STEPPENWOLF: PSYCHOANALYSIS

          The dominating energy of the novel is the dilemma between the two selves of the protagonist: a wolf half who desires respectability and the comforts of bourgeois, and a vain, absurd man half scoffing at these absurd desires. Thus in the terms of psychology, he becomes a schizophrenic intellectual morosely contemplating suicide because of an imaginary conflict between the two poles of his being.  Harry, the protagonist desires the metamorphosis which comes through the following process:

Bourgeois       →     Steppenwolf            →          immortals

               In the terms of psychological analysis, the novel is about imposing order on the chaos that is in the world, and resolving the conflict f a torn personality. It is also about coming to terms with the concept of man’s fate and forming unity with the external world. According to the modernist thinking man is leading a fateless life and is drifted here and there. Harry dies not find anything in common with others and he is full of pessimism and self-denigration.

                      The Steppenwolf, Harry, is psychopath who acts as an antisocial person and is a victim of neurosis. “How foolish is to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence.” He suffers from emotional disorder and anxiety without having any concrete evidence of it. He comes into conflict with the bourgeois world. His life is completely devoid of any order or discipline. He is the hater of life’s pretty conventions.

                     According to the Steppenwolf the world is suffering from two megalomanias. One is intellectual progress and the other is nationalism. He clearly perceives that the world is in a mad pursuit of progress and has categorically left man behind. As a result man has developed the habits of alcoholism, sexual orgy and car chasing and these are nothing but death wishes.

                     A man who tries to come to terms with himself has to face two problems. One is ego and the other is tormenting of libidinal will. In other terms one has to strike a balance between pleasure principle and reality principle. Those who have strong pleasure principle are in mad pursuit of worldly pleasures. It is dominated by id and is wild primordial force. It wants what it wants. The way out of this is to have a strong ego. Those who have strong reality principle have strong ego . As opposite to id, it is highly socially oriented. It represents the antisocial or libidinal desires.

                      Harry knows that he has failed to strike this balance and so he perceives two selves in him. He defines wolf as a dark realm of instinctual savagery, cruelty and unsublimated raw nature. His goal is to attain immortality by an eternal surrender of id and ego to metamorphosis.  

                       With this preoccupation Harry is living his life. He is confronting with a number of questions at various juncture. Apart from this he had an identity problem.  He wants to follow the path of the immortals of the world like Goethe. First he meets Hermine who has learnt to tackle both, man and woman of the world. She has always learnt to be a moment. She is in the company of Pablo, an enigmatic jazz musician. He is always on good terms with others. After giving a great thought to Goethe’s life and works, he realizes that Goethe’s wisdom lies in “no longer will and no longer intellect, but only pity, reverence and readiness to serve.”

                      Thus, Harry learns from Goethe, Hermine and Pablo the art of depersonalization. Through the Magic Theatre he learnt that the dissolution of personality can be accomplished only through laughter. At the end he realizes that even Pablo and Mozart are two halves of a same person (of spirit and nature, of life and eternity). Mozart teaches him that life is a compromise and full of less than ideal circumstances. Now Harry has to face this aspect with laughter. The novel ends with reconciliation and on an optimistic note: “One day I will be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh.”

                     

               

My artical on a book translated in Gujarati as 'Sagar Pankhi'

Jonathan Livingston Segal: An insatiable Quest for knowledge and Progress
Even a single reading of the story ‘Jonathan Livingston Segal’ reveals it to be a powerful motivating allegory. At the very outset it is necessary to define the allegorical elements. The translator has defined Jonathan as a human soul. Rather than indulging into metaphysics, I would call him an individual- a human being. She has compared Jonathan with Mahavir, Krishna, Jesus Christ and Gandhiji. Instead of such comparison I would let a lay man identify himself with Jonathan as cultivating from a common creature. When Jonathan is identified with incarnations, it creates an effect of alienation and a common man would never be able to identify with him and get inspired. The sky where he makes his flights is the symbol of life. The community of the birds stands for the embroiled social medium replete with self-centered society where each member is determined to make progress and get comforts at the cost of others.
Other birds are obsessed with the idea of finding their prey and feeding themselves but Jonathan is looking for something different, something new. For them flying is a means of nourishing themselves, while Jonathan takes it to be an end in itself. The thought of being a common segal haunts him and inspires to have his wings on fire. At one juncture, he feels that he does not have owl-like eyes to see in the dark nor powerful mind like other birds nor short wings to fly. What strikes us most is his effort to excel in flying in spite of these limitations. In his efforts to fly higher and swifter, he discovers the aim of his life. He perceives life to be an endeavor to be free: to get free from the stranglehold of limitations laid down by flesh, society and even by nature. This realization results into an exaltation for the rest of his life. Paradise has been demythologized and it has been portrayed with a different perspective. Paradise is not bound by the dimensions of place and time. On the other hand, it is an endeavour to strive towards completeness. It is an endless and herculean task since the nature of pursuit of completeness is fathomless.
Jonathan is not ready to accept the limitations. All the time he emphasizes that body is only a thought. Thoughts do not have any limitations and therefore no one can be bound up by limitations. There is so much urge within Jonathan that even the sarcasm and hostility of his community cannot dishearten him. He has the quest to be better than the best. He is full of “indomitable will and courage not to yield or surrender.” The good thing about Jonathan is that he does not become a prey to self-complacency. As soon as he masters one skill he is eager to learn the other. Jonathan reaches to the excellence no one can imagine, but yet he is replete with compassion. He even feels pain for his fellow members and attempts to uplift them. To be precise, the story teaches us to transcend all the limitations to achieve our goal and never to be satisfied and thereby be static but to be in motion.

The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography
Three passions, simple but overwhelming, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy –ecstasy so great that I would often have scarified all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought if, finally, in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and thought it might seem too good for human life. This is –at last- I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, as far they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to the earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people, a burden of their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.