When One Must Choose, One Creates What One Is.

Søren Kierkegaard considered Either/Or to have "a plan from the first word to the last". In this paper I will make an attempt to explain what was Kierkegaard’s “task of entire work”, why does he use fictional characters, what does he calls pseudonymous, what is Either/Or is ultimately about, what is it aims and whether it accomplishes it’s task and why.

“My pseudonymity…has not had an accidental basis in the production itself…” Kierkegaard consistently mentioned that it is not worth the trouble to be concerned about whom the author is, such distance is important here, giving a reader experience independent from author’s personality, the unbiased dive into the work itself. Furthermore, each pseudonym has a distinct persona and represents a particular viewpoint. Kierkegaard confirms three stages of human existence: the esthetic, the ethical and the religious. Kierkegaard distinguished the actual either/or choice between the human esthetical and ethical on the one hand, and the religious on the other hand. The reader is forced to take individual responsibility for knowing own stand and approach on existential, ethical and religious issues raised in the work.

“The first diapsalma is really a task of the entire work, which is not resolved until the last words of the sermon. An enormous dissonance is assumed, and then it says: Explain it. A total break with actuality is assumed, which does not have its basis in futility but in mental depression [melancholy] and its predominance over actuality.” Diapsalma is a certain set up for a further progression: aesthetics and ethics can coexist, but both detract from the religious. This is why Either/Or ends with the sermon on how, “in relation to God we are always wrong” (E/O2, p. 353). Both A and B make cases for how people should act in accordance with aesthetic and ethical systems and I think Kiegergaar demonstrates here that any system designed by a human being is necessarily imperfect; that is why neither the aesthetic life nor the ethical life is incomplete without religion. A’s groundless individuality and the Judge’s principled marriage both interfere with faith-based self-searching that exemplifies the religious life. There is no system, aesthetic or ethical that can truly lead people in the right direction; that is why people need religion on a personal level: “for only the truth that builds up is truth for you” (E/O 2, p.354). The conflict between the aesthetic and the ethical exists, to a certain extent, in every human. There are many systems in place to help mediate this conflict, but Kierkegaard demonstrates in Either/Or that the only escape from this conflict is to take a personal approach to religion.

In diapsalma A opposes himself to the world in variety of ways. “I have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything; I have, I believe, a courage to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own, anything (E/O1, p.23),” he says. I believe here A describes not only endless affairs and boredom for life, but his inability to connect with religion, with God, as we learn at the very end. He admires that something is missing, just as B always told him, but he has no courage for change. “Before me is continually an empty space, and I’m propelled by a consequence that lies behind me. This life is turned around and dreadful, not to be endured (E/O2, p.24),” A deliberately falls into fate’s embracement. He isn’t ready to change inwardly yet: “On the whole, I lack the patience to live. I cannot see the grass grow, and if I cannot do that, I don’t care to look at it at all (p.25).” Patience that he lacks is inherent to B in some ways, but is necessary for religious. A’s struggle to explore the depth subject in depth is an indicator of improperness for religious way of life.

A describes the “first period of falling in love” as the most beautiful; in contrast, pastor calls love for God the most beautiful thing and the only thing that lasts. Immediacy of A’s happiness is a sigh, a warning for inner instability; he himself calling the ‘intimate confidant’ – melancholy. In the footnotes, Kierkegaard mentioned that mental depression predominate actuality, causing a total break with actuality. Hence, I think, aesthetical life serves to recognize melancholy, ethical is to make a choice, and religious is to accept or liquidate the melancholy.

I have reasons to assume that aesthetical, ethical and religious ways of life might represent stages of one’s life as well, a person, who went all the way to enlighten. With five-seven years of difference between them, protagonists might be the same person all along, who saves letters written in the past for future himself (B mentioned certain power over A, can be future self?). Independently from interpretation, the book’s goal is to demonstrate certain approach of the spiritual development; one of the ways of inward evolution and it was achieved.

In part two B responds to the documents written by A, asserting that the esthete's life is selfish, living only for the moment in dissipation. B sees A as aggressively selfish, but acknowledges that there is a place for a balanced esthetic—balanced by ethics. Judge William does not seek to blur the distinction between the esthetic and the ethical; he wants to transform both the esthetic and the ethical into a higher love -- the religious. The judge believes that the aesthetic is the servant of the ethical. Though B addresses the religious as it relates to married love, and it cannot be confused with Kierkegaard's religious stage. The religious is not strictly dealt with in Either/Or, but Kierkegaard adds a final short letter to part two called "Ultimatum: The Upbuilding that Lies in the Thought That in Relation to God We Are Always in the Wrong", perhaps to prepare the reader for something more to come. I believe, Kierkegaard meant the esthetic and the ethical to be as servants of the religious.

Stylistically, just as A is given to prolixity; the judge is even more wordy to the point of boredom. Seems that Kierkegaard had to free the great flow of ideas in his mind. Using letters instead of names, writer highlights that it doesn’t matter who characters are, but it matter what they are in given convention and what choices they make (or will make). The extreme pseudonymity Either/Or adds a problem of interpretation; A and B are the authors of the work, Eremita is the editor. Kierkegaard's role appears to disconnect himself from the points of view expressed in his works. Philosopher distanced himself from his texts by a variety of devices, which served to problematize the authorial voice for the reader. He divided the texts into prefaces, forewords, interludes, postscripts, and appendices. Assigning the “authorship” of parts of texts to different pseudonyms, he invented further pseudonyms to be the editors or compilers of these pseudonymous writings so the book embodied highly contrasting perspectives.

Given this problematic Kierkegaard perceived a need to invent a form of communication, which would not produce stereotyped identities. To succeed, he needed a form of artistic device that would force people to look back to their own resources, to take responsibility for their own existential choices, and to become who they are beyond their socially imposed identities. In this sense Kierkegaard reminds of Socrates whose irony undermined all knowledge claims that were taken for granted or inherited from traditional culture. In this combination the text becomes an empty book, in which the reader exposed to own reflection.

Once again, the goal of the book, to demonstrate the approach of the spiritual development, and for Kierkegaard, is not a matter of learning Christian dogmas. It is a matter of the individual repeatedly looking back at own experience and knowledge, renewing subjective approach to an object that can never be known, but only believed in. For person like A, who is really far from approaching religious, the book can become a guideline, not for approaching religious, but for understanding that constant re-evaluating of one’s ways (or "the existential attitude") is necessary for breaking own entity and alleviation of personal becoming.