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Essay / Order and Disorder in “Arcadia” by Tom Stoppard
In Arcadia, Tom Stoppard presents a dynamic interplay of order and disorder that exists “eternally and creatively” (Demastes 91). Order is usually associated with laws, structure, control, and in the play it is exemplified by the classical temperament, also corresponding to Newtonian science. Its antithesis is romanticism, exemplified by disorder, emotions and intuition, as well as deterministic chaos. Through the dialectic of order and disorder, Stoppard suggests that “life can be chaotic, but also stable, and that within chaos there are windows of order” (Fleming 67). So even if we fail to attain knowledge, it is nevertheless worthwhile to pursue knowledge, because the very pursuit of knowledge is justified and worthy in itself. The incompleteness and chaos of unknowing is a state that we must embrace, because it is necessary to give impetus to change and to life itself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayThe jam pudding that Thomasina stirs reflects the natural progress from order to disorder. As the jam is stirred, the jam trails move toward a larger mess that cannot be stirred by going the other way, because it "cannot separate them" (8). This is contradictory to Newtonian laws, which “go forward and backward” (119). Therefore, Thomasina intuits the second law of thermodynamics, which states that heat "goes only in one direction" (119), from hotter to colder, "like a wood stove that must go consume until the ashes and the stove become one and the heat disappears from the earth” (89). Its modern relative, Valentine, also believes that chance, disorder and chaos are as much a part of reality as order, and that far from being infinitely reversible as Newtonian physics suggested, the system is gradually exhausted: the blockage cannot indeed be disturbed. A similar observation by Valentine also suggests the inevitable one-way progression of heat and, therefore, a general disorder in the universe: "Your tea cools by itself, it does not heat by itself." (106) He goes on to explain, “What happens to your tea happens to everything everywhere” (106). In a later scene, Thomasina complains that the geometry she has been taught is limited to simple shapes, "as if the world of shapes were only arcs and angles", leading her to attacking forms that seem random and irregular, believing that “nature is written in numbers” (51). This then leads to the creation of the “New Geometry of Irregular Forms” (59). In doing so, Thomasina saw the possibility of applying classical science to nature, giving rise to a new way of appreciating beauty. In response, his tutor, Septimus, is at first adamant in accepting his revolutionary idea, rationalizing that it is impossible to explain nature through the geometry of man, a task that leads to "infinities that we cannot not follow” (52). Valentine, as modern chaos theory. expert, understands Thomasina's intentions regarding her invented geometry, as the understanding of science, mathematics, arts, nature and chaos are by no means mutually exclusive. He refers to chaos theory as “proving to be the mathematics of the natural world” (61). He explains to Hannah that order and disorder coexist naturally, that “the unpredictable and the predetermined happen together so that everything is as it is” (64). But he also admits that "these things arefull of mystery” and that “the future is disorder” (65). However, he optimistically concludes that "this is the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong" (65). Such a statement sums up the importance of knowledge, or at least the pursuit of it, that even if more knowledge subverts and contradicts previous knowledge, it is progress itself that we should be happy with and content with. epiphany which captures the essence of Valentine's attitude towards knowledge of chaos and order, saying: "It is the desire to know that makes us matter", indicating that paradoxically, the acquisition of knowledge is “trivial” (102), but that “it is better to fight” knowing that failure is definitive” (103). Thus, by accepting that things can be "full of mysteries" (65) and that facts "cannot turn out to be true" (101), we are able to transcend uncertainty and disorder, seeing them as a simple part of life and the nature of knowledge itself. While Thomasina's and Valentine's perspectives encourage an expanded view of the idea of order in existence, the current cultural perspective of her contemporaries holds that God is indeed Newtonian. Lady Croom's ideal of Sidley Park reflects her view that nature should be orderly: "the trees are grouped in a convivial manner at regular intervals", "the lake peacefully surrounded by meadows on which sufficient numbers of sheep are tastefully arranged” (19). In fact, she even goes so far as to say that Man has the moral right to order Nature, as suggested by “nature as God intended it” (19). His idea of nature is “regularized to conform to a human vision of what God’s creation should be: ordered, linear, geometrically symmetrical” (Demastes 88). While Lady Croom's ideal of Sidley Park is orderly and dictated through careful design, Mr. Noakes himself is of the opinion that "irregularity is one of the fundamental principles of the picturesque style" (19) , so his idea of beauty is one that imitates Salvator Rosa: wild, untamed, gothic. Nevertheless, although the design undertaken by Noakes for the reconstruction of Sidley Park is intended to imitate nature, true nature is that which exists without the interference of man's design. As Hannah says, "the English landscape was invented by gardeners imitating foreign painters who invoked classical authors", which is hardly natural or indicative of Bernard's idea of the "real England" (36). . In fact, Hannah sees the park as a metaphor for “what happened to the Enlightenment,” which ultimately resulted in the “decline from thought to feeling,” a decline characterized by “cheap thrills and false emotions” (39 ). does not accept his mother's Arcadia, instead seeking an expanded version and encouraging nature to reveal its own order through irregular design. She admires Noakes, calling him "the emperor of irregularity" (116) and considers his landscaping work a source of inspiration for her "new geometry of irregular forms" (59). Sidley Park's divergent ideals about subjective beauty ultimately reveal the characters' leanings toward romanticism or classicism. The dynamic of the relationship between Bernard and Hannah shows the tension between romanticism and classicism. Both are characters who have fixed ideas about how to acquire knowledge. For Hannah, she sees the world in binary terms and prioritizes reflection over emotion. For her, the Romantic movement was a “sham,” while orderly classical gardens represented “paradise in the age of reason” (39). Yet, ironically,..