Reflections: Weeks 10 + 11

Reflections: Week 10 + 11

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Death of Ivan Ilych - [(Spoiler alert: He dies)] - Leo Tolstoy

Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

“If our sciences are vain in the objects they have in view, they are even more dangerous in the effects they produce.” (Rousseau)

While reading Frankenstein, I was reminded of the first choral ode in Antigone which states that "[Man] lacks resources for nothing the future can bring / Only from death can he devise no escape". In a way, Frankenstein's life-creating discovery is an important step towards devising such an escape. The quote is just one of countless snippets from this course’s readings that could be applied to Frankenstein. Take your pick, this book touches upon issues ranging from "the crapshoot of having kids" to "the folly of science". This book's beginnings are a bit of a soap opera. Most people know that Mary Shelley started this book in Switzerland as a result of a friendly writing competition between friends. Lord Byron hosted the gathering in Diodati where gloomy weather kept everyone indoors. Without Facebook, they were forced to apply themselves toward something creative and constructive. What is not so well known is how they all came to assemble there. Apparently, Lord Byron (a playboy) invited Mary and Percy only because Claire (Mary's half-sister who wanted to spend more time with Lord Byron), promised to bring Mary and Percy if she could visit him in Diodati. Had Claire not promised to bring the daughter of the famous Mary Wollstonecraft, Claire probably would not have been invited because Byron had grown tired of her.

The magnificent views from the villa in Diodati were inspiring to Shelley, and Frankenstein is full of the effects that nature can have on one's psyche. The philosophy of the Sublime was a popular theme of the day and describes nature as a mixture of "horror and harmony". I imagine that for many at the time, the immense vistas they experienced in nature were new to them. They didn’t have the huge-screen cinemas that assault, toy with and therefore dull our senses. In leaving the cities and hiking in the Swiss Alps, for example, the immense depths and distances perceived, the contrasts in perspective must have been so new to their sight that the vast panoramas might easily have been terrifying. That the Sublime includes the an element of horror reminds me of feelings that one can be overcome with when standing near a cliff's edge... the horror combined with the sense of freedom. What if I jump? What if I lose all sense of reason for one split second and hurl myself off the edge?
p. 97 “The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnizing my mind, and causing me to forget the passing cares of life.”

One obvious theme is that of man's hubris in exploring science without consideration of its consequences. Knowing too much too fast can be dangerous, and maybe there are things we should not know or be exposed to. (Manhattan Project comes to mind). Forget about the impact of scientific endeavours for a second, but what about their utility? Should we spend billions of dollars at CERN while people are still dying of cholera, polio, malaria, AIDS…?

It can be fascinating to watch life unfold before you in a petri plate, but remember Candide: “Legs were obviously instituted in order to wear breeches, and hence we have breeches…” Just because some species of Malayan kumquats native to a section of land "x" near the coast of "y" produces antioxidant "z" doesn't mean that thousands upon thousands of dollars should be invested towards their study (although if I were a scientist employed as a result of this I might think differently).

Frankenstein’s obsession with Science opened the door to his downfall:
p.56 “…a human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility... if this rule were observed…Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed…” “…I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade…the energy of my purpose alone sustained me…” Science has taken him over! Not only is science being criticized here, but also the way it is being pursued.

Frankenstein, from his youth, judges based on appearances: Mr Krempe: “…was a little squat man, with a scruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits.”

Some of language really got to me, too; I loved the way Shelley described certain scenes (they were very reminscent of her mother's descriptions of nature and emotions):

p.136 COLD nature - “The cold stares shone in mockery and the bare trees waved their branches above me…”
p. 138 - “…in my hovel in a state of utter and stupid despair.” … “I lighted the dry branch of a tree, and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, my eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the moon nearly touched.” To me this conjured the idea of some pagan rite performed by someone very close to Nature.
p. 146 - Image very much like that of Rousseau’s natural man: “We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human.” From Discourse on the Origins of Inequality: (p.40) - (of man in his natural state): “I see him satisfying his hunger under and oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that supplied his meal; and thus all his needs are satisfied.”
p. 139 - “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.” Is Shelley talking to her father, here? What did Freud make of this book?
p. 168 - “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”

No matter which of myriad themes in Frankenstein you choose to consider, they all converge on the perennial questions asked by the monster (p.128), “My person was hideous, and my stature gigantic: what did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?" I’ll have the answers to these in the next blog.

TOLSTOY
We've considered many books that prescribe ways to live, but not ways to die. This frightening short story (which I enjoyed very much) would be a good place to start.
Rousseau mentioned that the older we get the more steadfastly we cling to life, perhaps for the simple reason that we grow more attached to life and that living is all we know. Tolstoy, when still young, willingly went to war knowing that he may die, but in his later years he met with an existential crisis that changed his entire outlook. The crisis centered on the horror of death and its aftermath and one comes to terms with them.

All creatures die, but unlike animals we have a keen awareness of our eventual end and this alone can fill us with terror. At such times we take account of our lives. How did I live? Can I die comfortably remembering my past?

The symbolism of Ivan Ilych's illness itself runs deep: It cannot be diagnosed: His kidney is floating, (it is displaced just like his "heart" is). Another diagnosis is that there's something wrong with his appendix, (a vestigial organ). At one point he mentions that his heart is in his appendix; at the point of his death, his heart had become as vestigial as his heart.
Ivan Ilych lives a very inhuman life until he learns that he is going to die; only then does he begin to taste reality and to have revelations that he comes to wish he had had earlier in life.

The first line of the second chapter sums up the life of the average person who believes the same illusions as Ilych: “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". One classmate’s Russian friend summed up the message of the book in saying that one should not focus on the routines of life; these are illusions, meaningless, useless and fake.

What I found so interesting was that the doctors in the book perpetuate these illusions in their patient. That his doctor will not tell him the truth is very telling of his culture (although, apparently such was the case in North America until relatively recently, the 1960s!)

Basically, Ivan wanted to be pitied: he wanted assurance that he would be missed, that life wouldn’t be exactly the same with him gone. He was looking for affirmation that his life actually mattered and wanted to be consoled like a child. This, in stark contrast to him as a VIP in society.

Only two people, Ivan’s son and the peasant helper Gerasim, show compassion for the dying man… and while approaching death, Ivan realizes that he has not shown compassion to others in his lifetime.
Gerasim movements around Ilych are angelic. He appears as if from the sky (the converse of this being Ivan’s very “world-and-society-bound” widow: “A short fat woman who, despite every effort to the contrary, had continued a steady sidewise expansion from top to bottom.”) and he tiptoes gracefully around Ivan and comforts him more than anyone else.

At the time of the book’s writing, some philosophized that society should “learn from the peasants.” Tolstoy agreed with this philosophy and here it is applied in the down-to-earth character, Gerasim.


Much like Mary Shelley and her mother Mary's prose got to me, so did many lines from The Death Of Ivan Ilych. Most lines were memorable for their power of expression:
The "heaviest" examples of the power of the language:
p. 27 - sail out on a sea of veiled enmity that was expressed in their alienation from each other.
p.51 - …stay at home twenty-four hours of which every single one was raw torture.
p. 59 - He hated from the depths of his soul whenever she kissed him like that and it took an effort not to shove her away.
p.64 …look at It, look It right in the face look at It and, without doing a thing, suffer inexpressible torment.
p.77 It was all the same. A flicker of hope drowned by a raging sea of despair.
p. 80 - He loathes her with all the power of his heart, and at her touch he is smacked by a gush of surging hatred. The doctor smiled with a condescending tenderness that seemed to say, Well, you know, these people - these sick people - they sometimes think up little absurdities like that; but we must forgive them.
p.82 And Ivan began to moan; he was given an injection, and he was forgotten about.…and again it was all the same; and again the night was encroaching.
p. 87 Until three in the morning he lay in a tormented oblivion.
p.93 “What is this? Don’t I know this is death? An inner voice answered: Yes, you know it.”
p.95 “In inverse proportion to the distance from death squared. And this image of a stone plummeting and picking up speed sunk deep into his heart. Life, that series of increasing torments, flies faster and faster as it nears its end, the most terrifying suffering of all. I’m flying… he shuddered…”

And other favorite fragments, chapter by chapter:
CHAPTER I
p. 11 - “Pyotr heard her ask in great detail about various cemetery plots…” (AT the funeral!)“…It was intolerable. I do not even understand how I withstood it. You could hear him three doors down. Oh, what I’ve been through!” (!)
p. 13 Pyotr asked by Ivan’s wife how she can increase his pension… “She sighed loudly and began obviously working to get rid of him…”

CHAPTER II
p. 18 - “…but from the youngest age he had been drawn, as a bird to the air, toward people in the upper echelons of society, adopting their affect and view of life, and maintaining friendships with many of them. All the preoccupations of childhood and youth dissipated from him without leaving a trace.”
p. 24 - naïve conception of marriage; his wife and her pregnancy interfered with his ordered life…p.25 - Ivan could not understand the birth of his child just as no one could understand his needs in dying.p.27 - delves into and hides in his work.

CHAPTER III
p. 30 - Existential boredom. Looks for a job of 5000 rubles (doesn’t matter where or what… 5000 rubles non-negotiable!)
p. 34 (after the accident) - “I feel that fifteen years have been taken off my head!” How true!
p.37 - (of work) …”it was better than sitting around alone or with his wife.”
p.39 - last line of chapter: “…it was all going terribly well.”

CHAPTER IV
p.43 - Ivan sees first-hand how it feels to be condescended to, the same show he put on in court. …”The doctor said: “This-and-that and such-and-such indicate an et-cetera-and-so-forth inside you; but if my investigations don’t confirm blah-blah-blah and you-get-the-idea, we’ll have to assume so on and so forth. …the doctor ignored his mislaid curiosity…” (again, all appearances!)
p.47 - blaming his ill health on exterior factors (much like today we look for cures from the extior, rather than looking within).
p.48 - “He couldn’t fool himself: something terrifying, new, and more significant than anything else that had ever happened in his life was happening within him.”

VII Enter Gerasim, a peasant.

CHAPTER VIII
p.79 Self-delusion: “…Ivan is persuaded by it, just as he used to be persuaded by the arguments of lawyers whom he knew perfectly well were lying, and whose reasons for lying were no secret.”
p.82 - describes his surroundings; all the old decorations that he spent so much time perfecting… And Ivan began to moan; he was given an injection, and he was forgotten about.
p.83 - "and death disrupting her happiness” (his daughter’s)
“blue circles under his [his son’s] eyes whose significance Ivan knew all too well” - crying. No one else seems to cry for the misery Ivan is going through.
“Except for Gerasim, it seemed to Ivan that Vasya was the only one who understood and felt sorry for him.” Rousseau and pity. It is in young Vasya, but he has not yet been tainted by aristocratic society.

CHAPTER IX
p. 88- Ivan is unable to express his feelings in front of anyone, not even Gerasim… “HE cried for his helplessness, his terrible solitude, for the cruelty of man, the cruelty of God, for God’s absence. What have you done this for? Why have you brought me to this? For what, for what are you torturing me so horribly?”
p. 89 - Reminiscing about his past… “…now turned to something meager, even disgusting.”
p. 90 “Maybe I didn’t live as I should’ve? The thought leapt to his mind. But how could that be, when I did everything I was supposed to? (Appearances! - Recall what Rousseau said about an old man’s only thing to do… (how to die)).

CHAPTER X
p.93 “What is this? Don’t I know this is death? An inner voice answered: Yes, you know it.”
p.95 “In inverse proportion to the distance from death squared. And this image of a stone plummeting and picking up speed sunk deep into his heart. Life, that series of increasing torments, flies faster and faster as it nears its end, the most terrifying suffering of all. I’m flying… he shuddered…”
p.96 - “If only I could understand what this is all for! But that is impossible too. I could explain it all if I hadn’t lived as meticulously as I should have. But there is no way of comprehending this, he said to himself, thinking of all the rules, proprieties, and decencies of his life. There’s really no way to admit to that, he said, drawing his lips into a smile as though anyone might see him and be deceived. There’s no explanation! Torture, death . . . for what?”

CHAPTER XI
p.97 - “She did not manage to finish what she had started saying: such was the rage articulated in his glare, and directed precisely at her. “For Christ’s sake, let me die in peace,” he said.
p.99 - “It occurred to him that those scarcely detected impulses to struggle against what the people of highest social rank considered good, those feeble tendencies that he barely noticed and immediately suppressed, might in fact be what was real, and everything else what was false.”
… “all of it a monstrous and immense deceit foreclosing both life and death.”
p.105 - “Anyhow, what’s the point of talking, one must act.”
His final lesson.