Words,words,words

Once upon a time, in a remote part of the South of Europe, there was a kingdom sun-kissed and pine fragrant, whose blue waters lazily washed pink white beaches of shells and corals. The inhabitants of this enchanted place were also renowned for their constant effort to add to the other celebrated beauties the most precious one:democracy; because despite the country was a true paradise on earth, anybody who attempted to visit it could see that lacked the most basic foundations of social organization. Furthermore signs of moral decay could be detected almost anywhere.
“Democracy! This is what we need, and we’ll be saved”: somebody started to say.
Till one happy day, the most important people of the country decided that it was time that the first elections should be held. The hopeful citizens rushed en mass to the polling stations and enjoyed so much this ritual that decided to repeat it once, if not twice a year. Unfortunately they soon understood that democracy was not so easy to achieve. In fact election after election, decade after decade, scandals, the corruption and degradation of the political system had not been stopped yet:
“Maybe, this democracy doesn’t work here!” they wondered.
“Maybe, it’s because of the sun” pondered one “or the sea”, said a woman. Maybe. Any possible solution had been explored, besides the inhabitants of the beautiful kingdom sun-kissed, pine fragrant whose shores were washed by crystalline seas, had slowly started to desert the polling stations. But one glorious day something totally unexpected happened. There was a man, whose speeches had started to inflame the hearts of men and women again triggering a sparkle of hope. Well, he wasn’t exactly a man, he was a FOOL ,a real fool, not like those other fake fools who had ruled the country the previous years. His words were captivating and passionate and people were overwhelmed by his impetus and somebody even assured that he was a sort of wizard because he a magic panacea which would have helped heal their rotten country: the WEB. When the next elections were held, the inhabitants of the beautiful kingdom sun-kissed, pine fragrant whose shores were washed by crystalline seas went joyously to vote with the certainty that THIS time something would have changed for sure. The party of the fool conquered one-third of the voters, it had been a huge success: for the for time in the history of the known world, a fool might have changed the course of events.
” This could be a model to be exported abroad”, said a man.
“This time WE might teach something to the other kingdoms” he added proudly and the others nodded.
“Yes, let’s call it foolocracy. It will our brand all over the world”. And they quickly set out to register it.
After a few weeks, the people still crowded the public meetings of the Fool but with less enthusiasm:
“This Fool keeps on talking and talking, but when do you think he’ll start to do something?”
“Maybe, it’s not time. I’m sure he is certainly planning something sensational, you’ll see”.
But time went by and nothing happened. The Fool kept on talking and threatening the other two parties, without realizing that his followers had started to abandon him. One day, during another of his public meetings, there were just a few people who were absently listening to him when they heard just like a distant sound of something arriving. It seemed like a train.
“A train? There isn’t even a railway  here. It’s impossible!”
Everybody turned toward the strange thing that was coming closer and closer. It was actually a train, a big sparkling train with a bright flashing signboard, where there was clearly written: GREAT CHANGE TRAIN, LAST RUN.
The train was approaching quickly, so all the people started to shout to draw the Fool’s attention, who was still talking and talking:
“C’mon, jump on the train and drive us to the change! C’mon, what are you waiting for? YOU FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooolllllllllllll!!!!!!!!”
The train had now gone. The people, now silent, were horrified, because maybe it was the heat or the rage, but everybody could see the ghastly image of the previous fool who had ruled the kingdom the past twenty years, slowly rising behind the stage where the Fool was still talking and talking and talking.
It was Sunday and another election day had arrived. The inhabitants of the beautiful kingdom sun-kissed and pine fragrant, whose blue waters lazily washed pink white beaches of shells and corals were ready to reach the polling stations to vote. But this time some of them decided not to go, because they thought that they had better spend their time doing some housework, some others had to go to an important football match that evening and needed time to arrange everything. Many others had really nothing to do, but remained at home anyway. They were puzzled because they had the feeling they hadn’t actually understood how democracy worked and needed more time to study the instruction booklet.

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Foolocracy (1)

Every time it was the Fool’s turn to go on stage there was great expectation in the audience. The most important actors wanted to play that role in fact, because he was not only one who juggled or made you laugh with trivial jokes or puns, but he was also charismatic, witty, shrewd, but above all, the fool was the only character who was allowed the privilege to say whatever he liked. He was a fool after all. He could target whoever he considered worthy of contempt exposing him to ridicule, king included (with a certain prudence obviously). People laughed with him, people were with him because after all he was one of them, one who could understand their frustrations, misery, rage, disappointed hopes. With a laugh he could exorcise all that. It was a great power indeed and he knew it, but I’m sure that not even in his wildest dreams he would have ever imagined one day to use this power to become a politician and, why not, rule a country. People would have died from laughing. Yes, but it was the Middle Age, the dark age. Nowadays, in the modern age, we have smashed these prejudices and we have allowed fools of any kind to be part of the active political life. Even those who were not really born fool try clumsily to imitate them, because this seems to be what people want. Will it work? We’ll see. God bless Italy.

The dried tuber syndrome

The symptoms of  the dried tuber syndrome are easily recognizable: melancholy, indolence, fear of the future, sense of loss; as far as T.S.Eliot is concerned a whole generation between the two great wars suffered from the consequences of its contamination. The causes? The sense of uncertainty produced by the loss of past values and the impossibility of replacing them with new ones. If the present is not fertile enough to offer new perspectives and hopes and at the same time slowly dries whatever we used to believe in, we just become like emptied tubers that would rather stay hidden in the darkness of the earth than grow and face the oppressive light of the day. Hamlet, for example, clearly suffered of that disease. He had seen his world gradually falling apart: the death of his father, the hasty marriage of his mother with his uncle who had become in the meanwhile King of Denmark too. When the play starts Hamlet has already been deprived of many certainties: his family, the mother figure, maybe even his succession to the throne of Denmark. The first time we meet him in the play he already displays the early symptoms of the syndrome: bitterness, melancholy, dullness. So when his father’s ghost informs him that his brother, the King, had shamefully murdered him while he was sleeping in his orchard, he actually deals the final blow to Hamlet’s psyche, At first he seems to be willing to react, to revenge immediately his father and kill the infamous murderer, but when the adrenaline is off, he realizes that he just can’t do it: “Oh cursed spite/that I was ever born to set it right“, he ponders. His father’s revelation should require a prompt reaction but Hamlet delays it – in fact the ghost will have to reappear a second time to incite his son to act –  showing signs of confusion and psychological stress. The frustration deriving from his inability to accomplish what he feels a moral duty towards the memory of his father leads him also to consider suicide. He will eventually react only when he realizes he has fallen in his uncle’s trap, before dying.

Oh father, father

Virginia Woolf, in her essay “Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown“, advocates the centrality of the character in modern novel, aiming at representing its complexity, incoherence, vulnerability: a”flesh and blood” character rather than a puppet in the hand of its maker. On this purpose a new kind of psychological realism was required to make that puppet fresh and alive, hence the chronological time sequence of narration was dismissed to experiment a new psychological perception of time which proved to be more suitable to represent the consciousness of the character. A clear product of this technique is Joyce‘s Eveline from Dubliners. Eveline is a young girl on nineteen at a crucial moment of her life: she is about to leave her family to go with her lover to Buenos Aires, but she is paralyzed by the burden of doubt and responsabilities.For two third of the story she is stuck at one window pondering about her past, present and future. Following her thoughts we share her fears, uncertainties but at the same time we try to put together the pieces of her life whenever the important figures of her world show up in her mind. But how long had she been staying at the window lost in her thoughts?  Chronologically only eleven words:”She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue“; psychologically much more. We can notice the alliteration of the “w” at the first part of the sentence and the alliteration of the “v” in the second one, thus pointing out the passage from day to night . This passage is also stressed by the sound of the vowels which grow darker and darker word after word. When “she sat” there was still daylight but at “avenue” it was night. They key word of this sentence from a psychological point of view is “invade“: that is the night she had planned to go, but nothing makes us think of it as a happy moment, it’s an invasion: a violence on her true self. Even her concerns about her father seem to weak her determination to leave. But  why? Is he a caring, loving  kind of  father? Nothing of  kind, or better, we don’t know. The first time we bump into him in one of Eveline’s thoughts, he has a “blackthorn stick” in his hand, thus evoking a sense of fear ( black) and danger (thorn): he must be a violent man. Our intuition seems to be legitimized when she tells about his continuous threats that have worn her out giving her also “palpitations“, even because now she is alone, as her mother had died, and has nobody to defend her. But this father figure refuses to be entrapped in the stereotype of the violent man. In fact we are puzzled as she remembers some episodes of her life when his father appears to be a different kind of man: caring, tender even funny sometimes. Besides he is aging and is growing weak. Therefore whenever she feels like going, her minds evokes sad memories as to confirm the rightness of her choice, but when she feels strong enough to make her first step toward a different or better future, her determination is undermined by the opposite perception of her father’s nature. Being unable to manage the different forces of her soul, she will remain, defeated, with her father.