literature - Blog - Fearlessness Movement2024-03-29T00:36:04Zhttps://FearlessnessMovement.ning.com/blog/feed/tag/literatureFear in Beauty in Sylvia Plath’s Poem “Mirror”https://FearlessnessMovement.ning.com/blog/fear-in-beauty-in-sylvia-plath-s-poem-mirror2023-03-21T18:19:36.000Z2023-03-21T18:19:36.000ZDesh Subbahttps://FearlessnessMovement.ning.com/members/LimbuDeshBahadur<div><p> </p><p style="text-align:right;">Bhawani Shankar Adhikari (Ph.D.)<br />Lecturer of English (Nepal Sanskrit University,<br />Valmiki Campus, Exhibition Road, Kathmandu,<br />Nepal)</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Abstract</span><br />This research has explored the role of fear and its outcome in the quest for beauty in Sylvia<br />Plath’s poem “Mirror”. Beauty has been defined as the source of power as well as the cause of<br />the annihilation of the entire civilization. Internal beauty has a superior role to external beauty.<br />The persona of the poem has been found engaged in the quest for external beauty even in her<br />old age which is unnatural and worthless. Extreme fear has acted negatively and devastatingly<br />to ruin the life of the persona of the poem. It has led the speaker of the poem to the horrified,<br />terrified, scared, and depersonalized condition which compelled her to commit suicide.<br />Whatever the search it maybe with fear, it must be focused on the balance form of fear to<br />maintain and achieve the goal in life. Otherwise, fear’s role and its effect tend to be detrimental<br />and destructive to reaching the destination of keeping beauty, peace, and harmony in life. It has<br />been analyzed how fear has acted and affected the life of Sylvia Plath due to extreme fear in<br />beauty’s quest in old age.</p><p style="text-align:left;">Keywords: depersonalized, fear, detrimental, quest, suicide</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Introduction</span><br />Fear is defined as a psychological instinct. It is a natural one. Animals have fear in its natural<br />form which is different from human fear. Birds and other animals reflect their fear via their<br />body’s selection as birds fly through the human voice. Sensational knowledge is found in<br />animals’ fear. However, fear emerges through Psychology in human beings. in this<br />sense, man is directed, conducted, and controlled by psychological fear as it is<br />claimed:” life is directed, conducted and controlled by fear (Subba, cover page)”. Fear is<br />identified through Consciousness and knowledge in day-to-day life. fear is the outcome<br />of knowledge and consciousness.” fear exists only with knowledge” (Subba-47). Fear<br />functions in different roles in day-to-day life. Fear is the main cause of making errors<br />and conquering fear is the path to gaining wisdom (Russell 1373). There are various<br />kinds of fears- fear of Gods, fear of ghosts, fear of committing sins, fear of superstition,<br />fear of making mistakes, fear of losing health, fear of lacking beauty- and a person does<br />not like to lose beauty. Sylvia Plath doubts personal beauty and seeks it with different<br />objects. Beauty is power and it is of two kinds- internal beauty and external. Internal</p><p style="text-align:left;">beauty Is character, excellence, skills, and knowledge. Internal beauty helps us to<br />survive and to become successful in life. It is a kind of power to enhance the inner<br />quality of life. Internal and external beauty will be rare to achieve. It is called ‘inside’ and<br />‘outside’ beauty. (Sontag 300).</p><p style="text-align:left;">Beauty is not always taken from the positive side. Helen of Troy caused 10 years of<br />battle and brought disaster to the world. Padmini, the most beautiful woman of the<br />Rajput family had to burn down herself after the war was developed from her side.<br />(Devkota, 332-338) And she had to go to the Muslim king but she burnt herself to death.<br />Helen of Troy’s Trojan War and Padmini&#39;s Battle have generated fear in the psyches of<br />all in the world. In this sense, beauty lurks and hides the fear within its quality. The war<br />took place due to Helen’s and Padmini’s beauty being captured them. The power of<br />beauty invites risk, death, danger, and misfortune as has been displayed in the life of<br />Helen and Padmini. Likewise, Medusa, the chief of the three Georgian sisters was the<br />most beautiful one in the great mythology. The lesson states that she was the most<br />beautiful maiden, especially famous for her hair but she violated the temple of Minerva.<br />she was arrogant in her beauty and was Kicked in the temple. As a result, she was<br />transformed into a serpent and made her face so terrified that whoever looked at it<br />turned into stone. She was assassinated by Perseus. Her face retained its power of<br />turning anything into stone, even after her death. Her dead body with hissing serpents<br />was placed in a temple as a punishment for her beauty’s pride. The poem “Medusa” has<br />described the scenes which ended the mortal life of Medusa Who has pictured as<br />sympathetic in its description of the beautiful legendary girl Medusa who was caused<br />and charged into an ugly and horrible woman. (Bogam 380-81). This plight of Medusa<br />reveals that the power of beauty leads to disaster, destruction, horror fear, and<br />humiliation. Hence, beauty must be taken with care, awareness, and effectiveness with<br />the vision of its pros and cons. Fear dwells and hides in the traits of beauty.</p><p style="text-align:left;">Regarding Halen, “In the Homeric poems, she is the surprisingly beautiful wife of Menelaus, and<br />her abduction by Paris led to the Trojan war (Lohani 338)”. It displayed the disaster of Helen’s<br />beauty to draw the Trojan war for 10 years.<br />Padmini was a beautiful Rajput queen, A Mewar, wife of Ratna Singha. Enchanted by the talks<br />of her beauty, Alladin Ahilji attacked Mewar in order to achieve her. The Rajputs were defeated<br />and Padmini burned herself to death, before falling into the hands of the Muslim king<br />(Lohami338). Padmini’s beauty became a kind of curse in her life. Her beauty ruined her and<br />she turned out to be the victim of her own charming personality.</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Research questions:</span><br />Beauty has been regarded as the source of power and glamour in mortal life. The research is<br />guided with:</p><p style="text-align:left;">A. What is the effect of beauty in the personal life of Sylvia Plath reflected in the poem ‘mirror’?<br />B: How has fear acted in the poem “Mirror”?</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Objectives:</span><br />The general objective is to discuss the role of beauty in life but the specific objective is:<br />A: To explore the effect of beauty in the personal life of the poetess Sylvia Plath as revealed in<br />the poem “Mirror”.<br />B: To investigate the fear’s role as it has acted in the poem “Mirror”.<br />Methodology:<br />The research has been carried out in the detailed analysis of the poem “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath.<br />Fearism has been adopted as the lens to analyze the poem. ’Mirror’ is taken as a primary text.<br />The secondary sources are taken from other journals, magazines, and articles as supporting<br />tools.<br />Significance of the Study:<br />The significance of the study dwells to create awareness and consciousness in dealing with fear<br />and beauty. It has shown the connection between fear and beauty in which the role of fear has<br />opened how beauty has to be dealt with. Beauty has not turned out to be always positive since<br />it hides risks and fear. The invisible aspects of fear lead to the entire annihilation of life if the<br />beauty is mishandled.<br />Delimitation:<br />This research has been confined to the textual analysis of the poem ‘Mirror’ by Sylvia Plath. It<br />has only been observed from the perspective of fear and its role seen in the poem.<br />Literature review:<br />The poem “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath has been studied through psychoanalysis. It has been<br />interpreted as the reflection of the emotional condition of the speaker in a metaphorical<br />personification, imagery, and ironical form. (https://www./csue.org). It has presented that the<br />speaker herself has become a mirror reflecting the truth. In Ariel, the female&#39;s awareness is<br />transformed into a hall of mirrors, the frames of which are built in babyhood. These mirrors<br />eventually cut the woman off from any romanticized memories of the past, reflecting a Sleeping<br />Beauty painfully awake or asleep. Irreversibly dead. As in Plath&#39;s earlier story &quot;The Wishing<br />Box,&quot; the theme of Sleeping Beauty&#39;s transformative rest is converted into a never-ending<br />awakening. (McCort 148) Plath used the children&#39;s book, as both a frame and a layered fraction, as a<br />mirror to sustain her own experience, making it an essential method within her devotional poetics for<br />trying to enter her childhood past and pondering the past&#39;s influence on her present. Plath&#39;s life story is</p><p style="text-align:left;">often framed by the mirror of children&#39;s literature, which provides a key to restarting her own mindset<br />and comprehending the manner in which she assimilated the frameworks of her society from the pages<br />of those children&#39;s books she loved and admired ((McCort 156). She has reflected on her own position as<br />a child in her poems.<br />Plath illustrates how connected the past and the present are in female experience, how profoun<br />dly females’ perceptions of their identities are grounded in the tales which have been told<br />them as girls, and how widely the self can be regarded as a continuously revisable tale (McCort<br />156). She reveals her own identity through the identity of children’s fiction and poetry.</p><p style="text-align:left;">Contradictions flow in both ways. Plath&#39;s individual demon is the truly horrible fish, the woman under<br />the water who has accepted her depersonalization and passivity and yearns for the numbing it promises<br />(Freedman160) The image suggests that the mirror includes the fish and that underneath it lurks a<br />monstrosity. However, the same picture may also suggest that a two-dimensional image of the angelic is<br />a type of monstrosity. In other words, the monster in the depths is also the beast on the surface, or,<br />maybe more precisely, the monstrosity of mere surface and lack of depth ((Schwartz 72). Accepting the<br />role of the mirror implies indirectly accepting the male-proscribed image of woman and mother<br />(Freedman 165). Aggression triumphs over tenderness in Plath&#39;s &quot;Mirror,&quot; as well as many of her other<br />poems about motherhood and trapping. As a result, a woman who adopts the reflecting role has<br />become cruel, especially to herself, (Schwartz 72). The poetess has been reflected as the fish seeking her<br />beauty in the lake. The study intends to draw attention to Plath’s serious depression and identify the<br />mental disorder as a result of patriarchal and societal stereotypes. The outcome demonstrates that<br />hysteria symptoms such as depersonalization limited her existence and drove her to commit suicide<br />(Ghlib, 2593) The poetess’s depression has been reflected in her poem and it has<br />demonstrated how she has been forced to commit suicide.<br />“The Mirror” poem demonstrates that a life managed strictly by the false reality is not life<br />but, but an unbearable death -in-life that only be conquered by dying to that life (Kroll<br />1978). It displayed how the persona of the poem has been victimized inwardly and how<br />she has been seeking her own identity in the poem. The mirror shows the kinds of<br />traumas that, like Sylvia Plath’s, were hidden behind a tight and imprecise composure<br />designed to project an idealized picture.<br />Sylvia Plath worked tirelessly all through her life to reconcile her inner and outer selves<br />(Schwartz 20). She has turned out in a dilemma of internal and external conflict in her life. The<br />researchers have revealed the poetess’s mental disorder, personal conflict of inner and outer<br />selves, a metaphorical reflection of the condition of her youth turning into a mother and her<br />attempt to escape from her earthly life. But the role of fear and her search for beauty for her<br />existence has not been analyzed yet as this research has attempted to fulfill the existing<br />research gap.</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Analysis</span><br />The poem “Mirror” has got two stanzas in which the first describes the condition of the<br />mirror as the narrator in the room and the second stanza imagens the mirror as the lake to<br />reflect the decaying beauty of the woman who does not trust to mirror and goes to the lake<br />to seek her true and factual facial appearance through the image reflected in the lake.<br />The woman laments the loss of her beauty, admitting that she is getting older day by day.<br />She has got the fear of losing her beauty and she has struggled of maintaining her beauty.<br />She does not long to lose her charming personality and she has put a mirror on the wall of<br />her bedroom. And the narrator is the mirror of the personified one. “I am silver and exact. I<br />have no preconceptions (Plath)” is the first line of the poem. The mirror is made up of silver and it says<br />that the mirror has not got any discrimination or preconceptions to reflect the condition of the owner<br />exactly what she is. ” Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike<br />(Plath)”. The extracted line is presented in two lines in the poem and the mirror narrates that she<br />swallows immediately whatever comes in front of it and the mirror does not have any discrimination of<br />like and dislike and love and hate in revealing the truth. The mirror demonstrates the fact in unmisted<br />form but the owner of the mirror is the poetess herself and she has doubts with the mirror whether it<br />has reflected the truth about her beauty. She is scared of being ugly and she does not long to vanish her<br />beauty. The woman in &quot;Mirror&quot; is Plath&#39;s mother as well as Sylvia, who expresses her gloomy fears that<br />one day she will become her mother (Conway 42). When a girl is young, she has no need to consult the<br />mirror; she has no idea that the mirror will become so important. So, the woman has got lurking<br />longings of keeping her prettiness and charming image, and attractive personality.</p><p style="text-align:left;">The narrator is kind and true to anyone who comes to seek their image. “I am not cruel, only truthful ‚<br />The eye of a little god, four-cornered (Plath)”. The mirror’s eye has been considered the eye of the little<br />god in revealing the truth without being cruel to the visitors and objects of the four corners of the room.<br />It does not alter while reflecting the visitors. The mirror describes its existence and its owner, who grows<br />older as the mirror watches and finds the owner is scared of becoming old and losing her beauty.<br />almost all the time the mirror meditates on the opposite wall and it has stared at it<br />for so long that the mirror thinks that the opposite wall has become its heart. Faces<br />of visitors and darkness separate the mirror and the opposite wall (Plath). The image<br />of the wall is interrupted only by people who enter to look at themselves and the darkness that comes<br />with the night.<br />The mirror imagines itself as a lake in the second stanza of the poem. The mirror utters:<br />“Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,<br />Searching my reaches for what she really is (Plath)”.<br />A woman comes to the lake and bends over it to get her beauty. she is seeking her true position and<br />facial appearance in the lake. It conveys that she is unfaithful to the mirror on the wall and she has not<br />become contented with what the mirror has got reflected. She has turned out old and lost her beauty</p><p style="text-align:left;">and she is frightened by the loss of her charming appearance reflected in the mirror. She is cynical about<br />her external appearance in the mirror and has gone to the lake to know what she really is. The poem<br />“Mirror” reflects not only the plight of women in Plath’s position but also the<br />predicament of all women who believe they must continue to stay young and<br />attractive in order to be regarded as relevant. In “Mirror”, the mirror proclaims<br />the woman a failure. Mirrors aren&#39;t necessary for a really successful woman (Conway<br />44). It shows that the mirror’s reflection has become troublesome and the woman has<br />feared her ugly appearance. She has not found what she exactly is and she has to go to<br />the lake in search of her beauty. the mirror changes in the poem’s second section with<br />the declaration, “Now I am lake”. A lake, like a mirror, represents and has depth, and<br />both portray a woman seeking for herself, maybe like Narcissus. This woman could<br />also portray Plath and women in general and they are unable to deal with what<br />they observe in the mirror and they are turning to those liars like candles. Lighting<br />candles and moonlight represent the feminine and they cast shadows that<br />disguise and expose. They can misrepresent while the mirror maintains its original<br />shape, mirroring precisely what is in front of it. In the poem, the mirror says. “I<br />see her back and reflect it faithfully”. Even though it horrifies and scares her as<br />the woman is drawn to it and goes to the lake. Plath’s use of glass imagery also<br />represents the packing of the authentic self. In the poem, “Mirror”, for example,<br />glass both conceals and reflects the person’s authentic identity and she has gone<br />to the lake. She has got the fear of concealing and reflecting the authentic identity<br />of her beauty. Plath depicts an internalized counterpart of the going-to-watch<br />awareness in the poem and she is narrating a life span of conversations with a<br />nameless, faceless woman who sees signs of aging as mutilation. She investigates<br />the impact of time, age, and the waste of youth using a mirror. Although the<br />speaker of the poem is the mirror, the true hero is the woman as an object who<br />observes oneself both in and as a mirror (Schwartz 70). The speaker as a female reveals her<br />inner fear that is being lost day to day because of old age she does not trust in the reflection of the<br />mirror and she seeks her beauty in the lake.</p><p style="text-align:left;">“She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.<br />I am important to her. She comes and goes (Plath)”.<br />These two lines of the poem depict how much sad she is by the loss of her beauty. she is terrified and<br />scared so much that she can not see her own face reflected in the lake and she weeps and cries over the<br />lake. She is with the river of tears dropping into the lake and she is even agitating with her hands. Lake<br />has become essential for her to know her true beauty and she regularly visits there. Her fear is beyond</p><p style="text-align:left;">her control and she has turned out to be conscious of her beauty as it is said consciousness and<br />knowledge are the main causes of fear (Subba 47). If she did not have knowledge about the loss of her<br />beauty with age, she would not go to the lake as a routine. Hence, she is fear-stricken and feels restless.<br />“Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness (Plath)”. She reaches the lake each morning and<br />bends over it to know how much ugly she is seen as reflected in the image of the lake. Her face replaces<br />the darkness in the lake by eliminating the sunlight and the light of the morning.</p><p style="text-align:left;">“In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman<br />Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish (Plath)”.<br />The mirrors are the best friends of those who are conscious about the beauty and attractive images they<br />wish to deserve as the speaker in the poem does. The woman has drowned in the mirror from a very<br />young age when she was a girl and even now when she has become an old woman. She visits the lake in<br />her old age day after day. She has been found like a terrible fish. It indicates how she has scared,<br />terrified, horrified, and afraid of losing her beauty in her old age. It has conveyed that she has been too<br />much scared and it has troubled her own physical health. She could not balance her fear within its<br />limitation. She did not have to be scared as much as she did. Her extreme fear led her to depression and<br />she became the victim of her own unnecessary fear. So, she committed suicide and fear has acted<br />negatively in her life. Plath became the victim of her extreme fear. The question is, what does she see in<br />the mirror that keeps her returning, fascinated day after day despite how unhappy she is by it? What is<br />it that she sees in the depths of the mirror that scares her? It could be age, inevitably transforming her<br />into a fish. Metaphorically, the fish occupies both the depths and the spirit, which may be what Plath<br />was drawn to but could not admit(Schwartz 71). The mirror in the poem represents the image of a<br />woman as a reflector of the other to itself. Plath’s double image of herself as a colorfully silvered surface<br />discloses a devilish form in both the mirror and the fish as represented in it. The mirror is the<br />magnificent persona Plath showed to the world as both a woman and a poet, the strict and firmly<br />disciplined performer who glitteringly completed all anticipations, a perfect mirror of obtained parental<br />and social standards of elegance, charm, and success. It is her social cast; artistic, frozen in a Cover Girl<br />smile, a perfect glimpse of the feminine ideal (Schwartz 71). The role of beauty-seeking tendency<br />became self-harming and deteriorating for the speaker herself in the poem. Beauty cannot be ever-<br />lasting and the search for beauty in old age and its extreme fear led her to take her life herself.<br />The poem’s first line reveals the consequences of a woman going to spend all of her<br />time in front of a mirror; she has wasted her youth, and drowned it in the depths of her<br />own reflection, much like Narcissus. One of the poem&#39;s main points is that being thrown<br />away into narcissism is a waste of time and energy. Mirrors do not make a judgment,<br />but simply &quot;swallow,&quot; implying that whatever is reflected in them is irretrievable and lost<br />forever. Furthermore, the mirror is designed to reflect a wall. The woman has become a<br />non-entity as a result of her non-being and lack of self-definition for so long. She is<br />insignificant, a part of the various faces as well as the darkness that differentiates them.<br />It has been advised that extreme fear does not have positive outcomes. It can rather<br />tend to be self-destructive and detrimental to life.</p><p style="text-align:left;">The study intends to draw attention to Plath’s serious depression and identify the mental disorder as a<br />result of patriarchal and societal stereotypes. The outcome demonstrates that hysteria symptoms such<br />as depersonalization limited her existence and drove her to commit suicide (Ghlib, 2593) The<br />poetess’s depression has been reflected in her poem and it has demonstrated how she<br />has been forced to commit suicide.</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Conclusion</span><br />The effect of fear in beauty has been found devastating, detrimental, and life-taking. The<br />speaker of the poem “Mirror” has explored the poetess, Sylvia Plath herself though the mirror<br />has been presented as the narrator in the poem. The mirror is the poetess’s own persona and<br />she has reflected the pain and fear in the process of seeking her beauty both in the mirror of<br />her bedroom wall and in the lake in the first and the second stanzas respectively. As the<br />poetess has found her beauty getting vanished with her old age, she has developed a kind of<br />doubt with the mirror concealing her factual identity and she has attempted to trace out her<br />real appearance in the lake. However, she has found no difference in her facial appearance and<br />beauty even in the lake and she has been found in the depth of her mental agonies and her<br />melancholic situation led her to depression. As a result, she has found no alternative solution of<br />replacing her beauty except committing suicide. Her fear turned extreme and it has been found<br />beyond her control and she has been victimized by her own extreme fear. The persona of the<br />poem has found that her conflict between the inner self and outer self, guided by fear led her<br />to mutilate herself. Fear horrified, traumatized, scared and led her depersonalized condition to<br />the persona of the poem and she became restless in maintaining her beauty in society even in<br />her old age. It was beyond her capacity as a mortal being and it must have been realized as the<br />natural process of life. Fear has acted rather dreadfully and negatively in the life of the persona<br />of the poem “Mirror” and it has compelled her to take her own life in vain. Hence, it has given<br />the message that fear must be within a balanced form rather than the extreme one for a<br />meaningful, worthwhile, and successful life. Otherwise, extreme fear acts to ruin the entire goal<br />and life itself as it has acted in the life of the poetess, Sylvia Plath. She has been found seeking<br />external beauty rather than internal one and it has been found unnatural in old age. Internal<br />beauty is gained with learning skills, enhancing knowledge and wisdom but external beauty is<br />natural and innate but it fades away with the passing of time. To fear such perishing external<br />beauty ruins life. So, it has to be accepted what nature has bestowed on mortal beings.</p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Works cited:</span><br />Bogan, Louise “Medusa” Creative Delights. Compiled and edited by Shreedhar Lohani and<br />Rameshwor Adhikari. Ratna Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu. 1997.pp 380-381.<br />Conway, Cathleen Allyn. Through the Looking Glass: A Discussion of Doubling in Sylvia Plath&#39;s &quot;Mirror&quot;,<br />University of Greenwich, London. file:///C:/Users/USER/Desktop/FEAR%20IN%20BAEUTY/4672-<br />Article%20Text-14468-1-10-2013123.<br />Devkota, Laxmi Prasad. “The lunatic” Creative Delights. Compiled and edited by shreedhar,<br />Lohani, and Rameshwor Adhikari. Ratna Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu.1997. pp.332-338.<br />Freedman, William. &quot;The Monster in Plath&#39;s &#39;Mirror&#39;.&quot; Papers on Language and Literature 108.5 (1993):<br />152-169.<br />Ghalib, Atef, et al. Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education Vol.12 No. 11 (2021), 2592-<br />2597 Research Article 2592 Sylvia Plath Revisited in the Lens of Depersonalization. Thi-Qar University,<br />Iraq. file:///C:/Users/USER/Desktop/FEAR%20IN%20BAEUTY/6257-Article%20Text-11537-1-10-<br />20210513.pdf<br />https://image,slidesharecdn.com (a poem by Sylvia Plath)<br />Kroll, J. Chapters in Science of Mythology: The poetry of Sylvia Plath. New York: Harper &amp;Row. 1978.<br /><a href="http://www.gradesaver.com/sylvia-plath-poems/study-guide/summary-mirro">http://www.gradesaver.com/sylvia-plath-poems/study-guide/summary-mirro</a>.<br />Lohami Shreedhar and Rameshwor Adhikari. Creative Delights. Ratna Pustak Bhandar,<br />Kathmandu.1997. pp.338.<br />McCort, Jessica. Sleeping Beauty Awake: Sylvia Plath through the Looking-Glass.<br />file:///C:/Users/USER/Desktop/FEAR%20IN%20BAEUTY/4376-Article%20Text-13845-1-10-20131219.pdf.<br />Russell, Bertrand “Keeping Errors at Bay,” Flax-Golden Tales: An Interdisciplinary<br />Approach to learning English. Compiled and edited by Moti Nishani and Shreedher<br />Lohani. Ekta Books, Kathmandu. 2008. pp.373.<br />Schwartz, Susan. Disenchantment, Disillusion, and Dissolution in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath.<br />file:///C:/Users/USER/Desktop/FEAR%20IN%20BAEUTY/DepthInsights-Issue5-Fall2013.pdf.<br />Schwartz, Susan E. Sylvia Plath: A Split in the Mirror.<br />file:///C:/Users/USER/Desktop/FEAR%20IN%20BAEUTY/4437-Article%20Text-13973-1-10-20131223.pdf,<br />Sontag Susan:” Beauty”: The Creative Delights. Compiled and edited by Shreedhar<br />Lohani and Rameshwar Adhikari. Ratna Pustak Bhandar, kathmandu. 1997. pp.300.<br />Subba, Desh. Philosophy of fears: life is conducted, directed, and controlled by fear.<br />Xlibris. 2014. pp.47.</p></div>FEAR IS THE CAUSE OF MURDER, VIOLENCE AND WARhttps://FearlessnessMovement.ning.com/blog/fear-is-the-cause-of-murder-violence-and-war2018-11-18T01:25:59.000Z2018-11-18T01:25:59.000ZDesh Subbahttps://FearlessnessMovement.ning.com/members/LimbuDeshBahadur<div><p>        <a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/135543232?profile=RESIZE_930x" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/135543232?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a>  (Socrates <span class="irc_su" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">seems to have spent most of his time in the agora, or marketplace, discussing all sorts of things.)</span>                        </p>
<p><strong>An interview conducted by a Nepalese journalist, Raj Sargam of the Nepal <em>Time Magazine</em> with Desh Subba, the founder of Fearism Movement.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Date: 1<sup>st</sup> September 2018,</strong></p>
<p><strong>Trans. by Desh Subba</strong></p>
<p><strong>Edited by Michael Bassey Eneyo</strong> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Socrates ran Agora school [teaching in the market places].</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Plato ran academy, while Aristotle ran Lyceum.</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Philosophers from France and Germany ran schools in tea and coffee houses. </em></span></p>
<p>Desh Subba is a poet, novelist and a philosopher from Nepal. He has been working on the development of "Philosophy of Fearism" for some years now. "<em>The Tribesmen's Journey to Fearlessness</em>" is his first Fearism-based novel. He is on the course of introducing Fearism [philosophy] through poem, drama and epic. In the interview published in Nepal <em>Time Magazine</em>, Raj Sargam began the interview by asking Desh Subba how Fearism as a school of thought can handle the problem of fear which seems to be fundamental to every life. Below is the interview. </p>
<p><strong>Raj:</strong> I know it is true that everybody has one kind of fear or the other. I equally believe that the young generations are suffering from depression. How does Fearism handle such problems?</p>
<p><strong>Desh:</strong> Fear is natural to human beings. No matter our level of exposure, we cannot completely eliminate fear. Fearism as a movement is focusing on how human beings can understand fear more insightfully, how fear can be controlled, managed and applied for the good of human beings. We have read classical philosophies regarding states, citizens, capitalism, struggles, happiness and pleasure. If we should get to the root of all these philosophies, we will see that none of them has really emphasised on the importance of fear. We can take example from the "Ring of Gyges" mentioned in the Republic of Plato. This mythical and magical ring saves people from fear of being caught and punished when they do something wrong. But even at that, nobody actually acknowledged the importance or the role fear in the affairs of human beings. </p>
<p>The entire world and its life can be looked at with the eyes of fear [Fearism lens]. It is not only the new generations that are suffering from fear; our ancestors were also suffering from it. Invention of stone weapons, dwelling in the cage and the worship of nature were parts of the witnesses to the influence of fear in the ancient period. We are in continuation of the same fearful influence. But today, it is manifesting in the mask of modernism. </p>
<p>I have said elsewhere that each era is an era of extreme fear, because each era carries its optimum level of knowledge, rationality and invention which are motivated by fear. The difference between the past and the present level of fear is shown in different ways through which human beings have adopted in the attempts to better their lives. The ancient period was not such a competitive and a corporate society as it is today. In our present generation, we have witnessed so many competitions: among students, in the areas of sports, employment, acquisition of wealth, among peers, family members, colleagues in the office, market men/women, etc. There’re so much depressions today. Depression begins anytime we fail to achieve any of our expectations. When this is the case, all the experiences during these periods increase our fears. </p>
<p>But then, depression is not limited to the scope of depression, it expands beyond. It creates more hazardous situations. I know people often mention sources of hazardous situations, but nobody seems to have mentioned fear as part of it. This may have been predicated on the fact that we didn’t have theory that can explain the workings of fear. After the development of Fearism Movement, Fearism traditions began to spring up. One of the Fearism dictums says: "Don't keep fear of competition an irrelevant prestige." Avoidance of unnecessary competition, desire and interest keep us safe from depression and mental sickness. So Fearism provide the methods that can help human beings handle the challenges of fear and depression. </p>
<p><strong>Raj:</strong> You are trying to establish Fearism with the help of Fearism Study Centre. What will be the role of Fearism activities in Nepalese’s literature?</p>
<p><strong>Desh:</strong> In any serious philosophical movement, there is always a tradition of schooling. Socrates ran Agora school [teaching in the market places]. Plato ran academy, while Aristotle ran Lyceum. Philosophers from France and Germany ran schools in tea and coffee houses. </p>
<p>When a person becomes famous in his philosophy, such philosophy will certainly convert into school. It is my belief that to establish Fearism, we need a school [i.e. we need fear education] and Fearism Study Centre is our school. </p>
<p>Fearism Study Centre is not only domiciling in Nepal, it will soon kick start in Nigeria. It is going to be run by Nigerian philosopher Osinakachi Akuma Kalu and his friends Michael Eneyo, Augustus Chukwu and others who have shown commitment in Fearism Movement. It is still in its starting phase, it would be extended to other countries as time goes on. At present, R. Michael Fisher has founded The Fearology Institute in Canada which is an integral part of Fearism.</p>
<p>Nepalese’s literature is traditionally divided into group(ism) and not into the formal method of schooling. The formal pattern of schooling gives more knowledge. My ambition has been to take Fearism beyond the Nepalese’s traditional literary circle and that ambition is already yielding positive result as you can see.<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Raj:</strong> In following Fearism as your new discovered paradigm, are you not missing poem and novel writings?</p>
<p><strong>Desh:</strong> yes! At the surface, I missed them, but in a more critical look, I am still doing them under Fearism [though in a subtle manner]. Literature has multiple genres, but Philosophy is above all literary genres. Story, poem, essay and epic cannot sustain for a long time if they are not rooted in a given philosophy. Writing or any form of theory can only be sustained if it is rooted in a strong philosophy. I have potentialities of many writing genres. But in the face of philosophy, other genres are dimmed. If one man has many genres, he will likely be addressed by the one he is noted to doing better and not by all the genres. Jean Paul Sartre had many writings, but people addressed him as a Philosopher. </p>
<p><strong>Raj:</strong> You used to say Fearism is isolated philosophy. How do you mean and to what extent is the influence of Fearism apart from in Nepal?</p>
<p><strong>Desh:</strong> Actually, I don't have deeper understanding of this saying of Nepalese believers: "Dark underneath the lamp." Fearism to me is isolated philosophy in Nepal because we do not really have many philosophers here working to develop contemporary philosophies. Fearism Movement goes beyond our home philosophy which is embedded in our culture.  We often talked about culture at home, but our literature and philosophy are not separated from our culture. This makes it somewhat difficult to say that we have a philosophy of our own. It is not right to expect a highly philosophical culture in those countries where the culture of doing philosophy is not developed. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>Professors are in competition to be the first follower of western philosophy.</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em> </em></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>They dream to be the first followers and never dreaming to be leaders of new ideas or philosophy.</em></span></p>
<p>Here in Nepal, we have less leading characters; we only have people with the mentality of wanting to be good followers. Professors are in competition to be the first follower of western philosophy.  They dream to be the first followers and never dreaming to be leaders of new ideas or philosophy. This is the reason I said Fearism is in far distance among professors and students of Nepal. </p>
<p>Edward Said had opined: "Westerns have a capacity to define eastern." We imbibe the culture of followership; we follow the culture of the west. When they say, “You are stupid and arrogance” we nod our heads and answer 'yes'. This is a kind of slave mentality. Easterners have the habit of being happy in Western definitions to things. It is exclusively implemented in the philosophical minds of most Nepalese. This tendency discourages and disqualifies us from aspiring for leadership position in the global community. Today, Fearism is gradually becoming popular in some states of India and in Nigeria. These countries are trying to develop a culture of original definitions to life. This is the reason we can see many Nigerian Philosophers coming up with original ideas to the study of fear. </p>
<p><strong>Raj:</strong> There is increase of the numbers of murder, violence and rape in the society now. Can Philosophy of Fearism give explanation to this or not?</p>
<p><strong>Desh:</strong> Violence, murder and war are caused by fear. Very rare may be resulted from other reasons, but fear is mostly the reason. After the murder comes more fear. The one that kills become afraid of the likely consequence of his action. Sometimes the impact of it extends like Pyramid and sometimes like rectangle. If somebody has fear of being killed by someone, and he decided to kill the person in order to eliminate his fear and become fearless. After killing the supposed source of fear [the person], he will discover that killing is never elimination of fear, rather, it ushered us into another domain of fear-the fear of the punishment for killing by the family and the society as stipulated by law. </p>
<p>There are many of such people in the society. Thug, corruptor, liar, killer, raper, murderer and dishonest always feel the presence of surveillance cameras everywhere they go even when there is no such thing. The impact of fear depends on the gravity of the offence. Those who commit grievous sin always forget taste of food and sleep. They have the illusion of somebody following or talking about them. A particular fear can expand and become as big as the black sky. </p>
<p>In Nepal and India, the numbers of murder and violence cases are increasing by the day. Less fear of law is the reason of it. In most cases, either the leaders are involved in the breaking of the law or they provide protection for those who break the law. Even the states seem not to adhere to the dictum of the law; this definitely increases murder, rape and violence cases in the land. </p>
<p>This state of lawlessness depicts Thomas Hobbes’ State of Nature; where life was brutal, nasty and short. This is a kind of "Modern Wild Kingdom" where law is no longer regarded as a guide. This is the main problem I have seen about South Asia and Africa in recent times. When a given country or an individual begins to fear and have respect for law that is when a state can be said to be a lawful state. Then violence, murder and rape are likely to be swiped from such a state.</p>
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