled because of the reports of ever growing abuses of human rights. More specifically, in recent years these have been funneled by the war on terror after September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Human Rights Abuse Case Study: post-9/11 US
United States was founded on the principles of equality and provision of certain inalienable rights to individuals. It has ratified Geneva Convention, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Convention against Torture in its efforts towards the maintenance of these human rights nationally as well as internationally. However, the immediate effect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA was curtailment of these rights of the citizens. There began a ‘War on Terror’ to seek out and destroy individuals or groups who pose a national security risk anywhere in the world.

Domestic Policies
USA PATRIOT Act grossly undermines the human rights of both citizens and non-citizens. It allows detention without charge, indefinite detention after charges have been framed, contains a vague definition of domestic terrorism and permits searches of person and property without prior notification. These provisions are clearly in breach of the US Constitution, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Geneva Convention, and Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

According to Amnesty International more than 3000 suspected al-Qaeda members have been detained worldwide since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Many of the countries where these suspects have been held, are known to employ torture. More than 600 prisoners are being held without charge at Prison Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. United States has a clear right to prosecute these people for suspected war crimes or terror attacks. However it also has a duty to take care of them in accordance with Geneva Convention and other international covenants it is signatory to. Despite their repeated assurances to the contrary, there has been increasing reports of inhuman conditions and deteriorating health conditions of the detainees. The third Geneva Convention provides a clear definition of a prisoner of war, but these prisoners have no legal status as POWs. They have no access to legal help as per Article 10 of UDHR, that they are entitled to a “fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him”, and Article 9 of ICCPR which gives UDHR legal basis.

International Policies
In its pursuit of terrorists, US took the ‘War on Terror’ outside its national boundaries. Removal of Taliban regime, and capture of Osama-bin-Laden and his associates in al-Qaeda became the primary motive in attacking Afghanistan. This military action against another sovereign nation without any provocation was against international law. It was in clear defiance of UN Charter, which forbids “bombings where you cannot tell soldiers from civilians…replacing of other nation’ governments…” According to the definition given by Convention to Suppress Terrorist Bombings, signed but not ratified by US, the bombings qualify as terrorism. This action is also a misrepresentation of UN Article 51 that allows for “…the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations…” Security Council Resolution 1368 adopted the day after the attacks merely condemns Afghanistan, but does not give legitimacy to military action. Besides killings of civilians have been justified on grounds of collateral damage.

The focus next shifted to Iraq. The suspected development and fear of consequent misuse of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by Saddam Hussein, alleged links to al-Qaeda and establishment of a democratic government formed the basis of military action against Iraq. UN Security Council was bypassed in this unprovoked offensive. No evidence has been found of either WMDs or the suspected links of the Ba’ath regime to al-Qaeda. Appalling conditions in prisons, Abu Ghraib in particular have shaken the whole world. US claims that the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment-enshrined in Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment-the United States ratified in 1994—does not apply to U.S. personnel in the treatment of non-citizens abroad. While asserting that torture by all U.S. personnel was unlawful, it says that no law would prohibit the CIA from engaging in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment when it interrogates non-Americans outside the United States. This interpretation permits the CIA to commit in secret detention facilities abroad many of the shocking forms of abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib, that includes placing detainees in painful stress positions, imposing sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, intimidating them with military dogs and use of other coercive methods.

Though there has been an effort to punish the guilty of rights abuse at Abu Ghraib, but more needs to be done. Unilateral action taken by United States has certainly eroded the authority of United Nations in dealing with international problems in a peaceful manner. International treaties must be adhered to by the strongest nation of the world, otherwise simply signing them will not give them the required authority if they can be so flagrantly misused or set aside in times of national emergencies.

Conclusion
Human Rights exist because it is morally imperative on governments to provide certain fundamental guarantees to their citizens. They include social, political as well as economic rights. Governments must ensure that their citizens enjoy their human rights through a proper setup of laws, agencies for their implementation and system to redress their grievances, while maintaining the human rights of citizens of other countries at the same time. Loopholes in laws do exist which may be exploited by states to suppress human rights, so international community should be vigilant in preventing such abuse. From our case study of the changes in national and international policies of the US, it becomes clear that human rights are transnational in nature, and there is a need to make international conventions and declarations legally binding on the countries the world over, to improve cooperation among nations as well as international institutions, and make efforts to restore the sanctity of the UN General Assembly.

References

Amnesty International (2005). "War on Terror" Human Rights Issues. Retrieved from http://www.amnestyusa.org/waronterror/patriotact

Amnesty International (2005). "Denial Of Rights: Amend the USA PATRIOT Act Now!" Retrieved from http://www.amnestyusa.org/waronterror/ib_torture.html

Constitution of the United States of America. Retrieved from US House of Representatives, http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

Fagan, A. (2004). "Human Rights", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/hum-rts.htm

Human Rights Watch (2005, January 25), US: Justifying Abuse of Detainees. Retrieved from http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/25/usint10072.htm

International Court of Justice (2005, February 15). "International Court of Justice: General Information – The Court at a Glance." Retrieved from http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/igeneralinformation/icjgnnot.html

Marxist Internet Archives (1999–2003) "Right", Encyclopedia of Marxism, Blasgen, B. and Blunden, A., editors. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/r/i.htm

Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Govt. of the Republic of India (2002, March 31). "Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles, and Fundamental Duties", National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. Final Report, Vol 1, Ch 3. http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport/v1ch3.htm

Puches, A. R. (1995–2005). "Human Rights", Action Without Borders . Retrieved from http://www.idealist.org/resource_guides/guide_human_intro.html

Samji, H. (2003, December 18). Alone, Forgotten and Ready to Die: The Health Impact of Incarceration at the United States Prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Health and Human Rights. Retrieved from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/HusseinSamji_GuantanamoBay.pdf

Tolworthy, C. (2002, March) September 11th and Terrorism FAQ. Global Issues. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/faq.asp

UN General Assembly (1993). "The Paris Principles" Resolution 48/134 of 20 December 1993, annex. Retrieved from The Asia Pacific Forum of National Humarn Rights Institutions http://www.asiapacificforum.net/about/paris_principles.html

Life, anyone?

2005-02-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Honey is dead. He was the liveliest, most active, critical, and outspoken kid I have ever known. He had brain tumor. The doctors in India claim to have made almost as much advancement as thier peers in the West. But such claims were belied in Honey's case. They didn't even know he had cancer until almost his death, though they had operated on him more than once. However this is not about the remissness of the doctors, but about a very unfortunate family.

Honey's hapless family consists of father, mother, two sisters and one brother. The mother was diagnosed with brain tumor nearly three years ago. She was given six to nine months to live, but she lingers on bed-ridden, her limbs are immovable, voice is unintelligible, and mind wanders. The daughters are her nurses. The harassed father was posted a day's train journey away from home. The government deepartment he is employed with didn't transfer him to his home station even after repeated applications. And when they finally did, it was not good enough. It still involves an hour's travel. If this was not enough, the employer refuses to reimburse the medical bills amounting to lakhs, precipitating a financial crunch. The brother roams around house or on the streets like a lost soul, knowing yet uncomprehending the predicament his family is in. He fails in his exams. The eldest sister, an introvert by nature, when not crying or attending to the needs of her mother, sits silently most of the time. The family fears for her mental health. She had dreams of enjoying college life, but they have remained just dreams. The younger sister is the pillar of strength for the whole family. A more mature eighteen year old I have never seen. Though she has no reason to smile, she brings a smile to everyone else's face and gives courage to her father to live through these trying days. She never speaks of her own life and goals. The present aim is just to get through one day at a time. Each one of them knows that the mother won't survive, yet they all pray for the miracle. She is acceptable even in the almost vegetative state that she is in.

Why is man so powerless in the hands of the unknown? What can this be called? Fate? Destiny? Adverse circumstances? Wrongs done coming back to haunt the present? Or simply Life? I don't know. But whatever it is called, it is scary. And a reminder of the helplessness and littleness of man. Whatever the man may think about his mastery over his life, the fact is that he cannot do anything to change his lot. But he can never give up trying to better his life. This is the example this resolute family sets for us mere mortals by their struggle against perpetual troubles. I salute their undefatigable spirit.

The Republic Day

2005-01-26T03:07:00.000-08:00

26th January. The 'nation' celebrates it's 55th Republic Day. And how! The government organises a parade of its developmental projects, advancements in science and technology, and the might of it's military. Awards are handed out. Song, dance and spectacle characterizes the day, patriotic films are screened, patriotic songs pour forth from any music station tuned into.

Was this how it was meant to be celebrated? The day which should have honored the spirit of freedom, courage, strength, and endurance of a fledgling state has become a parody of the sentiments it set out to eulogize. The celebration is of military prowess, where is the spectacle of poverty in it? India is still one of the poorest countries in the world, but do we pledge for a helping hand? No. The Parade reflects the development in various walks of life, where is the continuing huger, thirst, illetracy, uneducatedness in it? Is there any promise of equality of opportunities? No. Our laders pay their respects to the Amar Jawan Jyot, where is the concern for handicapped armed forces personnel or for the widows and orphans of the martyrs? A public display is made of the private overwhelming grief of their widows and parents, but they still run from pillar to post even to receive their dues.

Children are not even aware of the significance of the day. For them it is a school holiday, meant to be enjoyed with their parents at some park or eatery or some mall. For others like maids or labourers, it is just another day when their better offs enjoy while they work to get that essential evening meal in their homes. The celebration is now just limited to the yearly parade and the speeches of the leaders and the songs and movies screened on tv or radio. Nobody would even be aware of the Republic day or its significance without the observation of these rituals.

Should not all this change? Wouldn't it be better to put in the money used in the arrangements to some better use like making available basic amenities to the needy? Every paisa helps if properly channeled.

Mrs.'Clarissa' Dalloway

2005-01-22T23:49:00.000-08:00

The protagonist, Clarissa Dalloway is a 'charming, vivacious' and a very sensitive woman, 'very upright' in her bearing, having 'a touch of the bird about her'. She wanted to be stately and commanding like Lady Bruton, or like Lady Bexborough, 'slow and stately...very dignified, very sincere. Instead of which she had a narrow pea-stick figure; a ridiculous little face, beaked like a bird's'. Inspite of her 'light' appearance, Clarissa has a commanding presence, 'Not that she was striking; not beautiful at all; there was nothing picturesque about her; she never said anything specially clever; there she was, however; there she was'. In her own words, she 'loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense'. She loves to give parties, dance, and being looked upon as a benevolent mistress, '...thank you ,thank you, she went on saying in gratitude to her servants generally for helping her to be like this, to be what she wanted, gentle, generous-hearted'. Even Lady Bruton who usually meets her with indifference or hostility has to admit that 'Clarissa had wonderful energy' in context of her parties; She loves her husband Richard Dalloway and is thankful to him for giving her space in their marriage 'For in a marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house'. Her affection for her daughter Elizabeth becomes apparent in her resentment over Miss Kilman's influence over her daughter. Clarissa loves life, though finds it unbearable at the same time, 'very, very dangerous to live even one day'. This negativity in her thoughts appear to be a result of her recent illness, as well as perhaps the just ended War. She is an atheist 'not for a moment did she believe in God' and does good for it's own sake. Though the immediate cause of this was her sister's death, she has always been 'one of the most thorough-going sceptics'.

Clarissa's friend Peter Walsh admires her for 'her courage; her social instinct...her power of carrying things through...her spirit, her adventurousness', her charm and her honesty. According to him she has a 'genius' of getting people together at her parties, and she needed people around her to bring out her 'exquisite' sense of comedy. He finds her a better judge of character, Clarissa herself says 'her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct'; shrewd and having a clear knowledge of what she wants. At the same time however, he finds her 'hard...a trifle sentimental', 'insincere', 'worldly', 'cold as an icicle', 'That was the devilish part of her- this coldness, this woodenness, something very profound in her...an impenetrability'. He calls her a 'perfect hostess', implying all the superficiality involved in such a role, which Clarissa resents. This touch of artificiality is revealed in Clarissa's thoughts while she is out shopping for flowers in the morning, 'people should look pleased as she came in...Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas...half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that'. Sally calls her a snob for she has invited Clarissa to come over to her place many times, but the latter never does. However, Sally is thankful for the friendship they shared, for it 'kept her sane...so unhappy had she been at home'.

Clarissa has a very active imagination, everything that is related to her or is remembered by her is very clearly felt and seen by her in her mind's eye, be they her reminiscences about Bourton when she was young, her conversations with her friends in those early days, her reactions to the incidents that happend then or are taking place now.
'...with a lttle squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air', again, 'She stiffened a little; so she would stand at the top of her stairs'. The most graphic being, 'He had killed himself- but how? Always her body went through it, when she was told, first, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had thrown himself from a window. Up had flashed the ground; though him, blundering, bruising went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, thud in his brain and then a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it.'
She appears to understand the reason why Septimus comitted suicide. Everyone strives to find a meaning in life, but as one grows older frittering one's life in parties and chattering, it becomes impossible to find any answer. Maybe the young man has killed himself because there is no meaning in life, and has instead found an embrace in death itself. 'Death was an attempt to communicate, people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which , mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone. There was an embrace in death'. She almost feels guilty for being alive and seems almost to resent this life because it ties one down to lead it to the end.

Clarissa understands her own nature, that she has been selfish and ambitious. But this is how she is and her friends are thakful for her selfless friendship.

Virginia Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway as a Modernist Novel

2005-01-15T20:29:00.000-08:00

Modernism implies a break from the tradition.It refers to some sort of discontinuity, treating characters as 'thinking' individuals, emphasizing the unconscious rather than the outer, visible self; plot is more of a collection of incidents and their effect on the individual than the advance towards crisis and its resolution; imagination and internal thought processes form the substance of the literary work characterised as 'modern'. Mrs.Dalloway is a modern novel which embodies the vision that Virginia Woolf sets out in her essay, 'Modern Novels', and conforms to that ideal in almost every respect, that

...if one were free and could set down what one chose, there would be no plot, little probability, and a vague general confusion in which the clear-cut features of the tragic, the comic, the passionate, and the lyrical were dissolved beyond the possibility of separate recognition? The mind, exposed to the ordinary course of life, receives upon its surface a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel...suggesting that the proper stuff for fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.

Clarissa Dalloway is throwing a party. Her thoughts, remembrances, and impressions, along with the thoughts of other characters, form the 'action' of the novel. Confined to a single day in London, this is a modern novel for it has no action in the traditional sense- of building up a crisis and its resolution, of intermingling of various plots and sub-plots, just a presentation of two-three narrative threads progressing though the passage of a single day; it has an open form, the ending being inconclusive; no linearity of the story, characters feeling, experiencing and thinking, rather than acting. The sense of action is provided by the passage of time, heralded by clocks chiming and BigBen striking, towards the actual party, as well as the build-up to and the suicide committed by Septimus. The action is internalised in the thoughts and impressions received by the characters. Unlike the traditional works, this novel has also no story to tell. It is a coherent collection of 'myriad impressions', all brought together by Woolf to have her say about what she thinks about all these things through the medium of her characters, though they appear alive and thinking in their own rights. There is also no conclusive ending to the novel. The ending is such that it could be taken as a beginning to another such collection of thoughts. 'What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.'

Each character is revealed not by actual description by the author as used to be the case before, but by giving voice to thoughts of that character as well as what others think of him or her. Clarissa becomes a physical presence in her own words, 'she had a narrow pea-stick figure; a ridiculous little face, beaked like a bird's'. Her nature is revealed in her own thoughts, 'loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense', 'not for a moment did she believe in God', and again 'people should look pleased as she came in...Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas...half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that'. Peter reveals another aspect of her character, 'her courage; her social instinct...her power of carrying things through...her spirit, her adventurousness', 'her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct'. Sally calls her a snob.
Similarly, Peter is 'Exactly the same, thought Clarissa; the same queer look; the same check suit; a little out of the straight his face is, a little thinner, dryer, perhaps, but he looks awfully well, and just the same', 'always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited'. Sally finds him, 'an oddity, a sort of sprite, not at all an ordinary man'.'He was rather shrivelled-looking, but kinder' but has retained 'his old trick, opening a pocket-knife, thought Sally, always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited'.
Septimus is 'pale-faced, beak-nosed...with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too'. His wife Lucrezia finds him 'so gentle; so serious; so clever'. Each character is thus revealed from various view-points and the reader is free to conclude about that characters from these varied thoughts. This appears a more dynamic mode of character presentation, and gives the reader the satisfation of being involved with that individual and not a mere spectator.

Instead of narrating the story as was being until the beginning of 20th century, Woolf makes use of the stream of consciousness technique in the novel, to unfold her characters. The technique involves recording the thought processes as they arise in the mind of the various individuals, without any apparent connecting links. This technique is seen as being more close to the real individual than the traditional one, for the latter appears to form a character from outside, only superficially, while the former delineates a living, 'thinking' individual, apparently evolving as the novel progresses. In MrsDalloway, there is seemingly no coherence in the thoughts of a character, flipping from one thing to the next without any linkages, as in the beginning, 'For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning-fresh as if issued to children on a beach'. The speaking voice also changes from person to person, ''That's an E,' said MrsBletchley-or a dancer-'
'It's toffee,' murmured MrBowley' However the shifts are so subtle that no apparent discontinuity is felt.

In Mrs Dalloway, the treatment of characters and incidents is essentially psychological in nature. Though the basic aim of all literature is to arrive at an understanding of an individual, traditionally, not much psychological study was being done. With the advancement of psychology as an independent field, and development of various theories, the writers were also influenced by those theories. More and more authors like Virginia Woolf started using those techniques in their works. In this novel too, each character is seen as a result of various experiences that he or she went through. Clarissa's rejection of Peter's proposal of marriage has influenced all his later thoughts and actions. The effect of war experiences on a sensitive mind are explored through the character of Septimus. The details concerning the tortured feelings of Septimus, the reasons behind his present mental state, his delusions and his reactions to everyday incidents, as well as his mistrust and abhorrence of the doctors, Clarissa's thoughts and mental reactions, Peter's life as seen though his thoughts and those of others, are vividly presented, and explained with subtle explanations about causes and counter-causes.

It can be emphatically concluded from the above discussion that Virginia Woolf succeeds in creating a modern novel, having most of the characteristics of modernism.

Comments on J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace

2005-01-15T19:43:00.000-08:00

Whites in post apartheid South Africa

J.M. Coetzee, born and educated in South Africa, comments upon the changing scenario in the country of his birth. The life after the collapse of the appalling apartheid is strikingly portrayed in his work. It explores the basic human nature, which is not distinguished by any colour. ‘Disgrace’ makes for an impelling though disturbing read. The narrative leaves one dumfounded because of the depiction of cruelty. It is a series of such situations, unrelieved by any comic incidents.

‘Disgrace’ is a dark narrative of the travails of a white girl living all by herself on a farm. David Lurie is the professor of communications. His dalliance with one of his black students, Melanie, gets him discharged from his job. He leaves Cape Town to take up temporary residence with his daughter in the country to escape the hostile atmosphere of the city. However the country turns out not to be the place of refuge he thought it would be. His and his daughter’s life is disrupted by a brutal attack. They are robbed and his daughter is raped. He is disfigured in the savage attack. More disfiguring are the mental scars. He accepts the attack, what he cannot understand is why his daughter acquiesces to the situation, doesn’t say anything about it even to the police. This central incident sets in motion the process of mental subjugation, both Lucy and David’s. Lucy now shuns all human company, neglecting her dogs as well as her farm. She is more hurt by the “personal hatred” that her attackers had for her though they didn’t know her at all before the incident. David, who was so unbending before had refused to submit to the popular sentiment when asked to apologize publicly at Cape Town, now has to accept the incident. He feels old and helpless. He feels guilty that he couldn’t help his daughter. David who used to dislike the job of caring for animals as Lucy’s friend Bev Shaw does, starts helping her out at her clinic. By the end of the novel he learns to give up all that he held important or meaningful in his life, his womanizing, his quest to write the opera, his daughter, his personal dignity, and even the dogs he cares for.

The changing political conditions and their effect on the whites as well as blacks is under scrutiny in Coetzee’s Disgrace. The protagonist, David, who had been a privileged white professor, is disconcerted by the changes in the post-apartheid society. He cannot understand the reality of South Africa, as does his daughter. There has been a reversal of roles, whites are no longer capable of protecting themselves or their own. Blacks are their own masters as well as in a position to patronize the whites. With the dismantling of apartheid the society is in turmoil. There is anarchy all around. David feels out of place in his current job, teaching is merely a formality, an obligation to his students and their parents. There is no perceptible need for the study of ‘classical and modern languages’ so he has to teach the more important ‘communications’. He is a “hangover from the past, the sooner cleared away the better”, his misalliance with his ‘black’ student is seized upon to do just this. He cannot expect any mercy or sympathy ‘in this age and age’. At his daughter’s farm, he is asked to help Petrus, her “assistant…co-proprietor” unthinkable before. He comments on “historical piquancy” and even jests about the pay he will receive. In the middle of the attack on him and his daughter, the fate of almost all the whites living in the country, he mulls over his helplessness, and over the savagery of the “darkest Africa”. He is a non-entity, an impotent white who can only watch and suffer, an “Aunt Sally” whose knowledge of languages cannot save him or his child from “the savages”. The missionary “enterprise of upliftment” has failed miserably. The policy of forcing into submission has also backfired. David understands that this is revenge and that no one is safe from it. The attack on him and his daughter leave David shocked, humiliated and disgraced. He has to accept it as happening “every day, every hour, every minute…in every quarter of the country”, “another incident in the great campaign of redistribution”. He understands that things are no longer the same. “It is a new world they live in”. He laments the passing of old times when he helplessly tries to question Petrus if he had foreknowledge of the attack, and again when he wants the latter to explain the presence of one of the assailants at his party. He suspects Petrus of conniving with the attackers but unlike old days he cannot have it out in the open or lose his temper. He cannot even ask him to explain his relation to one of the attackers because ground realities have changed. He cannot confront him or get angry with him or let loose dogs on him, as had been the case before the regime change. The latter is “a neighbour who at present happens to sell his labour”. He feels more and more out of place in this South Africa. Even English, the language of the whites, is not an apt medium. It has ‘tired’, ‘thickened’ and ‘stiffened’ ‘like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud’. The South Africa he knew is “all gone, gone with the wind”.

David undergoes a profound change as the story progresses from the beginning to the end. From being stubborn and obstinate character as is reflected in his unapologetic and recalcitrant stand when asked to apologize and undergo counseling by the committee probing sexual harassment charges against him, he becomes an ‘old man’, readily giving up everything that he loves- desire to write an opera on Byron’s last days in Italy, his self esteem, even the dogs he cares for. He used to be sure of himself and his decisions, but now he has become bewildered at the fast paced changes taking place in the country, and he is not able to cope with those changes. Hence his settling in the country close to his daughter and helping at the clinic.

Though David knows the reality of present day South Africa, it is his daughter Lucy, the lone female white farmer, who truly understands and accepts this reality. She knows she is not safe on the farm and that dogs can provide “deterrence” only, but then who is safe even with weapons? She loves the land and stays on for its sake. Even after the savage attack, she decides to return to her farm because it is her land, and South Africa her country. David on the other hand is not ready to accept the changed conditions. He thinks of escape, suggests this course to Lucy, but she refuses to hide or run. She cannot be hounded out of her farm and her country. Her neighbours are also of the same opinion. Ettinger and Shaws are not willing to give up their claims to the land just because the times are dangerous. Staying on, as Lucy does, is their way of showing defiance in the face of increasing hostilities. Accepting Petrus as her neighbour on equal footing, inspite of his being black, as well as taking part in his rejoicings is her way of showing that she carries over no excess baggage from the past. She comments upon it matter of factly, “It is a big day for him. We should at least put in an appearance, take them a present”. She reminds David again and again that South Africa has changed, his is no longer a privileged life at the expense of the blacks.

Whites owe a debt to the blacks with their long history of subjugation. Post apartheid they are being made to pay for all the crimes committed, though this method of equalization is despicable in the extreme. Lucy terms her rapists as “debt collectors, tax collectors”. She would be allowed to live on only after paying her dues. The essential similarity of human nature emerges in the turn events take in the novel. Though there has been a profound change in the power structure of the country, post-apartheid society is no different. Power corrupts. Instead of learning to the contrary from their repression, blacks themselves are committing those crimes that oppressed them during apartheid. They are asserting their authority in much the same way as the whites did previously. David, or any other white for that matter, helpless to do anything about the situation, condones the violence as a necessary evil, “just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant”. Vengeance for the past wrongs, thrill and excitement at their victims’ fear and discomfiture are some of the motives behind the spate of rapine and pillaging. The blacks, subjected for so long, relegated to being servants, ‘dog man’ or ‘boy’ for long are now ready to take their share in the things. They don’t shy away from grabbing, robbery, or simple blackmail to get what they believe to be theirs. Though the likes of Petrus have worked hard and suffered, and have earned their right, not everyone seems willing to work hard. Petrus again and again points to the danger of a woman managing a farm alone, and assures her safety if she marries him. Lucy understands this as a ploy to get her farm by him. Nevertheless she accepts the proposal because she loves the land too much to just leave it. For unlike what David thinks she knows that escape is not a possibility. Leaving now will mean accepting defeat and being a refugee in a foreign land.

Though in Lucy’s case it is more of a healing journey through turmoil and pain, to acceptance and strength, the change in her character is no less. Though stunned after the ghastly attack, she emerges stronger from her ordeal. Her decisions to live on on the farm, and alone, and to give birth to her child are her way of showing defiance. She even agrees to the offer of marriage from Petrus, knowing the blackmail he intends, but on her own terms. She fiercely guards her independence, brooks no interference even from her well meaning though helpless father.

Petrus, the ‘dog-man’, portrays the changing face of South Africa. “Once he was a boy, now he is no longer.”(Ch-18, page 152) He is “a man of patience, energy, resilience…A plotter and a schemer and no doubt a liar too”(Ch-14, page 117). He has known hard work, known the life of indignity in the white regime, now, in this changed scenario, he has become a landowner, who doesn’t refrain from blackmail to get his hands on the remaining acres of Lucy’s farm. Though not explicitly stated in the text, he appears to be a silent accomplice in the attack on Lucy and her father, as if to convince her that farms should be managed not by women but by hardy men, and that women need protection of strong men to survive. His offer to marry Lucy to bring her under his protection is his way of conveying in rather clear terms that otherwise she is “fair game”. Lucy understands this reversal of roles and doesn’t report the rape to the police because it is “a purely private matter…in this place, at this time…It is my business…This place being South Africa.”

The change in Petrus is more of status; from a helping hand he becomes a landowner. He is self-confident, upwardly mobile, hard working, shrewd and opportune. He perfectly understands the conditions prevailing, and takes timely steps to make maximum gains. His offer to marry Lucy is a ruse to get her land in the garb of providing protection to her.

Coetzee’s Disgrace is a study of the changing fortunes of white as well as black South Africans. Through the depiction of a series of disturbing incidents, and their effects on the protagonist David, his daughter Lucy and her helper Petrus, the author has laid bare the turbulent reality of present day South Africa, as well as the effect of these changes on the whites who had hitherto led an exclusive and protected life, and blacks who had always been persecuted. Now with the change of political dispensation, fortunes of both have changed. David, confused and dazed belongs to the past and has no place in the South Africa of today. Lucy, brave, dauntless and self-reliant is shown to be the kind of person who will survive the turbulence that South Africa is going through. Petrus is the future of South Africa, black, zealous, enterprising, strong, competent and aware.