Parables of a Violent World Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Parables of a Violent World - Article Example Writers such as William Vollmann and others help to accomplish this important goal. McMurphy, the hero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is a quintessential individualist. He marches to the beat of his own drum and follows his own direction in life. He refuses to follow orders and seeks out pleasure. He has an irrepressible charm that works on nearly everyone around him. He is also a natural leader in his own way. But McMurphy is not approved of. He is too individualistic and non-conformist. Although he seems American in his self-reliance, in the course of the novel he runs into serious problems from a new, more materialistic, mechanical, conformist America, represented by the institution. The job of the institution, of the anesthetizing culture that currently surrounds us in America, is to repress the irrepressible. Too many outbursts, too many adventures, are bad for business, the institution says. It locks away and neutralizes people like McMurphy who don't fit in properly and h ave no desire to do so (Kesey). This is important to understand in light of what we saw after September 11. After the terrorist attacks there was a call to arms, and also, subsequently, a call to uniformity and conformity. We were asked to march to the beat of the same drum. The president ordered us into Iraq and we were supposed to obey. Those who disagreed had their patriotism questioned. In the administration itself, we saw how people were fired for disagreeing with the president. Times have changed since then. A cultural lull has descended on the country as politics have begun to calm down. Now we have access to endless entertainment much of which is not unlike having a lobotomy. The rise of excessive celebrity culture has been representative of the last few years. Everywhere you look celebrities pose in photographs and behave outrageously on television. There is no content to their actions. In a sense, they are simply a culture anesthetic, designed to lull us into complacency, just as the drugs in Kesey's mental hospital lull the patients into a stupor. The question we must ask ourselves, faced with all of this, is how best to respond? From time immemorial, it has been writers who take a stand against injustice and cultural complacency. Through their work, they skilfully satirize and pick apart the wrongs of the status quo and show us a better way to live. They celebrate the best of what is America and condemn the worst. We can see this in action in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What we need more than ever, is skillful writers to take on the twin challenges of today: terror and celebrity. One of the writers who is moving in this direction is clearly William Vollmann. This wholly original American writer has been as prolific as the culture in turning out new work. Every year he seems to publish a new book. One of his most stupendous achievements is Rising Up and Rising Down, a multi-volume set of books which studies the role of violence in our world. He re the novelist is leaving behind the fiction in order to pursue social and historical research (Vollmann). We need our writers in this day and age to be grounded in reality. As such, this set of books is a magnificent achievement. Vollmann's work is multifarious, but there are a few elements which can be explored in a simple manner.