Myth, Ideology and Play (Two different Approaches about Writing Plays on War)

How did our playwrights have faced a phenomenon named war with which we have involved for many years? How did we approached the phenomena of war whenever we have wanted to investigate this phenomenon (war) from an artistic point of view in general and from the point of view of the plays in particular? . . . . . The way that the writers deal with the writers reflects their point of view. Here what we mean by the approach of the author we mean the methodology and the approach as well as the understanding of the author about that special phenomenon. But the task becomes tougher whenever we want to choose and to investigate a superior work among the works that have been written on war.

News ID: ۲۸۲۶۹۳

جمعه - ۱۲ اسفند ۲۰۱۰ / 2010 12 December

How do we look at the phenomena?
How did our playwrights have faced a phenomenon named war with which we have involved for many years? How did we approached the phenomena of war whenever we have wanted to investigate this phenomenon (war) from an artistic point of view in general and from the point of view of the plays in particular? . . . . .
The way that the writers deal with the writers reflects their point of view. Here what we mean by the approach of the author we mean the methodology and the approach as well as the understanding of the author about that special phenomenon. But the task becomes tougher whenever we want to choose and to investigate a superior work among the works that have been written on war. Therefore we will work on the methods of the writers who have worked on this project in order investigate their works instead of issuing any decree.
How does the human mind work? So far the minds of the human beings has worked and thought about the happenings of the world in two ways: objective way and abstract way. (The collection of papers by Abu – Al - Hasan Najafi on Linguistics). . . . . . . .
Nowadays in the developed world, human beings have been solved in the complexities of the society in a way that the abstract activities have formed an inseparable part of their lives and has forgotten the second activity ( objective – applicable ) which is an activity that has been accompanying the very beginning of the human thinking and in the world of the myths; he has understood the phenomenal world with it; it might be possible to explain this by the following example: . . . . . . .
Suppose we have invited a group of guests; what will be our first action? We have to bring chairs that are appropriate for them therefore we have to have equal number of the chairs. The first thing is to think and to say how many guests are going to come therefore we have to have the same number of chairs. This method of thinking about the issue is an abstract method that the human beings make use of in their approach toward their issues.
The other way is the practical and the applicable method. . . . . . . i . e . sensible and objective. The primitive human beings have been busy with this method of activity and it has been the foundation as well as the basis of his thinking in his method of doing things. . . . . . . . . i . e . the concrete.
Therefore in the abstract method we are dealing with numbers ( the number of the guests for example ). The numbers do not exist in the world outside and are regarded to be more abstract. Ten people = ten chairs.
But in the objective method we are dealing with people ; the human beings. Objective people: Hamid’s chair, Amin’s chair, Afshin’s Chair . . . . . . . . ; and this not to say to know how many people they are and to know how many chairs they need. Rather we say this chair is for Amin and this chair is for Afshin as well as . . . . . . . . . .
In the second kind of these activities we will face with the issue itself and with the real and touchable issues and the natural things and phenomena. The primitive men have faced their world and their phenomena in this way. . . . . . . . . .
In the literary art the human beings are facing these activities: the objective and applicable as well as the sensible way with paying attention to the details of this issue.
But the complexity of the contemporary civilization, avers the human beings step by step from that objective and applicable humanitarian activity with which they were living in the myth world. Distancing of the human beings from objectivity and the details of the phenomena is equal to the distancing of the phenomena from nature and its realities.
The artistic work and the creation of the plays, despite it happen in the abstract world, but turns the attention of the human beings to the reality and the sensible world and the objectivity of the phenomena. In fact the creation of the plays means the return of the human beings to the world and the objectivity of the human beings and not to their abstract content in the myth world in which the primitive men used to live in. It is better to explain this world. . . . . . . . .
What is the meaning of myth?
Myth is a story that took place in a distant past and it says in an imaginative and symbolic way how a thing was created or has lost or it exists. The primitive societies used to express their views of the world in a mythical way and the religious beliefs of the human beings starts from the myths and in the later times they have come in to being as religions and accordingly religion and knowledge are the first belongings of the primitive men which have settled a special kind of myth. . . . . . . . .
Myth has a religious and philosophical basis. But of course not philosophy in the contemporary meaning rather it was an exemplary reasoning of the surrounding world which was delving into the springs of thoughts. Myth is the methodology and scientific understanding of the phenomena. It is a special system of thinking and a structural thinking . ( Myth, Semi – Symbolic, Abu – Al – Ghasem Pou, Soroush. . . . . . . . ) and (The Myths of Eternal Return , Mir Cha Al – Yada , . . . . . . . . Bahman Sar Karati ) .
But in the present century in which the human being is no longer living in the world of myth what myth means. From the point of view of the contemporary philosophers myth can not be an object or a concept or an idea rather it is a system of indication of a method; it is a system of thinking and a scientific approach for the understanding of the phenomena. (Contemporary Myth , Rolan Barthes, Shirin Dokht Daghighian , Markaz Pub . Co . ) and (Myth and Modern Thinking , Claude Levi Strauss , Fazel Larijani and Ali Jahan Poulad , Farzan Pub . Co . . . . . . . . .) .
What is Ideology?
Ideology has a special kind of information (not consciousness). This information lacks in pure reason. It is a semi – science. Ideology, in facing with any event through choosing from a general understanding and inference about them reaches a special fixed complex of insights in order to find an end to the scientific and religious understanding. In spite of the fact the ideology makes a special semi – science and its scientific out put leads to the creation of a utopian world and idealist people. But in fact such a society and such a person that has its thinking foundation from idealism will be stopped in practice; accordingly issuing decree about reality and the purity of a phenomenon is saturated in a kind of absolutism and stasis as well as autocracy. Whenever there is no way for the fulfillment of an ideology, the Ideologists and Utopian adherents confine themselves into the aisles of imagination and imaginary world. . . . . . . . .
According to what has been said so far ideology deals with whatever phenomenon that it faces with a certain pre – supposition and this pre – supposition is always the obstacle for the real understanding of the phenomena because before it discover anything within that phenomenon it has discovered it in advance by the use of that pre – supposition (Aghle Afsorde , Morad Farhad Poor , Tarh No Pub . Co . ) .
But the thinking strategies to which we have referred in myths deals with the origins and the details of the phenomenon and it creates it anew as the fire does. . . . . .
Now we have to ask how these two methods as two methods of thinking systems deal with the phenomena and how do they answer the unknown materials and questions?
In the first system of myths we are always facing this question: the origins and the relations as well as its component element are sought after (it can be both in the world of text or in the real world) . Relations for the understanding of which, things have to be analyzed and it is necessary to investigate the relations between the details. This type of question is concerned with the causes of a phenomenon.
But in the second kind ideology does not accept any kind of question and it has a special kind of pre – supposition for every phenomenon. The reliance of ideology on promotion and propaganda has become a cliché. Because in facing with any phenomena it emphasizes a fixed number of the issues and data as well as values and it tries to expand that general issue with great enthusiasm. It is this severe and fixed assurance that reveals its contradictions . . . . . . .
In the past and in a way in the present times whenever myth is formed in the form of a literary work it will change in to epic in its process of change, epics from which a great number of plays and novels originate. But ideology, in its written form will change in to semi - history with a slight change (historical periods). Ideology – history as well as myth – focus on the production and re – production of human beings’ encounter as well as clashes with themselves and the world and the others as well as the nature but in the middle of the myth – epic and ideology – history, there is always a common dimension and common meaning that has accumulated and inflated ( war, the myth of eternal return Mir chah Al Yada and Bahman Sar Karati ) and ( The Legend of Myth , Najaf Daria Bandari Karname Pub . Co . ) and ( Zire Asmane Haie Noor , Abu Al – Ghasem Esmaeil Pour , Mirase Farhangi ) .
Nowadays that we have drifted apart from the epics and the semi – histories , it is only in the middle of the phenomena and history and in more truthful meaning we will be placed in the middle of the pays.
Now it is time to ask how theater in general and plays in particular as a part of theater deal with a phenomenon called war. Here what we mean by play is a literary work that has a special system of thinking and a special discourse and form as well as a method of thinking in dealing with the phenomena that have literary dimensions. The present research aims at investigating these approaches and the results that are the out comes of these approaches.
But how these two systems of thought as two methods of looking at a phenomenon called war are reflected in a literary work called play?
War for the human beings is a general and overall phenomenon and a very simple investigation shows that during the history of the human life on the earth only in 270 years the human beings have led a life without war. A great volume of the historical period and the life of the human beings are filled with war. A war that takes place in a country is able to change the social and ethical as well as population and emotional structures of that country. Plays as a literary genre, in facing with this event, follows the social changes (earthquake in the structures) and it delves in to it and it reflects them in its point of view and in its techniques ( Sociology of War , Guston Buttol , Hooshangfar Khojaste).
According to the stated definitions, it is possible to define two kinds of plays in the fields of the war:
First : Imperative – Promotional Plays ( He – the writer – describes a world ) .
Second : Questionable Plays (He – the writer – thinks about the world in a questionable way ) .
First :
Whenever a war takes place the men who were involved in that war , used to face with it in an interesting way. The promotional organization of that country tries to make use of every thing in order to keep the personal feelings and the communal feeling of the people of that country fresh and new. They always move the communal feeling to the conceptual center. When this thinking organization enters the arena of meddling with the texts of the plays without any flexibility it moves the world of the plays towards a promotional and propagandistic generality because it thinks that the aim of the play is to promote and to propagate the issue and the idea that it wants to promote. In these plays the idea is more emphasized than the others. Because the writer that writes on this base can not depart from the events and the phenomena and know the details and their real and objective combination, therefore he goes towards generalization on this issue; he gives centrality to the content and he recreates it continually. In what follows he recreates plays that are, at least superficially, different but they are in reality the same. Sometimes he aggrandizes some slogans in their hearts in order to explain and describe something.
In this way the play changes in to a means that intends to express a content or a slogan; upon seeing and reading such a work the audience and the reader will be overwhelmed in a communal condition so that they can get along with that idea and that content; therefore in his method he will slide on the surface of the things and the events and through these superficiality he creates a common sense and a general ambience so that he is able to generalize and to strengthen that imperative and insurance generality. This kind of writing is centered on meaning and seeks ideas. But step by step and with the changes to happen in the social and historical contexts the connotative meanings of the play will lose its meanings and they will evaporate in to the air and is vanished there. These are the characteristics of this kind of writing.
The second is the systematic method of myth is different. In this method questioning starts from the basis and the causes of the phenomena; that why did a phenomenon come in to being continue? How did it affect the other phenomena? This methodology, while the writer is writing a play, will change in to a method that describes the writers’ preparation. This method before coming to dealing with meaning focuses on the structure and organization. Because in this approach any phenomenon is a generality that is composed of the details that are set beside each other and they are in relation and cooperation with each other and in contrast to having separate and independent being they affect each other and thus create a special kind of relations; the play itself is made os details and components and rely on their internal relations with each other so as to make that phenomenon understandable. . . . . . . . . .
In the first method (imperative – promotional method), any event has a previously defined or attributed meaning and it seems as if it has ended before it even had started. Therefore that phenomenon has a single meaning and it has to express and expand that meaning but in the second method (questioning method) every event is a totality that is formed out of dividable details and components; the how and the whys of the details and their relations together differentiate that phenomenon from any other thing; with investigating their relations and their bases as well as its whys it would be possible to have an understanding of the event. Writing based on this methodology creates a new play and defines it anew and gives to it a new color; it makes it have various voices that seems to be various with regard to the variety of the people and human beings as well as the reader and the observer. . . . . .
But the first method has an approach that is based on meaning which is more like a diminutive approach. When it fills the area of play writing with its pre – suppositions and then it would be afflicted with illnesses that contradict with this literary genre or it will change the play in to an essay or an organized oration; of the other damages that this play may cause the play to be departed from the literary kind; one van refer to the following two cases:
A. Being Mysterious . . . . . . . . .
Having the capability of being mysterious in an ambience, in the play, is in the service of generalization of the ambience in order to move communally; this ambience will evade the play from the whys of the reasoning; in order to strengthen this secretive ambience usually the playwright attributes the whys and the reasons of the events to a metaphysical issue. This external reference evacuates the play from being reliable. The metaphysical issue before expressing the whys of the details and it creates a general ambience in order to encourage the audience to take a special side. We have seen this in different cases in the plays we have read or seen. Because through this secretive ambience, in their own ideas, try to make the audience accompany with what it wants to say. But this is not a good way to the understanding of the analysis and understanding of the events and phenomena. It is as if the writer he does not analyze a phenomenon rather it explains and it describes it because secretive and vague ambience is not understandable.

Mysticism:
The logic of mystic is heart and not the mind. In the field of mystics the play before it can reason, it evades reasoning. The writer by adopting this method, in addition to getting away from dealing with an event, seeks refuge in mystics. As a result, before dealing with character, it creates a type; instead of investigating the cause and effects of the relations of the details and the component parts he draws a plot out of that phenomenon and the human beings. The decrease of the characters of the play to typical characters is able only to involve the audience into the overall content of the work. . . . . . . . . .

Nostalgia:
Ideology pre – supposes a beginning and an end for itself. In as much as any ideological issue has a weak tie with reality and it deals with every phenomenon as a general issue. By passing time that goal will get farther because pure idealism has no distance at all. Being drifted away from the ideological goal creates a sense of nostalgia in the individuals a sense that asks him continually to refer to the beginning in case there is no goal. But the human beings can not live in the past. The existence of a great deal of the events and happening in the past, in these kind of plays, is an illness that destroys the relation between the work and the audience. If a play is a play at the time being it can mot remain so in the long run. Is it possible to consider the play without the present tense? Even in the plays such Krap’ Last Tape. . . . . . . . . by Samuel Beckett the reader / audience is always faced with the effects of the past on the present. . . . . . . . . .The reader is faced with Krap’s current silence and inactivity. This past has no meaning in itself just because it is past. But it is evading the phenomenon and his seeking toward mysticism many times from the reality.
D . Lack of Coherence in the Plot. . . . . . . . .:

Plot deals with the whys and causes of a phenomenon. Whenever a play is written on a certain meaningful pre – supposition it will be faced with a weak plot and lack of coherence or lack of plot. Because by having this pre – supposition, the phenomenon, is not doubted, questioned and searched. Rather it will be regarded as a certain and acceptable issue and instead of relying on the cause of the events it will focus on the order of the events. Every phenomenon without cause and reason will remain only as a pure event. Is war only an event that has happened and ended?
War is multi – faceted which has many sides. It is a phenomenon with various dimensions and different aspects not a mere event.

E. Dealing with the Types. . . . . . . . .:
When thinking and meaning become clear – crystal and certain, the human beings and the characters conveying that thought would become mono – dimensional. It is thought that instead of revealing a character in all his dimensions in its plot, it is reduced only to drawing a general plot when we consider the human beings without variety and details as well as his paradoxes. We have not characterized him in a correct way or in a possible way. Rather we have decreased and devalued the human beings to a mono – dimensional character on a plot level. Having such a point of view we are not able to show the human being in a complicated situation such as war. . . . . . . . . .
Theater in general and plays in particular try to show the real human beings in real time and place as well as situation (a concrete human being in a real condition and situation in an objective story). Is a thinking system that has a pre – supposition and definition for any phenomenon, can ideology show . . . . . . . . .the human beings in all its dimensions? Isn’t such an approach ideological before it can be a humanitarian theater? A theater that wants the human characters from variety and sees it as a mono – cell? Is a society whose theater goes to deal with the certain data and pre – defined ones about the human beings needs them in an imperative – promotional form, in need of theater at all? . . . . . . . . .
Yet it is possible to ask: On the basis of what thinking system does an author deal with a phenomenon on called war such as the one that took place in our country and lasted for 8 years along with all that it entailed and brought with it to the people of our country who have felt the war to their deepest cord? . . . . . . . . .
The works that have been produced in the past and the ones that will come in to being in the future are and will be the means of judging the approach of the writers to an event in which we have been involved for many years. Those approaches that base their foundations on asking about the phenomena – mythical approach – are able to make that phenomenon speak for itself. But if we consider it as a certain and pre – destined event then the ideology will go ahead towards history. . . . . . . . . .
Now it is time to ask ourselves: how do we write?

Sources:
1. Contemporary Myth, Rolan Barthes, Shirin Dokht Dagghighian , Markaz Pub . Co . 1375 .
2. Depressed Wisdom , Morad Farhad Pour , Tarh No Pub . Co . 1378 .
3. Sociology of War , Guston Boutol . Hoshang Far Khojaste , 1368 .
4. Myth , Archetype and Symbol . Abu Al Ghasem Esmaeel Pour , Soroush Pub . Co . 1377 .
5. Community of the Play. Gey Du Bouer , Behrooz Safdari , Agah Pub . Co . , 1382 ./
6. Under the Light Heavens , Abu Al Ghasem Esmaeel Pour, Mirase Farhanghi Pub . Co . , 1379 .
7. Myth and Archetype , Najaf Daria Bandari , KAr Nameh Pub . Co . , 1379 .
8. The Myth of Everlasting Return , Mir Chah Eliadeh , Bahman Sarkarati , 1378 .
9. Myth and modern thinking , Clause Levi Strauss , Fazel Larijaniand Ali Jahan Poulad , Farzan Pub . Co . , 1380 .
10. The articles of Abu – Al Hassan Najafi on the Linguistics. . . . . .