Notion Of Stasis In Broken April English Literature Essay

Many things in Broken April exist in stasis, be it the landscape and natural elements in the High Plateau, time or the journeys that Gjorg and the Vorpsis undertake. Gjorg’s journey revolves around the blood feud he is embroiled in and his remaining days under his granted thirty-day truce. The Vorpsis’ journey revolves around their immediate encounter with the Kanun and their disconnection arising from their different perspectives of the Kanun. This essay believes that through the notion of stasis, Kadare presents a fatalistic narrative of entrapment and the inescapability of the Kanun or the brutal cycle of vendetta it enshrines. The impossibility of relationships under the Kanun is also revealed. “Stasis” is defined as a state wherein there is no progress or change (Collins English Dictionary).

Firstly, stasis in the landscape of the High Plateau highlights the pervasiveness of the Kanun. As Gjorg and the Vorpsis journey through the High Plateau, images of the vast, immutable wastelands recur (Kadare 25, 29 and 67), implying that despite their travelling, they seem to make no progress in their journey. These images are further reinforced by descriptions like “the still deserted road stretched away” (Kadare 10), indicating a sense of pervasive lifelessness and infertility. The landscape always seems to be shrouded in mist. This suggests that the High Plateau itself is caught in a state of suspension. Stasis in the landscape characterises life in the High Plateau as one where progression and renewal is negated. The Kanun, like the unchanging landscape, is equally immutable; it is this immutability that oppresses and entraps its followers. There is an understated sense of terror in the omnipresent mist. Mist obscures and distorts vision, such that people appear “anonymous and unsubstantial” (Kadare 26). There is an implication of individual identity being lost in favour of something more powerful and all-consuming, that is, the Kanun. The fact that the looming mountains of the High Plateau were named as “the Accursed Mountains” (Kadare 67) reinforces the idea that fate pre-determines all events. The image of the looming mountains also suggests how human actions become impotent in light of this larger power. People in the High Plateau seem to be simultaneously entrapped and overwhelmed by the desolate landscape and doomed to be stuck in a stasis.

Besides the landscape, natural elements in the novel also seem to be caught in a liminal space wherein they remain in stasis. This parallels how the Kanun, being so pervasive and immutable, negates any potential for progress. In particular, the sky was described as “…set in a heavy immobility. The clouds seem to have frozen forever, and if some sense of motion still persisted around them, its locus was not the sky but the earth” (Kadare 120). The idea of stasis and even something beyond is reinforced. Clouds, which are usually associated with transience, are not only “frozen forever” (Kadare 120), but weighed down by this heavy immobility, suggesting a total paralysis. Similarly, raindrops were described as “lost in space before they could reach the earth” (Kadare 113). This image suggests a kind of aborted purpose or unfulfilled function. There is a sense of entrapment in the fact that these natural elements are suspended in a liminal space, unable to perform even their most basic functions. This parallels many characters in the novel, particularly Gjorg, who is helplessly caught in a similar state of non-progress. Gjorg desires to be free of the fatal mechanisms of the blood feud. This locates Gjorg as an outsider in a society where most people cannot fathom questioning the Kanun. However, Gjorg remains a product of his society and is compelled to continue the vendetta in the name of honour and tradition. This highlights Gjorg’s helplessness to his fate and echoes the notion of entrapment established by the static natural elements. Gjorg is aptly likened to a shadow (Kadare 43) and “a man on leave from the other world” (Kadare 112), which establishes him as a faceless and anonymous entity who does not belong anywhere. Gjorg’s resistance against the Kanun is futile; he is caught in stasis, unable to erase his actions or control their consequences.

The notion of stasis is also exemplified in the novel’s portrayal of time. Time seems to be suspended and is portrayed as an entity that entraps. This idea of entrapment parallels how the Kanun entraps the people in the High Plateau. Time drags out indefinitely; winter never seems to end and dusk never seems to fall. The novel makes allusions to the arrival of spring. However, the movement of seasons is undermined by the remnants of snow that could not seem to melt (Kadare 7, 10, 157, 184 and 216) and words like “frozen” (Kadare 8, 19, 85 and 126), “icy” (Kadare 8, 44, 123 and 126) and “cold” (Kadare 7, 8 and 99) which manifest in us various tactile sensations associated with the freezing winter. Additionally, although the novel makes multiple references to the fact that day is fading (Kadare 7, 10, 52 and 168), time seems to be suspended in a transitory state between evening and night. Gjorg asserts that “it was the remoteness of the Kulla that kept the evening suspended” (Kadare 53). The landscape of the High Plateau is so pervasive that even night is prevented from settling. The movement of seasons and days are associated with renewal and regeneration; the fact that day never fades and spring never comes suggests a negation of progression and renewal. In Gjorg’s last days, time was described as “eternal…without days, without seasons” (Kadare 209). The idea of “eternal time” implies that all measurements of time become obsolete. Everything becomes an arbitrary expanse of nothingness. This parallels the pervasiveness of the Kanun, where it has simply become “eternal” and impenetrable like time. This suspended state that people seem to exist in reinforces the fact that there is no escape from the Kanun and the cycle of violence that it perpetuates.

Stasis is also inherent in the journeys that Gjorg and the Vorpsis undertake, reinforcing the immutability of the blood feud and the fatalistic outlook of the novel. Gjorg’s journey can be seen as a cycle. In the beginning, obliged to avenge his brother’s death, Gjorg lies in ambush for Zef Kryeqyqe. Despite his desires to break free from the mechanisms of the blood feud, he cannot escape his obligations as part of the feuding Berisha family. In the end, Gjorg finds himself sprawled on the ground, in a somewhat similar position as he was at the beginning, but now as the victim. Gjorg’s final image of the High Plateau is that of patches of snow that could not melt, bringing us back to the image of “half-thawed snow” (Kadare 7) that opened the novel. Although Gjorg journeys through the High Plateau, he finds himself in the same position and environment as before, almost as if he had actually remained static. The recurring sound image of the grating of the pebbles (Kadare 7 and 25) and the ponderous tedium of Gjorg’s movement along the endless deserted roads reinforces how the same things happen in recurrent cycles. This suggests that the blood feud is a mechanism that works in the same immutable way, ensuring that the cycle of vendetta continues and leaving individuals caught in the mechanism powerless. Gjorg experiences his death in an out-of-body manner; he imagines himself as his own killer. This is an image of containment; even in death, there is no possibility of escape or renewal. His death marks the start of yet another cycle: Kryeqyqe, having killed Gjorg, is himself marked for death. There is a terrible sense of entrapment and stasis.

The Vorpsis’ journey is similarly unfruitful and stagnant. Throughout their journey, there seems to be an unresolved disconnection between them. Bessian is trapped in stasis, unable to break out of his tendency to romanticise and exalt the Kanun and its mechanisms. He sees the world of the Kanun as “part-imaginary, part-epic” (Kadare 64). Despite Diana’s efforts to accommodate her husband’s exaltation of the Kanun, she sees its baseness that Bessian overlooks. She describes the mechanisms of the Kanun as “terrible” (Kadare 68, 77 and 78) and “terrifying” (Kadare 124). This difference in opinion sets up an irreconcilable disconnection between the couple. At the end of their journey, Bessian resorts again to his misguided sense of romanticism, blaming the souring of his marriage on “something grand and terrible [that] had intervened” (Kadare 208). He remains stuck in his romantic ideals and the disconnection between the couple remains unbridgeable, highlighting the notion of stasis. The Vorpsis journey is characterised by unfulfilled purposes – they enter the High Plateau for their honeymoon but leave with a troubled marriage. Bessian’s journey to the High Plateau was supposedly for the purpose of “[settling] something that he felt within him” (Kadare 64), but he leaves more unsettled than before. Diana longs to meet Gjorg again, but never does. Stasis in the Vorpsis’ journey reinforces the impossibility of relationships and the negation of development in the High Plateau.

In conclusion, the notion of stasis serves to expose how the Kanun, apart from being a code of customary law which governs life on the desolate High Plateau, also seems to forfeit the lives of its followers. It imprisons them and reduces them to powerless individuals. Even visitors to the High Plateau leave the place disillusioned. The High Plateau becomes a domain of doomed quests, stuck in a state of non-progress.

Word Count: 1500