Mr. McBride

AP Language and Composition

2.03.03

 

Mr. McBride’s Critical Lens Essay

In response to Session Two, Part B of January 2003 Regents Exam:

All literature shows us the power of emotion. It is emotion, not reason, that motivates characters in literature.
— paraphrased from an interview with Duff Brenna

 

            The enlightenment held forth to man the promise that he could be weaned away from his dependence upon faith and superstition, finding instead sustenance in his power to reason and act rationally. In the centuries since the enlightenment, reason has, through the power of science and technology, proved efficacious in bringing about a tremendous improvement in the material quality of our lives. But does reason ultimately govern our actions and decisions? A skeptical answer to this question has been a constant theme in literature, particularly in the post-Freud modern era, but in fact stretching back to antiquity. Duff Brenna makes this observation in noting that literature shows us the power of emotion over reason as the motive force in human character—in literature, and, by extension, in life. Brenna’s is a sound assessment, supportable by a close reading of a broad swath of the literary cannon, from the classical to the modern.

            Sophocles would surely agree with Brenna, as is evident in his play Oedipus Rex. Oedipus, the play’s protagonist, begins the play as the embodiment of the rational man, having demonstrated his intellectual abilities by answering the riddle of the sphinx to become king. Another plague has descended upon Thebes, however, and Oedipus is called upon to solve the mystery of who killed the previous king in order to save his city. Sophocles’ characterization of Oedipus stresses Oedipus’ confidence in his own powers of reason to find the killer. He calls witnesses to testify and corroborate each other’s testimony, and he grows impatient with any reticence to bring the facts out into the light. This confidence is shattered by the end of the play, however, as Oedipus is forced to acknowledge that he is in fact the murderer of his own father and the husband of his own mother. In a moment of heightened emotion, Oedipus gouges out his eyes, which symbolize his reasoning faculty, blinding himself to the light of day. Paradoxically, though, it is clear that at this point Oedipus sees reality for the first time; he at last understand that he has all along been in the grip of irrational unconscious forces, and his rational power has in fact been nothing more than a fallacious pretense blinding him to this truth. Emotion has dominion, and is shown to be the primary force driving character in Sophocles’ play.

            Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot gives more modern testimony to the primacy of emotion over rationality as the wellspring of human nature. The play’s two protagonists repeatedly confront their inability to orient themselves in the world through use of their reasoning faculties. Beckett employs satire to mock human belief in the power of rationality, showing the characters engaged in fruitless and absurd arguments about where they are, what they are doing, and the purpose of their lives. In laughing at the meaninglessness of the dialogue, we are confronted with the prospect that Vladimir and Estragon are archetypes of us, groping with our frail intellectual capacity and faulty memory toward some kind of meaning and purpose with which to render life sensible. In the end, the only thing that Vladimir and Estragon have to ground them is their desire to wait for Godot. This is an emotional, and not rational, desire; they have never seen Godot, they are not certain that he exists, and they do not know why they are waiting for him. Beckett’s play lends further support to Brenna’s contention.

            As science has come to take an increasingly prominent role in the life of humankind, offering explanations for the workings everything from the soul (now referred to as the “psyche”) to the universe, the metaphysical concerns of man have tended to be relegated to the position of quaint and superannuated preoccupations. It is the job of the arts, however, to re-awaken within us a reverence for the eternal mysteries, and to remind us of the eternal truths. One of these truths is the ultimately emotional and irrational nature of humankind. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth says to himself as he is contemplating killing Duncan, “Let the eye wink at the hand,” suggesting his belief that we can rationalize ourselves to a point beyond the emotional clutches of conscience. By the end of the play, however, his life has become a tale told by an idiot, reminding us once again that the mind will, in the last reckoning, always follow behind the heart. Truly, it is emotion, not reason, which motivates us as it motivates the characters in literature. Duff Brenna is correct in his observation.