Extra Credit--echoBOOM and the New Art of Questions

echoBOOM did not promise to be a light-hearted night of entertainment. I was undeniably nervous walking into the theater, but I felt my presence at the performance of echoBOOM was unavoidable as I had numerous friends who had worked hard for weeks. The play did not ease into its subject matter, with the pivotal plot event occurring in the opening scene with numerous school shootings executed with brutal precision by one Brody Grayson, who repeats his name numerous times so the audience will not forget it.

The play was defined by questions. Brody’s sister, Ashley, became consumed with the desire to know the answer to one simple question: Where is my brother? Political figures in her community seem to believe that acknowledging Brody’s location will somehow validate his action. Her persistent need to visibly bury her brother is continually denied; in grief and pointed protest, she burns the crosses meant to memorialize the death of all those killed in the shootings. All except Brody. More questions follow from the mouths of mechanical, unfeeling members of the media. Their questions have little meaning. Though they continually speak, they say nothing of substance. The same could be said for the politician in the play. At one point, the politician’s son remarks to his father: “You never say anything. Just say something.” His circular rhetoric about “making things better” and “bringing justice” satisfies only temporarily. Perhaps the greatest questions in echoBOOM are those asked of the audience indirectly through the action of the play. Does technology breed isolation? What comfort does religion offer in times of great suffering? Is every individual still worthy of being treated as a human being, regardless of their actions? Why do we place value on what the media says? Are we content with the political rhetoric?

The play’s ending speaks powerfully about the suggestibility of the public and the distortion of the media. In the end of the play, Ash joins her brother in a reenactment of the original school shooting. Two guns resound destruction rather than just one. The audience is left to wonder, “Which version of the shooting is illusion and which is reality?” And perhaps even the more powerful question: Which reality will we choose to accept, the one that makes us feel better or the really real? After the play was over, cast members came to sit on the stage and dialogue with the audience about the journey of the last hour and a half. Questions abounded from audience members.

I left the play asking a lot of questions myself. High modernists created art for arts’ sake. Some of the mid-century poets and others seemed to use art as a way to express themselves and release tension. This play used art as a forum for creating questions and dialogue—amongst the cast, the audience, the larger society in general. Is this a new movement in discovering the many purposes of art? A departure from art that seeks to showcase technical brilliancy, or art that attempts to reproduce beauty? Perhaps this new art, whether visual or kinesthetic or spoken, seeks to create a climate for asking questions that need to be addressed. An art of questions as of yet without answers.

"Something quick was in the air."

Perhaps it’s both the blessing and the curse of an interdisciplinary education, but I am forever making connections between areas of varying interests—particularly with psychology. While reading Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” I looked for and found various examples of the postmodern qualities of multiculturalism and the politics of identity. I watched as Roberta and Twyla engaged in an intricate dance of commonalities and boundaries, drawn together and pushing each other away as though performing a cultural tango. But I became distracted from the literary techniques when Roberta misrepresented to Twyla the incident concerning Maggie, the kitchen woman. Morrison’s point seems to be that the motivation of the heart to do something wrong or evil holds the same weightiness as actually carrying out the act. While the consequences might not externally be the same for the thought and the action, Roberta and Twyla were just as guilty of degrading the human spirit in their desire to treat Maggie wrongly as the other girls were in actually pushing her down. But while I was reading, I became particularly fascinated in the psychological implications of this “false memory.” As the two women debated about a long ago childhood memory, I was reminded of the fallibility and suggestibility of memory. Two people, observing the same event, often perceive the event differently and thus remember the incident with different focal points and biases. New experiences may even color how an event is remembered. Psychological experiments have shown over and over again that memory is not always reliable. In one study, research participants observed the same photographs of a car accident and were then asked questions about the nature of the wreck. Depending on how the question was asked (whether words like bumped or crashed were used), participants remembered the event quite differently. Thus Roberta’s different memory of the incident with Maggie would not be abnormal, and both girls would likely feel equally certain that their version of the memory was the accurate one.

“Something quick was in the air,” Toni Morrison said her short story. This simple phrase seems to capture a pervading sense in all of these short stories from more contemporary or postmodern writers. Certainly Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Sexy” feels fast paced in numerous ways. Even though the story involves a great deal of waiting—such as Miranda waiting for Sundays to come or a woman waiting for her husband to come back from London—the waiting is characterized not by quiet surrender but by impatience. The relationship between Dev and Miranda forms at a makeup counter and days later is already at a level of sexual intimacy. There is no real time for the relationship to mature or blossom, because the quick dive into what appears to be intimacy really cripples the relationship from being anything but shallow and intense. (Well, that and the reality that Dev is cheating on his wife and nothing good could come of the situation regardless). Even the little seven year old boy, Rohin, represents a kind of hurriedness to grow up. At such a young age, he is already facing the reality that his mother cries for hours at a time, that his father has gone away with a pretty woman from an airplane. He memorizes capitals of countries all over the world to compete with a classmate. Rohin is a product of globalization and the shrinking of the size of the world. Cultures interact with one another on a daily basis; seven-year-old boys know that the capital of Mali is Bamako. But I personally felt sorry that Rohin seemed to act like a miniature adult; there was little childlike energy in his fact-driven, direct way of communicating. He already has a sense of the briefness of moments and the fleeting nature of some relationships. Rohin’s comment to Miranda about their one day together being their last and his description of sexy—being in love with someone you don’t even know—in some ways show the price of the fast pace and the spreading of individuals. Sometimes, in going wide, we forget to go deep. We can communicate with people all over the globe by the hundreds, but sometimes we don’t know what’s going on in the lives of people we sit next to every day.

I found Leslie Marmon Silko’s story “Lullaby” to be heartbreaking. The only signs of peace for the characters came from interactions with nature that are slowly diminishing as we build and tear down. Sometimes the new generation of an age, whoever happens to be in the position of youth and young adulthood, criticizes the older generation for an unwillingness to change and adapt to an ever-changing world. Silko’s protagonist, Ayah, resists the changes a new society brings. But Silko poignantly shows the truth behind some of the resistance and the validity behind some of the older generation’s fear. “She hated Chato, not because he let the policeman and doctors put the screaming children in the government car, but because he had taught her to sign her name. Because it was like the old ones always told her about learning their language or any of their ways: it endangered you…All of Chato’s fine sounding English talk didn’t change things.” Ayah was only given some of the tools to “succeed” in a changing culture. She felt her concession to enter even slightly into this dominant European-American culture resulted in the loss of her children. Not willing to give up her own identity and culture, she perhaps felt that to remain completely isolated would be much better than to stick a finger into the culture and be permanently burned. In Ayah’s case, learning even something as simple as her name in English did seem to endanger her very way of life. Yet her husband, Chato, seemed to feel that he had little choice but to speak the languages of two cultures—not just phonetically but in his workplace and interactions. Silko seems to indicate that neither approach worked or spared the couple of sorrow in the end.

In Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” I was reminded of the importance of names. At one point in the story, Cleofilas reflects upon what role her name has played in her fate, a characteristic that seems to fit nicely into the postmodern search for identity. “Everything happened to women with names like jewels. But what happened to a Cleofilas? Nothing. But a crack in the face.” The role of one’s name seems to be an ancient refrain, present even in Biblical literature where children’s names were taken very seriously and often reflected a certain truth about their life. I find it fascinating that this truth behind names still continues today. This search for identity is really “nothing new under the sun.”

Why People Long for the College Years and Other Mysteries

Born in 1929, Adrienne Rich saw the world undergo numerous changes, wars, and social progression. Her poetry feels ordered and yet still vibrant. In her poem, “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law,” Rich confronts the expectations, the monotony, and the dreams of the post World War II housewife.
“You all die at fifteen,” said Diderot
and turn part legend, part convention.
Still, eyes innacurately dream
Behind closed windows blankening with steam.
Deliciously, all that we might have been,
All that we were—fire, tears, wit, taste, martyred ambition—
Stirs like the memory of refused adultery
The drained and flagging bosom of our middle years.
I love these lines, because I feel they operate on a number of levels. The post World War II generation had lost many lives and thus many dreams. Wives whose husbands did not come back home no doubt wondered what might have been had husbands not gone to war. In the loss of men of the younger generation, America and every country involved in war lost wit and ambition and shed tears. But Rich also writes as a woman and as a wife in the 1950s. Diderot’s quote is particularly poignant for women who grow up to be wives—women who no doubt had ambitions that were crushed either by their own restraint or by others. Rich expresses the longing, the wondering of what they could have been and the loss of the potential of what they were. Ambition became the martyr for the continuance of the society, and Rich seems to feel that martyrdom particularly on the part of women. At this point in the nation’s history, loyalty to an occupation or the pursuit of a dream that took a woman’s time away from the house might have look somewhat like adultery, a leaving of the first love to chase after something else. On a final level, Rich refers to the flagging bosom of the middle years. Middle age often seems to carry with it a sense of evaluation of what has past. Introspection and reflection seem hallmarks of the middle age where one realizes half of life is gone. And, of course, that half of life is still left to live.

Rich also comments on the nature of women’s literature. This stanza from the same poem reminds me of Fanny Fern, who satirically called out some of the comments by men against women’s literature. Their basic premise seems to be the same: “Judge literature critically, please, but do not judge our book with less intelligence of your part just because we are women.” Certainly women’s literature and thought had come a long way since the mid 1800s when Fanny was writing, but some prejudice or bias obviously still existed.
Time is male and in his cups drinks to the fair.
Bemused by gallantry, we hear our mediocrities over-praised,
Indolence read as abnegation, slattern thought styled intuition,
Every lapse forgiven, our crime only to cast too bold a shadow
or smash the mold straight off.
It is not that Rich wants to be treated as a man or seen as a man. In one of her later poems, “Transcendental Etudes,” she speaks of the “homesickness for a woman, for ourselves” that embraces the particular nature of a woman. She wants to be taken just as seriously as a man. This homesickness that Rich speaks of seems to echo through some of the other contemporary poets’ works as well. The modern generation began to feel this disembodiment from the home, a sense of alienation from any place to be rooted. Many of the authors traveled to Europe and made new homes. As postmodernism continued to develop out of modernism, poets and authors still seem to be searching for a sense of home and place, all the while understanding that one must cut “away…of an old force that held her rooted to an old ground.” There is an almost existential loneliness in searching for oneself, echoed in Rich, in “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa, in Cathy Song’s “The White Porch. As we become increasingly more individualistic, we become more and more isolated. In our eagerness to declare our own independence, I think we often overlook the power of finding oneself in the midst of a community. Before I came to college, I often heard “These are the best years of your life.” Whether that is true or not, I think there is power in the myth because of the community a college creates. At a pivotal point in one’s self development, at a crossroads of “finding oneself,” the collegiate system puts together seeking individuals who live together, think together, eat together. We share in the journey together, whether with professors or classmates or friends as we simply live life alongside one another. That sense of exploration within a usually supportive community is I believe what makes people nostalgic for the college years.

I appreciate the outright raw humor in Sherman Alexie’s “Do Not Go Gentle.” Certainly if any of these works represented a movement toward a freedom to discuss every day matters candidly, it was this work. I found myself laughing out loud at this celebration of humor and life in the midst of the possibility of death, even the death of a young child. Alexie is not trying to impress with noble sentiments but to capture the really real of a parent’s emotion. “I know I would have earthquaked Los Angeles, Paris, and Rome, and killed a million innocent people, if it guaranteed my baby boy would rise back to his full life,” the father remarks with complete, raw honesty. There is nothing esoterically intellectual about his statement like the modernists, and there is no restraint in his thought as with the mid century authors. Rawness defines this work and perhaps the next generation of poets.

A Bittersweet Symphony: This Life

There is something sweepingly aching about the first pages of Alice McDermott’s “After This.” Mary Keane often muses to herself that “there was a trace of sorrow in every joy” (18). In lighter moments and in the darker tones of the novel, there is a haunting quality both of beauty and of melancholy. As McDermott fleshes out the everyday life of a “normal” American family, she never neglects to mention the undercurrent of the deep rhythms pounding below the steady beatings of the mundane. In moments like the fireman’s nighttime warning, McDermott manages to transform a rather trivial occurrence into both a daily event and a commentary on modern man’s sense of the fleetingness of life. The sense of time marching on in a thousand different ways, the presence of uncertainty in life, the inevitability of death—all these point toward the influence of a century full of world wars, cold wars, and atomic bombs. From the modern moving into the postmodern, existentialists ask what the meaning of life could possibly be. As John Keane often reflects in the novel, “man is immortal, or he is not. You either pray to the dead, or you don’t” (77).

A kind of bittersweet humor laces the scene of Mary’s labor. Mary barely knows this neighbor, Mr. Persichetti, and performs the usual acts of small talk. I love this line: “It was simply what you did: you made conversation in elevators, complimented small children in strollers, looked up from your magazine to greet the stranger who took the seat beside you on a bus. You said, with simple friendliness, That’s a lovely hat, or Isn’t it cold?—because it was another way of saying here we are, all of us, more or less in the same boat. It was the habit of friendliness, a lifetime of it” (60). Isn’t this perfectly true? I often find myself commenting on a stranger’s shoes or remarking on even unremarkable weather. I grew up giving a polite downward tilt of the head and a lazy raised hand to any passerby. I am hungry for connection with those I encounter. In even the briefest of small talk, there is the underlying whisper of a human desire for intimacy. To be recognized, seen, noticed, known. This concept is always highlighted for me in visits to Target or Wal-Mart, as the cashier often mumbles “How are you today?” without making eye contact as the beep of my groceries forms a rhythm for our conversation—“How are-beep-you-beep-today-beep-good-beep.” I love to disturb the rhythm. I love to ask the question make with eye contact and really mean it, really want to know how someone is doing, whether they get off work in an hour or have three babies to feed or feel particularly alive that day. It’s surprising how an honest desire to know someone catches him or her off guard.

I once performed a dance that explored this same separateness yet interconnectedness. In the beginning of the piece, one dancer moved separately from the others. At one point, however, another dancer broke away from the group and started dancing, unaware that the original dancer began echoing the new movement. By the end of the piece, all the dancers were echoing one another without acknowledgment. At times, one dancer would fall one direction only to be caught by the other dancers, who helped her back up without recognition. The dance resonated with such sweet isolation—a sense of all being together in our aloneness, of supporting one another without personal connection. I think perhaps that’s what small talk does—finds common ground without attachment, lets one know he or she is not alone without any guarantee of togetherness. In the case of Mary Keane and Mr. Persichetti, small talk quickly becomes the delivery of a child. These two relative strangers share in one of the most intimate and beautiful moments, connected by this ebb and flow of life and death.

I found one element of the Keane’s family dynamics particularly interesting. In Theories of Personality, we recently studied Alfred Adler’s theory concerning birth order and its effect on developing the personalities of siblings. The three children before the arrival of Clare are a wonderful example of Adler’s descriptions. Adler views the oldest child as initially having been the center of a parent’s attention and enjoying the sense of being the center of a small universe. When a second child is born, this oldest child is dethroned in a sense and never fully recovers from this loss of power. Adler believed the eldest often to be high achieving but extremely anxious. The eldest always fears the storm that is to come, believing anything good cannot last and will surely be snatched much like his or her position of power. Jacob looks much like the oldest that Adler describes, anxious and fearful of what is to come. The second child, according to Adler, often matures faster in an effort to catch up with the oldest. The middle born is often extremely competitive with his or her siblings. He does not have the same anxiety as the oldest, because he never had the power to lose in the first place. Michael is also a typical example of a middle child. He is more athletic, more intelligent, and considerably more fearless than his older brother and is forever competing for the top spot. He sneers at his brother’s fear, yet underneath his disdain lies a loyalty to his family. Annie’s personality seems less explored before the arrival of Clare, which changes her from a youngest child to a middle born as well. The youngest child often becomes the pet of the family. If the child is too doted upon or spoiled, he or she can become incapable of taking care of himself or herself. With a healthy amount of attention and discipline, however, the youngest child can be high achieving and positive. I wonder whether McDermott’s characterization of these children was influenced by the views of Adler, whose ideas about the personality effects of birth order have certainly seeped beyond the realm of psychology into popular thought.

"I Dare You to Move..."

“But she cannot help feeling that she has been betrayed irreparably by the disunion between her way of living and her feeling of what life should be, and at times she is almost contented to rest in this sense of grievance as a private store of consolation.” These words of Katherine Anne Porter in her short story “Flowering Judas” spoke to some ache inside me. Modern poets and writers recognized this ache and often tried to capture some piece of what we as humankind are missing. Porter’s words remind me of Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” that “mixing of memory and desire” in the “cruel month of April.” We seem ever navigating the dream of April—the promise of bloom and the stark reality of the nakedness of winter. In “Flowering Judas,” Laura speaks of a homelessness, the sense of being a wanderer without a physical or spiritual home. She is caught up in the throes of revolution, probably drawn to the ideas of progress and freedom and being involved in a bigger cause. Her disillusionment is founded in the discrepancy between the reality of the ideals of revolution and the gritty way revolution often manifests itself in the hands of self-serving men. She aches in the chasm between how things should be and how they really are. Unlike other eras of literature where art became a way to escape the ugly real or glorify the beautiful, the modern writers stared at the emptiness and called it countless names, examining this quiet despair under the microscope of metaphor. Postmodern writers still sense this need for meaning and the tension between how it is and how it should be. The contemporary band Switchfoot beautifully describes this ache for more in their song, “Meant to Live”:

Fumbling his confidence and wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he’s bent for more than arguments and failed attempts to fly
We were meant to live for so much more.
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside; somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Maybe we’ve been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we’re bent and broken
We were meant to live for so much more.
Have we lost ourselves?
We want more than this world’s got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
Everything inside screams for second life

Laura’s dilemma also reminds me of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Prufrock is stuck in an empty succession of comings and goings, all the while sensing there is something more for which to live. I believe Laura would greatly identify with Prufrock’s rather bleak statement: “For I have known them all already, known them all—have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Laura too has measured out her life with coffee spoons, with pills given to ease someone’s pain, with secret messages and half truths, with compromises and nights of listening to putting on a pleasant face while Braggioni poorly strums his instrument. What I find tragic about Laura and Prufrock is not the ache they feel for more. Modernists beautifully described this hollowness that numbly begs to be filled. This ache of modernism, of a people who have seen senseless death and felt certainty crumble in world wars, seems an inevitable part of the human condition. But Laura and Prufrock both stay stuck in their emptiness. Rather than pushing them into a pursuit of the real and meaningful, the hollow is allowed to grow. The yawning emptiness dims the light in their eyes. Laura often thinks of how she should leave this place, this revolution, this go-between position with no glory and all hardship. Yet she never runs. Does she dare disturb the universe? The band Switchfoot also wrote a song called “Dare You to Move” that I would love to sing to Laura in the hopes that she will finally run.

I dare you to move; I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move; I dare you to move like today never happened before
Welcome to the fallout; welcome to resistance
The tension is here between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

“Denying everything, she may walk anywhere in safety, she looks at everything without amazement.” Laura has numbed herself to the potentials both of pain and of wonder. Modern writers seem for the most part devoid of wonder. Perhaps they were rebelling against the exaggerated wonder and awe of the Romantics and transcendentalists. But in making literature spare and pared down, I think the modern writers somewhat overlooked the elements of life that cannot be explained in reasonable, short sentences. Though their styles were certainly a product of the world situation and an artistic statement, I personally find many of the early modern writers too “bare bones.” They aimed to present life “as it really is,” in all its raw pain and fragmentation and displacement. But I believe in doing so they neglected other elements just as real and as much a part of life. Some things in life are straightforward and easily described. But the average human being must often resort to metaphor, to analogy, to descriptive language to try to wrap one’s mind around elements and moments in life that cannot be shaved away into telegraphic sentences. Often the smallest moments, such as the sun’s first tentative peeking each new morning, require sentence after sentence to capture and still fall short.

I also found Richard Wright’s story, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” intriguing. I found the main character, Dave, to be more complicated than simply an adolescent desiring to move through a rite of passage. This is more than a coming of age story or an initiation narrative. Although shooting the mule was an accident on Dave’s part, I think he is showing signs of a darker inner process. His preoccupation with the gun seems rooted in a desire for power. Wright would have been interested in this as the product of a sick society mistreating and misguiding black males in a destructive way. When he holds the gun, something almost primal in Dave surfaces. “In the gray light of dawn he held it loosely, feeling a sense of power. Could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white. And if he were holding the gun in his hand, nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him.” I wonder whether this thinking is at the root of many acts of violence, an attempt to gain power and respect while feeling safe from the consequences.

Pianos and Peaches: Jazz and Life with Hughes and Eliot

I find Langston Hughes’ poetry moving and rhythmically brilliant. I sense the influence of jazz music in many of the syncopations and in the short lines followed by the long swelling lines that pour forth with little hesitation. “The Weary Blues” reminded me of a summer I lived in New Orleans. Something about Hughes’ poem captured the spirit of this music with exquisite vividness. I could hear this weary blues player making “the poor piano moan with melody.” One musky night, I squeezed into the dim, hot atmosphere of Preservation Hall. For two hours, I experienced jazz music rather than simply listened to it.

“Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway…
He did a lazy sway…
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.”

Five men who played jazz like an extension of their souls gave me something that night at Preservation Hall that I will not forget and cannot even contain in an alphabet of letters with no movement or sound. At times I would close my eyes and listen to the interplay, the subtle and easy dialoging amongst the instruments that flowed freely and spontaneously. For the most part, I kept my eyes open and fixed upon the musicians. Watching the creation of jazz, the syncopated and risky and relaxed creation of souls put to music, was even more breathtaking than the sound of it. The men closed their eyes as they played, old African American men whose instruments wore crevices on their fingers and whose fingers wore crevices on their instruments. I could not tell whether they were playing their trumpets and saxophones or whether the instruments were playing them.

I absolutely loved “Song for a Dark Girl.” Though the poem was published in 1927, I wonder whether Hughes was alluding to a time of slavery in the South pre-Civil War. He uses the phrase “Way Down South in Dixie” as a sort of refrain to open each of the three stanzas. The second line of each stanza seems to be the pouring forth of a kind of lament—either (break the heart of me) or (Bruised body high in air). The poem’s narrator grieves over the death of his lover, hung in a tree. In the second stanza, he says:
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
The poem is rife with religious imagery. The adjective “white” as a descriptive for Jesus is ironic in many ways and reflective of middle class America’s warped perspective. Historically, Jesus was far from the good looking, blue eyed white man we see in Hollywood depictions. Jesus was of Jewish descent and likely had a dark complexion with Middle Eastern features. Yet Jesus has become commercialized into a handsome white American, when in reality, his life and his appearance were considerably different than that false standard. The grieved lover of the poem speaks of his lover’s “bruised body high in air,” which alludes to the bruised and broken body of Jesus on the cross, paraded high in the air for all to see and mock. In the final stanza, the narrator says:
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
This final stanza also reflects the fate of Jesus on the cross. Historically Jesus hung naked, as soldiers were casting lots for his clothing. Nakedness was another element of the humiliation involved in Roman crucifixion. Jesus hung upon a cross, which was likely made of rough wood fashioned from a tree. Jesus is referred to as God’s expression of love, or Love itself. The parallels between this innocent lover and Jesus are beautiful, moving, and effectively crafted.

On a different note, I remember reading T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in high school and deconstructing the various literary devices. This time upon reading the poem, I was most intrigued by the recurrent theme of the extraordinarily significant hidden within the mundane and the sense of fear in confronting the really real. Eliot speaks of Prufrock:

“For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

Measuring out a life in coffee spoons becomes a sad and modern examination of the sterile and measured exercise life had become for many people. Throughout the poem, Eliot keeps building up to the burning question… “Do I dare disturb the universe?” Interlaced with this question is mention of trivial matters, such as teas and cakes and the women talking of Michelangelo.
“Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?”
In a world on the brink of World War I, were people willing to ask the difficult questions? Can one question the meaning of life and whether one has choices within what can feel like a meaningless universe after taking tea and cakes? Or do we let the chance slip by? Prufrock’s burning question about the universe diminishes by the end of the poem, because he cannot bring himself to examine the really real.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

We must dare to eat a peach. Maybe we should all eat peaches at Preservation Hall.

"I can't convince myself that I am..."--The Awakening

There is so much to respond to within The Awakening that I hardly know where to start. I agree with the comments of countless critics about the regionalism and accurate depiction of lazy, hospitable Southern life Kate Chopin portrays. She mentions shady gardens and cats napping in sun-streaks and stiff winds from the Gulf. Her style creates a multi-sensory experience for any reader, whether seasoned in Southern summers or imagining the idle, hot days. I think Chopin does a nice job at the beginning of the novel of sneaking in Robert and Edna’s romance. Because Robert has a reputation for spending time with married women, at first I did not suspect a budding romance by any means. Chopin beautifully timed Edna’s awakening in such a way that it seemed neither rushed nor stagnant. Thus Edna’s awakening to herself dawned on me at much the same time it dawned on her. One of the first hints of Edna’s awakening—what separates her from other women on Grand Isle—is her nature itself. Chopin says of Edna: “At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inner life which questions” (35). Perhaps it is her very reserve, her internal contemplative nature that makes her more likely to let the lines between inner and outer blur. Though she begins to do “whatever she wants,” Edna’s actions still seem like an externalization of her former inward action—“the inner life which questions.” She wants to paint but is unsure of her talent. Her decision to paint seems more of a question of herself, about herself, that is externally exhibited rather than an outward act of defiance to be noticed by society. Moving out of her house into the “pigeon house” seems more of a question to herself about whether she can make a comfortable home and feel more alive in a different setting, rather than a defiant message to society. She does not seek to change life for everyone; her awakening is much more about her internal processes being externalized, about answering her own questions about who she is.

I find Chopin’s ending a fascinating decision on the part of the author. The suicide is somewhat unexpected, though the reasons behind it are foreshadowed earlier in a conversation between Edna and Madame Ratignolle. Essentially, she realizes that to do the best thing for her children would be to deny every glimmer of awakened light she has realized. She seems to answer her own final question: “Can I live as I wish?” with a resounding “No, so I will not live at all.” This martyrdom for self almost sets up Edna to act as a tragic hero. She dies for her ideals, though she has no intention of influencing anyone else. She will not live against what she has formed as her own principles. A tragic hero often seems destined or doomed to die at the end. Chopin hints at this tragic end: “She had abandoned herself to Fate, and awaited the consequences with indifference” (127). By the end of the novel, it appears that Edna almost has no choice but to let the consequences decide her Fate. Throughout the novel, others point to Edna’s tragic flaw as her impulsivity—her propensity to “act without a certain amount of reflection which is necessary in this life” (119). Yet somehow, Chopin constructs Edna’s actions in such a way that they do not necessarily look reckless from an impulsive standpoint. When she states a conclusion, such as the decision to move to the “pigeon house,” I got the sense that she had unconsciously ruminated over the matter for weeks and announced the decision suddenly. I wonder whether Chopin would classify Edna’s fatal or tragic flaw as something more like “independence” or inability to act a part.

I find the relationship between Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz very interesting. Edna seems freed by Mme. Reisz’s distaste for “popular society” and proper conventions. The older woman is disliked, and being disliked seems to offer her a freedom to do as she pleases that I think Edna finds enviable. Mme. Reisz notices as Edna begins to grow in vitality throughout the novel; her complexion and outer appearance mirrors the same awakening her soul is undergoing. Chopin spends little time on developing Mr. Pontellier, which I would suppose is intentional. The lack of characterization devoted to Edna’s husband makes Chopin’s point even more shocking. If Mr. Pontellier had been well characterized and extremely dislikable with numerous shocking qualities, Edna’s story would not have been as disagreeable or socially abhorrent at the time. But because Mr. Pontellier is somewhat vague, he can serve as a type for all husbands who are fairly good fellows who view their wives as possessions of a sort. Suddenly Edna’s story becomes infinitely more threatening to society. If a woman like Edna can move away from and essentially “unmarry” an ordinary man like Mr. Pontellier, then scarcely any marriage might appear safe from such a scandal. I would think Edna’s ultimate choice of herself over her children would be even more shocking to society. At some level, a woman’s ability to bear children seems to have played a larger role in determining her societal value than her ability as a wife. Or at least, the two roles were inherently tied together.

I love what Edna says about herself: “One of these days,” she said, “I’m going to pull myself together for a while and think—try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don’t know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can’t convince myself that I am. I must think about it” (105).

America Grows Up

Hints of industrialization and the changing nature of American culture permeate several of these selections. “A White Heron” beautifully fictionalizes the tension of change—from an agrarian nation of pioneers to a more urbanized environment of entrepreneurs. There are multiple layers of Jewett’s story. On one level, a young girl moves from a position of innocence to experience. The protagonist, Sylvia, becomes aware of the desire to please man as well as the potential conflict of interest such a desire has with her love of nature. At the end of the story, she remains loyal to the sought-after heron not out of ignorance but out of deliberate choice. She is now aware that either decision requires some sort of sacrifice. “Were the birds ever better friends than their hunter might have been,--who can tell?” America seems to be going through a similar transition. To remain agrarian in nature might be safe and calmer. But perhaps Americans wonder, like Sylvia, whether industrial progress will be a better friend than the birds. Either way, some things will be gained, while others will be lost. The story is particularly poignant considering the young age of America as a nation. America herself is moving from innocence to experience in her own way, through events such as wars, slavery, expansion, and growing industrialization.

Theodore Roosevelt’s “From American Ideals” shocked me in the similarity of its rhetoric to much of what we still hear today. Roosevelt writes about the response of Americans and immigrants to the continued immigration of people from other nations. Roosevelt’s main hypothesis is that immigrants are welcome as long as they learn to be “American” above all else. For Roosevelt, becoming American is also synonymous with ceasing to be European. He does not have issues with being a “people of mixed blood,” but he desires for all immigrants to cease their native languages and customs in order to fully embrace the heartily American way of life. At one point, Roosevelt declares, “To bear the name American is to bear the most honorable of titles; and whoever does not so believe has no business to bear the name at all, and, if he comes from Europe, the sooner he goes back there the better.” How similar this statement is to current rhetoric concerning the influx of the Hispanic population! Some believe that immigration should equal assimilation, and that to come to the country without learning English is a detriment to our society and an inconvenience upon us. Others believe that everyone should learn Spanish to accommodate those who are moving into the country. It seems that somewhere there is a much sought after, little found balance.

Roosevelt proposes an interesting idea that I find somewhat contradictory. He embraces the mixed nature of our people as Americans, saying that some of the best people he knows are from Scandinavia, Ireland, Germany, etc. Yet he wants people to abandon all customs except those which are truly “American.” Yet in reality, all Americans are immigrants except for the Native Americans (and even they most likely traveled to America from a different location). The American spirit that Roosevelt speaks of cannot be but a blending of different cultures. Who decides what is truly “American” and what looks too much like our European roots? Roosevelt later implies that some of America’s defining characteristics are her hard work ethic and endurance. Yet it seems rather arrogant to assume these qualities are exclusively or “truly” American. Authors such as Jose Marti and Helen Hunt Jackson seem to rise up against this “us” and “them” mentality. Women such as Jane Addams worked to embrace the diversity of immigrant culture while at the same time helping them find a niche within the American society.

I found Henry James to be an interesting author in the midst of a slew of others interested in writing only stories taking place in and concerned with America. Though he certainly confronted American stereotypes, he dared to set his story back in Europe. It seems that American writers were often so concerned with developing a distinctly American genre that they overlooked international issues. At times, the overwhelming desire to be individualistic seemed to somewhat blind Americans to their place in the world as a whole. James shows an interesting tension between national pride and a larger vision for the world, a sophisticated sense of internationalism. I wonder whether this sense of the world at large will grow as imperialism grows, with the expansion of American economy and interests into other nations around the world. And I was left wondering about Daisy Miller and her true character, just as James’ biography predicted I would be in describing his ambiguous endings.

"Her banner in mockery waves..."

The mid nineteenth century proved fairly quickly that America would be no utopia for all. Inequality plagued the land. Some believed the racism and sexism to be ramifications of an inherently unequal Constitution, whereas others simply believed America was not living up to her true ideals. Regardless, certain human lives were considered as more important and valuable than others. I was shocked by Thomas Jefferson’s opinions in his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” in which he maintained that “the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.” His words are based purely on his own presuppositions and have no validity, evidence, or heart. He suggests that African Americans feel less deeply than whites. “Never,” he says, “yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration.” After reading authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Frederick Douglass, I do not see how anyone could ever support that claim.

I have often heard of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” but have never read the novel. After reading these excerpts, I want to finish reading the rest of the novel. Stowe’s words are beautifully crafted with irony that manages to be heartfelt rather than brutish. Stowe challenges the notion of patriotism. She references the compassionate senator as “a sad case for his patriotism.” Yet one cannot help but see him as a much greater patriot than any enactor of the Fugitive Slave Law. He is a patriot for a higher group than just the Union—a patriot for humanity. Referring to a man who suggested that he did not support the Fugitive Slave Law, Stowe says, “So spoke this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutionalized relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do.” Stowe perfectly portrays in entertaining, narrative style the American double standard. This “Christian” nation is more responsible and more accountable than the most “pagan” of nations who do not boast the principles of enlightenment and liberty and justice. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper echoes a similar sentiment in her poem, “Eliza Harris:”

Oh! How shall I speak of my proud country’s shame?
Of the stains of her glory, how give them their name?
How say that her banner in mockery waves—
Her ‘star-spangled banner’—o’er millions of slaves?

Stowe captures humanity and the human spirit beautifully. I love the interchange between the senator’s wife and the runaway slave, Eliza. “There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed.” I feel that Stowe sets herself apart in a novel of social commentary by portraying these two women as having similar experiences. Both love their children; both know depths of grief. The color of skin does not automatically make one more or less feeling than the other and does not exempt either from sorrow. Stowe leaves the reader with the haunting question of whether apathy and inaction from the general masses leading to the perpetuation of slavery is not just as harsh a crime as the slave trader who rips the baby from its mother’s breast.
Women in general are continually finding a stronger and bolder voice at this point in history. Elizabeth Drew Stoddard portrays a woman who finds herself a different kind of slave in “Lemorne versus Huell.” Several times Margaret recognizes that her opinion is not being solicited and her wishes not being voiced, yet she seems to be consoling herself with being wanted. She expresses her plight, “Every person’s individuality was sacred to me, from the fact, perhaps, that my own individuality had never been respected by any person with whom I had any relation—not even by my own mother.” Though it appears Margaret might have gained her freedom and happiness by marrying Mr. Uxbridge, she has really just passed into a new slavery. Without her knowledge, her marriage has been more about an economic transaction than a vow of commitment and love. I think this reading ties the struggle of women and slaves at this period together. Neither were necessarily recognized as individuals; both were often used as a means to an end, to a gain of finance. Margaret says, “I was not allowed to give myself—I was taken.” This was the painful reality for far too many women and slaves. This denial of individual rights flew directly in the face of the proud, optimistic individualism of the Transcendentalists. It is no wonder that many of those men were strong abolitionists.

One scene in Uncle Tom’s Cabin reminded me of The Confidence Man. In this scene (also held on a boat, interestingly enough), a clergyman twists the words of the Bible to support his own political and economic position. He claims that the Bible indicates the African race as destined for servitude, using the same slippery deception the Confidence Man often uses in duping his victims. Thankfully, Stowe inserts another character into the scene who brings up the Scripture: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But such twisted use of the Bible simply underscores the stubborn blindness of many Americans to what could not have been interpreted as less than an inhumane, evil, exploitive institution.

If I Were the Devil: Confidence Man Part 2

What does this Confidence Man want? What exactly is he after in these various encounters with unsuspecting individuals, who for all their lack of confidence put far too much trust in the devil? I personally think he has little interest in actually receiving their money, because many of the amounts he collects are small and hardly seem worth the time spent conniving. The Confidence Man’s desire seems to be much more rooted in the art of persuasion, the desire to win the challenge of getting whatever he sets his mind to at the expense of anyone. I believe that were the confidence man to decide he wanted to get everyone on the ship to shed a tear or to bark like a dog, his delight in victory would be just as great. He chases for the sake of a chase and dupes others as though it is an art rather than a money making scheme.

I wonder whether Melville used the bachelor as a mouthpiece for his own views on the world, saying “…one cannot enjoy life with gusto unless he renounce the too-sober view of life. But since the too-sober view is, doubtless, nearer true than the too-drunken; I, who rate truth, though cold water, above untruth, though Tokay, will stick to my earthen jug.” The confidence man and bachelor are discussing the age-old dichotomy of optimism and pessimism, examining a glass that is half empty or half full. The old cliché, “Ignorance is bliss,” applies to many of the passengers aboard the Fidele. Many of the passengers have stories of disappointment, betrayal, and distrust to tell the confidence man. Modeling an almost intentional blindness to real life evidence, the confidence man always manages to repaint the story in a light that makes humanity look worthy of confidence. Melville is dealing with an issue that seems more gray than black and white. The confidence man’s stubborn ignorance in his words is ironically countered by his jaded and shrewd actions. Melville effectively portrays the struggle to maintain hope and reality. One cannot assume the best in everyone at the expense of being in denial about flaws and hurts. Yet one cannot suspect the worst without driving oneself into isolation or despair. Somewhere in the middle, a balance must be found.

Snake imagery is rife throughout the novel, which is fitting for the devil typology into which the confidence man fits. He slithers around and sweetly seduces, waiting until the right moment to strike with a fatal blow. He hypnotizes the barber into agreement, an image that makes me think of a snake’s glassy eyes. Melville describes the confidence man as looking at the barber like “certain creatures in nature, which have the power of persuasive fascination—the power of holding another creature by the button of the eye, as it were, despite the serious disinclination, and, indeed, earnest protest, of the victim.” I imagine the confidence man’s workings much like a snake, paralyzing a small animal and holding it tight within its grasp until all struggle bleeds out of the victim.

The song “If I Were” by Andy Gullahorn fits the confidence man’s tactics perfectly:

If I were the devil, I wouldn’t wear red
I wouldn’t have horns or a pitchfork
I wouldn’t breathe fire cause it might give me away
If I were the devil you’d never know
I’d befriend you quick and corrupt you slow
So you don’t notice until it’s far too late
If I were the devil, if I were the devil

If I were the devil, I’d spend all day
Lowering standards of what’s okay
To think, to say, to watch on your TV
And I’d break down the value of promises kept
And fade out truth till there’s nothing left
Except gossip and lies popping up as thick as weeds
If I were the devil, if I were the devil

I might not be as foreign as you think
Cause I wouldn’t only show my evil side
I’ve got the time and patience just to wait
To steal your soul just one sin at a time
Like I would if I were the devil

The Power of Footnotes: Confidence Man Part 1

I have never appreciated footnotes more than when I am reading The Confidence Man. Initially striking about Melville’s work is his intricate layering of social issues, Biblical allusions, allegorical characters, and rather dense language. I am already intrigued by this “confidence man,” who seems to be a deceiver to the very core. So far, I have encountered the confidence man in five different disguises, from dumb prophet to a lame beggar to an unfortunate man with a weed to a cold man in a gray suit to a jovial man with ruby tassels. Each disguise seems tailor made for the unsuspecting passenger who encounters that particular mask.

I am enjoying the wealth of literary devices Melville uses in subtle ways. I love Melville’s irony in often having one disguise of the confidence man ask about himself to an unknowing passenger. The word “confidence” seems to have multiple layers. I lost count of the amount of times the word was included in the first chapters of the book. Over and over again, the confidence man asks, “Can you have confidence in me?” The answer to the question is invariably no, and yet after stuttering and flutters of conscience, most of the unsuspecting victims not only put confidence in this masquerading man but contribute to his financial well being. He preys upon each individual’s weakness. He riles up the collegiate with philosophical talk about gloomy people, winning his favor and his dollars. He enlists the sympathy of the good-hearted woman by playing upon her loyalties to a false fund, the Widow and Orphan Asylum. And all the while he records these transactions in a mysterious, suspicious black book.

Already at least one level of the title’s meaning seems clear. This man, who seems to be the devil in various disguises, always brings up the issue of confidence in mankind followed by philanthropic action. Confidence in this sense seems to be a general trust in the heart of man, a propensity to assume the best about a perfect stranger rather than resorting to suspicion. Of course, the irony in such a name is that the confidence man is completely unworthy of the trust he idolizes in conversation to others; he merits every ounce of suspicion. The second half of the title, “His Masquerade” seems fitting aboard this Fidele vessel. He parades about the ship deck, switching faces and games but always with the same deceitful motive and twisted ambition.

The conversation between the confidence man and the gentleman with gold sleeve buttons was particularly interesting. The confidence man tells the gentleman of his grand plan to collect worldwide taxes to forever wipe out need in one swoop, saying, “You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to just nothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doing good to the world once for all and having done with it…I am for sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese en masse within six months of the debarkation.” I think Melville perfectly captures the serpent-like kind of persuasion characteristic of the devil in this scene. Everything about the plan sounds noble, efficient, and active. The most effective kind of deception is barely twisted truth rather than blatant lies. What the confidence man says sounds good, albeit impossible. Yet underneath such an idea, he lacks any compassion. This “humanitarian aid” sounds cold, calculated, and business like—unmotivated by any real compassion or desire to ease suffering. The confidence man is promising a quick fix without any real consideration for the people he proposes to aid.

Melville also includes a discussion of the difference between good and righteous. He introduces a character he calls a good man and then challenges the reader to judge whether righteousness or goodness is better. Of the good man, Melville says, “a merely good man, that is, one good merely by his nature, is so far from thereby being righteous, that nothing short of a total change and conversion can make him so; which is something which no honest mind, well read in the history of righteousness, will care to deny.” This seems to be at the crux of Melville’s allegory. Can a man be “good” in nature? Can, as the confidence man continually slithers and persuades, we put confidence in one another? Or does good only come out of what Melville (seemingly ironically or mockingly) calls a total change and conversion? I'm excited to find out more!

The Real and Ideal

These writings demonstrate the emergence of an increasingly distinct American personality. The roots of independence and freedom expressed in the writings of last week seem to have blossomed in transcendentalists such as Emerson and later Thoreau. I was intrigued by Emerson’s speech to university students. He continually emphasized the importance of living and collecting experiences. His idea of genius certainly deviates from the previous tradition of the Puritans, who highly respected and embraced the ideas of previous generations and books. Emerson passionately explained creativity and genius as creating something new rather than always rehashing something old. I loved his line: “Life is our dictionary.” Whitman’s poetry is rife with both the interconnectedness of self and the celebration of the link between all humanities and their experiences. Certainly Whitman’s sensuality and sometimes sexuality would have made many of the earlier writers turn red in the cheeks. There is more freedom in Whitman’s, Dickinson’s, and even Poe’s poetry than in earlier writers. Dickinson and Poe especially seem to take great advantage of rhythm and meter to add emotional intensity to their poems in an evolved way.

I was particularly intrigued by Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark.” Hawthorne seems to be struggling himself with the role science is to play in society. Should it be elevated to the level of a god, or will it prove itself to be less than expected or potentially destructive in unforeseen ways? Even more interesting was his introduction of the tension between the reality and the ideal. Aylmer (I wonder about the significance or meaning of this name) seems ever cursed to pursue perfection and thus to fail. Even his science experiments leave him lacking and more recklessly driven to finally achieve complete success. I wonder whether Hawthorne was commenting upon society’s ever-present drive to achieve more.

This ideal/real paradigm made me think of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Although the novel was English and written later than Hawthorne’s works, Hardy was dealing with the same human struggle between the flesh and the ethereal, the real and the transcendent. Aylmer’s obsession with Georgiana reaching perfection reminded me greatly of Angel Clare’s rejection of Tess after he finds out she was been “spoiled” or is morally less than perfect. Clare professed himself to be socially progressive and beyond the moral conventions of the day, yet he acted traditionally. He found Tess’s moral “spot” repulsive, despite the purity of her character and the depth of her utter adoration and devotion to him. Similarly, Aylmer cannot appreciate the beauty of Georgiana with a spot of earthiness upon her. In many ways, Clare destroys Tess just as Aylmer destroys Georgiana. It seems both men are only capable of loving the ideal, the woman they have created in their own mind rather than the flesh and blood before them. Hawthorne has always intrigued me as an author with his subtleties and open-ended symbolism. It seems Hawthorne is issuing a warning against only desiring the ideal and thus sacrificing or overlooking the potential beauty of the current reality. I find it fascinating that two authors with such different backgrounds writing in different countries could write about such similar characters. I suppose it shows the universality of the human heart. It also shows a connectedness between America and the rest of Europe. Even while America was trying to distinguish herself as a individualistic nation, she too struggled with the same overarching issues of love and truth and beauty like the rest of the world.

Utopian Nation

People will always be people. Whether Puritans, Europeans, Native Americans, or modern readers, there is a certain quality to human nature that extends throughout centuries regardless of circumstances. The Puritans attributed it to the fallenness of human nature; some might insist this humanness is a product of society. Regardless, I find the mixture of improvements and degradations that went on in early America fascinating and often sad. The Puritans left to create a new type of utopia in this “New World,” apart from the corruption, the restriction, and the rigid formality of their homeland. America began on a principle of optimism that in some ways still carries to today. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur expressed the glorified vision of America in his letters from an American farmer: “The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.” This is a weighty statement, to assume that man can recreate the nature that has been evident for thousands of years.

Upon reading various works, from Mary Rowlandson’s journal to Pontiac’s speech, I found numerous holes in this utopian America. It seems that the very problems the Pilgrims and Puritans left in Europe followed them to the New World. Believing they were the elect, the Puritans came to claim a new Jerusalem. They left behind systems of thought and tradition but still brought seeds of prejudice and a fear of the “other.” I find it interesting that these new Americans were essentially the “other” in the eyes of their native countries. They longed for something new, as Crevecoeur expressed. However, changing locations did not change some of the more deeply rooted issues of humanity. The tension between the Native Americans and English settlers is painful to read about and to remember as part of our nation’s history. Neither side of the conflict was necessarily wrought with evil intentions but rather with opposing motives. Even a confused and desperate Mary Rowlandson recognizes elements of humanity in the Native Americans despite her fear and views of their actions as the Devil's handiwork. It’s remarkable to think that within 150 years in this new utopia, war had already broken out, murders had been committed, prejudice established--all by people equally human, equally intelligent, equally capable of love and hate. This “city on a hill” that the Puritans envisioned was still populated with people and thus ever rife with both accomplishments and with suffering.

In the midst of misunderstanding and some of the darker sides of human nature, it was refreshing to read more positive perspectives from men such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. These men seemed to take into account cultural distinctions between the colonists and the Native Americans, rather than attributing differences as signs of lower intelligence or savagery. It seems that America is ever struggling between the ideal and the reality. Our government is founded upon ideas of equality and the sanctity of human life. Less than a hundred years later, however, American men were fighting and killing one another on American soil. America tolerated slavery and the slaughter of Native Americans. Yet at the same time, America stood against tyranny and provided new economic opportunities, social mobility, and greater freedom. America is ever chasing her “city on a hill” image, ever attempting to be the utopian nation imagined of old. There is an ever-present tension between the vision and the reality of carrying out the vision. The nation seems both supported and hindered by this humanness that is inescapable, capable of great sacrifice and great atrocity. These readings surrounding the birth of America highlighted for me the extreme human potential both for good and for evil, for selflessness and for selfishness.