Human Robots

Machinery. Fear.  Pain. Control. Those words are used to describe how pathetically powerless we are against society. We live in a machine-like world, we are controlled by it and have to be just as machine-like as the rest, perfect. We cannot break that balance or perfection, but what happens if we do break it? Do we become outsiders like chief, McMuprhy, or Harding and sent to be fixed? 

The use of machine imagery in Chief's dreams is used to further exploit the true meaning behind the ward for the "insane". What are machines? They are perfect, that's what they are. They are robots that can be modified and changed; given a set of rules to follow very cautiously. Machines do whatever they are programmed to do, and never do the opposite. We are machines. Chief is a machine. Everyone is one, and there is nothing we can do to change that. "The worker takes the scalpel and slices up the front of old Blastic...There's no blood or innards falling out like I was looking to see--just a shower of rust and ashes, and now and again a piece of wire or glass." (Pg. 79) When we do not conform society, or "The Combine"-as Chief likes to call the outside world-we have to be repaired. That's the point for the medical hospital for the insane. "You men are in this hospital, because of your proven inability to adjust to society." (Pg. 144) It is a place where mistakes end up, in order to be mended and then sent back into the world.

The constant use of machines and their abundance in Chief's narrative highlights how the modern world really is. There is no individuality, everyone is the same, and everyone must be the same. We only see until now into the book something that says contrary, and that is McMurphy. By rebelling Miss Ratched imposed power in the ward, and going against it, he tries to keep his individuality, but in the end he will be up just like everyone else. Another identical machine.  

Society's Control.

What good words can be used to describe our society? How can someone describe this discriminative, oppressive, mechanical world in a positive way? We all live behind a wall fog; a blur that has been placed in our minds, but those who truly see it are those who do not conform society. Society uses their authority to control us and create what they want, and in doing so, it created fog, that so deeply represents our vulnerability. We cannot see beyond that barrier, and we cannot move past it. We only know that we are controlled by it and cannot escape from it. 

Chief makes us doubt on whether he really is a reliable character we should believe in, but what we do know, is that he does exhibit society's cruel manners."I don't fight or make any noise..I hold back the yelling. I hold back till they get to my temples. I'm not sure it's one of those substitute machines and not a shaver till it gets to my temples; then I can't hold back..They start the fog machine again...I cant see six inches un front of me through the fog" (Pg. 7) The fog could be many different things. It could be water vapor, or shaving cream, or the fact that Chief is probably is hallucinating. The problem is that we have to look deeper into it in order to grasp its true meaning. "I heard that the Chief, years ago, received more than two hundred shock treatments." (Pg. 62) Society controls us. The fog represents our  vulnerability, lack of power and authority and how easily we can be molded into shape by society. We as individuals are a piece of play dough, of a giant diorama we call earth. 
 

Unconsciously we are aware of everything that is going on. We grasp everything between our claws like a starved hawk. We just choose not to believe in what we find, and we hide it in the deepest corner of our minds. Even so, we cannot do anything. We are powerless. Chief is powerless, specially in the medical ward. We are all impotent under that while milky fog. 

Different People, Different Interpretations.

Everyone imagines everything differently. When reading a book, or a story, each and everyone of us imagines it differently. Some may think more happily about it, others more sadly. Some with bright colors and others with opaque colors. Films that are based on novels, are just one of the many ways to imagine a story. That's why many movies based on novels get so many bad reviews and negative comments from those who have read the book, because everyone imagines it differently. 

When I was reading the play, Waiting for Godot, I imagined it in a completley differently way from how it was portrayed in the film. I had in mind very different characters, and specially a totally opposite setting. "A country road. A tree. Evening." (Pg. 1)  For instance, the stage directions for the setting of the play exert a warm image to me. Country road; the connotations I get from that, is the typical unpaved road, near a field of grass protected by an old wooden fence, with mountains as a background. To me that is a "Country Road". Not a dirty, destroyed, abandoned road. 

Waiting for Godot was written in post a WWII depression era. People didn't know what to live for. God had let them down during war, and it was a time were existentialist thoughts came blooming through out the world. I recall a quote from the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel. This book narrates Wiesel's experience during the holocaust. People began to loose their faith in God, specially in his protection. For instance, Wiesel said, “How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?” (Pg. 67)

The tree is the least important of all, because a green road as the one I imagined could have dead trees. But the dirty, and destroyed road, with no grass near by was what came as a shock to me. How the movie setting is shown, is just a way of putting the play into context. The road, the tree. They are all dead. They are a symbol of a war ragged earth. They show what wars brings. Which is only destruction. 

Waiting for (GOD)ot

What would be so important to someone, to be willing to wait for every single day? What could possibly mean that much, for us to waste our time so absurdly? One must have a lot of faith or love towards something, to be willing to wait for so long. It makes me question,who could be Godot? And why are Estragon and Vladimir waiting for him? Why not just give up? Anyone who has read, or seen this play, might have the same or at least very similar questions. We have to see many different aspects of the play to truly begin to understand who might this unknown person be.

Godot. Could it be God? Possibly. It is an open 

possibility that it could be God, it even has God in the world itself. Actually Godot means "Boot" in french slang. Even so, Beckett has stated that if with  the character of Godot, he had really meant God, then he would have simply written "Waiting for God". Furthermore, this play was originally written in french, entitled En attendant Godot and so Beckett says he was never truly aware of the connotations it could possibly bring in english, as in french, God is Dieu, and he was writing in french not in english. 

That is what they say. That is what Beckett says. But, I really do not believe him. Unconsiously he had to be aware of it. He had to be aware of what he was writing. A coincidence as such cannot be by mistake. Everything fits perfectly into picture. God in Godot. Waiting for (God)ot. His failure to show up. His absence. The post-WWII depression. The birth of  existentialism. Everything fits perfectly into picture. Somewhere inside him, Beckett had to be thinking about God. If not, the only explanation I can give myself from all this absurd, is that the world is irrational, just like this play and we a naive enough to try to give an explanation to it. It could be as irrational as a play called "Waiting for Boot." 

Naiveness of Humans

Before I finished reading The Stranger by Albert Camus I was already thinking on humans futile attempts to give life a meaning. Mersault however, being a human too, doesn't desperately try to give life a meaning, to find some "rational" reason to keep moving forward. He just lives life, and keeps moving on. No explanation or reasoning needed. 

"We as people desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe." 

I strongly believe that this existentialist though truly reflects this novel. Mersault is the contrary of what this relfects. He doesn't seek to give life a meaning. To Mersault life is life, and it doesn't have to be explained. Killing the arab, or getting married to Marie, or the fact of his mother dying have no apparent reason to happen. They just happen, and thats life, and no one should argue with it. "I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." (Pg. 123) To him the universe is irrational, it is indifferent to human sentiment or feeling, just as him. He feels happy about it,  he doesn't find the need to explain everything that happens during each second of his existence, because things just happen irrationally and there is no logical explanation to them. 

Mersault would be better connected to this existentialist thought: "Everybody is here; everybody exists, but there is no reason as to why."  Everyone has different opinions, and what he thinks is just as right or as wrong as someone else's. Humans are fools. They try to believe in things that don't exist, try to make sense of everything and be logical. Even if that isn't possible we find ways to explain things, maybe they are wrong or incorrect, but they make us feel good, so we force ourselves to accept them.  Mersault, just accepts that there doesn't have to be an explanation for everything. However, society isn't that nice as to not judge him. They criticize him, reject him and even hate him for not believing. He is seen as a stranger, someone not belonging to that judgmental community, what we nicely call society.