Kierkegaard Meaning

First and foremost, it is necessary that the word “broken” needs to be defined, especially in regards to its connectedness to “A” and “B”. If one is to look at Kierkegaard’s “A” and “B” as they are written, then it is seen that when either one or the other decides that it is unfulfilled in its being “A” or being “B”, then it would necessarily become the other. If “A” were to be unfulfilled in its indifference and selfish individualism, he would need to be rid of this indifference. If the “esthete feigns moral indifference to all he sees” (Mooney, 12) and then finds that this indifference is not worthwhile and needs to change, he will embrace some moral and the ethical in the process of losing the aesthetic. Thus, the “A” becomes the “B” as

Whatever the case is that can be seen in the relationships and transformations of the “A” and “B”, what has been displayed when an “A” ceases to be an “A”, and a “B” ceases to be a “B”, these are all things that are not “broken”. For something to be able to transform and/or combine with the other, than the connection between the “A” and the “B” is not “broken”. If the connection between the “A” and the “B” were to be severed, to be broken, then the “A” could not become the “B”, no matter what, and the “B” could not become the “A”. This is the problem of “brokenness”. “Brokenness” severs this connection. With the connection severed, then the “A”, when disillusioned, cannot change to the “B”, and when “B” discovers the aesthetic and find that it is more fulfilling, the “B” cannot find his way to the “A”, as the road has been blocked. This is the meaning of the Broken “A” and the Broken “B”, as they are stuck in their roles no matter how hard they try to escape their

Our life was too good and we were too satisfied with ourselves. The Lord wanted to punish us for our complacency. That is why He sent you to spew out your holy venom and poison the knight” (Bergman, 117).

In understanding that they left the crusade not knowing what a waste the crusade and how unfulfilling the crusade was going to be, yet never giving up hope, as the knight shows throughout the film, it is possible to see that the reason why this particular “A” and “B” became broken. The knight and the squire spent a decade abroad on a crusade, noting that they faced many hardships and challenges that shook them to the core. Sooner or later, disillusionment set in:

Jöns: Me and my master have been abroad and have just come home. Do you understand my little