Da
Chen in his novel Brothers sows seeds
of beauty that flourish and abound in a book filled with memorable hardships
and glorious triumphs. Brothers explores the role of social
influences in the development of the self, the social comparisons of Shento and
Tan –– two estranged brothers who take conflicting sides in China’s Cultural Revolution.
Within the Revolution is the timeframe
when the shooting at Tiananmen Square takes place; which is dealt within the
narrative. This conflict starts at the
beginning of their lives when Shento’s mother:
“Gave
birth to me meant to end it all, not just her life, but also mine, right at the
moment of my sunrise. She was in a hurry
to leap off the cliff atop Mount Balan…” (Chen 1) .
This
young mother commits suicide because her lover General Long will not acknowledge
their illegitimate son. This imposed and unwanted suicide by the mother –– of
mother and son –– sets into place the forces which will shape Shento’s sense of
self and one’s possible self. Some could
argue that as early as Shento’s infancy, he called the attention of others and others
consciously affect him before he himself consciously affects his identity of
self. This image of his “self” is created by others while those images of
“self” are then embraced. Shento, much like us, has a self in whom he portrays
to others but also has a self which belongs to others and which is shaped by
others attributions about him. It can be
argued that we have a truer self, in which is the self one would like to be
within one’s unique path; which views us as involved, through our social
performances, in a continuous purposeful and transitional movement that wanders
from belief to disbelief regarding the key aspects of our identity and
significance.
The
contrast is evident in the description of the birth of Tan. In the reading of the text we learn that Tan
attended the best schools, and wore the most expensive clothes.
“I
was born the son of General Long and the only grandchild of two influential families
in China: the Longs, a banking dynasty, and the Xias, a military
powerhouse. The two families were as
different night and day” (Chen 5).
The
role of self dates back to the early philosophers who concentered their
thinking to the nature of the soul. In
Buddhist philosophy the self was considered to be the stream of thoughts, which
supports the image of ones self. It is
in this frame that a fair portion of the book is written in the “Hoped-for
Self” frame of mind. Harmony, love, strife, morality, and reason all can be
viewed as the elements of the bodily existence which propel people toward
particular social systems, which, in turn define the elements of the self. This is exactly what Shento does throughout
the story by constantly seeking to be more than he is. This can be seen when Shento sets the pace of
the story and his own life when he says:
“I
outraced her swollen legs and slipped out of her womb just as she struggled
toward the fateful precipice. One was
left to wonder why she did it, making herself a myth, leaping off the zenith…” (Chen
1).
This
event is the theoretical grounding for understanding how and why Shento, as
well as Tan,
“He
lived! Should I contact the great general and seek his aid in releasing me from
this hellhole? Ding Long had ascended to
the highest rank of supremacy. All he
had to do was send the order and my life would be forever changed” (Chen 70).
Individual
thinkers cannot be truly understood apart from the social and political systems
within which these characters live. The variation
of each chapter, which is headed by who is telling the narrative, creates a
unique discourse. These brothers develop
a unique voice as each brother grows into a different path. Each brother exhibits the three main parts of
the self: its components, the feelings
that are aroused, and the behaviors or responses they prompt. Self-esteem can be viewed, as being created
from a supportive relationship between one’s self and one’s conceptualized
self.
However,
development does not exist in a vacuum.
Development of the self and the hoped-for self is conscious and impacted
in sociocultural and historical context.
Across the text of Chen’s novel one can comprehend the importance of other
characters that either help or hinder the development of the self –– within the
two main characters. The self is absolutely fundamentally needed to
adequately address the motivational factors contributing to any human behavior
one wishes to exhibit.
One of the most important “other” characters
in Chen’s narrative is that of Sumi. Sumi is caught in a gripping love triangle. Love that is not simply a crush, or a
meaningless fling but an overwhelming passion. This passion is, however, may
not be exactly as it appears. There
appears to be at many levels, through this love, the desire for recognition,
the desire of another person when she is clearly the object of two people, and
the desire for self. This is very much
in thinking to Nietzsche.
“A
single individual contains within him a vast confusion of contradictory
valuations and consequently of contradictory valuations and consequently of
contradictory drives. This is the
expression of the diseased condition in man” (Nietzche 147) .
The
characters sense of “I” is the part of self which acts with reference to others
is immediately aware of others’ reactions to the self, and this thinking is
along the lines that a person’s sense of me is the reflective self which
constantly evaluates and reinvents the “I” sense of self. This sense of self can be seen as being
influenced by the common life and purpose of the groups to which they belong
within which the self functions. Shento
portrays these ideas when he says:
“In
pain, I wiped my eyes quickly and stayed low and small like a mountain rat,
searching for a hole in the earth where I could hide and survive. But the kicks landed like pelting raindrops. I was defenseless and had little chance…”
(Chen 52).
There are three senses of self that is
exhibited throughout the text: the
conscious, or what a person is aware of during a specific point in time, the
preconscious, or information which is beneath the surface of awareness and can
be easily retrieved, and finally the unconscious, which is the underlying part
of self which contains one’s wishes and expectations. This frame of thinking is a part of Freud’s
psychoanalytical theory. This can be
seen in the mindset of Sumi when we read:
“I
had difficulty touching that dark hole of fear and sadness even now. I had long learned to close the eyes of the
mind and face reality –– the life of an abandoned animal within the cage of the
orphanage. I learned to swallow all sorrows…” (Chen 276).
Ego,
according to Freud, can be compared to one’s current self, while the super ego
is constantly responding to external cues and is the moral and ideal “higher
ground” to which we aspire. Sumi is the
object of desire, and in some instances is reduced to nothing more than an
object of desire, as desire is not found in its object, but in the person who
is doing the desiring. This can be seen
when Sumi, who has her first “chapter” on page 135 says:
“Then
you came, an oh, how you emboldened me… I was flooded by your light, your
warmth, and the rainbow of you arcing over me, making me safe… I dreamed of a
life with you. You, one wheel of a
handbarrow. I, the other wheel” (Chen
136).
Sumi’s
story is not an easy one to read. There
are moments when it seems as if all of her identity comes from the two men who
love her. There are instances when Sumi
claims her own power, her own identity and her own sense of self. She epitomizes the struggle to balance
rationality and irrationality and between conscious awareness and unconscious
images and memories. There is a sense of
a battle between a self that seeks balance between one’s internal world and the
external world, one’s conscious, and unconscious experiences, good and evil,
and light and darkness. Sumi attempts to
solve the problem of aloneness versus the union with others. This attempt brings about the need to rise
above a passive and accidental existence and into the realm of purpose and
freedom. Sumi in many ways evolves as a separate
“species” as she loses her home in the natural world which requires of her to
develop a rootedness, and or a feeling
at home in the natural world. She actively relates to the world through a
spiritual connectedness resulting in her being whole.
The sense of rhythm within the text helps set
the tone in which the self is discovered and is mastered with ease by Chen. Rhythm to Chen is as important as the prose,
and the prose reads as poetry. There are
no wrong words. The text can be considered a parallel to
music: the way a rhythm gives power, to the characters, that cannot be reduced,
or described by mere words. This rhythm exists simply because of Chen’s
well-made sentences that only transcends time but also genre. Chen’s rhythm is a piece of music that keeps
readers turning the page. The structures
of the sentences are flawless in their beauty, as well as the balance between
narration, descriptions and dialogue.
The
position of the narrator can be useful when introducing diversity in the
narrative rhythm and Chen does this with the introduction of whom is telling
the story at the start of each new chapter.
Shifts in the narration can be tricky to achieve seamlessly, but they
are a greater tool in enriching the rhythm and tonality of the narrative. Clarity is a high virtue, but so is beauty;
and increasingly it is from the varying length and sentence structures that the
writer achieves voice, rhythm, emphasis, and even musicality.
Variation
works because we naturally vary our speaking rhythm when we are emotionally
connected to what we are saying. This is
obvious when a character is upset and empathetic, but syntactical variation
works well to convey any strong feeling.
Rhythmic sentences can sing to us, perhaps even move our emotions to an
ancient language, culture and music; which can be, if done correctly, epic. As writers we want to balance our scenes
using three elements: dialogue, action and narration. Scenes that weave these elements together
engage a reader at an emotional level.
One example of this artistry is:
“Shento’s
army open fired on the crowd, first randomly, then targeted locations. The dead lay in pools of blood. The living cried, trying to save the
dying. Youthful hearts sank with the
burden of death as their worst fears were realized… Bullets rained down like an
angry storm” (Chen 384).
The
scene wouldn’t have had the same impact if the author had woven action and
narrative throughout the dialogue. This
is a fast paced scene, but Chen shows us that there is so much more to this
scene than just the actions. There are repercussions
to the actions committed and Chen wants our focus to be on those events as
well. As you can see, this passage is
very effective without the narrative bogging down the moment. This is writing at its most powerful. Narrative explains, and dialogue says it.
Chen chooses words carefully and poetically to produce a compelling story along
with the discovery of the Hoped-for Self.
If I have learned one thing from reading Brothers, it is words are just as
important to tell the story if not more important than the story. Chen has an ease with painting the scene, the
characters, the narration and even the outcome that I would like to achieve in
my own writing, and the way that I think about writing.
Works Cited
Chen, Da. Brothers.
Ed. Shaye Areheart. 5. New York City: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
Nietzche, Fredrick. The Will to Power. Ed. Walter
Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Edition Books Edition, 1967.
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