The White Castle

   The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk was another interesting read for me. It details the experiences of a young man who is ambushed and captured by Turkish pirates and taken to the city of Istanbul. The young man later is given as a slave by a pasha (Turkish officer) to Hoja who is deemed his master. As the story unfolds, we learn that both men Initially, I was intrigued by the theme of identity and the overarching question of what makes us exactly us, and not someone else? As the story unfolded, I become confused about the characters of Hoja and the unnamed first-person narrator. “I looked up at his face and immediately---I was terrified.” Both characters eventually become ambiguous and the reader is left to determine who exactly is who. I’m sure this mystery was intentional by Pamuk, but it was disorderly for me as a reader.

    As an author, I appreciated Pamuk’s value of knowledge and the idea that we should constantly want to know new things. The story opens up with the narrator finding and reading an encyclopedia book. “I knew that at any moment the book would be snatched from my hand, yet I wanted to think not of that but of what was written on its pages. It was as if the thoughts, the sentences, the equations within the book contained the whole of my past life which I dreaded to lose... I desperately wanted to engrave the entire volume on my memory so that when they did come, I would not think of them and what they would make me suffer, but would remember the colors of my past as if recalling the cherished worlds of a book I had memorized with pleasure.” Self-knowledge and the knowledge of other things is important.

     Aside from identity and the question of “Are we ever really who we say we are,” A significant theme that I noted throughout the novel was the peculiar relationship between the master (Hoja) and slave. To each other they are alter egos and antagonists, but their existence could also be indirectly related to the opposition once held between the culture of the East and the West and the contrasts of fiction and reality. As the story continues, Hoja becomes increasingly obsessive in extracting all knowledge and ideas from his slave. He wants to know everything from his studies in astronomy, geography, and phycology. Together, they seek to exchange not only identities but also beliefs, ideas, and memories. Their relationship is interesting as they seek a personal union.

   I loved Pamuk’s writing style. There’s great imagery is describing the setting of the novel. Also, the storytelling aspect of the plot kept me intrigued. I wasn’t too keen on the repetitive theme of identity. After a while, it became dull. I appreciated the underlying questions and the mind games that I asked of myself after reading the book. Overall, it was an okay book.

Second Paper

Pain and suffering are a natural part of the world. Both are an aspect of life that many come to resent. Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mahfouz and Omeros by Derek Walcott describes everyone and everything as being in pain, even broken to an extent. Both story lines depict inequitable social structures as natives struggle to progress in an unfair hierarchy of power. Pain in both books, either implicitly or explicitly, come from several different sources including emotional distress, physical bodily injuries, endless crime, racial prejudice, and economic corruption.

Wounds are central throughout Omeros. Walcott writes, “This wound I have stitched into Plunkett’s character. / He has to be wounded, affliction is one theme of this work.” Plunkett is a war veteran who retires with his wife to the island of St. Lucia. “They’d been out here / since the war and his wound,” Walcott writes. Plunkett’s woundedness isn’t solely a physical one, but also an emotional one. Later in the epic, Plunkett struggles to come to terms with his purpose in fighting World War II. “What was it all for?” the narrator asks about the war. He responds with “A bagpipe’s screech and a rag”. Plunkett’s marriage to Maud is also a degree of his emotional pain and suffering. While he’s away, his marriage gradually declines. Overall, several of Walcott’s characters are wounded, either physically or psychologically, including Philoctete, Helen, Achille, and Hector. Helen’s wound lies in her fractured relationship with both Hector and Achille. Achille’s wound lies in his identity as he’s determined to remember the meaning and origin of his name. He’s out looking for his “name and his soul” because he’s incomplete. “Everything was forgotten. You also. I do not know / The deaf sea has changed around every name that you gave / us, trees, men, we yearn for a sound that is missing.” Philoctete’s wound is referenced as a physical scar, but like others he’s also wounded emotionally as he believes he embodies the pain of slavery. “He believed the swelling came from the chained ankles / of his grandfathers. Or else why was there no cure? / That the cross he carried was not only the anchor’s / but that of his race, for a village black and poor / as the pigs that rooted in its burning garbage.” With his wound, Philoctete is essentially paralyzed. He finds comfort in Ma Kilman’s No- Pain Café which, despite the name, doesn’t actually end his suffering.

In addition to his characters, Walcott also implies that there’s a natural suffering or wound inflicted upon nature. In Book I Philoctete recalls tourists chopping down sacred grove trees for canoes, replacing the old gods and values with a new God. “These were the pillars that fell, leaving a blue space / for a single God where the old gods stood before.” Walcott describes a gash in a tree as a ‘wound’ and the tourists as ‘murderes’. Also, Walcott oftentimes personifies the natural world all throughout the poem. “Night was fanning its coalpot / from one catching star.” The characters and nature in Omeros each possess a wound, one that can only be healed upon reconciliation. Phlicotete’s physical wound is only healed by Ma Kilman’s heritage and memory of the past. Achille’s identity wound is healed by information gained through Afolabe and self-discovery. Ultimately, the wounds depicted in Omeros are cured after a reconciliation of the past of colonization and slavery and the present culture of St. Lucia.

Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mahfouz describes a variety of issues and themes, all of which allow readers to better understand the life and culture of a medieval society. One theme that is constant throughout the novel is the theme of justice as characters fight against a system of injustice and corruption. Several of the characters suffer financially as they continue to live their lives in poverty having the lowliest jobs of porters, beggars, and barbers.  Overall, Arabian Nights and Days describes the systematic workings of corruption and the overarching idea of maintaining power, despite the ugliness that comes with having power.

            Mahfouz’s novel begins with the sultan Shahriyar’s decision to spare Shahrzad’s life. “I was saved from a bloody fate by our Lord’s mercy.” Ultimately, the tyrant sultan isn’t happy and he calls for the murder of women. In disbelief Vizier Dandan remarks, “A crime is a crime. How many virgins has he killed! How many pious and God-fearing people has he wiped out!” Murder and robbery bring about bloody purges and pain to nearly every family in the small Islamic town where the story takes place. To end this suffering, the sultan works to stop corruption and the virgin massacre initiated in the very first chapters of the book.
            An interesting aspect throughout Mahfouz’s book is the fact the justice doesn’t eventually come through human powers, but supernatural ones in the form of genies. The good spirits of genies causes acts of love and mercy, instead of evil-doing. Genies slowly begin to take responsibility for everything as they play the role of supreme judge, deciding if a criminal should get punished or not. The genies have a dual role in rewarding virtuous locals and punishing corrupt criminals. This becomes the case with chief-of-police Gamasa and Sanaan Bulti who both rely on genies in moments of corruption. Sanaan when he’s forced to kill the governor and Gamasa who receives a new identity with the help of a genie.
            The ruling authorities in Arabian Nights and Days are depicted as corrupt and unjust leaders as they terrorize locals and only work to protect their own good. This idea of supernatural justice through genies surprisingly alleviates the pain and suffering experienced by local townspeople. Walcott’s Omeros also hints at moral injustices as he describes a hope for non-violence and equity for everyone. Both Arabian Nights and Days and Omeros describe cultures struggling with pain and suffering in a physical and emotional sense.

Aspect of Omeros

      One aspect of Omeros that I noted repeatedly was the idea of healing through history’s past and coming to reconcile with one’s history.  Several characters seem to experience this. The physical healing of Philoctete’s wound through the heritage and history of Ma Kilman parallels the emotional healing of the pain of slavery during colonization. Walcott writes “Their memory still there although all the pain was gone” (277) Even though the explicit pain may be gone, history is never forgotten. In a way Walcott uses the healing of Philoctete to offer hope for a brighter future, one without slavery or discrimination.

     Just like Philoctete, Achille too has to reflect upon his heritage and history to find himself. He comes to realize that he must first be complete with himself in order to live a personally satisfying life. At some point the sea swift leads Achille back to Africa. It’s here that he discovers the importance of history.  Seven Seas says “his name is what he is out looking for, his name and soul.” Following his journey to Africa and conversation with Afolabe, Achille is able to appreciate is heritage and the European influence found in his name. “The yoke of the wrong name lifted from his shoulders...history has simplified him”. “Today he was not the usual kingfish-fighter / but a muscular woman, a scarf round his head. / Today was the day of fifes, the prattling skin / of the goat-drums, the day of dry gourds, of brass / bells round his ankles, not chains from the Bight of Benin / but those fastened by himself. He was someone else today […] Today he was African, his own epitaph, his own resurrection.  Like Philoctete, Achille comes to reconcile with both his past and present. In search of themselves and history, each character finds their future.