Telling Stories

I listened to a podcast last night that talked about a pair of teenage siblings who invented a family to get out of their strict curfew. They would be constantly babysitting for this fictional family. In order to avoid suspicion, the kids crafted the dad as an F.B.I. Agent who could not reveal the details of the family to the the teenagers family. This provided a perfect cover for the siblings to peruse around town late into the night without having to worry.

I brought this up because it goes back to telling stories and how the imagination can help people in more ways than imagined. It's strikingly similar to the Scheherazade story of how she had to craft stories to stay alive. In the case of the lying baby sitters, they had to continually make up more elaborate tales about this fictional family. This family had a summer house so that they could hang out the lake all summer. The lie went on for so long that the mother gradually came to believe the lie out of comfort. In a sense, the mother wanted the kids to have this freedom and yet not under her direct blessing. It parallels the Scheherazade story where the king knew that he could kill the storyteller at any minute, but because he was so entertained and so interested he overlooked his original convictions.

Ultimately Professor Sexson is entertained by our stories and blogs because they are stories within stories. We are all Scheherazade's making up stories to pass the time and be interesting. Although we won't die if we stop telling stories, we might die a bit inside. Deep down we want to be interesting; we want to have an audience for our stories. If we're not telling our stories, than we might as well be dead. There will certainly be more interesting people that will step in to tell their story. Are we really living if we don't tell our story? There are dead people more interesting than living people because the dead people have enough stories to propel their legacy. If we only tell people our stories, then our legacy only lasts a generation, at best. I know I can be more interesting than a dead person. It won't be easy, but all I have to do is accumulate enough stories in writing to build up an interesting repertoire.

The moral of this story is tell stories or die. I just lived to see another day just by writing this blog.

Not the final post

This isn't my last post because there is a good chance I will want to see what I think in the near future.

One of the biggest principles I've learned from this class is the notion that in order to be a good writer, one must practice. A lot. If you're not writing on a regular basis, you forget how to formulate ideas and become a sub-par writer. I have yet to taken another class that has demanded as much scheduled writing as Professor Sexon's class. I've had classes with copius amounts of writing, but writing on a regular basis is much different than writing in chunks.

So on that note I will be chunking off my final post into segments as the year winds down.
This is part 1 of 5.

Final Paper

Seth Grossman

Professor Sexson

Lit 110 Paper

4/28/10

Taking responsibility implies being able to respond to change. It requires the ability to switch behavior when the opportunity arises. It is an important principle to practice in every-day life, whether it’s about responsibility towards our friends or responsibility towards scholarly pursuits. In stories, characters face the same tasks and those with the most burdens, those who act the most, are the heroes. In the song “Change” by Tracy Chapman, she sings about the hypothetical situations in which someone finally makes that change. In Hamlet's case he makes his change only after a series of very grim sufferings take place. In the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan never makes this change; he simply becomes paralyzed by indecision and goes insane.

In Chapman's song, her central thesis is, "if you knew that you would die today and saw the face of god and love, would you change?" In many ways, she's asking both Hamlet and every other character based off of him (including Ivan) what they would do in the waning moments of their lives. Would they change to the persons they try to portray? Would they finally fall into the archetype of the hero instead of bounce vaguely between several inferior ones? Ultimately that's the goal of both Hamlet and Ivan; they want to be the hero and only one succeeds. Chapman also attempts to uncover the tipping point for someone on the brink of change: “How bad, how good does it need to get? / How many losses? How much regret? / What chain reaction would cause an effect? / Makes you turn around, / Makes you try to explain, / Makes you forgive and forget, / Makes you change?” Hamlet’s tipping point is the death of his mother. For Ivan, Alyosha, and Dmitri, there seems to be no tipping point in which they will change their behavior. After years of hostility towards Fyodor, there resentment builds sharply, but they choose not to resolve the conflict. The role of the hero appears empty, but another brother faintly steps in.

Hamlet actually fulfills the role of the hero because he responds; he changes his behavior in the face of God. Hamlet laments over his problems, but by the end of the play he faces them and takes action. Ivan, however, is essentially only a fourth of Hamlet's entire character. The closest hero in the Brothers Karamazov is Smerdyakov because he's the character that responded the most! It would seem that only three brothers would be modeled after the character of Hamlet, but Smerdyakov is the actual action-based hero component of the character. The other brothers basically tip-toed around the situation and left it up to the "lesser known" Karamazov to act. In order for a character to fit the hero archetype, they must overcome the conflict, not assign it to their younger brother. If Hamlet had assigned the killing of his father to Guildenstern, then

Guildenstern would be the hero. A closer look at the details of Smerdyakov’s life reveals a mirror image of a hero’s story arc.

The first part of a typical hero’s life involves the death of one or more parents followed by departure from the home. Smerdyakov’s mother dies in childbirth and is shortly dispatched to culinary school away from the home. He returns as a servant, but nevertheless, he resolves the one of the major conflicts of the novel. Smerdyakov even commits suicide, a reflection of the demise of Hamlet. None of the other brothers commit suicide because they don’t feel nearly as guilty because they didn’t actually commit the crime. In a tragic sense of life contest, Smerdyakov wins because he is the servant of his despicable father and as a result he is given no distinct identity that each of his brothers seem to radiate. He is the “illegitimate brother” who hung cats as a child. He is the Cinderella of the family, but instead of marrying a prince, he kills his father. His brother’s lives don’t seem tragic at all in comparison. They each have mentors or people they share affection with. Smerdyakov is the true tragic hero because his life is brutally tragic and responds like a hero should.

The central plot of the Brothers Karamazov is the killing of Fyodor Karamazov. Several characters had an indirect role in the murder, but Smerdyakov had the most direct role, so technically he can only claim the title. Without his contribution, Fyodor would have lived and the central plot would have been far more disjointed. The three brothers would have been seen as more boring people because it would seem that they had done less. The same can be said if Hamlet never killed his father and the play simply stopped at Act V, scene i. Hamlet would be responsible for the deaths of a lot of other people, but not the one in which the reader truly wants dead. The plot of the play is centered on the atrocity that has taken place at the throne and Hamlet must respond and rectify the conflict to be seen as a true hero. Would he still be a hero if the play ended where he didn't kill King Claudius? I'm not convinced he would be and that is essentially Ivan's role in the Brothers Karamazov. He talks about how his father's death would make the world a better place and yet he doesn't actually murder him. Actions speak louder than words especially in the case of the hero archetype; one must act and not plan on becoming the tragic hero.

In both Hamlet and The Brothers Karamazov the pressure on the hero increases as more responsibility is shifted on his shoulders. Hamlet eventually takes this responsibility and turns it in to action, while Ivan, Alyosha, and Dmitri end up deflecting it on each other. The brothers grow and learn about responsibility throughout the story, but the looming responsibility of their father’s death does not transfer over as much as it does to Smerdyakov Karamazov. Only Smerdyakov is able to kill Fyodor Karamozov because he has the most resentment built up towards his father. Only he was able to turn off his brain and respond in a way his brothers could not. He followed Hamlet’s example of finally not thinking so much about a certain problem and instead acted upon his emotions to formulate an action.

Works Cited

Chapman, Tracy. "Tracy Chapman: Change Lyrics."MetroLyrics. MetroLyrics, 20 Feb 2004. Web. 28 Apr 2010.

tracy-chapman.html>.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” Retellings: A Thematic Literature Analogy. Ed. M. B. Clarke and A. G. Clarke. New York, McGraw-Hill, 2004. 1215-1317.

Found uses of the Brothers K

Last night I was falling asleep at 1:45 A.M. when I heard my roommate talking on the phone in the neighboring room. My bed is placed at the far wall from my roommate's wall, but I could still hear his voice piercing my tranquility. I groped for the nearest object at my bedside and viola!; The Brother's Karamazov! I chucked it at the far wall where it made a resounding THUD. I then commenced in verbally assaulting my roommate to shut up. After a short argument, he pounded the wall in disgust and ceased his telephone conversation.

If it wasn't for the Brother's Karamazov, I may not have been able to sleep, so I thank Mr. Dostoyevsky for publishing such a handy book.

The Hero Must Respond

Taking responsibility implies being able to respond to change and the ability to switch behavior when the opportunity arises. In the song change by Tracy Chapman, she sings about the hypothetical situations in which someone finally makes that change. In hamlet's case he makes his change only after a series of very grim sufferings take place. In the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan never makes this change, he simply becomes paralyzed by indecision and goes insane.
In Chapman's song, her central thesis is, "if you knew that you would die today and see the face of god and love would you change?" In many ways, She's asking both Hamlet and every other character based off of him (including Ivan) what they would do in the waning moments of their life? Would they change to the persons they try to portray? Would they finally fall into the archetype of the hero instead of bounce vaguely between several inferior ones? Ultimately that's the goal of both hamlet and Ivan; they want to be the hero and only one succeeds.
Hamlet actually fulfills the role of the hero because be responds, he changes his behavior in the face of God. Ivan, however, is essentially only a third of Hamlet's entire character. The closest hero in the Brothers Karamazov is Smerdyakov because he's the character that responded the most! The other brothers basically tip-toed around the situation and left it up to the "lesser known" Karamazov to act. In order for a character to fit the hero archetype, they must overcome the conflict, not assign it to their younger brother. If Hamet had assigned the killing of his father to Guildenstern then Guildenstern would be the hero.

The central plot of the Brothers Karamazov is the killing of Fyodor Karamazov. Several characters had an indirect role in the murder, but Smerdyakov had the most direct role, so technically he can only claim the title. Without his contribution, Fyodor would have lived and the central plot would have been far more disjointed. The three brothers would have been seen as more boring people because it would seem that they had done less. The same can be said if Hamlet never killed his father and the play simply stopped at Act V, scene i. Hamlet would be responsible for the deaths of a lot of other people, but not the one in which the reader truly wants dead. The plot of the play is centered around the atrocity that has taken place at the thrown and Hamlet must respond and rectify the conflict to be seen as a true hero. Would he still be a hero if the play ended where he didn't kill King Claudius? I'm not convince he would be and that is essentially Ivan's role in the Brothers Karamazov. He talks about how his father's death would make the world a better place and yet he doesn't actually murder him. Actions speak louder than words and in the case of the hero archetype, one must act and not plan on becoming the tragic hero.

A cookie without rasins

I'm not a fan of rasins. When I was a toddler, I apparently tore through boxes like there was no tomorrow, but I've changed since then. Rasins single-handedly ruin trail-mix for me. I'll eat anything BUT the rasins. I like almost every other kind of dried fruit, but it's usually more expensive. Rasins are dirt cheap. I think they're like five cents per-pound or something. In the "Stories are Cookies" presentation, the rasins, representing the old wise man, were added in the mock-mix, but not the actual cookies. It appears I am not alone in my anti-rasin sentiment. There will always be characters in stories who would rather not interact with rasins; these chacters dislike the voice of reason.

Characters don't like the old wise man because they usually have a clouded judgement and tend to march to the beat of their own drum. In many stories, the rasins are the only thing keeping the story worthwhile. Imagine if the Brothers K didn't have the character Father Zossima. There would be no counter-arguement to Ivan's "Grand Inquistor" because Alyosha certainly wouldn't have enough wisdom to muster up a response. Look at the description on the Middlebury site:

Elders occupy a pivotal role in Russian ecclesiastical society and Father Zossima becomes the ideological focal point of the novel. Based on the philosophy of asceticism, Elders such as Zossima were in charge of their community's souls. At sixty-five, Zossima is a former soldier who has now stepped into a life of helping others and has hours during which the townspeople come to him in order to get answers and predictions on the future. Zossima's greatest thematic role in the novel is that of a sage. His teachings of communal responsibility and his ideas of universally shared guild will end up being part of what Dostoyevsky considers to be the true path. Zossima's teachings become engrained in Alyosha who becomes a sort of apostle not only for his family but also for the children of the book

Without Father Zossima, the entire community within the Brothers K becomes souless. No one is there to guide Ivan and especially Alyosha. Alyosha is so dependent on Father Zossima, he ceases to exist as an influential character. The entire notion of responsibility is lost within the Karamazov family and their only role model left becomes Fydor Karamazov. The novel becomes about a tragic sense of life and offers no answers other than: life is cruel. If you thought the Brothers K was dark before, imagine how dark it would be without Father Zossima.

Maybe those cookies should've had rasins in them.

The Ability to Respond

Professor Sexson's speech concerning the word "responsibility" wasn't his first, nor was it one to overlook. If you think about the word as a found poem of sorts as "The Ability to Respond" it answers almost all of the questions the class has brought up. Think of a topic, The Ability to Respond answers it.

For example, every story ever written or told has a conflict. If it doesn't have a conflict, it's not really a story worth retelling now is it? With said conflict, there is a character or set of characters that show their Ability to Respond to move along the plot of the story. At the end of each story, the class comes in to decide whether a character has responded "correctly". Hamlet, Alyosha Karamazov, Connie, Cinderella, Creon, and every character from fiction and real life have all been faced with a conflict and responded in a certain manner. The class sporadically touches on the meaning of life and I'm guessing that Professor Sexson would say that we are on this planet simply to test our ability to respond. The right and wrong responses are up for debate, but as long as were responding (reading, gaining experiences, overcoming suffering, etc.) we are fulfilling are purpose in life. This theory is very similar to Father Zossima's idea that mankind is already living in paradise and that we simply must enjoy what life throws at us.

So the question remains: How will you respond?

Ivan woulda, coulda, shoulda...

We talked in class about how the character Hamlet was split into 3 characters in the Brothers K. Ivan was written as the intellectual side to Hamlet and if you think about it, Ivan may have killed Fydor Karamazov if he had not procrastinated. His intentions to rid the Earth of all vermin (like his father) are outlined in "Rebellion", but he over thinks it and leaves the door open to have one of his other brothers finish out his plan. Both Ivan and Hamlet detest the antagonists of each novel, but Hamlet has no brother or associate who will do his evil bidding. It is Hamlet's alienated side that kills his uncle. Ivan, whether subconscious or not, laid the ground work for Smerdyakov to kill Fydor. Ivan is labeled as the thinker; thinkers do not kill directly. But since Hamlet is a multi-dimensional character, he does it all; thinks, acts aggressively, and shows compassion, thus making him all the more timeless.

Pictures from Friday's Presentations

The bar has been set: Extraordinarily High

Thesis

For my paper, I would like to compare and contrast the Grand Inquisitor scene in the Brothers K to Act III Scene I of Hamlet (which includes the famous "to be or not to be" line). Both Ivan and Hamlet express their doubt of life's meaning. Each character teeters on the edge of suicide and have seemed to have lost all trust and faith in the world. However, I'll elaborate on how they don't fully lose it. They still have made a decision; it's just not obvious at first.

Ham-omelet

I'm about half-way through reading Hamlet and I've already seen multiple correlations with the Brothers Karamozov. Fydor Karamozov and King Claudius could easily be siblings separated at birth based on their overwhelming egos embodied by the "trickster" archetype. Each character is so self-involved, that the majority of their family has turned against them. In the following exchange, King Claudius deviously pokes fun at his new relationship with his son/nephew and is "baffled" why Hamlet would be unsettled.

KING CLAUDIUS

Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

HAMLET

[Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET

Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

Unfortunately for Hamlet, he has somewhat of a "Devouring Mother" that has been blinded by her recent husband's death and has chosen her brother-in-law as her new husband. Queen Gertrude "consumes" her son with psychological and emotional mind games early on in the play:

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

She has gone from a mother whom Hamlet knew to a deranged incestuous being overnight. Hamlet seems to be suffering from a few "bad days" throughout the play. His closet friend is the spirit of his dead father, so naturally Hamlet trusts NO ONE; not his mother, uncle, his girlfriend, or anyone else who presents themselves to Hamlet as "friends." And why should he trust anyone? They're all scheming and planning out Hamlet's life without his consent. Nearly every character claims they know Hamlet's best interests and THEIR plans are best fit for him. No wonder Hamlet is brooding all of the time, his life is out of control and he can't right the ship without stabbing some royalty.

The Apology for Poetry, Enconium of Helen, and Brother's K

As always, Ashley brought up some excellent points in her close readings of Dostoyevsky's biography. Her extensive research and argument of each character being linked to the author can be read here. However, saying that the characters are extensions of Dostoyevsky is a direct contradiction to Professor Sexson's claim that the characters are real. If they mirror the author too much, they become more like puppets and less like free-thinking characters. Upon doing any background research on any author's life, characters from real life (including the author) seem to seep into the text the author creates. Professor Sexson's notion of a "real and independent-thinking character" seems unrealistic. Either the author has set the scaffolding (the text) to mold a character or the reader uses the same scaffolding to extend the character to their liking.

In my Lit Theory class, I wrote a paper in reference to two reader-response theorists and their notions regarding an author's intentions:

Great leaders throughout world history have come to power much in thanks to their extraordinary oratory skills. Leaders like Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. have been able to capture the hearts and minds of millions through both persuasive and informative oral text. The same skills can also be said for the Mussolinis and the Hitlers of the world. The search for truth in words is broken down by two theorists. In the essay Apology for Poetry, Sir Phillip Sidney argues that the poet’s role is a delicate balance between teaching and delighting. Gorgias of Leontini’s counterpoint is that the author can control the reader using the text.

Sidney states that in order to be a successful poet, the author must create a work that teaches and entertains. Too much informative text bores the reader and likewise a text with not enough facts loses credibility. In other words, one must add a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. The major hole in this theory is that one person’s medicine is another person’s sugar and vice versa. The author simply does not have two storage units in their brain labeled “facts” and “fluff”. And on the same level the reader cannot process the text and sort everything into two neat categories either. The end result is a massive tug-of-war of panning out the nuggets of fact in mounds of fluff (sometimes referred to as bullshit). An example of this in another form of media would be C-SPAN vs FOX News. The cable network C-SPAN has coverage of congress proceedings without analysis or entertainment value added in. C-SPAN has significantly less viewers than the major cable news networks, but what they present is largely objective video coverage of congress. FOX News has similar televised proceedings, but much of their meat and potatoes are their sharp criticism and analysis of Capitol Hill. More viewers tune for this added ‘sugar’. The question remains: How much sugar can be added to medicine before it’s no longer medicine? Gorgias of Leontini provides a potential answer.

In Encomium of Helen, Gogias’s thesis is that speech persuades and deludes the mind of the author. Gorgias ultimately compares language to a drug. The author is the drug dealer and the reader is the junkie or user. With each set of texts distributed to the masses comes an agenda-laced pill; in this case the pill can be labeled as healthy, but in reality it can be something completely different. Ideally, the reader could simply have an eclectic taste and read each genre in moderation. Too much of one author or genre could leave the reader in a delusional, drug-induced world of which the reader cannot conceive an original thought. The reader instead becomes a mouthpiece of the author. In the past, institutions have fought the battle with the ‘rogue’ authors by banning or even burning books. The authors in power essentially have a monopoly on the market. The drug choices decrease and the readers consolidate into fewer groups. Gorgias’s point has its share of flaws as well. Too much credit is given to the omnipresent god-like author and not enough credit to the reader. The more varying point of view the reader is given, the more open-minded a reader becomes. If the reader only reads from one author or from one specific set of like-minded texts, then yes, the reader is subjected to the author’s choice of drug.

Hopefully this wasn't too long-winded. I just wanted to comment on the idea that characters can have a mind of their own when, in actuality, they are still concepts that the author has given to us, the reader. We just need to be careful about the implications.

Brother's K

I found a good analysis of Father Zossima's counterpoint to Ivan's questioning of God. It's referencing book 6, the russian monk.

He (Father Zossima) has lived with true faith, and has come to it through a conscious dedication of himself. He has suffered, which for Dostoevsky is purification. For this reason he acknowledges and bows down to Dmitri, who himself will suffer. Man should take upon himself the suffering and the responsibility for the sin of all men, and not simply for himself, which helps to justify the existence of such seemingly evil creatures as Fyodor, as such characters as his sons shall, in one way or another, accept the suffering for his sins as their own. This suggestion of a shared suffering gives hope that Dmitri and Ivan might turn to faith as well. The faith of Zossima is the ideal, and is in stark contrast to the ideas that Ivan has come to. His message remains one of love and truth as found in the Bible, and is one regarding the two greatest and most essential elements of faith and salvation. Love and truth bring belief in that which we can not understand. This is what Ivan, and intellectual skeptic, can not accept, that love and truth will result in believing in that which is an inexplicable mystery.

http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/previous/ru351/novels/bk/part2.shtml#BOOK SIX - The Russian Monk

So Father Zossima's experiences the "tragic sense of life" and sees it as an opportunity to take responsibility for the sin of all men. In other words, we should all emulate Jesus Christ and put the sins of the world on our shoulders by spreading love and truth.

That's a great ideal, but there are few people who can actually reach it. That's the real "tragic sense of life"- human beings are born to sin and are incapable of universal empathy. That's why there are global wars fought between religions. That's why ethnicities and classes clash generation after generation; their differences are irreconcilable. There's definitely people out there who have accepted their sins as well as the rest of the world's, but it's a slippery slope. How many commandments is that person willing to break and yet still feel that they are spreading truth and love? 2? 5? 9? If a person says they're supporting the war on terrorism, are they REALLY killing someone? If a person doesn't love thy neighbor every single day, are they really breaking tenth commandment? What qualifies as 'work' on the Sabbath? How does one go about separating the sinners who don't spread truth or love to the ones who do? People can preach and put on a mask every Sunday, but when they look deep down inside, the person they find may not be even close to the ideal.

The world is not as black and white as Father Zossima sees it. There are more than two categories of: those who do God's work and those who don't. God's work might be an insurmountable task anyway.