Published in 1980
Don't remember much about it. Was a very dark book...
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Dusklands
By JM Coetzee
Published in 1974
Two novelettes, one about a scientist and Nam veteran who has a breakdown while doing research for the US government and the other about a South African colonizer who has his revenge on an impudent tribe of Hottentots. Both stories unflinchingly examine the rational western man who sets himself up to defeat/civilize the 'barbarians'. Coetzee reveals inside these men a barbarian much like the ones they imagine they are fighting. Of course this barbarian neither protagonists (if one can really call these men so) recognizes let alone attempts to fight.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
By Daniyal Mueenuddin
Published in 2009
Very well-crafted stories. I'm not a fan of short stories but I enjoyed this book. Mueenuddin writes about a Pakistan that most English-language Paki writers avoid (mostly because they know nothing about it). The book has made it into all the major publication's books of the year lists. And for good reason.
Life of Pi
By Yann Martel
Published in 2001
Quite enjoyed it. Am sorry I resisted reading it for so long!
Dominance without Hegemony
By Ranajit Guha
Published in 1999
A bold book that tries to fit India's colonial experience into a surprisingly simple theoretical model. The thesis is that the British bourgeoisie retained control of India for centuries without achieving hegemony, which can be understood as winning the ability to speak for the ruled rather than dictate to them. The colonizer never managed to assimilate the colonised through persuasion, choosing instead to use coercion, heralding his own demise. The Indian nationalists too according to Guha have pursued dominance of India without hegemony causing them to rely too much on coercion to perpetuate their rule. Guha's book affords a very interesting way of looking at the non-cooperation movement by drawing a conceptual distinction between subaltern and elite politics.
The Mirage of Power: An Inquiry into the Bhutto Years
By Dr Mubashir Hasan
Published in 2000
Not much to say about this one. As one of the leaders of the PPP and a member of Zulfi's cabinet one would think he'd have a lot of insight into those years but really it was almost entirely devoid of anything that could remotely resemble an inquiry. It was a cross between a poorly written biography and a half-hearted scholarly rebuttal of charges against his failings as the finance minister.
There are some interesting insights into the transformation in Bhutto's character over his term in power but by and large Hasan steers clear of the bigger picture. Instead he studiously chronicles his own experience in office, refusing to comment on the PPP government as a whole, its failings, the difficulties it faced, the mistakes it made. In fact he even avoids a serious defense of PPP's nationalisation policy, which he oversaw. He does not discuss its logic in much depth, assess his success, explain his shortcomings or question the policy. Overall, it's a dull plodding read meant mostly for unfortunate historians who will have to pore over these unreadable pages scouring for some scrap of real information that might just have slipped through Hasan's recollections.
Wolf Hall
By Hilary Mantel
Very enjoyable. A page turner in the most unexpected way. It wasn't that the plot was supremely gripping but just that Cromwell is such a great character and you get so taken by his charm and become so invested in his rise. When it ended I found myself wishing there were a few hundred more pages to read, which for a book that's already around 700 pages is quite a feat.
The Childrens Book
By AS Byatt
Published in 2009
Quite charming. If you're up to the task of reading some 700 pages of a somewhat slow-paced but nonetheless interesting novel, then please try it. She has a way with the characters. The fact that she can write about nearly 30 different characters and their unfolding lives in one novel is a great feat. The fact that their lives are a bit like soaps (unexpected parentage, unwanted pregnancies, rebellious daughters and such) but thankfully without the melodramatic style.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Death Sentence by Maurice Blanchot
French writer, theorist and philosopher extraordinaire, Blanchot is a modernist writer dreaming up post-modernism as he goes along. He was a close friend of Derrida and a great supporter of his work. Many of Derrida's chief concerns regarding Deconstruction filter in Blanchot's work. Death Sentence (l'Arret de Mort) reads more like an essay than a work of fiction. There is no real plot, merely a first person narrative which is written in the form of a confession. Something horrible has happened, something terrible which needs to be told. The protagonist confides in the reader and hopes he can tell the truth, for the truth is all that really matters to him. That is the beginning and the end of all meaning. The book is exceptionally short and requires several readings in order to understand its complexity. The story revolves around the women in the narrators' life, all of whom are strange, unusual creatures, existing and non-existing at the same time. The first half is chiefly concerned with illness. A woman the protagonist knows is dying of a mysterious disease. The second half follows another close relationship he develops with a woman he meets.
Once you're done with this book, everything you read after appears stale and vapid.
Once you're done with this book, everything you read after appears stale and vapid.
Monday, July 27, 2009
At the picture show
Written by Kathryn Fuller
Published in 1996
An eminently interesting book exploring how the moviegoing culture took root in small town America. I suppose it isn't the kind of book that would interest everyone but I really enjoyed reading it.
String too short to be saved
Written by Donald Hall
Published in 1992
A book I would never pick up if it weren't required reading for a course. It is a quick read. A collection of autobiographical stories about rural life in 1940s New England. The prose is not exceptional, nor are the stories. Its main value is as a snapshot of an era, which is exactly how it was used in the course.
Alongshore
Written by John Stilgoe
Published in 1996.
The book is about an eclectic bunch of things all related to the liminal American landscape between land and sea.
If on a winter's night a traveler
Written by Italo Calvino
Published in 1979.
Now this novel I can describe as postmodern without hesitation. Perhaps it would be best described as an investigation of reading and writing, of the compulsions of the reader and the author. The novel is a bit discombobulating at first but it is worth sticking out till the end. The end is in fact quite beautiful. It has been a few weeks since I read this book, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details but I certainly would enjoy reading it again someday.
The Volcano Lover
Written by Susan Sontag
Published in 1989
A very well-crafted novel. Sontag's works of literary criticism show her to be a very perspicacious scholar. This book puts all her observations about literature into work. It is a historical novel about Le Cavalier, a British ambassador, and his life in Naples. Le Cavalier is an avid collector: he collects ancient Roman vases, bits of volcanic ash from nearby Mt Vesuvius and even women. The novel is a comment on property, ownership, collection and what it means to engage in these activities. It is a comment on capitalism couched in a story that unfolds in pre-capitalist times.
But it is also a book very interested in women. It is not feminist in a stereotypical sense. The female characters are in fact usually overshadowed by Le Cavalier but in the final part of the novel, Sontag gives voice to four women in the novel. These peripheral characters take control of the so-far omniscient narratival voice and speak their stories. It is quite unusual. I don't know if postmodern is an accurate description because the omniscient narrator does dominate most of the novel. I guess Sontag's approach is summed up best in the words of a poetess character. She was hanged by the royalists in Naples and was only passingly mentioned in the novel proper. But her story is what ends the novel and in the final lines she says:
"Sometimes I had to forget that I was a woman to accomplish the best of which I was capable of. Or I would lie to myself about how complicated it is to be a woman. Thus do all women, including the author of this book. But I cannot fogive those who did not care about more than their own glory or well-being. They though they were civilized. They were despicable. Damn them all."
The most enjoyable aspect of the novel for me was her supreme command over her prose. Her sentences were calibrated almost to a fault. I'm quite glad to have read this book.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The first novel by a great Norwegian writer, Hamsun really knows what human destitution and suffering are all about. The story follows an unidentified man looking for food on the streets of Christiania, Denmark. That's about it. The plot, if we can even call it that, concerns his pursuits, his trials and struggles to sustain himself as he roams about searching for something to eat, much like an animal, from one part of the city to the next. The most important identifying markers about our protagonist are completely missing: his name, his origin, his history: parents/family, life before his present predicament etc. Unlike the typical sans-abri: begging for spare change, eating out of dumpsters, waiting in line at the local shelter for a loaf of bread, this character is resourceful and obsessively preoccupied with grandiose notions of pride and dignity. Even though his situation gets progressively worse as the story develops, our hero (subject to interpretation) never loses hope. Rather than being concerned about his physical degradation, the protagonist rants about his eternal soul, his moral salvation, Christ the saviour and such. He is convinced that, like Jesus, he too is meant for some higher purpose in life. The story takes on a more sinister turn when his starvation seems to be self-induced: a voluntary fast, a sacrifice for a greater good.
Episodes pile on top of episodes: he falls in love with a girl he meets randomly while walking down a street, he pawns off nearly all his belongings, has several run-ins with the law, begins to lose his mind, tries to rape the girl he met. In one particularly poignant scene, the protagonist take a bite out of his finger, not out of desperation but just to feel what it would be like.
The brilliance of the book lies in the simple fact that it is not about what it appears to be. It doesn't concern hunger at all, or rather, not the kind one would be led to believe. Hamsun presents the complexity of modern satiation for a hero who seeks to transcend his baser urges. It is a man's struggle to reclaim his masculinity, it is a human's struggle to remain moral in a world which demands nothing short of immorality. Highly recommended for a quiet summer read: depressing, morbid and ridiculously funny.
Episodes pile on top of episodes: he falls in love with a girl he meets randomly while walking down a street, he pawns off nearly all his belongings, has several run-ins with the law, begins to lose his mind, tries to rape the girl he met. In one particularly poignant scene, the protagonist take a bite out of his finger, not out of desperation but just to feel what it would be like.
The brilliance of the book lies in the simple fact that it is not about what it appears to be. It doesn't concern hunger at all, or rather, not the kind one would be led to believe. Hamsun presents the complexity of modern satiation for a hero who seeks to transcend his baser urges. It is a man's struggle to reclaim his masculinity, it is a human's struggle to remain moral in a world which demands nothing short of immorality. Highly recommended for a quiet summer read: depressing, morbid and ridiculously funny.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Islamic Law and Constitution
Written by Syed Abul Ala Maududi
Published in 1955.
Maududi was the great champion of a theocracy in Pakistan. He was also the founder of the Jamaat-i-Islami. His writings are enlightening in that he is not as much of a monster as I would imagine. He did want the rule of Allah but a lot of the fine print was quite idealistic, even utopian. He was for an independent judiciary and for free access to justice; he was also willing to concede non-Muslim Pakistanis way more rights and protections than I would have thought. Of course, he also wanted to prevent non-Muslims from playing any role in governing the country.
The fundamental difference between him and secularists lies in that he would like the state's chief purpose to be the creation of a moral people while secularists would like the state to worry about effecting economic and social change that would improve people's lives materially, but not necessarily spiritually.
The difference between him and Iqbal rests in their understanding of the concept of free will in Islam. For Iqbal it is a central concept and the individual Muslim must make his own choices in following Islam instead of having the state force Muslims to make those choices. Righteousness as the result of free will is the highest form of worship and piety. Maududi saw differently. A Muslim's freedom was limited. Perhaps his freest choice is conversion into Islam, but once that person chooses to become a Muslim he must abide by the laws of Islam and he has no choice in that matter. So it is completely acceptable for the state to force Muslims to obey; it could be considered the work of God even. So to arm the state with laws that it must enforce, Maududi scours the Quran and takes injunctions about personal behavior and makes them into laws; stuff like help the poor and the orphans. It is ultimately quite unconvincing and I have to agree with Ayesha Jalal that as much as the likes of Maududi frown upon bidat this political Islam is to a large degree a modern invention cooked up by Maududi himself.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
Written by Sir Muhammad Iqbal
Published in 1986.
The book has seven speeches by Iqbal on Islamic thought. Over the series he lays out a philosophical groundwork for Islam in keeping with advances in science and thought. It addresses issues from metaphysics to government to prayer. The level of his engagement with Western philosophers ranging from Aristotle to Nietszche to Russell is quite remarkable. He acknowledges Islamic thought's debt to classical Greek philosophers but argues for a reinterpretation of the Quran that takes into account the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity on metaphysics.
The Quran for him is a starting point for scientific inquiry, an impetus to study our surroundings. The ossified Islam of today is anathema to him. Free thinking is crucial for society, and freedom essential to humankind. He is the complete opposite of the shariah fanatics who want to compel all Muslims to follow the dictates of Islam. Iqbal says that freedom is a necessary condition for goodness because without making the choice, goodness holds no value.
Published in 1986.
The book has seven speeches by Iqbal on Islamic thought. Over the series he lays out a philosophical groundwork for Islam in keeping with advances in science and thought. It addresses issues from metaphysics to government to prayer. The level of his engagement with Western philosophers ranging from Aristotle to Nietszche to Russell is quite remarkable. He acknowledges Islamic thought's debt to classical Greek philosophers but argues for a reinterpretation of the Quran that takes into account the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity on metaphysics.
The Quran for him is a starting point for scientific inquiry, an impetus to study our surroundings. The ossified Islam of today is anathema to him. Free thinking is crucial for society, and freedom essential to humankind. He is the complete opposite of the shariah fanatics who want to compel all Muslims to follow the dictates of Islam. Iqbal says that freedom is a necessary condition for goodness because without making the choice, goodness holds no value.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Jinnah of Pakistan
Written by Stanley Wolpert
Published in 1984.
Interesting book. Gave me insight into Jinnah's early years as the beacon of Hindu-Muslim unity. That is a part of Jinnah that tends to be overlooked and was so especially when I was doing research on events taking place during the final years of his life.
His shift from that champion of Hindu-Muslim unity to champion of Pakistan to once again champion of secularism is not explained all that convincingly by Wolpert. Wolpert gives us the facts and the events but in my opinion relies too much on Jinnah's vanity and megalomania to explain these shifts. He frames the shift not as Jinnah choosing his Muslim identity over his identity as an anti-imperial Indian but of him choosing the path that offered a greater certainty to power. I find Jalal's account more convincing. It maintains that Jinnah remained a secular man throughout his life, even when he was advocating for Pakistan. But what is lost in Jalal's book is the endless rhetoric that Jinnah pours out in favour of Pakistan during the years of the Pakistan movement. Pakistan was merely a bargaining chip for Jinnah but rallying Muslims of India to this bargaining chip went a long way in creating communal sentiments in India, which were to cause so much bloodshed in 1946-47. In this sense, Jinnah's hands are dirty. At the very least he is culpable of neglecting to think out the effect of all his scare-mongering.
Wolpert's book was also useful in that it was a window to Jinnah's person in those last crucial years of the Pakistan movement. Jalal considers only his goals and strategies, Wolpert gives us his feelings and aspirations. The man he finds in the 40s is frustrated, embittered and sick. The impact of these feelings on the events of the 40s should not be minimized.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Paradox of Free will: an Examination of Moral Responsibility in Harry Frankfurt's Freedom of Will and the Concept of a Person
Can an addict be held morally responsible for taking drugs? Perhaps not, since this addict could not have done otherwise due to his compulsion. In other words, we conclude that this addict is a victim of his desires and does not have a free will. Therefore, it makes intuitive sense to say that he cannot be held morally responsible for his actions. This claim is known as the principle of alternative possibilities, which states that a person can only be held morally responsible for what he has done if he could have done otherwise. The addict, a victim of his desires, lacks a free will and so could not have done otherwise. Even if he tried, his will would have been overwhelmed by his desire to take the drugs. Frankfurt, however, makes the claim that an addict can be held morally responsible even though he may lack a free will. He rejects the claim made by the principle of alternate possibilities and insists that freedom of will is not a sufficient precondition for moral responsibility; that moral responsibility can be applied to a person who does not have a free will1.This may seem puzzling at first but like all philosophical theses it is important for us to define Frankfurt's notion of freedom before we can understand his claim about moral responsibility. In this paper I shall do just that. I shall start by explaining what Frankfurt means when he refers to freedom of the will. Then I shall I argue that this concept of free will, which is contingent upon certain assumptions made by him, is an insufficient definition of freedom because it does not explain where desires of the second-order come from second-order, a concept I shall clarify later in the paper. My goal in the paper is to complicate Frankfurt's argument of second-order volition, a concept I shall clarify in due course, by citing that these second-order volitions may not necessarily be external to the person, a condition which Frankfurt considers necessary for doing something of your own free will.
For Frankfurt, the question of whether or not free will is important to a person is essential in his understanding of free will. To answer this question Frankfurt distinguishes between two different kinds of agents2, the wanton and the person. He explains that "[persons] are not alone in having desires and motives, or in making choices" (p.7). Frankfurt refers to this capacity, the desire to do or to refrain from doing something, as desires of the first order3. The desire "to do or not to do one thing or another" (p. 7) is not specific to persons. Both wantons and persons are capable of want or desire4 to do one thing over another. Then why is it that Frankfurt describes an animal as a wanton and a human being as a person? Animals have the same first-order desires as humans do. They want to eat and sleep just like humans want to eat and sleep. Can only human beings qualify as persons and animals as wantons? If so, then why does Frankfurt refer to small children as wantons? First order desires do not help to distinguish between different kinds of agents. Both wantons and persons can form first order desires, deliberate as to which desire is the strongest and "make decisions based upon prior thought" (p. 6). Frankfurt does, however, state that an "essential difference between persons and [wantons] is to be found in the structure of a person's will" (p.6) In order to clarify what Frankfurt means when he refers to a person’s will, it is necessary to explain the concept of second-order desires. A person, unlike a wanton, according to Frankfurt, is able to form second-order desires5. These desires of the second-order are simply desires "to have or not to have a particular desire" of the first order. So, a person is said to have a second-order desire when he wants to want one thing or another. This means that a person is able to relate to his first order desires whereas creatures such as animals only have first order desires and do not relate to them. I, as a person, can have a first order desire to sleep. However, my second-order desire may be that I do not want to want to sleep. Other creatures don't identify with their first order desires like a person does. Essentially, a person identifies with his first order desires and relates to them in one way or another. This capacity to relate to (or identify with) one's desires is a kind of self-reflexivity (an appraisal of one's first order desires). It is this particular capacity (to identify with one’s desires and to self-evaluate) that distinguishes a person from other creatures.
The wanton, however, is an agent who can be both human and nonhuman and has first order desires. Very young children are described by Frankfurt as being wantons because they certainly have first order desires and are capable of deliberating in order to determine which first-order desire will figure as their effective desire6. A wanton does not simply translate his first order desire into action indiscriminately. Quite on the contrary, the wanton does indeed have the capacity to evaluate which of his first order desires is the strongest and then acts accordingly. A very young child may have different and conflicting first order desires. For instance, he may want to eat or he may want to sleep. The child may even be able to deliberate and determine which of his first desires is the strongest. However, the child cannot relate to his first order desires like a person can since the child “is not concerned with the desirability of his desires in themselves” (p.11). This means that the child merely acts according to his strongest inclinations with indifference as to which inclination he relates to the most. Simply put, the child, like the wanton, “has no stake in how the conflict between desires works out”; he does not care either way about his will (prof. Moran notes).
Thus far I have distinguished between two different kinds of agents:
1. The wanton: A creature which has conflicting first-order desires but no second-order desires;
2. The person: An agent who has both first-order desires and second-order desires relating to those first-order desires.
I have delineated the major differences between a person and a wanton but I have not yet explained how the understanding of these differences relates to concept of free will. According to Frankfurt, only an agent with second-order volition is capable of having free will. Second-order volitions are simply described as an agent’s second-order desire for a particular desire to be his will (p.10). It may appear to be a complicated idea at first but it turns out that second-order volition is simply described as the desire that moves a person to the desires by which he wants to be moved to act. So, I, as a person, can have a desire to sleep. This, according to Frankfurt would be my first-order desire. If, however, I do not want to want to sleep, my not wanting to sleep is described as my second -order desire. My second-order volition in this particular case would be to make my desire of not wanting to sleep into an effective first order desire, that is, one that moves me all the way to action (p.8). Wantons, however, have only first-order desires but no second order volitions. For Frankfurt, this distinction is essential in his understanding of the concept of free will.“Freedom of will, then, is freedom ‘to will what [one] wants to will, or to have the will one wants’. Freedom of will is exercised ‘in securing the conformity of [one’s] will to [one’s] second order volitions” (Watson, 147). A wanton cannot have a free will since he lacks second order volition. “So, having second-order volitions is a condition for having either a will that is free or a will that is unfree. ‘It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable of enjoying and of lacking freedom of will’” (prof. Moran notes). The wanton does not care about which of his first-order desires succeeds in becoming his effective desire. Therefore, he doesn’t care about having a free will. If he did, then he would’ve had some stake in the conflict of his first order desires. Thus, we can definitively conclude that for an agent to have a free will, he must be a person and not a wanton.
For Frankfurt, having a free will is different from doing something of your own free will. This fundamental difference is necessary in order to understand his claim about moral responsibility. According to Frankfurt, a person may lack a free will, that is, the freedom to have the will that he wants and still be held morally responsible for what he does. Addiction and compulsion are cases in which the addict lacks a free will. However, even though an addict may not have the will that he wants, he may still be doing the drugs of his own free will. In the latter case, according to Frankfurt, the addict is held morally responsible for his actions. To explain this, he distinguishes between two different kinds of persons who are compelled by their addictions: the unwilling and the willing addict. The unwilling addict has conflicting first order desires just like the willing addict. He’s being compelled by his physiological condition to want to take the drug. What makes him an unwilling addict, and thus distinguishes him from the willing addict, is his second order desire, that is, his desire not want to want to take drugs. He resists his first order desires and tries to refrain from taking drugs. In this particular case, the unwilling addict is said to have a second-order volition—he wants his second-order desire not to take the drug to be his will. To put it simply, the unwilling addict wants his desire to refrain from taking the drug to be his effective desire. However, even though “he tries everything that he thinks might enable him to overcome his desires for the drug…these desires are too powerful for him to withstand, and invariably, in the end, they conquer him. He is an unwilling addict helplessly violated by his own desires” (p. 12). Thus, the unwilling addict does not have a free will, since he will ultimately take the drug due to his physiological condition which compels and over whelms his second-order volition. The important thing to note here is that the unwilling addict does not identify with his first-order effective desire to take the drug. He does not endorse this inclination and tries to resist it. In failing to make his second-order desire of not wanting to want to take the drugs, the addict displays a lack of free will. However, in taking the drugs he is not doing something of his own free will. Instead, his compulsion is overwhelms his will to resist taking the drugs. Hence, the unwilling addict is not morally responsible for what he has done, according to Frankfurt, since he could not have done otherwise. The principle of alternate possibilities holds for the unwilling addict. Then what exactly is the difference between an unwilling addict and a willing addict? Why is it that Frankfurt holds the willing addict morally responsible for taking the narcotics and excuses the unwilling addict for performing the same action?
The key distinction between a willing addict and an unwilling addict is in their respective will. Both the willing addict and the unwilling addict are described as persons since they not only have firs-order desires to take the drug but relate to their first-order desire in a specific way. The unwilling addict, as I have already described, does not identify with his first-order desire to take the drug. On the contrary, he tries to resist the temptation but inevitably fails. The willing addict, however, is described by Frankfurt as identifying with his first-order desire. “He is a willing addict, who would not have things any other way. If the grip of his addiction should somehow weaken, he would do whatever he could to reinstate it; if his desire for the drug should begin to fade, he would take steps to renew its intensity” (p.19). The willing addict is therefore identifies with his first order desire. He not only wants to take the drug, he wants to want to take the drug. His second-order volition is to make his desire to take the drug into an effective desire. He is perfectly satisfied with his addiction and would indeed reinforce it, were its effects to mitigate in any way. Therefore, “when he takes the drug, he takes it freely and of his own free will…by his second-order desire that his desire for the drug be effective, he has made this will his own” (p. 20). It is important to note that the willing addict is similar to the unwilling addict in one crucial sense: his will is not free either. The unwilling addict is a victim to his first-order desire. He lacks a free will because he is unable to align his first order effective desire to his second-order volition. He is unable to make his second-order volition of not wanting to take the drug, into his first-order effective desire because his addiction to the drug is too strong for him and overwhelms his will. It is in this discrepancy that the unwilling addict feels a lack for his free will. If he were, however, able to satisfy his second-order desire, it would be a cause of great enjoyment for the unwilling addict.
The willing addict, by contrast does not have a free will, like the unwilling addict, but he is taking the drug of his own free will. This may seem confusing at first but the conclusion is quite simple. An addict, by definition, lacks a free will because he is overcome by his desire to take the drug. Whether this addict be an unwilling addict or a willing addict, his first-order effective desire, which Frankfurt refers to as the person’s will, is always to consume the drugs. Therefore, both the unwilling and the willing addict are not free to have the will that they want to have. The unwilling addict, in particular, notices this discrepancy and feels the lack of not being free “to want what he wants to want” (p.15). The willing addict, however, does not feel the lack of free will since his second-order volition aligns perfectly with his first-order effective desire. Since the willing addict wants to want to take the drug, it is a happy coincidence that he is able to do just that, since his first-order effective desire will always be to consume the drug. Thus, a willing addict may not have a free will just like an unwilling addict, but he doesn’t care either way. His second-order volition endorses his first order effective desire and so he is satisfied, according to Frankfurt, since he has the will that he wants to have. He may lack authority over his will but he endorses the will that he has. The willing addict would not have done otherwise since he endorses his addiction and is satisfied by it. This, according to Frankfurt, is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. The willing addict provides an example of a person who would not have performed in any other way even if he were given the choice to do so. Since he endorses his will and would not have done otherwise, the willing addict refutes the claim of the principle of alternate possibilities. Thus, Frankfurt proves that a person may be held morally responsible even that person lacks a free will and could not have done otherwise.
Now that we know that freedom of will is something desirable for a person, we can continue onto the holistic definition of freedom, that is, all the freedom that a person could possibly want. According to Frankfurt, freedom of will and freedom of action are essentially two independent concepts. Both conditions are primarily independent since "someone could act freely without freedom of the will, and he could have freedom of the will without the ability to act freely" (Prof. Moran Notes on Frankfurt, p. 1). It is when a person assures that his will conforms to his second-order volition that a person is said to have freedom of will. Similarly, we can think of a prisoner in a jail cell to lack freedom of action but this does not mean he lacks freedom of will. This is because he may no longer be free to do what he wants to do but he can still have a will that he wants to have. No one can stop him from that. For Frankfurt, freedom entails both freedom of action and freedom of will.
Till now, I have distinguished between a person and a wanton, I have defined first and second-order desires and explained Frankfurt's concept of second-order volition. Furthermore, I have also clarified these concepts by citing Frankfurt's example of the willing addict and the unwilling addict. By distinguishing between these two different kinds of addicts, I have illustrated three things:
1. Freedom of will, that is, freedom to have the will that one wants to have, is different from doing something of your own free will.
2. A person may be held morally responsible for what he does given that he does what he does of his own free will.
3. Freedom of will is something desirable but not necessary for moral responsibility.
After having illustrated these points, I went onto explain Frankfurt’s definition of freedom. For Frankfurt, both freedom of action and freedom to have the will that one wants to have are necessary preconditions for freedom, one does not presuppose the other. Having clarified all these concepts, I shall now go onto cite a criticism and further complicate Frankfurt’s discussion of moral responsibility. If we look at the case of the willing addict, it is not really clear as to where this willing addict gets his second-order desires from. The question is not how the willing addict develops his second-order desires, but rather why this willing addict has the second-order desires he has. Could it be that the willing addict’s first-order effective desires of wanting to take the drug are somehow affecting his second-order desires of wanting to want to take the drugs? Frankfurt doesn’t really explain where the willing addict receives his second-order desires from. If they are indeed determined by his first-order desires, then the question of externality doesn’t apply any longer. The unwilling addict resists his first-order desires. This resistance characterizes his second-order volition and is essentially an external trait which defines the unwilling addict’s unwillingness. In the case of the willing addict, however, externality is simply presumed. If, however, the willing addict’s first-order effective desires did indeed determine his second-order volition, then the willing addict may not necessarily be held morally responsible for what he does, even though he is acting of his own free will. I shall refer to the latter case as the determined-willing addict: his second-order desire being determined by his first-order effective desire. The determined-willing addict’s second-order volition is influenced by his own addiction and this compulsion determines his endorsement of his addiction. In this case, the determined-willing addict’s second-order desires are not external to him; rather they are derived by his first-order effective desire. So, using Frankfurt’s argument, the determined-willing addict is not acting of his own free will even though he endorses his first-order desire to take the drug. The principle of alternate possibilities holds since the determined-willing addict could have done otherwise, even though, according to Frankfurt, endorsement of the addict’s first-order desires would mean that he couldn’t have done otherwise. The addict thinks he identifies with his first-order desires, but because his first-order effective desires determine his second-order volition, he is not doing what he does of his own free will.
The purpose of this paper was to clarify Frankfurt’s claim that a person may be held morally responsible for what he does even though he lacks a free will. To explain this concept, I distinguished between a person and a wanton, citing that the fundamental difference between the two is that the wanton cannot have a free will since he has no second-order volitions. I linked this idea of free will to the case of addiction and concluded that having a free will is very different from doing something of your own free will. Only the latter case, according to Frankfurt, is necessary for moral responsibility. Finally, I understand an important complication to his argument by citing that even though the willing addict, a person who’s second-order volition endorses his first-order effective desire, may be held morally responsible for taking drugs, he may not be doing something of his own free will since his second-order desires are determined by his first-order effective desires. Thus, the case of the determined-willing addict provides an unresolved complication to Frankfurt’s argument of moral responsibility since it is unclear whether the willing addict’s second-order desires are indeed external to him or not.
________________
Works Cited
Frankfurt, Harry (1969). “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” Journal of Philosophy 66, 829-39.
For Frankfurt, the question of whether or not free will is important to a person is essential in his understanding of free will. To answer this question Frankfurt distinguishes between two different kinds of agents2, the wanton and the person. He explains that "[persons] are not alone in having desires and motives, or in making choices" (p.7). Frankfurt refers to this capacity, the desire to do or to refrain from doing something, as desires of the first order3. The desire "to do or not to do one thing or another" (p. 7) is not specific to persons. Both wantons and persons are capable of want or desire4 to do one thing over another. Then why is it that Frankfurt describes an animal as a wanton and a human being as a person? Animals have the same first-order desires as humans do. They want to eat and sleep just like humans want to eat and sleep. Can only human beings qualify as persons and animals as wantons? If so, then why does Frankfurt refer to small children as wantons? First order desires do not help to distinguish between different kinds of agents. Both wantons and persons can form first order desires, deliberate as to which desire is the strongest and "make decisions based upon prior thought" (p. 6). Frankfurt does, however, state that an "essential difference between persons and [wantons] is to be found in the structure of a person's will" (p.6) In order to clarify what Frankfurt means when he refers to a person’s will, it is necessary to explain the concept of second-order desires. A person, unlike a wanton, according to Frankfurt, is able to form second-order desires5. These desires of the second-order are simply desires "to have or not to have a particular desire" of the first order. So, a person is said to have a second-order desire when he wants to want one thing or another. This means that a person is able to relate to his first order desires whereas creatures such as animals only have first order desires and do not relate to them. I, as a person, can have a first order desire to sleep. However, my second-order desire may be that I do not want to want to sleep. Other creatures don't identify with their first order desires like a person does. Essentially, a person identifies with his first order desires and relates to them in one way or another. This capacity to relate to (or identify with) one's desires is a kind of self-reflexivity (an appraisal of one's first order desires). It is this particular capacity (to identify with one’s desires and to self-evaluate) that distinguishes a person from other creatures.
The wanton, however, is an agent who can be both human and nonhuman and has first order desires. Very young children are described by Frankfurt as being wantons because they certainly have first order desires and are capable of deliberating in order to determine which first-order desire will figure as their effective desire6. A wanton does not simply translate his first order desire into action indiscriminately. Quite on the contrary, the wanton does indeed have the capacity to evaluate which of his first order desires is the strongest and then acts accordingly. A very young child may have different and conflicting first order desires. For instance, he may want to eat or he may want to sleep. The child may even be able to deliberate and determine which of his first desires is the strongest. However, the child cannot relate to his first order desires like a person can since the child “is not concerned with the desirability of his desires in themselves” (p.11). This means that the child merely acts according to his strongest inclinations with indifference as to which inclination he relates to the most. Simply put, the child, like the wanton, “has no stake in how the conflict between desires works out”; he does not care either way about his will (prof. Moran notes).
Thus far I have distinguished between two different kinds of agents:
1. The wanton: A creature which has conflicting first-order desires but no second-order desires;
2. The person: An agent who has both first-order desires and second-order desires relating to those first-order desires.
I have delineated the major differences between a person and a wanton but I have not yet explained how the understanding of these differences relates to concept of free will. According to Frankfurt, only an agent with second-order volition is capable of having free will. Second-order volitions are simply described as an agent’s second-order desire for a particular desire to be his will (p.10). It may appear to be a complicated idea at first but it turns out that second-order volition is simply described as the desire that moves a person to the desires by which he wants to be moved to act. So, I, as a person, can have a desire to sleep. This, according to Frankfurt would be my first-order desire. If, however, I do not want to want to sleep, my not wanting to sleep is described as my second -order desire. My second-order volition in this particular case would be to make my desire of not wanting to sleep into an effective first order desire, that is, one that moves me all the way to action (p.8). Wantons, however, have only first-order desires but no second order volitions. For Frankfurt, this distinction is essential in his understanding of the concept of free will.“Freedom of will, then, is freedom ‘to will what [one] wants to will, or to have the will one wants’. Freedom of will is exercised ‘in securing the conformity of [one’s] will to [one’s] second order volitions” (Watson, 147). A wanton cannot have a free will since he lacks second order volition. “So, having second-order volitions is a condition for having either a will that is free or a will that is unfree. ‘It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable of enjoying and of lacking freedom of will’” (prof. Moran notes). The wanton does not care about which of his first-order desires succeeds in becoming his effective desire. Therefore, he doesn’t care about having a free will. If he did, then he would’ve had some stake in the conflict of his first order desires. Thus, we can definitively conclude that for an agent to have a free will, he must be a person and not a wanton.
For Frankfurt, having a free will is different from doing something of your own free will. This fundamental difference is necessary in order to understand his claim about moral responsibility. According to Frankfurt, a person may lack a free will, that is, the freedom to have the will that he wants and still be held morally responsible for what he does. Addiction and compulsion are cases in which the addict lacks a free will. However, even though an addict may not have the will that he wants, he may still be doing the drugs of his own free will. In the latter case, according to Frankfurt, the addict is held morally responsible for his actions. To explain this, he distinguishes between two different kinds of persons who are compelled by their addictions: the unwilling and the willing addict. The unwilling addict has conflicting first order desires just like the willing addict. He’s being compelled by his physiological condition to want to take the drug. What makes him an unwilling addict, and thus distinguishes him from the willing addict, is his second order desire, that is, his desire not want to want to take drugs. He resists his first order desires and tries to refrain from taking drugs. In this particular case, the unwilling addict is said to have a second-order volition—he wants his second-order desire not to take the drug to be his will. To put it simply, the unwilling addict wants his desire to refrain from taking the drug to be his effective desire. However, even though “he tries everything that he thinks might enable him to overcome his desires for the drug…these desires are too powerful for him to withstand, and invariably, in the end, they conquer him. He is an unwilling addict helplessly violated by his own desires” (p. 12). Thus, the unwilling addict does not have a free will, since he will ultimately take the drug due to his physiological condition which compels and over whelms his second-order volition. The important thing to note here is that the unwilling addict does not identify with his first-order effective desire to take the drug. He does not endorse this inclination and tries to resist it. In failing to make his second-order desire of not wanting to want to take the drugs, the addict displays a lack of free will. However, in taking the drugs he is not doing something of his own free will. Instead, his compulsion is overwhelms his will to resist taking the drugs. Hence, the unwilling addict is not morally responsible for what he has done, according to Frankfurt, since he could not have done otherwise. The principle of alternate possibilities holds for the unwilling addict. Then what exactly is the difference between an unwilling addict and a willing addict? Why is it that Frankfurt holds the willing addict morally responsible for taking the narcotics and excuses the unwilling addict for performing the same action?
The key distinction between a willing addict and an unwilling addict is in their respective will. Both the willing addict and the unwilling addict are described as persons since they not only have firs-order desires to take the drug but relate to their first-order desire in a specific way. The unwilling addict, as I have already described, does not identify with his first-order desire to take the drug. On the contrary, he tries to resist the temptation but inevitably fails. The willing addict, however, is described by Frankfurt as identifying with his first-order desire. “He is a willing addict, who would not have things any other way. If the grip of his addiction should somehow weaken, he would do whatever he could to reinstate it; if his desire for the drug should begin to fade, he would take steps to renew its intensity” (p.19). The willing addict is therefore identifies with his first order desire. He not only wants to take the drug, he wants to want to take the drug. His second-order volition is to make his desire to take the drug into an effective desire. He is perfectly satisfied with his addiction and would indeed reinforce it, were its effects to mitigate in any way. Therefore, “when he takes the drug, he takes it freely and of his own free will…by his second-order desire that his desire for the drug be effective, he has made this will his own” (p. 20). It is important to note that the willing addict is similar to the unwilling addict in one crucial sense: his will is not free either. The unwilling addict is a victim to his first-order desire. He lacks a free will because he is unable to align his first order effective desire to his second-order volition. He is unable to make his second-order volition of not wanting to take the drug, into his first-order effective desire because his addiction to the drug is too strong for him and overwhelms his will. It is in this discrepancy that the unwilling addict feels a lack for his free will. If he were, however, able to satisfy his second-order desire, it would be a cause of great enjoyment for the unwilling addict.
The willing addict, by contrast does not have a free will, like the unwilling addict, but he is taking the drug of his own free will. This may seem confusing at first but the conclusion is quite simple. An addict, by definition, lacks a free will because he is overcome by his desire to take the drug. Whether this addict be an unwilling addict or a willing addict, his first-order effective desire, which Frankfurt refers to as the person’s will, is always to consume the drugs. Therefore, both the unwilling and the willing addict are not free to have the will that they want to have. The unwilling addict, in particular, notices this discrepancy and feels the lack of not being free “to want what he wants to want” (p.15). The willing addict, however, does not feel the lack of free will since his second-order volition aligns perfectly with his first-order effective desire. Since the willing addict wants to want to take the drug, it is a happy coincidence that he is able to do just that, since his first-order effective desire will always be to consume the drug. Thus, a willing addict may not have a free will just like an unwilling addict, but he doesn’t care either way. His second-order volition endorses his first order effective desire and so he is satisfied, according to Frankfurt, since he has the will that he wants to have. He may lack authority over his will but he endorses the will that he has. The willing addict would not have done otherwise since he endorses his addiction and is satisfied by it. This, according to Frankfurt, is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. The willing addict provides an example of a person who would not have performed in any other way even if he were given the choice to do so. Since he endorses his will and would not have done otherwise, the willing addict refutes the claim of the principle of alternate possibilities. Thus, Frankfurt proves that a person may be held morally responsible even that person lacks a free will and could not have done otherwise.
Now that we know that freedom of will is something desirable for a person, we can continue onto the holistic definition of freedom, that is, all the freedom that a person could possibly want. According to Frankfurt, freedom of will and freedom of action are essentially two independent concepts. Both conditions are primarily independent since "someone could act freely without freedom of the will, and he could have freedom of the will without the ability to act freely" (Prof. Moran Notes on Frankfurt, p. 1). It is when a person assures that his will conforms to his second-order volition that a person is said to have freedom of will. Similarly, we can think of a prisoner in a jail cell to lack freedom of action but this does not mean he lacks freedom of will. This is because he may no longer be free to do what he wants to do but he can still have a will that he wants to have. No one can stop him from that. For Frankfurt, freedom entails both freedom of action and freedom of will.
Till now, I have distinguished between a person and a wanton, I have defined first and second-order desires and explained Frankfurt's concept of second-order volition. Furthermore, I have also clarified these concepts by citing Frankfurt's example of the willing addict and the unwilling addict. By distinguishing between these two different kinds of addicts, I have illustrated three things:
1. Freedom of will, that is, freedom to have the will that one wants to have, is different from doing something of your own free will.
2. A person may be held morally responsible for what he does given that he does what he does of his own free will.
3. Freedom of will is something desirable but not necessary for moral responsibility.
After having illustrated these points, I went onto explain Frankfurt’s definition of freedom. For Frankfurt, both freedom of action and freedom to have the will that one wants to have are necessary preconditions for freedom, one does not presuppose the other. Having clarified all these concepts, I shall now go onto cite a criticism and further complicate Frankfurt’s discussion of moral responsibility. If we look at the case of the willing addict, it is not really clear as to where this willing addict gets his second-order desires from. The question is not how the willing addict develops his second-order desires, but rather why this willing addict has the second-order desires he has. Could it be that the willing addict’s first-order effective desires of wanting to take the drug are somehow affecting his second-order desires of wanting to want to take the drugs? Frankfurt doesn’t really explain where the willing addict receives his second-order desires from. If they are indeed determined by his first-order desires, then the question of externality doesn’t apply any longer. The unwilling addict resists his first-order desires. This resistance characterizes his second-order volition and is essentially an external trait which defines the unwilling addict’s unwillingness. In the case of the willing addict, however, externality is simply presumed. If, however, the willing addict’s first-order effective desires did indeed determine his second-order volition, then the willing addict may not necessarily be held morally responsible for what he does, even though he is acting of his own free will. I shall refer to the latter case as the determined-willing addict: his second-order desire being determined by his first-order effective desire. The determined-willing addict’s second-order volition is influenced by his own addiction and this compulsion determines his endorsement of his addiction. In this case, the determined-willing addict’s second-order desires are not external to him; rather they are derived by his first-order effective desire. So, using Frankfurt’s argument, the determined-willing addict is not acting of his own free will even though he endorses his first-order desire to take the drug. The principle of alternate possibilities holds since the determined-willing addict could have done otherwise, even though, according to Frankfurt, endorsement of the addict’s first-order desires would mean that he couldn’t have done otherwise. The addict thinks he identifies with his first-order desires, but because his first-order effective desires determine his second-order volition, he is not doing what he does of his own free will.
The purpose of this paper was to clarify Frankfurt’s claim that a person may be held morally responsible for what he does even though he lacks a free will. To explain this concept, I distinguished between a person and a wanton, citing that the fundamental difference between the two is that the wanton cannot have a free will since he has no second-order volitions. I linked this idea of free will to the case of addiction and concluded that having a free will is very different from doing something of your own free will. Only the latter case, according to Frankfurt, is necessary for moral responsibility. Finally, I understand an important complication to his argument by citing that even though the willing addict, a person who’s second-order volition endorses his first-order effective desire, may be held morally responsible for taking drugs, he may not be doing something of his own free will since his second-order desires are determined by his first-order effective desires. Thus, the case of the determined-willing addict provides an unresolved complication to Frankfurt’s argument of moral responsibility since it is unclear whether the willing addict’s second-order desires are indeed external to him or not.
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Works Cited
Frankfurt, Harry (1969). “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” Journal of Philosophy 66, 829-39.
An Ersatz Freedom: Conceptions of Superior and Inferior freedoms in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks
Amidst all the death and destruction, amidst the decline and fall, there is at least one character in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks who has achieved a certain degree of success in his life. The Director Wulicke is described by the narrator as a "most formidable man", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577), and why shouldn't he be, considering the fact that Herr Wulicke managed to climb the social and institutional ranks and become the principal of Hanno's school; succeeding the "genial and benevolent old gentleman, under whose guidance Hanno's father and uncle had pursued their studies", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577). With the Director Wulicke's ascension comes a new wave of teaching and learning in the old institution, one in which the ideals of "authority, duty, power, service, the career" supercede the classical courses once pursued "with a sense of joyous idealism", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577). The official sermons, the Kantian categorical imperatives and the tearing down of old traditions to make way for a new system "built up on the most approved and hygienic and aesthetic principles" (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577), is hauntingly prophetic; echoing Hitler's Third Reich in the post-Weimar Republic of Nazi Germany. This new wave of ideologies, a revolution of sorts, is best summarized by Morten when he tells Tony about his opinions regarding the nobility and the 'organization of the state'. He explains his deep-rooted frustration with the aristocracy and the dichotomy which exists between this nobility and the bourgeoisie or the "Third State", as he happens to refer to it (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). He criticizes the gulf between the privileged classes; lacking any merit, simply born into nobility, and the hardworking, struggling bourgeoisie, which have, time and again, tried to climb the social ladder but have failed miserably due to oppression of the ruling elite. Finally, he talks of change, of freedom and revolution, which will bring down the established, indolent aristocracy and replace it with "the sovereign children of the state", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). Unfortunately, Tony is part of this elite class and so the decline of her family and the ruination of the Buddenbrooks business is essence the victim of Morten's notion change, revolution and freedom. Using this theme of social conflict as the basis for my thesis, I shall examine the trend in Mann's novel of individuality dissolving into the whole, and the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, as a sort of ersatz, inferior substitute to the more complex and existential notion of freedom that runs parallel to this inferior, ersatz freedom. I shall use the recurrent motif of servants in the novel to show not only the gradual decline and fall of the Buddenbrooks family, but also the gradual dissolution of the German nobility and elite. Morten interprets this transition as freedom and equality for the sovereign citizens of the State. I shall argue that this notion of freedom, which I refer to as an ersatz freedom, is in stark contrast to the more spiritual freedom of Tom's eventual evanescent realization that in death he will inevitably escape his own personality, anchored in egoism, and attain true salvation by becoming part of the essential life force common in all living things. Tom's own personal catharsis, rooted in the deep yet momentary existential shift in his ideas, is markedly different from the more brutal transition in societal values, anchored in the laws of science, industry and the State. This difference is essential in understanding the contrast between the more spiritual, existential freedom, exemplified in Tom's notion of Death; when the individual becomes part of the whole, as opposed to Morten's more political, conceptual, ersatz freedom; embodied in the shift in power from an oppressive nobility to the sovereign masses of the State.
The transition from ideal classicism to brutal modernity, from growth to decay, from health to illness and eventual death, is a theme that has an existential weight on the lives and structure of the novel. No where is this theme more apparent than in the recurring motif of servants in the novel, highlighting not only the gradual decline of the Buddenbrooks family, but also serving as a proxy for changing attitudes and culture in late nineteenth century German society. This change is essential in understanding Morten's concept of freedom as a shift in societal values, which is antithetically juxtaposed to Tom's (and indeed Schopenhauer's) idea of spiritual freedom in Death. Ida Jungmann is by far the most exemplary characters of this particular motif. She is a loyal and faithful governess, who has been with the Buddenbrooks family for generations. She is described as being devoutly loyal to the family, "capable in the household and with the children, and her rigid honesty and Prussian notions of caste made her perfectly suited to her position in the family", (Book 1, Part I, pg. 7). She is Tony's close confidant, a trustworthy and kind woman who shares the family's secrets and burdens. But she is also described as having "aristrocratic principles, drawing hair-line distinctions between class and class, and very proud of her position as servant of the higher orders", (Book 1, Part I, pg. 7). Thus, Mann imposes a sort of hierarchy within this framework of household servants and maids which gradually disintegrates as the novel progresses. Ida Jungmann, a woman of old world Prussian principles, is held in stark contrast to the younger, more disrespectful maids who question authority and class. Dora, the cook at the Grunlich household, is distrusted by Tony; Babette at the Permanader house, is described as being impudent and eventually figures as one of the primary catalysts in the dissolution of Tony's second marriage. Furthermore, Mann introduces these peripheral characters to show how well-off or worse-off the family Buddenbrooks is in business and, to a greater extent, in life. Counsul Buddenbrooks' financial decline is highlighted when his wife, at the beginning of the novel, encourages him to hire more servants to help with the household chores; when Tony asks Grunlich to hire more maid servants, he declines her request and soon after we learn that Grulich is indeed bankrupt and cannot support the family. This motif of servants is inextricably linked to the prosperity of the Buddenbrooks family; when there financial gain and the business is thriving, there are more maids, cooks and servants to go around. However, when the business is not doing so well, there are fewer maids and servants. In a way, this particular motif is used to guage not only the health of the family's financial position, but also as a foreshadowing for things to come. Thus when appeals for good help are declined or when servants are laid off work, there is a reversal of fortune, both literally and metaphorically.
This particular recurring motif of servants in the novel gradually evolves and climaxes with Severin Riekchen, Ida Jungmann replacement at the Buddenbrooks', who is caught stealing Frau Counsul's gowns and underwear after her death. Tony is exasperated at the thought of having such an unfaithful and treacherous maidservant be so closely involved in the family affairs. Tony denounces Severin's actions and likens her to a viper, being nourished and cherished in Frau Counsul's bossom. The maidservant's attitude is contrasted to Ida Jungmann, who on a previous occasion "preserved a proper distance between herself and the Frau Counsul's maid", (Book 8, Part VIII, pg. 437). Ida, with her staunch sense of antiquated Prussian pride and values, would never think of touching the late Frau Consel's belongings. However, Severin, the new maid servant, with more contemporary notions about the nature of nobility, actually steals from the Buddenbrooks and then has the audacity to rebuke Tony when asked for the keys to the cupboards. She say "in good set terms, that [Tony] has nothing to say to her, [that] she's not in [Tony's] service and that, [Tony] did not engage her", (Book 9, Part II, pg. 461). Regardless of who hired Ida Jungmann, she considered herself to be the governess of the family Buddenbrooks, whereas Severin clearly states that she was hired by Frau Counsul and so Tony has no authority in giving her any command. Thus, we observe a gradual shift in the values of society mirrored in the family Buddenbrooks' household. This transition toward a more conscious bourgeoisie, capable of making decisions for itself, free from the oppressive and cumbersome regulation of the ruling elite is reminiscent of Morten's notion freedom and equality expressed at the beginning of the novel.
Morten clearly shows a distaste for Tony's more aristocratic friends. He is part of the student's fraternity in Gottingen and views German society as a brotherhood, "like a student's society", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). His concept of freedom and equality is most certainly laudable since he does talk about the wearing away of hierarchical institutions which restrict the individual citizen from having the same opportunities as the privileged. He believes in "freedom of the press, of trade and industry, so that all men, without distinction, shall be able to strive together and receive their reward according to their merit", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). On the outset, it would appear that Morten has some very democratic notions about what it is required for the citizens of a nation to be truly free from being enslaved and muzzled. But his ideas about the State and the individual German citizen's relationship to the State can be taken directly from Karl Marx's playbook. The concept of a German fraternity, what Director Wulicke regards as a superiority, as a very German kind of superiority, through which Hanno's school became "a state within a state, in which not only the masters but also the pupils regarded themselves as officials, whose main concern was the advancement they could make, and who must therefore take care to stand well with the authorities", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577). The narrator questions the validity of this claim by proposing that perhaps "the old institution, with its smaller endowment of moder comfort and its larger share of gay good nature, courage, charm and good feeling, had not been more blest and blessing than the new", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577). Thus, the narrator casts doubt on the extent to which this new system, as championed by Morten in front of Tony, is in essence a better interpretation of society, as modeled upon the principles laid down in the beginning by Morten. If so, then Morten truly does have a valid conception of what it really means to be free.
Another conception of freedom, one which I shall argue is far superior to the ersatz freedom proposed by Morten, is proposed by Tom and uses a similar process of annihilation of the individual to achieve its goal. Morten spoke of eroding the nobility; the aristocracy; the oppressive elite, essentially the hierarchical model present in German society, which, he assumed, was preventing the bourgeoisie; the rising middle class, from achieving freedom and equality. The nobility or the aristocracy is a singular, individual institution whose annihilation, according to Morten, is essential and, to a larger extent, inevitable (as proxied for by the recurring servant motif already explained). Similarly, Tom, in his moment of existential crisis, talks about the annhilation of the ego, in essence, the erosion of the individual. He asks "individuality?- All, all that one is, can, and has, seems poor, grey, inadequate, wearisome; what one is not, can not, has not, that is what one looks at with a longing desire that becomes love because it fears to become hate", (Book 9, Part V, pg. 527). He realizes that the indivdual will; family; business have no bearing on one's freedom, for in Death there is an eventual release from the enslavement of the ego; from the demands of society, progeny, business, family and the individual self.
I started the paper with a single recurring motif that Mann presents in the representation of servants. The motif gradually evolves from a more hierarchic structure, centered on Ida Jungmann's character. This structure disintegrates as the novel progresses which reflects and, in many ways, foreshadows the decline and fall of the Buddenbrooks family and business. Furthermore, I observe that this particular dissolution reflects the shift in power from nobility to the bourgeoisie in German Society. This transition is what Morten refers to as freedom; a fundamental change in the structure of society, where the oppressive elite and noble classes no longer preside over the growing middle class. He heralds the rise of the German state, where "no person is subject to another, but all subject to the law", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). This concept of freedom, which I refer to as ersatz freedom, is in essence a freedom from the enslavement of one class by another. It does not address the individual demands of freedom, rather the political, social and ideological freedoms which are simply the characteristics transition in society as a result of time and history. I contrast Morten's idea of freedom with Tom's notion of a more spiritual, existential freedom that comes with Death. His notion of freedom is far superior to that of Morten's not only because of its metaphysical weight but also because it eventually leads to a catharsis and resolution in the novel. Tom, after having read Schopenhauer, understands that the true nature of freedom is the extinction of the physical body and the metaphysical ego, the two being inextricably linked together. This realization culminates into a catharsis which causes Tom to alter his entire conception of family and business as being the only means through which one can attain salvation in the hereafter. This concept of freedom is independent of time, place, history and religion. It is essentially the erosion of personality, which is the product of this life. The extinction of this ego and the acceptance of Death as a return to the essential life force common to all provides Tom with meaning and purpose in life. Thus, both Morten's and Tom's concepts essentially rely of the gradual erosion of the individual, whether it be the social institution or the will, to attain freedom. However, only Tom's notion freedom truly provides a substantial catharsis, which makes it superior to Morten's ersatz idea about freedom.
The transition from ideal classicism to brutal modernity, from growth to decay, from health to illness and eventual death, is a theme that has an existential weight on the lives and structure of the novel. No where is this theme more apparent than in the recurring motif of servants in the novel, highlighting not only the gradual decline of the Buddenbrooks family, but also serving as a proxy for changing attitudes and culture in late nineteenth century German society. This change is essential in understanding Morten's concept of freedom as a shift in societal values, which is antithetically juxtaposed to Tom's (and indeed Schopenhauer's) idea of spiritual freedom in Death. Ida Jungmann is by far the most exemplary characters of this particular motif. She is a loyal and faithful governess, who has been with the Buddenbrooks family for generations. She is described as being devoutly loyal to the family, "capable in the household and with the children, and her rigid honesty and Prussian notions of caste made her perfectly suited to her position in the family", (Book 1, Part I, pg. 7). She is Tony's close confidant, a trustworthy and kind woman who shares the family's secrets and burdens. But she is also described as having "aristrocratic principles, drawing hair-line distinctions between class and class, and very proud of her position as servant of the higher orders", (Book 1, Part I, pg. 7). Thus, Mann imposes a sort of hierarchy within this framework of household servants and maids which gradually disintegrates as the novel progresses. Ida Jungmann, a woman of old world Prussian principles, is held in stark contrast to the younger, more disrespectful maids who question authority and class. Dora, the cook at the Grunlich household, is distrusted by Tony; Babette at the Permanader house, is described as being impudent and eventually figures as one of the primary catalysts in the dissolution of Tony's second marriage. Furthermore, Mann introduces these peripheral characters to show how well-off or worse-off the family Buddenbrooks is in business and, to a greater extent, in life. Counsul Buddenbrooks' financial decline is highlighted when his wife, at the beginning of the novel, encourages him to hire more servants to help with the household chores; when Tony asks Grunlich to hire more maid servants, he declines her request and soon after we learn that Grulich is indeed bankrupt and cannot support the family. This motif of servants is inextricably linked to the prosperity of the Buddenbrooks family; when there financial gain and the business is thriving, there are more maids, cooks and servants to go around. However, when the business is not doing so well, there are fewer maids and servants. In a way, this particular motif is used to guage not only the health of the family's financial position, but also as a foreshadowing for things to come. Thus when appeals for good help are declined or when servants are laid off work, there is a reversal of fortune, both literally and metaphorically.
This particular recurring motif of servants in the novel gradually evolves and climaxes with Severin Riekchen, Ida Jungmann replacement at the Buddenbrooks', who is caught stealing Frau Counsul's gowns and underwear after her death. Tony is exasperated at the thought of having such an unfaithful and treacherous maidservant be so closely involved in the family affairs. Tony denounces Severin's actions and likens her to a viper, being nourished and cherished in Frau Counsul's bossom. The maidservant's attitude is contrasted to Ida Jungmann, who on a previous occasion "preserved a proper distance between herself and the Frau Counsul's maid", (Book 8, Part VIII, pg. 437). Ida, with her staunch sense of antiquated Prussian pride and values, would never think of touching the late Frau Consel's belongings. However, Severin, the new maid servant, with more contemporary notions about the nature of nobility, actually steals from the Buddenbrooks and then has the audacity to rebuke Tony when asked for the keys to the cupboards. She say "in good set terms, that [Tony] has nothing to say to her, [that] she's not in [Tony's] service and that, [Tony] did not engage her", (Book 9, Part II, pg. 461). Regardless of who hired Ida Jungmann, she considered herself to be the governess of the family Buddenbrooks, whereas Severin clearly states that she was hired by Frau Counsul and so Tony has no authority in giving her any command. Thus, we observe a gradual shift in the values of society mirrored in the family Buddenbrooks' household. This transition toward a more conscious bourgeoisie, capable of making decisions for itself, free from the oppressive and cumbersome regulation of the ruling elite is reminiscent of Morten's notion freedom and equality expressed at the beginning of the novel.
Morten clearly shows a distaste for Tony's more aristocratic friends. He is part of the student's fraternity in Gottingen and views German society as a brotherhood, "like a student's society", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). His concept of freedom and equality is most certainly laudable since he does talk about the wearing away of hierarchical institutions which restrict the individual citizen from having the same opportunities as the privileged. He believes in "freedom of the press, of trade and industry, so that all men, without distinction, shall be able to strive together and receive their reward according to their merit", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). On the outset, it would appear that Morten has some very democratic notions about what it is required for the citizens of a nation to be truly free from being enslaved and muzzled. But his ideas about the State and the individual German citizen's relationship to the State can be taken directly from Karl Marx's playbook. The concept of a German fraternity, what Director Wulicke regards as a superiority, as a very German kind of superiority, through which Hanno's school became "a state within a state, in which not only the masters but also the pupils regarded themselves as officials, whose main concern was the advancement they could make, and who must therefore take care to stand well with the authorities", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577). The narrator questions the validity of this claim by proposing that perhaps "the old institution, with its smaller endowment of moder comfort and its larger share of gay good nature, courage, charm and good feeling, had not been more blest and blessing than the new", (Book 11, Part II, pg. 577). Thus, the narrator casts doubt on the extent to which this new system, as championed by Morten in front of Tony, is in essence a better interpretation of society, as modeled upon the principles laid down in the beginning by Morten. If so, then Morten truly does have a valid conception of what it really means to be free.
Another conception of freedom, one which I shall argue is far superior to the ersatz freedom proposed by Morten, is proposed by Tom and uses a similar process of annihilation of the individual to achieve its goal. Morten spoke of eroding the nobility; the aristocracy; the oppressive elite, essentially the hierarchical model present in German society, which, he assumed, was preventing the bourgeoisie; the rising middle class, from achieving freedom and equality. The nobility or the aristocracy is a singular, individual institution whose annihilation, according to Morten, is essential and, to a larger extent, inevitable (as proxied for by the recurring servant motif already explained). Similarly, Tom, in his moment of existential crisis, talks about the annhilation of the ego, in essence, the erosion of the individual. He asks "individuality?- All, all that one is, can, and has, seems poor, grey, inadequate, wearisome; what one is not, can not, has not, that is what one looks at with a longing desire that becomes love because it fears to become hate", (Book 9, Part V, pg. 527). He realizes that the indivdual will; family; business have no bearing on one's freedom, for in Death there is an eventual release from the enslavement of the ego; from the demands of society, progeny, business, family and the individual self.
I started the paper with a single recurring motif that Mann presents in the representation of servants. The motif gradually evolves from a more hierarchic structure, centered on Ida Jungmann's character. This structure disintegrates as the novel progresses which reflects and, in many ways, foreshadows the decline and fall of the Buddenbrooks family and business. Furthermore, I observe that this particular dissolution reflects the shift in power from nobility to the bourgeoisie in German Society. This transition is what Morten refers to as freedom; a fundamental change in the structure of society, where the oppressive elite and noble classes no longer preside over the growing middle class. He heralds the rise of the German state, where "no person is subject to another, but all subject to the law", (Book 2, Part VIII, pg. 113). This concept of freedom, which I refer to as ersatz freedom, is in essence a freedom from the enslavement of one class by another. It does not address the individual demands of freedom, rather the political, social and ideological freedoms which are simply the characteristics transition in society as a result of time and history. I contrast Morten's idea of freedom with Tom's notion of a more spiritual, existential freedom that comes with Death. His notion of freedom is far superior to that of Morten's not only because of its metaphysical weight but also because it eventually leads to a catharsis and resolution in the novel. Tom, after having read Schopenhauer, understands that the true nature of freedom is the extinction of the physical body and the metaphysical ego, the two being inextricably linked together. This realization culminates into a catharsis which causes Tom to alter his entire conception of family and business as being the only means through which one can attain salvation in the hereafter. This concept of freedom is independent of time, place, history and religion. It is essentially the erosion of personality, which is the product of this life. The extinction of this ego and the acceptance of Death as a return to the essential life force common to all provides Tom with meaning and purpose in life. Thus, both Morten's and Tom's concepts essentially rely of the gradual erosion of the individual, whether it be the social institution or the will, to attain freedom. However, only Tom's notion freedom truly provides a substantial catharsis, which makes it superior to Morten's ersatz idea about freedom.
Sartre in Love: Paradoxes of Mutual Love, Respect and Admiration in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness
The philosophy of existentialism emphasizes individual consciousness and freedom. This notion of autonomy has given rise to an unseemly caricature of existentialism where the free agent is satirized as nothing more than an individual nomad; an island separated from other free agents, essentially doomed to a life of isolation and loneliness. Sartre's famous quotation1, "l'enfer c'est l'autres" or "hell is other people", is often cited to justify the claim that the free agent's relation with other free agents is difficult, to say the least. She is "condemned to freedom" and must therefore make a choice either relieve herself of her freedom in order to relate to other people or instead forgo her relations to others and live a hermetic existence on her own. This picture of existentialism is an unusual contortion of Sartre's notions of individual autonomy. In his book, Being and Nothingness, Sartre emphasizes the role the Other2 plays in forming the basis of how we as individual free agents come to regard ourselves. Using this as the basis for my paper, I shall argue that mutual love is possible without the individual having to compromise his autonomy. The structure of the paper is as follows: The first section, Contingency vs. Autonomy deals with fundamental questions about why we need other people, whether or not it is desirable to be completely independent and how might we achieve this goal. The next section, Paradoxes and Conflicts: the Project of Love, deals with the two inherent paradoxes, according to Sartre, in attempting to achieve the “ideal of love”, a concept which will be elaborated upon in the section itself. Finally, the last section, To Love is to Laugh, tries to resolve some of these paradoxes using Professor Richard Moran’s analogy of the lover and the comedian.
Contingency vs. Autonomy
Sartre highlights how our relations to other people are crucial in order to better understand ourselves. There are certain things that I can only attain from the Other, for example love, respect or admiration. However, there are certain things that the Other cannot do for me, things I must do myself, such as making up my own mind, forming my own beliefs and intentions and coming to a decision on how I should act3. When the Other looks at me, she makes me a point of reference. I find myself subject to the gaze of this Other when I can see her and she can see me. However, and this is the crucial point for Sartre, I can't see how I appear to her. By looking at me, the Other has taken possession of me from the outside. Her gaze is another point of view of who I am and I cannot see myself as the Other sees me because this freedom is lodged outside of me, something that I cannot control. As Sartre notes, "the Other founds my being in so far as this being is in the form of the ‘there is’. But he is not responsible for my being although he founds it in complete freedom" (BN, 386). The Other is someone who causes me to be by virtue of her consciousness of me when she looks at me. But along with this knowledge of my being for the Other, I discover that I am no longer the foundation of my own being, I discover that I am somehow dependent on this Other for my own self-conception. This condition has the potential to become intolerable for me since "I am possessed by the Other; the Other's look fashions my body in its nakedness, causes it to be born, sculptures it, produces it as it is; sees it as I shall never see it" (p. 386). The Other's gaze becomes a preoccupation for me since there is an aspect of my own self that is completely hidden from me. "For in one sense my being is an unbearable contingency and the pure ’possession’ of myself by another" (386). Sartre's concept about contingency can be summarized in a simple way. The way I judge myself, the way I see the world is invariably influenced by other people. If I wanted to commit a crime, I would be more likely to do it if no one were around watching me. The idea here is that the Other's gaze influences my judgments, it affects the way I evaluate my actions and motives. However, this Other must be someone whose opinion I respect, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for me to reevaluate the perception I have of myself. If I found this other person contemptible, I wouldn’t necessarily value their opinion. Instead I’d be more inclined to avoid them completely. So, I am only concerned about this other person's opinion about me if I respect them, or seek their approval in some way. Therefore, I am dependent on the Other and this contingency is what has the potential to threaten my autonomy. If I regard myself as being an individual, autonomous being who has the capacity to form his own beliefs and intentions, the this Other’s influence on me, on my judgments makes me question my autonomy. Thus, I both depend on the Other as an unbiased and valuable source for my self-conception and I am intimidated by this Other, since she is poses a threat to my autonomy. Then wouldn’t it be wiser for me to reclaim my autonomy? Wouldn’t it be better for me to be completely secure in my freedom? "But precisely because I exist by means of the Other's freedom, I have no security; I am in danger in this freedom. It molds my being and makes me be, it confers values upon me and removes them from me; and my being receives from it a perpetual passive escape from self" 388). My self-conception is in the hands of another freedom that is not under my control, it is a freedom which is inaccessible to me. I become vulnerable and it is this vulnerability that I wish to overcome. So I can say that my relations to the Other are fundamentally driven by my goal to reclaim something the Other has that I feel essentially belongs to me. According to Sartre, if indeed I do intend to become independent of the Other, thereby eliminating contingency completely, I can resort to either one of the two following options:
1. I can attempt to become completely independent of the Other by taking on the position of the narcissist (a concept I shall elaborate in the next section) or;
2. I can assimilate the Other into my own being, thereby making her a part of me. If the Other is no longer free but rather derived by me, subject to my will, then it's obvious that I become the basis for my own being. (This last point is essential is understand the paradoxes of love, explained in the following sections).
Paradoxes and Conflicts: the Project of Love
The ideal of absolute self-sufficiency is described as the desire for recognition from others, without any form of reciprocity. Mutual love, respect and admiration are seen as a costly investment because my own self-conception becomes contingent upon others. When I genuinely respect someone then I as an individual free agent become vulnerable to harm. The other can nurture or protect my recognition of them or abuse it. It would appear to be better for me to become self-sufficient. This is the position the narcissist assumes in her relations to others. However, the narcissist's attempts at achieving her goal of absolute self-sufficiency are in fact self-defeating. If the narcissist doesn't respect the others from whom she attempts to gain, then why would she find it satisfying to be admired by them? If the narcissist finds other people ridiculous or contemptible, then why would she want their love or respect? If she did, however, respect this other person and sought to gain his lover or respect, then she is longer a narcissist.. Now it appears that the very value then in being admired by others looses all merit for the narcissist since it is self-defeating to take pride in being respected by people she finds contemptible.
Love and respect are two responses that we seek from other people. These responses must be given freely, that is, they must not be induced by me in any way. We have seen how manipulation or control of the Other in order to manifest love and respect brings me no satisfaction since I require that these responses be given to me from a person and not an automaton. By controlling the Other's freedom, I am essentially employing self-defeating strategies since I invalidate the initial requirement I had set for myself. The Other must retain her freedom for me to even want her respect and love. Without her freedom, I get no satisfaction in her responses since they appear mechanical and contrived. According to Sartre, possessing the Other's freedom in order to induce a response is not only a self-defeating strategy but also unrealizable in theory since bypassing the freedom of the Other "would necessarily involve the disappearance of the characteristic of otherness in the Other" (388). This leads us to the first paradox of love, which I refer to as the Tristan and Isolde paradox: "I am the project of the recovery of my being. I want to reach out my hand and grab hold of this being which is presented to me as my being at a distance...I want to found it by my very freedom" (p. 386). I as an autonomous individual am insecure when the Other, by casting her gaze upon me, "causes me to be by virtue of [her] consciousness of me" (p.386). However, if I were indeed to usurp the Other's freedom, to "reach out my hand and grab hold of this being which is presented to me", as Sartre puts it, I would indeed assimilate the Other into myself and erase her otherness. My project to recover my own being, "to found my [being] by my very freedom" is thus unrealizable.
This Tristan and Isolde paradox of love applies well to the lover's dilemma. According to Sartre, "If Tristan and Isolde were to fall in love because of a love potion, they are less interesting. The total enslavement of the beloved kills the love of the lover. The end is surpassed; if the beloved is transformed into an automaton, the lover finds himself alone. Thus the lover does not desire to possess the beloved as one possesses a thing; he demands a special type of appropriation. He wants to possess a freedom as freedom" (389). To possess the Other's freedom as freedom is paradoxical to say the least. The lover finds himself in a peculiarly difficult situation when his beloved refuses to give him the response of love he so desperately desires. If he were to manipulate her freedom to induce this response in some way, then he would not get her love freely. Instead, by possessing his beloved's freedom, the lover erases it completely. The beloved transforms into an object, lacking freedom and autonomy. When I'm dependent on someone for their recognition it is not a contingent kind of dependence since I cannot capture their freedom, or control their respect. If I were indeed to contain, possess or fool the other person into respecting me then that other person would not necessarily be respecting me but rather the person I fool them into believing I am. These self-defeating strategies are of no use if I want the other as an independent freedom to respect me. They are self-defeating because they involve possessing the other's freedom, controlling or manipulating it in some way such that the Other is no longer a freedom but more like an automaton. Inducing the Other to respond to me, to give me respect, love or admiration in such a mechanical way cannot be satisfying for me if my initial project was to receive this respect, love or admiration from another freedom. If I want something from someone freely, for example their love or respect, then seeking to compel it in a way that bypasses their freedom is self-defeating. Thus the lover cannot, therefore, hope to possess a freedom as a freedom.
This First Paradox of Love is easy enough to understand. If I seek love4 from another person5 then it is necessary for that love to come from another person. Any strategy that I employ either to control the person's freedom or to manipulate a response compromises that person's freedom and reduces her to a mere object. I cannot be satisfied with a love that is not freely given to me. Thus, the Other's freedom is a necessary precondition to the response that I seek and must not be violated in any way. Having noted this first paradox and the necessity for preserving the Other's freedom, the obvious resolution to the first paradox would appear to be that the Other (the beloved in this case) would give her love freely, without being coerced in any way. "On the other hand, the lover cannot be satisfied with that superior form of freedom which is a free and voluntary engagement" (389). Sartre is quick to point out that even though the lover may be successful in getting his beloved to respond freely to him, if this response is not for the right reasons, it is not satisfying for the lover. This is Sartre's second paradox of love, respect and admiration, wherein I will not be happy when the other gives me the response that I'm looking for in the form of an oath. He refers to this as the paradox6 of free and voluntary engagement: when the beloved takes an oath freely as a favor upon the lovers' insistence. Note that this second paradox7 of free and voluntary engagement is distinctly different from the Tristan and Isolde paradox. I no longer attempt to control the freedom of the Other in order to manifest the response that I'm looking for. Instead, the Other freely engages me of her own accord by pledging her love for me. Thus, I no longer find it necessary to assimilate her freedom, or to capture her consciousness. By making an oath, she has pledged her love for me upon my insistence, perhaps, or rather as a favor to me. However, "who would be content with a love given as pure loyalty to a sworn oath? Who would be satisfied with the words, 'I love you because I have freely engaged myself to love you and because I do not wish to go back on my word" (389). Love that is given as a promise becomes contingent on that promise, it becomes dependent on simply fulfilling the necessity that the promise entails and nothing more. Sartre's rhetorical question makes the beloved's pledge sound absurd, almost farcical. Even though the response I was looking for is now being offered freely and without any form of manipulation on my part I am still unsatisfied because this response is not being given for the right reasons. It is only because I have asked the Other to make a pledge, to take an oath for me as a favor that she decides to give me the response I desire from her. "Thus the lover demands a pledge, yet is irritated by a pledge. He wants to be loved by a freedom but demands that this freedom as freedom should no longer be free" (389). The pledge here is an attempt to attain love, but in asking his beloved to take an oath the lover is essentially denying her freedom. The oath is regarded as something that compromises the beloved's freedom. If she does indeed take the oath and pledges to love the lover, then even though her response is given freely, it is not given for the right reasons. The lover finds no satisfaction in this free and voluntary engagement since he feels knows that his beloved's love is essentially contingent upon the oath and nothing more.
Sartre's paradoxes prove that the "ideal of love"8 is unrealizable because "it would be necessary to act upon the Other's freedom" in order to get the desired response of love. However, the only way that I can retrieve this freedom is by usurping the Other's agency, the Other's freedom. This process of assimilation of the Other's freedom makes her an object, nothing more than an automaton. My strategy is to attain the desired response I am looking for is self-defeating. By acting on the Other's freedom, I erase her otherness and consequently her conception of me. Thus my project of recovering my freedom from the Other remains unrealized despite my best efforts. The paradoxes arise because the lover doesn't get the response freely and for the right reasons. He remains unsatisfied since his beloved does not reciprocate the feelings he has for her. "When then will the beloved become in turn the lover? The answer is easy: when the beloved projects being loved…Each one wants the other to love him but does not take into account the fact that to love is to want to be loved and that by wanting the other to love him, he only wants the other to want to be loved in turn" (398). The lover's goal is to get love but in wanting to do so he also wants his beloved to desire him as he desires her. If his beloved resists in any sort of way, then the lover resorts to his self-defeating strategies. Thus, the question still remains: How can the lover inspire his beloved to want to be loved by him?
To Love is to Laugh
The response that I seek from my beloved is comparable to the kind of response that a comedian seeks from his audience. The case of love is analogous to the case of laughter9. Laughter is a kind of response that the comedian would want to get from people on certain occasions. It is not something that he can necessarily reason his way into, just like the lover cannot reason his way into love. Even though laughter is different from, say, a hiccup, which is not really in response to anything at all, they both are spontaneous and involuntary. If I do laugh, it expresses something about me since it is response to something that I saw, something that I perceive to be funny. A hiccup, on the other hand, is not an expression of me; it does not tell you anything about me. When we speak of laughter the other person cannot provide an argument or reasons why they found something funny but rather an acknowledgment that there are some things that are genuinely funny. Even though there is no argument there is a sense that laughter is a reaction to some quality that actually exists, unlike hiccups. There are certain things that deserve, or rather, merit laughter and certain things that don't. If the audience finds the comedian genuinely funny then their response is gratifying to the comedian because he wanted them to find him funny. This of course is different from how the comedian could stimulate a response from them by pressing a button. It would be self-defeating, just like the lover's attempt at getting the response that he wants by acting on his beloved's freedom.
Voluntary laughter, like love under oath, is not of any use for the comedian either. If the audience were to do it as a favor for the comedian, if they were to promise him that they would laugh at his jokes during his performance, then this kind of response would be as useless as if it were mechanically produced. The comedian is in pursuit of a certain kind of response like the lover, a response from his audience that is neither mechanical, generated at the push of a button, nor voluntary, under oath or some promise. What is missing from the mechanical and voluntary is that even though in both cases the audience will laugh, they are laughing for all the wrong reasons. Whatever is gratifying will be valuable for the right reasons. Responding for the right reasons, a genuine response of laughter, like love, is the only way to satisfy comedian, or in the latter case, the lover. So, it is essential to preserve the freedom of the Other, whether the beloved or the audience, in order to get a genuine response that is not in any way coerced. A mechanical response wouldn't do because the comedian needs a response from a freedom not an automaton, an object. The Other would love, respect or laugh for the reasons that she finds worthy of love, respect or laughter10. If the comedian or the lover were to reproduce them, they would simply be causal reactions and without any value. If I want a response of a particular kind from someone I respect then I would need to merit or be worthy of that response.
Merit and worth are words of evaluation and thus highly complex and normative. However, responses such as laughter, love and respect have internal normative standards assigned by us. When I laugh at something, it is because I find it genuinely funny; when I respect someone, it is because I find them admirable. The same is true for love. A mechanical response is not what the comedian or the lover is looking for since they wouldn't necessarily be responses to something that inspires them. The audience is not laughing at anything funny, they laugh because they are either being controlled or induced to laugh. If, for example, they make a promise to laugh at the comedian's performance and then do indeed laugh, their laughter is not for the right reasons and thus provides the comedian with no satisfaction. The audience doesn't find him truly funny and yet they laugh at his performance. This is because there are external reasons motivating their laughter. The comedian seeks a response from the audience that is an actual expression for what they feel about him on that occasion. He wants them to laugh at something that strikes them as being funny and has internal normative standards, that is, things they judge to be genuinely funny according to their own standards. So, the only way in which the lover or the comedian can ever hope to get the response that he wants freely and for the right reasons is to make himself worthy of that response. The comedian has to be genuinely funny to get the laugh that he desires from his audience just as the lover must make himself worthy and appealing to merit the response that he wants from his beloved.
This paper investigates Sartre’s claim that the pursuit of ideal love is futile since to love is ‘to act on another’s freedom’. I started by highlighting why our relations to the Other are necessary and cannot be avoided since we depend on the Other for a conception of ourselves that is not readily available to us. Then I went on to delineate how different paradoxes arise when we attempt to get a response from someone either by compulsion or by asking them to take an oath to give us the response we desire. I concluded in support of Prof. Moran’s argument that in order to get the response that I might want from another person, I need to make myself worthy of that response or, to put it differently, I must merit it. This is the only way in which the Other will freely, that is without any form of coercion or pledge, give me the response I seek (whether that be love, respect or admiration). It would however be interesting to note here that when I do indeed make myself worthy of love, for example, would the Other love me or rather the person that I have become? That is to say, the necessity to change myself for the Other, to make myself worthy and merit the love that I seek, may lead me to compromise my agency and subject myself to the whims of my beloved.
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"'Hell is other people' has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us". (Jean Paul Sartre, Imago playbill) http://www.lclark.edu/~clayton/commentaries/hell.html
The Other is defined as an individual consciousness or freedom distinct from me; one who forms her own beliefs and intentions independently, of her own accord, without being forced or coerced.
Lecture Notes.
I define person as an individual autonomous freedom. The Other and I are both described as persons and contrasted to an object or automaton (things which lack individual consciousness or freedom and are easily manipulated).
Sartre does not explicitly state this problem as "the paradox of free and voluntary engagement". This is my own appellation.
Sartre does not explicitly state this problem as "the paradox of free and voluntary engagement". This is my own appellation.
Alienated freedom:"it is the [lover] who by the mere fact of wanting someone to love him alienates his freedom" (397)
ix Lecture notes
x Lecture Notes
Works Cited
Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness; translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Professor Moran Lecture Notes
Contingency vs. Autonomy
Sartre highlights how our relations to other people are crucial in order to better understand ourselves. There are certain things that I can only attain from the Other, for example love, respect or admiration. However, there are certain things that the Other cannot do for me, things I must do myself, such as making up my own mind, forming my own beliefs and intentions and coming to a decision on how I should act3. When the Other looks at me, she makes me a point of reference. I find myself subject to the gaze of this Other when I can see her and she can see me. However, and this is the crucial point for Sartre, I can't see how I appear to her. By looking at me, the Other has taken possession of me from the outside. Her gaze is another point of view of who I am and I cannot see myself as the Other sees me because this freedom is lodged outside of me, something that I cannot control. As Sartre notes, "the Other founds my being in so far as this being is in the form of the ‘there is’. But he is not responsible for my being although he founds it in complete freedom" (BN, 386). The Other is someone who causes me to be by virtue of her consciousness of me when she looks at me. But along with this knowledge of my being for the Other, I discover that I am no longer the foundation of my own being, I discover that I am somehow dependent on this Other for my own self-conception. This condition has the potential to become intolerable for me since "I am possessed by the Other; the Other's look fashions my body in its nakedness, causes it to be born, sculptures it, produces it as it is; sees it as I shall never see it" (p. 386). The Other's gaze becomes a preoccupation for me since there is an aspect of my own self that is completely hidden from me. "For in one sense my being is an unbearable contingency and the pure ’possession’ of myself by another" (386). Sartre's concept about contingency can be summarized in a simple way. The way I judge myself, the way I see the world is invariably influenced by other people. If I wanted to commit a crime, I would be more likely to do it if no one were around watching me. The idea here is that the Other's gaze influences my judgments, it affects the way I evaluate my actions and motives. However, this Other must be someone whose opinion I respect, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for me to reevaluate the perception I have of myself. If I found this other person contemptible, I wouldn’t necessarily value their opinion. Instead I’d be more inclined to avoid them completely. So, I am only concerned about this other person's opinion about me if I respect them, or seek their approval in some way. Therefore, I am dependent on the Other and this contingency is what has the potential to threaten my autonomy. If I regard myself as being an individual, autonomous being who has the capacity to form his own beliefs and intentions, the this Other’s influence on me, on my judgments makes me question my autonomy. Thus, I both depend on the Other as an unbiased and valuable source for my self-conception and I am intimidated by this Other, since she is poses a threat to my autonomy. Then wouldn’t it be wiser for me to reclaim my autonomy? Wouldn’t it be better for me to be completely secure in my freedom? "But precisely because I exist by means of the Other's freedom, I have no security; I am in danger in this freedom. It molds my being and makes me be, it confers values upon me and removes them from me; and my being receives from it a perpetual passive escape from self" 388). My self-conception is in the hands of another freedom that is not under my control, it is a freedom which is inaccessible to me. I become vulnerable and it is this vulnerability that I wish to overcome. So I can say that my relations to the Other are fundamentally driven by my goal to reclaim something the Other has that I feel essentially belongs to me. According to Sartre, if indeed I do intend to become independent of the Other, thereby eliminating contingency completely, I can resort to either one of the two following options:
1. I can attempt to become completely independent of the Other by taking on the position of the narcissist (a concept I shall elaborate in the next section) or;
2. I can assimilate the Other into my own being, thereby making her a part of me. If the Other is no longer free but rather derived by me, subject to my will, then it's obvious that I become the basis for my own being. (This last point is essential is understand the paradoxes of love, explained in the following sections).
Paradoxes and Conflicts: the Project of Love
The ideal of absolute self-sufficiency is described as the desire for recognition from others, without any form of reciprocity. Mutual love, respect and admiration are seen as a costly investment because my own self-conception becomes contingent upon others. When I genuinely respect someone then I as an individual free agent become vulnerable to harm. The other can nurture or protect my recognition of them or abuse it. It would appear to be better for me to become self-sufficient. This is the position the narcissist assumes in her relations to others. However, the narcissist's attempts at achieving her goal of absolute self-sufficiency are in fact self-defeating. If the narcissist doesn't respect the others from whom she attempts to gain, then why would she find it satisfying to be admired by them? If the narcissist finds other people ridiculous or contemptible, then why would she want their love or respect? If she did, however, respect this other person and sought to gain his lover or respect, then she is longer a narcissist.. Now it appears that the very value then in being admired by others looses all merit for the narcissist since it is self-defeating to take pride in being respected by people she finds contemptible.
Love and respect are two responses that we seek from other people. These responses must be given freely, that is, they must not be induced by me in any way. We have seen how manipulation or control of the Other in order to manifest love and respect brings me no satisfaction since I require that these responses be given to me from a person and not an automaton. By controlling the Other's freedom, I am essentially employing self-defeating strategies since I invalidate the initial requirement I had set for myself. The Other must retain her freedom for me to even want her respect and love. Without her freedom, I get no satisfaction in her responses since they appear mechanical and contrived. According to Sartre, possessing the Other's freedom in order to induce a response is not only a self-defeating strategy but also unrealizable in theory since bypassing the freedom of the Other "would necessarily involve the disappearance of the characteristic of otherness in the Other" (388). This leads us to the first paradox of love, which I refer to as the Tristan and Isolde paradox: "I am the project of the recovery of my being. I want to reach out my hand and grab hold of this being which is presented to me as my being at a distance...I want to found it by my very freedom" (p. 386). I as an autonomous individual am insecure when the Other, by casting her gaze upon me, "causes me to be by virtue of [her] consciousness of me" (p.386). However, if I were indeed to usurp the Other's freedom, to "reach out my hand and grab hold of this being which is presented to me", as Sartre puts it, I would indeed assimilate the Other into myself and erase her otherness. My project to recover my own being, "to found my [being] by my very freedom" is thus unrealizable.
This Tristan and Isolde paradox of love applies well to the lover's dilemma. According to Sartre, "If Tristan and Isolde were to fall in love because of a love potion, they are less interesting. The total enslavement of the beloved kills the love of the lover. The end is surpassed; if the beloved is transformed into an automaton, the lover finds himself alone. Thus the lover does not desire to possess the beloved as one possesses a thing; he demands a special type of appropriation. He wants to possess a freedom as freedom" (389). To possess the Other's freedom as freedom is paradoxical to say the least. The lover finds himself in a peculiarly difficult situation when his beloved refuses to give him the response of love he so desperately desires. If he were to manipulate her freedom to induce this response in some way, then he would not get her love freely. Instead, by possessing his beloved's freedom, the lover erases it completely. The beloved transforms into an object, lacking freedom and autonomy. When I'm dependent on someone for their recognition it is not a contingent kind of dependence since I cannot capture their freedom, or control their respect. If I were indeed to contain, possess or fool the other person into respecting me then that other person would not necessarily be respecting me but rather the person I fool them into believing I am. These self-defeating strategies are of no use if I want the other as an independent freedom to respect me. They are self-defeating because they involve possessing the other's freedom, controlling or manipulating it in some way such that the Other is no longer a freedom but more like an automaton. Inducing the Other to respond to me, to give me respect, love or admiration in such a mechanical way cannot be satisfying for me if my initial project was to receive this respect, love or admiration from another freedom. If I want something from someone freely, for example their love or respect, then seeking to compel it in a way that bypasses their freedom is self-defeating. Thus the lover cannot, therefore, hope to possess a freedom as a freedom.
This First Paradox of Love is easy enough to understand. If I seek love4 from another person5 then it is necessary for that love to come from another person. Any strategy that I employ either to control the person's freedom or to manipulate a response compromises that person's freedom and reduces her to a mere object. I cannot be satisfied with a love that is not freely given to me. Thus, the Other's freedom is a necessary precondition to the response that I seek and must not be violated in any way. Having noted this first paradox and the necessity for preserving the Other's freedom, the obvious resolution to the first paradox would appear to be that the Other (the beloved in this case) would give her love freely, without being coerced in any way. "On the other hand, the lover cannot be satisfied with that superior form of freedom which is a free and voluntary engagement" (389). Sartre is quick to point out that even though the lover may be successful in getting his beloved to respond freely to him, if this response is not for the right reasons, it is not satisfying for the lover. This is Sartre's second paradox of love, respect and admiration, wherein I will not be happy when the other gives me the response that I'm looking for in the form of an oath. He refers to this as the paradox6 of free and voluntary engagement: when the beloved takes an oath freely as a favor upon the lovers' insistence. Note that this second paradox7 of free and voluntary engagement is distinctly different from the Tristan and Isolde paradox. I no longer attempt to control the freedom of the Other in order to manifest the response that I'm looking for. Instead, the Other freely engages me of her own accord by pledging her love for me. Thus, I no longer find it necessary to assimilate her freedom, or to capture her consciousness. By making an oath, she has pledged her love for me upon my insistence, perhaps, or rather as a favor to me. However, "who would be content with a love given as pure loyalty to a sworn oath? Who would be satisfied with the words, 'I love you because I have freely engaged myself to love you and because I do not wish to go back on my word" (389). Love that is given as a promise becomes contingent on that promise, it becomes dependent on simply fulfilling the necessity that the promise entails and nothing more. Sartre's rhetorical question makes the beloved's pledge sound absurd, almost farcical. Even though the response I was looking for is now being offered freely and without any form of manipulation on my part I am still unsatisfied because this response is not being given for the right reasons. It is only because I have asked the Other to make a pledge, to take an oath for me as a favor that she decides to give me the response I desire from her. "Thus the lover demands a pledge, yet is irritated by a pledge. He wants to be loved by a freedom but demands that this freedom as freedom should no longer be free" (389). The pledge here is an attempt to attain love, but in asking his beloved to take an oath the lover is essentially denying her freedom. The oath is regarded as something that compromises the beloved's freedom. If she does indeed take the oath and pledges to love the lover, then even though her response is given freely, it is not given for the right reasons. The lover finds no satisfaction in this free and voluntary engagement since he feels knows that his beloved's love is essentially contingent upon the oath and nothing more.
Sartre's paradoxes prove that the "ideal of love"8 is unrealizable because "it would be necessary to act upon the Other's freedom" in order to get the desired response of love. However, the only way that I can retrieve this freedom is by usurping the Other's agency, the Other's freedom. This process of assimilation of the Other's freedom makes her an object, nothing more than an automaton. My strategy is to attain the desired response I am looking for is self-defeating. By acting on the Other's freedom, I erase her otherness and consequently her conception of me. Thus my project of recovering my freedom from the Other remains unrealized despite my best efforts. The paradoxes arise because the lover doesn't get the response freely and for the right reasons. He remains unsatisfied since his beloved does not reciprocate the feelings he has for her. "When then will the beloved become in turn the lover? The answer is easy: when the beloved projects being loved…Each one wants the other to love him but does not take into account the fact that to love is to want to be loved and that by wanting the other to love him, he only wants the other to want to be loved in turn" (398). The lover's goal is to get love but in wanting to do so he also wants his beloved to desire him as he desires her. If his beloved resists in any sort of way, then the lover resorts to his self-defeating strategies. Thus, the question still remains: How can the lover inspire his beloved to want to be loved by him?
To Love is to Laugh
The response that I seek from my beloved is comparable to the kind of response that a comedian seeks from his audience. The case of love is analogous to the case of laughter9. Laughter is a kind of response that the comedian would want to get from people on certain occasions. It is not something that he can necessarily reason his way into, just like the lover cannot reason his way into love. Even though laughter is different from, say, a hiccup, which is not really in response to anything at all, they both are spontaneous and involuntary. If I do laugh, it expresses something about me since it is response to something that I saw, something that I perceive to be funny. A hiccup, on the other hand, is not an expression of me; it does not tell you anything about me. When we speak of laughter the other person cannot provide an argument or reasons why they found something funny but rather an acknowledgment that there are some things that are genuinely funny. Even though there is no argument there is a sense that laughter is a reaction to some quality that actually exists, unlike hiccups. There are certain things that deserve, or rather, merit laughter and certain things that don't. If the audience finds the comedian genuinely funny then their response is gratifying to the comedian because he wanted them to find him funny. This of course is different from how the comedian could stimulate a response from them by pressing a button. It would be self-defeating, just like the lover's attempt at getting the response that he wants by acting on his beloved's freedom.
Voluntary laughter, like love under oath, is not of any use for the comedian either. If the audience were to do it as a favor for the comedian, if they were to promise him that they would laugh at his jokes during his performance, then this kind of response would be as useless as if it were mechanically produced. The comedian is in pursuit of a certain kind of response like the lover, a response from his audience that is neither mechanical, generated at the push of a button, nor voluntary, under oath or some promise. What is missing from the mechanical and voluntary is that even though in both cases the audience will laugh, they are laughing for all the wrong reasons. Whatever is gratifying will be valuable for the right reasons. Responding for the right reasons, a genuine response of laughter, like love, is the only way to satisfy comedian, or in the latter case, the lover. So, it is essential to preserve the freedom of the Other, whether the beloved or the audience, in order to get a genuine response that is not in any way coerced. A mechanical response wouldn't do because the comedian needs a response from a freedom not an automaton, an object. The Other would love, respect or laugh for the reasons that she finds worthy of love, respect or laughter10. If the comedian or the lover were to reproduce them, they would simply be causal reactions and without any value. If I want a response of a particular kind from someone I respect then I would need to merit or be worthy of that response.
Merit and worth are words of evaluation and thus highly complex and normative. However, responses such as laughter, love and respect have internal normative standards assigned by us. When I laugh at something, it is because I find it genuinely funny; when I respect someone, it is because I find them admirable. The same is true for love. A mechanical response is not what the comedian or the lover is looking for since they wouldn't necessarily be responses to something that inspires them. The audience is not laughing at anything funny, they laugh because they are either being controlled or induced to laugh. If, for example, they make a promise to laugh at the comedian's performance and then do indeed laugh, their laughter is not for the right reasons and thus provides the comedian with no satisfaction. The audience doesn't find him truly funny and yet they laugh at his performance. This is because there are external reasons motivating their laughter. The comedian seeks a response from the audience that is an actual expression for what they feel about him on that occasion. He wants them to laugh at something that strikes them as being funny and has internal normative standards, that is, things they judge to be genuinely funny according to their own standards. So, the only way in which the lover or the comedian can ever hope to get the response that he wants freely and for the right reasons is to make himself worthy of that response. The comedian has to be genuinely funny to get the laugh that he desires from his audience just as the lover must make himself worthy and appealing to merit the response that he wants from his beloved.
This paper investigates Sartre’s claim that the pursuit of ideal love is futile since to love is ‘to act on another’s freedom’. I started by highlighting why our relations to the Other are necessary and cannot be avoided since we depend on the Other for a conception of ourselves that is not readily available to us. Then I went on to delineate how different paradoxes arise when we attempt to get a response from someone either by compulsion or by asking them to take an oath to give us the response we desire. I concluded in support of Prof. Moran’s argument that in order to get the response that I might want from another person, I need to make myself worthy of that response or, to put it differently, I must merit it. This is the only way in which the Other will freely, that is without any form of coercion or pledge, give me the response I seek (whether that be love, respect or admiration). It would however be interesting to note here that when I do indeed make myself worthy of love, for example, would the Other love me or rather the person that I have become? That is to say, the necessity to change myself for the Other, to make myself worthy and merit the love that I seek, may lead me to compromise my agency and subject myself to the whims of my beloved.
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"'Hell is other people' has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us". (Jean Paul Sartre, Imago playbill) http://www.lclark.edu/~clayton/commentaries/hell.html
The Other is defined as an individual consciousness or freedom distinct from me; one who forms her own beliefs and intentions independently, of her own accord, without being forced or coerced.
Lecture Notes.
I define person as an individual autonomous freedom. The Other and I are both described as persons and contrasted to an object or automaton (things which lack individual consciousness or freedom and are easily manipulated).
Sartre does not explicitly state this problem as "the paradox of free and voluntary engagement". This is my own appellation.
Sartre does not explicitly state this problem as "the paradox of free and voluntary engagement". This is my own appellation.
Alienated freedom:"it is the [lover] who by the mere fact of wanting someone to love him alienates his freedom" (397)
ix Lecture notes
x Lecture Notes
Works Cited
Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness; translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Professor Moran Lecture Notes
Of Insects and Sensuality: The Quest for Purity in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
Dimitri Fydorovitch, while speaking to his brother Alexey in a state of absolute inebriation, inadvertently delineates the existential dilemma endemic to the Karamazovs. He declares that "all [the] Karamazovs are...insects, and, angel as you [Alexey] are, that insect lives in [him], too, and will stir up a tempest in [his] blood" (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- in Verse). The fact that Dimitri refers to the Karamazov family, more specifically the men in the family, as insects is significant since it introduces an important motif in the novel. Old Karamazov is referred to as a noxious insect (In the Servants Quarters): cruel corrupt and often lustful, Rakitin tells Alexey that Fyodor Pavlovitch is an old drunken sinner and suspects that all the Karamazovs have a base, ignoble side to their nature (A Young Man Bent on A Career) and Dimitri reinforces this observation by confessing to Alexey that the noxious insect of sin and vice resides deep within him and in all the Karamazovs (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Anecdote). This recurring motif of the noxious insect is meant to symbolize all that is ignoble, base and deplorable about human nature. It is closely related to the idea of Sensualists in the novel: low creatures with uncontrollable passions (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- "Heels Up"). It is this same noxious insect, according to Dimitri, that is responsible for his depraved sensuality, his lust for women, his lowly nature. Like his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, Dimitri spends his days in a drunken stupor, distracting himself from sudden moral convulsions; playing the part of the ridiculous buffoon, unable to comprehend the gravity of his existential dilemma. Ivan and Alexey, however, are all too aware, all too conscious about the fundamental contradiction in human nature. Both are aware about the conflict between their sensualist desire on the one hand and their ceaseless quest for that which is pure and noble on the other. Ivan chooses the intellectual and theological route to eliminate that which is base and ignoble about him. Alexey, however, chooses to take the monastic and Christian way to transcend the base and ignoble side of his personality. Using this quest for purity as the basis for my argument, I shall illustrate in this paper that both Alexey and Ivan Karamazov are desperately trying to achieve the same goal in novel but choose two very different paths in doing so. I will focus my thesis on one chapter in particular: "The Confession of a Passionate Heart- in Verse", along with making some references to "A Young Man Bent on A Career", "The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare" and "Cana of Galilee". Essentially what I hope to prove is that even though Alexey and Ivan are striving for the same thing, that is purity, it only Alexey who is able to achieve it by transcending that which is base and ignoble about him. Ivan, unfortunately, is not able to reconcile the contradiction in his personality and fails in his quest for purity, loosing his mind in the process. Thus, in Alexey's triumph, we see that Dostoevsky highlights how man can overcome his existential conflict by transcending rather than by attempting to erase the base and the ignoble.
Dimitri is the first character in the novel to verbalize the link between the motif of the noxious insect, residing deep withing the human heart, and sensual lust. While talking to Alexey in "The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse", Dimitri suddenly digresses from the topic of conversation and quotes random lines of poetry. In one such instance, he says that God has given sensual lust to insects and that he is just such an insect (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- in Verse). What he means is that God has created man and made him a weak creature, prone to sensual lust. This particular aspect of sensual lust is emphasized by Dostoevsky in the novel. It is not simply meant to confer the weakness of the human soul upon the sensual and lustful. Instead, Dostoevsky uses sensual lust to eloquently summarize all that is ignoble within human nature. Rakitin, a fellow monk at Alexey's monastery, is one of the first few characters to note this connection between sensuality and weakness. While talking to Alexey he says that "Mitya [Dimitri] is- a sensualist. That's the very definition and inner essence of him. It's [Alexey's] father who has handed him on his low sensuality" (A Young Man Bent on A Career). The fact that Rakitin calls it a "low sensuality", shows how sensual lust is an undesirable part of human nature.Furthermore, Rakitin is surprised that Alexey can maintain his purity, given that he is a Karamazov too and that "in [Alexey's] family sensuality is carried to a disease" (A Young Man Bent on A Career). Rakitin's shrewd observation is important since it highlights how sensuality is part of the existential human dilemma, that is, the conflict between the baser human instincts which make man weak, and the longing for purity in his quest to become noble. This dilemma manifests itself most clearly within the Karamazov family. Rakitin goes onto to observe that "you [Alexey] are a sensualist from your father, and a crazy saint from your mother" and that his "brother Ivan writes theological articles in joke, for some idiotic, unknown motive of his own, though he's an atheist, and he admits it's a fraud himself" (A Young Man Bent on A Career). This last observation is particularly important since it illustrates an apparent contradiction in Ivan, who does indeed pride himself on his atheism. Rakitin's comment about the theological articles and Ivan's unknown interest in writing them as jokes is significant because it illustrates Ivan's quest for purity by taking the theological rather than the religious route. These two different means to achieve the same goal provide the thesis and antithesis within the novel. Ivan chooses the theological whereas Alexey picks the monastic, and the two set out to solve the same existential dilemma.
While Ivan and Alexey Karamazov set out to solve the inherent contradiction within their human nature, Dimitri and Old Karamazov seem to avoid the problem completely. Dimitri does acknowledge that he is a noxious insect, weak and thus prone to sensual lust, but, unlike his brothers, he is unwilling to do anything about his depraved and ignoble nature. Like his father, he spends his time avoiding the dilemma, evading the conflict and is thus susceptible to sudden moral convulsions. When speaking to Alexey, he often bursts into tears and lances out into sudden philosophical tropes about the degradation of man's soul. After reciting a poem he lashes out and cries:
"My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There's a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don't think I'm only a brute in an officer's uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man" (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Anecdote, pg. 95).
It is true that Dimitri acknowledges the degradation of his sensual lust, symbolized by the noxious insect within him. However, unlike his brothers Ivan and Alexey, he is unwilling to do much about this weak, base and ignoble side to his character. He thinks a lot about it and worries for his mortal soul, just like his father Old Karamazov, but he is neither willing to eliminate nor is he willing to transcend the base and the ignoble. Ivan and Alexey, on the other hand, take it upon themselves to somehow resolve the existential conflict within their soul. Ironically enough, it is Dimitri, the brother who abstains from doing anything about his weak and ignoble nature, who most eloquently verbalizes man's quest for purity on two separate occasions. The first being a cryptic reference to Goethe's poem Das Göttliche (The Divine). While speaking to Alexey about ecstasy, he quotes the following line from Goethe's poem:
"Be noble, oh, man!"
--The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse, pg. 94
An excerpt from the poem is as follows:
Let man be noble,
Generous and good;
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all the living
Beings we know.
Hail to the unknown
Higher beings
Of our intuition!
Let man resemble them;
Let his example
Teach us to believe in them.
--Goethe, Das Göttliche (The Divine).
The poem is about the nobility of man and how this very nobility distinguishes him from all other creatures. It extols the virtues of striving for nobility and hails it as man's greatest triumph. The poem reveals Dimitri's preoccupation with man's degradation, manifested in his own sensual lust, symbolized by the noxious insect within his own soul. However, his own unwillingness to strive for nobility, to crush the noxious insect, makes me a weak and lofty creature.
The second instance when Dimitri verbalizes man's quest for purity is towards the end of the chapter, where he quotes a line in verse about how to attain purity:
Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling forever
To his ancient Mother Earth.
--The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse, pg. 96
So, he says, to attain purity, that is, to purge the soul from vileness, man must look back to Mother Nature, an ideal and romantic notion. Though Dimitri is able to philosophize, he observes that because he is a Karamazov, he is unable to do anything about his soul, about the dilemma and contradiction which exists within it (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse, pg. 96). This is true of Old Karamazov as well, who worries about the afterlife and is just as easily prone to moral convulsions like his son Dimitri, but who doesn't do much about it. Instead, he lets his weak nature rule over his character and sinks into alcoholism, debauchery and depravity.
Ivan and Alexey, however, strive to better themselves. Both the brothers, who happen to have the same mother, Sofya Ivanovna, attempt to somehow conquer their Sensualist nature. Ivan, in particular, is disgusted by his father's base and ignoble existence. He resorts to the theological in order to erase the degredation and purge his soul from vileness, as Dimitri puts it. However, Ivan's quest for purity eventually leads to his downfall. No where is this more apparent than in his confrontation with the devil, who happens to be the psychological manifestation of his existential dilemma. Indeed, he does begin to loose his mind as the novel progresses, especially after Old Karamazov's murder. His confrontation with the character of the devil reveals the mental conflict he faces in trying to erase his "lackey" side as he puts it. He observes that "[he] was never such a lackey! How then could [his] soul beget a lackey like [the devil]?" (The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare, pg. 615). The devil maintains throughout the episode that he is real and that he is indeed part of Ivan's consciousness. Ivan, the devil says, is simply "wounded, in the first place, in [his] aesthetic feelings, and, secondly, in [his] pride. How could such a vulgar devil visit such a great man as [Ivan]!" (The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare, pg. 614) Thus, Ivan's true intent had always been to reinforce his noble and intellectual side. Throughout the novel, he tries to suppress his "lackey" and ignoble side, the side his human nature which is prone to the noxious insect of sensual lust, the weak and degraded side of human nature. His quest for purity is centered upon his theological beliefs, his skepticism and atheism. The devil mocks Ivan, noting in particular how "hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief- is sometimes...torture to a conscientious man, such as [Ivan is]" (The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare, pg. 612). If the devil indeed is a psychological manifestation of Ivan's troubled consciousness, then the fact that he prophesizes the failure of the conflict between belief and disbelief proves Ivan's own misgivings about the theological route he has taken to erase his lackey side. Ultimately, this torture is too much for Ivan and it ends with a complete mental breakdown. He completely fails in achieving purity because his method is to eliminate a part of his human nature, that is, his weak, ignoble, sensual side. In trying to erase the weak, ignoble side of his human nature, Ivan doesn't realize that he is attempting to eliminate a part of himself. Unable to do this, he confronts the devil within him and ultimately looses his mind because of the trauma of his mental conflict.
Alexey's quest for purity, however, is the complete antithesis of Ivan's more theological approach. Alexey turns to religion and the monastic way of life. More specifically, he endeavors to follow Father Zosima's example and his teachings. His idea is not to eliminate the "lackey", base and ignloble side of his human nature in his quest for purity. On the contrary, Alexey embraces this lackey side and attempts to transcend it, rather than eliminate it completely. After the death of Father Zosima, he Alexey is thrown in a state of anguish when he must confront his own demons. In his anguish he goes to Father Zosima's cell and hears a monk reading from the bible and falls asleep. He then dreams of Christ at Cana's wedding and sees Father Zosima in his dream as well. Zosima tells Alexey to be happy and when Alexey wakes up from the dream he is joyful, "his, overflowing with rapture" (Cana of Galilee). He finally transcends his base, Sensualist side and transforms it into joy and ecstasy, falling to the ground and kissing the earth, "not ashamed of that ecstasy" (Cana of Galilee). Alexey finds salvation and purity in forgiveness, joy and solidarity, longing to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness...not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything" (Cana of Galilee, pg. 340). Caught in this rapture, "every instant he felt clearly and tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy" (Cana of Galilee pg. 341). Thus, Alexey is able to embrace his entire being and transcend the his weaknesses. He transforms the ignoble into joy, love and ecstasy, something that Dimitri thought Alexey could never feel. Ultimately, Alexey triumphed in his quest for purity through joy, forgiveness and solidarity.
Dimitri is the first character in the novel to verbalize the link between the motif of the noxious insect, residing deep withing the human heart, and sensual lust. While talking to Alexey in "The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse", Dimitri suddenly digresses from the topic of conversation and quotes random lines of poetry. In one such instance, he says that God has given sensual lust to insects and that he is just such an insect (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- in Verse). What he means is that God has created man and made him a weak creature, prone to sensual lust. This particular aspect of sensual lust is emphasized by Dostoevsky in the novel. It is not simply meant to confer the weakness of the human soul upon the sensual and lustful. Instead, Dostoevsky uses sensual lust to eloquently summarize all that is ignoble within human nature. Rakitin, a fellow monk at Alexey's monastery, is one of the first few characters to note this connection between sensuality and weakness. While talking to Alexey he says that "Mitya [Dimitri] is- a sensualist. That's the very definition and inner essence of him. It's [Alexey's] father who has handed him on his low sensuality" (A Young Man Bent on A Career). The fact that Rakitin calls it a "low sensuality", shows how sensual lust is an undesirable part of human nature.Furthermore, Rakitin is surprised that Alexey can maintain his purity, given that he is a Karamazov too and that "in [Alexey's] family sensuality is carried to a disease" (A Young Man Bent on A Career). Rakitin's shrewd observation is important since it highlights how sensuality is part of the existential human dilemma, that is, the conflict between the baser human instincts which make man weak, and the longing for purity in his quest to become noble. This dilemma manifests itself most clearly within the Karamazov family. Rakitin goes onto to observe that "you [Alexey] are a sensualist from your father, and a crazy saint from your mother" and that his "brother Ivan writes theological articles in joke, for some idiotic, unknown motive of his own, though he's an atheist, and he admits it's a fraud himself" (A Young Man Bent on A Career). This last observation is particularly important since it illustrates an apparent contradiction in Ivan, who does indeed pride himself on his atheism. Rakitin's comment about the theological articles and Ivan's unknown interest in writing them as jokes is significant because it illustrates Ivan's quest for purity by taking the theological rather than the religious route. These two different means to achieve the same goal provide the thesis and antithesis within the novel. Ivan chooses the theological whereas Alexey picks the monastic, and the two set out to solve the same existential dilemma.
While Ivan and Alexey Karamazov set out to solve the inherent contradiction within their human nature, Dimitri and Old Karamazov seem to avoid the problem completely. Dimitri does acknowledge that he is a noxious insect, weak and thus prone to sensual lust, but, unlike his brothers, he is unwilling to do anything about his depraved and ignoble nature. Like his father, he spends his time avoiding the dilemma, evading the conflict and is thus susceptible to sudden moral convulsions. When speaking to Alexey, he often bursts into tears and lances out into sudden philosophical tropes about the degradation of man's soul. After reciting a poem he lashes out and cries:
"My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There's a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don't think I'm only a brute in an officer's uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man" (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Anecdote, pg. 95).
It is true that Dimitri acknowledges the degradation of his sensual lust, symbolized by the noxious insect within him. However, unlike his brothers Ivan and Alexey, he is unwilling to do much about this weak, base and ignoble side to his character. He thinks a lot about it and worries for his mortal soul, just like his father Old Karamazov, but he is neither willing to eliminate nor is he willing to transcend the base and the ignoble. Ivan and Alexey, on the other hand, take it upon themselves to somehow resolve the existential conflict within their soul. Ironically enough, it is Dimitri, the brother who abstains from doing anything about his weak and ignoble nature, who most eloquently verbalizes man's quest for purity on two separate occasions. The first being a cryptic reference to Goethe's poem Das Göttliche (The Divine). While speaking to Alexey about ecstasy, he quotes the following line from Goethe's poem:
"Be noble, oh, man!"
--The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse, pg. 94
An excerpt from the poem is as follows:
Let man be noble,
Generous and good;
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all the living
Beings we know.
Hail to the unknown
Higher beings
Of our intuition!
Let man resemble them;
Let his example
Teach us to believe in them.
--Goethe, Das Göttliche (The Divine).
The poem is about the nobility of man and how this very nobility distinguishes him from all other creatures. It extols the virtues of striving for nobility and hails it as man's greatest triumph. The poem reveals Dimitri's preoccupation with man's degradation, manifested in his own sensual lust, symbolized by the noxious insect within his own soul. However, his own unwillingness to strive for nobility, to crush the noxious insect, makes me a weak and lofty creature.
The second instance when Dimitri verbalizes man's quest for purity is towards the end of the chapter, where he quotes a line in verse about how to attain purity:
Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling forever
To his ancient Mother Earth.
--The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse, pg. 96
So, he says, to attain purity, that is, to purge the soul from vileness, man must look back to Mother Nature, an ideal and romantic notion. Though Dimitri is able to philosophize, he observes that because he is a Karamazov, he is unable to do anything about his soul, about the dilemma and contradiction which exists within it (The Confession of a Passionate Heart- In Verse, pg. 96). This is true of Old Karamazov as well, who worries about the afterlife and is just as easily prone to moral convulsions like his son Dimitri, but who doesn't do much about it. Instead, he lets his weak nature rule over his character and sinks into alcoholism, debauchery and depravity.
Ivan and Alexey, however, strive to better themselves. Both the brothers, who happen to have the same mother, Sofya Ivanovna, attempt to somehow conquer their Sensualist nature. Ivan, in particular, is disgusted by his father's base and ignoble existence. He resorts to the theological in order to erase the degredation and purge his soul from vileness, as Dimitri puts it. However, Ivan's quest for purity eventually leads to his downfall. No where is this more apparent than in his confrontation with the devil, who happens to be the psychological manifestation of his existential dilemma. Indeed, he does begin to loose his mind as the novel progresses, especially after Old Karamazov's murder. His confrontation with the character of the devil reveals the mental conflict he faces in trying to erase his "lackey" side as he puts it. He observes that "[he] was never such a lackey! How then could [his] soul beget a lackey like [the devil]?" (The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare, pg. 615). The devil maintains throughout the episode that he is real and that he is indeed part of Ivan's consciousness. Ivan, the devil says, is simply "wounded, in the first place, in [his] aesthetic feelings, and, secondly, in [his] pride. How could such a vulgar devil visit such a great man as [Ivan]!" (The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare, pg. 614) Thus, Ivan's true intent had always been to reinforce his noble and intellectual side. Throughout the novel, he tries to suppress his "lackey" and ignoble side, the side his human nature which is prone to the noxious insect of sensual lust, the weak and degraded side of human nature. His quest for purity is centered upon his theological beliefs, his skepticism and atheism. The devil mocks Ivan, noting in particular how "hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief- is sometimes...torture to a conscientious man, such as [Ivan is]" (The Devil: Ivan Fydorovitch's Nightmare, pg. 612). If the devil indeed is a psychological manifestation of Ivan's troubled consciousness, then the fact that he prophesizes the failure of the conflict between belief and disbelief proves Ivan's own misgivings about the theological route he has taken to erase his lackey side. Ultimately, this torture is too much for Ivan and it ends with a complete mental breakdown. He completely fails in achieving purity because his method is to eliminate a part of his human nature, that is, his weak, ignoble, sensual side. In trying to erase the weak, ignoble side of his human nature, Ivan doesn't realize that he is attempting to eliminate a part of himself. Unable to do this, he confronts the devil within him and ultimately looses his mind because of the trauma of his mental conflict.
Alexey's quest for purity, however, is the complete antithesis of Ivan's more theological approach. Alexey turns to religion and the monastic way of life. More specifically, he endeavors to follow Father Zosima's example and his teachings. His idea is not to eliminate the "lackey", base and ignloble side of his human nature in his quest for purity. On the contrary, Alexey embraces this lackey side and attempts to transcend it, rather than eliminate it completely. After the death of Father Zosima, he Alexey is thrown in a state of anguish when he must confront his own demons. In his anguish he goes to Father Zosima's cell and hears a monk reading from the bible and falls asleep. He then dreams of Christ at Cana's wedding and sees Father Zosima in his dream as well. Zosima tells Alexey to be happy and when Alexey wakes up from the dream he is joyful, "his, overflowing with rapture" (Cana of Galilee). He finally transcends his base, Sensualist side and transforms it into joy and ecstasy, falling to the ground and kissing the earth, "not ashamed of that ecstasy" (Cana of Galilee). Alexey finds salvation and purity in forgiveness, joy and solidarity, longing to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness...not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything" (Cana of Galilee, pg. 340). Caught in this rapture, "every instant he felt clearly and tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy" (Cana of Galilee pg. 341). Thus, Alexey is able to embrace his entire being and transcend the his weaknesses. He transforms the ignoble into joy, love and ecstasy, something that Dimitri thought Alexey could never feel. Ultimately, Alexey triumphed in his quest for purity through joy, forgiveness and solidarity.
In Favour of Adultery: The Role of the Tragic Heroine in Flaubert's Madame Bovary
The role of women in the nineteenth-century has been a topic of great debate and discussion is Western art and literature. In his novel titled Madame Bovary, Flaubert takes up this topic of discussion and presents it in the context of adultery in middle-class class French society. The fact that the novel is called Madame Bovary and not Emma Bovary, is significant of the effacement of individual female identity in favor of the role that this female is forced to adopt as mother and wife. Women in the novel are presented to us almost entirely in their relation to men. Those who are exempt from these roles or choose to forgo them are ostracized from bourgeois society and exist on the peripheries of society. They are actresses, whores and mistresses but never wives and mothers. In the great conflict on classes during the nineteenth-century, women find themselves exempt from the struggle for empowerment. Using this as the basis for my argument, I hope to illustrate over the course of this paper how Emma Bovary is a true tragic heroine in Flaubert's novel because of her struggle to recreate her identity independent of her relationship to her husband Charles Bovary.
The novel depicts three different women with the name Madame Bovary. There's Madame Bovary senior, Charles' mother; Madame Bovary junior, who is Charles' first wife and finally, Emma Bovary, the protagonist of the novel. All three women are closely related to Charles. Madame Bovary senior "centered on [Charles'] head all her shattered, broken little vanities", investing her own failed ambitions and listless dreams in her son's future prospects (Madame Bovary, Part I ch 1, 8). Charles' first wife, Heloise, also referred to as the widow Madame Dubuc, is a woman of jealous temperament, plagued by disease and illness, who terrorizes her husband, while desperately trying to garner his affection. Charles "had to say this and not say that in company, to fast every Friday, dress as she liked, harass at her bidding those patients who did not pay. She opened his letters, watched his comings and goings, and listened at the partition-wall when women came to consult him in his surgery" (Part I Ch 1, 13). Emma, meanwhile, is a woman with little inheritance, an only child who must marry into her fortune and force herself to love a man whom she considers to be loathsome. These women have more in common with each other than their obvious relationship to Charles. Each one of them is dependent upon Charles in more than one way. Whether it be emotionally, as in the case of Madame Bovary senior and junior or economically, as in the case of Emma. Each one defines her individual role and its relation to society through Charles. These women are no longer women but mothers, wives and daughters. They endure child birth, cook and manage the household, dress themselves for the sake of social appearances and live in the fragile glass-case of femininity without even the slightest hope of engaging and thus altering the world in which they live. Madame Bovary senior vicariously lives through Charles' success and failure, manipulating her son's ambitions and emotions, hiding behind the veil of her motherly love the disappointments that life has brought to her by her marriage to the lecherous, old Monsieur Bovary. Madame Bovary junior, Charles' first wife, is domineering and imposes herself upon the weak-willed and submissive Charles. Yet she is nevertheless just as vulnerable as other women are when it comes to her husband. When she suspects that Charles is love with the daughter of old Rouault, she resigns herself to her fate by "asking him for a new tonic and a little more love" (Part I Ch 1, 14). This shows that she is a lot more dependent on him than she appears to be, giving herself airs and dominating her husband, only because she is insecure about losing him. Madame Bovary junior may have a tyrannical and overbearing personality, just like Madame Bovary senior, but when it comes to her role as wife, she ultimately yields to her husband.
Thus, we can conclude that women in the novel function not only as characters with distinct personalities but also as manifestations of the roles which are ascribed to them by a patriarchal society. All the women except Emma inevitably reach to the conclusion that their happiness is inextricably linked to their role as defined by their relationship to Charles. Madame Bovary senior adopts her role as mother and desperately tries to find some sort of consolation by subjugating her son to her own will. Similarly, Madame Bovary junior, accepts her role as wife and convinces herself that she must love her husband in order for any sort of happiness to exist in her life. These women have imposed upon themselves the roles which society has decided for them. It has become the basis for their identity, the medium by which they seek to find purpose, meaning and happiness in their lives. The roles no longer exist for these women because they have become those roles and find the thought of being alienated from them as an attack on the very nature of their being. When Charles begins to make frequent visits to Bertaux, Madame Bovary junior "solaces herself by allusions that Charles did not understand, then by casual observations that he let pass for fear of a storm, finally by open apostrophes to which he [Charles] knew not what to answer" (Part I Ch. 2, 21). The very thought of Emma as the object of Charles' affection and interest jeopardizes Madame Bovary junior's role as wife. She finally makes Charles take an oath by swearing "on the prayer-book, that he would go there no more after much sobbing and many kisses, in a great outburst of love" (Part I Ch. 2, 21). Even though there is no proof of infidelity, and indeed Charles is faithful to his wife till the very end, Madame Bovary junior is suspicious, jealous and insecure about her position. Emma becomes a threat to her role as Charles' wife. Similarly, Madame Bovary senior is mindful and feels jilted when Emma begins to contend for Charles' affection. Earlier on, she had hand-picked Heloise for Charles, seeking to procure a match which would prove financially beneficial for him. "She found him...the widow of a bailiff at Dieppe--who was forty-five and had an income of twelve hundred francs" (Part I Ch. 1, 13). On the surface, Madame Bovary senior appears to have acted in the best interest of Charles, having found him a wife and a suitable fortune. However, her motives are far more complicated than they appear to be. Why couldn't she have decided upon a younger more beautiful girl with a fortune to match? Madame Dubuc, soon to be Madame Bovary junior, is described as being "ugly, as dry as a bone, her face with as many pimples as the spring has buds..." (Part I Ch. 1, 13). Perhaps her decision to choose the old widow as a suitable wife for Charles had the ulterior motive of preserving her son's affection for herself. This would make sense seeing as how Madame Bovary senior has vested interests in her son's life, living vicariously through his experiences, placing upon him all her broken dreams and idle fantasies. In wanting a wife for her son, Madame Bovary senior hopes to assure his happiness and thereby her own, though this happiness can mean an encroachment upon her own role as mother if her son's affection for his new wife supersedes his attention for his old mother. When Charles does get married and starts his life with a new Madame Bovary, his mother and his wife play out their stereotyped roles by vying for his attention. Charles's mother "[comes] to see them from time to time, but after a few days the daughter-in-law [puts] her own edge on her, and then, like two knives, they sacrifice [Charles] with their reflections and observations" (Part I Ch. 2, 22). Both Madame Bovary senior and junior become manifestations of their roles and in doing so they establish the basis of their identity upon that role. As a result, they become victims the patriarchy which has established those roles for them. Charles also manifests himself through his role as husband and son. However, unlike Madame Bovary junior and senior, he is also defined by his role as a doctor. His professional pursuits enable him to access a place in society that is not available to women who belong to nineteenth century middle-class society. Unlike Félicité, Madame Bovary senior, junior and Emma cannot earn a living because that would contravene the deep-set social mores as dictated by the patriarchal values of the time. As distinguished scholar and critic L. Czyba notes, women were "tied by indissoluble marriage, deprived of autonomy, condemned to repeat centuries-old behavior, women invariably appear as victims"'Les Femmes dans les romans de Flaubert (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1983), p. 51 . Mothers are subjugated by their roles and to their roles, just as wives are by the suffocating burden of their domestic lives. These women, who are the victims of their situation, oppressed by society, in turn seek to victimize not only themselves, by reducing their identities to their roles, but also look to victimize and oppress other women as well.
Emma, however, is the only 'Madame Bovary' who seeks to find happiness outside the binding constraints of marriage and domesticity. She alienates herself from the role of wife and mother to redefine herself as lover and adulteress. Charles comes to represent the caricature of that very peculiar nineteenth-century middle-class sentiment of self-satisfied, complacence. A doctor, lacking any ambition in life and in professional pursuits, with a wife and daughter, living in a small town, earning a meager pittance. He finds happiness in the mindless repetitive functions of everyday life (la vie quotidienne), in his role as husband, son, father and provider. He refuses to see outside of his two-dimensional world of mundane domesticity. By not accepting the confinements and oppression of this predominantly male, bourgeois society, Emma opposes the conventional notions of institutionalized morality. In strong opposition to the mundane existence of the everyday caricatured in the character of Charles, Monsieur Homais and the other town folk, Emma seeks to carve out a separate, distinct place for herself within man's world. She is not a passive figure, unlike the other permutations of "Madame Bovary" in the novel. Where Madame Bovary senior and junior define themselves by their relationship to Charles as mother and wife respectively, thereby effacing their identity as individual women, Emma seeks to create a new, more complex identity for herself, independent of her husband and daughter. In doing so, she not only questions the standard archetype of morality imposed upon her, but also moves beyond to actively pursue her ideal of happiness.
In her pursuits, Emma invokes her sexuality, that which is covered, repressed, muted, effaced and destroyed by the conventions of the patriarchal society in which she lives. A woman's sexuality is smothered under the oppressive and superficial values imposed upon it by the roles that the women in the novel adopt as mothers, wives and daughters. Actresses, whores and mistresses are the only women in the novel who are portrayed as having any kind of sexuality. They are seen as immoral creatures, baseless and dishonorable and shunned by polite and civilized society. When Rodolphe meets Emma for the first time, he muses about possessing her, luring her away from her husband and winning her like a trophy. He also mentions Virginie, the actress he keeps in Rouen "who is decidedly [growing] fat... is finicky about her pleasures; and...has a mania for prawns" (Part II Ch. 7, 147). A woman's sexuality is demonized in bourgeois society, but a man's sexuality is interpreted to be a measure of his pride and virility. Indeed, neither Rodolphe, Leon, nor old Monsieur Bovary suffer as Emma does. She is the only woman from her class of society in the novel who is not cut-off from her inner-self nor from her body. Her decision to alienate herself from her role as wife and mother proves to be an attack on the bourgeois idyll and a poignant critique of the conventional morality of her class.
While Madame Bovary senior and junior were victims of the roles prescribed to them, Emma Bovary, in leaving behind the role designated to her by a patriarchal society, redefines herself and her identity through her sexuality. Madame Bovary junior, having lied about her fortune, is met with disdain and malice. "In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary senior, smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of having caused misfortune to the son by harnessing him to such a harridan, whose harness wasn't worth her hide" (Part I Ch. 2, 22). The metaphor used for Heloise Bovary here is that of horse, whose only worth is in the value she adds to the family's fortune. Having lied about her position, Madame Bovary junior is dishonored and rebuked by her in-laws and tries to console herself by turning to her husband, who was never too keen about her in the first place. Soon after suffering these insults, she dies suddenly, leaving Charles a widower without any money. Her death comes as a dark foreshadowing of Emma's own plight towards the end of the novel, when she too finds herself isolated and desperate. However, unlike Madame Bovary junior, Emma's sexuality is real and tangible. She has the same malaise as the other women: a terrible loneliness, a life filled with longings for betterment, failed dreams and painful disillusionment. Though she, Emma Bovary, does not seek to find the cure for this condition in Charles' love or family-life, unlike the other two women, who cling desperately to their roles as wives and mothers. Instead, Emma defines herself through her adultery, her infidelity, the only other recourse available to middle-class women, who can neither occupy themselves with work, like Charles, nor leave for Paris on a whim for an adventure, like Leon. Emma eventually falls prey to her insecurities like the other women and takes her own life. However, in casting off her role as wife and mother, in resorting to her sexuality to find meaning and definition, her self-victimization and disillusionment, her dilemma and eventual tragedy, become epic in proportion. She moves beyond the ordinary wife and mother to become the tragic heroine of Flaubert's novel.
Author and critic Rosemary Lloyd observes that "no one in the novel is more sharply aware of the limitations on women than Emma herself" (Llyod 40). However grand may be her struggle to find her identity, "it would be false to suggest that [Flaubert] treats [women] with any less irony than the men in the novel" (Llyod 40). Indeed Emma's pursuits, her idealization of love and romance, her self-deceptions about the men she comes to admire, are all exquisitely described by Flaubert in the great precision his lyrical prose. When Emma is depressed, she is not simply sad or wearisome, instead her "sorrow [is] engulfed within her soul with soft shrieks such as the winter wind makes in ruined castles", her memory of Leon "burns more brightly than the fire travellers have left on the snow of a Russian steppe" (Part II Ch. 7, 139). Flaubert's realism achieves the beauty Emma so desires during the course of the novel. But her own life, like the life of the other Bovary women, remains unfulfilled and empty. Only the vibrant and poetic prose fills the void in this novel with the beauty of precision, while all else remains empty and meaningless. Flaubert antithetically juxtaposes Emma's search for romance and passion to the suffocating oppression of middle-class morality. Ironically enough, Emma becomes a character in the novels she comes to admire so much. Flaubert's stylistic triumph comes at the great expense of subjugating his heroine to his own mastery of prose, which becomes a new form of oppression for Emma, one which she can never hope to escape.
Bibliography
Flaubert, Gustav. Madame Bovary. New York: Random House, 1957.
Lloyd, Rosemary. Madame Bovary. London: Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1990.
The novel depicts three different women with the name Madame Bovary. There's Madame Bovary senior, Charles' mother; Madame Bovary junior, who is Charles' first wife and finally, Emma Bovary, the protagonist of the novel. All three women are closely related to Charles. Madame Bovary senior "centered on [Charles'] head all her shattered, broken little vanities", investing her own failed ambitions and listless dreams in her son's future prospects (Madame Bovary, Part I ch 1, 8). Charles' first wife, Heloise, also referred to as the widow Madame Dubuc, is a woman of jealous temperament, plagued by disease and illness, who terrorizes her husband, while desperately trying to garner his affection. Charles "had to say this and not say that in company, to fast every Friday, dress as she liked, harass at her bidding those patients who did not pay. She opened his letters, watched his comings and goings, and listened at the partition-wall when women came to consult him in his surgery" (Part I Ch 1, 13). Emma, meanwhile, is a woman with little inheritance, an only child who must marry into her fortune and force herself to love a man whom she considers to be loathsome. These women have more in common with each other than their obvious relationship to Charles. Each one of them is dependent upon Charles in more than one way. Whether it be emotionally, as in the case of Madame Bovary senior and junior or economically, as in the case of Emma. Each one defines her individual role and its relation to society through Charles. These women are no longer women but mothers, wives and daughters. They endure child birth, cook and manage the household, dress themselves for the sake of social appearances and live in the fragile glass-case of femininity without even the slightest hope of engaging and thus altering the world in which they live. Madame Bovary senior vicariously lives through Charles' success and failure, manipulating her son's ambitions and emotions, hiding behind the veil of her motherly love the disappointments that life has brought to her by her marriage to the lecherous, old Monsieur Bovary. Madame Bovary junior, Charles' first wife, is domineering and imposes herself upon the weak-willed and submissive Charles. Yet she is nevertheless just as vulnerable as other women are when it comes to her husband. When she suspects that Charles is love with the daughter of old Rouault, she resigns herself to her fate by "asking him for a new tonic and a little more love" (Part I Ch 1, 14). This shows that she is a lot more dependent on him than she appears to be, giving herself airs and dominating her husband, only because she is insecure about losing him. Madame Bovary junior may have a tyrannical and overbearing personality, just like Madame Bovary senior, but when it comes to her role as wife, she ultimately yields to her husband.
Thus, we can conclude that women in the novel function not only as characters with distinct personalities but also as manifestations of the roles which are ascribed to them by a patriarchal society. All the women except Emma inevitably reach to the conclusion that their happiness is inextricably linked to their role as defined by their relationship to Charles. Madame Bovary senior adopts her role as mother and desperately tries to find some sort of consolation by subjugating her son to her own will. Similarly, Madame Bovary junior, accepts her role as wife and convinces herself that she must love her husband in order for any sort of happiness to exist in her life. These women have imposed upon themselves the roles which society has decided for them. It has become the basis for their identity, the medium by which they seek to find purpose, meaning and happiness in their lives. The roles no longer exist for these women because they have become those roles and find the thought of being alienated from them as an attack on the very nature of their being. When Charles begins to make frequent visits to Bertaux, Madame Bovary junior "solaces herself by allusions that Charles did not understand, then by casual observations that he let pass for fear of a storm, finally by open apostrophes to which he [Charles] knew not what to answer" (Part I Ch. 2, 21). The very thought of Emma as the object of Charles' affection and interest jeopardizes Madame Bovary junior's role as wife. She finally makes Charles take an oath by swearing "on the prayer-book, that he would go there no more after much sobbing and many kisses, in a great outburst of love" (Part I Ch. 2, 21). Even though there is no proof of infidelity, and indeed Charles is faithful to his wife till the very end, Madame Bovary junior is suspicious, jealous and insecure about her position. Emma becomes a threat to her role as Charles' wife. Similarly, Madame Bovary senior is mindful and feels jilted when Emma begins to contend for Charles' affection. Earlier on, she had hand-picked Heloise for Charles, seeking to procure a match which would prove financially beneficial for him. "She found him...the widow of a bailiff at Dieppe--who was forty-five and had an income of twelve hundred francs" (Part I Ch. 1, 13). On the surface, Madame Bovary senior appears to have acted in the best interest of Charles, having found him a wife and a suitable fortune. However, her motives are far more complicated than they appear to be. Why couldn't she have decided upon a younger more beautiful girl with a fortune to match? Madame Dubuc, soon to be Madame Bovary junior, is described as being "ugly, as dry as a bone, her face with as many pimples as the spring has buds..." (Part I Ch. 1, 13). Perhaps her decision to choose the old widow as a suitable wife for Charles had the ulterior motive of preserving her son's affection for herself. This would make sense seeing as how Madame Bovary senior has vested interests in her son's life, living vicariously through his experiences, placing upon him all her broken dreams and idle fantasies. In wanting a wife for her son, Madame Bovary senior hopes to assure his happiness and thereby her own, though this happiness can mean an encroachment upon her own role as mother if her son's affection for his new wife supersedes his attention for his old mother. When Charles does get married and starts his life with a new Madame Bovary, his mother and his wife play out their stereotyped roles by vying for his attention. Charles's mother "[comes] to see them from time to time, but after a few days the daughter-in-law [puts] her own edge on her, and then, like two knives, they sacrifice [Charles] with their reflections and observations" (Part I Ch. 2, 22). Both Madame Bovary senior and junior become manifestations of their roles and in doing so they establish the basis of their identity upon that role. As a result, they become victims the patriarchy which has established those roles for them. Charles also manifests himself through his role as husband and son. However, unlike Madame Bovary junior and senior, he is also defined by his role as a doctor. His professional pursuits enable him to access a place in society that is not available to women who belong to nineteenth century middle-class society. Unlike Félicité, Madame Bovary senior, junior and Emma cannot earn a living because that would contravene the deep-set social mores as dictated by the patriarchal values of the time. As distinguished scholar and critic L. Czyba notes, women were "tied by indissoluble marriage, deprived of autonomy, condemned to repeat centuries-old behavior, women invariably appear as victims"'Les Femmes dans les romans de Flaubert (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1983), p. 51 . Mothers are subjugated by their roles and to their roles, just as wives are by the suffocating burden of their domestic lives. These women, who are the victims of their situation, oppressed by society, in turn seek to victimize not only themselves, by reducing their identities to their roles, but also look to victimize and oppress other women as well.
Emma, however, is the only 'Madame Bovary' who seeks to find happiness outside the binding constraints of marriage and domesticity. She alienates herself from the role of wife and mother to redefine herself as lover and adulteress. Charles comes to represent the caricature of that very peculiar nineteenth-century middle-class sentiment of self-satisfied, complacence. A doctor, lacking any ambition in life and in professional pursuits, with a wife and daughter, living in a small town, earning a meager pittance. He finds happiness in the mindless repetitive functions of everyday life (la vie quotidienne), in his role as husband, son, father and provider. He refuses to see outside of his two-dimensional world of mundane domesticity. By not accepting the confinements and oppression of this predominantly male, bourgeois society, Emma opposes the conventional notions of institutionalized morality. In strong opposition to the mundane existence of the everyday caricatured in the character of Charles, Monsieur Homais and the other town folk, Emma seeks to carve out a separate, distinct place for herself within man's world. She is not a passive figure, unlike the other permutations of "Madame Bovary" in the novel. Where Madame Bovary senior and junior define themselves by their relationship to Charles as mother and wife respectively, thereby effacing their identity as individual women, Emma seeks to create a new, more complex identity for herself, independent of her husband and daughter. In doing so, she not only questions the standard archetype of morality imposed upon her, but also moves beyond to actively pursue her ideal of happiness.
In her pursuits, Emma invokes her sexuality, that which is covered, repressed, muted, effaced and destroyed by the conventions of the patriarchal society in which she lives. A woman's sexuality is smothered under the oppressive and superficial values imposed upon it by the roles that the women in the novel adopt as mothers, wives and daughters. Actresses, whores and mistresses are the only women in the novel who are portrayed as having any kind of sexuality. They are seen as immoral creatures, baseless and dishonorable and shunned by polite and civilized society. When Rodolphe meets Emma for the first time, he muses about possessing her, luring her away from her husband and winning her like a trophy. He also mentions Virginie, the actress he keeps in Rouen "who is decidedly [growing] fat... is finicky about her pleasures; and...has a mania for prawns" (Part II Ch. 7, 147). A woman's sexuality is demonized in bourgeois society, but a man's sexuality is interpreted to be a measure of his pride and virility. Indeed, neither Rodolphe, Leon, nor old Monsieur Bovary suffer as Emma does. She is the only woman from her class of society in the novel who is not cut-off from her inner-self nor from her body. Her decision to alienate herself from her role as wife and mother proves to be an attack on the bourgeois idyll and a poignant critique of the conventional morality of her class.
While Madame Bovary senior and junior were victims of the roles prescribed to them, Emma Bovary, in leaving behind the role designated to her by a patriarchal society, redefines herself and her identity through her sexuality. Madame Bovary junior, having lied about her fortune, is met with disdain and malice. "In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary senior, smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of having caused misfortune to the son by harnessing him to such a harridan, whose harness wasn't worth her hide" (Part I Ch. 2, 22). The metaphor used for Heloise Bovary here is that of horse, whose only worth is in the value she adds to the family's fortune. Having lied about her position, Madame Bovary junior is dishonored and rebuked by her in-laws and tries to console herself by turning to her husband, who was never too keen about her in the first place. Soon after suffering these insults, she dies suddenly, leaving Charles a widower without any money. Her death comes as a dark foreshadowing of Emma's own plight towards the end of the novel, when she too finds herself isolated and desperate. However, unlike Madame Bovary junior, Emma's sexuality is real and tangible. She has the same malaise as the other women: a terrible loneliness, a life filled with longings for betterment, failed dreams and painful disillusionment. Though she, Emma Bovary, does not seek to find the cure for this condition in Charles' love or family-life, unlike the other two women, who cling desperately to their roles as wives and mothers. Instead, Emma defines herself through her adultery, her infidelity, the only other recourse available to middle-class women, who can neither occupy themselves with work, like Charles, nor leave for Paris on a whim for an adventure, like Leon. Emma eventually falls prey to her insecurities like the other women and takes her own life. However, in casting off her role as wife and mother, in resorting to her sexuality to find meaning and definition, her self-victimization and disillusionment, her dilemma and eventual tragedy, become epic in proportion. She moves beyond the ordinary wife and mother to become the tragic heroine of Flaubert's novel.
Author and critic Rosemary Lloyd observes that "no one in the novel is more sharply aware of the limitations on women than Emma herself" (Llyod 40). However grand may be her struggle to find her identity, "it would be false to suggest that [Flaubert] treats [women] with any less irony than the men in the novel" (Llyod 40). Indeed Emma's pursuits, her idealization of love and romance, her self-deceptions about the men she comes to admire, are all exquisitely described by Flaubert in the great precision his lyrical prose. When Emma is depressed, she is not simply sad or wearisome, instead her "sorrow [is] engulfed within her soul with soft shrieks such as the winter wind makes in ruined castles", her memory of Leon "burns more brightly than the fire travellers have left on the snow of a Russian steppe" (Part II Ch. 7, 139). Flaubert's realism achieves the beauty Emma so desires during the course of the novel. But her own life, like the life of the other Bovary women, remains unfulfilled and empty. Only the vibrant and poetic prose fills the void in this novel with the beauty of precision, while all else remains empty and meaningless. Flaubert antithetically juxtaposes Emma's search for romance and passion to the suffocating oppression of middle-class morality. Ironically enough, Emma becomes a character in the novels she comes to admire so much. Flaubert's stylistic triumph comes at the great expense of subjugating his heroine to his own mastery of prose, which becomes a new form of oppression for Emma, one which she can never hope to escape.
Bibliography
Flaubert, Gustav. Madame Bovary. New York: Random House, 1957.
Lloyd, Rosemary. Madame Bovary. London: Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1990.
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