The Allegory of the Cave

 Truth does not change, but reality does. What a person perceives to be reality is typically also seen as being true. Most people will accept that because there is not any other explanation or alternative known to them, as is the case in the allegory. Before the prisoner becomes enlightened, he accepts the philosophy of the cave. After he sees and adjusts to the light, he sees the whole picture. The cave and the shadows are real, but the explanations he had for why they existed are not correct. By leaving the cave, the man sees the truth and understands what causes the shadows.

Reality is merely the what of existence, while truth gives the why. Since reality is in some ways the effect of truth, it is not very shocking when reality changes. It is the light, or the truth, that blinds the man as he leaves the cave. The concept of light changes everything the man understands about the world. Light cannot change, the underlying reason for why things happen the way they do does not change either.

Philosophy is a search for the truth. The ancients wanted to know why things happened, why reality is the way that it is. That basic quest for truth has led to many theories and explanations. This ongoing process of trying to define the truth is put figuratively in the allegory of the cave. As a student learns a new idea that explains the universe, he struggles to grasp it. After a certain point, the student cannot go back to his former way of thinking. The thought is truth, the concept is truth. Everyone knows that objects will fall towards the ground, but the idea of gravity is the truth behind it. And ultimately, science, philosophy, religion, and all those subjects imperfectly convey the truth behind reality. Humans may never fully understand the truth, but they do seem to be moving towards the light.

More Slaughterhouse-Five

"They didn't think it [Billy's mental illness] had anything to do with the war.  They were sure Billy was going to pieces because his father had thrown him into the deep end of the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool when he was a little boy, and had then taken him to the rim of the Grand Canyon."

This quote bitingly attacks society, and especially those in authority.  The satire of the U.S. throughout the book is the main focus.  Billy knows what he saw in the war messed him up, but this is the age before people accepted PTSD as real, so the shrinks come up with baloney excuses to explain his mental illness and anxiety.

I see some connection to the idea of Eliot's Hollow Men in this novel. Billy's marriage is problematic as was the war.  He doesn't love his wife at all, but feigned interest in her.  His wife is rich, but that is not the main reason he married her, I think it had to do with his stumbling nature.  People do not always do the right thing.  The tone of the book is hollow as well.  I find myself laughing, but then catching myself saying it isn't that funny.

The Tralfamadore plot is hilarious.  The situation can be a bit vulgar at times, but I think it is necessary for Vonnegut to get his point across.  In essence, the Tralfamadoreans create an artificial environment in the same way we have zoos, and Billy ends up with a woman he would have no chance with on Earth.  In a way that parallels the war because both experiences involve huge, impersonal entities that cause people to do and experience things they otherwise would not.  At the same time, each person is still making the choices, so his or her character is somewhat tested, but I am not sure if that is the main drive of this piece.  Overall, I still like the book and definitely see potential.

Slaughterhouse-Five

To start off, I like this book.  It is easy to read, but has me questioning a lot of the times what is going on.  At least I am not always consciously aware of how Vonnegut is doing that which he does. I think that might be a good thing though.

The unstuckness of time in the novel is a key device.  Although sleep can serve as a transition between events, when Billy Pilgrim wakes up it is not always tomorrow.  Sometimes it took a little while for me to place the events within the context of time, especially Billy's stay in the mental hospital.  Basically, there is a common thread and progression ideas that is not ordered around time, which is a great literary technique.

The Children's Crusade motif is a powerful aspect within the novel.  Billy (a kid's name) is part of World War II, and very obviously it mentally scarred him, if not on more spiritual levels as well, even though he really did not kill anyone or do great sin or anything like that.  Just that he saw the terror of Dresden and the war in general left a mark.  The war is never idealized, but portrayed truthfully.  Humans are not at their best.  When he is wandering after the Battle of the Bulge one learns a lot about war in general.  War is not black and white, "the Germans are evil" type thing.  Weary, an American, is about as sick and twisted as it gets.  He is obsessed with torture and because he is not accepted by the "cool kids" he takes out his anger and frustration on someone weaker than he is (Billy).  He nearly breaks Billy's spine by kicking him while he is down.  Ironically, Billy is saved by the Germans (in this case, old men, boys, and a whimpering German Shepherd), who then capture him and Weary.  The novel challenges stereotypes of war in every way, especially by emphasizing the innocence of Billy and the other soldiers like him.  Billy, like the Children Crusaders, went off with out even a weapon, but pretty much just his clothes.

I can't help but think of the whole Kony thing since it has lately gone viral on any and all forms of social media.  For the record, I knew about him a couple months ahead of everyone else.  I think he is doing something evil, but analyzing what makes it so evil may be of use to one's understanding of this novel.  The coercion is a big no-no, which was prevalent during WWII.  I think that the loss of innocence and the fact that Billy and everyone else really did not know what they were getting into is a bigger issue.  Basically, in the case of WWII, Kony, and the Children's Crusade, adults (or at least people that knew what kind of a slaughter they were bringing the kids to) exploited children who did not know that they were even being taken advantage of, or were conditioned to think that they weren't.  This is dark stuff.

In light of the darkness of the real heart issue of the novel, Vonnegut makes a big farce of it.  Slaughterhouse-Five is akin to "A Modest Proposal" in that it does not use the direct and more surface oriented line of moral attack, but instead is more farcical.  It crumbles the walls by digging under them, not by breaking them down.

Overall, I like the book so far, and cannot put it down.

The Sun Sets

" 'Oh Jake,' Brett said, 'we could have had such a damned good time together.' ... The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.  'Yes.' I said. 'Isn't it pretty to think so?' "

This last line blew me away.  All through out the novel, Jake was hanging on to his subsurface hope that things would work out between him and Brett.  Albeit the line could be taken as just another brush, I think that there are stronger indications in the work that this is the final thrust to end things.

The bullfighting parallels the relationships in the group.  Mike, Cohn, Brett, and Romero are bulls.  One knows that ultimately things are not going to work out for them.  They charge through life, especially as the novel escalates during the fiesta.  And of course, occasionally some one gets gored or dies from the infighting.  Bill and Jake are somewhat different from the two.  Bill has too much sense and self-respect to really be categorized that way.  He somewhat plays the role of a picador, intensifying issues, but never finishing them.  There is one character who will bend but never break, that is Jake.  I was not sure how it would end for him, it seemed fairly anticlimactic after the fiesta when Jake seems to accept the problems he faces.  However, in the bullfight metaphor he would be the matador.  He does orchestrate much of what goes on in the novel plot wise, and often fights in the "terrain of the bulls".  What makes it so clear that he is the matador is how he finishes Brett in that last line.  That completely surprised me.  Things are done and mentally he knows that things are not going to work out between him and Brett.  Brett had her chance, but that opportunity has passed.  That is what the matador does, when things are over, he shuts the show down; he is the closer.

The bullfight concept does represent some spec of human experience.  One does have a choice of whether or not he or she will live up to their full potential.  Risk is inherent whether one is a bull or a matador, but it is not as much about the final result so much as how one goes about it.  Grace and dignity are emphasized over one's pure strength.  It is a thinking man's game after all.  The social dimension of the audience also can represent how one's life fits in with the procedures society expects to be met.  In this novel, most of the time the spectators want the fight to be passionate and for every opportunity to be taken.  They simply want excellence, which can be achieved.  This differs from some other novels in which society is hindering the protagonist from reaching his or her full potential.

What seems to matter most in this novel is one's own dignity and being able to live with oneself.  No one in the novel is perfect, but the more honest types tend to be more at peace with themselves.  Personal problems inevitably become group problems, which happens to people in all walks of life.  There also seems to be a certain flux at work between good times and bad, wealth and poverty, drunkenness and sobriety, and life and death.  The right balance needs to be met for one to live up to his or her full potential; ultimately something that one cannot do alone.

The Sun Also Rises...Again

"'It's no life being a steer,' Robert Cohn said."

The portion of Book II of The Sun Also Rises that I have read so far deals mostly with the vacation to Pamplona plot-wise.  The primary reason the group goes there is to see the bullfights, which are Jake's passion.  The quote refers to the part of the ritual of the bullfight in which the bulls are unloaded in the days preceding the fight.  As the bulls are released from their cages into the pen, there are steers which stand there and get gored to calm the bulls down so they do not hurt each other before the fight.

My first reaction was that Cohn was the steer, but at second glance, Jake is closer to that role.  Jake is quiet and a more restrained than the other men on the vacation.  Bill is nice and happy most of the time, but occasionally he can erupt on people.  Cohn and Mike fight each other in an animal sort of way.  They are driven by animal instinct more than conscious decisions, whereas with Jake one can tell he has more dignity than the others at times.

Jake is also different because of his attempt at religion.  He is very humble and knows that he isn't the perfect Catholic, but yet paradoxically to admit to one's weaknesses and see oneself truly leads to perfection.  There is something about Jake that makes him different.  He is a simpler man and his taste is emphasized.  He lives a balanced life and finds more rest than other characters do in the novel.  The trip to Pamplona is a retreat of sorts for Jake.  There is an attempt to escape to a simpler sort of existence.  The fishing portion is very calm.  It varies between the imagery of the countryside and the light banter and joking that goes on between Bill and Jake.  The cathedral is a sanctuary for Jake in almost every way.  

None the less, Jake is most passionate about the bulls.  Even the locals attest to his aficion or passion for the bullfights and all the news about them.  Jake can appreciate what is beautiful, he has a critical mind.  For the most part that factors in why he acts the way he does.  He evaluates and observes more than he actually jumps in the fray.  He is the spectator, and in some ways the judge.  The reader sees from his perspective and although Jake does not know everything about the others, he thinks clearly enough that it is fairly easy to follow.  Its not stream of consciousness that's for sure.         

Book 1-The Sun Also Rises

"'Good night, Brett,' I said. 'I'm sorry you feel rotten.'"

Thus far, Jake is the only character that loves even when he is rejected.  Count Mippipopolous, despite being undoubtedly a warm and friendly soul, has not quite been put to the test.  Most likely, he, like the average human, looks for give and take in most sorts of relationships.  Cohn and Brett belong to the opposite end of the scale as Jake, with Brett being the more extreme.  Jake and Robert are for better or worse friends, and have a fairly healthy relationship. Robert's personal problems begin to undermine their relationship, but ultimately Robert commits to fill his own emptiness.  This decision draws Cohn away to other fantasies.



I imagine Cohn looked somewhat like this in his boxing prime. Yet he never liked the sport, only the feeling of superiority.  As if the moustache couldn't do that on its own.

Lady Brett is far from the controlled and reserved English lady.  Never faithful, she seems to double cross all of her husbands or lovers.  Yet Jake is faithful and loving to her always.  I can understand why Brett would feel so uncomfortable with committment, but its strange that she so closes herself off to love.  To her, marriage does not mean a relationship based on love, rather it smells of earthier things and  necessity.  Towards the end of chapter seven when she, Jake, and the count go out for the night reveals her.  She does not enjoy dancing.  Dance channels the vitality of life, and serves as a metaphor for the way humans live as a whole.  We make rules to protect us from the overly powerful and electric energy of the supernatural.  Brett seems to reject these rules that society passes along, even if it is to her and others' disadvantage.  Jake always wishes her well, even as she rejects him, that is the most beautiful love.

The bullfighting motif runs beneath the surface of the piece, popping in and out of consciousness.  Jake says that the only people that live their lives to the full are bull fighters.  Jake seems to take some chances himself.  In some ways Jake parallels the bull.  He is stabbed at by others like Cohn, although he does not mean harm.  The real dance is between him and Brett, the matador.  They criss cross and circle close and far, but it's pretty clear Jake's going to get burned.  Even so he does this with love.  Thus far he hasn't changed, although a vaccuum around him is tempting him to spill apart. 

      



 

The Sun Also Rises

" 'All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full...'"
-Part of the epitaph to The Sun Also Rises (from Ecclesiastes)
     Several of the characters in this novel are empty. The allusion in the epitaph is an accurate metaphor for the lives of some of the characters. They fill themselves, yet never are full. Robert Cohn feebly attempts to satisfy the inner emptiness he feels. Robert, self-conscious of his ethnicity and anti-semitic sentiments against him, seeks exterior experiences to bring him fulfillment. Whether it be boxing victories or potential South American travels, he does not want to settle, yet lacks the fortitude to overcome obstacles to his goals.
     The love triangles seem right out of Canterbury Tales. Everybody loves Brett. She loves Jake, but I doubt she will marry him. I think that not many men see Brett at anything less than her physical beauty, with the exception of Jake. Cohn sees her merely as the next thing. She infatuates him, there is not any real love or anything like it.
     It is fitting that the story is told from Jake's point of view. He is a good man, not cocky or overbearing, yet confident and secure. His knowledge of people and human nature enables him to be so. Jake knows Cohn better than Cohn knows himself. People are Jake's expertise, however, he does not use this gift to manipulate or control others. He brings Georgette with him to the club, but gives her free rein for the evening. Privacy motivates him to do so, he does not want to make his feelings for Brett too obvious, nor hers for him.
     Conflict over Brett may be the main issue as the novel progresses. How exactly the characters will change or stay the same, I am not sure, although I will soon find out.