Scapegoating in Sindbad the Sailor - Essay Example

Scapegoating in “Sindbad the Sailor” The issue of scapegoating is often met in both historical and ical literature. In brief, the phenomenon of scapegoating is about blaming a certain person for certain disasters. Moreover, person should be probably innocent and predisposed for persecution. And thus, by blaming and confronting that certain person, people try to renovate the desired state of things. Such behavior ends up creating another one literary cliché. The narrator himself becomes biased and untrustworthy, blames a random person for the things, that the person probably was not responsible for, embellishes and distorts the story and thus justifies his own improper behavior. Such story elements can easily be recognized through the variety of features. Moreover the story plot itself can be interpreted differently, when scapegoating moments are found, understood and properly adapted. This way a narration in a story of real person, Guillaume de Machaut, and tales told by fictional Sindbad the Sailor is similar. They both describe events that took place in front of their eyes. And they both narrate from their point of view – and so become subjective in their judgments. Moreover both of them where stressed at the moment of described events, and thus could not estimate situation thoroughly and adequately. They both where limited in their abilities to study situation widely and analyzed situation using information, gained from gossips and human beliefs. These facts influenced the truthfulness of both stories. In the Machaut’s case Jews eventually turned out to be unbelievably strong water poisoners – tough the poison of such quality didn’t exist in their times. And so they were prosecuted because of the prejudice. In the Sindbad’s case, every part of a story was accompanied by note that described a bright and frightening story, told to Sindbad by the other sailors. And that obviously could influence his point of view when he had met something he could not grasp. And thus real events in his story mixed up with gossips and Sindbad’s ignorance – and he added everything, described in Girard’s book, into sailor’s story: unbelievable monsters, probably undefeatable creatures, probably vicious person that definitely deserved death that Sindbad caused to him. Every his act, that become more aggressive with each part, was justified by means of scapegoating of both events and enemies. Still a giant fish could have turned out to be usual island that drowned according to an earthshaking. The famous sailor used bright examples of scapegoating in majority of stories while he himself has been a scapegoat only twice - for Hindbad the porter and for the Caliph. For more detailed analysis of scapegoating moments in the story, the story itself should be examined in details. Thus, each chapter would be discussed separately. A story of Hindbad, that unites all the travels into solid story by means of creating a narrator, would be examined as a particular chapter too. This way the first story goes about a poor porter that one day eventually finds a perfect example for scapegoating. The person he eventually meets lives in richness - unlike him, tends to luxury - unlike him, is generous - unlike him. And he, in despair calls for his god asking, why there is such Sindbad in the world in contradiction to such Hindbad. It is actually one of the scapegoatin features - a person finds someone much more magnificent than he or she is. And, if a plenty of such people unite, they make that “glorious” person a scapegoat for their glory searching and gather around this man, usually glorifying him. The reason for glorifying (profession, skills, richness, beauty) can differ and has no importance. Still, it is natural for such scapegoat to contradict society with the solid fact of his own existence – he obviously stands out. So in the uniting story Sindbad serves as a scapegoat. And through the whole tale he passes through two stages of scapegoating evolution described in Girard’s work. At first he is rejected (while starting his trip, selling own possessions and learning how to trade) and then he is glorified. Simultaneously he transforms the society around him. For example, he creates a house that is positively different from the city outside of it, and gains friends. The situation around him and his own society has been changed by means of doing dangerous and contradicting things, certain self-sacrifice. Still, each his story has his own scapegoat, that Sindbad uses to explain the dangerousness of the situation. And each story has the same structure. At first there is a traditional beginning: he starts a travel, he starves for richness. And he ends up getting into the shipwreck. He collides with a seemingly abnormal event that is known to be ominous beforehand. Then he meets a new society that helps him to get hold of himself, lives in it, studies from it, and goes back home with richness and goods, hoping that he will not go travelling ever again. The first storys scapegoat is a “whale-island”. As it can be remembered, a common feature of scapegoating is exaggeration: a person takes for granted things that just seem to be real, according to prejudice or gossips. Thus a giant whale actually easily could turn out to be a common earthquake that caused a whole island to drown. Also, there is a ghost,that, according to people’s beliefs lives in the island, as timbales sounds could be heard from there once in a while. Still, according to Sindbads observations, they met no ghost. Thus, it is probably another example of scapegoating - binding an unexplained thing with a paranormal explanation. Still there is another one phenomenon worth being mentioned. Sindbad is often greeted generously with people when they find out that he has survived through something alien to the society. Society and Sindbad have common imaginary enemy and thus he is always being helped and accepted as a friend. It can be noted as a phenomenon of uniting society against a common danger, whether it is real or not. The second story mentions roc, the stories of which were common and ominous. It can serve as the other one scapegoat: mentioning monsters is usually bound not with the monstrosity itself. It describes abstract dangerous situation, “monstrified” by the means of exaggeration and called to describe the changing events. Also, in the latter five stories, scapegoating would also follow the boat crash, and would serve well to justify Sindbad’s behavior in the human society that he would meet after the disaster. Snakes can also be presumably unreal, but they serve well to explain both the way of appropriating diamonds and a way of being present in a society of diamond merchants. Still assuming a real nature of described events is not possible. The third story has three more examples of scapegoating that differ under the type. The first type is “probably omnipotent creatures” that should not be touched as they are presumably undefeatable. Such “seemingly omnipotent creatures” are often crated by society itself in order to blame for any destruction. Thus, a tribe of furry gnomes, “described by travelers as an undefeatable one” just took the ship of merchants without them trying to resist. Sailors at first had trusted stories, that told, that furry gnomes are undefeatable – and then just gave up without trying, blaming gnomes in being omnipotent. The second issue is a giant, both monstrous and flawed in appearance. He eats merchants under their silent idleness, and, after that, is being avenged. He is being deprived of an eye, by the mob, while sleeping,. Thus the mob’s behavior is cliché-like. They firstly make believe that enemy is omnipotent and scary, then just do what they are told to do, not showing any sign of protest. And thus they are acting virtually willingly/ Afterwards they avenge with all the crowd, by defeating the “all-mighty”. Having defeated giant, sailors do not flee, but wait to see, whether he is dead or not, forgetting that their primary goal is escape. Such procrastination causes giant coming back with help and killing the majority of mob - once again. Thus, mob, that makes itself a scapegoat to be feared of, automatically victimizes itself and programs itself for certain destruction. People who create themselves this type of scapegoating suffer mentally and lose their will at the first place. Sindbad, in each case being the fruit of society’s transfiguration and embodiment of their experiences, manages to survive and prosper. Also there is a random monstrous element, that is to be feared as it is, but still vaguely probable to exist. And once again Sindbad is saved by people, and the more alien things he met, the more people treat him as his comrade. Fourth story goes without scapegoating. Still it perfectly describes the behavior of the mob that tends to scapegoat someone. It blindly follows the wrongful instructions and ends up as a mean of fulfilling someone’s desires. The experience gained whilst living in such a mob makes Sindbad justify his latter killing people, destroying their rituals and cleaning out their burials in order to survive and prosper. And prosperity is gained by the means of survival under the crisis that actually has been created by Sindbad personally. In the end of a story Sindbad greets his friends that he has come back to (that has not been mentioned before) and he mentions charity as well. It is important, as simultaneously his behavior in this chapter becomes more violent: and he justifies it by both making his opponent a monster and showing his own good personality. This way no one would have a doubt, that person really deserved everything he made. Self-justification united with making killed opponent a monster is one of examples of scapegoating Fifth story goes once again about the crisis - that in this story is symbolized by a shipwreck. Once again Sindbad ends up facing enemy alone. This time enemy is seemingly defenseless but still dangerous. Justifying his deeds with the whole past experience, this time Sindbad doesn’t dither to kill the enemy, moreover he finds a proper explanation of this act. After returning Sindbad becomes even more generous with the society, describing how good and proper he is. So no one would doubt his words and intentions. Sixth story begins again with a common shipwreck, but still lacks probability. Sindbad once again remains the only survivor - among people that shared the equal portion of food. And, nearly dying from exhaustiveness and hunger, he still manages to make himself a boat - that he didn’t come to start building before. Then he comes again to society and is greeted even more generously than before - for riches he has and for the events he had undergone. It can be presumed, that the story goes under the following plan: collision as a foreword, that is symbolical; the second part (event of nearly dying) that is always a lie, justification, fiction, etc; the third part as the describing of a behavior in society, justified by unknown events from the second part; trading - that is mentioned vaguely, as every master of his job would be reluctant to uncover his secrets; coming back home and describing himself as a proper citizen. So, let’s presume that second part of the story, where one person with calculative mind, appears on the shore full of jewels with his comrades. The fact that he only eventually turns out to be only one alive seems vaguely probable.  Thus story undergoes exactly as Girard described in his "The Scapegoat" - a feeling of low probability of event, told by the seemingly good person. Under the circumstance that this person tended to become more calculative and violent with each new travel, that creates an assumption of Sindbad’s liying. The story is disguised, justified by some external undefeatable continuous events, in order not to tell or not to accept truth. The way Sindbad tries to stress his goodness in more efficient way with each chapter also serves well to prove this hypothesis. The other random case of deadly dangerous prejudice is symbolized by the man under the throne, that whispered ”the king so great should be dead”, thus trying to influence his comrades into opposing him under the cause of his perfection. Seventh story can be considered a breaking moment, while the one, who scapegoated numerous events has become a scapegoat himself. Sindbad turns out to be a volunteer, who has no choice but to be volunteered for the embassy mission. Somehow, this story changes its structure in comparison to the other ones. The second part is most lowly probable, while the first narrates about the thing that is easy to be believed. The other peculiarity about Sindbad’s speech is that every time he starts speculating with lowly probable events - he stresses his horrible state, like fear, shock, disheartedness, hunger, exhaustion. Still his speech about probable things is more random, and concentrated on outer details and facts. Whoever wrote this text originally (it can be remembered, that 1001 nights is a collection of stories) he was quite good in showing Sindbads merchant’s skills - he is really attentive to details in the majority of situations. Except ones that he describes emotionally and improbably. Still, in the second part of the seventh story Sindbad embodies everything he was running from in the six other parts: now he himself becomes a scapegoat – both a “hope” and the “cause” for elephant society - to fear and to change through addressing him. Thus the thing he was running from and opposing, changed him, into exactly the one he was opposing. That is also is one of the schemes, mentioned by Girard. Thus an image of Sindbad under checking him for “scapegoat searching”, and in searching for the inconsistencies in his narration, same as a scapegoating topic in the text - gives us the following results. Scapegoating in the meaning, described in a source document, is a quite often incident. It is various in its manifestations itself, but it is even more often to be noticed when it goes about researching a variety of characters of a same story. Thus, Sindbad used a majority of mentioned ways to distort his story - monstrous creatures, unexplained coincidences, undefeatable enemies, bad omen. A greater part of these events was ominous especially because people believed they were ominous, and thus described their almightiness and did not try to counteract. Also Sindbad explained his actions, and later even justified killing with the experience he had overcome and enemies whom he believed to be his own. Firstly choosing explanations that would not cause other questions, he formed an order of creating an image of a scapegoat. At this stage everything is pretty much innocent and a reflex of victim that is prone to obey someone’s omnipotence is being formed. When self-victimizing stage is over, an anger starts to occur, thus transforming individual into the next stage, where the idol, created inside of human’s head should be destroyed by means of collective revenge of everyone, who, beforehand, voluntarily made themselves victims, still basing on an idol, they built for themselves in imagination. The third stage that comes after vengeance is survival - understanding of idol crashing as well as a need not to be victim any more - but having the right to survive no matter what. The next stage is a self-justification, that is built under experience of idol-breaking as ceasing defenselessness, that is mixed up with reflex of surviving. Under this stage Sindbad’s journey becomes obviously more bloodthirsty, as he finds it necessary for survival and finds the means appropriate for his point of view. Then, when person is bold enough to transfer further - exactly comes a blind moment that seems being described as the most vague in the story, but still, there is an event, that turns a person, who was building an idol in his head, into someone, who would be idolized himself in no time. After a transformation into a scapegoat himself, Sindbad receives a lesson of humility, by seeing that the one being made responsible for something is not always willing to be responsible (here comes the thought of furry dwarves, that, actually, could only have an intention to rescue themselves from giants), and by knowing what is it, to choose while someone is contrasting him to their society giving the right to choose, as humidly, as once Sindbad and his fellow-sailors were waiting to be eaten. And he, having overcome the whole way of transformation, does the right choice of changing their way of life rather than being idolized further, and then avenged and killed. The last stage of Sindbad being scapegoated is obviously seen under the reaction of Hindbad and random friends in his house. Works cited Andrew, Lang. The Arabian Nights Entertainments . Dover Childrens Classics, 1969. Print. Girard, René. The scapegoat. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Read More