The great towers of Babel have toppled. The mighty walls of Jericho have fallen. Powerful dynasties have come and gone, and potent empires have faded away. The simple, harsh reality is that nothing perfect can, for long, endure. Nothing is perfect because life isn’t perfect; that’s what makes things so beautiful. But there are those who have fallen into a dream from which they can never awaken. Ann Patchett seems to be one of those people who, inexplicably, is able to transcend into both worlds. To take it from the standpoint of Plato’s teaching, she is able to see the cold, desolate reality that is life in what is called the “Lower World”. She can see the hardships and the tribulations that people must face. But, at the same time, she has the ability to see the dream that is the “Upper World”. She can grasp to the threads that people of all kinds can bridge the chasm to be as one people despite many distinct differences, and Patchett uses her novel, Bel Canto, to bring her vision to life.
Unfortunately, there is a monstrous gap between the rich and the poor in the Capitalistic economic system. The rich sit in lavish comfort in their large homes with expensive décor, throwing money around as if it were nothing at all. Most of the money, verily, goes to waste on frivolous things, such as sumptuous, copious parties and gaudy, over-the-top jewelry and clothes. The picture of a portly man dressed in a fine tuxedo and top hat using a bunch of hundred-dollar bills to light his cigar with comes immediately to mind. There is a saying which states that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, and, in the capitalist system, that holds most true. It has been the same story since nearly the dawn of time. The crème de le crème is only a small percent, while the masses must struggle from day to day just to survive. That is, sadly, in the countries that are better-off in the world ranking – countries like the United States and England and France. The poorer, third-world countries, such as parts of South America and Africa and Asia, have things even worse.
In countries like the Untied States and parts of Europe, there are more job options. People, once they lose a job, have the ability to find other work. In the poor countries, like the unknown one in Patchett’s novel, the poor don’t have quite as many options. In fact, in reality and fiction, most of them live in the jungle. Conditions are desolate. Work is sparse. In some cases, houses are nothing but huts. And people who vie for better conditions are shot down like dogs in the dirt, like the ten-year-old boy Martin Suarez in Patchett’s novel. Suarez was shot dead for passing out leaflets about political change (Patchett, 13). Because the rich want to get richer while keeping the poor down. Because the rich want to make money without having to pay the workers advanced wages. So, they don’t.
What Patchett sees, what she’s able to create, is this isolated utopia out in the middle of this unnamed South American country. The “terrorists” – for really they’re rather poor examples of terrorists – stormed the house of the country’s Vice President, which is surrounded by a wall that cuts the occupants off from the rest of the world and its problems. The fog, which descends after the second week, further helps to isolate those inside the house.
But, in reality, can the reader really condemn the wannabe terrorists? After all, they were forced to suffer through life. They went without – child and adult alike – no comforts or luxuries, while the rich sat in comfort in cushioned chairs waiting for a hired maid to make dinner and clean the posh house. They were forced to live in the dense jungles and quit school because there was greater need for more pressing things. The human body and the human mind can only take so much. Another of Patchett’s characters, General Benjamin, has a brother who was imprisoned for passing out pamphlets proclaiming political change (Patchett, 136). All those little things build and build and build until the dams break and radical, sometimes deadly action is taken. The terrorists rise up against their oppressors and demand for action to be taken. Ironically, and most unknown to the radical faction, the President of the little, unidentified country is at home, watching a soap opera.
Patchett tells the reader right away that the terrorists won’t live to see the end of any changes that are made – if any do happen to occur. She says that, It was an unspoken belief of everyone who was familiar with this organization and with the host country that they were all as good as dead, when in fact it was the terrorists who would not survive the ordeal,” (Patchett, 13). It makes everything seem frivolous, but what isn’t stated is that their deaths could save lives. The reader doesn’t know how many lives the faction has taken in the past – if any at all – and any one who kills and goes on living has accepted that one day they too shall be killed in return. So many sets of eyes close in defeat. So many sets of lungs exhale. Every single person, reader and character alike, knows that the odds have been against the rebel forces from the beginning. It’s almost as if, just faintly, the reader has the ability to hear the souls of the terrorists cry in helplessness.
Patchett makes the reader want to believe that the terrorists know that, even though in the end they’ll probably end up dying, they can’t just surrender. That they want things to be better, and not just for themselves – for every one who is in the same situation. Patchett makes the reader want to believe that it doesn’t have to go on, the poverty and the ugliness. It’s almost as if she’s saying that there has got to be a better future some where, and it’s a future the terrorists have to help make. There’s a time that brighter – bright enough to know not to kill the innocent people like Martin Suarez. Granted, there are those out there who would disagree with this view of Patchett and her ideas, and that’s alright. Perhaps those opposed are right, and fighting only engenders more fighting. But sitting on one’s hands and doing nothing at all has never brought about any change, either. Patchett has her antagonists - who, in a strange way, are also the protagonists - do what they think is right; it’s the only thing they can do.
Once the rebel faction took control of the house, they seemed to be completely taken aback and amazed by the grandeur of the place. Before, they didn’t have access to such fine material goods. They didn’t have the numerous rooms. In fact, the Vice President’s house was probably about as big as one of the smaller jungle settlements. Some of the terrorists were greatly amazed by the television in the study and were startled by it when one of the hostages turned it on (Patchett,115 ). That is only one of the many examples Patchett uses to describe how poor these people really are, how oppressed and how would-be heathenistic.
Patchett is also able to convey this perfect, isolated little utopia inside the house of Vice President Ruben Iglesias. It’s almost like she’s saying that the occupants have rediscovered this lost Heaven in which time has stopped and social class doesn’t matter. In fact, General Benjamin shot the clock, because time ceased to be important. The people inside of that house learned to live together as a collective, functioning unit. Only to the outside world did it matter just who was who – who makes how much in an annual year, or who has the finest clothes, or who has the most expensive accessories. Inside, they formed bonds and relationships, and it didn’t matter to them what group the other was from.
Beatriz became so fond of a soap opera that Gen actually gave away his watch to her (Patchett, 169 ). Patchett goes on to say that, “…it was beautiful, really, the round glass, the soft brown leather band, the hand that was no bigger than a hair that did a slow and constant sweep across the face…” and that “… as presents went, she thought this was the nicest…” and that Hosokawa’s watch was much grander than Gen’s (Patchett, 169). Beatriz, however, is reluctant to take the gift because she doesn’t know how to tell time and is scared that she’ll mess it up and miss her show completely, prompting Gen and Hosokawa to give her a very quick lesson in reading the face of a watch (Patchett, 170). This is just one of the very many events that goes on to show that the line between hostage and captive is now completely and utterly obliterated. No longer are Hosokawa and Gen viewed by the reader as expensive hostages. Rather now, they are seen as somewhat father figures. They taught a girl how to tell time – something a father should do with his daughter.
And then, of course, there is the fiasco with the food. After a while, the police outside stop sending the people inside of the house food already made – which only shows the impatiens of the outside world, or the “Lower World”. Instead, the food comes in crates, and it needs to be washed and cooked by the people inside (Patchett, 176). This task falls to the Vice President, since he is the owner of the house. But, because of his previous social standing, he has no idea how to cook. So he enlists the help of the Generals and a fellow hostage, Thibault, the French Ambassador to the nameless country. As a prelude to this, the Vice President scurries around the house, cleaning up. He picks up plates and cleans the spilled food and drink (Patchett,99). It’s almost as if the roles have been switched, and the head of the house has become the maid. In fact, that’s what has happened, because a woman like Carman or Beatriz would be the type that the Vice President would have, and yet he cleans up after them.
The most endearing moment, however, is the one that is described between Roxane and Beatriz. They become almost like sisters in the early morning just before Roxane decides to sing. Roxane will wake, and she, the great and mighty Soprano Diva, will forego the makeup and fancy hairdos, and she will first wash and then braid Beatriz’s long hair into a thick rope; Beatriz, in turn, will braid Roxane’s hair (Patchett, 277). Aside from the fact that these two appear to be bonding, the reader is forced to wonder what Patchett is getting at. Could Roxane really be realizing that things such as makeup and ornate hair styles be highly overrated? Could she, who seems to have taken over control of the situation with her voice, be falling into the pattern of equality? It doesn’t seem to matter to Roxane what she looks like anymore. No one else seems to care, either. She is a naturally beautiful woman who never needed anything to aid her in her beauty. Her voice alone was more than enough enhancement.
The captors seemed just as scared as the hostages. When the accompanist died of diabetic shock, the priest gave him last rights. One of the terrorists ordered him to stop, threatening to shoot him if he didn’t, but the priest went right on with the ritual (Patchett, 77). So, that again leaves the reader to wonder: is equality all the rebels want? Certainly, inside the house, social standing no longer mattered at all. There were bonds that were formed because the occupants were able to over look the fact that one person had money while the other one didn’t.
So, were the people outside of the house jealous? Did they want to ruin the utopia that was inside of the wall and the fog? Or was that paradise – that Heaven - just too perfect to go on forever? Was Plato’s idea of the Upper World just an idea? A myth? The occupants of the house undoubtedly had the Upper World for a little while. But Plato said that the two worlds couldn’t exist on the same plane, and the Lower World, or the outside world, was just over the wall. Of course the stronger world would conquer. The Upper World inside of the house was peaceful and loving. It didn’t have the means with which to defend itself properly from the force and brutality of the imperfect Lower World. All good things, unfortunately, must come to an end.
The reader will never fully know what drove the rebels to such drastic extremes. Of course, the fact that they lived in poverty and were killed for even seeking political change was surely a factor. And, once they took control of the house in Patchett’s unnamed South American country, they found exactly what they had been searching for: equality. Bonds were formed; lessons were taught. Love blossomed, proving that social class and wealth really have no meaning. But it was a dream that was sure to end in tragedy, for nothing perfect can, for long, endure. Patchett is able to see both the Upper and the Lower world, if one were to look at her novel Bel Canto from a Plutonian standpoint. She sees the outside world – that which is on the outer part of the wall – to be the Lower world. She sees inside the house as the Upper world, for in there, there is perfect harmony. But that harmony had to come to an end. Patchett uses her novel to bring her views to life, creating many valid points for the ability to have what Plato called and “Upper World”.
Works Cited
- Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto. HarperCollins; New York, New York. 2001.
No comments:
Post a Comment