The Power of the Word : The Sacred and the Profane [1 ed.] 9781443879903, 9781443875288

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The Power of the Word

The Power of the Word The Sacred and the Profane Edited by

Patsy J. Daniels

The Power of the Word: The Sacred and the Profane Edited by Patsy J. Daniels This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Patsy J. Daniels and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7528-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7528-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Introduction ................................................................................................ xi Transforming the World with Words Patsy J. Daniels Part I: Background Psycholinguistic Theory Chapter One ................................................................................................. 3 From Psycholinguistics to Neuroscience: The Neural Mechanisms Underlying Language and Aphasias Taunjah P. Bell The Right Word Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21 The Right Word: Why Do Words Have Power? Patricia Lonchar The Wrong Word Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35 The “Bad” Word: Lenny Bruce’s Democratization of Language Elizabeth S. Overman Part II: Uses of Power Propaganda Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 59 Chivalry, Militarism, and Journalism Mark A. Bernhardt

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Table of Contents

Persuasion Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 101 Carmichael’s Use of Aristotle’s and Quintilian’s Rhetorical Theories of Emotional Appeal to Promote Black Consciousness Cicely T. Wilson Empowerment Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 121 Expanding Boundaries: The Language of Custom, Female Agency, and the Origin of Abolitionism in the New United States Candis Pizzetta Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 145 The Nontraditional Speakerly Text: Signifyin(g) in Derek Walcott’s Omeros and V.S Naipaul’s A House For Mr. Biswas Emily Clark Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 157 Nicknaming in Appalachia: The Shibboleth of the Mountains Shawn Holliday Remembering Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 165 Language and Historical Memory in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day Pamela B. June Spirituality Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 185 The Power of the Quest Narrative: Metaphor, Modernity, and Transformation Thomas M. Kersen Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 199 Surrealism and Incantation in Poems of Pablo Neruda: The Power of Poetic Language Helen F. Maxson

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Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 219 The Power of Silence: The Sacred Word in Native American Literature Patsy J. Daniels Contributors ............................................................................................. 231 Index ........................................................................................................ 235

PREFACE

When I entered kindergarten, I knew how to read and write exactly one word—my first name. When my teacher misspelled my name, you can imagine the indignation of a kindergartener who knows only that one word—and that word is such a powerful word: her name. I have thought about words almost since I could write them. At times words seem mysterious, and I wonder where they come from. I take great pleasure in etymology and discovering links between words that I hadn’t known before. I like to dissect our idiomatic ways of saying things to see how they connect with reality. At other times words seem to be my friends. I’ve discovered that my colleagues think about words as well, but each of them has a different perspective on the use of words. To paraphrase what my colleague Mark G. Henderson tells his Communications students, “The use of language will open doors you never imagined opening and will close doors to you that you never knew existed.” This volume got its impetus from discussions about words, their power, and their many uses. I believe that it may answer some questions about words that arise from time to time, but it may also raise other questions, questions about how we do use words and how we can use words. For better or worse, I offer these words to the universe with the sincere hope that they may somehow transform our world.

INTRODUCTION: TRANSFORMING THE WORLD WITH WORDS PATSY J. DANIELS

From birth, we hear the words of language. At our mother’s knee, we learn to make the sounds to use words ourselves. As we grow and our bodies develop, we learn to make marks representing our thoughts, so that our thoughts can exist outside of us—we no longer have to be present to make our thoughts known to others. We all believe that, somehow, the thoughts come from our brains, that they arise there and can be made known through our bodies, whether through speech or through writing. Words are the medium through which we learn; since the invention of movable type, which made the written word easily reproducible, we have used words, both oral and written, to pass on to the next generation all that we consider worth knowing. Eventually, we learn to use language, words, to control our world. We learn which words are good: the magic words, “Please” and “Thank you”—to get what we want. We learn which words are bad: in English, usually those four-letter words derived from AngloSaxon that we are not supposed to use in polite company. We practice the correct use of words in our study of the ancient art of rhetoric; we have debates to see who can use words better than the opponent can. We use words to draw others closer or to estrange them—to seduce or reject them. With words, we can both soothe and provoke. We also respond to the words of others—perhaps to an advertisement for laundry detergent (“It even smells cleaner!”) or to a playground taunt (“Naah, naah, naah, naah, naah!”). We feel good about making our clothes smell cleaner, or we feel anger, frustration, or shame on the playground. Even though we repeat the old adage, “Sticks and stones / May break my bones, / But words will never hurt me!” our responses to words are very real. Both playground bullying and cyberbullying have been known to drive some youngsters to suicide. It matters not that you have hateful feelings toward another—until you voice those feelings. It is the use of words that allows us to talk ourselves into thinking of one thing as another; for instance, calling American Indians “insects” allowed Europeans to treat them as if they were actual

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Introduction

insects to be gotten rid of. Haig A. Bosmajian writes, in “The Language of Oppression,” that words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, to make palatable the unpalatable, to make reasonable the unreasonable, to make decent the indecent. Hitler’s “Final Solution” appeared reasonable once the Jews were successfully labeled by the Nazis as sub-humans, as “parasites,” “vermin,” and “bacilli.” The segregation and suppression of blacks in the United States was justified once they were considered “chattels” and “inferiors.” The subjugation of the “American Indians” was defensible since they were defined as “barbarians” and “savages.” (295-96)

And throughout history, people have been punished for their use of words, even killed. The suicide of Socrates came about because of his teachings. Therefore, we should take our use of words very seriously. Some of us grow up to earn our living by using words, including broadcasters, singers, lawyers, politicians, teachers, scholars, poets, writers of fiction and nonfiction, even sign painters. But we all depend on words to some extent to carry on our daily affairs, even if all we write is a shopping list and all we read is the No Parking sign. The adult learner who has just learned to read can now go into a large department store and be amazed that the signs hanging from the ceiling actually tell him what he can find in each aisle. Before learning to read, he was forced to wander around until he located by sight the items he was looking for. And, of course, having a written language frees up our mental memory banks for further input because now we can write something down and save it instead of having to remember it. Words have become so ubiquitous that we hardly notice how much power that they do have over us and over others. Because words have such power in our lives and over our world, we place great importance on them. Psycholinguists and others try to figure out where words actually do come from. Others attempt to de-fuse words that have the potential to cause trouble, while still others make use of words to further a political agenda, perhaps to persuade young citizens to risk their lives by going to war. The way words are used can cause either the oppression of a people or their empowerment. Because words have such power to change the way people understand the world and relate to the world, we can use words to transform the world. For the same reason, we have a great responsibility to use words wisely; we need to understand the spiritual aspects of producing and reproducing thoughts. And there are times when silence “speaks louder than words” in making a point.

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The dozen essays in this volume examine in depth many aspects of words and the ways we use them. We begin with a scientific explanation of speech in Chapter One, including the fact that some with language disabilities cannot understand jokes. In other words, it is speech that allows our brains to function at higher levels, giving us the ability to understand unspoken meaning. In Chapter Two, “The Right Word,” Patricia Lonchar shows how we respond to the stimulus of the mot juste; in Chapter Three, “The ‘Bad’ Word,” Elizabeth Overman discusses in depth how one comic was able to democratize our language by his use of profanity on stage. Mark Bernhardt explains how words allow us to share concepts which lead to action, how words can stir us to action and be used as propaganda. Cicely Wilson shows how ancient rhetorical theories can still persuade in contemporary times and explains how they were used to full effect by Stokely Carmichael in the 1960s. Words are also used for empowerment, and in Chapter Six, Candis Pizzetta connects words with customs and customs with women’s rights and abolitionism, demonstrating how boundaries are thereby expanded. Emily Clark uses two novels to show how rhetoric empowers people by lending them an identity. Empowerment from nicknaming is the discussion in Shawn Holliday’s chapter; he shows how nicknames become an insider language which prohibits outsiders from understanding the full meaning behind the names, thus empowering those who do. Words can allow a community to remember collectively, creating meaning from fragments of memories of the past and thereby forming a closer bond. There is a spiritual aspect to words. Thomas Kersen finds spirituality in the narrative of the quest. Helen Maxson analyzes the poetry of Pablo Neruda to show how powerful poetic language can be, how the poet revitalizes the past, even summoning the Incas from the fifteenth century. She demonstrates the transcendent power of language, allowing even ideas which were once oppressed to be now expressed. And she shows how language is such a powerful tool that it can even bestow life. My own essay seeks to show the ways language can make things happen and why it should be used very carefully. Language lives in our minds but is expressed through our bodies: through our breath and speech, or through our hands for writing and eyes for reading. Language is so powerful that we might even call it “magic,” and the study of language and words is a noble endeavor.

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Work Cited Bosmajian, Haig A. “The Language of Oppression.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American Experience. Ed. Janet Madden and Sara M. Blake. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1993. 290-96.

PART I: BACKGROUND PSYCHOLINGUISTIC THEORY THE RIGHT WORD THE WRONG WORD

CHAPTER ONE FROM PSYCHOLINGUISTICS TO NEUROSCIENCE: THE NEURAL MECHANISMS UNDERLYING LANGUAGE AND APHASIAS TAUNJAH P. BELL

Psycholinguists are interested in the behavioral responses, mental processes, and emotional factors involved in acquiring, producing, and using language (Slobin, 1979). In order to examine and better understand these phenomena, theoretical and empirical tools of both psycholinguistics and neuroscience must be considered and elucidated (Chomsky, 1980). In essence, psycholinguists and neuroscientists are interested in the underlying knowledge, biological preparedness, and genetic predispositions that humans must have in order to acquire and develop language as well as to learn to use language in childhood (Pinker, 1994). Some researchers believe that language is not just a byproduct of overall intelligence but the evolution of a specialized brain mechanism (Kalat, 2013). Chomsky (1980) and Pinker (1994) proposed that humans have a language acquisition device which is a hard-wired (built-in) mechanism for acquiring language and developing speech. These theorists further posited that most children develop language so quickly and easily that it seems they must have been biologically prepared for learning language (Chomsky, 1991; Pinker & Bloom, 1990). Others suggested that because language involves producing speech and analyzing what others say to comprehend the meaning, language depends on the brain’s ability to link concrete objects with abstract symbols and then to convey the symbols as well as the ideas they represent to others via words (Bates & Carnevale, 1993; Tomasello & Bates, 2001). In addition to facilitating communication between people, language enables individuals to reflect on their ideas (Carter, Aldridge, Page, & Parker, 2009; Pinel, 2003). Thus, in addition to our biological heredity, language gives humans another line of continuity

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Chapter One

which makes the accumulation of knowledge and the transmission of culture possible (Bates & Dick, 2002; Hayes, 1970; Kramsch, 1998; Marchman & Bates, 1994; Saporta & Bastian, 1961). Language is an extraordinary medium that allows humans to communicate a myriad of concepts using a highly structured system of sounds and words in spoken and written languages, respectively, or employing a sophisticatedly developed mixture of manual and facial gestures in signed languages (Bates, Thal, Whitesell, Oakes, & Fenson, 1989; Damasio & Damasio, 1992; Thal & Bates, 1988). Language is characterized as an overt behavior and has been the central focus of scholars in many disciplines (Bates & Carnevale, 1993). For several decades, intensive scientific investigation by psycholinguists and neuroscientists has revealed that spoken language emerges spontaneously in typical children in most societies (Bates, 1999; Bates et al., 1998; Bishop, 2013). The lack of a homolog to language in other species precludes the attempt to model language in non-human animals (Geschwind, 1970, 1979). Thus, language is a uniquely human behavior supported by neural circuitry of considerable complexity (Kandel, Schwartz, Jessell, Siegelbaum, & Hudspeth, 2013; Lidzba, Winkler, & Krägeloh-Mann, 2013). The cerebral cortex is divided into the left and right hemispheres. The segregation of human brain functions between the left and right hemispheres is associated with asymmetries of cerebral structures, such as the Sylvian fissures and the planum temporale (Rubens, Mahowald, & Hutton, 1976; Shapleske, Rossell, Woodruff, & David, 1999; Toga & Thompson, 2003; Van Essen, 2005). At first, research findings suggested that language and logical processing primarily depends on the left cerebral hemisphere, whereas spatial recognition depends on right hemisphere structures in most individuals (Damasio & Damasio, 1992; Geschwind & Miller, 2001). Language ability is dominant in the left hemisphere in more than 95 percent of the right-handed population but in only 70 percent of the left-handed population (Corballis, 2003). Interestingly, 90 percent of the population is more skillful with the right hand than with the left (Sun & Walsh, 2006). The right hand is controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere and the left hand is controlled by the right (Annett, 1985; Rakic, 1988). Approximately 96 percent of humans depend on the left hemisphere for language processing associated with the lexicon, grammar, phonemic assembly, and phonetic production (Kandel, Schwartz, Jessell, Siegelbaum, & Hudspeth, 2013). Even American Sign Language, which relies on visuomotor symbols rather than auditory speech signs, depends primarily on the left cerebral hemisphere (MacSweeney, Capek, Campbell,

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& Woll, 2008). This conclusion is supported by research involving patients with focal lesions and studies of electrical and metabolic activity in the cerebral hemispheres of average individuals. In patients whose corpus callosum has been sectioned to control severe epileptic seizure activity, the right hemisphere has been implicated in a rudimentary ability of these individuals to understand or read words on occasion; however, the syntactic abilities of these patients are poor. In many cases, the right hemisphere has no lexical or grammatical abilities at all (Gazzaniga, 1983). Second, research results of aphasia (language impairment) studies revealed that damage to the lateral frontal cortex (Broca’s area) and to the posterior superior temporal lobe (Wernicke’s area) was associated with major language disorders with different linguistical profiles (Webster & Shevell, 2004). Information gathered from aphasia studies allowed neurologists to develop a theoretical framework of language that has become known as the Wernicke-Geschwind model, which suggests that language impairments can be caused by damage not only to primary components of the language system but also to association areas and supplementary pathways that connect those components to the rest of the brain (Basso, Lecours, Moraschini, & Vanier, 1985). The earliest version of this model was predicated upon the following components. First, Wernicke’s area was implicated in processing the acoustic images of words (language comprehension) and Broca’s area was associated with the articulation of speech (language production). Second, the arcuate fasciculus was believed to be a unidirectional pathway that brought information from Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area. Third, both Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas were presumed to interact with the polymodal association regions. After the auditory pathways processed a spoken word and the auditory signals reached Wernicke’s area, the meaning of the spoken word was evoked when brain structures beyond Wernicke’s area, particularly in Broca’s area, were activated (Bernal & Ardila, 2009; Catania & Mesulamb, 2008; Damasio & Geschwind, 1984; Damasio, Grabowski, Tranel, Hichwa, & Damasio, 1996; Krestela, Annonic, & Jagellad, 2013; Lüders et al., 1991). Moreover, nonverbal meanings were converted into acoustic images in Wernicke’s area and transduced into vocalizations after the images were transferred by the arcuate fasciculus into Broca’s area (Geschwind, 1970, 1979). Finally, reading skills and writing abilities depended on both Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas that received visual input from left visual cortices in the case of reading and facilitated motor output from Exner’s area in the premotor region above Broca’s area in the case of writing

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Chapter One

(Dronkers, 1996; Katanoda, Yoshikawa, & Sugishita, 2001; Lubrano, Roux, & Démonet, 2004; Roux et al., 2009). Damage to Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas results in mild and transient or severe and persistent aphasias caused by focal brain lesions that result from stroke, cerebral insults, and other traumatic head injuries (Damasio, 1989; Damasio, 1992). Broca’s aphasia is referred to as expressive (nonfluent) aphasia and is characterized by the inability to produce spoken or written language (Prather, Zurif, Love, & Brownell, 1997). When damage is restricted to Broca's area alone, or to its subjacent white matter, a mild and transient language impairment now known as Broca area aphasia develops. Broca aphasia syndrome, however, is a severe and persistent condition resulting from a large frontal lobe lesion caused by damage to the inferior left frontal gyrus comprised of Brodmann's areas 44 and 45; damage to surrounding frontal fields comprising the external aspect of Brodmann's areas 6, 8, 9, 10, and 46; damage to the underlying white matter, insula, and basal ganglia; and/or damage to a small portion of the anterior superior temporal gyrus (Damasio, 1992; Fridriksson, Guo, Fillmore, Holland, & Rorden, 2013; Goodglass, 1993). In true or severe and persistent Broca aphasia syndrome, an individual’s speech is slow and labored, articulation is impaired, and the melodic intonation of normal speech is lacking. In spite of these difficulties, verbal communication is successful although words are difficult to understand due to improper word selection, especially in the case of noun usage. Verbs, as well as grammatical words such as conjunctions, are less well selected and may be missing altogether (Damasio & Tranel, 1993). Another major sign of Broca aphasia syndrome is a defect in the ability to repeat complex sentences spoken by the examiner. In general, patients with this syndrome appear to comprehend, albeit partially, the words and sentences they hear (Mohr, 1976; Monoi, Fukusako, Itoh, & Sasanuma, 1983; Goodglass, 1993). In most cases, the structures damaged in true Broca aphasia syndrome and in Broca area aphasia are believed to be components of neural circuitry associated with the both the assembly of phonemes into words and the assembly of words into sentences (Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004). This neural network is thought to be involved in the relational aspects of language including the grammatical structure of sentences and the proper use of grammatical vocabulary and verbs (Webster & Shevell, 2004). The other cortical components of the network are located in external areas of the left frontal cortex (Brodmann's areas 9, 46, and 47), the left parietal cortex (areas 39 and 40), and sensorimotor areas above the Sylvian fissure between Broca's and Wernicke's areas

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located in the sector of areas 1, 2, 3, and 4 and the insula (Dupont, Bouilleret, Hasboun, Semah, & Baulac, 2003; Kandel, Schwartz, Jessell, Siegelbaum, & Hudspeth, 2013). Wernicke aphasia is referred to as receptive (fluent) aphasia characterized by meaningless speech and the inability to understand spoken or written words (Saygin, Dick. & Bates, 2001). In most cases, Wernicke aphasia is caused by damage to the posterior sector of the left auditory association cortex (Brodmann's area 22). Moreover, severe and persistent cases of receptive aphasia appear to be involved in damage to the middle temporal gyrus and deep white matter (Naeser, Palumbo, Helm-Estabrooks, Stiassny-Eder, & Albert, 1989). Patients suffering from Wernicke aphasia have effortless and melodic speech produced at a normal rate. Therefore, these patients’ symptoms differ from those of individuals diagnosed with true Broca aphasia syndrome. However, the speech content of patients suffering from Wernicke aphasia is often unintelligible because of frequent errors in the choice of words and phonemes (the specific sound units that compose morphemes). Patients with Wernicke aphasia often shift the order of individual sounds and sound clusters and add them to or subtract them from a word in a manner that distorts the intended phonemic plan (Badcock, Bishop, Hardiman, Barry, & Watkins, 2012). These errors are called phonemic paraphasias which refer to any substitution of an erroneous phoneme or entire word for the intended, correct one. When phoneme shifts occur frequently and close together, words become unintelligible and constitute neologisms (Rohrer, Rossor, & Warren, 2009). Even when words are put together with the proper individual sounds, patients with Wernicke aphasia have great difficulty selecting words that accurately represent their intended meaning. This condition is referred to as verbal or semantic paraphasia (Canter, Trost, & Burns, 1985). For example, a patient may say “four legs” for dog. These patients also have difficulty comprehending sentences spoken by others (Caffarra et al., 2013). The Wernicke-Geschwind model provided a theoretical framework for the scientific investigation of the brain mechanisms involved in language processes and formed the empirical basis for a useful classification of specific language disorders (Damasio & Geschwind, 1984; Lüders et al., 1991). Although the neural underpinnings of the aphasias are supported by the Wernicke-Geschwind model, Wernicke's area is no longer viewed as the primary neural circuitry responsible for auditory, specifically language and speech, comprehension (Carter, Aldridge, Page, & Parker, 2009). The contemporary perspective is that Wernicke's area is a component of the neural network that processes speech sounds and associates different

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Chapter One

properties (sights, words, and meanings) of sounds. In addition to Wernicke's area, this network is composed of numerous brain regions including Broca’s area, Geschwind’s Territory, and even right hemisphere structures that subserve grammar, attention, social knowledge, and knowledge of the concepts associated with meanings of the words in the sentences (Kandel, Schwartz, Jessell, Siegelbaum, & Hudspeth, 2013; Kolb & Whishaw, 2014; Parbery-Clark, Strait, & Kraus, 2011). The three principal language areas responsible for articulating language, comprehending language, and recognizing words are usually found in the left hemisphere, while four other important language areas responsible for recognizing tone, producing rhythm, stress, and intonation, recognizing the speaker, and recognizing gestures are located in the right hemisphere (Carter, Aldridge, Page, & Parker, 2009). The right cerebral hemisphere plays an integral role in language (Baynes, 1990). In particular, it is important for the development of communicative competence (pragmatics of language) and emotional prosody (stress, timing, and intonation) during interpersonal interactions particularly in social situations. In addition, patients with damage in the right hemisphere have difficulty incorporating sentences into a coherent narrative or conversation and using appropriate language in particular social settings. They often do not understand jokes. These impairments make it difficult for patients with right hemisphere damage to function effectively in social situations, and these patients are sometimes alienated because of their unusual behavior. Further, patients with right anterior lesions may produce inappropriate intonation in their speech. Patients with right posterior lesions have difficulty interpreting the emotional tone of others' speech (Bates, 1976; Bouton, 1994; Brooks, 1964; Canary, Cody, & Manusov, 2008; Cody & McLaughlin; 1985). Several decades of new focal lesion studies and current research in psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and experimental neuropsychology have shown that the Wernicke-Geschwind model has significant shortcomings (Pinel, 2003). Specifically, many revelations of the model’s limitations have come from the advent of contemporary neuroimaging techniques, including positron emissions tomography (PET) scans, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERPs), and direct recordings of electrical potentials generated from exposed cortical areas of patients undergoing neurosurgery for the management of refractory (intractable or drug-resistant) epilepsy (Lesser, Arroyo, Hart, & Gordon, 1994; Mazzocchi & Vignolo, 1979; Naeser & Hayward, 1978; Ojemann, 1994; Petersen, Fox, Posner, Mintun, & Raichle, 1988; Stromswold, Caplan, Alpert, & Rauch, 1996; Watkins et

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al., 2002). Each of these innovations has contributed to a clearer understanding of the cortical as well as other brain regions in both hemispheres relevant for processing, producing, and comprehending language as well as performing language-related tasks (Démonet, Wise, & Frackowiak, 1993; Mazoyer et al., 1993; Murdoch, 1988). Despite these technological advances and intellectual insights, it is apparent that the roles of Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas are not as clear as previously believed. Similarly, the arcuate fasciculus now is presumed to be a bidirectional system that joins a broad expanse of sensory cortices with prefrontal and premotor cortices (Fridriksson, Guo, Fillmore, Holland, & Rorden, 2013). Moreover, various cortical and subcortical areas of the left hemisphere have proven to be involved intricately in language processing. These regions include higher-order association cortices in the left frontal, temporal, and parietal regions that appear to be the intermediaries between concepts and language (Kim, Relkin, Lee, & Hirsch, 1997). Further, selected cortical areas in the left insular region are implicated in speech articulation and particular prefrontal cortical regions along with certain cingulate areas seem to implement executive control and mediate specific memory and attentional processes (Dronkers, 1996). Another area not included in the classical Wernicke-Geschwind model is a small section of the insula, a segment of cortex positioned deep inside the cerebral hemispheres. Recent evidence suggests that this region is relevant for planning or coordinating the articulatory movements necessary for speech (Dupont, Bouilleret, Hasboun, Semah, & Baulac, 2003). Patients who have lesions in this area have difficulty pronouncing phonemes in their proper order; they usually produce combinations of sounds that are very close to the target word. These patients have no difficulty in perceiving speech sounds or recognizing their own errors. They also do not have difficulty finding the word, only producing it. This area is damaged in patients with true Broca aphasia and accounts for much of their articulatory deficit (López-Barroso, Catani, Ripollés, Dell'Acqua, Rodríguez-Fornells, & de Diego-Balaguer, 2013; Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004; Wertz, LaPointe, & Rosenbek, 1984). Thus, language processing requires a large network of interconnected and interdependent brain regions. Even though early studies of language disorders laid the foundation for later discoveries of the neural underpinnings of language processing, the anatomical correlates of the classical aphasias comprise only a restricted map of language-related areas in the brain (Basso, Lecours, Moraschini, & Vanier, 1985). The past decade of research on aphasia has uncovered numerous other language-related circuits in the cerebral cortex and in

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Chapter One

subcortical structures. Some are located in the left temporal region. Until relatively recently, for example, the anterior temporal and inferotemporal cortices, in either the left or the right hemisphere, had not been associated with language. Recent studies reveal that damage to left temporal cortices (Brodmann's areas 21, 20, and 38) causes severe and pure naming defects, such as difficulty retrieving words. However, this condition is not accompanied by grammatical, phonemic, or phonetic difficulty. When the damage is confined to Brodmann’s area 38 located in the left temporal lobe, the patient has difficulty recalling the names of unique or unusual people, but not names of familiar persons or common things. When the lesions involve Brodmann’s areas 21 and 20 located in the left midtemporal pole, the patient has difficulty recalling both unique and common names as well as unusual and familiar individuals. Finally, damage to the left posterior inferotemporal sector causes a deficit in recalling words for particular types of items (e.g., tools and utensils) but not words for natural things or unique entities (Bishop, 2013; Dronkers, Redfern, & Knight, 1999). Recall of words for actions or spatial relationships is not compromised. These findings suggest that the left temporal cortices contain neural systems that access words denoting various categories of things but not words denoting the actions of the things or their relationships to other entities. Localization of a brain region that mediates word-finding for classes of things has been inferred from studies involving the examination of patients with lesions in their brain from stroke, head injuries, herpes encephalitis, and degenerative processes such as Alzheimer disease and Pick disease; research employing the functional neuroimaging of intact (non-brain damaged) individuals; and therapeutic interventions utilizing the electrical stimulation of these same temporal cortices during surgical procedures (Binetti, Locascio, Corkin, Vonsattel, & Growdon, 2000; Crinion & Leff, 2007; Dronkers, 2000; Lesser, Arroyo, Hart, & Gordon, 1994; Mazoyer et al., 1993; Ojemann, 1994). The supplementary motor area and the anterior cingulate region known as Brodmann's area 24 in the frontal cortices in the mesial surface of the left hemisphere play important roles in the initiation and maintenance of speech (Dronkers, Redfern, & Knight, 1999). These brain regions are also implicated in attention and emotion and thereby can influence many other higher-order functions (Pinker & Bloom, 1990). Although damage to these areas does not result in an actual aphasia, injury can lead to akinesia (impairments in the initiation of movement) and can cause mutism (the complete absence of speech). Mutism is a rarity in aphasic patients; usually it is seen only during the very early stages of the condition (David

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& Bone, 1984). Patients diagnosed with akinesia and mutism fail to communicate by words, gestures, or facial expression. It appears as though they are not suffering from an aphasia but from the lack of drive to communicate (Nagaratnam, McNeil, & Gilhotra, 1999; Nagaratnam, Nagaratnam, Ng, & Diu, 2004). Results of other developmental language studies reveal that when adults diagnosed with severe neurological disease have the entire left hemisphere removed, they suffer a permanent and catastrophic loss of language. In contrast, when the left hemisphere of an infant is removed, the child does not suffer a permanent and catastrophic loss of language but later learns to speak fluently. One study of a small number of children in whom one hemisphere had been removed revealed that the children with only a right hemisphere suffered language impairments as well as other cognitive dysfunctions, compared with children who had only a left hemisphere and appeared less impaired overall. Like people with Broca aphasia, children with only a right hemisphere comprehend most sentences in conversation but have trouble interpreting more complex constructions, such as sentences in the passive voice. In contrast, children with only a left hemisphere appear to have no difficulty even with complex sentences. Unfortunately, adults do not have this plasticity of function, and this age difference is consistent with other findings that suggest there is a critical period for language development in childhood. For instance, children can learn to speak several languages fluently, whereas most adults who learn to speak new languages tend to have a foreign accent and seemingly permanent grammatical errors. In other cases, if children are deprived of language input because their parents are deaf or caregivers are neglectful, these children eventually can learn to speak fluently provided they are exposed to language before puberty (Bishop, 2006). However, these young children are strikingly inept in terms of language comprehension, word use, and speech production if the first exposure to language comes later in life, especially after puberty, which is a critical period of development. Despite the remarkable ability of the right hemisphere to take on responsibility for language in children, it still appears to be less suited for the task than the left hemisphere (Chiron, Pinton, Masure, DuvelleroyHommet, Leon, & Billard, 1999; Conti-Ramsden, 2003; Conti-Ramsden, Crutchley, & Botting, 1997; de Guibert et al., 2011; Duvelleroy-Hommet et al., 1995; Fromkin & Rodman, 1997). A contemporary framework that has emerged from this research stream suggests that three large systems interact closely in language development, processing, perception and production. One system is formed by the language areas of Broca and Wernicke, selected areas of insular cortex,

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Chapter One

and the basal ganglia (Kurth, Zilles, Fox, Laird, & Eickhoff, 2010). Together, these anatomical structures constitute a language implementation system. The implementation system analyzes incoming auditory signals not only to activate conceptual knowledge but also to ensure phonemic and grammatical construction as well as articulatory control (Aboitiz & GarcÕғa, 1997; Dosenbach et al., 2006). This implementation system is surrounded by a second system, the mediational system, comprising various distinct regions in the temporal, parietal, and frontal association cortices (Fuster, 2002). The mediational areas act as intercessors between the implementation system and a third system, the conceptual system, composed of a collection of regions dispersed throughout the remainder of higher-order association cortices that facilitate conceptual knowledge (Oliveira, Marin, & Bertolucci, 2013).

Background: Psycholinguistics to Neuroscience

13

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Conti-Ramsden, G., A. Crutchley, and N. Botting. “The Extent to Which Psychometric Tests Differentiate Subgroups of Children with SLI.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 40.4 (1997): 76577. Corballis, M. C. “From Mouth to Hand: Gesture, Speech, and the Evolution of Right-Handedness.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (2003): 199-208. Crinion, J. T., and A. P. Leff. “Recovery and Treatment of Aphasia after Stroke: Functional Imaging Studies.” Current Opinion in Neurology 20.6 (2007): 667-73. Damasio, A. R. “Aphasia.” New England Journal of Medicine 326 (1992): 531-39. Damasio, A. R., and H. Damasio. “Brain and Language.” Scientific American 267.5 (1992): 88-95. Damasio, A. R., and N. Geschwind. “The Neural Basis of Language.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 7 (1984): 127-47. doi: 10.1146/ annurev.ne.07.030184.001015. Damasio, A. R., and D. Tranel. “Nouns and Verbs Are Retrieved with Differently Distributed Neural Systems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 90.11 (1993): 4957-60. Damasio, H. “Neuroimaging Contributions to the Understanding of Aphasia.” Handbook of Neuropsychology Vol. 2. Ed. F. Boller and J. Grafman. New York, N.Y.: Elsevier, 1989. 3-46. Damasio, H., T. J. Grabowski, D. Tranel, R. D. Hichwa, and A. R. Damasio. “A Neural Basis for Lexical Retrieval.” Nature 380.6574 (1996): 499-505. David, A. S., and I. Bone. “Mutism Following Left Hemisphere Infarction.” Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 47 (1984): 1342-44. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.47.12.1342. de Guibert, C., C. Maumet, P. Jannin, J.-C. Ferré, C. Tréguier, C. Barillot, E. Le Rumeur, C. Allaire, and A. Biraben. “Abnormal Functional Lateralization and Activity of Language Brain Areas in Typical Specific Language Impairment (Developmental Dysphasia).” Brain 134.10 (2011): 3044-58. doi: 10.1093/brain/awr141. Démonet, J. F., R. Wise, and R. S. J. Frackowiak. “Language Functions Explored in Normal Subjects by Positron Emission Tomography: A Critical Review.” Human Brain Mapping 1.1 (1993): 39-47. doi: 10.1002/hbm.460010105. Dosenbach, N. U., K. M. Visscher, E. D. Palmer, F. M. Miezin, K. K. Wenger, H. C. Kang, E. D. Burgund, A. L Grimes, B. L. Schlaggar,

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Kandel, E. R., J. H. Schwartz, T. M. Jessell, S. A. Siegelbaum, and A. J. Hudspeth, eds. Principles of Neural Science 5th ed. New York, N. Y.: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Katanoda, K., K. Yoshikawa, and M. Sugishita. “A Functional MRI Study on the Neural Substrates for Writing.” Human Brain Mapping 13.1 (2001): 34-42. Kim, K. H. S., N. R. Relkin, K. M. Lee, and J. Hirsch. “Distinct Cortical Areas Associated with Native and Second Languages.” Nature 388 (1997): 171-74. Kolb, B., and I. Q. Whishaw. An Introduction to Brain and Behavior 4th ed. New York, N. Y.: Worth, 2104. Kramsch, C. Language and Culture. Oxford, U. K.: Oxford UP, 1998. Krestela, H., J.-H. Annonic, and C. Jagellad. “White Matter in Aphasia: A Historical Review of the Dejerines’ Studies.” Brain and Language 127.3 (2013): 526-32. Kurth, F., K. Zilles, P. T. Fox, A. R. Laird, and S. B. Eickhoff. “A Link between the Systems: Functional Differentiation and Integration within the Human Insula Revealed by Meta-Analysis.” Brain Structure & Function 214.5-6 (2010): 519-34. doi: 10.1007/s00429-010-0255-z. Lesser, R. P., S. Arroyo, J. Hart, and B. Gordon. “Use of Subdural Electrodes for the Study of Language Functions.” Localization and Neuroimaging in Neuropsychology. Ed. A. Kertesz. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1994. 57-72. Lidzba, K., S. Winkler, and I. Krägeloh-Mann. “The Neural and Linguistic Basis of Language Development.” Brain and Language 127.3 (2013): 526-32. López-Barroso, D., M. Catani, P. Ripollés, F. Dell'Acqua, A. RodríguezFornells, and R. de Diego-Balaguer. “Word Learning Is Mediated by the Left Arcuate Fasciculus.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110.32 (2013): 13168-73. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301696110. Lubrano, V., F. E. Roux, and J. F. Démonet. “Writing-Specific Sites in Frontal Areas: A Cortical Stimulation Study.” Journal of Neurosurgery 101.5 (2004): 787-98. Lüders, H., R. P. Lesser, J. Hahn, D. S. Dinner, H. H. Morris, E. Wyllie, and J. Godoy. “Basal Temporal Language Area.” Brain 114.2 (1991): 743-54. doi: 10.1093/ brain/114.2.743. MacSweeney, M., C. M. Capek, R. Campbell, and B. Woll. “The Signing Brain: The Neurobiology of Sign Language.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12.11 (2008): 432-40. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.07.010.

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Oliveira, F. F., S. M. C. Marin, and P. H. F. Bertolucci. “Communicating with the Non-Dominant Hemisphere Implications for Neurological Rehabilitation.” Neural Regeneration Research 8.13 (2013): 1236-46. doi:10.3969/ j.issn.1673-5374.2013.13.009. Parbery-Clark, A., D. L. Strait, and N. Kraus. “Context-Dependent Encoding in the Auditory Brainstem Subserves Enhanced Speech-inNoise Perception in Musicians.” Neuropsychologia 49(2011): 3338-45. Petersen, S. E., P. T. Fox, M. I. Posner, M. Mintun, and M. E. Raichle. “Positron Emission Tomographic Studies of the Cortical Anatomy of Single-Word Processing.” Nature 331 (1988): 585-89. Pinel, J. P. J. Biopsychology 5th ed. Boston, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 2003. Pinker, S. The Language Instinct. New York, N. Y.: HarperCollins, 1994. Pinker, S., and P. Bloom. “Natural Language and Natural Selection.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13.4 (1990): 707-84. Prather, P. A., E. Zurif, T. Love, and H. Brownell. “Speed of Lexical Activation in Nonfluent Broca's Aphasia and Fluent Wernicke’s Aphasia.” Brain and Language 59 (1997): 391-411. Rakic, P. “Specification of Cerebral Cortical Areas.” Science 241.4862 (1988): 170-76. doi: 10.1126/science.3291116. Rohrer, J. D., M. N. Rossor, and J. D. Warren. “Neologistic Jargon Aphasia and Agraphia in Primary Progressive Aphasia.” Journal of the Neurological Sciences 277.1-2 (2009): 155-59. doi: 10.1016/ j.jns.2008.10.014. Roux, F. E., O. Dufor, C. Giussani, Y. Wamain, L. Draper, M. Longcamp, and J. F. Démonet. “The Graphemic/Motor Frontal Area: Exner's Area Revisited.” Annals of Neurology 66.4 (2009): 537-45. doi: 10.1002/ana.21804. Rubens, A. B., M. W. Mahowald, and J. T. Hutton. “Asymmetry of the Lateral (Sylvian) Fissures in Man.” Neurology 26.7 (1976): 620-24. Saporta, S., and J. R. Bastian. Psycholinguistics: A Book of Readings. New York, N. Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961. Saygin, A., F. Dick, and E. Bates. “Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Auditory Processing in Aphasia.” Brain and Language 79.1 (2001): 143-45. Shapleske, J., S. L. Rossell, P. W. Woodruff, and A. S. David. “The Planum Temporale: A Systematic, Quantitative Review of Its Structural, Functional and Clinical Significance.” Brain Research Reviews 29.1 (1999): 26-49. Slobin, D. I. Psycholinguistics 2nd ed. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1979.

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CHAPTER TWO THE RIGHT WORD: WHY DO WORDS HAVE POWER? PATRICIA LONCHAR

Even though we are very familiar with the cliché that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” readers and writers know, almost intuitively, that the “mot juste”—the right word—can inspire a thousand images. The Beowulf poet certainly knew this when he used the term “yrfe” to describe the dragon’s treasure. The original King James Bible translators demonstrated this knowledge in their meticulous rendering of Scripture into a poetic language that still resonates with contemporary readers. The language of Shakespeare and Milton continues to fill us with awe. But, we may counter, translators and poets are particularly gifted; ordinary people, ordinary readers and writers, do not share such a gift. Yet, each of us has experienced that moment when someone consoled us with “the perfect words,” when our beloved greeted us with words that embraced us and affirmed our special union, when a passage in a text transported us away from the routine or stress of the everyday. Words do, indeed, have power. In his poem “The Dictionary,” Charles Simic reminds us that “[m]aybe there is a word in it somewhere” (43). These opening lines are far from being a “well, duh” moment; Simic’s poem invites us to recall when we uttered the words that sharpened a confusing issue into clarity not only for ourselves but for others. Somehow, we found the “mot juste.” But why do words have power to “describe,” “delight,” “chase the darkness,” and move us to break “into song” (Simic 43). What Simic’s short lyric suggests, and what this chapter will argue, is that the power of the word arises in the intersection of writer, reader, and context. Perhaps literary translators and poets are most familiar with this fact, and dictionary authors chronicle the evolving power of language; however, each of us has

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the capacity to create vivid images in words, infusing mundane reality with life and shaping the resulting picture into meaning. This capacity is most evident in poetry. In her “Foreword” to Kim Rosen’s Saved By a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, Eve Ensler notes that, Poetry is a form of revolution. It rearranges our thinking, our perceptions, our dialogue. It takes us out of the literal so that we can see what is real. (xiv)

For Rosen, this rearrangement of thinking and perception results from poetry’s ability to speak the ineffable “with a kind of mysterious accuracy” (xvii) by “touching the wordless through a gathering of words” (16). Rosen explains: A poem is a physical event. The rhythm may quicken or slow your pulse. The flow of the language may expand your breathing. The music woven into the words may change the very texture of your voice. A poem even entrains your brain-waves, altering your biochemistry and allowing shifts in consciousness that can bring healing, understanding, and unexpected insight. (xxii)

We may be speechless, but not emotionless. And it is in the evocation of emotion that the words of poetry become the physical event Rosen describes. Nikki Giovanni echoes this idea when she says that “every time we celebrate we turn to poetry and every time we mourn we turn to poetry” (qtd. in Golden 203). C. S. Lewis explains that poetry most often communicates specific emotions “by creating imaginatively the grounds for those emotions” (loc. 4724). When he claims that poetry creates grounds for emotion, Lewis is speaking of the poet’s skill in showing, not telling; and the writer accomplishes this feat by presenting an image to our imagination through words. Considering descriptions of two very different women by Robert Burns and William Wordsworth (in “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” and “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways,” respectively), Lewis relates how this communication of emotion actually works. First, he says, the poets “force” us to imagine two very different women: one is rose-like and has a certain “overpowering midsummer sweetness” while the other is “reticent” and easily overlooked (loc. 4728). Once we have imagined the two women, “the poets have done their part” and our emotions are now left to themselves (loc. 4728). Concrete description, metaphor, and simile offer “the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order),” and we respond: we make

Background: The Right Word

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associations from the details presented, we feel the beat and hear the “vowel-melody” of the poets’ words (loc. 4732), we decide whether to exclaim in rapture or recoil in disgust. Basically, the poets have aroused our emotions, rather than expressed those emotions, and they have done so indirectly—a distinction that Lewis considers crucial. In that distinction rests the power of the “mot juste”: as Lewis asserts, what expresses or stimulates emotion directly, without the intervention of an image or concept, expresses or stimulates it feebly (loc. 4823) and, thus, words cease to be words and. . . cease to perform any strictly linguistic function. They operate as growls or barks or tears [and] die as words not because there is too much emotion in them but because there is too little— and finally nothing at all—of anything else. (loc. 4826)

Concrete description of even mundane items, such as a man’s shirt, effectively evokes powerful emotional response when the situation presented alludes to experiences beyond the one detailed in a poem, as we see in Jane Kenyon’s stunning poem “The Shirt”: The shirt touches his neck and smooths over his back. It slides down his sides. It even goes down below his belt— down into his pants. Lucky shirt. (34)

The picture is simple and clear, an action performed daily by men across class and geographic boundaries; the final line, however, forces us to look again, to see beyond the words on the page to the experience suggested. Casual verbs are no longer pedestrian; they are charged with electricity. The lone dash becomes the tool of voyeurism and our memory, or our desire, takes over. Kenyon provides the stimulus, we provide the response; the full power of the words emerges through this interaction. Lucky shirt, indeed. But imagery does not reside in poetry alone; showing, not telling characterizes effective prose as importantly as it does verse. Quite often, more so. Poetry requires concise imagery and precise meter, and depends on sound; these qualities encourage, even nurture, our emotive response. Prose, on the other hand, does not depend on the constraints of poetry; the apparent luxury of time and space can sabotage even the most careful of writers. Consequently, context, combined with vivid imagery, becomes essential.

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C. S. Lewis characterizes context as an “insulating power” (loc. 165) providing “a half dozen different meanings to a single word with very little danger of confusion” (loc. 165). Lewis is confident of his assertion because “in ordinary language the sense of a word is governed by the context and this sense normally excludes all others from the mind” (loc. 170). The insulating power of context permits us to retain older meanings of words while accumulating newer meanings—expanding our own word hoard while, at the same time, nourishing our memory. We see this insulating power in practice in Mike Gold’s short story “The Password to Thought—To Culture.” David Brandt, a young Jewish man forced by his family’s circumstances to work as a shipping clerk in New York’s apparel district, hungers for a life far beyond the constrictions of the factory, a demanding boss, his dying father, and his nagging mother. His physical description underscores his situation: [A] well-built youth, with good shoulders and chest, a body that would have been handsome had he not carried it like a sloven; tense brown eyes, and a lean face with hungry, high Slavic features. He was shabbily dressed, almost downright dirty in his carelessness of shirt and clothes. (621)

The simile of the opening clause completely erases the initial portrait to the extent that “sloven,” “hungry,” “shabbily,” and “downright dirty” become synonymous with the character of David, our protagonist. We filter his actions and his words through this frame. We may empathize with his frustration, but we question his determination. This skepticism is solidified as we accompany David on his way home. While he “spat viciously” towards the door closing behind his boss and “worked fiercely” till the end of his shift at six o’clock when, we are told, all the workers “became men and women again” (622), this energy does not last: The rage that sustained David died with the iron-throated wailing of the whistles that floated over the city, unyoking so many thousands of weary shoulders. (622)

What a gripping image! The author’s word choice emphasizes the dehumanizing character of the sweatshop: shift changing whistles “float” and “unyoke” “weary shoulders” via an “iron-throated wailing.” Even though the narrator claims that the workers “became men and women again,” the overarching impression is that all remained part of an unyielding machine or seemed like beasts of burden unyoked, yet bent in weariness. The physical portrait we have of David cannot overcome such a reality. It is no surprise to read that David’s rage could not sustain him

Background: The Right Word

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past the evening whistle, nor are we surprised to read that he answers his mother’s incessant queries “wearily” (623). Like his ailing father, David is dying, not physically, but psychologically. Our author writes that, David’s father was sucked dry, and there was only one spark of life and youth remaining in him—incredibly enough—his faith in the miracles of the Promised Land. (624)

But the faith of his father does not nourish David who declares that “life isn’t worth living. I’ve got nothing to live for” (625). As the story ends, David “stares wrathfully” (626) at his mother whom he finds meddlesome and illiterate and, “with a weary shrug of his shoulders[,] wanders aimlessly into the East Side night” (625). David may have dreamed of a passport to a better place, but the context within which he is situated makes it clear that dreaming does not change reality; the individual must act. David cannot act; he can only protest—wearily. And that is not enough. The tools that empower original literary texts also enrich and inform translation. We see this empowerment in dramatic fashion in the work of the King James Bible (1611) translators and the varied texts produced by the many translators of the English epic Beowulf. Context, imagery, author(s), and audience—the interactions between and among these elements create the magic we call the “mot juste” in translation. The King James translators did not work in a void; they had Tyndale’s New Testament (1525/26) and Pentateuch (1530), the Geneva New Testament (1557) and Geneva Bible (1560), and the Bishop’s Bible (1568) as resources. In addition, the Coverdale Bible (1535) and the Matthew Bible (1537) as well as the Great Bible (1539), the Rheims New Testament (1582), and Douai Old Testament (1609-10) were available for reference if needed. Dozens of books chronicle the production of the King James Bible, assess its legacy, and celebrate its achievement. When the 400th anniversary of the publication of this bible occurred in 2011, reprints and reissues of formerly out-of-print works joined the ever-expanding inventory of texts addressing the production of this book and its place in literary and religious history. For the purposes of this chapter, however, we shall focus primarily on the exhaustive and scholarly 1995 study, The Coming of the King James Gospels: A Collation of the Translators’ Workin-Progress by Ward S. Allen and Edward C. Jacobs. The fact that nearly three hundred years passed before the King James Bible was revised is a testament to the achievement of the translators (Allen and Jacobs 3). Six companies of scholars, 50 men, began their work, commissioned by the King himself, in the fall of 1604, and

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completed the first stage of the task by late 1607. Initial reviews took place during 1608 and 1609, with a final review conducted in London during the first nine months of 1610. Twelve men, two from each of the six companies, were charged with examining the finished work (Allen and Jacobs 4-5). This undertaking, ambitious and intense, involved scholars of “diverse personalities and shades of religious belief” (Allan and Jacobs 4)—basically, translation by committee, an achievement in itself since the final product is “the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world” (Campbell 1), has been hailed as “a landmark in the history of the English language and an inspiration to poets, dramatists, artists, and politicians” (McGrath 1), and still maintains a ubiquitous cultural presence in public inscriptions in England and in the United States (Ryken 105-107). Perhaps Adam Nicolson put it best when he noted that, the greatest prose ever written in English is not the poetry of a single mind, nor the effusion of a singular vision, nor even the product of a single moment, but the child of an entire culture stretching back to the great Jewish poets and storytellers of the Near Eastern Bronze Age. [The translators’] subject was neither ancient nor modern, but both or either. It was the universal text. (xi-xii)

Careful examination of the documentary evidence of the translators’ work by Allen and Jacobs illustrates the accuracy of Nicolson’s sweeping assessment. Scribal notations and marginal commentaries appended to the Gospels detail three stages of revision. In addition, Allen and Jacobs identify passages where deviation from an established pattern of revision occurs and discuss the ramifications of this fact. Deletions, substitutions, and strike-throughs are noted and analyzed as well, and brief discussions about possible arguments regarding style versus literal exactness are included. Finally, and most significantly for our discussion here, the two researchers assess the impact of revision decisions in light of historical and literary context. Their discussion of the revision of Luke 11.33-36 provides an instructive example of how the translators worked. The final revision reads, in its 1611 spelling (from 2011 facsimile of the 1611 Translation): No man when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushell, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light: but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkenesse. Take heede therefore,

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that the light which is in thee be not darkenesse. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part darke, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doeth give thee light.

Records indicate that “secret place” followed three other suggested revisions for the original phrase “privie place” (Allen and Jacobs 53). The researchers note that Tyndale had introduced the original phrase into this passage, but its first use, according to the OED, occurred in 1290 and meant “withdrawn from public sight” (Allan and Jacobs 54). The term was “already ancient,” and the King’s translators were “alert to words on the wing” (Allan and Jacobs 54); thus, the revision makes sense. What is stunning though is that the final choice, “secret place,” facilitates the motif of light that permeates this particular parable in Luke. “Secret place” won out over “hidden place,” “vaulte,” and “cave”—the other revisions evident in the scribal record. According to Allen and Jacobs, “hidden place” was rejected for “vaulte”—a term connoting “the enormity of evil” and “noxious” places like “crypts, burial chambers, cellars, drains, sewers, privies, caverns, and caves” (54). While the suggestion of evil was fine, all the connotations were associated with interior space only, as was “cave,” and the sense of the revision was that this private place had to stand in contrast to a place where people “which come in, may see the light” (Allen and Jacobs 54-55). The chosen phrase “secret place” works because it denotes seclusion, suggests wickedness, is “a place where paradoxically light is darkness” (Allen and Jacobs 55), but does not limit the allusion to interior space alone. All the other revisions in this passage are associated with light. The passage opens and closes with the image of a lighted room. The good life is like a candle on a candle stick, lighting the room for all who enter. The light of this room is that of a “bright shining” candle. According to Allen and Jacobs, bright and shining are uncommon words in the King’s version, and both words describe things which elevate their . . . use in the parable of the candle. . . . The phrase “bright shining” is natural in describing the flame of a candle. And the . . . image gains from the contexts of the two words in other passages of the New Testament ideas which transfigure the flame of the candle by association with events which are full of light. (55)

As Allen and Jacobs note, the translators close the parable with the word “light,” echoing “in diction and rhythm the concluding phrase of the first sentence” (55). Basically, the literal objects of the first sentence—

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candle, secret place, bushel, and candlestick—have become “transfigured” (Allen and Jacobs 55). Reiterating what C. S. Lewis asserts, Allen and Jacobs posit that “a translator must attend to images”: Images sharpen and expand the lines of thought in this parable. The candle leads to an eye, the eye to a moral quality, and the moral quality to a bright shining which comes from a candle. While thought which moves by images stays within the bounds of a theme, within those bounds thought is elastic. (54)

In their attention to images, to evolving shifts in word usage and meaning, and to context, the King James Translators “brought to pass a work which quickens even to this day mind and heart” (Allen and Jacobs 57). This quickening of mind and heart testifies to the power inherent in the translation and to the words that made up that translation. Like the King James Bible, Beowulf has retained its classic status; unlike the King James Bible, this epic has a long history of translation—in prose and in verse, in print, electronic, graphic, and cinematic venues, and in versions targeted to a scholarly audience and those targeted to a mass audience. When Chauncey B. Tinker published his compilation of English translations of Beowulf in 1903, he identified 55 distinct translations, some complete, many partial, from Thorkelin’s 1786 transcription to his own 1902 version. The translation that appears to have been the “standard” against which all others were evaluated at that time was the 1837 edition of John M. Kemble’s A Translation of the Anglo-Saxon Poem of Beowulf, with a Copious Glossary, Preface, and Philological Notes (Tinker 33-37). A very brief survey of some of the more contemporary Beowulf translations demonstrates that the Old English epic still captivates the imagination. Tinker’s assessment of the 1837 Kemble translation is reiterated by Gerald J. Davis in his “Note on the Translation” for his 2013 Beowulf: The New Translation (3). Dick Ringler, in the “Preface” to his 2007 Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery, names the 4th edition of Klaeber’s Beowulf as his primary source (vii). Kevin CrossleyHolland’s 1999 Beowulf lists the 3rd edition of Klaeber, the 1973 C. L. Wrenn Beowulf, and George Jack’s 1994 Beowulf: A Student Edition as primary sources. Seamus Heaney’s 2000 verse translation emerges from his desire to create a work that would “be speakable by one of [his own] relatives” (loc. 300). J. R. R. Tolkien’s own 1926 prose translation, published for the first time by his son Christopher in 2014, references other translations, primarily Klaeber’s, in the extensive textual commentary following the translation and intended to “elucidate and

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illuminate, often in precise detail, that part of the original text that was prescribed for study” (ix) by Tolkien’s Oxford students. What we learn from these and the many other versions of this English epic is the intimate connection between the content of the narrative and the opening lines of the Anglo-Saxon text. In fact, the Beowulf translations demonstrate, perhaps more vividly than any other text, the impact that an opening frame exerts upon our reading and understanding of a work. Most students of English literary studies are familiar with hwæt, the first word of the surviving Beowulf manuscript. Recent discussion of this word by Eric Stanley (in 2000, cited in Walkden), Alfred Bammesberger (in 2006), and George Walkden (in 2013) has focused attention on the import of this word and raised serious questions about its translation. Without intending to diminish the linguistic and philological discourses surrounding hwæt, our focus here is literary and rhetorical: what difference does it make how we translate one word, even if that word is the first word of a work? Clearly, a lot. If we translate the word as “listen” (as several editors have done, including Crossley-Holland), or “attend” (as Michael Alexander does in the 2003 Penguin edition), we suggest urgency to the narrative that follows: a lesson is here and it must not be ignored, so pay attention and listen! If we begin with “indeed” (as does Constance Hieatt), we imply audience familiarity with and assent to the story that follows: as we recall, as we know, this is what took place. When we translate the word as “how,” we project exclamation, as in “How you’ve changed!” or “How cold this weather is!” (Walkden 466, 482). Viewing the word as “truly” (as Stanley does, according to Walkden) emphasizes the factual nature of the narrative and its details: as we know, these events took place and we must grapple with the consequences. The other two familiar translations, “so” and “lo,” are best explained by those who used them, Heaney and Tolkien. Acknowledging that the conventional meanings of hwæt include “lo,” “hark,” “behold,” “attend,” and “listen,” Heaney explains his decision to use “so” as a natural incorporation of his own Hiberno-English Scullionspeak. According to Heaney, the particle “so” is a familiar idiom that “operates as an expression which obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention” (loc. 334). This word choice provides Heaney with the “forthright delivery” (loc. 341) he favors, and suggests a feeling of living inside a constantly indicative mood, in the presence of an understanding that assumes you share an awareness of the perilous nature of life and are yet capable of seeing it steadily and, when necessary, sternly. (loc. 344)

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The cadence and idiom of his own vernacular, then, permits Heaney to straddle what he calls a “middle ground” between oral tradition and written practice, the same ground he sees as occupied by the Beowulf poet (loc. 350). For Tolkien, hwæt was a genuine “anacrusis—or a note ‘striking up’ at the beginning of a poem. Deriving from minstrel tradition: in origin a call for attention” (137). Thus, he uses “Lo!” to open the work. Later appearances of the word in Tolkien’s translation serve exclamatory purposes (e.g. ll. 1303, 1360, 1383, and 2403) that permit the speakers to call attention to new information or to insights to be pondered. Thus, the word is either followed by a comma, or an exclamation point; both strategies focus attention on the content that follows, almost as if the writer/translator/poet taps us on the shoulder and says, “Look! Ponder this. Pretty amazing, huh?” Lest we are tempted to see the use of “lo” as a subtle insertion of Christian or scriptural tone, Tolkien reminds us that the Beowulf poet was writing “for a society in which Christianity had not long been established” (272) and the recent conversion had not dethroned Fate (273). In fact, when he explicates Hrothgar’s sermon and the Cain-Grendel mythology, Tolkien accepts the probability that the poet is familiar with a Christian homiletic tradition; nonetheless, the sermon is “too Christian” for a “good pre-Christian patriarch” and must be seen as evidence of “tinkering by later hands” (308). Tolkien’s commentary underscores the power of evocation within the limits of context: combined, these qualities promote enlightenment and guide meaning; alone, “evocation” wanders off track and “context” imprisons the imagination. One of the most instructive demonstrations of this complementarity of context and evocation rests in an early study by a colleague, Dr. Christopher Paris, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of the Incarnate Word. Laboring over his translation of the Beowulf manuscript, Paris focused on yrfe, the term referring to the dragon’s treasure hoard in the last section of the epic. That the term referred to the treasure was not the issue for Paris; for him, as for several renowned Beowulf scholars, the issue was why such a heavy price for one cup when the dragon was surrounded by golden treasure. As Kevin Wanner notes in his own study of the same passage, “wildly differing interpretations” about this episode exist (1); so Paris’ consternation was not surprising. As Paris pondered the text, the word yrfe haunted him: something about the term was nostalgic, but he could not explain why since he had not grown up among folks who spoke Anglo-Saxon English. He had grown up, however, among two sets of grandparents who spoke Greek, the language of their home before they immigrated to the United

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States. In conversations with his father and another university colleague from Greece, insight emerged: an old term for treasure, family treasure, sounded a bit like yrfe. Old stories stirred among the three men and eventually Paris retrieved a long-forgotten word from his heritage; that retrieval resulted in his original insight that the term yrfe carries with it a story of family tradition and cherished goods. No longer did he see a curious passage about a greedy dragon or an incidental story about an inept thief or even a cautionary tale about pride; now, Paris saw a much deeper and enriching tale about tradition, family, and culture. And this vision became his 1992 Kalamazoo presentation “Beowulf’s TreasureHoard and the Cup: Objects of Heritage in a Meta-History” (Paris). The eventual reading did not stray from the text, nor did Paris’ reading put into the manuscript what was not there. What Paris did, what Tolkien and Heaney have done, what all scholars do, and what each of us can also do is follow the lead of the text, be mindful of the context, and answer the invitation evoked by the words themselves. In so doing, we experience the real power of the “mot juste.” Before leaving this exploration, one additional example of the power of words requires our attention—the use of a series of short phrases to build to an explosive rhetorical climax. Commonly, such usage employs the most pedestrian of words; however, in the sequencing of the series, the cadence of the words and their accumulated rhythm produce a symphony of lexical power. Without question, no one has performed this verbal orchestration more effectively than Winston Churchill during his World War II speeches. On June 4, 1940, twenty-five days after becoming Prime Minister and the final day of the Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill addressed the House of Commons to report on the status of the country and the probability of invasion. Most of the speech reads as one would expect a report to read: informative, organized, and factual—a prime example of the logical appeal: here is how our situation stands and this is what we plan to do and why. Most of the sentences are crisp, clear, and simply structured—a few subordinate clauses emerge, but, on the whole, the speech is composed of brief declarative statements. Until the final sentence. Cleverly, Churchill concludes the penultimate statement with a brief clause that models the format of the first ten elements of his final sentence. A pause for the period and then the orator delivers a rapid series of statements that stun, ignite, and inspire a nation and, really, a world: . . .we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, what-ever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on

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Sometimes, the “right word” is really not one word, but a group of words; sometimes, it is the sequencing of phrase upon phrase and clause upon clause, the building of momentum through pacing and cadence, and the effective placement of an adverb (“until”) followed by a phrase that gently slows our pace (“in God’s good time”) so that all who are able can “hear” our pledge and our plea and will, eventually, “step forth.” This is why we say words have power. In our daily interaction with “words, words, words” (Hamlet II.ii.l.192), we have, indeed, a treasure; the power of that treasure resides in its vividness, its context, its author, and its audience. Unleash the power and we transform our world; squander the power and we diminish our world. Word choice frames our vision and establishes perspective. Vivid images evoke emotional response and stimulate the imagination. Context directs interpretation. Dialogue between author and audience constructs meaning. What (hwæt) power!

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Works Cited Alexander, Michael, Trans. and Introd. Beowulf: A Verse Translation, Rev. ed. London: Penguin, 2003. Kindle edition. Allen, Ward S., and Edward C. Jacobs. The Coming of the King James Gospels: A Collation of the Translators’ Work-in-Progress. Fayetteville, Ark.: U of Arkansas P, 1995. Bammesberger, Michael. “The Syntactic Analysis of the Opening Verses in Beowulf.” American Notes and Queries 19.4 (2006): 3-7. Crossley-Holland, Kevin. Beowulf. Oxford, U. K.: Oxford UP, 1999. Kindle edition. Gilbert, Martin, ed. Churchill—The Power of Words: His Remarkable Life Recounted Through His Writings and Speeches. Boston: Da Capo P, 2012. Kindle edition. Gold, Mike. “The Password to Thought—To Culture.” Literature, Class, and Culture: An Anthology. Ed. Paul Lauter and Ann Fitzgerald. New York: Longman, 2001. 620-26. Golden, Marita, ed. The Word: Black Writers Talk about the Transformative Power of Reading and Writing. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2011. Kindle edition. Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Norton, 2001. Bilingual Kindle edition. Hieatt, Constance. Beowulf and Other Old English Poems. New York: Bantam, 2010. Kindle edition. Kenyon, Jane. ”The Shirt.” Collected Poems. St. Paul, Minn.: Graywolf P, 2007. King James Version: 400th Anniversary Edition. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011. Lewis, C. S. Studies in Words. 1960. Sydney, Australia: HarperCollins, 2013. Kindle edition. McGrath, Alister. In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture. New York: Anchor Books, 2002. Nicolson, Adam. God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. New York: Perennial, 2004. Paris, Christopher, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of English. Personal Interview. 24 Apr 2014. Rosen, Kim. Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words. Carlsbad, Calif.: Hay House, 2009. Kindle edition.

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Ryken, Leland. The Legacy of the King James Bible: Celebrating 400 Years of the Most Influential English Translation. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2011. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Riverside Shakespeare 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 1189-1245. Simic, Charles. “The Dictionary.” The New Yorker. 1 July 2013: 43. Tinker, Chauncey Brewster. The Translations of Beowulf: A Critical Bibliography. 1903. Amazon digital edition. 2012. Tolkien, J. R. R. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. Walkden, George. “The Status of Hwæt in Old English.” English Language and Linguistics 17.3 (2013): 465-88. Wanner, Kevin J. “Warriors, Wyrms, and Wyrd: The Paradoxical Fate of the Germanic Hero/King in Beowulf.” Essays in Medieval Studies 16 (1999): 1-15.

CHAPTER THREE THE “BAD” WORD: LENNY BRUCE’S DEMOCRATIZATION OF LANGUAGE ELIZABETH SHARPE OVERMAN, PH.D.

“Lenny Bruce opened the doors for all the guys like me; he prefigured the freespeech movement and helped push the culture forward into the light of open and honest expression…the threat perceived by the ‘powers’ from simple artistic honesty.” —George Carlin

Introduction At no time is the power of words more on display than when they signify emotions such as anger, frustration, disgust, joy, or surprise. Taboo words are evocative. Swearing heightens the emotions and is readily apparent in hate speech, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and obscene phone calls. Swearing also releases emotions and conveys a depth of feeling to others. Taboo words are universal, appearing in a great variety of global cultures. They are also embedded in American jokes and humor, sex talk, storytelling, self-deprecation and social commentary (Grohol, “Why Do We Swear?”). Lenny Bruce rose to fame in American nightclubs of the 1950s and 1960s developing stand-up comedic routines, a new means of comedy that relied on the vulgarity of the profane as social satire. Stand-up comedy was then a new expressive form. Satire, especially that which refers to social and political institutions, has a long, illustrious history in the West. The stand-up medium was a perfect venue for the proliferation of “bad” words, just as the context of the 1950s and 1960s lent themselves to high levels of satire. Done well, it can induce that laughter which reduces

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tension while providing a means to interrogate political and social scenarios. Lenny Bruce was the man who not only “made modern stand-up comedy,” but “someone who helped to make a world that would allow it” (Leo Benedictus “Comedy Gold”). He is also the first convicted person pardoned posthumously, by Governor George Pataki of the state of New York on December 23, 2003. This event followed a concerted effort led by First Amendment attorneys and comedians such as Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, and many others. The tenor of the 1950s and 1960s gave Bruce plenty of raw material which he crafted into stand-up acts. In the 1950s the powers of fanaticism propelled by the geopolitical contest between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics required university faculty to sign loyalty oaths, the Veteran’s Administration denied disability pensions to heroic American soldiers convicted under the Smith Act, writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Dalton Trumbo were under constant surveillance, McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities reigned widely, and Ethel Rosenberg’s death sentence was not commuted for fear that the Soviets would recruit women as spies. At the same time Hoover’s FBI spied upon Dr. King, Paul Robeson’s name was omitted from the official list of All-American college football players of 1917 and 1918 and the 1955 edition of Famous Negro Music makers. The rigidity of the 1950s stands in stark contrast to the explosion of individual freedom that was the 1960s. “The pill” appeared and a popular young president was assassinated as cultural and political trends gave rise to a counter culture that revolutionized social norms in music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling. The Civil Rights Movement engaged the nation’s conscious and thirty-two African nations threw off their colonial oppressors. At the same time Lenny Bruce’s “shtick” was bringing down $200,000 annually and attracting the attention of fellow comedians such as Dick Gregory, George Carlin, and Joan Rivers as well as the vice squad. Eddie Tafoya, in his brilliant 2009 book, The Legacy of the Wisecrack, argues that stand-up comedy is an American literary art form that flourishes in times of heightened social tension and that only became free from censorship in the last half of the twentieth century. One person, usually in street dress, stands on a stage and tells jokes that elicit audience laughter. As a form of art, it reveals the unpleasantly visceral and a profane anger that feeds upon negativity, disgust, and carnal appetites. Stand-up exhibits an immediate and mobile plasticity that can be “molded, remolded, and reremolded” in the course of one set or sketch as the artist responds to “each venue, each audience, and even individual audience

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members.” Stand-up comics face their audience and are either encouraged or disdained. This medium rivals literature conveyed through poems, short stories, and novels in which the audience is imagined by the authors during the course of gestation. This is what, according to Tafoya, makes stand-up comedy “wildly popular and deeply provocative” (Tafoya 10-12). Among those most pivotal representations of Lenny’s work are some who have also been the boundary breakers of their era. Included here are Seinfeld, M*A*S*H, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor. If you catch reruns of Seinfeld, an NBC sitcom which ran from 1989 to 1998, and hear Jerry finish a sentence with “Yada, yada, yada,” he is paying homage to Lenny through emulation. If you see Corporal Klinger donning women’s clothing in an effort to be discharged from the United States Army on M*A*S*H, a CBS television program adapted from the movie by Larry Gelbhart, he is imitating Lenny, who was actually released from the United States Navy for cross dressing. The late George Carlin, finding his way following his Air Force days, found work at a radio station in Shreveport, Louisiana between 1958 and 1959. He heard Lenny on the Henry Jacobs Fantasy Records Album, “Interviews of Our Time,” followed by a Sheldon Stein interview of Lenny, who busily compared the wandering Jew to Bahama Mama, followed by Lenny’s Sick album. Cumulatively, Carlin found “a place to go . . . to reach for . . . in terms of honesty of a [sic] selfexpression” (PBS Radio, My Comedy Hero). For Bruce, “the only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it . . . try to fake three laughs in an hour—ha ha ha ha ha—they’ll take you away, man. You can’t” (Bruce, “Quotes”). A cradle Catholic, Carlin would light up the 1970s with “the seven words you can’t say on television” and his “definition of stuff.” He argued that he “had as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it,” and “atheism is a non-prophet organization” (Mullan, The Bit: History’s Most Influential Stand Up Comedians). In the 1980s, Richard Pryor “went to the White House and met the president” and surmised, “We in trouble.” Just as Lenny explored sexuality and race, Pryor pushed us into close conversations about marriage, race, and then added drugs. “Freebase? What free about it?!; Why me? Ten million motherfuckers freebasing, and I’m the one who blows up! I went to a penitentiary once, not me personally. But me and Gene [Wilder] went there for a movie. Arizona State Penitentiary, population ninety percent black people. But there are no black people in Arizona. They have to bus the motherfuckers in!” (Jokes4us).

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Genesis: Satire and the New Medium If readers found any part of the previous excursus unsettling, they were nicked by the satirist’s darts. That is part of what stand-up comedy is all about, needling us where we think we are most safe and secure, turning our assumptions, even those we don’t consciously know we hold, on their heads. However, readers who find any that tickled their funny bones are able to mentally “shift back and forth between multiple interpretations of a situation” because the humors have been activated in the temporal lobes in the brain. Neurophysiologists such as Richard Bestak find this phenomenon fascinating because, as his scholarship is quick to point out, “the brain has no humor center.” Harbored in the cerebral cortex, the centers that can shift scenarios or frames from one to the other make it possible to speak, store general information, appreciate contradictions, and spot illogicalities. In order to understand the humor, the audience must be steeped in the specific culture and language. All of that learning is stored in the temporal lobes. Restak further argues that no other species on the planet has developed such a capacity (18-27). Just as popular culture is directly and indirectly suffused with Lenny Bruce, contemporary America is saturated with satire. Eddie Tafoya points out that “the art form flourishes in times of heightened social tension, to wit, the early years of the Cold War, when middle-class Americans were streaming to nightclubs; the height of the Vietnam conflict in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when George Carlin seemed to be jumping from one variety show to another; and, of course, during the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan’s supposed war-mongering was widely believed to be bringing the world closer to nuclear devastation” (Restak 12). Satire in the twenty-first century is found from The Colbert Report to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and includes The Simpsons, South Park, and 30 Rock, Howard Stern, and Dave Barry, comic strips such as Doonesbury, The Boondocks, and Dilbert, plus dramas such as House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, and a host of others in every category. According to Sophie McClennan, TV and Internet viewers are increasingly seeking engaging sources of news coupled with information. Younger people, exposed to the 24-hour news cycle with its heavy admixture of entertainment and news, are turning to the shows of popular satirists such as Colbert and Stewart because their entertainment prompts critical reflection while raising awareness about political and social issues. For many people this is their only source of news. The answer to why satire resonates so popularly today may be explained, in part, by its history (McClennan, Colbert’s America).

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The American experiment in democracy grew out of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century European Enlightenment, a period so rich in social and political satire that some call it “a golden age” (Highet, The Anatomy of Satire; Feinberg, The Satirist; Kernan, The Plot of Satire; Clark, Satire–That Blasted Art; Russell and Brown, Satire–A Critical Anthology). In England, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Butler, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, and William Hograth were complemented by Despreaux, La Fontaine, Moliere, and Voltaire in France. In both countries controversies swirled as the words of sharply penned writers became missiles lobbed at the comfortably complacent. In the name of social, political, and economic reform, a wide variety of wildly concocted poems, plays, and cartoons appeared with the sole objective of ridicule of foolishness in all its guises. Vanity, hypocrisy, pedantry, idolatry, bigotry, and sentimentality were exposed and flayed by biting, sometimes embarrassing, and always vexing darts of satire. The word satire comes from the Latin word satura, meaning a medley or “dish of mixed fruits.” Thinkers in the period took up the study of classical satire starting with the work of Aristophanes, who in 421 B.C.E. satirized Socrates as the embodiment of atheism and sophistry in The Clouds, and in the next year, 422 B.C.E., in The Wasps leveled an attack on the Athenian court system. The open satire of the Enlightenment led to the rediscovery and emulation of other ancients such as the two Romans Horace and Juvenal. Gilbert Highet points out that Horace was mild, gently amused, and sophisticated, while Juvenal fired vitriolic indignations riddled with moral overtones. Shakespeare would take after Horace while Jonathan Swift found Juvenal most instructive. The persistent use of satire can be traced from beast fables, fabliaux, and Chaucerian caricatures to longer sketches by John Skelton, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Erasmus, and Cervantes. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, satire was alive and well. Court jesters, according to Eddie Tafoya, “share close metaphorical connections to flatulence and bodily appetites. The Italian Renaissance produced the comedy troupe of the Commedia dell’arte “that essentially invented the improv sketch . . . a direct forerunner of modern sketch comedy troupes such as Chicago’s Second City” (Tafoya 16). During the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, Alexander Pope, taking after Horace, wrote The Rape of the Lock in 1714, an epic poem that in jest aims at the frivolous lives of London society. Jonathan Swift exposes human baseness and cruelty akin to the work of Juvenal in Gulliver’s Travels, 1726. Nineteenth century satire expressed in novels of manners and morals was more Horatian. The poems of Lord Bryon, librettos of William S. Gilbert, drama of Oscar Wilde and G. B. Shaw, and fiction of

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W. M. Thackeray, Charles Dickens, and Samuel Butler all found satire a useful vehicle. From the beginning, Americans consumed satire in all of its forms. Minstrel shows often incorporated stump speeches in a crude repertoire. Notably popular writers and speakers included Washington Irving, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mark Twain. Chautauquas used “direct-address performance, speeches that were often designed with the specific intention of eliciting laughter from the audience” (Tafoya 18). Another generation was defined by the work of Sinclair Lewis, James Thurber, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, W. H. Auden, and Philip Roth, who responded to the fear of the atom bomb, debilitating pollution, racism, drugs, planned obsolescence, and the abuse of power.

The New Medium: Stand-Up: “I want to perform an unnatural act” (Lenny as the Long Ranger: “Thank You Mask Man”) Richard Zoglin traces the history of stand-up comedy in the United States to Mark Twain, the man who taught us that “travel is fatal to prejudice” and penned what many think is the great American novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, published in 1885 (Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge). Eddie Tafoya points to the twenty-year-old Twain delivering an 1856 after-dinner speech on the occasion of Benjamin Franklin’s one hundred and fiftieth birthday that “introduced the world to a new level of direct address comedy” (Tafoya 16). Jewish immigrants residing in northeastern cities found pastoral relief summering in the Catskills and created one of the greatest incubators for comedy in the world. Over time, during the decades from the 1890s until the 1970s, a vibrant entertainment culture of what became known as the Borscht Belt fostered the development of many of America’s greatest comedians, including Jerry Lewis, Fanny Brice, Bea Arthur, Rodney Dangerfield, Phyllis Diller, Jack Benny, Joan Rivers, Carl Reiner, Soupy Sales, Alan King, Joey Bishop, Sid Caesar, the Three Stooges, Billy Crystal, Chico and Harpo Marx, Zero Mostel, Mel Brooks, and many, many more. At one point, humorists were hired by the resort hotel owners to circulate among the guests enjoying the pool, the tennis court, the bar, and tell jokes (Van Ellia, Film Review: The Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt). In the 1950s and early 1960s, a new group of comedians emerged that included Jonathan Winters, Mort Sahl, Bob Newhart, and Lenny Bruce, as well as Dick Gregory performing on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Suddenly the

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comedy got personal, and Bruce especially began raising social issues at the very moment the Beat Generation gave way to a time dominated by an anti-establishment counterculture. The dialogue became personal, conversational, and politically aware. The Fourth Wall, the literary division between the story and reality, or the theatrical divide known as the proscenium separating audience from actor or comedian, was breached as the “interchangeable one-liners” designed to elicit “a laugh every 15 to 25 seconds” disappeared. To connoisseurs and scholars of comedy, this departure was evidence of a “New Wave” (Tafoya 215). Bruce “delighted in upending the conventional wisdom, telling uncomfortable truths, smashing sacred cows” (Tafoya 213). Ralph Rosen points out that there “remains deep suspicion about comedy, the effects of laughter, and the gamesmanship of satire: Where is there a space for truth-telling and moral seriousness when the satirist always has an eye on making the audience laugh?” (Rosen 3). Stand-up began to seriously provoke audiences and the authorities.

Human Hubris: “Mr. Bruce is only trying to make the band laugh…” (Shepherd: The Life and Crimes of Lenny Bruce) Satire relies on irony to ridicule societal practices, politics, and people. Traditionally it has been a vehicle to criticize those in power. Whether or not wrath is incurred and whether the consequences are potentially fatal are specific to situation and time. How liberal is the society and its institutions at that moment? How confident and relaxed are those in power? Some say that satirists make us recognize ourselves, our vices and bad habits and misfortunes, in the characters at whom we are laughing. Satire is popular because it forces us to learn. Eddie Tafoya maintains that “as soon as humans discovered language and the art of storytelling, we were telling amusing stories of mischievous spirits like Loki, Coyote, and Mercury who crept out of nowhere, introduced chaos to order, and skittered back into hiding” (Tafoya 206). Silliness, to Tafoya, suggests that we need to sometimes allow ourselves to laugh at a world we don’t understand. From the physiological perspective, jokes allow people to put psychological distance between themselves and sources of stress, as the joke raises spirits and eases tension and the muscles of the face, abdomen, and diaphragm flex. It is thought the cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems release cortisol and other stress hormones. This is why Charles Darwin referred to humor as “a tickling of the mind” (Tafoya 20).

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Restak concludes that we “are hardwired for laughter,” and we have an impulse to find and express amusement. Some neuroscientists think that humor may have evolved at the same time we learned to assess social situations with great rapidity and intuitiveness. At the societal level, social tastes change over time. What former generations found funny may no longer apply today (Tafoya 27). Satire may be a sophisticated safety valve for society, but it takes a toll on some of the greatest artists. Lenny Bruce died of a drug overdose complicated by injuries sustained when he, high on drugs, fell from a twostory window. This occurred on August 3, 1966. Martin Garbus, one of his attorneys, attributes his death to the “inner turmoil, frustration, and overwhelming feeling of helplessness he had experienced as he fought the law during his last five years” (Garbus, Ready for the Defense). The lives of both George Carlin and Richard Pryor were complicated by drug use. As an example of the tension sketch literary artists feel which resonates with their audiences, Eddie Tafoya describes Whoopi Goldberg’s famous sketch on the Reagan years as “Fontaine . . . Why Am I Straight?” The act starts with Whoopi rising out of the theatrical depths singing the national anthem, “O-oh say can you motherfuckin’ see, by the dawn’s early motherfuckin’ light . . . whose broad motherfuckin’ stripes . . . and home of the motherfuckin’ brave.” Goldberg then reviews the scandals of the Reagan years: “the Iran-Contra affair, the fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s multi-million-dollar Christian televangelist empire, the firing of Jimmy ‘The Greek’ for making an apparently racist comment, Rock Hudson’s contracting AIDS.” The show, Tafoya maintains, “implicitly” questions the validity of Nancy Reagan’s “just say no to drugs” campaign: “Being perpetually intoxicated seems to have a better payoff than having to deal with a world that is being ruined by the so-called ‘straight’ people” (Tafoya 11). Band members introduced Lenny Bruce to drugs in the clubs where he worked as an emcee and refined his routines (Posted atmwiki). As a rule, night club bands are a performer’s harshest critics and don’t often laugh. But Lenny Bruce was known for breaking the musicians up. When Los Angeles Variety noted this, they gave him a back-handed compliment by impugning the motives underlying his performances and suggesting that they, the press, were not amused. Dick Gregory said that Lenny Bruce was the “eighth wonder of the world” and “if they kill him or put him in jail he is going to shake this country up” (Posted atmwiki). Kenneth Tynan, an English critic who often wrote for The Observer, wrote the Foreword to Lenny’s 1963 book, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. He said that

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if he died tomorrow, he would deserve more than a footnote in any history of modern Western culture. I have heard him described, somewhat portentously, as “the man on America’s conscience.” Hyperbole like that would not appeal to Lenny Bruce. “No,” I can hear him dissenting, “let’s say the man who went down on America’s conscience….” (Tynan, Foreword, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People)

The first time one of Lenny’s jokes elicited a laugh from a crowd in a nightclub, he received the propelling affirmation he needed, and “it was like the flash that I have heard morphine addicts describe, a warm sensual blanket that comes after a cold sick rejection” (Fink, Shooting Down Lenny Bruce). “Life,” Lenny reminded the world, “is a four-letter word” (Bruce). He believed that “People should be taught what is, not what should be. All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the bread line—right back of J. Edgar Hoover” (Think.Exist.com). Bruce started out “clean,” performing impersonations that caught the eye of the Arthur Godfrey talent scout. A close friend, Enrico Banducci, owner of the hungry i, a popular San Francisco nightclub that helped launch many great artists, including Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Mort Sahl, Barbara Streisand, Maya Angelou, and Lenny Bruce said, “He [Lenny] was a sweet, peaceful, and beautiful man. We used to go sailing on the bay and Lenny would sit and write poetry about love and beauty—and about his own frustrations. I don't think he was a comedian, really, I think he was a preacher" (Banducci, Los Angeles Times). Following an appearance on the Godfrey show, Lenny developed a series of new skits aimed at commercialized religion called Religions, Inc. Lenny situates a particular sketch in the headquarters following the Dodge-Plymouth dealer’s annual raffle for a 1958 Catholic Church. America’s religious leaders, God’s sales team, are seated around the table: God: “Well, as you know, this year we’ve got a tie-in with Oldsmobile. Now, gentlemen, I don’t expect any of you boys to go out there in the pulpit and hard-sell an automobile. This is ridiculous. But I was thinking now. What do you say to this? If just every once in a while, if we’d throw in a few little terms, just little things like, uh, drive the car that He’d drive!–and you don’t have to lay it on, just zing it in there once in a while and then jump maybe to the Philistines.” (Fink, Harvard Crimson)

Religions, Inc. prompted what became classic, one-liners: “The Ecumenical Council,” which “has given the Pope permission to become a nun. Just on Fridays, though,” and “Everyday people are straying away

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from the church and going back to God” (Cohen, The Essential Lenny Bruce). Another, more developed, sketch from Religion, Inc.: I know that Christ and Moses are in heaven, and they’re saying, “What the hell are they doing with The Book? They’re shoving it in motel drawers? Let’s make Earth!” Come on down, Christ and Moses. Come on down! Come on down. And they’re going to come down. They’re going to come down, and they’re going to make you pay some dues, you people who believe: “This is Chet Huntley with Christ and Moses in New York. And Mike Wallace. Tell me something: the fellow throwing up on the waitress’s tits over there–ah, it’s getting a little ridiculous working in this shithouse! You wanna break it up?”

Two other sketches by Bruce can be found in the Appendix.

It’s All about Context: Satire as Political Engagement Bruce’s first arrest for obscenity came in San Francisco for using the ten-letter word “cocksucker” onstage. Lenny was acquitted, but soon he was re-arrested in so many towns that he wore an overcoat while doing his act. After all, as Lenny put it, “if they arrest you in town A and then in town B, by the time you get to town C they got to arrest you or everyone will wonder, ‘What kind of shit town are they running?’" (Bush, The Harvard Crimson). Bruce irritated audiences and inflamed the police, prosecutors, judges, heads of institutions, and all authority generally, even those who were sympathetic. He fired his lawyers thinking that, if only the judge, and sometimes the jury, heard him perform his “schtick,” they would redeem him immediately (Schauer, Michigan Law Review). He was seen by his lawyers and those who testified on his behalf during the course of trials as someone “who was persecuted because of the way in which his humor challenged conventional values and powerful people, who endured years of legal battles for daring to take on the sacred cows of our society, and who became a ‘martyr’ to the First Amendment because he refused to let himself be censored” (Collins and Skover, The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon). In 1964, Lenny was charged by the New York District Attorney for participation in obscene, indecent, immoral and impure drama, play, exhibition, show and entertainment and an obscene, indecent, immoral and impure scene, tableau, play, exhibition, show and entertainment which would tend to the corruption of the morals of youths and others. (Garbus 84)

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Dorothy Kilgallen, feature writer and columnist at Hearst newspapers was among the scholars, fellow critics, and clergy who testified on his behalf. She found his satire “brilliant” and his “social commentary, whether I agree with it or not, is extremely valid and important . . . I was very impressed with his intelligence, with his material, with his ability to comment on events of the day straight out of a newspaper, which was apparently ad-libbed” (Garbus 99). Collins and Skover, in The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of An American Icon, argue that the prosecutions in People v. Bruce for misdemeanor obscenity was an “unprecedented exercise of government power” to enforce “constitutionally suspect” law and “prosecute cases in which the public interest was dubious.” Criminal law sanctions were applied “against a cultural dissenter” doing “political and social” commentary (Garbus 404). These cases involved eight obscenity arrests; entailed six obscenity court cases in four cities; took over four years and some 3,500 pages of trial transcripts; required eight state trial judges (not including the numerous judges who heard bail matters and preliminary motions, etc.); involved more than a dozen state attorneys and double that number of billable-hour defense lawyers; prompted legal actions by Bruce in federal courts in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; consumed untold man-hours and amounts of public monies; involved appeals and/or petitions to state courts, federal appellate courts, and the U. S. Supreme Court (presided over, in total, by twenty-five state and federal appellate judges, plus nine more judges in People v. Solomon; and bankrupted Bruce, who once made nearly $200,000 a year in the early 1960s. (Garbus 404)

Frederick Schauer, no fan of Lenny Bruce, argues that “American obscenity law was in transition” at the time Lenny was undergoing arrest and trial: “Social values changed, the aggressive use of obscenity law began to recede, and the conflicts between obscenity law and serious art and literature came almost to an end” (Schauer 2124). Collins and Skover included an interview with Nat Hentoff, respected cultural critic for the Village Voice, who testified on Bruce’s behalf at the New York trial, conducted with Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, whose views on obscenity shaped the legal transition. Brennan was leaving the court after thirty-four years. Although not one of Lenny’s cases was appealed to the highest court, Brennan reflected on his experience and noted that in his attempt to reconcile obscenity law with the First Amendment, “I put sixteen years into that damn obscenity thing . . . If you can’t define it, you can’t prosecute people for it. And that’s why . . . I finally abandoned the whole effort.” Brennan was involved with obscenity cases from 1957 to

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1966. He authored seven obscenity opinions. In a 1966 plurality opinion in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, after Bruce’s death, Brennan suggested in a footnote that “Lenny Bruce’s acts probably could not be prosecuted in a manner consistent with the demands of the First Amendment” (Collins and Skover 410). This sentiment is echoed in the 2014 edition of Liberty and Union: A Constitutional History of the United States by McManus and Helfman when they end a section entitled “Deeper into the Obscenity Bog,” with “the sexual content of popular culture would continue to rise until lawmakers and judges finally conceded the futility of trying to prevent it” (McManus and Helfman 533). Collins and Skover, however, point out that the “community standards” test was “a threat to artistic expression in 1964” and again in cases that came before it in 1974, and “it could be again in 2014.” The law is not settled, and society continues to change. Justice Brennan’s giving up on a definition of obscenity does not mean that future justices will be so inclined. Collins and Skover hold that “considered as a whole…the law of obscenity will always place comic rebels like Lenny Bruce in jeopardy” (Collins and Skover 412).

The Social Import of “Artistic Honesty” (Carlin): “To appeal to the prurient interest. To get you horny.” (Bruce) Bruce challenged the standing monopoly of the authorities and therefore their very premises. Duschinsky, following Bourdieu, suggests that such “profaning” or deviating from the orthodoxy of the sacred is “necessary for the overall affirmation” of authority. That is as long as the authorities can contain the “heretics” and the introduction of wayward discourse into the settled society. Bourdieu deviates from Emile Durkheim’s division of society into the dualism of the sacred and the profane by suggesting that one “bleeds” into the other and that one is necessary to support the other. Without the profane, how do you know what is sacred? Bourdieu rather sees society as a whole as composed of singular profane individuals who make up the collective and can adhere to the orthodoxy of the sacred and thus patriarchy if kept within the control of the reigning authorities (Duschinsky, The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Studies). Bruce was contained by his premature death. But the wave he was riding would contribute to the loosening of the social forces that denied social equality and rights for women and a general expansion of popular culture, which is an expansive interpretation of the First Amendment. He

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was Bourdieu’s “prophet,” an individual personality cast up by the social field itself. He emerged as a result of tension in the social scape, “A faultline within the organizing principles of individual perception and action....” The prophet is a reflection of an emergent societal crisis. The prophets’ authority derives not from the rules of dogma, “but rather on their ability of their symbolic products to meet the needs of certain categories of laypeople.” In Bruce’s case it was the evolving nature of “community standards” (Collins and Skover 122). Bruce denounced the compromises that the church, for example, had made to accommodate the richness of an orderly society which ignored the reality of its own founding message. For example, Bishop Sheen and Cardinal Spellman facing the reality of Christ, Moses, and leprosy (see Appendix). Bruce suggested “a need to purify and renew the church, and purge it of all its sins, and lead it back to its divine origins...” (Collins and Skover 122). After all, “people are leaving the church and going back to religion” (Cohen).

Conclusion Lenny Bruce democratized language by bringing “bad” words out into the open and offering them to everyone. Along the way, his speech became a prime factor in expanding the interpretation of the First Amendment to allow for those “bad” words. After Bruce’s death, Bob Dylan wrote that “Lenny Bruce is gone but his spirit’s livin’ on and on . . . Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies’ heads . . . He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light on their best . . . . He’s on some other shore, he didn’t wanna live anymore . . .” (Bush, “O My America”). We, however, still enjoy his legacy of freedom.

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APPENDIX: TWO SKETCHES BY LENNY BRUCE

An example of a Religions, Inc. sketch that brought animas and antipathy from a socially established and comfortable institution begins with Christ and Moses standing in the back of St. Pat’s, looking around. Confused, Christ is, at the grandeur of the interior, the baroque interior, the rococo baroque interior. Because his route took him through Spanish Harlem, and he was wondering what the hell fifty Puerto Ricans were doing living in one room when that stained glass window is worth ten Gs a square foot? And this guy had a ring worth eight grand. Why weren’t the Puerto Ricans living here? That was the purpose of church–for the people. Spellman is up on the lectern–played by Ed Begley–telling about giving to the people and loving, Love, Christian love, that is nothing but forgiveness and no hostility. Bishop Sheen–played by Hugh Herbert–spots Christ and Moses standing in the back arguing back and forth, and runs up to Spellman on the lectern: SHEEN: [whispers]: Pssst! Spellman! C’mon down here, I gotta talk to you! They’re here! SPELLMAN [whispering]: Get back to the blackboard, dum-dum, and stop bugging me. SHEEN: Dum-dum your ass! You better get down here. O.K. Put the choir on for ten minutes. SPELLMAN: Hey, putzo, whaddaya mean, running up in the middle of a bit like that? SHEEN: Oh, it’s terrible terrible terrible. They’re here! They’re here! Ohhh, owwwww! They’re here, they’re here, they’re really here! SPELLMAN: Who’s here? SHEEN: Who’s here? I’m here, you’re here. SPELLMAN: You’re not all there. SHEEN: Hoo-hoo! It’s here, it’s here. SPELLMAN: Who’s here? SHEEN: YOU better sit down, you’re gonna faint. Ready for a shocker? Christ and Moses, schmuck, that’s who’s here. SPELLMAN: Oh bullshit! Are you putting me on, now? Where? SHEEN: They’re standing in the back—don’t look now, you idiot! They can see us. SPELLMAN: Which ones are they? SHEEN: The ones that’re glowing. Hoo! Glowing! Terrible. SPELLMAN: Are you sure it’s them?

Background: The “Bad” Word SHEEN: I’ve just seen ‘em in pictures, but I’m pretty sure—Moses is a ringer for Charlton Heston. SPELLMAN: Are they armed? SHEEN: I dunno. SPELLMAN: Poor box locked? SHEEN: Yeah. I’ll grab the box and meet you round the back! SPELLMAN : No, we better just cool it. You better get me Rome, quickly. Now what the hell do they want here? SHEEN: Maybe they want to audit the books? SPELLMAN: No, I don’t think so. Well, we’re in for it now, God damn it! Did Christ bring the family with him? What’s the mother’s name? . . . Hurry up with Rome! . . . If we just cool it, maybe we can talk to them . . . Don’t tell anyone they’re here . . . Oh, shit! Who copped out they’re here? SHEEN: Why? Schmuck, look at the front door! SHEEN: What’s the matter? SPELLMAN: What’s the matter? Putz! Here come the lepers! SHEEN: Where the hell do they live around here? Oh, Christ! SPELLMAN: Phew! Alright. Get me Rome. Hurry up . . .[Cheerful loud voice] Hello, lepers! How are you? Hello lepers, hello lepers. [Sings] Hello, young lepers wherever you are . . . Howareya? Look, ah, nuttin personal, but, ah, don’t touch anything, O.K.? Heh heh. That’s right. No offense, but, what the hell, you can pick up anything–you might get something from us! Heh heh. Right? So, ah, why don’t you all get outside and get some air? O.K.? Pick up your nose, your foot and your arm, and split. That’s right . . . Now look, whatta you doing? You waiting for St. Francis? Look, I’m gonna level with you right now—that’s a bullshit story. He never kissed any lepers. He just danced with two merchant marines and we kicked him the hell outta the parish. That’s all. What the hell you wanna kiss a leper for? Put yourself in our place. Would you kiss a leper? What the hell are ya gonna get outta that? Awright? That’s a lotta bullshit—you try to kiss ‘em and they fall apart. Kissing lepers—you know how Ben Hur’s mother and sister got leprosy, don’t ya? They didn’t put paper on the seats, that’s all. Now come on, haul ass! Can’t you be nice, you people? Just get the hell outta here! [Talking into phone] Hullo, John? . . . Fran, New York. Listen, a coupla the kids dropped in. . . . You bet your ass you know them. . . . Ah, well, I can’t really talk now, there’s a lotta people. It’s really filling up here . . . Well, one kid is like [sings] “With the cross of blank blank . . .” No, not Zorro! . . . Yes, him. Yeah . . . I’m not kidding you. . . .Yes, he brought a very attractive Jewish boy with him—excuse me. [Off phone] What is it? REPORTERS: Ah, we’re from Life magazine, and we want to know if that’s really them.

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Chapter Three SPELLMAN: Ah, just a moment—Sonny, will you get off my hem here?—Yes, that is them . . . No, I don’t know if they’re gonna do any tricks. [Back to phone] Hullo? . . . They’re standing in back, way in the back . . .Course they’re white! Look, this is New York City, mister, Puerto Ricans stand in the back . . . Look, I don’t wanna hear that. This place is filling up. What’re we paying protection for? . . . I dunno . . . Look, all I know’s that I’m up to my ass in crutches and wheelchairs here!”

Lenny impugned everyone, not just the Catholic church. Lenny at his best is evident in this full sketch performance made at Chicago’s The Gate of Horn in which he weighed in on some culturally latent but festering social perceptions. He started with I’m Jewish. A lot of Jewswho think they’re Jewish are not–they’re switched babies. Now, a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That’s what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is–One Who Killed Our Lord…I am of a Semitic background–I assume [there was] not much press on that in Illinois–we did this about two thousand years ago—two thousand years of Polack kids whacking the shit out of us coming home from school. Dear, dear. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce. And I really searched it out, why we pay the dues. Why do you keep breaking our balls for this crime? “Why, Jew, because you skirt the issue. You blame it on Roman soldiers.” Alright, I’ll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. 1 found a note in my basement. It said: “We killed him. signed, Morty.” And a lot of people say to me, “Why did you kill Christ?” “I dunno . . . it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.” We killed him because he didn’t want to become a doctor, that’s why we killed him. Or maybe it would shock some people, some people who are involved with the dogma, to say that we killed him at his own request, because he knew that people would exploit him. In his name they would do all sorts of bust-out things, and bust out people. In Christ’s name they would exploit the flag, the Bible, and–whew! Boy, the things they’ve done in his name! This routine always goes good in Minnesota, with about two Jews in the audience. But he’s going to get it if he comes back. Definitely. He’s going to get killed again, because he made us pay so many dues. So he’s going to get whacked out. And you can tell that to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have all those dates. As soon as he comes back, whacked out again. Now, a lot of people say, “Well, that’s certainly not a very nice attitude, you know. You’ll bring back the racial hatred.”

Background: The “Bad” Word But I’m going to tell you something about that. See, I neologize Jewish and goyish. There’s like, the literal meaning—first I’ll start with goyish, cause it’ll really knock you out. Dig this. Goy –”one who is not civilized, one who is not Mormon, one who is not Jewish.” It’s “heathen,” that’s what goyish means. Now, a Jew–dictionary style–“one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded to have descended from that tribe.” Now I neologize Jewish and goyish. Dig: I’m Jewish. Count Basie’s Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor’s goyish. B’Nai Brith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish Marine Corps— heavy goyim, dangerous. Koolaid is goyish. All Drake’s Cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes– goyish. Black cherry soda’s very Jewish; Macaroons are very Jewish—very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime jello is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won’t go near them. Jack Paar Show is very goyish. Underwear is definitely goyish. Balls are goyish. Titties are Jewish. Mouths are Jewish. All Italians are Jewish. Greeks are goyish—bad sauce. Eugene O’Neill—Jewish; Dylan Thomas, Jewish. Steve is goyish, though. It’s the hair. He combs his hair in the boys’ room with that soap all the time. Louis. That’s my name in Jewish. Louis Schneider. “Why haven’t ya got Louis Schneider up on the marquee?” “Well, cause it’s not show business. It doesn’t fit.” “No, no, I don’t wanna hear that. You Jewish?” “Yeah.” “You ashamed of it? “Yeah.” “Why you ashamed you’re Jewish?” “I’m not anymore! But it used to be a problem. Until Playboy magazine came out. “Yeah. That’s right. IN–OUT.” You just can’t be that urbane bachelor and drive down the street driving a Jag or a Lotus yelling “nigger” and “kike.” It don’t fit. That’s what’s really happened. Up to about six or seven years ago, there was such a difference between Christians and Jews, that–maybe you did know–but, forget about it! Just a line there that would, whew! And the “Brotherhood of Christians and Jews” was like some fifth column bullshit. I don’t know it. Because only the group that’s involved—it’s like: the defense counsel knows it because he has a narrow view, where the D.A., he’s hung up with a bigger practice. So it’s the same: the Jew is hung up with his shit and maybe the Christian—because, when the Christians say, like, “Oh, is he Jewish? I didn’t know. I can’t tell when somebody’s Jewish.” I always thought, “That’s bullshit.” But he can’t. Cause he never got hung up with that shit, man. And Jews are very hung up with that, all the time. I always try to search out the meaning of any clichés that attach to any ethnic group. And I’ve always heard that stupid bubeh miseh about Jews and all the smut books, and all. But here’s where all that must come from—and in part it’s true. Dig. But I have to tell you by way of a complaint report. At the Troubadour Theatre in Los Angeles I was arrested for putting on an allegedly obscene show. Now the report said, he did a routine that related to his ex-wife, and

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Chapter Three he said that his ex-wife was the type of person who became upset when he walked into the bathroom while she was “fressing the maid.” “Fressing” is Yiddish; it means eating. Eating is an act of oral copulation. So I’m putting on an obscene show. How’s that for from Tinker to Evans to Chance? But it ought to continue with, an act of oral copulation is goyish. Because there’s no word in Yiddish that describes oral copulation. In fact, there are no gutter phrases in Yiddish—it’s amazing. Homosexuality is known as “the English disease.” There are no words in Jewish that describe any sexual act–emmis–or parts, or lusts. Dig: “schmuck” is a German word. In Yiddish (this is the official Yiddish dictionary) “schmuck: a yard, a fool.” So dig what happens, a weird thing happens. The Jews take it humorously; make a colloquialism out of a literal word–and some putz who doesn’t understand what we’re talking about busts you for obscenity. Dig this. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Jewish judges, when it comes to obscenity cases, they’re never the dissent? They’re never swinging for the guy being not guilty. But Jewish attorneys defend alleged pornographers. Roth was Jewish. You should think about that. Why is that? Are Jews pornographers? Or is it that the Jew has no concept? To a Jew f-u-c-k and s-h-i-t have the same value on the dirty-word graph. A Jew has no concept that f-u-c-k is worth 90 points, and s-h-i-t, 10. And the reason for that is that–well, see, rabbis and priests both s-h-i-t, but only one f-u-c-ks. You see, in the Jewish culture, there’s no merit badge for not doing that. And Jewish attorneys better get hip to that. And since the leaders of my tribe, rabbis, are schtuppers, perhaps that’s why words come freer to me. Now, the reason, perhaps, for my irreverence is that I have no knowledge of the god, because the Jews lost their god. Really. Before I was born the god was going away. Because to have a god you have to know something about him, and as a child I didn’t speak the same language as the Jewish god. To have a god you have to love him and know about him as kids–early instruction–and I didn’t know what he looked like. Our god has no mother, no father, no manger in the five and ten, on cereal boxes and on television shows. The Jewish god—what’s his face? Moses? Ah, he’s a friend of god’s: “I dunno. Moses, he’s, I dunno, his uncle, I dunno.” He has no true identity. Is he a strong God? Are there little stories? Are there Bible tales about god, that one god, our faceless god? The Christian god, you’re lucky in that way, because you’ve got Mary, a mother, a father, a beginning, the five-and-ten little mangers–identity. Your god, the Christian god, is all over. He’s on rocks, he saves you, he’s dying on bank buildings—he’s been in three films. He’s on crucifixes all over. It’s a story you can follow. Constant identification. The Jewish god– where’s the Jewish god? He’s on a little box nailed to the doorjamb. In a mezuzah. There he is, in there. He’s standing on a slant, god. And all the Jews are looking at him, and kissing him on the way into the house: I told the super don’t paint god! “Hey, Super! C’mere. What the hell’s the matter with you? I told you twenty times, that’s god there. What’re you painting god for? My old lady

Background: The “Bad” Word kissed the doorbell three times this week. You paint here, here, but don’t paint there, alright? Never mind it’s dirty; we’ll take care of it. Alright. Wait a minute . . . Maybe he’s not in there anymore . . . maybe the Puerto Ricans stole him—they probably would, to make more garbage. That’s it . . . I dunno what to do . . . You wanna open it up?. . .Yeah? . . . We’ll pry it open, if he’s in there . . .Gevult! They stashed a joint!” Now there’s a curtain line for great Jewish theatre. This would be a capper on Broadway. The old Jewish couple, there they are, they open up the mezuzah, and the guy goes: “Gevult! They stashed a joint!” Boom! Curtain! That‘s vernacular for a marijuana cigarette. You’d make a bad vice officer, for Chrissake: “They what? They what? What?” “Ah, putzo, shut up! Just forget about it. Just get hot, and that’s it.” A mezuzah is a Jewish chapstick. That’s why they’re always kissing it when they go out. The Puerto Ricans, their dues–what’s their eccentricity? They love garbage, oh yeah. “They love garbage! Are you kidding? Puerto Ricans, they bring it from Puerto Rico! And they take the garbage and they have it on a string–they won’t let people throw it away. They put it on the street like flowers. Puerto Rican garbage. There it is. They disperse it. Ya think they throw it away? No, change it around, different neighborhoods. Nice garbage. Puerto Rico garbage. Roll in it, and love it, and hug it and kiss it.” Actually, the Collier brothers were Puerto Rican. The Puerto Ricans are bad, bad, bad. We were bad, once, too, the Jews. Bad Jews, once. Our bad label was that we were capable of screwing everyone. You know why Jews are the smartest people in the world? Cause everybody told them that, for years: “They’ll screw ya, you can’t trust ’em, they’ll screw everybody!” And the schmucks really believed it: “That’s right. We’re the smartest people– screw anybody! Goddamn right, we’re smart! We’ll screw everybody. Boy, we’ll screw them all. We’re so smart.” “Dave Brubeck–he gets ten grand a night! Isn’t that amazing?” “Jewish–they all do that, you know.” It’s all in the goyish mezuzah, the white plastic statue. Break the head off and you open it up and there it is. A shiksa is a goy. That’s right. That was the concept in the late thirties that was the Jewish phrase. It meant, literally, a Christian is a drunk. That was the concept of all Jews that I knew then, that Christians were drunks. And that Jewish mothers were the only mothers, and Christian mothers sold their children for bottles of whisky. And all their kids had grape jelly on their underwear and rotten teeth. They even had rotten teeth on their underwear. That was the badge of all Christians–they had rotten teeth. I’ll bet you that if I got a chance to listen at the Christian window I would have heard some “shiksa is a goy” in reverse. But I never got a chance to pass, cause you never catch them without the mask on. That’s weird. You never do catch the people– once Belli got caught with the mask off. That’s a drag. Melvin Belli. Yeah. Every once in a while, you know, if some guy’s whacking out his old lady, or just some dumb scene, he does get caught: like you drop peaches on the floor and you’re eating them and somebody comes in the room. Just that,

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Chapter Three kind of, caught with the mask off. Once in a while you hear, “You mockie bastard!” Or, “The goyim!” But just once in a while. You know, Ruby did it, and why he did it was because he was Jewish– and the villain was his grandmother. I really want to tell you that. I want to tell Christians that, you know. I can tell it to you because it’s all over now. I wouldn’t cop out when it was going on; but it is all over now. Why Ruby did it. You see, when I was a kid I had tremendous hostility for Christians my age. The reason I had the hostility is that I had no balls for fighting, and they could duke. So I disliked them for it, but I admired them for it–it was a tremendous ambivalence all the time: admiring somebody who could do that, you know, and then disliking them for it. Now the neighborhood I came from there were a lot of Jews, so there was no big problem with a balls-virility complex. But Ruby came from Texas. They’re really concerned with “bawls”–they got ninety-year-old men biting rattlesnakes’ heads off! And shooting guns! And a Jew in Texas is a tailor. So what went on in Ruby’s mind, I’m sure, is that: “Well, if I kill the guy that killed the president, the Christians’ll go: ‘Whew! What bawls he had, hey? We always thought the Jews were chicken shit, but look at that! See, a Jew at the end, saved everybody!’ ''And the Christians’ll kiss him and hug him and they’ll lift him on high. A JEWISH BILLY THE KID RODE OUT OFTHE WEST! But he didn’t know that was just a fantasy from his grandmother, the villain, telling him about the Christians who punch everybody. Yeah. Even the shot was Jewish–the way he held the gun. It was a dopey Jewish way. He probably went “Nach!”, too– that means “There!” in Jewish. Nach! Italians and Jews–I can report that culture best – they don’t hit their old ladies. They don’t punch them; but they’re pinchers and they grab their arms as though they won’t hurt them, and squeeze a little extra. But Anglo-Saxons are rifle people–they shoot their old ladies.

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Works Cited Banducci, Enrico. “the hungry i.” Los Angeles Times August 5, 1966. Benedictus, Leo. “Comedy Gold: Lenny Bruce.” http://www.theguardian. com/stage/2013/jun/21/lenny-bruce-performance-comedy-gold. Web. 3 July 2014. Bruce, Lenny. “Quotes.” https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61344 .Lenny_Bruce . Web. 3 July 2014. —. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5241370.stm. Web. 25 June 2014. —. “The Meaning of Obscenity.” http://www.liveleak.com/ view?i=002_1397261915. Web. 1 July 2014. Bush, Lawrence. “Shooting Down Lenny Bruce.” The Harvard Crimson December 4, 1974. Web. 13 May 2014. —. “O My America: Lenny Bruce and the Golden Age.” Jewish Currents Activist Politics and Art. Posted August 2, 2012. http://jewishcurrents.org/o-my-america-lenny-bruce-and-the-goldenage-11378. Web. 15 June 2014. Carlin, George. http://www.skoveronline.net/trialsoflennybruce/reviews. htm. Web. 1 July 2014. Clark, J. R., ed. Satire–That Blasted Art. New York: Perigee,1973. Cohen, John. “The Essential Lenny Bruce.” http://www.scribd.com/doc/ 174297487/John-Cohen-The-Essential-Lenny-Bruce. Web. 1 June 2014. Collins, Ronald K. L., and David M. Skover. The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, Inc. 2002. Print. Duschinsky, Robbie. “Rethinking the Profane.” The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Studies 4.3 (2010). http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com. Web. 15 June 2014. Feinberg, Leonard. The Satirist. Ames, Ia.: Iowa State UP, 1963. Fink, Ira. “Shooting Down Lenny Bruce.” Harvard Crimson December 4, 1974. Web. 15 June 2014. Garbus, Martin. “The People Against Lenny Bruce.” Ready for the Defense. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1971. Grohol, John. “Why Do We Swear?” http://psychcentral.com/blog/ archives/2009/03/30. Web. 8 August 2014. Highet, Gilbert. The Anatomy of Satire. Trenton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1962. Kernan, Alvin. The Plot of Satire. 1965.

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Lenny as the Long Ranger. “Thank you Mask Man.” http://www. imdb.com/title/tt0121802/. 30 June 2014. McManus, Edgar J., and Tara Helfman. Liberty and Union: A Constitutional History of the United States. New York: Routledge, 2014. Mullan, Jessica. “The Bit: History’s Most Influential Stand Up Comedians.” http://www.entertainmentrankings.com/articles.php?id=8 Web. 3 July 2014. PBS Radio. “My Comedy Hero.” http://www.pub.org/wnet/makeemlaugh/ episodes/my-comedian-hero/george-Carlin/88/. Web. 3 July 2014. Posted atmwiki. Celebrity News. “Lenny Bruce Drug Overdose Death, March 22, 2010.” http://wiki.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/society culture/celebrity-news/lenny bruce overdose dealth/. Web. 1 July 2014. Pryor, Richard. Jokes4us.com. Richard Pryor Jokes, http://www. jokes4us.com/peoplejokes/comedianjokes/richardpryorjokeshtml. Web. 3 July 2014. Restak, Richard. “Laughter and the Brain.” American Scholar Summer 2013. Rosen, Ralph M. “Efficacy and Meaning in Ancient and Modern Political Satire: Aristophanes, Lenny Bruce, and Jon Stewart.” Social Research 79. 1 (Spring 2012). Russell, John, and Ashley Brown, eds. Satire–A Critical Anthology. New York: World Publishing Company, 1967. Schauer, Frederick. “The Heroes of the First Amendment.” Michigan Law Review (May 2003). Shepherd, Sam. “The Life and Crimes of Lenny Bruce.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= T8R4fZU3UG8. Web. 3 July 2014. Tafoya, Eddie. The Legacy of the Wisecrack. Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press, 2009. Think.Exist.com. http://en.thinkexist.com/ Web. 23 June 2014. Tynan, Kenneth. “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.” New York: Simon & Schuster Fireside, 1963. Van Ellia, Mark D. Review of Film The Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt. Film and History 37 .1 (May 2007). Zoglin, Richard. Comedy at the Edge. New York: Bloomsbury, 2008.

PART II: USES OF POWER

PROPAGANDA PERSUASION EMPOWERMENT MEMORY SPIRITUALITY

CHAPTER FOUR CHIVALRY, MILITARISM, AND JOURNALISM MARK A. BERNHARDT

Patriarchy establishes a dichotomous relationship between men and women in which men are defined as powerful and women and children as powerless. At the most basic level of social organization, patriarchy classifies the husband/father as in authority over the women and children in the family unit. At a national level, men are assigned to positions of power (Walby 1-24). While patriarchy does imply that men have the right to treat women and children in any manner men want, the notion of chivalry, which also presumes male domination, implies that moral, civilized men will care for women and children and use their patriarchal power to protect them to preserve both family and nation (Hoganson 4445). In this way, men and nations are justified in defending their women and children against outside threats. If possessing the necessary power, civilized men or nations might also use chivalry to validate protecting women and children belonging to men who abuse them or to nations where widespread mistreatment takes place, with the lack of chivalry serving as an indicator that these other men and nations are uncivilized. Furthermore, chivalry justifies aiding weaker men or nations in defending their women and children against an unchivalrous, uncivilized third party (Rosenberg, Rescuing Women and Children 83-85). Thus at an international level, chivalry can be used to rationalize offensive wars as well as defensive wars. In the years leading up to the Spanish-American War and U.S. entrance into World War I, some American newspaper and newsmagazine publishers used the notion of chivalry to advocate U.S. involvement in both conflicts. Their papers and magazines reported the abuse of women and children, first in Cuba and later in Western Europe, and they asserted that the United States, as a civilized nation, had an obligation to protect them, calling on politicians to act as honorable men. Chivalry alone was hardly the reason why the United States entered either war. However,

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chivalry provided additional validation for intervening in the affairs of foreign nations, and not just for the politicians who responded, but also, and perhaps more importantly, for the general public that was reading the newspapers and newsmagazines. It made the wars seem noble, at times redefining other motives for fighting and even the nature of the war itself. Chivalry emerged again in the wake of events in 2001 as a means to make U.S. actions in Afghanistan seem that much nobler. Muslim women and children were oppressed. The United States could be their liberators. In the process, the people of the United States could feel even more justified in attacking a nation half a world away. When it came to the newspaper and newsmagazine reports on the abuse of women and children in Cuba, Western Europe, and Afghanistan, the printed word proved a powerful tool for vilifying the perpetrators. However, over the course of the nineteenth century journalism increasingly became a visual media, as publishers included illustrations and, by the twentieth century, photographs with articles to report the news (Carlebach, The Origins of Photojournalism 3). As will be demonstrated through the coverage of events in Cuba, Western Europe, and Afghanistan, pictures heightened the emotional impact of words to construct propaganda and, simultaneously, words made pictures powerful propaganda tools by providing context and explanation. Wilson Hicks developed the theoretical concept of the relationship between picture and text within news reporting. He argues that in journalism the picture, story, headline, and caption work together in making a meaningful piece of communication (Hicks 5, 18-19; Berger and Mohr 42, 89-92). Vision and language are intricately linked in our understanding of the world. We see the world and then use words to explain what we see (Berger 7, 9, 18; Sontag, On Photography 7). A picture, whether created by an artist or camera, can have more impact than words by capturing a specific moment in time because it freezes detail and allows the viewer to see a scene more fully. However, by stopping time pictures do not have “an interconnectedness.” They are single moments without continuity (Sontag, On Photography 17, 23; Berger and Mohr 8689). Pictures also take events out of context by simply showing how something looks without a reference to its meaning or an explanation of when and where that event took place. Thus, text is needed to give the image meaning by describing the relationship between ourselves, time, space, and the object or event that is pictured, which provides the picture with a practical use in journalism (Sontag, On Photography 23; Baxandall 1-11; Mitchell 43). This relationship is not one sided, though. While words can have meaning without a picture, having a picture adds to the meaning

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of the words. The picture enhances the ability of words to communicate by expanding on the narrative of a story (Hunter 1-2; Berger 28). Publishers originally used illustrations to provide a visual news component, eventually switching to photographs. Illustrations, the primary picture form used during the Spanish-American War, gave publishers much more flexibility for providing pictures with the news because anything could be drawn. Newspapers and newsmagazines included pictures that depicted exactly what was described in the articles, with illustrators drawing the pictures based on eyewitness accounts or even just their own imagination. As the technology for publishing photographs improved, publishers increasingly chose to print images that photographers took on the scene (Carlebach, The Origins of Photojournalism 3). A major reason why photographs replaced illustrations was timeliness. Woodcuts and steel engravings took a long time to make and by the time a picture was available the news could be outdated. The perfection of the halftone process by 1900 allowed pictures to be produced for publication much more quickly (Carlebach, American Photojournalism 29-30). However, with photography the pictorial element was not as closely connected to the story–photographs rarely captured the actual event described in the text. Publishers compensated for this limitation by expanding captions and creating sub-stories as a means of appending to photographs the extra explanation needed to establish the picture’s relevance to the story. Photographs also became an important component of journalism because they presented an image as if it were being seen with one’s own eyes, lending an air of authenticity and serving to offer proof of what was reported in the pages of newspapers and newsmagazines through visual corroboration. Since the ancient Greeks, Western thought has been influenced by the idea that knowledge is derived from eyesight; that we know what we can see because the world consists of objects defined through our eyes by their differences and similarities of appearance in space (Trachtenberg 17). The new perception of the visual that derived from photography, different from the empirical vision associated with art, was part of the cultural modernization in the nineteenth century connected to industrialization that emphasized the superiority of machines to the human body (Crary 9, 16). Essentially, the machine (the camera) was understood as superior to the eye, and the optical device and the observer became two distinct entities (Crary 30). Photography created a new method of presenting the news with its perceived ability to show “the truth” about what was in front of the camera lens at the time a picture was taken rather than by an imagined interpretation of an event by “eyewitness” artists after the fact or through a sensationalistic description

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written by an “eyewitness” reporter (Brennan and Hardt 18). And, in bringing it back to the relationship between picture and text, Susan Sontag asserts that a photograph’s “…meaning–and the viewer’s response– depends on how the picture is identified or misidentified; that is, on words” (Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others 29). Photography became a powerful propaganda tool by World War I because publishers could claim photographs provided concrete evidence of the suffering inflicted on women and children. Whether using illustrations or photographs in combination with their reports, newspaper and newsmagazine publishers vilified Spanish, German, and Afghan men as the perpetrators of inhumane acts against women and children, characterizing them as uncivilized. They claimed that the United States, as a chivalrous and civilized nation, needed to intervene. The American public and many politicians, outraged by the reports and images provided by the press, also adopted this rhetoric linking chivalry and civilization in perpetuating the calls for action, asserting that the nation was justified in taking the offensive in military conflicts for the purpose of defending women and children, which, in their minds, redefined what the wars were really about. The Spanish-American War and U.S. involvement in Cuba stemmed from Cuba’s 1895 revolution, caused by widespread discontent with Spanish rule (Tone 15-29; Mudridge 8). The Cuban Liberation Army fought a guerrilla-style campaign against the Spanish. Outnumbered 5 to 1 by a massive Spanish army sent to Cuba to suppress the rebellion and having limited access to guns and ammunition, the Cubans seemingly stood little chance of winning. Nevertheless, they managed to drag out the fighting for three years and nearly won because the Spanish army was poorly equipped and inadequately trained for fighting in the Cuban jungles and because diseases killed twenty percent of the Spanish soldiers (Tone 9-10, 97). However, before the Cubans could drive the Spanish from the island themselves, the United States intervened in 1898 and defeated Spain in a war that extended beyond Cuba. From the start, many Americans were sympathetic to the Cubans’ plight, including some newspaper publishers who began covering the revolution with diligence in an attempt to pressure the U.S. government to help liberate Cuba (Brown 3; Wilkerson 5-6). Americans generally despised Spain as one of the most despotic European monarchies and, as a Catholic nation, an enemy to Protestantism. The conquistador was a villain in the American imagination, having raped and plundered the lands of Latin America, which the United States had sought to protect from recolonization since the Monroe Doctrine was issued in 1823. Cuba was

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one of Spain’s last colonial possessions in the Americas and most Americans wanted to see Spain leave (O’Toole 59). While the general population in the United States favored granting Cuba independence after Spain was gone, some politicians had other ideas. Expansionists had advocated acquiring Cuba for more than one hundred years. Cuba’s agricultural wealth was enticing and the island was ideally located for a naval base that could guard the southern Atlantic coast and the mouth to the Mississippi River (Rosenfeld 16; Perez, Cuba Between Two Empires 51, 59). While U.S. presidents since Thomas Jefferson repeatedly assured Spain that the United States would respect Spanish sovereignty in Cuba, the latest Cuban rebellion suggested that Spain might not be able to control the island much longer (Perez, Cuba Between Two Empires 61). President Grover Cleveland encouraged Spain to implement reforms to appease the Cubans as a way to end the rebellion and keep the colony, and initially President William McKinley did the same (Benjamin 35). However, facing pressure to act after the U.S.S. Maine sank in Havana harbor, which many claimed was the result of a Spanish attack, and concerned that Cuba actually would win its independence and destabilize the balance of power in the Caribbean, McKinley asked Congress to declare war on Spain in 1898. In light of the ongoing revolution, the press and politicians partly framed the U.S. declaration of war as a humanitarian effort to free Cuba from Spanish rule. In reality, McKinley had intended to make Cuba a U.S. possession, and though Congress rejected McKinley’s plan and granted Cuba its independence, the U.S. military occupied Cuba until 1902 and the Platt Amendment, which Congress forced the Cubans to adopt in their nation’s constitution, gave the U.S. government authorization to intervene in Cuban affairs if the new government compromised U.S. interests on the island. Congress used the Platt Amendment to justify military occupations from 1906 to 1909 and from 1917 to 1923 (Perez, Cuba Between Two Empires 180-87; Benjamin 63-64, 76). Furthermore, the war resulted in the acquisition of other territories that came to constitute an American colonial empire. In this way, assertions that the war with Spain was a humanitarian mission cloaked American imperial ambitions. For nearly three years prior to the United States’ declaration of war, newspaper publishers reported on the revolution ravaging the island. These reports generally favored the Cubans because Cuban exiles and refugees in the United States supplied American publishers with information about the revolution, which publishers often reprinted without question, and because Spanish officials in Cuba refused to provide information to American

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reporters, who consequently turned to the Cuban rebels for stories (Milton 71, 95; Wilkerson 9-13; Brown 8; Proctor 103). From the information received, American publishers emphasized two main themes in discussing the revolution. The first was hostility toward European colonization in the Western Hemisphere. The press criticized the general manner in which Spain administered its colony and defended actions by Americans, specifically arms smuggling, to help liberate Cuba (Tone 51). The second was the Spanish abuse of women and children, which then was linked to the need to end colonization. The prointerventionist press used the suffering inflicted on women and children to argue that Spain was an uncivilized nation unworthy of ruling Cuba in the first instance of Americans employing the defense of women and children as pretext for armed intervention abroad (Perez, Cuba in the American Imagination 71). The New York World asked its readers, “If your neighbor across the street pens up his children in a stockade to starve them to death varying his diabolism by slashing and shooting women and old men in his door-yard, is it ‘behaving like a man’ to shut your door and turn your back?”1 Readers jumped into action, sending numerous petitions to politicians demanding something be done (McCartney 90-91). Eventually responding to the press reports and the public’s petitions, politicians called for action. Delaware senator George Gray wrote, “I liken the action which is proposed to be taken…to that of a man in a civilized community who is a law-abiding citizen, who has next door to him a villainous and cruel neighbor who every day chokes his wife and starves and maltreats his children…until at last he can bear it no longer, and…he enters the residence of his neighbor, takes him by the throat, and says, ‘Take your hand off that woman and let these children go’….”2 Such rhetoric established a humanitarian motive for intervention. The coverage of how women and children were mistreated by Spain was designed to appeal to the honor and chivalry of male politicians and the nation (Hoganson 62). A steady stream of atrocity reports came out of Cuba as Spanish forces ravaged the island, destroying towns, farms, and livestock. The biggest story was the decision by Spanish officials to relocate more than 500,000 Cuban civilians to regions of the island controlled by the Spanish military. Most ended up confined to camps on the outskirts of the major urban centers with inadequate housing, food, sanitation, and health care (Pomakoy 38; Smith 19; Offner 13; Perez, Cuba Between Two Empires 51, 55-56). This relocation caused a famine and the spread of disease that killed primarily the elderly, women, and children. It is estimated that as many as 170,000 Cubans died as a result–

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one-tenth of the total Cuban population. The crisis was actually exacerbated by the Cuban Liberation Army’s attempt to force Spanish concessions by destroying sugar cane, tobacco, and food supplies (Tone 8, 11, 60-61, 200-1). Clara Barton wrote about the relief work that the Red Cross was doing in Cuba in 1897 to combat the famine: The crowds . . . clustered about the door–the streets far back filled with half-clad, eager masses of humanity, waiting, watching, for the little packages, for the morsel of food that was to interpose between them and the death that threatened them. The first station had issued one thousand tickets; the second, thirteen hundred; the third, eighteen hundred; and the largest, twenty-two hundred. About twelve thousand persons received rations that day. A visit to [Los Fosos] revealed what human wretchedness . . . could mean. On these dark, bare, wet, filthy floors, a hundred feet unbroken by partition, with few cots or other provisions for sleeping, were huddled from six to eight hundred human beings, largely women and children, although many feeble men and boys were among them. Very few could walk; a piece of blanket or a shawl; often no dress underneath; no mattress. Sometimes a few rags were visible. The “rations” (for this was a municipal arrangement) had lately been discontinued and only the charitable gifts of the city people sustained it. American food had not yet entered. A few physicians looked in on them, but there were no medicines; and, to add to my terror, I felt these long unbroken floors trembling and yielding beneath the ever increasing weight put upon them. (Barton 554)

Humanitarians, like Barton, pushed for U.S. action to alleviate the suffering, and the pro-interventionist papers gave them a platform by reporting on the tragic events taking place in Cuba (Wilkerson 31; Tone 218-19). An article in the Baltimore Morning Herald described the horror: “Hollowed-eyed mothers, with nursing babies in their arms, sit in the shadow of doorways and helplessly watch the death-struggles of their darlings, hunger having dried up in the maternal breast the fountains of nourishment. Children unable to comprehend anything except the craving of the stomach, cry appealingly for bread.”3 Charity drives in the United States collected more than 300,000 dollars in donations for the Cuban refugees, though getting food to them proved difficult because of Cuba’s primitive transportation infrastructure (Pomakoy 48, 57). Another way in which the press vilified the Spanish was through reports of both physical and sexual abuse directed against women. For example, the pro-Cuban press published the story of an eighteen-year-old Cuban woman, Evangelina Cisneros, who had been arrested for trying to

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kill a Spanish colonel who attempted to rape her, claiming she was to be imprisoned for twenty years of hard labor on the coast of West Africa (Creelman 179). A campaign began in the United States, with thousand signing petitions calling for Cisneros’s release which were supposed to be sent to the Queen of Spain herself (Swanberg 121). In another case, when Spanish officials allegedly strip-searched three Cuban women on an American vessel before it left Cuba for the United States, jingoes jumped on the act as an insult to American men’s ability to protect the honor of women. U.S. women expressed empathy for their “Cuban sisters” and questioned the honor and chivalry of U.S. leaders (Banta 567; Hoganson 46, 54, 56-58, 61-62). Politicians also responded, such as Illinois senator William Mason, who lamented the “…innocent girls ravished and murdered by the Spanish soldiery….” in calling for action against Spain.4 Pictures were a particularly important part of the propaganda used to advocate for intervention in Cuba. They portrayed the suffering to emphasize what was being reported. Most pictures published in the press were illustrations, not photographs, and thus did not provide real documentation of actual events in depicting dramatic scenes designed to play on the public’s emotions. There were several different forms the pictures took to emphasize Spanish mistreatment of women and children. One form showed how the killing of male Cuban insurgents affected women and children. In an illustration marked “CUBAN INSURGENT SHOT DEAD NEAR HIS OWN HOME,” the viewer sees a Spanish officer taking statements from women and children at the scene while two soldiers stand next to the body. A woman with two children and another man look on (Figure 4-1).5 One of the women and some of the children could be the family of the man killed, vilifying Spain for creating widows and orphans. At the very least these women and children have been exposed to a horrific scene of brutality resulting from the war raging around them, something they should not have to witness. A second picture form demonstrated Spanish mistreatment of women and children by showing acts of violence committed directly against them (Hoganson 11, 51). An example of this is an illustration of Spanish soldiers killing a woman and her baby (Figure 4-2).6 Finally, pictures showed the indirect consequences the war had on women and children. Pictures of starving Cubans emphasized the suffering on the island. One such illustration shows two men from the United States distributing food to a crowd (Figure 4-3). The Cuban men and women, dressed in tattered clothes, are pushing and grasping for the food.7 A series of photographs from the newsmagazine Leslie’s Weekly showed close-up images of the state the Cuban people were in, revealing what Clara Barton

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had witnessed during her time there the year before. One of the photographs shows the bony bodies of children with bloated stomachs (Figure 4-4).8 All of these images promoted the need for U.S. intervention through the theme of chivalry. Cuban women and children needed protecting and U.S. politicians should do their duty as men and save them from this abuse. Furthermore, for the general public, all of these images paint the Spanish as brutal, inhuman, and uncivilized. This makes them easier to hate and war a more justifiable, acceptable option. Through the chivalric appeals to protect Cuban women and pictures that depicted their abuse and suffering, real Cuban women became symbolic of Cuba itself and led to the gendering of Cuba as female and the United States as male. Cuba was often depicted in drawings as a woman in chains or, later, in broken chains, while the United States was embodied in the character of Uncle Sam (Figure 4-5) (Perez, Cuba in the American Imagination 71).9 This gendering allowed for the construction of a chivalric rescue paradigm. As Nebraska senator John Thurston described it, I can sit in my comfortable parlor, with my loved ones gathered about me, and through my plate glass window see a fiend outraging a helpless woman nearby, and I can legally say, “This is no affair of mine – it is not happening on my premises;” and I can turn away…. But if I do I am a coward…. And yet I cannot…save the woman without the exercise of force. We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war. (New York Times)10

Within this rescue paradigm a hierarchical relationship between the United States and Cuba emerged. By viewing this relationship as a chivalric rescue operation, the implication was that the maidenly Cubans would then submit to U.S. governance as suggested by the submission of heroines to their rescuers in chivalric novels. Thus the rescue paradigm allowed the United States to use humanitarianism to redefine its own imperialist motives for acting against Spain (Banta 567; Hoganson 46, 54, 56-58, 61-62). In the context of the rescue paradigm, the Spanish-American War was not a self-serving act of aggression on the part of the United States in order to establish a colonial empire for itself, but is rather redefined as an act of peace, serving the even grander purpose of protecting civilization from the barbarism Spain represented (Wilkerson i; Brown 81). The United States identified itself as civilized and Spain as uncivilized. Being civilized defined the ideologies that structure the United States’ way of life, in this case freedom and democracy, as the foundation upon which civilization is

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built. Spain stood against freedom and democracy; therefore, the United States saw it as necessary to spread these ideologies, and thus civilization, to Cuba to drive out Spain because uncivilized people are a general threat to civilization and therefore must be defeated to preserve civilization–it thus becomes a form of self-defense for the United States which also helps protect other people, like the Cubans, who cannot defend themselves from the uncivilized. Protecting people like the Cubans by liberating them from Spain as a form of defending and spreading civilization then connected to the imperialist ideology of Manifest Destiny, which advocated expansionism, with the United States filling the void left by Spain’s removal from Cuba. Because imperialism is now defined as an act of defending and spreading civilization, the soldier, who carries out U.S. imperialism by fighting under the banners of “self-defense” and “protecting the weak,” is also an agent of civilization. Furthermore, because the purpose of spreading civilization is to stop the uncivilized from threatening civilization and the weak, the soldier is no longer an agent of war but rather an agent of peace who sustains peace through this spreading of civilization (O’Toole 91, 196; Wexler 20, 22, 32-33; Kaplan 25). Spain demonstrated its uncivilized nature through the unchivalrous way it treated women and children. Therefore, it became the target of the United States, which sought to spread civilization to Cuba by expelling Spain through war in order to create peace. Theodore Roosevelt was one such person at the time who, for all his promotion of war as a masculine act of self-assertion and peace as a feminine act of passivity, saw war as the path to peace and a more civilized world. He asserted in his book, Expansion and Peace, that peace can be imposed on the “barbarian races of the world only by the armed force of a superior race.” Thus, “a war against savages is inherently the most righteous of wars, because it brings ‘peace by the sword.’ The necessity of such wars arises from the racial character of the contending parties, and the triumph of civilization is always to be seen as both a moral and a secular bettering of the world” (Slotkin 80-81, 52). It was the duty of the United States to step in and protect Cuba so that the overall civility of the world would improve. Historian Louis Perez notes that “Americans believed that the exercise of power was less a matter of self-interest than an act for the greater good of others, abstractly for humanity, in behalf of those ideals that Americans celebrated most in themselves. They chose to depict their purpose abroad…as self-interest represented as selfless intent” (Perez, Cuba in the American Imagination 258). Helping to define American self-interest as selfless intent, the press affirmed the perceived nobility of the U.S. cause

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with pictures of Cubans cheering their liberators, appearing grateful for what Americans had done for them, though Americans tended to overemphasize the role the United States played in liberating Cuba and downplay what the Cubans had done for themselves (Perez, Cuba in the American Imagination 182-83). An illustration appeared in the New York World showing a group of Cuban exiles and refugees in Key West who had volunteered to guide U.S. troops when they landed in Cuba enthusiastically waving their hats and U.S. flags at the thought that their home would be free from Spanish colonial rule.11 The appreciation and gratefulness of the Cuban women specifically is clearly expressed in an illustration that shows a woman in a ragged dress and children who appear half-starved, cheering as U.S. soldiers march by, and one of the soldiers waves back (Figure 4-6).12 Essayist A.D. Hall captured the sentiment of the nation, writing: If ever there was a war that was entered into purely from motives of humanity and with no thought whatever of conquest, it is this one. The entire people of the United States were agreed that their purpose was a holy one…. War is justifiable, when waged, as the present one unquestioningly is, for purely unselfish motives, simply from a determination to rescue a people whose sufferings had become unbearable to them and to the lookers-on. The United States, by its actions, has set a lesson for the rest of the world, which the latter will not be slow to learn and for which future generations will bless the name America. (Hall 170)

The United States had done its chivalric duty and defended Cuban women, and, in the minds of many Americans, made the world a more civilized place in the process. Sixteen years after the Spanish-American War ended, the United States government had to decide whether to involve itself in the Great War that broke out in Europe. In this case, the United States had no direct imperial ambitions. Rather, President Woodrow Wilson had a vision for reshaping international relations and ultimately used the defense of civilization argument to justify going to war and advocating for the implementation of his vision. This time, Germany was portrayed as the uncivilized nation posing a threat to the civilized world. Prior to the war, the United States had already come to see Germany as a threat for a number of reasons, including the perceived authoritarianism of the German government, their militarism (which in reality was no worse than that of many other European nations), and their aggressive attempts at colonization that at times threatened U.S. interests. After the war began, Germany came into conflict with the United States over the use of submarine warfare to cut off

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U.S. trade to England and, in a desperate gambit, the German government promised to return the southwestern United States to Mexico if Mexico would attack the United States in the event the United States declared war on Germany (Hunt 133; Knock 34; Schieber 56-66). With animosity growing between the two nations, anti-German propaganda found an audience in the United States and helped sway the public to support entering the war. The U.S. press most easily capitalized on the alleged German mistreatment of Belgian and French civilians, and of women and children in particular, with photographs offered as proof, to depict Germans as savages. Following the United States’ entry into the war in 1917, the U.S. government used such atrocity reports to characterize Germans as barbarians raping Europe as part of the effort to win and sustain public support for the American military effort (Brewer 47). World War I began in July 1914. Similar to the U.S. response to the 1895 Cuban Revolution, for three years the United States watched the situation and did not involve itself directly. Most Americans opposed the United States joining the fray and President Wilson vowed the nation would remain neutral. He asked the press not to stir up the public’s emotions regarding the war, perhaps because he specifically did not want publishers engaging in a propaganda campaign to encourage war as had been done between 1895 and 1898 (Knoll 32; Brewer 49; Zuckerman 64). While publishers at first obliged, as the war went on, reports and images of suffering women and children in Belgium and France became increasingly difficult to ignore. Over time, they persuaded newspaper readers to hate Germany and helped win support for U.S. intervention to protect these innocent victims of war, creating a chivalric rescue paradigm and tying other motives for entering the war to this humanitarian mission. In August 1914, one million German soldiers swept through Belgium on their way to France. German military officials hoped to defeat France quickly to secure Germany’s western border before Russia could mobilize and attack from the east. Going through Belgium rather than attacking France’s fortified border with Germany, however, blatantly violated an 1839 treaty that Belgium would retain permanent neutrality to prevent nations from using the small country as a staging ground for launching attacks on others (Horne and Kramer 9; Zuckerman 41-42). German military officials believed they would face little resistance from the Belgians and attempted to convince the Belgian government to simply allow the German forces to pass through. Instead, the Belgian military fought the invaders. Consequently, German officials began killing Belgian soldiers and civilians alike for engaging in combat as the Germans battled their way westward, claiming Belgian resistance was an official act of war

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(Horne and Kramer 10-23; Zuckerman 22). Over the course of the invasion the German military killed an estimated 5,521 Belgian civilians (Horne and Kramer 74). There were also widespread allegations of rape, a common occurrence in warzones, with the invaders often targeting women who might be aiding or sympathetic to the insurgency (Vickers 21; Horne and Kramer 196-204). Killing and raping women and children in a neutral nation lent itself to anti-German propaganda. By the end of August, German soldiers had entered France, this time in a legitimate invasion, and killed another 906 civilians–far fewer than in Belgium because many had the opportunity to flee before the Germans arrived–and raped an unknown number of women (Horne and Kramer 74, 180-83). Even though there is documentation that such violence was committed by the soldiers of every nation on every front during the war, the Germans came to be most associated with killing civilians and raping women through propaganda (Horne and Kramer 78-85). Both Belgium and France released reports detailing the actual and alleged atrocities committed by the Germans. The Belgian and French governments first used the reports for propaganda purposes in Great Britain to draw the British into the war. Great Britain then helped spread the propaganda to the United States (Zuckerman 71; Horne and Kramer 229-37; Zacharasiewicz 81; Knock 60). Great Britain largely controlled the propaganda that reached the United States almost from the war’s beginning. The British military cut the telegraph cable between the United States and Germany, which made the United States dependent on British sources for war news, and readily supplied the mainstream press with biased war information to disseminate to the American public (Brewer 51; Horne and Kramer 177-78). The propaganda concerning atrocities in Belgium and France during World War I was very similar to the types of reports from Cuba in the 1890s that the press had received and used to try to spur U.S. involvement there (Read 3). It included accounts of children having their hands chopped off, women having their bodies mutilated in a variety of ways, the execution of priests and other religious personnel, and crucifixions the Germans performed on prisoners of war.13 Just as was the case with Cuba, such accounts often could not be verified, primarily because few American officials and reporters had access to the war zone and in part because some were exaggerated or untrue (Horne and Kramer 201-4). At times, U.S. papers questioned the validity of these reports and published counterclaims by the Germans that Belgian and French civilians were engaging in combat and committing atrocities against them–mutilating and killing the wounded (Zuckerman 23).14 The San Francisco Chronicle

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noted that people should be skeptical of the Belgian and French claims because invading armies are always accused of atrocities and specifically blamed the British for exaggerating Belgian atrocity claims.15 Nevertheless, despite the warnings that their readers should be skeptical, U.S. papers continued to print stories of German atrocities that did not always seem credible. Most accounts concerning the suffering of the civilian population in Belgium and France were credible, however, such as the shortage of food caused by the invasion, the destruction of homes in bombing raids, and the flood of refugees trying to flee the fighting (Zuckerman 80-81).16 The San Francisco Examiner reported a zeppelin attack, describing the terror experienced by the men, women, and children running through the streets in their night clothes hoping to find safety. The bombs killed several women in their homes.17 The language in some reports portrayed the Germans as ruthlessly making war on the innocent: “…gigantic shells have exploded in the streets of peaceful cities, bombs have been dropped out of the dark skies upon the cradles of sleeping children…all these things are now shocking the soul of humanity; and with these direful things, starvation begins to stalk through Europe…” (Begbie 745-46). The plight of refugees was another major topic. The San Francisco Examiner published a statement from a Mrs. Herman H. Harjes, the wife of a Paris banker, who was working with American women to provide aid to the refugees, which described the situation at a railroad station: The station presented the aspect of a shambles. It was the saddest sight I ever saw. It is impossible to believe the tortures and cruelties the poor unfortunates had undergone. I saw many boys with both their hands cut off so that it was impossible for them to carry a gun. Everywhere there was filth and utter desolation. The helpless little babies, lying on the cold, wet cement floor and crying for proper nourishment, was enough to bring tears to any mother’s eyes. Mothers were vainly besieging the authorities for milk or soup. A mother with twelve children said: “What is to become of us? It seems impossible to suffer more. I saw my husband bound to a lamppost. He was gagged and being tortured by bayonets. When I tried to intercede on his behalf I was knocked senseless with a rifle. I never saw him again.”

These types of reports characterized Germany as an unchivalrous and uncivilized nation. They helped establish the rescue paradigm, with Belgian and French women in need of defense. Photographs offered more concrete proof of civilian suffering to supplement published reports. However, photographs were limited in what they could document. For example, murders and rapes could not be

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verified with photographic evidence as photographers were not at the scene to take pictures. Comparatively, property damage could be documented easily and provided dramatic images of the widespread destruction caused by the German invasion. Many pictures appeared in the U.S. press showing towns destroyed in Belgium and France. Destroyed homes in particular suggested the destruction of the cornerstone of civilization–the family–through the suffering it inflicted, particularly on women and children (Figure 4-7) (Ross 46-47; Randall 56; Gregory 30; Vickers 25). Another easily documented consequence of war was the suffering of refugees – mostly women and children (Figure 4-8).18 Such photographs inspired Americans to send aid to Belgium and France. Many donated to charities.19 Some advocated bringing orphans to the United States for adoption.20 Herbert Hoover led the effort to get food to Belgium and U.S. papers included pictures of Americans providing rations to the starving women and children (Figure 4-9) (Harries and Harries 35-36).21 While most publishers were not yet using images of starving women and children to demand that the United States intervene militarily in Belgium and France as it had in Cuba, these photographs, like the published reports, helped construct an image of Germans as barbaric and inhuman that eventually helped sway public opinion in favor of U.S. intervention (Zacharasiewicz 81-82). Growing evidence that Germany had been planning for war for a long time and the contempt Germany showed for international law by overrunning a neutral nation made it easy for Americans to view Germans as villainous, a marked shift from the positive view most Americans had had of Germany in the nineteenth century (Zuckerman 39; Zacharasiewicz 68-72; Jacobson 159, 192; Schieber 50). Henry James described an encounter he had with a woman fleeing war-torn Belgium that suggests the feeling in the United States toward Germany for inflicting suffering on its women and children: The note . . . was that of a young mother carrying her small child and surrounded by those who bore her as they went together. The resonance. . . of her sobbing. . . was the voice itself of history. . . . Months have elapsed, and from having been then one of a few hundred she is now one of scores and scores of thousands; yet her cry is still in my ears. . . .” (James 168)

As a result, from 1914 to 1918 the savage Spaniard of 1898 was replaced in the United States’ collective imagination by the savage German. Munroe Smith, writing for North American Review commented,

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The German invasion came to be known as “the rape of Belgium” in the United States, directly correlating German military actions with the violent sexual violation of women. Again, the perception of Germans was that they were inhuman and uncivilized. Commentator Percy Alden wrote, Americans find it almost impossible to believe that some of the same race whom they have known and admired for many years can have so changed in character and become so brutal and ruthless in the execution of war measures. They have finally come to the conclusion that Germany is working for an absolutely different and antagonistic ideal of civilization… (Alden 482)

Like Spain, Germany is seen as posing a threat to the civilized world. President Wilson preferred to let Great Britain and France act as the defenders of civilization. With time, however, it became harder to justify remaining neutral. Between 1914 and 1917 a growing minority of war supporters argued that the United States needed to intervene in Belgium and France as it had in Cuba to defend the helpless women and children and save them from the misery inflicted on them (Boutroux 396). Using similar rhetoric as that employed regarding Cuba years earlier, the New York World pleaded for the U.S. government to act chivalrously: “But what grips the heart of our American manhood is the suffering of the unprotected women and children – their towns and villages ravaged by war; their homes blazing behind them; fleeing, they know not where; driven out by the invader; the fatherless children, the wife with perhaps her husband shot before her eyes.”22 By linking intervention to American manhood, like Cuba a generation before, Belgium, and France as well became gendered as female in their need for protection by the United States, gendered as male (Banta 569). This was reflected in political cartoons in which Europe was portrayed as a woman at the mercy of Germany (Figure 4-10) and the United States was portrayed as Uncle Sam coming to her rescue (Figure 411).23 Germany tried to launch its own propaganda campaign against Great Britain but targeted German-American and African-American communities, which created the perception that Germany was trying to initiate civil unrest in the United States (Brewer 51). Great Britain was also far more

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successful than Germany in the propaganda war because Britain seemed more believable than Germany in portraying Germany as the war’s villain. With German troops occupying large areas of France, Belgium, and Russia and the Allies occupying almost no German land, it took little convincing for people in the United States to believe that Germany was the aggressor committing atrocities, leaving mutilated, amputated, and dismembered victims “in penalty for their defense of their soil against the horde” of Germans sweeping across Europe (Demm 181; James 166; Harvey 825). Germany, comparatively, was ineffective in capitalizing on the fact that the British naval blockade was starving German women and children. Many in the United States readily believed that morality was on the side of the British and French, and once czarist Russia dropped out of the fight from the Allied side in 1917, the war was easily framed in a democracy versus autocracy dichotomy, making the Allied side that much more appealing to the United States (Demm 183; Flanagan 130; Ratcliffe 143). In 1917, the United States made the commitment to enter the war. Just as with the Spanish-American War, defending women and children was not the sole or even primary reason for the United States going to war. President Wilson was swayed by the close economic ties the United States maintained with the Allies through trade and loans, the German decision to renew unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, the German plotting with Mexico to strip the United States of territory, and his personal desire to reshape international relations (later outlined in his Fourteen Points) through the principles of democracy, self-determination, anti-militarism, and capitalism (Brewer 50). While there were numerous motives for declaring war on Germany, the press still emphasized defending women and children as a major war objective that highlighted the nobility of the U.S. cause, and the Committee on Public Information, established by Wilson in part to control war propaganda in the United States and “sell” the war to the American public, followed suit (War and the Health of the State 53, Brewer 56). As was the case with the Spanish-American War, creating a chivalric rescue paradigm allowed the United States to redefine its other selfserving motives for fighting Germany and also suggested that Europe would submit to Wilson’s designs for it. U.S. involvement in World War I was characterized as an act of peace, with the intent to implement the ideologies embraced by Wilson in his Fourteen Points, which he believed would end war in the future, for the purpose of protecting civilization from the barbarism Germany represented. The United States sought to expel Germany from Western Europe through war in order to create peace, and permanent peace at that, and preserve civilization. Thus war again became

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a form of self-defense for the United States who also helped protect other people, like the Belgians and French, who could not defend themselves from the uncivilized Germans. And because the purpose of spreading civilization was to stop the uncivilized from threatening civilization and the weak, the soldier was no longer an agent of war but rather an agent of peace who sustained peace through this spreading of civilization. The press published many pictures from Europe emphasizing U.S. chivalry by portraying American soldiers coming to the rescue of the women and children of Europe.24 Flag-waving crowds met the soldiers on their arrival in England and France.25 Photographs showed the women and children that the U.S. was fighting to “save” from the Germans. A picture from London shows a U.S. soldier shaking the hand of a little girl as he marches by. A woman in Paris is pictured giving General Pershing a rose. Another U.S. soldier is seen shaking the hand of a little girl in Paris (Figure 4-12). A photograph shows French children cheering and giving flowers to U.S. soldiers as they enter a French village (Figure 4-13). And, finally, French women throw roses to U.S. soldiers on July 4 (Figure 414).26 It was reported that U.S. soldiers loved playing with the French children and that “bourgeois housewives have formed associations for the entertainment of our men and have thrown their houses open to them…” (Kaufman 676). Once again, the United States had protected civilization through its chivalry. Finally, after terrorists carried out coordinated attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government made the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, accusing the Afghan government, run by Islamic fundamentalist members of the Taliban movement, of providing a safe haven for the terrorist organization that planned the attacks. The terrorists were members of Al Qaeda, an extremist Islamic organization led by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national who had worked with the United States and Pakistan to fund and train volunteers who fought to help liberate Afghanistan from occupation by the Soviet Union (1979-1989). After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, bin Laden turned against the United States because the U.S. military stationed troops in Saudi Arabia indefinitely and, through Al Qaeda, orchestrated a series of attacks against U.S. military and diplomatic targets in the Middle East and Africa. Eventually, Al Qaeda struck the United States within its own borders. Nineteen men hijacked four American airliners, intentionally crashing three of them into the two World Trade Center buildings in New York City and the Pentagon building outside of Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 Americans (Brewer 235). In response, Congress, at President George W. Bush’s behest, declared war on Afghanistan and the United States military

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launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” in October to capture Osama bin Laden, with support from Britain, Russia, Germany, and France (Brewer 238). To many Americans, revenge was justification enough for the war. However, U.S. politicians, and President Bush especially, defined the war as an act to defend civilization, going beyond retaliation for killing Americans. Al Qaeda and the Taliban were uncivilized and threatened the safety and security of the United States and all other nations deemed civilized. In offering specific proof that the Taliban and the terrorists they protected were uncivilized, Bush and the U.S. press included their unchivalrous treatment of women. As with U.S. intervention in Cuba and Western Europe, the claim that the United States was coming to the defense of women and children helped provide additional justification for going to war. A difference in the way the defense of women and children argument came to be used in vilifying the Taliban compared to Spain and Germany is that organizations not connected with a particular side in a military conflict initially exposed the widespread abuse taking place and the mainstream press in the United States reported on it extensively only after the U.S. government indicated a desire to go to war. Essentially, the mainstream press was a follower in constructing this image of the Taliban rather than a leader as had been the case with Spain and Germany. During the 1990s, feminist organizations had been working to raise awareness of gender oppression in Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power.27 There was an array of ways in which Afghan women were oppressed, which included being denied access to education, economic opportunities, and political freedom (Collett 323; Rosenberg, Rescuing Women and Children 84, 88). However, it was the burqa that came to represent this oppression for many in the United States, with images of women covered from head to toe disseminated widely in U.S. media after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Such imagery helped define Afghan women as passive victims who needed to be liberated from the unchivalrous, uncivilized men of Afghanistan by the chivalrous and civilized men of the United States, represented by government officials and military personnel (Rosenberg, Rescuing Women and Children 84-85). These images also served to gender Afghanistan as female in the context of the chivalric rescue operation. The San Francisco Chronicle correlated the liberation of women from covering with the ability of Afghanistan to progress as a nation, which emphasized the importance of their freedom and the nobility of the U.S. cause: “As women emerge from the shadows, so will Afghanistan.”28 Ironically, Osama bin Laden claimed that such policies as

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those implemented by the Taliban regime were designed to protect Afghan women from the type of oppression faced by Western women (Rosenberg, Rescuing Women and Children 86). President George W. Bush expressed his opinion on the treatment of Afghan women and children in chivalric terms to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, simultaneously establishing a rescue paradigm, identifying the ideologies that structure the American way of life as superior to that of the Taliban’s ideological worldview, and linking chivalry to the need to defend civilization from people deemed barbarians: America is beginning to realize that the dreams of the terrorists and the Taliban were a waking nightmare for Afghan women and their children. The Taliban murdered teenagers for laughing in the presence of soldiers. They jailed children as young as 10 years old, and tortured them for supposed crimes of their parents. Afghan women were banned from speaking, or laughing loudly. They were banned from riding bicycles or attending school. They were denied basic health care, and were killed on suspicion of adultery. In Afghanistan, America not only fights for our security, but we fight for values we hold dear. We strongly reject the Taliban way. We strongly reject their brutality toward women and children. They not only violate basic human rights, they are barbaric in their indefensible meting of justice. It is wrong. Their attitude is wrong for any culture. Their attitude is wrong for any religion. (29)

Bush identified freedom, democracy, and modernity as the American values the United States was taking to the rest of the world through the liberation of “women of cover” (Oliver 55). Through his rhetoric, he defined Muslim societies in general as anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and anti-modern, with Muslim men portrayed as dangerous terrorists (Zine 27). The need to act against the Taliban’s barbarism was made clear in an earlier speech on September 20, 2001, to Congress in which President Bush said of the fight that the United States found itself in, “This is not…just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight.”30 Civilization was at risk if the United States did not do something to protect it, just as U.S. politicians claimed had been the case in 1898 and 1917. This type of rhetoric divided the world into two spheres: the “civilized” world fighting for “good” and the “uncivilized” world of terrorists and their sympathizers committing acts of “evil” (Bowden 178). In support of this rhetoric and the rescue paradigm, the press published exposés describing the horrendous treatment endured by Afghan women and children, providing pictures as proof of the abuse Afghan men were accused of committing. Women did not have the freedom to marry.

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Afghan girls were either sold into marriages or kidnapped and forced to wed.31 Women and girls risked death for seeking an education. Furthermore, the Taliban insisted they be under male supervision at all times and cover their bodies completely.32 As Newsweek described it, “Women became virtual prisoners of their husbands’ and fathers’ homes, unable to work or study.”33 Even seemingly harmless activities, like flying kites or dancing at weddings, had been criminalized.34 After the war began, women and children suffered additional hardships. Many fled their homes to escape the fighting, facing famine and threats to their safety as refugees.35 The sympathy such reports generated helped win public approval for the War on Terror (Oliver 34-35). With these reports the U.S. press included photographs that documented the ill-treatment of women and children by Afghan men. Images of women in burqas, forced to cover their entire bodies in order to comply with fundamentalist religious laws, demonstrated the patriarchal nature of Afghan society and the control men had over women. Some pictures showed men beating women for violating the regulations that male leaders in Afghanistan placed on women. The mistreatment of children was documented in photographs of young boys serving in the military rather than engaging in traditional childhood activities and of young girls previously prevented from going to school, exhibiting how basic rights had been denied them.36 The portrayal of children as having their childhood innocence stolen or interrupted, unable to participate in the kinds of activities Westerners associate with childhood, further vilified the Taliban (Scott 101-2). Together, the treatment of women and children and the terrorist attacks helped demonstrate that the men of Afghanistan were uncivilized. The United States needed to intervene to liberate them and stop the Islamic fundamentalists from threatening the civilized world (Hunt 56). As the United States was in the process of invading Afghanistan, Laura Bush reiterated her husband’s assertions, stating “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”37 This statement affirmed the chivalric role that the United States was playing. Similarly, a 2002 report from the White House on the progress of the War on Terror praised the liberation of Afghans from what it called “brutal zealotry of the Taliban.” The White House report went on to say that Afghan women are experiencing freedom for the first time (Zine 34). In areas where women and children were liberated by U.S. forces they began exercising their new-found freedom, flying kites, playing music in public, removing their burqas, and returning to school.38

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Comparing U.S. actions in Afghanistan to the Spanish-American War and World War I, the rescue paradigm allowed the United States to tie its other motives for fighting the Taliban to a humanitarian mission and redefine the nature of the war. The United States had a long history of intervening in the affairs of Middle Eastern nations to protect its economic and political interests in the region. Keeping the Middle East stable, if not democratic, to maintain U.S. access to oil and shield the United States’ ally Israel, was an important component of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. government saw the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan as a threat to maintaining that stability. Connecting the overthrow of Afghanistan’s government to liberating women and children from an oppressive regime provided an additional noble justification to the list of reasons for invading. Furthermore, combating terrorism, with terrorism’s connection to the oppression of women and children through fundamentalist Islam, also allowed the United States to reclassify an offensive war against a nation that had not actually attacked it directly as a defensive war with the assertion that such a military action protected Americans and secured U.S. borders through preemptive action (Oliver 95). And because defeating the Taliban and terrorists would stop uncivilized Islamic fundamentalists from threatening civilization, and protect the weak in the process, the American soldiers who invaded Afghanistan could be seen as agents of peace who sustain peace by spreading civilization rather than as agents of war. The treatment of women and children was again used as a standard by which to measure a nation’s level of civility (Hunt 56). Once more, the United States was the chivalrous nation coming to the protection of defenseless women and children and bringing civilization to other people by driving out barbarian forces. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the United States press presented a common theme in its coverage of the Spanish-American War and World War I: the need to protect the women and children from mistreatment by the militaries of uncivilized nations. The United States press returned to the theme of chivalry as it pertained to the United States’ War on Terror in the early twenty-first century. While this chivalrous plea on the part of publishers was not directly responsible for the United States’ declarations of war against Spain, Germany, or Afghanistan, protecting women and children in Cuba from the abuse of Spaniards, in Belgium and France from the abuse of Germans, and in Afghanistan from the Islamic fundamentalists of that nation became an important aspect of shaping the perception of the wars’ natures. It made the enemy easier to hate. It provided further justification for U.S. intervention. And, most significantly, it helped define the wars as struggles between civilization

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and barbarism. The U.S. government and public came to believe the nation had to act to defend civilization from the barbarous nations that threatened to destroy it. Thus the protection of women and children was symbolic of the even grander objective of preserving civilization.

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APPENDIX: FIGURES

Figure 4-1: “Cuban Insurgent Shot Dead Near His Own Home.” New York World, 9 March 1898.

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Figure 4-2: Spanish soldiers killing a woman and her baby. Pullman Herald, 30 April 1898.

Figure 4-3: Aid workers from the United States distributing food to starving Cubans. New York World, 10 March 1898.

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Figure 4-4: Starving Cuban children. Leslie’s Weekly, 7 April 1898.

Figure 4-5: Cartoon depicting Cuba as a woman and the United States as the male character of Uncle Sam. San Francisco Call, 9 March 1896.

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Figure 4-6: Cubans welcoming U.S. soldiers in Cuba. New York World, 24 June 1898.

Figure 4-7: French family sitting on the rubble of their destroyed home. New York World, 3 October 1915.

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Figure 4-8: Belgian refugees. San Francisco Examiner, 5 September 1914.

Figure 4-9: Aid workers distributing food in Belgium and France. New York World, 3 January 1915.

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Figure 4-10: Cartoon depicting Europe as a woman held prisoner by Germany. New York Tribune, April 28, 1918.

Figure 4-11: Cartoon depicting the United States as the male character of Uncle Sam. New York Tribune, January 13, 1918.

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Figure 4-12: Child shaking the hand of a U.S. soldier in France. New York Times, 5 August 1917.

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Figure 4-13: Children greeting U.S. soldiers in France. Chicago Tribune, 10 February 1918.

Figure 4-14: Women giving U.S. soldiers flowers in France. New York Times, 28 July 1918.

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Notes 1

New York World 26 March 1898: 6. Congressional Record April 14, 1898. 55th Congress, 2nd Session. Vol. 31, pt. 4, pg. 3841-42. 3 Baltimore Morning Herald 19 March 1898: 8. 4 Congressional Record March 29, 1898. 55th Congress, 2nd Session. Vol. 31, pt. 4, pg. 3294. 5 New York World 9 March 1898: 7. Similar pictures appeared in other papers: El Paso Daily Herald 2 April 1898. 6 Pullman Herald (Washington) 30 April 1898: 1. Similar pictures appeared in other papers: New York World 3 June 1896: 7. San Francisco Call 20 March 1897: 1. Washington Times 10 April 1897: 1; 20 August 1897: 1; 4 July 1897: 1. Burlington Free Press (Vermont) 11 August 1898: 2. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) 3 August 1898: 11. Pullman Herald (Washington) 30 April 1898. The Herald (Los Angeles, CA) 14 August 1898: 22. 7 New York World 10 March 1898: 2. 8 Leslie’s Weekly 7 April 1898: 216-17; 21 April 1898: 248-49. New York World 22 November 1898: 7. Similar pictures appeared in other papers: Houston Daily Post 5 April 1898: 7. 9 San Francisco Call 9 March 1896: 1. Similar pictures appeared in other newspapers. Illustrations depicting Cuba as a woman: San Francisco Call 10 November 1895: 15; 9 April 1896; 8 January 1896: 1; 9 March 1896: 1; 24 April 1898: 8. Houston Daily Post 9 April 1896: 1; 4 December, 1896: 1; 16 February 1896: 1; 1 March 1896: 1; 2 March 1898: 1; 4 March 1896: 1; 27 November: 1; 13 November 1897: 1. Kansas City Journal 19 November 1896: 1; 23 April 1898: 8. St. Paul Globe 30 June 1897: 1; 21 May 1897: 1; 3 April 1898: 8. Washington Times 21 August 1897: 1; 27 August 1897: 1; 11 May 1897: 1; 27 May 1897: 1; 12 November 1897: 1; 14 February 1898: 1; 13 March 1898: 1; 30 March 1898: 1. Anaconda Standard (Montana) 3 April 1898: 20. Big Stone Gap Post (Virginia) 21 April 1898: 1. Bourbon News (Paris, KY) 9 August, 1898: 1. Cape Girardean Democrat (Missouri) 23 April, 1898: 1. Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, KY) 21 April 1898: 3. Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, KY) 6 August 1898: 3. El Paso Daily Herald 1 July 1898; 2 July 1898; 14 May 1898. Marietta Daily Leader (Ohio) 15 April 1898: 1; 6 August 1898. Salt Lake Herald 6 April 1898: 1; 10 April 1898: 1. The Herald (Los Angeles, CA) 23 April 1898: 1; 12 August 1898: 2, 8 May 1898: 31. The News-Herald (Hillsboro, OH) 11 August 1898: 7. New York World 9 March 1898: 1. Illustrations depicting the United States as Uncle Sam: San Francisco Call 6 October 1895: 1; 25 December 1896; 8 January 1896: 1; 9 March 1896: 1. 2

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Washington Times 30 October 1895: 1; 22 November 1895: 1; 17 October 1895: 1; 25 October 1895: 1; 27 September: 1; 7 April 1896: 1; 16 December 1896: 1; 29 February 1896: 1; 3 March 1896: 1; 6 March 1896: 1; 24 March 1896: 1; 11 August 1897: 1; 21 August 1897: 1; 10 July 1897: 1; 21 May 1897: 1; 27 May 1897: 1; 24 February 1898: 1; 25 January 1898: 1. Houston Daily Post 9 April 1896: 1; 16 February 1896: 1; 4 March 1896: 1; 13 May 1896: 1; 17 May 1896: 1; 21 May 1896: 1; 20 November 1896: 1; 24 July 1897: 1; 9 June 1897: 1; 16 Jun 1897: 1; 20 May 1897: 1; 21 May 1897: 1; 25 December 1897: 1; 8 April 1898: 1; 9 April 1898: 1; 14 April 1898: 5; 17 April 1898: 6; 17 April 1898: 4; 22 April 1898: 5; 30 April 1898: 1; 25 February 1898: 1; 22 January 1898: 1; 27 January 1898: 1; 30 January 1898: 1; 3 June 1898: 2; 8 June 1898: 4; 29 June 1898: 3; 15 March 1898: 1; 19 March 1898: 1; 20 March 1898: 1; 4 May 1898: 3; 6 May 1898: 4; 7 May 1898: 2; 11 May 1898: 6; 12 May 1898: 5; 17 May 1898: 5; 18 May 1898: 4; 21 May 1898: 4; 25 May 1898: 4. Hutchinson Gazette (Kansas) 21 April, 1898. Jasper Weekly Courier (Indiana) 13 May 1898. Kansas City Journal 30 January 1896; 9 March 1896; 21 December 1896: 1; 20 August 1898: 1; 16 July 1898: 3; 16 May 1898: 1. St. Paul Globe 20 December 1896: 1; 3 March 1896: 1; 15 December 1897: 1; 21 December 1897; 25, February 1897: 1; 6 July 1897: 1; 21 July 1897: 1; 21 May 1897: 1. Valentine Democrat (Nebraska) 24 December 1896; 28 April 1898; 7 July 1898; 21 July 1898; 30 June 1898; 17 March 1898. Big Stone Gap Post (Virginia) 7 July, 1898: 1; 21 April 1898: 1. Bourbon News (Paris, KY) 19 August 1898: 1; 8 July 1898: 2; 15 April 1898: 3; 22 July 1898: 2; 7 June 1898: 3; 6 May 1898: 2; 13 May 1898: 2; 20 May 1898: 3. Cape Girardean Democrat (Missouri), 23 April, 1898: 1; 27 August 1898; 30 July 1898: 1; 4 June 1898: 1. Daily Capital Journal (Salem, OR) 18 April 1898: 1. Daily Kentuckian (Hopkinsville, KY) 5 July 1898: 1. Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, KY) 14 April 1898: 3; 21 April 1898: 3; 17 August 1898: 3; 5 July 1898: 3; 12 July 1898: 3; 3 June 1898: 3; 7 June 1898: 3; 5 May 1898: 3; 11 May 1898: 3; 19 May 1898: 3. El Paso Daily Herald, 1 July 1898; 8 July 1898; 16 July 1898; 23 July 1898: 1; 25 July 1898; 3 May 1898; 7 May 1898; 11 May 1898; 14 May 1898. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) 1 April 1898: 3; 6 April 1898: 3; 29 April 1898: 3; 30 April 1898: 3; 1 August 1898: 3; 2 August 1898: 3; 6 August 1898: 3; 11 August 1898: 3; 13 August 1898: 1; 17 August 1898: 3; 22 August 1898: 3; 24 August 1898: 3; 26 August 1898: 3; 27 August 1898: 3; 31 August 1898: 3; 2 July 1898: 10; 4 July 1898: 1; 6 July 1898: 3; 15 July 1898: 3; 16 July 1898: 3; 22 July 1898: 1; 23 July 1898: 1; 30 July 1898: 3; 14 June 1898: 1; 21 June 1898: 1; 3 May 1898: 3; 5 May 1898: 3; 9 May 1898: 3; 11 May 1898: 3; 25 May 1898: 3; 7 May, 1898: 6. Marietta Daily Leader (Ohio) 15 April 1898: 1; 21 April 1898: 1; 3 June 1898: 1; 5 May 1898: 1. New York World 9 March 1898: 1.

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Omaha Daily Bee 16 April 1898: 2. Phillipsburg Herald (Kansas) 18 August 1898. Richmond Dispatch 7 August 1898: 1; 21 August 1898: 1; 28 August 1898: 1. Salt Lake Herald 13 April 1898: 1; 17 April 1898: 1; 13 August 1898: 1; 23 February 1898: 1; 4 July 1898: 1; 15 July 1898: 3; 7 June 1898: 1; 27 March 1898: 1; 31 March 1898: 1; 20 May 1898: 1; 22 May 1898: 1; 28 May 1898: 1. San Francisco Call 22 February 1898: 2; 23 February 1898: 2; 5 June 1898: 20; 10 June 1898: 1; 26 June 1898: 18; 22 May 1898: 18. Semi-Weekly Interior Journal (Stanford, KY) 24 May 1898: 1. St. Paul Globe 10 April 1898: 20; 24 February 1898: 1; 26 January 1898: 1; 16 March 1898: 1. The Bee (Earlington, KY) 23 June 1898: 1. The Evening Times (Washington, D.C.) 2 April 1898: 1. The Herald (Los Angeles, CA) 1 April 1898: 1; 4 April 1898: 1; 5 April 1898: 2; 6 April 1898: 2; 7 April 1898: 2; 10 April 1898: 18; 13 April 1898: 1; 15 April 1898: 1; 16 April 1898: 1; 20 April 1898: 1; 22 April 1898: 1; 24 April 1898: 1; 25 April 1898: 2; 27 April 1898: 1; 29 April 1898: 1; 30 April 1898: 1; 6 August 1898: 2; 10 August 1898: 3; 11 August 1898: 1; 12 August 1898: 2; 16 August 1898: 3; 20 August 1898: 3; 21 August 1898: 2; 23 August 1898: 1; 26 August 1898: 1; 2 July 1898: 1; 3 July 1898: 2; 6 July 1898: 1; 8 July 1898: 2; 14 July 1898: 1; 15 July 1898: 3; 16 July 1898: 1; 17 July 1898: 1; 25 July 1898: 1; 28 July 1898: 1; 30 July 1898: 3; 5 June 1898: 1; 8 June 1898: 2; 9 June 1898: 2; 16 June 1898: 3; 17 June 1898: 1; 19 June 1898: 2; 25 June 1898: 3; 1 May 1898: 1; 2 May 1898: 3; 3 May 1898: 1; 4 May 1898: 1; 8 May 1898: 22; 8 May 1898: 1; 12 May 1898: 1; 14 May 1898: 1; 16 May 1898: 1; 17 May 1898: 1; 19 May 1898: 1; 20 May 1898: 1; 21 May 1898: 1; 23 May 1898: 1; 26 May 1898: 1. Warren Sheaf (Minnesota) 14 July 1898; 9 June 1898; 12 May 1898. Wichita Daily Eagle 12 August 1898: 2. Wilmar Tribune (Minnesota) 3 August 1898; 17 May 1898 ; 31 May 1898. Worthington Advance (Minnesota) 18 August 1898; 14 July 1898; 9 June 1898; 12 May 1898. 10 New York Times 25 March 1898: 3. 11 New York World 8 May 1898: 8. 12 New York World 24 June 1898: 3. Similar pictures appeared in other newspapers: Burlington Weekly Free Press (Vermont) 4 August 1898: 2. San Francisco Call 31 July 1898: 10. Stark County Democrat (Canton, OH) 4 August 1898: 3. The Herald (Los Angeles, CA) 3 July 1898: 3. 13 Chicago Tribune 6 August 1914: 2; 10 August 1914: 1; 12 August 1914: 2; 19 August 1914: 2; 26 August 1914: 1; 29 August 1914: 1; 31 August 1914: 1; 12 September 1914: 1, 2, 6; 27 September 1914: 3. Atlanta Constitution 14 August 1914: 2; 15 August 1914: 2; 26 August 1914: 3; 29 August 1914: 1; 2 September 1914: 2; 4 September 1914: 3; 8 September 1914: 1; 10 September 1914: 5; 11 September 1914: 1; 12 September 1914: 3, 5; 17 September 1914: 2; 21 September 1914: 3; 28 September 1914: 2.

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San Francisco Chronicle 27 August 1914: 2; 29 August 1914: 2; 2 September 1914: 4. San Francisco Examiner 6 August 1914: 3; 29 August 1914: 1; 3 September 1914: 3. New York World 10 August 1914: 2; 21 August 1914: 1; 21 August 1914: 2; 29 August 1914: 3; 2 September 1914: 3; 8 September 1914: 3; 17 September 1914: 1; 22 September 1914: 4; 30 September 1914: 4. New York Times 13 August 1914: 2; 22 August 1914: 2; 25 August 1914: 2; 26 August 1914: 4; 28 August 1914: 5; 29 August 1914: 3; 31 August 1914: 1; 1 September 1914: 2; 3 September 1914: 3; 4 September 1914: 3; 11 September 1914: 3, 7; 15 September 1914: 3; 17 September 1914: 4; 22 September 1914: 4; 30 September 1914: 1. 14 San Francisco Examiner 8 September 1914: 3; 10 September 1914: 20; 22 September 1914: 3. New York World, 7 September 1914: 4; 9 September 1914: 2E; 10 August 1914: 2; 26 August 1914: 4; 13 September 1914: 4; 17 September 1914: 3; 22 September 1914: 4. New York Times 6 August 1914: 6; 29 August 1914: 4; 30 August 1914: 3; 16 September 1914: 5; 19 September 1914: 2; 22 September 1914: 4; 26 September 1914: 10. Atlanta Constitution 3 September 1914: 3; 11 September 1914: 1; 17 September 1914: 4; 22 September 1914: 1. Chicago Tribune: 12 August 1914: 2; 24 August 1914: 6; 25 August 1914: 1; 12 September 1914: 6; 17 September 1914: 1. 15 San Francisco Chronicle 1 September 1914: 6; 2 September 1914: 4; 6 September 1914: 32; 17 September 1914: 1. 16 San Francisco Chronicle 22 August 1914: 6; 27 August, 1914: 2; 29 August 1914: 2. San Francisco Examiner 3 September 1914: 16; 30 September 1914: 2. New York World 21 August 1914: 1; 29 August 1914: 3; 7 September 1914: 4; 8 September 1914: 3; 10 September 1914: 4; 17 September 1914: 3; 18 September 1918: 5. New York Times 5 August 1914: 4; 17 August 1914: 1; 21 August 1914: 4; 22 August 1914: 2; 25 August 1914: 2; 26 August 1914: 4; 27 August 1914: 10; 28 August 1914: 5; 31 August 1914: 1; 31 August 1914: 4; 3 September 1914: 3; 4 September 1914: 3; 4 September 1914: 4; 10 September 1914: 3; 15 September 1914: 3; 17 September 1914: 4. Atlanta Constitution 14 August 1914: 2; 15 August 1914: 2; 19 August 1914: 1; 2 September 1914: 2; 4 September 1914: 3; 8 September 1914: 1; 10 September 1914: 5; 12 September 1914: 3; 12 September 1914: 5; 21 September 1914: 3; 28 September 1914: 2. Chicago Tribune 10 August 1914: 1; 14 August 1914: 1; 19 August 1914: 2; 25 August 1914: 6; 26 August 1914: 1; 29 August 1914: 1; 29 August 1914: 2; 31 August 1914: 1; 12 September 1914: 1. Washington Post 19 August 1914: 6. 17 San Francisco Examiner 29 August 1914: 1; 30 September 1914: 1.

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Pictures of destroyed towns and buildings in the New York World : 16 August 1914: 4; 29 August 1914: 1; 17 September 1914: 3; 19 September 1914: 3; 27 September 1914: 3N; 27 October 1914: 3; 17 January 1915: World Pictures 2; 7 February 1915: World Pictures 2; 29 August 1915: World Pictures 4-5; 26 September 1915: World Pictures 4-5; 3 October 1915: World Pictures 2-3; 20 February 1916: World Pictures 3; 12 March 1916: World Pictures 1; 30 April 1916: World Pictures 3. Pictures of destroyed towns and buildings in the New York Times: 20 September 1914: Picture Section 1; 27 September 1914: Picture Section 2, 6-8; 4 October 1914: Picture Section 3; 18 October 1914: Picture Section 8; 25 October 1914: Picture Section 8; 1 November 1914: Picture Section 3-4; 8 November 1914: Picture Section 8; 31 January 1915: Picture Section 5; 7 February 1915: Picture Section 2; 27 June 1915: Picture Section 8; 30 April 1916: 6; 13 August 1916: Picture Section 5. Pictures of destroyed towns and buildings in the San Francisco Chronicle: 8 September 1914: 1; 9 September 1914: 2; 25 September 1914: 2; 4 October 1914: Sunday Magazine 4; 29 October 1914: 3; 5 December 1914: 3. Pictures of destroyed towns and buildings in the San Francisco Examiner: 2 September 1914: 1; 8 September 1914: 3; 9 September 1914: 3; 22 September 1914: 1; 4 October 1914: Photographic Record of the War; 6 October 1914: 3; 11 October 1914: Photographic Record of the War; 29 November 1914: Photographic Record of the war. Pictures of destroyed towns and buildings in the Atlanta Constitution: 18 September 1914: 1; 27 September 1914: 2; 28 September 1914: 3; 3 October 1914: 1; 6 October 1914: 1; 7 October 1914: 1; 26 October 1914: 3; 15 November 1914: 6B; 16 August 1915: 3; 1 September 1915: 1; 14 April, 1918: Magazine Section 1. Pictures of destroyed towns and buildings in the Chicago Tribune: 29 August 1914: 2; 14 September: 5; 18 September 1914: 5; 20 September 1914: 3, 5; 25 September 1914: 5; 27 September 1914: 2, 4; 11 October 1914: In the Lime Light 2; 15 October 1914: 3; 17 October 1914: 1; 18 October 1914: 3; 24 October 1914: 1, 4; 29 October 1914: 3; 19 November 1914: 3; 2 December 1914: 2; 21 December 1914: 5; 31 December 1914: 3; 2 January 1915: 5; 18 January 1915: 5; 8 February 1915: 5; 8 April, 1915: 5; 19 April, 1915: 5; 26 September 1915: Pictorial Weekly 5; 1 April, 1917: Pictorial Weekly 15; 18 April 1918: 5; 1 September 1918: Pictorial Weekly 6. Pictures of refugees in the New York World : 31 August 1914: 5; 12 October 1914: 2; 3 January 1915: World Pictures 2; 17 January 1915: World Pictures 3; 14 February 1915: World Pictures 5; 21 March 1915: World Pictures 3; 22 August 1915: World Pictures 2. Pictures of refugees in the New York Times: 6 September 1914: Picture Section 2, 6; 13 September 1914: Picture Section 5; 27 September 1914: Picture Section 5-6; 4 October 1914: Picture Section 5; 11 October 1914: Picture Section 1, 5; 18 October 1914: Picture Section 2; 1 November 1914: Picture Section 6; 8 November 1914: Picture Section 4-5; 15 November 1914: Picture Section 6; 13 December 1914: Picture Section 3; 20 December 1914: Picture Section 3; 10 January 1915: Picture Section 8.

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Pictures of refugees in the San Francisco Chronicle: 9 September 1914: 3; 17 September 1914: 1; 28 September 1914: 1; 8 November 1914: 36; 11 November 1914: 3. Pictures of refugees in the San Francisco Examiner: 28 August 1914: 2; 5 September 1914: 3; 8 November 1914: Photographic Record of the War; 15 November 1914: Photographic Record of the War; 27 December 1914: Photographic Record of the War. Pictures of refugees in the Atlanta Constitution: 20 September 1914: 3; 1 November 1914: 4; 9 November 1914: 7; 20 January 1918: Magazine Section 1; 3 February 1918: Magazine Section 2; 30 June 1918: Magazine Section 2. Pictures of refugees in the Chicago Tribune: 1 September 1914: 5; 12 October 1914: 3; 23 October 1914: 3; 26 October 1914: 3; 30 October 1914: 3; 1 November 1914: 3; 6 November 1914: 3; 7 November 1914: 1; 8 November 1914: 3; 10 November 1914: 5; 13 November 1914: 5; 14 November 1914: 1; 16 November 1914: 5; 17 November 1914: 8; 12 December 1915: Pictorial Weekly 6. 19 San Francisco Chronicle 8 November 1914: 36. New York Times 5 August 1914: 12; 14 September 1914: 8; 21 September 1914: 14. Atlanta Constitution, 11 August 1914: 2; 8 January 1915: 2. 20 Chicago Tribune 7 November 1914: 1; 8 November 1914: 3; 14 November 1914: 1. 21 Germany tried to counter some of the British propaganda with pictures of German soldiers helping the Belgians. One such picture appears in the World, showing a German soldier giving bread to a group of Belgian children. New York World, 3 January 1915, World Pictures, 2. Articles about the famine in German occupied territory: Chicago Tribune 21 August 1914: 1. Atlanta Constitution 11 August 1914: 2; 8 January 1915: 2; 13 January 1915: 8. San Francisco Chronicle 22 August 1914: 6. New York World 30 September 1914: 3. New York Times 15 August 1914: 4; 4 September 1914: 4; 30 September 1914: 4. Pictures of the famine: Chicago Tribune 27 August, 1914: 5. Atlanta Constitution 20 December 1914: Special Color Section 4. New York World 12 October 1914: 2; 30 November 1914: 3. New York Times 27 December 1914: Picture Section 4-5. 22 New York World 1 September 1914: 8. 23 New York Tribune 28 April 1918; 13 January 1918. 24 San Francisco Examiner 24 July 1917: 3. 25 New York World 1 July 1917: World Pictures 1; 2 September 1917: 3. New York Times 29 July 1917: Picture Section 4; 9 September 1917: Picture October 1917: Pictorial Weekly 1; 28 October, 1917: Pictorial Weekly 1; 10 February 1918: Pictorial Weekly 3; 29 September 1918: Pictorial Weekly 5. Atlanta Constitution 8 July 1917: Magazine Section 4, 5; 23 September 1917: Magazine Section 1; 11 November 1917: Magazine Section 1; 11 August 1918: Magazine Section 1. 26 New York World 2 September 1917: 3. New York Times 5 August 1917: Picture Section 1-2; 27 January 1918: Picture Section 5; 28 July 1918: Picture Section 2. 27 The New Republic 5 November 2001: 23. 28 San Francisco Chronicle 31 March 2002: D3. 29 “President Bush Speaks to United Nations.” Remarks by the President to United Nations General Assembly, November 10, 2001,

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/print/20011110-3.html. 30 George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” Washington, DC, September 20, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html. 31 Newsweek 14 January 2002: 49. Time 18 February 2002: 8. 32 U.S. News and World Report 15 October 2001: 32. 33 Newsweek 14 January 2002: 49. 34 Time 26 November 2001: 30. U.S. News and World Report 15 October 2001: 33. 35 Time 8 October 2001: 58. 36 Newsweek 18 January 2002: 56, 48. Time 29 October 2001: 33. U.S. News and World Report 21 January 2002: 26. 37 Laura Bush, “Radio Address by Laura Bush to the Nation,” November 17, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/release/2001/11/print/ 20011117. html. 38 U.S. News and World Report 26 November 2001: 30; 21 January 2002: 26.

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Works Cited Alden, Percy. “Four Months in America.” Contemporary Review July/December1917. Banta, Martha. Imaging American Women. New York: Columbia UP, 1987. Barton, Clara. “Our Work and Observations in Cuba.” North American Review May 1898: 554. Baxandall, Michael. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanations of Pictures. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985. Begbie, Harold. “Can Man Abolish War?” North American Review January/June 1917: 745-46. Benjamin, Jules R. The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing; A Book Made by John Berger. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972. Berger, John, and Jean Mohr. Another Way of Telling. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. Boutroux, Emile. “After the War.” North American Review January/June 1918. Bowden, Brett. The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2009. Brennan, Bonnie, and Hanno Hardt. “Newswork, History, and Photographic Evidence: A Visual Analysis of a 1930s Newsroom.” Picturing the Past: Media, History, and Photography. Ed. Bonnie Brennan and Hanno Hardt. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1999. Brewer, Susan. Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Brown, Charles H. The Correspondents’ War: Journalism in the SpanishAmerican War. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967. Carlebach, Michael. The Origins of Photojournalism in America. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution P, 1992. —. American Photojournalism Comes of Age. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution P, 1997. Collett, Pamela. “Afghan Women in the Peace Process.” The Women and War Reader. Ed. Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York UP, 1998. Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1991.

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Creelman, James. On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company, 1901. Demm, Ebenhard. “Propaganda and Caricature in the First World War.” Journal of Contemporary History January 1993. Flanagan, Jason C. “Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Rhetorical Restructuring’: The Transformation of the American Self and the Construction of the German Enemy.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 2004. Gregory, Adrian. “A Clash of Cultures: The British Press and the Opening of the Great War.” A Call to Arms: Propaganda, Public Opinion, and Newspapers in the Great War. Ed. Troy R.E. Paddock. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. Hall, A.D. Cuba: Its Past, Present, and Future. New York, 1898. Harries, Meirion, and Susan Harries. The Last Days of Innocence: America at War, 1917-1918. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Harvey, George. “America First! Suit the Action to the Word.” North American Review July/December 1915. Hicks, Wilson. Words and Pictures. 1952. New York: Arno P, 1973. Hoganson, Kristen L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. Horne, John and Alan Kramer. German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001. Hunt, Krista. “‘Embedded Feminism’ and the War on Terror.” (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics. Ed. Krista Hunt and Kim Rygiel. Aldershot, U. K.: Ashgate, 2007. Hunt, Michael H. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1987. Hunter, Jefferson. Image and Word: The Interaction of Twentieth-Century Photographs and Texts. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000. James, Henry. Henry James on Culture: Collected Essays on Politics and the American Social Scene. Ed. Pierre A. Walker. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1999. Kaplan, Amy. The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002. Kauffman, Reginald Wright. “America at the Front.” North American Review July/December 1918.

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Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order. New Haven: Princeton UP, 1992. McCartney, Paul T. Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2006. Milton, Joyce. The Yellow Kids: Foreign Correspondents in the Heyday of Yellow Journalism. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1989. Mitchell, W.J.T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986. Mugridge, Ian. The View from Xanaudau: William Randolph Hearst and United States Foreign Policy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1995. O’Toole, G.J.A. The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1984. Offner, John L. An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba, 1895-1898. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1992. Oliver, Kelly. Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. Perez, Louis A. Jr. Cuba Between Two Empires, 1878-1902. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1983. —. Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2008. Pomakoy, Keith. Helping Humanity: American Policy and Genocide Rescue. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2011. Proctor, Ben. William Randolph Hearst: The Early Years, 1863-1910. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Randall, James G. “Germany’s Censorship and News Control.” North American Review July/December 1918: 56. Ratcliffe, S.K. “America in the War.” Contemporary Review July/December 1917. Read, James Morgan. Atrocity Propaganda, 1914-1919. New York: Arno P, 1972. Rosenberg, Emily S. “Rescuing Women and Children.” History and September 11th. Ed. Joanne Meyerowitz. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2003. —. “War and the Health of the State: The U.S. Government and the Communications Revolution during World War I.” Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century. Ed. Kenneth Osgood and Andrew K. Frank. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 2010.

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Rosenfeld, Harvey. Diary of a Dirty Little War: The Spanish-American War of 1898. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000. Ross, Stewart Halsey. Propaganda for War: How the United States Was Conditioned to Fight the Great War of 1914-1918. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland and Company, Inc. Publishers, 1996. Schieber, Clara Eve. “The Transformation of American Sentiment towards Germany, 1870-1914.” Journal of International Relations July 1921: 56-66. Scott, Catherine. “Rescue in the Age of Empire: Children, Masculinity, and the War on Terror.” (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics Ed. Krista Hunt and Kim Rygiel. Aldershot, U. K.: Ashgate, 2007. Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. 1992. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1998. Smith, Joseph. The Spanish-American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895-1902. New York: Longman, 1994. Smith, Munroe. “America and the World War.” North American Review January/June 1917. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. —. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003. Swanberg, W.A. Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961. Tone, John Lawrence. War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2006. Trachtenberg, Alan. Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Matthew Brady to Walker Evans. New York: Hill and Wang, 1989. Vickers, Jeanne. Women and War. London: Zed Books, 1993. Walby, Sylvia. Theorizing Patriarchy. Hoboken, N. J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 1991. Wexler, Laura. Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S. Imperialism. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2000. Wilkerson, Marcus. Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War: A Study in War Propaganda. 1932. New York: Russel and Russel, 1967. Zacharasiewicz, Waldemar. Images of Germany in American Literature. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2007. Zine, Jasmin. “Between Orientalism and Fundamentalism: Muslim Women and Feminist Engagement.” (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics. Ed. Krista Hunt and Kim Rygiel. Aldershot, U. K.: Ashgate, 2007. Zuckerman, Larry. The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I. New York: New York UP, 2004.

CHAPTER FIVE CARMICHAEL’S USE OF ARISTOTLE’S AND QUINTILIAN’S RHETORICAL THEORIES OF EMOTIONAL APPEAL TO PROMOTE BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS* CICELY T. WILSON

When my husband jogs in our well-established, predominantly white neighborhood, he becomes acutely aware of how our white neighbors see him. He knows when they see him jogging past their well-manicured lawns at daybreak, they don’t see an Army veteran-turned-elementaryschool teacher who is, as his students call him, a big teddy bear. What they see is a large, muscular, black man who may do them harm. When he runs past the middle-aged and older white neighbors who avert their eyes rather than say “good morning” or who cross the street or pretend to be inspecting their shoes upon his approach, for the duration of his jog he sees himself the way a white person may see him—as a menace whose presence threatens their safety and peace of mind. When he returns home to prepare for his day as an educator, his sight of who he really is returns. In the chapter “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” in his book The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois talked about this dual sight of oneself, calling it double consciousness. Double consciousness is a “second sight in this American world…looking at one’s self through the eyes of others…” (DuBois 45). Since the African slaves’ arrival in the United States, black people have had to grapple with this second sight. With one sight, we can see and celebrate ourselves for who we are—rich in beauty, intellect, ingenuity, and spirituality. With the other sight, we can see ourselves as

*

A version of this essay was originally published in The Researcher: An Interdisciplinary Journal 25.1 (Spring 2012): 25-48. Used by permission.

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white people see us—having nothing to celebrate—unattractive, ignorant, and shiftless beings without a moral compass who will never measure up. As race relations shifted, many black people lost their first sight—the ability to see themselves through their own eyes only to cleave to the second sight, seeing themselves as white people see them. This one-sided way of regarding oneself led to a shame of being black. Following that shame were efforts to alter features unique to the black race, such as skin tone, hair texture, and facial features. For a group of people who were striving for equality, this shame and self-hatred was an obstacle that had to be addressed. There was a need for solidarity, pride, and the ability to see oneself with a true consciousness. While many civil rights leaders made great strides in bringing the black community together to fight for equality, one young leader addressed the struggle of the consciousness. Stokely Carmichael, one of the leaders of the Black Power Movement, “aim[ed] to define and encourage a new consciousness among black people…this consciousness might be called a sense of peoplehood: pride, rather than shame, in blackness, and an attitude of brotherly communal responsibility among all black people for one another” (viii).

Introduction While Carmichael gave many speeches, some more famous than others, this analysis focuses on his 1967 address to the students of Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. This address is 70 minutes in length and its transcript spans 17 pages. The rhetorical text under investigation in this essay is one that uses tools of persuasion as described by Aristotle and Quintilian. Carmichael used Aristotle’s and Quintilian’s rhetorical theories of emotional appeal as tools to persuade his audience to develop a black consciousness rather than see themselves through the eyes of their white counterparts. The purpose of this investigation is three-fold: a) to illustrate the relevance of classical rhetorical theory in contemporary rhetorical texts, b) to illustrate the connection between emotions and consciousness, and c) to recognize Carmichael for his apt use of emotional rhetoric to spark change in the consciousness of black youth. The speech contains exemplary cases of emotional appeals of anger, enmity, and shame as described by Aristotle. Aristotle defined anger as “an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one’s friends” (214). He defined enmity as “hostile emotions as awakened by perception that someone belongs to a detested class of individuals. The negative feeling toward the class is a

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permanent one…” (137). Shame is defined as “a sort of pain and agitation concerning the class of evils, whether present or past or future that seems to bring a person into disrespect…” (144). The recitation of atrocities and the speaker’s sharing of the feeling he is trying to evoke as described by Quintilian are also demonstrated in this speech delivered to persuade audience members to change how they see themselves, see the world around them, and join the movement. After providing the contextual setting for the speech, I will discuss the emotional appeal of anger as described by both Aristotle and Quintilian and the emotional appeals of enmity and shame. I will conclude by connecting the context, audience, speaker, and the speaker’s use of persuasive tools to spark change.

Contextual Setting In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other southern black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring about the end of segregation. The SCLC adopted a non-violent protest principle. In 1960, black college students began the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was also dedicated to ending segregation and giving young black people a stronger voice in the Civil Rights Movement. Members of SNCC demonstrated the effectiveness of non-violent sit-ins, which was soon adopted by other Civil Rights groups (http://www.pbs.org). From the inception of SNCC to the Garfield High School speech, many disturbing acts of violence had taken place. During civil rights protests in 1962 in Birmingham, fire hoses and police dogs were used in attacks on black demonstrators. Also, in 1962, Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers, was gunned down outside his home. In 1963, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed during Sunday School, killing four little girls. In 1964, three civil rights workers—Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner—were killed by the Ku Klux Klan. Malcolm X, Black Nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, was assassinated in 1965. Also in 1965, a weeklong race riot took place in the black section of Los Angeles known as Watts (www.infoplease.com). By the time the Black Panthers formed in 1966, many non-violent protests had been met with violence from white attackers. SNCC, headed by Stokely Carmichael and others, rejected the original non-violent principle to embrace violence as a legitimate form of self-defense.

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Stokely Carmichael According to notablebiographies.com, Stokely Carmichael was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad. When his parents moved to the Bronx, he was admitted to the Bronx High School of Science as a gifted student. He worked with civil rights activist Bayard Rustin before he started participating in movements in New York City. He later began traveling to Virginia and South Carolina to participate in sit-ins. Refusing offers to attend traditionally white institutions, Carmichael furthered his education at Howard University where he majored in philosophy and became even more active in the civil rights movement. He joined the local Non-Violent Action Group (connected to the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee [SNCC]), traveling south to participate with the freedom riders who worked to end segregation on buses and at terminals. After he graduated in 1964 with a degree in philosophy, he remained in the South as an active participant in sit-ins, voter registration drives, and picketing. He helped found the Lowndes County Freedom Party (whose symbol was the black panther). In 1965, he replaced John Lewis as the president of the SNCC and participated in the freedom march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King. After seeing many non-violent protests met with violence from white Americans, Carmichael turned from the nonviolent platform and began to publicly promote the concept of Black Power, which he described as a movement towards African Americans gaining political power. His position at the helm of the SNCC enabled him to spread the Black Power Movement, but when he decided against running for a second term as president of the SNCC, the organization soon dissolved and Carmichael shifted his attention abroad (www.notable biographies.com).

The Black Power Message Black Power was intended to be seen as “an attempt to instill a sense of identity and pride in black people” (Hamilton 154). Black people had been oppressed for so long and so harshly that the community was about to burst with rage and frustration. Black power sought to “organize the rage of black people” (Hamilton 156). As the Black Power movement set about to “putting new, hard questions and demands to white America,” white America responded with cruel violence (Hamilton 156). The Black Power Movement was started with the goals of addressing the “growing alienation of black people and their distrust of the

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institutions of America,” “creating new values and building a new sense of community and belonging,” and “working to establish legitimate institutions that make participants, not recipients, out of a people traditionally excluded from the fundamentally racist processes of this country” (Hamilton 156). At the heart of the Black Power Movement was the rejection of the lessons of slavery and segregation that caused black people to be ashamed of themselves and to hate themselves. black people wanted to be treated fairly—equal to their white counterparts. They wanted to be integrated and have access to the same freedoms, rights, and opportunities to which their white counterparts naturally had access. Integration had a price, however: “To be integrated it was necessary to deny one’s heritage, one’s own culture, to be ashamed of one’s black skin, thick lips and kinky hair” (Hamilton 156-57). It was this price, this selling of one’s soul that the Black Power Movement was trying to reverse in the adult black population and prevent in the younger one: thus, the importance of Carmichael’s speech to the students of Garfield High School. Carmichael, then chairman of SNCC, had been speaking at many rallies, on college campuses, and to audiences all over the country, but his speech to the students of Garfield High School can be interpreted as one of significance because witnesses remember the immediate change Carmichael’s speech exacted upon the black community. Larry Gossett, who attended the Garfield High speech, remembers April 19, 1967 as the day “when Negroes in Seattle became blacks” (Gunn, “The Times They Have A-changed”). In a Seattle Times article, Gossett said everything changed when Carmichael came to Garfield High School: “Stokely knew black history. Negroes were so starved for information to make them proud of who they were. The next morning, people who had gone to hear him thinking themselves Negroes, were calling themselves black. It just spread like wildfire” (Gunn, “The Times They Have A-changed”). The Seattle School Board initially denied Carmichael’s request to use the auditorium for fear of violence, but later rescinded their denial. Four thousand black people of all ages came to hear Carmichael, but because the auditorium could only seat 1500, 2500 audience members heard him via speakers in the gymnasium, yet hundreds of people were turned away for lack of space (Gunn, “The Times They Have A-changed”). Aaron Dixon recalled the event, saying, “the way I looked at myself and America changed” (Gunn, “The Times They Have A-changed”).

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Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington After World War II, the Central District in Seattle, Washington was pre-dominantly black. By 1961, the population of Garfield High School was about 51 percent black, although the general Seattle school district was 5.3 percent black. In the late 1960s, Garfield High School was the center of the school district’s attempt to avoid forced busing1 (Tate, “Busing in Seattle”). This situation lends significance to Carmichael’s speech, because the school was predominantly black, and there was resistance to bus in white students or bus out black students to make the school compliant with desegregation. While Carmichael delivered many speeches, many of which are available on the internet, I found the address to Garfield High School to be of particular significance because Carmichael wanted to reach the black youth who were being taught the abbreviated, ellipses-filled history that so often left out contributions of black Americans. The high school years are the formative years, and to have a public figure like Stokely Carmichael speak into one’s psyche the reaffirming words that a young black person has longed to hear and believed to be true had to have been an emotional experience. This address does not call the youth to bear arms and fight. Rather, it exposes the shame and the shameful, the atrocities and deceit, and it encourages authenticity of one’s culture, heritage, and beauty.

Rhetorical Theory and Emotional Appeal Rhetoric has many definitions, but the definition most relevant to this investigation of the use of emotional appeal is “an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle 14). The Aristotelian means of persuasion can fall into two categories—artistic and inartistic. Inartistic means of persuasion are those that are simply used by the speaker—hard evidence, such as facts and statistics. The artistic means of persuasion include logos (true or probable argument put forth by the speaker), pathos (emotions awakened by the speaker), and ethos (the character of the speaker). While Carmichael employs all three during the Garfield High speech, this researcher will only focus on pathetic means of persuasion,2 which refers to the emotions of the audience which are awakened by the speaker, or according to Jasinski, “putting the audience into a certain frame of mind” (364). Aristotle believed that the judgments of one’s audience members are influenced by the emotions such as anger, pity, and fear, for example (Knuuttila 32). Aristotle addresses each emotion in terms of the

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individual’s a) state of mind, b) object of the person’s emotion, and c) reasons for the emotion. He believed that if the speaker understands at least one of these three aspects of the emotion, the speaker could create that emotion in the audience members, thus influencing their judgment (Hoffman and Ford 29). The Aristotelian appeals of emotions will be addressed specifically by discussing anger, enmity, and shame. In addition to the Aristotelian appeals of emotions, Quintilian’s theory of emotional appeal is also relevant to the Garfield High speech. Quintilian’s theory is organized as a body of instructions for the speaker who is engaged in forensic discourse,3 and because the nature of the Garfield High speech involves an “offender” and a “victim,” the speech provides models of Quintilian’s theory. More specifically, Quintilian’s instructions on describing the accuser’s acts as atrocious will be of specific focus, as Carmichael models both of these principles—the offender-victim context and the description of atrocious acts.

Emotional Appeal of Anger Aristotle. In the second chapter of Rhetoric, Aristotle advises the reader to “understand the emotions—that is to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited” (182). The first of the emotions Aristotle addresses is anger. He defines it as “an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one’s friends” (214). His discussion does not go into great detail about the emotion itself, but rather what the speaker needs to know in order to excite such an emotion (Brinton 208). He elaborates on the desires of the angry person, which is retaliation. It is Aristotle’s comment, “the angry person desires what is possible for him” that connects his discussion on anger to the black Americans during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (Aristotle 215). In the case of the Black Power Movement and Garfield High speech, black Americans were angry, and the slight was inequality, oppression, discrimination, and racism.4 They had been denied the right to vote, cheated out of land, unfairly denied jobs, provided a disparate education, and then sent to fight in wars that didn’t concern them. When black Americans spoke up, they were met with violence. Indeed, they were angry. Black Americans were objects of contempt and were belittled, on which Aristotle elaborates and defines both as thinking and treating another as being worthless. More specifically, Aristotle says, “for one who

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shows contempt belittles (people have contempt for those things that they think of no account, and they belittle things of no account)” (125). Aristotle spoke of the state of mind of those who become angry. Those who become angry are distressed, “for the person who becomes distressed desires something” (127) and when these people who are longing for something and are not getting it, they become “irascible and easily stirred to anger,” especially against those who belittle their condition (127). Such was the state of mind of black Americans. They desired an opportunity to have the “American Dream.” Not only were they being hindered from attaining it, they were being belittled for their oppressive condition and their attempt to overcome their oppression. The students of Garfield High had experienced such anger, as it is a natural consequence of being black, so when Carmichael brought to mind certain grievances exacted upon black people by white America, he appealed to the anger about which Aristotle spoke. Because the audience members were young public school students, Carmichael’s clarification of lessons that were traditionally taught were immediately relevant and were ridiculed for their flaws. His mentioning of atrocities and cruel deceptions towards black Americans modeled that of both Aristotle and Quintilian. Carmichael’s description of what the young may have only thought of as entertainment was indeed an atrocity committed against Native Americans: You’ve watched the red man and the white man on TV? Fighting each other? If the red man is winning, then the white man calls for the cavalry. I mean, here comes the cavalry, and they’re riding very white and very proper, and when they get up to where the battle is, they all get off their horses and they get out their guns and they systematically shoot all the red men; you know, kill’em dead. They get back on their horses and they ride back to the fort, and at the fort there’s always a white woman standing there and she says, (in falsetto) “What happened?” and there’s always this lieutenant who says, “We had a victory. We killed all the Indians.” This is very good, you know. Now the next time when the reverse happens, when the red man beats the hell out of the white man, you know, and there’s one of them left draggin' on the horse, and she says, (in falsetto) “What happened?” “Those dirty Indians; they massacred us.” (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

This description of how the Native Americans were treated may have appealed to the high school students, as they were likely to still be learning about the battle between Native Americans and white Americans in history classes. The description may have also been relevant to those students who might not have thought about what they were viewing only as

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entertainment. While he made many references to historical injustices, he also informed or reminded the youth about the recent injustices by making the following statements throughout the speech: They have bombed our churches, they have shot us in the streets, they have lynched us, they have cattle-prodded us, they have thrown lye over us, they have dragged our children out in the night. We have been the recipients of violence for over 400 years . . . . … if you go to writing the real history of this country you would say that this country is a country of thieves. They started off by stealing this country from the red men and committing genocide against them. Not only did it steal the country from the red men—that didn't satisfy them—they stole us from Africa. You've got to understand that this nation is a nation of thieves and is becoming a nation of murderers in Vietnam, we've got to stop it, we've got to stop it . . . . . . . they can come into our community, beat us up, take our women . . . we can never begin to match the treatment that white America has heaped upon us and continues to heap upon us . . . . (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

The above excerpts are also exemplary of how Quintilian instructed the speaker to appeal to the emotions. Quintilian. Quintilian instructed the readers of Institutes of Oratory to appeal to the emotions of a judge during forensic discourse: the most effective way for the accuser to excite the feelings of the judge is to make that which he lays to the charge of the accused appear the most atrocious act possible, or, if the subject allow, the most deplorable. Atrocity is made to appear from such considerations as these, “What has been done, by whom, against whom, with what feeling, at what time, in what place, in what manner,” all which have infinite ramifications. (bk.6, ch.1, sec.15)

Carmichael does this throughout his speech. He tells of the violations against black Americans by white Americans in such raw detail that each account was sure to anger members of the audience to some degree. Not only did Quintilian give instructions for his readers to appeal to the emotions of the judge, but he advised speakers how to be persuasive in their own demonstration of emotions. Katula mentions rhetoricians’ belief that speakers can learn strategies to assist them in displaying emotions effectively through the “speech and figurative language and planned use of facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, etc.” (6). Quintilian set forth instructions for speakers to move

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the feelings of a judge in forensic discourse, but the following is the most important: The chief requisite, then, for moving the feelings of others is, as far as I can judge, that we ourselves be moved, for the assumption of grief, anger, and indignation will be often ridiculous if we adapt merely our words and looks, and not our minds, to those passions. In delivering, therefore, whatever we wish to appear like truth, let us assimilate ourselves to the feelings of those who are truly affected and let our language proceed from such a temper of mind as we would wish to excite in the judge. (bk. 6, ch. 2, sec. 26)

What Quintilian is saying is that none of the instructions will be effective if the speaker does not feel the very emotions he is trying to evoke in others. Such sincerity speaks to the ethos of the speaker. Carmichael exemplified such sincerity, which is why his speeches (the Garfield High speech and others) were so effective. Katula condensed Quintilian’s instructions into six rules, but only the first three are relevant to this speech: the speaker must know the emotions, the speaker must imagine and feel the emotions himself, and the speaker must describe the situation as the audience experienced it. Not only did Carmichael acknowledge the emotional toil of his audience and stir those very emotions to accomplish the goals of his speech, but he was able to do so effectively by showing that he, too, felt these emotions. He assimilated himself to the emotions by speaking in first person plural “we.” Although he was more enlightened about the issues of the Black Power Movement and he was “teaching” the audience a new perspective, he included himself in the “teaching.” This allowed the audience to feel as if they were being spoken “with” rather than spoken “at.” His “allinclusive” approach created a sense of unity that he was promoting and trying to persuade others to accept as way of life. Carmichael’s emotional recount of the violence, the lies, the manipulation, and the constant and consistent rejection of black Americans is reminiscent of the enmity that Aristotle mentioned in his discussion of emotional appeals.

Emotional Appeal of Enmity Enmity is, as regarded by Aristotle, the “hostile emotions as awakened by perception that someone belongs to a detested class of individuals. The negative feeling toward the class is a permanent one . . .” (137). Such is true of how white Americans felt about black Americans. Enmity is illustrated in two different discussions in Carmichael’s speech.

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Early in his speech, Carmichael broached the subject of the name given to black people—“negro.” One of the goals of the Black Power Movement was to instill a sense of identity and pride in black people. At the heart of this matter was the word “negro.” This is being discussed within the context of enmity, as it was a word created for a group of people who were detested and looked down upon. Carmichael explains, So the white people have been defining us all our lives and we have been forced to react to those definitions. And see, they call you all Negroes. I guess you all came from Negroland. [laughs] But see you have allowed white people to name you. When we were in Puerto Rico a couple of months ago we were speaking in Spanish. I was looking through the dictionary to find the word for Negro in Puerto Rican. There is no such word. The closest word is negro: it means black. In French, there is no word for Negro. In German, there is no word for Negro. In Swahili, there is no word for Negro. You wouldn't want me to leave out Swahili . . . they have defined that and with the word Negro comes people who are stupid, apathetic, love watermelon, and got good rhythm. (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

Carmichael’s discussion of black Americans’ participation in various wars illustrates a pattern of redemption-seeking and “enmitic” behavior between black and white America. The black man wanted to be considered an American so badly that he volunteered to fight in wars on behalf of a country that treated him less than human, but the black man was so detested and hated that he was rejected time and time again: The very first man to die for the War of Independence in this country was a black man named Crispus Attucks. . . He died for white folk country while the rest of his black folk were enslaved in this country. . . In the American Revolutionary War, they wouldn't let us fight, because we were black, and stupid, and ignorant. Oh, but we wanted to be Americans, so bad, that we got out in our bare feet and trampled up and down the eastern shores of this country training with wooden rifles, begging the white folk to let us fight…We wanted to prove to America how good we were to her. . . . . The Mexican War came . . . We went out there and we begged to fight. There we were again, fighting non-white people. Dying for the white man. The war wasn't even over and we still in slavery. Then came the Civil War. He [Abraham Lincoln] wouldn't even let us fight in the Civil War. He said we weren't fitting to fight next to white men . . . he let us fight, but in segregated units. But we wanted to prove to America how good we were . . . . Then came World War I and they were drafting white people and they wouldn't draft us. And we were ashamed. “Oh, draft us!” we cried. “We are good Americans—let us fight.” We

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Carmichael goes on to describe how this pattern continued through World War II and how after black men stopped Hitler from “running over the Poles,” a Polish man threw a rock at them (Carmichael and others) and told them to get out of his neighborhood. He referenced a book by Langston Hughes in which there is an account of a prison camp in Texas where “black American soldiers who had gone to Europe to fight for this country were bringing home Nazi prisoners and they put them on a train in New York and when they get to Washington, D.C., the white Nazis, who were enemies of this country sat in the front of the train, and the Niggers had to sit in the back” (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”). The last example of this acceptance-seeking/rejection behavior involved black Americans’ participation in the Korean war: Korea, at last, our chance to fight with our white brothers. "Oh, we must stop Communism at any price!" was the cry and it was our blood that paid the price. It was our blood that stopped Communism at any price. And our uncles came back to this country with one leg and one arm only to walk into a store and to have some foreigner slam his door in his face and say, “Get out my store, Nigger.” We wanted to prove what good Americans we were. (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

These narrations of how black Americans sought to be respected, accepted, or just acknowledged as “American” by white Americans are examples of how enmity fueled the anger felt by black Americans. Ironically, these same narrations are also examples of emotional appeals of shame, as they illustrate how ashamed black Americans were to be overlooked and counted as worthless. The recount of these narratives also served to show black Americans how they ought to be ashamed for their continued begging to be accepted and risking their lives for a country that detested them.

Emotional Appeal of Shame Aristotle defines shame as “a sort of pain and agitation concerning the class of evils, whether present or past or future that seems to bring a person into disrespect…” (144). Aristotle elaborates further on the feeling of shame:

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People feel shame when they suffer or have suffered or are going to suffer such things as contribute to dishonor...for submission and lack of resistance comes from effeminacy or cowardice. These then, and things like them, are the things of which people are ashamed. (145)

Carmichael’s discussion of black Americans’ war participation was a lesson in shame and what shame will provoke some to do–seek acceptance at any cost. Being black was synonymous with being “ashamed.” This is why the essential goal of Black Power Movement was focused on identity and pride—the only thing black America knew for sure was that they were ugly and that they were hated, as this was reiterated daily in many different ways and from many different people, sometimes even from black people themselves. People feel even more shame before those who are watching them and have what they are in great need of (Aristotle 145). This was the situation of black America—they needed to be accepted as Americans, be treated with respect, and be extended the same opportunities to work, earn a living, raise their families in nice neighborhoods—essentially, have a shot at having the American Dream. To not even have a fair chance of having this before the eyes of the very people who had it and flaunted it, was to live with a heavy shame daily. The shame that black people carried with them was fundamentally inculcated, and it was passed on from generation to generation, which again emphasized how important it was for Carmichael to speak with young people in their formative years about how this system of shame had been indoctrinated into the black community. The features and characteristics that make black Americans different from white Americans were targeted to be icons of ridicule and shame—skin, hair, facial features such as lips and noses. Carmichael said: The most insidious things they could have done to us is to make us believe as a people that we are ugly. The criteria for beauty in this society is set by white folk. In the books you read, in the television programs you see, the movies, the magazines and the newspaper. If she's beautiful she's got a thin nose, thin lips, stringy hair and white skin—and that's beauty. And they believe in that beauty so much, that our women run around day and night bathing in beauty cream from morning to night. (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

This message, a classic enthymeme, never states clearly that black features are ugly, but by only focusing on and describing the features that are thought to be beautiful, it makes the conclusion clear. This enthymematic message was prevalent throughout all forms of media—

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both black and white publications and advertisements. In a 1953 advertisement for Nadinola Bleaching Crème in Ebony magazine, a black woman holds a daisy playing the “loves me, love me not” game. The text below her picture says, “Don’t Depend on Daisies! Be SURE with a light, clear complexion!” (Walker 108). The advertisement implies to the reader that dark skin is not attractive or “he” will not love a woman who is dark of skin. This is an example of the shame and self-hatred that was present in the black community. In an attempt to assimilate and be accepted as Americans, black people used a variety of chemical products and unusual methods to alter their physical appearances. Carmichael addresses this situation: They have got us believing that so that all these young men go out and process their hair so they can have straight hair to look beautiful…they mesmerized our women's minds so that they process their hair every Friday night. And the rest of them get their fifty dollars and buy wigs. (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

The idea of black being shameful was often perpetuated by older people who passed it on to their children and other generations. The perpetuation of shame was often passed down in the form of myths or “old wives’ tales.” Carmichael briefly addressed this perpetuation of shame in this form: “Black parents tell us, ‘don't drink coffee, because it makes you black.’ ‘Bite in your lip, 'cause it's too thick’” (“Black Power Speech”). He tells of a young man who wore a nose-clip on his nose at night (to make his nose smaller): They messed it up so much that every time we begin to think somebody’s beautiful, they pick somebody who is light, bright, and damned near white. And then they are beautiful…That's how much they have messed up our minds. We are ashamed of ourselves and of our color of our skin. (“Black Power Speech”)

Not only were black Americans ashamed of their appearance, but they had also been indoctrinated with the belief that they, as a race, were lazy. They believed it, and that, too, was passed along as truth, but Carmichael pointed out the poor logic of such a belief: Now the first lie that white America told about us is that we are lazy people…You ought to get it in your minds, we not lazy. We are hardworking. White people are lazy…They [are] so lazy they came to Africa to steal us to do their work for them. We're not lazy. We are the hardest working people in this country…The trouble is we are the lowest

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paid and the most oppressed and the most exploited people in this country. We're not lazy people. If you ride up and down the Delta in the South today, you will see black people chopping and picking cotton for $2.00 a day while white folks sit on the porch, drink Scotch, and talk about us. We're not a lazy people. It is our mothers who take care of their own family and then go cross town to take care of Miss Ann's family. So you should get that out of your mind: we're not lazy. We are a hard working, industrious people. Always have been—our sweat built this country. (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

Carmichael also attributed the reasons for violence and crime to shame. He implied that the shame and self-hate in the black community was so strong that black people began to hate each other for being black. He addressed the very emotions that Aristotle outlined as being a means to influence one’s judgment. Carmichael not only addressed the emotions that black folks felt, but he stirred that emotion. He understood how they felt and stirred up that emotion as a means to persuade the youth in the audience to see the world differently—as he saw it. He addressed their emotions of shame about their appearance, but then promoted another opposing emotion—pride: You are black and beautiful! Stop being ashamed of what you are! We have to as a people gather strength to stand up on our feet and say, “Our noses are broad, our lips are thick, our hair is nappy—we are black and beautiful!” Black and beautiful! (Carmichael, “Black Power Speech”)

As previously mentioned, he also explained of what they should be ashamed—the constant betrayal of themselves and their culture in order to be accepted by white America—their willingness to lay down their lives for people who would never accept them.

Conclusion This investigation addressed three importance concepts: a) the relevance of classical rhetorical theory in contemporary rhetorical texts, b) the connection between emotions and consciousness, and c) Carmichael’s use of emotional rhetoric to spark change in the consciousnesses of black youth. When encouraging marginalized individuals to take their differences and use them as strengths, poet Audre Lorde wrote “for the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (112). Dr. Kim Pearson at The College of New Jersey posits that African slaves had no choice but to use the master’s tools of English language and argument styles to fight for

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their freedom, but they added their own oral traditions to create a hybrid tool that became a new kind of tradition. It is this use of the master’s tools—emotional appeals and strategies of forensic discourse—that Carmichael used so effectively in his Garfield High address. Having majored in philosophy at Howard University, Carmichael is sure to have read the philosophies of Aristotle and Quintilian, so I believe his speech to be an intentional lesson in classical rhetorical theory. Aristotle’s theory of the emotional appeals of anger, enmity, and shame could not have been a more accurate lens through which to “see” Carmichael’s speech. The speech could not have been a more exemplary model of Quintilian’s theories and guidelines of persuasion through the illustration of atrocious acts during forensic discourse, thus revealing the wisdom of the classical rhetorical texts. The black community was experiencing unrest as it was struggling in the fight for civil rights—the right to vote, education equal to that of white Americans, jobs, and a life free of racial violence. Because black Americans had tried since their arrival in the country to assimilate (for survival), they had forgotten their heritage, their culture, and who they were. Black men and women were putting themselves down for their appearance and destroying their natural beauty—brown skin, curly hair, and prominent facial features—in order to be accepted by white America. This was the struggle DuBois spoke of in his discussion of double consciousness. Black America had forgotten their first sight—the ability to see themselves through their own eyes—and only saw themselves through the eyes of white Americans. Black children were being systematically taught a history that belittled black Americans’ contributions in war and the development and growth of the country. Even when black students went to college, they still were passed over for jobs because of the color of their skin. It was an emotional time for black America. They were trying to be heard without violence only to be met with violence. Out of dedication to the non-violent principles of protest, many black Americans were beaten, brutalized, and murdered by white Americans who were not charged with the crimes. It was during this time that the Black Power Movement took a stand for the empowerment of their people. It was this movement that Carmichael represented. He spoke to young people who might have just heard a “half-baked” history lesson prior to filing into the auditorium or gymnasium to hear him. He spoke to young people whose school district didn’t want to bus in white students in order to meet the requirements of the desegregation law. He spoke to young people who would be going

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“out into the world” soon to look for jobs that would be given to someone else for no other reason than skin color. Carmichael took his message of Black Empowerment to these young minds and influenced them by stirring up the emotions that he understood all too well. He stirred these emotions by referring to the biased history lessons, the situations of black Americans fighting white America’s wars, and the systematic inculcation of shame and self-hatred of the black women and men. He recounted these slights as deplorable offenses against a group of people who believed they were helpless. He used these slights to stir up dormant anger and create a new anger. He delivered an effective speech by sharing these feelings with the audience—by including himself in the shameful passivity with which black Americans whispered about their trials and tribulations. In his book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, Carmichael wrote, “we blacks must respond in our own way, on our own terms, in a manner which fits our temperaments…to know it and tell it like it is and then to act on that knowledge” (viii-ix). Carmichael used the ancient tools of persuasion, but he used them in a style that was uniquely his. People who attended the address like Larry Gossett and Aaron Dixon still regard the speech as life-changing. Thirty-five years after the Garfield High School address, Gossett and Dixon refer to April 19, 1967 as the day “negroes in Seattle became blacks” and “the way I looked at myself and America changed” (Gunn, “The Times They Have A-changed”). Indeed, Carmichael’s emotional rhetoric sparked change in the consciousnesses of the youth on that day.

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Notes 1

An attempt to desegregate public schools by busing in students of other races to “balance” out the population. 2 The researcher will explore other means of persuasion at a later date. 3 Forensic discourse refers to judicial or courtroom settings (speeches of accusation and defense). 4 Racism is defined as the inherent belief in the superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.

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Works Cited Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford, 1991. —. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. Brinton, Alan. “Pathos and the ‘Appeal to Emotion’: An Aristotelian Analysis.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 5.3 (1988): 207-19. Print. Brunner, Borgna, and Elissa Haney. Infoplease. The Civil Rights Movement Timeline, 2007. Web. 1 Mar. 2011. . Carmichael, Stokely. “Black Power Speech Presented to Garfield High School.” The IRC’s Stokely Carmichael Page. University of Washington, 1999. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. http://courses.washington.edu/spcmu/carmichael/ transcript.htm. Carmichael, Stokely, and Charles Hamilton. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Print. DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Signet, 1969. Gunn, Thom. “The Times They Have A-changed.” The Seattle Times. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. http://community.seattletimes.newsource.com/ archive/?date=20020122&slug=thom22. Hamilton, Charles. “An Advocate of Black Power Defines It.” Black Protest in the Sixties. Ed. August Meier and Elliot Rudwick. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968. 154-68. Hoffman, Mary, and Debra Ford. Organizational Rhetoric: Situations and Strategies. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2009. Jasinski, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2001. Katula, Richard. “Quintilian on the Art of Emotional Appeal.” Rhetoric Review 22.1 (2003): 5-15. Knuutilla, Simon. Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing P, 1984. Pearson, Kim. African American Course Description. The College of New Jersey. Web. 22 Feb 2011. Quintilian. Institutes of Oratory. Trans. John Shelby Watson. Ed. Lee Honeycutt. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. http://honeyl.public.iastate.edu/ quintilian/.

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“Stokely Carmichael.” Encyclopedia of World Biographies. n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. http://www. notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/CarmichaelStokely.html. Tate, Cassandra. Historylink.org. 3939. 7 Sept. 2002. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_I d=3939. “This Far by Faith.” PBS, 2003. Web. 7 Mar 2011. http://www.pbs .org/thisfarbyfaith/journey_5/p_1.html. Walker, Susannah. Style & Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920-1975. Lexington, Ky.: UP of Kentucky, 2007. Print.

CHAPTER SIX EXPANDING BOUNDARIES: THE LANGUAGE OF CUSTOM, FEMALE AGENCY, AND ABOLITIONISM IN THE NEW UNITED STATES CANDIS PIZZETTA

This essay began as part of a larger project that examines the shifts in language relating to the role of women, beginning with conduct books for women in eighteenth-century Britain and America and concluding with abolitionist texts from the mid-nineteenth century American abolition movement. Moving from conduct books through the public discourse on women’s education in the early national period to the literature of reform in the early nineteenth century allows a glimpse of both the variety of views on woman’s proper place and the hegemony that a patriarchal culture attempted to ensure. In the decades before and just after the American Revolution, a change took place in the tenor of public discourse on the role of women in the home and on the relationship between women’s domestic responsibilities and their place in the larger society. The factors that contributed to that change are numerous and range from the influence of Enlightenment ideals on the equality of all mankind to the more prosaic responsibilities women shouldered during the American Revolution. Increased emphasis on providing basic educational opportunities for women created a more educated middle class. The idea that women as mothers were helping shape citizens of the new nation, the concept termed republican motherhood, introduced a civic role for woman, albeit one that was intimately tied to her domestic role (Zagarri 192). In “Gender and the Public Sphere: Alternative Forms of Integration in Nineteenth Century America,” Eyal Rabinovitch examines a debate between

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Nancy Fraser and J. Alexander over the democratic nature of the public sphere in light of social inequality. Rabinovitch focuses on the language of the female-led social movements of the nineteenth century as a way to measure the involvement of women in public discourse. The essence of Rabinovitch’s analysis intersects with the language of women’s abolitionism in two ways. First, the “civic associations of motherhood,” while distinct from political discourse, ultimately are an integral part of a democratic society (Rabinovitch 346). Second, even though the domestic sphere was separate from the public sphere, it participated in a sense of “civic unity” (346). The concept that both the private, domestic realm and the public are knit together is not an unfamiliar one to scholars of early American history. Yet, a connection between the genteel discussions of a woman’s contribution to domestic harmony and the often strident public discourse of female abolitionists may seem unlikely at first glance. Both conduct books for young women and early calls for educating women primarily were aimed at preparing young girls for the marriage market, though some texts addressed the conduct of wives, children, and, occasionally, husbands. In the most traditional vein, conduct books generated dialogue on how to educate a woman to run a household and what a woman’s social and religious duties were with regard to her husband and children. Women writers from Mary Wollstonecraft in England to Olympe de Gouges in France to Judith Sargent Murray in the new United States expanded that discussion of education and social responsibility of women to question the concept that women’s energies should be confined to the domestic sphere. Even American women dramatists, who relied on adaptations of the British social comedy for the American stage, altered the style of writers from Congreve to Goldsmith by using language marked by gender and class to restructure discourse on how to define female space. Within this expanded space, the notion of female agency took shape in the form of civic duty, a notion that had its naissance in discourse on family roles. For instance, in Judith Sargent Murray’s The Traveller Returned and Susanna Rowson’s The Female Patriot, social order relies less on a patriarchal hierarchy than on a hierarchy of virtue. For these authors, the language used in conduct books to limit women to the domestic realm is inverted. The domestic realm becomes a place where discourse on social values includes women’s voices. Rowson’s and Murray’s texts meld the hierarchical dialect of social discourse with egalitarian sentiments that embrace an expansion of female space. In late eighteenth century American drama, some women writers were connecting the accomplishments

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necessary for domestic harmony with those civic virtues most valued in the new nation. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, Judith Sargent Murray argued that women’s intellectual capacity was at least equal to that of men, making them perfectly capable of participation in public life. Although Murray’s essay “On the Equality of the Sexes” is now often anthologized as an example of early feminist thought, Murray’s argument was primarily aimed at encouraging parents to educate their daughters to be better wives and mothers. Like many proponents of education for women, Murray accepted the social boundaries placed on women’s participation in the political and commercial realms. Ironically enough, Murray’s husband was often forced to rely on Murray’s literary output to augment his meagre pay as a minister. Her personal situation notwithstanding, Murray both viewed woman as intellectually equal to man and accepted the home as woman’s proper sphere. Yet even as Murray argued for education for women as a way to make them better wives and mothers, she cautioned that failure to develop a woman’s mind fully would leave her feeling “confined and limited” (Murray). In her essay is a tension between her acceptance of the domestic realm as the appropriate place for women and her concern that by defining women only as wives and mothers society would be diminishing their potential: I would calmly ask, is it reasonable, that a candidate for immortality, for the joys of heaven, an intelligent being, who is to spend an eternity in contemplating the works of Deity, should at present be so degraded, as to be allowed no other ideas, than those which are suggested by the mechanism of a pudding, or the sewing the seams of a garment? Pity that all such censurers of female improvement do not go one step further, and deny their future existence; to be consistent they surely ought. (Murray)

For Murray, female agency is tied to a woman’s immortal nature. Women’s stature as equal beings and immortal souls underpinned Murray’s philosophical support for educating women. While motherhood might be the role a woman fulfilled in society, the value of her mind was evident in her humanity. As is true in Murray’s essay, the tension between limiting women to domestic and maternal duties and allowing them more participation in public roles is present even in the earliest calls for women’s education. The language of the later abolition movement was also marked by an emphasis on the primacy of domestic duties that was sometimes at odds with the language that defined female agency during the early republic.

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The cult of domesticity, of which both conduct books and discussions of educating women for republican motherhood were an essential element, became entrenched in the public mind in the nineteenth century as the cult of motherhood. The space created by early American women writers, like Murray and Rowson, defines the sentiment that inscribed on motherhood the duty of forming ethical values to sustain a nation. Abolitionism incorporated the connection between motherhood and morality as one of its central tenets. Abolitionism offered as its most potent rejoinders to slavery the acknowledgement of the primacy of family and the power of motherhood. Texts by and about women abolitionists illustrate a complex and fascinating path from the traditional portraits of women in eighteenth century discourse on women’s roles. Indeed, descriptions of the duties of mothers in the early republic form the ideal of republican motherhood that was adopted to the cause of abolition. The transition from separate spheres for men and women to women having a more active role in social reform incited concern in a number of constituencies. As Carroll Smith-Rosenberg notes, the feminine had historically been linked to human weakness and vice, making the idea of women participating in public roles an uncomfortable one (Kerber et. al. 573). Thus the notion that women could perform the functions necessary to serve as even quasi-citizens was radical to the early national period in large part because women were consistently written out of official definitions of citizenship (Kerber 839). As Nancy Cott argues in her review of women’s roles in the early republic, some men were concerned that education for women would make women “aware of wider perspectives . . . put their minds to work at other purposes than refining their subordination to men” (Bonds 125). The education of women did contribute to the lessening of the domestic bonds. As women became more capable of discerning the causes of social ills, they began to work to correct those ills. Although those impulses still arose from the conception of woman as a nurturing mother-person, those activities were decidedly external to the domestic realm. Abolitionists and temperance reform movements gave way later in the nineteenth century to women’s rights movements, indicating that the education of women and their ability to affect public policy altered their view of themselves as subservient to men. Jodi Campbell observes the connection between women’s education and their public roles: The feminists of the mid-nineteenth century were predominately welleducated. Far from leading them to accept the argument that women were naturally inferior to men, their educational experience revealed to them the

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opposite–that women, given the opportunity, were intellectual equals of men, and, as such, were worthy of controlling their own lives. (Campbell)

Even as women were becoming involved in social reform movements, some women writers were questioning the restrictions on women’s citizenship. In the 1820s, Hannah Mather Crocker examined the limited role of women in public life. Crocker argued that women’s intellectual equality was an accepted fact and thus she “sought to normatively defend and gently extend American women’s ongoing informal political participation in the postrevolutionary era and challenged the separate spheres discourse that aimed to restrict it” (Botting and Houser 265). Crocker’s arguments can be seen as an outgrowth of the expansion of both women’s education and the participation of women in social reform movements. Although some women writers like Crocker sought to explore how women could contribute to their society and their government, most reform-minded women writers focused on more specific goals. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, middle-class women became involved in reform societies in large numbers. Women were committed to supporting the poor, reforming prisons, increasing educational opportunities for boys and girls, encouraging moral reform to end the sex trade, encouraging temperance, improving the care of the mentally ill, and abolishing slavery (Ginzberg 4-5). By the time of the American Civil War, participation by women in public discourse on their own roles as well as on the need for social and political reform became commonplace. The historical record clearly documents the timeline that led woman from her self-effacing role in the domestic sphere to her direct and vocal participation in reform movements, the culmination of which was the push for women’s suffrage. An interesting thread that runs through that century of change can be traced through the language that women reformers adopted as they wrote about the evils of slavery and the duties of Christian women to help abolish that institution. Christian piety and the obligations of wife and mother were at the forefront of all the reform movements but most particularly at the core of women’s participation in the abolition movement. In his examination of privacy in the age of social compact, Eric Slauter notes that tension between public and private spheres had a marked place in the discourse of the early national period. The private person, especially when moved to withdraw to a state of solitude, enjoyed a greater internal quietude for deliberation on public events. According to Slauter, “In one sense private withdrawal made thought about public events possible” (38). Although Slauter only briefly references scholarly discussions of gender

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and the private sphere, his argument for withdrawal from public life in order to consider public events fully conforms with the view of the domestic sphere as a place for private reflection. If the growing print culture in the early national period represented a more robust public discourse on social identity, then the conception of the domestic sphere appears as a separate yet integral part of that discourse. Within the domestic sphere, a woman’s voice not only could be heard but also could contribute to decisions about political and social values in a meaningful way. There is no doubt that women were essential to the abolition movement. From the Grimke sisters to Harriet Beecher Stowe to Lydia Maria Child, educated, outspoken, and prominent women publicly voiced their concerns over the continued existence of slavery in the United States. As Lori Ginzberg notes, the connections between abolitionists and those women concerned with “The Woman Question,” which focused on educating women and giving them more secure legal status, is well documented. How women defined their role in the abolition movement and how they expressed those views are reflected in two paradigms. The language of abolition was both an outgrowth of women’s understanding of the relationship between the domestic and civic and of the religious beliefs that inspired their commitment to social change.

Second Great Awakening and Women’s Identity Formation In the Second Great Awakening, commitment to religious principles along with a highly developed emotional response to Christian beliefs were the hallmarks of the religious conversions that took place. The Second Great Awakening stretches from the early 1790s to the midnineteenth century, with some scholars dating the events until the early 1830s while others claim that it continued to draw in converts until around 1850. Part of the difficulty with identifying a precise end to the Second Great Awakening is that it profoundly influenced the course of American social development in the nineteenth century. The impact of the Second Great Awakening extended far beyond the church doors into the domestic sphere, the commercial realm, and the political sphere (Conforti 99-100). The primary vehicle of that spreading influence was the participation of women in reform movements. In each of these movements, a commitment to the betterment of the human condition grew out of the sense of Christian duty that the Second Great Awakening imparted to converts. Unlike the moribund, deterministic doctrines of Calvinism, Protestantism

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in the Second Great Awakening encouraged an active faith that participants were expected to display in their daily lives and choices. Though few ministers were directly championing social causes, their encouragement that the faithful should exhibit their faith in action provided a vehicle for the converts to advance their beliefs beyond mere religious observation. The language used to express and explore the limits of women’s involvement in social reform movements came in part from the revivalist sentiments of the Second Great Awakening as well as discourse on women’s education. Certainly the education of women and the availability of universal basic education were part of the social reforms taking place in the early part of the nineteenth century. However, women’s education was a topic that had been part of public discourse for considerably longer than the discourse on women’s Christian duty in the social sphere. For young women in particular, the concepts of Christian duty and social reform provided a mechanism for control at a time when their social and domestic roles were changing in ways beyond their control. As Cott argues in “Young Women and the Second Great Awakening in New England,” young women in the Second Great Awakening were experiencing a less well-defined sense of belonging than their mothers had, creating a sense of insecurity in them but also opening them to the possibility of other roles. The women who would become the prime movers in the early reform efforts for temperance, abolition, and universal education reached maturity at a time when family structure, employment opportunities, and even attitudes toward marriage were undergoing profound changes. According to Cott, these social dislocations affected every aspect of a young woman’s existence: During the years of the second Great Awakening, then, it was likely that young women’s experience contained one or more disorienting elements. It could include disruptions of traditional domestic usefulness, uncertainty about means of financial support, separation from family, substitution of peer-group for family ties, unforeseen geographical relocation, ambiguous prospects for and attitudes toward marriage, and hence an insecure future. (“Young Women” 19)

It is Cott’s view that young women’s identity formation during this period of social change prompted them to try to find a role in public life in some way analogous to the male role of citizen in the new republic. The Second Great Awakening and the concomitant reform movements of the early nineteenth century offered a place for that identity formation that was still, at least marginally, within the realm of women’s traditional sphere.

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The church become an extension of the home as women filled the pews and tent revivals of the Second Great Awakening. Historians like Cott, Joseph Conforti, and Mary Beth Norton estimate that between three-fifths and two-thirds of converts during the Second Great Awakening were women, most of whom were under the age of twenty-five. This women’s youth movement suggests a widespread discontent with and confusion over the role young women were to play in the society forming in the early republic. Norton in “The Evolution of White Women’s Experience in Early America” explores the “major changes and continuities in women’s lives during the colonial and Revolutionary periods” (595). One primary argument she makes is that women’s lives during this period were far more complex than their economic status alone could demonstrate. Norton divides the evolution of white women’s experience in early America into three periods: 1620-1660, 1660-1750, and 1750-1815. The third period is the one that intersects with the Second Great Awakening and the rise in American women’s participation in social reform. According to Norton, this period of change in women’s lives was one that gave them greater involvement in the development of social norms, particularly those that intersected with the precepts of religious piety and observance. In essence, the participation of women in the Second Great Awakening and the resulting social movements made those women and their descendants more modern. Although the process of modernization was slow and somewhat circuitous, the opportunities for agency afforded women by their involvement in religious activities changed the way they viewed themselves. The social reforms inspired by the tenets of their faith led women from considering themselves as part of the public discourse only through their husbands to viewing themselves as active participants in public discourse regarding social issues. The connection between rising religious fervor and social change has a long history of affecting social norms. Sociologist Frank Lechner argues that periods of religious fundamentalism, including the Second Great Awakening, occur in response to increased secularization of social norms. Yet, even though the religious reform movements aim at increasing the influence of religion on community values, they have the effect of modernizing the societies that produce them. The resultant social change, although clothed in religious terminology and platitudes, creates a set of social values that reflect concern with equality and physical well-being as well as with the spiritual or religious goals that the movements champion. Lechner defines fundamentalism as “a mode of revitalization aimed at (re)asserting and (re)establishing absolute values, (re)organizing different spheres of life in terms of those values, and thereby dedifferentiating

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aspects of (social) life” (245). Insomuch as the Second Great Awakening engendered interest in social reform, Lechner’s definition of fundamentalism clearly applies here. The impact of this level of social change on women during the Second Great Awakening can hardly be overstated. In particular, women’s participation in religious and social reform activities legitimized their participation in public life, which meant both expanded opportunities for writing about social issues and a more unabashed voice in their writings about social issues. As Amy Swerdlow notes of women in New England who attended Charles Grandison Finney’s revivals, women “found not only the promise of salvation in heaven and peace and grace on earth but also a meaningful place for themselves in the public life of religion” (33). For young women in the early national period, the fundamentalist revivalism and social reform movements provided them with an outlet for their energies and a sense of empowerment through good works. Even if they were no longer able to easily define themselves as valuable members of their households, the women who came of age during the period covered by the Second Great Awakening found a number of outlets for their abilities in the social reform movements. Discontent of young women does not completely account for the widespread impact of the Second Great Awakening. The changes that took place during and in the wake of the American Revolution in American social, political, and economic realms shaped the very notion of what it meant to be an American. The increased importance of rationalism in the revolutionary period led to a more impersonal and less local sense of identity. American men viewed themselves as part of national political developments; their significance, as well as that of their wives, rested on their participation in and contribution to the larger goals of nation building. The disestablishment of government supported churches and the freedom to follow one’s conscience in matters of religion became intricately tied to the idea of American liberty. The connection between religious liberty and the political tenets of the American Revolution has been well-established. Thomas S. Kidd notes in his study God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution that in the early republic political concepts and public religious norms often worked in tandem. The theory that “a republic needed to be sustained by virtue” was one that carried through into the American sense of identity (Kidd 6). Yet virtue and religious practice for men and for women differed even as religiosity was imbedded in American identity. As Cott notes, the early national period, almost synchronous with the period of the Second Great Awakening, was the beginning of modernization in the United States. This

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modern social structure provided a profoundly different set of values for men and women during the early nineteenth century: In the social and political spheres it [modernization] implies analogous development toward rational, functional, and integrated structures: expanded political participation, centralization of authority, and movement away from small, isolate, traditional communities with ascriptive or hereditary hierarchies toward one large (national) society with common and cosmopolitan values. (Cott, “Young Women” 19)

These larger social and political trends produced changes in women’s lives even though women were not officially allowed participation in the public sphere. The Second Great Awakening offered many women an avenue for participation in the larger, primarily male, society. Rather than defining themselves as participants in the formation of a new political system, women in the early national period were able to adapt their religious duties as a way to participate in the formation of a new moral system—one that would both conflict with and shape the political system. As women began to voice their Christian values and to express their conception of Christian duty, they created an ethical norm, a measuring stick for valuing American culture.

Women’s Public Morality: “Manners and Character” The transformation of women’s role in public discourse that the growing involvement in reform movements marks can be traced through texts that span from the early national period to the eve of the American Civil War. The literature of that century contains several key threads throughout, and I wish to focus very narrowly on three texts that demonstrate this shift. The first is Benjamin Rush’s “Thoughts Upon Female Education” from 1787. Rush is neither a conservative writer of conduct books nor a proponent for women’s full citizenship, but his arguments for female education clearly address both the concerns of the conduct book authors as well as those of proponents of more progressive approaches to education for women. A generation after Rush’s push for more education in the new republic, we can see the influence of his ideas on women’s education. As well, we can examine the continued conservatism toward women’s participation in public discourse in the language of Catherine Beecher’s 1837 “An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism,” with Reference to the Duties of American Females.” In Beecher’s application of the educated woman as quasi-citizen, we see continued acceptance of the home as the only appropriate sphere for

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female influence, even as Beecher herself writes to urge women to exhort their husbands to abolish slavery. Finally, an examination of Lydia Maria Child’s speech to the Massachusetts legislature in 1860, “The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act,” will reveal a mindset that has developed to embrace and champion women’s role in public discourse. In the appeal to the Massachusetts legislature, Child acknowledges that the appropriate sphere for women is the home, but, unlike Rush and Beecher, Child does little more than give lip service to the notion that women should focus their reformist energies within or confine their influence to the domestic sphere. For Child, the modesty and virtue emphasized by conduct books gives way to moral urgency that only women can fully appreciate. Rush’s 1787 call for women’s education suggests that education for women “should be conducted upon principles very different from what it is in Great Britain” (76). He argues that the old model represented by conduct books popular for the century before his essay places emphasis on education for women to learn to be virtuous and modest wives who submit to their husbands’ opinions in all things. In his 1787 essay, Rush asserts that the challenges of building a new nation require more practical knowledge for young women. As Jacqueline Reiner asserts, Rush and his contemporaries saw education as intimately tied to citizenship, “the great Revolutionary experiment itself—would depend on the public virtue of citizens” (150). In Rush’s discussion of this relationship, he provides a response to the tradition of training women to accept their husbands’ preeminence in matters external to the home. Instead of a focus on education as the tool for creating subservient wives, Rush shifts his emphasis to educating women so that they can mold their children into educated and productive citizens. He writes, “It becomes us therefore to prepare them, by a suitable education, for the discharge of this most important duty of mothers” (76). The wife was to assume a higher position in the domestic hierarchy—one that required her to accept responsibility for educating future citizens. Rush judged the education of women in Britain and on the continent as having too much of what he terms “ornamental accomplishments” instead of the “principles and knowledge in the education of [American] women” (77). Rush did not, however, envision that a significant change in the social order would occur by educating women. Women were still to confine their pursuits to educating their children and building the moral foundations for their own families. Hyman Kuritz’s assessment of the political climate in the early national period with regard to the purpose of education is significant here. Kuritz asserts that the United States in the late eighteenth

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and early nineteenth centuries “was neither a democracy nor a stratified society” (Kuritz 432). The political culture was in flux, leading to a change in the way the average person was viewed in relation to the government, which included, among other things, a shift in the defined purpose of education. Education was no longer the purview of the economically and socially elite; it began to be seen as a tool for creating a stable republic. Expanded educational opportunities meant both improved prospects for the educated individual and a more knowledgeable citizenry. Thus, educating more Americans, including women, was not intended to transform the republic into a democracy where women were treated as equal citizens. Rather, expanded education meant that more Americans could contribute to the republican experiment and that women could make that contribution through their participation in family life. However, once loosed, the power of education for women led to the formation of an active reform movement. As Jodi Campbell notes in her essay “Benjamin Rush and Women's Education: A Revolutionary's Disappointment, A Nation's Achievement,” the education of women did not simply make them more biddable wives, instead, women’s awareness of themselves as a significant faction in American society encouraged them to seek out opportunities to reshape their collective identity. For the increasing numbers of educated women, the ideal of republican motherhood was one that had similar meaning in both private and public spheres. For Rush, the role of the mother as guide to good citizenship involved “instructing their sons in the principles of liberty and government” (76). Less than two generations after the publication of Rush’s article, Lydia Maria Child would argue that women abolitionists serve the same role in a public capacity, applying their “genuine delicacy of feeling” as a spur to the conscience of male legislators (Child). But when Rush writes, “let the ladies of a country be educated properly, and they will not only make and administer its laws, but form its manners and character,” he is giving women direct influence through their sons and husbands and—more importantly in reference to women’s changing status—making them arbiters of public morality through their families (77). In his essay, Rush imagines a country without educated women leading the households and training the children. His dark vision is of a world that is lacking culture and full of vice and a “train of domestic and political calamities” (78). Although he is not arguing directly for women’s participation in public affairs, he clearly associates the idea of domestic harmony with that of political stability. The imprint of women’s influence on the men in their households implicitly affected the direction and tenor of public discourse. So even though Rush regularly qualified his calls for

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female education by confining female influence to the domestic sphere, he clearly sees the indirect outcome of those domestic exchanges extending into the public realm. Rush acknowledges that social norms did not include regular education for women, seeing it as a distraction from their duties within the home. He writes, “I know the elevation of the female mind, by means of moral, physical, and religious truth, is considered by some men as unfriendly to the domestic character of a woman” (79). Yet he argues that the “public happiness” would be greatly improved by making education of women a standard practice (79). Although there is some tension in the call for female education, Rush’s view that education enhanced female moral faculties was key to the success of his educational efforts. Kuritz argues that Benjamin Rush, though influenced by the Lockean concept of mind developing in response to sensory experience, was not fully a materialist. Instead, Rush argued for a “moral faculty” implanted by God but still susceptible to change through experience (Kuritz 434). Educating the mind meant that an individual would be able to make rational choices when faced with moral questions. In this way, Rush resolved the tension between the Enlightenment emphasis on reason and his belief in an innate sense of morality. As women came to be viewed in the nineteenth century as the moral center of the domestic sphere, which served as the moral ballast for the larger society, Rush’s emphasis on education of women as a way to develop their moral faculties seems almost prescient. If education of women could contribute to “public happiness,” then educating women would provide a more robust and stable social order (Rush 79). Stability as an objective for education may seem antithetical to the twenty-first century educator, but molding students to recognize and follow social norms had long been the primary purpose of education in Rush’s time. Susan Douglas Franzosa’s essay “Schooling Women in Citizenship” argues that from the time of the early republic onward most education for women in the United States had to do with “socializing students to accept existing social relations that inhibit full adult participation in civic society” as opposed to making them into full citizens (Franzosa 276). Even as writers like Rush encouraged parents to educate their daughters, those daughters were still to be confined by the legal and social norms of the day. Young women were to be educated to contribute to the quality of their sons’ and, perhaps, husbands’ civic involvement. The concept of republican motherhood and domestic influence that writers like Judith Sargent Murray supported relegated women to pseudocitizenship. For a woman, “formal civic education was to teach her about citizenship; it was not intended to prepare her for her own citizenship but

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for the mothering of citizens” (Franzosa 277). Through participation in reform movements, women were able to work around the laws and customs that excluded them from participation in public life. The abolition movement, in particular, aimed at both the accepted forms of female influence—praying with family members and trying to convert husbands, brothers, and sons to the cause—and public efforts at reform through church-sponsored benevolence societies, temperance movement organizations, and anti-slavery groups. Siobhan Moroney in “Birth of a Canon: The Historiography of Early Republican Educational Thought” thoroughly reviews the historical significance of early national essays on education. She particularly focuses on historiographical texts by Allen Oscar Hansen, Liberalism and American Education in the Eighteenth Century (1977), and editor Frederick Rudolph, Essays on Education in the Early Republic (1965), highlighting the ways in which these educational historians chose to emphasize texts that supported the view of American education as a national project. Moroney’s analysis makes it clear that many more essays on education from the early national period exist and that those essays demonstrate a greater variety of views on the approach to educating Americans. Moroney notes in her essay “Widows and Orphans: Women’s Education Beyond the Domestic Ideal” that education for women was specifically tied to the ideal of the domestic sphere as a refuge where piety and morality were central. Thus, Moroney makes the connection between the domestic sphere and education for women as one that involves valuing the very moral faculty that Kuritz highlights in Rush’s philosophy of education. One of the earliest beneficiaries of increased opportunities for women’s education, especially as it was tied to an improved moral faculty for women, was Catherine Beecher. Catherine Beecher’s “An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with Reference to the Duties of American Females” in 1837 explores “the just bounds of female influence, and the times, places, and manner in which it can be appropriately exerted” (Beecher 181). Beecher accepts women’s status as inferior to that of men, yet she delineates the sphere of female influence as being somehow both subordinate and equally important to the masculine sphere. In Beecher’s essay, the variability and ambiguity of the status quo with regard to women’s roles becomes clear. Women were being educated with the idea that they would be better wives and mothers, and yet these educated women could not help but realize that their intellectual and moral contributions to family and to community had value. In the case of Beecher’s essay, that value seems almost equal to that of men:

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But while woman holds a subordinate relation in society to the other sex, it is not because it was designed that her duties or her influence should be any the less important, or all-pervading. But it was designed that the mode of gaining influence and of exercising power should be altogether different and peculiar. (Beecher 181)

Echoing Murray’s claim that men and women were equal, Beecher must then attempt to align her principles with the traditional view that the domestic realm was the appropriate one for women. Although men could and should perform a role in the public life of the republic, women’s “power” belonged in the home because it was neither political nor economic in nature. Beecher writes her essay without irony, taking part in public discourse on women’s roles while accepting the limitations on women’s participation in that very same discourse. The “different and peculiar” source of women’s participation in public life can explain Beecher’s essay writing. For her, the moral principles that a woman must inculcate in her family provide a basis for a woman’s involvement in discussions of public issues, albeit those discussions should usually take place within the home. The source of a woman’s power and equality can be found in her adherence to Christian principles of brotherly love. Composed during the period of the Second Great Awakening, Beecher’s essay encapsulates the complex relationship between educated women and the force of the social movements that their faith helped spawn. For social reformers like Beecher, the outward concern was for the equality and physical well-being of those individuals supported by the reform movements. Yet the spiritual goals of these movements were not confined to the slaves, the poor, or the intemperate; the reformists’ ultimate goal was to infuse American society with the very moral faculties that inspired the reformists. According to Beecher, “It is Christianity that has given woman her true place in society. And it is the peculiar trait of Christianity alone that can sustain her therein” (181). Thus, the source of a woman’s power, if indeed that word is appropriate, is adherence to “the kindly, generous, peaceful and benevolent principles” (182). A connection to Rush in the emphasis on character and moral faculty becomes clear. Beecher has shifted to the responsibility for public morality from men to women when she argues that “[w]oman is to win everything by peace and love . . . then, the fathers, the husbands, and the sons, will find an influence thrown around them, to which they will yield not only willingly but proudly” (182). The certainty with which Beecher proclaims woman’s ability to influence “the fathers, the husbands, and the sons” subtly contradicts the larger message of her essay: that women’s influence belongs in the home

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and can be exercised on with family or with groups of other women. Beecher makes it clear that a woman can work with other women to support “her appropriate office of piety, charity, maternal and domestic duty” as long as she does not become too forward or aggressive (182). Although she supports abolitionism, Beecher approves of women’s participation in the movement only when that participation is not “deemed, obtrusive, indecorous, and unwise” (183). Thus early in the abolition movement, even prominent women like Beecher, who comes from a family of reformers, still view the proper sphere for female influence as the home and the private relations between women and the men to whom they are individually connected. She goes on to say, In this country, petitions to congress, in reference to the official duties of legislators, see, IN ALL CASES, to fall entirely without the sphere of female duty. Men are the proper persons to make appeals to the rulers whom they appoint, and if their female friends, by arguments and persuasions, can induce them to petition, all the good that can be done by such measure will be secured. (Beecher 183)

In Beecher’s essay, we see a woman who is arguing that women can and should use their piety and suggested moral superiority to influence the men in their lives. And yet, she is unwilling to allow women direct participation in public discourse. The incongruity present in Beecher herself writing for publication was not lost on her readers. Angelina Grimke takes to her to task several years after this essay is published for not being more strident and forward in her support of abolition. A mere twenty-three years after Beecher equivocates on the proper sphere of influence for women, Lydia Maria Child does, in fact, directly address legislators who were elected by men and who are, obviously, all male themselves. Yet, Child’s appeal relies on the same basic concept that both Rush and Beecher endorse: that it is the right and the responsibility of women to safeguard public morality. Basing her argument on the assumption that men are too distracted by things of the world, Child asserts that women’s responsibility is to the morality of society at large. Although she acknowledges a woman’s first responsibility may be to her family, she quickly transforms the domestic and private into the social and public, seeing little difference in the two realms. Because women were active in reform movements long before Child wrote her appeal, the idea that women were the moral centers of home life had long been accepted. When evangelist Charles Finney in 1834 encouraged women to work to convert their husbands and to proselytize to each man to make him “feel a sermon ringing in his ears all day long,” he could not have known how

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successful and ubiquitous that approach would become (Finney). Women outnumbered men more than three to one in most protestant denominations, so the idea that women should be responsible for the ethical growth of a family unit was far from radical. According to Lori Ginzberg: By the antebellum years women not only dominated the pews of American churches, but were increasingly identified with religion itself. Traditional Christian virtues—piety, humility, submission to authority, and a commitment to perform virtuous acts—had come to be associated with women. “WOMAN,” [argues] Godey’s Lady’s Book editor Sarah Josepha Hale . . . was “God’s appointed agent of morality.” (Ginzberg 9)

When Child addresses the Massachusetts legislators, she does so firm in the knowledge that hers in the voice of moral righteousness, a voice that had a decidedly feminine tone. Child begins her appeal by directly claiming the privilege and the duty of superintending public morality for women: “And in the view of all that women have done, and are doing, intellectually and morally, for the advancement of the world, I presume no enlightened legislator will be disposed to deny that the ‘truth of Heaven’ is often committed to them, and that they sometimes utter it with a degree of power that greatly influences the age in which they live” (Child). Beginning her essay by claiming women’s centrality in the intellectual and moral development of the world demonstrates just how quickly the ideals that Rush proposed have been inculcated into the fabric of upper-middle class American life. Child goes on to point out that only women in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seem capable of recognizing the full moral cost of supporting slavery through the Fugitive Slave Act: “For sweet charity’s sake, I must suppose that you have been too busy with your farms and your merchandize ever to have imagined yourself in the situation of a slave” (Child). Clearly women have the advantage of being able to empathize with the slaves. In telling the story of a woman who discovers an escaped slave on a ship that was travelling from the South to the North, Child provides a concrete illustration of the strength of female goodness. The woman discovered the escaped slave, an emaciated child, who she proceeded to secretly bring food. Once the child was found, he was manacled and turned over to slave hunters. The woman in the story berates the men on board for allowing common decency and humanity to be restricted by inhumane laws. After relating this story, Child rebukes the legislators for a lack of empathy, asking them to image how they would feel if the child were one of their own. In this story and the several others

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that follow, Child makes it clear that men do not have the “nicety of moral perception” necessary to truly understand the ways that slavery is unjust and iniquitous (Child). By claiming for women a “genuine delicacy of feeling,” Child suggests that the ability to see how moral precepts are being ignored is a skill that women have in abundance but men lack (Child). Her implication is that the difference has consequences for the society at large. Child makes the connection between women’s superior moral faculties and the dangers of ignoring those gifts in a discussion of the case of escaped slave Anthony Burns. When Burns was returned to slavery by the Massachusetts authorities, Child states, I wept for my native State, as a daughter weeps for the crimes of a beloved Mother. It seemed to me that I would gladly have died to have saved Massachusetts from that sin and that shame. The tears of a secluded woman, who has no vote to give, may appear to you of little consequence. But assuredly it is not well with any commonwealth, when her daughters weep over her degeneracy and disgrace. (Child)

In her “Appeal,” Child takes on the martyr’s role, extending the consequences of martyrdom to all women in the commonwealth. Thus, she sets the stage to question the seclusion of women when women are, in fact, the most appropriate moral guides for society. Notice that Child weeps for her government’s failures even more poignantly than for the suffering of Burns. Becoming the voice of public morality and humanity, Child claims the role of arbiter of moral righteousness with regard to social and political norms. In calling the state her “beloved Mother,” Child shifts the discussion of ethical behavior back to a private sphere, the commonwealth as a larger family, still with women as the voice of “the kindly, generous, peaceful and benevolent principles” (Beecher 182). Although the connection between the abolition movement and beginnings of the women’s rights movement is well established, that connection should not suggest a smooth or untroubled transition. Women’s participation in public reform movements was quite often seen as both unfeminine and deleterious to the harmony of the domestic realm. Amy Swerdlow, in her thorough review of the conservative elements of early women’s abolition movements, makes the observation that many of the staunchest critics of slavery were also wedded to the notion that women’s participation in abolition should be confined to private discussion in the home or in groups of other women. Aileen Kraditor’s appraisal of this tension claims that “the founders of the women’s rights movement were all abolitionists, although not all abolitionists believed in equal rights for

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women” (qtd. in Swerdlow 31). In essence, women’s abolition groups fell into two camps: those that believed the moral imperatives of abolition compelled women to speak out in public against slavery and those that deemed women’s participation in public debate as a serious breach of Christian principles. The more conservative elements of the women’s abolition movement claimed that women could wield influence without leaving the domestic sphere and without “identifying them with the scenes of political strife” (Ladies’ New-York City Anti-Slavery Society 9). The language of women’s abolition was quite often couched in terms of women’s domestic role; anything less conservative often brought public scorn on the female abolitionists. When Angelina and Sarah Grimke were invited to New York to speak in a series of parlor lectures to the Ladies’ New-York City Anti-Slavery Society (LNYCASS), the expected crowd was large enough to require a public venue, the Beriah Baptist Church. However, both supporters of the lecture series and the general public reacted negatively to the announcement that the Grimkes would be speaking in public in a church. The compromise that the LNYCASS and the Grimkes reached was that the church would be used but would be closed to men, thus preserving the decorum of the women involved (Swerdlow 39-40). Not all women’s abolition groups totally eschewed the idea of a public voice for female abolitionists. Both the Philadelphia and the Boston women’s abolition societies promoted more egalitarian approaches to women’s participation in the abolition movement. Swerdlow notes that in both cases, the women’s abolition groups wrote charters that reflected an attitude toward both the enslaved African Americans and toward women’s responsibility to speak out on the immorality intrinsic to the institution of slavery that was different from men’s abolition groups and from the more conservative women’s groups. For these women, the “domestic evil” that slavery represented was a threat to family life, the realm most important to woman and the “ground on which she naturally moves” (qtd. in Swerdlow 37). Resisting slavery was for these women a fight against spiritual evil. As the founders of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society expressed their goals in their constitution, “we deem it our duty to manifest our abhorrence of the flagrant injustice and deep sin of slavery” (Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society 2). Although even the most progressive reformers viewed the domestic sphere as the province of women, they saw the home as extending into and, therefore, an extension of the public sphere. Women involved in the abolition movement were addressing the immorality of slavery as it affected both the nation as a whole and the individual households that the nation comprised. In a sense,

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these progressive female abolitionists were suggesting that republican motherhood meant not just rearing one’s children to be responsible citizens or wives but accepting responsibility for the moral development of the entire nation. Most noteworthy is Angelina Grimke’s resolution offered at the 1837 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Grimke asserts That as certain rights and duties are common to all moral beings, the time has come for woman to move in that sphere which Providence has assigned her, and no longer remain satisfied in the circumscribed limits with which corrupt custom and a perverted application of Scripture have encircled her; therefore that it is the duty of woman, and the province of woman, to plead the cause of the oppressed in our land, and to do all that she can by her voice, and her pen, and her purse, and the influence of her example, to overthrow the horrible system of American slavery. (Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women 9)

Grimke’s resolution was passed after considerable and heated discussion, but the proceedings of the convention note that it was not passed unanimously. Publicly challenging the role of women in the larger social order, even from the platform of the morally righteous anti-slavery position was simply too radical for many reformers. Despite the controversy engendered by women’s participation in public efforts to abolish slavery, women continued to join the abolition movement and to write about their role in that movement. Grimke’s willingness to express a public challenge to the accepted role of woman marks a moment in the modernization of woman’s role. Both Grimke’s argument for woman’s participation in the public sphere and the later address that Child makes to the Massachusetts legislature address not woman’s intellectual fitness for participation in public discourse but her moral superiority and the duties that preeminence convey on her.

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Works Cited Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Proceedings of the AntiSlavery Convention of American Women, May 9-12, 1837, New York City. Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection, Division of Rare & Manuscripts Collections at Cornell University. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. Beecher, Catharine. “Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism with Reference to the Duty of American Females.” 1837. Women, The Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, Volume One, 1750-1880. Ed. Susan Groag Bell and Karen M. Offen. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1983. 180-83. Botting, Eileen Hunt, and Sarah L. Houser. "Drawing the Line of Equality: Hannah Mather Crocker on Women's Rights.” The American Political Science Review 100.2 (2006): 265-78. Humanities International Complete. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. Campbell, Jodi. “Benjamin Rush and Women's Education: A Revolutionary's Disappointment, A Nation's Achievement.” John and Mary’s Journal 13 (2000): n. pag. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. Child, Lydia Maria. “The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act, Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts.” 1860. Project Gutenberg. November 2004. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. Conforti, Joseph. "The Invention of the Great Awakening 17951842." Early American Literature 26.2 (1991): 99-118. Humanities International Complete. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780-1835. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1997. —. “Young Women and the Second Great Awakening in New England.” Feminist Studies 3.1-2 (1975): 15-29. JSTOR. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. Finney, Charles. “What a Revival of Religion Is.” New York Evangelist, 1834. American Studies at the University of Virginia. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. Franzosa, Susan Douglas. “Schooling Women in Citizenship.” Theory into Practice 27.4 (1988): 275-281. Humanities International Complete. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. Ginzberg, Lori D. Women in Antebellum Reform. The American History Series. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 2000. Kerber, Linda K. "The Meanings of Citizenship." Journal of American History 84.3 (1997): 833-854. Humanities International Complete. Web. 21 January 2014.

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Kerber, Linda K., Nancy F. Cott, Robert Gross, Lynn Hunt, Carroll SmithRosenberg, and Christine M. Stansell. “Beyond Roles, Beyond Spheres: Thinking about Gender in the Early Republic.” The William and Mary Quarterly 46.3 (1989): 565-85. JSTOR. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. Kidd, Thomas S. God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Kuritz, Hyman. “Benjamin Rush: His Theory of Republican Education.” History of Education Quarterly 7.4 (1967): 432-51. JSTOR. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. Ladies’ New-York City Anti-Slavery Society. First Annual Report of the Ladies’ New-York City Anti-Slavery Society. 1836. Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection Division of Rare & Manuscripts Collections at Cornell University. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. Lechner, Frank J. “Fundamentalism and Social Revitalization in America: A Sociological Interpretation.” Sociology of Religion 46.3 (1985): 24359. Humanities International Complete. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. Moroney, Siobhan. “Birth of a Canon: The Historiography of Early Republican Educational Thought. “ History of Education Quarterly 39.4 (1999): 476-91. Humanities International Complete. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. —. “Widows and Orphans: Women’s Education Beyond the Domestic Ideal.” Journal of Family History 25.1 (2000): 26-38. Murray, Judith Sargent. “On the Equality of the Sexes.” 1790. Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray. Ed. Sharon M. Harris. Oxford: Oxford, UP, 1995. 3-13. Norton, Mary Beth. “The Evolution of White Women’s Experience in Early America.” The American Historical Review 89.3 (1984): 593619. JSTOR. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. 1838. Digital Library at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. Rabinovitch, Eyal. “Gender and the Public Sphere: Alternative Forms of Integration Nineteenth-Century America.” Sociological Theory 19.3 (2001): 344-70. Humanities International Complete. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. Reiner, Jacqueline S. “Rearing the Republican Child: Attitudes and Practices in Post-Revolutionary Philadelphia.” The William and Mary Quarterly 39.1 (1982): 150-63. JSTOR. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. Rush, Benjamin. “Thoughts upon Female Education.” 1787. The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.

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Slauter, Eric. “Being Alone in the Age of the Social Contract.” The William and Mary Quarterly 62.1 (2005): 31-66. JSTOR. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. Swerdlow, Amy. “Abolition’s Conservative Sisters: The Ladies’ New York City Anti-Slavery Societies, 1834-1840.” The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin and Jon C. Van Horne. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell, UP. 1994. 31-44. Zagarri, Rosemarie. “Morals, Manners, and the Republican Mother.” American Quarterly 44.2 (1992): 192-215. Humanities International Complete. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

CHAPTER SEVEN THE NONTRADITIONAL SPEAKERLY TEXT: SIGNIFYIN(G) IN DEREK WALCOTT’S OMEROS AND V. S. NAIPAUL’S A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS EMILY CLARK

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is the love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The glue that fits the pieces is the sealing of its original shape. It is such a love that reassembles our African and Asiatic fragments, like the cracked heirlooms whose restoration shows its white scars. This gathering of broken pieces is the care and pain of the Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-fitting, they contain more pain than the original sculpture, those shattered icons and sacred vessels taken for granted in their ancestral places. Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original continent. (Walcott, Essays 69)

Derek Walcott’s famous Nobel Prize speech, excerpted above, uses metaphor to make the very political work of postcolonial writers personal. The term “postcolonial,” or “post-colonial,” or “post colonial” is difficult to define and most scholars disagree on its usage, spelling, and connotations.1 Robert J.C. Young provides one of the clearer definitions in Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. He states, “Postcolonial cultural critique involves the reconsideration of this history, particularly from the perspectives of those who suffered its effects, together with the defining of its contemporary social and cultural impact” (4). Additionally, Young clarifies the way in which the work of articulating the impact of colonialism occurs, especially in literature: “the culturalization of academic knowledge marks a shift towards a consideration of the subjective experiences of individuals, and socialized aspirations of groups and

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communities, that compliments the traditional modes of analysis of the political and economic systems of which they form a part” (8). Thus, literary representations which use individual and communal experiences of colonialism clearly form part of the cultural, political, and economic critique of the effects of Empire. These definitions seem inclusive, but, in actuality, further marginalize many texts by failing to interpret them fully and repeatedly because they are not seen as “cutting edge” any longer. Thus, much is left out when a narrative, divested of its discussion of oppression and othering, is relegated to the pile of novels no longer worthy of contemporary scholarly attention. Derek Walcott’s Omeros and V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas are two such examples of novels which bear revisiting for these reasons. By reading both texts against each other and against the theories of Henry Louis Gates, they continue to clarify the term and the meaning of “postcolonialism.” While Walcott and Naipaul both address the common themes of chaos, frustration, and loss, Walcott’s text explores the cultural and historical diaspora of the Caribbean in a poetic way that Naipaul does not. Walcott’s non-linear prose-poem uses pastiche to explore a fuller definition of Caribbean identity. He uses a variety of narrative voices, including his own, to piece together a representation of global and Caribbean suffering. Naipaul, however, focuses solely on a small Indo-Caribbean family through his protagonist, Mohun Biswas, who interacts with others in a limited capacity. Walcott and Naipaul each represent the racial and economic hierarchies they have themselves experienced in differing ways. However, both texts and their value in postcolonial studies can be reevaluated by using them to answer several questions posed by Henry Louis Gates in The Signifying Monkey: Is something that is made new transformed into something better? Is something new more or less authentic? For whom?2 The answers to these questions can be found in the rebellious rhetoric of Walcott’s and Naipaul’s narrators. Both texts include signifying, according to Gates’s definition, although the character Mohun Biswas and the narrator Walcott manipulate language in an attempt to appropriate power for themselves with very different results.3 Walcott's narratological framework is more complex while Naipaul focuses only on a single, conventional, Indo-Caribbean voice which transcends the boundaries of oppression. Herein lies the necessity for further investigation of these two works: do the answers to Gates’s questions determine that an older, less experimental, text actually expands the definition of a postcolonial text more so than Walcott’s newer interpretations? How does the quality and

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quantity of rhetorical rebellion reflect the value and influence of the text in postcolonialism? Gates’s trope of the “talking book” re-imagines discourse as a character that aspires to oral narration and implies that the future of the narrative will change as the narrator/author/text passes it on to new storytellers (xxv). This theory helps readers understand how the written and spoken linguistic utterances of Walcott’s and Naipaul’s characters clarify the meaning of postcolonialism in these particular works. According to this idea, the narrative will become more indeterminate and encompass a plurality of meaning that more accurately reflects the lived experience of hybridity. Naipaul fails to represent the full cultural or linguistic diaspora of the Caribbean; however, he powerfully demonstrates how the power of language can transcend social and economic obstacles. Omeros is also problematic because, while we hear and see AfroCaribbean, British, African, and African-American language and voices, Walcott completely excludes the Indo-Caribbean community. Therefore, each novel excludes important components of Caribbean cultural politics, yet both are intrinsically valuable, perhaps because of these exclusions. Neither text perfectly exemplifies a holistic view of the difficulties inherent in depicting Caribbean life post-Empire. However, when read together, Walcott’s novel clearly “talks back” to Naipaul, whose character, Mr. Biswas, looks forward toward a time when he can further escape the insular Hindu community and reach the entire Caribbean world through his writing. In the Prologue to A House for Mr. Biswas, the narrator states that “how terrible it would have been . . . to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one’s portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one had been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated” (11). This passage summarizes what, at first glance, seems to be Mr. Biswas’s quest for a solid identity, which is represented by the physical structure of a home. However, as the narrative moves forward, the reader learns that Mr. Biswas truly lays claim to his portion of the world through his voice and rhetoric. He takes a stand against the hegemonic structures of Trinidad and the Tulsi family by engaging in linguistic combat with them. From a very early age Mr. Biswas experiences the freeing power of language when, as a sign painter, he is able to transcend his mother’s destitute life in the back trace of the village. His unique physical representation of words on signboards not only sustains him financially, but provides him with an expressive and unique voice separate from his mother, sister, and brothers, which Yi-Ping Ong summarizes in his article, “The Language of Advertising and the Novel: Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas.” He states,

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“If the language of advertising creates a vivid, luxurious, and appealing world of future promise, constructed around the importance of possessing the advertised object, then it is within the particular constraints and possibilities of this world that Mr.Biswas must carry out his lifelong struggle for autonomy” (Ong 463). The sign painting is indeed a signifier for the future of Mr. Biswas, if not a future of easily attained promise. Advertising serves as the catalyst for his marriage to his wife, Shama, and his life in her family’s home, Hanuman House. While trapped in Hanuman House Mr. Biswas continues to attempt to find a distinct voice to sustain him until he can afford to build or buy a space separate from the Tulsis. He believes that building his own house would signify his ascendency in the Tulsi family and in Indo-Caribbean society; however it is his writing that empowers him long before he and Shama live independently from her family. Mr. Biswas initially equates private spaces with agency, but Naipaul artfully demonstrates that rhetoric provides Mr. Biswas with both notoriety and money, which allow him to finally build the house he desires. However, his death quickly follows the completion of the house and the reader alone sees that Mr. Biswas obtained personal power and solidified his identity the moment he began to play with language. Throughout the novel Mr. Biswas’ limited position within the Tulsi household and his relegation outside of it to their plantation and then their house in Port of Spain is offset by his constant questioning of their caste. He systematically renames every member of the family in order to openly note the dissonance between their authority and the larger Arwacas community, beginning with Seth, the eldest male Tulsi. After attending an anti-caste reform meeting, he defiantly tells Shama, his wife, “You people say you are high caste. But you think Pankaj would call you that? Let me see. I wonder where Pankaj would place the Big Bull. Ha! With the cows. Make him a cowherd. . . . Yes, that’s it. The Big Bull is a member of the leather-worker caste. And what about the two gods? Where do you think Pankaj would place them?” (111). Mr. Biswas invalidates the social reputation of Shama’s family members one by one, thus raising his own value in contrast to them. However, these declarations have no implications outside of Hanuman House and only alienate him from every member of the Tulsi family. His verbal taunts seem to create little positive change in his actual status, yet these statements solidify his identity as a non-Tulsi. He reaps all of the benefits of their wealth, something his family lacked, yet his self-marginalization from them allows him to maintain his independence.

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Another compelling linguistic aspect of the narrative is Naipaul’s insertion of phrases which draw the reader’s attention to stereotypes associated with Hindi culture.4 The only amicable conversations between Seth and Mr. Biswas occur when they discuss arranged marriages and insurance fraud. Naipaul creates the specific terms “cat-in-bag” and “insuranburn” to refer to these situations, which he represents as common in the Hindi community. Several of the men in the narrative, particularly Mr. Biswas, view arranged marriages as traps for unsuspecting young boys. Thus, the wife, or angry “cat” is hidden from her perspective “owner,” who feels duped by the wife’s family. Indeed, Naipaul represents this custom as social fraud which Hindi society knowingly tolerates and celebrates. Additionally, Seth teaches Mr. Biswas that “insuranburn[ing]” allows the owner of a structure to simultaneously destroy and reap benefits from previous mistakes. While Seth only advises Mr. Biswas to take this action once when he burns The Chase, Mr. Biswas applies the idea of this phrase to future life choices. Both of these phrases allude to trickery and orchestrated confusion, which are common in signifying as well as Caribbean culture itself. This created chaos allows the characters to empower themselves because of the ambiguity and multiple meanings of the language they use.5 Mr. Biswas’s momentary collusion with Seth, as symbolized by the linguistic coding they share, briefly makes him feel equal to the older, more influential man. The relationships Mr. Biswas develops and undermines in Hanuman House, including his monetary connection with Seth, translate easily into the public space, another troubling place for him and V.S. Naipaul. Mr. Biswas’s narrative among the Tulsis in Arwacas is set against the background of the larger Indo-Caribbean community of Trinidad, of which he and the Tulsis play only a small part. Naipaul, by writing exclusively about Indians, privileges their Caribbean voices over that of AfroCaribbeans, who become merely a passing presence in the novel. Ironically, it is the Indo-Caribbeans who occupy a transitory place in Trinidad, which Naipaul documents through Mr. Biswas’s voice: “they could not speak English and were not interested in the land where they lived; it was a place where they had come for a short time and stayed longer than they expected. They continually talked of going back to India, but when the opportunity came, many refused, afraid of the unknown, afraid to leave the familiar temporariness” (185). Patricia Mohammed echoes Mr. Biswas’s sentiments in her historical introduction to “The Asian Other in the Caribbean:”

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Therefore, this familiar temporariness mimics Mr. Biswas’s life; he fails to develop real relationships with any of Shama’s family, never strays very far from them, and his ephemeral residence in their homes spans almost all of his adulthood. Thus, Naipaul demonstrates again that only language frees Mr. Biswas from his confines. Despite Mr. Biswas’s physical proximity to his in-laws, who could certainly be viewed as a metaphor for oppressive and oppressed Hindi culture in Trinidad, Mr. Biswas continuously pursues language as a method of rebellion. In Port of Spain sign painting leads him to take a job as an editorialist for the Trinidad Sentinel. It is here that he finally finds a public forum for his critique of Hindi culture and society in Trinidad. Thus, the jokes and “signifying” that he uses to rebel against the Tulsis now become public as articles calling for social reform. His job and the pen name he creates (The Scarlet Pimpernel) allow Mr. Biswas to reimagine his identity as an influential member of Indo-Caribbean society who rises above the Hindu caste system. He shifts from the role of dependent, emasculated, and impertinent son-in-law, to a serious cultural critic with a very public following.6 By adopting a pen name that alludes to a fictional British hero with a secret identity, Mr. Biswas mocks the British class system as well as the Empire itself. By evoking the character of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a heroic British noble who rescues misunderstood commoners, Mr. Biswas plays upon all of the colonial stereotypes which limit him. He is not only a disenfranchised commoner of the British Commonwealth, but holds absolutely no position in the already limited caste system of Indo-Caribbean Trinidad. By choosing this particular nom de plume, Mr. Biswas signifies on the British colonial system and transfers its power to his pen. Shortly after Mr. Biswas’s rise to success, his health and career rapidly decline, leaving the reader with a very specific and unusual example of Caribbean life, of which language plays a significant role. However, there

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is very little in the context of the novel that leads the reader to recall other Caribbean stories or myths. Thus, Gates’s trope of the talking book does not easily apply here. However, while this might seem to limit the meaning of Naipaul’s book in the Caribbean and postcolonial canons, the contrast between his groundbreaking novel and Walcott’s Omeros demonstrates its place as a conventional, yet progressive text (thus validating its importance in the postcolonial canon). Unlike Mr. Biswas, Derek Walcott’s postmodern epic is replete with allusions to other texts and mythmaking and clearly meets Gates’s definition of the talking book. Walcott’s work re-imagines Homer’s The Odyssey as an Afro-Caribbean narrative in an attempt to redefine the hybrid identity of the Caribbean and to represent the universal suffering of all colonized people throughout history. Walcott takes this “Master Narrative” of history and, along with the mythology of St. Lucia, a “Slave Narrative,” creates a new hybrid of “truth” that recognizes both battles and obeah cures as valid in a national allegory. Walcott additionally situates his deconstruction of colonial and postcolonial histories within a poetic structure. Therefore, he uses a traditionally white form to undermine history, a traditionally white discourse.7 While the foraging of new identities and new national allegories is de rigueur in Postcolonial Studies, few authors manipulate both form and content as Derek Walcott does. This works against what many have said about Walcott’s text: For three decades critics and reviewers have argued about how to reconcile Walcott's St. Lucian roots and his undeniable interest in Caribbean culture with his absorption of the Western canon, his propensity for grounding poetry in something very close to the kind of Great Tradition espoused by Leavis and Eliot. Indeed, the bulk of negative criticism aimed at Walcott argues he is a Eurocentric poet too deeply committed to Western humanism. (Jay 545)

However, I argue that in the spirit of Countee Cullen and Claude McKay, Walcott infuses old literary traditions with a new Caribbean style, voicing the pain of the past and incorporating it into a more hopeful future. Additionally, much like the Harlem Renaissance poets, Walcott both asks and attempts to answer this question: where does recorded history diverge from real experience and how does this affect the individual? In the course of the text, Walcott the narrator is visited by his father, who directs him to the past and to literary pursuits. Beyond the tale of Helen, Achilles, Hector, and Plunkett lies a deeper allegory about the power of the word and verse. Walcott’s father initially leads him to a

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wharf where women labor, delivering coal, and tells him: Kneel to your load, then balance your staggering feet/and walk up that coal ladder as they do in time/one bare foot after the next in ancestral rhyme. Because Rhyme remains the parentheses of palms/ shielding a candle’s tongue, it is the language’s/ desire to enclose the loved world in its arms; or heft a coal-basket; only by its stages/ like those groaning women will you achieve that height. (75)

This passage is an excellent example of the way Walcott appropriates poetry as a weapon against Imperialism and History. His linguistic play on the haggard feet of the women and the poetic foot represents verse as an interpreter and mediator between Africa’s past and the narrator’s present. Walcott’s father reminds him that “the couplet of those multiplying feet/made your first rhymes” (75).8 It is here, in the interstices between past and present struggles, that Walcott purports to find some answers about history, myth, and identity. Both Achille and Walcott suffer from the loss of Helen, the person and island respectively. It is in their recovery of her, even in a new form, that they are able to define satisfactory identities for themselves. They each find solace in the discovery that Africa still resides deep in the island/woman and that by remaining faithful to her, they will essentially remain faithful to themselves and their destinies. This representation of personal experience as a way to reveal larger social/communal truths follows what Satya P. Mohanty points out in Literary Theory and the Claims of History: “personal experiences are basically rather unstable or slippery, and since they can only be interpreted in terms of linguistic or other signs, they must be heir to all the exegetical and interpretive problems that accompany social signification” (31). Achille/Walcott’s survival after the destruction of the Middle Passage and the reconfiguring of St. Lucia by Britain depends upon Achille’s work as a fisherman and Walcott’s as a poet. Their crafts lead them not only back to Africa via St. Lucia, but also to themselves via their fathers and historical narrative. Achille’s determination to fish rather than work for tourists, as Hector does, allows him to patiently, although sometimes painfully, examine his past. His journey on the Swift back to his father exemplifies Walcott’s call to revisit the past in order to reconfigure the future. According to Emily Greenwood, “Readers of Walcott have become alert to the role of metaphor in his poetry as a trope that orders the relationship between the New World and the Old, holding them both in parallel, in an imaginary space” (132). Because Achille first continues fishing, then finds himself

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speaking to his father and witnessing the abduction of hundreds of Africans, he can now return to St. Lucia prepared to carve out his future; therefore, in his future lies his identity. With Helen/Penelope in St. Lucia, he is now “armed” with the “Slave Narrative” of his heritage, which provides him with a sense of his unique history rather than the fabricated version meted out by the British colonists. At the same time as Achille’s flight on the Swift, Walcott himself revisits his own father and his hybrid roots. Both sets of Walcott’s grandparents were composed of Anglo grandfathers and African grandmothers. Thus, he must contend with his dual heritage of both Master and Slave, a dynamic he faces in his poetry as well. Winning the Nobel Prize and composing canonical prose works are definitely marks of success in the white, western world; however, his journey, like Achille’s heat-stroke-induced journey on the Swift, puzzles out a past that brings him full circle to a contemporary identity that honors both past and present, Europe and Africa. Walcott’s text is easier than Naipaul’s to measure using Gates’s theories because it is more experimental and simply a newer approach to life on a former colony. The characters of Omeros confront all of the aspects of their identity and history, drawing the conclusion that there is no one way to define the Caribbean. Like all of England’s colonies, St. Lucia’s citizens struggle to mesh the fragments of their own lost history with that of the “Mother Country” even as they are abandoned by England and must forge a new future for themselves. This new future echoes Gates’s ideas about talking texts and the mimicry of signifying. The St. Lucia of the 20th and 21st centuries is not Arawak and Amerindian, African, American, British, or French. It is all of these things, but is now filtered by generations who have passed down versions of their passages to their children, born on St. Lucia. This gap empowers and weakens these post-modern, post-colonial ancestors who cannot compete in an evergrowing global society dominated by the powerhouses of America and Western Europe. So in the end Walcott’s story leaves the reader with answers about the past, but few about the future. Unlike Walcott, Naipaul does not ask monolithic questions through his narration, but rather critiques the limitations of Hindi society through Mr. Biswas and the Tulsis. His conventional methods evoke no history, rarely directly allude to India, and allow his narrator to explore his world through language rather than movement. While Naipaul’s method parallels neither Greek myth nor Joycean odyssey, Naipaul shows the powerful effects of language on one man and, consequently, a culture and a class. The Tulsi household signifies India transplanted in Trinidad, and the characters live

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separately from the children of the Middle Passage. Thus this text underscores the differences between slavery and indentured servitude. Determining which text is more valuable to the postcolonial canon, in terms of authentic cultural representation, is difficult to determine because of the multifaceted culture of the Caribbean. Derek Walcott uses a variety of literary devices, genres, narrators, and settings to portray the scope of Caribbean heritage and its companion literature. V.S. Naipaul, however, focuses on the narrow confines of one character’s life in a small geographical space, with few references to the outer world. These two texts each consist of traits important to understanding hybridity and the marginalization of England’s colonies. Combined, they would create the ideal postcolonial text, one which illustrates the struggles both of the individual and of the culture at large. Walcott’s Swift cannot immerse the readers in a character’s life the way Mr. Biswas’s character can. Ultimately, the voice of one character speaks for an entire culture and time period more clearly than a generalized view. However, Naipaul’s narrator more closely follows Gates’s theories about the power of actual language when it is turned against an oppressor. So perhaps new texts do not trump older ones, even in the competitive world of Postcolonial and other –isms; indeed, Walcott’s Swift would never have flown without the details of Naipaul’s signposts.

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Notes 1

For an exhaustive discussion of the term, see Ruth Frankenberg and Lata Mani’s “Crosscurrents, Crosstalk: Race ‘Postcoloniality’ and the Politics of Location” Cultural Studies 7.2 (1993): 292-310. 2 Henry Louis Gates states in The Signifying Monkey that “because of the experience of diaspora, the fragments that contain the traces of a coherent system of order must be reassembled. The fragments embody aspects of a theory of critical principles around which the discrete texts of the tradition configure, in the critic’s reading of the textual past” (xxiv). 3 Gates states, “Our task is not to reinvent our traditions as if they bore no relation to that tradition created and borne, in the main, by white men. Our writers used that impressive tradition to define themselves, both with and against their concept of received order. We must do the same, with or against the Western critical canon. To name our tradition is to rename each of its antecedents, no matter how pale they might seem. To rename is to revise, and to revise is to Signify” (xxiii). 4 In “The Asian Other in the Caribbean” Patricia Mohammed describes “a discourse that has persisted about the idolatry of Hinduism versus Christianity, and the difference of Indo-Caribbean versus Afro-Caribbean culture. Perhaps especially those belonging now to an age group over fifty, view themselves as an ethnicity under siege, occupying a second-class status in the society and having less claim to the state’s resources” (59). 5 Ong states “the ‘conversational,’ ‘elliptical,’ and ‘highly figurative’ elements that characterize the grammatical constructions of advertising language recall several key aspects of Mr. Biswas’ own preferred mode of language: his elaborate graphology, his wit and verbal playfulness, and his predilection for vague schemes and formulas” (469). 6 Mohammed states, “It is the homelessness and the absence of belonging that also locates Naipaul himself as an East Indian West Indian writer who had to leave, as many other writers of his generation did, and work as a company of exiles” (70). 7 In the tradition of the “trope of the talking book,” Gates explains that “the direct discourse of the novel’s black speech community and the initial standard English of the narrator come together to form a third term, a truly double-voiced narrative mode” (xxvi). 8 See Nicole Matos, who states: “in Walcott’s handling, figurations that are, indeed, grammatically or structurally metaphoric frequently operate in a mode that seems much more metonymic: serving a world whose essence is not finally that of substitutions, doublings, or parallels, but of merging, of the desire for (but often imperfect realization of) completeness, of the whole that emerges as more than just the sum of its parts” (42).

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Works Cited Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988. Greenwood, Emily. “’Still Going On’: Temporal Adverbs and the View of the Past in Walcott’s Poetry.” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters 28.1 (2005):132-45. Jay, Paul. “Fated to Unoriginality: The Politics of Mimicry in Derek Walcott’s Omeros.” Callaloo:A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters 29.2 (2006):545-59. Matos, Nicole. “‘Join Interchangeable Phantoms’: From Metaphor to Metonymy in Walcott’s Omeros.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 20 (2006): 40-60. Mohammed, Patricia. “The Asian Other in the Caribbean.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 29 (2009): 57-71. Mohanty, Satya P. Literary Theory and the Claims of History: Postmodernism, Objectivity, Multicultural Politics. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997. Naipaul, V. S. A House for Mr. Biswas. 1961. New York: Vintage, 2001. Ong, Yi-Ping. “The Language of Advertising and the Novel: Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas.” Twentieth Century Literature 56.4 (2010): 462-92. Walcott, Derek. Omeros. 1990. New York: Noonday, 1993. —. What the Twilight Says: Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. Young, Robert J. C. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001.

CHAPTER EIGHT NICKNAMING IN APPALACHIA: THE SHIBBOLETH OF THE MOUNTAINS SHAWN P. HOLLIDAY .

While the process of nicknaming to provide additional signification to an individual’s persona can be traced back more than a millennium to the Vikings—when an extra name was bestowed upon one’s family name as a source of special status within a community or to create a bond between the name maker and the nickname’s recipient—this communal linguistic practice made its way to the contemporary United States by way of 15th century England, where the Old English ekename had morphed into the Middle English nekename, which meant “a name or appellation added to, or substituted for, the proper name of a person . . . usually given in ridicule or pleasantry” (“Nickname”). In the following centuries, the spelling of nekename changed from nyckename in the 16th century and nicke-name in the 17th century to the more familiar nick-name in the 18th century to today’s rendering of nickname, which first appeared in the late 19th century (“Nickname”). Although the spelling of the compound word nickname changed over time, its meaning has remained stable for the past 600 years. As its etymology illustrates, the process of adding signification to a person’s name has a long tradition in the English language. While nicknaming is a human expression alive and well in almost all languages worldwide, the act of nicknaming has endured as an especially forceful practice in southern Appalachia (also known as South Midland Appalachia), a mountainous region of the eastern United States where the practice holds a special place in the English vernacular. As a result of its isolated location and its homogenous immigrant settlers, most of whom were Scotch-Irish, English, and German (Montgomery, “Language” 999– 1001), Appalachia’s geographical and cultural forces cause the region’s citizens to view the world and its people in distinct, sometimes peculiar,

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ways. As a result, one of the linguistic traditions still important in the region is the English practice of personal nicknaming. Even though the Viking custom of holding a special ceremony to bestow a nickname is no longer used today, Appalachian nicknaming maintains special significance since it acts as a cultural shibboleth for its users, a way by which “natives”—immigrants whose families have lived in the region for several generations—distinguish themselves from strangers by bestowing special names that allow for quick identification. While this custom gives nicknaming a practical use, a more benign process of nicknaming occurs between individuals who bestow expressions of familiarity or fondness upon their neighbors and friends within small, tightknit communities. This is especially true of southern Appalachia where the dangers of the region’s largest industry, coal mining, call for solidarity and closeness of the work group (Skipper 137). The existence of derogatory nicknames, however, most often results from the malignant practice of flyting, a type of verbal duel where individuals illustrate their linguistic prowess over rivals by tongue-lashing them (Ong 44). This often includes signifying competitors with profane names that stick or creating new names as a source of ridicule. This latter practice has always been an important part of childhood nicknaming as denoted in the first member of the compound word, nick, which once meant “a notch used as a means of keeping score; hence, reckoning, account” (“Nick”). In the centuries-old custom of flyting, the nicknamer received accolades for the most derogatory nickname bestowed. Surely, this historical residue still adheres to the term nickname, for today’s derogatory nicknames still denote a type of “reckoning” since they are a source of personal baggage or embarrassment that some individuals are forced to carry around forever. Thus, through “frequent repetition” and teasing, “the nickname overmasters the first name, until it is forgotten or cast off entirely” (Still 306). Since nicknames are bestowed upon individuals after their personality has been formed, acting as “thumbnail character sketches or illustrations of aspects of an individual’s personality, physical appearance, or mannerisms” (Skipper 135), they are often more accurate in portraying individuals than the more traditional family-given name. Trumping the practice or custom used to generate nicknames, however, is their use as cultural codes by which Appalachians quickly identify themselves from others, an important practice to a people suspicious of those whom they believe have come to do them harm through years of cultural, industrial, economic, and legal exploitation. Indeed, West Virginia, the only state geographically located entirely within the Appalachian Mountain range (and the place that serves as the focus of this

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essay), has become known in the media as “the state that got bought” by northern capitalists who unearthed the state’s coal, minerals, and lumber, thus exploiting both its land and its people (“West Virginia: The Story”). Fortunately, Appalachia’s oral traditions, part of its rich linguistic heritage, have not been easily commoditized by outside interests. While the accents, phrasings, and actions of mountain people often serve as a source of humor in such television shows as The Real McCoys and The Beverly Hillbillies and in such comic strips as Snuffy Smith and Li’l Abner, outsiders rarely understand the complexity of the Appalachian’s language, especially the subversiveness of signifying a different essence of a person by bestowing a nickname that is different from the formal, Christian given name. Thus, through their practice of nicknaming, Appalachians can be smug about their “inferiority” by using linguistic codes that are often lost on the rest of the nation, outsiders who view them as “different or backward” (Montgomery, “Language” 1000). A specific example of the extent to which nicknames have become one of Appalachia’s dominant linguistic practices is Williamson, West Virginia, this author’s home town. While the types of nicknames employed here may not seem unusual, their proliferation and function within the larger culture of the town, by providing inside knowledge of a person’s most familiar and intimate qualities, illustrate the power of the word to include and exclude, becoming a specific function of “home” for those in the know, creating, ironically, a type of internal imperialism that Appalachians usually guard against. Because of this practice, many politicians in the region display their nicknames on campaign signs, billboards, and advertisements to show their inclusion within the community. Examples include Elliott “Spike” Maynard, former Circuit Judge of Mingo County, who received his nickname for playing with the railroad spikes that lay beside his parents’ apartment when he was a child; Fuzzy Keesee, former Sheriff of neighboring Pike County, Kentucky, whose nicknaming story has been lost through time; and Greg “Hootie” Smith, a lawyer who has unsuccessfully run for office, whose nickname was bestowed for his face and body build that resembles an owl. As these examples illustrate, Appalachians use nicknaming as a way of controlling how others are received, perceived, and treated in their communities, creating a type of social solidarity that most often shows “kinship and friendship” that “marks familiarity” within the confines of home (Adams 87, 89). Because my parents moved to Williamson in 1967 from the community of Edmond in Fayette County, located 130 miles away, this author has the privileged position of viewing the town’s cultural practices as both an

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insider and outsider, a parallax view: Although I was the only one of my immediate family born in Williamson, which made me a native, I was influenced by my family’s perception of being outsiders, surely a result of their treatment by the town’s citizens. An important source of our outsider status was the fact that we had no other relatives living close by in the area. Since my two brothers and I were not natives of Mingo County, we were never the recipients of nicknames, the lack of which illustrates the “strong symbolic ties [that exist] between language and group membership” (Dannenberg 1012). Subsequently, we were most often addressed by our given names. However, our closest friends did sometimes refer to us by our surname of Holliday, a name that we wore with pride. In some ways, however, our surname replaced the traditional nickname since it served as a source of humor for others who would replace our given names with either “Christmas” or “Easter,” a joke that grew old quickly. In Williamson, however, “Holliday,” was a special name since we were the only family in town, besides the African American Leroy Holiday, who held that surname. Not only did the lack of other Hollidays point us out as outsiders, but the added “l” in the spelling often caused misidentification in documents and in the telephone book, causing confusion for most Williamson natives. Even though my brothers and I never held insider status that allowed us to be granted nicknames, we did profit culturally from living in Williamson by being exposed to the rich linguistic speech play of the town, which often included “proverbial exaggerations” as well as “aphorisms, similes, riddles, tongue twisters, . . . figures of speech, and other types of concise verbal folklore” that our friends and neighbors used daily (Montgomery, “Speech Play” 1029). Among these different types of speech play, however, nicknaming always reigned supreme. Upon my family’s arrival in town (and my birth in 1969), we were immersed in a rich culture of nicknaming that still exists today. On Victoria Street where my parents made their home for twenty-four years, more of our neighbors had nicknames than not, both children and adults. Of the children, there were Cueball, G-Bug, Kirtknob, Junior, Pee Wee, Bad Bad, Twink, John John, and Dit Dat. Of the adults, there were Cueball, Mooch, G. R., and Suzy Sag. Most of these nicknames were bestowed on individuals in childhood when older kids would put a nickname on younger children while playing sandlot baseball and football, monster tag, tin can alley, hide and seek, and army on the elementary school playground and in the streets. Since most of these nicknames were given at such a young age, many particularities concerning the nicknaming procedure have been lost through time. Thus, while the nicknames stuck, the reason for their

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existence has been mostly forgotten. They served, however, as a source of special signification that only neighborhood members would be aware. Through my research, I have found that most Appalachian nicknames are the result of family dynamics, physical characteristics, funny occurrences, or linguistic play. As one would expect, family dynamics often served an important role in the nicknaming process. Since many fathers named their eldest sons after themselves, there became the need to distinguish father from son, which resulted in the common nickname of Junior. Sometimes, however, sons received the same nickname as their father, which happened in the case of Cueball. Because this caused confusion over who was being addressed when the father and son were together, community members were often forced to revert to the given names of Gene or Kenneth, which undermined the original purpose of the nickname. One peculiar instance of family nicknaming occurred through the process of rhyming, as occurred when the father, Hooch, had a son who was nicknamed Mooch. One of the best known of Williamson’s children was Brother Reid, whose nickname was bestowed by his sister. Although Brother passed away from cancer while still a youth, the town paid tribute to him by naming the little league baseball field Brother Reid Park, enshrining him with his nickname rather than his given name. Additionally, Judge Elliott “Spike” Maynard’s son was called Tack since a thumbtack was a smaller version of a spike. The fact that I remember the nicknames but have forgotten most of the given names illustrates the power of nicknames to pervade the collective consciousness of individuals in the community. Although family dynamics are one prominent way by which nicknames are given, they are by no means the most prevalent. The majority of nicknames derive from physical characteristics. While the simplest type of these nicknames employ a blatant and uncreative reference to body type— Pee Wee, Fat Daddy, Hoss, Fat Boy, and Puddin’—most others come from the animals that individuals resemble: Bird Man and his brother Bird Man, Jr.; Frog; Duck; Virgil Vulture; Fish J; Poodles; Crab; Rabbit; and Daddy Rat. While reverse anthropomorphization is the most common source for such nicknames, a few came about by individuals’ resemblance to movie and television characters. These include Yoda, Superman, Rambo, Lupus, and Fonzie. A couple of others, Sister Golden Hair and Dream Weaver, derived from characteristics portrayed in popular rock and roll songs of the 1970s. The third way that nicknames are created in Appalachia comes through funny occurrences in individuals’ lives. While the number of such names is fewer than those derived from physical characteristics, they tend to be

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more interesting and creative. Dynamite Damron received his nickname from losing two fingers while setting off fireworks on the banks of the Tug River, and Charles Hardin was bestowed the nickname of Twink from his elder brother who sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to him in the crib. Twink’s next door neighbor was Samuel David Kelker whose nickname of Dit Dat came from Twink’s brother, John John, who could not pronounce the name David while a toddler. As sometimes happens, David’s identity was so tied to his nickname that his school teachers even referred to him as Dit Dat. This may have been helped, oddly enough, by a saying David created while still a kid: “Super-Duper Dit Dat, mentally retarded.” He repeated this phrase often even though he was not a special needs child. In a more negative fashion, the nicknames of Billy Whacker and Terry Whacker were bestowed on two individuals for their supposed obsessions with masturbation, the result of teenage teasing. Unlike most nicknames, however, the Whacker monikers failed to follow these individuals into adulthood. Fewer still are those nicknames generated from linguistic play. Steve Cantees was called “Seetnac,” which is Cantees spelled backwards, and Bryan Burgett’s nickname of Homeboy is a play on his first name of “Homer,” a given name which family and friends never used. David Dean was sometimes referred to as Double D for his alliterative given and surnames despite the fact that he gave himself the nickname of D.O.S. in high school computer class, which, no doubt, also derived from its alliterative sound. I often referred to my best friend, Paul Harvath, as “King,” since his full name, Louis Paul Harvath IV, emulated the names of European royalty. The fact that his family was one of the wealthiest in town also added to this mystique. Curtis Brown was bestowed the name Poppas from his mother. Although this nickname still persists, its origin is yet another that has been lost to time. I suspect, however, that the name Poppas derived from Curtis’s speech impediment, which made understanding him difficult at times. Since word play is such an important part of the Appalachian vernacular, Williamson is not alone in its nicknaming practices. After earning my Ph.D. in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where nicknames were not so prevalent, I taught for ten years at Alice Lloyd College (ALC) in Pippa Passes, Kentucky, located deep in the bowels of the Appalachian Mountains. During my first semester of teaching there, I was given the nickname of “Doc” by a student from Tennessee, who made the connection between my name and the famous gunfighter John Henry “Doc” Holliday. Since the freshman did not know I was a new faculty member at ALC, he thought of me as one of the tight-knit group of 500

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students and 35 faculty that lived and worked together on campus. From then on, I was known on as Doc, joining the legion of other professors and students who were known by their nicknames, during my tenure. These notorious names included Gobbler, Professor Sexy, Laffy, DJ Babe, Buzzy, Clipper, Pre-Witt, T. K., Zib Zab, Patton, George Harrison, Catholic Bastard, The Ace of Spades, Cowboy, Big Daddy, Meat, Tuna, Flounder, White Fish, Tree Frog, Mouse Grove, Bear, Cub, Grizz, Ox, Goat, Stew, Ain’t Right, Big ‘Un, Beggin’ Byrd, Fathead, Crazy Train, Booty, Montgomery Gentry, Tadpole, Grace Kelly with Wings, Nameless, The Dish, Old Dad, Wolfman, Job Corp., The Goddess, Papaw, Lurch, Pork Chop, Hager, Sprinkle, Wagon Wheel, Steve-O, Little Dobson, Red Bird, Red Feathers, Red Beard, Brockadoodle, The Honorable King God High Mayor, Fidel Castro, Sharp Shooter, Not Sharp Shooter, Paco, Banjo, Smoothie, Moon Pie, Thunder, Thundertaker, The Mad Crapper, Shit-inthe-Mouth, Poop, Butt Cheek, Bunny Ling-Ling, Sloth, Harry Pothead, Big Chick, Spikey Drew, Fat Stewart, Pat Mayonnaise, Ninja Bob, Chili, Evil Fluffy Bunny, and FrankenAbner. With my first job as a college professor and with my nickname of Doc, I, at last, had been accepted into a close-knit group of special characters in my home region. The prevalence of personal nicknames in Williamson and Pippa Passes, communities located 75 miles apart, illustrates the prevalence of such speech play in southern Appalachia, a region known for its group solidarity, coal mining industry, and suspicion of outsiders. The fact that my nickname did not follow me to northwest Oklahoma, despite my attempts to have students and colleagues call me Doc, speaks to the exclusivity of nicknaming in the region of Appalachia. If only more parts of the country employed such linguistic creativity and speech play, Americans might become more aware of language and its power to control, manipulate, and appreciate others, creating bonds, memories, and associations that last a lifetime. We might also blossom into a people who become more aware of what we say and the ways in which language affects individuals both within and without our tight-knit social groups. Being more sensitive to language and its usage could only help to make the world a better place.

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Works Cited Abramson, Rudy, and Jean Haskell, eds. Encyclopedia of Appalachia. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2006. Adams, Michael. “Power, Politeness, and the Pragmatics of Nicknames.” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 57.2 (2009): 81-91. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1991. Dannenberg, Clare J. “Attitudes toward Appalachian English.” Abramson and Haskell 1012. Montgomery, Michael. “Language.” Abramson and Haskell 999–1005. —. “Speech Play.” Abramson and Haskell 1029–30. “Nick.” The Compact Oxford English Dictionary 1165–66. “Nickname.” The Compact Oxford English Dictionary 1166. Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Routledge, 1982. Skipper, James K. “Nicknames, Coal Miners, and Group Solidarity.” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 34.2 (1986): 134-45. Still, James A. “Christian Names in the Cumberlands.” American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage 5.4 (1930): 306–07. “West Virginia: The Story of a State that Got Bought.” Appalachian Magazine. http://appalachianmagazine.com/2014/03/06/west-virginiathe-storyof-a-state-that-got-bought/. Web: 23 May 2014.

CHAPTER NINE LANGUAGE AND HISTORICAL MEMORY IN GLORIA NAYLOR’S MAMA DAY PAMELA B. JUNE

Many novels by African American women in the 1980s and 1990s provide graphic reminders of a legacy of slavery and oppression. These novels offer characters who are in some way reincarnates of their ancestors, and the characters embody, literally or metaphorically, the lived experience of these forebears. Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), for example, demonstrates poignantly the literal embodiment of slavery’s legacy in the reincarnated Beloved, whose mother murders the infant to protect her from becoming enslaved. Phyllis Alesia Perry’s Stigmata (1999) offers Lizzie, a modern-day, fourteen-year-old girl, who experiences frequent trips to her enslaved great-great-grandmother’s past. Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar (1989) depicts Miss Lissie, who has lived in numerous historical times and places: as a prehistoric primate and as the first white male, for example. These three examples present unique fictive ways of perceiving the lived experience of contemporary black women—their individual positions in the modern world, combined with collective amalgams of their historical situations. However, each of these characters’ existence remains tenuous at best, and the histories they represent are persistently faced with the threat of erasure. Beloved’s changing body constantly threatens to explode, fall apart, or otherwise vanish. Lizzie’s psychiatrists provide a steady stream of skepticism, insisting that her undeniable manacle and whip scars are the result of her own self-mutilation. And Miss Lissie describes her experiences at a conference, only to be undermined and belittled by a white woman in the audience. In each case, the authors are expressing some element of an oppressive past that lives on. They are personifying a phenomenon that threatens to devalue the continued existence of regular, modern-day women—people whose lives may be deeply informed by the

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history of slavery and oppression, but who are often required to deny this aspect of their identities. This literary phenomenon—that of metaphorically or literally embodying history (of American slavery in particular), and then showing how this history’s validity is threatened—raises several questions for readers: Why have historical memory and erasure become a concern for these writers? Why do late-twentieth-century authors in particular pursue this motif? Moreover, is this theme still relevant now, more than a decade into the new millennium? In the post-Civil-Rights era of the late twentieth century, the authors seem to be reminding their readers that the struggle continues. They encourage their readers to remember the history that still constitutes American reality today. Beloved’s falling-apart body, Lizzie’s skeptical doctors, Lissie’s incredulous audience—all serve as both reminders and warnings. With this message in mind, I turn to Gloria Naylor’s novel Mama Day (1988). Naylor says in an interview with Kay Bonetti that she had planned for this novel “to be about the intangible” (58). To that end, she constructs a communal narrator, who says early in Mama Day (1988) that local legend and former slave Sapphira Wade “don’t live in the part of our memory we can use to form words” (4). undergirds Sapphira’s legend, which Bernard W. Bell explains: “Symbolic representations of crucial life situations that are shared by a people, residually Afro-American myths are moral as well as speculative stories that…explain the origins of things…and historical human dilemmas. [They] justify the taboos and authority of the group or lineage” and sometimes deal with “delivery from oppression” (23). According to the folklore, Sapphira Wade had married her owner, Bascombe Wade, borne seven sons in one thousand days, and then convinced him, somehow, to deed the whole island of Willow Springs to their children. After Bascombe Wade’s death, the island belonged to the now-free African Americans and remains, to the present-day, an all-black island. The specifics of the legend, however, are murkier. The communal narrator’s statement suggests of the clever Sapphira that she certainly existed, but that the details of her life reside in some hard-to-reach sector of the past. The statement also indicates that Sapphira’s memory does live on, and therefore, that it can somehow be retrieved. Moreover, the narrator suggests that this resurrection would involve the full community, the collective memory, since Sapphira exists in “our” memory. Thus, the unknown or forgotten, in Naylor’s Mama Day, is not out of reach. It may be hidden beneath the surface, but indeed, the memories are available. The challenge, then, is to recover that part of the memory and of course, to connect language or narrative to it, such that the story can be perpetuated.

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In Mama Day, like Morrison’s, Perry’s, and Walker’s novels, these stories continuously threaten to be lost forever. But Naylor’s novel also suggests new ways of knowing, remembering, and understanding. It suggests that by connecting the memories of all—male and female, black and white, young and old—indeed, missing memories and histories can be restored.

Geography and Memory The geographical situation of the novel serves as a constant reminder of these liminal memories. Situated off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, the island of Willow Springs belongs to neither state, as the narrator explains: “Georgia and South Carolina done tried [to claim it] though—been trying since right after the Civil War to prove that Willow Springs belonged to one or the other of them” (4-5). The flimsy bridge between the continental United States and Willow Springs symbolizes the connection between the U.S., the symbolic center of hegemonic power, and the tiny, “un-American” (according to developers from Columbia and Atlanta) island that the narrator believes should not be considered “American” at all: “we wasn’t even Americans when we got it—was slaves” (5). Since neither state can claim taxes from the island, the people of Willow Springs must take it upon themselves occasionally to rebuild this bridge, which is quite tenuous since it is made from wood and pitch. The bridge paradoxically links the two lands, for it both connects and distances them. As Laura Nicosia notes, the island is only “minimally” connected “to the social and cultural norms of the mainland” (2). Often, the language of the islanders indicates that “across the bridge” is a world away. It is surprisingly different “across the bridge,” and those who make the journey often come back acting differently, like Reema’s son, who wrote his master’s thesis about his homeland (a thesis that Willow Springs dismissed as condescending and humorously out-of-touch). Likewise, the bridge serves as a source of frustration to people like George Andrews, a New Yorker who cannot comprehend the islanders’ seemingly primitive process of constantly rebuilding the bridge from impermanent materials. The liminal space of the all-black island, symbolically connected only tenuously to the mainland, suggests that the island will rarely fall in line with widely accepted ways of thinking in the United States. In fact, the collective unconscious that exists on the island demonstrates different ways of remembering. The novel centers on Ophelia Day (Cocoa)—a young woman from Willow Springs, and George Andrews—a New York engineer with a mind for logic and an aversion to both history and intuition. When he visits his wife Cocoa’s homeland, he fails to accept

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Mama Day’s uncanny ability to heal, the islanders’ ongoing bridge construction, and Cocoa’s mysterious illness. It is for this reason that Robin Blyn says the novel calls for “cross-cultural interpretation” (240): Though their backgrounds are vastly different, George and Cocoa find themselves in a life-or-death scenario in Willow Springs, and they need each other in a way that suggests their connection to the island’s history. Cocoa herself unknowingly reminds her great-aunt, the island matriarch and conjure woman Mama Day (Miranda), of Sapphira Wade, and George unwittingly becomes inextricably connected to the island’s earlier generations of men, including John-Paul (Miranda’s father) and even Bascombe Wade (the Norwegian slaveholder). Because they are in some ways reliving the experiences of those who came before them, an unsurprised Mama Day knows that Cocoa, if she survives her illness, will be able to recover more of Sapphira’s story—a story central to the island’s identity. Human interaction is the source of reconstructing or resurrecting these memories, and this reconstruction sometimes requires characters to correct the mistakes of the past. Therefore, the past is not something that exists only chronologically or in written format, but rather, it coexists with the lived experience of contemporary characters. It is a living collection of memories that includes people, traditions, and all kinds of knowledge that combine to restore memory. The novel suggests that it is only collectively that we can create and maintain an understanding of our pasts—memory demands participation from everyone. History, then, is fluid and living, and it does not simply end when characters die. This may be why the legacy of Sapphira lives on, why “18 & 23” is so significant (if shifting and obscure in its meaning), and why Cocoa can still communicate with George after his eventual death. Furthermore, the novel offers an imaginary place where the inhabitants can, if they get it wrong, keep trying to reconstruct the memories until they get it right. In this way, Naylor suggests new ways of knowing, remembering, and recovering memories that are integral to the survival of a community. In many places in the novel, history seems to be lost or misplaced, though often it seems to be only a temporary misplacement. For example, there is a lack of explanation behind “18 & 23,” and the people of Willow Springs use it in varied ways—as a verb, adjective, and noun, which are always mysterious and ominous: “[She] tried to 18 & 23 him,” “that ‘18 & 23 summer,’” “ain’t that much 18 & 23 in the world” (4). Likewise, there is a lack of clarity about the tradition of Candle Walk, which replaces Christmas on the island. Each year on December twenty-second, the people of Willow Springs walk together, carrying candles (or later,

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flashlights, as the tradition shifts over the years), sharing homemade gifts with each other—a “compelling alternative to the debased version of Christmas” that exists in the dominant culture, as Margot Anne Kelley observes (151). However, no one is quite sure how the tradition started or what event is being commemorated (111). The two ambiguous concepts of 18 & 23 and Candle Walk merge to show how memory can be lost while the communal tradition remains in modified forms. The narrator explains that future generations will speculate about the “some kinda 18 & 23 going-on near December twenty-second” (111). These ambiguous memories remind the reader of the bridge, which suggests that the liminal space of memories coincides with the liminal geographic space of Willow Springs. The fact that the bridge can so readily be torn down (and gradually rebuilt) may point to the ability to rebuild the memories, slowly but surely. The major example, of course, is Mama Day’s attempt to uncover the story of the Mother, Sapphira Wade. Dorothy Perry Thompson observes why the islanders do not often speak of her directly: “If memories of Sapphira are not spoken, she does not become static and one-dimensional. She may be as liminal or fractured as need be for a people whose history is not characterized by wholeness or one-dimensionality” (93). In other words, Thompson believes that the Willow Springs inhabitants resist a unifying theory of Sapphira. While Thompson’s point is important, it does not acknowledge the fact that Mama Day is trying to recover the story of Sapphira—that the goal is to make her real and understandable, though not “static and one-dimensional.” Mama Day tries to complete the island’s communal memory by searching for the truth about her foremother. She knows that something important happened in 1823, but she does not know exactly what, nor does she know even Sapphira’s name. She is able to gather some clues while at “the other place,” the home where Miranda and her sister Abigail grew up—a home which is now connected with their baby sister’s and mother’s tragic deaths. Here, she discovers the ledger that details Sapphira’s sale, but much of it has become illegible over time (279). She does, however, recover some of the story, including a new explanation for the Candle Walk tradition. She recovers this story not through the ledger, but through meditation. Even though Mama Day can collect only some of Sapphira’s story, she seems content, knowing that “the other place holds no more secrets that’s left for her to find. The rest will lay in the hands of the Baby Girl [Cocoa]” (307). What is interesting here is that memories and their restoration are not linear or chronological. Cocoa is much younger than her great-aunt Mama Day, yet somehow Mama Day knows that Cocoa will be able to retrieve more of Sapphira’s

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story. The memory will not, of course, come from tangible places, like the ledger. Therefore, something else—perhaps connected with George—will help with the retrieval of memory. These unique forms of memory evince what Maxine Lavon Montgomery calls a “counterhegemonic discourse that critiques, undermines, and subverts cultural paradigms of the dominant society” (38). In order to bring back these memories, Mama Day promotes the idea of a community of people who believe in the power of their collective will. The need for community becomes especially urgent when Cocoa falls ill, the victim of a jealous conjurer, Ruby. Ruby’s younger husband, the philandering Junior Lee, makes a pass at Cocoa during her first visit to the island with her husband George, and though Cocoa bears no responsibility for Junior Lee’s poor behavior, Ruby becomes furiously jealous. Consequently, she rubs poison into Cocoa’s scalp while braiding her hair. As a result of Ruby’s rootworking, Cocoa falls gravely ill and nearly dies. It is only with the help of her husband and his entrance into the community that Cocoa will be able to survive. Geta LeSeur accurately notes the importance of communal memory when she writes that Cocoa’s illness “must be countered by spiritual powers wielded by a community of believers” (22). The illness offers George the opportunity to become a part of the Willow Springs community, and it offers the whole Day lineage the chance to rectify the actions of Miranda and Abigail’s father, John-Paul, and their early ancestor, Bascombe Wade.

Sapphira and Bascombe Wade: Cycles of History Cocoa, who is also known as Ophelia and Baby Girl, resembles her great-great-great-grandmother, Sapphira Wade, the former slave and “Mother” of the island: “But the Baby Girl brings back the great, grand Mother. We ain’t seen 18 & 23 black from that time till now” (48). Though the inhabitants of Willow Springs have no way of knowing what the “Great Mother” looked like, the communal narrator connects Cocoa to this early foremother, offering some foreshadowing that Cocoa’s life will be tied up in further recognition of the early Mother. Varying stories exist about the relationship between Bascombe Wade and Sapphira; these include Sapphira’s smothering, stabbing, or poisoning him, after bearing seven sons and having the land deeded to them. The plural narrator suggests the communal necessity of memory here, noting, “we guess if we put our heads together we’d come up with something” (4). Of note here is the narrator’s knowledge that the community must work together. The communal nature of memory is visible in the various stories that explain

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the mysterious tradition of Candle Walk: Miranda says that her daddy, John-Paul, said that in his time Candle Walk was different still. Said people kinda worshipped his grandmother, a slave woman who took her freedom in 1823. Left behind seven sons and a dead master as she walked down the main road, candle held high to light her way to the east bluff over the ocean. Folks in John-Paul’s time would line the main road with candles, food, and slivers of ginger to help her spirit along. And Miranda says that her daddy said his daddy said Candle Walk was different still. But that’s where the recollections end—at least, in the front part of the mind. (111)

Despite the various accounts of Candle Walk, Mama Day comes to some understanding of what “lead on with light,” the phrase repeated by Candle Walkers, might actually mean. While walking in the West Woods during Candle Walk, Mama Day suddenly divines a story: She tries to listen under the wind. The sound of a long wool skirt passing. Then the tread of heavy leather boots, heading straight for the main road, heading on toward the east bluff over the ocean. It couldn’t be Mother [Miranda’s mother], she died in The Sound….A long wool skirt passing. Heavy leather boots. And the humming—humming of some lost and ancient song. Quiet tears start rolling down Miranda’s face. Oh, precious Jesus, the light wasn’t for her—it was for him. The tombstone out by Chevy’s Pass. How long did he search for her? Up and down this path. (118)

Mama Day has an uncanny intuition, related to her ability for divination, rootworking, and midwifery, that helps her to understand these possibilities. Barbara Smith argues that black women writers sometimes incorporate these kinds of folk arts to challenge the “confines of white/male literary structures” (174). With her intuitive powers, Mama Day reflects on this new understanding of the slave owner Bascombe Wade: [H]e fell under the spell of a woman he owned—only in body, not in mind. Naw, nobody knows her name. But she got away from him and headed over here toward the east bluff on her way back to Africa. And she made that trip—some say in body, others in mind. But the point is that he lost her. He kept a vigil up here at Chevy’s Pass—he’s keeping it still. (206)

In other words, Bascombe died of a “broken heart,” keeping watch for his beloved Sapphira, who flew off the bluff on the side of Willow Springs facing Africa—a concept of flight that is addressed further by Fred

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Metting. This revelation tells Mama Day that Bascombe may have loved Sapphira deeply, but that his position as her “owner,” his attempts to keep her to himself, caused her to escape by leaping into the ocean.

John-Paul and Ophelia: “Losing Peace” The ancient tradition of Candle Walk commemorates the nighttime vigil Bascombe Wade kept while looking for his wife, yet one of Sapphira’s seven grandsons endures an equally painful loss. John-Paul, grandson of Sapphira and father of Miranda and Abigail, is the ill-fated seventh son of a seventh son. He marries the first Ophelia, and together, they have three daughters. Sadly, the baby, Peace, accidentally dies in the well at “the other place.” Afterwards, Ophelia’s pain is excruciating, as she sits in a rocking chair, “rocking herself to death” (118). Eventually, Ophelia ends her pain by jumping to her death in the Sound. The experience traumatizes the other two daughters, Miranda and Abigail, ages five and three at the time, to the degree that Abigail will not visit “the other place” again. This painful recollection is connected with much of the sorrow in the novel. John-Paul, of course, loved Ophelia deeply and “woulda moved the earth for his wife,” but sadly, “he couldn’t give her Peace” (262). Peace here, of course, serves the dual purpose as both the daughter and the idea of tranquility. Mama Day uncovers some of the pain that her father must have endured when she determines to re-open the well that her father had nailed shut. Re-opening the well reminds the reader again of the various ways of remembering, for much of the grief of “the other place” is manifest here. When she opens the well, which her father had nailed shut to prevent his wife from jumping in after the baby, Mama Day hears “[c]ircles and circles of screaming. Once, twice, three times peace was lost at that well” (284). The pain echoing from the well connects to the pain felt by Bascombe when his wife, too, jumped into water. Mama Day absorbs the force of the screaming, and when she opens her eyes, she looks at her hands. Her hands remind her of the tragic history of these men before her. They were her father’s hands, “[h]ands that would not let the woman in gingham go with Peace” (285). Likewise, they were Bascombe’s hands, “other hands that would not let the woman in apricot homespun go with peace” (285). Mama Day contemplates the pain not of the women, but of the men: “[T]o feel for the man who built this house and the one who nailed this well shut. It was to feel the hope in them that the work of their hands could wipe away all that had gone before.” She continues, “Those men believed—in the power of themselves, in what they were feeling”

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(285). Significantly, Miranda’s meditation produces the conclusion that the works of these men’s hands were intended to prevent their women from leaving. As R. Mark Hall notes, “Bascombe Wade, for example, frees his slaves as a demonstration of his love for Sapphira, yet his ‘male’ love for her remains confining. Similarly, Miranda’s father, John-Paul, agonizes over his wife’s madness, while at the same time refusing to let her go” (79). The meditation on male pain is quite interesting, for it foretells the role that the newest and only male in the family, George Andrews, might play.

George Andrews: “Living in the Now” Standing in direct contrast to the living memories that comprise life in Willow Springs, New Yorker George Andrews embraces the concept of “living in the now.” Born of a prostitute and an unknown father, George becomes the charge of the Wallace P. Andrews Shelter for Boys in Staten Island. It is here that he learns to ignore or perhaps reject his past, to espouse what Daphne Lamothe calls “cultural amnesia” (160). The unflappable guardian, Mrs. Jackson, reminds the boys, “Only the present has potential” (23), and attendant Chip prompts them, “Keep it in the now, fellas” (23). Most of the boys come from at-risk backgrounds, and the guardians, as George understands, “were adamant about the fact that we learned to invest in ourselves alone” (23). This upbringing causes him actively to forget his childhood and to focus only on what he can logically accomplish now: “We had a more than forgettable past and no future that was guaranteed” (26), so George eschews any belief in fate, intuition, or anything that does not appeal to logic. When he meets Cocoa, however, George begins, if subtly, to question his longstanding conviction that “only the present has potential.” In fact, when he sees Cocoa twice in one day, he admits some feeling of intuition (22, 27). After seeing Cocoa at the lunch diner, he is shocked to see her walk into his office for an interview. Though George discredits feelings, he must confront his own question, “How was I to reconcile the fact of seeing you the second time that day with the feeling I had had the first time?” (27). These moments hint to the reader that, while he believes fully in the “now” and rejects any version of the supernatural, fate, or the spiritual, he does evince some degree of flexibility when it comes to Cocoa. In a bit of foreshadowing, George reveals that he believes only in what he can do with his hands, reminiscent of the work that John-Paul and Bascombe Wade attempted with their hands: “When I left Wallace P. Andrews I had what I could see: my head and my two hands, and I had each day to do

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something with them” (27). When they begin dating, George and Cocoa seem mismatched. Cocoa is preoccupied with history, while George claims no past at all. Cocoa decides to get a degree in history, a fact which George cannot quite comprehend. For Cocoa, however, it seems natural, since “[c]oming from a place as rich in legend and history as the South, I’d always been intrigued by the subject” (126). But Cocoa bemoans the fact that talking about history with George is “like pulling teeth.” George retorts that Cocoa should simply “[d]eal with the man in front of you” and ignore the past (126). George, it seems, is frustrated by the fact that his history and family are not as clearly defined as are Cocoa’s: “You had more than a family, you had a history. And I didn’t even have a real last name” (129). This focus on the present translates into the way that George operates on a daily basis. According to Ophelia, “It was more than a routine; you operated by rituals. A place for everything and everything in its place” (145). George’s structure and practicality are evident in his job as a mechanical engineer at Andrews and Stein. As co-owner of the production and design company, George notes that “Stein thought up the impossible and Andrews made it work” (52). He is able to conceive of practical ways to make good ideas work, as evidenced in the silver tie clip that he wears in order to explain what a mechanical engineer does: “I took off the tie clip and showed you that it was actually a miniature butter knife with circular indentations along the blade….my job is to redesign the structures that take care of our basic needs” (60). This practicality with his hands may prove helpful or harmful when George arrives in Willow Springs, for we recall the work of Bascombe Wade’s and John-Paul Day’s hands. Furthermore, it is significant that George aims to make the impossible work, for while he claims to believe only in what he can see or measure, he gives some credence to the idea of the “impossible,” a concept philosophically opposed to his worldview. Thus George’s idea of practicality is not entirely without complication. Though he believes only in the tangible, he also desires to solve the impossible. Therefore, when he arrives in Willow Springs, he has the potential to understand the way things work in a place where things are oftentimes intuited. Predictably, when he goes to Willow Springs, he must challenge what he has long believed. On the island, George comes to understand and, arguably, to respect the detailed histories that comprise the island. The couple has been married for four years before George finally comes with Cocoa for her annual, two-week stay with her grandmother. Since Willow Springs is not on the map, George says, “I really did want to go, but I wanted to know exactly where I was going” (174). George will find that

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this pragmatism, however, is not useful in Willow Springs. As Cocoa wisely acknowledges, “You were entering a part of my existence that you were powerless in” (177). In Willow Springs, George feels a certain level of antipathy toward what he sees as a barrage of history, voodoo, and metaphorical language. He accuses some, Mama Day in particular, of speaking in riddles. He is unable to comprehend what Miranda and Doctor Buzzard tell him, particularly when his wife becomes deathly ill from Ruby’s curse. Even so, Mama Day sees the potential in George, for he “called up old, old memories” (184), suggesting that he reminds her of John-Paul or perhaps even Bascombe Wade. Healing his wife will require George to listen to Mama Day and to offer his hand in assistance. The offering of his hand symbolizes his readiness to take part in a history that connects George not only to his own past, which he rejects, but to the broader history of the people on the island and perhaps to the larger history of the African American race.

Ophelia’s Illness The action in the novel builds toward the climactic illness that Cocoa acquires as a result of Ruby’s jealousy. Mama Day quickly cuts off Cocoa’s braids, yet her condition worsens. As the older women know, the illness is not only physical, but spiritual as well: “Baby Girl done tied up her mind and her flesh with George, and above all, Ruby knew it” (265). They know that it is Ruby’s hate that is destroying Cocoa: “How strong is hate? It can destroy more people quicker than anything else” (267). The fact that it is George’s first visit to the island certainly has some significance, for it is he who can help cure her, largely by learning from the examples of Bascombe Wade and John-Paul Day who have gone before him. The reader suspects when George arrives at the island that he will be changed in some way. Several examples of foreshadowing suggest that he will either learn to navigate history and accept different ways of knowing, or that he may perish: for example, when he first arrives, he is afraid of Mama Day’s chickens (195, 221). The chickens, along with the symbolism of their eggs, play a prominent role in the novel (contributing also, for example, to Bernice’s pregnancy). Likewise, Cocoa may suspect that something bad will happen to George: “if what they [the whispers at the family cemetery] said held any truth, then I was sorry I had married you” (223) because the voices are saying, “you’ll break his heart” (224). Unfortunately, the parallel nightmares of Cocoa and George are portentous. In Cocoa’s nightmare, she envisions George swimming in the Sound. Meanwhile, she calls for his

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help, but the louder she calls, the more urgently he tries to reach her on the opposite side (189). The same night, George has a comparable dream, in which he hears Cocoa calling him, but the harder he tries to get to her, the farther away her voice becomes. He notably says, “If I just try harder, I thought, but my increased efforts made it all the more impossible” (183). Importantly, Mama Day appears in his dream, telling him simply to get up and walk. These dreams foreshadow the illness, and the course of action, that George should take. They suggest that Cocoa’s pleas will only make him less likely to save her. They also suggest that his efforts alone will not pay off. Rather, the dreams suggest that George must accept a new way of seeing the world—Mama Day’s way—in order to help Cocoa survive. As the hurricane rages, and Cocoa’s illness sets in, she has the dream a second time, except that this time, George goes under the water. Strangely, Cocoa feels a “feeling of peace” when this happens (253). Of course, this is a premonition of what will happen—George’s insistence on his own way might save her, but it will not save him. Because Cocoa’s illness is as much spiritual as it is physical, it is similar to what Mama Day and Abigail have seen before with their own mother, Ophelia, who jumped into the ocean in her distress over losing her baby, even though her husband tried to stop her. Likewise, it is similar to the stories they have heard of Sapphira Wade, who jumped from the Bluff to her freedom, despite Bascombe’s efforts to keep her to himself. Hence as Mama Day learns from her vision of Sapphira, “It’s gonna take a man to bring her peace,” but she adds, “and all they had was that boy” (263). This passage suggests that George is capable of saving Cocoa, but that he must allow himself to learn, to mature, and to refuse to claim Cocoa as his own, in order to save her. Mama Day’s meditation at the well is significant, for she recognizes how George is connected to this history. Along with the reader, she recognizes that the men who have gone before had loved their wives so deeply that the pain still reverberates in the present. As Larry R. Andrews explains, “Bascombe Wade had freed his slaves out of love for Sapphira, yet he could not let her go, not get beyond the possessiveness of male love. John-Paul, Miranda’s father, was a sensitive woodcarver who despaired over his wife’s madness but could not let her go.” Andrews continues, “George is limited to childhood insecurities and certain masculine attitudes toward women that cause miscommunication” (qtd. in Gates and Appiah 300). However, Naylor envisions a world where revision is possible, where subsequent generations can reconcile the errors of previous generations. Here is where George comes in, for he must accept this history, free his mind from the logical, and embrace ways of knowing that

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may seem illogical and even supernatural. Meanwhile, Mama Day tries to get George to accept that all he needs to do is trust her—to accept new ways of knowing and thereby not only save Cocoa but rectify the errors of the past, of men who tried to keep their wives to themselves and who did not join the full force of the community in order to protect the women. As Mama Day knows, George “believes in himself—deep within himself— ’cause he ain’t never had a choice. And he keeps it protected down in his center, but she needs that belief buried in George” (285). However, as Helen Fiddyment Levy points out, Mama Day “struggl[es] to convey her meaning in modern language” (221). Though George does not understand what she needs, to Mama Day it seems rather simple: Of his own accord he has to hand it [his belief in himself] over to her. She needs his hand in hers—his very hand—so she can connect it up with all the believing that had gone before. A single moment was all she asked, even a fingertip to touch hers here at the other place. So together they could be the bridge for Baby Girl to walk over. Yes, in his very hands he already held the missing piece she’d come looking for. (285)

Mama Day needs George to accept this mission because “the rest was just about out of her hands” (265). As Mama Day says to her sister, “He’s a part of her, Abigail. And that’s the part that Ruby done fixed to take it out of our hands . . . we gotta wait for him to feel the need to come to us” (267). The missing link is George’s deep love combined with his willingness to accept Willow Springs’ history, and the repetition of the word “hands” suggests how he can demonstrate this willingness. Unfortunately, George is unable to accept what Mama Day tries to explain. He fails to understand that, as Suzanne Juhasz says, “the love that will save Cocoa is based in mutual need” (139). He needs to accept this experience in order to save himself just as much as Cocoa needs his love and acceptance in order to survive. However, he wants to cure Cocoa “his” way, by rebuilding the bridge, which was destroyed in the hurricane, and getting her to a mainland doctor. Of course, all his efforts are thwarted. The villagers have their own way of rebuilding the bridge and reject his ideas. Then, he learns that the boat he planned to row across has been chopped up and used for wood. He even considers swimming across the Sound back to the mainland. George fails to connect his world with the world of Willow Springs and with the men who have gone before him.

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Having a Hand in Willow Springs’s History Not only is Cocoa responsible for restoring more of Sapphira’s history, but she is also solely responsible for carrying on the Day lineage (her only cousin Willa having died in a New York fire). Mama Day recognizes that George can allow both of these things to happen. However, she realizes that “his way” will mean his demise: “she sees there’s a way he could do it alone, he has the will deep inside to bring Baby Girl peace all by himself—but, no, she won’t even think on that. Her head was already filled with too much sorrow, too much loss” (285). This passage suggests that indeed George has the option to sacrifice himself in order to save Cocoa. However, he could also save both Cocoa and himself by reconnecting with the roots of the island. George’s role is made evident throughout the novel’s discussions of John-Paul and Bascombe Wade. As Margaret Earley Whitt notes, both Bascombe Wade and John-Paul had used their hands to restrain the women, and Mama Day recognizes that George simply needs to put his hands in hers (150). Cocoa also seems aware that George’s hands must actively save her, and when George shows Cocoa his hands, “the trust in [her] eyes crushed [him]” (298). He can give Cocoa her life and maintain his own: “by holding her hand she could guide him safely through that extra mile where the others had stumbled” (285). In other words, George can rectify the errors of the men who have gone before by admitting that he cannot do it alone, cannot keep his wife to himself, and cannot decide what is best for her. Both Mama Day and Doctor Buzzard encourage George to give up on “his” way and to accept his role in the island’s history. However, not only is the bridge still under repair from the latest hurricane, but George still insists on a doctor from the mainland. Thus, even though he has little choice at this point, his pragmatic and logical personality will not allow him to forego what he sees as a reasonable solution. When he will not listen, Mama Day tries a final strategy, one that would demonstrate George’s faith in new ways of knowing. She asks him to visit the chicken coop, to reach into the nest of the most vicious hen, and to bring back whatever he finds. In an interview with Donna Perry, Gloria Naylor explains what George must do. George simply needs to bring back his empty and willing hands. Mama Day “would have just held his hand, which would have been a physical holding as well as a metaphysical holding of hands with him and with all the other parts of Cocoa’s history” (93). When Mama Day sends him on this mission, she gives him the ledger detailing Sapphira’s sale, and the walking stick that John-Paul had carved. These items are symbolic, for they connect George with the previous men

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who were unable to let their women go. Betina Entzminger explains that each item is symbolic: “The ledger represents the European heritage of Bascombe Wade and the idealization of rational orderliness and control that system privileges. The phallic staff is the masculine power of male ancestors as well as a reference to the staff Moses used to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.” Moreover, Entzminger says, “The nesting hens are fertile feminine energy, and hens are also used in the divining and fertility rituals that Miranda performs” (66). Each item points to the fact that George can rectify the errors of his forebears. He can accept Mama Day’s explanation and fulfill his role on the island. Doing so would heal some of the pain caused by previous men’s inability to let their women go, preserve more of Sapphira’s story, and allow George and Ophelia to carry on the Day lineage. Interestingly, George considers early in the novel that “When I left Wallace P. Andrews I had what I could see: my head and my two hands, and I had each day to do something with them” (27). Thus, the reader knows that George contains the possibility of rectifying the past and saving Cocoa. Unfortunately, when Mama Day asks for his hands, he refuses, perhaps because this solution conflicts with what he “knows” in his logical mind. He fails to see “how his hands can be joined to others’ hands to save the woman, hero, and community” (LeSeur 30). Yet he must believe in the power of his own hands, when joined with the hands of others in the community, for as Mama Day notes, “him disbelieving, whether I’d offered him a miracle or not, guaranteed it to fail” (292). She explains to him: I had to stay in this place and reach back to the beginning for us to find the chains to pull her out of this here trouble. Now, I got all that in this hand but it ain’t gonna be complete unless I can reach out with the other hand and take yours. You see, she done bound more than her flesh up with you. And since she’s suffering from something more than the flesh, I can’t do a thing without you. (294)

Then she gives him the ultimatum: “my way or yours” (295). To his credit, George does go to the chicken coop. After a vicious and bloody fight with the hen, he realizes, “There was nothing there—except for my gouged and bleeding hands. Bring me straight back whatever you find. But there was nothing to bring her. Bring me straight back whatever you find. Could it be that she wanted nothing but my hands?” (300). George suddenly recognizes what Mama Day is asking. But despite his realization, he has both overexerted his weak heart and given up again on Mama Day’s instructions: “There was nothing that old woman could do with a pair of

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empty hands…these were my hands, and there was no way I was going to let you go” (301). This final decision on George’s part most certainly resembles what John-Paul and Bascombe had said about the women whom they also loved too much to let go. After George is attacked by the hen, he angrily destroys the entire chicken coop—birds, eggs, nests, and all—and goes to Cocoa’s bedside instead of back to Mama Day with his empty hands. As LeSeur summarizes: He disregards Doc Buzzard’s and Mama Day’s instructions to admit that he cannot do this thing alone, that he must join his hands with others and demonstrate his love for Cocoa in a way that other men who loved Day women could not, by letting go. He needs to control her destiny and kills himself by taking his own path, rather than returning from the chicken coop with what Mama Day had asked him to bring back: his empty hands and willing spirit. He fails to believe enough in unseen powers supported through communal faith, and like Bascombe Wade and John-Paul Day before him, George dies of a broken heart. (28)

He has decided upon his way rather than Mama Day’s, and his decision undoubtedly disappoints the reader, who knows that George has the potential to rectify some of Willow Springs’s history. Regardless, as LeSeur argues, “George’s misplaced emphasis on self-reliance leads directly to his death” (29). Sadly, George dies next to Cocoa as his heart gives out, but in a bit of a twist, “As my bleeding hand slid gently down your arm, there was total peace” (302). Ironically, George restores peace at the same time he offers his life for Cocoa’s. George’s death, of course, was a likely option, because Mama Day has noted that Cocoa would still be able to live even if George did it “his way” (302). The alternative would have been, of course, to join hands with Mama Day and likely the whole community, past and present, to connect to previous stories not unlike this one.

Conclusion: New Ways of Remembering George offers his life for Cocoa’s, and this sacrifice alone leaves a legacy in Willow Springs. Interestingly, his decision to offer his life for Cocoa’s reverses John-Paul’s and Bascombe Wade’s stories, in which the woman was sacrificed. This reversal generates other understandings for Willow Springs. First, George’s death adds new significance to Candle Walk (309). Likewise, as Charles E. Wilson points out, “The act of saving Cocoa and sacrificing George becomes part of a larger story of healing and

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recovery, two concepts that emerge as secondary themes. In rescuing Cocoa, peace (recall Peace) is restored, and Ophelia’s pain is put to rest” (100). However, the Days still need to reconcile the men’s inability to let their women go. This is where Naylor’s imaginative world offers the opportunity for historical memory and revision, for there are still histories to be opened up, stories to be told, and opportunities for men to allow women freedom. Fortunately, Mama Day suggests the possibility for new ways of knowing and remembering, and it envisions a world in which past, present, and future are connected into a web of knowledge. In this way, people can re-envision the lives of their forebears and revisit the ills that have been inflicted on others in the past. Bascombe felt so guilty about his enslavement that he willed the whole island to his wife’s seven sons. Still, he could not control her mind and so she “flew” back to Africa. Likewise, John-Paul, while he did not enslave his wife, tried to save her from her own madness by nailing the well shut. He loved her too much to let her go, but he could not stop her from going over the bluff. Like Bascombe, he probably spent the rest of his days with a deep sense of loss. Now, George has a similar opportunity. He does re-envision history by offering his own life instead of Cocoa’s, but there are still lessons to be learned, just as there is still history to be uncovered. As Trudier Harris insightfully notes, “The death of the man instead of the woman ensures the continuation of the Day women; Cocoa will grieve over George, but she will also come to appreciate the history and powers that have opened up to her because of his death” (101). Harris’s point suggests that some element of history is saved or resurrected through George’s death, tragic though it is. Naylor’s novel suggests new ways of remembering vis-a-vis “the linking of the historical and the spiritual through the processes of community and genealogy,” as Kathryn M. Paterson points out (77). And even if George chooses a different solution, rather than accepting Mama Day’s way, he still grows and becomes part of the Willow Springs community. As Entzminger poignantly suggests, “people grow in strength as individuals when they can draw on the strengths of their past and recognize interconnectedness with others” (57). Though he fails to recognize this interconnectedness, George is not expelled from the community. As Paterson points out, George becomes part of the island’s spiritual community (93), and Harris observes further that George “gets a speaking immortality” (91). In other words, the tragedy of George’s death will resonate on the island, but George has also opened new understandings of Willow Springs’s history. His rejection of the communal aspect of knowledge is his downfall, yet in many ways, his self-sacrifice

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affects the course of the Day lineage. Mama Day says that it is hate that makes Cocoa so ill, but she is quick to note that “there’s a power greater than hate” (267). It is love, then, that can heal, but importantly, this love must come in the form of George’s acceptance of new ways of knowing. In the end, Cocoa is able to communicate with George through the whispers at the cemetery. In Cocoa’s survival and George’s entrance into the spiritual community, Mama Day feels satisfied that her work is done. She believes that she has uncovered all the history that she can, and that Cocoa, and perhaps George from his new vantage point, will carry on the quest for knowledge, memory, and history.

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Works Cited Bell, Bernard W. The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1987. Blyn, Robin. “The Ethnographer’s Story: Mama Day and the Specter of Relativism.” Twentieth-Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 48.3 (2002): 239-63. Bonetti, Kay. “An Interview with Gloria Naylor.” Montgomery 39-64. Entzminger, Betina. “The Legacy of Sapphira Wade: European and African Cultural References in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day.” Griot: Official Journal of the Southern Conference on Afro-American Studies 24.1 (2005): 57-68. Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, and K. A. Appiah. Gloria Naylor: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Penguin, 1993. Hall, R. Mark. “Serving the Second Sun: The Men in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day.” Gloria Naylor: Strategy and Technique, Magic, and Myth. Ed. Shirley A. Stave. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2001: 77-96. Harris, Trudier. The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller’s Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996. Juhasz, Suzanne. “The Magic Circle: Fictions of the Good Mother in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day.” The Critical Response to Gloria Naylor. Ed. Sharon Felton and Michelle C. Loris. Westport: Greenwood P: 1997. 129-42. Kelley, Margot Anne. “Framing the Possibilities: Collective Agency and the Novels of Gloria Naylor.” Kelley 133-54. —, ed. Gloria Naylor’s Early Novels. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1999. Lamothe, Daphne. “Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day: Bridging Roots and Routes.” African American Review 39.1-2 (2005): 155-69. LeSeur, Geta. “Transformative Belief: Re-Creating the World through Story and Ritual in Simone Schwarz-Bart's The Bridge of Beyond and Gloria Naylor's Mama Day.” PALARA: Publication of the AfroLatin/American Research Association 5 (2001): 20-31. Levy, Helen Fiddyment. Fiction of the Home Place: Jewett, Cather, Glasgow, Porter, Welty, and Naylor. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1992. Metting, Fred. “The Possibilities of Flight: The Celebration of Our Wings in Song of Solomon, Praisesong for the Widow, and Mama Day.” Southern Folklore 55.2 (1998): 145-68. Montgomery, Maxine Lavon, ed. Conversations with Gloria Naylor. Literary Conversations Series. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004. Print.

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—. The Fiction of Gloria Naylor: Houses and Spaces of Resistance. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2010. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. 1987. New York: Plume, 1998. Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1988. Nicosia, Laura. “Authorial Manipulation and Privileged Narrative: Mama Day and Its Paratextual Documents.” Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South 14.2 (2007): 1-11. Paterson, Kathryn M. “Gloria Naylor’s North/South Dichotomy and the Reversal of the Middle Passage: Juxtaposed Migrations within Mama Day.” Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History: Migration and Identity in Black Women’s Literature. Ed. Elizabeth BrownGuillory. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2006: 76-95. Perry, Donna. “Gloria Naylor.” Montgomery 76-104. Perry, Phyllis Alesia. Stigmata. New York: Anchor, 1999. Smith, Barbara. “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism.” The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory. Ed. Elaine Showalter. New York: Pantheon, 1985. 168-85. Thompson, Dorothy Perry. “Africana Womanist Revision in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day and Bailey’s Café. Kelley 89-111. Walker, Alice. The Temple of My Familiar. New York: Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 1990. Whitt, Margaret Earley. Understanding Gloria Naylor. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1999. Wilson, Charles E. Gloria Naylor: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood P, 2001.

CHAPTER TEN THE POWER OF THE QUEST NARRATIVE: METAPHORS, MODERNITY, AND TRANSFORMATION THOMAS M. KERSEN

Pictures of landscapes offer several insights, according to Robert Adams (1996), and these insights occur in a sequence. First, the viewer learns about the geography associated with the picture. Another revelation is who the photographer is. Finally, the picture has metaphorical qualities that are meaningful to the viewer. Thomas Merton noted (Asian Journal 153) that “…the best photography is aware, mindful, of illusion and uses illusion.” But rather than relying on landscape pictures, I analyze the popular literature on the topic of quest, moving past geographic descriptions of the various journeys to explore metaphors of spirituality used in quest writing. Some of these metaphors are about place and identity, paradoxes, the quest, and place-making. The culmination of the quest is, however, not something that can easily be put into words. This process of tying person to place and concept to action also informs us about who the quest authors are collectively, much as the discovery of the photographer in the above example. Of particular interest is the way authors generate their own place-worlds that are spiritually meaningful to themselves and to other people. However, rather than running away from modern society, the quest experience, a form of wilderness monasticism, enlivens a sense of place and community for many seekers. In other words, seekers learn more about themselves and how they fit into modernity. Many of the authors identify the disenchanting aspects of modernity as reason to go on a quest activity. The quest becomes a way of accessing the divine or spiritual and re-enchants their lives and community. More profoundly, the literature indicates how lasting and pervasive the quest is as a way of internalizing and

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rebroadcasting, with or without words, spirituality between seekers while they are on their journey and even when they reintegrate back into broader society. A quest has several characteristics. A quest is biographical or autobiographical in nature, it is a journey with a goal in mind, and it is spiritual, especially in terms of finding a mythical or spiritual place. The quest involves transformation, as in growing up or aging during the journey. Other transformations associated with the quest are metaphors: unities, polarities, paradox, and ambiguity. But it is the transformation along the way that is of special interest. Much of the inspiration for this study of quest narratives comes from the work of others, especially that of Thomas Merton and Geoff Dyer. Geoff Dyer provides a series of real and semi-real vignettes about a quest of sorts. It is important to note that Dyer’s and Merton’s quests are a good example of John Steinbeck’s (1977) Spanish term vacilando, which means to travel with no particular destination in mind. Thus, a vacilando does not quite fit Joseph Campbell’s framework of a heroic journey, because Dyer and Merton (as well as the fictional character Jeffrey Lebowski) do not really solve anything. I also rely on the work of Burton-Christie to help guide me in understanding Thomas Merton’s quest experiences. And Douglas Hoftstadter’s book Godel, Escher and Bach provides a conceptual framework for understanding quest experiences. Quest narratives often involve a journey to somewhere mythical or sacred, and are typically viewed from one of three perspectives: traditional, social, and phenomenological. The traditional view that sacred places have inherent mystical qualities is called the essentialist approach by Abe (2000) or, as Lane (2002) termed it, the ontological perspective. Accordingly a grove, mountain, or body of water is sacred because the natives believe it possesses sacred qualities. Another perspective is the social construction or cultural approach. Following this line of reasoning, sacred places are areas of contested symbols and meanings. The final model is person-place or phenomenological. Place-making is an individual experience that typifies this approach, and it is the guiding framework of the present study. Indeed, the quest, I argue, can be best understood as a phenomenological experience. As an example, Douglas Powell (2007) compared the place-making perspective, in which the focus is on people interacting within a geographical context, with the notion that there is something intrinsically special about the Appalachian Trail, finding several layers of social interaction and meanings associated with the trail. Quest narratives are essentially about biography or autobiography, but they are also stories of transformation; this transformation is usually set in

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a dialectical framework. Oftentimes, the transformation deals with age and the aging process of humans, with entropy, or with the aging of whole cultures. Merton’s concern was about becoming elderly, whereas Dyer contemplated life as a middle-aged man. Ray and Anderson wrote that “Aging is the Between [liminality] that life provides” (291). Aging forces a person to reflect on one’s past, present and future as well as successes and failures. Dyer poignantly describes a time where he needed to make the choice between making a leap into a pool to impress his girlfriend or to acquiesce to maturity (and perhaps common sense). Ray and Anderson pointedly ask “How do you find the courage to let the hero die so the elder can be born?” (295). Coming to terms with the transformation of identity we call growing up is one of the central puzzles for Dyer to figure out. Overall, the backdrop for Dyer’s stories is entropy. On a personal level, his stories concern being and nothing, or perhaps the loss of something cherished (girlfriend, youth, sunglasses). For the Dude in Big Lebowski, it’s his rug. Cultures also age and fall apart. Ruins of ancient cities are particularly interesting to Dyer as a cultural-level manifestation of decline and failure. Metaphors of decline and ruin are offered by Dyer through the artwork of Frederic Edwin Church’s Syria by the Sea and the “Ruins of Detroit” of photographer Camilo Jose Vergara. Along a parallel line, he makes frequent mention of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, as if discontent itself is a factor in decline and ruin. Another aspect of identity expressed in Dyer’s and Merton’s stories is the interplay between actor and the action. We are what we do. Dyer asks the reader to try to separate the dancer from the dance; for the Cohen Brothers it is separating the bowler from bowling. Nietzsche wrote, “There is no being beyond the doing, acting, becoming; the ‘doer’ has been simply added to the deed by imagination–the doing” (45). Jackson and Csikszentimihalyi address this unifying principle in their concept of “flow.” Kersen, Bates, and Hudiburg observe this unity with long-distance runners and mysticism. Keith Basso writes, “We are, in a sense, the placeworlds we imagine” (7). Place-world is the same thing as Edward Soja’s “third space,” which is a space where interaction (a dialog) between self and place occurs. By comparison, according to Soja, Casey, and Feldt respectively, first space is perceived (geographical and physical), and second space is conceived (what we know or think) as reality. Being the place-worlds that we imagine is another kind of transformation. Moving from one metaphorical state to another is a different kind of transformation. Quest stories, as well as literature, art, and music, are laden with metaphors. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) go so far as to argue that

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metaphors make up most of how we think and communicate. In essence, a metaphor, or Hofstadter’s “isomorphism,” is where one thing replaces another even if the two things have no apparent relationship with each other (see also Jeremy Campbell’s Grammatical Man). By comparison, a metonym is where similar words or phrases can be substituted for each other. Metaphors are powerful–consider the transformative effect of sacred rituals, which are actions based on metaphorical linkages with deities or other forces (Merten and Schwartz). Here the self transitions from one metaphorical state to another state. Oftentimes these metaphors are expressed in oppositions, or to use Mircea Eliade’s term, “polarities.” (See also Claude Levi-Strauss’s theory of structuralism.) Finally, transitions from modernity to post-modernity at the societal level are linked to metaphors (Hassan qtd. in Harvey). Examples of modern and postmodern polarities are concepts such as centering-dispersal, metaphor-metonym, determinant-indeterminate, and transcendent-immanent (Harvey 43, Table 1.1). One metaphorical polarity is civilization-wilderness. Wilderness is the “. . . domain of demons, of evil, of wild beasts, and of physical danger” (Feldt 16). Civilization, on the other hand, is the “. . . domain of gods, of good, of domesticated animals, and of safety” (16). Noting the antagonistic nature between civilization and nature, Simmel observed that the ruins of ancient cities show the cyclical pattern in the rise of civilization, decay, and the return to nature. There are also metaphors dealing with dwelling or seeking. Lane noted that certain places exact forces on people that may attract them to stay home (centripetal force) or to leave home (centrifugal force). Although dwelling and seeking are thought of in terms of place, there is also a social-psychological facet to the dwelling-seeking polarity, namely wanderlust, that is beyond the scope of this chapter. In “Hotel Oblivion,” Dyer relates a story about seeking a place for himself and his friends to relax. Not satisfied with a café, the group searches out another spot but realizes afterwards that the café was everything they wanted. Without thinking, the group finds itself in a liminal community that exists only in between places such as a café or a mall (Delanty), places which are temporary or transitory. Merton wrote, “I am going home, to home where I have never been in this body” (5). Dwelling is often seen as civilization and conforming, seeking is about the individual and his or her freedom of action. Dwelling is a facet of modernity while seeking is symptomatic of postmodernity. This dialectic is played out in various vignettes in Yoga. The touchstone for much of this back-and-forth is Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. The gist of

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Freud’s work is that at some level societal goals and ideals are counter to those individuals have. This disconnect, associated more and more with modernity, frustrates and forces us to sublimate our true desires. Another polarity exists between what we understand as real and the metaphysical worlds. In the story about “Leptis Magna” Dyer discussed physical and dream cities. The ruins at Leptis, as well as the ruins in his other stories, form the most recent manifestation of a past civilization (e.g. ruins) which in a way is a social palimpsest. Peering deeper into civilization's decay, Dyer found other, more profound truths. In all his accounts, the interaction between the material and truly unknowable reality (pleroma) and our conceptions of that reality (creatura) (see Bateson and Bateson). What Dyer suggests through many of his stories is that there are mechanisms to bridge the physical and dream worlds. Bateson and Bateson argue that the bridge is the metaphor. Thought versus non-thought emerge often in Dyer’s stories. For Bateson and Bateson, part of the sacred is the unawareness attached to its emergence and presence. In short, if you think about something sacred or special, you lose the special moment. In modernity-postmodernity terms, the difference is between design and chance (Harvey). For example, while in Ubud, Indonesia, Dyer thought too much about winning a game of ping pong and then lost. By not thinking about it, in another story, Dyer found his way back to his hotel after forgetting where it was. Annie Dillard wrote about being in “The Moment.” Another major dialectic is that between determinacy and indeterminacy. Dyer links determinacy with sacred sites but also describes the indeterminacy of Burning Man. Thomas Merton discussed the indeterminacy nature of tea plantations that suffered from landslides in Sri Lanka. In Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, the Redwoods were contrasted with the plastic sterility of modern American life. In postmodernity, paralleling the indeterminacy of the places are transient social interactions that are not limited by traditional obstacles such as space and time. Besides the metaphorical side of quest stories, problems arise for which there are no “best” solutions. Hofstadter described these paradoxes as having a “strange loopiness.” A common paradox in Dyer’s stories is infinity. Many of the metaphors listed above possess a quality of infiniteness (Hook). Guillen uses the term “singularity” to describe “localized” or bounded types of infinities such as black holes and the human mind. The singularity of the rice paddies of Ubud, Indonesia caught Dyer’s attention. He mentioned the “infinities of green” when seeing them. By contrast, infinities may be unbounded such as in the case for Dillard who was disturbed by the paradox of profligate fecundity and

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mortality in nature. Another example of infinity is a common theme in the work of Giorgio De Chirico. One of my favorite paintings is De Chirico’s 1914 The Melancholy and the Mystery of the Street. In the painting, in the lower foreground a girl is running with a hoop between two buildings with little black windows above archways that vanish off into the distance. The painting has a feel of infinite entrances/exits, time/timelessness as well as fluctuations between foreground and background. In a similar vein, consider the scene from the Big Lebowski where Saddam Hussein is a bowling lane attendant standing in front of infinite rows of cubby holes filled with shoes. Infinities catch us in a bind according to Pascal. What he meant is that we can have no way of knowing or experiencing everything. The same is true for nothing. Humans are caught between the infinities of all and nothing. He wrote, “Let us therefore not look for certainty and stability. Our reason is always deceived by fickle shadows; nothing can fix the finite between the two Infinities, which both enclose and fly from it” (222).The ambiguity of our station between these two poles, especially in an era of precision and calculability (Ritzer), generates angst. Surrealism, DaDaism, and similar postmodern movements tried to find solutions to things that are insolvable (Harvey). These art movements embraced ambiguity which too is a paradox. Likewise, Dyer touches on ambiguity in various ways throughout his book. For example he mentions his girlfriend’s out-of-focus photographs. And of course, there is continuous role ambiguity as Dyer moves from one story to another. Another paradox often expressed in quest literature is that of time and space. Burton-Christie wrote that “Space, too, can alter our sense of time…time can expand, slow down . . .” (6). The past, present, and future no longer align like they should. They alternate and run together. Carse pointed out that many religious traditions hold to the view that “everything is underway” (24). Merton gave an example of impermanence or annica, a major component of Buddhist philosophy, when describing landslides in the area of Sri Lankan tea plantations (150). The past and future may even coalesce in the present and at the same place in one’s mind–Dyer’s dream space for example. Adding to the complexity of the time paradox is how solitude contributes to the “past, present, and future all flow together” (Steinbeck 123). Time is marked at a larger scale by the rise and fall of cities and the ruins left behind. Time as well as space and social interaction are crucial in understanding change, according to Giddens. All three ingredients are found in ruins. Dyer talks about time in the Zone as “a place where time has stood its ground.” For him, one of the places in which he was in the

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Zone was at the ruins at Leptis Magna located in modern-day Libya. He noted that the ruins are “in the early stages of a career of ruination which would end ultimately as desert . . . the final triumph of space over time.” Ruins are the "present form of the past" that blurs the line between the observer's sensuous/spiritual and rational/material worlds (Simmel). The quest usually involves a journey from civilization (e.g. home) into the wilderness. This is not easy to do for most people because the relationship between society and wilderness is perceived in terms of opposites (a paradox of sorts). We feel safe and secure in our homes and towns, whereas the wilderness is just that—wild (Feldt). Yet it is often in the wilderness where we seek sacred moments and places. However, many people want to experience the ambiguity and risks that nature has to offer. More importantly, however, the wilderness possesses liminality and that is what people seek (Feldt). As was the case for Merton and Dyer, the journey is done in solitude but there is also a strange loopiness because the sojourner comes back to a community. Perhaps the biggest reason for leaving the comfort of home is to try to find an answer to the ills that modernity poses. Delanty wrote that “community is seen as something that has been lost with modernity and is something that must be recovered” (10). Modernity is alienating us from each other and from place and it leaves us rootless (Buber; Lane; Fullilove). In modernity, people regard each other as objects rather than members of a community (Martin Buber; see Durkheim’s anomie concept). According to Ray and Anderson, “Modernism lives with a hole where wisdom ought to be” (294). Dillard noted that “self-consciousness is the curse of the city and all that sophistication implies” (81). Modernism strips people of their roots or sense of home (Burton-Christie 356). Without roots, people have weak or no ties to each other. Thus, we are become aimless as in Dyer’s case (e.g. “Horizontal Drift,” “Miss Cambodia,” and “The Rain Inside”). Modernity is pictured by Dyer in terms such as façade, art deco, fake, and trash (see also Steinbeck, Travels with Charley). How we experience modernity depends on what culture we are members of. For example worldviews shift from that of the tourist to that of the peasant working in the field. Modernity affects our language, as Dyer observed with actionoriented talk versus the verb-less speech of other cultures. We need not rely only on Dyer’s peripatetic observations. America possesses different cultures that manifest some of the same themes. For example, Ray and Anderson wrote at length about three cultures in America: the Traditionals (god and guns), Moderns (money and progress), and Cultural Creatives (noncomformists and artsy). The Cultural Creatives, of which Merton and

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Dyer were members, will lead the charge to refill the hole created by modernity. They will do this through creative meaning systems such as architecture, art, music, sociology, or even bowling. Hoftstadter was interested in changing states and discussed how photons “flickered” in and out of existence. Flickering, alternating, oscillation–all these words have been used by quest authors when describing transformation. In general, these terms deal with the relationship between figure and ground. Using modernist/postmodernist terms, figure is form and is connected and bounded, whereas anti-form is the ground and is the opposite (Harvey). Hoftstadter wrote that “Figure is positive space (e.g. a person), the space around him or her is the ground or negative space.” In a way figure and ground are opposites that in special situations and places come together. Examples of this are pointed out by Dyer in the work of Caspar David Friederich such as The Monk by the Sea. Dillard noted the figure/ground relationship when she wrote about the fog and trees, as well as shadow and sky. Dyer mentioned the endless alternation between the sky and the Roman colonnades at Leptis Magna in Libya. These special places are filled with coincidences of opposites. Eliade noted that polarities often cancel each other out when they meet or coincidentia oppositorum. The void created by opposites meeting allows for a sublime space. More recently, Ray and Anderson wrote that when a person is in the Between where “The coincidence of opposites coming together in a single wholeness marks the peculiar unity of the Between, which is ‘neither this nor that, and yet is both’” (269). Words such as samsara deal with the cycle of birth or rebirth (or the Sufi equivalent fana al fana ) are also about the process of moving from figure to ground and back, or any parallel concept (e.g. flickering, oscillation, etc.) This recursive pattern is paradox-like but not truly a paradox because, as Hofstadter notes, recursiveness has a solution to simpler forms or concepts. However, the mystical nature of recursivity does not lessen because it is not a true paradox. Often, indecision reigns on what to do–or what direction to take. Events and communities emerge, subside and reemerge (e.g. The Playa of the Burning Man festival). These events require a new breed of travelers who “transgress into the margins of society” (Delanty 145). Hoftstader wrote “The “Strange Loop” phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through the levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started” (10). Tying this back to figure and ground, Hofstadter observed that “A recursive figure is one whose ground can be seen as a figure in its own right” (67). For ego, this means seeking and finding

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simpler versions of one’s self. It also means what we thought we were not (ground) says a lot about what we are (figure). Hoftstader’s notion of recursivity centers on the process of changing from one level or state to another. For the sojourner, the catalyst for that recursivity or transformation is often described as a sacred place. This is the essence of a phenomenological approach because transcendence or liminality is attached to these special places and often a person has to leave (home/civilization) or lose something (previous identity) to get there. Merton and Dyer experienced the sublime only in certain locations, usually where Buddhist influences, notably monuments and statues, are all around. Perhaps these locations are “thinned out places” where metaphysical realities are easier accessed. A key to it all is the realization that you are in the sublime. Burton-Christie argued that “The contemplative work of placemaking —of seeking and finding the wisdom of places—is complex and delicate” (351). A part of the complexity in place-making may be because there are countless ways to seek truth (decoding to Hofstadter). Some people flee from one state to gain entrance to another. This form of monasticism was practiced by Thomas Merton, John Steinbeck, Annie Dillard, and Geoff Dyer. Other people learn that Home or the Zone means interacting with others. Furthermore, people have a variety of techniques to use to get to the sublime such as drugs, experiences, dreams, and non-effort/nonthought (e.g. oblivious, ignorant, etc). Ray and Anderson quoted T.S. Eliot “In order to arrive at what you do not know/you must go by a way of ignorance” (253). Also Carse spent some time writing about ignorance and devoted a whole chapter to “Higher Ignorance” about the role of teachers. Finally, Lane asserts as an axiom that sacred places are not to be found, rather they find you. Quests usually imply a goal or endpoint. That endpoint can be ambiguous and often goes by names such as the Zone (Dyer) and the Home (Burton-Christie). Burton-Christie quoted Novalis: “Where are we going? Always home—Novalis.” Paradoxically, home may be a place where a person has never visited (Burton-Christie 370). Steinbeck, in a letter to his future wife, wrote, “I have homes everywhere,” many of which “I have not seen yet. That is perhaps why I am restless. I haven’t seen all my homes” (Steinbeck 382; see also Dyer 4). Now that you’ve found it, so what? The journey’s end invites reflection about what the person has endured. It is a time of contemplation about what the person has become. We realize our desires, which were for Dyer giving and for Merton loving and being loved. Buber thought the journey ended when we realized and accepted our individual uniqueness

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rather than trying to be someone else. The pilgrimage to Tinker Creek taught Dillard the value of being thankful for life itself. The end of the quest makes us feel good about ourselves yet mournful that the journey has ended. We are awestruck and have difficulty finding words to express what we are experiencing. We sense unity with something greater than ourselves. We are linked to a special place. We are a part of it and it has a part of us. All these experiences compel one to give back to society. Ray and Anderson thought the whole quest process culminated not only with the return to society but also with bringing back some gifts, such as new ways of thinking or of telling stories. Most quest authors in some fashion argue that it is about the journey, not the end. This is fitting because, quite often, the battle between seeking and dwelling won’t end. Once a person tastes the sublime, he or she keeps coming back for more. Burton-Christie pointed to Gregory of Nyssa’s concept of epectasis—“the infinite and ever-widening longing through which the soul comes to know and live in God” (369). Thomas Merton realized epectasis after his epiphany at the Buddhas in Polonnaruwa. Steinbeck knew this too. I wonder if Dyer knows.

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Works Cited Abe, Janet. “Sacred Place: An Interdisciplinary Approach for Social Science.” Linda M. Burton, et al. Communities, Neighborhoods, and Health. New York: Springer, 2001. 145-62. Adams, Robert. Beauty in Photography. New York: Aperture, 1996. Basso, Keith. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1996. 7. Bateson, Gregory, and Mary Bateson. Angels Fear to Tread: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. Cress Kill, N.J.: Hampton P, Inc., 2005. Bhaskar, Roy. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. New York: Verso, 1993. Buber, Martin. I and Thou. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Scribner, 1970. Burton-Christie, Douglas. “Living Between Two Worlds: Home, Journey and the Quest for Sacred Place.” Anglican Theological Review 79.3 (1997): 413-32. —. “Place-Making as Contemplative Practice.” Anglican Theological Review 91.3 (2009): 347-71. —. “The Wild and the Sacred.” Anglican Theological Review 85.3 (2003): 43-51. Campbell, Jeremy. Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1982. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1959. GoogleBooks. Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2008. Carse, James. Breakfast at the Victory. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994. Casey, Edward. “Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World?” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91.4 (2001): 683-93. Davis, John. “Ecopsychology, Transpersonal Psychology, and Nonduality.” International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 30.1-2 (2011): 137-47. Delanty, Gerrard. Community. London: Routledge, 2003. Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. 1974. New York: Quality Paperbook Club, 1990. Dyer, Geoff. Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003. Eliade, Mircea. The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1971.

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Feldt, Laura. Wilderness in Mythology and Religion: Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and the Ideas of Wild Nature. Boston: De Gruyter, 2012. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton, 1961. Fullilove, Mindy. Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It. New York: Ballantine Books, 2005. Giddens, Anthony. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Berkeley: U of California P, 1979. Guillen, Michael. Bridges to Infinity: The Human Side of Mathematics. Los Angeles, Calif.: J. P. Tarcher, 1983. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995. Heintzman, Paul. “Nature-Based Recreation and Spirituality: A Complex Relationship.” Leisure Sciences 32 (2010): 72-89. Hofstadter, Douglas. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. 1979. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Hood, Ralph. “The Construction and Preliminary Validation of a Measure of Reported Mystical Experience.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 14 (1975): 29-41. Hook, Sidney. The Quest for Being and Other Studies in Naturalism and Humanism. 1934. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1961. Ivakhiv, Adrian. “Orchestrating Sacred Space: Beyond the ‘Social Construction’ of Nature.” Ecotheology 8.1 (2003): 11-29. Jackson, S. and Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow in Sports. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 1999. Kersen, Thomas, Richard Hudiburg, and Larry Bates. “Exploring the Mystical Side of Running.” The Researcher: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 2.1 (2013): 49-69. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Life.” Journal of Philosophy 77.8 (1980): 453-86. Lane, Beldon. Landscapes of the Sacred. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins P, 2002. Magnuson, Eric. “Rejecting the American Dream: Men Creating Alternative Life Goals.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 37.3 (2008): 255-90. Merten, Don, and Gary Schwartz. “Metaphor and Self: Symbolic Process in Everyday Life.” American Anthropologist 84.4 (1982): 796-810.

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Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1958. —. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton. New York: New Direction Books, 1973. Nietzsche, Fredrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. 1967. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Pascal, Blaise. Pensees 72, 20, 233, 280, and 347. A Casebook on Existentialism. Ed. William V. Spanos. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968. Powell, Douglas. Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 2007. Rabin, Andrew. “A Once and Future Dude: The Big Lebowski as Medieval Grail-Quest.” The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies. Ed. Edward Comentale and Aaron Jaffe. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana UP, 2009. Ray, Paul, and Sherry Anderson. The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. New York: Harmony Books, 2000. Ritzer, George. Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge P, 1999. Rosenau, Pauline. Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1992. Simmel, Georg. Trans. David Kettler. “The Ruin.” The Hudson Review 11.3 (1958): 379-85. Soja, Edward. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-andImagined Places. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996. Steinbeck, John. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Ed. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten. New York: Viking P, 1975. —. Travels with Charley: In Search of America. 1961. New York: Viking P, 1977.

CHAPTER ELEVEN SURREALISM AND INCANTATION IN POEMS OF PABLO NERUDA: THE POWER OF POETIC LANGUAGE HELEN F. MAXSON

In his 1982 book Pablo Neruda: The Poetics of Prophecy, Enrico Mario Santí involves in his concept of prophecy the presentation of absolute knowledge: “Prophecy unveils not the future but the absolute, and so a poetics of prophecy describes the desire to present absolute knowledge in poetic form” (15). Indeed, in the various themes explored by Neruda’s oeuvre—the political, the humanitarian, the erotic, the earthbound, the soaring—we are aware of a faith in his own message, an absolute quality that, even when it probes the poet’s own psyche and experience, seems to speak for humanity in general. Furthermore, as the subject of Mario Santí’s book implies, the workings of Neruda’s language—its poetics—do much to generate that impression in the reader. One aspect of his thought revealed by his language is a repeated embrace of what is inner and what is deep in any context, whether it be a realm of human history, the origins of a cultural monument, or a region of the human mind. In fact, the title of what is generally regarded as Neruda’s greatest work, The Heights of Macchu Picchu, might be seen as somewhat ironic when one considers the poem’s penetration of surfaces in pursuit of something within or under or behind them. The heights described by the poem reveal ennobling truths of human life that the stone city’s external grandeur, as it participates in the natural magnificence around it, represents. However, the poem climaxes by unearthing painful truths from the past, from the humble situations of those who lived them, and from the oppressed workers whose efforts, and sometimes whose corpses, lie behind and beneath the city. At the end of the poem, Neruda commits himself to keeping those truths alive in our awareness. Since it is as a poet

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that he does so, it is appropriate that the strategies of his language point us inward, toward the most important truths, as we read this and other poems by this poet. The language of Neruda’s poetry is, in part, a function of the poetry he grew up with. T. S. Eliot, a poet seen as a defining voice of his generation, reflects a collective doubt that language can faithfully describe the human condition or human life. In the 1920 poem “Gerontion,” he uses biblical language to link that doubt to the more general lack of faith that characterized, in Europe and America, the period following World War I: Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign”: The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger

Following a stanza describing forms of emptiness (“Empty shuttles weave the wind.”), Eliot asks, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” suggesting that there can be no forgiveness for what life has become: no forgiveness from other humans, no forgiveness from God. The lines echo the opening of the Gospel of St. John, “In the beginning was the Word,” in order to extend doubts about the mission of Christ to the potency of language. We see the machinery of weaving as having no thread to weave, and include in that machinery the workings of language which express no meaning or truth. Born in 1904, Neruda grew to adulthood in Eliot’s time, and as a poet, he had absorbed the time’s misgivings about the poetic enterprise. Much of Neruda’s poetry expresses a distrust of the language of conventional and day-to-day interactions. Manuel Durán and Margery Safir, in their 1981 book Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, discuss lines from “Pedro is the When and the How” as representative of this tendency in his verse: “Where are we going / with our carefully chosen merchandise, / all wrapped up in little words, / dressed up in nets of words?” (qtd. on 169). Neruda ends the poem by referring to “words without destination,” seeing language not only as a means of impressing rather than accomplishing, but also as a pointless tangle rather than an effective tool. Lines from The Sea and the Bells are somewhat less condemning, mixing hypocrisy and sincerity in the language we exchange according to social convention, with each other: Salud, we called out every day, to every single person, it is the calling card

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of false kindness and of sincerity. (23)

Still, Durán and Safir include Neruda’s distaste for conventional language with that of his contemporaries and are careful not to extend it to language in general: Attacks on conventional language are certainly one of the cornerstones of modern literature, and Latin American literature is no exception. . . .As in modern literature in general, Neruda’s rejection of language is a rejection only of disunified, meaningless, cliché-ridden language, where words are spoken that no longer have significance, and where the original power and unity have been lost. (169-70)

Though the gravity of Eliot’s lines amounts to more than a resistance to clichés or badly composed language, it is my sense that Durán and Safir have characterized Neruda accurately. In fact, it may be precisely because doubts about the effectiveness of language were prevalent around him that his countering faith in poetic language became as pronounced as it was. We will see, too, that a few kindred spirits may have encouraged his faith. Durán and Safir go on to discuss the wish for silence that is prominent in Neruda’s poetry, quoting Octavio Paz in the process. If we have wondered, as Neruda’s readers, how a condemning attitude toward language and a life’s work in poetry can coexist in the same life, Paz eases the apparent contradiction: As with Mallarme, Rene Char, Paz, and other modern poets, Neruda’s wish for silence is in reality a search to strengthen the power of poetry, to allow meanings to reveal themselves through the magic of true language. Neruda [says Paz] is “speaking . . . of a silence that rejects names and forms, interpretations and explanations in order to find its fulfillment in an absence which, nonetheless, includes all presences.” (171)

As Durán and Safir point out, the wish for silence is a recurrent theme in Neruda’s poetry, and, at the same time, a recurrent indication of his faith in a “true language.” They find in The Sea and the Bells an expression of that wish that, later in Neruda’s career, shows both maturity and weariness: “The poet wonders, after so many words, if it is not now the time to halt the flow of words and to listen to the sounds of Nature and of his own inner being. Perhaps there, a new, pure language will emerge, more powerful, more capable of changing the world than before” (171). This concept of a true language, and the concept put forth by Paz of silence as an absence that includes all presences, coincide with Santí’s

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notion of absolute knowledge to make of the three constructs confirmations of each other, encouraging readers, first, to see Neruda’s focus on depth and inwardness as the expression of an absolute value, and second, to see that, despite the doubting culture around him, he has crafted the language of his poems as a trustworthy expression of it. That Neruda’s language in this service is spoken by only part of the human race deserves our acknowledgement but does not invalidate the mission Neruda undertakes. It is true that analysts of poetry in translation must not lose sight of the interplay between translation and interpretation described by translator John Flestiner in his book Translating Neruda, where he discusses the experience of translating The Heights of Macchu Picchu: Essentially I mean to mesh the functions of critic and translator, because to keep them separate can make for artificial or partial views of poetry in another language. . . . Through a kind of symbiotic exchange—the critic and the translator living off each other—we can move toward a full sense of the poem in question. (3)

The dynamic Flestiner describes suggests that what readers find in a translated poem might derive, at least in part, from the language in which they are reading as well as from the poet’s original vision. Robert PringMill, in his Introduction to Nathaniel Tarn’s translation of The Heights of Macchu Picchu, mentions several aspects of Neruda’s style that resist translation (xii), another circumstance suggesting that a translation might not represent the original faithfully. Furthermore, in their Introduction to Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, Durán and Safir explain that “[t]hroughout the book Neruda’s poems have been translated into English by Manuel Durán in an effort to give the translated poems a consistency of style that would not have been possible if translations from various sources were used” (x-xi). As these scholars suggest, translated poems may not make perfect reflections of a poet’s thought and craftsmanship. Still, the global nature of Neruda’s humanitarian concerns, as well as his use of verbal gestures that transcend his own language, assure us that in any language, they can guide us reliably to insights about his work in its original language. Thus his work in any language points to the distinction he makes between conventional and poetic purposes for language, confirming our sense that, despite his mistrust of conventional language, his faith in the language of his poetry shaped his vision and empowered his work. The other subtopics this paper will explore transcend, as well, the defining impact of the language in which Neruda wrote.

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In fact, throughout his career, Neruda associated language with the natural world and with silence in ways that confirm the existence of an ultimate, “true” language. In the 1950 work Canto General, which includes The Heights of Macchu Picchu, his poem “The Great Ocean” refers to the “white language” of the sea, telling the sea “You overflow the curvature of silence” (The Essential Neruda 104-105). His poem of 1954 entitled “Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground” refers to “birds / filled with syllables” and tells the reader “. . . the old / chestnut tree whispered like the mouths / of a hundred trees” (The Essential Neruda 109-11). An untitled poem in the posthumous The Sea and the Bells suggests prophetic power in a thrush: The thrush warbled, pure bird from the fields of Chile: it was calling, it was praising, it was writing on the wind. (109)

Reading the 1924 “I like you when you’re quiet,” even if as feminists we chafe a bit against Neruda’s pleasure in a quiet woman, we must remember not only that the poem quiets his own voice as well as the woman’s, but also the life-long love of silence that would follow the writing of these lines: “. . . I like it when you’re quiet. It’s as if you’d gone away now. / And you’d become the keening, the butterfly’s insistence. . . . It’s then that what I want is to speak to your silence / in speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring” (The Essential Neruda 7). In these lines, the potency of a pure language, a “clear” speech, derives from the absence—in silence, in nature, and in true engagement with another person—of empty interactions carried out in conventional and empty language. The powers of nature, silence, and speech work together in Neruda’s vision to affirm the power of his words. By several scholars, Neruda’s work is classified with that of surrealist poets and artists, inviting us to define the power of his language in terms of their techniques and goals. Durán and Safir point out that, at the beginning of The Heights of Macchu Picchu, “the images are difficult, often depending on the radical juxtaposition characteristic of surrealism” (94). With the phrase “radical juxtaposition,” we can assume the authors refer to images and phrases in Neruda which are not readily linked but which, together in a passage of poetry, form an idea or an image. It is a partnership involving incongruity and discord rather than unifying wholeness. To be sure, that juxtaposition of incongruous images, and of incongruous elements comprising figures of speech, can be found throughout Neruda’s work, although, as Durán and Safir point out in the

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same passage, it grows less frequent in later sections of The Heights of Macchu Picchu and later works of the poet’s career. Robert Pring-Mill describes the heightened surrealism that characterized Neruda’s verse when, in 1927, he was sent as a diplomat to Rangoon: “His poems became series of seemingly random metaphorical approximations to clear statement, organized into a studied semblance of ‘chaos’ around a central core of emotion. Some of this poetry is extremely obscure, due largely to his use of private symbols under the influence of the Surrealists” (viii). Private symbols, radical juxtaposition of images: these terms describe in Neruda’s language practices that, as various critics have observed, require an intuitive sense-making on the part of the reader (O’Daly xvii; Durán and Safir 7), one way in which his language affirms the values of his vision. In his book of art history entitled Arts and Ideas, William Fleming quotes the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto to describe the sort of sense-making engaged by both surrealist artists and their audience, mentioning “’the pure psychic automatism by means of which one sets out to express, verbally, in writing or in any other manner, the real functioning of thought without any control by reason or any aesthetic or moral preoccupation . . . .‘” Fleming goes on to say that “Members of the group believed in the superior reality of the dream to the waking state . . .” (374-79). Call it “intuitive” or unregulated by waking, customary constructs. Either way, reading Neruda involves an interior process which one must respond to rather than control. The workings of Neruda’s language assign to intuition, the unregulated workings of the mind, and interiority in general, an absolute worth that is defined, in part, by its distance from social conventions of communication. Neruda’s embrace of interiority is expressed throughout his work. The eleventh section of The Heights of Macchu Picchu, where he addresses and seeks to know the fifteenth-century laborers who built the stone city, reflects the perspective well. Through a confusion of splendor, through a night made stone let me plunge my hand and move to beat in me a bird held for a thousand years, the old and unremembered human heart! Today let me forget this happiness, wider than all the sea, because man is wider than all the sea and her necklace of islands and we must fall into him as down a well to clamber back with branches of secret water, recondite truths. Allow me to forget, circumference of stone, the powerful proportions, the transcendental span, the honeycomb’s foundations, and from the set-square allow my hand to slide down a hypotenuse of hairshirt and salt blood. (trans. Tarn 63)

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In addition to their erotic implications, these lines express Neruda’s desire that his own heart beat in rhythm with the natural world and with the hearts of the workers who built Macchu Picchu. In the last few lines, the language of geometry, appropriate to the geometrically constructed spaces of the city, describes the external and civilized world Neruda wants to leave behind in exploring the human heart. We may include in what Neruda wants to “forget” the carefully measured qualities of traditional poetry, including the verisimilitude of its images. These lines, since they come from the eleventh poem of The Heights of Macchu Picchu where his surrealism had eased, serve well to enunciate a theme in an academic paper like this one. But passages earlier in the poem better exemplify the workings of Neruda’s surrealistic language as it explores what is interior. The book consists of twelve individual poems. The second half of the book’s first poem cites the poet’s desire for what is inner and what is deep. Someone waiting for me among the violins met with a world like a buried tower sinking its spiral below the layered leaves color of raucous sulphur: and lower yet, in a vein of gold, like a sword in a scabbard of meteors, I plunged a turbulent and tender hand to the most secret organs of the earth. Leaning my forehead through unfathomed waves I sank, a single drop, within a sleep of sulphur where, like a blind man, I retraced the jasmine of our exhausted human spring. (trans. Tarn 3)

This portrait of depth conjures images that one might call vaguely drawn, adopting the term “cultivated vagueness” (7) that Durán and Safir ascribe to poems in Neruda’s early book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. In what sense can a world be like a tower? In what sense does a tower have a spiral? Reading these lines, we feel a moment of hesitation before we fill in the image with a spiral staircase. In what sense can sulphur be raucous? In what sense can a scabbard consist of meteors? In what sense can a sleep be sulphuric? In what sense can an exhausted spring be like jasmine? Lapses of clarity accumulate as we read; we find ourselves expecting conundrums and, yet, trusting the emphatic voice that describes its images in carefully etched lines. We have no sense that the poet is doubting his words, only that he’s describing things our customary viewpoint does not embrace. Our sense of them is, indeed, vague. We feel

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we have been invited into the poet’s dream-world, where we, ourselves, must make whatever meaning we will take from the poem. American poet Robert Bly comments on the psychological darkness we find in Neruda’s early book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: In Neruda’s poems, the imagination drives forward, joining the entire poem in a rising flow of imaginative energy. In the underworld of consciousness, in the thickets where Freud, standing a short distance off, pointed out incest bushes, murder trees, . . . Neruda’s imagination moves with utter assurance sweeping from one spot to another almost magically…. Moving under the earth, he knows everything from the bottom up . . . and therefore is never at a loss for its name. (qtd. in Durán and Safir 9)

Whether this effect is “cultivated” or a natural consequence of drawing on the Freudian unconscious, it aims readers inward as they contrive understandings of the poems. Durán and Safir describe Neruda’s exploration of the unconscious (15-16), affirming the connection between the incongruities of his language and the interior focus of his vision. Again, we do not sense that the poet’s word choices are uncertain. The style is uncluttered. The tone is self-assured. As we do with a surrealist painting, we assume that the incongruities of the poems are deliberate parts of their messages. Still, our sense of the poems involves our own hesitations about their meaning. Thinking over Neruda’s recurrent association between the natural world and absolute verities, we wonder if the most absolute knowledge we can have is that our day-to-day understandings, never certain in themselves, are deceptively made to seem certain as a function of societal agendas. If this is true, the clear understandings we seek as we read, and like to possess as we live our lives, are a function of social agendas or structures–psychological, moral, practical–that we build as members of the human community and with which, for social ends, we falsify reality. Like the carefully constructed stone city of Macchu Picchu, these structures might be called geometrical, designed to reflect the rigors of logic. As an implement of inner truthfulness, Neruda’s surrealistic language helps us see the structures’ divergence from reality. A poem from the book The Sea and the Bells underscores the falseness of what is external and publically constructed. I want to know if you come with me toward not walking and not speaking, I want to know if we finally will reach no communication: finally

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going with someone to see pure air, rays of light over the daily or a landbound object and finally having nothing to trade, without goods to furnish

as the colonizers had, exchanging coupons for silence. Here I purchase your silence. I agree: I give you mine with one provision: that we not understand each other. (57)

Politically active all his life, Neruda was deeply affected by, among other historical events, the victory of Franco in Spain, the later victory of Pinochet in Chile, the evolution of Stalin from idealistic Communist to tyrant, and the oppression of fifteenth-century Incan workers by their own monarch. Much of his work reflects a postcolonial consciousness. The lines quoted above reflect an overall concern about, on the one hand, historical episodes in which human beings dominate and violate each other, and, on the other hand, self-serving societal agendas and patterns of communication. In the end, these concerns condemn communication and language shaped by human society. In contrast, Neruda’s language as a surrealist poet induces in his readers a tentative hold on their own understanding that would do much to alleviate the unjust or manipulative dynamics he sees in social interactions. Empowering the doubt-inducing impact of his language rather than readers seeking a firm grasp on his poems, Neruda creates between that language and those readers the dynamic he might have his readers enact with each other. Intuiting the implications of his poems’ surreal juxtapositions takes us inward, farther from the notion of authorial intent, farther from the conventions of social interaction, and closer to the roles of our own hearts in our own understandings. The reader’s tentative hold on Neruda’s meaning is suggested in the unassertive connection and communication desired by the speaker in the poem just quoted. It is precisely by failing to communicate verbally in customary terms, and by instead exchanging coupons for silence, that the couple in this poem will be most fully in touch with each other. This irony characterizes the power of surrealistic expression in general–its assumption that the dreaming, inner, and therefore solitary, aspect of our natures connects us most truly to each other. Expressing the poet through self-contradiction, Neruda’s poetry distinguishes itself from conventional discourse and thereby helps to define its author’s sense of its power.

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Of course, Neruda’s poems are clear that what lies within the human heart is not always admirable or a desirable component of human dynamics. In the second poem of The Heights of Macchu Picchu, a killer confesses his deed, showing no remorse. “We are at an early stage of the Macchu Picchu sequence of poems, sunk in the grim experiences whose effects the trip to Macchu Picchu in poem six will heal: . . .” Soon, caught between clothes and smoke, on the sunken floor, the soul’s reduced to a shuffled pack, quartz and insomnia, tears in the sea, like pools of cold—yet this is not enough: he kills, confesses it on paper with contempt, muffles it in the rug of habit, shreds it into a hostile apparel of wire. (trans. Tarn 7)

In the cosmos of The Heights of Macchu Picchu, one must acknowledge the failings of the human heart in order to acknowledge, too, the desire for what is more admirable. The poet whose soul has been (we might say) shuffled like a deck of cards to play a game for gain, yearns for the inner nature that a more fortunate man might possess. Once again we come to the sense of an absolute truth which it is the poem’s purpose to express: How many times in wintry city streets . . . ... have I wanted to pause and look for the eternal, unfathomable truth’s filament I’d fingered once in stone, or in the flash a kiss released. (trans. Tarn 7-9)

In Neruda’s verse, both the ugly realities we know and the ideals for which we long partake of the essential, unsocialized nature of dreams. The line’s surrealism expresses this doubleness. How can apparel be hostile? How can it be made of wire? How can we detect a filament that is embedded in stone? The poet’s building materials come from the dreamworld, locating what is ugly and culpable in the same dimension as the ideal. In a sense, the distinction between good and bad dissolves. In Neruda’s verse, all aspects of inner truth are reflected in the surrealistic nature of his words. Neruda’s willingness to express the undesirable depths of the human psyche, the unpleasant aspects of inner experience, is kin to his impulse to speak for an unrecognized portion of the human family whose story had not been told: the oppressed laborers who built Macchu Picchu. We can see these poetic subjects as sharing, for Neruda, some quality of depth or interiority in relation to the rest of humanity.

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Perhaps they represent some core vulnerability, some core capacity for suffering, that helps to define us all. However, in treating the Incans as an embodiment of this depth, Neruda’s language in The Heights of Macchu Picchu changes so as to ascribe value to the oppressed laborers that exceeds that of the hidden ugliness of human nature. Scholar William O’Daly, translator of The Sea and the Bells, describes the language of that book in terms that illuminate later poems in The Heights of Macchu Picchu as well: “The colloquial language of this book might be called a ‘public’ language, not only for the issues it addresses but for its accessibility” (xvi). As readers of these later works, we feel as though Neruda has exchanged the descriptive power of surrealistic language for the persuasive power of a clear connection to an audience, in which the explicit message of the language assumes expressive priority over its artistic characteristics and behavior. The tendency reflects the poet’s increased willingness to use the language of the people, despite his mistrust of that language, rather than that of an accomplished artist. As Durán and Safir put it while discussing The Heights of Macchu Picchu, in a passage part of which we have already considered, When the poet is alone in the initial lines of this poem, the images are difficult, often depending on the radical juxtaposition characteristic of surrealism. As the poet moves toward his commitment to the collectivity, however, as he calls out to common ancestors, he speaks a language they can comprehend. The obscure and unexpected imagery of the early lines then gives way to the simple, easily understood language of Neruda’s later poetry, making “Heights of Macchu Picchu” the death and regeneration as well of a form of poetic expression. (94)

Discussing The Sea and the Bells, O’Daly refers to the book’s private and public languages as yin and yang, commenting on the private: “The private language, yin, expresses the intuitive knowledge within the poems, an understanding of silence” (xvii). In O’Daly’s allusion, yin is only part of a larger whole that includes the yang of public language. At this point in his career, Neruda’s poetry derives from the language of its readers power to help and to honor. Neruda’s public language often relies, in part, on conventional patterns of syntax and phrasing to make the poet’s point. At the end of The Heights of Macchu Picchu, when he urges the deceased workers of Macchu Picchu to tell him their stories, his language relies, for example, on the energy delivered by instances of parallel structure:

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There are moments in this powerful exhortation which one might term surreal, but the ending of the book does not cloak its message in overtly artful expression. It pleads directly with the Incan workers so that the inner concern Neruda feels for them—and for others like them in his own time—might generate a public, accessible statement. We have seen that we can define the power of Neruda’s language, in part, through the impact of its surrealism on the reader. We can define that power, too, using a theme he takes up and a verbal convention he observes when he does. In lines assuming an incantatory structure, Neruda explores the power of language to revitalize the past, the history that lies behind and, we might say, within the objects and events of our current lives. For Neruda, the past, like the unconscious, gives our experiences an interior depth, a depth he uses a verbal gesture to evoke. The ninth of the twelve poems of The Heights of Macchu Picchu lists one metaphorical name after another for the ruins of the ancient city. Its opening can exemplify the forty-three line poem as a whole. Interstellar eagle, vine-in-a-mist. Forsaken bastion. Forsaken scimitar. Orion belt, ceremonial bread. Torrential stairway, immeasurable eyelid. Triangular tunic, pollen of stone.

In his Introduction to Nathaniel Tarn’s translation, Robert Pring-Mill refers to the ninth poem as “a solemn and incantatory chant” (xvii). Indeed, the list of names, which reflects a surrealistic logic at various points, does possess qualities of repetition and formula that suggest conventions in the language of incantation, the summoning of spirits.

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Helping to embody an overall progression from distress to hopeful commitment, the ninth poem serves as a kind of turning point that links to Neruda’s art the natural and human energies he has found at Macchu Picchu, giving purpose to his life and work. Neruda’s simultaneous resistance to conventional language and embrace of public language are reflected in his bi-focal perspective on the stones of Macchu Picchu. Seeing in them both the falsifying rigidity of rational logic and the eloquence of poetic language, his poetry remakes the past, letting the stones speak for, rather than crush, the workers who originally shaped them. Through Neruda’s sliding interpretation of the stones, that which once oppressed can now express. It is one more achievement of his poetic language. Pring-Mill refers to the separate names in the ninth poem as “interlocking metaphors” (xvii), and, indeed, many words are repeated from one name to another, suggesting a way in which they can be seen as interlocked. Storms, bread, vines, roses, blood, snows, thunder, and other elements recur in several images. Furthermore, within some images in which two elements are combined, the elements seem to cohere naturally, as do “vine-in-a-mist” and “ceremonial bread.” Other pairings display the incongruity of Neruda’s more surrealistic images, like “vapor of stone” and “mineral bubble.” Many pairings link words connoting kinds of softness with kinds of stone: “Finger-softened rampart, / Feather-assaulted roof.” With media pictures of Macchu Picchu in mind, we can see in the poem’s list a mirror of the city’s layered stones. We can see in the poem’s metaphors suggestions of one of its overall themes, the role of the human heart in the fifteenth-century life of the stone city. These parallels between the poet’s language and the stones help us to see the stones as a kind of incantation that calls forth the dead. The PBS documentary Ghosts of Macchu Picchu mentions the amazing fact that the Incans sculpted perfectly shaped stones, stacking them to form perfectly shaped walls, without using mortar, iron tools, or the wheel. The ninth poem’s act of naming—which omits the linear connections of plot or explanations, leaving only the names—bestows its power, through structural similarity, on the stones. Pring-Mill mentions a sequence of seven lines within the poem, six of which end in the words “of stone” and the other of which ends in “stone light,” likening this repetition to “the ‘Ora pro nobis’ of a litany” (xvii). It is true, as he points out, that the ninth poem ends with the fatal effect of time, naming the city as the “Destination of time.” But the tenth poem begins, “Stone within stone, and man, where was he?” suggesting that the incantation is taking effect, turning our attention to the

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dead. In the twelfth poem, Neruda lists for the dead workers nine names that refer to the work they did: Look at me from the depths of the earth, tiller of fields, weaver, reticent shepherd, groom of totemic guanos, mason high on your treacherous scaffolding, iceman of Andean tears, jeweler with crushed fingers, farmer anxious among his seedlings, potter wasted among his clays— bring to the cup of this new life your ancient buried sorrows. (trans. Tarn 67)

Again, the Incans are being summoned. In Neruda’s poem, the powers of incantation, of prayer, of surreal art, are at work in the poem’s language and structure, as well as in its explicit messages. We are encouraged to believe that so embodied, they can take a formidable stand against the power of time. The seventh poem addresses the dead workers who built the stone city: . . . –everything you were dropped away: customs and tattered syllables, the dazzling masks of light. And yet a permanence of stone and language upheld the city raised like a chalice in all those hands . . . . (trans. Tarn 33)

In these lines, the language of the Incan workers falls into tatters as they succumb to the oppressive demands of their king that they build the stone city. Still, the stone, like a language, speaks of them, even though they are silent or dead. In the stone, they live on. In language, which in some form will always exist, they will always exist. The religious connotations of the chalice which inform the permanence of stone and language underscore the transcendent power that a worker in language, a poet or a prophet, wields. In so doing, it elevates, too, the labors of those who work in stone. By virtue of the prophetic posture Neruda assumes as a poet, Enrico Mario Santí asserts his ties to the Romantic and modern traditions in literature: “To speak of prophecy in the work of a modern poet requires us to investigate his place in the Romantic or modern tradition and to assess how that tradition informs the poetry’s rhetorical fabric” (14). In The

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Poetics of Prophecy, Santí carries out that investigation. Furthermore, his premise is underscored by Neruda’s evocations, however unintended, of modern and Romantic writing, locating Neruda in the midst of other authors, authors who can help to define his sense of language as a powerful tool, even if it is by opposition as in the case of Eliot’s “Gerontion.” In one example, Neruda’s incantatory listing of names for the stone city reminds us of Yeats’s tribute to the victims of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland in his poem “Easter 1916.” Yeats mourns their deaths and gives them, through his verse, the only kind of immortality humans can bestow: ... Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is Heaven’s part, our part To murmur name upon name, ... I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

Neruda’s incantation beckons the dead; Yeats’s does not. Yeats’s victims have rebelled against tyranny; Neruda’s have not. Still, whether or not Neruda’s echo is conscious, it links the two poets in faith that their language, in the process of naming, can bestow a kind of life. In another echo, Neruda’s addressing the workers in the final poem of The Heights of Macchu Picchu evokes the verse of Shelley and Frost. At several points, he urges the workers to be in touch with him: Give me your hand out of the depths ... Look at me from the depths of the earth, ... Show me your blood and your furrow; Say to me: here I was scourged ... Point out to me the rock on which you stumbled, ... And tell me everything, tell chain by chain, And link by link, and step by step;

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In these lines, Neruda asks to be addressed and taught. As we read, it is easy to think of Robert Frost pleading with the star in “Take Something Like a Star”: Say something to us we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says, “I burn.” But say with what degree of heat. Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade, Use language we can comprehend.

Neruda’s petition reminds us, too, of Shelley addressing Mont Blanc, seeking confirmation and benefit from its power and lamenting possible consequences of its silence. Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.

The mountain remains silent, and, at the end of the poem, Shelley wonders whether humanity will continue to credit it with the power Shelley hopes it has. Given Shelley’s declared atheism, we cannot turn the mountain into a symbol of God, but the poet’s thoughts are very like those someone might direct at God when struggling with religious faith. The silence of Mont Blanc is easy to compare with the silence of God. Power dwells apart in its tranquility Remote, serene, and inaccessible. ... Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! ... . . . The secret strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind’s imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy? (89-93)

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We do not find in Neruda’s workers the suggested omnipotence of Shelley’s God-like mountain or the planetary grandeur of Frost’s star; Shelley and Frost are addressing heights; Neruda is addressing “the depths of the earth.” It is significant, though, that Frost and Shelley are disappointed in their requests, while Neruda fills in details of the lives about which he asks, as if his compassionate imagination can fulfill his request on behalf of those he calls brothers. We find another echo of his contemporaries in Neruda’s surrealism and, though it was perhaps less conscious, his experimentation with language on behalf of the Freudian unconscious at a time when stream-ofconsciousness was a frequent mode of creative writing. We think of Virginia Woolf’s comment about language in the 1937 essay “Craftsmanship,” where she discusses the writing of masterpieces like “Ode to a Nightingale” and Pride and Prejudice: “It is only a question of finding the right words and putting them in the right order. But we cannot do it because they do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind” (205). Certainly the language of Neruda’s dream-world lives in the mind before it takes form on paper, bespeaking, again, his kinship to modern writers. Neruda was very much a poet of his time, reflecting its concerns and artistic inclinations while resisting societal agendas that would smother them. In fact, Neruda’s faith in the power of his artistic language, even as it resists contemporary doubts like those in Eliot’s “Gerontion,” reflects contemporary affirmations with which many modern writers responded to what seemed—in the wake of unsettling historical events like the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 and World War I--like the absence of God. For moderns, the transformative powers of art became an object of faith. However, the efficacy of these powers was not taken for granted; modern faith was, perhaps, as much a way of coping as a way of implementing one’s own will. We think of Yeats’s three Chinamen in “Lapis Lazuli” who pause to rest as they climb a mountain: On all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; Accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient glittering eyes, are gay. (567)

These artists will not change the world; they must find relief in singing about it from a distance. Still, they know they can access in their music, as Neruda can in his language, a mode of transcending the tragedies their art must describe. It cannot make Shelley’s mountain speak, but it fills the

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silence with truths of their own. For Neruda, those truths equal (or surpass) in importance those the mountain might express. For the Romantics, of course, the natural world possessed powers that would heal as well as edify. We think of Wordsworth’s “spots of time” in section XII of The Prelude (lines 208-215, page 345) and, in Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, of the “tranquil restoration” he has found in the city when remembering the “beauteous forms” of nature (108). For Wordsworth, transcendent power visits humanity from the natural world and from the past. For Yeats, it results from the creative efforts of artists. For Wordsworth, there is healing; for Yeats, there is coping. Both instances of empowerment were available to Neruda as he shaped his own vision. Neruda did not, like Yeats’s Chinamen, rise above the ugliness of the world. In fact, for him, the mountain scaled by Yeats’s Chinamen may have suggested the effort of climbing rather the tranquility provided by, in the root sense of the word, vacation. As an international figure, Neruda was politically committed and active for all of his adult life, angering Chilean officials sufficiently to get himself temporarily exiled and to suffer other consequences of his views. In locating his prophetic voice with those of the Romantics and the moderns, Santí helps us to define Neruda’s vision against theirs, as well as to locate in it those absolute elements that transcend circumstance, as well as the sense of empowerment that works to convey them. Daniel R. Schwarz, in his 1991 book The Case for a Humanistic Poetics, uses the language of structuralist literary theory and of the Bible to comment on the fiction of James Joyce, modern novels, and the reading of the modern novel. His characterization of modernist writing, though it focuses on fiction, sheds light on Neruda’s view of language: “The more an author is actually investigating the form of the novel as he or she writes his novel, the more the reader is aware that for each text ‘In the beginning was the Word’ and that the word is a signifier in search of a signified that represents something beyond and transcendent” (195). Schwarz’s play on the first sentence of the Gospel According to John emphasizes the importance of their medium to modern writers, and his elaboration suggests, among other things, that modern writers were looking in their language for meaning, not empty convention. Neruda’s poem “La Palabra” [“The Word”] bears him out. In “La Palabra,” Neruda considers language in the religious tone conveyed by the chalice in The Heights of Macchu Picchu and that Schwarz suggests in moderns:

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I drink to the word, raising a word or a shining cup, in it I drink the pure wine of language or inexhaustible water, maternal source of words, and cup and water and wine give rise to my song because the verb is the source and vivid life–it is blood, blood which expresses its substance and so implies its own unwinding– words give glass-quality to glass, blood to blood, and life to life itself. (qtd. in The Essential Neruda 151-53)

The vision of a poet is rarely consistent as one reads from poem to poem. Still, it is tempting to find in these lines concept to several aspects of Neruda’s larger oeuvre, his surrealistic penetration of the mind, his incantatory invocation of spirits, his dedication to the oppressed, his bestowal of a future on residents of the past. The idea that words give glass-quality to glass and life to life itself suggests that reality is not complete without the essential qualities that poetry treats. Focusing on what is inside or somehow removed from our incomplete, sometimes deceptive, world, Neruda’s poetry works to complete our world by expressing its essence. Italian Philosopher Ernesto Grassi refers to “La Palabra” in a discussion about Being and poetry, pointing out the immediate involvement of Neruda’s poetry in history: “In the poetic word the being experiences the pressing call of the Being. There is no abstraction in reference to the experiences of history, but rather the expression of its inner essence” (256). Grassi captures here the immediate connection in Neruda between poetry and the essential dimensions of our own world and experience. No need for Neruda to plead with a silent mountain or a distant star. For him, Incan workers are a more powerful source of knowledge. The power Neruda finds in silence and in the natural world inheres as well in human experience. As Neruda speaks for the workers, he speaks for his readers too, broadening our conscious sense of our own natures, developing our intuitions as readers, and summoning our compassion for each other.

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Works Cited Durán, Manuel, and Margery Safir. Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana UP/Midland Book, 1986. Felstiner, John. Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UP, 1980. Fleming, William. Arts and Ideas. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1974. Ghosts of Macchu Picchu: Inside the Incan City in the Clouds. Nova6198. PBS. NIGHT, Inc. and WGBH Educational Foundation. 2009. DVD. Grassi, Ernesto. “The Originary Quality of the Poetic and Rhetorical Word: Heidegger, Ungaretti, and Neruda.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 20.4 (1987): 248-60. Neruda, Pablo. The Heights of Macchu Picchu. Trans. Nathaniel Tarn. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966. —. The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems. Ed. Mark Eisner. San Fransisco, Calif.: City Lights Books, 2004. —. The Sea and the Bells. Trans. William O’Daly. Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon P: 1973. O’Daly, William. “Introduction.” The Sea and the Bells. By Pablo Neruda. Trans. William O’Daly. Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press: 1973. ix-xviii. 2001. Paz, Octavio. “Fabula.” Libertad bajo palabra (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura, 1968), 122. Pring-Mill, Robert. “Preface.” The Heights of Macchu Picchu. By Pablo Neruda. Trans. Nathaniel Tarn. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1966. Santí, Enrico Mario. Pablo Neruda: The Poetics of Prophecy. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982. Schwarz, Daniel R. The Case for a Humanistic Poetics. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. New York: Norton, 1977. Wordsworth, William. Selected Poems and Prefaces. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Boston: Houghton/Riverside, 1965. Woolf, Virginia. “Craftsmanship.” The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. New York: Harvest/Harcourt, 1942. 205. Yeats, William Butler. “Easter 1916.” The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats. Ed. Peter Alt and Russell K. Alspach. New York: Macmillan, 1940. 391-94.

CHAPTER TWELVE THE POWER OF SILENCE: THE SACRED WORD IN NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE PATSY J. DANIELS

Words are what we have to work with in any communication that we undertake. We are able to make words, whether oral or written, because of our bodies—our tongue to speak and ear to hear, our hand to write and eye to read. Making words is the way that we are able to communicate our thoughts or whatever arises in our minds. The gaps between words, the silences, provide the space necessary to create words. The working together of body and mind and the importance of silence are only two of the similarities that can be found between Buddhist thought and concepts presented in Native American literature. Thoughts arise, dwell, and subside in our minds. And no one else would ever know them if we did not have a body which allows us to produce words. The concept of making words to communicate comes itself from the mind. The mind produces the idea of communication and produces the structure of language. The whole purpose of language is to communicate from one mind to another mind. And, even though both the thoughts themselves and the structure of the language which communicates those thoughts come from the mind, it is through the body that we are able to use the language and make our thoughts known. The roots of Native American literature are oral; storytelling is an important part of the culture. And silences, pauses, are important parts of the story. In the written word as well, silences or pauses “may provide a period of time in which the imagination of the listener can work” (Lesley 500). Imagination comes from the mind, so silence is important in order for the mind to create. Mind creates thoughts and uses the body to express those thoughts. The expression of the thoughts in words, whether speech

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or writing, makes things happen. In order to see the mind as creator, we may look at the similarities between Native American literature and Buddhist thought. We can see the way mind and body work together to create speech; we can see the way speech affects the physical, phenomenal world.

The Three Kayas of Buddhism The idea that body and mind work together to produce speech is simple enough, but it actually is more profound and has religious implications in some cultures. For example, in The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols, Robert Beer tells us, The trinity of body, speech, and mind are known as the three gates, three receptacles or three vajras, and correspond to the western religious concept of righteous thought (mind), word (speech), and deed (body). The three vajras also correspond to the three kayas, with the aspect of body located at the crown (nirmanakaya), the aspect of speech at the throat (sambhogakaya), and the aspect of mind at the heart (dharmakaya). (7)

In Buddhist thought, body, speech, and mind relate to the three “bodies of the Buddha,” nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya. Dharmakaya correlates to the mind in Western thought, and it is defined by many scholars as “the body of ultimate reality” (Reginald Ray), “something primordial” (Zenatrophy: Notes on My Stumbling along the Path to Zen), “world mind” (U. G. Krishnamurti), and “the essence of thoughts” (Zangpo). According to buddhanet.net, “The mind is nonphysical. It is formless, shapeless, colourless, genderless and has the ability to cognize or know.” In his discussion of “Mind, Matter, and Reality” for The Philosopher, Georges Dupenois writes that “the basic ‘material’ of our phenomenal universe is neither mind nor matter but that of which these are aspects, that is to say, consciousness, which not only comprises intellectual awareness but also encompasses experience of any kind.” Many attempts have been made to define mind, but here we are not concerned about the discipline of psychology and its understanding of the mind. Here we want to look at the mind as something primordial and basic, or the “ultimate reality.” Connecting the physical and the metaphysical, connecting the body with the mind, or “world mind,” or “ultimate reality” is making contact with spirituality, and this connection is made through speech or writing. It is this spiritual aspect of words that we want to consider here. An understanding of the relationship between

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the physical and the metaphysical leads to the careful use of words and to the use of silence. The breath is the most important aspect of the body when forming speech; no limbs are required, no vision or hearing—just the breath. Many schools of Buddhist thought use the mantra, or sacred syllables, to send a certain energy out into the world, making changes to the world. In Navajo & Tibetan Sacred Wisdom: The Circle of the Spirit, Peter Gold explains the breath as “wind” and shows how Tibetan Buddhist texts “often invoke the most important tantric buddhas and bodhisattvas by means of sacred syllables, or mantras. Mantras are specialized verbalizations that draw upon the power of the breath to aid in setting up an appropriate state of bodymind. . .” (73). He further explains the breath and its importance; he writes, “For Tibetans, all thoughts, verbalizations, and actions have wind at their foundation. . . . Wind is considered the breath of life and carrier of the mind . . .” (74). In his section “Breaths of Power,” he writes that the Tibetan lung, meaning “wind” or “breath” . . . . refers to transmission of sacred words: sounds that bear both knowledge and elemental energies. For the Navajo, the transformative rite is called a sing. Songs and prayers bear the elemental sounds out of which reality and beauty arise. . . . Expressitivity (“speech” for Tibetans, “voice” for Navajos) is the link between the subtle realm of mind and the gross physical form or body realm. (188)

The “three bodies of the Buddha” may seem like a remote construct, says Reginald Ray, but they are the ground of existence and present in every moment of our experience. The three bodies, the trikaya of Mahayana Buddhist theory, “the dharmakaya, the body of ultimate reality; the sambhogakaya, the body of joy; and the nirmanakaya, the Buddha’s conditioned, human body of flesh and blood,” manifest in our everyday experience. He writes, Buddhism teaches that within each of us is buddhanature—the immaculate, peerless state of enlightenment embodied in a perfected way by the Buddha. What is this buddhanature? It is nothing other than the three bodies of a fully awakened one. Buddhism affirms, in other words, that the three kayas, in their integral, pure and mature form, are within us at this very moment.

In other words, we all already have body and mind, and we can use them together, synthesize the physical body with the metaphysical mind, to produce speech. This idea is not something esoteric, occult, or hidden: we live with it at every moment of our lives. The attainment of Siddhartha

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Gautama, the historical Buddha, is the realization of enlightenment through the three kayas. Ray continues, The classical iconographic representation of the Buddha’s realization shows him touching the earth with his right hand, and calling the earth to witness his attainment. And what is this attainment? It is realizing that our ultimate nature is nothing other than the three kayas of the Buddha.

Scholars disagree, however, on exactly how the mind and body relate to each other. Togen, blogger for Zenatrophy: Notes on My Stumbling along the Path to Zen, believes that the mind is caught up in biological forces: In Buddhist philosophy the mind of a sentient being is not a product of biological processes, but something primordial which has existed since beginningless time. . . . capable of existing independently of the body. . . The mind is endlessly captured and used by biological systems. . . .

On the other hand, according to U. G. Krishnamurti, the mind has the “upper hand” in its relationship with the body; he writes that the world mind is the totality of man’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences passed down to us. . . . world mind is a self-perpetuating one, and its only interest is to maintain its continuity. It can maintain its continuity only through the creation of what we call the individual minds—your mind and my mind.

Whether mind is constantly being used by the body or whether mind is endlessly using the body makes no difference to our discussion. Whichever way it is, mind and body work together to produce language, speech, and writing to communicate with others. We can find evidence from the Western point of view that words, the culmination of the mind-body relationship, have power in the material world. According to Kate Yandell in “Language Makes the Invisible Visible,” “Hearing the name of an object may make people more likely to see it.” She continues, Language helps the human brain perceive obscured objects, according to a study published today (August 12) [2013] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While some scientists have argued that vision is independent from outside factors, such as sounds or the brain’s accumulated knowledge, the study indicates that language influences perception at its most basic level.

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And Gary Lupyan and Emily J. Ward, in their Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article, “Language Can Boost Otherwise Unseen Objects into Visual Awareness,” write this description of their research: Linguistic labels (e.g. “chair”) seem to activate visual properties of the objects to which they refer. Here we investigated whether language-based activation of visual representations can affect the ability to simply detect the presence of an object. We used continuous flash suppression to suppress visual awareness of familiar objects while they were continuously presented to one eye. Participants made simple detection decisions, indicating whether they saw any image. Hearing a verbal label before a simple direction task changed performance relative to an uninformative cue baseline. Valid labels improved performance relative to no-label baseline trials. Invalid labels decreased performance. Labels affected both sensitivity (d’) and response times. In addition, we found that the effectiveness of labels varied predictably as a function of the match between the shape of the stimulus and the shape denoted by the label. Together, the findings suggest that facilitated detection of invisible objects due to language occurs at a perceptual rather than semantic locus. We hypothesize that when information associated with verbal labels matches stimulus-driven activity, language can provide a boost to perception, propelling an otherwise invisible image into awareness. (Lupyan and Ward)

These scientific studies show that language allows us to see otherwise invisible objects. Words can make things happen, can call forth the material.

Native American Literature Native American writers present this concept in their literature. Scott Momaday once said that speech “is a remarkable act of the mind, a realization of words and the world that is altogether simple and direct, yet nonetheless rare and profound” (Momaday qtd. in Warrior 171). Words have power to make things happen. Speaking the world into existence can be found in both Native American literature and the Christian Bible, specifically in Paula Gunn Allen’s novel The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony, in Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, and in the Gospel of John. Allen writes of thoughts and words,

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Chapter Twelve In the beginning was the Spider. She divided the world. She made it. Thinking thus she made the world. . . . In the center of the universe she sang. In the midst of the waters she sang. In the midst of heaven she sang. In the center she sang. . . . thus she placed her song. Thus she placed her will. Thus wove she her design. Thus sang the Spider. Thus she thought. . . . So she named them. The women who made all that lives on earth. Who made the world. Who formed matter from thought, singing. (Allen 1-2)

In Silko’s Ceremony, too, the spoken word has the power to call things and actions into being: Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought Woman, is sitting in her room and whatever she thinks about appears. / . . . ./ Thought-Woman, the spider, named things and as she named them they appeared. (Silko)

In Silko’s story of the witch contest, recounted by Thomas King in The Truth About Stories (U of Minnesota P, 2003: 9-10), the witch who finally wins with its bloody and murderous story says at the beginning Okay go ahead laugh if you want to but as I tell the story it will begin to happen . . . . (Silko 135)

A character in Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, the Priest of the Sun, a Christian pastor, says that from the darkness described in Genesis the world was brought into existence by a word: There was nothing. But there was darkness all around, and in the darkness something happened. Something happened! There was a single sound. Far away in the darkness there was a single sound. Nothing made it, but it was there; and there was no one to hear it, but it was there. . . . It was almost nothing in itself, the smallest seed of sound—but it took hold of the darkness and there was light; it took hold of the stillness and there was motion forever; it took hold of the silence and there was sound. It was almost nothing in itself, a single sound, a word—a word broken off at the darkest center of the night and let go in the awful void, forever and forever.

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And it was almost nothing in itself. It scarcely was; but it was, and everything began. (Momaday, House 91)

It seems here that the word was God, just as the apostle John wrote in his Gospel in the Christian Bible: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

In his “Reference Works” essay in his edited volume Approaches to Teaching Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain, Kenneth Roemer mentions Martha Scott Trimble’s essay, which he says examines three concerns relevant to [Momaday’s] Rainy Mountain: (1) a complex view of landscape that encompasses an awareness of the physical world and of the power of the imagination to create meaning and being in a landscape and to extend a sense of place into a sense of morality; (2) the importance and sacredness of oral and written language; and (3) the critical need for self-knowledge. We can sense the sacredness of a situation in a recollection Momaday has of his father: I like to watch him as he makes his prayer. I know where he stands and where his voice goes on the rolling grasses and where the sun comes up on the land. There, at dawn, you can feel the silence. It is cold and clear and deep like water. It takes hold of you and will not let you go. (Momaday, Way 47)

Another essayist, Helen Joskoski, writes of Rainy Mountain, “the book requires cultivation of silence and of visual as well as verbal attentiveness”; she continues that “the narrator talks about language as the paramount human gift, a gift that permits expression of and access to the consummate work of the imagination. But silence is the necessary condition for meaningful language” (Joskoski qtd. in Roemer 69). She paraphrases Momaday from “To Save a Great Vision”: “Language is the responsibility and the power of the storyteller—the ‘sender of words,’ in Black Elk’s phrase—whose function, Momaday says, is sacred” (75-76). She writes that “To write, to use language, Momaday believes, is not only a sacred but a moral act” (77). She advises that in order to “experience the

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book more completely” we must “experience this dimension of silence” found in the novel (77). One way to understand the silence found in written literature is to look into the beginning of Silko’s Ceremony. She begins with one word: “Sunrise.” And then nothing else on the page. [Silence.]

The reader must turn to the next page to break the silence. Even in popular literature about Native Americans, we see silence written into the dialogue. Tony Hillerman, a novelist and an honorary Navajo, frequently shows in his dialogue between two characters that one will refrain from speaking for a short time immediately after the other has finished speaking. To make sure that the other has actually finished speaking, to be sure, but the silence also shows esteem for the other’s words.

Storytelling In storytelling the teller must form a relationship with the listener, and this bond can be created in a number of ways, especially when the listener is also eager to form this bond. For example, Infographic reports on the brains of the listeners falling into synchronicity with the brain of the speaker: . . . telling a story can plant emotions, thoughts and ideas into the brain of the listener. In studies at Princeton University, the brain activity of a woman telling a story and her listeners was monitored and as she told her story, her listeners’ brain activity went into sync with hers. (Infographic)

The oral telling of a story can be transformed into a written story that the listener-reader can come back to again and again. In introducing his memoir, The Names, Momaday writes that he attempts to write the way that storytellers tell stories, beginning with imagination and then silence: . . . it is my way, and it is the way of my people. When Pohd-lohk told a story he began by being quiet. Then he said Ah-keah-de. “They were camping,” and he said it every time. I have tried to write in the same way, in the same spirit. Imagine. They were camping. (Momaday qtd. in Warrior 152)

In his “The Man Made of Words” essay, Momaday says that his arrowmaker story “is also a link between language and literature. In the

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story, the man in the tipi is making arrows, straightening them with his teeth, and drawing them to the bow as a test. He notices someone watching through a hole in the tipi, and says, as if to his wife, that whoever is there will speak his name if he understands the Kiowa language that the arrowmaker is using. There is no answer, and the arrowmaker lets go the bowstring and shoots his enemy in the heart. The arrowmaker “ventures to speak because he must: language is the repository of his whole knowledge and experience, and it represents the only chance he has for survival” (Momaday qtd. in Warrior 172). Warrior says that “Language, then, for Momaday, is much more than words. Language is something out of which humans make their lives, something in which they stand as they fashion their future, and a refuge from the vagaries of the petty politics of the everyday that they inhabit in the modern world” (172). Some of us believe that using words makes us responsible for the consequences. In reference to Fay Weldon’s The Fat Woman’s Joke, Gina Barreca says, “One must be careful with words. Words turn probabilities into facts and, by sheer force of definition, translate tendencies into habits" (Barreca). Louise Erdrich shows a Native American character who causes chaos because of a spoken word. In her first novel, Love Medicine, Gordie knows that to speak the name of the dead is to call that dead person to him. But he speaks the name of his dead wife, June, and believes that he sees her. In his panic and fear, he turns on all of the lights, the vacuum cleaner, the television, the radio, his electric shaver, and the toaster, hoping that all of the light and noise will frighten June’s ghost away. But he has overloaded the circuit and everything falls silent and dark. As he hears his dead wife breaking the window to get into the bedroom, he runs out and locks himself into his car, driving away in terror. Whether imaginary or real, June’s ghost has come when he called. Words are powerful and can effect change, so Native American writers use this power to call attention to, rather than merely criticize, a situation. As Craig Lesley points out, “. . . the word is powerful and sacred. It is powerful enough to change reality# and writers have a $responsibility to use it properly” (498). Advice from a writing teacher repeats the idea: “You should never waste words. Words gain power the more sparingly they are used” (Mulcahy). And Robert Warrior quotes from another Momaday essay: “If I do not speak with care, my words are wasted. If I do not listen with care, words are lost. If I do not remember carefully, the very purpose of words is frustrated” (Momaday qtd. in Warrior 170).

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Thomas King retells Silko’s story of the witch contest to warn his listeners about the misuse of words. He says, “Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous” (9) and goes on, “So you have to be careful with the stories you tell” (10). As he tells the witch story from Silko’s novel, he says that the witches were having A contest, actually. To see who could come up with the scariest thing. Some of them brewed up potions in pots. Some of them jumped in and out of animal skins. Some of them thought up charms and spells. . . . Until finally there was only one witch left who hadn’t done anything. No one knew where this witch came from or if the witch was male or female. And all this witch had was a story. Unfortunately the story this witch told was an awful thing full of fear and slaughter, disease and blood. A story of murderous mischief. And when the telling was done, the other witches quickly agreed that this witch had won the prize. (King 9)

The other witches agree that the story is the scariest thing in the contest; they are afraid and say, “Take it back. Call that story back.” But the witch just shook its head At the others in their stinking animal skins, fur and feathers. It’s already turned loose. It’s already coming. It can’t be called back. (Silko 138)

The story proves more powerful than any potion, transformation, charm, or spell: it actually makes things happen. So we must take care in our use of words. Telling anything is like opening up the proverbial feather pillow and shaking it out upon the roof. The feathers are scattered upon the wind, and can never be gathered up and put back again.

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Works Cited Allen, Paula Gunn. The Woman Who Owned the Shadows. New York: Fire Keepers, 1983. Barreca, Gina. Weblog. July 20, 2013. http://chronicle.com/ article/Why-ILove-Fay-Weldon/140161/. Beer, Robert. The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2003. Bosmajian, Haig A. “The Language of Oppression.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American Experience. Ed. Janet Madden and Sara M. Blake. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1993. 290-96. Buddhanet. http://www.buddhanet.net/tib_heal.htm. Web. July 12, 2014. Dupenois, Georges. “Mind, Matter, and Reality.” The Philosopher 88.1. Web. June 15, 2014. http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/mind&mat.htm. Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New and Expanded ed. New York: Harper Collins, 2009. Gold, Peter. Navajo & Tibetan Sacred Wisdom: The Circle of the Spirit. With a message from H. H. the Dalai Lama. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1994. Infographic. http://dailyinfographic.com/how-does-writing-affect-your-braininfographic. Web. September 3, 2013. King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. U of Minnesota P, 2003. Krishnamurti, U. G. “Mind as a Myth.” Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove. Series Thinking Allowed, Conversations on the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery. The Intuition Network. Web. June 15, 2014. http://www.intuition.org/ txt/krishna.htm. Lesley, Craig. $Characteristics of Contemporary Native American Literature.# New Students in Two-Year Colleges: Twelve Essays. Champaign: NCTE, 1979. Rpt. EmergingVoices: Readings in the American Experience. 2nd ed. Ed. Janet Madden and Sara M. Blake. Ft. Worth: Harper Collins, 1993. 491-502. Momaday, N. Scott. House Made of Dawn. 1966. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. —. The Way to Rainy Mountain. Illustrated by Al Momaday. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1969. Mulcahy, Jack. “The First Rule of Résumé Writing.” Web. June 24, 2013. http://www. careerealism.com/resume-writing-first-rule/. Ray, Reginald A. “Three in One: A Buddhist Trinity.” Web. June 25, 2013. http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php? option=com_content &task=view&id=2221.

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Togen. zenatrophy.blogspot.com. September 3, 2013. Roemer, Kenneth M.. “Reference Works.” Approaches to Teaching Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain. Ed. Kenneth M. Roemer. New York: MLA, 1988. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. 1977. New York: Penguin, 1986. Trungpa, Chögyam. “Body, Speech, and Mind.” Journey Without Goal: The Tantric Wisdom of the Buddha. Boston: Shambhala, 1985. 71-75. Warrior, Robert. “Momaday in the Movement Years: Rereading ‘The Man Made of Words’.” The People and the Word: Reading Native Nonfiction. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2005. 143-80. Zangpo, Pengar Jampal. “Supplication to the Takpo Kagyüs.” ca. 1450. Trans. NƗlandƗ Translation Committee. Halifax, Nova Scotia.

CONTRIBUTORS

Dr. Taunjah P. Bell earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of South Florida in Tampa, a Master of Arts in Psychology from the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls where she focused on gaming research, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Psychology from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale where she specialized in Behavioral Neuroscience. Dr. Bell is an Assistant Professor with graduate faculty status in the Department of Psychology at Jackson State University, a historically black university in Mississippi, where she teaches Biological Psychology, Physiological Psychology, Learning & Cognition, Research Methods, and Statistics. Dr. Bell’s research interests also include studying the effects of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) on anxiety and the capacity of atropine methyl nitrate and other agents to attenuate VNS effects in laboratory rats; effects of VNS on medically refractory epilepsy, treatment-intolerant anxiety and drug-resistant depression in humans; neurobiological mechanisms underlying epilepsy, stress, anxiety, depression, and language impairments; and neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of meditative practices, physical exercise, and music-based interventions. Dr. Mark A. Bernhardt is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Jackson State University. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Riverside. His research explores the intersections between media studies and gender studies, analyzing the press coverage of crime and war in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century United States. Emily Clark, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of English at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas and is also the coordinator for the Women and Gender Studies Program. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2004 and both her M.A. and B.A. from Texas A&M University. Her areas of interest are Literary Theory, Postcolonialism, and Modernism. She has published articles and book chapters on Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, V. S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott. Her main area of research focuses on Virginia Woolf and the issues of space, feminist voices, and empire.

232

Contributors

Patsy J. Daniels is Professor of English at Jackson State University. She earned the Ph.D. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and both the M.A. and the B.A. from the University of Nebraska. Her publications include articles in scholarly journals on the works of William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and on the globalization of the Humanities. Her first book, The Voice of the Oppressed in the Language of the Oppressor, which discusses the postcolonial nature of twelve authors and their works was published by Routledge in 2001 as a volume in the series Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory, with William E. Cain as general editor. Her second book, Understanding American Fiction as Postcolonial Literature, was published by Edwin Mellen in 2011. Her third book, an edited volume of essays, Constructing the Literary Self: Race and Gender in TwentiethCentury Literature, was published by Cambridge Scholars in 2013. She has been a peer reviewer for College Literature; LIT: Literature Interpretation, Theory; LATCH: The Literary Artifact in Theory, Culture, and History; The International Journal of the Humanities; and Pearson Education. From 2008 until 2014 she served as editor of a scholarly journal based at Jackson State University, The Researcher: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Shawn Holliday is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Northwestern Oklahoma State University (NWOSU), where he directs the new Master of Arts in American Studies program. As Professor of English, he also teaches an upper-level humanities course on the history of rock and roll and various graduate courses in American literature. His books include Thomas Wolfe and the Politics of Modernism, a revised version of his Ph.D. dissertation, and Lawson Fusao Inada, a critical biography of the former Oregon poet laureate. Holliday’s articles and book reviews have appeared in such periodicals as The Chronicles of Oklahoma, The South Carolina Review, Appalachian Heritage, and The Thomas Wolfe Review and in such books as The Encyclopedia of Appalachia and Constructing the Literary Self: Intersections of Race and Gender in Twentieth Century Literature. He also serves on the editorial boards for Civitas: A Journal of Citizenship Studies, The Thomas Wolfe Review, and The Researcher: An Interdisciplinary Journal. A native of West Virginia, Holliday earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Marshall University and his Ph.D. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Already at work on his next book, Holliday is writing a history of Oklahoma literature from the founding of the Oklahoma and Indian Territories through to the twentyfirst century.

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Dr. Pamela B. June teaches English literature and composition at Ohio University’s Eastern Campus. She is the author of a forthcoming ecofeminist book on Alice Walker’s fiction (University of Illinois Press), The Fragmented Female Body and Identity (Peter Lang, 2010), and several articles on multiethinic women authors. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. from University of Pittsburgh. She has taught English at IUP, at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, and at Ohio University Eastern. Dr. Thomas M. Kersen is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Jackson State University. He received his Ph.D. from Mississippi State University. He has a number of articles on religion and spirituality, population studies, and the military. Another facet of his teaching and research centers on community and communal living. He is currently doing research about Ozark identity and communal activities in Mississippi and in Arkansas. Dr. Patricia Lonchar, a former Assistant Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, is a Professor of English at the same university. Teaching since 1967, Dr. Lonchar has served as an Assistant Principal and Counselor as well as teacher of English and History in secondary schools in Texas and Pennsylvania before her university career. Dr. Lonchar’s research interests focus primarily on rhetoric, women’s voice, and medieval studies. Helen F. Maxson was born and raised in New England. She carried out her graduate work at The Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College) and Cornell University. She has taught for twenty-five years at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, where she has learned to love the open plains as much as she misses the glacial Finger Lakes, the wooded mountains, and the ocean she left behind. Elizabeth Sharpe Overman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration in the College of Liberal Arts, Department of Political Science, at the University of Central Oklahoma. She is the recipient of the 2013-2014 UCO Faculty Award for Service, an honor bestowed by the faculty upon peer review.

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Contributors

Dr. Candis Pizzetta is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages at Jackson State University. Dr. Pizzetta earned her Ph.D. in English from Baylor University. Dr. Pizzetta’s primary area of interest is the development of the feminist mindset in American literature, which involves exploration of the cultural contexts of literary texts in order to appreciate the development of a woman-centered voice in early American literature. The vehicle for this exploration is American cultural studies, with an emphasis on cognitive approaches to narrative, especially the narratives of early American prose fiction. Cicely T. Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Chicago State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Memphis in Communication Studies where her dissertation investigated communication apprehension in first-generation college students. She recently co-authored Virtual Invisibility: Race and Communication Education. Her research interests focus on first-generation college students, communication apprehension, and rhetoric of African American activists. She earned M.A. degrees in English (Professional Writing) and Speech Communication (Rhetoric) from the University of Memphis and Kansas State University respectively. Her B.A. in English is from Philander Smith College.

INDEX

A House for Mr. Biswas .... 155, 156, 157, 167 abolition .... 131, 134, 136, 137, 144, 147, 149, 150, 151 abolitionism...................ix, 132, 147 Afghanistan .......... 62, 80, 82, 84, 85 agency ........ 132, 133, 134, 138, 158 aging................................... 198, 199 Al Qaeda ......................................81 Alice Lloyd College ...................174 Alice Walker....................... 177, 246 anger. ix, 35, 36, 111, 115, 116, 117, 119, 122, 126, 127 annica.........................................203 Aristotle iv, 110, 111, 115, 116, 117, 120, 122, 123, 125, 126, 129 arrowmaker ................................241 barbarian ................................71, 85 barbarism.................... 70, 80, 83, 85 Burton-Christie, Douglas .. 198, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208 Bush, George W. ....... 45, 48, 57, 81, 82, 83, 84, 103 Campbell, Joseph .......................198 Canto General ............................215 Carmichael, Stokely ....... iv, ix, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130 Carse, James ...............................208 Child, Lydia Maria "The Duty of Disobedience" ..141 Chirico, Giorgio De ....................202 chivalry ... 61, 64, 67, 68, 69, 80, 82, 85 Churchill, Winston .................30, 32 Civil Rights Movement .......36, 111, 129 civilization

Beecher, Catherine "An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism" ............. 141 Belgian ......... 73, 74, 75, 76, 91, 102 Belgium ... 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 85, 92, 108 Beowulf.... 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33 Big Lebowski .............199, 202, 210 Black Panthers ........................... 112 Black Power ...... 110, 113, 116, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129 Buber, Martin .............204, 207, 208 Buddhism .......................... 234, 235 Buddhist .... 203, 206, 233, 234, 235, 236, 243, 244 Burning Man festival ................. 205 civilized..... 64, 70, 71, 73, 76, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 200, 201, 203, 206 coincidences of opposites .......... 205 creatura ..................................... 201 Cuba .. 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 77, 78, 81, 85, 90, 97, 104, 105, 106, 107 Cuban ...... 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 87, 89, 104 cult of motherhood .................... 134 defense of women and children .. 66, 81 dharmakaya ....................... 234, 235 Dillard, Annie .... 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208 domestic .... 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150

236 domestic sphere ......... 132, 136, 143, 144, 145, 150, 151 domesticity .................................134 double consciousness .................109 DuBois, W. E. B......... 109, 126, 129 Durkheim, Emile ..................47, 204 dwelling and seeking ..................200 Dyer, Geoff ........................ 198, 206 education ....... 82, 83, 112, 116, 126, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 247 Eliade, Mircea ............................200 Eliot, T. S. ......... 162, 206, 212, 213, 225, 228 emotional appeal ....... 110, 111, 115, 116 England ....... 13, 24, 40, 73, 80, 132, 137, 139, 152, 163, 164, 169, 247 enmity ........ 111, 116, 120, 122, 126 entropy .......................................199 epectasis .....................................207 ethos ................................... 115, 119 figure/ground ..............................205 France...... 30, 40, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 92, 95, 96, 132 freedom riders ............................112 French ..... 73, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 91, 120, 164 Freud, Sigmund .. 199, 201, 209, 218 fundamentalism ..........................139 Garfield High School ........ 110, 111, 114, 115, 127, 129 Gates, Henry Louis............. 156, 166 German .... 54, 64, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 102, 105, 120, 169 Germany ........ 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 85, 93, 102, 106, 107, 108 Giddens, Anthony ......................209 Giovanni, Nikki ............................20 Gold, Mike ...................................22 Great Britain ................... 74, 78, 141 Gregory of Nyssa .......................207 Heaney, Seamus ......... 27, 28, 29, 32 historical memory............... 178, 193 Hofstadter, Douglas....................209

Index humanitarian ...... 65, 67, 74, 84, 211, 214 incantation ..................223, 224, 226 incantatory ..................223, 225, 230 Indiana, Pennsylvania ................ 174 infinity ....................................... 202 Institutes of Oratory .......... 118, 130 integration ............ 15, 113, 131, 153 isomorphism .............................. 200 Kenyon, Jane ......................... 21, 32 King James Bible ......19, 23, 24, 26, 32, 33 King, Martin Luther .......... 111, 112 La Palabra.................................. 229 Lewis, C. S. ..................... 20, 22, 26 logos .......................................... 115 McKinley, William ................ 65, 66 Merton, Thomas ........197, 198, 202, 206, 207, 210 mistreatment of women and children............................. 69 modernity ..... 83, 197, 200, 201, 204 mot juste ................ix, 19, 21, 23, 29 Murray, Judith Sargent "On the Equality of the Sexes" ..................... 133 Naipaul, V. S. .......iv, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 245 Native American ...........v, 233, 237, 238, 241, 243 Navajo ........................235, 240, 243 Naylor, Gloria .......iv, 178, 191, 195, 196 Neruda, Pablo and Octavio Paz .................... 213 and Percy Bysshe Shelley ..... 227 and Robert Bly ...................... 218 and Robert Frost.................... 226 and T. S. Eliot ....................... 228 and Virginia Woolf ............... 228 and William Butler Yeats ...... 225 and William Wordsworth ...... 228 Nietzsche, Fredrich .................... 210 nirmanakaya ...................... 234, 235 Novalis ...................................... 206

The Power of the Word: The Sacred and the Profane "Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground".......................215 Omeros ......... iv, 155, 156, 157, 161, 163, 167 oral tradition ...............................178 pathos .........................................115 patriarchy .....................................61 Patriarchy ...................................108 peace ......... 70, 71, 80, 85, 109, 139, 146, 184, 188, 190, 192, 193 "Pedro is the When and the How" .........................212 photograph .............................64, 80 photography .........................63, 197 Phyllis Alesia Perry ....................177 Pippa Passes, Kentucky ..............174 placemaking ...............................206 pleroma ......................................201 polarities ..................... 198, 200, 205 postcolonialism .................. 156, 157 pride .... 29, 110, 113, 120, 123, 125, 172 propaganda ..... ix, 62, 64, 69, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 102 Quintilian ..... iv, 110, 111, 116, 117, 118, 119, 126, 129, 130 recursivity...................................205 refugees ... 66, 68, 72, 75, 76, 83, 91, 102 relationship between picture and text ..............................62, 64 republican motherhood ...... 131, 134, 143, 144, 151 rescue paradigm ........ 70, 73, 76, 79, 82, 83, 84 Rosen, Kim...................................20 Rowson, Susanna The Female Patriot .................132 ruins ................... 200, 201, 203, 223 Rush, Benjamin "Thoughts Upon Female Education" ........ 141, 143, 144, 152, 153 sambhogakaya .................... 234, 235 samsara ......................................205 SCLC..........................................111

237

Second Great Awakening ......... 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 146, 152 self-hatred ...................110, 124, 127 shame ... ix, 110, 111, 115, 116, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 149 Simic, Charles ....................... 19, 33 Simmel, Georg .......................... 210 slavery ....... 113, 121, 134, 135, 136, 141, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 164, 177, 178 SNCC .........................111, 112, 114 social reform...... 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 160 Spain........ 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 78, 81, 85, 106, 112, 158, 160, 219 Spaniards ..................................... 85 Spanish-American War .. 61, 63, 64, 70, 72, 79, 84, 85, 104, 107, 108 Steinbeck, John.......................... 210 surreal .........................220, 222, 224 surrealism ... 216, 217, 221, 222, 228 Taliban.................. 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 The Coming of the King James Gospels ............................. 24, 32 The Great Ocean........................ 215 The Heights of Macchu Picchu .. 215 The Sea and the Bells ................ 231 thought versus non-thought ....... 201 Thought Woman ........................ 238 Tibetan........................234, 235, 243 time and space ..................... 22, 203 Tolkien, J. R. R...........27, 28, 29, 33 Toni Morrison ............................ 177 Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair ............................. 218 United States ...... iv, viii, 13, 15, 24, 29, 36, 37, 41, 47, 58, 61, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 88, 90, 94, 98, 104, 106, 107, 109, 132, 136, 140, 142, 144, 169, 179 vacilando ................................... 198 virtue .......... 132, 140, 141, 142, 225 Walcott, Derek .....iv, 155, 156, 161, 164, 167, 245

238 wilderness .................. 197, 200, 203 Williamson, West Virginia .........171 Wilson, Woodrow ........ 72, 105, 106

Index World War I ........ 61, 64, 73, 75, 79, 84, 85, 107, 108, 121, 212, 228 yrfe ........................................ 19, 29