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