Category Archives: Arts One texts

The shape of things falling apart

I’m participating in the open online digital storytelling course called DS106, which is happening on a shortened, 7 week schedule until about mid-May. For the first week, we were asked (among other things that I didn’t have time to do because I’m still teaching right now) to think about the shapes of stories. Two things we could look at were a video in which Kurt Vonnegut explains some familiar story shapes, and a web page in which Kenn Adams talk about the idea of a “story spine.” We were asked to think about a story familiar to us in terms of these ideas.

In a course I’m teaching called Arts One (a team-taught, interdisciplinary course for first-year students at the University of British Columbia), we’re reading and discussing Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart this upcoming week. So I figured I’d try to analyze this text using these two discussions of the shapes of stories.

Vonnegut’s story shapes

In this video by Vonnegut, several story arcs are described:

1. “Man in a hole”: someone starts of being above average in terms of good/bad fortune, then goes significantly downwards, then gets out of the hole by the end, back to approximately where s/he started.

2. “Boy meets girl”: someone starts off in a pretty average position of good/bad fortune, then finds something great or something amazing happens to him/her, then they lose it, then they get it back again (or something else that brings them back up).

3. Cinderella: someone starts off very low on the good/bad fortune scale, climbs upward, then falls down, then goes back up. In Cinderella’s case, she ends up with ultimate, off the scale happiness.

Of course, a pattern is easily recognized here: one somehow at some point goes downward in the good/bad fortune scale, and then goes back up. Maybe they go up before they go down, but regardless there is some downward movement and back upward movement.

Can we read Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as fitting one of these shapes? I don’t think so, because it has more of a tragic story shape. To me, that means that someone starts off pretty high up on the good/bad fortune scale, or starts off middling and moves up, and then goes downward…and the story ends. That’s pretty much what happens here. Of course, perhaps that’s one of Vonnegut’s story shapes too, it’s just that we don’t see the whole talk from which this video is taken. He’s only talking about the “comedies” (happy endings) rather than the “tragedies.” This seems pretty clear a tragedy.

At the beginning of the story, Okonkwo is said already to be famous as a wrestler. He has excelled in life far beyond his father, Unoka, who was “lazy and improvident and quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow” (4). He is also mired in debt, and his wives and children “barely had enough to eat” (5). Onkonkwo is ashamed of his father and has done much better for himself by the beginning of the novel. He is not only renowned as a wrestler, he has also “shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars,” has “two barns full of yams,” has just married his third wife, and has taken two titles (8). He starts off in a very good position in his society.

Things start going downhill for him after he takes part in killing a boy who has lived with him for several years. Ikemefuna was sent to live in Okonkwo’s village as part of a settlement between clans, when another clan murdered a girl of Okonkwo’s clan. Ikemefuna lived in Okonkwo’s household for several years, when an oracle decrees that he must be killed. An elder tells Okonkwo not to participate in the killing (57), but he ends up doing so when Ikemefuna runs to him after someone else strikes him first, and Okonkwo, fearing “being thought weak,” strikes him as well and kills him (61).

Things start going downhill after this. During a funeral ceremony for one of the men of the village, Okonkwo’s gun accidentally goes off and kills the 16 year old son of the dead man (124). He has to leave the clan for seven years. He goes back to the village of his mother and works there during that time, and is upset because he is not rising higher in his clan like he had hoped. During this time missionaries come to his old village and the one he is living in as well, and he gets the devastating news that one of his sons has joined the new religion.

When at the end of his seven years of exile Okonkwo returns to his village, he finds that the clan is broken apart, with some people going over to the new religion and a new rule of law and court system run by the missionaries. Okonkwo’s full downfall comes when he kills one of the new converts who is enforcing the laws of the missionaries, hoping that the rest of his clan will join him in rebellion against them. But the clan does not act; instead, they ask why Okonkwo killed the man (204-205). The next we hear about Okonkwo his body is dangling from a tree, after he has chosen to hang himself.

This story starts from a place of relative prosperity, and the protagonist simply goes downhill. We might even think about him having a character flaw, a “hamartia” in the ancient Greek language of tragedy, that leads him to this downfall. In Okonkwo’s case it could be his temper, his ruling of his household with a heavy hand (13). He beats one of his wives during the “Week of Peace” (29), which is against the rules of their religion, and even shoots at one of his wives at one point (39). It could also be his overbearing fear of weakness and effeminateness, which is what leads him to kill Ikemefuna. But then again, this could just be me approaching the story from my 21st century, North American values.

Kenn Adams and the story spine

According to this post, the story spine is a way to come up with ideas for a well-crafted story. It is just the backbone, just the basics, on which other elements of the story can be hung. It goes something like this:

1. The beginning: establishes the main character’s world and everyday routine. “Once upon a time…” and “Every day…”

2. The event: but one day, the routine is broken.

3. The middle: the consequences of breaking the routine. “Because of that…” and “because of that…” and “because of that…”

4. The climax: “until finally…” the character “embarks on success or failure.”

5. The end: success or failure occurs, and “a new routine is established”

This fits quite well with Achebe’s novel. The first few chapters establish Okonkwo’s world, the daily routines, the rituals, the seasonal festivals, and more. Then one day he kills Ikemefuna. Or maybe the event in this story should be thought of as accidentally killing the son of a man during that man’s funeral, since that really breaks up his routine: because of that, Okonkwo has to go into exile. Because of that he does not prosper in his clan as he had planned.

Then there was also the arrival of the missionaries, which doesn’t have any direct causal connection to what Okonkwo has done (no “because of that” here), but which ends up “breaking the routine” in an entirely different and much more destructive way. Because of the missionaries’ arrival, Okonkwo’s son ends up estranged from his father. And the missionaries end up jailing Okonkwo and others at one point until the village pays a fine. And then on top of that there was the killing of the religious spirit by a convert, and all of this seems to lead to the climax: Okonkwo killing one of the converts and hoping the rest of the clan will join him in a war. But he has misread them; they are as weak as his son, and he cannot face his life anymore. The end: failure.

This is, at least, how I’m reading the text before hearing one of our teaching team lecture on it tomorrow…maybe I’ll change my mind about the story and its shape later.

Concluding thoughts

This was a really interesting exercise–I discovered that there are certain shapes of stories that are common, that you can find within many stories, such as the up-down movement of fortune or the story spine. I can see how practice in finding these sorts of shapes in stories might help one better construct stories oneself. Interesting that there are some very regular shapes that work, that are repeated over and over.

When I started doing ds106 about a year ago (this is my third iteration already!) I was convinced I had no artistic talent. That myth got busted very quickly. I’m still pretty convinced I don’t know how to create a fictional story that works. Most of my ds106 artworks aren’t really full narrative stories, but images, animated gifs, short videos that don’t really fit any of these kinds of shapes. But maybe it’s time to start busting the idea that I’m just no good at telling stories like this and that it’s some kind of mysterious power that some people have and others don’t. Maybe there’s some kind of basic rules or shapes that one can start with and then fill out. Hmmm… for now, I think I’ll just stick to finding those shapes in others’ stories and slowly work towards maybe one tell telling my own.

Work cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Anchor Canada, 2009.

Catherine Morland: more interesting than I first thought

In Arts One this term we read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (we’re reading the “Oxford World’s Classics” edition, edited by James Kinsely and John Davie, so that’s what the page numbers below refer to). In class we discussed how the protagonist, Catherine Morland, seems not a terribly interesting character. She’s naive, simple-minded, easily swayed by what she reads in gothic novels, too ready to submit to the knowledge and judgment of Henry Tilney as superior to her own, and well, just rather dull.

But the more I thought about the text, the more I began to wonder if there’s a more positive way to view her character. Basically, I was wondering why in the world Austen would choose this type of girl to be a protagonist, especially when she’s written so many more interesting female protagonists in other novels (yes, this was a very early novel, but still…).

We discussed in class how Northanger Abbey can be read as a social commentary on the horrors of social life being just as bad or worse than those of gothic fiction. And I was thinking about how Catherine is really an outside to social customs and manners in much of the text. There is so much she doesn’t understand, that she misses. For example:

She is confused when John Thorpe says two contrary things on one of their carriage rides. This is because “she had not been brought up to understand the propensities of a rattle, nor to know how many idle assertions and impudent falsehoods the excess of vanity will lead” to (46).
Similarly, she can’t understand it when General Tilney says he doesn’t care about the dinner that Henry will provide for them, while at the same time meaning exactly the opposite: “…why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood?” (156).
At first when the flirtation between Isabella and Captain Tilney is starting, she seems very naive and thinks that Isabella must simply not understand what she is doing, and Catherine feels she ought to try to warn her of the fact that the Captain may be falling in love with her (106)
Catherine is entirely ignorant of John Thorpe’s affection towards her, and that she encouraged him in thinking she might be willing to marry him (90-91, 104-105).

All of these things and more suggest that Catherine is just socially ignorant, that she doesn’t understand the usual customs and what certain behaviours mean. We can look at her as just a simple-minded country girl who is being introduced to society and failing at it, but maybe there’s something else going on.

Perhaps we could look at Catherine as a lens through which to see the social norms and customs from the outside, as it were, so as to be able to see them as strange. I mean when you think about it, it is unaccountable that one should say one thing and mean entirely the opposite. How can people be understood that way? And why would someone who is seemingly happily engaged flirt with someone else in such a way as Isabella does? Why must being friendly and polite and entirely honest mean that someone else takes one’s words as meaning one is in love with that person? What the General did to Catherine really is entirely incomprehensible.

Catherine’s mother sums it up well when she says of the General’s actions in throwing Catherine out of the house: “it is something not at all worth understanding” (173).

Perhaps it takes an outsider’s viewpoint to make the insanity of what the social situation of marriage, especially for women, makes people do. In that sense, I wonder if we are to empathize with Catherine, and agree with Henry when he praises her because she is “open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise” (152).

Maybe she is not just simple-minded as I originally thought. Or maybe she is to some extent, but that this is not such a bad thing. She refuses to play the social games (or perhaps one should rather say that she can’t because she doesn’t know how and doesn’t see why one should), and yet she still “wins” (and Isabella loses–she gets neither James nor Captain Tilney).

Now I kind of like Catherine. Well, at least more than I did.

Césaire, Walcott and Henri Christophe

Engraving of Henri Christophe, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons (public domain): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heinrich_I_-_K%C3%B6nig_von_Haiti.jpg

[In the Arts One group in which I’m teaching, this week we read two plays about King Henri Christophe of Haiti, one by Aimé Césaire called The Tragedy of King Christophe (mid 1960s) and one by Derek Walcott called King Christophe (1949)].

In class today I had planned to have us talk about the following in small groups after we did the larger group discussion, but when I looked at my watch I realized it was already too late! And since we only have one seminar discussion on these texts, I thought I’d use a blog post to make some observations/suggestions.

Endings

I’m on a bit of an “endings” kick the past couple of weeks. I was very intrigued by and somewhat puzzled by the ending of Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World, as I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that Ti Nöel is never heard from again, after his seeming epiphany and transformation into someone who seems like he’s now going to take action. I’m still working on that one (does he become the vulture in the last paragraph, flying towards the Böis Caiman, which is where Bouckman ralllied the slaves for the first battle of the revolution?).

So when thinking about these two plays together, I started thinking about comparing beginnings and endings. Comparing the beginnings didn’t get me that far (yes, of course, they’re very different, but I couldn’t really do much with that), but I found something interesting when I compared the endings. Both end the same place, with Henri’s death, which provides a nice even field for thinking about how they treat this event.

Ending of Césaire’s play

I’ll start with Scene five of the last Act (Act III), starting with p. 86. In this scene, several things struck me, including the discussion between Christophe and Hugonin at the beginning, when Christophe tells him, finally, that’s enough comic relief and Hugonin speaks about the reality as compared to Christophe’s hopes, thus leading Christophe to note that Hugonin’s words are “weighed down with the wreckage of my dreams” (87). I’m still working on what I think of Hugonin as a character, what his role in the play is, but here he is definitely able to use his position to speak the truth (or close to it) plainly to Christophe. I think he may do so in more veiled ways earlier in the play, but I haven’t looked all the way through yet to verify this.

But what I want to focus on in this scene is something else. Christophe, towards the end of the scene, tries to rally his troops, tries to follow the proverb that says “When you see an arrow that’s not going to miss you, throw out your chest and meet it head on” (88). He stands up and talks about how he can still fight, how they are all scared of him, how the enemy’s army is riffraff, etc. It seems like it’s going to be a kind of rousing, hero’s end … but then he falls just as he shouts for them to move forward… and blames someone else (“Who did that?”) (90). An unreal apparition of Boyer appears and describes how people are rightly deserting Christophe for his treatment of them, and the soldiers desert.

This, to me, is an image of Christophe in miniature, in a way, of him attempting to move boldly forward, to engage in heroic deeds for his people, but then failing because of the way he treats them in order to try to mould them, shape them into something great (a theme in Césaire’s play). They desert him, and he falls. His death, in this context, could be read as a lonely, cowardly one, hiding away. His last words: “I’ll attend to the rest alone” (90).

Then, of course, there’s the scene with Hugonin giving a “minute of silence” before we hear the shot. He announces at the end that he is “Sometimes addressed as Baron Saturday” (93), which I had to look up. Baron Samedi is a Voudou spirit, specifically the spirit of the dead. He is usually portrayed in a black tuxedo and top hat, and he has a fondness for tobacco and rum. He is, apparently, well known for bad behaviour including debauchery, swearing, making filthy jokes, and drinking too much. So that explains why he appears as he does in this scene. Whether we are to take Hugonin as an image of Baron Samedi throughout the play I don’t know.

Lastly, then, there is the burial of Christophe in mortar on a mountain, which I think we can take as the construction site of the citadel, but I’m not certain. Much is made of him being erect, standing up, not lying down–as he wanted Haiti to do. And he gets to continue to do for a very long time, becoming one with the stone, as Carpentier notes in his novel. He will eventually turn to dust, but he is more solid and enduring this way than he would be if just buried in the dirt.

Ending of Walcott’s play

This ending is much more focused on images of dust and ruin, of impermanence, weakness, oblivion than the one in Césaire’s play. The beginning of the end could be said to be after Christophe kills Brelle; right afterwards he begins to hear the drums, leading him to recognize his coming doom: “What drums are those?/ They are coming nearer./ Oh, Vastey, my dreams … / Ruin, ruin, O King, ruin and blood!” (95). And from there he quickly becomes paralyzed, cannot move his legs.

In Césaire’s play he’s paralyzed too, of course (and apparently Christophe did have a stroke that left him partially paralyzed), but he still seems to rally towards the end, to try to stand up resistant, rouse his troops, etc. Of course, it doesn’t work, but he tries. In Walcott’s play he seems weak, seems to have submitted to his fall without much of a fight. Unlike Vastey he doesn’t regret anything, but doesn’t really stand up, literally or figuratively. He gets “half upright” on p. 106, and then “sinks in the chair, beaten, but alert.”

Vastey speaks of the citadel as already falling into ruins, and of “dust on the mirrors, floors cracking” in his own rooms (99). And he speaks to Henri of how death erases the complexion, makes us the same: “In death, Henri, the bone is anonymous;/ Complexions only grin above the skeleton” (101). This reminds me of the gravediggers scene in Hamlet, in which Hamlet speaks of similar things. And of course, Henri himself addresses a skull at the end (like Hamlet does), pointing out that while alive, “Time like a pulse was knocking in the eyelid” — death is always there, waiting, decay and ruin (106).

Christophe wonders what he will leave behind besides an anonymous skull; “A king’s memory, or oblivion” (107). His last words suggest oblivion, perhaps, rather than a king’s memory: “And after that …/ Oblivion and silence” (107). (Hamlet’s last words: “The rest is silence.”)

And that’s it; no burial in stone, no memorial, no nothing. Just dust, ruin, oblivion and silence. This one seems to emphasize impermanence, decay, dust and ruin, at least in the ending, than Césaire’s does.

Well, I won’t go further in trying to make something of this, because to do so I’d have to do close readings of many more passages from each play, and this post is very long already. But I found this difference interesting, and it made me think further about the emphasis on time as an enemy in Walcott’s play (Sylla, p. 34; Christophe, p. 84), and the emphasis on history “burning biographies like rubbish,” which is said twice (100, 106).

What the heck are the “laws of nature” for Hobbes?

Destruction of Leviathan, engraving by Gustav Doré (1865). In the public domain. Accessed from Wikimedia Commons.

No, I don’t mean which laws of nature does he list–that’s easy. The first two, in Chapter 14, state:

1. Everyone should “endeavour peace” when it is possible to attain; if not, we can engage in “war.”

2. We should be willing to transfer our natural right to all things in the state of nature to a sovereign power, when others are willing to do so too, for the sake of peace and defense of our security.

Then there are 17 more in Chapter 15, saying things such as: we should keep our covenants (so long as there is a common power to enforce them), we should pardon past offences by those who repent of them, acknowledge equality of persons, treat people impartially when judging disputes, and more.

My question is: What sort of things are these laws? What does it mean to say they are laws of nature?

Different ways of thinking about what “laws” are

One way to think about “laws of nature” is to imagine them like physical laws, like the laws of motion. If Hobbes’ laws of nature were like this then it would seem they would describe how people just naturally act; they would be laws in the sense of descriptions of universal regularities of human action.

But it’s pretty clear that Hobbes’ laws of nature are not simply descriptions of how humans always or usually act. What comes closer to that sort of thing are statements he says about our common desires and aversions, as discussed on Monday–things like desire for power (“one’s present means to obtain some future apparent good” (Chapter 1, Sect. 1, p. 50), or fear of death.

Another way of thinking of “laws” is as rules created by an authority, such as a governmental authority (civil laws) or the commandments of God. Are the laws of nature laws in that sense? Turns out Hobbes says yes, that we can think of them as “delivered in the word of God, that by right commandeth all things” (Chapter 15, sect. 41, p. 100). So then, all these things we should do would be commandments given to us by God.

“general rule[s], found out by reason”

But Hobbes actually talks about laws of nature in quite a different way than this, most of the time. In his lecture on Hobbes, Robert Crawford pointed out that there is a difference between thinking of “natural law” (which can be considered as a commandment by God) and “laws of nature”–the latter being instead “precepts determined by reason” (from my notes on the lecture).

Here’s how Hobbes defines a law of nature: “a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved” (Chapter 14, sect. 3, p. 79). So here, it sounds like we can use our reason to determine that we ought to do whatever we can to preserve ourselves.

But that doesn’t sound all that different from thinking of laws of nature as what we naturally tend to do, because, as noted above, we already do tend to naturally seek to preserve ourselves. So what gives?

Articles of peace that protect people “in multitudes”

Hobbes also calls the laws of nature “articles of peace,” suggested by reason, by which people can live together well in groups without falling into a state of war (Chapter 13, sect. 14, p. 78): “These are the laws of nature dictating peace for a means of conservation of men in multitudes” (Chapter 15, sect. 34, p. 99).

Here is where things start to get clearer for me. For Hobbes, people naturally tend to seek their own preservation and the power to be able to attain that which they consider good, but when we live together with others (or even near them) our natural desires and aversions lead us into conflict (the “state of war”). We don’t naturally and automatically coordinate our efforts so as to achieve the best outcome for all of us. Hobbes says that we are not like bees or ants, who can live sociably together naturally (Chapter 17, sect. 6, p. 108).

We need to use our reason to determine what rules we should follow to make living with others in groups something that conduces to our own individual desires for self-preservation and the means to fulfill our desires now and in the future. So, for example, reason can tell us that the laws of nature numbers 2-19 should be followed in order to promote peaceful living in groups. The first law of nature is something we can determine by reason too–if we live in a group with others, what would really be best for us is to seek peace, because that’s going to allow us to achieve our natural desires best. But if it’s not possible, do the next best thing–whatever you need to to survive and defend what you have, namely war.

Best and worst outcomes

I had this on the board in seminar today, but we didn’t get a chance to talk about it.

This is meant to show that in the state of nature, even if we want to try to work together with others, come together in social groups to cooperate rather than engage in conflict and war, it doesn’t actually make rational sense to do so. We can try to work together in groups by coming up with rules that we should all follow, but it only makes sense to follow such rules if we can be reasonably assured others will too. That would be the state of “peace.” That, for Hobbes, is the best outcome.

The worst outcome is being “prey”–when I follow rules and most others don’t: “he that should be modest and tractable, and perform all he promises, in such a time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruin, contrary to the ground of all laws of nature, which tend to nature’s preservation” (Chapter 15, sect. 36, p. 99). In this quote Hobbes is saying it’s stupid to follow the laws of nature when there’s no assurance that others will too.

But without a common power to enforce rules, we don’t have reasonable assurance that others will follow them. So to avoid the worst outcome (prey) it makes sense to engage in conflict, trying to take what others have, avoiding any rules except “do whatever is necessary for your own preservation” (not a quote from Hobbes). This means either being a predator or engaging in war, though since most other people will recognize that they too should do whatever is necessary to preserve themselves, the most likely outcome is war.

This diagram also explains the first law of nature: we should seek peace if we can (it’s the best outcome), but if we can’t, it makes the most sense for our own self-preservation to engage in war.

Back to just what the heck laws of nature are

Naturally, when we live with or near other people, we are going to end up in war. That’s the rational choice. But reason also gives us another option: it suggests “articles of peace,” rules we should follow to achieve peace. The first step is to set up a state with a sovereign (the second law of nature), and then to follow the 3rd through 19th laws of nature once in that state, since these will promote peace (according to Hobbes).

So the laws of nature are not just how we naturally always act. If we were bees or ants we would naturally work together in groups in a way that would promote peace. But we need reason to tell us a set of rules that we should follow in order to achieve this, because if left on our own we will end up in war.

But in what sense are they also commandments of God? Assuming for the moment that Hobbes isn’t an atheist, one can think of this in at least two ways: (1) God commands us to seek peace because it’s a good thing according to God, or (2) God created the earth and humans and therefore created the conditions required for promoting peace. He created us to desire to preserve ourselves, and doing so is good according to our desires.

Well, that’s certainly plenty and probably too much for one blog post! It’s as long as many of the Arts One essays!

Why is Faustus such an unsympathetic character?

I am somewhat persuaded by the reading of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus that suggests Marlowe is providing an anti-Calvinist play rather than a morality play (but please don’t take that to mean I don’t want you all to argue otherwise in your essays if you wish!). In short, the play can be read as criticizing Calvinism insofar as it presents a character who, even though he may try to repent, cannot do so because his heart is too “hardened” (118 (sorry, don’t have the book with me at the moment, so Act, Scene, or line numbers!)). That a religious view would make it impossible for those who wish to repent to be able to do so, the thought goes, suggests that it’s a problematic view. As soon as the lecture on this play for Arts One is posted (keep a watch here: http://artsone-digital.arts.ubc.ca/christopher-marlowe-doctor-faustus/) those who couldn’t be there can hear what Miranda Burgess had to say about this.

But I have been giving some thought to what one of you said in seminar on Wednesday, that if this reading is legitimate, then why would Marlowe have given us such an unsympathetic character in Dr. Faustus? He’s rather a fool, as some of you have noted in your blog posts, and he doesn’t do anything useful with the magic he obtains, beyond making a name for himself. If Marlowe had wanted to criticize Calvinism with this play, why do it with a character that most people are not going to empathize with, that most people will think deserves what he got in the end? Why not make your main character be someone about whom you could make what might seem more like a “tragedy,” as the official title of the play suggests? That would require, I think, a person who is flawed, but not quite so bad, someone the audience could empathize with, so they could see themselves possibly in that person’s position. Is that true of Faustus? Maybe for some, but for most of us in the class it seems that Faustus is someone we distance ourselves from.

So then we return to how having such a character could fit with a reading of the play that says Marlowe may have been criticizing Calvinism with it. Here’s one option, though I’m sure there are others! And, of course, on a different reading of the play having Dr. Faustus be unsympathetic is not a problem at all.

In order for Dr. Faustus’ fall to be believable under a Calvinist interpretation, he has to be someone who can’t repent, who is so corrupted that this is impossible. If he were a more sympathetic character then we might think he could repent, because we might not think he is one of those who are predestined to be damned. Then the fact that he does not might show that he has chosen not to, even though he could. But if he is pretty clearly a corrupted character, then it’s easier to recognize that he’s one of those who won’t be able to repent no matter if he seems to be trying.

This is just a draft of an idea, and I’m not yet sure it works, so am happy to hear comments!

Antigone, alone

[For anyone who regularly reads this blog (are there such persons? :)) I should explain that from time to time I’ll be writing posts on particular texts as part of teaching in the Arts One program. Students are blogging about these texts, and when I have time, I will do so too. You can see blog posts from students in my small group here, and blogs from all Arts One students at the Arts One Digital site.]

I have this vague feeling that I’ve taught Antigone in Arts One before, but I can’t find any notes on it, which makes me think perhaps I haven’t. But it seems much more familiar to me than it would be if I hadn’t read it since I was in university. Perhaps that’s because I have taught Oedipus Rex in Arts One, many times. There are some similarities, of course–attempting to go against some kind of rules/laws (in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus (as well as other characters) tries to avoid doing what the gods say he will do), a ruler being too sure of himself to back down until it’s too late, Teiresias saying what’s really the case but the ruler not listening to him (until it’s too late), the wife of the ruler committing suicide, the ruler falling from power and glory to despair (though arguably, it’s worse in Oedipus’ case than in Kreon’s, given what O. has done).

There are numerous things I could write/talk about in regards to Antigone, but the one I want do discuss briefly here is her determination to be alone. She begins the play trying to enlist the help of her sister, Ismene, but when Ismene refuses to help Antigone says, “Leave me alone, with my hopeless scheme” (p. 25, line 120). And for the rest of the play, she seems determined to be alone.

Ismene attempts to share her suffering later on, and Antigone refuses. Antigone insists that she is friendless, that no one will mourn her (p. 54, line 996; p. 55, line 1025)–but Ismene is already mourning her before she dies, and what about Haimon? Why does she assume he won’t mourn her? Antigone also insists that “there is no one I love who sighs over me” (p. 55, line 1030), which seems to indicate that if others are upset at losing her, will “sigh” over her, she doesn’t love them. Similarly, she states, “with those I love gone,/I go alone and desolate” (p. 56, lines 1074-1075). Then there is, of course, that notorious line mentioned in lecture: Antigone claims to be “the last daughter of the house of your kings” (p. 57, line 1096).

Antigone seems determined to be alone, to bemoan how alone she is, even though there are those who love her that are left. Perhaps it is simply that she is angry with Ismene for refusing to help, and thus she is disowning her in some sense. And perhaps she was somehow pressured (by her brothers?) into marrying Haimon, given that that might help her family retain their claim to the throne (a guess, really), but maybe she didn’t care for him herself. But she makes such a show of being alone, claims it publicly, insists that no one will mourn her, that I wonder if something else might be going on.

She also claims to be an “exile,” a “stranger” in some sense (p. 54, line 1000; p. 56, line 1048), and Kreon makes a similar statement (p. 55, line 1039). I think this is likely related to her insistence on being alone. So maybe if we could figure out in what sense she is an exile/stranger, maybe we could shed some light on why she is so bent on being alone and proclaiming this to the world. There are several possibilities for how/why she’s an exile…I’m curious to hear what others think in class!

Oh, and there’s something, too, about how Polyneices was alone, unmourned in death (until Antigone buried him) and Antigone claims the same for herself–she’s making an explicit connection between Polyneices and herself, it seems. But what significance might this have? I’m still thinking about it!