Media and war during the Cold War

Media and War ( the Cold War )

Shakespeare's play King Lear is a magnitude of desolation, stripping off human character and impregnating its audience with mixed up feelings of sympathy and sorrow. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, although written some centuries after the former, raises some similar questions in regards to human nature and the transformations it is subjected to in certain circumstances. Although one is written a tragedy and the other a novel, both resemble a dramatic scenario that leave the readers taunting and tantalizing on the truthfulness of values and whether or not they do exist.

In King Lear, human feelings are dehumanized by greed and will for power as the king himself eventually realises, once his daughters receive their part of the inheritance and change their behaviour towards him. Shakespeare's use of violence in the play, however artificial at a first glance, aims at demystifyng it as something unjust, for instance the execution of martyrs or Cordelia's death. Violence then occurs because of a group of people primarily focused on their individual desire for power. In Mother Night, violence results because of the actions of people convinced they are doing violence for a higher purpose and thus, it is justified: "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too," is what Howard W. Campbell becomes convinced of. Thus, both Shakespeare and Vonnegut create their own image of violence, however different, but accurate and, most importantly, which applies to this day. By the time he wrote the book, Vonnegut had already experienced war first hand and was faced with its horrors and the dehumanization of soldiers. During the time of the two major wars, many writers turned to war-writing to portray the real experience of war and not the glamourous glory which was so presented by some supporters. So one might say that both of the authors have used violence to ponder on the human nature and its frailty when confronted with external factors and desires. Vonnegut specifically portrayed violence based on what he had observed while serving and however subjective his vision might have been, it undoubtedly questions the actions of man infused with some sort of power and ideology. What the novel leaves one asking is "What would I have done?" and, in this regard, generations to come have to find their own answer.

Two key points in each of the writings above is the inclusion of moments which seem to act in favor of the protagonists in the story. In Shakespeare's play, King Lear is presented as an authoritative person, dominant and powerful in the beginning but, due to his losses and his self development, however ironic, he losses his sanity. There is a turning point in the third act of the play when he seems to regain lucidity and that moment is when Lear is outside in the storm. Lear's recognition of his humanity which happens in the second storm scene is actually what leads to his death but, at the same time, to the triumph of what is righteous. In Mother Night, Vonnegut places Howard as a symbol nominating all those who have sacrificed their lives for a greater purpose. The color blue used to describe the Blue Fairy Godfather can be associated with Mother Mary who gave birth to Jesus who was expected to lead a life of preaching which eventually killed him. In the novel, Howard is forced to serve as an U.S. secret Agent by the Blue Fairy, a career that eventually led to his own death.

Mother Night represents the fictional memoirs of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American who served as a secret agent for the American Army during the Second World War. Giving that the actual author of the novel served himself as a soldier during the same war, the question of whether or not the author resembles the protagonist in the novel is understandable. Perhaps one of the visions they share is the reality of facts, Mother Night being Vonnegut's only novel that does not feature fantastic elements. Vonnegut wrote "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be," as the final moral for his novel and one thing Campbell and Vonnegut share after all is their vocation and a sentimental attachment for who they really are, not for who they are perceived as being. As far as for Shakespeare, the author is known to have doubled his way with exploring the multiple facets of human nature. Like in Vonnegut's case, love was throughly explored within the depths of Shakespeare's writings, ranging from pure, innocent love to the mature affection and betrayal. In King Lear, the protagonist eventually learns a hard lesson, that the path to knowledge, true knowledge is sprinkled with sacrifices and loss, up to the loss of one's identity. In Vonnegut, identity is lost at the very beginning, being replaced by a different perception of the self to such an extend that the narrator ends up playing his part for real.