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.
Friday, April 18, 2008
"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.”
“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.”
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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.
“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.
Monday, April 7, 2008
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.
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.
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