My assigned précis was to discuss Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. However, due to unforeseen events, my discussion was a little dysfunctional and brief. As I pondered what to “blog” about, I realized there was still some Marquez that I wanted to explore since the discussion in class touched on some of the questions I had but did not delve deep enough to satisfy me.
When I read Marquez, we had just discussed Frankl in the previous class and Frankl’s idea that all human experiences of pain, guilt, and death can be transformed into learning experiences, resolutions, and reflections. In Love in the Time of Cholera, Fermina Daza has just lost her husband and learned of her former lover, Florentino Ariza’s, undying love for her all in the same day. The grief that Fermina is feeling from the death of her husband alone is enough to cause her to wish for death, much less the emotional rollercoaster that Florentino has sent her on. Fermina is overcome by grief and confusion so much that, “crushed by grief, she prayed to God to send her death that night while she slept” (Solomon, pg. 363). It was at this part of the reading that I began to consider Frankl’s ideas about human experience of pain, guilt, and death. Fermina has just experienced all three. Death, obviously, pain caused by her grief, and guilt for all of the unsaid things that she should’ve told her dead husband and for the feelings she still has for her former lover. However, Fermina’s reaction to these experiences is to wish for death. The weight that they carry feels as though it is too much for her and that she would feel better if she were dead.
It is here where Frankl would suggest that Fermina learn from these experiences. According to Frankl, the optimum form of life transforms tragedy into meaning. The pain that Fermina is feeling is an opportunity for growth and reflection. It is in these moments that the true meaning of our lives is determined. These experiences can motivate us to make our lives meaningful while we are in it. Fermina’s tragic and painful experiences are giving her the opportunity to find the meaning in her life.
In the context of the plot of Love in the Time of Cholera, I believe that first act that Fermina can perform to transform tragedy into meaning is to accept Florentino’s love. Although it is a little hasty to move on with your ex after your husband has barely been in his grave for twenty-four hours, I think that here is a time and place for Fermina to resolve and reflect. At the end of the excerpt that we read, it is clear that Fermina realizes that she still has feelings for Florentino. If she does not return to him she will experience guilt, which will cause her more pain. It is almost as though she is given a second chance at love with the reappearance of Florentino. In the beginning of the excerpt she expresses guilt that she had left things unsaid with her dead husband and regretted doing so. Florentino is offering her a chance to love again and perhaps better this time. Here she can do as Frankl suggests and learn from her guilt and resolve to “love more meaningfully”, turning her tragedy into meaning.
Frankl is not the only existentialist that we have come across that emphasizes the importance of experiencing all that we encounter and looking for meaning in those experiences. Camus would criticize Fermina’s wish for death because she would be no longer “living to the maximum”. Sartre would scold her for being in bad faith for trying to transcend her experience. Love in the Time of Cholera presented a scenario for some of the more positive messages that tend to be overlooked in existentialism to emerge. Trying to find meaning in a meaningless existence is a challenge especially when tragedy has occurred. However, these existentialists suggest ways to turn those tragedies into meaningful experiences which produce a much more meaningful way of life. Finding meaning in tragedy is a struggle but as Frankl says, it can motivate us to make our lives more meaningful. The death of Fermina’s husband has caused her to experience great loss and pain, however, this tragedy has the opportunity to inspire her to seek greater meaning in her life.
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9 comments:
Olivia--
How would you (or how do you think ____ as an existentialist would) respond the a Job-esque scenario in which one is robbed of all of his meaningful things: lover, family, activities, creative work, etc.? Is there always more meaning to be made (i.e. even if everything I have found meaningful in life through 50+ years is snatched from me at once, is there always at least one more thing out there to start the process over again)?
I loved the Marquez reading and I think you do an excellent job of discussing how tragedy amplifies the apparent meaninglessness we are all capable of feeling. I am just curious to see what you think would about the idea of there being an eventual stopping point for our meaning-finding.
I'm not sure what I think myself. I'm hoping you or someone else can help out with that.
Frankl's idea that human experience (specifically those of pain, guilt, and death) can be transformed into meaningful reflections on life and learning experiences seems to resonate with me as intuitively true. I believe that people struggle to make meaning out of everything that happens around us (hence entities such as God and Satan), and especially things that happen to us. It seems to be an existential struggle for everyone. I feel that the despair people experience in the wake of tragedy is a void that must be filled through our conscious creation of meaning to attribute to it.
I really thought this post was nice. It was good to touch again on the Marquez which wasn’t discussed much in class. The tying in of the other philosophers, especially Frankl was very good. It’s definitely very interesting to think about, and your post did make me think about it, just in general, the paths of our lives and how our personal decisions and reactions influence it. Like what should Fermina do? Should she learn and move on? I think that is a question that should come into mind when making decisions. It reminded me of how I have learned from past experiences and decisions and perhaps inspired me with how to work with events in my future. I’m a big believer in learning from the bad in life and taking what good I can from it and this post just sort of reinforced that for me. I agree with Frankl in that I think these sorts of events can make our lives more meaningful. It is for sure a difficult thing to do; hence it is most certainly an existential struggle because at the time such unpleasant occurrences may seem hopeless. But once you move past them, you see all the possibilities that actually are before you once you decide to move on. I’m not sure I have any major questions for you, but I thought you did a really nice job of putting together a few different readings in order to come up with a concept that I found very interesting.
I feel like if Nietzsche were to analyze Fermina's responses to her husband's death, he would definitely deem her to be a nay-sayer and sufferer of life-denying ressentiment. Specifically concerning her guilt from having feelings for Florentino Ariza, Nietzsche would argue that her religiously-derived social mores of loyalty to deceased spouses are sickly.
I also think that other Existentialists would agree that Fermina's actions and thoughts are diametrically opposed to many of the very tenets of Existentialism. Her constant fear of what others would think of her (as evinced by her catty response to Ariza's profession of love) seems so overwhelming that she prefers death to the agony of sinfully desiring what she cannot receive. Nonetheless, instead of actually committing suicide, she abdicates her freedom to chose death, relying on God to kill her. Weaksauce.
Existentialists probably wouldn't recommend a simple course of action like just marrying Ariza. I feel like they would more likely encourage her to learn from the tragedy of her husband's death, but derive her reaction to it from her own values--and not those of her religion, her peers, or society.
Based on the last line, "she had though more about Florentino Ariza than about her dead husband" (364), I believe Fermina still can continue to find meaning in life. It seems that she wrings meaning from a life of service to her husband, and she sees in Ariza someone else who can provide her the same support. The idea of a life completely devoid of meaning freaks me out a bit. I remember in class Dr. J mentioned the "Muselman," who has been so tragically broken by life that he exists on the fringes of being. Others avoid him because he serves as a reminder of what they can become if life is so miserable that meaninglessness takes over.
I agree with your points about Frankl and how you tied him into this excerpt. At first I didn't see how this reading fit into Existentialism but i definitely can now. I think a good point to think about is how socially acceptable it is to turn pain into meaning. I feel like society expects people to grieve for a certain period of time after their loved one has passed away, but like you said, but at the same time I agree that Fermina should take this opportunity with her ex.
I feel this question can be asked when turning "pain, guilt, and death" into meaning, how long before you can make it meaningful? And does that meaning have to be positive?
I am a big fan of Frankl. I think that America lacks a lot of that responsibility that comes with logotherapy. We are very dependent on something outside ourselves to cure pain, depression, anxiety and so on and I think this can be readily seen in the large use of pharmaceutical drugs. It is almost a repression of sentiments instead of transforming them into something meaningful.
MJG! No one can strip you of the meaningful ventures you remember in your mind. As long as you have thoughts whether it be a memory of family times, a poem, book, song, etc. you will always have an opportunity for meaning making. So, I do not think there could ever be a stop to the meaning-making/finding that occurs throughout our life.
Im glad you touched on this issue, and I like how thorough your application of Frankl is to Marquez.
It seems interesting to how meaning can stem from tragedy, as well. I also find it comparable to Beauvoir’s analogy of freedom and grief. Beauvoir asserts that being free means overcoming grief, “a risk” that threatens our freedom. Beauvoir offers the example of the man paralyzed from a car accident.
“It is quite right in admiring a man who, having been ruined or having suffered an accident, knows how to gain the upper hand, that is, renew his engagement in the world, thereby strongly asserting the independence of freedom in relation to thing” (Solomon, 295)
It’s as if a truly free being that we will always prevail from an incident of tragedy. Even though the paraplegic is living what one considers a “tragic” life, in so far as his ‘facticity’ is limiting him from experiencing a “normal life” Beauvoir seems to say that the man’s determination converts tragedy into opportunity.
Like Frankl, I think Beauvoir would agree that an emotional obstacle like death always presents an opportunity for freedom to prevail in meaning. Just another way to look at tragedy.
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