20th Century A Strange time
The twentieth century afforded the opportunity to augment the "spiritual" Walt Whitman eloquently described, in his nineteenth century work "I Hear America Singing," with the voices of the human collective the world over (from the downtown city dweller to the indigenous natives roaming the wilds). The mechanics, wives, and many different human identities could have sang, "What belongs to him or her and to none else." In this century, Humanity's collective accomplishments made it possible for man to destroy the world. Whitman's grand illusion of stability was not realized, and the twentieth century instead imparted upon humanity a reality composed of conflicts and paradoxes. With the ability to shape the world and a facade of control over the collective destiny of the species we bitterly learned what the ancients summed up as fate, things work out as they do because the circumstances of life are as they are, and the people affected and affecting them are as they are. A sort of double-edged sword that both imparts collective and individual responsibility over man and yet admits to what is essentially his inability to mold the world as he like has imposed upon humanity, a permanent state of cognitive dissonance and complete co
The Visit, a tragi-comedy written by Friedrich Durrenmatt that had its first dramatic production in Switzerland in 1956, is a caustic denunciation of the treachery of justice that we have come to use as a standard for how far man has come as species. Through a plot riddled with greed and a facade of order Durrenmattt demonstrated how the richest woman in the world could buy justice on her own terms, and how people would rationalize her want for revenge and their own outright greed for the prospects of a more comfortable life. The Guellner's (towns people), are offered what can be thought of as one billion dollars to murder a man, named Alfred, whom is branded to be their next mayor for a crime he committed in his youth. Never mind the irony that because he paid vagrants to lie and brand Claire Zachanassian (then known as Clara) a woman who knew her way around the bedroom he inadvertently setup the chain of events that permitted Zachanassian the opportunity to acquire all her riches. Before the plague struck Oran, the town was not a perfect place but the people felt secure in the predictability of their lives. Oran was not paradise; in fact, Dr. Riuex describes the pre-plague town as a quite banal place, a place where "You can get through the days without trouble, once you have formed habits. (Camus, 5)." When something as unforeseen and unpredictable as the plague strikes, man has only his rituals and habits to give meaning to life. Once the plague fully raged, the populace shared the collective destiny of the plague, and felt consumed by an internal emotional "sense of exile (Camus, 167)," and people were comforted only by doing their jobs, which they took comfort in calling simply human decency. nfusion over mans place in the world. Collectively we suffered two world wars, and the great depression. Together mankind became a species of exiled aliens, in regards to language culture and countrymen, with a gene
Some common words found in the essay are:
America Singing, Dr Riuex, Wilhelm Adler, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Plato Crito, Paul Sartre, Zachanassian Clara, Ill Fortunately, Dr Rieux, Prize Literature, twentieth century, meaning own, life people, collective destiny,
Approximate Word count = 1303
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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