Violence as an Intrinsic Part of the Human Nature - Thesis Proposal Example

Violence in "The lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell: Is it an Intrinsic Part of the Human Nature? 2007 Outline:A) Introduction B) General Discussion: 1. The nature of human violence as depicted by Shirley Jackson and George Orwell; 2. Scapegoats of the stories turn to have much in common; 3. Whether it is possible to break free, rebel against the system and resist peer pressure. C) Conclusion Foreword: The essay is dedicated to the issues of violence as depicted in “The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson and “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. The question of whether violence is an intrinsic part of the Human nature has disturbed the minds of many writers. Humans are often viewed at heart a violent species restrained only by a veneer of civilization. However, the stories compared provide another vision of the nature of violence. Thesis: "The lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell reveal the similar attitude towards the nature of violence in human society. They demonstrate that violence is often conditioned by the existing social order that causes division of labor, classes, and injustice. The question of whether violence is an intrinsic part of the Human nature has disturbed the minds of many writers. Humans are often viewed at heart a violent species restrained only by a veneer of civilization. The two stories discussed in this paper belonging to the same epoch reveal the similar attitude towards the nature of violence in human society. And they demonstrate that, vice versa, violence is often conditioned by the existing social order that causes division of labor, classes, and injustice. Undoubtedly, violence is a part of the human nature, expressing itself until an individual reaches the necessary level of spiritual development, and actually becomes a Human Being. It came to us from the level of animal consciousness, but it differs in its demonstration and scope. Orwell’s story reveals difference between the animal and human violence. If the elephant got violent because he ‘had gone “must”’, the Burmese people wanted to see his death mostly for pleasure “It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat”. The last remark about meat points to that very animal desire to kill for food, while the first part clearly states that people need violent scenes to stimulate rise of hormones bringing excitement. On the other hand people are close to animals in that aspect that both species become violent and aggressive when it goes about self-defense. If you hit the dog, it will hate you, and will bite you at the first opportunity. The same happens to people. So Orwell’s character feels hatred towards the empire, perceiving “the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny”, and the Burmese (“the evil-spirited little beasts”), who jeered at him as a representative of that very empire. But if the hatred towards the abstract notions of “empire” or “tyranny” is also abstract, the rage towards the Burmese is very concrete while he interacts with them every day. That is why the character “thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priests guts”. The same can be said about the Burmese people: they hate the empire but wreak their rage on the police officer who is concrete. On the other hand the character cannot be called a violent person, while it is so difficult for him to shoot at the elephant and when he has to he tires to relieve the death of the animal. So the story demonstrates that violence as a part of human nature is deterred by the abstract norms of civilization on the one hand but it is also stimulated by the unequal social structure itself. The same situation, though not so clearly depicted, but hidden behind the symbols, is depicted in “The Lottery”. This story is known to have aroused a violent reaction on the part of the reader. Shirley Jackson responded by the only interview published in the San Francisco Chronicle in July 22, 1948, where she said: "Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult.  I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the storys readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives1" (In Kosenko 1984). This answer provoked misunderstanding of the subcontext of the story among critics and general public. Having made “a survey of what little has been written about ‘The Lottery’” Peter Kosenko found out that there were two critical approaches: ‘first, that it is about mans ineradicable primitive aggressivity, or what Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren call his "all-too-human tendency to seize upon a scapegoat"; second, that it describes mans victimization by, in Helen Nebekers words, "unexamined and unchanging traditions which he could easily change if he only realized their implications."’ But Kosenko himself believes that the lottery doesn’t symbolize any “irrational” tradition, but an ideological mechanism, which “serves to reinforce the villages hierarchical social order by instilling the villages with an unconscious fear that if they resist this order they might be selected in the next lottery” (Kosenko 1984). In this case we should speak not of imperialism but of capitalism. To see that it is so, one needs simply to look more attentively at the symbolic content of the story, and find the evidences in the text. Saying that the world of the story is the reader’s world Jackson meant it literary. The village schematically depicts the capitalistic social order, where those who have money rule, while the working class obeys the rules, being afraid of becoming the next victim of the lottery. The real nature of things is hidden by the notion of “democracy” claiming that in the lottery all are equal. But it is a mere illusion. So the village’s authorities are represented by Mr. Summers (the owner of the coal concern), Mr. Graves (the postmaster) and Mr. Martin (the grocer). They possess the economic power and they govern the lottery. Mr. Martin prepares the slips being assisted by Mr. Grave, and Mr. Martin steadies the lottery box when the slips are stirred. These three store the lottery box in the off season. Even the fact that the lottery takes place in the main square of the village “between the post-office and the bank” indicates who runs the show. The rest of the population is the representatives of the working class, who feel oppressed and frightened to become the victim. But this fear roots deeply inside of their souls and is unconscious. They are paralyzed by their fear and can’t change the system. They vent their rage against the system on the scapegoat, some concrete person. And the random choice of the victim turns out to be not so accidental. Tessie Hutchinson, who pulls out the slip with the black spot, is actually the disturber of the established social order. First of all she is a housewife, whose labor was not valued and considered worthy while it didn’t bring any money. In the patriarchal system of the first half of the twentieth century she was the lowest chain of the society, having little rights and freedom. So when she appears at the square, the men address her husband, “Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson”, not her (it is seen as not necessary) and only women speak to her. And being in such a position she, though unconsciously, rebels the existing social order and questions its appropriateness, which the society she lives in can’t bear. Tessie is late for the lottery, for the reason of having forgotten about it doing her dishes. “Wouldnt have me leave mdishes in the sink, now, would you Joe?", she says violating the hierarchical and division of labor concepts of her society. Further when Mr. Summers calls her family’s name she hurries her husband, saying “Get up there Bill”, which again is not a proper behavior taking into account her lower position in this society. These remarks of hers arouse nervous laughter in the crowd, revealing to us that she violates some taboos. At last when she pulls the fatal slip she objects crying “It isn’t fair”, prejudicing the established order of things again. Tessie becomes “the menace to institutionalized order” as Antonio Lopes defines the elephant killed in Orwell’s story. The elephant “in spite of his might and wildness, of his power over human lives over human imagination” turns out to be the most unprotected object which can be exposed to violence. The fact that he had killed the man justified his murder. In the result, as Lopes puts it, “he (the elephant) had been reduced to the part of the sacrificial lamb in a morbid ceremony whose participants were engaged in a silent tug-of-war for the white man’s soul” (p.3). Tessie becomes a sacrificial lamb put on the altar of the social order. The difference between the scapegoats in two stories is that the elephant was “the only ‘actor’ who stood outside the irrational logic of imperialism” and his life cost more than Tessie’s while in money equivalent the tamed animal cost much. The inert character of the social structure and the strictly fixed roles don’t allow avoiding these victims. It is shown in both stories. Orwell’s character was afraid of loosing his face and being laughed at, of becoming a victim of the social order he belongs to: “Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives”, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him”. Jackson’s characters would like to rebel and change the order, but they are driven by the same fear of becoming the victims as Orwell’s character. So Mr. and Mrs. Adams quietly suggest that the lottery could be abandoned like it has been done in other villages, but they are quickly hushed by Mr. Warner, the major follower and supporter of the ruling ideology. "Pack of crazy fools . . . listening to young folks, nothings good enough for them. Next thing you know, theyll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while.  Used to be a saying about Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. First thing you know, wed all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. Theres always been a lottery." What both Shirley Jackson and George Orwell demonstrate by their stories is how difficult it is to overcome one’s fear and institutionalized thinking and to go against the dominating ideology. In relation to Orwell’s character Lopes writes: “He failed to read the animal’s anatomy the same way he failed to understand the anatomy of freedom. Killing the elephant was, after all, a statement of powerlessness, of coward abidance by the rules of the game, of abdication from his true, righteous self” (p.4). And this is applicable to Jackson’s characters to the same extent. The logic of imperialism and capitalism isn’t that “irrational” (they are seen in this light only by those who are vulnerable to becoming a victim). This is the logic of money and power, and those who really possess them don’t speak of justice: it is their world and it should dance to their tune. These people rarely express violence, leaving it for the lower classes and directing it away from themselves, towards scapegoats. Even if somebody tries to resist he will be made to obey by the violent crowd or destroyed by it in case he tries to flow against the current. So we can see how the intrinsic violence functions in the society. As a rule, it is characteristic with the lower classes and lower level of intellectual and spiritual development. But even if an individual isn’t disposed to the violence, he will be taught it by the society (like little Dave Hutchinson) and will be given to it when becoming a part of the crowd. References: Kosenko, Peter. A Reading of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. 1984. March 20, 2007 Lopes, Antonio. Shooting elephants, pigs and other animals: Orwell’s struggle for the political emancipation. University do Algrave. March 20, 2007 < w3.ualg.pt/~alopes/Orwell.pdf > Read More

The same can be said about the Burmese people: they hate the empire but wreak their rage on the police officer who is concrete. On the other hand the character cannot be called a violent person, while it is so difficult for him to shoot at the elephant and when he has to he tires to relieve the death of the animal. So the story demonstrates that violence as a part of human nature is deterred by the abstract norms of civilization on the one hand but it is also stimulated by the unequal social structure itself.

The same situation, though not so clearly depicted, but hidden behind the symbols, is depicted in “The Lottery”. This story is known to have aroused a violent reaction on the part of the reader. Shirley Jackson responded by the only interview published in the San Francisco Chronicle in July 22, 1948, where she said: "Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult.  I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the storys readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives1" (In Kosenko 1984).

This answer provoked misunderstanding of the subcontext of the story among critics and general public. Having made “a survey of what little has been written about ‘The Lottery’” Peter Kosenko found out that there were two critical approaches: ‘first, that it is about mans ineradicable primitive aggressivity, or what Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren call his "all-too-human tendency to seize upon a scapegoat"; second, that it describes mans victimization by, in Helen Nebekers words, "unexamined and unchanging traditions which he could easily change if he only realized their implications.

"’ But Kosenko himself believes that the lottery doesn’t symbolize any “irrational” tradition, but an ideological mechanism, which “serves to reinforce the villages hierarchical social order by instilling the villages with an unconscious fear that if they resist this order they might be selected in the next lottery” (Kosenko 1984). In this case we should speak not of imperialism but of capitalism. To see that it is so, one needs simply to look more attentively at the symbolic content of the story, and find the evidences in the text.

Saying that the world of the story is the reader’s world Jackson meant it literary. The village schematically depicts the capitalistic social order, where those who have money rule, while the working class obeys the rules, being afraid of becoming the next victim of the lottery. The real nature of things is hidden by the notion of “democracy” claiming that in the lottery all are equal. But it is a mere illusion. So the village’s authorities are represented by Mr. Summers (the owner of the coal concern), Mr.

Graves (the postmaster) and Mr. Martin (the grocer). They possess the economic power and they govern the lottery. Mr. Martin prepares the slips being assisted by Mr. Grave, and Mr. Martin steadies the lottery box when the slips are stirred. These three store the lottery box in the off season. Even the fact that the lottery takes place in the main square of the village “between the post-office and the bank” indicates who runs the show. The rest of the population is the representatives of the working class, who feel oppressed and frightened to become the victim.

But this fear roots deeply inside of their souls and is unconscious. They are paralyzed by their fear and can’t change the system. They vent their rage against the system on the scapegoat, some concrete person. And the random choice of the victim turns out to be not so accidental. Tessie Hutchinson, who pulls out the slip with the black spot, is actually the disturber of the established social order. First of all she is a housewife, whose labor was not valued and considered worthy while it didn’t bring any money.

In the patriarchal system of the first half of the twentieth century she was the lowest chain of the society, having little rights and freedom.

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