Spurious Notions and Other Writings

The Conradian Narrator

2012-05-31T16:03:00.003-04:00

By Shaadi Baylor

In recent months, there has been no greater exemplification of the Western world’s perception of

Uganda

as a stagnant and ahistorical nation than the launch of Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign. That the effort to end the Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) attack on civilians is nearly twenty years overdue does not appear to confound the multitudes who support the organization’s efforts. A decade’s delayed response to the conflict suggests that the enslavement and murders of hundreds, if not thousands, of children by the LRA in the 1980s and 1990s did not exist, and perhaps do not even matter, to a Western world too comfortable overlooking

Uganda

. Granted, it is difficult for young, Western consumers of information to envision the continent outside a Conradian framework.

Fiction may be the most influential lens through which we learn about Africa. In many ways, the history and literature spawned from the continent are often indistinguishable from one another. The delicate balance between fiction and actuality both bore Kony2012 and continues to feed the myth, without reasonable nuance and context. In both real life and in fiction, the tone of the story, with regard to its attitude toward Africa and its peoples, comes down to the narrator’s perception of their position and status in the conflict. Protagonists superimpose their presence over major events sometimes overshadowing the more historically pertinent development of events. How much of Africa do they allow to exist when they are not present to define it? In both literature and reality, outsiders assign themselves the utmost importance when discussing Africa. Their individual experiences are merely microcosms of the greater dynamic between Africa and the West.

Perhaps one of the most controversial postcolonial works of fiction set in Africa, V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River is narrated by Salim, a young man of Indian descent who has moved from his home on the eastern coast of Africa inland, to a newly born country. During the years Salim resides in his unnamed town, he is privy to making coarse generalizations about the native citizenry. Even as a beautifully written work of fiction, A Bend in the River’s profusion of broad sweeping generalizations about the continent are frustrating; Naipaul refuses to allow himself to be identified as African yet he feels entitled to expound upon developments in the region with often inflammatory language. Though the author is often attacked for his insensitivity toward the post-colonial conflict, there are insightful moments when he references the dynamic between Westerners at the local university (the Domain), their attitude towards Africa, and more importantly, the vision of Africa that Westerners impose upon young African students. Salim explains that “in the Domain, Africans…were romantic…In the town ‘African’ could be a word of abuse or disregard; in the Domain it was a bigger word. An ‘African’ there was a new man whom everybody was busy making, a man about to inherit” (119). Critics might find this insight into such subtle conditions to be contentious but a less cynical analysis suggests he is making a statement regarding a relationship in which outsiders manipulate power dynamics so as to assign Africans an identity.

And thus it was a refreshing move onto Giles Foden’s The Last King of

Scotland

. The novel’s narrator, Nicholas Garrigan, is unembarrassed by the Eurocentrism that shapes the purview of his experience in

Uganda

. The novel is interesting in relation to other accounts of Africa in that Dr. Garrigan does not even begin to make gross statements about the country or the continent. He is unashamed of his self-centeredness and his miniscule, even negligible, position in the future of

Uganda

to the point where he is often unable to admit to his own complicity in the deaths of others. Foden’s prose pale in comparison to Naipaul’s eloquence and it is often the subject matter alone that compels the reader to continue, but this is not the only thing that bars it from becoming a timeless work. Foden does not tell us how to feel about Africa and in that he loses some of his authority on the subject. How can we trust a man who himself admits to ignorance?

It should be mentioned here that I recently returned from a 9-month stay in

Uganda

, a volunteer experience which affected me deeply. I understand that this complicates my critique of Kony 2012 and literature related to the continent. It seems that in the process of attacking a stereotype, I have found myself to be the archetype of another: the bright-eyed youth who wishes to rectify the wrongs inflicted upon a vulnerable continent. Watching Kony2012 was an eerie, if not wholly disturbing experience. Sitting in my comfortable home, I watched as Jason Russell used colonial language to convince all too many uninformed viewers that he had discovered this conflict, much in the same way John Hanning Speke discovered the source of the Nile a century and a half before. Had I not been sitting in

Uganda

as I watched the short film, maybe I too would have believed Russell’s claims.

Shaadi graduated from Barnard in 2011, then spent last year doing work in

Uganda

Stephen and The Stringing of The Bow

2012-05-10T00:55:00.000-04:00

By Santiago Sanchez Borboa

Stephen Dedalus is a prick - conceited, immature, and annoying. He even spends a large part of a chapter "prov[ing] by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father" (1: 555-7), although he does not believe this grand theory (9: 1065-7). If this were not enough, just as the reader thinks she is getting the hang of things after "Telemachus" and "Nestor," she gets smacked with the stupendously difficult yet surprisingly irrelevant, "Proteus," a chapter of Ulysses inside Stephen's mind that everyone struggles with and that makes a good number of people put down the book forever. Despite this, I think that Stephen has many admirable qualities and that he is an often unappreciated character. I hold that opinion despite the fact that I did not succeed in becoming (or like to think I did not) an intellectual egotist. I should note that I am not trying to establish that Stephen is beyond serious criticism or that he is a full-fledged hero. I only think that we can (and should) deepen our understanding of Stephen, and his importance by focusing on his often-overlooked value.

There is no doubt that Bloom is our true hero in Ulysses, but we should be very careful to dismiss Stephen if for no other reason than his being Telemachus to Bloom's Odysseus. In The Odyssey, Telemachus, like Stephen, is a laughable character at the beginning of the narrative, since he can only complain about coexisting with Penelope's suitors. Nevertheless, in Book XXI, he shows himself to be perhaps the only other mortal who can string Odysseus's bow (though Odysseus asks him to stop before he does it). This feat is not like those of Odysseus, who not only actually strings his bow with ease, but also uses it to shoot an arrow across the rings of a dozen axes and to slay his wife's suitors. However, it is no small feat. Perhaps in the same way, Stephen displays the ability to string the bow of reason that Bloom uses to slay the suitors that are his scruples (including Eurymachus-Boylan), though Stephen is not able use it to its full potential and thus is unable to slay Antinous-Buck Mulligan (correspondences from the Linati Schema).

Bloom reasons through his scruples concerning Molly's adultery by conceptualizing it in a quite particular way, thinking (among many other things) of the adultery as "less reprehensible" than a number of actions, ranging from "impersonation" to "corruption of minors and "intelligence with the king's enemies" (17: 2178-94). This use of reason enables him to eliminate what prevents Bloom's true homecoming by turning "antagonistic sentiments" into "Satisfaction" at Molly's ubiquitous ass, which he then kisses as his way of making love to her.

Stephen also characterizes Buck Mulligan in a quite particular way, thinking, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" (9: 483) at the sound of Buck's "Amen," and even earlier thinks, "Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The cold steel pen" (1:152-3) in response to a conversation with Buck. Admittedly, the conceptualizations of the characters are quite different in both complexity and content. Furthermore, even if what I am saying is true, Stephen's so-called stringing of the bow is hardly impressive, being a simple and quite ridiculous notion of his annoying-and-inappropriate-even-if-funny roommate as a mortal enemy with whom he duels.

I would urge the reader to not be so hasty, however, for the form of Stephen's use of reason turns something into something else, something ordinary and even rather grand. In other words, the form of Stephen's reasoning is on some level the form of Ulysses, which turns the story of one day in the lives of two (or three, depending on whether we want to count Molly's timeless chapter as part of the day) characters, into an affair with multiple and complex interacting layers of meaning and one of the greatest works in all of literature. Perhaps then, Stephen's use of the bow is a very elementary use of part of the art that Joyce uses in Ulysses, an art that shares much with Bloom's multilayered, complex, and scientific reasoning through his scruples (note that this difference between Bloom and Stephen's use of the bow is to be expected given different temperaments (the former's being scientific, the latter's being artistic) (17: 560)).

This difference between Joyce (and Bloom) and Stephen seems equivalent to the difference between stringing and masterfully using the bow to shoot an arrow through a dozen axe rings and merely potentially stringing it (and thus the difference between being able to kill the suitors and come home and being unable to deal with the suitors). Stephen's skill as Telemachus may not compare to Joyce's or even Bloom's as Ulysses and Odysseus. Yet, just as Telemachus's stringing shows the promise of being able to use the bow, the form of Stephen's skill seems to show the promise of being able to transform everyday experience as Joyce and Bloom do. If this is right, then Stephen should not be dismissed easily by the reader in part because, if Bloom turns his antagonistic sentiments at being cuckolded into satisfaction, then Stephen can perhaps eventually (as Joyce does) turn the night sky into "[t]he heaventree of stars, hung with humid nightblue fruit" (17: 1039). If this is correct, however, then questions remain (as they always seem to in Ulysses), because then it seems important to see how Stephen grows as importantly as Telemachus does throughout the book. However, given that we get so little access to his perspective when we encounter him in "The Wanderings of Ulysses" and "The Homecoming" (chapters 4-18), is there a way in which Joyce indirectly reveals to us Stephen's growth (perhaps in his interactions with Bloom), and what does that which we glean about Stephen's growth, as well as how we glean it, tell us about his positive relevance in Ulysses and the ways it relates to Bloom?

Santi, a former Williams College student, is a true exponent of classical wisdom. He has been known to reconcile the Stoics and Epicureans in his personal life, as he splits his time between transcendental meditation and life's finer pleasures.

Contractual Relations in Kafka's Metamorphosis

2012-05-03T00:13:00.000-04:00

By Justin Hunte

Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, awakens one morning transformed into a large insect. The troubled commercial traveler never figures out how or why he undergoes this unusual metamorphosis, especially since everything around him remains unchanged—his bedroom maintains its original décor and he can still gaze at his prized portrait of a lady sporting fur apparel. On the other hand, his new dome-shaped belly and numerous sticky legs hinder him from physically rolling out of his bed. When first reading The Metamorphosis, it is easy to get caught up on the outward characteristics that burden Gregor, but a close reading will also identify the enormous debt that weighs down the pockets of Gregor and his family. Unfortunately, even a close reading will still leave us asking one major question—what or who initiates Gregor's metamorphosis?

For starters, in German, the equivalent term for “guilt” or feeling guilty is Schulden; Shulden also closely relates to the noun Schuld which can mean “debt.” In Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche builds upon this etymological approach and reveals a historically legal relationship facilitated by a creditor and debtor. He concludes that this primitive relationship, based on repayment, developed our early forms of administering punishment for guilt. Mutually, Kafka's work tends to struggle with modern issues of traffic and exchange that can often end in tragedy. Take a quick read of “The Judgment” or “The Trial” to witness how proven or unproven guilt can usher in hardship, isolation, and death. Both plots ultimately dramatize Nietzsche's construction of the creditor and debtor relationship.

Kafka may not have had Nietzsche's notion of guilt in mind, but that should not prevent us from taking a brief detour to one resounding quote from Nietzsche (although I would suggest reading On The Genealogy of Morals in its entirety):

“To inspire trust in his promise to repay, to provide a guarantee of the seriousness and sanctity of his promise, to impress repayment as a duty, an obligation upon his own conscience, the debtor made a contract with the creditor and pledged that if he should fail to repay he would substitute something else that he 'possessed,' something he had control over; for example, his body, his wife, his freedom, or even his life…” (Second Essay: Section 5: 64).

Gregor's mind constantly shifts between his physical transformation and his determination to catch the next morning train to work. An “obligation” to repay his father's debt to the chief weighs heavily on Gregor's conscience; the son simply wishes he “didn't have to hold my hand because of my parents I'd have given notice long ago, I'd have gone to the chief and told him exactly what I think of him. That would knock him endways from his desk!” Gregor's creditor fails to trust him; the chief immediately sends his clerk over to Gregor's home in order investigate his tardiness. The clerk reminds Gregor of his capitalist ethic, “we men of business—fortunately or unfortunately—very often simply have to ignore slight indisposition, since business must be attended to.” Business obligations will always trump personal excuses or even the slightest “indisposition”; the chief impresses Gregor to “inspire trust” by holding true to their economic contract. On top of that, the chief hints to the possibility that Gregor barricades himself in his room in order to disappear with the cash payments that were recently entrusted with him.

On one level, Gregor losses possession of his body; his sudden metamorphosis turns him into an enormous and hideous insect. A Marxist reading of the plot would suggest that Gregor had already lost his human qualities once he had become a slave to his labor. Therefore, the cause of Gregor's transformation would be the social alienation created by his profession. Surely, Gregor felt out of place in cheap hotels and isolated from the privacy of his bedroom. On the other hand, a vulgar Marxist interpretation discards an essential Nietzschean component to The Metamorphosis. Gregor must work to earn money, but he also has to subject himself to the dominance of his chief. The chief orders his porters and clerks to keep tabs on Samsa and exercises many other forms of solicitation to remind Gregor of his debt.

The precise cause for Gregor's metamorphosis may never be fully answered, but the economic agreement between him and his chief definitely raises some eyebrows. Unfortunately, it would be somewhat ludicrous to conclude that the chief magically transforms Samsa into the beetle. Alternatively, we do know how social obligations dictate our daily routines and transform the way we choose to interact with others. We sometimes crawl under the recesses of our bed-sheets or hide behind closed doors to avoid the pressures of society. In the case of Gregor, his creditor-debtor relationship forces him to constantly work away from home, adhere to a rigid schedule, and sacrifice any other remnants of control he has over his life. More importantly, this contractual relationship causes Gregor to substitute his life for the sake of preserving his family. Ironically, Samsa enjoys the privacy of his own room once his human body exchanges with that of a beetle; only at that crucial moment of transformation, Gregor feels some breathing room away from his obligation to the chief. For the price of his body, Gregor prompts his creditor's clerk to flee his house as “if some supernatural power were waiting there to deliver him.”

Justin Hunte is a junior English major, heavily concerned with critical theory. He has a shameless obsession with the Frankfurt School, German idealism, and the failures of the European Enlightenment.

Shakespeare and Politics: Prodigal Son or Machiavellian "Prince"

2012-04-26T00:27:00.000-04:00

By Jack Fitzhenry

Part of what keeps Shakespeare in modern classrooms is not his saintly status, but that quality of his work which seems to withhold something from the reader, yielding it up only when new modes of interpretation become available. Shakespeare is timeless precisely because his work can respond to new schools of criticism and thought, thus providing something unique for successive generations of scholars. It is important to note that Shakespeare is not just for the english nerds but can be appreciated by a variety of disciplines should they be sensitive to its virtues. Not least among these are political scientists and historians, and this is of course especially true for his historic plays. Shakespeare is as adept a political and social commentator as any modern incarnation, a David Brooks, Paul Krugman, et al.

What might then be interesting and relevant about Henry IV parts one and two, is the prevailing interpretation of Hal's transformation, whatever that might be at a given time. It seems that currently we might have a greater proclivity towards cynicism when reading him from a modern context. Indeed the dying advice of Henry IV to his son to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels" seems designed to awaken our skepticism of such an authority. This seems especially prophetic given that Henry V focuses on just such a foreign quarrel. However, the point is that Henry V has long been venerated as a quintessentially English hero, every bit as noble as Shakespeare himself, and yet a modern reader might wonder at this veneration given some of the grounds for skepticism not only of his war and policy but of the very sincerity of his character Shakespeare remains none the less elusive, and it seems to me any attempts to decisively define his position are inherently fraught.

Consider for instance, Hal’s bold declaration in the closing lines of act 1 scene 2, he leaves the audience with a wealth of expectations. This project of "redeeming time" has at this point only been conceptualized, and the audience watches with expectation to see it brought to fruition. Then in a sense interpreting Hal becomes a bit like interpreting Hamlet's antic disposition in that the audience is always left to question Hal's motives and actions. What is derived from calculated political necessity and what is derived from genuine human feeling is not always easy to determine. Partly one's evaluation lies in the level of cynicism with which they read the character of Hal.

What is certain though is that eventually this plan does reach fruition as is evidenced by the heroes apotheosis of Henry V. Can we then identify a crucial turning point is Hal's character from tavern waif to noble king? Doubtless there are a number of points one might put forth, but obvious as they may seem these are my interpretations.

Were one to read only Henry IV, one might think this project brought to fruition first in Hals encounter with his father in act 3 scene 2, but certainly in his heroic comportment in the battle of Shrewsbury in act 5. However, even were one to stop here, there yet lingers signs of his tavern life, represented most formidably in the character of Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff is the veritable prince of merriment, king of the tavern world, and a competing father figure for prince Hal. Though he and Hal are separated from one another for the majority of part 2, Falstaff remains prominent and cannot be so in absence of his close personal relationship with Hal. In a scene most indicative of the incompleteness of his transformation Hal and Poins spy on Falstaff in Eastcheap Tavern as he is with his mistress, Doll.

While still indulging in his carousing, the prince is a truant to his father's deathbed. The audience's awareness of the King's health signals the imminence of a do or die moment for Hal. Hal does make it to his father's bedside before his passing and professes once more his love and loyalty, but this as I have mentioned has been down before in act 3 of part one. We have yet to see his transformation move from rhetoric to the pure force of consistent action.

With the passing of his father, instead of acquiescing to his surrogate father Falstaff, Hal, now Henry V, recognizes the lord chief justice, previously a personal adversary, as a sort of spiritual father. In fact in act 5 scene 2 he says as much: "You shall be as a father to my youth". Symbolically there can be no clearer act of transformation than this precedence which the spirit of the law is now taking for the first time over the spirit of merriment and carnivalesque that had previously pervaded Hal's life. Here it is that the audience senses the transformation being fulfilled. It is because he is thus resolved, that he is able to rebuke Falstaff with such callus coldness. This poignant moment in act 5 scene 5 should not be mistaken for an actual moment of transformation, rather it is the tying up of a loose end, the necessary closing of a chapter enabled by the new found force of true transformation.

Jack Fitzhenry is a senior English major at Williams College. In addition to Shakespeare his literary interests include the works of William Faulkner and Henry David Thoreau in addition to those works which address literary theory and the derivation of textual meaning.

Moby "Dick"?

2012-04-12T01:00:00.001-04:00

by Nate Barker

The other day in an English class of mine we were discussing Moby Dick, focusing in on a certain passage concerning the homoerotic overtones of a relationship between two characters (Ishmael and Queequeg for those of you familiar with Melville's work). As he is wont to do, the professor turned to me suddenly and asked me for my impressions of the short passage, saying something along the lines of "Do you think this passage is supposed to be sexual?".

I thought to myself, well, it definitely seems to be that way, Freud would certainly see the phallus imagery. But then a thought popped into my head. Why does there seem to be this trend in the academy of assuming a Freudian reading of certain texts? Yes, in my case there is a "piece of wood" and a reference to "do unto your neighbor as you would have him do to you," resulting in an obvious sexual reading. But this need not be the case. We carry on as though reaching a Freudian conclusion is in fact the ultimate conclusion in an analytical process; that is to say, once a text has been read through Freud's framework, we promptly tie off any further discussion and move on. No literary theory, not even that of the most brilliant academic ever to walk this earth, should be institutionalized to such a degree.

We should certainly weigh every possible theory and thesis when attempting to understand a text, but never should we move from theory to theory, systematically sucking all creativity out of the process. Perhaps all of this is the result of my liberal arts education. Maybe at other academic institutions students are encouraged to weigh all possibilities in literature courses, and original ideas are not marginalized by professors who cannot see past the restrictions of their discipline. Regardless, all I am saying is once I'd like to see even the clearest phallic reference in a text be read as something–anything–else.

A Slipping Mask of Sanity

2012-04-12T00:56:00.003-04:00

By Andrew Nguyen

As a lover of Shakespeare's work, I have to wonder what Shakespeare might have to say about the recent Supreme Court hearings on the new healthcare laws, if he were alive today. Arguably, quite a lot.

I am thinking of the scene in King Lear where Lear stands on the heath and recognizes the "poor naked wretches" that must "bide the pelting of this pitiless storm." As King, he is ostensibly obligated to provide justice to the people, to "show the heavens more just." Yet, Lear recognizes on the heath that he may "have ta'en / Too little care of this." Of course, Lear only comes to this recognition when he is completely stripped of his power as king, when he has no power of law and in fact stands outside the realm of law. This makes me think about the ability of law–and of those with the power to enact law–to provide any meaningful sense of justice. One of the interesting aspects about the healthcare hearings is that supporters and opponents alike are trying to use the law (the Constitution) to uphold or denounce the law (the healthcare bill). But does law actually provide justice? Or is it only in the absence of law, in the absence of power to exercise any true conception of justice, that justice can be realized?

I am not trying to say that we shouldn't have law, nor do I think Shakespeare advocates anarchy. I believe the fate of humanity is law. However, I also wonder if plays like King Lear reveal to us a madness that is as appealing and alluring as life itself.