The City and the City by China Mieville - Literary Analysis Essay

Introduction

The City and the City by China Mieville is a novel all about two city states that co-exist side by side and physically intersecting with each other. The citizens of these two city states as well have adopted atypical behavioural code so as to maintain a comprehensible division between the two cities that shack up this type of architectural maze. The citizens of U1 Qoma have to pretend not to see or either engages in an interaction with the citizens of Beszel and the same is to be observed by the citizens of Beszel. Consequently, a citizen of either city states for instance a citizen of U1 Qoma can be in a territorial space that belongs to Beszel because physically the territory belongs to both the cities simultaneously but that individual citizen must observe the falsehood that only the citizens of their city and only their city state exists hence assuming the existence of the other city state and her citizens. The general concept of the problematic coexistence of the two cities in the novel The City and the City and how they share the same geographical territory is not of interest in this paper as compared to how the novel itself is imposed on our own reality.

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Generally, these two cities, U1 Qoma and Beszel seem to be molded based on former Soviet states which were slightly crumbling but progressively developing from war to accomplish economic development for instance the East Berlin and West Berlin. Even though it may not depict a reality picture, the novel is portrays a clear potential of science fiction because in real life there cannot exist two city states that are submissively overlaid upon each other as depicted in the novel because thy will instead be blatantly disputed spaces that belong to either side but not all at once. As a matter of fact, the two cities do not only co-exist and cross-hatched upon each other but the citizens have since childhood learned to 'unsee' each other. The separation between A1 Qoma and Beszel is strictly upheld and more than physical by negotiation indirect bureaucratic methods so that one can only pass from one side to the other through the boundaries of Copulla Hall which is an organizational center for both cities, breaching the border elsewhere is more of regarded as a crime and is seriously controlled by a spectral authority simply referred to as Breach with limitless authorizations and against which there is no entreaty.

Consequently, there is a lot of neologistic rhetoric in the novel that can be associated with science fiction some of which include the idea of "unseeing" which implies the assumption by of each other by the citizens of the cities, an idea that is not possible in the real life. Another aspect that associates the novel to science fiction is the existence of a strange third city known as Orciny where there is an archeological excavation that drags up objects that have the provocative impression of some eccentric power. Generally, the ideology of Orciny is very ideal perspective in the novel. Orciny is made up of third city which is speculated to cohabit an additional space to the one occupied by the two cities although the manner in which Orciny comes into existence is not just artificial given the fact that there are individuals who believe in its existence hence the fact that without the belief of Mahalia in the existence of Orciny, the concept would be regarded as a set up by Bowden. The opinion of Orciny is a concept that runs through the novel which would rather be regarded as the intention of Mieville to convince the audience into believing the artificial space.

The concept of archeology in the novel is also used by Mieville to explain the concept of capitalism in which is portrayed by the belief is something like the belief in Orciny to be the third city. This aspect is depicted by Mahalia when she transports the archeological portion, the item, in between the two cities on the archeological excavation where she believes it is received by the people of Orciny. The concept of concept of capitalism implies an artificial system that requires belief in the market in order to achieve proper functioning hence if there is loss of belief the market collapses and becomes worthless much just like how the imaginary city of Orciny becomes worthless and an fake space much when the truth about is found out even leading to the death of Mahalia. Orciny can thus be regarded as the space between the two overlapping cities in the novel which plays the role of bridging the two systems in Beszel and U1 Qoma by transporting the archeological commodity. Another remarkable aspect of the novel is the mode of movement within the spaces between the two cities of which is there is a representation of physical movement like the idea of traffic avoiding other cars and Breach as it moves between the two cities. There is additionally metaphorical movement in the novel depicted by how U1 Qoma is apparently more enlightened economically and even socially as compared to Beszel which is portrayed to be more traditional and stagnant in regards to the historical records.

Both The City and the city and Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold withhold a mutual belief that there cannot be a moral relationship founded on principles of the love land without mutual admiration, love and respect. However, the concept that is depicted by Aldo Leopold is that there are strong ethical stances in the urban realm. This implies that he asserts the worth of equal access to the significance of urban life by individuals of various social assemblies and economic settings. The gap between land ethic and urban social ethics is mutually large and damaging hence the assumption that there exists no nature in the city. The vision of Leopold regarding land ethic implies that the relationship between people and the land are entangled thus the care for people cannot be separated from the care for the land. Leopold additionally believes that direct contact with the natural world is essential in determining the ability of people to subtend their ethics beyond self-interest.

Throughout his book, Leopold can be perceived to be making reference to the idea that humankind cannot be trusted to instinctually apprehend how they care for the land. This is the reason for the argument by Leopold that further ethical enhancements are in order to account for treatment of land. His argument is that the ethics in regards to land has remained to be very primitive for example in the United States and some western societies the legal systems assumes land ownership that it is almost unbelievable that a piece of land cannot be possessed by an individual, a corporation or even an administrational entity of the government. Leopold holds to the point that unlike in the traditional times when laws were enacted to protect the land, the contemporary laws are enacted to protect the people. This aspect of laws or even administrative processes to protect the land is portrayed in The City and the City by China Mieville whereby a citizen of either city must learn to involve a process of seeing and unseeing and there exist a ghostly organization called Breach which is responsible for policing places in the city that are crosshatched and it is fully existent in both the cities in regions where the boundary seem to weaker.

Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish demonstrates that the tools of disciplinarily operate what they have been designed to do based on how they are brought into contiguity regarding some of the things that we are capable of bringing it to. According to Foucault, the aspect of punishment implies that crime is inevitable within the society but though with an action, there always has to a consequence, and incase the law is surpassed then the consequences are either bad or trash. However, discipline refers to the enforcement of acceptable patterns of behavior and teaching obedience. The intention of Foucault is not to lay down criminology in his text but rather to scrutinize the pedigree of the disciplinary system to have a better understanding of how power re-counts to knowledge.

Conclusion

The central point in the work by Foucault is the correlation between knowledge and power. Discipline and Punish basically outlines the reformation of the power to punish, and the improvement of various organizations of knowledge that strengthen and interrelate with that power. The contemporary power to punish is founded upon the management and association of bodies in time and even space in accordance to stringent methodological approaches. It is this concept of contemporary knowledge that Foucault relates to human nature and behavior which is restrained against a custom. The point that Foucault emphasizes on within the text is that no one can exist without the other hence the mutual coexistence amongst human beings. This is a point that is assumed in the fiction of The City and the City by China Mieville because the two cities which are U1 Qoma and Beszel believe that they can exist with assumption of each other's coexistence as that is made to be a belief that each and every citizen of either city state is supposed to learn to abide by in order to avoid the punishment by the Breach which is a ghostly organization that acts as a disciplinary organization for both the cities.