Friday, October 17, 2014
Blog Assignment #4 "Caesar's Column" 10.17.14
Hello, my name is Taylor Alford. This week in my "Violence in American Art and Culture" class we've discussed "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly. I was fascinated immediately by a passage in the first chapter. The protagonist, Gabriel, expresses "Would you believe it, my dear brother, in this city they actually facilitate suicide!" (Donnelly) 16. Gabriel is shocked to discover that there were places meant for people to die at their own will peacefully. I also wondered what kind of environment would support suicide. In our discussion, Professor Rogers-Cooper mentioned "Social Darwinism", as in "only the strong survive". This very saying answered my question of encouraging suicide. To have a strong environment, the weak must be eliminated. Therefore those who did not feel that they have what it takes to live (the weak), simply ended their lives with the support of the society (the strong environment) they belonged to.
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Hello Taylor,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic because it is such a strong and disturbing idea. It's funny how this is mentioned I believe only briefly in this story, maybe because it will cause readers to pay too much attention to it for the fact that it is such a unique and rare idea. It also makes you wonder how sickeningly arrogant the rich are to encourage someone to die and go away because this person isn't living up to their "standards" of life. I definitely agree with you that this option is to facilitate this idea of "only the strong survive" because there is only one way to live in this novel, and that is to be rich, there is just no other way. And if a person can't do it, then he/she will die on the streets or by choice.
Taylor why else are you interested with gabriel you don't say much about him. Great quote choice. I am a huge fan of social darwinism seeing you plug that in was a good detail overall good post great word choice.
ReplyDeleteI must agree with Enis in that the idea of a society that encourages suicide is profoundly disturbing. In some ways it's even more disturbing than a society that commits genocide in the name of Social darwinism. It's almost as if the rich, rather than shooting the poor, would rather hand them the gun and force them to shoot themselves.
ReplyDeleteMy questions now are,
What are other examples of of Social darwinism throughout the novel?
Do you think encouraging suicide is simply another form of genocide?
Hey Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI loved this passage when I read it as well, it's comforting to know that someone else was so interested in this quote. You attribute the facilitated suicides to Social Darwinism because, as you mentioned, it was discussed in class, but I would honestly love to hear what you thought about when you originally read it. Because, when I first read it, I believed that the reason behind this action was that society had advanced to the point that people no longer believed that suicide was a negative thing.
So, like I said, let me know what your original thoughts were.