Slaughterhouse Five

After reading Kurt Vonnegut's antiwar novel, Slaughterhouse Five's protagonist, I applied Billy Pilgrim to my Big Q. Billy is an interested character to apply to this because he has no desire to be alive. All throughout the novel, he is degraded, dejected, and humiliated by those around him. In every career he takes, and even among his family, he is deprived of respect. He is constantly facing adversity, but he enters in to situations of adversity already unwilling to continue. Instead of being struck down by failure, he is already on the bottom. His encounters with the people and planet of  Tralfamadore and what he has witnessed in the war have contributed to his unwillingness to try. Earning respect and accomplishment-- be it in the ranks of war or among his family or in the professional field-- is meaningless because all will share the same death. Death is inevitable and inescapable and free will is a myth. Why try? Billy is merely a "listless plaything of enormous forces," he always has been and he always will be. He recognizes that among the things he cannot change are "the past, the present, and the future." In this case, in the face of adversity and failure, Billy does not succumb nor arise from it a better person. He remains belly up, subdued to the greater forces of fate, death, and time. 

Beloved

I'm going to be completely honest, I hated reading Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. I know it's a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, but it was a difficult and graphic read. However, regardless of my feelings towards the novel, my BQ can still be applied to it. In the case of the characters in Beloved, when faced with adversity, their potential-- more specifically their identity-- suffers. While speaking of her book, Morrison is quoted to have said, "This is not a book about slavery," yet the emotional, physical, and mental toll that slavery takes is a common theme throughout.
Though they are not in physical bondage to each other, Sethe, Denver and Beloved are are emotionally-- even spiritually-- bound to each other. The fragmented nature of each of the three monologues in Part II is representative of each character's fragmented, incoherent identity. The voices mingle, making it difficult to attribute each phrase to its speaker.I take that as an way of Morrison showing Sethe, Beloved, and Denver have conflated and confused their identities so far beyond recognition, that it is even hard to distinguish who's memories are whose. Denver, for example, doesn't even own her own identity; even her name is someone else's and though Sethe preserved the freedom/identity of Beloved, she has stifled that of Denver's in doing so. Sethe cannot cut the psychological umbilical cord that attaches her to Beloved, nor can Beloved cut it either.

It is not just Sethe, Denver, and Beloved who suffer, however. Every character's potential/identity is a vicitim of the adversity of the novel.Where slavery exists, everyone suffers a loss of humanity and compassion-- not only the identities of its black victims but also those of the whites who perpetrate it. Paul D has shut off himself off from emotion and buried his feelings into the "rusted tobacco tin" of his heart, Baby Suggs no longer felt freedom was worth anything, Halle went mad, even the Garner's benevolence and condescension illustrates the loss of compassion.

In regards to Beloved the answer to my BQ is when faced with adversity, namely the institution of slavery, an individual's potential/identity is hindered and as a result is left in a cycle of fragmentation, because according to Sethe, "nothing ever dies." 

The Stranger

A Little reminder of my big question: Does facing adversity/failure strengthen or hinder ones potential?

Camus' novel, "The Stranger," is another book where the answer to my Big Question does not follow the previous trends of the works of literature we read first semester. The protagonist of the novel holds similar traits to that of Raskolnikov from "Crime & Punishment." He is alienated from society like Raskolnikov, but unlike him Meursault holds a "gentle indifference" to the world, and is emotionally detached-- a passive observer who never passes judgement on others. Because of such characteristics, when Meursault is faced with the death of his mother and then is tried and convicted of murder, his potential is neither strengthened nor hindered-- it just is. He remarks upon the physical state of things and never denies he is guilty of murder, but it also has little emotional effect on him. Typically in the other works we read, such series of events would be the spark in starting a process that leads to either self- betterment or to self destruction. Meursault's gentle indifference, and his embodiment of Camus' Philosophy of the Absurd, are key components in making him one of the few protagonist that responds with a neutral answer to my big question.  

Crime & Punishment

Dotevsky's novel Crime & Punishment is another work of literature my big question can be applied to. Raskolnikov does not face failure so much as he faces adversity. Throughout the entire novel he is at war with himself and stuck between action and inaction. After killing an old pawnbroker and her sister, Raskolnikov's internal struggle magnifies and he grows paranoid. Once he is caught, the adversity is also magnified. Unlike the other protagonists I have written about before, Raskolnikov is hard to sympathize with. He feels justified in his crimes-- above the general public. His adversity, and his girlfriend's persistence lead him down the road to redemption. Raskolnikov is convicted of the murders finally and at first he is sentenced to death. That sentence is then reduced to eight years of hard labor in Siberia. What's interesting in Raskolnikov's case is that he is not the one who instigates the journey to redemption, rather his girlfriend Sonia is. She is the reason he chooses to better himself through such adversity; not the adversity itself. In relation to my big question, that leaves me to conclude that it was NOT the failure/adversity Raskolnikov encountered that strengthened his potential and made him a better person. In this case, a third party is what inspired such transformation.