A man without qualities?
What does it mean to be a man without qualities? First I think we must define what a quality is, as we did in class. When looking at the title (untranslated), one can say that the translated title could also be The Man without Characteristics. This may not be the same, but I wonder if anyone could truely have no characteristics, or no qualities. A quality can be hard to describe, yet examples come easier; when I think of qualities I think of someone who is honest, caring, thoughtful, personable or more materialistically, wealthy. These are all good qualities that someone can have, but people can still have other qualities, just possibly bad qualities. Though, who decides on what qualities are bad and what qualities are good? As we mentioned in class qualities seem to be defined by society. So, maybe Ulrich sees himself as the man without qualities because he does not have the qualities that society looks for, that is not to say that he does not have any qualities. For instance, Ulrich stays to himself, he is not necessarily a people person, he is not wealthy, he does not care for the things that the people in his society care for. This would lead to him having no qualities that his society values. As Ulrich describes his father, the man with qualities, he seems to have all of these things. So, I propose, that Ulrich is the man without qualities because he does not have the qualities in which his society is looking for, not to say that he does not have any qualities at all.
4 comments:
I agree with your position. As far as I can tell, it is not really possible to be human AND have no qualities/characteristics. So Ulrich definately has qualities/characteristics, but, as you mentioned, they are qualities that are not recognized by the society of the time as useful/noble qualities; so people will look down on him even though he has amazing qualities and is quite capable of great things.
I also agree with your position. The idea of what a quality is and is not seems rather difficult and ambiguous for anyone to tackle. To get really detail oriented and define what a quality really 'is,' couldn't we in fact say that not having any 'qualities' at all is in and of itself a quality? I also wrote about the dilemma of Ulrich seeing himself as without qualities because he goes against the grain of society.But again, having qualities that are different from society's still means that you have qualities! The irony of this title and the way Ulrich describes what his 'qualities' aren't versus what they are has been rather frustrating and confusing for me thus far.
I too agree that in this novel, society has been the influence on what Ulrich ideas of qualities are. I like the part where you explain that it is hard to imagine a person without qualities. I too agree that not having the status quo qualities is yet a quality in of itself. However, I don't think that we should yet set in stone our ideas of what he truly means by a man without qualities. As Heidi mentioned in class, our definition will change throughout the quarter.
Before I cracked open this book, I wondered how someone could exist without having any qualities, mainly because my understanding of the noun "quality" carried a completely neutral connotation. To hear that the title could have also been translated as "The Man Without Characteristics" makes me wonder why the translator chose to use "qualities" in place of "characteristics".
I found your definition of a "quality" poignant, and it seems to fit well with the descriptions of Ulrich in the first ten chapters. He doesn't come off as particularly attached to his society's norms nor does he seem to particularly care to sacrifice his independent activities in order to blend in. Perhaps the name, "The Man Without Qualities" is more of an interpretive and judgmental remark on his character by those around him who see Ulrich as an anomaly and a deadbeat.
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