I. Early in A.B. Yehoshua’s “Facing the Forests,” the student is described in terms of his relationship to language: “words weary him; his own, let alone the words of others” (3074). In your essay, analyze the implications of the relationship of this protagonist with “words.” You might want to consider these issues: Does the issue of language relate to the larger social issues in the text? Is there a transformation in the text from beginning to end of the student’s relationship to language?

Purpose-Driven Words: A Pariah’s Search for Meaning

     The derelict intellectual of A.B. Yehoshua’s Facing the Forests is utterly purposeless, defined neither by belief nor by trade. Words provide his urban colleagues a way to make rational sense of the world – they form the bedrock of a purposeful existence. If words are a vehicle for understanding and order, then the firewatcher’s distaste for them reflects his distrust of the notion that there is meaning behind his existence. Words repel him precisely because of their function to clarify and finalize time and events while sidestepping the truth of action and experience. As long as the firewatcher remains paralyzed by lack of concrete purpose, trapped in an existence he views as futile where ennui is his only modus operandi, words are a tool with no function. However, when the burning of the forest provides an otherwise listless observer with a way to move beyond mental meanderings into the realm of action with meaning, he unwittingly transcends the seeming hollowness of language, if only for a short time.
     Apathy is the anchor of the intellectual’s city existence. If words are the lifeblood of an intellectual, then he is a pariah. After all, “Words weary him; his own, let alone the words of others. (3074)” Words seem tiresome because he is inert, caring neither for his studies, his colleagues, or even himself – “For he, too, loathes himself, doesn’t he? (3075)” Apathy is his millstone. His friends have graduated; they now walk the streets with their bulging briefcases on their way to work. Only the intellectual, opposed to the stock of his trade, has failed to make words his religion. But how can he do so when his apathy points clearly to a lack of concern for any idea? His few friends make a ditch attempt to reform the individual into an intellectual, to “scrape together his crumbled existence (3075)”, by sending him into solitude.
     The intellectual’s friends hope that the solitude within the forest will cultivate a sense of proper interest in all things academic and erudite. His time should be spent developing some new twist to old ideas, and he will return with a clear path, imbued with purpose. For commonplace intellectuals, the forest is a setting where ideas may be consolidated and words manipulated in order to perhaps produce a “startling scientific theory.” However, the soon-to-be firewatcher knows that his relationship with words is fundamentally antithetical: “He plainly needs to renew his acquaintance with words, to try and concentrate on the material that threatens ever to wear him down. (3075)” His ostensible and internal reasons for going to the forest are contradictory – on the one hand, he plans to revitalize his relationship with words and the conceptual framework of everyday purpose and rationality that they represent, but on the other hand he acknowledges that this very framework is what wears him down. A contradiction between his internal vacancy of defined purpose and form and his purported conformity to the intellectual institution and society at large must eventually be reconciled through experience.
     The forest provides the firewatcher hope for a true encounter with meaningful experience. With a sense of purpose comes an armistice with words. His actions upon arrival to the observation tower provide further evidence that words are an extension of the presence of purpose. Upon taking his post in the observation tower and surveying his important domain, the firewatcher makes several stylistic corrections to the instruction sheet. He even gazes fondly at his pen. Now there is time for studying the crusades, for falling in line among other rank and file scholars. However, such purpose exists in a moment – it is gone as quickly as it came. He becomes as disenchanted with his position as firewatcher as he was when in school. Soon silence and solitude replace class and the city as the backdrop upon which the firewatcher is forced to attribute meaning but cannot. “The heavy responsibility that has suddenly fallen upon his shoulders bewilders him. Hardest of all is the silence. Even with himself he hardly manages to exchange a word. Will he be able to open a book here? (3080)” The developing rift between the firewatcher and words becomes clear when he spends the first day of scholarly work organizing his books, and the second looking at illustrations. The notion that intellectual activity can nourish the firewatcher’s need for meaning is now dead. There are no more significant attempts to find meaning within ancient tomes or forgotten texts. When his studies ring hollow, the firewatcher turns to the forest.
     The forest influences the firewatcher most through its imposition of solitude. Words are unnecessary here. By the summer, “The words have dropped away from him like husks. (3085)” It is as if the firewatcher has encountered a framework or setting without purpose. Such loneliness is oppressive – his only companion is a mute Arab, equally alienated from the world for more tangible reasons. After months, a remarkable inversion from the city has occurred –the forest is a wordless, meaningless void, while the firewatcher is in active pursuit of some kind of personal meaning or purpose. Apathy is replaced by desperation at the futility of existence within the forest.
     The forest is a meaningless vacuum; its artificial significance exists only to those whose way of life depends on it. The mere appearance of significance is best demonstrated by the fire department, where the firemen are “bent over their fire engines, waiting in some unknown beyond, (3089)”, waiting for a fire which absolutely never occurs. The firewatcher is estranged from scholarly activities, reading only the newspaper so as not to forget the printed word. However, the word has not been abandoned, nor has the need for purpose. Rather, the firewatcher is graduating from an apathetic internal framework to one based on experience. “Novel ideas? Maybe, though now what they imagine…not exactly scientific…Rather, human…Trees have taken the place of words for me, forests the place of books. (3092)”
     A system of solitude has established itself, equally oppressive as the previous system in which the firewatcher found himself. One “meaningless little smile” communicated to the Arab seems to mean that the search for a purpose via words or action is lost. Then, an event of true magnitude and merit catapults the firewatcher out of his paralysis. The fire is an event beyond words – it has purpose in and of itself. It is beyond the construct and solitude of the forest because it consumes the forest. During these moments, the firewatcher is free from the plague of words, the dreary task to equate symbols with actual meaning. He has no need for words, for there is only meaningful action - he enjoys the momentary collapse of the oppressive system around him.
     Ultimately, the firewatcher’s experience is neither one of transcendence to any higher purpose, nor a self-realization that he exists beyond the social constructs of others as long as he acts with self-driven purpose. The forest burning experience amounts to a self-destructive momentary catharsis, only several moral rungs higher than a cheap existential release from day to day despair. However, Yehoshua’s warning to the reader is clear: when oppressive social structures leave the individual with no sense of purpose, he will do anything to create one for himself - even if it means destroying the very context of his current existence. Create a world where there is no purpose, where a man has no freedom to explain his world through words or symbols because there is nothing to symbolize, and such disenfranchisement will result in disaster. The implications of this message are salient in Yehoshua’s Israel and in all societies.

In this essay there are some nice observations, but the central thesis--"when the burning of the forest provides an otherwise listless observer with a way to move beyond mental meanderings into the realm of action with meaning, he unwittingly transcends the seeming hollowness of language, if only for a short time." is not really supported by the text or the argument offered in the essay. I think a technique this writer may have used to revise would be the technique of stating verbally to another person what he was arguing and what made him come to the conclusions he did. I think this would lead the writer to conclude that his line of thinking is tangled.

And here we have the rather unfortunate situation of an obviously bright student who understands the text quite well and has something to say about it, but because of the tangle of abstractions employed to express the ideas, will get a low grade. I'd have to say that based on a close reading of the essay, I'd award a high C, (78) (rewards for some nice use of quotations and pretty keen yet obscure insights, some good expositon, but way too many moments where the meaning behind the statements is just too obscure).

Purpose-Driven Words: A Pariah’s Search for Meaning We like titles with a little style

     The derelict intellectual of A.B. Yehoshua’s Facing the Forests [short stories in quotation marks] is utterly purposeless, defined neither by belief nor by trade. Words provide his urban colleagues a way to make rational sense of the world – they form the bedrock of a purposeful existence. There is no real establishment of this relationship with words for the colleagues. If words are a vehicle for understanding and order, then the firewatcher’s distaste for them reflects his distrust of the notion that there is meaning behind his existence. Words repel him precisely because of their function [to clarify and finalize time and events] I understand "clarify," but am less clear on what you mean by "finalize" while sidestepping the truth of action and experience. and here you claim that words sidestep the truth. Basis for this claim? As long as the firewatcher remains paralyzed by lack of concrete purpose, trapped in an existence he views as futile where ennui is his only modus operandi, I think that the ennui may be more a state of mind than a modus operandi words are a tool with no function. However, when the burning of the forest provides an otherwise listless observer with a way to move beyond mental meanderings into the realm of action with meaning, he unwittingly transcends the seeming hollowness of language, if only for a short time. Despite some lack of clarity for some of the terms used, one applauds the writer's attempt to unearth some fairly sophisticated notions about the nature of and the use of the concept of "words" in the story. The last statement is close to a good thesis statement, but still more descriptive than assertive of an analytical statement. Some suggestion of what aYehoshua means to suggest by this temporary transcendence of the hollowness would make a stronger thesis.
     Apathy is the anchor of the intellectual’s city existence. If words are the lifeblood of an intellectual, then he is a pariah. The two parts of this comparison don't really match up (how does "pariah" relate to "lifeblood"?) After all, “Words weary him; his own, let alone the words of others. (3074)” punctuation. The quotation mark goes after the quotation, before the parentheses, and then the period. shoule end like: the words of others" (3075). Words seem tiresome because he is inert, caring neither for his studies, his colleagues, or even himself – “For he, too, loathes himself, doesn’t he?" (3075). Apathy is his millstone. His friends have graduated; they now walk the streets with their bulging briefcases on their way to work. Only the intellectual, opposed to the stock of his trade, has failed to make words his religion. The equation of "Bulging briefcases" with a religion of words is unsubstantiated in the story. But how can he do so when his apathy points clearly to a lack of concern for any idea? His few friends make a [last] ditch attempt to reform the individual into an intellectual, to “scrape together his crumbled existence (3075)”, by sending him into solitude. Note the interesting phrases the writer has chosen to employ for quotations.
     The intellectual’s is this how he is referred to in the story? friends hope that the solitude within the forest will cultivate a sense of proper interest in all things academic and erudite. His time should be spent developing some new twist to old ideas, and he will return with a clear path, imbued with purpose. For commonplace intellectuals [?], the forest is a setting where ideas may be consolidated and words manipulated in order to perhaps produce a “startling scientific theory.” However, the soon-to-be firewatcher knows that his relationship with words is fundamentally antithetical: “He plainly needs to renew his acquaintance with words, to try and concentrate on the material that threatens ever to wear him down. (3075)” His ostensible and internal reasons for going to the forest are contradictory – on the one hand, he plans to revitalize his relationship with words and the conceptual framework of everyday purpose and rationality that they represent, but on the other hand he acknowledges that this very framework is what wears him down. the manner in which this is conveyed is somewhat repetitious and a little labored A contradiction between his internal vacancy of defined purpose and form and his purported conformity to the intellectual institution [?] and society at large must eventually be reconciled through experience.
     The forest provides the firewatcher hope for a true encounter with meaningful experience. Is this something established in the text? is it the student's expectation, or that of the reader, or the friends? With a sense of purpose comes an armistice not clear a war has been established. Apathy, yes.with words. His actions upon arrival to the observation tower provide further evidence that words are [an extension of the presence of purpose]. [?] Upon taking his post in the observation tower and surveying his important domain, the firewatcher makes several stylistic corrections to the instruction sheet. He even gazes fondly at his pen. Now there is time for studying the crusades, for falling in line among other rank and file scholars. However, such purpose exists [in a] only for a brief moment – it is gone as quickly as it came. He becomes as disenchanted with his position as firewatcher as he was when in school. Soon silence and solitude replace class and the city as the backdrop upon which the firewatcher is forced to attribute meaning but cannot. “The heavy responsibility that has suddenly fallen upon his shoulders bewilders him. Hardest of all is the silence. Even with himself he hardly manages to exchange a word. Will he be able to open a book here? (3080)” Aha! The classic example of the "dropped-in" quotation. Minus one. The developing rift between the firewatcher and words becomes clear when he spends the first day of scholarly work organizing his books, and the second looking at illustrations. The notion that intellectual activity can nourish the firewatcher’s need for meaning is now dead. I think there may still be in the reader some glimmer of hope for the guy to get to the books. But OK There are no more significant attempts to find meaning within ancient tomes or forgotten texts. Is this how his books are described? When his studies ring hollow, the firewatcher turns to the forest.
     The forest influences the firewatcher most through its imposition of solitude. Words are unnecessary here. By the summer, “The words have dropped away from him like husks. (3085)” It is as if the firewatcher has encountered a framework or setting without purpose. Such loneliness is oppressive – his only companion is a mute Arab, equally alienated from the world for more tangible reasons. Would it be appropriate to comment here on a different kind of relationship to words? After months, a remarkable inversion from the city has occurred –the forest is a wordless, meaningless void, while the firewatcher is in active pursuit of some kind of personal meaning or purpose. Apathy is replaced by desperation at the futility of existence within the forest.how is the "desperation" manifested in the story?
     The forest is a meaningless vacuum; its [artificial significance] why this description?exists only to those whose way of life depends on it. The mere appearance of significance is best demonstrated by the fire department, where the firemen are “bent over their fire engines, waiting in some unknown beyond, (3089)”, waiting for a fire which absolutely never occurs. The firewatcher is estranged from scholarly activities, reading only the newspaper so as not to forget the printed word. However, the word has not been abandoned, nor has the need for purpose. Rather, the firewatcher is graduating from an apathetic internal framework to one based on experience. “Novel ideas? Maybe, though now not what they imagine…not exactly scientific…Rather, human…Trees have taken the place of words for me, forests the place of books. (3092)”
     A system of solitude has established itself, equally oppressive as the previous system in which the firewatcher found himself. One “meaningless little smile” communicated to the Arab seems to mean that the search for a purpose via words or action is lost. Then, an event of true magnitude and merit catapults the firewatcher out of his paralysis. The fire is an event beyond words – it has purpose in and of itself. It is beyond the construct and solitude of the forest because it consumes the forest. During these moments, the firewatcher is free from the plague of words, the dreary task to equate symbols with actual meaning. He has no need for words, for there is only meaningful action - he enjoys the momentary collapse of the oppressive system around him. I think this is a very interesting suggestion, but there is little in the essay to prepare the reader for this idea. Nor is there any textual support for the claims. Is there a commentary on words that arises in the time wheen the forest is afire? There clearly is a kind of excitement, way beyond the apathey mentioned earlier, that is experienced, but to relate that to the issue of "words" needs another step.
     Ultimately, the firewatcher’s experience is neither one of transcendence to any higher purpose, nor a self-realization [that he exists beyond the social constructs of others] another notion that is only now being introduced as long as he acts with self-driven purpose. In fact does he act? Or simply agree not to in response to the action of the Arab? The forest burning experience amounts to a self-destructive momentary catharsis, only several moral rungs higher than [a cheap existential release] [?] from day to day despair. However, Yehoshua’s warning to the reader is clear: when oppressive social structures leave the individual with no sense of purpose, he will do anything to create one for himself - even if it means destroying the very context of his current existence. Create a world where there is no purpose, where a man has no freedom to explain his world through words or symbols because there is nothing to symbolize, and such disenfranchisement will result in disaster. Not sure what all this refers to. Who has created a world--the firewatcher? Which world? Or is the creator Israel? In which case, the suggestion that there is nothing to symbolize is tenuous and questionable. The implications of this message are salient in Yehoshua’s Israel and in all societies.