The Circular Ruins, to me, was the most intriguing of the Borges stories. Although I enjoyed it on the surface, I came to like it even more once I learned about in more depth during class. The Circular Ruins was the most accessible of plots, making it easier to read and enjoy. The barest outline of the plot is that man sets out on a quest to create a son. He does this by meditating to the point of slumber, slowly creating this person and then bringing him to “life” with the sacred Fire. This story really is circular because the main character goes from creating a son to worrying that his creation is going to know that he is not real. He then realizes that he needn’t worry because he is a dream too.
Borges admits that this story is owned in all or in part to Herbert Quain is interesting. In Borges’ Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain, he quoted Quain as saying, “That of the many kinds of pleasure literature can minister, the highest is the pleasure of the imagination.”(111) Considering that an author said this, I believe it is warranted to say that he values imagination above all things. To show the significance of Quain’s connection with Borges, this essay will explore different areas in The Circular Ruins where Quain’s idea about imagination is quite evident.
The first area is the plot. In the story, a man decides to create a son solely from his mind and make him flesh. He does this while in a dream state and indeed succeeds in his quest. It is so firmly about imagination and creativity that Borges alludes to the idea that it is acceptable when creating something to use a model. When the sorcerer first tries to create a son, he tries to use a student that he handpicked from a dream lecture. It was not one dream session after he picks his target that the man suffers from a bought of insomnia. When he finally sleeps again, he is unable to recall the student-model. When the sorcerer starts again, he begins from the heart. When he starts this way, he is finally successful and makes a boy. MY estimation is that the sorcerer was not allowed to continue on his quest until he understood the true meaning of imagination.
The crafting of the heart is another example of Quain’s emphasis on imagination. “He dreamed it, with painstaking love, for fourteen brilliant nights. Each nights he perceived it with greater clarity, greater certainty. He did not touch it: he only witnessed it, observed it, corrected it, perhaps, with his eyes.” (98) The heart is your center and it is connected to your soul. If your soul is not original and imaginative, neither is the rest of you. Therefore, it is the center of your imagination.
The fact that the son exists solely in his “father’s” mind is another factor in the importance of imagination. That the father was able to create the son wholly, to the point that he believed the son was real is a testament to the importance and potency of imagination. The father says, ”Now I will be with my son.”(99) He creates a world in his imagination for his son as well. The power of the mind, it seems, knows no bounds.
The father does recognize that not only is his son not real but it also realizes, “With humiliation, with terror, he realized that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him.”(100) This is a key part in the story because although we already get the idea that imagination is vast, it is driven home by this thought. Not only did the father dream his son, but also, the father, has been dreamed by another person. This leads the reader to believe that all the people of the world are a figure of another’s imagination. To extend that, we could say that everyone owed their existence to another person and by extension, that person’s imagination.
The Circular Ruins is a story about imagination and I think it’s message is that imagination really knows no boundaries. Not only was the sorcerer not able to complete his creation until he imagined something entirely new, he also imbued the creation’s spirit with it’s own imagination. The play comes full circle when we see that everyone is just a figment of someone else’s imagination. That is a powerful statement and one that I believe comes straight from the influence of Quain. Imagination is easily the key theme of the story and this key is an ode to Herbert Quain.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Prompt One Circular Ruin
Reading Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain there is great detail in aspects of many of his works. From what I understood Quain was a writer built on structure and symmetry. There seemed to be a similar system that Quain used and followed through out his publishing’s. In the survey Borges breaks down the system in which Quain seems to repeat in an x, y, and z fashion as if the stories are outlined and structured.
Quain seems to me an exciting and mysterious writer. When the survey is discussing his novel April-March, there is an ultimate understanding to everything Quain conveys. In the title Quain is using the April before March because he is saying results are preceded by occurrences. Borges says, “…a backward running world posited by Bradley, in which death precedes birth, scar precedes the wound, and the wound precedes the blow.(pg 108)” This line made me quite interested into the deeper meanings of Quain.
Continuing the finish and discover Herbert Quina was the author of The Circular Ruin it makes sense. When reading The Circular Ruin, it seems to follow the designed pattern that Borges lays out for the reader. Borges says when discussing Quains The God of the Labyrinth, “That phares allows for one to infer that the solution is in fact an error, and so, uneasy, the reader looks back over the pertinent chapters and discovers another solution, which is the correct one.(pg 108)” Does Quain not do the same thing in The Curcular Ruin? When the reader reads the ending and realizes where the man dreams he has been the dreamed one Quain created an alternate solution that was the correct one.
This reading was a difficult one to fully grasp for me personally. I had to reread this story a few times. The ending is a neatly added twist that got my head spinning when I first read that he was the dream of another man. Yet I believe this is what Quian wants to accomplish. He works off the ideas of letting the reader have freedom to understand the story how he or she gets it. When you are reading of the man in the ruins dreaming and creating another person and how the man goes about his day-to-day life you are really reading the process in which the man has become an appearance. I found this story interesting and Quain seemed to have followed his system as usual in making sure to keep the reader guessing. The theme I got from The Circular Ruin is similar to the title of April-March, in a sense the man preceded himself being another mans dream. This is what I believe makes The Circular Ruin, a Quain story.
Prompt 1: "Circular Ruins" & Quain
Enigmatic, misunderstood, and infinite; those three words are all encompassing when considering the life and works of Henry Quain. His writings were commonly viewed as confusing with no real storyline or definitive ending, and some of his works were described as being filled with “ careless plotting” (pg 109, Borges). It is rather interesting to learn that Quain was also the author of the short story “Circular Ruins”. This short story is omniscient of his past writings, and many themes that are present in his other works can be found in “Circular Ruins”. The format that it is presented in is unique; however this uniqueness is a result of the fact that “Circular Ruins” is really a portion taken from another story. This affects how the short story is understood and interpreted.
In the “Circular Ruins” the sorcerer discovers that the life that he is living is not a reality. This plot twist is very similar to the one that Quain employed in his two act comedy April March. Just like the main character in this play, the sorcerer is living in a world that can be described as just a figment of his vivid dreams and imagination. Events that occur in “Circular Ruins” are as “implausible and improbable” as some of the details mentioned in April March. And in both works, the main characters are the only ones who seem to be aware of their altered imagined states. This can be attributed to the fact that Quain believed that the highest form of pleasure that could be taken from reading literature was “the pleasure of the imagination” (pg 111, Borges). Quain also thought that “not everyone was capable of experiencing that pleasure” (pg 111, Borges). This is extremely significant to “Circular Ruins” as the imagination of the sorcerer is essential to him reaching his goal “to dream a man” (pg 97, Borges). It is stated that the sorcerer “perceived it, he lived it,” when imagining his phantasm (pg 98, Borges) Without this vivid imagination, the sorcerer certainly would not have been able to imagine every single aspect of his phantasm from the “countless hairs of the body” all the way down to its beating heart. In a way, it can be inferred that Quain is implying that without an imagination, one is incapable of living.
“Circular Ruins” is different from many of Quain’s writings for the sheer fact that it has a recognizable start and finish. Though the ideas of immortally and a life that “the gods and demiurges had chosen” as infinite are toyed with, the short story does come to an abrupt end in a literal and figurative manner once the protagonist realizes that “he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him” (pg 100, Borges). Another issue that I believe influences this “abrupt ending” is the fact that “Circular Ruins” is merely an “extract” from Quain’s story “The Rose from Yesterday”. This is compared to many of Quain’s other stories where there are “infinite stories, [and] infinite branches” for the plot to twist and maneuver through. Instead, the plot in “Circular Ruins” can be picked up quite easily. There are no alternate endings for one to imagine or accidently stumble upon. It can be assumed that “Circular Ruins” may either be a separate standing idea within “The Rose from Yesterday” or just a tale that is meant to feed into or enhance another story.
Another Quain theme used in the “Circular Ruins” is the use of retrospective events to shed light on hidden situations or ideas. Several of Quain’s stories function in a way that the events are not told in chronological order. Instead they are arranged in ways that best enhances “the strange book’s peculiar flavor” (pg 110, Borges). This manner of writing makes the reader reconsider what they have just read, causing them to look back over “pertinent chapters” and come to a correct conclusion (pg 108, Borges). This theme is not initially present in “Circular Ruins”, and there are no events that would alert the reader to stop and go back to previous events in the story. It is not until very end that it is blatantly stated that all the events that had taken place up until that point had already occurred before. The line, “For that which had occurred hundreds or years ago was being repeated now”, serves as a startling wake up call to not only the reader, but also the sorcerer who is about to walk into the burning sanctuary, finally awakened from his oblivious slumber (pg 100, Borges).
option 1
Ae-Ree Choi
Borges’ Circular Ruins and A Survey of Works of Herbert Quain have many
similarities, especially in terms of Gnosticism, importance of knowledge and fantasy.
In fact, Borges clearly states that he based his fiction, Circular Ruins, on Herbert
Quain’s The Rose of Yesterday, which supports a strong bond between two stories.
First of all, both stories reveal Borges’ particular interest in Gnosticism. The
basic principle of Gnosticism is that knowledge is good, and there is not one God, but
two Gods, one good and one evil. Furthermore, Borges focuses on the importance of
knowledge and reveals it throughout the two stories. When Borges mentions
dimurge in both stories and says, “while the gods and demiurges had chosen an
infinite one” (Borges 110), and “in the Cosmogonies of the Gnostics, the demiurges
knead up a red Adam who cannot manage to stand” (Borges 99). Dimurge is one of
the Gods that exists in belief of Gnosticism. However, the importance is that this
term is only adapted by the Gnostics and it opposes monotheistic idea of
Christianity; it rather presents polytheistic view. Therefore, incorporating in the
story reveals that Borges was especially interested in Gnosticism.
Secondly, both stories focus on the importance of knowledge. When Borges
talks about Quain’s work, he says, “he [Quain] saw with absolute clarity the
experimental nature of his works, which might be admirable for their
innovativeness and a certain laconic integrity, but hardly for their strength of
passion” (Borges 107). Quain’s work is valued not because of his passion for his
writing, but for his imagination; this can also relate to the idea of knowledge,
because imagination is something that is created based on one’s experiences and
one’s knowledge. This bond between imagination and knowledge, then, can also tie
into one of the ideas of Gnosticism that unreality is valued over reality. In Circular
Ruins, the wizard dreams about this boy and he “perceived it with greater clarity,
greater certainty. He did not touch it; he only witnessed it, observed it… she lived it,
from many angles, many distances” (98). Very detailed description of sorcerer
dreaming and creating unreality within his reality emphasizes the importance of
creation based on one’s knowledge. In addition, Quain’s statement that among
many kinds of pleasure literature can minister, the highest is the pleasure of the
imagination, which shows that through imagining, one can experience a true
meaning of pleasure, and even that pleasure and the imagination itself can turn into
one’s knowledge in a future.
Lastly, stories also focus on the idea of fantasy. Borges states that the best
story is not the one that Quain first wrote; rather, it is a tale of fantasy (110.) Borges
and Quain both value fantasies because they are totally based on one’s imagination,
becoming one’s own unique understanding. The story of Circular Ruins is a
completely fantasized story that includes a sorcerer, dreams and creation. The boy
who is created through the sorcerer’s dream is already considered superior because
he is in desire and being dreamed and the unreality is valued over the things that
already exist in life. Borges states that Quain’s best story was a tale of fantasy and by
using one of Quain’s stories and turning it into his fantasy story shows that Borges
also created one of his best stories through combination of his knowledge and
Quain’s knowledge about fiction.
Borges’ Circular Ruins and A Survey of Works of Herbert Quain have many
similarities, especially in terms of Gnosticism, importance of knowledge and fantasy.
In fact, Borges clearly states that he based his fiction, Circular Ruins, on Herbert
Quain’s The Rose of Yesterday, which supports a strong bond between two stories.
First of all, both stories reveal Borges’ particular interest in Gnosticism. The
basic principle of Gnosticism is that knowledge is good, and there is not one God, but
two Gods, one good and one evil. Furthermore, Borges focuses on the importance of
knowledge and reveals it throughout the two stories. When Borges mentions
dimurge in both stories and says, “while the gods and demiurges had chosen an
infinite one” (Borges 110), and “in the Cosmogonies of the Gnostics, the demiurges
knead up a red Adam who cannot manage to stand” (Borges 99). Dimurge is one of
the Gods that exists in belief of Gnosticism. However, the importance is that this
term is only adapted by the Gnostics and it opposes monotheistic idea of
Christianity; it rather presents polytheistic view. Therefore, incorporating in the
story reveals that Borges was especially interested in Gnosticism.
Secondly, both stories focus on the importance of knowledge. When Borges
talks about Quain’s work, he says, “he [Quain] saw with absolute clarity the
experimental nature of his works, which might be admirable for their
innovativeness and a certain laconic integrity, but hardly for their strength of
passion” (Borges 107). Quain’s work is valued not because of his passion for his
writing, but for his imagination; this can also relate to the idea of knowledge,
because imagination is something that is created based on one’s experiences and
one’s knowledge. This bond between imagination and knowledge, then, can also tie
into one of the ideas of Gnosticism that unreality is valued over reality. In Circular
Ruins, the wizard dreams about this boy and he “perceived it with greater clarity,
greater certainty. He did not touch it; he only witnessed it, observed it… she lived it,
from many angles, many distances” (98). Very detailed description of sorcerer
dreaming and creating unreality within his reality emphasizes the importance of
creation based on one’s knowledge. In addition, Quain’s statement that among
many kinds of pleasure literature can minister, the highest is the pleasure of the
imagination, which shows that through imagining, one can experience a true
meaning of pleasure, and even that pleasure and the imagination itself can turn into
one’s knowledge in a future.
Lastly, stories also focus on the idea of fantasy. Borges states that the best
story is not the one that Quain first wrote; rather, it is a tale of fantasy (110.) Borges
and Quain both value fantasies because they are totally based on one’s imagination,
becoming one’s own unique understanding. The story of Circular Ruins is a
completely fantasized story that includes a sorcerer, dreams and creation. The boy
who is created through the sorcerer’s dream is already considered superior because
he is in desire and being dreamed and the unreality is valued over the things that
already exist in life. Borges states that Quain’s best story was a tale of fantasy and by
using one of Quain’s stories and turning it into his fantasy story shows that Borges
also created one of his best stories through combination of his knowledge and
Quain’s knowledge about fiction.
Prompt 2 and Don Quixote
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is quoted in Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote as having been edited by Pierre Menard in Chapter 9 and 38 of Part 1 and a fragment of Chapter 22 in Part 2 (Page 90).The representation of Don Quixote meshes well with Pierre Menard because even in the forward by the true author Jorge Luis Borges, Pierre Menard the story is described as the story’s “unreality lies in the fate the story’s protagonist imposes upon himself” (Page 67). This fate is that in the story Pierre Menard, Menard’s work is criticized as being ridiculous and copying off other’s work. Menard claimed that his purpose was to not recreate another’s work, but to simply add to it so that both works can be read together without ever discerning where one author ends and the other’s work begins. In Pierre Menard, Menard believes that historical truth is what one believes what happens and not what actually happened (Page 94). By writing like that, it makes even boring books an adventure because one is not sure who actually wrote it (Page 95).
This brings us to Don Quixote by Cervantes. Much like Pierre Menard’s vision, Don Quixote, the main character in Cervantes work, sees what he wants to see. So his history and his life is not what it actually is, which is just an older gentleman, but he sees himself as an adventurer, as a solider, and as a defender of the people who are being wronged in the world. Towards the end of the story, Cervantes opens his story up to the possibility that the story itself is actually a retelling of a Moor name Cide Hamete’s story. With this twist, as in Borges’ Pierre Menard, one is not actually sure who wrote the story which makes it even more of an adventure because there is the possibility that the reason it is unsure who wrote the story is that it might be based on actual events which makes it even more exciting.
The parts of the story of Don Quixote that are mentioned in Pierre Menard were again Chapter 9, 37, and a fragment of 22. The quotations are fitting because in Chapter 9, Cervantes writes into his story about the historical account of the previous encounter and displayed his irritability over this. By writing first that this is based on historical records sort of reaffirms what Menard described as a truth being what ones believes and not what is actually happening. In Chapter 37, the same theme is throughout as he believes that a low status woman is a princess and will not listen to the reasoning of his overseer Sancho. Finally, in Chapter 22 there is a commonality to Menard and a character in the book who rewrites classics of the time as Menard has rewritten the very book that he has added a chapter to.
Could these passages be read as though Menard’s story is correct and the story of Don Quixote as we know it has these few lines and stories of Menard littered throughout it, or did Borges actually create this story out of those very passages? Seeing as Menard is a work of fiction, the most probable solution is the latter, but as Menard did say, truth is what you believe happens and who you believe wrote it and not what actually happened or who actually was credited with writing it.
Prompt 3, Time
“Space is not conceived as having duration in time” (74).
Lauren Olamina in the Parable of the Sower brings forth a utopian world in which people shape God and this God is Change. Humans shape the world around them which in term shapes humankind. This cyclical continuity is compounded by Borges belief in a lack of time.
According to Borges each moment is separate from the one before or after it. An event that occurs has no connection to its cause or effect, it just is: “The world is not an amalgam of objects in space; it is a series of independent acts—the world is successive, temporal, but not spatial” (73). Instead, he propagates the illusion that an event merely has an association with whatever had caused it or had been affected by it: “…the half-extinguished cigarette that produced the scorched earth is considered an example of the associate of ideas” (74). With this association there is little to determine, predict, or change. Life continues in the moment in which the current event occurs.
This separation of cause and effect denies humans the consciousness of shaping Lauren’s god of change, the god that shapes the world around them. Each person would live in the moment, “causing” events around them, but not linking the relationship and thus living in each moment, with the following moment being the changed they had just created. To follow the previous example, one would half-extinguish a cigarette. One would walk away. The cigarette would reignite. The sparks would catch a nearby napkin on fire. This chain could lead to the forest burning down, but the original person who half-extinguished their cigarette would not have the mental schema to attribute the action to its effect. The world has changed, the forest has been decimated, God has visited, but the person has no knowledge of this cycle. Every act done by a human would have similar reaction: no knowledgeable consequences.
The world of Tlon takes this lack of sequential time a step farther because it refuses to endorse time altogether. “One of the schools of philosophy on Tlon goes so far as to deny the existence of time; it argues that the present is undefined and indefinite, the future has no reality except as present hope, and the past has no reality except as present recollection” (74). Again, each moment carries only what can be carried in the moment. There is a singular hope for the future in any moment, but not over the course of moments. There is no plan, no map of action in order to provide the imagined future. Lauren would not be able to provide an utopian world because she already has the mental capabilities for hope. Implicitly stated through Borges arguments, is the lack of thought able to be provided to humans in a utopian world.
Lauren states in her Earthseed verses at the beginning of chapter three:
God is Power-
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable
Indifferent
And yet, God is Pliable-
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is Change.
Yet for as powerful as God is, there is no relationship between man and God, according to Borges. It cannot be a teacher that allows humans to realize the actions that ought to be next taken, but the force that is changed as an afterthought, which changes the world in miracles. This is the only way in which a utopian world can be a reality. Human consciousness stands in the way of complete contentment, complete happiness. When the world constantly amazes—constantly changes in miraculous ways—humans reach the ideal life of a utopian world. There is no goal to achieve, no obstacles to overcome, there is nothing in life but the present living and the concurrent changing environment in which one lives.
Option 3
There is no such thing as a perfect world; however the person perceives the world is the way it should be categorized. Lauren in Parable of the Sower has its own vision of how their world should be; they wanted to turn their world from dystopia into a utopia. Lauren decided to believe that only change would make the world utopia. For Jorge Borges, he believed that in an ordered world they need chaos to survive. Most of the stories in fictions have topics in change. Change was the main topic in Parable of the Sower, in Lauren’s diary the verses was mainly about Lauren’s God, which was change. In Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius a millionaire Ezra Buckley believed that mortals could conceive and shape a world, which is the same philosophy Lauren believed in (Hurley p. 79). In the Tlön encyclopedias they praise an action but later contradict themselves at the story continued.
The main focus of the people, can tell the reader about the people’s intentions. Borges wrote a few stories about the Gnostics and their belief systems. Gnostics believed in changing the history of Orthodox Christians and making it their own. The same happened in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius the people would follow heresiarchs, who believed that mankind continuing to populate was abominable (Hurley p. 68). The people questioned everything and created their own history (Hurley p. 71). In this world everyone was stuck between history and reality (Hurley p. 75). For Lauren in the Parable of the Sower, that wasn’t the case she was more focused on changing the reality that they lived in. The two shared a mutual feeling that their traditions would stick and all others would fail because their way is the best way to go (Hurley p. 81)
Lauren tried to convert everyone around her by trying to change their views and outlooks on life. A normal way to change others views by showing them that everything would change if they would change themselves. I think the way the people in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius operate could have made Lauren upset because they had a tendency to question everyone’s actions. Lauren was the type of person that doesn’t like to tell people what to change but rather show them ways to change. When Lauren helped Allie and Jill, she didn’t have to but her doing so showed others that it’s not hard to change. Lauren wrote verses to persuade people into changing their ways; she wanted others to be able to read in the future, similar to the Tlön society writing encyclopedias. In the first verse in Chapter One of the Parable of the Sower, there are a few lines that discuss moments that occurred in the book. In Lauren’s journey for change she did things that most people in her world wouldn’t have done. She was a believer that you can change someone’s life by just touching them which describes “All that you touch…You Change” (Butler p. 3). I think that if Lauren followed the Tlön religion than she wouldn’t have accomplished everything she did.
The people of Tlön believed that the world does not consist of objects in space but it’s a series of independent acts (Hurley p. 73). In the Parable of the Sower, individual acts were the only factor Lauren was banking on. She knew that she couldn’t change the world in one day by doing only one act. Lauren realized it’s a process that requires change to be allowed to take its time. No one can change overnight it takes time for a person to realize the wrongs of their ways. Borges believed that without chaos, there would be no success. Some individuals say “how do you know up, if you never been down. Lauren’s world had been in turmoil for so long I think the only way that they can survive is by moving forward. If change is their way of moving forward than it is most likely the best way for their success.
The main focus of the people, can tell the reader about the people’s intentions. Borges wrote a few stories about the Gnostics and their belief systems. Gnostics believed in changing the history of Orthodox Christians and making it their own. The same happened in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius the people would follow heresiarchs, who believed that mankind continuing to populate was abominable (Hurley p. 68). The people questioned everything and created their own history (Hurley p. 71). In this world everyone was stuck between history and reality (Hurley p. 75). For Lauren in the Parable of the Sower, that wasn’t the case she was more focused on changing the reality that they lived in. The two shared a mutual feeling that their traditions would stick and all others would fail because their way is the best way to go (Hurley p. 81)
Lauren tried to convert everyone around her by trying to change their views and outlooks on life. A normal way to change others views by showing them that everything would change if they would change themselves. I think the way the people in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius operate could have made Lauren upset because they had a tendency to question everyone’s actions. Lauren was the type of person that doesn’t like to tell people what to change but rather show them ways to change. When Lauren helped Allie and Jill, she didn’t have to but her doing so showed others that it’s not hard to change. Lauren wrote verses to persuade people into changing their ways; she wanted others to be able to read in the future, similar to the Tlön society writing encyclopedias. In the first verse in Chapter One of the Parable of the Sower, there are a few lines that discuss moments that occurred in the book. In Lauren’s journey for change she did things that most people in her world wouldn’t have done. She was a believer that you can change someone’s life by just touching them which describes “All that you touch…You Change” (Butler p. 3). I think that if Lauren followed the Tlön religion than she wouldn’t have accomplished everything she did.
The people of Tlön believed that the world does not consist of objects in space but it’s a series of independent acts (Hurley p. 73). In the Parable of the Sower, individual acts were the only factor Lauren was banking on. She knew that she couldn’t change the world in one day by doing only one act. Lauren realized it’s a process that requires change to be allowed to take its time. No one can change overnight it takes time for a person to realize the wrongs of their ways. Borges believed that without chaos, there would be no success. Some individuals say “how do you know up, if you never been down. Lauren’s world had been in turmoil for so long I think the only way that they can survive is by moving forward. If change is their way of moving forward than it is most likely the best way for their success.
Option 1 - Borges Prompt
The Circular Ruins may be thought of as one of the works of Herbert Quain. Herbert Quain writes of symmetry, backwards worlds, and mysteries, but what most represents the Circular Ruins is the story of Statements. The Circular Ruins parallels much of what was said about Herbert Quain’s Statements. The imagination, the fantasy, and the vanity all ring true in both stories.
Quain believed that “of the many kinds of pleasure literature can minister, the highest is the pleasure of the imagination.” (111) This statement explains The Circular Ruins and everything that it symbolizes; it also was his explanation of Statements. In the Circular Ruins, the dreamer musters up his best idea of a son and a man totally through his imagination. With this imagination, the dreamer is fully satisfied with his outcome and “his days were, in general, happy” (99), once he is able to accomplish this man all from his dreams and imagination.
Quain also states “There is no European man or woman that’s not a writer, potentially, or in fact.” (111) I think that the writer could be the sorcerer in the Circular Ruins. A writer is someone who uses his or her imagination and creates a piece of artwork. Essentially, the sorcerer is doing this in the Circular Ruins by using his imagination to conjure up a man, who is a piece of artwork in the end.
However, “Since not everyone is capable of experiencing that pleasure, many will have to content themselves with simulacra.” (111) This is what the sorcerer does. He must create an image or a representation to completely experience the complete pleasure of literature or imagination. Quain wrote Statements, which were based on this theory.
Finally, Borges explains that “One of the stories hints at two plots; the reader, blinded by vanity, believes that he himself has come up with them” (111). I think that the reader can be interchanged here to be the sorcerer. The sorcerer has believed that he has created this imagination of a man, but really the God of Fire is the creator. The God of Fire is the inspiration to create the man, and he himself actually makes this dream a reality. The other plot that may be in the Circular Ruins is the thought that the dreamer has that his creation will not discover he is actually just an imagination. However, in the end, the imaginary man realized that he “was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him.” (100) I believe that both the dreamer and the imaginary man were blinded by vanity. The dreamer thought this man was so perfect and he had educated him so well, he did not think that he would realize that he was imaginary. The imaginary man thought he was so perfect and could do the unthinkable which was walk through fire that he never realized until the very end he was indeed imaginary. Vanity blinded the dreamer in two plots, however, just as Borges stated.
With these few last words in A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain, I believe that The Circular Ruins may be part of the works of Statements. With the exclamations of Borges and Quain, we can see that these two stories run parallel and one is definitely part of the other.
Day 1 Prompt 1
A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain and The Circular Ruins share a powerful bond, both in the content of the pieces, and in the context of real life. The Circular Ruins questions whether or not anyone is actually real, and whether or not reality is necessarily better. This question becomes all the more relevant and intriguing when we consider that The Circular Ruins was a story of a man creating another man from scratch, and was "authored" by Herbert Quain, a fictional writer created from the imagination of Jorge Luis Borges. The symmetry flows seamlessly, as the man in The Circular Ruins who creates a student with magnificent aptitude follows in line with Borges, who creates Quain in a similar, though somewhat less literal, manner.
Early in Circular Ruins, a man who is presumably an educator travels to an ancient circular structure that he believed to have been a temple years before, where he believes he can uncover the secret to creating a man through dreaming (Borges 96). He begins to mediate and eventually sleep in front of this structure, where he dreams of teaching a large class in an amphitheater (Borges 97). As he lectures this class, he finds that the students who display the most potential are the ones who tend to question him (Borges 97). After a while, the man chooses one student from the crowd who he believes is worthy of being imagined into reality, but eventually discovers he is not actually dreaming, and that it was just a hallucination. Frustrated, the man creates a being from scratch, starting with what he deems most important, a heart (Borges 98). The being that comes to life as his de facto son is a strange red figure, who the man trains before sending off. After awhile the man imagines being told stories of his son by other men, before finally realizing that he himself does not exist as anything but a part of another person's dream (Borges100). The man in the story essentially believed that nothing was really, as he came to view his imagined son as better than anything that was part of reality. When he comes to believe that he is a figment of someone's imagination, he pushes that point even further, by questioning whether or not anyone or anything is actually real, similar to the way some of the characters in the movie Inception did. The point he raises is actually rather plausible, especially in the sense that some spiritual people who believe in God or another form of intelligent design already consent to this viewpoint, although their phraseology would probably differ a bit.
A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain seems to answer the questions raised in Circular Ruins, as Borges showers praise on his alter ego in comparison with real authors (Borges 107). Basically, Borges asserts that Quain is a superior author, while also praising him for his modesty (Borges 107). This essentially implies that Borges considers himself to be arrogant, and not as talented as the Quian persona he creates. In addition to his views on Quain's talent, the writing style he adopts as Quain reinforces the thyme of questioning of reality, by having three different worlds represented by three long chapters co-existing within the same basic framework outlined in a preliminary chapter (Borges 109). In Quain's last work, The Secret Mirror , Borges clarifies his argument about the existence of reality, saying, "There is no European man or woman, that's not a writer, potentially or in fact"(Borges 111). He justifies this by saying that an author's main purpose when crafting literature is to spark the reader's imagination, which he believes gives the reader the greatest amount of pleasure (Borges 111). Likely due to the condition the world was in with World War II and a worldwide depression, when Borges wrote, he says that most people do not get to experience genuine pleasure in their own lives, making the author's job that much more important (Borges 111). Being that Borges is a fiction writer and he views his success based on his ability to create pleasure by intriguing the imagination of others, it seems pretty clear why he places a low premium on the value of reality.
Early in Circular Ruins, a man who is presumably an educator travels to an ancient circular structure that he believed to have been a temple years before, where he believes he can uncover the secret to creating a man through dreaming (Borges 96). He begins to mediate and eventually sleep in front of this structure, where he dreams of teaching a large class in an amphitheater (Borges 97). As he lectures this class, he finds that the students who display the most potential are the ones who tend to question him (Borges 97). After a while, the man chooses one student from the crowd who he believes is worthy of being imagined into reality, but eventually discovers he is not actually dreaming, and that it was just a hallucination. Frustrated, the man creates a being from scratch, starting with what he deems most important, a heart (Borges 98). The being that comes to life as his de facto son is a strange red figure, who the man trains before sending off. After awhile the man imagines being told stories of his son by other men, before finally realizing that he himself does not exist as anything but a part of another person's dream (Borges100). The man in the story essentially believed that nothing was really, as he came to view his imagined son as better than anything that was part of reality. When he comes to believe that he is a figment of someone's imagination, he pushes that point even further, by questioning whether or not anyone or anything is actually real, similar to the way some of the characters in the movie Inception did. The point he raises is actually rather plausible, especially in the sense that some spiritual people who believe in God or another form of intelligent design already consent to this viewpoint, although their phraseology would probably differ a bit.
A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain seems to answer the questions raised in Circular Ruins, as Borges showers praise on his alter ego in comparison with real authors (Borges 107). Basically, Borges asserts that Quain is a superior author, while also praising him for his modesty (Borges 107). This essentially implies that Borges considers himself to be arrogant, and not as talented as the Quian persona he creates. In addition to his views on Quain's talent, the writing style he adopts as Quain reinforces the thyme of questioning of reality, by having three different worlds represented by three long chapters co-existing within the same basic framework outlined in a preliminary chapter (Borges 109). In Quain's last work, The Secret Mirror , Borges clarifies his argument about the existence of reality, saying, "There is no European man or woman, that's not a writer, potentially or in fact"(Borges 111). He justifies this by saying that an author's main purpose when crafting literature is to spark the reader's imagination, which he believes gives the reader the greatest amount of pleasure (Borges 111). Likely due to the condition the world was in with World War II and a worldwide depression, when Borges wrote, he says that most people do not get to experience genuine pleasure in their own lives, making the author's job that much more important (Borges 111). Being that Borges is a fiction writer and he views his success based on his ability to create pleasure by intriguing the imagination of others, it seems pretty clear why he places a low premium on the value of reality.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Assignment for Borges, Day 1: Option 1
The Circular Ruins are to the Statements by Herbert Quain as all of humanity is to creators: the same. More specifically, The Circular Ruins are in comparison with “The Rose of Yesterday”. Illustratively, Quain would convey, ““There is no European man or woman,” … “that’s not a writer, potentially or in fact.”” (111) Taken from this certain point of view, instead of being frightened, one may be enlightened to think of this perplexing idea as way to ecstasy: here having the meaning of pleasurable creation. However in detail, for all we can discern, we ourselves may in fact be like the Sorcerer of The Circular Ruins: part of an elaborate dreamt up world by another far greater individual.
Could Humanity, as we know it at least, actually be part of a grand illusion that which is merely someone else’s imagination? As in both texts, the idea of Creationism is a prominent theme. Drawing from other texts, themes like this can be seen in such stories as Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: particularly in chapter four. From this chapter, Tweedledee tells Alice, while looking at the Red King, that she herself in fact is just a character in his own dream and imagination. Contrastingly, in The Circular Ruins the Sorcerer, although not knowledgeable of whom his Creator is, realizes that, "With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him." (100) From this, the blindness of a man can lead him to become, as in Statements, “…blinded by vanity…” (111) And believe, “…that he himself has come up with them.” (111) Here, “them” having the meaning of the Sorcerer’s son.
From the Creation of Humanity to our Creation of God, we gave meaning to that which we did not fully understand. Perhaps only because, we like in Statements are unable to fully realize our purpose; And in that, we are as Quain would say, the “”…writers manqués…”(111) However true this may be, we still Create like any other person, be it for comfort or conceivably pleasure, possibly everything that we see around us. For instance, as the Sorcerer prayed to his “…planetary gods…” (98) in The Circular Ruins, for merely pleasure and want to be able to finally dream his son and his “…beating heart.” (98) From this quote, we can compare the correspondence between its meaning and that from Statements when it is said that: “…of the many kinds of pleasure literature can minister, the highest is the pleasure of the imagination.” (111). Evidently of course not being from the Sorcerer’s literature works, this literature can easily be substituted in for his imagination; And from that, the realization that we ourselves could have in fact and most likely, Created God from our own imaginations and desire – comforting and consoling the unknown.
Within Statements, Quain “…argued that readers were an extinct species.” (111) From this, one might wonder if the term “readers” may carry along with it a deeper meaning. By chance, perhaps all of Humanity are the extinct readers; meaning, that we as human beings have become completely desensitized to the idea of Creation and we are now unable to distinguish one from the other. For illustration, I believe that in The Circular Ruins, the Sorcerer may have also been a dying out “reader” himself: believing that he had created his son without have any question to whom might have created him. Until later, when the Sorcerer at “The end of his meditations…” (100) had the choice to either continue his blindness to “reading” and jump into the water, saving “his life”; Or, walk into the fire and “… absolve…” (100) himself “…from his labors.” (100) A question may be risen from this scenario; perhaps for most of Humanity, unlike the Sorcerer, most are choosing to jump into the water to save themselves only in turn selectively choosing to continue their blind utopian world – with their imagined God at the middle. Or perhaps rather a select few, like the Sorcerer, would choose, although hopefully for better reasons, to walk into the fire. Which in turn, would inevitably allow them to become enlightened and knowledgeable that they themselves are merely a figment of someone’s twisted imagination; And by that, a fully realized “reader”: now open to endless possibilities.
From these summating ideas of Imagination, Creation, and Realization it is but fact that these two short stories: The Circular Ruins and Statements, have shown deeply rooted connections to how they define not only how we could have Dreamed our own world, but perhaps more intriguingly – how our world could have Dreamed us. Allegedly, the Sorcerer created his son as our God created us, but how can Humanity survive when we ourselves created our own Creator? Therefore, Humanity, like the Sorcerer, must have been dreamt by Another – a vastly superior being that we cannot possibly begin fathom.
Could Humanity, as we know it at least, actually be part of a grand illusion that which is merely someone else’s imagination? As in both texts, the idea of Creationism is a prominent theme. Drawing from other texts, themes like this can be seen in such stories as Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: particularly in chapter four. From this chapter, Tweedledee tells Alice, while looking at the Red King, that she herself in fact is just a character in his own dream and imagination. Contrastingly, in The Circular Ruins the Sorcerer, although not knowledgeable of whom his Creator is, realizes that, "With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him." (100) From this, the blindness of a man can lead him to become, as in Statements, “…blinded by vanity…” (111) And believe, “…that he himself has come up with them.” (111) Here, “them” having the meaning of the Sorcerer’s son.
From the Creation of Humanity to our Creation of God, we gave meaning to that which we did not fully understand. Perhaps only because, we like in Statements are unable to fully realize our purpose; And in that, we are as Quain would say, the “”…writers manqués…”(111) However true this may be, we still Create like any other person, be it for comfort or conceivably pleasure, possibly everything that we see around us. For instance, as the Sorcerer prayed to his “…planetary gods…” (98) in The Circular Ruins, for merely pleasure and want to be able to finally dream his son and his “…beating heart.” (98) From this quote, we can compare the correspondence between its meaning and that from Statements when it is said that: “…of the many kinds of pleasure literature can minister, the highest is the pleasure of the imagination.” (111). Evidently of course not being from the Sorcerer’s literature works, this literature can easily be substituted in for his imagination; And from that, the realization that we ourselves could have in fact and most likely, Created God from our own imaginations and desire – comforting and consoling the unknown.
Within Statements, Quain “…argued that readers were an extinct species.” (111) From this, one might wonder if the term “readers” may carry along with it a deeper meaning. By chance, perhaps all of Humanity are the extinct readers; meaning, that we as human beings have become completely desensitized to the idea of Creation and we are now unable to distinguish one from the other. For illustration, I believe that in The Circular Ruins, the Sorcerer may have also been a dying out “reader” himself: believing that he had created his son without have any question to whom might have created him. Until later, when the Sorcerer at “The end of his meditations…” (100) had the choice to either continue his blindness to “reading” and jump into the water, saving “his life”; Or, walk into the fire and “… absolve…” (100) himself “…from his labors.” (100) A question may be risen from this scenario; perhaps for most of Humanity, unlike the Sorcerer, most are choosing to jump into the water to save themselves only in turn selectively choosing to continue their blind utopian world – with their imagined God at the middle. Or perhaps rather a select few, like the Sorcerer, would choose, although hopefully for better reasons, to walk into the fire. Which in turn, would inevitably allow them to become enlightened and knowledgeable that they themselves are merely a figment of someone’s twisted imagination; And by that, a fully realized “reader”: now open to endless possibilities.
From these summating ideas of Imagination, Creation, and Realization it is but fact that these two short stories: The Circular Ruins and Statements, have shown deeply rooted connections to how they define not only how we could have Dreamed our own world, but perhaps more intriguingly – how our world could have Dreamed us. Allegedly, the Sorcerer created his son as our God created us, but how can Humanity survive when we ourselves created our own Creator? Therefore, Humanity, like the Sorcerer, must have been dreamt by Another – a vastly superior being that we cannot possibly begin fathom.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Assignment for Borges, Day 1
Option #1: Discuss in detail the significance of the fact that "Circular Ruins" is one of, or part of one of, the works of Herbert Quain. You should cite details from both stories (although you might choose to involve another story as well). Your discussions should have a single, clear argument, but what it is is entirely up to you.
Option #2: Get a copy of Don Quixote out of the library (or wherever). Read one of the chapters which is cited in Pierre Menard. After reading it (you might also want to read or skim a summary of the novel as a whole), present an argument which concerns Borges' choice of a passage, and the meaning or significance of that choice.
Option #3: Use the utopian (or, if you prefer, dystopian) vision of "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" to interpret the utopian (or dystopian) vision of Parable of the Sower. The details are up to you: you must use and quote both texts, and have a specific argument relating the two. My initial idea (it need not be yours) would be to use the utopian language of Borges' story to help understand the verses (perhaps even the style of the verses) in Parable of the Sower.
Option #2: Get a copy of Don Quixote out of the library (or wherever). Read one of the chapters which is cited in Pierre Menard. After reading it (you might also want to read or skim a summary of the novel as a whole), present an argument which concerns Borges' choice of a passage, and the meaning or significance of that choice.
Option #3: Use the utopian (or, if you prefer, dystopian) vision of "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" to interpret the utopian (or dystopian) vision of Parable of the Sower. The details are up to you: you must use and quote both texts, and have a specific argument relating the two. My initial idea (it need not be yours) would be to use the utopian language of Borges' story to help understand the verses (perhaps even the style of the verses) in Parable of the Sower.
Instructions for Self-Evaluation (Important!)
These are due within the next week. Just to be clear: you are evaluating yourself on work done before break. Anything during or after break will count toward the second half of the semester.
There are three components to the self-evaluation. You will evaluate yourself on your participation in class, on your participation in the weekly short blog entries due the day before class, and on your participation in commenting on one another's work. You will evaluate yourself on a five point scale for each category. The criteria are as follows, for each category. Please read the criteria, and send me an email before our next class, which includes the name of each category and your self-evaluation for that category. You *may* include a paragraph or less commenting on your own work. You *may* give me links to your best work for the weekly short blog and/or commenting on the work of others. These links are *required* if you are giving yourself a 4 or 5 in that category.
In-Class Criteria
5: You always come to class, always participate multiple times, and your part in the discussion is productive (for instance, you might regularly move the overall discussion in a new direction).
4: You come to class, always participate at least once in a given session (alternatively, you might have the occasional off class, but otherwise perform at the 5 level), and your participation is consistently productive.
3: You come to class, and usually have something to say in the course of the session. The value of your participation might be inconsistent, or you might have had several silent classes.
2: You do not habitually participate, but you pay attention, and occasionally have things to say.
1: You rarely or never participate in class.
Weekly Short Blog
5: You always do the blog entry, you always put some thought into it, and your work is invariably productive; you would feel comfortable writing a full essay on at least some of these ideas. Your ideas might often show up in class (hopefully with your name attached to them).
4: You have missed no more than one weekly blog entry. While the quality of those entries might vary (and their length probably does), and while only a few of your ideas might have come up class, you feel like some of them *could* have been the basis of a discussion.
3: You have missed no more than one weekly blog entry. The quality of those entries may be somewhat variable.
2: You do your blog entry more often than not; when you do it, its quality may be inconsistent.
1: You don't usually write an entry at all.
Comments on the work of others
5: You always make your weekly comment on another person's blog entry. You always put thought into your comment, and you always productively focus on their overall argument, without getting wrapped up in details.
4: The same as 5, except you might have missed an entry, or you might sometimes wander in your focus, or you might have done one or two of them in haste. Generally, though, you do well.
3: You usually remember to make your weekly comment, but they are often short and/or unfocused on their argument. You might, for instance, usually focus on grammatical or mechanical issues instead of their argument.
2: You have commented on others' work, but you sometimes forget to do so, and you don't put much effort into it when you do.
1: You don't usually comment on others' work.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Prompt 1
In Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, one of Lauren Oya Olamina’s Earthseed passages is, “In order to rise/From its own ashes/A phoenix/First/Must/Burn.” (Page 153). The phoenix has several different meanings. In mythology, the phoenix is usually described as a bird with brilliant plumage and having magical properties while alive. At the end of its life, when the phoenix dies his body is enflamed and, from the ashes, the phoenix is reborn to begin life anew. The phoenix is also a metaphor for a circle or a cycle, destruction and creation, and to some extent, divinity and immortality based upon the phoenix rising from the ashes after each lifespan. In Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler applies these metaphors to Lauren as a character.
For Lauren Olamina, because of her hyperempathy disorder, lives a guarded life, but as the problems of the outside lowly start to impede on her gated life, she is excited to recruit as many people as possible in order to prepare as many as she can for life outside the protective walls of the gated community. She was talking to her best friend Jo, “We’ll die in here unless we get busy now and work out ways to survive (Page 56)”. She then goes into ways that they can survive with books, Lauren thinks that she has an ally, someone to stand by her, but then she was ‘told on’ by Jo to her parents. With this act, Lauren thanks herself that she didn’t go into detail about her own disability, a belief that she carries with her throughout her travels. She is resistant to provide any details about herself to those who she ‘picks up’ along the way until they prove themselves to her. This cycle is ongoing throughout the book as she first learned to be careful from being ‘burned’ by Jo.
Lauren is also represented by the Phoenix through destruction and creation. While in her gated community, Lauren was held back, not by any outside forces, but by her own responsibilities. During her build up for evacuation protocols, she has got together clothes, money, and food for her travels. She prepares early, but is hesitant to leave, never really making the move to go. When she was talking to Curtis, she was questioning leaving, “What are my responsibilities? What will happen to my brothers if I leave them to Cory? They’re her sons, and she’ll move the earth to take care of them, keep them fed and clothed and housed. But can she do it alone? How? (Page 140)”. It was from this responsibility and it was this Lauren who figuratively died in the fire that killed her family and community and was reborn into this new world where she is realized that all her old fears was so much less pressing then what she is going through now and the decisions that she is making now as represented when she gets to Clearwater and realized that she didn’t check on the seeds that she packed as often as she would have planned on, “I hadn’t renewed [the seeds] as often as I should have while I was at home. Strange that I hadn’t. Things kept getting worse and worse at home, yet I had paid less and less attention to the park that was supposed to save my life when the mob came. There was so much else to worry about—and I think I was into my own brand of denial, as bad in its way as Cory’s or Joanne’s mother’s. But all that feels like ancient history. Now was what we had to worry about. (Page 318-319)”.
Finally, Lauren also is seen though the phoenix imagery as immortal as her work Earthseed and the community that she creases lives on despite when she herself might die.
In conclusion, the phoenix represents an immortal circle of destruction and creation which is also represented in the character Lauren Olamina and Earthseed.
Parable of the Sowers: All Struggles Are Essentially Power Struggles (Prompt 1)
“All struggles / are essentially power struggles.” This is how the verse of the ninth chapter of Parable of the Sower begins. Out of them many verses written by the main protagonist Laura Olamina, this is the one that stood out to me the most. In 17 short lines, this verse can be applied to many of the internal struggles faced by the characters in the novel.
At first glance, I was under the impression that the verse that opened up the ninth chapter strictly applied to the events that happened within that chapter involving Laura’s brother Keith and their Father. The fights between Keith and Mr. Olamina were a struggle for dominance within the household. Just like the lines within the verse, Keith was intent of ruling, leading, and defining the Olamina household by any means necessary. Keith’s first attempt at dominance occurred when he ventured outside the walls of their compound. After spending almost two weeks outside, Keith finally returned back to the compound. In Keith’s eyes, he is braver and stronger than his father. He is able to venture outside the walls by himself with nothing but a BB gun and returned unscathed. He’s more than ready to lead and care for his family. And unlike his father, he is able to provide luxuries such as “big, expensive bars of milk chocolate with peanuts” for his youngest brothers, and large amounts of cash for his mother to use (Butler, 98). His father certainly thinks otherwise, and beats Keith in the hopes of him never stepping outside of the walls again. It seems that Mr. Olamina strongly believed that this beating would serve not only as a warning to Keith, but also work to hold his crumbling family intact. This incident is parallel to the line within the verse that describes power struggles as “no more intellectual / than two rams / knocking their heads together”. The power struggle between Keith and his father is just that. Both individuals are stubborn, hard headed, and intent on making sure things go exactly the way they want them to. Keith is trying to establish a higher place for himself within the household, while his father is doing almost everything within his physical power to prevent that.
The ideas of this verse can also be applied to the heated conversations that occurred between Laura and Harry just after their neighborhood compound was destroyed and ravaged. After some time on the outside, Harry started to show apprehension towards the behavior of both Laura and Zahara. It seemed as if Harry was keen on keeping the same mindset that he had held while living behind the walls. He even goes as far as to chide Laura for being tolerant of Zahara stealing. “Thou shalt not steal” Harry proclaims (Butler, 172). In Harry’s mind, his ideals are best suited for leading for the group. However, Laura is not willing to concede and live by Harry’s rules. She is very much aware that these same trusting rules are what led to the downfall of their neighborhood. Instead, Laura is intent on doing her best to make sure her and her companions make it through their environment alive, and by any means necessary. The lines “And most / are no more intellectual / than two rams / knocking their heads together.” Don’t necessarily apply to this situation. While Harry could be compared to a mindless ram intent on confrontation, Laura is far from that. Laura holds the qualities of a leader and takes her band of companions into the consideration in every situation. Every decision she makes is for the betterment of her group. Harry is stuck on moving through the decimated world like a mindless sheep, going through the motions just like he did behind the walls of the neighborhood. While reading the novel, I sensed that Harry was not entirely comfortable living under the leadership of a woman. This was a drastic gender role change compared to the one he lived in within the neighborhood walls. Women were expected to take on a domestic role, one that did not require them to venture outside the walls to work or travel. Laura even notices that “he just didn’t want to change” to their ever adapting surroundings. (Butler, 182). Unlike Harry, Laura is not a static character. Laura is continuously defining, refining, and designing her moral compass. This is not surprising though, due to her trust in Earthseed. Her entire religious movement is based on change, and it would be out of character if Laura was not ever changing and learning from her surroundings.
Prompt 1. Fighting Rescuers
Drowning people
Sometimes die
Fighting their rescuers.
--pg 61
Every human is susceptible to the same fate: of destroying one’s own means of salvation. Teenagers are the best at illustrating this trend, acting out against parental wishes, wishes that for the most part are for the best of the teen. Lauren Olamina is saying the same thing through this Earthseed verse using a very true fact. Sometimes people cannot see the bigger picture, and fight against that which is meant to save them which in turn destroys their hope of what is being pursued in the first place.
There are many examples in this book since death is a prevalent occurrence. Keith is the classic teenager who fights against his parents. In venturing outside the walls of his community he has no idea of the dangers that await him, although he believes he does. Both Cory and Lauren’s father try to get him to understand, to protect him, but Keith refuses to see: “Keith refused he had done anything wrong. He wanted to show he was a man, not a scared girl. It wasn’t his fault that a gang of guys jumped him, beat him, robbed him. He didn’t do anything. It wasn’t his fault”(92). In the end, because he did not heed his parents’ warnings, he was killed. Had he not fought against them and listened, he would have lived longer and not died in the horrible fashion that he had.
A different circumstance involving lesson is through Grayson Mora. He does not trust Lauren’s group and if it wasn’t for his daughter forming such a bond with Tori, then Mora would have never agreed to stay with the group. In Lauren’s belief it is key to unite:
Embrace diversity.
Unite—
Or be divided,
Robbed,
Ruled,
Killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.
—pg 196
Mora was against this idea. Regardless of his reasons, he was fighting against Lauren, who was the ‘rescuer’ in this situation. Her ideals include uniting in order to survive, whereas Mora had no plan but would probably have not united with anyone and thus might have been killed without the group’s protection.
Butler and Olamina include this verse in Earthseed in order to illustrate human folly. Not everyone can see the bigger picture, and it is very hard to see when you are included in this picture. For the overall book Butler comments on American society and its spiral downhill. This verse then points out that even when we can see our faults there are more that we cannot. Then when outsiders try to come and rescue us from our plunge we fight against them, regardless of reason (but more likely than not out of fear). In her critique we must be able to stand back and analyze exactly what other’s motivations are, allow those who try to help to do so, and to not fight against those who are trying to save us.
Although Lauren’s ideas of Earthseed are pretty eccentric, not accepted by Henry or many of the other characters in the beginning , with time the group came to accept them, either as Lauren’s ideas or as how the world should interact. Lauren was trying to ‘save’ these people in a sense. She really believes that her new religion could benefit the new society plaguing America. Throughout the journey north her companions are able to accept her theory more and more, by the end choosing to ground and try to actually enact it. As different as her ideas are, it is at least worth a shot and Butler is trying to convince us readers that sometimes as difficult as it is, we have to try things that may not seem like helpful at the time, but in the long run or to an outsider it just may be exactly what we need.
Parable of the Sower and The 1980s Crack Epidemic
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler is a dystopian story set about 20 years in the future from the present day. In general, Butler’s novel is warning of the future. She takes events that were happening in the 1980s while she was writing the book, and takes them to their worse possible conclusion. Her narrator lives in a walled community that is trying to keep out the millions of homeless, drug-addicted people on the street. Violence and crime are a way of life. The pyro and other drugs that Butler talks about are a clear image of crack-cocaine, so-called the crack epidemic, and its affect on the populace. I believe that the two drugs, Paracetco and Pyro, that Lauren mentions are supposed to reflect the U.S. crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. Butler wrote the book in the 1980s so she was thinking about 40-50 years in advance. There are many details in this book that seem to be a commentary about the way that things were at that time.
The crack epidemic involved cocaine that was being shipped from the Bahamas to Florida and then sold at very low prices. It was then made into a smokable form called crack-cocaine. Reports of this form of cocaine were seen as early as 1981. This cocaine’s purity was at about 80% as opposed to the 55% purity of white powder. By 1987, the purity level had increased to 90% while the price stayed relatively inexpensive. It gave users an instantaneous high and many became addicted quickly. Crack increased the number of hospital emergencies related to overdose. It also started a generation of so called crack-babies who were born being exposed to cocaine. Many mental and physical ailments result from pre-natal cocaine exposure, including premature birth and birth defects.
In Parable of the Sower, the narrator Lauren tells us about two different types of drugs that are abundant in her world. “My mother was taking-abusing- a prescription drug when she got pregnant with me. The drug was Paracetco. As a result, I have hyperempathy syndrome.” (255) Lauren tells us that the abuse of Paracetco was a widespread issue and that it was some kind of “Einstein Powder.” I believe that Butler is drawing a parallel between the generation of crack-babies that arose from the crack epidemic. Women attributed crack-cocaine to marijuana, making it less intimidating. “As a result, a generation of addicted children were born to--and frequently abandoned by--crack-using mothers. By the late 1980s, about one out of every 10 newborns in the United States (375,000 per year) had been exposed in the womb to one or more illicit drug.” Butler is obviously critiquing the crack epidemic with her parallel in Lauren. By showing Lauren’s mother as career obbessed enough to abuse a drug, she is showing that mothers did not know what they were doing to their children. Lauren’s hyperempathy syndrome is more deadly than many other diseases in her world because of its violence. Since Lauren is incapable of seeing another person hurt without being debilitated by the pain. It almost kills her as she is fleeing from her home that is being attacked by people under the influence of pyro, an illicit drug that is said to make setting fires akin to sex.
Pyro is the parallel that Butler has drawn to the almost 100% pure crack-cocaine that was on the streets by about 1987 and the violence that came along with the trade. “The crack trade had created a violent sub-world, and crack-related murders in many large cities were skyrocketing. For example, a 1988 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in New York City, crack use was tied to 32% of all homicides and 60% of drug-related homicides.”
In Lauren’s world, pyro makes people destroy things, set fires and create more criminal mischief. Without a real police force to control them, crime in her world is spinning out of control. Butler is really showing how bad she thought the crack epidemic was. By 1987 in the United States, the crack epidemic had reached its height and after this, the government began to get a handle on it. They passed laws and acts discouraging people from taking drugs and getting help for people that were already addicted to crack.
In conclusion, it is evident in Butler’s writing that she is critiquing the government and the social structure of the United States in the 1980s. It is also clear that the drugs in Lauren’s world named Paracetco and Pyro are different aspects of the crack-cocaine epidemic that ravaged the American Legal System in the 1980s.
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1985-1990.html Retrieved 3/9/2011
The crack epidemic involved cocaine that was being shipped from the Bahamas to Florida and then sold at very low prices. It was then made into a smokable form called crack-cocaine. Reports of this form of cocaine were seen as early as 1981. This cocaine’s purity was at about 80% as opposed to the 55% purity of white powder. By 1987, the purity level had increased to 90% while the price stayed relatively inexpensive. It gave users an instantaneous high and many became addicted quickly. Crack increased the number of hospital emergencies related to overdose. It also started a generation of so called crack-babies who were born being exposed to cocaine. Many mental and physical ailments result from pre-natal cocaine exposure, including premature birth and birth defects.
In Parable of the Sower, the narrator Lauren tells us about two different types of drugs that are abundant in her world. “My mother was taking-abusing- a prescription drug when she got pregnant with me. The drug was Paracetco. As a result, I have hyperempathy syndrome.” (255) Lauren tells us that the abuse of Paracetco was a widespread issue and that it was some kind of “Einstein Powder.” I believe that Butler is drawing a parallel between the generation of crack-babies that arose from the crack epidemic. Women attributed crack-cocaine to marijuana, making it less intimidating. “As a result, a generation of addicted children were born to--and frequently abandoned by--crack-using mothers. By the late 1980s, about one out of every 10 newborns in the United States (375,000 per year) had been exposed in the womb to one or more illicit drug.” Butler is obviously critiquing the crack epidemic with her parallel in Lauren. By showing Lauren’s mother as career obbessed enough to abuse a drug, she is showing that mothers did not know what they were doing to their children. Lauren’s hyperempathy syndrome is more deadly than many other diseases in her world because of its violence. Since Lauren is incapable of seeing another person hurt without being debilitated by the pain. It almost kills her as she is fleeing from her home that is being attacked by people under the influence of pyro, an illicit drug that is said to make setting fires akin to sex.
Pyro is the parallel that Butler has drawn to the almost 100% pure crack-cocaine that was on the streets by about 1987 and the violence that came along with the trade. “The crack trade had created a violent sub-world, and crack-related murders in many large cities were skyrocketing. For example, a 1988 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in New York City, crack use was tied to 32% of all homicides and 60% of drug-related homicides.”
In Lauren’s world, pyro makes people destroy things, set fires and create more criminal mischief. Without a real police force to control them, crime in her world is spinning out of control. Butler is really showing how bad she thought the crack epidemic was. By 1987 in the United States, the crack epidemic had reached its height and after this, the government began to get a handle on it. They passed laws and acts discouraging people from taking drugs and getting help for people that were already addicted to crack.
In conclusion, it is evident in Butler’s writing that she is critiquing the government and the social structure of the United States in the 1980s. It is also clear that the drugs in Lauren’s world named Paracetco and Pyro are different aspects of the crack-cocaine epidemic that ravaged the American Legal System in the 1980s.
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1985-1990.html Retrieved 3/9/2011
Prompt 1
The Earthseed verse in chapter 20 in Parable of The Sower caught my attention when I was reading the novel. I believe that this verse on page 245 explains one of the main and on going themes within the novel. Lauren Olamina is the creator of Earthseed, and she is making the changes within this crazy world. She wants people to follow in her direction, because her strong faith to keep fighting shows that she is willing to change the world herself one step at a time; life isn’t going to change itself. This short verse sums up the parables in that it shows that changing ways and people of Earthseed fight the constant struggle of life to unify a community for a better life. By taking a positive ownership in change, Lauren believes she can make the world a better place. She doesn’t let change control her life, she acknowledges the damage and shape of the country and embraces the idea of change as a positive tool in her quest.
Lauren knows that faith can take her only so far, not totally relying on it; she embraces the power inside of her as a leader. When Lauren saves Allie and Jill from the abandoned house that collapsed she knows that she is going to have to defend herself when she came out. It was an immediate reaction to save the two, but it was her faith that drove her to save the two helpless victims to survival. She is able to separate her faith in order to survive when an attack was brought on; she feels bad that she had to kill a person. Even though she doesn’t feel guilty about her actions, she does feel the pain of taking a life. Lauren had taken the attacker’s life in order to survive as seen in this quote, “the six inch blade went in to the hilt. Then, in empathic agony, I jerked it out again, I can’t describe the pain” (234).
Throughout the novel, Earthseed’s overall goal is to change the world. During their journey they discover an innocent child named Justin who has lost his mother to an attack. In keeping with their faith they decide to pick up the child and take him in their group. This is a small step in their “search of a better life” and being able to mold young Justin (254). They are able to form him into an Earthseed member, because he isn’t heavily influenced by any other ways until this point.
Earthseed’s idea of God can be described as the process of change within the overall world. They are fulfilling their faith in order to change the terrible situation they are in. They cannot just believe in it, they have to apply their learned abilities to their faith. With the knowledge from books and their ability feel things around them they are able to rely on one another within the close nit group to survive. They have to believe that they can be successful in their quest in order to win this change.
As Earthseed continues to move north, they pass through the town of Hollister and they decide to resupply because they do not know their next time they will be able to. They have seen the damage the earthquake has caused this town and even though this town has been destroyed, they have noticed that the people haven’t turned into animals and “they seemed to be helping one another with repairs and looking after their own destitute. Imagine that” (257). This is an eye opener for the Earthseed’s because they are able to foresee that a changed world is possible. This gives them some motivation as they continue on their quest for a new world.
A major belief of the Earthseed is that they will always stand by each other. This is evident in Lauren’s quote to Allie, “But if you travel with us, and there’s trouble, you stand by us, stand with us” (238). This quote reflects one of Earthseed’s central themes that constantly being together and watching out for the other members of the group is essential for survival. Their drive throughout their journey is based on the belief that they can achieve change. Although they see small changes within their journey they have not achieved their goal of seeing a new world and they continue to build and strive for change.
Crack Epidemic in Parable of Sower
Ae-Ree Choi
Crack Epidemic in Parable of Sower
In the early 90s, the use of crack was a major problem that was occurring in many parts of the country. Crack, often referred as the poor man’s cocaine, had become the fastest growing drug problem in the North American and one of the roots of serious ills of the society (Malarak). Not only that, the use of this drug generated increasing rate of crime, especially in the poor neighborhoods. According to New York Times, “Nothing seems to destroy poor families faster than the crack epidemic…mothers and brothers are selling the sexual favors of their daughters or sisters to raise money to buy crack; that females users outnumber male users in some cases; and that teen-age girls are deserting their families and joining violent gangs to sell or buy crack” (New York Times). Octavia Butler, the author of the Parable of the Sower, critiques this issue of the society by using the parable and portraying similar drug abuse, which leads the society as a whole into total disarray.
Butler portrays the destruction of the society as a warning when the people will keep abusing the drug. She introduces this new drug, pyro, in the book, which refers to crack in the real society. Pyro, which is also referred as a “ro” (butler), is introduced in the novel when Joanne and Lauren are talking after Amy’s Death, when Lauren says, “ And you know that drug that makes people want to set fires?... The reports say that it makes watching a fire better than sex” (Butler 55). In a way, Butler uses the fear of people in order to signify the problem of the drug use. Setting houses on fire is something that cause harm not only to drug addicts, but also to innocent people who are not addicted to drugs. Therefore, Butler tries to raise the issue of drug use and tries to make readers aware of the effects, even to the audiences who are not abusing drugs, by indirectly telling them that it will cause harm to them as well.
In addition, Lauren mentions many problems of her society, especially the poverty, which leads to poor people who are “ Illiterate, jobless, homeless, and without decent sanitation or clean water” and more shootings, more break-ins, and epidemic Measles (Butler 54). As mentioned above, the crack epidemic was a major problem when this novel was written, especially in the impoverished neighborhoods. The fact that Butler’s novel takes place in the near future has stronger psychological effect on the audience because all kinds of crimes, such as murder, robbery, prostitution, which are germane to real life, might lead to our society’s turning into a society that Lauren lives in: a dystopia where humans are not humans anymore.
Therefore, Butler incites the audience for an immediate action and more engagement in government control regarding drug issues as well. When Joanne and Lauren talk about the major problems of the society that they are living in, Joanne says, “My mother is hoping this new guy, President Donner, will start to get us back to normal” (54). Mentioning a political figure and hoping that he can fix the problems that are pervasive in society show Butler’s intention to make readers become aware of the necessary support from the government to clean up the squalid society. Regarding the crack epidemic of the early 90s, the New York Times also reports that, “The federal government must become a lot less stingy in the dollars it provides for treatment facilities and social workers to give the crack addicts the help they need. The public can't stick its head in the sand and hope the problem will somehow solve itself” (New York Times). The Encouragement of further involvement of government in the article and Butler’s mentioning of the president, who represents the government, to get them back to normal shows Butler’s message that government’s intervention is essential regarding this issue.
Editorial. “Cities Can’t Ignore Crack Epidemic”. New York Times. August 15, 1989. March 8, 2011.
Malarek, Victor. “Crack use near epidemic, Toronto Police Warn”. The Globe and Mail (Canada). February 11, 1989. March 8, 2011.
Crack Epidemic in Parable of Sower
In the early 90s, the use of crack was a major problem that was occurring in many parts of the country. Crack, often referred as the poor man’s cocaine, had become the fastest growing drug problem in the North American and one of the roots of serious ills of the society (Malarak). Not only that, the use of this drug generated increasing rate of crime, especially in the poor neighborhoods. According to New York Times, “Nothing seems to destroy poor families faster than the crack epidemic…mothers and brothers are selling the sexual favors of their daughters or sisters to raise money to buy crack; that females users outnumber male users in some cases; and that teen-age girls are deserting their families and joining violent gangs to sell or buy crack” (New York Times). Octavia Butler, the author of the Parable of the Sower, critiques this issue of the society by using the parable and portraying similar drug abuse, which leads the society as a whole into total disarray.
Butler portrays the destruction of the society as a warning when the people will keep abusing the drug. She introduces this new drug, pyro, in the book, which refers to crack in the real society. Pyro, which is also referred as a “ro” (butler), is introduced in the novel when Joanne and Lauren are talking after Amy’s Death, when Lauren says, “ And you know that drug that makes people want to set fires?... The reports say that it makes watching a fire better than sex” (Butler 55). In a way, Butler uses the fear of people in order to signify the problem of the drug use. Setting houses on fire is something that cause harm not only to drug addicts, but also to innocent people who are not addicted to drugs. Therefore, Butler tries to raise the issue of drug use and tries to make readers aware of the effects, even to the audiences who are not abusing drugs, by indirectly telling them that it will cause harm to them as well.
In addition, Lauren mentions many problems of her society, especially the poverty, which leads to poor people who are “ Illiterate, jobless, homeless, and without decent sanitation or clean water” and more shootings, more break-ins, and epidemic Measles (Butler 54). As mentioned above, the crack epidemic was a major problem when this novel was written, especially in the impoverished neighborhoods. The fact that Butler’s novel takes place in the near future has stronger psychological effect on the audience because all kinds of crimes, such as murder, robbery, prostitution, which are germane to real life, might lead to our society’s turning into a society that Lauren lives in: a dystopia where humans are not humans anymore.
Therefore, Butler incites the audience for an immediate action and more engagement in government control regarding drug issues as well. When Joanne and Lauren talk about the major problems of the society that they are living in, Joanne says, “My mother is hoping this new guy, President Donner, will start to get us back to normal” (54). Mentioning a political figure and hoping that he can fix the problems that are pervasive in society show Butler’s intention to make readers become aware of the necessary support from the government to clean up the squalid society. Regarding the crack epidemic of the early 90s, the New York Times also reports that, “The federal government must become a lot less stingy in the dollars it provides for treatment facilities and social workers to give the crack addicts the help they need. The public can't stick its head in the sand and hope the problem will somehow solve itself” (New York Times). The Encouragement of further involvement of government in the article and Butler’s mentioning of the president, who represents the government, to get them back to normal shows Butler’s message that government’s intervention is essential regarding this issue.
Editorial. “Cities Can’t Ignore Crack Epidemic”. New York Times. August 15, 1989. March 8, 2011.
Malarek, Victor. “Crack use near epidemic, Toronto Police Warn”. The Globe and Mail (Canada). February 11, 1989. March 8, 2011.
Parable of the Sower Prompt 1
Throughout the book The Parable of the Sower, many different ideas are shared by the Earthseed group. The leader of the group Lauren is what the book calls a “sharer.” She has a syndrome called hyperempathy. This means that she feels what other people feel. This is both an asset and a disadvantage for her throughout the book. The world in which the group Earthseed lives is full of corruption and pain. The group is made up of believers of a higher calling and they set out on a quest to change the world in which they live. The overall idea in their faith is change. They believe that by taking a positive ownership of change, that they will be able to make the world a better place.
In the verse in chapter 19, again there is a central point about change. they also integrate their belief that space travel allows for an escape from their world which is falling apart. They believe that it is important to have this destiny as something to believe in for the future. In the verse, the central object is the life of a galaxy. Throughout the verse the life of a galaxy is explained. I believe that they are relating this to their idea of life on Earth. They believe that, like a star, life first ignites. Then during its life it burns. Then it begins to age. Finally it cools and disappears. This can also be related to the idea of life on Earth. People are first born initially igniting their life. During their childhood and bulk of their life they burn. As they get older they begin to age. As they near the end of their life they begin to cool until they pass away. This metaphor is very effective in explaining the timeline of life.
Following this verse, the word Evolving is present. I believe that the Earthseed group understands that the world around them is constantly evolving or changing. This idea is integral in understanding their belief system. Understanding that nothing in life is a static event is important if you really want to evoke change in the world around you.
In chapter 19, Earthseed encounters a very important event. An earthquake occurred, trapping two women beneath the ruins of a house. Lauren and her Earthseed members went in to the house to save the women knowing that their actions could put them at risk for an attack. In this situation Lauren is putting herself in danger in the hope that they would be able to make a difference in the world by saving the two women. When the group comes out of the house they are attacked by people who are intent on taking their possessions. Laruen in self defense is able to overcome her hyperempathy syndrome in order to defend herself and her group. She kills the man who attacked her even though she feels intense pain throughout the situation.
Like the word Evolve in the verse, Lauren is able to evolve in order to survive. Although she feels intense pain when she kills her attacker, she does not feel guilt over the situation. Lauren believes that she can separate her faith in order to defend herself and her group. This ability and the belief that she can fulfill her quest for change are the propelling influences in her journey. Without the belief that she can accomplish her goal, there would be no reason to continue.
In the final line of the verse, the line reads “God Prevails.” I believe that this ultimately means that Earthseed’s idea of change will prevail whether they are successful in their quest to change the world or not. Change is the main factor within their lives and it will be there whether they are or not. This idea does not die with them and they are not the only ones who share this belief.
Throughout this verse there are two distinct ideas which are present. First the idea that everything in life evolves, and second, that the process of change will always prevail. These ideas are what propel the Earthseeder’s on their quest to change the world in which they live. Their belief that they will ultimately achieve their goal of change is what drives them throughout he novel.
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