Reflecting Eagleton: Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism
The Modern
The avant-garde culture which dominated Modernism attempts to reintegrate art into political life to achieve socio-political ends, a socialist future in which art and society achieve a mutual enlightenment. In this sense the present – the actuality – of the subject is merely a dislocated future which exists simultaneously as now and to come. History then becomes a rupture in temporality (re: Cubism, montage in cinema) rather than a linear narrative.
Modernism resists commodification by rejecting the bourgeois forms and tropes of representation in favour of the less consumable and non-representational: surrealism; dadaism; serialism; the theoretical (or academic) enfranchisement of form and structure as reified, for example, in the work of the Cubists, the neoclassicists, and musique-concrete. In this regard, “Modernism refuses to abandon the struggle for meaning” while simultaneously attempting to continually re-localize sites of meaning away from itself. It thus denies the self of its referent (object; “I am art”) while simultaneously glorifying the self which enacts the representation (object[strikeout word]; “I am the gesture of art”) in a performative manner.
The utopia envisioned by the Modern aesthetic was checked by elements of late capitalism which institutionalized and commodified its once revolutionary gestures. “High modernism ... was born at a stroke with mass commodity culture”; it resists commodification, but that very gesture of resistence is itself institutionalized as commodity. In protesting bourgeois elitism in art and politics, modernism attempted to remove itself from general social practice (re: mass commodity culture) and thus reiterated the isolationism and elitism it strove to overcome. It became a fetish, the singular ‘collectable’ in both its materiality and its existence as image.
The Postmodern
Artistic expression within postmodern culture is “the dissolution of art into the prevailing forms of commodity production”. It is not simply l’objet d’importance in its material form, but rather the gesture of its presentation is its ontology. Thus, Eagleton expands upon Jameson’s belief that pastiche is the mode of postmodern art by reclaiming parody as a equal structural element. Po-mo art reiterates the tropes of modernism but moves their political implications. No longer is the alienation of the human subject the dominant theme of art, as such remains tied to tradition metaphysics which correlates an a priori gesture of transcendence with all human endeavour. Consequently there can not be an attribution of value to representation; rather value is a subjective concept which must remain in relation to the art object and not an element of the object itself.
The commodification of art reflects the aestheticization of the commodity; art and political life return to the pragmatic from their theoretical plateaux. Since the modernist project was itself subsumed by commercial culture, then the postmodern project will reposition itself in a pre-emptive manner within capitalist discourse; “only that which is already a commodity can resist commodification. If the high modernist work has been institutionalized within the superstructure, postmodernist culturewill react demotically to such elitism by installing itself within the base”. Thus simple valuation of bad and good – high contra low art – is deemed obsolete; the historical process and any notions of aesthetic value which are its consequence must be forgotten, while simultaneously its forms and tropes are themselves consumed and reused by postmodern expression.
“From modernism proper, postmodernism inherits the fragmentary or schizoid self, but eradicates all critical distance from it, countering this with a poker-faced presentation of ‘bizarre’ experiences which resemble certain avant-garde gestures”. The postmodern project wrongly assumes the end of representation to signify the death of truth, and thus a multiplicity of truths can co-habitate.
The postmodern subject oscillates between the interiority of its individuality and its citizenship amongst a faceless mass.
Friday, November 03, 2000
Friday, May 19, 2000
World Bank / IMF protests in Washington DC
There were protests in Washington DC over the weekend. I was there. You were there as well, unless you have been avoiding the media coverage. I have net yet watched any of the local news, and cannot really comment on how it was presented, but I will state that the broadcasts in Washington itself were not accurate. I have to qualify this by saying that they were not accurate from my vantage point. They did reflect one particular reality however. Just as the police were at times beating protesters in a rather desperate attempt to maintain the (corporate) ideology which the World Bank / IMF represents, so were the various official news media in Washington trying to bombard the average news-watcher with a specific agenda. I believe they were ultimately more successful.
The news media proved itself quite able to disarm the power of the protest.
No issues were raised. There was little talk of why the protesters were angry, except for a few anti-capitalist soundbites. These brief rants would succeed in raising warning flags among most of the newscast’s audience, who to a great extent have been socialized to fear all forms of social conscience as communistic. There were of course many adamant anti-capitalists among the crowds, but most protesters were merely calling for limits to the excesses of rampant and unregulated capitalistic enterprise. It was these voices of moderation which were silenced by the media authorities. Instead the protest was presented as being a group of extremists who desire civil disobedience largely for its own sake. Perhaps this process was most aptly symbolized by the focus upon the anarchists, who to my eyes numbered only a few dozen among the estimated ten thousand protesters. It was they who were given the most airtime during the early “set-up” days of the protest. I can only assume that their extreme beliefs would have immediately signalled to the television audience the dangers of the protest movement. Certainly this was felt by the staff at the hotel in which we were staying, who were otherwise unaware of the goals of either the protesters or the World Bank / IMF.
The news media proved itself quite able to disarm the power of the protest.
No issues were raised. There was little talk of why the protesters were angry, except for a few anti-capitalist soundbites. These brief rants would succeed in raising warning flags among most of the newscast’s audience, who to a great extent have been socialized to fear all forms of social conscience as communistic. There were of course many adamant anti-capitalists among the crowds, but most protesters were merely calling for limits to the excesses of rampant and unregulated capitalistic enterprise. It was these voices of moderation which were silenced by the media authorities. Instead the protest was presented as being a group of extremists who desire civil disobedience largely for its own sake. Perhaps this process was most aptly symbolized by the focus upon the anarchists, who to my eyes numbered only a few dozen among the estimated ten thousand protesters. It was they who were given the most airtime during the early “set-up” days of the protest. I can only assume that their extreme beliefs would have immediately signalled to the television audience the dangers of the protest movement. Certainly this was felt by the staff at the hotel in which we were staying, who were otherwise unaware of the goals of either the protesters or the World Bank / IMF.
Thursday, April 06, 2000
Byzantine Defensive Structure: A Brief analysis of the Origins of Defence-in-depth
One could successfully argue that the cultural heights achieved by the Byzantine Empire, and Constantinople in particular, were attained in large part because of the relative peace and security that it experienced for nearly a thousand years. Certainly the Empire had to contend with a great many threats, yet only infrequently was the “heartland” centre directly assaulted. Constantinople itself proved unconquerable until it lost the battle of Manzikert in the eleventh century. The Byzantines faced numerous enemy powers on several fronts and were frequently defeated, yet throughout its history the Empire could repeatedly be defined with an overused maxim: Byzantium lost the battle but won the war. The most important factor in determining the ultimate survival of the Empire was the organization and professionalism of its military system. Living up to their stereotypical depiction as bureaucrats, it was through an administrative re-organization of the Empire that Byzantium could effectively counter and contain aggressive foreign powers. Both civil and military administration were overhauled to adopt a defensive strategy which protected the centre of the Empire while to an extent consciously sacrificing the periphery. This strategy emerged from studying the reality of frontier warfare faced by Byzantium. Above all else, the Byzantines were most adept at studying the tactics, units, and strengths and weaknesses of their enemies. A great deal of literature concerning a variety of military endeavours exists, much of it reflecting on the ancient tactics known to Byzantine scholars. Probably the more significant of these are the Strategikon – attributed to the sixth-century emperor Maurice, but more likely written by an unknown field commander under his command – the Taktika, a manual written in the eleventh century by the emperor Leo VI, and an anonymously written pamphlet frequently translated as On Skirmishing Warfare. Each of these texts describes one primary tactical consideration, namely to avoid conflict whenever possible. As the history of Byzantine warfare was to demonstrate, this was sound advice. The Byzantine army was frequently in a position in which it had to defend itself against superior enemy troop strength, not only at the strategic level but also in terms of individual battles. I will be examining the rise of the Byzantine defensive structure during the sixth and seventh centuries until the Empire was compromised by its defeat at the battle of Manzikert, which signalled then end of its supremacy in the East.
The Byzantine Empire had of course emerged from the Roman Empire, and therefore had inherited Roman military and administrative practice. Many of the threats faced by Byzantium were problems that likewise had menaced Rome, and Byzantine emperors and generals were to benefit from solutions initiated by their predecessors. Most crucial were developments in the armed forces. A new type of opponent had emerged in the middle of the first millennium with the insurgence of barbarian forces such as the Huns and the Scythians into the Roman Empire. These barbarian hordes represented a germinal type of shock warfare which could not be effectively countered by the traditional military system based on the legions. Rome’s new enemies were for the most part cavalry units which quickly struck vulnerable sections of the empire and withdrew with their plunder. To counter the damage caused by such raids, the Roman army was restructured to place more emphasis on smaller cavalry units which were obviously more mobile than the larger and much less flexible infantry-based legions. These mounted soldiers could be mobilized much more rapidly than the old legion and proved much more adept at defending the vast borders of the empire. Furthermore a smaller number of cavalry could adequately defend the frontier, which had previously required extensive garrisoning. Of course, the decline of Rome occurred despite these advances in the military, although a great many other factors were involved which lie beyond the focus of this essay. As delineated in the Strategikon, Byzantium incorporated cavalry into its military structure, yet further improved on the Roman system by outfitting two main divisions of mounted unit or cataphract, one equipped with lance or spear and the other with bow and arrow. Initially, bows were used as cavalry support, replacing the much less flexible small-unit catapults and ballistae used by the Romans. Mounted archers were adopted from the warriors of the Steppes – primarily the Huns – and proved very effective at defeating even the largest of infantry-based enemy armies. Cavalry units equipped with lance or spear were used as shock troops to break enemy lines, and also as close-quarter support for mounted and infantry archers.
The Byzantines had also learned a great deal from Roman strategic advances which precipitated from Roman frontier defence. The role of the army changed from being an instrument of aggressive imperialism to a more defensive posture. Much like the late Roman Empire, Byzantium simply did not have the human or material resources to effectively expand its borders. Nor, in fact, did it have the desire to do so. The territories held by Byzantium in the centuries leading up to the Moslem invasions of the early seventh century were in a sense believed to be possessed by the Emperor in accordance with the divine will to form a perfect correlative temporal kingdom to that in heaven. The concept of a divine empire was mirrored in the body of the emperor himself. Using a rather crude but obvious metaphor, the Byzantines believed that just as the physical body of the emperor could not be divided, neither could the lands of the Empire be fractured without disintegrating the entire state. Such an ideological stance was to prove problematic when the Western half of the old Roman empire proclaimed its independence with the crowning of Charlemagne in the ninth century. This was viewed as a heretical act, as the Byzantines believed that God had ordained only one emperor to justly rule on earth. Yet the Empire had to accept that its ‘natural’ borders were eastern, as it would have been impossible to stage any major offensive in the west. Byzantium did regain Venitia and the Dalmatian Coast as recompense for acknowledging the Western emperor diplomatically with the Pax Nicephori. The reconquests of lost land in the east, however – as carried out by the emperors Bardas in the ninth century, and Nicephorus II in the mid-tenth century, among others – was consequently believed to be a restoration of the divine will, not the potential for new beginnings which conquest usually anticipates. Of course such a belief remained largely abstract; the citizen majority were frequently opposed to the mobilization of the armies for the purpose of conquest, primarily because any offensive had to be financed by means of higher taxes. A further complication was that the ‘natural’ boundaries of the Empire were rather indefinite. Some territories which were believed to be Byzantine possessions were in fact outside of the Byzantine administrative system; Venice is a prime example of such a relationship, as it was independently governed, yet was allied with Constantinople. Border states, some of which were ostensibly outside the ‘natural’ empire, had begun to be colonised by native Byzantines by the ninth century. These settlers then proceeded to absorb the local population into the regular Byzantine citizenry, wherein Christianity proved itself to be an invaluable tool. In retrospect, this process succeeded in expanding the ‘native’ lands of the Empire. Other territories were jointly shared with foreign powers, such as Crete which was portioned between the Empire and the Caliphate. Still other lands were held in possession in largely diplomatic terms as tributary states or free alliances. Many of these diplomatically-held territories were used as buffer states against hostile foreign powers, and were therefore almost as important for the Empire’s well-being as the ‘naturally’ held ones. After the Bulgars had been pacified and an alliance secured with a diplomatic marriage, Bulgaria was used as a buffer state to keep both the Russians and the Magyars at bay. There are even a few instances of Byzantium entering into alliances with neutral foreign powers with the provision that the latter wage war with the enemies of the Empire. While such alliances did not expand the physical zone of control possessed by the Byzantines, they did establish a wider area of influence which just as ably checked aggressive foreign powers. A final means of securing the loyalty of foreign populations was to convert them to orthodox Christianity. Subsequently, they would be valuable allies against ‘heretical’ peoples such as the Turks and the Arabs. Following these considerations, the Empire was arguably defined much more by its sphere of influence than its physical possessions. Furthermore, history was to prove the fluidity of these boundaries, as they were never to remain static for any length of time. Yet the Byzantines retained their concept of a divinely ordered earthly empire, and sought to defend what must be referred to in retrospect as its most frequently held territories.
As theoretically sound as this principle was, it did not survive the Islamic raids of the seventh century. As the Moslem invasions were to show, the Byzantine army was simply not capable of providing a static system of defence against border raiders. The vast size of the empire was its greatest weakness, as many of its provinces were far too distant from Constantinople to be effectively defended. Most of the territories held by Byzantium were those most easily defensible from the capital. However, several themes such as Egypt and Palestine were of immense economic importance, and therefore justified the additional effort required to retain them. Such wealthy lands were of course as highly valued by Byzantium’s enemies, and many did not remain in the Empire’s possession after the Islamic invasions. Quite simply, the distances involved where much too great for a single, centralized army to adequately defend. The troops at Constantinople, which were the most trained and best provisioned, would have taken months to mobilize and reach any frontier conflict. The great distance to the capital was also problematic in terms of slow communications and supply trains, which adversely affected tactical decision making along the frontiers. Despite the presence of garrisons along the frontier, any substantial enemy army would quickly overwhelm and occupy border provinces before the main Byzantine force could arrive from the capital. Local ability for resistence was virtually non-existent as civilians had since the early Roman empire been prohibited from owning weapons, a precaution against rebellion. Consistent throughout the period here studied, Byzantine strategic ideology centred upon defence of the capital and its immediately neighbouring territories. Therefore, the emperor would not deploy the main army along the frontier to strengthen the garrisons as this would weaken the capital defensively. With no standing force to protect it, the vital centre of the Empire would consequently be overrun should the army fail to repulse an invasion. In the early seventh century, this possibility very nearly became manifest, as Persian forces surged into Byzantine territory, capturing cities throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, and Armenia; they had in fact raided as far as the Bosporus.
In this context the emperor Heraclius was to prove himself extremely virtuosic in countering both the immediate threat of the Persians and the long-term defence of the Empire. It was largely through an administrative restructuring during his reign and continued by his successors Constans II and Constantine IV that Byzantium was able to counter threats against its territory. The various territories of the Empire were divided into smaller, more geographically cohesive regions called themes. Initially there were fourteen themes, but they were expanded in number to twenty-one in the ninth century in order to increase their defendability by further delineating them to specific geographies. Critical frontier regions, such as mountain passes and choke points for enemy movements, were themselves made into small themes called clissurae and were under the command of a clissurarch. These clissurae maintained their entire force at a high level of readiness; consequently, the troops stationed in the clissurae needed to be periodically rotated to less exhausting tours of duty in other themes. Neither the themes nor the clissurae succeeded in completely stopping invasions, yet they did stop invaders from reaching the inner provinces of the empire, which were of course much more important from the Imperial perspective. The administrative system of the themes was tied to its military system. Each theme had an armed force containing three thousand to seventy-two hundred soldiers, depending on the strategic importance of the theme. Obviously, the themes which were most frequently under threat of invasion were provided with the most troops. The various Anatolic and Armeniac themes – which bordered the Moslem territories – had more troops than most of the lesser themes combined; the Anatolic theme was itself the largest and most prodigious, as it was the corridor for the majority of Arab invading parties. Thrace, wherein Constantinople was situated, was of course almost as significant, but it was defended primarily by the tagmata, and not the theme troops. These three themes constituted the bulk of the empire in terms of military significance: of the estimated eighty thousand soldiers in the Byzantine army in the late eighth century, only five thousand were situated elsewhere in the empire. One mush also not ignore the agricultural significance of these themes, in terms of both economic importance to the empire – Thrace had become the granary to the empire after the loss of Egypt – and population density, as they provided the bulk of the soldiers for the army. The Byzantines liked to vary the strength of their armed forces periodically to confuse enemy intelligence. Themes were the highest division of unit, followed by various numbers of turmae, which were themselves composed of numerous bandae comprising three- to four-hundred soldiers. In this way themes might be formed with the same number of divisions but contain fewer or greater troops. Even after the creation of the themes, troop strength along the frontier did not improve drastically, yet such was not the principle behind the restructuring process. Yet, save for a few minor locations, the Empire was much more secure by the ninth century than it had been since Roman times. Of course, it was helped by the civil unrest of the Arab empire, which did weaken the Moslems to the extent that no great invading force could be assembled. In any case, an excessively large army was not only very expensive and hard to co-ordinate and supply along the frontier, but it was rarely required as a defensive force. On Skirmishing Warfare states that a cavalry unit of three thousand would prove quite capable of defeating most Arab raiding parties. The themes therefore proved more than adequate at countering the incessant raids by small bands of mounted soldiers that plagued the borders of the Empire. Primarily, they were much more flexible and responsive to threats and could adapt more quickly to changing situations along the frontier. A strategos could effectively mobilize two to four turmae each of cavalry and infantry within minutes of receiving news of an invading force.
Of course, such a strategy requires an extensive reconnaissance network. An sizeable spy network had been in place since the early Roman republic, and the Byzantine system refined and expanded on its inheritance. Merchants had long been used as they could most easily and inconspicuously infiltrate enemy cities and courts. More professional agents were also used and found emplacement primarily in foreign courts as emissaries, courtesans, or servants. Important foreign officials and other ‘connected’ individuals were bribed in exchange for intelligence reports. A counter-intelligence unit was also created, the most important of which was located along the Arab border specifically to prevent the incursion of spies from the Moslem territories. These akritai served as spies themselves, although in a much less subdued fashion than their courtesan and merchant counterparts. Frequently, they raided into enemy territory to spy on or harass enemy troops to gather information, and also abducted and imprisoned enemy civilians and military personnel in order to extract information. These units proved especially vigilant in their border patrols, as they arrested any individual who did not have a permit allowing his presence.
Intelligence reports were not only scrutinized by the strategos commanding the theme adjacent to the enemy lands in which his spies were stationed, but were relayed to the other strategoi and to the central bureaucracy in Constantinople using two means. Byzantium still operated the old Roman messaging system, the cursus publicus, which consisted of a messenger corps, a series of posts where messengers could exchange their horses when they tired, and a system of roads to allow quick travel. For more important information which required to be much more hastily delivered, a system of beacon fires was created and refined during the reign of Theophilus. These beacon stations extended from the frontiers in Asia Minor to the high terrace overlooking the imperial palace. Information about any event which threatened the frontier would consequently reach the capital within an hour or so. In terms of tactical intelligence, every theme had a small scouting corps used to report enemy troop movements and formations. As the Strategikon states, such intelligence is of vital tactical importance: “before the battle and until it is over, [spies] should keep both the enemy and their own units under observation to prevent any attack from ambush or any other hostile trick”. Furthermore, “every effort should be made by continuously sending out keen-sighted scouts at appropriate intervals, by spies and patrols, to obtain information about the enemy’s movements, their strength and organization, and thus be in a position to prevent being surprised by them”. Byzantine strategists knew well that espionage worked just as easily against them, and used counter-intelligence tactics to confuse their enemies. Those soldiers who were positioned at scouting and beacon fire posts were relieved periodically to avoid betrayal. On the tactical level, the Strategikon gives further advice:
If an enemy spy is captured while observing our forces, then it may be
well to release him unharmed if all our forces are strong and in good
shape. The enemy will be absolutely dismayed by such reports. On the
other hand, if our forces are weak, the spy should be treated roughly,
forced to divulge enemy secrets, and finally either be put to death or
sent off somewhere under guard.
A primary consequence precipitating from the great distances between Constantinople and the borderlands was increased internal disunity, as loyalties to the Emperor were much more problematic. This was frequently to prove costly, most significantly during the early Moslem invasions. To pacify newly re-conquered or diplomatically assimilated populations, the Imperial government often re-settled them to other parts of the Empire, and simultaneously re-colonized the area with native Byzantines. Alien nobility were absorbed into the Byzantine administrative and military bureaucracy, and were given titles, land grants, and command duties, although most often they were forced to convert to Christianity in order to qualify. This process usually worked to placate important foreigners and suppress any insurrectionary tendencies with which they might sympathize. There were a few notable instances in which this process of imposing patriotism upon assimilated peoples rebounded against the Empire. During the eighth century, Byzantium had relied primarily on friendly, non-Islamic Arab tribes along the border of the Islamic territories to signal an upcoming invasion, as well as to fight beside the Byzantine troops. In return, these tribes gained trading privileges and protection from conversion and assimilation into Islam. Yet, the Byzantines had pushed this relationship too far by imposing the high taxes usually relegated to conquered territories, and consequently these friendly Arab tribes withdrew their support for the Empire. Arguably, it was this fact which led to the loss of Mesopotamia and Palestine to the Islamic conquers. In the early ninth century, another group of Arabs who were hostile toward the Caliphate was assimilated into the Byzantine Army. The Arabs were understandably enraged by this action, and sent an army of fifty-thousand into Byzantine territory, capturing Ankara and Amorium, the latter of which had become by this time the second most important city in the Empire. More devastating was the rebellion by the Pechenegs, a people located in the Balkans. In order to deal with the considerable threat they suddenly posed to the Empire, the emperor Constantine Monomachus relocated theme troops in Armenia to the Balkans. This allowed the Seljuk Turks free access to the entire province, and the subsequent invasion was to lead to the battle of Manzikert, which was to signal the effective end of the Empire as a superpower. A further consideration was the allowance given to foreign merchants and traders, who were authorized to establish their own cultural centres – primarily at Constantinople, which had large Islamic and Italian (Venetian) communities. In this manner hostilities were diminished along the borderlands, as foreigners gradually became Hellenised, Christianized, and acclimatized to life in the Empire. Of course, many kept their traditional cultures, yet only rarely did this sense of cultural identity become nationalistic to the extent of open rebellion.
While administrative efficiency was helped by appointing the strategos of the army as governor for the theme, this had the same potential to create rogue armies did as the older Roman provincial system. Rome itself had solved this problem by separating military and civil jurisdiction. The theme strategoi were of course reiterations of the old Republican governors, and Roman history provides sufficient evidence to warrant concern about the unification of military and civil authority in one individual. Consequently, from the reign of Heraclius the strategoi were personally chosen by the Emperor to ensure their loyalty. Similarly, a bureaucratic system was established to supervise the payment of wages to the armies, which until the reign of Heraclius had been sporadic and consequently subverted troop morale and loyalty. Importantly, this salary was paid by the Imperial bureaucracy in the capital and not through the theme bureaucracy; this was done to ensure troop loyalty to the Emperor and not to the local strategos. Soldiers in the themes were given land grants upon entering service, and these lands became hereditary possessions. The eldest male child would inherit both his father’s land and his contract to military service. Leo’s Taktika stressed the symbiotic relationship between the farming class and the soldiery; each depended for its existence upon the other. The Empire could not afford to hire mercenaries except in the interim -- and anyhow mercenary troops often proved dangerously unreliable – and its urban population proved to be useless militarily. Therefore the rural peasantry proved itself to be the backbone of the Empire’s defensive system. In this manner a continual supply of troops was ensured. One could surmise that troop casualties were quickly replaced as the sons of dead soldiers sought not only their inheritance, but vengeance for their fathers’ deaths as well. While this would certainly not ensure long-term troop loyalty, it would provide the army with a continual supply of young recruits eager to engage enemy forces. The most obvious flaw in this land-grant system was that it could be exploited by strategoi who had the desire to do so. Unlike the tagmata who were better paid and received the rich agricultural lands around Constantinople, the theme soldiers became increasingly dependent on their strategoi to support them. As soldiers had to pay for their own equipment and horses, many gradually went into debt to their strategos and were forced to forfeit part if not all of their land claims. In combination with the lands given to the strategoi for successful commands, by the late tenth and early eleventh centuries a new class of military aristocracy had emerged. If they so desired – and often they did, especially in the eleventh century – they could raise a private army under the guise of theme units to enforce their own political agendas. This would ultimately lead to a great deal of rebellion and civil war, which obviously weakened the Empire. By the middle of the eleventh century, the military and financial resources of the Empire had to a great extent been exhausted because of factional fighting between the civil aristocracy centred upon Constantinople, and the rural military aristocracy. This weakness greatly contributed to the success of the Turkish invasions before the battle of Manzikert. For the period being studied here, however, they were not a great factor in undermining the defensive position of the Empire until this later instance.
From these considerations emerged the overall strategy for the defence of the Empire, which has been termed “defence-in-depth” by modern historians. In brief, this strategic system allowed raiders access to frontier territories, yet did not permit penetration into the more valuable heartland of the Empire. Upon crossing the border, Arab armies would be shadowed by units of Byzantine cavalry and harassed as they broke up to raid the countryside. Any usable provisions outside of the city walls would have been destroyed, therefore leaving the raiders isolated and unprovisioned. The main theme force would then surround and destroy the weary invaders. This cat-and-mouse tracking stratagem was effective in isolating and destroying small splinter groups of the main force and ultimately reducing its strength without directly engaging the main army. It is hardly surprising that ambushes were most frequently used in these encounters, and indeed the Strategikon had advised just such a tactic: “Well-planned ambushes are of the greatest value in warfare. In various ways they have in a short time destroyed great powers before they had a chance to bring their whole battle line into action”. Cunning strategoi also used kidnappings, assassinations, and misinformation to sow dissension and lower morale among enemy lines. The theme as a whole – as well as any neighbouring themes who could be mobilized without compromising the security of their own territories – would then confront the newly reduced invading host, and on territory advantageous to the Byzantines and after the strategos had adequately prepared his forces. When the theme did encounter enemy troops, their tactics centred upon quick shock operations, with the lance-equipped cataphracts charging the enemy with support from the mounted archers, who would attempt to outflank the enemy lines. Should the strategos encounter an opposing army obviously superior to his own and a threat to the centre of the Empire, the Emperor would mobilize the tagmata, which would have gained time to reach the front by the delay tactics inherent in the defence-in-depth stratagem.
Of further importance to the theme system was the Byzantine navy, which until the tenth century had no equal in the eastern Mediterranean. Certainly there were other powers before the tenth century, such as the Arabs who, after the seventh century conquests were able to deploy a navy, yet they remained relatively minor in comparison to the almost overwhelming superiority of the Byzantine naval forces. Coastal and island themes had their own naval units under command of the strategos; additionally there was a central navy which operated out of Constantinople much like the tagmata, but obviously had a much larger effective field of operations. The navy served to patrol the waters around the themes, and quite successfully kept enemy raiders and invaders from landing in Byzantine territories. Most importantly however, as long as the navy retained control of the eastern Mediterranean, Constantinople could withstand any siege. Obviously this was an extreme circumstance, as any siege of the capital would be politically disastrous to an emperor. Yet on occasion, it did in fact occur. Byzantine strategy was also aided by the relative disorganization of its enemies. Beyond the early conquests, the Arabs did not seem to desire any more territory, and consequently did not organize any invading force larger than simple raiding parties. Furthermore, by the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Abbasid Caliphate was on the verge of collapse and was simply not interested in invading the empire. It was during this period that Byzantium in fact took the offensive, particularly under the emperor Nicephorus II. Of course, Byzantium’s enemies were just as quick to capitalize on occasional weaknesses within the Empire as well. Not every emperor fully supported the military. Some emperors viewed the military as an relatively unjustified drain on imperial finances which could better be apportioned within Constantinople itself. The emperors Constantine X and Romanos IV were of this ideology; while not openly hostile to military concerns, they simply felt pressure to expend resources elsewhere. Others, such as the empress Irene, were in fact openly hostile toward the military bureaucracy and consciously attempted to weaken it. For the most part, this military-administrative system reduced the threat of invasion, at least for the internal provinces.
While this defensive strategy did ultimately succeed in arresting the invading forces from capturing the centre of the Empire, it did not do so without consequences. Foremost, and perhaps most obvious, was the fact that such a strategic position required the sacrificing of the frontier lands for the containment of invaders. The raiding parties did indeed encroach into Byzantine territories, and they succeeded in plundering much of the local wealth before they were destroyed or were forced to withdraw. Defence-in-depth proved to be a highly expensive strategic ideology, in terms of both territorial destruction and casualties among the local population. Furthermore, it had one prime strategic flaw which was occasionally exploited. The various outposts which acted as garrisons and scouting forts did succeed at performing their task, yet they caused a reliance on maintaining fortified positions. The themes did indeed ultimately retain control of their territory, yet they sacrificed initiative to the raiders. They became a reactionary army, instead of one an enterprising one. What this meant in tactical terms was that they had to rely upon the movements of the enemy to precipitate their own actions. By the tenth century, Byzantine armies rarely ventured out to engage their enemy without first being prompted. Consequently, the themes lost some of their mobility, an element of tactical warfare for which they had been originally created. Larger invading forces began to turn towards the forts, laying siege to them instead of the cities, which resulted in the theme soldiers becoming merely an expanded garrison, instead of the stealthy, mobile attackers which had originally been their purpose. This in turn affected troop morale, which was of vital importance in ancient warfare. Byzantine troops frequently suffered from lower-than-desired morale because of their isolation and dependence on enemy actions to inform the activities of their own units. Many frontier troops threatened to mutiny, and some did cross over into enemy camps. Occasionally, this was due to the lack of provisions caused by besieging enemy forces. Similarly, invaders frequently had a much higher morale because their intended targets were ostensibly ‘easy pickings’. The imbalance in troop morale occasionally led to the desertion Byzantine units, who would abandon their fortified position and withdraw to the more ‘secure’ interior. Such occurred along the Bulgarian frontier, which was abandoned as the Bulgar king Krum was successfully leading his forces into Byzantine territory. Further problematic was the placement of the forts themselves, as they frequently weren’t positioned to support each other. Accordingly, successful raiders – such as the Arabs in the ninth century – were able to capture them one at a time in succession. Ultimately, what the Byzantine dependence on fortified positions to support the defence-in-depth strategy accomplished was a sense of predictability. Invaders could easily observe Byzantine troop movements, as they were confined to specific (and relatively permanent) areas. Raiders would enter into the province and do as much damage as possible before they were contained or were driven from the theme.
Yet Byzantine forces continued to succeed throughout the period here studied. The damage inflicted by invaders would quickly be repaired, defences would be rebuilt, land would be reclaimed, and the local populations – which as mentioned above frequently suffered high casualties – would continue to thrive. Usually the encroached-upon frontier was fully restored by the next campaign season. Likewise, the empire continued to thrive despite continued invasions, which were sometimes almost on an annual basis in certain key invasion corridors. The centre of the Empire was not threatened, except on a few occasions, for the majority of the four hundred year period herein examined. The defence-in-depth strategy succeeded, for example, in protecting the fertile coasts of Asia Minor by sacrificing the relatively barren wastes of the Anatolian plateau along the Arab borderlands. Viewed in the Imperial context, which was of course more interested in securing and legitimizing its authority than it was with the concerns of a distant and economically unimportant province, this was a very small sacrifice indeed.
Bibliography
Primary
Anon. On Skirmishing Warfare. (Need English translation)
Leo VI the Wise. Taktika. (Need English translation)
Maurice. Strategikon. Trans. George T. Dennis. Philadelpia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1984.
Secondary
Browning, Robert. The Byzantine Empire. Washington: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1992.
Dupuy, Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper
& Row, 1977.
Dvornik, Francis. The Origins of Intelligence Services. New Jersey: Rutgers University
Press, 1974.
Kaegi, Walter. Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
Kazhdan, A.P. and Ann Wharton Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
Nicol, Donald M. Byzantium and Venice: a study in diplomatic and cultural relations.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988
Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Apogee. London: Viking, 1991.
Treadgold, Warren. The Byzantine Revival 780-842. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1988.
Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600-1025. Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1996.
The Byzantine Empire had of course emerged from the Roman Empire, and therefore had inherited Roman military and administrative practice. Many of the threats faced by Byzantium were problems that likewise had menaced Rome, and Byzantine emperors and generals were to benefit from solutions initiated by their predecessors. Most crucial were developments in the armed forces. A new type of opponent had emerged in the middle of the first millennium with the insurgence of barbarian forces such as the Huns and the Scythians into the Roman Empire. These barbarian hordes represented a germinal type of shock warfare which could not be effectively countered by the traditional military system based on the legions. Rome’s new enemies were for the most part cavalry units which quickly struck vulnerable sections of the empire and withdrew with their plunder. To counter the damage caused by such raids, the Roman army was restructured to place more emphasis on smaller cavalry units which were obviously more mobile than the larger and much less flexible infantry-based legions. These mounted soldiers could be mobilized much more rapidly than the old legion and proved much more adept at defending the vast borders of the empire. Furthermore a smaller number of cavalry could adequately defend the frontier, which had previously required extensive garrisoning. Of course, the decline of Rome occurred despite these advances in the military, although a great many other factors were involved which lie beyond the focus of this essay. As delineated in the Strategikon, Byzantium incorporated cavalry into its military structure, yet further improved on the Roman system by outfitting two main divisions of mounted unit or cataphract, one equipped with lance or spear and the other with bow and arrow. Initially, bows were used as cavalry support, replacing the much less flexible small-unit catapults and ballistae used by the Romans. Mounted archers were adopted from the warriors of the Steppes – primarily the Huns – and proved very effective at defeating even the largest of infantry-based enemy armies. Cavalry units equipped with lance or spear were used as shock troops to break enemy lines, and also as close-quarter support for mounted and infantry archers.
The Byzantines had also learned a great deal from Roman strategic advances which precipitated from Roman frontier defence. The role of the army changed from being an instrument of aggressive imperialism to a more defensive posture. Much like the late Roman Empire, Byzantium simply did not have the human or material resources to effectively expand its borders. Nor, in fact, did it have the desire to do so. The territories held by Byzantium in the centuries leading up to the Moslem invasions of the early seventh century were in a sense believed to be possessed by the Emperor in accordance with the divine will to form a perfect correlative temporal kingdom to that in heaven. The concept of a divine empire was mirrored in the body of the emperor himself. Using a rather crude but obvious metaphor, the Byzantines believed that just as the physical body of the emperor could not be divided, neither could the lands of the Empire be fractured without disintegrating the entire state. Such an ideological stance was to prove problematic when the Western half of the old Roman empire proclaimed its independence with the crowning of Charlemagne in the ninth century. This was viewed as a heretical act, as the Byzantines believed that God had ordained only one emperor to justly rule on earth. Yet the Empire had to accept that its ‘natural’ borders were eastern, as it would have been impossible to stage any major offensive in the west. Byzantium did regain Venitia and the Dalmatian Coast as recompense for acknowledging the Western emperor diplomatically with the Pax Nicephori. The reconquests of lost land in the east, however – as carried out by the emperors Bardas in the ninth century, and Nicephorus II in the mid-tenth century, among others – was consequently believed to be a restoration of the divine will, not the potential for new beginnings which conquest usually anticipates. Of course such a belief remained largely abstract; the citizen majority were frequently opposed to the mobilization of the armies for the purpose of conquest, primarily because any offensive had to be financed by means of higher taxes. A further complication was that the ‘natural’ boundaries of the Empire were rather indefinite. Some territories which were believed to be Byzantine possessions were in fact outside of the Byzantine administrative system; Venice is a prime example of such a relationship, as it was independently governed, yet was allied with Constantinople. Border states, some of which were ostensibly outside the ‘natural’ empire, had begun to be colonised by native Byzantines by the ninth century. These settlers then proceeded to absorb the local population into the regular Byzantine citizenry, wherein Christianity proved itself to be an invaluable tool. In retrospect, this process succeeded in expanding the ‘native’ lands of the Empire. Other territories were jointly shared with foreign powers, such as Crete which was portioned between the Empire and the Caliphate. Still other lands were held in possession in largely diplomatic terms as tributary states or free alliances. Many of these diplomatically-held territories were used as buffer states against hostile foreign powers, and were therefore almost as important for the Empire’s well-being as the ‘naturally’ held ones. After the Bulgars had been pacified and an alliance secured with a diplomatic marriage, Bulgaria was used as a buffer state to keep both the Russians and the Magyars at bay. There are even a few instances of Byzantium entering into alliances with neutral foreign powers with the provision that the latter wage war with the enemies of the Empire. While such alliances did not expand the physical zone of control possessed by the Byzantines, they did establish a wider area of influence which just as ably checked aggressive foreign powers. A final means of securing the loyalty of foreign populations was to convert them to orthodox Christianity. Subsequently, they would be valuable allies against ‘heretical’ peoples such as the Turks and the Arabs. Following these considerations, the Empire was arguably defined much more by its sphere of influence than its physical possessions. Furthermore, history was to prove the fluidity of these boundaries, as they were never to remain static for any length of time. Yet the Byzantines retained their concept of a divinely ordered earthly empire, and sought to defend what must be referred to in retrospect as its most frequently held territories.
As theoretically sound as this principle was, it did not survive the Islamic raids of the seventh century. As the Moslem invasions were to show, the Byzantine army was simply not capable of providing a static system of defence against border raiders. The vast size of the empire was its greatest weakness, as many of its provinces were far too distant from Constantinople to be effectively defended. Most of the territories held by Byzantium were those most easily defensible from the capital. However, several themes such as Egypt and Palestine were of immense economic importance, and therefore justified the additional effort required to retain them. Such wealthy lands were of course as highly valued by Byzantium’s enemies, and many did not remain in the Empire’s possession after the Islamic invasions. Quite simply, the distances involved where much too great for a single, centralized army to adequately defend. The troops at Constantinople, which were the most trained and best provisioned, would have taken months to mobilize and reach any frontier conflict. The great distance to the capital was also problematic in terms of slow communications and supply trains, which adversely affected tactical decision making along the frontiers. Despite the presence of garrisons along the frontier, any substantial enemy army would quickly overwhelm and occupy border provinces before the main Byzantine force could arrive from the capital. Local ability for resistence was virtually non-existent as civilians had since the early Roman empire been prohibited from owning weapons, a precaution against rebellion. Consistent throughout the period here studied, Byzantine strategic ideology centred upon defence of the capital and its immediately neighbouring territories. Therefore, the emperor would not deploy the main army along the frontier to strengthen the garrisons as this would weaken the capital defensively. With no standing force to protect it, the vital centre of the Empire would consequently be overrun should the army fail to repulse an invasion. In the early seventh century, this possibility very nearly became manifest, as Persian forces surged into Byzantine territory, capturing cities throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, and Armenia; they had in fact raided as far as the Bosporus.
In this context the emperor Heraclius was to prove himself extremely virtuosic in countering both the immediate threat of the Persians and the long-term defence of the Empire. It was largely through an administrative restructuring during his reign and continued by his successors Constans II and Constantine IV that Byzantium was able to counter threats against its territory. The various territories of the Empire were divided into smaller, more geographically cohesive regions called themes. Initially there were fourteen themes, but they were expanded in number to twenty-one in the ninth century in order to increase their defendability by further delineating them to specific geographies. Critical frontier regions, such as mountain passes and choke points for enemy movements, were themselves made into small themes called clissurae and were under the command of a clissurarch. These clissurae maintained their entire force at a high level of readiness; consequently, the troops stationed in the clissurae needed to be periodically rotated to less exhausting tours of duty in other themes. Neither the themes nor the clissurae succeeded in completely stopping invasions, yet they did stop invaders from reaching the inner provinces of the empire, which were of course much more important from the Imperial perspective. The administrative system of the themes was tied to its military system. Each theme had an armed force containing three thousand to seventy-two hundred soldiers, depending on the strategic importance of the theme. Obviously, the themes which were most frequently under threat of invasion were provided with the most troops. The various Anatolic and Armeniac themes – which bordered the Moslem territories – had more troops than most of the lesser themes combined; the Anatolic theme was itself the largest and most prodigious, as it was the corridor for the majority of Arab invading parties. Thrace, wherein Constantinople was situated, was of course almost as significant, but it was defended primarily by the tagmata, and not the theme troops. These three themes constituted the bulk of the empire in terms of military significance: of the estimated eighty thousand soldiers in the Byzantine army in the late eighth century, only five thousand were situated elsewhere in the empire. One mush also not ignore the agricultural significance of these themes, in terms of both economic importance to the empire – Thrace had become the granary to the empire after the loss of Egypt – and population density, as they provided the bulk of the soldiers for the army. The Byzantines liked to vary the strength of their armed forces periodically to confuse enemy intelligence. Themes were the highest division of unit, followed by various numbers of turmae, which were themselves composed of numerous bandae comprising three- to four-hundred soldiers. In this way themes might be formed with the same number of divisions but contain fewer or greater troops. Even after the creation of the themes, troop strength along the frontier did not improve drastically, yet such was not the principle behind the restructuring process. Yet, save for a few minor locations, the Empire was much more secure by the ninth century than it had been since Roman times. Of course, it was helped by the civil unrest of the Arab empire, which did weaken the Moslems to the extent that no great invading force could be assembled. In any case, an excessively large army was not only very expensive and hard to co-ordinate and supply along the frontier, but it was rarely required as a defensive force. On Skirmishing Warfare states that a cavalry unit of three thousand would prove quite capable of defeating most Arab raiding parties. The themes therefore proved more than adequate at countering the incessant raids by small bands of mounted soldiers that plagued the borders of the Empire. Primarily, they were much more flexible and responsive to threats and could adapt more quickly to changing situations along the frontier. A strategos could effectively mobilize two to four turmae each of cavalry and infantry within minutes of receiving news of an invading force.
Of course, such a strategy requires an extensive reconnaissance network. An sizeable spy network had been in place since the early Roman republic, and the Byzantine system refined and expanded on its inheritance. Merchants had long been used as they could most easily and inconspicuously infiltrate enemy cities and courts. More professional agents were also used and found emplacement primarily in foreign courts as emissaries, courtesans, or servants. Important foreign officials and other ‘connected’ individuals were bribed in exchange for intelligence reports. A counter-intelligence unit was also created, the most important of which was located along the Arab border specifically to prevent the incursion of spies from the Moslem territories. These akritai served as spies themselves, although in a much less subdued fashion than their courtesan and merchant counterparts. Frequently, they raided into enemy territory to spy on or harass enemy troops to gather information, and also abducted and imprisoned enemy civilians and military personnel in order to extract information. These units proved especially vigilant in their border patrols, as they arrested any individual who did not have a permit allowing his presence.
Intelligence reports were not only scrutinized by the strategos commanding the theme adjacent to the enemy lands in which his spies were stationed, but were relayed to the other strategoi and to the central bureaucracy in Constantinople using two means. Byzantium still operated the old Roman messaging system, the cursus publicus, which consisted of a messenger corps, a series of posts where messengers could exchange their horses when they tired, and a system of roads to allow quick travel. For more important information which required to be much more hastily delivered, a system of beacon fires was created and refined during the reign of Theophilus. These beacon stations extended from the frontiers in Asia Minor to the high terrace overlooking the imperial palace. Information about any event which threatened the frontier would consequently reach the capital within an hour or so. In terms of tactical intelligence, every theme had a small scouting corps used to report enemy troop movements and formations. As the Strategikon states, such intelligence is of vital tactical importance: “before the battle and until it is over, [spies] should keep both the enemy and their own units under observation to prevent any attack from ambush or any other hostile trick”. Furthermore, “every effort should be made by continuously sending out keen-sighted scouts at appropriate intervals, by spies and patrols, to obtain information about the enemy’s movements, their strength and organization, and thus be in a position to prevent being surprised by them”. Byzantine strategists knew well that espionage worked just as easily against them, and used counter-intelligence tactics to confuse their enemies. Those soldiers who were positioned at scouting and beacon fire posts were relieved periodically to avoid betrayal. On the tactical level, the Strategikon gives further advice:
If an enemy spy is captured while observing our forces, then it may be
well to release him unharmed if all our forces are strong and in good
shape. The enemy will be absolutely dismayed by such reports. On the
other hand, if our forces are weak, the spy should be treated roughly,
forced to divulge enemy secrets, and finally either be put to death or
sent off somewhere under guard.
A primary consequence precipitating from the great distances between Constantinople and the borderlands was increased internal disunity, as loyalties to the Emperor were much more problematic. This was frequently to prove costly, most significantly during the early Moslem invasions. To pacify newly re-conquered or diplomatically assimilated populations, the Imperial government often re-settled them to other parts of the Empire, and simultaneously re-colonized the area with native Byzantines. Alien nobility were absorbed into the Byzantine administrative and military bureaucracy, and were given titles, land grants, and command duties, although most often they were forced to convert to Christianity in order to qualify. This process usually worked to placate important foreigners and suppress any insurrectionary tendencies with which they might sympathize. There were a few notable instances in which this process of imposing patriotism upon assimilated peoples rebounded against the Empire. During the eighth century, Byzantium had relied primarily on friendly, non-Islamic Arab tribes along the border of the Islamic territories to signal an upcoming invasion, as well as to fight beside the Byzantine troops. In return, these tribes gained trading privileges and protection from conversion and assimilation into Islam. Yet, the Byzantines had pushed this relationship too far by imposing the high taxes usually relegated to conquered territories, and consequently these friendly Arab tribes withdrew their support for the Empire. Arguably, it was this fact which led to the loss of Mesopotamia and Palestine to the Islamic conquers. In the early ninth century, another group of Arabs who were hostile toward the Caliphate was assimilated into the Byzantine Army. The Arabs were understandably enraged by this action, and sent an army of fifty-thousand into Byzantine territory, capturing Ankara and Amorium, the latter of which had become by this time the second most important city in the Empire. More devastating was the rebellion by the Pechenegs, a people located in the Balkans. In order to deal with the considerable threat they suddenly posed to the Empire, the emperor Constantine Monomachus relocated theme troops in Armenia to the Balkans. This allowed the Seljuk Turks free access to the entire province, and the subsequent invasion was to lead to the battle of Manzikert, which was to signal the effective end of the Empire as a superpower. A further consideration was the allowance given to foreign merchants and traders, who were authorized to establish their own cultural centres – primarily at Constantinople, which had large Islamic and Italian (Venetian) communities. In this manner hostilities were diminished along the borderlands, as foreigners gradually became Hellenised, Christianized, and acclimatized to life in the Empire. Of course, many kept their traditional cultures, yet only rarely did this sense of cultural identity become nationalistic to the extent of open rebellion.
While administrative efficiency was helped by appointing the strategos of the army as governor for the theme, this had the same potential to create rogue armies did as the older Roman provincial system. Rome itself had solved this problem by separating military and civil jurisdiction. The theme strategoi were of course reiterations of the old Republican governors, and Roman history provides sufficient evidence to warrant concern about the unification of military and civil authority in one individual. Consequently, from the reign of Heraclius the strategoi were personally chosen by the Emperor to ensure their loyalty. Similarly, a bureaucratic system was established to supervise the payment of wages to the armies, which until the reign of Heraclius had been sporadic and consequently subverted troop morale and loyalty. Importantly, this salary was paid by the Imperial bureaucracy in the capital and not through the theme bureaucracy; this was done to ensure troop loyalty to the Emperor and not to the local strategos. Soldiers in the themes were given land grants upon entering service, and these lands became hereditary possessions. The eldest male child would inherit both his father’s land and his contract to military service. Leo’s Taktika stressed the symbiotic relationship between the farming class and the soldiery; each depended for its existence upon the other. The Empire could not afford to hire mercenaries except in the interim -- and anyhow mercenary troops often proved dangerously unreliable – and its urban population proved to be useless militarily. Therefore the rural peasantry proved itself to be the backbone of the Empire’s defensive system. In this manner a continual supply of troops was ensured. One could surmise that troop casualties were quickly replaced as the sons of dead soldiers sought not only their inheritance, but vengeance for their fathers’ deaths as well. While this would certainly not ensure long-term troop loyalty, it would provide the army with a continual supply of young recruits eager to engage enemy forces. The most obvious flaw in this land-grant system was that it could be exploited by strategoi who had the desire to do so. Unlike the tagmata who were better paid and received the rich agricultural lands around Constantinople, the theme soldiers became increasingly dependent on their strategoi to support them. As soldiers had to pay for their own equipment and horses, many gradually went into debt to their strategos and were forced to forfeit part if not all of their land claims. In combination with the lands given to the strategoi for successful commands, by the late tenth and early eleventh centuries a new class of military aristocracy had emerged. If they so desired – and often they did, especially in the eleventh century – they could raise a private army under the guise of theme units to enforce their own political agendas. This would ultimately lead to a great deal of rebellion and civil war, which obviously weakened the Empire. By the middle of the eleventh century, the military and financial resources of the Empire had to a great extent been exhausted because of factional fighting between the civil aristocracy centred upon Constantinople, and the rural military aristocracy. This weakness greatly contributed to the success of the Turkish invasions before the battle of Manzikert. For the period being studied here, however, they were not a great factor in undermining the defensive position of the Empire until this later instance.
From these considerations emerged the overall strategy for the defence of the Empire, which has been termed “defence-in-depth” by modern historians. In brief, this strategic system allowed raiders access to frontier territories, yet did not permit penetration into the more valuable heartland of the Empire. Upon crossing the border, Arab armies would be shadowed by units of Byzantine cavalry and harassed as they broke up to raid the countryside. Any usable provisions outside of the city walls would have been destroyed, therefore leaving the raiders isolated and unprovisioned. The main theme force would then surround and destroy the weary invaders. This cat-and-mouse tracking stratagem was effective in isolating and destroying small splinter groups of the main force and ultimately reducing its strength without directly engaging the main army. It is hardly surprising that ambushes were most frequently used in these encounters, and indeed the Strategikon had advised just such a tactic: “Well-planned ambushes are of the greatest value in warfare. In various ways they have in a short time destroyed great powers before they had a chance to bring their whole battle line into action”. Cunning strategoi also used kidnappings, assassinations, and misinformation to sow dissension and lower morale among enemy lines. The theme as a whole – as well as any neighbouring themes who could be mobilized without compromising the security of their own territories – would then confront the newly reduced invading host, and on territory advantageous to the Byzantines and after the strategos had adequately prepared his forces. When the theme did encounter enemy troops, their tactics centred upon quick shock operations, with the lance-equipped cataphracts charging the enemy with support from the mounted archers, who would attempt to outflank the enemy lines. Should the strategos encounter an opposing army obviously superior to his own and a threat to the centre of the Empire, the Emperor would mobilize the tagmata, which would have gained time to reach the front by the delay tactics inherent in the defence-in-depth stratagem.
Of further importance to the theme system was the Byzantine navy, which until the tenth century had no equal in the eastern Mediterranean. Certainly there were other powers before the tenth century, such as the Arabs who, after the seventh century conquests were able to deploy a navy, yet they remained relatively minor in comparison to the almost overwhelming superiority of the Byzantine naval forces. Coastal and island themes had their own naval units under command of the strategos; additionally there was a central navy which operated out of Constantinople much like the tagmata, but obviously had a much larger effective field of operations. The navy served to patrol the waters around the themes, and quite successfully kept enemy raiders and invaders from landing in Byzantine territories. Most importantly however, as long as the navy retained control of the eastern Mediterranean, Constantinople could withstand any siege. Obviously this was an extreme circumstance, as any siege of the capital would be politically disastrous to an emperor. Yet on occasion, it did in fact occur. Byzantine strategy was also aided by the relative disorganization of its enemies. Beyond the early conquests, the Arabs did not seem to desire any more territory, and consequently did not organize any invading force larger than simple raiding parties. Furthermore, by the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Abbasid Caliphate was on the verge of collapse and was simply not interested in invading the empire. It was during this period that Byzantium in fact took the offensive, particularly under the emperor Nicephorus II. Of course, Byzantium’s enemies were just as quick to capitalize on occasional weaknesses within the Empire as well. Not every emperor fully supported the military. Some emperors viewed the military as an relatively unjustified drain on imperial finances which could better be apportioned within Constantinople itself. The emperors Constantine X and Romanos IV were of this ideology; while not openly hostile to military concerns, they simply felt pressure to expend resources elsewhere. Others, such as the empress Irene, were in fact openly hostile toward the military bureaucracy and consciously attempted to weaken it. For the most part, this military-administrative system reduced the threat of invasion, at least for the internal provinces.
While this defensive strategy did ultimately succeed in arresting the invading forces from capturing the centre of the Empire, it did not do so without consequences. Foremost, and perhaps most obvious, was the fact that such a strategic position required the sacrificing of the frontier lands for the containment of invaders. The raiding parties did indeed encroach into Byzantine territories, and they succeeded in plundering much of the local wealth before they were destroyed or were forced to withdraw. Defence-in-depth proved to be a highly expensive strategic ideology, in terms of both territorial destruction and casualties among the local population. Furthermore, it had one prime strategic flaw which was occasionally exploited. The various outposts which acted as garrisons and scouting forts did succeed at performing their task, yet they caused a reliance on maintaining fortified positions. The themes did indeed ultimately retain control of their territory, yet they sacrificed initiative to the raiders. They became a reactionary army, instead of one an enterprising one. What this meant in tactical terms was that they had to rely upon the movements of the enemy to precipitate their own actions. By the tenth century, Byzantine armies rarely ventured out to engage their enemy without first being prompted. Consequently, the themes lost some of their mobility, an element of tactical warfare for which they had been originally created. Larger invading forces began to turn towards the forts, laying siege to them instead of the cities, which resulted in the theme soldiers becoming merely an expanded garrison, instead of the stealthy, mobile attackers which had originally been their purpose. This in turn affected troop morale, which was of vital importance in ancient warfare. Byzantine troops frequently suffered from lower-than-desired morale because of their isolation and dependence on enemy actions to inform the activities of their own units. Many frontier troops threatened to mutiny, and some did cross over into enemy camps. Occasionally, this was due to the lack of provisions caused by besieging enemy forces. Similarly, invaders frequently had a much higher morale because their intended targets were ostensibly ‘easy pickings’. The imbalance in troop morale occasionally led to the desertion Byzantine units, who would abandon their fortified position and withdraw to the more ‘secure’ interior. Such occurred along the Bulgarian frontier, which was abandoned as the Bulgar king Krum was successfully leading his forces into Byzantine territory. Further problematic was the placement of the forts themselves, as they frequently weren’t positioned to support each other. Accordingly, successful raiders – such as the Arabs in the ninth century – were able to capture them one at a time in succession. Ultimately, what the Byzantine dependence on fortified positions to support the defence-in-depth strategy accomplished was a sense of predictability. Invaders could easily observe Byzantine troop movements, as they were confined to specific (and relatively permanent) areas. Raiders would enter into the province and do as much damage as possible before they were contained or were driven from the theme.
Yet Byzantine forces continued to succeed throughout the period here studied. The damage inflicted by invaders would quickly be repaired, defences would be rebuilt, land would be reclaimed, and the local populations – which as mentioned above frequently suffered high casualties – would continue to thrive. Usually the encroached-upon frontier was fully restored by the next campaign season. Likewise, the empire continued to thrive despite continued invasions, which were sometimes almost on an annual basis in certain key invasion corridors. The centre of the Empire was not threatened, except on a few occasions, for the majority of the four hundred year period herein examined. The defence-in-depth strategy succeeded, for example, in protecting the fertile coasts of Asia Minor by sacrificing the relatively barren wastes of the Anatolian plateau along the Arab borderlands. Viewed in the Imperial context, which was of course more interested in securing and legitimizing its authority than it was with the concerns of a distant and economically unimportant province, this was a very small sacrifice indeed.
Bibliography
Primary
Anon. On Skirmishing Warfare. (Need English translation)
Leo VI the Wise. Taktika. (Need English translation)
Maurice. Strategikon. Trans. George T. Dennis. Philadelpia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1984.
Secondary
Browning, Robert. The Byzantine Empire. Washington: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1992.
Dupuy, Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper
& Row, 1977.
Dvornik, Francis. The Origins of Intelligence Services. New Jersey: Rutgers University
Press, 1974.
Kaegi, Walter. Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
Kazhdan, A.P. and Ann Wharton Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
Nicol, Donald M. Byzantium and Venice: a study in diplomatic and cultural relations.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988
Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Apogee. London: Viking, 1991.
Treadgold, Warren. The Byzantine Revival 780-842. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1988.
Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600-1025. Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1996.
Monday, April 03, 2000
The Brothers Karamazov
First Impressions...
Guilt
The eternal damnation of the soul. I guess I am expecting one of the brothers to suffer in a more or less conventional manner for the patricide. This will not be an entirely pleasurable reading experience, because I will be much too aware of my own guilt through the pleasure of voyeurism. I do expect the courtroom sequence to demonstrate that we all suffer by one person’s guilt; likewise do we share that person’s culpability. Dostoevsky is probably aware of this fact, as he pursues the societal construction of individual guilt through the exploration of the Karamazov family history. Whomever happens to be the murderer will not be solely responsible. For the individual act of participating in that particular event of killing he will surely act alone. Yet the conscience – the psychology – of reaching such a brutal conclusion involves the entire family and extends to the entire human race. The fact that seemingly normal individuals have the same latent bloodlust as any criminal is proven by attendance at executions, such as the autos-da-fé. Father Zosima elucidated possible reasons for society’s wish to quickly exterminate the guilty. Criminals are continual reminders of our own (arrested) barbarity. The “fires of hell” such as Inquisitorial burnings allow humanity to forget our collective guilty conscience through sheer spectacle. Dostoevsky seems to imply that some ashes of guilt do remain upon humanity however. It is simple: the fires of hell represent “the suffering of one who can no longer love”. He implies that akin to Jesus we as a civilization must love our enemies instead of burning them and submerging the ashes under our collective conscience.
Who is to be Guilty?
The individual Karamazovs have been moulded by their family history to reject society at the same time they apparently embrace it: Ivan hides behind his reason, compartmentalizing and justifying the world and his remoteness from it; Dmitri uses both love and violence in a process of self-ostracization which could eventually lead to his sharing of the contempt felt for the elder Karamazov by most people in the novel; Alyosha’s mysticism (asceticism) is perhaps the most conscious withdrawal from society; and Smerdyakov’s existence – or rather non-existence – as the bastard Karamozov is perhaps the most obvious instance of banishment in the text. It is not just for narrative reasons that Dostoevsky remains ambiguous concerning the guilty party through the opening sections of his text. He wishes to promote the fact that we are all capable of murder given extreme circumstances.
Impressed...
The notion of absolutes and universals has not been removed from the popular conscience despite the best efforts of many prolific post-modern thinkers. Contrary to Nietzsche, for the vast majority of people God is not in fact dead, in either the literal or abstract interpretation of that statement. Old universals have simply been replaced by newer ones promulgating their ideological liberalism while simultaneously rejecting the validity of “lesser” works. What has been more broadly accepted, however, has been the idea of allowing a more or less equal space to all viewpoints and means of expression. Technology is of primary influence on the creation of such a liberal society, as it has provided a means by which various ideologies can be expressed. Modern intellectual expression has to some extent become more exclusionary as a consequence; either one “gets it” or not. In several respects, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov is conversely very much a self-contained text in terms of its ideological debate. In particular, the author seems to be positing the redemptive theology of Father Zosima against the ideology of the absurd espoused by Ivan Karamazov. Indeed, there are overtones of Platonic dialogue within these sequences of philosophical exposition. There are of course two viewpoints presented – a Pro and a Contra as explicitly laid out in Book V – yet there can be no arguing that the author himself wishes to present his particular doctrine, wherein he aligns himself with Zosima, as being a universal truth. Primarily, I will be focussing upon Ivan’s ideological position, with reference to Zosima’s much more optimistic and redemptive theology.
Certainly there is little room for the application of late-twentieth century ideological liberalism to Dostoevsky’s writing, although Ivan’s nihilistic ideology does seem to suggest a more modern and existential school of thought. There is of course no doubting Dostoevsky’s religious opinions; his theology is both piously and devoutly expressed in many of his works. Yet, while he does not in fact question the ultimate absolute of God, he does imply other universals to be rather arbitrary. Most obvious is his treatment of guilt and justice in the novel. There is no simple explanation of individual culpability; no character is condemned outright. This belief is shared by both Ivan and Father Zosima. Dostoevsky seemed to want to focus upon the psychological and sociological aspects of criminal behaviour, and this is expressed throughout his works. As a consequence, he implies that justice itself is not a universal in terms simple cause and effect dispensation, in other words that crime x should receive punishment y. Throughout The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky undermines such a simplistic notion of earthly justice, and instead submits his characters to a more absolute jurisprudence. Ultimately for the author, and as Father Zosima states, justice must emerge from a personal communication with the divine.
From the very start of the novel, Dostoevsky suggests a very modern concept of guilt and justice by subverting its conventions. In one particular respect, his opinions concerning judiciary practise are in fact even more enlightened than those which currently exist in most of the industrialized world. If one is to interpret the entirety of his writing with respect to Dostoevsky’s theology, it becomes readily clear that his beliefs concerning justice do in fact originate in terms of guilt before the divine, although there is no practical or ideological reason that it should remain within a theological realm; a secular practise can be instructed by religious belief. In terms of theological origination, all of mankind shares in the guilt from the original fall from grace; the flesh must be transcended before innocence is regained. One cannot therefore simplistically denounce others for their crimes while supposing themselves to be above any such abhorrent behaviour. As Father Zosima states, “you cannot be anyone’s judge. No man on earth can judge a criminal until he understands that he himself is just as guilty as the man standing before him and that he may be responsible than anyone else for the crime” (p. 388). Zosima teaches that one must act like Christ, accepting the guilt of others onto one’s own conscience (or soul, in wholly religious phrasing). Every individual is guilty if they do not provide an example of virtue to those for whom it is required. As a further extension, one must rejoice in the righteousness of others, for in this manner one can avoid being burdened by one’s own guilty conscience. Moreover, others must not be weighted down by one’s own guilt. Within this context Zosima’s behaviour towards Dmitri early in the text can be understood. Interpreted in terms of Zosima’s prophetic nature – evidenced by his oracular relationship with Alyosha – his supplication in front of Dmitri is arguably a plea for forgiveness for his upcoming false conviction, as Zosima would acknowledge that Dmitri’s trial is only an earthly one and therefore not the true justice of God’s mercy. In many ways, Zosima acts as prognosticator to many of the other characters in the text as well. It becomes painfully clear by the end of the text that Zosima’s statements are reflected in Ivan’s constitution; ostensibly Dostoevsky is presenting Ivan’s tragedy as an example of the correctness of Zosima’s theology. Ivan’s suicide is resultant from the absurdity he sees in the world. As he states in book V, he will not choose to exist in a society which condones the suffering of the innocent to justify salvation for the rest. Yet Ivan counters himself when he states that he cannot love those people whom he actually encounters; they are no longer the innocents that he believed them to be, and conversely he feels a deep sense of revulsion towards them. Consequently, he believes that love can not truly exist in the world, and that the notion of ultimate love as professed by Zosima to be an impossibility: “Christ’s love for human beings was an impossible miracle on earth” (p. 284). Love for Ivan is a purely theoretical concept, a pure abstraction with no material plausibility. Hatred seems to be directed towards beggars and other unfortunates in particular, perhaps because they are physical manifestations of Zosima’s theology – in other words, following Zosima, one must give aid to beggars precisely because one is not a beggar. Ivan’s beliefs seem to be very much related to his father’s self-absorption and lack of sympathy for others; he has internalized these beliefs almost as much as his brother Smerdyakov. One particular instance later in the novel suggests that Ivan does in fact feel some sense of social indebtedness towards others. With the sequence in which Ivan picks up the drunk peasant and finds shelter for him, Dostoevsky seems to suggest that despite his character’s coldheartedness, even Ivan has a basic sense of human decency that cannot be disregarded.
In thoroughly secular terms, mitigating circumstances must be considered for a society to dispense proper justice. In The Brothers Karamazov, the primary mitigating circumstance is of course the elder Karamazov himself. Throughout the text, he is portrayed as a brute and uncaring man, almost beastly in his pursuit of self-gratification. In essence, it is his relationship with his sons which creates a situation in which any of them could be driven to murder their father. Ivan proves himself strangely prophetic when in detailing the story of a murderer who had been brutally raised by his parents. Certainly the actual act in broad terms is itself not completely foreign to anybody, although for the vast majority of people it is an impulse left repressed for the course of their lives. This impetus does find a means of expression however, although this form of bloodlust is vicarious in nature. Until the evolution of modern visual media, tendencies for the vicarious expression of violence did in fact involve the real suffering of others, either through violent sporting events such as hunts and staged combat, or through officially bureaucratic public executions, such as the autos-da-fé described in the Grand Inquisitor chapter of the novel. This section also elucidates the notion of why society desires the eradication of its criminal elements. They are continual reminders of the arrested barbarity of every individual; their execution or imprisonment is an attempt to cleanse the collective conscience of a community. As Zosima states in book VI, the fires of hell are simple allegory, a spectacle which allows humanity to forget its collective guilt. A society will destroy its criminal elements, but will not arrest the ultimate cause of criminal behaviour. For Zosima this is a simple instance of lack of true faith, of ignoring genuine religious practise as it requires too much of a sacrifice to forgive criminals for their behaviour.
To Ivan however, justice is merely an expression of humanity’s latent barbarousness. Public executions are merely a communal forum in which the desire to witness another’s suffering is officially sanctioned. It matters not whether those sentenced are in fact innocent or guilty, as the punishment is both the trial and the conviction. Neither does it matter whether the punishment will arrest any future criminal activity, as it serves its immediate purpose to appease the bloodlust of the masses. It is for this reason that Ivan rejects any concept of the righteous salvation of the damned. The contempt that he feels toward the religious who believe they have attained this state of grace is fairly explicit when he describes the execution of a vicious murderer:
And the next thing, brother Richard, covered with the kisses of
all his brothers and sisters, was dragged up onto the scaffold, placed
under the knife of the guillotine, had his head chopped off in the
most brotherly fashion, and gained eternal bliss.
(p. 289)
For Ivan, the idea of a murderer finding salvation through an execution is akin to redemption of society through the torture of a child. Just as the chaplains at the execution reach a state of religious fervour, so does the torturer enter a state of bliss while he is performing his violence upon another. Each is identical in that the suffering of another becomes a source of pleasure and self-gratification. Throughout his philosophizing, Ivan demonstrates his agreement with the Marquis De Sade in stating that all instances of love are in fact various forms of dependency. It is a simple binary: lovers need those who requite their love, just as torturers need the object of their ferocity. Indeed, it becomes an essential element of an individual’s identity, and Ivan seems almost humourously to suggest that through the internalization of brutality, Russians have created their national identity: “To us, nailing people by their ears is unthinkable because, despite everything, we are Europeans. But birch and lash, they’re different – they’re something that’s really ours and cannot be taken away from us” (p. 287). Man has a very refined sense of cruelty, and the act of torture becomes art in and of itself. There is no real other motive than sheer pleasure in witnessing and inflicting suffering upon others. It is within this context that Ivan views any sense of religious love as wicked, for the religious need (and love) the sinful because it is through them that good and evil are defined. He vehemently rejects such a existence: “I’d rather not know about their damn good and evil than pay such a terrible price for it. I feel that all universal knowledge is not worth that child’s tears when she was begging ‘gentle Jesus’ to help her” (p. 291). His arguments do not demonstrate any confidence that there is a solution to the tragic fate of humanity, and consequently his nihilistic mentality and belief in the ultimate absurdity of all existence lead to his suicide. Humanity will ultimately destroy itself in an orgy of violent self-gratification; it will voraciously consume itself and enjoy the taste.
Ivan’s entire discourse to Alyosha is very much an example of this process, as he quite explicitly delights in the rather disgusted reactions which he stimulates in his brother. Not only does he revel in the barbaric details of his lecture, at times he seems to internalize them himself and act out the part. In describing the “justice” of a general who kills a child for a relatively minor misdemeanour, he begins to shout at Alyosha much like the general himself might have: “Perhaps he ought to have been shot, to satisfy the moral indignation that such an act arouses in us? Well, speak up, my boy, go on!” (p. 292). The frequent use of children in his examples is of course demonstrative of Ivan’s extremism. Were he to rely on more median examples of earthly suffering – as more commonly exists in the world – his arguments would lose some of their merit. Of course, one must forgive suicides for their extremism, as such is their nature. His rebellion against the traditional doctrines of Christianity is not entirely complete, however, as even he desires a Christ figure for redemption. Only by accepting the suffering caused by existence will anyone find salvation: “I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the resurrected victim rise and embrace his murderer” (p. 294). Just as the lion must kill the lamb for that is the lion’s essence and purpose, so must the torturer inflict suffering for that is its purpose. Surely such a tenant is a difficult one for the majority of people to accept. Ivan’s suicide is proof that even he could not believe in such an existence.
Ivan’s philosophical beliefs are very important in order to fully understand his character. That this section of the novel is just as equally detailed as a later book which presents Zosima’s complex theology suggests that Dostoevsky wanted the reader to compare the two. It is a somewhat subtle manner in which an opinion can be conveyed to the reader. Dostoevsky does in fact intend his audience to be more convinced by Zosima’s devout theology than Ivan’s proto-existentialism. Yet each is allowed a voice; the reader naturally becomes an advocate for one or the other. Certainly there is some truth in Ivan’s ideological stance, although the fact that there he has no hope or sense of purpose draws one away from his nihilism. By the end of the novel, it is quite obvious that Dostoevsky has presented an ideology which cannot function, for it is far too destructive for those who practise it.
Bibliography
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamavoz. Trans. Andrew H. MacAndrew. Toronto:
Bantam Books, 1981.
Guilt
The eternal damnation of the soul. I guess I am expecting one of the brothers to suffer in a more or less conventional manner for the patricide. This will not be an entirely pleasurable reading experience, because I will be much too aware of my own guilt through the pleasure of voyeurism. I do expect the courtroom sequence to demonstrate that we all suffer by one person’s guilt; likewise do we share that person’s culpability. Dostoevsky is probably aware of this fact, as he pursues the societal construction of individual guilt through the exploration of the Karamazov family history. Whomever happens to be the murderer will not be solely responsible. For the individual act of participating in that particular event of killing he will surely act alone. Yet the conscience – the psychology – of reaching such a brutal conclusion involves the entire family and extends to the entire human race. The fact that seemingly normal individuals have the same latent bloodlust as any criminal is proven by attendance at executions, such as the autos-da-fé. Father Zosima elucidated possible reasons for society’s wish to quickly exterminate the guilty. Criminals are continual reminders of our own (arrested) barbarity. The “fires of hell” such as Inquisitorial burnings allow humanity to forget our collective guilty conscience through sheer spectacle. Dostoevsky seems to imply that some ashes of guilt do remain upon humanity however. It is simple: the fires of hell represent “the suffering of one who can no longer love”. He implies that akin to Jesus we as a civilization must love our enemies instead of burning them and submerging the ashes under our collective conscience.
Who is to be Guilty?
The individual Karamazovs have been moulded by their family history to reject society at the same time they apparently embrace it: Ivan hides behind his reason, compartmentalizing and justifying the world and his remoteness from it; Dmitri uses both love and violence in a process of self-ostracization which could eventually lead to his sharing of the contempt felt for the elder Karamazov by most people in the novel; Alyosha’s mysticism (asceticism) is perhaps the most conscious withdrawal from society; and Smerdyakov’s existence – or rather non-existence – as the bastard Karamozov is perhaps the most obvious instance of banishment in the text. It is not just for narrative reasons that Dostoevsky remains ambiguous concerning the guilty party through the opening sections of his text. He wishes to promote the fact that we are all capable of murder given extreme circumstances.
Impressed...
The notion of absolutes and universals has not been removed from the popular conscience despite the best efforts of many prolific post-modern thinkers. Contrary to Nietzsche, for the vast majority of people God is not in fact dead, in either the literal or abstract interpretation of that statement. Old universals have simply been replaced by newer ones promulgating their ideological liberalism while simultaneously rejecting the validity of “lesser” works. What has been more broadly accepted, however, has been the idea of allowing a more or less equal space to all viewpoints and means of expression. Technology is of primary influence on the creation of such a liberal society, as it has provided a means by which various ideologies can be expressed. Modern intellectual expression has to some extent become more exclusionary as a consequence; either one “gets it” or not. In several respects, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov is conversely very much a self-contained text in terms of its ideological debate. In particular, the author seems to be positing the redemptive theology of Father Zosima against the ideology of the absurd espoused by Ivan Karamazov. Indeed, there are overtones of Platonic dialogue within these sequences of philosophical exposition. There are of course two viewpoints presented – a Pro and a Contra as explicitly laid out in Book V – yet there can be no arguing that the author himself wishes to present his particular doctrine, wherein he aligns himself with Zosima, as being a universal truth. Primarily, I will be focussing upon Ivan’s ideological position, with reference to Zosima’s much more optimistic and redemptive theology.
Certainly there is little room for the application of late-twentieth century ideological liberalism to Dostoevsky’s writing, although Ivan’s nihilistic ideology does seem to suggest a more modern and existential school of thought. There is of course no doubting Dostoevsky’s religious opinions; his theology is both piously and devoutly expressed in many of his works. Yet, while he does not in fact question the ultimate absolute of God, he does imply other universals to be rather arbitrary. Most obvious is his treatment of guilt and justice in the novel. There is no simple explanation of individual culpability; no character is condemned outright. This belief is shared by both Ivan and Father Zosima. Dostoevsky seemed to want to focus upon the psychological and sociological aspects of criminal behaviour, and this is expressed throughout his works. As a consequence, he implies that justice itself is not a universal in terms simple cause and effect dispensation, in other words that crime x should receive punishment y. Throughout The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky undermines such a simplistic notion of earthly justice, and instead submits his characters to a more absolute jurisprudence. Ultimately for the author, and as Father Zosima states, justice must emerge from a personal communication with the divine.
From the very start of the novel, Dostoevsky suggests a very modern concept of guilt and justice by subverting its conventions. In one particular respect, his opinions concerning judiciary practise are in fact even more enlightened than those which currently exist in most of the industrialized world. If one is to interpret the entirety of his writing with respect to Dostoevsky’s theology, it becomes readily clear that his beliefs concerning justice do in fact originate in terms of guilt before the divine, although there is no practical or ideological reason that it should remain within a theological realm; a secular practise can be instructed by religious belief. In terms of theological origination, all of mankind shares in the guilt from the original fall from grace; the flesh must be transcended before innocence is regained. One cannot therefore simplistically denounce others for their crimes while supposing themselves to be above any such abhorrent behaviour. As Father Zosima states, “you cannot be anyone’s judge. No man on earth can judge a criminal until he understands that he himself is just as guilty as the man standing before him and that he may be responsible than anyone else for the crime” (p. 388). Zosima teaches that one must act like Christ, accepting the guilt of others onto one’s own conscience (or soul, in wholly religious phrasing). Every individual is guilty if they do not provide an example of virtue to those for whom it is required. As a further extension, one must rejoice in the righteousness of others, for in this manner one can avoid being burdened by one’s own guilty conscience. Moreover, others must not be weighted down by one’s own guilt. Within this context Zosima’s behaviour towards Dmitri early in the text can be understood. Interpreted in terms of Zosima’s prophetic nature – evidenced by his oracular relationship with Alyosha – his supplication in front of Dmitri is arguably a plea for forgiveness for his upcoming false conviction, as Zosima would acknowledge that Dmitri’s trial is only an earthly one and therefore not the true justice of God’s mercy. In many ways, Zosima acts as prognosticator to many of the other characters in the text as well. It becomes painfully clear by the end of the text that Zosima’s statements are reflected in Ivan’s constitution; ostensibly Dostoevsky is presenting Ivan’s tragedy as an example of the correctness of Zosima’s theology. Ivan’s suicide is resultant from the absurdity he sees in the world. As he states in book V, he will not choose to exist in a society which condones the suffering of the innocent to justify salvation for the rest. Yet Ivan counters himself when he states that he cannot love those people whom he actually encounters; they are no longer the innocents that he believed them to be, and conversely he feels a deep sense of revulsion towards them. Consequently, he believes that love can not truly exist in the world, and that the notion of ultimate love as professed by Zosima to be an impossibility: “Christ’s love for human beings was an impossible miracle on earth” (p. 284). Love for Ivan is a purely theoretical concept, a pure abstraction with no material plausibility. Hatred seems to be directed towards beggars and other unfortunates in particular, perhaps because they are physical manifestations of Zosima’s theology – in other words, following Zosima, one must give aid to beggars precisely because one is not a beggar. Ivan’s beliefs seem to be very much related to his father’s self-absorption and lack of sympathy for others; he has internalized these beliefs almost as much as his brother Smerdyakov. One particular instance later in the novel suggests that Ivan does in fact feel some sense of social indebtedness towards others. With the sequence in which Ivan picks up the drunk peasant and finds shelter for him, Dostoevsky seems to suggest that despite his character’s coldheartedness, even Ivan has a basic sense of human decency that cannot be disregarded.
In thoroughly secular terms, mitigating circumstances must be considered for a society to dispense proper justice. In The Brothers Karamazov, the primary mitigating circumstance is of course the elder Karamazov himself. Throughout the text, he is portrayed as a brute and uncaring man, almost beastly in his pursuit of self-gratification. In essence, it is his relationship with his sons which creates a situation in which any of them could be driven to murder their father. Ivan proves himself strangely prophetic when in detailing the story of a murderer who had been brutally raised by his parents. Certainly the actual act in broad terms is itself not completely foreign to anybody, although for the vast majority of people it is an impulse left repressed for the course of their lives. This impetus does find a means of expression however, although this form of bloodlust is vicarious in nature. Until the evolution of modern visual media, tendencies for the vicarious expression of violence did in fact involve the real suffering of others, either through violent sporting events such as hunts and staged combat, or through officially bureaucratic public executions, such as the autos-da-fé described in the Grand Inquisitor chapter of the novel. This section also elucidates the notion of why society desires the eradication of its criminal elements. They are continual reminders of the arrested barbarity of every individual; their execution or imprisonment is an attempt to cleanse the collective conscience of a community. As Zosima states in book VI, the fires of hell are simple allegory, a spectacle which allows humanity to forget its collective guilt. A society will destroy its criminal elements, but will not arrest the ultimate cause of criminal behaviour. For Zosima this is a simple instance of lack of true faith, of ignoring genuine religious practise as it requires too much of a sacrifice to forgive criminals for their behaviour.
To Ivan however, justice is merely an expression of humanity’s latent barbarousness. Public executions are merely a communal forum in which the desire to witness another’s suffering is officially sanctioned. It matters not whether those sentenced are in fact innocent or guilty, as the punishment is both the trial and the conviction. Neither does it matter whether the punishment will arrest any future criminal activity, as it serves its immediate purpose to appease the bloodlust of the masses. It is for this reason that Ivan rejects any concept of the righteous salvation of the damned. The contempt that he feels toward the religious who believe they have attained this state of grace is fairly explicit when he describes the execution of a vicious murderer:
And the next thing, brother Richard, covered with the kisses of
all his brothers and sisters, was dragged up onto the scaffold, placed
under the knife of the guillotine, had his head chopped off in the
most brotherly fashion, and gained eternal bliss.
(p. 289)
For Ivan, the idea of a murderer finding salvation through an execution is akin to redemption of society through the torture of a child. Just as the chaplains at the execution reach a state of religious fervour, so does the torturer enter a state of bliss while he is performing his violence upon another. Each is identical in that the suffering of another becomes a source of pleasure and self-gratification. Throughout his philosophizing, Ivan demonstrates his agreement with the Marquis De Sade in stating that all instances of love are in fact various forms of dependency. It is a simple binary: lovers need those who requite their love, just as torturers need the object of their ferocity. Indeed, it becomes an essential element of an individual’s identity, and Ivan seems almost humourously to suggest that through the internalization of brutality, Russians have created their national identity: “To us, nailing people by their ears is unthinkable because, despite everything, we are Europeans. But birch and lash, they’re different – they’re something that’s really ours and cannot be taken away from us” (p. 287). Man has a very refined sense of cruelty, and the act of torture becomes art in and of itself. There is no real other motive than sheer pleasure in witnessing and inflicting suffering upon others. It is within this context that Ivan views any sense of religious love as wicked, for the religious need (and love) the sinful because it is through them that good and evil are defined. He vehemently rejects such a existence: “I’d rather not know about their damn good and evil than pay such a terrible price for it. I feel that all universal knowledge is not worth that child’s tears when she was begging ‘gentle Jesus’ to help her” (p. 291). His arguments do not demonstrate any confidence that there is a solution to the tragic fate of humanity, and consequently his nihilistic mentality and belief in the ultimate absurdity of all existence lead to his suicide. Humanity will ultimately destroy itself in an orgy of violent self-gratification; it will voraciously consume itself and enjoy the taste.
Ivan’s entire discourse to Alyosha is very much an example of this process, as he quite explicitly delights in the rather disgusted reactions which he stimulates in his brother. Not only does he revel in the barbaric details of his lecture, at times he seems to internalize them himself and act out the part. In describing the “justice” of a general who kills a child for a relatively minor misdemeanour, he begins to shout at Alyosha much like the general himself might have: “Perhaps he ought to have been shot, to satisfy the moral indignation that such an act arouses in us? Well, speak up, my boy, go on!” (p. 292). The frequent use of children in his examples is of course demonstrative of Ivan’s extremism. Were he to rely on more median examples of earthly suffering – as more commonly exists in the world – his arguments would lose some of their merit. Of course, one must forgive suicides for their extremism, as such is their nature. His rebellion against the traditional doctrines of Christianity is not entirely complete, however, as even he desires a Christ figure for redemption. Only by accepting the suffering caused by existence will anyone find salvation: “I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the resurrected victim rise and embrace his murderer” (p. 294). Just as the lion must kill the lamb for that is the lion’s essence and purpose, so must the torturer inflict suffering for that is its purpose. Surely such a tenant is a difficult one for the majority of people to accept. Ivan’s suicide is proof that even he could not believe in such an existence.
Ivan’s philosophical beliefs are very important in order to fully understand his character. That this section of the novel is just as equally detailed as a later book which presents Zosima’s complex theology suggests that Dostoevsky wanted the reader to compare the two. It is a somewhat subtle manner in which an opinion can be conveyed to the reader. Dostoevsky does in fact intend his audience to be more convinced by Zosima’s devout theology than Ivan’s proto-existentialism. Yet each is allowed a voice; the reader naturally becomes an advocate for one or the other. Certainly there is some truth in Ivan’s ideological stance, although the fact that there he has no hope or sense of purpose draws one away from his nihilism. By the end of the novel, it is quite obvious that Dostoevsky has presented an ideology which cannot function, for it is far too destructive for those who practise it.
Bibliography
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamavoz. Trans. Andrew H. MacAndrew. Toronto:
Bantam Books, 1981.
Thursday, March 30, 2000
Quentin's Tarrentino-esque Suicide in The Sound and the Fury
One of the main concerns facing many readers of Faulkner centres upon the interpretation of his frequently non-linear and freely associative narrative techniques, usually referred to as stream of consciousness writing. The Sound and the Fury is no exception, as the first two sections of the novel are written from the perspective of a mentally handicapped adult and a neurotic and suicidal adolescent (or young post-adolescent). However, it is through these rather disjointed narratives that one can more fully appreciate the relationships between the various family members. The principle focus of Faulkner’s text is Caddy, the sole daughter in the Compson household. While Benjy was certainly loved by his sister, there seems to be a much closer relationship between her and Quentin. Throughout his section of the narrative, Quentin almost single-mindedly concentrates on his sister, reliving old memories to the point of confusing them with his contemporary world: “How many where there?”. His narrative – in a sense ‘a day in the life’ of a mentally unstable individual – is much more disjointed and seemingly arbitrary than Benjy’s, which despite its free association of memories still retained a cohesive structure. Once a reader begins to understand Benjy’s conventions his text is rather easy to comprehend. Alternately, Quentin’s narrative continually degenerates into a neurotic stream of consciousness, especially toward the end of his section as he approaches the moment of his suicide.
Quentin’s section is perhaps most vividly able to portray the corruption of the entire Compson family (or dynasty, as Faulkner relates in his Appendix to this novel, which traces the Compsons from colonial times). It is he who seems to be the last “great white hope” for his family, and it is for him that a part of the estate is sold to pay for a Harvard education. Of all the members of the family except perhaps his mother, it is Quentin who most fully internalizes the concept of the majestic old South along with a sense of southern nobility. Within this context he is to be the defender of his sister, and indeed as the eldest son, he must act to protect the entire family. When Quentin reveals his feelings toward his sister in relation to her involvement with Dalton Ames, there is a profound sense of powerlessness in his thoughts. In fact, one could argue that he has not only internalized the southern chivalric code, but the extreme sense of meaninglessness and absurdity felt by the South after the American Civil War. It is possible to understand his rather pathetic “fighting spirit” in regards to this profound sense of purposelessness. There are in fact two fights in this section of the novel, although Quentin’s narrative confuses the two. Early in the year he had challenged Dalton Ames to a duel in order that Caddy’s honour could be reclaimed, which he of course believed to have been tarnished by their sexual relationship. Dalton had refused the challenge, and apparently while remembering this instance, Quentin proceeded to lash out at Gerald Bland, who promptly defended himself by bloodying his attacker. Such violent tendencies reflect a self-hatred and nihilism inherent in suicidal individuals: the urge to fight a superior opponent, which was the case with both Ames and Bland, is a repressed desire to kill oneself.
So what does in fact lead to Quentin’s suicide? Certainly there are numerous factors in such an maximal and final decision. The aforementioned sense of powerlessness, despite adherence to the Southern code of chivalry and nobility, extended into everything surrounding Quentin. He tried to argue against his father’s nihilism, yet everywhere he looked was evidence to support an absurd existence. Yet the most overwhelming element present in Quentin’s section is his relationship with his sister Caddy. Much like many men throughout recorded history he views his sister within the virgin / whore paradigm. For him his entire sense of Southern nobility is maintained by his sister’s virginity, and its loss is the final proof for Quentin of the degeneration of that mentality, and as well that all existence is absurd. When he proclaims to his father that it was in fact he who took his sister’s virginity, he is attempting to preserve her dignity by (in a sense) “keeping it in the family”. Yet this very passage demonstrates how corrupt his vision of Southern chivalry has in fact become. Perhaps it even portrays the extent to which his mind has become unhinged and all his thoughts are theoretical. Certainly his life is lived in the abstract: one cannot interpret Quentin’s perception of time, as depicted in the clockmaker sequence, as a perception of reality. When everything has lost its physicality and becomes completely abstracted, a concept such as self-destruction through suicide is entirely feasible.
There is very much a perception in Quentin’s section (as well as in Jason’s narrative) that Caddy’s awakening sexuality precipitates the downfall of the entire Compson dynasty. Faulkner’s emphasis upon her soiled underpants in Benjy’s section – she had climbed a tree that her brothers could not to look upon death, and consequently revealed her undergarments – is perhaps a rather obvious metaphor, yet it does succeed in anticipating both Quentin’s and Jason’s opinions of their sister as revealed in their later monologues. One is therefore left to wonder whether it was in fact the sins of Caddy – if such rather normal adolescent behaviour can be so negatively labelled – which will motivate the downfall of the Compson family.
Quentin’s section is perhaps most vividly able to portray the corruption of the entire Compson family (or dynasty, as Faulkner relates in his Appendix to this novel, which traces the Compsons from colonial times). It is he who seems to be the last “great white hope” for his family, and it is for him that a part of the estate is sold to pay for a Harvard education. Of all the members of the family except perhaps his mother, it is Quentin who most fully internalizes the concept of the majestic old South along with a sense of southern nobility. Within this context he is to be the defender of his sister, and indeed as the eldest son, he must act to protect the entire family. When Quentin reveals his feelings toward his sister in relation to her involvement with Dalton Ames, there is a profound sense of powerlessness in his thoughts. In fact, one could argue that he has not only internalized the southern chivalric code, but the extreme sense of meaninglessness and absurdity felt by the South after the American Civil War. It is possible to understand his rather pathetic “fighting spirit” in regards to this profound sense of purposelessness. There are in fact two fights in this section of the novel, although Quentin’s narrative confuses the two. Early in the year he had challenged Dalton Ames to a duel in order that Caddy’s honour could be reclaimed, which he of course believed to have been tarnished by their sexual relationship. Dalton had refused the challenge, and apparently while remembering this instance, Quentin proceeded to lash out at Gerald Bland, who promptly defended himself by bloodying his attacker. Such violent tendencies reflect a self-hatred and nihilism inherent in suicidal individuals: the urge to fight a superior opponent, which was the case with both Ames and Bland, is a repressed desire to kill oneself.
So what does in fact lead to Quentin’s suicide? Certainly there are numerous factors in such an maximal and final decision. The aforementioned sense of powerlessness, despite adherence to the Southern code of chivalry and nobility, extended into everything surrounding Quentin. He tried to argue against his father’s nihilism, yet everywhere he looked was evidence to support an absurd existence. Yet the most overwhelming element present in Quentin’s section is his relationship with his sister Caddy. Much like many men throughout recorded history he views his sister within the virgin / whore paradigm. For him his entire sense of Southern nobility is maintained by his sister’s virginity, and its loss is the final proof for Quentin of the degeneration of that mentality, and as well that all existence is absurd. When he proclaims to his father that it was in fact he who took his sister’s virginity, he is attempting to preserve her dignity by (in a sense) “keeping it in the family”. Yet this very passage demonstrates how corrupt his vision of Southern chivalry has in fact become. Perhaps it even portrays the extent to which his mind has become unhinged and all his thoughts are theoretical. Certainly his life is lived in the abstract: one cannot interpret Quentin’s perception of time, as depicted in the clockmaker sequence, as a perception of reality. When everything has lost its physicality and becomes completely abstracted, a concept such as self-destruction through suicide is entirely feasible.
There is very much a perception in Quentin’s section (as well as in Jason’s narrative) that Caddy’s awakening sexuality precipitates the downfall of the entire Compson dynasty. Faulkner’s emphasis upon her soiled underpants in Benjy’s section – she had climbed a tree that her brothers could not to look upon death, and consequently revealed her undergarments – is perhaps a rather obvious metaphor, yet it does succeed in anticipating both Quentin’s and Jason’s opinions of their sister as revealed in their later monologues. One is therefore left to wonder whether it was in fact the sins of Caddy – if such rather normal adolescent behaviour can be so negatively labelled – which will motivate the downfall of the Compson family.
Friday, March 24, 2000
Speaking: The Silent History of Coetzee and Rushdie
When looking at civilization, or indeed any notion of humanity whether collective or individual, one naturally presupposes language to be fundamental to its structure and development. Such assumptions are not without validity, as communication does principally create civilization on its many levels. Arguably, culture is itself the superstructure above this act of communication within a society. Within this context it is possible to observe how culture and language are determined by the social structures within a society; those that are in positions of power regulate both the medium and the content of culture. Throughout Foe, J. M. Coetzee consistently demonstrates the implications of power structures on language and the ability to communicate. The protagonist herself struggles to convey her story despite cultural limitations, as she begins to understand that though she cannot tell her own story, using another author removes her voice. Foe consequently uses his cultural dominance to dictate the constituency of a proper story, yet throughout the text Susan pursues her own narrative, and indeed the nature of her own position within that story. Most prominent however is the portrayal of the mute slave Friday, whose subservience is so thorough that he can barely understand or respond to others. Susan herself attempts to engage in a dialogue with him, but he remains mute to her. One cannot disavow Friday an element of his own agency however, as Susan’s pursuit of his story, despite his silence, largely precipitates the story that Coetzee presents to the reader. Indeed, taken as a whole the premise of Foe is that of the agency of the subservient. It is when the repressed characters become aware of their mutual relationship with authoritative voices and subsequently engage with them that a measure of independence and freedom is gained. In Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie presents such a character in Saleem Sinai, who is able to find his voice over the course of the novel. Saleem’s struggle with identity emerges most prominently in the textual realm; his autobiography is the means by which he realizes his authority. Principally, it is the loss of his telepathic abilities which precipitates Saleem to find his ‘true’ voice, namely the creation of both the story itself and a child of his own. Rushdie’s text consequently seems to imply that the process of emancipation is itself both a creative and a living process, existing as both problem and solution. Harkening to the Lacanian concept of the infinite origins of mimicry and double articulation, Saleem struggles throughout Midnight’s Children to create the text which is ultimately to become Rushdie’s novel. Both Rushdie and Coetzee are aware of their fundamental mimicry and usurpation of power from colonial authorities; it is in this manner that their principle characters can themselves become authors.
The first section of Foe is a direct narrative of Susan’s life on Crusoe’s island told from her own perspective. As such it must of course be analysed in light of the narrator’s biases – in particular, that Susan does not have access to the ‘truth’ behind the events of their stay on the island as either Crusoe or Friday perceive it – yet that is precisely one of the main themes of the novel as a whole. Upon her return to England, she attempts to bring her experiences into a cohesive narrative to be shared with the reading public and endeavours to remain as ‘factual’ as possible. It is important for the narrative to be her own, and she commences in a similar manner as other tales of maritime adventure. The beginnings of both the first section and her story-within-a-story description of events to Crusoe are routine for such narratives: “At last I could row no further” (Coetzee, p. 5); and then speaking, like the famous Ishmael, to Crusoe, “My name is Susan Barton ... I was cast adrift by the crew of the ship yonder” (p. 9). Each instance stresses the importance of Susan as an individual within the narrative, and there is no doubt that this is her story. Yet such conventions originate in masculine adventure narratives, and Susan quickly learns that she cannot incorporate all the elements that she wants into this framework. Her desire to include accounts from both Crusoe and Friday to complete her narrative is frustrated when she discovers that she cannot do so. There is no possibility of Friday revealing his story to her, neither can the recently dead Crusoe, for “who but Crusoe, who is no more, could truly tell you Crusoe’s story?” (p. 51). While she does attempt to engage Friday in order to reveal his story, which will be further discussed below, it becomes apparent that regardless of its validity, his story – or indeed that of any of the characters from the island – is largely irrelevant to readers. Such becomes manifest during her supposed collaboration with Foe, who subsumes Susan’s account into his own narrative. She felt that she could not write the text herself, for she cannot truly find her own voice within the silence of both Friday and Crusoe. She does not feel that it is her right to speak for them, although others, namely Foe himself, do not hesitate to speak for her until she rejects his authorial methods, upon which he withdraws into silence.
Susan believes that she requires Foe for precisely the reason that she struggles to find her own voice. As a man involved with British culture, and indeed one of it’s most articulate exponents, Foe represents the dominant culture from which Susan as a woman is largely excluded. Susan doubts her ability to produce a cohesive narrative within the confines of the patriarchal culture. Literary society – which in the eighteenth century largely restrained women as marginal figures – required a focus for texts, a point to be reached, and one which Susan could not provide: “my stories always have more applications than I intend, so that I must go back and laboriously extract the right application and apologize for the wrong ones and efface them. Some people are born story tellers; I, it would seem, am not” (p. 81). Susan is here fighting with the knowledge that history does not emerge from a single narrative, instead it is much more subjective. The very existence of the text of Foe proves the disparity that Susan feels between what she should say according to social convention and what she believes needs to be said. It is this struggle which provides thematic and narrative continuity to Coetzee’s text and proves, to modern readers at least, that Susan would indeed have been an able storyteller. She believes that storytelling is a live medium better suited to oral transmission since “a liveliness is lost in the writing down which must be supplied by art” (p. 40), and therefore any story will contain more of the soul of the author than elements of truth. Stories are living entities informed by the teller, they are products of a creative process akin to eroticism, and therefore requires the participation of the author within the narrative. Susan continually refers to physical love as the basis for narratives, saying that the “tongue is like the heart” (p. 85) and that “without desire how is it possible to make a story?” (p. 88). Certainly there was some level of desire on the island, foremost was obviously Susan’s desire to escape back to England, but also her sexual feelings shared with Crusoe were important. Regardless, such themes would be ill-suited to the phallocentric British society, which would inscribe its own voice on her narrative for “he has the last word who disposes over the greatest force” (p. 124), which of course if not necessarily Susan herself.
Perhaps most important to finding her own voice is Susan’s desire to engage others in a dialogue to conjoin her own narrative. It is in this sense that a sense of ‘truth’ would emerge from a multiplicity of voices. Yet such simultaneous narration is deemed too divided by the contemporary literary culture, as personified by Foe in the text. Susan wants the truth of the events that occurred on the island to liberate her, in a fashion, from the dominance of others. Her story would demonstrate that a woman is just as independent a creature as a man. Symbolically and practically the island was her freedom, as it was there that she was agent to her own emancipation. Yet upon her return to England, she finds that she cannot convey her story as she lacks both the publishing credentials of someone like Foe and the ability to write as a woman within British culture of the time. It is because of the internalization of cultural norms which exclude her that Susan feels that she must apologize for her “wrong applications”. She therefore denies the validity of her own voice and instead believes herself to be as a Muse to Foe while he writes her story. However, she quickly learns that she will not achieve freedom by his pen. Foe’s writing is not any real account of her life on the island but instead a more elaborate account which she ultimately rejects: “You know how dull our life was, in truth. We faced no perils, no ravenous beasts, not even serpents. Food was plentiful, the sun was mild. No pirates landed on our shores, no freebooters, no cannibals” (p. 81). Susan does not gain the liberation of free communication through Foe, quite contrarily his writing literally imprisons Susan and Friday within his house. Foe wants Susan to be secondary to his narrative, and indeed his writing leads to the creation of a second Susan, a character who believes she in fact is Susan Barton. He begins to contradict her, and attempts to convince her to accept this second Susan and presuppose a narrative which she is trying to reject:
Foe smiled. ‘Tell me more of Bahia,’ he said.
‘There is much to be said of Bahia. Bahia is a world in itself. But why? Bahia
is not the island. Bahia was but a stepping stone on my way.’
‘That may not be so,’ replied Foe cautiously. ‘Rehearse your story and you will see.”
(p. 116)
Foe then proceeds to create his own narrative, effectively removing Susan from her own story; to him a sequential narrative is more important. Only one hero is required for Foe, and other narratives – namely those of Friday, Crusoe, and in effect Susan herself – would only be distracting and more importantly it would be outside of the literary tradition. Despite being aided by numerous assistants, Odysseus, Jason of the Argonauts, Aeneas, and Crusoe in Defoe’s original text – all effectively stood alone during their travels. Foe in fact creates her story as if it were his own, as though he had himself been a castaway, and more importantly it becomes a story which adheres perfectly with the patriarchal society in which they live, with “five parts in all ... it is thus that we make up a book” (p. 117).
Susan does not allow Foe to be sole narrator of the text, however. Initially she counters Foe’s authoring of a palatable story for the English masses by rejecting his attempts to subserve her life to that narrative as well as the inscriptions that he places upon her:
if I were a mere receptacle ready to accommodate whatever story is
stuffed in me, surely you would dismiss me, surely you would say to your-
self, “This is no woman but a house of words, hollow, without substance”?
‘I am not a story, Mr. Foe.
(pp. 130-1)
Despite what Foe is trying to do to her, Susan firmly believes that she is greater than the story, and indeed, there is more to the character than is presented by Coetzee; her life does not begin with the first paragraph of part I. She learns from her isolation with Friday in Foe’s house that she must more actively involve herself in the story’s creation. To this end she attempts to engage both Friday and Foe himself into the narrative. Susan intends to become a subject for Foe in both senses of the word. His repressive acts do remove her identity to a great extent, yet not to the extreme of her entirely doubting herself or her voice. She never displays any uncertainty concerning the second Susan but remains adamant that she herself is the real Susan, despite Foe’s intentions. Simultaneously however, in many instances she does demonstrate her own agency: when she has a sexual encounter with Foe; the letters of Part II, originally meant for Foe but much more of her own narrative voice to be read by others.
More informative are the initiatives taken with Friday in order to allow his story to emerge. It is from these instances that a voice emerges for Susan. At the same time however, these passages demonstrate the extent to which Friday has himself become a subject to both the colonial power and the narrative itself. He had of course once been a slave, and to the British he will always remain so. Susan’s efforts to ‘free’ him from servitude do not in fact liberate him from colonial rule; indeed, that she inscribes her own values and an identity upon him is made quite evident when she fashions for him a ‘freedom sack’, containing his manumission papers, to be worn around his neck. Many times she mimics Foe in inscribing her own words upon Friday in place of his own voice: “I say he is a cannibal, he becomes a cannibal; I say he is a laundryman and he becomes a laundryman ... what he is to the world is what I make of him” (pp. 121-2). More telling are her attempts to probe Friday for his story, despite his inability to communicate in any but the most basic manner. It is this probing that allows Coetzee’s narrative a continuity and indeed remains the locus for the text. Susan senses something in Friday that she cannot truly fathom until the final part of the text. Throughout her interaction with Friday, there is an agency in his silence and indeed in his slavery on the island of which she becomes aware:
Why, during all those years alone with Crusoe, did you submit to his rule,
when you might easily have slain him, or blinded him and made him into
your slave in turn? Is there something in the condition of slavehood that
invades the heart and makes a slave a slave for life”
(p. 85)
Friday has to a certain degree internalized his own servitude, yet more importantly, he exists within a different medium than either Susan, Crusoe, or Foe, and one in which Susan herself longs to live. Friday is not confined to the slippery signification of identity with which all of the other characters remain burdened, continually exchanging positions of master-slave, self-other, and Subject-subject. Instead he remains outside of such a system; his existence is more pure and untainted by the identity construction which others inscribe upon him. To a great extent it is his lack of language which allows Friday to be free of such encumbrances of society. The final part of the text suggests that Susan herself has begun to understand the nature of his existence: “This is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday” (p. 137). It is within this context that one can more fully understand the association continually made between writing and sexual desire. By doing so, Susan is endeavouring to unite Friday’s pure world of ‘body-as-sign’ with the literary world of slippery signification, and consequently find a means of communication. Arguably, Susan cannot remove the social constructs which bind her from such a place, however much she longs to join Friday. She is far too much like Foe, and her dependency on language is far too great.
Rushdie’s text is very much a literal interpretation of this concept of ‘body-as-sign’; indeed, in many respects it is fundamental to his narrative. Certainly Saleem never lives in the pure state that Friday inhabits, as throughout most of his life he is defined by others, first as the miracle First-born of the newly liberated India, and later in much more insulting terms by his childhood peers. More significantly, Saleem never transcends language as Friday had. Coetzee’s slave is very much an outcast from society, and in this sense he achieves purity. Saleem’s (and as an extension, Rushdie’s) quest is not to reject society but rather to subvert its traditions. Language therefore becomes what he desires it to be, namely an Indian language spoken using English. Rushdie appropriates the narrative and stylistic traditions of the English canon to cohere into a new unified whole. The novel consequently becomes an apparatus by which Saleem-as-native-Indian becomes the dominant voice, and does not remain the mysterious Other of western convention. Throughout Midnight’s Children, Rushdie emphasizes the physicality of life, ostensibly as a counter to the idealizing process in which India had been previously defined. Consequently all of the references to traditional Indian culture are used to subvert the dominant language structure. Rushdie invents new words to describe his process, which can perhaps best be expressed by his equation of the text with cooking, and in particular with chutney. Rushdie uses this term as a signifier for this re-appropriation: his “chutnification” of the text is the process of claiming traditional elements of narrative construction and re-creating them within a new context, inflected with ‘Indian’ elements. It is this fundamental subversion of conventional narratives which allows Rushdie (and of course Saleem; the text is “autobiographical”) to extract himself from the hierarchy of language constructed by the west, critique it objectively, and ultimately to tell his narrative using his own voice.
Saleem himself exists in a world in which every part and function of the body is a representation of the body-politic of India. Every one of the midnight children is gifted in terms of bodily ability, Saleem and Shiva having inherited the most potent abilities as they were born most immediately after India’s independence. It could be argued that Rushdie is being quite blatant in his metaphor of the children of midnight. Certainly they represent the new hopes and desires felt by India upon achieving sovereignty, yet Rushdie quickly demonstrates the complexity of his allegory. The midnight children are uniquely Indian, at least in terms of western stereotypes derived from Moslem origins. In structural terms they are the spices which contribute to the “chutnification” of the text. Nearly all of them are copies of the djinn and mystics of the tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and this textual citation serves to hint at Rushdie’s intentions. Throughout British rule India was given an identity, inscribed by the western world and one to which it could not live up. Rushdie appropriates these images into his narrative to demonstrate the adversity India has to face in order to truly achieve independence. The children of midnight are not solely the hopes and dreams of a nation, they are the old baggage of colonial bondage which must be excised from India’s consciousness in order for the nation to become free. They must become not the special Thousand-and-One Others representing Indian fantasy to the Western world, but alternately they need to be sublimated as 0.00007 percent of the modern Indian population as Saleem states in the prison sequence. Ancient mysticism must be sublimated in turn to modern rationalism. Consequently the thousand-and-one are captured by the government; some are never to be released, some are castrated and some are killed. Saleem is doubly lucky, in a sense, as he is merely castrated, released and lives to construct his story. His castration ultimately does not hinder his procreative ability, as he adopts a child fathered by his Other, Shiva. The final chapters of the text concentrate on this child, upon whom he casts his own dreams and expectations for the future.
Saleem’s struggle for freedom in a very real (and Lacanian) sense becomes the liberation that he is seeking after; his efforts to achieve self-realization are in fact themselves the elements of that self-realization. Much like Susan he has to contend with desire as the basis for narrative expression, yet he never embraces physical love as she had. Throughout the text Padma acts as an agency for his desire, yet Saleem sublimates his feelings into the creation of the text itself, rather than realize them with her. True enough, his reticency is influenced by his inability to produce children, and especially in the early part of the text his ‘procreative’ concerns are very real and become manifest in terms of doubts towards his text as often he stops and begins writing again. He is once afflicted by writer’s block, but frequently doubts the validity of his text. Padma leads him to continue along his narrative, in fact her urges seem almost desperate at times: “You better get a move on or you’ll die before you get yourself born” (Rushdie, p. 38). By the end of the text it becomes quite clear that he has in fact been reborn, and part of this process involves the realization of his feelings for Padma. Consequently it is hardly surprising that they engage to be married in the final chapters. More to the point, this process of self-actualization through the text leads Saleem to the creation of his own history. There is little denying that history is itself a construction and not in any way a ‘fact’, therefore we can excuse Saleem – as he excuses himself – a few non-factual creations in his story:
I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the
illusion that since the past exists only in one’s memories and
the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible
to create past events simply by saying they occurred.
(p. 529)
Yet it is his history, in which he is his own agent; despite Rushdie’s allegorical implications for national representation, its immediate relevance is only to himself. More importantly it is a modern tale, and one of progress and self-actualization. Any sense a reader may have about Saleem’s oppression by the traditional history of India-as-repressed-nation is ultimately rejected by Rushdie’s use of fantastical elements. India will not be defined by its history or any other convention which have to a great extent been ascribed to it by western writers. In other words, India will become modern India by a re-appropriation of western stereotypes in order to write a history for itself. Saleem achieves his own independence in this manner, and in actuality from the very start of the text Rushdie hints that this will occur:
I was born in the city of Bombay ... once upon a time. No, that
won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in
Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the
time? The time matters too.
(p. 1)
Saleem’s story will not begin like another fantastical tale from the Arabian Nights; he gives himself all the details which are important in the construction of his history. The fact that his birth is the birth of an independent India is of course part of Rushdie’s allegory, yet to Saleem it is important that this is his story, and not of India as a whole. It is for this reason that Saleem envies himself in his domestic position – as dwarf with no greater purpose – by the end of the text.
More importantly, Saleem’s connection to the other children allows him to use their voices to realize his own. At first he believes himself to be the voice of India, or more accurately the voices of all India. It is his telepathic abilities which allow the children of midnight to become a unified group, who would then ostensibly communicate to the world through him. Rushdie immediately undermines such romantic dreams by portraying the MCC as a group of bickering children who cannot truly be unified. Regardless, the children ultimately do not exist for such a purpose; their downfall is not the tragedy of the novel. Saleem cannot be the leader of India nor even of the MCC – despite his continual statements that his fate is the fate of all nations. Indeed, such turns out to be true, but not in the literal sense which he expects in the early sections of the novel. He will not be a leader by example, but rather a leader by allegorical representation. When he loses his telepathic ability, he realizes his fate is in fact true as he becomes a symbol not only for India, but for every nation as he so frequently says. Both colonial and imperial nations will achieve independence by using their national history as an informative text used to aid progress, not as a set of rules which need to be followed. Saleem cannot remain a djinn just as India cannot remain a colonial dependent viewed by the Western world as the mysterious Orient. He is consequently relieved when his powers are taken from him: “The young-old face of the dwarf in the mirror wore an expression of profound relief” (p. 534). India must exist as a living entity not oppressed by its history; it must be omnipresent in the wholly literal meaning of the term. In order for this state to be realized, any rigid definitions must be rejected, most notably those which are inscribed involuntarily. India will not be what it once was, it will not be what other nations prescribe it to be; India will define itself. The turmoil of the middle section of the novel demonstrates that this process is not a clean one, but rather it is violent and uncertain. Yet it is a process which India will undertake for itself. It is for this reason that Saleem feels that he achieves purity as the Indian bombs fall on Pakistan and his family is annihilated. Saleem’s story, at this point equated with the history of India, enters into a pure state in this sequence because the war is a demarcation of Indian self-governance and self-reliance. It is perhaps a bit problematic that Rushdie here implies that one cannot achieve independence until both life and death – and the ability to kill – are signifiers for liberation. Yet the war between India and Pakistan is to a great extent a purifying incident in the sense that it is the means by which the past becomes a mere narrative and not the sole influence for the future of the country. Neither will history – which of course had been created in both the narrative and the physical worlds by the west – be a defining influence on the present state of India. Rushdie’s implication remains: it is only in this context that nations as well as individuals can realize true freedom.
Many texts have examined the impact of social structure on language and communication, and a number of theoretical works have been advanced sharing similar views. The relationships between the dominant and subservient classes are not simple ‘give-and-take’, but instead form a complex of interdependency; each internalizes the supposed roles of the other. Within this context, Susan – a character repressed in many way by her society – must find a voice with which she can create her story. It is her struggle to find this voice, undertaken largely through the voices of others, that forms the locus of Coetzee’s narrative. The final section of the text seems to suggest that she has succeeded in finding such a voice by understanding Friday’s silence, and there is little evidence to doubt her newly discovered communicative freedom. For Rushdie the process of reclaiming authority over language is similar. Saleem uses the voices of others to find his own, yet more important is their silence. His loss of the gift he was given at birth is the means by which he unites the imperial voice with the silence of colonial dependency to create a new language, namely the “chutnification” of the old one. The process of self-liberation for both Susan and Saleem is a purifying one as each becomes aware of the importance of their authority. Fundamentally this rejection of foreign agency and identity construction is the goal of all post-colonial literatures.
Bibliography
Coetzee, J.M. Foe. London: Penguin Books, 1986.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. London: Penguin Books, 1991.
The first section of Foe is a direct narrative of Susan’s life on Crusoe’s island told from her own perspective. As such it must of course be analysed in light of the narrator’s biases – in particular, that Susan does not have access to the ‘truth’ behind the events of their stay on the island as either Crusoe or Friday perceive it – yet that is precisely one of the main themes of the novel as a whole. Upon her return to England, she attempts to bring her experiences into a cohesive narrative to be shared with the reading public and endeavours to remain as ‘factual’ as possible. It is important for the narrative to be her own, and she commences in a similar manner as other tales of maritime adventure. The beginnings of both the first section and her story-within-a-story description of events to Crusoe are routine for such narratives: “At last I could row no further” (Coetzee, p. 5); and then speaking, like the famous Ishmael, to Crusoe, “My name is Susan Barton ... I was cast adrift by the crew of the ship yonder” (p. 9). Each instance stresses the importance of Susan as an individual within the narrative, and there is no doubt that this is her story. Yet such conventions originate in masculine adventure narratives, and Susan quickly learns that she cannot incorporate all the elements that she wants into this framework. Her desire to include accounts from both Crusoe and Friday to complete her narrative is frustrated when she discovers that she cannot do so. There is no possibility of Friday revealing his story to her, neither can the recently dead Crusoe, for “who but Crusoe, who is no more, could truly tell you Crusoe’s story?” (p. 51). While she does attempt to engage Friday in order to reveal his story, which will be further discussed below, it becomes apparent that regardless of its validity, his story – or indeed that of any of the characters from the island – is largely irrelevant to readers. Such becomes manifest during her supposed collaboration with Foe, who subsumes Susan’s account into his own narrative. She felt that she could not write the text herself, for she cannot truly find her own voice within the silence of both Friday and Crusoe. She does not feel that it is her right to speak for them, although others, namely Foe himself, do not hesitate to speak for her until she rejects his authorial methods, upon which he withdraws into silence.
Susan believes that she requires Foe for precisely the reason that she struggles to find her own voice. As a man involved with British culture, and indeed one of it’s most articulate exponents, Foe represents the dominant culture from which Susan as a woman is largely excluded. Susan doubts her ability to produce a cohesive narrative within the confines of the patriarchal culture. Literary society – which in the eighteenth century largely restrained women as marginal figures – required a focus for texts, a point to be reached, and one which Susan could not provide: “my stories always have more applications than I intend, so that I must go back and laboriously extract the right application and apologize for the wrong ones and efface them. Some people are born story tellers; I, it would seem, am not” (p. 81). Susan is here fighting with the knowledge that history does not emerge from a single narrative, instead it is much more subjective. The very existence of the text of Foe proves the disparity that Susan feels between what she should say according to social convention and what she believes needs to be said. It is this struggle which provides thematic and narrative continuity to Coetzee’s text and proves, to modern readers at least, that Susan would indeed have been an able storyteller. She believes that storytelling is a live medium better suited to oral transmission since “a liveliness is lost in the writing down which must be supplied by art” (p. 40), and therefore any story will contain more of the soul of the author than elements of truth. Stories are living entities informed by the teller, they are products of a creative process akin to eroticism, and therefore requires the participation of the author within the narrative. Susan continually refers to physical love as the basis for narratives, saying that the “tongue is like the heart” (p. 85) and that “without desire how is it possible to make a story?” (p. 88). Certainly there was some level of desire on the island, foremost was obviously Susan’s desire to escape back to England, but also her sexual feelings shared with Crusoe were important. Regardless, such themes would be ill-suited to the phallocentric British society, which would inscribe its own voice on her narrative for “he has the last word who disposes over the greatest force” (p. 124), which of course if not necessarily Susan herself.
Perhaps most important to finding her own voice is Susan’s desire to engage others in a dialogue to conjoin her own narrative. It is in this sense that a sense of ‘truth’ would emerge from a multiplicity of voices. Yet such simultaneous narration is deemed too divided by the contemporary literary culture, as personified by Foe in the text. Susan wants the truth of the events that occurred on the island to liberate her, in a fashion, from the dominance of others. Her story would demonstrate that a woman is just as independent a creature as a man. Symbolically and practically the island was her freedom, as it was there that she was agent to her own emancipation. Yet upon her return to England, she finds that she cannot convey her story as she lacks both the publishing credentials of someone like Foe and the ability to write as a woman within British culture of the time. It is because of the internalization of cultural norms which exclude her that Susan feels that she must apologize for her “wrong applications”. She therefore denies the validity of her own voice and instead believes herself to be as a Muse to Foe while he writes her story. However, she quickly learns that she will not achieve freedom by his pen. Foe’s writing is not any real account of her life on the island but instead a more elaborate account which she ultimately rejects: “You know how dull our life was, in truth. We faced no perils, no ravenous beasts, not even serpents. Food was plentiful, the sun was mild. No pirates landed on our shores, no freebooters, no cannibals” (p. 81). Susan does not gain the liberation of free communication through Foe, quite contrarily his writing literally imprisons Susan and Friday within his house. Foe wants Susan to be secondary to his narrative, and indeed his writing leads to the creation of a second Susan, a character who believes she in fact is Susan Barton. He begins to contradict her, and attempts to convince her to accept this second Susan and presuppose a narrative which she is trying to reject:
Foe smiled. ‘Tell me more of Bahia,’ he said.
‘There is much to be said of Bahia. Bahia is a world in itself. But why? Bahia
is not the island. Bahia was but a stepping stone on my way.’
‘That may not be so,’ replied Foe cautiously. ‘Rehearse your story and you will see.”
(p. 116)
Foe then proceeds to create his own narrative, effectively removing Susan from her own story; to him a sequential narrative is more important. Only one hero is required for Foe, and other narratives – namely those of Friday, Crusoe, and in effect Susan herself – would only be distracting and more importantly it would be outside of the literary tradition. Despite being aided by numerous assistants, Odysseus, Jason of the Argonauts, Aeneas, and Crusoe in Defoe’s original text – all effectively stood alone during their travels. Foe in fact creates her story as if it were his own, as though he had himself been a castaway, and more importantly it becomes a story which adheres perfectly with the patriarchal society in which they live, with “five parts in all ... it is thus that we make up a book” (p. 117).
Susan does not allow Foe to be sole narrator of the text, however. Initially she counters Foe’s authoring of a palatable story for the English masses by rejecting his attempts to subserve her life to that narrative as well as the inscriptions that he places upon her:
if I were a mere receptacle ready to accommodate whatever story is
stuffed in me, surely you would dismiss me, surely you would say to your-
self, “This is no woman but a house of words, hollow, without substance”?
‘I am not a story, Mr. Foe.
(pp. 130-1)
Despite what Foe is trying to do to her, Susan firmly believes that she is greater than the story, and indeed, there is more to the character than is presented by Coetzee; her life does not begin with the first paragraph of part I. She learns from her isolation with Friday in Foe’s house that she must more actively involve herself in the story’s creation. To this end she attempts to engage both Friday and Foe himself into the narrative. Susan intends to become a subject for Foe in both senses of the word. His repressive acts do remove her identity to a great extent, yet not to the extreme of her entirely doubting herself or her voice. She never displays any uncertainty concerning the second Susan but remains adamant that she herself is the real Susan, despite Foe’s intentions. Simultaneously however, in many instances she does demonstrate her own agency: when she has a sexual encounter with Foe; the letters of Part II, originally meant for Foe but much more of her own narrative voice to be read by others.
More informative are the initiatives taken with Friday in order to allow his story to emerge. It is from these instances that a voice emerges for Susan. At the same time however, these passages demonstrate the extent to which Friday has himself become a subject to both the colonial power and the narrative itself. He had of course once been a slave, and to the British he will always remain so. Susan’s efforts to ‘free’ him from servitude do not in fact liberate him from colonial rule; indeed, that she inscribes her own values and an identity upon him is made quite evident when she fashions for him a ‘freedom sack’, containing his manumission papers, to be worn around his neck. Many times she mimics Foe in inscribing her own words upon Friday in place of his own voice: “I say he is a cannibal, he becomes a cannibal; I say he is a laundryman and he becomes a laundryman ... what he is to the world is what I make of him” (pp. 121-2). More telling are her attempts to probe Friday for his story, despite his inability to communicate in any but the most basic manner. It is this probing that allows Coetzee’s narrative a continuity and indeed remains the locus for the text. Susan senses something in Friday that she cannot truly fathom until the final part of the text. Throughout her interaction with Friday, there is an agency in his silence and indeed in his slavery on the island of which she becomes aware:
Why, during all those years alone with Crusoe, did you submit to his rule,
when you might easily have slain him, or blinded him and made him into
your slave in turn? Is there something in the condition of slavehood that
invades the heart and makes a slave a slave for life”
(p. 85)
Friday has to a certain degree internalized his own servitude, yet more importantly, he exists within a different medium than either Susan, Crusoe, or Foe, and one in which Susan herself longs to live. Friday is not confined to the slippery signification of identity with which all of the other characters remain burdened, continually exchanging positions of master-slave, self-other, and Subject-subject. Instead he remains outside of such a system; his existence is more pure and untainted by the identity construction which others inscribe upon him. To a great extent it is his lack of language which allows Friday to be free of such encumbrances of society. The final part of the text suggests that Susan herself has begun to understand the nature of his existence: “This is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday” (p. 137). It is within this context that one can more fully understand the association continually made between writing and sexual desire. By doing so, Susan is endeavouring to unite Friday’s pure world of ‘body-as-sign’ with the literary world of slippery signification, and consequently find a means of communication. Arguably, Susan cannot remove the social constructs which bind her from such a place, however much she longs to join Friday. She is far too much like Foe, and her dependency on language is far too great.
Rushdie’s text is very much a literal interpretation of this concept of ‘body-as-sign’; indeed, in many respects it is fundamental to his narrative. Certainly Saleem never lives in the pure state that Friday inhabits, as throughout most of his life he is defined by others, first as the miracle First-born of the newly liberated India, and later in much more insulting terms by his childhood peers. More significantly, Saleem never transcends language as Friday had. Coetzee’s slave is very much an outcast from society, and in this sense he achieves purity. Saleem’s (and as an extension, Rushdie’s) quest is not to reject society but rather to subvert its traditions. Language therefore becomes what he desires it to be, namely an Indian language spoken using English. Rushdie appropriates the narrative and stylistic traditions of the English canon to cohere into a new unified whole. The novel consequently becomes an apparatus by which Saleem-as-native-Indian becomes the dominant voice, and does not remain the mysterious Other of western convention. Throughout Midnight’s Children, Rushdie emphasizes the physicality of life, ostensibly as a counter to the idealizing process in which India had been previously defined. Consequently all of the references to traditional Indian culture are used to subvert the dominant language structure. Rushdie invents new words to describe his process, which can perhaps best be expressed by his equation of the text with cooking, and in particular with chutney. Rushdie uses this term as a signifier for this re-appropriation: his “chutnification” of the text is the process of claiming traditional elements of narrative construction and re-creating them within a new context, inflected with ‘Indian’ elements. It is this fundamental subversion of conventional narratives which allows Rushdie (and of course Saleem; the text is “autobiographical”) to extract himself from the hierarchy of language constructed by the west, critique it objectively, and ultimately to tell his narrative using his own voice.
Saleem himself exists in a world in which every part and function of the body is a representation of the body-politic of India. Every one of the midnight children is gifted in terms of bodily ability, Saleem and Shiva having inherited the most potent abilities as they were born most immediately after India’s independence. It could be argued that Rushdie is being quite blatant in his metaphor of the children of midnight. Certainly they represent the new hopes and desires felt by India upon achieving sovereignty, yet Rushdie quickly demonstrates the complexity of his allegory. The midnight children are uniquely Indian, at least in terms of western stereotypes derived from Moslem origins. In structural terms they are the spices which contribute to the “chutnification” of the text. Nearly all of them are copies of the djinn and mystics of the tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and this textual citation serves to hint at Rushdie’s intentions. Throughout British rule India was given an identity, inscribed by the western world and one to which it could not live up. Rushdie appropriates these images into his narrative to demonstrate the adversity India has to face in order to truly achieve independence. The children of midnight are not solely the hopes and dreams of a nation, they are the old baggage of colonial bondage which must be excised from India’s consciousness in order for the nation to become free. They must become not the special Thousand-and-One Others representing Indian fantasy to the Western world, but alternately they need to be sublimated as 0.00007 percent of the modern Indian population as Saleem states in the prison sequence. Ancient mysticism must be sublimated in turn to modern rationalism. Consequently the thousand-and-one are captured by the government; some are never to be released, some are castrated and some are killed. Saleem is doubly lucky, in a sense, as he is merely castrated, released and lives to construct his story. His castration ultimately does not hinder his procreative ability, as he adopts a child fathered by his Other, Shiva. The final chapters of the text concentrate on this child, upon whom he casts his own dreams and expectations for the future.
Saleem’s struggle for freedom in a very real (and Lacanian) sense becomes the liberation that he is seeking after; his efforts to achieve self-realization are in fact themselves the elements of that self-realization. Much like Susan he has to contend with desire as the basis for narrative expression, yet he never embraces physical love as she had. Throughout the text Padma acts as an agency for his desire, yet Saleem sublimates his feelings into the creation of the text itself, rather than realize them with her. True enough, his reticency is influenced by his inability to produce children, and especially in the early part of the text his ‘procreative’ concerns are very real and become manifest in terms of doubts towards his text as often he stops and begins writing again. He is once afflicted by writer’s block, but frequently doubts the validity of his text. Padma leads him to continue along his narrative, in fact her urges seem almost desperate at times: “You better get a move on or you’ll die before you get yourself born” (Rushdie, p. 38). By the end of the text it becomes quite clear that he has in fact been reborn, and part of this process involves the realization of his feelings for Padma. Consequently it is hardly surprising that they engage to be married in the final chapters. More to the point, this process of self-actualization through the text leads Saleem to the creation of his own history. There is little denying that history is itself a construction and not in any way a ‘fact’, therefore we can excuse Saleem – as he excuses himself – a few non-factual creations in his story:
I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the
illusion that since the past exists only in one’s memories and
the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible
to create past events simply by saying they occurred.
(p. 529)
Yet it is his history, in which he is his own agent; despite Rushdie’s allegorical implications for national representation, its immediate relevance is only to himself. More importantly it is a modern tale, and one of progress and self-actualization. Any sense a reader may have about Saleem’s oppression by the traditional history of India-as-repressed-nation is ultimately rejected by Rushdie’s use of fantastical elements. India will not be defined by its history or any other convention which have to a great extent been ascribed to it by western writers. In other words, India will become modern India by a re-appropriation of western stereotypes in order to write a history for itself. Saleem achieves his own independence in this manner, and in actuality from the very start of the text Rushdie hints that this will occur:
I was born in the city of Bombay ... once upon a time. No, that
won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in
Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the
time? The time matters too.
(p. 1)
Saleem’s story will not begin like another fantastical tale from the Arabian Nights; he gives himself all the details which are important in the construction of his history. The fact that his birth is the birth of an independent India is of course part of Rushdie’s allegory, yet to Saleem it is important that this is his story, and not of India as a whole. It is for this reason that Saleem envies himself in his domestic position – as dwarf with no greater purpose – by the end of the text.
More importantly, Saleem’s connection to the other children allows him to use their voices to realize his own. At first he believes himself to be the voice of India, or more accurately the voices of all India. It is his telepathic abilities which allow the children of midnight to become a unified group, who would then ostensibly communicate to the world through him. Rushdie immediately undermines such romantic dreams by portraying the MCC as a group of bickering children who cannot truly be unified. Regardless, the children ultimately do not exist for such a purpose; their downfall is not the tragedy of the novel. Saleem cannot be the leader of India nor even of the MCC – despite his continual statements that his fate is the fate of all nations. Indeed, such turns out to be true, but not in the literal sense which he expects in the early sections of the novel. He will not be a leader by example, but rather a leader by allegorical representation. When he loses his telepathic ability, he realizes his fate is in fact true as he becomes a symbol not only for India, but for every nation as he so frequently says. Both colonial and imperial nations will achieve independence by using their national history as an informative text used to aid progress, not as a set of rules which need to be followed. Saleem cannot remain a djinn just as India cannot remain a colonial dependent viewed by the Western world as the mysterious Orient. He is consequently relieved when his powers are taken from him: “The young-old face of the dwarf in the mirror wore an expression of profound relief” (p. 534). India must exist as a living entity not oppressed by its history; it must be omnipresent in the wholly literal meaning of the term. In order for this state to be realized, any rigid definitions must be rejected, most notably those which are inscribed involuntarily. India will not be what it once was, it will not be what other nations prescribe it to be; India will define itself. The turmoil of the middle section of the novel demonstrates that this process is not a clean one, but rather it is violent and uncertain. Yet it is a process which India will undertake for itself. It is for this reason that Saleem feels that he achieves purity as the Indian bombs fall on Pakistan and his family is annihilated. Saleem’s story, at this point equated with the history of India, enters into a pure state in this sequence because the war is a demarcation of Indian self-governance and self-reliance. It is perhaps a bit problematic that Rushdie here implies that one cannot achieve independence until both life and death – and the ability to kill – are signifiers for liberation. Yet the war between India and Pakistan is to a great extent a purifying incident in the sense that it is the means by which the past becomes a mere narrative and not the sole influence for the future of the country. Neither will history – which of course had been created in both the narrative and the physical worlds by the west – be a defining influence on the present state of India. Rushdie’s implication remains: it is only in this context that nations as well as individuals can realize true freedom.
Many texts have examined the impact of social structure on language and communication, and a number of theoretical works have been advanced sharing similar views. The relationships between the dominant and subservient classes are not simple ‘give-and-take’, but instead form a complex of interdependency; each internalizes the supposed roles of the other. Within this context, Susan – a character repressed in many way by her society – must find a voice with which she can create her story. It is her struggle to find this voice, undertaken largely through the voices of others, that forms the locus of Coetzee’s narrative. The final section of the text seems to suggest that she has succeeded in finding such a voice by understanding Friday’s silence, and there is little evidence to doubt her newly discovered communicative freedom. For Rushdie the process of reclaiming authority over language is similar. Saleem uses the voices of others to find his own, yet more important is their silence. His loss of the gift he was given at birth is the means by which he unites the imperial voice with the silence of colonial dependency to create a new language, namely the “chutnification” of the old one. The process of self-liberation for both Susan and Saleem is a purifying one as each becomes aware of the importance of their authority. Fundamentally this rejection of foreign agency and identity construction is the goal of all post-colonial literatures.
Bibliography
Coetzee, J.M. Foe. London: Penguin Books, 1986.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. London: Penguin Books, 1991.
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