Prelims P3 Section B Q 2a Presentation of Physical Weakness Joash

Joash Lee 18SH03 Essay Question: “Compare the ways in which two of the texts you have studied present physical weakness and how it affects the mind and self” From Plato’s allegory of hardened prisoners trapped in a gruelling cave, to Descartes’ conceptualisation of an all-powerful and all-deceiving evil demon manipulating our every thought, and even to Zhuang Zi’s dream that he was a butterfly, early philosophy considered the physical body which tethers our minds to the external world as distinct and inferior to the mental self. This is due to physical weakness, which refers to the inefficacy and limitation of the physical body, perhaps due to ageing, sickness, or the mind’s supposed superiority to the temporal physical body. This essay shall compare and contrast the presentations of physical weakness in ​ Age of Iron and ​ Ariel ​ , exploring the similarities and differences in Coetzee’s and Plath’s treatment of the theme. Ironically, both ​ Age of Iron and ​ Ariel present physical weakness to be empowering for the self as it rejects the temporal physical body and seeks to be defined through other means, though the two texts differ in their response to the loss of agency the self undergoes. Both texts portray the experience of physical weakness as a downward spiral into social alienation, which is embraced by the persona in ​ Ariel but vehemently resisted by Mrs Curren in ​ Age of Iron ​ . Ultimately, both texts depict the self to strive for transcendence beyond their physical forms, however, Plath portrays an uncertain resolution in solace in the mind, while Coetzee depicts a more certain path in writing past one’s physical death to sustain the self. To begin with, both Plath and Coetzee present ​ physical weakness to be ironically empowering for the self ​ , as it ​ catalyses the pursuit of other self-definitions in rejecting their fading physical bodies as an essential facticity. In ​ Age of Iron ​ , when Mrs Curren wrestles with physical weakness in the form of her cancer, she is shown to be admirably empowered in confronting her condition head-on in seeking to define herself by the happiness she brings to the other,

“Loving you, loving life, (ready to) forgive the living and take my leave without bitterness”. Mrs Curren’s periphrastic resolution to accept the harsh reality of her cancer is euphonically interwoven with liquid consonance in “loving”, “leaving” and “leave”, granting it a slow lilting rhythm, hence creating an atmosphere of saint-like solace and stoicism in the face of calamity. This calmness swells to fierce strength as “Something in (her) revolts at the lassitude, the letting go, the welcoming of dissolution” at the sight of the Vercueil, where the cumulative list of Vercueil’s act of lazing around is arranged with increasing accusatory intensity in “lassitude...letting go...welcoming”. This creates a harsh, critical and even horrified voice to Mrs Curren’s reaction to Vercueil’s laziness, hence exemplifying how the self is empowered to a frantic extent in the face of crippling physical weakness. Similarly, Plath’s persona is also bolstered by physical weakness, as she responds to the wounds of self-harm in ‘Cut’ from her callous perch in the mind with an eerie nonchalance, with an exclamation at the beginning of the poem emphatically declaring “What a thrill--”. Plath then employs synecdoche in commodifying the persona’s body, marvelling at the thumb in “the top quite gone // except for a sort of a hinge // Of skin, // a flap like a hat.” The irony in the dissonance between imagery of self-harm that engenders scathingly visceral verisimilitude, and the persona’s playful tone evident in the innocent diction and sing-song internal rhyme in “a flap like a hat” would disturb readers at the dark and eerie humour in the poem’s voice, illustrating to readers how the self feels detached and even empowered over physical pain, such that it could handle the horrors of self-harm with a cheerful and childish disposition that revels in its disengagement from the physical body as the indifferent mind. However, ​ Age of Iron and ​ Ariel diverge sharply in their attitudes towards the diminishing agency of the physical body. Mrs Curren is shown to be empowered by the finitude of her fading agency, and struggles valiantly to ​ maximise the potential she can draw from its last dregs. Her frantic pursuit to actualise her self’s potential is evident in her thematically stark striving to define herself as a loving mother, as she justifies her charity to Vercueil in “To be full enough to give and to give from one’s fullness: what deeper urge is there? Out of their withered bodies even the old try to squeeze one last drop”. Coetzee’s use of chiasmus interweaves the concepts of “full”ness and “giving” to present them as deeply intertwined, emphasising to readers in an authoritative tone that it is intuitive for the

dying self to be altruistic and redefine itself by the happiness of those around it, so as to seize the meagre remains of its agency with an audacity underscored by the kinaesthetic imagery of “squeez(ing) one last drop” from “withered bodies” as the self faces the physical weakness of cancer and ageing. Moreover, Mrs Curren also states that “We bear children in order to be mothered by them”, which makes a paradoxical claim that subverts the mother-child power dynamic in a sure and certain tone, so as to blur the lines between mother and child to show that each depends on the other, hence expressing Mrs Curren’s child-like reliance on her daughter to derive meaning and efficacy from her fading life beyond its finitude. Conversely, Plath portrays a persona that is ​ empowered by the rejection and spurning of all agency whatsoever and the freedom from expectations that come with it. This is seen in how the persona in ‘Tulips’ relishes in her powerlessness, “lying by (herself) quietly...learning peacefulness” that is affirmed with a litote stating “I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions”, that indirectly expresses her sense of detachment with a rejection of the extreme of “explosions” to emphasis