"Aristophane's symbolic use of birds, which allowed him to deal with actual events and characters without the restrictions which the writing of history imposes, seemed particularly appropriate, as I associated it with a peasant custom I had witnessed during my childhood. One of the villagers' favorite entertainments was trapping birds, painting their feathers, then releasing them to rejoin their flock. As these brightly colored creatures sought the safety of their fellows, the other birds, seeing them as threatening aliens, attacked and tore at the outcasts until they killed them. I decided I too would set my work in a mythic domain, in the timeless fictive present, unrestrained by geography or history. My novel would be called The Painted Bird."
"and only God,
omnipotent indeed,
knew they were mammals
of a different breed."
MAYAKOVSKI
1) Animal imagery plays a big part in the book thus far. Pick an instance of animal imagery and discuss its significance, or just how it impacted you.
2) There's a lot of horrific stuff in this story - instances of absurd and terrible violence, like the villagers whipping our protagonist (who, remember, is around 6 or 7 years old), or the miller gouging out the boy's eyes, and the cats batting the severed organs about the floor. What is your reaction to these? What do you think these scenes add to the narrative?
You can draw from chapters 1-4 for this blog.
1. The image of the pigeon in the first chapter seems to me to set the scene of the novel. Here’s a bit of it: “Once a lonely pigeon joined the flock [of chicks]. He was clearly unwelcome. When he made a landing in a flurry of wings and dust amidst the chickens, they scurried away, frightened. When he began to court them, cooing gutturally as he approached them with a mincing step they stood aloof and looked at him with disdain. They invariably ran away clucking as soon as he drew closer. […] Only the pigeon had no place to hide. Before he even hat time to spread his wings, a powerful bird with a sharp hooked beak pinned him to the ground and struck at him.” (6). This pigeon is to me a Jew or a gypsy or anyone who looks different and is targeted by the racism of the populous and the terrorism of the Nazis. The pigeon is innocent and curious, just trying to fit in and make friends with the chicks, but it is ostracized and outcast from the beginning. The chicks never even give the pigeon a chance, never try to understand it or allow it to simply coexist with them as a part of the flock. The pigeon is our narrator, this young boy who needs help, needs to be nurtured, but is rejected and feared by everyone around him. Finally a hawk flies down and kills the pigeon; the chicks run to safety but the pigeon is abandoned, left alone. This hawk is to me Hitler and the Nazi party, preying on those who were already ostracized by the masses. The story of the pigeon lays out the story of the holocaust in its roughest, most primal, animalistic roots.
ReplyDelete2. I am very disturbed by the horrors in this story. The eyeballs were especially disgusting to me—the idea first that someone would be so cruel and twisted as to pop out someone else’s eyeballs and then to have the cats play with them is just revolting. I do not enjoy reading any of the gruesome stuff, but I do think it serves an important purpose. Kosinski is depicting the darkest heart of humanity (thanks, Conrad) and in order to do that effectively he is showing these horrors through the eyes of a young boy, the most innocent of innocents. We talked today about how this book reads like a fairy tale and I think it does feel like a fairy tale, but when it comes down to it this book is not a fairy tale. It is reality. These things actually happened to people (okay, maybe not the popping out of eyeballs, but the belief in witchcraft and the racism and the cruelty was all real and is still real).
ReplyDelete1) The scene with the pigeon seemed significant to me. The pigeon tries to integrate itself with the chickens. The chickens reject it because it seems different and alien. Then when a hawk comes, the pigeon is left while the chickens scurry off. This results in the pigeon dying. This could relate to the story because the pigeon is being ostracized and thus left more vulnerable. Similarly, the main character is pushed away by villagers because of his looks. Consequently, he is being thrown into many dangerous situations. Nobody is taking the time to understand him or accept him. Perhaps they have good reason to be afraid of him because it was a more dangerous time, and they can barely communicate with him. However, his isolation and rejecting from the group is leaving him to fend for himself.
2) I think these scenes show our protagonist becoming desensitized to violence. He is so young, and yet he is being exposed to all of this brutal violence and death. It is the norm for him. This world is different from the one we live in, and it may be necessary for these events to become normalized for him because he may encounter them throughout his life, and without a resiliency towards them he would never make it. However, these events are also likely giving him a skewed perception of how humans must act. With all this violence around him, it may seem like constant pain is the only way to live. Meanwhile, there are other societies that are not like that (brutal violence is not the norm- it's uncommon). On page 40, he talks about the eyeless drawing upon their memories to see. This quote shows the significance of our experiences to how we perceive the world. If our protagonist was to become eyeless at this moment, he would imagine the world in his head through a lens of his experiences. Since his experiences are all so brutal and violent, it would clearly change the way he would understand his environment.
1. I think following the pigeon scene early in the book, its analogical meaning defined well, I think, by Nell and Mira, is for me the most important animal imagery so far. The boy talks about the snake in "a special rock garden, carefully fenced in" (7). The boy speaks of it: "It seemed quite indifferent to the world: I never knew if it noticed me." I won't pursue the possible Biblical or religious analogies or symbolism here—I just don't know enough to even attempt it. But the "indifference" of the snake cries out to me. It seems analogous to the indifference of the universe of this novel. We see a lonely pigeon killed by a hawk; we see the violence of the cats mating. That's animal life: it's what they do without morality. But we see people abuse the boy and cast him into a river; we see the miller blind the plowboy. We see a plague, and in a moment that could come right from Voltaire, the terrified villagers pray, but "God, in his inpenetrable wisdom, waited" (22). Indifference is a main component of this world, embodied by the snake. The boy sits down in the middle of the town and cries for his parents, and the villagers merely jab him in the back with rakes.
ReplyDelete2. Nothing prepares one for the violence of his books—not Candide, not Conrad, not Apocalypse Now. Someone said in class today about how violence is shaping our boy. In Chapter two he cries like the child he is; he is taken in a sack (like potatoes? later he is buried like some plant—the imagery of human as not human is there, I think) to a farm, where he is whipped, and "hopped around like a squirel" (16. His perceptions of the world, his language to describe his place in this world, reflect his experiences—no surprise there. But the boy who cries in the middle of the road for Mommy and Daddy in Chapter 3 "screamed with a long, vibrating banshee howl, and struck the nearest herder in the face" (32) and steals the man's comet. This is a six or seven year old. Violence against him is shaping the way he deals with others.
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ReplyDelete1. I hate to say the same thing as everybody else, but the pigeon imagery really struck me as foreshadowing the future of our young protagonist. I recently visited an old synagogue in Barbados, and the plaque at the entrance of the graveyard reads the lines, “they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up,” by Martin Niemoeller. To me, this seems to explain how truly criminal the act of being a bystander is. To watch and say nothing as laws of morality are being broken all around you, that is a horror not to be overlooked. Those who remain silent to injustice for fear of physical repercussions (such as imprisonment or death) seem to forget the psychological repercussions their inaction will cause them. This is a theme we often overlook when discussion the effects of WWII. The Germans and others witnessing the inhumanity of the Nazi’s who may not have directly sent Jews to the death camps still had to live with the knowledge that they aided in the senseless murder of an entire people. That is something one does not simply get over. While “The Painted Bird” is clearly about a victim of the Holocaust, the pigeon, if you will, it is also about the hens, those who watched and did nothing, the bystanders.
ReplyDelete2. I wasn’t here for the discussion in class today, but after reading Nell’s comments on this sounding somewhat fairy tale-like, I can’t help but be reminded of the witches class I took in short term. We read one story that depicted the true enemy of our protagonist not as the witch, but as the step mother. The witch was somewhat of a teacher and mentor while the true evil was a mortal woman who had succumb to greed and vanity. I think it’s really interesting that Nell said part of what makes this story so horrible is that it’s not a fairy tale and that these things actually happened, that people are actually capable of these things, and as powerful a statement as that might be, I think it’s important to address the original purpose of fables: to teach. Stories such as Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood all had very specific messages intended to teach children of the dangers of the world they would soon have to face. Most of the original villains were not supernatural beings with unstoppable power, rather, they were people corrupted in some sense or another. In that sense, they often did represent horrors as horrors were. Little Red Riding Hood was raped, (spoilers) and I think that the lesson that story provides young girls was very intentionally crafted, as is this one. This story reads as a warning to me, just as fairy tales do, a warning of how much people will sacrifice of their own morals just to save their skin.
The two instances of animal imagery that struck me most were the scenes in which the protagonist is compared to or equated with animals. The first such description, which John mentioned, was the scene in which the boy was whipped and subsequently “hopped around like a squirrel”(16) or “like a frog”(17). I think the most striking part of this description is both how dehumanized he is and how aware he is of this dehumanization. He is descriptive, not indignant, probably due to the normalcy of abuse in his recent years. In other words, it upset me to see how readily he saw himself as less than human, as animalistic. The other such instance occurs when he contracts the plague and is buried alive by Olga. Upon awakening, he is attacked by a flock of ravens, who peck brutally and incessantly at the back of his head. His response, after fighting proved futile, was to adapt, to become one of them: “I gave up. I was myself now a bird. I was trying to free my chilled wings from the earth. Stretching my limbs, I joined the flock of ravens.“(25). Here, again, the boy identifies himself as more animal than human, perhaps due to the pervading message that his physical attributes make him lesser than those around him.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t think that all this gore is just gratuitous. The violence in this novel is supposed to be so gut-wrenching and exaggerated that we are caught off guard, which is hard for an author to do, considering how jaded and accustomed to violence most readers are. The violence has to be a little absurd in order to get us to pay attention. But it also can’t be so overwhelming and constant that we overlook all of the less dramatic, but equally important, instances of suffering, like when the boy is frozen or covered in leeches or exiled by society. I don’t know if this makes much sense. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the violence should serve to engage, but not to overshadow the more subtle elements of the plot.
One image of animals so far in the book that impacted me was when the flock of ravens picked at the boy while he was buried in the earth. And when he returned to Olga, she explained that the “disease was picked up by a throng of ghosts transformed into ravens which tasted my blood to make sure I was one of them. This was the only reason, she asserted, they did not pick my eyes out”(22). I thought the image of the ravens picking at the boy's head, helpless and vulnerable, could serve as a good metaphor to his current situation. He's been abandoned and left as a source of amusement and sadism for the backward villagers, unable to fight back due to his size, just as he cannot fight back against the ravens because his arms are buried. I also like how Olga attempts to fit the attack within her spiritual pagan framework. Everything that happens, from death to the ravens' attack can be attributed to spirits, and for a young and impressionable boy this likely has a profound effect. Already in the next chapter we see him describe the shadows created by his comet as “witches.” The ravens are transformed from some secular and mundane to something with meaning almost beyond our comprehension, subject to forces beyond our control.
ReplyDeleteThere is an element of almost unrelenting cruelty in the story, every villager seems to possess some deep sadism that they have been waiting to unleash upon some defenseless stranger like the boy. Contrary to Erin's comment in class today, it didn't strike me that the boy's complacent reaction to all this violence and death was a product of him being to young to know what is normal, it's because all this violence is normal. The barbarity of the Soviet and German assaults and massacres(the Soviets slaughtered many Poles too, look up the Katyn massacre) finds its place in this setting, a brutal background for a brutal scene.
1. The snake stuck with me the most. The snake seemed like a really powerful creature in the way that it was viewed by Marta. “Marta and I watched this transformation with amazement. She told me that the human soul discards the body in a similar manner and then flies up to God’s feet” (7). It is like a miracle has occurred. The snake is the only thing I can think of that seems remotely positive so far. Surrounded by constant death, the snake appears to be going through something that is similar to a rebirth. It also was interesting to me that Marta compares the snake to humans and snakes are generally associated with Satan and evil, and I think that would especially be the case in a highly religious society like this one. The effect watching the snake lying still and then discarding its skin and then resuming life as healthy as ever has on the protagonist is big. It affects how he views Marta’s death and might affect how his view on the world in general. I think as a result of seeing the snake emerge unscathed after losing its skin, he has a more positive outlook on the world and has a hard time accepting the awful things he sees happening as irreversible.
ReplyDelete2. The horrific events taking place in the world of a child creates a dark and very strange combination because the horror is constantly being filtered through the lens of an often optimistic and innocent child. Seeing these events take place through a child’s perspective makes them even more horrific to me. Often I feel like when people do horrible things, rational adult minds try to justify these things with logic and reasoning and excuses. They attempt to make sense of the existence of these horrors in our world. Yet this child does not attempt to explain or think about why these events are occurring. He accepts them as a fact of life which is terrifying to see. Maybe one day he will question why the villagers attack him on sight but now he feels no need to rationalize or explain their actions.
1. The part where the children burned the squirrel to death stuck with me the most. I felt as if this was either foreshadowing something else, or symbolizing the normalization of violence at this time because of the war. I wasn't sure which, but it definitely felt as if the death of that squirrel meant more than just some kids being cruel. Another instance was the scene with the pigeon. I also felt as if this was a symbol of what was going on in this time period: people with differences being targeted and removed violently. The violence in both of the scenes signified the time period and the way society has been morphed to think and act.
ReplyDelete2. The violence is confusing me a little. I don't quite understand why every act of violence is so severe and terrible. As I mentioned in the question before, I felt like it was a representation of the normalization of violence in society at this time, but it's also incredibly extreme with every reoccurrence. Like it was said in class, it seems like we're getting the most drastic view of what non-city people experienced at this time. I'm not sure if this is to signify what is going in the world right now or if it's just representing how terrible one's life could be during this time period, but it's like there's no break. It's just constant violence and pain.
1. Two instances with Amina, imagery stuck out to me. One was when the boys beat the squirrel and killed it. It was really hard to read and made me cringe as I was reading it. It was just unbelievable how little boys were comfortable doing it and say nothing wrong with it. The other, and perhaps the most revealing scene, is the one with the pigeon. This scene really represented the hate and discrimination that was going on in Europe at the time. Why the pigeon tried to join the chickens, they “scurried” away and he was “clearly unwelcome”. In many ways the animal imagery reflects the problems of the world and human characteristics.
ReplyDelete2. I think the abundance of violence in the book is needed and very important to the narrative. I agree with Agasha that it normalizes violence which resembles how violence was seen at the time. It was normal or at least becoming more and more so. Violence being so extreme really gives us a sense of how horrific the times were. So even if people during the time didn't see this much violence, the other horrific events they went through is well represented through the violence in this book. I think it also serves the purpose of gaining the audience’s attention.
1. When our narrator sees children burn his squirrel friend, he learns something. He learns that people in power and can and will do what they like. He learned that when one is weak, one is at the mercy of the strong. He learned a law described on the second page of the book: the "traditional right of the stronger and wealthier over the weaker and poorer" (4). Throughout the book so far, we have seen this law justify a wide variety of violence against people as well as squirrels. Villagers abuse our narrator; the miller beats his wife and gouges out the eyes of the plowboy. In this scene, our narrator sees for the first time this human tendency to torture. He sees it in children. These are not hardened criminals or even just jealous husbands, acting out of passion. These are little kids who decided to torture and kill a squirrel for fun. Violence is and always has been a human trait.
ReplyDelete2. What is more horrifying than the individual acts of violence is their ubiquity, and the little boy's acceptance of them. He has left each village as a result of an act of cruelty. This can be to flee from their violence towards him or out of fear after seeing someone else hurt. Kosinski says he "set [his] work in a mythic domain, in the timeless fictive present, unrestrained by geography or history" (xiii). In this setting, Kosinski can make statements not only about the Holocaust, a particular instance of violence, though one on a massive scale, or even the larger culture of antisemitism in Europe, but about humanity as a whole. Candide must travel across the world to see humanity as a whole, but in this "timeless fictive present" and with these repeated and various acts of horrific violence Kosinski can show us humanity as a whole through the travels of a young boy who hardly ever goes more than a few miles from village to village.