Ξ Shakespear-- Critical Essay

The main idea in this critical essay is the development of the manners in early modern Europe.  David Graeber first uses the two different types of the relationship in the non-Western societies: joking and avoidance being the foundation of the essay.  In the essay, David Graeber is not only points out these two different relationships between the people, but mentions other systems affect people's manners and their relationships.  For instance, the gift giving and the exchange with each other in the tribe, or the education and English Calvinists' effects make lots influences in the societies.
    According to what David Graeber mentions in the essay, the joking relationship is easy to find in the rustic area, and it has the ideology which is similar to the equality.  The joking relationship does not really make jokes with other people, it is more important that the function of the joking is providing commoners funny and laughter.  Even, sometimes we may consider that the humor in this relationship is not simply humor but a little shameless.  People who live under this relationship follow one principle: the taking of the goods, and the giving of the bads.  On the other hand, the relationships of avoidance are often discovered in the upper class in societies.  The avoidance relations emphasizes on the order or the prohibition from upper class, such as the master, lord, or the King.  There is a very obvious boundary between two distinct levels, and it is not allowed to violate when people are under the avoidance relations.  There is a sentence which can summarize these two relationships: “[J]oking relations tend to be mutual, an equal exchange of abuse emphasizing an equality of status, avoidance is generally hierarchical, with one party clearly inferior and obliged to pay respect” (Manners, Deference, and Private Property in Early Modern Europe 696).  Furthermore, David Graeber also uses the Mikhail Bakhtin’s point of view, two types of the body: grotesque and classical.  It seems that the bodies in the joking relationship are close to the grotesque body; on the other hand, the people in the relations of avoidance are closer to the classical body.  Moreover, the joking relationship has the close connection with the world; it is unlike to the relationship of avoidance which is set apart from the world. 

    However, there is one question about their constitution: what is the difference between “substances” and “property”?  It is easy to understand that the substances is something from the nature or from oneself; on the other hand, the property is something from the outside world which people bundle them with the law, thus giving the gift is meaning that giving one part of oneself.  “A property need not have any practical use… It simply needs to say something about its owner” (702).  For example, the union and the pearl in Hamlet in page 410,411 is the symbol of the royal crown, the king’s power.  Nevertheless, what is the connection between “substances and property” and two different relationships?  Then, is any character in Hamlet can be distinguished easily into the joking relationship or the other one?

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Work cited:

1.    Graeber, David. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 39, No.4. (Oct., 1997), pp.694-728.