We have discussed the transition from a consciousness and morality organized around the concept of an eternal/sacred “soul”– connected to an omniscient (all knowing) and transcendent God (transcendental certitude)– to the development of a modern secular/materialistic “self” that uses personality and charm to secure satisfactions in a world of constantly shifting loyalties and realities. As a result of this ” loss of transcendental certitude”, this “self” no longer defines itself in relation to a transcendent truth, but only in relation to how it can shore itself up by using “others.” This modern relationship of self-to-other becomes inherently vampiric in that it needs the admiration of others (in vampiric terms, equivalent to the “blood” of others) to feed its own awareness of itself.
This monumental shift would appear to be at the base of what has caused the Twentieth century to be called “The Age of Anxiety”. The extraction of energy from others to shore up the self is paralleled by capitalism which also extracts resources (ivory in the congo, for example) to enrich itself at the expense of others. The resulting products are positioned as guarantors of the PEPSI myths: perfection, efficiency, progress, satisfaction, innovation. All of these myths mimic “transcendental certitude” by promising perfection, progress, etc. at a point that always seems to remain in the future, just out of reach. Rituals intended to uncover wisdom become addictions only capable of maintaining debilitating delusions. All the works we have read so far, in various ways, wrestle with this dynamic I have outlined above.
Using the quotes below as your evidence, illustrate how this overview I have just outlined helps shed light on the way these quotes from different works of Twentieth Century literature attempt to address the crisis unleashed by this loss of transcendental certitude and everything that followed.
Remember, there is no one “right” answer, only more or less persuasive ones. You will be evaluated on how persuasively you make use of the quotes as evidence for your statements/arguments/assertions about the interrelationship between the Twentieth Century and Twentieth century Literature. Some tips:
—Be sure to be concise and come to your point quickly.
–Do not be afraid to restate your case more clearly as your argument develops; perhaps take the time to go back and revise your opening.
–Try and connect each point you make about the soul/self transition to something specific in one or more of the quotes.
–In addition to showing what all the quotes have in common, look for opportunities to distinguish them as well.
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You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again.
I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don’t know what you were to me, once. Why, once . . . Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid eyes upon you!
You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing.
Dorian Gray to Sibyl Vane, The Picture of Dorian Gray
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The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing
when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—
something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . .
Marlowe, telling his story of what happened in the Congo, from Heart of Darkness
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At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar, she said; she would love to go.
“And why can’t you?” I asked. . . .
“It’s well for you,” she said.
“If I go,” I said, “I will bring you something.”
What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me.
“Araby” from the collection Dubliners by James Joyce
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He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.
Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
“The Dead” from the collection Dubliners by James Joyce
