First 500 Words

Though not shared by all, the pursuit, desire, and even need for higher levels of intellect has become increasingly common. Nevertheless, people are striving for the level of knowledge that has, in a way, become glamorized: the published papers, the renown, even the ability to outwit enemies. Nevertheless, those people who are truly intellectual are some of the most inactive in society, past or present. To have such a heightened level of knowledge actually impedes one's ability for success as it takes away to ability to communicate. 

This complication has becoming increasingly prevalent in many novels. Through the careful crafting of his character Phaedrus and the accompanying main character, Robert M. Pirsig is able to demonstrate the struggle that an intellectual goes and suffers through in his novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. By way of what seems to be an indirect comparison, Pirsig is able to carefully craft his characters and plot in a manner similar to Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground and Albert Camus' The Stranger. 

Through the main character's account of his own life as well as that of Phaedrus' is becomes well understood by the reader that Phaedrus is an extremely intelligent man. Nevertheless, Phaedrus is all his intellectual glory is actually much more limited than the much less intelligent main character whom remains nameless through the length of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The biggest struggles that Phaedrus encounters seem to ironically occur behind the confined walls of the classroom and school setting. In his attempt to bring in new styles of teaching, many confront Phaedrus and ask if he is "really teaching quality this quarter" (Pirsig, p.183). The teachers ask waiting for a response, nevertheless, to them the answer has been set and it is no. The innovative methods that Phaedrus employs, including his disregard for letter grades, is too much for the "by the books" teachers to bear. They do not seem to ask out of a true concern, but rather because it does not seem to be in congruence with the manner in which everybody else teaches. 

The question of whether or not he is teaching quality ends up setting off a thought in Phaedrus that goes on for the remained of the novel. He reluctantly replied that he is "Definitely!" teaching quality, only to realize seconds later that "he [did not] have a clue as to what Quality was." (Pirsig, p. 182-4) Phaedrus' inability to define quality begins to introduce the idea of Phaedrus as an inactive man. He resembles Dostoyevsky's main character in Notes from the Underground in these moments the most. However, Phaedrus is only fairly limited where as the Underground man is limited in all aspects. They draw the most similarities in Phaedrus' repeated and entirely failed attempts to even begin to define quality. In fact, Phaedrus is so unable to define it that he decides to conclude that it cannot be defined at all.