Monday, February 24, 2014
Zeno's Conscience
After reading "My Father's Death" and "Psychoanalysis" I did believe that Zeno was really suffering from some kind of an illness, but after reading "Smoke" I now believe that Zeno has no illness and is making each one of his illnesses up. In believing this, it becomes contradictory because if Zeno's illness is really not an illness then it must be in his head, which would still be considered an illness - a mental illness. I think Zeno is sick in the head and is making up all these other illnesses to put the attention back on himself. In "My Father's Death" we learn that the Doctor believes Zeno is sexually attracted to his mother and hates his father because his father is married to her. Then in "Psychoanalysis" we learn that Zeno is diabetic and he is happy he is sick. In "Smoke" it became clear to me that Zeno is putting this facade to be ill on himself to make himself the center of attention. Zeno is constantly trying to prove to the doctor (all the doctors he encounters throughout the three chapters we read) that he is ill. In "Smoke" when Zeno goes to the doctor for his smoking habit he also complains of having "difficulty in digesting and sleeping" after the doctor pronounced him being healthy (Svevo 14). The on the next page Zeno announces that he has an "unhappiness with women," (15). Throughout the book he is trying to prove to the reader that he is ill, but not in a psychological way. He seems to want the reader to interpret that he is sick not in the mental health aspect. My conclusion after reading the three excerpts is that he does have something wrong in the head and because this book is mostly written in his stream of consciousness the reader sees how even Zeno is not sure to what exactly is going on. He is searching for the innocence of infancy throughout the novel. It seems like he is pretending to have illnesses on top of this psychological one to make himself appear more innocent and childlike. I have this idea because in the preface Zeno states "I can't even begin to warn you, now living in your own infancy, how important it is to remember it," (6). He also brings up the word pure twice and I believe he is searching to find this purity throughout his life and that is why he is using this psychoanalysis method to help him return to his infancy. Because in the infancy of a child one is innocent and can make things up without consequences. If a child is "sick in the head" they aren't characterized as so they are just said to be acting like a child, so in an overarching way I think Zeno is trying to pass himself off as this little child.
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There is a mental disorder called Hypochondriasis in which people tend to believe they are sick when they really aren't. That would explain Zeno's feelings of illness when there shouldn't be any. A literary examination of this disease shows that it may be worse than the actual sickness the inflicted may believe they have. The anxiety of always thinking your sick can take a bigger toll on the human body than smoking cigarettes. While being a mental illness, being a hypochondriac has many physical ailments as well.
ReplyDeleteThere's no proof that Zeno has this "illness" in the text. He writes about his illness as if he knows its cause and has a sense of control over it. When Zeno goes to see the Doctor in the "Smoke" section, he is almost playing a game with the Doctor, waiting to see if he will correctly diagnose his addiction to cigarettes as being the result of nicotine in his blood (14). It is obvious that Zeno is confused and has a weak personality, but there is no way to diagnose his disorder. We as readers are unable to diagnose his disorder because the only information we have is from Zeno himself, an unreliable source. We can postulate as to what Zeno may be suffering from, but everything he does and says must be questioned and understood with the perspective that there is ultimately no answer.
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