A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

We’re all lost

I agree entirely with the spirit of this article. The point of Lost, I’ve always thought, isn’t to “solve” the mysteries, whatever that might look like. I see it as essentially a metaphor for the human condition – we’re thrown into this world that may or may not have a larger meaning. Things are ambiguous; there’s just enough evidence to support a variety of interpretations, but not enough for one to be overwhelmingly obvious. All the characters (and, by extension, the viewers) are trying to find meaning in a world that may or may not have any. Locke, more than any of the other characters, embraces the idea that there is an overarching purpose at work, and is therefore characterized in several episodes as a “man of faith.” Jack could be taken to represent the Enlightenment belief in human rationality, Sawyer is ruthless social Darwinism, etc. These all represent different ways of responding to the world. I think it was Gabriel Marcel who distinguished betwee a problem, which is something to be solved, and a mystery, which is something to be entered into. Lost offers a mystery in this sense: the characters enter into their strange surroundings and cobble together more-or-less coherent responses to them. It’s all very existentialist.

4 responses to “We’re all lost”

  1. Good grief. Have you read Marcel? I haven’t even heard of anyone who’s read him since I left Holy Cross with my fresh BA in 1971.

  2. Heh. One of the benefits to getting my BA from a department that wasn’t exactly “cutting edge” was that I got to read pretty much anything that interested me rather than what was currently fashionable. Senior year I did an independent study on “religious existentialism” (Marcel, Tillich, Kierkegaard). And one of my profs in grad school was astonished and probably a little bit horrified when I revealed that I’d actually read Henri Bergson. Oh, and Josiah Royce. I basically just read whatever looked interesting in the campus library. 😉

  3. Ah, my favorite show. I totally agree with you. And all the characters are “lost” as well in their own lives, as the producers have said. I really enjoyed the theme of the possibility of redemption in several character’s stories (and was very upset with the end of the Eko storyline – I don’t think they resolved that well.) It was sad how Sawyer was so insistent he wasn’t going to kill anyone (two weeks ago?) but then wound up killing Original Sawyer (Locke’s dad). It was interesting that his murderous rage was triggered by Original Sawyer’s refusal to finish reading the letter Sawyer wrote to him as a child. Obviously Sawyer wanted him to face up to what he did, but OS brushed it off, and that’s when he strangled him. Was he looking for repentance from the Original Sawyer? I don’t have any spoilers, but I feel as if Sawyer’s story should be resolved by him sacrificing his life for someone else – his selfishness needs to be overcome with love, whether for Kate or the Losties as a whole.

    Obviously I could go on and on so I’ll stop now.

  4. “I basically just read whatever looked interesting in the campus library.”

    Those were the days!

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