Personal Affirmation Leads to Greatest Triumph or Worst Defeat - Essay Example

PERSONAL AFFIRMATION LEADS TO GREATEST TRIUMPH or WORST DEFEAT Life is useless and all struggle futile if man does not know anything about personal affirmation. It can take on many forms but there must always be a personal affirmation tool through which man can achieve his goals. This is because we must understand that man would go to any length if he has his eyes set on something; he would endure all if there is a destination that he wants to reach. Man may not have inexhaustible patience, but some men would endure a lot if there is a precise goal in mind and if that goal is so important that his whole existence depends on it. This goal is what man creates in difficult circumstances to aid his survival. It is through personal affirmation then that he realizes his greatest victory or worst defeat. This notion is aptly illustrated in the two novels namely A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul and The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. A House for Mr. Biswas (House from now on) is a mammoth epic of nearly six hundred pages that illustrates one man's refusal to accept fate and to rise above the circumstances. It chronicles the life of Mohan Biswas who has just one dream all his life i.e. to win his independence by having his own place. He wants to be able to free himself from the clutches of the Tulsi family and while he dies at the young age of 46, he is one contented man having gained his independence. It is as early as in the prologue that we learn about Mohan's mission when we see that he is a sacked reporter who is dying at the age of forty-six in his own place "on his own half-lot of land, his own portion of the earth," on Sikkim Street, Port-of-Spain: How terrible it would have been, at this time, to be without it [a house]: to have died among the Tulsis, amid the squalor of that large, disintegrating and indifferent family; to have left Shama and the children among them, in one room; worse, to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one's portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one had been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated. (p. 13-14) Mohan is not an ordinary character for while his life is painted in cruel realism, there is still a comic streak that helps in lifting the clouds of seriousness and lets us see the amused observer. In this he resembles Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea who is not an ordinary aging protagonist himself. From the very beginning Hemingway creates a portrait that alerts us that we are not dealing with an ordinary character when we learn that: "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish" ( Hemingway 1952, 9). That Mohan's life would be extraordinary is clear from right from the auspicious time of his birth. He was born at midnight which according to Hindu myths was not a very fortunate time. The pundit prophesizes that Mohan would be a liar and lecher and the midwife feels he would be the cause of his father's death. As luck would have it, he inadvertently causes his father's drowning and is forced to live with strangers. It is during really tough times that he gets the brutal lesson of "ought oughts are oughts," which if we recall Lear's words means that "Nothing will come out of nothing." But Mohan is not the one to believe that. He was willing "to create himself and his world out of nothing." (Boxill, p. 37) The actual struggle begins when Mr. Biswas is dismissed from his position as a live-in pundit apprentice and from there on starts his solitary journey: "The neighbours had heard, and came out to watch Mr Biswas as, in his dhoti, with his bundle slung on his shoulders, he walked through the village" (pp. 56-7). It is after some odd jobs that he finally lands a place with a powerful, conservative, land-owning family, the Tulsis who admire his sign-painting skills. Once inside their house, Biswas loses his independence completely. The Tulsis are a cunning lot who trap Mohan into marrying their daughter Shama because of his high caste. From their on, he starts living with the Tulsis in their Arwacas residence which is described as "an alien white fortress... bulky, impregnable, and blank" thus indicating conflict, imprisonment, and decay. (Ramchand, 194-195) Mohan Biswas's struggle for independence begins with the realization that he was expected to become an insignificant Tulsi among many other Tulsis in the house. If Hanuman house provided shelter, it also expected or rather demanded complete subservience- something that Biswas was not willing to offer. It is then that he realizes that "he has simply exchanged one problem for another. He has imprisoned himself; he is trapped." (White: 90) He tries to flee but later decides to confront the problems and fight his way to independence as Boxill notes: "Biswas's first real sense of himself arises out of his need to oppose the Tulsis, who come to represent external chaos and darkness, the void." (Boxill: 40) Biswas tries to constantly provoke them with his humorous invectives and sparkling wit. He caricatures his "she-fox," and "old queen," her sons, Shekhar and Owad, as "the gods," Seth as "big boss" and Hari as the "holy ghost." The Tulsis try to ignore him dismissing Biswas as a trouble maker but they understand that it is close to impossible to respond cleverly when he throws his non conformist invectives at them. On one occasion we see him provoking and ridiculing them in this manner: Suniti said to Shama, 'I hear that you come like a big-shot, Aunt.' She didn't hide her amusement, 'Buying house and thing.' 'Yes, child,' Shama said, in her martyr's way. The exchange took place on the back steps and reached the ears of Mr Biswas.... 'Shama,' he shouted, 'tell that girl to go back and help that worthless husband of hers to look after their goats at Pokima Halt.' The goats were an invention of Mr Biswas which never fail to irritate Suniti. 'Goats!' she said to the yard, and sucked her teeth. (pp. 11-12) When verbal assault turns into physical combat, it becomes all too clear that Mr. Biswas would not fit in the submission-craving Tulsi household. This is when Biswas is given his own place, a Tulsi shop at the Chase Village. This small space of his own becomes for Biswas "a potent symbol of personal independence and thus an affirmation of human dignity."(Wyndham: 91) The Chase shop was a failure but it gave Biswas the freedom he sought: "The House was a world, more real than The Chase, and less exposed; everything beyond its gates was foreign and unimportant and could be ignored. He needed such a sanctuary." (p. 188). Just like Santiago who escapes reality or rather faces it bravely by losing himself in his baseball dreams, Biswas avoids reality by reading Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and by painting "cool, ordered forest scenes." So even though he was a failure by commercial measure, to himself, Biswas was a success since he had managed to achieve his independence from the clutches of the impossible Tulsis. Triumph takes on a different meaning in The Old man and The Sea where the one message we see consistently running through that novella is that man must continuously fight against unfavorable forces even if he is certain of the futility of his struggle. Santiago is an old fisherman who has unfortunately not been very successful at catching fish lately. His business suffers while he loses his young companion, a boy named Manolin whose father wants him to work for more successful fishermen. But Manolin loves Santiago and brings him food everyday. They spend time together talking about their favorite sport i.e. baseball. While Santiago is an old man with hardly any real strength left, he must battle both physically and mentally against external forces that have lately been very unkind to him. The old man is pitted against the sea, which symbolizes a great force and sea life as allies of that force, and while Santiago knows that he may not succeed, he is required to continue fighting. This continuous struggle is in line with Christian belief that despair is unforgivable. He watched only the forward part of the fish and some of his hope returned. "It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is a sin. Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it. I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it. (104-5)" The author, through his protagonist, tries to show that it is the nature of man to fight even he doesn't get the reward he was hoping for because surrender is not acceptable. Running away from the battlefield is a sign of timidity and it is the bane of this life that man must keep struggling just to keep himself alive even if there awaits him no other reward at the end of his journey. In other words, Hemingway highlights the philosophy that John Killinger puts in these words, "God is dead in our time, and the traditional ethic is invalid," and the only option available to man is to preserve himself through "aesthetic and ethical" experiences (98-99). Hemingway saw the forces that man must battle against as evil, unkind and often more powerful than the man himself. We see how Santiago struggles against sea forces, which ultimately triumph over him and take away with them his dreams of achievement. But on the positive note, we see that his struggle bore him fruit since while Santiago lost the fish, he managed to save his own life. The novel focuses on the idea of human dignity that man wants to preserve at all costs even when he is aware of the futility of his battle. Santiago is a brave man who believes in such values as valor, honor and courage and subscribes to the philosophy 'Never say die'. In this connection Joseph Petite observes, "Santiago, plain and unsophisticated, is man in the natural state, a perfect subject for this trial. He has only the strength of his spirit and his determination to sustain him. The fishing episode here is ... a crucible, a battle where the issue is whether a man wants badly enough to struggle to assert his own existential value" (162). Hemingway's Santiago returns home with wounds that he wears as badges for his valor but which signify a man's perpetual struggle that often bears nothing. Man is thus caught in a vicious circle of labor and loss. "The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles on the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropical sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert" (9-10). Santiago's enemies are tireless forces that refuse to surrender. As he ferociously battles against sea creatures, first the fish itself and then the sharks that are hell bent on taking Santiago's reward away from him. Santiago knows he might lose the battle but like the forces against him, he is also determined. Fortitude is clear from his attempts to kill or repel his enemies. Santiago first hits them with a harpoon "without hope, but with resolution and complete malignancy" (102). But as he loses the harpoon, he continues to battle with unsophisticated weaponry desperately created from the available material in the boat. He is stubbornly optimistic: "some of his hope returned. It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is a sin" (104-105). But he eventually loses the battle: "Now they have beaten me, he thought, I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller" (112). But his battle is futile as he loses the marlin to the sharks and then having lost everything, he faces the sea and its creatures with renewed courage as he scornfully says: "Eat that, galanos. And make a dream you've killed a man" (119). But Santiago also represents man's ability to forget his misfortune and to continue with his life. Santiago is capable of putting behind the whole unfortunate experience. "It is easy when you are beaten. And what beat you, he thought. Nothing, he said aloud. I went out too far'" (120). And he consoles himself that the whole episode meant nothing: "The thousand times he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time, and he never thought about the past when he was doing it" (66). Some people may question Santiago's decision to go out too far. This has often been discussed and analyzed and it is learned that Santiago's decision was reflective of his desire to participate in life. Hemingway highlights the significance of participating actively in life and its decisions without fearing the outcome. Santiago may not believe in despair but he is not overly obsessed about what constitutes sin. Santiago's actions are symbolic of man's need to fight consistently without surrender without hopes of a suitable reward. Santiago is aware of the significance of his struggle at sea but refuses to equate with Christian tradition of suffering as he says: "I have no understanding of it [sin], and am not sure that I believe in it" (105). He believes that it is not his job to worry about sin for he is only concerned with survival. "Let them [priests] think about it. You were born to be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fish" (105). There are some other commentaries and critical analyses, which have focused on the Christian motif of suffering in the novel. But while the motif runs in the novel, it has little to do with Santiago's need to consistently battle against unkind forces. The protagonist undertakes this struggle only because that is the way life is meant to be. He refuses to interpret his suffering according to Christian beliefs. Santiago uses baseball dreams to keep him going. This is another interesting facet of man's struggle. The only way man can survive unfortunate circumstances is by not giving them too much significance and by dreaming about more positive things. For Santiago, there is nothing that gives him more pleasure than baseball so he uses it to preserve himself and give him the strength he needs to survive one more day. He is not thinking about pleasing Christ when he refuses to resort to despair but his goal is a more earthly one. He wants to be able to make DiMaggio, his baseball hero, proud. Santiago is an ordinary fisherman and for him, a dream of DiMaggio is far more accessible than pleasing Christ. He just wants to be "worthy of the great DiMaggio, who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel" (68) Similar in order to survive, Santiago keeps thinking about baseball. For example when the fish finally surfaces, it conjures up images of baseball in his mind as he muses: "his sword was as long as a baseball bat" (62) and as Santiago pulls the line "he used both of his hands in a swinging motion" (86). ). Once he manages to harpoon the fish, he thinks of his baseball hero again "the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today. I had no bone spurs. But the hands and back hurt truly" (97). Despite the numerous odds against him, Santiago couldn't surrender because that would have meant relinquishing his need to participate in life. He keeps fighting the odds knowing this was the only way he could possibly live his life even if there was no reward awaiting him at the end. The repetitive painful struggle that bears no fruit is what the old man's story was all about. But this according to Hemingway is man's destiny- a destiny he must fulfill regardless of the pain involved. Both Biswas and Santiago are trapped in difficult circumstances but they refuse to surrender to fate thus achieving their greatest victories even if those victories were seen as defeats by others. It was the mere act of not allowing fate to take over that turned them into heroes in their own eyes and as long as a man is a success to himself, nothing else matters. It is personal affirmation which is always the most important thing and the rest is all mundane. WORKS CITED Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner's, 1995. Killinger, John. Hemingway and the Dead Gods: A Study in Existentialism. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1960. Petite, Joseph. "Hemingway and Existential Education." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 12 (1991) 152-164. A House for Mr Biswas ( London: Andr Deutsch, 1961; rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 1981) Landeg White, V. S. Naipaul ( London: Macmillan Press, 1975) Boxill, Anothony. V. S. Naipaul's Fiction (Canada: York Press, 1983) Francis Wyndham. Review of A House for Mr Biswas, London Magazine, 1, No. 7 (Oct. 1961) Read More