Value Rigidity

Too often, when individuals encounter life’s challenges with the same rigid approach of the past, they find themselves unable to evaluate their circumstances and discover alternate solutions. Robert Pirsig, in his philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, defines this concept as value rigidity:

Pirsig explores the danger of value rigidity and posits a solution. In order to sever old ways of thinking, one must review previous experiences and evaluate their importance. Through the centuries, novelists and dramatists have probed this concept as they examined the struggles inherent in human life. In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, the character Blanche DuBois clearly exhibits Pirsig’s concept of value rigidity. Blanche’s adherence to a long-destroyed antebellum world of refinement and elegance preserves her past existence and enables her to survive in a foreign world. The way she reacts to the squalor she sees in Stella and Stanley’s life prevents her from adapting to her new world and ultimately leads to her destruction.

As Pirsig states, the inability to revalue what one sees because of preconceptions leads to value rigidity. Furthermore, this results in a failure to recognize the truth—a means of escape from this trap. When Blanche arrives dressed as if she were attending a summer tea instead of the poverty of the New Orleans tenement district, she personifies a distinct commitment to the bygone values of the South. Her complete devotion to the veneer of a Southern Belle lifestyle prohibits her from adjustment to life in a two-room apartment with her sister and brother-in-law. The dismal reality is clearly in front of her; she is looking right at it, but refuses to face what does not fit...

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...ams’ drama A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche clearly illustrates the dire consequences of a life lived under the constraints of value rigidity. Blanche’s rigid values, preconceived ideals, and professed superiority imprison her in a make-believe world. This alternate world, constructed upon the foundation of a rigid value system, makes her fragile and ultimately causes her destruction. In the play’s conclusion, she collapses as she leaves the objective world behind and adapts the exterior world to fit her delusions. Her character’s experience provides readers with a graphic example of a life defined by rigid values and a lack of true Quality. Similar to Pirsig’s illustration of the South Indian Monkey trap, readers want to advise Blanche to drop the act, forgive herself, and embrace reality so she can avoid spending the rest of her life in a mental institution.