Fanaticism, Aspirer and Obsession

Fanaticism, Aspirer and Obsession

Fanaticism involves irrational and irregular extreme belief on something or an excessive desire to achieve something. Those named fanatics demonstrate characters of close-mindedness, unstable stand, and obsessed. Taylor, Maxwell, and Helen (111) noted that most fanatics are aspirers of something they strongly believe in and desire to achieve whatever the circumstances. When aspiration gets extreme, people become obsessed and even loss of oneself. The theme of fanaticism, aspiration, and obsession permeates the short story by The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe, Half a life by V.S Naipaul and Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang. Poe presents an unknown character possessed and obsessed by the portrait of a girl to the point that he forgets about his wife (Richards, 307). The anonymous character aspires to be a painter after seeing the painting, and he gets obsessed with his desire. Yang presents a protagonist Lee Bao who is possessed to revenge for his fellow villager’s death. Lee Boa becomes a leader of the boxer rebellion, a group with the aspiration to stop killing by the imperial authorities. Finally, in Naipaul’s novel, the main character, Willie Chandran, is unsatisfied with his life, which he perceives to be having to dimensions. Willie aspires to learn his true identity, possessed to materialize his ambition. A critical examination of the three novels would show how individuals can be obsessed with their aspirations until they become fanatics.

In most cases, people desire to achieve things they believe in and have a deep conviction to attain. As noted in the novels, each protagonist has aspirations for themselves. Their aspirations become the essential thing in their lives until they forget their duty for others. Deep conviction to achieve aspirations results in an obsession that later develops into fanaticism.  A fanatic does not want to believe in something else apart from that which he or she believes in at first. They spend the rest of their lives trying to attain their aspirations. A fanatic is not open-minded and shows ordinary support and adherence to specific believes. They are zealot, enthusiast, and devote their entire life for a cause. Aspirations, obsession, and fanaticism are interrelated in that one leads to the other. When the three aspects are experienced to extreme ends, the impacts may be adverse, just as noticed in the three novels.

The three novels have some aspects of similarity when presenting the themes. All the authors present the protagonists to be in search of identity and purpose for life. In their mission to know their true identity, they become possessed by their desires until they forget their other roles. Bucky (130) pointed out that Lee Boa in the Boxers and Saints forms a rebellion group to fight and revenge for the killings of his fellow countrymen.  This act possesses him until he forgets his role to maintain peace in society. Lee later ends up killing women and children in the church due to his fanaticism for revenge against the imperial powers. In the oval portrait, the unknown character, after observing a girl’s portrait, he admires and gets possessed with it until he loses himself (Richards, 307). He desires to practice painting and forgets the rest of his responsibility like his wife. Willie, the main character in half a life, is possessed to know his real identity and stop living a half-life. This makes him travel all over the world, trying to explore his real identity. An insight into how fanaticism is presented in the novels would help understand the relationship between the three aspects.

In the novel Half a Life, Naipaul tells the story of Willie, who spends most of his life looking for an experience he can call his own (Balfour, 20). The protagonist, Willie, does not know which social class he belongs to because his mother is a poverty stricken-woman while his father is a wealthy educated man. Willie also has the aspiration to know his true identity based on his name. His first name is Christian, middle name is from British origin, and the last name reveals his blended ancestral roots. The confusion in his names makes him look for a heritage that he can be proud of and shift from a half existence. Obsessed with aspirations to find his heritage, Willie departs from his parents in search of who he is in various parts of the world. Willie goes to London to follow his first name origin. In London, he studies literature to become a writer after the person he was named after. Unfortunately, he is trapped in deep uncertainty and later finds out that he is not interested anymore. He no longer wants to become Willie, one of the greatest writers in Britain he was named after. In London, Willie indulges in several exploration activities such as sexual liberations, prostitution, and learning languages (Balfour, 20). After exploration in Landon, Willie realizes that he has not found his identity yet and still living half a life.  He decides to travel to Mozambique in Africa, where he marries Ana. The couple lives for eighteen years until a civil war broke up in the country. The same conflict resided in their relationship, and both parties feel unsatisfied with the love they share. After eighteen years, Willie faces reality and realizes that his life is miserable, and he needs to find his own. The two decide to part ways, each possessed by the search for their existence.

Aspiration, obsession, and fanaticism can also be observed in Boxers and Saints’ novel from the protagonist Lee Bao. First, Lee Bao becomes a leader of the boxer rebellion group with a deep conviction to repay for the death of his fellow villagers. Lee gets an obsession with this cause to a point where he starts killing innocent imperial leaders. Being a fanatic, Lee even kills women and children in the church. It reaches a point where the writer terms Lees’s movement as a terrorist group. In another view, Lee is also possessed by Chinese culture and expects everyone to adhere to cultural practices (Bucky, 13). Being a fanatic of Chinese culture and religion, Bao forces Four-Girl a catholic convert to Chinese culture. When the lady refused, Lee killed her instantly. From his childhood, Lee had been taught Chinese culture, especially martial art, which Red Lantern Chu taught him.  Boxer and Saints present two parallel sides of religious believes. Members of both parties are convicted, inspired, and believe their side is the right side. The boxer side represented by Lee Bao believes in the practice of Chinese religion, and they expect everybody to adhere to the Chinese culture. The saint’s groups are the Christian sides lead by the European missionaries. The saints are fanatics of the Christian religion and believe that the Chinese faith is bad and should be eradicated. Believers in Chinese religion and culture are convinced that only their religion should thrive and not any other. Several killings happen conducted by the Boxer group to remove Europeans who are Christians from China. Father Bey, after smashed idols of the local harvest Chinese God and got killed together with his Christian gathering by the society (Bucky, 13). The society kills other Christian believers, such as Dr. Won, for converting into Catholicism.  Luen Yang does not only show how fanaticism and obsession of religion are dangerous to an individual but the entire society. Extreme faith and conviction on a particular thing are harmful, and Yang forwards in the novel that people should be open-minded, flexible, and ready to be challenged.

Poe, in his novel, the oval portrait, focuses more on an obsession to find a purpose in life. The story tries to analyze the uneasy relationship between life and art (Richards, 307). The husband makes a painting of her wife and gets possessed in it until he forgets his wife. After the husband has just perfected his wife’s portrait, the wife dies, making the husband regrets concentrating in the portrait more than his wife. Poe’s story shows a warning about neglecting reality for the desire to pursue aspirations such as great art. The anonymous character in the novel devoted his life to pursuing his dream of great art, obsessed with the aspiration to paint his wife at the expense of attending to his real wife. When the artist realized that the art stopped looking real, he becomes wrapped up in the art and notices that he had made a grave error. Due to fanaticism and obsession, the husband only focuses on what he likes,  arts and does not care about his wife. He forgets his role as a husband and puts all his attention to the arts. Most of the artist’s time is to spend painting the art and not helping his wife. Even those around him complain of his insensitiveness to others. Fanaticism can be dangerous, as shown in the novel, it can separate us from those we love and makes people lose focus in life. Believing in something too much is bad for those around us and even unto oneself. People should be open-minded and be ready to adopt changes where necessary.

It is noticed in the two novels and one short story of fiction, “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Boxers and Saints” by Gene Luen Yang, “Half a life” by V. S. Naipaul that fanaticism is dangerous. In “The Oval Portrait,” the painter asked his wife to be a model; he loves arts and draw several weeks when he finished his painting, he found that his wife had died. In the “Boxers and Saints,” Lee Bao is a justice person, but he finally becomes a cruel person and loses himself. In the book “half a life,” the main character has the aspiration of life, and he does not want to admit his life (Balfour, 20). The protagonist in the two novels and the short story fiction shows what happens in real life today. Some people get too involved in achieving their dreams in life until they do not recognize the beauty of other people around them.  From the analysis, it can be noted that fanaticism, aspiration, and obsession are connected, and their extremes are dangerous. When people become obsessed with their ambitions, they become fanatics of what they believe would help them achieve their dreams. Of all, fanaticism is terrible as it can make people lose themselves and stop caring for the people around them.

As explained by Poe, Naipaul and Yang fanaticism can make people lose themselves into an entirely different world, as witnessed with the three characters. People like Willie could not realize how beautiful it is to share his love with Ann, a Portuguese-African girl. Instead of building his life with Ann, Willie continues to feel dissatisfaction and aspiration to find his identity, which seems to be an unachievable dream. Lee, on the other hand, lost himself and a fanatic of revenge for the imperial ruler’s oppressive power and killings. His aspirations and obsessions make a killer just like the European rulers. Lee is also obsessed with Chinese religion, which he expects everyone to follow. Bao is not religiously tolerant and develops hatred for the European due to their introduction of Christianity in China (Balfour, 20). As Lee turns in a Chinese religion fanatic, he forms a boxer group that conducts ruthless killing of catholic coverts like Dr. Won and the Four-girl. This is proof of how two opposing religious sides constitute fanaticism, which may be fatal if people do not control themselves.

In conclusion, this paper mainly discusses that fanaticism and the obsession that if people focus on what they like, what they do, and do not care about others, they will lose and make other people in trouble. For example, Lee Bao burned the church, kill all the women and children; he forgot what justice is; he is an obsession with Chinese God. As a painter, he even did not realize that his wife already died for him. They both forget the beginning. The paper can be helpful to inform readers of the dangers of fanaticism, obsession, and aspirations. It is also a lesson of how religious and cultural tolerance is essential for peaceful co-existence.

Works Cited

Balfour, Robert. “VS Naipaul’s Half a Life, Magic seeds and globalization.” Literator: Journal of Literary Criticism, Comparative Linguistics, and Literary Studies 28.1 (2007): 1-21.

Bucky Carter, James. “A Necklace is Still a Chain: A Review of Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers & Saints.” Language Arts Journal of Michigan 29.1 (2013): 13.

Richards, Sylvie LF. “The Eye and the Portrait: The Fantastic in Poe, Hawthorne, and Gogol.” Studies in Short Fiction 20.4 (1983): 307.

Taylor, Maxwell, and Helen Ryan. “Fanaticism, political suicide, and terrorism.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 11.2 (1988): 91-111.