Semicolon Spring 2023

WHAT WE’RE ABOUT

Symposium and Semicolon are the official publications of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council at Western University, published bi-annually. To view previous editions or for more information about our publications, please contact the AHSC in Room 2135 at University College. Publications can also be viewed virtually at issuu.com/ahscpubs.

Semicolon is the academic journal for the AHSC. It accepts outstanding A-level essay submissions written in any Arts and Humanities undergraduate course.

Sharing one’s work can often be daunting, so the Publications Team would like to thank all students who submitted their essays. Thank you for trusting us with your words.

Editor-in-Chief: Safaa Ali

Academic Managing Editor: Abbie Faseruk

Creative Managing Editor: Demitra Marsillo

Copy Editor: Samantha Ellis

Copy Editor: Julia Piquet

Layout Designer: Jadyn Smith

VP Communications and Cover Designer: Michelle Sadorsky

AN ARTS AND HUMANITIES STUDENTS’ COUNCIL PUBLICATION

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 2 SPRING 2023

Copyrights remain with the artists and authors. The responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the artists and authors. The content does not reflect the opinions of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council (AHSC) or the University Students’ Council (USC).

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Have we truly reached the end of the semester? After a full year of meetings, reviewing pieces, and planning launch parties, it’s hard to fathom that everything is winding down.

Our theme for this semester was “The Quotidian,” which centred on the nuances of day-to-day existence. We were impressed by the range of paradigm-shifting essays that proposed new and provoking interpretations of familiar texts and ideas.

This semester brought many fresh changes, from a record number of submissions, to a Fleetway launch party with pizza and bowling. There was also our successful proposal of a Publications portfolio on council, meaning after this year the Editor-in-Chief will hold Vice President status and will oversee a larger team. In other words, look forward to more student engagement, a dedicated social media presence, and even more opportunities to get involved — there has never been a better time to join Pubs!

Now, a couple of final thank yous from me:

Firstly, thank you to Michelle for helping me through all the flustered inquiries. Our publications would not have seen the light of day without you.

Secondly, thank you to every member of the Publications team for your patience and passion for all things Pubs. Past the inside jokes and icebreakers and ridiculous movies (thanks, Sam…), there are not enough kind words I can say about each of you. You all rock, and I think Keanu would agree.

Finally, an enormous thank you to you, the reader, for picking up this issue.

It has been my absolute pleasure to be your Editor-in-Chief this year, but I will now step aside and let you enter the world of “The Quotidian.”

All my best wishes.

Safaa Ali Editor-in-Chief

An Introspective Search For Godly Justice

By Asha Saha

“The Rock Is His Thing”: The Absurd and Primo Levi’s If This is a Man

By Jaya J. Sinha

7 11 14 17

4 20 24

1 27 29

“This is My Own”: Examining Possession in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan

By Samantha Ellis

The Illusion of Separation: Ethical Dilemmas and Atypical Story Structure in Binet’s HHhH and Adichie’s Americanah

By Gray Brogden

Murder is Marriage, Marriage is Murder: Male Reversal Anxiety in Thomas Middleton’s “The Changeling”

By Claudia Kindrachuk

The Poet’s Wrath: Exploring the Evolution of Sir Philip Sidney’s The Defense of Poesy

By Samantha Ellis

The Ontological Difference: A Comparative Analysis of Western and Islamic Philosophy

By Parsa Albeheshti

History: Giving Meaning to the Past

By Jadyn Smith

Moral(e): the Making of Humanity

By Jessie Yang

What’s Truth Got to Do with It?: Nietzsche’s Defence of the Imaginative Arts

By Asha Saha

AN INTROSPECTIVE SEARCH FOR GODLY JUSTICE

By Asha Saha

John Milton begins Paradise Lost with grand intentions. Invoking a Muse, the poem’s speaker asks for assistance in his quest to “assert Eternal Providence, / And justifie the wayes of God to men” (1.25-26). More specifically, he intends to examine and answer an age-old question: If God is just, why do bad things happen to moral and godly people? The poem’s clearest answer is found in the angel Michael’s assertion that despite being exiled from Paradise, Adam and Eve will eventually “possess / A Paradise within thee, happier farr” (12.586-587). The nature of this inner paradise, as communicated by various characters, reveals the poem’s argument about where God’s justice can be seen. Raphael’s comparison of knowledge to food presents internal paradise as something grounded in the wisdom of those who trust and respect God; Eve’s final speech emphasizes how love and hope, defined in a connection to God, create a paradise that transcends place-based specificity. Additionally, God’s reflections on free will present this inner paradise as being far more authentic and important than an externally ideal world. Ultimately, Paradise Lost “justifie[s] the wayes of God to men” (1.26) by presenting an internal form of paradise that locates godly justice within an individual’s capability for resilience, rather than the state of the external world they experience.

In Raphael’s conversation with Adam, the angel utilizes a particularly interesting metaphor which lays the groundwork for the poem’s eventual connection between trust in God, wisdom, and inner paradise. Raphael likens knowledge to food, explaining that trying to master more knowledge than one should “soon turns / Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Winde” (7.126-130). His comparison between gaining knowledge and digesting food emphasizes the delicate balance of knowledge acquisition. As John C. Ulreich Jr. explains in “A Paradise Within: the Fortunate Fall in Paradise Lost,” “digestion is a metaphor for the way man, by knowing himself, and all of Creation within himself, comes to realize divinity within him” (364). Just as a person who eats too much food will not properly digest all of it, a human who tries to acquire knowledge meant for a higher sphere within the divine order will find they cannot properly absorb that knowledge and will gain no real wisdom. In crafting this metaphor, “[Raphael] cautions Adam against directing his desire for knowledge outward rather than in upon his own nature” (Ulreich 364). He highlights that wisdom comes to those who seek to understand themselves while respecting the divine order and trusting God’s judgment.

Michael’s description of the “Paradise within” (12.586) draws upon Raphael’s explanation of proper knowledge. In response to Adam’s reflection that he now understands the role of God in his life and the importance of faithfulness, Michael says, “This having learnt, thou hast attained the summe / Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the Starrs / Thou knewst by name” (12.575-577). Michael approves of Adam’s newly acquired knowledge about being faithful and trusting God, but cautions that this is where he should stop. Accordingly, if Adam pushes further and tries to master knowledge of the stars, he will have reached too far. Michael’s statement echoes Raphael’s earlier metaphor, situating it within the context of an inner paradise and providing some insight into the poem’s message about where godly justice operates. He explains that in trusting God to define their place within the divine order and respecting His authority by staying within that sphere, humans can reach the highest level of genuine wisdom available to them. Conversely, those who mistrust God’s judgment and aim too high will never be wise. These reflections from the angels thus communicate the presence of godly justice in the reward of genuine wisdom for those who respect and trust God.

Michael further explains that being virtuous is an essential component of achieving this “Paradise within” (12.587), an idea expanded upon by Eve’s reflections about love and hope in her final speech. Eve tells Adam, “In mee is no delay; with thee to goe, / Is to stay here; without thee here to stay, / Is to go

hence unwilling” (12.615-617). Her declaration points to “the centrality of inner disposition over outer circumstance,” as Joshua R. Held argues in “Eve’s ‘paradise within’ in Paradise Lost” (174). In making the claim that being with Adam is more significant than being in an ideal location, Eve demonstrates she has learned to ground her happiness in her relationship itself rather than in the place the couple inhabits. For Eve, because she and Adam have a “mutual investment in one another’s success and very existence” (Held 185), they are well-equipped to face anything the world has to offer them. In truly loving another person, Eve finds assuredness in herself and her capabilities. Thus, she does not need to live in an external paradise because the inner paradise built by the love she and Adam have for each other is more powerful than any troubles they might encounter.

Eve’s state of inner paradise is defined by more than just her relationship with Adam. When she concludes her speech with the reflection that, “by mee the Promis’d Seed shall all restore” (12.623), she highlights another essential relationship based on love for God and hope for salvation. For her, it is the knowledge that one of her descendants will give birth to Jesus, humankind’s saviour, that fully convinces her that she is prepared to live in an externally imperfect world. By grounding herself in a sense of purpose as the carrier of the “Promis’d Seed” (12.623), Eve demonstrates that a strong commitment to God and virtue leads to a sense of mental peace inspiring confidence and fortitude.

Some might find the idea of an inner paradise suspicious due to the parallels between Michael’s speech and an earlier declaration made by Satan. Satan believes his mind can transform any space into what he wants it to be, which is made evident when he boldly asserts that “the mind is its own place, and in it self / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n” (1.254-255). The parallel between this and Michael’s idea of inner paradise is clear. Both Satan and Michael are talking about an internal experience that transcends the specificity of a particular physical location. For some critics, this parallel means we should discount Michael’s version of the internal paradise just as we are meant to discount Satan’s. For instance, in “A ‘Paradise Within’ Can Never Be ‘Happier Farr,’” Beverley Sherry highlights another spot in the text where Satan seems to think similarly to Michael. She reminds her readers “this is the hopelessly self-obsessed Satan speaking, so […] we should be prepared for a skewed perspective” (82), using the parallel to further an argument that the idea of an internal paradise is similarly faulty.

However, there is an important factor differentiating Satan’s and Michael’s versions of this idea. Satan believes his mind has complete control over his experience because he is prideful. His assertion is based on the incorrect belief that he is so powerful he can control his experience entirely on his own and does not need God. Conversely, the factors contributing to an internal paradise, as explained by Raphael, Michael, and Eve, are dependent upon God in every way. It is precisely through their belief in and respect for God that humans can gain the wisdom, love, and hope leading them to an internal paradise. The characters who speak of an internal paradise created through God are thus “putting to good use several principles that Satan had misused for his selfish gratification” (Held 195). The fact that Satan’s theory excludes God while Michael’s theory includes Him significantly differentiates their arguments. Therefore, the initial parallel between the two ideas should not discredit Michael’s speech.

The poem’s discussion of free will solidifies its positive presentation of this inner paradise. When Michael introduces the idea of the “Paradise within,” he adds the important qualifier that this paradise will be “happier farr” (12.586-587) than the external paradise of Eden. Though Michael himself does not expand on why an inner paradise is preferable, the earlier reflections of God in Book 3 illuminate a potential interpretation. Thinking about why free will is important, God rhetorically asks, “Not free, what proof could [humankind] have given sincere / Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love […]?” (3.103-104). For God, what is meaningful about the love humankind has for Him is that it is voluntary. If humans were forced to obey Him, their obedience would effectively mean nothing. In the context of Michael’s comment, this idea is taken a step further. Upon leaving Eden, Adam and Eve will face a world that is not externally perfect, where they will be confronted with sin and temptation around every corner. In an imperfect world, the choice to

be good people and trust in God seems to be more authentic because their commitment to this faith will be frequently tested and continuously affirmed in a meaningful way. Thus, God’s reflections on free will solidify the poem’s argument that it is more important to focus on the presence of God’s justice in the creation and reaffirmation of an internal paradise rather than in the external state of the world.

Paradise Lost encourages readers to look introspectively and consider the ways of God on a subtle, internal level. The poem demonstrates those who love and respect God gain a kind of paradise within themselves, making them wise, grounded, and ultimately resilient. Although bad things may occasionally happen to good people, Milton argues the resilience created by their inner paradise makes them well-equipped to handle these troubles, and their connections to God are strengthened each time they choose to reaffirm their faith in the face of challenge. In taking this introspective focus redirecting our attention from events that happen in the world to people’s ability to respond to them, Paradise Lost convincingly justifies the ways of God to men.

Works Cited

Held, Joshua R. “Eve’s ‘paradise within’ in Paradise Lost: A Stoic Mind, a Love Sonnet, and a Good Conscience.” Studies in Philology, vol. 114, no. 1, pp. 171-196.

Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” The John Milton Reading Room, https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/pl/intro/text.shtml.

Sherry, Beverly. “A ‘Paradise Within’ Can Never Be ‘Happier Farr’: Reconsidering the Archangel Michael’s Consolation in ‘Paradise Lost.’” Milton Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 2, 2003, pp. 77-91.

Ulreich, John C., Jr. “A Paradise Within: The Fortunate Fall in Paradise Lost.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 32, no. 3, 1971, pp. 351-366.

“THE ROCK IS HIS THING”: THE ABSURD AND PRIMO LEVI’S IF THIS IS A MAN

By Jaya J. Sinha

“Is it really necessary to elaborate a system and put it into practice? Or would it not be better to acknowledge one’s lack of a system?” (Levi, 47). In his memoir If This is a Man, Primo Levi details his experience in Auschwitz during the Second World War while meditating on the existentialist questions bound to arise in a place of such intense human suffering. These questions echo those asked by Albert Camus in his philosophical essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. In his article, The Fellowship of Men that Die: The Legacy of Albert Camus, Daniel Stern writes, “Camus’ experience as a member of the French underground in World War II played an important part in the formulation of his thought: the essential notion of the absurd” (184). Camus’ past bolsters the already strong connection between his philosophy and the suffering undergone by those who lived through the Second World War, such as Primo Levi. The Myth of Sisyphus and If This is a Man both assert that the role of routine in the absurd world depends on whether or not it is self-imposed. This can be explored through the view of Auschwitz as a microcosm of the absurd world, the role of imposed routine in Auschwitz, and the contrasting coping strategies of the musselmans and Steinlauf.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus describes the absurd as “the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart” (21). This confrontation can be seen repeatedly in If This is a Man, in which Auschwitz serves as a precursor of Camus’ absurd world. Levi frequently describes “the absurd law of the Lager” (103), made up of the same arbitrary rules and meaningless suffering Camus attributes to the absurd world. Throughout If This is a Man, prisoners ask questions about their fate and purpose, only to receive dismissive, uninterpretable answers (if they receive any answers at all). Auschwitz’s absurdity is encapsulated by the following quote: “‘Warum?’ [Levi] asked him in my poor German. ‘Hier ist kein warum’ (there is no why here), [the camp guard] replied” (35). Levi’s longing for answers and the German guard’s refusal to provide them casts them in the roles of the conflicting forces that create Camus’ absurd: Levi as a man searching for answers, and the guard as the indifferent universe. The power dynamic between indifferent guards and desperate prisoners creates a dynamic mirroring Camus’ absurd. On page 22, Levi marvels at the guards’ seemingly unmotivated callousness, asking, “how can one hit a man without anger?” This further exemplifies the traits of Camus’ absurd world, in which meaningless suffering creates a “primitive hostility” (Camus 14) that the absurd man must suffer through. The guards’ unexplained violence is just one manifestation of absurdity at work in Auschwitz, forcing each prisoner to cope with life’s lack of meaning in his own way. The power dynamic and culture of Auschwitz create an atmosphere of horror and suffering without logic, mirroring Camus’ illogical absurd world from The Myth of Sisyphus.

The prisoners in Auschwitz were subject to a myriad of meaningless imposed routines. Levi recalls, “the rites to be carried out were infinite and senseless” (40). Life in Auschwitz was composed of following orders thoughtlessly, abandoning free will and desire in favour of obedience for the sake of survival. The camp is described as, “a great machine to reduce [the prisoners] to beasts” (Levi 47). In Auschwitz, the Nazis used imposed routine to foster a culture of obedience, encouraging the abandonment of prisoners’ free will, and by extension, their humanity. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes, “there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labour” (119). This is the exact punishment the prisoners in Auschwitz are subject to, working through what Primo Levi calls, “a Gordian knot of laws, taboos and problems” (41). By forcing the prisoners to adopt a meaningless routine, similar to Sisyphus who was forced to repeatedly roll his boulder up a hill, the Nazis stripped Auschwitz’s prisoners of meaning in their lives, thrusting them into a version of the absurd world where suffering is heightened and logic is all but eliminated. The prisoners’ lives were Sisyphean, fraught with pointless tasks and intense physical labour without any reward. “Every day, according to the established rhythm,” Levi recounts, “[g]o out and come in; work, sleep and eat; fall ill, get better or die” (42). Routine is strategically used by the Nazis to wear the prisoners down, to render

their lives cyclical and pointless, much like life in the absurd world. In many respects, the Nazis succeeded in their strategy. Levi describes prisoners as “marching like automatons” (57), using simile and chremamorphism to emphasize the lack of free will and humanity remaining in the prisoners. They march without purpose, trapped by the routine they are forced to follow and the lack of meaning in their labour. Imposed routine, such as the work within the Lager or Sisyphus’ fruitless task of pushing a boulder up a hill, was a tool used by Auschwitz and the absurd world at large to push man towards philosophical suicide, stripping men of their free will and condemning them to despair. These conditions force the men in the camp to adapt to their conditions, which they attempt to do with varying degrees of success.

When describing the ‘musselmans’ (prisoners in Auschwitz who lost their free will and were overcome by apathy), Levi writes, “they do not begin to learn German, to disentangle the infernal knot of laws and prohibitions until their body is already in decay, and nothing can save them” (96). They were consumed by the hopeless nature of life in the camp, relinquishing any hope of finding purpose in their own lives. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes, “the absurd dies only when we turn away from it” (54). Levi depicts the musselmans as those who have rejected the absurd, no longer engaging in the conflict between man’s curiosity and the unreasonable universe. This lack of curiosity, even in the face of inevitable dissatisfaction, is an example of what Camus calls ‘philosophical suicide’: these prisoners are conquered by the absurd world created within the Lager, lacking the characteristic curiosity and rebellion of the absurd man. Levi believes that the musselmans’ fate encapsulates the horrors of the camp, writing the following: “If I could enclose all the evil of our time in one image, I would choose this image which is familiar to me: an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of a thought is to be seen” (96). The musselmans were understandably consumed by the absurd world that Auschwitz created. Camus writes, “when the images of Earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory” (122). This description matches that of the musselmans: their refusal to accept the atrocities they were forced to undergo and create their own meaning within their circumstances was their downfall. The ‘rock,’ or the labour imposed upon the musselmans in Auschwitz, triumphed over them, the routine destroying them from the inside as well as the outside. Levi supports this idea, recounting, “with the musselmans, the men in decay, it is not even worth speaking, because one knows already that they will complain and will speak about what they used to eat at home,” further writing, “in a few weeks nothing will remain of [the musselmans] but a handful of ashes in some near-by field and a crossed-out number on a register” (Levi 95). The musselmans’ downfall was their inability to embrace the absurd as Camus suggests. They ruminated on memories of the past and completed tasks of the present without thought or resistance, leading to a breakdown of the absurd and ultimately their philosophical suicide. The musselmans’ inability to accept the futility of life in the Lager or find meaning in life for themselves (or their rejection of the absurd) is what ultimately leads to their demise.

For the absurd man, the indifferent universe also allows routine to function as a tool for survival. In Auschwitz, where the terms of one’s existence were controlled by strict and uncaring powers, establishing personal routines could be considered an act of rebellion. According to Camus, “the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill man’s heart” (123). Sisyphus’ futile labour, formerly described as a “dreadful punishment” (Camus 119), can also be capable of bringing personal fulfillment, depending on agency. In If This is a Man, Levi writes, “meaning is enclosed even in the smallest of our daily habits” (33). Routine and habit, if self-imposed, have the power to bring happiness and some semblance of meaning to human life. Steinlauf, a man Levi befriends in the concentration camp, exemplifies how routine can function as both a source of purpose and an act of rebellion. Steinlauf routinely washes himself, even though the camp is so unsanitary that the action is ultimately pointless. “Does not Steinlauf know,” Levi muses, “that after half an hour with the coal sacks every difference between him and me will have disappeared?” (46). Despite this, Steinlauf continues to wash, creating a routine for himself outside of the strict rules of the camp. When Levi asks him why he repeats such a meaningless task, Steinlauf replies, “to survive, we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization” (47). Though treated as subhuman by the

guards in the camp, Steinlauf continues to self-impose a routine that renders him human in his own eyes. Steinlauf is Camus’ Sisyphus, taking ownership of the boulder he must push, though push it he must. Camus writes, “this universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world” (123). In order to live within the absurd, one must take ownership of life and find meaning within its meaninglessness. Steinlauf does this by establishing his own hygienic routine despite its futility, creating a world for himself within his ‘rock’ rather than yielding to it as the musselmans do. Though Steinlauf will never be truly clean in Auschwitz, his discipline separates him from the musselmans within the camp: through routine, he reminds himself that he is human. This is not only a device for maintaining his personal sanity, but an act of rebellion against the Nazi regime. In his essay The Rebel, Camus writes, “in every act of rebellion, the man concerned experiences not only a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights, but also a complete and spontaneous loyalty to certain aspects of himself” (19). Steinlauf expresses the aforementioned loyalty by maintaining his hygiene, holding on to pride in his appearance and thus the value of his body. He says to Levi, “we are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last - the power to refuse our consent” (Levi 47). Through this statement, Steinlauf expresses two key traits that are necessary for a man to live within the absurd: acceptance and rebellion. Unlike the musselmans, he knows life in Auschwitz is futile, and there is no point in the repetitive and draining labour they are forced to perform at the camp. However, he takes power into his own hands by washing himself, refusing to view himself as subhuman, as Auschwitz would have him do. As the absurd man, Steinlauf knows that establishing a routine is “necessary as an instrument of moral survival” (Levi 46). His understanding of the absurd allows him to function in it.

Albert Camus is quoted as saying, “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Primo Levi’s If This is a Man describes life in the Auschwitz concentration camp, the epitome of an unfree world. It is also a microcosm of the absurd world described in Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, the Nazis creating an indifferent universe in which prisoners had to live gruelling, cyclical, demoralizing lives. In both Auschwitz and the larger absurd world, routine holds a key role that, depending on one’s agency, can either be the salvation or the downfall of man. The Myth of Sisyphus and If This is a Man explore the negative impact of forced routine and the positive impact of self-imposed routine. This exploration can be examined through the allegory of Auschwitz as the absurd world, the role of routine inside Auschwitz, the musselmans’ inability to cope with the absurd, and Steinlauf’s routine as a mechanism for salvation and rebellion. In their respective texts, Camus and Levi explore the human condition and the extraordinary ability of individuals to cope with horrifying circumstances.

Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, Penguin Random House LLC, New York, 1955 Camus, Albert. The Rebel. Penguin Random House LLC, New York, 2013.

Levi, Primo, and S. J. Woolf. If This Is a Man, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oświęcim, 2017. Stern, Daniel. “The Fellowship of Men That Die: The Legacy of Albert Camus.” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, vol. 10, no. 2, 1998, pp. 183-198, https://doi.org/10.2307/743426.

“THIS IS MY OWN”: EXAMINING POSSESSION IN JOY KOGAWA’S OBASAN

By Samantha Ellis

In the late 1890s, when Japanese immigrants began arriving on the British Columbia coast in search of fruitful employment in fishing industries, racialized antagonism toward Japanese Canadians became a fixed occurrence in Canadian quotidian life. From fears the growing Japanese population would steal white jobs to leagues intent on curtailing Asian immigration and access to fishing licenses (Blomley and Stanger-Ross 717), Japanese Canadians experienced constant animosity toward their presence in BC. After the bombing of Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the government issued a series of orders-in-council: “all persons of Japanese origin” (Adachi 216) would be forcibly removed from their homes on the BC coast and sent to internment camps, ghost towns, or farms. This “drastic curtailment of civil liberties” (Adachi 220) was legally justified on the basis of ensuring national security under the War Measures Act, despite the fact that “no Japanese had been found guilty of any crime against the state” (Adachi 279). The Canadian government impounded fishing boats and seized property, but promised its protection until the war was over. However, the government reversed their promise, and Japanese Canadians’ possessions and property were confiscated and sold without consent. Following the end of internment, Japanese Canadians were familiar with loss, but this did not negate the trauma and pain they felt as a result of their own government destroying their communities. Joy Kogawa’s novel Obasan (1981) explores the lives of three Japanese Canadian women, Naomi Nakane, a third-generation Sansei, along with her aunts Emily and Obasan, as they all contend with their wartime trauma. Within the context of Japanese Canadian dispossession before, during, and after World War Two, Obasan becomes a text about identity formation in the face of a forced removal of personhood. Each woman grounds their identity in the historical context of dispossession and loss, but it is material, bodily, and spiritual possession that forms the possibility of recovery. Aunt Emily, Obasan, and Naomi embody possession in order to cope with their trauma and reclaim their lost personhood.

Having been subject to the unjust revocation of her status as human during World War Two, Aunt Emily defines her identity through her drive to repossess a space in Canadian society. Historians Blomley and Stanger-Ross investigate 292 letters written to the Canadian government by Japanese Canadians during World War Two. These letters, “articulating the value of their lands and belongings and the harms of the policies that dispossessed them” (Blomley and Stanger-Ross 712), convey Japanese Canadians’ anger, desperation, and sense of disillusionment with the Canadian government. Many Japanese Canadians felt that being confiscated of their possessions was akin to losing their humanity. The feeling of belonging in Canada was strengthened for those who had businesses, properties, and occupations on the BC coast; to own a home or a fishing boat was to be a part of Canadian society, despite facing a high degree of racialized animosity. Thus, when they lost their property, Japanese Canadians felt betrayed by the government who had promised to safeguard their possessions in wartime, and who had granted them citizenship, which symbolized the right to personhood. As Blomley and Stanger-Ross note, property “loss, in some senses above and beyond their uprooting and internment, threatened a permanent rupture in their sense of belonging and their faith in the state” (714). Aunt Emily also perceives the government’s betrayal as a blow to her sense of personhood. She insists, “This is my own, my native land” (Kogawa 36). The italicization of “own” solidifies the significance of possession in how Aunt Emily constructs her identity. Adamant in enforcing her ‘Canadianness’ by stating variations of “I am Canadian” (37) throughout the novel, she enforces her right to possess and to “own” (36) a stake in the land where she was born. Similarly, when she repeats the statement “[t]his is my own, my native land” (36), she emphasizes “native” to reassert that Canada is her birthplace, and as such she has an inherent right to hold Canadian status. Thus, when government legislation initiates the forced uprooting of Japanese Canadians, Aunt Emily amends her previous assertion to ask the question: “Is this my own, my native land?” (36). The implication that she has no place and should not possess property in Canada challenges Aunt Emily’s identity, at the heart of which is her emphasis on the right to “own” (36) stake in her country.

Similarly, Aunt Emily’s activism against injustice represents a repossession of her right to personhood. In order to contend with her sense of loss, she resolves to centralize her existence around advocating for Japanese-Canadian rights. She begins “crusading” (28) around the country to attend conferences on Japanese-Canadian rights. On official Canadian documents from the time of dispossession, “[w]herever the words ‘Japanese race’ appeared, Aunt Emily had crossed them out and written ‘Canadian citizen’” (30). For Aunt Emily, complacency is condemnable. She encourages Naomi to be angry and active in the wake of Japanese Canadian dispossession: “You are your history. If you cut any of it off you’re an amputee” (45). Naomi imagines B. Good’s response to Aunt Emily’s letter about Grandma Kato’s confiscated property: “Be good, my undesirable, my illegitimate children [. . ..] while I stand on guard (over your property) in the true north strong, though you are not free. B. Good” (34). Aunt Emily, however, resists any discourse that silences her and orders her to “B. Good” (34). In her mind, to be silent is to allow loss to fester and proliferate; if she does not speak out against loss, she will never be able to repossess her right to personhood as a Canadian. She wants to “own” (36) her history and her right to take up space in the country, for if she does not “[w]rite the vision and make it plain” (28), she will never be able to take possession of her ‘Canadianness’. She will forever be a subject to the traitorous government that stole her livelihood.

In contrast to Aunt Emily, Obasan does not voice her anger and betrayal, but instead contends with her grief and loss through the ownership of material possessions. Naomi states that “Obasan never discards anything” (Kogawa 39). In 1942, “Japanese Canadians were to be dispossessed of all of their property without their consent” (Archibald and Stanger-Ross 41), and most would not discover these forced sales until “everything they owned had been sold, usually for prices far below those for which the owners would willingly have parted with their possessions” (Archibald and Stanger-Ross 41). Because there was no input nor agency for Japanese Canadians in the sales of their property, by the time her possessions were sold, Obasan would have owned almost nothing save for what she could carry with her to Slocan. Therefore, that she “never discards anything” (Kogawa 39) represents Obasan’s method of coping with loss, evident in the cluttered state of her home:

The house is indeed old, as she is also old. Every home-made piece of furniture, each pot holder and paper doily is a link in her lifeline. She has preserved in shelves, in covers, under beds—a box of marbles, half-filled colouring books, a red, white, and blue rubber ball. The items are endless. Every short stub pencil, every cornflakes box stuffed with paper bags and old letters is of her ordering. They rest in the corners like parts of her body, hair cells, skin tissues, tiny specks of memory. The house is now her blood and bones. (Kogawa 15)

Material possession informs Obasan’s resistance; she reclaims her personhood by displaying her right to own property and belongings. Every piece of the home is “a link in her lifeline” (15). Her past is evident in the home and its objects: both she and the house are “old” (15) and thereby represent a history of accumulation in the wake of postwar destitution. Obasan has “preserved” (15) her own past within the home and furnished it to “her ordering” (15). Because she finally has the right to possess property, she decorates her home excessively and exercises agency in the way she organizes her belongings. Naomi also notices that “[b]oxes of Japanese-language newspapers are tucked away under TV trays and in corners” (199); Japanese-language newspapers were abruptly shut down after Pearl Harbour. But in the present day, Obasan scatters them throughout her home, which represents both pride in her heritage and a resistance to the removal of Japanese-Canadian voices. In effect, the home becomes an extension of her own body. This way, she can regain ownership of her body, which had been racialized and ejected from her home during World War Two, and therefore “[e]verything is protected” (199). Though “[t]here is barely room to stand” (199), Obasan is able to recover a sense of personhood by turning her home into a symbol of repossession.

Naomi struggles to reclaim her identity due to the traumatic dispossession of her childhood body, which prevents her from returning to her past. Like Aunt Emily and Obasan, Naomi’s personhood is destabilized during World War Two: she is forced out of her home on the BC coast, her family is separated, and her mother disappears without warning. As a child, Naomi formulates her identity in relation to others, evi-

dent in her connection to her mother. She compares her mother to “a tree trunk of which I am an offshoot—a young branch attached by right of flesh and blood” (Kogawa 58), and insists that “[w]here she is rooted, I am rooted” (58). Therefore, to witness the fragmentation of her own family during the war ultimately fractures Naomi as well. Even though her loved ones are supposedly connected by an “impenetrable mesh” (19), the war destroys their tightly “knit” (19) community and forcibly uproots the tree that intertwines Naomi and her mother. Having lost her family, Naomi has lost an integral part of herself, and therefore has been dispossessed of her own identity.

Naomi is also plagued by the traumatic memories of sexual abuse, which further symbolizes the dispossession of her own body. When she endures Gower’s abuse, Naomi feels she is no longer “a young branch attached by right of flesh and blood” (Kogawa 58) to her mother, but “other—a parasite on her body, no longer of her mind” (58); being subject to Gower’s abuse severs her from her mother because he has taken ownership of her body instead. As Naomi states during the sexual encounter, “[i]n the centre of my body is a rift [. . . .] My mother is on one side of the rift. I am on the other. We cannot reach each other. My legs are being sawn in half” (58). Gower’s abuse and the secret Naomi possesses create a “rift” (58) between herself and her mother. While Aunt Emily insists that to forget one’s history is to become an “amputee” (45), Naomi’s “legs are being sawn in half” (58) as the trauma of her memory becomes something she desires to “cut [. . .] off” (45). Scholar Marlene Goldman explains that Naomi feels responsible for the disappearance of her mother: she “imagines that because she withheld a secret from her mother (the experience of sexual abuse by her neighbor, Old Man Gower), she drove her mother away” (Goldman 367). As a young Naomi confirms, “the secret has already separated us” (Kogawa 58). Thus, Goldman suggests that Naomi is consumed by self-hatred. The “ghost of the mother” (Goldman 368) haunts Naomi throughout the novel as a manifestation of her guilt, which possesses her in the form of her missing mother. Though Aunt Emily wants her to join the fight for Japanese Canadian rights, Naomi hesitates because she is afraid to delve into her past: “Some memories, too, might better be forgotten [. . . .] If it is not seen, it does not horrify. What is past recall is past pain” (Kogawa 41). Though Aunt Emily implores Naomi to “remember everything” (45) and not to “deny the past” (45), Naomi protects herself from her own memory because, for her, reclaiming her history of loss is too painful a process.

Though dispossession is a traumatic part of Naomi’s history, her revisitation of the past allows her to repossess her childhood self, which gives her the power to restore her wholeness in the present. According to scholar Rufus Cook, Naomi is trapped in a state of “unfulfilled spiritual and emotional longing” (56) as she yearns to know what happened to her mother. Cook argues that Naomi’s repression of the memory of her sexual abuse leads to a fragmented sense of self and thereby a “longing” (56) to become whole. Naomi herself recognizes she cannot reach this wholeness because she feels “trapped” (23) by her “memories of the dead—all our dead—those who refuse to bury themselves” (23). Then, to “bury” (23) her missing mother requires Naomi to discover what truly happened to her and, in doing so, release herself from the guilt and trauma she feels. Naomi enforces her desire to free herself from her mother’s possession: “All this questioning, this clawing at her grave, is an unseemly thing. Let the inquisition rest tonight. In the week of Uncle’s departure, let there be peace” (205). To reconnect with her mother and absolve herself of the guilt she feels from possessing the secret of her abuse, Naomi must reevaluate her past. In doing so, “Naomi should find herself reunited again” (Cook 57) with her mother, ending her painful search. While Naomi tries to ignore the past because it is painful to remember, she is simultaneously driven by a desire to attain spiritual unity: a desire that requires her to delve back into the pain of her lost childhood and mend the “rift” (Kogawa 58) separating her from repossessing her bodily and mental wholeness. With the possession of knowledge about her mother’s death, Naomi comes to terms with her loss and realizes “[t]he song of mourning is not a lifelong song” (221). Though the tree connecting them “is a dead tree” (218), Naomi is no longer possessed by the debilitating presence of her missing mother, and she can at last embody herself alone, no longer reliant on others to form her identity.

Aunt Emily, Obasan, and Naomi develop identities that centralize the loss which accompanies the dispossession of their personhood. While they suffer from this loss, they ultimately choose to reclaim their personhood by embodying different modes of possession: Aunt Emily voices her rights to own stake in her country, Obasan fills her home with material possessions in silent defiance of dispossession, and Naomi takes possession of her past self to attain mental and bodily wholeness in the wake of losing her mother and her innocence. While the pain remains of what they have lost, “the earth still stirs with dormant blooms” (Kogawa 219) as they finally reclaim the personhood they had lost thirty years ago.

Works Cited

Adachi, Ken. The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians. McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1977.

Archibald, Will, and Jordan Stanger-Ross. “‘My Land Is Worth a Million Dollars’: How Japanese Canadians Contested Their Dispossession in the 1940s.” Law and History Review, vol. 35, no. 3, 2017, pp. 711–751, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26564539.

Blomley, Nicholas, and Jordan Stanger-Ross. “The Unfaithful Custodian: Glenn McPherson and the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 37, no. 4, 2018, pp. 40–72, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.4.0040.

Cook, Rufus. “‘The Penelope Work of Forgetting’: Dreams, Memory, and the Recovery of Wholeness in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan.” College Literature, vol. 34, no. 3, 2007, pp. 54–69, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115439.

Goldman, Marlene. “A Dangerous Circuit: Loss and the Boundaries of Racialized Subjectivity in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan and Kerri Sakamoto’s The Electrical Field.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 48, no. 2, 2002, pp. 362–88, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26286134.

Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Penguin, 2017.

THE ILLUSION OF SEPARATION: ETHICAL DILEMMAS AND ATYPICAL STORY STRUCTURE IN BINET’S HHhH AND ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

By Gray Brogden

HHhH by Laurent Binet and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie seem far apart in content and context; however, both novels parallel their author’s struggle with narrative ethics. In HHhH, Binet’s struggle to present an accurate depiction of past events results in a meta-fictional dual narrative between the historical tale of a World War II assassination and of Binet’s journey of discovering, researching, and writing the novel. In Americanah, Adichie breaks conventional narrative form by inserting blog posts into her narrative. These blogs offer “a place where social realities of race can be discussed without the trappings of character and action” (Guarracino 2). In both novels, the authors grapple with a narrative ethical dilemma and how they cope with it affects how each novel is structured. In each case, there is an implied separation between narrative and commentary. However, the commentary is invariably enmeshed with story and character. Binet cannot separate himself from history, as his story becomes increasingly intertwined with that of his historical characters, while Adichie cannot separate the blog posts from the character who wrote them.

NARRATIVE ETHICS

Narrative ethics refers to “the intersections between the domain of stories and storytelling and that of moral values” (Phelan 1) and can affect an author’s writing in different ways. Phelan states that narrative ethics can be “usefully understood as focused on one or more of four issues: (1) the ethics of the told; (2) the ethics of the telling; (3) the ethics of writing/producing; and (4) the ethics of reading/reception” (2.1). For this essay, the two areas of concern lie with numbers two and three. ‘The ethics of the telling’ concern the ethical responsibilities of storytellers to their audience and the use and significance of narrative techniques. ‘The ethics of writing/producing’ focus on “text-external matters involving actual authors” (Phelan 2.1) and may examine such questions as what responsibilities does an author have to other people whose experiences they narrate.

HHhH: THE ETHICS OF WRITING AND METAFICTION

In the novel HHhH, Binet struggles with the ethics of writing/producing as he seeks to do justice to real historical figures for whom he holds great reverence. From the first line of the story, Binet assures his reader that “Gabčík…really did [exist]” (Binet 3) emphasizing the truth behind his words. He does not want or intend for this to be a work of pure fiction; he wants to “pay tribute” (Binet 3) to this man Gabčík. However, when committing to paper the words of a true story, especially in literary form, some details inevitably become muddied. Of this, Binet is all too aware. He struggles with how to tell this story without “reducing this man to the vulgar ranks of character and his actions to literature” (Binet 4). His ethical dilemma is one of just portrayal, of how to tell the story of two extraordinary men, two heroes, in literary form without somehow belittling their acts. For Binet, the answer is to call attention to the dilemma itself.

Metafiction is defined as “fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions (esp. naturalism) and narrative techniques; a fictional work in this genre or style” (“metafiction, n.”). Following this definition, it is only fair to define HHhH as metafiction. Binet continuously draws attention to his writing process as well as the pitfalls of literary fiction. On more than one occasion, Binet writes, then rewrites a scene or piece of dialogue to call attention to the pitfalls of historical accuracy in literature. One such example is in chapters 101-102, in which Binet tells the same scene twice, once with dialogue as recorded by an eyewitness, and once with dialogue invented by Binet. He does this to emphasize the responsibility he feels towards the accuracy of his

story. Binet envisions a particular scene involving Heydrich to take place with colourful dialogue. However, the actual meeting in question had more subdued word choice, according to one of the people present. While Binet believes Heydrich’s character would have been more colourful, he nevertheless believes that “between Naujock’s version, however corrupted, and mine, it is undoubtedly better to choose that of Naujock’s” (119) as it is the version most historically accurate. While Binet may have chosen the more accurate and less fun choice of dialogue for chapters 101-102, that does not mean he is immune to “cheap literary effects” (254), as exemplified by his dramatic pause after Gabčík’s weapon jams. It is still a novel, meant to entertain, and as best as Binet tries to escape this concept, he is unable.

While Binet spends a good deal of time discussing his writing choices, he also recounts his own adventure in the discovery and subsequent recording of the assassination. Binet moves in and out of Gabčík, Kubiš, and Heydrich’s story to intersperse the text with his own journey. “His insistence on putting himself as both narrator and author front and center in his text” (Bracher 7) shapes the text into a sort of dual narrative between that of historical events and that of Binet’s life. However, as the story progresses, the distinction between these two literary threads becomes less and less precise as the character of Binet starts to fade into the landscape of history. Binet even goes “so far as to insert himself into the harrowing, suspense-filled action during the most dramatic moments of Heydrich’s assassination” (Bracher 9). By placing himself into the historical narrative as a sort of meta-protagonist, Binet, and his readers by extension, can experience the history as if they were taking part, not simply observing through a window 60 years after the fact.

Despite his best efforts, Binet cannot at all times stick to objective truth. Sometimes this is due to lack of knowledge, but mainly it is because he lets himself become entwined with the story. The space for literary commentary on the act of writing, authorship, and historical storytelling blurs together as Binet sees himself standing with Gabčík and Kubiš on a steamboat on the final page of the story. This final scene embodies Binet’s inability to remain completely objective. It reveals how emotionally connected he is to the story he is telling, making the separation between history and fiction, past and present, author and character, nearly indistinguishable.

AMERICANAH: WRITING ABOUT RACE IN LITERATURE

In Americanah, Adichie faces the dilemma of how to discuss race in literary fiction. How to discuss race in literature is a question that is not only relevant today in society but is also discussed within the text of Americanah. Blaine’s sister, Shan, is quick to bring it up during a discussion on her book. After being told that her book must “transcend race” (Adichie 415) or hide it under layers of “nuance” (415), Shan claims “[y] ou can’t write an honest novel on race in this country” (416). Novels about race must be clever and subtle, but never completely honest. For Adichie, this becomes a question on the ethics of telling: how to tell a story about race? Being well aware of the limitations of literature when it comes to race, Adichie chooses instead to bypass subtlety completely and make her main character, Ifemelu, a blogger. “Blog writing features in the novel…as a place where social realities of race can be discussed without the trappings of character and action” (Guarracino 2). In her blog posts “the anonymity and the non-fictive nature…allows Ifemelu to have a sharper say on issues” (Ndaka 115), allowing Adichie by extension to talk about race bluntly in Americanah.

It is impossible to say that the blog posts do not affect the rest of the story or that they exist as a confined bubble for social commentary within the larger text. Instead, “as the novel progresses its social commentary moves back and forth, from the blog to the novel and vice versa” (Guarracino 2). The blog posts are written by Ifemelu, not just Adichie, meaning that they affect her character. Ifemelu’s character is affected deeply by her career as a blogger: it helps her out of a bad place, allows her to build a life in America, and find her voice. When Ifemelu returns home to Nigeria, blogging is once again how she seeks to define her life. The blog posts are a by-product of Ifemelu’s experiences in the story, and therefore cannot be completely separated from her narrative.

Because the blog posts are not fully removed from the story, as they are a product of the main character, the line distinguishing them from the narrative inevitably begins to blur. One example of this is when Ifemelu begins her career as a public speaker. After her first seminar, she realizes that what people want to hear is not the same as what she writes in her blog. In the real world, no one truly wants to have an honest conversation about race. Instead, they just want to “feel good about themselves” (377) for trying.

While the blog posts contain mostly — if not all — social commentary, they are far from the only place commentary is offered throughout the novel. Adichie folds commentary on the nature of race into every aspect of her story. While at certain times the commentary is not quite veiled by subtlety — for instance, when Ifemelu drags her white boyfriend, Curt, to a bookstore to show him the lack of black representation in magazines — it is, nonetheless, caught in the trappings of fiction. Any commentary offered outside of the blog space must complement, interact with, or affect the plot or characters.

While the blog posts create a more direct space to offer commentary, they are not completely detached. Furthermore, social commentary is not exclusive to these posts, as the social critique weaves in and out of both story and blog posts, affecting and being affected by characters and plot.

CONCLUSION

Both HHhH and Americanah face a narrative ethical dilemma, and both choose to confront their dilemma by creating an atypical story structure. Binet chooses the route of metafiction, creating a dual narrative between him and the historical tale he’s telling. Adichie creates a secondary space within her novel (the blogs) where race can be discussed freely without the confinements of character or plot. However, in both books, the separation between their two threads is limited at best: Binet ends up as a character in his novel, superimposing himself into the historical narrative, while Adichie cannot fully separate the blog posts from the rest of her novel.

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. Vintage Canada, 2014. Binet, Laurent. HHhH. Translated by Sam Taylor, Picador, 2013. Bracher, Nathan. “Timely Representations: Writing the Past in the First-Person Present Imperfect.” History and Memory, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, pp. 3–35. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/histmemo.28.1.3.

Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

Guarracino, Serena. “Writing «so raw and true»: Blogging in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah.” Between, vol. 4, no. 8, 2014, doi:10.13125/2039-6597/1320.

“metafiction, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/239935.

Accessed 7 December 2020.

Ndaka, Felix Mutunga. “RUPTURING THE GENRE: UN-WRITING SILENCE IN CHIMAMANDA

NGOZI ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH.” Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s & Gender Studies, vol. 18, pp. 101-123, 2017.

Phelan, James. “Narrative Ethics.” The living handbook of narratology, 9 Dec. 2014, https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/108.html

MURDER IS MARRIAGE, MARRIAGE IS MURDER: MALE REVERSAL ANXIETY IN THOMAS MIDDLETON’S “THE CHANGELING”

By Claudia Kindrachuk

In Act II, scene 2 of Thomas Middleton’s “The Changeling”, Beatrice-Joanna, about to enlist her servant Deflores to murder her fiancé, warns him, “You are too violent to mean faithfully; / There’s horror in my service, blood and danger” (2.2.117-8). Of course, Deflores plans to ‘service’ her in a different way after the murder, a way that also involves horror, blood, and danger: raping the virgin Beatrice. Deflores’ “use [... of] marital imagery throughout [the rape] scene” (Haber 81) implies his rape of Beatrice is like the consummation of a marriage. Beatrice and Deflores’ jointly planned murder functions as a marriage, tying them together for the rest of the play. In doing so, “The Changeling” insists on the interchangeability of murder and marriage, of consummation and rape. This acknowledges the violence towards women inherent in the practise of marriage at the time, but does not critique it. Instead, this violence is treated as permissible for men to commit, yet impermissible for women. This double standard reveals the play to be a reversal anxiety narrative, in which the violence men typically perpetuate against women is turned back on them. In a marriage, the consummation rape murders the woman’s ‘virgin-self’; in the play, Beatrice effectively commits both murder and rape against two male characters. The narrative’s thorough condemnation of Beatrice in the last scene cements “The Changeling” as a male reversal anxiety narrative, self-aware of the patriarchy’s misdeeds and terrified of becoming its victim.

Beatrice and Deflores’ jointly planned murder of Piracquo parallels a marriage ceremony, suggesting that a marriage is, in fact, a murder. After he has slain Piracquo, Deflores tries to take “a diamond / He wears upon his finger” (3.3.21-2), but it is “so fast on” (3.3.23) he is unable to “get the ring without the finger” (3.4.28). He brings the severed finger with the ring to Beatrice as proof he has committed the murder, calling it “a token” (3.4.26). This explicitly parallels the exchange of an engagement ring, with Beatrice then remarking, “’Tis the first token my father made me send him” (3.4.33). Additionally, Deflores refers to them as “engaged so jointly” (3.4.87) and tells Beatrice to “forget [her] parentage to” (3.4.135) him. This parallels the passing of the bride from father to husband. Finally, Deflores declares that if Beatrice refuses him, “In death and shame my partner she shall be” (3.4.154), in a parallel of the ‘til death do us part’ portion of a traditional wedding vow. Indeed, Beatrice and Deflores die together in shame: Deflores declares “I would not go to leave thee far behind” (5.3.177) and then dies; Beatrice follows with, “’Tis time to die, when ’tis a shame to live” (5.3.179). These parallels work to acknowledge the symbolic murder that takes place in a marriage.

George Puttenham’s The Art of English Poesie describes the practise of singing outside the bridal chamber as a couple consummates their marriage. In the aftermath of the act, he says the bride must “arise and apparell her selfe, no more as a virgine, but as a wife” (Puttenham 42), reducing a woman’s identity to solely ‘unmarried virgin’ or ‘sexually experienced wife’. Judith Haber notes that this seems to imply that the loss of virginity “creates an extreme alteration in the bride, potentially destroying or ‘substituting’ for her ideal virginal self a radically discontinuous personality” (84, emphasis mine). The destruction of the virgin self can be seen as a kind of murder, and Beatrice’s loss of virginity after the murder-marriage is framed in these terms: she declares Deflores will “make [Piracquo’s] death the murderer of [her] honour” (3.4.121). Furthermore, as Beatrice listens to Alsemero taking Diaphanta’s virginity on her wedding night, she says, “Had she a thousand lives, he should not leave her / Till he had destroyed the last” (5.1.65-6). This works to construct the bride’s loss of her virginity as a murder of the virgin at the hands of her spouse. However, the marriage-bed violence does not end here; consummation is further characterized as rape.

Consummation is characterized as rape both in the play and in other texts from the period, acknowl-

edging the violence common in marriage at the time. Just before the offstage rape of Beatrice by Deflores, he says, “’Las, how the turtle pants! Thou’lt love anon / What thou so fear’st and faint’st to venture on” (3.4.16970). Haber argues that “the construction of [Beatrice] as a perfect virgin, the perfectly desirable” (82) bride, relies on her expressions of fear. The bride’s “fears, tremblings, loathing, and delays were [...] her necessary accessory” (Haber 83), suggesting “that the ideal marriage [consummation] is a brutal rape” (83). This is also supported by the violent language used by Puttenham to describe marital consummation. Not only is round two of sex described as “the second assaultes” (Puttenham 42), but when the bride appears to her family the morning after, it is to determine whether she is “dead or alive, or maimed by any accident nocturnal” (42). The patriarchal construction of marriage as the murder of the virgin by violent consummating rape, reflected in “The Changeling”, implies this violence is permissible only if committed by men.

In the early modern period, marriage was arranged by men, namely, the father of the bride and the soon-to-be husband. The woman often had no say in the choice of her husband. Rather, the match was arranged by the father. This is the case for Beatrice as she cannot wed her choice, Alsemero, due to “the command of parents” (2.2.20). She remarks of her father, “his blessing / Is only mine, as I regard his name / Else it goes from me, and turns head against me, / Transformed into a curse” (2.1.20-3). It is thus unacceptable for Beatrice to disobey her father by pursuing her own choice in marriage, as she will lose his blessing. Murder is similarly portrayed as acceptable for men to commit and unacceptable for women. Alsemero proposes killing Piracquo first, calling it, “The honourablest piece ’bout man, valour” (2.2.27), and yet when Beatrice confesses to murder, he is horrified, calling her “all deformed” (5.3.77) and saying she should have “gone / A thousand leagues about to have avoided / This dangerous bridge of blood” (5.379-81). Beatrice is repeatedly condemned at the end: she is to be “cast [...] to the ground regardlessly,” taken by “the common sewer” (5.3.152-3) and “blotted out” (5.3.182) of the family name; she becomes just a tear to “dry [...] from the kind father’s eyes” (Epilogue 3). Meanwhile, Alsemero is “a son’s duty living” (5.3.215) to be accepted in place of Beatrice. This thorough condemnation of Beatrice as a murderer reveals a certain level of self-awareness of the violence perpetrated against women via marriage, and a deep-seated anxiety about that violence being returned to the male perpetrators.

Just as a traditional marriage includes a man’s symbolic murder and rape of his new wife, Beatrice commits both murder and rape against the male characters associated with her marriage. Despite the fact that Piracquo was murdered directly by Deflores’ hand, Beatrice takes responsibility for the murder, telling Alsemero, “Your love has made me / A cruel murd’ress” (5.3.64-5). In this instance, instead of the man killing the virgin bride, the virgin bride murders the man. Furthermore, Beatrice’s bed trick can be seen as a kind of nuptial rape: Alsemero, “a supposed husband, changed embraces / With wantonness” (5.3.200-1), believing Diaphanta to be Beatrice. Again, while it is Diaphanta that sleeps with Alsemero under false pretences and effectively rapes him, Beatrice plans the bed trick with no particular woman in mind. She tells Diaphanta, “I will give a thousand ducats to that woman / Would try what my fear were” (4.1.71-2), then charges her to “get the woman” (4.1.75). Diaphanta volunteers herself, but had she not, it could have been anyone. Deflores even brings up the possibility later, suggesting “an apothecary’s daughter” (5.1.21) would be better suited to the task. While the marriage-mirrored crimes of murder and rape are not carried out by Beatrice herself, she conceives of them and is therefore condemned as “ugly whoredom” (5.3.198) able to “defile” (3.5.149) those who come near her. By condemning Beatrice more damningly than Deflores, who is declared only a “Horrid villain” (5.3.171), “The Changeling” reveals a deep anxiety about the possibility of gendered reversals, in which women commit the same violence to men that they have done to women.

“The Changeling”’s depiction of murder and marriage as interwoven and interchangeable reveals a recognition of the harm patriarchal marriage does to women. Its portrayal of murder as especially heinous when committed by a woman also reveals a deep anxiety about that harm being returned to its male perpetrators. In a marriage, the woman’s virgin self is symbolically murdered by her husband in a violent consummation akin to rape. In the play, the — at this point — virgin Beatrice murders one spouse, then arranges the

rape of another. Beatrice’s total condemnation by the male characters and the authorial voice of the drama makes “The Changeling” a reversal anxiety narrative rather than a critique of patriarchal marriage. Middleton may have demonized women in this play, but it is that very demonization that makes the play so powerful — it is a recognition of the injustice patriarchal society perpetuates against women, reflected in how desperately terrified its members are of that violence being returned to them.

Works Cited

Haber, Judith. “‘I(t) Could Not Choose but Follow’: Erotic Logic in The Changeling.” Representations, vol. 81, no. 1, 2003, pp. 79–98, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2003.81.1.79.

Middleton, Thomas. “The Changeling.” Women Beware Women and Other Plays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009.

Puttenham, George. The Arte of English Poesie. Richard Field, 1589, https://www.proquest.com/eebo/docview/2248517279/99846086/627FEE631B054A8FPQ/1?accountid=15115.

THE POET’S WRATH: EXPLORING THE EVOLUTION OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S THE DEFENSE OF POESY

By Samantha Ellis

The goal of Sir Philip Sidney’s The Defence of Poesy (1580) was to uproot every possible refutation of poetry and urge it up the pedestal of knowledge. Sidney argues against claims that poetry has no apparent place in discussions of morality or politics compared to fields like law, history, or philosophy. Sidney holds that readers are enlightened by poetry rather than corrupted, and that poetry is the only way to achieve the common sense of morality to which society aspires. Rather than being destructive, poetry is the most important mode of instruction through which society can reach moral enlightenment. However, Sidney’s defensive stance evolves throughout the text to an offensive attack, and he becomes a tyrant instead of a poet. His evolution into the wrathful poet betrays the point of the text, which is to defend poetry’s value in society. By launching an attack on all other fields of knowledge and condemning those who do not worship poetry, Sidney ultimately undermines his own quest to prove the morality of it.

In The Defence of Poesy, Sir Philip Sidney upholds poetry over all other fields of knowledge by vouching for its ability to instill delight, knowledge, and moral values in society. The poet’s main faculty is “to teach and delight” (Sidney 266). Sidney goes on to argue that what poetry teaches humanity is richer and more valuable than any other field of knowledge, which “setteth the laurel crown upon the poets” (272) as the ultimate victors in a quest to turn humans into moral creatures. Sidney notes several general “imputations” (278) of poets and poetry that fuel the rhetoric that they are destructive to society, and aims to refute these denouncements so he can convince readers that poetry enlightens rather than corrupts. The first stab against poetry is that, “there being many other fruitful knowledges, a man might better spend his time in them than this” (278). Sidney outright opposes this idea through invoking his previous argument that the purpose of poetry is “to teach and delight” (266). He reframes poetry as the most crucial figure in the process of enlightenment, stating that “no learning is so good as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue, and that none can both teach and move thereto so much as poetry” (278). While experts in most fields of knowledge teach about fundamental qualities of nature like science or man-made theories of law or mathematics, Sidney argues “the poet [. . .] doth grow in effect into another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth for or, [. . .] forms such as never were in nature” (265). The poet surpasses the real world through illuminating the beauty of nature and penning new creations that exceed the boundaries of reality. Because of their creative freedom and lack of boundaries, poets transcend these other fields of knowledge. This is why Sidney concludes that “of all sciences [. . .] is our poet the monarch” (273). Poetry teaches “patience and magnanimity” (271), which are crucial values to uphold for humans to become more generous and selfless; if society strives to attain a common sense of good, all should cherish poetry for its ability to infect the soul with virtue, “for indeed poetry ever sets virtue so out in her best colours” (271). Poetry illuminates the moral goals to which humanity should aspire, turning one away from the temptation of sinful attitudes or actions and “winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue” (273). Sidney’s initial arguments illustrate his ability to uphold poetry as valuable in society, but even in the early stages of his text there exists a desire to prove the poet’s superiority rather than merely match him in usefulness to other fields of knowledge.

Sidney goes on to position poetry as higher than law, philosophy, and history in its ability to teach morality. He states that morals are the most important values to uphold in society, which leads to his conclusion that “they that best breed it deserve the best commendation” (Sidney 270). Thus, Sidney seeks to crown poetry as the best teacher of morality over other subjects, rather than aiming to make room for poetry among these other fields who may also possess strong moral qualities. He first insists that “the lawyer [. . .] because he seeketh to make men good rather [from fear of punishment] than [by the love of virtue] [. . .] doth not

endeavour to make men good, but that their evil hurt not others, having no care, so he be a good citizen, how bad a man he be” (270). Sidney’s argument here is that the law’s goal is not to “endeavour to make men good” (270) because it only teaches morality to keep men from harming one another. This is a valiant goal in itself, but Sidney implies that virtue should be acquired not because humans fear punishment, but because they cherish said virtue. Thus, he believes the law is inherently unable to properly instill good morals in humanity because it prioritizes spreading fear of incarceration over spreading morality; lawyers do not care if a man is bad so long as his “evil hurt no others” (270). Sidney undermines the power of philosophy next by stating that “the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him” (271). Philosophy can provide general guidelines pertaining to proper moral values, but it is an inaccessible skill that only other experts can use to advance their thinking. Sidney neglects to mention that those “learned” (271) few can still use this field to attain moral standards—a small number of moral beings is better than none— because he desires to undermine the value of all other subjects to bolster that of poetry.

Sidney finally points out the flaws in history’s moral lessons in order to argue for the superiority of poetry: “the history, being captivated to the truth of a foolish world, is many times a terror from well-doing, and an encouragement to unbridled wickedness” (Sidney 271). He explains history is confined to the facts of a world whose inhabitants are “foolish” (271), while poetry explores and exceeds nature (265). Because history recounts the actions of many immoral individuals, Sidney dismisses all the good moral lessons history teaches and chooses instead to call history “an encouragement to unbridled wickedness” (271). The poet, on the other hand, “excelleth” (272) all other specialties through “furnishing the mind with knowledge” (272) and remaining accessible to all who read it: “[T]he poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs” (271). Sidney does not account for the benefits of law, philosophy, and history’s respective moral teachings. Instead, he outright refutes any possibility that these subjects have the capability of reaching morality in order to prove that poetry has greater value. Moreover, Sidney refutes the claim that poetry is “the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires” (278). His main rebuttal offers that poetry does not inherently “abuseth man’s wit” (280), but that “man’s wit abuseth poetry” (280): it is ultimately man who imposes corruption on the naturally moral poetry. Sidney’s hypocrisy here occurs because he states that poetry is inherently moral, and that a few immoral men cannot corrupt its overall sanctity, while he does not uphold this same criteria for law, philosophy, and history. Immoral actions throughout history have tainted its ability to teach goodness, but for poetry, Sidney does not say the same.

Sidney’s final argument illuminates his shift from a humble defender of poesy to a tyrant who curses all who do not have the same love for poetry as he. Aligned with his previous arguments for the superiority of poetry, Sidney connotes it with godliness, insisting “they are so beloved of the gods” (290) and that poets can “make you immortal by their verses” (290). He implores his readers “no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poetry, [. . .] but to believe [. . .] that they were the first bringers-in of all civility” (290). According to Sidney, poets have powers of creation rivalling the gods and can bring “civility” (290) to a primitive world, as well as make one “immortal” (290) by virtue of their words. In addition, while Sidney associates the world of poets with the heavens, he compares all other fields of knowledge with mere animals, insisting non-poets “have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry” (290). The term “earth-creeping” implies an animalistic quality in comparison with the “sky of poetry” that Sidney argues is far superior. If one submits themself to the worship of poetry, Sidney insists they “shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all” (290). He takes the choice away from those who normally dislike or are disinterested in poetry and forces them to revere it lest they become “earth-creeping” (290) animals. In the end, Sidney places a curse upon those who do not love poetry: “that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet, and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph” (291). Sidney betrays his own point: that poetry’s goal is “to teach and delight” (266). Instead of teaching the unlearned and the unconvinced of poetry’s wonders, Sidney condemns them to misery, not “delight” (266). He wishes for the uncultured to “live in love” (291), but because they do not respect poetry and cannot write a sonnet, they must never be able to profess that love or receive it in return. Sidney also curses them to die “for

want of an epitaph” (291), refusing to allow them the eternal life that Sidney claims will come to lovers of poetry, and instead, wishing their memories will swiftly fade from Earth. His cruel words imply an ultimatum: Love the poet and his words, or else live and die in misery. With his closing statements, he undermines his entire argument for the moral teachings of poetry, and he “doth grow in effect into another nature” (265): a malevolent poet who betrays the supposed goodness of poetry to punish all who stray from his opinion, an outright contrast to his assertion that poets are the most moral members of society. By its end, Sidney’s text is no longer a defense but an offense, and all those who do not worship the supposedly benevolent poet will “die from the earth for want of an epitaph” (291).

Works Cited

Sidney, Philip. “The Defense of Poesy.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, edited by Vincent B. Leitch et al., 3rd ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 262-291.

THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF WESTERN AND ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

By Parsa Albeheshti

Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time opens with a prophetic call to recover the question of the meaning of Being—a question which, he claims, has been “forgotten” since the time of Plato and Aristotle (41). Heidegger himself, and many after him, saw his project as a revolutionary turn in the history of thought. This turn centres around his notion of ontological difference—the distinction between the ontical, which had supposedly dominated philosophy before Heidegger, and the ontological, to which he now wished to turn. In this essay, I will compare Heidegger’s concept of ontological difference with the distinction between wujūd and mawjūd that is central to Islamic metaphysics in order to show that an awareness of Being as distinct from beings is neither new nor unique to Heidegger, and that much of Islamic philosophy constitutes a form of what Heidegger calls “fundamental ontology” (Giognon and Pereboom 184). My aim is not to minimize the significance of Heidegger’s reintroduction of ontological difference into Western philosophy, but to (a) challenge his overly simplistic and Eurocentric portrayal of the “forgetfulness of Being” throughout the history of human thought, and (b) to shed light on the importance of serious engagement with Islamic philosophy in light of Heidegger’s thinking.

The English word “being” has two distinct meanings. It can either refer to a being (a particular entity that is) or to Being as such (that by virtue of which all beings are). Heidegger’s idea of the “ontological difference” is, in its simplest sense, concerned with the distinction between these two meanings. For him, Being (Sein) and beings (Seienden), which he differentiates by capitalizing the former, are distinct but circularly related. That is to say, Being is always the Being of a being, and likewise, a being is only a being by virtue of Being, but Being itself is not a being among others (Caputo 25). Being refers to that which makes entities intelligible as entities, that by virtue of which all beings emerge as beings. However, it is not itself some higher-order entity, and to treat it as such would be, for Heidegger, a grave mistake (Wheeler).

In Being and Time, Heidegger articulates the ontological difference in terms of the distinction between the ontical and the ontological. In his terminology, ontical inquiries concern themselves with the facts about entities, whereas ontological inquiry is directed towards the meaning of Being as such. This distinction lies at the centre of the project of Being and Time. When Heidegger says that the question of Being has been “forgotten” and that it has “ceased to be heard as a thematic question of actual investigation” (41), he means precisely that the metaphysical tradition after Plato and Aristotle has failed to heed the ontological difference, turning its attention towards the ontical at the expense of the ontological. In other words, the tradition has concerned itself exclusively with the study of beings or entities, and has lost sight of the meaning of Being completely, treating it as if it were just some being (Wheeler).

Having defined the ontical as distinct from the ontological, he goes on to make a further distinction between regional and fundamental ontology (Caputo 26). He writes: “[scientific] research accomplishes, roughly and naïvely, the demarcation and initial fixing of the areas of subject-matter… The ‘basic concepts’ which thus arise remain our proximal clues for disclosing this area concretely for the first time” (Heidegger 212). This regional ontology is ontology as understood in the conventional sense of the term—namely, the account of the boundaries of a given field of inquiry which determines what kinds of beings are included in it, as in when we say “the ontology of quantum mechanics” (Caputo 26). Hence, all ontical research in, say, physics, presupposes a regional ontology which defines its boundaries in terms of basic concepts such as energy and matter. However—and here lies the crucial point—all regional ontologies in turn presuppose a fundamental ontology —that is, an account of what Being as such means (Wheeler). “[All] ontology,” Heide-

gger says, “no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task” (213). Thus, fundamental ontology, which concerns the meaning of Being as such, is the most primordial, and thus most important, field of inquiry for Heidegger. All of the various ontical sciences and their respective regional ontologies, on the other hand, concern themselves only with the study of beings and are thus of secondary importance.

In a draft of the unpublished second section of Being and Time entitled “Time and Being,” Heidegger further distinguishes between three variations of the ontological difference: (1) the “transcendental” or “narrow” ontological difference, i.e. the difference between beings and their beingness, the latter denoting the abstract universal concept shared by all beings, and (2) the “transcendentish” (transcendentzhafte) or “wide” ontological difference, i.e. “the difference of beings and their beingness from Being itself” (Caputo 26). It is Being in this latter sense—that is, neither each individual being nor the abstract concept of their beingness but the concrete reality or “unconcealment” of Being itself—with which Heidegger is primarily concerned. He also makes a further distinction, which he calls the “transcendent” or “theological” difference, denoting the complete transcendence of God over all elements of ontological difference—His distinction from being, their beingness and even Being itself.

For a speaker of Arabic or any other language sufficiently influenced by it (e.g. Persian), Heidegger’s painstaking explanation of the ontological difference seems somewhat unnecessary. For them, the ontological difference is hardwired into the language. The Arabic word for “existence” or “Being” in Heidegger’s sense (wujūd ) and “existent” or “being” in Heidegger’s sense (mawjūd ) are simply two separate terms; there is no ambiguous word like the English “being” encompassing them both. However, the redundancy of the ontological difference has to do not just with language, but with philosophy. The tradition of Islamic philosophy— especially the later tradition which culminated with the school of Mulla Sadra—already presupposes the ontological difference as a basic tenet of its mode of thinking. It has, for centuries, focused primarily on the reality of Being as opposed either to beings or their concept of beingness.

As S. H. Nasr writes, speaking of the school of Mulla Sadra, “the most striking feature of the discussion of being in this school is that it is concerned with the act of Being and not with the existent, with esse, the actus essendi, rather than with ens” (89). What Nasr is referring to here is precisely the distinction between mawjūd and wujūd, or between beings and that by virtue of which they are, or Being. Not only did the Islamic tradition of philosophy always possess an awareness of what Heidegger calls the ontological difference, but, especially since the time of Avicenna, it has consciously placed its concern on the side of Being—on the side of the ontological rather than the ontical (Nasr 64-65). Indeed, as Nasr points out, wujūd is not only an issue for Islamic philosophy, but the most central one of all (63). The question of the meaning of Being, in other words, is never “forgotten,” as Heidegger would have it — not in Islamic philosophy. Within the Islamic tradition, in fact, “ontology” has been understood exclusively in terms of what Heidegger calls fundamental ontology. Neither the ontical study of particular entities nor the regional ontologies which the term usually designates in English have any register in the Islamic conception of ontology or hikmah. Rather, the proper subject-matter of Islamic ontology is the study of Being itself.

The ontological difference as understood by Islamic philosophers encompasses not only the narrower, transcendental sense of it as described by Heidegger, but also its wider or transcendentish sense. While some minor schools of Islamic philosophy do equate Being with an abstract concept, Mulla Sadra and his followers clearly distinguish the concept of Being from the Reality to which it corresponds (Nasr 73). This distinction is identical to the one drawn by Heidegger in “Time and Being” between beings and the abstract, the universal concept of beingness they share on the one hand, and the concrete reality of Being itself on the other. According to Sadrian philosophy, “[the] concept ‘being’ is the most universal and known of all concepts, while the Reality of wujūd is the most inaccessible of all realities, although it is the most manifest. In fact, it

is the only Reality for those who possess the knowledge that results from illumination and ‘unveiling’” (Nasr 73). This latter Reality corresponds to what Heidegger variously calls “Being itself, or Seyn (with a y), or Being crossed out, or Being’s ‘unconcealment’” (Caputo 26). It is neither a particular ontical entity nor an abstract universal concept, but “the horizon or framework within which beings are encountered, the ‘clearing’ (Lichtung) where the light breaks through, the ‘open’ where beings are ‘freed’ or ‘released’ into appearance” (Caputo 25).

What is more, just as the Reality of wujūd in Islamic thought is at once the most hidden, so is the nature of Heidegger’s Being by virtue of the fact that it is always before our nose, it remains concealed: Being of itself withdraws and we are inclined to be preoccupied with beings. This ‘forgetfulness’ or ‘oblivion’ (Vergessenheit) of Being’s difference from beings is an ontological not a psychological point. While Being remains out of explicit cognizance, it is implicitly presupposed. Thinking Being makes the implicit explicit, re-cognizing it, recollecting it. (Caputo 25)

For Muslim philosophers as for Heidegger, this unveiling of Being is achieved not through conceptual thought, but through the kind of direct experience that is the subject-matter of phenomenology. The Reality of wujūd, from the Islamic standpoint, “can be known and experienced provided man is willing to conform himself to what Being demands of him” (Nasr 73). In fact, according to Nasr, it is precisely by virtue of the centrality of this experience of Being “that Islamic metaphysics has remained always aware of the distinction between ens and actus essendi and has seen things not merely as objects that exist but as acts of wujūd, as esto” (73). He goes on to say that:

If Islamic philosophy did not move, as did Western philosophy, towards an ever-greater concern with a world of solidified objects… it was because the experience of the Reality of Being as an ever-present element prevented the speculative mind of the majority of Islamic philosophers either from mistaking the act of wujūd for the existent that appears to possess wujūd on its own… or from failing to distinguish between the concept of wujūd and its binding Reality. (Nasr 74)

Here, the two pitfalls which Nasr describes Muslim philosophy as having avoided correspond to the failure of recognizing Heidegger’s transcendental and the transcendentish ontological differences, respectively. Heidegger complains that the history of Western philosophy is tainted by the “‘onticization’ of Being… by the practice of treating Being as a being” (Wheeler). Moreover, as his remarks in “Time and Being” make clear, the Being which has been ignored by the Western tradition is not the abstract concept of beingness. Islamic philosophy, through its emphasis on the experience of the Reality of Being, has protected it from both onticization and conceptualization by speculative thought. What has been preserved by the Islamic tradition all along is precisely that Being which Heidegger thinks must be remembered and revived.

In addition to both senses of the ontological difference, the transcendent or theological difference formulated by Heidegger is also anticipated by Islamic philosophy and forms a central aspect of its mode of thought. For all its centrality as the highest subject of inquiry in Islamic thought, Being is nonetheless never equated with God. Just as Heidegger holds God to stand “completely outside the jurisdiction of the ontological difference” and calls on us to “[never] mention ‘God’ and ‘Being’ in the same breath,” (Caputo 27) neither do Muslim thinkers assign to God a supra-ontological status. “[The] Divine Essence…” says Nasr, “stands above even Being… it is Non-Being or Beyond-Being in that it stands beyond all limitation” (63). As such, for both Heidegger and the Islamic tradition of philosophy, in addition to being ontologically distinct from both beings and their conceptual beingness, Being is also theologically distinct from God, Who stands outside all ontological determinations.

As the above analysis shows, Heidegger’s idea of the ontological difference is already present in Islamic philosophy from its earliest stages; perhaps not formulated so explicitly precisely because it is presupposed at such a foundational level. If for Heidegger the ontological difference and the formulation of the question of the meaning of Being represent a revolutionary turn away from the fundamental assumptions of the tradition, for Muslim philosophers—especially the followers of Sadra—these ideas just are the funda-

mental assumptions. What is the purpose of making such a comparison? It is not to prove that Heidegger was not an original thinker, for he likely never read the works of the later Muslim philosophers. In any case, his formulation of these ideas was original for his time and place, or else he would not have become so important. There is, of course, a significance for intellectual history: my analysis shows that Heidegger’s grandiose claim to reviving a question that has been forgotten since the time of Aristotle is false. The main significance of this comparison, however, lies in the compelling case that it makes for reading, reviving and engaging with a tradition that truly has been, from the perspective of Eurocentric philosophy, “forgotten”. Heidegger’s is indeed a revolutionary call for Western thinkers, and one to which we should respond. It would be a shame, however, if after destructing the ontical bias of modern Western metaphysics and moving towards a fundamental ontology, we do not consult the insights of a tradition that has already been engaged in fundamental ontology for over a millennium. If we agree with Heidegger, that the question of the meaning of Being needs to be recovered, it seems only natural to turn to the tradition that seems never to have lost sight of it at all.

Works Cited

Caputo, John D. “4. Being and beings: The Ontological/Ontic Distinction.” 50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, edited by Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon, Northwestern University Press, 2019, pp. 25-30, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/west/detail.action?docID=5845955.

Heidegger, Martin. “Being and Time: Introduction.” Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell, HarperCollins Publishers, 1993.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present. State University of New York Press, 2006.

Wheeler, Michael. “Martin Heidegger.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/heidegger/.

HISTORY: GIVING MEANING TO THE PAST

By Jadyn Smith

Laurent Binet, in his novel HHhH (2012), seeks to accurately recount the 1942 Operation Anthropoid. In his pursuit, he acknowledges that it is impossible to perfectly capture the past — yet he still attempts to do so. Why, if it is impossible to write about the past accurately, does Binet write the novel? This paper proposes that history is not just the study of past events, but the process of giving meaning to the past, and that the message that we get from past events is subjective. This proposition will be proven through (a) the comparison of Binet’s historiographically stylistic decisions with methods of Western historiography as outlined in Hayden White’s book Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973) and (b) an examination of how skepticism of historical practices and accounts changes the meaning of history as explained by Indigenous professor and jurist John Borrows. Observations will be applied to Binet’s novel to explain his own delve into the past as his desire to bring meaning to the lives lost during World War II, specifically those with untold stories.

Historians are obligated to make certain stylistic decisions to ensure that a historical narrative is clear and coherent; the angle that a writer takes gives a particular meaning to the historical account. Western1 nations have, throughout time, viewed written forms of record-keeping as a reliable source of knowledge (Hanson). This assumption ignores the subjectivity of writers. As outlined in Hayden White’s book Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, writers of history undergo the process of “selection and arrangement of data from the unprocessed historical record in the interest of rendering that record more comprehensible to an audience of a particular kind” (White 5) to pick an angle for their writing. In organizing information from the past, writers must select the information that seems important based on what seems meaningful to themselves, and what will be meaningful to their audience. Right away, the meaning of the past is impacted by the writer’s opinion of what information is relevant. White continues by looking at the historiographical styles a writer may use to form their narrative, most notably — for the purposes of this paper — a combination of aesthetic perception (the emplotment) and the cognitive operation (the argument) (12). Emplotment refers to romance,2 satire,3 tragedy,4 and comedy,5 while argument refers to the formist,6 organicist,7 mechanist,8 or contextualist9 view (White 29). The angle that a writer takes will convey a specific message, regardless of whether it is a correct representation of the past. Binet struggles with narrowing his historical scope — some plots cannot be tackled as they would distract from the main plot (Binet 50); some scenes may be relevant to the main plot but lack evidence, leaving Binet to either exclude the scene altogether or invent a version of the scene based on what seems most likely (104). Finally, he simply cannot tell the stories of everyone he would like to (179). When he does decide on the events that are, in his opinion, most important to tell, Binet must decide on how the lives of Reinhard Heydrich, Jozef Gabčík, and Jan Kubiš will be told.10 He uses a tragic emplotment mode as each key subject — Heydrich, Gabčík, and Kubiš — meets a fatal end, and all must suffer as a result; the War goes on for three more years, Lidice is massacred, and the families of Heydrich’s assassin are murdered for their relations. Binet struggles with this take, saying “I wish I didn’t have to write that” (311) in reference to Kubiš’ death, as it is not the plot that he wishes to portray but

1 For the purposes of this paper, “Western” refers to North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand (Kurth).

2 The heroic story: a tale of good over evil (White 9). It may be utilized to show the emergence of new forces.

3 The absurdist view (White 9). It may be utilized to describe an ongoing struggle.

4 An unstable world; the protagonist suffers and/or falls by the end of the tale, and everyone must accept their lives as is. It may be utilized to describe an ongoing struggle (White 9).

5 A light, hopeful take on possibly serious matters; opposing forces of good and evil can, at times, coexist (White 9). It may be utilized to show the emergence of new forces.

6 The identification of characteristics unique to a particular historical field (White 14).

7 The connection of seemingly unrelated events or entities (White 15).

8 Concentration on the process that brought about an event (White 17).

9 The process of tracing “threads” (White 18) to explain context in terms of how an event occurred and what it resulted in.

10 White points out that the historian may consider the following questions in deciding on a method: “‘What happened next?’ ‘How did that happen?’ ‘Why did things happen this way rather than that?’ ‘How did it all come out in the end?’” (White 7).

the one that he, as a writer focused on creating a realistic account of the past, must tell. Binet’s self-insertion throughout the novel gives extra insight into the message he wants to tell; he wishes he could write a romantic story and wants these characters to be remembered in the typical good versus evil sense, despite the limitations of reality. This is evident through his assurance that Heydrich is not seen as a sympathetic villain (22) and that Gabčík and Kubiš are seen as heroes (99). To explain how Heydrich’s assassination happened as it did, Binet uses a contextualist approach, looking at the future impact of the event (whether it be in the context of World War II, such as in the Nuremberg trials, or his own life, as portrayed throughout the novel), and the long-term effects of past decisions (such as the 13th-century migration of Germans to Bohemia). In doing so, he gives meaning to not only the assassination itself as a singular event, but to its impact on the future of the Nazi regime and his own life pursuits, and relays it as partially the result of hundreds of years of Germanic presence in Bohemia and Moravia. Laurent Binet’s writing style, as per Hayden White’s historiographical modes and in addition to his personal comments, put the event of Heydrich’s assassination into context: it is not just one tragic story, but the result of and reason for countless other occurrences.

Additionally, the way in which history is observed and interpreted influences the meaning given to the past. John Borrows, in his “Finding Life’s Patterns: Storytelling’s Role in Anishinaabe Law” presentation on November 9, 2022, alludes to the re-examination of history as he looks at different patterns in life: Patterns can be healthy. But patterns can also be destructive. We must choose carefully the cycles we cultivate and follow. That is, we must harmonize with our bodily rhythms. They must harmonize with the earth’s rhythms. But some patterns must be broken. (“John Borrows: “Finding Life’s Patterns: Storytelling’s Role in Anishinaabe Law”)

As norms, values, and social standards change with time, history — like patterns — must be re-evaluated. If patterns do not harmonize with nature, they are likely toxic and must be reconsidered; Borrows suggests patterns of “racism, sexism, homophobia, and colonialism” that persist from the past must be examined from a modern perspective. In picking which lessons we should take from the past, and which ones we should leave behind from a present-day point of view, we associate new attitudes with old, harmful practices and give a new meaning to the past.11 Binet demonstrates this concept of historical skepticism from a different point of view when looking at media portrayals of Heydrich. When watching or reading about historical accounts, an individual must think critically to dispel any false information. Throughout chapters 7 and 10, Binet presents multiple examples of films about Heydrich: Conspiracy (2001), Hangmen Also Die! (1943), and Hitler’s Madman (1943). From a more knowledgeable standpoint, Binet can — while appreciating the craft of each tale — point out the flaws in the accuracy of each film, coming to the conclusion that creators of historical media are often guilty of “fudging reality to make a screenplay more dramatic, or adding coherence to the narrative of a character whose real path probably included too many random ups and downs, insufficiently loaded with significance” (Binet 47). He follows up by pointing out that actions like these often lead people to be unsure as to which features in a historical representation are real and which are not. Just as the method of historiography matters in determining the message given, the ability to think skeptically about the media observed greatly impacts the message received. Whether it be rethinking old views or determining the reliability of a historical account (fictional or not), the perspectives presented to an individual and their willingness to consider these perspectives — which may differ based on time period, education, location, and ethnic and religious background, among other characteristics — greatly impacts the meaning that an individual associates with the past.

After examining the methods of writing history and the action of re-examining history in the context of Laurent Binet’s HHhH and other sources, the answer to the following question remains unanswered: why did Binet write HHhH ? Binet’s purpose for writing the novel is found in his struggle to portray the perfect narrative. As a contextualist, he strives to prove that every event and every individual who, in some way, shape, or form, took part in the assassination is relevant. Binet wrote this novel to let readers know that “Gabčík — that’s his name — really did exist” (3). And so did Kubiš. And Valčík. And the Moravecs. Re11 Incidentally, Vergangenheitsbewältigung is the German word for “the process of coming to terms with the past”; an ongoing process that includes acknowledging the ugliness of the past and moving towards reconciliation (Painter).

gardless of what role they played in this story — or rather, history — these individuals were important. The purpose of HHhH is to acknowledge the sung and unsung heroes of his protagonists’ tale: The men and women and children who helped them, directly or indirectly, are not so well-known. Worn-out by my muddled efforts to salute these people, I tremble with guilt at the thought of all those hundreds, those thousands, whom I have allowed to die in anonymity. But I want to believe that people exist even if we don’t speak of them. (Binet 323)

An individual’s story does not need to be studied or told to be significant, but it is in studying their story that we understand why it is significant. However, as previously demonstrated, this significance may differ from person to person based on how an account is portrayed, in which context it is observed and interpreted, and their motivation to study the subject. Binet’s relationship with the story of Operation Anthropoid is, then, different from that of his reader. To some degree, he feels personally connected to his protagonists and all of the people involved in their tale: “I am coming to the end and I feel completely empty. Not just drained but empty, I could stop now, but that’s not how it works here. The people who took part in this story are not characters, and if they became characters because of me, I don’t wish to treat them like that” (320). While these people may be characters to readers of the book, they are real people whose stories Binet feels obligated to tell.

The message that Binet associates with the past is that it is a collective and infinitely interwoven phenomenon. It is something that is incomplete — as Binet says, “it’s impossible to be finished with a story like this” (326) — as we will constantly be revising the past and adding to history as more information is revealed or debunked. We study the past to learn about ourselves: how humanity got to where it is now and how it should move forward. Through the writings of Hayden White on the subjectivity of historical writings, the teachings of John Borrows on the importance of re-examining history, and Laurent Binet’s personal motivation for and devotion to writing HHhH, it is evident that history is a process as everyone searches for messages from the past. The motivation to learn is the same, but the messages received differ, as everyone will perceive the past differently.

Works Cited

Binet, Laurent. HHhH: A Novel. Translated by Sam Taylor, St Martins Press, 2013. Hanson, Erin. “Oral Traditions.” Indigenous Foundations, http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/oral_traditions/. Accessed 10 December 2022. “How Historians Work.” National Council on Public History, https://ncph.org/what-is-public-history/how-historians-work/. Accessed 10 December 2022. John Borrows: “Finding Life’s Patterns: Storytelling’s Role in Anishinaabe Law.” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/wordsfest/videos/1485319365303034/?__tn__=F. Accessed 10 December 2022.

Kurth, James. “Western Civilization, Our Tradition.” Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2003, https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/western-civilization-our-tradition/. Accessed 10 December 2022. Painter, Nell Irvin. “America Needs to Reexamine Its Civil Rights History.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 32, 2001, pp. 132–34, https://doi.org/10.2307/2678800. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.

White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975

MORAL(E): THE MAKING OF HUMANITY

By Jessie Yang

Two values, both alike in antiquity, define humanity: morals, and morale. Such a definitive duality transcends race, culture, and the boundaries of the hierarchy between man and animal. The former, morality: modern dictionaries synonymize humanity with benevolence, and it is the conscious effort to do good despite one’s vast potential for licentiousness that constitutes the essence of a human being. The latter, morale: to hold resolve and maintain dignity sans freedom, sans respect, sans everything—to sustain honour even when surrounded by cruelty—defines humankind. Pedro Calderón de la Barca likens living to dreaming, deeming life brief and ultimately inconsequential; yet it is precisely the conscious choice for moral virtue despite knowing one’s inevitable decay into obscurity that constitutes a human being. Primo Levi explores the depth of human depravity, and through the demolition of a man, reveals it is the ability to harbour morale (even when stripped of all comforts and combating ineffable calamity) that defines mankind. Moral and morale, together, bring profoundness to humanity.

Birth and death are solitary ventures, but all other domains of existence are collaborative experiences. The path of life is shared by all, and so, one cannot advance one’s journey without leaving footprints in a fellow traveller’s trail; in writing one’s own history, one becomes a sentence in the memoir of another’s, impressions left step by step, sole to soul. Segismund, protagonist of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream, confronts his epiphany that life “[i]s but a dream, and dreams are only dreams” (Calderón de la Barca 266-268). With the urgency behind his actions in jeopardy, Segismund ponders the essence of existence: if living and dreaming are but synonymous echoes, why, then, choose moral goodness, given the briefness and eventual inconsequential nature of life? Furthermore, paralleling his realization that he is but a dreamer, Segismund comes to terms with also being but a player, less so carving his own legacy than reciting pre-written lines, merely acting “[t]hroughout the expanse of [his] world’s theatre” (Calderón de la Barca 266). As the spotlight of his performance fades, so does his belief in free will. If life is theatre, then self-determination is futile, and, knowing such, Segismund asks: why choose moral goodness?

In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s book On the Social Contract, the political philosopher argues that “[m] an is born free but everywhere in chains,” for despite there being no intrinsic obligations to being alive, as a member of mankind, it is a matter of kinship to aid in the prosperity of one’s neighbour, and therefore shackle the temptation of vices with morality (Rousseau). Such is the answer to Segismund’s dilemma: brief as a dream and as seemingly predetermined as life is, the impact of one’s virtuous deeds upon another remains equally as profound, for “good actions, / Even in a dream, are not entirely lost” (Calderón de la Barca 273). The conscious striving for moral goodness, therefore, constitutes the core of mankind’s being.

Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream presents predestination as a given, but through a modern secular lens, to believe in predestination is to surrender personal responsibility to the doctrine of a deity. Or, through an existentialist interpretation: to pin all of one’s own vices and moral shortcomings on a divine scapegoat. Indeed, it is difficult to discuss the concept of morality without discussing theism, for piety and God have historically remained keenly intertwined. Epistemology philosopher Louise Antony argues that morality and religion are mutually exclusive. “[M]any people believe that atheism implies nihilism,” she states, “that rejecting God means rejecting morality” (Antony). This is not the case, however, as morals arise “from the vulnerabilities of sentient beings and from the capacities of rational beings to recognize and to respond to those vulnerabilities and capacities in others” (Antony). In other words, morality is ingrained in the very essence of human nature; morality is intrinsic to humanity. Through her argument, Antony answers the ancient dilemma posed by Socrates: “are the pious acts pious because they are loved by the gods, or are the pious acts loved by the gods because they are pious?” (Koukl). Antony sides with the latter: morally good actions are morally good in and of themselves, free from the bias of a deity’s judgement. Such is the more optimistic view, for to believe in the opposite is to believe that, in the wake of atrocities such as the

Holocaust, a deity observed the ineffable suffering of millions and met their prayers for mercy with complete idleness.

In the Hebrew scripture The Book of Job, the eponymous character toils unmerited misery as he becomes the subject of debate between Satan and God. Job is the epitome of piousness. Skeptical of such utter devotion, Satan wagers with God that Job’s piety stems only from having received so much good fortune from Him, and that, if God were to take away everything, then Job will curse Him to His face (Renan). Accepting the wager, God proceeds to strip Job of all things Job cares for: his health, his wealth, and his family. Yet, even after being robbed of everything he holds dear, Job’s devotion remains unaltered—his morale, even in the face of boundless adversity, remains unwavering. As God dismantles every pleasure of his reality, only through Job’s preservation of morale does he retain his humanity. Like the mind tethers sense to sensibility, morale tethers the soul to the body. Rationalist philosopher René Descartes, in his treatise A Discourse on the Method, famously writes je pense, donc je suis (‘I think, therefore I am’). It is precisely the human ability for analytical thought that laurels mankind as the animal rationale (Descartes 147). Without morale, living becomes mere surviving, for if thinking constitutes existence, then what is left of a person if their minds are too preoccupied for complex thought?

In his memoir If This is a Man, Jewish Italian author Primo Levi delineates a world of suffering as endured by victims of the Holocaust. Levi describes his capture by the Fascist Militia as surviving amongst “Cartesian phantoms”—men whose minds, overexerted by labour, are left with “no time to think,” and thus, as Descartes argues and as Levi writes, “is like being already dead” (Levi 17-25). To be human, it is not enough to simply be conscious—one must be conscious of one’s consciousness. As such, it is an individual’s ability to maintain the willpower for reflective thought and to sustain morale that allows them to preserve their humanity. A person may be stripped of their freedom, their family, their name, but morale can only be surrendered, never taken.

Like the left and right hands joining together to form a single whole, morals and morale entwine to produce the essence of humanity. To be human is to consciously choose virtue despite the temptation of vices; to be human is to maintain dignity even when the only source of respect is internal. An individual may harbour control over their own actions, but it is ultimately the reactions of others which bring definition to the actions of oneself. In light of such knowledge, in times of stress, consider performing an act of moral good by sending another a morale-boosting letter. After all, morals and morale are but one letter apart.

Works Cited

Antony, Louise M. “Good Minus God.” The New York Times, 18 December 2011. Bentley, Eric, and Roy Campbell. Life Is a Dream and Other Spanish Classics. Applause, 2002. Descartes, René, and Ian W.F. Maclean. A Discourse on the Method of Correctly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Hatfield, Gary. “René Descartes.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 2014, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/#Bib.

Koukl, Greg. “Euthyphro’s Dilemma.” Stand to Reason, Clear-Thinking Christianity, 2012, https://www.str.org/w/euthyphro-s-dilemma-1.

Levi, Primo. If This Is a Man. New ed., Bodley Head, 1966. Renan, Ernest, et al. The Book of Job. Tern Press, 1997.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, and Cole G D H. On the Social Contract. Dover, 2003. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “The Book of Job.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Book-of-Job. Accessed 26 Oct. 2022.

WHAT’S TRUTH GOT TO DO WITH IT?: NIETZSCHE’S DEFENCE OF THE IMAGINATIVE ARTS

By Asha Saha

When Plato deemed poets liars in The Republic, he set off a chain reaction. The discipline of literary criticism that unfolded after his time introduced to the world a series of defenders of poetry and art who were concerned with proving that poets are not, and could not be liars. When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “On Truth and Lying In A Non-Moral Sense,” he shifted the focus of this conversation profoundly. Nietzsche asks an important question in this essay: what, really, is the value of truth? In presenting truth as a structure built of man-made illusions, he argues that the search for truth is not as important as it seems. By separating the ideas of the true and the good, he then shows that illusions, if they are good ones, are necessary. Finally, he presents artists as the people capable of making the meaningful illusions that we need. Thus, Nietzsche defends practitioners of the imaginative arts, not by refuting the claim that they are liars, but by troubling the very idea of truth and advocating for the societal value of the life-affirming illusions that artists create.

In “On Truth and Lying,’’ Nietzsche redefines truth in a way that brings its value into question. He boldly asserts that “truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions” (756), by which he means the things we consider to be “true” are not intrinsically true in themselves. We only consider them to be true because, as a society, we have decided that they should be. Using language, we have placed things into categories of our own creation, and it is directly because of these categorizations that we can conceive of truth and lies as such (Nietzsche 754). As the scholar Peter Heckman explains, “[by] reference to these fixed conventions we can tell the difference between the truth-teller (one who adheres to the conventions) and the liar (one who abuses the conventions)” (308). Thus, neither the truth-teller nor the liar is actually appealing to any kind of real truth. We are all liars—the difference being that those who are seen as tellers of the “truth” are better at sticking to convention and using “valid tokens of designation” (Nietzsche 754). Over time, Nietzsche explains, “human beings forget that this is how things are; thus they lie unconsciously” (756). Nietzsche argues we have forgotten that “the relationship […] between our words and concepts […] and things themselves…is purely a metaphorical relationship” (Heckman 310). This is to say, the only reason we believe our categories have any intrinsic truth to them is that we have forgotten it was humans who created them in the first place. We forget that this designation was initially arbitrary and we take it to have a natural authority.

In considering the value of artists in society, Nietzsche’s reconceptualization of truth is relevant because it exposes an unjustified assumption made by Plato in his critique of poets. In The Republic, Plato asserts that poets are imitators, and that “imitation must be concerned with things at the third remove from truth” (84). When Plato speaks of truth, what he is referring to are Forms. For Plato, any object that exists in our world has an ideal form of itself. For example, in the case of beds, Plato believes that there exists an ideal Form of the bed, of which each particular bed in our real world is a necessarily insufficient copy (80). When an artist makes a representation of a particular bed in their art, their version of the bed is a copy of the copy, and because this representation is so far removed from the true bed, the ideal Form, it is not as valuable (Plato 80).

For Nietzsche, though, this notion of Forms is not something we can take for granted. To demonstrate this, he starts with concepts. He tells us that “[e]very concept comes into being by making equivalent that which is non-equivalent” (755). To clarify this statement, he gives the example of a leaf. When we observe leaves in nature, it is clear that every leaf is at least slightly different. To create the unified concept of “leaf,” humans had to decide to ignore these differences (755). Much like the idea of truth itself, we only believe concepts have true meaning because we have forgotten that it was humans who created them. This forgetting

leads us to believe that an ideal form of each concept exists and the differences between individual examples can be explained by the fact that “no single example [is] a faithful, correct, and reliable copy of the primal form” (755). In reality, this form is yet another illusion we have taken to be true. In breaking down where the flawed notion of this true, ideal Form comes from, Nietzsche convincingly refutes Plato’s argument that the distance of their work from the ideal forms makes artists less valuable to society.

By reframing truths as human-made illusions, Nietzsche is also critiquing the futility of the desire to seek the truth. Since the “truths” being sought are human creations, the ability to “discover” those truths, for Nietzsche, is nothing impressive. Discovering a human-created truth is akin to a person hiding something behind a bush and “finding” it later behind that very same bush: they were successful in finding the item, but, “[their] seeking and finding is nothing much to boast about” (757). In much the same way, humans discovering truths that they created is unimpressive and not useful. As Heckman puts it, “the difficulty with making assertions […] is that they only hold true of, and are only possible in, the anthropomorphic world that is our own creation” (318). Because the classifications we created and take to be true were formed around our human experiences, the only “truths” we can ever discover are those relating to our human-centric world. Nietzsche demonstrates in this discussion that there is little value in the ability to seek the truth, which once again undermines Plato’s charge against the poets: if truth-seeking as an enterprise is unimportant, then Plato’s critique that poets are three degrees removed from the truth holds very little weight.

Another important aspect of Nietzsche’s defense comes from his separation of the true from the good. He asserts that what we take to be truths are actually illusions, but for him, this is a positive thing. He explains that for humans, their intellect is an aid, “without [which], they would have every reason to flee existence” (Nietzsche 752). Although he does not explicitly say so, the horrors of existence seem to be a different kind of truth for Nietzsche that is more real. This truth, though, must be avoided. For the scholar Philip Kain, Nietzsche’s description of “the horror of existence […is] radically at odds with perhaps the most fundamental assumption of philosophy since Plato and Aristotle, namely, that the true and the good coincide” (44). By presenting existence as an awful and dangerous truth on the one hand, and positing that illusions created by our intellect are tools protecting us from that harmful truth on the other hand, Nietzsche shows that the truth and the good are not intrinsically linked.

In detaching the two, he is unpacking another one of the assumptions underlying Plato’s banishment of poets. For Plato, the true and the good are very closely related. He makes this evident in his “Allegory of the Cave.” In the Allegory, Plato begins by describing an illusion. Prisoners in a cave believe the shapes they see on the cave wall are real entities when, in reality, they are shadows created by the men further behind the wall (75). Then, one prisoner is freed. Plato asserts that once the freed prisoner has seen the outside world and understood his new, more real surroundings, he “would feel pity for [those still in the cave] and rejoice in his own change of circumstance” (76). Despite any difficulties that came with life outside of the cave, Plato is confident it would be “….better to endure anything, than to believe those things and live that way” (76). Thus, for Plato, lies and illusions are always detrimental and the truth is always beneficial, no matter the circumstance. This belief underscores his rejection of poets: because they do not tell the truth, he does not think that anything they produce could ever be beneficial to society.

Nietzsche carefully unpacks this assumption. He identifies that humans “desire the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth […] but they are actually hostile towards truths which may be harmful and destructive” (754). In this passage, he makes an important distinction: sometimes we consider our perceived truths to be good, but in other instances, they can also be harmful. What seems to matter to him is what kind of truths they are, rather than the simple fact that they are truths. It follows, then, that illusions should be judged similarly. If our illusions have these “pleasant, life-preserving consequences” (754), it is reasonable to assume that they should be just as desirable, even though we understand they are illusions. As Kain puts it, “[i]f perspectives are more valuable than the truth, if they promote life, if they save us from the truth, they are certainly not to be dismissed” (52). In the horrible state of existence that Nietzsche presents, illusions of

the positive kind are necessary for society’s survival. He explains: “[o]nly by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor…does [a human being] live with some degree of peace, security, and consistency” (758). What is good, Nietzsche argues, has nothing to do with the morality associated with either truth-telling or lying. In the face of a meaningless world, illusions that can affirm life are far more valuable than any kind of truth. Thus, by disentangling the idea of the useful and the good from the true, Nietzsche demonstrates the value of effective illusions.

In redefining both the true and the good, Nietzsche has laid the groundwork to argue convincingly that practitioners of the imaginative arts are precisely the people who can create the illusions we need. He begins by painting us a picture of the world we have created through language and science: “science works unceasingly at that great columbarium of concepts, the burial site of perceptions…and strives above all…to fit into it in an orderly way the whole empirical world” (759). For Nietzsche, our development of concepts has structured everything we perceive into a rigid understanding of the anthropomorphic world. The description of the “burial site of perceptions” is particularly interesting, as it evokes an image of something old and stale. Heckman interprets that “[t]he edifice built from such material, however lovely and large it is, cannot support life” (312). Indeed, it seems that something about these concepts, these worn-out metaphors, is insufficient for maintaining the kind of illusion Nietzsche thinks we need.

This is where Nietzsche’s view of the value of the imaginative arts becomes apparent. He explains that humans have a fundamental “drive to form metaphors” that is not deterred by the rigidity of the edifice of old concepts society has created (760). He tells us that this drive mainly manifests in art and myth, communicating that it is related to creativity. The creative mind, through artistic expression, “copies human life, but it takes it to be something good…[and] smashes [the] framework, jumbles it up and ironically re-assembles it” (761). For Nietzsche, society needs people who do not just accept the columbarium of concepts as fixed and waste time trying to understand limited “truths” within it, but instead create new and interesting metaphors. The “artistic activity of throwing the columbarium into confusion” (Heckman 315) is necessary for the development of fresh metaphors that will continue to provide positive illusions that not only protect but also enhance people’s lives.

Nietzsche solidifies the important role of the imaginative arts when he describes the “man of intuition” (761). He proclaims that when this intuitive man exercises his abilities, “a culture can take shape […] and the rule of art over life can become established” (761). This art-filled culture is characterized by “the denial of neediness…the radiance of metaphorical visions, and…the immediacy of deception” (761). The phrase “immediacy of deception” (761) highlights an important aspect of what the intuitive man does. He is creative enough to constantly craft new illusions before they can grow into stale concepts. The immediate illusions he creates promote “sublime happiness” for himself and for the culture around him, and though he feels his emotions deeply when he suffers, he can make that suffering meaningful through the art he creates (761). Conversely, the fruitless search from truth that the rational man embarks upon can shield him from misfortune but cannot produce anything positive on top of that (761). Thus, Nietzsche ultimately finds a role for practitioners of imaginative arts in society as those intuitive individuals who create the immediate, vibrant illusions that make life worthwhile.

Nietzsche provides a strong and unique defense of the imaginative arts. While most responses to Plato’s charge that poets are liars focus on disproving that claim, Nietzsche argues that all of us are liars and that lying is not necessarily a bad thing. By disentangling the true from the good, he defends the imaginative arts precisely because they create a culture where we consistently have access to fresh, life-affirming illusions. Though we are so often faced with suffering, the imaginative arts remain important to us as a way to make meaning in our otherwise meaningless world.

Works Cited

Heckman, Peter. “Nietzsche’s Clever Animal: Metaphor in “Truth and Falsity.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 24, no. 4, 1991, pp. 301-321.

Kain, Philip. “Nietzsche, Truth, and the Horror of Existence.” History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, 2006, pp. 41-58.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch et al., W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2018, pp. 752762.

Plato. “From The Republic.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch et al., W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2018, pp. 58-89.