Chapter 14 The scenery when the soul is enlightened-Western Hotel

1. Alienation The head chef is the first hometown person Carl met in the United States (except for his uncle).Her appearance is kind, generous, warm and considerate, with all the characteristics of people from her hometown.This made Karl mistakenly regard her as a reliable elder according to the concept of his hometown, so he was blindly optimistic for a while.From the moment the female chef appeared on the stage, she showed that she was a new type of character that Karl didn't understand, a kind of alienated person.In her, all those intense inner conflicts are firmly contained by powerful rationality, making it difficult to detect at first glance.But her conversation with Carl gave away something.In her new country she meets a boy from her old hometown, and dim memories of the past flicker, making her feel pity for a moment and want to take him in.For there was something about the boy she knew, something she had perhaps once had herself.In the back of her mind, she knew exactly what her actions meant to Karl, but she still had a hunch that it was good for Karl.Carl would grow into a "strong man" through such experiences.Once the head chef has drawn Carl to her, she encourages him to work hard, "to rise through diligence and prudence", and to "hold his feet".She saw the shadow of her past in this upright and honest child.She may have underestimated the seething vitality in him, or she may have overestimated it, neither of which affected the outcome.The result was not that Karl became a young man like Therese and settled down in a Western hotel, but continued to wander.But at the time, for Carl, "standing somewhere" was indeed "better than wandering around".Out of compassion, the female chef is willing to let a new round of alienation process repeat itself before her eyes.Her love is also like Polander, it is difficult for people to find secular content in it.But it is a kind of love after all!People cannot say that feelings do not exist at all just because they cannot get worldly benefits from them.She loved Karl, otherwise she would not have recognized him among many others and taken him in.Such an alienated one.Karl doesn't get worldly benefits from the allegorical love, but his spirit does benefit from it and gradually grows stronger.

The Western Hotel is a strict autocratic institution, and those who can stay here must have superhuman self-control and rationality.The entire huge organization presents a strange and alienated form in front of Karl's eyes. Everyone keeps their real and weak emotions in their hearts and silently contributes their energy to the system; Must obey the principle.Every employee in this institution has a harrowing story that describes their previous conflicts with secular society.Therese's story is one such example.Only after one has smelled the smell of a dead body and received a long kiss from death can one stay in a place like a Western hotel for a long time.Therese was such a girl.Therese is an emotional, delicate, somewhat melancholy girl.She is far more mature and persevering than Carl, and her perseverance comes from both her extraordinary experience and the tempering of working in Western restaurants.She knows that the hotel does not allow the overflow of emotions, so her every move is calm and restrained, showing a demeanor of "seeing through the world".Although Karl, who has not made a living, tried hard to learn from her, he was really confused. Maybe he had been wondering if this could be called life.The clerks in western restaurants don't have this question in their heads, they don't ask themselves such questions.They do it because they have to, they don't have a choice, they chose a long time ago.Therese is also such a person who has made a clear choice long ago.She did not die with her mother, nor died of starvation and cold, but miraculously survived, and the Western Hotel was her model of life for many years.For her, if she had to choose another choice, she could only choose to die.She understands this truth.Therese and everyone on the staff knew what it was like to be alive better than Karl did, so no one complained.And because they know too much about "living", it is impossible for them to truly live.It is the ignorant young people like Karl who have the possibility to gain real life experience.Therese is Carl's little teacher, she taught him the secret of life and death.But Karl will see one day that the distance between him and her, and the head chef, is like an abyss.

Karl is also unknowingly alienated.He also saw that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't be as comfortable as others in this place. Everyone was always ahead of him by a certain distance in life, and he couldn't fully adapt.why?Fundamentally, it was because he was too sensitive and secular. In short, the problems brought about by his hometown hindered his progress.He had had terrible experiences too, but they were nothing compared to Therese's.He has never experienced the days of complete despair and waiting for death, but there is always a small hope waving ahead.Even in character, he is different from her. He will never be as cold, stoic, and unchangeable as her.It seems that Karl is not suitable for Western restaurants by nature, but this kind of forced transformation is very beneficial to him.Perhaps anticipating that Carl would not be able to stay long in the hotel, the tramp found out about him and began to seduce him.The experienced Therese earnestly stated her interests to Karl.It's a pity that Karl couldn't understand what she said, because he didn't really know Western restaurants.The hotel does not allow any secular temptation to intervene, and the rational spirit rules everything.Only those who have lost their desires can be united with it, otherwise they will be expelled as outsiders.Carl, who didn't realize the seriousness of the matter, didn't take it seriously, and acted according to his own temperament.

Alienation is a spiritual process that people must go through, and alienation makes people stay in the pain that can never reach purity.Isn't it true that even a mature woman like the female chef still retains the longing for her hometown in her heart, so she suffers from insomnia and pain every night?The pain of Therese and the chef is the pain of not being able to live, and the pain of Karl is the pain of living.These two pains are also two sides of the same coin. 2. Rational education The Western Hotel is a huge stone mill, crushing people day and night with its gloomy rational spirit, forcing people to feel the essence of the world during the crushing process.Everyone in this institution is exhaustingly sticking to their posts to keep order throughout the institution.That situation is like an endless rational defensive war.What is the enemy of defense?It is the natural expression of human nature, the overflow of emotion, and the fatigue, concession, and even negligence caused by physiological limitations.Everyone has to try their best to join the war, and whoever can't stand it has to withdraw.Private life here has a phantom quality, because private life has been squeezed into forgotten corners and no longer fulfills its function.The female chef can only sit down and enter that long and ancient memory in rare free time. At this time, she asks Karl to talk about their hometown of Europe, and her exclamation is completely diaphragmatic, because everything is the same as her present life is irrelevant.As for Therese, the tragic past has not affected her work in the slightest, and it is the past experience that has shaped her character today.She told Karl the past to make Karl and herself more determined to live, instead of being sad about the past and relaxing her rational defense.After entering the lives of these two people, Carl realized that no one can help anyone in this place, and everything has to be toughened by himself.Karl also intends to follow their example to persevere and open up his own future.There is no doubt that this rational spirit is very contagious.If it weren't for his innate incompatibility, Karl might have "become a strong man" here, as the female chef asserted. Life in a restaurant is destined to be nothing but a kind of training for someone like Karl. His temperament is too incompatible with this place. Even if he wants to enter subjectively, he still can’t enter in the end. The imprint of his hometown is deep, and a European boy cannot grow into a man in the United States. The collision will only bring confusion. Restaurant life Indeed, it had a great impact on Carl's character. For more than a month, he never once felt sad about looking back at his hometown, nor complained about his uncle's behavior, and felt aggrieved. Instead, he worked actively , fighting for the betterment of the situation, bearing the hardships alone. He has really grown up. Imagine if there was no inspiration from the head chef and Therese, and the pressure of the restaurant work, Carl was staying with the bums at this moment. At the same time, he will feel sad and complain! This is what the head chef said, the benefits brought to him by standing in one place. The rich experience and insight of the head chef let her see this at once. One point. She cultivated Karl unconsciously. She is Karl’s spiritual mother. No wonder Karl knew intuitively that it would be right to go to her. There must be some kind of mysterious gravitational force between them. It can also be seen from Karl's life in the hotel for two months that his defense is passive. He is too young to understand that a loss of rationality will bring terrible disasters. Karl's ignorance of irrational forces is His basic life attitude, only people with this attitude can live without scruples. So he can't avoid danger every day he lives, because life is an adventure, and people can't figure out the pros and cons first The relationship is alive again. Even in a gloomy place like the Western Hotel, Karl can't take precautions in advance, even if the system oppresses him, he can't learn. He is too energetic, and extreme fear can't suppress the burst of vitality Rationality can improve his understanding and ability to bear, but rationality will eventually give way to impulse, and only muddled impulse can open up new situations. In this respect, Therese may not be his teacher. But who Do you know? Maybe Therese, like the head chef, knew the details? Maybe they jointly (intentionally or unintentionally) contributed to Karl's later turning point?