User:Nathan Drezner/Reconciliation in Chaos

Judith Thompson’s Palace of the End presents a series of characters entrapped in their own histories, tangled up in pasts that prove torturous to their everyday selves. Each speaker is faced with the burden of themselves, coping with the consequences of both their own actions and the actions of others. The monologues presented in Palace provide these individuals a voice—a direct line of communication between their own conflict and the audience to that conflict. The soldier works to define to herself how and why she enacted her abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, David Kelly seeks solace in the actions he took as he investigated biological weapons manufacturing in Iraq, and Nehrjas tries to find peace from the constant torture enacted on herself and her family by both the “Instruments of Yearning” and the American government. In their monologues, the characters work to reconcile their histories with their futures—whether that be ostracization, death, or both. In order to answer the question of how these characters reconcile with these pasts and whether they are able to truly reconcile, I have conducted a computer-aided analysis—a sort of “digital dramaturgy”—of the language used in each monologue, finding patterns of emotion in each character by tracing word counts and sentiments of their dialogue. The data obtained through this analysis yielded surprising results, and suggested fascinating thematic connections over the duration of the play. In particular, a resonance of each character’s perception of themselves and their perception of those around them guided their method to finding peace, while a sentiment analysis suggested a significant growth of trust through language and a suggestion that the characters do find reconciliation for themselves, as the emotional intensity of each monologue trends downwards as each monologue concludes. It is also worth noting the impact of these findings—particularly whether a sense of reconciliation for each character can counteract their problematic histories.

Uncovering the "other": a study of noun choice
The first method of analysis was the categorization and visualization of word count in each monologue, connecting each character’s empathy and selflessness to their relationship with others in their lives. In tracing the word counts, I worked my way backwards through the text, first identifying the repetition of “Instruments of Yearning.” The cloud contains a significant number of words relating to the other: “son,” which appears 26 times, “people,” which appears 12 times, and “woman,” which appears 11 times. Several others, including “children,” “mother,” and “child” also appear. This language suggests a strong personal connection for Nehrjas—of course, her story is certainly one of family, a treatment of her abuse and torture alongside her son. Yet other language used in this monologue correlates to a strong humanity in Nehrjas’ monologue, perhaps ironically, considering her own assessment that “an infidel has no friend.” Nehrjas feels isolated, yet she is also intensely connected to those around her—her husband, her son, her people. She is surrounded by others.

By contrast, the language of David is more closely woven with his own life. Words relating to the other that most frequently appear include “family”, which occurs nine times, “people”, which appears eight times, and “child” which appears seven times. References to family, however, aren’t related to David’s own family. Instead, the references are connected to the story of Jalal, whose family was brutally raped and murdered by American soldiers. Unlike Nehrjas, whose relation to family is nuclear—her language is connected to her direct relations—David begins to separate. Despite the presence of significant others in his life, David is far more alone than Nehrjas, finding solace by reflecting on other families, separate from his own. His fears related to his own family—specifically that his daughter will find him in the woods—are distanced from his concern with other families, showing how his connection to the other is further removed than that of Nehrjas.

The soldier finds herself completely removed from the other. In her monologue, words relating to the other include “man,” “girl,” and “Charley.” Both “man” and “girl” are used informally or to refer to the soldier herself, while “Charley” refers to the man who coerced the soldier into committing war crimes—including the titular pyramids. A lack of empathy form the soldier becomes apparent—a lack separating her from the other speakers in the play, who find connections with people surrounding them. Yet a transition between each of the three monologues, guided as the connection to the other becomes more intense over the course of the narrative, show how the play defines empathy between characters. The language of each character reveals this, showing how the soldier is unable to find a sense of others, while David finds solace in the families of others and Nehrjas finds solace in her own nuclear family.

Emotional transitions
As a second mode of analysis, I focused on emotional transitions using the Saif Mohammad and Peter Turney database. Several trends quickly became apparent: first, a transition over the course of the play leading to an increase in anticipation, trust, and surprise, while anger, fear, and sadness all increased over the play and dissipated by Nehrjas’ monologue. These changes in sentiment indicate shifts over the course of the narrative. Most notably is a change in the level of trust, showing how as the play progresses towards its conclusion, words associated with trust increase, showing the character’s belief in the veracity of their own narrative. A use of more language associated with trust indicates that the characters believe—or want to believe—more of what is happening to them, and how they perceive their own situations. As a method towards reconciling history, this shift towards belief in self is quite important, demonstrating that even as the history is related back, characters must find a trust in the language they use to define what has happened to them. Likewise, increase in language associated with anticipation indicates the pacing of the narrative, directly correlating how the language is used with how play progresses.

Over the course of the narrative, the overall relationship between positive and negative words also shifted. In “Pyramids,” there is a higher portion of positive words than negative words, while in “Harrowdown” there is an equal portion of positive and negative words, and in “Instruments” positive language is more prevalent than negative. The soldier, whose story is one of perpetrator, finds far more negative language being used. For David, who acted to both perpetrate horror in his investigations of weapons and sought to erase those actions by speaking out on the truth of what was happening, shows conflict in his sentiment, his positive and negative sentiments equating each other. Nehjras, a victim, is characterized by the use of more positive language. Comparing these findings to the study of word count suggests a relationship between family and the other and a character’s sense of positivity and negativity, and their role as perpetrator and victim. As a result, it is apparent that the narratives of the victims, in a certain twist, are more optimistic, characterized by more positive language than that of the perpetrator. Those caught between—David—find themselves unable to escape from either role, instead caught in a sense of conflict and difficulty in reconciliation.

Disgust
The third study I conducted follows the pattern of positive and negative emotion over the course of each narrative. These findings represent a specific analysis of the overall sentiment, tracing how each characters relationships evolve over the course of each monologue. The results also point to specific moments in the text, particularly transition points and climaxes, indicating where and how specific points of language dictate the narrative. “My Pyramids” is characterized by an extreme sense of negativity, with an overwhelming trend of negative words being used in each paragraph, apparent in both the Bing and Finn Årup results. The graphs point to the opening paragraph, where the solder reads responses to her actions. “Drown the slut in acid, she should be hogtied, damn she's ugly I'd put my wang in her ass she is the ugliest female I have ever seen drown that bitch in acid,” she reads. Despite the soldier’s separation from significant personal others—friends, family, or other connections—she is desperately attached to the language the world uses to describe her. Her isolation traps her under the thoughts of others, tearing apart her empathetic tendencies and ostracizing her from those around her—and the world at large.

Kelly's internal conflict
David’s monologue in “Harrowdown Hill” tells a different story—one of incredible conflict. Just as David’s use of positive and negative associated language paralleled each other, moments of extreme positivity in his monologue are complimented with extremely negative dialogue. These situations take two forms in both models of the sentiment: the first is as a transitional moment, the second is as a pure moment of conflict. Early on, as David describes his transition towards suicidal tendencies, his language parallels his internal conflict. David explains how he “was fine. [He] was strong. Very excited to go back to [his] beloved Iraq.” Words like “beloved,” “fine,” strong,” and others signify the positivity of this passage. His tone quickly shifts, however, describing his methods of suicide, and detailing the horrible contradiction David’s life faces. This sense of displacement stemming from contradictory language continues throughout the monologue, with David later describing his appreciation of Jalal’s family and their subsequent rape and murder. Words like “beautiful,” “delicious,” “fine,” and “loved,” which appears twice, indicate a sense of positivity; language including “crude,” “cry,” “intimidating,” and “raped” parallel David’s sense of love. These contradictions, indicated through David’s use of language to describe his history, show the conflict the man endures leading up to and into his suicide. Just as his actions counteract each other—his guilt over the fallacy of biological weapons in Iraq overwhelming him—so too does his language, with the dialogue he uses pointing to what leads to David’s suicide and difficulty in finding reconciliation against his actions.

Optimism despite tragedy
“Instruments of Yearning” finds Nehrjas as the most positive narrator in the play, and her language demonstrates a level and clarity of emotion absent from both David and the soldiers’ perspectives. Her optimism is devastating, yet in many ways keeps her steady. Nehrjas optimism is not unfettered, however, and the events that unfold through her life demonstrate a similar sense of devastation as David. Just before describing her torture, she thinks “of an amusing story,” telling of an interaction with an American ambassador—her positive approach to politics acting as a prologue to the horrors of her torture. Unlike the others, this positivity remains. Her monologue transitions from the negativity of the descriptions of her history (paragraphs 65-86) to a more positive outlook, trading back and forth between an optimism for her past and future and the contradiction that the truth of her life and torture holds.

At her conclusion, Nehrjas’ emotional intensity declines. This trend parallels models of the other monologues—at the conclusion of all three monologues, emotional language declines. This trend indicates a sense of solace at each conclusion, and the final stage direction points towards a conclusion that all three characters achieve a sense of emotional security: “The three performers stand, somehow communicate with each other, and walk off.” This sense of reconciliation—stemming from a decline in emotion—suggests that the characters are able to achieve solace and reconciliation against the horror of their histories. The reconciliation through emotional displacement occurs in different ways for each orator. For the soldier, this is represented as a trend upwards from a highly negative opening—through several negative moments—towards a conclusion of balanced emotion. David’s moments of conflict increase, peak, and decrease again towards a balanced sense of emotion. Nehjras’ emotional output declines over the course of her monologue, reaching a similar point of emotional neutrality by her conclusion. All models of each monologue show a sense of emotional conclusion through neutrality, and demonstrate how an exhaustion of emotional output signifies a sense of reconciliation for each character.

Questioning reconciliation
The conclusion towards reconciliation raises the question of whether a reconciliation with history represents a counteraction of each character’s history. The soldier’s actions at war in many ways outweigh her ability to achieve a sense of closure and reconcile what has happened—even if she reconciles with her past, her actions remain unchanged, and the torture conducted continues to inflict its damage. For both David and Nehrjas, reconciliation does not change their deaths. Finding reconciliation with their own actions and history again change nothing, despite finding an emotional conclusion. However, an internalization of personal trauma represents a different sort of conclusion, suggesting that the purpose of each monologue is not to solve the problems of history, but instead to personalize it, inflecting the sentiment of each individual rather than the voices of outsiders—the voices which drove the soldier’s resistance to “Googling” herself. This demonstrates a theme of personal reconciliation over resolution of history, suggesting that each character’s ability to reconcile what has happened is the best solution they can undertake in the light of what they have done and what has happened to them. Reconciliation, then, doesn’t matter for history—yet it matters for the person, and, as the play focuses on realizing the individual hidden behind a headline, this reconciliation if hugely important in identifying how these histories were allowed to occur in the first place.