Sunday, April 29, 2007

Animal Farm: In Response to Professor Hanley

In class last Thursday, Professor Hanley posed two questions: Why do the pigs impose a hierarchy? Is it human nature to want hierarchy?

As one student stated in class, the hierarchy is pre-existent in Orwell’s Animal Farm. That is, the ranking of the fable’s characters: Mr. Jones, the owner of the farm, and the various farm animals, each defined by their genus, individual assets, deficits and liabilities.

Hierarchy, ideally includes systems of compromise, reciprocity, interchange, and exchange.
(To be continued).

Edith

Man’s Fate: In Response to Professor Hanley

Heroism: Katov and Kyo

Konig:
You want to live?

Kyo:
It depends on how.


Kyo:
Any way of getting out of here?

Katov:
Not a chance.

In class Tuesday before last, Professor Hanley posed a question: What makes Katov and Kyo heroic at the end of Man’s Fate?

Imprisoned and death immanent, Kyo anticipates the possibility of being released, or to attempt “the taking of the prison.” And Katov, shrewd, “tactically” calculates the “taking of the Post.”

Edith

Man’s Fate: In Response to Professor Hanley

Malraux and the “Revolutionary Imagination”

Milton’s revolutionary in Paradise Lost seeks self-sovereignty and vengeance. Donnelly’s imagination in Caesar’s Column is a futuristic panorama of revolution with social, economical, and political pontification and fundamental resolve. While Babel’s revolutionary thematic in Red Calvary, describes the cruelties, destruction, and devastation of war: socially, culturally, politically, and economically. And the French Revolution graphics illustrate and memorialize the struggle. However, Malraux’s “revolutionary imagination” give the revolutionaries depth and dimension. Individual struggle: internal conflict and complex “emotional interior;” external pressures: family obligations, the absence of friendship, and self-interest and commitment in Man’s Fate create awareness for the reader: revolution is a rebellion with the self.


Edith

Man’s Fate: In Response to Professor Hanley

Terrorism and Revolution: Kyo
(Continued)

Kyo advocates the ideals of the revolution. Ferral asks “ ‘And how many revolutionaries who can do something besides talk?’ ” (82). Trotsky argues that one’s fear is disempowering and disabling, and destroys the integrity of the struggle. Kyo, emotionally reconciled, has elevated his level of commitment with his death: “To die is passivity, but to kill oneself is action” (318).

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part III (Personal Commentary)

An Exchange: Ch’en and Kyo
(Continued)

Ch’en:

“ ‘I’m not the sort to feel remorse. In the business of murder the difficult thing isn’t to kill – the thing is not to go to pieces: to be stronger than…what happens inside one at the moment’ ” (153).

The murder of Chiang Kai-shek remains at the center of debate. Murder and death are analyzed validated, and absolved. “My life is not in the past, it is before me” (Ch’en, 154). Dreams, memories, and guilt are overruled by “certainty” and conviction: the vital elements when deciding, defining, and determining one’s destiny.

Edith

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Man’s Fate: In Response to Professor Hanley

Terrorism and Revolution: Kyo

“He was resolved not to hear the insults, to endure everything that could be endured; the important thing was to get out of there, to resume the struggle. Yet he felt a nauseating humiliation that every man feels before someone upon whom he depends, powerless against that shadow with a whip—shorn of himself” (294).
(To be continued)

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part VII (Personal Commentary)

The Paradox:

“ ‘A civilization becomes transformed, when its most oppressed element […] suddenly becomes a value, when the oppressed ceases to attempt to escape t[his] humiliation, and seeks his salvation in it, when the worker ceases to attempt to escape this work, and seeks in it his reason for being’ ” (294).

I am still debating how to contextualize or interpret this profound statement, (because it operates on many levels) from one of Old Gisors lectures, attended by Hemmelrich, who has escaped China and is employed as a “mounter in an electric plant.” Influenced and motivated by the professor’s theory, Hemmelrich vows to “return to China as an agitator.”

Oppression seemingly is a double-edge sword: It convicts as well as reveals the constituent qualities of man.

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part VI (Personal Commentary)

The Unexpected:

“But as long as things are bad I prefer to be fed in prison rather than die of hunger in freedom…” (294).

Malraux persistently interlocks events, contrasting philosophies, and ideologies to catalyze action. Kyo, now imprisoned, has adopted Ch’en’s persona: fortitude, perseverance, and resolve. He is determined to endure the harshness of imprisonment until he escapes or by releasement in order to “resume the struggle.” His fellow prisoner – conditioned to and contented with the cruelties and inequities of life: “You know, one gets used to it.”

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part V (Personal Commentary)

Deliverance

“He could not banish from his mind the atrocious, weighty, profound joy of liberation. […]. He was no longer impotent. Now, he too could kill. […]. His hands trembling, his teeth chattering, carried away by his terrible liberty” (266-268).

Allow me to continue with Hemmelrich. Malraux introduces another psychological and philosophical turn. Hemmelrich feels liberated after the murder of his wife and son. And relieved from the guilt of Ch’en’s death (for denying him temporary shelter, in fear of jeopardizing his family’s safety) and the lingering image of Ch’en’s dead body on the sidewalk, drenched in blood, after his failed attempt to assassinate Chiang Kai-shek: “Now, he too could kill.”

Character redefined, psychologically renewed, and philosophically unrestrained, Hemmelrich concretely asserts, “that life was not the only mode of contact between human beings.” And that love is better attained and achieved “in vengeance than in life.”

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part IV (continued)

Marital Obligation and Terrorism: (Personal Commentary)

As stated previously, marital confinement and constraints restrict Hemmelrich’s involvement in the revolution.

Malraux continues to revolve his dramatis personae around Ch’en, Malraux’s “model” for a terrorist: “Won’t I ever be in his place?” The emotional and psychological framework of his principal characters influence and determine their “means and mode of production.” Hemmelrich remains within the context of a proletariat: loss of independence and individuality, and into a state of subjugation.

Edith

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Man’s Fate: The Terrorist (In Response to Prof. Hanley)

All of the principal characters in Man’s Fate are “terrorists.” What distinguish each character is their level of participation and commitment during the revolution. Ch’en, emotionally and philosophically isolated, operates at the organization’s periphery, categorizing him as an assassin rather than a terrorist. A terrorist, typically, is united by similar ideological beliefs and course of action. Marital, familial, and emotional ties are de-layered by the failures of the revolution, and acts of heroism and sacrifice are the bi-products of regrets, self-interests, and more importantly, Ch’en’s unselfish and ultimate sacrifice: his life.

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part IV (Personal Commentary)

Marital Obligation and Terrorism

“You don’t know, Ch’en, you can’t know how lucky you are to be free! (185)

Marital confinement and constraint, restricts Hemmelrich’s involvement in the revolution. (To be continued)

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part III (Personal Commentary)

An Exchange: Ch’en and Kyo

“ ‘Man’s complete impenetrability takes on something inhuman,’ thought Kyo as he looked at him [Ch’en].” “ ‘Is it because we easily feel a sense of contact through our weaknesses?’ ” (146)

Conflicting stratagems and methodologies come to the forefront during the existential discourse between Ch’en and Kyo in Part III. Ch’en is resolute, unhesitant, and invincible. And Kyo is introspective, vulnerable, and uncertain. (To be continued)

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part II (Personal Commentary)

Ferral: An Opposing Force

Financial intellect, arrogance, nepotism, and diversification are the opposing forces that embody the President of the French Chamber of Commerce and leader of the Franco-Asiatic Consortium. Malraux’s prototype: the ultimate self-seeking capitalist is the counter-ideological force of the revolution. Ferral’s “insolence,” “indifference,” and “domineering” style becomes Malraux’s model for the “means and mode of production.”

Edith

Man’s Fate, Part I (continued)

Terrorism is perceived as pre-mediated, calculated, and certain, and adhering to a methodical and precise course of action. Success is anticipated, but not within a context of emotional torment, marital estrangement and infidelity, familial detachment, confusion, and despair. However, that is the essence of Man’s Fate. In Part I, Malraux place his terrorists in an affecting psychological atmosphere: the complex emotional interior of Ch’en; the marital discord between Kyo and May; the connectedness between Old Gisors and Ch’en; the disconnect between father and son (Old Gisors and his son Kyo); the loss of financial and social status of Baron de Clappique; the restrictive marital obligations of Hemmelrich; and the audacity and boldness of Katov.

Edith

Literary Form and the War Narrative: In Response to Prof. Hanley (continued)

As stated in my initial post, Caesar's Column, Red Calvary, and Man's Fate, provides the reader with three distinct narratives characterizing war: Babel's journalistic narrative; Donnelly's "manifesto" narrative; and Malraux's psychological narrative.

Donnelly’s theories, ideologies, and socio-economical models are framed within a dialectic and authoritative discourse. His declaration of opinions, motives, and resolve create a consciousness that will enable ideological acceptance and integration between author and reader.

The “violence” and “brutalities” of the 1917 war between Russia and Poland are illustrated within an abstract and fragmented diary of events. Babel’s personal experiences and observations are objectively reported within a journalistic style and context that incorporates multiple narratives and tone with poetic and “pictorial” imagery within a symbolic discourse that allows the reader to assess and formulate the ramifications of forced ideologies and belief systems.

Psychological warfare and existentialism are Malraux’s thematic tools in Man’s Fate. Revolutionary ideology and abstract theories are overshadowed by personal identity, frustration, fear, obligation, and commitment during the Chinese Revolution. The acts of terrorism interchange with multi-faceted ideological and philosophical discourses between the novel’s characters. Malraux fuses their emotional framework with the elevation of responsibility, commitment, and a definitive course of action.

Edith

Caesar’s Column and Communist Manifesto: In Response to Prof. Hanley (continued)

As previously stated, according to Donnelly and Marx, technological progress reduces society into two classes: the bourgeois/“oligarchy” and the proletariat/“workers.” And that power is the product of wealth. Marx defines the bourgeois as capitalist, owners of property, the means of production, and the exploiters of the working class. Additionally, the proletariats are the wage-laborers who must sell their labor in order to survive. Similarly, the Oligarchy is a ruling class of corrupt plutocrats. And, the “workers,” are the product of plutocratic “misdeeds” and “indifference.”

Donnelly and Marx’s ideologies run parallel. They agree that economic power is the impetus for social, political, and moral decline. Additionally, to diffuse the power of the ruling class and to equalize, if not, empower the labor force. The redirection and investment of capital and the abolishment of private property are common ideologies that unite the authors. Donnelly’s approach and resolve for social, political, and economical reform are palatable compared to the absolutism of Marx and Engels.

Edith

Caesar’s Column: In Response to Prof. Hanley (Continued)

As stated in my previous post, Donnelly’s futuristic New York City illustrates societal declination within a context of technological evolution. And Donnelly’s resolution, his ideal society, is a modification and incorporation of “past governmental philosophies.”

According to Donnelly, “usury” is the “root of all evil,” and his economic theoretic, in part: the abolishment of “usury,” corporations, and “excess” (because “excess” is “destructive”), will create “universal prosperity” within a prescribed set of laws, government, and political economy: Donnelly’s “Utopia.” That is, no one person will have the advantage over the other. Altruism and beneficence will prevail when one’s surplus, by a governing body is appropriately distributed and invested.

In Donnelly’s “Garden in the Mountain,” he restructures a society by establishing a body of governing laws “to protect ourselves from ourselves.” For example: formulated a constitution detailing fundamental laws and religious belief, with a preamble stating that:

“This government is intended to be merely a plain and simple instrument, to insure to every industrious citizen not only liberty, but an educated mind, a comfortable home, an abundant supply of food and clothing, and a pleasant, happy life” (236);

three branches of government, wage and labor guidelines, a judicial system, trial by jury, penal institutions, tariff laws, a national treasury, and municipal laws and ordinances. However, if you did not abide by the “reformations,” one was “transferred to the outside world, where they could enjoy the fruits of the time-hallowed systems they praised so much” (239).

The absence of free choice and free enterprise overshadows Donnelly’s idealized universal prosperity and a “pleasant, happy life.” Ultimatums position one to prefer to “reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n,” without objectively considering the consequences and aftermath.

Edith