Story 3: THE SILENT MEN

Chris OConnor · Sun May 18, 2008 6:27 pm

Story 3: THE SILENT MEN

Please use this thread for discussing the short story "The Silent Men." :shock:

Thomas Hood · Wed May 28, 2008 10:02 pm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_59211539
Camus's "The Silent Men" and "The Guest": Depictions of Absurd Awareness - Critical Essay
Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1997 by Rob Roy McGregor

Saffron · Wed May 28, 2008 10:13 pm

Thanks for the link, Tom. I found it helpful in my mulling over of the stories.

Saffron

yodha · Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:18 am


	Thomas Hood wrote: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2455/is_3_34/ai_59211539 Camus's "The Silent Men" and "The Guest": Depictions of Absurd Awareness - Critical Essay Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1997 by Rob Roy McGregor

Woah Thomas, that article was quite some read! :cry:

I don't think I understood any of his absurd philosophy. But, it did help me in understanding the stories better.

As for all the stories from this book, the endings are the most puzzling. In this story, why does Yvars say that "Ah, it's his fault!"?
The above article provides some of the possible reasons:


	Quote: Is the blame for the general collapse of interpersonal relationships? For his own daughter's illness, a kind of retribution for his treatment of the workers? For establishing a personal barrier that prevented Yvars from expressing concern for Lassalle's daughter? Or is the placing of blame a self-serving exculpation for his failure to call out in sympathy to Lassalle?

I wasn't quite satisfied by any of the above.

yodha · Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:22 am

At the end of the story, Yvars wishes that if he and his wife were younger and they would've gone to the other side of the sea. Any idea what could the other side of the sea possibly be here? :smile:

Yuvie · Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:54 pm

Since I'm reading the newer translation by Carol Cosman, I'd like to point out a couple major differences for this third story:

1) The older translation's title is "The Silent Men." The newer translation's title is "The Voiceless." That change puts the question of agency into completely different terms. Being silent implies a choice, being voiceless implies a lack of choice.

2) The line "Ah, it's his fault!" becomes "Ah, that's the trouble!" Put in context, it reads:


	Quote: When he had finished, he sat motionless, turned toward the sea, where the swift dusk was already running from one end of the horizon to the other. "Ah, that's the trouble!" he said. He would have liked to be young again, and Fernande too, and they would have gone away, across the sea.

Yvars's last sigh refers to some vitality or agency that was lost--the dusk runs without him now, as does the sea. I suspect we could read both translations that way if we wanted (eg: putting the blame on the boss would also take agency away from Yvars), but the newer translation points more directly to that idea.

I'm still pondering what the heart of the story is, and what is meant by the last line...

DWill · Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:18 am

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DWill · Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:48 am

Now I wish I had ordered the book in French, so I could at least see, if not intelligently evaluate, the original choice confronting the translator. "Silent Men" vs. "The Voiceless" is significant; "Ah, it's his own fault!" vs. "Ah, that's the trouble!" is not even in the same ballpark!

This story is more like what I had remembered of my slight reading of Camus. The language is more spare, not like the luxuriance or violence of the first two stories. I do feel that, behind these spare details, there must lurk a philosphical key. I am able to read the story with satisfaction without knowing about absurdism, but I think that Camus must be pointing to some significance beyond the simple events and characterization. I don't know if I like this, to be frank.

But I do like very much the drama of this story, a drama provided first of all by Yvars' doubts about the meaning of his life and whether he has any significance. But he is not hapless, as I see him; there is a strength in him, an ability to adjust to loss, and a knowledge that although events seem to overwhelm him, there is value in human relationships, as at the end with his wife and as reflected in his feelings for his boss. Camus is not heavy-handed here. The boss is not a bad man; the declining state of Yvars' trade is not due to anyone's meanness; the failure of the strike does not indict the whole capitalist system. Life is struggle and gets some of its meaning through this struggle. Another theme is what really unites us as human beings. We can put ourselves on opposite sides and refuse to speak, but then something happens which we all understand to be more important than the differences we erect, like the illness of the boss's child. We may then be powerless to respond as we'd like to, because of the need to keep manning our barriers.

Robert Tulip · Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:40 pm

The Silent Men is a beautiful and painful story about mortality and how men are bound by existential finitude. In the liquid light of the Mediterranean, coopers build barrels in an obsolete industry, where the factory cannot increase their pay. The strike fails, and the boss resents the sullen attitude of the coopers as he would pay them more if he could. They do not answer when he speaks. The sea is a symbol of mortal life, the early morning sparkle reflecting the promise of youth, and the evening darkness symbolizing old age and death. Yvars is getting old

DWill · Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:51 pm

That was a great capsulization of the story, Robert. I find that there is nobility as well as tragedy in Yvars' life, sweetness as well as bitterness.
DWill

Thomas Hood · Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:58 pm


	Robert Tulip wrote: The Silent Men is a beautiful and painful story about mortality and how men are bound by existential finitude.

Isn't the the sea the physical reminder of the infinite (unboundedness) to Yvars as was the desert for Janine?


	Quote: What I like about this story is how Camus starts from an existential philosophy, and shows how deep themes of life can be seen in ordinary circumstances. In thrown finitude, people seek freedom, but economic constraints place as firm bonds as the iron bands of an oaken barrel. In Heidegger's terms, anxiety is the basis of ontology, as we consider our future, past and present as care. The barrel, an ancient craft requiring creativity and skill, facing a modern world in which it cannot compete with industrial technology, is a symbol of the men's life, as the staves strain and coordinate beneath the metal.

"Thrown finitude," I imagine, means that we find ourselves without self-knowledge. But really,

I. Style is character.
II. Character is fate.

So we can find what we look for.

Tom

Robert Tulip · Sat Jun 07, 2008 7:31 pm

I look at thrown finitude as a basis for self knowledge. When Socrates said 'know thyself' he was calling for a recognition of finitude, as the self inhabits a mortal body and world, even while linking to the infinite as immortal soul. The sea certainly links us to something bigger than ourselves, but to the infinite? I am not so sure, as even the sea has its daily cycles of light and dark, heat and cold, smooth and rough, and these are very much part of the bounds of human finitude. Yvars is thrown into this finite world, and while he may dream of the infinite as symbolised by the ocean, the sea is in the end finite, as is life.

I mentioned the line 'character is fate' in the Your Inner Fish thread 'What is Nature' as a translation of Heraclitus' line ethos anthropoi daimon. Here we see a connection between Camus and evolutionary thought, as style, consisting of behavioural traits, has direct finite links to fate, as the destiny of our existence. Saint Paul made a similar claim in Romans 5:3 when he said suffering produces endurance, endurance character and character hope. Hence to say style is fate can link to Paul's idea that in suffering we obtain finite grounds for hope. Camus is presenting existential style, bounded by rather bleak bonds, as a source of inner freedom.

Thomas Hood · Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:22 pm


	Robert Tulip wrote: I look at thrown finitude as a basis for self knowledge.

Robert by style I mean how an author's self is put into every expression, not consciously but unconsciously and therefore truthfully (aletheia). Even when an author is semiconsciously giving himself away he does so because he trusts that others will not notice. The Adulterous Woman is adulterous as a reflection of Camus' own adultery; The Silent Men are silent because his own mother was half-deaf; the setting is Africa because Camus' own setting is Africa; and so on. Heidegger dealt with this revelatory aspect of expression in his Memorial Address on the death of Conradin Kreutzer. Kreutzer's uniqueness as expressed in his music arose from his unique position in his background, a uniqueness that modern technological society replaces with controllable uniformities. I have not found that Heidegger developed the idea of revelatory expression to the point where it could be practically applied in literary criticism.

Tom

Robert Tulip · Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:10 am

Tom, part of what you are saying seems to be that an artist has a conscious plan, but also discusses themes that have subconscious meanings, and style is a combined result. Your implication that truth/aletheia is primarily in this unconscious disclosure goes strongly against the grain of modern rationality, which identifies truth with conscious representation through language.

Existentialism, in Camus and Heidegger, recognises a deeper form of truth as disclosure, but I am not convinced that accidental correlations - such as with Camus' deaf mother - mean all that much. One of the distinguishing features of great art is that it is often in touch with subconscious moods and motives, and deliberately encodes them in things which also have a simpler direct meaning. So for Camus, adultery has numerous nuances of meaning, with Janine's simple yearning standing as a parable for everything from her marriage to the relation between France and Algeria.

In The Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger does precisely what you ask, describing the revelatory expression contained within Van Gogh's painting of peasant shoes. Similarly, in An Introduction to Metaphysics, he uses Goethe's graffito, over all summits is peace, to meditate on the revelatory meaning of the word 'is' as a form of literary criticism.

Thomas Hood · Mon Jun 09, 2008 6:52 pm


	Robert Tulip wrote: Tom, part of what you are saying seems to be that an artist has a conscious plan, but also discusses themes that have subconscious meanings, and style is a combined result.

Not exactly, Robert. What I am saying is that a person unconsciously and wholly discloses the seemingly hidden self in any expression, but the clarity of this disclosure is greatest in art. I admit that to read anything in this manner is difficult, but I am sure it is possible because I have occasionally done so. For me this understanding of revelation resolves many philosphical and religious issues.

To read Camus correctly is to discover the soul of Camus. Had Heidegger read Van Gogh's shoe pictures correctly, he would have discovered Van Gogh in them.

Tom

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