I know this post might seem short, but I can't think of anything substantial to write about at the present time, although I would like to talk about the short story Wool. I bought the novel version at the book bar and am really interested in reading the rest of it. Based on the first section, I think the book has the potential to be really interesting and, as it was selected for this class, would probably be worth reading. The biggest question I have now is, who is the hero?
Given that this is the Hero's Journey class, the section of the book that we read should have a hero of some sort. Yet I can't determine who it is. Allison is definitely a candidate, but her brief role in the book seems to point otherwise. She dedicated her time inside the silo to finding out the truth behind mysterious server wipes and past revolts and in the end, puts her life on the line to determine if her work was successful. She went into the belly of the whale, so to say, by leaving the bunker, but she didn't win, as evidenced later by Holston's demise; the whale chewed her up and spit her into the abyss. I think this failure prevents her from fulfilling the traditional definition of a hero.
The next candidate for a hero would be Holston. However, he also meets an end similar to his wife. After spending three years pouring over the data that his wife discovered and the image altering programs, he decides to leave the safety of the bunker to follow her. Although this could seem like a heroic act, I don't think it is. Holston is depressed, he has lost the will to live without his wife, and leaving the bunker is his last attempt at finding happiness. This is obviously unsuccessful.
Mayor Jahns is the only other character described enough in the book to be a candidate. Based on Mr. Mitchell's hint in class that Jahns does survive when she leaves the bunker, there is a good chance that she would meet the qualities of a hero. At the end of the short story, however, there isn't enough evidence to make a decision.
An idea that gained a lot of traction last semester, when we discussed the whole novel, is that the story features a lineage of heroic figures, each building on the work of the one that came before. Allison's investigations into the true history of the silo/world and the implications of that history being hidden from the people who inhabit it makes the whole story possible--it's the crucial beginnings of an expanding consciousness, the idea that "none of this is real." She literally is thinking outside the bounds of acceptable thought, and this eventually leads her to literally cross the threshold into the forbidden outside world (which is equated with forbidden knowledge or hidden truth). Holston is next in line, and he's closer to a romantic kind of hero figure, who is partly trying to be reunited with his wife, but also who is pursuing her same project of truth-revelation--he too, having read her files, believes "it's not real."
ReplyDeleteIt's not Jahns who becomes the next major hero, however--it's the woman she chooses to be the next sheriff (and who thus literally follows the lineage of Holston, and thus has access to Allison's files, so we see Allison's investigations being carried on by the others who follow). This new sheriff, Juliette, ends up following Campbell's paradigm of the "hero w. a thousand faces" almost exactly. Her heroic narrative occupies the bulk of the novel, and I do regret that we won't be following her story in class--but I did want you to get a taste of the world Howey has created by giving you Holston's section of the story (which was compelling enough to generate so much interest among its initial Kindle readers that Howey was encouraged to continue the story).
This post raises the question of success and heroism. It kinda plays into the motive thing I discussed in one of my posts (which I think you commented on). Anyway, I think you hit the nail on the head with Holston. Not only did he fail, but he wasn't innovative or passionate about what he was doing, he had just lost the will to live.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I saw Allison as a hero, because she had the bravery to question the system and the will to find the truth. And even though her own quest to understand and survive the world failed, she laid the groundwork for Jules' to succeed. So there were positive unintended consequences of Allison's supposed failure, and I think that she can still be heroic.
I agree with you, that it was initially hard to really find one truly heroic character after reading "Wool". Holston did nothing but follow his most likely dead wife to his own death, simply because he had lost all drive and simply ideas for any other way to live.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Allison was always the most heroic character in the short part of "Wool" we read, though she still felt less heroic in some weird way, simply because we know she died. Or supposedly died. I thought her bravery and willingness to risk probable death for information she had been researching was the closest thing to bravery we witnessed in the excerpt of "Wool" from class.