Abstract

Let’s talk about alienation. This is an interpretative essay that uses philosopher Judith Butler and historian Harriet Ritvo’s language to explore the feeling of alienation that many of us could identify with – particularly in Wari, the protagonist from Daniel Alarcon’s short story”Absence”.

Introduction

Many of us at a certain place or time have felt the feeling of alienation. You are lucky if you have not. It’s not a good feeling to be the outsider that doesn’t understand what’s happening, or worse, knowing what’s happening but not getting accepted. That’s exactly what happened to Wari – the protagonist in Daniel Alarcon’s story “Absence”. In this essay, I am attempting to use Judith Butler and Harriet Ritvo’s language to answer the central question: Where do we get the feeling of alienation and how do we respond to it? Ritvo would argue from a historical standpoint and say that our early attempt to classify non-human animals and the idea of human exceptionalism lays the groundwork for alienation and division between humans. Furthermore, we see unfamiliar things or people as “anomalies” that don’t fit into our system of presumptions (Ritvo 4). Butler would argue similarly with the claim that we tend to alienate those who don’t look like us, and to self-defend, we fall into the traps of social, political, and physical violence – but what we should do is to hold the aggression and deliberately choose the path of “non-violence”(62). In “Absence”, we follow Wari’s journey of alienation in a different country: he feels alienated because he is the anomaly subject to culture and language and he responds with non-violence to protect himself from being hurt.

So where do we get the feeling of alienation? In “Absence”, Wari travels from Lima, Peru to New York, United States. His feeling of alienation started before he even arrived in New York: at the Miami airport. He was sent to the interview room by an agent, and while waiting, he recalled a joke his friend made back home: “Remember to shave or they’ll think you’re Arab” (Alarcon 94). So he started to worry about his appearance, he “could feel the sweat gathering in the pores on his face. He wondered how bad he looked, how tired and disheveled. How dangerous”(Alarcon 94). It is worth noting that the story takes place around one year after the 9/11 attack, also in September: America was on hyper-alert for Islamists. The fact that Wari was afraid he’d be mistaken for another category of human (that we formed ourselves) and therefore might get punished for it is ironic but important here: it signifies a division and alienation between human beings, more precisely, a hierarchy. 

In Ritvo’s The Point of Order, she gives us a historic account of where this division came from. Back in the 18th centuries, a period when British commercial and military expeditions brought back increasing numbers of zoological and botanical specimens as well as sight stories: “By the late nineteenth century an average of more than one thousand new genres of animals of all kinds were being described each year”, and scientists and naturalists felt the need to classify and taxonomize them to regain some order (Ritvo 10). With time, this classification became a system and a way for humans to dominate other species – “a system as means of consolidating the intellectual dominance of science over nature” (Ritvo 18). Essentially, this is the definition of natural history. The tradition of classification and hierarchy then extends to within-species: humans themselves. There was a concept of the Great Chain of Being derived from Plato and Aristotle, describing a linear hierarchy (bottom to top) from vegetation to cattle to pets and to God/Man. Wari in the interview room waiting for the American agent displays a similar type of linear hierarchy, not between species, but between human races: from Arabs to Peruvian to Americans(again, bottom to top). This is the origin of alienation. The feeling of alienation comes from the systemic division, the norm that some are better than others: we are used to the tradition of division and alienation from natural history, so we apply the same system onto ourselves. 

How we respond to that feeling of alienation can be condensed into two categories: violence and non-violence, according to Butler (51). In her writing, Butler questions the blurry line of the justification of killing, concentrating on the exception to the ideal of non-violence that is “self-defense”(51). The definition of “self” is vital in this concept, because in reality, we defend not only ourselves but those that we love and care about. According to Butler, the relations included in this “self” can extend from “loved ones, family, and animals”, all the way to “demography, race, and country” (52). We see Wari struggled with his sense of self constantly in “Absence”. When he went to the American embassy in Lima and presented his paperwork to get a Visa, it was “the entirety of his twenty-seven years, on paper” (Alarcon 94). It included his ex-wife, Ellie, who would always be a part of himself no matter if he wanted to admit it or not. We can sense his resentment toward Ellie in the ways that he described her later on in the story, but he kept thinking about her, perhaps it’s a way of hanging on to his old self. 

When Wari first arrived at the city, he “meandered in and out of sidewalk traffic, marveled at the hulking mass of the buildings, and confirmed, in his mind, that the city was the capital of the world” (Alarcon 91). He observed the street performers unique to New York and was amazed and puzzled by workers artificially planting a tree in the middle of the city (Alarcon 90). He’s an alienated observer but his sense of self was still strong here. But by the time we got to the art exhibit – the opportunity that allowed him to come to this country – he looked at his own paintings on the wall “as if they were the work of someone else, a man he used to know, an acquaintance from a distant episode in his life” (Alarcon 104). He’s lost his old self. So what happened in between?

Language barrier plays a big part in Wari’s experience of feeling alienated and losing his old self, but he chose to be patient and not take offenses to heart – or the approach of “non-violence” as Butler calls it (62). Wari stayed with his friend Eric and his girlfriend Leah in New York, and a series of interactions between Wari and Leah shows his non-violent approach.

“Where is? Eric?” he asked, cringing at his pronunciation.

“Studying. Work. He teaches undergrads. Young students,” she said, translating young, in gestures, as small.

Wari pictured Eric, with his wide, pale face and red hair, teaching miniature people, tiny humans who looked up to him for knowledge. He liked that Lead had tried. He understood much more than he could say, but how could she know that? (Alarcon 96-97)

Wari was frustrated not being able to speak what he had in mind, but he self-defended with some sarcasm. If you have been to a place that speaks a different language, you would know the helpless feeling you get when you can’t deliver what’s in your head at the tip of your tongue. Later on when Leah mistakenly introduced Fredy – an Ecuadorian – to Wari thinking that they were from the same country, Wari “shook Fredy’s hand vigorously until Leah seemed at ease with her mistake” (Alarcon 98). He could have resorted to some kind of aggression that could cause Leah to be even more ashamed and drew a hard line between the politically vague relationship between Ecuador and Peru, but he didn’t. He chose to not to care and resolve the situation peacefully. 

However, it’s not that he never displayed some kind of aggression. Going back to earlier in the story when he was at Miami airport, the agent denied his one-month stay (looking at his bank statement) and told him that he could only stay in New York for two weeks. Wari thought it was too short of a time for him to settle down and he “walked through the Miami airport as if he’d been punched in the face” (Alarcon 96). We can feel his strong emotion, yet he didn’t act upon it: he chose to hold his aggression and frustration when he felt alienated. Instead, he slept tight on his flight to New York. At the end of Butler’s writing on “Violence and Non-Violence”, she encourages us to “find our way toward an ethical and political life in which aggression and sorrow do not immediately convert into violence, in which we might be able to endure the difficulty and the hostility of the social bond we never chose”, and I think we can all learn from Wari (64).

Wari’s deliberate choice to be non-violent is more evident in some other cases. While staying in New York, he formed a sexual attachment to Leah. He sat on Eric’s apartment couch and imagined Leah’s naked body while she was showering, yet he imagined his ex-wife Ellie’s at the same time: “Ellie, somewhere in Lima, was not even aware he was gone. Leah, in the shower, not thinking of him. On every channel, buildings collapsed in clouds of dust, and Wari watched on mute, listening hopefully to Leah’s water music” (Alarcon 102-103). There is another reference to 9/11 here, an obvious form of extreme violence. Wari blocked that violence and chose to be hopeful instead. Butler would say that this symbolizes Wari’s deliberate choices to be non-violent when he experienced alienation. 

At the end of “Absence” is when we see a glimpse of Wari’s display of silent and imaginary violence because the feeling of alienation started to overwhelm him. After the art exhibit, Wari went to a bar with Eric, Leah, and their friends. Wari found it almost impossible to understand their shouted conversation – already alienated by the language barrier, and to add on top of that: “they wouldn’t let him pay a single dollar”, furthering his sense of uselessness and helplessness (Alarcon 106). The female character Ellen was introduced here:

“I liked your paintings very much,” she said later … He was ignoring the woman in front of him. “Thank you,” he said. / “They are so violent.” / “I do not intend that.” / “It’s what I saw.” / “Is good you see this. Violence sometime happen.” / “I’m Ellen,” she said. / “Is nice name. My ex-wife name Ellie” (Alarcon 106). 

Of course, the name Ellen would remind Wari of his ex-wife, Ellie, he’d always find ways to think back to her. But what’s more important here is the deliberate mention of violence. Wari always seemed to carry an attitude of carelessness whenever violence comes up. He felt funny when he saw Eric and Leah kissing and started to question his whole existence. He wanted to “drop his glass on the floor, but he was afraid it wouldn’t shatter. He was afraid no one would applaud, no one would understand the beauty of that sound” (Alarcon 107). This is an echo to earlier in the story where his friend back home joked about Arabs, and they celebrated the remark by shattering a glass and everyone applauded (Alarcon 94). Wari’s not incapable of violence, he was just feeling such a deep sense of alienation that he thought even his act of violence wouldn’t be understood. Outside the bar, Ellen told him that he needed to be aggressive when hailing a cab. Wari was shocked: “Does she think we ride mules?” But just as quickly he didn’t care, again (Alarcon 107). The fact that Ellen kept bringing up violence and aggression draws a contrast to Wari’s careless attitude. And we can argue that this is his non-violent way to self-defend when constantly feeling alienated. 

So to answer the question of “where do we get the feeling of alienation and how do we respond to it?”, we get the feeling of alienation from normalized societal divisions that stems from the origin of natural history, and we respond with defense mechanisms that would protect ourselves from getting hurt. In the case of Wari, he felt alienated because he failed to express himself and was constantly misunderstood, but he endured the difficulty and responded with peaceful and respectful sentiments. We can all learn from that. 

Bibliography

Alarcón, Daniel. “Absence.” War By Candlelight, Harper Perennial, 2006, pp. 89-107.

Butler, Judith. “Nonviolence, Grievability, and the Critique of Individualism.” The Force of Nonviolence, Verso, 2020, pp. 27-66.

Ritvo, Harriet. “The Point of Order.” The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination. Harvard UP, 1997. 1-50. Print.