Maternity, Ethics, And Religion In Emmanuel Levinas' Life And Fate

Emmanuel Levinas defines ethics as “a comportment in which the other, who is strange and indifferent to you, who belongs neither to the order of your interest nor to your affections, at the same time matters to you. His alterity concerns you” (Is It Righteous To Be?, 49). This philosophy, which I studied in depth for my midterm essay, is prominent in many scenes in Vasily Grossman’s Life andFate. In particular, this philosophy seems to be the theme of the conversation between Liss and Mostovskoy where both characters strive for transcendence. Neither of these characters is able to reach that transcendence though. Rather, the characters that do transcend in Life and Fate do it through motherhood and maternity. Maternity is the desire to openly nurture a separate individual withnothing in return. It is the ultimate transcendence. Because of this, Levinas’s definition of ethics is also a perfect definition of maternity. Maternity is the epitome of ethics.
It is interesting, though, that many of the times we see this representation of ethics through maternity in Life and Fate, it is linked with religious representations. Grossman was a self-proclaimed atheist who, asfar we know, did not resonate with his Jewish heritage in any way. This is what makes the religious subtleties of his novel so peculiar. However, since maternity is the epitome of transcendence and transcendence is a very holy thing, it is often described as religious because religion is the only concept we have to understand ideas like this. When Grossman writes about religion, it is not in astructured, institutional way. It is the best way he has to describe the holiness of things such as maternity and ethics. That is why many of the representations of maternity in Life and Fate, although written by an atheist, have religious connotations.
Grossman represents maternity through three characters: Sofya Levinton, Khristya Chunyak, and an old Russian woman. Each of these charactersis maternal because they understand alterity, feel unconditional responsibility for the other, and do these things transparently. To understand alterity is to see the uniqueness between two individuals. A mother recognizes that although her child was literally once a part of her, it is now its own being. To feel unconditional responsibility for the other is to acknowledge that that alterity,that difference, matters to you. A mother cherishes a child even if it is not her own. She sees it as the other and is concerned for it. Maternal transparency is having no shame about your responsibility for the unique other while still not being overly proud of that responsibility. A mother neither withholds nor flaunts her role as a maternal figure; she is transparent. Sofya, Khristya and theold woman each execute these characteristics perfectly.
We are first introduced to Sofya Levinton when she is captured in a group by Germans. There is no mention of her family and hardly any detail about her life before she is captured. She is very independent. When she realizes her life may be coming to an end, she wonders, “Who am I? In the end, who am I?” (196). This feeling of a lackof identity is because she does not feel she has lived her life completely and therefore, doesn’t know exactly who she is. There is something she is missing. At one point in her past, “she had felt ready to give up everything if only in some shabby, dark, low-ceilinged room she could be hugged by the arms of a child” (545). She may not have realized it, but the thing she was missing was thefeeling of motherhood. After being captured, Sofya endures a long and treacherous walk to the gas chambers in the hands of a small boy, David. She has no connection to this abandoned child and yet she feels an immediate responsibility for him—a mother’s unconditional responsibility for the other. She chooses not to admit she is a doctor to save her own life and stay with David. This decision is...