A Human Reaction

As I read chapter 11 I was shocked at the brutality of the scenes described there: "In the end I saw my mother and all our Italian ladies torn limb from limb, slashed, and massacred by the monsters that fought for them" (52). As horribly violent this scene was I find the old lady's response to these events heartless specially because it looked so easy for her to talk about them. She has apparently healed from the wounds that opened in her soul for witnessing such a horrible moment. Tears don't even show when she meets with her old teacher and tells him about her experience. This is the moment where she narrates her story to the man: "I told him all that had happened to me and he described his adventures as well"(54). It is completely beyond my understanding how the teacher cried more than the daughter: "'Your mother?' he cried, with tears starting to his eyes" (54)

This was a great contrast to the response to negative events the characters of Neon Genesis Evangelion have gone through. This story reminded me to the one of Asuka Langley Soryu. She is traumatized for several events related to her mother. She listened to her mother say that she wanted to quit taking care of Asuka. Not long after Asuka's mother had a very bad case of depression. She tried killing her child but failed. Finally this horror story ends with Asuka walks in her mother's corps after she had committed suicide.
The poor kid developed a serious case of narcissistic personality disorder and is haunted by memories of those days even after "blocking" them. Also, she is completely obsessed with being as independent as possible yet still a child (about 14) in the series she unconsciously looks for company and help. It is a hyperbolae of all the problem people have, but in the end she is, to some extent, an accurate description of how messed up people can become.

Which story is worse Asuka's or the old woman's in Candide is completely up to you. The truth is that I see them both as a horrible set of events that happened to innocent and harmless people. The reactions are what make these two stories different. The one in Candide showed an idealistic person who moved on with her life after loosing all that was dear to her. Most people would probably go insane at such a horrible thing happening to a dear one. (At least I would) It is a satire to the human condition since it is completely absurd a person can talk about such a painful event so easily. Asuka on the other hand represents the real way humans are. We suffer and are completely changed by our past. There are many things we are never able to overcome. This is a satire to many things and it includes all that which revolves around the human condition. The coldness in which the old lady narrated her story probably is but a continuation of this satire hidden within the already satirical ideal that "all is for the best" (20).