University of Ni, 2010 Faculty of Philosophy, English Department

SHAKESPAERIAN CHOICES AS ROAD SIGNS TOWARDS THE SALVATION OF HUMANITY

Supervisor: Ljiljana Bogoeva

Student: Kristina Kostadinovi

Let us imagine two wars fought bravely by one patriotic nation: The first war ends and the territory are won. One thousand people of the nation are dead. The second war ends and the territory are lost. No one died. Which war did the nation win? After the first war, the nation is united and celebrating. This is a great victory which was worth dying for. After the second, the nation is split and fighting, and there is a huge searchparty trying to find and victimise the ones guilty for the nations great loss.

Are we twisted?

Winston Smith, the main character of Orwells 1984, is loyal to the doctrines of the party that rule Oceania. And what being loyal means? It means to enjoy the life you lead limited quantity and quality of food, sex restrictions, no free thoughts, bursts of emotions that are requested from you. Except enjoying your life, you are expected to praise the Party for what you get. Trapped in the world of coercion previously described, Winston Smith dreams of his mother and girl Julia and wakes up with the words Shakespeare on his lips. In his dream, his mother is a symbol of ultimate love and the girl Julia, by removing her clothes by a single movement of her hand, symbolises ripping off the chains the Party imposes on people. From Winstons dream, we come to realise that people living in the world of Big Brother only pretend that they are enjoying their lives because of the fear of being vaporised, but what they really crave for are pure emotions, releasing of their inner selves. The similar situation is with Huxleys Brave New World with the difference that this is not the world of coercion but seduction, which is far more dangerous. Contrary to Orwells world, in which individuality is taken by force, in Huxleys novel, individuality is taken by giving people everything they need. Brave New World is even worse because people are so seduced that they cannot even in dreams realise that what they need as humans is not what they are given. They are so brainwashed that their artificial paradise is the source of their ultimate happiness. For them, it is normal to have different sexual partners every day to satisfy their bodily need, but by the encouragement to freely satisfy that need, they are taken the right and possibility to love and thus satisfy their spiritual need.

The only one who can realise that Huxleys world is not what we originally desire, but, that it is a desire which, as Adrienne Rich wisely notices is taken from us, processed and labelled, and sold back to us1, is John Savage. He is brought up in an Indian reservation in which people are still naturally born and not produced in a laboratory, and is above all brought up on the complete works of Shakespeare. In the end, he chooses to lose his life rather than to live by the instructions in the world in which Othello cannot survive. Cultures both Orwell and Huxley describe are the cultures of domination, cultures in which people, entrapped in false identities, allow to be commanded and turned into the instruments of somebody elses will. In those cultures, people fail to realise that the virtues that are served to them are not the virtues of humans, but the virtues of citizens; that the values they live by may make them satisfied, but cannot possibly make them happy. In those cultures, Shakespeare is not allowed.

Shakespeare as a danger to our culture

Reading closely the previous section we come to realise that we ARE twisted. However, through the inspection of Winstons dream, the only window of our original desires, and through the choice John Savage makes, we realise that we are not born twisted, but are, by the means of the culture we originally created, and are now servants of, made such. Shakespeare shows us brilliantly the existence of invisible mental confinements; explains how and why we enter them and what we become as their victims and makers. This is why the cultures of domination, which need citizens instead of humans, obedient instead of rapturous people, must forbid him. If not, they risk that we come face to face with our long lost selves, fall in love with it and rip off, like Julia does, the chains society imposes. Shakespeare is a master in showing us how we came to lose our beautiful selves, what we are without it and how to gain it back. For him, tragic error and the beginning of the culture that enslaves us lie in the systematic denial, rejection and destruction of the feminine within our culture2 which began with Adoniss fatal choice.

1 2

Adrienne Rich, WHAT IS FOUND THERE, Preface. Ljiljana Bogoeva Sedlar, O PROMENI, p.119

Fatal errors and their consequences Look how he can, she cannot choose but love; And by her fair immortal hand she swears, From his soft bosom nevet to remove, Till he take truce with her contending tears, Which long have raind, making her cheeks all wet; And one sweet kiss shall pay this comptless dept.3 What Shakespeare is trying to identify as a first error of man on his way of loosing self is rejecting of the female principle. In the matriarchal period, everybody loved and obeyed the Goddess of Complete Being, as Ted Hughes rightly calls her, since she was a life-giver and only through unity with her, man could reconcile his inner split and become whole. For Venus there is no other choice but to love, since it gives her comfort and is source of her happiness. However, Adonis prefers to be a hunter and rejects the Goddess: Fie, no more love of love4 This is the tragic error in the course of human development, as we can see from Venus passionate reply as a result of her disbelief: Are thou a womans son, and canst not feel What tis to love? How want to love tormenteth?5 Thou art no man, though of a mans complexion For man will kiss even by their own direction O, learn to love, the lesson is but plain, And once made perfect, never lost again.6 Venus knows that what Adonis decides is not natural and threatens his human self, so she tries to bring him back to her, bring him back to nature, make him complete again. Unfortunately, he goes to the hunt and sets our twisted culture, in which virtue is to be a hunter and not a lover, into motion: Adonis refusal of Venus becomes the mythic, archetypal formula of masculine identity in the West Adonis, the mythic lover turned hunter, becomes Tarquin, historys key figure, the warrior. The rejected Venus becomes the raped Lucrece. The garden
3 4

William Shakespeare, VENUS AND ADONIS William Shakespeare, VENUS AND ADONIS 5 William Shakespeare, VENUS AND ADONIS 6 William Shakespeare, VENUS AND ADONIS

becomes the city torn by war. The art of loving despised, untaught, forgotten is replaced by what Edward Bond calls moralised violence of the Law.7 Bonds moral violence is clearly evident in Orwell and Huxley, and is means of achieving societys purpose. Shakespeares Adonis initiated the creation of the cultures 1984 and Brave New World depict. By his desire to control nature and be dominant, he established new values and virtues on which the masculine society is based on. Through changing his loyalties, he turned upside down the community matriarch had enjoyed for 35 000 years. He founded institutions such as church, state, kingship... that took up their own course of development and devised means, coercion and seduction, of controlling its creators. Shakespeare, in many of his works, continues to symbolically represent Adonis fatal choice, and shows what it turns us into. Literal rejection of female represents a symbolical rejection of matriarchal values, pure love for the sake of love, and turning mans loyalty towards different institutions that ingrain non-human values into humans. No wonder that such unnatural and violent changing of ourselves through an influence of tradition society imposes on us was Shakespeares important concern. Shakespeare maybe couldnt predict Orwells and Huxleys worlds to a great detail, but managed very well to intuit it. The courses of events heroes of his tragedies, such as Titus, Hamlet, Lear, etc. initiate by their choices are warnings that should be taken seriously. The immediate consequence of Adonis choice, of mans refusal of the Goddess, was inner split within a man. When a man refused a woman, he renounced his opportunity for original unity and was split into thinking and feeling halves. What terrible consequences this split brings to humanity is wondrously shown through Shakespeares Hamlet. Frailty, thy name is woman!8 The disappointment with women in Hamlet represents the moment that triggers the plot. After being disgusted with his mother, Hamlet transfers his feelings onto all women and begins his tragic destiny. He abandons Ofelia, which was, as we find out in the end of the play, his true love. By rejecting love, he is unable to make right choices during the play. The inability for recognizing and choosing right comes from the fact that his options are imposed by the culture he lives in, and are not based on what he desires as a human. His inner split also stands for the conflict in the world we witness from the very beginning of the play, during Claudius speech. Claudius stands for society and his speech clearly announces that:

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Ljiljana Bogoeva Sedlar, O PROMENI, p.119 William Shakespeare, HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.9 He tries to reconcile many contradictories grief for his brother and the joy for marriage, but his desire is not natural, so we get the artificial jovial atmosphere and get the idea of the sickness of the society in its very root, its royalty. In this kind of world, Hamlet cannot fail to lose his integrity and surrender his individual desire. During the speech, Hamlet seems like the only one who will not play Claudius game. However, after rejecting love, he is split between the society and religion, neither of which can stand for his original human values. Thus split, Hamlet is very difficult to be understood, so Horatio, Hamlets close friend, becomes a very important character for the play. Only through Horatio can we get to understand Hamlet. Horatio is the only one in the play whom Hamlet respects, so through this relationship, we can see what Hamlet actually craves for the original unity of human intelligence, achieved through the unity with woman - nature. Horatio is the one to point out to the Hamlets fatal choices. First, he warns him not to go with the ghost because ghost may: Tempt towards the flood; Deprive sovereignty of reason, And draw into madness,10 which eventually happens after Hamlet, disappointed in women, promises to take a revenge. From this point, Hamlet is unable to act because of his inner split between what is really good and what society imposes as good. Hamlet is really disappointed with the values of society, that he even considers a suicide in order to find peace: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely, The pangs of despisd love, the laws delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?11 However, at this point, when he is almost ready to rip off societys pressure he has embraced by promising revenge, another non-human pressure steps in. Not only does Hamlet need to struggle with the loyalty to his late father, and thus to his country, he also needs to deal
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William Shakespeare, HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK William Shakespeare, HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK 11 William Shakespeare, HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
10

with the values of religion. Split between those artificial values, he is unable to become himself, an original whole that men used to be in the time of the Great Goddess. In those times, people were not oppressed with wicked values of society and did not fear death since they fully believed in the circularity of life. After the death of Ofelia, Hamlet comes to realise what his fatal mistake was and is ready to finally act. Here, we have Horatio once again warning Hamlet of the consequences of his choice. However, Hamlet comes to see that everyone will die once, so he rejects religion. By killing his uncle, who stands for all the societys twisted values, he rejects societys values also and rightly becomes a Shakespearian hero. Although Hamlets internal conflict is the central idea of the play and the major consequence of his choice to reject a woman, throughout the play, we get the idea of the other consequences of this kind of choice, such as meaningless killings and wars for the sake of tradition, embodied in the characters of Fortinbras and Laertes. What is implicated in Hamlet by these two pursuers of revenge is further developed in Titus Andronicus, Titus Andronicus begins with the speeches of Saturninus and Bassianus, which clearly depict a Rome that is deeply divided between tradition and virtue - must Rome respect the lineage of the eldest son Saturninus, or should virtuous Bassanius be made its emperor? Saturninus: Noble patricians, patrons of my right, Defend the justice of my cause with arms; And, countrymen, my loving followers, Plead my successive title with your swords: I am his first-born son, that was the last That ware the imperial diadem of Rome; Then let my fathers honours live in me, Nor wrong my age with this indignity.12 Bassianus: Romans, - friends, followers,, favourers of my right,If ever Bassanius, Caesers son, Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome, Keep, then, this passage to the Capitol; And suffer not dishonour to approach Th imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,
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William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS

To justice, continence, and nobility: But let desert in pure election shine; And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.13 Titus, who is honoured to make the choice, steps in on the side of tradition and starts one of the bloodiest of Shakespeares plays: Tribunes, I thank you: and this suit I make, That you create your emperors eldest son14 Furthermore, he makes another choice in the favour of the tradition by ordering, following Roman custom, Tamoras oldest son to be ritually sacrificed in exchange for Titus own dead offspring: Patience yourself madam, and pardon me. These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain Religiously they ask a sacrifice: To this your son is markt; and die he must, Tappease their groaning shadows that are gone15 By his choices, Titus embraces the tradition instead of virtue and leads humanity towards the worlds of Big Brother and artificial birth. Starting from this point, throughout the play, we witness14 killings, 6 severed members, 1 rape, 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity and 1 of cannibalism. Concerning the consequences of choosing Roman tradition as a guide, we should revise Marcus "Thou art a Roman, be not barbarous".16 If we take this utterance to be a compliment to the Roman nation and the values it is based on, we abdominally fail to grasp the essence of the Shakespeares work and we become Tituses ourselves. This sentence, an implication that Roman rituals are a bulwark of civilisation, should not only be taken as a critique to the Roman society and ways, but also as a Shakespearian solution for this kind of culture. By giving Romans a compliment that they, luckily, are not barbarians and by afterwards describing the explicit violence that being Roman produces, Shakespeare asks us to re-examine what being barbarous means.
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William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS 15 William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS 16 William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS

Though barbarous is an offensive word in our culture, it is also a term used to refer to the people of the pre-historic world, and those people, though didnt have sophisticated means of physical survival, were not barbarous. Their community was based on unity, love, compassion and creation, which is totally opposite to the description of Roman society Shakespeare offers, which is why we should go back to it, embrace Venus and make Adonis lover again. If we do not find the irony of this single utterance combined with the violence that ensues sufficient for proving Shakespeares point, we may search the evidence in Titus happiness for the banishment of his son Lucius: O happy man! They have befriended thee. Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?17 As we can see, Titus realises what kind of culture is promoted in Rome and this is why he deserves to become a Shakespearian tragic hero. Unfortunately, the revenge, which he sets into motion with his loyalty to the tradition the very same Rome he now criticises promotes, takes its own course of development and seems like it feeds on itself. Putting tradition and societys values in front of virtue creates a very fertile ground for the graduate development of moralised violence accompanied with hatred, rage and all the other human flaws. In the end, Titus must even kill his daughter, which symbolically represents the killing of the Roman queer tradition. Lavinia stands for the original human values, which we can see in the beginning when she embraces love instead of social status, but, later on, she is raped, which is the central crime in the tragedy, and thus is disgraced and stripped off of the true feminine principle. After her death, the revenge soon ends and a new Rome gets a chance to be rebuilt on the virtues of Lavinia before she was raped on the virtues of Venus, not Lucrecia. After Titus, another Shakespeares play that depicts what the values of our culture turn us into is King Lear. King Lear is maybe closest with its topic to our age. This is due to the fact that Lears choice is not too connected to the ancient rituals, but is more connected to the values patriarchy brings that are relevant even today. Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower. For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs
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William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS

From whom we do exist and cease to be Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity, and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved As thou my sometime daughter.18 By these lines, Lear rejects true love and embraces respectability instead of it. He accuses his daughter of betrayal and denies her everything. The one that was most loved becomes the most loathed one. We are surprised at how much can trivial things mean to a person, once a lover, and now a pursuer of wealth and a good name. What people became capable of is strikingly shown in this play, and not only through Lear. Gloucester also gets tricked due to a sick ambition of his son, who is, as Iago and Claudius, a typical carrier of human wickedness. He, the same as Lear, banishes the one who is truly loyal and virtuous. Striking oppositions in this play serve to make clearer to us how blind we are to what is worth for us as humans. Gloucester, due to his error and inability to choose the right, loses his eyes and King Lear loses his reason. They have to die in the end because of their idiocy in the beginning. King Lear is not the only one who dies, but he is a true hero, since he is the one who realizes his fatal mistake. The sad thing is that Cordelia dies also, but that is maybe a necessary victim in order for us to explicitly realise what we are without it. Cordelia, with her answer to Burgundy extinguishes herself from the mass of servants of the system: Peace be with Burgundy. Since that respects and fortunes are his love, I shall not be his wife,19 and becomes a symbol of ultimate virtue, the symbol of the Great Goddess. Edgar, similarly, stands for Adonis before his fatal choice, a respecter of love, compassion and wholeness of the spirit. No wonder that England was sentenced to ruin when it has its pearl of virtue given up and when it make people hide their virtues behind the alleged madness and peasantry.

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William Shakespeare, KING LEAR William Shakespeare, KING LEAR

Cordelia stands for a true female principle that is natural to a woman, and used to be natural for the man also. However, her sisters are completely opposite to her, which shows that not only do man enter the societys system of values, but women also. Throughout his plays, Shakespeare showed how women are forced to accept the values that are completely opposed to their true nature, and become, thus, more dangerous than men. Cordelias sisters, Tamora, Lady Macbeth, Coriolanus mother are great representatives of this practice. Not only do they enter the new system of values, they also become its propagators. In order to survive, they become man. They are warriors, money-lovers, respecters of position and a good name. Cordelias sisters are ready to lie and kill for the goals that society imposes as most desirable. Gonoreli is ready to abandon her husband, a righteous man, for Edmund, a villain that is brave and ambitious. Coriolanus mother, unable to achieve a good name and social status by herself, victimizes her son by turning him with her grand words into a great warrior and eventually sends him to his death. Tamora is ready to give up his own son only to keep her position of the queen and is deaf to Lavinias pleadings to spare her. What these women have kept from the female principle is only the name. Lavinia: No grace? no womanhood? Ah beastly creature! The blot and enemy to our general name!20 This turning of women into men continues, and in modern age we get to have Brechts Mother courage and Camille Paglia. Mother Courage uses war for her own benefit- she becomes a business woman whose children die while she is on the business. She may be courageous in the sense that she does not give up her struggle for survival, but she does not possess basic human virtues true love and compassion. She does not want the war to stop since it is her means of prolonging her miserable life. She never learns from her mistakes and even teaches others to commit to unjust authorities, cause, for her, the ultimate goal is that business rolls on, even at a prize of the ultimate capitulation of herself. Camille Paglia, in my opinion, goes even further by propagating that women should not only abandon their original nature in order to succeed, but they should also fight their nature since it is naturally evil. Mother Courage is at least, contrary to Paglia, aware of what virtues are really VIRTUES. She does not nourish them since she knows that with those virtues people are sentenced to die and her ultimate goal is her survival. Paglia, on the other hand is a fascinating example how women got completely sucked into the system that is entirely men-ridden and strikingly against their natural selves that they go so far as not to admit anything but western culture as a culture and call matriarchal paganism pornography.

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Wiilliam Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS

Contrary to these women who do not resist the societys values, even at the prize of their own selves, there are women, Great Goddesses, such as Cordelia, Desdemona, Lavinia, who do not want, no matter what, to become bearers of non-human values. They suffer great pain and die eventually, but they are the ones who stand to serve to Shakespearian heroes as reminders what is truly worth and what we should strive for. They are the ones in which we should search for the medicine of our culture. Up till now, we saw where Shakespeare finds the beginning of our twisted culture, and we saw what the wrong choices that his heroes make are like, and what devastating consequences they bring about. We also see that our inability to choose right comes from the pressures of the culture we started to create with Adonis fatal choice. However, Shakespeare does not stop there. He also wisely shows what the means society uses to achieve its purpose are. But we worldly men have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.21 In many Shakespeares plays, hearing and seeing is, as we can see from Titus utterance, an important topic. Shakespeare refers to these senses, which we unquestioningly trust, as prone to be easily deceived miserable, mad, mistaking - by the authorities we bow to. In King Lear we find the symbol of blindness. Gloucesters physical blindness stands for both his and Lears metaphorical blindness the inability to see the real state of affairs due to doubtless believing to their eyes. They both make wrong choices because they physical eyes do not allow their hearts eyes to see what is right and good. Only after Gloucester loses his eyes, he can see properly and can realise his terrible error that cost him dearly. We take what we see around us for granted and this is why we get easily manipulated. Horatio: Before my God, I might not this believe Without the sensible and true avouch Of mine own eyes.22 Though in the beginning of Hamlet we have Horatio implicating the power of sight, in Hamlet, the accent is actually on hearing. One of the difficulties of choosing right in the play is due to the slipperiness of language. In this play, words are used to distort the truth, manipulate people and serve as tools in corrupt quests of power. Claudis speeches, the first of which was

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William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS William Shakespeare, HAMLET

already mentioned, are a great example of manipulating words for gaining power. Hamlet also refers to the power words have when used with sinister purpose: I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb.23 Furthermore, the fact that late king Hamlet is killed by poison being poured into his ear is another significant proof of the power that one can gain through manipulating someones ears. When the ghost explains that the story of how he had died are lies, he shows one more time how many people can get deceived by the words of a skilled orator: The whole ear of Denmark is Rankly abused24 It is wondrous how Shakespeare could emancipate what will happen if we trust our sight and hearing doubtlessly. He probably could not predict magnificent technological achievements that will be used for manipulating us, such as Orwells telescreens, mobile phones and Internet, but we have to compliment him on warning us so wisely that manipulation will come through our ears and eyes.

Shakespearian warnings in modern culture

After we went through Shakespeares plays to show his understanding of the importance of choices for the creation of culture, we have to be aware that what we need to learn from Shakespeares works is neither that ancient Rome, England or Denmark were twisted and based on the wrong values, nor that Titus, Lear and Hamlet were stupid to make so evidently wrong choices. What we need to learn is that we should re-examine our own cultures and choices. Though our values and our choices, as well as the consequences of those, do not come in the very same shape in which Shakespeare presented them, they are truly present. Maybe this is the reason why modern artist very often return to Shakespeare, or, better to say, bring him forward to us in the forms that are closer to the age we live in. Michel Caminos The Deer Hunter is exactly like Shakespeares plays. It shows us through his main characters what we become as a consequence of being loyal to wrong values. The movie name itself brings Shakespeare forward to us. Shakespeares Adonis chose to be a hunter and his choice brought the culture we are part of, so Mike, one of the main characters of the movie, being a hunter, brings into focus fatal error Shakespeare wrote about. From the title
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William Shakespeare, HAMLET William Shakespeare, HAMLET

itself, we can get an idea what the movie is about - showing the values we live by and investigating what we become as a consequence of being loyal to those. The first section of the movie is Shakespearian description of what are the values we live by. The setting in which the main characters find themselves in the beginning of the movie is a fantastic illustration of the loss of individuality Shakespeare wrote about. What we can see as the movie begins is a steel factory and man operating the machines. What we can perceive is big machinery compared to which people are small and insignificant. All people are wearing masks and cannot be distinguished one from another. What we have to know first is society, and only after we are allowed to meet people living in it. This scene symbolises very well what is important in the society we live in the important thing are not humans, individuals, but that machinery works so that it can produce enough weapons for further destruction of the individuality. As the movie proceeds, we become more and more aware of what is valued the most in the society. The irony of the wedding hall in which Steve and Angela celebrate their unity in love makes us laugh at ourselves because of our own idiocy. Love for a woman is identified with the love for the country. The hall is all decorated with American flags, photos of American presidents and slogans of the American state. You cannot see in the wedding hall single transparent wishing long life happiness to the new love couple, but you CAN see transparent wishing good luck to the brave young fellows going to Vietnam to prove love for their country. Characters are ingrained with those values, as Shakespeare wisely noticed, by their ears and eyes being bombed with propaganda big words and photos of the important authorities are all over the place. What is in focus is not Steves and Angelas loyalty to each other and their love, but the need for loyalty towards the State. The first predicament of what is going to happen is wine spilt on Angelas dress. As Angela and Steve are performing the ritual of drinking wine as a precursor of their happiness, we can see behind them a big transparent saying Serve God and Your Country proudly and it becomes clear to us that what is going to happen is a sole consequence of the wrong loyalties. This predicament may equal with the predicament Horatio attaches to the appearance of the ghost in Shakespeares Hamlet: A mote it is to trouble the minds eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun, and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptunes empire stands Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of feared events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated Unto our climatures and countrymen.25 and thus brings back for an instance the proof of the validity and justifications of the mythological rituals and beliefs of the matriarchal period, and thus the proof that Shakespeares solution could work. While the first section of the movie is about values the characters live by, the second is about the monstrosities of life they go through due to being faithful to those values. Each of the main characters had an opportunity to choose what he will be faithful to, but, unfortunately, they failed to make right choices. By looking closer into the characters, we can realise what they renounced and what they had to go through due to that. Mike is a hunter and a control freak. In the beginning of the movie, we learn about his one shot theory he believes that you HAVE TO kill a deer by only one shot. This symbolises his desire for ultimate mastery instead of complete unity of the period of the Great Goddess. He is also in love with Linda, but he never allows his feelings to show and is always dominant in the scenes in which they are together. Mikes fatal choice is evident he becomes Adonis, the first rejecter of the woman and the original creator of the events to come. Steve is like Othello, loving and caring, what we can see from his marrying Angela in spite of her being pregnant with another man. He is really capable of loving and in the beginning it may seem that he is making the right choice. He resists his mother, who is a great representative of women entering the new system of values. She is so obedient to the values of her religion: My son, with a stranger! And she is not even thin, if you understand me.,26 that she puts the rules of the church before her sons happiness. She becomes Coriolanus mother, who pushes her son to be a warrior, a servant of the country, a pursuer of respectability. Although Steve renounces sets of values imposed by one institution and embraces love, he, two days after his marriage, abandons what he has embraced due to accepting sets of values of another institution. He goes, with Mike and Nick to the Vietnam war to serve his country proudly.
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William Shakespeare, HAMLET Michael Cimino, THE DEER HUNTER

Nick, the third of movies main characters is a sensitive and nature loving person. In his conversation with Mike, we find out that he loves hunting because of the trees: "I like the trees...you know...the way the trees are...",27 which shows us that he is not fond of, as Mike is, dominating nature, but loves it for its beauty and for the feelings it awakes in him. We sense that he would rather unite with the nature than control it. However, the same as Steve, Nick is ready to abandon nature love, and goes to prove loyalty to his country. By choosing the domination, war, patriotism, tradition, respectability, the main characters provoke the second section of the movie in which they evidence brutal violence, fear, and agony, and are forced to kill, play deadly games against each others, etc. The scenes of this second section represent brutalities and monstrosities from which people, naturally born to love and feel compassion, cannot get unaffected. How they act during the war is a big warning how twisted we get by allowing to be manipulated by the miserable values of our culture. After the war finishes, all the three characters are deeply changed they are all ruined as humans. Nick, without his human self, involves himself in playing Russia roulette he doesnt have reasons to live any more so he is trying to end his own life. Unfortunately, he is unable to bring peace for himself. Steve separates himself from his family and thus completely ruins Angela the original source of love. Mike, being the toughest one from the very beginning, seems like the least affected. However, this is just an illusion, since his true personality is hidden behind war medals. What we can see is a warrior, not a person. Mike resembles Titus, whom also we can see only as a brave warrior, but not as a human Captain: Romans, make way: the good Adronicus, Patron of virtue, Romes best champion, Successful in the battles that he fights, With honour and with fortune is returnd From where he circumscribed with his sword28 However, when Mike is concerned, his avoidance of his friends waiting for him indicates his change. In the second hunting scene, it becomes clear that he realises the Russian soldiers comment about the war - Fuck it and gives up his control he misses the deer on purpose.
27 28

Michael Cimino, THE DEER HUNTER William Shakespeare, TITUS ANDRONICUS

Him, who originally triggered monstrosities which brought terrible consequences, is the one who MUST realise his fatal choice and bring the remedy. After his desperate and angry Ok?, he goes to try to collect the scattered parts of his long lost human self. Only after Mikes change of loyalty could Steve and Nick find their relative peace. Steve is returning back to Angela, and Nick finally manages to die. Though the movie does not have a happy ending, and, neither everything goes back to normal, nor society stops promoting its own values, it represents a great lesson in where our fault lies and why we, as culture and individuals so terribly fail. It brings us forward great Shakespearian heroes - people who do make wrong choices, but who differ from the rest in the way that they do come to realise that in spite of the enormous pressures operating within society to prove love a whore, what one quests for is not rank and wealth but Othellos souls joy, content absolute, the true treasure, the pearl, fulfilment and completion through love.29 It reminds us of rethinking and re-examining whom we will be loyal to state or love, church or life, etc. After The Deer Hunter, artists didnt stop bringing the Shakespearian topics of choice and loyalty on the big screen. Devils Advocate from 1997 and Shutter Island from 2010 strike me as good examples. In Devils Advocate, brilliant role Al Pacino has, brings Iago, the meanest Shakespeares character onto the screen. He serves as an imposer of wrong values, a manipulator and seducer. He is the one who takes our desires from us, modifies them, labels them and sells them back to us in exchange for our souls. However, the guilt for what happens in the movie does not lie in him primarily, since he only set the scene. It lies in Kevin Lomax, a young lawyer whose desire to gain respectability and wealth, brings doom. Kevin never lost a case and in the beginning of the movie he decides to defend a child abuser although he knows that he is guilty as charged. What matters for him is not truth and justice, but a good name: the one who never lost his case. His choice in the beginning makes him an easy target for John Milton (Al Pacino), who, the same as Iago does with Othello: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash. 'Tis something, nothing: 'Twas mine, tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him

29

Ljiljana Bogoeva Sedlar, O PROMENI, p.119

And makes me poor indeed.,30 uses false values Kevin is ingrained with and his queer desires to turn him into the means of achieving his own goal. Throughout the movie, Kevin, through Miltons sly manipulation, becomes more and more obsessed with social status and desire for respectability: Lose? I don't lose! I win! I win! I'm a lawyer! That's my job, that's what I do!,31 that he leaves his wife behind. He is going from one wrong choice into another, which worsens the mental sanity of her wife, who becomes Shakespeares Ofelia. The same as Ofelia, Mary Ann takes her own life after Kevins refusal to give up the last case. Kevin, as Hamlet, allows wrong values and desires bring doom to those who love him and whom he is supposed to love. After he witnesses the suicide of his wife, he goes to confront Milton. He asks him: What about love?,32 which shows us that he realises why he became what he is. He realises that he always wanted to win, no matter the cost and this is why he lost his wife. Milton still tries to keep Kevin in his service. However, instead of having sexual intercourse with Christabella, about which he dreams throughout the movie as another symbol of victory and domination, he takes a gun and shoots himself. Christabella, who is trying to seduce Kevin and thus brings the ultimate rule of the world that devastates original human values, is another modern example of women accepting destructive masculine values and practices. She stands for Shakespeares Lady Macbeth or Tamora, Brechts Mother Courage, or even Camille Paglia, who all break under the pressure exerted on them by the patriarchal society and become the bearers and propagators of patriarchal values that are contrasted to their inborn virtues. By choosing not to, after all, give up his human self for respectability and power, Kevin goes back to the beginning and to the moment of his first wrong choice and decides to do some fixing. He embraces Mary Ann and refuses to represent his paedophilic client. He is another Shakespearian hero since he does realise his fatal mistake. The final scene in the movie maybe shows that Kevin did not learn very much from his previous experience and, for many, it may be a proof that peoples nature is twisted, but for me, it is another Shakespearian warning that there will always be some Iagos, but that we can defeat them by being careful about loyalty choices we make.

30 31

William Shakespeare, OTHELLO,THE MOOR OF VENICE Taylor Hackford, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE 32 Taylor Hackford, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

As we could perceive, many Shakespeares plays, as well as modern pieces I mentioned, tell us about mental disorders that follow as a result of giving up our human selves. Martin Scorseses Shutter Island may be the best example of the incapability of humans to live with their original selves destroyed. Teddy, the main character of the movie, creates a fully developed imaginary world that helps him come at peace with his human self. He was a US marshal and fought in the First World War. After all the killing he witnessed and did there, he comes home physically alive, but spiritually dead. He, due to everything non-human he witnessed during the war, is incapable of becoming whole, so he neglects his wife, who gradually, as a consequence of losing her husband - her love and comfort, goes mentally insane. Instead of searching for what he lost in a women, the original source of wholeness, he gives way to drinking. In the end, his wife completely loses control and kills their three children. When Teddy finds out, she kills her, but is incapable to live with what he had done, so he creates the imaginary world in which he possesses all the virtues necessary if one is to be a human. In the end, he comes to know the truth of what had really happened and the movie ends with him choosing death with the question whether it is better to "live as a monster, or die as a good man".33 His choice once again demonstrates to us that humans cannot survive without what they had lost with Adonis terrible error. The question that poses itself is whether individuals - the Shakespearian heroes can bring the change in the culture itself and bring us back to the female principle or they are destined to always end tragically as madmen and outcasts?

Irreversible?

If we look into Gaspar Noes movie Irreversible analytically instead of taking it for granted, we can be sure that with a little of action from each of us, the real change cannot fail to take its place. The movie consists of 13 scenes that range from the one which is chronologically the last, to the one that is chronologically the first. Throughout the movie, we are disgusted by the explicit violence and the sickness of culture we are part of. However, in the end, we feel some kind of relief due to the idyllic scene of Alex, the main character, enjoying the peace and beauty of nature. The movies title is irreversible, and that may mean that the paradise in which we find the main character in the end cannot be returned. But let us look optimistically and give another chance to Shakespearian heroes to show us the way. The movie title is irreversible, but the whole movie is reversed so that this contradiction gives us hope that the paradise we lost by
33

Martin Scorsese, SHUTTER ISLAND

Axel being raped in the tunnel can be gained back. We could get where we started from matriarchal heaven of love, compassion and unity if only we didnt take Gaspars title for granted and if only we understood the real essence of what feminine principle was. The first step towards any change is understanding. Shakespearian heroes showed us the way, but we must be observant not to misinterpret the goal. According to Shakespeare, the thing that will save us from ending up in Orwells and Huxleys worlds is returning to the female, nature, the Great Goddess; embracing the values the matriarchy was living on. He already defended his point of view through his works and through his presence in modern art, so I wont stay on that any longer. However, I want to point to the possible danger that lies in possible embracement of a false female principle the one Carrie Bradshaw promotes. A few days ago I heard from one of my friends that Carrie Bradshaw asks wise questions and gives magnificent lessons in love. I was devastated, but it helped me realise that if we are to get out from this culture, we should be careful. With the love Sex and the City promotes, a true change is impossible since it is just another propaganda of false values and queer feminism. What this show gives us are not real values of the Great Goddess, but feminism created and accepted in the patriarchal society, promotion of females as having male characteristics, as having desire to dominate instead to unite, as craving for social status and honours. Female principle understood in this way, does not bring Venus back, it brings Lucrece in a more sophisticated way and brings us not even a step further from where we are now. This kind of female principle creates even more Lady Macbeths, Tamoras, Paglias. It does bring a change, but the type of change Annie Sprinkle goes through mere switching, substituting one source of authority for another, the self all the while remaining subordinate, passive, trapped in a consumer frame of mind.34 After we realised where we are heading to and how we got on our way towards the doom; after we found out there are still people who will put Shakespearian hurdles on our way to our doom to show us that we are still humans, and after we finally realised that our goal is actually at the start of our race and that we only need to resist inertia and turn the other way round, we are ready to reverse it all: NON SERVIAM

34

Ljiljana Bogoeva Sedlar, O PROMENI, p.22