Novel The Pond Critique - Essay Example

Review of the Novel ‘The Pond’ "Only the river remained, murmuring, ever moving, ever restless, ever sounding, as though it dragged in its current the prolonged lament of an inconsolable grief, as though it carried dissolved in its waters the tears of a misfortune that no one wipes dry, that no one comforts...that no one knows about!"(Juan 1993)Poverty and oppression is always in our midst. The river is the only source of hope, only it and nothing else defies the test of time. It continues flowing, murmuring forever and into infinity. Reality is sometimes represented in a way so natural that makes the bad side of the society surfaced. The rural society being criticized by Manuel Zeno Gandia in The pond is embodied with ideas of human degeneration, corruption and other unimaginable vices. The Novel therefore, tries to show the social decay in the society. Therefore, it is in this light that the symbols the author uses to pass his message appear, some of the symbols are used negatively and positively. The river’s movement is far from the stagnant pond that represents corruption, greed, inactivity, lack of interest, and selfish drive for one’s own subsistence. The people when stagnant ate slowly and steadily decomposing and putrefactive. The inactivity, the forgetfulness and passivity breed negative consequences. This can be directly compared to stagnant water; when the water logs on one place the vegetation decomposes and provokes disgusting and smelly odors. The pond, signifies death; death of the vegetation, the hope that was alive. People are slowly dying because of their own isolation, doing nothing (stagnating) when their society is raven by every kind of problem. They do not show readiness to move, they are unenthusiastic to act. On the other hand, the river flows placidly without any apparent haste this symbolizes positive ideas, cleaning, transparency of behaviors and acts for the general improvement of the society. Water is commonly used as sustenance for plants, thus it suggests opposition to ignorance and new renewed awakening. The ever restless nature of the river represents the power of the revolution the people have and power to change their status. The river sometimes flows with an energy that threatens to impetus anything standing on its way. This is the power that the poor farmers have. The social fiber on which morality is built on is slowly being degraded. The night hides the evil actions; almost all schemes are planned and executed at night. The night therefore plays a very huge role in social disintegration of the moral fiber. It plays silent and it becomes a numb witness. The society needs to breathe pure and clean air; this is reflected by the urge of the characters to live in polluted air. The air that is pure stands for the hope that the pond shall one day turn into a river and reject their passivity, and they will be able to raise their situations in general. Juan suggests that the locals reflect upon their problems and seek possible solutions. These solutions Juan argues can only come from Education. The deaths of Gines and Salvana which are as a result of stoning makes stones appear as a death symbol. Therefore, the people of the island can be described as stone like because of their impassive to degradation. Stones are associated with illusion and lack of adequate vitality. Most of the main characters die as a consequence of their vices or the vices of others. This must be however, not alluded to all as some like Silvana does not die of his own vice. We should also not forget Zeno Gandia- was a doctor at Puerto Rico- knew about the damage done to the human body by an illness. His profession helps him to detect the illness ailing his society. The society on the island represents a society with an annihilating infection. This pathological illness threatens to spread to all parts of the society. Most of the working class in the island are skinny and pale; but they do not care, many accept their role it the maddening orthodoxy. Marcelo looks doomed because of the influence of his likes on him thus he is a perfect example of the people suffering from the widespread illness.) The new generation is also being poisoned by the corrupt old generation. This is evident when Old Marta’s grandchild is not nourished and therefore he grows p in a sterile soil. This dry soil provides no future, thus the contamination and repercussions that the society pays is larger than it can handle. The Nation; sick needs a proper diagnosis however, those at the helm do not agree. Juan del Salto, Father Esteban and Pintado. This lack of agreement shows citizens that lack of consensus between the politicians and leading men of the town can be a contributing factor to social injustice and degradation. A strong symbolism also exists on the idea of the stomach receiving contaminated food. It reflects that a huge physical body can also suffer from undernourishment (this includes lack of innovative thinking, and relying on old fossil truths. This prevents the mind from functioning at its optimum and therefore stimulates changes that interfere with the behaviors of the general public. Deblas breaks into Andujar’s shop and eats all he can. This is a symbol of gluttonness, the desire to always eat. The island is characterized by many people whose main interest is their stomachs. These people do not care about others and as long as they are having what they want, they use in you will continue. However, when they have no interest in you or the interest have has already been exploited they show no mercy and that’s the point they show their claws. As we encompassed so far, temperament, despite the fact that it is described by means of quixotic sentiment as the exquisiteness of the island, also provisions a set of cryptogram which, while they are from time to time seen as participating inside this paradisiacal scenery, in addition suggests what is disappearing on in the island. The bosses mistreat the workers because they have money. They would like to be counted in the middle of the affluent and they crave the good will of the well off, but a lot of of them are deprived, recruited as of the farms and to low-rent giving up work villages. Rich citizens, purely by virtue of having cash will be able to identify on a mass of non-wealthy people who worship them. It's like being an earthly god. When people level themselves before you the normal instinct is to walk on them, to use them, to treat them as informal tools to carry out your will. If you are bordered by enthusiastic, eager lackey’s everyday, even if it is since you hired them, then it's easy to reflect that you are greater.  Temperament is an invariable observer and Zeno uses descriptions taken from it as pessimistic connotations to portray the populace; at the matching time a number of of these signs are an unvarying aide memoire of the trust that is still there waiting for his characters to find it out; to go after the illustration of a nurturing mother nature, for ever and a day renewing, stimulating itself. Death plays a big role in The Pond. The residents of the island have seen death too often to be afraid of it. Thus, they mercilessly and with no regret stone those who they feel do not deserve to live. The injustice is overwhelming and this makes the island to be in some sort of anarchy. The farmers are being oppressed, they work long hours and the pay they get is peanuts (it does not meet even their basic amenities). The poverty makes the people not to think beyond their noses and as it is often said an empty mind is the devil’s workshop. The residents of the criticized island especially the rich see it as interesting to look down at the peasant farmers. But as the calculating waters of the river slowly but steadily moves, the wrath and anger of the residents keeps on growing. But since they are in a pond (static) no movement they find it rather difficult to plan and execute any worthwhile revolution. Incest is used as a symbol to show the point at which the moral fiber has been degraded. Incest is the act of having sexual relationship with a relative (blood or connected through marriage). According to Human history incest has over the ages being slowly moved away from our contemporary society. Therefore, incest is one of the determinants of moral compass, if a society is practicing incest then the moral fiber has disintegrated. It is of great importance to understand the times that Manuel Zeno Gandia lived in so as to understand why he used certain symbols. Although rich, Manuel witnessed the brutal suffering of his people. During his life time the poverty rate was increasing and it has been said that a society is judged on how well it treats its poor. The oppression offered was of unimaginable magnitude. The poverty of the residents of the island did not lie in the effects of single parenthood or lack of education, but instead it spawned on desolation and waste. Poverty was the disease that was most devastating, insidious, and most severe disease. The poor often are the ones on the wrong side of the law. But that is expected; the farmer’s son suffered from downright humiliation, significantly higher diseases and is more prone to violence. The farmer’s sons and daughters were treated differently; they are treated with suspicion, hatred and were often abused by their ‘Master’. "There is an additional kind of violent behavior, slower although just as lethal unhelpful as the blast or the blast in the hours of darkness. This is the hostility of institutions: apathy and inaction and sluggish putrefy (Cesareo 1970) this is the aggression that afflicts the poor, that poisons dealings sandwiched between men for the reason that their skins have dissimilar colors. This is the unhurried obliteration of a young person due to lack of food, and schools with no books and homes devoid of warmth in the wintry weather." It is from this view that we may compare the two different times, although violence exists in our society, the technique and ritual of performing it has changed. Violence is a symbol that shows the waywardness of a society. Primarily, we will distinguish how and why hostility exists. It is hard to say it accurately since there are no officially permitted proofs for it but the number of poor people in the world is decreasing. These evidences are in use presently to illustrate how much fighting prejudiced our lives. In this case, perhaps we are able to use the expression “culture” to depict this circumstance of sequence of brutality. If “culture” is distinct as a scrupulous set of attitude that characterizes a group of populace. It means that “sadism culture” is an exacting set of belligerence that forms a person. So now, there is a lot of information out there discussing about violent behavior and the figure is increasing steadily; we can say that this performance is changing into a new-fangled “culture” and is mounting day by day, in each part of this planet. Hostility itself is caused by numerous factors: the breakdown of relations, media influences, the trouncing of ethical values, wealth deficiency, and the augment of youth hostility. Violent behavior lasts since populace involuntarily safeguards the convention of violence. In that mode, brutality seems like becoming a “birthright” in the society. No doubt, we are recognizable with videocassette games, TV programs, and movies, information, which unluckily be full of impolite languages and of course bloodshed. It seems that a movie or otherwise TV curriculum becomes less fascinating devoid of those kinds of content. If children, from their early days, have been forced to devour things like this, we can approximate what these kids would spin out later. So, if at present in our humanity, there is a lot of schools maltreatment, it without doubt comes from the cataleptic practice of conserving violence. This make use of images and ciphers to portray and disparage Puerto Ricasn the social order at that time, although in a number of way divergent to realism (an ever-present influence in the novel), allows us to sense that personal and elegiac zest in Zeno’s novel The extensive representation of society as a sick social organization is also the most important metaphorical piece of equipment in the novel, stressing the need for enlightening society’s vices through psychoanalysis (Gandia1970). Illness, far as of being a straightforward aspect of realism, is a fundamental element of a known past and social configuration taken into contemplation by prose; therefore, illness repeatedly becomes a point of view, a device of information and of totalizing judgment for an author. With the illness being identified, the doctor can now easily give one a prescription. In conclusion, symbols have been appropriately used by the author to pass his message of social decadence of the masses. The first symbol is the pond-which signifies stagnant water and thus backwardness. The second symbol is the river which symbolizes continuity and new radical and revolutionary ideas. It never tiers on moving and has got a lot of untapped energy. The third symbol is the night. The night has been used to conceal events like murder. The night has also seen romantic and loving responses although not as much as the bad ones. The fourth symbol is the environment; the scenic and beautiful environment gives the residents of the area pride and a reason to stay together as one nation. The fifth symbol is the health of the locals. They are thin and pale, this symbolizes malnutrition and generally lack of enough food. This however, on a deeper meaning means that the locals are sick with corruption, betrayal, incest and other vices. They thus need to be purified. The locals should join together (main message of the book) and fight the oppression that is being thrown to them. The last symbol is the river again- this time negative, the river will keep doing what it wants, and no one can change its mind. It is programmed to flow on and on till the end of time. Therefore, the author is able to make use of daily operations and drive his point home. He has successfully used symbolism and brought out the true real and deep meaning. Symbolism thus, is an efficient method of passing the message to the reader. Work cited Gelpi, Juan P. Literatura y Paternalismo en Puerto Rico. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1993. Rosa-Nieves, Cesareo. Ensayos escogidos (Apuntaciones de critica literaria sobre algunos temas puertorriquenos). Cuaderno no. 5. Barcelona: Publicaciones de la Academia de Artes y Ciencias de Puerto Rico, 1970. Zeno Gandia, Manuel. La Charca. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Instituto de cultura puertorriquena, 1970. Read More