Point of View

Joseph Conrad’s character, Kurtz, from Heart of Darkness and J. M. Coetzee’s narrator, the Magistrate, from Waiting for the Barbarians are two similar yet fascinatingly different personas. Their similarities and differences seem to be obvious on the surface. Both are agents of an Empire living far from the center of government who are more sympathetic toward the native populations being exploited by their respective governments. Both express their disillusionments with the policies of their Empires, Kurtz more in action than the Magistrate. Both are then branded as unsound and traitorous and are denounced by their respective governments. On the surface Kurtz seems to have an affinity for native ways more than the Magistrate does. The Magistrate never really communicates or lives with the barbarians. His only contact with the barbarians is when he delivers the barbarian girl back to her people. It seems that the Magistrates traitorous relation with the barbarians is unjustly exaggerated by the Colonel Joll, the emissary of the Empire sent to investigate rumors of a barbarian threat. Overall, the Magistrates rebellion seems to be based more in principle than action. The only action he takes is to publicly denounce the beatings of the barbarian captives. On the other hand, Kurtz seems to have been completely assimilated into native culture and from the point of view of Marlowe, Manager, and the rest of the Europeans, lost all sanity and morality.

These basic similarities and differences between Kurtz and the Magistrate can perhaps be explained by the point of view of the respective novels. Kurtz is perhaps portrayed as more of a villainous character in Heart of Darkness because that novel is told from the point of view of the law-abiding and conventional Marlowe. Marlowe is more inclined to condemn the actions of Kurtz because society has conditioned him to view the Europeans as superior to the natives. The reason Kurtz is not portrayed as a total villain in Heart of Darkness is because after Marlowe’s experiences in Africa, he is no longer sure of European superiority. At the same time Marlowe is not a convert like Kurtz who is assimilated into the African culture. Conversely, the Magistrate is portrayed as more of a hero because he is telling the story and the reader is therefore able to hear his thoughts, motives, and the justifications for his actions. If Heart of Darkness was told from the point of view of Kurtz, would the reader feel differently about his actions in the story? Would we feel that the reports of Kurtz’s complete moral degradation and insanity were exaggerated and untrue? Would Kurtz’s love of the natives and assimilation into African culture make sense to us? Perhaps we would learn that the heads on stakes outside of his house were not men he had killed, as was reported but customary gifts from the natives whom he had befriended. Perhaps he would explain that his mental degeneration was a result of a disease he had contracted that eventually killed him. We do not know. However, if Waiting for the Barbarians was told from the point of view of Colonel Joll, we can be fairly certain that his condemnation of the Magistrate would sound eerily similar to that of the Manager’s condemnation of Kurtz. Perhaps if these two novels had different narrators their, similarities would be heightened. (555)

The Power of Dreams

My initial impression of Waiting for the Barbarians was a negative one; I thought the novel was quite odd. I was thrown off by the strange emotional and physical relationship between the narrator and the barbarian girl. I, however, have since become fond of this allegorical story. I enjoyed the Magistrate as the narrator. He seems an honest, observant, and unassuming man who seeks the truth and wants make sense of the cruelty around him. He is heroic in his own simple way. He defends those who cannot defend themselves, shows pity and mercy for the victims of the Empire’s torture, and quietly but firmly defies the Empire. I also enjoy the simple, straightforward style of the novel; it is refreshing after the dense writing of Joseph Conrad.

My favorite parts of the novel so far have been the dreams of the narrator. I am particularly fascinated by the symbolism in the dreams about the children playing in the snow. The Magistrate first has this dream after he sees the barbarian boy who has been tortured. The dream reflects his internal struggle over the evil in what the agents of the Empire have done to the little boy and his father. The Magistrate has always been a loyal servant to the Empire, but now he cannot allow innocent people to be treated so unjustly. According to www.mydreamvisions.com, a dream interpreting website, the snow in these recurring dreams represents “the idea of covering up, blanketing, hiding or obscuring what lies beneath.” Throughout the novel, the Magistrate is obsessed with uncovering the truth. He cannot simply turn a blind eye to the hidden evils of the Empire. The girl child building the snow castle in the Magistrate’s dream is a symbol of innocence. She represents the innocent barbarians who are tortured and mistreated by the agents of the Empire. According to the dream interpreting site, children in dreams can represent a feeling of responsibility for something or someone else in your life. The Magistrate feels responsible for the cruel treatment of the barbarians because he is a representative of the Empire. Thus far the novel has captured my attention, and I am anxious to see how it will end.

The African Race

“The African Character” by G.W. F. Hegel
• Africans do not have a concept of Law or a Higher Being. Because Africans regard themselves as the “highest beings,” they do not have respect for themselves. With the reverence to a Higher Being (God), comes respect for oneself.
• Africans represent humans in their most wild and untamed state. They do not exhibit morality and have no knowledge of the “immortality of the soul.” They see tyranny, cannibalism, and slavery as customary practices. These traits show that, Africans do not have self-control.

“On the Races of Man” by Charles Darwin
• Existing Races of man differ in skin color, hair, shape of skull & proportion of body; however, they resemble each other in many respects
• They share similar minds, tastes, dispositions, and habits (All enjoy dancing, rude music, acting, painting, and tattooing; use similar gestures; use same cries when excited by certain emotions). They also have similar inventive powers (arrowheads found all over the globe)
• Races of man descended from a single primitive stock; therefore they should be considered one species instead of many
• The intellectual capabilities of this primitive stock is equal to that of the lowest savages in Africa
• The races of man could be different sub-species
• Different conditions of life did not necessarily create the differences in the races (the Fuegians and the Botocudos in South America live in different climates and have completely different diets and yet resemble each other; the Botocudos live in the same climate as coastal tribes in Africa and yet do not resemble them)
• Inherited effects of the increase or decrease of certain parts of the body do not account for the differences between races of man either
• The slight differences between races did not come about because of natural selection. Therefore none of the differences in man are beneficial or important.

Considerations of Race

“Are Humans One Race or Many?” By Alfred Russel Wallace
• Once humans developed intellectual capacities, natural selection ceased to affect their physical characteristics and instead began to modify their mental faculties. This is why human’s physical forms remained stationary for most of their history, whereas their minds have evolved.
• Inhabitants of temperate countries are superior to those of hotter climates. All the great invasions of races have occurred from North to South.
• Humans consist of many races. Humans may have been a homogeneous race at one time; however, it was before they had developed a brain, speech, or ‘moral’ feelings and therefore could not be considered human. By the time humans developed these capacities, they had already spread over the earth and had formed distinct races.

“The Comparative Worth of Different Races” By Francis Galton
• Galton had a sixteen “class” system to rank the intellectual and cognitive abilities of different races. There were 8 classes above the mean (X and G-A) and 8 classes below the mean (a-g and x). Galton believed that the G and X classes of Africans equaled only the E and F classes of Englishmen. This meant that the average intellectual standard of the Africans were two grades below that of Englishmen.
• Galton also believed that the average ability of Englishmen should be raised a grade or two in order to address the growing need of centralization and communication in the developing British Empire

Creatures of Habit

The final section of The Sound and the Fury provides closure to the novel by giving the reader a glimpse into the future of the remaining Compson family members. Father drank himself to death. Caddy became a family outcast when her husband divorced her. Son, Quentin committed suicide, and grand daughter Quentin ran away from home. The status of the remaining family members, Mother, Jason, Benjy and Dilsey is the question. The symbolism of the final scene gives the readers a hint as to what the future holds for the remaining family members. Luster takes Benjy on his usual Sunday carriage ride but instead of turning right at the monument as was the habit he turns left. Benjy begins to howl, to bellow, to roar with “horror; shock; agony eyeless, tongueless; just sound” (320). Jason appears and brutally removes Luster and turns the carriage in the correct direction. Benjy calms when the status quo is re-established and everything returns to its “ordered place” (321). The symbolism of Benjy being consoled when his habits are restored, seems to suggest that Faulkner is telling his readers that the remaining family members lives will continue as they had throughout the novel. (198)

The Symbolic Weed

This week I read a scholarly article on JSTOR called “Faulkner’s Use of Folklore in The Sound and the Fury” by Charles D. Peavy. The URL of this article is http://www.jstor.org/stable/537508?seq=1&Search=yes&term=fury&term=folk&term=sound&term=traditions&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfolk%2Btraditions%2Bthe%2Bsound%2Band%2Bfury%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=1&ttl=691&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle

This article contained many interesting points about Faulkner’s use of folklore and symbolism in The Sound and the Fury. However, the most noteworthy point in the article concerned the symbolism of the jimson weed and it’s identification with Benji throughout the book. Benji is given the weed to prevent his crying and from that point in the story he continues to play with the weed. The jimson weed is a foul smelling, poisonous member of the nightshade family. It is surprising that Benji’s caretakers allow him to play with the stalk of a poisonous plant that has been known to cause the death of children who consume it. Jimson weed is also known to be a smelly plant and Peavy contends that it is an ironic symbol of the loss of Caddy who “smelled like trees.” Finally, the in the morning pre-flower jimson weed’s “erect, trumpet shaped form”, is a phallic symbol in the south.

I found Charles Peavy’s analyses of the symbolism of the jimson weed very helpful in understanding another facet of The Sound and the Fury. I was surprised to find that the jimson weed carried so much meaning. I had never heard of jimson weed before reading The Sound and the Fury and I did not attribute much significance to Benji’s affinity for the jimson weed while reading the first chapter of the book. I assumed it was simply a stalk/ flower that had the power of calming Benji. Yet, the symbolism of a phallic shaped flower quieting the castrated Benji is compelling The jimson weed’s poisonous properties are perhaps why Faulkner chose it to be identified with the mentally disabled Benji The jimson weed’s rich symbolic meanings attests to Faulkner’s literary genius. (318)

Possibilities

Joyce Carol Oates based her short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” on “a real-life incident involving a young teenaged girl and a "charismatic" serial killer in Tucson, Arizona.” She brings this incident to life with her two main characters—Arnold Friend, a disturbed and oddly spellbinding killer and his helpless teenage victim, the self-absorbed Connie. Oates uses her characters to craft a fascinating portrayal of how this “charismatic” serial killer might manipulate and abduct his teenage victim. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Carol Oates grips her readers in an increasing sense of helplessness and desperation by unfolding the character of a deranged killer through the eyes of a naïve teenage girl.

Arnold Friend first enters the story when Connie and her friends are at the drive-in restaurant. Connie notices that he is staring at her and describes him as “a boy with shaggy black hair, in a convertible jalopy painted gold” (615). The reader is led to assume from her observations that he is just another teenage boy at the drive-in gawking at her. Days later when Arnold Friend pulls up to her house with his friend, Ellie, to ask her to “come for a ride” with them, Connie still does realize they are not teenagers (617). Initially, Connie treats Arnold like she would any other teenage boy who showed an interest in her. She is “careful to show no interest” in him, she “pretend[s] to fidget” when he tells her that she is cute, and “she couldn’t decide if she liked him…and so she dawdled in the doorway and wouldn’t come down or go back inside” (617). In addition, she likes the way he is dressed and notes that it “was the way all of them dressed” (618). Nevertheless, there are several clues for the reader at this point in the story that suggests that Arnold is not what he appears to be. The narrator describes Arnold as “sniffing [Connie] as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up,” and his laughter as “all fake” (618). These subtle clues serve to hint at the danger Connie is in and starts to make the reader uneasy.

The reader’s feeling of anxiety and dread increases as Connie’s conversation with Arnold reveals that he has been stalking her and pretending to be a teenager. The reader becomes suspicious that something is amiss with the way he has “taken a special interest” in Connie and has “found out all about her” (618). However, Connie does not grasp the danger and is flattered that Arnold “had remembered her” (618). Only when Arnold names all of her friends and claims to know them, does Connie begin to suspect that Arnold is not what he claims. She becomes suspicious of the expression written on his car’s front fender in black paint, “man the flying saucers” because kids used it the previous year, but not anymore (619). Eventually Connie realizes that all the things about him do not “come together” (619). Connie’s feels dizzy and afraid as she comprehends the total situation that Arnold is not a teenager but a man of thirty or more years. Yet at this point, Connie still does not understand the full extent of her peril.

The reader becomes immersed in Connie’s fear and desperation as she finally begins to comprehend the full extent of her danger. Not only does Arnold refuse to leave but he begins to issue terrifying threats. Arnold warns that he will break down the screen door, light the house on fire, or kill her family when they return if she does not come out of the house. In addition Connie—as well as the reader—is able to clearly see how unstable and deranged Arnold truly is. He terrifies her with statements like “I’m your lover,” “I’ll show you what love is like,” and “I’ll come inside you where it’s all secret and you’ll give in to me” (621). The reader is able experience Connie’s terror and the fear that paralyzes her and prevents her from calling for help. This was Joyce Carol Oates’s intention, to place her reader in a quandary over Connie’s final capitulation. The key dilemma of the story is why Connie in the end surrenders to a rapist and possibly her killer. The reader is left to wonder whether Connie was trying to protect her family, thought she had no other options or simply was too paralyzed by fear. Joyce Carol Oates leaves her readers shaking their heads in frustration over the possibilities. (771)

Better Late Than Never

My favorite story this week was “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason. “Shiloh” is a story about a middle aged Norma Jean who finally grows up. Married as a pregnant teenager to Leroy Moffitt, Norma Jean does not realize her disaffection with her life until an accident forces Norma Jean to change her day to day lifestyle. Leroy her trucker husband is home indefinitely and now Norma Jean for the first time becomes involved in activities outside the home. She starts by weightlifting and graduates from a six-week body-building course. She then decides to take “an adult education course in composition at the Paducah Community College” (610). She also begins to cook “unusual” foods like tacos, lasagna, and Bombay chicken. The final sign that Norma Jean is living her own life comes when her mother catches her smoking. Instead of reacting like an adult, Norma Jean reacts like a guilty child and starts crying. Eventually she accepts responsibility for her smoking habit and makes the decision to quit. All of these events reflect Norma Jean’s desire to take responsibility for her life and discover who she is and what she wants.

One of the consequences of Norma Jean’s new life is her disillusionment with her marriage. There are many signs of this disenchantment —she never stays home with Leroy, she closes her eyes when they are in bed because she does not want to see him, and she has no desire to cook Leroy’s favorite foods for him anymore. Leroy’s desire to slow down and experience being home is in direct opposition to Norma Jean’s desire to get out and recapture lost opportunities. Unlike Norma Jean who seems to have been frozen in her “teenage” state most of her adult life, Leroy has spent his “flying past scenery” and he wants to slow down and examine things (605). He reverts to child-like hobbies, like “[making] things from craft kits” (604). He makes a miniature log cabin from notched Popsicle sticks, he tries string art and needlepoint, and he builds a snap-together B-17 flying fortress and a lamp made out of a model truck. He even wants to “[build] a full-scale log house from a kit” for Norma Jean. Norma Jean is impatient with Leroy’s hobbies. She does not want him to build her a log cabin house and she comes up with excuses like “they won’t let you build a log cabin in any of the new subdivisions” or “I don’t want to live in any log cabin” (608). It is this impatience with Leroy that leads to the disintegration of their marriage; as Leroy realizes in the end, Norma Jean is already lost to him.

Now that Leroy is home, he believes that “he is finally settling down with the woman he loves,” and he wants “to create a new marriage, start afresh” (605, 606). Norma Jean on the other hand has come to the realization that her marriage is over and wants to move on with her life. This obviously creates tension between them as “he wishes she would celebrate his permanent home-coming more happily,” and is saddened when he senses that she is disappointed with his presence (605). To further exacerbate the situation, Leroy still feels like an untried teenager around Norma Jean. When they visit Shiloh he becomes awkward and uncomfortable “like a boy on a date with an older girl” (612). Norma Jean and Leroy have been slowly growing apart throughout all the years of their marriage. When they are finally forced to live together again, the sad realization of their broken relationship comes to light. The story ends with Norma Jean finally breaking free of a marriage that has prevented her from growing up and experiencing a full and satisfying life. (626)

Wolves and Wierdos

This week, I found a most fascinating story to write about in my short story project. I came upon the story while flipping through Mr. Coon’s book, The Best American Short Stories of 2007. I was immediately drawn to it because of the title, “St. Lucy’s School for Girls Raised by Wolves.” The story is told in the first person, from the point of view of Claudette, or “Trrr”, a wolf-girl raised by werewolf parents. Although her parents were werewolves, she and her sisters were human girls because the condition skips a generation. Claudette and her sisters are sent to St. Lucy’s by their parents “because they wanted something better for [them]” (326). This story details their time at St. Lucy’s from when they arrive “all hair and snarl and floor-thumping joy” to when they graduate, civilized and able to live among humans (325).

I enjoyed this story for several reasons. The first is my fascination with wolves. The wolf has always been one of my favorite animals especially when I was younger. Many of my favorite novels growing up--- Call of the Wild, White Fang, Julie of the Wolves, and The Sight--- were about wolves. I was so drawn to wolves that I designed and maintained a role play website with Tori Hussey in middle school. Reading this story reminded me of my childhood fascination with wolves. This story also reminded me of a non-fiction book I stumbled on while trying pass time in supervised study in middle school. The book was the real-life story of two boys who were raised by wolves and then captured and raised in a nearby convent. The wolf-boys had been unable to adapt to human society and eventually remained in a type of captivity at the convent until their deaths. Although the title “St. Lucy’s School for Girls Raised by Wolves” might lead the reader to believe the content is heavy and serious, the story actually has a light and humorous tone and does not have a dark and tragic ending. I also enjoyed reading this story because of the writing style of Karen Russell. I loved her unusual words and phrases she created to describe the different characters in the story-- “hirsute and sinewy” to describe the wolf-girls; “nervous-smelling” to describe their social worker; and “apple-cheeked” to describe the little girls that came to St. Lucy’s to play with the wolf sisters. I am excited that I will be writing my short story project on “St. Lucy’s School for Girls Raised by Wolves.”

Now a few words about one of this weeks short stories; “Cathedral” was the only story I enjoyed reading this week. However, I thought it was a most unusual and bizarre narrative. The first odd aspect was the emotional interplay of the characters: a middle aged blind man who is newly widowed, but does not really seem to be grieving and his long time female friend, who have a rather odd history together, as well as her second husband who does not seem to be on great terms with her, and is most awkward with his blind guest. Furthermore, the scenes of these three middle aged people sitting down to smoke a joint and conversation with a blind man about black and white TV’s and color TV’s added to the oddity of the situation. I found it difficult to understand what could make a person so uncomfortable with someone’s blindness, but this was perhaps a thought provoking look into unusual prejudices. I think I would feel empathy towards someone who is blind, not discomfort, but I wonder if the husband’s reaction is perhaps more common. Nevertheless I enjoyed this story regardless of its oddity. (615)

Truly Crazy

When Mr. Coon presented the short story, “A Rose for Emily”, to our class on Monday, he briefly touched on a subject that piqued my interest--- the Southern Gothic Tradition. He told us, just as Ms. Driscoll did last year when we read this story, that “A Rose for Emily” had many of the qualities of a Southern Gothic story. We learned about Southern Gothic Literature last year, when we read the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe. Ms. Driscoll taught us that the Southern Gothic Tradition builds off of the European Gothic traditions that originated in 18th century England. European Gothic Literature included supernatural elements, mentally disturbed characters, and an atmosphere of terror and dread. Southern Gothic Literature tends to focus on mental disease and disturbed characters and takes place in the south. If these are the qualities of Southern Gothic Literature, I was curious as to why “A Rose for Emily” is described as having some of the characteristics of but not a true classic example of a Southern Gothic story. I decided to explore to what extent “A Rose for Emily” is or is not an archetypal Southern Gothic story.

Perhaps the main reason, that “A Rose for Emily” is often overlooked as a Southern Gothic story, is that its gothic qualities do not become apparent until the end of the story when Homer Barron’s corpse is discovered in Emily Grierson’s attic bedroom. The narrative starts with Emily’s funeral and explores her strange life and disturbed personality which is a principal attribute of a gothic story. However, Faulkner wrote this story out of chronological order so the details and clues in the story do not naturally lead the reader to the rational conclusion. It is not until the reader realizes that Emily not only killed Homer Barron but also slept with his corpse that the clues throughout the story start to fall in place. Indeed, the Gothic elements become quite evident on a second, reading of the story. These elements include Emily’s great-aunt, Lady Wyatt, who was “completely crazy” (31); Emily’s strained and troubled relationship with her father; her refusal to accept her father’s death and release her father’s corpse for burial; her purchase of arsenic; Homer Barron’s disappearance; and the strange smell coming from her house after he disappeared. In the correct order, these events lead the reader to the obvious conclusion, that Emily had killed Homer Barron. It is a testament to Faulkner’s literary genius that he feeds his readers these disjointed clues little by little, so as to heighten the shock value of the ending. I do not think, “A Rose for Emily” should be disregarded as a Southern Gothic story, as it possesses all the basic elements: a disturbed and tragic main character; a stereotypical southern setting, and a bizarre and grotesque ending. The novel’s unique layout leaves the reader in a state of bewilderment throughout most of the narrative, however, this is not reason enough to prevent “A Rose for Emily” from taking its rightful place among the hallowed dark stories of the Southern Gothic Tradition. (521)

A Summer Treasure

This summer I feasted on a variety of books from life altering to mindless entertainment. They include Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin; The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel; Bar Sinister, by Linda Berdoll; and the series, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer. My favorite novel was without question the eloquent, Three Cups of Tea. Mr. Relin’s account of Greg Mortenson, a real life hero who built more than fifty schools for impoverished villages in Pakistan, is at once both captivating and inspiring. I was very touched by this man’s selfless mission to improve the future of Islamic children in the Taliban’s backyard. I was impressed by his unflagging devotion to this cause in the face of incredible odds. And I was often brought to the point of tears by the moving descriptions of the children’s reactions to the gift of education, something that is taken for granted here in the United States. However, the most poignant moment in the novel is when Jahan, one of the girls who attended Mortenson’s very first school in the conservative Islamic village of Korphe, attends medical school and then returns to improve conditions in her village. As Kevin Fedarko, one of Mortenson’s friends and a former editor of the Outside Magazine explains: “[s]he had graduated from school and was the first educated woman in a valley of three thousand people” (300).

But what makes this account so inspiring is the way Mr. Mortenson is portrayed as a selfless hero—compassionate, humble, but yet very human in his flaws. He is a contemporary Mother Theresa who makes countless sacrifices for Islamic children, yet a husband and a father who must neglect his own family. I also connected with Mortenson in a different way. I particularly enjoyed the account of Mortenson’s childhood in Africa, growing up alongside children of many different nationalities. As he recalls, “it was a wonderful place to go to school…it was like a little United Nations. There were twenty-eight different nationalities and we celebrated all the holidays” (36). This reminded me of my own childhood in Tokyo. I attended Nishimachi International School and like Mortenson I had friends from countries all over the world. I was raised to embrace the differences in the cultures and religions of my friends. And when he struggled initially to fit in at his school after moving back to America, I understood and empathized completely.

Three Cups of Tea is a book that allows you to believe that one person can truly make a difference in the world. This novel attests to the old adage, “you are never given a dream without the power to make it come true.” In addition, this story has the ability to change American attitudes toward peoples of the Middle East. Three Cups of Tea dramatically changed the way I view the region of the Middle East, its people, and the religion of Islam. The story goes a long way in dispelling some of the hatred and mistrust that has become a part of us since 9/11. By exploring some of the origins of the political, economic, and social problems that exist in the Middle East today, Relin and Mortenson are helping to change the way Amerians think about this volatile area. Perhaps one of the novels most important messages however is that there are peaceful and humanitarian alternatives to fighting terrorism, human rights violations, and the ceaseless violence in the Middle East. Mortenson, through his journey as a Muslim, allows Americans and the west to view Islam in a different light-- as a noble religion of compassion and duty.

It is not often that one finds a book that has the ability to alter your prejudices and at the same time inspires you to chase improbable goals and dreams. Three Cups of Tea is one of those rare treasures. (649)