Themes in the novel

Identity
In the novel, sex is primarily looked down upon by the Party. It itself can be interpreted as a form of expression and individuality. This is intertwined with the theme of Identity. A more obvious explanation for this restriction is the relationships that would be developed as a result of sexual relations threatened the Party by creating a stronger bond from one individual to another individual rather than the party itself.  The Party wanted to control sex as a primary tool to be used by the party for further control of individuals under it.  “The aim of the party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. It’s real undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act….The only recognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the party.” (65) Julia who appears later in the book, seems to have a hold on her identity,  had frequently participated in sexual exploits despite governing rule and the irony of her membership to the Junior Anti-Sex League.
Double Thinking
The main character utilizes double think to not only question the Party but to question himself. The idea of double thinking is considered completely and utterly taboo to the Party because any kind of double thinking was considered a direct challenge to the Party’s authority. “It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.” (74-75) It appears that Winston has been growing more and fonder of double thinking and questioning the Party in his thoughts.
Memory
The theme of Double think also coincided with the main character’s Memory within certain aspects of the novel. “That was ten- eleven years ago. Today, probably, he would have kept that photograph. It was curious that the fact of having held it in his fingers seemed to him to make a difference even now, when the photograph itself as well as the event it recorded, was only memory. Was the Party’s hold upon the past less strong, he wondered, because a piece of evidence which existed no longer had once existed?” (79) This quote signifies the reality that it is impossible for the Party to completely control a person’s mind. Despite the destruction of the evidence. Winston remembers the people and events which are still ingrained in his mind, although lack of evidence made him doubt the memory. Winston’s job of deleting people from records who were once part of the Party but were vaporized is important because although he is wiping them from archive he is the one doing the action of deleting so he is able to have the memory of evidence.
Continuity
“…she did not understand that to push an inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing. ‘Actually it would have made no difference,’ he said. ‘Then why are you sorry you didn’t do it?’ ‘Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this game we’re playing we can’t win.’” (135) This represents the continuity of Winston’s nature. At this point in the he is still too afraid to act on desires considering that he might as well be dead if he said anything that would offend the Party. It appears that the continuity in his character will last because he believes in the continuity of the power of the Party. The intimidation and manipulation still restricts Winston from gaining any courage to take a stand against the government this far in the novel. Later I feel the continuity will end and Winston will finally act on his thoughts and urges and take a stand against the Party.
Public Sphere
“It was no use. He turned around. A blonde silly faced young man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew was inviting him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not safe to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not go sit at a table with an unattended girl. It was too noticeable.” ( 112) This is an example of the public sphere in that everyone’s lives are open to everyone else’s and the party. Whistleblowing was encouraged by the Party to its citizens and any suspicious activity of a neighbor would be reported for the good of the Party. This can refer to the neighbor backstabbing during Nazi rule in Germany. Neighbors would report on each other as seen with German citizens exposing and handing over Jewish people to the Nazi’s out of fear for their own image to the Nazi government. The use of fear and oppression will filter out those opposed in view or action.

1984 and Contingency

Read through Breanna's research on chapter eight of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Then, look through Orwell's 1984 to find at least five moments in the text, other than those that Rorty mentions, that support the key points of Breanna's research. Explain how each moment relates to Rorty's points and present a short argument summarizing what is most worthwhile about Rorty's concepts in understanding the text. Email your research before class starts.

1. ‘We're destroying words—scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'
The moment when Syme and Winston discuss the reduction of language ties right into rority’s point about despising intellectuals that tell us the truth is not out there and that it is a function of the language we use.
2. 'No,' he said a little more hopefully, 'no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can FEEL that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.'
I feel this line ties in with Rority’s point about how insistence in a prior belief can keep you going in tight situations. While Winston and Julia discuss what will become of them they stumble upon the idea that so long as they keep their desires in their hearts they can’t be beaten by torture or the machine.
3. There is a moment when Syme asks Winston is he went to see the hanging of prisoners. Winston replies that he would go to see it on television. There is also a moment earlier in which children want to see the hanging as well and are disappointed at not being able to do so.

This plays on Rority’s point on re-describing events that should be ghastly to the average person. Over time the characters have come to find torture as a mode of entertainment not the reality of what it really is.
4. There is a time while Winston is recollecting after being hit by the parsons boy, he notes that families are no longer what we consider families today but have been torn apart and now work against each other.
Rority mentions that Obrien talks about tearing down social structures and language to humiliate people. This in turn must help to keep them in check. Tearing the family structure down gives most characters in the novel no social support leaving everyone essentially helpless.  
5. There is a moment when Winston considers that the only way the party can stay in control is if there are enough paralyzingly stupid people to keep them in power.

I believe this ties into Rority’s comment about there not existing any individuals because people only follow what society tells them to do.

I feel that Rority’s comments help to make orwells motives a little more clear. I believe what's more pressing is how this book is basically the playbook of the future political and judicial order. Personally I feel Roritys comments make it easier to see how orwells notions come to play in our current society. I mean Rority makes a comment about men of great charisma and intellect being capable of monstrous things; what makes our leaders any different. Just today we have the senate trying to push a bill to let the intelligence arm data mine your email. How long till they stare back at us through the monitor, the technology is already there. The laws exist that allow indefinite detention without due process  but they'll never mention it on tv, the language is already disappearing from such parodies as tv news programs. Only small changes need to be made to the history of our modern times and as Rority points out we'll be looking at Orwell like he was a fool blabbering about nonsense than somone trying to warn us of our liberties. We gave the peace prize to somone who increased the scope of war, the majority don't know what the NDAA is and many are, whether economically or socially, trapped where they are. War is peace,freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength; we may have already crossed the rubicon.

Research Prompts for 11/20

Research Prompt 1

Imagery in 1984

Just as we've already done for The Brothers Karamazov, put together a slide show presentation to represent the physical-visual space, as you imagine it, in 1984. Compile about twenty images that you feel reflect the events, images, mood, characters, and tone of the novel. Create a slide show of these images. Prepare notes that briefly explain how each image reflects the novel. Email the notes and slide show before class begins.

Research Prompt 2

Historical Parallels in 1984

The novel is understood to make references to actual twentieth century events by many readers. List at least ten fictionalized historical realities in the text and compare them with actual historical realities. Read through the foreword for some ideas about how to interpret the events of the novel. Your research task is to present information about actual historical events and conditions that serve as a background to the novel. Email your research notes by the start of class.

Research Prompt 3

1984: Characters, Space and Plot

By this point, you should be able to easily identify the seven or eight most important characters in the text (that we know of). Present brief descriptions of each. Draw a map of the world that Winston inhabits, including the principal locations covered in the text so far. Write out a brief description (less than fifty words) of the plot in three different ways: first, focusing on Winston; second, focusing on the Party control; third, focusing on the dynamic between Winston and Julia. Email the characters descriptions, map, and plot synopses before the start of class.

1984 and Resistance

Orwell's novel presents a protagonist consumed with the desire to understand the present's relationship with the past. He places himself in danger, in harms way, by walking among the proles, speaking to them about the past and purchasing items that carry historical weight. Winston's desire to understand the historical takes the novel out of the present life of the Party member. In today's reading assignment, Winston not only writes about thoughts that fall outside of Ingsoc, he spends most of the time wandering in areas, physically and emotionally outside of Ingsoc. He speaks with an elderly man in the pub, probing for questions about a past of which the interrogated seems ignorant. He returns to the shop where he first wet his thirst for historical by buying the notebook. During this second visit he not only purchases a second object, a purposeless englassed piece of corral, he also transgresses with plans to return as he explores the second story. It is when he leaves the second-hand shop that he notes the suspicious woman in the area, incoincidentally close to his very much out her world shopping. 

The novel soon makes evident that the foreshadowing presented in regards to the woman has not been about investing in her as a betrayer of Winston. Rather, the foreshadowing (highlighting her involvement in Winton's life yet waiting to explain why) with regards to the woman with the scarlet sash was constructed to add weight to the revelation that she has feelings for him, as is revealed when she makes herself fall in his presence that he might help her to arise, allowing her the opportunity to slip him a note of affection. That the fulfillment of their emotions takes a few weeks to reach allows another representation of the forces of control at play in the world of the novel, especially under the control of the Party system. The exploration of their feelings for each other only really finds expression once the two have left the urban center, and this only after elaborate maneuvers to hide their directions and intentions from Party surveillance. In the first part of the text, the question explored was: how does party control affect verbal activities (talking, reading, thinking). In this next section, the novel explores how one might physically navigate through party controls, whether by walking in crowds, making oneself trip, not speaking one on one in view of the surveillance systems or fellow party members--only if your mouth appears not to be moving, ducking into crowds, and, importantly as Julia propounds, yelling loudly with them.

In the beginning of today's reading, Winston discusses how he, at times in his professional work, comes across information that undermines the Party's official record, noting a particular instance when three Party members who were supposedly off conspiring with another state were shown photographed in New York. Winston, then, represents the possibility and power of verbal resistance, whether in the information he finds, in his own writing, or in his own thinking and memory. In a complementary way, Julia represents the capacity and possibility of physical resistance: the best way to remain undetected is be very busy at work, in Party service, and in doing all of the little things. In doing all of the little things, no one suspects you for having trespassed bigger things. Julia's sexual exploits with multiple Party members attests to her ability to physical navigate through the Party's controls. Her exploits represent--for Winston, at least--a paramount of corruption and resistance. Winston celebrates any form of corruption that weakens the Party's  hold, whether verbal or physical. 

Research Prompts for 11/18

Research Prompt 1

Contingency and 1984

Read through Breanna's research on chapter eight of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Then, look through Orwell's 1984 to find at least five moments in the text, other than those that Rorty mentions, that support the key points of Breanna's research. Explain how each moment relates to Rorty's points and present a short argument summarizing what is most worthwhile about Rorty's concepts in understanding the text. Email your research before class starts.

Research Prompt 2

A bibliography for 1984

Just as I put a bibliography together for The Brothers Karamazov, you are to put a bibliography together for Orwell's 1984. Follow the pattern started in The Brothers Karamazov bibliography, which contains both scholarly articles as well as books found in the Stony Brook University Library. You should have at least five of each on the bibliography. Be sure to follow MLA citation guidelines when formatting each entry. Email your research before class starts.

Research Prompt 3

Themes in the novel

Following the pattern established in the lecture from last Thursday, reading chapters 6-8 of book one and chapters 1-3 of book two, pay attention to moments in the text that stand out in how they contribute to a theme. Compile five or more quotes and explain over several paragraphs how they contribute to a theme. Email your research before class starts.

1984: Memory and Ethics

Ethics and Memory

Concepts

public sphere

archive

memory

double-think

truth (right and wrong)

construction

irony

identity

continuity

1984

 “1984” presents a dystopic future, however, the the text focuses on the dystopic nature of the structures of language more than the structures of production, the public sphere, or engagement. That is, most of the text examines what it means to be on the inside of the state's controlling structures. We know this is a text about language. The main character works with words. One of the four state ministries is the ministry of Truth, which is our entryway into the world of the novel. However, the introduction to this world is so specific, that the text leaves little space for other parts of the world, existence outside of participating in linguistic manipulations, as Winston, O'Brien, and Syme do. All of the figures presented participate in the state structure; therefore, it is difficult to understand who the production and proliferation of “information” is for. There are the Party members and the Proles. We know the Proles aren't human, so the social life they have is not the intended audience of the Ministry of Truth.

Another point to the primacy of language in the novel is the leveling of distinction between the ruling political movement, which is Ingsoc, to the language that this party is creating, Newspeak (54). The goal of the party is to control behavior and this is represented primarily through control of thinking: “Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller” (54). Who's behavior is being controlled? Does the control really exist on the level of just the party members who are already involved in the 'rectification' of language? The following quote would support the assertion that language control and, subsequently, thought control, is necessary if just for the party members themselves: “The eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams. Syme, too—in some more complex way, involving double-think—Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of memory?” (1984 60) Both the intellectual Syme and the unintelligent Parsons participate in the manipulation of the linguistic culture at the same time they completely surrender to the pretense of the manipulation, that is, both performing double-think.

The manipulation of information through data takes a center stage given that controlling the present by manipulating the past is the main character's vocation. This speaks to the controlling of the archive. This is precisely the kind of manipulation of an archive, the loss of societal memory that political satire television shows The Daily Show and The Colbert Report call out when a media outlet misrepresents facts in order to make their point. The Fox News organization participates in this. Perhaps this is why the term for controlling language is Newspeak, which could be heard as “News speak”. Was this type of manipulation of information by the news media a concern that Orwell faced in the 1940's? Is he performing a critique of the news establishment of the time, or is this critique simply prescient in describing the current phenomenon?

The main character expresses the concern that the ability to double-think makes inoperable the possession of memory. Memory becomes important for several reasons in the text: first, because the state goes through so much effort to control the archive. The novel's description of the structures mean to control the archive demand a significant suspension of disbelief. How are so many recalls made on every type of publication? Why is a recall even the best option? Why not simply demand that all information products be destroyed after a period? Otherwise, with the proliferation of contradictory records (Let's agree that it is impossible to recall and reprint all newspapers, pamphlets, books, etc.) what is the value of Winston's position? Who even cares to read an old newspaper? How would this newspaper be accessible to the general public after it has been rectified? No, structurally, the way that Winston's vocation has been represented is not workable. Therefore, the whole point of describing his work is describing the control that state places over the archive. The question of controlling an archive and controlling language is a postcolonial concern, much like some of the arguments made in Kincaid's “A Small Place.” The British state is, perhaps, then, notorious when it comes to controlling through language. Syme goes into great detail about how language, especially through its reduction, creates conditions for control.

 The control of the archive is presented as control of memory: “But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one” (35). “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death” (35). There is in the text a significant conflict with personal memory and imposed state memory (the archive): “He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness...” (35). Winston possesses his own memories, but these memories contradict the official politically imposed state position, making the personal memory a through crime and subject to the handling by the thought police. In these conditions, memory is subjected to state controls.

In a text by Edmundo Desnoes, "Memories of Underdevelopment," the question isn't whether the state forces one to forget. Rather, the issue is that some people don't remember. Can't remember. Desnoes spends a great deal of time in his novel working out the possibility that some types of people do not possess memory the same as others. They can't remember from one day to the next, which is the very issue that Winston takes issue with when both Syme and Parsons effectively perform ignorance of the fact that chocolate rations were higher one week before, yet they are being told that the current rationing is an increase from previous amounts. The question of memory in these two texts can be related to critiques of communist states: in one case post Cuban revolution and in the second case post Russian revolution.

With regards to the human ability to remember, Nietzsche sees this as the goal nature has set for itself in creating the human race. The ability to make and keep promises, to perform with integrity, to keep one's word, first to herself and, then, to others. These texts politicize awareness, consciousness, knowing what happened yesterday or six months ago. What practices are involved in exercising consciousness? Archives, writing, language. How are these things politicized in this text? How is awareness a moral obligation? Awareness begins to take on moral implications for Winston. He is unable to question the motives and actions of the state because he has no tools for memory. He only knows the poor conditions of his current existence and the only public account for the situation is that things are better today than before. “And though, of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?” (61).

So, the text presents the conditions that it is simple, plausible, easy, natural for humans to adjust their understanding in order to explain their current conditions rather than remember or hold to what they previously believed. Believing what is easiest to believe. Just as this text calls into question the morality of reduced consciousness, Descartes also questions the morality of limited perspective and awareness. Both texts present social experiments, playful presentations of social structures. They are forms of play. The goal of play. What is the goal of play? Regardless of the goal, it is irony makes these texts a form of play. The reader is called on to accept that Winston's job is not real. The readers is supposed to question the validity of his job. Hmm. I feel like I am pushing this too much. I like the idea of play, but not of irony yet.

From Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality

            "To breed an animal which is able to make promises—is that not precisely the paradoxical task which nature has set herself with regard to humankind?" (Nietzsche 38)

            "In order to have that degree of control over the future, man must first have learnt to distinguish between what happens by accident and what by design, to think casually, to view the future as the present and anticipate it, to grasp with certainty what is end and what is means, in all, to be able to calculate, compute—and before he can do this, man himself will really have to become reliable, regular, automatic [notwendig], even in his own self-image, so that he, as someone making a promise is, is answerable for his own future!" (Nietzsche 39)

            "That particular task of breeding an animal which has the right to make a promise includes, as we have already understood, as precondition and preparation, the more immediate task of first making man to a certain degree undeviating [notwendig], uniform, a peer amongst peers, orderly and consequently predictable. The immense amount of labour involved in what I have called the 'morality of custom'…" (Nietzsche 39)

            "Let us place ourselves, on the other hand, at the end of this immense process where the tree actually bears fruit, where society and its morality of custom finally reveal what they were simply the means to: we then find the sovereign individualas the ripest fruit on its tree, like only to itself, having freed itself from the morality of custom, an autonomous, supra-ethical individual (because 'autonomous' and 'ethical' are mutually exclusive), in short, we find a man with his own, independent, durable will, who has the right to make a promise—and has a proud consciousness in every muscle of what he has finally achieved and incorporated, an actual awareness of power and freedom, a feeling that man in general has reached completion." (Nietzsche 40)

            "The 'free' man, the possessor of a durable, unbreakable will, thus has his own standard of value: in possession of such a will: viewing others from his own standpoint, he respects or despises; and just as he will necessarily respect his peers, the strong and the reliable (those with the right to give their word­), —that is everyone who makes promises like a sovereign, ponderously, seldom, slowly, and is sparing with his trust, who confers an honor when he places his trust, who gives his word as something which can be relied on, because he is strong enough to remain upright in the face of mishap or even 'in the face of fate'." (Nietzsche 40)

Memorias del subdesarrollo

Notes for 11/8

CLT 361
November 8, 2012
Class Notes
Yesterday:

We spoke about a famous artist, Jackson Pollock, who is an abstract artist.

Today’s class:

Has a house in New York and Stony Brook maintains the house.

His paintings are expensive

What is abstract art?

(expression): fiction, non-fiction, poetry,

Aesthetics

Techniques

material

Abstract

Scientific method

Art is compared to:

(communication): organize, share feelings, content, history, didactic

Material

Practical value

Utilitarian value

Example: journals, articles, critical texts.

Abstract art doesn’t teach us yet it has aesthetics to it.

Non-fiction:  a text that is written where somebody is writing facts and truths - narratives pros that’s trying to present and makes the reader enjoy the story.

Prompts:

Structure:

Images that go with TBK

People images (father, son, God, and devil)

Fyodor- 55 years old father

Dmitri- with two girls

Fydor- with 1st marriage and then 2nd marriage.

Zosima- spiritual leader at a monastery

Zosima- book 3. Chapter 11, near death.

Alyosha and Zosima- Book 6, chapter 1

Alyosha and Grushenka- their relationship

Zosima- book 7, odor

Dmitri- money

Alyosha and Grushenka- boyfriend & girlfriend and Dmitri- book 8

Illyosha  and Alyosha- two little boys

Details:

Annotation of Lawrence Kohlberg’s “Psychological Analysis and Literary Form: A Study of Doubles in Dostoevsky.”

Dostoevsky had autoscopic phenomena

Characters and their psychology (chart)

Analysis:

Summaries of TBK

The author doesn’t always start off the chapters the same way. He doesn’t have the same formula to start the chapters the same way.

Dostoevsky repeated begins the chapter by focusing on a character and then in the next three chapters trying to explains the character relating to society.

Next class:

Prompt 1- Structure

Prompt 2- Thesis

Prompt 3- Analysis

Presentation- Details

Class ends by reading TBK.

CIS: Chapter 8

Breanna Campbell

Prompt 3: Contigency, Irony, Solidarity Chapter 8

 

 

 

1.      blinkered

2.      inveighed

3.      truisms

4.      axiom

5.      redescriptions

6.      unwieldy

7.      recurrent disconfirmation

8.      despotic

9.      reconstitute

10.  “Thought Police”

11.  Fillip

12.  Reductions

13.  Analogue

14.  Intransigent

15.  Extrapolations

16.  Parry

17.  Incredulous

18.  Interlocutors

19.  Maieutic

20.  doublethink

 

Chapter 8 talks about our next author we are going to read, George Orwell. Rorty begins by saying that Orwell’s books will be read as long as the view on the twentieth century remains the same.  Orwell wrote about human equality through utopian society.  Rorty states that the first two thirds of 1984 are redescriptive and the last third is prospective.  “He did this in the last third of 1984 – the part which is about O’Brien.  There he sketched an alternative scenario, one which led in the wrong direction.  He convinced us that there was a perfectly good chance that the same developments which had made human equality technically possible might make endless slavery possible.”    (Rorty 175)

Rorty discusses Orwell’s cruelty as the torture of making someone believe something that is not true.  He uses this example from 1984 where O’Brien tries to convince Winston that two and two equals five in order to completely break him apart.  Rorty says this example was symbolic for making people believe a truth and then breaking that truth.  He thinks that people are not individuals because they only follow what society says.

 Ten Key Points:

1.       “Someday this description of our century may come to seem blinkered or shortsighted.  If it does, Orwell will be seen as having inveighed against and evil he did not entirely understand.” (Rorty 170)

2.      “After Winston and Julia go to O’Brien’s apartment, 1984 becomes a book about O’Brien, not about twentieth-century totalitarian states.  This part of the book centers on the citations from The Theory and Practise of Oligarchical Collectivism (co-authored by O’Brien) and on O’Brien’s explanation of why Winston must be tortured rather than simply shot.” (Rorty 171)

3.      “Emphasizing these passages has led many commentators to conclude that Orwell teaches us to set our faces against all those sneaky intellectuals who try to tell us that truth is not ‘out there,’ that what counts as a possible truth is a function of the vocabulary you use, and what counts as a truth is a function of the rest of your beliefs.  Orwell has, in short, been read as a realist philosopher, a defender of common sense against its cultured, ironist despisers.”  (Rorty 172)

4.      “It is a matter of insisting that the kind of thing Orwell and Nabokov both did- sensitizing and audience to cases of cruelty and humiliation which they had not noticed- is not usefully thought of as a matter of stripping away appearance and revealing reality.  It is better thought of as a redescription of what may happen or has been happening- to be compared, not with reality, but with alternative descriptions of the same events.”

5.      “Orwell’s mind was neither transparent nor simple.  It was not obvious how to describe the post-World War II political situation, and it is still not.” (Rorty 174)

6.      “O’Brien reminds us that human beings who have been socialized – socialized in any language, any culture – do share a capacity which other animals lack.  The can all be given a special kind of pain:  They can all be humiliated by the forcible tearing down of the particular structures of language and belief in which they were socialized.”

7.      “O’Brien wants to cause Winston as much pain as possible, and for this purpose what matters is that Winston be forced to realize that he has become incoherent, realize that he is no longer able to use a language or be a self. Although we can say, ‘I believed something false,’ nobody can say to himself, ‘I am, right now, believing something false.’  So nobody can be humiliated at the moment of believing a falsehood, or by the mere fact of having done so.”

8.      Rorty says we should identify Orwell with Winston nad O’Brien with George Bernard Shaw.

9.      “On my reading, Orwell’s denial that there is such a thing as the autonomous individual is part of a larger denial that there is something outside of time or more basic than chance which can be counted on to block, or eventually reverse, such accidental sequences.  So I read the passage from Winston’s diary about the need to insist that two and two equals four not as Orwell’s view about how to keep the O’Brien’s at bay but, rather, as a description of how to keep ourselves going when things get tight.”

10.  “I take Orwell to be telling us that whether our future rulers are more like O’Brien or more like J. S. Mill does nto depend- as Burnham, Williams, and metaphysicians generally suggest it does – on deep facts about human nature.  For, as O’Brien and Humber Humbert show intellectual gifts – intelligence, judgment, curiosity, imagination, a taste for beauty – are as malleable as the sexual instinct.  They are as capable of as many diverse employments as the human hand.”

TBK: Annotated Bibliography

Dostoevskij’s guide to spiritual epiphany in The Brothers Karamazov

By Julian W Connolly

Prompt 2

At the end of Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky’s readers may feel pleased, displeased, or a combination of both.  Although a seemingly ‘‘happy’’ ending may satisfy the readers look for a positive resolution. The very suddenness of his transformation has vexed readers who wish that Dostoevsky had shown precisely how this transformation was achieved. As an artist Dostoevsky was drawn to moments of sudden illumination or insight. In The Brothers Karamazov he approached the experience in a completely different manner, creating a series of epiphanic episodes depicted in extensive detail. At the same time, the epiphanic scenes are constructed in a deep meaningful manner, and permit sensitive interpretative attention.

There are three main events described by Julian Connolly that describe spiritual epiphany in The Brothers Karamazov. Alyosha’s dream in book seven chapter four, Dmitri’s dream after his interrogation in book nine chapter eight and Ivan’s vision of his conversation with the devil in book eleven chapter nine. Dostoevsky seems to lead up to these major episodes through other incidents. He uses other characters like Zosima and reflects upon his thoughts and such during his own childhood. When Dostoevsky sets the stage, he goes into great depth about the intimate thoughts going through Alyosha’s mind. During the incident, the readers are able to closely track the emotional shift within him. Dostoevsky carefully lays out in clear fashion a sequence of events leading up to his dramatic vision. In doing so, Dostoevsky creates a pattern against which the following experiences of Dmitri and Ivan can be measured.

TBK: Story Lines

CLT 361
The Brother’s Karamazov Books VII ,VIII

Prompt 1

As the eager members of the monastery crowd around Zosima’s body at burial, the anticipation of a God like miracle from the death of this holy one keeps the crowd anxious. As time passes and no miraculous events occur, the terrible pungent odor which comes from Zosima’s decaying body, leads to suspicion of his true purity. How could this figure of perfection leave such a funk after his life on earth? Was Zosima really a naughty evil doer on the down low? These suspicions leaves Alyosha bewildered and frightened like a small child. How could this happen to someone he idolized and admired dearly?
Aylosha battles with faith as he questions why the humiliation had to happen to such a great man. He leaves the monestary.
Through Alyosha’s doubt and time of soul searching, he and Grushenka hit it off and confide in eachother. Grushenka feels unashamed of herself because of Alyosha and Grushenka fills the void that Alyosha is consumed by in regards to his recent spiritual warfare.  Now he has hope and his faith is restored.
Alas, Grushenka runs off to her ex lover and leaves Alyosha with a message to relay to Dmitri that she did once love him.
Alyosha returns to the monastery to visit Zosima’s cell and find peace and understanding. There, his soul is renewed as he falls asleep and dreams that God is telling Alyosha to be happy .
Finally he has closure and guidance restored in his life and he can move forward on his path of righteousness….

Dmitri is desperate for money and can’t even try to win  over Grushenka unless he pays off Katerina beforehand. So he winds up pawning his watch to pay for transportation to try to make some sort of business endeavor in another town with some merchant.  This doesn’t go so well… so Dmitri tries to exhaust all other options and even asks  Madame Khokhlakov to lend him some dough to get him through.
After she refuses and he finds that Grushenka has left… he freaks out.
He realizes that his life seems purposeless without Grushenka and comes to reality that she will never be his.
Desperate Dmitri visits Perkhotin, a local official and Dmitiri repays his loan to cop his pistols back in possession.
Dmitri is covered with blood and bewildered Perkhotin once Perkhotin follows his to a store and witness the amount of cash Dmitri is makin it rain as he buys fancy bottles of wine and whatnot.
Dmitri demands his driver to take him to the place where Grushenka and her hottie tottie Polish officer are staying.
Once he arrives and brings the goodies he grabbed from the store on the way over, the lovers warm up to him and play a good ole game of cards with the broken hearted, deranged weirdo.
Grushenka watches closely at her Pollock lovers deceitful game cheating tactics and decides she doesn’t love him. Like flipping a coin, she decides she loves Dmitri instead.
As a little light seems to shine on the far end of Dmitri’s tunnel with winning Grushenka back, the door barges open.
Dmitri is arrested and taken away by a team of beastly officers.  Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov has been murdered and Dmitri is prime suspect.