Syed
Waliullah portrays Majeed as an existentialist hero in Tree Without Roots. Majeed
combines the modernistic idea of self-consciousness and existentialist approach
of meaninglessness of a human existence side by side. He neither gives a hope
nor approves a sense of total refusal of existence. He prefers to remain
open-ended in between two ambiguities. In a way, the novel mingles elements of
both existentialism and modernism. Majeed is very much aware of the fact that
the mazar is a fake and meaningless
entity, he grabs this meaninglessness which can only make his future existence
meaningful. This particular moment of Majeed’s life matches with the core
argument of existentialist philosophy that expresses “Existence precedes
essence” (Lavine
330).
The
old man of Earnest Hemingway’s The Old
Man and the Sea declares ever courageous human nature while Waliullah’s
Majeed from Tree Without Roots declares
his urge to survive with pride. Majeed could leave his shrine for his safety
but he did not because his ‘existence’ has no meaning without the shrine. Now,
it is not only his physical existence but also his beliefs that need to
survive. Though he is very much aware of the fact that the mazar is a fake and meaningless entity, he grabs this meaninglessness
which can only make his future existence meaningful. This particular moment of
Majeed’s life matches with the core argument of existentialist philosophy that
expresses “Existence precedes essence” (Lavine
330). It
is Majeed’s consciousness that has created his individual value for his life.
Following paragraph establishes Majeed’s self-created value or essence for his
life:
. . . Is
it wrong to lie if it’s done in a good cause? he pondered. There is no doubt at
all in my mind that there’s little fear of God here, and that His name is
hardly ever uttered. If I prevaricate slightly in order to implant fear of God
and His holy name, I will surely be forgiven. (Waliullah 12)
On
the other hand, it is Majeed’s existence which demands his consciousness to
create a value which can support his worldly existence in Mahabbatpur. It is
his survival which precedes everything even his values. He speaks to himself: “If,
at the same time, I make a living, is there anything sinful in that? After all
one must live. And I live to spread the word of God” (Waliullah 12). These two
extracts have established Majeed as an existentialist character whose existence
precedes essence. The only contrast the
character of Majeed has is that he believes in God whereas most of the existentialist
heroes in literature do not believe in God.
In
a parallel way, Majeed is a representative of gross poor Bangladeshi rural
people who seek their existence in self-created religious identity. Instead of
their severe poverty, they have to survive but for the living they have to have
some kind of value to hold or to make their life meaningful. The narrator of
the novel says:
Perhaps the
reason there are so many white tupees in
this part of the world is that the land cannot feed the men. Little food means
more religion. God said: cover your heads when you pray to me, for this is the
mark of the god-fearing man. . . There are more tupees than heads of cattle, more tupees than sheaves of rice (Waliullah 5).
But
when this religious value cannot secure their existence they go to town for
working. Work becomes their priority for their existence in the town as well as
in some well-off villages like Mahabbatpur. Majeed’s observation about the
villagers is: “The only time they became
deadly serious was when they were working” (Waliullah 12). It is an irony the
novel poses that though Majeed does not like the villagers, he is actually an
epitome of the common villagers. They change their values as their existence
demands.
Majeed
is haunted by the “individual human dilemma” (Morner, Rausch 74) of modern
existentialist philosophy. However, the presence of self-consciousness and
self-questioning qualities also depict Majeed as a modern character. His dilemma about self-created illusion and a
fear of being punished is revealed when he says “there was merely a vagueness,
perhaps death and the day of judgment, but all distant and shapeless”
(Waliullah 12). Eventually, he declares that he will be pardoned if he
continues to spread God’s name though he thinks that Day of Judgment is a
shadowy thing. It shows that he is still confused about his belief. His dilemma
does not end here but is reflected in his rhetorical questions: “But did he,
Majeed, really know any more than the rest of them?. . .
Could he really say that he knew more than they because he knew that the power
of the grave was a lie?” (Waliullah 52). or “Am I being punished? He asked
himself, . . .Did
I not lead innocent people to pray to the spirit of an unknown man, a man who
might well have been a sinner? My aim was a noble one, but does that justify my
having deceived them?” (Waliullah 129) In the process of self-questioning, he
often mocks and consoles himself.
Sometimes he boosts his morale for the sake of continuing to stretch his
roots in Mahabbatpur. Waliullah has often portrayed him as a modern-hero to
seize the reader’s sympathy for Majeed. He is in Mahabbatpur after he has been
long struggling from his childhood with poverty, hunger and insecurity. He never
had any home. He has always dreamt of a home, wife and economic stability. But
his fate before here never supported him to have a smooth and well-off life. Like
the villagers, readers are also enchanted by Majeed’s story-telling genius and
by his ability to understand other’s psyche. All these characteristics Majeed
possesses, makes him a modern hero.
Existentialist
term ‘angst’ or ‘anguish’ (Lavine
330) is Majeed’s dread for losing the power over the villagers in this
particular novel. Majeed is always afraid of his “divine bounty might suddenly
end” (Waliullah 42). In his angst, he often thinks that in future he may be
questioned by the villagers about his phoniness and even his power could be
questioned by someone. To his utter surprise a pir enters in his domain to shake his reign. In existentialist view
this has depicted Majeed’s anguish in its full volume. In consequence, he even wants to unveil his
trick to the villagers to show how worthless they are:
‘Ingratitude,’
Majeed muttered to himself lying there in the dark, intolerable ‘ingratitude.’
In a cold rage he decided bitterly that this pompously decorated so-called mazar, the grave of a nobody, was just
about what they deserved for their ingratitude. If I should ever decide I’ve
had enough of them, then I’ll tell them the truth. I’ll tell them exactly how
I’ve been making fools of them year after year. And then I’ll tear down the
yellow canopy and the red cloth with its silver trimmings, and I’ll leave the
country. (Waliullah 44)
Existentialist
philosopher named Macquarrie in Existentialism
compares ”freedom” with “the child of necessity” as it “is determined by
being” (179). Again Sartre in his Existentialism
and Humanism says a “man is responsible for everything he does” (30). Here the freedom of an individual is to
choose his or her values consciously. Consequently he is not only free to chose
but also responsible for his own choice of values. In existentialist philosophy, there is no single
value inherently good or bad in this universe but depends on choice. In a
general view, Majeed’s value may seem to be an evil one, but his responsibility
towards his choice of value establishes his existentialist freedom. Majeed’s
individual responsibility has been shown by his own confession that he will
never be able to reveal the truth as he has given his full conscience to the shrine
“But in his heart’s heart Majeed knew that he would never do it. It was he who
had created the mazar, and he could
not destroy it. For he was now its slave.” (Waliullah 45) Here, in these
particular lines Majeed is revealed as the slave of his own created value which
is a representation of severe kind of responsibility towards his value. This
slavery has been compared with mauvaise
foi (bad faith) by Kaiser Haq in an article titled “Existentialism in
Bangladeshi Village”.
In
existential philosophy the individual realizes his aloneness. Despite having
two wives and a powerful landowner as a friend, Majeed is very lonely indeed.
Moreover, He can not share his secret with anyone, not even with his wives.
Majeed thinks “We are alone, all of us, every man is alone in this cruel and
friendless, intolerant, pitiless world” (Waliullah 59). At the beginning of Part
Four of the novel Majeed mentions Khaleque as a ‘friend’ for numerous times. It
shows that how Majeed was longing for friendly company but to his utter
surprise he realizes that Khaleque has never considered him as a friend. It
makes him to feel lonely and abandoned than ever in his life. More
interestingly, this loneliness establishes Majeed also as a modern character.
One
of the Minor characters of the novel named Tara Mian is also very
existentialist in his character. He and his wife often quarrel but he had never
any doubt about his wife. The quarrels had a kind of recreational value to
their boring, monotonous life. But when his belief is shaken, his existence
becomes meaningless to him. He loses his interest in his life because now he attaches
no importance to his past life. Everything of this world seems to be
meaningless to him. The realization of meaninglessness of his life without his
value encourages him to bring an end to his life. Amena, another poor victim of
Majeed’s enmity, consciously chooses to bring a change in her life. She had enough
comfort in her life and could lead her life easily if she never wished to have a
child of her own. However, her decision to improve her status by breeding a
child in her family causes her ultimate downfall. A keen observation can assure
us that both the minor characters have similarities with Majeed as both of them
search a meaningful life.
In
this novel, Syed Waliullah uses stream of consciousness to build the structure
of the novel. We do not see any direct connection between the first two
chapters. One can never be assured that the muezzin
from the Garo Hills is the protagonist of the novel, but can only guess
that he is the same person. Majeed has all the paradoxical elements in his mind
as a modern character Prufrock has. He mingles his past and present, his
happiness and sadness, he is a modern character:
How hungry I was
that wilderness day when I first came to this village! I had nothing then,
owned no land, no home, no wife and no cattle. And now I am the guardian of the
mazar. I earn money, I live
comfortably, I command the people’s respect. Of course I have changes but,
thanks be to God, for the better. I have no reason to be sad (Waliullah 76).
The
structure, techniques and the character sketch often depict this novel as a
modern novel while the ending suggests an existentialist view of a modern
character.
Actually,
we do not know the future of Majeed as the novel remains open-ended. But evidence shows that he has strongly
determined to return in his shrine “even at the cost of his own destruction” (Waliullah
135). Eventually it is a “border-line
situation” for existentialist philosophy (Maksud 277) because fear, guilt and
anxiety have their full effect on Majeed’s mind and he has been forced to
choose between two possibilities or choices. Existentialism focuses as
Britannica says: “They focused, first, on the problematic character of the
human situation, through which man is continually confronted with diverse
possibilities or alternatives, among, which he may choose and on the basis of
which he can project his life” (25: 612). A life resembled Majeed’s past
insecure life or an ultimate death embraces with dignity. Here, Majeed applies
his freedom to decide among possibilities. In Existentialism and Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre defines
existentialism as “. . . a doctrine that does render human life possible; a
doctrine, also, which affirms that every truth and every action imply both an
environment and a human subjectivity” (20). In the same way, Majeed proves
himself as his own master by applying his own subjective choice. Actually, he
does not have any existence without the shrine. Maybe the shrine is fake but it
is the only point to continue his life. Though, Majeed knows that his return
may bring his life at risk, he decides to uphold his value or essence as his
existence will not have any meaning (here value or power) without his essence.
As a result his existence at a certain point of life without his value
(essence) is also meaningless. The reason behind this is an anxiety or fear of
losing his essence or belief. Instead of any Pir, it is flood or natural calamity that carries anxiety back
within Majeed to shatter his self-created value: “It is difficult for one to
know whether one has sinned, and to what extent, Majeed told himself. But I do
know that I am not frightened because of my sins. My fear is of having to go
back to where I started” (Waliullah, 134). Probably it is the reason why Majeed
decides to put his life at risk with the hope of retaining all his achievements
he has gained in Mahabbatpur. Probably he fears his past poor powerless life.
Now he knows that both of his past and present lives are meaningless but with his
free will he has chosen his present life as more important.
Majeed is not an absurd hero but a
person who uses religious superstition to stretch his roots among the common
villagers. Gradually he becomes influential, powerful and dominant. He does not
only enjoy economic stability but also takes pleasure of being authoritative. This new taste makes him the slave of his
self-created sham identity. His return is a choice of submission towards his own
dignity. A world without comfort and authoritativeness would be a meaningless
place for him. As a result, he decides to sacrifice his existence and essence
altogether at once. The Nihilistic ending suggested by the author does not
conclude in meaninglessness of life rather a poetic justice to discourage illusion.
