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