Responsibility of the Artist in Faith in a Tree :: Faith in a Tree Essays

Responsibility of the Artist in creed in a Tree   The philosophy found in faith in a Tree deals heavily with responsibility. One of the responsibilities which was explored was the responsibility of the inventionist. Paleys portraying of artists in this allegory is certainly less than flattering. In one of the roughly thematically important paragraphs, Faith decides, (to summarize a paragraph) if its truth and observe you want to refine...let God be in charge of beauty....and let man be in charge of practised. (p.89) The comment was given directly after a dialogue in which artists were labeled as speculators speculators in the sense that they did non invest in life, they merely observed. One gets the sense from the tone of the pages that artists be not being put in a favorable light. Paley is assay to say something important about the responsibility of an artist here. Her condemnation of artists as cited above does not extend to all artists. There is a qualifier at the beginning of the paragraph which is very important, if its truth and honor you want to refine. In essence, if the artist is trying to discern something true or noble then they should stop painting, writing, or sculpting for its own sake and write down doing something Good. Faith reveals her own disdain for musicians who are absorbed in art for arts sake when she comments satirically, when darkness covers the earth and darkness a great people, I will think of you two men with smart ears. (p.89) Paley is obviously sensitive thin ice of hypocrisy she is skating on. An artist herself, her own story should be actively supporting the Good, or her critique of the painter and the musicians would be meaningless. Before going further, it is necessary to define vertical what Faiths idea of Good is. Faith doesnt directly define Good, but she does define Bad which is just as important, because a fight or artistic work against something bad, is in essence, something Good. In Faiths wo rds, Evil is bad, Wicked is bad. Robbing, Murder and Putting Heroin in your Blood is Bad (p.85) Any act which is wicked, evil, or destructive is fate of the Bad. Faiths definition of Bad is very general, but leaves a faithful jumping off point into the main theme of the novel, the Vietnam War. Surprisingly, the war, which I hand to be the main theme of the novel, takes up very little of the operation in the story.