1. Reference
2. Terms
3. Link to The Sun Also Rises
4. Excerpt from the Reference
5. Your Thoughts
6. Link to other References
7. What you would like to know more about
1. Violence and the Sacred by René Girald--Chapter 1: Sacrifice
2. scapegoat: one that bears the blame for others b : one that is the object of irrational hostility.
sacrifice (transitive verb): 1. to offer as a sacrifice. 2 : to suffer loss of, give up, renounce, injure, or destroy especially for an ideal, belief, or end.
3. John Bishop (asso. professor at U.C. Berkeley) referenced this book in his lecture when discussing Robert Cohn as a scapegoat. Allegedly, this book discusses how all civilzations are bound together in an "us" versus "them" mentality where "the Other" is sapegoated and sacraficed in order to maintain peace. This concept reminds me of "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson. In this short story one person is sacrificed each year to maintain the status quo of a quaint town. One can also consider America's solidarity after 9/11. In the wake of 9/11, Americans bound together in a time of war to kill "the Other;" those persons being Islamic terrorists.
The link that scapegoating has to The Sun Also Rises (SAR,) is that Robert Cohn is scapegoated. Robert Cohn represents the romantic hero in this book, and is often villanized as such. His thoughts are virtuous, but misguided in a modern world. These modern characters are not Prince Charmings, nor do they see the need for fairy tales, or religion, or any other mytic backing. Robert Cohn believes that he loves Brett, and that she returns his affection although evidence points to the contrary. As seen in a conversation between Jake and Cohn on page 38-39 of SAR: Cohn's Quioxitic character cannot allow himself to believe the journalistic facts given to him about Brett Ashley.
What do you know about Lady Brett Ashley Jake,?
...There's a certain quality about her, a certain fineness. She seeems to be absolutely fine and straight...I suppose it's breeding.
You sound as though you liked her pretty well.
I do. I shouldn't wonder if I were in love with her.
She's a drunk I said. She's in love with with Mike Campbell, and she's going to marry him. He's going to be rich as hell someday.
...I was just trying to give you the facts.
I don't believe she would marry anybody she didn't love.
Well, I said. She's done it twice.
Other evidence that supports the argument that Robert Cohn is a romantic hero, and therefore not as self-actualized as his colleagues include the denigrating imagery employed in Chapter 1 of SAR: "Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton" (3). He isn't referred to by what he is currently, but by what he once was. Further, what he once was was not great, but only mediocre--he wasn't a heavyweight boxing champion, but a middleweight at a posh, Ivy League (PANSY) school. The descriptions of Robert Cohn become more and more derisive as the chapter continues:
-he's "shy and nice" only fights in the gym
-a Jew
-Spider Kelly taught his young gentlemen to box like featherweights (TWINKLE TOES)
-wears glasses
-"was married" (passive voice to represent Cohn's character)
- his 1st wife left him for a miniture painter
-"had been taken in hand" by Francis (LITTLE BOY)
-all the knowledge he possess is from books rather than experience
The scapegoating of Robert Cohn is apparent; however one must question why he poses such a threat to the group. The answer is that he displays he feelings as a romantic would, rather than silently carrying his grief and true identity within himself as the survivors of war have learned to do. Brett, Mike and Jake have first-hand with war afflictions and have learned to sublimate romance with stoicism. They have learned (regardless of gender, to take things like a man). Taking things like a man is contrasted to Cohn's boyish looks and character. He wears the clothes he wore in prep school, he's taken in hand by women, and he takes frequent naps because he cannot handle his liquor.
The concept of a scapegoat is further heightened by the bullfighting imagery employed throughout the novel, but especially in Book 2 at the bullfighting arena: (Ch. 13, p. 133 & 139-142)
p.133 of SAR:
"It's pretty good," I said. "They let the bulls out of the cages one at a time, and they have steers in the corral to receive them and keep them from fighting, and the bulls tear in at the steers and the steers run around like old maids trying to quiet them down.
Do they ever gore the steers?
Sure. Sometimes they go right after them and kill them.
Can't the steers do anything?
No. They're trying to make friends.
p.139-140 of SAR:
He charged straight for the steers and the two men ran out from behind the planks and shouted, to turn him.He did not change his direction and the men shouted: "Hah! Hah! Toro!" and waved their arms; the two steers turned sideways to take the shock, and the bull drove into one of the steers...The steer was down now, his neck stretched out, his head twisted, he lay the way he had fallen. Suddenly the bull left off and made for the other steer...The steer who had been gored had gotten to his feet and stood against the stone wall. None of the bulls came near him, and he did not attempt to join the herd.
p.141 of SAR:
Mike:
"I would have thought that you'd loved being a steer, Robert...Do say something. Don't just sit there...Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?"
The bloodletting of the first steer is a foreshadowing of the bloodshed that takes place between Cohn and Jake/Mike/Pedro Romero. Also, the ostracizing of the gored steer is likened to the exile of Robert Cohn from the group. Although he leaves willingly, the group is violent toward him via their scapegoating of him and their unwillingness to forgive him and to let him rejoin the herd.
4A. Violence and the Sacred by Girard: p. 3-4
Fieldwork and subsequent theoretical speculation lead us back to the hypothesis of substitution as the basis for the practice of sacrifice...Joseph de Maistre takes the view that the ritual victim is an "innocent" creature who pays a dept for the "guilty" party. I propose a hypothesis that does away with the moral distinction. As I see it, the relationship between the potential victim and the actual victim cannot be defined in terms of innocence or guilt. There is no question of "expiation." Rather, a society is seeking to deflect upon a relatively indifferent victim, a "sacrificable" victim, the violence that would otherwise be vented on its own members, the people it most desires to protect.
5A. Basically what Girard is saying is that in order for justice and peace to take place in any society (even an animal society) one group must tyrannize "the outsider" in order to keep from bullying its own. This is Darwin at its fundamental level. A trail may be enforced within the confines of a society to prove a moral truth that a party is either guilty or innocent. However, the outcome in this situation is arbitrary. Rather, what Girard proposes is that in order for humans to feel civilized they must take part in rituals where they can enact "justice" whether or not the party they incarcerate is guilty. Thus, scapegoats help us to feel safe because we can hurt them and not ourselves. I would like to expand on this argument by saying that there is a reason why certain scapegoats are made. The relationship between victims and victimizes is not arbitrary; there are certain markers that distinguish these two hosts from one another. In the case of SAR, Robert Cohn is victimized because of his annoying ability to candidly reveal his emotions amidst a group of stoics. The frustrations felt toward Cohn as a Romantic figure indicate the cultural divide between the courtship ideals of the Victorian Era, which were traditionally gender coded, to a modern era which commenced with WWI. The modern era is a response to WW1. Men responded by going to war and being traumatized by an unprecedented amount of carnage, while women responded by entering the public sphere once prohibited to them in order to compensate for the depletion in the workforce. Rosie the Riveter acted as a catalyst to a suffragist movement that birthed the "New Woman," the flapper now codified by Brett's presence within the novel. The romantic entanglements represented in SAR signify this societal shift. Thus, the grand narrative of the Victorian Age is being gored through the sacrifice of Robert Cohn in order for Hemingway to represent the new turmoils of his own Modern Age; specifically the contractions felt by a society now living amidst the ambiguities of gender androgyny.
4B. Violence and the Sacred by Girard: p.4
Violence is not to be denied, but it can be diverted to another object, something it can sink its teeth into. Such, perhaps, is one of the meanings of the story of Cain and Abel. The Bible offers us no background on the two brothers except the bare fact that Cain is a tiler of the soil who gives the fruits of his labor to God, whereas Abel is a shepherd who regularly sacrifices the first-born of his herds. One of the brothers kills the other, and the murderer is the one who does not have the violence-outlet of animal sacrifice at his disposal.
5B. Girard is taking the Bible out of context here. I read the KJV and the NIV in order to reacquaint myself with the story. Genesis 4:2-6 discusses the differences between the intents of the givers, and God's reaction to their gifts:
(NIV): Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
The Bible states that "in the course of time Cain brought some fruits of the soil as an offering". This is different from Abel who consistently brought not just "some" fruits on occasion, but the fat portions from the firstborn of his flock. This means that Abel sacrificed regularly and that he also sacrificed the first fruits of his labor. He gave God the best of what he had to offer, whereas Cain only brought to God what he cared to dismiss. The difference between the two is in the sincerity of the rendered gift and the joy felt by the giver. Cain offered what he had to out of obligation, whereas Abel offered what he felt would please the Lord, and he did so with a happy heart. Thus, I take issue with Girard's argument that: "The difference between sacrificial and nonsacrifical cults determines, in effect, God's judgment in favor of Abel. To say that God accedes to Abel's sacrificial offerings but rejects the offerings of Cain is simply another way of saying--from the viewpoint of the divinity--that Cain is a murderer, whereas his brother is not" (4). There is a moral to this myth; that what you have of offer is arbitrary so long as it is sincerely given. Further, that once a gift is bestowed, the giver should not live in fear or jealousy that another's gift is superior to his own. This shifts the gaze from the gift and its recipient back to the giver, which is a vain and selfish act.
4C. Violence and the Sacred by Girard: p.8
The victim is not a substitute for some particularly endangered individual, nor is it offered up to some individual of particularly bloodthirsty temperament. Rather, it is a substitute for all the members of the community, offered up by the members themselves. The sacrifice serves to protect the entire community from its own violence; it prompts the entire community to choose victims outside itself. The elements of dissension scattered throughout the community are drawn to the person of the sacrificial victim and eliminated, at least temporarily, by its sacrifice.
5C. The stoics that comprise the main characters of the SAR have accepted the "realities" of the modernist world. Mainly that all universal signifies including love, gender, peace and religion no longer carry any weight. As modernists, they follow individual rather than universal philosophies to cope with these losses after WW1. Jake discusses the need to keep his register.
p.30 of SAR:
There was a light in the conceierge's room and I knocked on the door and she gave me my mail. I wished her good night and went up-stairs. There were two letters and some papers. I looked at them under the gas-light in the dinning room. The letters were from the States. One was a bank statement. It showed a balance of $2432.60. I got out my check-book and deducted four checks drawn since the first of the month, and discovered that I had a balance of $1832.60.
p.148 of SAR:
I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the things you could count on. I thought I had paid for everything. Not like a woman who pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punnishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It all seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had.
Other examples of Jake's attention to finances:
-He leaves a fifty-franc not for Georgette to get home: p. 23
-He gives a two-franc piece in Krum's hand for the taxi cab: p. 37
-Jake goes to France and over tips to make friends: p. 233
Examples of other characters' philosophies in terms of exchange:
the count:
p.59 of SAR:
"I'm not joking you. I never joke people. Joke people and you make enemies. That's what I always say."
p.60 of SAR:
"You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You loose the taste."
p.61 of SAR:
"You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that? ..."I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values."
The count's philosophy is one of the connoisseur. He enjoys with discrimination and appreciation of subtleties of fine wines, aged brandy, and a fine cigar. Price is no object to him and he has learned to appreciate the simple values of honest goodness in these things and in people.
Bill's philosophy:
Like Jake's philosophy of exchange, Bill's philosophy follows a similar premise of monetary exchange as he is willing to covert to Catholicism for a sandwich on the train to Burgette. His conception of the world is that it is "stuffed" like the Modernist world depicted in TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men." Consider the dark humorousness of Bill's banter on exchange in a meaningless, stuffed world:
p.72-73 of SAR:
"Just one stuffed dog. I can take 'em or leave 'em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog...Mean everything to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog...Alright, have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault."
Brett's philosophy involves using men as properties of exchange, while intermittently confiding in Jake as her only true friend. More on this philosophy in later posts.
As demonstrated, each character has developed his or her own personal philosophy to cope in a modernist world. For lack of a better pun, all the characters in this novel are trying to negotiate how to 'take it like a man," regardless of their gender; hence the mass stoicism depicted by all characters with the exception of Robert Cohn. Robert Cohn is an example of a past world. In having the other characters recall the Romantic Age in which meaning via universal signifies: Love,Peace, Religion were intact, he badgers the group with recollections of a world and a time they can no longer access. The characters are all in some way deficient when compared with the Romantic ideal of masculinity or femininity . Brett feels herself as being 'such a bitch', Jake is traumatized by his mythical castration and impotence as a result of physical traumas that took place during WW1. Mike is stigmatized by his drunkenness,bankruptcy, as well as by Brett's flagrant adultery. Bill is lonely and longs for female companionship. These characters are self conscious and Cohn's Romantic impulse to constantly share his feelings cause his audience to recall the void within themselves which they repress by being 'hard boiled' in public.
Thus, a group violence is already in play before Cohn's scapegoating. It is a violence that each member inflicts upon himself while projecting an aire of indifference, a tough guise. In addition to the inward struggles these characters experience, but seldom express for fear of being viewed as a wimp or a pussy, they also poke fun at one another's deficiencies as a way of moderating violence in the form of self-hatred. However, once Robert Cohn presents himself as a threat to the group's already tottering emotional stability, it can then retaliate by projecting upon the character of Robert Cohn all of the deficiencies they hate within themselves. Doing so, allows, at least temporary, a reprieve from an otherwise consistent pain. He acts as a sacraficial outlet, and in damning and exiling Robert Cohn, the group experiences a momentary cathartic experience in which they banish what they most hate in themselves.
Hence the enactment of sacrifice and its ability to create solidarity in the community via violence/murder as stated by Girard on p. 8
Rather, it is a substitute for all the members of the community, offered up by the members themselves. The sacrifice serves to protect the entire community from its own violence; it prompts the entire community to choose victims outside itself. The elements of dissension scattered throughout the community are drawn to the person of the sacrificial victim and eliminated, at least temporarily, by its sacrifice.
Girard goes on to say (also on p. 8):
There is a common denominator that determines the efficacy of all sacrifices and that becomes increasingly apparent as the institution grows in vigor. This common denominator is internal violence--all the dissensions, rivalries, jealousies, and quarrels within the community that the sacrifices are designed to suppress. The purpose of the sacrifice is to restore harmony to the community, to reinforce the social fabric. Everything else derives from that.
6. It is interesting that when I spoke to Prof. John Bishop (Berkeley) on the subject of R. Cohn's scapegoating as resulting from the shifting in social views from Romance to Modernism, he said: it's interesting that the word community community derives from the root "mun" as in munitions, meaning weaponry.
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