Lost in a Modern World - Essay Example

?Topic: Lost in a Modern World In reviewing the themes and characters introduced by the William Shakespeare, Ha Jin, Ron Rash, and Peter Cameron in their works of literature, it is important to understand how the writers themselves define modernism. Shakespeare is situated historically at the genesis of the modern era, and his work is so influential in modern literature that it conditions what later writers will pursue in their work and themes. Shakespeare’s play “As You Like It” is from the year 1600. Shakespeare and his contemporaries would form the basis for modernism in Renaissance and Enlightenment thought, giving birth to modern science, the industrial revolution, liberalism, and democracy through their writing, methodologies, and values, and these themes determine the worldview of later writers like Jin, Rash, and Cameron. Root elements of modernism can be found in Shakespeare that will evolve thematically not only in later literature historically but also in the development of the popular culture, mass-media, and society of modern times. Shakespeare’s work in this manner also describes the growth of modern personal identity in the characters of his plays, and these patterns can be found similarly underlying the characters, conflicts, and themes of writers such as Jin, Rash, and Cameron as they express their own conflicts in contemporary literature. When Shakespeare writes, “All the world is a stage,” this can be seen as an important characteristic of modernism that expands from his recognition of it in early 17th Century culture, as well as being reflected in the news media, pop culture, and the “15 minutes” of fame Warhol saw each person as sharing in their modern social roles. When Shakespeare describes libertine behavior, the excess of consumption and intoxication in his characters in “As You Like It,” these patterns are also becoming more extreme in the New York society Peter Cameron describes in his literature or as Rash describes the addiction, alcoholism, and substance abuse in characters from Appalachia. In summary, the root issues and themes of modernism can be found in Shakespeare’s works and where these themes resonate with other authors in the 20th Century, they reinforce the interpretation or recognition that they are critically important in understanding the society and behavior of individuals during the time period. This relates also to post-modernism as it seeks to define and characterize modernism through historical evolution, and in doing so to solve the existential dilemma that many writers reflect in their characters and themes in modern literature. In Act II, Scene 7 of “As You Like It,” Jaques states: “A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest, A motley fool. A miserable world! ...And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear The motley fool thus moral on the time, My lungs began to crow like chanticleer That fools should be so deep contemplative;” The position of the motley fool in Shakespeare is ironic, for the cutting criticism that the poet offers to society in the form of insightful literature is directly related to the tone and composition of the court jester in English society at the time. Not only does the motley fool analyze and criticize authority, the State, and society from the same position as the author in modern literature, the modern author is often given a role in society that is similar to that played by the jester in the court of the kings and royals in English society. The court hears the jester’s interpretation, biting sarcasm, criticism of power, and cutting wit, tolerating the behavior symbolically by dressing the jester in a coat of many colors and patches. The fabric of this dress represents the fabric of knowledge itself, which is woven together from many strands, patched together from many theories, stitched together as a unified symbolic garment, and then worn as a social role. As such this dress is magical, in that it represents both the democratic society and the scientific method in Shakespeare, as well as the nature of modern identity in the education of the person and growth of the moral identity of the Self. This relationship is clear when Shakespeare writes “A motley fool. A miserable world!” In recognizing the way that modern society, its knowledge and value systems are represented in the motley fool who appears in the forest and develops into the Universal Man through society, there is also a pattern that can be used in understanding the development of the modern individual. Touchstone can thus be seen as an example of the way that the modern identity is created through a stitch-work process representing the incomplete integration of elements into a synthetic whole, and his garment is similar to a map of the world, the style or fashion of identity worn to symbolize a social role. This patchwork nature of integration can be seen in the civil war or the continuance of Confederate values in the American South in Rash’s “Into the Gorge” and also in the relationship of the gay sub-culture in “The End of my Life in New York”. Similarly, it is found in the Chinese immigrant integration in American culture in “A Composer and his Parakeets”. In all of these examples, when the value systems are integrated in a patchwork manner and unable to synthesize into a seamless unity through social identity, the divisions remain as conflicts within the characters themselves as they struggle for self-identity and the stitches emerge as mental scars from the process of life experience. In this way, the characters again repeat the example of “A motley fool. A miserable world!” as Shakespeare wrote. The Confederate values cannot be integrated into the larger American value system in Rash’s “Into the Gorge,” and this is symbolized in the government’s seizure of traditional identity in land owned for eight generations in the family. The value systems of Appalachia and mainstream America clash in Rash’s work, and the individual subjectivity becomes the locus of this civil war in the construction of modern identity. The civil war is repeated in the individual in the mental clash of values as they must be synthesized into a larger identity, but this cannot be done because the Confederate Southern values are defeated and rejected by the larger society. This occurs in a different manner in “The End of my Life in New York” where the larger society discriminated against gay people during this era, and thus hindered the full integration of the characters’ self-identities into the larger mainstream culture. Different aspects of racism and also the traditional values of China in conflict with mainstream American identity are the challenges faced in “A Composer and his Parakeets”. In all of these instances the characters’ identities are composed in a patchwork manner like the cloak of the motley fool and thus lead to misery, but these processes are internalized symbolically in the mental processes through which personal identity are created in the characters. If one aspect of the construction of individuality in modernism relates to the interior processes through which identity is created, this can be seen as generated in the mind of the author and reflected in the characters, themes, and conflicts in literature as symbolic of the expression of the social dynamic of history. All of the post-Shakespeare characters are struggling with identity issues that represent conflicts between aspects of their personal belief system and integration into a larger social role. The Appalachian-American, the Chinese-American, the Gay-American all apparently share some conflict or aspect which leads to them being unable to be viewed as fully or simply American, either personally in the identities of the character, or socially in regard to a wider stereotype or discrimination. As such, these identity struggles can be seen as characteristic of modern literature, the need of the author to express the view, and the process through which the individual must relate existentially in society. The mental and emotional scarring that occurs during these identity struggles can be seen in “The End of my Life in New York” where Cameron writes: “Of course I don’t mention my scars in my profile. I’m talking about my physical scars, the ones from getting burned in my accident, not my emotional scars. They are pretty much assumed. But at some point before I actually meet someone, I do mention that my body is scarred. I used to say badly scarred until I met a man who, when he saw me naked, told me I wasn’t badly scarred, just scarred. But of course he had problems of his own.” (Cameron, 2010) As noted before in Shakespeare, the motley fool wears a scarred garment as fashion, symbol and style, and this also leads to the social role of the “court jester” and modern author. Shakespeare notes this manner of patchwork knowledge and identity synthesis leads to “A miserable world!” but also that it further creates the need to express human suffering, writing ” ...And thereby hangs a tale.” That the writer and social jester may play a critical role in making society recognize aspects of truth that can only be seen through an overview of the competition of different ideologies, factions, and interests groups in the greater community is related to the social role. The writer and court jester both compose opinions which seek to highlight the divisions, conflicts, hypocrisies, and failings of moral society by introducing awareness of perspective that the greater culture may have been unaware of popularly. TOUCHSTONE: Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd? CORIN: No, truly. TOUCHSTONE: Then thou art damned. + “As You Like It,” Act 3, Scene II – William Shakespeare In this passage, Shakespeare relates a terrible psychological aspect inherent in this process of modern identity creation which proceeds with the rise of the modern State and democratic society, and it is represented again and again in the existential literature. The summary of the passage is that if the individual is not part of the mainstream social community (the “court” of the jester), then he or she is “damned”. This is of course a comedic over-simplification which goes to the very heart of the problem. Touchstone recognizes that in the forming the modern individual, personal subjectivity must act as a “natural philosopher,” but when democratized, the requirement is that everyone must do so together. This is seen in the way that the characters of “Into the Gorge” resist integration into the “court” or larger federal system, or how the gay sub-culture in “The End of my Life in New York” practices values in contrast to the mainstream. Characters in both works may appear to be “damned” to suffering because their identity choices, moral values, and behavior systems are in conflict with the larger system of social values. Both of these stories also pose the questions of identity from the perspective of the subculture or marginalized identity that is not included at the court or in the mainstream of society. In “A Composer and his Parakeets,” the Chinese traditional values resist integration into the larger identity patterns of society because they are transposed, and the interior processes of modern identity creation are projected outward into the behavior and language of the parakeets themselves. This process of projection of identity outward onto the greater society in interpretation also leads to the existential dilemma of being unable to integrate the personal identity socially. "Unlike some other parakeets, Bori couldn't talk; he was so quiet Fanlin often wondered if he were dumb," Ha Jin writes in “A Composer and his Parakeets” providing a clear example of how modern writers project their own self-identities, conflicts, values, and experiences into their characters. (Jin, 200) Shakespeare understood this as the basis of modern literature in the identity conflict when he writes the last words of Touchstone in “As You Like It,” “O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If.”(Act 5, Scene IV) Shakespeare’s ironic use of the courteous retort, modest quip, churlish reply, valiant reproof, all lead up to the “Lie Direct” as the various forms modern literature may take in structuring its reply to society in direct communication. This is the variety of literature in characteristic form expressed ironically, because fiction is the ultimate lie. That it also speaks directly to the reader through shared language and experience is based upon the identity, voice, and character of the author that is expressed not only in literature but also in the process through which the modern individual is created socially. These processes operate on the same basis, related to the synthesis of knowledge in the mind. “All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If,” Shakespeare writes, and this represents the great inspiration which is found as the basis for modern literature. Even more than this, the “If” is the “peacemaker” for Shakespeare that heals the divisions, the scarring, and the lie in the art of literature. In recognizing how the modern Self is created on the same process as literature through the creative process which creates identity through synthesizing knowledge, there is also “virtue” for this also leads to healing in a higher sense of awareness or being. Modern literature from Shakespeare to the contemporary works of Ha Jin, Ron Rash, and Peter Cameron defines modernism through the individual identity in relation to larger social patterns of values, belief systems, or ideologies that may be in conflict. The process of literature can be seen as a way that this conflict is solved in the author, with the character, conflicts, and themes representing the greater resolution of the plot. However, the same process through which modern literature is created is also reflective of the process through which the modern individual, personality, and lifestyle are created subjectively, pointing to the value and “virtue’ of the literature as well as its social role in building awareness and healing of issues. Sources Cited: Cameron, Peter. The End of My Life in New York. The Center for Fiction, 2010. Web. 2 May 2011. ‹http://centerforfiction.org/magazine/the-end-of-my-life-in-new-york-by-peter-cameron/›. Jin, Ha. “A Composer and his Parakeets,” In: A Good Fall: Stories. Pantheon, 2009. Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Online Literature, Jalic, Inc, 1600. Web. 2 May 2011. ‹http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/youlike›. Rash, Ron. “Into the Gorge,” In: Burning Bright: Stories. Ecco, 2010. 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