Tuesday, June 2, 2009
What You Will Read on This Blog. Or Not, It's Your Choice
Free will is the choice that any person has to make their life how they want it. (Ask Stanford if you need clarification, or for a scientific view, go here.) This blog is dedicated to the use of free will in the literary works of Slaughterhouse - Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. On this blog there is an essay (broken into four parts) discussing how these works used free will in order to make a statement on the overall concept of free will. In addition to that essay, there is also an explication Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This explication discusses how the movie also makes use of the free will motif. In addition to that explication, there is also a poem that I wrote with the theme of free will. That being said, I hope that you enjoy this blog and that you learn a lot about free will.
Free Will in "Slaughterhouse - Five"
In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse – Five, the existence of free will vs. determinism is explored. In the novel, this philosophical debate is displayed through both alien belief systems and the life story of a man named Billy Pilgrim. These alien beliefs and events in Billy’s life culminate to make a statement upon free will, which is that free will is only an illusion that humans want to believe in. In the novel, Billy’s whole life can be seen as a predestined, with him having no say over what happens to him. His life starts out with him being drafted into World War II, which was something completely against his will. In the war, Billy was a reluctant soldier, who was always ill-equipped and in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet he never died. In fact, even when Billy tried to let himself die in a barrage of bullets, he was saved by Roland Weary, a fellow soldier. After that, Billy was taken captive by the Germans as a prisoner of war where he was told what to do during every second of every day. This shows that nothing Billy did in his career as a soldier was truly of his own free will. Everything was always decided for him and he never had a say in how his life turned out. Even after the war when he became an older man, his daughter ran his life because she viewed him as mentally unstable. Billy lived his whole life without any of his own choices. Everything was laid out for him and Billy was never once able to do something under his own power. Billy’s inability to control his own life was due to the fact that he had adopted the Tralfamadorian belief system and had applied it to his own life.
In the novel, The Traflamadorians developed a belief system in which a person is always alive at one point in their lives and that time isn’t linear and repeats itself constantly. These beliefs allow the Tralfamadorians to accept their future because in essence, they have already lived it. This acceptance of what is to come shows that the Tralfamadorians do not believe in free will and think that they have no power over future events. This line of thinking extended to Billy Pilgrim and how he lived his everyday life. Once he began to see the way the Tralfamadorians do, Billy gave up on controlling his own life. He accepted what was to come and never tried to change it. This is best exemplified when Billy knows that he will be assassinated while giving a speech. Instead of trying to stop it or alert somebody, he lets himself get shot and he dies. How Billy dies sums up the overall meaning of free will in Slaughterhouse – Five. Free will is something that doesn’t exist. People are destined to live a certain life and we can do nothing to change that. Humans live under the guise of free will because it makes them feel better about their lives, but if something is meant to happen, it will happen regardless to if we try to stop it or not.
In the novel, The Traflamadorians developed a belief system in which a person is always alive at one point in their lives and that time isn’t linear and repeats itself constantly. These beliefs allow the Tralfamadorians to accept their future because in essence, they have already lived it. This acceptance of what is to come shows that the Tralfamadorians do not believe in free will and think that they have no power over future events. This line of thinking extended to Billy Pilgrim and how he lived his everyday life. Once he began to see the way the Tralfamadorians do, Billy gave up on controlling his own life. He accepted what was to come and never tried to change it. This is best exemplified when Billy knows that he will be assassinated while giving a speech. Instead of trying to stop it or alert somebody, he lets himself get shot and he dies. How Billy dies sums up the overall meaning of free will in Slaughterhouse – Five. Free will is something that doesn’t exist. People are destined to live a certain life and we can do nothing to change that. Humans live under the guise of free will because it makes them feel better about their lives, but if something is meant to happen, it will happen regardless to if we try to stop it or not.
Free Will in "Brave New World"
In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the concept of free will is brought up in the context of new technological advances. Is it right to predetermine a person’s life because you can? Or do you let them grow naturally and see what happens? This is the central problem surrounding the motif of free will in Brave New World. In the novel, technology controls every aspect of human life in a future society. People are given hypnopaedia in order to condition them from a young age, as well as given drugs when they are still embryos in order to put them into a certain social class. Essentially, this new society plays God and assigns people predestined lives. People are made to be a certain way and no matter what they do with their lives, they are unable to change what they do, or even who they are. This philosophy can be viewed as a perverted concept of creationism and is used to point out how ridiculous and wrong it is to predetermine a person’s life.
The character of John the Savage is the main way that Huxley is able to demonstrate the motif of free will. John the Savage is a character that lives on a reservation and isn’t subjected to the hypnopaedia and embryonic drugs. He is able to think, feel, and do as he wants. When he is brought to the conditioned society, he finds himself dealing with very serious culture shock. He sees how people have been controlled and how it is against the law to even quote Shakespeare. John reacts to this predestined world by making a series of choices that are completely his own mind and in doing so, demonstrates how important free will is. One of the major things that John does is starts a fight over the drug SOMA. He refuses to take it after the death of his mother and as a result of his anger, he starts a fight with the Deltas who are bringing him SOMA. After this episode, John goes into exclusion, hiding in his house and practicing Christianity (which is against the society’s rules). After he is hounded constantly by the members of the society, John hangs himself, choosing to end his life rather than be apart of this new world. John’s decisions in these incidents show how powerful free will is. John chooses to not take SOMA when everyone else does, chooses to continue practicing his religion when Christianity has been banned, and dictates how he will die instead of letting the society get the best of him. Even though the new society eventually drives John insane, John still is always in control of his life. In essence, John symbolizes free will in a society that is given predestined lives. John always acting of his own free will shows that it is important to make your own choices in life and that it is wrong to be given a predestined life or have free will taken away from you. Brave New World suggests that free will is something important and should be fought for at all costs.
The character of John the Savage is the main way that Huxley is able to demonstrate the motif of free will. John the Savage is a character that lives on a reservation and isn’t subjected to the hypnopaedia and embryonic drugs. He is able to think, feel, and do as he wants. When he is brought to the conditioned society, he finds himself dealing with very serious culture shock. He sees how people have been controlled and how it is against the law to even quote Shakespeare. John reacts to this predestined world by making a series of choices that are completely his own mind and in doing so, demonstrates how important free will is. One of the major things that John does is starts a fight over the drug SOMA. He refuses to take it after the death of his mother and as a result of his anger, he starts a fight with the Deltas who are bringing him SOMA. After this episode, John goes into exclusion, hiding in his house and practicing Christianity (which is against the society’s rules). After he is hounded constantly by the members of the society, John hangs himself, choosing to end his life rather than be apart of this new world. John’s decisions in these incidents show how powerful free will is. John chooses to not take SOMA when everyone else does, chooses to continue practicing his religion when Christianity has been banned, and dictates how he will die instead of letting the society get the best of him. Even though the new society eventually drives John insane, John still is always in control of his life. In essence, John symbolizes free will in a society that is given predestined lives. John always acting of his own free will shows that it is important to make your own choices in life and that it is wrong to be given a predestined life or have free will taken away from you. Brave New World suggests that free will is something important and should be fought for at all costs.
Free Will in "A Clockwork Orange"
In the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange, the concept of free will is again brought up. This time, the motif of free will isn’t concerned with free will vs. determinism, but concerned with needing free will in order to be human. The point of free will in this novel is to show the reader that having the ability to choose how we live our lives makes us human and defines who we are. Being forced into decisions isn’t living and is no way to live life. This is shown when Alex, the main character from the book undergoes Ludivico’s Technique. Alex is a violent youth who robs people, rapes women, and beats people up for fun. However, after he is found guilty of murder he is sent to prison. While there, he gets in a fight with an inmate and the government decides to use a technique on him that will force him to be good. This technique forces him to become violently ill whenever he begins to think of violence, thus always making him act like a good citizen. However, due to the fact that Alex isn’t acting this way under his own free will, he isn’t really living the life of a human being. He is in some ways no more than a mindless machine. In fact, many characters in the book say that after Ludivico’s Technique Alex is no longer a man because he can no longer choose what he wants for his life. However, later in the novel, Alex is given a treatment that restores his ability to choose between right and wrong. While at first he falls back into his violent ways, he then starts to see that maybe he should turn his life around and try and choose the morally correct path. This ending shows that in order for a person to truly live the human experience they need free will. Making good decisions because you are forced to in no way develops you as a person or means that you are a good human being. When Alex decided to try and start making good decisions on his own however, it showed that he was developing as a person and that the only way a person could truly be a good human being was to do so under his own free will. A Clockwork Orange tries to say that free will is a necessity to be human. Without it, people can’t develop and their actions are meaningless in the long run.
Tying it All Together...
These three novels both share and have different uses of free will. All three novels state that free will is a part of human life, but that is where the similarities between the novels usage of free will ends. In Slaughterhouse – Five, free will is seen as an illusion, something that we want to have but isn’t really there. In both Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange, free will is seen as something essential and needed to live life. These novels explain how free will is something so important that it should never be lost sight of and must always be used. Slaughterhouse – Five on the other hand trivializes it by using an alien philosophy to show that free will doesn’t exist. A Clockwork Orange also separates itself from the other novels because it focuses on free will being the basis upon how we define ourselves as humans. A Clockwork Orange shows that a human’s ability to make their own decisions in life and choose what they think is right is what defines a person and separates humans from animals. Brave New World and Slaughterhouse – Five don’t go as far as to associate free will with the human condition, instead, those novels focus on how humans perceive free will and how it should never be sacrificed. This being said, these works show that just the thought of free will is essential to human survival. Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange both are very explicit in the fact that free will is important to human survival while Slaughterhouse – Five hides this fact a little more than the other two. In Slaughterhouse – Five, the Tralfamadorians say that only on Earth is there any talk of free will. This shows that even though free will may be an illusion, it is an illusion people need to have to find meaning in their lives. These three works of literature show that having the ability to choose how your life plays out gives people a reason to live and inserts meaning into every person’s life. If no one had control of their lives, we would live in a nihilistic world where no one cared what happened next. These novels are trying to say that free will (or even the appearance of it) allows humans to live meaningful lives and not fall into nihilism.
A Poem by Me
Tomorrow Never Knows
I walk down the streets of the city of lights
Come…
Come…
Come…
they call to me
But I don’t want to listen, and I go deaf.
I can see what they what they want me to do,
But I don’t want to see it, and I go blind.
I can smell the sweet aroma that they sprayed around me
But I refuse to smell it and cut off my nose.
They call me to answer just to say yes I will…yes I will
But I won’t do it.
I go dumb.
Oh but how naïve I am!
The sounds reach me anyways,
The sights still blind my eyes,
The smells still fill my nose,
I still find myself saying I will.
They trap me not because I want it,
but because they always would.
Reflection
This poem reflects the free will vs. determinism argument. In the poem, the speaker is met with various senses that he doesn’t want to see. He wants to make his own way and not be affected by them or have them dictate his life. He tries to cut those senses out of his life by “going blind” or “going dumb.” He is exhibiting his free will by choosing not to be persuaded to go to “them” just because his senses are being appealed to. However, the end of the poem shows that the choices he made were all for not because he was always destined to be “trapped” by them.
I walk down the streets of the city of lights
Come…
Come…
Come…
they call to me
But I don’t want to listen, and I go deaf.
I can see what they what they want me to do,
But I don’t want to see it, and I go blind.
I can smell the sweet aroma that they sprayed around me
But I refuse to smell it and cut off my nose.
They call me to answer just to say yes I will…yes I will
But I won’t do it.
I go dumb.
Oh but how naïve I am!
The sounds reach me anyways,
The sights still blind my eyes,
The smells still fill my nose,
I still find myself saying I will.
They trap me not because I want it,
but because they always would.
Reflection
This poem reflects the free will vs. determinism argument. In the poem, the speaker is met with various senses that he doesn’t want to see. He wants to make his own way and not be affected by them or have them dictate his life. He tries to cut those senses out of his life by “going blind” or “going dumb.” He is exhibiting his free will by choosing not to be persuaded to go to “them” just because his senses are being appealed to. However, the end of the poem shows that the choices he made were all for not because he was always destined to be “trapped” by them.
Free Will in The Lord of the Rings
In the movie “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” the concept of free will exists to contrast the morally weak characters in the film from the strong ones. An example of this would be when Boromir attempts to take the ring from Frodo. He does this because he desires the power of the ring and he can not resist its calling. This is in contrast with Aragorn, the leader of the fellowship, who is able to resist the temptation of the ring when Frodo offers it to him. Aragorn’s display of free will in this situation demonstrates his moral strength and his belief that he is in control of his own destiny. A similar scene occurs earlier in the film when the elves, dwarves, and men are arguing about what to do with the ring. When they are unable to make a compromise about who should carry the ring, Frodo offers his services to bring the ring to Mordor. Frodo offering to do this shows that he believes he is in control of his future and he doesn’t want his fate to be determined by a group of fighting creatures who are too proud to compromise. This demonstration of free will by Frodo once again shows that characters who can demonstrate free will are morally strong. Frodo is willing to sacrifice his life in order to save Middle Earth from the evil that Sauron threatens to bring. This is in contrast with Bilbo Baggins, who runs and hides from the ring not only because he allows it to control his life but because he is afraid of what will happen to him if he continues to possess the ring.
The concepts of free will in this movie also relate to the works of literature that contained free will in them. For example, in both “The Fellowship of the Ring” and A Clockwork Orange, having free will speaks to your morality and personal strength. Characters in these pieces of art who exhibit free will are thought to be truly mentally strong people who have strong moral convictions. In the movie, Aragorn understands that he can’t take the ring because it is not meant for him. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex understands that he should become good and that it means more that he is choosing it rather than having morality forced upon him. LOTR is also similar to Brave New World in the respect that both see free will as something that is good and can never be forgotten. However, LOTR also differs from the works of literature in many ways. In Slaughterhouse – Five, free will is seen as something that doesn’t exist and is an illusion. In LOTR, free will is something that is valued and sets evil and weak characters apart from good and strong characters. While these pieces of art all have different uses of free will, all try to convey a strong message about what free will means to their specific storyline.
The concepts of free will in this movie also relate to the works of literature that contained free will in them. For example, in both “The Fellowship of the Ring” and A Clockwork Orange, having free will speaks to your morality and personal strength. Characters in these pieces of art who exhibit free will are thought to be truly mentally strong people who have strong moral convictions. In the movie, Aragorn understands that he can’t take the ring because it is not meant for him. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex understands that he should become good and that it means more that he is choosing it rather than having morality forced upon him. LOTR is also similar to Brave New World in the respect that both see free will as something that is good and can never be forgotten. However, LOTR also differs from the works of literature in many ways. In Slaughterhouse – Five, free will is seen as something that doesn’t exist and is an illusion. In LOTR, free will is something that is valued and sets evil and weak characters apart from good and strong characters. While these pieces of art all have different uses of free will, all try to convey a strong message about what free will means to their specific storyline.
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