Features of Power in Literature - Essay Example

Power as per Foucault, is inherently capillary. Both the plays are based on the basic notion of hierarchical power and therefore have a conscious centre of origin. The reverberation of Nora's closing the door in the last act, was said to have been heard all over Europe, that started a metaphorical genesis of feminism everywhere. Both the plays use tragicomic elements to reduce high seriousness and to mark a way of life marked with a trivial tragedy. They fail to achieve any telos, or any result. The lack of finality marks the tragedy of the hegemony more crucially. There is a failed suicide in both the plays, and that sets the mood of powerlessness among Nora or the characters of Uncle Vanya crying "We shall rest we shall rest!" or ""Everyone will be just as it was," drawing on to the themes of Modern ennui or the famous Eliot line ""In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo". The boredom is with a wasted life where the Victorian or Aristocratic order becomes a sham. The powerful imposition of an abeyance of organic cycles full of decadent spectral traditions in Chekhov, and the "ghost" of the Victorian order posing acute psychological and intellectual repercussions in Nora's marks themood of Ibsen's play. The context of power in Ibsen's play is more imminent since it outright satirizes the Victorian marital set-up and the kind of power-relation is shared between a husband and his wife. It did subvert the idea of the 'angel in the house'. The play satirises the helplessness of Victorian women, financially and legally dependent their husbands and were considered legal property of her husband. Her property or wealth too belonged to her husband. There was very little financial independence she was not expected to earn for her own living. This patriarchal imposition was masked behind an idea of good-will. The cold rationality of Torvald Helmer and his patronozing attitude towards Nora is extremely apt in giving the account of the kind of power and hierarchy he engages to help Nora content with an illusion about her home and life. Her eating macaroons and lying about them are just shallow exchanges that have greater ideological practices at play behind them. Torvald is the shaping power who must teach, guide, rescue and advice Nora under the excuse of romantic love which has no basis in anything apart for in creating and restoring a hierarchy where he must appear to represent greater experience, knowledge, intellect and above all benevolence. His appearance masks a deep selfishness (for his own integrity) when he refuses to oblige his beloved Nora by refusing to let in Krogstad. There is a great urge working within Torvald to control appearances within his household and with his relationship. The epiphany about her real self emerges only when Torvald falls short of his role as a protector. Krogstad's blackmail reveals the other side of Nora. It shows her acumen for business, and the desperation to maintain the status quo of her substandard life. She realises that his continuous playful tone with her, disciplining attitude signify Torvald's actual expectations out of her. She is never his equal, sharing his intellectual comanionship. She is another decoration in the "Doll's" house, with a stunted mental life. Nora questions the possession of authority and intellectual power granted to her even for raising her children. She was thus not indispensable in her substance. Nora has lived a derogatory life only to conform to an ideal that does not even exist and says: "I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald". Nora becomes a person with a greater purpose. Her ideals about motherhood take a backseat when she realizes that she is estranged by the religion and the law and fits nowhere. Torvald's desperate plea to make Nora accept her "roles" was a pathetic attempt to appease her reveals his hypocrisy. Choosing integrity over love becomes a crucial question when Nora chooses the prior thus establishing that Torvald's selfishness to maintain his own integrity even at the expense of their marriage is not a man's exclusive domain. She is also a human being to desire integrity as the basic priority of her life and for that she is willing to rebel against the hierarchy that binds her to this shameful fate. Nora thus leaves in search of a self that the society both underestimates and suppresses because in an ideal power set up that has neither utility nor necessity. Uncle Vanya sets the characters against the background of a drastically changing social order and of power. The characters feel out of their role. They are aristocratic and yet bourgeoisie with no specific meaning to their existence since they are made useless by their loss of power or made unstable by their sudden assimilation into a power hierarchy. This play too question existence and human consciousness against a strong urge to fulfill their desires through role-playing. Uncle Vanya discovers Serebryakov is a mere charlatan and his having wasted most of his life in admiring and toiling for him. Yelena serves as the object for his obsession and also the extended metaphor for the elusive wishes that haunt him. Serebryakov is a scholar plagued by physical malady and complete powerlessness as he is threatened by Vanya's grudges for being exploited for almost his entire life. Power and hierarchy in Chekhov emerges in the form of nostalgis about something that is absent or already lost. People are in a state of pseudo-authority where power is nothing but a hilarious moment of a failed murder or an elongated speech to save Russia's forest that cannot be saved, but both the characters nevertheless enact grave concerns. The theme of love and boredom too contribute to the whole atmosphere of lost power, either over their lives or over their socio-economic conditions. Life is guided by a reckless energy that is monotonous and has a power of its own. The characters are all part of an extended symbol-that are devoid of any metaphysical promises. Yelena sticks to her marriage because she is engulfed by the inertia of nothingness that oppresses her and gives no promise beyond her immediate regrets. The love plots are equally vague because they are a way of engaging the endless consciousness of abysmal waste. Voynitsky's hopeless love becomes the actual symbol of his failure to engage with life and better choices. Indirect action in the Naturalistic trend gives the plot another powerlessness that essentially reduces the effect of the characters actually driving the play forward. Infact the play gathers some tragic momentum when Vanya says to Serebryakov "You have wrecked my life. I have never lived. My best years have gone for nothing, have been ruined, thanks to you. You are my most bitter enemy!" The finality is delivered by Sonya who says in a most tragic speech the power that fate imposes on them: "What can we do We must live our lives through the long procession of days bear the trials that fate imposes on us; My poor, poor Uncle VanyaYou have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest" (Act IV) Though the motif of uselessness dominate the characters' life, Uncle Vanya becomes the realistic figure grossly wronged by his brother-in-law and devoid of any happiness that he should have pursued. Chekhov's dualistic vision of reality is reflected in Astrov's veneering between moods of elation and depression. Dr Astrov, in his darker moods, is depressed by the fact that his own puny efforts seem pointless and will even fail to be noticed. The characters realize the limitations of their choices and achievement like Astrov realizes the limitations of his profession. Limitations are imposed by power that the characters strive to gain but realize that the only choice that they ever will get is whether to get on with that drudgery or end their life. Astrov strives for power by planting trees and seeking betterment of the peasants. He seeks to reverse his role from a "destroyer" to a "creator". Yelena dismisses herself as a useless character, indolent enough to be contained with powerlessness. Vanya'a lack of independent thought is similar to Treplev in The Seagull. Astrov becomes a powerful force who makes him realize the actual reality behind his life. Power is tossed between such short-term pessimism and long-term optimism of the characters by virtue of which they are able to make impressions within their own life. Sonya shares Astrov's faith in the efficacy of work but, unlike him, is consoled by her belief in God. This faith allows her to endure the pain of not being loved by Astrov and helps her to relinquish any power over her life. She makes a blatant advocacy of religious and/or illusory commitments that modern man has lost in his absurdity. Chekhov questions us with the very idea that whether the power of faith that draws us to it is preferable to the vast hopelessness and alienation from any transcendental promises. Read More