Forgetting Jerusalem from the Bible to Faulkner - Essay Example

Full s the Paper is due] Forgetting Jerusalem from the Bible to Faulkner The foundation of Christianity is based on the teachings of the Holy Bible. However, many people seem to misunderstand these teachings, causing different interpretations for these. Let us now focus on Psalm 137: "By the streams of Babylon, we sat and then wept as we remembered Zion. When on the poplars we hung our harps our captors asked for song. Our tormentors wanted songs of joy: 'Sing to us one of the songs of Zion!' How could we sing the Lord's song in a strange and alien land If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning! May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not, If Jerusalem is not the first of my joys. Remember, Lord, the Edomites - what did they do when Jerusalem fell They said, 'Tear the city down, and tear it down to its foundations!' O daughter of Babylon, you will be sacked, happy is he who repays you, And does to you what you have done to us! Happy is who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks!" In Psalm 137, the Psalmist desires God's justice upon the people who has taken their nation from them. This is a song of a people losing a nation, rather like a parent losing a child to captors. In the verse, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning", the Psalmist swears on oath that his hand should never play, nor his tongue should never sing, if he should forget Jerusalem, and not consider it his highest, truest joy. He then imprecates God to remember what the Babylonians did to Jerusalem. How they tore down the city to its foundations, and treated it as something worthless. Having his beloved nation torn down as something worthless, the Psalmist curses the daughters of Babylon. He desires revenge, seeking that what they had done to the children of Zion, too, will be done unto them - having their infants snatched and dashed against the rocks! Psalm 137 is basically a song of anger, as well as of a desire for revenge for all the wrongdoing that has been implicated to him and his people. He is singing to God, reminding Him of his faithfulness, and seeking justice for him and his nation. The harsh, cursing prayer song of the Psalmist to God against the Babylonians in Psalm 137 shows that in these kinds of prayers, cursing the enemy or offender, is due to the believers feeling of distress. In 1 Samuel 24-26, it is shown how David, a model of patience, who on more than one occasion refused to avenge himself on his persecutor Saul. David spares Saul. As any other man, David had weaknesses, and one of these was being too lenient. He was compassionate with such offenders as Shimei, who cursed him (in 2 Samuel 16), and his son Absalom, who rebelled against him (2 Samuel 18-19). David didn't seek out personal vengeance upon his enemies and offenders, but in his prayers, he could hardly pray for compassion upon them. In his prayers, he could not bring himself to sincerely pray to God that Saul should win or that God's promise to him which included the promise of the Savior should be overthrown by Saul or Absalom. He very much opposed their schemes with prayer. Psalm 137 is a very reflective work by the original writer with overtones that reach into the lives of all of us today. Until such time as the knowledge of Yahweh fills the earth as it was written by Jeremiah, we are waiting by the "river of Babylon" with our captors, struggling to make sense of the things that are before us in our daily lives. Just as it is stated in Jeremiah 31:33-34, "But this is the covenant that I will make the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know Yahweh; 'for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Yahweh; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." There are 3 verbs that Jeremiah and Psalms 137 utilizes in regard to Babylon's judgment, as shown in Jeremiah 51:56: "Upon Babylon the destroyer has come; her warriors are captured, their bows are broken. For Yahweh is a God who rewards, who repays her enemies in full." In Isaiah 13:16, it too is reflected as it is written that: "Their babies will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, and their houses will be looted, And their wives raped." As man is angered by maltreatment and abuses, so is God an angry God when man abuse too. In these passages, in the different books of the bible, it is clear how man prays for revenge, and how God gives justice to those who were oppressed, educating the people in regard to their faithfulness. These believers who are in oppressed and obviously, in a state of distress, are all including in their prayers the curses they have on those oppressors, thus desiring the worst for them, and with these visions in mind, those oppressed begin to feel hope and thus their faith in God strengthened. As brutal as it may seem, but even the holy also have in them a deep sense of anger that could result in vengeance, and a harsh tongue in prayer. A novel written by American author William Faulkner, whose title was derived from a monologue spoken by Shakespeare's Macbeth, who has attained the throne of Scotland through murder, and has held it through the most brutal violence and tyranny. William Faulkner's novel "The Sound and the Fury" illustrates the same idea of revenge, although not entirely shown in prayer. Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" tells the story of the disintegration of a Southern family, from four different perspectives. In this novel, it shows the Compson family, the father, being cynical and passive, although he clearly loves his children, drinks to death. The mother, who is seen as invalid has no love for her children and continuously demands that she should be taken care of. Benjy, their mentally retarded son, is the mother's shame, and was castrated as soon as he showed sexual inhibitions. Another son, Quentin, is a romantic although quite neurotic. He goes off to Harvard to fulfill his mother's wish, and eloquently commits suicide there by drowning himself. The only daughter of the family, Caddy, gets pregnant as a teenager, and quickly marries a man. However, he turns her out of the house, when he discovers that the child is not his. Then we have Jason, the mother's favorite. He loses his chance on a job when Caddy's marriage fails, and is inevitably reduced to working in a general store as a means to support the family. Caddy's daughter, whom she named after her deceased brother Quentin, is brought up in the unhappy Compson household, and everyone is forbidden to speak her mother's name. Furthermore, Quentin (Caddy's daughter) desires revenge for such treatment and has vengeance upon her uncle Jason when she steals the $7,000 he has accrued - he has accumulated such amounts by stealing from his mother, and from the funds sent to Quentin from Caddy. The family is supported and cared for by a family of black servants, led and held together by the matriarch, Dilsey. The story, from Benjy's perspective, he only talks fondly of Caddy and Dilsey. Benjy, being the "idiot" in this story, sees life through the eyes of a child, and could only talk so fondly of these two people, who have shown care for him - although he is deeply bothered with Caddy's outcome. He is the sensitive and sentient observer in the family whom Faulkner has given voice to, as he has his own perspective in the novel. Faulkner illustrates in this novel, the idea of revenge, and how circumstances can bring about such. In this novel, revenge is brought about by Quentin, Caddy's daughter. She decided to steal her uncle's money and run off with a carnival worker in the middle of the night. However, it is the presence of Dilsey, the black servant, who has been mistreated and abused, and has seen the destruction of the Compson family, yet she stays loyal. The novel shows so much controversy, especially in terms of values and morality. It also shows how each member of the family thinks, just as shown in the book, wherein it was in 1898 when the children's grandmother died, and the four Compson children were forced to play outside during the funeral. So as to see what was going on inside, Caddy climbed a tree in the yard, and while looking inside, her brothers looked up and noticed that her underwear was muddy. How each of them reacted to this, was the first insight of the reader as to how these boys think, and how their lives are to be shaped by such ways of thinking. Jason was disgusted, Quentin was appalled by such, and Benjy seems to have a "prediction" as to what Caddy's future, as if sensing the symbolic nature of Caddy's dirtiness, which hints at her later, sexual promiscuity. At this time, Jason was only 9 years old, Quentin 7, Caddy 5, and Benjy 3. If we compare the prayer song, Psalm 137 of the Holy Bible, to The Sound and the Fury, a novel by William Faulkner, we are able to see that there are some points of similarity in the contexts presented. The Bible's Psalm 137 illustrates the woes of the oppressed, seeking vengeance on those who have done wrong to him - and his people. The singer is a believer, however, in distress. His faithfulness is doesn't wane as he still prays to God, seeking justice for the wrongs that his captors and oppressors have put upon him. William Faulkner, however, talks about the disintegration of a Southern family, the Compson family, who lost everything, from financial stability to honor, all because of the vices they had which is the core of the problems the family encountered. Faulkner illustrated racism, avarice, selfishness, and the psychological inability of individuals to become determinants as the factors responsible for the problems reconstructed for the Southern family. Through such, their family fell into financial ruin, and worse, losing their religious faith, and the respect of the town of Jefferson. As many of the family members died tragically, it is also shown how other family members have "died" tragically through the degradation of their reputation, and thus, the respect they get from their hometown. Racism is very much seen in this novel, as colored people seem to be dispensable to the white people, and thus, abusing them and maltreating them seemed somewhat normal. It is also illustrated, in the final pages of the book, how Dilsey brought Benjy into the 'colored' church on Easter Sunday, and with the sermon in the service, she wept as she remembers the Compson family, and the fate they have received. Her attitude of compassion for the people who has not been treating her well is very much comparable to that of a forgiving person, towards his oppressor. It shows a picture of someone who doesn't pray for revenge, but prays for the betterment and enlightenment of the people who has mistreated her. Avarice, a sin that is illustrated as punishable by an angry God is also depicted in this novel. Caddy, the only daughter of the Compson family was sexually promiscuous, and this bothered her brother Quentin a lot. He was so appalled by this, and very much concerned of the family honor and reputation in the town of Jefferson. Quentin was so absorbed by this that he even 'confessed' to his father a case of incest, just as to save the family reputation, and his beloved sister - who he also saw as his bestfriend, Caddy. However, his father was unconcerned by such, that he simply waved off the speculations, and insisted to Quentin that virginity is only something that men made up. Yet, unconvinced by this, Quentin still tried to find ways, and upon learning about Caddy's pregnancy, he confronted the man who impregnated his dear sister. Through this, we can see that in comparison to Psalm 137, the characters in the novel each has their cry of despair, asking for justice to such. And in Quentin's confrontation to the man who impregnated Caddy, a sense of revenge flowed in him, seeking the other man's 'destruction'. However, seeing the trail of events, and seeing how it wasn't in favor of the family, or that of Caddy, he, being a neurotic individual, decided to jump into a river, and drown himself. Throughout the novel, the reader can clearly see that each of the individuals who were given voice to, were actually seeking their own personal revenge and vengeance on some issues they individually face. Jason seeks revenge on Miss Quentin for stealing his embezzled stash of $7,000, yet faced with the difficulty of finding her, he eventually gives up. Benjy, having castrated due to the attack he had on a girl, having his favorite pasture sold to become a golf course, and his losing of his favorite sibling, Caddy, he too have lamentations within him wherein he too desires vengeance. However, being a mentally retarded individual, his sensitive and sentient observations in the family make him quite the most unbiased of the characters in terms of perspectives. Quentin, having his perspective narrated on the day of his death, his last day during his first year at Harvard, showed how he wandered the campus, his mind full of preoccupations as to their family's honor, and his sister's well-being. In his quest for vengeance, he fell into a pool of frustration, as he saw that he could not do anything more to turn these around. Seeing tomorrow as hopeless, he jumped into his death, drowning himself at the river. Psalm 137 in contrast to The Sound and the Fury, is harsher in the asking for vengeance. The Psalmist clearly states that he wants God to do unto his oppressors (the Babylonians) what they have done unto him and his people. He specifically says that he wishes to have their babies dashed against the rocks - a very brutal expression of anger, as this involves the oppressed seeking revenge on the innocent members of the enemy's people. In The Sound and the Fury, vengeance was desired, yet only to the ones who have caused them offense. The characters didn't dwell on revenge over the entire clan, rather only on the individual who has caused them their distress. Psalm 137 and The Sound and the Fury exhibits characteristics of the oppressed and distressed. However, in Psalm 137, the Psalmist doesn't lose his faith in religion, whereas, in The Sound and the Fury, the family's religious faith is lost, and it is only Dilsey, the servant, who brings it back by bringing them to church, and hopefully restoring the faith in them. Work Cited Christian Community Bible, twenty-fourth edition. Patricia Grogan, ed. Quezon City: St. Paul's, 1998. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. Cleveland: Easton Press, 2007. Read More