Holocaust of Fear

   Routine dominates our life in such a way that we are not aware of it. Each individual has its own specialized routine that is actually a variation of a central one. They are all part of a meticulous system that is in constant control.  In our case the system would be society, in Chief Broom`s case it’s the ward. He describes it as a “combine” and is not fully aware of its manipulation. The ward, like everything in society, has a strict routine enforced by a powerful figure to maintain the system`s control. The Chief as a victim uses the "fog" as an escape from the brutality of the system. 

   “So after the nurse gets her staff, efficiency locks the ward like a watchman's clock. Everything the guys think and say and do is all worked out months in advance, based on the little notes the nurse makes during the day. This is typed and fed into the machine I hear humming behind the steel door in the rear of the Nurses' Station. A number of Order Daily Cards are returned, punched with a pattern of little square holes. At the beginning of each day the properly dated OD card is inserted in a slot in the steel door and the walls hum up: Lights flash on in the dorm at six-thirty: the Acutes up out of bed quick as the black boys can prod them out, get them to work buffing the floor, emptying ash trays, polishing the scratch marks off the wall where one old fellow shorted out a day ago, went down in an awful twist of smoke and smell of burned rubber. The Wheelers swing dead log legs out on the floor and wait like seated statues for somebody to roll chairs in to them. The Vegetables piss the bed, activating an electric shock and buzzer, rolls them off on the tile where the black boys can hose them down and get them in clean greens. ... Six-forty-five the shavers buzz and the Acutes line up in alphabetical order at the mirrors, A, B, C, D.” (pg 28, Kesey)

    The whole ward functions around a routine just like the extermination camps did. Both groups wake up early, they shower and in the case of the ward shave, they perform their monotonous tasks, are punished for what the heads consider mistakes, and line up in a certain order. The Kapo is parallel to Nurse Ratched. Both of their jobs and intentions might look good to their respective societies, but in reality it is the opposite. Violence is a source for power.  Scary and true. Whenever an opposing view or threat to the stability emerges, violence is used. For the Jews it was either beatings or death. The patients are treated like nothing but patients. They live in a constant scare of fear oppressed by the thought of visiting The Shock Shop and becoming a “Vegetable”.

   Thus, these vulnerable beings create a way to isolate themselves from the tormenting environment. Our chief interprets this isolation as “fog”. He creates it as a curtain to protect himself from the reality of the world. Whenever he feels threatened, he submerges into this murky world of his. It is after all the only place where the domination of the Combine can’t get to him. The Chief shuts himself from the other people, specially Miss Ratched and the aides. He is closer to what he will  ever be of a comfort zone. This fog is not shaving cream in his eyes, or a drug, it is his own remedy for the reality of society. We blame society, but we still don’t do anything about it because society is actually us. The chief finds a temporary solution, but again it is only temporary.

Tick-Tock

Yesterday, today, tomorrow- what is the difference? In Waiting for Godot Beckett depicts the irrelevancy of time in life through Vladimir and Estragon`s incessant wait. He critiques human's need for time by demonstrating how hopeless and obsessive one can become with it. In the novel the notion of time is constantly questioned putting it in a state of absurdity. Kurt Vonnegut plays with time in a similar way in Slaughterhouse-Five with the Tralfamadorian theory.  It states that time is circular, thus moments exist simultaneously and the linearity is only a deception.  Italo Calvino, in Invisible Cities, breaks the normalcy of linear time as well with Marco Polo’s philosophy. “Journeys to relive your past? … also have been formulated: Journey’s to recover your future?” (Calvino, 29). All three  novels critique human perception of time by supporting the idea that it only creates problems and limitations to people. 

To come on to a stable conclusion one would have to define what time really is. The problem, however, is that no one will ever be sure. Nevertheless, we would have to agree that in the end it really is irrelevant despite human`s desperate need for it. The past, present and future all wrap up to the same thing: life. It is this precisely, that human beings don't understand. 

"POZZO
...(Turning to Vladimir and Estragon.) Thank you, gentlemen, and let me . . . (he fumbles in his pockets) . . . let me wish you . . . (fumbles) . . . wish you . . . (fumbles) . . . what have I done with my watch? (Fumbles.) A genuine half-hunter, gentlemen, with deadbeat escapement! (Sobbing.) Twas my granpa gave it to me! (He searches on the ground, Vladimir and Estragon likewise. Pozzo turns over with his foot the remains of Lucky's hat.) Well now isn't that just—
VLADIMIR 
Perhaps it's in your fob.
POZZO 
Wait! (He doubles up in an attempt to apply his ear to his stomach, listens. Silence.) I hear nothing. (He beckons them to approach, Vladimir and Estragon go over to him, bend over his stomach.) Surely one should hear the tick-tick.
VLADIMIR 
Silence! 
All listen, bent double.
ESTRAGON
I hear something.
POZZO 
Where?
VLADIMIR 
It's the heart.
POZZO 
(disappointed) Damnation!
VLADIMIR 
Silence!
ESTRAGON 
Perhaps it has stopped." (Beckett, 49)

In this quote of the novel, when Estragon confuses the ticking of the missing clock with that of the heart he reveals a simple truth. The only real clock in life is the heart. This machine is what keeps us going and what will eventually stop us. The only time that's actually valuable is the one  that is biologically being kept track of. 
"A country road. A tree.
        Evening. (Beckett, Act I)
The simple setting where the novel takes place reflects the simplicity in the truth. A tree symbolizes life and it is the only thing that really changes throughout time. The characters realize that it grows leaves, suggesting a change in season. Again, it is significant because as I mentioned before its biological. A road symbolizes life too. There are many decisions  that will lead you to a different place but in the end, as I mentioned in the previous post,  it has a final stop. Death. When the biological time runs out the path is cut short. It is here where the simplicity matters. From an existentialist pair of eyes this is all life is and death is insignificant. Camus' philosophy of life being best when meaningless strikes Waiting for Godot. Life is nothing but a recursion of absolutely everything. It has no more meaning than a variation of choices, a repetition of everything, and it all ends when the biological time is over. Period. 

"Life is a series of choices, creating stress"

"To be, or not to be, that is the question" (Shakespeare, Hamlet)
Chocolate or Vanilla? Yes or No? Right or Left? Accomplish or Procrastinate? 

Life is a series of choices, creating stress. From the moment you hesitate within two options stress is already created. Continuously choices come in the way, even unconsciously. Have you ever walked into a room and once there realized you have no idea why you did it? It was absolutely involuntary, at the moment you didn’t stress about the choice but once made conscious about it you did stress about why you made it. Each choice is a brick in the building of life, in the end depending on the way the brick was placed; the building’s shape turns out. At the same time, the building accumulates stress with each brick that is placed.

Most humans build their life this way because those are society’s blueprints. Meursault however refused to follow them. He demonstrated that life doesn’t have to necessarily be a series of choices that create stress. For the most Meursault acted upon instinct. He didn’t rationalize about the future, but rather did as he pleased at the moment. By doing this, he didn’t stress when making the choice or in the future when accepting the consequence. The only thing in his mind was the experience and acceptance of it. “The trigger gave… in that noise, sharp and deafening…is where it all started…” (Chp. 6, Part I, Camus) Meursault never stressed upon killing the Arab, he just went ahead and shot him because he felt like it at the moment. He had no reasons or explanations besides from what it really was for him, “I said it just happened that way” (Chp. 3, Part II, Camus) For him, this criminal act didn’t mean the end of his life, but quite the contrary, it was the beginning of a new experience.

Existentialism is more than clear in Camus, and reflected throughout his character Meursault. Mankind has free will by controlling their choices. Nevertheless, they are responsible to accept what the choice leads them to. It is ok to do as you please like Meursault did by killing the Arab, as long as you acknowledge your responsibility like he did by admitting his criminality and punishment. All choices steer humans to the same stop that makes them equal. Death. Every choice you make is another step towards it. After holding so many bricks, the building comes to a point where one last brick’s weight makes it crumble. In any case it has no importance because everyone will eventually die while others are living, and then those living will eventually die as well, and it goes on.