World Literature#4/ The Dead/ Embracing the Other

Embracing the Other

             From a distance, James Joyce’s “The Dead” might appear as a rambling story filled with conflicts irrelevant to the protagonist or the main theme. After all, when characters such as Lily, Aunt Julia, Freddy, Miss Ivars, Aunt Kate and Mr. Browne come in and out consecutively, readers are lured to mistaken the characters’ names, forget who they were and  trivialize what they did. However, on the other hand, it seems oddly conspicuous that all these characters show hostility and expose alterity (otherness) to each other. Whenever a new character appears, a new conflict ensues.

             When Lily pops out in the earlier part of the short story, there is no description on why she reacts uncomfortably to Gabriel’s question on marriage. Although Gabriel “had known her when she was a child and used to sit on the lowest step nursing a rag doll,” he has not been in such intimate relationship with her for a time. He does not know whether Lily is “done schooling” or what love life she had experienced. Also, he does not expect Lily to react with slight hostility when he offers to give some coins. Does she have any bad memories from the past in receiving gifts? No one knows.

             Same goes for the conflict (although not blatant) between the Aunts and Freddy. Freddy Malins is not welcomed in the party. Aunt Kate makes Gabriel to “see if he’s all right, and [not] let him up [stairs] if he’s screwed.” She is “sure he’s screwed.” But contrary to Aunt Kate’s expectations, Freddy Malins does nothing misled, except that he makes loud jokes while “rubbing the knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.” In fact, he appreciates the food and music that the Aunts provide with hospitality. Then why did the Aunts fear Freddy’s arrival? Did he do something despicable in the past? No one knows.

             “The Dead” is a story filled with small conflicts ensued by different persons. One discrepancy from ordinary clashes is that there is a lack of understanding on the people who are engaged in the conflicts. Was there a similar incident? Did the two parties ever fight before? No one knows. Nonetheless, there is one that explains itself and the people involved in it: the quarrel between Gabriel and Gretta. Unsurprisingly, it is the one that enables Gabriel to experience an epiphany. Gabriel abandons “his own foolish speech” and recognizes the past, the past that his wife had lived through, when she had a lover, a sentiment. Then he feels “a feeling [that] must be love” to his wife, not hostility as other persons had had in many conflicts.

             In this sense, James Joyce seems to imply where hostility stems from. Why do characters jostle over small matters, such as where one spends vacation (Miss Ivors and Gabriel) and who sings for the church (Aunt Kate and Mary Jane)? Is the fact that Gabriel does not mention his true thoughts (“literature is above politics”) or tell Miss Ivors from what grounds he refuses to spend his vacation in his homeland related to why Miss Ivors leaves abruptly? The past is absent in all dialogues that is engendered from unresolved conflicts. Then what should we do to fight less and feel “a feeling [that] must be love?” Simple. We talk more with each other: about our respective histories, the past.

[Personal Epiphany] Brown, Sturdy Tree, After Struggle, Dies

(This is a story that I wrote for another class; but I would still like to share it as my personal epiphany. It’s a short story that explains my personal thoughts, but I couldn’t write it as an essay or a prose; it would just get too cheesy. I would gladly accept any deduction in score for not presenting a work solely for this assignment.)

“I have lived a shameful life.”

“Why, M? What are you starting all over again? Did hiking make you all somber and tired?”

          My friend Y and I, we would often go to mountains, carrying factory-made axes in our backpacks. When we got in deep enough so that nobody would see us, we would chop down randomly selected large trees. When wood chips were flying about, each time the edge of ax hit the trunk, we would suddenly be relieved. I would talk, my friend would chop.

“Well, uh, it seems like my, uh, life is filled with heaps of large mistakes, failures, and uh, uselessness. I feel helpless. I feel, uh, this void. Things used to make me, uh, angry, but now, I’m not even angry. Lethargy clings on my back, and I am powerless against……I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but it’s pressing me hard. When I was angry, uh, at least I was angry. But now, when I realize, uh, how weak I am against this……I don’t know what it is, but it’s made me not even angry, just, uh, just tired.”

          All trees would resist foolhardily when the axes bit off its chunks. The tree would shake in agony, spitting out blood-like sap. Yet it still resisted, only until the ax passed through the center of the tree. Because when it did, no matter how large, the wood swung less frequently, and just waited to be snap off on itself. The tree we were chopping would then begin to comply with its fate, swaying less, spitting less, and resisting less.

“Yeah, M. But it’s something that we all face. You talk as if you’re the only one having that issue.”

“But still. If everyone feels the same thing, then why does everyone just go through the same process? We get angry, we try to, uh, resist, and we get…….castrated. A bit odd, uh, you know, that word castration. But I guess that’s the right way to put it. I can’t do, uh, anything.”

          Silence. As soon as I stopped talking, he put down his ax. Mine was already on the ground. He sat down on a flat rock, so did I. The tree was almost chopped down, and it would snap itself anytime. He opened his mouth and slurred, 

“I think I know the reason why we sneak out of school every day and wander around in the mountains. Before, mountains used to be a place to be conquered by men. Nowadays, it’s where the conquered hide.”

“Hide from what?”

“Hide from…….something. I don’t know.”

          My friend was a muscular guy. Wearing brown, sturdy muscles and short hair, he was an athlete-type of kid. Nonetheless, he was a smart kid too. He read philosophy, literature and history books since a young age, without preparing to get the good numbers in school report cards. A deep kid, he was, but numbers never liked him. Numbers on his math test never liked him, numbers on his school report card never liked him, and numbers on the standardized tests never liked him.

          But I liked him. His friends thought he was a cool, yet deep kid. Teachers thought he was thoughtful. Classmates who didn’t know him very well admired him. But Seoul National University didn’t value him as highly as people did. It seemed that companies like Samsung wouldn’t like him in a close future. He would have to work at a place where they hire him even when the company doesn’t value him so highly. A queer thing was that I can always draw my friends, the people in my head, but I can never picture these colleges, these companies. It was like when I was trying hard to figure out what KMLA was, although I could easily imagine KMLA students or KMLA teachers. 
          
He opened his mouth and blurted:

“I actually agree to what you said about that castration. But what point is there to be angry about it? You don’t even know what’s pressing you down. How can you be angry at it? It’s pointless, fighting against it. Just do what they say. No, what it says. Don’t be angry, yeah, don’t be angry at it.”

It wasn’t like him, talking so much. He usually maintained his sturdy, silent figure. Then this boy wearing brown, sturdy muscles sighed and went on.

“It’s really nothing, ultimately. You see? I don’t think there is a valuable meaning to it. But nonetheless, it is strong. It pressures me.”

“You sound like, uh, someone like Bukowski.”

“Charles Bukowski might not have suffered from school or career, but I hardly doubt that it would have been something so different from what we know of now. But I think Osamu Dazai would be a better comparison: disqualified from a functioning human. No Longer Human.”

“Nay, I, uh, won’t become one of those, uh, Dazai characters in his novellas. You know, maybe we could get, uh, good scores and uh, do stuff, and some day we can, uh, succeed. Whatever, uh, success is. Maybe it could someday like us too, just like other kids.”

“Maybe you can write about this. Like Dazai, like Bukowski. Saying cool stuff about life, pain and etcetera.”

“This isn’t cool; this is so common and loser-like thing. Even if I wrote a story, it will be only read by people like…..us!”

          We both laughed loudly. Then we treaded back to school. We had to hurry; or we might have gotten caught for wandering around outside school during school hours.

          A month later, I revisited our lumbering site, alone. All was same, except for the tree we left in the process of chopping. The tree snapped on its own; it snapped itself. It was disintegrating into the ground. Fungi were growing on the tree’s brown, sturdy trunk.

          So I changed my mind and decided to write an observation of the trees, a story for the trees. Isn’t it a common thing for axes chop, and trees chopped? The place we flee to becomes our grave. At the end of the day, we all die, just like that. And live on.