Day 8: Recognition, Revenge and Reconciliation

The Count of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas
The Story of Joseph and his brothers, Genesis 37, 39-47

I have to admit I have not read the Dumas novel for a very long time, so I am hazy on the details of the novel. But I do remember that a very abridged and illustrated version of this book was in my childhood library and I re-read that one many times. And when I read the full novel as a junior high student, I told everyone that it was the best book I had ever read.

Edmund and Joseph both are introduced in the beginnings of their stories as confident, well-favored young men. Edmund has the beautiful fiance, a new promotion and life seems to be smiling on him. Joseph is his father's clear favorite son, the firstborn of favorite wife who died, and now announcing his dreams which are predicting his great future of honor in his family.

But both have not noticed the murderous envy of friends and family members who feel that Joseph and Edmund are taking an unfair share of life's benefits. Both men lose everything and get whisked away from their homes and families without a chance to say good bye.

And they both are wrongfully imprisoned for many years.

And they both experience a turn of events that brings freedom and immense wealth and resources and influence.

But to end there with a happy ending would not be a good story, with the moral of the story that Joseph and Edmund needed to learn to be a little more cautious about whom to trust as friends or whom to invite to any party celebrating their good fortune.

No, a satisfying story has to bring about some sort of encounter with Joseph and his brothers, and with Edmund and his traitors. Some might be satisfied with a straight-forward action plot. As soon as you are free and can gather some weapons and some hit-men, show up at the door of your enemies, frighten them and kill them for what they have done.

Unfortunately a straight-forward action plot takes little imagination and brings about only a thin satisfaction and a lot of dead bodies, and a motive for further retaliation and revenge, putting the story in danger of never coming to an end, or worse, ending tragically as a story that is forced to stop with no satisfying resolution because all the main characters are dead.

Edmund and Joseph each take different paths of response when encountering the ones who have attempted to do away with them. But both men make sure that a delay of recognition is part of the encounter. Edmund seeks out each of his three enemies, discovers what makes them vulnerable and cleverly reenters their lives unrecognized, and then when he has brought about their worst nightmare of misfortune, he lets them recognize him. Joseph works out something even more creative and satisfying than revenge, even though it is hard to imagine what that could be.

Joseph's strategy of delay with revealing his true identity to his brothers has persuaded me that this story is one of the most interesting and prophetic and important stories in the Old Testament. Joseph has a handle on comedic timing. It kind of seems mean and manipulative, because he treats them in such an unexpected way that no wonder they become confused and terrified in his presence even before they realize it is the brother they sold into slavery: accusing them of being spies, challenging them to prove their honesty, imprisoning them, holding Simeon ransom, and then returning their money in their sacks of food. It is like he is playing a game with them. But what is the game? Is it revenge and wants to enjoy it more by taking his sweet time?

The game continues when they return for a second supply of food--he still does not reveal himself: but throws them a wonderful banquet, and seats them in birth order, which all makes them even more terrified. He meets Benjamin, but runs out before the tears come. Then he frames Benjamin for theft and adds to everyone's terror even more. The story looks headed for tragedy. It looks like the brothers will need to go back to Jacob without Benjamin and somehow have to live the rest of their days with the guilt of Joseph and Benjamin and Jacob's misfortune on their shoulders.

I am guessing that Joseph was never planning revenge, and I do not think he was playing this whole game with his brothers because he enjoyed watching them squirm. I think he knew that a good plot of reconciliation takes even more wisdom and attention to timing than a good plot of revenge. He was staging a redramatization of the day of his own enslavement, when he lacked a brother that would speak up and protect him. He was expecting that after all these years at least one of this band of brothers had matured in character enough to show leadership in brotherly advocacy instead of brotherly rivalry. And brother Judah had reached maturity, thanks to another delay of recognition story that I will talk about another day.

Joseph gets it when it comes to timing, that certain things cannot be revealed until the time is exactly right. That the time spent in the "delay" part of the plot demands unbelievable restraint and patience on behalf of the one who is yet unrecognized, and can be very painful and terrifying and confusing for those who do not yet see, but it is all necessary for the "recognition" part of the plot to accomplish a comedic resolution of the story's great conflict.

When I imagine the scene or plot of the future story of judgment day, the apocalypse, the last day, or whatever it is called in religious terms (and I admit I am a bit of a crazylady because think about it all the time), I don't expect an good-guy vs. bad guy action plot that results in a blood-bath. I don't imagine a complex plot of creatively wrought revenge and retaliation even though that would be interesting and satisfying at some level. I think of how Joseph treated his brothers, and I think of a delay of recognition that brings on a necessary dose of terror and confusion and shame and confession and speechlessness and all the emotions that Amanda had when Mrs. Doubtfire turned out to be her ex-husband, but that the moment of recognition leads the way into reconciliation and mercy and reunion and the real arrival at true love. I think of a kind of ending that is so satisfying that we laugh at ourselves for being sad that the happy ending has ended the story, and we wish that the story somehow could continue on now that the good ending has finally come.