Reading the Classics
Sep. 17th, 2007 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyingskullSorry for the absence. Part of it was work, part of it was a bit of sex, but most of it was that I was thinking and trying to understand a thing that's been irritating me: why is it so hard to use decent reading comprehension when faced with the classics?
Take Romeo and Juliet for example. Everybody and their mother-in-law are dissing it right, left and centre because the protagonists are eejits and there's such a simple solution to their problem and also that's not love, that's hormones talking. Which would be alright if the actual text didn't say something completely different from 'see how tragic this immortal love story is?'.
What the actual text says is that murderous hatred and family feuds are killers; that they blind people to logic, reason and good sense. It says that the adults have lost all sense of responsibility and social values, not that the children are cretins. The children - he's sixteen and she's fourteen - have good social values, the children are open to dialogue, the children fall in and out of love and lust and, if they don't respect their parents so much, they fear them enough and love them enough to be willing victims to the adults' whims. That's what the tragedy is all about, y'know? The love - lust, hormones... doesn't make a difference - of the young protagonists is just a symbol of the hope for reconciliation, a thing that happens only after their death. The children are the scapegoats and sacrificial lambs.
They are also real human teens and so they are passionate, willful, confused, arrogant and timid. What's wrong with that? Why should we think Shakespeare (henceforth Will) endorses all their actions? He doesn't. He thinks the marriage is imprudent, he thinks Romeo's a butterfly, he thinks Mercutio's too hot-tempered for his own good, he thinks Juliet is a blancmange... He also clearly thinks that, if the families hadn't been so fucking blind, the whole thing wouldn't have been a problem at all. Romeo is a very good parti for Juliet, surname apart, after all.
Got sidetracked. I had another very good rant on Hamlet, but it can be summarised thus: Hamlet does most emphatically NOT want to kill anyone. He especially doesn't want to go "I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." for a father he didn't even like all that much and who always put him down. He does NOT want to be in Denmark and reign, he wants to be in Wittenberg and stude and frolic with Horatio. He does NOT want to marry Ophelia. Yet he's supposed to do all those things and he balks. A LOT. But external forces (as for Romeo and Juliet) force him to a bloody end. Which is all very well, but is utterly not to the point.
What I meant to say is: the protagonist is just the cardea, the hinge around which all actions turn. The author doesn't have to endorse the protagonist's character or actions, one can write about a person one despises, but if s/he is pivotal for all actions and events, then s/he is the protagonist of the novel, drama, whatever. I think it's the same problem I was trying to analyse in singing the praise of the Bastard Hero. There's a cultural trend today I rather hate. If someone is the protagonist, then s/he must be our paragon of virtues. Readers often mistake 'protagonist' for 'hero/ine'. Back to Will, look at Macbeth. Is he a hero? Nah. Is he a protagonist? Hell yes. Did Will endorse Macbeth's actions? 'Course not. BUT he was an interesting person to write about, an interesting person to analyse and condemn, not praise. Will wanted the audience to understand villains and what makes them tick. Because, y'know? he was an author, not a propagandist.
To jump a few centuries, look a Heatcliff. I mean, just look at what he does. He's the protagonist, no doubt, but a Hero? The man's a sociopath! I mean, he has reasons, but they are just reasons why he is what he is, they are not authorial endorsement of his actions. Emily was clearly fascinated by the character - mostly because it was based on her brother whom she loved far too much - but she never once endorses his actions, even if she endorses his passions and his love.
Why should the protagonist be a role model for readers? What has given birth to this monstrous attitude? I grant you it's easier to write this way than to risk readers' bad reactions if you try and tell the story of a villain protagonist; but why doesn't anyone try anymore? Well, no, I tell a lie. I know that authors who have a host of protagonists write some of them 'good', others 'bad' and others 'grey', but that's because the story doesn't have one protagonist. An epic fresco where several characters are all pivotal to a swirl or action. That's lovely and also quite satisfying to read, but that's always been true of epics. I was more focused on the single-protagonist story because I think it's there that the confusion between protagonist and hero happens most frequently for contemporary readers.
Made a hash of things as usual, haven't I? Sorry all. Shouldn't blather when at work, too many telephone calls and things.
ETA - I decided to let it stand, warts and all. Heh...
Take Romeo and Juliet for example. Everybody and their mother-in-law are dissing it right, left and centre because the protagonists are eejits and there's such a simple solution to their problem and also that's not love, that's hormones talking. Which would be alright if the actual text didn't say something completely different from 'see how tragic this immortal love story is?'.
What the actual text says is that murderous hatred and family feuds are killers; that they blind people to logic, reason and good sense. It says that the adults have lost all sense of responsibility and social values, not that the children are cretins. The children - he's sixteen and she's fourteen - have good social values, the children are open to dialogue, the children fall in and out of love and lust and, if they don't respect their parents so much, they fear them enough and love them enough to be willing victims to the adults' whims. That's what the tragedy is all about, y'know? The love - lust, hormones... doesn't make a difference - of the young protagonists is just a symbol of the hope for reconciliation, a thing that happens only after their death. The children are the scapegoats and sacrificial lambs.
They are also real human teens and so they are passionate, willful, confused, arrogant and timid. What's wrong with that? Why should we think Shakespeare (henceforth Will) endorses all their actions? He doesn't. He thinks the marriage is imprudent, he thinks Romeo's a butterfly, he thinks Mercutio's too hot-tempered for his own good, he thinks Juliet is a blancmange... He also clearly thinks that, if the families hadn't been so fucking blind, the whole thing wouldn't have been a problem at all. Romeo is a very good parti for Juliet, surname apart, after all.
Got sidetracked. I had another very good rant on Hamlet, but it can be summarised thus: Hamlet does most emphatically NOT want to kill anyone. He especially doesn't want to go "I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." for a father he didn't even like all that much and who always put him down. He does NOT want to be in Denmark and reign, he wants to be in Wittenberg and stude and frolic with Horatio. He does NOT want to marry Ophelia. Yet he's supposed to do all those things and he balks. A LOT. But external forces (as for Romeo and Juliet) force him to a bloody end. Which is all very well, but is utterly not to the point.
What I meant to say is: the protagonist is just the cardea, the hinge around which all actions turn. The author doesn't have to endorse the protagonist's character or actions, one can write about a person one despises, but if s/he is pivotal for all actions and events, then s/he is the protagonist of the novel, drama, whatever. I think it's the same problem I was trying to analyse in singing the praise of the Bastard Hero. There's a cultural trend today I rather hate. If someone is the protagonist, then s/he must be our paragon of virtues. Readers often mistake 'protagonist' for 'hero/ine'. Back to Will, look at Macbeth. Is he a hero? Nah. Is he a protagonist? Hell yes. Did Will endorse Macbeth's actions? 'Course not. BUT he was an interesting person to write about, an interesting person to analyse and condemn, not praise. Will wanted the audience to understand villains and what makes them tick. Because, y'know? he was an author, not a propagandist.
To jump a few centuries, look a Heatcliff. I mean, just look at what he does. He's the protagonist, no doubt, but a Hero? The man's a sociopath! I mean, he has reasons, but they are just reasons why he is what he is, they are not authorial endorsement of his actions. Emily was clearly fascinated by the character - mostly because it was based on her brother whom she loved far too much - but she never once endorses his actions, even if she endorses his passions and his love.
Why should the protagonist be a role model for readers? What has given birth to this monstrous attitude? I grant you it's easier to write this way than to risk readers' bad reactions if you try and tell the story of a villain protagonist; but why doesn't anyone try anymore? Well, no, I tell a lie. I know that authors who have a host of protagonists write some of them 'good', others 'bad' and others 'grey', but that's because the story doesn't have one protagonist. An epic fresco where several characters are all pivotal to a swirl or action. That's lovely and also quite satisfying to read, but that's always been true of epics. I was more focused on the single-protagonist story because I think it's there that the confusion between protagonist and hero happens most frequently for contemporary readers.
Made a hash of things as usual, haven't I? Sorry all. Shouldn't blather when at work, too many telephone calls and things.
ETA - I decided to let it stand, warts and all. Heh...
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-17 10:20 pm (UTC)I'm sure actual canon is decent, but you know how it is... After one's swam on the fringes of PotterFandom, one is wary of water... :P
But I at least have a good idea of who Sasuke and Orochimaru are. :-D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 06:01 am (UTC)On a completely unrelated note, you might enjoy this; it's a character study, pretty short but it's very good.