Open Prompt IV--October 30th: He Just Needed A Hug-- Sympathy for Frankenstein's Monster

1979. Choose a complex and important character in a novel or a play of recognized literary merit who might on the basis of the character's actions alone be considered evil or immoral. In a well-organized essay, explain both how and why the full presentation of the character in the work makes us react more sympathetically than we otherwise might. Avoid plot summary.

Murder is an act abhorred by all cultures, including the culture Mary Shelley lived in when she wrote her complex novel Frankenstein.  However, Shelley frames the acts of violence her character—the monster—commits in a way that allows the reader to sympathize with the monster, along with the expected feelings of horror and dread.  This monster murders three people and inadvertently causes the death of three others by the time his creator dies, but the reader retains extreme sympathy for this monster due to his creator’s fault in the matter, his isolation due to society’s prejudice, and the fact that he begins his life inherently innocent, and repeatedly shows a good side of his complicated character.

Shelley makes clear that Frankenstein abandons the monster, and the monster’s violence is the desperate, emotional response to this feeling of abandonment.  Frankenstein, the scientist who animated dead body parts to create the monster, cast aside his creation due to his ugliness from the moment the monster came alive.  When the monster kills Frankenstein’s little brother, the reader is horrified, but can also see why the monster has committed this act of violence.  After all, Frankenstein abandoned him with little hope of survival simply because of his imperfect exterior, and without bothering to wait and see if he had a good interior or not.  The reader recognizes Frankenstein’s abandonment as a parent abandoning a child, something despicable in the eyes of Shelley’s readers, no matter the ugliness of the creation.  Frankenstein does not take responsibility for his actions—and the resulting torment causes the confused monster to lash out.  The other two murders are likewise a result of Frankenstein’s refusal to help the monster in any way, much less love him.  The monster asks Frankenstein to at least create another, equally ugly being to be his wife so he can have the companionship and sympathy he craves; eventually, Frankenstein betrays the monster again and does not make the female, condemning the monster once more into loneliness.  The reader feels so much pain for the monster’s lonely lot in life that they can begin to see his reasoning in killing those Frankenstein loves.  The monster is repeatedly denied love—the only way he can deal with his loneliness or extract revenge is to kill those Frankenstein loves as well, and make him just as lonely. 

                However, it is not just Frankenstein who rejects the monster based on appearance alone: in the early stages of the monster’s life, his attempts to integrate himself into society result in rejection and abuse.  The monster watches a peasant family to learn to speak and write, and there encounters love for the first time.  He helps the family, but when he attempts to join them, and to find love, he is beaten and driven away.  While no killings directly result from this rejection, the unfairness of the situation strikes both reader and monster.  This rejection gradually gnaws at the monster until he can take his misery no more, and kills his creator’s younger brother.  After this initial scene displaying a lack of acceptance, despite the monster having done nothing wrong, the reader is predisposed to be more sympathetic when the monster does act badly, as society expects him to do.  The reader recognizes that he has been scarred by the way he is treated, and that he begins to fill the role expected of him all his life: that of a monster.   

                The reader also recognizes, especially at the end of the novel, that the role of the monster was not one which the monster would have inherently filled, given love: that is, the monster is clearly not a purely evil being.  Several times during the novel the monster helps the humans, and each time he is offered no thanks or acceptance.  He helps the peasant family, and saves a girl from drowning, but receives no reward.  The reader sees, and Shelley explains, through the words of the monster, that, like a child, if not praised for good, the monster will do evil because the repercussions of his good deeds are just as repulsive as the bad ones.  In addition, the violence he commits is revenge for this injustice.  Finally, in the very last scene of the novel, the monster is weeping over Frankenstein’s body.  The reader is shown indisputably that the monster is definitely capable of love, remorse, and human feeling, even toward his cruel creator.  This inherent goodness makes the reader more likely to blame the monster’s violence actions on the oppressive and unjust circumstances in which he lived, and not look on him as a wholly monstrous character.

                The horrible treatment which Mary Shelley’s monster endures makes the reader far more sympathetic toward his acts of vengeance, despicable as they may seem out of context.  His rejection and biased mistreatment since his birth provide a background which causes the reader to feel sorry for him, and therefore empathize more with his drastic reactions.  His creator’s abandonment and withholding of love, society’s rejection, and the monster’s remorse all make his murders and violence more understandable, and cause his otherwise repugnant actions to be seen as more justifiable in the reader’s eyes.

Response to Course Material III--October 23rd

Fortunately, at this point in the semester I am sort of starting to get more comfortable with the format of the AP essay.  I feel as though the structure of my essays is improving, but I think that I still need to work on my ability to work within a time limit.  With the close reading, I definitely need to work on the time.  With an open prompt, I can work within the limit, but only if I barely have anything to say.  I struggle with open prompts because I feel like I’m not doing justice to the novel if I leave some counterarguments or pieces of evidence out.  This is definitely something I need to correct, because in this sort of essay it is a crippling flaw to need to analyze every bit of a novel as complicated as, say, Song of Solomon.

In class, I loved close reading The American Dream in a group discussion setting.  Verbal analysis is by far my favorite part of literature.  It’s just so fascinating to hear everyone’s different ideas and discover what the text means.  While I completely disagree with Albee’s anti-feminist message, I find his point about the consumerism in our society a very interesting and probably true one.  The looks-oriented and shallow society in which Albee’s characters live is one which I think still holds true today and is definitely an aspect of the “new” American Dream which we as citizens in 2011 are living or trying to live.  I especially believe that the corporate entities that Mrs. Barker represent, and Mommy’s need to toady by Mrs. Barker as a wealthier, more powerful economic figure are definitely true today—indeed, I would venture to claim that this is the reality for pretty much all of the wealthy and powerful figures in our society.  I was, however, disturbed by the cutting up of baby Johnny, but that is absurdity for you. 

Interestingly enough, the only other play in this genre I have read—Endgame—also involved people with missing body parts, Ham and Clov.  However, The American Dream is much easier to analyze than Endgame.  I’m excited to begin our next play, especially because I have already read and analyzed it, so I have some experience with the text which will therefore enable me to access the next level of its meaning faster (that is, I will achieve the analysis of a fourth read without reading it in class four times).  At least, I hope I will… 

I have been drilling myself on the vocabulary, and fortunately I know most of the terms, especially those which relate to drama and comedy, those being some of my favorite things to read.  However, many terms are completely unfamiliar to me and I cannot keep them straight.  I keep trying to think of a vocab list I have been more confused by, but I can’t think of any.  Once I learn them, however, I will feel extremely intelligent.  And will hopefully get a good grade on the test.

I am extremely excited to see Twelfth Night this week, though I don’t know if that’s something I should be putting on a self-assessment.  I love to watch and read Shakespeare’s comedies almost as much as I love analyzing his tragedies.  I was unable to make it that time my ISHALL class went to Stratford, so I’m really looking forward to this experience.

Close Reading III--October 23rd: "The Bleakness of the Bullied" and Their Happiness, Too

Students are continuously lectured about the horrible effects bullying can have on the tormented, and the suicide which can result from their desperation and misery, but they rarely have the opportunity to be told this story from the perspective of the bullied, and never are they shown how precious life really is in a way which goes beyond the typical “be nice”. Charles M. Blow’s emotional article “The Bleakness of the Bullied”, published in the New York Times in 2011, does not focus on directly encouraging the reader not to bully, but instead treats them as the bullied, implying that we have all at one time been bullied or downtrodden by life. The article shows the incredible value of life in all of its small gifts, and that despite the hardships we encounter, it is those precious things and God which we must remember to keep ourselves from succumbing to the temptation of escape through suicide. Blow empathizes with this need to escape as the bullied, and then shows how we must push through our hardships and realize what a wonderful thing life is even in your darkest hour, through specific details, imagery, and language, and especially metaphor.

The details and images Blow provides describing the skating rink, his mother, and the music he hears helps to underline to the reader all the little things children committing suicide do not have the wisdom to remember, as he did, and stop themselves. He describes the skaters in the rink as a “dog chasing its tail and with the same mesmerizing delirium — laughing and dancing”, and his mother’s voice—who’s singing comes to him and prevents him from committing suicide—as coming “out of her heart and into a steering wheel, coming to save me”. The peaceful scene created by details like “lovers holding hands” and the “dipping and swaying to the rhythm of disco tracks” helps to illustrate the wonderful and truly joyous nature of life, no matter how many times we fall down on the ice.

Blow uses these flowing descriptions—and the actual flow of the skaters—to reflect the dreamlike state of perfection he enters before thinking about committing suicide, and show their similarity. The dream-in-reality skating rack represents the fact that life is as a whole is as wonderful as the mental and spiritual bliss Blow encounters, should we look past our current sorrows due to bullying. The language he uses to describe his epiphany—“ I seemed now to be watching the scene from beyond the pale of my own humanity” and “there, in the ephemeral nothingness, in the quiet space of the mind, I found peace”—is mirrored by the “synchronized lunges, dipping and swaying” of the skaters and the “sticky-sweet love and salty-dry longing” of his mother’s songs. The alliteration and the imagery of flowing movement in reality reflects his dreamlike state of wisdom when he realizes he must push through, and so shows the reader that God and freedom (as he associates it with his out-of-body epiphany) are all around us.

The songs of Blow’s mother have another significance. The mother would never sing in front of anyone besides her son for fear of being judged, showing the reader where relief from sorrow can be found: one’s family. Indeed, in the skating rink where Blow contemplates taking his own life, the skaters who do not fall are holding onto their lover’s hands, or leaning on the walls of the rink, just as Blow leans on his mother, and God, to rest from his troubles and find the strength to keep going.

Through this connection, Blow utilizes the skating rink, and the headache which almost stopped him from skating, as a metaphor for life and its challenges, only one of which is bullying. Blow’s headache is both an actual occurrence, and a symbol of the torment so many feel due to bullying, and the unhappiness present in our lives which may tempt us to commit suicide and escape from our troubles. Blow returns to skating after his epiphany/salvation, realizing that God and his family will care for him through his troubles. The song playing while he and the others skate is very specific: “Shining Star”, by Earth, Wind, and Fire. Blow shows the reader that they are a “shining star” on the skating rink of life—the details of the band Earth, Wind, and Fire help to reinforce this, as they are elements of the “beautifully human” world we live in. Life is a skating rink, Blow argues, and we all fall down or have headaches. But what we all must do, he shows us, is look past our present state and look at the situation “from beyond the pale of [our] own humanity”. We need to rely on our loved ones to hold us up—not judging us like the bullies we face, appreciate the small gifts in life, take an aspirin, and keep skating.

Blow demonstrates to the reader through rich details, flowing images, and metaphorical language that we all encounter hardships, many of us due to bullying, but that we all must push through and continue with our lives. He shows the reader that even when you believe yourself to be alone, your family is always there for you, not judging you, and God and that family can help you to find your way. He encourages us not to bully, but Blow realizes we are all bullied and judged in some way, and we all need a reminder of life’s small pleasures, and his article, “The Bleakness of the Bullied”, serves as that reminder.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/blow-the-bleakness-of-the-bullied.html

Open Prompt III--October 16th: Don't Judge a Book by it's Bank Account, Social Critique in Oliver Twist

2009, Form B. Many works of literature deal with political or social issues. Choose a novel or play that focuses on a political oe social issue. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the author uses literary elements to explore this issue and explain how the issue contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

England’s industrial revolution during the middle of the nineteenth century was a time of poverty, overcrowding, and suffering among the lower classes.  Charles Dickens’ famous novel Oliver Twist explores the social debates over poverty, and in particular the question of the relationship between poverty and morals.  At the time, there was a prevailing theory that the poor were inherently immoral and to blame for their own situation.  Dickens explores this idea and ultimately shows the reader that the relationship between class and morality is much more ambiguous: rather than poor people being inherently immoral and upper class people inherently virtuous, good and evil, morality and vice, can occur in both the poor and the rich.  He demonstrates this through several key characters: Oliver, the pure but poor protagonist; Mr. Bumble and Monks, rich but evil men; and Nancy, a poor and morally ambiguous character.  Dickens thereby encourages his readers to be more benevolent toward and less judgmental about the poor—an attitude he reinforces through a pattern of images of watching and being watched, suggesting that we, too, are being watched and judged by God on how we treat our fellow man. 

Dickens uses his innocent protagonist, Oliver Twist, as a demonstration of the moral purity which can exist despite poverty.  Oliver begins the novel as an example of an innocent human being doomed from the beginning, showing the reader that he himself was not to blame for his own misfortune.    Indeed, far from portraying Oliver as weak in any way, as the Social Darwinism of the time suggested about the poor, the details surrounding his birth suggest that Oliver is actually stronger than the upper classes.  The narrator notes that, had Oliver been born into a wealthy home, he would have died, and that it was the necessity of a struggle which caused him to gain the strength to live.  From that point on, Oliver is hit again and again with all of the struggles of the poor, and yet never wavers from his saint-like disposition. Despite thievery seeming the only way to survive, Oliver is appalled at Fagin’s pickpockets and refuses to steal.  Through this, Dickens presents a society in which the poor are pressured to turn to evil as a means to survive, and where the poor can be virtuous despite this pressure.  At the same times, Dickens critiques the solutions presented for poverty, especially the workhouse, which was based off of the idea that the poor were “evil” without exception and from birth.  He shows that the workhouse is counterproductive, and that someone poor like Oliver must leave that environment in order to have even a minute hope for survival.  Demonstrating his biting humor, Dickens wrote that the lower classes choose between “being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it.”  In this environment, Dickens argues, it is extremely difficult for the poor to remain virtuous—if they cannot, like Oliver, they will meet their demise as victims of society.

Dickens juxtaposes Oliver’s poor purity to an array of decidedly evil characters who are upper or middle class, showing the reader that bad can exist in the rich as easily as in the poor.  One example of this is Mr. Bumble, the cruel owner of the parish-house in which Oliver spends his early childhood.  Mr. Bumble embodies the type of human who is supposed to be helping the poor; instead, he is using his power for personal gain and increases the lower classes’ struggles.  Mr. Bumble ends his life in the very workhouse he once presided over, representing the ultimate downfall of those who act immorally.  Another “evil” and wealthy character is Oliver’s half-brother, Monks.  Monks is Oliver’s rich, high-born brother, but he is both unhappy and a despicable human being, and likewise meets his demise.  Dickens shows us that the rich and poor alike can be horrible people.  Indeed, the only “good” people in the novel who are wealthy, like Rose, are the ones who assist the poor.

Though the novel contains mostly characters who are morally “black and white,” there is one morally ambiguous character who exhibits both good and evil traits: Nancy.  This ambiguity serves to demonstrate the good which can exist in everyone, no matter their social status.  By all of society’s standards, Nancy is evil: she is a thief; a drinker; and is even implied to be a prostitute in the description of her “free and agreeable…manners” and high “colour”.  However, she commits a clearly good action in sacrificing herself to save Oliver’s life.  This surfacing of Nancy’s conscience despite her seemingly immoral character shows that there is hope for those who are “evil” because of their situation.  It is not the lower classes inherent nature to be evil, Dickens shows us through Nancy’s change of virtue.  We all have good in us which yearns to be brought out, so by changing the flawed system, we may eliminate both the evil brought on by poverty, and the evil, as in the case of Mr. Bumble, brought on by control of the poor.

As the reader decides how to judge these various characters’ morals and status, they are confronted with recurring themes of being judged and watched by God.  Oliver and Mrs. Mann watch Mr. Bumble approach the workhouse in the very beginning of the novel, Mrs. Mann passing judgments on Oliver and the Beitle all the while.  Noah is instructed by Sikes to watch and follow Nancy, and form a conjecture about her actions -- a judgment which will ultimately decide her fate.  Another example of judgment deciding fate is Sikes’ vision of Nancy’s eyes after he has killed her.  He is afraid of her ghost watching him—and he finally sees “her”, and loses his balance and plummets to his death, accidently hung by his own rope.  The reader can see that these “eyes” are the eyes of God, or God acting through Nancy’s soul, pushing Sikes to his demise so that he can be duly punished.  Indeed, all of the characters in the novel are watched and judged by God, and only those characters who are good and benevolent and help others have a happy conclusion to their tales.  Those who do not, like Sikes, or Nancy—still an ultimately “fallen” woman—are punished. 

These characters—Oliver, Monks, Bumble, and Nancy—collectively represent the possibility of good and evil in anyone, despite their circumstance.  Through eliminating the conventional perceptions of the poor’s inherent evil nature, Dickens encourages his upper class readers to help the lower class, but in a different, more effective way than the corrupt workhouse.  Dickens provides an incentive for his readers: in showing the unlimited and ambiguous nature of what kind of people are good or evil, Dickens demonstrates that anyone can and should attempt to be good and help those less fortunate. Dickens does this by showing many positive upper class characters helping the poor and being rewarded, and negative upper class characters ignoring or exploiting them and being punished.  Dickens suggests to the reader the threat of consequence in the afterlife through the unhappy circumstance of Monks.  Handed a second chance to be good, Monks throws it away and end his life in suffering.  Dickens’ readers are handed the same chance as they read Oliver Twist, and learn from Monks’ mistake not to throw it away.

Through this array of characters Dickens critiques society’s conventional perception of the poor as automatically evil, and shows the reader that good and bad can exist in anyone, poor or rich.  Oliver’s purity despite his unfortunate circumstance is contrasted with Monks’ and Bumble’s evil despite their good fortune, and all three characters’ flaws and virtues are compared in the contradictory character of Nancy.  Through her and his other characters Dickens argues that to try and “fix” the poor is the wrong way to approach England’s growing poverty—it is the oppressive system which must be fixed, and the evil rich who run it who must be corrected.  By showing that the poor can be saved, Dickens encourages his upper class audience to help the lower class.  Monks throwing away his chance at redemption is a light threat added to Dickens’ message and broader meaning—the upper classes have sinned by hurting the lower ones, and the only way that the reader can avoid God’s wrath is to change.

Close Reading II--October 9th: "Grilled Chicken, That Temperamental Star"

                David Segal’s mouth-watering article “Grilled Chicken, That Temperamental Star”, published in the New York Times, gives the reader a backstage pass to some of the most famous celebrities in our country.  But the reader isn’t learning about Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.  Segal introduces the reader into the little-known but widely viewed world of tabletop directing, the complicated art of making food in commercials look more scrumptious than it actually is.  While Segal could have easily written in a flowing, descriptive, mouth-watering style, with vivid detail, rich imagery, and careful syntax designed so the reader focuses on the words flowing chocolate, the author instead choses a more scientific tone for his article.  This more calculating (and traditionally journalistic) style stresses and underlines the author’s main point:  it is only the precision and technology used that make the food look good enough to eat.

                “The sauce will not behave” is the first sentence of the article, and is a perfect example of one of Segal’s goals in the essay: that in making the food like the ambrosia of the gods, the tabletop artists must reduce that actual food to an element that needs to be controlled.  The sentence is short, with a tone of slight annoyance and frustration conveyed through this type of syntax.  The point of view of the sentence puts the reader into the position of the one who is attempting to control the sauce—as the reader, you are presented with the problem.  The language of the sentence personifies the sauce as well, as a troublesome agent, but the sentence remains devoid of rich detail which would make the sauce into something tasty and tempting.  The lack of detail and rich language, the point of view, the short syntax, and the frustrated tone all serve Segal’s purpose of underlining the precision required in molding the resistant food into something appealing.

                In writing an article about food, there is no way that Segal could avoid tasty descriptions entirely, and still have the reader remember and believe that the food is food at all, and not the Terminator’s fingertips and Iron Man’s toenails.  Segal reminds the reader that the food ends up looking scrumptious early in the article, with a satisfying description of some items the tabletop artists work on.  They “make glossy vignettes that star butter-soaked scallops and glistening burgers”, Segal writes, and “their cameras swirl around fried chicken, tunnel through devil’s food cake and gape as soft-serve cones levitate and spin.”  However, he constantly reminds us that this is a difficult and scientific art, and that the food is actively resisting looking good.  Segal fills his description with adjectives and adverbs that accentuate the idea that this is a film industry as significant as Hollywood, such as scallops becoming “stars”.  Instead of personifying the food this time, he makes the cameras alive, but instead of being resistant, the cameras are the magical and appealing element.  Instead of the food, the technology is the thing that “swirls”, “tunnels”, “gapes”, and ultimately conquers and dominates the resistance food.  Segal describes how the directors transform “mundane and fattening staples of the American diet into luscious objects of irresistible beauty”.  The sentence’s syntax underlines the transition for unappetizing to appealing, something which Segal argues can only be attained through technology and precision, the only two actually appealing things in the process.

                Segal also occasionally injects humor, mocking both the amount of care involved, and his own fascination with the technological element of the advertisements.  He does this by quoting conversations between directors and workers, usually when the director is unsatisfied with the most minute detail, such as the timing of two drips of sauce—

“Anthony, the second drip is about 10 minutes after the shot is over,” says Mr. Somoroff [the director] after five or six takes, sounding faintly annoyed.

“I’m right on it,” Mr. DeRobertis says.

“You’re on it, but it’s not dripping when it has to drip.”  

Segal responds with both awe and amusement at the amount of work which goes into the tiniest detail, and then also corrects himself: some of the technology is quite advanced and admirable, yet some items used are merely devices for “un-wrinkling trousers” to make steam waft from a casserole.  Segal also uses frequent quotes and interviews with workers to further inform the reader about the complicated process of making food look good.  For instance, he quotes one director explaining why so many advertisements are almost erotic in their depiction, of, say, swirling chocolate: “You’re using the same part of your brain — porn, food,” Mr. Schrom says during a break. “It’s going in the same section; it’s that visual cortex that connects to your most basic senses.”

                At this point in the essay the reader once again questions why Segal isn’t then doing the same thing with his article.  One would assume that the language and imagery would be the article equivalent of the advertisements, perhaps even with a steady, flowing feel, long sentences, and convoluted syntax with gloriously described dishes and rich detail.  Why isn’t the article as erotic as the ads it discusses?  Segal doesn’t write this way in the article because Segal doesn’t care about the food.  The message the article is trying to convey to its audience is not that food at Arby’s is delicious—it’s that the tabletop directors spend hours and years taking something boring and resistance to looking good, and making it appealing.  The focus of the article is on the technology used and the artistry involved in making us want to eat an otherwise unappetizing chicken nugget.  Segal’s interviews with the workers reveal that the food can’t even look too good: otherwise, it would be unbelievably good.  And yet, most of the techniques used to make the food look good involving “faking it”—plaster, hypodermic needles, glue. 

Segal shows the reader, through his scientific syntax, language, and imagery that stress the falsehood of the real food and the technological aspect of the process, that in reality, tabletop directors do not take good food and make it look better.  They must construct fake food to even approach deliciousness—they must make food fly, jump, slice itself in half to appeal to us, and the only way they can do that is through hours of struggling and technological precision.  The stress on this aspect of the art calls into question for the reader the reality of everything we see, especially on TV and in commercials.  The images projected to us as viewers and readers in society are not only false, Segal argues, they are completely removed from the actual product or situation.  Segal shows us that we live in a world where the real, old fashioned thing isn’t good enough for us anymore, and that today, we must use technology to improve the disappointing world around us.  The last sentence of the article is a celebration of the workers—they have just gotten some cheese to stretch exactly so.  The last word of the sentence is “triumphantly”, a structure which emphasizes this word since reader’s focus on the last word of a sentence or phrase.  This emphasizes the triumph which must and will occur, of technology over organic materials which inhibit our needs or wants.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/business/in-food-commercials-flying-doughnuts-and-big-budgets.html?_r=1&hp

Response to Course Material II--October 9th

 

First and foremost, at this point in the semester, I am happy to say I now feel a lot more comfortable with the different elements of DIDLS, and now actually understand what syntax is.  I find syntax an extremely difficult thing to find in a close reading situation partly because of my entirely limited knowledge of grammatical terms or regularities, but at least I know that I should be finding something.  I have to become more familiar with grammar, and, say, the classic structure of a sentence, because without this knowledge my analysis of syntax will be incomplete and limited to the stress of words at the end of the sentence, and the frequent omissions of the word and.  I also have to work through my reluctance to learn grammatical terms, because while I love literature, I most certainly do not love clauses.

                I also feel more secure with banging out a thesis in a shorter amount of time, but I still feel inexperienced and unsure with writing under pressure and spinning out those arguments fast enough.  If I’m writing an open prompt, I’m okay with the thesis and argument and what I want to say, but I run out of time and end up writing too long of an essay.  I’ll be writing open prompts on weekends, and I’ll say to myself “okay, write this in forty minutes”, but then I’ll get so into my argument I’ll lose track of time and over an hour later I’ll finish, feeling pretty good, and then look at the clock and slap myself.  In contrast, if I’m writing a closed prompt, I struggle to form an argument—without enough time to sit with the text, I still cannot analyze it fast enough, such as our American Dream assignment.  Most of the time my group took up was just figuring out what we thought the play meant.  This was predominantly my fault.  Once we analyzed, then we shot out a thesis, an introduction, and some sentences relatively fast.  I loved this assignment, though, because I found The American Dream an extremely intriguing and funny play.  I have read only one other play in the absurd genre: Endgame, which I did not enjoy nearly as much.  Albee's play had dialogue equally ridiculous, but it was funny in its randomness and the meaning of the play was extremely interesting to contemplate.

                In addition, I feel better but still not great about the structure of the essays, where each topic sentence is an elaboration on the thesis.  I don’t feel badly about it, per say, it’s just a different form than I’m used to, so it will probably take a little more practice for it to become second nature.  Happily, however, it’s not something I’m struggling with too much.  It seems a bit like the five paragraph essay format to me, and I suppose my problem is that the last couple years I’ve had do not hand in to me a five paragraph essay drilled into my head, so adjusting is kind of a U-turn.   But I find it fun to write with different formats and styles because then you’re prepared for any format your professor requires later on, so it’s an enjoyable U-turn, even if the brakes squeal a little bit.

Open Prompt II--October 2nd: "Passing" Over Answers

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Readers tend to look for an “answer” in the text: an argument which can be clearly stated, and is conveyed through all of the texts thematic and stylistic elements.  However, Nella Larsen’s novel Passing offers no such clear-cut solution.  Passing  takes place in Harlem during the 1920’s, during a time when issues of racial and class identity were both very important, and undergoing rapid change and were therefore ambiguous and uncertain. The novel debates these issues, asking the reader to question what it means to be “black” or “white,” among other issues of class, sexual orientation, jealousy, and self-awareness.  But the novel never gives answers to any of the questions.  Larsen uses a limited narrative perspective and that perspective’s lack of awareness of the world around her and herself, as a tool to convey the impossibility of answering definitively the larger issues raised in the novel.

The novel is narrated in 3^rd person, but the narration is closely allied with the protagonist Irene Redfield, an upper middle class, light-skinned black woman.  As the novel follows her life and her family—specifically focusing on her relationship with her friend Clare, an African-American woman “passing” as white—the reader can see that they cannot rely on Irene’s perspective to tell the complicated tale.  Unfortunately, this is the only option the readers have: because of this limited narrative perspective, you as the reader only know what she knows.  Larsen’s protagonist is delusional, not self-aware, suspicious, prejudiced, and as confused as the readers, creating ambiguity that could not have been achieved any other way.  Irene doesn’t know what to think, and neither does the reader.

This ambiguity becomes apparent on the first page of the novel, when Irene does not recognize Clare at a fancy (essentially white) restaurant.  She sees Clare with another man, not her husband, which becomes important later in the novel when Irene suspects Clare of having an affair with her husband Brian.  Because the narrative is closely aligned with Irene’s consciousness, the reader is inclined to look at things her way, and so initially are shocked and panicked with her and the infidelity.  However, as time goes on, the reader realizes that Irene has absolutely no proof of the affair, and that it could very well be her imagination.

This flight of fancy could even be interpreted as a manifestation of her jealousy of either Brian or Clare.  The reader realizes it may be possible that Irene herself is attracted to Clare, and is jealous of her possible relationship with Brian.  Irene describes Clare as sensuous, beautiful, glowing, graceful, exotic, and stunning, and describes her features in exquisite detail; she describes Clare’s dead body as “glorious.”  Irene does not admit that she is attracted to Clare, but it becomes a possibility to the reader that Irene is actually panicked by the affair because she is jealous of Brian. 

However, there is no proof of this either, and the reader is forced to entertain the possibility that it is Clare’s wealth and stature as a “passing” African American—her material success—that Irene is jealous of, and possibly desires to get rid of at the end of the novel.  This lack of self-awareness and ambiguity causes the reader to doubt the truth in Irene’s speculations later in the novel, especially in the final climactic scene.  One of the few things that is clear to the reader is the fact that Irene cannot decide whether she actually enjoys Clare’s company.  Certainly, she constantly tries to avoid it, only to give in because she cannot resist Clare. 

Clare’s desire to mingle with darker African Americans, and “her people”, in turn raises the big question: “what is race?” Several possible definitions of racial identity are played out in the novel, but no certain definition emerges as an argument separate from the protagonist’s narration.  The setting of the novel, 1920s Harlem, is crucial, because at that period in history the idea of the “one drop theory” was being debated.  Did “one drop” of African blood make you “black”?  If the reader only considers Irene’s perspective, this is the definition of race.  Irene says that Clare “cared nothing for her race; she only belonged to it”—but whether she acted at Irene thought “blacks” should, she was definitely Irene’s “people” because she had African ancestry.  However, for Irene, this became a sort of positive idea of kinship, not a negative and demeaning reference to slavery.  The narrative voice also complicates this singular definition of race by showing Irene’s view of class, in which middle and upper class Harlem blacks saw themselves as separate from working class blacks.  Here, class culture becomes almost like another race.  Brian brings up the possibility that race is the magnetism felt by all members of the race toward each other, and is separate from physical appearance, class, or ancestry. 

By his definition, Clare is “black”, because Clare uses Irene as a guide to her “poorer darker brethren”, and attempts to insert herself into this society any way she can.  She goes dancing in African American clubs, and goes to parties with Irene’s friends.  However, this is paradoxical, because if Clare was completely a part of Irene’s “race”, then she wouldn’t need a guide.  In this way, Clare is “white”, just like the Caucasians who would go to African American clubs like the Cotton Club, and observe the culture but only be able to spectate.  Another “race” emerges through Clare.  That is the “race” of people like Clare who are light enough to pass, and call into question the whole idea of racial identity in the first place.  As we hear the story from Irene’s point of view, we are invited to scorn Clare as a “passing” African American.  She is part of the African American race, and yet belongs simultaneously to another race of passing individuals.  So while two characters in the novel give their opinions on the definition of race, the definition still remains ambiguous and the reader without answers.   In this way, the narration of the novel is a barrier—we must struggle to see past Irene’s thoughts, points of view, and speculations toward her own interiority, for Irene does not know herself.

These racial and social tensions come to a climax at the end of the novel, when Clare, attending an all-“black” party at Irene’s home, falls, or is pushed, out of the window.  She “passes” into the next life just as she “passed” during her life, but many key elements needed to “answer” the racial questions raised are missing because of Irene’s limited perspective.  Prior to Clare’s fall and death, her husband, who has discovered she is really “black”, rushes into the party and reveals her.  Immediately, all the African Americans in the room—“passing” or not, darker-skinned or wealthy—band together against the unquestionably “white” intruder.    Irene only remembers laying a hand on Clare’s arm as Brian and Clare’s husband also start forward, and then that Clare is dead.  The reader doesn’t know whether Clare was pushed, or if so, by whom.  It is possible that Irene pushed Clare out, jealous of her possible affair (for whatever reason), or jealous of Clare’s lifestyle.  Brian could have pushed Clare for reasons unknown; Clare’s husband could have pushed her out of anger.  Or Clare could have fallen—or perhaps even committed suicide, unable to deal with her life without true and certain identity.  However, the reader cannot possibly know what really happened, because of Irene’s limited perspective and complete lack of clarity, even in her reaction to Clare’s death. 

This same lack of clarity results in ambiguity regarding all of the different questions raised in the novel, especially race.  One could argue, though, that in this non-argument there is, in fact, an “answer”.  Larsen could be arguing that there is no way to tell what “race” is; it is impossible to define what it is to be “black” or “white”, because our own limited perspective on the world will blind us from the truth, if it even exists.  Larsen could be showing the reader, through the complicated and tragic lives of her delusional characters, and the frustrating ambiguity, that we are all Irene Redfield.  We may all be prejudiced, paranoid, uncertain, and unaware as we go through our lives, and that who we are is not defined by race in any sense, but by everything from our gender to our class to our spouse.  But Larsen doesn’t even definitively make that argument—in Passing, there is no way to tell for sure.  Larsen forces you to see all of these inconsistencies outside of Irene’s acknowledgements to demonstrate the extreme complications involved with defining race. The ambiguity of the end of the novel due to narrative perspective—the fact that you don’t know exactly how Clare died—represents these divides.