PEACE as Faust

StoneOx17 · 07 Oct 2002, 13:19 · from urth-v0210.mbox · original

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From: StoneOx17 at aol.com
Subject: RE: (urth) PEACE as Faust
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 09:19:37 EDT
Message-ID: <urth-v0210-1818 at digest.urth.net>
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Nutria wrote

> Let me see if I've got you right:
> At 08:32 AM 10/4/2002, Stone Ox wrote:

snip

> >Next, at the end of the Chinese philosopher's story, we find the passage:
> >"Fool!" the old man exclaimed.  "Do you not recognize me?  I have granted
> >your heart's desire, and for it I receive your ingratitude!"
> >Is this not also a plausible response to somebody who has turned down the
> >offer of eternal life?

>         So, tell me: Weer is Faust. He has been granted his heart's desir=
e=20
> for an eternal life, and he has it. He is doomed to walk through his life=20
> over and over forever. He's not in purgatory, but hell. Is that it?

Essentially, that's it.  I left out the next line in the Chinese=20
philosopher's=20
story, which is: "And with that he [the old man] picked up the teakettle=20
and dashed the boiling contents into the face of the young man ...";
this could symbolize the casting of the young man into hell.

There are some things I am quite certain of:  I believe that Weer would have
had a genuine chance to ascend to heaven if he had understood the=20
significance of the Irish story of the geese.  I also believe that at the e=
nd=20
of=20
the book, he returns to relive his afterlife, as in the Chinese pillow stor=
y.=20
 I=20
am less certain of this, but I think the second and subsequent times, he is=20
in hell rather than purgatory, although it may be that these times, he stil=
l=20
has a chance to repent of his sins and reach heaven, but given that he didn=
't=20
do this the previous times, he becomes less and less likely to in subsequen=
t=20
rounds.  As Robert Borski observed, Gold writes, in Morryster's Marvells
of Science, "Heaven ... (like Hell) repeats itself over and over again, alw=
ays
different and yet always the same."  This is somewhat similar to Sartre's
"Huis Clos," where hell is a room with three people in it, the door to which
is open exactly when none of the three people want to leave. =20

In a different posting, Roy C. quoted and wrote ...
> Blattid quoted and wrote:
> >Roy C. wrote ...
> >> I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia
> >> gets to go to heaven?
> >The usual method is called "repentance."
> And the textual evidence for this is . . . nonexistent.

Well, very thin.  First, I firmly believe that Weer had a genuine opportuni=
ty=20
to reach heaven, and I don't think Olivia's sins are any worse than Weer's.=20
Second,  there is the point that Aunt Olivia is looking for the ascenscion=20
egg.  In Christian theology, looking is half the battle: "Seek, and ye shal=
l=20
find."   Finally, there's the parallel with Faust, and the question of wher=
e=20
at the end, Olivia is speaking to him from (if her voice isn't yet another=20
spectre conjured from Weer's imagination).  I do agree with Roy that it's=20
very unlikely that Olivia died in a state of grace, so she would have had t=
o=20
spend some time as a ghost in Purgatory, as well, but I see no reason
she shouldn't have repented of her sins there. =20

--Stone Ox

--=20

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