Written for: English Composition II
Date Written: 4/30/2007
Anarchy and
Order
Anarchy and
order. Worlds apart, right? Or are they? This is
perhaps the central theme that G. K. Chesterton
addresses in his book The Man
Who Was Thursday. This is a
book of ideas. You could almost say that it deals more
with philosophy and worldview than with the plot of the
story. Yet worldview and the plot are so imperceptibly
intertwined that you don’t always realize the full
impact of what you’re reading. There are two ideologies
presented concerning humanity in The Man
Who Was Thursday. First,
there is the anarchist’s. The antagonist of the book
can be found in this camp. Second, there is order. By
order I simply mean the view that humanity is
intrinsically inclined to seek a set method or system
to life. This is the viewpoint held by the main
character, Syme, and his cohorts. We will look at both
of these views in turn.
The
anarchist sees humanity as being under bondage. This
“bondage” is a gross injustice in the form of order.
The anarchist goes beyond simply disagreeing with the
law; they abhor the fact that laws exist. A good
evidence of this is an exchange between two main
characters early in the book. In answer to the question
by Syme, “You want to abolish government?” a proponent
of anarchism, Gregory, replies, “To abolish God!… We do
not only want to upset a few despotisms and police
regulations;… We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We
wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice
and virtue, honor and treachery, upon which mere rebels
base themselves. The silly sentimentalists of the
French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate
Rights and we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and
Wrong” (23).
While the
“rank and file” anarchist may simply wish to overthrow
government and society in hopes of a better life, the
true anarchist seeks to overthrow life itself. The
philosophical policeman says it best, “When they say
that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that
mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a
paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave.
They have but two objectives, to destroy first humanity
and then themselves” (47).
Chesterton
later states through Syme, “But the evil philosopher is
not trying to alter things, but to annihilate them”
(46).
It is also
important to note that Sunday, one of the most
ambiguous characters of the book, is the president of
the Anarchist
Counsel. He
is presented early in the book as the epitome of what
an anarchist should be. He is considered a genius for
his diabolical advancement of anarchism. Yet there is
an interesting corollary to Sunday, which we will later
discuss.
The anarchist is not only against the outward
expressions of the orderly belief system, it is against
the foundation that mankind is built upon. It seeks to
destroy everything about mankind that makes it mankind.
Anarchism is antithetical to order. Having said that,
anarchy has something else at its core, and that is an
insatiable thirst for freedom. How this thirst can be
quenched depends on the level of the anarchist. You
start from the extreme anarchist seeking ultimate
freedom through death, to the less serious anarchist
merely seeking relief from governmental regulations.
The common denominator of both of these classes is a
search for freedom.
The
competing viewpoint of the book is order, and is what I
believe to be the positive thrust of the book. It is
the conviction of Syme, the main character, and is the
purpose of the struggle with the antagonizing
anarchist. The book states Syme’s view this way, “he
(Syme) was a poet of law, a poet of order; nay, he said
he was a poet of respectability” (11). The novel puts
forth a view of order that certainly includes the
outward expressions of things such as government and
laws, but insinuates something deeper. It bases itself
on the belief that humanity intrinsically seeks order.
This is evidenced by the parrying between Syme and
Gregory at the beginning of the book. The argument
centers on the theme of poetry, which I believe to be a
representation of their views of life. Gregory argues
that poetry (life) should be chaos. He uses the example
of a train that would unaccountably arrive at an
unexpected station as something humanity longs for
(meaning he thinks humanity seeks anarchy). Syme
replies, “The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark;
the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is
epical when a man with one wild arrow strikes a distant
bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild
engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull;
because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to
Baker Street, or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and
his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria,
and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere
poetry and prose, let me read a time-table, with tears
of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats
of man; give me Bradshaw who commemorates his
victories” (12-13).
Yet there
is one other facet of this book that struggles for
dominance along with anarchy and order, and that is the
undertone of a Higher Power throughout most of the
book. This “undertone” then, out of nowhere, pounces
forward and takes command near the end of the story.
Yet consistent to the overall argument that anarchy and
order are coexistent, this “Higher Power”, in the form
of the character Sunday, reconciles the two by taking
on some characteristics of both anarchy and order. It
should be noted here that the identity and nature of
Sunday still remains a mystery. He could represent many
things; a form of God, maybe even life itself. But
understanding Sunday is not the purpose of this paper.
Therefore, I will simply say that, at a minimum, Sunday
is super human, and contains some of the attributes of
God.
An example
of Sunday portraying order is the insinuation that
everything has been orchestrated by Sunday. Near the
end of the book all of the detectives are brought into
a mansion and given personality/attitude specific
costumes. The very fact that everything up to that
point was accomplished with such precision, and that
every detail was foreseen and accommodated
necessitates, at least to some degree, omniscience and
omnipotence. In other words, there was order, not chaos
as in anarchy. We can also not forget Sunday’s claim to
be the chief policeman on the side of order who had
enlisted the services of all the detectives.
Having said that, there is also strong evidence for
anarchy. The most important evidence is the fact that
Sunday is president of the Anarchist
Counsel.
Then there are things like his throwing utterly bizarre
messages to his pursuers in the great chase near the
end of the book. The chase itself gives one the sense
of chaos with such extremes as riding an elephant to
flying in a hot air balloon. Still, these extremes,
anarchy and order, are reconciled in the person of
Sunday. The strongest evidence of this is the fact that
he his is both the president of the Anarchist Counsel,
and the Chief Policeman on the side of order. And so it
is that we have this incorporation of the two extremes.
The book’s
view of humanity, indeed, of life itself, is the fact
that anarchy and order must coexist. You cannot have
order without anarchy. Conversely, you cannot have
anarchy without order. It today’s world we have both
ideological camps. Without the counterbalance of order,
anarchy would annihilate the world. Without the
“rebellion” of freedom of choice found in anarchism,
order would evolve into despotism. And so it is that
the ‘system’ hangs in this precarious balance between
the two. G. K. Chesterton brings out this illusive
concept in his superb novel The Man
Who Was Thursday.
Reference
Chesterton,
G.K. (1986). The man
who was Thursday. London:
Penguin Books