Soren Kiekergaard’s Fear and Trembling instills a sense of curiosity and confusion in me. I find most readers share this opinion, as the text takes many different directions. Kierkegaard chose to focus his text on the Abraham and Isaac story, a tale of a father who is instructed by the ‘God’ figure to sacrifice his son. There can be found many interpretations as to the reasons behind why God asked Abraham to sacrifice his kin but I want to offer my ideas. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ‘why’ behind both God’s and Abraham’s actions.

Though it is never stated in Genesis that God is omniscient, there are indications of Him possessing advanced knowledge. He is understood as a powerful being, having created plants, animals, man, etc. Readers aren’t given much sense of God’s character. His emotions, thoughts, and interior workings, if He even possesses these qualities, aren’t expressed in Genesis, which leads a reader to question the purpose and motives of the God figure in Genesis. When Kierkegaard poses the controversial and unsettling question of why God told the human He created to commit murder, we grapple with a satisfactory answer. I’ve been playing with the idea that maybe God wanted to set the example that He should be honoured, revered and respected above all else including the ethical responsibility to family. I’m sure we all shudder at the notion of asking one to commit murder to prove that another human is of less importance than the divine. It’s an idea I find unnerving but also interesting. From the text of Genesis, we know God has some form of knowledge that is beyond comprehension; he seems to know things he shouldn’t or would have no way of knowing. Therefore, we can assume, based strictly from what I’m extracting from the text, that He is above humans. His level of intelligence and superiority is above mankind. After all, he did create the human race. He came first and has reign over his creation of the human race. If we assume this, could it be likely that He wanted Abraham to demonstrate his utter obedience and trust to God? Abraham did not commit murder. He was instructed to do so, but God stopped him before the deed was committed. Maybe the reason Abraham acquiesced was due to his devotion to God. On page 95 of Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard says that, “faith is a passion.” I personally agree with this statement and see this reflected in Abraham’s actions. I believe he obeys God because the awe and fear of God is so ingrained within him that he can’t imagine saying no to God. Kierkegaard touches on this on page 58 of Fear and Trembling in reference to Abraham, “‘his greatness was that he so loved God that he was willing to offer him the best he had.'” Maybe that dominion over man is what God wanted to put through its paces. The idea of God experimenting and testing His creation is an interesting idea to scrutinize. Potentially in the Abraham story this experimentation and questioning of the abilities of man plays out.

I think a large part of understanding the Abraham and Isaac story is to first understand the character of God as He holds such a critical role. I present the question for further exploration, is it possible that God never intended for Abraham to kill Isaac, and instead wanted to use the relationship of father and son to test the spiritual tenacity of mankind?

After having watched Apocalypse now (redux version) I couldn’t help but think of the true reality that occurred during the war. Lies most often overwhelmed these soldiers without them even knowing it and deviated them from a path of reality towards a path of madness.

As the movie progresses it is visible that madness begins to seep into the individuals which had accompanied Willard (and Willard himself) in his journey along the Nung River to find Kurtz.  As a result of this, the individuals become more separated from reality.
Here are a few examples of how some characters developed throughout the movie:

Willard: He had already been affected by his previous deployment in Vietnam, and now, he had become obsessed with reaching his target, Kurtz. Willard knows the effects that the war can bring upon a man, and thus he tries to overpower the idea of madness by repressing these thoughts. Nevertheless, throughout the journey he starts to realize that in times of war, deception is almost inevitable. We can see an instance where Willard’s desire to reach Kurtz has drove him to do cruel things; this instance is visible when Willard kills the injured woman on the boat at point blank (minute 94). I feel as if Willard did not know what made sense anymore, and trying to make sense of everything begins to drive him mad.

Lance: His transformations throughout the movie, in my opinion, are the most noticeable. Lance starts out as a dedicated soldier and is always alert to his surroundings. As the journey goes on he starts consuming drugs in order to try and isolate himself from the war that is occurring around him. Around minute 106, when the boat is under attack Lance makes a comparison to Disneyland, “this is better than Disneyland”. Here we can see a comparison made between war and a theme park, thus I believe it is a statement that implies an escape from reality and/ or madness itself.

Chef: His transformations are similar to that of Lances, but with a hint of emotional breakdowns. Since the beginning of the movie Chefs frustration is visible, as he has a desire to return home and become a saucier. As the journey through the Nung develops, Chef decides to escape the war by consuming drugs as well. Furthermore his anxiety and anger are a key factor in developing his madness. This is most visible when Clean dies during an enemy encounter (minute 107); here we can see how Chef emotionally breaks down after having confronted the reality of death and of their current situation.

Whilst watching the movie I found myself feeling anxious and so I think that Coppola managed to portray a very good image of the war and with it, madness itself.

The above is a proverb of African origin, though I don’t know where exactly it’s from. I’m writing this at 4AM after much wrestling with no, that’s an unnecessary aside. I will probably get lost while writing this, and that’s… okay.

When I began reading Things Fall Apart, what immediately struck me was the prevalence of proverbs. There were proverbs in the narrative, in the dialogue, everywhere. There’s even a passage that addresses their importance!

Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. (Things Fall Apart, p. 7)

The bolded part could be argued to be a proverb in itself. You’ve gotta really love proverbs to write a proverb about proverbs. The word “proverb” is going to stop looking like a word by the end of this post. So what could this meta-proverb be talking about?

Well, for one, we’re looking at a metaphorical proverb, and it’s relating speech to eating….  I’m not really familiar with the culinary uses of palm oil, so why don’t we replace it with peanut butter, and words with bread. We eat bread all the time, many different kinds of bread depending on whatever factors. While we may have a variety of bread to eat, bread on its own can get pretty boring. So we add peanut butter to the bread, to make it more interesting, and because life without peanut butter is meaningless.

Likewise, proverbs make language more interesting, because they attempt to explain concepts in a creative way. Kids won’t eat their celery sticks? Slap some peanut butter on them! (The celery, not the kids…) If we take my hyperbole from earlier, this creativity adds meaning to language that may not have been there before, makes it more… edible? comprehensible?

Then again, while enriching language, proverbs can lead to redundancy.

“There must be a reason for it. A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.” (Things Fall Apart, p. 20)

What could have been said in once sentence has been said twice. This is especially irritating in real life, when you hit that point where you’ve heard enough of those damn proverbs and could live without hearing them again. Because of this, I happen to like these Ibo proverbs since they’re so different from what I grew up with. Perhaps the repetition isn’t that bad, though… Things Fall Apart is quite cyclical after all, so it only makes sense for the characters to speak with repetition. In the above quote, the proverb is not only a repetition, but a repetition with difference, since the proverb serves to emphasize the former point. And what could make the point clearer than the somewhat silly image of a toad running in daytime? It’s funny, it stays in your mind, and the meaning will be easier to understand.

All these proverbs give the impression of this whole book being a big folk tale, the kind of tale you hear your mother tell you before bed. (Though this tale would probably ruin their night, 0/10, would not recommend.)

Considering Achebe wrote this book as a response to Conrad, I see it as Achebe’s way of saying “Hey! We Africans are people just like you are, and here’s our culture!” For all of Conrad’s lovely prose, he doesn’t make the Africans of his novella seem really human. Since proverbs can say a lot about a culture and its values, they are an easy way to communicate said values. (Though proverbs can often contradict each other, just like cultural values.)

Among my high school friend group, we have a running joke; whenever there is an awkward silence someone chips in “I want to talk about yams.” (Yes, we’re dorks.) As this joke was established before my time in HK, the only info that I was given about this inside joke was that Lorraine wanted to talk about yams, and it had something to do with Things Fall Apart.

In this blog post I hope to solve one of the big mysteries in my life: Why did Lorraine want to talk about yams? And what made this so funny? (Actually, knowing how goofy my friends are there is most likely no logical explanation for why this is funny. :P )

So… *makeshift awkward silence… I want to talk about yams.

From what I’ve looked at so far, yams seem to reflect material wealth and one’s manliness. Or perhaps these two things are viewed as the same… 

Just in chapter 1 we can already start to see a hierarchy of people forming around the number of wives one has, and the amount of yams. Okoye has one large barn full of yams and 3 wives whereas Okonkwo has 2 barns full of yams and just married his third wife. Okonkwo is later described as “one of the greatest men of his time” (8). Maybe in this example, wives are seen to represent manliness and quantity of yams material wealth, so Okonkwo would be seen as a ‘better’ person in terms of these factors. Although interestingly enough Okoye’s barn of yams is described as “large” whereas Okonkwo has two… It’s a little bit unclear who actually has more yams… 

Another interesting incident with yams is when Ikemefuna would not eat. The quote is, “When Okonkwo heard that he would not eat any food he came into the hut with a big stick in his hand and stood over him while he swallowed his yams, trembling. A few moments later he went behind the hut and began to vomit painfully.” (27-28) Perhaps this characterizes Ikemefuna in a more manly light than Okonkwo. If yams represent manliness, the fact that Ikemefuna is “swallowing yams” whereas Okonkwo is merely holding a stick, Ikemefuna may be the manlier of the two. This could be reflected in Okonkwo’s actions when he kills Ikemefuna. Okonkwo does not want to look weak infront of the other tribesmen, however, perhaps not wanting to look weak is a form of weakness in itself. Defying the expectations of Okonkwo’s other tribe members would have been a stronger act.

Yams are also described as “the king of crops, was a man’s crop.” Whereas the “women worked hard enough, but they grew women’s crops, like coco-yams, beans and cassava.” (22-23) I believe that it was said somewhere that the women would plant their crops in between the yams… I’m not sure what to make of this, any thoughts? :D

this will be a short one, definitely. i have very little i feel like “exploring” or analyzing about this book. i have a question instead, which i sort of mentioned during seminar, but allow me to elaborate for a little while.

while reading this book i found myself thinking of trouillot and his discussion of silence–specifically silence within historical documents.

what would he think of chinua achebe’s things fall apart? 

is it, in it’s own right, a historical document (an exercise in preservation/representation?), despite its obviously fictitious/novelistic qualities, and if so, what silences might it perpetuate? surely they would differ from the silences we’d expect from a more formal, academic text.

and if we’re looking at this book as a potential response to books such as heart of darkness which may perpetuate the idea that certain people are “primitive,” passive, or even inhuman– if this book is attempting to provide a fuller and more honest perspective of a certain culture or people, then perhaps we should be paying close attention to its silences?

(one such “silence” might be the choice to write the book in english.)

and this is a bit of a connection (and a bit of a stretch) to my last (and basically only other) blog post, but if you haven’t read it, don’t worry – 

both wollstonecraft and orwell appear to agree that there is such a thing as “bad novels/novelists,” and such a thing as harmful fiction, but the ways in which they cope with that fact, and the way in which it influences their writing is vastly different. wollstonecraft condemns novels in favour of political treatises and orwell writes largely allegorical, politically motivated works of fiction. 

while wollstonecraft and orwell’s respective goals and tactics cannot be easily compared (due perhaps to the different circumstances in which they are writing) they can both be seen as pursuing reform of some kind.

perhaps, then, within this progression towards reform there is room for both authors and both methods.

so perhaps within this pursuit of recorded history and its contingent identities, there is space for a linear, informed, historical text, cited, and based with evidentiary support within “reality” (such as haiti, state against nation, one of trouillot’s other books) as well as room for a work of fiction which draws from a subjective experience of a culture. (such as things fall apart)

possibly the silences in one work could provide us with clues about the silences in another?

and in that case

does the discovery of silences and their implications help us form more accurate perceptions of history?