What Is Justice in Babel's Odessa and Red cavalry, Zamyatin's We, and Shalamov's Kolyma Tales - Essay Example

?Insert Introduction It is always futile to go through literary works of art, without considering the themes being advanced therein. This is because, seldom do literary artistes engage in literary constructions without having a thematic purpose in mind. Isaak E. Babel (1894- January 27th, 1940), Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (June 18th, 1907- January 17th, 1982) and Yevgeny Zamyatin (February 20th, 1884- March 10th, 1937) do not serve as an exception to this. One of the themes that remain ubiquitous in literary works by Shalamov, Zamyatin and Babel is justice. The concept of justice heavily dominates Babel’s Red Cavalry and Odessa, Zamyatin’s We and Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, as shall be seen in the discussion that ensues forthwith. As far as Babel’s works are concerned, justice is paramount and may surpass the moral and conventional compunctions. Thus, any moral loss that may be sustained pursuant to justice may therefore be counted as peripheral, in terms of importance. This is seen in Red Cavalry, where the protagonist wades through the turbulent waves of hate and racial prejudice as he serves in the Cossack regiment that is awash with anti-Semitic and violent ideas and predisposition. For instance, to delude the danger of harassment by the Cossacks, the protagonist behaves in a way that is unseemly, in order to be initiated into the Cossack community. He runs roughshod an old woman, curses and swears at her, tramples on her goose and impales it in his sword, before commanding the old lady to pluck it up from his sword by her hands and to cook it right away. All these actions, he does so as to ultimately exact justice. Particularly, his brutal act of aggression catapults his acceptance into the Cossacks, him being a Jew and the Cossacks being very anti-Semitic. It is by becoming part of the Cossack that vengeance or justice is able to be executed. The author also presents justice as a value that must be vehemently sought, since perpetrators of injustice always have a penchant for subverting justice. For instance, the Cossacks use an intellectual propaganda among horse soldiers. This propaganda is used to revise a bloodbath stemming from an ethnic struggle and military campaign. Thus, in Red Cavalry, the author is categorical that one can even use shrewdness and subtlety to seek justice, in the event that the system is resistant to justice. Vinokur contends that some analysts have made a mistake of making insinuations to the effect that Babel advocates for the trading of moral values to achieve certain ends. Babel at no time insinuates that the ends (infiltrating the Cossacks and showing a dereliction on morality) justify the means (executing justice). Although for instance it seems that the protagonist has wandered away from his ethical values, yet it is important to note that he does not accept brute behavior, communism and the ravages of war. This means that the author maintains the protagonist’s moral value and ideology before and after the execution of justice (680). However, the gravity of the shift in the narrator’s moral values may be due to Babel’s acknowledgement on the belief that to exact justice, one must do away with weak ethical sensitivity and put on bravery. This is seen in the Brigade Commander where the narrator is unable to deal a fatally wounded soldier a coup de grace and in turn, runs to the Cossacks for this help. He is loathed for this action and later learns that this ethical sensitivity will disable him from being in charge during the era of pogroms. The concept of justice also features in We, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel that was released in 1921. Many analysts have seen the novel as Zamyatin’s personal reaction to his experience during the 1905 and 1907 Russians revolutions. In Zamyatin’s We, justice is presented as the acceptance of the fact that people should be, and can be self-determinate. This is exemplified by the author who portrays the story as unfolding in a dystopian police society and a setting where people live in glass apartments and are not allowed to have a mind of their own. D-503 thinks that he is mentally ill just because he dreamt. This shows the extent of mental captivity that One State had extended over its citizenry. Known as One State, this society lacks human face as people are not only closely monitored and not allowed to have freedom of conscience, but its subjects are also forced to take on codified names. All affairs and developments that occur within the auspices of natural human societies are ether proscribed or sanctioned. Even personal conduct is thoroughly sanctioned, to an extent that it is illegal to impregnate a woman without the knowledge of the state. Thus, One State is considered unjust since it takes away all the freedoms of its citizens. Conversely, in We, the author sees justice as a value that is undefeatable and inevitable. Going by the story’s plotline, the author insinuates that no matter how totalitarian a society may be, justice will eventually out. For instance, in the story, there is the presence of secret police and draconian laws that restrict socialization, procreation and even personal conduct. There is even the use of state-sanctioned torture that is meted out on civilians, including I-330. The fact that I-330 does not succumb to the torturous methods being employed by the secret police as an artifice to attaining information on the imminent attack by MEPHI, underscores Zamyatin’s deeming of justice as inevitable and ultimately unstoppable. Despite I-330 being a single individual and a woman, she is able to withstand strong and ruthless state machinery so that the secret of the impending revolution can remain guarded and get actualized. According to Dennis and McGiveron, Zamyatin also sees justice as being concomitant with completeness. In fact, to Zamyatin, justice does not merely co-occur with completeness, but actually precedes it, and serves as the felicity condition for completeness. After parts of the Green Wall are pummeled down by the MEPHI uprising, birds begin to repopulate One State. Birds are not only used as being symbolic of freedom, but their mention and repopulation help the author point out that it is only societies with justice where completeness exists (211). The theme of justice is also the driving point in Shalamov's Kolyma Tales. As a matter of fact, Shalamov paints a very grim picture of people who supposedly live in a society without justice, with the intent of showing the extent to which justice is sacrosanct. By reading how men living in Kolyma camps are struggling just to stay alive, a condition is immediately set whereby justice is desired. Justice to Shalamov is not just related to judicial fairness, but social fairness. In Kolyma, prisoners who had also been former members of the Communist Party are being brutalized under Stalin’s dictatorship. Young divulges how these people are forced to work endlessly in mines and are not given enough food. These prisoners are also denied political and legal justice since they have been labeled as criminal elements. To show that this society is totally bankrupt of justice and in an ironical twist, real criminals in Kolyma are able to access employment in formal and administrative sectors. They are also given incentives like rest time. The main reason behind their being able to access these services is their allegiance to Stalin’s communist and dictatorial regime. Therefore, to Shalamov, the absence of justice deranges the political, economic and even social welfare of any society. In fact, Shalamov paints a situation whereby it is impossible for a society to exist without justice (99). How the Authors Put Similarities and Differences in Justice There are similarities and differences in the manner in which Shalamov, Zamyatin and Babel depict and handle the concept of justice. All the three artistes evoke the consideration of justice as a theme against a backdrop of a totalitarian and communist Russian society. Shalamov for instance tackles justice in light of Stalin’s communist dictatorship, and Zamyatin, against the backdrop of communist dictatorships such as Georgia, Poland and almost all the Baltic countries. This was during the 1920s. Likewise, Babel’s work was set in light of a communist dictatorship in Russia which was totally characterized by a desperate hatred for the Jew. This shows clearly that to Shalamov, Zamyatin and Babel, so important is the concept of justice that it is a salient feature in properly functioning states. Shalamov, Zamyatin and Babel also see justice as being inevitable and as a value that cannot be suppressed perpetually. Eventually, the communist dictatorship in Russia together with all its secret police is defeated as the three stories reach their denouement. In all the three stories, the authors depict justice as a value that is wrought through the contribution and person of the protagonists. There is also a difference that exists among the three stories in the way the theme of justice is presented. In Babel’s Red Cavalry, and Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, the authors see life without justice as being possible to an extent, but dangerous to minority groups, or political dissidents. In Babel’s Red Cavalry and The Death of Dolgushov, the Jews are presented as those that are mostly affected by the absence of justice, while in Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, political dissidents who had either been in the army or in the Communist Party are the ones who suffer most, as real criminals have it easy. This may mean that justice is not an absolute since its absence is tolerable to some. On the contrary, Zamyatin’s We presents justice as a value that totally pervades human existence. Save for the ruling class and state machinery, every member of One State is affected. To show for this, the most basic human rights and freedom such as socialization, procreation and even conscience are state-controlled. Likewise, it is only after One State is confronted with a radical antigovernment move and the Green Wall broken into, that wholeness begins to take place therein, as birds begin to fecund rapidly. Works Cited Dennis, J. Bretton & McGiveron, O. Rafeeq. “Zamyatin's ‘WE’.” Explicator, 58.4 (2011): 211. Vinokur, Val. “Morality and Orality in Isaac Babel's "Red Cavalry." Massachusetts Review, 45.4(2004): 674-95. Young, Sarah. “Varlam Shalamov's 'Kolyma Tales': a Formalist Analysis.” Slavonica, 11.1 (2005): 98-9. Read More