Ayn Rand Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

ABSTRACT My third, and final essay, titled: "The Longing of all Things Foreign in We the Living: How Characters Want to Emigrate Abroad to Win Their Civil Freedom" shows readers how Russia’s most intelligent, most moral, most able... more

ABSTRACT

My third, and final essay, titled: "The Longing of all Things Foreign in We the Living: How Characters Want to Emigrate Abroad to Win Their Civil Freedom" shows readers how Russia’s most intelligent, most moral, most able citizens (i.e. the nation’s top 10 percent) try to flee to a freer West. To nations like Germany, Latvia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. So, they can live under classically liberal governments, that leave people free to determine their own thoughts, beliefs, and actions, for themselves, without a Socialist State always dictating to them. Always telling people what they should do, where they should live, what they should read, what they should write, what they should say, and how they should think. This, ultimately, is why high-minded Russians, like Kira Argounova, and Ayn Rand, escape, or try to escape, from a Russian government that thwarts their identities by enslaving their minds. Secretly and hurriedly, in the middle of the night, to a freer capitalist West. So they do not have to be what Communists want them to be. So they do not have to be conquered slaves. So they can win the right to live life as dignified human beings in a free political environment.

To gain their freedom then, "We the Living’s" characters, my third essay shows, try to defect from Soviet Russia – either on a smuggler’s ship or on foot over the Latvian border – to escape the gloomy hardships (the impending doom) of their bleak Soviet lives. So they can generate the energy to go on living—not kill themselves out of despair; so they can live in a humane social environment--not exist in a nation under siege; so they can buy ample goods and services in a privatized consumer market---not stand in line for several hours a day to get a scintilla of rotten food which is always in short supply. To replace these artificial, man-made shortages, then, with high-quality material abundance, "We the Living’s" characters long for Western made goods. Manufactured goods like lighters, lipstick, and lightbulbs; clothing goods like sweaters, dresses, and nightgowns; cosmetics goods like face powder, foreign lipstick, and French perfume; and perishable goods, like eggs, milk, butter, potatoes, cheese, and ice-cream.

My third essay also shows readers how "We the Living's" characters try to escape to a democratic West. So they can choose and practice their own professions: a concert pianist for Lydia; a visual artist for Irina; a philosopher for Leo, a historian for Sasha, a civil engineer for Kira. So characters have the right to live and work for their own sake, to choose and work for their own goals. Not suffer with thwarted careers and choked-off minds. For Lydia’s failed attempt to be a concert pianist, corresponds to Rand’s sister Natasha who was also forced to give-up her piano playing. Ultimately, working as a tour guide – for the rest of her short, miserable life – instead of following her own calling. Similarly, Irina’s failed attempt to be a free-spirited artist, relates to the tragic fate of another of Rand’s sisters. A woman named Nora Rosenbaum. Who is similarly blocked from designing costumes and stage sets—as she would have liked—because she is forced, instead, to do work unworthy of her great talent. Likewise, Kira is also stopped from turning the better possibilities of her life into her governing reality. Because even though Kira choses to be a civil engineer at age eight—and does everything to become one—she is purged from the technological institute before she has a chance to make her dreams come true. Before she has a chance to design buildings. This is why Kira tries to leave Soviet Russia. So she can become an architect. In fact, Kira even tries to flee the U.S.S.R. on a ship destined for Berlin, Germany. A trip she makes with her lover Leo Kovalensky, a tragic figure who wants to defect to foreign lands, so he can be a philosopher, as he wants. Similarly, a counter-revolutionary named Sash Chernova also wants to take a train to Baku, Azerbaijan, to complete his history degree. So, he can become a historian of some sort. But, like Leo, he is also purged from The Petrograd State University before earning his history degree; a credential he needs to advance in the field.

My third essay also shows readers how characters in "We the Living" readily consume Western culture at places like the European Rooftop Garden Hotel, for example, or how the enjoy rebel anthems, like the Song of Broken Glass, for instance, or how they watch foreign films in Petrograd’s theaters, case in point, or, lastly, how they observe European casinos and beer gardens from a resort city on the Crimean Peninsula named Yalta. These western scenes, not only grant characters spiritual release from the oppressive Red world around them, but they also show characters that there is “a sunlit, carefree world out there,” somewhere beyond the dark night and darker horrors. Waiting for characters, like Kira Argounova, to claim it.

Particularly, the Song of Broken Glass, my third essay shows, is Kira’s life’s anthem, the heart-beat of her life, her last battle-march, because this song is associated with everything Kira expects to find in her life abroad: colored lights and spangles, crystal goblets, a real foreign bar, a real foreign elevator. Music that laughs defiantly, an impudent, drunken music, like the challenge of triumphant gaiety, which provides a cheerful vision that life undefeated existed and could exist. That life existed somewhere that was, and could be, Kira’s life, as well.

Besides drawing inspiration from music, characters from We the Living, like Kira and Andrei, also draw hope from foreign movies, too. Especially, American films. Since, these films shows characters a world of free, joyously purposeful, and active men, who are confidently able to achieve their goals. Since, there is nothing stopping them, unlike in Soviet Russia, where everyone has to alter their ambitions, adapt their behaviors, and conform their minds to a total Marxist State. But in the free world of foreign films characters can escape the gloominess of Soviet Russia—at least for a few hours—which ultimately has a refreshing, tonic effect on their souls. By transporting characters to another world, where they have the liberty to think, speak, live, worship, work, and govern themselves, as free men, according to their degree of ability and strength.

The final topic of my last essay relates to Kira’s long death march to freedom, when she tries to defect across the Latvian border, so she can be born into a new life, not die in Soviet Russia. For only abroad can Kira conceive of a better life for herself, since the idea of abroad is Kira’s mental escape, her emotional catharsis, her soul preserver and spiritual lifeline. For Kira thinks she will have a brighter future, a better tomorrow and a healthier life. If she undertakes a harrowing trek through the Pskov Oblast in northwestern Russia, to escape death in life. To escape a tyranny that destroys her health through mass slaughter and military aggression; to escape a corrupt criminal State, or kakistocracy, that is governed by its worst citizens. So, she can build a new life, happier for herself, by charting her own course, by making her own future.