Lost Marginalia

We have accepted that Season 4 of Lost includes flash-forwards, but are these future events necessarily determined? Remember the classic narrative device of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” in which Scrooge sees Christmas Past and Christmas Future. With fear and trembling, he asks if this must be his fate, and he learns that changes in the present can alter the outcome. We have the spectral figure of Jacob (as in Jacob Marley) along with Ben (as in Ebeneezer), which doesn’t necessarily situate us in “A Christmas Carol” territory, but viewers might consider that the flash-forwards function differently than the flashbacks.

Given that Lost is populated with characters who share names with key figures of the Enlightenment, such as Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, reference to The Economist may point to Adam Smith, whose historical influence casts him in the role of founder of economics. This 18^th-century Scotsman was a close friend of fellow countryman, David Hume, and both men concerned themselves with the basis of human morality. In “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759), Smith argues for our capacity through the imagination to feel sympathy: “The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.”

Significantly, Smith goes on to provide an example based in the observation of torture: “Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers…By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them.” In the episode, Sayid is specifically identified by Jack as “a torturer.” Yet we see many instances in which he is capable of identifying with someone other (small “o.”), and he (once a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard, or RG — coincidentally the initials on the mysterious bracelet) lets down his guard, when his own self-interest might dictate very different actions. Indeed, the episode concludes with Ben’s reprimand that Sayid has let his sympathy interfere with abstract reason.

Continuing along with the Scottish connection, the most convincing visual comparison of Jacob is to Brother Campbell. The longer “do” covers the ears, or else we would have clear evidence in the actor Andrew Connolly’s distinctive ears. I can’t help but see Desmond’s features in the face that emerged in the window of Jacob’s cabin when Hurley peered inside [This “through the window” parallels Desmond’s panicked face as he watched Charlie’s last moments – though I don’t think there is a time/space warp going on.]. Brother Campbell, along with Mrs. Hawking (of the ouroborus pin), seem to have a still unexplained part to play in the narrative loops.