Monday, November 30, 2009

20th Century Lit: The Death of God and the Birth of the Modern Consciousness


20th Century Lit: The Death of God and the Birth of the Modern Consciousness

"God is dead." This quote is attributed to Nietzsche, existentialist philosopher. This line is echoed in Elie Wiesel's Night, in an episode where he witnesses a young boy being hanged on the gallows in a concentration camp--another onlooker says that God is hanging on the gallows there with him. This is the question that Elie deals with throughout his memoir--where is God?--and indeed a question that reverberated throughout the world in the 20th century. One hundred years marked by amazing advances and fantastic atrocities; the modern world--and the modern conception of "hero"--changed forever with the advent of modern warfare. To get a sense of how the modern consciousness changed, here is the entire Nietzsche quote in context:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

20th century literature reflects this sense of isolation, alienation and desperation within man. We find ourselves now, in the 21st century, a world with technology and standards of living that could never have been imagined even a century ago. Yet we also live in a world that's more fragile than ever; the world is once again "flat" with communication technology that brings us closer together, yet keeps us ironically impersonal. We accept conflict and terror(ism) as a part of our every-day lives. But the literature also reflected a sense of hope--in exploring ourselves, our minds, our realities--hope that we can rediscover that which allows us to survive, and indeed thrive, in the world that we've created. 

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We end our journey through Western literature with the 20th-century piece Night, which describes Elie Wiesel's horrific experience surviving the Holocaust of World War II. For your consideration, I've done some research to supplement our reading. World War II and the Holocaust are immense historical events to try to tackle; for your final reflections, I'd like you to do a little outside reading to support our understanding of Night.
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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
1) The Holocaust was not perpetrated by one individual. Hitler only took one life--his own. Nor did the Holocaust happen overnight; it was systematized over nearly a decade, and implicated hundreds and thousands of people who were involved. Estimates put the death toll of WWII at around 32 million people (take the population of San Jose and multiply by 30...), around 6 million of whom were killed in concentration camps, which manufactured wholesale death. Death on that scale was an institution, a pervasive way of thinking of a society. How could people come to believe that genocide was acceptable? Explore the following link, to get some background on the Nazi ideology, and what led to the Holocaust, and report on your findings. Try to help the class answer, "what led to this atrocity?"
(Note: I have uploaded shorter versions of the articles on my website, which you can read online or download. Some articles are still many pages, so be careful about printing. <<https://sites.google.com/a/mitty.com/franklin/Home/world-literature/world-lit-resources>>)

2) How is it that genocides still occur in the world? Use the links below to research one of the following three contemporary holocausts and report on your findings. Also, fill out the corresponding worksheet, "Assessing Responsibility" and share during your report.
Other helpful links:
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    ORAL PRESENTATIONS ("Blog Response") 11/30/09

    For those of you who have to do an oral presentation in the last weeks who have NOT already posted to the blog:

    You may only respond to Night from here on out. That means you can do a Reader's Response, or a Research Lite. I will be posting list of resources on the blog (and also on the webpage) to do some outside research for Night.

    I know this eliminates an option that previous students had, but I'd like to focus our attention in the last two weeks on Night, since there is so much there to discuss. Once the research resources are posted, they will include leading questions, which you may use as a sort of "Blog Response," but I will not be posting a traditional blog on the story, as I don't think I could do justice to explaining all of WWII and the Holocaust.

    If you have not yet presented, but you already posted your blog response, you'll be able to present on that. *Note: Anyone may respond to the two most recent blogs ("Enlightenment" and "19th C. Showdown") for extra credit.

    ~Mr. Franklin
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    19th Century Showdown: The Romantics and the Realists


    19th Century Showdown: The Romantics and the Realists
    (The subtitle was going to be "Romantics, Realists, Renaissance Writers, and Revolutionaries," but I thought that would be overkill to include in the blog...)

    The 19th C. (1800-1900) in Europe marks an important shift in the development of 20th C. Western society, and what we now take for granted in the 21st Century. Before we delve into the debate between these two camps, we need to recall the significance of the Renaissance on the 19th C.

    Yes, Shakespeare is largely to blame for most of what transpired in Europe in the 1900s! Think back to our lesson on Renaissance sonnets: we distinguished between the Petrachan idea--romantic, melodramatic, intensely feeling. Petrach likely would be considered "emo" (the sensitive kind, not the goth kind) if he were alive today. Think Romeo--he was the quintessential Petrarchan lover. He was ready to light himself on fire and throw himself into on-coming traffic (carriages, that is) over a girl who didn't even know he existed, whom he promptly forgot about after seeing Juliet for the first time; oh, and he marries this 13-year old girl less than 12 hours later. Insert emo stereotypes here.

    Shakespeare, quite eloquently and respectfully, gave his view of love to contrast Petrarch. Think of the sonnet we read which begins, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." He goes on to describe what seems to be a quite unattractive woman whom he's nonetheless in love with. He was the more mature, more modern lover of the time. His teenage lover was the kid who'd been held back, who knew the ropes; the literary high school cougar-hunter. He gave a more "realistic" ideal of love to contrast Petrarch's, which was no doubt influenced by the Renaissance emphasis on chivalry and courtly love. Note, that they both dealt with the same topics--love, time, nature, regret--but approached them somewhat differently. Both seem to reach the conclusion of carpe diem--that life (and love) is fleeting, and that we should enjoy it while we can.

    Enter the 19th Century writers. They took their cues from Petrarch and Shakespeare. They found themselves in the arena of two distinct but intertwined revolutions: the Industrial Revolution, and the political revolutions of the Americas, England, France, and darn near every other Western European country. They saw their world changing around them, and the glory of the Renaissance man became the agony of the urban man; cities developed, and so did slums. Nature became more and more distant to people who were forced to work and labor in unfit conditions to survive. The widening gap between rich and poor was bridged by a rising middle class who was increasingly unhappy with government. Artists became activists, and began using their art and literature to strive for change in society. Let's look at the different approaches of the two.


    The Romantics
    In this corner is the 19th C.'s version of a hippie: the Romantic writers wanted to break away from rules and established order, get back in touch with their feelings, and reconnect to nature. They valued simplicity and individuality, and sought spirituality in an increasingly secular world. They did not reject reason, but lobbied for the elevation of the imagination, and revolted against the restrictions imposed by classical aristocratic ideas. You can just see them barefoot in the woods, reading poetry to each other from recycled books while driving Prius's (or free-range horse-drawn buggies made from organic trees, or whatever). 


    The Realists
    In this corner is 19th C.'s version of the fist-pumping activist: the Realist writers sought to tether their experience by describing it in raw, factual detail, and hopefully therefore reforming it. They also had a great deal of concern over social institutions, but, of course, couldn't break away to their cabin in the woods because of their 12-hour days at the factory, six days a week. Rather than break away from the rules, they sought to to break the rules and the established order. They wrote mostly stories, novels and plays like Les Miserables, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and even Frankenstein to warn of the dangers of unbridled industrialization and unchecked political power. You can just see them drinking their black coffee and smoking their cigarettes and hating it, listening to underground radio, scoffing at the Romantics, and planning on overthrowing the government.

    You'll notice that I've not ever mentioned that the Romantics and the Realists were against each other--this is not "Romantics vs. Realists," this is "Romantics and Realists." They both were looking at the same metaphorical coin, just from different proverbial sides. They both realized the negative affects of industrialism and the impact civil and political uprisings were having on their society; they just went about dealing with that reality in somewhat different ways. They were not very different at all, and indeed many authors of the period could be classified as both romantic and realist. What they did succeed in doing, though, was ushering a new typed of "hero" in the Western world (aha, yes, you knew we'd come back to that idea, right?). Heroes are no longer warriors or knights, nor just gentlemen (or noble ladies), explorers, or captains of industry. The "pen is mightier than the sword" idea had caught on. (Think American Revolution; though many of those who had a hand in it did fight, just as many contributed simply by writing and voicing their ideas.) Although, history is somewhat cyclical; the 20th century would see the return of the idea of "might makes right" with several international conflicts, which changed indelibly the idea of and perhaps the belief in the concept of "hero"...

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    QUESTION TO CONSIDER
    *Note: You may NOT use this question as a "Blog Response" for your oral presentation, but you may respond to it for 1pt in the extra credit category.


    Do you consider yourself more "romantic" or more "realist"? (Be aware that I've oversimplified the definitions in my entry, and be aware that, although I do not like hippies, I am a romantic at heart.) Do you see yourself as a lover or a fighter? In your response, try to define what you think of as "romantic" or "realist," and explain why you think you fit that definition.

     

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