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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Nature, Nurture, and the Blank Slate
We are not blank slates that society writes on. Be it something in our nature, or something that we are nurtured to acquire, society is working hard to inscribe us with identities that we carry like markers, explicitly or implicitly on our bodies.
The nature/nurture debate has been around for years, but no resolution has come of it. Nor can it ever come. More and more, people are beginning to realise that even ascibed traits that are supposed to come with birth are but social constructions. The ideas of race, of gender, and recently even of sex, have been conceded to be socially inscribed onto an individual, and not pre-determined by nature or a higher being. As such, social inscription actually begins from our birth, when we take on traits and identities from our parents who gave birth to us: our race, our sex, our religion, all of these mark us out in particular ways different from others.
Yet, one of our friends said something that is especially illuminating: that nobody is born a blank slate, but that partial erasure can take place and inscription can be added to what has already been inscribed onto us during the course of our lives. This is very true, and it links in nicely with (what was mentioned in class) the idea that a prisoner is like a blank slate who is being fed new values during the term of imprisonment. (In the case of "In a Penal Colony", the inscription is done literally on the prisoners' bodies.) This can also be seen in a military institution, where a civilian will enter with the status of recruit and be converted into a soldier during the Basic Military Training phase.
These individuals all go through an initiation, or what the sociologist Arnold van Gennep termed "rites de passage". It is during this period of transition from one social community to another that an individual is given partial erasure of previous social inscriptions/values and provided with new inscriptions/values. Interesting, the initiation also requires a symbolic "stripping" of the initiate, usually performed through a series of rituals which lead to the final assimilation into the new social community. These rituals range from the shaving of the head to the wearing of uniforms. The important point here is to remove all markers of rank and or social privilege that may be enjoyed by the individual in the previous social community.
It is important to note that these individuals do not remain the same after the initiation, for the new values inscribed into them alter their world-views, and this will stay with them regardless of what other inscriptions are performed onto them subsequently. In a way, the layers of inscriptions add dimension and colour to a person's character and belief system.
It is clear that the writers do not see their characters as blank slants that are subject to inscription. Many of the characters are born into identity markers that differentiate them from others, and these shape their world-views and the ways in which they see others around them. For instance, David Lurie can never bring himself to see Petrus as superior to him or his daughter because he grew up in a South Africa where the Dutch constructed a social hierarchy in which coloured people are subordinated to their white colonial masters. Bodies, in this case, are engaged in a struggle for definition and power. The group that wins this fight gets to define their centrality in the community, such that all other bodies that do not fit this definition will be othered, marginalised, and oppressed.
We are not blank slates that society writes on. Be it something in our nature, or something that we are nurtured to acquire, society is working hard to inscribe us with identities that we carry like markers, explicitly or implicitly on our bodies.
The nature/nurture debate has been around for years, but no resolution has come of it. Nor can it ever come. More and more, people are beginning to realise that even ascibed traits that are supposed to come with birth are but social constructions. The ideas of race, of gender, and recently even of sex, have been conceded to be socially inscribed onto an individual, and not pre-determined by nature or a higher being. As such, social inscription actually begins from our birth, when we take on traits and identities from our parents who gave birth to us: our race, our sex, our religion, all of these mark us out in particular ways different from others.
Yet, one of our friends said something that is especially illuminating: that nobody is born a blank slate, but that partial erasure can take place and inscription can be added to what has already been inscribed onto us during the course of our lives. This is very true, and it links in nicely with (what was mentioned in class) the idea that a prisoner is like a blank slate who is being fed new values during the term of imprisonment. (In the case of "In a Penal Colony", the inscription is done literally on the prisoners' bodies.) This can also be seen in a military institution, where a civilian will enter with the status of recruit and be converted into a soldier during the Basic Military Training phase.
These individuals all go through an initiation, or what the sociologist Arnold van Gennep termed "rites de passage". It is during this period of transition from one social community to another that an individual is given partial erasure of previous social inscriptions/values and provided with new inscriptions/values. Interesting, the initiation also requires a symbolic "stripping" of the initiate, usually performed through a series of rituals which lead to the final assimilation into the new social community. These rituals range from the shaving of the head to the wearing of uniforms. The important point here is to remove all markers of rank and or social privilege that may be enjoyed by the individual in the previous social community.
It is important to note that these individuals do not remain the same after the initiation, for the new values inscribed into them alter their world-views, and this will stay with them regardless of what other inscriptions are performed onto them subsequently. In a way, the layers of inscriptions add dimension and colour to a person's character and belief system.
It is clear that the writers do not see their characters as blank slants that are subject to inscription. Many of the characters are born into identity markers that differentiate them from others, and these shape their world-views and the ways in which they see others around them. For instance, David Lurie can never bring himself to see Petrus as superior to him or his daughter because he grew up in a South Africa where the Dutch constructed a social hierarchy in which coloured people are subordinated to their white colonial masters. Bodies, in this case, are engaged in a struggle for definition and power. The group that wins this fight gets to define their centrality in the community, such that all other bodies that do not fit this definition will be othered, marginalised, and oppressed.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Before I begin, I would like to thank a friend in class who had given me much encouragement from one single conversation we have had. I now emerge from my weeks of hiatus to engage again in discussions of corporeality. This essay is dedicated to him.
Foe, Part IV
Part IV of Foe, albeit short – five pages in all – in its physical length, carries a wealth of meanings which can only be summed up by the word “indeterminate”. Or perhaps “enigmatic” is a better choice. Yet, it is this ambiguity and the difficulty to find an appropriate word to describe the chapter that reinforces its multiple meanings.
To begin with, there is clearly a change in the narrative voice. It is definitely not the voice of Susan, Foe, or Friday, for the narrator sees them as “others” in the discourse. So then the narrator is Coetzee. But this in itself is problematic. We all know that, in a fiction, the speaking voice should always be distinct from the authorial voice, and that the views in the fiction should never come to fully represent the writer’s own opinions, although most of the time they do. (This is the reason why Salman Rushdie prefers writing fiction to news commentaries; it keeps him alive longer than it otherwise would.)
At the end, the narrative voice is and can never be identified, and like all other ambiguities in Coeztee-fictions, we have to be satisfied with ambiguity for our conclusion and continue with our lives. And so I have established that the issue of the narrative voice in Part IV is never resolved with the end of the novel.
But that is only the beginning of the many ambiguities and multiplicities in the chapter. Consider the pause in the chapter, as marked by
* *
on the page. Think of this as a boundary, something that dichotomises the narrative into two. The question is: why? I argue that the two asterisks function as a border that demarcates the two sides of the narrative, marking them out as two mirror images that juxtapose one onto the other. If we consider the discourse in the two parts of the narrative, we can find many similarities between them.
Here is a list that presents some of these similarities:
§ The speakers in both instances enter a room
§ The speakers find a woman and a man lying on a bed
§ In both instances Friday is found in an alcove
Let us now pause and think for a moment. Although it is true that these similarities exist between the two halves of the narrative, there remain certain disparities in the details. Just like how a mirror image is always a lateral-inverted image of the original, and hence similar but not identical to the original, these disparities reveal more profound meanings between the two (similar) discourses.
Let me elaborate. In the first part of the narrative, Susan and Foe lie in bed, “not touching” each other (153), but in the second part, they have turned and now lie “face to face”, with “her head in the crook of his arm” (155). This change in physical intimacy is important and I shall come back to it shortly. For now, consider the other subtle nuances in the two parts. In the first part, the speaker enters without noticing whose residence it is, but in the second part the place is identified to belong to “Daniel Defoe, Author” (155). Finally, the position of Friday is also changed in the second part when compared to the first. While he is first seen to be “stretched at full length on his back” (154), he is later seen to have “turned to [face] the wall” (155), revealing a scar about his neck.
These differences suggest, I think, the subjectivity in human perception when looking at the same thing/s at different times. These differences, subtle or drastic, may occur because of a change in lighting, a newly acquired worldview, or the loss of a previously subscribed value or belief. Coetzee here is showing, through these subtle differences between the two parts of his narrative, the multiplicity of fiction and the multiple interpretations that can be gotten within a single narrative. To come back to my previous point, the change in physical intimacy between Susan and Foe can generate many new meanings surrounding their relationship. While a lack of body contact would suggest a platonic relationship between the couple, the fact that Susan is “face to face” with Foe, with “her head in the crook of his arm” allows the reader to infer a more intimate, probably sexual, relationship between the two.
To further develop this point, consider the association of the room with Daniel Defoe. The fact that Coetzee attaches the word “Author” to Defoe’s name opens up the many possibilities of Defoe’s actual vocation instead of closing it. If it is so easy to attach an identity to an individual, Coetzee seems to say, how can we be sure that this individual is who he is supposed to be? For that matter, if another name has appeared on the wall, say Susan Barton, would we now be reading Robinson Crusoe as a novel written by a female novelist instead? The issue of multiplicity is not a simple one to resolve.
So what is the moral of the story? The moral of the story here, to me at least, is that the story is what the writer makes it out to be. And the writer, being a product of social, cultural, and historical influences, always carries with him the writers of previous epochs, their thoughts and ideas, their values and belief systems. As such there is no original story. Neither is there a fixed or original text; all texts are inter-texts of previous texts and the texts to come.
By revealing this intertextual quality within his novel, Coetzee reinforces the fact that his text is yet another intertext, this time to Daniel (De)Foe’s Robinson Crusoe. (Incidentally, Defoe’s original last name was Foe; he changed it to Defoe to increase the literary reception of his writings by allowing people to associate him with the French.) And that his text is a reinterpretation of Defoe’s text, just like Defoe’s text might have been a rip-off of some other (unknown) text that came up during or before his time. To bring this to another level, writing can be both a physical and metaphysical process that transcends time and space. Similarly, ideas, fiction, values, and entire belief systems are not fixed but rather fluid entities that may mix, match, and transcend time and space to make their presence felt in different societies depending on the varying needs of these societies
The dilemma of words
Words and descriptions allow the reader to realise certain images in his mind’s eye, but they also confine the reader’s imagination to the extent of the vocabulary he possesses, or for that matter, the range of words constructed and in existence in a particular language system.
Words and descriptions allow the reader to realise certain images in his mind’s eye, but they also confine the reader’s imagination to the extent of the vocabulary he possesses, or for that matter, the range of words constructed and in existence in a particular language system.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Ungraceful Bodies
The notion of disgrace is a social construction. We are never disgraced until others think us to be so. To develop this further, consider the sociological definition of “deviance”. A person is labelled a deviant when he/she commits an act which is considered socially incorrect. Significantly, that act has to be committed in the open where people can bear witness and confer their opinion or judgement onto the actor.
As such, Lurie’s "rape" of Melanie was not deviantised because sex between them was a private affair which was done away from the prying eyes of the public. However, it became deviant when Melanie revealed it to her boyfriend and subsequently her family, the latter of whom decided that actions have to be taken against this Romantic (no puns intended) lecturer. That transformed Lurie from a non-deviant into a deviant, marking the start of his fall from grace.
As such, we can see how powerful social labels and the act of social labelling can be. Consider how the Blacks were perceived by the Whites in apartheid South Africa. Because of certain expectations and ideological slants, the Whites saw themselves as the superior race. The body thus became a site for political contention, resulting in a power struggle that saw people’s bodies becoming identity markers when they are in public. Skin colour became especially sensitive as segregation in places like restaurants and trains were based simply on the dichotomy of white and black. There came to pass a vicious cycle as children were born and socialised into their respective social circles, growing up to feel and think themselves superior or inferior to others depending on the kinds of social markers they carry.
This was the old South Africa, the Africa that Lurie knew and understood, the society that he lived and struggled in for survival. Yet the South Africa now, the Africa after apartheid, with the new political regime of Nelson Mandela, functions on a different body politic. Although still in a grey zone, Blacks are slowly rising in their social status. We see that in the progression of Petrus’ social position. From a dog-man to a co-owner to an independent land-owner, Petrus is representative of the new Black man and his changing social role in South Africa. At the end, even Lucy concedes that she is no more than a “bywoner”, “a tenant on [Petrus’] land” who is dependent on the latter for shelter and protection (Disgrace 204).
This is the power of symbolic interaction in society. Living the majority of his prime studying and teaching in the ivory towers, Lurie is a privileged White man protected from experiencing the real political changes that are happening all around him in the 1990s. Even the school’s inquiry was conducted, not to displace him, but to protect him and to preserve the position that he holds in the university. As Hakim puts it: “We would like to help you…find a way out of what must be a nightmare” (52). The small and closely-knitted community that Lurie is a part of prevents him (and the rest of them) from finding out that the centrality that the Whites have held in South Africa has come to be destabilised.
Perhaps the enlightenment that he receives begins on the day he has sex with Melanie, who is, not without deliberation on Coetzee’s part, a Black. His fall from grace, thanks to his rendezvous with his student, opens his eyes to a new social system with new symbols and meanings that he takes some time to decipher, but nevertheless comes to understand. The act of travelling from the city into the country foreshadows the transition that Lurie eventually comes to experience. Remember Lucy’s words to him when he reveals his displeasure for Petrus over the soon-to-be slaughtered sheep: “Wake up, David. This is the country. This is Africa” (124). This is a statement that can be read in many different ways. Perhaps what will be most useful in this discussion is a careful consideration of how Lucy articulates the last sentence “This is Africa.” When done in the right way, the sentence may come to imply that this, the country, and what is happening here, is a true reflection of the real Africa, the post-apatheid Africa as opposed to the Africa that Lurie knows in the ivory towers with its closed doors and its elitism. This explains why signs and symbols in the country are so destabilising to Lurie: he does not understand and appreciate these signs and their meanings.
That is why he is upset that Lucy is not getting something more (sophisticated) to do in her life (being a White); that is why he is disturbed when he realises that his “simple” neighbours Ettinger and the Shaws believe that they can be friends with him, a highly educated White male professor, just because they live near one another; that is why he cannot accept the fact that Lucy is subservient to Petrus and in need of his protection against other Blacks, a small man who is “big enough for someone small like” her (204). This is the new South Africa, the one that Lurie does not and refuses to know until the end of the novel.
I agree with Attridge to a certain extent when he says that Lurie comes to attain a state of grace towards the end of the novel. After all, Lurie’s development from the start of the novel till the end comes very near to resemble a relinquishment of worldly desires, a kind of Buddhist enlightenment or Taoist Zen. Consider his loss of status: firstly, he was stripped of his professorship; then his last name was converted from “Lurie” to “Lourie” following the name of his daughter cited in the Herald regarding the attack on their “smallholding” (115-6); and towards the conclusion he actually comes to identify himself with the dog-man (146), an identity that Petrus have long since given up with his social aspirations. Think also of his growing compassion for animals: he was affected by the sheep and the fate that awaited them at Petrus’ party; his participation in putting the dogs to sleep affected him so much that, going home one day, the “tears flow down his face” and “his hands shake” so much that he is forced to stop “at the roadside to recover himself” (143). This moment marks the turning point for Lurie: by showing his emotions for the animals Lurie comes to connect with Lucy’s statement about there being “no higher life” except that “which we share with the animals” (74). By appreciating his life through the bodies of animals and through an existence of the most basic, simple kind, Lurie does come to gain a form of enlightenment and attain a state of grace at the end of the novel.
The notion of disgrace is a social construction. We are never disgraced until others think us to be so. To develop this further, consider the sociological definition of “deviance”. A person is labelled a deviant when he/she commits an act which is considered socially incorrect. Significantly, that act has to be committed in the open where people can bear witness and confer their opinion or judgement onto the actor.
As such, Lurie’s "rape" of Melanie was not deviantised because sex between them was a private affair which was done away from the prying eyes of the public. However, it became deviant when Melanie revealed it to her boyfriend and subsequently her family, the latter of whom decided that actions have to be taken against this Romantic (no puns intended) lecturer. That transformed Lurie from a non-deviant into a deviant, marking the start of his fall from grace.
As such, we can see how powerful social labels and the act of social labelling can be. Consider how the Blacks were perceived by the Whites in apartheid South Africa. Because of certain expectations and ideological slants, the Whites saw themselves as the superior race. The body thus became a site for political contention, resulting in a power struggle that saw people’s bodies becoming identity markers when they are in public. Skin colour became especially sensitive as segregation in places like restaurants and trains were based simply on the dichotomy of white and black. There came to pass a vicious cycle as children were born and socialised into their respective social circles, growing up to feel and think themselves superior or inferior to others depending on the kinds of social markers they carry.
This was the old South Africa, the Africa that Lurie knew and understood, the society that he lived and struggled in for survival. Yet the South Africa now, the Africa after apartheid, with the new political regime of Nelson Mandela, functions on a different body politic. Although still in a grey zone, Blacks are slowly rising in their social status. We see that in the progression of Petrus’ social position. From a dog-man to a co-owner to an independent land-owner, Petrus is representative of the new Black man and his changing social role in South Africa. At the end, even Lucy concedes that she is no more than a “bywoner”, “a tenant on [Petrus’] land” who is dependent on the latter for shelter and protection (Disgrace 204).
This is the power of symbolic interaction in society. Living the majority of his prime studying and teaching in the ivory towers, Lurie is a privileged White man protected from experiencing the real political changes that are happening all around him in the 1990s. Even the school’s inquiry was conducted, not to displace him, but to protect him and to preserve the position that he holds in the university. As Hakim puts it: “We would like to help you…find a way out of what must be a nightmare” (52). The small and closely-knitted community that Lurie is a part of prevents him (and the rest of them) from finding out that the centrality that the Whites have held in South Africa has come to be destabilised.
Perhaps the enlightenment that he receives begins on the day he has sex with Melanie, who is, not without deliberation on Coetzee’s part, a Black. His fall from grace, thanks to his rendezvous with his student, opens his eyes to a new social system with new symbols and meanings that he takes some time to decipher, but nevertheless comes to understand. The act of travelling from the city into the country foreshadows the transition that Lurie eventually comes to experience. Remember Lucy’s words to him when he reveals his displeasure for Petrus over the soon-to-be slaughtered sheep: “Wake up, David. This is the country. This is Africa” (124). This is a statement that can be read in many different ways. Perhaps what will be most useful in this discussion is a careful consideration of how Lucy articulates the last sentence “This is Africa.” When done in the right way, the sentence may come to imply that this, the country, and what is happening here, is a true reflection of the real Africa, the post-apatheid Africa as opposed to the Africa that Lurie knows in the ivory towers with its closed doors and its elitism. This explains why signs and symbols in the country are so destabilising to Lurie: he does not understand and appreciate these signs and their meanings.
That is why he is upset that Lucy is not getting something more (sophisticated) to do in her life (being a White); that is why he is disturbed when he realises that his “simple” neighbours Ettinger and the Shaws believe that they can be friends with him, a highly educated White male professor, just because they live near one another; that is why he cannot accept the fact that Lucy is subservient to Petrus and in need of his protection against other Blacks, a small man who is “big enough for someone small like” her (204). This is the new South Africa, the one that Lurie does not and refuses to know until the end of the novel.
I agree with Attridge to a certain extent when he says that Lurie comes to attain a state of grace towards the end of the novel. After all, Lurie’s development from the start of the novel till the end comes very near to resemble a relinquishment of worldly desires, a kind of Buddhist enlightenment or Taoist Zen. Consider his loss of status: firstly, he was stripped of his professorship; then his last name was converted from “Lurie” to “Lourie” following the name of his daughter cited in the Herald regarding the attack on their “smallholding” (115-6); and towards the conclusion he actually comes to identify himself with the dog-man (146), an identity that Petrus have long since given up with his social aspirations. Think also of his growing compassion for animals: he was affected by the sheep and the fate that awaited them at Petrus’ party; his participation in putting the dogs to sleep affected him so much that, going home one day, the “tears flow down his face” and “his hands shake” so much that he is forced to stop “at the roadside to recover himself” (143). This moment marks the turning point for Lurie: by showing his emotions for the animals Lurie comes to connect with Lucy’s statement about there being “no higher life” except that “which we share with the animals” (74). By appreciating his life through the bodies of animals and through an existence of the most basic, simple kind, Lurie does come to gain a form of enlightenment and attain a state of grace at the end of the novel.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
The Body in Pain
It is enlightening when we use Scarry’s “Pain and Imagining” to analyse the motivations of the officer in Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”. At one point in her article, Scarry discusses the notion of work and how one can come to feel a sense of self-worth when one’s work is recognised and acknowledged by others (170). In many ways, the officer craves for that recognition in his work. Consider how absorbed he is when narrating the Golden Age of the Harrow, where people gathered in the thousands to see a prisoner executed by the machine and revelled in the pain and torture the punished individual was made to undergo. Contrast this to his bitter confession that the Harrow and the punishments it executes are not held in high esteem with the new Commandant. This is further reinforced by the officer’s great sense of disappointment when he realises that the explorer is not going to speak up for him and the torture machine. This particular moment in the story is especially revealing:
It did not look as if the officer had been listening. “So you did not find the procedure convincing,” he said to himself and smiled, as an old man smiles at childish nonsense and yet pursues his own meditations behind the smile. (160)
The smile here is more powerful and conveys a deeper sense of dejection and resignation than a sob is capable of. Because no one recognises his work as work anymore, the officer has lost all purpose in life, and is better off dead than being in a suspended mode of living where everyone treats him like an alien from another dimension. The officer therefore experiences the greatest torture in the story, a torture that stems from an unfulfilled desire for respect and recognition for his work and efforts in maintaining the machine and its serviceability. It is also significant that he receives no enlightenment from his execution as a result of the machine’s malfunction during the procedure. Because of the officer’s inability to change and move on with the times, his death is cold and gruesome, and provides him with no relief, with no release.
An After-thought
After reading Kafka's "In the Penal Colony", I thought about the various characters in the story and gave them each an archetypal representation.
The list is as follows:
The Officer - The old-guard elites; the creator and preserver of the eroding political ideologies of the Colony;
The Explorer - Representative of an alternative ideology; his presence challenges and threatens the already declining mores of the Colony;
The Soldier - The law enforcer; the preserver of the status quo; however his mindless subjection to the Officer actually accelerates the fall of the old system;
The Prisoner - The masses; to follow rules and orders without questioning them; it is significant that the Prisoner is condemned to death because of disobedience.
The story presents a chaotic period of transition from the old order to a new, still crystalising, order. The officer is the last protector of the old faith, and with his dying the new order can begin its full-fledged development towards social progress and modernisation.
It is also revealing that the explorer is unable to decipher the calligraphy of the Harrow, highlighting the obsolete language and ideology of the dead Commandant and his servant the officer. This is emphatic in that the society is in need of change, which is representative of the foreign explorer and the new Commandant of the colony.
It is enlightening when we use Scarry’s “Pain and Imagining” to analyse the motivations of the officer in Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”. At one point in her article, Scarry discusses the notion of work and how one can come to feel a sense of self-worth when one’s work is recognised and acknowledged by others (170). In many ways, the officer craves for that recognition in his work. Consider how absorbed he is when narrating the Golden Age of the Harrow, where people gathered in the thousands to see a prisoner executed by the machine and revelled in the pain and torture the punished individual was made to undergo. Contrast this to his bitter confession that the Harrow and the punishments it executes are not held in high esteem with the new Commandant. This is further reinforced by the officer’s great sense of disappointment when he realises that the explorer is not going to speak up for him and the torture machine. This particular moment in the story is especially revealing:
It did not look as if the officer had been listening. “So you did not find the procedure convincing,” he said to himself and smiled, as an old man smiles at childish nonsense and yet pursues his own meditations behind the smile. (160)
The smile here is more powerful and conveys a deeper sense of dejection and resignation than a sob is capable of. Because no one recognises his work as work anymore, the officer has lost all purpose in life, and is better off dead than being in a suspended mode of living where everyone treats him like an alien from another dimension. The officer therefore experiences the greatest torture in the story, a torture that stems from an unfulfilled desire for respect and recognition for his work and efforts in maintaining the machine and its serviceability. It is also significant that he receives no enlightenment from his execution as a result of the machine’s malfunction during the procedure. Because of the officer’s inability to change and move on with the times, his death is cold and gruesome, and provides him with no relief, with no release.
An After-thought
After reading Kafka's "In the Penal Colony", I thought about the various characters in the story and gave them each an archetypal representation.
The list is as follows:
The Officer - The old-guard elites; the creator and preserver of the eroding political ideologies of the Colony;
The Explorer - Representative of an alternative ideology; his presence challenges and threatens the already declining mores of the Colony;
The Soldier - The law enforcer; the preserver of the status quo; however his mindless subjection to the Officer actually accelerates the fall of the old system;
The Prisoner - The masses; to follow rules and orders without questioning them; it is significant that the Prisoner is condemned to death because of disobedience.
The story presents a chaotic period of transition from the old order to a new, still crystalising, order. The officer is the last protector of the old faith, and with his dying the new order can begin its full-fledged development towards social progress and modernisation.
It is also revealing that the explorer is unable to decipher the calligraphy of the Harrow, highlighting the obsolete language and ideology of the dead Commandant and his servant the officer. This is emphatic in that the society is in need of change, which is representative of the foreign explorer and the new Commandant of the colony.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Everyday I subject myself, bodily and mentally, to self-imposed torture so that pleasure, when it is earned, may be doubled.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Our bodies and the ways in which we perceive our bodies have a profound impact on how we see and conduct ourselves in the world. No two persons’ bodies are the same: like our fingerprints, they are customised to suit our own needs and comforts; they are shaped and defined by events and circumstances throughout our lives. As we grow and move towards life’s finish line, our bodies grow and evolve with us. In that sense, our bodies are like our most immediate identity markers, marking off where we begin and end and where someone else begins again.
Today’s societal and cultural definitions of the “ideal body” are powerful notions which influence the way we live. They have driven many of us to seek professional help to alter our bodies. A little firmer here, a little larger there. Fat people want to get slim; slim people want to stay slim. Because we refuse to wear particular markers that are associated with particular bodies, the only way out is to redefine these markers. In a world where how we look has a direct correlation with how we are treated and perceived by others, body altering seems like an anomalous fashion trend: one that will never go out of fashion.
Slim is fashionable. At least for now, at least in Singapore. Slim people are generally more readily accepted into social groups and communities. They are confident of themselves, and this translates into better work performance and a greater capacity for living life. On the contrary, people who are obese, and especially the morbidly obese, often find it difficult to assimilate into the larger society. As it becomes clear that social acceptance is hard to get, these people withdraw further and further into themselves, spinning a cocoon in which they can hide away from the world and its critical eye.
In a way, they relate to Kafka and his preoccupation with bodily changes in the “Metamorphosis”. The act of imagination liberates one from reality, allowing one to see oneself in a whole new dimension with an entirely different perspective. While Kafka’s act of recreating an alien body produces an alienating effect which is disconcerting and even repulsive, it is this same act that frees him from the (human) body he so detests. With the body of the vermin, Kafka is given a new set of body mechanism to play with – six legs, a flat and grotesque head, and a hard shell – a mechanism that is set apart from the old one, and from which endless possibilities can be generated from. Seeing the world from the vermin’s eyes, Kafka is liberated, at least temporarily, from his limited range of bodily movements; he is given himself a multiplicity from which strange but exciting new ways of bodily movements can be conjured and explored. And the best thing about this imagined body: the fact that it is make-believe gives the conjurer a sense of assurance; should things go out of hand there is always the reality to fall back on.
And this is the way in which writers seek to free themselves from the bonds of society, and the harsh realities of life. Rather than close your eyes to the pains and sufferings in and around you, why not put on a pair of technicolour lens, and see life in colours you have never dreamed possible before. It keeps you sane and alive, at least for a while.
And that, to me, is how Kafka viewed his task of writing. Although he might have been too critical of the world around him, he would always wear the technicolour lens when it came to his work. And this gave his writing a singular appeal; there is this strangeness which is disturbing and yet funny at the same time. To read Kafka, one must have a capacity for imagination and the unimaginable. To read him too seriously would kill the humour that he painstakingly planted inside his stories, his characters. To truly appreciate Kafka, one needs to recall the child that is in all of us.
And yet, Kafka was never really liberated from the thoughts of his – undesired – body. Perhaps he would not have died when he did had he grew to love his body. Being too critical and determined, he never saw his body as anything else other than an impediment to his literary vocation. He never realised that he could love his body for the way it was. And that he ought to have done just that. Had he gain enlightenment before he expired, we may have gotten more than a vermin; we may have gotten a butterfly.
Today’s societal and cultural definitions of the “ideal body” are powerful notions which influence the way we live. They have driven many of us to seek professional help to alter our bodies. A little firmer here, a little larger there. Fat people want to get slim; slim people want to stay slim. Because we refuse to wear particular markers that are associated with particular bodies, the only way out is to redefine these markers. In a world where how we look has a direct correlation with how we are treated and perceived by others, body altering seems like an anomalous fashion trend: one that will never go out of fashion.
Slim is fashionable. At least for now, at least in Singapore. Slim people are generally more readily accepted into social groups and communities. They are confident of themselves, and this translates into better work performance and a greater capacity for living life. On the contrary, people who are obese, and especially the morbidly obese, often find it difficult to assimilate into the larger society. As it becomes clear that social acceptance is hard to get, these people withdraw further and further into themselves, spinning a cocoon in which they can hide away from the world and its critical eye.
In a way, they relate to Kafka and his preoccupation with bodily changes in the “Metamorphosis”. The act of imagination liberates one from reality, allowing one to see oneself in a whole new dimension with an entirely different perspective. While Kafka’s act of recreating an alien body produces an alienating effect which is disconcerting and even repulsive, it is this same act that frees him from the (human) body he so detests. With the body of the vermin, Kafka is given a new set of body mechanism to play with – six legs, a flat and grotesque head, and a hard shell – a mechanism that is set apart from the old one, and from which endless possibilities can be generated from. Seeing the world from the vermin’s eyes, Kafka is liberated, at least temporarily, from his limited range of bodily movements; he is given himself a multiplicity from which strange but exciting new ways of bodily movements can be conjured and explored. And the best thing about this imagined body: the fact that it is make-believe gives the conjurer a sense of assurance; should things go out of hand there is always the reality to fall back on.
And this is the way in which writers seek to free themselves from the bonds of society, and the harsh realities of life. Rather than close your eyes to the pains and sufferings in and around you, why not put on a pair of technicolour lens, and see life in colours you have never dreamed possible before. It keeps you sane and alive, at least for a while.
And that, to me, is how Kafka viewed his task of writing. Although he might have been too critical of the world around him, he would always wear the technicolour lens when it came to his work. And this gave his writing a singular appeal; there is this strangeness which is disturbing and yet funny at the same time. To read Kafka, one must have a capacity for imagination and the unimaginable. To read him too seriously would kill the humour that he painstakingly planted inside his stories, his characters. To truly appreciate Kafka, one needs to recall the child that is in all of us.
And yet, Kafka was never really liberated from the thoughts of his – undesired – body. Perhaps he would not have died when he did had he grew to love his body. Being too critical and determined, he never saw his body as anything else other than an impediment to his literary vocation. He never realised that he could love his body for the way it was. And that he ought to have done just that. Had he gain enlightenment before he expired, we may have gotten more than a vermin; we may have gotten a butterfly.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Human Perfection
I always believe that a healthy, blooming baby is the nearest one can ever get to human perfection. Those supple limbs, the effortless ways in which movements are executed. The lack of bodily pain and afflictions that will manifest and grow with age and aging. Perhaps the only individual who is able to contend with the blossoming baby is the gymnast. With years of training and conditioning, the gymnast is able to control bodily movements with a certain degree of ease and dexterity. When the gymnast moves, it is a performance executed with style. With the gymnast, the body is truly subject to the mind and its dictates. As for the rest of us: as we grow, and age, and finally degenerate, we move further and further away from perfection. Our bodies become larger, longer, stouter, more wrinkled, and more problematic. Throughout our lives, we are constantly finding ways and means to slow down and, if it were possible, impede the process of aging.
I always believe that a healthy, blooming baby is the nearest one can ever get to human perfection. Those supple limbs, the effortless ways in which movements are executed. The lack of bodily pain and afflictions that will manifest and grow with age and aging. Perhaps the only individual who is able to contend with the blossoming baby is the gymnast. With years of training and conditioning, the gymnast is able to control bodily movements with a certain degree of ease and dexterity. When the gymnast moves, it is a performance executed with style. With the gymnast, the body is truly subject to the mind and its dictates. As for the rest of us: as we grow, and age, and finally degenerate, we move further and further away from perfection. Our bodies become larger, longer, stouter, more wrinkled, and more problematic. Throughout our lives, we are constantly finding ways and means to slow down and, if it were possible, impede the process of aging.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Underneath Faber's Novel
Under the Skin is artfully crafted by Faber to provide the reader with a new perspective of what it is to be human and/or otherwise. The us/other binary is given a totally new twist by a singular subversion of the definition of "human"; instead of "us" (as in the reader, the Homo sapien), the humans have come to be associated with the "other", the "alien", while the "other" have come to assume centrality in the story. This subversion of the us/other binary creates a powerful self-consciousness in the reader while reading the novel, which allows one to gain a new appreciation of the notions of alienation and oppression.
Perhaps the idea of the novel being a call for vegetarianism stems from this subversion. Because we are conscious of being the other, we become better able to empathise with the other. In this case, we are able to associate, albeit in a bizzare way, with the livestock that we rear and consume in our normal world. There is no denying that the captive vodsels bear a sinister resemblance to the chickens/pigs/cows which are kept for the sole purpose of human consumption. Even the way the vodsels are fed - in well-partitioned spaces comfortable enough only for them to feed and fatten up - carries a powerful reminder as to the practical but hardly moral ways we keep and feed our livestocks. The deconstruction and reconstruction of the terms "food" and "consumer" is what succeed in forcing us to reassess our meat-eating habits.
In the centre of this disharmony is the protagonist Isserley. She is the hunter and harvester for her people, working hard to satisfy the cravings of the Elites with this newly found delicacy. (PG: The mere thought of the vodsels/us being served on plates and eaten for food may send shivers down some of the more sensitive ones.) Yet, the unfortunate demands of her work has made her into one of the vodsels/us. This in turn generates a kind of cannabalism in the novel - remember the moment when Isserley is offered a piece of vodsel meat from Hilis and describes it as being "so tender" - which serves again to destablise the reader.
The destabillisation is given a further development by Faber when we consider Isserley's ambiguity. Indeed, Isserley suffers from several layers of oppression. On the one hand, she is human. Yet, on the other, she is physically vodsel-like. This makes her an alien in her own community. Although Isserley looks like a vodsel and even speaks their language, she thinks and behaves differently from the rest of them. This makes her a queer female in the eyes of her many male passengers/victims. This is further juxtaposed and heightened by the lack of female characters in the story.
Isserley suffers also from gender oppression. Despite her present mutilation, Isserley was famed to have been beautiful; this impression, combined with the notion of the other (ie. vodsel) makes her something exotic and desirable, especially to the working males who are hidden underneath the farmstead and who do not see other female humans. Even Amlis concedes, at one point, that Isserley "is beautiful...in her own strange, strange way". This sexual tension is another theme that reverberates throughout the novel.
While Isserley is oppressed, she also oppresses. This is especially evident in her denial of the vodsels' language to Amlis, probably in part to protect his good opinion of her. Nonetheless, this reveals another important theme in the novel - that language lies beneath any form of power struggle. A language is the tool of communication for any community. To Isserley, it is also what marks civilised beings from the barbarians - hence vodsels can never be humans because they lack, in their vocabulary, terms and concepts like "slan" and "chail". By positioning the humans' language against all other languages in his novel, Faber upsets the centrality of the vodsels/us and their/our language, and confers power onto the humans.
To use the language that we know, we need to articulate the words that belong to that particular language. The cutting of the vodsels' tongues further removes them from their humanity and power. This act is symbolic in the humans' contention for absolute power - what you cannot articulate you are unable to control. By depriving the vodsels of their speech, Faber reduces them into mere "animals" which are only able to make grunting sounds no different from the pigs and chickens in our world. The act therefore allows the humans to justify their actions and Isserley to assure Amlis that they are merely eating "animals".
At the end, Under the Skin is a novel that can be neatly summed up to be a display of Faber's remarkable ability for word-playing. The conscious subversion of the us/other binary serves as both the fundamental tension and appeal of the novel to a careful reader.
Under the Skin is artfully crafted by Faber to provide the reader with a new perspective of what it is to be human and/or otherwise. The us/other binary is given a totally new twist by a singular subversion of the definition of "human"; instead of "us" (as in the reader, the Homo sapien), the humans have come to be associated with the "other", the "alien", while the "other" have come to assume centrality in the story. This subversion of the us/other binary creates a powerful self-consciousness in the reader while reading the novel, which allows one to gain a new appreciation of the notions of alienation and oppression.
Perhaps the idea of the novel being a call for vegetarianism stems from this subversion. Because we are conscious of being the other, we become better able to empathise with the other. In this case, we are able to associate, albeit in a bizzare way, with the livestock that we rear and consume in our normal world. There is no denying that the captive vodsels bear a sinister resemblance to the chickens/pigs/cows which are kept for the sole purpose of human consumption. Even the way the vodsels are fed - in well-partitioned spaces comfortable enough only for them to feed and fatten up - carries a powerful reminder as to the practical but hardly moral ways we keep and feed our livestocks. The deconstruction and reconstruction of the terms "food" and "consumer" is what succeed in forcing us to reassess our meat-eating habits.
In the centre of this disharmony is the protagonist Isserley. She is the hunter and harvester for her people, working hard to satisfy the cravings of the Elites with this newly found delicacy. (PG: The mere thought of the vodsels/us being served on plates and eaten for food may send shivers down some of the more sensitive ones.) Yet, the unfortunate demands of her work has made her into one of the vodsels/us. This in turn generates a kind of cannabalism in the novel - remember the moment when Isserley is offered a piece of vodsel meat from Hilis and describes it as being "so tender" - which serves again to destablise the reader.
The destabillisation is given a further development by Faber when we consider Isserley's ambiguity. Indeed, Isserley suffers from several layers of oppression. On the one hand, she is human. Yet, on the other, she is physically vodsel-like. This makes her an alien in her own community. Although Isserley looks like a vodsel and even speaks their language, she thinks and behaves differently from the rest of them. This makes her a queer female in the eyes of her many male passengers/victims. This is further juxtaposed and heightened by the lack of female characters in the story.
Isserley suffers also from gender oppression. Despite her present mutilation, Isserley was famed to have been beautiful; this impression, combined with the notion of the other (ie. vodsel) makes her something exotic and desirable, especially to the working males who are hidden underneath the farmstead and who do not see other female humans. Even Amlis concedes, at one point, that Isserley "is beautiful...in her own strange, strange way". This sexual tension is another theme that reverberates throughout the novel.
While Isserley is oppressed, she also oppresses. This is especially evident in her denial of the vodsels' language to Amlis, probably in part to protect his good opinion of her. Nonetheless, this reveals another important theme in the novel - that language lies beneath any form of power struggle. A language is the tool of communication for any community. To Isserley, it is also what marks civilised beings from the barbarians - hence vodsels can never be humans because they lack, in their vocabulary, terms and concepts like "slan" and "chail". By positioning the humans' language against all other languages in his novel, Faber upsets the centrality of the vodsels/us and their/our language, and confers power onto the humans.
To use the language that we know, we need to articulate the words that belong to that particular language. The cutting of the vodsels' tongues further removes them from their humanity and power. This act is symbolic in the humans' contention for absolute power - what you cannot articulate you are unable to control. By depriving the vodsels of their speech, Faber reduces them into mere "animals" which are only able to make grunting sounds no different from the pigs and chickens in our world. The act therefore allows the humans to justify their actions and Isserley to assure Amlis that they are merely eating "animals".
At the end, Under the Skin is a novel that can be neatly summed up to be a display of Faber's remarkable ability for word-playing. The conscious subversion of the us/other binary serves as both the fundamental tension and appeal of the novel to a careful reader.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
fat is beautiful (but the process is ugly)
i remembered watching a programme on tv a long time ago and seeing a tribal african man embrace a fat woman, proclaiming that she is beautiful; this, as opposed to the slim woman who is standing beside the former.
so i googled and came upon some interesting discoveries: the various tribes in Nigeria, as well as the Hima tribe in Uganda are some of the places which support the notion of fat is beautiful.
i hope that this will not disappoint the fat black woman because in these societies, her poetry would be something rather ordinary instead of shocking. and she may not make as much money as she would out of them should she decide to strut her stuff there.
before you go out and tell your friends that you have finally found a place where women can be what they want and eat what they like, let me elaborate on their cultures. for the tribes in Nigeria, women before their marriage would have to undergo this "fattening" ceremony where they are enclosed in a fattening house to, simply, get fat. (sounds like something that we have/ought to have read?)
the process of fattening up is rather long and ritualistic, and i have chosen to extract a passage from the site which explains it in detail. this description applies to the Efik tribe:
After reaching the age of puberty, the girl is clothed in an embroidered cloth cap, a loin roll of bright coloured cloth, a correlate ornamented with beads and cowry shells, headed shoulder braces and leglets of gaily coloured cloth or coiled brass rods, necklace and armlets of bead work. She is taken to the fattening hut called Mbobi by her mother. The huts are situated on the outskirts of the village. Her period of seclusion may extend from six months to two years. Whilst in the hut, she is called a woman of seclusion (wann-kukho). During the fattening process she is compelled to eat vast quantities of fat producing foods including pounded yam cooked in palm oil. She is not allowed to exert herself in any way. Her face and body are not washed and she is rubbed with clay. White cloths are tied round her neck, wrists and ankle to prevent evil spirits retarding the process.
While she is in Ufok n-kukho she is not allowed to touch anything in the hut and she must avoid all possible contact with the ground. When she has occasion to leave the hut and go into the yard of the compound, she calls out "Onukhomi, nukhofio". During her period of seclusion she undergoes the operation of clitoridectomy (Circumcision) usually at the hand of her mother.
How the circumcision is done: A piece of coconut shell perforated. The glans of the clitoriclis is drawn through this hole and cut off with a sharp knife or splinter of glass. It is believed that the operation has the effect of making the girl sterile.
all right. so it is not very empowering. in fact, the tribe is still patrairchal in nature, except that these men have opposing tastes. the interesting, as well as disturbing, part in the extract is how the girl undergoes clitoridectomy before she is released from the hut. although the passage explains that this is to make the girl "sterile", the other (underlying) reason for doing it is so that the women relinquish their sexual desires and assume the role of baby producing machines for their husbands, and their husbands only.
apart from the bodily afflictions and mutilations, the women also undergo a mental brainwashing where they come out as subservient wives (yes, polygyny is the norm in Nigerian tribal societies) who will take and accept the pushing, beating, and abusing of their husband-kings.
now would you rather be slim and Singaporean or opulent and Efik?
for those who would like a little more detail of these ceremonies and the lives of these women:
http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/earticles/efik_ibibio_ibo_in_the_fattening.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/wmp/wmp08.htm
i remembered watching a programme on tv a long time ago and seeing a tribal african man embrace a fat woman, proclaiming that she is beautiful; this, as opposed to the slim woman who is standing beside the former.
so i googled and came upon some interesting discoveries: the various tribes in Nigeria, as well as the Hima tribe in Uganda are some of the places which support the notion of fat is beautiful.
i hope that this will not disappoint the fat black woman because in these societies, her poetry would be something rather ordinary instead of shocking. and she may not make as much money as she would out of them should she decide to strut her stuff there.
before you go out and tell your friends that you have finally found a place where women can be what they want and eat what they like, let me elaborate on their cultures. for the tribes in Nigeria, women before their marriage would have to undergo this "fattening" ceremony where they are enclosed in a fattening house to, simply, get fat. (sounds like something that we have/ought to have read?)
the process of fattening up is rather long and ritualistic, and i have chosen to extract a passage from the site which explains it in detail. this description applies to the Efik tribe:
After reaching the age of puberty, the girl is clothed in an embroidered cloth cap, a loin roll of bright coloured cloth, a correlate ornamented with beads and cowry shells, headed shoulder braces and leglets of gaily coloured cloth or coiled brass rods, necklace and armlets of bead work. She is taken to the fattening hut called Mbobi by her mother. The huts are situated on the outskirts of the village. Her period of seclusion may extend from six months to two years. Whilst in the hut, she is called a woman of seclusion (wann-kukho). During the fattening process she is compelled to eat vast quantities of fat producing foods including pounded yam cooked in palm oil. She is not allowed to exert herself in any way. Her face and body are not washed and she is rubbed with clay. White cloths are tied round her neck, wrists and ankle to prevent evil spirits retarding the process.
While she is in Ufok n-kukho she is not allowed to touch anything in the hut and she must avoid all possible contact with the ground. When she has occasion to leave the hut and go into the yard of the compound, she calls out "Onukhomi, nukhofio". During her period of seclusion she undergoes the operation of clitoridectomy (Circumcision) usually at the hand of her mother.
How the circumcision is done: A piece of coconut shell perforated. The glans of the clitoriclis is drawn through this hole and cut off with a sharp knife or splinter of glass. It is believed that the operation has the effect of making the girl sterile.
adapted from Cordelia Chukwu's article,
Efik, Ibibio, Ibo In The Fattening Room
all right. so it is not very empowering. in fact, the tribe is still patrairchal in nature, except that these men have opposing tastes. the interesting, as well as disturbing, part in the extract is how the girl undergoes clitoridectomy before she is released from the hut. although the passage explains that this is to make the girl "sterile", the other (underlying) reason for doing it is so that the women relinquish their sexual desires and assume the role of baby producing machines for their husbands, and their husbands only.
apart from the bodily afflictions and mutilations, the women also undergo a mental brainwashing where they come out as subservient wives (yes, polygyny is the norm in Nigerian tribal societies) who will take and accept the pushing, beating, and abusing of their husband-kings.
now would you rather be slim and Singaporean or opulent and Efik?
for those who would like a little more detail of these ceremonies and the lives of these women:
http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/earticles/efik_ibibio_ibo_in_the_fattening.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/wmp/wmp08.htm
