Both Cummings’s mind and Croft’s mind, they all respect their pursuit for power. So, to discuss the production of power is very important
4 The Production of Power
Just because attack instinctive desire for power exists everywhere, the analysis the production of power is unavoidable. The characters in book are all end up with failure.
4.1 From the Perspective of Individual
In the Headquarter, power overrides everything, needless to say, the whole reconnaissance platoon attunes to an authoritarian style.The real motive of the tug of war is to get power, to be simple, it is a power struggle. General Cummings and Staff Sergeant Croft are the two typical totalitarians in The Naked and the Dead. General Cummings believes that “the entire historical process has been working toward greater and greater consolidation of power’’ (1948:254). This brilliant and ambitious fascist forecasts a thousand-year reign of totalitarianism. In his eyes, human’s primary desire is to struggle for power over other men and natural world and Hitler is the interpreter of twentieth century men.
“Men’s deepest urge is omnipotence?” “Yes. […]To achieve God.When we come kicking into the
world,we are God, the universe is the limit of our senses.And when we get older, when we discover that the universe is not us, it’s the deepest trauma of our existence.” “I'd say your deepest urge is omnipotence, that’s a11.”(1948:255)
He takes comfort in the view the desire for omnipotence is basic to human nature, and believes that totalitarianism is preferable to communism because “it’s grounded firmly in men’s actual natures.” (1948:253). He insists that “there’s never a man who can swear to his own innocence. We’re all guilty, that’s the truth.” (1948:145). He exercises a tyrannical control over everything and directs the whole six thousand men in the recon. In order to obtain victory, he attempts to break his men’s spirits. He maintains: “there’s one thing about power. It can flow only from the top down. When there are little surges of resistance at the middle levels, it merely calls for more power to be directed downward, to burn it out.” (1948:255)
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