Category Archives: Isherwood

From Walter Benjamin’s “Theses On the Concept of History”: Theses V and IX

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Question for the Class:

Why do these parables/ideas about the meaning of History relate to Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin?

Thesis V:

The true picture of the past whizzes by. Only as a picture, which flashes its final farewell in the moment of its recognizability, is the past to be held fast. “The truth will not run away from us” – this remark by Gottfried Keller denotes the exact place where historical materialism breaks through historicism’s picture of history. For it is an irretrievable picture of the past, which threatens to disappear with every present, which does not recognize itself as meant in it.

 

Thesis IX:

There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.

 

Coll IMJ, photo (c) IMJ

Why do these parables/ideas about the meaning of History relate to Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin?

Narrator or Author

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In our last class we discussed the line that exists between the author and the narrator. The narrator of a story is just another character of the novel. All the opinions and thoughts expressed by the narrator do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author. This was one of the critics expressed by Du Bois for Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry. Thurman’s narrator would both criticize Emma Lou, while at the same time express her thoughts, almost always self-hating, as his/her own opinions.  In these instances it can be difficult to distinguish the author from the narrator. Had the novel been in the first person point of view, from Emma Lou’s perspective, there would not have been any accusations towards Thurman. Another example provided in class was Nabokov’s famous work, Lolita. In this case as well, the narrator, who also happens to be the main character, is often confused for the author. This caused Nabokov a lot of problems as well as creating a lot of controversy.

This brings me to The Berlin Stories. In this case the author and the narrator both share the same name and a lot of other similarities, including the experiences mentioned in the novel. Since the work is fiction, are we as the readers supposed to separate the author or from the narrator? This is made very difficult with the fact that they both share a name.

Something else I found very interesting was the fact that this is the first piece or writing that has the average man as the storyteller. Stories such as The Great Gatsby and All the King’s Men have this same man. In The Great Gatsby the main character is Gatsby, but the narrator, who is also a character in the story, is Nick Carraway and in All the King’s Men, the story is about Willie Stark but the story is told by Jack Burden. Up until now, we have only had an unknown, invisible character as the narrator. This is the first instance of a character being a vessel to tell the stories of other people, such as Sally Bowles. The Berlin Stories, were published in 1945, maybe this technique is a more recent development.

New Women

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The character of Sally in The Berlin Stories helped me to gain a better understanding of Modernism’s New Woman. As I was reading I began to see the essence of Sally in several of the female characters in modernist literature. I thought of Sally Seton from Mrs. Dalloway, Daisy Buchanan from the The Great Gatsby, Kitty Baldry from The Return of the Soldier, Lily from The House of Mirth, Lady Brett Ashley from The Sun also Rises, Petronella from “Till September Petronella.” (Although not within the modernist time frame, I also thought of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s because of the parallels in the relationship between Holly and the narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the relationship between Sally and Chris.)

Notwithstanding the individuality of these women, to varying degrees they share very similar characteristics and personality traits. They are sexaully liberated and are very aware of the power of their bodies to their male counterparts and even to themselves. They are explicit in their desires. They are outspoken. They are at times selfish. Their personalities are sometimes dramatic and purposely exaggerated as if they constantly have to perform to an audience. They are also clever and skilled at manipulation if not checked by other characters. One thing that is important to note is that they are also all seemingly white.

Is Emma Lou a New Woman? Are there Black female characters in modernist literature that are New Women? We have discussed in class the supposed responsibility put upon Black writers to be representative of their race. There were damaging stereotypes that plagued Black women at the time. These writers must “uplift” the race. Does that mean not including women characters that share the characteristics of New Woman? I think Emma Lou is a type of New Woman.