L'Autonomie de l'Esprit saint dans la Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette

Apologies to those who can't read French, but I'm posting this largely for the few who can; most importantly my dad, who is a great fan of Georges Bernanos.


Dans la Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette, la question du sort final de l'héroïne reste ambigu. Bien qu’elle meure physiquement, la vraie question, pour un écrivain catholique comme Bernanos, c’est de savoir si elle meurt spirituellement. Son suicide est, bien sûr, un péché mortel au point de vue de l'Église. Mais la représentation de sa mort n’est pas du tout sombre ; au contraire, l'auteur utilise même des images baptismales en décrivant comment elle fixe son regard sur « le point le plus haut du ciel » (181). Ce détail n’est pas une preuve certaine de sa rédemption, mais il en indique bien la possibilité. Il faut considérer le texte dans son ensemble pour bien en saisir toutes les implications. Mais plus important que notre jugement sur l'extérieur de l'histoire est le fait que Bernanos refuse au lecteur toute information qui pourrait décider de la chose d'une manière certaine. C'est peut-être le principal procède de cet auteur par lequel il préserve l'autonomie de l'action de l'Esprit Saint.

Il importe de considérer l'action de Mouchette sous deux aspects: l'extérieur et l'intérieur. À l'extérieur, on voit se dérouler une histoire assez simple du viol et du suicide d'une jeune fille. Quant à l'intérieur, c'est-à-dire l'état psychologique de Mouchette, l'auteur nous donne à intervalles assez espaces des éclairs fugaces. Ces éclairs suggèrent qu'il y a une pureté d'intention chez Mouchette, malgré son ignorance quasi-totale des principes moraux. Sa loyauté pour Arsène, la loyauté qui le lui fait défendre contre les soupçons de la femme de M. Mathieu, empêche sa pensée de voler « vers l'homme dont elle avait subi l'étreinte » (175). Elle dirige sa haine contre elle-même, pour éviter de la diriger contre Arsène, bien qu'une telle haine soit évidemment un grand péril pour son âme. Plus importante encore, peut-être, est l'instant fugace de tendresse auquel elle faillit se soumettre quand elle veut se confesser à sa mère mourante. Hélas, cette occasion lui est retirée juste au moment où sa résistance cède à ce désir, quand « la petite tête obstinée. . .s'abandonne, avec un gémissement de fatigue, et comme au terme de son effort » (114). L'instant d'abandon vient au moment précis où, selon toute apparence, il ne sert plus de rien. La faute, si faute il y a, n'est pas à elle, mais plutôt aux circonstances. Elle est prête à se livrer, mais les circonstances enlèvent à son geste tout efficace. Ces faits nous laissent imaginer, au moins jusqu'à la quatrième partie, que sa rédemption est une possibilité.

En revanche, L’ entretien qu'a l'héroïne avec la « vieille » dans la troisième partie montre un aspect plus sinistre. Cet évènement fait partie de la matière externe de l'histoire, mais il est étroitement lié à l’évolution spirituelle de l'héroïne; donc, c'est une expérience à mi-chemin entre les deux états de l'être: l'extérieur et l'intérieur. La vieille femme mal-pensante tente la fille avec une description séduisante de la mort, de la paix et la pureté qu'apporte celle-ci: après tout, comme la vieille l'affirme, « tout ce qui vit est sale est pue » (151). Cette tentation viennent juste après les derniers mots de la mère de Mouchette, qui a bien trouvé la paix dans la mort à la fin de sa vie si solitaire, et également après le souvenir de la « paix solennelle » de la mort de son grand-père, en dépit de son « visage torturé » (105). Donc, il n'est pas très difficile pour Mouchette de la croire. En tout cas, elle n'a pas même des outils élémentaires pour clarifier toutes les idées et les images qui se mêlent dans sa tête. L'idée évocatrice de la pureté ici associe à la fois le souvenir de son premier amour pour Arsène, maintenant désacralisé, à la vision presque hallucinatoire du linceul blanc que la vieille lui offre. L'intelligence de Mouchette SE révolte contre cette association, contre l'invitation de considerer la mort comme une libération, un soulagement, et elle crie « Vous me dégoutez, sale vieille bête » (160). Mais cette révolte consciente n'est pas assez forte pour extirper l'attrait de l'idée de confesser son histoire: la vieille la convie à « parle[r] à [son] aise » (161). Inconsciente maintenant de ce qu'elle fait, elle se confesse, mais à son insu et au notre, pour ainsi dire. Comme Mouchette réfléchit à l'entretien qu'elle vient d'avoir, elle se dit que « La merveille est que [la vieille] ait réussi à [m’] arracher son secret » (167).

À cet instant-là, on comprend qu'on est maintenant complètement dans le domaine spirituel. Les gestes extérieurs que Mouchette accomplit ne lui sont plus intelligibles, à nous non plus. C’est de propos délibéré que Bernanos écrit de cette façon oblique. À cause d'elle, la conclusion de l'histoire nous laisse dans l'obscurité quant au salut de Mouchette. Même quand on a prise en considérations les détails que nous venons d'énumérer, on doit reconnaître qu'on ne sait rien de sûr. Mais pour un catholique fervent comme Bernanos, une telle connaissance certaine serait inconvenable. Alors que d’autres auteurs modernes se permettent un accès illimité aux secrets intimes de leurs personnages, Bernanos garde une très grande réserve. Si on pouvait juger Mouchette, on usurperait la connaissance des âmes réservée à Dieu (et à quelques saints). Malgré tous les indices à propos de la trajectoire que suit Mouchette, dans l'évaluation finale il y a toujours place pour la volonté, le choix ultime qui va décider le destin. Et parce que le choix n’est pas fixé, il y a également toujours place pour l'action de l'Esprit Saint dans les actions humaines. Donc, on ne peut pas protester que ce que Bernanos a fait ici nous laisse incapables de dire quelque chose de concluant, parce que c'est un élément intégral de son art. Devant « la brèche à peine ouverte du désespoir dans [cette] âme simple », il ne peut rien de plus que compter sur l'action de la grâce de Dieu et garder l'espoir dans sa bonté (176).

Morals or Preference: Education in Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park is in more ways than one a story of education. Jane Austen not only chronicles the growth of her protagonist from a timid eight-year-old to a strongly principled young woman here; she also traces the miseducation of a panoply of characters from Maria Bertram to Mary and Henry Crawford. While Fanny flourishes under Edmund's tutelage, others—most strikingly the Crawfords—have personal charm and good nature to spare, yet are corrupted through lack of guidance and bad example. One brief episode from Fanny's visit to Portsmouth in the final third of the novel isolates this theme, framing the question in simpler terms than would be appropriate among the finely nuanced characters inhabiting Mansfield with their complex interrelationships. The basic narrative of the episode is simple: Fanny reacquaints herself with her younger sister, Susan, eventually discerning the girl's excellent nature, and gradually gains the confidence to guide her in refining her actions to accord with this. Yet behind Austen's satire here is the serious question of whether education might not be overrated as encouraging true morality when its true effect is to make one agree with the tastes of respectable, upper-middle class England. While Fanny essentially identifies herself as an inculcator of morality, her reliability is called into question by her overall attitude towards her childhood and adoptive homes, which often seems more a matter of personal taste than the weight she lends it would warrant. Ultimately, the narrative resolves the question by finding in the great literature of the world an objective standard by which both Fanny and the reader can evaluate what sort of behavior is morally praiseworthy.

Though she introduces this chapter with an epistolary portion and ends it describing Fanny's expectation of another letter, Austen focuses exclusively on the situation at Fanny's home in Portsmouth throughout the central portion. Much of this central panel is descriptive rather than plot driven: Fanny analyzes her sister's character, her opinions channeled through narrative use of free indirect discourse, as when she admits to herself that “Susan tried to be useful, where she could only have gone away and cried” (Austen, 388). Musing that it was not “wonderful” that a “girl of fourteen acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err,” Fanny begins to understand that Susan is constantly busy and argumentative not with the same viciousness as Mrs. Norris habitually displays, but through a genuine but uninstructed desire to help her family (Austen, 388). Yet despite her ability to see “much that was wrong at home” and to attempt to “set it right” she clearly needs direction in how to put these aspirations into effect. Reticent by nature, Fanny cannot at first “imagine herself capable of guiding or informing anyone”; yet her meditations on the matter embolden her and she exerts herself increasingly to assist her sister, first by giving her “occasional hints,” then by settling the knife controversy between Susan and Betsey (Austen, 389). Ultimately identifying Susan's difficulty as lack of a “cousin Edmund to direct her thoughts and form her principles” Fanny begins to imitate Edmund's method of directing principles through encouraging reading (Austen, 390). “Daring” in her new wealth, she subscribes to a “circulating library” and creates an upstairs retreat reminiscent of her own apartment at Mansfield in which she and Susan could work, talk, and read (Austen, 390).

As well-intentioned as Fanny herself is, this decision to take the moral education of her sibling in hand may appear almost presumptuous. The “deficiencies” she perceives at Portsmouth are less problematic than she assumes; the narrative comment that “the men appeared [my emphasis] to her all coarse, the women all pert” is tinged with an irony that recalls Fanny’s complaints about her family in the previous chapter (Austen, 387). It is surely not quite dysfunctional, still less morally problematic, for a large family to be boisterous, though her criticisms of her parents’ indifference may be justified (Austen, 383). Moreover, the letter that opens this narrative further calls into question whether Fanny’s principles might not be more a matter of taste than of morality. Though hardly Miss Crawford’s friend, Fanny is “really glad to receive [Mary’s] letter,” finding in it a vicarious return to the “good society” from which she is presently exiled (Austen, 386). The satirical comments about Maria and Julia and the upsetting recollection of Henry’s newfound preoccupation—which compose the bulk of the letter—Fanny summarily passes over as “food for…unpleasant meditation”: any news from good society, even framed in biting terms, is to be preferred to the riotousness of Portsmouth (Austen, 387).
Yet even interpreted in these unflattering terms, Fanny’s response to Susan admits of a compelling defense. Fanny’s slight snobbery does not discredit her entire understanding of morality. She is often, as seen in her reaction to the Crawfords, the only one capable of discerning the presence or absence of integrity in a character. Much of what she sees in Susan is in need of some correction, as we see when the latter contentiously adheres to her own will throughout the longstanding quarrel over “the sore subject of the silver knife” (Austen, 389). And it does not require a stretch of the imagination to conceive that an active, orderly, helpful child whose “looks and language” are “very often indefensible” in their argumentativeness might, if neglected, grow up into a second Mrs. Norris (Austen, 388-89).

Moreover, while Fanny does consider herself privileged by “her own more favored education” to have “juster notions of what was due to every body,” her delicacy and timidity about interfering in the first place suggest that she will not simply be attempting to impose her tastes on Susan (Austen, 389). More crucially, although this is mentioned only at the close of the account, books are carefully highlighted as of primary importance in both Fanny’s memory of her own education and Susan’s present curriculum. To read a good book is to intend some sort of “improvement” that is not tied to the likes and dislikes of one’s associates, but to a tradition reaching back to the beginnings of Western literary history. Certainly an educator must have good principles himself to be the “chuser of books” if the education is to be good, but this is no impediment for Fanny, just as it was not for Edmund years before. The “biography and poetry” in which Fanny delights essentially allow her to transmit her notions of what is good without expressing them solely in her own potentially biased terms (Austen, 391).

This chapter as a whole mirrors the structure of the entire novel, which centers on the narrative of Fanny’s education, and then branches out to complicate the depiction of her upbringing with the advent of the Crawfords, whose charm and initial appearance of conversion calls into question whether education is truly crucial for a person to develop a good character. The outcome of the book clearly affirms that education is necessary to prevent the corruption of the well-meaning Fanny and Susan into the second generation’s Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris by checking their respective tendencies to passivity and aggressive activity. Yet here, as in the denouement of the novel, Austen resolves the question by invoking a higher moral authority than that of Fanny alone. While the Crawfords are ultimately condemned and Fanny’s education implicitly endorsed by the universal verdict of Edmund, Fanny, Sir Thomas, society in general, and even the readership, this minor dilemma is resolved when Austen reminds us that fallible as even Fanny is, her tutelage will find its support in books. Despite the fallibility of human teachers, Austen affirms, the benefits of education may be preserved through an effort to delve into the annals of tradition and learn from great men and women long dead the means by which a good life can be achieved.

The Problem with Learning

At several points throughout the Platonic dialogues, the “learners paradox,” also known as “Meno's paradox,” is raised as the foremost problem any epistemological investigation must face. “How,” it queries, is learning possible if one does not know to begin with what one must learn?” (Meno, 80d). Whatever solutions have been offered since Plato's time, and whatever their merits, the paradox remains in the background of any discussion of how we acquire knowledge. Indeed, one might even say that the paradox does not merely present a problem in its own right, but rather in its own way expresses the most fundamental problem that all investigation of this sort faces: how is it possible for us to come to know the world in the face of the chasm that exists between our sensory experience and our knowledge? According to the paradox, we do not know reality, yet somehow seem to be capable of coming to know it; how can our sensory experience be any help at all to us in this endeavor if we do not already know what we seek? Unlike later philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, do not try to solve this problem by denying our ability to come to know reality: rather, they affirm despite all odds that there is a reality which exists independently of us which we can somehow come to know. Thus, if the learner's paradox really is as fundamental and problematic as it seems, judgment of either philosopher's epistemology will at some point find it necessary to examine how well they provide an answer to this puzzle.

The model for acquisition of knowledge implicit in Plato's Phaedo is in certain respects remarkably similar to Aristotle's. The discussion midway through the dialogue of the “Theory of Recollection” assumes, just as Aristotle does, that knowledge of the reality of things is reached through sensory experience of particulars through which one is able to abstract universal truths. “Surely,” Socrates remarks, “this conception of ours derives from seeing or touching or some other sense perception, and cannot come into our mind in any other way” (Phaedo, 75a). Likewise Aristotle observes that men “by nature desire to know” and thus take “delight. . .in [their] senses” which allow them to acquire knowledge (Metaphysics, I,1).

Beyond this core similarity, however, there are many obvious discrepancies between the arguments, most notably the language of recollection present in Plato but absent in Aristotle. For Socrates, it is important that his epistemology retain this language, at least in the Phaedo, because his argument is in the first place trying to prove the immortality of the soul. Thus one central motivation for using this language turns out to be incidental to Plato's actual view of the soul's learning process. But there nonetheless must be more compelling reasons to preserve this manner of speaking, as it is a common thread of multiple dialogues (Phaedo, Meno, and Phaedrus, for example), becoming, at least apparently, characteristic of Plato's philosophy. This more compelling reason is his need to answer the learner's paradox. According to a literal reading of the texts, Plato's solution to this conundrum is to deny that there is anything at all that we do not know. “There is nothing” Socrates claims, “that [the soul] has not learned”; all knowledge is present in the soul by virtue of its long experience and many reincarnations (Meno, 81c). Our seeming ignorance on earth is merely the result of our immortal soul's descent into a body, a material object which so muddles and confuses it that it forgets all its certain knowledge at birth. The solution to the paradox is in essence then, a claim that we both know and do not know everything we will experience. As a soul alone we know the forms of all things, but as a human being, we must struggle through possibly misleading sensory experience to “recall” that which we have now forgotten.

This solution is unthinkable for Aristotle. His hylomorphic view of the human person is central in his philosophy, and the belief that the soul is the form of the body makes recollection from a pre-corporeal existence is impossible. At a time when there was no body, there could have been no soul existing separately and possessing knowledge in its own right as a substance independent of the body. However, if Aristotle must reject Plato's solution, his theory of learning is faced afresh with the problem of the paradox. Nonetheless, we have examined Plato's solution only in a literal sense thus far. As it will turn out, there is a way of interpreting Plato's epistemology which brings it even closer to Aristotle's, and this reconciliation may perhaps prove useful in directing our approach to determining whether Aristotle's philosophy can present a viable solution to the learner's paradox.

Plato's literal solution relies exclusively upon the language of recollection, yet evidence from Phaedrus points to another possible interpretation of how we can understand recollection to begin with. Though he uses the image of a person remembering what he has known in a pre-corporeal state in both Meno and Phaedo to clarify his point, in Phaedrus Plato presents the object of “recollection” as “the Idea, a unity gathered together by reason” (Phaedrus, 249c). In other words, recollection perhaps is not so much remembering as the ability to recognize a thing according to its place in the universal sum of knowledge by means of the logical apparatus and capacity to recognize truth which are in man by nature. Phrased this way, in admittedly non-Platonic language, the position reveals its similarity to Aristotle's. Aristotle understands the mind as the sum of all knowledge, a concept remarkably similar to Plato's “unity gathered together by reason”. He even goes so far as to call it “the place of forms”, the forms being both for him and for Plato, the truly knowable aspect of a being (De Anima, III,4). The mind is, moreover, the single aspect of the soul which lives on after death, a point which recalls Plato's assertion that the soul, the proper knower of all things, is immortal (De Anima, II,2). Thus the two philosophers agree that the soul is the true location of all knowledge and that the soul understood in this sense is immortal: Aristotle's epistemology does not differ from Plato's in these respects, at least. Though this has taken us a long way towards reconciling the two epistemologies however, it turns out that it does not really solve our initial problem. In order to effect this reconciliation, I had to employ essentially Aristotelean language to explain Plato's position. Only when the language of potentiality and actuality is introduced and applied to this statement does it begin to sound like the full solution Aristotle's ideas can lead us to.

Aristotle's introduction to Western thought of the distinction between actuality and potentiality is the single major difference between the two philosophers that I will address here. Meno's paradox presupposes that we can be in only two states with respect to our knowledge of a given thing: one of positive knowledge or one of complete ignorance and unfamiliarity. Plato points towards Aristotle's solution by presenting a sort of “third manner” of knowing: knowing perfectly in the soul while the human person as a whole knows imperfectly but can recollect the knowledge of the soul given sufficient help. Applied to the learner's paradox, Aristotle's theory of knowledge takes the idea of a “third way” even further. All human beings, he says, are fully capable of knowing all truth. That is, we by nature are innately receptive of truth: we have the intrinsic ability to receive truth when presented with it, even if not previously knowing it in action. Actual knowledge may be absent, but it is absent in such a way that when presented with it, we are able to tell what it is and where it belongs. This is a round about way of expressing the idea that all knowledge of truth “is present”—though such language is inadequate to express the nature of potentiality—potentially in our souls. Acquisition of knowledge is simply actualization of this potential.

Thus, we see that Plato can be read as pointing towards a theory of knowledge that Aristotle later develops by introducing the distinction between actuality and potentiality. Though we cannot accept Plato's original model of the soul as a separate, all-knowing entity whose knowledge we remember over the course of a muddled lifetime if, like Aristotle, we want to preserve the idea that the soul is the form of the body, the alternate interpretation of Plato hints at Aristotle's resolution of this difficulty by altering our understanding of what recollection consists of. Knowledge is in some sense “in” the mind for Aristotle as well as for Plato. The literal answer to the learner's paradox—that we know all things anyway because our soul has already encountered them—must be discarded in light of the Aristotelean understanding of the human person. However, in establishing the language of potentiality and actuality, Aristotle in turn can provide a resolution to the problem of how to gain knowledge by expressing our potential to receive knowledge as our means of “knowing” what we don't know, and therefore as the grounds for its eventual drawing out and actualization.

The Education of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass’ autobiography follows the development of his earnest conviction of his innate humanity and liberty. This realization has its roots in his early childhood when he entertained “a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold [him] within its foul embrace” (Douglass, 43). The rest of his years as a slave are a continual struggle to retain this inborn sense of humanity in the face of repeated attempts to reduce him to a state of bestial apathy towards his natural liberty. Preservation of his sense of inherent freedom and humanity requires that his embryonic understanding be nourished through education from some trustworthy source which supports, deepens, and sophisticates the vague comprehension with which he is born. This source he discovers by learning to read.

Experience is the first form of education Douglass receives. As a small child he witnesses much brutality in plantation life. Recounting his experience of seeing his aunt brutally beaten by his master, he observes that “it was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and participant” (Douglass, 21). He speaks of the songs and chants of his people, each of which is “a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains,” and traces his “first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery” from his hearing of these songs (Douglass, 27, 28). Despite his horror at the injustices suffered by his people however, he does not “understand the deep meaning” of their sadness well enough to express it in concrete terms (Douglass, 27). He longs vaguely for freedom but has little comprehension of why the opposite is wrong and poor ability to phrase his intuition.

Moreover, though experience reveals to him the ugliness of the institution, in the long run it has the potential to deceive him. Natural sentiment, met with the sights the young Douglass witnesses, initially revolts. However, constant dehumanizing treatment can hardly fail to make some impression on most people, and the Narrative recounts the deadening effect slavery—both the experience of being enslaved and owning slaves—has upon the souls of men, black and white alike. The masters beastialize themselves by denying the humanity of other men, convincing themselves and others that these slaves are incapable of “virtuous freedom” (Douglass, 80). Slavery can prove as injurious” to such tyrants as it does to those from whom they have withheld freedom (Douglass, 49). The slaves in their turn, having no guide to reveal the path from servitude to freedom, begin to swallow the lie that they are not fit for the “privilege” of basic human liberty. Constant mistreatment and attempts to break their natural spirit can only reinforce such a misconception. Experience can degrade more than it enlightens, Douglass shows. Some further teacher is necessary to sustain the germ of liberty within the heart of a slave.

Douglass attains this further education through reading. Ironically enough, his master, Hugh Auld, is responsible for kindling Douglass' enthusiasm for this mode of education by remarking that to teach a slave his letters “would forever unfit him to be a slave” (Douglass, 45). Upon hearing this, Douglass realizes that “the white man's power to enslave the black man” is found in the former's ability to keep the latter illiterate. Books and education in language give “tongue to interesting thoughts of [Douglass'] soul, which had frequently flashed through [his] mind, and died away for lack of utterance (Douglass, 51). By preserving ideas in concrete words, a book helps to immortalize and clarify glimpses of the truth that appear in experience. In Douglass' soul, “freedom now appear[s] to disappear no more” (Douglass, 51).

The experience of slaves in the American South was of being perpetually ground deeper into a “beast-like stupor” that crippled the natural feeling of innate freedom. Insofar as his only education was experience, the indoctrination his brutal treatment imposed could “disgust the slave with freedom” by causing himself to believe himself unfit for it (Douglass, 81). Thus, the strength of the innate notion of human freedom is to some degree a matter of cultural inheritance, due to the influence of the education provided by one's culture. The result of Douglass' reading is that his education is not confined to the indoctrination pressed upon him by his cultural circumstances. His formation in knowledge and understanding “rekindles the few expiring embers of freedom,” and “revives in [him] the sense of [his] own manhood” (Douglass, 78).

Slavery's Destruction of the Family

This small paper begins to get at some of what I was talking about previously, though it's not in any sense complete. I'm only focusing on the family here, and even my treatment of that is quite restricted due to length limits. It's a good pre-exercise for the real thing, though. The prompt here was "What role does the cabin play as the dominent image in Stowe's argument against slavery?"

Given the title of Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic protest against slavery, it is not surprising that Uncle Tom's cabin plays an important symbolic role in her argument. This cabin, as the center of Uncle Tom's family life, represents the most sacred and fundamental unit of human society. However, in a slave-owning society, both Uncle Tom and his home are no more than pieces of property, vulnerable at any moment to separation. According to Stowe, the social and moral ills of slavery are rooted in the destruction of the family, in robbing human beings of the capacity to create a safe and secure home.

Physically present for only a few brief pages towards the beginning of the book, the cabin nevertheless acts as the dominant image of slavery's catastrophic effect on family life, particularly in its later conspicuous absence. First presented as a neat, welcoming sanctuary of family life, with its "neat garden patch" and good food, the position of this "snug territory" is nonetheless insecure (Stowe, 32). Its status as center of life for the small community of relations and friends on the estate is legally subordinate to that of the master's "close adjoining" house (Stowe, 32). The preceding scenes in which the master and trader plan to sell Tom, the spiritual and familial head of this small community, make the reader aware that the most attentive efforts of a slave to create a happy, peaceful household are in vain if the master finds it convenient to break up this state by selling a member of the family. Tom is sold, removed from his home and family in order to satisfy the debts of a relatively decent master. He has no right to defend his home; no liberty to fight for himself and the welfare of those he loves. Not only is his lifestyle insecure, but he has no freedom to secure it.

The motif of the breaking up of familial relationships continues from the time Tom is sold to the end of the narrative. George and Eliza Harris' desperate bid to preserve their family in a free land, Topsy's lack of a good and loving upbringing, and Cassy's bitterness at having been robbed of her daughter and of the chance of a stable family demonstrate how this legal and societal lack of respect for the home of a slave plagues those who live in such a society. Thus, even in the best of circumstances where a kind master and mistress allow the foundation of such a community among the slaves, the home cannot truly flourish. The system of slavery destroys the essential characteristic of security in family life by viewing people as property, liable to be sold to satisfy a good master's debts or a bad master's whims. As another decent slave owner, Augustine St. Clare puts it, the heart of the evil of slavery does not lie in its "abuses": "the thing itself is the essence of all abuse" (Stowe, 262).

During Tom's absence, his cabin is "shut up" (Stowe, 301). He is robbed of it and it is robbed of him. Not until the very end is this break in some sense healed. George Shelby—himself a former honorary member of Uncle Tom's family, though the master's son—frees the slaves and removes this insecurity from them "in case of [his] getting in debt or dying" (Stowe, 509). The cruel fate of Uncle Tom had caused Shelby to resolve "that nobody, through me, should ever run the risk of being parted from home and friends, and dying on a lonely plantation" (Stowe, 509). His final exhortaion to his former servants serves as an exhortation to Stowe's readers as well. "Think of your freedom," he says, "every time you see Uncle Tom's cabin"; this simple house will be a reminder of the evils of slavery that tear apart the family and uproot a loving household (Stowe, 509).

Jolly exciting, all this!

Going back to what I was saying last night:

Essentially, Stowe's argument is that slavery dehumanizes people by treating them like "isolated selves", as though they were individual pawns to be separated from ties of family and friends at the whim of their masters. There is no recognition in law of their personal identity in terms of their family or larger community. You see this in her constant centering of the plot around various types of homes: we start in the "ideal" slave-owning household where the slaves are treated with incredible kindness by their owners. The lack of respect in law for their community however results in Uncle Tom and Eliza (for her son's sake) being torn from this community in order to satisfy his master's debts. The first dozen chapters end with Eliza arriving safely at the idyllic Quaker home in the north. The second dozen follow Uncle Tom south to where we find Eva, a sort of symbol of purity in the midst of the deep south, saddened by the sin of her own home and longing for an eternal one. Finally we have the tragic scene where Uncle Tom is killed yet dies a freer man than any of his murderers because he has held on to the one community - the Christian (real Christian) community that no earthly law can rob him of.

This is all pretty evident from even the most brief summary. The real controversy remains whether this is at all what Douglass and Jacobs are trying to say. (Fortunately we only have to deal in detail with Douglass for the paper - if we had to treat Jacobs too, this really could get to dissertation length.) Just as with Stowe's book, Douglass's argument becomes much more apparent if you start by looking at it from a more architectonic standpoint. Chapter 1 opens with Douglass' regrets that he knows neither his birthday nor his father nor his mother. Chapter 2 centers around his lack of a home and on the slaves' innate attraction to the idea of the "Great House Farm" which will be not just their master's but theirs as well. In chapter 3 we get an account of his inability to live the way he wishes to - not just of his lack of independence to do whatever he feels like, but of his freedom to live well: he speaks of how slavery creates a disjunct between the "thoughts of the heart" and one's moral obligations, and what the slaves must in fact say and do. They are forced to lie, to ignore familial bonds, to keep their own self-interest at the forefront of their minds if they are to survive at all. The introduction of the overseer in the fourth chapter and accounts of killings perpetrated by him and his ilk for which the slaves have no hope of legal redress emphasize the lack of protection in law for their community. (Isn't this cool stuff?) Finally, in chapter five and following, Douglass learns to read. This reintroduces him to a community, gives him a notion of it that in turn gives him the courage to claim his freedom. Once able to read he has "reached the period in [his] life when [he] can give dates"; he receives a new set of "fathers" in the figures of the Founding Fathers and others whose writings educate him in a sense of his humanity; in the language of scripture, he receives a new mother tongue. When he finally has this new sense of community (sense of time, forebears, church), of where he belongs as an individual in relation to other people, he fights to preserve it.

So that's the idea, more or less, from an architectonic point of view. Seven pages will leave plenty of room for explicit quotations and so forth, which will be fun.

Another seven page paper!

Well, I've got another 7-page paper assigned in American Civ. The prompt is even more exciting than the last one. Seriously, you could write a dissertation on the thing. The actual prompt is only a sentence long: "Does Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin betray or convey the slaves' own argument against slavery." Ok. Maybe on first reading it doesn't sound all that enthralling (or maybe it does). But if you've been doing the reading, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, if you know even a bit about the virulent controversy revolving around the question of the proper way to interpret the slave's demand for freedom and the black Americans' demand for civil rights (Martin Luther King vs Malcom X, anyone?), and if you've just been bowled over by the realization that Uncle Tom's Cabin isn't just a silly, sentimental novel but has a valid and well-structured argument at its base, you probably will reconsider.


Add to that the fact that Dr. Hanssen handed out several very cool readings - one from Cicero (De Officiis) on how we can understand man's natural rights in terms of his moral obligations, one from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, an excerpt from John Paul II's "Veritatis Splendor" which discusses intrinsically evil acts, part of an address from Pope Benedict, and a very interesting chapter from a book about women's experiences in slavery by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese - and you can see how this paper has the potential to be very fun indeed. I'm going to argue that Uncle Tom's Cabin, contrary to the ideas of more recent literary criticism ("more recent" being the '60s), does in fact convey the Douglass' and Jacob's main argument against slavery. How does it do that? Well, that's where everything should get so interesting, of course.

I shall post about it tomorrow.

A Practical Religion

“I fancy,” Benjamin Franklin muses in discussing his famous decision to run away from his apprenticeship, “[my brother's] harsh and tyrannical Treatment of me, might be a means of impressing me with that Aversion to arbitrary Power that has stuck to me thro' my whole Life” (Franklin, 69). This is only a side comment – no more than a note to the main text, in fact – yet it succinctly summarizes the spirit of Franklin's legendary bid for independence. Preceding this symbolic break with the convention of apprenticeship, he had already broken with his family's conventional Puritan religion in favor of a temperate liberal deism, but it was not until several years later that he codified his personal beliefs. The thirteen precepts he outlines focus entirely on moral issues and he refuses to favor any specific doctrinal teachings. Franklin's approach underscores his independence and practicality in all spheres of life. He “conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral Perfection” in a spirit of self-sufficient practicality which led him to renounce the authority of church dogma in favor of the natural virtues which could be ecumenically agreed upon and which a man of any religion could follow to become a model of “Probity and Integrity” (Franklin, 148, 158).

His moral code is marked above all by an ethic of tolerance which stems in part from a laudable desire to respect individual freedom, but also from a distorted definition of humility. In his list of virtues, humility stands at the end as a sort of addendum expressing his overarching concept of religious tolerance. “Imitate Jesus and Socrates” he instructs himself (Franklin, 150). The dichotomy in this instruction, obvious to anyone who understands Jesus as the Answer which Socrates stubbornly denies knowing, seems unapparent to Franklin. He strove for the classic Socratic modesty of “knowing that he knows nothing” and gains “at least the Appearance” of such humility, but it is not the humility of a Christian which arises from actual though unmerited knowledge of the Truth (Franklin, 157). Franklin's definition may indeed suffice for most practical purposes, and his primary concern was “the Utility and Excellency of [his] Method” (157). Through it he hoped to encourage human virtues among all sects. Reserving declarations of knowledge would promote respect for individual freedom with regard to beliefs about God and the nature of life, and adoption of a non-doctrinal code of virtue would, he believed, be in “every one's Interest... who wished to be happy even in this world” (Franklin, 158).

In evaluating the benefits of Franklin's purely moral religion, one must distinguish between its application in the sphere of government versus its application in the individual. Reducing religion to moral precepts discoverable by reason may be justified in the public sphere. Indeed, in a world where the religious turmoil of the 1500s and 1600s still reverberated throughout the West, removing governmental attachment to any “particular Sect” would be wise (Franklin, 157). However, within a church or an individual soul such tolerance becomes no more than false humility. Assuming that churches typically claim to be qualified to lead their members to the truth of Christ (or whatever else they hold to be ultimate truth), they must have certain convictions in context of which other beliefs are considered wrong. The human person, moreover, created for the truth as he is, will (like Franklin) be incapable of attaining true victory over pride, that “one of our natural Passions [most] hard to subdue,” if he does not recognize that there is a truth much deeper than the moral rules man can discover through unaided reason (Franklin, 160). Franklin's ethic of tolerance, then, is a useful guide for the government's approach to religious matters, but it cannot on its own produce the breed of upright citizens he hoped for (Franklin, 162).

Franklin was not alone in his distrust of arbitrary religious authority, this spirit having been predominant to some extent among the early colonists who had been driven from England by the new monolithic state religion. Principles of religious liberty as outlined in the First Article of the Bill of Rights underscore our Republican government's historic attachment to Franklin's Socratic humility with respect to religion. As long as churches have flourished within the consequent atmosphere of tolerance the tendency of this spirit to undermine individual citizens' prerogative to devote themselves to the Truth has been held in check. Today, however, as tolerance becomes more and more an autonomous religion in America and across the world, the Socratic mindset threatens to overwhelm Christian certainty of Truth. Franklin's style of tolerance is now many people's sole “religion” and the morality Franklin so valued, robbed of any firm foundational doctrine, is weakened to the point of collapse.

The American Identity?

"The symbol at once of his city and his country" (Brogan, 97). So Hugh Brogan describes Benjamin Franklin in his discussion of the awakening of the American Revolution. Franklin appears as such a symbol repeatedly throughout Brogan's book: the iconic American, not necessarily at the forefront of every action but tirelessly involved in democratic activity, and always present as the standard by which Brogan defines the American character. His biography, accentuating his move from a strictly conventional upbringing to an enlightened, freethinking independence, serves for Brogan as a roadmap of the Revolution itself. Through the metamorphosis of his own character, Franklin becomes a prophet of the evolution of "the American people as such" (Brogan 167).

Franklin's life as recounted in Brogan's text is constructed of a series of small revolutions through which he attains to ever greater independence. Of solid Puritan stock, Franklin soon rejected that stern religion for a more mild deism, though Puritan culture still influenced him enough to preserve his strong sense of moral duty. Brogan describes Franklin as a "hedonistic Puritan" whose ability to set aside the more restrictive aspects of that religion illustrates the "extraordinary transformation that was threatening Puritanism in the eighteenth century" (Brogan, 97). After a brief apprenticeship to his brother, James, he threw off this restraint as well to begin "a rapid rise to great prosperity" in Philadelphia (Brogan, 97). "Middle class to the core," Franklin achieved each success by virtue of his own work - neither by superior birth nor by preexistent wealth. His "characteristically American practicality" was to some degree necessitated by this fact (Brogan, 97). In a society where popular acclaim bring about both fame and wealth, discoveries and inventions ought to be geared to the "masses" who will appreciate useful creations to any pure science or art, Brogan invites us to infer. The independent spirit he possessed often led him to initiate private movements to accomplish what "elsewhere was left to the authorities," and this habit as well he shared with this compatriots (Brogan, 97-8).

Such is the portrait Brogan presents of Franklin, and such is the model he offers for his account of the newly developed American identity. For Brogan this identity was forged in the disasters, sufferings, and triumphs of the war itself, though it had originated long before the fateful events of 1775 (Brogan, 167). If Franklin was the "prophet of the cult of rising in the world by hard work and honest worth," the war was the trial which proved to the ordinary American just how difficult the struggle to rise in the world as a nation would be (Brogan, 97). The industry and worth of Washington, who led a bedraggled group of patriots to victory over the world's most powerful empire, is a case in point of the spirit Franklin symbolized (Brogan, 170-71). War also heightened the fervor for independence throughout America by forcing the reality of revolution into every aspect of daily life. The heroism of young Andrew Jackson and thousands other young men like him was occasioned by the struggle, and their ardor for the cause kept alive by the example of men like Washington (Brogan, 184). Moreover, by "overturning... all the old political ways and means” the war demanded that any who would perhaps have preferred neutrality make a conscious decision for or against independence; the cause of liberty was thus popularized (Brogan, 168).

For Brogan, Franklin was a character at one with the common people of America: once a rebellious apprentice himself, his bid for freedom led to an independence as substantive as that which the agitation of mobs of "saucy boys" ultimately achieved. It seems immaterial to Brogan that his portrayal of the American mob as standing in sharp contrast to the popular image of a "uniquely discriminating, moderate, politically motivated mob" puts it into contrast as well with the character of Franklin (126). The legacy of rebellion itself, of throwing off the old order in favor of the new, formed the identity of the American people. The "apprenticeship of a statesman" succeeded in Franklin's life through his refusal to submit to the bonds of a restrictive society (Brogan, 99). Likewise the motley crew of "saucy boys, Negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues, and outlandish jack tars" was transformed into the mature American society that gave birth to the Constitution (John Adams, quoted in Brogan, 127). Revolution itself was the essence of the American character and its sustaining force by Brogan's view. It is unlikely, I believe, that Franklin would have agreed. Strong character needs to be based on something more than non-conformism, and freedom demands a strong character. "Only virtuous people," Franklin writes, "are capable of freedom" (Works of Benjamin Franklin, Sparks, 297). The admirable ethos born in eighteenth century America was connected to the people's spirit of independence, but had deeper roots than this alone. The early American's love of liberty was firmly planted in the basic conviction that "all men are created equal" and that justice laid out by our Creator gives each person the right to fight and die that these rights may endure.

Revolution Against a New Order

Two great revolutions shook the foundations of the Western world near the turn of the eighteenth century. The first took place in America. Its leaders demanded both their natural rights as human beings and their particular rights as Englishmen; debate, legislation, and the battlefield were the means by which the struggle proceeded. The second transpired in France, and its leaders initiated a reign of terror to achieve their purposes, invoking the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity as they “pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law” and every other traditional institution (Edmund Burke, quoted in John Adams by McCullough, p.418). Both in character and motivation the two could hardly have been more different. Yet it is common among historians to portray them as being of essentially the same mold, whatever the contemporary testimony to the contrary. Thomas Jefferson's “Summary View of the Rights of British America” is just such a contemporary account. In it we find evidence to contradict Hugh Brogan's thesis that the American Revolution parallels that of the French in its attempts to overthrow an “old order” and to create a new, democratic system.

Despite the fact that the origin of the British empire was approximately simultaneous with the origin of the American colonies, Brogan's first move is to equate it and its mercantilist political and economic system with the old order of Europe (Brogan, 80-81). Thomas Jefferson has no such illusions. He lucidly marks out the various “encroachments” which imperial Britain had begun to make on the traditional rights of Englishmen in the colonies and is careful to draw attention to the lack of historical precedent for such usurpations, calling them “instance[s] of despotism to which no parallel can be produced in the most arbitrary ages of British history” (Jefferson, Para. 2). Invoking the natural rights of man and the customary privileges of English citizens, he accuses a new set of Parliamentary legislation of oppressing the colonies and thus forfeiting any rights it may have had over them.

Nor does Jefferson advocate the creation of the type of new democratic order which the French would later resort to, though Brogan, with his focus upon the activity of the “democratic” American mob, believes this to be the common aim of American Revolutionaries (Brogan, 126-27). Though objecting to the officious meddling of Parliament, Jefferson goes no further than to insist upon the colonists' right to their own legislature. This body of law makers would not have to be completely independent of England but could submit, together with Parliament, to the common executive authority of the King. Even the desire for an independent legislature, little as it had been implemented in previous centuries, was not new in principle. The English Parliament was, at least in theory, representative of the people of that kingdom. The sending of delegates from each part of the country accomplished a fairly comprehensive representation; America, however, had no representatives in Parliament at all. 'Can any one reason be assigned,” Jefferson asks, “why one hundred and sixty thousand electors in the island of Great Britain, should give law to four millions in the States of America?” (Jefferson, Para. 6). The Americans had a right to representative legislatures both as men and as British subjects. With Parliament's encroachments on this right “one free and independent legislature, hereby [took] upon itself to suspend the powers of another, free and independent as itself” (Jefferson, Para. 6). The Revolution would right this wrong, not bring about a new era of unbridled democracy, which the majority of American founders saw as dangerous to the health of any nation.

Demolition of an old order was not at the heart of the Revolution which Thomas Jefferson and his compatriots led. Far from being the “final shape” of the old order of Europe, eighteenth-century England was in fact the fruit of its relatively recent Protestant reformation and the resulting birth of the political concept of the hegemonic nation-state (Brogan, 76). While the similarly Protestant colonies were by no means advocating a return to the Catholic Middle Ages, they were willing to take a stand against attempts to build a unified state at the expense of personal liberty. Revolutionary as their implementation of their ideals may have been, the Americans drew inspiration not so much from vague concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity as from a firm conviction that they were, both as men and as British citizens, owed their traditional right to a representative legislature and the freedom to conduct their lives without arbitrary interference of an over controlling government - “rights which God, and the laws, have given equally and independently to all” (Jefferson, Para. 1).

Hugh Brogan's Saga of Settlement

In “The Settlement,” Book I of his overview of American history (see The Penguin History of the USA), Hugh Brogan presents to a presumably gullible audience two accounts of the English colonization of America. Focusing on the first colonies in the south (Virginia) and north (Massachusetts and the rest of New England) respectively, he sets up a contrast between the two halves of the American colonial coast which provides background for the subsequent development of the American character. The nature of the Virginian settlements he judges entirely economic, ending his discussion of these with a withering condemnation of “the greed of seventeenth-century Englishmen” (Brogan, 29). By contrast, he presents the original motives for migration to New England as largely religious. Common knowledge of the eventual outcome of struggles between north and south make the implications of his comparison evident: the ideal of the hardworking, honest , earnest American of generations to come would be rooted not in the southern pseudo-aristocracy, but in the values of the Puritan north.

Having taken John Smith – the intelligent, highly motivated leader of the Virginians – as the model for the settlers of the American south, Brogan moves to the figure of John Winthrop when he considers the founding ethos of New England. Pious, idealistic, reasonable, and full of integrity, Winthrop seems by Brogan's account to be almost too good to be true. One might argue that the “unreal” quality of this founder's virtue is exactly what Brogan intends to emphasize. No sooner does he finish lauding Winthrop's legacy to America than he begins to cast doubt on the permanence of that legacy. The resulting shift to an account of the erosion of the “City on a Hill” ideal is hardly subtle. The decline of religious sentiment into economic sense is chronicled in detail. “Fishing proved almost as lucrative as John Smith had forseen” the author comments, hinting wryly at a fundamental connection between two cultures which had at first appeared nearly as polar opposites (Brogan, 47). The outline of Winthrop's (and his associates') futile efforts to correct the secularization of Puritan society ends with the bland statement: “the saga was over” (Brogan, 49).

So soon? Brogan is careful to classify Winthrop's mark on America as “indelible” (Brogan 43). Yet he proceeds to focus on New England's alleged disintegration into a materialistic society all too similar in some respects to its southern neighbors. One perceives that behind Brogan's determination to convince readers of his belief in the persistence of the “sober, respectable, self-reliant, energetic” spirit of the Puritans is an obsessive tendency to state things in the past tense. The “American character” he applauds at the end of this chapter “was” admirable when “the course of American history” was still in progress – when American culture had yet to fully descend to pure materialism, he hints (50). The saga of settlement had its heroes in the fathers of New England, but for Brogan, it seems, this saga is over and its heroes' strengths no more than a memory.

Suffering a Hero in the Odyssey

The eternal question of why men suffer dominates The Odyssey from its commencement, as Zeus laments “For shame, how the mortals put the blame upon us/ gods [when] they … by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given” (Odyssey, 1.32-34). Odysseus himself is the quintessential image of suffering man, enduring myriad trials while pursuing a goal which tirelessly eludes his grasp. In the depths of Hades, however, Odysseus encounters the image of Herakles, a hero whose misfortunes could have once rivaled Odysseus’ own log of troubles. Ironically, Herakles himself now dwells in Olympos, where “he himself among the immortal gods enjoys their festivals” (Odyssey, 11.602-03). Why does Homer include this startling appearance of an immortal hero’s image in the land of the dead? A close reading reveals that there are many similarities between the stories of Odysseus and Herakles. Herakles’ presence allows us to draw a parallel between his ordeals and those of Odysseus. Through this, we learn that much suffering is, as Zeus suggests, the fruit of men’s wrongdoing, but for the hero, it is not entirely lamentable. When met heroically, suffering has three main qualities: it expiates past misdeeds, it is transitory, and it leads directly to future rewards.

Although I will demonstrate a few of the abundant external similarities between the two heroes, I do not intend to focus my essay on these. Intriguing as these correlations are, they do not say much of substance about the theme of suffering. Rather, they provide the justification my comparison. After enumerating them, I will draw heavily on three slightly less obvious points of comparison. These three points, which deal with the purpose, limit, and effects of suffering, lead directly to my conclusions about its nature.

Powerful even as an image, Herakles first appears striding towards Odysseus “holding his bow bare with an arrow laid on the bowstring” (11.607). His demeanor recalls Odysseus’ skill with a bow – the same skill which will help Odysseus to annihilate the suitors, marking the beginning of his hardships’ end. Only lines later, Herakles asks, “are you too leading some wretched destiny/ such as I too pursued when I went still in the sunlight?”, drawing a direct comparison between his descent into the underworld and Odysseus’ similar journey (Odyssey, 11.618-19). The resemblance between the years of hardship each hero must endure is a particularly crucial point. In life, Herakles was burdened with Twelve Labours. Likewise, Odysseus’ wanderings feature twelve major trials. He encounters the Kikonians, the Lotus Eaters, the Cyclopes, Aiolos and the bag of winds, the Laistrygones, and Circe. He descends into Hades, defies the Sirens, as well as Skylla and Charybdis, lands on the island of Helios, and on Kalypso’s island, and finally destroys the suitors who are laying waste to his home. Moreover, just as Herakles received aid from both Hermes and Athene (cf. Odyssey, 11.626; Iliad, 8.362-65), Odysseus relies upon the benison of these two gods throughout his wanderings.

Akin in form, the toils of both Herakles and Odysseus are also similar in origin and purpose. Suffering is often necessary as a just repayment which satisfies the debt incurred by wrongdoing. In Grecian mythology, Herakles’ Labours atoned for his killing of his wife and children .The crime, though committed in a fit of madness sent by Hera, could only be blotted out through Herakles’ own suffering. Odysseus too must make restitution for a past misdeed. During the war, Odysseus and the other Achaians desecrate Troy. Troy is consistently the identified with family life throughout The Iliad, so in destroying this, the Greeks symbolically ruined their own homecomings. Many “men … were lost, and many left over” during the journeys home (Odyssey, 4.495). Odysseus’ wanderings, however, expiate this guilt.

Unlike so many Greeks for whom punishment was swift and hard, Odysseus is not permanently lost. Neither is his expiation some limitless punishment such as that which he witnesses Tantalos or Sisyphos undergoing in the depths of Hades. Herakles’ presence in Hades reiterates the transience of Odysseus’ trials. His image is “full of lamentation,” as it bemoans his earthly labours, but Herakles himself enjoys the immortality of the gods in Olympus (Odyssey, 11.616). The despondent specter which confronts Odysseus is not the real Herakles. Similarly, The Odyssey itself never goes far beyond the man we first see sitting on Kalypso’s island “breaking his heart in tears, lamentation, and sorrow” (Odyssey, 5.83). The very fact that the sorrowing Herakles is no more than an empty image is a reminder that Odysseus will not always be weeping. His sorrow and difficulties define the image of Odysseus which The Odyssey presents, but they are not ultimately the reality which defines the man himself.

The climax of each hero’s tale occurs when suffering ends and each finally achieves fulfillment of his deepest wish. For Herakles, this reward is immortality, a gift that all Greeks covet but that almost none receive. Odysseus by contrast seems to disdain immortality in comparison to a simple, temporal life with his wife and son. He has an opportunity to grasp infinite life when Kalypso invites him to “be the lord of this household/ and be an immortal” yet he rejects this (Odyssey, 5.208-09). As attractive as eternal feasting in a paradise with the gods may sound, Odysseus prizes above all others “this place distasteful to many,” craggy Ithaka , simply because it holds that which is most precious to him (Odyssey, 19.407). Life founded on love for his family is more precious and offers greater rewards to this Greek hero than all the immortality and joys of Olympos.

“Why do men suffer?” As Zeus says, mortals often bring suffering on themselves through “wild recklessness” (Odyssey, 1.34). However, juxtaposition of the troubles of Herakles and Odysseus shows that this suffering is not intrinsically evil. The colossal irony of Herakles’ at first baffling appearance refines our understanding of this overarching theme. As odd as it might seem to those who “put the blame upon [the] gods,” and resent or misunderstand hardships, sufferings renew hope by expiating guilt, by promising an end, and by leading to a reward that those who do not suffer as a hero will not receive (Odyssey, 1.32).

A Clever Boldness

Leaving the citadel of Troy in flaming ruins, “Odysseus of many designs,” cleverest of all Greek heroes, sets out on a voyage of colossal proportions to regain his own home, Ithaka. His attempts to reach home fail for nine years, as a plethora of adventures featuring man-eating monsters and ominous lands, devious enchantresses and earthly paradises delays him (1.83). Tenaciously determined to reach his homeland, Odysseus depends upon his famous cleverness and characteristic boldness to see him safely through these harrowing adventures. Restraint, an aspect of his cleverness which puts a check on excessive boldness, is one of the most crucial elements of Odysseus’ eventual success.

A sagacious wariness which augments Odysseus’ talents for clever maneuvering, restraint moderates the hero’s boldness by directing it and not letting it deteriorate into mere rashness. The Odyssey includes episodes in which Odysseus does not show restraint, but these result in the worst catastrophes of his voyage, underscoring by contrast the successes due to his forbearance. Because it slows him down and promotes moderate caution, restraint gives the hero a chance to perceive how to act shrewdly. Even so, it does not promote an overcautious hesitation, but directs the boldness with which a hero should face adventures and prevents this boldness from becoming rash.

Odysseus repeatedly fails to restrain his boldness during the scene on the Cyclopes’ island, and this failure turns the adventure into a debacle. Odysseus and his men enter Polyphemos’ abode and “help [them]selves to the cheeses,” rashly presuming upon the monster’s hospitality (9.231-32). Polyphemos responds barbarically, “feeding on human flesh,” and trapping the surviving crew in his cave (9.296-97). The one instance of restraint in this episode brings about the one positive event: Odysseus’ escape with his remaining men. Odysseus restrains his initial

inclination to kill the monster immediately – when a gigantic boulder still blocks the entrance – and thus makes it possible for his clever plan to blind Polyphemos to obtain its goal. He realizes that, tiny as they are in comparison to the gigantic Cyclops, he and his crew “could have never pushed [the boulder] from the lofty gate,” and the company would have been trapped in a cave with a dead Cyclops indefinitely (9.304-05).

Odysseus once more ignores the benefits of restraint as his fleet sails away from the island. With reckless boldness, he jeopardizes every man’s life when he shouts his identity to the Cyclops, vaunting over the blinded monster. Responding to this, Polyphemos bombards the fleet, attempting to sink it. When this does not succeed, he prays that Odysseus will return home “late, in bad case, with the loss of all his companions,/ in someone else’s ship, and find troubles in his household,” thus initiating the enormous difficulties of the journey (9.534-35). Odysseus is bold in approaching the Cyclops’ cave, bold in attacking Polyphemos, and bold in shouting back his identity. Only in the second incident, however, does he combine boldness with restraint; thus the action here is the only one resulting in success.

Boldness and restraint combine more smoothly on Circe’s island, and Odysseus is proportionately more successful. Unlike in the scene with Polyphemos, Odysseus does nothing impolitic here. Upon landing and seeing that the island is inhabited, he “ponder[s] deeply in [his] heart and in [his] spirit,/ whether … to investigate,” exhibiting a thoughtful caution previously absent (10.151-52). The contrast to his actions on the Cyclopes’ island is accentuated when Odysseus narrates how the crew at this point “remembered … the violence of the great-hearted cannibal Cyclops” (10.199-200). When he does decide to inspect the area, he divides his crew in half, sending a contingent out for reconnaissance while the rest remain safely by the ships. Circe promptly turns the investigating troop into a herd of swine – failing only to catch the group’s leader, Eurylochos. Eurylochos’ caution saves him, and he hurries back to Odysseus with news of the calamity. However, in an intriguing twist, Odysseus decides to rescue the enchanted men. This boldness alarms Eurylochos and the surviving crew, who become immediately restrained and cautious when faced with danger. Odysseus, however, sees in this an opportunity for his cleverness to serve him well. His restraint has shown him what to look out for, and he now can take bold action in a clever and wise manner.

Admittedly, Circe’s guiles would be too much for even Odyssean cleverness if Hermes were not to enter at this point bearing advice and aid. However, opportunity for the god to offer it would never have arisen had Odysseus not acted thus far with a combination of boldness and restraint. Moreover, in this epic successful craftiness sometimes does require the patronage of the gods, as we see when Athene directs Odysseus in the proper way to approach the Phaiakian royalty (cf. 7.50-52, 75-77). Once in Circe’s dwelling, the hero uses his clever rhetoric to achieve his crew’s release – “Oh, Circe, how could any man … ever endure to taste of the food and drink … until with his eyes he saw his companions set free?” (10.383-85). Restraint, boldness, and a god’s assistance combine here, and place Odysseus in a position to use his rhetoric to achieve his ends.

Restraint provides Odysseus with a crucial advantage over the course of his travels. He must be bold, and his virtuosity in rhetoric and craftiness encourage this boldness by giving him a good hope for success. However, as I have emphasized, restraint is the quality which makes this boldness effective, by providing opportunities for Odysseus to exercise his persuasive tongue and cunning mind. In brief, it directs the path by which Odysseus’ other talents can secure his object. As long as he restrains his boldness, his enterprises are successful, and he moves closer to achieving his primary object – Ithaka and home.

Socrates vs Thrasymachus (The Republic...mwahahahaha!)

Any argument relies upon some fundamental agreement about the issue being discussed. However great the divide in opinion may be, there must exist at least some similarity in the participants’ manner of viewing the issue if a solution is ever to be reached. Book One of Plato’s Republic features a disagreement between Socrates and Thrasymachus about the nature of justice. The disaccord between their views of the subject is extremely pronounced, but there are certain underlying agreements which guide the course of the debate. One way to evaluate the validity of the arguments involved is to examine whether the assumptions at the root of the argument are in accord with this common ground. By my reading of the dialogue, Socrates’ reply to the first part of Thrasymachus’ definition of justice rests safely upon this common ground, whereas his answer to Thrasymachus’ second definition moves away from this mutually acceptable base, and is injured as a result. In exploring this topic, I intend to examine briefly Thrasymachus’ two-part definition of justice. For each of these parts I will evaluate one Socratic response and discuss it from the perspective of the “craftsman analogy” – an analogy which is initially used by common consent, but which Socrates adapts until its original usage almost disappears.

Thrasymachus’ first definition of justice is easy to state, but it is not so immediately clear how it is to be interpreted. Justice, he claims, is the advantage of the stronger. On its own, such a sentence could imply that what is beneficial to the stronger is just for and therefore, beneficial to the weaker, and Socrates accordingly asks whether this understanding is accurate. Thrasymachus promptly responds in the negative. The interpretation he proceeds to expound upon can be summed up by adapting slightly his original definition: justice is that which obtains the advantage of the stronger. To support this definition, he points to the example of ruling a city. Any ruling class will fashion the laws of the commonwealth with a view to its own benefit, he asserts. Since it is just to obey the law, those who behave justly will be acting for the advantage of the rulers (whom Thrasymachus interchangeably terms “the stronger”).

Socrates makes his first objection at this moment, but I will treat this here only incidentally: merely insofar as it allows us to see why Thrasymachus introduces the craftsman analogy. Socrates objects that rulers are, as humans, bound to make mistakes - to confuse their disadvantage with their advantage on occasion. In this case just obedience to laws would work to the ruler’s disadvantage. Thrasymachus responds promptly, saying that a man who makes a mistake in ruling is not at that moment a ruler in the strict sense, and introduces the craftsman analogy to support this idea. Insofar as a man is a craftsman, he will not make any mistakes; mistakes are rooted in ignorance, and so can only occur when a man’s knowledge of his craft is incomplete. The quandary which Socrates introduces is thus avoided by Thrasymachus’ qualification that errors are never made by rulers as rulers.

Though the analogy works at first to Thrasymachus’ advantage, Socrates promptly turns it against him in a new objection. All arts, he asserts, are exercised with a view to the benefit of the subject rather than to the benefit of the artisan. The doctor employs his medical art for the betterment of the patient, the pilot navigates for the safety of the ship and the sailors, and so forth. Like Thrasymachus, he identifies ruling as an art, and claims that ruling also is exercised with a view to the subjects’ benefit. Throughout the argument, Thrasymachus passively assents to Socrates’ individual points. But as we shall see later, he rejects the conclusion drawn from these.

From an objective viewpoint, one immediately questionable aspect of this argument is Socrates’ idea that ruling is an art in the same sense that medicine and navigation are arts. Despite its potential weakness however, Socrates’ use of the analogy is the one part of the argument which Thrasymachus cannot question without bringing Socrates’ first objection once again into dispute. Thus this definition of ruling forms some part of the common ground I have previously mentioned. Although an objection such as this may affect the objective validity of the argument, it is important to keep in mind the fact that Socrates is not attempting to create an incontestable definition of justice at this point. He is merely answering an invalid argument by demonstrating its weaknesses in terms which correspond to Thrasymachus’ perspective.

Agitated by Socrates’ line of reasoning, Thrasymachus proceeds to blurt out a revised version of his original statement. Thrasymachus claims that injustice is freer and stronger than justice and that it results in a happier life. As in the former definition, he does not consider so much what justice is as what it does; he rates the subject in regards to its advantageousness or lack thereof. Essentially, this definition is an extreme extension of the previous one. Also, the example he uses for support – that of a tyrant made powerful and thus happy through injustice – hearkens back to his initial definition as ruling being the advantage of the stronger. It is clear that Thrasymachus has not been convinced by Socrates’ last argument, despite his apparent agreement with Socrates’ points. He is arguing in different terms, but in actual substance this new development is little more than a bare contradiction of Socrates’ previous argument. He still supposes that the unjust will have the advantage, and does no more than give new evidence to support this view. He essentially declares: “You say that the proper ruler will consider the benefit of his subjects and thus act justly. I say that injustice leads to a happy life and that craftsmen do aim at their own advantage.”

Whereas the weaknesses in Socrates’ previously discussed arguments are more or less excusable, there are several factors in his next argument which make it very controversial. In opening this argument, Socrates asks whether a just man will want to overreach and surpass other just men. The two debaters agree that a just man will deem it proper to surpass the unjust man, but that he will not want to surpass his fellow just man. The unjust man, on the other hand, will want to surpass and get the better of everyone. Now Socrates proceeds to use the craftsman analogy to illustrate his case. With this case Socrates attempts to prove that those who try to overreach their “like” are bad craftsmen. Returning to the specific example of the doctor, he observes that a medical man will not endeavor to outdo another physician, but will want to outdo the non-physician.

One flaw seems to appear at this point in the argument. Socrates, it would seem, has left no place in this for simple ambition here. If the first half of this analogy is true, there is no room for an artist to advance and improve his craft in a just manner, because unless he is unjust, he will not have any ambition to surpass his fellow artists. However this can be answered by a glance back at Thrasymachus’ concept of the artisan “in the strict sense.” No one is an artisan insofar as he is in error, so the true artist will be unable to surpass another true artist: ideally, the artist, insofar as he is an artist, will already exercise his art faultlessly.

Socrates completes this argument by saying that the one who tries to overreach the artist can not have true knowledge of the craft. In other words, true artists will be able to identify one another and to recognize the impossibility of surpassing each other. Since the one who wants to surpass everyone in a specific art must not be an artisan, he is ignorant of this art. Thus, Socrates claims, the unjust man is really ignorant and therefore weak and bad.

There is a marked distinction between this use of the craftsman analogy and former uses. Previously the analogy was used in reference to the “craft” of ruling. This was legitimate in the context primarily because Thrasymachus agreed to this use. Now however, the subject of the analogy is not ruling, but justice. Thrasymachus never explicitly agrees to this switch, and thus when it is made, the analogy no longer rests safely upon the common ground. It is no longer an example accepted by both parties and so its sole justification would have to rest on an objective view of the argument. So we have another important question to examine. That is, can justice be rightly considered a craft? Even if it can in a vague sense, would it be properly analogous to other crafts like medicine or navigation?

There are reasons to support a negative answer to this query. For one thing, it could be argued that justice is more a manner of acting, rather than a craft in its own right. Whereas it is nonsensical to say that one can, for example, read a book medicinally, or in a navigating manner (except perhaps as a figure of speech), one can exercise a craft or perform any action either justly or unjustly. Justice is more easily considered a measure of how well an action is performed than the action itself.

The most important thing to note here is that Socrates has moved away from the common ground which has previously supported the argument. Before, the question of whether Socrates’ examples are objectively valid was not so crucial from one viewpoint. As long as Socrates was trying to demonstrate the illogicalities within Thrasymachus’ position, there was much to gain from arguments based on Thrasymachus’ premises, whether the premises were true or not. For this last argument, however, Socrates does not base his argument on these guides, but preserves the form of the craftsman analogy while changing it substantially. Thus this particular argument suffers and is at least of questionable efficacy.

However, if the question of whether injustice is better than justice were entirely closed here, there would be no need for the rest of the book. Problems in Socrates’ arguments are taken up by new actors in later books of the dialogue, and Socrates will spend nine complete books essentially inquiring into this theme. Though Socrates may be inefficient in answering Thrasymachus’ particular arguments, once we step back to look at The Republic as a whole, it becomes apparent that inconsistencies in Book One provide the necessary fodder to produce the rest of this Socratic discourse.

The Heroic Choice

The Iliad, a tale revolving around heroism, culminates in an epic battle between its two greatest heroes as Achilleus and Hektor fight before the walls of Troy. It is a climax predicted again and again, an event made inevitable by the will of the gods.
Yet simple human choice comes into play here as well. Hektor has an explicit opportunity to retreat as he hesitates before the wall of Troy, and when he decides against this course, he seals his fate more definitively than any god or goddess has. If Hektor’s hesitation is indeed the product of a choice, another question comes up: Is Hektor’s choice to stay and face Achilleus a heroic one?

Initially, it would seem that Hektor’s heroism should not even become a point of controversy, and that fate is more domineering in this case than I have given it credit for in my opening. His delay, as “deadly fate held Hektor shackled,” is described at first as the consequence of a divine compulsion (22.5). Later however, Hektor is “deeply troubled” by the choice he sees before him, and in this frame of mind, he debates several courses of action (22.98). While he cannot altogether evade his fated death,, a hero like Hektor seems to be responsible for determining its the “how,” “where,” and “when.” Hektor could delay his doom, or at least attempt to, but he explicitly chooses against this path.

Hektor evaluates three courses of action, distinguishing each from the others according to their varying “honourableness.” He could rush back through the gates of Troy while there is still time. However, this possibility is unthinkable for the Homeric hero who values honour so highly. Due to mistakes in his recent leadership, if Hektor takes this route, he will return to face disgrace among his people, who will “put a reproach on [him]” for his errors (22.100). The second alternative would incur even greater dishonour. Hektor could rush to Achilleus and beseech his mercy through promises to return Helen and all Menelaos’ stolen possessions. But in doing so, he would cast off his dignity as a warrior and offer things that were not by right his to give; after all, Paris stole Helen and the loot, and he alone could rightfully return them (cf 7.365-64). Worse still in Hektor’s mind is the possibility that Achilleus might kill him unarmed as he offers this appeasement, “as if I were / a woman, once I stripped the armour from me” (22.124-25). The third alternative, to stand his ground and fight, is the only one that accords with his standards of honour and is thus the one Hektor chooses. He vanquishes the first two alternatives asking, “why does the heart within me debate on these things?” (22.122).

From a modern point of view, the motives for this choice can seem more selfish than heroic. Hektor’s reasons for rejecting the second possibility are in part practical. It makes little sense to die begging but unarmed when he could put up a fight. But the alternative of returning to the city is not to be so lightly thrown aside. The reasons Hektor gives for discarding this option focus upon the opprobrium he will encounter if the city falls through his fault. However self-centered it may appear by from a modern perspective, however, I believe that this motivation is validly heroic by ancient Greek standards. The Iliad repeatedly emphasizes the importance praise, war trophies, and boasting of daring exploits hold for a hero. Achilleus, the paramount hero of the epic, evaluates honour in such a manner, taking personal prestige seriously enough to pray that his fellow Achaians be killed in droves until it is restored (cf. 1.408-12). Such heroic honour is at stake for Hektor if he returns to Troy in shame.

However, heroism in Homer’s world seems to consist of something more than mere glory. The greatest of heroes in The Iliad carry the burden of a fated life, and their heroism is further displayed in their reaction to fate and the will of the gods. Achilleus has his “double fate” – he carries “two sorts of destiny toward the day of [his] death” but must eventually choose one. His heroism is made dramatically manifest through his choice to die in glory and honour rather than to live unsung and without nobility (9.411). Sarpedon, Zeus’ son, is destined to be sacrificed for the sake of his father’s plan, but his words of encouragement to a companion in the midst of battle reecho as a sort of war cry for mortal heroes: “seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us, … let us go on and win glory for ourselves” (12.326-28).

Hektor chooses to shoulder his destiny in a similarly bold and heroic manner when he makes his decision to stand and fight. Unlike Agamemnon and many other warriors, he does not try to cast responsibility for his previous mistaken actions upon the gods. From this perspective, his decision, and even to a degree his motivations for this decision are veritably noble. He admits that “by my own recklessness I have ruined my people,” that he is responsible for the Trojans’ demise because he did not heed Poulydamas’ advice. He does not attribute this lack of judgment to the interference of the gods, despite the fact that Homer informs us of how “Pallas Athene had taken away the wits” of all the Trojans (18.311). The Trojan warriors had united with Hektor in rejecting Poulydamas’ counsel, yet Hektor takes full responsibility for weakening his city to the point of vulnerability when the moment for his fatal decision arrives. Likewise, he tacitly admits his complicity in Patroklos’ death by not protesting to Achilleus that he was only Patroklos’ “third slayer” – a weak excuse but one which has similarly weak precedent in the excuses of Agamemnon (16.850; 19.90). Hektor could have blamed both these actions on the gods or on fate. Yet he accepts responsibility as though his personal choice and nothing more brought on these catastrophes. In bearing the burden of his fate so deliberately, Hektor shows himself to be truly heroic.

Hektor’s motives for facing Achilleus are those of a man who, mistaken or not in his conception of heroism, acts honestly in accordance with that concept. Although a fated mortal, he accepts his fate with courage. This courage is great enough even to impress the gods and deserve their good will, as demonstrated by the way they carefully preserve the hero’s body during twelve days of battering (cf. 24.411-23). The words with which Hektor greets his impending death – “Let me at least not die without a struggle, inglorious, / but do some big thing first, that men shall come to know of it” – parallel those with which Sarpedon encourages his companions to heroism. And like his fellow hero and nemesis, Achilleus, Hektor chooses not to attempt to escape his fate only to die unsung and dishonoured, but rather chooses to die in glory and honour as a true Homeric hero.



As I'm sure you can tell, this is another paper. Stylistically, the biggest problem here is a slightly deferred thesis. I'm definitely going to watch out for that in my next papers!

The Greek Appeals and Achilleus’ Honour

Here's my first literature paper, which I'm posting largely because I'm lazy and don't want to write anything new at the moment. My professor seemed to like the thesis and points of view. The biggest problem is my tendency to "strand quotes" - a habit which I think (shame, shame) I picked up while blogging. There are also a few word choices I'm regretting now that I re-read it. Oh well.

The plot of The Iliad revolves around Achilleus' argument with Agamemnon and Achilleus' subsequent abandonment of the Achaian forces. In Book Nine, the Achaians, after suffering several disheartening defeats, decide to appeal to their strongest warrior, Achilleus, beseeching him to return to their aid. Three emissaries are sent to Achilleus' camp, each bringing an appeal to the hero's pity and sense of honour. These appeals vary in persuasiveness depending on the audience – what may appeal to one reader may not appeal to Achilleus. It seems to me that from Achilleus’ point of view, the most effective argument is the appeal to his honour which develops throughout the parley.

The aspect appealing to Achilleus is not the most compelling for me. I am most convinced by Odysseus’ appeal for pity, together with his observation that Achilleus is harming not only Agamemnon by his anger, but the rest of the Achaians as well. “If the son of Atreus is too much hated in your heart…at least take pity on all the other Achaians” (9.300-2). However, from Achilleus’ honour-driven point of view, this line of reasoning is less strong than the consistent refrain that his behavior is not as honourable as it could be.

Of the points presented in any one of the three main arguments, Achilleus responds to these honour-based ones most heatedly. He substantially ignores or minimizes the other points made by the emissaries, and consistently bases his replies on his thoughts about honour, showing that they are his chief concern. The appeal to honour changes slightly with each speaker, but the progression formed by the speakers’ points on this subject, joined with Achilleus’ response to them, gives Achilleus an opportunity to refine his understanding of what it means to be honourable as a hero.

This refinement, it seems, is necessary: Achilleus’ ideas about honour – once so important to his concept of heroism – seem to have undergone a crisis during his time at the ship, as can be seen in his reply to Odysseus’ first plea. Towards the end of a strong argument, Odysseus brings out what he expects to be his strongest point – winning the war for the Achaians will bring Achilleus the very undying glory and honour which has been seeking for so long. "Take pity on all the other Achaians, who are afflicted...and they will honour you/ as a god" (9.301-3). In Achilleus’ reply, however, I hardly recognize the glory-seeker who in Book 1 prayed: “Since…[I am to be] a man with a short life,/Zeus…should grant me honour at least.” Now, he cannot see any reason to fight, and he no longer cares about glory if it means that he has to die in a pointless war. "Nothing is won for me, now that my heart has gone through its afflictions/ in forever setting my life on the hazard of battle.” My death, he says, is certain whether I am honoured or not, and I gain nothing valuable from this: "Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard" (9.321-2 and 9.318). The desire to be immortalized in legend is, it seems, no longer paramount next to his desire for life.

Phoinix’s entreaty is much briefer in substance than that of Odysseus. Speaking of honour, he repeats the words of Odysseus, but hints as well that Achilleus has a duty to honour their counsel as ambassadors: “[Agamemnon] has sent the best men to you, to supplicate you…Do not you make vain their argument.” (9.520-2) He lastly observes that the honour Achilleus could gain by returning will not be as great if he returns at the last minute than if he accepts the gifts and returns as a hero now (cf. 9.603-5).

Achilleus is quick to reinforce his declaration that this popular and leader-accredited type of honour is not something he cares about. “[S]uch honour is a thing/ I need not. I think I am already honoured in Zeus’ ordinance.” However, the second part of this quotation is revealing. It discloses a slight qualification to Achilleus’ previous asservation that “we are all held in a single honour” (9.319). Perhaps when it comes to dying, we are indeed held “in a single honour,” but having the gods honour him in life still means something to Achilleus. He is still convinced that he is justified in his anger, and that his actions are honourable according to Zeus. After all, the gods have been supporting his wrath from the beginning of the quarrel - recall Thetis’ immediate acquiescence to Achilleus’ plea for vengeance (1.413-22) and Zeus’ subsequent agreement. But however just or unjust his actions may appear, Achilleus has at least has taken a step beyond valuing battlefield glory for its own sake, and is now beginning to desire the honour which he will receive from the gods for acting rightly.

It is the last speaker, Aias, who finally brings this development to a real conclusion. He hints that not only the random standards of the gods – who evaluate Achilleus’ anger as just – could be applied to honour. The higher standards of two Greek human virtues – hospitality and loyalty to friends – can also be guides to the one who wishes to be honourable. Aias begins with impolitic but effective bluntness. “Achilleus has made savage the proud-hearted spirit within his body” – Achilleus is not displaying honourable pride, but is making himself isolating himself from basic humanity in a stubborn and selfish refusal to help his fellow Achaians (9.629). Moreover, Aias points out, Achilleus’ rejection of their appeals indicates a disrespect of the emissaries. Phoinix, Aias, and Odysseus are warriors of high standing among the Achaians, and Achilleus’ friends, allies whose counsel and opinions Achilleus should greet with honour, as he has so far treated the men themselves with material hospitality. “Make gracious the spirit within you./ Respect your own house; see, we are under the same roof with you…we who desire beyond all/ others to have your honour and love.”

This appeal gives a good precedent for Achilleus’ return, and uncovers a concept which Achilleus, certain his claim is just and thinking of honour in terms of personal glory and reputation, has not even considered. Honourable behavior consists not only in exploits of war, but also in hospitality and loyalty to friends – two virtues which are crucial throughout the Iliad and Odyssey (take for example the meeting of Glaukos and Diomedes in Book 6). This way of putting things is crucial to Achilleus’ decision to remain by the ships, as he admits to Aias, “all that you have said seems spoken after my own mind.” I would moreover suspect that this will eventually have something to do with his ultimate return to battle, when he returns not for the sake of glory, but for the sake of avenging his friend, Patroklus. (9.645; cf. 18.114-6)

While neither Odysseus nor Phoinix manage to make honour sound convincing enough to persuade Achilleus, the points with which Aias concludes the theme they began cause the hero to relent just enough to promise to defend the ships. Although his concession is less complete than the emissaries could have hoped, at the end of the discussion, I would argue that much has been accomplished. Achilleus now has a better perspective on what it means to be honourable. He has matured at least a little towards being a true hero by learning that heroic honour means not only battlefield glory and the support of the gods. The greatest Greek virtues of hospitality, respect for one’s friends, and loyalty must be possessed by the man who is truly honourable.

Raskolnikov vs. Svidrigailov

Another Paper. I feel lazy.

Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is unique in literature as a book whose true villain is a theory in the mind of its protagonist. This theory of the ubermensch, or superman, is originated by the main character, Raskolnikov, who essentially claims that any breach of the moral law is permitted to those few “extraordinary men” who are destined to bring an increase of the overall justice of the world. Obsessed with this theory, Raskolnikov’s mind becomes dramatically conflicted, his good inclinations at variance with his desire to prove himself one of these ubermensch. Despite this obsession, the ramifications of his idea remain unclear to Raskolnikov until he meets the man, Svidrigailov.

Svidrigailov is a figure whose presence throws Raskolnikov’s mental split into sharp relief by his own unwavering singleness of purpose. This man, in fact, epitomizes the theory that creates Raskolnikov’s mental turmoil in the first place. He lives for a single purpose – himself – and seems immune to moral responsibility. He is superficially suave and polite. As Raskolnikov tells him, I fancy indeed that you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know on occasion how to behave like one.” (Part 4, Chapter 1 -p.256) However, this “good breeding” is a rather thin disguise for a character so absorbed with his own comfort and pleasure that he has become utterly depraved. He is calm and rarely loses his temper, but his composure often hides plotting and conniving. He has committed several murders over the space of many years. But in accordance with the idea that the extraordinary man would merit no temporal or mental punishment, he is completely remorseless. Moreover, he is above human law, because the nature of his crimes is such that they can never be proven.

Raskolnikov’s character is an interesting mix of good and bad traits; his generosity, compassion, and love for justice contrast sharply with his sullenness, morose attitude, and pride. His close friend Razumihin describes him as “morose, gloomy, proud and haughty…He has a noble nature and a kind heart… it’s as though he were alternating between two characters.” (Part 3, Chapter 2 – p.194) Up to the point of the meeting with Svidrigailov, Raskolnikov is plagued with guilt for the murder of an old pawnbroker whose dishonesty, he had decided, had “deserved” death. The better side of his character makes it impossible for him to escape this guilt; however, the only conclusion he will admit is that he is not an extraordinary man. The idea that his theory may be wrong is intolerable to his pride – even if he is one of the “worms” of the world, bound by moral laws and human regulations, his idea at least must be right.

But then Svidrigailov introduces himself to Raskolnikov, insisting from the opening moments of their conversation that he and the younger man are unnervingly alike, despite the fact that Raskolnikov is as outwardly brash, rude, and quick tempered as Svidrigailov is cool, polite, and calm. “Didn’t I say there was something in common between us? ...... Wasn’t I right in saying that we were birds of a feather?” (Part 4, Chapter 1) Raskolnikov reacts indignantly to the idea. Svidrigailov has crimes in his past as well, but his crimes were far from Raskolnikov’s “just murders” – this man had caused the suicide of a deaf girl of fifteen, he had caused the death of one of his servants, and he had most likely poisoned his own wife. Each of Svidrigailov’s actions is calculated for no purpose beyond his own pleasure - his existence is purely selfish. Raskolnikov at least has a noble purpose at heart; or so he protests at first. However, the idea that he, Raskolnikov, is somehow more just than this other murderer disappears quickly when Rodion realizes the truth which the reader has perhaps seen all along. Svidrigailov is simply the extreme of the “extraordinary man” Raskolnikov has been turning himself into over the course of several horrible months. Despite the differences in outward personality, Raskolnikov is indeed becoming similar to Svidrigailov, the extraordinary man.

True, Svidrigailov’s aims and motives are ostensibly quite different from the protagonist’s. They seem worse perhaps, because they seem more selfish. But is that appearance true? Raskolnikov kills the old woman with the sanction of his concept of justice, but why else does he kill in the first place except to prove his status as one of the ubermensch? It is hardly less selfish to commit a crime in order to satisfy one’s pride than it is to do the same in pursuit of physical pleasure. And how even can Raskolnikov’s initial perception of his crimes being superior in the realm of justice be given exceptional credence? Svidrigailov may cause deaths that seem totally unjust from the standpoint of human morality, but the first premise of the ubermensch theory is that extraordinary men are not bound by these standards. Such men “have the right” to interpret aims and means of achieving the greater good. Svidrigailov is undeniably a superman by Raskolnikov’s definition, and he thinks that he himself is the greater good, making his “selfish” actions perfectly justifiable by the theory’s standards.

There are, Raskolnikov comes to realize, two possible solutions to the questions raised by this perfect ubermensch. Svidrigailov might be a good man, in accordance with the theory. The idea is abhorrent to any honest person. Even Svidrigailov, in fact, recognizes that he is not a good man – he admits his depravity easily, although he feels no remorse for it. He recognizes even, that he is not a healthy man. He has seen ghosts, he says, and ghosts “are unable to appear except to the sick” (Part 4, Chapter 1 – p.260), the healthy are too much a part of reality to be bothered by such supernatural beings. Svidrigailov goes on to muse that once he really leaves this world, he can expect nothing better than “one little room, like a bathhouse in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner.” (Part 4, Chapter 1 – p.261) Raskolnikov responds with as much horror as he did to the idea of his similarity to Svidrigalov. “Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than that?” (ibid.) Svidrigailov’s response reveals not only his own self-condemnation, but also the emptiness of promise and hope in ubermensch morality. “Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know, it’s certainly what I would have made [eternity].” (ibid.)

If the possibility of Svidrigailov’s “goodness” (and thus the possibility of the goodness of any such superman) is so roundly contradicted, there is only one other possibility. That is, the ubermensch theory must be wrong. As Raskolnikov thinks things over, wrestling with his pride, he begins to come to this conclusion. It eventually becomes apparent to him that the second really is the only sensible possibility, the only possibility which fits in with human nature, and the only possibility that promises something more just than a petty eternity filled with spiders. With this admission, he finally begins to renounce his pride and self-righteousness.

Indeed, the encounter with Svidrigailov, the epitome of Raskolnikov’s negative qualities, instigates the protagonist’s first real swing towards repentance. By being faced with the true face of his theory he is compelled to admit its repulsiveness. In the process, he is obliged to open the door to his own redemption by admitting that he is a criminal, that he must submit to the human justice he disdained for so long, and that he must find peace in the hope of God’s mercy.