“Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
After taking a course on World Literature and the Imagination, I observed that there is a truth which universally attracts modern readers, and that is this: the worldly ambitions of man amount to nothing. A survey of several literary masterpieces from the neoclassical era to the modern will uncover a unifying theme centering on both the greatness and the misery of man. Most modern and contemporary literature has to do with this puzzling dichotomy. In man’s attempt to understand himself or to make a better world for himself he undertakes to make the most of himself in this life. His efforts are characterized by some personal and habitually selfish ambition in order to advance the human position. Yet he finds his endeavors amount to nothing but calamity upon himself and upon others.
While the literature of antiquity portrayed characters of outstanding or heroic nature, the modern novels focus upon the deeds and the musings of the average or below-average. Yet while this is the case, it is safe to claim that tragedy, however sugar-coated, has been the guiding motif of literature throughout history. The modern only becomes more introspective and generally guided by humanism, where human interests become the highest consequence.1
I tend to agree with just about everything the late literary scholar Roland Frye had to say, and no clearer can the statement be made than when he asserts in Perspective on Man:
Even at the zenith of human accomplishment, man is cursed by an ultimate failure to establish his greatness at a point beyond the reaches of human misery. In the literary masterpieces to which men return century after century because they find in them truth to the universally human condition, there are few ultimately successful heroes.2
The following is a survey of four beloved novels, established masterpieces, set in a place of literary prominence, and not only in the countries in which they were written but around the world. The commonality among these novels is the portrayal of characters whose actions are driven by some goal of personal gain, and yet what they reach is less than ideal — in fact, far less than ideal, since the end result is always some form of ruin and death, for themselves and those around them. Each of these stories appeals to the natural human propensity to exalt oneself and earn success. But what is true success? These novels do not tell us. This may be something missing from even the greatest works of literature. Someone searching for the answer to that question through a study of these four masterworks will be sorely disappointed.
Don Quixote and the Quest for the Heroic
It seems arrogant to apply one perspective on Miguel de Cervantes’ renowned novel and the character of Don Quixote when so many viewpoints have been expressed since its time of writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In many ways, the tale of Don Quixote’s adventures is the first of the modern novels and prefigures the many literary movements in which novels have been written, from any part of the world, in subsequent centuries. That alone is noteworthy to the present survey.
Cervantes’ own explanation for the book’s purpose, “being a satire of knight-errantry” and a ridicule of medieval romances, suggests a fundamental rejection of the sort of escapist fiction that embodies medieval literature. Cervantes would deem their unrealistic heroism and idealistic patterns of life nonsensical. So he creates a character with dreams of knight-errantry and places him in a real-world setting. The result is a protagonist whose aspirations are a false reality, so that the grand heroism and glory of being a knight-errant are all but madness and derive only from his imagination. Don Quixote pursues the idealism of medieval chivalry, but fails at nearly every turn and on every new adventure.
The attempts at heroic deeds are not made out of a desire of the protagonist to truly help and protect others, but to fuel his own mad aspirations. He wants to recover the lost splendor of chivalry, the principles of which hold so much virtue, and the roles of which such sublimity. In his mind that is the highest goal for those of his class, and he pursues that dream unwaveringly.
The effects of fiction as evidenced in this story are such that literature interacts with life in a miraculous way so as to inform and even change a person’s life. Don Quixote lauds the chivalric tales that have so influenced his mind, whereas others such as the cathedral priest near the end of Part 1 denounces such tales for their nonsense, ugliness, and disorder, and because they do not teach anything good. To the priest the tales pose a danger to the country of Spain. Those who would read them with as much ardor as Quixote are doomed to fall into the same sort of madness.
Whether intended by the author or not, for many today, Quixote’s madness has been interpreted psychoanalytically. Stephen Boyd writes in one version’s introduction that Quixote’s ultimate quest is “for authentic personal identity, through a movement away from his conditioned self … to a recovery of his ‘true’ or ‘deeper’ self.”3 Evidences for this include his finding identity and truth in the chivalric tales and being convinced that he is truly Don Quixote de la Mancha, a knight-errant. As the story progresses and the book unfolds, Don Quixote becomes increasingly introspective and more aware of his being perceived as mad, a strain that ultimately leads to his illness in Part II. Yet this madness is as much deliberate as it is affecting. Since Quixote chooses to be mad, he is therefore “morally responsible for his actions.”4 In the end, there is little gained by all of Quixote’s exploits, and the situation of his madness only worsens.
By the end of his adventures, Quixote is determined to set free his imaginary love, Dulcinea, from enchantment. Yet he of course does not succeed. And instead the realization of his never achieving this serves as an antecedent to his illness and death.5 Although Quixote claims to find sanity by the end of the story, just before his death, there is reason to question the genuineness of this conversion. It only seems to take affect at his deathbed, when he tells his niece and the physician in chapter LXXIV, “My judgment is returned clear and undisturbed and that cloud of ignorance is now removed, which the continual reading of those damnable books of knight-errantry had cast over my understanding.”6 The swift confession does not annul the whole account of his ridiculous adventures, but accentuates the futility of his aspirations. In the same chapter Cervantes pens some of the most haunting words: “As all human things, especially the lives of men, are transitory, their very beginnings being but steps to their dissolution; so Don Quixote, who was no way exempted from the common fate, was snatched away by death, when he least expected it.”7 Don Quixote’s life is thus not reconciled by a deathbed conversion; rather, Cervantes pronounces the absurdity of our character’s madness in the nature of his sickness and death.
It is important to note here Cervantes’ original intention, in giving an example of how not to live. When many readers have praised the exploits of the fated knight errant, Cervantes presents instead a character that does not deserve our praise. A question the book may raise, then, is: to what end do hopes and aspirations avail us? To what idea or level of success do they lead? Cervantes seems to suggest that certain roads lead to madness and eventual demise. Yet rather than presenting an alternative, Cervantes in his ‘Preface to the Reader’ encourages of his readers a philosophy of frivolity as the dominant response: his purpose is “to kindle mirth in the melancholic, and heighten it in the gay: let mirth and humour be your design, though laid on solid foundation…”8 It is questionable that this is the very best that the reader could take away in evaluating the wasted course of Don Quixote’s life.
A worthwhile perspective is presented by Erich Auerbach, in his discourse of the book in Mimesis:
There is very little of problem and tragedy in Cervantes’ book – and yet it belongs among the literary masterpieces of an epoch during which the modern problematic and tragic conception of things arose in the European mind. Don Quixote’s madness reveals nothing of the sort. The whole book is a comedy in which well-founded reality holds madness up to ridicule.9
In many respects this assessment is valid. It is not my purpose to pass judgment where no judgment is due, but rather uncover a common thread of futility in the life choices made by the characters of these novels. After all, comic satire may here exist only as a cop-out answer to life’s problems.
Faust and the Freedom of the Mind
The next in our series of masterworks is the German interpretation of the life of Faust, written for the stage by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe around 1790. With Faust we get a protagonist who has just as much selfish ambition, but achieves only a sort of speculative peace in and through his mind. It is more a philosophical work than a tale of morals.
An earlier rendition of Doctor Faustus was written by Britain’s Christopher Marlowe at around the same time as the release of Don Quixote. In Marlowe’s play, the character of Faustus abandons his exhausted studies of logic, medicine, law, and divinity, and enters the study of black magic. It is through this dark supernaturalism that Dr. Faustus hopes to become more than a man and reach the status of “a mighty god.”10 His pride and ambition are presented as folly by Marlowe, who even titled the play originally, The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. This rendition presents “the half-trivial, half-daring exploits, the alternating states of bliss and despair, the questions that are not answered and the answers that bring no real satisfaction, the heroic wanderings that lead nowhere.”11 In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus salvation is nowhere present.
Goethe’s Faust seeks to provide the answers to questions raised by its English predecessor, yet we find them to be insubstantial. In Goethe’s version Faust is visited by Mephistopheles, a representation of the Devil, who wages he can appease the doctor’s lack of joy and happiness. Initially skeptical of the offer, Faust agrees to allow Mephistopheles to guide him on a quest for happiness through the realms of love, politics and classical antiquity. In the first part of this tale an attempt at salvation is made through licentious activity, as Faust is brought into various situations which provide him with pleasures. He encounters the lady Gretchen and falls in love with her. After she finds out Faust has impregnated her, however, Gretchen falls into disgrace among her friends and relatives. Eventually Gretchen ends up murdering their newly born child.
Subsequent to the many tragic occurrences that result from their exploits, Faust finally experiences a moment of happiness after apparently succeeding for a time to prevent all war and tame the forces of nature. Yet he dies immediately after. Mephistopheles, who has proven himself deceptive above all, attempts to drag Faust’s soul to hell. Instead, Faust is saved spiritually by the intervention of angels and carnally by the forgiveness of Gretchen.
Whereas both renditions deal heavily with the supernatural, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus gleans from ideas of a more ancient and Christian belief system in which man is dependent upon higher powers. The German Faust applies a post-Christian outlook and renders more power and control to the man. While the concern of Marlowe’s play is the immorality of Faust, Goethe takes a more philosophical approach. Yet both put emphasis upon the misguided strivings of Faust.
Modernism and Enlightenment thought emerge in the pages of Goethe’s Faust – in the variety of avenues of thought, in asking questions about how to engage the world, and in evaluating one’s life through the mind and philosophical meditation. His character explores several levels of success, first by rejecting the scholarly pursuits of science. The german philosopher Friedrick Schelling has argued that Faust pursues devilry for personal gain: “as the appropriate basis for an enlightened perspective on the world – just as his fulfillment will consist in rising above himself, by which he may perceive and enjoy what is essential.”12 Goethe may very well be addressing the apparent consequences of ambition and egotism by turning the focus to what another contemporary has called “a genuine thirst for knowledge and truth.”13 While this is a worthwhile pursuit, it can be argued that Faust never really finds it. The point is made by Hans Rudolf Vaget that Faust’s intellectual and philosophical inspiration cannot be detached from “the desire to dominate,” which “represents the ultimate, most radical articulation of his ceaseless striving.”14 He would like to transform the world he knows by continuing to develop and finally achieve to the highest life possible. Yet all of his developments come at great human cost.
For the Germans, Faust represents “a Teutonic hero” that calls men to action to create a better world, an ideal which realizes humanity’s “individual and social values.”15 This novel, or poem, embodies a broad humanism, which is itself ambitious. We find in Faust a certain philosophical pursuit that does little to profit a man. In other words, there is no true relief to the tragedy that underlies the poem, though Faust believes he has found it.
The Red and the Black and the Power of the Classes
In The Red and the Black, we are given a protagonist with an equal amount of narcissism displayed in the arena of class distinctions and political upheaval in early nineteenth century France. Julien Sorel, the protagonist, is a man of singular ambition who pursues success by means of climbing the social ladder of French aristocratic society and proving himself as an upper-classman. Yet his futile attempts lead to loss, betrayal, and eventual death.
Amidst a society in the midst of great social change, which is falling in on itself politically, Stendhal suggests the best way to survive the upheaval is to adapt like a chameleon to many various classes and professions. This is often shown in the way Julien dons the clothes which associate him with whichever class or profession holds the greater power. When the church appears to hold power, he wears black and associates himself with the clergy. When instead it seems the military has more sway, then he adopts the red outfit. This malleability serves Julien well in the way of survival and in how others positively perceive him. He is well-thought-of by others in the professions he assumes. The issue at hand is that when assuming these various roles in pretense, one finds he does not truly belong anywhere. Julien’s true identity is not tied to the church or the military or anything else. He was born in a poor caste, as the son of a carpenter, and he faces many issues in fitting in with the aristocrats. This proves especially true when he is caught up in a romantic attachment with the daughter of a Marquis.
Aside from the crucial historical moment that France finds itself before the July Revolution, Stendhal’s masterpiece has much to do in the area of love. In fact love and loss enter all four of these novels in their own tragic ways. But The Red and the Black especially has profound entrances into the intrigue that generally surrounds romantic love. The novel is particularly French in that it values many aspects of love as either overly erotic or as a strong self-gratifying pursuit. All of Julien’s love affairs are highly passionate and extremely tragic. His love affair with Monsieur de Rênal’s wife ends suddenly when her chambermaid spreads the news around Verrières; his relationship with Mathilde de la Mole is shaky at best and full of deception. Nothing comes of either of these but escalating complications leading to jealousy, injury, and death.
Erich Aurbach’s perspective is particularly helpful here. He believes Stendhal brilliantly expresses the adversity of the historical moment which “gave rise to modern tragic realism based on the contemporary.”16 But what is this modern tragic realism? Stendhal wrote his novel as a semi-biographical work, as he himself was a man stuck in the time of revolution, shifting societal norms and political upheaval.
Because Stendhal’s interest arose out of the experiences of his own life, it was held not by the structure of a possible society but by the changes in the society actually given. Temporal perspective is a factor of which he never loses sight, the concept of incessantly changing forms and manners of life dominates his thoughts.17
It could be said that Julien represents a man that surrenders himself to reality as it is presented to him, and thus has no responsibility for his actions. I do not believe that is the case.
Can we say that Julien Sorel’s actions were wholly justifiable? Stendhal may have written for reasons other than moral impetus, but we cannot divorce from the story the consequences of moral actions. Julien could have accepted his class and worked hard as a carpenter, come what may. We fail to see in the novel any moral direction – any departure from personal gain and selfish ambition. Such is the greater tragedy than the shifting world landscape on which Stendhal writes.
One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Illusory of Human Invention
Finally, no discussion on the catastrophic in literature is complete without the mention of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967. There is no main protagonist, but this tale rather follows a family lineage – several members within the Buendía family that establish themselves in Columbia. Spanning more than a century and seven generations, we explore the lives of this family and the importance of the traditions and wealth that is passed down to them.
The introspective and headstrong patriarch José Arcadio Buendía founds the town of Macondo. He seems more interested and involved in his scientific pursuits than with his family, and becomes increasingly absorbed in these preoccupations and withdrawn from the community. This pursuit of progress by way of modern ideas and technology characterizes the majority of his descendants. Among those more prominent are José Arcadio, Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Rebeca, José Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo, Fernanda del Carpio, Meme, José Arcadio and Aureliano Babilonia. In their own ways, their lives are wrought by lust, treachery, refusal to take part in the family, political and military prowess or repute, or some other type of liberal ambition. History repeats itself as characters adopt the faults of their namesakes and repeat the sins of their fathers. Each come to their own tragic end as they live in seclusion or isolation, are confused with another member of the family, are rejected, killed by sickness or a plague, or are somehow murdered. As the exception, Úrsula Iguarán, José I’s wife, may be the most admirable of all the Buendías. She is resourceful and caring of her family, and seems to succeed where most of the men fail. Stendhal may have written her character to represent conservative values, when all the others embody the hopes of progressivism. Her conservatism clashes often with the liberals. And she alone lives past the age of 100.
Much of the aesthetic genius of Márquez is shown in his use of the concept of time – memory, life cycle, decay and death. These convulse and converge in a way that the characters are ultimately dependent upon time. It is the circular storyline that is significant here. First there is the subversion of the mundane and the supernatural in the magical realism that is exemplified. This brings the attention down from the supernatural to the individuals, and applies more weight upon their actions. More notable, though, is how the Buendía family is caught in a cycle of repetition, not only with names, but with character traits. The great irony of the book is that nothing really moves forward, although some would look to technology or some other aspect of modernity for that purpose. The characters despite all their efforts cannot divorce themselves from the past. In the end, a great windstorm destroys Macondo the moment Aureliano Babilonia discovers that his family’s whole legacy and destiny were foretold in the writings of Melquíades. We are left to wonder if there was any value to the family’s ambitions at all.
Márquez does not shy away from presenting scenes of the grotesque and tragic. He leaves no stone untouched in his perusal of Latin American life. Political and historical realities meld with the magical and speculative mind of Columbia. Márquez brilliantly plays with the ways in which various aspects of modernity and liberalism interact with the Latin American world and asks if they are compatible.
Conclusion
Each of these celebrated novels present the reality of the human condition in their own way. In the face of life’s big questions, and of the ever-looming prospect of death, characters in these tales adopt a mentality of striving to achieve the most in this life. If there is one conclusion to be made after studying these masterpieces it is that the modern mind in all its pursuit of greatness must grapple with the shortcomings of humanism. All of these stories embody the modern perception of rejecting ancient values and instead putting the value and the power upon humanity. That is the greatness part. Yet we find that no one achieves any real measure of success, and that is their misery. One cannot put it more succinctly than Roland Frye when he asserts: “In the great tradition of literature even the most titanic of heroes rarely escape the misery of man’s lot by the power of man’s own greatness.”18
One might make a moral or religious argument as the basis of the undergirding tragedy in the best of literature. If taking this perspective, in these tales we are presented with many examples of how not to live, but never any solid illustration of some commendable model to the contrary. None of our protagonists come to a point where they say, “Yes, this is the ideal life.” What is lacking is a tale in which the strivings and ambitions of the characters produce something good, that some kind of security, peace or joy comes from their various endeavors. It is doubtful that any comedy could be a true longstanding masterwork, since it does not express an accurate portrayal of the human condition. Goethe’s Faust is in fact the closest we get to a joyful ending, and yet it still falls short.
Perhaps asking what true success looks like is the wrong question. Perhaps there is a point to the satirizing of frail human endeavors, and the missing element of these masterpieces is some alternative philosophy. Perhaps it is that we ought not to reach for our own success – that there is another purpose in life lost to us when we have our eyes fixed on our own bellies. The books present all kinds of questions, but rarely do they answer them. Our authors seem to suggest either humor and satire as the only release from this human predicament, or an attempt to escape reality through alternative dimensions of the mind. In spite of missing elements, through these masterworks we can still learn something about this great perplexing world and the complexities of the human race. Literature is so full of questions. And perhaps it is because there are so many looking for answers.
1. “Humanism.” A Handbook to Literature, The Odyssey Press, 1960, pp. 226-7. 2. Frye, Roland Mushat. Perspective on Man. The Westminster Press, 1961. 94. 3. Boyd, Stephen. Introduction. Don Quixote, by Cervantes, London, 1993, pp. v-xvi. viii. 4. ibid. xiii. 5. Auerbach, Erich. “The Enchanted Dulcinea.” Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by Willard R. Trask, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 334-358. 339. 6. Cervantes. Don Quixote. Translated by P.A. Motteux, Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993. 764. 7. ibid. 763. 8. ibid. xxviii 9. Auerbach. 347. 10. Greenbalt, Stephen, general editor. “Dr. Faustus” by Marlowe in The Norton Anthology of British Literature, 8th Ed, pp. 460-93. Quoted from the Prologue, line 62. 11. ibid. 460. 12. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph. “On Faust as Tragicomedy.” Hamlin, Cyrus, editor. Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Translated by Walter Arndt, Norton and Company, Inc, 2001, pp. 555-57. 556. 13. Atkins, Stuart. “Survey of the Faust Theme.” Hamlin, Cyrus, editor. Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Translated by Walter Arndt, Norton and Company, Inc, 2001, pp. 573-85. 579. 14. Vaget, Hans Rudolf. “The Ethics of Faust’s Last Actions.” Hamlin, Cyrus, editor. Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Translated by Walter Arndt, Norton and Company, Inc, 2001, pp. 704-15. 709. 15. Atkins. 583. 16. Auerbach, Erich. “In the Hotel de la Mole.” Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by Willard R. Trask, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 454-492. 458. 17. ibid. 462. 18. Frye. 95. Other: Márquez, Gabriel García. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. Avon Books, 1971. Stendhal. The Red and the Black. Translated by Lloyd C. Parks, New American Library, 2006.