WorldLit #1: The Student: BS of Human Nature

* Sorry about the overuse of the word "BS", starting from the title and the image. I was not trying to make fun or anything, just that the keyword "BS" hits the core of the story, my journal, and apparently some part of the class, so it needs some emphasis.

             Although most of the literary analysis is originated from a thorough and profound understanding of the literature work combined with its author, background era, location, and genre, it easily turns into a BS. Regulating this short story “The Student” as a realism work also has a considerable possibility of being a BS. To avoid this BS, I tried to have a more fundamental understanding of the story’s content and message itself rather than its tone and literary skills. Therefore I could finally find out a non-BS reason why this story is realistic: it talks about BS. To specify, it talks about the BS of human nature.

             I found a very interesting consistency in the beginning and ending parts of the story. Let’s look at the sentences from both parts.

And now, shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression -- all these had existed, did exist, and would exist,……

…… he thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life, indeed; ……

             The first sentence is the student’s first realization before he arrives at the garden. The next one is his second realization after he sees the women cry. Two realizations are both about the connection of past, present, and future. Desolation, darkness, oppression, truth, and beauty equally exist in all three phases, because they are “linked by an unbroken chain of events.”

             Due to this consistency, the lesson that past, present, and future are all linked acts as a “topic” of this story. And the main link is Peter. As we see in the first sentence, the student thinks that the cold wind may have blown also in the time of Peter, which leads to the realization. His second perception also comes from Peter. The campfire at the windows’ garden reminds him of the story of Peter, who denied Jesus thrice, right in front of a fire in the yard. He told this story to the widows, and they expressed intense emotions, because they had a connection with the story about Peter.

             As we see, the two realizations are consistent, even equivalent. Not only the realization itself but the subject matter is also the same: Peter. Now let’s look at the conclusions, the aftermaths of each realization that the student has made.

……and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. And he did not want to go home.

……and the feeling of youth, health, vigour -- he was only twenty-two -- and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, marvellous, and full of lofty meaning.

The first one is merely a useless complaint. Without any will to change and improve the situation, he simply moans that the poverty and depression has been inherited from the past by inevitable link with the present. He adds that he doesn’t want to go home (just because he is hungry): not even a complaint, rather a baby’s whining. Well, “he was only twenty –two”.

Then, after the pointy-headed talk with the widows, the conclusion suddenly turns into a grandiose one that might suggest eternal delight to the whole world. He feels an ineffable enchantment, as though he reached nirvana and discovered a permanent truth. However, in reality, he doesn’t even know that his perception is exactly same as that before the talk.

Now we see an inconsistency, a BS. Although they originate from the same realization and subject matter, the student’s conclusion and feeling before and after the talk are totally the opposite. Even the age of twenty-two makes him a hungry, whining baby before and a healthy and vigorous youth after. Why does this happen? Simply because he was cold and hungry at the beginning and was very glad at the ending. He might have been proud of himself that he told such a touching story to his audience and finally made them cry. This mere change of emotion turned him from a baby to a Saint. However, as we now all know, the Saint’s realization, although decorated with fancy words and phrases, was only a depressing, hungry knowledge that the baby had already well known. Silly, isn’t he?

No, he is not silly at all. He is only an ordinary man that sometimes deludes himself in favorable circumstances. We all fall into such delusions. It’s the BS of human nature. People are essentially ironic, so their thoughts and philosophies greatly depend on the immediate circumstances and emotions, not the essence. For example, if there is no meat in the menu on Monday, we blame the school meal for not deserving the expensive price. However, if the Tuesday menu is fried chicken and steak, we exclaim, and thank the school meal system for the cheap but wonderful meal. The reality is that the essence has never changed: price, chefs, and the school meal system were exactly the same on Monday and Tuesday, so it is a BS to make opposite evaluations on the school meal. But this is exactly how we all behave!

  Moreover, in our youth, we easily delude ourselves that we are awesome and our philosophies are grandeur. At the transition period from a child to an adult, and at the period of learning and training, we often experience some kind of realizations, as the student did. Not all of them are noteworthy in our lives, but they all seem to be brilliant at that very moment. In the case of this story the perception is insignificant. The story thoroughly portrays the process of a young man coming up with a trivial realization but admiring himself, a common and realistic BS of a youth. Perhaps this is why the title of the story is “The Student”.

Now we can finally answer to the question that in what way this story is a realism work. This work portrays the intrinsic BS of human thought process extremely realistically. A student realizes that the past and the present are connected, makes two opposite conclusions, and quivers in joy that he had discovered the truth. Through this student, the author shows how ironically humans, particularly youths, behave. He reveals how dependent humans are on the instantaneous emotions and circumstances. He discloses how exaggeratedly people think of themselves. He demonstrates who we truly are, and what we are really filled of: BS. How could a story be more realistic?