Prof. Dr. Geeta M. Patil
&
Ms. Shilpa S. Chavan
Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India
Abstract:
The concept of parenthood is not new for literature as it refers to the relationship of parent-child in real life. Considering parenthood, not just as a joy or bliss but it is a responsibility to shape and support the young ones till their adulthood. In English literature concepts like Oedipus Complex and Electra Complex from psychoanalytic perspective also focus on parenthood. These themes can better be studied in famous works like Sons and Lovers, Hamlet, Yayati by Karnad and many more alike in recent terms and conditions. Deprived of the sufficient comfort and support of the parents, the child's personality gets scattered resulting into depression and traumatic childhood throughout the life which appears with the past memories. So, to say it becomes an important issue to be studied.
The present paper attempts to focus on the parent child relationship in Herta Muller’s novel The Passport. This novel depicts a clear-cut picture of Romanian village in Banat during the Communist period where dictatorship plays an important role and parenthood gets affected.
Keywords: Dictatorship, Parenthood, Trauma, Ideology.
Parenthood is not just the concept to bear, adopt and rear a child but to be responsible for everything of the child. Child's physical, mental, social and educational growth is one of the outcomes of parenthood. In the present situation, the concept is taken to the financial and effective obligations such as education, physical comforts by providing daily needs, etc. The notion of parenthood also presupposes an active concern for a child’s physical-intellectual development and welfare. Parents plan the future for their children. Sometimes they consider themselves as the owner of their property called children. In some cases, they are inhuman while treating the child. Absolutely no parent can think ill and take wrong decisions for their beloved ones but in exceptional cases like poverty, problems of livelihood, parents consider their children as a source for income. It becomes one of the strengths that they help to earn for their family. It creates problems in the society. These problems can be observed as child labour, malnutrition, child abuse and some other criminal complexities in the society.
At some extent parenthood in the phase of ownership turns towards dictatorship unknowingly. Although parents' intention is good towards their young ones for, they innately wish for the disciplined and gradual development of the child's self. Maintaining the harmony and discipline for their ward, parent’s behaviour becomes crude and harsh which paves way towards unwilling dictatorship. Consequently, parenthood takes a twist towards dictatorship.
In the present paper the discussion of parenthood during the period of dictatorship with special reference to the novel The Passport by Herta Muller. Muller chiefly writes about the dispossessed past of the time of the Communist regime in Romania. She is considered as an important voice among the German-Romanian novelists who is notified and crowned by the Nobel committee for her language of the resistance. Her life under the dictatorship of Nocolae Ceausescu challenged both the limits of language and reality. Muller as a child experienced secret labour camps along with her mother. We can better observe the direct reflection of her personality and the past memory as a child on her writing. Her writing is shaped by the time and anarchy of dictatorship.
Romania remained under the rule of Communism for a considerable time period (1965- 1989). The aftermath of this critical time period left an impression on Romanian people's psyche in such a manner that they are still unable to forget their sufferings which they witnessed under Ceausescu’s dictatorship, who ruled Romania with all his atrocities. A critic state: “there is not a single Romanian adult who has not been affected by some form of collaboration with communism” (Carey, p.277: 2004)
The socio-political-cultural circumstances have been so miserable and pathetic that people used to live hand to mouth. They have been exploited in the name of dictatorship which must not be called the dictatorship of a party, but the despotism of a group considered of a few people who worked under the umbrella of Securitate: secret Romanian police. After two World Wars, the situation became more formidable which enhanced the socio-political turmoil in Romania. Many leaders came to rule Romania and the nation passed through various stages of progress and deterioration but there was one unforgettable period which still has its mark on the psyche and life of people for ages to come. Under Ceausescu’s era Romania was presenting the picture of a hell on earth because of the social and political turmoil in every nook and corner of the country.
Roper explains that the history of repression in Romania started by Gheorghiu- Dej in 1950 and went to the extremes under Ceausescu’s regime in the 1960s, which is also called the era of constraints and oppressions. It has also been regarded as the most labyrinthine and troublesome period of Romanians (Roper, p.89: 2005). Ceausescu has not only manipulated political manoeuvres with great skill but also juggled the economy of Romania. Firstly, included secret police, the Securitate and then gave it the charge of controlling all the spheres of life in Romania. Ceausescu believed in spying people. His Police worked as eavesdroppers and someone got heard of speaking ill against Ceausescu or even against the Securitate, he was sentenced to death promptly. Therefore, people were kept under strong vigil by the government from raising their voice against Communism and dictatorship. The people in power had imposed their own jurisdiction on the masses by taking advantages and exclusive privileges.
Authority made blatant use of force to extract blind obedience from the masses to Communism. A rustic piece of land was converted to a modern and mechanical state by employing the values of Communism. On the other hand, people were forced to accept whatever was presented to them without raising any single objection and it was impossible for Romanians to live their lives into a lean and fragile society which deprived them from the rights of living a satisfactory life.
The Passport was Muller’s third novel written in German language published in Berlin in 1989. It was the first of Muller’s books to be translated into English. Through her writings she raised social-political-cultural issues of Romanian society. With her poetic diction she caught the attention of the readers while providing a peep into the world of Romania under the ruthless effects of dictatorship and communism. The Passport originally titled in German as ‘Man is a large peasant in the world’. It is a Romanian proverb which underlines man's status as pray for fate. It captures the growth of the poetic, oracular elements in Muller’s writing. It is a story of a man who is a village miller and is in dire need of having the passport so that he can flee from the suffocated atmosphere of Romania. Basically, this novel is a satire on the stratification of the society where proletariat was guided by Bourgeoisie and human beings were used as commodities. Through her characters Muller unveils and exhibits the politics of Romania, which not only affects the society, but it takes the society on the verge of destruction. She exhibits the hollowness of society by focusing on the social issues where human beings were turned into tools for accumulating wealth because materialism hovered above the country. People's consciousness was only guided by money and they were not given freedom to raise their voice against socio-political instability of Romanian society. By raising the issue of dictatorship in Romanian society declared by Nicolae Ceausescu, the present paper analyses some views of the life and people in Romania from parenthood as a dictatorship’s point of view.
Windisch, the central character, has a daughter named Amalie. She is a teacher for kindergarten in the town. Muller exhibits in the concerning novel that people used to live in the restricted atmosphere of Romania transfer the thoughts in the other generation as Amalie guides the students about Romania that the land of Romania belongs to them because it is a land of their father. She further says to the children: “every child has its parents. just as the father in the house in which we live is our father, so comrade Nicalae Ceausescu is the father of our country. And just as the mother in the house in which we live is our mother, so comrade Elena Ceausescu is the mother of all the children. All the children love comrade Nicole, comrade Elena because they are their parents.” (Muller, p.51: 1989)
Muller wants to emphasize the destructive thinking patterns influenced by the state. Here one can observe that children's mindset, psychology has been corrupted in the schoolings as teachers are also considered as the second parent to them. Moreover, it is a critique on the way the whole society and the social institutions have been set up. It is probing into the very controversial idea that the whole society is nothing but a game. Everything is monopolised. Even the seemingly innocent and ordinary everyday things such as a teacher presents Ceausescu as a father in front of her pupils are contingent. It is so because being a mentor it is Amalie's responsibility to instil her thinking in her pupils’ mind so that they will remain part of that very system of which she herself is a part.
Another important point which is also made here is the co-dependent relationship of the state and the masses just as the parent-child relationship. In order to rule with an iron grip, the state needs the masses to go on living under their commands unquestioningly like an obedient child in front of a parent. The best way to curb away any possibility of resistance or reaction they need to get at them psychologically which in the longer run is much more disastrous than any material limitations placed upon them.
Ceausescu believed that as he is the father of Romania, so all the lands and folks belong to him even it was decided by him that what type of crop will be grown in the fields. He took the land from the people and subjugated them. As two people came to Windisch’s wife and after counting the hens they took them away. She said: “they went into the garden in rubber boots. They saw the clover in front of the barn. Next year we’ll have to grow sugar-beet there, they said” and she further adds, “They said that our neighbours have eight small children, and we have one, and she’s earning money” (Muller, p.57: 1989)
That Ceausescu took hold of the agricultural matter as the owner. Windisch craves for the passport to set free from this dictator parenthood. Still he faces problems at the local level authorities as the mayor, priest for baptismal proof. To fulfil the need he had to bribe them with sacks of flour, money and woman. As the mayor says: “Put the flour in the yard…Another five deliveries Windisch, then the money at New Year. And at Easter you’ll have your passport.” (Muller, p.16: 1989)
The time passes by, but he never sees the possibility of the permission for migration. His all sacks of flour, money could not help to get it. In fact, he tries to send his wife who was a ‘whore’ in Russia during the war before the marriage but could not help. He unwillingly uses the body of his daughter to move from the place. At times he had to send his daughter to bribe the mayor for their passport: “Windisch feels the terror hanging like a stone in his jacket pocket. The song floats through the apple tree: ‘send to me your daughter do, for I wish to fuck her now…” (Muller, p.33: 1989)
Dictatorship played an unfair game of parenthood by the name of the Communist ideology. The night watchman also remembers his dead wife and lost daughters. He used to be a soldier now serving as a night watchman, also craves to migrate but has no daughter to offer to at the cost of passport. Another parent-child suffering is put forward by the character of father skinner and Rudy, who works in the mines at Russia as an Engineer. The father is deprived to meet his son under the harsh rules of dictatorship.
Joiner’s mother and joiner referred in the novel as another parent-child reference. Joiner tells that his mother screamingly said that this was no summer and he was no man, only melons cool her down. A very abstract relationship between the mother-son is another example suffered due to the dictatorship. Muller further explains through the narrative that before the war everyone was waiting at the station for the king to come. When train came everyone was very excited that king would meet his children-pheasant. Unfortunately, a man from the window of the train said, “Silence, His majesty The King is sleeping.” (Muller, p.49: 1989). It clearly symbolises and crowns the dictatorship that government did not care about the ongoing phenomenon of country and busy in taking the personal benefits rather than to nurture the relationship of father-child.
To recapitulate the article, the role of parenthood is shown to be transformed as the dictator. It also exhibits the role of economy in building familial-social scenario of Romania. It also shapes the members of the society to change their psyche in response to the survival of one’s self. These circumstances draw a doleful picture of the Romanians’ pangs and pains which they were facing as a parent. So, to say the idea of parenthood itself is shaped from the point of view of beliefs, myths, and hub of all the social evils- dictatorship.
References:
- Carey, F. Romania Since 1989: Politics, Economics and Society.Lexington Books, United States of America: 2004.
- Roper, D. Romania: The Unfinished Revolution. N. V. Publications, Singapore: 2005.
- Muller, Herta. The Passport. Serpent’s Tail, Berlin: 1989.
