My two-year old daughter Lianne has developed the habit to listen to recordings in the car. Whenever she gets on her safety seat, she would say, "Daddy, play "The Little Red Riding Hood." Her father would put the CD on, and we would all listen to the tale with her. Somehow,that tale often fails to stay with me while the next one, "The Little Mermaid," always does. Whenever I hear the latter, I cannot help being deeply touched by the tragic life of the daughter of the sea, and I always have the urge to rewrite the tale so that it will convey different notions about gender.
Whether it registers male fantasy of what a woman should be or reflects certain historical truths about women, the tale presents a woman's life as extremely miserable. In order to be able to stay close to the prince, the mermaid has first to lose the freedom to swim in her own kingdom and to walk with such pain as if there were a knife pierced into her heart. She also has to lose her tongue so that she can never really speak to the prince about her feelings and thoughts. She is to save the man only to be forsaken by him. She tragically collapses down to bubbles while he happily starts his honey moon. Can there be more personal miseries than hers?
If Anderson is laudable in having some insight into the tragic elements in the life of a woman, he is not so in idolizing a woman who willingly submits to all the miseries and turns herself into a heroic martyr. He is being whimsical in letting the mermaid choose to die for the man instead of having his blood. What historical and male psychological needs does it satisfy to imagine a woman of such great obedience and such huge capacity to sacrifice?
Indeed, the little mermaid does not have to die. She should take up the witch knife and wield it carefully on the man. Drops of blood will incur pain but not death to him. Pained, the man will, hopefully, see the woman as she is for the first time. For the first time, then, the man may learn to live with the woman--rather than an image of her--or his.
For my daughter, I will have the tale rewritten.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The Unberable Lightness of Being
Response 1
In his novel _The Unbearable Lightness of Being__, Milan Kundera portrays love as a big irony with the man and the woman constantly misunderstanding each other or coming to understanding too late. Franz and Sabina of course never really understand each other. It is a big irony that Franz leaves his wife for Sabina,which just urges the latter to leave him permanently. But what is more ironic is what happens between Thomas and Tereza. While Thomas thinks he is the strong protector of a weak child, it is Tereza's very weakness,however, that gradually levels his world in which scalpel and penis are exchangeable tools for discovering and conquering the world. Although Thomas thinks that compassion sustains his love for Tereza, what really urges him to follow her is his desire to nudge her into his game; compassion is the kitsch he invents to cover the very lack of it in his successful managing of various womenn. Similarly, fidelity is a kitsch Tereza uses to cover her conscious or unconscious awareness of her own role in their relationship: she is not a weak child but a persistent trainer who dreams to turn Thomas into a Karenin. That may be why they do not have happiness together while each may feel they love the other very much. For Kundera, this is the biggest irony of human love: it can never be greater than the love between man and dog; for the former is inevitably intertwined with the love of the self while the latter is a selfless love. Perhaps if human beings could give up some bits of themselves or when they do not have much of themselves--as at the end of the novel when Tereza realizes her mistakes and when Thomas is too old to conquer for himself--they would love each other better and have moments of happiness. But by letting the two major protagonists die immediately after they reach this understanding, Kundera obviously refuses to build a kitsch of love in his book.
However, does love really have to be as Kundera portrays it? Are human beings indeed unable to make selfless, unconditional love? Are we indeed incapable of "delivering ourselves up to [a partner] demand-free and ask for nothing but his [or her] company (297)? I would like to give more positive answers to these questions.
Response 2
In K's view,love is a kitsch that we have to invent and reinvent to find meanings for life, which is of course the biggest kitsch--the denial of the shit of death. But what I want to know--and what I find lacking in the book--is that kitsch making does not necessarily lead to misery and destruction. True, no one can do anything about the final erasure, but the invention of love itself demonstrates the voluminous and volatile qualities of human intelligence; in its constant assertion of human contact, love has rendered void the final separation. Of course, love here should not be interpreted narrowly as simply the romantic relationship between man and woman but must include love of the self, which engenders love of the other and of the world in general. The fact that the love of the self is the most fundamental form of love does not necessarily lead to the concept of the world as a selfish crap; for in initiating and maintaining the circuit of love, it makes possible-however ironically--human contact, a fundamental triumph of life over death. In this sense, an old woman's resentment against her acquaintances dying on her is no longer an odd lady's funny babbling; it is also a poignant effort to reconnect the chain of human contact when death has broken it.
We need to value kitsch-making a bit more rather than taking it all negatively. Of course, not all kitsches are productive; some lead us directly to destruction, such as fascism. But kitsch-making itself should be taken as a trenchant sign of human intelligence.
In his novel _The Unbearable Lightness of Being__, Milan Kundera portrays love as a big irony with the man and the woman constantly misunderstanding each other or coming to understanding too late. Franz and Sabina of course never really understand each other. It is a big irony that Franz leaves his wife for Sabina,which just urges the latter to leave him permanently. But what is more ironic is what happens between Thomas and Tereza. While Thomas thinks he is the strong protector of a weak child, it is Tereza's very weakness,however, that gradually levels his world in which scalpel and penis are exchangeable tools for discovering and conquering the world. Although Thomas thinks that compassion sustains his love for Tereza, what really urges him to follow her is his desire to nudge her into his game; compassion is the kitsch he invents to cover the very lack of it in his successful managing of various womenn. Similarly, fidelity is a kitsch Tereza uses to cover her conscious or unconscious awareness of her own role in their relationship: she is not a weak child but a persistent trainer who dreams to turn Thomas into a Karenin. That may be why they do not have happiness together while each may feel they love the other very much. For Kundera, this is the biggest irony of human love: it can never be greater than the love between man and dog; for the former is inevitably intertwined with the love of the self while the latter is a selfless love. Perhaps if human beings could give up some bits of themselves or when they do not have much of themselves--as at the end of the novel when Tereza realizes her mistakes and when Thomas is too old to conquer for himself--they would love each other better and have moments of happiness. But by letting the two major protagonists die immediately after they reach this understanding, Kundera obviously refuses to build a kitsch of love in his book.
However, does love really have to be as Kundera portrays it? Are human beings indeed unable to make selfless, unconditional love? Are we indeed incapable of "delivering ourselves up to [a partner] demand-free and ask for nothing but his [or her] company (297)? I would like to give more positive answers to these questions.
Response 2
In K's view,love is a kitsch that we have to invent and reinvent to find meanings for life, which is of course the biggest kitsch--the denial of the shit of death. But what I want to know--and what I find lacking in the book--is that kitsch making does not necessarily lead to misery and destruction. True, no one can do anything about the final erasure, but the invention of love itself demonstrates the voluminous and volatile qualities of human intelligence; in its constant assertion of human contact, love has rendered void the final separation. Of course, love here should not be interpreted narrowly as simply the romantic relationship between man and woman but must include love of the self, which engenders love of the other and of the world in general. The fact that the love of the self is the most fundamental form of love does not necessarily lead to the concept of the world as a selfish crap; for in initiating and maintaining the circuit of love, it makes possible-however ironically--human contact, a fundamental triumph of life over death. In this sense, an old woman's resentment against her acquaintances dying on her is no longer an odd lady's funny babbling; it is also a poignant effort to reconnect the chain of human contact when death has broken it.
We need to value kitsch-making a bit more rather than taking it all negatively. Of course, not all kitsches are productive; some lead us directly to destruction, such as fascism. But kitsch-making itself should be taken as a trenchant sign of human intelligence.
思念 Si Nian
"Field [田]over heart [心] means remember,"
Writes Kimiko Hahn (CAP 178)
What about Nian [念}]
Can we say "Today [今] over heart means remember," too?
Really really Si is nothing than
Fill your heart with memories of a closed world that
You do not remember there is an outside that knows no boundaries
Nian is to let today weigh so much on your heart that you forget
There is something called succession.
Succession? Succession?
Drop the heart,and you win the day.
Writes Kimiko Hahn (CAP 178)
What about Nian [念}]
Can we say "Today [今] over heart means remember," too?
Really really Si is nothing than
Fill your heart with memories of a closed world that
You do not remember there is an outside that knows no boundaries
Nian is to let today weigh so much on your heart that you forget
There is something called succession.
Succession? Succession?
Drop the heart,and you win the day.
Parallel Lines
What would you say if we
Remain two parallel lines
Never crossing we stay in each other’s view
Point blank, heart to heart?
No, No, No, you say
It is cruel.
Yes, yes, I agree
I know that longing
Love’s magic power of drawing
Two lines to melt in hearts’ popping
But you know and me and then
And then no more no more
Happily ever after we shall see
White despair in between
And yet a moth I’d like to
Be in your light and die.
Remain two parallel lines
Never crossing we stay in each other’s view
Point blank, heart to heart?
No, No, No, you say
It is cruel.
Yes, yes, I agree
I know that longing
Love’s magic power of drawing
Two lines to melt in hearts’ popping
But you know and me and then
And then no more no more
Happily ever after we shall see
White despair in between
And yet a moth I’d like to
Be in your light and die.
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