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As We May Think

Posted on 2007-04-01 at 15:08

Once, in college, I wrote a paper in which I offered a short list of some of the most influential people to modernity. I suggested T.S. Eliot, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, and Vannevar Bush offered more to change the worldview of modern man than most others.

The professor didn't appreciate my choices. She liked them all, mind you, except that last one. She'd never heard of him, and therefore didn't see how he could have been that much of an influence. I never could convince her that her logic was specious and her assumptions faulty (go figure). Nonetheless, I kept his name in the essay, despite her insistence that it's inclusion would color the final grade I received for the paper, but I was far too interested in getting an education to worry about things as mundane as grades.

She doesn't read this blog---of that I'm certain. That said, I feel compelled to remind people just how important an unknown figure can be to our society. Read Vannevar Bush's essay "As We May Think" as published in The Atlantic in July of 1945. Truly seminal work.

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The Gospels and Canonical Inclusion

Posted on 2006-09-14 at 07:48

Abstract
Concerning the decisions which led to the inclusion of the four gospels currently found in the New Testament.

Paper
In their attempt to canonize the new covenant of Christ, it is profoundly important that Christians utilize those works extant that will most closely intimate the teachings and life of Jesus, the Messiah, and as there are no known written works whose authorship can be directly attributed to Jesus, Christianity must search elsewhere for source information concerning his word and deed; thus for this reason Christianity looks to the various Gospels. Sources other than the Gospels exist and are viable as references to the Christian doctrine in their own various ways; however, since each classification of source would merit its own separate essay, this essay will concentrate on the Gospel genre by discussing the concept of the Gospel, arguing for a Gospel inclusion into the New Testament, and positing a rationale for determining which Gospels should become canonical.

Gospels are as diverse and varied as the people who write them---each having its own unique emphases and style; nevertheless, there are certain universal qualities which characterize and classify them as Gospels. Scholarly opinion is divided on several fine points as to what specifically defines a Gospel. Some see the Gospels primarily as forms of biographies of Jesus Christ while others regard them as having much more to do with the statement of the good news of salvation through Christ, however, a middle ground is more likely to be the case. The Gospel genre of writing steps beyond simple storytelling and the manifesto of religious aphorisms and coalesces into an admixture of the two---the combination of a biographical narrative and a religious ethos. Having established what a Gospel essentially is, one must next consider what reasoning is there to include this genre of writing in a religious text at all.

Christianity is a religion based on both the Old Testament canon and the teachings of Jesus Christ and as such it becomes eminently important to gather detailed information concerning the life and teachings of Jesus. Since Jesus was not an author, the only sources of knowledge on these matters are found in the writings of others closely associated with the man himself and most of these writings were not meant be to used as religious text, such as those official Roman documents and other non-Jewish/Christian texts that reference Jesus and the Christian movement. The Gospels, much like Paul's letters, were set forth as true and proper accounts of what it was to know Jesus and his way. Several documents in the New Testament can give the careful reader an understanding of the Christian doctrine, yet none but the Gospels discuss the man, through his words and deeds, who pioneered these principles. If a person wished to learn about Plato, he would ask Socrates or another close associate (that is, of course, only if Plato, himself, were not available to respond), he would, rightfully, not assume that the random Grecian citizen would be capable of holding a meaningful conversation on the subject unless he were in some manner familiar with Plato. So it is with Jesus as well that one cannot expect to learn about Christianity without drawing knowledge from those persons familiar with Christ. Any other method would produce misinformation, misunderstanding, and possibly a biased or skewed view of the subject of the investigation. Therefore, it can be concluded that to best understand Jesus Christ in his role as founder of the Christian religion a careful study of his life and teachings must be undertaking and the Gospels, which as a rule lay claim to an "inside track" on these events, are the obvious best choice. The Christian community is now left with the decision as to which Gospel or Gospels are to be accepted and which are to be denied canonical status.

There are two logical and opposite paths which can be taken at this point. In this paper, they shall be referred to as the Marcionian and the Tatian perspectives. The Marcionian perspective involves the acceptance of one Gospel as the binding truth and denies all other Gospels this standing. More specifically Marcion, himself, was partial to the Gospel of Luke. His position on the subject of Gospel inclusion was that with only one Gospel as official scripture the critics who cite Gospel confliction as a sign of religious falsity could be more easily combated. His hypothesis is correct in that with only one official story of the life and words of Jesus, there would be no internal conflict, and it should be noted that for this purpose, the Gospel of Luke makes an excellent choice since it is Luke who seems to be not only an excellent writer of Greek text but who also lends a historical perspective to the life of Jesus and, unlike other Gospel authors, has written a sequel which is called the book of Acts. Choosing this Gospel allows the Christian church to portray Jesus as something other than a mythic and non-existent leader; it puts Jesus into a setting which can be identified and is familiar to the average reader. It further allows the church to show, through the continuity of the Gospel and Acts literature, a link between Jesus Christ and the development of the early church. All these things together bring Jesus into focus as a real person who lived and influenced the lives of his many Christian followers which has the effect of staving off the critics who would use inconsistency and source reliability as an attack against the early Christian church. It is also possible that Marcion was simply following Paul's lead by proclaiming the righteousness of only one gospel. Paul consistently refers to the Gospel of Christ in the singular and has stated his belief in Galatians 1:7 that there is only one Gospel. Paul's system of thought has been quite influential in the current theology of the Christian church and if Marcion wanted to follow Paul's example, he would have to conform appropriately. It cannot be denied that Marcion had many good reasons for choosing the position he did.

The Tatian perspective falls on the opposing end of the Gospel inclusion spectrum with a belief in using many different Gospels as canonical sources for information about Jesus. According to this perspective, these source Gospels would be reviewed, evaluated and, after gaining a clearer idea of the truth of Jesus' life, synthesized into a single cohesive Gospel. Tatian has done this in his work, the Diatessaron, by using the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; some would also claim that he was influenced by other Gospels as well. His theory involved the belief that multiple portraits of the same thing must, by the simple law of common sense, be intrinsically better than relying on a single portrait. The multiple portraits would give the examiner a more thorough picture of the object portrayed. However, he, like Marcion, was concerned about the apparent inconsistencies in the various Gospels and how that may look to the critic---or worse, to the prospective Christian---thus for clarity's sake, Tatian chose to compose a new Gospel, the aforementioned Diatessaron, based strictly on the extant Gospels and thus merge the various portraits into a fused whole which would be as internally consistent as the canon proposed by Marcion.

There is yet another popular opinion on the subject which has been set forth most eloquently by a Bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus, who said that there is only one legitimate Gospel of Christ, but four worthy literary shapes which the Gospel has taken. He was referring to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John which, by his day, had come into common use. This new perspective seems to be more pragmatic, in that it accepts Paul's notion that Jesus' true Gospel can only be singular, for he did not live multiple lives, but also recognizes that different people will recall and interpret the events in different ways. This notion seems the most sensible of the three options mentioned thus far for several reasons. Firstly, in the Marcionian perspective, the reader is expected to gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the life and teachings of Jesus with only one witness to rely upon. Though Luke may have been a devoted Christian, his Gospel, just as with the other Gospels, emphasizes those aspects of the Word that he wanted emphasized; thorough as it may be, his Gospel is not all-inclusive and never claims to be. Secondly, the Tatian perspective requires that a person should, after careful study, pick-and-choose which parts should stay, which should go, which are right, and which are not. This might be acceptable if that editor were someone who had lived with and followed Jesus, but it is wholly impossible at this late date to find a candidate with the ability to meet this criterion. Anyone editing the Gospels at this point could not do so with any degree of assurity and the finished product could no more be counted upon for accuracy than the sources from which it was derived. It seems that, to Irenaeus, obtaining the truth about Jesus was deemed more important than the defensibility of the canonical Gospels. Ireneaus' perspective, it seems, welcomes the inconsistencies that the two previous perspectives denounced by accepting them as natural variations that arise when different artists paint the same scene. Ireneaus expects and accepts this, and furthermore, he seems to prefer this. One portrait may show something about the scene that the other portrait does not. This is the beauty of difference---to make the scene complete. So, while no single perspective can be said to be absolutely correct in all ways, it seems that Ireneaus provides Christianity with the most sensible solution to the dilemma---canonize several different versions of the Gospel of Jesus and thus gain the benefit of many different views on his life and teachings.

The enormous task which now lies ahead is the determination of which Gospels to canonize. While there have been over 30 Gospels discovered to date, not all Gospels are suitable for canonization and for this reason Christians must be selective in choosing which ones to accept as "official" reference to the life of Christ and the doctrine he taught. A set of criteria must be developed to filter what enters into the New Testament. Based on earlier discussions in this paper, one can deduce that the first piece of criterion should be some form of association with Jesus or his direct disciples since any further distancing from the subject of the Gospel will be reflected in the Gospel writing itself. This first piece of criterion narrows the list dramatically to the following Gospels; Matthew, John, Mark, Luke, Thomas, James, Peter, and Philip. Of these remaining Gospels, several stand out as not having one or more of the familiar elements of traditional Gospel-genre writings. The Gospel of Thomas, which claims to contain the "secret words" given to Didymos Judas Thomas by Jesus, is a collection of sayings, typically beginning with "Jesus said...", does not discuss, in more than an inadvertent manner through sayings associated with events, the life of Jesus making this a less than satisfactory source for learn about the life of Jesus. The Gospel of James also proves not to be up to the task of retelling the story of Christ's life due to its engrossment in the discussion of Mary's birth and the subsequent virgin birth of Jesus. Further, James does not substantially delve into the teachings of the Messiah nor his death on the cross---a major theme of other Gospels as shall soon be discussed. The Gospel of Peter, which we possess only in part, seems closer to the traditional Gospel style; however, the text we have is short and contains only the account of Jesus' persecution on the cross while omitting, due to lost manuscript, the majority of his life and teachings. One point of note here is the unusual resurrection scene presented by Peter. He describes a heavenly host descending from heaven to spirit away the raised Jesus and all this is done within plain sight of the guards of his tomb. This account differs so substantially from the other discussions of the resurrection that, had we the full text of the Gospel of Peter, it still might not be included in the canon. The Gospel of Philip, discovered in the same collection as the Gospel of Thomas, is written in proper Gnostic fashion. The Gnostics tended to believe that true knowledge could not come from the written word, but only through the "living speech" according to Ireneaus in his work Against Heresies (3:1-3) and thus the Gospel of Philip is written not as a biography or a discussion of doctrine, but as a text on meditative ideas and symbolic gesturing which can best be explained through example as follows:

This type of mystic interpretive language is not typical of the Gospel genre and, in addition to this, the Gospel of Philip does not discuss the life of Jesus. Some might argue that it does not even correctly reflect the teachings of the man.

Having disqualified all but the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, a discussion of their relative merits must be entered into. Of the remaining Gospels, it is now generally believed that the Gospels of Matthew and John were not written by apostles, as once believed, and Luke and Mark, contrary to the original idea, may not have been associated with the apostles either. So why then should they still be considered for canonical acceptance? Because they are the earliest known accounts of the life of Jesus and therefore are more reliable than other later Gospels. Still, it seems logical that if indeed these four Gospels are not as closely related as one might have otherwise thought, a closer look at the quality of their reliability and their use to the average Christian reader should be obtained. Certain questions must be answered before including them into the New Testament. Do they serve a purpose? What purpose do they serve? Are they reasonably true to the word of Jesus? And finally, taken together, is this group of Gospels going to provide the Christian church with a well-rounded view of the wisdom which Jesus preached and lived by as well as the message which Jesus brought with him and intended for his followers to spread? To answer these questions, an in-depth examination of these Gospels will be undertaken.

The inclusion of the Gospel of Matthew would serve a multitude of purposes. Beyond being a reasonably accurate portrayal of the life of Jesus, inasmuch as can be determined by modern scholarly exegesis, Matthew paints a picture of Jesus' deeds and words which grounds them firmly in the known Judaic history with a strong emphasis on Old Testament law which he is careful to explain that Jesus proclaims it to be correct and binding as exemplified in Matthew 5:17. It is noteworthy that there are instances when Jesus does side against the Old Testament law. He is shown to do so three times in Matthew 5:31-43; however, this is the exception and not the rule as adduced by the many times in which the Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus defends the Judaic laws. Moreover, Jesus is seen as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Matthew 2:15 and 8:17. Matthew seems to distill his image of Christ and his teaching through Old Testament prophecy and doctrine which has the effect of giving Christianity a history or perhaps arguing that it already had one in conjunction with the Jews---something which many Christians and most Jews did not acknowledge. The popular layman opinion was that Christianity was a new religion and this rationale was used as a basis for attack and prejudice on the newly formed Christian community. Matthew shows that Christianity has a religious history and it is the Jews which have diverged from the faith, not the other way around.

The Gospel of Mark is perhaps less factually accurate, though not unacceptably so, than the four other Gospels being discussed and this is where its weakness lies. This is evidenced by the severe redaction seen in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke4 which are widely believed to be derivative works of the Gospel of Mark which was written years before any other Gospel. Mark's Gospel seems to have an emphasis on the pre-resurrection teachings of Jesus which stands in contrast to Paul's letters which demonstrate a profound interest in the theology of Jesus' death at the cross and his subsequent resurrection. Again a quandry is presented and the reader, who is most likely going to be familiar with Paul and his importance to the theology of the Christian church, might be inclined to find the common message or central theme present in both. Nevertheless, in doing so, the reader detracts from the richness of diversity in the portraits of Jesus. Mark may not be in total agreement with Paul or other prominent theologians as to the particular emphasis of Jesus' teachings but he certainly does not deny the significance of the theology of the cross. Here also lies its hidden strength. While Mark does not entirely accurately depict the events of Jesus' life it is only due to his emphasis on the works of Jesus and not geographical or chronological accuracy. As examples of this emphasis, one can turn to the many references to Jesus' miracles (Mark 1:25, 1:41, 2:11, 3:5, 4:39, 6:41-42, and over 10 other direct references to miracle acts.) and suffering (Mark 8:31, 9:30-31, 10:33-34 as well as the entire account of the crucifixion and torturous death of Jesus.) and the lessons to be learned therefrom. Mark, unlike some apocryphic Gospel authors, does not discuss miracles for their own sake but instead discusses them as they pertain to what Jesus taught. In this Gospel, the reader gains a clear idea of Jesus as a human, without denying his divine significance, whose example is shown as an inspiration to all.

Luke's expertly crafted Gospel brings history into the Christian picture, albeit in a far different manner than Matthew. Rather than concentrating on the history of Christianity, Luke concentrates on the Christianity in history. He uses real-world events and places to create a "stage" which will be recognizable to the Christian and non-Christian reader and thereby places Christianity in the firm position of fact, showing these depicted stories as having actually occurred, and pulls it out of the realm of fantasy and imagined mythology. By referencing other events and associating them chronologically to Gospel events, he gives Christianity its reality. Take, as an example, the following passage from the Gospel of Luke:

Here Luke depicts the story of John receiving the word of God, yet before discussing the story itself, he paints an explicit picture of when and where this took place and goes further to discuss John's lineage so as to place him wholly in a setting which the typical reader will identify and accept, thus making it far easier for that reader to accept the story itself.

At this point, one might conclude that the Christian community could gain a reasonably clear understanding of Jesus' life and teachings with just the above three mentioned Gospels and they would be correct. The Gospel of John deviates from the standard Gospel genre ever so slightly---but meaningfully. It is feasible to postulate that, since John is believed to have been written last of the four main Gospels discussed herein, he recognized that the events of Jesus' life had been satisfactorily retold and therefore chose a fresh approach to the discussion of Jesus. He does tell the story of Jesus' life, for if he did not we might have some difficulty calling his work a Gospel, and yet his story takes on an entirely different significance. Some philologists have speculated that the Gospel of John is as different from the other Gospels as the Gospel of Mark was from previous Christian writings about Jesus. True or otherwise, John's work seems to have built upon the Gospel genre, improving it, rather than breaking away from it as Mark did from the earlier Christian documents and so John can still stand as a form of Gospel. Having established this, the discussion must turn to its proposed merits as a canonical Gospel. Many have said that John wrote a sort of "fill-in-the-blank" Gospel in that he speaks about those aspects of Jesus' life which are not discussed in the other Gospels. Found in the Gospel of John are many events that cannot be found in other Gospels but still possess a significance. Examples include Jesus' meeting with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21, the scene described in John 11:35 of Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus before resurrecting him, and the discourse with the Samaritan at the well in Sychar in John 4:7-26. This Gospel seems to contain an interesting synthesis of the Hebraeistic and the Hellenistic philosophies of the time. John's use of the Logos idea was distinctly a Greek-influenced thought and he often referred to the enemies of Jesus as the "Jews." At the same time, however, though his use of the Logos was Greek-influenced, it was originated in the Old Testament book of Genesis as were many ideas he put forth. His Hebraeistic belief in God was naturally modified by his Grecian worldview and background giving him a distinctly unique perspective on the teachings of Christ which the other Gospel authors did not possess. John's Gospel helps to define what Jesus' relationship was with respect to the Jewish-Christian faith. He alone discusses Jesus as "the way" and "the light" and shows Christ to be the path to salvation.

The four Gospels discussed above give the reader an excellently well-rounded portrayal of Jesus, the man, the teacher, the Christ, and the way. They show the Christian community, with Matthew, that through Jesus, it is grounded firmly in the Judaic past and is not an upstart cult with no true meaningfulness. They show the Christian community, with Mark, that Jesus' teachings are to be used as an example for community. Mark also shows us Jesus' divinity and his humanity through the stories of his miracles and suffering. The Gospels further show the Christian community, with Luke, that it has a reality and concreteness which serves to fortify a faith in the stories to the reader. And finally, the Gospels show the Christian community, with John, the theological importance of the Christ figure as represented by Jesus. These Gospels do have their differences, but also they have their similarities. All of them concentrate on the teachings and life of Jesus and how that relates the Christian community to God and not just sayings or dissertations on theology. All of them accept the importance of Jesus' death at the cross for mankind's sins. All of them accept Jesus as the true messiah as expected in Old Testament prophecy. So it is seen that four portraits from differing angles do in fact give the observer a fuller and more complete rendering on the scene. These Gospels should be canonical due to the merits of what each one, individually, can teach the reader about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

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Milton's Mythological Restructuring Of The Fall

Posted on 2006-01-09 at 15:33

Abstract
Concerning Milton's poetic license in his recasting of the myth of Genesis and the Fall of Man.

Paper
Milton's work, Paradise Lost, retells the story of the Garden of Eden as found in Genesis, the first book in the canon of Hebrew Scriptures known as the Torah or Bible. This story relates the tale of the fall from grace which anthropos, the original man, supposedly had early on in human history. Due to the popularity of the story, it is not surprising that Milton, an educated man and poet, chose it as the subject for one of his works. What is worthy of note, however, is the multitude of ways in which he deviated from the original story. For example, while it is true that many are under the misunderstanding that Satan plays an important role in the Genesis story of the Fall, he does not. He is, in fact, not mentioned even once in the Book of Genesis and yet Milton confers on him a large role. Milton was a man educated in the Hebrew Bible and language from a young age by a tutor his father had hired, Thomas Young (c.f., Hutchinson 8ff.) and so it was unlikely that Milton was unaware of his discrepancies. It seems that for the reader to fully understand Milton's theology of the Fall, one must understand first what was changed in the story from the original and second what theological significance the change has.

The original story of the fall of man is presented in Genesis 3:1-7 and is abbreviated below:

In this story, as presented in Genesis, the two are tempted by the forbidden fruit at the prompting of a serpent who is later punished for his role in the affair. Thus they fall from grace and are cast from Eden to "toil" (Genesis 3:17) for all their days until death, which after the fall is now an eminent reality in their lives (Genesis 3:19). Before any detailed exegesis is begun, one must consider the work being dealt with. Genesis is not an historical work designed to describe accurately the early world and its origins. Genesis is a mythological work which is designed to describe accurately the relationship of God to his earthly creation and more precisely the relationship of God to his chosen people---the Jews. The exegesis of genesis, then, should account for a mythological framework and allow for the historical inaccuracies typically found in mythological works.

As any mythology, the book of Genesis makes heavy use of a complex symbol system which the early Jews would have invested with particular meaning. The fact that this symbol system is not immediately at hand for the average modern reader has caused some problems. Many of these problems arise as a result of the unusual nature of the characters in the story. The characters associated with The Fall are Adam, Eve, and the serpent. Some investigation reveals that the Hebrew word Adam---which means man---is intentionally similar to the Hebrew word Adamah---which means earth, dust, or ground. Also, the character of Adam was used early in the work to refer to all men. It was not until later editors of the story began adding new parts that Adam became an individual rather than collective man. The original concept of the character of Adam, then, was meant to represent the race of men as a whole and their relation to the ground which is God's other creation. Genesis, for these reasons, is notoriously ambiguous about Adam's status. Eve, on the other hand, seems less entangled by conflicting portrayals. Her name, which is similar the Hebrew word for life, shows that she is quite literally "the mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20), but moreover, she is also blamed and punished by God harsher than Adam for her apparently more significant role in The Fall. Though Adam was there with her with she was tempted, and though he did nothing to stop it, he is still punished less severely than her. The third character, the serpent, has been the primary point of confusion and misunderstanding in the story. Nowhere does it say that this serpent is Satan. Satan does not appear in the Torah (The first 5 books of the Bible also known as the Law) at all. It is not until the Kethuvim (The collection of Hebrew books known also as the Writings---as distinct from the Torah [law] and the Nebi'im [prophets]), in 1 Chronicles 21:1, that his name is uttered. Yet, for all this, most modern readers see the serpent as Satan in serpent form. The cause of this is likely the much later references to Satan as being analogous to a serpent or dragon. Though later Jews made this symbolic connection, the writers and editors of Genesis did not. The serpent's mythological meaning must be found elsewhere. Many scholars now believe that rather than a symbol of whole evil, the serpent may have been a symbol of life. It is known that many, if not most, primitive peoples associate the serpent or snake with life and rebirth because of its ability to shed its own skin seasonally and begin anew. If the ancient writers of Genesis were also working under this mythological symbology, then the story of The Fall takes on new meaning. Rather than the serpent representing that which is purely evil, it begins to represent that which is a synthesis of good and evil. Genesis becomes a story of man's inevitable entrance into life which has its temptations and its shortcomings, but also its joys and its invaluable experiences. Through it all, the Fall tells us that though we may stray in life, God is ever-present and ever-protective when needed (c.f. Genesis 3:21 & 4:15). Thus the myth of the Fall establishes an understanding of the nature of God's relationship to us from the beginning as one of unconditional concern for His creations.

Milton, as he attempts to recast the myth for a later audience, brings with him certain assumptions---primarily from his Puritanical background---which color his interpretation of the story. It is apparent from reading Paradise Lost that Milton was trying to convey the same truths that were presented there. He recognized that these truths were not present in the objects of the story but rather in the meaning and symbology of the story:

It was not apparent accuracy in objects he strove for, but symbolic accuracy in meaning. Milton foreshadows the dynamics of The Fall as early as the creation story when Adam and Eve are first shown to be distinct in their inclinations. Eve, upon her creation, is transfixed by her own mirror image (c.f. Paradise Lost IV:443 ff) in a pool of water nearby---reminiscent of the story of Narcissus--- while Adam, in Book VIII:277ff, begins his life mindful of God's role in this event. Interestingly, this prelapsarian relationship between Adam, Eve, and God is not a mirror image of the one presented in Genesis. Instead of an equal and non-hierarchical relationship between Adam and Eve, Milton begins with Adam as the dominant partner as established by Eve's remark concerning Adam:

This can be contrasted with Genesis' understanding of their relationship as equal until after the Fall when God pronounced that man "shall rule over" woman (Genesis 3:16) as punishment for her sin whereas in the prelapsarian state, they were equal (c.f. Genesis 1:27-28 & 3:18-23).

To his defense, Milton had the difficult task of presenting an Adam and Eve who seemed believable, poetic, and yet not superficial or lofty. They are the archetypal civilized savages---an oxymoron which can only sustain existence in theory. Portraying their roles and relationships as presented in the book of Genesis is flatly impossible. They are ripe with contradiction partly as a result of their own ambiguity and partly as a result of the brevity of their roles in that earlier story. Genesis gave no substantial dialogue and thus avoided Milton's pitfall. Still, it seems that Milton was aware of this problem. Only in a few places does the dialogue become too philosophical for a savage or too savage for a philosopher. And yet this tension does exist. Whereas in the prelapsarian state of Genesis they are sinless and full of God's glory, the prelapsarian state of Paradise Lost shows them to be inescapably drawn toward the Fall. As Waldock put it in his work Paradise Lost And Its Critics, "[t]here was no way for Milton of making [sic] the transition from sinlessness to sin perfectly intelligible" (Waldock 61). As mentioned earlier, Eve spends her opening scene transfixed by her vanity, but it cannot be ignored that Adam is no saint either. Shortly after his creation Adam, not content with what he has been given, asks for more:

Later, in talking with Raphael, the Angel, he begins to slander even the helpmate which he'd asked for by first telling of his weakness for Eve's "Transported touch" and rather than accepting blame for his weakness he blames either the Maker (God) or Eve herself as a temptress:

"[C]arnal desire is not a surprising sequel to Adam's uxoriousness" according to Kelley in her work, This Great Argument (Kelley 149). Adam and Eve, in Milton's work, already possess those errant tendencies with contribute to the occurrence of the Fall. If fact, Adam and Eve have, by the very nature of possessing these tendencies, already fallen. They were created fallen. Here Milton's theology becomes evident. The Genesis story does not parallel this sentiment. In Genesis, Adam makes no such statements about Eve, nor does he ask for more from God than he is given. God's wisdom is sufficient to account for all of their needs (c.f. Genesis 2:18). Furthermore, Adam's understanding of his own urges is moralized in Milton's work in a way that does not mimic Genesis:

In the above passage man and woman specifically do not consider this a cause of a strange "[c]ommotion." Milton's Puritanical and moralistic upbringing has crept into his work.

Satan's presence in the story thrusts into it a particularly interesting dynamic. He is shown as a fallen angel full of contempt and false pride. It is he, in Paradise Lost, who tempts Eve when she wanders away from Adam. By appealing to her vanity he seduced her into partaking of the forbidden fruit. Thus some would say she was felled rather than fallen by the serpent-disguised Satan. Having left a state of grace, she appealed to Adam to join her and he, not willing to give her up, did just that by eating the fruit as well. The Fall is complete. Madsen, in his work From Shadowy Types To Truth, describes Adam's fall as follows:

The question must then turn to who or what these figures (Adam, Eve, and Satan as the serpent) are meant to represent in Milton's mythological restructuring. One theory which seems supported by the text is the idea that while Adam and Eve may be symbolic of men and women universally, the other beings---angels, demons, and specifically Satan---are physical representations of God's hand in action. Thus the Fall, which in Milton's work is inevitable and expected, becomes God's will. Satan, Raphael and others in the story act as tangible markers of God's intangible work. Through Satan, God frees man to live and learn. Through Raphael, the reader sees God's ever-present protection and help when man needs it most. As if to make this point himself, Milton includes the following passage:

Here God is saying that not only is it through His will that they exist, but moreover, that they exist specifically to do His bidding. As James Sims explained it in his work, The Bible In Milton's Epics, "even these horrible monsters, unknown to themselves, fulfill His purposes" (Sims 157).

Paradise Lost is a story which tells of the relationship between God and His creations. It talks of God as ever-present in the lives of men, ever-caring for them, and even in punishment giving them the gift of life. Is this so different from the story told in Genesis? Though the characters, the crimes, and the plot are utterly different, the story remains substantially unchanged. The myth and its message are brought to a new audience using images that will convey to them the symbolic meaning which the Genesis images conveyed to the early Jewish readers. Milton seems to have succeeded in his endeavor. The Genesis story is retold and his changes, upon analysis, do betray his motives. The myth is recast.

Works Cited:

Other Works Consulted:

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Shifting Values - Resource Worth in the New Economy

Posted on 2005-12-30 at 16:14

Abstract:
Concerning the New Economy and the rise of virtual property valuation. This paper was written in February of 1998 during the swelling of the Dot Com Bubble. Though the figures are dated, the thesis is, I believe, still defensible.

Paper:
So you say you want a revolution? Well, here you go. Welcome to the New Economy---yes, capital N, capital E. I know, why have a New Economy when we haven't figured out the old one yet. Perhaps that's true, but it doesn't seem to concern the next-generation digital bean counters whose hopes seem laced with visions of information and trust-based commerce at the expense of the integrity of the manufactured product. A revolution, indeed.

What is this New Economy exactly? It's no less than the shift from things and machines to people and ideas. From competition to coopetition. From causality theory to complexity and chaos theory. What does all this jabber mean? Have a seat, and let me tell you.

Twenty-five years ago, any billion-dollar company would've had suits strutting in, slumping out, and moving throughout all day long. A day in the life of a Ford engineer would likely have been prescribed from a recipe of 1 part incremental innovation, 2 parts posturing, 3 parts corporate politics, and a dash of middle-managerial excess sprinkled in for good luck. Red Tape was the protein of a good company. Order, management, control, and manufactured products were the building blocks used by every successful business to survive in the dwindling last days of the industrial age. Now, these blocks seem like wrecking balls.

Order can't be maintained when management hasn't any idea about how to measure productivity. Earlier in the century productivity was simply the ratio of produced materials to the cost of production. This formula is forced into obsolescence by a shift from manufactured goods to collected information. How much is an idea worth? How much did it cost to produce that idea? These seem to be the questions plaguing fortune 500 companies. Traditional ideas of supply and demand cannot be superimposed onto this economic model. Oh, that's to say we don't try. Look at IBM. Once the undisputed champion of the technological arena, IBM kept its old-world business model and lost this title to Microsoft and Intel. What happened to the IBM-Compatible system? It's called the Wintel system now. Go figure. As for IBM itself, though it produces over US$76 billion---far more than Microsoft's US$11 billion---it is valued at only US$100 billion compared with Microsoft's US$150 billion. Now you tell me something hasn't changed. Look at General Motors. Producing US$160 billion, it is valued at only US$56 billion. Why? It's the shift from things to people.

People and the ideas they naturally create have come to replace manufactured goods in order of importance in this New Economy. Having the right idea or the right list of employees in Silicon Valley---the traditional nesting ground of information industry pundits--- is far more important than having a working product ready to hit department store shelves. Who cares that no one has ever seen the mysterious vaporware called Trinity by Id Software. All that matters to Id's market value is that John Carmack, coder-extraordinaire, is leading the way and that the idea---that of a truly immersive 3D first person gaming environment with photorealistic scenes---is a good one. Everyone knows that Carmack is reliable and is one of the best 3D action game programmers ever thrown to earth from gamer heaven. Id is a formidable company so long as Carmack sticks around. How much is that worth?

And speaking of value, how does a company truly engage the Internet to its best interests? Sure, a web site is great, but the real concern is with what this new medium means to accountants and advertisers---that is to say, to the people who traditionally determined value to a company. Who needs to concern themselves with just what Betsy down the street wants in a product or service when one has the entire world with which to deal? I mean, are Betsy's wishes where the money is? Research will determine that---not a manager or a marketer, just research. Who needs to limit corporate affairs geographically when a global communications network allows for the disintegration of territorial concerns? Besides, won't Betsy choose to bootstep in line with the rest of the world when she realizes---via that same global communications network---that what she thought she wanted wasn't what she actually needed? I mean, she can only thank the industry, can't she? It inspires a comfortable feeling to know that corporate interests will help us to learn more about our needs and desires---even those we never knew we had. It's kind of nice having a Big Brother, of sorts, looking out for us, isn't it?

But the real economic concern isn't about what the world needs---or could need with the right prodding. That can be determined with an appropriately expensive data-mining query to look for overarching spending or lifestyle patterns. Easy stuff now. Entire companies have been formed with no product other than immense databases culled from every entered contest, filled out form, credit card purchase, and library card transaction ever initiated by the population at large. No, the real concern is in how to manage that data. Copyright protection doesn't extend to databases and yet we pay big bucks for access. Copying a program to another disk and giving it to a friend doesn't affect Microsoft's hard profit line, but it is illegal. Why? Because corporate America desperately wants to control, to manage, the flow of information. If we didn't, Microsoft surely wouldn't waste its time writing all those great programs. Id wouldn't bother working on Trinity. Data mining corporations wouldn't see a reason to gather all that freely available information into one place.

This information-based commerce, however, cannot be controlled so easily. Information is all becoming 1's and 0's. The technology industry calls that convergence. Everything, from movies to doctoral theses, is being moved to the new digital format. And as we all have learned, this new digital format cannot be kept secure. Data leaks. Information, no matter how the industry black-boxes it, is free flowing. Ideas cannot be truly protected from theft. Apple created the concept of a Window-based Graphical User Interface. Microsoft used their idea. One can almost hear Bill Gates voice. "Thanks Apple, but we can take it from here." Sure, Microsoft changed it a bit---they call that innovation in the New Economy---but they didn't invent it. When Id's Trinity was announced, other companies agreed it was a good idea. So good, in fact, that they are now working on separate software versions of the same concept. Maybe in a few years one of them can say to Id Software, "Thanks Id, but we can take it from here." In this New Economy, companies are forced into the unprecedented position of having to display proof of good ideas to the industry in hopes that they can then get the idea to market before the imitators, whose numbers seem to be a good indicator of the validity of the idea, can do the same. Suddenly business is thrust into a playing field where, for the first time in history, the economy of time far outweighs the economies of scale or quality. To survive in a world where the primary commodity is impossible to fully control, companies must move from a competitive state to a coopetitive state. Even in competing companies, a measure of cooperation is necessary. Microsoft cannot compete in the Internet technologies market without recognizing that standards will drive consumer acceptance. Standards cannot be achieved without cooperation. No one wants another company controlling the standard because it necessarily creates a new sort of monopoly---one where a single corporate entity controls the shell in which information is stored, viz. Microsoft's operating system. The Sabre reservation system, originally created by American Airlines, is open to all its competitors, who have a say in its structure, so that every airline can benefit from its existence. Without all airlines being onboard, The Sabre system doesn't have much market appeal. With all of them onboard, it becomes an invaluable resource for information and the distribution of the air travel commodity to the public. A rising tide lifts all boats … in theory.

We've moved into a world in which we cannot point conclusively to a specific cause for a specific economic effect. The old causality business model doesn't work anymore. Some of the more adventurous economists---bet you never thought you'd see adventurous and economist in the same sentence---have proposed that we ought to look at economy as the product of complexity theory or chaos theory forces. Complexity theory holds that it often seems true that the sum of the parts doesn't inevitably explain the existence of the whole. You want to see complexity theory at work? Look at a rainforest or Ford Motor Corporation. Chaos theory fills in the blanks that Complexity theory doesn't touch. It is a science that tries to approach incredibly complex systems as they are rather than by simplifying them as other sciences tend to do. It upholds the cause-effect relationship but concludes that many things have a causality string that we simply cannot follow. The classic example is one wherein the beating of a butterfly's wings over Afghanistan ultimately results in the formation of a hurricane miles away. One caused the other, but the relationship between them is too complex to distinguish its component parts. According to these economic theorists, economy in this new environment works similarly. The President is accused of sexual impropriety and New York Stock Exchange safeguards are triggered to avoid serious detriment to the stock market. Every leading analyst points to a correlation but none can explain the relationship in detail.

To say that this New Economy is simply about the creation of new market demands, the expansion of the market to global levels, or the shift from material goods to information is to see this revolution in short-sighted terms. Perhaps complexity theory is adequate to describe this as well. These things may be a part of the whole, but the whole itself is something entirely different. It's about change so fundamental that we cannot quantitatively express or measure it. It's about a change so thorough that it affects the way in which we view change. Canons of economy are obsolete before reaching the printer's press. What is a businessman to do? Well, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the corporate structure and practices of a company like Netscape. Small product development teams, decentralized management, and a less rigid environment all work together to create a model that makes it easy to shift focus from one project to another quickly as market demands necessitate. This is the model adopted by everyone from Microsoft to Saturn Cars in hopes that it will allow them the flexibility needed to react to the last minute demands of the anarchy of our modern economy. Will it work? Ultimately that is a question that history will have to answer. This is a revolution that hasn't ended yet. Perhaps we'll all know in a few years. The business world at large seems to have hope that a new model, like the Netscape one, will work and allow for a stable structure in the midst of a Post-Modern economic mess. Most answers to the problem of information control have thus far been teetering between outright censorship and capricious idiocy. Whatever the answer, we had better find it soon or we may be facing a global economic meltdown of behemoth proportions.

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The Shakespearean Dichotomy - Comedy And Tragedy In Measure For Measure

Posted on 2005-12-25 at 15:05

Abstract:
Concerning the interweaving of Comedy and Tragedy in Shakespeare's work, Measure For Measure. This paper explores the interpretative tensions associated with treating this as cheifly a tragedy or a comedy and argues that this work is something in between---a comedy of a tragedy.

Paper:
The two disparate concepts of comedy and tragedy worm their way into the daily lives of all living men and so it would seem important to note and explore this intimate and personal relationship. Drama, from its inception, has done just that. Interestingly however, once in a great while an individual arises from the literary crowd to speak candidly about these concepts in a manner which calls into question the very nature of humankind. Shakespeare has done this in his play Measure For Measure. This play skirts back and forth between comedy and tragedy in a way which forces the audience to take note and maybe raise an eyebrow at the notion that perchance these "disparate" concepts are not so disparate.

Since it will be shown that this play makes a socio-cultural statement about mankind, it seems appropriate to use terminology which more closely intimates the Shakespearean intent and thus the definitions of comedy, tragedy, and also irony need to be explored not in terms of their standard literary significance, but in their broader and more applicable social significance. Inevitably, when one speaks of comedy and tragedy in the same breath, irony as a conglomerate between the two is brought forth. As simple as it might be to accept the definition of irony as a special blend of the comic and the tragic, it does not appear to bear out. Comedy can be said to be a parody of that part of life which when experienced makes little sense yet when viewed from a transcendent perspective shows itself to be humorous. In Freudian terminology, comedy is simply civilized aggression. Tragedy, according to Reinhold Niebuhr in his work The Irony Of American History, is "constituted of conscious choices of evil for the sake of good" (Niebuhr vii). So that a king who sacrifices a son to save two daughters has been involved in a tragedy. It appears the largest difference between comedy and tragedy is that while comedy is created, tragedy just happens---it is perhaps simpler in that respect. Irony, though possessed of both the comic and tragic requires more than those two components to exist. Reinhold Niebuhr, in his work mentioned earlier, talks about irony: "A comic situation is proven to be an ironic one if a hidden relation is discovered in the incongruity" and irony "is differentiated from tragedy by the fact that the responsibility is related to an unconscious weakness rather then to a conscious resolution" (Neibuhr viii). Though irony may be quite illuminative of the human situation, it is illuminative in a wholly different manner than comedy and tragedy.

Measure For Measure is a comedy first and foremost. Most scenes found within its mercurial plot can be read with a comic edge---even though some of those scenes may, at heart, concern serious subject matter. Even the character list itself alludes to the underlying comic element in this half tragedy. Elbow, the constable, Froth, the foolish gentleman, and Pompey, the clown servant to Mistress Overdone all lend themselves to laughter by their mere pre-play description and names. Joseph H. Summers, in his work entitled Dreams Of Love And Power, discusses the comedy of the opening scene:

From this laudable beginning, the plot unfolds and envelopes its audience further and further into a delightfully comfortable mire of comic irresolution. Just as an audience thinks it understands the path and point of this play, another bend in the plot's road forces them to rethink their previous position. Though the comic element is evident throughout the play, often it is a cynical comedy. When Lucio describes Angelo to Isabella for the first time, his description foreshadows a cynical opposition to itself in the actual character of Angelo. He describes him as follows:

Such pious upbuilding of a character who proves unworthy of such unconditional praise as has been given him here and elsewhere in the play forms the underpinning of the primary comic tools Shakespeare uses in Measure For Measure: opposition and contradiction. Later this contradiction displays itself more subtly in the first conversation between Angelo and Isabella. In this scene, which at the outset appears more serious than comic, Shakespeare contradicts the feminine stereotype of Elizabethan culture, that of a near mindless servant to man, with the actuality of Isabella's presence which proves far more than a match to Angelo's lordly wit. Though he begins speaking to her in quick and dismissive tones---i.e., "Well; the matter?", "Maiden, no remedy.", etceteras---he soon finds her arguments to be greater reasoned and driven by a greater intellect than he'd perhaps anticipated. His reaction to her weighty arguments shows in his transition from short, almost condescending tones to long eloquent discourses in an attempt to rebuttal her well thought out objections:

That Angelo was neither prepared nor accustomed to explaining himself to a woman becomes evident later in the scene when he is reduced first to "Why do you put these saying upon me?" (Line 133) and second to nearly recanting his adamant death sentence. Though this scene is one which delves into a matter of grave importance, Shakespeare through the mastery of the more subtle comic elements has rendered a scene which is in fact pleasing to read and comic in that it ends in a manner entirely unexpected---that is, with the woman, Isabella, standing triumphant after a battle of wits against the acting lord of the domain. Other equally comic elements are found driving this curiously confusing plot. In Act IV, Scene iii, Lines 26 - 29, a prisoner by the name of Barnardine is approached by the stoically funny executioner, Abhorson and Pompey, the clown. Pompey makes the comment that Barardine "must be so good ... to rise, and be put to death," as though the prisoner should feel privileged to have been chosen for such an honor. Barnardine's response, however, brings even more comedy to an otherwise bothersome scene: "Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy." Barnardine then contends, making surprisingly good sense, that he has caroused and reveled too much the night before to have an execution on this day. He argues that the execution should be postponed until such time as he can be better prepared! Interestingly, throughout the play executions are a common component. And though it would seem difficult to utilize such a grim topic in a comedy, it is done masterfully. Even at that moment when the play seems most likely to lose its comic element, when the Duke chooses to punish Angelo for his apparent crime against Claudio, the audience is set at ease by the very wording used in the death sentence. The Duke proclaims "An Angelo for Claudio, death for death ... We do condemn thee to the very same block where Claudio stoop'd to death" (Act V, Scene I, Lines 409-415). While at the outset this killing of a major character would seem to a catalyst for removing the comic element of the scene, the audience quickly, if not immediately, realizes that there is no such "block where Claudio stoop'd to death." Indeed, the very reference to a death which didn't occur sheds a comic light on the death which was just sentenced. The comic sensibilities of the audience are thus spared the shock of true death.

The fact that Measure For Measure is a comedy is little disputed, but what manner of comedy and to what end did Shakespeare drive the comic purpose becomes the prevalent question. Though it is a comedy, it is a comedy of tragedy. At the same time as Shakespeare provides this comedy of contradiction and tragedy, it seems he has laden it also with a burden of cynicism toward the human spirit. Gareth Lloyd Evans, in his work The Upstart Crow, addresses Shakespeare's apparent cynicism:

In Measure For Measure, he shows the audience a glimpse of themselves at their worst, yet he does so from the blunted and more entertainingly palatable edge of comedy. Certainly, the plot, if stripped of its comic element, becomes a tragedy of the worst order. Isabella, the virgin nun-to-be, discovers her brother to be arrested and sentenced to execution. She is asked to make a decision between her chastity, which she associates with godliness, and her brother's life. Angelo, the saint-turned-villain of Measure For Measure, puts the choice to her: "You must lay down the treasures of your body to this supposed, or else to let him suffer---What would you do?" (Act II, Scene iv, Lines 96-98). Her answer becomes the quintessential expression of the play's primary tragic element: "Better it were a brother died at once, than that sister, by redeeming him, should die for ever" (Act II, Scene iv, Lines 106-108). She makes her decision and in doing so has participated in a tragedy. She has made a conscious decision of evil for the sake of good. This tragedy is brought to a culmination when Isabella threatens to wreck Angelo's community standing by publicly relating the particulars of Angelo's indecent proposal. It is here, perhaps, when the play takes on its most serious tone, and here also where Measure For Measure seems most in danger of losing its comic quality to the sobriety of the situation. Here Angelo asks her:

This is a soberingly true statement not only for Isabella but for the audience as well, who lives in a real world consisting of such similar malcontents and crimes that they cannot help but empathize. The Duke, seeking to test the mettle of his underling, Angelo, finds himself disappointed in the worst way as Angelo abuses the power granted him in the Duke's name. The Duke is thus forced to make a decision also. He must decide between revealing himself and righting the wrongs done by his erstwhile replacement, hence disallowing Angelo any opportunity to reprove himself and his actions, or he may choose to allow Angelo to continue consequently risking the onslaught of further lordly abuses by Angelo. And yet it is in the light of these various and sundry tragedies that the story's plot is brought to fruition with the semi-tragic and yet wholly hilarious marriage solution. Certainly the comedy of this ending escapes no one, but its tragedy is vastly understated by the playwright. Issues of severe importance are brushed aside with the broom of convenient marriage. Worse yet, the marriages which suppose to resolve the problems beset by Angelo's crimes do nothing more than parlay those crimes into lifelong punishments for all involved. The Duke, though in the end married to Isabella, never recants his statement that " the dribbling dart of love can [never] pierce a complete bosom" like himself (Act I, Scene iii, Lines 2-3) and Isabella never reconciles to the audience of the play the issue of her married fate with her desired nunnish dreams. The other marriages, in a fashion similar to this one, seem to meet disconcerting problems upon examination. Evans' work, The Upstart Crow, touches on the issue of the tragedy and comedy of Measure For Measure:

To understand this tragic element best, one must fully understand the particulars of the plot's primary tragedy which is, as explained earlier, the attempted seduction of Isabella by Angelo. This is made a tragedy by Angelo's demand and it should be noted that this tragic difficulty is never resolved, but only diffused and rearranged.. The tragedy is found in that she wishes to keep her honor unstained and yet does not want her brother to die. As mentioned earlier, she chooses her honor over her brother, thereby beginning her part in the tragedy. In the end, she is married to the Duke, thus her virginity becomes forfeit, it is assumed, under the tenants of marriage and her brother's life is spared. Not only is this not what she wanted at all, but it is in fact the opposite of what she chose when given the option by Angelo! That is hardly what one might call a happy, or comic, ending.

Measure For Measure addresses many grave topics---some of which might easily lend themselves to tragedy---but rather than simply allowing these issues to occur and setting some character to the task of addressing them in a manner which more closely mimics real life, Shakespeare has chosen to present them in the form of comedy, thereby giving the audience the ability to sufficiently transcend the matter and perhaps thus understand it better. The comedy of Measure For Measure teaches the audience more about the nature of power, corruption, greed, and authority than any tragedy could hope to. Only through comedy could the audience stay fittingly unattached from the topic to truly analyze it without the subjective-interpretive quality of emotional attachment to the situation which is typically evoked by tragedy. While this play can be read to betray Shakespeare's lack of confidence in human nature, it seems as likely that Shakespeare was attacking the concept of piety and making a Christian point about mankind's natural desire versus spiritual duty. Measure For Measure shows the audience what can happen to man when ethics (in this case Christian ethics) are abandoned. To borrow a phrase from Wordsworth, it shows the audience "what man has made of man." Shakespeare leaves it to the audience to resolve the situation and for this reason alone this play cannot be considered a Christian allegory or parable. Considering the nature of the situation Shakespeare has produced, an easy resolution is virtually impossible. Shakespeare has, in this way, shown the tragedy that life is everyday in a world where human nature and self interest force themselves into the relational fray. What Shakespeare has done is to create a comedy of a tragedy; thereby showing how intimate the relationship can be between the two. Shakespeare has shown his audience the comedy of their own daily interests through the magic of drama, thus "the viewer can be forgiven if he perceives within the play an oddly earthy and comic reflection of a dream of another happiness in another world" (Summers 94).

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Wuthering Heights and Modernity

Posted on 2005-08-16 at 08:04

Abstract:
Concerning the work Wuthering Heights and its relationship to Modernism. I greatly enjoyed Wuthering Heights for both its depth and its prose. In this paper, I try to address the Modern and Post Modern subtext of the work as it relates to the period in which it was written.

Paper:
It is natural for man to seek purpose and structure in life. The human experience seems to desire and even need such a base from which to begin. One of the most difficult intellectual transitions in history has been the move from a pre-modern understanding of the world as possessing inherent meaning, purpose and structure to a modern and post-modern understanding of the world as being devoid, or at least mostly devoid, of such meaning. In light of the profundity of this transition and its implications to every facet of our life, it petitions study, and yet it is notoriously difficult to isolate and examine without first examining the roots of the transition. While it is more often the case that academicians look to such works as Martin Luther's To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, or any of the works from Marx, Freud, Vannever, or Darwin, it is occasionally more fruitful to examine it in the early works written by and for the community at large. Certainly Luther and Freud had a stronger grasp of the topic and addressed it more directly, but they had no interest in the practical effects of the shift. Their interest lay in ideology, philosophy, and theology rather than how this drastically different worldview would impact the daily lives of the people. The latter, however, is something at which literature excels. One of the most fascinating glimpses into the Modern malaise of meaninglessness can be found in Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights. Ostensibly, Wuthering Heights tells the story of Heathcliff---a man who seems destined to a life alone---but underneath that literal layer lies a distinctly modernist subtext.

Unlike the majority of her predecessors and contemporaries, Emily Bronte did not seem compelled to limit the actions and events of the story to the external world. She seemed quite comfortable explaining the actions of the internal world. It is in delving into the implicit rather than merely the explicit causes and motivations of her characters that she is able to tackle the problem of meaning. Heathcliff becomes something more than the just sum of his actions. He becomes the result of those actions as they interact with his motivations and his history. The reader is asked to see in Heathcliff a man who has utterly defied society and its inhibiting structures. The Heathcliff presented to the reader is one who veritably embodies that defiance. A "dirty, ragged, black-haired ... gipsy brat" brought home by Mr. Eanshaw, Heathcliff invades the social structure of the Wuthering Heights estate and assumes the role of son (Bronte, 30). Bronte's contemporaries would have immediately seen---in fact did see, as evidenced by her critic's responses---the problem inherent in this situation. Heathcliff was not of the same class as his adoptive family and therefore ought not pretend to be so. Bronte exacerbates her critic's horror by not only allowing the situation to continue but also escalating it until he supplants the rightful master. Again, had this been merely an external situation there might not have been cause for much concern. The reader, however, is forced to question the validity of too-quickly associating Heathcliff with his gypsy birth. Early on, Mr. Lockwood assesses Heathcliff:

The reader is continually reminded throughout the work that Heathcliff is not so simply defined---not by birth nor by environment. Is Heathcliff to be considered a gypsy with all of a gypsy's inherent faults or a gentleman capable of all that is ascribed to that class? The question is left open. In a conversation later between Nelly the housekeeper and Mr. Lockwood, Mr. Lockwood asks of Heathcliff:

To which Nelly open-endedly replied:

Mr. Lockwood's suggestion that one could become a gentleman through education implies a radical shift from earlier worldviews. Historically, up until this point, the world, being considered a creation of God, was the source of stability for the people in it. If this world was to be the stability of the people, it must be immutable---that is to say, it must be the same for one person as it is for another. In lay terms, the world, in this view, is invested with meaning by some higher authority (typically God) and each thing in it, therefore, can only mean what that authority originally intended. If one was born of a particular race or into a particular socio-economic status, that status or race carried with it an inherent meaning. Being a peasant, for example, defined for the individual the type of person he was---not only in economic terms, but also in social, political, ontological, and religious terms. As Sigmund Freud said in his work The Interpretation of Dreams, the "general view of life [of the pre-modern people was that they were] wont to project as reality in the outer world that which possessed reality only within the mind" (Freud 2). Therein lies the heart of the difference between Pre-Modern and (Post-) Modern man and Emily Bronte expressed that tension through Heathcliff's ambiguous social status.

Further intensifying the reader's uncertainty with regard to Heathcliff's natural social position is his attitude toward those of the class to which he later is associated. Heathcliff neither envies nor elevates the upper class that he observes. Instead, he displays disdain for their pettiness and insecurity. The author herself deepens the audience's despair by pointedly and unabashedly betraying the frailties of that upper class---thereby justifying Heathcliff's disdain. Rather than allowing the text the respite of some underlying truth that buttresses the status quo, which her contemporaries would surely have been more comfortable with, Emily Bronte presents a subset of the world wherein the status quo is shown to be a social construct instead of an immutable absolute. No reader can elevate the actions of the noble Linton children, Isabella and Edgar, after finding them arguing over ownership of a dog. Heathcliff describes his reaction:

Heathcliff finds himself unable to contain his loathing for these "idiots." Likewise, the reader may find it difficult to accept any inherent superiority. Yet just as we begin to empathize with Heathcliff the ambiguity of his character and natural social status is strengthened with scenes showing his penchant for wild violence and incivility. After a discomfiting evening being humiliated by Edgar and Hindley, Heathcliff boldly proclaims to Nelly:

Heathcliff grows into an absolutely hateful creature---miserable in his own existence and proactively seeking to make everyone as miserable as himself. Even as his love for Catherine was possibly his only worthy virtue in later life, he still reprimands her on her deathbed:

The Heathcliff that the audience is left with is a chaotic one---a man torn between a spirit of nobility and of hatred. He is both proof of the status quo and challenge to the status quo. As Catherine's funeral approaches, her noble brother cannot stop himself from a drinking binge while Heathcliff prays alone in his room. The traditional understanding of good and evil, right and wrong, and noble and ignoble are blurred in Heathcliff's character. On one hand, he is the gypsy street waif, wild and full of hatred, while on the other hand, he is the country gentleman whose love for Catherine transcends even death and whose every action proves him to be a man of substance.

Emily Bronte does not permit her readers the luxury of a stable position. In fact, it may be this instability that Emily Bronte wishes for her audience. How is one to understand the modern dilemma unless one experiences it? Bronte's beautifully poetic writing and her unusual novel structure coalesce into a literary experience that manages to effectively impart that instability. Heathcliff's character pushes one way and just as it seems he is complete, he flits another way. Even his plans for revenge falter---not by some accident or machination, but by his own will. He chooses not to complete it once it is in his power to do so. This unlikely turn of events is expressed cryptically, through a discussion of dinner, late into the novel when Heathcliff said:

How better to conclude Heathcliff's character growth than to leave him unsure of meaning in his own life! Though animated with a hunger for revenge, he simply doesn't want it. He now exists as a living contradiction. The warring aspects of his self have been made explicit in this one statement. He is unsure of his own motivations. He does not know why revenge "seemingly" must not be completed, he only knows that he will not do it. This is not the act of an ignoble creature, but of a noble human being. It is an act worthy of any lord or gentry. It is his redemptive moment. Here his character stands defiant against any who would say he does not deserve the title of nobility---regardless of gypsy birth. Heathcliff proves himself master of his own existence. This is what the audience may take from Bronte's novel. Heathcliff teaches the reader through his actions, to recognize and overcome those things that would control---hatred, abuse, love, birth, status, sin, and pride. Heathcliff is, for all his faults, a shining example of Post-Modern man creating his own raison d'etre. Neither Kierkegaard nor Eliot could have expressed it better.

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Loves Labours Confused - Augustine and the Journey to Christianity

Posted on 2005-01-27 at 08:02

Abstract:
Concerning Augustine's transition from a Gnostic knowledge of God to a Christian relationship with God. Augustine's conversion and insight forms the basis of so much of Christianity that study of the subject is central to any study of modern theology.

Paper:
In many ways, the death of Augustine's mother became his moment of true gestalt. Though he had had an earlier moment of insight which led to his conversion experience in the garden in Milan, it was not until his mother's death when, confronted with the need to apply his new-found insight, he truly understood its importance. Until this point, even after his conversion, Augustine existed in a state of anxiety produced by what he might describe as a contest of conflicting wills. It was his mother's death that settled that anxiety.

Augustine seemed to see those two wills as a dialectic between man's covenant with God and his desire for attachment to worldly things---that is to say, between the spirit and the flesh. The tension born of this dynamic conflict within the soul of man, according to Augustine, caused much of man's suffering. At one point, he describes this state of anxiety:

Augustine originally saw this anxiety as an inescapable side-effect of his own humanity. His flawed nature could do nothing but produce the effect. His reasoning in this matter relied heavily on a Manichean---and ultimately Gnostic--- dualistic approach to understanding the human condition. He believed that the mind was of a higher order than the body. This hierarchy created in man the innate ability of free choice---the ability to choose the actions which one will perform in any given situation. "The mind commands the body," Augustine believed, "and is instantly obeyed" (Augustine 147). Yet this same hierarchy was cause for conflict when the mind tried to command the mind. Apparently the mind need not follow its own commands, therefore one cannot command oneself not to want something or not to think something. "The mind commands itself," Augustine added, "and meets resistance" (Augustine 147). Man, under this system of thought, becomes his own most difficult problem.

Added to this dire theory was Augustine's view that Man's will was confused at heart since his fall from grace and now, rather than loving God for His own sake and God's works for the uses they provide, he loved God's works for their own sake and God for the uses He can provide. Man's will is thusly confused and Augustine simply did not see a way to correct that since he could not will himself to change his own will. Prior to his episode in the garden of Milan, Augustine sought after worldly things just for the sake of having them. He chased after women, sought academic prizes, and desired money. Anything that satisfied his desire for the purely sensual was the recipient of his attention. As Augustine put it, "in an ulcerous condition [my soul] thrust itself to outward things, miserable avid to be scratched by contact with the world of the senses" (Augustine 35).

It was Lady Continence, a figure who appeared to him in the garden, who brought Augustine, intellectually, out of the quandary of fighting a losing battle against an evil will. She talked of God's grace as the answer:

Through this experience Augustine became able to accept, logically, the precepts of Christian faith, thus the whole garden incident is often dubbed his conversion experience. However, examination of the text both during and after this experience may indicate that it was only a prequel to the actual moment of his entering into a relationship (or covenant) with God. That moment may have been later, at his mother's death.

It is true that Augustine described a difference of worldview after the garden conversion. He used typically Gnostic imagery when he talked of a "light of relief" which removed his anxiety (Augustine 153). He described a peaceful time when, with his mother, he learned to climb the scale of goodness to reach its near-peak, which he believed was the human mind. As he put it, "we ascended even further by internal reflection and dialogue and wonder at your works, and we entered into our own minds" (Augustine 171). Using the Gnostic, and therefore Manichean, doctrine of salvation through intellectual reflection and special insight, Augustine had taken the next step toward Christianity by being able to embrace its doctrines because of his rational for them. But he had not yet entered into a relationship with God. That was to come a bit later.

The reader gets the impression, through Augustine's writings, that anxiety had left him, as much as it ever would, at this point. As a testament to the falsity of that statement, however, the death of Monica, his mother, crumbles the framework of Augustine's logical-salvation experience. His first substantial test proves to be his true conversion experience. Augustine falls back into an anxiety once again--- this time unsure of his condition or its possible solution. He became, "tortured by a twofold sadness," (Augustine 175) and his mind and body warred again:

Augustine suddenly saw his attachment to his mother, formed of the habit of living with her for so long, as drawing him toward some inappropriate grief. He wrestled with the idea that he had fallen into the habit of loving her for her own sake rather than for her use to God and the world as a Christian. He retired to a bath in hopes that this thing would help resolve his conflict. Again he turned towards worldly things, just as he was wont to do earlier in life, for a salvation that he would never find there. After the bath he found that he was, "exactly the same as before" (Augustine 176). His Gnostic manner of understanding God had not produced in him any relationship with God and therefore he had not learned to truly let go of the world around him. Exhausted from his returned anxious state, he slept. It was this sleep which would herald his actual conversion. In chapter IX, paragraph 33---rather than chapter VII, paragraph 28--- Augustine truly converts to Christianity by accepting its doctrines of salvation and love not simply with his mind, but with his heart.

Suddenly, Augustine, "was glad to weep before [God] about and for her, about [him]self and for [him]self" (Augustine 176). He learned to cry not for his loss of a mother, but for a mother, "who had wept for [him] that [he] might live before [God's] eyes" (Augustine 176). He saw his mother, and the rest of creation no longer as ends, in and of themselves, but as means to know God. "If anyone lists his true merits to you, what is he enumerating before you but your gifts" (Augustine 177)? Augustine has that moment of Christian gestalt, which some call rebirth, here at his mother's death, not in a garden in Milan as has been suggested. "Thereby [Augustine] submitted [his] neck to [God's] easy yoke and [his] shoulders to [God's] light burden" (Augustine 155). Augustine had finally made the transition from a Gnostic knowledge of God to a Christian relationship with God. His conversion was complete.

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Coercion and the Selfish Impulse in the Theology of Reihold Niebuhr

Posted on 2004-11-10 at 08:03

Abstract:
Concerning Reinhold Niebuhr's beliefs on Coercion and its role in the society of Man. Writing this paper helped me to form opinions of my own about the nature and role of human selfishness and shortsightedness.

Paper:
Coercion is an integrated component of all extant governing bodies. As individuals living under these systems of government, we must be willing to explore the necessity of any system that uses such force to achieve its own ends. Reinhold Niebuhr, in his work Moral Man and Immoral Society, has attempted just such an exploration. In his inquiry, he has determined that coercion is not morally justifiable, but it is pragmatically justifiable. This conclusion relies heavily on his understanding of human nature, which while positive with respect to many Christian thinkers is none-the-less decidedly negative. He argues that coercion is a necessary tool for both social cohesion and social justice. While both are needed in the ideal society, social cohesion is the most logical first step, since without it there will be no justice. Therefore we will look primarily to his theories of selfishness, reason, and empathy that lead toward his understanding of the problems of social cohesion rather than his theories of benevolence and justice.

Niebuhr has claimed, in his work The Nature and Destiny of Man, Volume I: Human Nature, that, "Man has always been his most vexing problem" (Niebuhr NDM, 1). Man's selfishness is the root of many of his problems. Essentially, Niebuhr argued that human beings have an inherent selfishness which neither reason, empathy, nor man's inherent benevolence can overcome well enough to create, for any substantial period of time, an idyllic society. In his work Moral Man and Immoral Society, he stated:

Selfishness, according to the above passage seeps into all that man does and cannot be avoided. But selfishness is not man's only attribute; he is also a reasonable creature.

Man's reason both hinders and helps him in the creation and application of equitable rules of conduct. It allows him to apprehend the nature of situations removed from his own immediate one, therefore it acts as a tool of the conscience, helping man to recognize the needs of others. As Niebuhr put it, "[R]eason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others" (Niebuhr MMIS, 29). That recognition then allows him to empathize with those needs, even when those needs may have never weighed personally on the individual empathizer. That is why Niebuhr preceded his earlier point about man's rationality with a qualifier concerning empathy. "Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own" (Niebuhr MMIS, 2). Further, man's reason can help him to reign himself in:

That is to say, man has a sense of self-transcendence and through that quality he can choose to act against his immediate desires or needs. That sense enables man to see and act on the needs of others or of a greater whole even when the actions may oppose his personal exigencies or desires. That same sense of transcendence allows him to see himself and his fellow men in a different light. He can recognize injustice and social decay for what it is rather than merely for what it does for him as an individual.

Reason, in other words, affords him the ability to critique the world and his place in it.

Reason, however, is not man's salvation. With all these benefits come problems. While reason may allow man to see beyond the immediate---allowing him to empathize with those removed from him---that same quality allows him to see his own needs in a new light. He may see, through his reason, needs and wants that he never could have foreseen without reason. This perspicacious sight creates in man new greater needs and alarms him to otherwise unknown exigencies. That extended sense of self-preservation wars with man's sense of rationalized empathy. Therefore, though man can view the world in a greater light, that light is not without partiality.

Partiality breeds social inequity and injustice, which are the exact things that man despises in others. This problem is accentuated when society assumes man will be capable and willing to bend to its motives and actions. Niebuhr, in his work The Irony of American History, addresses this point directly:

Thus man is in a constant struggle between self and community that cannot be won by either side except through compromise, which is difficult at best with a society that uses coercive means to acquire desired ends.

Niebuhr's view of reason does not match exactly with the Kantian view of human reason, which wants to set reason up as man's salvation. The Kantian view assumes that reason can make itself, or perhaps is itself, impartial and therefore can destroy biased social structures and actions. Reason, in this view, is much more powerful. It can be applied almost perfectly even in an imperfect society. While Kant didn't assume that reason would immediately resolve social problems, he did suggest it was through reason that those problems would eventually be solved. Niebuhr, it seems, had a rebuttle to this in mind when he wrote, "Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life" (Niebuhr MMIS, 26). Niebuhr seemed to be pointing to some quality external to reason that allows for true goodness. For Niebuhr, this was comprised of his inherent benevolence and his empathy. Kant did not acknowledge a soteriological need outside of reason.

It should be noted that the same reason that grants man the ability to better understand his self-preservational situation will also allow him to better see his hierarchical situation. As Niebuhr stated it, "The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power" (Niebuhr MMIS, 18). There exists a disparity between needs and desired that must be acknowledged in any successful social structure. Man is not content with mere sufficiency. Once needs are met sufficiently, man seeks more. "The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself" (Niebuhr MMIS, 6-7). That is a product of his selfish nature. Hence to curb injustice and inequity in the face of a selfish people, society must force upon them mutually acceptable rules of conduct that will allow for maximum---though not perfect---equity and justice:

Coercion, then, is a necessary and integrated component of all extant governing bodies. Therefore it is true that, "The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks" (Niebuhr MMIS, 1). Kant would disagree about its necessity by arguing that we could resolve conflict and partiality through the wholesale application of our full reasoning capacities. Niebuhr objected, saying that we cannot expect reason to fully overcome self-interest. Niebuhr spoke directly to Kant's---and other idealists'---beliefs when he said:

Self-interest possesses a gravity, pulling man toward himself, in a sense, even when reason offers him a chance to move away from the self. "Human beings," according to Niebuhr, "are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses" (Niebuhr MMIS, 25). This basic fact forces the necessity of coercion. Coercion, though not ideal, keeps individuals in check by metering out punishments for disobeying rules. The individual apprehends those punishments as distinctly opposing self-interest and thus he avoids them by following the rules set forth. "All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion" (Niebuhr MMIS, 3). Since society is no more than institutionalized cooperation, it must use coercive means to meet its cooperative objectives. Society is propelled along this forced path---continually resetting its goals and its methods, seeking perfection in coercion where none is to be found. Niebuhr saw little hope in self-perfection. The self, he argued was too muddled in its own delusions and selfishness to even see the problem correctly, let alone resolve it:

Man, he suggested, is in a precarious position. The final note on the subject must be Niebuhr's most lucid example of destructive and necessary coercion yet---the ultimate example of both the necessity and the immorality of coercion. "Our dreams of a pure virtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtue of responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospective guilt of the atomic bomb" (Niebuhr IAH, 2).

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Milton's Satan - Lucifer's Symbolic Meanings in Paradise Lost

Posted on 2004-08-01 at 08:03

Abstract:
Concerning Milton's portral of Satan in his work, Paradise Lost. I wrote this paper for an English class called Milton and Spenser. It makes the argument that Milton may have been trying to offer insight into our Western understanding of Hero and Villian with the Satan figure.

Paper:
In Milton's Paradise Lost, the character of Satan plays an interesting, if sometimes, ambiguous, part in the whole of the mythos being related. He is, at once, the epitome of the struggling individual fighting against oppression, the dark figure culled from our own religious experiences, and the cynical yet almost innocuous troublemaker who seeks to betray God while inadvertently doing His bidding. The question is begged by the text: Who is Milton's Satan? Most people are somewhat familiar with the biblical Satan---the Satan character as found in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures sometimes called the Old and New Testament. In general, people also seem familiar with the later interpretations of the character as a pitchfork-wielding, horned and tailed, shoulder-sitting tempter. In fact the typical reader of Milton's work is likely to be familiar with many different and often conflicting views of the Satan character. It is this historical and literary ambiguity which helps make Satan so delightful to the Miltonic reader. Satan, in Paradise Lost, is a character whose symbolic meaning, it will be argued, is manifold. He is the portrayal of a theological concept as well as a political ideal. Gerald J. Schiffhorst, in his work John Milton, discusses Milton's propensity to assign symbolic meaning to his characters.

Certainly Milton was capable of imbuing Satan with even more plurality of meaning, and it is likely he did so, however the above two metaphorical roles---that of a theological and a political symbology--- stand out as significant and reoccurring themes within the text.

Before a study of Satan's metaphorical or allegorical meaning is begun, it would behoove the student to first look at the simple, literary, plot driven Satan as portrayed in the actual events of the story behind Paradise Lost. In this strictly literal interpretive sense, Satan plays a huge role. Created by God, Satan, an archangel in Heaven, becomes jealous and discontent with God's rule and His Son's glory. For these reasons he chooses to revolt against God and His faithful after inciting a large group of compatriots to join him. Once defeated by an angelic army of the remaining faithful, he and his fellow revolutionaries are cast into hell---a place of unending torment. Here the plot thickens. God, upon seeing His heavenly creation marred, seeks to repair the damage done by building another world. His reasoning in this is best left to His own words:

Suddenly Satan is given (or so he believes) another indignity by God. This new creation, too, will be a source for jealousy and hatred against the God from which Satan was and still is rebelling. Satan then schemes to destroy God's new creation by tainting it with the seed of doubt and hubris to which Satan himself and all his horde had already fallen. The two separate stories of Satan's fall and Man's fall become parallel. This parallelism runs its course through the work until the end when the differences appear sharply to the reader. Satan does eventually tempt Man and Man does fall, just as Satan did before Him, yet Man, unlike Satan, learns from the error. Adam and Eve, in fact, suppliantly apologize to God for their transgression against Him---a step taken by neither Satan nor his