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The Will to Live in Don Delillo's the Body Artist

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The Will to Live in Don Delillo's the Body Artist JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 THE WILL TO LIVE IN DON DELILLO’S THE BODY ARTIST J. Britto Jenobia PhD Scholar, Department of English National College (Autonomous), Trichy-1 Affiliated to Bharathidasan University E-mail:[email protected] Dr. V. Sekar Associate Professor of English National College (Autonomous), Trichy-1 Affiliated to Bharathidasan University E-mail:[email protected] Abstract: “The Will to Power is an instinctive striving for conditions in which the agent achieves his maximum felling of power.” - Friedrich Nietzsche The Will to Power is one of the famous concepts of Nietzsche. The Will to Power gives a psychological dimension which explains the human nature, need and desire. The Will to Power leads to search for power. Search for power includes search for pleasure and for survival. Survival plays an important role in Nietzschean philosophy. The Survival ends with ‘The Will to Live’. The novel taken for analysis is Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist. The main character in the novel is Lauren Hartke. The novel was published in 2001. The novel is about Lauren who searches her new self from shattered alienated self through her Body art performance ‘Body and Time’. This article focuses Laurens transformation from her shattered self to self-awakening will to live. The concept used to analyse the character Lauren is the will to power. Key Words: Nietzsche and his concepts, Alienated self, catalyst, Will to Power, Superman, Body Art Performance. Volume XIII Issue I JANUARY 2020 Page No: 199 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 Introduction: “The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path if you can only see it.” - Hilary Mantel The Will to Power is one of the famous concepts of Nietzsche. The Will to Power is defined as “an instinctive striving for conditions in which the agent achieves his maximum felling of power.”(Nietzsche) The Will to Power gives a psychological dimension which explains the human nature, need and desire. The Will to Power leads to search for power. Search for power includes search for pleasure and for survival. Survival plays an important role in Nietzschean philosophy. The Survival ends with ‘The Will to Live’. The novel taken for analysis is Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist. The main character in the novel is Lauren Hartke. The novel was published in 2001. The novel is about Lauren who searches her new self from shattered alienated self through her Body art performance ‘Body and Time’. This article focuses Laurens transformation from her shattered self to self-awakening will to live. The concept used to analyse the character Lauren is the will to power. Friedrich Nietzsche is a German philosopher, essayist and a cultural critic. Nietzschean scholars believe that much of his concept is finding the self. He calls the self as ‘becoming what one is’. Many critics suggest that the main concept of Nietzsche’s philosophy is to reaffirm life by rethinking the nature of human existence. In order to find the self, Nietzsche insists to encourage one’s instincts and cognitive abilities. His famous controversial idea is ‘God is dead’. Don DeLillo is a famous American novelist, whose journey as a writer began in 1960. He was greatly influenced by John Dos Passos and Thomas Pynchon. Quoting Lionel Trilling words, Don DeLillo exhibits a “perpetual quest for reality” in his writings. Don DeLillo as a writer has written many short stories along with the novels. His first novel Americana was published in 1971. He has written seventeen novels till 2016. His other novels are as follows: End Zone(1972), Great Jones Street(1973), Ratner’s star(1976), Players(1977), Running Dog(1978), Amazons(1980), The Volume XIII Issue I JANUARY 2020 Page No: 200 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 Names(1982), White Noise(1985), Libra(1988), Mao II(1991), Underworld(1997), The Body Artist(2001), Cosmopolis (2003), Falling Man(2007), Point Omega(2010) and Zero K(2016). The novel The Body Artist (2001) is the shortest one among his novels. The novel is a ‘work of silence and emptiness’. The novel portrays the traumatic mourning and the new journey of Lauren Hartke to find her existence in the society after the suicide of her husband Rey. The main character of the novel is Lauren Hartke, the body art performance artist. The plot of the novel moves around the character Lauren Hartke and her inner self. Alienated Self: Lauren Hartke, the main character of the novel The Body Artist lives in a self-imposed exile. Grieving and an attempt of recovery from the loss of her husband Mr.Rey leads to alienation. In the beginning of the novel, Lauren and Rey silently struggle to find meaning in their ordinary life. Even though they know their routine life, they could not say what it is and they separate themselves from their regular actions. This explains the alienation they face with in the family. Though they were called as family, they never react as family. As an individual they search their own identity and felt alienation in their routine work. Lauren’s conversation with Rey is mundane. After Lauren’s husband death, she does not realise what has to be done. “The world was lost inside her.”(TBA 57) Lauren always depends on others to hold herself in the world. After her husband’s death, she understands the loneliness in her life and decides to move on. The way she chooses to move is watching an empty road for cars at Kotka, Finland in a TV show. She tries to find something from nothing. Lauren tries to overcome her loneliness by concentrating on the daily households. But she fails to cope with her everyday duties. She even stops answering the phone calls. Catalyst: The catalyst Lauren chooses in the journey of finding her new self is an imaginary character Mr.Tuttle. The characteristics and voice of Mr.Tuttle resembles Rey. Mr.Tuttle is an interlocutor who helps Lauren in order to find her new self. Lauren’s conversation with Mr.Tuttle is like talking with Rey. Conversation with Mr.Tuttle gives Lauren awareness on time. She learns how to overcome the past and to move on towards the future. Mr.Tuttle is a mysterious man. He is neither real nor Volume XIII Issue I JANUARY 2020 Page No: 201 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 unreal. The name Mr.Tuttle was given by Lauren from her childhood memories. He does not have proper identity. Throughout the novel Lauren searches for him. Suddenly he appears and leaves the house without any intimation. The existence of the mysterious men is questionable till the end of the novel. Though his identity is not clear, he is the real catalyst behind Lauren in her new journey of life. The Will to Power: Nietzsche is famous for his concept ‘The Will to Power’. Based on the power concept, he created a new character ‘Ubermench’ or ‘The Superman’. The Superman is characterised by a feeling of being unafraid. He uses his natural gifts of physical strength, intelligence and instincts in order to gain the best within the self. By doing so, man reawaken his instincts and inspire him to live in the world. The Superman is a superior individual who is confident and result oriented. His strength refers not only to the physical strength, but also the stubborn will that allowed him to face several difficulties in his life. He proved to be loyal and hardworking and is always prepared to do anything for his self- awakening. Loss and the constant struggle in the life made him stronger. Lauren is the central figure in the novel The Body Artist. She is compared with the superman. The first decision she takes after her husband death to face the loneliness. The decision to stay alone proves that she starts to fight back against her alienated self. According to Lauren, darkness perceived only from the outside world. Even Lauren’s friend asked her to leave the house after Rey’s death. But she insists to stay in the rented house and she expressed “it felt like home, being here”. (TBA 30) The decision Lauren takes to stay in the rented house alone for 2 months is experimenting herself to find her new self from er shattered self. The isolation from the society taught Lauren how to be strong and how to balance body and time. After Rey’s death, Lauren’s sorrow reached the unbearable level. But Lauren was patient with her weakness. She managed to live with her sorrow. Living with sorrow does not mean she searches her life through remembering Rey’s memories, rather she recalls her own self to find a self- awakening with in herself. Volume XIII Issue I JANUARY 2020 Page No: 202 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 To overcome grieving, Art helps Lauren to find meaning of her existence. The tool she has taken to overcome her pain is body work. She commits herself to the ‘gyrate exaggerations’, yoga to make herself physically strong to the world. She exercises all day long and enters into a new world where Lauren measures her with no others help. She took this as will to power and heads towards creativity. She was able to find her strong inner self through her performance. She learns to release her pain through her performance. Performance: ‘Body Time’ is the title of Lauren’s Performance.
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