Analyzing Metaethics and Normative Ethics of A Dream of Winter Short Story Moral-Philosophical Approach

A DREAM OF WINTER

-Rosamond Lehmann-

Our surplus is yours, there for the taking – vanished! You left it to accumulate, thinking: There’s time; thinking: when I will. You left it too late.

-290-

What an extraordinary day, what an odd meeting and parting. It seemed to her that her passive, dreaming, leisured life was no thing, in the last analysis, but a fluid element for receiving and preserving faint paradoxical images and symbols. They were all she ultimately remembered.

-293-

INTRODUCTION

Moral-philosophical approach as stated in the ‘A Handbook of Critical Approaches’ (page 8) is as old as classical Greek and Roman critics. The basic position of this approach is that literary work to teach morality. Sometimes such teaching is religiously oriented, sometimes philosophically. It brings the lesson about the bad and good behavior. Philosophical can be analyzed from the characterization, the sentences, the dialogues, and much kind of aspects. They can be found implicitly or explicitly in the literary work. There are some functions of moral-philosophical approach besides teach the morality. It is such as to probe the philosophical issue based on a time of period, for instance, how was slavery viewed 300 years ago? How is it viewed now? Etc.

Nowadays, philosophers have divided moral-philosophical approach or ethical theories into three categories: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. Applied ethics is examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, human rights, environmental concerns, and even war.

ANALYSIS

Like another short story, there are also some moral-philosophical that can be found in the short story “A Dream of Winter” by Rosamond Lehmann. They may be metaethics (metaphysical and psychological), normative ethics, and perhaps applied ethics. In this analysis, we will emphasize on the metaethics and normative ethics. To make it easy, we will analyze them from the sample of sentences as evidences.

A Dream of Winter is a story about a sick woman who has children to be grown. On winter she asks the bee man to take the swarm that has been buried for years in her home. Her ambition to take the swarm is so strong but she doesn’t consider the weather. In the wrong weather, take the swarm, to get the honey, because she has no more sugar. But, the honey is not really good at the wrong weather.

Metaethics

1. Metaphysical Issues: Power over human, Objectivism and Relativism

This story happens in the winter when a sick (flu) woman who is mother of two children – John and Jane – wants the bee man to take the swarm that had buried in her country house for years. From the beginning of story we can find that she is a lonely woman from her thought that implicitly told.

· She lay staring out upon a mineral landscape: iron, ice, and stone. Powdered with a wraith of spectral blue, the chalky frost-fog stood, thickened in the upper air; and behind it a glassy disc stared back, livid, drained of heat, like a gas lamp turned down, forgotten, staring down uselessly, aghast, upon the impersonal shrouded objects and dark relics in an abandoned house. The silence was so absolute that it reversed itself and became in her ears continuous reverberation. (page 286, line 6)

From these sentences the author wants to say that as human we all were born alone fulfill with loneliness through the thought of the ‘sick’ woman. This is it the metaethics that have been explained before, especially the metaphysical issues concerning whether morality exists independently of humans. Like the iron, ice, and stone that made by physical stuff; the silence of loneliness absolutely a nonphysical nature of human. It’s called the power beyond human ability, the God’s will. Human do not invent loneliness and human can not alter them. The moral values here are as human is that there is a timeless concepts that never change, apply everywhere in the universe to all rational creatures. As human we can only accept it as God who is in controlling of everything.

Later, the loneliness still becomes the issue on some sentences:

· He experienced a simple pleasure in her society: someone to chat to on a long job. (page 287)

· She had had a lot of leisure in her life to look at faces. (page 287)

From these sentences, the author probably wants to deliver an individual relativism which holds that individual people create their own moral standards and a cultural relativism which maintains the morality is grounded in the approval of one’s society. The first sentence represents that the bee man can accept (cultural relativism) the moral standards of the woman (individual relativism) who is lonely all the time, and only by chatting with someone like him to on a long job, she can avoid the loneliness. The bee man definitely understands this thing.

The second sentence refers to the evidence of the woman’s loneliness that all the time she just waste her time do something useless: look at faces; or perhaps the author wants to tell us implicitly that human can meet and surrounded by many people but the spirit and soul are still lonely.

In the short story still there is a power over human ability that is death. Human were born in the world alone, and going to die someday, alone. It is the God’s will.

· ‘Don’t you know?’ said Jane. ‘Your heart. If it stops, you die. I can hear mine after that running.’

‘It won’t stop,’ said her mother.

‘It will some day,’ said John. ‘It might stop tonight. Reminds me – ’……. (Page 294)

2. Psychological Issues in Metaethics: Egoism, Emotion and Reason, Male-Female morality

As human, the woman still has a power over other people or creatures:

· ‘Come to take that there swarm. Wrong weather to take a swarm. I don’t like the job on a day like this. Bad for ’em. Needs a mild spell. Still, it don’t look like breaking and I hadn’t nothink else on and you wanted the job done.’ (page 287)

The sentence here, tell us implicitly about the selfishness of the woman who wants to take the swarm on the wrong weather. Although the bee man has said that it’s not the best time to take the swarm, he still does it as the woman wanted him to do this job done. This is refers to the power of human over the others or creatures. The woman is the individual with power; the bee man is the powerless individual; and the swarm (bee) is the powerless creature. This is it, the moral-philosophical here is that human with power can control others or creatures. This selfishness happens if there is a specific driving force behind all human actions which is the pleasure. Pleasure itself identical with hedonism.

From the sample sentences below, we’ll know the evidence of the pleasure that driving the woman’s selfishness:

· ‘A man’s come to do the bees!’ (the woman dialogue)

‘It’s perfectly safe,’ yelled John, in scorn, forestalling her. But voiceless, she could only nod, beam, roll her eyes. (Page 288)

· ‘We’d better go down to him,’ said John wearily, acknowledging one more victory of silliness. (Page 288)

From this dialogue between the woman and her son, we can say that the woman get some pleasure from her selfishness acting. Just like her son says that the swarm is perfectly safe to forestalling her, but she ignores him by nodding, beam, roll her eyes. Then John gives up, acknowledging one more victory of silliness. This sentence has given us a clue that her mom always does something like that; it’s not the first time.

But, actually his mom has reasons to do act like that:

· Her dream had been rich: of honey pouring bountifully out from beneath her roof tree, to be stored up in family jars, in pots and bowls, to spread on the bread and sweeten the puddings, and save herself a little longer from having to tell the children: No more sugar. (Page 289)

This is the reason that might be of service in giving us the relevant data why the woman wants the bee man to take the swarm, because she has no more sugar. As the female morality (feminism), the woman has traditionally had a nurturing role by raising children and overseeing the domestic life. It’s the unique of female perspective of the world which can be shaped into a value theory. The author wants us to understand that every people always have a reason to act towards something. And sometimes, reason is the slave of the passion.

But, actually the result of the honey taste is not good. ‘Dry, see,’ said the bee man. ‘You won’t get much honey out of here. It’s all that wet last summer. If I’d ‘a’ taken this swarm a year ago, you’d a’ got a whole heap. You won’t get anythink to speak out of here now.’ (Page 289)

She knows that she has done something wrong:

· She wish to justify herself, to explain the necessity of dispossessing the bees, to say that she had been waiting for him since September; but she was dumb. (Page 290)

· Her Enemy, so attentive since the outbreak of the war, whispered in her ear: ‘Just as I thought. Another sentimental illusion. Schemes to produce food by magic strokes of fortune. Life doesn’t arrange stories with happy ending anymore, see? Never again. This source of energy whose living voice comforted you at dawn, at dusk, saying: We work for you. Our surplus is yours, there for the taking – vanished! You left it to accumulate, thinking: There’s time; thinking: when I will. You left it too late. ……… (Page 290)

These sentences refer to the woman’s feeling. She feels wrong to ask the bee man on the wrong weather (winter). And her enemy’s whispered make her realize that everything in this world has their time or moment. If you left something important at the correct time probably you will never find the same again: ‘Our surplus is yours, there for the taking – vanished!’ It’s exactly what happens when the woman left the time that the swarm should be taken, and now she doesn’t get what she wants. As human, we should know when they will do something important, there’s time for us to thinking and time for acting.

She also finds something that makes her shocked:

· ‘That’s a nice boy you’ve got,’ said the bee man, cutting, scraping busily. ‘Sensible. I’m ever so glad to see this honey. There’s one thing I do hate to see, and that’s a swarm starved.’

The words shocked her. Crawling death by infinitesimal stages. Not question of no surplus, but of the bare necessities of life. Not making enough to live on. A whole community entombed, like miners trapped. (Page 291)

It shows us that the woman finally comes to the sense that surplus what others create is not really important. The most important is the necessities of life. So, it’s true that as human we need to struggle – like the bird which will end its life: Suddenly it revived, it began to stagger about. The tenacity of life in its minute frame appalled her. (Page 294) – Although actually everything doesn’t really happen like they want.

In the end, to reach our dream, we need to know the best time or correct time to make it comes true. We should not only react with the strong desire but also consider the time and environment. Dream is not everything, the most important thing is the experienced during reach our dream:

· What an extraordinary day, what an odd meeting and parting. It seemed to her that her passive, dreaming, leisured life was no thing, in the last analysis, but a fluid element for receiving and preserving faint paradoxical images and symbols. They were all she ultimately remembered. (Page 293)

Normative Ethics

Normative ethics involves arriving at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. For simplified, this is the way of proper behavior to the others. A classic example of normative ethics is the Golden Rule: we should do to the others what we would want others to do to us. There are three strategies of this ethics: (1) virtue theory, (2) duty theory, and (3) consequentialist theory. Here, we will discuss the virtue theory.

Virtue theory: emphasizes moral education since virtuous character traits are developed in one’s youth. Adults, therefore, are responsible for instilling virtues in the young. In the short story ‘A Dream of Winter’ the woman as the adult, has a duty to instilling this virtue, even bad or good one to her children.

· ‘What’s the most important thing about a person?’ she said (Jane dialogue)

‘Dopey,’ said her brother. ‘What’s biting you?’

‘Don’t you know?’ said Jane. ‘Your heart. If it stops, you die. I can hear mine after that running.’

‘It won’t stop,’ said her mother. (Page 294)

From this dialogue, the author wants to say that the woman as a mom has a responsibility to create the way of youth’s thought. She says that heart won’t stop, although her daughter has already known that the most important thing about a person is heart and it will stop if we die. Her statement already influences Jane:

· ………..The tenacity of life in its minute frame appalled her. Over the carpet it bounced, one wing burnt off, one leg shriveled up under its breast, no tail; up and down, vigorously, round and about. (the bird will die as soon as possible)

‘Is it going to be alive?’ said Jane.

‘Yes,’ said John coldly, heavily. ‘We can’t do anything about it now.’ (Page 294)

From this dialogue we know that Jane obviously influenced by her mother’s statement. She asks whether the bird will still live, even though it will die soon. And about John who answers her sister’s question: coldly, heavily definitely duplicates his mother’s act:

· ‘Look here, Mum, what on earth did you want to get rid of the poor blighters for? They never did any harm.’

‘Think what a maddening noise they made.’

‘We like the noise. If you can’t stand the hum of a wretched little bee, what’ll you do in an air-raid?’

‘You had a lovely day watching the bee man.’

‘I dare say.’ (Page 293)

Their mother’s act is cold. She looks doesn’t care with her cruel attitude towards the swarm. Her children know exactly that as human we can not harm others, like patterns: “don’t kill” or “don’t steal”. But their mother acts like there is no something wrong with her behavior that takes the swarm on the wrong weather. So John feels nothing when kill the bird, because he has already watched what his mother did. The mother has taught them, so they will learn from it.

CONCLUSION

(1) Moral values sometimes left by people in their lives when they want to get anything. The story tells us about moral values of good and right in the lives and gives the reason in some example of moral philosophy in the story. The morality aspects of the story are both explicit and implicit.

(2) There is power over human ability that is God’s will such as born alone, live, loneliness, and death.

(3) Human has a power over other people or creatures that happen because of the reason to get pleasure. Every people are selfish. But it will be wrong if use it to reach our goal without consider the environment.

(4) Adults are responsible for instilling virtues in the young.

(5) As human we need to struggle to get what we want in proper behavior (consider the environment, other people, and other creatures) although actually everything doesn’t really happen like we want.

(6) The most important in life is not the question of no surplus, but of the bare necessities of life.

(7) It seemed that human passive, dreaming, leisured life was no thing, in the last analysis, but a fluid element for receiving and preserving faint paradoxical images and symbols.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Willingham, John R. Guerin, Wilfred L. Labor, Earle G. Morgan, Lee. 1966. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York and London: Harper & Row, Publisher.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/

THE BEAUTY OF THE DAWN SHIFT

INTRODUCTION

“The Beauty of the Dawn Shift” is a short story by Rose Tremain, an English author. Rose Tremain was born in August 2, 1943 in London. She was educated at the Sorbonne and is a graduate of the University of East Anglia, where she taught creative writing from 1988-95. She married John Tremain in 1971, and they have a daughter. Their marriages only five years last. She has lived with the biographer Richard Holmes for the best part of two decades.
She likes making story focused on home matters. But homes must always be built, and then re-built. Characters seldom belong securely and contentedly to the place, the family, or the identity that they inherit. Through fiercely imagined journeys, performances and metamorphoses, they have to make themselves up - and to make themselves at home. They cross continents, cultures, classes, even the boundaries of gender, and transsexual stuff. Rose Tremain’s stories are also like fairy tale. There is such thing like meaningless death. Characters live (and die) in places they don't belong, on impossible journeys towards happiness or God.
This kind of theme also happens in “The Beauty of the Dawn Shift” that Hector wants to have a journey to find his past in Russia, his dream to meet happiness in the dreamland because of sick over people and environment around him. Hector is a twenty-eight man, who wants to make a journey from East Berlin, across Poland, to the Russia. It’s like the other literary works of her; she usually makes a story with a theme of impossible journeys toward happiness or God, so do “The Beauty of the Dawn Shift”.
In this case to analyze “The Beauty of The Dawn Shift”, the researcher has decided to use psychological approach. It is because there are many interesting things and symbolism can be analyzed using this approach. Psychological approach based on Freud’s theories is emphasized upon the unconscious aspects of the human psyche. There are three psychic zones. They are the ID, the Ego, and Super Ego.

ANALYSIS

A. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
According to Sigmund Freud, psychological approach is emphasized upon the unconscious aspects of the human psyche. Freud believes that most of human’s actions are motivated by psychic forces over which we have very limited control. He also demonstrated that, like the iceberg, the human mind is structured that its great weight and density lies beneath the surface (or the level of consciousness). Freud’s first major premise is that most of the individual’s mental processes are unconscious. The second is that all human behavior is motivated ultimately by sexuality. He designates the prime psychic force as libido, or sexual energy.
Based on Freud’s premises, he decides these mental processes in to three psychic zones. They are the ID, the Ego, and Super Ego.
Look at this following picture:
Id
Sigmund Freud Ego
Super Ego
Id is the source of all aggressions and desires; is governed by the pleasure principle. Id is entirely unconscious. It is the reservoir of libido, the primary source of all psychic energy. It is also lawless, asocial, and amoral. Its function is to gratify our instincts for pleasure without regard for social conventions, legal ethics, or moral restraint. Or we can say in the other word that Id would make us as animals.
Ego is something what we ordinarily think as conscious mind. This ego prevent the Id’s dangerous potentialities, there is a psychic agencies function to protect the individual and society. This is the rational governing agent of the psyche. Whereas the Id is governed solely by the pleasure principle, the ego is governed by the reality principle. Ego keeps us healthy human beings by maintaining a balance between two opposing forces both animal side and angel side. In brief, the Ego serves as the intermediary between the world within and the world without.
Super Ego is the moral censoring agency, the repository of conscience and pride. The Super Ego serves to repress or inhibit the drives of the Id, to block off and thrust back into the unconscious those impulses toward pleasure that society regards as unacceptable. It is dominated by the morality principle. The Super Ego would have us behave as angels.

B. THE AUTHOR
Background Life
Rose Tremain’s literary works are dominated with theme of impossible journey, family, divorces, loss, longing, etc. such as in “The beauty of the Dawn Shift” which told about a guard on the east side of Berlin Wall finding the familiarity of the old regime threatened by the looming threat of capitalism when Germany reunites. He cycles across a wintery Poland hoping to find his past in Russia.
She seems like writing concerned on home matters. Probably it is because her short marriages, only five years, that has influenced her literary works. She believes that home has to always be built and re-built. Characters seldom belong securely and contentedly to the place, the family, or the identity that they inherit. Through fiercely imagined journeys, performances and metamorphoses, they have to make themselves up and to make themselves at home. They cross continents, cultures, classes, even the boundaries of gender and the transsexual matters.
Tremain also takes some true stories to be written and spins it into a tale filled with whimsy and irony, such as on her story “Wallis Simpson”.

C. CHARACTERS
The theme of journey to find happiness or dream is the central of Rose Tremain’s “The Beauty of the Dawn Shift”, the tale of a guard of East Berlin, Hector, who leaves his home, his sister Ute, and his father Erich, to across Poland, and makes a journey to Russia after the Wall had started to come down. He plans to cycles to the Russia during a day. We can say that the event of the terrifying day until the dawn is a classic “traumatic experience”. He finds much kind of things during his journey and many events happen. The climax is reached when he is locked in the car. And in the end he dies, lying there.
Like most of Rose Tremain’s tales that is built around cultures, classes, even the boundaries of gender, transsexual stuff, and even across continent, “The Beauty of the Dawn Shift” is also built by them. They also reflect the Id, Ego, and Super Ego.
To see what this journey means in psychological terms, we need to examine the setting, the time and place. Hector moves from a nice home, East Berlin, German to the Russia went through Poland by cycle. The home in the East Berlin is a comfortable place: He looked at the room he was in, the room where the family ate and played cards and watched TV, and wondered if, when he arrived at his destination, he would think about this room and feel homesick for the black plastic chairs and the painted sideboard and the wall-mounted electric fire (405). It is a certain place. He has sister and father. He decides to do his journey in the morning: It was the morning of 9 December 1989, one month exactly after the Wall had started to come down (404); Neighbors passed him and said, “Good morning, Hector,” and still he contemplated the metal post boxes, imagining news of his future life arriving one day inside him (405). Then he goes to the cemetery where his mother was buried. And from that place he continues his journey across Poland. This is it, the terrors and many kind uncertain things happen. On one level, then, the home/apartment (East Berlin, German) may be equated with consciousness; the journey with the uncertain condition may be the unconscious.
The home or apartment in East Berlin, German, as a place of social and moral order (and inhibition) is analogous to Freud’s Super Ego, conscience and the morally inhibiting agent of the psyche. The journey across Poland, as a place of wild, untamed passions, terrors, and uncertain, has the attributes of the Freudian Id. And Hector himself resembles the poor Ego, which tries to affect a healthy balance and is broken because it is unable to do so.
• Hector S
Based on Freud’s perspective, Hector is playing its role as the implication of the writer’s Id which is dominated by pleasure principle, sexuality (Pedophile): He was twenty eight and he’d slept with only one girl. This one girl was his sister, Ute (403); He packed no books, only a small photograph album, filled with pictures of Ute, including one her naked, developed privately by a colleague…(404); In her life, Elvira had relished confidences, licking her sensual lips… ‘Oh so delicious, Hecti! Tell me more!’ (406) , and also dream to find freedom and peace: He really didn’t want these familiar small sufferings – feeling cold inside, being ignored by people in public – to go on for the rest of his life (408). A man should out from the comfortable place because sooner or later, all men must confront reality (the impossible journey). Like what Hector does, he tries to confront the world: He was a man who had always known what was important in life and what was not. It is also determined as the Ego which keeps balancing with the Id: He knew that memory was as uncertain in its behavior as the sea; it could wash you ashore on any old forgotten beach; it could try to drown you in remorse. He himself resembles the Ego.

Terror/horror:
Hector is under the so called terror circumstance which is showed in the following paragraph or phrases from the story as follow:
His future was going wrong. Every thought that came to him, instead of being clear and precise, was clouded and difficult. (415)

Passion to survive:
When he locked in the car:
After an hour had passed, he tried to move himself towards the edge of the car, so that he could bang on the doors with his feet, but he found that his body was unwilling to move. (418)
‘Train driver!’ he said. ‘Help me!’ it was a whisper, not a shout. (418)

Liberation: struggling to do the best on the last time of his life and he free himself to be died.
It is difficult to say how long Hector S struggled to locate this perfect yellow fruit, but into his search for it he put every last ounce of his strength. (419)
From this sentence, we know that Hector has known his end of his journey, so he puts a big effort to locate the precious lemon which brings memory of the morning when he departure.

• Erich, Ute
Hector’s father, Erich and his sister, Ute are the reflection of Super Ego who like angels side wants to against Hector’s journey. It is shown on: ‘Hecti,’ she said, ‘don’t leave us behind!’ (403); Hector’s father, Erich, on the other hand, didn’t try to persuade his son to take him with him; neither did he try to persuade him not to leave.
‘So,’ said Erich ‘what are you going to become?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hector. ‘Don’t ask me yet.’
‘All right,’ said Erich, ‘but remember, when you walk away from one place, you are inevitably walking towards another.’
‘I know that,’ said Hector. ‘That’s why I’m going east.’ (404)

• General Lassalle (super Ego): Train driver and his wife, Katarzyna
They save Hector, although the destiny says on the other way. They present the Super Ego.

D. PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUE
• Morality
- Hector: every human need to struggle finds and gets what they want like a dream, the freedom and peace. Sometimes we as human should do an impossible journey to turn something impossible to be possible. Like hector has done, he does the journey and struggles to find his purpose even though he doesn’t know what will happen next in his life. And he ends it with death bringing his idealism: patriotic.

E. INTERCONECTION
• In this story, Rose Tremain portrays a tale which is thoroughly psychological. She creates the main character, Hector who does a journey to reach his aim. Like many of her stories, Rose Tremain believes through fiercely imagined journeys, performances and metamorphoses, people have to make themselves up - and to make themselves at home.

Negara Bobrok

Malam ini, 26 Desember 2010, Indonesia kalah dari Malaysia(2-0) di pertandingan final AFF yang kebetulan bertuan rumah Malaysia. Pertandingan yang sudah dinantikan oleh kedua belah pihak ini menimbulkan kekecewaan besar di antara para pendukung Tim Nasional Indonesia, Tim Garuda. Kenapa? Pasalnya, mereka merasa dicurangi oleh kelakuan suporter tim Malaysia. Saya sebagai pendukung tim merah putih pun merasakan kekesalan tersebut.

Apa yang suporter Malaysia perbuat?
Mereka: menggunakan laser berwarna hijau yang dengan sengaja diarahkan ke muka-muka pemain timnas Indonesia, dengan tujuan merusak konsentrasi. Hebatnya, dengan ciri khas Bangsa Indonesia yang suka panik, timnas kita terkecoh.
Mereka: berani menyalakan petasan dan bahkan melemparnya ke tengah lapangan. Negara macam apa ini? Bukan, tepatnya orang-orang macam apa mereka? Bodoh, dan berpikiran sempit. Mereka tidak pernah berpikir dan merasa malu melakukan perbuatan yang mencoreng nama baik nasional mereka. Kasihan, timnas Malaysia, usaha keras mereka telah tercoreng. Cihh.

Akhirnya pada menit-menit awal babak kedua Indonesia protes dengan laser-laser yang terus menyerang mereka. Dan pada saat itu pula lah petasan menyala di tengah lapangan, sungguh hal memalukan di kancah internasional. Saya saja yang sebagai warga negara Indonesia malu melihatnya. Ckck. Saya berdoa semoga nanti kalo di Indonesia tidak akan ada yang melempar tabung elpiji hijau 3 kg. Hahahaha.

Singkat cerita, Indonesia akhirnya kebobolan 3-0. Pemain Indonesia nampak kewalahan, panik, dan tidak konsen. Seandainya saya sebagai pendukung Malaysia - yang menggunakan teknik-teknik pecundang itu - saya tidak akan bangga dengan kemenangan 3-0 ini. Why? U know.