This might be the most touching book of Mr. Dostoiervski, the one that shapes clearer the sense of a human who believes to be a superhuman, able and allowed to commit deeds beyond the social laws. Rodion Raskolnikov murdered a greedy old woman worthless for the society at all.
Rodion Raskolnikov aimed to erase that kind of useless elements of the society based on a supernatural skill to understand what was going wrong. He in fact murdered Alyona Ivanovna unleashing deep rooted anguishes from his souls.
What is important to highlight is the discovery of the consequences that arose from that feeling of real authority beyond the mankind and allowing him with to rule over the destiny of the masses.
Raskolnikov is just a normal person granted with the same rights and authority than the others, but, besides his ability to understand the society in which he lives and the kind of people grown up from it, he, at the beginning believed to be endowed with a kind of supreme moral authority like other special people (Napoleon for instance). This self-conferred authority supported him to commit the crime.
Nevertheless the feeling of moral superiority quickly faded into the reality. He indeed was a simple man who realized later not to be that kind of special human being and the tortuous path to achieve his social and personal redemption tells the last part of the story.
Crime and Punishment is not only one of the best psychological novel but is one of the most accurate description of the human soul by the perform of the deeply hidden but very real feelings of self-destruction, and the impossibility to rise an universal power based on a supreme moral authority.
THE DWARF
The dwarf is just the joker and personal messenger of Federico Sforza but, by his personal thoughts, the dwarf shapes a historic contexts in which the sense of morality has strong attachments to the personal placement in the royal court.
This character behaves being conscious of his bad actions, questioning by the way the links between the ethic and the necessity to improve social influences. Along the tale the dwarf suffers of constant dilemmas which at the end takes him out of the court due to his strange and cynical behaviors but strangely fulfilling his masochistic desires in the dungeons.
The dwarf is just a question about what morality means in society and how it can change depending on historic contexts.
Finally it is worth enough to underline the importance of the character of the dwarf. He represents the evil side of the human behavior under a context of humiliation and physical disability.
The dwarf is a monster created by the society, maybe not guilty by himself, a kind of cruel externality, a monster placed in the underground of the human mind.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel wrote by the famous XIXth century English writer Charles Dickens, it takes place during the years after the French revolution, describing the social and political context of two different societies at the same time. The English society as an example of civilization, development and the representation of the apollonian side of an urban context placed in London. Dickens faced the urban context with the social struggles embedded in Paris after the French revolution, the regime of terror (bloodlust, revenge and scare as the Dionysian dread dimension).
Dickens explained through the novel a complex, social context rooted in a very important moment in human history; this context, the Duality between good and evil, right and wrong, these dualities are already presented in social historical processes and are shaped under a territorial context, representative of a few cities.
This duality between good and evil has been a rooted-ivy dilemma from the beginning of the times; this dilemma is attached to several dilemmas and eternal existentialist doubts entrenching them through massive beliefs.
However, is too hard to expect a neutral view of Paris during the reign of terror from an Englishman, but besides it, Dickens perform the social convulsions and struggles originated on blood thirsty and sense of revenge after centuries of segregation and social unfairness.
Coming to the argument, the book shows several characters involved into some dramatic events, each of them represents a very different position going from the ambiguity of Sydney Carton whose redemption coming at the end as a sign of loyalty, self respect and capability to sacrifice. In the other hand there is Charles Darnay who being a simple mind and often generous person, has to drag the chains of his familiar aristocratic background to the point of almost get his head off during the aftermaths of the revolution.
The most interesting character seems to be Dr. Alexander Manette. He was a part of the first attempts to change the French society and found guilty, forced to be grounded at la Bastilla’s jail. Coming back to life after a period of darkness and insanity thanks to the encounter with his daughter, he develops a dual nature changing at the end to the representation of the common sense.
At the end there are the Defarge’s couple. They represent the greed and bloodlust of the radicalism during the regime of terror. Those people are able to unchain the vengeance on the approach of their own interest being probably the most sharpen critic from Dickens to the historic events.
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
Jules Verne travelled during his life all around the world in several times. His travels were seldom physical trips just because he mostly imagined the world rather than know it by himself.
His outstanding wisdom about the geography in the early XIX century was probably achieved after hours at the public libraries, probably by this way he created a whole parallel world in his mind.
Around the world in eighty days is about a debt made between a perfect Englishman (Phileas Fogg) who strongly believed on his abilities plus a strong stubbornness compromised to be back in London after travel around the world in no more than eighty days.
Here it is very important to highlight two aspects of the Victorian epoch in which the tale is developed
The first one is on the cold and almost mechanically behavior of the main character Mr. Fogg. This is the time in England then the high class people are unable to show their feelings and sensations to the others considering it as a bad taste and lack of education. Mr. Fogg passed through a lot of troubles during his journey but his phlegmatic attitude never changed.
The second aspect might be the most interesting one. During the story there´s a spatial way through many societies and nations belonged to the former English colonies. India and China evolved strong attachments with the empire by that time and that is enough support for Mr. Fogg in many aspects of his journey.
Probably what Verne meant with this book was to create one of his great adventures, a world minded by the author in a kind or romantic way far from the reality of unfairness and injustice in which the English empire submitted its colonies.
It is predictable the success of Phileas Fogg´s journey and the way how he won the debt, not without some surprises at the end. This book, however, embodies two opposed aspects, the idealistic world shaped at Verne´s mind and the real world. Those aspects in contradiction don’t collide lessening the quality of the book, it is just a funny tale.
THE TRIAL
Josef K (Kafka
maybe..) is involved into a trial for unknown reasons. The bureaucracy of legal
processes where there is almost impossible to know why, how and where a person
can be judged fades into a context of uncertainty. The whole structure of a
foggy process contextualizes this Kafka’s book.
Josef K has been
called to defend and prove his acquittal one day changing his barely normal
life into a descendent coil of events, people trying to help him and at the
same time getting involved into the truculent world of bureaucracy.
If K is a guilty
or innocent person no longer matters during the development of the argument. The
point is how to influence the different statements and authorities during the process;
in fact, his charges are unknown and never are showed up. Again Kafka explains
the hard reality of the judicial structure as an uncontrolled dimension in which
nobody seems to manage or even understand the meanings or targets nor even how
does it work.
The trial is not
only a legal process but time after time it becomes an abstract creature that
swallows up the defendants to the point where they cannot be considered anymore
people granted with rights but a bunch of maggots begging for a minimum advance
of their trials at the court.
This sinister context
is skillfully described by the author in the life of Josef K. This character
changes his attitude along the book from the total underestimation to the
concern and then the stress of a bureaucratic rope getting tight as time goes by.
The evolve of
the legal affairs takes K to a periodic moments of stress or even paranoia
originated on one simple statement, this is the uncertainty of what can happens
to him, when it will happen and the impossibility to escape from it.
However, this
context is able to be changed (never finished) by the help of the most strange
actors. In fact K tries to use for his own purposes women of different natures,
lawyers and even a painter who works for the court but is enhanced with accessibility
to different legal authorities.
The book never
was finished. It has a clear beginning and a cruel end but there are some black
holes along the text that makes imagine about what was missing. A detail that
don´t decrease the great quality of the book.
At the end it is
supposed that K is found guilty, an speculation coming from the fact that he is
condemned to a strange and cruel end. An end that pretty matches with the threatening
context in which the main character is involved.
GRAPES OF WRATH
Droughts and
desolation, generalized poverty across the American countryside plus the worst
economic crisis originated on the real estate speculation. This is the panorama
referred in Grapes or wrath by John Steinbeck. This book describes the catharsis
of an economic model and its negative consequences.
Grapes of wrath
is the story of tom Joad and his family during their migration to California
during the time of the Great Depression forced by the poverty, the special droughts and
the lack of opportunities in Oklahoma.
This accurate
portrait of a social model falling into pieces generates maybe a period of the
best American literature. This can be considered a classic drama and the search
for hope during one of the hardest times in the history of the United States.
During the
peregrination in search for opportunities the Joad family faces different problems
related with the lack of money and the pursue of a chimera, the problem is that
they are not the only ones. In fact, thousand of people are following the same
dream of California generating by the way a massive migration known because of
the stereotype of the “Okie”.
At the end of
their journey they realize that thousand of migrants like them who had reached
the west coast are concentrated into makeshift camps under control of the
government, situation approached by several farmers and land owners who are
making a lot of profit based on the cheap labor provided by the migrants.
The potential
conflict explode as the family breaks out at the moment they may support or not
the strikes of the workers who are claiming for better work conditions, at this
point Tom Joad who already broke his parole in Oklahoma murders an attacker and
become fugitive once again.
At the end of
the book the writer drive us to an analysis about what can be wrong in a
society where a few irresponsible “bastards” lead to starvation and economic
upheavals thousands of people, the omnipresent feeling of hope shining at the
end of the road and the fight against social injustice.
THE NAME OF THE ROSE
A thriller
located within medieval contexts is at least a weird speculation. The Name of
the Rose of Umberto Eco is one of those books that suddenly transfer the reader
into a flashback nevertheless hard to escape from it.
The Name of the
Rose is a suspense story embodied into a monastery, killer monks, the dark side
of the religion and the rising of an investigation related with bloody crimes,it shapes one of the
most striking books of the last 50 years.
The novel start
when Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and a Benedictine novice
Adso of Melk are introduced into a monastery somewhere in the north of
Italy, at the beginning they are only attending a theological dispute, but, since several apparent suicides or murders appears along the story, the argument
changes to a detective research developed by the ability of William by the deductive reasoning method to achieve clues.
It gets worst
once the inquisition arrives in the middle of the research to obscure the truth
of the death monks, a fact that however hinders the reaching of clues of the
friar Williams. By the Inquisition’s intentions it becomes clear that there
should be a religious secret behind the deaths and what should be possible to
discover evolves the last part of the novel.
Another point
able to remark is the way how the author shapes the developing situations
within the architecture of the monastery, being itself an important character.
Secret architectures, the sharp intuition and wisdom of Friar William plus the
natural ingenuity of Also step by step clarify the entangled events to a very
imaginative point. What it is forbidden and the reason of dead people is just
a consequence of the titanic efforts of the church to keep the Greek classical
philosophy of good properties of laugh and be happily free to stay hidden. The
only reason regards on the consideration of those aspects will go against the
religious faith.
At the end it becomes clear the contraposition and ambiguity of the church during those times aiming to keep secrecy above some kind of classical philosophy that even go against
the theological speech but in the end is just a vulgar display of power.
Next Issues: The Clown
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