Witness: An Ineffective Resistance Piece in Response to Totalitarianism
In the memoir, Witness, Whitaker Chambers writes about his own personal struggle with Communism, and his part in the very publicized trial of Alger Hiss. Chamber’s memoir was not the most effective resistance to totalitarianism because of the use of a more self-focused writing style and the publicity of the Alger Hiss trial. Although some critics would say a more self inspired piece would make a writing more effective when resisting totalitarianism, Chambers did not resist the Communist Party as a whole, but only the figurehead Alger Hiss. Throughout the novel, Chamber’s focuses specifically on his personal relationship with Hiss, and his own personal conversion to Quakerism, taking away from the story in a more broadened sense.
Chamber’s Close Relationship with the Hiss Family
Throughout pages 297-301 of Witness, Wittaker Chambers describes in detail the close relationship he and his wife had with Alger and Priscilla Hiss. This section perfectly exemplifies how Chambers focused too much on the friendship the two men shared instead of the resisting of totalitarianism. Section nine gives very shallow descriptions of each character, and how they would interact with one another. Chambers describes he and Hiss’s friendship as “unlike my relationship with any others in the underground.” Obviously, Hiss and Chambers were close friends, but this additional background on dinners they would have together and different topics of interest they would talk about, take away from the story’s main purpose: resisting Communism. This Hiss case would have been a huge case with or without Chambers being a close friend of his, so if Chambers had focused less on his own personal friendship with Hiss, and more on the case itself, the novel would have delivered a stronger standpoint against Communism. John Haynes’ novel Venona, takes an in-depth look at the Venona Project, which was a secret American intelligence project that uncovered thousands of cases involving American spies working for the Communist party during World War II. This novel works in a much more broadened sense against totalitarianism, because it delves deep into the wrongdoings of the secret spies during the time of the Hiss case. Chambers was just a small figure in this huge conspiracy, and therefore focusing on one case takes away from the large scope of misdoings by the Communist party.
Not only did focusing on his personal friendship take away from Chambers’ novel, but it almost forced readers to feel sympathetic for Hiss and his family. On page 306, Chambers describes Hiss’ love of birds, and bird watching. This attribute humanizes Hiss, making his personal character seem more appealing to readers. By mentioning small details about Hiss, before even discussing the case with readers, undermines Chambers’ main argument against the horribleness of the Communist party. This also gives room for some to doubt whether Hiss was a Communist at all. By giving Hiss a true character identity, many only want to see the loving, father figure that Hiss is made out to be. In the biography on Whittaker Chambers, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, Sam Tanenhaus describes Chambers as a very controversial figure, loved by many, but also hated by others. This potentially could be because Chambers gave room for the audience to sympathize with Hiss and his family. Sometimes it is difficult to believe a man of such great standing could be capable of being a Communist, so Chambers may have made it easier to rationalize his innocence when using specific diction when describing Hiss. For example, when asked what the two talked about, Chambers explained, “People are truly friends when they love each one another’s foibles as a necessary part of the pattern of character. We knew one another’s weaknesses and could laugh freely at them as something amusing because endearing.” (Chambers 304). This style of writing portrays Hiss as a loving and kind friend, and knowing the fact that Chambers testified against him almost makes Chambers the enemy in the story. It is much easier to believe someone is testifying against another in order to gain fame, but more difficult to believe a loving father and caring friend would be a Communist. Therefore, the choice to give a detailed description of he and Hiss’ friendship did not benefit the overall argument of revealing Communism for the evil it is, and did not effectively resist totalitarianism.
Also, when Chambers focused too much on his and Hiss’ friendship in his memoir, it draws the reader’s attention away from the case of Alger Hiss and his role in the Communist Party, and focuses it on the personal relationship the two shared. For example, Chambers mentions how in chapter seven, section nine, someone asked him what he and Hiss would talk about when they were together. This perfectly exemplifies how the entire trial ended up focusing on the fact that the two men were close comrades, and not just coworkers. This derails the case itself because it strays away from the main purpose of convicting Alger Hiss for being an associate of the Communist Party, and centers around the question of whether or not Chambers’ relationship with Hiss and his family has anything to do with why he’s testifying against him. The case closely resembles the case of People vs. Duvander “Chevy” Hurst, where Hurst was wrongly convicted of second-degree murder of 19-year-old Allen Delatte’s, by a neighbor. The Neighbor then stepped forth almost 18 years later and admitted to committing perjury. The reason was that the police forced a confession out of him because he faced many drug charges that he wanted to get out of. Although this does not exactly match the trial of Alger Hiss, many people could believe there is a different motive behind Chamber’s testimony. This doubt leads to a suspicion of whether or not Alger Hiss is guilty, therefore leading the reader’s attention to focus on the personal relationship between the two rather than the case itself. This draws away from the purpose of the novel and ultimately creates a weak stand against totalitarianism.
Chambers Use of a Memoir as a Writing Style
In order to deliver his emotional and intense experience with the Communist Party, Whittaker Chambers uses a memoir as a writing style. Although this choice allowed readers to more thoroughly understand the trauma Chambers had to go through, and allowed them to connect with him on a deeper level, the choice of this writing style forced the reader to focus too much on Chambers, rather than Communism as a whole. For example, from pages 615-618, Chambers describes his conversion to Quakerism, and the impact this change had on his life. Chambers states, “It was a struggle between the force of two irreconcilable faiths-Communism and Christianity-embodied in two men, who by a common experience in the past, knew as few others could know what the struggle was about, and who shared a common force of character, the force which had made them a Communist in the first place, and which I had not changed when I changed my faith.” This conversion helped Chambers explain how he came to the decision to become a full “witness,” but it also enabled the reader to focus on the good of Catholicism rather than the evil of Totalitarianism. When the reader’s attention deviated from the focus of Communism to the appraisal of Catholicism, Chambers ultimately lost the strength of his argument against Communism. Instead, Chambers should have talked about how his conversion allowed him to see the terrible effects of Communism, rather than how Quakerism changed him as an individual. This, in turn, would have taken the focus off of his conversion, and helped Chambers shine a light on the wrongdoings of the Communist party. Unfortunately, the focus on his conversion led readers’ attention astray from the main focus of the novel, and ultimately led to a less effective means of resisting Totalitarianism.
Also, choosing to write his story as a memoir made Chambers final product more of a pretty and elegant style of writing, making his piece sound more like a fictional story.This, instead of leading towards a resistance type stance, creates more of a story, almost taking away from the realness of the danger Chambers was in. The flowy words, eloquent dialect, and smooth language created a more easily readable story, but in the long run made the actual events that occured in the novel seem more like a movie, and not a real life experience. For example, on page 616, Chambers states, “For I cannot hate even an enemy, as I said in a broadcast immediately after Hiss’s second trial, who shares in me the conviction that that life is not worth living for which a man is not prepared to die at any moment.” This leads readers to become more involved in the outcome of the character’s life, and not the resistance to the Communist Party. For example, in George Orwell’s 1984, throughout the entire novel, the audience was rooting for the main protagonists to beat the party and go free. However, what made Orwell’s piece so popular and attractive was the bizarre ending of the protagonist giving into the Party. Chambers takes a similar stance where everyone is rooting for him to leave the Communist Party, take on Alger Hiss, and beat him in court. And that is exactly what happens. Throughout the story, readers are engaged, but Chambers could not add in an exciting feature to his novel that would leave readers talking about the wrongdoings of the Communist Party. If he had discussed what the Communist Party had done to endless innocent people, and tied in his own personal experience, the novel would have had a more lasting effect and left readers with a feeling of being disturbed. However, the memoir type writing style gave Chambers the opportunity to wrap the novel up with a bow and end it easily, without leaving a lasting impact, making his piece a less effective stance against Communism.
Also, on top of his focus on his conversion, Chambers deals with the struggle of becoming a true “witness.” This focus on an internal struggle takes away the sense of external danger Chambers was in, and makes his experience less authentic, and more of just a story. In years after Witness was published, Peter Baehr wrote about Hannah Arendt’s denouncement of the necessity of an “Ex-Communist” to expose the unlawful practices of the Communist Party. In, The Informers: Hannah Arendt’s Appraisal of Whittaker Chambers and The Ex-Communists, Baehr describes Arendt’s scepticism of whether or not it is constitutional to inform a fellow citizen. This brings up the elephant in the room: Why should Whittaker Chambers go free, if he, too, was a Communist? This question led many followers of the case to become sceptical of Chambers’ true intentions. The readers only see a sense of moral struggle within Chambers, rather than an external breaking point, where Chambers felt no choice but to become an informant. Becoming a witness meant putting Chambers life, and his family members lives, in danger. However, Chambers describes the internal struggle rather than the immediate threat on his life the Communist Party instilled. Chambers should have mainly focused on the evils that were inflicted onto him and his family, which in turn would have led to less people questioning his motives, more sympathetic readers, and a lot more belief in the dangers of the Communist Party. Therefore, the detailed description of the internal struggle of deciding whether or not Chambers should become an informant took away from the sense of fear of the Party and led to the story becoming a less compelling argument against totalitarianism.
Another reason why using a memoir as a writing style did not allow Whittaker Chambers to effectively resist totalitarianism is because it leads the reader’s attention away from the evils of Communism and focuses the audience’s attention on pitying Chambers as an individual. Although it was the Communist Party that made Chambers life so difficult, mentioning specific details about him and his families struggles makes his story more unique to himself rather than all survivors of the Communist Party. For example, on page 617, Chambers describes his transformation into a witness by stating, “Toward the end of August 1948, I finally found the strength to cross the bridge and enter that region of grief, fear, and death beyond. There followed about one hundred days in which it was largely determined the form that the Hiss case would take, and even whether there would be a Hiss case, as we know it, at all.” The mention of specific dates and details about the Hiss case personalized the story in a way where nobody could see the expanding effects of the Communist Party. No other survivor of Communism has had the same experience as Chambers. Few became actual witnesses, most lived in fear in hiding, and many were killed once they attempted to escape. However, Chambers fails to reinforce this in his memoir, because it is a personal story of his own struggle with the Party. Even though Chambers wins the sympathy of the audience, he fails to deliver the main argument of his memoir: the fact that the Communist party is an undeniable evil that must be addressed, not feared and overlooked. If Chambers had included a more broad spectrum of wrongdoings brought upon him by the Communist Party, and related it back to a wider spanning group of individuals who also chose to break from the Party, Chambers would have been able to resist the Party on a larger scale. However, a memoir type writing style limited his abilities to discuss the facts about the Party and include all the terrors brought upon other Ex-Communists like him. Therefore, Chambers memoir was not the most effective writing style to resist Totalitarianism.
Focus on Specific Case Study
Throughout the memoir Witness, Whittaker Chambers also only talks about the trial of Alger Hiss. The strict focus on this singular case does not effectively resist totalitarianism because it allows the readers to become overly involved in the outcome in the trial rather than what the trial represents. For example, on pages 570-584, Chambers quotes the long and intricate questioning of Hiss by Mr. Nixon and Mr. Stripling. By the end of the section, the audience is on the edge of their seat waiting to hear why Hiss’ old car was so important to the prosecutors. Finally, when they reveal that Chambers testified that the old car was sold to the Communist party, everyone following the case is now deciding that Hiss is guilty and they root for Hiss to be prosecuted. However, while many people are focused on the case, everyone is overlooking the facts as to why the case has come about. Most of the audience has forgotten about the reason why Communism is a terrible evil, and are more focused on Chambers winning the trial. This deviated attention results in a less effective resistance stance against the Communist Party and totalitarianism as a whole because it leaves people still unaware of how manipulative and overpowering the party truly is. Therefore, Hiss’ focus on the specific case study of Alger Hiss was not a persuasive resistance piece.
Also, the focus on a specific case study forced the audience to see Hiss as the evil that needs to be taken down in the novel, rather than the Communist Party. Focusing all of his attention on one main target, Chambers builds Hiss up to be the one person that, if prosecuted, would end the dangers that Chambers and his family have gone through. Although Chambers and Hiss were close friends, and Chambers admits that it brought him great sadness to testify against his friend, he acknowledges that it was a necessary evil that needed to be done. He describes it as being pushed to the very edge, feeling as though there was no other option other than to testify against him. Putting all of his emphasis on the difficulties of testifying against Hiss, and all the vast wrongdoings that were brought upon him and his family, Chambers leads the readers into believing that Hiss is the reason behind everything bad that has happened to him. So, in order to put an end to his sufferings, Chambers had to ensure that Hiss would be prosecuted and sent to jail for being a Communist. Also, by concluding the book with his family all together and describing his life as finally going back to a more normal routine, Chambers does make it seem as though Hiss was the main reason for his sufferings. Although Chambers paints Hiss as a family man and an outstanding father and husband, it is difficult to deny that once the case was over, Chambers’ life got a lot easier. He was less worried about the Communist Party trying to hurt him, and he was thrown into fame because of the popularity of the case. It was as if getting Hiss behind bars ended everything cruel that had been happening to the Chambers family. Therefore, by focusing on Hiss as an individual, Chambers leads the reader’s attention astray from the real enemy in his life: Communism. Because Chambers did not emphasize the true nature of the Communist party well enough, his memoir was not an effective resistance piece to totalitarianism.
To conclude, Whittaker Chambers made several mistakes when writing pieces as a stance against the Communist Party. First off, by writing his piece as a memoir, Chambers made it more a story and was unable to explain the true nature of Communism, because he was focused too much on writing a great memoir, with flow and intellectual insights, rather than exposing the Communist Party. This style of writing limited his abilities to discuss other cases and other Ex-Communist’s survival stories, because it was too self interested and focused mainly on himself and his relationship with Hiss. Also, the emphasis of Hiss and Chambers friendship made Hiss look too kind of a figure to oppose because of his kind demeanor and relationship with his wife and daughter. It also took the reader’s attention away from Communism and focused more on Hiss and Chambers’ relationship. And finally, by only discussing the Hiss trials in depth, Chambers leads the audience to focus more on Hiss as an evil rather than the Communist Party itself. Therefore, Chambers memoir on the Alger Hiss case was not an effective means to resist totalitarianism.
Works Cited
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