A Response to Livy's The History of Rome

Reading four pages of The History of Rome is definitely not enough to walk away with a full and satisfying understanding of it, so I won’t claim to be an expert on it. What I’m mainly going to discuss is the role of heroism in the text, because that is perhaps the most prevalent motif.

Perhaps the most obvious hero is Lucretia, the heroin who the story is primarily centered on. She is the virtuous wife of Collatinus who is raped by the tyrannical Sextus Tarquin. Sextus Tarquin rapes her not because he is actually interested in her body, but because he is jealous that she is more virtuous than his own wife. Lucretia is a beacon of goodness, being productive and patient and devoted; she is virtually being the poster child for wifedom.  In raping her he deprives her of her chastity which is a direct attack on her honor. As a means to maintain her honor, Lucretia  commits suicide. The penalty for being unchaste was death, and despite the fact that Lucretia knows that she was wrong, she feels as though she must suffer the consequence anyway so future unchaste women will not be able to claim her name to defend themselves.  She goes so far as to say:  “although I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty. No unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example.” Her sacrifice for the sake of her virtue is clearly a heroic act; her honor is so important to her that she gives her life in order to maintain it.

 Following Lucretia’s suicide, Brutus steps in to completely cleanse Rome of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus’s tyranny. This act is also very heroic, as it is another figure working to maintain the honor and glory of Rome, promoting welfare for the greater good.  However there is also a small act of heroism that I overlooked the first time I read it that came from neither Lucretia nor Brutus.

The consul L. Tarquinius is a very subtle hero. He had no part in Lucretia’s rape or in the tyranny in Rome, yet when he was urged to leave Rome because he shared the same name as the tyrant, he (unwilling) did so. The simple fact that he shared the same name as the oppressive king was seen as “an obstacle to full liberty,” and even though it seemed to be a “groundless fear,” when the time came L. Tarquinius complied with the will and “yielded to the universal wish.”

Acts like these are what I think makes a hero: making a major sacrifice that you don’t want to make and probably shouldn’t have to, but doing it anyway because it would help protect others is the root of heroism. Lucretia most likely didn’t want to kill herself, but she did it anyway to uphold the Roman ideal. L. Tarquinius is very similar; he exiled himself because the Roman people felt he was an obstacle of liberty and he wanted to promote liberty for the greater good. That’s basically what heroism is: giving yourself up for the greater good.

There is so much more that could be said about Livy’s The History of Rome, but for fear of hopping off of one soap box only to climb onto another one, I’ll let it end there. 

Livy's The History of Rome

So I suppose that since I am finally posting, now would be an appropriate time to post a piece of literature I had the pleasure of discussing with some of the bright minds of the university I would like to attend. Earlier this month I was invited to sit among current students and alumni as they discussed an excerpt from Livy’s The History of Rome (private victory).  So I’ll put my response to it in a separate post, but here is the text. 

Link to "The Man He Killed"

Oops! Almost forget to include this link for "The Man He Killed"

A Comparison of The Awakening to The Age of Innocence

I don’t typically like feminist literature. This is not because I’m against feminism or anything, as I am very obviously female and also very obviously enjoy having equal rights and opportunities. I don’t usually enjoy feminist literature for the sheer fact that I feel that it displays women as being irrational and hard headed. That’s mostly because the first work of feminist literature I ever read was Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and my sincere and eternal hatred of Edna and her silliness kind of tainted every work of feminist literature that followed.

That being said, it should seem obvious that I wouldn’t be overjoyed when I picked up Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. The novel isn’t actually a feminist work; it is actually told from a male perspective. However, simply knowing that what I was reading was going to have a strong focus on gender roles sent me into one of those oh-lord-please-not-another-Edna-esque-character state of minds. I was as happy as is to be expected from me when I started reading it.

However, once I got into the story a little bit, I found that I really liked it. It was surprisingly appealing. The novel has an interesting storyline, which despite having some similarities to that of Kate Chopin’s novel, is much more exciting. I definitely found that I can tolerate the main character a lot better (which further shows my disdain for Edna, as I don’t like Newland at all).

Though reading a plot summary of the two would make them seem like identical stories told from the perspective of different genders, there is so much variation in the plots that makes The Age of Innocence superior to The Awakening. At least, that’s how I see it.

For one thing, the main character of The Age of Innocence, the one who is engaged in a war with himself, is male. Secondly, he is not married at the opening of the novel. Where I understand that Edna being female and being a complex, thinking creature is the heart of the novel and that her not doing things she doesn’t want to do is intended to show her strength, she just seemed really silly the way I read it. It seemed kind of backwards that a book that’s supposed to demonstrate that women are more than happy housewives would make the primary character seem so weak and irrational. Edna was entirely ruled by her emotions.  She did make conscious decisions to do whatever she wanted to do regardless of social norms, which is admirable, but she did little besides that. She had an affair. She hung out in a hammock. She moved out. But she failed to show her intellectual value or her rationality  or anything besides her selfishness. 

Newland Archer is just as silly as Edna in my opinion, but for different reasons. He is overly concerned with the public opinion, he is scholarly and doesn’t miss an opportunity to show his intellectual prowess, and he is overwhelming male. Yet at the same time, he is irrational and emotional and confused. Though he is so male which would make him seem so superior compared to his fiancée or her cousin, he possess traits which make him seem, for lack of a better term, feminine.  His silliness makes him seem weak and vulnerable while making the ladies in the story seem likable by comparison: May seems like a darling but unfortunate product of the social system, while Countess Olenska seems like a disturbed, but empowered woman who has overcome adversity to reclaim her destiny. The woman in this novel seem entirely more composed than Edna. The male is the one falling apart and being silly, which makes the women seem even more admirable. The characters are much more likeable, the plot is much more realistic, and the gender dynamics are much more equal in The Age of Innocence than in The Awakening.

I will get off my soap box before this turns into an anti-Awakening rant, but once I am deeper into The Age of Innocence, I will write a more formal analysis of it.

Until then, please feel free to leave me a comment either supporting or retorting my reasoning for disliking Edna.  

"The Man He Killed"

The poem “The Man He Killed” is a very brief poem that, despite the fact that it is merely 20 lines long, holds a big message about the aberrant and pointless nature of war. It focuses on the relevance of circumstance in war by stating that should the soldiers have met in any other place but on the battle field, they likely would be friends.  

As a quick history lesson, allow me to provide a tidbit of background information on the author. Thomas Hardy  is considered a “Victorian realist” due to the fact that his writings frequently criticize social norms that hinder people’s lives, ultimately leading to unhappiness. Hardy is a product of London, born to Thomas and Jemima Hardy in Higher Brockhampton in 1840. Hardy never truly felt comfortable in London, as he was conscious of class divisions and social injustice from a young age. His writings reflect his feelings towards society, placing emphasis on the strangeness of social norms and the status quo.

“The Man He Killed” is told from the perspective of a soldier as he reflects on killing a man on the battle field. It’s opening stanza creates an alternative situation in which the two opposing forces met in a place outside of the battle field, saying they would “have sat us down to wet/ right many a nipperkin!” The sense of peace and companionship between the two men in this imaginary circumstance differs drastically  from the circumstance posed in the next stanza, the situation that truly occurred. Instead of embracing each other as friends, they shoot at each other, and the speaker kills the other soldier.

The speaker is torn between a feeling of justification and guilt regarding the memory. He attempts to justify the kill, stating desperately that he “shot him dead because-- because he was my foe” but at the same time shows a clear sense of confusion as to why it was necessary to kill the other man. He sees a resemblance between himself and the other soldier. He draws the comparison on the reason why they enlisted: they were “out of work—had sold [their traps].” The comparison between himself and the other soldier causes him to question the purpose of the kill; it humanizes the other soldier, making him seem just as real as the speaker or any of his comrades and therefore makes the kill seem more like a murder than a justified act of war. The act of killing a man that “if met where any bar is” would likely be a friend solely because it is a war makes the war seem barbaric and pointless.

This poem is entirely demonstrative of the nature of war. It shows how a man who would most likely be a friend or at least an acquaintance instantly becomes an enemy for the sake of the fight. Both parties are wronged, but neither of them can be held fully accountable for their actions because it is a war and they are simply doing what is expected with them. They are going with the status quo.

 In any regards, Hardy's "The Man He Killed" is an extremely powerful poem that causes one to reflect on the status quo and question it. 

I just realized I've gone an entire month without posting anything. Oh no! I must post before November is gone!