“Anguish,” bewilderment,” revulsion,” and “nausea”: the emotional prescriptive for the terrorist. (To be continued).
Edith
Monday, March 26, 2007
Red Calvary: An Overview, Part III (pages 106-169)
“We went, limping with broken legs, waving our crippled arms, holding each other up” (152).
The young journalist is “overcome with self-pity and loneliness; and numb with despair.” As his narrative voice changes, Babel’s emotions and perspectives shift from warfare to loss and emotional attachments. The death of one’s steed produces uncharacteristic and candid sentiments from the regiment: ‘“A horse—that’s a friend,” Orlov answered.”’ ‘“A horse―that’s a father,”’ Bitsenko sighed. ‘“The horse saves your life more times than you can count. Bida is finished without his horse”’ (120). Babel places the reader in the epicenter of his emotions.
Edith
The young journalist is “overcome with self-pity and loneliness; and numb with despair.” As his narrative voice changes, Babel’s emotions and perspectives shift from warfare to loss and emotional attachments. The death of one’s steed produces uncharacteristic and candid sentiments from the regiment: ‘“A horse—that’s a friend,” Orlov answered.”’ ‘“A horse―that’s a father,”’ Bitsenko sighed. ‘“The horse saves your life more times than you can count. Bida is finished without his horse”’ (120). Babel places the reader in the epicenter of his emotions.
Edith
Red Calvary: An Overview, Part II (pages 66-105)
“Comrade,” she said, after a short silence. “All of this makes me want to hang myself?”
Babel maneuvers the reader towards his emotional center and aesthetic consciousness. His psychological subjugation is temporarily relieved: “Savitsky, the commander of the Sixth Division, rose when he saw me, and I was taken aback by the beauty of his gigantic body. […]. He smelled of perfume and the nauseating coolness of soap” (66). The young journalist illustrates the need for acceptance, and the necessity to diminish the ridicule by the Cossacks with disdain and aggression: when a village woman refuses his order to prepare him a meal, he arbitrarily kills a goose by stepping on its neck. Babel reveals to the reader that he is “oppressed” by the repetition of their criminal acts and fighting strategy: “hack to pieces.” And seeing wounded men eating in ditches, dead bodies covering the fields, and more importantly, lost friendship.
Edith
Babel maneuvers the reader towards his emotional center and aesthetic consciousness. His psychological subjugation is temporarily relieved: “Savitsky, the commander of the Sixth Division, rose when he saw me, and I was taken aback by the beauty of his gigantic body. […]. He smelled of perfume and the nauseating coolness of soap” (66). The young journalist illustrates the need for acceptance, and the necessity to diminish the ridicule by the Cossacks with disdain and aggression: when a village woman refuses his order to prepare him a meal, he arbitrarily kills a goose by stepping on its neck. Babel reveals to the reader that he is “oppressed” by the repetition of their criminal acts and fighting strategy: “hack to pieces.” And seeing wounded men eating in ditches, dead bodies covering the fields, and more importantly, lost friendship.
Edith
Red Calvary: An Overview, Part I (pages 1-65)
“The stench of yesterday’s blood and slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill” (39).
Isaac Babel’s diary of the 1917 war between Russia and Poland: the Cossacks and the Poles, is a perplexing and disturbing diary of exploitation, destruction, and carnage. At the onset, the reader is placed in Babel’s emotional periphery. His objective, abstract, and non-responsive reporting of the brutal and seemingly arbitrary slaughter of people, livestock, and religious artifacts, reveal a systemized method of dehumanizing, degrading, and annihilating resistors in Poland’s towns, communities, and villages. “The naked shine of the moon poured over the town with unquenchable strength” (59). Babel incorporates provocative imagery and poetic description of war and its aftermath.
Edith
Isaac Babel’s diary of the 1917 war between Russia and Poland: the Cossacks and the Poles, is a perplexing and disturbing diary of exploitation, destruction, and carnage. At the onset, the reader is placed in Babel’s emotional periphery. His objective, abstract, and non-responsive reporting of the brutal and seemingly arbitrary slaughter of people, livestock, and religious artifacts, reveal a systemized method of dehumanizing, degrading, and annihilating resistors in Poland’s towns, communities, and villages. “The naked shine of the moon poured over the town with unquenchable strength” (59). Babel incorporates provocative imagery and poetic description of war and its aftermath.
Edith
Caesar’s Column and Communist Manifesto: In Response to Prof. Hanley
Technological progress reduces society into two classes: the bourgeois and the proletariat as defined and illustrated by Ignatius Donnelly, and Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. (To be continued)
Edith
Edith
Caesar’s Column: In Response to Prof. Hanley
Donnelly’s futuristic New York City illustrates societal declination (of Donnelly’s “present”) within a context of technological evolution. And Donnelly’s resolution, his ideal society, is a modification of his “past.” (To be continued)
Edith
Edith
On the Surface Part III: Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
Donnelly extends his symbolic imagery within a romantic narrative. Beauty, virtue, benevolence, and, chastity are represented by the relationships between Gabriel and Estella; and Maximilian and Christina. Estella’s “fair complexion; long and flowing blond hair that enfolds her like a magnificent, shining garment; large blue eyes that are set far apart; a look of honesty and dignity (rarely witnessed in the countenance of a woman); and calm intelligence,” converges with Christina’s “youth, innocence, and a lyrical singing voice,” contained in a petite and diminutive frame, are symbolic images illustrating benevolence and honor of mankind (considering that Maximilian, is a member of the Brotherhood of Destruction), and reassuring Donnelly’s readers that man can live morally, ethically, and honorably.
Edith
Edith
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)