Hamlet Radio Response - This Shakespearean Life

A little less than ten years ago, the radio program This American Life did an episode about a performance of Hamlet in a prison. Not a production in which the script was based in a prison, but one in which the actors were in prison. This brings out some interesting overtones in the play, of tension and hierarchies and criminality. Yet even more than that, it shows the value of a different perspective of this time-honored play. Sure, the play brings literacy and productivity and self-worth, and these traits are valuable for these actors –but even more valuable is what the actors bring to the play, with their life experience of anger, vengeance, cowardice and remorse. Their analyses of the story are strikingly different from those of, say, Freud and Goethe, and more useful for it. The disparity is deeper than one between, say, an American and a British production, or an ancient and a modern one. These actors understand Hamlet in a very different way than the actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company would. When students can learn from both, their understanding of the play is broadened – which is really all their teacher can ask for.

So, I think our class should take a field trip to a prison! No, not really. Still, we should keep our own perspective in mind when reading, as this radio program reminds us. This is far from a new idea, but it is one worth repeating. We should make every effort to examine literature from different perspectives, in order to learn more from what we study.

Hamlet Essay Response #3 - The Intense Feeling

 As a teenager, it generally annoys me when people make sweeping generalizations about teenagers, which hardly seems strange. It doesn't help, either, that usually such stereotypes are negative ones, regarding laziness, or rebellion, or some other such nonsense. Reading about Hamlet, however, has prompted a discovery of one writer who makes very interesting observations about teenagers: T. S. Eliot.

I know, I know, this was supposed to be about Shakespeare, but I'm getting to that part in a bit. In an essay titled Hamlet, and published in 1919, Eliot describes an "intense feeling, ecstatic or terrible, without an object or exceeding its object, [which] is something which every person of sensibility has known" and "often occurs in adolescence". The intense feeling! Those intense excessive feelings! Have you not felt them? Have you not known them, in all their intensity? Hopefully they have not driven you partway to madness, to the fate of Hamlet. Hopefully you have dealt with them, one way or another -- and in doing so, classified yourself as "ordinary" or as an "artist" because, as Eliot writes, they present a simple dichotomy. "The ordinary person puts these feelings to sleep, or trims down his feelings to fit the business world; the artist keeps them alive by his ability to intensify the world to his emotions". Eliot does not rank one above the other, though as a writer he hardly has to; all the world knows the writer's choice, and surely he would not have chosen the inferior path? In Eliot's mind, then, the artist is superior -- ha! As if ranking were ever so simple as one choice cleanly above the other.

There is a third choice, though, in this dichotomy of emotions, and that is quite simple: to still be choosing. Of course, by living as a metaphorical (or literal, who knows?) adolescent, one runs the risk of ending up like Hamlet, seeking emotional relief through madness just to express that intense feeling. Though, as Eliot points out, Hamlet is not an adolescent, and "he has not that explanation and excuse" though I'm not sure I agree that only people between certain ages have license to act with intensity. Hamlet, instead, is an adult who was unable to choose a path, and yet cannot remain undecided, on consequence of possible madness and conflict and yes, death. Yikes. Maybe he should have chosen, but which would he have picked? Ignore his desire and supernatural imperative for revenge, or commit the murder at his first opportunity, with all his righteous rage, and ignore the consequences? Would either option really be that much more sane?
Which is better?
Well?
Come on, Hamlet, what do you want to be when you grow up?
And don't say happy, I've learned people don't accept that one.

Hamlet Essay Response #2 - This is Madness. This is Hamlet.

In our class discussions of Hamlet, a common theme is that of seeming versus being, that is, how the characters in Hamlet often have appearances or apparent actions that differ from their supposed intent. Of course, with so much of the play as solely dialogue, opinions are based less on inferences than they are in fact, but we have still been able to see a clear disconnect between Hamlet's thoughts and actions.

George Santayana, writing about Hamlet in 1908, also addressed this inner conflict in Hamlet's character, arguing that it is a sign of irrationality but not madness. In Santayana's words, Hamlet "acts without reflection, as he reflects without acting" which is "unreason... not madness". This conclusion does not seem unreasonable to me -- though in a perfect world thought and action would always go hand in hand, their separation is not indicative of insanity, but a rather common folly. Hamlet's perpetual inability to both think and act, however, also conveys his inner turmoil. His inner conflict is the subject of many of the critical essays I have read, and arguably the entire play, and Santayana's analysis of it is one of the more reasonable. Hamlet's intellect and mind are sound and fairly healthy; the fault is only with his will, with "a passionate weakness and indirection in his will" born of a lack of direction and hope. There can be no doubt that Hamlet lacks direction, as the nearly the entire play is just anticipation of his uncle's murder, and it's Shakespeare's longest play. He dedicates entire monologues to plans to uncover his uncle's guilt, to murder him, and the right way to do so, further demonstrating his clouded will. When he actually does commit the murder, however, he does so with barely any thought, knowing that he is about to die himself and so forced into immediate action.

Though Hamlet knows the task he has been set, and has a desire to accomplish it, his will and his thoughts are so disconnected that he has a great difficulty completing his uncle's murder. He seems determined to kill Claudius, yet inside he is deeply reluctant to do so -- and above even his outward murderous intent, he plays a harmless crazy for the royals. The layers of Hamlet's character build up around his inner conflict, his affected madness covering for the thoughts of his clear mind, which in turn hide his weak will. He seems to be many things, while analysts inside the play and out try to uncover who he truly is.

Hamlet Essay Response #1 - Did Freud Get it Right?

In his 1900 book The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud analyzes Hamlet, but focuses his analysis not on Hamlet or his father, or even Shakespeare himself; instead, Freud studies Hamlet's relationship with his late father and his surrogate one. This relationship is hugely significant to the action of the play, as Hamlet's conflict with Claudius is the basis for the majority of death in the play. Hamlet first makes an attempt to murder his step-father, but is thwarted by himself. According to Freud, Hamlet initially cannot take revenge on Claudius because he is "the man who did away with his father and took that father's place with his mother, the man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized." Even when commanded to act by the ghost of his own father, Hamlet is too committed to Claudius as his new father to carry out his planned murder– if we are to believe Freud.

In truth, though, Hamlet has given readers ample evidence of his hatred for Claudius, and his murder of the late king Hamlet, and his marriage to Gertrude. Everything that Freud holds up as evidence of Hamlet's attachment to Claudius, Hamlet has repeatedly denounced as the very reasons for his determination to ruin Claudius! Hamlet's devotion to his father is far from misplaced, as his reaction to his father's ghost – with love, obedience, and rapt attention – shows his devotion clearly. What is more, Hamlet remembers everything his father's ghost told him, including his suffering for lack of last rites, and has taken this so much to heart that he remembers it even as he prepares to end Claudius' life, and stops. His self-restraint is caused only out of love for his father, and out of determination for his revenge to be whole, as his father's ghost wished it to be. When he does get his opportunity for revenge, he shows that he is committed fully to his task, killing Claudius once with a lethal wound and twice again with poison. As questionable as his actions, and his sanity, may be, no one could doubt his motives. No one could doubt his loyalty to his true father – no one, it seems, except Freud.

Freud imagines himself the unimaginably smart, all-seeing psychologist of Hamlet, admitting that anything related to his interpretation of Hamlet's character would have "remain[ed] unconscious in Hamlet's mind" and therefore has no proof or any definitive basis in Shakespeare's actual work – essentially admitting that his argument is merely his own fancy, regardless of Shakespeare's intent. He does imagine Shakespeare's intent, as well, noting that the play was written shortly after the author's own father died, and that Shakespeare named an infant son of his Hamnet, which is undeniably similar to the name of the play and its eponymous hero. Still, he goes no farther than to comment on Shakespeare's likely "bereavement" at his father's death; Freud only implies that Shakespeare had a misplaced affection for his father, and confusion as to which father-figure to obey, never attempting to propose such a reality outright. Indeed, such a suggestion is equally preposterous when applied to the author as it is to the character. Though Freud may have concocted a brilliant interpretation, there is too much evidence opposing him for it to be easily accepted.

The Road, Reading Blog #15 - Endings

The Road is one of those stories in which the ending is drastically different from the rest of the story, and at the same time, exactly the same. After the man dies, and the boy grieves, and talks to him, and they are safe -- after all the plotlines are tied up, the narrative describes fish. Or, put another way, after discussing the meaning of life, the narrative discusses the meaning of life.

The last paragraph describes trout, that once lived with mysterious, ancient things and carried maps of "the world in its becoming" on their backs (287). Additionally, the narrator comments that the world, as it was then, "could not be put back. Not be made right again" (287) which was one of the book's central themes. The boy and the man can be destroyed, and they can heal, but they can never undo the damage. Innocence, complete purity, can never be regained, not for them, and certainly not for the world. It can survive, to some extent, but never the way it was initially. That purity ended a long time before the story did. Sometimes, it's better to not be innocent; many would say that experience gives people strength. But this was not true for the world, which couldn't withstand any of the damages people caused. In the story, it was never made right again -- as it likely will not be in this reality either. The boy, too, will never be completely right, or innocent, again. The boy will grow up. The boy will live. What else can he do?

The Road, Reading Blog #14 - Questions

In a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago, when I was less familiar with The Road and the world it depicted, I asked a few questions that I could not fully answer. So now, I will try to answer them again.
My first question was about death, and why death is so unremarkable in this story. With the death of the father, I have gained much more insight into McCarthy's depiction of, and the characters' perspective on, death. While previously the dead were unknown, ignored, and helpless, the man is less so. His son cares for him, deeply, and always knows where he is -- and he cares for his son too, at least as much. He also struggles against his illness and his injuries, though mostly ineffectually. And in The Road, there are no hospitals, no doctors or medical machines. He is, for the most part, as helpless as the cannibals' victims or a starving dog. Whereas in our modern world, he could be helped, and put up a great struggle, so that his sickness could be stopped. There would be treatment options, if he was sufficiently privileged, and people would notice -- because they knew that they could act. In The Road, it's all he can do to stitch up a leg wound. No one can help him. No one could ever help him, even if they did notice. So why should they bother? In their eyes, they shouldn't.
 My second question in that blog post was about the father's role in the world, as the protector. As he dies, he is unable to protect his son, and must rely, instead, on other good guys to help him. He has, essentially, no role in the world. His son still relies on him, though, for spiritual guidance, and talks to him in his mind. His role in the son's life is very similar, if somewhat smaller. So, his death has proved that his role can never change -- not that he'd want it to. Still, he can never be anyone else.

The Road, Reading Blog #13 - Frozen Cold Comfort

Stories often, as they approach their conclusions, return to earlier symbols; the significance of earlier events is reevaluated in the context of the final stages. In The Road, an earlier sighting of a young boy -- in itself representing the boy's desire for companionship and comfort -- becomes even more meaningful when he it is the last question he asks his father. His father is wounded and ill, unable even to eat. Yet the boy persists:
Do you remember that little boy, Papa?
Yes. I remember him.
Do you think that he's all right that little boy?
Oh yes. I think he's all right.
Do you think he was lost?
No. I dont [sic] think he was lost.
I'm scared that he was lost.
I think he's all right.
But who will find him if he's lost? Who will find the little boy?
Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again. (256)
And the father attempts to comfort his son, as he always has, answering his questions as best he can and giving him faith. The parallel between his son and the other "little boy" is redrawn, with both of them described as less lost and hungry than they were before. The father also assures him that they're both good, and that they're both safe -- an easy assertion for a dead man to make, but a comforting one nonetheless. The boy "slept close to his father that night" (256) and clearly loves him. In the end, he's proven right, as goodness, in the form of a traveling family, literally finds the son. The fate of the other little boy, though -- if he is, in fact, real -- is never resolved. They never see him again, and they never help him. They never have the chance. But he is probably all right.

The Road, Reading Blog #12 - Unknowns and Hope

He promised to keep the boy with him always to give the son comfort. As a father, your child comes first. But now at the time, the father won't give up hope as death takes hold of him. They, the father and son, were always lucky. He believes in the luck and hope of a brighter tomorrow.
-Kaylee Nolan

In our world, life is generally seen as preferable to death, but this is not necessarily true in the world of the father and son. To them, suicide is not an act of depression, nor an act of sin. It is merely a quiet surrender to the inevitability of death, a last act of unity. However, as Kaylee says/writes in her blog, the father's love for his son forces him to hold back, out of some desperate hope for his son's future. For anyone, imagining the future without a loved family member is, to put it simply, difficult. For the son, imagining the future without his father is impossible. But for the dying father, it is possible -- and preferable to no future at all. He cannot kill his son, not for all the promises in the world. And I am grateful that Kaylee gave me an excuse to write about this, because it's such an interesting concept.

To the father, in all but his weakest moments, life is still preferable to death. He wants his son to live, to have a chance to be happy, regardless of the suffering he will face. No matter what world he's living in, no matter who is with him, no matter any circumstances. Something, anything, is preferable to nothing. The known is preferable to the unknown. Life is preferable to death. The dying man said so.

P.S. Ironically, Blogger spell-check doesn't recognize the word "blog". Or "blogger", for that matter...

The Road, Reading Blog #11 - The Watchers' Council

Entire pages of The Road are devoted to lessons of morality, and the distinction between "good guys" and "bad guys" as the father and the son attempt to maintain some semblance of normal, moral rules. Truly, though, this is of little benefit to them, as there is no one else to appreciate it. This is addressed in the story in its characteristically defeatist way, as rhetorical questions are posed to the father, and to some extent, to the reader. The narrator asks right out, "do you think your fathers are watching?  That they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what? There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground" (196). Still, though, they continue to strive for goodness, imagining the promise -- or threat -- of watchers. When they shoot an old flare gun, the boy is disappointed with its range, admitting that he wants to show where he is to someone -- the good guys, or god, or "somebody like that" (246). Later, the boy meets other good guys, who do indeed watch him -- but the father never even knows they're there.

So, for their entire journey along the road, they have no physical proof of anyone watching or judging them; still, they have an obvious, if ambiguous, moral authority. This, more than anything else in the story, is commentary of a fundamental part of people. It is testament to the need we all feel -- not only as religious groups, or countries, or communities, but as individual human beings -- to follow a moral code. And while it might be more interesting to analyze the philosophies of the wandering cannibals, the book is about the man and the boy, and so I will focus on the man and the boy. Their stubborn adherence to their notion of goodness, despite the destruction surrounding them, is evidence that their way of life, that humanity itself, is not yet eradicated. Their fathers may be dead in the ground, but their morality is not. These ideals motivates the father to resist murder, and violence, when he can. It motivates him to abstain from eating a dog, and other people, when without other food. Most importantly, it motivates him to impart his ideals to his son, and to listen to his son when his son's morals are stronger than his own. If he were weighed in some metaphysical ledgerbook, he would not be found lacking, not at all. If he had a task, it was to continue humanity, and he has, for all intents and purposes, succeeded. His watchers would be proud. Who watches you, reader?

The Road, Reading Blog #10 - A Lucky Little Gamble

"You always have this hope that, today, I'm going to do something better than I've ever done." - Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy kind of annoys me, but I don't want to talk about that. No, I want to talk about McCarthy, and how his personality, or the bits I've seen, relates to his books, or the one I've read, anyway. He seems like a reasonably happy, trusting person, who believes the world will help him and he'll do well. He says this outright, later in the interview, commenting that he "always believed that everything would work out, one way or another" and that, by and large, they did. Now some of this can be attributed to his talent, some to his social class, some to luck -- and, interestingly, some of it can be seen in his novel. The father in the story (whom McCarthy sees as similar to himself) shares some of this trust, some of this entitlement. Of course, he doesn't think the world he lives in is safe, anymore, not by any stretch of the imagination. But he certainly has a remarkable ability to find safe places, and to leave them, with the expectation of finding more later. One could argue that his departures are more suicidal than trusting, but I don't think so, as he cares too deeply for his son to ever let him die. The only explanation for his repeated journeys -- against his son's wishes, I might add, as he doesn't seem to share his father's entitlement -- is that he, like McCarthy, believes that his beleaguered world will always provide.
McCarthy believes in this almost supernatural luck not just for himself, but for everyone in the world. Indeed, he goes so far as to speculate that some people -- market analysts, for example -- do their jobs not on the basis of algorithms or extrapolation but on the basis of luck. Now, I think that market analysts are very talented, and that his stories of luck are more confirmation bias than anything else, and that his fiscal insouciance could easily have killed him -- but I said I didn't want to talk about how he annoyed me, and I won't. In the context of The Road, this naive belief in luck and fate is remarkably well placed, especially as there are no organized religions to provide an alternative. In the characters' lifestyle, there is little else to base decisions on, as they have so little knowledge of their surroundings and their possible future. They have no market analysts to analyze the costs and benefits of possible decisions -- they simply go with their instinct. McCarthy, living as he did, with few resources or responsibilities, has ample experience with this lifestyle. He remarks that he tries to appreciate everything, as "life is pretty damn good, even when it looks bad" just as the characters appreciate everything, even just a few sweet pears and some clear water; he's been lucky, he thinks, and wants his characters to see themselves as lucky, too. "You should be thankful for what you have." Are you lucky, reader?

The Road, Reading Blog #9 - Semilethal Semicolons

"If you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate." - Cormac McCarthy

 Okay, so setting aside my annoyance at his lack of apostrophes, McCarthy certainly seems to get away with minimal punctuation. No brackets, no parentheses, no slashes, no dashes. Certainly no symbols, asterisks, quotation marks or semicolons. And as Oprah, ever the astute interviewer, points out, only one small colon. However, this does not legitimize him as a proper writer. Far from it.
Writing, to put it simply, is using your tools well. The English language has so many tools, often neglected (ever heard of the interabang? Didn't think so...) for the sake of tone, or register, or simplicity, or some infuriating need to imitate James Joyce. Just as an extensive vocabulary can make writing more concise and forceful, knowledge of punctuation, and the wherewithal to use it, can express different ideas and more complex interactions.
McCarthy still deigns to use the question mark, and the comma, because people speak in questions and pauses, and think that way, too -- they are simply unavoidable. But truthfully, communication is more than that. Human interaction is complex and novels need to convey it accurately.  People can use semicolons and parentheses without ever touching a pen, and simply trust that their subtle inflections will be understood. The characters in The Road are denied any opportunity to do this, which I see as a failure of McCarthy as a writer. Even when one is only trying to convey an idea in an essay or an article, varied punctuation is an asset, provided it's used correctly; punctuation can give essays depth and clarity. There's no need to denounce the semicolon! Punctuation, I say, is crucial to proper writing.

The Road, Reading Blog #8 - Illegal Aliens

 Foreign relations. What does that phrase bring to mind? Immigration policy is important to any country, and often hotly contested. Wars are often fought over borders with other countries, or simply ideals. Much of human conflict, in fact, is based on seemingly fundamental differences between those involved. The idea of people, of cultures, being alien is a very simple one, and very easy to believe in. Certainly, as someone who's lived in a few different continents, I personally am familiar with the feeling of being an alien, or interacting with them.
But in The Road, characters never encounter people from other countries -- on the contrary, it is the father who feels like an alien with his own son, "a being from a planet that no longer existed." (153) This seems to be a frightening thought, especially to someone who awakes because he's "been visited in a dream by creatures of a kind he'd never seen before" and remembers the feeling of this long after the dream itself is forgotten. His fear of the unknown is not unreasonable, and it is a very straightforward fear, one he can live with. The true fear he finds in his dream is his inability to comfort his son, to give him happiness and raise him the way he was raised. He ruminates that the tales of his life are suspect, and decides that he "could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well" (154) and as such, he should not even try. To add insult to injury, he thinks that "perhaps the child had known this better than he", known that "he could not enkindle
in the heart of the child what was ashes in his own" (154). Some part of him is ashes, in dead and desecrated, burned up with this realization. "Some part of him always wished it to be over." (154) For some part of him, it is over.
His only use for his past is to tell his son about it, and he cannot. His only use for stories is to share them, and he cannot. With this realization, his stories are ashes. If he cannot tell his stories, he may as well be an alien, who for all intents and purposes cannot relate to those he encounters. It is more than a mere language barrier, or a separate past -- it is a separate present, as the present is colored by the past. And since he cannot relate his stories to his son, he cannot share his present. Their foreign relations are nonexistent, doomed from the outset.

The Road, Reading Blog #7 - Homecoming

If there is one phrase I can guarantee you'll never see in this book, it's "welcome home!" You might ask how I can be so sure, but if you've read the book, you probably won't, because one of the most obvious characteristics of the small family in the story is their complete homelessness. They have no safe place for more than a few days, no guarantees, nothing indispensable, and certainly nothing permanent. They have no illusions about this, either, as the man constantly reminds the boy that they must go on, and cannot stay in places. Lest you think they are consumed with wanderlust, let me clarify -- this is a requirement for survival in their world. The oldest man they meet states this unequivocally, telling the man, "I was always on the road. You can't stay in one place... I just keep going." (168) Travel, no longer a pleasant precursor to vacation, has become a way of life for everyone, whether they like it or not. The only constant in their lives in the changes they know time will bring.

These characters use travel to find more resources, and more supplies, but that is not their primary motivation. They could easily make a home somewhere if they wished; they have found stationary sources of food and water, and places to live. However, the man has always declared these places "dangerous" (148) even though their alternative is the harrowing life on the road, and they have always moved on. Their commitment to travel is so strong, in fact, that it cannot be motivated by reason -- no, I suspect it is much more than that. Settling down and declaring a home, even only for a year or two, means accepting their situation as it is. Home means no travel, no quest for a better life, no hope for whatever they desire that they do not possess. So they search for comfort, not in a home, but somewhere in the future, somewhere far down the road.

The Road, Reading Blog #6 - The Pursuit of Happiness

There are very few things in this world that could ever be considered perfect, but they do exist. Everyone has something, even if they only imagine it, even if its presence is only a fleeting dream, that they know to be perfect. Not so for the travelers in The Road. No, their very existence is imperfect, and they have no presumptions to the contrary. The very food they eat, the water they drink, the supplies they find -- all is suspect. Even when, by some miracle, those worries are completely assuaged, as they are in an underground shelter they find that contains "everything" (139), there are still other worries to contend with. They worry about the possibility of discovery, about their future, about their death. They worry about their past, about the death they've seen, about the murderers they've escaped and the slowly murdered people they couldn't help -- or at least the son does. Truthfully, there's so much to worry about, so many things that will never be perfect, never be okay, that they have to choose what to worry about. Their anxieties are the very foundation of their identities, as they have no perfect things to marvel at or enjoy, only pain to see and take in.

The man concerns himself only with survival, mainly that of his son. He worries about how to fulfill their needs, and keep their hearts beating and their lungs breathing. Others are plainly of no concern to him, only an irritation to tolerate when the boy takes an interest. And the boy does take interest, in many more people, places, and ideas than his father does. He sees himself, consciously or not, as a person with a place in the world, and his worries reflect this. He wonders about a "little boy" he's seen (110) and the people who built shelter (142) and wants to reach out to them, despite his father's resistance. He is very much concerned with the world around him, with others and with morality, with good and bad. Though he's never known anything to be perfect, he longs for perfection, for goodness, in himself, and in his world. And in such a world as his, I think the longing is as close as he's going to come to perfection.

The Road, Reading Blog #5 - The Ultimate Failure

What would you do if your father wanted you to die? If he wanted you to be able to kill yourself? Could you obey him? Would you?
What would you do if your son was going to die? If you needed him to commit suicide to spare himself unimaginable pain? Could you hand him a gun and tell him exactly how? Would you tell him he had to?
For the family in the story, these questions are all answered in a few short minutes. McCarthy describes it all in one tense paragraph.
"He took the boy's hand and pushed the revolver into it. Take it, he whispered. Take it. The boy was terrified. He put his arm around him and held him. His body so thin. Dont be afraid, he said. If they find you you are going to have to do it. Do you understand? Shh. No crying. Do you hear me? You know how to do it. You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it quick and hard. Do you understand? Stop crying. Do you understand?
I think so.
No. Do you understand?
Yes.
Say yes I do Papa.
Yes I do Papa.
He looked down at him. All he saw was terror. He took the gun from him. No you
dont [sic], he said." (103)
In this scene, the father once again demonstrates his willingness -- his driving desire -- to be a martyr for his son, to sacrifice himself so his son can live or die a little better. And his son rejects his sacrifice. He proves himself unworthy of his father's aid, and unwilling to allow his mindless suicide, by stopping him from leaving him. He quickly proves that, regardless of his father's wishes, he is as unable to live alone as his father -- at least at this point. He would rather them both be captured than his father leave him alone. His father would rather die than be left without his son. They're both unable to die happily, and know that they must die eventually. So they are doomed not only to die, but to die thinking they've failed the one person they loved.

The Road, Reading Blog #4 - Never Say Always

So there aren't any words in The Road, so far, that I've needed to define -- but there are many words that I think should be carefully defined, both in terms of the story and outside of it.

"Always" is one of those words. It doesn't come up often, because for the characters there are so few things that they can take for granted. They are going south -- they are always going south. And they are the good guys -- they "always will be" the good guys (77). But what does that mean? Nothing in their world is always there. They are mortal, and the man frequently plans for death, so they will not always be anything. And certainly, they cannot always be "good", whatever that means (but let's set aside that definition for another time). In their world, always, for all its lasting connotations, is firmly temporary. But they use it, and the boy uses it, nevertheless. Perhaps they are simply used to saying it, accustomed to the idea of forever. But I think they know how empty this statement is. I think they know that forever is a thing of the past, but cannot bring themselves to say it out loud. Because we, as people, want the assurance that things can last, and nowhere is this more important than in a world of transience.

Still, the characters in this story are not the first to use always without meaning it. We use it all the time, whether promising eternal love, or eternal faith, or simply eternal existence. We are such liars.

The Road, Reading Blog #3 - The Dead Identity

In our present world, dead people are buried. They are mourned. They are acknowledged, and remembered. In our world, at least in the parts of it where people would read this book, death is feared, death is exalted, and above all, death is remarkable. Why is death so unremarkable in this story?

Humans, in The Road, die like animals -- with no fuss, no funeral, no tears. Dead bodies, too, have lost all of their sacredness, as far as I can tell. At one point, the man finds a trailer, and looks inside only to see "human bodies. Sprawled in every attitude. Dried and shrunken in their rotten clothes." (47) He sees them, but he does not react, except to leave. He experiences no repulsion, no fear, no anger, no curiosity -- no typical human reactions. He has, essentially, lost his human response to death. He has no reaction, because there is nothing to provoke one -- nothing out of the ordinary to comment on. His one concession to his humanity is to keep his discovery from his son. This seems hugely significant, that in the face of massacres, he is largely psychopathic, but expects the opposite from his son.

The man, like the cannibals he encounters, sees dead humans the way most people (today) see dead meat, without emotion. But he prevents his son from seeing them at all, from gaining any of the perspective his father has effortlessly acquired. This is his sole goal in life, to help his son. He protects his son, as best he can, against everything he can. This is his answer to the question he asks, almost rhetorically, on page 49 -- "Who is anybody?" While he has his son, he is the protector. Who else could he ever be?

The Road, Reading Blog #1 - The Colors of the Wind

This novel is one of the most hopeless I've ever read. The setting, the plot, the characters -- all of the color and life in this world has dulled to gray. The tiny hopeful vignettes that pepper the story are surrounded and overcome by the general destruction at every turn. And if you don't believe that anyone would write such a sad and despairing novel, I have ample proof.

Let's begin with the setting, which is mainly centered around the titular road that they walk on, day in and day out. Roads, you know, are black, so this is a very fitting path for travelers in a world where nights are "dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before" (3). Indeed, the novel itself seems to follow this pattern, with pages more bleak each one than what had gone before, and with more convoluted syntax, too -- and missing apostrophes! Do you have any idea how insanely aggravating it is to be reading something that boasts of a Pulitzer, and a major motion picture, but lacks basic copy-editing? It's supposed to be a #1 National Bestseller, for Pete's sake! But no, the man "wasnt sure" and he "hadnt kept" (4). It gets better a ways in, when he says things like "Let's go" (17) and "it's too far" (20), but I really -- I really digress. Sorry. Like I was saying, the world is entirely colorless in its present state. It's all "ashen scabland" and "wet gray flakes" of snow with "gray slush" and worst of all, "Black water running from under the sodden drifts of ash" (16). It's entirely pathetic, is my point here. Really, the only bit of color is a ham that's "deep red" with blood, and that still looks "like something fetched from a tomb" (17) so it doesn't do much for the color scheme.

Anyway, I think that's enough evidence on the setting -- all of the descriptions of things becoming raw and black in the rain are too depressing to quote anymore. Let's talk about the man's dreams, instead, because those have whole rainbows in them, and nothing is covered with ash. He has dreams, and flashbacks, about almost everything, from the previous wonders of nature, to his old love life, and family memories from his childhood. And they're full of adjectives, with "yellow leaves" by a lake (13) and "a green and leafy canopy" for a bride (18). Really, these could be downright pleasant, happy memories for the man to share with his son or call up for strength in times of weakness -- but the dreams only serve to deepen his depression, and solidify his feelings of loss in his new reality. After recalling a nice romantic date, he thinks to himself, "freeze this frame. now call down your dark and your cold and be damned" (19). He's not happy to have lived -- he's cursing his damnation, as if he's already died and gone to hell. Maybe he has, because he can't be happy, can't appreciate his dreams, that he knows are "so rich in color" only because, well, "how else would death call you?" (21). I don't think death needs to call him at all. If not for his son, he'd already be there.

The Road, Reading Blog #2 - Obedience School

Now earlier, I tried to establish the despondency of this novel, but a little further in, and the characters turn out to be capable of happiness. Nothing has really changed in their situation, or their companionship (as the only other people are dead or have been struck by lightning, or are mysterious cannibals) but they've traveled more.

I expected the father, at least, to be happy in his old house, but he was just really nostalgic. His only thoughts were memories, and his only words were to the boy -- agreeing that they should leave (26). The boy certainly seemed to dislike it, and though I'm not sure why, that might be why his father didn't allow himself to be happy there. He exhibits some very obedient behaviors towards his son -- or maybe he's just subservient, or something else, I don't know, but he treats him preferentially in almost every way. He gives him the only can of soda he finds in an old supermarket (23) and goes into dangerous places first, always. Maybe this is simple fatherly love, likely augmented by knowledge that he will die first -- he seems to be dying, at least, because healthy people don't cough blood (30) -- but under the circumstances, it's much more intense. He says outright that he'd die if his son did (10), but at this point, the boy would die without his father as well. Maybe he knows this, or simply cares for his father similarly regardless of his survival instinct, but he attempts to stop some of his father's behavior. When his father gives him hot chocolate and drinks hot water,  he objects, saying that his father "promised not to do that" and that he watches him all the time, so he won't break his promises. His father concedes and drinks some hot chocolate -- but even in this attempt to equalize them he is obedient.

As I was saying, their happiness is just as codependent as their lives as a whole. The man cannot be happy unless his son is, as illustrated when they find a waterfall, which the boy describes as "a good place" (40). Of course, this wouldn't be remarkable in the modern world, but in their world, good places are hard to come by. The man helps his son swim in the water, and finds mushrooms to eat -- a glimmer of life in the mostly dead world -- and they stay for a bit. But ultimately he can't let go of his worries entirely, and insists that they leave before the boy is ready. Still, he seems to enjoy his son's happiness, almost being happy himself. Almost.


PS You know what's really annoying? Every edit resets the entire post, and its time stamp. Ugh.

Coming Through Slaughter, Close Reading #2 - I've Got Baggage Too

At one point in the story, Bolden is in limbo. He is supposed to board a train, but is unable to go through with it when he realizes how alone he is. At the train station, he understands his situation with sudden, paralyzing clarity, realizing that he "did not have any baggage with him, just the mouthpiece in his pocket. He could step on the train or go back to the Brewitts. He was frozen. He woke to see the train disappearing away from his body like a vein. He continued to stand hiding behind the mail wagon. Help me. He was scared of everybody. He didn't want to meet anybody he knew again, ever in his life." He has no real home anymore, no place he feels is safe, or even safe enough to return to. He's trapped, clearly unable to choose, frozen with fear and completely alone. Hey, what a great place for close reading!

Though he has no physical baggage, he clearly has emotional baggage weighing him down, and making his life difficult. The interest here is not only in his deteriorated mental state, but also in the events that have made him this way, afraid to meet anyone he knows, to see his family or his friends, literally hiding from his past. He would rather spend the night alone, sleeping on the beach, with his mouthpiece. He even hides from the train, which he sees as part of himself, a vein of his blood. Well, Buddy, I have news for you, veins are permanent; they're not kite strings waiting to be cut free, and they don't just disappear. As much as he tries to hide from his past, and his future, he cannot, and eventually returns to his family, and the Brewitts. After all, he's asking for help -- he clearly needs help -- and he knows they will offer help, and comfort, or at least do their best.

Still, despite his obvious distress, he doesn't seek help immediately -- remember, he's afraid to meet people he knows -- he leaves the station, drinks beer, and tries to comfort himself. He meets new people, hears new music, goes new places, and attempts to abandon his baggage and his fear. In the end, he doesn't choose from the choices he's given. He steps outside of the train station's false dichotomy, ignores the past, and the future, and just creates a new present for himself. Why not?

Coming Through Slaughter, Close Reading #1 - How Much Control is Worth

At first glance, my favorite passage so far doesn't seem very interesting -- I mean, Bolden's watching a woman cut carrots, it's not earth-shattering. But his thoughts here reveal a lot about his outlook on life, which impacts, and foreshadows, his later madness.As Bolden watches her cook, he ruminates on the nature of our actions, commenting on her skill that,  "As with all skills he watches for it to fail. If she thinks what she is doing she will lose control. He knows that the only way to catch a fly for instance is to move the hand without the brain telling it to move fast, interfering." Bolden himself is clearly skilled, in playing jazz, in socializing, and at this point, in staying sane (if that can be called a skill). He's holding himself together. All of these skills eventually fail him, as he expects them to, when he loses control of himself and his life later in the story. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when his descent into madness begins, but this passage certainly casts some light on it. From Bolden's perspective, people lose control when they think about their actions, when they allow rational thought and introspection to -- as Bolden puts it -- interfere.
Is this interference what spells the end for Bolden? Perhaps. He seems happy and sane initially, going about his life without interruption, without any significant choices or thoughts. His happy state is unstable, though, and he knows it is, perhaps even wants it to be, to prove himself right and explore darker parts of his life. In this way, Bolden's perspective is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy; He thinks his life will change, and his acknowledgment of other possibilities makes them certain.

While the author is foreshadowing Bolden's eventual downfall, he may also be commenting on the nature of people and existence. This passage can, of course, be read many ways, and I'm no expert on existentialism, just a student reading about carrot pieces. Maybe all people are doomed to lives of ignorance, or unhappy awareness. Maybe intellectuals are cursed with low productivity. Maybe we should be introspective to process, and by extension, truly live our lives. Or perhaps people need to lose control, to act without thinking, to be truly human. I don't know. What do you think?