What do you guys think Kessel was referring to with the title Invisible Empire? I've got my own thoughts, but I don't want to prematurely move the discussion in one way or the other.
Also, how do you guys (and girls, all these damn Kessel stories are making me more aware of the terminology I use) feel about what the women did in the story? Do you think they were morally justified? Was their "end" justifiable, but not the means they went about to achieve it?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Whether or not it was moral or ethical for these women to act in the way they did, they relied on their answer to a question that I think everyone uses and some point or another when pushed to a certain limit: "Do the ends justify the means?" I feel like no matter how against the implementation of this phrase a person may be, he or she will still fall back on it when faith or opinions or paradigms or what have you fail.
ReplyDelete"Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means." -Arthur Koestler
I thought the title was a reference to the Ku Klux Klan. While I don't know a lot of history about the KKK, I believe they sort of behaved in the same manner of those women.
ReplyDeleteI know practically nothing about the KKK except of course of their blatant racism, but everyone knows that. So, I can't really say anything firm, but they seem less KKKish since they were more interested in change where the KKK wanted to resist change and would accept nothing but destruction of everything non-white and English descent.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good start for my presentation, so I do not want to say much as the Title is always important in discussion. But, I believe it has some fantasy possibilities as well as some deeper, realistic meanings involving the women.
As to their end, it is very difficult to say. We are alluded to violence, but even the main character uses references to one woman's murder 10 years previous. Obviously, murder is not occuring regularly. So their response in murder is totally unjustified. However, the necessity of action is completely correct, I just believe murder is too far.
I wonder if the title has to do with the story by Karen Fowler that inspired this one.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what to think to be truthful. I don't agree that killing was the right way to deal with their problems, and I'm not really convinced that torturing the men would fix all the abuse. On the other hand, I can respect the desire to fight against their situation.
It kind of reminds me of Tyler Durden in "Stories for Men". Both are trying to work against an entire system that wants nothing to do with the changes or desires of the small group.
I thought this story could have been a precedent history for the Lunar Tales--given the strong emphasis on females' struggling to wrestle power away from men.
ReplyDeleteThe womens' cause was good, but murder was going too far--given how it makes them all vigilantes in the eyes of the public and it destroys their band in the end. Only the narrator escapes and even she repents for their crimes.