In the play “Arcadia” by Tom Stoppard, the interaction between order and disorder are deeply analysed and examined through the philosophy that there is no “going back” once things are done Most notably, Thomasina remarks that once one stirs jam into rice pudding, even if one were to stir the other way, “the jam will not come together again”, This, in turn, corresponds to a key concept discussed in Mary Crone’s “Order and Disorder: Classical and Romantic Physics in Arcadia”, which is Newton’s second law of thermodynamics Simply summarized by Crone, “entropy increases‘K There is only more disorder created by every consequential action. In “Arcadia”, this concept is proved and examined through a number of examples, within the plot, chronologically, and within the structure of the play itself. Within the conflicts of the characters in “Arcadia”, I believe the most cause-and-effect action was the hasty publishing and advertising of Bernard’s findings concerning the death of Mr Chateri.
Although there was little evidence to prove his theory that Lord Byron killed Mr. Chater in a duel and plenty of contradictory evidence, whenever questioned Bernard responds with some sort of variation of “I don’t know, I wasn’t there, was I?”. After the discovery of a diary entry detailing Mr. Chater’s death by monkey bite, Bernard was forced to swallow his pride and accept the failed theory that he would now be remembered fort This furthers the idea that one cannot undo any action pretty clearly because Bernard faces the direct consequences of his thirst for fame, without which he may have been able to save his reputation While I think this is probably the least complicated and most obvious form in which “Arcadia” proves it’s “there‘s no going back” motif, it still serves as an example of the theory.
The novel also proves it’s “no going back” philosophy by transcending time periods, from 1809 to “the present day”. On page 82, there is a distinctive connection between a remark about tea and the original remark about rice pudding, prompting the reader to believe that, like the second law of thermodynamics, the chaos of an offhand remark has only been multiplied over the years Valentine remarks, “Your tea gets cold by itself, but it doesn’t get hot by itself…What‘s happening to your tea is happening everywhere”. The nature of the remark -seemingly random, an observation about food, and a metaphor connected to the predestined nature of time— all suggest that.
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Thomasina’s original musings have stayed in the universe for however long the time has been since it’s been said, and that once she says something (or, hypothetically, if anybody says something) it cannot be taken back. The stark parallels between the original remark and Valentine‘s thoughts on his tea reinforce the idea that once something is said or done, it cannot be taken back Finally, the structure of the play towards the end of the last act mirror the complicated nature of the second law of thermodynamics because although things are becoming less confusing and “wrapping up“, the time periods become one, making things more complicated as they become more organized Mary Crone says that “Another reason the second law seems puzzling is that disorder does not always seem to increase; for example, we can pick up balls and put them in order.
However, when we interact with the balls, we are making the situation more complicated”. The fact that the time periods, characters, and dialogues, become more mixed in the last scene of the play while simultaneously wrapping up the entire story is a tangible representation of the idea that there is no un-creating something, that even if something is attempting to become contained, there is chaos generated by that Like Crone said, ”increasing entropy” cannot be avoided, and therefore, I think that the organized but somehow chaotic ending to this play is a prime visual as to how one can’t “go back” once something is done, or rid of some of the chaos. “Arcadia” by Tom Stoppard examines the relationship between chaos and control through the recurring motif that there is no “going back” through his clever use of plot devices, cross-examination of time periods, and syntactic choice.
