Del éxito y el fracaso

Bertrand Russell, Winston Churchill, Alice Munro entre tantos y tantos otros jamás escribieron para que se les diera el Premio Nobel. Parece que cuando alguien dice las palabras "Premio Nobel" o "Premio Pulitzer" o "Príncipe de Asturias" o "Universidad de Princeton" o "Universidad de Yale" (por nombrar algunas), esas personas pasan a formar parte de otra dimensión ajena al resto de los mortales, es como si su éxito ya estuviera marcado para el resto de sus vidas. La verdad es diferente: Lo que escribieron Russell, Churchill y Munro fue de calidad, pero también lo fue lo que escribieron muchísimos escritores que jamás se acercaron si quiera a un Premio Nobel. Citemos a Kafka, Arthur Miller, Joyce y Borges solo por nombrar algunos... Por no entrar en casos como los de Irena Sendler (el año en el que fue nominada se lo llevó Al Gore) y Ghandi en el ámbito de la paz.
¿Varía la calidad de la obra de estos intelectuales en función de quién ha ganado qué? ¡Por supuesto que no! El valor en sí no cambia, cambia el estilo, pero no su mérito artístico. Si Russell, Churchill y Munro no se esperaban un Nobel fue porque, contrariamente a lo que dicen nuestra intuiciones, no es lo que da valor a la obra, es un extra, un añadido pero depende de otras personas. La calidad de la obra es relativamente irrelevante a la hora de otorgar premios. Me explico, toda obra premiada con un buen premio tiene que tener unos criterios de calidad, pero dentro de esta categoría, ¿por qué a uno y no a otro? ¿Por qué a Russell y no a Kafka? La pregunta no está en la obra de Russell ni en la de Kafka, sino en el jurado. La decisión del jurado no depende entera ni necesariamente de una obra. Es más, no depende del autor. El autor escribe, pero el reconocimiento externo va más allá de lo que él puede controlar. Lo mismo es cierto de una nota. Supongamos que el examen consiste en escribir un ensayo. El alumno se esfuerza mucho y pone todo el conocimiento que puede. Pues muy bien, eso puede que le guste al profesor pero también puede que el profesor esté evaluando capacidad de síntesis, no conocimiento... Lo que importa no es el éxito ni el fracaso, eso no podemos controlarlo. Lo que sí podemos controlar es nuestro esfuerzo. Eso es lo que vale la pena. Con esto no estoy desprestigiando al que tenga un 10, tan solo digo que al fin y al cabo es posible que el que tenga un 9 acabe siendo mejor en su profesión y en su vida que el que ha sacado un 10. Nada es un pasaporte directo al triunfo perpetuo. El triunfo se consigue, no se te otorga como un premio o una nota. El éxito y el fracaso no deben ser los parámetros con los que evaluemos una vida, la gente es más que un reconocimiento externo o la falta del mismo. Nadie es un genio por haber ido a Princeton o a Yale o por tener un Pultizer o no. Pero alguien sí es una persona a la que merece la pena conocer siempre y cuando dé lo mejor de sí mismo. No se le debe dar demasiada importancia a ningún fracaso ni debemos alegrarnos demasiado cuando tenemos éxito. A veces pasamos por alto que detrás de cada éxito (y en ocasiones hasta detrás de cada fracaso) hay mucho esfuerzo que es lo que nos enriquece verdaderamente.
Desgraciadamente, a menudo a lo largo de la vida damos una importancia excesiva al éxito y al fracaso y solo nos damos cuenta de lo insignificante que son esos términos cuando la vida se ha acabado. Van Gogh fue un "muerto-de-hambre" que se amputó una oreja. Careció de prestigio en vida. Ahora goza de éxito en su muerte. Debió de pasarlo muy mal. Posiblemente soñara con ser un gran pintor de proyección internacional pero no vio su sueño realizado. Nuestra intuición sobre que el éxito importa está en realidad fundamentada sobre algo clave en la vida humana: los sueños. Somos nuestros proyectos. El ser humano tiene proyectos y es posible que algunos de nosotros soñemos con cosas grandes como ganar un Nobel o simplemente con ser el mejor de la clase. Estas actividades son las que dan sentido a la vida. Supongamos que alguien de 2º de bachillerato tiene como ambición ser el primero de su promoción y se esfuerza más que ningún otro. Es posible que consiga realizar su sueño pero también es posible que otra persona que, supongamos, tiene más facilidad que él le arrebate el primer puesto. Por un lado nos preguntamos, ¿qué más da? El esfuerzo está ahí, lo ha puesto, nuestro alumno debería estar tirando cohetes. Pero por otra parte es imposible no sentir rabia. Esperamos que nuestros sueños y las cosas en las que ponemos esfuerzo se vean recompensadas de alguna manera. No podemos evitarlo. Desde un punto de vista racional nos damos cuenta de que el éxito y el fracaso no dependen intrínsecamente de nosotros pero desde una perspectiva emocional no podemos negar que nos afecta. La razón, como digo, es que la realización de nuestros proyectos aporta sentido a nuestra espera. Si el alumno del ejemplo hubiera sido el primero de su promoción todo el esfuerzo y las horas que pasó estudiando se habrían visto reconocidas, su espera habría tenido sentido porque otros la hubieran recompensado. Al no ser el primero de su promoción, el alumno se entristece porque su proyecto no se ha visto realizado, su espera ha sido en vano. Se merece ser el número 1 tanto o más que el otro personaje, pero nuestro alumno ha fallado. Quizás a este alumno le pase como a Van Gogh, viva amargado toda su vida y solo tras su muerte el mundo se de cuenta de toda su valía. Nuestra gran tragedia es que si seguimos asociando éxito a felicidad y fracaso a tristeza nunca estaremos satisfechos. De haber sido el primero de su promoción, el alumno habría estado feliz pero solo temporalmente porque tarde o temprano se habría acostumbrado a ser el número 1, este hecho que antes era un objetivo se ha convertido en algo cotidiano, ya no tiene valor. Su siguiente meta podría haber sido estudiar ingeniería, pero tarde o temprano eso tampoco le hubiera llenado y habría anhelado ganar la matrícula de honor en su carrera, sueño que habría sido reemplazado por un deseo de publicar uno de sus artículos etc. Ya escribió Schopenhauer sobre este problema. Somos insaciables. Creemos que la realización de los sueños aporta sentido a nuestro esfuerzo anterior. Pero como he dicho, esta intuición no debería dominar nuestras vidas. Nos encontramos así con la paradoja de que el éxito no es lo que importa en una vida aunque solemos atar nuestros sueños a él, sueños que solo nos aportarán satisfacción momentánea antes de ser reemplazados por nuevos sueños destinados a repetir el mismo ciclo. Hay que abandonar esta manera de pensar para encontrar lo que nos llena verdaderamente y valorar la integridad del individuo a tiempo porque es una tragedia, como le pasó a Van Gogh, que el genio se reconozca como tal antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Como diría Sartre no hay que perder nuestra subjetividad.

A Sisyphean allegory in the female protagonists of "The adulterous woman" and "Hills like white elephants"

A Sisyphean allegory in the female protagonists of “The Adulterous Woman” and “Hills Like White Elephants”

Note: The following essay (also) received an A at Harvard Summer School

1.- Introduction

The notion of absurdity constitutes a challenge for teleological ways of understanding human existence. In this essay I will put forward a lumping argument to show that both “The Adulterous Woman” and “Hills like White Elephants” hare the same structural and thematic approach to the concept of banality. I will claim that the authors use an identical causal chain of events which mimics the Sisyphean struggle, thus illustrating the purposelessness of their lives.

2.- Sisyphus in Hades

First, Hemingway and Camus show how the masculine characters manipulate their female companions. In Hills like white elephants the American says: “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to (…) But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to”. These three conditional sentences reiterate the same idea, however they do so to portray the American’s use of reverse psychology, to make Jig feel that she is in control of the decision when really he is just creating in her mind the illusion of choice. This thought is expressed by the fact that only the first conditional sentence starts with the word “you” as its subject. In the next sentence the speaker starts off the first clause with the pronoun “I”; this consequently means that the word “you” ceases to be the causal agent of the sentence and becomes the direct object. This is a syntactical way of letting the reader know that the man is in fact treating the girl linguistically and literally as an object. By switching the order of the pronouns, Hemingway focuses the action on the speaker and stresses his desires over the girl’s, showing the true power dynamic of the relationship. In addition, the presence of the expression “don’t have to” conveys the idea that while there is a lack of necessity of deciding to have an abortion, it does not eliminate the possibility of it completely. To illustrate this, the man could have said “if you don’t want to don’t do it” and this way of phrasing the idea would introduce the prohibition of going on with the abortion in case Jig decided to keep the baby However, by not choosing this formulation, the speaker is implying that the hypothetical scenario in which Jig decides to keep the child does not thereby eliminate the theoretical possibility of having the abortion. The point is that the absence of reasons to do a certain action does not completely forbid that option. His way of expressing Jig’s choice is therefore illusory, he is indirectly imposing his will upon Jig’s and partially undermining her sense of self as a causal agent.

The adulterous woman also portrays how the female character depends on the male figure. Camus writes: “By so often making her aware that she existed for him he made her exist in reality. No, she was not alone…” In this quotation one can easily notice that Camus is using the same syntactical technique that Hemingway uses in Hills like white elephants, that is to say the subject of the first sentence, and therefore its causal agent, is Marcel: “he made her exist”. Once again, the female character is equated with the direct object of the sentence and, as a result, she experiences the consequences of the male’s action. The narrator is stressing the role of the man in the relationship, which is emphasized with the words “for him”, meaning that Janine necessitates of Marcel to exist. However, the narrator is telling the reader that this relationship is delusionary and, just like in Hills like white elephants, is annihilating at least part of Janine’s sense of freedom. The narrator suggests this by introducing a philosophical parody of St Anselm’s ontological argument, which is an attempt to provide deductive proof for the existence of God. In a nutshell, St Anselm claimed that God is the greatest conceivable being and for such a being to be the greatest it must necessarily exist not only in one’s imagination but also in reality. The narrator is playing with this concept in this sentence: By moving from Marcel’s subjective experience (as exemplified in the expression “for him”) to Janine’s factual existence (which is referred to when the narrator says “in reality”), it is claimed that that is enough to make her exist in reality, echoing St Anselm’s thesis. Janine’s awareness of Marcel’s belief leads her to the conclusion that she really exists. Nonetheless, Kant develops a very strong criticism of the ontological argument, pointing out that existence is not a predicate and one cannot “draw” things into existence. Based on these two pieces of information, it can be claimed that Camus’ narrator uses irony to depict the status of the dependence relationship of the couple. The narrator is the ironist in this case because he is in possession of a true piece of information (Kant’s critique) which he indirectly shares with the reader. Janine, on the other hand, is the object of the irony because she ignores that she is basing her metaphysical existence upon a flawed argument. This irony is exemplified in the use of the ellipsis at the end of the quotation, revealing a sense of inconclusiveness in the assertion and suggesting that, contrary to what she believes, the narrator knows that she is in fact alone. Provided that the subjective beliefs that Y has of the existence of X do not influence the objective existence of X, it can therefore be claimed that Marcel is limiting Janine’s freedom by making her think that she needs a subjective verification of her existence which she doesn’t. This false belief, that is at the heart of the dependence relationship, undermines Janine’s sense of self.

This corresponds to the Sisyphean myth because when the gods take Sisyphus to Hades, they imposed their will upon his, hence restricting his freedom. The male figures allegorically take the place of the gods and the women that of Sisyphus. Psychological manipulation recreates “the underworld”, the force that erodes a significant amount of their capacity to choose.

3. Sisyphus’ rock

The psychological control of the masculine characters plunges the women into a state of alienation which is the second domino of the causal chain. Camus portrays Janine’s isolation: “She had dreamed too of palm trees and soft sand. Now she saw that the desert was not that at all, but merely stone (…)”. These lines describe the clash between expectations and reality, leading on to deception. Camus explores this contrast from a chronological viewpoint through the use of verbs. The verb “had dreamed”, being in the past perfect tense, highlights that the action of dreaming has been taking place over a long period of time but has now finished. The following sentence contains the verb form “saw”, which is past simple, pointing out that the completion of the second action has taken less time to occur than the former. In juxtaposing these two concluded sequences, Camus suggests that both actions ceased at approximately the same time. This hints at the idea that Janine’s sensorial experience of the landscape was what put an end to her long-held expectations. This shows that a whole non-empirical conception of reality can collapse with the slightest piece of empirical evidence about the truth of reality. Applying a Wittgensteinian analysis[1], her preconceived ideas of reality do not draw an accurate picture of it and this causes  he initial thoughts to belong to the mystical, for they cannot be told. I would add that the realization that she cannot use her past thoughts meaningfully is what leads to desolation and negativity which are metaphorically represented with the stone[2]. Not only do her past conceptual beliefs turn out to be false, but she also notices that they have always lacked linguistic value and the utterance of them is banal. She is alienated in both a linguistic and a conceptual level.

Hemingway’s text conveys the same sense of alienation when Jig compares the hills to “white elephants”. This mental association symbolizes the emptiness of her relationship with her nameless partner. The origins of the expression trace back to one of the kings of Siam who was said to give these animals as gifts[3] to those who offended him. The costs of maintenance of a white elephant were incredibly high and as a result those who had one of these animals would quickly be ruined. The benefit obtained from having a white elephant was very little compared to its costs and so the term “white elephant” is normally associated with worthlessness. The idea is that at first sight white elephants are very unique, exotic and beautiful creatures, but in the long run they are useless. This mimics the relationship between the girl and the American man, which used to be full of excitement and travel but has now become hollow and devoid of meaning. The girl uses the expression because she has lost happiness in her life. This idea is emphasised when she mentions that “everything tastes of licorice”. This suggests that for her all her vital experiences have the same status; she has ceased to feel excitement for her life. Equating an absolute concept with one flavour indicates that there is nothing in her life that stands out; Jig is trapped in a monotonous life-style which prevents her from moving forward and does not add anything to her as an individual anymore.

The alienation of the females represents Sisyphus’ rock, the task that must be finished to regain individualism. If Jig and Janine managed to move beyond this state, they would have rebelled[4] against the meaninglessness of their condition. As existentialists like Sartre would point out, in a universe with no inherent essence or telos, what matters is the individual’s response to this reality and the confrontation with it is a way of creating our own purpose in life. The reason why these Sisyphean characters are tragic heroines is precisely because succeeding in imposing their will upon that of the men is a theoretical possibility[5]. In this hypothetical scenario, the Sisyphean characters could have succeeded in carrying their rock to the top of the mountain and be liberated from alienation. But all hopes for this possibility of success are denied when the rock rolls[6] back, restarting the circle of absurdity. Janine and Jig’s failure to overcome their alienated status leads to a perpetuation of meaninglessness and consolidates their transformation into Sisyphus. This idea is expressed at the end of both stories. The last words of The adulterous woman are “it’s nothing” and those of Hills like white elephants are “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine”. Both endings express the same idea, namely that the female characters lie to their male counterparts about their feelings. The reader knows that these endings mean that nothing has been solved and the character’s struggle against the universe’s lack of telos has been in vain because they are both living meaningless lives and they simply go on with them, which will prevent them from ever getting out of their alienation. The resolution of the stories is in itself absurd because it will only increase the solitude of the characters and keep restricting their freedom. As Sartre would claim, the reason why they do not break the absurdity of their condition is caused by bad faith[7]: they choose not to choose, but in doing so they ignore that paradoxically not choosing is also an option. From an existentialist point of view, their inaction will lead to a set of major consequences, such as the continuation of their alienation, which they now must accept. This everlasting step of repetition constitutes the last effect of the causal chain. In refusing to acknowledge the possibility of their success in the battle against absurdity, the characters give up in regaining their freedom, their happiness and their individualism, causing the fall of the rock.

4. Conclusion

To conclude, both texts can be understood as a presentation of the human quest for meaning in a non-teleological world. Hemingway and Camus approach the question by depicting how their protagonists have been led against their will to a state of alienation and their incapacity to rebel against such a state produces the repetition of their struggle, completing the Sisyphean allegory.

Word count: 2297

Fernando Martinez-Periset

Harvard University

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[1] “1. The world is all that is the case

1.2 The world is the totality of facts, not of things”

Janine’s failure to present a correct picture of the world, from a Wittgensteinian perspective, make her initial ideas nonsense. The words she uses do not correspond to the facts of what is the case. 

[2] It is also worth noting that the fact that Camus chooses stones as part of the imagery of the landscape is a direct allusion to Sisyphus’ punishment. Yes, I was thinking that.

[3] Although it might be better to say “burden”.

[4]  (Guitar riff) “Rebel, rebel you’ve torn your dress. Rebel, rebel your face is a mess…”!!!!

[5] In both his Poetics and the Nicomachean ethics, Aristotle thought that tragedy was produced when the potential state of affairs do not correspond to reality, such as a person failing to fulfil his/her potential. Janine and Jig’s tragedy mirrors Sisyphus’ because all three of them could have fulfilled their potentials had they regained their freedom.

[6] (Guitar riff) “It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled…”  Nice

[7] Just to clarify, in the previous section of the essay I indicated that their freedom had been “restricted”, not totally eliminated. It is obvious that a certain degree of freedom is needed for them to decide whether to go on with their relationships or not, even if they fool themselves into thinking that they cannot decide, which is a delusion that might stem from their state of alienation.

On the connection between narrative knowledge and narrative reliability

On the connection between narrative knowledge and narrative reliability

Note: The following essay received an A at Harvard University Summer School

Intuitively one tends to assume that the knowledge a narrator has is necessarily directly proportional to the extent to which a reader can trust the narration[1]. This paper will analyse this intuition by arguing that whilst it is true in some cases, exemplified in A day’s wait; in other circumstances our intuition is problematic, as shown in Car crash while hitchhiking. Therefore, the validity of the narrator’s epistemological skills is not always connected with the reliability of what he is saying.

Hemingway’s narrator introduces the reader to two main sources of knowledge: to reminiscence of past sensory experience and to logical thinking, both of which are equated with his reliability, thus providing evidence for the initial intuition. The former kind of knowledge is expressed when the narrator says: “‘Something like a hundred’, I said. It was a hundred and two and four tenths”. This quotation includes two verbs conjugated in the past tense (“said” and “was”), which indicate that the action has already finished by the time the narrator is reporting the events and therefore A day’s wait is a retrospective narration. So the father has no present experience of taking Schatz’s temperature, but the memory of having done so. This consequently means that the method through which he obtains that knowledge which he now shares with the reader must be through reminiscence. As for the narrator’s reliability, although the presence of the word “something” in this quotation does imply that the narrator is uncertain about the temperature, this initial reaction is soon challenged by an accurate description of the temperature: “one hundred and two and four tenths”. Given that the speaker remembers the exact temperature, the reader must assume that the cause of this apparent inaccuracy stems from the narrator’s decision not to tell Schatz the whole truth concerning his temperature, as opposed to from a lack of knowledge. So despite the fact that the narrator is not sharing the precise information with his son, he is accurately doing so with the reader. Consequently, this passage shows that the reader can trust the narrator’s testimony.

The second source of knowledge for Hemingway’s narrator is his logical thinking. When Schatz asks “about what time do you think I’m going to die?”, the father reaches the conclusion that “He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o’clock in the morning”. Based on his son’s odd behaviour throughout the whole day[2], this piece of dialogue makes the narrator use abductive reasoning to grant him knowledge. He comes up with the most plausible explanation: the cause of Schatz’s fatalistic attitude was his preoccupation with mortality. With regards to his reliability as narrator, the correctness of his conclusion provides the reader with enough information to understand the cause of Schatz’s behaviour. Based on the speaker’s conclusion, the reader can now reread the story and connect Schatz’s attitude with his preoccupation with death. Thus with this piece of information, the reader can now understand sentences with incomplete syntax such as “I can’t keep from thinking” (about death). The reader’s newly acquired knowledge about Schatz helps him understand his behaviour. Hemingway takes the reader in the same epistemic journey the narrator goes through. The reader’s knowledge corresponds to that of the narrator and the truth of the latter’s knowledge helps the former make causal sense of the events through the same logical mechanism: abduction. So in this story the narrator’s possession of epistemic methods, such as reminiscence and logical thinking, coincides with his reliability and thus the abovementioned intuition works.

Johnson’s tale presents an unreliable narrator. This is evidenced by the disconnectedness of the text. The following piece of dialogue demonstrates that there is a lack of narrative clarity in what he is saying: “‘Are you hearing unusual sounds or voices?’ the doctor asked. ‘Help us, oh God, it hurts’ the boxes of cotton screamed. ‘Not exactly’ I said”. He does not tell the truth to the doctor, instead he ambiguously offers a false account of his experience. The personification of the boxes implies that the speaker is indeed hearing voices in his head. The reader does not get any sort of explanation as to why the boxes of cotton seem in pain or why the narrator is the only one to hear them[3]. The image feels random and is left unexplored and disconnected from the rest of the scene, opening the possibility of madness. These inaccuracies make the reader wonder whether he can believe anything of what the narrator is saying at all. Furthermore, the story closes with a pastoral image of nature that has nothing to do with the hospital and serves no particular purpose: “It was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us (…)”. The appearance of the first person of the plural form implies there is more than one person in that final image. However, the reader is not told who that other person or those other people are or why they are with the narrator in this landscape, which again provides the narrative with an aura of disconnectedness and a lack of clarity.

If our intuition that a narrator’s knowledge is directly to proportional to his reliability is correct, having established that the narrator of Car crash while hitchhiking is unreliable it should follow that he also lacks knowledge. Nonetheless, this is not the case and thus there are no grounds to defend the existence of such a necessary correlation in this story. The narrator can be interpreted as someone in possession of some sort of inexplicable knowledge. In the line “and you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you”, in which he speaks directly to the reader, the word “ridiculous” implies that the narrator pictures himself living in a different realm of reality which puts him in a position to insult the reader, depriving the reader’s existence any sense of purpose. Following what Nietzsche[4] would call a master’s morality, he looks down on humanity and imposes his own set of wills and values upon it. He believes that he has acquired a status which separates him from the non-teleological lives of human beings. This state corresponds to Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch. If the narrator is in an intellectually superior position to that of the reader, he must have a type of higher-level knowledge which the reader cannot possibly have[5]. I would venture so far as to say that such a knowledge is that of being a character inside a story. Johnson’s plot depicts a reality in which what Nietzsche considers to be the ultimate step of human evolution consists of being part of a work of fiction. Such a realm cannot be expressed in words; it must be experienced. It is the one thing that the reader cannot know but that a fictional narrator can know. Readers do “expect” narrators to “help” them understand the plots, but this narrator is aware that that cannot happen here because he cannot explain what it is like to live in such a different epistemological world[6]; that of pure art or what Nietzsche would call “the sublime”. His knowledge does not correspond to what the reader is able to know, which explains the unreliability of his narration. As a result, Johnson’s story demonstrates that there can actually be an unreliable but yet highly knowledgeable narrator.

To conclude, although there are cases in which a narrator’s knowledge directly corresponds to the extent to which a reader can trust what he is saying, this relationship does not always work. So it must be concluded that a narrator’s knowledge is not an infallible indicator of narrative reliability. There is a degree of independence between these two concepts. Both factors may coincide sometimes but, contrary to the initial intuition, one cannot trace a pattern between them that applies to all cases.

Word count: 1491

Fernando Martinez-Periset

Harvard University

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[1]  In other words, the more knowledgeable the narrator, the more trustworthy he is and vice versa; for it seems intuitively absurd (at least to me) to suppose that a story can have a reliable narrator who knows nothing about the events being told or an unreliable narrator who knows everything about the plot, assuming the texts are non-deceptive .

[2] For example, he refuses to let anyone in his room and he asks his father to leave if it “is going to bother him” (to see him die).

[3] Although one may infer it is because of the narrator’s drug abuse.

[4] As an anecdote, my hairdresser who is absolutely insane has been lecturing me on Nietzsche’s philosophy for years!

[5] It’s a world in which Hume-ans Kant drive De-cars without Russelling

[6] As Thomas Nagel points out, there is no way of knowing ‘what it is like’ to be a bat. His illustration applies to this case too. The reader cannot know ‘what it is like’ to be a character inside a story.