Notion of Power

As with Primo Levi's book, and really all the other books we've read this semester in one way or another, the notion of power is brought up.  It is unbelievable to think that one man with one mindset and one goal can take over vast amounts of individuals with opposing goals..and yet, time and time again we see that this is somehow possible.  Regardless of the opposition, an oppression reigns over a people.  The government becomes a weapon.  People are no longer people, but pawns and threats and empty promises.  As David pointed out in his entry, the idea of trust is completely lost.  Nobody is trustworthy because anybody is susceptible to shifting to the other side. 

This is a terrifying thought to me.  While I like to think that times have changed, and I would stand up for myself and remain a trustworthy person and maintain my ideals and perseverance of what is right and just...I've learned from memoir after memoir that this is a lot easier to say from afar.  Nadezhda couldn't even trust pieces of paper; she took to memorizing her husbands words, and then dedicated her life to reciting them.  Keeping hope alive. 

The idea of keeping hope alive and in turn, keeping yourself alive is also explored in the reading selections for this course.  If you give up hope, you literally have nothing left.  That said, the brink to which say Mandelstam or Levi are driven is rather hopeless.  Once they have nothing, then they can be free.  In a sense. 

This is a terrible example and I slightly regret that I'm about to say it, but I can't stop thinking about the scene in V for Vendetta when the woman who has had her head shaved, thrown in a cell with nothing but a tiny window in the door, and led to believe there was no end to this. 

Her captor, who *SPOILER ALERT* is actually helping her, explains, "That's it! See, at first I thought it was hate, too. Hate was all I knew, it built my world, it imprisoned me, taught me how to eat, how to drink, how to breathe. I thought I'd die with all my hate in my veins. But then something happened. It happened to me... just as it happened to you...Your own father said that artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself...What was true in that cell is just as true now. What you felt in there has nothing to do with me."  She cries, "I can't feel *anything* anymore!"
He says, "Don't run from it, Evey. You've been running all your life.  Listen to me, Evey. This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it.  They took your parents from you. They took your brother from you. They put you in a cell and took everything they could take except your life. And you believed that was all there was, didn't you? The only thing you had left was your life, but it wasn't, was it?  You found something else. In that cell you found something that mattered more to you than life. It was when they threatened to kill you unless you gave them what they wanted... you told them you'd rather die. You faced your death, Evey. You were calm. You were still. 
Try to feel now what you felt then."


The idea of WHO is in control becomes just as large of a question as WHAT is in control.  It is a terrifying thought.