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INTRODUCTION
The Book of Daniel is a spectacular post-modern novel that goes beyond and above most books I have read. Its dense philosophic message aligned with its rich experimental and original narrative, embodies Doctorow's exceptional magnitude as a writer. In his rewriting of historical events with an insightful subjective approach, he touches upon central issues in the state of modern American culture and the postmodern age.
The Book of Daniel is a work of metafiction that interweaves the narrators imagination with factual events within the context established by the real political and social conditions in post-war America in the 150s . The background for this work of fiction is the famous and controversial case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who in an age of McCarthyism were tried, convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage against America. With this as the fixated point of reference, The Book of Daniel becomes a complex mixture of both subjectivity and objectivity, using the historical accounts of the Rosenberg case as its framework and fictitious imagination as its substance, its life.
The scope of this thesis is to come to terms with the novel's projection of existentialism. I will do this by analysizing significant features that are relevant in a discussion of existentialism and hereby try to settle on Doctorow's philosophy in life. Additionally, I will see how this principle suits with the American post-modern age and literary canon.
ANALYSIS
The Book of Daniel is a typical post-modern piece of work being experimental and revolutionary in its disobedience of form, coherence, and style. The overt outline of the novel seems very conventional though, consisting of 4 chapters with each chapter's subdivision into minor thematic chapters, but within this adequate frame, the novel is split and complex. There is no chronological structure in the novel, and the reader is often in a state of temporary confusion because of the frequent violation of conventional writing patterns; changes of perspective from first to third person, complex flashbacks, choppy dialogues, spontaneous outbursts, lack of cohesion, starting new paragraphs with small letters, and lines consisting of mere capital letters. Two decades span the story from the beginning of the 10s, describing the narrator's past by following him from his childhood with his parents, in the orphan institution with his sister, and with his foster parents, to the end of the 160s, living his own family life with his wife and a son. Within the novel itself, there are varied genres family stories, autobiographies, essays, letters, poetic descriptions, conflicting historical analyses, biblical quotations and the like.
Daniel Isaacson is the protagonist of The Book of Daniel. He is the grown son of the couple executed, the living hero who must struggle and deal with the events that have occurred. Daniel is obviously intelligent; a graduate student at the University of Columbia, but his character is certainly in question as he is presented as being somewhat perverse and even cruel in the way he treats his wife. It is obvious that something is crucially wrong with Daniel's perception and consumption of life, and with lines such as "I live in constant and degrading relationship to the society that has destroyed my mother and father." (p. 7), we learn that Daniel suffers from alienation and disaffiliation from the society that has acted so fatally upon his family and hereby shaped the history of his life, too. Studying history at Columbia University and not being able to come up with a thesis for his Ph. D. dissertation, Daniel decides to investigate his parent's trial and hereby confesses his intimate relationships through life, making his thesis a book of memories of his own past.
As Daniel writes his book, he deals with the subjectivity of his emotional attachment to his parents, his emotions regarding the events of the past and present, and the objectivity of the facts and accusations. He is in constant search for truth and reality of what happened to his parents, and tension is created through the subjectivity of Daniels inner feelings and emotions, and the objectivity of the objective facts as they are presented As a writer, Daniel must be an onlooker to this piece of history, but as the son Daniel is a participant, and how to separate the two is a dilemma to him, because Daniel has two sets of lives, two separate but interconnecting experiences, two sets of parents and two sets of memories. He is caught between the two worlds, but feels at home in neither of them, and part of Daniel's difficulty in writing his own story is the reconciling of his split ego. Daniel's thesis becomes his therapy in that he faces the complexities and multiplicities in his momentary state of life in order to find a way to get on with life. On an overt level, Daniel is in constant search for the truth about his parents' fate, but on a subliminal level, Daniel is in search for truth about life! He is not a hero in the normal sense of the word because he does not save anyone, but he does exhibit great courage by confessing his own misdeeds, his own guilt, and his own cruelties.
Biblical Allusions
Worth noticing are the abundant instances of biblical allusions appearing in the novel from beginning to end. The title of the book itself is a segment from the Jewish Bible and just as the biblical Daniel tries to read signs and dreams for King Nebuchadnezzar, our novel's Daniel tries to analyze and interpret life. There are biblical codes within the book itself, too; the intertextuality of the book, beginning and ending with a quote from the bible, adequately frames the work, and the significant parallel between Daniel and Messiah are quite puzzling when the grandmother recognizes Daniel as having "…the strength and innocence that will reclaim us all from defeat. That will exonerate our having lived and justify our living."(p. 70); as well as the perplexed resemblance between Jesus and Daniel when Daniel goes on board the flight to Los Angeles to visit Linda Mindish and recapitulate his parents' past (p.61). Perhaps the most evident representation of biblical codes are the Isaacsons whom Daniel himself parallels with Jesus (p. 184). As Prunier mentions "The Isaacsons become reminiscent of Christian martyrs." , even Rochelle herself makes statements, such as "'We shall bear the brunt.'"(p.17), and Daniel himself compares his mother's devotion to communism as a devotion and commitment to Christianity (p. 4). It is in all probability, as Paul Levine has remarked, not so important "…whether the accused are guilty or innocent…than that they have been selected as scapegoats in a ritual drama beyond their comprehension." The Isaacsons are scapegoats for communism just as Jesus was a scapegoat for Christianity. Like Jesus sacrificed himself for God, they sacrifice themselves for Communism, and identical to Jesus' death and his taking all humanity's burden upon himself, the Isaacsons sacrifice themselves and take humanity's burden upon them, thinking that they will assign a new contract between socialism and human kind that in the end will pass on a better world for their children. What is interesting to notice here, though, is that seen from a socialistic point of view, the deed of the Isaacsons to prophesise Communism and fight Capitalist American society is a deed in alignment to Jesus' prophesying Christianity, the great inventor and philanthropist of social justice and international peace. On the contrary, however, seen from a Capitalistic American point of view, the Isaacsons' deeds are sins. From this perspective, they are traitors to the flag of their own country and are being hunted down for their betrayal. From an objective American point of view, Paul and Rochelle Isaacson are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden who are expelled out of paradise because they have sinned against the almighty God, the American society. This resemblance of Rochelle and Paul Isaacson is also noteworthy when Daniel's Aunt Frieda speaks of her brother Paul, blaming Rochelle for our destiny "'He could not help himself. I blame her. She is the one. She was his ruination. He was putty in her hands from the very beginning…I will never forgive her for what she has done to my Pauly. For what she has done to all of us. To all our lives. She is the one. No one else.'" (p. 14) Aunt Frieda is speaking of the American nation when she blames Rochelle for tempting her husband to become a Communist. In Aunt Frieda's eyes, Rochelle is Eve who has tempted Adam to eat from the forbidden fruit, and she is the one who should be blamed for humanity's destiny. It is quite puzzling, that even Rochelle thinks of herself as a biblical Eve bearing a heavier burden than her husband "Dear God, does he really look for justice? Dear God, grant him foresight. Make my terrible burden lighter."(p. 10).
The biblical codes within the novel illustrate the awareness of a higher metaphysical space, a transcendental place above human convention.
Everything is Elusive
Indeterminacy and uncertainty characterise The Book of Daniel from the beginning to the end. Daniel is the unreliable narrator who in his quest for truth is also questioning the reader's faith and trust in him as a writer, even declaring towards the conclusion of his narrative that "Probably none of this is true" (p. 56). Of the violent end to the Peekskill rally - which he describes in great detail - Daniel writes "How do I know this? If I was crouched behind the seat, how do I remember this?" (p. 51). Daniel is also unsure whether Susan calls him a "good boy" or bids him "goodbye" (p. ); he mistakes a sign made by the waitress in the Howard Johnson's, where his sister tried to take her own life as a peace sign, only to realize she meant "a table for two" (p. 8); and he is unsure when he and his biological parents moved to New York from Washington and plays with the dates frivolously "We moved there in 145 when I was four years old. Or maybe in 144 when I was five years old." (p. 5). By mentioning this kind of uncertainty Daniel stresses the fact that he himself is an untrustworthy narrator and that obvious facts mistakenly can be distorted. Measures of uncertainty of memory and history can also be seen in Daniel's description of the verdict in his parents' conviction "The Isaacsons are convicted of conspiracy to give to the Soviet Union the secret of the atom bomb. No - the secret of the hydrogen bomb. Or is it the cobalt bomb? Or the neutron bomb. Or napalm. Something like that." (p. 05). Nothing is ever quite what it seems. Houses, hospitals and so on appear to be single, whole and complete, but in reality they are double. The sanatorium in which Susan is admitted "is built to look like a series of connected garden apartments…Behind it is a professional building for doctors and dentists, also built to look like a series of garden apartments" (pp. 05-06). There is always a double state of things, just as Daniel's life is double, everything is double. In the end, Daniel cannot even decide for himself whether his parents were guilty or innocent and the book's apparent three endings are also signs of the uncertainty that Daniel proves to illustrate. In fact, one of Daniel's most prominent discoveries from writing the book is his notion of everything being vague "Of one thing we are sure. Everything is elusive. God is elusive. Revolutionary morality is elusive. Justice is elusive. Human character. Quarters for the cigarette machine."(p. 4). To Daniel there is no factual truth; no objective version of any story because we all see things differently form our inner perspective. It is the typical post-modern theory of knowing that the only certainty we can have is to accept the fact that everything is uncertain. This philosophy correlates adequately with the philosophy of Socrates , also mentioned by Daniel in the novel "Socrates was tried. He was found guilty. He was forced to drink hemlock. By this act his persecutors raised him to eternal life and consigned themselves to the real death and total obscurity of persecutors everywhere." (p. 184). To Daniel the difference between the image of Jesus and the image of Socrates is, however, that "…no one has ever been put to death in Socrates' name. And that is because Socrates' ideas were never made law." (p. 184). Whenever you make an ideology law, it will die out because it must not be framed and categorized. There is no general truth. Only individual truths exist. Everything is elusive, everything is futile.
A World of Illusions
In Daniel's search for truth, he investigates the society and culture in which he lives discussing the illusions that surround him. The average citizen finds safety and security in the illusions the churches as illusions of sanctity and sanctuary; banks as the illusion of stability; courtrooms as the illusion of justice. Clearly, in Daniels conclusion, what they all are, are illusions "I am very sensitive to inappropriateness. For instance, to weddings in catering halls. There are no decent settings for joy or suffering. All our environments are wrong. They embarrass our emotions. They make our emotions into the plastic tiger lilies in the window boxes of Howard Johnson's restaurants." (p. 5-6). To Daniel "Society is a put-on…" and everyone puts on "the put-on." (p. 140), materialism and consumerism are all illusions of a better world "In less than a minute a TV commercial can carry you through a lifetime. It tells you the story from the date to the wedding. It shows you the baby, the home, the car, the graduation. It makes you laugh and makes your eyes water with nostalgia" (p. 1). There are plentiful examples of deprivation and poor taste in a consumer's world, also exemplified in the description of Disneyland "We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us." (p. 87), "The ideal Disney patron may be said to be one who responds to a process of symbolic manipulation that offers him his culmination and quintessential sentiment at the moment of a purchase." (p. 8), "What Disneyland proposes is a technique of abbreviated shortland culture for the masses, a mindless thrill, like an electric shock, that insists at the same time on the recipient's rich psychic relation to his country's history and language and literature." (p. 8). Disneyland is a symbol of American mass-society It manipulates our belief system, giving us the false impression that a material good can make us happy. Daniel disgusts Disneyland, and he disgusts society because it is a false and inauthentic place that objectifies everyone, making us all look alike. Indeed, the anthropomorphism that characterises Disney's films comes full circle when it is applied to people Daniel's notion of Linda Mindish's fianc Dale with his "brown shining eyes, Disney-animal eyelashes, square clothes, skinhead haircut." (p. 7), represents Daniel's disgust of society's prevailing "Disneyfication" of us all. Central to the novel is the critique of the symbol of America, i.e. America's privileged position and manifest destiny as opposed to the failings and shortcomings of individuals. Alienation and disaffiliation saturates Daniel the whole time and the continuing exclamations of unease of air (pp. 116, 15) or the fact that Daniel feels "like a foreigner going through customs." (p. 0) when he is accepted into Disneyland, gives proof of the estrangement Daniel feels. The American notion as to America being a free world with liberty and justice for all is a plain illusion. In Daniel's mind no one is ever free because everyone is manipulated and controlled by the pulling strings of society. As a young adult, Daniel lives knowing that the FBI checks on him at least once or twice a year they keep a current dossier on him, he says. He will never be allowed to join the military; it embitters him because with this classification he cannot even resist the government; nothing he can do will ever be deemed provocative or disruptive. The government that destroyed his parents will keep him in check for his whole life, and he feels there is nothing he could attempt to do that the FBI has not already planned for, and by this Daniel underlines the massive control which the government and the society has on its citizens EVERY MAN IS THE ENEMY OF HIS OWN COUNTRY. Every country is the enemy of its own citizen…All societies are armed societies. All citizens are soldiers. All Governments stand ready to commit their citizens to death in the interest of their government." (p. 7). The American society is like a prison, he says; all restraints of freedom being implemented. Society is "A giant eye machine, like the mysterious black apparatus at the Hayden Planetarium with the two diving helmet heads and the black rivets and its insect legs, is turning its planetary beam slowly in our direction" (p. 107). To Daniel, society keeps an eye on everyone, watching every single move we make, indirectly controlling our choices in life, indirectly influencing our opinions. The "giant eye machine" is almost a sort of "Deus ex machina" , deciding and controlling the fate of other people. Society has taken God's role, we worship the symbol of our God, adoring mass-consumerism and mass-materialism as opposed to the inner values of life.
Daniel's distaste for illusion can also be spotted in his various depictions of the American Dream. The letter that Daniel's grandmother writes to the Bintel Brief documents the immigrant's belief in the Puritan heritage the hope that a new start could be made in America (pp. 64-5). The New World initially appears to be the paradise on earth. However, we learn that this is not what happens. The American Dream seems to fail "we are my mother and my father, and life, terrible life, has nailed us to the ground." (p. 65). At the end of her life, she is no better than her parents were. The hope for a better world is futile. "Only remorsely does history catch up. And all your secret dreams are rooted open to the light. It is History, that pig, biting into the heart's secrets." (p. 101). Daniel's parents do also seem to live in an illusion of reworking the American Dream. Daniel admires his parents for their strength and will in life, but he also sees their imperfection in living a life full of expectations and illusions of the world. Daniel parents' were pacifists and their fanaticism made them believe that "their minds were free", that "they had ideas", and that "they…contributed money to a dream future." (p. ). It is almost as if they see themselves as the true heirs of the great American revolutionaries craving liberty, individualism, and justice . In their minds they do not seek to overthrow the American society, but want it to live up to its high ideals on which it was built "COMMUNISM IS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICANISM" (p.14). It is as if the Isaacsons' communism is a reworking of the American Dream in their minds they have become victims of the capitalized America, which has moved away from its original values and now stands in ruin of industry and materialism, time and again getting disappointed "My country! Why aren't you what you claim to be?" (p. 40). Daniel finds repulsion in his parents' principled view on society. "Everything was done for a reason, and was usually not the way the rest of the world did it. All the more reason. All part of the plan. The idea I had was of life as training."(p. 1). To Daniel there is no justifiable truth in life "Everything is elusive." (p. 4), but the Isaacsons' worldview is justified by one principle "There was nothing my father could not explain (p. ). "I listened because that was the price I paid for his attention. 'And it's still going on, Danny.'" (p. 5). Daniel has been subjected to his parents' and in particular his father's dominating, Marxian theories and explanations of life, and therefore he suffers from being brought up as a "…psychic alien", trained and shown "…how everything that happened was inevitable according to the Marxian analysis." (p. 4-5). He is marked by his parents' framing and justification of the world by one ideology which is still haunting him to this day. It is an ideology that has left him orphaned and in constant fury of what to believe in. It is much of the same impasse that Susan, Daniel's sister, suffers from except that she, too, has lived in the illusion of a better world with freedom for everyone, becoming a revolutionary fighting the government that murdered her parents. As the story opens, we learn that Susan has retreated from reality and endures a neurosis which leads to her suicide. Opposed to Daniel, however, Susan grows neurotic. When she makes exclamations such as "THEY'RE STILL FUCKING US", she thinks of everyone, opposed to Daniel, who thinks of their parents. The difference between Daniel and Susan is, however, that Daniel has been living in a dream most of his childhood and youth "And when he came to his senses, and the real life of his childhood, that had become a dream, became real again, he tried to make contact with Susan. But Susan was now a commanding presence too bright, too loud, too hysterically self-occupied." (p. 64). The dream has partly spared him from going insane by the illusion of changing the world, but Susan has lived with the illusion of a better world, and this makes her insane. It is Susan's inability to come to terms with the elusive nature of the post-modern world that leads to her death; she is not able to analyze or interpret the world like Daniel is, and so she dies, we learn at the end of the novel, because "of failure of analysis" (p. 01). Like her parents, Susan has lived a life trying to save the world; addicted to the illusion of a the American Dream where everyone can be free. Daniel, on the other hand, has in his analysis of the world accepted that he can never be free, and paradoxically this is the only time in the novel where he is able to be free. It is his rejection of the illusion of freedom, which makes him free! Daniel confronts his fate alone. Opposed to Susan, his discontent with society is expressed through transcendence and acceptance When Daniel goes to see Mindish, the supposed traitor in his parents' trial, he does not want to take revenge, he wants to forgive him, and the meeting evolves into a kiss "Doctors still have a lot to learn about why we reject our hearts." (p. ). Instead of throwing a fight, Daniel exonerates, and with the death of his parents and sister, Daniel is finally "…going to be able to cry." (p. 0), and forget his past. He now has his answer. He also now has his freedom. At the cemetery, with Susan's funeral interwoven into the funeral of their parents, Daniel is able to respect his Jewishness as well, and as the novel ends, Daniel is seemingly emancipated from his book, from his old life, and can begin to live again. He has come full circle, accepting the fact that he will never be free. While the truth of his parents' verdict has eluded him in his past, he has finally succeeded in writing himself free in the present; free from society's imprisoning structures and alienation.
The Underworld
A prominent and outstanding part of The Book of Daniel holds references and depictions of the underworld; the Dionysian forces representing subjectivity, freedom, and truth opposed to the Apollonian world , represented by society. Because of Daniel's disaffiliation to society, he seems to be obsessed with this Dionysian authentic place where one is liberated from society's constraints and objectivity. In this context I would like to introduce the Freudian psychology as I see a match between the values of Freud's theory and that of Daniel's. Freud saw the human psyche divided into states of consciousness the superego; an upper mental consciousness consisting of Apollonian values order, moral, laws, idealism and will power; the id, a larger unconsciousness of Dionysian values, consisting of primitive forces; i.e. dreams, fantasies and uncontrolled feelings; and finally the ego, the great intermediary entity, whose assignment is to link the two states of extremes into a justified whole . Being promiscuous and in touch with the primal consciousness, one is able be in contact with the authentic world.
Daniel's references to the underworld are represented in different illustrations of states of ecstasy deriving from mania, alcoholism, sex, passion, or religion. Daniel feels locked in materialism and is looking for something above this world, searching for something genuine. Through his adult life, Daniel is in search for this an assessment, but he also seems frustrated as to what it is "I wish I knew the secret workings in the soul of education. It has nothing to do with time as we measure it. Small secret chemical switches are thrown in the dark. Tiny courses are hung through the electric passages of the tissues. Silken sequences of atoms which have property other than self-knowledge." (p. 16). Daniel is aware of a deep, authentic place that cannot be measured by any civilized means, a moment of self-awareness and cosmic consciousness. Part of him is afraid of it, but a larger part of him is fascinated by this place, and he entertains a deep affiliation and admiration for it. He depicts it as a primal need
It is a feeling with no bottom, no root, of no locus. It pulses out of him like a radio wave, out of all parts of him at once, at it needs. It disseminates, it is diffuse; and one moment he thinks it is something his heart wants the fullness of, and another that his arms want to hold, and for another moment it is something his cock wants to get into. But if he could accommodate any part of his body the feeling wouldn't leave, it would still be there in all parts of him at once, each cell of his body radiating its passionate need. (p. 18)
Different minor, but important characters in the novel have the gift of being able to get in touch with their inner stream of consciousness. The characters in question are Daniel's grandmother, Williams and the Inertia Kid "My Grandma was the neighborhood crazywoman. When she went into one of these things, she would put a shawl over her head and run away." (p. 67). Daniel's grandmother had spells, but Daniel admires her because she was able to escape reality and get in contact with a deeper reality "It is simple Grandma goes mad when she can no longer consider the torment of her life." (p. 6); another character, whom Daniel is fascinated by, is the strong and gigantic Williams, living in and ruling the ashy, dusty, cellar of the Isaacsons' house. Williams drinks whiskey and likes to get drunk because it allows him to escape and visualize "As he looked at the bottle with his hands over his ears, Williams passed unto his vision and sat down on the cot, and took a drink from the bottle." (p. 1) When Daniel tells Williams that his grandmother is dead, Williams' only reply is "'This one trip she ain't comin' back,'…'She really run away this time.'"(p. 1). There seems to be a secret covenant between the grandmother and Williams; they understand each other on a deeper level, rejecting society's moralities and laws. Both belonging to the lower scale of society, and both yearning for ecstasy and escape, Williams and the grandmother are able to get in touch with their Dionysian forces the grandmother in her states of psychosis and dedication to God, and Williams in his hard-working condition and his devotion to alcohol.
Probably the most noteworthy character in contact with his unconsciousness is the retarded Inertia Kid, whom Daniel meets at the orphanage "One kid never got off his bed of his own free will. If he was stood up near his bed he stood there until he was moved. They called him the Inertia Kid. Someone always had to arrange the Inertia Kid in the position he was supposed to be in that moment." (p. 16). Daniel is so fascinated by this human being, that he ends up imitating him "I'm trying to account for the reasoning, if there was reasoning, that led me to do imitation of the Inertia Kid. Maybe the ultimate extension of intellect is clowning [ ]." (p. 170). Daniel imitates the Inertia Kid at the orphanage because he gets popular with the other children, but also because he likes escaping into another state of mind, just like his grandmother and Williams. To Daniel, the Inertia Kid has inner connections, greater than most people "I knew he [Inertia Kid] was handsome and wise. I was afraid to look at him. I adored him…Could Roy hit a ball, jump as high?" (p. 170). Daniel compares the Inertia Kid with the most athletic boy at the shelter; Roy, who "did everything better than most big guys could." (p. 170) In Daniel's mind, the Inertia Kid has a greater understanding of life than Roy has because the Inertia Kid has a deep contact with himself and his underworld, not obliging to society's demand.
Apart from the Dionysian forces portrayed in characters, we also see it in various other depictions. E.g. in the description of Susan being a starfish "Today Susan is a starfish. Today she practices the silence of the starfish. There are few silences deeper than the silence of the starfish. There are not many degrees of life lower before there is no life." (p. 07) Because of her mania, Susan is a bottom animal living deep down in the ocean, in the underworld where things are slurred, mysterious and hidden. The ocean is the symbol of the subconscious, and being a starfish, Susan is in deep contact with her instincts and the underworld. A starfish has no brain, it lives by its primal instincts, free from intellectualisation, moralisation and law, the upper spheres of the Freudian psychology. Daniel admires Susan's starfish qualities and he encounters that these feminine values, the underworld, have always been a part of him
I cannot perceive the world except with your voice framing the edges of my vision. It is on the horizon and under my feet. The world has always been washed in Susan's voice. It breaks where her voice breaks, under declaration, or late toward sleep, or at moments of love-only to more fully characterize itself. It is the feminine voice that passes solidly through ontological mirrors. It lies at the heart of the matter, the nub of the thing, the core of the problem, in the center, on the bull's eye, smack in the middle. We understand St. Joan [ ] you want to fuck her but if you do you miss the point. (p. 0).
Other significant references to the underworld are the accounts of joys and ecstatic moments deriving from sex. Daniel is fascinated by sex because it is a primal instinct, a state of ecstasy where a cosmic consciousness prevails, free of any major controlling entity "A secret place…you catch them fucking…Flopping about, completely out of control, these people who control you. Grunting and moaning and gasping…" (pp. 10-10) Sex is a climb downwards, a method of contact to authenticity with erection being the top of ecstasy "When we come why do we not come forever?" (p. 46). When Daniel has sex with his wife, he seems obsessed with getting her to inhale the ecstasy of being in contact with her unconsciousness, hoping that she will be changed after her come.
Her heart pounded against me, her breasts were wet on my chest, her breath [ ] chased by ears, and then she pursed her lips and the effort was as if she were half whistling in pain or amazement. All this was having its effect and I was losing my cool. She was shivering her way through one come after another. Each one was stronger than the last. She was biting my mouth. She was going for the big bang…She told me later it had never before been so good. She couldn't move for an hour. But learning over her sleepy smiling eyes I could not find there the education recorded, no impression of the cruel thing, the cruel thing, and that it is always the cruel thing that mixes the tears of our eyes, the breath of our lungs, the screams of our comes….(p. 16)
Daniel wants Phyllis to feel different after her ecstatic exhilaration, but Phyllis is no longer in direct contact with her instincts and the ontogenetic regression that Phyllis has endured, has not changed her "I could not find there the education recorded, no impression of the cruel thing, the cruel thing, and that it is always the cruel thing that mixes the tears of our eyes, the breath of our lungs, the screams of our comes…."(p. 16).The line between malice and joy, pleasure and discomfort seems to be very thin. It is the state where the two poles meet, in contrast with the other, that we feel most alive.
Symbols
The message of the novel is partly mirrored in its play with significant symbols, implementing its thematic philosophy.
Holding the central position to the plot of the story is the symbol of electricity. Not only is electricity the essential murder weapon in the factual story of the narrative, it is also the most valuable entity in modern society. As Gross has remarked, electricity is "The representative power of modern civilization, it pervades our lives, participates in virtually all aspects of production, shapes both the commodities and artificial appetites that will seek out those products in impossible hopes for fulfillment and meaning" . Electricity is a product of mass society, a symbol of America, and part of Daniel's disgust of modern society, is its indispensable need for electricity
What more is there to say? YOUR CAREER IN ELECTRICITY. Electricity is a form of energy. It is generated by various power sources driven in water, stream or atomic fission. The leading electric power producing countries are the United States (87,4,000 kilowatt-hours per year), and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (7,06,000 kwh per year). The theory of electricity is that atoms lose or gain electrons and thus become positively or negatively charged. A charged atom is called an ion. I suppose you think I can't do the electrocution. I know there is a you. There has always been a you. YOU I will show you that I can do the electrocution. (5-6)
The enlightenment project with tendency to frame, number, explain, clarify and categorize in either negative or positive entities, is a product of modern electronic society. To Daniel this is an empty amplification of the world; he knows that there are deeper truths than this, and in his smooth manipulating transformation of "om" into "ohm"(pp. 5-6), Daniel stresses how mathematical orders have taken the core in the absence of any metaphysical substance, substituting the value of inner truths In meditation, "om" is the most important mantra in states of transcendence, holding the key to a state of Nirvana, being the realm of all possibilities. "Om" is the primordial sound from which everything emanates God, life, consciousness and light , and deliberately Daniel confuses "om" with "ohm" the quantity of electric resistance, giving an ironic comment on the values of modern society, rating electricity and consumerism higher than deep reflection. "What is it that moves through others, comes from the sky and is invisible, can only be detected after it's gone-not God, not the Lone Ranger ohm ohm ohm ohm" (p. 6) Today, electricity has become our God - our naïve way of living, justifying everything we do by numbers, being "…clients of a new law firm, Voltani, Ampere, and Ohm." (p. 40)
Another significant symbol in the novel is the employment of the four elements, water, earth, fire, and air . Daniel describes "Technology is the making of metaphors from the natural world. Flight is the metaphor of air, wheels the metaphor of water, food is the metaphor of earth. The metaphor of fire is electricity." Daniel is citing the four elements, but he is adding yet another essential element "technology" being today's metaphor of the natural world. The significance of the four elements in alignment with technology, in this case by means of electricity, is also quite puzzling when Daniel and Susan visit their parents in jail. Here the four Isaacson elements Daniel, Susan, Rochelle and Paul are united in the spirit of the fifth element electricity, the fate determiner of them all "…the four of us in that room in the Death House, the family, back together at last. And the four of us were together in that room, and we were reunited. And at last we were reunited." (p. 50)
Last but not least in the row of symbols, we have the significant five-armed star being referred to several times throughout the novel. Interestingly, the instances of star-references conceal themselves in five different settings, being the starfish, the Jewish star , the shape of Pentagon , the shape of Disneyland , and the Isaacsons' layer; Sternlicht - meaning "Starlight". The star has a substantial position in the novel, in that it manifests itself as an ongoing reference without fully visualizing itself as a direct symbol. The symbol of the star has a spiritual and mythological ring to it Stars appear before our eyes when it is dark and are said to have mysterious forces that determines our fate; in the Shakespearian universe, stars were said to represent the order of the universe; and in the language of dreams and symbols, the five-armed star represents humanity, the link between earth and heaven, with the feet on the ground, the arms straitened in the direction of the horizon and the head in the direction of the sky. Daniel himself mentions the spiritual significance of the star
Before the famous Egyptian adjustment of the Chaldean calendar, in 4000 B.C., judicial astrology proposed thirteen signs in the Zodiac of approximately 7 degrees each. The thirteenth sign was Starfish. We do not today know where it was located in the Zodiac. It is believed that as the earth's axis gradually altered, an entire chunk of the night sky, including this constellation, disappeared. But until that time Starfish was considered one of the most beneficial of signs. A starfish ascendant suggested serenity and harmony with the universe, and therefore great happiness. The five points of the star lead not outward as is commonly believed, but inward, toward the center. This symbolized the union of the various mental faculties and the coordination of the physical faculties. It referred to the wedding in the heart of the five senses. It implied the unification of all feelings. Belief was joined with intellect, language with truth, and life with justice. Starfish in opposition to Mars usually meant Genius. Under the influence of Venus it suggested Peace. For some reason astrologers today don't mention Starfish and there is a common superstition that it means bad luck. This is undoubtedly because modern man can conceive of nothing more frightening than the self-sufficiency of being of the beautiful Starfish he mistakes it for death. (p. 50)
Modern man is afraid of letting go of the Apollonian, society's constraints and live purely by the Dionysian drives, because this inner universe of feelings and instincts is uncontrollable and does not fit into any particular form. The symbol of the star signifies a holistic philosophy where man is in harmony with the universe and the five senses giving way to a pure orgasmic realization. Apart from this holistic significance, it might be worth mentioning, too, that the significance of star connotes well with the biblical guiding star, the star on the old Soviet flag, as well as the American flag "Stars and Stribes" probably being the symbol of America and Americanism.
INTERPRETATION
With the analysis behind us, we can now in short generate some interpretive patterns The post-modern world is elusive, we live in an illusory state of thinking that the modern society is good for human beings, but all it does is alienate and dehumanize us from our primal instincts; The most important questions in life are not accessible to reason or science, we must not justify our world by numbers, categorizations, or labeling because this strangles life, materializes it and makes it inhuman; We should always search the truth, but not postulate or assert it, once we have found it; Rejecting society's moral constraints by being in contact with our subjective underworld gives us cosmic consciousness. The highest state of human consciousness is probably a state of harmony between the two spheres, with preference stretched towards the subconscious.
Existentialism
As mentioned in the introduction, the scope of this paper is to prove the novel's transmission of existential philosophy. As there are many depictions of existential philosophy, I find it valuable to clarify my understanding of the term existentialism When I think of existentialism, I attach it with the existential philosophy of the 1th century - the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who was the first writer to call himself existential and who was generally regarded to be the founder of modern existentialism. Kierkegaard reacted against the systematic absolute idealism of the 1th century and insisted that the highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation. In the philosophy of Kierkegaard, the individual must live a totally committed life which will only be understood by the individual himself, and therefore he must be prepared to defy the norms of society for the sake of the higher authorities of the personal valid way of life. Personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth, and the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that situation is always superior to that of a detached, objective observer. In general terms we can settle existential philosophy to concern individual existence, subjectivity, freedom, and choice.
The Book of Daniel is indeed existential. It conveys existential philosophy, passing on the story of an individual who in the conflict between individualism and society tries to find out the basics of life. Doctorow's existential value-system is expressed in the novel's stressing of Dionysian inner subjective truths as opposed to the Apollonian society's objective manipulation. This labelling stems well with Doctorow's own depiction of his worldview, with the power of the regime, meaning the authority of facts which goes by the name of realism, corresponding to the Apollonian forces; opposed to the power of freedom representing the ability of the imagination to subvert that authority, corresponding to the Dionysian forces . To Doctorow we are subjected to the power of the regime, "…living a national ideology that's invisible to us because we live inside it." , and in this televisual world controlled by the regime we are numbered, seduced, and conquered by the multiplicity of images, losing sight of the fundamental truths of our existence. The power of the regime leaves the "enormous pressure on us to become faceless and peculiar indistinct and compliant as possible" . Disneyland being the symbol of a capitalistic mass-society, where we all look alike and all share the same values within society's laws and morals, is a "fake" truth, because it is the truth of the regime, the objective image, and not a authentic truth of ourselves, our inner genuine reality.
Doctorow references to major historical figures, such as Socrates, Jesus and Joan of Arch; all symbolic figures who died for their inner beliefs, is yet another stressing of existentialism and the power of freedom Socrates who was forced to drink hemlock; Jesus who was tortured and crucified; and Joan of Arch who was burned at the stake for her spiritual beliefs. Had it not been for their untimely executions by the prevailing society, their messages may not have endured the ages. They have become heroes. Why? Because they valued their beliefs for the sake of life and not for the sake of society. As Kierkegaard wrote in his journal "I must find a truth that is true for me…the idea for which I can live or die."
Narrative Techniques
The Book of Daniel is a process of discovery, and just as Daniel is on a quest for the truth about his family and life, we as readers are on a quest for the truth about the novel. On another level, we could say that Doctorow is in quest for truth about the language. I think it is important to see the novel's subservient relationship to its content. It is in every aspect intricately bound with it. The form mirrors the content and vice versa the ambivalence, disruptions in the text parallels the ambivalence and tumult of Daniel's alienation in the post-modern society The form of the novel emerged from Doctorow's inability to do justice to the Rosenbergs using traditional narrative strategies. He tore up 150 pages of the book on the case written "in the third person, more or less as a standard, past tense, third person novel, very chronologically scrupulous" to find in the swamp of despond, that "the voice of the book, was Daniel." . As Levine puts it in an interview with Doctorow "The finished novel is neither a standard third-person narrative nor a very chronologically scrupulous. Rather its fractured sense of time and its vivid sense of language reflect the narrator's own sense of dislocation and outrage this is very much Daniel's book and it contains his feelings of pain and hostility." In many places, the text becomes nearly manic, presenting a sense of schizophrenia; representing Daniel's internal thoughts, jumping from place to place as much as the mind actually does, especially in times of crisis. Daniel cannot write his book in a chronological straightforward way, but must deconstruct it as it appears in his mind and from his memory. When we read The Book of Daniel we construct a meaning. The constant disruption of flow makes the reader very alert to the narrative, and one is persistently asking questions. In Doctorow's universe, there are no realities, only perceptions, this is why he, as Parks mentions , exploits a "polyphonic narrative". He does not want a closed form, because labeling, putting words on things, is a hollow materialization of things. The novel is deconstructed in order to be real and in order for us to ask questions about reality.
The Writing of History
To Doctorow history writing is an objective labeling and explanation of a world. The dilemma of historiographic writing is that nothing is ever perfectly accurate because the facts being presented are always colored by the culture of the writer, the writers own biases, values, and opinions. Hayden White argues in his book Metahistory (17) that history writing is subject to the same narrative laws and practices as the writing of fiction and Doctorow believes that it is the writer's task to build the bridge between fiction and history because there is "no fiction or non-fiction as we commonly understand the distinction, there is only narrative." In questioning the story of Daniel parents, which is such a crucial part of American history, Doctorow indirectly makes American history itself a topic and Daniel's desperate request for truth; his struggle for identity is compounded by the problematic nature of history itself. The Book of Daniel reveals a trial of Daniel's life, but it does also put America itself on trial. Readers find out that Daniel is evil to his family, because he repeats in his new family what the state did to his old one. The fate of both entities seems to be interconnected, and we can say that the private life of Daniel is the public life of America. It is a microcosmic focusing of the small picture is order to see the big picture; microcosm revealing macrocosm. "Doctorow is more concerned with imaginative truth than historical accuracy…he is concerned with what truly happened rather than what really happened." In other words, it is the subjective story that is superior to the general story.
Post-modern historiographical metafiction questions the voice of the writer, and asks how that voice can be accurate. It points out the flaws, the biases, the prejudices that inherently exist in historical accounts; it forces the reader to look more closely, to become aware that history is no more than the culmination of human thought and language. Cultural backgrounds, limitations of human language, and personal perspectives always create problems in the representation of any historical event, and post-modern metafiction attempts to abandon the traditional paradigm that has been used so long. Metafiction asks the writer and the reader to become aware of the complexities and the multiplicities of the real world.
Doctorow is a writer of metafiction. It is through his writing, we ca see the multiplicity of historical discourse. The Book of Daniel deconstructs the regime language, reminding us of what we threaten to become if we blindly accept the massed voices of myth, ideology, and history. "What I am invading is the realm of myth myth whose mask is history."…If myths aren't examined and questioned and dealt with constantly, they harden and become dangerous. They become a structured belief and they make people insane. Society becomes monolithic and despotic, in one way or another." In exposing the ideals endorsed by the power of the regime to be deceptive, Doctorow reveals the contingent nature of history in relationship to myth, underlining the risk of discourse in history.
When Doctorow first wrote The Book of Daniel, he was too much into the conventional rules of writing a novel; the Apollonian forces of the intellect, but when rewriting it again, the story came from his imagination, his stream of consciousness, his underworld, and in this state the novel became free. In finding and expressing his own voice in the book, Doctorow challenges the power of the regime and conventional history writing. He hereby recognizes the important role of the artist being capable of demystifying history, in questioning the society that is legitimized by that history . Especially fiction has an important role to play in giving readers access to the past, and to events that have either been suppressed or forgotten.
Doctorow is an important contemporary artist who is committed to exposing the myths and lies that constitute "received wisdom", the pragmatist distinction between good and bad and truth and false. He questions the transformative powers of money and capitalism and explores the gap between American ideals and American society. Aesthetic experiences are good because they make us ask questions and encounter ourselves, and although books cannot change the world overnight, Doctorow has argued that they can at least "affect consciousness" as they "affect the way people think and therefore the way they act. Books create constituencies that have their own effect on history, and that's been proven time and again."
PUTTING INTO PERSPECTIVE
Postmodernism in an American context must be seen in the light of America emerging as the economic power, highly coming about after World War II. In fact many critiques have claimed that postmodernism is an American invention. "…For the fifty years following the Second World War, America has been a world-shaping superpower. Its citizens are thought by many in the world to lead typically Postmodern lives and to represent the essential principles and life-styles of late Modern capitalism." The immeasurable expansion of the urbanization and the revolution of sciences, changed America completely leaving high capitalism, galloping consumerism, and altered social and political stages. On the overall scheme there seemed to be harmony, but underneath it all, citizens felt they lived in an objectified, hollow and often false world with poverty and class-divisions . In a world with material comfort and the idea of shaping a cultural uniformity, i.e. rejecting distinctions between gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and political beliefs, American identity became a problem. Within the context established in the postwar years, artists started to raise existential questions, exploring the true maxims of life; individualism, justice, and freedom as opposed to the asserted maxims of the state; history, culture and politics. This post-war individualism established an aesthetic, self-examining climate embracing self-absorption over social involvement, creating a literary canon of existential heroes on quest for their own freedom and identity, in doubt about the existence of a homogeneous America, and keen on escaping the conventional and repressive social roles of society that others have imposed on them. This is a notion spotted by the literary critique Tony Tanner, who claims that the dream of individuality, leading an unpatterned life without unconditioned forces is an ongoing "…abiding dream in American literature…" . I find Tanner's theory very interesting and in summing up of this paper, I would like to use this theory on broader terms American modern and post modern literature seem all to be on a quest for inner authentic place where one is free from the institutionalised mediocrity of society. Fitzgerald compensates for this in The Great Gatsby with Gatsby, who despite his wealth and success, never wants to face reality and who is constantly chasing something above the world of materialism; John Updike compensates for this search in his famous Rabbit Run, where the main character Harry keeps running away from reality, living out the well known American "open road" as Huckleberry Finn cruising down the Mississippi in order to find true happiness and freedom in life. Harry is chasing something he does not know what is, finding moments of it in sexual instinctive processes. Finally, we have Doctorow and The Book of Daniel being the youngest, most experimental and philosophical of the novels. Daniel's in also on a quest for truth in life, always concerned to claim his inner self and the need for transcendental perception in a material world where man is alienated and lost.
An essential feature of the American identity is the American Dream, revealing a pure existential philosophy. The American Dream originated with the Puritans and was probably fully developed with the American Revolution and the invention of democracy with maxims of liberty, individualism, freedom and justice . Today however, there are many different versions and understandings of the American Dream; some people worship the virtual and spiritual aspect of it, while other see the more financial feature of it as being of importance in the fulfilment of the dream. Despite the differences in interpretation, the American Dream still holds a special place in the heart of the country, serving as a strong symbol to its basic principles. As Bradbury das noticed, "…the Puritans' cosmic, transcendental and providential vision, their faith in an escape from a dead Old World to a redemptive New one their 'exceptionalist' belief in the powerful recovery of history lingers yet in American culture."
CONCLUSION
The message of The Book of Daniel is in no way clear-cut. The novel is ambiguous and elusive, dissolving our conventional measures of time and space. Trying to justify its message within one ideology or philosophy would be to an unjust approach in relation to its content with one of the novel's main messages being the fact that everything is uncertain. Though part of the novel's memorandum is to tell us not to label and categorize, a final interpretation requires some sort of explanation and clarification, and on the overall scheme, I think we can generate a kind of general pattern of Doctorow's philosophy.
The Book of Daniel's exploration of existential issues and considerations of the inner self in contrast to the all-pervasive state is a true measurement of existentialism. In stressing that our values must be in serving life, and not society, Doctotow is a true solipsist. His existential onlook on the world, with priority of individualism, freedom and justice, the values of the American Dream, is a typical ongoing American pattern we can trace back form the early settlements of the country to today's post-modernism. The American Dream is thus a product of existentialism, and existentialism is a philosophy we can trace back to The Bible and the Ancient Greece, rendered in important Western mythological figures such as Jesus, Socrates, Joan of Arch, etc. Hence, the American Dream is not an American invention, but a primal need existing in each one of us. This gives us proof of the novel's perpetual nature.
Doctorow plays with a fundamental dichotomy of juxtapositions fact-fiction, past-present, head-heart, individual-society, etc. In doing so, he unifies symbolic patterns, and renders a holistic philosophy, devoted to universal harmony. This correlates well with the most essential symbol in the novel; the star being the bond between heaven and earth, head and heart.
As said above, The Book of Daniel is a complex postmodern piece of fiction that cannot and should not be justified with one principled analysis. Part of the novel's message is to ask open questions about life, accepting the fact that these questions might never be answered. The pragmatic idea of framing and categorizing entities strangles the essence of art and life, and maybe that is in fact Doctorow's American Dream to tell his readers that there is no American Dream.
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