Beneath the Wheels

Two days ago, I finished re-reading Hermann Hesse's Beneath the Wheel for the second time (so now I've read it three times).  Considering the ill-feeling directed toward schools in the book, I felt it was an appropriate selection because most people are going back to school but it's the first time in my life that I don't have to.

Reading it this time, I noticed a lot of stuff that I hadn't noticed before.  I still haven't sorted through everything, so the only thing I have to say about it now is pretty low-hanging fruit (figuratively speaking) about wheels in the book.  Judging by the title, wheels are pretty important, yet I'd failed to notice them the other two times I read the book.

The rest of this post contains spoilers.

It's pretty hard to miss the significance of one of the wheels because it's in the line that provides the book's title.  After Hans' performance in Hebrew has started to flag, the headmaster talks to him and encourages him: "That's the way, that's the way, my boy.  Just don't let up or you'll get dragged beneath the wheel."  In this context, the wheel represents academic work.  If Hans doesn't keep up with his studies, he'll find later lessons and such to be more difficult, and he'll eventually fall behind.

Despite this encouragement (or perhaps warning) Hans eventually does fall behind and has to leave the academy.  After he comes back to the village, he goes to watch the other villagers make cider.  He becomes attracted to the shoemaker's niece, but he's nervous about talking to her, "so he withdrew his feelers awkwardly and a little offended and crawled back into himself like a snail brushed by a cartwheel."

It was at this point that I started paying attention to the wheels that appear in the book.  I don't know if there's an instance where Hans is actually described as encountering the crushing metaphorical wheel of academia, but this is an instance where the wheel starts to get closer, merely "brush[ing]" him.

Because he no longer attends the academy, he starts an apprenticeship as a mechanic.  His first task is to file off the rough edges of a cog-wheel.  The metaphorical wheel has now become an actual wheel, and it starts to affect Hans physically.  At first, it's just that his hands become black with the work, but later "his arm hurt and his left hand with which he pressed down on the file had become red and began to smart."  The next day, "his hands burned, [and] the swellings had turned into blisters."

As the book progresses, the wheel becomes less of a conceit and more of a physical object that Hans interacts with.  First, it's just the idea of a wheel.  Then it's a simile that just misses him, and finally, it's an iron cog-wheel that he tears up his hands trying to smooth.  Interestingly, the wheel gets closer to reality as it gets closer to rolling over Hans (it's like a meta-metaphor; as the wheel becomes more concrete, it becomes more impending).  Each of these three instances corresponds to different areas of Hans' life too.  The first is the crushing wheel of academia, the second is the pressure of socialization, and the third is the strain of intense physical work.

I think the last two of these wheels provide examples of how the pressure put on Hans to succeed academically has ultimately had a negative effect on him.  Because of the narrowly-directed and persistent pressure put on academic matters, he no longer knows how to communicate (or maybe even understand) his feelings, particularly his love for Emma, the shoemaker's niece.  (To some degree, his being out-of-touch with his feelings is also shown through his relationship with his friend Heilner while he's still at the academy.)  His body has also withered away.  Because he's pushed himself (and been pushed) so much academically, he's no longer able to do physical work.  There are also multiple instances throughout the book where he mentions headaches he gets because of his frequent and intense studying.

I think these instances of wheels and how they affect Hans could be read other ways too, but the crushing nature of them was particularly prevalent to me as I read the book this time.  Probably because I just recently finished my formal education and am glad to be avoiding it this year.

Biblical Allusions in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

In May, I started re-reading The Lord of the Rings.  The last and only other time I read it was for a class (for which I had to rush through the book in about three weeks), so it's been interesting being able to read it slowly and actually pay attention to things.

A few days ago, I finished The Two Towers, and in two different chapters I'd found that Tolkien employs extended Biblical allusions.  The first is in Book Three, Chapter 10 "The Voice of Saruman."  Gandalf leads a party to Orthanc to talk to Saruman, and he warns them to beware of his (Saruman's) voice.  The narration describes that "all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves."  This is similar to the serpent's temptation in Genesis 3:  "But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'" (Genesis 3:4)  Both the serpent and Saruman appeal to the desire of knowledge; the serpent to "knowing good and evil," and Saruman to "seem[ing] wise."  When Éomer tries to dissuade Théoden from listening to what Saruman suggests, Saruman himself makes the connection between deceptive talk and snakes:  "'If we speak of poisoned tongues what shall we say of yours, young serpent?' said Saruman."

After Gandalf reveals that he is no longer Gandalf the Grey, but Gandalf the White, Saruman's staff breaks.  "There was a crack, and the staff split asunder in Saruman's hand, and the head of it fell down at Gandalf's feet."  The significance here, with regard to the Biblical allusions, is the head and the feet.  After the serpent's deception, God curses him, saying, "'I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel'" (Genesis 3:15).  (I think some translations of the Bible have it as "he shall crush your head," with which Tolkien's "split[ting] asunder" fits more closely, image-wise.)  Here, with Saruman as the serpent, that head bruising is fulfilled in the splitting of the staff and the head's falling down to Gandalf's feet.  There's no bruising of the heel though, and I think that's because this is Gandalf the White.  In the same way that man could not overcome sin until after God is incarnate in Christ, Gandalf could not overcome Saruman until after he's become Gandalf the White.  At least, that's if my grasp of theology and The Lord of the Rings is correct.  So, in a way, through the Biblical allusions, Tolkien connects sin and the power of Sauron, who is working through Saruman.

The second set of allusions I discovered is in Book Four, Chapter 8 "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol."  The setting is described as a "valley of shadow and cold deathly light," which is a fairly blatant reference to Psalm 23, specifically "the valley of the shadow of death" in verse 4.  Tolkien just changed "death" from a noun into an adjective.  In the same way that Tolkien uses the Biblical allusions to Genesis 3 to strengthen his own setting and characters in Book Three, Chapter 10, he uses the pastoral imagery of Psalm 23 to strengthen the contrast between Mordor and Galadriel in Book Four, Chapter 8.  The Ring Wraiths come close to where Frodo and Sam are hiding, but instead of clutching the Ring, Frodo holds on to the phial of Galadriel.  A little later Frodo "took his staff in one hand the phial in his other."  This is a mirror of the later half of Psalm 23:4 - "your rod and your staff, they comfort me."  The staff that Faramir gave Frodo and the phial of Galadriel help Frodo on his way to Mordor in a similar manner that the shepherd's rod and staff comfort the sheep in the pastoral language of Psalm 23.  Near the end of the chapter in The Two Towers, there's also a reference to the "green pastures" and "still waters" of Psalm 23:2.  "'Sleep!' said Frodo and sighed, as if out of a desert he had seen a mirage of cool green."

In both of these instances, the allusions that Tolkien uses strengthen his descriptions and characterizations.

Character Names in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

About a month ago, I finished re-reading Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea for the first time (so now I've read it twice).  The day before I finished it, I finally realized the importance of the names that Verne gave his characters.  In Chapter XIX (The Gulf Stream) of Part Two, while Aronnax is talking with Captain Nemo about their "slavery" (as Aronnax calls it) on the Nautilus, he says that he (Aronnax) is willing to "live obscure in the frail hope of bequeathing one day, to future time, the result of my labors" but that Ned Land is different.  Throughout the book, Land is trying to get back to land or at the very least escape the Nautilus.  Aronnax then says that "Every man, worthy of the name, deserves some consideration."

What I don't understand here is whether Aronnax is saying that everyone worthy of being called a man deserves consideration or that Ned Land in particular deserves consideration because his last name is Land.  (It's probably the first one.)  Regardless, this sentence got me thinking about Ned Land's name and how it reflects his goal.  He's trying to get off the submarine, and his name reflects the very opposite of being under the sea - being on land.

Thinking about Ned Land's name then got me thinking about the names of the other characters, and I found similar reflections of disposition in Conseil and Captain Nemo's names.

In Chapter III (I Form My Resolution) of Part One, Aronnax says that "despite his name," Conseil "never giv[es] advice - even when asked for it."  In French, conseil means advice or counsel.  It's been about a month since I finished the book (and it wasn't until I was nearly finished reading it that I started thinking about this, so I wasn't looking for it in the earlier parts of the book), so I can't really speak as to whether Conseil "never" gives advice to Aronnax.  Still, he does accompany Aronnax for a large portion of the book.  When he is introduced in Chapter III, Aronnax explains that Conseil is a "true, devoted Flemish boy, who had accompanied me in all my travels."

After I got thinking about the names, I found more evidence for the accompaniment that Conseil embodies.  In the third sentence of Chapter XX (From Latitude 47° 24' to Longitude 17° 28') in Part Two, Aronnax remarks that during a storm, "Conseil and I, however, never left each other."

At the time I'd been reading Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, I'd been reading a Verne book every month: Around the World in 80 Days, From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon (published together), and Journey to the Center of the Earth from March to May (and I started Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea at the end of June).  In all of these books, Verne has pairs (or, in some books, trios) of characters so that via one character's scientific explanation to an-other, the reader can also gain an understand of what's going on.  While Conseil might not serve as a counsel to Aronnax, by Aronnax's explaining various underwater creatures and phenomena to the ever-present Conseil, the reader can understand a bit more of what's going on.  It makes it a little more interesting when that explanation is in dialogue instead of in the narration.  With this sort of function, Conseil does act as a sort of counsel, but he's a counsel to the reader instead of to Aronnax.

Captain Nemo also reflects his name.  Nemo is the Latin word for no one or nobody (which, interestingly, recalls Odysseus and his encounter with Polyphemus).  Captain Nemo has exiled himself from the world and travels around in the Nautilus, and his name mirrors his wish to be left alone.  In the aforementioned storm in Chapter XX, where Conseil accompanies Aronnax, Aronnax explains that Nemo "had isolated himself."

With these three character's names representing some aspect of themselves, I started to wonder whether Verne also did this to Pierre Aronnax, who is the only other major character, but I can't really find anything in Aronnax's name to suggest a particular quality.  Pierre might be a pun on pier and - through the nautical imagery that's prominent in the book - indicate Aronnax's importance of centrality as the narrator, but this neglects the fact that Verne wrote the book in French, a language in which that pun wouldn't work.

The only other thing I want to note after this reading of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is a description of the Nautilus near the beginning of Chapter XIX (The Gulf Stream) in Part Two.  Aronnax writes that "the Nautilus did not keep on in its settled course; it floated about like a corpse at the will of the waves."  By itself, it's a morbid description, but especially so after considering the previous chapter, in which one of the Nautilus' men is killed in a battle with the poulps.  In a way, in likening the submarine to a corpse, Aronnax is describing how the death affected the vessel itself.