Point of View: In Search of Truths about History and Society - Term Paper Example

March 19, Point of View: In Search of Truths about History and Society The truth is complex because different people will talk about it differently, at times, even inconsistently. Thomas King’s “A Coyote Columbus Story” and Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” are two stories that seek to examine the truths behind stories and histories. For King, he wants readers to reflect on the history of Native Americans and colonialism, while Melville encourages his audience to re-think what they know about the human society and capitalist civilization. The implied author for King is a Native American retelling the story of Columbus to young Native Americans in specific and the audience in general, whereas the implied author for Melville is a Wall Street lawyer whose main audience is modern society and its countless materialistic consumers. The paper will compare and contrast the narrative perspectives of these two short stories in terms of authority, limitations in relation to implied authors, shared values and attitudes between authors and the implied authors, and reliability, where, it argues that King and Melville, as narrators, have authority in relation to the implied authors because of their ethnicity or implied knowledge of their affairs, with some limitations for Melville who is not actually a lawyer, but a sailor-turned-writer, where they share the values and attitude of their implied authors by understanding their need to find out the truth’s multiple versions, and where the narrators are reliable because they do not claim to know the whole truth, and rather, they let readers find out what the truths could be. King and Melville both have authorities in relation to the implied authors because of their different sources of knowledge regarding them, although Melville has more limitations in connection to the implied author because he is not a Wall Street lawyer, but a sailor-turned-writer. King is a Native American who wants to help readers in understanding the history of colonization that cannot be detached from the history of oppression of Native Americans. He gives his voice to the implied author who criticizes the Coyote for her partying in the name of Christopher Columbus. King notes that the Coyote is “silly” for celebrating a symbol of colonialism, but he also stresses that all coyote stories are conflicting: “Some of Coyote’s stories have got Coyote tails and some of Coyote’s stories are covered with scraggy Coyote fur but all of Coyote’s stories are bent” (King 121). Coyotes are symbols for all people, who are all storytellers with their own biases and interests; therefore, they can be cunning and cannot be wholly trusted. Though coyotes can represent white colonials more than Native Americans, King emphasizes the “primacy of Native perspective” among all these stories, according to Gundula Wilke (252). Wilke argues for the importance of oral storytelling in understanding the connections between myths and histories because it is a living way of sharing stories, therefore, its interactional nature is significant to the people telling these stories (252). King has authority because, as a Native American, he tells oral stories too that can result to more oral stories in the future. The process of storytelling is central to Native Americans and to their point of view that they want to share with the world. I agree with what Gundula says that the interactional process of oral storytelling may be more truthful than non-oral or printed stories because the former becomes less certain than the latter, but all these stories have limitations because nothing can be fully known. By being dynamic and changing, these oral stories are not shared as unqualified truths, but truths in the making or in sensemaking. They become an interactive process that promotes inquiries and challenges and not blind acceptance. I also agree with Gundula that the Native perspective has primacy in shaping their stories about history because it is their story. It is better to hear Native American history from the side of the oppressed than their oppressors because they can offer stories and facts that are omitted in colonial history books. However, I disagree in the primacy of truths because I believe that King does not want to assert that only he knows the truth, but that his truth is more truthful than other kinds of colonial truths. The fundamental beauty of oral stories is the sharing of many truths, instead of insisting the creation of particular truths only, which, ironically, may result to false stories and truths. Like King, Melville has authority in connection to the implied author because of his perceived knowledge of truths about society and the role of capitalism in shaping people’s lives. Melville has connections with the rich and powerful because he came from a socially connected family. His writings also became popular during his day, which helps him interrelate with the educated and upper-class people. Melville describes the lawyer who sees himself as someone who has “a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best” (3). In contrary, Melville knows that he knows what lawyers do and who they are because he has had a hard life, as a sailor and breadwinner for his family. He might be saying that he knows the rich man’s life because it is in contrast with the disenfranchised in society. Michael Adams asserts that, like Moby Dick, Melville wrote “Bartleby the Scrivener” to expose the superficiality of the educated in understanding truths about themselves and the world they live in (2). He argues that “Bartleby the Scrivener” is a satire about the narrator as an “absurd, pathetic protagonist” (2). He is saying that the lawyer is clueless about his humanity and the world’s inhumanity. Melville shows what he knows regarding the materialistic society he lives in. I agree with Adams that “Bartleby the Scrivener” is a tale about the irony of knowledge, but I disagree that the protagonist is altogether absurd and pathetic. The protagonist lawyer thinks he knows everything because he can control his employees enough to get a productive output from them. In other words, he sees them as means to his ends, which is all that matters to him. Yet, he is conceited in his knowledge and skills about maximizing productive output, as if it is the only thing that matters in this world. Adams is right that the lawyer thinks he knows enough, when he does not actually know much about himself, his people, and society. Does he ever wonder about the exact motivations of his employees that drive them to be both productive and eccentric? No, he does not, and he does not care at all. The irony of his knowledge is its incompleteness and inaccuracy. Also, I disagree with Adams who says that the protagonist is overall absurd and pathetic. The protagonist has his faults because of his biased subjective understanding of himself and the world, but he does change as a character in the end. After finding Bartleby dead, the lawyer says: “[C]an any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames?” (Melville 41). He finds it deplorable to be a clerk in a Dead Letter office because he realizes how it symbolizes death, where the senders never get to have their messages received and read; they are dead because they are invisible. I do not find it absurd that the lawyer has gained an insight about life in general and his life in specific. Life is meaningless when society controls it and takes away individual freedoms, and his life is meaningless too for not seeing his contribution to social meaninglessness by staying within the comforts of his materialistic life. Hence, the lawyer finds something horribly true that turns him from a pathetic to an empathetic individual. Apart from the authority of King and Melville as the narrator of these stories, their points of views show similar values and attitudes as the implied authors, with some differences for Melville, whose lawyer protagonist changes as the story progresses. King has the same values and attitudes as the implied author because they both desire to provide a Native American perspective to the stories behind history. Like the implied author, he wants the audience to know another version of the truth about Christopher Columbus and the colonial history of America, as he tells Coyote: “We’re going to have to do this story right. We’re going to have to do this story now” (King 122). He wants to make things right by giving the right story from the Native American viewpoint and he says it must be told now because it is urgent to correct many years of inaccurate and misleading history about American history. Gundula talks about the Native process of learning through oral stories: “Oral myths and stories are traditionally the oral society’s explanatory theories about the origin and structure of their society and their world” (253). She supports the values of King and the implied author regarding stories that change history because they express and support the views of people who make these stories. She is right because oral stories analyze histories through people’s values, attitudes, and practices. These are cultural artifacts that cannot be sufficiently explained in writing, but only powerfully conveyed through the actions and words of oral stories. King’s oral story about Columbus reveals new versions of truths to the audience who must not remain in the darkness of knowing only one kind of truth. Apart from needing to retell history through oral stories, King wants to show communal or community attitude that is essential to history understanding and history making. He tells the story of Old Coyote who became sorry that she thought about Christopher Columbus, who took all her Indian friends away (King 126). Her sense of loss indicates that she values her community, which she broke through inviting intruders into their community. Understanding her story entails understanding the inconsistencies of stories that are also found in human nature and their societies. Doris Wolf asserts that the main message of “A Coyote Columbus Story” is “that there is nothing static, nor was there ever, about harmony and disharmony” (102). She is saying that oral stories narrate the conflicts between different groups of people and other groups and between individuals and their societies. I agree that “A Coyote Columbus Story” remarks on the conflicts in society, especially between societies- the “superior” and the “inferior” one. Eurocentrism that values Western values, beliefs, practices, and systems more than non-Western ones embodies the dichotomy that turns Native Americans as the “Other” who are savage and uncivilized, so they must be controlled and enslaved. Eurocentric Columbus came to America to sell the natives whom they see as commodities, not as equal human beings. Harmony is interrupted through the disharmony of Eurocentrism. Besides the inconsistencies in colonial history, King also tells the Old Coyote’s story to help Native Americans see the value of their cohesion as a community. He also wants the rest of the Americans to see Native Americans as part of their national community. The implied author answers the question on who discovered America and Indians: “Those things were never lost…Those things were always here. Those things are still here today” (King 127). King underscores that people have to learn their history right, beginning with Native American history, because it is part of who they are. Their knowledge about histories will ensure their continuation as a group of different, but interconnected, peoples. These communal attitudes underscore the role of communities in understanding history and making new histories together. Unlike King who shares similar values and beliefs as his implied author, Melville is different from the lawyer protagonist because he does not share the same values and attitude of the implied author at first, as he remains ignorant to social criticism due to complacency and vanity in his skills. The implied author is proud of his choice of life, a life of blind comfort. He is the kind of man who prefers “the cool [tranquility] of a snug retreat” and “a snug business among rich men’s bonds, and mortgages, and title deeds” (Melville 4). He seems to be socially and materially self-enclosed against the realities of harsh life. Todd F. Davis agrees with Harold Schechter who states that Melvilles lawyer serves as a “model of terrestrial morality, a picture of ‘virtuous expediency’ in action” (359 qtd. in Davis 185). The lawyer is limited to the laws of men, and not higher thinking about these laws and society. I confirm Davis’ argument that the lawyer does not care for more important social matters because the status quo fits him perfectly already. He has a tranquil life because he is ignorant of real life. Furthermore, the lawyer has a condescending attitude toward his people. He wants to befriend Bartleby, “to humor him in his strange willfulness,” because “it will cost [him] little or nothing, while [he lays] up in [his] soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for [his] conscience” (Melville 15-16). When he seeks to get to know Bartleby, he does so because of his moral self-interest. Adams also attacks the unreliable morality of the lawyer. He believes that, by using the viewpoint of the lawyer, Melville satirizes “its smug morality, its pomposity, its sentimental, patronizing attitude toward its individual citizens,” as well as “its simplistic view of the complex and the ambiguous, its persistent ignorance of its responsibilities” (2). Adams is saying that the lawyer assesses people based on his subjective values and attitudes, which are all based on his ignorance about people and society. I agree with Adams that the lawyer has both a sentimental and pompous morality. The lawyer is sentimental because he thinks he can help people through his grand gestures, and he is pompous because he does so to fulfill his moral self-interest. Melville does not have these self-centered values and morally questionable behaviors because he criticizes them. Later on, as the character develops through knowing more about Bartleby, his character and dispositions, Melville shows greater alignment with the implied author’s values of self-criticism and social analysis. The lawyer becomes more aware of his own weaknesses as he learns more about Bartleby as a person. When he discovers that Bartleby lives in the office, he says: “A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam” (Melville 20). The allusion to Adam underscores the essence of being one because of the original sin. Davis asserts that Bartleby opens the lawyer’s eyes to the pomposity of his belief that he is superior to his employees. Davis says: “[f]or all the churches that the lawyer may have visited, all the celebrated preachers he may have heard, it is Bartlebys presence alone that has led the lawyer to an awareness of original sin” (189). If all people have original sin, he is as clueless about himself as he is clueless about the lives of his employees. I agree with Davis that Bartleby seems to be a form of Divine grace for the lawyer because he sees himself in a new light, indeed, a light that reveals how misled he is about his self-concept. Moreover, Melville becomes more connected to the attitude of the lawyer, who now wants to know the real truth, not to serve his self-interest, but for purposes of understanding the reason behind Bartleby’s personality. One day, Bartleby tells the lawyer that he will no longer write. He asks why he stops writing, and he says: “Do you not see the reason for yourself?” (Melville 25). The question pushes the lawyer to see the reason for himself- the reason why life is meaningless. When he discovers the past job of Bartley by as a clerk for dead letters, he says: “On errands of life, these letters speed to death. Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!” (Melville 41). The lawyer is argued as understanding that everyday errands that made his life meaningful are all meaningless for death is certain in the end. What are more meaningless are people who do find meaning in these errands and things. Davis talks about the spiritual struggles of the lawyer who realizes that he cannot reach Bartleby’s soul anymore (189). The lawyer says: “I might give alms to his body, but his body did not pain him — it was his soul that suffered and his soul I could not reach” (Melvill 22). I agree with Davis’ analysis that Bartleby’s soul is unreachable but I will extend his argument by saying that his soul is unreachable because it is empty. I believe that humanity is at fault for creating Bartlebys in the world, whose souls are empty because lives are empty of human, not material-centered, values and goals. Melville shares the same hopelessness in attitude toward the world as the lawyer because they understand that a society that places too much importance on material things creates empty humans with hollow souls. After discussing these values and attitudes, these authors are seen as reliable because they do not claim full knowledge of the truth, but invite readers to determine and understand other truths. King offers a Native American point of view of stories about their past and present societies. The first point is about the past that cannot be retrieved from one “Big red” book of how “Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue looking for American and the Indians” (King 121). King shows that he is reliable because his story does not come from a book, but oral stories from Native Americans about the Old Coyote. Wolf underscores that the story is crucial in the “questioning of official history,” where Columbus becomes “peripheral” while the Coyote is the “central” character (101). Wolf is right because King wants to show a different version that does not come from official textbooks that are “big” because they claim absolute truth, but are “red” because they are written in the blood of natives whom they hid as peripheries to the story. King’s “A Coyote Columbus Story” is more about the Coyote than Columbus, which is reliable because Coyote is there too when Columbus came and destroyed Native American lands and cultures. In addition, King is a consistent storyteller because he connects the past to the present. He says that the Indians do something else after the Old Coyote keeps changing the rules of the game, so the Indians did “fishing,” “shopping,” and going to the movies and vacations (King 122). These are past and present activities that assert the presence of materialistic living in modern society. Wolf argues that harmony and disharmony is present in the world where people struggle with consumerism and materialism (102). She emphasizes that these individual consumer activities divide the Native American community and American community. I agree that one of the ways of conquering the people in colonial times is breaking their community apart through introducing individualistic values and practices. By mentioning these present materialist concerns, King seems to be cautioning people to not be too caught up in their current consumerist attitudes and values that they will forget the past. King wants to push readers to be critical always of their values and behaviors because, which make him a reliable holder of one of the sources of truths. Melville is also reliable as a narrator because he does not claim full knowledge of everything, and instead, like King, he allows readers to examine what the truth is based on the lawyer’s thoughts and emotions. The lawyer initially thinks highly of himself and that Bartleby seems to abuse his “undeniable good usage and indulgence” (23). However, he is not good or indulgent because he does not want Bartleby to work for nobler aspirations of self-reliance and freedom; rather, he wants Bartleby to work because his profits come from the productivity of his scriveners. Melville wants people to know the real personality of the lawyer from his own thoughts and reactions to the people around him. Adams emphasizes that the lawyer has an important role of exposing the hypocrisy of modern morality. He believes that, by using the lawyer’s perspective, “Melville helps establish the tradition of having a tale told by someone who is accurate about facts but who is very subjective in interpreting the motivations not only of others but also of himself” (2). The lawyer believes he can know the truth based on facts from his senses (i.e. what he sees as indolence from his employees), without accepting that his biased perceptions cloud his analysis of humanity. I concur with Adams that the implied author has false beliefs, which underscores that Melville knows what he means when he thinks that the protagonist is an absurd storyteller to some extent. Still, Melville shows that the lawyer is capable of changing as a person. The lawyer is making sense of the right action toward Bartley, until he says: “At last I see it, I feel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I am content” (Melvill 31). These words can have various meanings for readers, which is exactly what Melville intends it to be. He intends for his readers to know that his reliability as an author does not lie on his contentment as a narrator of absolute truths, but as a narrator of only one aspect of the human condition. Readers are asked to make sense too of their purposes in life that can give them contentment. King and Melville have set the arduous task of narrating stories about histories and human realities. They have authority because of their backgrounds and share similar values and attitudes about life and truths as their implied authors. Their point of view shows how complex stories are as means for determining the truth and in sharing something important about individual and collective lives. King and Melville are reliable, furthermore, because they ask readers to think about these stories and how they make or not make sense to their individual lives and their society. Their lasting impact is the knowledge that truths can only be told and told again, but never shaped in absolute terms and ends. Works Cited Adams, Michael. “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Masterplots II: Short Story Series (Jan. 2004): 1-2. Literary Reference Center. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. Davis, Todd F. “The Narrators Dilemma in "Bartleby the Scrivener": The Excellently Illustrated Re-statement of a Problem.” Studies in Short Fiction 34.2 (1997): 183-192. Literary Reference Center. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. King, Thomas. “A Coyote Columbus Story.” One Good Story, That One. Toronto : HarperPerennial, 1993. 121-127. Print. Melville, Herman. “Bartleby the Scrivener.” 1853. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. Wilke, Gundula. “Storytelling as a Process of Transcultural Mediation: The Examples of Robert Kroetsch and Thomas King.” Towards a Transcultural Future: Literature and Society in a ‘Post’ -Colonial World. Ed. Geoffrey V. Davis. New York: Rodopi, 2004. 249-262. Print. Wolf, Doris. “All my Relations: Thomas King’s Coyote Tetralogy for Kids.” Thomas King: Works and Impact. Ed. Eva Gruber. New York: Camden. 98-112. Print. Read More