Who Are We to Judge?

In the just the first chapter of The Stranger, as a class we made several serious judgments on Meursault’s character.   After reading chapter 3 in Part 2, it seems that these initial judgments are the reason that Meursault is convicted:  In the whole court scene we NEVER hear about the actual events that occur in Chapter 6. Besides Meursault mentioning the brief “narrative of what I’d done,” (87) the entire court scene in chapter 3 ONLY talks about the events preceding the murder and each of the witnesses only talk of Meursault’s character.  There are no Arab witnesses and none of the witnesses discuss the murder. The prosecuting lawyer tries to convince the jury to judge Meursault on his character and for his reactions to his mother’s death.  The defending lawyer catches on to the prosecutor’s plan and says, “Come now, is my client on trial for burying his mother or for killing a man?” (96) Why can the jury not be convinced to judge Meursault for KILLING a man? Why is it that Meursault’s attitude towards life is the reason for his conviction, not his killing of the Arab?

            The court systems are clearly extremely racist.  Raymond gets away with physical abuse by just one testimony from Meursault.  Meursault could have easily escaped imprisonment by any tiny stretch of the truth.  Why are there NO Arab witnesses at the trial?  Why is it that Meursault is convicted because of his character and not because he shot an Arab?   It could be that killing an Arab is not a huge deal in the eyes of the court and can easily be justified, but Meursault gives no understandable explanation for why he did what he did. 

            I judge Meursault for shooting the Arab, not for his character.  Everyone has different ways of dealing with grief, and even though Meursault’s actions following his mother’s death are pretty socially unacceptable, we can learn a lot from how Meursault copes with death.  He simply accepts that it has happened, that is would have happened at some point in time, and that “grieving” for someone accomplishes nothing.  Even though I think he should at least think about his memories and relationship with Maman more, we all eventually come to similar conclusions, just not the day after.  

Sprachprobleme

            As we began reading Kafka, like with all the other books we’ve read, I began to think about Kafka’s writing’s characteristics and how one might Pastiche it.   Then I was like, “wait but this isn’t actually Kafka.”  We are reading Kafka through another person’s eyes.  This dramatically changes the way we can view and interact with the text. To analyze any passage in great depth you must go back to the original German text.  Going back to the original text is not only time-consuming, but is extremely difficult if you are not fluent in German!

Whenever there is a translation something is lost.  Words and phrases can never be “directly” translated from one language to another.  Even though we still get the general story of The Metamophosis, we are getting a very different narration of that story than what Kafka wrote.  Many words in English have different connotations than what the German word with the “same” meaning has. This is true of every language: what makes human language so incredible is how there is nothing that can convey each word’s exact meaning besides that one word.   We are completely unconscious of this, but when you start thinking about a particular word, take “particular” for example, how can you describe that word to someone who doesn’t understand what it means without using a sentence with it in it?  There are many synonyms and other words you can use to describe it, but the person does not really understand what it means until they hear it used.

The perfect example of translation differences, as Mr. Mitchell has mentioned several times in class, is the difference between the “feebly knocking” and “gently knocking” father: both feebly and gently come from the same German word, yet they have drastically different connotations in English. Yet it is amazing that we still can get so much out of Kafka’s writing without being fluent in German.  Even though we know it isn’t exactly what he is saying or exactly what he means, we still can see how Gregor thinks and can be told an incredibly thought-provoking story.

A Woolfy Moment in Hemmingway

            One of the most interesting moments of The Sun Also Rises to me is when Jake goes into the cathedral in Spain and is actually narrating his internal thoughts. This specific passage reminds me most of Woolf and lets the reader get a glimpse inside Jake’s head.  There are very few moments in the narration of the book in which Jake goes through his thought progressions.  Most of the book he is either describing things around him or going through dialogue with other characters. In this scene he chronicles his drifting thoughts while he is praying. 

“At the end of the street I saw the cathedral and walked up toward it. The first time I ever saw it I thought the facade was ugly but I liked it now. I went inside. It was dim and dark and the pillars went high up, and there were people praying, and it smelt of incense, and there were some wonderful big windows. I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bull-fighters, separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while I was praying for myself I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn’t seen him since that night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time; and then I was out in the hot sun on the steps of the cathedral, and the forefingers and the thumb of my right hand were still damp, and I felt them dry in the sun. The sunlight was hot and hard, and I crossed over beside some buildings, and walked back along side-streets to the hotel.”

            This passage seems a little out of Hemmingway’s style and a little more like Woolf, with a multitude of commas and run-on sentences.  The second to last sentence is whopping 196 words.  That is INSANE for Hemmingway’s normal style of as short as possible, direct sentences conveying a single idea that is always more complicated that it seems. (“It felt good to be warm and in bed.” “The wine was good.” “I had a bad time.” etc) To me this also is one of the most relatable moments of the book.  It is very human to have thought digressions and here Jake is feeling ashamed that his thought digressions are drifting away from what he thinks should be in his prayers. 

I think that religion is an incredibly important part of Jake’s life that we only see glimpses of throughout the book.  He comes to the conclusion that he’s a “rotten Catholic,” but doesn’t feel that there is anything he can do to change that. He seems a little frustrated that he doesn’t feel very religious at that particular moment and hopes that maybe next time he would be able to concentrate better on his prayers. He is the only character in the book that ever gives any thought to religion besides Brett who says, “[God] never worked very well with me.”