As the title shows, The Red Convertible is the main fulcrum of the story and the entire plot is built around it. It is used as a symbol of happiness with its color red denoting passion and life. At the beginning of the story, the car belongs to both Lyman and Henry symbolizing the happiness they shared. The money that Lyman invested in the car came at great cost. He had worked for years at Joliet Café before becoming its owner and soon after becoming a owner he had lost it to a tornado; it was the insurance money that was going into the purchase of the car. For Henry, the money that he invested in the car came relatively easy because it was just one pay check and a weeks extra pay for being laid off. This shows that Lyman became happy after a lot of hard work, whereas Henry was easily endowed with happiness. It was the sharing of the happiness or the red convertible that allowed them to have a lot of fun in the summer.
When Henry left to join the army, he leaves the car and the happiness it symbolizes to Lyman. When Henry returns, a man deeply traumatized by his war experiences, he hardly notices the red convertible. To get his attention, Lyman shatters down the red convertible and succeeds. Henry repairs the car. The shattered car seems to stand for the shattered happiness of Henry who now desires to build it back. One fine spring day, the two brothers decide to take a drive in the car. The shared happiness is being rediscovered in the sharing of the car. Lyman notes that Henrys face is now more peaceful. On the riverside, Henry confesses that he knew that Lyman had willfully shattered the car and he repaired it only to return it back to him for good. The symbolism works here beautifully, unfolding the love between the two brothers. Lyman will destroy his happiness for the sake of his brother and his brother would work hard to ensure his brothers happiness for good. When finally Henry decides to go into the river and die, Lyman, knowing he is never going to be happy without his brother, drowns the car as well. Thus from beginning to end, the symbolism of the red convertible for happiness is one that makes the short story The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich, poetic in nature.
A reader who makes serious effort to analyze the short story The Chrysanthemums,/can comprehend the signs of the autobiographical elements of the writer John Steinbeck. The story is considered one of Steinbecks most gifted short stories. Author builds up the story through the eventful life of woman named Elisa Allen who is more intelligent and creative. Steinbeck uses number of literary devices in his story The Chrysanthemums and the rich usage of symbolism is marked first. Accompanied with rich objectivism and narrative Steinbeck portrays the frustration of the heroine Elisa Allen. The title itself reveals the literary technique symbolism. The flower chrysanthemum discloses the thoughts, feelings and ideas of his characters. Steinbecks heroine suffered from negligence of her husband and because of this Elisa turns to her own isolated world. If she is as beautiful as the flower Chrysanthemum she is suffering from negligence. Analyzing the story a reader can find the effective use of symbolism in Steinbecks The Chrysanthemums. Critics state number of examples such as the flower, the fences, clouds and the approaches of wife and husband which constitute meaningful discussions about the work.
The symbols like the fence, garden, and the chrysanthemums are creating very emotional feelings for the audience and it leads to readers in a different world. The chrysanthemums reflects the authors personal life. The character called Elisa is totally based on the authors wifes character. In this story Symbolism is used for showing Elisa Allens isolation, frustration and hidden passion. John Steinbeck adapted his wifes mannerisms for making the character Elisa Allen. In this story Elisa and her husband Henry seem a good pair and she loves him very much but her husband is often busy with his work. Whenever they had a conversation, it was very formal and serious. Therefore their life becomes narrow and boring.
The lonely life of Elisa Allen creates come serious thoughts in the mind of the readers. Her Husbands negligence forced her to nourish her Chrysanthemums. If she is lovelier than the flower she cannot break the walls of isolation. Steinbeck uses symbolism in his story with a mystic background. That book titled the moral philosophy of John Steinbeck provides considerable statements about the use of symbolism in Steinbecks The Chrysanthemums. Stephen K. George states; Symbolism, in Steinbecks literary artistry, is mystic, identified with human experience, tradition, aspirations, and significance. (George, 35).
At the beginning of the story the author himself uses some words and phrases which comprise symbolism and the reader can get the opportunity to think that the Chrysanthemums are an addition of the character Elisa.
John Steinbecks use of symbolism in his story is not only a literary device but an effective medium for social interaction and criticism. Allens isolation makes known the picture of sexually depressed and disheartened womenfolk who are trapped in a patriarchal society. Steinbeck makes use of Chrysanthemums to symbolize Elisas children and her suppressed feelings of motherhood burst out when handling the flowers. Her husbands remark, I wish youd work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big. (Steinbeck, 207) reveals his hesitation towards her and Elisas Chrysanthemums. Elisa sees Chrysanthemums as not only the substitution for her children but her suppressed womanhood. By nurturing her Chrysanthemums Elisa expresses her wish to lead a carefree life. Falling of the flower stands for the death of her wishes, senses, and earthly pleasures. The flower also symbolizes the detainment of Elisas female traits. The stranger utilizes the flower for enriching Elisas sensuality. Symbolism reaches its zenith when Elisa made some e sexual relationship with the stranger on a junky wagon has a mysterious personality that showed interest in both the flower and Elisa. The Fallen flowers expose the pathetic and deceived stature of the protagonist Elisa. One of the major themes in Steinbecks story is the limitations of a woman in a male dominating society. Famous critics M. Tomberger, and K. Fend, Ch. Dangl share their views about the symbol of flower in Steinbecks story. They remark; The readers attention is intensively drawn in the flowers, thus it is shown that they are of special significance. (Tomberger, Fend, and Dangl, 6).
Analyzing the character of Elisa readers can easily find that mere compliments about Chrysanthemums can change the mood of Elisa and these changes make her either irritated or enthusiastic.
The fence is another example of Steinbecks unique craftsmanship as a writer by using effective symbols. The fence represents her marriage and garden replicates her life. Henry never showed an interest in Elisas chrysanthemums. By analyzing this readers can understand that he does not have any interest in his wife and children. Elisa Allen and the chrysanthemums have alternate meanings in this story. Sometimes readers can analyze the chrysanthemum as her children because she handles the flower very carefully. At the same time the fence has taken the responsibility of a protector. The covered fence will not allow anybody to hurt her and children life. The garden which is surrounded by a fence symbolizes the isolated life of heroine Elisa in a world of male domination. She feels the imprisonment in Salina valley and she is getting relief only working in her garden where she enjoys grows and nurture of Chrysanthemums.
But the garden is bounded by the fence. John Steinbeck, the author illustrates her dissatisfaction and frustration with married life by using the wood fence.
The character of Henry and The Thinker decorate a significant role in the discussions about the use of symbolism in Steinbecks The Chrysanthemums. Henry leads a closed, fully capitalist and responsible life while The Thinker symbolizes the free world without rules and restrictions. Elisas life is filled with the conflicts between the ideology of a structured responsible life and a carefree life. Steinbecks heroine is a middle-aged woman who has the ability to do many things but the existing male dominating society prevents her. The stranger complements in her chrysanthemums showers enough confidence and self-esteem and she makes some immediate changes in her dressing. Elisa remarks Nice? You think I look nice? What do you mean by nice? (Steinbeck, 212). The garden and the pot in the story reveal the secluded and frustrated life of the central character Elisa. The rows and slender paths of her garden symbolize the structured and narrow-minded society where men enjoyed ultimate dominance. The pot represents Elisas body the circumscribed life of the lady.
River is one of the symbols appearing in story which stands as a way that goes out of the valley. It is symbolical in the sense that it is like the way leading Elisa out from the narrow world of farm by disregarding her isolation. Some regard it as symbolical to her escape from aggravated life in closed pot. (Steinbeck).
After reading the story one can see that Elisa never uses this opportunity, but others come to her, breaking away from her fenced life. She likes the tinker who enters her isolated kingdom. Elisas incapability in recognizing the real character of the outsider is very clear that she/his arrival positively as drops of water to dry land. The good opinion formed in her mind is mainly because of one reason that the man comes to her through the road, which is the only way to her closed pot. (Steinbeck).
Water has symbolized in the story as the image of innocence and cleanliness. It is clear with the eyes of Elisa when the author writes, as clear as water. (Steinbeck, 204). One can see a notable change when looking into the tinkers eyes and she feels it as interesting. It is her look to his eyes that made weak and infirm and disregards all other factors, including her husband and engages in sexual intercourse with him. Towards the end of the story Elisa rethinks with guilty conscience and cleans her up with hot water. She feels prick of conscience for cheating her husband and she tries to purify her with hot water, i.e. tears.
Another symbolism that has direct relationship with water is the representation of the rain for which the country and the people were looking for days. It is possible to identify or find the symbolism of rain as it is the desire of Elisa to have a good companion who is willing to share her feelings emotions and physical pleasures. The quality of the rain, both preservative and destructive function has been illustrated here. Rain is capable of destructing or washing away the complete land and it is symbolical that rain washes away all the sins of Elisa. The same rain brings joy and a note of hope like a new growth.
Another notable symbol that attracts the attention of the readers is the symbolic presentation of sunshine which here brings a negative connotation, contrary to the general expectation. The words that the author used to describe sunshine itself are frosty and pale cold. The two ways to get out of the farm, the road and the river have portrayed as covered with imaginary bright sunshine. The yellow color of the sunshine which covers the road and river is symbolical that it is less used. Her cowardice causes all the troubles represented with yellow color of world.
Fence as a symbolical element assumes much importance that Elisa lives within the fence from the outside world. Generally, it has been inferred that the fence provides a sense of security and it is also the symbol of the creativity of Elisa. Her husband has been portrayed as sitting outside the fence, that he has no part in her life. Elisas wish to remove the fence wishes to see the fence broke. It is part of her intention. After inviting the pot meander, she provides him what he needs and permits him to go out of the fence. Evaluation of the story reveals that the role of women typifies and she is fenced and isolated and she has no other option.
Dogs are the symbolical of humans in the story are really apt that they have illustrated as irresponsible. Elisa compares Henry farms to dogs and the newcomers are also possibly compared to different dogs as they possess the quality of them. Other minor symbols are also visible in the story and they include, cranes, flights, wine, stars, and so on.
At the end of the story author gives unique examples for effective use of symbolism in the story The Chrysanthemums. The sight of tossed Chrysanthemums reveals Elisas realization about her life and reaches the world of reality. With a severe aggravation she realizes the fact that men use women only for gritting sexual satisfaction. After the evaluation of the story, one can realize the fact that there are different symbols in it. Each symbol has its own significance and it really blends with the story that a cursive reading makes it difficult to identify them all. Among these symbols, the symbol of flower, especially the chrysanthemum assumes greater significance that it is the true representation of the main character, Elisa. The symbol of fence is accurate in the sense that it really portrays the state of Elisa bound up in the patriarchal society. Her mind is thirsting for love and care which her husband fails to provide and she tries to seek it in others who come to her. To conclude, one can infer that the different symbols used in the story are apt that it moves the story elegantly.
This essay sample explores the symbolism in The Great Gatsby. Some of the symbolism examples are the eyes, color, and the valley of ashes. Find out what they represent with the help of our The Great Gatsby symbolism essay sample!
Most of the imposing novels have symbols that represent the themes in pushing forth the objective of the book. In The Great Gatsby there are several symbols but the most powerful appears to be the eyes that overlook the valley from a bill board.
Although this symbol is marginally influencing the course of events, it holds a deep meaning in the intention of the novel. There are other symbols which essentially have a bearing on the way people perceive the symbols in the book as affecting their value judgments. In the literary context, symbols represent the different concepts and ideas in regard to the colors, figures and characters (Matthew J. Bruccoli, 2002).
The Great Gatsby Symbolism: The Eyes
The Eyes are in fact a pair of spectacled and pale eyes that appear tinted on a bill board that watches over the valley of ashes. Although the novel has never made this conclusion directly, it is much evident that the eyes symbolize that they are observing the deeds of the American society in looking upon the valley as a moral wasteland.
It is known in this context that throughout the novel Fitzgerald has suggested that symbols are in the nature of only conveying a meaning since it is the characters that infuse them with the inherent meanings. A different meaning is only drawn by George Wilson, who in being struck with grief draws a connection between God and the eyes of Doctor T J Eckleburg.
There is a visible lack of tangible meaning to the character of the image which brings about an unsettled feeling to the observer. Hence it can be implied that the eyes also connote the lack of meaning in the world as also the randomness in the mental process of people in drawing meanings from objects.
Such ideas are explored by Nick in Chapter eight while he is engrossed in his imagination about Gatsbys thought processes which lead to depression in thinking of the prevailing emptiness in dreams and symbols (Jonathan Yardley, 2007).
Ample significance of eyes is implied in this regard by F. Scott Fitzgerald when he says, The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg& look out of no face, but instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. &But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. (1999, p 27-28)
Symbolism in The Great Gatsby: The Green Light
The green light is positioned at the ending of Daisy East Egg docks and is hardly noticeable from the West Egg lawn of Gatsby and symbolizes the dreams and hopes for Gatsbys future. In his book Gatsby has associated the green light with Daisy who is depicted in chapter 1 as making efforts in reaching towards it in the dark in assuming that it will lead him in the direction of his goals.
Since the American dream that Gatsby has is largely associated with the pursuit for Daisy, the green light is in the nature of symbolizing this rather sweeping ideal. Nick also compares in chapter nine, the green light with America in imagining how it must have appeared to the earlier colonists of the new nation as it rose out of the oceans (Dan Morpurgo, 2008).
In regard to the green light F. Scott Fitzgerald has aptly narrated, And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsbys wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisys dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him&. (1999, p 189)
Symbolism in The Great Gatsby: The Valley of Ashes
The Valley of ashes is initially presented in chapter two as being located between New York City and West Egg. It comprises of a lengthy expanse of deserted land which became so as a result of the large scale disposal of industrial ashes.
The Valley of Ashes is in the nature of representing the social and moral decaying in society which is a result of the unreserved quest for wealth on the part of the richer strata of society who indulge in such practices just for their own satisfaction and pleasures.
It also symbolizes the suffering of the poor just as George Wilson, who had no option but to exist with the unclean ashes and in the process to have lost his vigor and vitality. The valley of Ashes has a lot of significance as evident from the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, This is a valley of ashes a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat& (1999, p 26)
References
Dan Morpurgo, Book Review: The Great Gatsby, February, 2008, Associated Content.
Jonathan Yardley, Gatsby: The Greatest Of Them All, January 2, 2007, The Washington Post.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1999, Scribner.
Matthew J. Bruccoli, F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby: A Literary Reference, 2002, Carroll & Graf.
People can find symbolism everywhere in their daily life and, especially, in literature. Each person can interpret symbols in their own way, depending on how they look at them. In books, symbols are utilized to make the story deeper and allow a reader to understand the authors purposes and ideas better. This paper analyzes symbolism in Disgrace by John Maxwell Coetzee. The essay argues that Lord Byron and dogs are symbolic figures through which the author wanted to highlight characters traits and thoughts while referring to social status and personal disgrace.
Plot Summary
Disgrace was published in 1999 and has received both critical reviews and appraisal. The author of the novel won the Nobel Prize and the second Booker prize for his literary work. Disgrace can be considered one of Coetzees most widely-read books and is one of 100 best novels ever published according to McCrum. The book presents a story of the professor David Lurie, who leaves Cape Town due to the scandal resulting from his affair with a student.
However, the Eastern Cape is still recovering from Apartheid, which had ended recently. Luries life takes an unexpected turn when his daughters house gets attacked. The reason why symbolism used in Disgrace was selected for this paper is that it is interesting that symbols can be seen everywhere, including the books that do not seem symbolic at first sight. This essay is focused on the symbolic meaning of Lord Byrons and dogs representation in the novel.
Symbolism in Lord Byrons and Dogs Representation
Lord Byron
As mentioned above, one major representation of symbolism in the novel is Lord Byron. This character is the subject of Luries newest project, and the reader can see that the professor is highly interested in his persona. Lord Byron is one of the most significant poets of the Romantic era known for his love affairs and extravagant appearance. His appearance in the novel is symbolic and happens for a reason. Professor Lurie wants to associate himself with Lord Byron, who is depicted as an amiable lover for women and a man with a keen wit. The author states that, while being with a woman, Byron gets bored with her and alludes to the women from her cycle with whom he had slept (Coetzee 182). Lurie wants to be like Byron instead of feeling ashamed because of his romance with Melanie.
Moreover, from some perspectives, the professor shares several Byronic features. For example, he is well-educated but self-critical, prone to self-destruction but is charismatic. His past experiences, such as his secret relationships with Melanie and their outcomes, make him suffer, which also refers to his Byronic side. It is possible to say that Lurie idealizes himself, he wants to be a smoother talker and lower like Byron. Thus, Coetzee introduces Byrons figure symbolically; he wants the reader to see the professors deep desire to become the person he is not while highlighting his personality traits.
Dogs
The second major representation of symbolism is the portrayal of the dogs throughout the book. Coetzee often uses the idea of an animal as a symbol in his works (Philippou 217). Dogs start to play a significant role in the professors life after he moves to Salem. It is possible to say that they are the characters of the story too, as Coetzee repeats the image of dogs several times throughout the novel.
It can be said that these animals are used in the book to emphasize the social status and personal disgrace that exist in society. For example, Lucy says that she does not want to come back in another existence as a dog because she does not want to live like one (Coetzee 74). This idea is linked to the disparities in social positions of different people and, specifically, the difference in attitudes towards privileged and non-privileged groups of the population.
From the perspectives of symbolism, when Petrus introduces himself to Lurie as the the gardener and the dog-man, this phrase is used to show that Petrus is Lucys assistant; he wants to take care of her and is in a social position to do so (Coetzee 64). However, as he moves up the social ladder and his relationships with Lucy change, his perspectives shift, too. Petrus notes that he is not anymore the dog-man (Coetzee 129). This phrase shows that the young man is no longer on the same level as dogs.
The image of dogs is related to the professor, too, as they reflect his inner problems. As the story unfolds, the challenges Lurie encounters enhance, and he grows deeply humiliated and disgraced in the result. He starts to compare himself with a dog and assists the animal clinic in putting dogs down (Coetzee 90). These actions show that the professor wants to escape suffering by all means.
Conclusion
Coetzees Disgrace can be considered a highly symbolic work, in which the author uses the images of Lord Byron and dogs to convey his ideas. The character of Lord Byron is linked to Luries idealized version of himself and his personal traits. Dogs are presented to emphasize personal disgrace and disparities in society. Coetzee uses these symbols to help the reader to gain a deeper understanding of his characters while addressing the problems of discrimination.
Works Cited
Coetzee, John Maxwell. Disgrace. Penguin Books, 2000.
Philippou, Eleni. Dogs, Horses, and Red Herrings: The Animal in JM Coetzees The Childhood of Jesus. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 57, no. 2, 2016, pp. 217-227.
Throughout Harper Lee’s Novel To Kill a Mockingbird there is extensive symbolism throughout. Some subtle and others obvious. The most preeminent symbol is undoubtably the mockingbird itself. A symbol of courage, innocence and adulthood. These are illustrated throughout the characters Atticus Finch, Boo Radley and Tom Robinson.
Atticus Finch demonstrates courage when he chooses to defend Tom Robinson in a legal case that no one else would even consider taking, a seemingly unwinnable fight. The opposite of courage in their society was not cowardice or fear of losing the case, but rather conformity – to fit in with the racist agenda of the time. Atticus stands alone in his community to defend an innocent black man, and fights outnumbered against the full brunt of Maycomb County’s prejudice. His neighbours question his resolve and ask almost rhetorically whether he is “really a nigger-lover”. Mockingbirds have been known to attack animals much larger than themselves to defend their nest- just like Atticus defends Tom. Everyone assumed Tom was guilty just because his black seeing “what they look for”. Atticus gave Tom the benefit of the doubt, representing him even when everyone thought he was certain to lose. It becomes increasingly obvious that Tom was never seen as innocent before proven guilty, but rather his sentence was already decided at birth by the colour of his skin, and ultimately “left to die”. Atticus likely knew from the start how Tom’s story would end – but nevertheless against all odds the Mockingbird fought back.
As the novel progresses, the children’s changing attitude toward Boo Radley is an important sign of their development from innocence toward a grown-up moral perspective. At the beginning of the book, Boo is merely a source of childhood superstition. As he leaves Jem and Scout presents and mends Jem’s pants, he gradually becomes more intriguing and real to them. At the end of the novel, he becomes fully human to Scout, illustrating that she has developed into a sympathetic and understanding individual. Scout has demonstrated that she has matured to have adult like mental strength, not letting people defame her ‘It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.”. Boo, an intelligent child ruined by a cruel father, is one of the book’s most important mockingbirds; he is also an important symbol of the good that exists within people. Despite the pain that Boo has suffered, the purity of his heart rules his interaction with the children. In saving Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell, Boo proves the ultimate symbol of good. Towards the end of the book Scout thinks that hurting Boo Radley would be like “shootin’ a mockingbird.” Most important, Miss Maudie explains to Scout: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but . . . sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Scout and Jem’s last name is Finch, another type of small bird, which naturally prefer to be with a companion, similar to that of the siblings.
Tom Robinson like mockingbirds only does good. He is a good husband, father, church goer, worker, citizen and person. During his trial, Tom stated the he had to pass the Ewell’s house to get to work. He said that Mayella asked him to help her with the chores almost every day as he passed her house. She asked him to haul water, chop kindling, and do other tasks for her. Typically, Mayella’s seven siblings watched as Tom worked. On the day of the alleged attack, Tom said Mayella asked him to repair a door. Tom examined the hinges and found nothing wrong with the door. Tom testified that he had noticed the house was unusually quiet and that he soon realized none of Mayella’s siblings were at home. Mayella told him that it had taken all year to save enough money to send all the children to town for ice cream. Tom says Mayella then asked him to get a box from atop the chifforobe. While he was standing on a chair to get the box, Mayella grabbed his legs. Tom says he stepped off the chair, terrified because Mayella had grabbed him. Mayella then hugged and kissed him. Tom Robinson is a mockingbird because of his innocence; he has not harmed anyone and is an admirable character who offers help to others. Because Tom is innocent, it makes it ‘sinful’ to harm him. The parallel between killing a mockingbird and killing a cripple man, Tom, is apparent here. Both are completely defenceless before their persecutors and, thus, it is “sinful” for them to be killed in that way.
To conclude the use of the symbolism of the Mockingbird used through the characters Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, is not just about showing the good within all of us. These characters are used to show the child like innocence barrowed deep within. The characters are utilized to illustrate the development and depth of maturity and adulthood humans experience daily. “Real courage is” not “a man with a gun in his hand” “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.’
The informational book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” illustrates the specifics of reading by showing the reader the different techniques and understandings of what the literature is featuring inside it’s text. One in depth idea of literature that it talks about in the book is “symbolism”.
Symbolism (as shown in the book) is a general idea/meaning that can be interpreted in different ways (not one specific meaning) as it shows us different examples of text that uses symbolism to develop it’s story, such as “The Alchemist”. The Alchemist tells a story by Paulo Coelho” of a man named Santiago that has dreams of a child that explains to him that there’s treasure hiding around the Egyptian Ancient Pyramids and follows through with an adventure, however, with all adventures, they all come with cost and challenges. Throughout Santiago’s adventures, he’s had to deal with many difficult challenges, one of the main ones would be getting to the pyramids through the scorching hot desert. As following through this adventure, Santiago meets an a Alchemist. As they continue their adventure and reach to the desert, the Alchemist says that all of it’s harsh environments, that it would be good to grow Santiago’s willpower, to make him more involved and entitled.
The Desert features war, burning heat, lack of communication, and many more challenges it symbolizes the risks that Santiago has to go through to finally complete his personal legend, with the idea of growing more of a human being to getting through all of these mishaps. From the Book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” by Thomas C. Foster states in pg.105 that, “but in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing for only one thing.” Additionally with this evidence, found in pg. 80 of “The Alchemist”states, “The Englishman asked if they were in danger. Once you’re in the desert, there’s no going back… this journey would have been much more difficult.” The Desert has symbolically illustrated many different interpretations, as shown, it could mean distress, determination of the Santiago, challenges that Santiago that has to go through, and much more. Of course, there’s many more symbolism but desert amplifies the hardest task that they have to go through and more.
Location, setting, Geography, all things that represent where the story is taking place. Geography is brought to be very important when it comes to story development and changes to plot, they show the progress between the stories beginning and end. How did things happen the way they did and why not at different areas. This reasoning shown by the same book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” by Thomas C. Foster as he explains the ideas of how important the geography is in a story. Now bring that same idea to the novel “The Alchemist”. Santiago was a Shepherd Boy living in Andalusia in the beginning of the story. The story continues as Santiago and the Alchemist traveling to Southern Spain and to The Egyptian Pyramids, through the blazing desert. Andalusia is a calming place for Santiago and had to go through an adventure throughout civilizations that are much different, especially when entering the Egyptian Deserts. He had to go through getting robbed many different times in different locations. Now the idea of going through a desert could be much different then hiim going through a rain forest. Different climates, civilizations, and atmosphere. The reason why this develops story is because (as stated in the Thomas C. Foster Book as shown above) it could’ve ended up much differently if Santiago’s dream didn’t tell him to go to Egypt and maybe told him to go to an Island, the story would’ve taken a different turn, but however, it was because of the geography that made Santiago go through all of those problematic situations, because of the different environment that he had to go through, working to get the money that was stolen from him, and to travel through a sun blazing onto his skin, being captured by Arabian Soldiers as well. To give a good example with what Thomas C. Foster was trying to explain in his book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor”, page 172 explains, “And we feel that those novels and stories couldn’t be set anywhere but where they are, that those characters couldn’t say the things they say if they were uprooted and planted in, say, Minnesota or Scotland. They’d say different things and perform different acts.” In Addition with Thomas C. Foster’s ideal interpretation of how Geography develops story, Paulo Coelho “The Alchemist” shows an example of Thomas was stating in pg. 113, “The strange horseman drew an enormous, curved sword from a scabbard mounted on his saddle. The steel of it’s blade glittered in the light of the moon. “Who dares to read the meaning of the flight of the hawks?… “It is I who dared to do so, said the boy.” The reason why Santiago did what he did in that situation was to prevent a war at the Arabian Desert so they can continue their journey to find the treasure at the pyramids. If this was somewhere else, it wouldn’t have ended up doing what he did, (meaning that it could’ve happened much differently in a different location).
Lastly. The Book “How To Read Literature Like a Professor” describes the different uses of Irony. How it would be used in situational and problematic scenarios. Based upon Thomas C. Foster, he states an example of what Irony could be in a text (pg.254) “ Frederic Henry, having just experienced the death of his lover, Catherine Barkley, and her baby during childbirth, distraught, walks out into the rain.” Meaning that, we wouldn’t associate as a newborn child being brought to this world with be associated with rain. The same idea can be brought with the scene when Santiago was getting robbed and beaten up by the thieves at the desert, and being told by the leader that he had the same dreams but that he wasn’t stupid enough to actually go through with it, especially at a desert which is a very hard place to venture off to. “I had a recurrent dream, too. In my dream there was a sycamore growing out of the ruins of the sacristy and I was told that, if I dug at the roots of the sycamore, I would find a hidden treasure. But I’m not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of a recurrent dream” (“The Alchemist” pg. 163). The idea is that, the thief, that is completely different from Santiago, had the same dream of finding treasure. That’s the irony, their views and actions on earth is so different yet, they had the same task. However, the leader believes that Santiago is stupid for doing it, which is the other way around when really thought of. Irony was used in “The Alchemist” to show the differences between Santiago and the world. Besides that, Santiago went through all of his journey and made it to the area where his dream illustrated the treasure.. ironically.. it was all at where he was in the beginning. It was under the tree the whole time.
Two Truths and a Lie: An analysis of the Scaffold as a symbol in The Scarlet Letter
Two truths and a lie have been a common team-building exercise used for various types of collaborative groups. The purpose of the activity is for people to get to know each other in a fun way, by deciphering what is truthful and what is fictional about some fun facts they have shared about themselves. It always proves to be both comical and telling. It becomes easy to spot who is an excellent liar, and who is honest. This game can quickly become an integral piece in one’s first impression. Who would think that this innocent game could potentially have long-term negative effects on someone’s career or reputation? The main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter experienced their own version of this game, but it was far from innocent, and it continuously took place on the scaffold, in front of the entire Puritan community. They “played” this game for years and it had a negative effect on everyone. Lies became truths at the expense of others’ reputations. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the scaffold is used as a symbol of infinite truth and sacrifice through the development of the characters.
The three scaffold scenes are pivotal in steering the story of The Scarlet Letter. Several critics have recognized the three scenes as essential to the structure of the novel, its form, and its meaning (Pinsker). The scaffold is the nexus of the occurrences in the narration as it appears in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. On the first day of her summoning, Hester appears unperturbed as she stands on the scaffold, but then her inner thoughts and emotions are tumultuous and wild. But Hester has prepared herself for this scene where she had “fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely…” (Hawthorne). As Hester stands at the scaffold, she is confronted by her true identity. She recalls her happy and innocent childhood, remembers the man she had married, and recalls her new life in Massachusetts. It finally dawns on her on this first public display that she is indeed the subject of scorn and ridicule. She acknowledges, in her mind, that “Yes!—these were her realities—all else had vanished!” (Hawthorne). Hester realizes that she is no longer the sheltered young woman with a promising future. She is an adulteress, as the letter ‘A’ on her bosom screams, and the child she holds in her arms is the outward testament of her affair.
After the grave realization, Hester neither hides from the crowd nor shows any remorse. In fact, she seems to embrace their criticism and judgment. Accepting the judgment of the crowd gives Hester the ability to scan above the multitude of faces and is shocked when she notices her estranged husband Roger Chillingworth. She recognizes him even though “he had endeavored to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne, that one of this man’s shoulders rose above the other” (Hawthorne). Chillingworth proceeds to gesture to Hester, with a finger over his lips, telling her to stay silent. At this moment, Hester realizes that she is alone. She dreads meeting with her husband. So afraid is she of him that “she fled for refuge, as it were, to public exposure, and dreaded the moment when it should be taken away from her” (Hawthorne). When the trial to find out the father of her child begins, Hester is caught up between her husband and her lover (Arthur Dimmesdale, the young pastor), who both want to know the father of her child. On the scaffold, Hester decides to hide the identity of her bastard child’s father because she realizes that she is doomed either way. If she identified Arthur Dimmesdale as her lover and father of the child they had conceived out of wedlock, Dimmesdale would lose his stature as leader of his congregation.
Hester cannot bear to publicly humiliate Dimmesdale as she is still in love with him. There was also the risk that Chillingworth would kill Dimmesdale for corrupting his wife and Hester on realizing this chose to keep her silence. Pearl recognizes her father’s voice when Dimmesdale pleads with Hester to expose her lover. Hester notices how the child “held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half plaintive murmur” (Hawthorne). This is Pearl’s way of beseeching Dimmesdale to recognize her and chin up to the crime (Wellborn). When Dimmesdale remains silent, Hester realizes that she has to sacrifice herself to protect him from the crowd and from Chillingworth, who showed utter determination to find the man who had impregnated his wife. When Hester and her child return to prison after a day spent at the scaffold, Chillingworth visits her in the capacity of a physician. Husband and wife reveal some uncomfortable truths to each other. Chillingworth admits that he corrupted Hester by marrying her when he knew he would never make her happy. Hester admits that she had never loved Chillingworth (Hawthorne). Both reach a consensus; they will act as if they do not know each other. The scaffold, therefore, heralds the end of Hester’s and Chillingworth’s marriage, and the sacrifice Chillingworth makes. He pushes his feelings towards Hester’s adulterous ways to the back burner, in order to reveal to the community who Hester’s lover is so she does not have to bare this burden alone. It reveals that their marriage had been dead long before they decided to move to Massachusetts; it had been a loveless marriage.
The second scene at the scaffold becomes the epitome of torment for Arthur Dimmesdale when he ascends it. Driven by the guilt of being Hester’s unknown lover and the father of their bastard child, he ascends the scaffold in the night. However, the scene makes clear several facts. The first is that Dimmesdale is not ready to own up to his crime as an adulterer. When Pearl asks him if he will stand with her and her mother at the scaffold the next day at noon, Dimmesdale counteracts that “Not then, Pearl…but another time” (Hawthorne). The second is that Chillingworth is causing Dimmesdale dread and pain. When Dimmesdale spots Chillingworth in the distance, he admits to Hester that “I have a nameless horror of the man” (Hawthorne). Chillingworth is accomplishing his promise to Hester, he is haunting the man who had been her lover. Dimmesdale’s refusal to climb the scaffold with Pearl and Hester the next day is also proof of his renunciation of Hester as his lover and mother to his illegitimate child (Elbert). Moreover, Dimmesdale’s choice to be led away by Chillingworth is a final blow of truth to Hester. The very act attests to the truth that Dimmesdale has chosen Chillingworth as a more worthy companion than Hester (Elbert). The final truth revealed at the scaffold is the gnawing guilt that is tearing away at Dimmesdale’s heart. While on the scaffold, Dimmesdale undergoes a moment of hysteria when he begins to laugh hysterically as he imagines the shock of the town if they realized that he had fathered the bastard Pearl. He pictures the shock on the townspeople’s faces as they realized that he was not as perfect as they deemed him to be. He is not ready to face their judgment, so he takes to the scaffold at night as a means of lessening his guilt, but even while there he realizes that he is not ready to be shamed publicly for his sin.
Hawthorne portrays the third and last scaffold scene in an uncanny way. After giving the best sermon of his life, Dimmesdale ascends the scaffold with the help of Hester and their daughter Pearl. A range of emotions seizes the people; shock, surprise, and utter denial, as they watch their beloved pastor ascend the scaffold, a victim of public shame. In broad daylight, Dimmesdale sacrifices himself to the public with the intention of freeing Hester and Pearl from their status as social pariahs. He strives to make amends for abandoning them seven years earlier. Dying on the scaffold serves as penance for his sin; the sin of hypocrisy and abandonment of his family. The scaffold is also a moment of truth for the Puritans for it proves to them that even the people they perceived as holy and incapable of sin could be as sinful as the rest of them. Dimmesdale was their most trusted community member, their moral compass, yet he dies on the scaffold, publicly shamed for the vile crime of adultery. Chillingworth is also impacted by this final climactic scene. When he perceives the death of Dimmesdale, he goes into hysterical denial, repeating “though hast escaped me!” (Hawthorne) like a deranged maniac. It finally dawns on Chillingworth that he could not punish a man who had deeply subjected himself to punishment. The scaffold, therefore, becomes the place where Chillingworth’s dream of exacting vengeance on Dimmesdale gets quashed, leaving him unhinged and deprived of the chance to impact punishment on the man he had plotted to hurt for so long. It is a moment of reckoning for Chillingworth; all his cool calculating was all for naught, he had sacrificed his soul but had nothing to show for it. After this scene, Chillingworth fades into nothingness, a man who has lost virtually everything.
In conclusion, the scaffold carries profound meaning in The Scarlet Letter. It is the hinge on which the story turns. It has been the sole source of the development of the characters. Hester is the shunned adulteress, but she accepts her fate as a social pariah on the very first day that she is publicly shamed at the scaffold, with the letter ‘A’ on her dress. Throughout the novel, she develops into a strong woman who fills in the role of both mother and father to her daughter. She is a woman who has been knocked to the ground but has refused to stay down. Her daughter Pearl, once a symbol of Hester’s shame, becomes her symbol of strength. Pearl grows to be a charming child, despite the taint of the scaffold that she has borne since her infantry. However, Hester and Pearl are the only ones who show positive growth in spite of the connotation of the scaffold that haunts their lives. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth degenerate into their worst selves. Dimmesdale succumbs to the gnawing guilt within him. He is drawn to the scaffold because to him, it is the only source of redemption. When he lays himself bare as an adulterer and Hester’s lover before the Puritan crowd, he feels not the shame of the scaffold, but the freedom it grants his burdened soul. Chillingworth loses his soul because of the scaffold. He spends years plotting his vengeance on Dimmesdale for sleeping with his wife, but his greatest wish is never fulfilled after Dimmesdale dies on the scaffold. Deprived of his life’s sole purpose, he fades into oblivion. The Scarlet Letter opens and closes on the scaffold.
Introduction: Symbolism and Female Oppression in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
This paper aims to identify and analyze those symbolisms prominent in “The Yellow Wallpaper” which represent the struggles of the oppression of females in the 19th century. “The Yellow Wallpaper” manages to represent the patriarchal society, specifically that of the 19th century in America, and is thus often read as feminist literature.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) is about a woman, the unnamed narrator of this short story, who gets diagnosed with a “temporary nervous depression” (648) by her husband John, who is a physician. Even though he does not truly believe her to be sick, he decides to move to a “colonial mansion” (647) for the summer in hopes to cure said depression with a lot of rest and little distraction from the outside. Even though the narrator is not supposed to write, as this would, according to John, only worsen her state of mind, she does so anyway, keeping a diary without her husband’s knowledge. In this she describes her stay at the house and how she is treated; mostly about how her husband treats her. She also describes her dislike for the room she is staying in, especially her distaste for the yellow wallpaper, which becomes the most prominent symbol throughout the short story.
Analyzing Key Symbols
The House as a Representation of Society
This short story is packed with symbolism, one of the first encounters being the house the narrator and her husband stay in. It is described as a “colonial mansion, a hereditary estate” (647) and represents the patriarchal society in which they live; the society that restricts the narrator and women in general. She finds something to be eerie about the house and even calls it “haunted” (647) but her husband brushes it off, laughing about it and simply blaming her feelings on a “draught” (748).
The room she stays in represents this even further. The narrator thinks it used to be a nursery due to the window that had been “barred for little children” (648). This and the “nailed down” (650) bed produce the uncomfortable feeling of a prison, which is underlined by the fact that the narrator doesn’t leave the room very often as she is supposed to rest as much as possible to get over her depression. The room’s wallpaper immediately catches the narrator’s attention; however, it is not in a good way. She announces to have never seen a “worse paper in [her] life” (648) and describes it with negative words calling the color ‘repelland, almost revolting” (649).
At first, it seems to be bearable to live in but the longer the narrator stays in the room or the house, the more she wants to leave, and the more it seems to be “haunted” (647). What only seemed to be her imagination at first turns out to be true due to her growing paranoia and the woman spooking behind the wallpaper. Similarly, the narrator has always lived in a society that oppresses women, blatantly accepting the norms. However, throughout her life she has grown to be more and more uncomfortable with this and the gender norms, wanting to break out of it. According to Barbara A. Suess the room the narrator is placed in and the wallpaper in it have eventually influenced the narrator’s mind, adding to her loss of sanity and paranoia. (92).
John as the Embodiment of Patriarchy
The narrator’s husband, John, perfectly represents the patriarchal society of the 19th century. According to Karen Ford, this is also portrayed by the fact that John first gets introduced as a physician and then-husband, first relating him to patriarchy and then to his wife (310). The narrator is clearly subordinate to John, as she does what he says without much of a debate. John controls almost all of her actions and her every day by scheduling “each hour in the day” (Gilman, 648). Even though the narrator is not happy about it, feeling “ungrateful not to value it more” (648), she obeys her husband’s orders. The only thing she really does that goes against what John and everyone else tells her is that she continues to write in secret. She otherwise accepts what John tells her. She takes medication, “phosphates or phosphites – whichever it is” (648), even though she doesn’t believe it to help her and she gives up on trying to stay in a different room or at least have the wallpaper changed as John calls them “fancies” (649) which she shall not give in to. She only silently curses out her husband in the diary he keeps, disagreeing with him and arguing against what he says. The repression by her husband goes as far as giving her the illusion of a conspiracy planned by John and his sister (Carol Margaret Davison 60).
The Yellow Wallpaper: A Complex Symbol of Entrapment
The most prominent and probably most important symbol in the short story is that of the yellow wallpaper. At first, the wallpaper is nothing but “horrid paper” (649) that the narrator wishes to dispose of. However, her husband refuses this and urges her not to give in to her “fancies” (649) as it will only start with the paper and then go on to her wanting to change every little detail of the room. However, the more time she spends in the room, the more she starts to analyze the yellow wallpaper. The narrator eventually describes it to have two patterns; a “front design” and a “kind of sub-pattern” (650). The front design consists of different lines pointing in various directions, while the sub-pattern shows a woman “stooping down and creeping about” (652).
The Evolution of the Narrator’s Relationship with the Wallpaper
According to Pula A. Treichler and nineteenth-century readers, the yellow wallpaper represents several things: (1) the narrator’s own mind, (2) the narrator’s unconscious, and (3) the ‘pattern’ of social and economic dependence which reduces women to domestic slavery. The woman in the wallpaper represents (1) the narrator herself, gone mad, (2) the narrator’s unconscious, and (3) all women. (64)
Representing all of this, it is clear that the wallpaper plays an important role and needs further analysis. In the design of the front of the wallpaper, the different lines, represent bars that trap the woman in the sub-pattern behind them. This turns the wallpaper into a symbol of surveillance seeing as it represents a prison under constant observation of the husband John. (Ghandeharion and Mazari 116). The further the short story progresses, the more the woman tries to break out by “shak[ing] the pattern” (Gilman 652). This action symbolizes the narrator’s own mind trying to escape any sort of entrapment according to Azra Ghandeharion and Milad Mazari while furthermore representing all women of that time (124). The narrator, despite her original hatred for the wallpaper, becomes, in her own mind, a part of the wallpaper; she becomes the woman behind the wallpaper (Suess 14). Facing the end of the story, and the end of the stay in the mansion, the narrator begins to pry off the wallpaper in an attempt to free the woman trapped behind it; succeeding to rid the wall of most of the horrible paper. Once her husband gets to her and sees what she has done she claims ‘I’ve got out at last’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane? And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’” (Gilman 656). In response to this, her husband faints, amplifying the narrator’s final escape from her husband’s rule over her and her role in society. Treichler however indicates, that the narrator might not be free at last, as she is still locked up in a room and mentally ill. Her escape from the wallpaper only demonstrates the possibility of a change in the oppression of women (Treichler 74)
The Woman Behind the Wallpaper
As we do not know who Jane is, looking into this matter is very interesting. It could simply be a sort of typo, Gilman having written Jane instead of Jennie, who takes care of the house. However, another approach is to see Jane as the narrator, which Suess takes, referring to the narrator as Jane in her paper. However, Suess claims Jane to be an anonymous figure without any background or connections (86). Both approaches are plausible but mean two different things. If Jane is meant to be Jennie, then she would be another outside obstacle trying to oppress the narrator. Even though Jennie is a woman since she obeys what the narrator’s husband asks, it ultimately shows how a patriarchal society works. However, if you interpret Jane to be in fact the narrator, the meaning of the sentence, “in spite of you and Jane” (Gilman 656), changes drastically. Jane now represents the narrator’s mind, meaning freeing herself from the wallpaper is her overcoming her own mindset. She overcomes the idea that you need to accept the norms in society and the superiority of her husband, or any man in fact, over her.
Escaping the Wallpaper and Overcoming Oppression
It is Important to note that whilst society strategically oppresses women, they seem to have simply accepted that as the norm. This is not only shown through the narrator, who, even though she doesn’t agree with what her husband says, listens to him without much of a refusal but also through her sister-in-law who seems to be not much more than a housewife, which is what was expected in the patriarchal society back then (Ghandeharion and Mazari 121). The narrator repeatedly shows her disapproval of John’s decisions when he is not around but does not dare to speak up against him personally. She stays obedient as expected and doesn’t make a big fuss out of anything, until the very end of the course. She clarifies that her husband holds the last word and that whatever he deems correct will be accepted, even if it displeases her. This even goes as far as her following John’s orders as a physician which are supposed to cure her depression, even though she believes John to be the reason for her not becoming any better (Gilman 647). She also believes that John doesn’t know how much she truly suffers. However, instead of telling him so and maybe trying to get more or better help from him she simply complains about it in her diary but not to John himself.
Since the short story is told by a first-person narrator we do not know what her sister-in-law truly thinks; however, she seems to be happy in her role as the housekeeper and has no trouble following the orders of her brother John by keeping the narrator from writing as that is believed to worsen her condition. According to the narrator, she is
Conclusion: The Lasting Impact of “The Yellow Wallpaper”
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is filled with symbolism representing the female oppression in the 19th century, which is why it is often read as a feminist work. The most important symbols are the narrator’s husband, John, the house they stay in, and the yellow wallpaper in the former nursery.
The house represents the patriarchal society, first seeming to be pleasant to live in but with an eerie background which the narrator, representing females, wants to escape from. John is the epitome of a man in the 19th century. He holds all decision power over his wife, treating her as subordinate to him. Lastly, the wallpaper in the room and the room itself represent a prison trapping a prisoner so the society trapping and oppressing women. It is the strongest symbol representing more than just the oppression of women, but also their possible overcoming of said oppression and even the mind of the narrator.
References:
Davison, Carol Margaret. “Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Closets in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Women’s Studies, vol. 33, no. 1, Jan. 2004, pp. 47–75.
Ford, Karen. “‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Women’s Discourse.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 4, no. 2, 1985, pp. 309–314.
Ghandeharion, Azra, and Milad Mazari. “Women Entrapment and Flight in Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, no. 29, Nov. 2016, pp. 113–129.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The New England Magazine, vol. 11, No. 5, (January 1892), pp. 647-657.
Suess, Barbara A. “The Writing’s on the Wall: Symbolic Orders in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 32, no. 1, Jan. 2003, pp. 79–97.
Treichler, Paula A. (1984): “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 3(1/2): 61-77.
The concept that I am delving into is Time, and how it is represented in art through the use of hidden codes and meanings. I am investigating how time can be portrayed through art, this question was born when I was walking around Beaudesert I saw how much time had changed everything in the town and how much people waste time. The artists I decided to look into further was Pink Floyd and Pawel Kuczynski, who both delve into wasted time and the aspect of life and death. I assume that both of these artists will have both their similarities and differences while still exploring their own outputs and experiences as a stimuli.
Pink Floyd were an English progressive, acid rock band in 1965 that wrote ‘psychedelic’ rock songs distinguished for their extended compositions, sonic experimentations, philosophical lyrics and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd was the band that came to mind whenever someone mentioned rock and roll in the 60-80s. Pink Floyd quickly became one of the most commercially successful and influential groups in popular music history. Their top selling album dark side of the moon was released in 1973 which refers to lunacy (Lunatic: an antiquated term referring to a person who is seen as mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, or crazy – conditions once attributed to lunacy. The word derives from lunaticus meaning ‘of the moon” making the tittle of the album read something along the lines of ‘the dark side of Lunacy.’ From that album the song Time which is a 7 minute song that sheds light on wasted, passing time and being in the centre of time. For the creation of the song, time they used unpopular song pattern of verse, solo, verse end, the songs use of lack of chorus erases the repetition in music
The song Time represents the deep concept of passing time, this is done through the use of hidden metaphors and meanings. The song feel like it could be similar to the story the traveller which talks about a traveller hanging on a single branch over a pit where a dragon lay beneath him waiting for its meal on the branch is a honey supply that the traveller has access to, while two mice nibbling at the roots of the branch. The symbolism behind this is that the dragon is death and the mice is passing time, day and night. The honey represents pleasures that distract us from death. The first verse talks about wasting your time waiting for something to show you your future and what you have to do, it could also be seen as wasting away your life waiting for someone to tell you how to live by giving you the answers or ‘spoon feeding you.’ This is seen by its use of “no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” Passing time is represented heavily throughout the piece of music, much like it would be in other art outlets.Figure 1 Lyrics from the song ‘time’
Pawel Kaczynski, a satirical and philosopher artist who is against war and who uses the modes of drawing and painting. Kuczynski is known for his artworks that linger in your mind and get more elaborate the more you look at them, such as his piece Clock.
This piece shows a grandfather clock morphed into a grave stone, the pendulums’ tip resembles a shovel, showing a semi-dug hole, this could represent that as time goes by we’re closer to death, this piece leaves you pondering and scared at the realisation that the tick tock clock is what will make you inevitably drop, mind the morbidness of the piece and your left with a beautiful peace behind life and why we’re here. This piece not only accurately represents time but also life and death, which is quite closely related to time itself. Figure 2 Clock by Pawel Kaczynski
For my experiment I thought I should write a song using pink Floyds’ Time as my inspiration to experiment, I thought to include the thoughts of life or death which was heavily focused on in Pawel Kaczynski’s piece Clock which represents life and death through the broad topic of time which is quite similar to pink Floyd’s Time which briefly touches on the idea of life and death.
After looking at Clock and Time, I’ve realized that time can be quite closely linked to life and death so I have narrowed my research question down even further than before to then include the aspects of life and death while also looking at the broad topic of time in art as I believe that it can be narrowed down in other ways such as narrowing it down to the idea of space. Both pieces successfully portray their ideas of time in their own respective ways while both having similar aspects and scaffolding ideas, I would like to further my research to find artists who use completely unique styles of work but still representing the idea of time through life and death and space.
In conclusion, I’ve come to the revelation that time can be related to other topics such as life and death, space through the analysis of two time related pieces, Time and Clock. Time in art can be represented through hidden meanings and symbols that make the audience ponder about the meaning of the pieces that are viewed. This can be done through different mediums, one of the analysed pieces being a song and the other a satirical painting
The ritual of the Eucharist plays an important part in a life of just about every Christian believer. Nevertheless, while participating in it, many Christians remain rather arrogant of this ritual’s discursive implications. In my paper, I will explore the validity of this suggestion at length, while promoting the idea that the ritual in question is the integral part of humanity’s ‘archetypal’ memory.
Body of the paper
The Eucharist (a.k.a. The Holy Communion/ The Last Supper), is a sacramental ritual, performed annually by the members of all three major Christian denominations (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant), which essentially reenacts The Last Supper’s ceremony of Jesus having offered the Apostles some wine and bread, as such that were meant to symbolize his body and blood. The account of this ceremony is contained in the Synoptic Gospels (by Matthew, Mark, and Luke), as well as in the Gospel of John.
However, it is specifically the First Epistle to the Corinthians by Apostle Paul, which provides us with the most detailed description, as to what the mentioned ritual was all about, in the technical sense of this word: “And when he (Jesus) had given thanks, he brake it (bread) and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup (with wine), when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:23-25).
The Gospel of John contains clues, as to the ritual’s actual significance: “I (Jesus) am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever” (John 6:51). This, of course, implies that one could not possibly qualify to be referred to as a Christian, unless he or she is willing to participate in the annually held ritualistic acts of ‘consuming Jesus’: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:54). Thus, it is indeed fully appropriate to refer to the Eucharist, as the ‘heart of Christianity’.
As of today, the Eucharist is often being referred to as the first Christian ritual, which helped early Christians to remain well-organized for the duration of a few centuries, after the presumed resurrection of Jesus. Moreover, the ceremony in question is also being usually defined as one of the main Christian ‘mysteries’ (such as the ‘self-ignition’ of the so-called ‘Holy Fire’, which many people believe takes place in Jerusalem during Orthodox Easter). The ritual’s religious interpretation can be defined as follows: By eating bread and drinking wine, which represent Jesus’ body and blood, believers express their gratitude for being ‘saved’ by the ‘Son of God’. In its turn, this helps them to grow closer to the very spirit of divinity, which made the mentioned salvation possible, in the first place.
Nevertheless, there are many notable differences to how the actual significance of the ritual of the Eucharist is being interpreted by every of the mentioned denominations.
In essence, the theological approaches to interpreting the meaning of the Eucharist by Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox, can be outlined as follows:
Catholics
According the Catholic theological doctrine, the ritual of the Holy Communion symbolizes what the Catholic notion of ‘God’s grace’ is all about – by providing believers with the annual opportunity to have a bite of Christ’s body, God allows them to attain the state of ‘oneness’ with the very spirit of divinity: “When we receive Communion, we believe that we receive the person of Jesus into our very beings. We become one with him, and we become one with each other” (“Eucharist (Holy Communion)” par. 3).
It is understood, of course, that by expressing their ceremonially defined willingness to become ‘one’ with Christ, Catholics naturally expect to substantially increase the likelihood for their souls to end up being admitted to the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. This, of course, presupposes that the Catholic Holy Communion is a highly ‘mystical/magical’ ceremony, which is based upon the assumption that God is indeed capable of performing miracles on a semi-scheduled basis.
The validity of this statement can be well illustrated, in regards to the miraculous process of ‘transubstantiation’, which is the focal point of the ceremony in question. According to Catholics, after priests perform a number of the applicable ritualistic rites over the loaf of bread and the bottle of wine in the church, during the Passover Mass, these food-items instantaneously turn into Christ’s flesh and blood – in the literal sense of this word. Nevertheless, as far as the believers’ subjective perception of the surrounding reality is being concerned, this flesh and blood continue to appear in the form of bread and wine. In its turn, this explains why during the Holy Communion ceremony, Catholics handle the ritual’s actual subjects (bread and wine) with great care – this is the consequence of the Catholic dogma about the miraculous nature of ‘transubstantiation’.
As the proof that such their interpretation of the significance of the Eucharist is indeed legitimate, Catholics usually refer to the absence of any indications in Bible that Jesus wanted to have his most explicitly sounding commands to be taken figuratively. What it means is that, by having prescribed people with eating his body and drinking his blood, Jesus did mean just that: “Twelve times he (Jesus) said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have ‘to eat my flesh and drink my blood’…it was a promise that could not be more explicit” (“Christ in the Eucharist” par. 10). The implication of this is apparent – by participating in the ritual of the Eucharist, Catholics believe that they are being personally ‘touched’ by God in the most direct manner.
Partially, this explains why the very process of receiving Eucharistic bread and wine, Catholics consider unimaginably sacred. Moreover, it directly relates to another purely Catholic aspect of the discussed ceremony – the fact that: “some Catholics choose to receive the Eucharist not in their hands, but directly on their tongues” (Cardo and Mallick par. 6). Apparently, as a result of having experienced the state of ‘oneness’ with God, induced by the ritual of the Holy Communion, Catholics cannot help developing the subsequential sensation of humility, reflected by the above-mentioned practice, on their part.
The above-stated implies that for Catholics, accepting the Holy Communion is a rather ‘magical’ experience, which also represents a great utilitarian value – as it happened to be the case with just about any magic-driven ritual.
Orthodox
Even though the affiliates of the Orthodox Church do believe thatthe Eucharist is one of Christianity’s most sacramental ceremonies/rituals, their interpretation of this ceremony’s theological significance does not quite correlate with that of Catholics. According to it, the ritual of the Eucharist does serve the purpose of bringing believers closer to God. The main aspect of it is that, unlike what it happened to be the case with Catholics, the Orthodox do not refer to Eucharist bread and wine, as Jesus’ actual flesh and blood.
Rather, they think of the ritual’s ceremony of ‘breaking bread’, as such that symbolizes that, despite the fact that people are by the very virtue of their humanness predestined to remain thoroughly biological, while facing life-challenges, they nevertheless are still able to transcend beyond the ‘materialness’ of existence. The Orthodox believers’ line of argumentation, in this respect, can be outlined in the following manner:
Eating bread and drinking wine has been the essential part of people’s lives, since the dawn of times. What God did is turning these essentially ‘biological’ pursuits, on people’s part, into yet another motivation for them to remain religiously faithful. Hence, the Orthodox interpretation of the significance of the Eucharist – this ritual is there to enable believers to rise above the petty aspects of their everyday existence (at least once a year), in order to be able to contemplate on the nature of divinity, without being required to become less ‘material’.
This, of course, presupposes that the Eucharist’s actual meaning is much more all-encompassing than Catholics happened to believe. As Fitzgerald noted: “The Orthodox Church recognizes the many facets of the Eucharist and wisely refuses to over-emphasize one element to the detriment of the others” (par. 6). Thus, whereas, the Catholic view on the Eucharist can be well defined ‘magical’, the one of the Orthodox is best referred to as ‘symbolical’ or ‘ascetic’.
This particular suggestion helps to explain yet another qualitative aspect of how the Orthodox Church construes the significance of the Eucharist – namely, the fact that the Orthodox theological framework presupposes the ritual of consumption Christ’s ‘body’ and ‘blood’ (in the form of wine and bread) by Christians, to be the annual culmination of their ongoing endeavor to remain on the path of a spiritual growth. It is understood, of course, that this is being rather inconsistent with the Catholic view of the Eucharist; as such that confirms the validity of the Catholic concept of ‘God’s grace’.
The reason for this is that, whereas, the Orthodox Church refers to one’s Eucharistic communion with God in terms of an interactive process, Catholics believe that it is being primarily concerned with commemorating the Last Supper/experiencing the ‘transubstantiation’-related mystical feelings. Therefore, there is nothing odd about the fact that there is difference between Catholics and the Orthodox, in the sense of how they approach taking part in the ritual and understanding its significance.
For example, according to the Catholic doctrine, it is specifically priests, who enact the process of ‘transubstantiation’, by the mean of conducting a series of rites over bread and wine. In its turn, this presupposes that, during the ceremony, believers play a rather passive role. The Orthodox, on the other hand, believe that, in order for the Eucharistic food-items to be ‘activated’ (in the sense of becoming mystical body and blood of Christ), service attenders, as well as the present clergymen, must join invoking the Holy Spirit.
Thus, as compared to the highly individualistic Catholic ritual of the Eucharist, the Orthodox one appears to be much more collective/communal. This suggestion correlates well with the reputation of Catholicism, as a religion that, despite being formally monotheistic, nevertheless contains a number of the essentially polytheistic/heathen dogmas about the nature of divinity. The same can be said about the suggestion’s relation to the fact that the Orthodox Church is being traditionally known for its ‘ascetic’ ways.
Protestant
The Protestant outlook on the Eucharist differs considerably from two of the above-mentioned. In essence, Protestants (Baptists, Adventists, Evangelicals, etc.) reject the idea that the ritual in question is ‘miraculous’, which in turn causes them to believe that the Biblical accounts of Christ having commanded The Apostles to eat his body and drink his blood are utterly allegorical and, as such, cannot be interpreted literally. As Courtois noted: “In today’s world Catholics and Protestants understand Holy Communion differently; the Catholic’s believe in the True Presence and the Protestants claim Holy Communion is only a symbol” (par. 2).
According to the Protestant interpretation of the Eucharist, while encouraging his Apostles to consume bread and wine, as such that symbolize God’s flesh and blood, Jesus simply meant to emphasize the importance of his earthly service to humanity. Therefore, even though Protestants do celebrate the Eucharist, it is definitely not a focal point of their religious doctrine – quite unlike what it happened to be the case with Catholics and the Orthodox. The validity of this suggestion can be well illustrated, in regards to the fact that Protestants are being known for their practice of replacing bread with crackers and wine with grape-juice, during the ritual’s course.
The above-described situation undoubtedly relates to the very essence of Protestantism, as the ‘rationalization of Christianity’. As Weber pointed out: “It was rationalization, which gave the Reformed (Protestant) faith its peculiar ascetic tendency, and is the basis both of its relationship to and its conflict with Catholicism” (72). What makes Protestants different from the members of other Christian denominations, is that their understanding of God is thoroughly secularized.
To exemplify the validity of this suggestion, we can well refer to the Protestants’ tendency of perceiving God in terms of some distant authority, which imposes ethical rules and regulations, without defining the actual course of one’s life. This, of course, creates the objective preconditions for Protestants to believe that, after having brought order into the universe, God cannot act in the manner inconsistent with the main laws of how this universe operates. As the ultimate consequence of this, Protestants do not quite tolerate the idea that God is capable of performing miracles on a continuous basis – especially if they are concerned with entertaining people, such as the ‘miracle’ of the Eucharist.
What contributes to this state of affairs even more, is that being rationally-minded, Protestants find it rather impossible to believe that there can be ‘transubstantiation’ without the ‘transubstantiated’ objects living up to the term’s actual meaning. That is, unless bread and wine turn into Christ’s flesh and blood de facto, as a result of some magical rites having been performed over them, there is no reason to believe in ‘transubstantiation’, in the first place.
It is quite worthy to be noted that, it is not only that Protestants do not assign any sacramental value to the ritual of the Eucharist – they actually experience the sensation of a certain emotional discomfort, due to Christ’s commandments (in regards to what true believers should do with his body and blood) indeed being rather explicit. The reason for this is that, because of the earlier mentioned rational-mindedness, on the part of Protestants, they cannot help thinking of the process of Jesus’ flesh being devoured inside of people’s stomachs, as anything but the explicit act of cannibalism. This suggestion is fully consistent with the fact that, unlike what it happened to be the case with Catholics and the Orthodox, Protestants are known for their tendency to come up with ever more ‘updated’ interpretations of what Jesus had in mind, while addressing his followers.
What has been said earlier implies that, in order for us to be able to gain an in-depth insight into the actual meaning of the Eucharist, we would have to tackle the subject matter outside of the theological framework of religion. After all, there can be indeed as many theological interpretations of the Eucharist, as there are Christians. Yet, neither of them would be able to offer a comprehensive and logically substantiated answer, as to the ritual’s actual significance and origins. This simply could not be otherwise – the religious mode of thinking is utterly inconsistent with the very notion of logic. What it means that the only the pathway that can lead us towards acquiring a better understanding of what the Eucharist is all about, is a scientific/analytical one.
Before proceeding to address the concerned religious phenomenon, as such that reveals essentially the animalistic workings of people’s unconscious psyche, we will need to establish the following theoretical premises:
The Eucharist fits perfectly well into the classical definition of a ritual, as such that implies the spatial extendedness of the periodically performed ritual acts, and points out to the fact that, within the ritual’s procedural context, the notion of ‘sacredness’ is being synonymous with the notion of ‘pointlessness’.
The objectively existing laws of nature affect the representatives of Homo Sapiens species, as much as they affect plants and animals, which in turn suggests that it is indeed fully legitimate to refer to people as ‘hairless apes’, whose behavior is being rather instinctively then consciously determined.
In light of these two scientifically proven premises, the actual reason why Christians participate in the Eucharistic ritual of ‘breaking bread’ appears to be only formally related to these people’s willingness to demonstrate the sheer strength of their religious commitment. Rather, it is being concerned with these believers’ unconscious strive to ensure their physical survival – just as it happened to be the case with higher mammals, whose behavioral patterns feature a high degree of ritualization.
After all, it has been indeed observed that many animals do tend to ‘ritualize’ even the most ordinary aspects of their daily existence: “Water shrews that were used to jump over a stone that was in their familiar path kept jumping even after removal of the stone… as if the performance of motor template overrides the sensory input that the stone is not there anymore” (Eilam, Zor, Hermesh, and Szechtman 6). Nevertheless, even though the ritualistic-mindedness of animals appears to be of a clearly phenomenological nature, this is far from being the case. Because animals are quite unable of understanding what accounts for the spatially prolonged relationship between causes and effects, it is specifically their ability to memorize ‘consistency patterns’, on which they mostly rely, when trying to survive in the hostile environment.
The mechanics of how it works are quite simple: animals repeat the behaviors, unconsciously associated with a particular ‘existential successes’ that they have had in the past. In plain words, if prior to be given some food, one’s dog was barking, then it will be tempted to use barking again and again, as the ‘magical’ mean of inducing food-offering– regardless of the would-be consequences. It is also fully explainable why the rituals of animals revolve around the themes of food, sex and domination – these three objectives represent the biological purpose of just about any living organism’s existence.
This is exactly the reason why there is much similarity between what can be referred to as humanity’s main ‘primeval myths’, upon which the religious rituals appear to be based (Levi-Strauss 429). Being essentially ‘hairless apes’, humans do not differ much from animals, in this respect. After all, just as it is being the case with the animalistic rituals, the ones performed by people also appear to emanate the strong spirit of ‘utilitarianism’, which in turn implies that they belong to the realm of a ‘primeval myth’ (Kalsched and Jones 1).
The religious ritual of the Eucharist illustrates the validity of this suggestion perfectly well, because its origins can be traced back to the time when the dividing line between animals and humans was invisibly thin. Back then, people’s postures in life used to be primarily affected by: a) the shortage of food, b) the state of a never-ending tribal war, in which they were forced to exist throughout their lifetime.
While waging wars on each other, our primeval ancestors did not only seek to ensure their domination, but also to guarantee the steady flow of nutrients into their bodies – in the literal sense of this word. As Bell noted: “Anthropologists believe that cannibalism began in earliest human history and proliferated with man’s increasing attempt to appease the gods, survive famine, or exact revenge on or control his enemies” (par. 1). We can hypothesize that the early ritualization of cannibalism must have occurred following the first cannibal’s realization that, after having consumed some parts of its freshly killed enemy, he was able to take good care of his sense of hunger – hence, endowing him with the sense of being empowered: “The savage thought of all the original character passing over with the flesh and blood.
If bread could strengthen man and wine make glad his heart, surely the brave, strong, sacred body of an animal could impart its own excellence” (Smith 164). This, of course, naturally predetermined the process of the practice of cannibalism becoming progressively less concerned with nutrition, while growing increasingly ritualistic. The rationale behind this suggestion is quite apparent – the ongoing socio-technological progress implies that, the more technologically/culturally advanced people happened to be, the more they generate of the so-called ‘surplus product’.
Nevertheless, just as it was pointed out earlier, one of the most prominent characteristics of a true ritual, is that its apparent pointlessness does not have much of an effect of the measure of this ritual’s popularity. Apparently, people simply could not resist the pressure or their consciously suppressed ‘archetypal’ (DNA-coded) memories, concerned with the sensation of empowerment, experienced by a cannibal, in the aftermath of his meal. As Eliade pointed out: “For the archaic mentality, reality manifests itself as force, effectiveness, and duration” (11).
In its turn, this prompted the emergence of theophagy, defined as the: “Sacramental eating of a god typically in the form of an animal, image, or other symbol as a part of a religious ritual and commonly for the purpose of communion with or the receiving of power from the god” (“theophagy” par. 1). As of today, there is a plenty of historical data, as to the fact that, prior to the time when it began to be the case with Christianity, theophagy was already well incorporated in a number of the world’s animistic religions.
There were two forms of religious theophagy, which can be defined as ‘cannibalistic’ and ‘symbolical’. The first of them was is in essence pure cannibalism – just as its name implies. For example, the ancient Aztecs used to perform the annual religious ritual of locating the best-looking youth in the community, proclaiming him a ‘god’ and serving him as his lowly servants for the duration of one year – only to have him killed and quartered in the end, with the parts of ‘god’s’ body distributed among believers. As time went on, however, the religious extrapolations of theophagy were becoming increasingly more ‘symbolical’.
In this respect, we can refer to yet another religious ritual, which used to be performed by the ancient Aztecs – the symbolic eating of the god Huitzilopochtli: “Twice a year, in May and December, an image of the great Mexican god Huitzilopochtli or Vitzilipuztli was made of dough, then broken in pieces, and solemnly eaten by his worshippers” (Fraser par. 1). The religion of Mithraism, which used to thrive in the Roman Empire throughout the first centuries A.D., can also be considered the ‘symbolic’ form of theophagy.
What is particularly notable, in this respect, is that regardless of whether their practice of ‘consuming God’ was de facto cannibalistic or merely symbolical of cannibalism, the ritual’s early affiliates never doubted the validity of the assumption that the ‘eating of God’ (in the literal sense of this word) is the actual pathway towards happiness/respect of others. This, of course, suggests the conceptual fallaciousness of the Protestant idea that, by encouraging his disciplines to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ him, Jesus meant something different from what he was actually referring to.
This simply could not be otherwise –the earlier provided insights into the origins of desire for theophagy in people, and the fact that Jesus used to preach amongst the uneducated/superstitious/rurally-based Jews, leaves only a few doubts that the Protestant interpretation of the Eucharist does not hold much water.
Apparently, one of the reasons why Christianity was able to prevail in the West, as its dominant religion, is that while preaching the ‘good news’, Jesus proved himself as a rather efficient psychologist – contrary to the fact that it will take another two millennia for the term to emerge. Somehow, he knew perfectly well that many people are unconsciously predisposed towards theophagy, as a ritual thoroughly consistent with the manner, in which they perceive the surrounding reality. This refers to the fact that, as many scientific studies indicate, the workings of one’s mind are being strongly reflective of what happened to be the qualitative particulars of the ‘collective archetype’ (Jungian term), with which he or she is being affiliated.
Because the deepest roots of this archetype reach the innermost depths of people’s unconscious psyche, there is nothing surprising about the fact that, as practice indicates, the idea of eating God’s flesh/drinking his blood does emanate a strong appeal to many. The reason for this is the layer of the culturally/intellectually refined humanness around just about anyone is only skin-deep. Deep inside, the representatives of the human race continue to remain nothing short of animals. And, as etiologists are being well aware of, one of the main existential advantages of animals over people, is their ‘stealth’ – in the sense of being able to blend with the natural environment.
If we assume that people did evolve out of animals, then we should be able to detect the psychological signs that this was indeed the case. One of these signs can be considered the fact that many people appear to be endowed with the so-called ‘holistic’ mentality – something that is being extrapolated by these people’s close affiliation with the ideas of pantheism/orientalism.
The mentioned ideas are ultimately concerned with the assumption that, in this world, everything has to do with everything, and that humans are most definitely not ‘special’. To be a ‘holistically minded’ individual, is to be trying to attain the state of objectification (oneness) with the surrounding reality – something that often assumes the form of one’s unconscious desire to be ‘dissolved’ within the environment, as its integral part. This is what the religion of Buddhism is all about.
Thus, the actual significance of the Eucharist, can be interpreted as follows: It is one of the clearest indications that, as far as the unconscious workings of the most ardent monotheistic believers are being concerned, these individuals never cease being polytheists. The reason for this is that, by consuming (and consequentially digesting) Christ’s ‘body’ and ‘blood’, Christians extrapolate their deep-seated emotional discomfort with the idea of the hierarchically organized universe – even though it is being strongly endorsed by just about every Christian denomination.
As Turner noted: “Rituals of status reversal… mask the weak in strength and demand of the strong that they be passive” (176). After all, the possibility for God’s flesh to be devoured by its very followers, presupposes the erroneousness of the monotheistic dogma about the omnipotence of God. The ritual of the Eucharist symbolizes that the observable emanations of the surrounding reality are innately interrelated and that it is possible for effects to be simultaneously their own causes – something that is being fully consistent with the provisions of today’s Quantum Physics.
The discursive implication of the above-argued is quite apparent – it is specifically Catholicism, which provides the most ‘genuine’ Christian interpretation of the ritual in question. However, this is not because Catholicism is being more ‘Christian’ than the rest of the world’s major Christian religions. Rather, it is a consequence of this religion continuing to remain utterly ‘magical’ – contrary to its own negative stance towards magic.
Just as it used to be the case with Jesus, who knew that if he had not periodically performed miracles in front of his followers, he would not have followers, in the first place, the high-ranked members of the Catholic clergy are being fully aware that the Church must provide believers with the opportunity to experience ‘miracles’. How this can be done, given the fact that miracles are simply nowhere to be found? The ritual of the Eucharist comes quite handy, in the respect. After all, just as it can be interpreted as the indication of people’s psychological primevalness, it can also serve as the tool of convincing believers that miracles do occur – even despite being undetected by one’s perceptual apparatus.
This is the reason why the Catholic dogma of ‘transubstantiaon’ came into being, in the first place. Once a particular Catholic has enough faith in miracles, he or she will be able to ‘perform miraculously’ on its own – something that can be well illustrated, in regards to the phenomenon of stigmata. The same can be done in regards to the fact that the rate of ‘miraculous recoveries’ among terminally ill Catholics is indeed comparatively high.
Thus, this paper’s qualitative insights into the discussed subject matter can be formulated as follows:
The literal interpretation of the Eucharist’s theological significance, promoted by Catholics, is indeed consistent with the original spirit of early Christianity, as initially a pantheistic religion. This, of course, can be seen as the proof that Catholics are ‘closer’ to God; as compared to what it is being the case with the members of the rest of Christian denominations. At the same time, however, this claim can be countered by the reference to the fact that, throughout the course of its history, Christianity never ceased being theologically refined. What it means is that it is indeed impossible to provide a definitive answer to the question of what particular Christian doctrine can be considered ‘genuinely Christian’.
The ritual of the Eucharist can be seen as one among many indications that religions do not affect the innermost workings of the affiliated believers’ psyche. It is understood, of course, that this substantially undermines the validity of just about any religion’s claim that it holds the answers to all questions and that it alone has been illuminated by the ‘shining truth of God’. After all, as it was shown earlier, there can be no religion, as a ‘thing in itself’ – just about every world’s religion is about reinterpreting ‘divine’ messages.
The ritual of the Eucharist is ultimately concerned with the practice of theophagy. The validity of this suggestion can be easily illustrated by the Catholic postulate that, while encouraging the Apostles to consume the symbolic representations of his flesh and blood, Jesus did not mean to sound figurative/allegorical. In its turn, this presupposes that, contrary to what many Christians believe, the ritual’s origins date back to the dawn of humankind’s history. Simultaneously, this also implies that the ritual of the Eucharist can be well used, within the context of psychologists making a qualitative inquiry into what accounts for the rudimentary ‘leftovers’ of the perceptual atavism in people.
Conclusion
I believe that the provided line of argumentation, as to what should be considered the Eucharist’s discursive significance, is fully consistent with the paper’s initial thesis. Apparently, it is indeed fully appropriate reflecting upon what this ritual means from the religiously unbiased perspective. This, however, does not undermine the validity of the mentioned theological interpretations of the Eucharist – especially given the fact that they do reflect the unconscious longings of the affiliated believers.
After all, people do tend to assess the significance of a particular theological dogma in the manner that corresponds well with what happened to be their largely biologically predetermined sense of self-identity. What it means is that in this world, there can be no absolute ‘truths’ and absolute ‘untruths’. It appears to be only the matter of time, before the realization of this fact will affect the world’s major religions, as well.
Works Cited
“theophagy”. Merriam-Webster. 2014. Web.
Bell, Rachael 2014. Cannibalism: The Ancient Taboo in Modern Times. Web.