Mehta 1 Neel Mehta Mr.

Ryan AP English 12 / Period 5A November 26, 2013 Faulkner on Authors Duty to Investigate Inner Turmoil and Provide Hope In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner proclaimed that we live in a world dominated by the senseless violence of war and death, which fills us with a general and universal fear (Faulkner); furthermore, writers who focus on these external conflicts write ephemeral and doomed literature that can only bring us down. He urges writers to instead plumb the recesses of the human mind and investigate its inner conflicts, through which we can find universal verities and truths of the heart and ultimately derive a sense of hope that humanity can rise above this violence as it has in the glory of [our] past. Loren Eiseley in his essay The Gold Wheel in The Night Country and William Shakespeare in his play Hamlet, are both successful in probing their characters inner turmoil, but they give us cynicism not hope in the human condition; therefore, they only half-achieve Faulkners command. Both authors show characters turning away from the senselessness of the external world toward introspection and self-questioning, through which the authors can relate universal themes, but they show that we cannot successfully prevail over the external world. In The Gold Wheel, Eiseley shows that he was able to make sense of life by escaping to his inner world, but such an escape was made possible by sheer luck. In Hamlet, Shakespeare focuses on Hamlets self-questioning instead of other characters senseless violence, but the ending, which lacks any sort of divine justice, fails to give us hope that Hamlets approach is the right one. Ultimately, we are left with the disheartening truth that we cannot truly escape the horrors of our world.

Mehta 2 In The Gold Wheel, Loren Eiseley shows that his world as a child is demeaning and senselessly violent, so as an escape he turns inside himself, ultimately making mature realizations about his identity and actions and discovering universal themes about the human spirit. The young Eiseley lives in a world full of fear and pointless violence: the boys at Green Gulch thoughtlessly kill the turtle, the spirit of the place (Eiseley 6), making Eiseley fear the ferocious pack impulse. He also finds that he is demeaned and marginalized in the world of adults, even at home, where he is all but forgotten due to the silence of a deafened mother (4). No one, not even the driver, noticed that he was gone when he escaped on the tea wagon. Even more depressing, he was reminded of his abject poverty at the Rudd Mansion, when he faced people so rich they could burn toys he considered treasures in their backyard. In searching for an escape route, the liberation of nature is an obvious choice, but Eiseley wistfully realizes that the freedom it contains is fit only for birds or a wandering fox (3). Such a vehicle of escape from his oppressor the cruelty of the real world is impossible. Eiseleys only escape was to attempt to leave the cruel physical world and prattle over immense and solitary games (4) in his own head. But, as the young Eiseley found, we grapple with our own shadows, and those shadows are darker than any of those we encounter on the Outside [m]an is his own worst enemy (Derrick). Indeed, Eiseleys inner thoughts are surprisingly violent for a child, as he is forced to come to terms with complex concepts: that certain valuables are denied by poverty to him (7), that the monstrous and corroding knowledge evil (8) lurks in all humans, and that life and death (of the antelope) can lie in ones own hand. Most telling is his need to adopt a mask, the ruse of the fox (12), to protect his inner self from the evils of the world outside. That he learned the need for such an implement as a child reveals the disillusioning effect of the harsh external world. By retreating to the mental world, Eiseley was

Mehta 3 able to derive some meaning from the chaos and apparent stupidity of the physical world by perfect[ing] secret entrances and exits into the most amazing worlds (7). Though Eiseleys world is unique, the themes behind it and the meanings we can derive from them are timeless when we analyze events mentally. When Eiseley wrote about his external conflicts, they were ephemeral and applicable only to his own situation: boys killing a turtle, finding a toy wheel, and running away on a teacart. But if we step back and look at these incidences from a more universal point of view, the themes become clear: the pointlessness of violence, the exploitation of the poor, and the fear of being forgotten. Eiseley succeeded here in showing the timeless battles inside a person and the themes one can derive from focusing on the human response to events, not the events themselves. Indeed, it appears that Eiseley is following Faulkners orders by giving us the hope that we like him will be able to escape the violence of our world. The young Eiseley is able to escape his awful situations without too much mental or emotional harm: the boys let him go without being hurt, he finds company in birds at the gated house, and he manages to not have to kill the antelope. Through these experiences, Eiseley appears to be showing that one can indeed successfully escape the senseless violence and retreat to the inner world, which we have seen to have more deep meaning. However, Eiseley escaped these situations out of sheer luck. The boys had the opportunity to harm him but let him go, there was no guarantee birds would land in the bush on their migration, and it was chance that led the hunting car hit the gulch. In fact, it appears that even luck cannot help us escape for sure: Eiseley is hopeful when he finds the plastic toy wheel, believing it to be his ticket to freedom and mak[ing] up [his] mind to run away upon a pair of them (7). Tragically, he never finds the second wheel, which he needs to escape, dashing any hope of escape he may have harbored and indicating that the first wheel was

Mehta 4 just a cruel reminder of his failure and literal lack of mobility. Indeed, any hope of escape was denied to someone so poor. When he gets another chance with the gold wheels the tea wagon he ends up in a bush in a storm and ultimately must return home with nothing but some obscure sense of great loss (10). Therefore, to escape unharmed from the outer world and make sense of life, we need luck and even that may not be enough. It seems we are doomed to languish in the turmoil and uncertainty of an unforgiving world, and only the very lucky not necessarily the very intelligent, dedicated, or hardworking can make sense of it and rise above it. By forcing us to contemplate this, Eiseley instills within us a feeling of despair and worthlessness, a far cry from the hope that Faulkner said he should have. If Eiseley had used his intelligence or tenacity to overcome adverse circumstances, we would be filled with hope in the knowledge that a good person can make sense of the world; such would be a case of divine justice. Instead, we are left with a sense of profound meaninglessness: nothing can matter if everything is up to chance. While Eiseley succeeded in looking into his own mind and finding some truth, he filled us with hopelessness and resignation and so is only partially following Faulkners guidelines. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare explores the same themes as Loren Eiseley and in a similar manner, and Shakespeare follows Faulkners rules in decrying the senseless violence of the world. Every scene in Hamlet that involves physical struggles is presented as pointless and stupid: Fortinbras attacked a little patch of ground / That hath in it no profit but the name (Shakespeare 4.4.19), a decision with no real benefits made without regard to the two thousand souls (4.4.26) who would die, and Claudiuss reasoning behind Laertes swordfight was comically stupid. Here, Shakespeare tells us that people who rely on external conflicts to achieve their goals (or, in Fortinbrass case, just get a chance to use his army) perpetuate a cycle of meaningless, destructive violence. Indeed, Shakespeare reveals throughout the play that, on the

Mehta 5 surface, all physical battles are nonsensical without an inner moral backdrop: Prince Hamlets plot to get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed and his seemingly magical ability to escape the pirates is devoid of any real meaning and hence is never discussed in depth. Prince Hamlet, though, is different. By his determination to know the truth before he does anything, Hamlet becomes the ethical center of the play (Taylor). Shakespeare, therefore, is taking pains to point out the ethically right thing to do, which is not to take mindless action which is shown as Machiavellian but rather to be thoughtful. Hamlet, being the ethically-minded man he is, needs to look inside himself to find a measure of moral rectitude, since he clearly cannot find anything outside in a world where a murderous liar, Claudius, becomes king. The core conflict within the play is still that between man as victim of his fate and
controller of his own destiny, a form of inner conflict in which a man asks himself what he is

doing. The main conflict, therefore, is that Hamlet perpetually questions himself and his relationships: he ponders endlessly on whether or not to kill Claudius, how to deal with his crumbling relationship with Ophelia, and how to consider his mother: as a beloved matriarch or as a sexual traitor. The level of introspection causes him to have a large number of soliloquys and monologues, many of which become emotionally charged. For instance, he berates himself when he fails to take action against Claudius, angered that he must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words / And fall a-cursing like a very drab, / A scullion! (Shakespeare 2.2.614). Hamlets intense self-questioning is shown as much more cerebral and meaningful than the other mens actions, which all too often are done without thought. Through Prince Hamlet, Shakespeare shows that certain actions can have universal meaning. Hamlets desire to act crazy, which is mired in the temporary drama, represents the general notion of a mask, or pretending to be someone one is not. By overanalyzing his

Mehta 6 relationships, Hamlets vacillations in attitude and behavior toward Ophelia were extremely unsettling to the young woman (Lidz). While the specifics of their relationship the external part cannot be repeated, the theme of troubled relationships is a timeless one. Furthermore, the themes Shakespeare explores through Hamlet are universal. Hamlets constant questioning of whether or not to kill Claudius. While pondering whether or not to kill Claudius while he is praying, Hamlet begins to ponder abstract concepts including repentance, justice before God, and sin. As in the Night Country, these abstract concepts are universal when divorced from their physical aspects. In general, Prince Hamlet is a universal character. In his to be or not to be speech, Hamlet does not mention any specifics of his situation and, indeed, does not mention himself at all, making it a third-person monologue. Such a monologue, therefore, could be said by anyone at any time. Shakespeares characters become universal through this, and all the conflicts and dilemmas of those characters are also within us if that were not so we should have no ground to empathize with them, even at a superficial level (Milne). Indeed, it is the ethical dilemmas faced by characters like Hamlet, not the superficial battles of men like Laertes, that allow us to make sense of the play on a deeper level. By analyzing Hamlets psychological background, Shakespeare strikes a universal chord and fulfills the first part of Faulkners argument. However, Shakespeare, like Eiseley, presents us cynicism in the human condition at the close of the play. Shakespeare shows two extremes: men like Laertes who can make stupid decisions and take action without thinking and men like Hamlet who think so much that they are paralyzed. Neither extreme succeeds in accomplishing anything for instance, killing Claudius since these personas cannot even rise above squabbling with each other: Laertes and Hamlet, for their vastly different flaws and strengths, simply cancel each other out by killing each other. No

Mehta 7 one in either group can transcend their flaws, and so humanity, it appears, is doomed. Hamlet presents no character who is able to balance one who can take action while still understanding the morals behind his actions so Shakespeare is saying that no one can be moderate enough to succeed. Indeed, it appears that the problems of our world stem from stupid people who thoughtlessly destroy things while people like Hamlet who could actually fix things stand by helplessly. At its conclusion, Hamlet leaves us without a sense of moral clarity or guidance. As a cautionary tale, it tells us what we must not do we should not be too impulsive or analytical but since it shows no models of people doing the right thing, we cannot take a clear moral out of the play. Moreover, since Fortinbras wins, we are left with a confused moral sense: there is no positive role model, and the man with the least sense is pronounced the victor. Here, Shakespeare is saying that the world does not make sense and is ultimately governed by chance; Fortinbras was merely lucky that he arrived after the other characters killed each other. In endorsing a sense of divine injustice, where the worst man wins, Shakespeare leaves us devoid of hope and instead filled with confusion and despair in the future of humanity, a violation of the second part of Faulkners rules. Through the character of Prince Hamlet in Hamlet and the essay The Gold Wheel in The Night Country, William Shakespeare and Loren Eiseley, respectively, show us that the external world is full of senselessness and degradation, while the mental world offers a chance to find universal themes amidst the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself (Faulkner). By focusing on emotional turmoil and not physical turmoil such as wars, they both fulfill Faulkners commandment to analyze characters emotions. However, both authors show through Eiseleys reliance on chance and Hamlets failure to achieve anything that we cannot rise above the violence in our world without either partaking in this violence, like Fortinbras, or being the

Mehta 8 beneficiary of unnaturally good luck. According to these writers, humanity cannot escape the fear and shallowness of the modern age, leaving us with despair. In doing this, these authors fail to achieve Faulkners commandment to provide us with hope in the human race. The two put out a tempting but ultimately disappointing scenario: the world is full of horrors committed by thoughtless people, and though we can try to look to our inner selves to find the deeper meaning of such horrors, we cannot successfully escape in such a manner. We reach a level of mental anguish and fear at this realization, but perhaps such emotions are the only ones that can survive in our world.