Perspectives on Past Achievements, Present Realities and

Transcription

Perspectives on Past Achievements,
Present Realities
and Future Prospects
Edited by
Marcin Jaroszek and Marek Pawlicki
English Philology Papers to Commemorate
the 10 Anniversary of the Foundation of the Witold
Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim
th
PWSZ Oświęcim 2015
Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Marcin Jaroszek and Marek Pawlicki
All chapters © PWSZ Oświęcim 2015
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Contents
Preface ……………………………….…………………
Notes on the Authors ………………………….……….
5
13
Part One: Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Aleksander Gomola
“Auschwitz” as a Word and a Notion:
Perspectives on the Past and Present Realities ………………………
19
Marcin Jaroszek
Foreign Language Teacher Training in Poland:
A Reflective Perspective …………………………………………….
31
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Say-Markers in Courtroom Talk:
Temporal, Spatial and Modal Perspectives ………………………….
49
Dorota Tutka
Changing Perspectives on the Role of Corrective Feedback in the
Process of Foreign Language Learning ….………………………….
71
Part Two: Literature, History and Philosophy
Anna Gębiś
Former and Contemporary Views on
Succession to the Throne of England ……………………………….
95
Marek Kucharski
Virginia Woolf as a Precursor to Crossing Gender Borders:
The Concept of Androgyny as the Third Gender in Orlando ………
115
Marek Pawlicki
Present Realities, Future Responsibilities: A Discussion of
Nadine Gordimer’s A World of Strangers and The Pickup …………
129
Barbara Poważa-Kurko
Narrative Techniques as a Means of Showing Tension Between
the Past and the Present in NW by Zadie Smith …………………….
151
Marek Pyka
Człowiek jako istota dialogiczna w myśli Józefa Tischnera ……….
167
4
Preface
Responding to the demands of the present
It is now ten years since the foundation of the Witold Pilecki State School
of Higher Education in Oświęcim on 1 July 2005. Those ten years have
been both a brief and an eventful time – brief, when compared with the
School’s illustrious partner institutions, eventful because the passing years
have seen numerous developments which the School’s authorities have introduced with the aim of responding to the needs of its students, both present and prospective.
The history of the School will no doubt be the subject of lectures and
discussions during its upcoming anniversary celebrations. For the purposes
of this Introduction it is worthwhile emphasizing one important feature of
its development, mentioned, among other things, by the current Rector of
the School, Professor Witold Stankowski, in his address to the students and
teachers of the School. As Professor Stankowski observes, cooperation,
both local and international, has been an integral part of the School’s development. The long list of its partner institutions is proof of the ties which
each of the ten faculties has with other universities, both in Poland and
abroad. Cooperation, understood as a policy of the School’s authorities,
consistent from its foundation, has brought tangible results. One example of
this is the granting of the Erasmus University Charter, thanks to which the
students of the School can expand their knowledge in other European universities.
When discussing the School’s local and international ties, it is important
to mention its most closely allied partner institution, the Jagiellonian University. There are several important reasons why this oldest of all Polish
universities, located at the heart of Małopolska Voivodeship, has had a special role in the School’s development. It should be mentioned first that both
Rectors in the School’s history have been professors of the Jagiellonian
University: Professor Lucjan Suchanek, who was appointed Rector of the
School for two consecutive terms, had first been the Vice-Rector of the
Jagiellonian University and professor at the Institute of European Studies.
Witold Stankowski, who was elected Rector of the School in 2012, is also
the Head of the Department of European History at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University.
5
The history of the Modern Languages Institute also testifies to the strong
ties between the two Alma Maters. The first Head of the Institute, in its
three formative years, Professor Anna Lubecka, taught at the Institute of
Public Affairs of the Jagiellonian University. Doc. dr Jolanta Kunińska,
who ran the Institute in the years 2008-2012, is an academic teacher at the
University’s Institute of Eastern Slavonic Studies. Dr Marcin Jaroszek, the
present Head of the Modern Languages Institute, is a senior lecturer at the
Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University. It should be added that the relationship with Kraków’s Alma Mater is not confined to the
governing body of the School; many of its teachers are either graduates of
this University and/or work with it in teaching and research.
In its present form the School is comprised of as many as ten faculties,
thus symbolically referring to the tenth anniversary of the Foundation of the
Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim, and offering
the following courses of study: English and German studies, political sciences (both BA and MA programmes), management, production engineering management, pedagogy, physical education and social work, and nursing (both BA and MA programmes). The Modern Languages Institute and
two other Institutes – Political Sciences and Management – have existed
since the foundation of the School in 2005. The Nursing Institute, as well as
the Institutes of Pedagogy, Physical Education, and Engineering were created as part of the School’s ongoing project to tailor its educational offer to
the evolving needs and ambitions of its students.
In its original form, the Modern Languages Institute was made up of
English and Russian departments. In the first years of its existence, the then
Philological Institute ran both full-time and extramural BA studies in these
languages. In its present shape, the Institute is comprised of English and
German departments, educating students who wish to specialize in any of
the following fields: literary and cultural studies, translation studies, linguistics, applied linguistics and the newly-introduced corporate linguistics. In
order to ensure a variety of courses, the Heads of the Institute have from the
beginning of its existence employed academics specializing in all of the
aforementioned disciplines. It is now one of the objectives of the Institute to
develop and further maintain close liaisons with prospective employers – a
challenge contemporary higher education is currently faced with.
6
Change and continuity in the history of the School
To write about the Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education only in
terms of its development and cooperation would be to omit an important aspect of its history. It is certainly true that the School is quick to respond to
the present and future challenges connected with the needs of its students,
but it has also shown itself as capable of looking back upon the past, a past
which reaches far beyond the year of its creation. A short note on the historical location of the Campus will help to create a more complete image of the
School.
Before the Second World War the buildings of the School had belonged
to the Polish Tobacco Monopoly. It was in one of those buildings that the
first prisoners of what soon became Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration
Camp were imprisoned. The day of their arrival, 14 July 1940, is regarded
as the beginning of the Camp’s operation. This day is commemorated yearly
by the authorities, teachers and students of the School.
Artefacts often have an enormous power to evoke the history of which
they were part – one may realise the full import of this statement when
viewing exhibits in various museums, and perhaps even more so when confronted with an object coming from the past. Such an object can be found in
one of two buildings comprising the School’s Campus: Collegium Sub Horologio (The Clock College). In one of the walls surrounding a massive
staircase of the building one can find a special display case which shows a
singular finding: set against a bare fragment of brickwork, there is a small
piece of paper with pencilled names and a date: 20 September 1944. As the
viewer learns, the names were those of seven prisoners – six Poles and a
Frenchman – who at the time were working on the construction of an airraid shelter for members of the SS. The prisoners put the piece of paper into
a bottle and cemented it into the wall. The bottle with its note were discovered sixty-five years later, during the renovation of this building. A faithful
copy of this wartime document is displayed in the place of its discovery; the
original is located in the adjoining Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
The torn piece of paper may be taken as a symbol of the painful history
of this place, but this is the case only until one is confronted with this document: it is then that the object loses its abstract quality and becomes a tangible proof of the hard work and suffering of those prisoners, as well as
their need to leave proof of their existence in that place at that particular
time.
7
To evoke the past by means of the faculty of imagination: this task has
been undertaken by many important guests at the School, notably Kazimierz
Piechowski, one of the few prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau who managed
to escape it. Witold Pilecki – another important historical figure who escaped the Concentration Camp – was chosen as the patron of the School in
2010. This is not the place to discuss this wartime hero; suffice it to say that
Pilecki was the only voluntary prisoner of the Concentration Camp, who
gave himself the task of “setting up the military underground in the camp
and gathering reliable material, which could serve as proof of the crimes
committed by the Germans” (the website of the Institute of National Remembrance). The tragic and fascinating life of this hero is commemorated
during the School’s annual celebrations.
When writing about the School’s ten-year history it is important to mention both continuity and change. To let the past speak through its witnesses,
as well as its artefacts, is to ensure continuity between the past and the present; it is to encourage the viewers and listeners to see events of the past not
in isolation, but in connection with everyday reality. Change, understood as
constant development with the view of responding to the demands of reality, such as the dynamic job market, is also part of the School’s history, as it
will be for years to come.
The aim and structure of this book
The tenth anniversary of the School’s foundation is a momentous occasion,
which will be celebrated by the School’s authorities, as well as all its Institutes and offices. The present volume of essays is intended as part of this initiative. Its main aim, as envisaged by its editors, is to commemorate the anniversary of the School by gathering in one volume the articles and essays
of the scholars who, during their academic careers, were or still are working
at the English Department of the Modern Languages Institute or have been
professionally linked to this institution.
Bringing together scholars of such various interests was a challenging
and, as it has turned out, a rewarding task. The topic which the editors of
this book have proposed has at its core the notions of continuity and change.
The contributors, working in their various disciplines, have undertaken to
analyse a topic of their choice by focusing on its historical evolution. Many
of these essays are thus diachronic by nature, accounting for both the
changes that have taken place in the chosen fields of study and the continui8
ties in the understanding of the phenomena analysed. The title of this book –
Perspectives on Past Achievements, Present Realities and Future Prospects
– highlights the interest of its contributors in the evolution of a given phenomenon, be it in the domain of linguistics, teaching methodology, culture,
history, or literature.
To ensure a clear layout, this book has been divided into two parts. The
articles included in the first part are connected with linguistics and methods
of teaching, whereas the articles comprising the second part belong to cultural, literary, and historical studies.
Part I includes four articles by academics specializing in contrastive
pragmatics, linguistics, and applied linguistics. Therefore, the articles vary
to a large extent. All of the studies are analytical in their form.
Aleksander Gomola presents a brief study of the connotations and conceptualizations accompanying the term “Auschwitz” on the basis of two
English language corpora: the British National Corpus, and Questia online
library. The first part of the paper discusses the function of “Auschwitz” as
a toponym-metonym; the second presents various connotations of the term
and the conceptual metaphors it may constitute.
Marcin Jaroszek takes a closer look at the changes which the system of
foreign language teacher training in Poland has undergone in the last twenty
five years. His article begins with a review of pre-service teacher training
implemented in the last decade of the previous century in newly established
foreign language teacher training colleges, and then moves on to a discussion of the legislative attempts to standardise teacher training in the early
2000s. The focus of the article is an analysis of the teacher training standards introduced by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2012 in
light of the National Qualifications Framework still under implementation.
Magdalena Szczyrbak approaches say-markers as interactional devices
which define the perspective from which the source of the knowledge imparted by speakers in an institutional setting can be viewed and assessed.
Her analysis, which combines research into clausal pragmatic markers with
insights from Discourse Space Theory and the time-travelling approach to
reality reconstruction, shows how say-markers are used by courtroom interactants, how, in an adversarial context, speakers rely on say-markers to assert authority, control discourse, or assess the validity of their interlocutor’s
arguments, and how say-markers operate as interactional “signposts”.
Dorota Tutka’s article explores the enduring topic of error-treatment. It
analyses a few of the most popular conventional and unconventional teach9
ing methods and approaches, attitudes to learners’ linguistic inaccuracies,
and recommendations concerning error correction. The article presents the
pros and cons of error correction, discusses the rationale for correcting
learner errors, and the research findings which confirm the effectiveness of
corrective techniques. The discussion also focuses on the teacher’s decisionmaking dilemmas as to whether, and if so, how errors should be treated in
their classrooms.
Part II includes articles by academics specializing in history, philosophy, culture, and literature. Of the five articles included in this section, three
are studies of Anglophone literature, while the remaining two focus on history and philosophy respectively. All of the studies are both analytical and
comparative in their form, discussing various phenomena in their diachronic
development.
Anna Gębiś approaches the history of the British monarchy from the
perspective of the rules to succession to the throne. In this well-structured
and penetrating article, the author focuses on those key moments in the history of Great Britain in which the rules of succession led to important social
and political changes. Analysing such issues as primogeniture and the role
of religion in hereditary monarchy, the author points out the important
changes that have occurred in the attitude towards succession to the throne
in the 20th century. This article will be appreciated by those looking for an
historically comprehensive, yet accessible approach to the British monarchy.
Marek Kucharski’s article focuses on Orlando by Virginia Woolf, published in 1928. In a careful and insightful study, the author discusses this
experimental novel from the perspective of its androgynous protagonist.
There are at least two features of this article which make it a worthwhile
and valuable read: firstly, as an historical analysis of the topic of gender
identity, which is central in this study; and as a cultural and historical introduction to Woolf’s novel – the latter will certainly be appreciated by readers
interested in Woolf’s life, especially her relationship with Vita SackvilleWest. The discussion of gender identity is concluded with references to contemporary authors, like Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson, who in their
work enter into an intertextual dialogue with Woolf.
Marek Pawlicki in his article looks at two novels by the South African
writer Nadine Gordimer – A World of Strangers (1958), Gordimer’s second
novel, published on the threshold of apartheid, and The Pickup (2001), written seven years after the first democratic elections in South Africa. The aim
10
of this study is to compare the two novels from the point of view of an overriding theme in Gordimer’s oeuvre, of political and social commitment.
Based on J.M. Coetzee’s contention that Gordimer’s works show “the quest
for justice,” this article attempts a detailed psychological analysis of the
novels’ protagonists against the historical and social background presented
in them.
Barbara Poważa-Kurko takes a closer look at Zadie Smith’s novel NW,
published in 2012. The author compares NW with White Teeth (2000), focusing on narrative strategies in the former. This article combines features
of a good journalistic review, most importantly its accessibility to readers –
including those unfamiliar with Zadie Smith’s NW – with the analytical
acuteness of a literary study. The article offers not only a comprehensive introduction to Smith’s novel, but also a valuable commentary on its form.
Marek Pyka’s article, written in Polish, concentrates on the philosophy
of Józef Tischner, an eminent Polish priest and philosopher. Starting from
an overview of the philosophy of dialogue as it developed at the beginning
of the 20th century, the article then analyses Tischner’s contribution, after
which it applies the findings to an interesting discussion of Babel (2006), a
film by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The ease and precision with which the
author creates a bridge between complex philosophical notions and popular
culture is certainly worthy of admiration. This article will be of note not only to scholars analyzing the ideas put forward by Tischner, but also to those
interested in the evolution of 20th century philosophical thought, as well as
the links between philosophy and culture.
11
Notes on the Authors
Anna Gębiś, MA, graduated from the Institute of Humanities at the Polonia
University in Częstochowa, Poland, in 2003. Her MA thesis entitled “The
Critical Analysis of Polish Translations of The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R.
Tolkien” covered the topics of acceptability and adequacy in the literary
translation. She works at the Modern Languges Institute of the Witold
Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim.
Aleksander Gomola, PhD, is a translation studies scholar, a cognitive linguist and a translator. He is Assistant Professor at the UNESCO Chair for
Translation Studies and Intercultural Communication, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, and a lecturer at the Modern Languages Institute of
the Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim. He has
published papers on various aspects of language usage and translation especially from the cognitive perspective. Among the texts he has translated
from English into Polish are works by Julian of Norwich, Abraham
Heschel, and Thomas Merton.
Marcin Jaroszek, PhD, is the head of the Modern Languages Institute of
the Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University. He was awarded his doctoral degree in the humanities in 2009. During
the same year he was appointed Assistant to the Head of the Teacher Training College of the Jagiellonian University. Between 2010 and 2014 he was
the Coordinator for Student and Educational Affairs for the Combined English Philology and German Language programme offered by the English
Philology Department of the Jagiellonian University as well as the Head of
the Practical English and Linguistics Section at the State School of Higher
Education in Oświęcim. His major research interests include spoken discourse analysis and its applicability to classroom contexts and, more recently, second language acquisition by young learners.
Marek Kucharski, MA, is a graduate of the Institute of English Studies of
the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He has also completed the Postgraduate Studies of Public Relations at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology
PAN in Warszawa. Currently he is a doctoral student in the Philological
13
Department of the Jagiellonian University. His research as well as the subject of his PhD thesis focuses on the intermedial and intertextual relationships between modernist and postmodernist English literature and visual
arts. He is a journalist, translator and author of numerous English course
books and methodological publications. He works as an English teacher in
the school “Wierchy” in Kraków. He also runs courses of Practical English
and British and American Culture and History with extramural students at
the Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University.
Marek Pawlicki, PhD, is Lecturer at the Modern Languages Institute of the
Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim. In 2012, he
completed his PhD studies, with a thesis entitled “Self-Reflexivity in the
Works of J. M. Coetzee,” published in 2013 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. His current research interests include the works of J.M. Coetzee,
Nadine Gordimer and self-reflexivity in contemporary Anglo-American fiction.
Barbara Poważa-Kurko, PhD, Lecturer at the Modern Languages Institute
of the Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim. Her
doctoral thesis was on Harold Pinter, the translations and reception of his
plays in Poland. Her recent research focuses on modern novels.
Marek Pyka, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the Modern Languages Institute of
the Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim in the
years 2004-2014, is an assistant professor at the Institute of Economy, Sociology and Philosophy at the Tadeusz Kościuszko Kraków University of
Technology. His research focuses upon the relation between anthropological philosophy, ethics and metaethics, especially in Anglophone countries.
He has published a study of the philosophy of David Hume and Max Scheler titled O uczuciach, wartościach i sympatii. David Hume i Max Scheler
(Universitas, 1999), as well as over 60 articles in volumes of essays and academic journals in Poland and abroad (Austria, Norway and the US). He is
currently completing a book on the philosophy of Thomas Nagel, one of the
most seminal American thinkers.
Magdalena Szczyrbak, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. Her research areas
include legal discourse analysis and legal translation as well as genre analy14
sis and contrastive studies. She is primarily interested in evaluative language and the discursive construction of stance across professional settings.
Recently, she has extended the scope of her research to include computermediated communication and online genres too.
Dorota Tutka, MA, works as an academic teacher at the Modern Languages Institute of the Witold Pilecki State School of Higher Education in
Oświęcim. She graduated from the Foreign Language Teacher Training
College and the Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University.
In 2006, she completed her Postgraduate Studies for Translators of Specialist Texts at the UNESCO Chair for Translation Studies and Intercultural
Communication, Jagiellonian University. Since 2012 she has been a PhD
candidate at the University of Silesia. Her current research interests include
foreign language learning and teaching, especially teachers’ attitudes to
grammatical correctness, learner autonomy, and multilingualism.
15
PART ONE
LINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS
1. “Auschwitz” as a
Word and a Notion:
Perspectives on the Past and Present
Realities
Aleksander Gomola
Abstract
The experience of the Holocaust left its impression not only on the collective
memory of humanity but also on language and it is through a linguistic analysis that
details of this experience and the changes to the Western mind it caused are made
clear to us. This paper presents a brief study of the connotations and conceptualizations accompanying the term “Auschwitz” on the basis of two English language corpora: the British National Corpus, and Questia online library. The first part of the
paper discusses the function of “Auschwitz” as a toponym-metonym, the second part
presents various connotations of the term and the conceptual metaphors it may constitute, such as: AUSCHWITZ IS A LESSON OF HISTORY, AUSCHSWITZ IS A
DIVIDING POINT IN THE TIMELINE OF HUMAN HISTORY and
AUSCHWITZ IS A DIVIDING POINT/END POINT IN THE TIMELINE OF AN
INDIVIDUAL. By presenting how “Auschwitz” is used by English speakers today,
sometimes beyond the context of the Holocaust, (e.g. with reference to the rights of
animals) the paper proves that the term has gained a distinct and unique semantic
value as a lexical element in modern English.
Keywords: Auschwitz, conceptual metaphor, corpus linguistics, Holocaust, toponym
Introduction
Ten years ago, during the inaugural ceremony of the first academic year of
the State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim, I heard that there were
some objections to opening a school in the close vicinity of the Auschwitz
Aleksander Gomola
Concentration Camp (indeed, in the very buildings that for a short period
had also been used to house prisoners). “A school near a concentration
camp? Bad associations” – had reportedly been said by one of the officials
involved in the administrative process of establishing the school. His remark is clear evidence that “Auschwitz” is not a word. It is the word – with
specific connotations and a unique role in language. Any language that preserves the collective memory of the Second World War. As a cognitive linguist not a historian, a philosopher or a theologian, I have no competencies
or knowledge to tackle the weight or – to put it better – the burden of
“Auschwitz” as a notion from all possible angles. Nevertheless, I am convinced that a cognitive linguistic analysis allows us to gain some insight into how this term has shaped or even determined the thinking and attitudes of
post-war Western societies.
Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore from a linguistic point of
view, “Auschwitz” as a term and a notion, seen from the perspective of the
past and as a present reality. The paper presents the results of two short corpus studies involving “Auschwitz”; these corpuses were the British National
Corpus and a corpus comprising the titles of books and articles on Questia –
an online academic library. The results of the corpus analysis may help us to
discern interesting connotations and evaluative tones that have accrued
around “Auschwitz” in recent decades.
a. “Auschwitz” as a toponym-metonym
“Auschwitz” at first sight might be regarded as a toponym-metonym like
“Canossa”, “Waterloo”, and “Damascus” in English and most Western languages. Like these terms, “Auschwitz” has been used for several decades
not only as a toponym, but first of all to refer to a historical event, namely
the atrocities committed during World War II. There are however some significant differences between “Auschwitz” and the other “toponymsmetonyms”. Firstly, “Auschwitz” is not the original, local name of the place
it designates. The Polish name of the town where the Nazis built their concentration camp is “Oświęcim” while “Auschwitz” introduces a foreign perspective, in this case the perspective of an invader who takes over a conquered territory and with it responsibility for all his actions there. This
explains why Polish authorities and Poles in general react decisively (and
rightly) to all instances of identifying “Auschwitz” as a Polish concentration
20
“Auschwitz” as a Word and a Notion
camp and insist on separating “Auschwitz” from “Oświęcim”. Although
“Auschwitz” had been the German name for Polish “Oświęcim” from the
16th century, the former took on its new horrible meaning during World War
II. Before 1939 “Auschwitz”/Oświęcim were terms with a more or less
identical denotation and connotation. Today the terms are not congruent and
mean very different things.
It must be said however that Polish speakers themselves and the Polish
authorities are sometimes not so strict and consistent with separating
“Auschwitz” from Oświęcim, as one may sometimes come across expressions or street names where “Oświęcim” is used in the sense of “Ausch1
witz”. More importantly, the Polish language employs the expression
“kłamstwo oświęcimskie” (“an Oświęcim lie”) to refer to the denial of the
Holocaust, retaining in this case the Polish toponym that is rejected in all
2
similar cases. This inconsistency may be seen as an interesting example of
a peculiar language policy/behaviour according to which Poles seem to forgive themselves sometimes by using “Oświęcim” instead of “Auschwitz”,
while at the same time not accepting such linguistic behaviour from other
nations.
Secondly, the difference between “Auschwitz” and the aforementioned
toponyms-metonyms lies also in the fact that the historical events associated
with “Canossa”, “Waterloo”, and “Damascus” left practically no material
evidence in the locations they took place in and the toponymical and metonymical functions of these terms may manifest themselves largely independently from one another. Or, to put it differently, “Canossa”, “Waterloo”, and “Damascus”, whenever used as metonyms, exist in the collective
memory of Western civilization with practically no physical traces of the
events they refer to in the locations they point to as toponyms. With
“Auschwitz”, conversely, the toponym-metonym bond is much stronger.
“Auschwitz” as a metonym is at the same time a specific toponym identifying a place where one can see guard towers and gas chambers –material
support for the metonymic usage of the term.
1
A good example may be the street name “Męczenników oświęcimskich” [Auschwitz Martyrs
Street] in Jastrzębie Zdrój, Żory, Rybnik, cities ca 50 kilometres away from Oświęcim. One
may also find online several examples of a phrase referring to Fr Kolbe’s death in Auschwitz
that reads “śmierć (męczeńska) w Oświęcimiu” [(martyr’s) death in Oświęcim].
2 It seems that intralinguistic patterns (cf „syndrom sztokholmski”, [Stockholm syndrome]„pokój westfalski” [Peace of Westphalia], etc. are stronger in this case than the official
policy of Polish authorities.
21
Aleksander Gomola
b.
Specific functions of “Auschwitz” as a metonym in the British National Corpus
“Auschwitz” is definitively a metonym; a simple search of the British National Corpus returns 134 instances of its usage including the following ex3
amples of its metonymic function:
1) “And what function do we accord, then, to Hitler's
public persona in explaining the process which led to
Auschwitz?” [Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth, Oxford
1989].
2) “How can we accept Matthew Arnold's faith in the
civilising influence of art, Steiner asks, now that we
know that a ‘man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his
day's work at Auschwitz in the morning’”[Brian Cox,
Cox on Cox, Sevenoaks, Kent 1991].
3) “Its sentry-box rooflines are designed to suggest the
horrors of Auschwitz” [The Economist 1993].
4) “Auschwitz lay around me, miles and miles of it, like
a somersaulted Vatican” [Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow
London 1991].
5) “Under one of these someone had added, in pencil,
‘An Animal Auschwitz?’” [Mike Ripley, Angel Hunt,
London 1991].
6) “Where was this Jesus when Belsen and Auschwitz
and Dresden and Hiroshima happened?” [Brian Aldiss,
A Tupolev Too Far, London 1993].
The sources of the quotations above hint that the metonymic function of
“Auschwitz” does not limit itself to one specific genre: the term appears in
texts representing the humanities (1, 2), in journalism (3) and in literature
(4, 5, 6).
In each of the sentences quoted above “Auschwitz” is a metonym which
refers to the most horrible aspects of World War II: the systematic murder
of innocent people, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians not
3
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/; accessed on September 26, 2014.
22
involved in military actions; people whose only fault lay in their faith and
ethnicity (Jews), ethnicity (Gypsies) nationality (Poles, Russians, etc.) or
sexual orientation (homosexuals). If we go beyond Auschwitz and look at
other Nazi concentration camps such as Dachau, we can see that prisoners
in such camps included Germans who did not accept Nazi rule or were
simply suspected of disobedience, as well as Catholic priests (especially
Polish Catholic priests in Dachau). Sentence 2 not only casts doubts on the
ennobling role of art but also points to the “banality of evil” suggested by
Hannah Arendt (Arendt 1963) when the killing of thousands of people each
day was regarded by some as a systematic, every-day job.
Sentences 4 and 5, taken from literary texts, are interesting as they show
that “Auschwitz” may be used in a creative way. Although Amis’ book
(Amis 1991) presents the experiences and memories of a German doctor actually involved in the murderous pseudo-medical practices in Auschwitz,
“Auschwitz” in sentence 4, taken from the book, is contrasted with “Vatican”, also used metonymically/metaphorically and both terms may be regarded as representing the quintessence of opposite values: moral chaos and
the highest moral order respectively. In this sentence “Auschwitz” is therefore no longer only a metonym but also a symbol of moral evil.
Sentence 5 is an interesting example of a semantic extension of the term
“Auschwitz” which, preceded by the adjective “animal”, may be used to
express the cruelty of people towards animals, especially in industrial meat
production and drug testing. This semantic extension and the comparison of
the suffering of animals to those of victims of the Holocaust was made by
Charles Patterson (2002) who borrowed Isaac Bashevis Singer’s words describing the fate of many animals in the modern world – “for the animals, it
4
is an eternal Treblinka” – as the title of his book. Such a move is not without consequences as “animal Auschwitz” highlights not only the suffering
of animals but also raises their status. By comparing animal pain to the suffering of prisoners in Auschwitz or Treblinka, animals take on some human
qualities and human dignity as well, and at the same time there is a risk that
the dignity and suffering of the victims of the Holocaust may be reduced
and diminished. This seems to be the reason why PETA’s (People for the
4
Similar tones to the opinion expressed by Singer, although without reference to the Holocaust, may be discerned of course in the famous words by Tennyson speaking of “Nature, red
in tooth and claw” (In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto 56) or more recently in Miłosz’s poem To
Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat’s Honor and Not Only, where the Polish poet even more
explicitly compares Nature to the “Butchery day and night smoking with blood” (1996: 55).
23
Aleksander Gomola
Ethical Treatment of Animals) campaign that used Holocaust imagery to
protest against animal suffering was banned in Germany as to some it made
5
the Holocaust seem “insignificant and banal”. Comparing the fate of animals with that of the victims of Holocaust also corresponds with philosophical trends in modern Western culture such as personism that wish to ex6
pand the rights of animals by attributing to them the status of persons. This
creative role of „Auschwitz” as a metonym proves that it is well established
in language and minds of speakers.
Sentence 6 suggests that the metonymic function of “Auschwitz” goes
beyond simple connotational/denotational aspects since “Auschwitz” points
to the event and the experience affecting and comprising in a sense the
whole of humanity and Western culture. It is therefore advisable to look at
the term through the prism of cognitive linguistics to see how it shapes or
even determines the cognition and mental processes of language users. In
order to do so, let us look at the titles of some English books and articles
accessible in the Questia online library in which “Auschwitz” appears. The
titles and some of their elements, as condensed linguistic expressions, may
be interpreted in terms of “conceptual metaphors” in the Lakoffian sense,
revealing in this way what conceptual framework(s) accompany specific elements of language.
c. “Auschwitz” from a linguistic perspective
The Questia search returns 420 instances of titles in which “Auschwitz” appears,7 revealing at the same time interesting conceptual metaphors through
which the term is apprehended. These include:
A. “AUSCHWITZ” IS A LESSON OF HISTORY
– “Auschwitz ...and a lesson from history; Students Learn of
Nazi Concentration Camp Horrors” Sunday Mercury,
April 8, 2012
5
More on animal rights and the Holocaust, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights_and_the_Holocaust#PETA_and_the_use_of_Holoc
aust_imagery; accessed on September 26, 2014.
6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personism; accessed on September 26, 2014.
7 www.questia.com; accessed on September, 24 2014. The 420 instances comprise 15 books,
42 academic journals, 48 magazines, 314 newspapers and 1 encyclopedia.
24
– “At Auschwitz, the Debate Is How to Remember a Horror” St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), January 8, 1995
– “Auschwitz remembered: 1,000 Survivors Showed Inhumanity, Barbarity, and Insanity All Failed” Daily
Post, January 28, 2005
– “Could it happen again? from the Historian Who Made
the Awesome BBC Series on Auschwitz, a Chilling
Question” Daily Mail, January 29, 2005
– “Why We Must Remember the Horrors of Auschwitz;
as We Remember All Acts of Genocide on Holocaust
Memorial Day” The Birmingham Post, January 26,
2008
– “The World Remembers Auschwitz; Royalty Joins Survivors at Site of History's Greatest Mass Murder” The
Evening Standard, January 27, 2005
– “Auschwitz: A Tragedy We Must Never Forget; Holocaust Survivor Eva Schloss, Stepsister of Anne Frank,
Has Written about the Struggles That Followed Auschwitz and Her Determination to Ensure People Never
Forget” The Journal, April 20, 2013
– “Museum or Memorial? Auschwitz Is Now a World
Heritage Site and Popular Tourist Destination. Its Terrible Message Must Be Preserved without It Being
Turned into a Theme Park” The Evening Standard, January 18, 2005.
All the titles presented above refer to “Auschwitz” as an event in human
history that is and should be remembered and the words “remember” and
“memory” appear in each of them. Indeed, the titles suggest that if the
Auschwitz experience is to remain in our collective memory it should be
called back from the past regularly or else it will disappear. 8 It seems therefore that “Auschwitz” is at the same time a reminder of the darkest aspects
of human nature. The last title from the list is interesting for yet another rea8
This leads us to the interesting problem of the maintenance and repair of the Auschwitz concentration camp buildings, gas chambers etc. On the one hand, the place should be as original
in its form and material as is possible but on the other hand in order to keep it in the proper
conditions, repairs and the replacement of the original materials (e.g. roof tiles, etc) are necessary, possibly resulting in a change of character for the place and the partial loss of its authenticity.
25
Aleksander Gomola
son, since it points to a great danger that accompanies promoting places like
Auschwitz or, to some extent, the Coliseum in Rome, that are the silent witnesses of the most horrifying aspects of human nature (and at the same time,
9
in the opinions of some individuals or groups – the most noble ones).
B. AUSCHSWITZ IS A DIVIDING POINT IN THE TIMELINE OF
HUMAN HISTORY
“Auschwitz” may be seen as part of a common human experience, a dividing line and turning point in human history and civilization. Let us look at
the following titles:
– “The Conflagration of Community: Fiction before and
after Auschwitz” ARIEL, 42 (3-4) July-October 2011
– “Primo Levi and Humanism after Auschwitz: Posthumanist Reflections” Shofar, 29 (2) Spring 2011
– Dominick Lacapra History and Memory after Auschwitz, Cornell University Press, 1998
– Ruth Leys, From Guilt to Shame: Auschwitz and After,
Princeton University Press, 2007
– “Art after Auschwitz?” Tikkun, 18 (3) May/June 2003
– “Anselm Kiefer and Art after Auschwitz” Shofar, 19
(3), April 3, 2001
– “Shylock after Auschwitz” Chicago Review, 40 (4) Fall
1994
– “Can You Still Believe in God after Horror of Auschwitz?” The Mirror, May 30, 2006
– “Journalism Ethics after Auschwitz” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 46 (4) Fall 2011
– “Levinas and Christian Mysticism after Auschwitz”
Theological Studies, 72 (2) June 2011
– Zachary Braiterman, (God) after Auschwitz: Tradition
and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought, Princeton University Press, 1998.
9
David Irving, an English Holocaust denier, called Auschwitz a “tourist attraction” (Lipstadt
1993, 176), and although Irving’s attitude and opinions should be condemned, sadly, this
statement, at least in the case of some visitors, may be true.
26
Each of the titles above contains the adverb “after” that – when used with
“Auschwitz” – gives the term a definite temporal character. The titles suggest that “Auschwitz” is not only a metonym, or a lesson to be remembered,
but also an event that divides human history into “before” and “after”
(Auschwitz). And not only that. As such, as the titles demonstrate, “Auschwitz” calls into question the validity, credibility, and authenticity of the various aspects of human civilization that come after: journalism, humanism,
etc. Auschwitz has left its mark on human culture from art through drama to
fiction demanding their rethinking and redefinition.
At the same time one element of human experience stands out as seemingly irreconcilable with “Auschwitz”, namely the idea of a loving God or
those tenets of Christian doctrine that promote it. The titles appear to hint
that it is not possible any longer to construct theodicy in its traditional sense
as proposed by philosophers and theologians from Thomas Aquinas to
Leibniz. Yet it turns out that the Auschwitz experience may also initiate
new, highly unorthodox forms of theodicy as another book with “Auschwitz” in its title demonstrates. The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A
Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust by Melissa Raphael (Raphael
2003) is a theological proposal that replaces the traditional mode of conceptualizing God who possesses male attributes with conceptualizations that
see in God first of all motherly love, not omnipotent yet always present.
One moving passage from Raphael’s book is worth quoting:
“In the twentieth-century anti-camp of Auschwitz, where typhus was endemic among inmates and excrement would run uncontrolled down their
legs and could not be washed off, God knew Israel’s ‘unseemliness’ but still
moved about the camp and did not turn away. Indeed she was like a mother
who will not be repelled by her child’s ‘unseemliness’, but in washing her
must come all the closer because of it. (…) Auschwitz, as the suffering face
of Jewry looking up, into and sometimes through the smoke, could yet be a
mirror to God’s looking and seeing face.” (Raphael 2003, 81).
C. AUSCHSWITZ IS A DIVIDING POINT/END POINT IN THE
TIMELINE OF AN INDIVIDUAL
“Auschwitz” concerns not only humanity in general but also individuals, as
it was basically a sum of individual experiences for millions of people. This
individual aspect of “Auschwitz” is visible in the following two titles:
27
Aleksander Gomola
– “After Auschwitz, Jerusalem: In Memory of My Teacher, Leo Baeck” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish
Life and Thought, 50 (1) Winter 2001
– Richard Newman Karen Kirtley, Alma Rose: Vienna to
Auschwitz, Amadeus Press, 2000.
The first title is an example of a conceptual metaphor in which “Auschwitz” is a dividing line or a border experience that resets an individual’s existence. More examples of this metaphor we can see above. “Auschwitz” in
the other sentence is the end point of an individual life seen as a journey:
most tragic and different from the concept of death often associated with
eternal rest,10 as it is not connected with age, but forced upon those who experienced it, connected with suffering and depriving them of their dignity.
This concept of “Auschwitz” as an end point or destination is strengthened
by another phrase quite common in Holocaust accounts: “transport(s) to
Auschwitz”. The phrase combines the real journey to Auschwitz with the
LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor. Interestingly, Martin Pollack in his book
(Pollack 2010, 57) draws parallels between the thousands of poor peasants
crowding into Oświęcim/Auschwitz in the late 19th/early 20th century,
(Oświęcim/Auschwitz was the railway station on the border between the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Prussian Empire), on their way to America, and the transports of Jews that came to Auschwitz in the 1940s.
Conclusions
In this short text we can see that “Auschwitz” is not a word but the word. Its
unique character results from a burdensome historical past that should remain a constant lesson for the future generations of every civilization, and
not only the western one. Its linguistic role as a toponym-metonym and as a
part of various conceptual metaphors as well as all the connotations accompanying it prove clearly that whenever it is used, it should not be trivialised
or abused. Due to the events and experiences it evokes, it combines the horrors of the past and their memories in the presence, being at the same time a
sad reminder and a powerful warning.
10
Cf Shakespeare’s words in his sonnet 73 where death “seals up all in rest” (v. 8).
28
Works Cited
Amis, Martin. 1991. Time’s Arrow. London: Jonathan Cape.
Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of
Evil. New York: Penguin.
Lipstadt, Deborah. 1993. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on
Truth and Memory. New York: Free Press.
Miłosz, Czesław. 1996. Facing the River: New Poems. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco
Press.
Patterson, Charles. 2002. Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and
the Holocaust. New York: Lantern Books.
Pollack, Martin. 2010. Kaiser von Amerika: die grosse Flucht aus Galizien.
Wien: Paul Zsolnay Verlag.
Raphael, Mellisa. 2003. The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish
Feminist Theology of the Holocaust. London: Routledge.
29
2. Foreign Language Teacher Training in
Poland: A Reflective Perspective
Marcin Jaroszek
Abstract
This article discusses the changes which the system of foreign language teacher
training in Poland has undergone in the last twenty five years. It begins with a review of pre-service teacher training implemented in the last decade of the previous
century in newly established foreign language teacher training colleges, and then
moves on to a discussion of the legislative attempts to standardise teacher training in
the early 2000s. The focus of the article is an analysis of the teacher training standards introduced by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2012 in light of
the National Qualifications Framework still under implementation. The analysis indicates that the new teacher training standards may not have helped enhance the
quality of teacher education. The article puts forward the hypothesis that the teacher
training standards of 2012 may not be in compliance with the spirit of the National
Qualifications Framework and that they have generated much controversy in regard
to the proportions of the compulsory components of teacher training programmes. It
also suggests that these new regulations may have not only failed to actually standardise teacher training, but have most likely contributed to a high degree of academic ad-libbing in teacher education.
Keywords: English, foreign language, National Qualifications Framework, teacher
training
Introduction
A quarter of a century has elapsed since Poland began to implement an ambitious programme to meet the increasing demand for English teachers, apparently in response to the opening of the country to the West and the social
and economic expectation to challenge at last the long-held monopoly of the
Russian language. This period, which has witnessed five Polish presidents,
Marcin Jaroszek
seventeen prime ministers, and eighteen ministers of higher education, has
experienced dynamic changes in pre-service teacher training, sometimes
well-planned and well-coordinated, sometimes ad hoc and unpremeditated.
The last decade of the twentieth century was a good time for foreign language teacher training in Poland with a continuously rising curve of activity. The early nineties enjoyed the establishment of foreign language teacher
training colleges to which we are grateful for what has been at least a quantitative contribution to English Language Teaching (ELT) in Poland. The
majority of these colleges, however, were legislatively located somewhat
1
unhelpfully between higher and lower education and were eventually
closed down in the last decade. The turn of the millennium showed a need
to regulate the teacher training market, particularly in the light of the philosophical and political changes pending Poland’s accession to the European
Union. The implications have been reflected in adopting European approaches to foreign language teaching, which appear to advocate a more
standardised education than traditionally cultivated in Poland’s schools.
This break with the past has expressed itself in a number of legislative
changes implemented in pre-service teacher training, which this article undertakes to review.
The discussion of the changes is in three parts. In Section 2.1 of the article, the narrative provides a fairly detailed account of the development of
foreign language teacher training through the last decade of the previous
century. Section 2.2 outlines the first attempts undertaken by legislative institutions to standardise pre-service teacher training in Poland. The final
section critically reviews the latest accomplishments of the ministerial regulations, that is, the National Qualifications Framework and the Teacher
Training Standards of 2012, by which higher education institutions are legally obligated to abide at present.
2.1 Directions towards 2000
The reform of 1990 had to be and was substantive. In order to satisfy the
dynamically growing demand for English teachers, which was expected to
increase from 20,000 in the late 1980s to nearly 70,000 by the year 2000, in
1
In Poland this includes pre-school, primary and secondary education and might be considered
equivalent to the K-12 system.
32
Foreign Language Teacher Training in Poland
addition to the existing teacher training five-year MA programmes, an innovative pre-service system was established to train 8,500 prospective English teachers in 67 foreign language teacher training colleges in 1990 (Komorowska 1994, 19). It seemed likely that the quality of ELT in Poland’s
schools would be improved if more teachers were produced in modern
training centres.
The system was designed and implemented by the Ministry of National
Education (MEN) with further assistance initially from the British Council’s
Polish Access to English (PACE) Project and later from the Pre-service and
In-service Training and Continuing Education (PRINCE) Project. Apart
from the collaboration with the national centre for in-service teacher training (CODN) on developing a professional in-service teacher training (INSETT) network, from 1990 to 1998 the project provided support to a Ministry of Education initiative to establish a network of colleges and offered
methodological guidance in the form of regional teacher trainers, educational links, and ELT materials.
Concentrating on both the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching,
the new system was a promising alternative to the five-year Master of Arts
programmes at university English philology institutes. Poland's English philology institutes at that time still offered a theoretical education. Heavily academic, the majority of courses tended to be in literature, linguistics, and
translation rather than teaching methodology. As a result, many English institutes graduates seemed to know “more about ‘pastoral elements in Shakespeare’s plays’, (..) ‘silence in communication’ or ‘type A morphological
derivatives in the Lindisfarne Gospel’ than how to teach a good listening
comprehension lesson (...)” (Rysiewicz 1992, 39). According to Komorowska (1994, 19), the advantages of the new system of teacher training colleges were the following:
-
-
the new system has made it possible to considerably increase
the number of prospective teachers by actually tripling the
university intake of students;
opportunities are now offered for all regions of the country to
satisfy their teacher demand;
considering the lack of social mobility – a dense network of
small teacher training colleges in areas with insignificant
braindrain helps provide teachers for rural schools;
33
Marcin Jaroszek
-
-
supervision provided by academic centres as well as the international staff counteracts the danger of a low quality of education in small colleges;
a reasonable balance seems to be offered between language
teaching, academic education and professional training.
2.1.1 Curriculum
In order to produce optimal English teachers, a reasonable balance between
the subject blocks had to be struck. In a standard teacher training college
curriculum Practical English took up 60% of the contact hours. The remaining hours were shared more or less equally between teacher education and
background studies (Komorowska 1996, 6). It was generally assumed, perhaps over-optimistically, that a college graduate possessed a knowledge of
English at the C2 level and that the background studies provided them with
the minimum information needed in the teaching profession. Thus, it is the
ELT methodology syllabus that was a distinguishing element of education
at foreign language teacher training colleges and will be of primary interest
in the following discussion.
The Poznań cluster of colleges formulated the main objectives of the
whole methodology course, which were as follows:
-
Provide students with the knowledge and skills to help them
become good and autonomous teachers.
Develop a positive, open attitude towards the teaching profession, students’ own teaching and their future learners.
Encourage students to explore, make choices, reflect on and
evaluate learning/teaching process.
(Kotowska & Wojczak 1996, 54)
Although the components of the methodology syllabi differed from college to college, as no one national curriculum had ever been imposed, it
could easily be believed that the above objectives were a priority in the majority of foreign language teacher training colleges.
What also seemed ubiquitous was the overall structure of the methodology syllabi in college clusters. The methodology programme was divided in34
to three separate, yet connected, blocks. The first year course was aimed at
familiarizing students with the existing methodologies and teaching styles.
The second year was “basically preparation for the classroom” (Kotowska
and Wojczak 1996, 55), where students were equipped with the techniques
and skills required in a foreign language classroom. This was when an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice was made. Through a
variety of lectures, workshops, discussions, and students’ presentations in
the second year, the trainees learned about practical classroom procedures,
such as developing listening comprehension. They were also introduced to
the latest developments in methodology and shown ways of implementing
these developments in the context of a real lesson. The third year methodology course emphasised teacher development by promoting a reflective approach to teaching, developing a critical approach to the materials and
methods applied in ELT, and broadening professional skills in a variety of
situations.
It must also be realised that in the case of the MA English philology programmes, attempts were also made to “form a bridge between the academic
and professional worlds (...)” (Droździał-Szelest and Palmer 1994, 65), for
example by encouraging students to involve elements of classroom and action research in their MA theses in an effort to balance their theoreticallyoriented studies. Such a redirection was believed to “help to improve teaching standards by opening up current classroom practice for investigation and
discussion” (ibid).
2.1.2 Teaching practice
An ambitious teaching practice model was introduced to help students improve their knowledge and skills in actual lessons. It was believed that it
was better to apply students’ practice-into-reality ideas on their own, in order to develop their autonomy and independence, as well as to provide professional help as and when it was needed under the supervision of college
trainers.
Teaching practice systems varied from college to college. In the
Wrocław cluster, for instance, students were responsible for teaching one
class once a week throughout the year (Karaś and McConlogue 1996). In
the Kraków cluster, teaching practice was initially done in two blocks: two
weeks of observation in the second year, and individual teaching for at least
35
Marcin Jaroszek
five hours a week throughout the third year to satisfy the ministerial requirement of 150 hours of teaching internship. This system underwent a
radical transition in 1996 in response to the recommendations of the European Council and other institutions who called for the establishment of a
mentoring system. The system trained serving teachers - college graduates
and others - to act as mentors for students during three-month spells of
teaching practice in their schools. Mentors were responsible for gradually
introducing students into the reality of the teaching profession from the familiarisation of the students with the existing custom code, to the observation of classes, to team teaching, to target individual teaching and self2
evaluation.
Yet this system was still in the early stages of formation, especially with
respect to the training of mentors. Although “their lack of routine, their
openness, their collaborative style of mentorship, in general matching student teacher expectations” (Niżegorodcew 1996, 136) were their strengths,
there were nonetheless some weaknesses. These included “their lack of integration in the life of school, their lack of knowledge and expertise on language learning processes and their uncertainty as to their responsibilities,
coupled with the little time they devote[d] to teaching practice (...)” (ibid).
Though the new teacher training system seemed encouraging, it nonetheless had its flaws, both in terms of the college education itself and external
factors. Although the main university colleges did produce competent foreign language teachers, in terms of both linguistic competence and instructional preparedness, some colleges might have experienced serious difficulties maintaining the expected level of their students’ teaching and
communicative competences. It was believed, however, that the new teacher
training system could actually be improved. As Komorowska (1994, 20)
claimed, the key to success lay with “the ability of government agencies to
formulate curriculum requirements which cannot be bent by supervising
universities”.
Ministerial teaching training standards were eventually introduced but
the story of their creation is a long one. After all, it was not until 2004 that
the government implemented this long-awaited regulation. Consequently, it
was still the teacher trainers themselves and advisors from Polish institutions as well as from foreign coordinating bodies, such as the British Coun2
The above information comes from unpublished formal syllabi and various documentation
produced by the English Section of the Foreign Language Teacher Training College of the
Jagiellonian University circa 1994.
36
cil, that in fact determined the content and form of teacher training. Their
recommendations ranged from the distribution of a standardised observation
sheet to encouraging college graduates to “act as mentors” (Gough and Jankowska 1994, 55).
2.2 A millennial wink of change
As mentioned above, the Ministry of Education did attempt to formulate
curriculum requirements. These eventually arrived under the heading of
teacher training standards in 2004 and then in 2012 (which this article discusses in Section 2.3). The former stipulated the number of contact hours
expected from each of the teacher training components, and further provided a description of the graduate’s profile. In addition, they left a lot of latitude to schools with regard to the actual content of the courses offered,
which on one hand enabled many to appropriately tailor the syllabi to the
existing needs of their students, but on the other hand resulted in little control over what was indeed happening in these academic environments.
The new legislation contained other wrinkles. Non-university teacher
training colleges, which constituted the vast majority of pre-service teacher
training institutions, were not legally obligated to abide by these standards,
as they did not belong to the legislative area of higher education and were
subject to the legislation of the lower education system. Eventually, having
failed to put down strong roots in the educational system, they were either
closed down or merged into higher education institutions. In addition, the
standards were not free from apparent inaccuracies, including the stipulation
of language proficiency in an additional language specialisation illogically
at C2 (MENiS 2004) and the main specialisation at C1 (MENiS 2007),
which was left uncorrected for eight years.
The introduction of these teaching training standards coincided with attempts to standardise the magnitude of academic instruction in the majority
of other fields, including modern languages (ibid). These academic standards generated as much enthusiasm among those who called for a redress of
normalcy in Poland’s higher education as controversy among those who
feared that the proposed limits (2000 contact hours for a whole BA regular
programme in modern languages and a total of 360 hours of teacher training, including extramural studies) were simply more than many institutions
could bear, financially as well as academically. Such curricular and system37
Marcin Jaroszek
ic turmoil was likely to wreak academic havoc or result in the new standards being read with at least a sardonic wink. These imperfections were to
be finally corrected in a later reform of higher education, this time under the
heading of the National Qualifications Framework.
2.3 Reform of 2011: A new order or disorderly improvement?
The year 2011 marked a radical change in Poland’s tertiary education.
Higher education institutions were now obligated to design and implement
new, outcome-based curricula, compliant with a new set of reference regulations known as the National Qualifications Framework, rules that swept
through instructional European communities and created an utterly new academic alignment. Basically, the new concept means that, apart from taking
learning outcomes as a starting point for curricular decision-making, universities maintain autonomy in designing their academic programmes and are
not obligated to abide by ministerial teaching standards. The exceptions are
made with reference to, for example, teacher training, where universities
and other higher education institutions are indeed made to comply with a
long, detailed description of the components of the teacher training process.
The following section depicts the system in more detail.
2.3.1 The National Qualifications Framework
The National Qualifications Framework is a description of the qualifications
available in Poland’s higher education system (Kraśniewski 2011, 6). The
stipulation of each qualification is based on a detailed description of learning outcomes in three categories: knowledge, skills, and competences.
Higher education then is expected to follow the outcomes specified by the
universities themselves, yet in compliance with ministerial outcomes, as
stipulated for a given field in two possible profiles: practical academic and
general academic. One assumption that follows from this is that the outcomes are specified in a simple way so that it is possible for the institution
to verify whether a given outcome has actually been accomplished. Another
assumption is that every graduate from a given institution can demonstrate
the knowledge, skills, and competences stipulated in all learning outcomes.
38
And so in the humanities the Ministry specifies as many as 27 learning
outcomes in a general academic profile and 30 learning outcomes in a practical academic profile. Of these, each learning outcome is broken down into
more specific components, which leads to a larger number of detailed descriptions of outcomes. In the case of English philology BA programmes
these might amount to 30 outcomes in a general academic programme and
53 in a practical academic programme, as evidenced in the curricula imple3
mented at the Institute of English Studies of the Jagiellonian University, or
34 in a practical academic profile at the Modern Languages Institute of the
State School of Higher Education in Oświęcim.
The National Qualifications Framework assumes that, with two exceptions, higher education institutions bear no obligations to abide by any curricular standards. One exception is the so-called regulated faculties preparing students for professions as specified in the European Union legislation
(Próchnicka 2011); the other is teacher training, whose reasons for being
excepted will be of interest to the ongoing discussion.
2.3.2 Teacher training standards of 2012
The teacher training standards issued in January 2012 are a long and detailed document stipulating the organisation, phases, learning outcomes, and
content of given components of teacher training at the tertiary level. Table 1
illustrates selected elements of the standards in contrast with their predecessors of 2004. This will be used as a reference point for an analysis of learning outcomes, course content and training organisation.
2.3.2.1 Learning outcomes
The document specifies seven main outcomes and as many as forty subsidiary outcomes (two outcomes related to language training have been omitted). The possible problems this new element of the standards poses are of
two types. One might find it difficult to cover all forty outcomes given the
fact that at the same time field outcomes must also be completed. A simple
calculation will help comprehend the complication.
3
Under implementation in the period of 2012-2015
39
Marcin Jaroszek
If one assumes a hypothetical, but reasonable, number of 45 learning
outcomes for a given specialisation (Kraśniewski 2011, 47) and a total of
4
2250 contact hours of academic instruction, the ratio of learning outcomes
to contact hours would be 0.02, whereas in the case of the same calculation
with reference to 330 hours of teacher training and 40 learning outcomes, as
stipulated in the standards, the ratio amounts to 0.121; in other words over
six times greater. In practice this translates into attempting to cover six
times as many learning outcomes in teacher training modules as in the case
of other subjects. This comes as a surprise since, as Kraśniewski (ibid)
rightly points out, “too large a number of outcomes may exceedingly restrict
the latitude and inventiveness of academic teachers” and “offers a vague
picture of the actual curriculum.”
In this respect, the standards of 2004 appear to have been more optimal
as they specified a total of ten main objectives within teacher training and
six competences a trainee was expected to develop and thus allowed the
teacher trainer themselves far more leeway in making decisions about the
course. It seems that the new standards were compiled either in the spirit of
distrust towards academics’ capabilities of providing appropriate training or
in the far-reaching faith of the redeeming force of formal regulations.
Yet the learning outcomes are not problematic only in a quantitative dimension. Their qualitative value also stirs the emotions of the reader. The
first two main outcomes illustrate the potential problem and reflect the general philosophy of the document. The outcomes assume that on the completion of the course the student
1)
2)
demonstrates psychological and pedagogical knowledge to
understand developmental, interactional, educational, and
learning-teaching processes;
demonstrates the knowledge related to instruction and methodology of pedagogical activity, as confirmed by experience
in its practical implementation;
(MNiSW 2012, 2)
4
This calculation results from the recommendations, as stipulated in the National Qualifications Framework, that in the course of a three-year cycle a student should realise the curriculum with a minimum of 180 ECTS and proportionally a minimum 50 percent of contact hours
with a weighting value of 1 ECTS per 25-30 hours of the student’s effort invested in the completion of the course.
40
This very positioning of psychological and pedagogical training before
methodological training permeates the document and seems symptomatic of
its philosophy, unlike in the standards of 2004, where methodology was at
least on a par with pedagogical and psychological training. In the standards
of 2012, however, actual classroom practices are portrayed as subordinate to
psychological and pedagogical principles. This general approach is repeated
in the document, where it straightforwardly states that teaching methodology is “a subdiscipline of pedagogy” (ibid, 14).
2.3.2.2 The course content
The teacher training content specified in the standards of 2012 is a problem.
While the pedagogical and psychological components will raise few eyebrows, the contents suggested for Introduction to teaching and Teaching
methodology in selected educational stages are more than controversial.
They are, in a way, a mere repetition of some of the pedagogical and psychological contents, for instance, regarding psychological and pedagogical
aid provided for learners diagnosed with learning difficulties (MNiSW
2012, 15; 17), cognitive psychology (ibid), and developing learners’ cooperative skills.
From the perspective of English language teacher training, an attempt to
realise what are, after all, exclusively pedagogic contents would have catastrophic implications. It is a fact that English Language Teaching long ago
designed its curricula to skilfully utilise the principles of Piagetian developmental psychology (Piaget 1928), Vygotskyan social constructivism
(Vygotsky 1978), Humanistic Language Teaching (e.g. Stevick 1990), and
learning strategies research (e.g. Stern 1975, Rubin 1975). In fact, ELT has
a long tradition, dating back to the fifteenth century (Howatt 2005, 12), and
as such can easily compete with pedagogy and psychology in terms of academic accomplishments. And the twentieth century erupted with methodological insights which gave the profession an independent voice and eventually developed into a well-recognised field of study under the name of
Applied Linguistics. In fact, a modern ELT curriculum, as was the case of
the teaching curricula implemented before 2012, is based on a critical review of EFL methods and techniques, which were so thoroughly explored in
the second half of the previous century and for which the standards of 2012
find so little room. Placing it in overt subordination to the cognate fields of
41
Marcin Jaroszek
pedagogy and psychology is just inappropriate and in the long term ineffective. And it seems that to assume that a detailed document which standardises teacher training for all school subjects, including such disparate subjects as physical education, mathematics, and foreign languages, can in fact
be successfully implemented is at least optimistic; a better word is naïveté,
but it is now left to the teacher trainers to wrestle with the implications.
2.3.2.3 Organisation of training
Teacher training as specified in the document appears in two sequentially
invariant phases. In the first, students are expected to undergo psychological
and pedagogical training with thirty hours of teaching practice; in the second, training is offered in Introduction to teaching and Teaching methodology alongside the main portion of teaching practice (120h). In comparison
to their predecessors, the standards of 2012 require more psychological and
pedagogical instruction and less teaching of actual methods and techniques
to be applied in the classroom. This finding is in compliance with the earlier
discussion, which suggests that the instructional centre of gravity has indeed
been relocated from the teaching of actual classroom practices to psychological and pedagogical content unrelated to the teaching of any specific
subject.
42
Standards of 2004
Standards of 2012
Pedagogy
60
75 (45+30)
Psychology
60
75 (45+30)
Introduction to teaching
Teaching methodology classroom instruction
IT
0
Voice projection
30
Additional optional subjects
Total
Teaching practice
60
360
Obtained qualifications
5
6
7
120 (120+30)
Not specified
8
180 (150+30)
4-19
30
90
Learning outcomes
specified only
Learning outcomes
specified only
0
330
150
4-11
Table 1: Selected teacher training components as presented in the teacher
training standards of 2004 vs. 2012
The standards of 2012, notwithstanding their seemingly tight, rigorous
structure, are not devoid of ambiguities. In the case of IT and training in
voice projection, the importance of which was finally and rightly recognised
in the first decade of the present century, only the learning outcomes are
specified and no number of contact hours is mentioned. In the light of the
looming financial difficulties, such a permissive proposition is likely to result in many higher education institutions reducing the actual academic volume of training related to these two subjects to an absolute minimum, or
they will move the learning outcomes over to other courses. In addition, the
standards demonstrate a jarring ambivalence regarding the number of contact hours attributed to instruction at given educational stages. In fact, the
document specifies this with reference to “a given educational stage or edu5
45 hrs of general pedagogical training and 30 hrs of pedagogical training related to teaching
at a given educational stage.
6 45 hrs of general psychological training and 30 hrs of psychological training related to teaching at a given educational stage.
7 120 hrs of main language teaching methodology and 30 hrs of additional language teaching
methodology, as realised at the Foreign Language Teacher Training College of the Jagiellonian
University.
8 150 hrs of main language Teaching Practice and 30 hrs of additional language Teaching Practice, as realised at the Foreign Language Teacher Training College of the Jagiellonian University 2010.
43
Marcin Jaroszek
cational stages” (MNiSW 2012, 5), which in practice can be interpreted
freely, for instance in the possibility of offering 90 hours of teaching actual
classroom practices in just grades 1-3 or in all educational stages, that is
9
from kindergarten to secondary school. Such ambiguities certainly do not
help implement reliable and methodologically sound teacher training programmes and in fact are likely to loosen the rigors rather than standardise
the process of teacher education.
Conclusions
The objective of this article was to discuss the changing systemic procedures of foreign language teacher training of the last twenty five years in
Poland. It began with a review of PRE-SETT as realised in the newly established foreign language teacher training colleges and continued with a discussion of the legislative attempts to standardise teacher training in the first
decade of this century. It culminated in an analysis of the teacher training
standards of 2012 in the light of the National Qualifications Framework still
under implementation.
The discussion shows that the latest attempts to standardise teacher training in Poland offer apparent improvements in regard to foreign language
teacher education. The teacher training standards of 2012 naively and inappropriately put all the subjects in one equation and offer a universal content
of training, ignoring each discipline’s uniqueness. As a result, the standards
provide extensive, yet vague recommendations as to what a given component of teacher training should cover, predominantly focusing on pedagogic
content at the expense of the actual teaching methodologies to be applied in
a given classroom. In addition, it has been indicated that the document remains in conflict with the spirit of the National Qualifications Framework
that suggests that learning outcomes covered in the course of training
should be precise and, consequently, optimal in number. Although no legal
requirements are available, the forty outcomes specified in the document
move teaching expectations up to a higher level of academic endeavour
which is likely to exceed the bounds of pedagogic attainability. Moreover,
the new system of teacher training appears to curtail academic decision9
It should be noted that training related to stages 3 and 4 (secondary education) can be offered
in MA programmes only.
44
making and consequently provides regulations that might paralyse rather
than stimulate the profession. At least in this respect, the system of foreign
language teacher training designed and implemented before the reform of
2011 seems to have better fitted the standard teacher training paradigms.
Whether foreign language teacher training under the new standards of
2012 and the National Qualifications Framework will bring about the expected teaching outcomes is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the
bureaucratic dimension of academic teaching will thrive. So will the parametrisation of teacher training. And although a systematic evaluation of this
new form of teacher education still needs to be undertaken to confirm these
concerns, it seems that what indeed is in jeopardy is the autonomous spirit
of academic instruction. What remains in the relatively optimistic mood of
this article, however, is the expectation that either the doubts and criticism
voiced in the course of the above narrative are groundless, or that the new
standards, speaking from experience, will in their turn be replaced by new
regulations that will remedy their most gratingly apparent flaws.
Works Cited
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Droździał-Szelest Krystyna and Palmer Gillian.1994. “Developing a syllabus for university English: Incorporating action research into the MA
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Fisiak, Jacek. 1994, “Training English language teachers in Poland: Recent
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Howatt, A.P.R. 2005. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford:
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Kraśniewski, Andrzej. 2011. Jak przygotowywać programy kształcenia
zgodnie z wymaganiami wynikającymi z Krajowych Ram Kwalifikacji
dla Szkolnictwa Wyższego? Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego.
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i Sportu z dnia 7 września 2004 r. (poz. 2110.)
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i warunków, jakie musi spełniać uczelnia, by prowadzić studia miedzykierunkowe oraz makrokierunki.
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47
3. Say-Markers in Courtroom Talk:
Temporal, Spatial and Modal Perspectives
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Abstract
In this paper it is proposed that say-markers can be approached as interactional devices which define the perspective from which we can view and assess the source of
the knowledge imparted by speakers in an institutional setting. Combining research
into clausal pragmatic markers with insights from Discourse Space Theory and the
time-travelling approach to reality reconstruction, the analysis demonstrates that
say-markers are strategically used by courtroom interactants for their immediate interpersonal goals. As the data suggest, in an adversarial context, speakers rely on
say-markers to assert authority and to control discourse, on the one hand, and to assess the validity of their interlocutor’s arguments, on the other. Finally, it is observed that say-markers operate as interactional “signposts” which enable purposive
shifts between I- and you-perspectives as well as past and present realities.
Keywords: clausal pragmatic markers, courtroom talk, Discourse Space Theory,
say-markers, stance
Introduction
Apart from its primary role as the verb of communication, say performs a
number of interpersonal and textual functions across informal settings and
professional domains. This can be clearly seen in courtroom talk, where
say-markers are frequently used for arguing, stancetaking, attention-getting,
continuity marking, and framing. In general terms, say is employed to define the perspective from which we can view and assess (the source of) the
knowledge imparted by speakers, even more so in asymmetrical institutional encounters, where the credibility of information is often doubted and
questioned. It is thus the goal of this paper to combine research into clausal
pragmatic markers with insights from Discourse Space Theory
Magdalena Szczyrbak
(Chilton 2004) and the time-travelling approach to reality reconstruction
(Beach 1985), with a view to demonstrating that say is strategically used by
courtroom interactants for their own rhetorical ends.
3.1 Courtroom talk as discourse space and time-travelling
Courtroom interaction can be conceptualised in many ways and analysed
from various angles. The framework offered by Discourse Space Theory
(DST) is useful for a researcher interested in axiological or epistemic phenomena, as it views interaction as space stretching along temporal, spatial
and modal axes (Figure 1). As DST has it, speakers locate events in time
and space, and they express their epistemological stance towards the “other”
placed along the modal axis (Chilton 2004). Statements which are axiologically or epistemologically close to the speaker’s own beliefs are grounded
in the here-and-now speech situation, and are thus presented as legitimate or
morally right, whereas those with which the speaker does not identify are
backgrounded and presented as unjustified or morally wrong. DST allows
an analyst to assess the speaker’s subjective position and the orientation of
the information they present, and as such it can be successfully applied in
investigations of courtroom talk.
Space
Modality
Time/Past
DEICTIC CENTRE
Here/Now
Time/Future
Figure 1: Discourse space (Chilton 2004, 58)
Likewise, though focusing predominantly on the temporal aspect, Beach
(1985) sees courtroom interaction as time-travelling in terms of events from
50
Say-Markers in Courtroom Talk
the distant or immediate past being recalled and future outcomes being projected during a here-and-now interrogation (Figure 2). In other words, “trials are organized around the telling of stories by witnesses, induced by lawyers’ questioning manoeuvres, to accomplish reality reconstruction” (Beach
1985, 3). More importantly, the past-present-future interface reveals tensions between the perceived and the factual, the probable and the improbable; that is to say, the judge and the jurors (if there are any) hear competing
narratives, in which the respective participants present their own reconstructions of past realities or projections of future occurrences, “revealing interpretations about specific settings and/or characters, thus providing connections between possible motives, time frames, and plots” (Beach 1985, 3–4).
FACTUAL PAST
(history)
PERCEIVED PAST (reconstructions, events-asinterpreted)
PRESENT REALITY
(the here-and-now)
FICTITIOUS PAST
(fictions, fantasies)
PROBABLE FUTURE
(plans, goals)
IMPROBABLE FUTURE
(projections)
IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE
(fictions, fantasies)
Figure 2: Time-travelling in reality reconstruction (based on Beach 1985, 4)
With this in mind, I will try to combine DST with the time-travelling
perspective in an examination of trial data, in the hope of revealing interactional patterns which mirror the speakers’ epistemological stance towards
their own or others’ narratives.
3.2 Data and research focus
The data presented in this study are excerpted from transcripts which document a landmark libel case, at the heart of which lay the charge of Holocaust denial and the misrepresentation of related historical evidence. It
would be remiss not to mention the fact that since the trial was adversarial –
with opposing sides pushing their prepared accounts of events in a bid to affect the judge’s ruling – it turned into “a kind of miniaturized warfare,”
even though, admittedly, it was “conducted with all manner of rules of de51
Magdalena Szczyrbak
cency and honesty” (Evans 1983 cited in Gibbons 2005, 77). Yet, despite
these rules, attempts at discrediting the opposing party and instances of confrontational language are not uncommon in the data. Among the preferred
linguistic devices used to initiate disagreements and challenge alternative
viewpoints are comment clauses which “provide information about the attitude of the communicator, introduce assumptions, or provide information
about the context of interpretation” (Brinton 2008, 5). Clearly, it is during
examination-in-chief and cross-examination that the potential of comment
clauses, including say-markers, to control discourse is revealed, as they are
often used “to maintain control of the flow of information, and to mark progression in the story-line” (Hale 1999, 57).
In light of the foregoing, the aim of this study is threefold: 1) to demonstrate how say-markers are used to present evidence from a specific perspective; 2) to show how say-markers are used to negotiate the reliability of
information and 3) to demonstrate how respective participants use saymarkers to assert authority and enact power relations in a courtroom setting.
Obviously, the three planes of analysis intersect, providing a broader picture
of the interactional patterns found in the trial data.
3.3 Say-markers in courtroom talk
Comment clauses or “parenthetical verbs” are useful metalinguistic comments which “prime the hearer to see the emotional significance, the logical
relevance, and the reliability of […] statements” (Urmson 1952, 484). Such
is the case with say-markers, whose role in marking interpersonal distance,
framing arguments, challenging alternative opinions, or generally negotiating the validity of information, has been recognised in previous studies
which focus on trial data (see, e.g., Johnson 2012). While it does continue
this line of research, the current analysis offers a slightly different viewpoint
on the functioning of say-markers in courtroom interaction, adopting as a
frame of reference temporal, spatial, and modal dimensions. To this end,
drawing on the two analytical approaches discussed in the introduction to
this article, the study sets out to discuss the interactional work performed by
say-markers, focusing primarily on their role in introducing subjectivity or,
to use Finegan’s (1995, 1) words, “a speaker’s imprint.”
Still, in order to interpret say-markers as a reflection of the speaker’s
stance, the concepts of epistemicity and evidentiality have necessarily to be
52
addressed. To start with, while it is commonly agreed that epistemicity or
epistemic modality entails the speaker’s or writer’s degree of certainty and
their (lack of) commitment towards an utterance (see, e.g., Palmer 1986;
Coates 1987; Biber et al. 1999), there is less consensus regarding the definition of evidentiality. Proponents of the narrow view (e.g. Aikhenvald 2004)
hold that evidential forms do nothing more than encode the source of information, whereas advocates of the broad definition see evidentiality as expressing not only the source of information, but also the speaker’s attitude
towards this source (see, e.g., Chafe 1986). The position I take in this study
coincides with the broad understanding of evidentiality, that is to say I regard it as indexing the speaker’s attitude to and assessment of the reliability
1
of information.
Given the above, in the remainder of the article I will argue that saymarkers can be approached as lexical evidentials which not only introduce
the speaker’s subjective position regarding the information they convey, but
also enable smooth shifts between the temporal, spatial, and modal perspectives focused upon by the speaker at a given point in time (cf. Beach 1985,
3). In a similar vein, I will demonstrate that say-markers serve as linguistic
cues or “signposts” which guide courtroom interactants through a “coordinate system of ‘subjective orientation’, in which all partners in communication are and remain caught up” (Bühler 1934 [1990], 118 cited in Mushin
2001, 5).
3.3.1 As I say and as you say
The clauses as I say and as you say are the first two markers to surface from
the data. Figure 3 below demonstrates their location at the deictic centre and
the consequent conceptualisation of “I” or “you” as the source of information, intended to foreground and validate the speaker’s or hearer’s point
of view, accordingly. Worthy of note is the fact that since both clauses are
1
It might be noted here that in her investigation of evidential pragmatics, Mushin (2001, 52)
adopts the term “epistemological stance” to refer to meanings related to evidential systems,
“without deciding a priori what counts as ‘evidential’ in any particular language.” As the linguist maintains, evidential meanings can be addressed “independent of their formal manifestation” since they are “pragmatically motivated conceptual categories expressible in a number of
ways both within one language and across languages” (Mushin 2001, 85). Elsewhere, Mushin
(2001, 11) holds that “evidential forms are indicators of subjective construal because they express the speaker (or conceptualiser)’s own perspective with respect to their knowledge of the
information encoded in some proposition.” This view is followed in the present study too.
53
Magdalena Szczyrbak
anchored in the current speech situation, they introduce the here-and-now
perspective and guide the hearer through the present interrogation, into
which past events-as-interpreted are introduced.
Space
Modality
Time/Past
Here/Now
as I say
as you say
Time/Future
Figure 3: As I say and as you say in discourse space
With regard to as I say, it may be rightly argued that the predominant
pragmatic functions of this clause are those of adding emphasis and stressing authority, on the one hand, and signalling progression in the storyline
and continuity marking, on the other. To see this more clearly, consider utterances (1) and (2), which illustrate an interaction with an expert witness
who insists on his account of events, which, as might be expected, differs
from the opposing party’s reconstruction of past reality. More precisely,
while the claimant denies Hitler’s responsibility for the forced resettlement
of Jews, the witness adheres to his idea that the Nazis relied on “camouflage
language” and euphemisms in describing Hitler’s orders, as did Hitler himself. In both situations, when challenged by the interrogating claimant, the
witness deploys as I say to mark insistence and to stress the validity of his
interpretation of events, “signposting” his narrative at the same time.
(1)
54
[Mr Irving] He was obviously involved in the resettlement of the
Lublin district, as is shown by the reference in this connection.
[Professor Richard John Evans] Yes, bringing these people in.
[Mr Irving] I will just ask the question once more. Have you seen
the word “auswandern” used anywhere as a euphemism where it is
clearly so, used as camouflage, on any other occasion?
[Professor Richard John Evans] I do not recall it having been, that
2
does not mean to say it is not so used, but, as I say, they used a
whole variety of euphemisms. [day 22, p. 199, lines 24–26, p. 200,
lines 5–7]
(2)
[Professor Richard John Evans] Yes I think this is---[Mr Irving] This is real Hitler. This is not Goebbels. This is not his
gloss, is it?
[Professor Richard John Evans] Well, nor is the previous account
of what Hitler is saying. As I say, he is here at the dining table and
he is really camouflaging. This is camouflage language. Quite a
number of subjects, as you have said yourself, Mr Irving, were taboo at the dining table. Hitler talked in very vague terms and on
pages 10 to 11 of my letter of 10th January I quote the table talk
for that day at some length, which is almost exactly ---- [day 23, p.
44, lines 11–21]
As you say, on the other hand, is deployed to signal (apparent) alignment
or to mark politeness. At the same time, it allows the speaker to shift the
point of view and to introduce the interlocutor as the source of information,
thus indicating that the knowledge of the latter is not necessarily factual. It
might, not unreasonably, be argued then that although at first sight as you
say marks agreement, in the broader conversational frame it often prefaces
disagreement and is used for reasons of politeness rather than genuine
alignment with the interlocutor’s stance, as is clear in (3). Similarly, in the
interaction shown in (4), the claimant uses as you say to indicate that it was
the expert witness who mentioned the huge number of documents and not
the claimant himself. Again, it may be justifiably speculated that in this way
the speaker distances himself from the information provided by the witness.
(3)
[Mr Rampton] Our side takes absolutely no blame for this. We
have been, as your Lordship may imagine with a case of this high
profile, showered with material from all quarters of the world.
This came yesterday, no, I am wrong, Wednesday evening out of
the blue.
2
In this and the following examples the emphasis is mine.
55
Magdalena Szczyrbak
[Mr Justice Gray] Yes. In a case of this kind, as you say, that is
bound to happen, but I do not think it means that anything can
come in, you know, without any real examination or opportunity
for Mr Irving to examine. [day 11, p. 202, lines 19–26, p. 203, line
1]
(4)
[Mr Irving] The question really was, we do not know much about
the relationship between Himmler and Hitler.
[Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] We know something about the relationship between Himmler and Hitler.
[Mr Irving] Specifically in this connection, am I right, my Lord?
[Mr Justice Gray] It was your question I was paraphrasing.
[Mr Irving] I am sure it would interest your Lordship too to know,
from your own personal knowledge as an expert particularly on
the Party Chancellery files, for example, is there any hint in all
that huge body of, as you say, 250,000 documents which suggests
that there were intimate discussions between Himmler and Hitler
on the Final Solution with a homicidal intent, if I can put it like
that? [day 24, p. 65, lines 1–15]
Furthermore, a discerning analyst will recognise a certain regularity:
while as I say is prefaced by but (as in (1)), conversely in the case of as you
say, but is post-posed (as in (3)).3 Thus, we arrive at two underlying schemata: partial agreement with the interlocutor’s claim  but + as I say (speaker’s preferred argument); and as you say (apparent agreement with the interlocutor’s claim)  but + speaker’s preferred argument, as shown in Figures
4 and 5, respectively.
3
It needs to be added that while not every occurrence of as I say and as you say found in the
data follows this pattern, the claim is corroborated by more instances than those discussed in
this study.
56
(apparent) agreement with
the interlocutor’s claim
but
contrastive marker
as I say
speaker’s preferred argument
Figure 4: but – as I say schema
as you say
(apparent) agreement with
the interlocutor’s claim
but
contrastive marker
speaker’s preferred argument
Figure 5: as you say – but schema
It can be concluded then that as + S + say markers are useful argumentative devices which allow the speaker not only to attribute knowledge to a
specific source, i.e. to mark evidentiality, but also to juggle preferred and
dispreferred arguments and to adjust their respective weight in the ongoing
interaction.
3.3.2 As I said and as you said
Turning now to the past forms as I said and as you said placed at the far end
of the temporal axis (Figure 6), it should be stressed that these provide a
link between past and present realities. In line with Beach’s time-travelling
approach, the two markers can be viewed as devices that refer to events-asreconstructed, whether by the speaker himself/herself or his/her interlocutor.
57
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Space
Modality
Time/Past
as I said
as you said
Here/Now
Time/Future
Figure 6: As I said and as you said in discourse space
The interaction in (5), for instance, demonstrates how the speaker uses as
I said not only to mark continuity, but also to reiterate his earlier argument.
As is evident, the witness resolutely claims that the meaning of a given
word may be reinterpreted depending on the context in which it appears.
Thus, similarly to other I-oriented clauses, as I said also indexes the speaker
himself/herself as the source of information.
(5)
58
[Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is the problem with all interpretations. You have to come back. Of course, you cannot analyse the
word completely, you know, outside. You have to look at the
meaning of the word, but always in a historical context. I am not a
linguist, so I prefer to actually, as I said, to look at the context and
to ---[Mr Irving] You speak English very well, Dr Longerich, if I may
say so, and I think we are all very impressed by that and I am certainly impressed by the arguments you have put forward in your
glossary. Would you agree also that the same word can have different meanings when uttered by different people?
[Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. That is exactly why I think it is
important always to look at the context because, as you rightly
said, the same word could have different meanings in different
contexts. [day 24, p. 26, lines 2–17]
As you said, in turn, allows the speaker to point to the interlocutor as the
source of knowledge. In the usage shown in (6), as well as marking the pastpresent link, as you said signals the counsel’s alignment with the witness’s
standpoint.
(6)
[Dr Hajo Funke] Yes. Of course 15 years later, 9th November, the
so-called Reichskristallnacht, the night of the broken glasses, and
again 9th November 1989. This was, by the way, the reason that
the authorities did not dare to use this as a kind of national anniversary date.
[Mr Rampton] No. As you said, it is a bit loaded. Do you know
whether Mr Irving has had any contacts with Gottfried Kussel?
[day 27, p. 23, lines 3–9]
Conversely in the interaction in (7), the claimant defiantly challenges the
accuracy of the witness by saying: “So it is not just as cut and dried as you
said, is it, deported from Austria?”4 It can be noted then that while both as I
said and as you said provide “subjective orientation,” as I said shows the
speaker’s commitment to the information he conveys, whereas as you said
can indicate either the speaker’s alignment with the interlocutor’s message
or their visible detachment, or even hostility.
(7)
[Mr Irving] The final paragraph of page 3, The Times item, says:
"The spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said Mr Irving will be
bringing a case for wrongful arrest against the officials involved
later this year". So it is not just as cut and dried as you said, is it,
deported from Austria?
[Dr Hajo Funke] Just it occurred and so I refer to it.
[Mr Irving] It occurred and you refer to it. But you then say in the
two lines from the bottom that he is banned from entering Australia. [day 27, p. 132, lines 12–20]
Finally, note should be taken of the fact that the clauses as I say/said and
as/what you say/said allow speakers to meander not only through time, but
4
By way of clarification it should be added that in (6) the counsel questions his own witness,
and so, understandably, he aligns with the point of view expressed by the latter. In (7), on the
contrary, the same witness is interrogated by the claimant, whose main goal is to find holes in
the testimony and who for that reason challenges the witness’s accuracy.
59
Magdalena Szczyrbak
also space. The spatial dimension becomes visible whenever speakers refer
to some form of recorded evidence, as, for instance, in (8) and (9), where
the claimant, when addressing the witness, utters the words “as you say in
your witness statement” and “what you said in the course of your crossexamination,” respectively. Again, these statements – unlike, for instance,
“I have said in my report” – indicate that the speaker does not identify with
the aforementioned evidence and, further, that he either presents it as an unreliable source of information or uses it as a prelude to a counterattack
launched in the subsequent turn, or both.
(8)
[Mr Irving] In a minute or two I will be taking you through the diary which I wrote, one entry, one day's entry, concerning our discussion with the Russian archivists. Is it correct to say that, as you
say in your witness statement, no written agreement was made,
everything was arranged verbally?
[Mr Peter Millar] Absolutely. [day 15, p. 39, lines 13–19]
(9)
[Mr Rampton] Could I please intervene once again? Mr Irving is
quite incorrigible. This kind of cross-examination would never be
permitted in a professional advocate. Can we please go back to
page 5, paragraph 2, which Mr Irving leapt over.
[Mr Irving] I am leaping forwards because his Lordship wishes to
make progress.
[Mr Justice Gray] You are dotting about. I do not find this very
helpful and I have got well in mind what you said in the course
of your cross-examination which is why I have not highlighted
anything for quite a while now. Anyway, page 5, Mr Rampton.
[Mr Rampton] Page 5 which Mr Irving leapt over because it is inconvenient for him, paragraph 2 which is a document dated 19th
May 1941.
[Mr Irving] I think this is a most unhelpful interruption. [day 25,
p. 73, lines 23–26, p. 74, lines 1–12]
Employing a spatial perspective, Figure 7 below shows the position of
“my sources” vs. “your sources” in discourse space, illustrating the speak-
60
er’s epistemological commitment or lack of such commitment to the infor5
mation reported in these sources.
as you said
in your cross-examination
as you say
in your witness statement
Space
Modality
Time/Past
as I said in my report
Here/Now
as I say in my diary
Time/Future
Figure 7: As I say/said in my… vs. as (what) you say/said in your... in discourse
space
5
Cf. the Near-Far (Here-There) preconceptual image schema (Johnson 1987).
61
Magdalena Szczyrbak
3.3.3 I say and you say
Next come the markers I say and you say, the former signalling the speaker’s conviction and resounding voice of authority, and the latter stressing
the speaker’s epistemological distance and disalignment from the interlocutor’s statements (see Figure 8).
Space
Modality
you say
Time/Past
Here/Now
I say
Time/Future
Figure 8: I say and you say in discourse space
Utterances in (10), (11), and (12) substantiate the above claim, illustrating the speaker’s strategic manoeuvring between I- and you-perspectives.
However, unlike the as-you-say scenario, sequences with you say inserted
sentence-medially reflect the speaker’s clear distance, if not disalignment.
Compare, for instance, (10) with (11) and (12). While in the first extract the
judge deploys I say for emphasis, with the word “concerned” being repeated, the following two excerpts demonstrate how you say is used to attribute
a given piece of information to the other party, thereby reflecting the speaker’s scepticism towards this information. Again, you say is used to refer to
events-as-interpreted, rather than to recall factual information, and it reveals
tension between “the perceived” and “the factual.”
(10)
62
[Mr Rampton] As I say, I really do want to rattle through the periphery of this as quickly as I can. I know you suspect me and I
understand why, but you must not always be suspicious. Is it right
that you were also concerned, and again I say quite properly concerned, as an historian and an author that the people in Munich
might get there first?
[Mr Irving] Oh, yes.
[Mr Rampton] And spoil your coup, your scoop, whatever you
would like to call it?
[Mr Irving] Yes. [day 15, p. 64, lines 25–26, p. 65, lines 1–8]
(11)
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning] And whether that refers
to the Gauleiter meeting or the possibility that he had a separate
private talk with Hitler, we do not know, but “besuch bei”, you
know, "von Fuhrer" would indicate a strong possibility that he met
with Hitler privately, as he usually did when he came back to Berlin, in which case then he went off and gave this speech, it was not
just listening to the Gauleiter but after a conference, possibly after
a conference, with Hitler as well.
[Mr Irving] Yes. But, as you are familiar, you say with the
Hans Frank diary, both in the printed version and on the microfilm, will you agree that there is no diary entry relating to a separate meeting with Hitler in December 1941? [day 16, p. 129, lines
19–26, p. 130, lines 1–6]
(12)
[Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is not the Wolff manuscript.
[Mr Irving] Your Lordship will recognise passages from this manuscript as they are represented and summarized in the Hitler's
War.
[Mr Justice Gray] My response to that is whether an objective historian could and should have placed weight on this document must
depend on the whole terms of it, not just on
selective extracts.
[Mr Irving] Of course I saw the whole document when I sat there
making the extracts.
[Mr Justice Gray] Of course you did, but I think we need to see
the whole document to see whether you should have attached the
weight you say you did attach to it.
[Mr Irving] I will try to obtain it, but of course I cannot obtain it
today. [day 25, p. 9, lines 7–21]
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Magdalena Szczyrbak
As can be noted, I say and you say stand in clear opposition and for that
reason they are useful for juxtaposing competing points of view.
3.3.4 So I say and so you say
In considering the pragmatic aspects of say-markers in courtroom interaction, the role of the clauses so you say and so I say should not be overlooked. Interestingly, in the data analysed, so you say is used only by the
counsel in exchanges with the claimant during which the words of the latter
are doubted and questioned. Placed at the deictic centre, so I say stresses
conviction and authority, and as such it appears to function as the claimant’s
self-defence against the challenge posed by the counsel in the previous turn,
as in (13). On the other hand, so you say, which is found at the very end of
the modal axis (see Figure 9), indicates the speaker’s epistemological distance from the claims put forward by his interlocutor, as can be seen in (14).
What is more, the counsel openly admits to relying on so you say specifically to challenge the accuracy of the claimant, as illustrated in (15).
Space
Modality
so you say
Time/Past
Here/Now
so I say
Figure 9: So I say and so you say in discourse space
64
Time/Future
(13)
[Mr Rampton] You have known this since ---[Mr Irving] The total discrepancy in these figures is so eclatant, is
to [sic!] dramatic, that there has to be some explanation for them.
[Mr Rampton] So you say. You can put that to Professor van Pelt.
[Mr Irving] So I say and so I believe. [day 8, p. 119, lines 3–8]
(14)
[Mr Irving] Now I am seeing it for the first time, yes.
[Mr Rampton] So you say.
[Mr Irving] I beg your pardon. I am on oath and, if I say I am seeing this for the first time, then I am seeing it for the first time. [day
14, p. 59, lines 22–26]
(15)
[Mr Irving] I think for the purpose of today I will accept that it is
genuine, but it has these blemishes to which I may refer later on.
But to suggest that I have seen this document
before is inaccurate and untrue.
[Mr Rampton] I have not said that yet, Mr Irving.
[Mr Irving] You said “so you say” and the record shows that.
[Mr Rampton] I do say “so you say” because I doubt your answer,
and I will tell you precisely now why I doubt it, as I always do,
because I am not allowed to make that suggestion unless I have a
basis for doing so. It has been in Gerald Fleming's book “Hitler
und die endlosung” ever since 1982. [day 14, p. 61, lines 1–12]
It may be concluded then that so I say and so you say are among the linguistic devices deployed by the claimant and the counsel, respectively, to
assert power relations and to negotiate the status of knowledge in the courtroom setting.
3.3.5 Let us say and shall we say
Finally, the last section of this study centres on the clauses let us say and
shall we say, which appear to show the varying degrees of the speaker’s
epistemological commitment. As the data suggest, even though the meanings of the two clauses overlap, they are used for different pragmatic purposes. Whereas let us say indicates that the speaker is hypothesizing or approximating, as in (16), shall we say appears condescending, with the
65
Magdalena Szczyrbak
speaker trying to advance his own agenda (even though, on the surface, he
6
appears cooperative), as illustrated in (17) and (18). Remarkably, whereas
the neutral let us say is used by various trial participants, mostly in reference to figures, measures and dates, shall we say is found only in the claimant’s language, especially in contexts where he attempts to plant doubt in
the judge’s mind.
Space
Modality
Time/Past
Here/Now
let us say
shall we say
Time/Future
Figure 10: Let us say and shall we say in discourse space
(16)
6
[Mr Irving] Would you now answer my question?
[Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The character of the Chancellery in,
let us say, 38 and in 1940, if you compare these two years, is
completely different. It became a killing centre, and the fact that it
was in Tiergarten Strasse 4, it was of course a clandestine operation.
[Mr Irving] Will you now answer my question? From your
knowledge of ... [day 25, p. 134, lines 4–10]
It must be acknowledged that, as with any spoken data, prosodic cues would provide more insight into the speaker’s intended meaning and stance. Without a doubt, the actual intonational
contours of shall we say would be more revealing; however, since no such data are available, in
the current study only the written record can be interpreted.
66
(17)
[Mr Irving] If we go to page 8 in your paragraph 4.1, we are looking at the scale of the killings again, are all the Jews who are being
killed, shall we say, native Jews, or do they include German Jews
at this time? [day 16, p. 100, lines 12–15]
(18)
[Professor Richard John Evans] I cannot recall whether it is a
massive tome.
[Mr Irving] It is about 650 pages, A4 size?
[Professor Richard John Evans] Edited.
[Mr Irving] Edited. Am I right in saying that this is an account by
Barbara Kulaszka of the trial in Toronto on the history of Auschwitz, shall we say?
[Professor Richard John Evans] I think that is right, on the Zundel
trial. [day 19, p. 111, lines 19–25]
As suggested above, let us say and shall we say are used for different
pragmatic purposes, with their rhetorical potential being skilfully exploited
by the litigant parties concerned.
Conclusions
In summary, taken together, the examples discussed in this study yield convincing evidence that say operates not only as a verbum dicendi but, more
importantly, that it is used to perspectivise information. Put differently, it
betrays the position from which speakers assess their relation to the interlocutor as well as the interlocutor’s statements. In addition, through examples such as those discussed above, we move closer to understanding how
speakers deploy say-markers to negotiate meanings by drawing the audience deeper into their reconstructed realities in settings where the notions of
truth, objectivity, and reliability are of primary importance. Looked at in
this way, clauses like, e.g., you say, as I said and so you say appear to be interactional “signposts” which enable purposive shifts not only between past
and present realities, but also I- and you-perspectives. Lastly, it might also
be reiterated that however useful, DST and the time-travelling approach are
but two of the many approaches to analysing courtroom interactional phenomena, with comment clauses being no exception, and that they may well
be complemented by other analytical paradigms. Obviously, the choice of a
67
Magdalena Szczyrbak
suitable framework will each time be determined by the focus of the study
and the outcomes that the analyst is hoping to achieve.
Works Cited
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford/New York: Oxford
University Press.
Beach, Wayne A. 1985. “Temporal Density in Courtroom Interaction: Constraints on the Recovery of Past Events in Legal Discourse.” Communication Monographs 52: 1–18.
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English.
London: Longman.
Brinton, Laurel J. 2008. The Comment Clause in English: Syntactic Origins
and Pragmatic Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bühler, Karl. 1934 [1990]. Theory of Language: The Representational
Function of Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. “Evidentiality in English Conversation and Academic Writing.” In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology,
edited by Wallace Chafe, Johanna Nichols, 261–272. Norwood: Ablex
Publishing.
Chilton, Paul. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice.
London: Routledge.
Coates, Jennifer. 1987. “Epistemic Modality and Spoken Discourse.”
Transactions of the Philological Society 85(1): 110–131.
Evans, Keith. 1983. Advocacy at the Bar. London: Blackstone.
Finegan, Edward. 1995. “Subjectivity and Subjectivisation: An Introduction.” In Subjectivity and Subjectification: Linguistic Perspectives, edited by Dieter Stein, Susan Wright, 1–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbons, John. 2005. Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language in
the Justice System. Malden: Blackwell.
Hale, Sandra. 1999. “Interpreters’ Treatment of Discourse Markers in
Courtroom Questions.” Forensic Linguistics 6(1): 57–82.
Johnson, Alison. 2012. “Say, saying, said... Processes of Making Evidence
in the Courtroom in Specialised Legal Corpora.” Presentation delivered
at the 3rd European Conference of the International Association of Fo68
rensic Linguistics: Bridging the Gap(s) Between Language and the Law,
University of Porto, Portugal, 15–18 October 2012.
Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning,
Imagination, and Reason. Chicago/London: University of Chicago
Press.
Mushin, Illana. 2001. Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative
Retelling. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Palmer, Frank R. 1986. Mood and Modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Urmson, James O. 1952. “Parenthetical Verbs.” Mind 61(244): 480–496.
Corpus
“Irving v. Lipstadt: Transcripts.” 2000. Holocaust Denial on Trial: Using
History
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Emory
University.
http://www.hdot.org/en/trial/transcripts/index.html.
69
4. Changing Perspectives on the Role of
Corrective Feedback in the Process of
Foreign Language Learning
Dorota Tutka
Abstract
The role of errors in learners’ interlanguage development and the effectiveness of
corrective feedback have been the subjects of heated discussion among researchers
and teachers for decades. Since changes in the perception of learner errors have usually been connected with the advent of new methods in foreign language teaching,
this article describes a few of the most popular conventional and unconventional
teaching methods and approaches, their attitudes to learners’ linguistic inaccuracies,
and recommendations concerning error correction. Subsequently, the author presents opinions expressed by the opponents of error correction, who claim that corrective feedback is ineffective and even harmful. The article also discusses the rationale for correcting learner errors and the research findings which confirm the
effectiveness of corrective techniques. The next part of the article deals with teachers’ decisions as to which errors should be corrected, and when and how to provide
corrective feedback. In the final section the author presents the main arguments used
in the discussion on error correction in the Polish educational context. It is believed
that the application of Communicative Language Teaching is conducive to the acquisition of communicative competence because this approach focuses on the ability
to understand and convey information. However, many foreign language teachers
and methodologists claim that the tolerance towards errors which is connected with
the popularity of CLT in Polish schools has contributed to a neglect of grammatical
correctness.
Keywords: communicative effectiveness, corrective feedback, grammatical correctness, language teaching methods
Dorota Tutka
Introduction
Providing feedback to learners’ performance is a very important aspect of
teaching because, thanks to evaluative information from the teacher, learners know how well they have dealt with a learning task and what they need
to improve. While the advantages of positive feedback do not seem to be a
problematic issue, despite the fact that some teachers may be too reserved
about praising their students’ achievements, negative feedback is much
more controversial since it involves, among other aspects, error correction.
Although the majority of the research indicates that well-chosen corrective
techniques help to improve learners’ accuracy, especially when it comes to
learning a foreign language in a classroom where contact with this language
is often limited, not all researchers are convinced that error correction is
very useful and effective. There are also studies which indicate that attending to learner errors is a waste of time and has a negative influence on students (Pawlak 2010). As Lewicka-Mroczek (2009) points out, it is difficult
to answer the question of whether erroneous forms should be corrected or
not without analysing a given situation, because this decision depends on
several factors, such as the types of errors, the aim of the task, the part of
the lesson, learners’ needs, expectations and language proficiency, as well
as the teacher’s beliefs about the effectiveness of error correction.
Foreign language teachers who use a particular teaching method or approach which gives clear instructions on error correction may find it easier
to decide how to deal with learner linguistic inaccuracies. However, nowadays many teachers do not apply teaching methods in their pure form, but
supplement them with different techniques and procedures. Consequently,
they may have difficulty in providing corrective feedback, the more so because the recommendations that can be found in methodological coursebooks are sometimes contradictory and in many cases do not take the latest
research findings into consideration (Pawlak 2010).
It is undeniable that error correction is one of the most complex tasks in
the classroom and this is presumably the reason why the discussion about
the role of learner errors has raged for decades together with the related issue of how to deal with such errors. As Sheen (2010, 169) observes, an
analysis of the most important theories of foreign language learning of the
last 50 or 60 years shows that there have been quite a few “pendulum
swings in what the teacher should do with learner errors.” Therefore, the
72
Changing Perspectives on the Role of Corrective Feedback
aim of this article is to present the different attitudes to learner linguistic inaccuracies on the basis of selected conventional and unconventional teaching methods and approaches, since these reflect the most common tendencies in applied linguistics and the most common opinions on how to treat
errors. The author also discusses arguments for and against error correction
and analyses the decisions which teachers have to make when they deal
with erroneous forms. The final part of the article is devoted to the ongoing
debate about whether the change to a more lenient attitude towards errors,
which can be observed in foreign language classrooms in Polish schools,
has brought positive or negative consequences.
4.1 Attitudes to error correction in conventional teaching methods
Although the methods discussed below, namely the Natural Method, the
Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, the Audiolingual Method, and the Cognitive Method, are considered traditional, their attitudes to
corrective feedback vary considerably. When analysed from the perspective
of error correction, it becomes clear that they present the whole spectrum of
ideas and recommendations on how to deal with learners’ linguistic inaccuracies, ranging from a tough stance on errors to their complete acceptance.
According to Pfeiffer (2001), the oldest method of teaching foreign languages is the Natural Method, which is based on conversations with native
speakers of a given language. Another means of learning is going abroad in
order to spend some time in the target language community. This method
excludes the direct teaching of grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation and
also error correction (Dakowska 2007). As the main aim of the Natural
Method is to develop fluency, errors are usually ignored during conversations in order not to discourage learners from speaking.
When modern languages started to be included in school curricula in the
eighteenth century, they were taught according to the same rules as for Latin and the Grammar Translation Method became the most popular approach
(Richards and Rodgers 2005). This method involves analysing grammatical
rules, learning lists of words, reading adapted and literary texts as well as
doing translation exercises. Although accuracy is given high priority and
teachers correct learners’ inaccuracies regularly, it turns out that learners’
utterances are usually full of grammatical errors, because a good knowledge
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Dorota Tutka
of the grammar system does not suffice to speak the language correctly
(Funk and Koenig 1991 in Mihułka 2013). Grammar Translation has lost
much of its popularity since the 1940s, but, despite its weaknesses, there are
teachers who still use this method, or at least some of its procedures.
Grammar Translation proved to be rather ineffective in developing
learners’ speaking skills; therefore, a new approach was needed to fill this
gap. This was called the Direct Method. As it was based on the same assumption as the Natural Method, namely that foreign language learners
should acquire the language in a similar way to children learning their first
language, sometimes these names are used interchangeably, or the Direct
Method is treated as a variation of the Natural Method (Neuner 1993 in
Pfeiffer 2001). According to the principles of the Direct Method, teachers,
usually native speakers of a language, are not allowed to use the students’
mother tongue and should concentrate mainly on spoken language. Learners
listen to the teacher’s utterances and repeat them, trying to imitate the appropriate pronunciation. Grammar is taught inductively, but the introduction of grammatical rules is postponed to the end of the lesson, so the Direct
Method is criticised for not being sufficiently focused on grammatical accuracy (Dakowska 2007).
Since the effectiveness of the Direct Method was dependent on a large
number of contact hours with the teacher and it placed great demands on
the teacher in terms of language proficiency, there was a need for new solutions in foreign language teaching. In the USA this necessity was strongly
connected with American soldiers’ participation in the Second World War,
which required the knowledge of foreign languages. The new method,
called the Audiolingual Method, was based on American structural linguistics and the theory of behaviourism (Richards and Rodgers 2005). The main
assumption of this method is that language is a set of habits; therefore, to
develop appropriate language habits, teachers have to avoid the use of the
students’ native languages and help learners acquire sentence patterns by
doing numerous imitation and repetition exercises, called drills. Grammatical knowledge is not presented in an explicit way, but it is taught inductively (Pfeiffer 2001). When it comes to the treatment of errors, “the Audiolingual Method is said to be characterised by a pathological fear of errors
which result from interference and lead to incorrect habits” (Dakowska
2007, 45). There is no place for students’ creativity; lessons are teacherdominated to make it possible to predict learner problems with accuracy
74
and the teacher should try to prevent students from making mistakes. Some
errors are unavoidable, but when they appear, the teacher must correct them
immediately.
In the 1970s, the Cognitive Method started to gain in popularity, in part
because of the great interest generated by Chomsky’s theory of transformational grammar. The belief that language is a system of habits that can be
developed by imitation and repetition was strongly criticised and replaced
by new ideas. According to the assumptions of the Cognitive Method, all
people have the innate ability to learn languages, thus enabling them to acquire linguistic competence when they are exposed to language data. As a
result of this competence, learners can understand grammatical rules and
use them to produce utterances they have never heard before (Komorowska
2005). The Cognitive Method does not exclude the use of the native language and stresses the importance of explaining grammatical rules to learners. Also the attitude to errors is different than in the Audiolingual Method.
Errors are treated as a natural part of the learning process because they in1
dicate the current stage of the learner’s interlanguage development. To
eliminate errors, learners need to have constant contact with the language
and correct structures. Although inaccurate utterances are corrected, errors
are no longer considered to be a threat (Pawlak 2010).
4.2 Attitudes to error correction in unconventional teaching approaches and methods
Apart from the traditional, mainstream methods which have a solid linguistic and psychological basis, there are many unconventional methods which
are often based on less coherent and academic theories (Komorowska
1992). They usually stress the need to create a friendly and non-threatening
atmosphere in the classroom to give learners a sense of security. Moreover,
they try to integrate the cognitive, behavioural, and emotional aspects of
1
Interlanguage is “the learner’s developing second language knowledge. It may have characteristics of the learner’s first language, characteristics of the second language, and some characteristics which seem to be very general and tend to occur in all or most interlanguage systems. Interlanguages are systematic, but they are also dynamic, continually evolving as
learners receive more input and revise their hypotheses about the second language”
(Lightbown and Spada 2003, 176).
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Dorota Tutka
learning foreign languages, incorporate verbal and non-verbal elements into
lessons and encourage learners to be creative, show more initiative and take
responsibility for the learning process (Pfeiffer 2001). As far as grammatical accuracy is concerned, unconventional teaching methods recommend
limiting error correction to situations where learners ask for the teacher’s
help themselves. In other cases, learners are encouraged to correct their
own mistakes using the language data provided by the teacher and their
own language intuition. Generally speaking, fluency and communicative effectiveness are given priority over accuracy in unconventional methods
(Komorowska 1992).
One such method is Total Physical Response, which uses commands as
the main teaching procedure. TPR was developed by James Asher in the
1970s and its main aim is to create enjoyable learning conditions. Students
learn the language by following the teacher’s instructions. At first, they are
not forced to speak and the only thing they have to do is to perform actions
according to the teacher’s commands. Once learners are ready to speak,
they start giving instructions to each other. TPR generates the best results
when it is used in foreign language courses for beginners and children. In
the case of more advanced learners, it should be supplemented with other
methods and techniques (Richards and Rodgers 2005). In the Total Physical
Response Method, teachers are expected to be tolerant of errors and correct
only the most serious in an unobtrusive way. They can focus on minor errors when students have become more advanced (Larsen-Freeman 1986).
The main principle of the Silent Way is that “teaching should be subordinated to learning” (Larsen-Freeman 1986, 51-52); therefore, the teacher’s
role is to be as silent as possible and to create conditions conducive to
learning while the students are supposed to take the initiative in discovering
the language. The teacher uses phonemic charts and Cuisenaire rods to help
learners understand how the language works. Errors are treated as a natural
and indispensable part of learning because they inform the teacher about
learner weaknesses. Self-correction is considered to be the best way of dealing with erroneous utterances. Only when self-correction and peer correction are unsuccessful is the teacher allowed to provide the correct form. In
this approach, learners are supposed to “develop their own inner criteria for
correctness” (Larsen-Freeman 1986, 58).
Community Language Learning can be described as a therapeutic approach aimed at whole-person learning (Komorowska 2005, Dakowska
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2007). It advises teachers to “consider not only their students’ feelings and
intellect,” but also to understand “the relationship among students’ physical
reactions, their instinctive protective reactions and their desire to learn”
(Larsen-Freeman 1986, 89). In this method, the learning process is always
connected with interaction and communication. The teacher’s role is to
stand outside a circle of students and help them express what they want to
say by suggesting appropriate phrases or helping students formulate utterances in the target language. Larsen-Freeman (1986) emphasises that
Community Language Learning requires teachers to correct errors in a nonthreatening way, for example by providing the correct version of a student’s
erroneous utterance without concentrating too much on the error.
Another unconventional approach was developed by Terrell and Krashen
in the 1970s as a reaction to the Audiolingual Method and the Cognitive
Method. It was called the Natural Approach to stress its similarity to the
Natural Method. The Natural Approach is based on five principles: the Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis, the Monitor Hypothesis, the Natural Order
Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis, and the Affective Filter Hypothesis
(Richards and Rodgers 2005). The first principle indicates the difference
between acquisition, which is the natural way of developing language proficiency, and conscious learning, which results in explicit knowledge about
language forms. According to the Monitor Hypothesis, conscious learning
helps to correct the output of the acquired linguistic system on condition
that learners are given enough time, they can focus on the form, and they
know the appropriate rule. The third hypothesis says that learners acquire
grammatical structures in a predictable order, which cannot be changed.
The Input Hypothesis concerns the need to provide learners with a sufficient amount of comprehensible input, which should contain structures
slightly above their present level. Another important issue is a low affective
filter because motivated and self-confident learners who are not afraid of
speaking and making errors are more successful in foreign language acquisition (Krashen 1987).
Komorowska (2005) points out that the Natural Approach is the best example of a tolerant attitude to errors. This approach is characterised by a total disregard for errors, which are treated as a natural part of foreign language development. What is more, errors are considered to be beneficial,
both from the teacher’s and the learner’s perspectives, because they provide
the teacher with important information about the learner’s interlanguage
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and allow the learner to verify their hypotheses about the language. If
learners have sufficient contact with correct language and receive comprehensible input, their utterances will contain fewer and fewer erroneous
forms and finally they will use the language correctly. Therefore, error correction is useless or even harmful because it can increase the learners’ affective filter and make them feel anxious or embarrassed (Pfeiffer 2001).
Suggestopedia, whose main aim is to overcome the psychological barriers to learning and help learners use their full mental powers to learn a foreign language, can be described as “the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy” (Larsen-Freeman 1986, 72). Its author, Georgi Lozanov,
stresses the importance of a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom, which
should be equipped with comfortable chairs and soft lighting. The relationship between the teacher and learners is also unique since the latter should
try to adopt a childlike attitude towards learning, called infantilisation, and
they have to trust and accept the teacher’s authority. Another important part
of a lesson is Baroque music because it helps learners unblock their
memory (Dakowska 2007). These elements are supposed to lower the affective filter and facilitate the learning process. According to Larsen-Freeman
(1986), in order to eliminate the fear of failure, learner errors are tolerated,
especially at lower levels, and meaning is given priority over form. When
teachers notice some serious errors, they can use the correct form later on
during the lesson.
4.3 Error correction in Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching can be traced back to the 1970s and
the time of its popularity dates from the late 1980s. Since then CLT has
changed quite a lot and has been supplemented with many different techniques and procedures taken from other teaching methods. Although the
Communicative Approach is still widely used in Poland, nowadays it is
rarely applied in its pure form. More and more specialists in foreign language teaching are convinced that there is no ideal teaching method which
can guarantee success in learning a foreign language and, therefore, they
recommend using the eclectic approach (e.g. Pfeiffer 2001, Komorowska
2005, Dakowska 2007, Żylińska 2007).
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As Komorowska (2005) writes, the Communicative Approach does not
focus on teaching language as a system, but its main aim is to make learners
acquire communicative competence; in other words, to teach students how
to understand and convey information “in a variety of settings, taking into
account relationships between speakers and differences in situations”
(Lightbown and Spada 2003, 172). The term communicative competence
was coined by Hymes (1966) and subsequently developed by a few language methodologists. For example, Canale (1993) distinguishes four components of communicative competence: grammatical competence, that is,
the knowledge of the language code; sociolinguistic competence, required
to use the language appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts; discourse competence, namely the ability to produce unified texts of different
kinds; and strategic competence, which involves the strategies used to deal
with communication breakdowns or to improve the effectiveness of communication. Sometimes the term communicative competence is interpreted
as the ability to convey information despite some problems with grammatical correctness (Lightbown and Spada 2003).
In CLT, communicative effectiveness is considered to be much more
important than grammatical accuracy, because even if the utterance includes some erroneous forms, in many cases it is still possible to understand
the message properly. This is why learners do not have to be absolutely correct, but they must be correct enough to effectively use the language in
communication. In the recent version of CLT, teachers are advised to treat
learner errors differently depending on the task. In accuracy tasks, they can
be much more demanding and should indicate and correct all linguistic inaccuracies, or at least the majority, while in communicative activities, error
correction should be limited to the most serious flaws which hinder communication (Komorowska 2005, Harmer 2007).
Although it may seem that that the current version of CLT has a very rational attitude to errors, Komorowska (2004) points out that teachers who
use this approach are often confused about error correction and do not know
how to deal with learner errors. For example, teachers limit the amount of
foreign language input and learners’ exposure to correct language data, because they think that they should activate learners through speaking and
writing exercises immediately after the presentation of new material. It also
happens that foreign language classes do not include enough language drills
which could help learners master different language structures. Moreover,
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teachers are usually convinced that communicative effectiveness and fluency are much more important than grammatical accuracy and consequently
they can become too tolerant towards errors. Another problem mentioned
by Komorowska (2004) is connected with providing delayed corrective
feedback during communicative activities. It is difficult for both the teacher
and the learner to remember the mistakes made by the latter and the context
in which these erroneous forms appeared; therefore, this type of error correction may not be very effective.
4.4 Arguments against error correction
Although providing learners with corrective feedback seems to be an important function of teaching, some researchers have voiced their concerns
about the usefulness of error correction. Probably the most common argument against correcting learner errors is that children who acquire their first
language do not usually get negative feedback but despite this they become
competent users of their native language. Otherwise, those teachers and researchers who argue against error correction claim that corrective feedback
is often futile, harmful, ambiguous, and inconsistent (Larsen-Freeman
2003).
One of the strongest opponents of providing corrective feedback is
Truscott, who claims that grammar correction is ineffective because there is
no conclusive evidence proving that it works. Therefore, “teachers can help
students’ accuracy at least as much by doing nothing as by correcting their
grammar” (Truscott 1996, 360). Krashen (1987) is also convinced that error
correction is pointless as it does not contribute to subconscious language
acquisition, which is what enables learners to use the language in spontaneous communication. Some research shows that the positive effects of error
correction are only temporary and learners quickly forget how to use the
form correctly (e.g. Truscott and Hsu 2008) or that corrective feedback
makes it easier for learners to produce the correct form in grammatical tests
and revise a piece of writing, but when they use the language for communicative purposes, they continue committing the same errors (e.g. Truscott
2007). This lack of progress can be caused by error fossilisation or the fact
that learners are not ready to acquire a particular structure yet (LarsenFreeman 2003).
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What is more, according to Truscott, error correction is not only futile
but even harmful, since “learning is most successful … when students are
relaxed and confident and enjoying their learning; but the use of correction
encourages exactly the opposite condition” (Truscott 1996, 354). Krashen
(1987) expresses a similar opinion in his Affective Filter Hypothesis, claiming that only low personal anxiety and a relaxed classroom atmosphere are
conducive to language acquisition. Another problem noticed by Pawlak
(2004) is that error correction may discourage learners from using more
complex structures and make them concentrate too much on form rather
than meaning.
Some corrective techniques such as recasts, that is, the teacher’s correct
reformulation of erroneous utterances, can be ambiguous for students who
may interpret them as requests for clarification (Lyster and Ranta 1997).
Moreover, teachers may seem inconsistent in the way they treat errors, for
example when they are more lenient about linguistic inaccuracies in some
tasks or ignore errors made by less confident or weaker students, which
may confuse learners (Larsen-Freeman 2003). Zybert (1999) indicates yet
another problem with error correction, namely the fact that its effectiveness
is an individual matter, strongly connected with the learner’s personality
and learning style, which is probably the reason why some learners do not
make much progress in terms of accuracy, although their errors are corrected regularly, while others become more and more correct, even if their errors are usually ignored.
4.5 Arguments in favour of error correction
The criticism of error correction is not completely groundless; however,
there seem to be many more arguments in favour of providing corrective
feedback than against it. First of all, the differences between first language
acquisition and the process of foreign language learning are quite obvious
as young children usually have unlimited access to language data and live
in a community where their mother tongue is spoken, so they can acquire
their native language even if their errors are not corrected. The situation of
foreign language learners is not the same because they often start learning
the target language when they are teenagers or even adults and their contact
with the language can be limited to a few lessons per week. “Therefore,
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what works in untutored language acquisition should not automatically
translate into prescriptions and proscriptions for pedagogical practice for all
learners” (Larsen-Freeman 2003, 78). What is more, some structures are
easily learnt if students encounter them in speech or writing while other
forms require further explanation. Negative feedback makes it easier for
learners to verify their incorrect hypotheses, and in this way it raises their
language awareness because they notice gaps in their interlanguage. As
Larsen-Freeman (2003, 78) states, “the point of education is to accelerate
the language acquisition process,” so by correcting learners’ errors teachers
can help them understand difficult rules faster.
Although some research projects show that error correction is ineffective, there are definitely more studies which indicate just the opposite (e.g.
Lyster and Saito 2010, Pawlak 2010, Sheen 2010, Pawlak 2012). Pawlak
(2010) points out that correcting learner errors is more effective than mere
exposure to language data, even when this includes numerous examples of a
given structure. Furthermore, many teachers and learners are convinced that
corrective feedback has beneficial effects. For instance, 81% of the teachers
and 93% of the students who took part in Tomczyk’s survey (2013) agreed
that errors should be corrected.
Another advantage of corrective feedback is that it usually helps to avoid
or at least alleviate the problem of the fossilisation of errors. According to
Littlewood (1996), fossilised errors, which are permanent features of the
learner’s speech or writing, must be distinguished from transitional errors.
The latter gradually disappear as the learner’s language system becomes
more and more similar to the target language system. Although it is not
clear why some errors fossilise, it seems that fossilised errors are more likely to appear if learners believe that their linguistic inaccuracies do not prevent them from fulfilling their communicative needs. Larsen-Freeman
(2003, 129) claims that foreign language teachers “have the responsibility
to provide learners with feedback on even the most persistent of errors,”
because “if they abdicate this responsibility, fossilisation becomes inevitable.”
It is true that sometimes learners are confused about their teachers’ corrective techniques, which may stem from the fact that teachers’ and students’ preferences as to which errors should be corrected, when, and how
are often different (Zybert 1999). Nevertheless, this problem can easily be
solved if teachers find out what their learners expect when it comes to error
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correction and explain to learners what corrective techniques they are going
to use in the classroom. Since teachers usually have a considerable influence on their students’ beliefs concerning foreign language learning and
play an important role in developing their students’ learning habits, they
can help learners adopt a reasonable attitude to errors. On the one hand,
learners must understand that errors are a natural part of their interlanguage
development, but, on the other hand, they should try to put some effort into
making their utterances increasingly correct.
4.6 Error correction in the classroom
When correcting oral errors made by learners, teachers have to make a
number of decisions in answer to a few questions. These questions were
first analysed by Hendrickson (1978 in Lyster and Ranta 1997, 38) and
have often been discussed by many other researchers dealing with the issue
of error correction (e.g. Chaudron 1995, Zybert 1999, Pawlak 2012):
1) Should learners’ errors be corrected?
2) When should learners’ errors be corrected?
3) Which errors should be corrected?
4) How should errors be corrected?
5) Who should do the correcting?
As previously mentioned, it seems that among researchers and teachers
there are more adherents of error correction than opponents, but even if the
teacher is convinced that corrective feedback has a positive influence on
learners’ interlanguage development, the decision whether to correct errors
in a particular situation usually depends on several factors. One is the focus
of the task. If the aim of the task is to develop learner accuracy, teachers are
more likely to correct all or the majority of the errors, while in fluency tasks
they may correct only those which impede communication. In practice, this
may mean that during communicative tasks teachers do not correct errors at
all if their learners are proficient enough to convey information. Other factors involve the level and type of the language course, learner age, personalities and preferences regarding error correction, or even students’ familiarity with a particular structure. Another issue is the teacher’s ability to detect
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erroneous forms. Since many foreign language teachers are not native
speakers of the language they teach, it may happen that they do not notice
some errors or do not know how to correct them. Interestingly, Allwright
and Bailey (1996) point out that teachers who are non-native speakers of
the target language are more severe in their approach to learner errors than
native-speaker teachers.
When it comes to the timing of corrective feedback, teachers have three
options: immediate, delayed, and postponed error correction. In the case of
accuracy tasks, the decision as to when to correct erroneous forms is easier
to make because when learners practise language structures, they expect the
teacher to correct their errors, so there is no threat that the teacher’s intervention will discourage them from speaking. Therefore, teachers usually
opt for immediate correction to make sure that the learner and the rest of the
group notice the incorrect form and do not consider it to be correct. However, error correction during fluency activities is a much more complex issue.
Specialists in the field (e.g. Komorowska 2005 and Harmer 2007) warn that
immediate corrective feedback which interrupts the learner’s utterance may
have a very negative psychological effect, so they recommend such interruptions only when the errors seriously distort the meaning or make the
message incomprehensible. In other cases they advise teachers to provide
delayed feedback, that is, after the utterance, or postponed feedback, which
requires writing down or recording learners’ errors and working on them at
the end of the lesson or in the subsequent one. These recommendations
seem quite straightforward, but Pawlak (2010) observes that recent research
shows that immediate error correction is more effective than other types of
correction, even during communicative tasks.
Correcting all learner errors in communicative tasks is very difficult, if
not impossible, and also undesirable; therefore, teachers need to employ
some criteria when deciding which erroneous forms should be corrected
and which can be ignored. The most common criterion concerns the influence of the error on the meaning of the utterance. If linguistic inaccuracies
lead to communication breakdowns or misunderstandings, they are called
global errors and require the teacher’s intervention. Tomczyk’s research
(2013) shows that 65% of teachers always correct global errors and 35% do
so frequently. However, their attitude to local errors, which do not hinder
communication, is not as severe as the respondents correct such errors only
sometimes (53%) or even rarely (30%). Aside from global and local errors,
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teachers may also differentiate between errors and mistakes. According to
Corder (1967), the first result from insufficient knowledge of the language
system and indicate the learner’s current stage in interlanguage development, whereas the latter are caused by the learner’s inattention or fatigue rather than a lack of knowledge. Since students are able to correct their mistakes on their own initiative or when they are indicated, teachers may
decide to focus on errors only, but it is not always easy to distinguish errors
from mistakes. Moreover, if the learner is trying to use a structure which is
beyond their grasp at the current stage, providing corrective feedback seems
useless. Another criterion used by teachers concerns the frequency of errors, because systematic errors usually require more attention than random
ones. Chaudron (1995, 136) also points out that teachers seem to concentrate more on errors which “pertain to the pedagogical focus of the lesson.”
Finally, the decision as to whether to correct or ignore an erroneous form
can be influenced by the fact that the teacher finds a particular error irritating.
Errors are indicated and corrected in a number of ways, ranging from
simply informing the learner that the utterance includes an error to providing an extensive explanation of the rule concerned and involving learners in
language practice. For instance, Lyster and Ranta (1997, 46-48) distinguish
six types of feedback: explicit correction, which “refers to the provision of
the correct form”; recasts involving “the teacher’s reformulation of all or
part of a student’s utterance, minus the error”; clarification requests, namely indicating to the student that the utterance has been misunderstood or is
ill-formed and requires repetition or reformulation; metalinguistic feedback,
which contains grammatical metalanguage or a word definition and points
to the nature of the error, “without explicitly providing the correct form”;
elicitation, when the teacher tries to elicit the correct form from the student
by asking additional questions; and repetition, which “refers to the teacher’s repetition, in isolation, of the student’s erroneous utterance.” The division between these categories of corrective feedback is not always clear; for
example, repetition and metalinguistic comments can both be used to elicit
the correct form from the student. Lyster and Ranta (1997, 48) also mention
multiple feedback, which refers to “combinations of more than one type of
feedback in one teacher turn.” Classifications of corrective procedures suggested by other researchers (e.g. Zybert 1999) also specify who provides
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the correct form and describe whether the problematic rule is explained or
not.
Considering that foreign language teachers have a wide range of corrective procedures to choose from, researchers have been looking to investigate which type of corrective feedback is the most effective. They usually
compare implicit versus explicit feedback, such as recasts and metalinguistic hints, and “input-providing (e.g. recasts) versus output-promoting feedback (e.g. prompts in the form of elicitation, clarification requests and repetition of errors)” (Sheen 2010, 172). Although recasts are often
recommended in publications for teachers as a gentle way of correcting
learner errors during communicative tasks (e.g. Harmer 2007) and, according to Lyster and Ranta (1997), are the most common type of feedback used
in the classroom, research findings show that explicit corrective techniques
are more effective than implicit recasts and that output-promoting feedback
yields better results than input-providing feedback (Sheen 2010). Explicit
correction makes it easier for learners to notice their errors and the techniques which encourage them to try to modify their own utterances help to
fill the gaps in their knowledge of the language system.
The most common source of corrective feedback in the classroom is the
teacher, although it is believed that learners benefit from the correction of
their errors more and are more likely to remember the correct form if they
are actively involved in self-correction or peer correction (Allwright and
Bailey 1996). However, the research by Tomczyk (2013) shows that a vast
majority of secondary school students, that is, 92%, are convinced that corrective feedback should be provided by the teacher, while only 17% prefer
self-correction. The least favourite option is peer correction, as only a few
learners would like classmates to correct their errors. Porter (1986 in Allwright and Bailey 1996) points out that other learners are usually able to
provide the correct form, but they rarely have an opportunity to do so. It
seems that the need to involve students in self-correction in order to make
them more self-reliant is obvious for teachers whereas peer correction is often treated with reserve. One reason might be the fact that good relationships in the group are a prerequisite for successful peer correction, but this
condition is not always fulfilled. Moreover, some teachers do not trust the
learners’ linguistic competence or do not want students to feel upset if their
erroneous utterances are corrected by other learners.
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4.7 Discussion of error correction in the Polish educational context
Error correction has been the subject of intense debate for many years, leading to numerous changes in the recommendations for foreign language
teachers concerning the best ways of dealing with learners’ erroneous utterances. Lewicka-Mroczek (2009), who has analysed the issue from a historical perspective, distinguishes four tendencies based on the most widespread
theories in applied linguistics. The first is connected with the influence of
structural linguistics and behavioural psychology, which made teachers believe that learner errors were a threat and required immediate reaction. This
was a period when accuracy was the priority. The same approach could also
be seen in the other widely-used method which became popular even earlier, that is, Grammar Translation. The change in the attitude to errors in the
1970s was inspired by Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition and the
hypothesis that people have “the innate knowledge of the universal principles common to all human languages” (Lightbown and Spada 2003, 177).
According to Lewicka-Mroczek (2009), this was the time when researchers
and teachers became more tolerant towards errors and started perceiving
them as indicators of learner interlanguage development. The next stage in
the history of foreign language teaching was characterised by a very tolerant attitude to linguistic inaccuracies. This tendency was connected with
Communicative Language Teaching in its strongest form, which treats errors as a natural part of the learning process and values communicative effectiveness much more than accuracy. Consequently, learners’ erroneous
utterances were more likely to be ignored than corrected. The last stage,
which can be observed nowadays, is quite similar to the previous one, but
the tolerance towards errors is lower than it used to be, although the ability
to convey information is still the priority. However, the need to focus on
language forms and to make students aware of which structures are correct
and which are erroneous seems to be widely accepted.
The discussion about the growing problem of the deficient accuracy of
student utterances can be linked to the popularity of CLT in Polish schools.
The main assumption of this approach is that teachers should concentrate
mainly on developing learners’ communicative competence while linguistic
competence, responsible for producing grammatically correct utterances, is
of secondary importance. It is believed that putting too much emphasis on
accuracy makes students feel afraid of committing errors and, as a result,
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discourages them from taking part in communicative activities. The idea
that communicative effectiveness and fluency should take priority over
grammatical accuracy has found its reflection in the national curriculum.
Consequently, many students have stopped worrying about their linguistic
inaccuracies and many teachers feel less obliged to attend to these errors.
Currently the prevalent opinion is that, thanks to CLT, students are much
better at using foreign languages in communication than students who were
taught by other methods twenty or thirty years ago (Turula 2000). Furthermore, Kucharczyk (2013) observes that the main aim of Polish educational
policy, which has been adapted to the requirements of the European Union,
is to help students acquire communicative competence not only in one foreign language but in several. Therefore, learners cannot be expected to develop near-native competence in each, which means that some linguistic
imperfections in their utterances are unavoidable. In fact, many researchers
and specialists are convinced that the Communicative Approach has more
advantages than disadvantages and its use in the classroom does not necessarily lead to neglecting accuracy, provided that communicative tasks are
preceded by drills and that teachers systematically correct all learners’ errors during accuracy tasks and the most serious errors during fluency tasks
(e.g. Turula 2000, Werbińska 2000, Komorowska 2004).
The problem is that the solutions suggested above are not always applied
in the classroom. Komorowska (2004) points out that students do not spend
enough time practising new structures in pre-communicative tasks, so they
cannot use them properly in speech or writing. Pawlak (2006) does not
agree with Komorowska in this respect. He claims that when learning new
grammatical structures in class, students usually do some decontextualised
grammar exercises, such as gap-filling or paraphrasing, but frequently do
not have any opportunity to use these forms in genuine communication.
Apart from insufficient language practice, Komorowska (2004) highlights
yet another problem connected with CLT, namely the teachers’ approach to
learner errors. Teachers may be inconsistent in providing corrective feedback or too tolerant of erroneous forms, which confirms learners in their belief that accuracy is not important.
According to Werbińska (2000), the most serious drawback of using the
Communicative Approach can be the fossilisation of errors. If the teacher
rarely corrects learners’ erroneous forms, they may think that their utterances are correct or their inaccuracies are so insignificant that they are not
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worth worrying about because they do not hinder communication. But, in
fact, errors can distort the message or even make it incomprehensible.
Learners who believe that communicative effectiveness is an indicator of
success in foreign language learning may lose motivation to work on their
interlanguage when they notice that they can easily communicate despite
some gaps in their linguistic knowledge and deficient accuracy. The problem of frozen competence, when learners stop making progress, is especially worrying at the university level. Wysocka (2009) and Kurzyńska (2010)
suggest that a relaxed attitude to errors is more and more observable among
students doing their degrees in foreign language departments, which is unacceptable in future teachers, translators, and interpreters who in the future
will serve as language models for others. Although the influence of the
Communicative Approach on foreign language teaching in Polish schools
seems to be positive, its tolerance towards errors has become a good excuse
for neglecting accuracy for many teachers and learners. Therefore, recommendations and guidelines for teachers concerning corrective feedback require reconsideration in order to avoid developing fluency and the ability to
convey information at the expense of grammatical correctness.
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PART TWO
LITERATURE, HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
5. Former and Contemporary Views on
Succession to the Throne of England
Anna Gębiś
Abstract
The hereditary monarchy used to be the dominant political and organisational structure globally and for many centuries; therefore succession to the throne was often a
critical issue. Any disputes concerning the lawfulness of succession could have resulted in civil or foreign wars and would have become a major factor in a country's
destabilisation. A variety of key moments in the history of England can be observed
when the succession to the throne provoked an essential transformation of the perception in the fields of politics, military, society, and everyday life. The most important include the Anarchy (1135 – 1154), the Hundred Years War (1337 – 1453),
the War of The Roses (1455 - 1485), The Act of Supremacy (1534), the Glorious
Revolution (1688), the Royal Marriages Act (1772), and the Succession to the
Crown Act (2013). The aim of this article is to present the process of evolution from
the Middle-Age belief that the monarch is an omnipotent male ruler chosen by God,
to the modern vision of the non-political head of state limited by legal acts, whose
right to the throne is not determined by gender. The article is based on books, articles, and Internet websites concerning the subject.
Keywords: Catholicism, change of legislation, civil war, English monarchy, male
preference primogeniture, Protestantism, succession to the throne
A hereditary monarchy was for many centuries the dominant political and
organisational structure all over the world, thus the decision of who would
inherit the throne on the death of the ruler was crucial to the state of affairs.
The aim of this article is to analyse the historical development of succession
to the throne of England from the Middle Ages to contemporary times.
Since the disintegration of the Roman Empire Europe had been divided
and scattered into numerous kingdoms, duchies and counties which had not
had a common strategy concerning succession to the throne. Most countries
Anna Gębiś
followed the rule of primogeniture, i.e. the throne was by law attributed to
the eldest child of the monarch and only passed to younger children if their
older brother or sister died suddenly or childless. Some European countries
(mainly the Germanic ones and France) used the so-called Salic law which
excluded women and their descendants from the succession while some
applied a semi-Salic law which did not allow women to rule but their male
offspring could indeed inherit the throne (Drew 1991). There were,
however, places where a woman could rule in her own right (The Duchy of
Aquitaine and The Duchy of Brittany among others); it was also not
uncommon to see female regents ruling on behalf of their husbands while
they were away, or if their son was still a minor. Despite these laws many of
the conflicts in the medieval and Modern European history resulted from a
lack of clearness as to who should inherit the position of the ruler, and the
Kingdom of England was no exception.
Such a situation first appeared in the earliest period of English history
soon after the Norman conquest. William the Conqueror's son, Henry I, who
himself had fought his brothers for the crown earlier in life, suddenly had to
face the crisis of succession in 1120 when 'The White Ship' sank near the
Normandy coast. The vessel was carrying Norman nobility with Henry's
only legitimate son and heir presumptive, William Adelin, among others.
The King's only remaining legitimate child was eighteen-year-old Matilda,
at the time married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. The King soon
remarried hoping that the second marriage would produce a male heir but
when this hope evaporated and Matilda herself became a widow, he chose
her as his heiress and the future Queen of England (Davies 1999).
His plan failed, though. The lack of male-preference primogeniture
resulted in disputes as to who was to inherit the throne. When King Henry
died, his nephew Stephen of Blois proclaimed himself the King of England
as the grandson of William the Conqueror. The question arose not so much
about who had more right to the throne but who would gain the support of
the Anglo-Norman elite and enough of the army to secure their claim to the
throne. It was Stephen who turned out to be quicker. Despite his earlier oath
to recognise Matilda as the ruler, he landed in England soon after the death
of his uncle, gained the support of the Church and the city of London and
was crowned the King of England.
England was not subject to the Salic law; however, the rulers of England
were also the vassals of the King of the Franks as the Dukes of Normandy.
At the time France was not one uniform country with a strong central power
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Former and Contemporary Views on Succession to the Throne of
England
as we perceive it today, but was more like a union of relatively independent
duchies with the King as the sovereign whose actual power was nonetheless
limited to the area of Paris and the lands nearby1. This had led to numerous
conflicts. King Henry did whatever he could to secure the throne for his
daughter by marrying Matilda to Geoffrey, the heir of the powerful Duke of
Anjou, hoping that this strategic union of two powerful vassals would keep
the ruler of France away from the matter of succession.
William the Conqueror
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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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|
Henry I
Adela
|
|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
|
|
|
William Adelin
Matilda x Geoffrey
Plantagenet
Stephen of Blois
|
Henry II
This was, however, the beginning of a civil war later called The Anarchy.
Matilda and Geoffrey gathered military forces in Anjou and invaded
Normandy while simultaneously trying to obtain the support of the Pope.
This campaign ended with a truce and King Stephen attempted to get more
support from the English nobility by granting lands and offices. However,
he had to face the attack of the Scottish King David (Matilda's uncle) who
invaded England from the north, as well as the rebellion in South Wales.
It was noticeable even in the title: the rulers were called 'Kings of Franks', not 'Kings of
France'. The first ruler to adopt the title 'King of France' was Philip II August in 1190.
1
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This provoked a series of disobediences from various noblemen faithful to
the Empress and eventually led to the invasion of England by Matilda and
Geoffrey's army. Several battles took place but neither of the parties
managed to gain significant advantage. After several years of war a peace
treaty was signed in 1153; childless Stephen agreed to pass the crown to
Matilda's eldest son Henry who was later to become Henry II.
The Anarchy was an expression of the early state of Mediaeval England
searching for a way to establish a secure line of succession to its throne.
From one perspective it seems that King Stephen's claim to the throne was
weaker than Matilda's as he was not even the eldest close male relative of
her father (he had two elder brothers, William and Theobald). One factor
that could have contributed to his victory in the battle for the throne of
England was that although well-educated and politically conscious, Matilda
was still a woman. Even though she acted as regent for her first husband
(Chibnall 1991) and was generally praised for her ruling skills, it seemed
unimaginable for many contemporary observers that a woman could rule in
her own right (during the fights for the English throne Matilda styled herself
as a feme sole meaning in Norman French 'woman acting of her own'
(Tolhurst 2013). This appears to be the hidden reason explaining why she
did not proceed to seize power and why the peace treaty established her son,
not directly her, as the future ruler after the death of King Stephen. Apart
from the issue of the monarch’s gender, The Anarchy also showed the
confusion of the contemporary observers as to whether to prefer the closest
relative of the previous ruler or to search for more distant relatives who
seemed more appropriate. The result was inconclusive and England was to
face the same dilemma centuries later.
Another large clash over the succession to the throne soon arose; this
time, however, it was not a civil war but an international conflict. The roots
of the problem were the unexpected deaths of Louis X the Quarreler in 1316
and his posthumous son John I which suddenly left the throne of France
empty. Until that time the ruler had always indicated his successor before
his death to avoid any disputes, but throughout the history of the
Merovingian royal family no situation had occurred in which the monarch
had died without leaving a son. Louis X had two brothers, Philip and
Charles, but he also had a daughter, Joan, whose relatives supported her
right to the throne. Unfortunately for her, her claim had been tainted by her
mother's infidelity which made some nobility doubt the paternity of Louis X
(Rose 1857). France was on the verge of civil war when Philip proclaimed
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England
himself the king, discrediting Joan as a ruler due to her young age (she was
four at the time of her father's death), her mother's adultery and the
regulations of Salic law.2 Eventually Philip remained the King of France but
his rule did not provide a long term peace as both he and his brother
Charles, who succeeded him, died without a male heir.
This led to yet another dispute over the succession with two major
claimants to the throne: Edward III, King of England, who was the nephew
of the last king and his closest male relative through his mother Isabella of
France; and Philip of Valois, his cousin who was descended from King
Philip III in the male line.
Philip III
King of France
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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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Philip IV the Fair
King of France
Charles
of Valois
|
|
|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
|
|
|
Louis X
King of
France
Philip V
King of
France
|
Charles IV Isabella x Edward II
King of
King of
France
England
Philip VI
King of France
France
|
Edward III
King of England
Joan's relatives eventually forced King Philip VI to acknowledge her as the Queen of
Navarre, a small but important kingdom between France and Spain, to the throne of which she
had a hereditary right as the granddaughter of the previous queen.
2
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Again the Salic law was the major problem raising doubts whether
Isabella being a woman had the right to the throne of France at all and
whether she could pass it to her son. Most of the French nobility, fearing
that the power of the king would grow and being supported by the verdict of
La Sorbonne, the University of Paris, decided she could not, so they
acknowledged the Count of Valois as the ruler. He was crowned and became
Philip VI of France.
Edouard III's claim to the throne of France was not so capricious. It
was based on his position as grandson of Philippe IV, and might well
have been judged superior to that of Philippe de Valois, who was
Philippe IV's nephew. But it was extremely inconvenient politically,
and would have required the French barons to accept the final triumph
of the Plantagenets after nearly two centuries of rivalry. (Davies 1999,
349-350)
Edward III did not object to this decision at first and relations between
France and England were relatively peaceful. However, in 1334 Philip
provided refuge for David, the exiled King of Scots, and this provoked a
conflict with the English king who supported David's rival to the Scottish
throne. In return, Edward III accepted the French nobleman Robert of Artois
who had fled from the country when it was discovered that he had
attempted forgery to gain land. The conflict became the so-called Hundred
Years War (1337-1453) when Edward III declared himself the King of
France and invaded French lands. The Hundred Years War showed a certain
pattern of the English army achieving victories in big battles (such as the
Battle of Crécy 1346, the Battle of Poitiers 1356 and the battle of Agincourt
1415) but failing to capitalise on those victories and establish a long term
rule in France (Sumption 2001). The cause of this pattern was that yet
another succession had begun but this time in England.
This time the rule of seniority was de facto questioned. After the death of
Edward III the throne passed to his grandson Richard who was a minor at
the time3 and the country was in fact ruled by a council of noblemen. When
he reached maturity and took power, he became an autocratic ruler who
banished and ordered the executions of several lords. This led to a rebellion
Edward's eldest son, Edward Prince of Wales, called the Black Prince, died from dysentery in
1376.
3
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England
against him when Henry Duke of Lancaster, one of the exiled aristocrats
and the grandson of Edward III, returned to England with an army. Initially
he claimed he only wanted to regain the lands which the King had deprived
him of, but eventually he deposed Richard and became the king himself as
Henry IV (Saul 2005).
Edward III
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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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|
Edward
the Black Prince
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Lionel
of Antwerp
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Richard II
John
of Gaunt
|
|
Philippa
Henry IV
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|
Roger
Henry V
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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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Edmund
|
Anne
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Henry VI
|
Richard
Duke of York
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Taking into consideration the rule of seniority which was (and still is)
widely applied in any royal laws of inheritance, Henry's seizure of power
was illegal, almost a coup d'etat. His father, John of Gaunt, was Edward
III's fourth son and was displaced in the line of succession by any legitimate
child of his elder brothers. During the reign of the childless Richard II, his
heiress presumptive was Philippa, daughter of Lionel, Edward III's third
son4 and after her death, the right to the throne passed to her son Roger and
grandson Edmund. If he proceeded according to law, the most Henry could
do would have been to appoint himself the regent for the minor Edmund,
but instead he became the king himself, justifying his claim by his descent
in the direct male line from Edward III while Edmund was the King's
descendant through his grandmother. This abuse of power had long-term
and bloody consequences. The Lancastrian rule brought neither stability nor
peace to England. Henry IV had to face a rebellion in Wales (Davies 1999),
his son, Henry V, got the country involved in another episode of the
Hundred Years War and died prematurely leaving an infant son who was to
become Henry VI. Henry VI's mental illness, the misgovernance of the
King's uncles acting as regents, and defeats in the war with France where
young Joan of Arc encouraged the supporters of the Valois family to fight,
eventually led the nobility to revolt against the monarch again. Their leader,
Richard Duke of York, descendant of Edward III through two lines,
demanded the throne of England as the rightful heir. This episode carried
with it the genesis of the Wars of the Roses, arguably the bloodiest conflict
in English history.
For the next half a century the throne of England was occupied either by
the House of Lancaster (1422-461 and 1470-1471) or by the House of York
(1461-1470 and 1471-1485). The most important battles of St Albans (1455
and 1461), Mortimer's Cross (1461), Towton (1461) and Tewkesbury (1471)
brought an enormous number of casualties and the whole period was
marked by anxiety and instability, eventually resulting in the ultimate loss
of the French lands. When the wars were ended by the battle of Bosworth
(1485) and the subsequent marriage of the victorious Lancastrian heir Henry
Tudor to the Yorkist Princess Elizabeth, most of the country's inhabitants
felt relief.
However, it did not bring an end to the disputes over the succession ; in
fact they were yet to intensify with religious division becoming another
4
Second son, William of Hatfield, died in infancy.
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England
troublesome factor. The Reformation that was then spreading around the
whole of mainland Europe did not bypass the Kingdom of England when
the problem of succession arose in the third decade of the 16 th century. It
had become clear that King Henry VIII's only legitimate child was his
daughter Mary and the country was to face the issue of a female ruler again
(Fraser 1993). As mentioned before, there were no legal restrictions barring
the passing of the crown to a woman; it seems that the major factor of
anxiety towards it was mentality. Women were considered inferior by
religion and culture: Thomas Aquinas, an influential Church Father, thought
of them as a sort of accident in creation.
'Vis-a-vis [seen as caused by] the natura particularis [i.e., the action of
the male semen], a female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For
the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing
completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this
must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided
by the female parent] is unsuitable (Summa Theologica, 1, qu. 92, art
1, ad 1.).
If it were not for some [divine] power that wanted the feminine sex to
exist, the birth of a woman would be just another accident, such as
that of other monsters (De Veritate 5, 9, d. 9).
Thus it was believed that women could not make decisions
independently nor gather possessions, not to mention managing a country or
leading an army on the battlefield. At the political level there was also a risk
that leaving the throne to a supposedly weak woman would incite the rival
noblemen to stake their claim, triggering yet another war of succession.
However, initially Henry VIII seemed to accept the fact that he would
pass the crown to his daughter and considered Mary to be his heiress. He
took care of her education and engaged her to her cousin, Emperor Charles
V, hoping that such a powerful ally would discourage any potential
claimants to the throne (Fraser 1993). When the Emperor broke the
engagement off suddenly and Henry VIII fell in love with his wife's lady-inwaiting, Lady Anne Boleyn, who refused to be no more than his mistress, it
became clear that the King was considering another solution – getting a
divorce and then remarrying – so as to conceive a son. He had good reason
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Anna Gębiś
to believe he would gain the divorce quickly: throughout history it was not
uncommon for the Pope to grant monarchs separation from their spouses,
though unfortunately for Henry the circumstances were not favourable for
him as his wife, Catherine of Aragon, was the Emperor's aunt and the
Emperor was in conflict with the Pope around that time. When the imperial
army conquered Rome and took the Pope hostage, it became clear he would
not grant the divorce.
Tired of waiting and inspired by the Reformation that was undermining
the right of the papacy to rule worldly matters, Henry VIII declared himself
the head of the Church of England. Conservative by nature, he did not
introduce Protestantism but instead maintained a number of Catholic
customs such as mass and communion. However, as the Head of the Church
he was free to announce his divorce from his estranged wife and marry
Lady Anne Boleyn. The divorce was legitimised by the Act of Supremacy
(1534) establishing the Church of England while the earlier Act of
Succession (1533) made the children of the King and Anne Boleyn the heirs
to the throne and disinherited Princess Mary, declaring her a bastard. The
situation became even more complicated when, rather than providing a male
heir, Queen Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, and suffered at least
one miscarriage. When the King came to the conclusion that she would not
give him a male heir, she was arrested, accused of high treason and
beheaded after a show trial and her daughter disinherited and declared a
bastard. Just a couple of days later the King married Lady Jane Seymour
who indeed managed to provide him with a male heir, Edward, though she
died of postnatal complications.
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England
Henry VII x Elizabeth of York
|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
|
|
|
Margaret x James
King of Scotland
|
|
James I (VI)
Henry
Mary
|
|
|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
|
|
Mary I
Edward VI Elizabeth I
Frances
|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
|
|
|
Jane Katherine Mary
Before his death Henry VIII acknowledged Princess Mary and Princess
Elizabeth as his legitimate daughters and returned both of them to the line
of succession after their brother Edward. When Henry was dying, the
country was already divided between those who wanted to move further
towards Protestantism and those who intended to restore Catholicism. This
process intensified during the short reign of Edward VI and found a violent
outlet after his death due to his testament invalidating his father's last will
and appointing his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as heir in place of his
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Anna Gębiś
Catholic step-sister Mary. As soon as King Edward had passed away, some
Protestant noblemen including John Dudley Duke of Northumberland and
Henry Grey, Jane's father, indeed proclaimed her the Queen of England but
did not manage to stop Mary who had gathered an army and within two
weeks had gained enough of an advantage to secure the throne.
Mary I became the first official queen regnant of England and despite her
father's fears, her reign, though evaluated in both positive and negative
terms (Loades 1989), did not bring disaster to the country. She is now
remembered as 'Bloody Mary' because she reintroduced Catholicism and
persecuted the Protestants, but little is said about the similar oppression
applied by her father and half-sister Elizabeth to those who refused to take
the Oath of Supremacy and acknowledge the Church of England. From
today's perspective we may suspect that Mary became a kind of scapegoat
who was depicted as a tyrant in order to enhance the merits of Elizabeth
'Gloriana' who indeed made the Kingdom flourish. It is interesting to note
the difference in both sisters' attitude to marriage: while Mary began
searching for an appropriate husband immediately after her enthronement
and had to face the Wyatt's rebellion when she decided to marry the foreign
prince Philip Habsburg, Elizabeth was reluctant to take a spouse and wanted
to rule on her own (Haigh 2000). Her most iconic moment as a ruler came
during the Spanish Armada's attempted invasion: riding a horse and wearing
armour she made an ardent speech like a military commander leading the
troops onto the battlefield.
I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have
the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too, and
think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should
dare to invade the borders of my realm (Somerset 2003).
When England's borders were indeed successfully defended, no one
could say anymore that a woman could not rule on her own. It is also worth
mentioning that the scholars in sixteenth century England were for obvious
reasons interested in the history of Empress Matilda and her rights to the
throne. Not only did they widely believe she was a fully legitimate claimant
to the crown but they also wondered why she had passed this claim to her
son instead of becoming Queen herself upon the death of Stephen of Blois
(Chibnall 1991). From today's perspective we can see that many of the
problems which both of Henry VIII’s daughters had to face originated from
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England
his risky decisions which brought long term struggles to the Kingdom of
England. As none of his children had their own children, the crown had to
be passed to the closest relative. Initially Elizabeth, the last of the dynasty,
had intended to pass it on to one of Lady Jane Grey's sisters, Katherine or
Mary, but they both married against her will and thus deprived themselves
of the chance to rule. Elizabeth had no choice but to return the rights to the
throne to the Stuart (Steward) kings of Scotland who were the descendants
of Henry VII through his daughter Margaret but who were disinherited from
their right to the English throne by the testament of Henry VIII.
The Stuart reign was turbulent in both Scotland and England and was
influenced by a growing polarisation on both the political and religious
level. Tension was growing between the Catholics, who had regained their
power after the Council of Trent, and the Puritans, the worshippers of a
radical form of Protestantism. The increasing number of Protestants who did
not want to acknowledge the hierarchical Church of England started to
question the divine right of the monarch to rule and wanted the monarchy’s
powers to be further limited by law.
[The Puritans] despite their extreme intolerance and colourful
language, practised a form of guided democracy among themselves;
and they looked forward to a time when they could introduce a Godruled democracy in the kingdom at large. For them, there was little to
be expected from the existing monarchical and episcopal
establishment. But there was much to be aspired to in Parliament and
especially in a House of Commons where Puritan voices were
increasingly heard (Davies 1999, 487).
These two conflicts eventually resulted in the Civil War, a fierce conflict
which included the beheading of King Charles I and a ten-year-long
Republic. After the death of the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell the
monarchy was restored, but the background to the conflict did not disappear
as revealed by the next crisis of succession.
The root of the conflict was the anxiety felt about the monarch's attitude
towards Parliament and religion. During the reign of James II, the son of the
beheaded Charles I and a converted Catholic, the succession appeared to be
the main political concern. The King's heiresses presumptive were his two
daughters, Mary and Anne, raised in the Protestant religion. However, after
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the death of his first wife James married the Catholic Princess Mary of
Modena and when he revealed his change of faith from the Church of
England to Roman Catholicism, political tension grew again. Catholicism
was widely connected with hierarchy, the establishment, and restrictions to
freedom so a Catholic monarch seemed an embodiment of these fears. As
long as the successors of James II were his Protestant daughters he was
tolerated as a ruler but when a son was born from his Catholic marriage and
it became clear that he would inherit the throne, Protestant noblemen started
a plot. Their coup d’état eventually led to overthrowing James and passing
the crown on to the Dutch Prince William (third in line to the throne) and
his wife Mary, James' elder daughter, who came to England and took power
as joint monarchs in a process which was later called the Glorious
Revolution.5
James I (VI)
|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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Charles I
Elizabeth
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Charles II James II(VII)
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Mary
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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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Anne
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Sophia
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Mary x William
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George I
This term is disputed by some modern historians. As Norman Davies writes, This was a
bloodless conquest, but a conquest all the same; and it was to cause the spilling of much blood.
(Davies 1999, 517).
5
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England
At that point the main problem was not the gender of the monarchs
but their religion and their respect for the laws issued by Parliament. During
the rule of Mary and William, a Bill of Rights was proclaimed in 1689
establishing that the monarch must honour the acts of Parliament. This was
widely considered to be the end of absolute rule in England and was
welcomed by most English people. However, the new monarchs were not
perceived so positively in Scotland, where the Stuarts originated, and many
Scotsmen preferred James' son to inherit the throne. The tension intensified
when Mary and William died childless and none of Queen Anne's children
survived infancy.
From today's perspective we can assume that the obvious candidate
would be James Edward Stuart who was the closest relative of the last
monarch Queen Anne. He was a Catholic, however, and despite suggestions
that turning to Protestantism would enable him to take over the throne after
her death, he strongly refused. The Protestant majority in England then
started to search for a ruler who would share their faith and eventually
chose Sophia the Electress of Hanover who was the granddaughter of James
I through the maternal line.
Again, from today's perspective this lineage may seem rather
complicated as the intended was the most junior of all the royal Stuart lines 6
but it corresponded with the contemporary fear of the Catholics being
‘papal agents'. James Edward Stuart and his son Charles Edward Stuart
attempted to invade the British Isles and started three Jacobite uprisings in
Scotland and Ireland, but none were successful. Scotland was eventually
incorporated into the freshly established United Kingdom and the Catholic
descendants of James II excluded from the line to the throne. In 1701 the
Act of Settlement was issued attributing the rights to the throne to Electress
Sophia and her descendants and excluding any member of the royal family
from the succession to the throne if they converted to Roman Catholicism or
married a Roman Catholic. Sophia herself died a couple of weeks before
Queen Anne so she never attained the throne herself but it passed to her son
George of Hanover who became the monarch of the United Kingdom as
George I, of the first monarch of the Hanoverian dynasty.
Hanoverian rule marks the beginning of the passage of power from the
monarch to the government chosen by the parties of the Tories and Whigs in
Sophia's elder brothers and sister either died young or childless or converted to Catholicism
thus eliminating themselves from the succession to the English throne.
6
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Anna Gębiś
Parliament. The first monarch, George I, was hardly ever present on the
British Isles, as the Act of Settlement had restrictions concerning the
monarch’s ability to leave the country and attributed most of his regular
duties to the Prime Minister. The head of government became the most
important political figure and the decision-making process was gradually
passed to such Prime Ministers as Sir Robert Walpole, William Pitt the
Older and William Pitt the Younger. The Jacobite uprisings, although
popular in culture, did not impair the power of the Hanoverian rulers nor the
Parliament; they did contribute, however, to the enhancement of the image
of Catholics as enemies who were papal spies and wanted to make the
United Kingdom a slave of Rome.
This is probably why the Royal Marriages Act was issued in 1772, which
ordered the obtainment of Royal permission for marriage. This was
introduced by George III when his brother Henry, Duke of Cumberland,
married an English noble woman, as the King believed that the English
Royal Family should search for spouses among the offspring of German
Protestant rulers rather than English nobility.7 Breaching the Royal Marriage
Act's terms resulted in being excluded from the line of succession.
However, it soon became clear that the consequences were rather
different from King George's expectations. Even though he had seven sons
who survived infancy, almost none of them was willing to marry a foreign
princess and preferred to live in informal relationships with their mistresses.
By the terms of his father's Royal Marriages Act, princes of the Blood
Royal could only marry with the King's consent, which really meant
they could only marry respectable German princesses, who were also
Protestant. This was very limiting. George III's seven sons had the
greatest difficulty in keeping within the law, and most of them did not
try: it was simpler, as the Dukes of Clarence and Kent8 discovered, to
take a mistress and stick to her. But it did not help the succession.
(Holme 1976, 12).
George Prince of Wales even secretly married Mrs Maria Fitzherbert but
this was not recognised as a legal union as the bride was Catholic and the
Holme, Thea. 1976. Prinny's Daughter. A Biography of Princess Charlotte of Wales. London:
Hamish Hamilton.
8 The Duke of Clarence later became the King of the United Kingdom as William IV and Edward Duke of Kent became the father of Queen Victoria.
7
110
England
bridegroom did not obtain the King's permission. He eventually wed the
German princess Caroline of Brunswick according to the Royal Marriages
Act and fathered Princess Charlotte of Wales, but her early death in
childbirth prompted George III's sons to quick marriages in the hope of
conceiving an heir to the throne. Eventually the crown passed to Victoria,
the daughter of Edward Duke of Kent, who ruled for most of the nineteenth
century and witnessed the growth of the British Empire. Ironically, even in
the 19th century the Salic law forced her to leave the throne of Hanover to
her uncle Ernest, as so far the male monarchs of the United Kingdom had
also been the rulers of their native Hanover, although Victoria, being a
woman, was excluded from the throne (Davies 1999).
Since then the crown has been passed down relatively easily and without
any tension. In the 20th century the only significant problem with the
succession appeared in 1936 when King Edward VIII decided to marry an
American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. There were no restrictions as far as the
law was concerned because Mrs Simpson was not Catholic but the
objections of a moral nature came to the fore as she was twice divorced and
did not originate from the aristocracy (Ziegler 1991). Edward VIII had
initially offered the solution of a morganatic marriage (he would be
crowned the King but his wife would not be the Queen and their children
could not inherit the throne) but this was rejected by the government due to
the opposition of the Dominions’ leaders. Edward VIII eventually abdicated
in order to be free to marry Mrs Simpson and his younger brother Albert,
Duke of York, became the King as George VI. It can also be observed that
after WWI there was a shift from marrying the offspring of German rulers
towards marriages within the English aristocracy, mainly in view of the fact
that the German princes lost their lands in 1918 when Germany became a
Republic, but also because of the general deterioration of the country's
image (King George V even decided to change the name of the dynasty
from the German Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha to the English Windsor)
(Davies 1999).
The period following WWII, characterised by liberation and
independence movements, marked a huge change of mentality and brought
a significant transformation of the law of inheritance in various European
royal houses. Influenced by the feminists who questioned the right of male
primogeniture, some royal families have decided to change the succession
to absolute primogeniture, i.e. the first child of the current monarch is
acknowledged as the Crown Prince or Crown Princess regardless of their
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Anna Gębiś
gender. The first European country to introduce this change in law was
Sweden where in 1980 the right to the throne was moved from Prince Carl
Philip, second child of King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia, to Victoria,
their first-born child. The same soon happened in other European countries
when The Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Denmark and Luxembourg
followed the example of Sweden (Wikipedia). In 2011 British Prime
Minister David Cameron announced the proposal to change the law of
succession including absolute primogeniture as the default pattern of
passing the crown and withdrawing the law forbidding marriages with
Catholics (Watt 2001). The monarch of the United Kingdom is still to
remain the Head of the English Church but is not forbidden to have a
Catholic spouse (Britannica). The proposition was subsequently passed into
law in all the countries of the British Commonwealth and became valid in
2013 as the Succession to the Crown Act.
Downing Street has noted what would have happened if the rules had
been different at key moments:
- Margaret Tudor would have succeeded Henry VII in 1509, denying
the throne to her younger brother, who became Henry VIII. That raises
the prospect that Henry VIII would not have been responsible for the
greatest example of Euroscepticism: the break with Rome in 1533.
- Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen of Bohemia, would have
succeeded her father James I in 1625 instead of Charles I. The civil
war, in which Charles was executed, might have been avoided.
- Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria, would have succeeded
in January 1901, rather than Edward VII. The new queen would have
died less than seven months later, handing the throne to Kaiser
Wilhelm II. Britain would have been ruled by the German emperor
during the first world war (Watt 2011).
The recent changes have been generally accepted and perceived as good
for the monarchy. They prove that even though it is an ancient, traditional
structure, the monarchy is nevertheless capable of adjusting to modern
situations and responding to the contemporary beliefs of the people.
112
England
Works Cited
Chibnall, Marjorie. 1991. The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen
Mother and Lady of the English. London, UK: Basil Blackwell
Davies, Norman. 1999. The Isles: A History. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Drew, Katherine Fischer. 1991. The Laws of the Salian Franks (Pactus legis
Salicae). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "United Kingdom in 2013", accessed
September 09, 2014,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1949560/United-Kingdomin-2013.
Fraser, Antonia. 1993. The Six Wives of Henry VIII . London: Mandarin.
Haigh, Christopher. 2000. Elizabeth I (2nd ed.). Harlow: Longman Pearson.
Holme, Thea. 1976. Prinny's Daughter. A Biography of Princess Charlotte
of Wales. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Loades, David M. 1989. Mary Tudor: A Life. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Rose, Hugh James. 1857. A New General Biographical Dictionary, Volume
11. London: Fellows.
Saul, Nigel. 2005. The Three Richards: Richard I, Richard II and Richard
III. London: Hambledon
Somerset, Anne. 2003. Elizabeth I. London: Anchor Books
Sumption, Jonathan. 2001. Trial by Fire (The Hundred Years War II). London: Faber and Faber.
Tolhurst, Fiona. 2013. Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Wikipedia. “Primogeniture,” accessed September 29, 2014,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture#Absolute_primogeniture
Ziegler, Philip. 1991. King Edward VIII: The Official Biography. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf
113
6. Virginia Woolf as a Precursor to Crossing
Gender Borders:
The Concept of Androgyny as the Third
Gender in Orlando
Marek Kucharski
Abstract
The aim of the article is to point out that the present-day discussion concerning the
problem of gender identity is not a new phenomenon. Its beginnings can be traced
as far back as antiquity. Throughout history it assumed various forms in numerous
myths of different ethnic origin. As for modernist writers and thinkers, the idea of
the crossing of gender borders was intriguingly explored by Virginia Woolf in her
controversial novel Orlando. The book can be perceived as a farewell eulogy written to please Vita Sackville-West, whose long-lasting relationship with Woolf contributed considerably to her development as a writer.
Orlando is an experimental novel which spans a period of nearly four hundred
years. During this time the eponymous hero undergoes a sexual transition from male
to female, at the same time witnessing historical events and social transformations.
In the course of the narrative Woolf ponders the issue of sexual identity as seen
from a feminist perspective in the first part of the 20th century. Her ideas and concerns appear to be of a more universal character, which is exemplified by selected
novels by the modern feminist writers Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson, both
of whom enter into an intertextual dialogue with Woolf.
Keywords: androgyny, gender, sexual identity transformation, transgression
And I went on amateurishly to sketch the plan of the
soul so that in each of us two powers preside, one
male, one female; and in the man's brain the man predominates over the woman and in the woman's brain
Marek Kucharski
the woman predominates over the man. The normal
and comfortable state of being is that when the two
live in harmony together, spiritually cooperating. If
one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must
have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse
with the man in her. (Woolf 1995, 96-97)
In her famous feminist polemic A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf,
quoting Samuel Taylor Coleridge, makes the pronouncement that 'a great
mind is androgynous' (Woolf 1995, 97). Mary Beton, who is the narrator in
Woolf’s essay, arrives at such a conclusion inspired by the sight of a young
girl and a young boy getting into a taxi beneath the window of her house. In
the paragraphs that follow Woolf ponders the intricate question of the unity
of mind (Woolf 1995, 95). She claims that in each of us there are two powers which complement each other: one male and one female. It is only when
the two cooperate that a human being, regardless of the sex, can attain satisfaction and happiness (Woolf 1995, 96-97). Moreover, the process of intellectual creativity is possible only when the masculine and the feminine remain in accord and permeate each other. To substantiate her claim Woolf
draws on the cases of William Shakespeare, John Keats, Lawrence Sterne,
William Cowper, Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and most of all
Marcel Proust who “was wholly androgynous, if not perhaps a little too
much of a woman” (Woolf 1995, 102). The convergence of the masculine
and the feminine results in the introduction of a third gender, the androgynous element which, as Woolf implies, may bridge the gap between the
genders.
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the current discussion concerning gender identity is not new, but deeply rooted in the European tradition as well as exemplified in various myths of different cultures. Of the
modernist writers and thinkers it is Virginia Woolf who is one of the major
exponents of the idea of the androgynous mind, the concept which laid the
foundations for the present-day debate led by the representatives of the
1
LGBTQ movement. Nowhere in the whole of Woolf’s literary output was
the issue of crossing gender borders better incarnated than in her controver-
1 The
116
abbreviation LGBTQ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer.
Virginia Woolf as a Precursor to Crossing Gender Borders
2
sial book Orlando. Modern tendencies in both the highbrow and the popular cultural realm have proved that the idea postulated by Virginia Woolf
was not of ephemeral character.
The concept of androgyny, which represents the unity and wholeness of
both sexes, reaches as far back as antiquity, and is represented in numerous
philosophical and religious systems. Mircea Eliade derives the idea from
the mythical model of coincidentia oppositorum in which the divine qualities are very often represented by two contradictory elements which occur
at the same time (Eliade 1993, 402). He claims that the paradoxical character of the divine beings is best represented in the myths of various cultures
in which both gods and humans very often assume androgynous characteristics.
According to numerous traditions, the original human being was androgynous. It is asserted in a few ancient Hebrew myths that Adam, the first
man, was hermaphroditic, and the birth of Eve was the result of God splitting Adam into two parts (Eliade 1993, 406). The androgynous character of
our first ancestors does not confine itself to the beliefs of the Semitic peoples. Eliade cites the examples of some Australian tribes and societies in
which the idea appears in a similar form (Eliade 1993, 406).
In European culture the concept of androgyny is most often associated
with Plato's dialogue, Symposium. During a series of discourses, made in
eulogy of Eros at a banquet held in honour of the tragic poet Agathon, one
of the eminent speakers, Aristophanes, recounts the story of the third sex
which combined the elements of the male and the female (Plato 1992, 5960). The motif of androgyny can also be found in the myth of Teiresias, a
legendary Theban seer, who as a result of separating two coupling snakes
was turned into a woman and then, on repeating the same misdeed, became
a man again. The issue in question also recurs in Ovid's Metamorphosis, a
collection of stories depicting a series of transformations, accounted in approximately chronological order from the creation of the world to the poet's
2
Although the book was perceived by most contemporary critics as a joke, it was also regarded as Woolf’s manifesto of the idea of transgressing the genre/gender boundaries of prose,
drama, poetry, fiction and biography (Hussey 1995, 206). It is worth mentioning that in the
film version of the book from 1992, directed by Sally Potter, the part of the eponymous Orlando was taken by the actress Tilda Swinton and the part of Elizabeth I by the controversial actor
Quentin Crisp.
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Marek Kucharski
contemporary days. In book number IV the artist introduces the story of
Hermaphroditos , the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, who became physically
bound into one being with the nymph, Salmacis (Ovidius 1995, 98-99).
Virginia Woolf’s interest in the intricacy of human androgyny can be
traced back as far as her youth. Born into the family of the renowned Victorian biographer, Sir Leslie Stephen, young Virginia, like her elderly sister
Vanessa, was denied a university education but was instead home-schooled
by their mother, Julia Princep Stephen, and subsequently, in Woolf’s case,
by private tutors. Apart from receiving a thorough home education, she also
developed her interests by attending Greek and history classes at King's
College in London and by taking Latin and Greek lessons under the guidance first of Clara Pater, whose brother, Walter was one of the most influential Victorian critics and an associate of the Pre-Raphaelites (Hussey
1995, 212), and later Janet Case, her tutor and life-long friend. In addition
to studying the plays of Sophocles, Eurypides, Aristophanes, and Aeschylus, the young writer also read the dialogues of Plato, through which she
must have become familiar with the idea of androgyny.
Woolf’s predilection for sexual oddity has its grounds in her childhood
experiences. Unlike her sister, Vanessa, who became notorious for her affairs, Virginia never derived considerable satisfaction from her relationships with men. On the contrary, her early years were affected by male
dominance and superiority. Her father, whose relationship with Woolf was
marked by the girl's ambivalent feelings of admiration and contempt (Hussey 1995, 271), revealed very strong incestuous inclinations. Following his
wife's death in 1895, Leslie Stephen became dependent upon his stepdaughter, Stella Duckworth, towards whom he started to make incestuous
demands. On her death he turned his attentions to Vanessa (Hussey 1995,
271). Moreover, Woolf suffered sexual abuse inflicted on her by her elder
half-brother, George Herbert Duckworth, the episode being portrayed in the
closing paragraphs of 22 Hyde Park Gate, a paper which Woolf read to the
Memoir Club around 1920-21 (Hussey 1995, 75), and which was subsequently published in Moments of Being, a collection of four autobiographical writings.
Homosexuality was also one of the manifestations of permissiveness and
moral liberalism among the members of the Bloomsbury Group, a loose
confluence of intellectuals whose philosophical framework was based on
the concepts which stemmed from Principia Ethica by George Edward
118
Moore. Moore, an influential Cambridge professor and philosopher,
claimed that “love, knowledge and aesthetic experience” were “the constituents of the prime object of life” (Barrett 1980, 233). His argument that
loving friendship was a 'supreme good' became an important element in the
Bloomsbury beliefs. Homosexual and bisexual relationships were commonplace among the members of the group. Duncan Grant, despite a passionate
and complex relationship with Woolf’s sister Vanessa, was also involved in
a simultaneous homosexual affair with David Garnett, a botanist and successful writer, who subsequently married Vanessa's daughter, Angelica. In
1911 Virginia Woolf and her brother Adrian moved to 38 Brunswick
Square, which they shared with John Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant and,
on his return from Ceylon, Leonard Woolf. It was around that time that
Adrian and Grant developed a strong emotional relationship of apparently
homosexual character (Spalding 1996, 88). The other committed homosexuals in the group were E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, known to be living in a triangular relationship with Ralph Partridge and his wife, Dora Carrington.
Virginia Woolf’s bisexual inclinations were embodied in her intimate relationship with Victoria Mary Sackville-West, popularly known as Vita.
Although incidental and transitory, the affair turned out to be of crucial importance in molding the artist’s development. Some critics claim that Sackville-West filled the void left for Woolf by the death in January 1923 of
Kathrine Mansfield' (Hussey 1995, 247). Vita was an aristocrat famous
both for her literary talents and her notorious amorous affairs with women.
Woolf was greatly impressed not only by her intellectual qualities but her
physical charm as well. Although they first met in 1922, their intimacy
reached its climactic period between 1925 and 1928. Gradually, this passionate relationship changed into a friendship which lasted until 1935. The
years of Woolf and Sackwille-West's intimate relationship were the most
productive period in both writers' careers. It was then that Woolf wrote Mr
Bennet and Mrs Brown, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A
Room of One's Own, The Waves, Flush, and A Letter to a Young Poet. She
published The Common Reader and The Common Reader: Second Series
and began working on The Years.
Woolf’s sixth novel, Orlando, was written “as both a farewell and also a
way of enchanting Sackville-West” (Hussey 1995, 247). The idea for the
book was conceived in the writer's mind in March 1927. At first Woolf in-
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Marek Kucharski
tended to write a fantasy to be called The Jessamy Brides. As the years
went on the original conception gradually took the shape of a few biographies Woolf wanted to dedicate to some of her friends. Finally, the book
turned out to be the Sapphic manifesto of Woolf’s ardent relationship with
Vita Sackville-West, which started to wane around 1927, one year before
the biography was published.
The idea of third-ness in Orlando is exemplified by the transsexual idiosyncrasy of the main characters, whose gender identity is not clearly specified in the book. Apart from the eponymous hero, Woolf introduces a series
of portrayals which incorporate a mixture of male and female qualities.
Their innate gender characteristics are not transparent and their sexual orientation remains transitory, assuming different shapes and forms. It is worth
stressing that they were modelled on real people who belonged to Woolf’s
social milieu. For the first edition of Orlando the author, in consultation
with Vita, chose a number of photographs to illustrate her book. They depicted Vita herself, dressed to suggest Orlando, Angelica Bell in a costume,
representing Sasha, and the young Edward Sackville, who posed respectively for the portraits of 'the Archduchess Harriet’, 'Marmaduke Bonthrop
Shelmerdine' and 'Orlando as a boy'.
The motif of androgyny, which is of central importance in Orlando, is
naturally associated with the affair between Woolf and Sackville-West. The
latter, known as an aristocratic poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer and
gardener, was introduced to Woolf during a dinner party given by Clive
Bell on December 14, 1922. A few days later Woolf was invited by Vita to
dine at her house with Clive and Desmond MacCarthy. Their mutual infatuation was the result of both a physical attraction, as well as a recognition of
the intellectual qualities both women admired in each other. It was then that
Woolf asked Sackville-West to give her a copy of Knole and the Sackvilles
(1922), the book from which the former derived inspiration for creating the
eponymous hero's residence in Orlando.
Before meeting Woolf, Vita Sackville-West had become notorious for
her affair with Violet Trefusis, who subsequently became the model for
Sasha, the unfaithful Russian Princess, who the main character falls for in
the first chapter of Orlando. Mark Hassey claims that Sackville-West's homosexuality stemmed from a fear of possible venereal infection from her
bisexual husband, Harold Nicolson (Hussey 1995, 246). The other reason
for her transsexual interests was the abuse she experienced in her child-
120
hood. The affair with Trefusis took place between 1918 and 1920, just before Vita's first encounter with Woolf. The latter was attracted to “Sackville-West's aristocratic ease as well as her looks” (Hussey 1995, 246). The
affair between the two writers reached the peak of its intensity between
1925 and 1928, but in 1927 Sackville-West became involved in a relationship with Mary Campbell, the wife of the South African poet Roy Campbell. In the meantime, knowing that Vita would soon be leaving with her
husband for Persia, Virginia seduced her in her house at Long Barn in December 1925. In attempting to woo the lover who was gradually slipping
away from her, Woolf embarked on writing a fantastic biography in which
Sackville-West, as a result of a sexual transformation, came to own Knole,
the ancestral home of the Sackvilles, which she could not otherwise inherit
due to the law of entail.
An image of the family residence appears in the first chapter of Orlando
and the complications connected with its inheritance frequently recur in
throughout the book. In 1928, the year Orlando was published, Vita Sackville-West's father died and Knole passed to his brother, and then subsequently to Edward Sackville-West, Vita's cousin. Eventually, the house,
whose history dates back to the times of Elizabeth I, was taken over by the
National Trust. Woolf had visited Knole with Vita in 1924. The house she
saw gave rise to the image of the residence which appeared in the final pages of Orlando. The main character’s gloominess on visiting the house,
which has since become a museum open to the public, indicates Woolf’s
empathy with her lover:
Now, calling her troop of dogs to her, she passed down the gallery
whose floor was laid with whole oak trees swam across. Rows of
chairs with all their velvets faded stood ranged against the wall holding their arms out for Elizabeth, for James, for Shakespeare it might
be, for Cecil, who never came. The sight made her gloomy (Woolf
1998, 224).
It is also suggested that when visiting the Venetian Ambassador's Bedroom at Knole, Woolf admired the tapestries depicting the scenes from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. This fact might have inspired the writer when she
was looking for a name for the hero of her book (Hussey 1995, 202).
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Marek Kucharski
Orlando is a fantasy biography which transcends the conventions of the
genre. The content of the book spans a period of nearly 400 years, beginning towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I and ending in the year
1928. The author concentrates on the sexual transformation of the main
character, whose story is told against a background of historic events. The
characters in Orlando are the personifications of the people whom Woolf
knew and was befriended by.
The book is dedicated to Vita Sackville-West, the model on whom the
main character is based. Orlando, regardless of the gender he/she represents
in the biography, is always associated with physical beauty. When introducing him at the beginning of the book, Woolf explicitly specifies his gender;
however, she gives some hints concerning Orlando's androgyny:
He - for there could be no doubt about his sex, though the fashion of
the time did something to disguise it (Woolf, 1998, 9).
When carrying out an idealised description of Orlando's appearance, the
author makes an allusion to the shape of his legs:
Thus, those who like symbols, and have a turn for deciphering of
them, might observe that though the shapely legs, the handsome body,
and the well-set shoulders were all of them decorated with various
tints of heraldic light, Orlando's face, as he threw the window open,
was lit solely by the sun itself (Woolf 1998, 10).
Two years after meeting Vita, in December 1924, Woolf wrote a letter to
the French painter Jacques Raverat, in which she praised Vita's legs, a feature which, as the above quotation indicates, is Orlando's most conspicuous
attraction (Hussey 1995, 246). As far as Vita's erudition and her literary
achievements are concerned, Woolf uses the symbolic image of The Oak
Tree, a poem written by Orlando and intended to be buried in the ground
under the tree. In doing so, Woolf draws on Vita's long poem The Land, for
which she won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927, satirised in Orlando as the
'Burdett Courts' Memorial Prize.
Another androgynous character whose traits are based on those of a real
person is Sasha. The affair between Sasha, a Russian Princess, and Orlando
122
is reminiscent of the relationship between Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West. Orlando meets Sasha during the Great Frost, which takes place
at the beginning of the reign of James I. Sasha was brought to England on
board a Russian ship from Moscow, which got stuck in the ice of the frozen
Thames. Orlando falls in love with Sasha, his feelings seemingly being reciprocated, at least at the beginning of the affair. However, when the thaw
comes the Russian ship sails away, and this leads to Orlando's withdrawal
from public life. Meeting Sasha for the first time, Orlando, though impressed by her beauty, is uncertain of her sex:
[H]e beheld, coming from the pavilion of the Muscovite Embassy, a
figure, which, whether boy's or woman's, for the loose tunic and trousers of the Russian fashion served to disguise the sex, filled him with
the highest curiosity. The person, whatever the name or sex, was about
middle height, very slenderly fashioned and dressed entirely in oystercoloured velvet, trimmed with some unfamiliar greenish coloured fur.
But these details were obscured by the extraordinary seductiveness
which issued from the whole person. (Woolf 1998, 25-26)
Although the full name of the Russian, Princess Marousha Stanilovska
Dagmar Natasha Iliana Romanovitch, leaves no doubt about the female
gender of the character, the abbreviated form Sasha evokes androgynous
associations as this form of the name is masculine in Russian.
The motif of androgyny is also embodied in the character of Harriet, the
Archduchess who, as the narrative develops, undergoes a process of sexual
transition into the character of Archduke Harry. The character is the literary
representation of Henry, Lord Lascelles, an early suitor to Vita SackvilleWest. As a result of an unexpected encounter with the Archduchess, Orlando yields to lust for her, the feeling forgotten after Sasha's infidelity. This
time, however, Orlando's desire has an ambivalent character and is a portent
of the androgynous metamorphosis he is about to undergo:
For love, to which he may now return, has two faces; one white, the
other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy. It has two hands,
two feet, two tails, two, indeed, of every member and each one is the
opposite of the other. Yet, so strictly are they joined together that you
cannot separate them (Woolf 1998, 82).
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Marek Kucharski
The Archduchess reveals many traits typical of the opposite sex so it
does not come as a surprise when she reappears as a man in chapter IV. Orlando, who in the meantime has turned into a woman, becomes tired of her
suitor and gets rid of him by cheating at the game, 'Fly Loo' and finally by
putting a frog down his shirt. Like his real-life model, the Archduke Harry
marries a noble lady. In fact, having been rejected by Vita Sackville-West,
Henry, Lord Lascelles married Mary, the only daughter of King George V.
Harold Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's husband, was incarnated in the
book as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine. Like his literary counterpart,
Nicolson had to travel and was frequently away from home. There are certain episodes from his life which were used by Woolf in creating the character of Shelmerdine. Woolf explicitly makes use of two events which did
take place: Nicolson's sailing round Cape Horn, and his flight from Paris,
landing in the park of Knole, the latter event having occurred in 1920:
She looked anxiously into the sky. It was dark with clouds now. The
wind roared in her ears. But in the roar of the wind she heard the roar
of an aeroplane coming nearer and nearer (...) The aeroplane rushed
out of the clouds and stood over her head. It hovered above her (...)
And as Shelmerdine, now grown a fine sea captain, hale, freshcoloured, and alert, leapt to the ground (Woolf 1998, 232).
Nicolson was a diplomat and a writer. He married Vita in 1913. Before
meeting her in 1910, he had already embarked on a career in the Foreign
Service, and was sent to the British legation in Teheran in 1925. Although
both Vita and her husband had been involved in many homosexual affairs,
they never lost interest in each other. In Orlando their characters overlap,
best expressed in the protagonist's sexual transformation, which takes place
during a political mission to Constantinople. When Orlando is sent by King
Charles II to be ambassador he is still a male. However, when returning to
England after the Turks’ revolt against their Sultan the eponymous hero is a
woman. It is worth mentioning that Harold Nicolson worked in Constantinople as a diplomat and witnessed the Turkish uprising in 1913 (Jarniewicz
1996, 327). The close resemblance of the real and fictional events is not the
only androgynous hint at the complexity of Vita and Harold's relationship.
Woolf alludes to the issue in the following part of the book by making Orlando call Shelmerdine 'Mar', which as Hussey points out was Nicolson's
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nickname for Vita (Hussey 1995, 255). The motif of androgyny in the book
reflects the ambiguity of Vita and her husband's marital relationship.
The theme of Sapphic love and the androgynous transformation of the
main character is the central preoccupation of the writer in Orlando. However, the book is not a theoretical study of the subject of transsexuality.
Many critics, including Vita Sackville-West' s son, Nigel Nicolson, regard
the book as “the longest and most charming love letter in literature” (Nicolson 1992, 186). By exploring the issue of androgyny in the book Woolf not
only tried to entertain Vita Sackville-West, to whom the book is directly
addressed, but implicitly bade farewell to the lover and friend she had been
greatly influenced by in various aspects of her personal and artistic life.
There were many traits that the two shared. Both were sensitive and creative artists whose talents and standpoints were shaped by circumstances of
the turn of the century and the artistic affiliations they were involved in.
Both suffered sexual abuse in childhood and both tried to transgress the social limitations of the times they lived in.
The literary evolution of Virginia Woolf’s interest in androgyny was
simultaneous with the development of her relationship with Vita SackvilleWest. As regards Woolf’s literary output, and the books written around the
period in question in particular, the issue of androgyny recurs not only in
Orlando. Many of the characters in her books evoke hermaphroditic connotations. Apart from A Room of One's Own, in which Woolf makes an attempt to define androgyny, the writer is concerned with the problem in the
works of her fiction. The Ramsay daughters in To the Lighthouse and Bernard in The Waves combine feminine and masculine qualities (Woolf
1994a; 1994b). A significant example of Woolf’s endeavour to create a
sexually complementary character can also be found in Mrs Dalloway
where the two protagonists, Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith, although they never meet, seem to represent two halves of one androgynous
being.
The concept of the third gender in Orlando, the androgynous being that
combines certain characteristics of both sexes, can be interpreted on various
levels. In the 1920s the issue of gender identity was not approached in the
same way as it is today. In England's waning Victorian era the women of
the upper class were still expected to be obedient wives and self-effacing,
devoted mothers, whose role in society was clearly defined by a patriarchal
culture. Although Woolf, an ardent exponent of early Feminism, renounced
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Marek Kucharski
and denounced such values, she could not disregard them explicitly. Obviously, due to the constraints of censorship and social hypocrisy, the controversial issue of lesbian love could not be accepted as the main theme of a
literary work. Woolf was fully aware of what had happened to Radclyffe
Hall and her book The Well of Loneliness (1928) in which the author dealt
with the issue openly. In the novel Hall describes the story of Stephen Gordon, a female ambulance driver in World War I, who has a simultaneous intense affair with the woman who subsequently marries her male suitor. The
plot was based on the relationship between the writer and Una Troubridge.
Despite receiving enthusiastic critical reviews, the book was condemned
and officially banned for being obscene. It was only after a legal challenge
that the novel was published in France and subsequently imported into England.
Having been personally involved in the defence of the book and having
witnessed the stir it had caused, Woolf decided to apply a different ploy
when writing Orlando. Her stratagem resulted in incorporating the third
gender, which functions as a metonymic device, used to convey the controversial idea. When read today, the book appears to be a coded text in which
the writer tries to outwit the censors. She even manages to ridicule them in
the persons of the Ladies of Purity, Chastity, and Modesty, a triad that can
be looked upon as a symbol of late-Victorian censorship.
Orlando turned out to be both a commercial and an artistic success. It
was first hailed by its contemporary audience as a gossiping portrait of Vita
Sackville-West, a fantastic biography that was meant to be a joke. However, Kelly Tetterton points out that Orlando also aroused serious literary criticism. Reviewers concentrated on such issues as the modernistic techniques
used in the genre of biography, Woolf’s concern with the psychological
complexity of human personality, and the concept of time in the book.
Nowadays the book is perceived differently. It is most often regarded as
a feminist work that explores the boundaries of gender and sexuality, issues
that have become part of our consciousness. Nevertheless, there are other
plausible interpretations: Peter Stansky notices the link between Orlando's
androgyny and the masquerading character of the Dreadnought hoax of
1910, in which Virginia Woolf appeared dressed as an Abyssinian official,
wearing an androgynous robe and a beard (Stansky 1997, 45-46).
As for feminist criticism, it is Hermione Lee that makes an interesting
point. She claims that Woolf employed Orlando's androgyny as a pretext
126
for criticising the patriarchal oppression of women in the Victorian era. Despite living through many centuries and undergoing a sexual transition, the
only epoch Orlando, a woman of bisexual descent, cannot adjust herself to
is the nineteenth century, which imposes, on both the male and the female,
very rigid gender roles (Lee 1977, l43).
Interestingly, the idea of obliterating sexual differences by decomposing
the gender identity of characters in literature still inspires writers, especially
those of feminist provenance. This tendency may be exemplified by two
books by Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson. The former, The Passion
of New Eve (1977), introduces a misogynist who was turned into a woman.
The latter, Written on the Body (1992), describes a passionate love story
which, as the narrative develops, becomes a meditation on the body and the
interrelatedness of its physicality and spirituality.
Of the two it is Winterson who directly draws on Virginia Woolf’s literary heritage. Like Woolf, she introduces the element of androgynous thirdness in an attempt to question the hitherto extant gender differences. The
biological sex of the main protagonist in her book is not defined. Binary
opposition and the dichotomous division into male and female are dismissed. The main character assumes an amorphous shape in terms of
his/her gender identity. In doing so, the author touches upon the issue of
differentiation between the male and the female perceptions of reality. By
abandoning any sexual distinction, the writer, unlike Woolf, does not conceal the gender of the beloved one but tries to emphasise the universal character of sublime human experience. Both artists cross gender boundaries by
introducing androgynous protagonists. Adopting such a standpoint is feasible thanks to the peculiarity of the English language in which verb forms do
not assume gender markers. Consequently, the author is free to juggle and
manipulate the characters’ sexual identity. By applying such an idiosyncratic approach the writer gives an open invitation to the reader to arrive at their
own conclusions and decide on their own interpretations.
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Works Cited
Barrett, Cyril. 1980. “Revolution in the Visual Arts.” In The Context of
English Literature 1900-1930, edited by Michael Bell, 218-240. London: Methuen & Co Ltd.
Eliade, Mircea. 1993. Traktat o historii religii. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Opus.
Grove-White, Elizabeth. 1982. Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse. Beirut:
Longman York Press.
Hussey, Mark. 1995. Virginia Woolf A to Z. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Jarniewicz, Jerzy. 1996. “Orlando, Orlanda i to trzecie.” Literatura na
świecie 4: 323-333.
Jarniewicz, Jerzy. 2000. Lista obecności., Poznań: Rebis.
Lee, Hermione. 1977. The Novels of Virginia Woolf. London: Methuen &
Co. Ltd.
Lee, Hermione. 1996. Virginia Woolf. London: Vintage.
Nicolson, Nigel. 1992. Portrait of a Marriage. London: Phoenix.
Owidiusz. 1995. Metamorfozy. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich-Wydawnictwo.
Platon. 1992. Uczta. Warszawa: Recto.
Spalding, Frances. 1996. Vanessa Bell. London: Phoenix Giants.
Tetterton, Kelly. 1995. Virginia Woolf's Orlando: The Book as Critic,
A paper presented to The Fifth Annual Virginia Woolf Conference at
Otterbein College, June 18, 1995
< http://www.tetterton.net/orlando/orlando95_talk.html>.
Winterson, Jeanette. 1998. Zapisane na ciele. Poznań: Rebis.
Winterson, Jeanette. 2001. O sztuce. Poznań: Rebis.
Woolf, Virginia. 1994a. To the Lighthouse. Ware: Wordsworth Editions
Limited.
Woolf, Virginia. 1994b. The Waves. London: Flamingo.
Woolf, Virginia. 1995. A Room of One's Own. London: Penguin Books.
Woolf, Virginia. 1996. Mrs Dalloway. London: Penguin Books.
Woolf, Virginia. 1998. Orlando. London: Penguin Books.
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7. Present Realities, Future Responsibilities:
A Discussion of Nadine Gordimer’s
A World of Strangers and
The Pickup
Marek Pawlicki
Abstract
During her seventy-five-year writing career Nadine Gordimer wrote fifteen novels
and ten collections of short stories, acquiring the reputation of South Africa’s most
prominent realist writer. Gordimer’s works have often been described as the testimony of her nation’s struggle for independence. While this is certainly true, it
should be kept in mind that Gordimer published five of her novels after the 1994
democratic elections. In view of this it may perhaps be more fitting to describe her
works, after J.M. Coetzee, as a depiction of the people’s reaction against social injustice, either state-instituted or implicit in social convention. This reaction is always
that of an individual, as many novels by Gordimer offer detailed psychological portraits of protagonists aware of social injustice and searching for an appropriate way
to respond to it. The main aim of this article is to analyse two such characters – the
protagonists of Gordimer’s A World of Strangers (1958) and The Pickup (2001). It
will be shown that in these two novels, published in totally different historical conditions, the protagonists’ quest for justice is what shapes their characters and leads
them to important personal and political choices.
Keywords: apartheid, Gordimer, Nadine, novels
Introduction
“[In my fiction] my commitment has been and is to make sense of life as I
know it and observe it and experience it,” wrote Nadine Gordimer in 1988,
three years before the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize in
Literature (Gordimer 1999, 14). Now, with Gordimer’s passing at the age of
90, her lifelong commitment has yielded a considerable body of work: most
Marek Pawlicki
importantly, fifteen novels, twenty-one short story collections and five volumes of essays. Critical works on Gordimer’s oeuvre are numerous and it is
highly probable that after Gordimer’s death in July 2014 critics will continue to examine the works of a writer who “through her magnificent epic
writing – in the words of Alfred Nobel – has been of very great benefit to
1
humanity.” It is an obvious fact, but one which nevertheless needs to be reiterated that the ever-changing historical circumstances necessitate new insights into important literary works. This observation is especially relevant
in the context of those authors whose works have been examined in close
relation to the historical events contemporaneous with their creation. There
is little doubt that Gordimer is one of those authors: her novels and short
stories have been read as a record of the turbulent times of apartheid. This
historical interpretation is reinforced by the writer herself who in her essays
and speeches clearly delineates the responsibilities of every writer. In an
oft-quoted introduction to one of her short story collections she observes
that the proper subject of every writer is “the consciousness of his own era”
(Gordimer 1989, 116). “How he deals with this,” adds Gordimer, “is, to me,
the fundament of commitment” (116). In Gordimer’s understanding, which
2
is profoundly influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion of literature, the writer is a witness to his socio-political reality, and it is his task to examine it in
his writing.
While most of Gordimer’s writing life was spent in the period of apartheid – ten out of her fifteen novels were written before the democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 – it should be borne in mind that her activity
as a writer also focuses on contemporary times, including the post 9/11 era.
In view of this fact, it would be an oversimplification to consider her literary output only as witness to the turbulent era of racial segregation. A much
more productive interpretation is offered by Gordimer’s compatriot, J.M.
Coetzee, who in an article published in The New York Review of Books offers the following general observation about the writer’s oeuvre: “If there
1
The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1991/. Accessed 9.05.2014.
2 As Sartre writes in his influential study What is Literature, “the function of the writer is to act
in such a way that nobody can be ignorant of the world and that nobody may say that he is innocent of what it’s all about” (Sartre 1978, 14). Gordimer states her allegiance to Sartre’s philosophy of composition even more strongly in her essay “A Writer’s Freedom,” when, quoting
Philip Toynbee, she observes: “the writer’s gift to the reader is not social zest or moral improvement or love of country, but an enlargement of the reader’s apprehension” (Gordimer
1989, 107).
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Present Realities, Future Responsibilities
has been a single principle that has animated Gordimer’s writings from the
1960s to the democratisation of South Africa in the 1990s, it has been the
quest for justice” (Coetzee 2008, 251). Coetzee’s observation has the potential to open new readings of Gordimer’s works, both those preceding the
1994 elections and those that followed. This is important because it suggests
possible paths of interpretation that Gordimer’s readers – especially those
who did not witness apartheid – can take in order to appreciate her works as
fully as possible. Indeed, while racial segregation is a term which means little to those who have not experienced it, the notion of injustice and how one
responds to it is by no means confined to the readers’ imagination. With
Coetzee’s assertion in mind, one can view Gordimer’s novels as an extended record of people’s reactions to social injustice in its numerous forms.
This partly sociological and partly psychological reading will be attempted
in this article. This interpretation is not far from Gordimer’s understanding
of her novels, as the author observed in an interview that the subject matter
of her books is not politics per se, but “the way politics affect the lives of
3
people” (Gordimer 1990, 114).
Two works have been chosen for this discussion: A World of Strangers,
Gordimer’s second novel, published in 1958, and The Pickup, published in
2001. The analysis of these novels will concentrate on the protagonists’ reactions to social evil. It will be shown that in both works, social and political commitment in its different forms is a reaction against injustice. Presenting in detail the kinds of social injustice in the two works, this article will
offer its readers Gordimer’s views on the past and present socio-political realities of South Africa. It will also analyse the dynamic geopolitics in the
contemporary world after the events of the 9/11.
8.1 A World of Strangers: between freedom and social convention
A World of Strangers is Gordimer’s second novel, published first by Victor
Gollancz. In his perceptive essay about A World of Strangers – one of the
first notable essays about this literary work – Robert Gray compares the
novel to Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe (Gray 1990, 79) insofar as
3
Gordimer tried several times to anticipate and rule out a wholly politicised reading of her
novels. In an essay titled “Literature and Politics in South Africa,” she wrote: “I am not a politically-minded person by nature. I don’t suppose if I had lived elsewhere, my writing would
have reflected politics much. If at all” (Cooke 1985, 4).
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Marek Pawlicki
the three have a similar type of protagonist: a stranger who arrives in an unknown land and is confronted with a wholly new environment. Toby Hood,
a twenty-six-year-old Englishman, comes to South Africa to run the affairs
of Arden Parrot – his uncle’s publishing house. An inquisitive and unprejudiced young man, he mingles both with the rich South African whites, and
with the Africans, separated from the white community by the laws of
apartheid as well as deeply rooted prejudices. What begins as an exciting
adventure ultimately leads to a serious conflict of loyalties when Toby realises that there is no way of reconciling his connections with the affluent rich
and his affinity with the severely underprivileged black population. Toby’s
conflicting sense of allegiance is the main subject of the novel, and it is
against this problem that the protagonist’s maturation is presented. Gordimer’s in-depth psychological portrayal of the protagonist is, no doubt, the
greatest asset of the novel, making it a universal story of an individual confronted with social injustice. Nonetheless, one should not underline the
timelessness of the novel at the expense of a more detailed analysis, and that
is why this discussion is preceded by a note about the historical and social
background of the work.
In an interview which focuses on A World of Strangers, Gordimer calls
the 1950s “a very privileged era in the history of South Africa” (Gordimer
1990, 109), in which friendship and cooperation between the whites and the
blacks was still possible. In a time when the laws of apartheid had not yet
come into force – they did as a result of the Sharpeville massacre which
happened later, in 1960 – racial division, in the form of laws created by the
National Party, was entrenched by social convention. Indeed, for a reader
who is as distant from the reality of South Africa at the time as Toby Hood
must have been, it is striking to read about white, educated middle-class Africans, who are self-righteously opposed to cross-racial friendships. To give
one example, a young white woman born in South Africa and working as a
secretary in Arden Parrot with the hopes of being transferred someday to
England, resigns her job immediately when Toby invites his black friends to
lunch in his office. Toby is at first so taken aback that he is at a loss as what
to say – he simply gives her her salary and she leaves without a word – it is
only later that he becomes enraged by the woman’s reaction even though he
knows that the episode was “so completely predictable that it was nothing
4
but a cliché” (WS, 148).
4 This
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article will use the abbreviations WS for A World of Strangers and P for The Pickup.
Johannesburg of the 1950s is a city in which racial segregation takes a
spatial dimension. As Toby observes soon after taking up his post in Johannesburg, the city is planned in such a way that a black man and a white man
are unlikely to meet each other in the street. This division is even more
striking in the case of the rich South Africans, Marion and Hamish Alexander, who live on the outskirts of Johannesburg in a secluded mansion called
“The High House” (WS, 47). Needless to say, Alexander’s house is only
frequented by white people, rich ones at that, who spend their time on golf
courses and in swimming pools leading the ‘good life,’ which is completely
separated from the realities of South Africa. Their philosophy of life is best
summed up by Anna Louw, a white Afrikaner, who, in a conversation with
Toby, observes that the rich South Africans have secured for themselves a
carefree existence because they assume, or rather hope, that if they do not
address the problems of racial segregation and the poverty of the blacks,
those issues will cease to exist. As a consequence of this stance, the whites
experience a sense of isolation wilfully imposed: “Loneliness; of a special
kind. Our loneliness. The lack of a common human identity. The loneliness
of a powerful minority” (WS, 80).
From the beginning of the novel Toby Hood moves freely between the
lavish white suburbs and the poverty-stricken black townships. He is a perceptive observer of his immediate reality, and, as such, has been compared
5
to the author herself. Alongside his acuity, Toby is also self-conscious, and
as such is capable of analysing in detail his own ambitions and motivations.
It is partly from his self-analysis and partly from his dialogues with other
characters that the reader learns about Toby’s characteristics, which will be
important in his psychological analysis.
Toby is driven by two contradictory forces which shape his thoughts and
actions: first of all, the desire to live free, outside of the confines of social
convention; and, secondly, his need for tradition. The former characteristic
is brought to the fore by the unjust political situation in South Africa. This
becomes clear in one of Toby’s moments of lucid reflection, in which he
talks about the structure of South African society. According to Toby, white
people are divided into two groups: those who believe in the colour-bar as
“a real and eternal barrier” (WS, 168), and those who challenge it. Writing
Robert F. Haugh, in the first full-length study of Gordimer’s work, published in 1974, writes
about Toby Hood: “He is a thinly disguised instrument, quite closely akin to Miss Gordimer’s
alienated but perceptive young woman” (106). Michael Wade agrees with this observation,
stating that “Toby functions as a mask for his creator” (47).
5
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Marek Pawlicki
about the latter group, Toby observes that “there were the people who,
through social conscience, or (like myself) impatience with restrictive distinctions which they, personally, found meaningless, mixed with coloured
people” (WS, 168-9). It is important to observe that Toby’s friendship with
the blacks, especially with Steven Sitole, his peer, who has a considerable
influence over him during his stay in South Africa, does not stem from his
decision to challenge the laws of apartheid – Toby is not at all interested in
politics – but rather results from his offended sense of liberty. In this respect, his stance is in some respects similar to that of Gordimer herself,
who, in an essay titled “What is Apartheid” writes: “Like that of many others, my opposition to apartheid is compounded not only out of a sense of
justice, but also out of a personal, selfish, and extreme distaste for having
the choice of my friends dictated to me, and the range of human intercourse
proscribed for me” (Gordimer 1999, 112). Gordimer mentions two forces
which motivated her in her struggle against the government: an enraged
sense of justice and a strong opposition to having her freedom confined by
mindless laws. Significantly, Toby rejects the former in favour of the latter.
As will be demonstrated later, this is not his only motivation in cultivating
friendships with the South African blacks.
Toby’s ideologically non-committal stance, which results from his perception of himself as a free individual, who is neither confined by the laws
of apartheid nor by the leftist ideology that seeks to reject it, is, to a great
extent, a reaction against his upbringing. At the beginning of his narrative
Toby describes his family home and his parents, who sought to infuse him
with liberal values as a pointed reaction against Britain’s history of colonial
exploitation: his father took part in socialist movements, while his mother,
coming from an upper-class family, refused to be presented at Court as a
form of protest against Britain’s colonial policy. The family supported the
victims of political oppressions – apart from Britain’s colonialism, Toby
does not specify the political context – and so throughout his childhood Toby was taught the value of political action. In South Africa, he distances
himself from the values held dear by his parents by writing that he had no
wish to become “a voyeur of the world’s ills and social perversions,” summing up his stance in the exclamation “I want to live!” (WS, 36).
Toby’s non-committal stance is visible throughout his narrative, both in
his declarations, such as the one quoted, and in the way he describes his life
in South Africa. As has been observed, his impulse to stay free and uncommitted to any cause is counterbalanced by his need for tradition. Again, this
134
latter feature can be seen as the result of his upbringing, this time, however,
not in terms of a negative reaction, but of an acquired need. The following
fragment from his narrative makes clear that this imperative continues to be
important for him, now that he has begun his life in South Africa:
Paradoxically, there had been bred into me a horror of the freedom
that is freedom only to be free (…). Something in me clung strongly to
the need for mediating powers – tradition, religion, perhaps; a world
where you might, if you wished, grow up to do what was expected of
you (WS, 34).
What Gordimer captures in this realistic portrait of a maturing man is
both the desire to break free from social convention in order to search for
new ways of commitment, and the obscure desire to comply with the tradition that has been imposed on him by previous generations. In the fragment
quoted above Toby mentions “tradition, religion perhaps” and indeed
throughout his stay in South Africa he occasionally goes to church on Sundays and on important religious feasts. Sitting in the pews with the more
regular churchgoers, he remains a passive observer with a keen eye, eager to
notice the idiosyncrasies of the place. The first church he visits is summed
up pithily, and with little respect towards the congregation and the priest
himself: “It was a cottagey-looking building and the priest was to match; he
seemed embarrassed by the prayers he offered, and doubtful about the intercession of his blessing” (WS, 135). It seems paradoxical that despite his distaste for the service in which he took part, Toby repeats none of this criticism to Cecil Rowe, a young, attractive, liberal-minded girl with whom he
has an affair later on. Cecil Rowe’s reaction to Toby’s visit to church seems
stereotypical. As Toby visits her house, one of the first remarks she makes
before Toby crosses her threshold is: “Well, I’m surprised at you (…). I
mean, you’re such an intellectual and all that” (WS, 136). Describing the episode Toby confesses that he was “touched” (WS, 137) by Cecil’s stereotypical notion of a Western intellectual as “a free-thinking, Darwinian rationalist” (WS, 137). Although Toby does nothing to dispel this image, he silently
defies it by refusing any further comment.
That Toby creates his ethical stance in opposition to the cultural clichés
becomes clear in a conversation with Anna Louw about Steven Sitole, a
young native South African, who remains Toby’s close friend until the moment of his tragic death. In the conversation mentioned above Toby and
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Anna discuss the notion of political commitment, especially among the
black population. Anna Louw accuses Steven of egotism, arguing that he is
concerned only with gain and pays no attention to the poverty of his fellow
countrymen. Toby defends Steven by arguing that he too, were he in Steven’s place, would refuse to be involved in the struggle against apartheid.
According to Toby, there are two kinds of people: those who are concerned
with public issues – Anna Louw is the best example of such a person – and
the so-called “private livers” (WS, 122), who are focused on leading their
own life. As Toby argues,“the private liver, the selfish man, the shirker (…)
– he’s a rebel. He’s a rebel against rebellion. On the side, he’s got a private
revolution of his own” (WS, 123). This “private revolution” is run in indirect ways with no outright protest against the state authorities. In their silent
insistence on their own egotistic goals and their political quietism, the “private livers” are, as Toby explains, more effective in reaching their objectives. Toby uses this argument chiefly to support Steven’s politically neutral
lifestyle, but it is clear that his theory of “private livers” also refers to him.
Of course, his silent rebellion is not as outright as Steven’s, but the attitude
is similar: Toby is also keen to distance himself from the role which his
family and friends want to impose on him.
As has been argued, Toby’s passive stance can be viewed as a reaction
against his parents’ policy of social commitment. Similarly, his occasional
visits to church can be interpreted as his own private rebellion against the
liberal values held by his white friends, such as Cecil Rowe and the rich,
carefree Alexanders. While this view on Toby’s church-going seems accurate – if there is a deeper reason, it is certainly not elaborated in his narrative – such an interpretation of his excursions to the black townships will,
on closer analysis, seem reductive. Toby’s friendship with the blacks, especially with Steven Sitole, can be viewed not only as a reaction against social
convention, but as an expression of a deeper longing. This point needs to be
elaborated, as the internal development of the main protagonist depends
precisely on his attitude towards social injustice manifested in the racial
segregation of the time.
Unlike Gordimer’s later novels, in which self-realization is closely connected with political commitment, in A World of Strangers the sense of fulfilment results from witnessing and taking part in the diversity of reality,
and not being confined by the laws of apartheid. As Toby confesses, the opportunity to witness the bustling life of the townships “released me and
made me more myself” (WS, 163). Although Toby does not elaborate in this
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fragment what aspect of this life had such an effect on him, this feeling may
6
be attributed to his fascination with the multiculturalism of the place. In another fragment Toby puts his finger on the nature of his fascination: the
sense of freedom he experiences when mingling with people to whom the
7
colour bar is as meaningless as it is to him. In the light of the above commentary, Toby’s decision to invest his time and effort into meeting the Africans is a youthful assertion of his own independence.
Toby’s tendency to question every accepted mode of behaviour has been
viewed as a sign of his impercipience. This interpretation is suggested by
Dominic Head in his interesting and insightful study. Head argues that Toby
is unable to “draw clear moral conclusions from what he witnesses” (57),
and that is why he moves so freely between the two incompatible worlds.
On the contrary, it seems that Toby has a clearly delineated ethical stance,
which is not communicated openly – he is too wary of the liberal-humanist
discourse to do so – but can be found in his commentary on the South African whites. Closely analysing the passages about the Alexanders and their
friends, the reader can witness the stages by which Toby’s incisive commentary takes on a moral dimension. To give an example, in Chapter Seven,
halfway through the novel, Toby gives a cursory account of another lavish
party in the High House, which he closes with the following words:
There were the usual amiable people, with plenty to say about nothing
in particular, in whose company the fear, joy, strangeness, and muddle
of life seemed mastered by a few catch phrases, like a tiger confined
in a cricket-cage (WS, 141).
One can see in this passage a moral judgment stated indirectly. It is interesting to compare this observation with Anna Louw’s outright statement
about the South African whites trying to forget about the problem of racial
segregation: “One of the ways is not to talk about it [the problem] at all. Not
to deal with it at all. Finished. That’s possible, you know; you’ll find out”
(WS, 78). It may seem paradoxical that despite Toby’s distaste for the lifestyle of the rich South Africans, he is a frequent visitor at the High House.
This may result from the fact that he feels in himself the need for a fixed
Describing a party in the townships, Toby writes, “the ordinary social pattern seemed as intricate and ambiguous in its composition as the Oriental rug” (WS, 85).
7 “Could I explain the freedom I felt where I had no legal right to be, in that place of segregation, a location?” (WS, 203).
6
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8
life, which would give him a sense of security. Despite their superficiality,
the visits to the Alexanders offer him such a chance; throughout his stay in
South Africa he has a love affair with Cecil Rowe, a close friend of the Alexanders, who would be able to give him a life similar to that in the High
House, if less opulent. It is significant that his parting with Cecil Rowe at
the end of the novel marks an important change in Toby’s life. Torn between his sense of allegiance to the blacks and the reassuring visits to the
High House, Toby suffers not from impercipience, but rather from a state of
indecision, resulting from his immaturity. The experience of reading A
World of Strangers involves witnessing Toby’s continuous attempts to retain the balance between the two worlds, offering two discrepant ways of
life. Much of the tension in the novel results from Toby’s constant wavering
between the two lifestyles; the reader can only try to anticipate when and
how this conflict of commitments will be resolved.
The conflict is indeed solved towards the end of the novel, after Steven
Sitole’s tragic death in a car accident. When Steven dies during his escape
from the police, Toby is, as one critic aptly writes, “forced to reevaluate his
own lifestyle” (Temple-Thurston 1999, 23). He is made aware of two
things; first of all, he realises that he loved his friend – it is significant that
Toby, who is sparing with emotions, uses the word “love” in the context of
their friendship – and, secondly, he discovers that his conflicting lifestyle
constituted an enormous emotional burden for him. It is then that he forms a
key observation about his behaviour so far: he declares that the freedom
which he asserted for himself was “aimless” (WS, 258). Indeed, his attitude
had enabled him to mingle freely both with the black and with the whites,
but it left him with no consistent ethical standpoint. This “aimless freedom”
was unproductive because it ruled out any commitment on his part; Toby
knows that taking action would mean forsaking this freedom. Toby loses
this sense of freedom in his last conversation with Cecil Rowe, during
which he learns that his former lover is now engaged to a friend of his. Jealousy does not stop him from the observation that a marriage to Cecil Rowe
would have ended his friendship with the blacks. It is however at the end of
their conversation that the reader is made aware of the enormous distance
between the two young people: when Toby mentions his friendship with the
During a party at a black township, Toby makes the following observation: “And then I
thought of myself, and what I wanted: a house lived in, a place made, a way of life created for
me by my fathers, a destiny I could accept without choice or question” (WS, 96).
8
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late Steven Sitole, Cecil offers the racist observation that she could never
envisage sitting next to a black at a table. By this time her previous observation that being another man’s fiancée, she is now Toby’s enemy – intended
as a humorous remark – takes on a wholly different dimension. If Toby and
Cecil are indeed enemies, their conflict does not result from Cecil’s choice
of another man, but from their radically different attitudes towards the racial
bar. Cecil’s words also make Toby realise that the freedom he held dear is
now lost: “Like an enemy: the word took away my freedom, tore up the safe
conduct of the open mind” (WS, 263). During their conversation Toby realises that his affection for Steven, which he is no longer willing to hide, had
become a token of his commitment. Unlike Anna Louw, who began her
subversive political actions as a result of a partly aesthetic and partly ethical
revolt, Toby’s “engagement,” as Stephen Gray rightly argues, “had come to
him through personal relations” (80).
After Steven’s death Toby becomes a close friend of Sam Mofokenzazi,
a native South African intellectual, who, contrary to Steven, is active in the
struggle against apartheid. In the concluding scene of the novel Sam and
Toby hold a short conversation on a train platform from which Toby is to
start his journey to England. Toby does not see his voyage as a final parting
from his friend; on the contrary, he insists that he will be back in Johannesburg for the christening of Sam’s daughter. Sam seems to be sceptical about
Toby’s return, saying “Who knows with you people, Toby, man?” (WS,
266). This brief invocation of the differences between the blacks and the
whites is, however, marginalized by the friendly farewell: the two men hold
each other in a moment of silent agreement. The conclusion of the novel
shows cross-racial friendship as a possible response to the injustice of
apartheid.
At the end of this part of my article it is worthwhile to mention the criticism which has been levelled at A World of Strangers by the major commentators of Gordimer’s oeuvre. The criticism is best summed up by Stephen Clingman, who argues that “a doctrine of inter-personal commitment,
designed to bridge the [social and political] gap, appears to be hopelessly
9
simplistic” (57). Nonetheless, as Clingman adds, this conviction, even
9 Addressing
the auditorium at Cape Town University, nineteen years after the publication of A
World of Strangers, Gordimer observed that the policy of cross-racial friendship as a reaction
against apartheid was “a fragile bond” (Gordimer 2010, 280). She added that this “bond has
been rent like gossamer by brutish removals, medieval detentions, and finally, the shooting of
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though misguided, was shared by the majority of the opposition to apartheid, who believed in the possibility of peaceful cooperation between the
whites and the blacks in their attempts to end the unjust political system.
The criticism of A World of Strangers is based on the premise that the
work really suggests that inter-personal commitment will bridge the racial
divide between the South African black and white population. Is this really
the case? The answer to this question may be found in a closer analysis of
Toby’s changing attitudes towards others, including his black friends. At
first, Toby is rather passive and defensive in his relationships with other
people. In a conversation with Anna Louw he ridicules some of his family’s
clumsy attempts at reaching an understanding with foreigners, and concludes with the words: “Thing is, not to presume too much on your own understanding; never meet the other one more than half-way” (WS, 75). Taking into account Toby’s rather secretive nature, this observation may be
taken as an inadvertent confession, in which he admits that the real reason
for his defensiveness is the fear of being ridiculed. In a sense, his friendship
with Steven Sitole thrives because it gives Toby a welcome change in his
uninteresting life, and does not require of him any kind of emotional or intellectual involvement. Indeed, their excursions to the black townships and
their flights from the police are compared to the illicit acts of little school10
boys. What the two men share is a sense of excitement resulting from their
little adventures, and, more importantly, their desire for a private life, outside of any political and social commitments. On the strength of this shared
attitude to life, Toby assumes a deep affinity with Steven. Steven’s tragic
death marks an important change in Toby’s understanding. After he has
identified Steven’s body in the mortuary, he experiences a deep sense of
isolation, and it is then that his reflections become profound. As he walks
the streets of Johannesburg, his thoughts concentrate on his friend:
What had I known of Steven, a stranger, living and dying a life I could
at best only observe; my brother. (…) How could it be true, that which
both of us knew – that he was me, and I was him? He was in the bond
children.” The violent and unflinching policy of the South African government in the 1970s
showed that more concrete steps had to be taken to challenge the laws of apartheid.
10 Having described their successful escape from the police during one of their trips to the
black townships, Toby concludes: “We [Toby and Steven] lay there panting and laughing in
swaggering, schoolboy triumph” (WS, 104).
140
of his skin, and I was free; the world was open to me and closed to
him; how could I recognize my situation in his? (WS, 252)
The passage describes an important change in Toby’s attitude towards
Steven. Toby no longer assumes that their passive way of responding to the
political reality of South Africa is enough to prove their affinity; on the contrary, he realises that politics was a major obstacle to reaching a deeper mutual understanding. Their understanding was not based on politics but on a
greater sense of affinity: this sense is narrated in the first oxymoronic sentence of the fragment. What this passage suggests is the inadequacy of politics as an interracial bond, at the same time suggesting that this bond lies
deeper; why else would Toby refer to Steven as his “brother”? From this
perspective, the novel may be interpreted as an anticipation of its future criticism. The novel does not present inter-personal commitment as an adequate response to apartheid; on the contrary, it suggests that politics may be
a considerable obstacle to both compassion – Toby finds himself unable to
empathise with Steven because of the politically-imposed racial divide –
and successful cooperation. The positive message that there lies a deeper
bond between the blacks and the whites is, however, made doubtful by a
lack of insight into its nature; this sense of deep affinity is not further defined and remains rather obscure.
8.2 The Pickup: commitment and responsibility
It has been pointed out that Gordimer’s novels are most frequently read in
close relation to the socio-political circumstances in which they were written, and this observation also refers to The Pickup. The date of its publication – the year 2001 – suggests that such a reading is, in a sense, inevitable.
The main topic of the novel – a relationship between a white South African
woman and a young Arab from a poor country in Africa – may seem a reaction to the discussion about the cultural differences and prejudices raised by
the 9/11 attacks. It may come as a great surprise to the readers of The
11
Pickup that the book was, in fact, published before September 2001, and
11
As Ronald Suresh Roberts writes in his biography of Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup was
written a year before the 9/11 attacks. Suresh concludes: “Certainly to call it [the publication of
the novel and the attacks] a ‘coincidence’ seems inadequate to the premonitory intelligence that
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anticipates many of the social and political problems which came to prominence after this date. Gordimer has commented sparsely on the novel; in an
article published in the same year as the novel, she observes that her novel
is about “the epic of emigration, immigration, the world-wandering of new
refugees and exiles” (Gordimer 2010, 593).
The Pickup starts with the meeting of two people from two distant cultures: Julie Summers, a white South African woman of a wealthy and conservative background, and Ibrahim ibn Musa (addressed throughout the
novel as Abdu), an impoverished emigrant from a small, postcolonial Muslim country, trying to make a living in Johannesburg. The reason for this
meeting is rather banal: on her way home Julie’s old car breaks down and is
hauled to a garage, in which Abdu is working illegally as a car mechanic.
Although the novel tells its readers little about Julie’s thoughts and emotions, it soon becomes apparent that the young woman is attracted to her
new acquaintance. The two soon start a relationship, in which the emotional
commitment seems to be mostly on Julie’s part. When Abdu receives an official letter from the Department of Home Affairs telling him to leave the
country, Julie decides to join him; the two then decide to marry and depart
to Abdu’s home in a poor village in the desert. From the beginning of her
stay, Julie tries to adapt to her new and challenging life in a small and conservative Muslim village (e.g. she decides to fast throughout Ramadan although she is religiously indifferent). Those attempts excite the sympathy of
Abdu’s mother and other relatives, the exception being Abdu himself, who
is too dissatisfied with life in his native village to notice his wife’s growing
attachment to his family. Contrary to Julie, Abdu is far from being content
with his life in the village; throughout their stay he is continually trying to
obtain a visa to work in America or in Europe. Those long, arduous and
frustrating attempts are eventually successful, leading to a conflict between
Julie and Abdu, and, ultimately, to the surprising ending of the novel.
The main protagonists of A World of Strangers and The Pickup are similar in two important respects. First of all, they both come from affluent families, who are capable of giving them a materially and intellectually privileged position in society. Despite these opportunities, Toby and Julie are
eager to distance themselves from their background, ridiculing or openly
condemning the principles held by their relatives. Secondly, both protagohas always been part of Gordimer’s art. Even without a rigorous geopolitics, Gordimer had arrived – through some intuitive grasp – of the spectacle to come” (618).
142
nists undergo a profound change of their Weltanschauung as a result of an
important relationship. Intelligence and perceptiveness are other important
features shared by the two protagonists, but it should be added that these
characteristics by no means single them out from the other protagonists in
Gordimer’s novels.
The protagonists’ intelligence, acuteness of observation, and sensitivity
to social issues enable them to stay alert to the inequalities and injustices
present in their social and political realities. In both novels the stress is on
the divisions running through society; where in A World of Strangers those
divisions are instigated by the laws of apartheid, in The Pickup it is wealth
which divides people into social classes. The divisions are particularly striking when narrated from Julie’s viewpoint, as she is adamant in her social
criticism. An example of this can be found in an important episode: Julie
and Abdu are seeking the help of a competent lawyer, who would be able to
deal with Abdu’s difficult situation. After serious consideration, Julie decides to turn for help to a renowned African lawyer, Hamilton Motsamai, a
close friend of her father’s. She silently hopes that the history of racial oppression, experienced by Motsamai’s people and by the lawyer himself, will
make him more sympathetic to the case. Instead, Motsamai makes her
aware of the difficult situation in which Abdu has found himself and the only help he offers is to supply his colleague’s contact details. Julie’s judgment of the famous lawyer, recorded by the third-person narrator, is highly
critical. Thinking of her father and the company of affluent white citizens –
not unlike those presented in A World of Strangers – she observes: “the famous lawyer is one of them, her father’s people (…), sitting here in his corporate palazzo, it doesn’t help at all that he is black; he’s been one of their
victims, he’s one of them now” (P, 80). For Julie, the model of capitalist
democracy that exists in South Africa, the Unites States and the prosperous
European countries is based on a form of apartheid, in which the affluent
whites separate themselves from the needs of the poor and the underprivileged. The governments divide people into “the right kind of foreigner[s]”
(P, 140), such as herself, and the wrong kind, this latter category including
Muslims, who are seen either as potential terrorist threats to the country or
the carriers of “the world’s latest fatal disease” (P, 140). Writing the novel,
Gordimer had little idea of the extent to which this Western vision of Muslims would become entrenched after the 9/11 attacks.
Analysing Julie’s reaction to social injustice, it is important to show how
Gordimer combines the personal with the political. In The Pickup, as in so
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many of her novels, there is no means of distancing oneself from the sociopolitical conditions of the time. Julie’s intense emotional commitment to
Abdu means that she takes the injustice to which he is subject as a personal
affront: “She abrogates any rights that are hers, until they are granted also to
him” (P, 55). Her decision to leave South Africa is both an expression of
her love for Abdu and a form of rebellion against the affluent and socially
unconcerned lifestyle of her parents. Insofar as her actions are intended as a
reaction against values held by others, Julie is similar to Toby, but, contrary
to Toby, she does not waver in her commitments. One should not, however,
overemphasise this point, presenting Julie as a politically conscious and mature individual, because her decisions are frequently questioned either by
herself – as with Toby, she is a self-conscious and self-critical individual –
or by her husband.
The principle of dialogism, which, according to Dominic Head, operates
in A World of Strangers, is also present, if differently executed, in The
Pickup. The dialogism in The Pickup is, in fact, an unvoiced dialogue between the two protagonists, in which Julie and Abdu express their silent responses to each other’s actions. This is clearly visible in Abdu’s case. Considering Julie’s decision to leave South Africa and travel to his home
village, Abdu is far from grateful; on the contrary, he is sceptical about her
idea, calling it “another of the adventures she prided herself on” (P, 112).
Merciless as this judgment may seem, there is some truth in it; Julie’s emotional reactions to the new environment at times seem tourist-like, and there
is always the sense that, if her relationship with Abdu ends, she can simply
go back home. The dialogism inherent in The Pickup also concerns the protagonist’s stance towards the country in which she has found herself. As has
been mentioned, Julie is fascinated with Abdu’s country and shows her excitement in numerous comments, most of them addressed to the impatient
Abdu. Nonetheless, her enthusiasm is once again counterbalanced by Abdu’s sceptical and, at times, ironic comments. This is especially visible in
the case of Julie’s fascination with the desert. The desert is the only place
Julie visits regularly during her stay in Abdu’s village. She is drawn to it by
its peacefulness and the moments of silent contemplation it gives her.
Above all, it is the sense of timelessness which leads Julie to a partly aesthetic and partly spiritual experience. When she asks her husband to assist
her in one of her morning walks to the desert, Abdu flatly refuses, showing
no understanding of her feelings. By the same token, Julie’s decision to stay
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in Abdu’s home village, even at the expense of their parting, is questioned
as “a typical piece of sheltered middle-class Western romanticism” (P, 262).
In A World of Strangers Toby’s emotional and intellectual development
manifests itself in his changed attitude towards the issue of commitment.
Although one should be cautious about any interpretation which points to
Toby’s social involvement, there is little doubt that Steven’s death brings
about a major change in his attitude towards his own role in the political situation of South Africa. In The Pickup, Julie’s sense of commitment remains
stable, as it results, to a great extent, from her love for Abdu. It is worthwhile to examine a short episode, in which Abdu and Julie have a heated
conversation about Julie’s decision to go with him to his native country.
Abdu views this move as “madness” and “stupidity” (P, 95), because, as he
argues, she has no idea of the kind of life she will have to lead there. He
eventually tells her that he will not be responsible for her if she decides to
go with him, to which she answers, irritated: “Nobody has to be responsible
for me. I am responsible for myself” (P, 95). Julie’s reply may seem immature – it is certainly viewed as such by Abdu – but as the novel progresses,
it becomes a lasting statement of belief: Julie indeed holds herself responsible for her own decisions, abiding by them despite considerable obstacles.
This is most visible in her decision to stay in Abdu’s home village despite
his departure to the Unites States. Attracted to Abdu’s family and the sense
of belonging it gives her, Julie decides to stay with them, and accept the
consequences of her unexpected decision. Abdu sees Julie’s decision to stay
with his family instead of going with him as a betrayal, and, to some extent,
he is right. Up to the moment of their parting, Julie has acted in what she
considered the most desirable way for their union to proceed; at the end of
the novel she does what she considers best for herself. This detached stance
is an expression both of her determination and maturity, as she knows that
the consequences of Abdu’s departure may be more painful to her than
those of her decision to distance herself from her own family.
Julie’s decision to stay in Abdu’s country despite his departure for the
United States is also an expression of her changed philosophy of life, which
manifests itself best in her attitude towards her immediate reality. As in
most novels by Gordimer, the protagonist’s reaction towards the natural
world is of utmost importance. In this context it is worthwhile to mention
another novel of which the same can be said, E.M. Forster’s A Passage to
India. Forster’s influence on Gordimer, which has been noted by many critics, can also be observed in The Pickup. In both novels, the natural world –
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the desert in The Pickup and The Marabar Caves in A Passage to India – is
what seems to coexist peacefully with the civilized world, represented by
towns and villages, but in fact constitutes the antithesis of civilization. This
is certainly more prominent in Forster’s novel – it is in the caves where the
12
moral values of the protagonists are questioned and the chain of unsettling
events begins – but is also present in The Pickup, in which the desert is a
hostile place, where habitation and growth are impossible. Paradoxically, it
is its aridity and fruitlessness that attract Julie to the desert. As she contemplates the vast expanse of sand, she reflects, “Nullity is purity; detachment
from the greedy stirring of growth. Eternity is purity; what lasts is not alive”
(P, 172). Growth does not only refer to the vegetation, but also the development of humanity. The desert is a site where humanity can never thrive,
and is, as such, despised by Abdu, who believes wholeheartedly in the progress of humanity, understood mostly in terms of growing capital. Seen in
this way, Julie’s spiritual attachment to the desert constitutes a rift between
the two; while she begins to appreciate the genius loci of her new country,
seeing its austerity and peacefulness as a refuge from the superficial and
materialistic Western world, Abdu is impatient to abandon his village and
join the race for financial and social prosperity.
This discussion of The Pickup has concentrated on the sense of commitment expressed by the main protagonist, but it has been silent on another
notion which is key in Gordimer’s novel: the notion of freedom. In a sense,
this topic is brought up even before the first chapter of the novel, in the motto taken from a poem by a South African author, William Plomer. A longer
fragment of the poem also appears in the novel:
Let us go to another country
Not yours or mine
And start again. (…)
Hope would be our passport,
12
In A Passage to India, the Marabar Caves are presented as being potentially threatening to
the stability and moral well-being of the protagonists. This is most visible in the famous passage about the echo in the caves in Chapter XIV. The echo is unsettling as it seems to express
some primordial indifference to the social and moral development of mankind. A short visit to
the caves affects one of the protagonists – the elderly Mrs. Moore – in a profound way: “The
crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to
murmur: ‘Pathos, piety, courage – they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything
exists, nothing has value’” (139).
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The rest is understood
Just say the word. (P, 88-9)
The poem evokes the atmosphere of Gordimer’s novel, especially Julie’s
enthusiasm at leaving South Africa. Although more rational and down-toearth, Abdu shares Julie’s hopes of finding a country in which the law
would not intervene in their life; his hopes are visible in his determined attempts to obtain a visa to a Western country. “Another country,” in which
they would be able to start a free and prosperous life, seems rather elusive –
Abdu’s dreams of climbing up the corporate ladder in the Unites States have
a ring of unreality – and is accessible to them only in moments of shared intimacy. The chapter in which Julie makes the important decision to leave
South Africa and go with Abdu to his native country is concluded with the
following sentence: “That night they made love, the kind of love-making
that is another country, a country of its own, not yours or mine” (P, 96). In
this sentence, clearly referring to the poem by Plomer, the narrator addresses the readers, comparing the protagonists’ moments of intimacy to a place
which is “not yours or mine,” so, in a sense, exclusive to the protagonists
themselves. Following this interpretation, it can be argued that love gives
the protagonists a strong but elusive sense of freedom, which, in fact, cannot be found in any country. One wonders whether this romanticised (and
politicised) notion of love is not an expression of Gordimer’s pessimism
about the possibility of freedom in any existing country. Certainly, if one
has in mind not only freedom from unjust laws, but also from stereotypes,
this expression of disillusionment is true.
Conclusion
I have observed in the introduction to this article that the one principle
which unites Gordimer’s novels is, as J.M. Coetzee wrote, “the quest for
justice” (251). In both novels justice is similar to the country described in
Plomer’s poem – it always seems to lie elsewhere. Nonetheless, the quest
shapes the characters’ actions, and ultimately leads them to moments of
deeper understanding, in which they make, or are about to make, important
and life-changing decisions. As a result of the different relationships they
enter into, they are made aware of the importance of taking responsibility
for their actions. This realization is aptly conveyed in the narrator’s obser147
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vation, taken from The Pickup: “There is no future without an identity to
claim it; or to be obligated to it” (P, 37). In neither of the novels is there a
clearly delineated identity which the protagonists adopt in their changed circumstances – both books end when the protagonists have made important
decisions, and stop short at showing the consequences – but both novels
show the positive development of the protagonists, manifesting itself in
their maturity and the consistency of their choices. In this respect, both
works, although sceptical about the possibility of reaching a just social order, are positive in their depiction of the main protagonists, who despite
considerable difficulties, ultimately feel themselves obligated to the future
they have chosen.
Works Cited
Clingman, Stephen. 1993. The Novels of Nadine Gordimer: History from
the Inside. London: Bloomsbury.
Coetzee, J.M. 2008. Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005. London:
Penguin Books.
Cooke, John. 1985. The Novels of Nadine Gordimer: Private Lives/ Public
Landscapes. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP.
Forster, E.M. 2005. A Passage to India. London: Penguin Classics.
Gordimer, Nadine. 1989. The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places. London: Penguin Books.
Gordimer, Nadine. 1990. Conversations with Nadine Gordimer, edited by
Nancy Topping Bazin and Marilyn Dallman Seymour. Jackson and
London: UP of Mississippi.
Gordimer, Nadine. 1999. Living in Hope and History: Notes from Our Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Gordimer, Nadine. 2002. A World of Strangers. London: Bloomsbury.
Gordimer, Nadine. 2002. The Pickup. London: Penguin Books.
Gordimer, Nadine. 2010. Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954 – 2008.
New York: Norton.
Gray, Stephen. 1990. “Nadine Gordimer’s A World of Strangers as
Memory.” In Critical Essays on Nadine Gordimer, edited by Rowland
Smith, Boston: G.K.Hall. 74-85.
Haugh, Robert, F. 1974. Nadine Gordimer. New York: Twayne Publishers.
Head, Dominic. 1994. Nadine Gordimer. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
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Roberts, Ronald Suresh. 2005. No Cold Kitchen: A Biography of Nadine
Gordimer. Johannesburg: STE Publishers.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1978 (1948). What is Literature? Trans. Bernard Frechtman. London: Methuen.
Temple-Thurston, Barbara. 1999. Nadine Gordimer Revisited. New York:
Twayne Publishers.
Wade, Michael. 1978. Nadine Gordimer. London: Evans Brothers Limited.
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8. Narrative Techniques as a Means of Showing
Tension Between the Past and the Present in
NW by Zadie Smith
Abstract
In NW, published in 2012, Zadie Smith returns to the part of London which provided
the setting for her debut, the acclaimed White Teeth. But, whereas the characters in
White Teeth are devoid of much psychological depth and seem to represent some
types or social phenomena rather than individuals, the Londoners depicted in NW
elude easy categorization. They are more complex and the effects of their pursuit of
happiness and success are much more difficult to assess. The paper puts forward the
thesis that the aforementioned difference between the novels is a result of different
narrative strategies and then analyses the variety of innovative narrative techniques
employed by Zadie Smith in NW.
Keywords: narrative techniques, NW, Zadie Smith
In her novel, NW, first published in 2012, Zadie Smith returns to the part of
London which provided the setting for her debut, the acclaimed White
Teeth. Once again does she look at immigrants, people of humble origins
who strive to improve their social standing. There are, however marked differences in her treatment of the characters.
I will start with a very brief comparison of the characters of the two novels as well as a discussion of the notions of success and failure and then focus on a variety of innovative narrative techniques employed by the novelist
to convey the aforementioned ideas and their realization in the lives of the
characters.
White Teeth was a cheerful celebration of multiculturalism, yet executed
at the expense of the characters. They are mostly immigrants who want to
integrate but have qualms about losing their heritage. This is especially true
about Samad, who is torn between cultures. On the one hand he is fascinated with the opportunities the British mores offer; on the other hand he is
morbidly perplexed by the excessive freedom they offer to his children and
fears the dreadful consequences for their moral development.
The characters in White Teeth are funny, interesting to read about, but
devoid of much psychological depth. Rather they seem to represent some
types or social phenomena. This was suggested by James Wood, who criticizes White Teeth for what he calls “hysterical realism”, an attempt “to turn
fiction into social theory” to tell us “how the world works rather than how
somebody felt about something.” James Wood has a point here: the novel is
so successful at least partly due to the fact the characters are so marvellously overdone. They are to a great extent caricatures, whose one vice is exposed and dwelt on. It is this dominant feature that the reader remembers
best: the stubbornness of Alsana, Millat’s silly fanaticism, Magid’s pukha
Englishness, the Chalfens’ naivety, Archie Jones’s perennial lameduckness, the zeal of Clara Bowden’s “conversion” to premarital sex and
fun after the asceticism of a Jehovah Witness’s life, Ryan Topps’s fixation
on motorbikes, the vacillation of Irie, who is unable to choose between two
brothers, the radicalization of Josh Chalfen, whose activism is propelled as
much by his rebellion against his family as by his infatuation with Joely.
Even if the characters’ actions are not always predictable, their motivation
is rather clear, though sometimes ridiculous.
In contrast, the Londoners depicted in NW elude such easy categorization. They are more complex; their decisions and actions are often unpredictable and baffling, and, in my opinion, they are far from “intensely funny” (Hensher 2012), which one of the blurbs on the back cover of the novel
promises. There are humorous repartees, amusing depictions, and funny
howlers the characters commit, but the comic mood never dominates. There
is an underlying sadness and a new kind of humility on the narrator’s part, a
kind of acknowledgement that a human being’s choices and actions very often escape rational explication. Who would expect a civilized striver like
Michel to get involved in a fight over his wife’s tainted honour, thus recreating a primitive behavioural pattern? Who would expect happily married
Leah, whose husband dreams of a child, to have an abortion and then go on
the pill to avoid further “dreams come true”? Who would associate Natalie,
a successful lawyer, a happy wife and dutiful mother, with visits to casual
sex websites and trysts with suspicious perverts?
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Narrative Techniques as a Means of Showing Tension Between the Past
and the Present
It is worth noting that in NW these more rounded characters derive from
all social strata, even if the perspective is of those who have succeeded.
Whereas in White Teeth the key issue was race, in NW it is class. What the
two have in common is the notion of struggle and effort as prerequisites for
any achievement. But while in White Teeth the characters’ main preoccupation is how to fit into English society, NW deals predominately with the
characters’ class aspirations and social climbing. There are some remnants
of the old problems, such as racism and racial stereotypes, but they are negligible for the characters’ upward mobility, or lack of it for that matter.
Leah’s mother, Pauline, calls Michel “Michael” and does not distinguish
among the African countries, all Black people being for her “Nigerians”
(Smith 2013, 16), but she does not really object to her son-in-law’s skin
colour. She merely seems to prefer the English version of his French name.
Natalie’s babysitter is surprised to find that her employer’s skin is darker
that hers, but such events, even though they testify to the fact that old stereotypes still constitute some points of reference, they have no real bearing on
the characters’ progress in life. Keisha, a second-generation Jamaican,
changes her name to Natalie, but this change is merely mentioned without
the narrator delving into her reasons for doing so. It is implied that such
identity changes are par for the course.
What seems of more interest to the author is to “show characters of her
own generation through the passage of time. NW is full of split selves, people alienated from the very things they thought defined them” (Lorentzen
2012). It is as if the second generation of immigrants from White Teeth were
scrutinized for symptoms of success or failure in their lives but only in
terms of the British class system.
It must be admitted that Zadie Smith does not fall into the same pitfalls
of stereotypes and caricature she did writing White Teeth. James Wood, if
eager to complain again, has to find some other flaws in the novel, for in
NW the author does focus on the individual rather than the representative.
And the class system itself is not treated as the ultimate point of reference:
success and failure are not absolute and definitive. These terms are insufficient when it comes to the characters’ assessment of their own lives.
It is hard to deny that there are those who have gained success in life and
those who are failures. Such categorization does at least hold water when
the characters’ life achievements are measured by the popular yardstick.
What is more, there is a clear hierarchy, a kind of ladder with total losers at
the bottom, and the high flyers at the top. Nathan Bogle would be at the
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very bottom of the ladder. Once a very attractive boy, he ended up on the
street, a homeless drug addict, a pimp, maybe a murderer. His explanation
or rather excuse is simple: he blames his failure on bad tendons, which cut
short his budding sporting career. Natalie’s sister, Cheryl, who gets pregnant when still an adolescent and does not stick to one father for her next
children, lives on social benefits, but is at least free of addictions, and thus
occupies a higher place in the hierarchy. Felix Cooper occupies an even
higher position, for he has abandoned his shadowy past and wants to make
good, so there is a dynamism in his approach to life which is absent in
Cheryl’s. Rodney Banks has “done well” according to the underdog, Nathan, but in comparison with his initial aspiration to be a lawyer, his flourishing dry cleaners’ business does not really sound very rewarding. Leah is
quite successful compared to Shar, who has to swindle some money out of
her neighbour to be able to assuage her craving for drugs. However, when
juxtaposed with her childhood friend, Natalie, who is a successful lawyer,
Leah’s humble employment in social services, allocating money to charity
organisations, does not sound very enviable. Her husband is a self-made
man who is very realistic in his self-reliance and relentless in his plan to be
“going up the ladder, one rung at least” (Smith 2013, 29). Smith represents
an attitude similar to that of Keisha, yet leading to a worse result. Natalie’s
husband, on the other hand, is probably the only character in the novel who
in a sense inherited success. Even if, as a student, he is intelligent but lazy,
he does not have to worry, for his success does not depend solely on his individual endeavour: he was born into money, which his rich mother does
not begrudge him. One could argue whether it is he or his wife who represents the highest stage of success in the novel. He certainly takes it for
granted and cherishes it, whereas his wife does not seem entirely satisfied
with her life.
The dichotomy “success and failure”, despite the apparent ease with
which ranking can be done, is a complex phenomenon. Cheryl, for example,
does not consider herself a failure. She rejects her sister’s pity and puts the
mental gap between them down to Natalie’s childlessness rather than her
wealth and success. She claims she could move to another council flat, yet
she does not want to leave their mother on her own. The fact she does not
even consider having a flat or a house of her own testifies to a realistic, even
if limited, perception of her own life. It does not entail any dissatisfaction
either.
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and the Present
The complexity of success and failure within the English class system
constitutes the main theme of the novel. The author seems to be posing several questions: How has the second generation managed to fit into the system? What have they gained? What have their sacrificed? What are the ties
that bind them to the past? Are the ties detrimental to success or do they enrich their lives?
To analyse these issues the novelist resorts to a complex narrative form or rather, forms. Each part is written in a different way, using various innovative techniques and ploys, which make the whole novel “a perplexing
creation” (Schwartz 2012). Schwartz’s term is tentative compared with the
other critics’ evaluation. Boyd Tonkin suspects that “Smith knuckled under
to a crew of up-themselves post theory-boys,” writing a kind of trendy
postmodernist novel. Adam Mars-Jones has been even less generous in his
assessment of the novel, which, “falls so far short of being a successful
novel, though it contains the makings of three of four.” Tonkin at least admits that “Zadie Smith’s quarrel with herself still gives rise to a fierce and
fractured poetry”, and since his admission comes at the end of his review it
suggests an accolade that somewhat drowns out the fault-finding paragraphs
that had preceded it.
It is true that the various innovative narrative techniques Smith uses in
the novel make it sometimes confusing for the reader, who might prefer a
straightforward story told in the vein of White Teeth. But it is also true that
NW, resorting to more difficult narration, makes demands on the reader’s attention and encourages him to dwell longer and more carefully on the character.
It stands to reason that the novel which presents a yawning gap between
the past and the present, between the generations as well as between dreams
and aspirations and what the characters’ lives really amount to, would resort
to a breach with the narrative techniques used in the past, or, in Anne Enright’s words, it would represent “a deliberate undoing; an unpacking of
Smith’s abundant narrative gifts to find a deeper truth, audacious and painful as that truth may be. The result is that rare thing, a book that is radical
and passionate and real.”
To achieve this level of realism Smith divided her books into five parts
called: “Visitation”, “Guest”, “Host”, “Crossing”, “Visitation”. All share
one semantic field. They refer to crossing some threshold, and the perspective shifts several times from that of the person inside to that of the person
outside and vice versa. The titles of the sections refer metaphorically to the
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theme of success I have discussed above. Interestingly, the first and the last
section were given the same title, which provides a kind of framework. Now
the question to ask is how exactly the narrative techniques used in each part
reflect the struggle of the individual to be “inside” the world of success and
the way the individual is threatened by the “outside”.
In the first section the reader is truly thrown in at the deep end. Many
critics (e.g. Adam Mars-Jones 2012) have noticed the lack of inverted
commas to distinguish dialogue, but there are much more serious innovations which make the first section quite challenging for the reader. After all,
the dialogues are clearly marked as each one begins with a dash and begins
a new line. But it requires some effort to understand the very first chapter
and many other fragments. Although the narrator seems to be of the traditional, third-person, omniscient type, the information he provides about the
whereabouts of the protagonists is sparse indeed. Even Alexandra Schwartz
from the editorial staff of The New Yorker, admits: “The language moves so
quickly that it took me a number of readings to understand, in a flash, that
this was not a description of a walk,” but a description of Leah’s inner
thoughts, combined with her perception of the outside reality and the impact
of the song she is listening to on the radio while lying in her hammock.
The narration in that part abounds in elliptical sentences. The reader is
often dropped into the middle of a conversation. For example, Leah and her
husband, Michel, are buying groceries in a small shop owned by a young
Sikh when suddenly the reader is exposed to the second part of Michel’s
statement: “- and need to see a proper doctor. A clinic. We keep trying. And
Nothing. You’re thirty-five this year” (Smith 2013, 20). It does seem disjoined, even if it can be understood: Leah cannot conceive a child and that
is a matter of concern for Michel. Even before the reader is plunged into
that very personal conversation, he stumbles against another difficulty: he
learns what Olive, their dog, is doing and how her Frenchness compares to
Michel’s. “Her grandfather (who) was a champion in Paris” and the fact she
“hoovers up the crumbs from the sweet-shop floor” do help to identify her
as a dog, but the recognition is not as immediate as it would have been in a
more traditionally realistic prose, where Olive would have been called a dog
and maybe even referred to by her specific breed.
It is not always clear either whose actions are being described. In the
chapter presenting a woman waiting in a clinic, it is difficult enough to decipher she is waiting for an abortion. The identity of the patient is first revealed in the very last sentences when “Mrs Hanwell” is called to enter the
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and the Present
surgery room. The woman’s memories concerning a woman lover only
complicate the identification process further.
What is more, Smith experiments with the visual aspect of the presentation of the text on the page. The description of an apple tree not only takes
the form of meditation, but this intense concentration on the tree is reflected
in the very text resembling a tree. The boss’s overwhelming loquaciousness
is depicted by means of a pictogram of the mouth, whose outline consists of
words describing teeth with the word “tongue” in the middle.
In this section the chapters are simply numbered, but number 37 recurs
four times and never in the correct chronological order. Chapter 37 is inserted between chapters 11 and 12, where the significance of number 37 is
revealed: it “has a magic about it” (Smith 2013, 42). What seems to be even
more significant, Leah learnt this idea “lying in bed next to a girl she loved”
(42). The memory of her past lover was evoked by a number plate on a dilapidated house she was passing by. Chapter 37, when it recurs, shows Leah
waiting for an abortion. The third chapter which is given this special number is devoted to the imagined speech delivered to Leah by the Black Madonna of Willesden and the last one closes the section and tells the story of
Leah’s surprise when, instead of getting her own photos from the chemist’s,
she is given the pictures of the woman who swindled her out of some money at the very beginning of the section.
All of the chapters 37 have something in common: they present Leah as a
woman who is confused about her identity and aspirations. On the surface
she may seem a happily married person, who has achieved a modicum of
success, having moved out of a tower block into a reasonably comfortable
flat; she enjoys a stable income and has married an enviably handsome man.
Yet there are some cracks in that seemingly immaculate surface. She used
to have a fulfilling homosexual relationship in the past; now she is pressured by her husband into motherhood she does not want; and, last but not
least, she feels guilty about her success, especially when contrasted with the
plight of the cheat and drug addict, Shar, whom she pities more than hates
for the lies she invented to cheat money out of her.
As a young woman, Leah was laid-back, inquisitive, and eager for new
experience. What was an asset in youth, has proved quite the ballast in
adulthood. This was rightly pointed out by Alexandra Schwartz: “As an
adult, Leah’s talent for moving among worlds has stranded her somewhere
permanently in between. She’s the odd one out in any group.” She is a philosopher, hence the narration, even though it is in the third person, is con157
ducted from her perspective. It is her perception of the world, her confusion
about her place in it that is of primary importance to Zadie Smith. That is
probably why she decided for all the short cuts in narration and all the inconsistencies. It is Leah’s world we as readers are given access to. She experiences it without exercising full control over it: we have to struggle with
our ignorance. Smith’s narrative strategies force the reader to be humble
and attentive, unlike the traditional omniscient narrator, who gives the reader the upper hand, who explains to the reader what makes the character tick.
In NW there is only the dropping of hints. The use of such a narrative strategy seems to derive from the very simple conviction that if the character herself does not fully understand her life and her choices, why should the narrator pretend to give the reader access to such ultimate knowledge?
The first section of NW is written very much in Virginia Woolf’s conception of the stream of consciousness. The past floods the present whenever
memory is triggered. The past does not, however, explain the present or set
it right. Leah’s present life as she experiences it is out of joint precisely because of the pressure of the past. The title, “Visitation”, suggests either a
kind of wake or the right to visit when normal meetings are no longer possible. Leah cannot meet Shar on an equal footing, because she has abandoned
the world of squalor and poverty. She cannot meet her husband in all honesty, for she hides too much from him. She cannot meet herself because of a
sense of guilt and inadequacy. “Visitation” implies that the process of crossing the threshold is somehow made more difficult by these circumstances.
This may explain Leah’s wish to remain young. She clings to her youth,
fearing maturity and its challenges.
In the second section of the novel, which centres on Felix Cooper, “Ms.
Smith gives us all of what is missing elsewhere in NW: a real character,
birthed from the fabric of her novel” (Banks 2012). It is also written in a
more traditional style. The only innovation consists in replacing chapter
numbers with London postcodes, which delineate the protagonist’s journey
through the town. Felix moves not only geographically but also psychologically: from the present towards the past, and then towards a better future.
He wakes up in his girlfriend’s bed, visits his father, a kind of Rasta old
boy, remembers his unreliable mother, buys a car he then needs to repair,
and visits his old flame, Annie. He succumbs to her charms for a moment
and makes love to her, but eventually manages to overcome her influence
and leaves her flat.
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and the Present
He has a positive outlook on life even though it is painful to see his father’s manic clinging to the past, to remember his childhood deprived of
maternal warmth and to think about his imprisoned brother, Devon. The
whole section seems to be written in order to raise the readers’ spirits. The
reader cannot but like the hero, who is on the path to a glorious future: a
stable relationship, work, no longer addicted. His journey towards success is
disrupted in the most absurd way possible: he is killed by two hoodies who
are spoiling for a fight.
The traditional third person narration enables Smith to place the reader in
the position of a judge between the two contrasting world views in the dispute conducted by Felix and Annie. She represents a Bohemian life-style,
made possible by the money she possesses. He represents the constructive,
positive attitude of someone who takes the bull by the horns, while she prefers wallowing in nihilism. However, she is intelligent, and when Felix
claims to have killed his demons and moved to the next level, she retorts
with a statement which is not easy to shrug off: “Life’s not a video game,
Felix – there aren’t a certain number of points that send you to the next level. There isn’t actually any next level. The bad news is everybody dies at the
end. Game over” (Smith 2013, 155).
Annie’s attitude to life is disturbing to Felix to such an extent that he
suddenly realises he has come to visit her not to help her, not even to win an
argument so that his own positive outlook is reinforced, but “that she not
exist” (Smith 2013,161). Obviously he has not come with the intention of
killing Annie, but he seems to need her on his side to avoid the creeping
doubts her philosophy of life gives rise to. Annie’s nihilistic rejection of life
before death does seem excessive, but at the same time it is hard to deny
that her repartees are witty and to the point. It is enough to mention her response to his accusation that she is not really “clean,” for she still takes “the
coke, weed, drink, pills....” Hearing this, Annie exclaims quite enraged: “I
said I’m clean, not a bloody Mormon!” (Smith 2013, 149)
Thanks to the narrator’s objectivity, the characters in this section seem to
enjoy a large degree of freedom. The reader accompanies them as they
make choices about life and most readers are bound to cheer on Felix, who
is putting his life right. The clear distinction between narration and dialogue
emphasises the duality of the outside world and the character who acts in it.
The very title of this section points to this duality. Felix Cooper is a guest in
his own past, which he seemingly overcomes, yet it catches up with him at
the end in the form of the two thugs whose ideals he once shared.
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The lucidity of the writing style in Felix Cooper’s section, together with
a character so easy to identify with and whose downfall seems so undeserved and cruel, make it, in Mars-Jones’s words, “the most successful in
the book, though it connects weakly with the rest, as if this were a separate
project, imperfectly incorporated.” Another critic, Alexandra Schwartz calls
it “a novella told in a calmer style of complete sentences and dialogue cradled between normal-looking quotation marks.” According to her, “It’s
downright retro.”
The critics’ reservations, as well as their praise, are hard to disagree with.
The only way Felix connects with the other characters is through the radio
news they hear on the radio (the women) and the allegations of murder (Nathan). This is not necessarily a flaw: it might have been crafted consciously
to point to the way people in big cities connect but in fact stay disconnected.
It is quite surprising that the traditional narration of “Guest” is followed
by the abruptly shifting narrative of “Host”. Should the host not be more
stable and composed than the guest? Indeed, but it is different in the case of
Natalie Blake. There is a certain restlessness in this second-generation Jamaican, who, although raised on a council estate, has managed to become a
lawyer who has settled down in the society of professionals. This section
consists of 185 short chapters with gripping titles. The form may appear
very modern, but the story of the hard-working daughter of a plumber and
nurse with higher aspirations is told chronologically by a third person narrator.
Natalie appears in the first section of the novel, the one devoted to Leah,
as the hostess at the parties which so intimidate Leah. In the third section of
the novel we learn how she became this host, and this is how she achieved
her success. From the very beginning of this section she is presented as a
doer: it is she who rescues her friend, Leah, when she is about to drown.
She is hard-working and conscientious. She “could not start something
without finishing it” (Smith 2013, 178). Whereas Leah enjoyed herself “taking the popular club amphetamine Ecstasy most weekends... Keisha did not
have the faith that she herself could be involved in that life and still pass the
exams she was beginning to comprehend would be essential” (Smith 2013,
193). Her first sexual experiences with her dull boyfriend, chosen more by
her mother than herself, are routine rather than passionate. She is focussed
on her career, believing that “life was a problem that could be solved by
means of professionalization” (Smith 2013, 202).
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and the Present
The narrative strategy chosen by Zadie Smith to present Natalie’s almost
relentless striving for success is particularly apposite. For the reader she becomes a case study, very much like those she studies for her job. Boyd Tonkin very aptly calls it “an alienating, deadpan sequence of numbered sections” used to “recount her upward mobility.”
But, just like in her professional career, it turns out that people’s motives
are difficult to grasp and the truth about some disputed events is often elusive. And so is her own life. This may be due to the fact that, after all, her
success comes at a cost. First of all, at some point she changes her name
from Keisha to Natalie. The event is not dwelt on in the novel; rather it is
mentioned in passing, as something taken for granted. But any change of
name implies some big change, some identity shift. Keisha’s roots were detectable, Natalie is more neutral. In this symbolic way she discards her past,
which will nevertheless come to haunt her later in life. Even though anglicised and professionalized and successful, Natalie suffers from some sense
of deficiency. She looks for fulfilment in the most unexpected place: websites for people seeking more unusual sex experiences. Her sex life with
Rodney Banks may not have been very thrilling, but there is not much in the
novel to suggest that her marriage with Frank is not reasonably happy.
There are some moments when she does not approve of Frank’s behaviour,
for example when he is rude to a waiter or criticises her family, but on the
whole their marriage seems viable. She visits the suspicious websites on the
sly. Their character is not revealed to the reader until quite late in the novel.
In a sense the reader is not allowed to understand more about her life than
she herself does.
Just like Leah, she feels guilty of having escaped the squalor in which
the rest of her family, most notably her sister, Cheryl, still live. Alexandra
Schwartz notices that the past also lurks at her dinner parties: “The successful guests oozing pretension are themselves the children of immigrants.”
They seem to share the past, which is suppressed. Natalie buys Jamaican
food for her children. This seems, however, more in tune with the fashion
for the authentic, ethnic and healthy than with any concession to her roots.
The suppressed past gets the better of her almost symbolically when she
assumes the nickname “Keisha” to arrange sexual encounters online. It is
very difficult to understand why she does this in the first place. Sex seems
to be for her an act of desperation or self-inflicted punishment. This becomes quite evident in the next section, in which she has sex with Nathan
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on Hampstead Heath, which correlates well with the title of the section,
“Crossing.”
Natalie/Keisha has just been caught out by her husband crossing a very
dangerous line, not only committing adultery, but turning sex into a cheap
adventure. Now she crosses a boundary in a very literal sense, for Caldwell,
the quarter where she grew up, had been blocked by the police after Felix
Cooper’s death. She simply sneaks inside together with her old school
friend, Nathan Bogle. In this liminal moment in her life she does at last
what seemed impossible before: she talks to Nathan. They had met before
but he was with some friends and she was wearing her professional clothes,
so it was impossible for them to get beyond small talk about the weather.
The social milieus they belong to isolate them. They can meet as individuals, which would imply some positive significance. At the same time it cannot be denied that they are pushed towards each other due to their bad behaviour. She has to leave her enraged husband; he seems to be on the run
from the police. For some reason he clings to her, confides in her even
though at one point she grows tired of his company and insists that he leave
her alone.
The past that catches up with her includes news of her former boyfriend,
Rodney Banks, who, according to Nathan, is quite successfully running his
own small business. But the feeling that dominates is that of the “suburban
shame” (Smith 2013, 303) she had desperately been trying to escape from
all her life. It is not a coincidence she produces fox-like sounds at the beginning of the section and later on Nathan makes the comment: “Sneaky animals. Foxes are everywhere. If you ask me, they run things” (Smith 2013,
307).
The six short chapters of this section are given titles which indicate the
characters’ current location in London. The section is written in such a way
that it gives the impression of haste, speed, hectic movement. There is no
sharp visual division between narration and direct speech and there are no
punctuation marks for dialogue. However, what the characters say is always
printed on a new line, which helps to avoid total confusion. The narration is
sparse; the characters’ motivation, plans, and intentions are not revealed.
“The author has all but absconded, appearing here and there to report on the
pair’s location or the direction of their movements; otherwise, Natalie and
Nathan are left to their own devices” (Schwartz 2012). Very often the reader infers the action from what is said. It is getting dark and the section begins to give the impression of a radio play. They are roaming both this
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and the Present
darkness outside and a parallel darkness inside. According to Boyd Tonkin,
in this section: “The social chronicle morphs into an existential pilgrimage:
‘She had no name, no biography, no characteristics. They had all fled into
paradox.’”
Natalie/Keisha remains “naked” in the opening scene of the next section,
where she is seen lying in bed next to her “dressed” husband (Smith 2013,
323). She is naked not only in the physical sense: her vulnerability is exposed to a man who refuses to show mercy, or at least let her explain, maintaining that “confessions are self-serving” (Smith 2013, 323).
The title of the last section refers us back to the very beginning. It is also
about a “visitation”: the two friends meet, yet they do not decide to open up
enough to really share their predicaments. Natalie is notified by Leah’s husband, Michel about her strange behaviour: she is totally despondent, lying
in a hammock in the sunshine and refusing any communication. Natalie
cannot afford a moment’s rest as she is busy looking after her children, yet
she is in a very tight corner herself.
When the two friends meet, they cannot summon up enough courage to
be honest with each other. Leah says she is depressed about Shar and Felix
and cannot understand their privilege vis a vis their plight. Natalie’s response is curt: “If you have kids you don’t have time for such abstract questions” (Smith 2013, 331-332).
In terms of structure this section resembles “Guest”. It recounts the
events of one day in Natalie’s life. Unable to communicate with her husband, she takes her children shopping, loses sight of them in a pet shop,
panics, realises how much she loves them, receives a phone call from
Michel and decides to come and help him and his wife. There are inverted
commas again; narration informs the reader what is happening. For example, we learn that the children get something to drink before Natalie is free
to talk to Leah in the garden. Smith employs traditional narration to depict a
typical part of social life: small talk instead of real conversation, keeping up
appearances despite despair. Unable to find a solution to their own problems, unable even to tackle them properly, they team up against the obvious
culprit, Nathan Bogle. Natalie suddenly realises that all the pieces of the
puzzle have fallen into place: Nathan seemed very nervous the day before;
there was a murder; Nathan is a homeless drug addict; hence it is obvious he
must have killed Felix. Apart from their conviction, there is nothing to substantiate Nathan’s indictment. It is quite surprising that Philip Hensher takes
this for granted. Notifying the police, Leah and Natalie act as if they were
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schoolgirls again calling “boys they liked, back in the day, and always in a
slightly hysterical state of mind, two heads pressed together over a handset”
(Smith 2013, 333). It seems more a girlish prank than part of a lawenforcement procedure.
Throughout the whole novel the narrative conveys the message which is
contained in the description of Natalie’s view of London. She is looking at
it from a bridge where she stops in her mad flight in the penultimate section
entitled “Crossing”:
The view was cross-hatched. St Paul’s in one box. The Gherkin in another. Half a tree. Half a car. Cupolas, spires. Squares, rectangles,
half-moons, stars. It was impossible to get any sense of the whole .
From up there the bus lane was a red gash through the city. The tower
blocks were the only thing she could see that made any sense, separated from each other, yet communicating. From this distance they had a
logic, stone posts driven into an ancient field, waiting for something to
be laid on top of them, a statue, perhaps, or a platform (Smith 2013,
318).
With the above passage in mind one must twist the meaning of some critical remarks and interpret them as consistent with the authorial design. Yes,
we “never really get a solid sense of just who they are or what motivates
their actions. They never know who they are, and neither do we” (Banks
2012). Yes, the effect is “jumpy, jittery, the early scenes infused with the
same kind of foreboding that causes the guard at the start of Hamlet to call
out, ‘Who’s there?’” (Schwartz 2012).
The answer is by no means easy. The ending is indeed inconclusive and
“hasty” and maybe “worse than hollow” (Schwartz 2012). So is the life of
an inhabitant of a metropolis, who despite the success she has achieved in
life, is still suffering from this “cross-hatched” view. It is interesting that the
only houses that try to communicate are the tower blocks, the cheap council
dwellings the two heroines left a long time ago. Rachel Cooke (2012) summarizes the message of the novel in two rhetorical questions: “How, its author wants to know, do people survive in the city? How does it work, this
trick of living in almost complete isolation from human beings who eat, talk
and sleep only a few feet away?”
164
and the Present
Works Cited
Banks, Eric. 2012. ”Lost in London Without a Compass: With NW, Zadie
Smith Takes a Wrong Turn.” Review of NW, by Zadie Smith. The New
York Observer, September 4. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://observer.com/2012/09/lost-in-london-without-a-compass-withnw-zadie-smith-takes-a-wrong-turn/.
Cooke, Rachel. 2012. “NW by Zadie Smith: a review.” The Guardian, August 26. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/26/nw-zadie-smithreview.
Enright, Anne. 2012.”Mind the Gap.” Review of NW, by Zadie Smith. The
New York Times, September 23. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/nw-by-zadiesmith.html?pagewanted=all
Hensher, Philip. 2012 “NW by Zadie Smith: a review.” The Telegraph,
September 3. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9508844/NW-by-ZadieSmith-review.html.
Lorentzen, Christian. 2012. “Why Am I So Fucked Up?” Review of NW, by
Zadie Smith. London Review of Books. Vol. 34 No. 21. September 8.
Accessed August 17, 2014. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n21/christianlorentzen/why-am-i-so-fucked-up.
Mars-Jones, Adam. 2012. “NW by Zadie Smith – review.” The Guardian,
August 31. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/31/nw-zadie-smithreview.
Schwartz, Alexandra. 2012 “I’m Nobody, Who Are Your? On Zadie
Smith’s NW.” Review of NW, by Zadie Smith. The Nation, December
10. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.thenation.com/article/171387/im-nobody-who-are-youzadie-smiths-nw.
Smith, Zadie. 2013. NW. London: Penguin.
Tonkin, Boyd. 2012. “NW, by Zadie Smith.” Review of NW, by Zadie
Smith. The Independent, September 1. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/nw-byzadie-smith-8096400.html.
165
Wood, James. 2000. “Human, All Too Inhuman.” Review of White Teeth,
by Zadie Smith. The New Republic, July 24. Accessed August 17, 2014.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/61361/human-all-too-inhuman.
166
9. Człowiek jako istota dialogiczna w myśli
Józefa Tischnera
Marek Pyka
Abstract
In the paper I attempt an outline of Józef Tischner’s contribution to the philosophy
of human nature. I focus on his idea of “the axiological self” and on his contribution
to the philosophy of encounter, dialogue, and interpersonal relation, which has dominated his later thinking. I argue that his earlier idea of “the axiological self” can be
squared with his later conception of person as a subject of encounter and the drama
of life. Both of these ideas can be combined as Tischner’s interesting contribution to
the widely discussed the difficult problem of personal identity. Finally, I apply the
idea of dialogic relation to an important problem of the relationship between parents
and children in contemporary family life. The message of the film Babel, directed by
Alejandro González Iñárritu, is in agreement with the ideas of Tischner’s philosophy
of human drama.
Keywords: encounter, Józef Tischner, personal identity, the axiological self, the dialogic principle, value
Wprowadzenie
Żyjemy w świecie zdominowanym przez informację i rewolucję informatyczną, a umiejętności związane ze zdobywaniem, przetwarzaniem
i wymianą informacji należą do najbardziej podstawowych. Współczesny
świat społeczny jest zdominowany przez różnego rodzaju organizacje i tu
także umiejętności związane z poruszaniem się w świecie informacji, komunikacją i dialogiem należą do najważniejszych kompetencji jednostek.
Żyjemy wreszcie w świecie niezwykle spluralizowanym, takim, w którym
olbrzymie zróżnicowanie pod względem kultury, wartości, sposobów życia
i rozumienia tego, na czym polega dobre życie stało się powszechnym standardem. Tu także trudno sobie wyobrazić możliwość współdziałania i roz-
Marek Pyka
wiązywania konfliktów bez umiejętności komunikacji i dialogu. Najważniejsza część komunikacji ludzkiej jest możliwa dzięki językowi, toteż nauki o komunikacji muszą być integralnie powiązane z naukami o języku.
Przedmiotem poniższych rozważań jest inne, filozoficzne pojęcie dialogu oraz wiążąca się z nim filozoficzna koncepcja człowieka jako istoty właśnie dialogicznej. Rozważania te z konieczności będą mieć charakter bardzo
szkicowy i skrótowy. W odróżnieniu od nauk szczegółowych i ich bezprecedensowych sukcesów, filozofia nie ma oczywiście bezpośrednich zastosowań praktycznych. Tym, do czego zmierza jest próba możliwie głębszego
i całościowego zrozumienia i człowieka, i świata. Dążenia te stanowią to, co
w filozofii jest najbardziej specyficzne i zarazem najbardziej interesujące.
W długim okresie dziejów filozofii powstawały przeróżne koncepcje,
idee i teorie usiłujące właściwie ująć i wyjaśnić naturę ludzką. W szczególności zwracano uwagę na rozumność, duchowość, wolność, pracę, czy wartości, zwracano też uwagę na zdolność odniesienia się do własnego istnienia
i związaną z tym troskę jako podstawową charakterystykę sposobu bycia
człowieka. Filozofia społeczna z kolei zwracała uwagę na większe całości,
na społeczne uwarunkowania, które określają byt poszczególnych jednostek. Mimo tej imponującej liczby koncepcji, ujęć i teorii, pytanie o to kim
jest człowiek pozostaje wciąż otwarte, i zapewne takim będzie musiało pozostać. Szczególnie trudne są tu problemy dotyczące świadomości, podmiotowości i tożsamości osoby.
To, co nazywamy dialogicznym charakterem bytu ludzkiego filozofia
uczyniła przedmiotem namysłu i badań stosunkowo późno, bo dopiero
w wieku XX. Fakt ten może trochę zaskakiwać, bowiem to, na czym filozofia dialogu skupiła swoją uwagę wydaje się pozostawać w bliskich związkach z tym, co potocznie sądzi się o człowieku i najważniejszych sprawach
jego życia.
Filozofia dialogu rozwijała się w XX wieku równolegle i niezależnie
w obrębie myśli judaistycznej, katolickiej i protestanckiej (Gadacz 2009,
520-638). Ideę człowieka, jaką zawiera, można nazwać ideą biblijną.
W głównym nurcie filozofii Zachodu człowiek był ujmowany albo w perspektywie pierwszoosobowej, albo, z obiektywnego punktu widzenia, czyli
w perspektywie trzecioosobowej. W pierwszym przypadku prowadziło to
do rozwoju filozofii świadomości i podmiotowości, w drugim natomiast, do
próby obiektywistycznego, naukowego ujęcia człowieka. W każdym jednak
przypadku pomijano coś istotnego. Tym, czego chcą dokonać przedstawiciele filozofii dialogu jest próba przezwyciężenia tej dychotomii. Filozofia
168
Człowiek jako istota dialogiczna w myśli Józefa Tischnera
dialogu chce przekroczyć tę dychotomię, chce być myśleniem z punktu widzenia drugiej osoby – Ty, takim, w którym relacja Ja – Ty konstytuuje tożsamość każdej ze stron, każdego ja. Człowiek w świetle tego nurtu jest
w swej najgłębszej naturze istotą dialogiczną, najgłębszą i najbardziej istotną treść jego życia wyznacza dialog z ważnymi osobami, a najważniejszy
dialog dotyczy odpowiedzi na wezwanie płynące od Boga. Tożsamość poszczególnych osób, tożsamość „ja” jest w istotny sposób określana przez
dialogiczne relacje z innymi, z najważniejszymi osobami. W niektórych
przypadkach obie relacje dialogiczne mogą się dopełniać – „twarz Innego”
człowieka może prowadzić dalej, może zawierać „ślad” pozostawiony przez
Boga.
Również i polska myśl wniosła interesujący wkład do tego nurtu filozofii
człowieka, który nazywamy tu filozofią dialogu. Była ona rozwijana
w Krakowie przez Józefa Tischnera i Adama Węgrzeckiego, tutaj skupię się
na myśli tego pierwszego. Karol Wojtyła – mówimy tu wyłącznie o jego
pracach filozoficznych – nie czynił dialogicznego charakteru człowieka
bezpośrednim przedmiotem swych badań filozoficznych. W swym ważnym
dziele filozoficznym Osoba i czyn przedstawił wnikliwą analizę ludzkiego
działania skupiając się na wolności, samostanowieniu osoby i prawdzie; relacja dialogiczna w tych analizach nie dochodzi do głosu (Wojtyła 1994).
Z kolei w studium poświęconym miłości narzeczeńskiej Miłość i odpowiedzialność ukazał naturalne podstawy dla filozoficznej kategorii dialogicznej
natury człowieka w ramach tej formy miłości (Wojtyła 2001). Jednak i tam
kategoria dialogu, jako kategoria, która ujmuje najistotniejszy wątek miłości, nie jest wprost obecna, nie jest tematem namysłu. Niemniej jednak, samo życie i działalność Karola Wojtyły, a później Jana Pawła II świadczy
o czymś zupełnie innym, stanowiąc najlepszy, bo żywy, przykład znaczenia
relacji dialogicznej w ludzkim życiu; w szczególności dotyczy to postawy
otwartości i umiejętności dostrzegania drugiego, umiejętności słuchania,
wierności przyjaźniom.
10.1 Józef Tischner: od aksjologicznej do dialogicznej koncepcji człowieka
Poniższe rozważania są poświęcone wyłącznie myśli Józefa Tischnera.
Najpierw zarysujemy jego ideę „Ja aksjologicznego” oraz przejście od filozofii wartości do filozofii dialogu, do jakiego doszło w wyniku rozwoju je169
Marek Pyka
go myślenia. Następnie rozważymy problem relacji pomiędzy „Ja aksjologicznym” a ja jako podmiotem dialogu i dramatu oraz spróbujemy określić
wkład Tischnera do debaty na temat natury podmiotowości człowieka i tożsamości osobowej. Na koniec wreszcie spróbujemy odnieść ideę dialogicznej istoty człowieka do rzeczywistości współczesnego świata. Tu jednak nie
odwołamy się do naukowego opisu tego świata, lecz ograniczymy się tylko
do jego obrazu ukazanego za pomocą środków artystycznych, w pewnym
dziele sztuki filmowej.
Punktem wyjścia myślenia Józefa Tischnera była fenomenologiczna filozofia wartości i człowieka, która jest znakiem rozpoznawczym krakowskiej
szkoły filozoficznej. W jej ramach człowiek jest istotą żyjącą w świecie
wartości (Tischner 1975, 1982; Ingarden 1972). Część z nich może być
związana z interesami ekonomicznymi czy politycznymi, jednak wartościami, o które chodzi przede wszystkim, są wartości niezwiązane z tymi interesami – są to wartości duchowe, klasyczne platońskie wartości prawdy,
dobra i piękna, choć nazewnictwo jest trochę inne. To one przede wszystkim nadają życiu ludzkiemu sens i określają naszą tożsamość. Tym, co
otwiera daną jednostkę na wartości i decyduje o sensie jej życia nie jest –
jak w przypadku Schelera – kształt jej filozoficznie rozumianej miłości, lecz
kształt jej „nadziei”. Od takiego mniej więcej stanowiska Tischner wyszedł
i pracował w jego ramach, wzbogacając go o ideę „Ja aksjologicznego” jako
podmiotowego bieguna świadomości wartości. Jakie treści wiążą się z ideą
„Ja aksjologicznego”?
Próba odpowiedzi na to pytanie prowadzi do drugiego, znacznie trudniejszego nurtu badań Józefa Tischnera, to jest do badań nad naturą podmiotu świadomości. W filozofii świadomości rozwijanej w ramach fenomenologii wyodrębnia się trzy sfery: strumień świadomości, sferę
przedmiotów intencjonalnych – na które akty świadomości są skierowane –
oraz sferę podmiotu świadomości. Twórca fenomenologii, Edmund Husserl,
odnosząc się do podmiotu świadomości, wprowadził pojęcie pozaempirycznego „ja transcendentalnego”, do którego dociera się w wyniku zaawansowanych zabiegów technicznych jego metody. Roman Ingarden mówił z kolei o „czystym Ja”, jako źródle aktów świadomości. Max Scheler natomiast,
nie posługując się ani jednym ani drugim pojęciem, wprowadził ideę osoby
jako jedności różnych aktów świadomości, choć nie wyjaśnił bliżej tego, co
miałoby stanowić podstawę dla tej jedności.
Punktem wyjścia filozoficznych badań Tischnera nad naturą podmiotu
świadomości była fenomenologiczna teoria świadomości Husserla
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1
(Tischner 2006). W swej rozprawie habilitacyjnej pt. Fenomenologia świadomości egotycznej przedstawił on samodzielną i oryginalną próbę zmierzenia się z tym niezwykle trudnym, subtelnym i budzącym spory proble2
mem (Tischner 2006, 131-422) . Podjął mianowicie próbę odpowiedzi na
pytanie o to, które z ujęć „podmiotowego ja” jest najbardziej podstawowe
i najbardziej adekwatne, a uzyskany w wyniku tych badań rezultat – idea
„Ja aksjologicznego” – połączył w sobie treści aksjologiczne i podmioto3
we.
„Ja aksjologiczne” jest czymś idealnym, ale w przeciwieństwie
do idealistycznie rozumianego „ja transcedentalnego” Husserla, „Ja aksjologiczne” jest związane z konkretną osobą zakorzenioną w świecie. Sposobem bycia „Ja aksjologicznego” jest „bytowanie w stronę wartości”. Realizując wartości przedmiotowe w ciągu życia, „Ja aksjologiczne” „urealnia
się” w takiej czy innej postaci ja społecznego, urealnia się również w procesie określanym przez Tischnera mianem „egotycznej solidaryzacji”. Żadne
urealnienie ani ich suma go nie wyczerpują, w swej naturze pozostaje ono
poza, czy też ponad każdym z nich. W swej najgłębszej warstwie natura naszej podmiotowości ma charakter aksjologiczny, natura ta może przejawiać
się jako „troska” o sposób życia, o której mówił Heidegger, albo też jako
zaangażowanie w realizowanie wartości, o której mówi etyka aksjologiczna.
Obecność „Ja aksjologicznego” nie może być ugruntowana poprzez badanie
strumienia przeżyć i danych w nich sensów, jest ono bowiem ich podmiotem, czymś, co jest u ich podłoża, lecz samo jest niewidocznie. W podobny
1 Praca
Studia z filozofii świadomości zawiera rozprawę doktorską (1962) oraz rozprawę habilitacyjną (1971) J. Tischnera. W artykule zachowuję oryginalną pisownię J. Tischnera, pisząc
„Ja aksjologiczne” dużą literą, podobną pisownię stosował R. Ingarden posługując się pojęciem „czyste Ja”. W pozostałych przypadkach, mówiąc w artykule o innych ujęciach podmiotowości, posługuję się małą literą. Dotyczy to również pojęcia „ja transcedentalnego” Husserla,
choć w tym przypadku, w polskich przekładach stosowane są obie formy.
2 O tym jak trudny jest to problem najlepiej świadczy fakt, że istnieją stanowiska całkowicie
przeczące istnieniu trwałej podstawy podmiotowości; klasycznym reprezentantem takiego poglądu jest David Hume, a współcześnie broni go D. Parfit, wprowadzając „seryjną” koncepcję
podmiotu. Istnieją też stanowiska, które nie przeczą istnieniu „ja podmiotowego”, ale twierdzą,
że nie można o nim nic powiedzieć, albo też, że można wiązać z nim jedynie banalne treści.
Stanowiska tego typu wiążą się z głównym nurtem filozofii analitycznej; w szczególności
L. Wittgenstein kwestionował istnienie podmiotu myśli, choć nie podważał istnienia podmiotu
woli.
3 Idea „Ja aksjologicznego” została po raz pierwszy sformułowana w artykule: J. Tischner, Impresje aksjologiczne, „Znak”, 1970, nr 2/3, s. 204-219.
171
Marek Pyka
sposób oko warunkuje widzenie, lecz samo nie znajduje się w polu widzenia, o ile ktoś nie spogląda w lustro.
Zarówno „ja transcedentalne” Husserla, jak i „Ja aksjologiczne” Tischnera z pierwszego okresu jego myślenia nie ma charakteru dialogicznego,
i jedno, i drugie odnosi się wyłącznie do jednostkowego podmiotu przeżyć.
Jednostkowa świadomość jest tutaj ujęta tak, jakby była zamknięta wyłącznie w swoim własnym kręgu, kręgu znaczeń i sensów, wśród których znajdują się również wartości. Drugi człowiek jest nieobecny; jeżeli się jakoś
pojawia, to tylko pośrednio, poprzez wartości, jakie wiążą się z jego sytuacją. Obraz człowieka z tego okresu dopełnia oczywiście fenomenologiczna
teoria wartości. Człowiek jest istotą żyjącą przede wszystkim w świecie
wartości, „Ja aksjologiczne” – to wkład Tischnera – jest osobowym podmiotem wartości. Życie raz po raz stawia nas wobec aksjologicznych „białych plam” – czujemy się zobowiązani do ich wypełniania. Tym, co otwiera
nas na wartości, a przede wszystkim każe wierzyć w możliwość ich realizacji mimo wszystkich przeszkód, jest nasza nadzieja.
Na tym obrazie myślenie Tischnera się jednak nie zatrzymuje. Dążenie
do wypowiedzenia pełnej prawdy o człowieku – które wolno uznać za źródłowy problem dla całości jego myślenia – oraz subtelna zdolność obserwacji ludzkiego świata prowadzą go do przekroczenia granic fenomenologii
i fenomenologicznej koncepcji człowieka. Ideą, która wyprowadza poza te
granice jest idea „spotkania”. Czym jest „spotkanie” w przywołanym tu, filozoficznym znaczeniu? Czym różni się ono od dziesiątek codziennych interakcji międzyludzkich, od dziesiątek wymian informacji, rozmów, negocjacji, ustaleń, z których utkane są procesy komunikacji i życie społeczne,
że ma aż takie znaczenie?
„Spotkania” nie można zaplanować, jest ono bowiem „wydarzeniem”
w międzyludzkiej „przestrzeni obcowań”, wydarzeniem, które całkowicie
zmienia życie jego uczestników, po którym wszystko trzeba będzie zacząć
od nowa (Tischner 1978, 73-98). W spotkaniu, spoza wszystkich zasłon
wynikających z pełnienia takich czy innych ról społecznych, ukazuje się
prawdziwa twarz – twarz drugiego w całej jego swoistości i odmienności.
„Wydarzenie spotkania” ma również nawiązania do pierwszego, aksjologicznego okresu myślenia Tischnera: otwiera ono „horyzont aksjologiczny”,
w którym wartości są doświadczane w sposób najbardziej żywy, w taki,
w którym uzyskują praktyczne znaczenie, a przestają być tylko pięknymi
i abstrakcyjnymi ideami. Najwyraźniej „spotkanie” zajmuje tu miejsce „nadziei” z pierwszego okresu myślenia Tischnera. „Spotkanie” otwiera także
172
jeszcze jeden horyzont, ten, który zostaje nazwany „horyzontem agatologicznym”. Jest to horyzont odmienny i ważniejszy od horyzontu aksjologicznego – ujawnia się w nim w sposób najbardziej bezpośredni znaczenie
dobra drugiego, ale też i jego kruchości, świadomość faktu, iż dobro to jest
nietrwałe i zagrożone możliwością zła (Gadacz 2009, 636). Dzięki wydarzeniu spotkania, monologiczny i egocentryczny krąg filozofii podmiotowości, Kartezjańskiej i Husserlowskiej filozofii świadomości, zostaje przekroczony.
Żywa obecność Innego konstytuuje podstawową dla natury podmiotowości człowieka relację Ja – Ty, rozpoczyna się „dialog”. Początkiem dialogu
w znaczeniu filozoficznym, czyli tym, które nas tu interesuje, jest zatem
„wydarzenie spotkania”. W tym punkcie metoda fenomenologiczna nie może wystarczać. Jest to punkt, w którym myślenie Tischnera przechodzi do
swej drugiej, późniejszej fazy, a jest to faza, którą wyznacza perspektywa
filozofii dialogu. To właśnie w ramach tej perspektywy przedstawia Tischner swoje ostateczne, choć niedokończone, ujęcie ludzkiego bytu i ludzkiego losu, czyli filozofię dramatu.
Odnajdując drogę do najbardziej trafnego wypowiedzenia swojej wizji
losu ludzkiego w filozofii spotkania i dialogu, Tischner dodaje do jej opisów wymiar dramatyczny. Najważniejszą treść ludzkiego życia stanowią relacje dialogiczne, w porównaniu do nich wszystko inne stanowi tło, stanowi
tylko „scenę” (Tischner 1990, 11-23). Budowanie domu, gospodarowanie,
zaangażowanie w pracę uzyskują swój pełny sens dopiero w kontekście relacji dialogicznych. Bez nich opis tych działań i trudów byłby pozbawiony
czegoś szczególnie ważnego. Dramat oznacza tutaj to, że osoby dramatu,
dramatu życia, podlegają czasowi i związanej z nim niepewności. Niepewność ta wynika z ich troski o dobro, którą niekoniecznie muszą wprost formułować, a także ze stale obecnego zagrożenia przez zło. Piękno nie musi
prowadzić do Dobra, Zło może kusić i wydawać się atrakcyjne, może też
występować w przebraniu Dobra. Możliwe jest błądzenie w „żywiole Piękna”, w „żywiole Prawdy” i w „żywiole Dobra”. Wszystkie spotkania
i związane z nimi możliwe dramaty międzyludzkie są tylko cząstkami najważniejszego dramatu: spotkania i dialogu człowieka z Bogiem. Co to znaczy być istotą dramatyczną?
Być istotą dramatyczną, to wierzyć – prawdziwie czy nieprawdziwie
– że zguba czy ocalenie jest w rękach człowieka. Człowiek może nie
wiedzieć, że na czym ostatecznie polega jego zguba i na czym pole-
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ga jego ocalenie, pomimo to może mieć świadomość, że o coś takiego w życiu chodzi (Tischner 1990, 13).
Nie jest oczywiste, czy jest w ogóle możliwe jednoznaczne wypowiedzenie ludzkiego losu, takie rzecz jasna, które nie popada w nadmierne
uproszczenia. Które ujęcie ludzkiego bytu jest bardziej adekwatne? Czy to –
w ramach filozofii wartości – gdzie człowiek pojęty jest, jako istota realizująca wartości, wypełniająca aksjologiczne białe plamy w obrębie świata
i w ten sposób realizująca siebie? Czy raczej to późniejsze, które zostało zarysowane powyżej?
Nie ma tu miejsca na dokładniejsze przedstawienie Tischnerowskiej filozofii dramatu. Nie byłoby to zresztą łatwe, bowiem tu właśnie myślenie
autora odwołuje się do języka literackiego i poetyckiego. Charakterystyczną
cechą tego myślenia jest uderzająca wnikliwość i subtelność
w obserwowaniu i rejestrowaniu ludzkiego świata, tego, co sami robimy
i tego, co się między nami wydarza i dzieje. Aby opisać to właśnie, Tischner nie waha się porzucić rygory wyznaczone metodą takiego czy innego filozoficznego myślenia. Nie waha się przed częstym użyciem języka metaforycznego i literackiego próbując wyrazić to, co być może nie daje się już
w sposób wyrazić w sposób jednoznaczny i adekwatny. Opisy spotkań wypadają najbardziej przekonująco, gdy autor odwołuje się do opisów początków miłości z arcydzieł literackich, bo tu rzeczywiście wszystko zaczyna
się od nowa (Tischner 1982, 486). Są jednak i przypadki, które nie podpadają już tak przekonująco pod kategorię spotkania i dialogu, a to, co jest
w nich przedstawiane zdaje się rozpływać w mnogości zwyczajnych
i codziennych relacji i interakcji międzyludzkich.
Przejście myślenia Tischnera od „Ja aksjologicznego” do „ja dialogicznego” czy dramatycznego – jak moglibyśmy tu je określić – prowadzi do
pytania o to, jaka jest między nimi relacja. W filozofii dialogu nie ma Ja bez
Ty, Ja jest dopiero konstytuowane i określane przez spotkanie i dialog
z istotnym Ty. Jeśli tak, to stajemy przed pytaniem o to, czy najbardziej
pierwotnym znaczeniem pojęcia ja nie powinno być to właśnie, które jest
podmiotem spotkania i dramatu – jakieś „ja dialogiczne” lub „ja dramatyczne”. „Ja” takie podlega „wydarzeniom” spotkania, ma swoje dzieje. Czy jest
w nim coś stałego i jaka jest jego relacja do „Ja aksjologicznego”, czy w
myśleniu Tischnera nie wyparło ono teraz całkowicie „Ja aksjologicznego”
i go nie zastąpiło? Prace Tischnera nie pozostawiają w tej sprawie wątpliwości. „Ja aksjologiczne” nie zostało teraz zastąpione przez dziejowe „ja
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dramatyczne”, jest ono nadal obecne w poszczególnych osobach ludzkiego
dramatu. Wszystko, co zostało powiedziane o „Ja aksjologicznym” w momencie ogłoszenia tej idei w latach siedemdziesiątych postaje nadal aktualne w okresie filozofii dramatu. Czytamy o tym:
Pojęcie Ja ma wiele znaczeń. Wśród wielu znaczeń pojęcia Ja jedne
są podstawowe, a inne pochodne. Najbardziej podstawowe jest to
znaczenie, które wskazuje na wartość – na Ja aksjologiczne. Pojęcie
Ja aksjologicznego dotyka samego rdzenia doświadczeń egotycznych (Tischner 1990, 85).
W drugim, dialogicznym okresie myślenia Tischnera pojawiają się dalsze dookreślenia związane właśnie z dialogicznym otwarciem bytu ludzkiego: „Ja w radykalnym tego słowa znaczeniu jest Ja aksjologicznym. Jako
takie jest adresatem pytania i jako takie jest dawcą odpowiedzi.” Wartość
przysługująca każdemu podmiotowi domaga się tego „by być uznaną –
uznaną tym uznaniem, które we właściwy sposób dopełnia się w rozmowie”
(Tischner 1990, 87, 174).
Jaka jest zatem relacja pomiędzy „Ja aksjologicznym” a „ja dialogicznym” czy „ja dramatycznym”? Próba odpowiedzi na to pytanie wiąże się
z próbą określenia wkładu Tischnera do filozoficznej debaty na temat natury podmiotowości i natury świadomości. Problem ten przekracza granice
dzielące filozofię kontynentalną i filozofię analityczną. Mając swe historyczne źródła w filozofii nowożytnej, jest jednym z najtrudniejszych, ale
i najbardziej interesujących problemów podejmowanych przez filozofię.
Jest to też przykład problemu, w którym nic nie może zastąpić filozofii,
choć może ona i tutaj posiłkować się wynikami nauk szczegółowych, a także tym co na ten temat zawarte jest w bogatej tradycji literatury. Pomińmy
tu, wcale nie rzadkie, stanowiska negatywne, które w sposób zamierzony
dokonują dekonstrukcji podmiotowości człowieka, albo marginalizują jej
znaczenie. W obrębie stanowisk pozytywnych linia podziału przebiega
między tymi, które uznają istnienie prostego i trwałego rdzenia, jako podstawy podmiotowości i tożsamości jednostki, a tymi, które przeczą istnieniu
takiej trwałej podstawy i ujmują podmiotowość wyłącznie jako rezultat zło-
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żonych procesów społecznych, kulturowych i psychicznych . Jak określić
wkład Tischnera do tej debaty?
To, że sytuuje on się po stronie stanowisk pozytywnych jest rzeczą
oczywistą. Odpowiedź, jaka się rysuje jest następująca. „Ja aksjologiczne”
stanowi punktowy i niezmienny świadomościowy rdzeń naszej tożsamości.
Bez niego nie byłoby naszej podmiotowości i nie byłaby możliwa nasza
jednostkowa tożsamość. Naszej tożsamości nie pojmujemy jednak aż tak
wąsko, do podmiotowego rdzenia – prostego „Ja aksjologicznego” – dołączają się tu jeszcze inne treści, te, z którymi się utożsamiamy – „solidaryzujemy”, jak powiedziałby Tischner. Zdolność do utożsamiania, „solidaryzowania” jest istotnie związana z podmiotowym rdzeniem naszej tożsamości.
Dzięki niej ma on moc konstytuowania naszej, szerzej pojętej tożsamości,
szerzej pojętego „ja”. W pierwszej fazie myśli Tischnera nasza tożsamość
osobowa – szerzej pojęte „ja” – była budowana przede wszystkim przez
wartości, które są dla nas najważniejsze. Bez nich nie bylibyśmy sobą.
W drugiej fazie natomiast, wartości zostają przesunięte na dalszy plan. Nasza tożsamość zostaje teraz określona przez Ty, które pojawiło się w wydarzeniu spotkania. Bez tego Ty nie byłoby mnie, nie byłoby „ja”, oczywiście
w szerszym sensie. Istniałoby bowiem „Ja aksjologiczne”, jako rdzeń mojej
osobowej tożsamości wraz z mniej znaczącymi sprawami, z którymi bym
się utożsamiał. Ukonstytuowana w relacji dialogicznej tożsamość osób –
punkt dojścia myślenia Tischnera – ma charakter dziejowy i jak cień towarzyszy jej możliwość dramatycznych zmian – wśród nich istnieje niestety
również i możliwość zła. Zmiany te jednak, powtórzmy, zawsze dokonują
się przy zachowaniu niezmiennego, trwałego rdzenia, którym jest „Ja aksjologiczne”. Powtórzmy też, iż w ramach tej koncepcji tożsamości osobowej
jest też miejsce na biblijną koncepcję człowieka, najważniejszy bowiem
dialog i dramat, jaki toczy się w ciągu ludzkiego życia to dialog i dramat
człowieka z Bogiem. Wszystkie inne spotkania i dramaty międzyludzkie są
jego cząstką.
Historyczne źródła tego rodzaju szerokiej koncepcji podmiotowości bez trwałego i prostego
rdzenia znajdują się w klasycznym stanowisku Hume’a. W obrębie najnowszych stanowisk angielskiego obszaru językowego szczególnie ważne są tu dwie prace: C. Taylor, Źródła podmiotowości, tłum. M. Gruszczyński, O. Latek, A. Lipszyc, A. Michalik, A. Rostkowska, M. Rychter, Ł. Sommer (red. naukowa) T. Gadacz, Warszawa 2001; T. Nagel, Widok znikąd, tłum.
C. Cieśliński, Warszawa 1997.
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10.2 Próba odniesienia do współczesnej rzeczywistości społecznej
Na zakończenie spróbujmy odnieść ideę dialogicznego charakteru istoty
człowieka do współczesnej rzeczywistości. Żyjemy w świecie zdominowanym przez informacje i organizacje. Możemy jednak wymieniać tysiące informacji, mieć setki kontaktów społecznych, odbywać setki spotkań i używać tysięcy słów – tempo dzisiejszego życia do tego zmusza – lecz mimo
to, może w nich wszystkich nie dojść do otwarcia i ukonstytuowania się
prawdziwej relacji dialogicznej – tej, o której mówi szkicowana wyżej filozofia dialogu. Może nie dojść do prawdziwego spotkania, które jest wydarzeniem, które zmienia życie i kształtuje tożsamość. Jeśli jest to wydarzenie
i proces tak ważny dla tego, czym jesteśmy, to, gdy zaczyna go brakować,
zaczyna brakować czegoś istotnego, a życie nie jest dobrym życiem.
Jaka jest, rozpatrywana pod tym względem, rzeczywistość współczesnego ludzkiego świata? Dla najbardziej kompletnej odpowiedzi trzeba by się
zapewne odwołać do badań socjologicznych i psychologicznych. Tu jednak
chcemy się odwołać nie do obrazu socjologicznego, lecz do pewnego wglądu, jaki w życie we współczesnym świecie daje sztuka. Ukazuje ona pojedyncze, konkretne przypadki, za to bardziej wyraziście i wnikliwie niż może to uczynić czysto zewnętrzne podejście naukowe. Odwołamy się tu nie
do dzieł literatury, lecz przykładu ze sztuki filmowej. Stałym motywem,
stałym problemem, który jest w niej eksploatowany jest brak głębokiego
porozumienia, czyli właśnie brak relacji dialogicznej w relacjach bardzo
osobistych, w relacjach miłości pomiędzy kobietą i mężczyzną. O tym właśnie mówili najwięksi mistrzowie kina XX wieku, Bergman, Antonioni, ale
także i inni.
Tu jednak chcę powiedzieć o czymś innym – o braku relacji dialogicznej, braku głębszego porozumienia między rodzicami a dziećmi. Relacje te
należą do najbardziej głębokich i trwałych w życiu, nawet jeśli związki
między rodzicami się rozpadają, to relacje te trwają przez całe życie. Przywołany temat został podjęty przez współczesnego, postmodernistycznego
reżysera meksykańskiego Alejandro Iñárritu w uhonorowanym nagrodami
filmie Babel. Iñárritu ukazał go zgodnie z najlepszymi postmodernistycznymi wymogami języka filmowego, który opanował w sposób mistrzowski,
dołączając w ten sposób do czołówki światowego kina. Tym, co uderza
w przesłaniu tego filmu jest globalna skala ukazywanego zjawiska. Problem
braku właściwej relacji pomiędzy rodzicami a dziećmi – relacji dialogicznej
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w kontekście naszych rozważań – występuje wszędzie i zupełnie niezależnie od kultury i stopnia zamożności społeczeństw. Zgodnie z kanonami
postmodernistycznej narracji, film Babel opowiada trzy odrębne historie,
a tym, co je łączy jest całkowity przypadek. W każdej z trzech przedstawionych historii brak właściwych relacji dialogicznych pomiędzy rodzicami
i dziećmi oraz narastający ciąg zdarzeń i okoliczności sprawiają, że pojawiające się w nich dzieci zostają wystawione na śmiertelne niebezpieczeństwo, nie w metaforycznym, lecz dosłownym sensie tego słowa. Jedna z historii dzieje się w Stanach Zjednoczonych na granicy z Meksykiem, druga
w niebywale zagęszczonej metropolii japońskiej, trzecia wreszcie w zagubionej, maleńkiej wiosce w Maroku. W tym ostatnim przypadku rodzina
jest bardzo biedna, natomiast w dwóch pozostałych najwyraźniej należy do
klasy zbliżonej do średniej. Wszędzie jednak rodzice nie mają czasu, nie
chcą, albo nie potrafią zbudować właściwej relacji ze swymi dziećmi –
współczesny Babel dotyczy nawet tych najbardziej elementarnych relacji.
Zwornikiem, który łączy te trzy historie w konstrukcji filmu jest przypadek,
przypadkowy wystrzał ze sztucera. Rola tego przypadku oraz równoległość
trzech historii nadają przekazowi filmu dodatkowej siły i wartości dramatycznych, które były niedostępne w ramach tradycyjnych sposobów narracji
języka filmowego.
Strzał pada w wyniku nieświadomości dwóch chłopców z rodziny marokańskiej, którzy, pomagając w domu, pilnują wielkiego stada kóz. Próbując
sztucer, który dał im ojciec do pomocy w tym zadaniu, strzelają na próbę do
różnych celów, a w końcu także i do jadącego w dużej odległości, widocznego z góry, autobusu z turystami amerykańskimi. Pech sprawia, że strzał
okazuje się celny, a kula trafia jedną z turystek. Nieszczęśliwy wypadek zostaje odczytany jako zamach terrorystyczny, rusza obława policji marokańskiej, w końcu dochodzi do ostrzeliwania ojca wraz synami, w wyniku czego jeden z synów ginie. A oto druga historia: pewne małżeństwo
amerykańskie przeżywa kryzys. Aby próbować odnaleźć się na nowo
w swych rolach, postanawia odbyć egzotyczną podróż, do Maroka – i to
właśnie w tę kobietę trafia przypadkowa kula chłopca. Problem małżeństwa
staje się teraz zupełnie inny i bardzo konkretny – kobiecie bezpośrednio
grozi wykrwawienie i śmierć w maleńkiej, marokańskiej wiosce. W tak poważnej sytuacji ich myśli w sposób naturalny zwracają się ku ich dzieciom,
które pozostawili w Kalifornii pod opieką niani. Zupełnie nie mogą zdać
sobie sprawy, że i one same znajdą się wkrótce w śmiertelnym niebezpieczeństwie. Meksykańska opiekunka tych dzieci musi bowiem pojechać na
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ślub syna do Meksyku i nie może znaleźć nikogo, kto mógłby ją zastąpić
w jej pracy. W końcu, niejako z konieczności, zabiera je ze sobą do Meksyku. W drodze powrotnej kierowca ich samochodu wchodzi w konflikt ze
strażą graniczną i w desperacki sposób ucieka autem na pustynię. Tam, po
dramatycznych próbach poszukiwania ratunku, pozostawione same sobie,
dzieci omal nie giną z powodu upału i wycieńczenia. Do trzeciej historii
prowadzi trop sztucera, z którego padł strzał. Badając pochodzenie sztucera
policja ustala, że jest on darem pewnego Japończyka, który kiedyś polował
w Maroku, w tych właśnie okolicach. Okazuje się wszakże, że tenże Japończyk, równolegle do tych wszystkich zdarzeń, sam ma zupełnie podobny
problem. Jego dorastająca córka jest głuchoniema i po samobójczej śmierci
jej matki, a jego żony, nie może nawiązać właściwej relacji ani z nim, ani
też nie może nawiązać relacji osobistej, której dość gorączkowo i niefortunnie poszukuje. W rezultacie sama ociera się niemal o samobójstwo.
O znaczeniu tej formy dialogicznego otwarcia i dialogicznej relacji pomiędzy rodzicami a dziećmi, których w tych trzech historiach najwyraźniej
zabrakło, nie trzeba nikogo przekonywać. A o trafności odczytania przesłania tego uznanego i nagradzanego filmu, świadczy dedykacja reżysera, która ukazuje się na ekranie wraz z ostatnią sceną filmu: „Moim dzieciom […]
najjaśniejszym światełkom w najciemniejszej nocy”.
Jeśli sprawy tak się mają, to diagnoza współczesnego ludzkiego świata
dokonana przez artystę współbrzmi tu z głosem dialogicznej filozofii człowieka. Przesłanie artysty jest takie samo, choć wypowiada go w sposób negatywny i w swoim własnym języku. Ukazując bowiem, występujący
w skali globalnej, brak relacji dialogicznej nawet w tak elementarnych
związkach międzyludzkich, podkreśla tym samym – choć nie wprost – brak
tego co stanowi najważniejszą treść naszego życia i określa jego najważniejszy sens. Filozofia dialogu mówi wprost o podstawowym znaczeniu relacji dialogicznej dla człowieka – Iñárritu natomiast mówi o tym w sposób
pośredni, w dramatyczny sposób pokazując to, do czego prowadzi jej brak
w obrębie najbardziej elementarnych relacji ludzkich. W odróżnieniu od filozofii dialogu, a w szczególności od filozofii Tischnera, artysta nie nawiązuje bezpośrednio do religii i Boga jako najważniejszego punktu odniesienia dla relacji dialogicznej – wyjątkiem jest tylko sam tytuł filmu, który
najwyraźniej odsyła do jednego z biblijnych przesłań. W odróżnieniu od intelektualistycznej postawy filozofa, rzeczą artysty jest jednak nie mówić
wszystkiego dosłownie i do końca, milczenie i celowe niedopowiedzenie
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ma również właściwą sobie wymowę. Przesłanie filozofa i artysty są tu ze
sobą w zgodzie.
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Pawła II. Str. 43-344.
Wojtyła, Karol. 2001. Miłość i odpowiedzialność. Red. T. Styczeń, Lublin:
Wydawnictwo Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego im. Jana Pawła II
180
W serii Publikacje Państwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawodowej im.
rotmistrza Witolda Pileckiego w Oświęcimiu ukazały się:
1.
Pamięć – Odpowiedzialność, pod red. L. Suchanka, Oświęcim 2007.
2.
Prawda w polityce, pod red. J. Dieca, Oświęcim 2008.
3.
Podstawy zarządzania – materiały do ćwiczeń, pod red. J. Sa
saka, Oświęcim 2008 (Podręczniki i Skrypty).
4.
Czy zmierzch terroryzmu? (case studies i wnioski dla Polski),
pod red. R. Borkowskiego, Oświęcim 2008.
5.
J. Kożuch, Podstawy rachunkowości, Oświęcim 2008 (Podręczniki i Skrypty).
6.
Idea samorządności w Polsce –perspektywy rozwoju ziemi
oświęcimskiej, pod red. M. Kaute, Oświęcim 2008.
7.
Piłsudczycy i narodowcy a niepodległość Polski, pod red.
B. Grotta, Oświęcim 2009.
8.
D. Romanowski, Odnaleźć człowieka w człowieku – obraz
bohatera w twórczości Mikołaja Gogola, Oświęcim 2009.
9.
Dobro, piękno, rozum i wiara w kontekście nauczania Jana
Pawła II, pod. Red. J. Dieca i R. Łętochy, Oświęcim 2009.
10.
Wolni i zniewoleni. Rtm. Witold Pilecki i inni więźniowie KL
Auschwitz wobec nowej rzeczywistości powojennej, pod red.
W. Stankowskiego, Oświęcim 2010.
11.
M. Bugdol, B. Goranczewski, Projakościowe usprawnianie
organizacji oparte na procesach. Koncepcje, metody i narzędzia, Oświęcim 2010.
12.
Oblicza wolności, pod red. R. Łętochy, Oświęcim 2010.
13.
Sukces czy porażka roku 89? Wokół polskiej myśli politycznej
i ustrojowej czasu transformacji, pod red. M. Kaute, Oświęcim 2011.
14.
Wokół naruszeń praw człowieka, pod red. W. Stankowskiego
i K. Żarny, Oświęcim 2011.
15.
Ideały wychowawcze i myśl polityczna harcerstwa polskiego.
Materiały z konferencji naukowej zorganizowanej z okazji
100-lecia harcerstwa w Polsce, pod red. G. Baziura,
Oświęcim 2011.
16.
B. Ogórek-Tęcza, Wybrane aspekty relaksacji i medycyny
komplementarnej w kontekście promocji zdrowia, Oświęcim
2011.
17.
Międzykulturowe i terapeutyczne uwarunkowania współczesnego pielęgniarstwa, pod red. B. Ogórek-Tęczy i Z. Pucko,
Oświęcim 2012.
18.
Godność człowieka, pod red. R. Łętochy, Oświęcim 2012.
19.
Kreatywna starość. 15-lecie oświęcimskiego Uniwersytetu
Trzeciego Wieku, pod red. A. Fabisia, A. ŁacinyŁanowskiego,
Ł. Tomczyka, Oświęcim 2013.
20.
A. Fabiś, M. Muszyński, Ł. Tomczyk, M. Zrałek, Starość
w Polsce. Aspekty społeczne i edukacyjne, Oświęcim 2014.
21.
Teoria i praktyka wychowania fizycznego i sportu, pod red.
T. Gabrysia, Oświęcim 2014.
22.
Europa Środkowa. Central Europe. Tom I, red. tomu R. Łętocha,
23.
K. Żarna, Oświęcim 2014,
Mały słownik studenta polityki bezpieczeństwa. Angielskopolski, pod red. D. Mrowca, Oświęcim 2015,
24.
Europa Środkowa. Central Europe. Tom II, red. tomu
M. Malczyńska-Biały, M. Mączyński, Oświęcim 2015.
25.
Europa Środkowa. Central Europe. Tom III, red. tomu
K. Koźbiał, Oświęcim 2015.

Perspectives on Past Achievements, Present Realities and

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