As the global position of the United States as the dominant power in the world order deteriorates, China is quickly closing the gap with fierce economic competition. Despite China is the closest economic and military competitor the United States is presently concerned with, China’s recent fortunes do not necessarily have to galvanize a wresting hegemonic transition between world powers. This is because although China’s successes could herald a reorientation of the world order from a Western-centered one to an Asian-centered one, it is important to consider that China does not just compete against the United States alone, it also faces a Western-centered system that is characterized by transparency, integration, and rules and regulations with powerful political implications.

Since the conclusion of World War II the United States led in the creation of universal institutions that brought democracies and market societies together under the unifying banner of cooperation and mutual gains for all participants. This is how the current system encourages participation and discourages attempts to alter it. The existing order is distinctive in that it has been more liberal than imperial and so unusually accessible to third parties that it has received significant recognition of legitimacy. Its rules and institutions are derived from the evolving global forces of democracy and capitalism and is a self-rewarding and – consequentially – a self-enforcing system. It is expansive with a broadening swath of participants, prospective participants, and current stakeholders, which make it difficult to overturn and easy to join. China has already discovered the massive economic returns that are possible by operating within this open-market system ostensibly because it is through this order that all its progress to date was made possible.

The United State’s power and influence over the Western order allows it to design and reconstruct the environment in which China will be making politically and economically strategic choices. Therefore the strategy the United States should employ would give China greater incentives to integrate into the Western-centered system, recognize its legitimacy, and offer its support to that system. The present conditions of the order are already very attractive because the post-WWII Western order has an unusually high level of solidarity circumscribing a widely endorsed system of multilateral institutions that regulate a plethora of global and regional issues, economic issues, and political and security-related issues. The United States and its Western allies have conjunctively established an unmatched foundational basis for cooperation, interaction, interdependence never witnessed before, and cooperative authority over the global system.

Meanwhile, actions we can take at home are just as important as important as actions we take abroad. We can and should enact domestic policy that will buttress our position in the world order by having sound economic and fiscal policies concerning taxing and spending, and increased investment in technological research and development, and education. Cutting excessive and unnecessary spending is the first and most crucial step, raising tax revenue is the second step, and printing more money to devaluate the dollar is the third step. Together these policies should result in economic stability, more efficiency in government, and increases in domestic manufacturing. The subsequent increase in the level of exports from the devaluated dollar and rise in domestic investment should begin to close our trade deficit gap. From this position we can challenge China on the technological and educational fronts to make ourselves a more potent challenger and cling to our agency within the current world order, and limit our losses from failed policies.

Although transitions in power have traditionally been, and conventionally are, between two countries – a rising power and a declining hegemon – the current system is an anomaly in this respect. The larger collection of capitalist democratic states and the resulting accumulation and organization of geopolitical power shifts the balance in the Western order’s favor. These incentives generate a motivation for China to integrate into the liberal international order, and are reinforced by the nature of the international economic environment. The new interdependence between countries of the modern world is partially driven by technological advancements in production.

The problems negatively affecting productivity and growth in the United States economy

China is expected to surpass the United States’ economic capabilities by 2020, and some believe they will transpose their economic might to military strength to become the new global hegemon, freely exerting its will over the rest of the world. However it would have to do so within a network of international institutions far more developed than ever before in human history. Additionally it is doing so while currently making active use of these institutions to promote its own development and status as a global power in the international arena. China is increasingly working within the Western constraints, rather than against the Western order as an externality: they are a permanent member of the United Nation’s Security Council, and they utilize the World Trade Organization to maximize the reach of their exports and minimizing their cost.

China has a mammoth and burgeoning trade surplus and the United States is struggling with an enormous and expanding trade deficit. This is to say that for China the number of exports dramatically exceeds the number of imports consume, and for the United States imports we consume dramatically exceeds the number of exports. Simply put, the United States consumes far more goods than it produces and China produces far more goods than it consumes. The goods China does import are mainly input-commodities for production such as raw materials and fuels while exporting primarily manufactured goods such as motor vehicles, electronics, and other high-tech products. This specialization of production affords China the ability to corner markets and dominate production of certain goods, from which only they will benefit because those high-quality goods can only be produced by them.

A nation’s balance of payments is equal to the difference between private savings and national investment. A nation with a savings rate that’s greater than its investment rate will most likely have a trade/payments surplus, and a nation with a savings rate that’s lower than its investment rate is likely to have a trade/payments deficit. Although such a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing on its own, it can only be validated through significant gains from national investment which can then be used to increase private savings. China’s national savings rate has been very high over the past two decades, whereas the American savings rate was comparably lower over the same period.

Meanwhile our current tax code is a relic of Reagan-era tax cuts on wealthy individuals and corporations complementing a system of large government and high government spending. This creates conditions of stagflation and is not optimal and hardly beneficial at all. The tax cuts are defended on the grounds that the money will be reinvested into the US economy, creating more jobs and subsequent government revenues and the US will see growth. However in a global system such as ours there is no incentive for profits to be reinvested within our own borders when it’s far more profitable to invest that money in Asian markets such as China’s or India’s. Therefore we are hemorrhaging money to the very countries who are challenging our strength, which is not a particularly wise strategy.

Although it is improper to blame China entirely for America’s trade deficit, they still use unconventional methods to succeed which sometimes go beyond any ethical threshold. China doesn’t play by the same rules as everybody else in the international economy. Chinese policy has been designed to generate a trade/payments surplus and to make China the world’s dominant industrial and technological power, through the sacrifice of immediate improvements to conditions in the lives of Chinese citizens. China has unfairly kept its economy closed to non-Chinese goods, protected its domestic market, and employed other devices such as export subsidies and dumping to achieve a trade surplus, artificially low interest rates. China also employs a strategy of digital espionage and piracy of United States intellectual property rights that costs United States companies literally trillions of dollars a year. Chinese companies – often under government instruction – will steal production plans and market strategies and use them to their advantage, yielding huge costs to American.

The debate about dealing with the national debt has been characterized by two sides: the Democrats wish to raise taxes and cut government spending, and the Republicans wish to cut more government spending and additionally cut taxes. However the common misconception in this debate is that we all must choose between paying lower taxes and receiving more in government services. By cutting wasteful spending and closing corporate tax loopholes we could make the government’s use of tax dollars more efficient. But largest government spending issues are in the big middle-class items such as Medicare, social security, and the mortgage- interest deduction. Federal taxes are currently at 15% of GDP, which is historically low, and government spending at 24% of GDP, there is no realistic way to close the gap without increasing tax revenues by either raising rates or eliminating deductions and loopholes.

Solutions to the identified problems consistent with maintaining a powerful international position

China’s usurpation to the position of hegemony is not entirely inevitable, however at this point it can be deemed reasonably likely. It can also be deemed reasonably likely that should China reach this position it will want to reorganize the global operating system to its favor, eliminating things such as liberalism and democracy from the system altogether. But the Western order has the potential to turn the coming power shift into a peaceful change on terms favorable to the United States but that will only happen if the United States sets about strengthening the existing order through heavy investment and attention given to international institutions making them more effective and persistent.

Our first step should be a method of prevention to contain the threat. Raise taxes on America’s highest tax bracket and corporations and close corporate loopholes to increase government revenue. Cut unnecessary spending, specifically in the areas of foreign aid, Medicare programs, and provide United States citizens the option of not participating in the social security as they are unconstitutional programs.

Of Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush’s administration, many officials were hostile to the liberal multilateral rule-based system that the United States has built and since dominated. This would not be a rational position to take in my opinion. China will keep accruing power for itself and the United States’ most powerful strategic defense against that is the ability to decide what sort of international order will be in place to receive it. China will surpass the United States as the largest state in the global system sometime around 2020. And because of its burgeoning population China only needs to have a level of productivity one-fifth that of the United States to become the largest economy in the world by this time. But despite this dramatic increase the Chinese economy will still be much smaller than the combined economies of the OECD for the foreseeable future. This is the same with military strength because China will not be able to compete with the total OECD military expenditures anytime soon.

Therefore, if China intends to challenge the current order then it has a much more comprehensively challenging obstacle than economically and militarily surpassing the capabilities of the United States. The concerted efforts of the remaining stakeholders in the Western world order will exceed those manageable by China alone. The “unipolar moment” will inevitably pass and when it does U.S. grand strategy should be crafted around the question of what kind of international order would be most beneficial to the United States when it is less powerful? If the United States can’t prevent the rise of China or limit its own catastrophic losses, but it can ensure that China’s subsequent accumulation of power is only exercised within the regulations of institutions that the United States and its partners in the Western world order have established, rules and regulations concerning war and trade can protect the interests of all states in the future.

Conclusion:

First, we should invest heavily in the institutions that support the Western-centered world order which we so greatly depend on in a platform on which we are rapidly losing ground to China, making them more efficient, more effective, and ensuring they will protect us from Chinese domination if and when they reach the position of hegemony.

Second, we should invest heavily in research and development in the areas of technology and education, so we can boost our global standing in math and science and specialize in market production. Providing the next generation of Americans with improved education specifically in the areas of math and science will assist in the successful future of competitive American capitalism.

Third, we should raise tax revenue by increasing the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans and corporations and closing tax loopholes, and cutting unnecessary government spending. This should increase government’s efficiency and legitimacy and provide sufficient funds for the previously mentioned investments and prevent suffocation of small and developing businesses by their successful domineering multinational counterparts. We should be moving away from corporatism and back to the roots of the successful capitalist system which was based in the principle of freedom.

Civil obedience under the regime of Bashar al-Asad in Syria is demanded through a combination of legitimacy and coercive reinforcement. Voluntary compliance to the regulations of the regime is produced through a system of symbolic manipulation and regulation of political discourse which atomizes the Syrian population and alienates each from one another, preventing them from becoming politically active. Coercive reinforcement is applied to assist this insulation process and prevent any transgressions from gaining momentum and affecting substantial change or damaging the power-system of the regime.

To demolish this self-enforcing system of political domination requires two things: the surfacing and recognition of this dissimulation through permissible transgressions, and a subsequent opposition of sufficient magnitude to produce a cascade of protest and refusal to obey the demands of the regime. This deprives the regime of its legitimacy and forces it to rely solely on coercion, which can only be enforced to an extent, beyond which it must reorganize, dissolve, or somehow regain an adequate amount of voluntary compliance.

How the government achieves its legitimacy:

Cluttering the public space with symbols and iconography that project the power of the regime, and forcing citizens to participate in the activity, exhausts the minds and bodies of civilians and conditions them for proper dissimulation. By confronting citizens individually, consistently, and elaborately with the implicit nature of the regime’s power it can generate an environment in which citizens will constantly assume they are under the surveillance of the regime and behave according to its satisfaction. This is done through the utilization of spectacles as a means to afford grandiosity and awe to Asad and his regime.

The regime also employs a strategy of maintaining an official discourse which pervades and defines all conversations of political topics. Through manufacturing a prescribed set of narratives which buttress the regime it creates an illusory stable political system, and it additionally enforces its own perceived power in the eyes of the citizens through commanding of them absurd and unreal beliefs. The effect of this official discourse is a public dissimulation in which citizens behave as if they ascribe to the irrational claims of the regime, when in fact they are merely pretending to avoid a harsh recourse.

The regime also invokes familial metaphors in its semiotic content referring to Asad as the father – who traditionally is afforded obedience in exchange for providing – and referring to Syrian state as the mother – who is the home under the care of the father – and referring to citizens as the children, which serves to depoliticize them. By transforming the entire population of citizens into children of the state they are no longer considered to have rights or political power, they are simply subservient units to the father in exchange for his service as protector and provider. Therefore, when there occurs opposition to Asad he is vindicated in his harsh repressions because it is the father’s right to maintain order within the home.

How the government enforces its legitimacy through coercion:

The regime coerces obedience through fear of punishment, without which it would surely fail, administered by the regime and delivered by the security apparatus. Coercion reinforces the government’s legitimacy by applying a swift and brutal chastening whenever an intolerable transgression takes place. Fred Lawson describes the Syrian military as one of the most foreboding in the Middle East – a region characterized by high security spending – which at one point in the late 1980s consumed as much as twenty percent of Syria’s gross national product (pg. 425).

The effect of these domination techniques results in the atomization of the population. It produces an environment of unease and distrust in which fear of reprisal prevents anyone from transgressing the boundaries set by the regime. Insulating the individual deprives a population of its power in solidarity, and as no individual could dream to topple the regime single-handedly it is a powerful method of domination.

No authoritarian regime can exercise total domination or control over its citizens, there are always some aspects of public and private life that escape its grasp. The concept of a totalitarian regime – in essence – is an unfeasible one, because if nothing else the realm of the subconscious mind will remain unfettered. Asad’s regime allows some “permissible transgressions” against it, within clearly defined boundaries set to prevent any public galvanizations of retaliation against the regime. These transgressions may initially appear arbitrarily designated, but they do follow a prescribed formula. Political activists in Syria must resort to creativity in raising points, or political commentary, because if they cross the boundaries it will result in censorship or perhaps punishment. However, if they can succeed in addressing taboo political issues while appearing facially neutral to the censor boards, they can generate a cohesive sentiment of shared unbelief among their viewers. This cohesion is a weapon against the atomizing agents of the regime.

As Abbas discussed in “The Dynamics of the Uprising in Syria” by the time the revolt broke out the regime had already made its decision on how it would be dealt with, that was the security option. There was no room for negotiation, for peaceful talks, or even for strategic non-violent manipulation, it was instead decided that demonstrators would be forcibly removed from the streets through the use of the military and that the resulting death and violence would be a useful tool in preventing the movement’s growth. Soldiers were told to use any form of violence to suppress the movement and that citizens were to be humiliated (pg. 5), to remind them of their position in the hierarchy of power. This is an example of the regime losing legitimacy. Once voluntary compliance is no longer present the regime is left only with their use of force, which for many is a strong and effective deterrent, but for a population accustomed to the frequent use of violence as a means of control it can be expected to be somewhat less effective.

How the citizens may oppose government and reclaim power for themselves:

The precept of isolation as a means of depoliticizing Syria’s citizens creates conditions in which opposition to the regime must accrue in what Wedeen describes as a “cascade” effect of transgression (pg. 152). That is, once an initial transgression occurs in a publicly observable context the dissimulation is broken and the presence of mutual understandings of unbelief create conditions in which more citizens are likely to break character and join the revolt. As more join in it becomes a full-scale demonstration with burgeoning participation and as the cascade of opposition grows, so reduces the options of the regime in dealing with it.

A clear example of this cascade effect is demonstrated in the opening of the Abbas article which describes the primary symptom of the current revolt in Syria. In the commercial market in Damascus a traffic police officer reprimanded the son of a trader who in turn was steadfast to preserve his dignity and cursed the police officer. Other traders witnessing the incident stood in support of the young man and so began a protest on his behalf. The situation escalated until eventually the Minister of the Interior convinced the traders to end their protest (pg. 1). Although Abbas attributes this incident to the influence of the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia – which is quite possible when considering the timeframe – the process by which the protest began and subsequently gained momentum is a cascade effect of transgression.

Conclusion:

The amalgamation of political strategies of domination in Syria prevents civil society from political participation by atomizing its population. This is achieved through establishing a system of voluntary compliance reinforced with coercive recourses. Surfacing the mutual sentiments of unbelief through permissible political transgressions is the first step towards bringing about solidarity to replace the isolation of the population. Once concerted efforts can be organized and directed – should they be juxtaposed to voluntary compliance – the regime must resort to the recourse of coercion through force. This strategy of domination as a singularity is inadequate to achieve the required obedience of the civilian population and will force the regime to reorganize, dissipate, or regain its previous level of voluntary compliance.

Bibliography:

Wedeen, Lisa. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Print.

Abbas Hassan. “The Dynamics of the Uprising in Syria.” Arab Reform Initiative, 51. October 2011. Print

Lawson, Fred. “Syria.” Politics & Society in the Contemporary Middle East. Ed. Michelle Angrist. Boulder: Rienner 2010. Chapter 18. Print.

After the Second World War the United States experienced a huge economic expansion as technology developed exponentially – providing faster and more efficient means of production – and yet still remained uninhibited by governments and environmental activists as the cry of the United States rang out the banner of capitalism and the free-market system. This was a time that facilitated many great environmental catastrophes, before the EPA was established in 1970, one of which greatly affected the Northeast: the Hudson River contamination with PCBs.

PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls are a highly stable compound that won’t easily decompose or conduct electricity. That’s why they made perfect insulators for electrical circuits in transformers, capacitors, and coolants, which was how they were used at the facilities in Hudson Valley and Fort Edward along the Hudson river. PCBs can also be used for several other things including plastic softeners for water bottles, adhesives, and hydraulic fluids. Production of PCBs was dominated by the Monsanto Company since 1929, and GE remained one of their largest customers until the 1970s. It seems that Monsanto Company has a hand in every sort of nefarious environmental issue, the pinnacle uninhibited capitalism.

The effects PCBs have on health in humans have very serious consequences and were well-known by producing companies since the 1930s, however they seemed to feel compelled to share their findings with the public or let it stop them from pouring these chemicals into our ecosystem. In fact they worked hard to prevent knowledge of these effects from spreading, and ever reaching the desks of our congressmen despite huge outbreaks of PCB poisoning many years before the federal ban was enacted. The earliest reported cases of PCB poisoning occurred in 1922. In Japan, 1968 – ten years before the chemical was banned in the US – over 14,000 people were mass-poisoned because of PCB contaminated chicken feed. They still remained legal because the effects were played down and at the time everything took a backseat to the capitalist ideology and free-market growth.

PCBs are a carcinogenic compound with highly mutagenic effects. Adults exposed to the chemical will experience rashes, internal bleeding, and ocular lesions. Exposure to PCBs can cause developmental problems, especially in girls, as the PCB molecule can inhibit and imitate production of estradiol commonly leading to further development problems, irregular menstrual cycles, and breast cancer. Children exposed to PCBs, or fetuses in the womb also suffer poor cognitive development. Also PCBs can be passed through life forms all the way up the food chain exposing each to the contamination and its resulting symptoms, and of course an early death.

GE released as much as 1.3 million lbs. of PCB waste into the Hudson River over the course of thirty years starting in1947 and concluding after a federal ban was placed on the chemical in 1977. A year previous, in 1976, the NYSDEC banned all fishing in the upper-Hudson River due to high levels of PCB contamination in fish and other aquatic life forms. Fishing companies were forced out of business and many people lost their jobs or were forced to relocate.

It was established as a Superfund site, the nation’s largest to date, which under Superfund law deems GE the responsible party for the disaster and thus for its cleanup as well. Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 which also stipulates that if the EPA cannot find the responsible party they have the authority to form a commission and pay for the cleanup through their budget of $8.5 billion.

GE is to blame for the contamination without a doubt, but to their credit at least the company assumed responsibility and is actively participating in its cleanup project. Root of the problem is the impotence of the EPA coupled with the economic and political savvy and self-servitude of GE. Since the area was established as a Superfund site in September of 1984 the EPA made few advances toward the cleanup as GE actively fought the Superfund law in court, lobbied congress in their favor, and spread misinformation about the contaminated site through the media. They even managed to convince a number of people that the dredging project would stir up the PCBs and make the problem worse.

GE is targeted and the EPA is to a lesser extent for its ineffectiveness in mandating the cleanup. The EPA, NRDC, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc were all active participants in the policy evolution. The first agreement was reached in 2002, in which the EPA asserted that 40 miles of the riverbed needed to be dredged by and GE agreed to cover the financial cost of the project. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act all the documents of correspondence between the EPA and GE are available to the public. However, in 2005 they revised their agreement in secret and won’t release the documents surrounding the event, despite pressure from the NRDC to do so. The modified agreement says that six miles of the contaminated site needed to be dredged to declare the site “cleaned”. The stipulations put the cost of the project at about $500 million dollars, $400 million of which are expected to fall to the taxpayer.

One unique and scientifically fascinating characteristic of this disaster is the surprisingly rapid genetic mutation in the Atlantic tomcod, a bottom-feeder and common species to the Hudson River. Just after GE stopped the dumping these creatures were living for a maximum of six months before the poisons eventually killed them. However, there remained enough of them living long enough to reproduce themselves and pass their evolutionary traits down through generations. Evolutionarily those fish most adaptable were the ones to survive the longest and reproduce the most, triggering a genetic mutation in under fifty years. The mutation occurred specifically in the proteins of the AHR2 receptor that allowed them not to bind as easily to the PCB molecule. They could then accumulate enormous amounts of the chemical in their bodies without dying, and would get more resistant to the chemical with each generation. This is a bitter-sweet development, because it demonstrates the strength and persistence of life, yet with more contaminated fish becoming more and more contaminated these chemicals spread faster throughout the ecosystem. The fact that the tomcod is the primary food source of the striped bass doesn’t help the spread, because the striped bass is consumed by many land mammals and birds of prey in the area. Before the site was contaminated much of the fishing industries built themselves on the abundance of the tasty striped bass, so the fish was good for people too. But now we must work to avoid these fish and any other animals that might have eaten them.

The ending looks bleak for this particular environmental issue, not because the problem is failed to be addressed, but because it is in the best interests of the two primary actors – the EPA and GE – to drag out the logistical planning until nobody remembers the issue anymore and then clean up a fraction of the site for a fraction of the price at the expense of American people: financially and physically. What a proud democracy we are. This issue will disappear into the “completed” file of the EPA but it’s legacy will live on in the form of mutated fish and over 90% of the nation’s largest Superfund site will remain contaminated for years to come.

The philosophies of Marx and Locke are surreptitiously similar, as their fundamental assumptions appear to coincide rather harmoniously. These assumptions hold that power is maintained by the people and can be demonstrated through consolidation of numbers. In Locke’s writings this comes across as the first proposition of modern democracy, while in Marx’s writings it was interpreted as the seeds that spawned socialism. The differences are that while Locke centers his ideas around political sovereignty, Marx lived during the unique time of the industrial revolution and therefore addresses the issue of economic sovereignty and exploitation.

Locke puts forth the notion that since individual human beings in the natural state magnetize to form a society, therefore the sovereign power must serve each individual’s private interests. Thus the state is a pragmatic arrangement with limited powers, and the primary role of the state is to protect man’s property from other men. This is the fundamental idea of democracy, to combine into a community where every man sacrifices executive power for joint control of the state. Government is the authority that arose from the necessity to resolve discrepancies or inconveniences that came about as man gained property.

Marx seems to continue on Locke’s ideologies since democracy had been employed new issues were surfacing as a result, namely the class struggle and economic divisions of unregulated free-market capitalism. He lived in a later time of more generous liberal political rights than Locke had, yet so many people were still miserable. The worker suffers from a severe lack of power under the poor manufacturing conditions Marx observed in 1844. The worker was essentially a slave to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, forced to work overtime without pay, forced to work without stopping for breaks, forced to work in crowded and diseased conditions, and forced to work as children. This was indeed a form of slavery, because the only way to survive was to work for competitively low wages at manufacturing facilities under the control of the bourgeoisie. Should they dare to question or disobey they would lose their job, be unable to support themselves as no other work existed, and starve and die. This is economic authoritarianism.

The way to counter economic authoritarianism is to form a collective union that can take power out of the hands of the ruling class supervisors and put it into the conjoined hands of the proletariats. Power in the economic sense is derived from ability to produce goods, which previously was maintained in its entirety by the bourgeoisie, is now stripped from them if enough workers each stop doing their part in the production process. This is economic democracy, so demonized as communism by the United States thanks to the historical struggle of the Cold War. But it follows ideologically with Locke’s theory of democracy and popular sovereignty.

Marx describes freedom a human being contemplating himself in a world he has created. This idea seems to fall into place quite nicely next to Locke’s position on property, that man, enacting his labor upon nature creates his own property. Each works to create a world of his own, through their labor, and in doing so becomes a free man. However, Marx noticed that many workers did not live in a world they created but were born into it without a choice, and any attempt of theirs to change or recreate it would be suppressed by the ruling class. Through their work they never achieved emancipation, but rather alienation from the world and everything in it. The bourgeoisie too are alienated from the world, but their wealth keeps them at ease and comfortable enough to maintain the stasis.

I would recommend Marx’s philosophies to global society today as I believe the power of industry and economic forces still exploit a multitude of people throughout the world. Partly in thanks to the darkly absurd Cold War which pitted capitalism against communism – two economic systems – in a political and military struggle. This fails be a logically accurate determination of which system produces the greatest society because it fails to incorporate a dialectic as posited by Marx. The only way to achieve a synthesis of the greatest ideas in the world is to have a conversation about them in which you must hear the antithesis to your thesis – a concept that frightens the insecure man. The fact of the matter is that completely unregulated markets give way to exploitation as they politicize misery, an idea first put forth by Marx. Complete government control of economic systems has also been tried and failed, so maybe instead of embracing one or the other in their entirety there should occur a dialectic between the two, to synthesize the greatest aspects of both philosophies into the greatest system we can think of as a species.

So what are the missing pieces and how do we find them? We must use the two tools we humans have at our disposal: observation and logic. Once we assume they exist beyond comprehension, we then inadvertently and formlessly comprehend the incomprehensible. This parallels the idea that in learning about yourself you change yourself, then you must learn about yourself again – it’s a perpetual function, and life is dynamic. But of what use is a formless comprehension if what we desire is a complete understanding? Not much, but it’s a start. A uniquely human quality is to question not just the existence of mankind on Earth but of matter itself. Why does matter exist? Because it’s impossible for nothing to exist when even nothing is something. Empty space is in fact something: a multi-dimensional platform. Is it then possible to leave this universe or step outside it? By definition, universe implies the totality of existence, so it would be impossible to step outside it or view it with pure objectivity since we originated from it. ‘Multiverses’ would still exist under the qualifying ‘universe’. So where did it all come from? Was the big bang just a coincidence, or the product of an externality that exists outside our universe? If it exists at all then it must be part of the universe because the term is all-encompassing. If there was this external creator I have described it would be considered by most to be God. So either existence is the product of coincidence which led to the random sequence of events that made us arrive where we are now, or it was deliberate and each action has significance to reality. Hmm that’s a melon-scratcher. Actually it’s a paradox – because they are both true yet they contradict each other. What it does though is it negates any notion of moderate significance in either direction. When distilled to the original process that created the universe it was either deliberate or accidental.

Paradoxes are flaws in reality, or perhaps just flaws in human interpretation and barriers to understanding. Humans use logic and analytical reasoning to understand everything yet logic requires sufficient-necessary conditions and contra-positives. The logical flaw with sufficient-necessary conditions is that they require an original assumption. The ultimate irony of the paradox is that even logic is logically flawed. ‘We shouldn’t kill each other’ is just such an assumption which then drives ensuing logical conclusions. Some would argue that these ‘original assumptions’ derive from innate characteristics of humanity that evolved out of convenience or necessity. So if the light of logic is our one beacon to comprehension that is fundamentally flawed then we are indeed cast into darkness: we have no clue where we are or where we’re headed, mankind loses his sense of touch and can’t even feel around in the dark anymore for guidance. Yet the light of human understanding still exists all around us which just casts us from darkness to paradox again. Well if our two tools – logic and observation – are flawed and redundant then we are all fucked: for lack of a better world.

Writing About Literature

Professor Read-Davidson

6 December 2010

A Critical Interpretation of Existentialism in “The Collector” by John Fowles

Contemporary social and moral problems that plague us are the source of misunderstanding and miscommunication in The Collector. The novel is existential literature that hypothesizes the connection of humanity in spite of the wildly different variations in perception. Fowles attempts to illuminate these social and moral problems for his readers so that they may gain broader perspectives and eliminate behaviors that result in these problems from their lives. The Collector has a unique style that incorporates a dual-narrative from different perspectives and defies a consecutive time structure. Initially, we assume one voice is right and one voice is wrong, one good and one bad, one true and one fake. We don’t allow ourselves to trust the voice of Clegg because we assume his psychological disorder, while we accept Miranda’s voice as the truth because she is the apparently sane victim of his cruelty.

“Since the story is told in Clegg’s own words, it places us inside a repulsively alien mind, a claustrophobic prison like the one Clegg himself puts Miranda in; but Clegg is so thoroughly repulsive that any sane reader must remain separate from his perceptions of reality and thus experience the prison without feeling imprisoned by it.” (Nodelman 333)

When we experience Clegg’s perspective, we sympathize more with Miranda, and when we experience Miranda’s perspective we sympathize more with Clegg. Fowles manipulates the narrative voice in the story to prescribe us those feelings which is the invert of normal perspective voice which would ideally make us sympathize with the narrator. What this does is provide us with a unique perspective that encompasses both of theirs while supplying us with the disposition that they are both equally wrong. The importance of the differing narrative voices is the obliviousness of both characters to the other’s subjectivity. Clegg, with the mind-frame of a collector, takes things of beauty and possesses them – controls them. To him, her desperate longing for freedom comes across as hateful disdain for him because his mentality won’t allow him to acknowledge the possibility of another human desiring anything other than what he desires. “He won’t, refuses, to see her as a conscious subject who is constituted as a subject of her world; instead she is, for him, only an object in his.” (Campbell 45-53)

Fowles dispels these veils of illusion which prevent the desired empathetic understanding of mankind from entering our minds by alternating the narrative voice. It isn’t until we’ve reached the second part that we can even begin to comprehend the thematics that are being presented to us. The idea is that whatever another person thinks or feels is not necessarily identical to our own thoughts and feelings – despite the comfort we would receive from such a reality – and they don’t have to be, just to achieve an empathetic understanding. What elevates this book’s significance beyond the thrill of cheap horror-fiction is its illustration of two characters completely withdrawn into their own fantasies, which creates a fishbowl around their minds through which they cannot see or experience another person’s reality or even consider it exists.

“It is the revelation that we must take Miranda seriously that makes the beginning of part two such a shock – a shock that Fowles clearly intended, for once there is a real person inside the role, we must feel compassion for her, no matter what character Miranda reveals, as soon as she reveals any character at all she becomes human, and the book moves beyond the fake horror of the thriller.” (Nodelman 334)

What we can assume from these observations, and his prominence in existential literature, is that Fowles is attempting to address the issue of subjectivity in humanity and how it affects our reasoning and behavior, and prevents us from fully objectifying situations without excluding factors that could otherwise influence us. “The main effect of that separation is to force readers to concentrate on the claustrophobia of Miranda’s character – her involvement in herself – just as we had previously focused on Clegg’s claustrophobia – his involvement with himself.” (Nodelman 335) He wrote without the intention to confuse us with dense ideas or tricky metaphors or predict our doom or convince us of the hopelessness of it all; but rather to spoon-feed us a new formula for thought, which is that the world exists beyond our perception of it and we would be wise to attempt to understand it.“The prophetic mode is entirely avoided. This book is not essentially symbolic; it uses symbols only of the most predictable kind: dead butterflies, paintings, photographs, sunlight, a cellar, and the old historical house in which most of the action takes place.” (Bagchee 221)

An almost feminine theme with which we are presented is the juxtaposition of Miranda’s minor growth with Clegg’s absolutely static perception. It’s doubtful that Fowles was attempting a political advocacy of feminism, but rather as a depiction of the circumstances under which we are allowed to develop. To put it simply: comfort and satisfaction never instigated personal growth. They are instead illusions of completion we feel after fulfilling false desires to which we surrender our hunger for truth and knowledge. Miranda is under extreme duress, which is not surprising in her situation, and it provokes her small mind to attempt an understanding of Clegg’s small mind which, ironically, is exactly what Fowles is trying to do and get us to do as well. He is arguing that it doesn’t have to be this way; that with an interest in humanity’s welfare also comes the desire for compassion and understanding without which it is unachievable.

“Furthermore, the growth that commentators perceive in Miranda would have been counterpointed by the absolute stasis of Clegg – his inability to respond to new ideas – so that the novel would have clearly made the distinction between the male as “stasis, or conservatism” and the female as “kinesis, or progress” that Fowles posits in The Aristos (165-166).” (Nodelman 335)

The derivation of Clegg’s name is significant of his role in this concept. He is the “key” to a more perfect world, and understanding the reasons behind his actions is the first step to achieving this goal. Once we establish a basis for understanding evil – that it’s just caused by variations in perception, and an unwillingness to accept others’ existences – we can eliminate it from ourselves and consequentially from society. “The literary and linguistic allusions and hints are no less obvious: the references to Miranda, Caliban, and Ferdinand – ironical in the last case – and the derivation of Clegg’s name from clef, a key.” (Bagchee 221)

Humanity is the same, for the most part, and the only variables that determine our actions are changes in circumstance. All too much are transgressions attributed to faulty characters instead of met with an assumption that you may act in a similar way under the circumstances they face in their lives. We must distance ourselves from the “right and wrong” dichotomy which does nothing but perpetuate conflict in society, and instead understand the world from Clegg’s perspective which is reality to him, and therefore every bit as relevant as our own. “A novel is seldom merely the embodiment of social and moral philosophy; above everything else is a story, a particular story, with its own peculiar drama, its distinctive tensions, and its unique “reality”.” (Bagchee 222)

A single narrative from Clegg would be considered a psychological case study, but when Miranda begins narrating, it provides us with context and a new perspective. We are “[presented with] a complex drama of conflict, tension, clash of personalities, as well as intimate insights, and unexpected emotional reactions.” (Bagchee 222) This leaves us wondering whether either or both of the stories can actually be true, and whether one can be more valid than the other. Take the idea of G.P. for instance: he is the focus of her fantasy when she writes in her diary, and therefore a completely different story from the one we just read. She discusses G.P. more often than Clegg, despite the fact that Clegg is the only person with whom she is allowed contact. G.P. is her animus – and yet even through no contact with him in the novel are we to assume that he is what she portrays him as? We have already discovered Miranda is not as Clegg imagined her; the only thing he was actually obsessed with was his anima – not her as a human being, but her as the object of his desire: the idea of her. “They are not mere allegorical representations of life and death, or any other antithetical set of terms.” (Bagchee 222)

Miranda can appear to be the more reasonable of the two, but only because her analytical reasoning is more identical to that which occurs in our own homogenous society, where any difference is met with fear and loathing. Therefore we accept what she says, and because we accept it we don’t go beyond that and attempt to understand her psychological profile in the context of his. What sets her apart from Clegg is that she has the ability to explain her thought processes in greater detail, and to guide us to her conclusions more effectively; a result, I assume, of her education. Certain things she says are revealing of her own fantasy like “I love life so passionately, I never knew how much I wanted to live before.” (Fowles 127). She is trying to provoke our sympathy by flaunting herself as the victim. She imagines herself to have an extraordinary passion for life while she expects the rest of humanity to be indifferent? What gives her this greater understanding that leaves the rest of us indifferent about living? She is miserably human. She defines her surroundings in the context of her own lifestyle by displaying a loathing and contempt for man’s primitive roots in nature and calling it a “hateful primitive washstand and place” (Fowles 128). She has an obsession with hygiene, and is reserved about discussing the natural functions of the healthy human body. She also “prays to a God she’s not sure she believes in” (Fowles 129), which is about as human as it gets, if not less so because she can’t even find convictions within herself in the darkest times of her life.

Clegg’s own fantasy is more cut and dry, because of his constant longing to convince us of his position as the victim in all situations. Miranda has an easier job of selling her ideas to us for sympathy because we already understand her to be the victim – and therefore we are pre-disposed to assume her as the victim in all situations – so all she then has to do is express her thoughts and feelings honestly. Clegg has no finesse, or method of persuasion, beyond the blunt and often simplistic way of appealing to our sympathy through his faults and inadequacies. “Shows she never loved me, she only thought of herself and the other man all the time.” (Fowles 286) He is attempting to tap into the human connection by appealing to our common understanding of man as imperfect; he tries to convince us that we are capable of doing the same as him – which we most certainly are – and that he shouldn’t be judged for seizing an opportunity. In fact, he should be praised for accomplishing his goal despite his enormous imperfection.

“The irony of this story can be seen also in the fact that Miranda seals her own fate by being herself. With each successive escape attempt she alienates and embitters Clegg the more. Clegg is not predisposed to hating Miranda. In fact it’s amazing how much trouble from her he is willing to put up with. He is quickly able to get over his annoyance after each escape bid by Miranda.” (Bagchee 225)

Both of them are trapped in their own fantasies to the extent that there can be no other outcome then disaster. The contents of each of their characters won’t allow them to resolve the predicament peacefully.

“Because what it is, it’s luck. It’s like the pools – worse, there aren’t even good teams and bad teams and likely draws. You can’t ever tell how it will turn out. Just A versus B, C versus D, and nobody knows what A and B and C and D are. That’s why I never believed in God. I think we just live a bit and then we die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.” (Fowles 250)

This quote appears to reflect Fowles’s own religious beliefs, as he is also an atheist. It also states the thesis of this paper in simple terms that no philistine should have trouble comprehending – allowing their ability to read – which is just another example of Fowles’s giving us his ideas simply to evoke understanding as widely as possible. We all like to think we matter, and that’s why we randomly assign meaning and value to our lives in a manner that blocks our view of the enormous void that overshadows us. In truth there is no greater plan.

“There’s nothing human like hearing or seeing or pitying about [God]. I mean perhaps God has created the world and the fundamental laws of matter and evolution. But he can’t care about the individuals. He planned it so some individuals are happy, some sad, some lucky, some not. Who is sad, who is not, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. So he doesn’t exist, really.” (Fowles 204)

This is Miranda’s view of religion, that eerily parallels Clegg’s in its nihilistic conclusion. She demonstrates her progressive nature and intellectual superiority in contrast to Clegg’s conservative stasis by mentioning the fundamental laws of matter and evolution. Strategically, she puts evolution under the power of God, which is too often thought illogically to be a theory that disproves his existence, and still reaches the conclusion that he can’t exist; and if he did it wouldn’t matter. “I don’t think I believe in God anymore. . . .What I feel I know now is that God doesn’t intervene. He lets us suffer. If you pray for liberty then you may get relief just because you pray. . . .But God can’t hear.” (Fowles 204)

Ironically, through all the differences between them and their thoughts and perceptions we still put down the book with a greater sense of the connections that tie all the fishbowls of mankind together. “The curious thing about the novel is that in spite of the immeasurable spiritual gulf between Miranda and Clegg their narrations rhetorically illuminate each other.” (Bagchee 222) Really their perceptions are just two sides to the same story; a story that has infinite sides and no ending. What we should do is learn as many of these as possible to achieve the greatest understanding of the world without predispositions through a free exchange of ideas. The differences that define Miranda and Clegg’s spiritual gap are eclipsed by illumination of the similarities of the other’s ideas, which determines their unity as human beings.

Works Cited

Bagchee, Syhamal “The Collector”: The Paradoxical Imagination of John Fowles” Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 8, No. 2, John Fowles Special Number (1980 – 1981), pp. 219-234

Published by: Indiana University Press

Campbell, Robert “Moral Sense and the Collector: The Novels of John Fowles,” Critical Quarterly 25.1 (1983) 45-53

Fowles, John The Collector Published by: Back Bay Books, 1997

Nodelman, Perry “John Fowles’s Variations in “The Collector”” Contemporary Literature Vol. 28, No. 3 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 332-346

Published by: University of Wisconsin Press

Ariel’s freedom is contingent on his service to Prospero, and if he disobeys him he will be imprisoned again. Ariel was originally imprisoned by Sycorax because he refused to do her bidding, which leaves him in an oddly similar situation with Prospero. Prospero exerts control over Ariel by reminding him of the tree Sycorax imprisoned him in. What this conveys is the message that Prospero is not so different from Sycorax considering they are also both exiles and magicians. They are also both very clever, because they can turn a powerful spirit into a slave by threatening to take away his freedom. The irony is that he loses his freedom either way. Ariel’s manner is consistently obedient and completely contrary to Caliban’s behavior which is kept in check with Prospero’s painful spells. These two parallels of slave behavior are signature to those resulting from imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Those who were praised and eventually promised freedom after services rendered were more inclined to serve their masters wishes. Those who were abused and humiliated seethed in anger and constantly suffered lashings to break revolutionary spirits. This demonstrates the advantage to effective manipulation over control through force and pain, as Ariel clearly proves to be the more valuable servant.

Caliban is Prospero’s slave who, unlike Ariel, is reluctant to complete his duties. He understands his situation as hopeless and has no illusions of freedom, ironically because he is more often considered a simpleton. He also seems to be entrusted with the sole task of chopping wood, which he is loathe to do. Caliban is rightfully the heir to the island as Sycorax’s son, which further embitters him to Prospero who humiliates him so. Caliban was essentially betrayed by Prospero, because as he says, they were once friends when he first came to the island, but once Caliban had taught him the secrets of the island he turned on him. All Caliban’s hatred culminates in his attempt to rape Miranda as a way to steal her innocence and deeply hurt Prospero. Prospero’s one method of keeping Caliban in line is physical pain (pinches, cramps, stings, bites) which he inflicts through magic spells. There is an absurdity to this which leads me to believe Shakespeare is drawing a connection between this and Britain’s imperial slavery system, which controlled slaves through brutal force and physical pain. He is trying to express to us the futility of using such methods as it will only lead to seething hatred and rebellion.

Miranda’s relationship with Prospero is revealing of their class-society standing through their attitudes and actions. She depicts a privileged teenage girl who has her father wrapped around her little finger, so to speak. He was a wealthy aristocrat who has delusions of greatness, control complex, and feels a strong connection to his daughter as a single father thrown into exile. They’ve spent immensely more time with each other than with anyone else. During their interaction here Miranda opens the scene complaining to her father to stop the storm because it frightens her. She then proceeds to ask her father about their family and history, and when he tells her the story she shows a sarcastic lack of interest. No wonder he often has begun to tell her the story of how they came to be on the island and then stopped; she probably showed the same sarcasm to his story before. Their interactions are meant to show the hypocrisy of the power structure, that some people feel they deserve more than others. It also explains why Prospero’s treatment of Caliban hardened so dramatically after he tried to rape Miranda, and why Miranda could convince Prospero of her love for Ferdinand so easily.

Eliot Stier

HIST210

Professor Maher

12 November 2010

The United States has come dangerously close to following in the footsteps of the British imperialists of the 1920s. It must be understood that democracy shall never arrive and be accepted in Iraq unless it occurs organically within its own borders. We have seen the failures of nation-building time after time, especially in Iraq where we are still blind to the true nature of the state. The political structure of the state is woven into society and is the source of its violent control; but at the same time all its problems.

Since the end of the First World War Iraqi politics have been dominated by extreme levels of violence as a method of dominating and re-creating society. Similarly, communal and ethnic divisions were exacerbated by the same administrations to cause civil unrest. State resources have also consistently been used to buy favor with certain powerful factions of society, and crude oil revenue has been the cornerstone of establishing Iraqi economic autonomy. These are all contributing factors to Iraq’s domestic illegitimacy. It is important to understand this when considering the present state of the nation, and the current attempt to bring democracy to Iraq.

The remaining traces of civil society were wiped out during the Baathist regime, especially within its last ten years of power in which sanctions were designed to explicitly cripple state institutions. Saddam Hussein, as it turns out, was not the cause of – and thus executing him was not the solution to – Iraq’s violent political culture. Nevertheless the United State’s thirst for reprisal following the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in New York City was enough to blind logic and rationality. If there is one thing we can learn from the political history of Iraq it’s that foreign occupations are met domestically with suspicion and hostility. And with good reason: the people of Iraq have been abused and taken advantage of for nearly a century, so it would be illogical to expect anything other than a violent response.

One of these strategies used by Hussein to retain power was to tie the population to the state. After the Gulf War, an estimated 40 percent of Iraqi households were directly reliant on government payments for survival. Trade unions were obsolete since the government required workers to petition the government on an individual basis for improvements to wages and working conditions. UN aid came in 1996 which required citizens to fill out a ration card application if they wanted to receive the benefits. These cards provided the government with significant information about each household that applied, and the regional constraints on use of the ration card prevented citizens from traveling. About sixty percent of the population depends on these handouts day-to-day. Hussein’s networks with his extended clan, the al-Bu Nasir, and affiliated tribes helped maintain order and social cohesion in exchange for government support. Members of these clans held top positions in every state institution. Dodge describes this system as a “shadow state” which involves “flexible networks of patronage and violence that were used to reshape Iraqi society in the image of Saddam Hussein and his regime.”[i]

The fundamental problem that British colonizers experienced – and the problem the US apparently fails to realize presently – is the way they understood Iraqi society. The British colonial administration was planning a brief occupation with minimal costs, followed by a clean withdrawal and continued access to their oil fields. In order to minimize costs they required Iraq to be self-supportive, although they could continue vicarious control through British advisors and puppet governments. As it turns out, the cheapest way for the British to keep order came in the form of regular airstrikes to prevent an uprising. Eventually, they set about allocating power to those individuals they believed to have social influence. They channeled resources through these individuals in hopes that social order would be maintained, and the result was a state whose social order had a shaky foundation. These individuals also used extreme violence to keep order and prevent a coup, in the same manner as the British. This constant destruction prevented state institutions from ever penetrating society. As Dodge puts it, “Autonomous collective societal structures beyond the control of the state simply do not exist.”[ii]

There are many similarities between British mandated imperialism and modern US attempts to stabilize Iraqi politics. Repeated mistakes and misunderstandings make one wonder if the Bush administration truly had no idea what they were doing early in their occupation, or if they in fact hoping to achieve a state of destruction and chaos for personal benefits. Nation-building has become increasingly popular since 1989 despite its no-success history in Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. So whether or not direct foreign intervention in a country’s political structure can be successful, we have no way to determine the tactics that actually work from the tactics that breed chaos and violence.

Likewise we can draw a parallel between Britain’s past behavior and the US’s present behavior. The US also had little understanding of Iraqi society upon entering the war. The dangers are that the US will recognize the aspects of the “shadow state” to be the authentic representations of Iraqi polity, or the US could re-imagine Iraqi society to be dominated by tribal and religious structures which could lead them to make the mistake of re-instituting the structures previously set up by the Baathist dictatorship and Saddam Hussein. That is, in fact, exactly what the US proceeded to do when searching for “figures of social influence” like the British imperialists. The administration appointed intermediaries hand-picked by Hussein to be his eyes and ears, so to speak. They were chosen by the US for the same reason they were chosen by Hussein, and the same reason the British allocated power to influential individuals originally: they would become channels for resources, generating good will among the population, and power for the administration that appointed them. This increased hostility of Iraqi society toward American occupying forces.

There is no question that bringing democracy to Iraq would greatly improve the quality of life, quality of governance, international trade, and global status. However before we attempt to bring democracy in the form of airstrikes on Baghdad, let us first try to sever the connections of the clans to the government and provide guidance to help establish a stable infrastructure. The people of Iraq are becoming increasingly resentful of Western nations playing with their country like it’s their own puppet show, so this would require precision and speed above all else. Realisticly, the cost of occupying another country is too great for any long-term investment; as was realized by the US and the British before them. As we are presently trying to extricate ourselves from the mess we made of Iraq there should be one lesson learned: Nation-building doesn’t work.

[ii] Dodge, Inventing Iraq: the Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied 159

There is an interesting point in the novel at which the three remaining androids are snipping the legs off a spider and watching Buster Friendly’s exposing of Mercerism, he calls it a swindle and the androids agree with him. It’s a clear picture of what man would like to call inhumanity: a complete disregard for empathy, compassion, and kindness. However any excerpt from human history will tell you that these traits can’t be called human because they’re barely exercised. It is simply the distinguishing feature mankind would want to emphasize for the classic purpose of dehumanizing the enemy.

I suppose the next question we must ask is should human copies deserve to have their humanity recognized? Can they be categorized as human? I can see no clear answer, but as human copies they will have the condition to defend themselves to the rest of the world. In the novel Dick portrays androids as exceptionally ‘human’ to an extent, and I find it unlikely to follow in a realistic situation, showing Luba Luft as an opera singer – someone who can sing as beautifully as any human could. Rachel had her feelings hurt by Rick and she responded by pushing his goat off the roof, which is a very shallow and human thing to do for an android. Not only that but Mercer himself was an android: the originator of their religion. Religion is a uniquely human practice. These are interesting in juxtaposition to the humans in this novel who are portrayed largely as mechanized and android-like. They dial into emotions into their mood organs that they can’t experience naturally, they need to experience empathy artificially as well, and Rick, being the most robotic of them all, is cold-heartedly hunting down and murdering exact human replicas with calculated cruelty.

10/04/2009

Promiscuous Reading

King Lear’s Redemption

In this essay I will show that Lear is redeemed at the end of King Lear. Through his journey he learns valuable lessons and his overall character develops. He finds who is loyal to him, who loves him, and who wants him dead. He realizes he has behaved like a fool, and regrets it until his death.

One of the unique qualities of Shakespeare’s King Lear, is its seemingly bleak nature and lack of character development. King Lear’s apparent digression into madness is not a usual subject storyline, because it threatens a lack of interest on the part of the audience who expect to follow on his journey and end in a better place than where it began. They are extraordinarily disappointed.  Yet something in King Lear keeps us hooked, lets us sympathize with the characters, and by the end effectively purges our souls.

Lear does change, and not in subtle ways. The man we meet in the beginning is not the man we grow to love and sympathize with at the end.

At the beginning of the play King Lear is dividing his kingdom amongst his three daughters. We are to think the daughter who can verbalize her love the best will gain the largest territory in return. This may not be the case. Goneril speaks first and Lear tells her what piece of his kingdom he will give her immediately after she is finished, before he has even heard from his other two daughters. Regan speaks next, and again he gives her a piece of his kingdom without hearing from Cordelia.  This means that Lear must have already divided his kingdom and chosen who was to rule what part before the opening of the play. This is definitely a reasonable and rational thing to do, however it doesn’t happen onstage. Instead it opens with Lear behaving in quite a childish manner: trying to gain flattery, and then flying into a rage. This is the beginning of the end for Lear.

Goneril and Regan treat his outburst as the beginning of Lear’s descent into senility, and proceed to try and force him out of power. This is an interesting response considering how much they claimed to love him in the first scene. This is significant because it is Lear’s first glimpse at what the world is really like; people will lie to get what they want, and will treat him scornfully when he loses all his power. Cordelia couldn’t say a word about her love for her father despite an ominous “nothing”, yet she loved him until the very end. In fact, when reunited with Cordelia,  Lear does nothing but comfort her while they are being held prisoner by Edmund.

LEAR   Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?

He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven

And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes.

The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell.

Ere they shall make us weep,

We’ll see ‘em starved first. Come. (5.3.20-26)

He finally sees that it was Cordelia who loved him the most all along. He now becomes what he should have always been, a caring, loving father. Now he wants to be with her more than anything, when at the beginning of the play it was his only desire to marry off his daughters so he wouldn’t have to be a father to them.

Cordelia’s death stirs up Lear’s emotions in a way we see for the first time. She is still, even in death, his main focus and primary concern. Despite his initial statement of knowing what a dead body looks like, he tries with a looking glass and a feather to test her breath. He has gone from being completely self-involved in the beginning of the play, to being completely involved in his daughter. Even with his last words he’s looking at his daughter’s lips.

LEAR   And my poor fool is hanged. No, no! No life?

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button. Thank you sir.

O, O, O, O.

Do you see this? Look on her! Look, her lips!

Look there, look there! (5.3.305-312)

Through his journey Lear learned that though Goneril and Regan pretended to love him deeply, they were only playing to his ego to get more land. He discovered his mortality, and his shortcomings, like how quickly he can fly into a rage and banish his only daughter that actually cared for him. Not only does he redeem himself by learning truth, but also redeems himself with actions. When reunited with his daughter he acts like a comforting and loving father, which was all he needed to be. It took torturous situations that nearly drove Lear mad to help him find what was actually important to him.