The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines envy as: She pays the price of having her more than averagely pretty face (an Alpha face) changed to a Beta face by cosmetic surgery and so made indistinguishable from the others.'įrom 'Cronos and His Children - Envy and Reparation' by Mary Ashwin - Chapter II 'Everyday Envy' The independently minded heroine, Jael, visits the Ely and looks up at the tower and leads a dance round it. The result is that the populace loses its humanity and becomes a non-thinking mass. No comparisons are to be made, women are encouraged to undertake an operation so they all looked alike, to be pretty would excite envy. All tall buildings had been destroyed in the war except the tower of Ely Cathedral and none are allowed to be built - a horizontal view of life is required. Neither envy nor equality are spoken of as words but referred to as Good and Bad E's. Of course, that, in itself, is the very essence of envy.

In order to exterminate envy everything that was enviable has been destroyed. 'Equality and Envy - the two E's were.the positive and negative poles on which the New State rotated '(p.12). The worst crime is not envy itself but to excite envy. The citizens are coerced to be as alike each other as possible.

A Dictator has decreed that envy is so destructive that it has to be eliminated. In 'Facial Justice,' Hartley (1960) describes a life after a catastrophic war. It is a vicious cycle in which I am entrapped.( Cronos and his Children - Envy and Reparation). I am driven to excesses of paranoia and guilt and fear that subside only after I 'act out' or punish myself. I begrudge others their success, or brilliance, or happiness, or good fortune. This is my way of interacting with the world. I congratulate you on your independence.' A state of nothingness contrasted to the former and depraved state of being. We are perfectly and entirely neutral - not sad, nor elated, not scared and not proud. We have no need for it, this empty shell of failed communication. When we discover ourselves - we naturally shed the world. Naked, in the moonlight, we extend a hand to the stars and are one with them, primordially and unconditionally. It is when we lose everything purposefully - that we gain it back. It is when we cannot rely on others, nor depend on them (not even for our sexual fulfillment), when we neither expect, nor wish, nor dream - that we are invincible. The fountain of vigour and clarity and tranquility and creativity erupts from extreme deprivation. 'The biggest source of personal strength is loneliness.

Pathological envy