The Brother's Karamazov

The Karamazov Brothers by Fyodor Dostoevsky
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

‘Does God exist or not?’ Ivan shouted with ferocious insistence.
‘Ah, so you are serious? My dear little dove, I swear to God I do not know. Now doesn’t that make you think?’

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that The Brother’s Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, changed my life. Accompanying me while I enrolled in university, it was the first work of Literature I endeavored to read on my own (i.e., outside of class), as well as the first work of L. that I subsequently became obsessed with. I would think and talk about it incessantly, tormenting my friends. I would scrawl “Ivan Fyodorvich Karamazov” in public places. It was hugely influential in my early college days, where I would skip classes (almost getting myself expelled) to go to a nearby coffee shop and read in the fog and rain. It’s largely responsible for my taking up Literature as a major, and giving my education (if not my entire life) a direction. For a while I considered it my favorite book, and only bumped it down to #3 after I met Homer and Nabokov. And #3 is where it’s stayed for the past 15 years. Until this past month, where I reread it for a book club, and was thunderstruck by how much I hated it the second time around.

It’s important to understand what you’re getting into here. It’s not just being a thousand-page brick that should dissuade you (though who but a wayward college student has the time?). Nor should its flimsy, who-done-it mystery plot, which only rewards a first reading. The salient warnings about Karamazov are 1.) the three main characters represent the mind, the body, and the soul, respectively, and 2.) the book is stylistically exhausting, which is a feature, not a bug. A paragraph on each:

The father of three Russian brothers is murdered, though this doesn’t actually happen until half-way through the novel. Up until this point we are presented with the cast of characters and main drama: the eldest son, Dimitri (the sensualist), is in a spat with his father over his mother’s inheritance, as well as over the affection of a woman in town, named Grushenka. The father, Fyodor, is an evil buffoon, and it’s in how his sons respond to his actions that we see their characters and ideologies. Dimitri is violent but noble-hearted. Ivan, the intellectual middle son, is cold yet dignified. Alyosha, the spiritual youngest, is kind and compassionate, but also overwhelmed by the conflict. There is a fourth, bastard son named Smerdyakov, who is twisted and cruel, but also more calculating. He is meant to both reflect and differ from Fyodor, and has a perverse relationship with Ivan. Thus the stage is set for the mid-point murder, where we parse the guilt of each of his sons, with the principle blame (and possible red herring) pointing to Dimitri. While there is a surprise reveal towards the end, the plot is merely the scaffold the novel uses to explore meaty philosophical themes. This is why I framed this as a warning: if you are not interested in philosophy-via-literature, or more specifically, if you don’t agree with Dostoyevsky’s tedious Orthodox Russian Nationalist views, you’re going to have a bad time.

The other hazard sign is Dostoyevsky’s style, which amps the melodrama and hysteria up to 11. While some have criticized this as a contrived tactic for infusing his fiction with faux-emotion, which he allegedly cannot generate otherwise, when looking at both his personal letter-writing as well as his other novels, it’s clear this is just Dostoyevsky’s modis operendi. And moreover when taken in over a thousand pages, the style goes from curious, to annoying, to obnoxious, to eventually soaking you down to your bones, where you start to feel the anxiety, the stress, and even the madness that comes not from the plot or profound debates, but just from the writing. Every action and conversation, no matter how mundane or routine, is cloaked in such needless yet fascinating theatrics that you feel dragged onto the stage. Wringing your hands, sweating, screaming, pulling your hair and threatening to die, nothing is too over-the-top when you’re going to the store to buy milk, and the reader must be aware that this novel, as with Crime and Punishment, keeps you tottering on the abyss. Ultimately I have to commend the author for control of this effect. It’s not that the story necessarily requires it, it’s just that these characters are drowning in torment.

Here we reach the ostensible draws of the novel: the characters and the ideas. This is where my stunning disappointment lies. I loved, and still love, Ivan. But Dimitri and Alyosha are such let downs. The former’s mercurial nature prevents both deep-rooted change, as well as sympathy from the reader. While we are saddened by his unjust verdict, his spiritual rebirth is undermined by instantly forsaking punishment to run off with Grushenka, and not demonstrating via actions (rather than words) that he’s learned a lesson from this ordeal. Not to mention his prior barbarisms scare the reader more than his poetry or drunken professions of love invite them. Alyosha, meanwhile, is touted as the hero of the novel in the preface, and indeed he seems to have no real flaws. Granted he’s more lovable than Dimitri (at my book club a few ladies swooned over the little monk), and both his beliefs and actions are wise as they are admirable. But he’s almost a form of Deus ex machina: a Christ figure that propels others to salvation with no real growth of his own. (The minor exception being his momentary doubts after his master and idol, Zosima, dies. But even then the “epiphany” is reached without any real work.) Apparently Dostoyevsky intended The Brother’s Karamazov to be the first novel of a series, where the characters go through more arcs and conflicts in future installments. But as he died shortly after publishing this first work, it’s all we have to go by.

The one beautiful exception to the above is the middle brother, Ivan. Granted, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the intellectual symbol is the one readers (a typically brainy bunch) vibrate with the most. But it’s just that he’s the only person that has a genuine inner conflict, which is both profound and philosophically anguishing. I’m going to dive further into the main ideological arguments of this novel further down—as that’s really what the book’s about—but it’s only with Ivan that the idea and the literary character mesh together perfectly. He cannot reconcile the existence of God with suffering on Earth. An old chestnut, but improved by Ivan when he points out how the conventional theological responses fail to account for the suffering of children. Thus either God is evil, or his “plan” is beyond human comprehension (negating Ivan’s rationality, which is the core of his identity), or God does not exist. And if God does not exist, then nothing prevents moral relativism from being true, and thus the entire ethical fabric of the universe disintegrates. The glory of this syllogism is not in its philosophical rigor (though it was a meteor-strike against my personal religious beliefs as a teenager). The real magic is how this reasoning splinters an otherwise serious and promising mind. Ivan’s fate in the novel, which I won’t dare spoil here, remains my favorite in all of fiction, with a tragic irony that makes him the real hero of the story. (Recall that while Alyosha was playing around with children, Ivan was hunting down the real murderer and planning his brother’s (expensive) escape.)

But even more than the character is what Ivan represents for the author, which is mirrored on the Book of Job’s inclusion in the Bible: an argument questioning the propaganda of the rest of the work it’s contained in. Dostoyevsky is making crystal clear claims here, and is not above straw-manning the opposition or trying to scare us away from their views. But with Ivan, he makes a good-faith case against God, religion, and all of humanity, which not only calls the logic of the rest of the book into question, but clearly reflects doubts that Dostoyevsky (and the reader) harbors inside. (And while I don’t think Alyosha was able to satisfactorily rebut Ivan, he sure as hell did a better job than God in Job.) The famous chapter where this debate takes place, 'Pro and Contra', is an exemplar of intellectual courage, even if the author ultimately rejects the views being espoused.

Finally let’s look at the novel’s two chief arguments, masquerading as themes. The first, indicated above, is that moral relativism is wrong and therefore God exists. At its worst this is an elementary fallacy in first assuming the conclusion. But at its best it tries to demonstrate the dead-end that cynicism, pessimism, and doubt leads to, in both spiritual and practical terms. Faith, hope, and lived experience (rather than abstract logic) both aids the world and gives meaning to those who wield them. Related to this, the second argument is that everyone is responsible for everyone else. This antidote to the tragedy of the commons is inspirational and, to Dostoyevsky’s credit, comes off naturally in the novel. And while I’m not convinced that The Brother’s Karamazov was the best execution of these arguments (it almost feels like he failed as a philosopher, so backdoored these views through fiction instead), the novel’s conceit is innovative and at least struck gold with one of the characters.

Well then, what rating do I give a novel where I think 1/3 is genius and 2/3 is, forgive my venom, a waste of time? While that formula is all-to-common for many works that are considered literary classics (explaining why so many are unread today), it’s especially acute here. I will always fondly remember the Karamazov brothers for propelling my intellectual and spiritual growth in my early 20s. But I’ve continued to grow since then, and when reading them the second time around I now realize the climax of the novel is not in the verdict of Dimitri’s guilt or innocence, and certainly not in Alyosha hugging some children, but in Ivan discovering who the killer is and what that means—for himself, and for all mankind. That said, this is my longest book review yet, and there’s still so much I haven’t touched upon: Zosima, Dostoyevsky’s (over-emphasized) humor, the speeches of the attorneys…hell, the 'Grand Inquisitor' requires a review all on its own. But in true Dostoyevskian fashion, I’m reached the end of this review in exhaustion, and think I’ll stop just short of the abyss for now.

Grotte de Lascaux

F

or most of our history our race wasn’t human. Before civilization, before self-awareness, we were just another beast on the African savannah, hunting our prey and trying to survive. We didn’t ask questions or seek their answers; we didn’t have power, or luxuries, or comprehension. Somewhere along the way we gained those properties. We looked up at the stars and wondered. We held a dead antelope and felt a mixture of appreciation and regret. We worshiped something greater than ourselves. We grew, not just in numbers, but inside. At some point in our history we became human, and art was invented.

    Because of better preservation and our prolific intellect, we have lots of artistic property from the dawn of civilization (3,000 BCE) and on. But these new, “civilized” animals are too like us; their problems are our problems, and their worries our worries. By studying them we learn too much about ourselves. It’s the art from pre-agricultural societies that can give us profound insight on the fundamentals of our psychology, philosophy, and religion. These “humans,” existing in the shadowy realm between man and beast, are the link to our more feral past. The problem is that Neolithic art is scarce, and often simple. That’s why the cave paintings at Lascaux are so precious.

    Discovered in France in 1940 by some teenagers, the grotto contains the most outstanding displays of prehistoric art ever discovered, dating back to 15,000 BCE. 250 feet of masterful illustrations, meticulously painted in cramped conditions, these galleries necessitated substantial resources and time to complete, all for no apparent practical advantage. Can one assume religious rituals? Or perhaps an explosion of creative talent? Did these cavemen and cavewomen have something to say, something to show, or something to explore?

    My favorite is the great black bull known as an Auroch: massive, majestic, and now extinct. One can imagine him running with his herd, early homo sapient watching from the foliage, in part hoping to catch and kill the titan for food, another part awed by its power and grace. This inner conflict—the murder of glorious life—is represented by the painting of his eye. Many of the Lascaux critters don’t have faces or eyes, which to me signifies abstraction. The detail of the eye in the bull suggests a connection and confrontation significant enough for the artist to depict in his painting. And what is the bull communicating? What can we deduce? It seems to me that the Auroch’s glare is accusatory, somewhat sad, and probing:

    You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? Why? Are we not brothers? No, I suppose were not. You’ve become…different. You’re no longer like us. You’ve changed. You love me, but you need to kill me to survive. How must that feel—to kill that which you love. To kill your brothers. To be self-aware. To be different. To be alone in a world of life.

    How heavily this must have weighed on our early minds. Which brings me to another work; perhaps the strangest of all Lascaux art: “Shaft of the Dead Man.”

W

hat's going on here? A seeming human, but with a bird’s head? Being run over by a bison? Is that a crane below them? Or a bird staff? Is that a rhino running away from the scene?

    My interpretation of the scene concerns wish fulfillment. The character is drawn as part bird to reconcile the growing separation between the human and animal world. That, or the bird head is a mask the character dons to interact/communicate with other beasts. So either the culture sees itself as part animal, or wants to be, and this manifests in the bird-human hybrid depicted here.

    And then there’s the difference in size. The height of the bird-character reflects the ambition of human dominance in the natural order; the bison is, after all, charging down and killing him. This is a violent scene, with the destruction of human life and perhaps the disembowelment of the bison, while the rhino flees in terror. The artist(s) must recognize that humans are climbing ever higher on the food chain, and are achieving mastery over the other animals. But this control is not complete, and the bison challenges and even succeeds in resisting human power.

    But maybe not. Maybe the human is simply trying to be an equal to the bison and rhino, greeting them as fellow animals, and is rejected. The former attacks him, while the latter runs. Do we see the enactment of exile from the natural order? The Lascaux paintings are dated around 17,000-13,000 BCE, which is relatively late in our development. Is this the last attempt at reintegration with the animal kingdom? Is our failure here a catalyst for civilization?

    Some claim the odd bird totem below is evidence of shamanism. Whether or not they’re in a “dreamlike trance” is debatable; the proximity of the bison indicates a physical, not mental interaction. But the meta-context of the scene—on a wall in the dark recesses of a cave structure—argues for evocation. What in the world were these painters doing down here? Why go through all the trouble and danger of creating these galleries? What need did it serve? If we posit these animals are to be taken as mere replications of reality, we ignore the role of art in our own world. Surely we have to see at least some of the paintings as symbolic. Symbolic of what thought? Fertility rituals? Early Gods? The “other?” 

    Looking at the galleries together, there is movement here, and narrative. Perhaps the world depicted is overwhelming the growing consciousness of man. Perhaps the shaman is trying to cope with this expanding reality and finds himself outmatched. (Note there is a scarcity of homo sapiens represented in these paintings.) For the first time man is viewing his world through an artistic lens. He is part of a bigger picture, and struggles to find his place in it.

    Ultimately I see a practical motivation for these works, as well as an abstract one. Ostensibly the caves were used for religious/shamanistic rituals, probably animal/human fertility. This would justify the time and resources poured into the endeavor, as the participants would have expected concrete returns on such an investment. Beyond this reasoning, however, I would bet that early man found this kind of artistic work therapeutic and fulfilling. Soon people found painting/crafting useful for working through inner emotions that have no other outlet (in addition to telling stories). Thus Lascaux represents the torrent of human consciousness arising from our burgeoning psychology.

    As for “The Shaft of the Dead Man”, this work is one such instance of that consciousness. The strangeness of the scene is oozing with profound texture; I don't know why the artist created it, but I can feel its echoes across time. Drawing yourself as a dead entity is a level of self-awareness that no other organism has yet matched. The harmony of the galleries, the life and vibrancy it depicts, is at odds with the awkward and assaulted bird man above. In this mural of life, we don't belong.

Oedipus Rex

 

O Oedipus, the famous prince
for whom a great haven
the same both as father and son

sufficed for a generation,
how, O how, have the furrows ploughed
by your father endured to bear you, poor wretch,
and hold their peace so long?

Perhaps the most famous of the Greek tragedies--held up as perfect by Aristotle and even inspiring a Freudian theory--King Oedipus is curious for centering around a devastating ironic twist in its plot, when just about everyone knows about the twist beforehand. This bug is likely a feature. As it's impossible to consider the play without discussing the twist, I'll spoil it for any poor soul now by saying that Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother...without his knowing. The play is about his learning of that horrific fact, and how he responds to it.

It's worth mentioning the backstory. Ancient Thebes is attacked by a powerful sphinx, who will only leave if someone answers its riddle. The King, Laius, leaves during this period and is killed on the road by a man heading to Thebes, named Oedipus, who didn't know this was the king of the place he's heading to. When Oedipus arrives in the city he solves the Sphinx's riddle and the people make him king as reward; he also marries the queen Jocasta. Some time later a plague falls upon the city--here the play starts--and Apollo's oracle says this is punishment for never bringing Laius' killer to justice. Oedipus vows to do so, and as the story unfolds Oedipus learns that not only is he the killer, but he is also in fact Laius' son--exiled from Thebes as a babe because of a prophecy wherein Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother--all of which he has accomplished against his will and knowledge. The play ends with Jocasta killing herself, and Oedipus gouging out his own eyes and banishing himself from Thebes.

Because everyone knows the twist before seeing the play, I don't know how to describe the effect, mirroring the protagonist, of learning about this cruel irony for the first time. I can only offer analogues with modern movie twists. Instead the delight--or catharsis, as Aristotle would have it--is witnessing the characters experience the horrific revelation of truth: a succession of dawning comprehensions that build and erupt into self-mutilation and suicide. This is internal action at its best. Nothing is ever physically done to the characters. It is simply their impending awareness that threatens, scares, and finally smashes their sanity to splinters. You pity these people. Even Oedipus' heated murder of Laius (and, don't forget, his entourage) withstanding, one feels his fate was undeserved. I especially feel for Jocasta. But King Oedipus never quite reaches the levels of mean-spiritedness that would turn off the reader. The dramatic (albeit cruel) irony and symbolism of this family's self-destruction allows the audience to profit from the suffering, and so justifies the whole thing.

It may seem strange--or to be honest I should say 'ironic' again--that in a play explicitly about the devastation of knowledge, the protective veil of ignorance, and the mockery of the "liberating" power of truth, that we should ask "Was Oedipus better off before?" Fiat justitia ruat caelum is easy to proclaim when our heads are not the ones being bombarded. There's also the question of "which truth?" Our protagonist saw through the sphinx's riddle, looked over his people as king, and even watched his life fall apart with each new revelation. He heeded Apollo's oracles and cast light on the murder of Laius. To what extent is his blindness--driving him to gouge out his own eyes in protest over their uselessness--morally culpable? Should Oedipus have admitted his guilt for killing Laius before accepting kingship, possibly avoiding his incestual marriage? How can that be possible if he was fated into his position? It's telling that even the blind seer Tiresias felt honesty should be avoided here, and the audience is left unsure about their own commitment to truth, and what it might entail.

This unease is less morally or intellectually interesting than its emotional effect, which goes back to Aristotle's commentary. I was surprised to find upon re-watching the play how much of a Columbo-esque crime drama it is. I tried looking for plot holes and felt satisfaction, along with anguish, at each new piece of the puzzle. I relished, in stark relief to Aeschylus, Oedipus' severe interrogation of characters and the painful ricochets of insight. (The dots connecting in Oedipus' mind were almost palpable.) I'll even admit moments of "no, don't, stop!" flashed through my brain. Though I think King Oedipus is over-rated (Antigone is probably Sophocles' masterpiece), I do admire the mixture of opposites I felt while watching: the desire to see the play continue just as I want it to stop, pitying Oedipus' pain while taking perverse joy from it's delectable irony, and seeing a virtue (knowledge) be more cruel than it's mirroring vice (ignorance). The play's legacy is the skill with which Sophocles has the audience seep into Oedipus, to the point where we are both paradoxically blind and enlightened by story's end. This internalized tension, both reflective and reassuring, is what makes art great. (Not to mention the convenience of experiencing these emotions without the need to gouge out our eyes. That, at the very least, deserves for Sophocles our thanks.)

The Aeneid

In the same breath, blazing with wrath he plants
his iron sword hilt-deep in his enemy’s heart.
Turnus’ limbs went limp in the chill of death.
His life breath fled with a groan of outrage
down to the shades below.

While doing background research on The Aeneid I found commentators listing the same pros and cons:

Cons: Work of nationalistic propaganda for a long-dead empire; facsimile of Homer
Pros: Introspective and ambivalent feelings on said empire; shocking ending scene

Where does that leave a reviewer like me? Should I celebrate the pros so as to entice you of its merit? Or recognize the cons make the venture probably not worthwhile? My conundrum is not so different from Virgil, who lived during Augustus' reign and whose life was warped by the Roman Civil War. It's essential to understand that Virgil appreciated Augustus for ending civil strife and restoring stability to the nation (as well as property rights). But this gratitude--though it extended to writing a painstaking national epic of Rome and her newfound empire--did not go so far as to ignore the cost and foundational violence that the empire was built upon. Though Virgil died before The Aeneid's final draft was complete, Augustus was happy enough with the work to have it celebrated, and it's not clear if he, or subsequent generations (recall who Dante choose as is cosmic guide) tasted the subtle nagging doubt that our reflective author nursed about his homeland. A concoction of chauvinism and moral unease, this is probably the most self-conscious epic out there.

The Aeneid is twelve books long, with the first half mirroring the Odyssey, and the second half mirroring the Iliad. Aeneas, a hero of fallen Troy, travels to Italy with his men in search of a new home after the Trojan War. He gets bounced around the Mediterranean a bit, has a mad love affair with Dido (the founder of Carthage), and even visits the underworld to see his Roman descendants waiting to be born via a radical theory about rebirth. In book 7 he finally lands in Italy and gets into it with the natives, led by Turnus--who represents both Achilles and Hector--and after some back-and-forth defeats Turnus in a duel. The shocking ending scene has Turnus on his knees asking Aeneas for mercy: either to be spared or to have his corpse returned to his father's homeland for burial. Now, repeatedly throughout the epic a lesson promulgated to Aeneas and the audience is to have mercy on the vanquished, and Aeneas' core attribute has been the Roman concept of piety, which encapsulates faith, tradition, and devotion to the Gods. Everything has led to the rather predictable conclusion that Aeneas will show mercy on Turnus and heal the wound of civil strife he has brought to Italy, a la Augustus. Instead Aeneas, in a fit of rage, buries his sword to its hilt in Turnus' chest, and the epic abruptly ends on that gruesome note.

The Aeneid is a long story that I've amputated to get to this juicy ending, to consider its implications. Why did Aeneas do that? Why did Virgil meticulously write this highly organized epic just to have the hero go apeshit in its closing lines? One key is in Aeneas' character, and how different he is from Homeric heroes. The latter are supremely self-confident, even in defeat, and it was jarring reading Virgil's work because his heroes express self-doubt and mixed feelings about their destiny. The opening scene with Aeneas has him wishing he was dead before he has to act as leader (and inspiration) to his men; he receives and misinterprets many visions from the gods about his destiny; he engages in a love affair with his enemy who he regrets leaving to satisfy fate; he visits his father in the afterlife and learns--without saying a word--that his Trojans will be eradicated to create the Roman empire; he comes to Italy intending to be a friend to the locals but instead butchers them in war; he discovers he will die before his new "Troy" is founded (reminiscent of Moses); he has to marry a woman who does not love him; and his best friend in this new land is killed by Turnus during conflict. In short, Virgil sets the price for the Roman founding so high as to make the audience--and protagonist-- question if its worth going through at all. Augustus probably saw it as the steep price he had to pay to heal a war-torn nation, but he likely was obtuse to the cost it inflicted on the Roman people.

This isn't just a specific complaint Virgil has about Rome's history, but a generalized comment on the nature of empire itself. Violence seems a necessary ingredient for its formation, and warps irresistibly the character of any people who bring it about. Here I'm reminded of Homer's ability to both celebrate and condemn--sometimes in a single breath--notions of war, divinity, and human choice. Likewise I don't think Virgil is lamely saying "imperialism is bad." I think he recognizes the prosperity it brings Romans, just as it infects their character with moral contradictions that manifest themselves in frightful ways.

One such way--and of course I had to end on this--is Aeneas' action in the closing lines of the poem. The sacrifices Aeneas made in fulfilling his destiny cost him his people, his love, his friends, his future; everything in short that made him human. That his humanity was therefore absent in the closing lines is appropriate to everything that came before. It doesn't leave a positive picture of the Augustinian regime--who ironically wanted to stop conquering and consolidate territorial gains--but it does serve as a somber parting comment for the Roman people. Virgil was a student of Homer and would have noticed how both the Iliad and Odyssey ended with positive lineaments: Achilles returning Hector's body, and Odysseus fixing his marriage bed. Yet our Roman poet discarded such symbols, and took a story fundamentally about building one's home and chose to end it with our hero murdering a surrendered enemy. We're forced to ask if the Roman empire--or any empire--has the tools necessary to build a sustaining community, or if it's only lasting fame is the blood it bleaches enemy lands.

Prometheus Bound

Do you think I will crouch before your Gods—so new—and tremble?
I am far from that.

There’s one thing all liberal peoples have in common: unadulterated defiance against unjust power. To be bloody, but unbowed. The first great playwright of the world, the Greek Aeschylus, saw in his countryman’s fight against imperial Persia the defiance of freemen. He witnessed firsthand the desperate but resolute plight of those fighting against slavery of spirit, not just body. But to fail—to be conquered by a tyrant—is preferable to never having fought at all. After the Greco-Persian wars he staged a play celebrating that theme with a well-known myth: Prometheus Bound.

Prometheus was one of the old titans before the current Olympian pantheon. He helped Zeus and the young upstart gods overthrow his brethren. As reward he was allowed to exist in the new world order. But he fell in disfavor when he aided mankind—a race Zeus was intending to blot out—by giving them the gift of fire. He also taught them several crafts, and blessed them with blind hope so they may persevere in light of their doom. This empowered mankind, and angered Zeus so much he decreed Prometheus would be chained and tortured for eternity. The play follows Prometheus’ enslavement and indignation towards his condition. He curses Zeus and prophesies the god’s downfall. During the story he is visited by several characters who ultimately disagree with his rebellion, for Prometheus could alleviate his suffering by bowing to Zeus and serving him. But the titan will not hear of it.

An otherwise simple, if not dignified story has a few cool things going on. The first is the meaning of Prometheus’ name, foresight, which reveals the titan’s ability to predict the future. He knows his fate as well as the fates of others. We’re not sure if this makes his suffering better or worse; better in that he knows it’ll end, or worse as it eliminates the possibility of hope. But foresight also connotes thinking ahead, which allows for intelligent planning. Many characters in the story think they’re outplaying their opponent: Zeus thinks he’ll break the titan, Hermes and the chorus think they’re on the winning side, and humanity plans on controlling the world with fire’s power. But it’s Prometheus who has the ace, and he (along with the audience) knows he’ll win the long game. It’s just getting there that’s an issue.

Thus tyranny is not sustainable. The seemingly foolish resistance to absolute power is actually quite wise; Prometheus knows it is right to oppose injustice, and that his opposition is what will end Zeus’ reign. But the indignation is also necessary. To stoically endure would be a waste; the titan must share his woe and inspire others. He moves the other characters to sympathy, if not inspiration, but doesn’t seem to sway them. It is not easy enduring hell. But the play does vibrate with the audience—an audience who have already endured hell and came out on top. Hopefully Prometheus will inspire the generations to come who are faced with the same choice. And while we lack such divine foresight, we do have another important gift: blind hope.

The artifice of the play is complex too, because Zeus of course is head god. He’s the ‘just’ leader of Greek religion. How Aeschylus manages to portray him as an insufferable tyrant is nothing short of spectacular, and surely dangerous. But the playwright skillfully—and uncomfortably—manages to get us on Prometheus’ side by carefully transitioning our feelings from basic sympathy to incited anger. Io’s interjection tops it off: why did Zeus allow this to happen to an innocent woman he claimed to love? Does this not display his indifference to injustice? And why would he want to destroy all mankind? Prometheus Bound moves us from being compassionate observers to chained and defiant rebels. We evolve from mere humans to titan-sapian hybrids that defy Zeus himself. We don’t seem to mind it’s a losing battle. We are willing to spend ourselves for a worthy cause.

What makes this so interesting is that the play’s status quo—Hermes, Oceanos, and the Chorus—in many ways are meant to represent ourselves. Zeus has overthrown the tyranny of the titans, and we of the Olympian faith stand by him. Aeschylus is inviting us to serious self-reflection on where we hold our allegiances, and anticipates the Peloponnesian war where the liberators become the imperialists. Along with the Persians, the playwright is a master at getting the audience to identify with the opposite side. If we stand by Zeus we oppose Prometheus. We oppose a just cause. In order to think upon this troubling contradiction we need to exercise our intelligence, something more akin to Prometheus than Zeus.

This leads to a final and no less important dichotomy. Zeus symbolizes the unbridled might of tyranny, where Prometheus is liberating intelligence. It is not enough to say the strong conquer the weak; we must also consider the role of the intellectual in life’s food chain. In the short term he is devoured but his cunning and foresight will let him dominate in the end. This is a theme that pulsates in the Oresteia as well. Strong-arm tactics must be curbed in civilized life, and the only effective shackle is institutionalized intelligence. Prometheus is the last stand against a lawless world. He teaches man so they may organize themselves rationally and plan their future. The implicit message—that absolute authority is degenerate and only through each other can we survive—celebrates not only our humanity but also our legitimate institutions. Aeschylus urges us to memorialize the martyrs who suffered so this could happen; not just a fictitious titan, not just the author, but hopefully ourselves.

The Oresteia

I accept this home at Athene's side.
I shall not forget the cause
of this city, which Zeus all powerful and Ares
rule, stronghold of divinities,
glory of Hellene gods, their guarded alter.
So with the forecast of good
I speak this prayer for them
that the sun's bright magnificence shall break out wave
on wave of all the happiness
life can give, across their land

I recently had the pleasure of watching a video recording of an exquisite (though very English) adaptation of Aeschylus' Oresteia, and thought it appropriate to give this masterpiece a review. I'm not sure I would have used the word "masterpiece" before I saw the play performed, but The National Theatre's 1983 rendition (which mimics the direction and style of classical Greek theater, masks and all) brought life to a stilted story. With this extra dimension the literature rises to theater--a different art form than one I'm trained in. But I can still give my impressions as well as a full-throated recommendation to the only extant tragic trilogy of classical greek theater (CGT).

Writing about CGT is difficult because it's so unique it's a genre onto itself. The Greeks took well-known myths and added unique spins or interpretations for the annual festival of Dionysus. It's important to understand that these plays are as much sacred religious rituals as entertainment, but the catch is that they're rituals for a god of subversion. Hence we have a mix of the conservative and the radical, new spins on old stories, and solemn civic reflections during a jolly good time. Further, in terms of performance, theater began as choral religious songs--reciting myths included--until the legendary Thespis had a person step away from the Chorus and talk to them, inventing characters and conflict. Aeschylus innovated by having a second character step away, as Sophocles is credited with the third. But note that the "chorus" is still an essential character in these plays, even as we see their prominence fade over time, especially with Euripides.

These plays were always trilogies, but The Oresteia is our only extant one. It tells of what happened with the House of Atreus after Agamemnon returns from Troy. In Agamemnon the king is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, upon his return to Argos in retribution for the earlier sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia. In The Libation Bearers Agamemnon's children--Orestes and Electra--meet up to plot their mother's doom (Orestes commits the act with Shakespearean delay). And Eumenides ends the story with the Furies pursuing Orestes for the murder of his bloodkin, while Athena flies in at the end to install a judicial institution to appraise Orestes' guilt, and offer the Furies a legitimate civic station to absorb-and-purify the ancient-but-destructive power of vengeance.

A modern audience who finds the play difficult to follow (I urge you to use subtitles if possible) may feel some relief in the knowledge that the classical Greeks had a hard time with Aeschylus too, even as they celebrated his plays. He spoke in a dignified, elevated language far removed from the tongue of the commoner. But through this language he explored themes that form the very foundation of civilization. On the surface The Oresteia is about how the cycle of revenge can only be satiated with institutional justice: an important enough lesson for any peoples. But each part of the trilogy has its own depth that complicates this idea. Agamemnon, the most self-contained play (and could probably use its own review), examines Clytemnestra's murder of her husband and the effect that murder has on society. While a lesser playwright would have meekly bemoaned the death of the patriarchy, Agamemnon's own cruelty and incompetence make Clytemnestra a sympathetic figure and raises the argument that it was Agamemnon who first poisoned the well, perhaps justifying his wife's actions. And though I want to stress that Aeschylus was no Euripides and firmly reinstates the established order at the end of the story, he makes it clear that he takes the side of the "other" seriously, whether it be woman, barbarian, or heretical force.

The Libation Bearers is the weakest of the plays because Hamlet expands on the same themes better--indecision, civil conflict, the self-destructive moral ambiguity of revenge--but at least it's short. Eumenides, my favorite of the three, elevates the story from familial and tribal significance to the national and even transcendent realm. Here the avatar of vengeance threatens our (ostensible) hero, and by extension community, as a force that's completely out of control. Even the god Apollo is impotent to stop it (note his sexism). It takes Athena--the reconciliation of man and woman as well as conflict and learning--to create a human solution to the intractable dilemma. Here the Furies and Apollo present their arguments to a jury who symbolize a legitimate authority and resolution to conflict, sanctioned by the divine order. In the end the jury is split over Orestes guilt, and although Athena absolves him with a lame and offensive excuse, the important thing here is less the merits of the debate than the crucial stability that a respected decision commands. In fact after the verdict Orestes is tossed aside as the mere tool he is, as Athena strives to calm the Furies from their, well, fury. She succeeds by assimilating them into the civilized order and finding a healthy conduit for their destructive capacity.

Aeschylus is my favorite kind of conservative: he believed that legitimate institutions, when engaging seriously with the complaints of the subversive, can absorb and transform the latter in a way that benefits everyone. The solution is to find a reconciliation wherein those wronged by society can be allowed to invest in and profit from the status-quo. His contrast to Euripides--who questioned the very foundation of the state as almost hopelessly rotted, and who also reveled in the perspective of the exploited (especially women)--is more pregnant than even Aristophanes could manage. I'll end by highlighting that The Oresteia is not really about its namesake, who is a mere vehicle. The loci of attention--Clytemnestra, the Furies, and even perhaps Electra--draw attention to what's salient, with the respected maledom called into question: Agamemnon, Apollo, and even Orestes. I don't think their reinstatement as authority figures is perfunctory. You can criticize leadership without removing them by force. To do so risks self-perpetuating chaos, breeding more suffering than the original injustice itself. The answer Aeschylus offers us is that rare thing in CGT: a tragedy with a happy ending

Aesop

"Since you sang like a fool in the summer,” said the ant, 

“you had better be prepared to dance the winter away!

1. Aesop’s fables are now generally considered children’s literature. Why is this the case? How is this classification inaccurate? Do these fables speak particularly to one age group?
   
   I imagine it's because they're short, simple, and feature animals: all things that can keep a child's attention while parting some folksy wisdom. I agree this depiction is inaccurate. These fables are not always transparent or easily digestible--sometimes I appreciated the summarizing closing line; other times I thought it was off--and the stories occasionally reflect adult themes that children cannot understand.
   
   But more importantly these fables are intended for children in the same way 'G' rated films are. Sometimes that's their target audience, but most of the time the author is simply casting a wide net. It's meant for all people, of all ages. But I would add that the ideal audience is the middle-to-lower class family, who would enjoy the fables without pretension or finding them crude. (Folk tales often beg for class analysis, but I'll resist that temptation here.)
   
   
2. To what degree are the animals anthropomorphized in these fables? Why? How does the attribute of speech change our perception of the animals? Does this affect the way that we enjoy the stories?
   
   The animals possess human language, attributes, and desires, while still firmly being part of the animal kingdom. This lets them serve as an analogue for human dilemmas; for example, the tortoise and the hair speak to each other, enter a race, and display virtues & vices--thoroughly human actives--while never going so far as to form a society. Thus their anthropomorphism only serves to illustrate a moral, while never breaking the audience's immersion.
   
   Speech in particular lets us connect to them because they're literally "talking our language". They're simultaneously identifiable and remote; familiar and fantastic. The audience is comforted and challenged at the same time, which adds to the stories' allure.
   
   
3. Compare the fables to the anecdotes of Odysseus on his journey home, and discuss in what manner they are similar or dissimilar from other short stories. For example, Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus might be understood to have a clear didactic moral for Odysseus, and yet it is clearly not a fable. Why not? What is the generic difference?
   
   Fables are episodic. Meaning they do not fit into a larger narrative (as Odysseus' stories do), contribute to a consistent theme (which would exclude Ovid's Metamorphoses), carry emotional or mental weight (they are bite-sized and often breezy), or communicate an ambiguous moral lesson (well, not intentionally). That is how they differ.
   
   They're similar in levying fantastical set-pieces to entertain their audience, while being just silly enough not to break their audiences' suspension of disbelief. They are, even at their most dangerous, non-threatening because they take place in a distant land, time, or reality (such as where animals talk). And both, of course, have something to say, which is ultimately conservative in character.
   
   
4. What sort of wisdom is contained in the fables? Is there a particular type of knowledge conveyed in them? How does this relate to the manner in which they might be considered instructive or illustrative?
   
   Despite the seriousness of the ending lines summarizing the moral--which I vaguely recall being added in the middles ages--Aesop's fables don't feel moralizing. Yes you can learn something from them, and yes each fable seems to be making a point, but they're enjoyable for their own sake and their pleasure may be more important than their didactic value. In fact their key motivation often lies in irony, producing a laugh and illustrating a character's folly. As such I don't feel right discussing their "wisdom", as it takes these stories a little too seriously.
   
   But if I had to narrow down their "particular knowledge", I would say these fables tease common vices, and aim to help the average person get by. Not in any practical sense, but simply in mocking the everyday stupidities we all engage in. This is why Aesop is given humble origins, instead of atop an ivory tower. His stories never--as far as I know--show us inspirational or idealized personages to imitate. He deals in fools, who serve as examples of how not to live. He appeals to the lowest common denominator, often ironically presenting a reassuring figure of fun: "at least I'm not as dumb as that guy."