Besides
the mediocre (to the point of entertainingly pathetic, I would argue) acting
and wonderfully ludicrous plot line, Supernatural
was like watching Matryoshka dolls hatch; the two main characters, Sam and Dean
Winchester, are controlled by Chuck, their “prophet”
writer, who is controlled by Eric Kripke, who also controls us, the audience. Like
I said, Matryoshka dolls. This multi-layered web of control begs the audience to
wonder: "do we write our own lives?" Some people turn to religion,
believing their fate is controlled by a divine, omniscient power (God?
Vonnegut’s Bokonon?), while others dismiss fate as if it were a piece of cat
hair on their black clothing. In Supernatural,
we see what it's like for Sam and Dean to not be in control of their day to day
lives, and it's grim. Granted, I highly doubt a devil will ever try to kill me,
but what about figurative demons? The longer we live, the more chances there
are for (induced) depression to creep into our minds.
In
Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, John or “Jonah,”
seems to suggest that Felix Hoenikker wrote (or rather,
wrapped up) the destinies of the thousands of people who died in Hiroshima, and
yet Jonah is now attempting to write Hoenikker’s life. It makes one wonder: can
you write someone’s life, and be fully in control of it, after that life has ended? In Supernatural,
Chuck wrote in the present about the present, while in Cat’s Cradle, Jonah is writing about the past in the present. Is
Jonah a profit then, like Chuck, or simply a middleman sent to put the past to
paper? Jonah’s role reminds me of Menard’s in Jorge Luis Borges, Pierre Menard, Author of the “Quixote.” Menard
is striving to rewrite the Quixote itself.
Jonah knows he cannot become Hoenikker, but that does not deter him from trying
to write the man’s life.
So
who do we believe? Do we believe in Chuck or Jonah? The problem with a lie is
that it can only be told while knowing the truth. If the truth is not known,
then it is not a lie, but a misunderstanding, since there was no intentional scheming.
We do not know who is the true narrator
of our lives, but I’m (fiercely) hoping it’s me.
You proposed an interesting concept of the inability to control one’s own actions because there is some divine or “higher power” in control. I am curious on your thoughts on how “induced depression” correlates with this idea of fate and our inability to control our own destiny. Is this, “induced depression, a consequence of our complete helplessness? In Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, on the first page we are “told” that Jonah is manipulated by some higher, divine being. How do you analyze Jonah’s lack of power over his own life and this idea of “induced depression”?
ReplyDeleteWhen I used the term "induced depression," I was referring to perhaps more realistic causes of depression, like alcohol-induced/drug-induced depression--the kinds of demons that the everyday person battles. We come in to our "destinies" when we defeat or remove the things in our lives that (negatively) control us. Jonah is controlled by Vonnegut in the sense that Jonah would not exist if Vonnegut had not put pen to paper, but that does not mean we should underestimate Jonah.
DeleteI was also caught by the ideas of fate, guidance and ideas resembling religion in the works we have studies thus far. While the prospect of some entity controlling your life scares you, to many it is an enormous sense of comfort. People seem to be drawn to Bokononism because of the confidence it gives them to know that every action that they carry out is God's will. I think Vonnegut wants us to realize and keep in mind the real and tangible feelings of faith and conviction which stem from ideas based on unknown truths, or lies.
ReplyDeleteThe questions of whether we decide our own paths or whether it is some superior, divine power is one that has arisen many times throughout this book and literature in general. It is especially confusing within this book because Vonnegut weaves himself into the story and therefore it is unclear who is even deciding the plotline, let alone the paths of the characters within.
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