The underlying meaning and theme in Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Міністерство освіти і науки України

Харківський гуманітарно-педагогічний інститут

Кафедра іноземної філології

Курсова робота

The underlying meaning and theme in “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

студентки 5 курсу 511-Ан групи

факультету іноземної філології

Захарової Марини Анатоліївни

Науковий керівник:

доктор педагогічних наук, професор

Чистякова А.Б.

Рецензент:

доктор педагогічних наук, професор

Чистякова А.Б.

Харків - 2009



Content

Introduction

Chapter 1. Richard Bach and his significance in American literature

1.1. Richard Bach personality

1.2. Literary heritage of Richard Bach

Conclusions

Chapter 2. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” in the context of American literature of the 20^th century

2.1. Historical background and creation of “Jonathan Livingston

Seagull”

2.2. The fable in novella and its peculiarity

2.3. The motives of the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

2.4. The main message in novella

Conclusions

References



Introduction

The 20^th century is a complex and difficult time in the art life of humanity. The great social shifts of this epoch have rendered special influence on the literature and art of America. We can notice an extraordinary variety of tendencies, currents, schools, styles in the literature of 20^th century.

The spiritual culture of 20^th century is always connected with search of freedom and independence, with critical outlook of life; using the achievements of the past centuries, it created that new, that ennobles the human spirit. [2]

Here we deal with such literary epoch as literary modernism. The name of the cultural epoch which begun together with a Modern history and has ended approximately in the middle of 20^th centuries. Its distinctive feature is a support on reason, aspiration to the absolute and unequivocal decision of all cognitive, moral and social problems. Withdrawals from such orientation name the beginning of a new epoch, the epoch of a postmodernism. This is a highly accessible overview of the essential ideas of the various modern philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Marx, Russell, Dewey and the like. This is a great resource, a concise overview of each thinker and the extent of his influence. These concrete problems we can observe in the writings of the main representatives of this epoch. Richard Bach is one of the main representatives who works in this epoch and his best-seller “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” is the clear example to prove the actuality of the given research.

The object of the given research is a fable in novella form about seagull learning about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection and self-sacrifice, written by Richard Bach.

The subject of the given research is underlying theme and meaning of the story.

The main goal is the discovering the specific aspects of a plot, by means of the literary analysis of a story, to establish the connection between real events in a life of the author and the protagonist.

To achieve the main goal of our research, we should do such tasks:

1. to research the main events that connected with the written of this story;

2. according to this underlying the theme and the meaning of this story;

3. by means of literary analysis identify the mysterious plot and its connection with real events in the life of the author;

4. to answer to the fundamental question, what were the reasons the book became the world best-seller i.e. the story, that used in great request among readers.



Chapter 1. Richard Bach and his significance in American literature

1.1 Richard Bach personality

Richard David Bach was born on 23 of June, 1936, Oak Park, Illinois is an American writer. He is widely known as the author of the hugely popular 1970s best-sellers “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”, “Illusions”, “The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” and others. His books espouse his philosophy that our apparent physical limits and mortality are merely appearance. He claims to be a direct descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach and so-called American variant of the Sent-Antuan Ecsupery [9]. He is noted for his love of flying and for his books related to air flight and flying in a metaphorical context. He has pursued flying as a hobby since the age of 17.

Richard Bach attended Long Beach State College in 1955. He has authored numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970), Illusions (1977), One (1989), and Out of My Mind (1999). Most of his books have been semi-autobiographical, using actual or fictionalized events from his life to illustrate his philosophy.

He served in the Navy Reserve, then later in United States Air Force (USAF) as a jet pilot. Afterwards, he worked a variety of jobs, including technical writer for Douglas Aircraft and contributing editor for Flying magazine. He served in the USAF reserve deployed in France in 1960. He later became a barnstormer. Most of his books involve flight in some way, from the early stories which are straightforwardly about flying aircraft, to Stranger to the Ground, his first book, to his later works, in which he used flight as a philosophical metaphor. Bach has retained a dedicated fan base throughout the years [16].

During the 1990s, Bach appeared online at Compuserve, where he answered e-mails personally. Bach was interviewed in April, 2005 on Conscious Talk Radio, and this interview was replayed a few times in 2006.

Bach had six children with his first wife, Bette. Bette typed and edited most of Richard's aviation writings. They divorced in 1970, because Richard didn't believe in marriage. Bette Bach Fineman, who remarried, is also a pilot, and the author of Patterns, about her life as a pilot and single mother. His son, Jonathan, is a software engineer and journalist, who wrote Above the Clouds about growing up without knowing his father, Richard; and then later meeting him as a college student. (Richard gave his approval; although he noted that it included some personal history he'd “rather not see in print”)[10]. Other children are Robert, a commercial airline pilot; Kristel; James, a computer expert and writer; and Erika. His youngest daughter, Bethany, was killed in an accident at the age of fifteen in 1985.

In 1977 Bach married actress Leslie Parrish whom he met during the making of the Jonathan Livingston Seagull movie [14]. She was a major element in two of his subsequent books - The Bridge Across Forever and One - which primarily focused on their relationship and Bach's concept of soul mates. They divorced in 1999. Bach was married to his third wife, Sabrina Nelson-Alexopoulos in April 1999.

A little-known fact is that Richard Bach, a fan of the original Star Trek television series, also wrote a script for the unproduced Star Trek Phase II television series that was to be produced in the mid-1970. It was entitled “Practice in Waking” (Episode#4). According to Harold Livingston, producer of the Phase II project, his script was one of the most popular story ideas among the Star Trek Phase II crew. They felt that Richard Bach would add a certain amount of class to the series and pave the way for new direction [20].

1.2 Literary heritage of Richard Bach

Richard Bach espouses a consistent philosophy in his books: Our true nature is not bound by space or time, we are expressions of the Is, we are not truly born nor truly die, and we enter this world of Seems and Appearances for fun, learning, to share experiences with those we care for, to explore - and most of all to learn how to love and love again.

Talking about Richard's Bach writings, we may say that in 1970, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story about a seagull who flew for the love of flying rather than merely to catch food, was published by Macmillan Publishers after the manuscript was turned down by many other publishers. The book, which includes unique photos of seagulls in flight by photographer Russell Munson, became a number-one bestseller on both the fiction and non-fiction lists. The book contained fewer than 10,000 words, yet it broke all hardcover sales records since Gone with the Wind. It sold more than 1,000,000 copies in 1972 alone. [18]. The surprise success of the book was widely reported in the media in the early 1970s [19].

In 1973, the book was turned into a movie, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, produced by Paramount Pictures Corporations. The movie included a soundtrack by Neil Diamond. Also it was made the performance by the plot of the story “Wings are given to all”.

A second book, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messinn, published in 1977, tells the story of the author's encounter with a modern-day messiah who has decided to quit. Among his books are also:

Stranger to the Ground (1963) Dell reprint (1990);

Biplane (1966) Dell reprint (1990);

Nothing by Chance (1969) Dell reprint (1990);

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970);

A Gift of Wings (1974) Dell Reissue (1989);

There's No Such Place As Far Away (1976) Delta (1998);

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story (1984) Dell Reissue (1989);

One (1988) Dell Reissue 1989,

Running from Safety (1995) Delta

Out of My Mind (2000) Delta.

The Ferret Chronicles (five novellas):

Air Ferrets Aloft (2002) Scribner

Rescue Ferrets at Sea (2002) Scribner,

Writer Ferrets: Chasing the Muse (2002) Scribner,

Rancher Ferrets on the Range (2003) Scribner

Researching the personality of the Richard Bach and his literary heritage we may conclude that Richard Bach is a unique representative of his epoch, because he as a “servant of the sky” connected his life with the literature. One of the mystery, which many critics explored: why works in their opinion, rather usual in using motives, the author modes has so many readers and how long this wave of interest will be prolonged. Why works of Richard Bach are so interesting for many readers. In every work we noticed the piece of events from his life. If we think carefully we can't say exactly who is he, because his every work is a masterpiece which full of philosophical, psychological thoughts, so that's why Richard Bach as a modern American writer has so many readers.



Chapter 2. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” in the context of American literature of the 20^th century

2.1 Historical background and creation of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

“Sua fata habeni libelli” (лат.)

«У книжок своя доля»

The history of the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” is a full of legends of mysterious events. It was edited in 1970, but the great success was after it republication two years later. Richard Bach remembered that the idea to write about the bird that can go through the wall appeared in his mind in 1959. The birth of the book connected with the mystery. According the words of Richard Bach, one day he saw how the story about the seagull began developed in his mind as in the wide screen. And he saw the name - Jonathan Livingston. Then he wrote two thirds of the book and it stopped. Richard Bach said that he sat hours and hours, trying to write something, but he couldn't. And only after eight tears, two thousand kilometers from home early in the morning as a continuation of the dream he saw the end of the story. It seems mysterious. But Richard Bach said that in this case he fulfilled not the role of the author but the medium and the idea of the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” didn't belong to him.

In The New York Times we can find such: “Des Moines, Iowa, July 2 - John H. Livingston, the man, who inspired the best-selling novel “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”, died Sunday at the Pompano Beach Airport soon after completing his last plane ride.

Richard Bach, a former Iowa Air Guard pilot, has said his best-selling book about the free wheeling seagull was inspired by Mr. Livingston.

Johnny Livingston, as he known, moved many years ago from Iowa to Florida. He was one of the country's top pilots during the barnstorming days of the 1920s and 1930s” [17].

This work was a result of the world importance of Richard Bach and became the masterpiece of the world literature of the 20^th century [12].

2.2 The fable in novella and its peculiarity

In the dictionary of the study of literature the parable defines as a short simple story that teaches a moral or religious lesson in allegorical form [6, 15]. According its character the parable is near to the fable (in the18^th century sometimes even scholars didn't do any differences between parable and fable). However the sense of the parable is always meaningful. It illustrates the main important idea, regarding the problem of the moral, human being rules while the fable gives a judgment more often connected with the particular occasion. In the 19^th century the parable used by writers the sole purpose of the direct instructions connected with the human and the social behavior.

The peculiarity of the parable as a genre is that the narration in it moves as if by curve; that's why sometimes the parable called as parabola. The author begins the narration with the object which is far from his main idea, which less meaningful and returns to it in the end, again moves away from the main. Owning to such, as if, an unintentional rendering of the exiting fact, the content of the parable differs in distinctive brightness and expressiveness.

The parable permits of absence of the developing plot movement and may recued from the simple comparison, which, however, saved a special symbolic filling. From the content side the parable differs in leaning towards deep “wisdom” (“subtlety”) of the religious or moral sense.

The characters in the parable, as rule, don't have not only external features, but also a “character” in sense of closed combination of spiritual characteristics: they appear before us not as the objects of artistic observation, but as subjects of the ethical choice.

In the 20^th century the parable got a special circulation in the European literature.

In the development of the plot is not important as a reflection of the living event, but as an example with the help of which the author tries to represent to readers his own idea more persuasively. A novella concerns to the intellectual genre [3, 7].

So, making an acquaintance with the peculiarities of the genre, we may conclude that “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” is a fable in novella form about seagull learning about life and flight, and homily about self-perfection. Here we can find the characters and the development of the plot. And even the plot in this work is an example, which pays our attention to the thoughts of the authors which, probably, may be formed as following: to be differ from others not so bad as it seems at first. It is necessary to be able to take these circumstances and situations in which you appeared. The authorial challenge to every one is that it's necessary to be yourself and find your way of life.

2.3 The motives of the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

Many critics explored what reasons Richard Bach had to write the novella about “the real Jonathan Seagull, who lives us all” and what is the creative style of Richard Bach.

First of all in his novella “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” Richard Bach tells about trainings of the main hero of novella, gives a detailed, qualified description of the flying technology and the figures of the highest pilotage.

“Climb to a thousand feet. Full power straight ahead first, then push over, flapping, to a vertical dive. Then, every time, his left wing stalled on an upstroke, he'd roll violently left, stall his right wing recovering, and flick like fire into a wild tumbling spin to the right.” [12]

The professional approach doesn't seem unusual if we know something about the life of the author.

Richard Bach gives a detailed description of trainings of the Jonathan and other gulls. This makes as if illusory authenticity of the picture. An account to documentary the author gives to the reader a possibility to understand that the person who writes the novella isn't a newer in a sphere of flying, but the person with a great experience.

The describing of animal's behavior - otology - almost without translation from the special language to the popular became favourite reading among people in 1970s. Precisely, the otology helps the author describe the character of Livingston. Also otology in the novella shows that upon seagulls people are implied; the Flock is a society as it exists, the Exiles is a group of individuals who were banished because of their difference from another society.

The stepped building of the plot is evident, i.e. in the beginning the author described the seagull who preferred disinterested perfection of flying instead of every day fight for fish. Then the author showed to readers the more experienced seagull who sacrificed on the altar of the Perfection some victims and continued his narration in this way step by step. Bach as it leads his readers on a great order (ladder) - from the simple to the difficult, from the birth to the immortality. In this way the importance of these steps are explained.

“But way of done, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was practicing”.

“His thought was triumph. Terminal velocity! A seagull at two hundred fourteen miles per hour!”

“The Flock might as well have been stone.

“The Brotherhood is broken”, the gulls intoned together, and with one accord they solemnly close their ears and turned their backs upon him” [12].

The evangelical motives of this work of this work may be build by a straight line, i.e. The Outcast, The Election, The Death, The Resurrection, The Miracle, The Apostles.

First of all, it was absolutely unexpectedly for Jonathan his expulsion from the Flock, he hoped for recognition. But the individuals can't exist without a society and the society can't exist without individuals. Another words to say in the work of Richard Bach the same model is worked: only instead of Society he put The Flock. Richard Bach described all this in one sole goal to show the mechanism of building of society and the power of this mechanism. Consequently, Jonathan in his own existence couldn't resist The Flock, i.e. structure and the traditions which formed with the first appearance of The First Seagull. So, Livingston needed like-minded people. And after a long time he found them. It was in the Gospel that at first not all took the theory of the Jesus, but after a long time they understood their mistake.

The Election came to Jonathan together with the recognition and new knowledge. He found his long-expected Freedom, he teached to overcome not only the distance, but the time. Livingston as a follower of Chiang, found his students himself.

The next step of the evangelical motives is The Death and The Resurrection.

“With a tenth of a second to avoid the youngster, Fletcher Lynd Seagull snapped hard to the left, at something over two hundred miles per hour, into a cliff of solid granite.

It was, for him, as though the rock were a giant hard door into another world. A burst of fear and shock and black as he hit, and then he was adrift in a strange sky, forgetting, remembering, forgetting; afraid and sad and sorry.

The voice came to him as it had in the first day that he had met Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

“The trick, Fletcher, is that we are trying to overcome our limitations in order, patiently. We don't tackle flying through rock until a little later in the program”.

“Jonathan!”

“Also known as the Son of the Great Gull”, his instructor said dryly.

“What are you doing here? The cliff! Haven't I… didn't I… die?”

“Oh, Fletch, come on. Think. If you are talking to me now, then obviously you didn't die, did you?” [12].

Talking about The Miracle it should be mentioned the episode when in the third part Jonathan had a new student Kirk Maynard Gull

“The next night from the Flock came Kirk Maynard Gull, wobbling across the sand, dragging his left wing, to collapse at Jonathan's feet”.

“I say you are free” [12].

To cure with help of one word it looks like The Miracle, and if we add to this the belief in yourself and knowledge these are a great deal.

If address to the Bible, it's possible to observe such a fact as there are Twelve Apostles.

Let us assume that Livingston and his students are Apostles, but who are another three ones? There were eight students the main hero had and together with him there were nine. Probably, there were Chiang and Sullivan, but who was the last one [1, 5].

2.4 The main message in novella

The motto of Richard Bach and Paulo Coelho, a modern Brazilian writer with the artistic creative work of whom the artistic creative work of Richard Bach often compares, is “it is important to belief in yourself”.

Every one of them is deep and everyone has his own way. One perceives the world while another is perceiving people. And together two of these concepts are indivisible. For Coelho his creative work modified into job that's why it explained this absence of the depth which Richard Bach has [13].

The main motive for writing “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” Richard Bach explained as the likeness of events with the real life of everyone. People find in novella the answers to the lifelike questions. They read and understand: they aren't alone; there is somebody who looks like them. A simple plot, a romantic quality of describing pictures - the seagulls and the sea.

The problem of the finding the sense of the life is the main in this novella, - one of the “external” in the literature. In Richard Bach's story it obtained the features of the conflict between the Flock and the Great Outcast.

The Flock considers that “we can't understand the sense of life, because it isn't achieved, we know only one: we throw out this world for eating and staying alive unless there is enough capacity” [12]. But Jonathan absolutely disagrees with this statement: “For thousand years we scour about fish, but now it's understand, why we are live: for cognition, for discovering, for freedom!” [12].

Of course Richard Bach touched upon other “eternal” problems: fathers and sons relationships, “low” everyday care and the aspiration for the Highest, ignorance and the burning desire to know, the philosophical understanding of the kindness and love.

A plot is rectilinear: don't go forward to make a dramatic tension and don't come back to announce additional information. He stopped on the main episodes didn't distracted to the describing something. But it's difficult to retell him, because the philosophical sense of this novella is too deep and should be understand by every reader in his own way.

The main hero of this novella, except Jonathan, described schematic. They have the one passion - the flight, the one fate: to be banishing from the Flock - the acquisition of the Teacher - a urgent work - the enlightenment - the achievement of the Perfection. But Jonathan Livingston is an embodiment (personification) of the independence and the individuality.

From the very beginning of the novella we know that Jonathan is “hungry, happy, learning”, about his like-minded people more less: the Teacher Sullivan and the Elder Gull Chiang is an embodiment of wisdom, the Outcast Fletcher Lynd Seagull is “the youngster”. These characters are too less individualized that, however, absolutely agreed with the chosen genre.

As in any novella, Richard Bach's story has a lot of verbs, participles, adverbial participles and less of adjectives, because of this story about moving, but not about people and situations (conditions).

“In the moment they were airborne again, practicing. The formation point-rolls were difficult, for through the inverted half Jonathan had to think upside down, reversing the curve of his wing, and reversing it exactly in harmony with his instructor's” [12].

The three parts composition of the story reflects three steps of the spirit Perfection of the Jonathan Livingston:

Part 1 is the understanding of the truth, the idea of the Freedom;

Part 2 is the achievement of the Perfection;

Part 3 is the aspiration to give your knowledge of the spirit perfection to your students, they understand, recognizes the main idea of the Great Gull, the idea of the Freedom.

At the same time we can observe the triangle: the Earth - the Heaven - the Earth where “Heaven is not a place, and is not a time. Heaven is being perfect” [12].

So using such a composition in his novella Richard Bach represented to a reader the main idea: “…life for cognition, for discovering, for freedom!” [4, 8, 12].

“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” teaches us how to live; we can love the Flock of the Seagulls where upon the seagulls we understand people. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” teaches us to be yourself and don't hidden under the masque. It teaches always to be on the way of Perfection to achieve the concrete goal.

“Where is everybody, Sullivan?” he asked silently, quite at home now with the easy telepathy that these gulls used instead of screes and gracks. “Why aren't there more of us here? Why, where I came from there were…”

“…thousands and thousands of gulls. I know.” Sullivan shook his head. “The only answer I can see, Jonathan, is that you are pretty well a one-in-a-million bird. Most of us came along ever so slowly. We went from one world into another that was almost exactly like it, forgetting right away where we had come from, not caring where we were headed, living for the moment. Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, the thousand! And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection, and another hundred again to get idea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth. The same rules holds, for us now, of course: we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome” [12].

In “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” every reader fined something understanding only for him. Therefore, every reader understands the main message of this novella in his own way [11].



Conclusions

The middle of the 20 ^th centuries is a time of such a new literary epoch, the epoch of a postmodernism. Its distinctive feature is a support on reason, aspiration to the absolute and unequivocal decision of all cognitive, moral and social problems which we can find in the writings of the main representatives of this epoch. Richard Bach and his “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” is a clear example to prove the actuality of the given research.

In our exploration we tried to discover the specific aspects of a plot, by means of the literary analysis of the story, to establish the connection between real events in the life of the author.

For achievement of the main goal we explored that a novella has a mysterious plot connected with the real events in the life of the author and identified the main motives of the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”.

It is expedient to emphasize that a fable in novella form about a seagull learning about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection and self-sacrifice, written by Richard Bach.

By means of the literary analysis we defined the main message in novella.

In his work, novella “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” Richard Bach paid readers' attention to such things that many of us very often don't think about. He has his own way and the best adviser for him is himself. In the novella Bach intentionally described people as seagulls. In this way he more concretely showed the idea about the individuality to the traditions of life.

Every of us are able to be miracle: change yourself, belief in yourself. And reading this novella somebody recognized that he isn't alone in the world. The aspiration for the further development is very important. Don't stop, when you achieved something, continue to do it to achieve the top of the Perfection.

It's necessary to be unique and to be yourself. It's necessary to find something your own and move only your own way, even all the world is against you.

Many critics from different countries trying to explain the prodigious success among readers of this novella. One theory changed another, but “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” was read and continued to be reading by nowadays. And, probably, it will has a lot of readers simply because the idea of the human being which shown in this romantic novella about the bird can't don't find a broad response among people, awaking Jonathan Livingston Seagull “who lives within us all”.



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