Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Volume II
THE 19 TH ANNUAL CLEMENT S. STACY
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH CONFERENCE
Proceedings 2011
April 9, 2011
The School of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, Indiana

19 th Annual Clement S. Stacy Undergraduate Research Conference
Table of Contents
K - Z
Rachel Kalthoff
Hillsdale College ………………………………...………………………………………… 1
Alexis Klosinski
Bethel College …………………………………….……………………………………... 19
Milan Kolundzija
Purdue University Calumet ………………..………………………….……………….…. 26
Lane Michael Lareau
Purdue University Calumet ..……………………………………………………………... 42
Jordan D. Leising
Saint Joseph’s College …………………………………………………………………….. 59
Matthew Lewis
University of Michigan – Flint …………………………………………………………...... 68
Aryn Lietzke
Carroll University ………………………………………………………….…………….. 73
Danielle Malloy
Saint Xavier University ...................................................................................…... 77
Nicole Manter
Purdue University Calumet ……………………………….………………………………..99
Sharneé Maresh
University of Michigan – Flint ………………………..…………………………….……. 105
Stephen Matteson
Bethel College ……………………………………………………………………..….… 111
Gloriann McDonald
Central Michigan University ……………………………………………………………... 120
Kelsey McMahan
University of Michigan – Flint ………………………………………………….………… 140
Jason Melton
Purdue University Calumet ……………………………………………………….………145
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19 th Annual Clement S. Stacy Undergraduate Research Conference
Maeghan Mier
Central Michigan University …………………………………………………………...... 150
Kiley Miller
Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne …………………………………….… 158
Amelia Moreno
Saint Xavier University ………………………………………………………………...... 168
Zachary R. Murphy
University of Michigan – Flint ………………………………………………………….... 183
Elyse Nelmark
Central Michigan University …………………………………………………………...... 189
Elyse Nelmark
Central Michigan University …………………………………………………………...... 196
Rana Nino
Saint Xavier University ………………………………………………………………...... 204
James Palmer
Wilmington College …………………………………………………………................ 225
Carolyn Payne
Saginaw Valley State University ……………………………….…………………………. 247
Kristen Peters
Central Michigan University …………………………………………………………...... 257
Kristine Plocher
Illinois College …………………………………….…….......................................... 262
Angela Pusateri
Saint Xavier University ………………………………………………………………...... 283
Stephanie Rentschler
Calvin College …………………………………...................................................... 307
Regan Schaeffer
Central Michigan University ……………………………………………………….......... 320
Caitlin Schmitt
Carroll University ……………………………………………………………………..... 325
II

19 th Annual Clement S. Stacy Undergraduate Research Conference
Ryan Clifford Smith
Purdue University Calumet ………………………………………………………...……. 347
Veronica Smith
Augustana College ……………………………………………………………….……… 352
Courtland Stokes
Purdue University Calumet ……………………………………………………….……... 373
Jessica M. Tabor
Purdue University Calumet ……………………………………………………….……... 381
Erika Trigg
University of Michigan – Flin…………………………………………………………...... 391
Elizabeth Wayne
Alma College ………………………………………………………………………….... 396
Yvonne P. Wood
Purdue University Calumet …………………………………………...…………………. 408
Heather Workman
University of Michigan – Flint ……………………………….…………………………… 415
III

Rachel Kalthoff
Hillsdale College
A Conservative on the Prairie:
Washington Irving’s Concern for the Loss of American Tradition and Liberty
in his Writings on the American Indians
Among the ranks of Cooper, Hawthorne, and Twain, Washington Irving (1783-1859) seldom
receives praise as one of America’s first great authors. Although mainly the author of short stories and
sketches, Irving’s works helped found the American literary tradition. His works set the stage for the
greater works of his better-know successors. Irving not only created an American literary identity but he
also through brief sketches, helped shape an American identity and sense of tradition. Though often
accused of shallowness and over-sentimentality, Irving’s emotional temperament and romantic style lent his
combination of history and myth a picturesque appeal to the hearts of his countrymen. Though Irving did
not embrace the romantics’ philosophy, he did engage in their literary style, a style where feelings and not
reason provided the ultimate medium of ideas. Rather than making syllogistic arguments Irving sought to
engage the hearts of Americans with snapshots of an America which, he believed, was vanishing under the
tide of Jacksonian expansion and democracy. His short works and gifted style allowed him to communicate
these concerns to an American people whose pursuit of agrarian virtue marginalized serious intellectual
leisure-time. Under Irving’s romanticism and emotional flair lay a conservative concern for the loss of
American tradition and American republicanism. This same concern animated his works on the American
Indians. Irving viewed the Indians as fellow humans and, most importantly, fellow Americans. His writings
on the Indians reflected this understanding. Despite accusations of triviality, these works, especially A Tour
on the Prairies, condemn the Indian removal policy, and associate the loss of the red man’s freedom with the
loss of a crucial part of American freedom and tradition. Far from ephemeral sketches, Irving’s writings on
the American Indians, especially A Tour on the Prairies, mourned the loss of Indian freedom as the destruction
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of part of American liberty and tradition, and paved the way for the deeper musings of Irving’s literary
successors.
The sentimental nature of Irving’s writings subjected him to accusations of an impoverished
intellect, but at their core, these writings reflect the principles that motivated him. One commentator
writes, “Irving’s faith in God and his love of humanity were very simple. I do not suppose he was much
disturbed by the deep problems.” As this response to Irving indicates, Irving’s emotionalism subjected him
to accusations of simplicity and frivolity, but this critique too quickly shrugs off the importance of Irving’s
faith in God and love of humanity as driving principles. In an essay on Irving, one scholar remarked, “His
chief guides were his tastes and affections, with which his principles of duty and religion, his love of
independence and his patriotism, were inwrought.” As this author indicates, Irving still possessed religion,
principles, a sense of duty, and a deep patriotism, but his thinking upon these subjects began with his feeling
about them. This sentimentality resulted from an innate tendency to respond to feelings over reason
combined with his participation in the Romantic tradition. Irving suffered from accusations of triviality
because his emotions often veiled his principles.
The nature of Irving’s writings resulted from his emotional personality, noted by others even in his
childhood. Characteristically Irving tended to rely on his emotions rather than his reason. For instance,
while in Europe, Irving managed to fill entire letters with sentimental griping about his foul mood and poor
tea. (Pierre Irving, Vol. 3, 46). On his trip west in 1832, Irving’s carelessness shocked fellow travelers
such as Captain Ellsworth: “I was surprised to find Mr. Irving opposed to any restriction and ridicule the
idea of taking thought for tomorrow.” (Ellsworth, 46). Irving’s relationship with his mother probably
influenced, his emotional outlook. Pierre Irving writes that Irving’s mother, to whom he was very close,
thought with her heart and, believed that the old and true America was passing away. (Pierre Irving, Vol. 2,
15). Irving seemed to have inherited these character traits which in turn seeped into his writing. Irving saw
his writing first and foremost as an appeal to the heart. Irving explained that he desired his writings to cheer
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his readers. He wrote:
If, however, I can by lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of
care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness. If I can, now and then, penetrate
the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my
reader more in good humor with his fellow beings and himself—surely I shall not have written
entirely in vain. (Curtis, 96).
This motivation reflects Irving’s general care for his fellow men. One commentator called him, “the
patriarchal embodiment of good-will towards men.” (Hellman, 154). This deep care for others animated
his writing and his treatment of humanity in his writings.
Of the emotional forces, that drove Irving, his love of the past and sense of time’s transience,
incited a deep traditionalism in his writings all of which contain a yearning for the past. His childhood
reading of adventure stories and travelogues nourished his lively imagination and begot in him a love of the
past which eventually blossomed into a strong conservatism. His words on his childhood home reflect this
outlook. He wrote,
To me the Hudson is full of storied associations, connected to some of the happiest
portions of my life each striking feature brings to mind some early adventure or enjoyment
some favorite companion who shared it with me; some fair object, perchance of youthful
admiration, who like a star, may have beamed her allotted time and passed away. (Pierre
Irving, 43).
In many ways these words reflect the manner in which Irving saw the world. Behind every event he saw a
rich tradition. In his writing he sought to relive the past — its traditions, myths, and adventures, and to
preserve them in the imagination. Irving said that he longed to “wander over the scenes of renowned
achievement—to read as it were in the footsteps of antiquity—to loiter about the ruined castle—to
meditate in the falling tower.” (Anonymous, 201). He did so in his writing, or at least that was another
proclaimed goal. One author states, “Irving’s picturesque feeling for ruins came close to being a concept,
the one intellectual frame he had to put around his picture of the world.” (Hedges, 42). This affection for
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the “picturesque” past informed Irving’s writings. Irving stated a “desire to fix these few memorials of a
transient state of things fast passing into oblivion.” (Chittenden, 107). Accordingly, he told stories of a
bygone America. He described the goal of Knickerbocker thus:
to embody the traditions of our city in an amusing form; to illustrate its local humors,
customs, and peculiarities; to clothe home scenes and places and familiar names with those
imaginative and whimsical associations so seldom met with in our new country, but which
live like charms and spells about the cities of the old world, binding the heart of the native
inhabitant to his home. (Washington Irving, Knickerbocker, 13-14).
He did this and did it well because, as a commentator points out, “the figures of history were to him living
men and women.” (Parrington, 160). His treatment of historical characters in his works reflected this view
and so did his treatment of the Indians. His love of the past influenced all his writing, developing its
conservative character.
The combination of an emotional character and a traditional mind suited Irving to the romantic
style. This style sought to reach the reader by appealing to feelings rather than reason, expressed a
picturesque vision of the past and, as some argue, is the definitive American literary style. (Morse, 20).
While Irving did not fully embrace the philosophy of the romantics, his sentimentality, his concern for
history and for his fellow men, and his affection for America led him to engage in the romantic stylistic
tradition. (Brodwin, 14). Like other romantics, Irving placed feelings at the forefront:
In true romantic fashion he let his feelings and impressions dictate the nature of his
response. Nowhere in the Sketch Book are there any profound statements or penetrating
insights about life, setting or character, rather romantic impressionism dominates.
(Brodwin, 2).
Irving used this “romantic impressionism” to convey insights, rather than stating them explicitly. Irving did
not lack insights; he expressed them as emotions rather than arguments. Another biographer wrote, “he did
not rationalize his desires, but he clearly lived and wrote them.” (Canby, 173). This describes the romantic
response to the world. Irving’s attraction to the “picturesque” also drew him to the romantic style “for the
picturesque was a concept (as well as a term) constantly invoked by romantic writers.” (Hedges, 122). The
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omantic style also appealed to Irving’s love for history. One author writes, “American romantics have
traditionally sought to move out of time altogether and into some sort of space. Time means history, and
history means “traces of men” and society, which is precisely what interested and stimulated Irving.”
(Brodwin, 41). These words illuminate the crucial fact that Irving’s love of his fellow humans motivated his
writing. Since the romantic style possessed this link to society as well as to the emotions it suited Irving’s
character. Sometimes, however, his engagement in the romantic tradition led to a condemnation of his
writings as ephemeral. This was especially the case with A Tour on the Prairies. While it made possible and
partly legitimized the accusations of shallowness, Irving’s romanticism did not negate his ability to think and
articulate.
Despite his romantic style Irving possessed a keen intellect that earned respect for both him and his
writings. A contemporary review stated, “Mr. Irving writes well because he thinks well, because his ideas
are just, clear, and definite. He knows what he wants to say, and expresses it distinctly and intelligibly,
because he so apprehends it.” (Everett, Vol. 4.88). Another scholar concurs, “[Irving] contrived, with
singular skill and effect to intermingle with his burlesque narrative, the most profound reflections…and to
speak out, from behind his mask, not a few harsh and unpalatable truths.” (Hedges, 65). Such views of
Irving are more consistent with a man whose favorite authors were Spenser and Chaucer, who enjoyed the
company of intelligent men such as Andrew Jackson, Thomas Cooper, and Edward Everett, and who
possessed a deep understanding of the importance of tradition to society. (Bryant, 6). The accusations of
shallowness fail to reflect Irving’s abilities and his accomplishments that reveal an intelligent and thoughtful
man, as well as a participant in the romantic style. Irving used both his sentimental style and his intellectual
ability to weave his stories about the frontier into delightful yet deep commentaries on the meaning of
freedom in the American Tradition.
Fellow Humans, Fellow Americans: Irving’s View of the American Indian
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Irving viewed the Indians first and foremost as fellow humans and fellow Americans and therefore
lamented the white man’s treatment of the Indians and the loss of Indian civilization. Irving first
encountered Indians at the age of twenty, when, in 1803, some friends agreed to take him on a trip up the
Saint Lawrence River. (Pierre Irving, Vol.1, 20). Then, as later, the Indians fascinated him. (Pierre Irving,
Vol. 1, 20). In his writings Irving portrays the Indians as part of a quickly fading America. The Sketch Book,
perhaps his best-known work, includes two short pieces about the Indians, “The Traits of Indian Character”
and “Philip of Pokanoket.” The presence of these two sketches in a work focused on vanishing small town
America and its myths, suggests that Irving considered the Indians part of the American tradition. Both
works reveal his respect for the Indians as well as a deep sorrow at their poor treatment by the whites. In
“Philip of Pokanoket,” he describes the Indian hero:
He was a patriot attached to his native soil—a prince true to his subjects, and indignant of
their wrongs—a soldier, daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of
hunger…with heroic qualities and bold achievements that would have grace a civilized
warrior and have rendered him the theme of the poet…he lived a wanderer and a fugitive
in his native land and went down like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest
without a pitying eye to weep his fall, or a friendly hand to record his struggle.
(Washington Irving, History, Tales and Sketches, 1028).
The words “a patriot attached to his native soil” express Irving’s view of the Indians as fellow humans who
loved their native land and as patriots, whose beloved native land was America. This contrasted with the
popular view of the Indian as a hindrance to the growth and expansion of white civilization. (Howe, 280).
Irving’s portrayal of the Indians insisted that they were fellow Americans. One scholar notes,
The reader senses in both essays Irving’s profound regret, not simply regret for the
extinction of a race but for the reflection of that extinction upon American society. His
regret, taken with his insistence that the Indian be considered in terms of his cultural
heritage, makes Irving’s works on the Indians thematically consistent with many of his
other works. (Littlefield, 141).
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Irving approached the Indians in the same manner in which he approached the small towns of upstate New
York. He wrote about them as a conservative lamenting the loss of a way of life. His writing depicted the
Indians as patriotic republicans and implied that the Indians contributed to American tradition and identity
just as did the quirky characters of small-town New York.
Because Irving saw the Indians as fellow Americans he condemned the Jacksonian removal policies.
In a letter to his sister on the Indians, Irving wrote, “I find it extremely difficult even when so near the seat
of action to get at the right story of these feuds between the white and the red men, and my sympathies go
strongly with the latter.” (Pierre Irving, Vol. 3, 38). The Traits of Indian Character expresses his view in
greater detail:
It has been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America, in early periods of colonization
to be doubly wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of their hereditary
possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare; and their characters have been
traduced by bigoted and interested writers . . . the rights of the savage have seldom been
appreciated or respected by the white man. (Washington Irving, History, Tales, and Sketches,
1002).
For a man who was known as “the embodiment of goodwill towards men” words such as, “bigoted” and
accusations such as “interested” should strike the reader as strong and almost out of character. This
response, however, reflects Irving’s expressed desire to, “penetrate the gathering film of misanthropy.”
(Curtis, 69-70). The American treatment of the Indians offended his kindly view of them as fellow humans.
His anger at fellow writers demonstrates his disgust that the writer’s profession had been turned to so
uncharitable a use. For a man deeply devoted to the traditions of the past, “dispossessing” someone of their
“hereditary possessions” meant destroying what Irving would have seen as one of the dearest possessions of a
human being. For Irving the American treatment of the Indians ran in the face of the three things that
animated his life — love of his fellow humans, writing, and tradition.
In the face of such a condemnation of the Indian policy Irving’s agreement to accompany Captain
Ellsworth on a government tour for the express purpose of removing the Indians poses a problem. Andrew
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Jackson’s Indian policy, especially the Removal Act of 1830, an act that, according to another scholar,
resulted from an overextension or abuse of federal power, treated the Indians terribly. (Cave, 416-419).
Rather than continuing to condemn Indian policy, Irving who had set out with companions Charles Joseph
Latrobe and Count de Pourtales on a trip west, joined a government expedition. At Fort Gibson in
Arkansas the three met up with Captain Henry Levitt Ellsworth, who had been appointed to carry out
peaceful removal negotiations with the Indians. Ellsworth offered Irving the position of secretary for the
expedition. Irving wrote to his sister,
I shall accompany the commissioners on their expedition into the territories west
of the Mississippi, to visit and hold conference with the emigrating Indian tribes.
The commissioner, Mr. Ellsworth...invited me. (Pierre Irving, Vol. 3, 34).
Irving never mentioned the removal act in his letters or his book, except for the description of Ellsworth as
“pacificator.” (Pourtales, 46). He and his companions traveled the rest of the way with Ellsworth. Irving’s
participation in the journey would seem out of character for one so strongly opposed to such treatment of
the Indians if he did not already view the situation as a lost cause.
Irving participated in this government expedition because he believed that Indian races were
already doomed, and he wanted to see them before it was too late, not because he lacked principle or
desired to produce a great literary work about them. In his letters, Irving expressed almost boyish
excitement about seeing the western Indians. He wrote to his sister, “[I am] completely launched in savage
life & extremely excited and interested by this wild country and the wild scenes and people.” (Pierre Irving,
3, 23). Not only curiosity drove Irving, but also his belief that the Indians were part of a fast-disappearing
America. In another letter, one to his brother Peter, Irving wrote about his participation in Ellsworth’s
expedition:
The offer was too tempting to be resisted. I should have an opportunity of seeing the
remnants of those great Indian tribes, which are now about to disappear as independent
nations, or to be amalgamated under some new form of government. I should see those
fine countries of the far west while still in a state of pristine wildness, and behold herds of
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uffaloes scouring their native prairies, before they are driven beyond the reach of a
civilized tourist. (Washington Irving, A Century of Commentary, 277).
Irving’s letter reveals his motives for his participation in the expedition. Irving acted upon human curiosity
combined with a sense of sorrow that the Indians and their culture were fast vanishing. As one author
points out, “Those works dealing with the Indians can be viewed as a more detailed illustration of his belief
that the Indian was doomed.” (Littlefield, 142). Irving’s apology for the Tour, reflected his motivation in
traveling. He wrote,
It is a simple narrative…I have no wonders to describe, nor any moving accidents by flood
or field to narrate; and as to those who look for a marvelous or adventurous story at my
hands, I can only reply in the words of the weary knife grinder: “Story! God bless you I
have not to tell sir.” (Washington Irving, Three Western Narratives, 12).
Curiosity and conservative sorrow motivated his participation in the expedition. Accordingly, he
discourages the reader from expecting a grand narrative. Irving’s statement that he has no story did not
mean that he had no motives in writing the Tour. In his account of the journey the Count de Portales wrote
that Irving had an intention of writing a book. (Pourtales, 35). Irving kept a journal of his time there from
which he drew A Tour on The Prairies, a fact that suggests that Portales reported correctly. Rather than a
grand adventure, Irving’s little book contains continued musings on the loss of American freedom as he saw
it manifested in the loss of Indian freedom. Irving may also have intended the book as an example of his
Americanism. Upon his return he faced accusations of being a literary traitor. Though not the entire
reason for his trip and the subsequent book, this concern probably contributed to his motivation. (Pierre
Irving, Vol. 2, 488-489). The Tour on the Prairies, therefore, offers not a western adventure story but a
reflection on American tradition and patriotism.
Since the ideas expressed in A Tour on the Prairies voice the same concerns as his earlier works, so
too does his style. He wrote the Tour in the style of the romantics as he had his other works. The Tour may
have had an even stronger romantic tone to it because, as one biographer wrote, “As the author grew older
9

. . . romantic attitudes began more and more to dominate his writing and his literary material.” (Aderman,
14-15). Yet, as with his earlier works, Irving’s use of the romantic style in the Tour did not undermine the
moral and intellectual themes of the book. Another author writes,
There is a moral form and human vitality underlying all of Irving’s excursions into
romantic elevation. He will attempt to understand Indian motives and actions exactly as he
would try to understand the motives and actions of anyone else. (Rans, 108).
In the Tour Irving believed that he was writing about fellow Americans and humans just as he had in “Philip
of Pokanoket” and “The Traits of Indian Character.” In a manner unusual for his time, he believed that the
Indians offered a way to understand Americans and their tradition. He did not consider race a fundamental
barrier to his pursuit of American tradition. He conveyed his view of the Indians by appealing with imagery
and emotion to the American heart.
This style of portraying the Indians and the West subjected A Tour on the Prairies to criticism for
being shallow, sentimental, and stylistically ill suited to the subject matter. Most authors agree that
Washington Irving’s literary gifts stopped at the frontier boundary. While Irving possessed skill at
portraying small-town America, and even at relating tales about Europeans, he seemed to lack the literary
tools to describe the west. Irving had just returned from seventeen years abroad and had developed a
European style that may have contributed to his difficulty creating a great work of frontier literature. A
contemporary review of the Tour complained “he is in the character of …an epicurean herdsman… in his
Tour of the Prairies there is little more of adventure, of actual romance, than the Iter ab Roma …
Nevertheless, he has contrived to eke out a very pleasing and a very pretty volume.” (Anonymous,
“Washington Irving’s Miscellanies,” 409). This was the common perception of a Tour, that lacking a plot it
is “pretty” and artistic, but not much else. Another author wrote, “he was directed to them more by
patriotism and popular demand than by any real interest. The Tour on the Prairies [is] of the grade of good
magazine work, to be read, enjoyed, and forgotten.” (Cairns, 115). Because Irving was more concerned
with American tradition and the West as it related to America than the frontier and its adventures, his
10

western stories mimicked his Eastern ones and the setting seemed inconsistent with the content. Another
author explains, “To Schoolcraft and Catlin he left the frontier’s ethnology; to Cooper its adventure; to
Crockett its tall tale.” (Ellsworth, viii). While Irving did not concern himself with creating a “frontier
work,” he laid the foundations for the frontier as a literary topic. Irving’s concern for the loss of American
republicanism and tradition led him to see the frontier as but another means of expressing these concerns,
but, in the end, his treatment of the prairie seemed out of place.
Despite these accusations of shallowness, the Tour on the Prairies contains deep reflections on human
nature, racism, the loss of freedom, the loss of republicanism, and the meaning of the American identity. In
the Tour Irving reshaped the themes lamenting the old America into a lament for the loss of the unrestrained
freedom of the Indians and thereby relates the loss of that freedom to the loss of American republican
freedom. Irving portrayed the Indians as human and also as symbolic of American freedom. This double
portrayal indicates that in marginalizing the Indians the Americans were in a way loosing their own free
character. Although Irving did not in any way diminish the wild freedom of the Indian races in his book, he
did portray them as uniquely human, expressing joy and sorrow. His description details characteristics to
which any human might relate:
In fact the Indians that I have had an opportunity of seeing in real life are quite different
from those described in poetry. They are by no means the stoics that they are
represented…taciturn they are it is true, when in company with white men, whose good
will they distrust…the white man is equally taciturn under like circumstance. When the
Indians are among themselves, however, there cannot be greater gossips. Half their time is
taken up in talking over their adventures…they are great mimics and buffoons, also, and
entertain themselves excessively at the expense of the whites…they are curious
observers…they give full scope to criticism, satire, mimicry and mirth… as to tears, they
have them in abundance both real and affected; for at times they make a merit of them.
(Washington Irving, Three Western Narratives, 35-36).
Irving described real humans and their emotions vivid ways that they undermined the racist arguments for
Indian removal. Irving’s words reveal that he saw the portrayal of the Indians in the American imagination
as a primary cause of the Indians’ mistreatment and sought to correct it. (Littlefield, 138). Irving concluded
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this passage, “As far as I can judge, the Indian of poetical fiction is like the shepherd of pastoral romance, a
mere personification of imaginary attributes.” (Washington Irving, Three Western Narratives, 36). For Irving,
the imaginary Indian was a dehumanized one. He believed that the misrepresentation of the Indians in
literature resulted in the justification of the Indian freedom which he believed, in turn, harmed American
freedom.
Irving’s portrayal of the Indians as fellow Americans turns his lament at the loss of the red man’s
freedom into a response to the loss of American freedom and republicanism. Irving writes,
Such is the glorious independence of man in a savage state…in the absence of artificial
wants, [possessing] the great secret of personal freedom. We of society are slaves not so
much to others as to ourselves; our superfluities are the chains that bind us. (Washington
Irving, Three Western Narratives, 28).
In comparing the “personal freedom” of the Indians (and implicitly the loss of it through Jacksonian Indian
policy), to the “slavery” of the white man, Irving seemed to be arguing that as America grew increasing
industrialized and nationalized during the Jacksonian period, the Americans, like the Indians, were losing
their “personal freedom.” Irving wrote,
We send our youth abroad to grow luxurious and effeminate in Europe; it appears to me
that a previous tour on the prairies would be more likely to produce that manliness
simplicity and self-dependence most in unison with our political institutions.” (Washington
Irving, Three Western Narratives, 44).
These words do not reflect a thoughtless sentimentalism but a concern for the well being of his country. As
one commentator said, “A Tour on the Prairies is a nationalist text, in the sense that the journey provides an
opportunity for Irving to reflect on and define the emergent nation… the text as a whole presents a more
complex, layered, and even ambiguous image of what America stands for.” (Reynolds, 94). Irving seemed
to be recalling the old republican image, which the founders had embraced as the American ideal. Irving’s
reflection calls to mind a Jeffersonian concept of American freedom in the West uncorrupted by city life as
it also reveals a man who has thought hard about the republican roots of his country. This suggests that
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Irving’s conservatism went deeper than his attempt to preserve the small town traditionalism and
Americanism of upstate New York, that it resulted from a treasuring of the republican principles that
enabled the self-governing existence of those small American towns.
If seen as a participation in a greater lament for the loss of American freedom, Irving’s more
indirect treatment of Indian freedom in the Tour can be seen as an attempt to critique not only Indian policy
but also a changing American political system. Several of Irving’s anecdotes concern his horse and
reflections on the difference between wild and domesticated horses. Irving wrote about the capture of a
wild horse:
I could not but look with compassion upon this fine young animal whose whole course of
existence had been so suddenly reversed. From being a denizen of these vast pastures,
ranging at will from plain to plain … he was suddenly reduced to perpetual and painful
servitude… The transition in his lot was such as sometimes takes place in human affairs,
and in the fortunes of towering individuals—one day a prince of the prairies—the next day
a pack horse. (Washington Irving, Three Western Narratives, 94).
This passage connects the loss of the horse’s freedom to the loss of human freedom. In doing so the passage
reflects Irving’s goal of investigating American freedom through an investigation of the west in The Tour.
Because Irving had recently returned from a long sojourn in the cities of Europe, he probably had a
heightened concern for American freedom. His concern for the loss of Indian freedom reflects his
perception of the diminishing liberty in America. He wrote,
Nothing surprised me more, however, than to witness how soon these poor animals, thus
taken from the unbounded freedom of the prairie, yielded to the dominion of man. In the
course of two or three days the mare and the colt went with the lead horses and became
quite docile. (Washington Irving, Three Western Narratives, 115).
Irving’s astonishment at the swift taming of the horses illuminates his shock at the complicity of Americans
in the loss of freedom as Americans themselves became “tamed” to city life, industry, and foreign custom.
The similarities that Irving saw between the loss of Indian freedom and the loss of traditional republican
America also appeared in his retelling of Indian myths.
13

A storyteller by nature, Irving included in his sketch of the prairie several Indian myths that contain
a similar lament for the loss of freedom. One especially, the story of two Indian lovers, expresses Irving’s
view of Indian removal as a symptom of the loss of American freedom. In the story an Indian hunter goes to
get gifts for his bride. When he returns, the whole village except his beloved has left for a new settlement
farther west. He and his beloved set out to the new village but he goes on ahead because to arrive together
would destroy her reputation. As soon as he arrives at the camp he sends his sister to fetch his bride, but his
sister says that she had died three days before. In disbelief the Indian runs to the place were he left her and
finds only his pack. Realizing that he had seen only her spirit, he dies of a broken heart. This tragic story,
which resounds with Irving’s stories of New Amsterdam, reveals Irving’s view of the loss of Indian
freedom. The sorrow of the story is the loss of a loved one. By telling it in concert with the Indians’ move
west, Irving suggests that their uprooting is more than just a relocation. It is a loss of something
irreplaceably dear to the Indian people. The grief in this short myth reflects a deeply human sentiment that
reflects Irving’s approach to his writing, but it also makes it applicable to the loss of beloved freedom that
Irving saw with the expansion of industry and democracy in the Jacksonian period.
The Tour on the Prairies, however, does not take the ideas to their full depth in contrast to his
successors; he enthralled the imagination in his accessible and emotional narratives, but he left the reader to
discern the meaning. One commentator put it thus,
[Washington Irving] is our storyteller, preserving for us the ambience of an earlier
way of life in America, one we cherish more dearly the more remote and
irreclaimable that past simplicity becomes. (Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow and Other Tales, 254).
This corresponded to Irving’s expressed desire to “fix these few memorials of a transient state of things fast
passing into oblivion.” (Chittenden , 107). Irving did not claim to have worked out a systematic critique.
He used the imagery of the past, which he loved, to impart to his readers the sense of loss that he felt in
14

watching the America of the founders pass away. He did not care, however, to work out these thoughts to
the extent that his successors did. Another commentator wrote:
A tour of the prairies, a work that deserves more reputation was conceived as another
Sketch Book, with a single romantic theme—the march of the rangers through the Indian
country. But here Irving was too close to his subject. The Indian stories were not in his
vein. The companions of his voyage did not project their shadows against historic
backgrounds…the material that Cooper found so rich was for him too thin. (Canby, 181).
As with his earlier works, Irving’s participation in the romantic style, combined with his emotional
character, caused him to write shorter and less thoughtful narratives. Although, as in the above examples
from the Tour, Irving sometimes sought to direct his reader’s reasoning, the “ambiance” which his works
created generally left to the reader the responsibility of thinking on his own.
Irving’s writings established the foundations for writers such as Cooper, Hawthorne, and
Longfellow, who built upon Irving’s treatment of the Indians in his creation of a much deeper critique of
American republicanism. One author wrote, “We must with emphasis recur to the thought … that it was
Irving who through his legends and his descriptions developed in his countrymen local sentiment and pride
in the natural grandeur of their country.” (Hellman, 154). Many regard Irving as the first American author.
As such he set the stage for the greater works of his successors. Irving inspired both Hawthorne and
Longfellow. (Baym, 952). He read and enjoyed the works of both Hawthorne and Cooper and took a sort
patron’s role in their careers. (Pierre Irving, Vol. 4, 133). He greatly respected Cooper. (Pierre Irving,
Vol. 4, 313). Irving possessed a special fondness for the works of his contemporary, poet William Cullen
Bryant, whose poems he published and whose works he reviewed. (Everett, 88). While Irving may not have
troubled himself with the deeper concerns of his successors, he actively and dutifully worked to create an
American literary identity. If his works did not themselves pose great intellectual problems, they did create
a precedent for later authors to do so.
In establishing the foundations for the tradition of the American Indian and the American West in
15

literature, Irving’s Tour on the Prairies, played an important role in American literary tradition. In linking
the loss of Indian freedom and the loss of republican freedom, Irving made a masterful plea on behalf of the
traditional past. While Irving’s own participation in the style of the Romantics may undermine the deeper
intellectual themes of this work, his use of this style also allowed his work to appeal to the everyday
American on a deeper emotional level. As he himself admitted, his gift was not the structural and rational
soundness that his successors could claim. Rather it was the gift of reminding his fellow Americans of their
shared past and bequeathing to them a sense of their own heritage.
Works Cited
Aderman, Ralph M., “Washington Irving as a Purveyor of Old and New World Romanticism.” From the
“Literary Supplement” of The Times of London. (1936). In Andrew B. Meyers, Editor. A Century of
Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations,
Inc., 1976.
Anonymous, “Washington Irving’s Miscellanies.” Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country 45. (1835): 409-
4115.
________, “A Master of the Obsolete: Washington Irving in the Shadows.” From the “Literary
Supplement” of The Times of London. (1936). In Andrew B. Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary
on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Baym, Nina. Editor. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (1820-1865), Vol. B. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 2007.
Brodwin, Stanley. Editor. The Old and New World Romanticism of Washington Irving. New York: Greenwood
Press, 1986.
Bryant, William Cullan. “A Discourse” (1860) in Andrew B. Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary on the
Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Cairns, William B. “Washington Irving,” from A History of American Lierature. (1912). In Andrew B. Meyers,
Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy
Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Canby, Henry Seidel. “Washington Irving,” from Classic Americans. (1931). In Andrew B. Meyers, Editor. A
Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy Hollow
Restorations, Inc., 1976.
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Chittenden, Hiram M. “Astoria” in A History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West. (1954). In Andrew B.
Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York:
Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Curtis, George W. “Editor’s Easy Chair,” from Haper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 65. In Andrew B.
Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York:
Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Cave, Alfred A. “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830.” The Historian 65.
no. 6 (2003): 1330-53.
Duyckink, Evert A. “Memoranda of the Literary Career of Washington Irving.” From Irvingiana: A Memeorial
of Washington Irving. (1860). In Andrew B. Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of
Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Ellsworth, Henry Leavitt. Washington Irving on the Prairie or A Narrative of a Tour of the Southwest In the Year
1832. Edited by Stanley T. Williams and Barbara D. Simson. New York: American Book
Company, 1937.
Everett, Edward, “Review: A Tour on the Prairies.” North American Review 41. no. 88 (1835) 1-28.
Littlefield, Daniel F. Jr. “Washington Irving and the American Indian.” American Indian Quarterly 5. no. 2
(1979): 135-154.
Irving, Pierre. The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. 4 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1863
Irving, Washington. History, Tales, and Sketches. New York: Library of America, 1983.
Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales. New York: Reader’s Digest Association,
Inc. 1987
Irving, Washington. Three Western Narratives: A Tour on the Prairies, Astoria, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville.
New York: Library of America, 1979.
Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX, (1787), 291.
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccernew2?id=JefVirg.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=publ
ic&part=19&division=div1. Accessed November 30, 2010.
McDerrmott, John Francis. “ Introductory Essay to A Tour on the Prairies.” From Washington Irving. A Tour
on the Prairies. (1956 ed.). in Andrew B. Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of
Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
Meyers, Andrew B. Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York:
Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
17

Morse, David. American Romaticism, Vol.1: From Cooper to Hawthorn, Excessive America. Totowa, New Jersey:
Barnes & Noble Books, 1987.
Parrington, Vernon Louis. “Washington Irving.” From Two Knickerbocker Romantics. (1927). In Andrew B.
Meyers, Editor. A Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving 1860-1974. New York:
Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc., 1976.
de Pourtales, Albert-Alexandre, On the Western Tour With Washington Irving: The Journal and Letters of Count de
Pourtales. Edited by George F. Spaulding. Translated by Seymour Feiler. Oklahoma: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1968.
Rans, Geoffrey. “Inaudible Man: The Indian in the Theory and Practice of White Fiction.” The Canadian
Review of American Studies 8, no. 2 (1977):103-115.
Reynolds, Guy. “The Winning of the West: Washing ton Irving‟s „A Tour on the Prairies.‟” The Yearbook of
English Studies 34 (2004): 88-99.
Works Consulted
Andrews, William L. Ed. Literary Romanticism in America. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1981.
Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
Guttmann, Allen. “Washington Irving and the Conservative Imagination.” American Literature 36. No. 2
(1964): 165-173.
Hedges, William L. Washington Irving: An American Study, 1802-1832. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press,
1965.
Latrobe, Charles Joseph. The Rambler In North America. Vol. 1. London. R. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1836.
Reprinted New York: Johnson Reprint Company, 1970.
Sunshine, Kathleen. Early American Literature and the Cal of the Wild: Nature, the Indian and the Woodsman in
Fiction. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987.
Wood, James Playsted. “Preface” in A Tour on the Prairies. Washington Irving. New York: Pantheon Books,
1865.
18

Alexis Klosinski
Bethel College
The Diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder in
“The Most Dangerous Game”
Abstract
General Zaroff is a very controversial character in Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game.”
He is a phenomenal hunter with a strong Russian bloodline. Hunting is his life’s passion and has placed him
among the extremely wealthy. His overwhelming skill causes him to grow bored of the sport, however. In
order to surpass this ennui, the general devises a ghastly plot. He waits for sailors to crash on his hidden
island and then throws them into his jungle to hunt them for pure pleasure. This grisly behavior and apathy
towards human life can easily be explained by a psychological condition known as antisocial personality
disorder. By comparing Zaroff to the symptoms associated with this disorder and to the traits of a serial
killer who had this disorder, it can be reasonably concluded that the character can be diagnosed with the
same condition. The symptoms discussed are derived from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders IV-TR. They include nonconformity, arrogance, false charm, manipulation, disregard of other’s
rights and feelings, avoidance of being bullied, superficial rationalizations, acts of violence, and a lack of
empathy. The serial killer traits are compared to that of Ted Bundy. They include charm, deceit,
rationalization, and lack of empathy. With knowledge about the character, the disorder, and a comparison
to a real life example, Zaroff can be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
The Diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder in “The Most Dangerous Game”
Richard Connell’s (1924) “The Most Dangerous Game” is a tale of suspense. It opens with an eerie
1924 setting on the Caribbean Sea as two sailors discuss their future hunt. Rainsford, a skilled hunter, falls
off the ship and heads toward the sound of gunshots. After a long swim, he reaches shore and stumbles
upon a hidden mansion. Rainsford is greeted by Russian aristocrat Zaroff and his burly guard Ivan. A tour
19

of the palace reveals that General Zaroff is quite the host and hunter. He describes his various adventures to
Rainsford and then lets his guest in on his island’s treasure. After having hunted and prevailed over every
beast he could find, Zaroff had gotten bored with the game. He had since “invented a new animal” to hunt:
man. He “stocks” the island with shipwrecked sailors and puts them in his jungle to hunt. Rainsford is
taken aback but is still forced into the game. After three days of being hunted, he barely eludes Zaroff and
traps the general in his own kingly bedroom. Rainsford sleeps as a hero that night (pp. 477-492).
In “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Connell (1924), General Zaroff displays several symptoms of a
person with antisocial personality disorder. These symptoms are prevalent enough to diagnose him with
this disorder.
Back in the eighteenth century, the only known mental illnesses were depression, psychoses, and
delusions (Vaknin, 2009, para. 1). A century later, French psychiatrist Pinel coined the phrase “manie sans
dilire,” which translates into “insanity without delusions” (Vaknin, 2009, para. 1). He noticed that there
were some people that were a little different than the usual lot of asylum dwellers. These people were
clearly mad but did not experience hallucinations. In 1835, J. C. Prichard, a senior physician at the Bristol
Infirmary, suggested the term “moral insanity” (Vaknin, 2009, para. 2). In his work “The Treatise on
Insanity and Other Disorders Affecting the Mind,” he describes:
Moral Insanity, or madness consisting in a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections,
inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses, without any remarkable
disorder or defect of the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties, and particularly without any
insane illusion or hallucination. (Prichard, 1835, p. 6)
Since the discovery of such individuals, expressions and names have been thrown around and
revised due to advances in research. The previous and well-known term “psychopath” is now obsolete
because its literal meaning of “mind illness” is inaccurate. These people do not actually have any major
mental disorder (Simons, 2001). Today the correct term is antisocial personality disorder. A whole
20

chapter is dedicated to this group in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. No lab or blood
tests can diagnose antisocial personality disorder. Also, most people with this disorder do not seek
treatment because they find nothing wrong with their behavior (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
A mental health professional can make a diagnosis by comparing a person’s life history and character traits
with the symptoms of the disorder.
There are several symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, including failure to conform to
societal norms, arrogance, false charm, deceitfulness or manipulation, disregard for the rights and feelings
of others, avoidance of being pushed around, superficial rationalizations, acts of violence, and a lack of
empathy (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In “The Most Dangerous Game,” General Zaroff
displays all of these symptoms in one form or another.
As an advocate of nonconformity, Zaroff lives in complete isolation (Connell, 1924). Some people
like to have their home set away from the road, but Zaroff takes this to the extreme. Societal norms do not
include building a mansion in the middle of the uncharted Caribbean. He does not conform because he has
no one to conform to. Furthermore, he rejects society by choosing to segregate himself.
The symptom of arrogance is obvious in Zaroff as well. He takes great pride in his abilities as a
hunter and sings his own praises continuously. While reminiscing about his achievements, Zaroff boasts
that jaguars “were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him” (Connell, 1924, p. 483). He seems
bitterly upset at the lack of a challenge from any animal as he exclaims, “Hunting was beginning to bore
me!” (Connell, 1924, p. 483). The general likes to brag about himself. He views himself as above all other
hunters. There is a clear streak of arrogance within him.
Antisocial personality subjects also have a false charm about them. This implies that they produce
the appearance of a high-class citizen while their thoughts and actions depict otherwise. Zaroff throws
money around, has expensive taste, and gives off a sophisticated demeanor. While being welcomed,
Rainsford finds “the general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite” (Connell, 1924, p.
21

481). This thought of the general does not last long, however. The façade melts as Zaroff’s true identity as
a serial killer emerges. Rainsford detects that something is not right with the general as he notices the red
lips and pointed teeth beneath that sadistic smile (Connell, 1924). When Rainsford realizes who Zaroff
actually is, he calls him a “cold-blooded murder” (Connell, 1924, p. 484). This is quite a contrast from his
earlier view of the host. Rainsford was deceived by Zaroff’s false charm.
Zaroff’s blatant use of manipulation also matches with the symptoms of antisocial personality
disorder. He lures ships into crashing on his island in order to force them into playing his game. He
explains to Rainsford how he obtains his prey by saying, “[Lights] indicate a channel where there’s none:
giant rocks with razor edges crouch like a sea monster with wide open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily
as I crush this nut” (Connell, 1924, p. 484). These people do not come willingly to his island of terror.
They are misled by the general’s trap and must inevitably meet their fate.
Another symptom that Zaroff displays is the disregard of the rights and feelings of others. When a
crew shipwrecks on his island, he does not give them the option of leaving. They do have one choice,
however. Victims may either hide in the jungle or take on Ivan. When Rainsford inquires about the refusal
of a player, Zaroff replies, “I give him his option, of course. He need not play that game if he doesn’t wish
to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. . . He has his own ideas of sport” (Connell, 1924,
p. 485). Prisoners have to choose between being hunted or physically torn apart by their limbs. None of
his captives were set free or given the option to be. Zaroff completely ignores a person’s right to life.
In accordance with the symptoms, Zaroff also avoids being pushed around. He allows himself a gun
to hunt with while his prey only gets a knife. He makes this ammunition seem equal, but common sense
says otherwise. “I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours’ start. I
am to follow, armed with only a pistol of the smallest caliber and range” (Connell, 1924, p. 485). Even
though he deceives himself into thinking he is at a disadvantage, the general still has the upper hand. His
weapon can be used repeatedly at long range. A knife is only good for hand-to-hand combat or one
22

carefully aimed throw. Zaroff can also obtain adequate rest and medical aid if need be, whereas the victim
cannot. When Rainsford rigs a tree to fall on the general, Zaroff is hit and calls out, “I am going now to
have my wound dressed; it’s only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back” (Connell, 1924, p. 489).
He clearly avoids being bullied by putting himself at the advantage.
Zaroff also makes superficial rationalizations. He believes it is his duty to use his skills in the fashion
that he does when he says, “Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if need be, taken by the
strong” (Connell, 1924, p. 484). He believes what he is doing is not only ethical, but expected of him. He
justifies his actions with his twisted view of morality.
People with antisocial personality disorder are known to commit acts of violence. Zaroff’s actions
are the epitome of violence. He hunts men and in a brutal fashion. This sickly truth is revealed to
Rainsford when Zaroff describes the ideal quarry, “It must have courage, cunning, and above all, it must be
able to reason” (Connell, 1924, p. 484). Rainsford quickly guesses the only creature on this earth that has
those attributes. Zaroff is very vicious in his hunting methods as well. As Rainsford reaches the island, he
hears “a high-screaming sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror” (Connell,
1924, p. 479). The game Zaroff plays is murder, and it is a violent one.
One more symptom that matches Zaroff’s character with antisocial personality disorder is the lack
of empathy. He tracks down human beings in his jungle and kills them. The thought of this does not at all
disturb him. He laughs at Rainsford: “I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you
seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life” (Connell, 1924, p. 484). Zaroff appears
to have no conscience. No ethics or sense of morality makes him pause before killing each of his victims.
He does not lay awake at night troubled by his actions. No empathy exists within this man.
Not only does General Zaroff exhibit many symptoms by which antisocial personality disorder is
diagnosed, he also has much in common with a man of the same condition. Ted Bundy is a well-known
serial killer. Someone blind to his biography, however, would not be stricken with fear at the sight of his
23

face. According to Nietzal, Speltz, McCauley, and Bernstein (1998), “he was a polished, intelligent, and
attractive young man” (p. 407). This misleading outward appearance was what enticed his victims. Nietzal
et al. (1998) recorded that Bundy hunted down, raped, and murdered over 36 women in a four-year
period. He was also diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
Ted Bundy and General Zaroff shared some similar qualities. According to previous evidence, they
were both appealing men who were held with respect at first impression. They shared highly deceitful
character traits. The two each made superficial rationalizations. Also, there seemed to be a lack of
empathy in both of them.
As previously stated, Zaroff is a “true cosmopolite.” He is wealthy, well-educated, and courteous.
Bundy was a ladies’ man. He was debonair and attractive. His charming smile could lure in any
unsuspecting woman (Nietzal et al., 1998). Despite their pastimes, these men were not threatening. They
were appealing to other people, which only added to their false charm.
Zaroff and Bundy were both deceitful creatures as well. Zaroff lures ships to crash on his island
then manipulates the passengers to play his deadly game. Bundy used his outward appearance to lure in his
victims. He would even go as far as wearing a fake cast on his arm to increase his trustworthiness (Nietzal
et al., 1998). Once deceived, the poor women he trapped were horrifically murdered.
These two men also had a severe lack of empathy. Zaroff finds it his responsibility to kill the men
who were unfortunate enough to be stranded on his island. Bundy was no different. He thought the
women he raped and killed were deserving of this punishment (Nietzal et al., 1998). He “seemed
incapable of feeling guilt” (Nietzal et al., 1998, p. 408). What these men did held no consequences in their
minds.
A close look into the origins of antisocial personality disorder, the symptoms of the disorder, the
character traits of General Zaroff, and a historic example of the disorder reveals a base for diagnosis. It can
be concluded that if Zaroff were a non-fictional person, he could be formally diagnosed with antisocial
24

personality disorder under the declarations made in today’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Antisocial personality disorder. In DSM V-TR (pp. 701-708).
Washington, D.C: Author.
Connell, R. (1924). The Most Dangerous Game. In J. Beaty, A. Booth, J. P. Hunter, & K. J. Mays (Eds.),
The Norton Introduction to Literature (10 th ed.) (pp. 477-492). New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc.
Nietzal, M., Speltz, M., McCauley, E., & Bernstein, D. (1998). Personality Disorders. In Abnormal
Psychology (pp. 406-419). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Prichard, J. (1835). A treatise of insanity and other disorders affecting the mind. London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and
Piper.
Simons, C. (2001). Antisocial personality disorder in serial killers: The thrill of the kill. Criminal Justice
Studies: A Critical Journal of Crime, Law, and Society, 14(4), 345-356.
Vaknin, S. (2009). The history of personality disorders. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-
10-2006-101746.asp
25

Milan Kolundzija
Purdue University Calumet
Political Tolerance:
Examining the Relationship between Education and Political Tolerance
INTRODUCTION:
Why are some people tolerant while other people are not? This research question sets the
foundation for the basic principles of this paper. In today’s progressive society, we recognize fundamental
societal changes that force us to evaluate certain groups or actions in specific ways, and develop perceptions
on certain matters. Measuring our capability to accept or reject enlightened perceptions on matters that we
view negatively, is exceptionally important to investigate. It is important to explore this question, because
it will facilitate the exposition of the level of distinctions among certain groups, and help us recognize the
biases presented in society, by analyzing the actual information that can be generalized to the overall
population. This investigation is extremely pertinent for our democracy, because of the principles that
define our constitution. The constitution confers the right to speech, which is an essential element to our
democratic foundation; the freedom to hold and express one’s political beliefs is seen as a precondition for a
stable and effective democratic system. Political tolerance focuses on the extent to which certain groups are
prepared to extend these civil liberties and procedural rights to groups they may perceive negatively.
This research paper will investigate political tolerance, and its relationship with education. These
two principles will be the two main variables for our research paper. Our main independent variable is the
“Highest Year of School Completed” and the dependent variable is the “political tolerance index”. The
hypothesis for this research proposes that, higher levels of education lead to higher levels of political
tolerance; this indicates a positive relationship, because an increase in one is reflected in gains in the other.
It is also important to note that we will also examine other factors that might influence the dependent
26

variable, by including three additional control variables. These three variables are the respondent’s sex,
religiosity as measured by how often a respondent attends religious services, and a respondent’s religious
denomination.
The two main variables for our research are both interval/ratio variables. This means that both
variables have values that are based on a scale. The independent variable is based on a scale of educational
attainment; the range varies from zero to twenty years of educational attainment. The dependent variable is
based on a scale of tolerance level; the scale ranges from a low (0) to a high (15) tolerance level. This
tolerance index is based on a combination of fifteen questions that were posed to five groups, including
communists, homosexuals, anarchists, and atheists (see Appendix A). The responses to these questions
were combined into a tolerance index, and our dependent variable index is based on those responses.
The dependent variable has been applied in a way that is both reliable, and valid. The index for our
dependent variable was constructed in a manner that recognizes groups from both sides of the political
spectrum. Early research on political tolerance, focused on only one side of the political spectrum (leftist
groups). In order to ensure that our data was valid, we had to ensure that the index was conceptualized
from questions pertaining to both ideological spectrums. The dependent variable in this research paper
focuses on questions posed about homosexuals, communisms and atheists. This ensures that all political
spectrums have the capability to be recognized equally, and is not prejudiced towards one ideological
spectrum; this ensures that our variable is measuring what it is supposed to. Our measurements are also
reliable, because they do not include missing values, and are used consistently through all the analysis.
The two main variables establish a casual mechanism that can be logically explained. This rests on
the notion of associating higher education levels with higher information. I conceive that, the higher a
person’s educational attainment, the higher their level of knowledge. This higher level of knowledge,
allows them to distinguish new viewpoints and adapt enlightened perceptions on new information that is
27

entering their thought process. They recognize the distinctions among certain groups, and learn to accept
enlightened perceptions on certain groups, because they possess a higher level of recognition of those
groups and their ideologies. As they acquire new information, they can shift their predisposed perceptions,
and eliminate biases that may have hindered their viewpoints. By adapting this change, they are more
tolerant of certain actions, because they are more knowledgeable.
As mentioned earlier, this paper will investigate other possible alternative explanations to the main
relationship. This will be performed through the use of three additional control variables. The reason for
this inclusion is to investigate alternative explanations, in order to determine if other variables influence the
dependent variable, and the magnitude of that influence in relation to the independent variable. One
fundamental alternative explanation is the relationship between religiosity (as measured by how often a
respondent attends religious services), and political tolerance. The mechanism behind this alternative
explanation can be explained logically. I conceive that there is a legitimate casual mechanism between a
respondent’s attendance of religious services and their tolerance level. I believe that religion forces
individuals to grasp certain religious principles and compels them to develop a behavior that resists
contradicting viewpoints. This forces those with higher levels of religiosity to become intolerant of other
groups that don’t adhere to the principles being expressed by that particular religion. The more frequently
one attends these religious services, the more solidified their viewpoints become against other diverging
viewpoints.
In order to establish credibility for this research process, we must recognize the research performed
by prominent political scientists in the subject of political tolerance and its relationship to education, and
consider the research performed on our control variables as well. There have been several credible and
authoritative research assessments performed on the relationship, and those will be presented in the next
section.
28

LITERATURE REVIEW:
The relationship between education and political tolerance has had an extensive history in research.
Various studies have been conducted on the relationship, and numerous distinct factors have shown to have
an impact on the relationship. These factors include nonconformist groups, cognitive sophistication, and
conceptualization of political tolerance.
One of the first research assessments performed on political tolerance was by Samuel Stouffer, and
it focused on nonconformist groups (Davis, 1975). Samuel Stouffer “studied tolerance of Communists,
atheists, and socialists in a 4,933-case national sample” (Davis, 1975) Stouffer investigated the “extent to
which Americans were prepared to extend procedural rights to communists and suspected communists”
(Sullivan, Pierson, & Marcus, 1979). Stouffer concluded from his data that “within each group the less
educated were less tolerant than the better educated” (Davis, 1975).
Another important factor to the relationship between education and political tolerance is cognitive
sophistication. Cognitive sophistication is defined, as sophistication of one’s reasoning process (Bobo &
Licari, 1989). A study was conducted by Lawrence Bobo and Fredrick Licari, on the influence of education
on political tolerance while emphasizing the effect of “cognitive sophistication” (1989). They developed a
measure for cognitive sophistication, by administrating a vocabulary test; they performed a regression that
included various civil liberties, and cognitive sophistication along with control variables such as age, gender,
income and political ideology (Bobo & Licari, 1989).
In their results they concluded that “the highly educated are more tolerant than the less well
educated… when the analysis is restricted to respondents who are likely to have negative attitudes toward
the target group” (Bobo & Licari, 1989). They also recognized in their results that, “sophistication accounts
for a substantial fraction of the effect of education on tolerance” (Bobo & Licari, 1989).
29

The conceptualization of political tolerance, in terms of determining whether a consensus subsists
on democratic principles, both in terms of abstract concepts or specific derivatives of those concepts, has
had a tremendous influence on the relationship between education and political tolerance (Prothro & Grigg,
1960; McClosky, 1964).
In a study conducted by James W. Prothro and Charles Grigg on the relationship and the
application of tolerance as an abstract concept, they examined whether a “consensus on democratic
principles” exists when they are conveyed in abstract and specific terms (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). Their
data consisted of a sample of registered voters from two American cities; Ann Arbor, Michigan and
Tallahassee, Florida (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). These two sample groups, were randomly selected, and
were given a questionnaire designed by the experimenters, that employed questions pertaining to the two
basic abstract principles of democracy (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). The sample consisted of a high proportion
of highly educated respondents (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). These respondents were administered a
questionnaire that envisioned the principles of “majority rule and minority rights” (Prothro & Grigg, 1960).
They administered a questionnaire that asked these two abstract concepts, and then derived “specific
embodiments of the principles of democracy” from those abstract concepts (Prothro & Grigg, 1960).
Their results showed that from the two communities a range from “94.7 to 98.0% percent of
respondents supported the abstract principles established above (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). Agreement on
specific derivatives of the particular abstract terms mentioned above were significantly lower, and most of
the questions could not yield a high consensus (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). This basically means that, that
respondents were more willing to support abstract terms than specific questions that define that term.
They recognized that the variable with “the greatest effect on attitudes toward basic principles of
democracy” was education (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). Prothro and Grigg point out that under every
question, the “greatest difference on every statement was between the high-education group and the low-
30

education group, and the high- education group gave the most democratic response to every question,
whether compared with other educational, community or in- come grouping” (1960). The two
researchers also concluded that, more correct answers “came from those with high education than from
those with less education” (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). In order to determine whether this effect was
spurious in terms of the disproportional amount of highly educated respondents in the sample, they tested
the other control variables and determined that education still had the same influence (Prothro & Grigg,
1960). They concluded that, “people with high education accept democratic principles more than any
other grouping” (Prothro & Grigg, 1960).
A similar empirical study was performed by Herbert McClosky (1964). He investigated the level of
support for democratic principles between the “political elite” (individuals educated in political matters) and
the general population (McClosky, 1964). He predicted that the political elite will “exhibit a more
meaningful and far reaching consensus on democratic and constitutional values than will the general
population” (McClosky, 1964). He developed a research process that included “two separate samples”, one
of 3,000 respondents “drawn from the delegates and altern- ates who had attended the Democratic and
Republican conventions of 1956” (McClosky, 1964). The second sample consisted of a representative
sample of 1,500 US adults from a Gallup Poll (McClosky, 1964). Respondents from both samples
“received the same questionnaire” that consisted of questions in terms of two categories: “Rules of the game
and democratic values” (McClosky, 1964). Rules of the game questions consist of those pertaining to
specific values of democratic rights, especially those with “particular emphasis upon fair play, respect for
legal procedures, and consideration for the rights of others” (McClosky, 1964). The democratic values are
the basic democratic principles such as those that “express belief in freedom of speech and opinion” in an
abstract way, and don’t emphasize a specific action (McClosky, 1964).
31

The results indicate that the “political elite” were significantly higher in support of “rules of the
game” than the general population (McClosky, 1964). However, he also noted that both the general
population and the “political elite” had extremely high percentage of support for “items expressing support
for general statements of free speech and opinion” (McClosky, 1964). The “political elite” had a higher
percentage of support for these abstract statements than the general population (McClosky, 1964).
It is also important to recognize the fundamental research performed between religiosity (as
measured by how often a respondent attends religious services) and political tolerance. One of the first
assessments performed on this relationship was conducted by Samuel Stouffer (Eisenstein, 2006). He
investigated “religious commitment and intolerance” and determined that “those who attended church
regularly were less tolerant than those individuals who attended irregularly or not at all” (Eisenstein, 2006).
He noted that “twenty- eight percent of individuals who indicated that they had attended church in the last
month fell into the "more tolerant" category… in contrast, 36% of individuals who indicated that they
were non-attenders fell into this category” (Eisenstein, 2006).
Now that we have analyzed the prominent works presented by other political scientists, we will
initiate the third portion of this paper. The next section of this paper will focus on the empirical research
performed for this paper, and will analyze the data in order to determine if the results are consistent with
the hypothesis that we established in the beginning of the paper.
DISCUSSION:
The data that was utilized for the empirical portion of this paper was constructed from a dataset
that is configured to be interpreted by the program entitled “SPSS”. This data set was constructed by the
National Opinion Research Center, who conducts a regular survey entitled the “General Social Survey”
which asks various topics to a representative sample in the United States (Babbie, Halley, & Zaino, 2007).
The survey is conducted biennially, and the data utilized here was collected in 2008 (Babbie, Halley, &
32

Zaino, 2007). The sample consisted of 2,023 U.S adults. The responses for these individuals were collected
by “face-to-face household interviews” and the GSS survey was conducted in a manner that would be
representative of the population of the United States (Babbie, Halley, & Zaino, 2007).
METHOD:
Now that we have established the data source for our empirical research, we will describe the
specific methods used to test our hypothesis. As we mentioned earlier, the goal was to test the relationship
between the independent variable “Highest years of school completed” and the dependent variable “political
tolerance index”. The first action that was performed was creating a frequency distribution of the
dependent variable. The frequency table and the results are shown below (See Table A).
TABLE A
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid Low Tolerance 3 .1 .3 .3
1.00 27 1.3 2.4 2.6
2.00 27 1.3 2.4 5.0
3.00 21 1.0 1.8 6.8
4.00 60 3.0 5.2 12.0
5.00 58 2.9 5.1 17.1
6.00 54 2.7 4.7 21.8
7.00 58 2.9 5.1 26.9
8.00 58 2.9 5.1 31.9
9.00 70 3.5 6.1 38.0
10.00 70 3.5 6.1 44.2
11.00 93 4.6 8.1 52.3
12.00 126 6.2 11.0 63.3
13.00 128 6.3 11.2 74.4
14.00 279 13.8 24.3 98.8
15.00 High Tolerance 14 .7 1.2 100.0
Total 1146 56.6 100.0
Missing System 877 43.4
Total 2023 100.0
33

As we can see the highest frequency dispersion is centered between the tolerance levels of 11 and
15, which means that a significant majority (55.8 percent) of respondent’s have a high tolerance level. It is
important to recognize this disparity first, because we need to determine whether this could be at potential
influence when compared against another variable. In order to determine if there was a relationship among
the results above, and our main independent variable, a cross tabulation was performed.
A cross tabulation is performed in order to determine the level of influence between the two
variables. We are trying to determine the influence that the independent variable has on the dependent
variable, by analyzing how the dependent changes with a change in the independent variable. In order to
perform a cross tabulation, the two interval/ratio variables had to be recoded into ordinal variables. The
dependent variable was recoded in a manner that is appropriate to an ordinal structure. By ordinal we
mean, one that will combine the individual values into separate categories, representing a ranking order of
more or less tolerance. The dependent variable political tolerance index was disseminated from the 0-15
scale, to three categories (Low, Moderate, High). The scale was recoded in the following manner: 0-4
range was coded into a category entitled “Low Tolerance”; responses falling in the 5-9 range were coded
into “Moderate Tolerance”; and responses falling in the 10-15 range were recoded into “High Tolerance”.
The independent variable “Highest Year of School Completed” (Educ) was also recoded into an
ordinal format. It was also recoded into three categories: 0-11 years of educational attainment into a
category entitled “Less than High School”, 12 years of educational attainment, into “Graduate”, and 13-20
years into a “Some College” category. The results of the cross tabulation are displayed in the table below
(see Table B).
Political Tolerance Recoded * Education Recoded
Crosstabulation
TABLE B
Less than High
School
Education Recoded
Graduate
Some
College
Total
34

Political Tolerance
Recoded
Low Tolerance Count 56 49 33 138
% within 31.8% 15.6% 5.1% 12.1%
Moderate
Tolerance
Count 62 113 122 297
% within 35.2% 35.9% 18.7% 26.0%
High Tolerance Count 58 153 498 709
% within
33.0% 48.6% 76.3% 62.0%
Education
Recoded
Total Count 176 315 653 1144
100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
As we can see the table output shows the column percentages change depending on one’s level of
education. As we move from “Less than High School” to “Graduate” to “Some College”, the “Low
Tolerance” level decreases from 31.8% to 15.6% and then ends at 5.1%. This change shows that as we
progressively shift our focus on a higher education level, the percentage rate of those in the low tolerance
category is significantly smaller for those with a higher education level. This means that among those that
are better educated, there is a miniscule number who have a low tolerance level in contrast to the other two
educational attainment categories. Also as we navigate across the column under “High Tolerance” we can
see that the dependent variable shows a positive relationship. As we progress from “Less than High School”
to “High School” to “College”, the percentage of respondents with “High Tolerance” increases from 33.0%
to 48.6% to 76.03%. These results show that there is as strong, positive and consistent relationship. The
categories show a consistent positive relationship; as education level increases, tolerance increases among
the respondents, and tolerance is higher among the better educated.
In order to confirm the strength/magnitude and direction of the relationship between the two main
variables, a test to determine the strength of association was included in this analysis in order to verify that
our observations in the previous paragraph correspond with actual statistical information. Since the new
35

ecoded variables are ordinal variables, we will employ the Gamma strength of association test. The Gamma
test of association and the results are shown below (see Table C).
TABLE C
Value
Asymp. Std.
Approx.
Error a Approx. T b Sig.
Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma .522 .034 12.790 .000
N of Valid Cases 1144
The output shows that the real value of the relationship is .522. This magnitude shows that there is
evidence of a strong and extremely interesting association between the two variables. The value also
indicates that the direction of the relationship; the positive value in front of .522 indicates that the
relationship is positive. This value confirms our previous observations, and shows us that our hypothesis
was correct because, the relationship is consistent with the hypothesis. However, it still remains to be seen
whether this relationship exists in the population or is the result of sampling error.
In order to determine if the results obtained are statistically significant, the Chi- Square test of
significance was used (see Table D). In order for a relationship to be statistically significant, it must be
under a value of 0.05, which was established by social scientists to conclude that similar relationships in the
population can be concluded without there being a sampling error (Babbie, Halley, & Zaino, 2007). The
lower the value is under the set level of 0.05 the more significant the relationship.
TABLE D Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 172.346 a 4 .000
Likelihood Ratio 165.560 4 .000
Linear-by-Linear Association 163.282 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 1144
36

As we can see, this relationship is statistically significant at the .000 level. As we know if a value is
less than 0.05 we can be confident that the results reflect a similar relationship in the population than those
arising from sampling error. Since our value .000 we can be extremely confident that such results did not
occur only by chance. Since our relationship is statistically significant, and the strength of the relationship is
strong (.522), we can be confident that such a relationship can be generalized from our sample to the
general population. However, since no controls were included in the analysis, the relationship might be
spurious, unless the true cause and effect relation between the two variables holds, once other variables that
are known to influence political tolerance are introduced. In order to test whether this condition exists, a
regression analysis was performed on the relationship between education and tolerance.
A regression analysis determines if the control variables in our model influence the dependent
variable, and the magnitude and direction of that influence in respect to the independent variable,
education. The three control variables that had three values or more in that variable were coded into
dummy variables; one value in the variable was excluded from the regression, in order to facilitate the
comparison of that value to the to the original baseline variable. So, for example the “Catholic” variable is
coded so that it represents individuals expressing a religious preference for Catholicism and this is compared
to the original baseline variable which contains representations of other faiths. The sex of the respondent
only had two values, and therefore it was not recoded. (See Table E).
TABLE E
Model
Unstandardized
Coefficients
37
Standardized
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
t Sig.
1 (Constant) 4.259 .541 7.877 .000
educ HIGHEST YEAR OF .515 .034 .403 15.069 .000
SCHOOL COMPLETED
Cathol Catholic -.103 .317 -.011 -.326 .745

protest Protestant -1.041 .272 -.135 -3.830 .000
Attend Church Regularly -1.046 .247 -.132 -4.240 .000
Attend Sometimes -.609 .296 -.061 -2.060 .040
sexrec Respondents Gender -.254 .206 -.033 -1.233 .218
The column “B” in the results, illustrates the direction and magnitude of the relationship between
the variables and the dependent variable “Political Tolerance Index”. In the beginning, we proposed a
direct positive relationship in the hypothesis; I proposed that higher education levels, lead to higher levels of
political tolerance. The results show a value of .515 for the variable “Highest Year of School Completed”.
This indicates a positive direction in the relationship between the two variables. This is consistent with the
hypothesis proposed in the beginning, because it is showing us that political tolerance is higher among the
better educated. The value of .000 under the“Sig” column indicates that the number is statistically
significant, and that the results reflect a similar relationship in the population than those arising from
sampling error. The result show that higher levels of education, lead to higher levels of political tolerance
by about a ½ point on the 15-point tolerance index.
It is also important to recognize that some of the other control variables have also shown to be
statistically significant, and to influence the dependent variable. It is important to assess the magnitude of
the variables by the size of the coefficient in comparison to the main variable. As we analyze the table, we
can conclude that the control variable, specifically the dummy “Attend Church Regularly”, shows the
highest magnitude (-1.046) followed by Protestant (-1.041) and “Attend Sometimes” (-.609). These
dummy variables are also statistically significant, as indicated by the values of .000 and .040 in the “Sig”
column. As we can see, the results show us that the other control variables also play a key role in
influencing the dependent variable besides the respondents educational attainment and that some of them
have a more significant role in influencing the dependent variable besides the main variable.
38

There are also few other observations that are important to recognize. In the beginning of our
research, we recognized the potential influence of religiosity as measured by church attendance and
religious preference on political tolerance. Our results show that, one's denomination affects tolerance so
that Protestants and Catholics (although in the case of Catholics the difference is not statistically significant)
are much less likely to be tolerant as compared to the baseline group (no affiliation). The dummy variable
“Attend Church Regularly” and its magnitude (-1.046) show that those who attend church regularly are
notably less tolerant than those that never attend church. Finally, it’s important to recognize that the
dummy variable “Attend Sometimes” (- .609) shows that those who attend church fairly often are still less
tolerant than the baseline value of not participating in church activities at all.
In conclusion, the hypothesis that was proposed in the beginning of this paper was confirmed,
because the results showed us that higher levels of education, lead to higher levels of political tolerance.
The second observation that we attained from our research process, is that the relationship is statistically
significant at the .000 level, and it could be generalized from the sample to the overall population.
Furthermore, it is appropriate to recall that our prediction that those who are more religious - as represented by
one's religious preference and church attendance - are more intolerant than those without a religious
denomination or who never attend religious services. The results showed us that those who attend church
sometimes and regularly are both more intolerant than those that do not attend at all. This paper focused on
general tolerance and the effect of education on the extension of procedural rights and civil liberties to
certain groups. We did not perform individual analysis on each question contained in the tolerance index,
and therefore our results do not examine the education-tolerance relationship to specific actions or groups.
However, this research provides a further insight into the effect knowledge has on tolerance and should
facilitate future studies into political tolerance.
39

Works Cited
Press.
307.
Babbie, E., Halley, F., & Zaino, J. (2007). Adventures in Social Research. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge
Bobo, L., & Licari, F. C. (1989). Education and Political Tolerance. Public Opinion Quarterly , 285-
Davis, J. A. (1975). Communism,conformity,cohorts,and categories : American tolerance in 1954
and 1972-73. American Journal of Sociology , 491-513.
Eisenstein, M. A. (2006). Rethinking the Relationship between Religion and Political Tolerance in
the US. Political Behavior, , 327-348.
McClosky, H. (1964). Consensus and ideology in American Politics. American Political Science Review
, 361-382.
Prothro, J. W., & Grigg, C. M. (1960). Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of
Agreement and Disagreement. The Journal of Politics , 276-294.
Sullivan, J., Pierson, J., & Marcus, G. E. (1979). An alternative conceptualization of political
tolerance: Illusory increases, 1950s-1970s. American Political Science Review , 781-794.
Appendix A
Index coded 0-15 based on combining the following 15 questions:
Q1. There are always some people whose ideas are considered bad or dangerous by other people. For
instance, somebody who is against all churches and religion . . .
A. If such a person wanted to make a speech in your (city/town/community) against churches and religion,
should he be allowed to speak, or not?
1. Yes, allowed to speak 2. Not allowed 8. Don't know 9. No answer
B. Should such a person be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not?
C. If some people in your community suggested that a book he wrote against churches and religion should
be taken out of your public library, would you favor removing this book, or not?
Q2. Now, I should like to ask you some questions about a man who admits he is a Communist.
A. Suppose this admitted Communist wanted to make a speech in your community. Should he be
40

allowed to speak, or not?
B. Suppose he is teaching in a college. Should he be fired, or not?
C. Suppose he wrote a book which is in your public library. Somebody in your community suggests that the
book should be removed from the library. Would you favor removing it, or not?
Q3. Consider a person who advocates doing away with elections and letting the military run the country.
A. If such a person wanted to make a speech in your community, should he be allowed to speak, or not?
B. Should such a person be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not?
C. Suppose he wrote a book advocating doing away with elections and letting the military run the country.
Somebody in your community suggests that the book be removed from the public library.
Would you favor removing it, or not?
Q4. And what about a man who admits that he is a homosexual?
A. Suppose this admitted homosexual wanted to make a speech in your community. Should he be allowed
to speak, or not?
B. Should such a person be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not?
C. If some people in your community suggested that a book he wrote in favor of homosexuality should be
taken out of your public library, would you favor removing this book, or not?
Q5. Or consider a person who believes that Blacks are genetically inferior.
A. If such a person wanted to make a speech in your community claiming that Blacks are inferior, should he
be allowed to speak, or not?
B. Should such a person be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not?
C. If some people in your community suggested that a book he wrote which said Blacks are inferior should
be taken out of your public library, would you favor removing this book, or not?
41

Lane Michael Lareau
Purdue University Calumet
The Slavery of Religion: A Look at Reason and Religion in America
with A Rhetorical Analysis of the Secular Billboard Campaigns
Good without God? Apparently millions are not. In this essay, I argue that the billboard campaigns
funded by secular organizations, including United Coalition of Reason and Freedom From Religion
Foundation, fail to create convergence with the U.S. public by presenting a rhetorical vision that says “unity
is found in the personal choice to abandon religion” through fantasy themes of heroic reason, villainous God
and the hindrance of religion to a society that rejects this interpretation of reality.
In light of 9/11, we find ourselves in a country with an ever-polarizing society. The political right
and the political left. Conservatives and liberals. Religious toleration and religious extremists. Yet, it is
within this reality that secularist organizations throughout the United States have chosen to post billboards,
specifically in the “Bible-belt” South, seeking to bolster their secular community while further increasing the
divide between the religious and the non-religious.
These campaigns are designed “to reach out to the millions of humanists, atheists and agnostics
living in the United States” (“Atheist Billboard”). The billboards have sprung up in major cities throughout
the U.S., including Chicago, Dallas, Portland, Phoenix, Newark, New York City, and Boston (“What’s
New” 2009). The objective for these organizations, specifically by UnitedCoR, is to provide “an
organizational structure wherein local groups in the community of reason come together cooperatively to
raise their public profiles, grow their organizations, and help generate national dialogue on the legitimacy of
religious skepticism” (“Frequently Asked Questions”).
For this critical analysis essay, I want to evaluate the intended persuasive messages created for the
billboards by secular organizations and their effects upon both the secularist and religious communities. For
42

this analysis, I will: 1) discuss the background on the secular organizations and their billboard campaigns; 2)
describe Bormann’s fantasy theme and rhetorical vision; 3) analyze the secularist billboard messages; and 4)
offer a summary and conclusion.
I will first discuss the historical background related to the rise of the secular billboard campaigns
across the United States. This discussion will analyze a set of billboards created by UnitedCor, the Freedom
From Religion Foundation and the North Carolina Secular Association along with a response billboard
created by a church coalition in North Carolina.
Background on Secular Organizations and Billboards
The production and distribution of billboards by regional and national secular alliances is not a new
or recent phenomenon. National organizations like UnitedCoR and the Freedom From Religion
Foundation have funded campaigns since 2007 (“FFRF”).
UnitedCoR is a national organization that promotes and highlights coalitions of secular groups
spread across the country in order to raise awareness of communities of reason (“United Coalition of
Reason”). UnitedCoR funded, on average, $5,000 towards each billboard that local coalitions erected near
U.S. major cities (“Godless Groups”). The earliest news report of such billboards posted by UnitedCoR
that I could find dated back to November 2008 when the Colorado Coalition of Reason created and placed
eleven billboards throughout the Denver metro area and Colorado Springs region of Colorado (Haythorn).
This was not an isolated incident. In 2009, UnitedCoR launched a nationwide campaign, utilizing
these billboards in 20 cities including Boston; Charleston; Chicago; Dallas; Fort Worth; Des Moines;
Morgantown, West Virginia; Newark, New Jersey; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; and
Portland (“What’s New” 2009). This campaign has continued into 2010 with other major cities including
Austin; Des Moines; Detroit; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Louisville; New Orleans; Oklahoma City;
Jacksonville; St. Augustine; St. Petersburg; Tampa; Tucson; Sacramento; and Seattle (“What’s New”
2010).
43

The overriding message of the billboards by the UnitedCoR was to bolster the secular community
in knowing they are not alone. Messages included the following: “Are you good without God? Millions
are”; “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone”; and “Don’t believe in God? Join the club” (McPherson).
Emily Volcheck, a member of the Baltimore Coalition of Reason, said that secularists “might feel they're in
a minority and this billboard is a way of saying if you're good without God, then you're not alone. There
are a lot of people like you, and we're trying to reach out to them” (qtd. in McPherson). Such communities
would include Camp Quest Texas, a camp in Dallas designed specifically for children of atheists, agnostics,
and freethinkers (Selk).
Not all would agree though. The billboards faced much scrutiny by local churches with the news
focusing more on the religious community’s outrage towards the billboards rather than the bolstering of the
secular community – the original intent of the billboards. Dr. Hugh Bair, senior pastor of Christian Life
Church near Baltimore, said he doesn’t “think anybody can really be good without having a part of the God
component inside of them…A church is basically a visible presence that says we need God and what they
are saying is they're undermining what church is really all about" (qtd. in McPherson). Other billboards
had to be removed or relocated due to nearby businesses receiving threats and fewer patrons in response to
the erected messages (“Secular billboard”).
UnitedCoR was not the only national secular organization to fund and promote billboard campaigns
nationwide. The Freedom From Religion Foundation funded the distribution of 50 billboards, denouncing
religion in the Atlanta metro area in September 2010 (Poole). In September 2010 alone, the foundation
erected over 70 billboards in Louisville, Kentucky; Atlanta, Georgia; and Tulsa, Oklahoma (“Atheism
shines”). The foundation has funded a national billboard campaign, covering every state in the U.S. and 50
cities since its start in October 2007 (“FFRF”). The foundation’s purpose is to separate church and state
through education and promotion of non-theistic ideals (“About the Foundation”). This is the same
44

organization that was behind the federal lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the National Day of
Prayer (Poole).
The foundation, with its focus on freeing government from religion, specifically targets the
religious community with its billboard messages, unlike the conversation-starter messages funded by the
UnitedCoR. The foundation’s messages include “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief”; “Imagine No
Religion”; and “Sleep In On Sundays” (“Anti-religion”). The religious community had much to say in
response to this campaign. In response to a billboard posted in Atlanta, Christian musician and Georgia
resident Craig Gleason said the billboards did “what many who are non-religious accuse Christians and
others of doing – proselytizing” (qtd. in Poole). Rabbi Joshua Lesser of Congregation Bet Haverim in
Atlanta felt the FFRF missed an opportunity to develop allies with the religious community through its
“antagonistic tag lines” (qtd. in Poole). And Don Kemp, a Christian business owner in Georgia, felt the
notion of freedom from religion is merely a “dream” (qtd. in Poole).
The promotion of billboards throughout the nation was not segmented solely within national
organizations. The North Carolina Secular Association funded a $15,000 billboard campaign seeking to
remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance (Mesmer). This campaign created billboards that read,
“One Nation, Indivisible,” purposely removing “under God” that is found in the Pledge of Allegiance and
strategically placing them in the Bible-belt South (Harris). The purposes of the billboard, according to the
association, were “to show that even Americans who don't believe in God can be patriotic and to promote a
sense of unity” (qtd. in Harris).
It appears that residents of North Carolina didn’t find the appeal very unifying as one church in
Asheville created their own billboard with the words, “One nation, under God” (Harris). The billboard was
funded by a church coalition, We Still Pray, promoting the notion that America is founded upon God and
finding the opposite as “disingenuous” (qtd. in Harris). Other forms of disapproval of the billboards came in
45

the form of graffiti with the words “under God” spray painted between “One Nation” and “Indivisible”
(Funk).
Having a proper foundational background regarding these campaigns, I will now describe the
rhetorical theory through which I will analyze these secular messages.
Fantasy Theme and Rhetorical Vision
Fantasy theme and rhetorical vision is a rhetorical theory created and applied by Ernest G.
Bormann, designed to “provide insights into the shared worldview of groups” (Foss 109). Within this
theory, Bormann combines the study of small groups with the study of rhetoric to see how persuasive
messages are received and embraced. This acceptance, or symbolic convergence, occurs when the audience
acknowledges, accepts and acts upon the message conveyed (Foss). Convergence is consensus by the
audience regarding subjective meanings found within a message (Foss). This shared reality creates a
rhetorical community that must agree with the reality conveyed.
In order to understand the nature of this theory, one must first also understand two assumptions
regarding the process of communication. The first assumption is that reality is created through
communication (Foss). Depending on the context and symbols used within a communicative setting, the
reality in which we perceive the world around us is affected. The second assumption is that “symbols not
only create reality for individuals but that individuals’ meanings for symbols can converge to create a shared
reality or community consciousness” (Foss 110). In other words, it is within the audience’s interpretation
of the presented symbols that affects the acceptance or rejection of the reality created in communication. If
the audience embraces a meaning contrary to the reality construed by the communicative message,
convergence will not result.
An example of a rhetorical community can be seen in the promotional campaign by Bungie Studios
in 2010 for the release of Halo: Reach. Reach is the latest installment in Bungie’s Halo video game
franchise; a franchise that has sold 34 million copies of Halo games and accumulated approximately $2
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illion in sales (“Millions”). The campaign presented a message that symbolized the events of Halo: Reach
as those reminiscent of the Alamo or Pearl Harbor or the attacks on 9/11, calling for players to “Remember
Reach” (Halo: Reach). Fans of the franchise and video game consumers identified and interpreted the
symbols presented in the advertisement. Halo: Reach received $200 million in sales on its first day of
release, validating the audience’s acceptance of the symbols conveyed in the promotional campaign
(Slodkowski).
Convergence occurs with the acceptance of fantasy themes, which are interpretations of real events
that “consist of characters, real or fictitious, playing out a dramatic situation in a setting removed in time
and space from the here-and-now transactions of the group” (Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical” 397).
These themes often present themselves as a mirror to the group’s situation, presenting their struggle with “a
role collision or ambiguity, a leadership conflict, or a problem related to the task-dimension of the group”
(Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical” 397). These fantasies, however, are not defined as “something
imaginary and grounded in reality” (Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical” 397). These fantasies can be
identified as “creative and imaginative interpretations of events” (Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical” 397).
The themes draw the audience of the rhetorical community to participate and commit to the presented
attitude, spurring motivation (Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical”).
There are three “types” of fantasy themes that can be identified within a communicative message:
setting, character, and action. Not all types must be present in a given message. Setting types depict the
location and scene where the actions of characters take place (Foss 112). Character types describe the
“agents or actors” in the drama, ascribing characteristics and qualities to the individuals and assigning
motives behind their actions (Foss 112). Finally, action types are the “plotlines” of the drama that deal with
the performance of the characters engaged within the drama (Foss 112).
Within the promotional campaign by Bungie for Halo: Reach, several fantasy themes can be
identified. First, a setting theme of patriotism and honor in war can be identified as the campaign
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encourages viewers to always remember Noble team; a group of soldiers that sacrificed their lives to
protect humankind against an alien invasion (Halo: Reach). A second fantasy theme can be seen between
the characters portrayed: the soldiers of Noble team and the alien race they fought. These character types
portray the soldiers as heroes that gave humankind the freedom to live and the aliens as enemies who
threatened humankind’s right to life. Finally, an action type fantasy theme is seen in the campaign’s call to
remember (Halo: Reach). It is a call for the viewers and consumers to partake in the video game and
remember the sacrifice these soldiers gave so that humankind could continue to live.
Collectively, these fantasy themes form a rhetorical vision. A rhetorical vision is “constructed from
fantasy themes that chain out in face-to-face interacting groups, in speaker-audience transactions, in viewers
of television broadcasts, in listeners to radio programs, and in all the diverse settings for public and intimate
communication in a given society” (Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical” 398). These visions spark an
emotional response similar to the original emotional chain construed by the various fantasy types found
within the drama of the communicative message (Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical”).
This can be seen in the promotional campaign by Bungie. With the fantasy themes previously
mentioned, tied with the audience that was presented with the message, a rhetorical vision of remembrance
is created (Halo: Reach). This vision calls consumers to partake in remembering Reach and the heroism and
honor these soldiers earned through their sacrifice in the same way that Americans remember Texans giving
their lives for independence at the Alamo along with the firefighters and police officers who sacrificed their
lives for those caught in the flames and smoke of terrorism within the World Trade Centers. It is within
this vision that the emotional appeal of remembrance within the fantasy themes now calls for consumers to
purchase the video game in order to pursue the same heroism and honor these historical events call us to
bring to mind.
Building upon the historical background and theoretical approach to these secular messages, I will
now analyze the billboard campaigns and their effects upon American society.
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Analysis of Secular Billboard Campaigns
In this essay, I argue that the billboard campaigns funded by secular organizations, including
UnitedCoR and Freedom From Religion Foundation, fail to create convergence with the U.S. public by
presenting a rhetorical vision that says “unity is found in the personal choice to abandon religion” through
fantasy themes of heroic reason, villainous God and the hindrance of religion to a society that rejects this
interpretation of reality.
Looking at this piece of persuasion, several dominant fantasy themes appear within its intended
message. These include presenting reason and the reasonable as heroic, God as villainous and religion as a
hindrance to the advancement of society. Each of these themes portray themselves both as character themes
as well as setting themes, presenting the actions of the reasonable as to the good of society with those that
pursue God as the enemy to the unity and benefit of a society thereby including any actions done by the
religious as outdated and inferior to humanistic thought. The remainder of this essay will expound on how
these themes portray themselves within the various billboard messages and the effect they have upon
American society.
The most prevalent fantasy theme in these campaigns is one characterizing reason as heroic. The
answer to life’s problems and the means by which we will overcome societal and moral issues are not
through religion; they are through reason. This is clearly seen in the billboard by the Freedom From
Religion Foundation that says, “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief” (“Anti-religion”). The billboard
utilizes a textual style similar to that of the Bible and sets reason and evolution as the pinnacle of worship
and praise, not God. Unlike the God of the Bible that Christians find to be the hero, the foundation uses a
play on words to prop reason to the elevation of a hero worthy of praise. The ultimate goal by UnitedCoR
echoes this theme, bolstering the religious community, encouraging the reasonable to take a stand in a
predominantly religious community and reaching out to the “millions of humanists, atheists and agnostics”
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(“Atheist Billboard”). Their effort to encourage the humanists marginalizes the religious community in an
inferior light, highlighting their belief in God (McPherson).
At first glance, this may seem innocent, but the underlying message presents an “us-them”
mentality. If goodness is found apart from God, then the undertones of this billboard campaign suggests
that a belief in God doesn’t provide goodness for any individual. Additionally, to say one is good without
God is to say that the choice in rejecting God is good for you. Reason is the hero of society. Reason is the
means through which society will advance, not the inferior ways and ideologies of religion. The religious
community perceives this implied message, mentioning the fact that it’s a “slap in the face” to their group
and what they’re doing in their surrounding communities (“Non Religious”).
The converse to this reveals that God is the enemy, the villain, to the good and joy of a society. If
reason is the means by which a society will advance, then religion – the absence of reason – is the enemy to
fulfilling these goals. This character theme is most dominant in the messages provided through the Freedom
From Religion Foundation. Their intent behind the billboards is not to merely bolster up the humanistic
community but to shun and discourage participation within the religious community. As foundation copresident
Annie Laurie Gaylor notes, the group’s purpose is to increase the visibility of the secularists and
denounce belief in God, believing “religion causes more harm than good” (“Anti religion”). This is evident
in some of their messages that include encouraging citizens to “Imagine No Religion” and to “Sleep In On
Sundays” (“Anti religion”). One billboard connects religion with slavery through a quote by Thelma
McQueen. McQueen, an atheist, said, “As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of
religion” (qtd. in Poole). Just as slavery was an enemy to the freedom of African Americans in the early
history of America, so in today’s society, religion has become the enemy to the freedoms and advancements
of our pluralistic society. This quote further intensifies the character theme of God and religion as a villain,
stirring in the audience reminders of slavery as a means to create resentment towards God.
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Both of these character themes present themselves behind the dominant setting theme that suggests
religion is a hindrance to society. Pulling on the character themes present in the campaign, this setting
theme becomes apparent. If reason advances society, and religion is viewed as the enemy, then reason must
overcome religion if we are to advance as a society. With UnitedCoR’s campaign seeking to unite the
secular communities and the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s intent on shunning religion, this theme
becomes transparent. This is most evident in the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s call for U.S. society
to “Evolve Beyond Belief,” strategically presenting the message in regions where courts had rulings
regarding the teaching of evolution and intelligent design (“Secularist group”). This is an evident attempt by
the foundation to advocate reason as the alternative, seeking to remove the hindrance religion has in our
society’s education. In other words, stop believing in God so we as a society can move on in this world.
Religion, and specifically belief in God, is the hindrance to what we can be. Stop praising God and praise
evolution. Praise reason. “In Reason We Trust” (“Atheism shines”).
These fantasy themes chain together to create a rhetorical vision that says “unity is found in the
personal choice to abandon religion.” The secularists consider the religious to be ostracizing the community
of reason (McPherson), highlighting that the Founding Fathers “feared” religion (Zucchino). One group
even suggests that the secular are discriminated against by the religious (“Residents”). The rhetorical vision
spurs the American people to abandon the villainous religion through heroic reason in order to attain unity
and freedom from the fear of religion just as we overcame slavery and discrimination. Just as Americans
united against common enemies in the past, these billboards attempt to persuade Americans to find unity in
the personal abandonment of religion.
Despite the attempts by the secular organizations, the U.S. society disagrees with such an
interpretation of reality. As one resident in Florida notes, “Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian, whoever you
are, we all believe in a spiritual higher being” (qtd. in “Residents”). To criticize the religious community is
to criticize the American people. Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough said at an interfaith
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forum in 2011, “Being religious is never un-American. Being religious is quintessentially
American…We’re all American” (Sullivan). In other words, religion is part of the very fabric that defines
being American. Although the secularist message did not intend to denigrate Christians, U.S. society
perceived the message as such, moving beyond Christians to include Muslims, Hindus, and all religions
(Haythorn).
Bob Enyart, spokesman for American Right to Life, said, “America had tremendous Christian
influence in our founding. And we have been an example to the world of religious tolerance” (qtd. in
Haythorn). Americans perceive themselves to be the pinnacle of religious tolerance, finding unity and
acceptance in their citizenship as Americans despite their religious differences. The rhetorical vision of the
secular organizations that suggests unity is found in the personal abandonment of religion undermines the
very unity that Americans perceive through religion. This fact is evident in President Barack Obama’s
statements in his Call to Renewal address:
[W]e first need to understand that Americans are a religious people; 90 percent of us
believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call
themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in
angels than they do in evolution. This religious tendency is not simply the result of
successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it
speaks to a hunger that’s deeper than that – a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue
or cause…I came to realize that something was missing as well – that without a vessel for
my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I
would always remain apart, and alone. (Obama)
To remove religion is to remove the unity Americans find in such a pursuit. Additionally, the very
rhetorical vision directly contradicts their message for unity because the abandonment of religion disunites
the religious community found in America. Therefore, the very message of unity by the secular
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organizations counters everything Americans perceive to be true. The very message by the secular
organizations to find unity in reason creates dissonance among the religious, undermining the secularist’s
message. This is the case because the organizations distance themselves from part of American society; a
survey by the Pew Research Center in 2008 revealed that 83 percent of Americans adhere to religious
beliefs (U.S. Religious).
Religion does not hinder society because America has become what it is through its religious
tolerance and discourse. God is not the villain for there is a common bond by Americans in their belief in
God as foundational to the nation and the basis of their morality. Because of this societal interpretation,
American society perceives reason as the enemy through the secular organizations’ attempts to remove the
pursuit of religion, their uniting commonality, creating an interpretation of reality that goes directly against
the society’s perception. President Barack Obama in his Call to Renewal address made this point clear
when he said:
[W]hen we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be
practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards
one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we
assume that we will be unwelcome – others will fill the vacuum, those with the most
insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends…[W]hat I
am suggesting is this – secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion
at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln,
Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of
great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly
used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not
inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law
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is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian
tradition. (Obama)
Their message of tolerance and unity fails because of their rhetorical vision that is the complete
opposite of their intended message and American perception of reality. American society perceives and
rejects the reality the secular organizations design that stirs resentment toward the religious and creates
polarization between the secular and religious communities for it is in religion that they find commonality
and morality and reform despite a polarizing society. To spur action against such is to bring society’s
actions upon itself.
With this analytical argument complete, I will offer a summary of the material presented along with
a conclusion on what this means for us as a society.
Summary and Conclusion
In this essay, I argued that the billboard campaigns funded by secular organizations, including
UnitedCoR and Freedom From Religion Foundation, failed to create convergence with the U.S. public by
presenting a rhetorical vision that says “unity is found in the personal choice to abandon religion” through
fantasy themes of heroic reason, villainous God and the hindrance of religion to a society that rejected this
interpretation of reality.
For this analysis, I discussed the background related to the secular organizations’ billboard
campaigns and the response to their intended message, described Bormann’s fantasy theme and rhetorical
vision, and analyzed the persuasive message of the secular organizations by utilizing Bormann’s rhetorical
approach. With the analysis complete, what does this reveal about American society?
Despite the notion that we as a society are growing more non-religious with millions good without
God, American society resisted and denounced this attempt by the secular community to expand its
presence and impact on society. Even with the realities of 9/11 fresh on the minds of Americans, our
society held to religion and a belief in God over imagining a world without religion. In the presentation of a
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common enemy, Americans found a common tie in their belief in God, superseding their differences and
thereby countering the claims by the secularists that religion brings more harm than good. For it is in the
secular organizations’ attempts at removing the pursuit of religion that the good of religion revealed itself in
U.S. society, solidifying America’s perceptions as such.
Imagine a world without religion? Maybe Americans have no desire to try. Maybe Americans see
that religion forms the nation we have grown to love and cherish: a land of unity and possibilities, finding
freedom in the acceptance of others – something they perceived the secular organizations lacked.
Works Cited
“About the Foundation FAQ.” Freedom From Religion Foundation. 7 Oct. 2010
“Anti-religion billboards for Atlanta.” The Augusta Chronicle 9 Sept. 2010. 11 Oct. 2010
“Atheism shines bright in Kentucky.” FFRF News Release 7 Sept. 2010. 14 Nov. 2010
< http://www.ffrf.org/news/releases/making-freethought-respectable-in-kentucky/>
“Atheist Billboard Turns Heads Along I-10.” WDSU.com 29 May 2009. 14 Nov. 2010
< http://www.wdsu.com/r/19601414/detail.html>
Bormann, Ernest G. “Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality.”
The Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 396-407.
Bormann, Ernest G. “A Fantasy Theme Analysis of the Television Coverage of the Hostage
Release and the Reagan Inaugural.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (1982): 133-
145.
“FFRF posts 10 irreverent billboards in Flint. Mich.” FFRF News Release 7 Oct. 2010. 7 Oct.
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2010
Foss, Sonja K. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press,
2004.
“Frequently Asked Questions.” United Coalition of Reason 14 Nov. 2010
Funk, Tim. “Atheists buy sign on Billy Graham Parkway.” CharlotteObserver.com 24 June
2010. 7 Oct. 2010
“Godless Groups in Silicon Valley Organize.” United Coalition of Reason 16 Nov. 2009. 13 Oct.
2010
Halo: Reach. 2010. Microsoft Game Studios. 13 Mar. 2011
Harris, Dan, and Enjoli Francis. “Billboard Battle in Bible Belt: One Nation „Under God‟ or Not?”
ABC News 19 July 2010: 1-2. 7 Oct. 2010
Haythorn, Russell. “Atheist Billboards Now Up In Denver.” The Denver Channel 18 Nov. 2008.
7 Oct. 2010
McPherson, Kelly. “„Good Without God‟ Billboards Spark Controversy.” CBS Local 2 Dec. 2009.
11 Oct. 2010
Mesmer, Aaron. “„Under God‟ spray painted onto secular Pledge billboard.” News 14 Carolina
28 June 2010. 7 Oct. 2010
“Millions Reaching for Most Ambitious Halo Game Yet.” Microsoft News Center 14 Sept. 2010.
13 Mar. 2011
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“Non Religious Billboard Brings Controversy To Nashville.” NewsChannel5.com 2 Nov. 2009. 14
Nov. 2010 < http://www.newschannel5.com/global/story.asp?s=11431023>
Obama, Barack. “Call to Renewal Keynote Address.” Organizing for America. Washington, D.C.
28 June 2006. 14 Mar. 2011 < http://www.barackobama.com/2006/06/28/
call_to_renewal_keynote_address.php>
Poole, Shelia M. “Billboards shun religion, promote separation of church and state.” The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 10 Sept. 2010. 7 Oct. 2010
“Residents want sign promoting atheism removed.” WSVN.com 2 July 2009. 14 Nov. 2010
“Secular billboard aimed at Kentucky fair goers.” Herald-Dispatch.com 8 Aug. 2010. 13 Oct.
2010
“Secularist group posts „Praise Darwin‟ billboards.” USA TODAY 10 Feb. 2009. 14 Nov. 2010
Selk, Avi. “Secular kids‟ camp in Collin County aims to provide questions, not answers.” The
Dallas Morning News 31 Aug. 2009. 11 Oct. 2010
Slodkowski, Antoni, and Sachi Izumi. “Microsoft „Halo: Reach‟ sales hit $200 million on 1 st day.”
Reuters 16 Sept. 2010. 13 Mar. 2011
Sullivan, Eileen. “White House promotes Muslim help against terrorism.” MSNBC.com 7 Mar.
2011. 14 Mar. 2011
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“United Coalition of Reason.” United Coalition of Reason. 7 Oct. 2010
U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. 2010. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. 14 Mar. 2011
“What’s New at UnitedCoR.” United Coalition of Reason 7 Dec. 2009. 7 Oct. 2010
“What’s New at UnitedCoR.” United Coalition of Reason 14 Sept. 2010. 7 Oct. 2010
Zucchino, David. “An atheism debate writ large, on billboards.” Los Angeles Times 1 Aug. 2010.
14 Nov. 2010 < http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/01/nation/
la-na-hometown-asheville-20100801>
58

Jordan D. Leising
Saint Joseph’s College
To Change a Constitution:
The Dilemma of Alvaro Uribe and the People of Colombia
Within the American democracy, there is a special reverence towards the constitution, which is the
basis for law in America. The phrase “We the people” evokes a certain awe-inspiring feeling in the hearts of
those who honor its long heritage by calling themselves Americans. However, in the Constitution’s long
history, amending this document has been used to change the law to the benefit of the few. After the death
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected to an unprecedented for terms to the presidency, President
Harry S Truman sought to put a check on the number of terms a person could serve in that office. This
resulted in the passage of the Twenty-second Amendment, which limits any person elected to the
presidency to serving two four-year terms.
However, because of this limit, former presidents have argued it weakens their power and clout
during that second term. According to Ken Rudin of National Public Radio, because of this weakened
power, several measures to repeal the Amendment have been introduced into Congress, but have never
made it out of committee. Why has this measure died each time it is brought up? The reason for the
creation of the Twenty-second Amendment was to put a check on the person occupying the Oval Office,
reminding him that he is a citizen, not a dictator or monarch.
The discussion of term limits and the powers of the nation’s executive are not just limited to the
United States. Currently, in South America, Colombia is asking itself: should we allow Álvaro Uribe to
run for a third term? Currently, the Colombian constitution allows for two terms of office, but the
question still stands: should Colombia allow Uribe to serve another term? This paper shall look at both
sides of the issue: first, looking at the president himself and his current record in office, second, the
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positives of allowing Uribe to run again, then the negatives of changing the Colombian constitution, and
finally, putting this information together for a final answer on the matter.
Álvaro Uribe: a president’s record
Álvaro Uribe began his public career as a bureaucrat in the 1970’s, then being elected to the
Colombian Senate for two consecutive terms from 1986-1994, and was then elected as governor in 1995.
In 2002 he was elected president, and began working on making his country a safer place. During his
tenure, he has worked to eliminate rebel groups and force them out of towns and cities back into the
country, which has brought the level of violence down dramatically. Rebel groups since Uribe took office
have seen senior rebel commanders have been killed, deserted, or captured.
However, despite his successes in securing peace within his country, Uribe’s administration has also
had its share of scandals. After changing the constitution so he could run for a second term, the Colombian
Supreme Court called for an investigation into that election, after a legislator was convicted of accepting a
bribe to secure his support for the constitutional reform to allow Uribe to run again. Also, human rights
groups have criticized Uribe’s government for being too lenient with paramilitary officers who agreed to
disband their outfits. Many former allies of Uribe in the legislature have also been alleged to have ties to
some paramilitary groups. Uribe’s record, both the good and bad in it, should be taken into consideration
when asking whether he should be allowed to run.
Time for change: should Colombia allow reform?
Allowing Uribe to run again is not necessarily a question of Constitutional ethics or philosophy of
law, but more a matter of urgency and reason. Arguably, the current conditions in Colombia call for Uribe
to stay in office. One reason for Uribe staying in office is his crusade against paramilitary groups and terror
organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In 1962, after years of unrest
due to disapproval of Conservative Party regimes, left-wing, Marxist enclaves formed an alliance to bring
radical change to Colombia in the form of Communism. Responsible for most violence not related to drug
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trafficking, FARC is known for using violence for the mere purpose of making local inhabitants fear them.
In one case cited by The Economist, Wilson Vega, a farmer from a small village in rural Colombia, tells how
FARC called a town meeting, just to shoot five people they claimed to have “collaborated” with the army
and government-supporting paramilitaries.
In Colombia’s war against its rebels, Uribe has made great strides to eradicate all non-army militia
groups. Since coming into office, using American aid and a new tax on wealth, he has made Colombia less
violent by increasing security forces by half. With the decrease in violence, economic growth has
flourished. In the same article by The Economist, charts show that since 2002 (the year Uribe was elected) as
murders per one hundred thousand dropped from around sixty-five to below forty in 2007, Colombian
Gross Domestic Product has increased significantly each year during that same period.
While this is good news, the fact remains that FARC, despite its numbers dwindling comparably, is
still in Colombia and still using violence against the state and those that support it. Urban violence and the
murder rate in Colombia’s second largest city went up in 2009, possibly caused by FARC, and also claims
that FARC has regrouped and using snipers and landmines against the military. The FARC issue, despite
their “love” of violence, is not only being looked at with a perspective that military is the only option.
Uribe, whose father was murdered by FARC operatives during the 1970’s, continually states that he would
offer FARC peace talks, if they would lay down their weapons first.
When it comes to the task of disarming militia groups in Colombia paramilitary groups must also be
considered. These groups, a relic of the proxy conflicts of the Cold War, have since the fall of the Soviet
Union been fighting FARC and anything that would threaten the current Colombian system. However,
their activities in battling FARC go outside the bounds of Colombian law, as they use violence and murder
to achieve their aims. Also, there are claims that some of these paramilitaries have committed human rights
violations, massacres, the forced displacement of people, and causing the disappearances of many.
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However, Uribe has been successful in disbanding these paramilitaries, with 31,000 men being demobilized
and the commanders accepting and confessing their crimes.
The final part of reducing violence in Colombia is the eradication of coca growing and cocaine
processing. Colombia is currently the world’s largest producer of cocaine, a title not to be celebrated. In
order to throw off this title, Uribe’s government, with the help of the United States, has begun to use
security forces to eradicate cocaine production. Since 2001 cocaine production has fallen to around half of
what it was at the start of the new millennium. However, there is still money flowing from drug sales into
the hands of rebels and guerilla groups involved in the production of cocaine.
Another area that gives Uribe an edge in his battle with the Constitution is his attempt at social
change. At the same time that the United States is driving for reformed healthcare, so too are the
Colombians, especially President Uribe. However, unlike the reform called on by American president
Barack Obama, which is based on public debate of the implementation and funding options, Uribe is
pushing it through the Colombian legislature, without time for public debate. While his idea for reform is
good, there must be public debate on his ideas and also other ideas must be considered. For instance, an
option for funding a new health care system in Colombia presented by Uribe was a higher tax on luxuries
like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling, and also cutting losses in governmental revenue through corruption
and bureaucracy. While at the same time, Uribe calls for a set list of prescription drugs that must be used,
and fines for doctors who do not prescribe from that list.
The main argument for allowing Uribe run a third time would be to give him time. Uribe needs
more time to get the country on the right foot. In the article by The Economist, Uribe is cited saying that the
security improvements are not irreversible, and for that same reason he seeks constitutional change. Uribe
needs time to make sure that: first, groups like FARC and the paramilitaries are surely on their way to
demobilizing; second, to get the amount of cocaine production in Colombia down drastically enough to no
longer be the world’s top cocaine producer; and thirdly, make the country better and safer than when he
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was first elected. But the question remains and one that will be examined next: does time needed for
change override the principles and laws that a country is built on?
The principle of a thing such as a Constitution
Now that the positive aspects of allowing Uribe to run a third time have been examined, a look at
the opposite end of the spectrum is necessary. The question here is simply: Why should he not run again?
This section will look at a philosophical view and a practical view of the debate and answer unfavorably on
the proposal to allow Uribe a third election.
To begin, Wall Street Journal journalist Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes in her article on Uribe’s
constitutional battle,
“In a republic, institutional order is bound by a rule of law designed to protect the
rights of individuals against each other and against the power of the state. Property rights,
civil liberties, and human progress all fare better when state actors, even those who are
wildly popular, are constrained by institutional checks and balances.”
While it is good that Uribe has reestablished the rule of law and personal security in
Colombia, it does not make sense for him to only use the rule of law when it benefits him and tuck
it away when it becomes a nuisance. It can also be argued that it seems Uribe does not want to let
go of the presidency as he has become accustomed to the power. This can be a bad mentality in
Latin America especially. The preverbal authoritarian ruler on horseback, which has become the
stereotype of presidents and heads of state in Latin America for years, is never far away in their
train of thought. For this exact reason Colombia and many other Latin American countries put a
cap on one term so that Colombians would not be stifled by an authoritative dictator as they did in
the past.
While on that subject, analogies have been made to other notable Latin American heads of
state that have changed the law to their liking. In an article for the Wall Street Journal by David
Luhnow, a United States official is quoted saying, “A third term doesn’t set a good precedent,
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particularly when you have neighbors like Chavez trying to do the same thing.” While their policies
are very different in ideology and implementation, there is a striking resemblance to Uribe’s
challenge and the constitutional reform of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Here in the United States
and elsewhere, one sees the constitutional change brought on by Chavez to keep power and
believes it to be wrong. However, because Colombia is an Ally in the war on drugs, is one
expected to see the same action by Uribe and believe it is okay?
Earlier discussion brought up Uribe’s call for healthcare reform. While this can be seen as
a plus, it is also a red flag to show that his grasp of power is getting far too tight. While more
affordable health care is a laudable cause, pushing it through without public debate is nonsensical.
Other options, possibly better than those proposed, need to be heard, and compromises must be
made so that everyone can look at the bill and appreciate it. Although having a set list of proper
drug treatments leaves out the possibility of bad drugs or those with terrible side effects, making
them choose only from this list instead of possible traditional, herbal treatments and then fining
doctors who choose treatment off the list does not allow doctors to fully practice medicine but
rather makes them settle for mediocre treatment of patients.
Also, logically his call for constitutional change does not make sense. In an article for the
New York Times, Juan Forero cites Uribe saying “We cannot fight patronage if we practice
patronage.” This comment, especially since he fought for changing the law to benefit himself,
commits the fallacy of inconsistency. If he were to truly believe in not supporting patronage, then
he would not practice it. Andres Pastrana, the former Colombian President, in an interview with
Colombian newspaper El Espectador after the introduction of the first constitutional reform says
“What I do not like is for the president to amend the constitution for his own benefit.” While
patronage generally takes form in one helping their friends, it is still patronage when one helps
themselves by changing the law.
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All together for the answer
Should Colombia change its constitution to allow Uribe a third run? No, it should not.
Uribe, while he has been a great president in the fact that his country is now safer than it has been
in decades, produces only half the cocaine it did in 2001, and is becoming a safe haven for true
democracy, all that progress would be lost to the idea that a president could change the constitution
just so he could stay in office. Uribe’s own words sum up the lesson that lies at the heart of this
issue. In an interview with Charlie Rose on his PBS program, Uribe says that the important thing is
to re-elect the policies, not necessarily the person. The change that Uribe has started cannot end
with him should Colombia decide not to allow him to run, as it should. Someone needs to take up
the torch in order that Colombia might progress further toward being on the level that the United
States or any other advanced democracy is.
Uribe’s effect on Colombia is profound. To take a country that saw civil war and rampant
drug creation with very little in terms of stable traditional economy and turn it into a country with
continual economic growth is extraordinary. However, to use constitutional amendments to one’s
own personal benefit undermines those achievements and brings a country back towards the
instability it suffered in years past. Yet, Colombia can take satisfaction in the fact that they, under
the leadership of Alvaro Uribe, have pulled themselves from near total civil war, and that they have
become a model for Latin American countries for years to come.
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References
Anastasia O'Grady, Mary. "Uribe's Constitutional challenge." Wall Street Journal (New York City),
December 7, 2009, Eastern edition.
BBC News. "BBC NEWS | Americas | Profile: Alvaro Uribe Velez." BBC NEWS | News Front Page.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3214685.stm (accessed February 21, 2010).
Biography of Ãlvaro Uribe VÃlez. (n.d.). The Wharton Global Alumni Forum 2009 - Bogota. Retrieved
February 21, 2010, from http://www.whartonbogota09.com/bio-uribe.html
Charlie Rose. Alvaro Uribe. Sept 22, 2008. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9269.
The Economist. "Álvaro Uribe's Colombia: Not yet the promised land | The Economist." Economist.com.
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15176507 (accessed
February 21, 2010).
The Economist. "Colombia's health reforms: Shock treatment | The Economist." Economist.com.
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15469812 (accessed
February 21, 2010).
El Espectador (Bogota), "Colombia: Ex-President Pastrana on re-election, his administration, peace moves,"
July 18, 2004, sec. Latin America.
Forero, Juan. "A 2nd Term? Colombians Deeply Split." The New York Times (New York City), April 26, 2004,
Late edition.
Forero, Juan. "Colombian President Scrambling in Fight to Run Again." New York Times (New York City ),
October 8, 2005, Late edition.
Luhnow, David. "Colombia's Leader Digs in -- After U.S.-Backed Successes, Uribe Weighs Extended
Reign." Wall Street Journal (New York City), December 31, 2008, Eastern edition.
Luhnow, David. "World News: Colombia's Uribe Clears Election Hurdle -- Congressional Vote Allows
President to Seek a Third Consecutive Term; Court Must Rule on Legislation." Wall Street Journal
(New York City), September 3, 2009, Eastern edition.
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Rudin, Ken. "Ronald Reagan And The 22nd Amendment - Political Junkie Blog : NPR." NPR : National
Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/politicaljunkie/2009/06/ronald_reagan_and_the_22nd_ame.html
(accessed February 21, 2010).
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Matthew Lewis
University of Michigan – Flint
Michael Hoffman’s Transformation of Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
In Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena is portrayed as a very intelligent woman
who not only analyzes her relationships with others in great depth but can also uncover the weaknesses in
others through her analysis. She appears as a strong character with firm beliefs and feelings. In his 1999 film
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream Michael Hoffman recreates and reduces Helena as powerful character. Rather
than portraying her as an intelligent, relatively mature character, he depicts her as a childish being without
intelligence. Hoffman envisions her as irrational in her thoughts and actions and as much less defiant than in
Shakespeare’s text. Through his use of camera angles and other film tactics as well as through her actions
and tone of voice, Hoffman transforms Helena into a silly, immature and childish character.
The first thing that is noticed about Hoffman’s vision of Helena in his film, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is
how he uses her actions to portray her childish, unintelligent character. When Helena is first introduced in the film,
it is when she is calling for Demetrius while outside of the house. She sees him on the balcony of the house
and begins to yell for him. In this part, she ignores the fact that she is in a place full of people and is
directing much attention towards herself. These actions show her childish side, because she does not care
about the people around her or the fact that she is drawing much attention. This is very similar to what a
child would do, for they often cause scenes out in public without a realization of the people around and
what a fool they are making of themselves. After Demetrius simply shuts the door behind himself as he goes
back inside, Helena throws a temper tantrum and storms away. She looks as if she is about to weep over
him ignoring her and stomps away angrily. She begins to walk down some stairs with her bicycle at her side
wheeling it down the steps with not much care or respect for her possession. This reaction to Demetrius
ignoring her is very immature and Hoffman enhances it through these actions. Rather than being more of an
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adult figure, when things didn’t go her way she stormed off pouting. These are very childish actions and it
continues to grow even more immature through the way she is handling her bicycle. Bicycles were a rather
new invention in the time this film is set and to have one was a privilege. To be tossing it around with not
much respect for showed that Helena was acting very childish and expressed the director’s vision of her
childish, immature character even more. This part also shows her lack of intelligence because the way she is
acting makes her seem to be an uneducated person that does not know right from wrong. This
unintelligence and childish character is enhanced even more through Hoffman making her hair very
disheveled in this scene. She appears that she does not care much for her appearance and does not properly
uphold her image as a woman. When Helena is next seen in the film, she is continuing to pout about her
situation with Demetrius and jealousy of Hermia. She is trudging through a heavy downpour of rain in nice
clothes and a hat, bicycle at her side, yet no umbrella. As she is storming down the street, it can be noticed
that every single person around her has an umbrella. This lack of care in her actions to be trudging through
heavy rain in nice clothes without protection from the elements further enhances Hoffman’s vision of her
immature and unintelligent character. It is childish of her to be getting soaking wet in her elegant clothing
and showing no care of this occurring to her. By not using an umbrella it also goes to show her lack of
intelligence compared to others by not protecting herself from the elements. Everybody else is using an
umbrella except for her which shows her displacement from the adult life and individualism by being a very
childish and unintelligent being. She shows her immature side even more in this scene while stomping down
the street when she aggressively bumps an old lady walking by causing her to drop her things. She doesn’t
even react to nearly knocking over the old lady and doesn’t even acknowledge her after she is scolded for it.
Helena instead acts very immature and continues to trudge down the street pouting about her misfortunes.
Through Helena’s actions Hoffman clearly portrays his childish, immature, and unintelligent vision of her.
Hoffman continues to portray his envisioning of Helena to be childish, immature, and unintelligent through his
directing of her tone of voice throughout the film. In Helena’s first appearance in the film, she has a very
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annoying, screechy voice as she is hollering for Demetrius. Her voice resembles very much so that of a
whining child that will continue to repeat themselves until they get what they want. She hollers his name
over and over again, with each time her voice getting more and more shrill. This repetition and annoying
tone very closely portrays a young child who wants something and will cry until they get it. This immature
tone of voice also plays a part in showing her lack of intelligence because she is seen as a whiny person that
instead of addressing her situation and approaching it through different means, she simply repeats herself
with a more annoying pitch every time in plans that she will eventually get what she wants. After giving up
on the situation and beginning to walk down the steps, she is speaking to herself while thinking about the
situation. In this monologue, she changes her tone of voice while speaking her two opinions as to whether
she is worthy of him or not. When she reaches the conclusion that Demetrius does not view her as fair as
Hermia, her tone slowly begins to get depressing and angry. She begins to degrade herself and enhances it
through this tone in her voice. This is a very childish way of coping with things, as her tone of voice
expresses her lack of self-esteem in the situation and shows her immatureness in dealing with inner
conflicts. Rather than thinking of a better explanation or giving herself a chance, she simply degrades herself
and it is expressed through her tone of voice how immature she is about the situation. In Helena’s next
scene, Hoffman continues to portray her childish and immature ways through her whiny tone of voice. As
Helena is trudging down the street, she is mumbling to herself about her situation with Demetrius. Her
tone of voice is very whiny and it sounds as if she is holding back tears in this part. Through this tone of
voice and mumbling, it portrays how Helena is acting very childish and immature about her situation and
instead of coming up with a course of action, she is simply whining and feeling sorry for herself. She
continuously degrades herself and it is seen through this whiny and frustrated tone of voice which is very
childish of a grown woman to do. Hoffman indeed portrays Helena to be childish, immature, and
unintelligent through her tone of voice throughout the film.
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Another thing that Hoffman uses to portray Helena’s childish and unintelligent demeanor is through the use of
the camera position in the scenes that she is in. In the first scene that she makes an appearance, he uses the
technique of both a high angle and low angle shot. When Demetrius appears out on the balcony, the camera
is positioned up where he is and looking down on Helena. The camera position shows how she is looked
down upon in the film as a lesser character. This outlook on her expresses Hoffman’s vision of her being
somewhat excluded from society and lacking in intelligence and maturity. Hoffman then switches to the
low angle shot, with the camera down by Helena looking up at Demetrius. This position of the camera
shows how Demetrius is looked upon as superior and more important than Helena in the eyes of the
director. She is a much more unintelligent being and acts very childish throughout the film. The use of this
camera angle puts more emphasis on her being an unintelligent and childish being that does not fit in well
with the society around her. In the next scene that Helena takes part in, the director also uses different
camera positions to express his vision of Helena. The scene opens up with her walking with her bike down
the street through the pouring rain and the camera shot is that of an extreme long shot. This use of the
camera captures the whole street around her and all the people on screen with her. It enhances her
disassociation with society and how different she is because it is able to capture how everybody has an
umbrella except for her. This use of the camera better portrays the director’s viewing of her as a childish
and unintelligent being because it is able to capture how she is disregarding the weather and everybody else
is not doing so. This shot makes it easy to see that she is much more childish and immature than the society
around her. Through the use of the camera position it is easy to see Hoffman’s vision of Helena.
Hoffman clearly shows his vision of Helena being an immature and unintelligent character through
his direction of her actions, tone of voice, and use of the camera position. Helena clearly is seen as an
unintelligent being and acts very immature throughout the entire film. This vision by Hoffman is shown
throughout the whole film every time that Helena appears on the screen. It is a unique way of viewing
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Helena as opposed to the traditional intelligent character as she is portrayed in the play by Shakespeare.
Through all of his tactics of directing, the director clearly got his vision across to the audience.
Works Cited
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By William Shakespeare. Dir. Michael Hoffman. Perf.
Christian Bale, Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart, Kevin Kline, Sophie Marceau,
Michelle Pfeiffer, David Srathairn, Stanley Rucci. Twentieth Century Fox, 1999.
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Aryn Lietzke
Carroll University
Conflicting Commands: A Deconstructionist Analysis of John Donne’s
“Batter My Heart”
John Donne’s “Batter My Heart” is not a typical religious poem. It is filled with violent, and
sometimes even sexual, imagery as well as contradictions. The speaker is addressing God and so the poem is
a type of prayer. But the request that drives it is unclear. It is impossible to determine not only what the
speaker wants, but also what the speaker really values. There are many ambiguities and ultimately
unresolved paradoxes in the poem that create tension. The tension is never resolved. Ultimately, it remains
unclear what values are privileged in the poem. Therefore, the meaning is undecideable.
In “Batter My Heart”, the speaker is directly addressing God and asking Him to do certain things.
He wants God to crash into his heart like a battering ram instead of softly tapping at the entrance (lines 1-
2). This is an unusual request, asking God to batter, or “beat continuously and violently so as to bruise or
shatter” (“batter”) his heart. He continues his painful petitions by saying, “that I may rise and stand,
o’erthrow me” (line 3). This is an example of an aporia, or paradox that is ultimately unresolved. One
cannot be lifted up by being overthrown; it is impossible to ascend by being knocked down or defeated.
Another example of contradiction through ambiguous language in the poem is in the last few lines, when
the speaker asks God to “imprison me, for I / Except You enthrall me, never shall be free / Nor ever
chaste, except You ravish me” (lines 12-14). In these lines, the speaker is telling God to either make him a
slave or “to captivate” him (“enthrall”) in order to make him free. Essentially, he is telling God that he will
never posses liberty unless God removes his free will through force. Then he says that unless God violates
or steals something from him, he will not be pure. Not only is this statement an aporia, but it is asking God
to commit a sin. To rape or forcefully deprive someone of his or her virginity is clearly against God’s laws.
Even if the word “ravish” in this line means simply to steal, that would also be breaking a commandment,
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and even then the speaker never reveals what he is asking God to take from him if not his chastity or
virginity. No matter what definition of the word is used, the meaning is contradictory.
Because of these conflicting commands, it is never clear what the speaker wants from God. And as
Jacques Derrida stated, there are opposing value systems at work in all of Western thought (Bressler 121).
These binary oppositions are formed by the belief that “one concept is superior and defines itself by its
opposite or inferior center” (Bressler 121). Consequently, “one element will always be privileged (be in a
superior position) and the other unprivileged” (Bressler 121). The main binary opposition at work in his
petitions is free/enslaved. He asks God to incarcerate him, to take away his choices in order to be free. He
seems to request that God make Him free to love Him by removing his free will, or choice. But real love is
always a voluntary action. It cannot be forced. Therefore, it makes sense to say that the speaker is really
asking God to make him His slave because he feels he can never really love God. So the binary opposition is
reversed to enslaved/free. Because of this, it is uncertain whether the speaker is actually asking God to give
him the ability to love Him and whether he thinks it possible to love the Lord.
The other obvious contradiction in the poem occurs when the speaker tells God, “Yet dearly I love
You, and would be loved fain. / But am betrothed unto Your enemy” (lines 9-10). This statement presents
a conflicting portrait of the speaker’s character. With it, he claims to be both a Christian believer and a
lover of Satan, or the Devil, God’s enemy. In fact, the Biblical name Satan literally means “adversary”
(“Satan”). He says that he loves God and the Devil. That cannot be true. If the speaker is a Christian allied to
God, then he cannot claim to be devoted to the Devil. The Bible makes it clear that Christians cannot
follow Satan and still be saved. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather
with me scatters” (NIV Matt. 12:30) as well as “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me” (NIV John 14:6). When a person is controlled by the Devil he or she is
clearly against God and cannot claim fellowship with the Lord. It makes no sense that a speaker who
describes himself as so closely allied with Satan would still pray to God. Therefore the speaker’s true
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allegiance or religious state is uncertain. When the speaker claims that he is engaged to the Devil, he is at
the very least saying that he is closely connected to and under his power. This makes it impossible to
determine the speaker’s character.
The ambiguity of the speaker’s character or religious loyalty demonstrates a conflict between belief
and disbelief. Therefore, the binary opposition clouding the character of the speaker is faith/doubt. Since he
is addressing God, it seems that he must believe in His existence and feel a need for prayer. On the surface,
the speaker seems to be asking God to redeem him and change his life and heart so that they please Him.
But the despairing tone and ambiguous diction suggest disbelief or the impossibility of an answer to his
prayer, inverting the opposition to doubt/faith. This is most strongly shown by his contradictory,
impossible requests, that God enslave him to free him and “ravish” him to make him pure (lines 12-14).
Also, the majority of the poem is dedicated to describing the speaker in sinful, doubting terms. He calls
himself “a usurped town, to another due” that wants to let God rule his life but struggles “to no end” (lines
5-6) and the Devil’s lover (line 10). He states that his reason, or the part of him that is God’s representative
“proves weak or untrue” (lines 7-8), which is equivalent to saying his faith is faltering. Only once does he
describe himself as a believing Christian when he says to God, “Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved
fain” (line 9). But he negates that claim by saying directly afterward, “But I am betrothed unto Your enemy”
(line 10). Because the speaker spends much more time portraying himself as a sinner controlled by doubt,
he privileges doubt over faith.
The reversal of this and other binary oppositions in the poem shows what Derrida termed “the
impossibility of ever choosing a correct interpretation because meaning is an ongoing activity that is always
in progress, always based upon différance” (Bressler 127). This means that because “meaning is derived from
differences” (Bressler 126) between concepts, and every person possesses his or her own unique worldview,
there is an infinite number of possible interpretations for any given text. There is no single source of
absolute truth because the significance of everything is based on the differences between concepts. For
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every single concept that is valued, there is an opposite concept that is unprivileged. Although Western
thinking is constrained by logocentrism and so privileges certain values or explanations over others, “no
hierarchy or binary operation is right and no other is wrong” (Bressler 127). When the binary oppositions
or operations in a text can be reversed, the text is opened up to more possible meanings.
In conclusion, the poem “Batter My Heart” is full of ambiguous diction, aporias, and tensions that
are never resolved. The speaker’s true religious identity and the nature of his prayer are never clearly
revealed. The struggle between faith and doubt is never settled. The binary oppositions in the poem can all
be inverted and generate alternate interpretations of the text. Since “Batter My Heart “has many meanings
and, therefore, no definitive interpretation,” it is by definition undecideable (Bressler 116-117). There is no
single, definitive meaning for this text just as there is no one true meaning for any written work.
Works Cited
“Batter.” v. 1 Def. 1. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 2 nd ed. Oxford UP, 2010. Web. 21. Nov.
2010.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 4 th ed. New
Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
Donne, John. “Batter My Heart.” Poetry, An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6 th ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 365-366. Print.
“Enthral/Entrall” v. Def. 1 and 2. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 2 nd ed. Oxford UP, 2010. Web. 2 Dec.
2010.
Holy Bible, New International Version. Colorado Springs: International Bible Society, 1984.
“Ravish” v. Def. 1b. and 5b. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 2 nd ed. Oxford UP, 2010. Web.
21 Nov. 2010.
“Satan.” Def. 2a. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 2 nd ed. Oxford UP, 2010. Web. 2
Dec. 2010.
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Danielle Malloy
Saint Xavier University
Echoes of the Master:
Boethius’ Influence on Medieval Voices from King Alfred to Chaucer
Introduction
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly referred to as Boethius, was born in the fifth
century and wrote the majority of his philosophical texts in the sixth century. Boethius had an eventful life
in Rome; he married the daughter of Symmachus, a powerful consul and devoted Christian who, like
Boethius, was quite concerned with traditional literary culture. Boethius’ adoption into Symmachus’ family
granted Boethius aristocratic status, and he was eventually made Master of Offices, a position in which he
acted as the intermediary between King Theoderic of Rome and all those who sought access to him. But he
eventually made enemies when he strongly and vocally opposed corruption in the Roman court. This
vociferous intolerance of corruption eventually resulted in his unjust arrest on false accusations of treason
and sacrilege, and it is during his imprisonment when he wrote his most famous treatise, The Consolation of
Philosophy.
The Consolation centers around a fictitious “Boethius” and his weighty philosophical discussions with
Lady Philosophy, who acts as a kind of mentor to the protagonist throughout the text, holding forth to him
at length the transience of life, predestination, free will, the futility of earthly goods or wealth, and the
search for the true good through God’s guidance. While Boethius was a Christian, his text does not serve as
an explicitly Christian treatise but rather a more secular philosophical guide to its readers. While Boethius
is considered the last of the classical scholars, it was, in fact, the medieval era when Boethius’ authority was
most respected and revered.
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The influence that the Consolation had on medieval English writers is especially evident in texts
ranging from the Anglo-Saxon epoch to the fourteenth century, which include: King Alfred’s translation of
the Consolation and Geoffrey Chaucer’s epic poem Troilus and Criseyde. Each text was influenced by the
Boethian source in its own unique way, and there exists a clear and distinct evolution of the effects of that
influence from one epoch to the next. King Alfred provided a more utilitarian translation of the Consolation,
adding more Christian elements in order to appeal to his own political agenda by encouraging the
educational and literary reform in the Anglo-Saxon people. Chaucer, on the other hand, took a more acute
literary approach to Boethius’ text by employing Boethian concepts in order to challenge the genre and
social ethos of chivalric love that existed in the fourteenth century by inverting these concepts in his
protagonists to demonstrate the irrationality of the genre. In Boethian philosophy, these medieval authors
found a vehicle to present their own ideals; Boethius proved to be particularly accessible to these authors
because of the practicality with which he presents his own ideologies.
King Alfred
Alfred the Great reigned over the Anglo-Saxon kingdom during a time of unmitigated hardship.
Almost immediately after his succession to the throne in 871, Alfred was forced to deal with Viking
invaders and their increased forays into, and occupation of, the English nation. But with a victory over the
Vikings in 878 at Edington, Alfred was able finally to pursue what he considered to be the highest priority
for his now united Anglo-Saxon kingdom: religious and educational reform. In Alfred the Great: Assers Life of
King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge address the state of religion
and learning in England in this period, arguing that: “The Church had fallen into serious decay during the
ninth century, and although some laid the blame on the Viking invasions, others attributed the decline to
general failings on the part of the English themselves” (26). Alfred, therefore, seeing the general lack that
pervaded his kingdom, believed that the revival of religious practice and educational discipline would
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encourage the Anglo-Saxon people on the road to enlightenment and cultural civilization, which would
ultimately allow for the political and social stability that he so longed for in his newly unified kingdom.
Alfred was keenly aware that in order for a kingdom to survive and ultimately prosper, it first had
to possess a stable and competent ruler that could be trusted and relied upon. In King Alfred and Boethius, F.
Anne Payne discusses the daunting tasks that faced Alfred in the early days of his reign, saying: “[Alfred]
alone had to halt the intellectual and religious decay, spelled out in the loss of libraries and monasteries and
teachers, in the lack of interest in the religious life, in the waning of morale in a people who had every
reason to expect the murder or desertion of their kings” (4). Though Payne states that Alfred “alone” had to
undertake the task of reform, it is clear from the historical sources that the extensive scope of Alfred’s
agenda necessitated a great deal of help from those close to the king, particularly from those that would aid
him in his goal for a revival of religious practice and educational discipline. Alfred took steps to ensure that
the ecclesiastical community, those most responsible for distributing religious and classical learning to the
masses, would be a trained and educated group. By educating those in leadership positions in the church,
Alfred fostered the survival and growth of Christianity in his kingdom and initiated a close bond between
religion and statehood during his reign. Alfred ultimately decided to produce vernacular translations of the
Latin texts he was studying, because he felt that classical scholarship was “necessary for all men to know,” if
they would be considered truly educated (Keynes and Lapidge 30). Of these classical texts that Alfred
and/or his scholars translated for circulation among the ecclesiastics, Alfred’s rendering of Boethius’
Consolation of Philosophy was the most influential.
Alfred saw Boethius as a highly respected classical authority, and the content of the Consolation
proved to resonate with the king since the treatise details the struggle of a man dealing with the injustice
that necessarily results from the reign of a corrupt ruler, a theme prevalent in Alfred’s historical reality.
The Consolation is full of politically-charged language, including a great deal of discussion regarding the
necessity of a good ruler, as well as the heinousness of treachery, and Alfred takes the opportunity to
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expand on these political themes in his own translation. Alfred deploys these themes to demonstrate the
stability that can be found through justice, and the purpose of his text, seems to be to acknowledge and
recreate, for an Anglo-Saxon audience, the philosophical guidance that Boethius’ Consolation offered to its
original readership. Still, Alfred provided more than just a secular, philosophical translation; indeed, he
recognized that he could employ the Consolation as both a secular and Christian tool for teaching. Because
Christianity is not directly referred to in Boethius’ text, Alfred made additions in order to elicit an “overtly
Christian message” from his translation (Keynes and Lapidge 28). With these additions, Alfred provided his
audience, the clergy, with a reinforcement of the omnipotence of God, as well as the comfort, or
consolation, that God gives to his followers. In her book, King Alfred and Boethius, F. Anne Payne comments
on the reasoning behind Alfred’s additions and changes to the text, stating that, “The changes Alfred made
to the Consolation define his world, not that of Boethius, through the eyes of Old English” (14). The changes
and additions that Alfred made to the text are not meant to undermine Boethius’ version; rather, Alfred
used the Consolation as a means to present the classical ideals of Boethius in the vernacular to the secular and
ecclesiastical communities to offer a model of learning and a philosophical guide that would strengthen the
members of both the church and state and enable political and social cohesion. Alfred translated the
Consolation with his own reality in mind, which means that the foremost themes of Alfred’s text include the
stability that a sound ruler can bring, the comfort that God gives his people, and the dangers of kingship.
Thus, through additions to Boethius’ text, Alfred uses the Consolation as a pedagogical tool and platform to
forward his political agenda in Anglo-Saxon England.
The most straightforward parallel between Boethius and Alfred’s texts is the existence of a primary
counselor for the protagonist. In Boethius’ Consolation, Lady Philosophy serves as the protagonist’s guide
through his difficult journey to find happiness in a fickle world, and, as her moniker emphasizes, the advice
and teachings she imparts to Boethius derive from philosophical tenets. While her philosophy is often
colored with discussion and reference to God, she discusses God less in terms of divinity and more in terms
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of a divine good that man should strive to attain. In Book Two, Chapter 10, Philosophy states, “We have
already conceded that the highest good is happiness… And so, we must acknowledge that God is happiness
itself… so the highest divinity must itself be the highest happiness” (Boethius 59). While Philosophy
describes God in these divine terms, she ultimately goes on to argue that man himself can share in this
divinity and paramount happiness with God.
On the other hand, Alfred‟s protagonist also has a counselor to guide him, but Alfred replaces
Boethius‟ Lady Philosophy with the abstract Wisdom and Reason. Alfred presents Wisdom and Reason as
counselors who attempt to steer Boethius toward the path of good through reverence and worship of a very
Christian God. In their book, A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, Philip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne
make the connection between Wisdom and Christianity in Alfred‟s translation, saying that “Boethius‟ Lady
Philosophy is frequently designated as „se Wisdom‟ in Alfred‟s rendering, and ultimately wisdom equates
with God” (144). By personifying wisdom as God, Alfred injects the philosophical purpose of Boethius‟
counselor with Christian ideology. Alfred, thus, creates a marriage between the classical philosophy of
Boethius‟ Consolation and his own Christian purpose in the kingdom, reinforcing the unification of church
and state that Alfred champions.
Another parallel that exists in the text is the discussion of achieving divinity. In Book Three of
Boethius‟ Consolation, Lady Philosophy has established that in order for people to achieve happiness, they
must attain the highest good, and God is the highest good. She then provides this “corollary” to describe the
process by which men can achieve divinity. Lady Philosophy states,
Since men become happy by achieving happiness, and happiness itself is divinity,
clearly they
become happy by attaining divinity. Now just as men become just by
acquiring justice… by the same
argument they must become gods once they have acquired divinity… God is by nature one only, but
nothing prevents the greatest possible number from sharing in that divinity (Boethius 59).
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Because Boethius is presenting the Consolation as a philosophical, rather than religious, text, he allows for
men, through philosophical reflection, to “be gods,” or in other words, to attain a transcendent form of
divinity. On the other hand, Alfred’s interpretation of this passage centers around God as the source of all
goods, rather than man’s ability to achieve a god-like divinity. Alfred writes, “Yet there is only one God; he
is the stem and base of all forms of good; from Him these forms all come, and to Him they return, and He
ruleth all. Though He is the beginning and foundation of all good men and all good things, yet the forms of
good that issue from him are many” (Alfred 73). Alfred is more concerned with the concept of humility and
obedience, for both God and secular leaders such as himself. Because Alfred wants to maintain God as the
ultimate and all-powerful ruler over Christendom, he must necessarily alter Boethius’ more liberal and
philosophical statement that men can achieve divinity. For Alfred, God is not only the “stem” and “base” of
all goods but also the omnipotent governor over the Christian world. In order for God’s subjects to achieve
happiness, they must practice obedience and self-restraint rather than attempt to achieve personal divinity,
and this is the same obedience and self-restraint that Alfred knows is necessary in order for his own Anglo-
Saxon kingdom to achieve and maintain political stability.
In the final chapter of Alfred’s Consolation, he takes perhaps the greatest license in his translation of
the Boethian work. In Boethius’ version, Lady Philosophy finishes the discourse with an explanation of how
God observes the world through his foreknowledge and she also presents a short, if abrupt, summary of her
previous commentary. Lady Philosophy asserts, “God continually observes with foreknowledge all things
from on high, and his eternal
vision, which is ever in the present… dispenses rewards to the good and
punishments to the wicked… So avoid vices, cultivate virtues, raise your minds to righteous hopes, pour
out your humble prayers to heaven” (Boethius 114). Lady Philosophy discusses God much as she did
throughout the text, namely as the observer from on high and the divine power that can lead men to good.
In this text, it is crucial that God is an entity that “observes” rather than rules from on high because it is
Boethius’ aim to employ the concept of God primarily as a force of divine good. He makes this concept
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clear in the language that he utilizes through Lady Philosophy, who encourages her audience not to call out
explicitly for the mercy of God’s will, but to “raise [their] minds to righteous hopes,” or, in other words, to
go forth on the quest for divine good, rather than to engage solely in the praise of God.
On the other hand, Alfred uses the last few passages in the text as a means to reflect upon the
nature of God and to demonstrate the necessity for an ultimate reverence for and obedience to Him. Alfred
describes God in the following passage: “Nor doth He dread aught, for there is none more mighty, nor even
like unto Him. He is ever giving, yet He never waneth in aught. He is ever almighty, for He willeth good
and never evil. He needeth nothing. He is ever watching, never sleeping. He is ever equally kind. He is ever
eternal, for the time never was when He was not, nor ever shall be” (Alfred 129). Alfred catalogues the
capabilities and powers of omniscient God in order to reinforce the importance of man’s worship of Him,
who is the only figure that can truly lead humanity down the path of good. Rather than being an “observer,”
as is the God in Boethius’ text, Alfred’s God is an active participant in the lives of his worshippers. This
active nature is significant for Alfred to delineate because it implies that God will provide constant
protection for his worshippers. Furthermore, while this passage explicitly addresses God’s omnipotence
through language such as, “there is none more mighty,” in order to incite religious obedience, it also serves
as an example to which an earthly leader, such as Alfred, can aspire. Alfred seems to hope that this passage
will inspire both religious and political obedience because he ascribes secular language to God, positing the
notion that the sacred and the religious are one; in essence, God and the king are one in the qualities that
they possess.
One addition that is particularly relevant to both Alfred’s Christian message and political concerns
is a passage in which Alfred describes God as the “light” that Boethius sees, leading him towards good. God
is described in Alfred’s translation with language that makes direct reference to His stability and identity as
the ultimate and sole leader of His people: “Through goodness God created all things, for of Himself He
ruleth all the before said was good; and He is alone the steady Ruler, and Steersman, and Rudder, and
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Helm, for He guideth and governeth all creatures, even as a good steersman does a ship” (Alfred 83). This
passage illustrates that God is a “steady ruler,” language that alludes to the social stability and Christian
worship that Alfred champions. The term “[He] governeth” is also referential to Alfred’s position as a
secular leader, or governor, of his people. While God rules “all creatures” in the world, Alfred is
responsible for “all creatures” of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Alfred wants to reassure his audience that
stability and unity can be attained through a sharing of responsibilities by God and secular leaders.
Alfred also personalizes his translation when he discusses the necessities and limitations of royal
power in Chapter XVII of his Consolation. In his translation, Alfred writes:
I desired instruments and materials to carry out the work I was set to do, which was
that I
should virtuously and fittingly administer the authority committed unto me.
Now no man, as thou
knowest, can get full play for his natural gifts, nor conduct and
administer government, unless he hath fit
tools, and the raw material to work upon. By material I mean that which is necessary to the exercise of
natural powers; thus a
king’s raw material and instruments of rule are a well-peopled land, and he must
have men of prayer, men of war, and men of work. As thou knowest, without these
tools no
king may display his special talent (Alfred 34).
This passage in Alfred’s translation marks a clear addition to the text of the original; here, Alfred
details the need for man to possess the tools and materials necessary to “conduct and administer
government,” which is an obvious concern for a king attempting to reform his kingdom. He unabashedly
makes reference to the “king’s raw material and instruments of rule,” and discusses the three classes of men
(prayer men, military men, and work men) that must exist, according to Alfred, in order for a kingdom to
run properly. These three classes of men fall into the category of what Alfred believed made up an
honorable, fit, and stable kingdom. With the statement that a king must have his land “well-peopled,”
Alfred addresses the significance of the presence of capable and learned subjects in order for a kingdom to
be successful. Alfred’s reference to the importance of “prayer men,” or ecclesiastical figures, and his
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placement of these bead men at the beginning of his list, demonstrates Alfred’s emphasis on the importance
of proper, honorable Christian worship in a well-ordered kingdom. In this moment, Alfred’s addition
makes sense to the function of Boethius’ Consolation, by supplanting the philosophy, which Boethius offers as
comfort, for an entity that would resonate more with Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon subjects: worship that leads to a
stable kingdom.
Furthermore, Alfred’s concern with treachery and false friends is evident in Chapter XXIV of his
translation of the Consolation of Philosophy. Keynes and Lapidge discuss Alfred’s concern with treachery,
saying, “[Alfred] lays great stress on the keeping of oaths; he announces severe punishment for treachery to
a lord, and especially for treachery to a king” (39). Both Boethius and Alfred, in their respective texts,
discuss the importance of true friendship in achieving virtue in one’s life. In Boethius’ Consolation,
Philosophy discusses friendship in regards to its capability to aid men in achieving good. She states, “The
most sacred category of good, that of friendship, lies in the province of virtue rather than Fortune”
(Boethius 42). Philosophy sheds only a positive light on the good that true friendship can bring. On the
other hand, Alfred makes clear his reservations about the ability to find truly good and trustworthy friends.
Alfred’s Boethius states, “Nature joins friends together and unites them with a very inseparable love; but by
means of these worldly goods and the wealth of this life we oftener make foes than friends” (46). This
addition marks a clear departure from the discussion of seemingly benign friendship that Philosophy offers
in Boethius’ text. Alfred directly references the current situation in England with the phrase, “with these
worldly goods and the wealth of this life.” In a kingdom recently freed from political conflict, Alfred was
quite troubled by the thought of internal threats and treason. While Alfred may not have personally dealt
with any realized attacks on his position, his preoccupation with the ideological and philosophical threat of
treason in a well-ordered kingdom, a worry that would have existed for the leader of any powerful
kingdom, is evident through this particular addition to the original Boethian text.
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Through his translation of Boethius‟ Consolation of Philosophy, King Alfred demonstrated the
personal and political concerns that he was dealing with during his reign. The Consolation served as an
integral part of his program of educational and religious reform, because Boethius‟ philosophical treatise,
while colored by Alfred with a great deal of Christian language, was contextualized in a way that made it, an
antiquated classical text, socially and politically relevant. In fact, Alfred enabled the very survival of the
Consolation of Philosophy in Anglo-Saxon England. His work was disseminated and shared in monasteries
throughout England, and act that would eventually this text to be made available to the Anglo-Saxon
kingdom, a new audience for classical works. His concepts of kingship and law-giving helped to inform
subsequent social, historical, and religious, and literary developments in Anglo-Saxon England, and other
writers would continue to utilize Boethian philosophy in their works throughout the middle and later
periods of the Medieval ages. Geoffrey Chaucer‟s work echoes Boethian concepts, but he expands on
Boethian philosophies in Troilus and Criseyde in order to expose the flawed social ethos of fourteenth
century England.
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer is best known for his narrative collection, the Canterbury Tales, but it is the writings
in which Chaucer utilizes Boethius‟ works that are among his most compelling texts, namely Troilus and
Criseyde. In Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer revisits concepts and ideals first presented by Boethius in the
Consolation of Philosophy, including: the intervention of Fortune in man‟s life, the importance of selfknowledge,
the fickleness of desire for worldly goods and false felicity, and the fact that one‟s entrance into
the afterlife will bring joy. In addition to Chaucer‟s own translation of the Consolation of Philosophy, the
presence of such a multitude of Boethian themes in Troilus and Criseyde speaks to the effects of Boethian
philosophy on Chaucer‟s work, as Theodore Stroud acknowledges in his article, “Boethius‟ Influence on
Chaucer‟s „Troilus,‟” saying that, “Boethius was a basic stimulant to Chaucer‟s creative imagination…
although Boethius had already cast his work in narrative form, Chaucer might consider a further attempt to
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meet the human demand for philosophy „concealed within the poetic veil‟” (2). The conclusion to draw
then, is that Chaucer intends to present Boethius‟ philosophical concepts to the masses in a more accessible
way; here, by virtue of poetry. Through his employment of key concepts from the Consolation, Chaucer
creates a marriage between the philosophical and chivalric genres. By doing so, he is able to create an
antidote to the problematic genre of chivalric romance, which is predominantly concerned with unrealistic
and irrational portrayals of love, nobility, and gender roles. With a Boethian treatment, Troilus and Criseyde
ultimately serves as Chaucer‟s own “consolation” to his Medieval audience.
But it is not Chaucer‟s primary aim merely to translate concepts from a philosophical text into poetry
nor to parrot themes from the Consolation in his protagonists. On the contrary, Chaucer‟s agenda seems to
be to demonstrate the personal inconsistencies and moral failures of the protagonists to invert, rather than
parallel, Boethian ideals and themes from the Consolation, a program that ultimately illustrates the chivalric
ethos as a fundamentally flawed paradigm. The way in which Chaucer deploys these inversions
demonstrates the problematic nature of the autonomous male figures involved in courtly love as well as the
hopeless female figures subjected to the expectations of romance. Troilus, the flawed hero, is unable to
overcome his earthly woes but is ultimately redeemed through his death and, subsequently, his
comprehension of the errors of his worldly ways. Pandarus, the puppeteer, has only one goal throughout
the majority of the poem, which is to aid Troilus in achieving the conquest of Criseyde. He does not fulfill
his position as physician to Troilus, and Chaucer‟s depiction of Pandarus emphasizes the lack of
responsibility that male figures possess, a limited self-perception meant to forward the male cause at the
cost of the female subject‟s dignity.
Criseyde, however, achieves a certain kind of redemption through the Boethian model because she
attempts to adhere to the principles of pragmatism laid out in the Consolation; indeed, she is the only
character who possesses any semblance of a moral core, which helps to establish and lend credibility to her
pragmatic voice in the narrative. Regardless of her moral aspirations, however, Criseyde is ultimately
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forced to betray Troilus because as a woman in the courtly milieu, she inherently lacks the power and
agency to challenge her male oppressors in a any other real way. But by portraying Criseyde as a rational
and pragmatic Boethian voice through her early speeches, primarily her responses to Pandarus in Books One
and Three, Chaucer presents Troilus and Criseyde as a text that can be read as sympathetic towards the
forlorn female plight in the institution of courtly love. Ultimately, through his characterizations of Troilus,
Pandarus, and Criseyde, Chaucer attempts to challenge the genre of the chivalric romance, primarily its
gender expectations, its amorality, and its amorous unreality.
The first and most compelling Boethian ideal in the text of Troilus and Criseyde is the intervention of
Fortune in the life of man, a concept that exists in both the Consolation and in Troilus and Criseyde, and in both
texts, Fortune is cast in a negative light because of the pain that she seemingly brings to her recipients. In
Book One of the Consolation, Boethius laments his imprisonment, and he accuses Fortune of importuning
him with woe, saying “… did Fortune feel no shame, if not at the indictment of an innocent man, at least at
the worthlessness of my accusers?” (Boethius 10). At this point in the text, Lady Philosophy has yet to
illuminate for Boethius the true, just nature of Fortune; thus, while Boethius does not yet recognize that
every adversity is a blessing in disguise, his complaint in regards to his unwarranted imprisonment is
forgivable because it is grounded in Boethius’ concern for the precarious nature of existence. Troilus, on
the other hand, curses Fortune for a different reason: he is afflicted with the pain of being in love. In
Chaucer and Menippean Satire, F. Anne Payne discusses the implications of Troilus’ “allusions of Fortune,”
which, according to her, “indicate his necessity to believe in an outside force controlling his destiny, and his
unwillingness to act as if he is free…[they indicate] an inability to distinguish between body and spirit,
between the ephemeral and the eternal” (115). Payne illuminates Troilus’ need to blame his misfortune on
anyone other than himself; in essence, Troilus is unable to take responsibility for his own fortune, blaming
the entity of Fortune for all of his woes. In regards to his despair over his lust for Criseyde, Troilus asserts,
“Fortune is my fo;… May of hire cruel whiel the harm withstonde” (Chaucer I. 837-839). Like Boethius,
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Troilus is woeful, but it is his banal reason for despair, his common lust for Criseyde, that renders him a
problematic philosopher and a flawed chivalric lover. While Boethius is portrayed as a willing and able
pupil in the Consolation, Troilus fails in his attempts to better understand the divine order that decides his
situation. Moreover, the triviality of Troilus’ complaint becomes even more evident when framed against
Boethius’ valid complaint, and Chaucer’s intent seems to be to delineate not only the superficiality of
Troilus’ woe but also the lack of responsibility and agency that Troilus exhibits in his actions. Troilus’ lack
of agency and understanding seems to reinforce, therefore, the ultimate irrationality of courtly love and
inverts the virtues present in the Consolation.
In the Consolation, the second most compelling philosophical tenet is found when Lady Philosophy
advocates the attainment of self-knowledge to Boethius in his search for enlightenment. Lady Philosophy
wants her pupil to overcome his initial bitterness towards Fortune in order to come to know himself and to
obtain divinity. Because men have the ability to achieve the true good, Philosophy argues that man must
consciously and constantly fight the urge to fall into a nature that is below him (i.e. a nature in which
avarice rules). She states, “The status of man’s nature is this: it excels all other things only when aware of
itself, but if it ceases to know itself, it falls below the level of the beasts” (Boethius 31). As Philosophy
addresses the “moral blemish” that is a lack of self-knowledge, Boethius obediently listens, absorbs, and
appears to accept this particular teaching.
Like Boethius, Troilus is also cynical at the outset of Troilus and Criseyde, but the similarities between
the male protagonists end there. While Boethius is bitter because of his unjust imprisonment, Troilus’
bitterness and cynicism is directed merely towards women because he believes that women are a needless
enterprise; in essence, Troilus loses the chance to attain self-knowledge because his stubbornness debilitates
his ability to discern his own ideological failings. Troilus’ misogynistic demeanor quickly changes when
Cupid strikes Troilus with his arrow; indeed, he is transformed from naysayer to love-stricken fool in a
matter of seconds. His sudden change is addressed by the narrator thus: “With a look his heart wex a-fere,
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That he that now was moost in pride above, / Wax sodeynly moost subgit into love” (Chaucer I. 229-
231). This rapid (and undesired) alteration is problematic for Troilus throughout the span of the poem.
Because of Cupid’s intervention, Troilus is ultimately incapable of possessing any self-knowledge because
the “self” he deals with following the arrow strike is no longer a self that he can control, or examine, with
any precision. Thus, through the fortune that befell him through his own faults, Troilus’ only capability is
to fulfill the role of a flawed lover because he no longer possesses the ability to control his own emotions or
to look inward and reflect on his reality. Through the attainment of self-knowledge, therefore, Boethius is
able to overcome these initial feelings, whereas any chance of attaining self-knowledge is lost for Troilus
very early in the poem’s trajectory. Rather than actively pursuing Criseyde, Troilus passively and pitifully
worships her from afar because he has lost the ability to think for himself, at least in regards to love, and
Troilus’ inadequacy as a man is made evident by this passivity. In essence, Chaucer uses the Boethian moral
of self-knowledge to demonstrate what Troilus and the chivalric narrative lacks; in this case, it is the
assertiveness and integrity necessary for a true, pure love to “succeed.”
In both the Consolation and Troilus and Criseyde, it is also evident that the acquisition of worldly
commodities such as wealth, ambition, or, in Troilus’ case, Criseyde, can only bring misery to those who
seek them. Philosophy consistently discusses the worthlessness of possessions in order to reinforce the
importance of achieving virtue through oneself and through God. Philosophy names such possessions (e.g.
jewels, riches, and physical pleasure) so that Boethius will understand the temptations that he must deal
with in order to overcome his desire for transient things. Furthermore, Philosophy asserts that it is only
through friendship that one can achieve virtue. She states, “The most sacred category of good, that of
friendship, lies in the province of virtue” (Boethius 42). Boethius recognizes that in order to be truly
virtuous, he must shun worldly possessions and focus instead on achieving the true good through such
channels as honorable friendship.
On the contrary, Troilus and Criseyde is a narrative that is fueled by obsessive desire and open betrayal.
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Troilus’ mind is continuously occupied with the possession of Criseyde, and his worldly lovesickness has
rendered him practically incapable of functioning as a rational being. His obsession is described in Book
One by Chaucer in this way: “So much, day by day, his owene thought, / For lust to hire gan quicken and
encresse, / That every other charge he set at nought” (Chaucer I. 442-444). Through his lust for her,
Troilus transforms Criseyde into an object, a mere possession whose existence is only necessary because she
is the object of Troilus’ desire; as a result, he has also let his burning desire to acquire this possession
overcome his very sanity and existence. Whereas Boethius understands that he must eschew his worldly
possessions if he wishes to achieve the true good, Troilus lacks the ability to achieve any real, true
relationship with Criseyde, or anyone else, because he is blinded by his lust. In his dissertation, Boethian
Philosophy as the Informing Principle in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Robert Newland Shorter discusses
Troilus’ choice to pursue Criseyde, a decision that ultimately leads to his great misfortune. Shorter states,
“Troilus does have freedom, but chooses to pursue false bliss and thus condemns himself to earthly sorrow”
(202). As Shorter asserts, Troilus is in control of his own destiny; he has the freedom to avoid “false bliss”
with Criseyde, but ultimately Troilus’ obsession with the acquisition of Criseyde overcomes any rational
thoughts he might have about pursuing true happiness. Whereas Boethius accepts Philosophy’s teachings
that one must forego worldly possessions, and, in regards to relationships, focus only on friendship, Troilus
uses his freedom for his own fleeting self-interest, rather than considering the implications for his future.
The next significant shared tenet of Boethian philosophy shared in Troilus and Criseyde is the idea that
man’s entrance into the afterlife will bring him eternal joy. Philosophy addresses the transcendence of man
into heaven, asserting that at the point at which a man dies, his mind will eschew all worldly ideals in order
to achieve true happiness in heaven if he has lived a life of virtue. Lady Philosophy explains to Boethius, “…
If the mind is happily self-aware, is loosed from its earthly prison, and in freedom makes for heaven, it
surely scorns all earthly business” (Boethius 36). For a mind that has surrendered itself to God’s will and
has surpassed the want for worldly goods, the transference to heaven will be elementary.
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Troilus, on the other hand, appears to champion only worldly ideals throughout the poem, yet
directly following his death, he is transmitted to the Eighth Sphere where he is allowed to survey the
commonality of the human world. Chaucer describes the scene in this way: “And down from thennes faste
he gan avyse /… / this wrecched world, and held al vanite / To respect of the pleyn felicite / That is in
hevene above / … / in himself he louch right at the wo / Of hem that wepten for his deth so faste”
(Chaucer V. 1814, 1817-1819, 1821-1822). In this moment, Troilus suddenly realizes the failings of the
transitory human world. Unlike Boethius, who gains transcendent knowledge while still on the earthly
sphere because he heeds to teachings of Philosophy, Troilus’ experience was not one of progressive
learning; rather, Troilus reaches “enlightenment” only through an out-of-body experience that is a direct
result of his physical death. Here, Chaucer seems to satirize Troilus’ enlightenment; indeed, Troilus’
ascension and subsequent realization prove so ultimately contradictory to his actions during the course of
poem that it is impossible to take his newly-acquired enlightenment seriously. Chaucer seems to be arguing
that while the male chivalric figure has the potential to gain wisdom from his experiences, this potential is
not realized because of the inherent flaws that he exhibits throughout the course of the chivalric narrative.
In fact, it seems that death is the only way that Troilus can gain wisdom or learn any moral lessons. Here,
Chaucer demonstrates a deliberate inversion of the way in which Troilus and Boethius achieve their
respective “enlightenment.” Boethius is validated through his obedience and ultimate understanding of the
concepts that Philosophy teaches him, whereas Troilus, lacking any such self-awareness and discipline,
learns nothing throughout the poem while he is alive.
While both Lady Philosophy and Pandarus attempt to fulfill the role of physician to their respective
patients, it is only Philosophy who prevails in the task. Philosophy’s tactic to assuage Boethius is to
approach his complaints with a “calm demeanour of indifference” (Boethius 10). She consistently provides
Boethius with firm, yet concerned dialogue in order to help him understand the divine forces that govern
the world. Boethius trusts Philosophy because she refuses to simply pacify him; rather, she, at times
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fiercely and relentlessly, discusses with Boethius the importance of his recognition that God’s will is
omniscient. At the outset of their discourse, Philosophy remarks, “You have forgotten your own identity…
Forgetting who you are has made you confused… You believe that the changes of fortune which have
befallen you are random and unguided” (Boethius 17). It is Philosophy’s aim to aid Boethius, and her
straightforward means of addressing his symptoms reinforces her credibility with her pupil.
Pandarus, on the other hand, coddles Troilus throughout the poem’s entirety with his foul
ministrations, a deliberate inversion of the person and personage of Lady Philosophy. His affiliation with
Troilus is based in a plethora of immoralities, the greatest of which is his willingness to compromise his
niece’s honor in order to provide Troilus with sexual satisfaction. For Pandarus, his role as “physician” to
Troilus’ “patient” revolves solely around Troilus’ attainment of Criseyde; indeed, he provides no
philosophical insights on life, unlike Philosophy, who does so repeatedly with Boethius. According to F.
Anne Payne in her book, Chaucer and Menippean Satire, Pandarus lacks the moral core necessary to provide
insight to his “patient.” She writes, “The speeches that Chaucer gives to Pandarus… ignore the whole
universe of moral structures, all the implications and complexities that surround these passages in the
Consolation…” (Payne 98). While Pandarus may believe that he is helping Troilus, Payne makes it evident
that Chaucer deliberately gives Pandarus speeches that are, in fact, totally meaningless or morally
detrimental. Pandarus’ lack of morals essentially renders him an unreliable and incapable physician.
Moreover, Pandarus fails in all aspects as an advisor to Troilus when he fails to sympathize with Troilus’
distress at his loss of Criseyde. Instead of consoling him as a logical friend might, Pandarus rants about all of
the other women that Troilus could possess. Pandarus is both amoral and obtuse, and as Payne points out
above, he is unable, because of these flaws, to provide Troilus with any complex, rational, or even
thoughtful insights. In Book Four, Pandarus exclaims, “This town is ful of ladys al aboute; / And, to my
doom, fairer than swiche twelve / As ere she was” (Chaucer IV. 401-403). This blatant disregard for
Troilus’ sorrow reinforces Pandarus’ unsuitability as a mentor; moreover, Troilus’ ignorance and gullibility
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are made ultimately manifest because this is the result of his following the advice of this pseudo-counselor
throughout the majority of the poem. The relationship between the two men is a deliberate inversion of
the counselor/counseled binary and the model of virtuous friendship framed in the Consolation. In his
depiction of Pandarus and his accompanying relationship with Troilus, Chaucer also lambasts the lofty
expectations of the chivalric romance, asserting that the two male protagonists are unable to reach their
ultimate, singular goal of bringing Troilus “bliss” through his possession of Criseyde. Pandarus is, in
essence, pimping for Troilus, the deviant, and this act inverts the honorable, idealized expectations of the
romantic genre. Their depraved aims – and their subsequent failures – can be nothing more than a flawed
performance for the audience to wonder at.
Unlike Troilus and Pandarus, Criseyde is not an inversion of any specific character in the Consolation,
which only features discourse between Boethius and Lady Philosophy. Chaucer, somewhat paradoxically,
creates Criseyde as both an embodiment of Boethian pragmatism and the unfortunate object of Troilus‟
affection. For despite Criseyde‟s ultimate loss of honor and lack of agency in the poem, she proves to be
the only character with rationality and any semblance of a moral compass. In the narrative, she represents
the virtuous qualities that the character of Boethius eventually embodies in the Consolation, including
practicality and wisdom. From the outset, Criseyde does not hesitate to tell Pandarus her feelings in
regards to his intimations to “do wey your barbe” and “lat us daunce.” (Chaucer II. 110, 111). As a young
widow, Criseyde reasonably wants to retain her honorable reputation. In reply to Pandarus, she exclaims,
“„I! God forbade! Be ye mad? / Is that a widewes life? / … / It satte me wel bet ay in a cave /To bidde and
rede on holy seyntes lives‟” (Chaucer II. 113-114, 116-117). Rather than submitting to Pandarus‟ request,
Criseyde asserts herself through her principles, which, as a widow with an absentee father and a conniving
uncle, are truly her only possessions.
Her most assertive moments in the text, such as the exchange with Pandarus alluded to above, come
when Criseyde‟s loyalty to her faith, as a pious widow, is put to the test. Indeed, Criseyde‟s faithful
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evocation of God also proves to be a common thread to the framework and content of the Consolation, if not
a nearly omnipresent theme. In Philosophy‟s discussion with Boethius about the attainment of happiness,
she states, “We must allow that the highest God is totally full of the highest and perfect good… so true
happiness must reside in God” (Boethius 58). Boethius acknowledges and agrees with this statement, and it
can be assumed that Criseyde would, as well. She proves to be the only character in Troilus and Criseyde who
considers her relationship with God and her devotion to her faith to be of the utmost importance, a theme
that is implicit in the Consolation.
Furthermore, Criseyde also echoes the Boethian concept that worldly joy is transitory in her response
to Pandarus‟ claims that she is causing Troilus much distress. She laments, “„O God, so worldly
selynesse,Which clerkes callen fals felicitee, Imedled is with many a bitternesse! /… / O brotel wele of
mannes joie unstable! / With what wight so thow be, or how thow pleye, / Either he woot that thow, joie,
art mutable, or woot it nought; / it mot ben oot of tweye‟” (Chaucer III. 813-815, 820-823). In this
moment, Criseyde demonstrates her recognition of the difficulties and fleeting nature of worldly joy, or
“fals felicitee.” She also identifies that earthly sexual love, the kind that Troilus possesses for her, is too false
and therefore cannot last. In this speech, with its myriad implications that the world of chivalric romance is
replete with falsities and transience, Criseyde serves as Chaucer‟s voice. He wants to make clear, through
Criseyde, his unfavorable opinion of courtly romance and its shallow conventions.
In the W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. edition of Troilus and Criseyde, Stephen A. Barney writes,
“Many of Criseyde‟s thoughts about the limitations of worldly happiness, „false felicitee,‟ replicate those of
Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy, which Chaucer may have translated shortly before writing Troilus
and Criseyde” (178). Her speech here, indeed colored with Boethian ideology as Barney claims, is a rebuttal
to Pandarus‟ pleas for her submission to Troilus‟ lust. In Book Two, Lady Philosophy explains the woes
that befall men who attempt to achieve worldly happiness. She asserts, “The man who embarks on this
transitory happiness either knows or does not know, how can he be happy in his state of blind ignorance? If
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he does not know, he must inevitably fear the loss of what he is in doubt can be lost, and therefore his
enduring anxiety does not permit him to be happy” (Boethius 27). Criseyde‟s language in her own speech is
reminiscent of the language Lady Philosophy employs, and these two parallel instances in both Troilus and
Criseyde and the Consolation pertain to one of the most omnipresent Boethian themes: worldly happiness and
romantic love are fleeting.
However, Criseyde‟s moments of practicality-driven clarity amongst the mentally clouded likes of
Troilus and Pandarus prove to be brief. Her attempt to remain honorable and righteous is ultimately
thwarted by the irrationalities of the world of “passion” that she is subject to by Pandarus and Troilus. In
“„O brotel wele of mannes joie unstable!‟: Gender and Philosophy in Troilus and Criseyde,” Sashi Nair
discusses Criseyde‟s ultimate downfall in the poem despite her principles. Nair asserts that “Criseyde‟s last
spoken line demonstrates that her pragmatic reasoning makes reference to Boethian principles, but rules out
any possibility that she may take these principles far enough to transcend her earthly pain” (54). While
Chaucer utilizes Criseyde to project the Boethian ideals of reason and wisdom that the other protagonists
fail to attain, Criseyde is ultimately subject to the limitations of the genre of a flawed courtly romance, and
her failure essentially explicates the failures of the genre. This failure of her reason and wisdom reinforces
Chaucer‟s characterization of Criseyde as a paradox: though she espouses the integrity and understanding
that the male protagonists should strive for, she is rendered an agent-less woman subject to the demands of
male desire and courtly love through her interactions with the other protagonists of Troilus and Criseyde.
With Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer manages, successfully, to bring the insights of Boethius into the
14 th century while effectively undermining the genre of chivalric love. Through a Boethian lens, the
characters are no longer merely players in a flawed chivalric romance; rather, they represent an inversion of
Boethian ideals and themes. The chivalric narrative is presented in the vernacular, so it would be accessible
to its 14 th century audience, but Chaucer takes the genre even further by top-loading the tale with
philosophical complexity that was not common to stories of courtly love in the medieval era. He answers
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the 14 th century preoccupation with the genre by challenging its virtues, and, essentially, supplanting
romance with philosophy, in this case, Boethian philosophy. Through Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer
eloquently calls into question the social ethos of 14 th century England, including nobility, gender
expectations, and class distinctions, employing the classical teachings of Boethius to fully support his
argument.
Conclusion
Through Boethius, primarily the Consolation of Philosophy, these medieval authors were able to reach
their respective audiences in ways that would not have been possible without the practical, classical
philosophies and ideologies of Boethius to use as a vehicle. He provided his readers with the capacity to
cope with the harsh realities of life, such as its transience, through his thoughtful yet accessible teachings.
What is perhaps so astonishing about Boethius is the scope of his influence; as evidenced by the previous
discussion of King Alfred and Chaucer, it is clear that he had a definitive impact on political, literary, and
social movements spanning throughout nearly the entire medieval era. By examining the extent of
Boethius’ influence in this period, it became clear the evolution in the way that each author utilized his
teachings. Alfred’s utilitarian translation of the Consolation not only aided him in his quest for political
stability, it also paved the way for a revolution of educational discipline in ninth- and tenth-century
England. Centuries later, nearing the end of the medieval period, lauded literary figure Geoffrey Chaucer
would employ the very same Boethian concepts, only he would use these concepts in his articulate poetry to
illustrate the flaws of the genre of courtly romance, and subsequently to question the social ethos, including
nobility and gender expectations, of fourteenth-century England.
The evolution in the manner which these authors utilize the philosophies of Boethius ranges from
political appropriation to a benchmark for cultural and literary change. After investigating, through close
reading and comparison, the ways in which King Alfred and Chaucer molded Boethian ideals to their own
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unique aims, it is clear that the medieval period would have been a great deal less philosophically,
culturally, socially, politically, and literarily informed had it not been for Boethius.
Works Cited
Boethius. Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. P.G. Walsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999. Print.
Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy: King Alfred’s Version, Rendered into Modern
John Sedgefield. West Valley City, UT: Walking Lion Press, 2008. Print.
English. Trans. Walter
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. Ed. Stephen A. Barney. W.W. Norton & Company,
New York, 2006.
DeGregorio, Scott. “Affective Spirituality: Theory and Practice in Bede and Alfred the Great.”
Medieval Studies 22 (2005): 129-139. Web. 20 Jan. 2011.
Inc.:
Essays in
Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge. Alfred the Great: Assers Life of King Alfred and other
Sources. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1983. Print.
Contemporary
Nair, Sashi. “„O brotel wele of mannes joie unstable!‟: Gender and Philosophy in Troilus and
Criseyde.” Parergon 23. 2 (2006): 35-56. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.
Payne, F. Anne. Chaucer and Menippean Satire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1981. Print.
Payne, F. Anne. King Alfred and Boethius: An Analysis of the Old English Version of the Consolation of
Philosophy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. Print.
Pulsiano, Philip, and Elaine M. Treharne, eds. A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2001. Print.
Shorter, Robert Newland. Boethian Philosophy as the Informing Principle in Chaucer’s Troilus
Diss. Duke University, 1964. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1965. Print.
Oxford:
and Criseyde.
Stroud, Theodore. “Boethius‟ Influence on Chaucer‟s Troilus.” Modern Philology 49.1 (1951): 1-9.
Web. 7 Oct. 2010.
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Nicole Manter
Purdue University Calumet
A Man Beyond His Years:
Shakespeare and the Issue of Inequality in The Merchant of Venice
Because we are the fortunate residents of contemporary United States, we are familiar with the
seemingly inalienable rights and privileges of freedom, respect, and equality. As a result, it is easy for us to
forget the myriad of hurdles and horrific struggles faced by the individuals lining our history books who
often suffered for the luxuries they never experienced and the extravagances we mistakenly take for
granted. Born of flesh, blood, and with the ability to critically think, we, as humans, are intrinsically equal
in every measure. This message, at the heart of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, resonates loudly
throughout the subtext of the timeless “comedy.”
Why are Shakespeare and The Merchant of Venice important to study? Arguably, the most crucial of
reasons is to gain an historical understanding of freedom, so that we may appreciate the liberties we relish
today. Can you imagine a life without the separation of church and state or a time in which you were
prohibited autonomies because of the genetic predetermination of skin color or sex? Can you envision being
considered less than human? In examining The Merchant of Venice, we must place ourselves in the positions of
Shylock, the play’s stereotypically Jewish antagonist, and Portia, a wealthy noble cursed with the affliction
of being born female.
During the Elizabethan Era, when Shakespeare penned The Merchant of Venice (1596-1598), Jews
were considered a deplorable “alien” race. They were considered less than human and had no rights
including the ownership of property, the freedom to practice their own religion, or the ability to work in
any trade with the exception of money lending upon interest, a practice which was looked down upon by
the Christian majority. Jews were burned at the stake and accused of spreading the Bubonic Plague, for
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participating in blood libels, and for worshiping the devil. Eventually, they were ostracized from their
homes in England when they refused to denounce their faith and convert to Christianity. This brewing anti-
Semitism continued to grow over the next centuries until 1933 with the Nazi rise to power in Germany.
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were backed by Hitler and ordered the separation of Aryans and non-Aryans
which legalized a racist hierarchy. In 1938, the destruction of Jewish businesses and synagogues served as
the transition to “an era of destruction, in which genocide would become the singular focus of Nazi anti-
Semitism,” (ushmm.org). This horrible explosion of Jewish hate, the Holocaust, would dominate the next
twelve years in Europe.
In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is referred to as a devil, berated throughout the
course of the drama, and cast as the play’s ill-fated villain. Protagonist Antonio employs the English
Christian valued ideals of mercy in thwarting Shylocks money-lending business at every opportunity. He
belittles Shylock, comparing him to a dog, and agrees to forfeit a pound of flesh if his own altruistic act of
aiding his friend, Bassanio, rebounds. Wearied by the injustices of his providence, Shylock attempts to
illuminate similarities between himself and Antonio consequently attempting to establish his worth as a
fellow human. “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
Fed the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that,” (3:1:49-57). As Jews, embodied by the
character of Shylock, nearly achieve redemption and recompense through the forfeit of Antonio’s bond,
Shakespeare thrusts Shylock to the dogs much to his audience’s presumed pleasure. Not only is Shylock
stripped of every tangible and intangible asset at the end of the play, his demise occurs at the hand of a
woman, the epitome of all disgrace. Portia, whose true identity is revealed solely to the audience, disguises
herself as a “lawyer,” or State’s Attorney that eventually brings the ax down upon Shylock.
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Though Shakespeare’s comedy was written essentially to appease his Anti-Semitic Christian
audience through the spiritual, financial, and mental battering of the Jew, in Shylock’s monologue,
Shakespeare gives voice to the Jewish community and provides a window into revolutionary thinking—that
we are essentially and innately equal. It is only through empathy that Shakespeare is able to imagine himself
a Jew and give dignity and value to Shylock. It is only through a true recognition of the injustices committed
against Jews that Shakespeare crafts such a heart-wrenching and poignant speech delivered by the tongue of
the oppressed.
Another group robbed of equality until the 20 th century was women. Prior to the 1900’s a woman’s
profession was typically within the home as wife and mother. In the common law of England, married
women were required to give up their names and property to their husbands upon marriage. Similarly in
the colonial United States, a man owned his wife, children, and slaves, who were likened to material
possessions, and women and slaves were legally defenseless without their husbands’ or masters’
permissions. When granted the ability to work, Equity Laws used in England and the United States
prohibited women from working at night or lifting more than 15 pounds, which barred women from many
jobs and supervisory positions. In 1920, women were finally permitted the right to vote, and finally, in the
1960’s and with the onset of the Civil Rights Act, women gained greater educational and occupational
opportunities. The Equal Pay Act was passed that required equal wages for men and women performing
equal work and women were protected from discrimination by employers.
Like Shylock, Portia, who is Bassanio’s wife-to-be, was considered a less-than-equal member of
Venetian society, despite her aristocratic lineage and wealth, having been born a woman. In Western
Europe, women were subjected to laws and social norms that served as a constant reminder of their “place”
in society including whom they belonged to and how they were expected to speak or act. These notions,
concreted into the fiber of women’s beings, were of little consequence to Portia as is particularly evident in
the court scene of The Merchant of Venice.
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In an attempt to liberate Antonio from his barbaric bond with Shylock, Portia disguises herself as a
male lawyer and eloquently gains Antonio’s freedom through impressive knowledge of the law and
extremely persuasive linguistic expression. Though women during the time of Shakespeare’s writing were
the minority and vastly uneducated, it is Portia’s rhetoric and shrewdness that inevitably lead to Antonio’s
life being spared. Her extreme wisdom and cunning allow her to devise a plan that will dupe not only
Shylock but all of the men in the hearing including her fiancé. Portia establishes not only her legal
credibility, but also encourages Shylock to trust her. “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as
the gentle rain from upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that
takes…Mercy is above the sceptered sway; it is enthroned in the hearts of kings; it is an attribute to God
himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation,”
(4.1.192-195). She gives Shylock the option to engage in Christian mercy equating it to a quality of the
Christian God. Upon realizing Shylock will not relent with his bond, “I have an oath in heaven. Shall I lay
perjury upon my soul?” (4:1:225) Portia cleverly presents the folly of his plan through profound
understanding and knowledge of the law. “Have by some surgeon, Shylock, to stop his wounds lest he do
bleed to death. This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are “a pound of flesh.”
But in the cutting it if thou dost shed one drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods are confiscate unto
the state of Venice. For, as thou urgest justice, be assured thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir’st.”
(4:1:322) Though she could have been imprisoned or worse, if caught, Portia risks everything and
illuminates the cleverness, intelligence, and intuition of women by devising the plan to free Antonio and
anticipating the questions, reactions, and proceedings of court despite an utter lack of experience or even
exposure to the court system or judicial affairs of Venice. Through Portia, Shakespeare’s reveals his
empathy, not only to the plight of women, but also his respect for their intuition and scarcely-recognized
courage and wit.
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Why are Shakespeare and The Merchant of Venice important to study? Similar to the atrocities
committed against Jews during the Elizabethan Era and the Holocaust and the discrimination acted against
women, African Americans in the United States suffered blatant prejudice as well. Prior to the Civil Rights
Movement of 1964, Black Americans were treated as second-class citizens in comparison to their White
counterparts. They experienced disenfranchisement, segregation and oppression that included raciallymotivated
violence and oftentimes, murder. The Jim Crow Laws that were enacted between 1876 and
1965 excluded African Americans from classrooms, restrooms, theaters, transportation, juries, and
legislatures in the Southern states. It wasn’t until 1954, with the aid of Thurgood Marshall, the first African
American Supreme Court Justice, the Supreme Court ended the notion of the “separate but equal”
segregation of races via the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling. This monumental ruling was a
precursor to the Civil Rights Movement of 1964 that finally prohibited acts of discrimination of all kinds
based on race, color, religion, and national origin. With its passing, millions of Americans were endowed
with the freedoms granted by the Constitution.
Each of these historical accounts of inequality represents the struggles our ancestors endured to
insure impartiality and tolerance for each of us. Like the Jews during the times of anti-Semitism, as well as
African Americans and women pre-Civil Rights Movement, Shylock and Portia struggled against their
inherent characteristics to obtain egalitarianism. In the end, though Portia’s intelligence is revealed only to
her husband and his companion and though Shylock loses everything he holds dear, Shakespeare illustrates a
respect and understanding for each of the minority groups these two characters represent. Written long
before the Civil Rights Movement or the acceptance of Jews after the Holocaust, The Merchant of Venice is
a touching drama of the universality of humans. Shakespeare clearly recognized today’s prized ideals of
freedom, respect, and equality. In his subtle portrayals of Shylock and Portia, he insinuates the inherent
worth of each individual and rejects the notions of fabricated standards of worth including religion, race,
and gender. The similarities Shakespeare exhibits between Jews and Christians via Shylock’s monologue and
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the proficient intelligence and bravery Portia exhibits as a woman during the trial highlight the fundamental
equality of all humans despite trivial classifications. While the culmination of this story may have been the
anticipated and desired ending for Shakespeare’s audiences, Shakespeare’s attempt at introducing the
revolutionary notion of equality through his characters makes Shakespeare’s play relevant today.
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Sharneé Maresh
University of Michigan-Flint
“History and What we Do With It”:
Sam Deeds’ Changing Perspectives in Lone Star
In the 1996 screenplay, Lone Star, a fascinating view of history and perspective is developed in the
main character, Sam Deeds. In the film, Sam Deeds’ father, Buddy Deeds, was a previous sheriff of Rio
County, Texas. Sam Deeds struggles with the belief that his father was such a legendary man and sees him
in a very different light than the rest of the small community. As the film progresses, it is possible to see a
change in Sam’s understanding of his father and of the history of Rio County as he delves into the
disappearance of his father’s rival, Sheriff Charley Wade. From his transformation, it is possible for the
viewer to see how perspective of history can dramatically affect a person’s outlook. In an interview with
John Sayles, the director of Lone Star, he tells the interviewer that a large portion of Lone Star deals with
“history and what we do with it” (West). It can be seen throughout the film that this applies to Sam Deeds,
the current Rio County Sheriff, as he makes his journey of discovery of his father Buddy Deeds’ past. By
gathering different perspectives, new light is shed on past events that cause Sam Deeds’ view of his
father to undergo radical changes. These changes occur over key scenes in the film, first, in the
restaurant where he speaks with Hollis, later in his discussion with Ben Wetzle, and further with
encounters with other Rio County citizens. Sam’s final change occurs when the true story of Buddy
Deeds and Charley Wade is revealed through Hollis and Otis. From all of these scenes, it possible to
see Sam Deeds’ journey through the past and how it affects his current view.
When Sam speaks to Hollis in the restaurant, he hears the story about his father and
Charley Wade, but he is unsure with this information if his father was really the noble man
everyone thought him to be. At the beginning of Lonestar, the sheriff of Rio county, Sam Deeds, is led out
to the scrub flats outside of Rio County because an old human skull was found. In addition to the skull a
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Mason’s ring and a Rio County sheriff badge were discovered leading Sam to believe that this might be the
body of the infamous Charley Wade. Charley Wade was the Sheriff of Rio County in the time before Sam’s
father, Buddy Deeds, was the sheriff. However, there had always been mystery surrounding his suspicious
and sudden disappearance before Buddy Deeds became Sheriff. After investigating the crime scene, Sam
headed back to town to a Mexican style restaurant where he found Hollis, the town mayor, and a few of his
friends eating dinner and talking about the legendary Buddy Deeds. Sam approached their table and asked
them what they were talking about. Fenton, one of the men at the table, then told Hollis to tell how Buddy
came to be sheriff. Hollis replied, “Hell, everybody heard that story a million times” (Screenplay). At this
point in the film, Sam’s uneasiness about his father’s history can be seen when he persists that Hollis should
tell his story. He challenged, “I’d like to hear it, your version of it” (Screenplay). It is evident that Sam has
heard about his father’s greatness all of his life and he has come to doubt Buddy Deeds really was such a
fantastic man. Hollis continued on to tell his story. He, Charley Wade, and Buddy Deeds were all law
enforcers of Rio County in 1956 and on the night of Charley Wade’s disappearance they were all sitting in a
restaurant. Charley Wade, wearing a Masonic ring, pulled money out of a tortilla basket. Charley said that
Jimmy Herrera, the owner of the restaurant, has a kitchen full of illegal Mexican immigrants and that he
was giving Wade a bribe to stay in business and keep Herrera from going to jail. After taking the money,
Sheriff Wade told Buddy that he had to go and pick up more money from somewhere else, but Buddy
refused. Buddy simply stated that “It’s your deal. You sweat it out of him, you pick it up (Screenplay).” At
this, Sheriff Wade became very angry and Buddy continued to say that Wade should remove himself from
the sheriff’s department and vanish, saying “There's not a soul in this county isn't sick to death of your
bullshit, Charley. You made yourself scarce, you could make a lot of people happy” (Screenplay). Charley
told Buddy that he was fired and that he was a dead man, then left with Hollis to go do another pick up.
From this scene, it is possible to see the differences in Sam Deed’s view of his father, and the popular “noble
lawmaker” that everyone else in town remembered him as. Despite these stories of peacekeeping and
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excellence as a Sheriff, Sam Deeds still has trouble being convinced that his father was as good as everyone
else in Rio County believed him to be.
Later, Buddy Deeds’ interpretation of the past changes when he is called out to a scene in
the scrub flats of Rio County were an old human skull had been found and later when he meet with
Ben Wetzle to discuss the find. Ben Wetzle, the forensics detective, tells Sam that the body was that of a
male Caucasian that was forty to sixty years old at the time of death, five foot nine to five foot eleven, and
chewed tobacco. Also at the scene there had been a Rio County Sherriff’s badge found. From these clues,
Sam concluded that the body must have belonged to the infamous Charley Wade. Because there was not
much to go on and there was no trauma to the skull, Sam jokingly suggested that Charley “Could have gone
out to the base, hopped the fence, dug down into the dirt on the old rifle range and had a heart attack”
(Screenplay). Ben then asked Sam if he remembered what his father carried as a firearm. Sam replied that
it was a Colt Peacemaker, a .45 that he swore by. Confused by Ben’s question, Sam realized that Buddy
was on Ben’s “short list” and became uncomfortable at the thought that his father may have been involved in
the murder of Charley Wade. Ben assured him that names were going to be left out of the investigation
until they solve it. However, it is clear by Sam’s reaction that he never thought about his father being the
murderer of Charley Wade. He simply thought that Charley left town after Buddy threatened him, until
Ben presented him with new information that changed his interpretation of history and what type of person
his father was.
With new information gathered from more people who came in contact with Buddy Deeds
and Charley Wade, Sam draws a new conclusion about his father. Throughout the film Sam spoke to
different characters about his father. He learned from Pete the Mexican janitor that Buddy never busted
him for marijuana but put him in jail for other reasons. Also, Pete told him that while he was serving time
in jail, Buddy let him build a porch for the Deeds while Mrs. Deeds made him homemade meals. When
Sam spoke to Chucho Montoya, he discovered that Charley Wade had murdered Eladio Cruz for bringing
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illegal immigrants across the border. These two situations shows that neither deputy were perfect sheriffs.
When Sam Deeds once again meets with Hollis later in a café, he sits across the table from him with new
concerns. When Hollis greets him with small talk, Sam asks “you thought anymore about our murderer?”
(Screenplay). Hollis acted confused and that he could not remember anything new about the case. Sam
told him that he had an idea about what happened to Charley Wade. He explained, “I think somewhere
between Roderick Bledsoe’s club and his house, Wade ran into Buddy Deeds. I think Buddy put a bullet in
him, waited for him to die, threw him in the trunk of the Sheriff’s car and drove him out by the Army post,
I think he buried him under four feet to sand and never looked back” (Screenplay). Sam took the
information that Hollis gave him earlier in the film where Buddy and Charley argued in the Mexican
restaurant and all the information that he gathered from about town and drew together a conclusion about
his father based on history and different perspectives of it. From this, Sam now viewed his father in an even
different light than before, as a killer who had no regard for the law and no regret for what he had done.
Just when Sam thinks he solved the murder, he is enlightened with new information that
caused him to radically change the way he thought about his father again. Near the end of the film,
Sam finds Hollis and Otis Payne sitting in Big O’s club talking to each other. Sam walked in and after little
talk asked Hollis and Otis, “You two saw it didn’t you? You two saw it when Buddy killed him”
(Screenplay). Sam warned the two that he was going to find out one way or another and when Hollis tried
telling him that his father had a fine sense of judgment, Sam impatiently interrupted him with, “Yeah, and
my mother was a saint. For fifteen years the whole damn town knew he had another woman on the side”
(Screenplay). He continued by saying, “Stole ten thousand dollars to set her up in business. But hell,
what’s that? You got a problem? Buddy’ll fix it. Facing some time in jail? Buddy’ll knock half or it off if
you do what he says, when he says. You got some business that’s not exactly legal? Talk to Buddy...”
(Screenplay). In this scene, Sayles’ shows the deeply negative feelings Sam had for his father. Sam harshly
stated that Buddy Deeds was a murderer and started interrogating the two men and asking where they were
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that night. At this, Otis finally confessed to Sam that he had been there and that he was running illegal
gambling at Big O’s on the side. Otis reflects back on the night and started revealing the events. At this
point, the film flashes back to a scene where young Otis and other young men are in the stock room at
Roderick’s place playing poker in an empty, dimly lit club. Charley Wade came into the club unannounced
and appeared in the doorway of the stockroom when Otis was passing out the cards for a new game. All the
other men at the table saw Charley and left quickly and Charley went over to where Otis was sitting down
close to the floor. He spoke a few words to him with a grim smile on his face and kicked young Otis to the
floor and started stomping on his face repeatedly. Then, he threw Otis into the main parlor. By gunpoint,
he forced young Otis to give him money and when Otis had his back turned, Charley looked at Hollis,
winked, and raised his gun to Otis’ back. Hollis was watching in horror and just before Charley could
shoot, Buddy Deeds stormed through the door and screamed, “Charley Wade!” (Screenplay) and a gun
went off with Charley falling to the floor dead. Director John Sayles uses this scene to show Sam’s false
belief that his father was the murderer. The scene makes the viewer believe that it was Buddy who shot
Charley, but the next frame shows Hollis holding the gun. The film then returns to present day and Hollis
and Otis continued to tell what happened to Charley. When Sam asked about the missing ten thousand
dollars, Hollis explained that it was “widow’s benefits” and that Buddy gave it to that Mexican girl who was
desperate for money after her husband’s murder. It is clear at this point in film that Sam had just acquired
an entirely different view of his father. At the beginning of John Sayles’ film, Sam thought lowly of his
father Buddy. However, as more information was collected about his father, Sam’s negative view changed
and began to view his father in a different way.
John Sayles states that “There is a preoccupation with history in the film...it’s Sam Deeds wanting
to find out the personal history of his father” (West). Throughout the film Lone Star, Sam travels through his
father’s past that uncovers the mystery of Charley Wade’s disappearance by analyzing different perspectives
of history. Through investigating and considering different perspectives, Sam develops a new
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outlook on past events which causes his view of his father to radically change. These changes occur
first in the restaurant where he speaks with Hollis, then, in his discussion with Ben Wetzle, and
further with encounters with other members of Rio County. Sam’s final change in perspective occurs
when the true story of Buddy Deeds and Charley Wade is revealed through conversation with Hollis
and Otis. From all of these scenes, John Sayles is able to present Sam Deeds’ journey through the
past and how it affects his current perspective. This creates a fascinating story to watch and an
interesting study of how perspectives radically affect history.
Works Cited
Lone Star. Dir. John Sayles. Producer John Sloss. Screenplay by John Sayles. Perf. Chris Cooper, Kris
Kristofferson, Elizabeth Pena. Castle rock, 1996.
Lone Star. Screenplay. Written by John Sayles.
West, Dennis, and Joan M. West. “BNorders and Boundaries: An Interview with John Sayles.” Cineaste
22.3 (Summer, 1996):14-16 http://lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/sayles.html.
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Stephen Matteson
Bethel College
Freudian Concepts in Lord of the Flies
A Study of the Ego, Superego, and Id
Abstract
Freud’s concepts of ego, superego, and id are apparent in Lord of the Flies through Ralph, Piggy,
and Jack. Ralph and the ego control the discharge of excitations (on the island and in one’s mind), bring the
influence of the world to their adversary (Jack and the id), and struggle between logic and instinct. Piggy
and the superego represent the development of a civilization, impose precepts and prohibitions on their
leaders (Ralph and the ego), and oppose their rival (Jack and the id). Jack and the id act on instincts,
oppose leadership (Ralph and the ego), and act without influence from the external world. Though Freud’s
concepts are not psychologically accurate, they parallel the characters in Lord of the Flies.
Freudian Concepts in Lord of the Flies
A Study of the Ego, Superego, and Id
William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies tells the tale of a group of boys stranded on a coral island.
Uninhibited by civilization and adults, the boys find that what once promised to be an enjoyable experience
is, in reality, a horrific expression of the capabilities of human nature left unchecked. Through their
experiences on the island and interactions with each other, three Freudian archetypes emerge. Ralph, the
original leader of the boys, can be viewed as the ego. Like the ego, Ralph uses both reason and instinct in
an attempt to make sense of the multitude of external stimuli (from both the island and the boys) in order
to lead the group effectively. Piggy, the lone voice of reason and intelligence on the island, reminds the
boys of the “real world” and assumes the role of the superego (or the ego-ideal). Just as “the ego-ideal
answers in every way to what is expected of the higher nature of man” (Freud, 1952, p. 707), so Piggy
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ases thoughtful insights on the advancements of humankind. The antagonist of the novel, Jack, is then left
to play the part of the id, constantly acting on instincts without the influence of the external world (Freud,
1952). These evidences prove that Lord of the Flies is not merely a fictional account of the struggles of boys
trapped on an island but also a Freudian allegory illustrating the differences and relationships of the ego,
superego, and id.
According to Freud (1952), “in every individual there is a coherent organization of mental
processes, which we call his ego” (p. 699). Though the ego is said to have many purposes, three main
duties of the ego include the discharge of excitations, bringing influence of the world to the id, and
weighing both instinct and reason while making decisions. Ralph is first introduced as being around twelve
years of age with “a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil” (Golding, 2003, p. 6).
Because of his height, strength, and beauty, Ralph becomes the natural leader of the island (Rosenfield,
1999). Like the ego, Ralph, from the beginning of the novel, controls the output of excitations on the
island (Freud, 1952). This is first evident with the discovery of a conch shell that washes up into a pool by
the beach. Piggy, Ralph’s unlikely sidekick, tells Ralph that he should use the conch to call the other boys
from the crash. While this is Piggy’s plan, Ralph uses the information provided by Piggy to carry out the
action and call the first meeting on the island. In this instance, Ralph is regulating the discharge of an
external excitation (that of Piggy). After the boys have assembled and Ralph is elected chief of the island,
he quiets everyone so that he can think about the next course of action. Ralph explains: “I’ve got to have
time to think things out. I can’t decide what to do straight off” (Golding, 2003 p. 24). After contemplating
their situation, Ralph decides to take a small group of boys to survey the island. This is an example of Ralph
converting internal excitations into an action relative to the group. After this group returns, the boys are
thrown into fits of delight at the thought of their very own island. Ralph, though equally excited, realizes
that order simply cannot survive among such chaos. At this point, Ralph establishes a pivotal rule on the
island: only the boy holding the conch may speak at meetings. In this way, Ralph calms physical excitation
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and produces a rule, based on said excitations, for society to function more smoothly. If the group of boys
is compared to a mind, with Ralph as the ego, one can clearly see that, like the ego in a mind, Ralph uses
various types of excitation (internal, external, and cooperative) to bring about positive results.
A second function of the ego according to Freud (1952) is “the task of bringing the influence of the
external world to bear upon the id and its tendencies” (p. 702). Assuming that the character of Jack
represents the concept of the id, it is Ralph’s responsibility, as the symbolic ego, to remind Jack of the
external world. On the island, this external world is clearly viewed as the world of adults (everyone who is
not on the island). By reminding Jack of what the boys had learned in the external world, Ralph helps to
bring balance to the island. After winning the election for chief of the island over Jack, Ralph assures Jack
that the choir will still belong to Jack, as it did before. Immediately, Jack suggests that the choir be the army
of the island. Ralph sees that this suggestion is illogical in that there is no war on the island (as of yet).
Instead, Ralph uses what he has learned in the external world to suggest that the choir be hunters. This
more practical suggestion helps Jack to lead the choir in hunting and gathering food for the group of boys on
the island. Later, while exploring the island, Ralph makes an observation: “There’s no village smoke, and
no boats . . . I think it’s uninhabited” (Golding, 2003 p. 33). While Jack saw the same view, he made no
such observation. In this, “It is easy to see that the ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the
direct influence of the external world” (Freud, 1952, p. 702). Both Jack and Ralph went on the same hike
up the mountain and came to the same vantage point, but Ralph, affected by the “direct influence of the
external world” noted the lack of inhabitants on the island. Through his use of common sense of the
external world in comparison to Jack, the id, Ralph clearly exhibits further characteristics of the ego.
While on the island, Ralph is often faced with a question of logic versus passion. Rosenfield (1999)
explains that “Ralph is every man—or child—and his body becomes the battleground where reason and
instinct struggle, each to assert itself” (p. 4). This power struggle is most evident in confrontations between
Jack, the embodiment of instinct, and Piggy, who thinks about everything logically. All too often, Ralph is
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caught in the middle of this power struggle and is forced to make a decision in favor of one and against the
other. The first confrontation occurs on the first expedition of the island by the few boys Ralph has chosen.
While Jack was included in this group, Piggy was not. As Piggy objects, Jack exclaims, “We don’t want
you . . . three’s enough” (Golding, 2003, p. 25). Ralph, being more sensitive, returns to Piggy without
Jack and tries to encourage Piggy while carrying on with his initial decision. In this particular battle of
instinct and reason, instinct (especially among the group) is more powerful than reason. Piggy, however,
has a notable amount of influence over Ralph’s decisions. Rosenfield (1999) notes that “Ralph alone
recognizes [Piggy’s] superior intelligence but wavers between what he knows to be wise and the group
acceptance his egocentricity demands” (p. 5). Without a group of boys to impress, however, Ralph
embraces the wisdom that Piggy has to offer. When the conch is found, for example, it is Piggy who
instructs Ralph on how to effectively blow the conch. If the id were to take a leave of absence, the ego
would similarly be heavily influenced by the superego. This battle of reason and instinct later occurs within
Ralph, when he describes the “most important thing” (Golding, 2003, p. 44), which is simply to have fun
and to be rescued. These two suggestions perfectly illustrate the constant battle of passion and logic in a
twelve year old boy. Just as the id and superego battle for responsiveness from the ego, Ralph’s attention
also seems to be sought for by influences externally (through Piggy and Jack) and internally.
With Ralph firmly established as an archetypal ego, Piggy may be placed in the role of the superego
on the island. Drew (1963) writes that, like the superego, “Piggy typifies thoughtfulness and intelligence,
the advanced side of man’s mind which has made for human survival and material development” (p. 12).
Three main functions of the superego, according to Freud (1952), include representing the development of
an individual and a race, placing precepts and prohibitions on the ego, and directly opposing the id. With
the island and its new inhabitants representing a mind, Piggy, as the superego, successfully carries out all of
these responsibilities.
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While the vast majority of the boys forget about the ways and wisdom of the outside world, Piggy
holds fast to what he has learned in the hopes that such knowledge will eventually lead to the rescue of the
group. Like the superego, he represents the knowledge of advances in technology and civilization an
individual learns from the external world. Piggy repeatedly brings the group of ecstatic boys back to reality
in the beginning of the novel, informing them that their pilot had mentioned an atom bomb and that the
pilot is now dead. Later, Piggy reminds the boys that “Nobody knows where we are . . . Perhaps they knew
where we was going to; and perhaps not. But they don‟t know where we are „cos we never got there”
(Golding, 2003, p. 40) Logic similar to this forces the group of boys to stop romanticizing the island and
view their situation for what it is: desperate. Later, while attempting to start a signal fire on the island, it is
Piggy‟s glasses that make the first flame possible. While fire symbolizes the birth of civilization, Piggy‟s
glasses symbolize the possibility for such development. This shows that Piggy represents the development
of the group of boys, who symbolize an individual mind. Piggy also has several suggestions concerning the
technological advances made in the external world. He suggests that the group build sundials so that they
will know what time it is on the island. Piggy also uses technology as a way of making sense in matters of
ghosts and beasts on the island. When asked his opinion on such monsters, Piggy replies that, if such
creatures did exist, then “things wouldn‟t make sense. Houses an‟—TV—they wouldn‟t work” (p. 124).
Piggy displays rationality, represents civilization, and has knowledge of technology. He clearly represents
the advancements of an individual and a race. This shows that Piggy plays the role of the superego on the
island.
The second main function of the superego according to Freud (1952) involves placing precepts and
prohibitions on the ego. Since Ralph represents the ego, this would translate to Piggy telling Ralph what
the boys should and should not do. This first occurs before the rest of the boys are discovered, when Piggy
suggests to Ralph that “We ought to have a meeting” (Golding, 2003, p. 7). This illustrates the first precept
Piggy encourages on the island. Once rules are established, Piggy takes it upon himself not to enforce, but
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to remind the boys of the rules. Concerning the conch, for example, any boy not holding it is not to speak.
When Jack and Simon forget this rule, “Piggy . . . point[s] to the conch . . . and Jack and Simon [fall] silent”
(Golding, 2003, p. 41). This shows that Piggy also imposes prohibitions on the group. When a similar
situation occurs later in the novel, this prohibition is directed at Ralph: “[T]hey ought to shut up, oughtn‟t
they?” (Golding, 2003, p. 112). As civilization disintegrates on the island, Piggy once again attempts to
prod Ralph to take action. He tells Ralph to blow the conch, bringing the boys back to order. When Ralph
questions this precept, Piggy tells Ralph, “You got to be tough now. Make „em do what you want”
(Golding, 2003, p. 124). Because Piggy tries to guide Ralph in what Ralph should and should not do as the
leader of the island, Piggy is similar to the superego that guides the ego in such matters in one‟s mind.
The final trait of the superego, according to Grotstein (2004), is that of a “personal agency . . . that
overs[ees] the intrusions of instinctual forces and mediate[s] a countercathectic stance against them” (p.
258). The “instinctual forces” mentioned refer to the id. Assuming that the character of Jack represents the
id, this means that Piggy must have several confrontations with Jack in order to symbolize the superego.
Examples of such opposition are abundant throughout the novel. When they first meet each other, “Piggy .
. . was intimidated by . . . the offhand authority in [Jack‟s] voice” (Golding, 2003, p. 20). On Jack‟s part,
he simply tells Piggy “You‟re talking too much . . . Shut up, Fatty” (Golding, 2003, p. 21). Thus begins a
dynamic relationship filled with turmoil and confrontations. When Jack gets frustrated later in the novel,
he takes his anger out on Piggy by slugging the boy and breaking his glasses (Golding, 2003, p. 94). Such a
fight happens again while Piggy is trying to explain to the group why he does not believe in ghosts (p. 121).
The feelings between Jack and Piggy are mutual. While confiding in Ralph and Simon, Piggy admits that,
“[Jack] hates me. I dunno why. If he could do what he wanted . . . I‟m scared of him . . .If you‟re scared of
someone you hate him” (Golding, 2003, p. 125). This friction reveals a pivotal relationship in the novel.
This important relationship, Freud claims, is also evident in the opposition between the superego and the id
in the mind of an individual. Because of the symbolic relationship between Piggy and the progress of
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civilization, his tendencies to guide Ralph in Ralph’s leadership of the island, and the obvious hostility
between Piggy and Jack (who will be shown to represent the id), Piggy is a wonderful archetype of the
superego.
Rosenfield (1999) writes, “If Ralph is a projection of man’s good impulses . . . then Jack becomes
an externalization of the evil instinctual forces of the unconscious” (p. 4). These instinctual forces refer not
only to Jack, but also to the id. According to Freud (1952), the id is based largely on instincts, resists the
guiding forces of the ego, and is not influenced by the external world. Jack also relies on his instincts and
emotions, resists Ralph (who has already been proven to represent the ego) in his leadership on the island,
and is unencumbered by influence of the external world.
The most prevalent characteristic of the id is its reliance on instinct. In fact, Freud (1952) notes
that “perceptions may be said to have the same significance for the ego as instincts have for the id” (p. 14).
The emergence of instinct in Jack first occurs when Jack succumbs to his animal instinct to hunt instead of
looking after the signal fire as Ralph had ordered. Because the signal fire is not lit, a potential rescue
opportunity is lost when a ship passes the island in the middle of Jack’s hunt. Jack’s actions show that
instinct has more priority than logic and common sense in his mind. As Jack progresses through the novel,
Golding (2003) describes him as “dog-like” (p. 61) and “ape-like” (p. 62). He is said to be “Driven by fear,
superstition and an obsession with hunting” (Drew, 1963, p. 10). These animal descriptions coupled with
base human emotions show that Jack is, indeed, a creature of instinct. A physical symbol of this instinct
comes in the form of a tribal mask Jack dons when he is ready to hunt. After the first application of this
mask, Jack “began to dance around and his laughter became bloodthirsty snarling . . . the mask was a thing
on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (Golding, 2003, p. 83).
Clearly, emotions, passion, and instinct come together in the psyche of Jack, creating a character that
exhibits traits not unlike those of the id.
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As Freud (1952) wrote of the characteristics of the id, “these trends which have been shut out stand
in opposition to the ego” (p. 699). Similarly, “Jack and Ralph . . . [are] opposed impulses or humours in
one person” (Drew, 1963, p. 13). Throughout the novel, it is evident that Jack and Ralph are connected, in
some way, by their opposition. While quarreling about the importance of hunting and building shelters,
Jack and Ralph “walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to communicate. . . . They
looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate” (Golding, 2003, p. 71). As the opposition between Ralph
and Jack grows more intense, Golding writes that “There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce
exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense” (Golding, 2003, p. 93).
Because of their different values and mindsets, Jack and Ralph find themselves in a constant state of
opposition. Jack also comes to resent Ralph because of the authority Ralph holds over Jack. In response to
a careless mistake made by Jack, Ralph enforces his authority:
So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way. . . . Against his weapon
. . . Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they were
on different sides of a high barrier. (Golding, 2003, p. 96)
As the id opposes the ego, so Jack opposes Ralph.
Finally, the id is said to exist without the influence of the external world. In a dramatic passage of
the novel, Jack breaks his ties with civilization by refusing the rules that were previously established on the
island.
“The rules!” shouted Ralph. “You’re breaking the rules!”
“Who cares?”
Ralph summoned his wits.
“Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!”
“Bollocks to the rules!” (Golding, 2003, p. 123)
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In this pivotal scene, Jack breaks the only remnant of civilized society brought with the boys to the island:
rules. As Bowen (1963) writes, “when the civilized restraints which we impose upon ourselves are
abandoned, the passions of anger, lust, and fear wash across the mind, obliterating common-sense and care”
(p. 54). Like the id, Jack makes the choice to exist without an influence from the external world.
Many interpretations for Golding’s Lord of the Flies have been explored, but none so accurately
parallels the novel as that of a human psyche according to Freud. The concepts of the ego, superego, and id
are evident in the characters of Ralph, Piggy, and Jack. These similarities are apparent both through the
relationships of the characters and the duties each character places upon themselves. While Freud’s
concepts may not be psychologically reliable, they certainly provide a revealing lens through which one may
study Lord of the Flies.
References
Bowen, J. (1963). One man’s meat, the idea of individual responsibility. In W. Nelson (Ed.), William
Golding’s Lord of the Flies: A source book (pp. 54-55). New York: The Odyssey Press.
Drew, P. (1963). Second reading. In W. Nelson (Ed.), William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: A source book
(pp. 9-17). New York: The Odyssey Press.
Freud, S. (1952). The major works of Sigmund Freud. (R.M. Hutchins, Ed.) Chicago: William Benton.
Golding, W. (2003). Lord of the Flies (6 th ed.). New York: Perigee.
Grotstein, J. S. (2004). Notes on the superego. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 24, 257-270.
Rosenfield, C. (1999). Men of a smaller growth: A psychological analysis of William Golding’s Lord of the
Flies. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Modern critical interpretations: Lord of the Flies (pp. 3-13). Philadelphia:
Chelsea House Publishers.
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Gloriann McDonald
Central Michigan University
An Emerging Story:
How the Emergent Church Movement is Building a Bridge between Modern
Abstract:
and Postmodern Christianity
This paper addresses the Emergent Church Movement (ECM) and the effects of modern and
postmodern readings of scripture. To illustrate my understanding of the ECM, I characterize the ECM as a
“bridge” between modern and postmodern Christian thought. This bridge analogy is not to say that
Emergents are building a bridge to get modern Christians to the side of postmodern Christians, rather, its
purpose is to create a means for the flow of information between the two ways of thinking. To frame my
investigation, modernism and postmodernism are briefly addressed to contextualize the content of the
paper. Because the Emergent Church Movement is not a denomination but a “dialogue,” I use two authors
who fall under what I coin as the “Emergent blanket of endorsement.” While neither author would
necessarily label themselves “Emergent” leaders, both are endorsed by leaders of the Emergent Movement
and used in the Emergent dialogue. Using the works of Pastor Rob Bell of Mars Hill Church in Grand
Rapids and layperson and author Donald Miller, I analyze how each author views scripture and how it lends
itself to the Emergent dialogue. Using narrative theology and emphasis on the necessity for Christians to
become part of the “Christian story,” both authors offer an invitation to participate in re-framing scripture
for an increasingly postmodern audience. Through the analysis of Bell and Miller, this paper studies how
the Emergent Church Movement is changing the way that Western Christians view scripture (as well as
how its view is staying the same,) and how both authors are contributing to building a bridge between
modern and postmodern Christian thought.
Emerging Ideas: Introduction and thesis:
Times are changing for Christianity in the 21 st century. Information is more readily available,
technology is faster and more affordable and the world is “getting smaller” as travel is easier and people of
all religions and ethnicities are in closer contact than ever. How does an “unchanging” faith stand in a world
that is changing so quickly? According to The Right Reverend Mark Dyer, as quoted in Phyllis Tickle's
book The Great Emergence, the church is forced to hold a "rummage sale” (Tickle 20). In fact, according to
Tickle, the church has held a rummage sale for every 500 years of its existence, in which it examines what
should be kept and what should be thrown away in the area belief and doctrine. The most recent of these
rummage sales, according to Tickle, was the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, where commonly held
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doctrine of the dominant Catholic Church was called into question. It is the opinion of scholars like Tickle
and Dyer that the Church is in another such period of rethinking.
Though some Christians and denominations are happy to stay as they are, many scholars cannot
deny that a shift is happening in the Church, and much of this is a response to the postmodern time period
we find ourselves in. Enter the Emergent Church Movement, not necessarily a new denomination but
rather a broad banner under which a dialogue about reconciling modernity and postmodernity in the
Church is happening. In his recent book, The Emerging Church, Dan Kimball states: “There is no „one-sizefits-all
way of doing things, because you can‟t box-in the emerging church” (Kimball 14). One will not find
an “Emergent doctrine” or fixed belief system. Much like (to borrow Tickle‟s argument,) spring cleaners
facing a rummage sale, Emergents are evaluating what views can be preserved and what needs to be reevaluated
in the face of postmodernism. And no re-evaluation of the Christian faith could be complete
without examining the scriptures on which the religion is based. This postmodern re-evaluation is affecting
how Emergents interpret scripture and ultimately how they view the purpose of Jesus‟ message contained
in scripture. To explore this shift thoroughly, I have chosen two authors to analyze, a pastor and a
layperson. This examination will use the narrative theology perspective of pastor and author, Rob Bell and
the personal (laity) practice narratives of Donald Miller. This paper will evaluate the Emergent Church
Movement‟s view of Jesus and scripture in a postmodern context and how Christianity is being “done
differently” in this shift and how this interpretation is “bridging the gap” between modern and postmodern
readings of scripture.
Emerging Story: What is Postmodernism? How is it affecting the Church?
Many books on the Emergent Church Movement (ECM) will start with an attempt to define
postmodernism and I found it fitting that I try to do the same. I want to establish the context for some
words and concepts that I will be using. Because various books on the ECM lay out postmodernism in
varying ways, I will attempt to “clean up” the understanding.
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The first thing to understand is that postmodernism is not a universal trait of human society. When
one speaks of postmodernism, it is generally understood that one is mainly talking about Western culture.
In his book “The Emerging Church,” Dan Kimball points out that many cultures that would be considered
“primitive” (such as those of rural Africa or other third world societies) are still living in a “premodern”
context (Kimball 43). So when I write about “postmodern” or Emerging Churches, I am generally speaking
of Churches located in the United States and Europe (most prominently in England, where some of the
scholarship lending itself to the Emergent dialogue is coming from Anglican clergy and laity.)
It is hard to place a definitive date upon postmodernism. For example, “literary postmodernism”
can be dated back to the early 20 th century, while “philosophical postmodernism” can be dated much earlier
than that. When it comes to the Christian discussion of postmodernism, the authors I read did not pose a
distinction between the two types of postmodernism. It is also hard to date postmodernism because unlike
a “time period,” which is marked by concrete events like the rise and fall of kingdoms, to try to pinpoint
postmodernism on a calendar is to try to pinpoint a way of thinking. Because of this, scholars do not always
agree as to when postmodernism got its start. For example, Dan Kimball argues that the start of
postmodernism was around 1969, the summer of Woodstock and the touchstone year for the hippie
generation (Kimball 43). Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, in his book, Jesus, posits that the “emerging”
paradigm in Christianity, though not apparent until now, has been around since the 1600s and has been
growing up alongside modernism, but became more prominent in the 19 th century because of new ideas
being discussed in seminaries and divinity schools (Borg 23). No matter how far back scholars want to date
postmodernism, according to Kimball the modern/postmodern dialogue didn’t “take off” in the context of
Christianity until around the year 2000 with the influx of technology which increased ease of sharing
postmodern ideas. Finding a date for postmodernism aside, for the sake of this paper, I will agree with
Kimball’s identification of the year 2000 as a pivotal point for the modern/postmodern dialogue in
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Christianity, mainly because most of the scholarship I’ve found on the topic was published between the
dates of 2000-present, with an influx of scholarship being published around 2005.
Now that we can relatively locate postmodernism in time and space, it’s time to discuss
postmodernism itself. First, to have a “postmodern” we must have a “modern.” Like postmodernism, it is
hard to pinpoint a year in which modernism began, but many like to parallel it with the age of
Enlightenment. In his book Truth & The New Kind of Christian, R. Scott Smith asserts that the Age of
Enlightenment (or the modern era) began in the mid 16 th century with the work of Descartes and with later
with thinkers like Hume, Hobbes and Kant (Smith 26-30). According to Smith, modernism can be
characterized by the rise of the concept of rationalism, which “emphasized the adequacy of human reason to
know objective, rational truths” (Smith 27). “Objectivity” is the key phrase to remember for a simplified
explanation of the modern way of thought. “Truth” was thought to be an objective reality, which could be
found through science. “Empiricism,” or the idea that we can only know what we can hear, see and touch
made belief in God irrational and irreverent for those influenced by Enlightenment thinking (Smith 27).
But rather than defeat the Church and discredit the idea of God, Christianity adapted to this new way of
thinking. Instead of succumbing to the Enlightenment’s definition of truth, Christianity asserted more than
ever the truth of their faith. One can see this kind of thinking in “conservative” Christianity, which clings
tightly to its truth, with its “scientific” basis in scriptures, which are dissected and taught literally.
If objectivity is the word for modernism, “relativity” is the word for postmodernism.
Postmodernists hold that there is no universal truth that is true for every person in the world at the same
time, thus making everyone’s worldview valid for their situation (Smith 30). According to Smith, faith in
human’s ability to progress and better itself was shattered in the 20 th century, with the two world wars and
subsequent confidence-shattering events (Smith 12). Postmodernism got its start (or gained prominence)
in the generation living in the aftermath of those wars (and enduring a new set of wars, like Korea and
Vietnam.) As people questioned humanity’s progress, people also began to question truth and modernism’s
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claim that truth can be found through science. Their view of the world was forced to expand, leaving
people with the new problem of “whose truth is right?”
Ethical, religious and moral relativity would have been a foreign concept to a modern, because it
was commonly held that “truth” was not “relative to individuals and cultures, but instead is universally true
and applicable to all people” (Smith 23). Postmodernists, on the other hand, are more accepting of “ethical
relativism” and pluralism and generally do not affirm one truth as universal. As a result, it is becoming
harder for Christians to reconcile the objective truth expected in Christianity with the postmodern context
in which they live (Smith 13).
In postmodernism, focus is shifted away from science and is placed upon language. According to
Smith, postmodernists think that “a real world exists, but all we can know about it is what we know by our
talking about it” (Smith 30). Because everything that humans can hold as truth has to be constructed with
language, we therefore construct our own truth. Because language is different (and used differently) across
cultures, truth cannot be the same in every culture. For example, a Hindu may have no concept of why a
god would “die for our sins” when it is supposed to be up to us to improve our karma for a better rebirth.
Judeo-Christian scripture comes from a very specific culture which many in the West only understand
through tradition and study, not personal experience. Therefore, we must construct meaning for ourselves
through the use of scripture. In a scriptural context, a Postmodern Christian would view scripture as a
product of its time; a time when people were uneducated about things like medicine or genetic diseases and
more prone to believe in something if it seemed miraculous. How does one reconcile this in an age where
doctors can perform the same healing that Jesus did through modern medicine? Thus, less emphasis is
placed on Jesus’ divinity and more emphasis is placed on his moral teachings and how they apply today.
A good way to voice the postmodern mindset is to say “even if objective truths exist… we cannot
know them as such” (Scott 15). Though some like to label the Emergent Church Movement as a
“postmodern” movement, this would be a wrong assessment. Rather, the ECM is a discussion that is trying
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to open a dialogue between modern and postmodern Christians, as well as between the Church and a
postmodern society. Because a majority of the current Western population has grown up in the shadow of
postmodernism, Emergents see the need to not only converse with the ideas of postmodernism, but
perhaps adapt to it as well. To go back to Tickle’s illustration of a “rummage sale,” opponents of the ECM
are apt to accuse Emergents of throwing everything away and making their own interpretation of scripture.
It is my opinion that what Emergents are saying is not really along the lines of “changing” scripture, but
rathe “responding” to it in a way that is relevant to the postmodern world in which we live. This is why,
from here on out, I will refer to the Emergent Church Movement as a “bridge” between the modern and
postmodern view of scripture. This bridge is constructed not to get modern Christians to cross over into
postmodernity, but rather it is created in order to receive ideas from either side. But, just as one cannot
build a city on a bridge, the ECM does not hope to create its denomination of Christianity. Rather, through
the exchange of ideas it hopes to create a new view of Christianity that engages scripture in a way that a
both a modern and postmodern believer can understand.
Emerging Story: Rob Bell’s Use of Scripture for Pastoral Authorship
One of the more prominent voices in the Emergent Church Movement is that of Rob Bell, Pastor
of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Like the other author that will be examined in this report,
Rob Bell wouldn’t call his church an “Emergent Church,” but he falls under the blanket of Emergent
endorsement (“blanket of endorsement” is a term I will use for authors who do not label themselves as
Emergent, but are supported and praised by Emergent leaders like Brian McLaren and are thus aligned with
their way of thinking.) In his book, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, Bell writes about the Church’s
need to continue examining and reinterpreting scripture. Like an old “velvet Elvis” painting of years past,
what could be considered popular art of one time period, may not be appreciated or relevant in another
(like a modern view of scripture in a postmodern world.) Thus, Bell argues that doctrine and scripture
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should be as flexible as a trampoline (to use his analogy,) so as to be a springboard for the faith, rather than
an inflexible breaking point.
Rather than saying that his ideas are new, Bell asserts that he is part of a long tradition, dating back
to The Protestant Reformation, (a touchstone that many Emergents would identify with,) of people who try
to look at scripture afresh. Going even further back into history, Bell notes that the Bible is something that
has traditionally been open to interpretation. According to Bell, it was the rabbi’s job in ancient times (as
well as today) to interpret scripture and make it relevant to those to whom he (or more recently, she)
taught (Bell 12; 47). To Bell, the Bible is an “open ended” document and it is the job of the Church
community as well as the individual to continue “wrestling” with scripture and not cement its meaning or
think that humans can settle on a single meaning for each passage (as many modern Christian thinkers do.)
To further this idea of open-endedness, Bell acknowledges that humans have the ability to “make
up” God. Essentially, humans, being uneducated or using misguided intentions, can interpret scripture for
their own purposes (Bell 25). On his church’s website (MarsHill.com,) Bell includes an article under a
section labeled “Theology” written by the Bishop N.T. Wright (who also falls under the Emergent blanket
of endorsement,) entitled “How Can the Bible be Authoritative?” (To a “modern” Christian, even the title
of this document may inspire thoughts of heracy.) According to Wright, there is an “evangelical” tendency
for churches to believe that they are reading the Bible “for what it says,” with no interpretation or bias. In
this same vein, he charges these “biblical literalists” of saying that any other way of reading scripture that
does not match their own is a product of using incorrect filters or presupposition (Wright 3). (In other
words “we are interpreting this correctly, and they are not because they do not have the correct
understanding of scripture.”)
Instead of seeing the scriptures as “authoritative,” Wright proposes that Christians should shift their
perspective and view God as ultimately authoritative and the Bible should be viewed as one views an
unfolding story or play. In this “play” analogy, it is not God who is the playwright, but it is humanity that is
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acting within God’s story and doing the writing; the Bible is the opening and body of the play, and we are
living in and writing the final act (Wright 11). Instead of seeing the Bible as an unchanging guide to truth, it
can be seen as an open-ended document, open to interpretation. This is not to say that Emergents throw
away the idea of the truth of scripture. Rather, they assert that the Bible must be re-envisioned for every
generation. For example, the imagery of kingship may have worked for Christians up to the 18 th century,
but now it is an archaic historical term that is not practiced in the same way today as it was in the past (with
a few exceptions.) How can a person living today relate to such imagery if it does not command the same
level of awe as it did when the scriptures were written? This is where Emergents re-examine scripture and
try to reconcile its meaning to be relevant in this day and age.
If Wright and Bell can accuse modern Christians of interpreting scripture wrongly, what is keeping
Emergent Christians from doing the same? One may notice that Bell’s logic leaves him open for scrutiny.
In his own reasoning, Bell is also subject to the pitfall of twisting scripture to his own devices and there are
many who are critical of what he preaches, (one needs only to do a YouTube.com search to find a myriad of
anti-Bell web videos.) One thing that Bell is accused of over and over again is preaching universalism, a
concept that leaves some Christians questioning Bell’s use of scripture. On pages 145-146 of Velvet Elvis,
Bell writes:
“And when Jesus died on the cross, he died for everybody. Everybody. Everywhere.
Every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every people group. Jesus said that when he was
lifted up, he would draw all people to himself. All people. Everywhere. Everybody’s sins
on the cross with Jesus. So this reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for
everybody”
In Bell’s interpretation, Jesus came to die for the entire world. Now, many people would agree with this
statement; indeed one of the oft-quoted passages of the Bible is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world…”
However, a key point in the conclusion of that verse for traditional Christians is “that whosoever believes in him
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should not perish, but have eternal life.” In postmodern thought, no truth is accepted as higher than
another, thus the way that one person chooses to live or the way of life that one is born into (religion
included,) is seen as a valid way to operate. This is where the “bridge” idea comes back into play. Bell
responds to scripture in an anti-exclusive way, asserting that Jesus died for the sins of all people, no matter
their nationality or religion. However, he does not give up the idea of truth found in scripture. In this way
he is not wholly modern or wholly postmodern, but adopts a position that adopts and speaks to both sides.
To use N.T. Wright’s “play” illustration again, Bell invokes humanity’s role in choosing the reality
in which we live. According to Bell, Jesus died for the entire world, but it is up to the individual to choose
which reality he or she chooses to accept. On page 146 of Velvet Elvis, he writes:
“Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people
God loved, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we
choose to live in, which version of reality we trust.”
In his article “An Emerging Critique of the Postmodern, Evangelical Church,” John Bolt critiques Bell’s
stance and labels his way of thinking “postmodern constructivist theory.” This is a theory in which
postmodernists detach human destiny from the will of the divine and place the “construction” of the story of
humanity solely in the hands of the humans who live it. This is a radical position for many Christians who
recognize a divine presence in the human story. Essentially what Bell is positing is that God has set up the
rules of the game, but in no way does God force his creation to comply with the rules (much like the ideas
of Jacobus Arminius, though Bell does not cite Arminius’ counter-Calvinist ideas in his work.) According to
Bell, Jesus died for the sins of the world (a fact that most Christians would not deny,) but humanity exists
with a will apart from God’s that make is possible (if not necessary) to make “our own story.”
Rob Bell: Narrative Theology
This is where Bell’s work adopts the postmodern bent toward the use and criticism of language as a
means to express truth. Remember from the section on postmodernism that postmodern thinkers believe
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that if truth exists, it exists only because of the language people use to talk about it. This is a concept that is
taken to heart in the Emergent Church Movement. Frustrated with the lack of contextual emphasis in the
modernist way of interpreting scripture, Emergents are using a “new” way of viewing scripture that
emphasizes not only a holistic reading of it, but also creates an invitation for the church to participate in its
application as part of the Christian “story” (or “play,” to use a previous analogy.) One way that Emergents
are doing this is through the use of “narrative theology.” Mars Hill’s mission statement (a staple of church
websites) is written in this narrative theology style. Here is an excerpt from Mars Hill’s “Narrative
Theology” mission statement (found on their website:)
“We believe God inspired the authors of Scripture by his Spirit to speak to all
generations of believers, including us today. God calls us to immerse ourselves in
this authoritative narrative communally and individually to faithfully interpret and
live out that story today as we are led by the Spirit of God.”
This framing paragraph of Mars Hill’s narrative theology isn’t saying anything new to Christians. However,
what may be new is the language of the document. The way that this document is written gives more
power to humanity than is sometimes granted (to “communally and individually interpret and live out” a
narrative may hearken images of hippies and liberalism for older generations of Christian conservatives.)
The document continues to outline the Bible within the context of a narrative, restating that humanity was
created in God’s image and God’s redemptive power through the Israelites, affirming the virgin birth, and
affirming Christ’s purpose as the Messiah as well as his death, burial, resurrection and expected coming
again. When one gets used to the Narrative Theology style, there is nothing new about Mar’s Hill’s mission
as a church. Rather, Bell is helping to build a bridge that both a postmodern reader and a modern reader
can understand.
Mar’s Hill’s mission statement is not the only place where Bell uses narrative theology in his
pastoral work. In his 2008 book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile Bell
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uses this narrative style to retell the story of the scriptures and draw connections between the Old and New
Testaments. Bell views scripture as a story that continues to build upon itself as it progresses, and that
“ultimate truths about the universe are revealed through the stories of particular people living in particular
places” (Jesus Wants 8). Bell does not hide the fact that his is touting a new kind of way to read the bible,
which he calls the “New Exodus perspective,” in which he takes scripture (in narrative form) and relates the
Christian story back to that of the exodus in the Old Testament. The central idea of Bell’s book is that God
needs a “body" to live out his story in his creation (Jesus Wants 36; 43), be it a physical body (like Adam,
Moses or the prophets) or a metaphorical body (like Israel.) These embodiment ideas are expressed in the
new covenant as Jesus and the Church. In narrative theology, a greater emphasis is placed on the people
living the story, and this in turn places a greater emphasis on the people reading the story (Christians in the
here and now,) and how they are to interact and live out “God’s story.”
Bell makes a point in his book that humanity “screwed up” its first shot at a relationship with God,
in that it did not keep the covenant rules set out after the exodus from Egypt. In the context of a narrative
story, Bell asks “What if we had it all back? What if we could do it all again? What would we do
differently? What if a child was born and a son was given? What if David had another son?” (Jesus Wants
72). Jesus is essentially God’s new attempt to engage people in his story and lead his people out of another
Egypt and invite them into a story that cares about the poor and oppressed and creates a counter culture to
the world of the Romans (Rome can stand for any overarching culture which stands in contrast to Jesus’
teachings, including the United States.)
Rob Bell: The New Humanity
To Bell, the message of scripture becomes much more than Jesus dying for the sins of mankind.
“Jesus wants to save us from shrinking the gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not
about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker” (Jesus Wants 179). Notice the
“bridge” that Bell is building between the modern and postmodern views of Christianity here, moving from
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a “transaction” to “interaction.” Bell furthers this concept with what he calls “the new humanity” (Jesus
Wants 154). Because Jesus preached a radical message that included both Jews and gentiles, Bell believes
that Jesus’ mission was to reconcile the whole world (not just an elect few) to the new covenant. Bell
writes that this concept opens the Church up to an expanded worldview and a more inclusive nature. Bell
poetically outlines what this means for the church on page 155:
“You used to have a rigid stance on a particular issue, but now you’ve heard the other side
and it’s impossible anymore to categorize them all as stupid… In the new humanity our
world gets bigger, our perspective goes from black-and-white to color… A church is the
new humanity on display.”
To Bell, the “new humanity” means a church that involves all ages, genders and nationalities. His vision
almost takes on a language that sounds more like an Eastern religion than a Western one: “In the new
humanity, them becomes us, they becomes we, and those become ours” (Jesus Wants 156). To Bell, the
story of Jesus is a story of inclusion. However, Bell does not use language like being “saved” or “accepting
Jesus.” Rather, it is about becoming part of the Christian story, whether one is “believer” or not. In his
highly idealized view of the world, the church would become a place that welcomes non-believers and
believers alike, solely because they are human and part of God’s creation.
Rob Bell: Anticipated Criticism
It appears that Bell is conscious of the criticism that his books could generate, and asks his readers
to scrutinize what he writes through the lens that he advocates. One needs only read the back cover of
Velvet Elvis to understand Bell’s “opinion of his opinion:”
“We have to test everything. I thank God for anybody anywhere who is pointing people
to the mysteries of God. But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about
what they are saying and doing and creating. Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book.
Don’t swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I’m a
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Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it
nailed. I’m contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary,
right?
This is where Bell becomes the “poster pastor” for the modernism/postmodernism dialogue. In the true
spirit of inquisition and a consideration for opposing worldviews, Bell asks the reader not to “take his word
for it.” For some, a Christian leader admitting that his interpretation of scripture may be wrong is
revolutionary, especially in a world where biblical literalists claim to “only preach the Bible.” He calls for
people to think critically about scripture interpretation, and he asks his readers to do the same of his work.
Emerging Story: Donald Miller’s Use of Scripture in Narrative Authorship
Another proponent of the Christian use of narrative is author Donald Miller, yet an additional voice
that falls under the Emergent blanket of endorsement. Miller has published several books including (but
not limited to) Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows what, Through Painted Deserts and most recently A
Thousand Miles in a Million Years. In each of these books, readers will not find theological assessment of
scriptures nor would the bulk of what Miller writes stereotypically fall into the “Christian inspiration”
category that one finds at a bookstore. Rather, Miller uses the story of his own life and the lives of others
to make spiritually relevant points, artfully tying points of scripture into the context of the story. Like
Bell, a lot of what Miller has to say is not necessarily saying anything new about scripture, but rather
reframing it in the context of the “Christian narrative.”
On top of being a best-selling Christian author, Donald Miller is also popular on the public
speaking circuit. Patton Dodd, in his Christianity Today article “A Better Story Teller,” says of one of
Donald Miller’s speaking engagements that the “ascending” Christianity of today is not rooted in rational
systems, but in story (Patton 1). Indeed, Miller will rarely take on the “truths” of the Bible in his writing.
Rather, he incorporates his knowledge of the Bible in a recognizable way for his Christian readers, and at
the same time in an approachable way for those unfamiliar with Christianity. Because of this kind of writing
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style, Patton identifies Miller as a “bridge” between conservative Evangelicalism and “bohemian liberal
Christianity” (Patton 3). This is a direct link to our “bridge” illustration. As we saw with Bell’s teaching,
there really isn’t anything “new” or even blasphemous to what Emergent voices are saying, rather, they can
be seen as taking part in a conversation that is striving to find middle ground between modern and
postmodern Christianity.
According to Miller, Christianity needs to move away from lists of rules and engage Christians in a
relevant way (much like Bell writes about moving from “transaction” to “interaction”) (Patton 4). In fact,
the bulk of what Miller has to write in Searching for God Knows What deals with this point. He begins the
book with a chapter about a writing seminar that he attended in which two ways of writing Christian
literature are presented in laughable contrast. The first is a recognizable formula of a character overcoming
crisis, and the second is a formula for a self-help book, where the author makes the reader feel incomplete,
tells the reader why the author is now complete and gives the reader a “three to four step plan for getting
from misery and lack of control to the joy and control you currently have” (Searching 7). He goes on to
make the point that some people have turned the Bible into a self help book, ultimately changing the view
of Jesus’ purpose on earth. A few pages later, Miller ponders:
… if such a complex existence as the one you and I are living can really be broken down
into a few steps. It seems if there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us
what it was” (Searching 10).
Here we see an Emergent author taking the reader away from the “rulebook” format of scripture and urging
his readers that scripture is something to be wrestled with and lived out, not scientifically (modernly)
condensed into three-step maxims.
Donald Miller: Writing a Better Story
Rather than focusing on laws and doctrine in scripture, Miller says that “The chief role of a
Christian…is to tell a better story,” (Patton). This may be a radical stance for those who would say that the
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chief role of a Christian is to turn the world to Jesus for their salvation from sin. But, as we’ve seen with
Rob Bell, one needs to look closely at what Miller is saying to see that he really isn’t saying anything radical
at all. Miller’s most recent book, A Thousand Miles in a Million Years, published in 2009, takes the Christian
narrative idea to the next level when he was asked to turn his bestselling book, Blue Like Jazz, into a movie.
Miller finds himself editing his own life for the big screen and in doing so, finds that the story in which he is
living is not interesting enough for people to want to watch. What may intrigue some readers is the overt
lack of scripture usage in this “Christian” book. In an interview with Christianity Today, Miller unfolds his
(very postmodern) opinion about his work. Interviewer Sarah Pulliam Bailey asks Miller if “writing better
stories for ourselves” is a Christian idea (Bailey 1). Miller replies no, that his book is about how living a
better story can affect the lives of people universally, not just Christians, and goes on to emphasize that it is
“okay” for Christians to read books that don’t have an overt Christian message to them (Bailey 1). In saying
this, Miller is harkening to the postmodern idea that truth can be found in many places, not just scripture,
and perhaps goes further to say that sometimes we aren’t looking for truth, sometimes we are just looking
to make our lives better. To illustrate this point, Miller uses the example in Bailey’s interview that
sometimes a person just needs to read a television repair manual, and adding scripture to it would be
irrelevant if not frustrating. This flies in the face of Christian authors who, in Miller’s view, try to overspiritualize
the mundane.
In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Miller takes part in several non-religious activities that add
meaning to his life, like hiking the Inca trail (A Million 135-144) and riding his bike across the country for
safe drinking water in Africa. Though both stories are told in light of his idea of living in a Christian
narrative, he would not go so far as to say that living a good story is unique to Christians. Later in Bailey’s
interview, Miller defensively states:
Christians might say that you can't live a more meaningful life without Jesus. Well, that's
absolutely not true. You can. You can enjoy a sunrise whether you know Jesus or not. It's
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not wrong for us to take something to somebody who doesn't know the Lord and show
them the sunrise and say, "Isn't this beautiful?" (Bailey 1).
Here we have two worlds, Christian and non-Christian, being defined by the shared experience of the awe
of nature (I would point out that the mere recognition that there could be two truths side by side like this is
postmodern.) Miller recognizes that forcing scripture into a moment like that would be untruthful and an
abuse of scripture (Bailey 1). At this, Bailey asks “Where does Jesus fit into better storytelling?” Just as a
Christian reader may be thinking that Miller is getting too “out there” in what is marketed as a Christian
book, Miller answers:
Well, I think in the grand epic Jesus is the hero of our stories. And our stories, as they
were, are subplots in a grand epic and our job is not to be the hero of any story. Our job is
to be a saint in a story that he is telling. And that's a book that I'll write in the future. But
this book was really much more of a practical idea, an introductory idea, if you will (Bailey
1).
This statement may leave readers wondering if Miller thinks that non-Christians can live a meaningful story
without acknowledging Jesus as their hero. Putting these two statements (one quite postmodern and one
slightly more modern) we can see the bridge being built once more.
Donald Miller: Not a Doctrine
To frame Miller’s ideas in the context of Rob Bell’s reasoning, Jesus died for everyone (including
non-Christians) and it is the choice of the individual to choose to live in that story or not. So, following
similar logic, is Miller saying that all people are living in a story in which Jesus is the hero and non-
Christians just don’t know it (or accept it?) This is where the Christian narrative idea becomes fuzzy, and
Miller side steps the issue. Miller says of this matter, “I think that because I'm a Christian they're looking
for doctrinal statements, and I don't give doctrinal statements” (Bailey 1). This seems to be a marker of
Emergents or those who fall under the Emergent blanked of endorsement; very rarely (if at all) will an
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author endeavor to create doctrine, rules or interpretations of scripture without asking the reader to
investigate for themselves. To reiterate a past point, the Emergent Church Movement is not aiming to
create a denomination, but rather engage in a dialogue and one may argue whether taking a firm stance on
this issue is relevant to the conversation. These authors do not try to fit into the “modern” box of objective
truth, but rather present their case in a way that suggests that they do not promote their opinion over
another. In this ideal, it is up to the individual to weigh what truth they find in scriptures and incorporate it
into the story of their life.
Emerging Conclusion
As of late, the Emergent Church Movement has undergone shifts of its own, with some initial
supporters removing themselves from the Emergent label. Early voices of the ECM like Pastor Mark
Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (which is not affiliated with Mars Hill Grand Rapids) see the
“dialogue” becoming far too one-sided in favor of postmodernism. Though one may see this as a failure on
the part of the ECM, I would argue that it is a triumph. If the ECM is truly a bridge between postmodern
and modern thought (and not creating its own territory,) it is good to see that pastors are weighing the
influence of postmodernity and if can apply within the context of Christianity.
It is clear that a shift is happening in the Christian church, whether it is indeed a rummage sale or
a simple theological fad. Either way, the scholarship of Rob Bell and Donald Miller clearly show that the
Emergent Church Movement is affecting the Church on the pastoral and personal level. In a recent Relevant
Magazine article, Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren states:
The litmus test for the continued health of the emergent conversation… is not that its
ideas become rigidly defined and institutionalized, but rather that they become part of the
collective unconscious—ideas that seemed so radical in this generation would become
mere second nature to future generations. In doing so, emergent would have the opposite
fate of so many movements that became unshakable status quo behemoths.
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It is impossible to tell if decades from now scholars will look back and recognize “The Great Emergence” at
all. Rather, one must acknowledge that this blanket of opinions, scholarship and teachings are changing the
way that Christians view scripture. It is the effort of the Emergent Church Movement to create a bridge
between the modern and postmodern Church, and it is their hope that this bridge is and will allow ideas
from both sides to be shared. To achieve its goal, this bridge must allow ideas flow equally. In conclusion,
I believe that the ECM is and will be a positive factor in the world of Christianity. If the ECM stays true to
its original purpose, it will help facilitate understanding between two different ways of thought and in turn
create a stronger fellowship among Christian believers.
Amendment (4/8/2011)
As with any good “movement,” there have been a few events and changes that have happened to the
ECM in the past year. For one, many churches and leaders have moved away from the label “emergent,”
and have assumed the label “emerging,” instead. The term “emergent” is now reserved for the churches
and pastors who align themselves with the “Emergent Village,” an organization that is supported by the
likes of Brian McLaren, Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt. The label “emerging,” however, has been used to
describe any number of offshoots of the ECM. Many of these offshoots pick and choose what parts of
“emergent” they hold true and have disposed of other parts (many, for example, have shied away from
some of the more “out there” postmodern interpretations of scripture.) It is encouraging to see that
emerging churches have evaluated the ECM, and I also find it encouraging that may of the ideas contained
in the ECM are becoming more mainstream. Many people whom I have talked to, or churchs that I have
attended, have adopted some of the language of the ECM without even knowing that the discussion has a
label. Still more have heard “evil” claims about the ECM, and therefore would never align themselves with
the title. These things said, Emergent/emerging have endured into 2011.
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Another development since I wrote this paper is Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins (2011.)
Surrounded by controversy, this book highlights Bell’s view on Heaven and Hell. To quickly summarize
the book, Bell’s view of Christianity is very inclusive. He affirms Jesus’ divinity and God’s redemptive
work through his death and resurrection. But, he affirms that Christ’s purpose goes beyond those who
“believe” in him. After death, people continue to have the choice to serve God, or turn. Heaven and Hell
are real (73), in his opinion, but he is focused on the “heavens” and “hells” here on Earth (46). According to
Bell, Jesus came to establish a kingdom that is not only present now, but present in the world to come. We
should focus on the heaven and hell here on earth, before worrying about what is to come in the afterlife.
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Works Cited
Bailey, Sarah Pulliam. "Donald Miller: Make a Better Narrative." Christianity Today (2009). Christianity
Today. 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 24 Mar. 2010.
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Bell, Rob. Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008. Print.
Bell, Rob. Love Wins. New York: Harper Collins. 2011. Print.
Bell, Rob. Velvet Elvis. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005. Print.
Carson, D.A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2005. Print.
Dodd, Patton. "A Better Storyteller." ChristianityToday.com. 1 June 2007. Web. 24 Mar. 2010.
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Kimball, Dan. The Emerging Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. Print.
Miller, Donald. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.
Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2009. Print.
Miller, Donald. Searching for God Knows What. Nashville: Nelson, 2004. Print.
Moll, Rob. "The New Monasticism." Christianity Today (2005). Christianity Today. 2 Sept. 2010. Web. 20
Mar. 2010. .
Smith, R. Scott. Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effects of Postmodernism in
the Church. Wheaton: Crossway, 2005. Print.
Streett, Andrew D. "A selective bibliography of the Emergent Church movement." First Search.
ATLA Religion, Spring 2006. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.
"The End of Emergent?" RELEVANT Magazine. 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2010.
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Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence : how Christianity is changing and why. Baker Books:
2008.
Wright, N.T. "How Can the Bible be Authoritative?”
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Kelsey McMahan
University of Michigan – Flint
“I Will Obey My Lord”:
Adrian Noble’s Vision of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Previous critics and directors have frequently viewed Ophelia as a young woman who focuses
primarily on her love for Hamlet. However, in the 2008 Stratford Canada production of Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, director Adrian Noble sees Ophelia as a child who has never outgrown her dependence on her
father, Polonius. For Noble, Ophelia’s love for Polonius far outstrips her feelings for Hamlet. Noble uses
costuming, blocking, and stage business in order to present Ophelia initially as a dependent, loving, and
submissive child. Ophelia’s costumes are childish and immature throughout much of the play. During the
mad scene, her identification with her father is stressed when she puts on her father’s jacket and literally
wears his clothing. She remains close to Polonius on stage, often hugging and caressing him, as well as
listening intently to his words. Even when she disagrees with him, she does so in a loving and submissive
way. Noble presents a portrait of Ophelia as a child who has never been able to separate from her father,
and whose love for Hamlet is immature and unformed (Noble).
Noble gives Ophelia a childlike appearance in the beginning of the play during Act One, Scene
Two. This idea is portrayed through her costume and actions. In the opening scene, Ophelia wears a
flowery pinafore. It is designed with light, pastel colors, revealing her innocence. The flowers at this point
in the play are charming on Ophelia. Underneath the pinafore, she wears a tight, button-up shirt which
keeps her body completely covered. She also wears a flowery crown around her head. The head-piece is
similar to one that a child might dress up in today. Noble gives her the appearance of a princess with no
stress in her life whatsoever. The actions she takes are also consistent with a childlike portrayal. When the
scene begins, everyone dances onto the stage celebrating King Claudius, who is new to the throne. As they
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do, it is as if Ophelia cannot leave Polonius’ side. She clings to him tightly. After Claudius gives a speech,
Laertes asks permission to leave for France. Polonius’ opinion on the situation is then requested. At that
point, Polonius must leave Ophelia for a moment. When he does, Gertrude quickly walks over to her.
The characters seem to assume that Ophelia cannot be left alone on stage. Someone must always be with
her. This shows that the director sees Ophelia as an immature child. Other directors give Ophelia more
independence in the opening of the play. For example, Franco Zeffirelli allows Ophelia to move about
without anyone by her side in his version of the play (Hamlet). Later on in the scene, Ophelia attempts to
move toward Hamlet. Her action here shows that she does have some kind of a relationship with him.
However, before she can reach him, Laertes thwarts her attempt and pulls her away. If Ophelia had a truly
meaningful relationship with Hamlet, she would not allow Laertes to interrupt her action. Instead, Ophelia
joins her father and brother in enjoying the celebration. She dances around, giggling as the party proceeds.
In other presentations of the play, Ophelia has a much stronger relationship with Hamlet. Zeffirelli features
an Ophelia character who thinks for herself (Hamlet). She listens to Polonius and Laertes but does not
agree with their opinions of Hamlet’s true feelings. During Noble’s opening scene, a serious expression
does not appear on the young girl’s face. This makes Ophelia appear immature and inexperienced in regard
to the world (Noble).
In Act One, Scene Three, Ophelia’s costume and surroundings remain childlike while Noble
reveals a strong bond between Polonius and Ophelia. This scene opens into Ophelia’s room. She sits at the
piano and plays a cheerful song. As she does so, Ophelia wears a white dress with black boots. The dress is
not form-fitting, but rather loose and flowing. With her “pure” colored costume and her long hair, Ophelia
appears to be much younger than she is in reality. Innocence radiates from the stage where Ophelia sits. If
she never spoke, this character could easily fit the description of an angel. In the middle of the stage, there
is a small bed covered in a decorative blanket. The sheer size of the bed indicates that Ophelia is young.
She sleeps on a mattress smaller than a twin size. In comparison, Gertrude’s bed is more than twice the size
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of Ophelia’s. Underneath the mattress, drawers provide storage for mementos. At this time in the play,
the mementos are for Ophelia’s eyes only and therefore they must remain hidden. When Laertes enters the
room, he gives Ophelia a word of advice. Then the siblings begin chasing each other around, acting much
like children. Ophelia sits down on her bed and Laertes is nearby. She tells him to follow his own advice
by saying, “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, / Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven /
Whiles…/ Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads / And recks not his own rede” (Hamlet 1.3.46-
50). This statement requires a great deal of thought and demands a certain degree of respect from Laertes.
A stereotypical woman of the time would not give such a request to an older male. However, Ophelia is
not stereotypical and does not see a need to follow society’s standards. After hugging Laertes, Ophelia
quickly attempts to hide a book which appears to have something to do with Hamlet’s affection. When
Polonius enters, Ophelia playfully pushes Laertes and runs to hug her father. She then sits back down next
to her brother. Polonius gives his son advice about handling himself in France with a hug to follow. While
father and son are embracing one another, Ophelia runs over and throws her arms around them, much like
a young child would do. Laertes is then ready to leave. He reminds Ophelia not to fall for Hamlet’s love
just before exiting the stage. With him gone, Ophelia and Polonius are left as the only two on stage. They
go over to the piano where they play a duet. This duet suggests that they have a very close relationship.
Neither one has music of any kind, but both know exactly what to play. When they finally stand, Polonius
begins questioning Ophelia on how Hamlet is treating her. She answers him in a loving tone of voice and
continues to move toward him. They clasp each other’s hands and are not afraid to be near each other.
After Polonius tells Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet, she calmly says, “I shall obey my lord” (Hamlet
1.3.143). In doing so, her tone for her father is respectful. This tone, given to Ophelia by Noble, is unlike
that of many other versions of the character. For example, Zeffirelli’s Ophelia spoke the same words with a
hint of resistance (Hamlet). At the end of this scene, father and daughter walk off stage, hand-in-hand
(Noble).
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Ophelia’s mad scene, in Act Four, Scene Five, shows the favor she has for Polonius over Hamlet.
Her costume in this scene is a drastic change from the other outfits she has worn. As the lights gradually
come on, the audience finds Gertrude sitting on a shroud. While she sits and thinks, Ophelia begins
stomping her feet outside of the entrance on the audience left. A woman runs in and tells Gertrude that
Ophelia wants to see her. Wishing to remain ignorant of the happenings in the castle, Gertrude tries to
keep Ophelia out. However, Ophelia pushes her way in to visit the queen. In her mad state, Ophelia has
put on her father’s shirt and suit jacket. This displays the close relationship Noble has given her and
Polonius. Most other directors costume Ophelia in Hamlet’s clothing when she is mad, showing that she is
more distraught over Hamlet’s behavior than Polonius’ death. Instead, this play portrays the opposite. She
still wears her boots but they are dirty and untied. Ophelia’s knees are scratched up and her hair is
unkempt. When she walks in, she carries with her the box of mementos from her bedroom. Inside, a doll
has been added to represent her father. Claudius enters and Ophelia hugs him. She proceeds to speak
toward the side of his face, rather than look at him as a normal person would. Ophelia drags Claudius over
to the piano where she forces him to sit and play with her. After banging on the keys, she kisses Claudius
on the cheek and leans on him. The way she acts toward Claudius at this point is meant to show her
separation from reality. Ophelia treats Claudius as if he were her father. On the piano bench, where
Polonius once sat, Ophelia now wants the king to join her. This is something she would only do if she were
unable to grasp what was happening. As Claudius stands, Ophelia jumps up on him and wraps her legs
around his waist. Noble gives her hymns to sing that make little sense, but the words are clearly
recognizable. This is different from other directors who often have Ophelia sing songs with
indistinguishable words. Continuing to sing, Ophelia dances around the floor and finally falls to the ground
weeping. She then walks out and says, “Good night, sweet ladies” (Hamlet 4.5.71). In doing so, she
manages to kiss the men on stage and hit the women. Not long after, a man tries to warn Claudius about
Laertes, but he quickly rushes in anyway, wanting revenge for his father’s murder. Gertrude holds him
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ack until Claudius tells her to let him go. Soon after, Ophelia returns, still carrying the box. She hands
pieces of paper to everyone without saying a word. Then she sits down with the box in front of her and
sings. When Ophelia asks Laertes to sing with her, he does so. The two sit close to each other, showing
that they have a secure family bond. Ophelia begins pulling things out of the box (such as gloves and string)
and calling them flowers. Before handing each person on stage a “flower”, she states its meaning. These
symbols, which are really her mementos, are not needed anymore since she plans to commit suicide. Also,
she does not care who sees or receives them because she has lost all sense of reality. After everyone on
stage has been given a “flower”, she continues singing and tending to the doll. At this point, Ophelia
reenacts the burial of Polonius by putting the figure in the box and piling dirt on top of it. The importance
of the doll to Ophelia is another sign of her childishness and her close relationship with her father.
Following these mad actions, she runs off stage, leaving Laertes to weep for his sister (Noble).
Throughout Noble’s production of Hamlet, Ophelia is seen as an immature young lady with little
life experience. She obeys her father and brother without question, feeling that they have her best interest
in mind. When it comes to Hamlet, Ophelia acts as though all is well regardless of whether or not he is in
the picture. Her relationship with Polonius reigns far above all others. This is a stark contrast to the ideas
that other directors have had about how Ophelia should be portrayed.
Works Cited
Hamlet. Dir. Zeffirelli, Franco. Prod. Davey Bruce, and Dyson Lovell. Perf. Gibson, Mel, Glenn Close,
Helena Bonham Carter, et al. Icon Productions, 1990.
Noble, Adrian. Director, Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Perf: Ben Carlson, Geraint Wyn Davi, Maria
Ricossa, Scott Wentworth, Bruce Godfree, Adrienne Gould, Tom Rooney. Stratford Festival Theater.
Stratford, Canada. October 16, 2008.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. John Crowther. New York: Spark Publishing, 2003.
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Jason Melton
Purdue University Calumet
Against Intuitional Freedom:
An Analysis of Causation and Free Will
In “The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom,” Peter van Inwagen concludes that whether our choices
are determined or indetermined, freed will appears to be inconsistent (Kane). That is, whether or not each
cause has a certain effect, or it does not, there is no true expression of metaphysical liberty. Despite the
uncertain analysis in his contribution to the debate over free will, van Inwagen writes:
It seems clear to me that when I am trying to decide between two things to do, I commit myself, by
the very act of attempting to decide between the two, to the thesis that I am able to do each of
them…. [W]hethor we are free or not, we believe that we are - and I think we believe, too, that
we know this. (193-94)
Thus freedom is mysterious, as his title explains. Yet, in his closing remarks, van Inwagen gives his
“opinion” that he has made a mistake in his analysis of indeterministic causation (Kane 194). He modestly
admits he does not know where he makes this mistake, but by doing so, he assumes two things: first that
determinism and freedom are incompatible—a point to which I agree—and second that free will is a brute
fact, something intuitively true. This latter point, I will argue, is not the case. By giving a deep analysis of
causation and citing some experiments, I argue that human will does not have metaphysical freedom.
Before I proceed with my arguments, I want add a disclaimer. This essay will neglect the issue of
compatiblism. Compatabilists use a different definition of freedom than the one I plan to handle here.
Freedom, for the purposes of this essay, is exercised when a choice is made and the agent has a real
opportunity of doing otherwise. The agent cannot simply believe they are free. That is, the agent is not
constrained in any way from going down their choice of one of at least two possible paths.
From the definition of freedom above, it follows that if our decision making is deterministic, than
our choices are causally constrained and freedom is impossible. Determinism is the view that every effect
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has a definite cause and that if something is deterministic, then all the causes are likewise the effects of other
causes. If our decision making must have a cause, then it is impossible to do otherwise. Our action would be
caused by our decision, but our decision would also be caused and so on. To do otherwise would be to defy
causation which is impossible according to determinism.
Is it possible to have freedom in an indeterminist world? To this the answer is no. Freedom and
indeterminism are inconsistent as well. Indeterminism is the idea that everything does not have a definite
cause. Instead, a cause may have a number of possible effects. If this were true, we would not be able to
actualize what we wanted. Instead, our choice would be the result of something purely random. If each
choice is possible, in choosing one we neglect the possibility of a different one. In a truly indeterministic
situation, we may choose one thing, and at an equal chance, we may choose something else. If this was the
case, our choices would not be up to us, but instead to some (metaphorical) role of the dice. We could not
do otherwise, because we have lost control of our doing. Probability would rule our actions.
I have essentially corroborated van Inwagen up to this point (Kane). I will argue against van
Inwagen’s “opinion” that there is a problem with his analysis, but I want to dig a little deeper into causation
first. Besides being deterministic or indeterministic, it may also be possible that the world is nondeterministic—something
which van Inwagen does not address. I will discuss four possible non-determistic
worlds and conclude that they are inconsistent with our world (though admittedly, some are possible in
theory).
The first non-deterministic world is where the possibility of decision-making processes take place
with neither causes nor effects. This obviously does not describe our world, because decision making
involves change. It would be impossible to see the result of change without seeing some kind of effect. A
product involves a process, and a new state of affairs comes about as an effect. It would be strange to
believe that a free choice could be made without effects at the very least. Thus a second possibility, a
decision making process with only causes and no effects must also be impossible.
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A third possibility could be where choosing needs only an effect and no cause. Sure, it is possible
imagine a world where things manifest into existence causelessly. Imagine where electronics, animals, or
paintings by Salvador Dali pop into and out of existence without consistency or order. These would still be
effects of some sort, being instances of changed states of affairs. But could this be true of our decisions?
How could we be held responsible for a decision appearing in our heads uncaused? Could we blame our
decision on its causeless, unpredictable nature? This seems as problematic as indetermism. There could not
be an explanation for why one thing happened over any other thing. Furthermore, in the known world,
there is not one other example of this type of causation (or should I say non-causation). If this could come
about inside our heads, why doesn’t it appear anywhere else? It seems that events in the universe do not
happen ex nihilo. I would not grant this possibility to decision making.
The fourth and final possibility I will discuss is self-causation, where cause and effect either happen
simultaneously, or they are identical. The problem with self-causation is that it contradicts itself. If
something were to cause itself to exist, it must exist at a time when it does not exist. It is impossible for
something to exist while it does not exist. Self-causation is not a possible explanation.
So far, I have attempted to show decision making governed by determinism, indeterminism, or
non-determinism does not allow for the real possibility of making different choices. In any of the cases
above, the agent cannot do anything other then causal laws govern, and in situations where they do, the
causal laws do not fit our world. So what happens to the problem of intuited freedom? Should we redo our
analysis as van Inwagen suggests? I think the logic expressed above is sound. Instead, we should disregard
the concept of metaphysical freedom.
Let’s look closer. How does van Inwagen come to the conclusion that freedom is intuitively
obvious? He does so by appealing to our sense of choosing between two possibilities, and our belief that we
have the ability to do either choice. Choices seem real to us, but it is possible that they are illusory. Our
perceptions are flawed in many ways; perhaps this is one of them. Consider color for example. It appears
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that the whiteness of a piano key is across the room from where I am typing at this moment. Yet, light
bouncing from the key and influencing the chemistry of my eyes is truly how I’ve come to experience this
example of whiteness. In fact, all of our experiences happen in our head, despite their appearing to be
outside us. Salt is not salty until it touches our tongue. Sounds vibrate into our hears; smells waft into our
noises. Yet, each time, experience looks as if it happening outside of us. When I say, “I see the piano key
across the room,” I seem to believe that that is where I see it. But, basic facts of science show this is not the
case.
It is our reasoning and science that has allowed us to overcome the problems of our imperfect sense
instruments. It has yielded us better information about the world around us then our meager experiences.
Our sense of freedom is also the product of these senses. Since the contradiction arises between our reason
and our sense, we should neglect our sense, not our reason. Contrary to van Inwagen’s “opinion,” the
problem is free will and not our analysis. Considering the following examples, it is hard to disagree:
Sarah is hypnotized and told to take off her shoes when a book drops on the floor. Fifteen minutes
later a book drops, and Sarah quietly slips out of her loafers. “Sarah,” asks the hypnotist, “why did
you take off your shoes?” “Well...my feet are hot and tired,” Sarah replies. “It has been a long day.”
The act produces the idea. (Myers 127)
George has electrodes temporarily implanted in the brain region that controls his head movements.
When neurosurgeon Jose Delgado (1973) stimulates the electrodes by remote control, George
always turns his head. Unaware of the remote stimulation, he offers a reasonable explanation for his
head turning: “I’m looking for my slipper.” “I heard a noise.” “I’m restless.” “I was looking under
the bed.” (Myers 127-128)
Carol’s severe seizures were relieved by surgically separating her two brain hemispheres. Now, in
an experiment, psychologist Michael Gazzaniga (1985) flashes a picture of a nude woman to the left
half of Carol’s field of vision and thus to her nonverbal right brain hemisphere. A sheepish smile
spreads over har face, and she begins chuckling. Asked why, she invents—and apparently
believes—a plausible explanation: “Oh—that funny machine.” Frank, another split-brain patient,
has a the word “smile” flashed to his nonverbal right hemisphere. He obliges and forces a smile.
Asked why, he explains, “This experiment is very funny.” (Myers 128)
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Works Cited
Kane, Robert (ed.). Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. Print
Myers, David G. Social Psychology. 9th Edition. Holland: McGraw Hill, 2008. Print.
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Maeghan Mier
Central Michigan University
Homosexuality in Judaism and Islam
Homosexuality is a contested idea in contemporary society; however, the notion of same-sex
preference is not a new phenomenon. Homosexuality continues to persist, often more publicly and vocally
than ever before, and societal notions and attitudes regarding homosexuality have evolved over time and
place. These attitudes often vary from openness to and acceptance of same-sex relations as a normal and
healthy way of life, to condemning them as a deplorable sin or crime against a higher power. Such attitudes
have manifested themselves in the traditional views and beliefs of religions across the globe. This essay will
address the traditional views regarding same-sex relations in Judaism and Islam through the work of scholars
Judith Plaskow and Kecia Ali, who actively practice Judaism and Islam respectively. These scholars raise
new questions for their religions to consider in regards to homosexual intimacies. Plaskow and Ali believe
that through this reflection, the traditional practices and beliefs of Judaism and Islam may become more
inclusive and serve the needs of all people who practice these religions. Plaskow and Ali believe that the
customs of Judaism and Islam should be reflected upon due to the traditional ways in which these religions
set forth laws to control the sexuality of all those practicing, as well as the hierarchal nature that is present
through the subordination of women by male dominance. Traditional principles regarding homosexuality in
Judaism will be treated through Plaskow’s The Coming of Lilith, specifically focusing on her reflection of
Leviticus 18, a chapter in the Bible that explicitly addresses sexual acts that are considered to be unclean or
unholy. Traditional beliefs regarding homosexuality in Islam will be examined using a chapter from Ali’s
Sexual Ethics and Islam. In this chapter, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Ali focuses on principles introduced in the
Qur’an that condemn homosexuality, while also stressing her personal belief in the importance of
inclusivity in a New Islam. In order to gain a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the beliefs
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egarding homosexuality in Judaism and Islam, Plaskow and Ali’s ideas and beliefs will be introduced
separately. Finally, through comparing the traditional views of these religions, we will be able to observe
the ways in which Judaism and Islam treat homosexuality similarly and differently in contemporary society.
In Judaism, “Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are taken as the key biblical passages condemning
homosexuality and defining it as an abomination” (Plaskow 179). However, given the recent shift in views
regarding homosexuality, Plaskow observes “progressive discussion of the question of homosexuality and
public policy must start from a curious and important contradiction between theory and politics around gay
rights,” particularly the notion of homosexuality as innate (Plaskow 178). Plaskow argues,
while biological arguments may be strategically useful, it is ultimately a mistake
to ground support for gay rights on biologically based understandings of sexual
orientation. A progressive position must use the insights of social constructionism
to place
the issue of homosexuality in the larger context of the critique of gender
roles,
compulsory heterosexuality, and traditional sexual ethics. (Plaskow 178)
The main argument that Plaskow presents regarding the condemnation of same-sex intimate
relationships in Judaism is the traditional and highly significant notion of male authority and dominance in
Jewish culture. This notion takes root in Genesis, through the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, in
which both were made in the image of God. However, Eve was made from the rib of Adam, thus defining
her subordination to Adam (Plaskow 195). This Scripture has created the traditional image of a divine
relationship being between a man and a woman, in which the man is dominant and the woman is
subordinate. Plaskow notes that this hierarchal relationship presents itself primarily through halakhah,
Jewish law. Traditional views of authority become a concern when trying to define appropriate gender roles
for couples that engage in same-sex intimate relationships. Jewish tradition attributes the dominance and
control of a woman’s sexuality to her husband. Plaskow notes that according to the traditions of Judaism
“the need to regulate women is articulated not as a general problem but as the need to control their unruly
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female sexuality because of its threat to the spirituality of men” (Plaskow 58). However, this notion of
dominance becomes ambiguous in homosexual couples because in a male-male relationship, both individuals
are considered dominant, and within a female-female relationship, both are considered subordinate. Due to
this rejection of traditional roles in intimate relationships, Judaism asserts that homosexuality is, in fact, a
sin. Furthermore, the absence of clear and identifiable traditional Jewish gender roles within homosexual
relationships leads to discussion regarding the duties of females in the household and male’s personal
responsibility to daily prayer, which have been set forth through halakhah. These traditional values and
duties would be lost, according to those who oppose homosexuality, in same-sex intimate relationships,
which in turn would undermine the foundations of Judaism.
Plaskow notes that sexuality is not the only aspect of an intimate relationship. Traditionally, the
Jewish community has only taken into consideration the texts that have addressed the intimate practices that
are deemed unfit and unethical. However, the Torah addresses other elements that are equally important in
terms of intimate relationships. Dynamics that have been reflected upon in the Torah that constitute a
healthy relationship include “forming ethical relationships, creating community, and ensuring social justice”
(Plaskow 196). By ignoring these texts and the elements they present, the Jewish community silences and
undermines appropriate and important traditional Jewish views regarding intimate relationships that serve
not only the individual, but also society as a whole. This approach “fails to view sexuality as just one
dimension of human relationship,” and instead treats sexual intimacy as the primary foundation and purpose
of a relationship (Plaskow 196). In addition, the focus on sexuality as troublesome creates the necessity for
strict regulation (Plaskow196). Instead of placing importance on the positive aspects of sexual intimacy,
Judaism concentrates on the negative. This not only marginalizes individuals who do not agree with
traditional Jewish beliefs, but it also fails to provide a model of a healthy and ethical relationship for
homosexual Jews. With this limited viewpoint, Plaskow observes that it will be difficult for the traditional
values of Judaism to be re-evaluated in order to form a more inclusive religion.
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Plaskow addresses the Jewish notion of heterosexuality as the universal norm. This idea not only
marginalizes all other individuals who align with a sexual orientation other than heterosexuality, but it also
silences them from traditional Jewish life and practice. Due to Judaism’s creation of strict guidelines for
what is considered normal, healthy, and divine in terms of intimate relationships, those who do not engage
in heterosexual relations are left feeling disconnected from Judaism. Plaskow asserts that through this
marginalization, there can be no move toward transforming the traditional views that are prevalent in
Judaism today. Plaskow asserts that Judaism must create an inclusive model in terms of intimate
relationships so that all Jews will be able to engage in intimate relationships without feeling disconnected or
marginalized from their religion.
In Islam, beliefs regarding homosexuality derive primarily from the traditional laws that are set
forth in the Qur’an. Khalid Duran, an expert in Islamic studies, states that the Qur’an “is very explicit in its
condemnation of homosexuality, leaving scarcely any loophole for a theological accommodation of
homosexuals in Islam” (Ali 82). However, increasingly in contemporary society, the question is being
raised, “could there be circumstances under which such a tie could legalize otherwise permitted sexual acts
between two women or two men? For the vast majority of Muslims … this is a ludicrous question; a licit
same-sex relationship is a categorical impossibility” (Ali 77, 78). Ali believes it is this very question that
necessitates the re-examination of traditional views of homosexuality in Islam. The notion of homosexuality
as innate is part of Ali’s argument for revisiting these ideas. In fact, “some self-identified queer Muslims
have challenged the view of the impossibility of licit same-sex relations by affirming the naturalness of their
sexual orientation as divinely granted and seeking to consider whether it might be possible to construct a
religiously valid bond between two men or two women that would legitimize sex between them” (Ali 78).
Furthermore, in contemporary Islamic society, homosexual Muslims have been actively making “attempts
to reconcile a “homosexual” identity with a Muslim identity, and to legitimize same-sex intimate
partnerships within the constraints of Islamic religious discourse” (Ali 78). Ali believes that the idea of
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homosexuality as innate raises new questions about the sexual ethics of Islam. Specifically, through the ways
in which the dualistic and patriarchal guidelines regarding same-sex intimacy further perpetuate the notion
of homosexuality as sinful, as well as contribute to the marginalization of homosexuals in Islam.
Ali reflects upon traditional Islamic sexual ethics through the dualistic nature of Islamic culture and through
the male-dominated hierarchy.
Ali’s reflection of homosexuality in Islam is rooted mainly in sexual ethics. She observes a disparity
among intimate practices that are considered legal and divine and those that are considered illegal and
sinful. Although certain sexual practices are considered illegal and sinful according to Islamic law, they may
be ethical in terms of the individuals involved. However, Ali notes that there are various relationships that
are considered legal according to traditional Islamic values that are not ethical. For example, abusive
marriages, serial marriages, and slave concubinage are all considered legal in Islamic culture, however, they
do not possess moral qualities, and certainly cannot be classified as divine. In contrast, same-sex relations
between two consenting adults is perfectly ethical and healthy, however, it is deemed illegal according to
Islam, and therefore, viewed as sinful. It is necessary to observe the dynamics of individual relationships,
rather than the population as a whole in order to better understand the legal and ethical nature of all types
of relations, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual.
Similar to the hierarchical traditions of Judaism, Ali observes the argument for the condemnation of
same-sex intimacy and marriage in Islam through the traditional importance of patriarchal relationships in
Islamic culture. Customarily, “the husband holds control of the marriage tie, and the wife has a claim to
dower and the obligation of sexual exclusivity and availability” (Ali 95). Women are given little jurisdiction
over matters outside of the family. While men, according to Islamic texts, possess legal control of sexual
acts and the relationships that constitute these acts within a marriage. In this way, same-sex relations
challenge the idea of marriage as a male-female contract due to the ambiguity that arises regarding
traditional gender roles in Islamic culture. By permitting same-sex relations, there is a disconnect from the
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long-established value of the male-dominated hierarchy in Islam, thus creating uncertainty regarding the
distribution of power within relationships based on gender. Through allowing same-sex relations, the
patriarchal values that influence gender roles in Islam would fail to exist and the sacred Islamic definition of
marriage would be lost.
Furthermore, sacred Islamic texts explicitly identify sexual acts that are considered sinful. While
these sacred texts present several sexual enormities, there are some acts that specifically address
homosexual relationships. These acts include, anal intercourse between men, and tribadism, which is
defined as “a woman doing with a woman something resembling what a man would do with her” (Ali 75).
Despite the outright condemnation of homosexuality in the Qur’an, same-sex relations among both males
and females have occurred within Islamic culture in the past and continue to persist in contemporary
society. In terms of male-male intimate relations of the past, Ali observes that,
There are crucial similarities between classical Greek and Roman views on
male/male sex and the norms of elite medieval Muslim culture. Male desire to
penetrate desirable youths was perfectly normal – if never lawful – and not
necessarily indicative of a deviant subjectivity, desire, or a particular sexual
orientation. (Ali 84)
However, it is important to note that these occurrences were not “licit nor possible to legitimize” under the
constraints of the Qur’an and the traditional Islamic beliefs regarding intimate relationships. Tribadism, a
homosexual act between two females, is considered illicit and impossible to legitimize just as male-male
intimate relations are. In terms of contemporary homosexual relations, Ali notes, that some homosexual
Muslims “leave Islam entirely, while others choose to separate sexuality from religion, considering
themselves Muslim but acknowledging that their sexual acts or identities are not acceptable from a religious
perspective” (Ali 80, 81). The presence of these specific sexual enormities in sacred Islamic texts proves
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difficult for homosexual Muslims is search of a divine model for sexual intimacies, and perpetuates their
exclusion from the larger Islamic society.
Plaskow and Ali note that the most problematic issue regarding homosexuality in both Judaism and
Islam is the traditional notion of male dominance and authority over women. This issue stems from Biblical
stories of creation and has continued to persist throughout time. Judaism and Islam both view women’s
sexuality as dangerous and problematic to society, and work to control it. Homosexual relations challenge
this notion and cause a disconnect and ambiguity from traditional images of appropriate and divine intimate
relationships, thus challenging the norms that have been passed down in these religions for centuries. This
rejection is viewed as problematic because both Judaism and Islam would have to entirely transform their
beliefs regarding intimate relationships and the power and roles that are traditionally attributed to each
gender. Although this change would be a move towards more holistic and inclusive religions, it may prove
to be quite difficult given the deeply engrained beliefs of homosexuality as unholy and unethical in Judaism
and Islam.
Ali and Plaskow reflect upon the way in which Judaism and Islam focus mainly on the intimate
relationships and intimate acts that are considered inappropriate and sinful, and fail to provide an image of
ethical and acceptable relationships and acts. This makes it difficult to determine what is considered to be
divine in terms of intimate relationships because it allows for much uncertainty regarding appropriate sexual
acts. Both Judaism and Islam need to redefine their beliefs regarding intimate relations for both
heterosexual and homosexual couples in order to promote the divinity and sacredness that these relations
should strive for.
Judaism and Islam differ in their ideas of homosexuality as innate. Plaskow does not believe that
accepting homosexuality as an inborn trait will be helpful in raising new questions about traditional views in
Judaism. Plaskow asserts that the foundations for a New Judaism should take root in social constructs rather
than biological factors. However, Ali suggests that attempting to reconcile a homosexual identity with a
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Muslim identity through the notion of innateness is a good starting point in the reflection of traditional
Islamic views of intimate relationships because it asserts that homosexuality is an inborn trait rather than a
choice. Through the notion of homosexuality as an inborn characteristic, Ali believes that Islam will be able
to become a more inclusive religion.
Cleary, homosexuality has been a source of great controversy in both Judaism and Islam. The views
that are held in contemporary Jewish and Islamic society regarding the condemnation of homosexuality have
been greatly influenced by the dualistic and patriarchal traditions of these religions. Not surprisingly, it has
been difficult for both Judaism and Islam to move past these anachronistic beliefs, given their deeply
engrained role in Jewish and Islamic society. Thus, both Judaism and Islam continue to uphold their
dualistic and patriarchal traditions, perpetuating the marginalization of homosexual Jews and Muslims.
Works Cited
Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics & Islam. New York: Oneworld Publications, 2008. Print.
Plaskow, Judith. The Coming of Lilith. Boston: Beacon Press, 2005. Print.
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Kiley Miller
Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne
Victims versus Bad Guys:
The Lasting Effects of the Colonizer-Colonized Relationship
Grandpa was French, but he was born in Algiers, Algeria. I had known this for as long as I could
remember, but it was not until around the time I was in high school that I ever realized the obvious
disconnect with this proclamation of identity. When I began to ask questions, I learned from Mom that
Grandpa and his sister were both born in Algiers while it was still a French colony. American history had
taught me enough over the years to know the detrimental effects of colonization, and that it was a “bad”
thing, but I never made the connection between the French and the typical war-mongering, greedy idea of a
“colonizer.” Still, it surprised me more to discover that Grandpa had never actually even lived in France
before immigrating to the United States shortly after his service with the French in World War II, so I was
puzzled that he so strongly identified as French. Then, a few years before his death, at almost eighty years
old, Grandpa let it slip that his father was half Turkish – half Arab – then proceeded to insult the whole
Arab race, further complicating Grandpa’s idea of his identity. With these sporadic conversations about my
family’s heritage and the French history I had started to piece together from my high school and college
French classes, I slowly began to realize the depth of the relationship and tension between Algeria and
France. It was clear that the nature of this relationship had been determined long before the French-
Algerian War in 1954, dating back to France’s first involvement when Algeria was colonized in 1830.
The Conquest and Occupation of Algeria
Algerian colonization began in 1830 when the French invaded, which was a common practice for
European nations at the time. Algeria, however, differed from many colonies in that the French
government encouraged French citizens (later named the pied-noirs) to migrate from the mainland, as
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opposed to other European colonies that only maintained an administrative presence. This migration,
however, forced countless Algerians to relocate to the inner-cities which quickly became the slums, causing
great feelings of resentment (Virtue). Once stabilized as a French département (comparable to a colony) in
1838, the French government began offering citizenship to Algerian natives, but in a particular order: those
of Jewish descent ranked above those of Arab descent, which was broken down again into the Berbers (the
indigenous population who lived primarily in the northern mountains), who ranked above the general Arab
population (who lived throughout the rest of the country as well as in other mountainous regions of
Algeria). All Algerians, however, were still considered to be of a lower class than anyone of European
descent (Stora Histoire 19). Around this time, the French government began to educate selected indigenous
Algerians, most of whom were Jewish or Berbers, who became known as évolués, which literally translates
to “evolved.” This created tension among the ethnic groups who had peacefully cohabitated for centuries,
and would later mark the divide between Algerians who chose to maintain their French citizenship, the
French-Algerians, and those who denounced that citizenship in pursuit of independence.
Tension continued to rise during World War II when pied-noirs and now French-Algerian citizens
were drafted to fight, my grandfather and feminist Algerian author Assia Djebar’s two brothers among
them. While my grandfather flew as a tail gun fighter for the French Royal Air Force, the French Algerian
citizens were stationed on the frontline in France and on the ground in Algeria. She remembers living in
Algeria while it was under attack and watching her two older brothers being deployed multiple times, each
to serve for the maquis, or the underground division of the French Résistance (those who continued to fight
against Germany despite the country’s occupation) (Djebar 133). Pied-noirs and French-Algerians alike
experienced the terror of war, whether they served or not, although the inequality regarding the jobs the
soldiers were assigned demonstrated the bias of the French government and the clear distinction between
the perceived lower value of a French-Algerian life versus that of a pied-noir, as well as in the broken
promises the French government made to the French-Algerians who fought for France yet were still
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disregarded by the government they were forced to obey, leading to resentment and hatred for the
oppressor. Toward the end of WWII, a more distinct divide came as a direct result of the war among the
French-Arab population that my uncle defined as “the ones willing to stay French,” the French-Algerians,
“and the active minority of politically driven guys,” the Algerians (de Montchenu). Despite these
differences, integrated school-children of all backgrounds got along well, though their parents experienced
much discrimination. As this divide continued to grow, the relationship between the France and Algeria
became increasingly one of conflict, leading to violence toward the end of WWII.
The French-Algerian War
The threat of outright war between France and Algeria began with the Sétif Massacre; to celebrate
Germany’s surrender in 1945, a parade was led through Sétif, located southwest of Algiers, and was
predominantly conducted by Muslim French-Algerians. The organizer of the parade, however, was an
Algerian nationalist who sought to promote the need for an independent Algeria, at which point French
soldiers stepped in, turning the celebration-demonstration violent and killing thousands of French-
Algerians (by French estimation, though the actual number was probably closer to tens of thousands) (Stora
Histoire 13). In retaliation, the French-Algerians led a revolt of their own against pied-noirs living in
surrounding villages, killing over a hundred people. This initial phase continued discreetly with small
revolts from 1945-1954. When the official, organized war began and lasted until 1962 when Charles de
Gaulle granted Algeria an election to determine their independence, for which 91.23% of the Algerian
population voted in favor (Stora Histoire 84). This came as a crushing defeat to both pied-noirs and French
citizens of the mainland who very much wanted to keep Algeria as a département (Talbott 357). It was the
strong urging of the French public to maintain control of Algeria that forced the French government to
carry out the war as they did, torturing many Algerians, while the National Liberation Front (Front de
Libération Nationale, FLN) led the opposing Algerian side, both defensively and in offensive terrorist attacks.
French (Colonizer) Offenses
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In an article published during the war by Jean-Paul Sartre, he is less than supportive of France’s
efforts and speaks out strongly against colonization and torture as a whole. Sartre criticizes the methods
used in Algeria, comparing the French military to the Nazis; the French, he says, found it impossible to
come to terms with, let alone understand, the German occupation and the atrocities of the concentration
camps, yet when the French government turned to Algeria, having occupied it for a century, the French
turned a blind eye to the horrors brought upon the Algerians (88). Algerians, Sartre argues, were every bit
as human as the French and deserved to be treated as such (93). Sharing Sartre’s disgust for the French
torture methods was Simone de Beauvoir, who recounts the story of Djemila Boupacha, an indigenous
woman working with the FLN. In addition to the torture, de Beauvoir discusses the absence of Boupacha’s
lawyer during her trial, another citizen’s right which was denied to her (5). Djebar also mentions the
torture she knew was taking place during the war, but describes more vividly the death of her husband at
the hands of the French army; he was put on a post in the middle of Ouled Larbi, a village southeast of
Algiers. He was then executed publicly (Djebar 232). A similar execution is shown in the film Battle of
Algiers when a prisoner is taken outside the prison walls, closed off from the public but visible from the
prisoners’ windows, and led to the guillotine. The French government supplemented individual executions
with covert bombings; government officials gained access to Algerian housing settlements where they
suspected FLN members to be living and planted bombs accordingly. Perhaps an even greater injustice,
certainly a greater betrayal of loyalty, was shown to the indigenous French-Algerians who chose to fight
with the French army, against their own countrymen. Known as “harkis,” these French-Algerian soldiers
were promised protection from the Algerian government should the French lose the war, but the French
government was able to provide neither adequate security, nor safe passage from Algeria to France after the
war. As a result, these soldiers were left in Algeria and executed for their treachery (Virtue).
The manner in which both Sartre and de Beauvoir respond alludes to the severity and,
correspondingly, the disgust with which much of the French public responded. Others however, regarded
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the war in Algeria more passively or were able to appreciate France’s position. Albert Camus, a pied-noir
himself, struggled openly with France’s decisions and condemned acts of violence on both sides (Virtue). In
the typical manner of the oppressed, the Algerians resorted to acts of terrorism in an effort to oust the
French and gain not only independence, but an identity for themselves as Algerians.
Algerian (Colonized) Offenses
Following the counter attack in Sétif, Algerians were forced to resort to covert military strategies
organized by the FLN. After several small shootings at the beginning of the war in 1954, the French
introduced a curfew in Algiers and limited the passing of French-Algerians between their home in the
Casbah and the French-settled area of the city, which was heavily guarded by the French military (Stora
Histoire 55). Battle of Algiers depicts the FLN organizing attacks and forming battle strategies after these
curfews were enforced. This included a protest and strike against all French goods and services. This
unsuccessful strike was an effort to demonstrate Algerian unity and gain the UN’s support for Algerian
sovereignty; the French viewed the strike as a threat, in that they believed more terrorist attacks would be
planned, leading them to invade the Casbah and arrest any Algerian man suspected of FLN involvement;
though French paranoia was not unfounded considering the attacks prior to and after this strike.
My family’s memories of café bombings and bomb threats at their children’s schools supplement
the Battle of Algiers depictions of Algerian women disguised as French women to gain access to Frenchoccupied
areas of Algiers to plant bombs in cafés, airports, and dance clubs. Women, or men dressed as
women, were often used as “mules,” carrying information or planting bombs since women, at first, were
allowed into many more public French places than Algerian men at the time (Stora Histoire 28). Some of the
more prominent memories of my family members during the war were of running home from school,
hearing Algerian bullets fly by until they reached safety or were within range of the French military. These
shootings were in addition to the fire-bombings of various French elementary schools during the war,
including the elementary school Grandpa’s nephew, my Uncle Olivier, attended as a boy before the end of
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the war. At seven years old, he remembers watching his school burn, and simply states, “All the books were
just smoke! A very sad moment for a little boy.” He recounts his older sister’s fear of walking to college,
being forced to walk over dead bodies frequently (de Montchenu). Grandpa honestly believed that the
Algerians targeted children and civilians in acts of terrorism because by targeting the innocent, they more
strongly challenged the French government, as well as instilled a sense of fear among the pied-noirs (Battle of
Algiers). Still, the French government continued to torture suspected FLN members in an attempt to thwart
the revolution and maintain possession of Algeria. Finally, the war ended with the passing of the Évian
Agreement under Charles de Gaulle in 1962, and the mass evacuation of French citizens began (Stora
Histoire 76-77), but not without the difficulty.
At the end of the war, the Harbor Authority Office in Algiers where Grandpère, my grandfather’s
father, worked for the French government was invaded by Algerian soldiers. The Algerian military lined up
the French workers along a wall and began shooting, one person at a time. When they reached Grandpère,
however, one soldier stopped the shooting, recognizing my great-grandfather as a kind guy to whom he
owed a decent sum of money. According to my family, the Algerian man, laughing, told Grandpère to run
away and get out of the country. Thankful for his life but well aware of what the FLN was capable, my
family fled Algeria immediately. The official policy of the French authorities following the Évian Agreement
was to evacuate the one million French citizens (both pied-noirs and French-Algerians held theoretically
equal status citizenship) from the country, but it was complete chaos attempting to move such a large
population (de Montchenu). All around France, however, the effects and prejudices that developed during
the war still affected the everyday life of immigrants and continues to cause tension in France today.
The Lasting Ramifications of Colonization for North Africans and Pied-noirs
The need for immigrant workers was greatest immediately after World War II and in the 1960s
when the French began to further industrialize. In need of cheap labor, France looked to its North African
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colonies to man the factories. This migration cast North Africans as outcasts in their France, while pied-noirs
experienced struggles when moving from Algeria to France.
Prejudices against North African Immigrants and the Effects on Post-War Algeria
Many of the initial immigrants who came to France to work were single men or husbands trying to
make money to provide support for their families in Africa. While working in France, some men were able
to enroll in French classes to learn to read and write. In the 1998 documentary Immigrant Memories, Yamina
Benguigui interviewed many North Africans and Europeans to build a description of immigrant life in the
1940s and 1950s, which clearly demonstrated the divide between French citizens and immigrants. A
general sense of xenophobia seemed to take hold in France with the influx of North African immigrants, and
it was apparent in many of the factories and classrooms where immigrants worked and studied (Stora
Transfert 7). In one classroom in 1966, a Moroccan man speaks to the instructor who calls him Algerian.
The student corrects the instructor who shrugs, telling him that it’s all the same thing; the French citizens
and government had internalized prejudices against the Algerians with whom they were at war, taking away
immigrants’ individuality and equating them all to what they perceived as blood-thirsty, righteous, Muslim
Arabs from Algeria. This view is supplemented by an interview with François Ceyrac, Chairman to the
Confederation to French Industry, who claims not only that Algeria is France, implying that the Algerians
should have felt French at heart, but goes on to further dehumanize them by essentially identifying them as
French property (Immigrant Memories). Another Tunisian immigrant became quickly enamored with the
French culture and was overwhelmed to be so fortunate to study in France and to work; he expressed his
deepest sorrows that he was still only viewed as an object by the French car company, Renault, and that he
was constantly called “Mohamud,” despite his dissociation with Islam (Immigrant Memories). He, like other
immigrants working for meager wages, had no choice but to continue working to send home whatever
pittance possible to his family.
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The small amount of money from French factories was unfortunately one of the only potential
sources of income for North Africans. When the French withdrew after the war, this was especially true for
Algerians. One of de Gaulle’s greatest priorities before allowing Algeria their independence was to secure
the rights to oil that was recently found in Algeria, taking the potential revenue and many jobs with them
(Virtue). Scholars agree that “the conduct and the aims of [de Gaulle’s] Algerian policy remain among the
most controversial questions about the war” (Talbott 359). This influenced the economic crisis that gripped
Algeria after France’s withdrawal; an economic collapse of this nature is characteristic of new nations who
have not had experience functioning independently, and the political upheaval that accompanied Algeria’s
independence added to the general disorder of the country. My uncle recalls the many Algerians who
sought work in France as the result of Algeria’s political and economic failure. According to my uncle, these
failures were due to the FLN’s control which, he says, was no more than a “communist regime” or a
“military dictatorship” (de Montchenu). Still many of the struggles that Algeria faces today can be traced
back to the tension introduced by France’s preferential treatment of different ethnic groups during the
initial colonization of Algeria.
Migration and Settlement of the Pied-noirs in France
For the pied-noirs who were relocated from Algeria to France, many felt a similar sense of
displacement when they moved to Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyon, or other southeast cities in France (Virtue),
almost directly north of Algiers. Unfortunately, many pied-noirs like my grandfather who was born in
Algiers in 1929 or my great-uncle who migrated in 1937 to start a family, had no or only little knowledge
of France, so the land was as unusual to them as it was to the North Africans. There was a slight animosity
between the pied-noirs who felt abandoned by the French government in Algeria among the still hostile FLN
(Stora Histoire 77). While many French citizens had waited for three days in Algeria for a plane to France,
my family was fortunate enough to wait only a day, but “most of the families leaving Algeria had to leave so
quickly that they only had a suitcase. A terrible shame for an entire population” (de Montchenu). Since
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Algeria had appropriated all French property, including pied-noir bank accounts, my family was forced to
begin rebuilding their lives, and even encountered some prejudice from the French mainland citizens who
claimed to have only “somewhat” or “little” connection with the pied-noirs (Talbott 358). Still, the pied-noirs
maintained an advantage over North African immigrants who often faced the language barrier and more
overt racial prejudices as a result of the war and the lost département.
Not all French citizens harbored animosity toward the North African immigrants; despite the
personal affronts my uncle experienced, he “has always been in a good understanding and feeling with the
Arabs, as [he] feels [they] have a lot in common,” mentioning specifically the culture, history, family values,
and good food that they share (de Montchenu). However, the intense impact on the relationship between
France and Algeria in terms of the sole number of people affected by the war cannot be ignored: one
million pied-noirs and their children; 1.5 million soldiers that lived or worked in Algeria during the war; one
million Algerian immigrants and their children (the latter known as “beurs”); and the tens of thousands of
harkis (Stora Transfert 71). For some pied-noirs like my uncle, he felt that the war left a hidden scar within
him, and he made a pilgrimage of sorts to his birthplace, visiting his home, school grounds, grandparents’
houses, church, and relatives’ graves in an attempt to reconcile his conflicting emotions. He is the only
member of my family that has felt this desire to return to Algeria, though many pied-noirs have made this
trip (de Montchenu). Likewise, the sons and daughters of immigrants have become a part of the French
culture, much like their fathers had hoped (Stora Transfert 5). However, they too still face the
discrimination of some French citizens, most recently and most notably in the 2005 French riots, which
were an indirect result of the lost département and continued tension between the French and many
immigrants.
I don’t agree with France’s treatment of Algeria during the war, let alone the initial colonization,
nor do I agree with the methods by which Algeria reassumed control of their country and the acts of terror
they committed, especially against my own family, while in pursuit of their independence. Given the faults
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of each nation, it’s difficult to blame any person, though the French government is well responsible for the
invasion and occupation of Algeria. Although Grandpa’s long-standing prejudices may have understandable
roots, having believed his family was deeply wronged, the Algerians too had understandable reasons for
wanting to assume their own identity, separate from the French, from their oppressors of over a century.
In the end, the Algerians won their country and an identity to go along with it, as did the pied-noirs. Much
like the Algerians who are discriminated against in France had nothing to do with the mistreatment of the
pied-noirs, the pied-noirs who were affected by the French-Algerian War also had nothing to do with the
colonization of Algeria. Maybe it just turns out that everyone is a victim, though perhaps not equally, and
everyone is a bad guy in terms of the colonizers who invade and oppress and the colonized who fight to take
back their identity.
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Amelia Moreno
Saint Xavier University
The Vampire in my Bedroom:
Exploring the Cultural Impacts of the Twilight Series
The Twilight Saga is compromised of four books (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn),
the first of which hit bookstores in October of 2005. The reading frenzy that followed after these books has
since been compared to the popularity of the Harry Potter series. However, where the controversy stirred by
Harry Potter centered on religion, the Twilight series has stirred up discontent with feminism and, more
specifically, adolescent female sexuality. Many have argued the value of Isabella Swan as a strong female
role model for teenage girls and many have argued against her merits. Both sides have taken ample
examples from the series, sometimes using the exact same passages and assigning completely polar
meanings. There is, of course, a problem with this binary categorization: both groups fail to explain or
explore why this series is so popular or why this may be problematic for those with limited romantic
experience. Those that are opposed to the series, have articulated the best argument against the
representations of love and sexuality for girls these books present yet have still failed to identify the most
prevalent force working against them: silence. It is not so much what the books ‘say’ or represent, but
rather the ubiquitous silence that comes attached to love and sexuality adolescents whose primary form of
learning acceptable behavior is reading cultural texts (books, magazines, movies, etc.) and retelling the
stories they have learned.
Some readers are quick to point out the abusive elements in Edward and Bella’s relationship. They
are quick to condemn Bella for her stupid ‘choices’ and her willingness to disregard her safety,
independence, and her life in the name of her love for this vampire man-boy. These are all valid and truthful
claims to the dynamics of Bella and Edward’s relationship, especially in Book One and Two of the series,
but they fail to take into account why, despite these claims of abuse in our post feminist and enlightened age,
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the series is still devoured by women and adolescents on a massive scale. Obviously, this simple story fills
some need or answers some question girls have about interactions within the bounds of a romantic
relationship. Bella and Edward‟s codependency is abusive, but it is branded as „deeply seductive‟ on the
back cover of the first book, reflecting the dichotomous nature of what is considered a „normal‟ female
sexuality. Jacob, the werewolf and Bella‟s best friend, is not a better choice for Bella simply because he
offers fewer restrictions to her sexuality. In fact, he continually acts in ways that makes Bella uncomfortable
by being too forceful, as if trying to make her express her sexuality without her consent. In either case,
Bella occupies the role of „the influenced‟ and has her autonomy repeatedly denied.
These subtle interactions between the characters, when read in the light of what Jessica Valenti
explains in her book The Purity Myth as the “virgin/whore dichotomy,” which is to say either you are a pure
woman that does not participate in (any form of) sexual activity or you are a “dirty girl” that participates too
much, highlight the way girls are brought up to “blank out” during sensual or sexual stimulation. In order to
maintain the purity of girlhood, and keep innocence unblemished, while still being a physical being with
desires, a woman must learn early to “let sex happen,” “get caught up in the moment,” and maintain a
distance between herself and her sexual actions. The main problem lies with our culture‟s black-and-white
view of female sexuality that leaves no middle ground for a girl to become a woman as she learns the
healthy and safe ways to express or satisfy her needs. There cannot be any planning if sex “just happens,”
and there cannot be any discussion of the complexity of sexuality if sex is supposed to be nonexistent
outside of the heterosexual marriage bed. The Twilight series acknowledges the physicality of a teenage
girl‟s existence; unfortunately, it offers marriage and childbearing as the ultimate transformation for a girl
to reach, leaving no room for further development. The series is also unable to fill in the gaps between the
misinformation or explain the overt, violent, and convoluted sexuality experienced in girl‟s everyday lives.
The result is that stereotypes are reinforced and girls are left with a view of sexuality, their own and their
partners, that is truncated at best or a patchwork of myth and half-truths that perpetuate sickly sexuality in
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men and women at worst. Despite its reputation as abstinence-only propaganda, the Twilight series is filled
with clandestine references to sex and sensuality which has garnered it the nickname “abstinence-porn.” The
series does not do anything different than the larger culture it was spawned from but because of its
popularity it has drawn the most attention with its glaringly obvious faults.
Feminist writers like Christine Siefert on bitchmagazine.org suggest that reader disappointment in
Bella and Edward‟s consummation of their marriage in book for “suggests something about the desire
readers have for abstinence messages.” This is a miswriting on her part: it is not that readers have a desire
for the abstinence messages but rather that readers have been indoctrinated to believe that abstinence ─ and
the self-denial, nay sacrifice, that goes along with it ─ is sexy. The suspense of abstinence-until-marriage is
eroticized to the point that it becomes the epitome of sexual excitement, while the act itself is left
undescribed, ill-defined, and, once fulfilled, particularly disappointing.
Most talk about sex, especially involving teens, is limited to aphorisms and vagary leaving teenagers
with the „facts‟ (in the best of cases) and the idea that sex is a purely biological act between a man and a
woman that somehow leads to some kind of transformation on a personal and relational level. In this
definition, sex becomes conflated with intimacy and it is presented as the only example of the magical and
mysterious bonds matrimony is supposed to convey upon the happy couple. Perhaps this is the message that
readers are actually seeking: an example of what intimacy is supposed to look like before and after the
ceremony. Twilight and its series-sisters, the movies, and even the leaked Midnight Sun (which is Twilight
from Edward‟s perspective) is a seriously perverted example of intimacy that relies on simplifications and
classifications of human behavior (man is aggressive and woman is frail) to justify marriage as the only
acceptable answer to sexuality and intimacy.
In this way, it is not the series itself that is bad for girls but the assumptions the series uses to exemplify sex,
love, and intimacy. What need does this series fulfill for women, and what lessons are adolescents gleaning
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from the pages of these otherworldly tomes? Stephanie Meyers, the author of the series, makes it clear that
these books are merely ‘fantasy’ and should be read as such. But that trivializing and dismissive explanation
only serves to bypass readers’ critical thinking, making it easier to let themes and beliefs about a subject go
unquestioned and sometimes even unacknowledged. I will argue that it is not so much the ‘messages’ that
this series delivers, but how this series fits into the larger cultural systems that perpetrate passivity and
innocence as the only form of appropriate sexual expression for women. In the following pages, I will
examine key scenes from the Twilight series to show the reactionary and contradictory views presented as
‘normal’ female sexuality to girls as they are developing their sexual identity. From the title book of the
series, I will look at the infamous scene in the clearing where I will make the argument that this is where
Bella swan’s sexuality is first awakened by Edward’s kiss. I will argue that this is actually the primary scene
of the series because it begins the exchange that is central to the ‘romantic’ aspects of Bella and Edward’s
relationship, which in turn fetishizes the act of self-denial and innocence. In the second book of the series, I
will focus on the cessation of Bella’s story that ultimately culminates in her and Edward’s suicide attempts.
There will only be brief reference to Jacob Black here because Meyer uses him mainly as a plot device and
his character is not as full developed as the main characters. Eclipse, the third book, is primarily used to set
up Breaking Dawn, but contains important interactions and dialogue between the couple that demonstrate
the ‘proper’ give-and-take of a heterosexual relationship. Breaking Dawn’s focus is mainly the marriagehoneymoon-pregnancy
triumvirate that culminates in Bella’s transformation to superhuman. This
combination of events normalizes and ennobles the act of female sacrifice, as well as glorifies the
transformative powers of that sacrifice. These scenes, as they make up the series, centralize the ideal of
romantic relationships as paramount to creating one’s identity in a girl’s mind and offers marriage as the
logical and liberating end to this search.
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The Clearing
“…his face was absurdly handsome ─ with piercing, hate-filled eyes.” (Twilight 27).
Stephanie Meyer makes it clear on her official website that she considers feminism to be about
choices. She never says this outright, but her insistence that Bella made choices about what she really
wanted out of her life, and feminism is supposed to be all about choice, then Bella must be a feminist.
According to Meyer, the fact that this series is also about vampires and werewolves gives further proof that
it cannot be taken seriously because of the impossible situations Bella faces. Meyer fails to recognize two
very important issues with her definition of feminism: first, within the series itself, Bella consistently
attributes fate or destiny to the way her life has turned out, both of which deny the existence of choice
within their very definition; and second, feminism cannot be whittled down to “oppressive can‟ts” (Meyer
uses the example that women used to be told they could not be astronauts because they were women) and
“freeing cans.” According to this logic, society has gotten rid of most of the oppressive can‟ts for women so
if they choose to have children and marry young then they are displaying their agency to do so. This would
be a wonderful thing to happen for women if anything was ever that simple. What may seem a „choice‟ to
Meyer may actually be an inability to imagine life any differently due to the limited access to alternative
examples of female agency.
The title of the first book, Twilight, suggests the confusion and uncertainty that a girl faces when she
first realizes she is too old to be just a girl, but still too young to be considered a woman. Expectations of
friends and family for this child are changing, societal rules become more nuanced, and she must learn to
navigate this ever expanding world in order to understand what is expected of her. This is a time when a
girl learns what behaviors are „appropriate,‟ for her and then must reconcile that with what she wants out of
her. Mary Pipher, PH.D, author of Reviving Ophelia defines early adolescence as a “time of physical and
psychological change, self-absorption, preoccupation with peer approval and identity formation” (23-4).
She goes on to say that “[i]t‟s a time of marked internal development and massive cultural indoctrination”
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(26), which is to say that these girls find the answers to Who am I, and Who/what do I want to be mostly in the
culture through books, movies, magazines, and each other. Since adolescents become „avid cultural
readers,‟ looking for the appropriate ways to „be‟ women, it is interesting to note that there are very few
examples of women who have accomplished something outside of marriage and motherhood being
presented as role models to girls. The role models that are available seem removed from the everyday and
average life of an American teenager and love and sexuality do not exist in our society as something that can
be defined, much less modeled. As a result, adolescents are forced to seek outside sources for clues as to
what it means to be in love and be a sexual person in a romantic relationship. What they find are stories like
Twilight written and marketed just for them that reinforce the old notion that love is a force of nature that
nothing can deter, divert, or control. Essentially, these books are guidelines, roadmaps, with the landmarks
named and proliferated in different forms throughout our cultural subconscious. In other words, love and
sexuality are not choices, they just happen, and this is what they are supposed to look like. The problem is
that these landmarks must be interpreted and reinterpreted with each new „fact‟ gathered, story told, and
experience acquired with many of the pieces missing.
The Girl-venture
This necessity for self-teaching is where Romance novels come in as a kind of textbook about what
to generally expect from love and sexuality. Ann Bar Snitow studies mass market romances like Harlequins
that are usually marketed to married women with children (that is the stereotype, at least). She makes some
interesting points about these Romance novels and the role they play in women‟s lives that can be directly
connected with the Twilight series and the function it serves in adolescents‟ lives:
“The books…define a set of relations, feelings, and assumptions that do indeed permeate our
minds…They reflect…commonly experienced psychological and social elements in the daily lives of
women. That the books are unrealistic, distorted, and flat are all facts beside the point” (247).
It is generally accepted that Romance novels for girls are the equivalent of adventure books for
boys. This is to say that where the adventure books focus on identity formation through completing
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harrowing tasks and solving complex problems, Romances focus more on woman‟s ability to interact with
and learn the quirks of the male mind in order to ultimately civilize him with marriage. These books are
preparing girls for the roles they are supposed to play in real life and because of that it is easy to over
exaggerate the role identifiers in order to simplify them. In other words, qualities associated with a
particular sex will become central to that character‟s personality. And as with any adventure, it begins by
leaving the comfort of familiarity.
The Twilight series is told primarily from Bella‟s point of view, who describes herself as unable to
relate to people her own age (10), having difficulty expressing emotions out loud (7), and generally as an
outcast (10). This establishes Bella as an „every-girl,‟ someone that any person first picking up the novel can
relate to because the feeling of being different from adults and peers is a common experience, most notably
in adolescence. Bella is still a child at this point and is only just becoming aware of the rules of becoming a
woman. It is important to note that adolescence is a period in life that is marked by insecurity and
separation in order to test separate identities from those formed by others‟ assessment of the child.
Mary Pipher calls adolescents “travelers” because of their necessity to constantly reevaluate their
core identity. Bella has exiled herself to a new home, separating herself from places she knows and people
that comfort her in order, she claims, to give her mother and her mother‟s new husband private time. It is
time for her to branch out to create her own home in place of the one her mother is building. Besides the
specifics of her reason for moving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington, a reader can relate to the
feeling of being „set adrift as they are required to leave the family.
Bella‟s excursion to the misty forests of Forks can be read as a girl‟s first journey into awareness
about her sexual self, a part of her identity that had hitherto largely consisted of lessons that were variations
of „ladies don‟t sit that way‟ and good girls do X. These half-truths exchanged between friends and collected
through the grapevine do not offer a strong foundation for this girl to be able to construct a sexual self that
is whole and healthy. Bella is an inexperienced girl that will learn to be a woman only when she can decode
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a man‟s behavior and learn to respond appropriately. Her inexperience at this point is evidenced by the
awkwardness between her and her father.
Within the first chapters of the first book, Bella makes note of the lack of communication between
her and Charlie and the discomfort of being alone with him. She is not sure of the nuances inherent in the
show she is supposed to put on for a man, which leaves their interactions lacking since it is usually the
female‟s responsibility to make everyone comfortable. As soon as Bella is alone and unpacking in her room
she notes that it was “a relief… not to have to smile and look pleased” (9). With this one simple sentence,
Stephenie Meyer is inadvertently commenting on the facade a woman is supposed to maintain for others
that assures them she is happy and easy to please. It is an inconvenience to others should she be unhappy and
that goes against what a woman is conditioned to do, which is make sure other people are content at all
time. Bella is not yet used this part of womanhood and it is tiring for her to keep it up. Heretofore, her
responsibilities included school and doing errands for her mom, without the constant vigilance over her
emotions.
Bella‟s next trial comes in the form of school. There, she must learn to navigate social situations
with diplomacy. In other words, she must learn to lie effectively. Again, Bella is aware of social conventions
and their uses but is uncomfortable with using them. Bella notes that “she had always been a terrible liar”
because she did not sound “convincing at all” (60) yet the more her and Edward interact, the more
comfortable she is with lying. By page 123, Bella is „smoldering‟ at Jacob in order to get information she
seeks, by page 239 she is enlisting his help in order to keep her relationship with Edward a secret, and by
252 she is taking unnecessary cold medicine so she can be well rested enough to meet Edward‟s family the
next day. Between these events she also makes sure to keep her whereabouts from her father, fabricate
stories to keep her classmates from being suspicious about her relationship with Edward, and sneaks him
into her room at night. This kind of behavior would be considered inappropriate, were Bella not doing this
for love. As long as she is able to say to herself that she should not be acting this way (“I normally wouldn‟t
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condone that type of behavior in myself…”) and is doing those actions in some way for Edward (…but
tomorrow would be complicated enough without me being loopy from sleep deprivation (252)) then that
gives her permission to go ahead and do what she wants.
This type of behavior would not usually be considered appropriate for anyone, but that does not
take into account the idea that she is doing these things for love, which means she gets a free pass. What
constitutes the level of appropriateness in any girl‟s actions depend largely on the culture that she comes out
of. In this case the Twilight series was born of a discourse largely dominated by what has come to be known
as the Abstinence Movement, which is an ideology dominated by traditional gender roles and denial.
Therefore, Bella is supposed to be learning to manipulate and lie to get what she wants, but as long as she is
doing it for the sake of Edward and their relationship then the knowledge she gains goes to a higher
purpose.
The most crucial lesson Bella must learn on her journey to womanhood is how to balance between
being sexy and maintaining her virtue, which is translated as „safety‟ within the pages of the series. In the
books this balancing act becomes increasingly difficult for Bella because in Phoenix she was never pursued
by the opposite sex, but in Forks she is suddenly the object of many males‟ desires. Her peers do not pose a
threat to her because of their own immaturity so she finds it relatively easy to deny their advances.
However, when another vampire, James, enters the picture he poses a different kind of threat to
Bella because of his level of „experience‟ as a hunter. He is the dangers of male sexuality personified: a
hunter of innocent victims seeking to penetrate their flesh and drain their livelihood. He lures her back to
her hometown using her family‟s safety as the hook. He then brings her back to her childhood ballerina
studio where he then tries to destroy her. Faced with such an overt offense, Bella does not have the
resources to respond correctly. Instead, she is paralyzed: “I wanted so badly to rub, but I was frozen. I
couldn‟t even flinch away” (448). Her inaction is a manifestation of her ignorance about the male/female
relations. But throughout the series, as Bella becomes more comfortable expressing her sexuality with
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Edward, she also becomes bolder in her vocalizations about fighting with her vampire family instead of
being saved. This, of course, is explained by Edward as Bella not knowing exactly what dangers there are
and her general need for protection because of her frail humanity. She is only a child, after all.
The Father Figure
Innocence and naiveté are the hallmark of Romance novels because the woman is supposed to be
unaware of her potential as a sexual being before she meets her future lover. She is in need of constant
protection from corruption from the outside because teen sexuality has been characterized as “risky,
harmful, and immoral” (Doan and Williams 68) by our cultural standards. Within the Abstinence
Movement, the father is responsible for protecting his daughter until she marries. Since Bella‟s father has
been largely absent in her life, he is unfit to play the role of protector for her. Edward, however, is more
than willing and capable to step into the role because of his age and experience. He is constantly reminding
Bella to stay safe because she is a magnet for trouble.
A particularly interesting scene that sets up Bella‟s struggle to control her sexuality for the rest of
the novel is what has come to be known as the scene in the clearing. In Book One, Bella and Edward go to a
clearing in the forest around Forks so that he can show her his „true‟ self. Bella is, at first, reluctant to enter
the forest with Edward because of her clumsiness and plodding pace. She is ashamed of her inexperience
whereas he finds it endearing. Edward awakens in Bella her dormant sexuality as he simultaneously must
control his predator instincts that tell him he must take her:
“With deliberate slowness, his hands slid down the sides of my neck. I shivered, and heard him
catch his breath. But his hand didn‟t pause as they softly moved to my shoulders, and then stopped.
His face drifted to the side, his nose skimming across my collarbone. He came to rest with the side
of his face pressed tenderly against my chest” (276).
Afterwards, Edward declares that it will be much easier to resist her bouquet (276) because he had
tempted himself so much and succeeded in not killing her. He had, however, made her aware of her
sexuality. When he brings her back to her car, they pause for a moment, and he kisses her. He is testing his
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control while he makes her lose her control: “Blood boiled under my skin, burned in my lips. My breath
came in a wild gasp. My fingers knotted in his hair, clutching him to me. My lips parted as I breathed in his
heady scent” (282). Suddenly, Bella is aware of her sexuality, her desire for Edward, and is unable to
control herself. After this display of affection, Edward realizes how perilous this could be for Bella. He
„turns to stone‟ under her lips and with „irresistible force‟ pushes her face away from his (282). Bella turns
back into a repentant child, muttering „Oops‟ (282) and moving away from him. She then laments her lack
of control. After that, Edward becomes her protector from outside threats, he also protects her from
herself. Meyer acknowledges societies double standard when it comes to adolescent sexuality: on one hand
they are supposed to be innocent, yet are also “constructed…as fully sexual temptresses” (Doan and
Williams 68), which is the role that Bella now plays for Edward.
Of course, to be a protector he must be constantly vigilant. This entails spying on Bella before and after
they are talking. He repeatedly snuck into her room and sat in the rocking chair across from her bed and
watched her while she slept. Despite the boundaries that were crossed when Edward infiltrated Bella‟s
bedroom without her knowledge, she is more upset that he may have heard her talking in her sleep. She
notes that she “could not infuse her voice with the proper outrage” because she was “flattered” that he
would go through so much trouble (292). Instead of a calculated entry into her home, Bella takes this action
as a sign that Edward cares enough to go through all the trouble. Pipher says adolescent girls „suffer‟ from
what is called “imaginary audience syndrome” where the girls “think they are being watched by others who
are preoccupied with the smallest details of their lives” (60). There could be nothing more romantic than a
man being so enamored with a woman that he would go through so much trouble just to watch her sleep.
Snitow makes note about a theme in Romances in general that it is “pleasing to think that appearances are
deceptive, that male coldness, absence, boredom, are not what they seem” (250).
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Dening, Sarah. The Mythology of Sex: An Illustrated Exploration of Sexual Customs and
Practices from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: MacMillan, 1996. 181-97. Print.
I focus on the pages of the book that explain the Victorian views of sexuality all the way through to the
1960s. This is a written as a general overview of the social moors of sex and does not go deep into any kind
of social theory. It mentions key times, attitudes, and people that influence the attitudes toward sex at those
specific times in history.
Doan, Alesha E., and Jean Calterone Williams. The Politics of Virginity: Abstinence in Sex
Education. London: Praeger, 2008. Print.
This book uses statistics on the effectiveness of Abstinence Only education in public schools. Both authors
explore the virgin/whore dichotomy that this kind of sex ed promotes to women and also looks at the
policies as part of a larger movement of reframing sexuality as a morality compass.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1963,2001. Print.
This book is used as background for the feminist movement. Friedan covers sexuality, identity formation,
and sexuality. This book has informed many feminists since its first publication in 1963.
Giannetti, Charlene C., and Margaret Sagarese. Boy Crazy: Keeping Your Daughter's Feet on the
Ground When Her Head is in the Clouds. New York: Broadway Books, 2006. Print.
This books is aimed toward parents of girls entering adolescence. The authors are “recognized experts on
the tween years” and have published many books on the subject. I will use this book to analyze how the
messages parents are getting are either reinforcing the scare tactics and unhealthy ideals for young women’s
sexuality or are attempting to reverse such assumption.
Gitlin, Todd. Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives.
New York: Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt and Company, 2002. Print.
Gitlin takes a general look at visual media and how the constant stream of information is distracting and
crates a kind world in which people are not participants but only watchers. I will use this to show how the
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messages in the Twilight Series about ‘ideal’ female sexuality is reinforced in the movies, or the visual
portrayals of the literature.
Hersch, Patricia. A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence. New York:
Fawcett Columbine, 1998. Print.
Hersch follows eight teenagers for three years in order to understand the adolescent culture, which may be
informed by the ‘popular culture’ but is almost a world unto itself. She is able to peer into this other world
with clarity and insight and articulate the issues that facing adolescents. I will be focusing particularly on the
chapters that deal with sex, sexuality, and issues that face girls. Hersch’s conclusion that society creates the
disconnect between adults and adolescents and leaves them responsible for making their own decisions and
defining their individuality with the mixed messages from the media.
hooks, bell. Communion: The Female Search for Love. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Print.
She focuses on love and the ways in which females are taught to find it and the habits girls are supposed to
cultivate in order to keep said love. Instead of doing these things, she urges women to take charge of their
search for love instead of taking a passive role.
Housel, Rebecca, and J. Jeremy Wisnewski. Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetariants,
and the Pursuit of Immortality. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2009. Print.
This is a collection of essays on different philosophical issues that can be read throughout the Twilight series.
These are for readers of the series with no need for philosophical background needed. However, there are a
few very interesting articles that pick up some of the little acknowledge feminist threads.
Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown And Company, 2005. Print.
The First book of the series, this is where the characters and their love story first unfolds. This book
represents a girl first entering adolescence.
Meyer, Stephenie. New Moon. New York: Little, Brown And Company, 2006. Print.
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The second book in the series that represents the second stage of growing up female in which the girl learns
to deny her sexuality.
Meyer, Stephenie. Eclipse. New York: Little, Brown And Company, 2007. Print.
The third book in the series that deals with a girl’s struggle to reconcile the control of her sexuality and its
expression in order to become a functioning member of society and an acceptable woman.
Meyer, Stephenie. Breaking Dawn. New York: Little, Brown And Company, 2008. Print.
Fourth and last book in the series that offers the solutions for femininity. For Meyer, these are marriage and
motherhood.
Pipher, PH.D, Mary. Reviving Ophelia. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1994. Print.
Mary Pipher uses her work as a therapist for adolescent girls to define the period in their development in
which the girls lose themselves and become inauthentic. She makes the argument that the culture promotes
a passive, sexualized ideal to young women and through socialization teaches them to be docile and focused
on pleasing others. She uses case studies and research to lend credence to her argument. It is an easy book
to read, though she tends to rely too heavily on generalizations.
Shalit, Wendy. A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. New York: The Free Press,
1999. Print.
Shalit makes the argument that women and girls want to be modest and it is only the over-sexualized
culture that teaches them sex is the only way to get attention and validation. She is part of the Modesty
Movement that promotes an asexualized girl (until she gets married, but even then she wants to bake
cookies more than have sex). Female pleasure, desire, and initiative are not part of a wholesome young
woman for Shalit. She reinforces the dangers of sex and sexuality (emotional and physical) for girls and gives
credence to the virgin/whore dichotomy (either you are a virgin and a good girl, or a whore and bad girl.
There is no in between or healthy sexuality).
Valenti, Jessica. The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young
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Women. Berkley, California: Seal Press, 2010. Print.
Valenti analyzes the ‘Modesty Movement’ and how the virgin/whore dichotomy leaves very little room for
girls to develop an actualized sexual identity. She also makes the argument that this movement is working
against feminism and making the ideal ‘woman’ more ‘girl’ than ever before. It is just not sexy to be a fully
competent adult, but rather to be a helpless child-like being that is too weak (spiritually, physically,
emotionally) to take care of themselves.
White, Emily. Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut. New York: Scribner, 2002.
Print.
This book focuses on the way story-telling is used in the High School arena and why these stories are so
important to teens. She focuses on the need to label girls that seem ‘too interested’ in sex or more to the
point, the girls who like sex too much. White explores the myth of the ‘slut’ and how this sexually
ravenous female archetype functions in high school society. White also studies the society that perfects the
virgin vs. slut archetype. This book explores many relevant points to my paper on the expression of female
sexuality (or lack thereof), yet still remains surface in that it lets the interviewees speak for themselves with
little interpretation on the part of the author. What is important about this book is the fact that White
acknowledges the powerlessness of the girls to influence or stop the progression of the story.
Wolf, Naomi. Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood. New York: Random
House, 1997. Print.
This is a personal look on what Wolf remembers about being an adolescent in Haight-Ashbury, California.
She makes connections between what she remembers learning about being a woman during her adolescence
and the larger social ideology that fostered these teachings. She interviews women that grew up with her
around the same neighborhood and incorporates research on the changing views of sexuality over time. This
book is written in such a way that minimal foreknowledge in feminist theory is needed in order to
understand the concepts.
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Zachary R. Murphy
University of Michigan – Flint
Eliminating the Eliminators;
A Review and Refutation of Eliminative Materialism
In Philosophy of Mind the concept of qualia has caused much controversy. The quale (singular of
qualia) of a mental event is what is experienced of that mental event; it is the feeling of pain or joy,
emotions, or desires. The trouble with these qualia is that philosophers have not been adequately able to
either reduce them to physical events or find some way around the Causal Closure of the Physical principle.
They cannot be easily reduced to physical events because there is not an obvious physical substance of pain,
emotion, or desire and so it is not as easy as saying “Look! There’s that qualia we’ve been looking for.” This
inability to find qualia would lend to the idea that qualia are non-physical, but then we must find a way to
get around the causal Closure of the Physical principle. The Causal Closure of the Physical principle states
that no non-physical entity can have causal efficacy in a physical system, in other words the non-physical
qualia would have no power in the physical world. Thus qualia are left in an odd state: seemingly nonphysical
but at the same time seeming to have an enormous impact on our daily lives.
Eliminative Materialism handles these elusive qualia by claiming that they do not exist. Since qualia
can have no influence in the physical word due to the Causal Closure of the Physical, it does not matter to
the physical system whether or not qualia exist. Thus by Occam’s Razor it makes fewer assumptions to say
that they do not exist since it does not matter if they do exist or do not exist. Therefore, the Eliminative
Materialists conclude, qualia do not exist. Daniel Dennett exemplifies this argument in his essay Quining
Qualia with what he calls an intuition pump concerning Mr. Chase and Mr. Sanborn.
In this essay I will show that Dennett’s intuition pump necessitates the existence of the very qualia
he is arguing against.
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Before understanding Dennett’s Eliminative Materialism, it is important to understand in greater
detail what he is arguing against, namely qualia. Qualia are not well defined, but are very close to our
everyday understanding of our minds. As the Churchlands, who are Eliminative Materialists themselves,
state, qualia are “those intrinsic or monadic properties of our sensations discriminated by introspection,”
(Churchland 163) and as Dennett himself states, qualia are the “various properties of conscious experience.”
(Dennett 42). For example, the quale of pain is its hurtfulness; the quale of joy is the actual feeling and
conscious experiencing of happiness. In short, having qualia is having experiences; to experience something
(whether from external inputs such as physical pain, or internally such as emotions and the desire to
perform an action) and be conscious of that experience is to have qualia. Note that qualia cannot be easily
reduced, if at all, to physical phenomenon: there is no clearly physical substance of pain, pleasure, happiness
or sadness. Philosophers have attempted to form different theories saying these qualia are this brain process
or that, such as that pain is the firing of C-fibers in the brain, but not one of these theories is free of
devastating problems. Thus we are left with these odd and unexplained qualia, seemingly nonphysical but
also seeming to have an enormous causal effect on the physical world.
In the realm of science, this poses a great threat. One of the founding tenets of modern science is
that the physical world is a closed system—physical events must have a physical cause. This is called the
Causal Closure of the Physical. The problem for qualia is that while being non-physical things, they can play
no causal role in the physical world, yet it is clear that they do. For example, according to causal closure it
cannot be my wanting to stand up and walk around that causes the physical movements of my getting up
and walking around, although it would seem to be the case. Thus we see the seemingly contradictory nature
of qualia that is important in understanding Eliminative Materialism: qualia are vital to our understanding of
our minds interacting with the physical world, but there can be no such thing as a quale with physical causal
powers.
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Now that we understand qualia we can move onto what Dennett and Eliminative Materialism have
to say about them. He takes an Eliminative Materialist stance by claiming that these qualia do not exist.
Eliminative Materialists, such as Dennett, argue that since qualia have no causal efficacy in the physical
world, it makes no difference whether they exist or not. Thus we have two types of theories: those that
have existing qualia and those that do not, and according to the Eliminative Materialists both have equal
explanatory power. Occam’s Razor states that in this type of situation we are to take the theory with fewer
assumption. Since qualia are an unnecessary and additional assumption, we are to assume qualia do not
exist.
While this runs very counter to our intuitive understanding of our mind and how it operates,
Eliminative Materialism does not see this as a valid objection for the reason that something not feeling or
seeming correct is not grounds to claim that it is incorrect—to guide a theory by what we want to be
correct is in direct contrast to the spirit of philosophy and scientific inquiry.
Dennett exemplifies his view of Eliminative materialism in what he calls an intuition pump
concerning Mr. Chase and Mr. Sanborn. Both Chase and Sanborn work for Maxwell House as coffee
tasters, and have done so for some time. One day Chase remarks he no longer likes the taste of coffee. The
taste of the coffee has not changed, but he no longer likes that taste. Sanborn replies that he too has
experienced something similar, but unlike Chase the coffee does not taste the same as it used to, and he
does not like this new taste. The coffee recipe has not changed in the slightest, and the old and new coffee
can even be thought of as molecule-for-molecule identical. However, even though the coffee is the exact
same it tastes different to Sanborn. Both men exemplify the same point and are used by Dennett in the same
way, so it is unimportant to distinguish between them because they are merely examples of the theory
Dennett is discussing. What is important is that something has changed in each of them. Thus we arrive at
Dennett’s argument. Three events could have happened to each man: 1) their qualia may have changed or
2) their standards of judging their qualia may have changed, or 3) some combination of the two. Stated
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another way, the two men‟s “tasters” may have changed, or their interpretation of the data from their
“tasters” has changed, or both. Note that we cannot in any meaningful way discover which has happened—
empirical tests will show us nothing of value because qualia are non-physical and thus non-empirical in
nature, and judgment standards of those qualia equally so. Because we cannot tell whether it is the qualia or
standards that have shifted, and it has no effect in the physical realm whether they shifted or not because of
the Causal Closure of the Physical, it does not matter to the physical system which has shifted. Thus, it does
not matter in the slightest to the physical world if Chase likes or dislikes the coffee, or if it is Sanborn‟s
qualia or standards about the coffee have changed. Since qualia thus do not in any way matter, it is simpler
and uses fewer assumptions to say that they do not exist, and thus by Occam‟s Razor Eliminative
materialism is better than any theory that tries to positively handle qualia. By virtue of qualia having no
impact on the physical system, we lose nothing by saying they do not exist, whereas to say they do exist is
to make an unnecessary assumption and introduces difficult, unnecessary problems. Therefore, Dennett and
the Eliminative Materialist conclude, qualia do not exist.
Dennett‟s argument that qualia do not exist relies largely on the premise that „there is no way to
tell whether it is the qualia or the judgments of those qualia that have changed in Chase and Sanborn.‟ This
premise will be referenced by proposition 1. This premise can be broken down into the conclusion of two
statements: a) something has changed in Mr. Chase/Sanborn concerning the taste of coffee, and b) that
change is the result of either his qualia changing or his standards of judging qualia changing, and there is no
way to tell which. Dennett uses the uncertainty of premise (b) to say that we can know no fact about
Chase‟s/Sanborn‟s mental existence, and thus there is no fact to be known. However, looking closely at
premises (a) and (b) it is clear that the existential claim is in premise (a), not premise (b)—it clearly says
that something has changed, the word “something” clearly and necessarily implying the existential import
that there is an event that exists and has happened to Chase/Sanborn. Premise (b) is merely a categorization
of what has been claimed to exist in premise (a).
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It is important to realize that his example requires the existence of this something. If something did
not change in Mr. Chase or Sanborn, then Dennett’s intuition pump would amount to the story of when
Mr. Chase and Sanborn worked at Maxwell House and nothing happened to them.
Both premises (a) and (b) must be true for proposition 1 to be true. It is also true that we cannot
know which disjunct of premise (b) is true: we cannot know whether it was the qualia that changed or the
standards of judging those qualia, and thus we can conclude no further fact from premise (b). Where
Dennett errs is when he says that because we can extrapolate no facts from premise (b), we cannot
extrapolate any facts from proposition 1. I have shown that we can know and must know from premise (a)
that something has happened to Chase/Sanborn and this fact is necessarily present, but his argument requires
the absence of facts from proposition 1. Thus Dennett’s argument is logically flawed because we know for a
fact that something has changed with Chase/Sanborn and this something exists, and his argument rested on our
inability to know this.
However, let us take his example and see what we can make of it. I have established that something
has changed in Chase/Sanborn and that it exists. Let us now analyze what this something must be. Focus
again on premise II: this thing that changed was either the qualia or the judgments of those qualia. What
changed cannot be a physical event, for by hypothesis the physical system is completely unaffected by the
changes in Mr. Chase and Sanborn. This thing that was there to be changed can be seen as the experience of
what the coffee tastes like; I cannot conceive what it would be otherwise. I will show that whether it was
the qualia or his standards that changed does not matter, as both are still in the realm of the qualitative states
Dennett is trying to deny.
Obviously, the qualia disjunct in question fall under the umbrella of qualia. What may not be
apparent is that the alternative disjunct “change of standard” is also under the umbrella of qualia. For this
disjunct to be an option, at some point Chase and Sanborn have to compare the qualia of the old coffee with
the current coffee. How do they do this? They introspect, asking themselves whether this or that quale is
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the same as this or that other quale. Introspection is one of the defining hallmarks of qualia and cannot be of
anything else, and thus any judgment about qualia is another type of qualitative state, or at the very least
necessitates the existence of the qualia that are being judged. Observe then that premise (b) becomes a
tautology: it is true that what changed is either qualia or judgment of qualia, but regardless of which disjunct
is true, it is still qualia. Thus this something that changed is a non-physical qualia, since in the hypothesis of
Dennett’s intuition pump the physical system is completely unaffected by the changes in Mr. Chase and
Sanborn. Thus I make the argument that something has changed with Chase/Sanborn, this something exists,
and this something must, if not be a non-physical quale, at least involve a non-physical quale. Therefore, the
implications in Dennett’s own example necessitate the existence of non-physical qualia, disproving his claim
that qualia do not exist.
In this paper I have shown that an analysis of Daniel Dennett’s intuition pump concerning Mr.
Chase and Sanborn which is meant to argue for the non-existence of qualia in reality necessitates the
existence of qualia. He attempts to use the uncertainty of knowing exactly what qualia are to show that
their existence is unimportant, but by admitting that something non-physical changed and having his
intuition pump necessitating it shows a necessity for the very qualia he is attempting to refute.
Works Cited
Churchland, Paul M., and Patricia Smith Churchland. "Functionalism, Qualia, and Intentionality."
Philosophical Topics 12.1 (1981): 121-145. Print.
Dennett, Daniel C. Consciousness in Contemporary Science. Eds. A. J. Marcel and E. Bisiach. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992. 42-77. Print.
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Elyse Nelmark
Central Michigan University
The Religious Dimension of Literature:
Understanding Virtue in Narrative through Mark Ledbetter and Ernest Becker
I have been drawn to the interrelations between literature and religion in my undergraduate work
at Central Michigan University as a means of exploring human motivations and relationships. To explore
these interrelations between literature and religion, I read Mark Ledbetter’s Virtuous Intentions: The Religious
Dimension of Narrative and was interested in his argument that virtues, or good things, can serve as the
solutions to the existential crises of characters in narratives. I found his literary theory insightful, but also
troubling because, although we are examining virtues as solutions, Ledbetter does not acknowledge those
solutions can have destructive outcomes. He writes, rather vaguely, that a character can reject or accept a
virtue, and then his analysis ends there, which I found problematic. I believe his theory is incomplete but
can be built on, which is what I am going to try to do. I will explain Ledbetter’s theory, but to show how
these solutions that appear virtuous and good can be destructive, I will be using social theorist Ernest
Becker’s research on how human beings’ pursuits to live the secure and meaningful life have been
destructive. I believe how a character uses a virtue can be meaningful to us as readers, even if the outcome
is destructive. Exploring these destructive solutions in literature invites cultural and moral critique that is
meaningful, and presents perspective to us, as readers.
Ledbetter writes how it is through the character’s choices and actions that the virtue is revealed.
The character is looking for a solution, and the solution “is meaning for human existence that shows itself as
a virtue for living the good life” (8). He writes, “A character in fiction actively seeks some authority which
informs the very nature of human existence. A character comes to the point in the text where acquiescence
is made to a particular virtue in which the character places all authority for existence and therefore leads the
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good life because of his/her choice” (16). The character can either accept or reject the virtue, but the
virtue is revealed through their choices, and is the solution to their existential issues. Readers can connect
with the characters and their existential issues because we are “interpreting ourselves in relation to these
lives” (15). The character‟s choices and treatment of the virtue make evaluative comments on the human
experience, and therefore, as Ledbetter writes, reveal narrative to be life-like, in that “literature is an act of
discovery because life is. Fiction becomes a way, by extension, of sorting-out life‟s queries, chaos, and
uncertainty and of finding a way to live” (73).
Ledbetter argues that characters, in their pursuits to live the
good life through these virtues, reflect on cultures and how human beings live within them. To deal with
their circumstances, they can live by virtues that “provide for forms or categories for exploring,
questioning, and defining existence” (8-9). We can relate to these characters, their circumstances, their
choices, as well as their drive to live the good-life by virtues, and even a worldview.
The virtue is revealed through the character‟s religious or ethical decision-making and establishes
the religious or ethical worldview of the text. Ledbetter uses both of the terms „religious‟ and „ethical‟
because his definition for religion is ambiguous, although he primarily uses „religious‟ in his book, and I will
do the same in this paper. Religion, according to Ledbetter, is the “solution to every existential crisis” and
therefore religious worldviews can serve as tools for “transcending personal situations” (5). The
worldviews that we can turn to in life are religious because they help people deal with their existential
issues. One theorist, Lloyd Steffen, would agree with Ledbetter‟s use of „religious‟ with „worldview‟ as he
states religion confronts “the most anxiety-generating questions of existence—questions about who we are,
why we are here, and where we are going … Religion thus has the power to affect how human beings
understand the world and the mystery of human existence” (13-14). A religious worldview within a text is
based entirely on the virtue, and can be either explicit in the narrative or used as a literary tool to further
explore the virtue and its solutions for the character. Ledbetter focuses on three potential virtues within a
narrative; human relationships, faith, and courage, which he correlates with three dominant religious
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worldviews in Western thought. The three worldviews are relational theology, transcendent theology, and
tragic theology. Relational theology is attributed to American writer and thinker William James that
suggests to find meaning in life a person relies on human relationships and community. Transcendental
theology is attributed to medieval philosopher and religious figure Saint Augustine and suggests for finding
meaning in life one must look outside the world to a transcendent being or belief system. Tragic theology is
attributed to notable Western theologian of the 20 th century Paul Tillich. Another way to think of tragic
theology is to think of the existential hero in Literature because the word „tragic‟ can be misleading. Tragic
theology suggests the human being has to have the courage to accept life‟s limitations and mysteries and
carry on in spite of them. I would like to mention here that these are the three dominant religious
worldviews in Western thought according to Ledbetter, and it is not my position to dispute these three
religious worldviews or assert their correctness, but rather to address how they apply to literary analysis.
Now I would like to take a little bit of time to explain some of Ernest Becker‟s work. Ernest
Becker is a notable social theorist who researched how human beings fear death because they know they will
die and as a result, human beings desperately want to grasp, and live the safe, secure, and meaningful life.
To have the secure and meaningful life, we struggle to symbolically transcend our finitude and limitations.
Culture can serve as a medium through which we can assure our lives count and even feel larger than life.
Our cultural symbols and ideologies present us with the schemes to which we can build up an immortality
strategy. As Becker explains in Escape from Evil,
Man transcends death not only by continuing to feed his appetites, but especially by finding a
meaning for his life, some kind of larger scheme into which he fits … This is how man assures the
expansive meaning to his life in the face of the real limitations of his body; the “immortal self” can
take very spiritual forms, and spirituality is not a simple reflex of hunger and fear. It is an
expression of the will to live, the burning desire of the creature to count, to make a difference on
the planet because he has lived, has emerged on it, and has worked, suffered and died. (3)
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Our immortality strategy is an expression of our desire to stand out in our culture and establish some
meaning to our existence. Our desire to stand out Becker calls heroism. We either will use our culture to
find some way to prove ourselves as an individual hero within it, or we will immerse ourselves in a group or
someone else‟s ideology who belong to our culture which presents us with the space and opportunity to
stand out; to emerge heroic. All cultures allow for us to perform some degree of heroism, “from the „high‟
heroism of a Churchill, a Mao, or a Buddha, to the „low‟ heroism of the coal miner, the peasant, the simple
priest … whether the cultural hero-system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific,
and civilized … people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value” (The Denial of Death, 5).
People are mostly unconscious of their death anxiety but it is there as the underlying reason to our
existential issues and it is the underlying motivation for our heroic pursuits, and our heroic pursuits come
with dangers. Our immortality strategies can make us feel guilty for doing too much or too little in our
culture, and how we ease our guilt is usually on others. We can use others to advance our own heroism and
then have our life affirmed; by the gods, by our families, by the nation-state (Escape from Evil, 100-104). In
order to not feel guilty for using others and putting others down, to save ourselves and assure that we are
right, we will dehumanize others. Guilt is therefore solved by making others the victimizers. In our
attempts at some claim to superiority and immortality, in our attempts to live the heroic, virtuous life, we
find targets for our inevitable hatreds, “Since everyone feels dissatisfied with himself (dirty), victimage is a
universal human need” (116). A human being can make someone else the victimizer or can go along with
whom the group or person he/she has immersed themselves in declares is dirty, wrong, or immoral.
Now, I am going to explain how Ledbetter‟s incomplete theory can be expanded on using Becker.
Ledbetter‟s theory ends abruptly without explaining what exactly it means for the character to reject the
virtue and only briefly states that the character, in accepting the virtue, is then able to live the good life. If
virtues are means for characters to extract meaning from existence, we should address how those virtues
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can foster destructive behavior, even if the character believes his/her behavior is good. For narrative to
remain life-like, we have to acknowledge the destructive implications of virtues.
Narrative explores human nature and our existential problems, and at the core of our desire, in life,
for meaning, at the core of our existential problems, is death anxiety. Existential issues are inevitable for us
because of our death anxiety, and for characters in narrative, it is inevitable that they seek virtues because of
their existential crises. To deal with our death anxiety, and for characters to deal with their existential
questions, there is potential for destructive behavior. Our immortality strategies affect how we live and
respond to the world and the existential concerns of the characters influences what virtues they live by and
how they respond to the world. To deal with our death anxiety, we consciously or unconsciously, rely on
an immortality strategy to be heroic and special in our cultures. Characters, whether consciously or
unconsciously, feel the need to figure out how to live virtuously and can find themselves struggling within
their boundaries and the limitations of their culture. And there is an underside to the character’s, and our,
search for meaning; our virtuous intentions.
Our immortality strategies can be destructive just as the characters solutions from a virtue can be
destructive. Whether the virtue is courage, faith, or community, to which the character can find solutions,
that virtue can elicit far more complicated responses than its mere rejection or acceptance. Heroism is
inevitable in life, and it is dangerous. It does not mean human beings reject their immortality project if
their behavior turns destructive. Their destructive behavior is a reflection of their desire to be special and
to live the good life. A character’s destructive actions or the destructive consequences of their actions are a
reflection of that continuous desire to live by a virtue and live a meaningful life. The character, because
their behaviors turn destructive, has not rejected the virtue, but may be making these choices to live, in
fact, by the virtue.
Our need to live a secure and meaningful life is so great; our desire to feel we have atoned for the
guilt we feel is so strong, that we will legitimatize our destructive behavior by belittling and dehumanizing
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others. A character’s desire to resolve some of his/her existential issues may be so strong that they
legitimize their destructive behaviors under a virtue. Becker explained in Escape from Evil,
My point is that heroic expansiveness, joy, and wonder have an underside—finitude, guilt, and
death—and we have to watch for this expression too. After you have melted your identity into
transcending, pulsating power, what do you do to establish some kind of balance? What kind of
forceful, instrumental attitude do you summon up to remarshal yourself and your grip on
experience? One cannot live in the trembling smallness of awe, else he will melt away. Where is
the object on which to focus one’s new self assertion—an object that is for most people a victim?
That is what we have to be constantly on guard for (121).
The character does not simply accept or reject a virtue, but carries on, and how they carry on may be
destructive. To say a character can reject a virtue suggests the virtue failed, or did not help the character
overcome their problems, when the character may be actually making destructive choices in honor of a
virtue, or even a religious worldview. We should not limit how we understand a character and their
choices. Literature can explore those we put down and those we dehumanize; actions legitimized by
potential virtues. It can explore our guilt and comment on the underside to our virtuous intentions.
Through faith, characters can immerse themselves in a transcendental idea of a group or a leader, or
characters can attempt to emerge as the hero within this transcendental worldview. Perhaps characters
instead immerse themselves in their communities and the lives of their family and/or friends, or want to
appear special among their community, family, and friends, illustrating the types of solutions relational
theology can bring to both characters, and readers. Or perhaps, to deal with their shortcomings and their
finitude, the character will accept life’s problems and mysterious, and attempt to do something meaningful,
something heroic, for the greater good, as they see it. In all of these possible virtues and worldviews that
can be explored in a text is the potential for destructive outcomes, because narrative reflects life. In a
larger project for the future, I plan to expand on exploring the destructive potential of the worldviews
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through Becker. I find it interesting how solutions to existential issues for characters, by a virtue, and even
a religious worldview, can be destructive, just as how the solutions to deal with our existential issues, our
death anxiety, have been, and can be, destructive.
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Elyse Nelmark
Central Michigan University
Crusades of Past and Present:
Exploring Destructive and Life Affirming Action in Religion
On May 5, 2003, Southern Christian Missionary leader Albert Mohler and Professor of
Comparative Religion, Charles Kimball, appeared on National Public Radio‟s “Fresh Air.” Albert Mohler
spoke with enthusiasm on the prospect of Christian missionaries taking the Gospel to the Middle East.
Kimball was concerned such an action might appear to Iraqis to be another crusade the West was bringing
to the East. In 1095, the “God wills it” message inspired people to march as holy warriors to Jerusalem
under the banner of the cross where they would kill Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox Christians. The
memory of the Crusades is still a sensitive subject for those in the present day Middle East, according to
Kimball. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush made a grave mistake in his choice of terms, where he
described the soon-to-be war on terrorism as a “crusade.” He apologized for this remark after the statement
caused global outrage. As someone studying both English and Religion, these issues surrounding the
Crusades, and the word „crusade‟ itself, fascinated me. I researched the development of the word
„crusade‟, with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary. The term „crusade,‟ as it has been understood and
used historically, can mean “any war instigated and blessed by the Church for alleged religious ends …
against infidels or heretics.” However, language develops, and a crusade, in the modern sense, can be used
to describe, “An aggressive movement or enterprise against some public evil, or some institution or class of
persons considered as evil.” The complexity and sensitivity surrounding the word „crusade‟ illustrates how
language can be used to express both destructive or life affirming action. We should be on guard for how
terms such as a „crusade‟, or even „patriot‟ or „hero‟ are used, and that these terms are not used in political
and religious rhetoric to legitimize destructive behavior. A crusade can include life-affirming behavior, and
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the term can be used in a life-affirming context, by being subject to ethics. However, we should be
sensitive to how the term has legitimated past destructive behavior, and even historically, and presently,
indicated potential destructive behavior. To explore the meaning of a crusade, I will be using research on
the Crusades provided by Charles Kimball and exploring life affirming and destructive religious behavior
through Lloyd Steffen.
In Charles Kimball‟s When Religion Becomes Evil, he explores how religion has been distorted because
of absolute truth claims. Absolute truth claims invoke the image of the one true faith. If people believe
their conceptualization of God, is the only way to know God, then tensions and violence can be propagated
towards victimizing others and fueling hatreds. Kimball illustrates how these absolute truth claims raise up
„inspiring‟ and „charismatic‟ leaders. These leaders promote corrupting political ideologies backed by their
absolute truth claims that “become propositions requiring uniform assent and are treated as rigid doctrines”
(49). They abuse sacred texts through selective readings, narrow-minded interpretations, and reading a
sacred text as literal truth, causing dangerous frustrations and allegiances to form among religious
communities. Absolute truth claims corrupt the religion and distort a religious tradition‟s potential to
provide models for “tolerance and cooperation” (9). Kimball lists warning signs for corruption in a religion,
and one of these warning signs is the call to holy war.
Kimball makes no distinction between the terms crusade and holy war and writes detailed
descriptions on the Crusades to convey how absolute truth claims can lead to holy war. In the case of the
Crusades, they were set off by an appeal to Pope Urban II for help against the Turks who were “within
striking distance” of a major Christian city (Kimball 173). He called for people of Europe to help “turn back
the Turks,” and declared for his holy warriors to take the land of Jerusalem from the „wicked race‟ and
„subject it‟ to themselves (174). Kimball uses historical research to back up his statements on the appalling
violence that ensued which includes some crusaders massacring Jews in Germany, carrying the heads of
Muslims on spears, cannibalism, and burning children. Kimball writes, “By the time the Crusaders reached
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their destination, however, the Turks were no longer in control. Egyptians ruled the city … where Jews,
Christians, and Muslims were functioning well in a multicultural setting” (175). The crusaders broke
through Jerusalem‟s defenses, and burned people alive in the Great Synagogue where Jews were hiding for
safety and stormed the Temple Mount were Muslims were praying. In the case of the Crusades for
Kimball, the Pope‟s message legitimized a corrupted religious movement; a holy war.
In Steffen‟s Holy War, Just War, the connection between the power of religion and its ability to
inspire violence is explained through ultimacy. Ultimacy means that nothing greater/superior can be
conceived or transcended. In terms of the Abrahamic faiths, nothing is beyond the ultimacy known as
„God.‟ A religious tradition‟s ultimate source of meaning gives people security and comfort in a chaotic
world, and is what has made religion a powerful force in human culture. However, when ultimacy
becomes the “absolute,” meaning there is no room for interpretation, or freedom to value other things
highly, then violence can ensue to defend the ultimacy. Absolutism is all-encompassing, totalizing belief
meaning the ultimacy is not open to interpretation or questioning. A religious faith that sanctions an
ultimacy considered as the absolute has moved towards the destructive side of the moral spectrum in a
religion. Absolutistic beliefs can dehumanize others, and often lead to violence and death. Steffen explores
religion‟s ability to inspire destructive behavior, but its equal potential to foster life-affirming behavior.
To explore religion moving towards the life affirming side of the moral spectrum, Steffen
introduces the „standard of goodness.‟ It is not an easy concept to define but it is a standard to which
“everything else is to be assessed and evaluated” (Steffen 64). Actions are evaluated by the standard of
goodness as a part of moral analysis because goodness is a standard of judgment that looks at human
attitudes and behaviors and whether they contribute to human flourishing. Because goodness is not easy to
define, Steffen describes the “goods of life;” the visible expressions of goodness. Some of the goods of life
include biological life, integrity, loving relationships, personal identity, freedom, and critical thinking
(Steffen 68). Having loving relationships includes having a relationship with the transcendent. Steffen
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states the goods of life are not absolutes, but are subject to moral analysis because they too encourage
human beings how to live. By using this list, Steffen explains that religion can express goodness as long as
human beings, in their religious practice, commit to moral, life affirming values, not justified by religion,
but by a vision of goodness.
Religion traditions can be life affirming or destructive and Steffen explores the potential for both by
looking at human actions such as a holy war and a crusade. Steffen acknowledges a crusade is a form of
violence but does not blend crusade and holy war together as he writes religion opens up the possibilities
for “organized missions of terrorism, murder, war, crusade, genocide, and even omnicide” (92). Steffen
does explore the potential for „holy war‟ to be life affirming. He uses Biblical examples of a holy war being
used not to destroy and kill, but directed towards life and moving away from oppression. On the other
hand, after discussing the historic Crusades, he argues that a „crusade‟ itself signifies a religious tradition,
and explicitly states within the Christian faith, has moved to the destructive side of the moral spectrum.
Steffen writes,
Appeals to crusades are a clear case in point. As the historical crusades of medieval Europe
demonstrated, “crusades” refer to divinely authorized wars of aggression; an appeal to divine
sanction and authorization hovers over “crusade” even when today political figures employ the term
to rally support for use of force against enemies … the idea of an aggressive war of crusade is
simply warfare that appeals for authorization to the divine and ought to be analyzed within the
Christian tradition as an exemplification of religion in the demonic turn. (193)
Steffen explores the potential for a holy war to be possibly life affirming, a term complicated and sensitive
itself. However, he does not apply the same standard of analysis to a crusade. I question if a crusade can
be a clear case in point, as Steffen argues, especially considering its more ambiguous, modern definition.
Kimball links the terms holy war and crusade together expressing them as a single religious action
that only signifies corruption in a religion. Steffen argues a holy war could possibly be life affirming, but
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does not extend his analysis to a crusade, even after distinguishing the two terms as two separate human
actions. If a crusade is a human action, and term, that has been used in a variety of contexts, it too should
be understood to possibly have potential to express goodness. Those involved with the bloodshed in the
Crusades considered their actions life affirming, believing they were not only on a mission to protect their
capital, but also on a movement for God against evil. They were fighting against heretics; against a great
public evil. Atrocious actions were committed, and not subjected to moral analysis, but justified through a
destructive religious tradition that invoked alluring, religious as well as political language. The sensitivity
among the cultures and peoples in the Middle East from those actions is still strong today, as made clear by
the NPR interview and Bush’s destructive language use. The term crusade, because of its historical usage to
legitimatize destructive religious and political behavior, has become problematic. However, many of the
words we use to invoke images of goodness, such as ‘hero’ or ‘patriot’, can be used to express behaviors,
including religious behaviors, that are destructive, and do not express a vision of goodness.
Holy war uses violence and warfare, but Steffen argues there can be cases where it is life affirming.
A crusade, yes, can be a form of warfare, but given its other ambiguous definition, I believe we can
maintain the ideal motivations for a ‘crusade,’ but strip it of its appeal to religion for justification by using
ethics, such as the standard of goodness. The term ‘crusade,’ despite its historical usage in the context of
religion, is complex, and has the potential, upon moral analysis, to be associated with life affirming
behavior. It also has equal potential to be associated with destructive behavior. I am not trying to seem
insensitive to the memory of the Crusades, and how the term ‘crusade’ has been used destructively in
religious and political rhetoric. I am also not picking on any particular religion. We should be sensitive to
how we use certain language, especially in a religious and/or political context, and whether our words are
describing behavior that reflects goodness, or if the words are being used to invoke a life affirming image for
a destructive behavior, such as in the case of a crusade.
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Some religious movements that are considered to be crusades include the Evangelical Climate
Change Initiative, and the „Kids on Fire‟ Christian, summer camp. The Evangelical Climate Change
Initiative is a „call to action‟ among the Evangelical Christian Community to encourage tougher federal
legislation for dealing with the climate crisis. In a New York Times article from February 8, 2006, it was
stated that “despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided
to back a major initiative to fight global warming” (NY Times Online, page 1). The article illustrates how
these leaders are on an aggressive mission to urge the United States and all members of the Christian
community to take a firmer stance on this issue, appealing to the science and the moral idea that global
warming could disastrously affect us all, especially America‟s globally impoverished neighbors. On the
Evangelical Climate Change Initiative‟s organization website, you can read the „call to action‟ where it is
stated in the Preamble,
As American evangelical Christian leaders, we recognize both our opportunity and our
responsibility to offer a biblically based moral witness that can help shape public policy in the most
powerful nation on earth, and therefore contribute to the well-being of the entire world. Whether
we will enter the public square and offer our witness there is no longer an open question. We are
in that square, and we will not withdraw … We seek to be true to our calling as Christian leaders
… we have seen and heard enough to offer the following moral argument related to the matter of
human-induced climate change. (Evangelical Climate Change Intiative.org, paragraphs 1-3)
Within the document is a tone for rallying up Christians, but not for simply a religious issue, rather for a
moral issue that affects everyone. The document appeals to Christian convictions, but also to morals,
science, and reason to not only benefit the Christian community, but everyone on the globe. It emphasizes
several goods of life including biological life, integrity, and loving relationships. There is a call to action, a
call for an aggressive movement against a public evil, climate change, as well as a group of persons
considered as evil, which are those who will not listen to the science and moral dilemmas behind climate
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change, but the goal of this initiative for them is education. Educating those who do not believe that climate
change is real, and pushing our world leaders to be more proactive on the climate change issue is being
consistent with a message of goodness. This is a crusade, religiously motivated, but that is consistent with a
moral and scientific, vision of goodness.
Another modern day example of a crusade is demonstrated in the documentary Jesus Camp. The film
follows charismatic, Pentecostal Evangelical leader Becky Fischer and her “Kids on Fire” summer camp at
Devil‟s Lake, North Dakota. Here she aggressively encourages young, impressionable children to become
Christian soldiers in an effort to bring America back to God. Throughout the film, Becky, in her sermons,
repetitively evokes dualistic good vs. evil imagery to promote what could be considered a crusade for God.
The documentary reveals the goal of this aggressive, Evangelical movement is to spread the word of „God‟
through young children. It enlists young children to relentlessly repent for their sins and impure thoughts
and to consider those who do not go with God to be with the Devil. These children are also encouraged to
perform their own sermons for the group and they do so by emulating Becky‟s charismatic style. Becky
herself invokes militaristic language as she discusses the children as soldiers for God, armed with the
Gospel. While Becky speaks out against the so-called „terrible‟ habits of Muslims, she does seem to show
respect for Fundamentalist, political Islamic tactics as she states she wants to see children “radically laying
down their lives for the Gospel” as children do for Islam (Jesus Camp). Here is a crusade, an aggressive
movement, directed towards spreading an absolutistic vision of Christianity by children soldiers armed with
the Gospel, and with no appeal to ethics to question the moral legitimacy of their actions.
Now both the Evangelical Climate Change Initiative and the Evangelical Christian summer camp in
Jesus Camp are crusades. However, just as religious traditions can be life affirming or destructive, language
can be used in destructive or life affirming contexts. It is important to be weary of both in order to express
a vision of goodness in our actions, and our language. Language is used to legitimate destructive behavior,
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ut words have the ability to mean both destructive or life affirming behavior in religious or nonreligious
contexts.
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Rana Nino
Saint Xavier University
Cognitive Vulnerability and Obedience to Authority:
A Child-Centered Study of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Introduction and Review of Literature
Childhood sexual abuse is a large problem in this day and age, and consequently needs to be the
subject of sustained research so children can receive the protection they deserve. Research from this year,
2011, reports that child sexual abuse has in fact increased. Abuse has been reported up to 80,000 times a
year—and, again, this is just in the United States alone. The number of unreported instances is far greater.
(Child, 2011). Much research on childhood sexual abuse has focused on the adults involved in the abuse—
perpetrators and parents—yet few child-generated studies have focused upon abuse through the eyes and
mind of a child. The victim of any violence should be the first to be helped, and thus it only makes sense
that the child, the victim of the abuse, should be the first to be assessed in order to be properly armed. And
in order for the child to be armed, his or her understanding of the topic must be evaluated. A prevention
program can only be as effective as far as the child understands the lessons presented. Thus, it is necessary
to measure the child’s understanding of sexual abuse, and sexuality in general—a possibly complex social
situation for young children to understand—in order to understand which prevention programs will fail,
and which will be successful. Cognitive development is a large factor in such ability to understand.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the most significant and influential researchers in the area of
developmental psychology during the 20 th century. While working in Paris, he developed four stages of
cogntive development. The second stage (the most relevant to the present study) is the pre-operational stage,
which occurs in the toddler and early childhood years. During this period, intelligence is demonstrated
though the use of symbols, the use of language develops, and memory and imagination are developed.
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However, thinking is done in a “non-logical, non-reversible” manner. Egocentric thinking is pre-dominant.
(Huitt 2003).
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, childhood sexual abuse occurs when a “child is
engaged in sexual activities that the child cannot comprehend, for which the child is developmentally
unprepared and cannot give informed consent, and/or that violate the law or social taboos of society”
(Roller et al., 2009). Abuse is not limited to physical contact, such as fondling or rape, but also extends to
such acts as making a child watch sexual acts or pornography, using a child in any aspect of producing
pornography, or making a child look at an adult’s genitals. The following studies explore branches of the
sexual abuse literature directed towards the child’s cognitive understanding of sexual behavior, not his or
her sexual behavior per se.
The most extensive study of the child’s understanding of the threat of sexual abuse is Burkhardt
(1991). Burkhardt conducted a study in which 115 children were observed and investigated in order to
determine their social reasoning in interactions with adult authority figures who put the children in
situations of sexual abuse. Two age groups were set up, from 6-8 year olds (57 count), to 9-10 year olds
(59 count). The hypothetical perpetrators included an uncle, a coach, and a stranger. Each child was given
three measures of social reasoning: (a) parent-child interview, (b) authority interview, and (c) perpetrator
interview. The focus of the child’s responses were his or her recognition, resistance, and reporting.
The following are two examples of the children’s perceptions of recognition, resistance, and
reporting with respect to the scenario of the uncle touching the child’s bottom. One six-year old
responded:
He [the child in the story] should tell him [his uncle], “I don’t want you to touch that. It doesn’t feel
good.” I think his mom will see and say, “Don’t do that to my kid.” He still thinks his uncle is
sometimes good. If he tells, he’ll get in trouble and his uncle will yell at him. It wouldn’t be nice if
he told anyone. (Burkhardt, 1991)
Compare the response of the six-year-old with the more developed response of a nine-year-old:
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She [the child in the story] should) scream. I wouldn’t want my uncle to put his hand on
my bottom. I’d be uncomfortable. I wouldn’t kick him, but, then, my uncle wouldn’t do that, I
don’t think. If he’d come over again, someone should just tell
him Mary is not home, that she’s
at a friend’s house. If I was home, I’d lock my
door. She probably felt embarrassed. She could
hop out of bed and run. She shouldn’t listen to her uncle when he does something wrong. See, grownups
can tell you what to do if you do the wrong thing, but you tell yourself (what to do) if
the grown-ups do the wrong thing. She could slap him, bite him, and tell her parents. It just
doesn’t seem right for an uncle to do something like that… (Burkhardt, 1991).
While the response of the nine-year-old child is considerably more developed and sensible than that
of the six-year-old, in most actual situations of childhood sexual abuse, children do not respond and report,
and sometimes fail to even recognize, the abuse the way their responses may suggest (Child 2011). This
effect is due in large part to their cognitive vulnerability:
Children are not only physically unsuited to resist adult advances, but their reasoning
capabilities may be inadequate to meet the social demand of responding to an adult’s abusive use of
authority. Also, it is possible that even when a child
might know that a response is needed, he
or she may be unable to determine or execute an effective response. Research in cognitive development,
particularly in the realm of social cognition, has made strides in identifying the qualities and
quantitative differences between childhood reasoning and adult logic (Burkhardt 1991).
Additionally, there is a question regarding what children are instructed to do in response to an
inappropriate directive by an adult. For example, “Say No and Go” was popular in the 1980s. Parents would
instruct their children that, in a “stranger danger” situation, the child should say “no,” and “go,” or flee the
situation as fast as possible (Burkhardt 1986). Similarly, it is difficult to determine how effective a
resistance and reporting strategy might actually be. One element of children’s compliance with perpetrators
and their failure to resist and report sexual abuse may have to do with the degree of authority attributed to
the perpetrator.
Such differences account for the gap between what a child knows and what s/he understands,
which was the focus of Burkhardt’s study. A child may know it’s wrong to be touched inappropriately, but
does not necessarily know why, except for the fact that a parent instructed the child to believe this, or that
such touching may feel uncomfortable. But, if the child does know what to do, why is the rate of childhood
sexual abuse so high? The child may theoretically know what should be done, but may not be able to
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understand the complexity of an actual situation, or may be unable to perform what s/he “knows.” This
cognitive gap is an important factor in the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse.
An earlier 1986 study conducted by Dr. Burkhardt (1986), 103 students (ages 4-7) were assigned
to one of four conditions: No Training, Didactic, Modeling, and Modeling and Practice. The three training
conditions involved the presentation of problematic situations with adults and appropriately resistant
responses to these situations. Reporting was encouraged and demonstrated.
After the two-week training course, each child was individually approached by a male stranger
(posing as a school janitor) who directed him or her to assist him in a task. He subsequently directed each
child not to tell the teacher of his request. In general, training appeared to have little effect upon the
younger children: the majority of the children complied with the stranger.
It seems as though understanding of the more explicit aspects of sexuality develops as the child
cognitively develops: hence, at certain early stages of development, a child seems to be cognitively unable
to fully understand certain concepts of sexuality. Another aspect to be taken into consideration, however, is
a child’s view of and compliance to a perceived authority figure. Sexual predators may use their adult
authority figure persona to their advantage when victimizing children—this is another major component in
understanding the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse. (Child 2011).
Lawrence Kohlberg, like Piaget, was a very influential researcher of his time on the topic of
cognitive development. His theory developed six stages of moral development: three levels each consisting
of two stages. The first level of moral thinking, the pre-conventional level, is generally found at the
elementary school level. In Stage 1 of this level, children behave according to socially acceptable norms
because they are told to do so by an authority figure. This obedience is compelled by the threat of
punishment. Many of the following studies involving children’s views on adult authority echo Kohlberg’s
theory, particularly this stage: Stage 1 of the pre-conventional level of moral thinking, where the child’s
social orientation revolves around obedience and punishment (Dawson, 2002).
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Researcher’s Goal and Hypothesis
The researcher’s goal for the current study aims to document the reactions of youngsters in the
year 2011 in response to a scenario regarding a potential sexual threat to a child. It is predicted that
younger children (ages 4-7) will not be able to understand the sexual nature of the vignette presented to
them and/or may misconstrue the perpetrator to have the “authority” to take such action. Therefore, their
responses to the interview questions may reflect their cognitive vulnerability regarding how to respond to
potential abuse. However, the researcher also predicts that while some of the children’s responses may
reflect an apparent knowledge-base of what to do in a scenario of a potential threat, and, when directly
prompted about the threat (i.e., What should Tommy do?), the child may theoretically “know” what to do,
when prompted “Why?”, the child’s understanding will be limited. The predicted limitations of the
responses are based on such things as feelings of discomfort or “rules” that the child’s parent(s) have set
about strangers, rather than an extensive understanding of why sexual abuse in and of itself is wrong. On
the other hand, it is predicted that the older children (ages 10-11) will have a deeper understanding of the
situation than do the younger children.
The researcher hopes that the child interview hypothesis will be proven wrong, and the study’s
results do in fact imply that children are more internally aware of the dangers of sexual abuse at an earlier
age than when these studies took place over 20 years ago (Burkhardt 1991). Realistically, based upon
previous research, it is unlikely that this will be the case. It seems as though the inability to grasp certain
concepts of sexuality and adult authority are due to a child’s stage of cognitive development, not
environment or experience—and a cognitive incapability would be very difficult, if not impossible, to alter.
Likewise, young children’s conceptions of adult authority figures, and the possible consequences of
reporting or resisting an authority figure, seem to be very much ingrained in a child’s mind. If, however,
the children in the following study do indicate a deep awareness of a sexual threat, then there would be
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stronger grounds for believing that systematic and sustained instruction of defensive responses could protect
children from sexual predators.
The current study seeks to therefore determine if today’s children are able to detect a possible
threat from an inappropriate adult and to determine if strategies for resisting and reporting perpetrators are
rated differently than twenty years ago.
Methods
Participants
The researcher and researcher’s mentor approached a number of adults and asked if they were
interested in having their children, nephews, nieces, cousins, or children of friends of the family participate
in the study. These adults consisted of classmates, colleagues, family, friends and acquaintances of the
researcher and mentor. Most individuals declined or avoided participation in the study, most likely due to
the sensitive topic of the study.
Participants of this study consisted of five children. Participants were selected based on age: the
qualification of the participant was that he or she must be under the age of eleven. The younger children
consisted of a four-year-old male, a four year-old female, and a seven-year-old female. The older children
consisted of one ten-year-old male and one eleven-year-old male.
Instrumentation
The selected method of gathering data was face-to-face interviews. By interviewing the
participants, the interviewers had the opportunity to ask open-ended questions so as to gain as much
information about the recognition, resistance and reporting ability of the child participant as possible. The
researcher used a total of nine open-ended questions to obtain qualitative data. In addition to these nine
original questions, the researcher asked three supplementary questions, only if the participant had given
some indication that non-compliance is an alternative. These interview questions were in alignment with a
given vignette. The exact wording of both the vignette and the interview questions—as well as the original
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idea for this present study—were borrowed with permission from the parent 1991 child-generated study of
Dr. Sandra Burkhardt, the researcher’s mentor (see Literature Review for a summary and analysis of the
parent study) (Burkhardt 1991). The questions were related to recognition, resistance, and reporting
ability and strategy of the child participant in the face of a vignette concerning childhood sexual abuse with
respect to a stranger perpetrator. The child’s recognition of a problem, the child’s proposed method of
resistance, and the child’s idea of reporting to a trusted adult were thus the main areas of focus. If the
participant was a girl, she received the female version of the vignette (the child in his version of the vignette
being named Tammy). Likewise, if the participant was a boy, he received the male version of the vignette
(the child in his version of the vignette being named Tommy).
Procedures
Before any other procedures were initiated, first and foremost, approval by the Institutional
Review Board (IRB) of Saint Xavier University was sought and acquired by the researcher. Only then did
recruitment for participants take place. The two interviewers and parents of the five child participants were
contacted both in-person and via email to set up a time for the interview. The researcher developed a
consent form which consisted of an introductory section that identified the topic of the study, the purpose
as it relates to the researcher’s teaching, what the participants may gain from the study, the nature and
duration of the study, the general procedure of the study, physical requirements of the participant, and the
estimated time commitment of the participant. The researcher’s contact information was also provided
should the participant’s guardians have any questions or concerns. It was made very clear that participation
was completely voluntary and the rights of the participants were firmly protected.
The interview itself, which took place at St. Xavier University in the university’s psychology
department’s study/lab rooms, G309 and G315, took approximately 30 to 60 minutes per child. The
experiment was administered on March 22, 2011. On the day of the interview, signed consent forms were
collected. The parent(s) or guardian(s) of the child participant was/were then directed to sit in a nearby
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oom, while the child was directed into the private psychology lab room. In addition to the approval of the
IRB, permission to conduct the study and use the facilities had been previously attained by Julie Deisinger,
Ph.D., the university’s Psychology Department Chair. Dr. Burkhardt conducted video surveillance of the
interview room by a faculty sponsor.
After procuring the signed consent forms, the two volunteer interviewers began the face-to-face
interviews, orally reading the vignette and follow-up interview questions word from word to the child.
The interviews were conducted individually in the private and comfortable psychology study/lab rooms,
with the participant and the interviewers sitting across a table from each other. Only one child and his or
her interviewer were present in the lab room at a time. The interviewer read the vignette and interview
questions slowly and clearly, and enough time was allocated for the participants to respond with as much
information as they so desired.
Participant responses were transcribed, and afterwards were kept in a safe and protected area so as
to ensure participant confidentiality. After the interviews were complete, the video surveillance recording
was stopped and the participants were verbally thanked by the interviewer for their time and participation.
Following the interview, children were led back to their parent(s) or guardian(s). Each
participating child’s parent(s) or legal guardian(s) remained available during the study, and was provided a
summary of the child’s resilience factors after the study. A parent/guardian debrief session was also offered
following the interview. Had there been disclosure of childhood sexual abuse, a licensed clinical
psychologist would have constructed follow-up for mandated report.
Data Processing and Analysis
The answers of the children were rated on a scale based on the results of a survey completed by
thirty-one St. Xavier University upper level (300 level+) undergraduate students with majors/minors in
psychology. The survey was borrowed with permission from the parent 1991 child-generated study of Dr.
Sandra Burkhardt (Burkhardt 1991). The survey consisted of the surveyor rating eight resisting and
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eporting strategies of childhood sexual abuse, on a scale of 1 (being the most ineffective) through 7 (being
the most effective). The averaged ratings served as the base scale for rating the effectiveness of the
responses of the child interviews.
Results and Discussion
The report of responses of the children in the interview is potent when considering the factor of age
and in comparison to the results of the parent 1991 study (Literature Review: Burkhardt, 1991).
The researcher’s original hypothesis was that the younger children would be considerably less
effective in their responses to the interview questions with respect to the older children. It was predicted
the responses of the older children would be more reflective of deeper understanding of the nature and
implications of the scenario. This hypothesis holds true for Young Child #1 and 2 and Older Child #2, yet
generally deviates for Young Child #3 and Older Child #1.
Young Child #1, a four-year old male, seems, at first, to have some sort of sense of the problem:
his response to the first question,” Tell me what you think is the problem in this story,” is “There is a man.” While
this response is not complete in describing the threat, it should be applauded that this young boy seems to
recognize that the man is the focus of the problem in the story—not the man’s dog.
The child’s response to the second interview question, “What should Tommy do?” yields “Run away in
the car. Because there is a man and he doesn’t wanna get in the car.” The child’s response is a bit
ambiguous—it is not quite clear if he believes this “car” (which was not mentioned in the original vignette)
belongs to Tommy’s family or to the stranger. It is probable that the reason the child brings a car into his
response is due to previous lectures he has gotten from his parent(s) about “stranger danger,” and strangers
strolling up to children in their cars.
The child participant, by responding “and he doesn’t want to get in the car,” perhaps means to say
that Tommy does not want to get into the car with the man—however, his answer is, again, vague. Later
on, another question results in the child participant giving a response involving the “man’s car,” so more
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likely than not the car being discussed belongs to the stranger, and the child may imagine Tommy should
hijack the stranger’s car. Regardless, while the report of resistance is indistinct, the child believes that
Tommy should “run away.” This response, with respect to the Psychology student-averaged Stanger
Resistance and Reporting rating scale, receives a rating of 6: a relatively strong score. While this score is
relatively high, before finalizing it, one must explore the participant’s other responses so as to make a wellrounded
analysis.
A strong gap of what the child “knows”—or regurgitated—versus what he actually understands is
very apparent in his next two responses. Being prompted, “What do you think Tommy will do? Why?,” the child
participant responds “Come out to the farm, because the man put him back and then he come out.”
Likewise, when asked “The man told Tommy to look at the picture of the puppy. Should Tommy do what the man
said? Why? Why not?,” the child responds “Yes, because he was running and he has to go to McDonald’s.”
These very creative responses reflect the social cognition of a child in the pre-operational stage of
cognitive development. While the child knows that a social response is required, he does not possess the
logic to accurately answer the question. So, the child creates an imaginative script to provide an answer,
and like the script in a play or movie, the words are saying something, but that something does not reflect
reality. The child’s thoughts are more of a story than a report of fact. These responses are strong evidence
that the four-year-old child participant has very limited social cognition to understand the task being
presented.
Due to this factor, it is very likely that the child’s previously seemingly measurable recognition
(“There is a man,”) and resistance (“Run away in the car. Because there is a man and he doesn’t wanna get in
the car,”) cannot accurately be measured as precise reports of recognition and resistance—with the child’s
other responses in retrospect, it is more probable that these two responses regarding recognition and
resistance are a script the child provides rather than an actual measure of understanding. As demonstrated
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in the 1991 study, a cognitive gap lies between what the child may say or “know,” versus what he or she
actually understands (Burkhardt 1991).
With respect to the interview questions regarding adult authority, the child participant’s responses
are very telling. To “Was it OK for the man to tell Tommy/Tammy to look at the picture of the dog”? , the child
participant simply responds “yes.” This response implies that the child does not make a connection between
looking at the picture of the dog and the posed threat he had seemed to “recognize” earlier: he fails to
recognize the invitation to view the picture as a ploy. Likewise, the child participant believes that a man
“walking down the street has the right to tell kids what to do” because “he doesn’t want to play.” Perhaps
the assumption that adults do not “want to play” is, in this child’s mind, a qualification for a person to be a
“grown-up:” an adult. Therefore, the underlying meaning behind the participant’s affirmative response,
“Yes, because he doesn’t want to play,” is “Yes, because he is an adult”—directly in line with the typical
authority figure view of a young child. Because a man walking down a street is an adult, he has the right, or
“authority,” to tell children what to do in the mind’s eye of a young child. In the same manner, when asked
“Was it okay for the man to [touch Tommy’s bottom]”, the child participant said “Yes.” Sadly, so many adult
perpetrators use their status as an authority figure to their advantage while pursuing child victims.
Upon being asked the next question, “What does Tommy think about [the man touching his bottom?]”, the
child participant is yet again quite imaginative in his response: he believes that Tommy “thinks” that, in
response to the inappropriate touching, Tommy should—or has—“just bited him [the stranger] off”…and
in the process of having “bited” the stranger, Tommy bumped his head! This is most definitely a script
provided due to the obligation the child feels to providing some sort of social response. The child is creating
a story rather than assessing a possible reality because he is not cognitively capable of such assessment.
The child’s response to his last prompted interview question conveyed many ideas. In response to
“What did Tommy do when the man touched him?,” the child participant said: “Because he just…dog…honked
horn…because he just ride in on the man’s car.” Again, it seems as though the child knows that social action
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is required, yet does not have the cognitive ability to make logic of the situation, and provide the
interviewer with yet another script. The child’s response is ambiguous, but, in parallel with his previous
response of “run[ning] away in the car,” the child most likely had the first scenario, in which Tommy drives
off in the stranger’s car, in mind—a response reflecting little to no logic.
It is interesting to note that despite his focus on the man and his car, the four-year-old child
participant brings up the dog in the mist of his response. This seemingly random idea may not be random at
all: perhaps the child participant, all along, was describing Tommy’s “escape” in the car with the hope of
finding the lost dog while driving. This possibility demonstrates the child’s cognitive limitations: rather
than processing the danger of the man’s sexual abuse, he focuses on the man being an obstacle to finding the
lost dog. Also, past investigation of similar responses (Burkhardt 1991) suggests that the participant was
answering these questions in such a manner because, again, the child knows that a social response was
required. Yet again, “knowing” is entirely different than understanding.
Because the child participant failed to demonstrate indication that non-compliance was an
alternative, the interview did not progress to the additional questions designed for expanding the idea of
non-compliance.
Young Child #2, a four-year old female, completely fails to recognize the threat in the scenario.
Rather, when prompted to identify the problem, she completely focuses on the stranger’s pet: “Tammy
pasted the puppy.” The pet entirely takes the child’s focus. Likewise, when asked what she thinks Tammy
should do, the child responds: “The man lost his puppy…because he knows where the puppy at.” Her
response implies that the man had originally lost his puppy and realized where he had lost it—suggesting
perhaps that Tammy should involve herself in the case of the “lost puppy.” The incoherence of this response
also echoes the script phenomenon: the child may be scripting a story because, at her stage of cognitive
development, she has no ability to assess the situation with well-rounded logic. Again, when prompted
what she thinks Tammy will do, the pet is the focus of the child’s attention: “Hold him because he loves his
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puppy.” She even fails to relate her response to Tammy because her attention was so focused upon the
puppy—again, a demonstration of the limitedness of a child’s cognitive ability to single-handedly recognize
the complexity of the sexual and social situation.
Regarding questions of compliance to authority, the child participant believes that Tammy should in
fact look at the picture of the dog when the man shows it to her because “the man doesn’t listen to
Tammy”—or, the adult does not need to comply with a child. It is, in the child participant’s mind, the
other way around: children must comply with adults. On the same note, the four-year-old child believes
that it was appropriate for the man to look at the picture of the puppy, for a man walking down the street to
tell children what to do, and for the man in the vignette to touch Tammy’s bottom. In essence, it seems to
be ingrained in the child participant’s mind that an adult has complete authority over a child, and a child
must comply with the requests of an adult.
At this point in the interview, however, the participant takes a turn in her responses: She says that
Tammy “should tell someone [the man] touched her body,” and while she believes it is okay for the man to
touch Tammy’s bottom, she thinks Tammy will tell the man to “stop touching her.” Therefore, it seems as
though when directly prompted about the inappropriate touching, the child participant has responses of
reporting at hand. Her responses most closely align with the following responses: “Tell man, „Stop, don‟t do
that,‟” rated at 3, “Tell teacher (rating: 5), Tell Mom (rating: 7), and Report perpetrator to the police (rating: 8)”.
Therefore, her averaged rating of reporting, [(3+5+7+8)/4], is 5.75. Again, in line with the assessment of
the child’s other responses, this rating may indicate a stronger measure than the child may actually
intrinsically possess. The child knows what to do, but, considering her responses to other interview
questions, does not understand why such action must be taken—an indicator that she is regurgitating
someone else’s warning (i.e., a parent).
It seems that the child participant, upon the inappropriate touching being directly brought to her
attention, decides to change her approach to the previously viewed authority figure in the vignette. To the
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question: “Does Tammy have a right to disobey the man?,” the child participant responds yes, and responds to:
“Do kids have the right to disobey sometimes? Like when?” with: “Yes; Sunday.” However, the fact that the child
chose “Sunday” takes some validation from her original affirmative response: does she fully understand the
question? No; she is, as her four-year-old child counterpart, providing a script, because she knows that a
social response is necessary, but does not require the cognitive ability to fully grasp the situation.
The next question, “You said it was OK for Tommy/Tammy to listen when the man told him/her to look at
the picture of the puppy. You said it was not OK for the man to touch Tommy/Tammy. What is the difference between
those two things?”, brings the child participant to the same page as fellow four-year-old child participant—the
dilemma over the “lost dog” suddenly grasps her attention: “Tammy has to go get the puppy!” The sexual
encounter loses its importance to the child because, when compared to the picture of the puppy in the
question, the puppy suddenly takes the child’s focus—with respect to the child’s cognitive development,
the aspect of the lost dog reaches the child’s mind deeper than does the inappropriate touch.
While both four-year-old children at times seem to be aware of the abuse or aware that the abuse is
wrong and should be resisted against, at many points the children “switch” their approaches to the interview
and, at times, seem to contradict themselves. This is not a random occurrence: it is, again, a haunting echo
of the results of the 1991 parent study by Dr. Burkhardt. As in the Burkhardt (1991) study, there is an
apparent gap between what the child knows and understands. A child may know it’s “bad” for anyone but a
doctor or parent to touch his or her bottom, but does not necessarily know why, except for the fact that
they were taught that this is so, or that such touching may feel uncomfortable. The child may know what
should be done in a hypothetical situation, but may not be able to understand the complexity of an actual
situation, or may be unable to explain and perform what s/he “knows.” Again, this cognitive gap is an
important factor in the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse.
The beginning of the case of the seven-year old female participant provides hope to the study for
the category of younger children. From the onset, the child immediately recognizes the problem and is not
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fooled by the distracting factor of the lost dog: “I think the problem is that the man is trying to get Tammy
to come to his house.”
The child next offers a suggestion for what Tammy should do: “Just stay wherever she is. Because
if she wants to go to his house, it wouldn’t be a good idea. Her mom might come looking for her and she
doesn’t know why the man put his hand on her bottom.” While this response is not necessarily the best
method of resistance, the child does recognize that it would “not be a good idea” to go to the man’s house.
Likewise, the seven-year-old’s suggested reporting strategy, “I think Tammy would tell the police, because
it’s not a good idea for a grown man to walk up to a little girl to put his hand on her bottom,” (and she later
reverberates this suggestion: “She wanted to maybe call the police,”) is very effective and was given the
highest possible rating: 8. Later, the child suggests a more effective report of resistance: she believes that
Tammy should resist the man’s insistence to view the picture of the puppy because “he might be tricking
Tammy”—an excellent response. She expands her idea by giving a very logical and mature rationale for her
proposal—the man might not even have a dog.
With respect to the questions on the authority of an adult, the seven-year-old participant responds
very well to the prompted questions. She believes a man walking down the street does not have the right to
tell children what to do “because if he’s not their parents, he shouldn’t tell them what to do.” Likewise, she
assumes that the child in the vignette, a female of her own age range, thinks along the same lines as she:
egoistic thinking is normal for her cognitive stage of development, according to Piaget’s theory (Huitt
2003). “I think Tammy thinks the man wants to take Tammy to his house.” She goes on to assert that it was
not okay for the man to touch Tammy’s bottom.
Because the child gave strong indication of non-compliance, the interviewing process included the
additional questions. Upon being asked “Does Tammy have a right to disobey the man,” the child responded,
“Yes, because the man might leave her alone.” If Tammy does not respond to the man’s enticement,
perhaps the man will leave Tammy alone: a logical response.
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“Do kids have the right to disobey sometimes? Like when?”: this question seemed to be the breaking point
for the seven-year-old participant. Up until this point, all of her answers implied that she was wellrehearsed,
aware, and insightful of the topic—possibly intrinsically so. Up until this point, it seemed as
though the responses of the seven-year-old had completely proven the researcher‟s hypothesis wrong, and a
seven-year-old child is indeed able to understand the sexual nature of the vignette and to understand when
an adult has proper authority and when s/he does not. The seven-year-old child had validated all of her
“why‟s” with logical, seemingly insightful responses. Yet, for the final question: “Do kids have the right to
disobey sometimes? Like when?” the child gives a simple answer: no. Unfortunately, when prompted to
generalize her overall experience of the vignette—the exact resistance strategy which carries hope of
prevention of sexual abuse for younger children—the child fails to do so. It seems that without a leading or
suggestive question, the child is still limited in her cognitive ability to make an assessment of a complex
situation. The mark of being able to make logic of and properly assess something is evaluation: in this case,
being able to generalize conclusions derived from assessment. The child fails to do so.
The researcher‟s hypothesis predicted that the older children would have significantly more
discerning responses—reflecting a deeper understanding and a higher cognitive ability.
Two older children were interviewed. The first participant, a male of age ten, assumed without hesitation
that the problem in the story was that Tommy had lost his puppy. He believed that Tommy should “put up
signs saying „lost dog,‟ so people can find his dog.” The participant believed that Tommy will “go try to find
[the man‟s] dog, because he loves his dog.” Likewise, the child also believed that Tommy should look at the
picture of the puppy, as the man had instructed him, “because it‟s a lost puppy”—and therefore it was
“okay” for the man to tell Tommy to look at the picture. However, the ten-year-old boy did not believe
that a man walking down the street has the right to tell children what to do because “it‟s not right. That‟s
just being mean.”
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With respect to resistance and reporting measures, the child did fairly well. He recognized that
Tommy would think that the touching of his bottom is “not okay”—it was, again, “not okay” for the man to
do that—and, when the touching took place, Tommy “r[a]n away” (receiving a fairly solid rating of 6). The
child recognized that Tommy has the right to disobey the man “because [the man] is being mean.” However,
like the seven-year-old participant, when asked to generalize the previous idea of noncompliance to the
universal, the ten-year-old child insists that children do not have the right to disobey. He seems somewhat
able, however, to distinguish the difference between the appropriateness of looking at the picture versus
being touched on the bottom by the man: “Touching: it’s not his parent, and looking at the picture to go
find the dog.” On the other hand, he still does not recognize the instance to view the picture as a ploy or
distraction: the ten-year-old boy genuinely believes that the purpose of the looking at the picture is “to go
find the dog.” He does not make the connection.
This case goes against the researcher’s hypothesis. This ten-year-old male is an older child—yet he
still seems, at times, to be cognitively limited. While he does not seem to have the need to create a script in
order to satisfy an expected social response, he seems unable to evaluate the situation and make the
connection between the “lost puppy” and the direction towards using the situation as a ploy for sexual
abuse.
Lastly, the oldest child participant, a male of eleven years, in complete alignment with the
researcher’s hypothesis, produced the most developed (both in structure, meaning, and cognitive ability)
responses. He immediately recognizes the problem lies within the situation of the stranger’s involvement:
“Tommy is talking to a stranger.” His proposal for what action Tammy should take, “run away from the
problem and to go to mom or dad. Because he might try to kidnap him or do something else to him,” is
clearly the most descriptive and developed response of the five child participants, receiving a rating of 7.5 in
effectiveness. He has an extensive understanding of why Tommy should take such action, as he later
demonstrates in response to the question “What does Tommy think about [the man touching his bottom]?”: “He
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thinks he will try to kidnap him or rape him.” Clearly, the child understands the sexual implications of the
inappropriate touch: he quickly evaluates and assesses the situation and determines the direction in which it
headed.
Not only does the child participant understand the reality of the situation, but he also is able to
predict the likelihood of Tommy to fall for the ploy: while he thinks Tommy should, hypothetically, “run
away from the problem and go get his mom or dad,” and should “[not do what the man said and look at the
picture of the puppy] because he is a stranger and he doesn’t know what he might do to him.” On the other
hand, the participant thinks Tommy will, empirically, “help the man. Because he thinks the man is nice and
may be able to help him find his dog.” The child also predicted that, upon being touched, Tommy “wanted
to go tell:” a healthy prediction.
Likewise, the eleven-year-old child understands when authority is exerted appropriately by an adult
versus when it is exerted inappropriately. The participant understands that it is not appropriate for the man
to tell Tommy to look at the picture, or to touch Tommy’s bottom, nor for a man walking down to street
to tell children what to do “because [he] is not their parent, and a random man cannot tell kids what to do.”
Upon indicating an encompassing view of non-compliance as an alternative, the child was asked the
additional questions: “Does Tommy have the right to disobey the man?” to which the participant smartly
responded, “Yes, because he is not his parent;” “Do kids have the right to disobey sometimes? Like when?,” yielding
“Yes, if someone is not their parent, or [if it’s] someone they don’t know.” The child was able to generalize
the situation in the vignette to a universal standard—demonstrating a deep and accurate understanding of
the concept.
Upon being asked, “What is the difference between [looking at the picture and touching Tommy]?,” the
eleven-year-old child responded: “The difference is he is looking at a picture, looking at a nameless picture
with a drawing. The difference is between looking and touching. [You] can’t feel anything if looking, but
can if touching.” The participant is conveying a lot of meaning into these words. While his idea is not
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expressed fluently per se, the message is clear: looking at a picture is something entirely different than
being touched inappropriately. While the participant did recognize that Tommy should not have looked at
the picture, he asserts, nonetheless, that the degree of inappropriateness of looking at the stranger’s picture
is on a completely different level than being touched by the stranger: “you can’t feel anything if looking,”—
by simply “looking” at the picture, no inappropriate touching is taking place just yet, but “if touching,” the
child can “feel” the inappropriate touching, or abuse. The child is conveying that in and of itself, looking at
the “nameless picture with a drawing” is not abuse, but that seemingly harmless “looking” can escalade to
abuse by “touching.”
Implications
The implications of this study are in alignment with those of the 1991 study (Burkhardt 1991).
What are the implications of the current study with regards to the prevention of childhood sexual abuse? A
model of social and cognitive vulnerability to childhood sexual abuse offers several promising possibilities
for prevention for younger children. In order for a child to develop on the cognitive level, he or she must
interact with the environment. Therefore, creating educational opportunities involving social interactions
with adult authority figures could provide an arena for younger children to build, widen, and extend their
social reasoning capabilities.
Efforts to prevent childhood sexual abuse might best be served by focusing children’s focus upon
the distinctive social demands of an encounter involving abuse. Situational cues which distinguish
appropriate from in appropriate adult instructions should also be brought to the children’s attention.
Likewise, confusion and uncertainty a child may experience as he or she struggles to respond should be a
major focus of such efforts of educational abuse prevention programs. The inclusion of child-generated
strategies may serve to further the assimilation of the children to the preventive education lessons, therefore
increasing the probability that students would comprehend, retain, and employ what they have been taught.
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Findings of the current study suggest that, given their limited ability to protect themselves in
complex social situations, especially those involving sex—an area cognitively unreachable for a young
child—children depend on parents and caretakers to care for them. The consistent identification of social
cognitive vulnerability in both the 1991 study and the current study should serve to alert concerned adults
of the very real limitations which normal development places upon children in terms of protecting
themselves.
While parents, who lecture their children to take precaution, may believe that children already
“know” what to do in a dangerous situation, the children cannot execute what they “know” because they do
not understand. Children seem to be no more understanding of such complexities as they were twenty years
ago, despite the media and technological advances. Media and technology of this day and age may expose
children to ideas of sex and unconventional social situations (e.g., via social networking sites) at an earlier
age than in the year 1991, yet young children remain naïve to the complexity and depth of these situations.
In Purcell et. al.’s study (1990): mature sexual behavior can be a result of sexual abuse, yet such behavior is
not necessarily accompanied by mature sexual understanding. The researcher, studying to be a teacher,
once observed a kindergarten classroom in which the classroom teacher reported to her that recently, the
teacher found a few students were creating a game during their recess, in which a girl and a boy would get
“married.” The “marriage” came with a qualification, however: the children believed that in order to get
married, the boy had to show the girl his private parts, and vice versa—and this is just what the teacher
found her students doing in the back of the classroom! Did the children understand what they were doing?
No. They were simply imitating either their parents or the media.
While adults do not trust children with such tasks and responsibilities as handling money, cooking
meals, or handling matches or weapons, adults often charge children with the responsibility of providing for
their own emotional well-being and physical safety merely armed with the warning: “Don’t talk to
strangers,” “Be careful,” or “Say no.” As parents and teachers strive to arm children with the ability to
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ecognize, resist, and report perpetrators of sexual abuse, they would do well to remember that the average
child depends on his or her parents, his or her teachers—trusted adults—to protect and guide the child
through life’s confusing moments and obstacles.
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Burkhardt, Sandra (1986). Preventing Inappropriate Child-Stranger Interactions: A Comparison
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Burkhardt, Sandra (1991). Vulnerability to Child Sexual Abuse as a Function of Level of
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Child Sexual Abuse (2011). Facts for Families. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
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Douglas, E., M. & Finklehor, D. (2005). Childhood Sexual Abuse Fact Sheet. Retrieved February 10,
2011. Durham, NH:Crimes Against Children Research Center.
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Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development. Educational Psychology
Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from
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Purcell et. al. (1990). Children’s Knowledge of Sexuality: A Comparison of Sexually
Nonabused Children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60(2), 250-257.
Abused and
Quinn Patton, M. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3 rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, Inc.
Roller, C., Martsolf, D., Draucker, C. B., & Ross, R. (2009). The Sexuality of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Survivors. International Journal of Sexual Health, 21:49–60. Retrieved from Academic Search
Complete database.
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James Palmer
Wilmington College
What Led to the Kent State Tragedy?
Figure 1. Location Map May 4-Shooting. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
There were many factors that contributed to the students of Kent State University being shot by the
National Guard. The National Guard did not shoot the students solely because of the actions of the
protesting students on May 4, 1970. Many factors were festering days before the shootings took place. The
tension between the National Guard and the protesting students reached a climax and resulted in a violent
outbreak on the fourth of May. Government officials and the National Guard played an intricate role in the
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events that led to the Kent State shootings. Everyone involved in the incident, including the National
Guard, were caught in unfavorable and explosive circumstances.
During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a lot of opposition to the Vietnam War, especially among
college students, ultimately at Kent State University, because they did not believe that the United States
should be in Vietnam. Richard M. Nixon, like many other presidential candidates during the Vietnam Era,
vowed to end the Vietnam War if he became the President of the United States. On April 30, 1970, which
was one year after he became president, the United States, under Nixon’s order, invaded Cambodia. The
people who were against the war were livid that Nixon had lied to them, by vowing to end the Vietnam
War, but instead expanded it. If Richard Nixon had not invaded Cambodia, then there would have been
fewer protests, if any, among U.S. citizens opposed to the war, especially the students at Kent State
University. Therefore, the shootings that occurred on May 4, 1970 probably would have never happened.
As a result of the invasion, Kent State students made it clear in numerous ways that they were against the
Vietnam War and the expansion of the war. That resulted in the National Guardsmen, some members of
which were young and untrained while others were highly trained, being placed in the abhorred position of
trying to enforce “law and order.”
On May 1, 1970, World Historians Opposed to Racism and Exploitation (WHORE) were
extremely vocal, by means of a rally, about their opposition to the Vietnam War, the invasion of
Cambodia, and President Richard M. Nixon (Cartaino, 2010). “[R]ally leaders buried a copy of the
United States Constitution, declaring it had been “murdered” when troops had been sent into Cambodia
without a declaration of war or consultation with Congress” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus
Unrest, 1970, p. 240).
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Figure 2. Burying the U.S. Constitution (Ruffner, 1970).
Draft cards, belonging to students, were incinerated. Students also made it clear on that day that they did
not want an ROTC building on Kent State’s campus. There were inquiries of why the ROTC building was
still there. That foreshadowed what was to become of the ROTC building the next day. The students
planned to meet again on May 4, 1970. The topics that they wanted to converse about were opposition to
the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia and the demands of the students, including eradicating
the ROTC program on Kent State’s campus (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
Overall, there were not any problems during the day of May 1. However, the evening of May 1 was a
different story.
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Figure 3. Draft papers are held up ready to be burnt (Ruffner, 1970).
The events that took place during the night of May 1, 1970 were the beginning of a downward spiral
which led to the National Guard occupying Kent State University’s campus, which would result in the
shooting of students by the National Guard three days later. There were many young adults, including
students of Kent State, clustered in and outside of the bars on North Water Street. Everyone in the bar was
not talking about Cambodia. Some people were watching a basketball game. As the night progressed, many
left the bars and were lingering about on North Water Street. Many acts of vandalism took place. When
local law enforcement drove past the congregation, which consisted of students and non-students, they
were heckled. “[B]onfires were built in the streets of downtown Kent, cars were stopped, police cars were
hit with bottles, and some store windows were broken” (Hensley & Lewis, 2010, p. 55). There were also
incidents of pilfering along with a great amount of property damage and some injuries. William Scranton,
the head of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, (1970) found that “In all, 47 windows in 15
establishments were broken, and two police officers were cut by missiles” (p. 243). A state of emergency
was issued by the mayor of Kent, Leroy Satrom. The bars were shut down at his demand. Obviously, this
put a lot more people out on the street and made them even more irate. It also raised the ire of those who
were not involved in the destruction. “This arbitrary action threw a new mass of young people into the
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streets and infuriated many who up to now had done nothing wrong” (Michener, 1971, p. 54). Satrom also
made it clear that gasoline was permitted to only be sold if it was being put into a vehicle’s tank (Bills,
1988).
According to James J. Best, Mayor Satrom ordered a curfew effective for Kent that began at 11:00
p.m.; Kent State University’s curfew began at 1:00 a.m. on Friday (Best, 2010). Mayor Satrom attempted
to contact James A. Rhodes, Governor of Ohio. John McElroy, the administrative assistant to Governor
Rhodes, answered the call and Satrom informed him that part of Kent had been overtaken by the “radical”
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). Satrom
told McElroy that he did not need the National Guard’s help at that moment, but forewarned that he may in
the near future (Michener, 1971). McElroy contacted Major General Sylvester T. Del Corso, in charge of
Ohio’s National Guard, who sent a liaison officer to the city of Kent, to update him (Best, 2010).
Rocks were hurled at Kent’s local law enforcement by the irate crowd on the evening of May 1
(Michener, 1971). Local law enforcement utilized tear gas on the congregation, which resulted in people
scattering and students returning to Kent State. Students, especially those who had done nothing wrong,
were furious because they felt that local law enforcement officers were unjustified in utilizing tear gas on
them. This may have contributed to more students taking an active role in opposing authority figures, “and
society.” After being “gassed,” most of the students were off the streets in the downtown area, and were
back on the university’s campus.
The campus police were guarding the campus buildings, which were under bomb threats (Michener, 1971).
James Michener credits Michael Weekley as the one who launched a large brick at the window of the
ROTC building, causing the window to shatter (Michener, 1971). There was also some other miniscule
destruction of property on campus and a lot of tension between the students and the police. The students
who were on campus property faced off with local law enforcement officers who were standing on the
street. Then, something unsuspected happened, which distracted both the cops and the students from each
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other, which resulted in the tension dissipating: “[A] car collided with a city electric truck, leaving an
electrician – who had been repairing the traffic light in the center of the intersection – hanging from the
light” (Best, 2010, p. 11). An alliance quickly formed between the student protesters and the policemen.
Their goal was to save the man hanging from the traffic light. Once the electrician had been saved, the
tension between the officers and the student protesters had lessened, which resulted in a quiet night on
Kent State University’s campus for the remainder of the evening. The incident with the electrician
demonstrated that a human life is extremely valuable and that people can put aside their differences to work
together for a better cause, for example, saving the electrician. Local law enforcement officers detained
fifteen people for disorderly conduct (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). The events
of May 1 would set the stage for the events in the following days that led up to the disastrous shooting of
Kent State students.
The events of May 2, 1970 are extremely pertinent in the shooting of students at Kent State University.
The major factor that led to the National Guard coming to campus on May 2 was that there were many
rumors flying around. If these rumors had not been running rampant, then the National Guard would
probably have never come to Kent State. If the National Guard had never shown up, the shooting may not
have occurred.
On the morning of May 2, one major rumor was that radical students were planning on setting the
entire city ablaze (Best, 2010). However, many students helped clean up the mess in the city that was left
from the night before (Best, 2010). Many businesses of Kent were extremely anxious and afraid of threats
by students that their businesses would be damaged or destroyed; therefore they displayed signs in the
windows that had messages which showed opposition to the Vietnam War (U.S. President’s Commission
on Campus Unrest, 1970). An injunction was filed against 500 unnamed students, but it is unknown
whether or not the students were served with the injunction; however, the injunction is mentioned in a
Kent State pamphlet on Saturday (Best, 2010). The state of emergency, which had shut down bars and
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created the curfew, was issued by Mayor Satrom on May 1 and was made a formality on Saturday, May 2.
There was a lot of confusion about the curfew because the city of Kent and the university had different
curfew times.
The Vice President of Kent State University, Robert Matson, met with Lieutenant Barnette of the
National Guard and was informed by Barnette that “if the National Guard were called, they would make no
distinction between city and campus and would take jurisdictional control of the entire area” (U.S.
President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 245). What Lieutenant Barnette had told Matson
conflicted with their originally understood duties: “The National Guard’s concept of operations in
controlling civil disorders is to support rather than replace local and State [sic] law enforcement
agencies” (Grant & Hill, 1974, p. 15). As a result, faculty and officials of Kent State were very hesitant and
reluctant to have the National Guard come to Kent.
There were rumors that students would be assembling that evening. This made Kent State officials
uneasy because they did not want a repeat of what happened the previous night. Eszterhas and Hill
described rumors about weapons, especially guns, radical Weathermen, threats of the city being set ablaze,
and rumors that the water of the city would be contaminated with LSD (as cited in Hensley & Lewis,
2010). Meanwhile, a pamphlet was passed out to Kent State students misinforming them of the curfew
time. It told them the time of curfew for the city and did not explain that the university’s curfew was
different than the city’s curfew. The pamphlet also stated that peaceful assemblies were still permitted.
The major rumor was that people were plotting to do major damage any building that was military
related as well as the post office (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). Mayor Satrom
wanted to utilize the police if any of these rumors were to come true, if any foul play occurred, or if
anything went awry. However, local law enforcement officers would be unavailable. This resulted in
Satrom finally enlisting assistance from the National Guard, despite his reluctance to do so. After the
necessary steps were taken, the National Guard made their way from Akron to Kent. At about 7:00 p.m.,
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there was a congregation of students at the Victory Bell, which resulted in the Chief of Police of Kent State
to attempt to enlist the help of the Highway Patrol; however, the patrol refused to make its way on campus
unless there were illicit activities that called for arrests (Best, 2010). Later that evening, the ROTC building
began to suffer some damage and destruction. Rocks were launched at the ROTC building and then fire was
set to it. An American flag was also incinerated (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
Firefighters attempted to extinguish the fire, but their attempts were futile, because students damaged the
hose and launched rocks at the firefighters. The firefighters eventually left the scene. The fire died out on its
own. Then, the fire seemed to have rekindled itself by means of live ammunition.
Many different authority figures arrived at Kent State. “[Campus] police, sheriff’s deputies, highway
patrolmen, and National Guardsmen had assembled on campus” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus
Unrest, 1970, p. 251). General Del Corso informed McElroy, who, in turn, informed Governor James A.
Rhodes that the National Guard was in the downtown area of Kent and at Kent State University (U.S.
President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). The State Highway Patrol made their way to campus
because arrests were warranted and necessary (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
Firefighters had made their return to campus in an attempt to extinguish the burning ROTC building once
again. Guardsmen, along with Kent State police, attempted to guard the firefighters, while they
extinguished the massive fire. The firefighters successfully extinguished the fire. However, it was too late.
There was basically nothing left of the ROTC building, except ash. There was $86,000 worth of damage
and destruction (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
The message sent by the incineration of the ROTC building was that people were very opposed to the
war in Vietnam. They did not believe in war. They did not believe in training people to take other human
lives. Their message appeared to be purely political. It was later discovered that the majority of people who
played a major role in the incineration of the ROTC building were not students of Kent State University
and it was thoroughly planned before the incident actually occurred, which is evident because no person
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would bring a machete, ice pick, or other weapons that were used to destroy the firefighters’ hose to a rally
that was supposed to be peaceful (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). That is crucial,
because the incidences committed by non-students helped create tension with the National Guard, which
resulted in the shooting of students on May 4.
Figure 4. The Kent St[a]te Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) building fire burns out late Saturday night
(Ruffner, 1970).
There was even more destruction that occurred on campus that evening; however, if authority figures
had not been present to diffuse the situation, there probably would have been even more damage and
destruction:
A faculty marshal dissuaded half a dozen persons from setting fire to a small information booth at
the edge of campus…a group of about ten wrecked a telephone booth and tried to uproot a bus
stop sign. Others dragged an air compressor from a construction site into the street, piled up
sawhorses and debris, and built a bonfire (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970,
p. 251).
The general belief was that most or all of the students were bent on wreaking havoc on Kent. However,
this is far from the truth. A lot of students did wreak havoc. However, there were some students that
steered clear of that and believed that they would get nowhere and that nobody would listen to them if they
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destroyed the university and the city. According to Scranton and his President’s Commission, “Still other
students followed along trying to prevent damage and put fires out” (U.S. President’s Commission on
Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 251-252).
A lot of students were irate about the National Guard being at Kent State University. Many citizens of
Kent were relieved and happy to see the Guardsmen in Kent. Locals had resentment towards protestors as
well as the students at Kent State University, because they believed that young people were
antiestablishment and causing the trouble. They did not realize that not everyone was partaking in the
destruction of the city. They were fearful of the protesters and young people. When the National Guard
arrived at Kent; one soldier recalled:
People from some of the neighborhoods on our route ran out to our jeep. They said things like,
“Kill those S.O.B.’s if they cause any more trouble.” “Get tough with them.” Maybe we agreed with
some of these statements when we were entering a riot situation in a city, but now we were facing
white young people like us and we thought these remarks were stupid (Grant & Hill 1974, p. 53).
This demonstrated that the National Guard shared the same sentiment as the residents of Kent until
they realized that they were facing human beings who were basically the same as them. These young
students were not subhuman and they sure were not the enemy. They were people just like the
Guardsmen. If the Guardsmen could have maintained this attitude throughout the remainder of their stay in
Kent, then maybe the shootings would not have occurred. However, since they were afraid and not very
familiar with the predicament that they were put into, the National Guardsmen lost sight of that fact.
The National Guard utilized tear gas to contain the rambunctious crowd, just as local law enforcement
had done the previous night. The protesting students were already antiestablishment and did not like
authority figures. However, that action infuriated students who had done nothing wrong and who had taken
a neutral role up until that point. That was the first night that rocks had been launched at the National
Guard. The crowd was dispersed by the tear gas, and the rest of the evening was calm. However, the
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negative attitudes towards the National Guard would fester over the next couple of days and would feed
into the shootings.
May 3, 1970 is a day that is extremely crucial in comprehending why the National Guard would shoot
the students at Kent State University the following day. May 3 demonstrated the uneasy feelings that the
students of Kent State University had towards authority figures, especially the National Guard. It also
demonstrated the attitude of government officials towards the protesting students. There were some key
factors and events that occurred on May 3 that were necessary to comprehend why the shootings occurred.
The president of the university was making his return back to Kent. Some faculty members and
students were absolutely opposed to the students being suspended for their actions in previous
days. There was an investigation held among faculty of Kent State University. The most important
principle explained by the end of that investigation was that “[r]easons should be given to justify a
discretionary decision, for to decide an issue without giving the reasons upon which the decision is
based approaches autocracy and is incompatible with the educational objectives of the academic
community” (Kent Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Report of the
Special Committee of Inquiry as cited in Michener, 1970, p. 237).
There was confusion among people about those codes that were supposed to be practiced by faculty
members, especially in the cases where students:
1. Advocated that President White be shot.
2. Openly announced that they intended to destroy the university.
3. Habitually called campus police to their face, “motherfucking pigs.”
4. Openly threatened to kill campus policemen.
5. Distributed leaflets calling for the assassination of all policemen at random.
6. Threatened to blow up buildings.
7. Warned that if disciplinary action were taken against them, the sky would be the limit.
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8. Preached that the United States government must be overthrown now. (Michener, 1970, p.
237).
The governor, James A. Rhodes, also flew to Kent. He was making his way from Cleveland, where he
had been campaigning for generally pro-war Republicans (Best, 2010). Governor Rhodes had berated the
student protesters at Kent State. He basically called them savages that were anti-American. His description
of the protestors was that they were “worse than the brown shirts and the communist element, and also the
night-riders and the vigilantes. They are the worst type of people that we harbor in America” (U.S.
President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 254). Rhodes promised to eradicate the problem by
any amount of lawful force and legal means necessary. He said that “every force of law would be used to
deal with them” (Hensley & Lewis, 2010, p. 55). He then stated that he was going to obtain a state of
emergency by means of a court order, which he never went through with.
The statements made by Rhodes raised the antagonistic attitudes of students towards authority figures,
governmental officials, and perhaps “America.” Rhodes should not have insulted the students by comparing
them to radical groups, such as Nazis and Communists, no matter how extreme their methods were. They
were exercising their rights as Americans to protest a war they did not believe in. By doing that, Rhodes
basically claimed that an American right that the students were practicing, in the form of protesting, was
not American, and the right to protest was considered synonymous with anarchy. Rhodes also created a lot
of confusion by stating that there was a state of emergency, yet not following through with obtaining the
necessary paperwork; this made people, especially the National Guard, believe that martial law was in
effect and, therefore, congregations and rallies were not permitted. This is the major factor and
misunderstanding that led to the students being gunned down by the National Guard the following day.
Ronald Kane, the prosecutor in the surrounding Portage County, had a meeting with James Rhodes
and gave Rhodes the idea to shut down Kent State University, at least temporarily, which Governor Rhodes
declined to do. If Rhodes would have permitted the university to shut down, at least during that tense time
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and situation, then the shooting of the students by the National Guard probably would not have happened
the next day. This would have allowed the anger and resentment that protesting students were feeling about
the war and towards government officials to subside and nobody would have been on campus the next day
to get shot by the National Guard. The National Guard also would have not been placed in an untenable
position.
Governor Rhodes briefly met with President White of Kent State University. Rhodes told White that
he had a bunch of savages on campus. He basically told him to not give up and to not allow Kent State to
close down. Governor Rhodes said, “Bob, you have 400 of the worst riffraff in the state from all of the
campuses. They are trying to close you down. Don’t give in. Keep open” (U.S. President’s Commission on
Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 255).
Under martial law, which was what everyone thought was imposed because of the statements of
Governor Rhodes; students would not be able to congregate at all. There was a congregation of students at
8:00 p.m. around what was left of the ROTC building (Best, 2010). The crowd had become so enormous
that the 1:00 a.m. curfew was revoked. The curfew for the evening would be imposed upon students
immediately. At 9:00 p.m., the congregation of people was read the Ohio Riot Act. The crowd was given
the opportunity to break up and had five minutes to do so, otherwise they would face arrest (U.S.
President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). When the crowd remained, the National Guard fired
tear gas like they had the night before. Demonstrators had separated into two different groups after being
exposed to the tear gas. “One group headed towards President White’s house, another toward Prentice
Gate” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, 257).
Tear gas was unleashed on the congregation that had headed toward President White’s house. The group
that was hanging out around Prentice Gate was still intact. That crowd wanted to meet with President
White and Mayor Satrom to negotiate its demands for dispersal. The demands were: “abolition of the
ROTC on campus, removal of the Guard from campus by Monday night, lifting of the curfew, full amnesty
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for those arrested on Saturday night, the granting of all demands made by BUS (Black United Students), and
the reduction of student tuition” (Best, 2010, p. 17-18). The National Guard felt that they controlled
campus and were calling the shots; therefore they declined to negotiate with the students. The National
Guard was able to break up the congregation before Mayor Satrom made it to the site. President White did
not make an appearance. There was a negotiation that the National Guard would back off of the campus if
the students got off the streets.
The Riot Act was again read at 11:00 p.m., and the curfew was to take effect right then (U.S.
President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). Students were informed that neither official that they
had requested to speak with would be making an appearance. Students were under the impression that the
officials were going to meet with them and felt that they had gone back on their words. The congregation
became irate and violent. They began to berate, cuss out, and launch rocks at the National Guard, as well as
any local law enforcement officers who were around. The National Guard responded by firing tear gas on
the people, which resulted in them fleeing. When the National Guard was trying to break up the
congregation, some injuries occurred. A minimum of two students suffered wounds because the National
Guard drew bayonets on them and Guardsmen suffered wounds from stones that were launched at them, as
well as a wrench that was launched (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). Ironically,
Allison Krause, one of the most famous of the students killed by the National Guard the following day, was
one of the students who was running away from the scene (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus
Unrest, 1970). Students went into Rockwell Memorial Library. They were locked in and confined there.
Almost an hour later, they were released and permitted to make their way to their dorms. There were
many arrests: “Fifty-one persons were arrested Sunday night, most of them for curfew violations. This
brought the total of arrests to more than 100 since the disturbances had begun” (U.S. President’s
Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 258). The rest of the evening was quiet. Students, however,
loathed the National Guard now and wanted the Guardsmen off their campus, especially because the Guard
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had broken their promise to back off of campus and also apparently lied to the students by telling them that
White and Satrom would meet with them, which never happened.
At some point during the day on May 3, Allison Krause had seen that there was a flower in the barrel of
the rifle of one of the Guardsmen, and she stated that “flowers are better than bullets” (Bills, 1988, p. 13).
However, Michener stated that Krause had given the flower to the Guardsman and then she made that
statement (Michener, 1970). That demonstrated that despite Krause being opposed to the war and
protesting it, she was a good person and she did not want violence to occur. It also showed that she was a
peaceful protester. She definitely did not suspect that she would die from the bullets of the National Guard
the following day. The hatred and apathy towards the National Guard had increased during that day, as a
result of the purported lies and actions of the National Guard. This changed the objective and motives of the
students from protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War to protesting the National Guard being at Kent
State. This could have been what caused Allison Krause to take a more militant position in protesting and
made her consider tossing rocks at the National Guard.
May 4, 1970 is the day that the National Guard gunned down students at Kent State. The National
Guard was sleep deprived. At 7:45 a.m., the Education Building was shut down as the result of a threat to
bomb the building (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). There was an enormous
misunderstanding about the hours that curfew would start, because Kent had a different curfew than Kent
State University. General Canterbury met with many important figures to discuss curfew hours, and they
decided that Kent State would have the same curfew as the rest of the city, which was from 8:00 p.m. to
6:00 a.m., which resulted in Mayor Satrom changing the curfew time (U.S. President’s Commission on
Campus Unrest, 1970).
There was supposed to be a gathering of students at noon, which was originally to protest the expansion
of the war in Vietnam, but now it focused on the desire to have the National Guard removed from KSU
property because the students were livid that the Guardsmen had lied to them about meeting with Satrom
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and White the night before and they felt the National Guard was impeding their rights. The congregation
was forbidden based on the assumption that Governor James Rhodes, did in fact, seek the necessary
paperwork that declared that there was a state of emergency, because it was supposed to prevent rallies,
which would prevent injuries and property damage by the students. However, now, we know that he did
not ever formalize the state of emergency. Students still would congregate at noon, despite a lot of them,
but not all of them, knowing that they were not supposed to. Even many people who did not partake in
events the previous nights grouped up with the rest of their peers to protest the National Guard’s presence
on campus. However, a lot of people still made it clear that they were opposed to the war through chants
such as “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus
Unrest, 1970, p. 263).
The National Guard, mainly those members from Company A and Company C, had a face-off with a
huge number of students (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). General Canterbury
told the Guardsmen to load their guns. One could inquire why the National Guard was armed against
unarmed citizens. However, the Guardsmen were vulnerable in the sense that they were being abused with
rocks and were not able to defend themselves without utilizing their guns. They were also sleep deprived.
A jeep was driven through the crowd to try to get them to disperse, but students just launched rocks at
the jeep until it retreated. At about noon, the jeep came back, and “Canterbury ordered the 96 men and
seven officers to form a skirmish line, shoulder to shoulder, and to move out across the Commons toward
the students” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 264). The National Guard’s main
objective was to break up the congregation of students. The National Guard eventually launched tear gas
into the gathering, because they would not disperse. Students casted the tear gas back at the National
Guard, who had gas masks on their faces (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). The
students also tossed rocks at the Guardsmen.
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There was a clear misunderstanding and miscommunication of the role the National Guard was
supposed to play. There was also increasing resentment towards the Guardsmen as the days had progressed,
as cited in the President’s Commission:
Many students felt that the campus was their “turf.” Unclear about the authority vested in the
National Guard by the governor, or indifferent to it, some also felt that their constitutional right to
free assembly was being infringed upon. As they saw it, they had been ordered to disperse at a time
when no rocks had been thrown and no other violence had been committed. (U.S. President’s
Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 267).
The congregation continued to toss rocks at the National Guard. Canisters of tear gas continued to be
launched by the National Guard and then returned by students. Jeffrey Miller was one of the men who
partook in casting back canisters of tear gas (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). As
the tension between the National Guard and students increased and conditions became worse, some
students took the opportunity to leave the scene.
More stones were tossed at the Guard. Then, the National Guard gunned down students. Four students
died and nine students were injured. “Altogether between 61 and 67 shots were fired in a thirteen-second
period” (Hensley & Lewis, 2010, p. 56). The four students who were killed were Jeffrey Glen Miller,
William K. Schroeder, Sandra Lee Scheuer (Sandy), and Allison B. Krause. The nine students who suffered
injuries were Joseph Lewis, Jr., Thomas V. Grace, John R. Cleary, Allen Michael Canfora, Dean R. Kahler,
Douglas Alan Wrentmore, James Dennis Russell, Robert Follis Stamps, and Donald Scott Mackenzie.
The National Guard claimed that they shot the students because they were in fear of their lives.
However, many researchers have proven that all the students who suffered fatalities and injuries were
nowhere near the Guardsmen at the time. The main members of the National Guard who did the shooting
were Company A and Troop G (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). The thirteen
casualties by name, distance from National Guard, as well as deaths and injuries sustained were:
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1. Joseph Lewis, Jr., 20 yards, wounded in the right abdomen and the lower left leg.
2. Thomas V. Grace, 20 yards, wounded in left ankle.
3. John R. Cleary, 37 yards, wounded in upper left chest.
4. Allen Michael Canfora, 75 yards, wounded in the right wrist.
5. Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 85 to 90 yards, killed by a shot in the mouth.
6. Dean R. Kahler, 95 to 100 yards, wounded in the left side of the small of his back. A bullet
fragment lodged in his spine, and he is paralyzed from the waist down.
7. Douglas Allen Wrentmore, 110 yards, wounded in the right knee.
8. Allison B. Krause, 110 yards, killed by a bullet that passed through her left upper arm and into
her left side.
9. James Dennis Russell, 125 to 130 yards, wounded in the right thigh and right forehead.
10. William K. Schroeder, 130 yards, killed by a shot in the left back at the seventh rib.
11. Sandra Lee Scheuer, 130 yards, killed by a shot through the left front side of the neck.
12. Robert Follis Stamps, 165 yards, wounded in the right buttock.
13. Donald Scott Mackenzie, 245 to 250 yards, wounded in the left rear of the neck. (U.S.
President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 273-274).
The students thought that the National Guard was firing blanks at first. Blanks, however, do not hit the
ground. Upon seeing the carnage, many students were outraged. They called the National Guard
“murderers” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). One person tried to revive Sandy
with mouth-mouth resuscitation (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
Sandra Scheuer was a twenty-year-old junior who was headed to class when she was shot. She was not
involved in the congregation that was protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War and the National Guard
being on campus (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
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Allison Krause was a nineteen-year-old freshman who was part of the protesting congregation on the
Commons and following her demise “small fragments of concrete and cinder block were found in the
pockets of her jacket” (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970, p. 275).
Jeffrey Glenn Miller was a twenty-year-old junior who was a protestor who had given the National
Guard the middle fingers when the Guardsmen ordered the congregation to break up, and he tossed a
canister of tear gas at the National Guard (U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
William K. Schroeder was a nineteen-year-old-sophomore who was a cadet in the ROTC who was
present at the congregation but who probably did not harass the National Guard (U.S. President’s
Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970).
Figure 5. John Filo’s iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old
runaway, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was shot dead by the Ohio National Guard (Filo
1970).
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Figure 6. The four students killed by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University (Kent May 4
Center, 1970).
The shooting traumatized students and the nation. They could not believe that governmental authority
figures could commit such heinous acts. It was surprising to them that the Guard, who had guns, would use
them on students. The students attempted to fight the National Guard, but Kent State faculty prevented it
by talking to the students and calming them down.
The shooting probably traumatized a lot of the National Guardsmen as well. They claimed that they
shot the students because they felt that their lives were in peril (Hensley & Lewis, 2010). Basically, they
claimed it was self defense, but most of the evidence suggests that was not the case (Hensley & Lewis,
2010). An injunction was sought by Prosecutor Ronald Kane to close down Kent State University, which
closed on May 4, 1970, and remained closed for the remainder of the quarter (U.S. President’s
Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970). Professors attempted to help students finish the quarter. They did
that by meeting off campus for lessons. Kent State reopened for the summer quarter.
The students who were killed were obviously the most damaged. The students who suffered injuries
from the shootings were deeply affected, especially Dean Kahler, who is still paralyzed and is confined to a
wheelchair to this day. The families of the dead and injured students were also deeply affected. Jerry Lewis
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created the Candlelight Walk and Vigil, which occurs on the anniversary of May 4, to remember the
students and the shootings (Lewis, 2010). That is also a reminder to keep people and perhaps the
government from repeating their mistakes that could result in another incident like the one at Kent State
University.
There were many factors that lead to the Kent State shootings. There was opposition to the Vietnam
War and the expansion of the war. There were misunderstandings between students, university and
government officials, as well as the National Guard, which contributed to the Kent State tragedy. There
were some lies and rumors running rampant. Mistakes were made by everyone and resulted in the horrific
outcome of students being shot by the National Guard. However, the National Guard did not have the right
to shoot those students even if the students were throwing rocks at the Guardsmen. Guns are more deadly
than rocks. The National Guard should not have even had guns on them to deal with that situation.
References
Best, J. J. (2010). The Tragic Weekend of May 1-4, 1970. In T. Hensley & J. Lewis (Eds.), Kent State and
May 4 th : A social science perspective. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
Bills, S.L. (1988). Kent state/may 4: echoes through a decade. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
Caputo, P. (2005). 13 seconds: A look back at the Kent State shootings. New York: Chamberlain Bros.
Cartaino, C. (2010). It happened in Ohio: Remarkable events that shaped history. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot
Press.
Filo, J. (Photographer). (1970). Kent State shootings. [Photographic image]. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Grant, E., & Hill, M. (1974). I was there: what really went on at Kent State. Lima, OH: The C.S.S. Publishing
Company, Inc.
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Hensley, T.R. and Lewis, J.M. (2010). The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The search for
historical accuracy. In Authors (Eds.), Kent State and May 4 th : A social science perspective. (pp. 54-60).
Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
Kent May 4 Center. (1970). Best May 4 1970 Photograph web links. Retrieved from
http://www.may4.org/1970-best-photo-links/best-kent-state-1970-online-photograph-links/
Lewis, J.M. (2010). The Candlelight Walk and Vigil. In T. Hensley & J.M. Lewis (Eds.), Kent State and May
4 th : A social science perspective. (pp. 213-216). Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
Location Map May 4-Shooting. (Photographic image). Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Michener, J. (1971). Kent state: what happened and why. New York: Random House.
Ruffner, H. (1970). Howard Ruffner: HUGE collection of the best May 1-4, 1970 Kent State photographs.
Picasa Web Albums. Retrieved from
http://picasaweb.google.com/hruffner/KentStateUniversityMay141970#
U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest. (1970). Report of the President’s Commission on Campus
Unrest. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
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Carolyn Payne
Saginaw Valley State University
The Emerging Myth:
Christianity as the “True Myth” in Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams
**This paper is part of a far more extensive piece, which may account for some lack of clarity or
discontinued thought on some subject matters.
J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams are primarily associated by their membership in
the unofficial Oxford literary club, the Inklings, but what initially brought them together was a deeper
issue. While still unacquainted, Lewis and Williams read each other's work and the two men immediately
wrote to each other, expressing their own similar convictions on mythology and the “true myth.” This
concept refers to the notion that that all cultures undergo a Jung-like experience of collective unconscious
in regards to mythology, explaining the common archetypes and messages found in ancient texts. This
collective myth-experience was actualized in the life of Christ, making Christianity the “true myth.”
Tolkien and Lewis had previously discovered their mutual love of myth and curiosity of the “true myth” and
so it was through this commonality that the friendship of the three men was formed. The three came from
distinctly different religious backgrounds and their writings reflected those histories and beliefs. Tolkien, a
lifelong Roman Catholic, wrote vastly developed mythologies with subtle allusions to his faith. Lewis, a
middle-aged convert to Evangelical Anglicanism, wrote in a dogmatic and overtly allegorical fashion.
Charles Williams was a practicing, influential Rosicrucian whose writing was every bit as mysterious and
mystical as the rituals he performed on a daily basis. They shared an essence of faith, Oxford scholarship,
and notability as British authors in the twentieth century, but that is not their only common ground. These
men made their belief in the “true myth” and their different interpretations of it evident through their
various fictions.
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Love of mythology in general had been constant throughout the lives of the three men. Lewis and
Tolkien shared a great love of Norse mythology, discovering this „taste for Northernness‟ in childhood.
Tolkien had even started a club called the Kolbítar among the Oxford dons to read Icelandic myths and
sagas in Old Norse, and Lewis‟s attendance at this club was one of the their first interactions. Williams‟
fondness for mythology ran in a more ritualistic and magical direction: toward the quests of the knights of
Camelot. While Lewis and Tolkien found Arthurian legend delightful (though Tolkien distrusted it as the
„mythology for Britain‟, Williams was enraptured by the ideas of the Holy Grail and courtly love. All three
men believed that myth is essential and vital to mankind‟s understanding of their world. Michaela Baltasar
wrote that Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to demonstrate myth's true nature and proper function.
For Tolkien, this function is especially important as an act of „sub creation‟ as an intelligent creation of a
greater Creator. David Lyle Jeffrey cites St. Augustine‟s teachings as “„history [being] a kind of continuous
unfolding of God's Word in time‟ then literary works are contemporary glosses on that first divine text”
(Jeffrey, 65). Jeffrey concludes that writing, particularly writing myth, is then a kind of sub-creation,
repeating the patterns first established at Creation.
It was Tolkien who first introduced the idea of “true myth” to Lewis, originally as a means to
convince Lewis to convert to Christianity. Humphrey Carpenter, in The Inklings, relates much of their
conversation, the meat of it in Tolkien‟s teaching, “Pagan myths were, in fact, God expressing himself
through the minds of poets, and using the images of their „mythoepia‟ to express fragments of his eternal
truth… Christianity is exactly the same thing – with the enormous difference that the poet who invented it
was God Himself, and the images He used were real men and actual history” (Inklings, 44). Tolkien and
Lewis came to the conclusion that when it came to mythology, mankind had a collective unconscious that
accounts for Jungian archetypes and repeated symbols and messages, but this unconscious was supernatural
in the fact that the Christian God had created it, and told and retold the story of Jesus Christ as the dying
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god long before he was ever on Earth. Charles Moorman wrote in “Spaceship and Grail: The Myths of C.S.
Lewis”, “Thus Lewis’s general use of myth, along with his statements concerning the nature of myth, would
seem to point to a unified concept of the pace of myth in literature: Myth itself represents an ultimate and
absolute reality; myth in literature represents a reflection of that central reality, capable of conveying the
meaning and, to some extent, the power implicit in the myth itself. (Moorman, 405). He quotes Lewis as
saying, “… just as, on the factual side, a long preparation culminated in God’s becoming incarnate as Man,
so, on the documentary side, the truth first appears in mythical form and then by a long process of
condensing or focusing finally becomes incarnate as History. This involves the belief that Myth in general
is… a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination” (Moorman, 405).
Despite their common belief in “true myth”, the three most famous Inklings approached this
concept in extremely different ways, coming from very diverse religious backgrounds. Tolkien was a lifelong
“Tridentine Roman Catholic”, firmly grounded in strict, almost medieval tradition. Though he was
“never as public about his Christianity as was his closest friend, C .S. Lewis, Tolkien never hid his faith, and
his Catholicism manifested itself in a number of profound and often surprisingly public ways” (Tolkien
Encyclopedia, 86). Lewis’s public declarations of faith, on the other hand, were far less surprising.
Considered by many to be an “apostle to the skeptics”, Lewis had been an atheist since the age of fifteen
until, through various influences, not in the least Tolkien’s friendship, became a Christian midway through
his life, at age thirty-three. His conversion to Anglicanism (despite Tolkien’s general dislike of the Anglican
church) began a thirty-year ministry of dogmatic evangelism clear in both his fictions and nonfiction
theological works. Charles Williams, the least well-known of the three, was on the outside of the typical
Christian-denominational divide. Williams was an active member of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, an
esoteric offshoot of the Order of the Golden Dawn, for ten years. Williams unofficially broke from the
Rosicrucians in the 1930s to found his own magical-Christian group, the Companions of the Co-inherence,
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which called his devoted followers to “indwell” in one another as the Godhead Trinity indwells in itself. It is
from these three religious lenses that the Inklings separately told their own version of the „true myth‟ in
foreseeably dissimilar ways.
The cosmology of Tolkien‟s mythical Middle-earth is remarkably similar to that of the Christian
myth of creation. In the beginning of The Silmarillion, Tolkien presents his creator: Eru, and the words used
to speak the earth (Eä) into being are almost identical to those in Genesis 1: “I say: Eä! Let these things Be!”
(Silmarillion, 20). Melkor, the most powerful and knowledgeable of the Ainur, became discontent with his
inability to possess the Imperishable Fire that was with Eru, the creator, and broke from the worshipful
Ainur as the evil that will pervade Middle-earth, or the Christian devil- Lucifer, the most beautiful of all
God‟s creation that tempts Eve with the promise of knowledge.
Tolkien‟s godhead resembles a mixture of the Norse pantheon and the Christian Holy Trinity. Eru
serves as the Father-of-All, or God-the-Father. The Ainur, the offspring of his thought, who “were with him
before aught else was made” (Silmarillion, 15) serve to pluralize God, “at once singular and multiple” (Burns,
166) by creating a more numerous stand-in for God-the-Son and God-the-Spirit. The Valar, the “Powers of
the World” who are the remnants of the other Ainur after the split created by Melkor‟s defection, are then
the angels, who interact with lower creatures and do the will of Eru. The Maiar are the helpers and servants
of the Valar, who, through Tolkien‟s Roman Catholicism, are likely representative of saints. It then follows
that Elves serve as the “firstborn”, the Pre-Lapsarian, and that Mankind itself, “the followers” are Post-
Lapsarian.
Tolkien‟s mythology is deep and rich, vastly developed, yet subtle- much like his Roman Catholic
faith. His Christian references are intertwined with everything, but not overt or surface-level. “His Roman
Catholicism faith not only defined his spiritual life, it also pervaded his family life, his academic life, and his
social life. In an interview in 1997, Tolkien‟s close friend George Sayer stated that „Lord of the Rings would
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have been very different, and the writing of it very difficult, if Tolkien hadn‟t been a Christian. He thought
it a profoundly Christian book‟” (Tolkien Encyclopedia, 101).
No less profoundly Christian, but certainly more glaring are the religious connotations found in
Lewis‟s Space Trilogy. Lewis does not create a myth even slightly apart from his new Christian faith: he
instead “uses his silent planet myth in the first two novels of the trilogy as a metaphor by which he presents
to his skeptical public in an altered and hence vitalized form the great truths of the Christian doctrine, the
separation of Man and God in Out of the Silent Planet, and the nature of the Fall in Perelandra” (Moorman,
405). When his character Ransom is first transported to the planet Mars (known as Malacandra to the rest
of the universe), in the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, he is told right away that those who seem to be in
all-authority are not. The hrossa (One of the three sentient races inhabiting the planet) laugh at Ransom
when they find him and he quickly learns their language and discovers his own ignorance. He asks if their
Oyarsa made their world and they say “[do] people in Thulcandra not know that Maleldil the Young had
made and still rule[s] the world? Even a child knew that. Where did Maleldil live, Ransom asked. „With the
Old One.‟ And who was the Old One? Ransom did not understand the answer. He tried again. „Where was
the old One?‟ „He is not that sort,‟ said Hnohra, „that he has to live anywhere‟” (Out of the Silent Plane, 68t).
On the newly-formed planet Perelandra, Ransom experiences two more Christian myths: both the reenactment
of the Fall and an „outsider‟s‟ explanation of the redemption available through the Messiahfigure.
The Green Lady, the Eve of Perelandra, faces a similar decision and destruction. She has been
granted freedom to walk with her Creator in harmony on her planet of shifting, moving islands, but denied
permission to live on the stationary landscape. Ransom questions her about it: “‟Is there a law in your world
not to sleep in a Fixed Land?‟ „Yes,‟ said the Lady. „He does not wish us to dwell there. We may land on
them and walk on them, for the world is ours. But to stay there—to sleep and awake there…‟ she ended
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with a shudder” (Perelandra, 74). Dr. Weston, an agent of the devil who has been transported to the planet
to lead her into evil, “initiates the ordeal by encouraging her to think about the Fixed Land, this emphasizing
the contrast between what is and what might be . . . he works upon fantasy, or imagination, first. Next
comes the appeal to her desire for wisdom. Finally Weston urges her to exercise a kind of tragic courage.
The commandment, he tells her, is a test, one which she can meet only by disobeying, by daring to be other
than what she was created” (Urang, 71). The Green Lady is able to overcome this temptation because
Ransom is willing to sacrifice himself to remove Weston from the picture, but primarily due to the fact that
she knows that God‟s son died on earth. “… in your world Maleldil first took Himself this form, the form
of our race and mind” (Perelandra, 62). She points out to Ransom that despite Earth‟s condition as the most
wicked of worlds, it is also the most blessed. “Do not wonder, O Piebald Man, that your world should
have been chosen for time‟s corner. You live looking out always on heaven itself, and as if this were not
enough Maleldil takes you all thither in the end. You are favoured beyond all worlds” (Perelandra, 67).
Lewis‟s thinly veiled myths go beyond mere allegory and reach to direct parallel. “. . . Out of the
Silent Planet presents an image of the unfallen created order and Perelandra the temptation but with Paradise
“retained” (Urang, 37). His message and motives are undeniably evident: “Although the names used are
Maleldil and Oyarsa, C.S. Lewis is clearly presenting a cosmology and an understanding of God and man
analogous to those of traditional Christian belief” (Urang, 14). It is precisely Lewis‟s kind of religion that
brings him to present such a blatant pro-Christian message: he wasn‟t just writing fiction, he was writing his
theology in practicing a faith that promotes constant „witnessing‟ of their beliefs. Lewis‟s dogmatic,
unconcealed religion is shot through every thread of his transparent story. He doesn‟t even leave the
question of „true myth‟ to the readership, instead pointing them directly toward a connection between
cultural mythologies: “„And what an extraordinary coincidence,‟ thought Ransom, „that their mythology,
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like ours, associates some idea of the female with Venus‟” (Out of the Silent Planet, 111). Lewis doesn‟t
bother to hide any aspect of his message.
The work of Charles Williams, much like the man himself, is difficult to understand. In the words
of Barbara Newman,
The plots always revolve around the damage that occurs when a barrier in between the material
world and the inner or astral plane is breached. Whether through malice or accident, the veil
between worlds is torn, enabling supernatural powers to invade mundane reality and wreak havoc
until they can be contained by characters who willingly surrender to the Divine, resolving the crisis
through acts of substitution and exchange. (Newman, 6)
All of Williams‟ works center on his theory of substituted love and coinherence. Particularly in War in
Heaven, when the breach of the material and astral world occurs when the Holy Grail of legend is found and
put into play, and the situation is corrected through sacrifice and communion: two of the key aspects of
coinherence. Williams‟ theory relies on the idea that the members of the Holy Trinity „indwell‟ in one
another, and that „indwelling‟ is a model for all relationships: “The principle holds true across the full range
of Christian doctrine—the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the communion of saints. . . This
reciprocity of being, this abiding of every self not in itself but in another, is what Williams means by
coinherence” (Newman, 6). Coinherence and Williams‟ version of prayer both involve a complete
surrender to Love itself. His intercessory prayer is something the pray-er must completely lose themselves
in, and only then are they capable of performing “divine magic” to counter acts of dark magic. Humphrey
Carpenter points out that coinherence “is in spirit entirely Christian,” yet, “like so much of Williams‟
thought, it did have an air of the magical” (Inklings, 105).
The “magical” events and feeling in all of his books are due to Williams‟ own inescapable attraction
to ritual in all of its forms. Apart from his own spiritual order, The Companions, his actual religious
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sympathies seem to fall anywhere that he can borrow a sense of mystic oneness with something greater than
himself. Like a moth to a flame, Williams is drawn to sacrifice, total surrender, ceremonial rites, and
magical incantations in both his fiction and his personal life. For him the true myth is an inseparable part of
coinherence. He would have called it ―simultaneity‖ and he attempts to ―impress us with the possibility that
existence itself may be Christian, that whenever there is an act of true humanity there is Christ, that every
act of forgiveness is the cross, and that we can confront the nothingness in life because in doing so we
encounter the Christ who has gone before us into the darkness‖ (Urang, 92). His fictional re-enactments of
Christian myth show a ‗oneness‘ across people, cultures, and time:
The Place of the Lion is a parable of creative—and miscreative—knowing, a fictional embodiment of
Williams‘ interpretation of the myth set forth in the first three chapters of Genesis. The same tendency is
seen in the last novels. The images and allusions in Descent Into Hell associate the action on Battle Hill now
with Eden, now with Gomorrah, now with Golgotha, and finally with Zion; the parallels and parodies of All
Hallow’s Eve include Simon as a ―trinity‖ and as ―he that should come,‖ Lester on a ―cross,‖ Betty performing
miraculous cures as ―virtue‖ goes out from her. (Urang, 73)
It is through this mystic, ritual-loving lens that Charles Williams sees and presents his own interpretation of
the true myth and what that means in the lives of not only his characters, but also those who followed him
as an esoteric teacher.
When it came to what they thought they were writing, Tolkien and Williams were adamant that
they hadn‘t written allegories – they were mistaken. All three utilized Christian mythology, but when it
came to the distinction between allegory and mythoepia, the authors themselves seemed to remain unclear.
Lewis, direct as always, made no claim to have avoided allegory, although Gunnar Urang, in his book
Shadows of Heaven, argues that Lewis was actually attempting to write mythoepia and failed: ―…in any case
Lewis is depending not so much on satire and its allegorical bent as on mythopoeic power. . . fantasy that
fails to rise into myth falls back toward allegory‖ (Urang, 27). When it comes to Williams, he is not just
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presenting his faith in fiction, he is also writing allegory: “Beneath the surface, at the allegorical level,
several of his stories come close to being myths of total explanation; all the great events in salvation-history
are included: creation, fall, atonement, judgment, and renovation” (75 Urang). Tolkien claims in his
preface to The Fellowship of the Ring that he “detests” allegory, but he is also inaccurately assessing his own
work. It was inevitable that allegory would play the main part in all of these pieces by deeply religious men
who believed that the true myth would be told over and over again and that it was intrinsically tied to the
human unconscious.
It is clear through the allegories by each of these men that true myth was not merely something
they believed in, but also something that was not a strict, uniform way of seeing Christianity or mythology.
Urang quotes Lewis expounding on his true myth theory:
Man‟s Sehnsucht – his intense longing – and the myths in which he expresses it, point him toward something
which has objective reality. Myths are not mere projections of human longing. They are “good dreams” sent
by God, real though unfocused gleams of divine truth falling on the human imagination from the great,
sovereign, uncreated, unconditioned Reality at the core of things. (Urang, 31)
These „gleams of divine truth‟ are just that: gleams. Something different is revealed to each author in a
different way, all adding up to the myth of Christ, but not without flexibility for dissimilar belief systems
within the umbrella of Christianity. Tolkien, a Roman Catholic, presented his true myth in a way deeply
founded in both tradition and subtlety. The dogmatic and straightforward Lewis‟s myth exactly mirrored
that of his strong belief in the evangelical Anglican church, both obvious and reaching to anyone willing to
hear its message. Williams, entrenched in ritual and obsessed with ceremony, focused on presenting his
myth based on his ideas of coinherence and sacrifice, looking to the biblical and church fathers‟ examples of
rites and sacrament as the way he took in and presented true myth. They were associated with Oxford
scholarship and all wrote fiction in the twentieth century, as well as poetry they are far less known for.
These men of different backgrounds and beliefs had barely more than that in common, but were still drawn
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together by their mutual convictions about the true myth and how it continued to apply in contemporary
time and fiction.
Works Cited
Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings. HarperCollins, London. 2006.
Baltasar, Michela. “J.R.R. Tolkien: A Rediscovery of Myth.” Tolkien and the Invention of Myth:
Reader. Ed. Jane Chance. University Press of Kentucky, 2004.
Burns, Marjorie. “Norse and Christian Gods: The Integrative Theology of J.R.R. Tolkien.”
and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. Ed. Jane Chance. University Press of Kentucky, 2004.
Jeffrey, David Lyle. “Tolkien as Philologist.” Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. Ed.
Chance. University Press of Kentucky, 2004.
A
Tolkien
Jane
Lewis, C.S.. Out of the Silent Planet. Macmillan Publishing Co., New York. 1965.
Lewis, C.S.. Perelandra. Macmillan Publishing Co., New York. 1944.
Moorman, Charles. “Space Ship and Grail: The Myths of C.S. Lewis.” College English, 18.8.
National Council of Teachers of English. 1957. pp. 401-405.
Newman, Barbara. “Charles Williams and the Companions of the Co-inherence.” Spiritus: A
of Christian Spirituality, Vol. 9.1,Spring 2009. pp1-26.
The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Ed. Michael D. C.
York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007.
Journal
Drout. New
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. Houghton Mifflin, New York. 1977.
Urang, Gunnar. Shadows of Heaven. United Church Press. 1971.
256

Kristen Peters
Central Michigan University
Changing Ideas of Womanhood in Judaism and Islam
I. Introduction
A. Simone de Beauvoir identified woman as Other in her book The Second Sex. Her use of
Other conveyed the concept of woman as secondary to man, who was considered to
normative human being. She used “Other” to explain the duality between groups, or the
Self and the Other. Man was considered the normative human being, the whole person,
and woman was considered the secondary human, defined in her difference to man.
Throughout patriarchal history, women have been given a secondary status to men.
B. This paper identifies the similarities in women’s status in Judaism and Islam, as described
by Judith Plaskow in The Coming of Lilith and Kecia Ali in Sexual Ethics and Islam. Despite
apparent differences in the traditions, the concerns raised by Plaskow and Ali are similar.
C. To show this, I will identify examples of the secondary status of women in Jewish and
Islamic practices discussed by Plaskow and Ali. Next, I will discuss critiques the authors
make and use all three sources together to pull together some possible solutions.
II.
Simone de Beauvoir
A. Simone de Beauvoir raised the question, “What is a woman?” in The Second Sex, which was
first published in 1949. She asserted that to be biologically female is not the same as being a
woman or feminine. Woman was a social construct that was important and expected for
females to conform to. de Beauvoir claimed that this was because man is used to describe
human beings as a whole; man was the normative human being.
B. de Beauvoir raised the question, why do women cooperate with this system? She suggested
several reasons for this:
1. Women didn’t tend to identify with one another as women with a shared
group identity (pg 9). They lacked solidarity because they were more likely to
identify with the males in their economic, racial, or social group than to
women across groups.
2. Women were ultimately bonded to men by economic and biological need.
Men needed women just as much as women needed men, but men had all of
the social, political, and economic power, so they benefitted from the need
(pg 10).
3. Women found it easier to remain connected to the dominant social group.
Men provided material and economic security (pg 11). If women were to
distance themselves from men, they would lose these protections.
C. de Beauvoir expressed a lack in confidence that men would be willing to give up the system
that had given them so much privilege throughout the centuries (pg 15). She even
suggested that men may not be completely aware of woman’s situation as secondary human
being (pg 16). With that in mind, she expressed caution in trusting what even the most
sympathetic of men have to say about women’s secondary status.
D. de Beauvoir believed that women would be able to do away with their secondary status by
gaining control of reproduction through the legalization of contraception and abortion.
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She also said that socialism would give women economic freedom (pg 4). She argued that
women must also be willing to give up the protections they received from men and
become independent. However, she was not confident that women would want to give this
up and that men would want to surrender the power they had.
III.
Plaskow
A. In her essays on feminism and Judaism, Plaskow argued that women have been given a
secondary role in traditional religious practices throughout Jewish history (pg 57).
Although many of these practices changed in recent times, in the past women were not
counted in the minyan, which is the quorum required for prayer; women were not called
to the Torah; women were not allowed to become Rabbis; female infants had no naming
ceremony to welcome them into the covenant with God; and girls did not have a coming of
age ceremony similar to that of a bar mitzvah.
B. Traditional Jewish laws used supposed biological differences between men and women—
such as women being weaker and in need of protection, but also their inherent nurturing
and gentle nature—to justify the exclusion of women in traditions. Their duties in the
home were valued religiously, which was used as an excuse to give them fewer religious
rites (pg 58). Plaskow argued that these separations perpetuate difference more than they
explain them.
C. Early Jewish feminists believed that women’s status could be changed through law, rituals,
and other practices (pg 56). They were confident that allowing women to become Rabbis
and creating a coming of age ceremony for girls would give women the equality they
desired. However, Plaskow argued that it was not the most effective strategy because it
only scraped the surface of female’s secondary status. She believed that simply adding
women to traditions and customs did not change the underlying issue of women’s
exclusion because it did not identify why women were excluded in the first place (pg 57).
Plaskow believed true equality in the Jewish community could not be reached until women
had a part in shaping Judaism (p 128).
D. Plaskow said that a necessary first step to change is the creation of community. The women
within Plaskow’s community were able to redefine their definition of “woman”. They
broke free from stereotypes of feminine women (pg 26). Once community is formed,
Plaskow listed the struggles communities often go through (pg 129):
1. Hearing silence: Plaskow defined silence as the lack of women’s voices in
Jewish tradition. They are not seen or heard in the Torah. Women lived and
fashioned Jewish life, yet they were not credited with doing so.
2. Making a space to name silence and taking authority to talk back: Plaskow
emphasized the importance of creating a space for women to discuss the
silence. Prepare themselves to speak by educating themselves—take
responsibility for what they have to say. The congregation must accept their
opinions to make a change.
3. Checking back: Check back to make sure what they say is right for Judaism and
fair for both men and women. Plaskow said this is an important step to always
come back to. Constant critique.
E. While it is often assumed that theology is not a large focus in Judaism, Plaskow pointed out
that all Jewish beliefs and practices are based on fundamental claims about God, the law
given to Moses, and the special covenant between God and Israel. In other religions, claims
like these are considered to be theology. Through midrash—the traditional way Jews have
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een able to interpret and broaden the meaning of Jewish texts—feminist Jews have been
able to fill gaps in Biblical stories to create discussion within the Torah (pg 79). When
Plaskow talked about women doing theology, she listed critique, recovery, and
construction as useful tools for discussing Judaism from a feminist standpoint:
1. Critique: Plaskow said that the first step was to critique sacred texts,
theories, and assumptions about masculinity and feminity.
2. Recovery: She then said to recover the lost women through research to
provide stories and show that women made important contributions to
Judaism but had been forgotten (pg 66).
3. Construction: Her final phase consisted of expanding Jewish theory
from the perspective of women’s experience and feminist point of
view. And, as always, check back.
IV.
Ali
A. In her book, Kecia Ali’s focus was on ethics and inequality surrounding marriage, sexuality,
dower, and divorce as it had been treated traditionally in legal scholarship in Islam, with
emphasis on mutuality, reciprocity, and meaningful consent within marriage. She
explained these as important to creating an egalitarian marriage. As an American Muslim,
she put most of her focus on Islamic tradition in the West. Given the limits on time, I will
concentrate on sexuality and dower. In Islam, dower is the a sum of money given to the
wife after consummation of the marriage so that in the event of divorce or the husband’s
death, she would have economic stability. I discuss these issues because of the connections
between the practice of dower and the implications it has on female sexuality.
B. In Islamic tradition, the wife is expected to remarry after a marriage ends, to provide a
more steady income. Even though it enforces male-led households and heterosexuality,
dower gives women some economic independence. This practice improved the status of
Muslim women during a time when women were not supposed to have any sort of income.
Contemporary Muslim scholars also link dower to the financial support men are required
to provide their wives: the male figure earns a living and the female figure tends to the
home and family. Men and women are expected to stay in their traditional roles of the
financial support and the emotional support, respectively.
C. Other than providing the wife with funds in case she finds herself without a husband,
dower also guarantees the wife’s sexual availability to her husband (pg 4). Islamic legal
tradition stresses the importance of male sexual need. The wife is obligated to make herself
sexually available to him whenever he demands, but not the reverse (pg 9). Ali stated that
most Islamic jurists interpreted the husband’s financial support of his wife as an exchange
for her sexual availability and if she were to withhold sex, it would be acceptable for him to
in turn withhold his support (pg 11). It is widely understood that sex is a “male right and a
female duty” (pg 13).
D. Ali stated that classical Islamic texts regarding dower had roots in slavery and ownership of
women. If a man owned a woman, a sexual relationship with her was acceptable in the eyes
of Islam. These texts made sex between a man and his slave legitimate and also permitted
concubines. Concubines are women who live with a man but have lower status than his
wife or wives. Ali said, “slaveholding fundamentally shaped the contours of Islamic ethical
and legal thought on sex in ways that have not fully been recognized” (pg xvi).
Contemporary Muslims are not always aware of the connection between dower and
classical Islamic texts regarding slavery. Ali argued that while this model of sexual ethics
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within classical texts is no longer relevant to most contemporary Muslims, nothing has
emerged to replace it (pg xvii).
E. This connection between dower and slavery brought Ali to discuss the necessity of
mutuality, reciprocity, and consent within marriage.
F. Ali asserted that Islamic legal tradition “fundamentally views marriage as an exchange of
lawful sexual access for dower, and continued sexual availability for support”. Within this
classical framework of Islam, consent and mutuality in sexual relationships between men
and women couldn’t happen but that it is possible to rethink Islamic sexual ethics to accept
these values (pg 13)(pg 151). She suggested conversations about what men and women
contribute to the household as a better way to determine support from the husband. She
said, “If sex is no longer the wife’s marital duty, then it could become a fully mutual right”
(pg 22).
G. Even with the unbalanced notions of dower and female sexuality within marriage, Ali
stated that there is possibility for improvement. She stated that there is a gap between
traditional Islamic jurisprudence and practiced Islam, which leaves much up to each
individual’s interpretation. Many contemporary Muslims, especially in the United States,
do not follow all legal teachings (pg xxii). She also explained that Islam is constantly being
interpreted and Islamic jurisprudence is always being reevaluated and revised to reflect
current social norms. Unfortunately, as long as formally educated religious scholars are the
only ones discussing Islamic jurisprudence, women would be likely to be left out (pg 155).
She said that Islamic religious education is still not completely equal, so it is more difficult
for women to gain that credibility. Because of this, most of the scholars doing the revising
are male. They do not always make the most egalitarian judgments. She used these
statements to back up her belief that Muslims should take the time to reflect on practices
and beliefs within Islamic traditions (pg 152). This does not mean that religious authorities
are not important; it creates space for open dialogue. She continued that reinterpretation
of Islamic jurisprudence should also be a coalition of scholars working with one another to
redefine and push the boundaries of Islam (pg 153).
V. My Analysis
A. By combining the information all three authors provided, I have formed some potential
solutions for women’s secondary status in Judaism and Islam.
B. de Beauvoir’s concept of Otherness connects to traditional Jewish and Islamic texts. In
the Torah and Qur’an, the dominant perspective is male. Just as de Beauvoir observed
male experience as the norm in society, Plaskow and Ali noticed male experience as the
norm in Judaism and Islam.
C. Silence. Within traditional Jewish and Islamic texts, women were not given equal voice to
men. --Plaskow adopted community building and filling in the spaces where women were
missing to give women voice. She researched women who were silenced and gave them
credit where the Torah did not. This could work in a similar way for Muslim women. But
as Ali and Plaskow both emphasized, women should be ready to take responsibility for
what they say.
D. Optimism about men. de Beauvoir’s pessimism regarding men was realistic for the time
period. However, Plaskow and Ali recognized that more men have become aware of
women’s secondary status and are willing to help. They realized that women would not be
equal to men if it was seen only as an issue for women. Plaskow stated that broadening
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Jewish texts and traditions to include women would enrich Judaism as a whole and work to
benefit all of its members.
VI.
Conclusion
I went into this class with the assumption that religion had a single uniform opinion on
women and that there was nothing that could be done to change it. In my 4 short months
studying Judaism and Islam, I felt that I was taking part in the community Judith Plaskow
and Kecia Ali wanted to create. I took part in discussions about women and have used what
I learned to realize that the secondary status of women is something that can be changed
within Judaism and Islam.
Works Cited
Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and
Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006. Print.
Plaskow, Judith. The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics,
1972-2003. Ed. Donna Berman. Boston: Beacon, 2005. Print.
Schneir, Miriam. Simone De Beauvoir: The Second Sex. 1953. Feminism in Our Time:
The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present. New York: Vintage, 1994.
3-20. Print.
261

Kristine Plocher
Illinois College
Harry Potter and the Master of Death:
Biblical Allusions and Death in J.K. Rowling’s Seven-Part Series
“In fact, death and bereavement and what death means, I would say, is one of the central themes in
all seven books” (How Harry 63-4). Spoken by J. K. Rowling these words refer to her unbelievably popular,
seven-part book series, Harry Potter, and its overarching theme of death. Death is as essential to the series as
magic; the story’s catalyst is Harry’s survival of the death curse that kills his parents and its conclusion is the
death of the immortality-obsessed Lord Voldemort. Few would deny the overwhelming presence of death
in the novels, but the books have often been scrutinized by religious groups claiming the series goes against
biblical teachings. Yet, to acknowledge the death theme is to acknowledge the use of biblical references
because closer inspection of the series reveals that Rowling’s central theme is undeniably rooted in
Christian theology. Throughout Rowling’s great work, biblical allusions reinforce the theme of mastering
death, specifically in reference to Harry and Lord Voldemort. Rowling’s ultimate hero and villain both
attempt to “master” or “defeat” death, but to very different effects. Voldemort’s fear and hatred of death
can be seen through his satanic development, while Harry’s emergence as a Christ figure at the end of Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows is due to his acceptance of what Dumbledore calls “the next great adventure”
(SS 297).
In Deathly Hallows, Harry and Hermione encounter the two most obvious biblical allusions while
visiting his childhood home in Godric’s Hollow on Christmas Eve. While exploring the cemetery,
Hermione discovers the headstone of Dumbledore’s mother and younger sister which includes the quote:
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (DH 325). Though neither Harry nor Hermione
acknowledge it, the quotation comes from the King James Version of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in
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Matthew 6:21. On the Dumbledores’ grave it serves as a reminder that “there are consequences for trying
to store up treasures on earth while not laying up treasures in heaven” (Neal 223). This idea is especially
important when discussing Voldemort’s use of Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s temptation for power. Harry
and Hermione discover another biblical quotation on Lily and James Potter’s grave, a quote from 1
Corinthians 15:26 that reads: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (DH 328). Seeing these
words on his parents’ grave worries Harry, who thinks of “destroying” death as an idea Voldemort and his
Death Eaters celebrate. Luckily Hermione explains “It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death
Eaters mean it…It means…living beyond death. Living after death” (328). Harry is not fully satisfied with
her answer, insisting that his parents are dead beneath their feet, but readers familiar with the biblical
passage understand Hermione’s meaning perfectly.
Though Harry doesn’t see it, this reference is perhaps the most obvious of Rowling’s many hints
about the series’ climactic end. Indeed, Rowling herself describes this quote as “the theme to the entire
series” and once explained that she was glad no one has asked her to explain her religious beliefs in too
much detail because “if [she talked] too freely about that [she thought] the intelligent reader, whether 10 or
60, [would] be able to guess [what was] coming in the book” (Duthie 32; Neal 226). She was right to be
secretive; readers who know this reference would realize that it comes from one of Paul’s letters in which
he explains that Christ defeated death through his resurrection which allows the faithful to hope for life after
death (Neal 226). By placing the quote on his parents’ grave, Rowling foreshadows Harry’s Christly
sacrifice and furthers her theme of mastering death. Defeating death could refer to Voldemort’s perverted
attempts at immortality, but biblically literate readers know it also means accepting it as a natural part of
life and a transition from one life to another. In this way, the quote and Harry’s negative reaction to it not
only furthers Harry’s budding association with Christ, but also illustrates Voldemort’s anti-Christian
attitude toward mortality.
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Those as familiar with Lord Voldemort as Harry is can understand Harry’s confusion when reading
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Voldemort makes his stance on mortality clear as soon as
he returns to his body in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He explains that his rebounded curse intended
for infant Harry did not kill him because he “[had] gone further than anybody along the path of immortality”
and that his ultimate goal is “to conquer death” (GoF 653). Even as a child, Voldemort sneered at the
“shameful human weakness of death,” insisting that his deceased mother could not have been magical (HBP
363). Upon finding out the truth about his magical mother and muggle father, Voldemort dropped his
given name, Tom Riddle, in exchange for his new title of Lord Voldemort. This self given name signifies
his wish to evade death as it translates from French to “flight from death” (How Harry 116). Defeating, or
conquering, death is obviously in the forefront of Voldemort’s mind. He fears death because he cannot
control it and craves immortality to avoid it. Therefore, nearly every decision he makes revolves around his
greatest fear and his ultimate goal. Rowling illustrates the error in Voldemort’s views as his selfish desires
depict him as a satanic figure.
In the series Harry and Voldemort first come face-to-face at the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone. While attempting to secure the stone, Harry discovers that Lord Voldemort exists as a parasite, his
face where the back of Professor Quirrell’s head should be. As Quirrell unwraps his turban to reveal
Voldemort, Harry feels as “if Devil’s Snare [is] rooting him to the spot” (SS 293). This obviously references
the plant Harry and his friends landed in after going through the trapdoor, but the juxtaposition of the
reference immediately before Voldemort’s reveal is interesting given the plant’s name and aversion to light
as well as Harry’s inability to move once he becomes face-to-face with Voldemort. Voldemort immobilizes
Harry with fear in the same way that the Devil’s Snare entangles its prey in the darkness. Only when
Voldemort mentions Harry’s parents does Harry find the courage to overcome his fear of Voldemort (294).
Similarly, the Devil’s Snare is defeated with light. Harry’s parents, therefore, become the “light and truth”
which “set [him] free” from Voldemort’s snare (Neal 32).
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The connection between Voldemort and the Devil is reinforced by the description of Voldemort.
“Chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake,” Voldemort‟s face is “the most terrible
face Harry had ever seen” (SS 293). This first look associates Voldemort with both snakes and evil spirits as
Voldemort describes himself as “mere shadow and vapor” and complains that he has “form only when [he]
can share another‟s body” (293). Similarly, the Bible references evil spirits which overtake the bodies of
others (Neal 39). Christians are instructed to “try the spirits whether they are from God” and told to “resist
the devil and he will flee from you” (1 John 4.1, James 4.7). Voldemort‟s spirit, like the devil, flees once
Dumbledore arrives to save Harry who is trying Voldemort‟s evil spirit by resisting him. This both
references God‟s promise in James and associates Voldemort with Satan in Rowling‟s first novel. This
association only strengthens as the novels progress, until Voldemort seemly becomes the wizard form of
popular culture‟s Satan.
Voldemort‟s introduction in Sorcerer’s Stone also introduces the link between Voldemort and snakes
as his face is likened to a snake during his first interaction with Harry, a description that carries through the
rest of the series. Before his rebirth Voldemort is described as “hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw
reddish black. [His] arms and legs [are] thin and feeble, and [his] face…flat and snakelike, with gleaming red
eyes” (GoF 640). Once again, Harry compares Voldemort‟s face to a snake‟s, but he also notes that
Voldemort‟s limbs are “thin and feeble”. Unlike a snake, Voldemort has limbs, but like a snake, they are
useless; Voldemort must rely on his servant to carry and feed him. After his rebirth, Voldemort is returned
to a human body, but retains snake like qualities in his face (643).
Voldemort‟s association with snakes goes deeper than his appearance. As a child, Voldemort takes
pride in his ability to control snakes as he believes it sets him apart from the general masses. While
attending Hogwarts he is a Slytherin and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets reveals that he is the heir of
Salazar Slytherin and the master of Slytherin‟s basilisk (Rowling 314). Of course, the Slytherin house
mascot is a serpent and its namesake sounds like „slithering‟ as it “is full of hissing serpentine sounds and
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suggests the motion a snake makes on the ground” (How Harry 19). Voldemort underlines his special ability
and his connection to his former house with his Dark Mark, a skull with a snake as a tongue. Finally, the
thing Voldemort is most fond of is his pet snake, Nagini, whom he turns into one of his precious Horcruxes
(HBP 506). As one can see, Rowling makes Voldemort’s connection to snakes overwhelmingly obvious
throughout the series.
Those with biblical knowledge understand that Rowling’s villain and “his serpent are symbolic
emblems of Satan” (McCarron). The image of a serpent is present throughout the Bible, most notably in
Revelations. In the final book of Bible, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceivith the
whole world…was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him,” defeated by Christ’s
sacrifice (Rev. 12.9). This passage makes the relationship between Satan and the snake is extremely
evident; the serpent is Satan. The connection also implies that the serpent in Genesis is the same animal
that is cast out by Michael and his angels in Revelations. Though Genesis never compares the serpent to
Satan, popular culture continues to do so because of John Milton’s interpretation of the scene (Niditch 16).
Many assume Satan is the serpent who tempts Eve into eating the forbidden fruit by convincing her, “Ye
shall not surely die…your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3.4-
5). His blatant misguidance is certainly evil as it causes the downfall of man. If Satan is associated with
serpents in the Bible and Voldemort is represented by snakes throughout the Harry Potter series, then it is
conceivable that Rowling intended for Voldemort to embody Satan.
If their mutual association with reptiles is not enough, Voldemort and Satan also display similar
views on death. In the Genesis story, the serpent convinces Eve eating the forbidden fruit will not kill her
and this is not a lie (Niditch 17). Neither Eve nor Adam dies a physical death because of their disobedience,
but God does eject them from the Garden of Eden so that they may not take from “the tree of life, and eat,
and live for ever” (Gen. 3.22). By eating the fruit, Adam and Eve essentially eat death as this original sin
brings death into the world (Bell 81). The serpent is only concerned with immediate physical death and
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does not explain the other consequences of eating the forbidden fruit and being banned from Eden.
Similarly Voldemort fears only physical death and in his “hurry to mutilate his own soul, he never [pauses]
to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole” (HBP 511). He clings to his
current, human life in his refusal to believe in life beyond death (Bell 81). If Voldemort or the serpent
understood that there are fates worse than physical death, they may not have been defeated by those who
better understand that principle. Their shared associations with snakes and their similar attitudes about
death draw an obvious parallel between the great biblical villain and Rowling’s fictional villain.
Voldemort and Satan also both have a tendency to collect and mark their followers. Voldemort
brands his followers with the Dark Mark on their left forearm and, when he uses it to call them, it changes
from a “vivid red tattoo” to “jet black” (GoF 645). The mark is more than a symbol of his devotees’
dedication; it also underlies his association with Satan as Revelations references “the mark of the beast”
which “will be put on those aligned with the antichrist before the last battle” (Neal 114). Additionally, the
name “Death Eaters” implies that Voldemort’s followers are “nourished by the deaths of others” while also
recalling the way Adam and Eve “ate death” (Bell 80-1). This is an appropriate description of Voldemort’s
group of mass murderers, but a deeper meaning can be found in the opposite name “Life Eaters”. Christians
believe that God is the Way, the Truth, and the Life so by eating his body in religious ceremonies, they
essentially become “Life Eaters” (How Harry 19). The inversion of the name from “life” to “death” signifies
the anti-Christian actions of Voldemort, while his minions’ marks align him further on the side of Satan.
The ways Voldemort sets about achieving his goal of immortality illustrate not only his
overwhelming need to defeat death, but also tie him further to Satan. As a student at Hogwarts, Voldemort
learns about Horcruxes, an object in which one encases part of one’s soul through dark magic and murder.
Horcruxes appeal to Voldemort because the owner cannot die as long as the Horcrux remains intact.
Therefore, he brutally rips his soul seven times to conquer death and paints himself as an anti-Christian,
Satan figure. Where Christ became man and died in order to save all of the world’s souls, “the Dark Lord
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creates Horcruxes in order to avoid dying so he can dominate the world… [and]….aims to make himself
„impossible to kill by murdering other people‟” (Bell 31-2). Voldemort‟s ultimate fear of physical death
causes him to overlook the damage to his soul and the destruction of others‟ lives (Neal 184). Here
Rowling depicts Voldemort as a satanic figure through his inversion of Christ‟s sacrifice for his own selfish
desire to conquer death.
passage reads:
Voldemort‟s seven Horcruxes also allude to the unclean spirits in the Gospel of Luke. The biblical
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest;
and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he
cometh he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other
spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of
that man is worse than the first. (Luke 11.24-6)
Like the man in the parable, Voldemort has seven other “spirits” and becomes less human with the creation
of each (Killinger 80). His face lights up with a happiness that makes his features “less human” when he first
learns of Horcruxes, later his face is “waxy and oddly distorted… though the pupils were not yet the
slits…they would become,” and after his rebirth, his face is always described as snakelike (HBP 499, 441).
Here Rowling clearly shows the destruction of Voldemort‟s soul on his once handsome face in a biblical
allusion to the Gospel of Luke.
The similarities to the Luke passage become clearer when considering Voldemort‟s past. In Half-
Blood Prince, Dumbledore reveals that Voldemort visited his mother‟s home as a teenager and killed his
muggle father and grandparents. Though he does not find it “swept and garnished,” Voldemort returns to
his family‟s home as the unclean spirit of the parable does. Only after this visit does Voldemort create the
“seven other spirits more wicked than himself,” his seven Horcruxes (369). Rowling completes the
comparison through Voldemort‟s placement of his Horcruxes. Five out of the seven dwell in or refer to
locations that are significant to Voldemort‟s past: his mother‟s house, Gringotts, the cave he discovered as a
child, the Chamber of Secrets, and the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts. Clearly Voldemort would not
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understand that words gracing the Dumbledores’ tomb as he creates “treasures on earth that contain
fragments of his soul” instead of creating treasures in heaven as he should (Neal 222). Through the use of
these biblical allusions, Rowling shows her audience that, as with the unclean spirits in Luke, the locations
of Voldemort’s Horcruxes tie him and his heart to the places of his past as his separation from the pieces of
his soul cause his body to deteriorate.
Voldemort is ripped from this deteriorating body after his killing curse rebounds off infant Harry,
but he returns to a more human state in Goblet of Fire during an inversion of the Christian practices of
baptism and communion referred to as a “Black Mass” (How Harry 159-60). The rebirthing scene represents
Rowling’s most disturbing use of biblical allusion and cements Voldemort as the satanic figure of the series.
For the ceremony Voldemort requires three things: the “bone of the father, unknowingly given;” “flesh of
the servant, willingly given;” and “blood of the enemy, forcibly taken” (GoF 642). The unusual potion yields
a new body for the Dark Lord, but the body is less than human as he emerges from his baptism “whiter than
a skull, with wide livid scarlet eyes and…slits for nostrils” (643). Yet to return to the mortal body he
desperately cleaves to, Voldemort’s life “must be drawn out of others” (McVeigh). Rowling paints this as a
stark contrast to Christ’s selfless sacrifice through biblical allusion.
According to Romans, Christians are baptized into the death of Christ so that “as Christ was raised
up from the death by the glory of the Father, even so [they] also should walk in the newness of life” (Rom.
6.4). In other words, baptism allows for Christians to be born anew in Christ’s sacrifice, so that they may
find eternal life. In his Black Mass, Voldemort’s baptism reverses this idea. He is immersed in water, but
reemerges in the image of a snake, the symbol of Satan, not Christ (How Harry 160). Voldemort cannot be
born into “the newness of life” because he does not accept his own mortality. To complete this perverted
use of baptism, Voldemort’s rebirth signifies the beginning of the second Wizarding War, which claims
many victims. The start of a deadly war clashes with Christ’s baptism, which biblically prefaces Christ’s
public ministry (Luke 3.21-3). Since Rowling describes Voldemort as a Satan figure, it is fitting that his
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aptism marks the beginning of his bloody and vengeful war instead of a self-sacrificing journey for worldwide
salvation like Christ’s. Rowling clearly inverts biblical allusions to baptism to characterize Voldemort
as satanic in his rebirthing scene.
Further reading of the rebirth shows that Rowling employs the same inverted treatment on biblical
allusions referencing communion. Voldemort greedily takes Wormtail’s flesh, his father’s bone, and
Harry’s blood. Only Wormtail is a willing participant and even he “[breaks] into petrified sobs” when the
time for his sacrifice comes (GoF 641). The forceful taking of Harry’s blood and his father’s bone depicts
how “the act of Voldemort’s rebirth is a reversal of the natural…order” (Gibbons 88). The natural order
would be more in line with the biblical story of first communion. During the last supper, Christ willingly
offered his body and blood, in the form of bread and wine, to his disciples saying: “This is my body which is
given for you…This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22.19-20). Unlike
Christ who willingly gives himself for the salvation of all, Lord Voldemort takes the body and blood of
others for his reincarnation. These opposing ideas cause the scene to play as “a parody in which a Satanfigure
inverts Christ’s sacrifice” (Lavoie 84).
Through this inversion the Dark Lord does indeed rise again and, in this way, he attains his goal of
mastering death. However, the use of biblical allusion and popular ideas about Satan show that he is raised
in the form of the Devil, not Christ. This illustrates that his wish to conquer death through immortality is
wrong and, therefore, his resurrection cannot be long lasting. Where Christ fully defeats “the last enemy,”
Voldemort conquers death only momentarily as his satanic attempts at immortality are eventually defeated
by Rowling’s true Master of Death (DH 328). Consequently, the climactic rebirthing scene in Rowling’s
fourth book becomes the turning point of the novels. It cements Voldemort’s association with Satan as his
fear of death leads him to invert Christ’s sacrifice in desperate attempts to gain immortality. Voldemort
returns to full power, putting the Wizarding World in desperate need of a Christ figure. Luckily, Rowling
develops Harry Potter as the series’ Christ figure while characterizing Voldemort as his devilish enemy.
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Over the seven novels, Harry grows into his role as the savior of the Wizarding World until he climactically
sacrifices himself in the image of Jesus Christ.
Throughout her series, Rowling highlights the similarities between Harry and Voldemort. Both
boys were orphans who were raised by muggles, both speak Parseltongue, and both wish to ensure that “the
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (DH 328). Harry fears the message on his parents’ grave is the
Death Eater’s motto, but his journey throughout the final novel illustrates the biblical meaning behind the
quotation. Unlike Voldemort, Harry never strives for immortality despite the many deaths in his short life.
Rowling proves this in her first novel when Harry can retrieve the sorcerer’s stone because he wishes only
to find it, not to use it. At the mere age of eleven, Harry understands better than the adult Voldemort that
“to the well-organized mind death is but the next great adventure” (SS 297). Through this admirable
attitude toward death, Rowling depicts Harry as the Wizarding World’s savior and the Master of Death.
Harry’s journey to Christ figure begins with his birth and early childhood. Harry’s and Christ’s
births are both prophesied, and both are nearly killed because of this prophesy. In Christ’s case, the Old
Testament clearly prophesizes his birth in the Gospel of Luke: “For unto you is born this day in the city of
David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2.11). The birth of Christ caught the attention of King
Herod who, afraid for his kingdom, sought to kill the baby before the prophecies could be fulfilled.
Luckily, the Holy Family were able to flee to Egypt and avoid the slaughter of all male toddlers,
unknowingly fulfilling the prophecies that God would call his son from Egypt and that Jesus would be
known as a Nazarene (Matt. 2.3-23).
Like Christ’s, Harry’s birth is prophesied:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Born to those who have
thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his
equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand
of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. (OotP 841)
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Voldemort hears this prophecy and, like Herod, sets out intending to kill his threat before the child grows
up (HBP 549). However, Voldemort’s plan is also foiled by a mother’s love for her child. Lily Potter
serves as the Virgin Mary figure to Harry’s Christ figure. Her name recalls the white flowers associated
with purity and the Virgin Mary in Christian symbolism and, in the Bible, Mary sacrifices herself and her
reputation to carry God’s child (“Lily”). Though Lily is not a virgin mother, she also sacrifices herself for
her son. She gives her life to save Harry, thus protecting him from Voldemort’s killing curse (OotP 836).
Voldemort is ripped from his body while Harry becomes the Boy Who Lived and “is spirited into hiding
with his Muggle relatives, just as, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the baby Jesus was hustled into
Egypt” (Killinger 14-5). In his attempt to kill Harry, Voldemort not only defeats himself, but also fulfills
the rest of the prophecy. He marks Harry as his equal and ensures that one will have to kill the other if
either wants to survive. Infant Harry’s story very clearly parallels the story of baby Jesus as both are the
subjects of prophecies, both are saved from failed attempts on their respective lives, and both fulfill the
prophecies about them by surviving these attempts (Neal 161-2). Through these similarities, Rowling
begins the association between Harry and Christ and foreshadows that the green-eyed baby will grow to
“save [the Wizarding world] from the evil Lord Voldemort” in the same way Christ grew to save the world
from death (Killinger 14).
Rowling reinforces the Harry’s association with the baby Christ in the memorial Harry and
Hermione find in Godric’s Hollow. On Christmas Eve the two friends return to Harry’s first home and
stumble across “a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a
kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother’s arms” (DH 324). The memorial is a “Holy Family
crèche of sorts” meant to “remind the reader of the Christmas Story” and reinforce the comparisons
between Lily as the Virgin Mary and Harry as Christ (Granger 104). The biblical image strengthens
Rowling’s connection between Harry and Christ. At this point in the seventh book, doubts plague Harry,
but his association with the Nativity story brings hope. The image of the Holy Family in a very dark chapter
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is reminiscent of “the hope of Christians in the dead of winter and the depth of darkness; in the coming of
their Savior as a child who will escape and eventually be victorious over the Prince of the World” (104).
Harry may not see it, but this chapter and his other associations with baby Jesus, gives hope to Rowling’s
Christian readers that his life will continue to parallel Christ’s.
After his defeat of Voldemort as a child, Harry is dubbed the Boy Who Lived and spends the rest of
the series living up to his nickname. In every one of the first six books, Harry faces death and accepts it,
only to be saved by a symbol of Christ in the nick of time (How Harry 24-5). In Sorcerer’s Stone Harry holds
onto Quirrell though the “effort involved nearly [kills him]” and is ultimately saved by his mother’s love
(297-9). Lily’s Christ-like sacrifice keeps Harry safe from Voldemort’s host, who could not bear to “touch
a person marked by something so good” (299). In this first adventure, Rowling gives an additional clue to
Harry’s association with Christ; Harry is comatose for three days following the confrontation in an “obvious
reference to the Resurrection” (How Harry 25). In Chamber of Secrets Harry almost dies when the basilisk
bites him, but Fawkes the Phoenix’s tears heal his deadly wound. Phoenixes have represented Christ’s
resurrection since the Middle Ages because of their unusual life cycle in which they are reborn from their
own ashes (Gibbons 88). Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban involves a new type of death when Harry’s
soul is almost sucked out by a Dementor. However, Harry is saved by his blindingly white stag Patronus.
St. Eustace saw a white stag with a radiant cross and an image of Christ between its horns. The image led to
his immediate conversion and the introduction of the stag as a Christian symbol (Waters 110). The
symbolism is also explained by the way the stag’s antlers regenerate, echoing Christ’s resurrection (How
Harry 103). In this example Rowling, like C.S. Lewis before her, uses a stag as the Christ symbol that saves
Harry.
The near deaths and well-timed Christ symbols continue in Goblet of Fire. In a duel against the
newly risen Voldemort, Harry bravely decides “he [is] going to die upright like his father…trying to defend
himself, even if no defense [is] possible” (662). Harry’s acceptance of death is in stark contrast to
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Voldemort‟s mortal fear of it, but Fawkes‟s phoenix song provides Harry with the hope and guidance he
needs to escape Voldemort (How Harry 25). Harry literally begs for death in Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix when Voldemort possesses him, but he remembers his recently deceased godfather and “as Harry‟s
heart filled with emotion, the creature‟s coils loosened” (816). In this book, love is the Christ symbol that
saves Harry from Voldemort‟s clutches. Finally, in Half-Blood Prince, Harry is dragged into the underground
lake by the Inferi and saved by Dumbledore‟s conjured fire. Fire represents the Holy Spirit because it
appeared as “cloven tongues like as of fire” on Pentecost (Acts 2.3).
Rowling is a multidimensional writer, so these symbols of Christ – the sacrificial love, phoenix,
white stag, phoenix song, love, and fire – must have a purpose. One purpose is to illustrate Harry‟s
appropriate attitude toward death. Harry never gives in without a fight, but he also willingly accepts death
when all seems lost. In those moments of hopelessness he is saved by the grace of a Christ figure to fight
another day. While this is a very noble purpose, the end of the series reveals the true purpose behind
Harry‟s constant encounters with Christ symbols. Harry‟s near death experiences and timely saviors “were
just foreshadowing for Harry‟s sacrifice at the end of Deathly Hallows and his rising from the dead to defeat
Voldemort…as a symbol of Christ himself” (How Harry 26). The Christ symbols increase Harry‟s
association with Christ throughout the seven-part series until he grows into the role himself in Deathly
Hallows.
Harry deserves his title of the Boy Who Lived, as he shows resilience against and acceptance of
death time and time again in the series. However, the Boy Who Lived earns a new nickname in Half-Blood
Prince, the Chosen One. After Voldemort uses Harry to steal the prophecy, members of the Wizarding
World begin “to call Potter „the Chosen One,‟ correctly believing that the prophecy names him as the only
one who will be able to rid [them] of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” (HBP 39). Rowling makes the
connection between Harry and Christ more obvious as the series progresses and Harry‟s new name is one of
the ways she accomplishes this. Although Christ is not referred to as “the Chosen One” in the King James
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Version of the Bible, the idea is there. During his death in the Gospel of Luke, the onlookers mock Christ,
saying: “Let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God” (23.35). Later translations support the
connection as the same verse from Luke is translated to “let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the
Messiah of God” (New American Bible). Both translations refer to Christ as “the Chosen One” of God, come
to save the world from their sins. By naming Harry “the Chosen One,” Rowling strengthens the link
between her hero and Christ and foreshadows what is to come as biblically literate readers of Rowling’s
work see Harry’s new identity as proof of Harry’s destiny to rid the Wizarding World of its evil (Killinger
49).
The parallels to Christ’s life are even more plentiful in Deathly Hallows. The first major similarity
between Harry’s and Christ’s stories in the seventh novel is how both men are tempted while isolated in the
wilderness before their great sacrifices. Christ is tempted by the Devil after fasting for forty days and
nights. He tries to make Christ turn stones into bread, throw himself off of the pinnacle of the temple, and
bow down to him in exchange for the entire world, but Christ remains steadfast in his allegiance to God
(Holy Bible Matt. 4.1-11). The three temptations represent three basic humans wants—comfort, safety,
and power—but Christ denies the Devil’s offers “for the sake of the realm of heaven” (Levine 342).
Similarly Harry is tempted while hiding from Voldemort in the wilderness. While he, Hermione, and Ron
hunt for bits of Voldemort’s soul, Harry becomes tempted by three objects known as the Deathly Hallows.
The Deathly Hallows consist of an unbeatable wand, a resurrection stone, and an infallible
invisibility cloak which, when combined, transform the owner into the “Master… Conqueror…
Vanquisher” of death (DH 409-10). These three objects refer back to the basic human wants of Christ’s
temptation. The Stone represent comfort to Harry, who desperately wants his loved ones back from the
dead; the Cloak represents safety through its ability to hide its wearer from sight; and the Wand represents
power as it is known to be “more powerful than any in existence” (407). Harry is greatly tempted by the
Hallows and considers searching for them instead of the Horcruxes, justifying his desire by quoting the
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iblical reference gracing his parent’s grave (436). However, Harry does not want the Hallows as a way to
“ensure his personal immortality” as Voldemort would, but rather as a way to “ensure he [would be] the one
who triumphed” (Granger 99; DH 429-30). Even in midst of his greatest temptation, Harry is more
concerned with the defeat of evil than his own mortality. It takes the flawed Harry much longer to resist his
greatest temptation than the flawless Christ, but Dobby’s selfless death at the hands of Voldemort’s Death
Eaters forces Harry to “make the crucial decision to forego seeking these objects of power until he has dealt
with the Horcruxes” (Caldecott 26). Harry puts his faith in Dumbledore’s plan and accepts death as a very
real possibility. His ability to resists his greatest temptation aligns him further with Christ and makes him
worthy of his future title, Master of Death.
After resisting his temptation, Harry quickly finds himself amidst the final battle between good and
evil at Hogwarts. As soon as he discovers that he is a Horcrux himself, Harry makes the Christ-like decision
to sacrifice his life to save the Wizarding World. Rowling’s final chapters of Deathly Hallows follow Harry as
he experiences Christ’s passion himself and completes his role as the Christ figure of the novels. Harry
freely chooses to give himself over to Voldemort to destroy the bit of Voldemort’s soul inside of him, but
he shares doubts about his fate just as Christ does (How Harry 226-7). Christ begs God “If thou be willing,
remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22.42). He does not wish
to die, but understands that he must if God wills it. After his moment of weakness, he is strengthened by
an angel and goes to his death without complaint (Luke 22.43). Harry’s doubts express themselves when it
becomes clear that he must die to save the Wizarding World. He envies those who died quick deaths as his
“cold-blooded walk to his own destruction would require a different kind of bravery” (DH 692). When he
sees Ginny from afar he almost goes to her knowing she will stop him, but just when “he [thinks] he [will]
not be able to go on, [he knows] that he must” (697-8). Christ is comforted by an angel in the Gospels, but
Harry uses the Stone to call his parents, Remus, and Sirius. They comfort him and give him the courage to
“keep putting one foot in front of the other” on his journey to death (700). During his walk to Voldemort
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in the forest, Rowling shows that Harry experiences the same type of doubts that Christ does in the Garden.
Harry, like Christ, is comforted by messengers from the beyond and is able to accept his death with a
Christ-like dignity.
Though Harry‟s death is admittedly easier than Christ‟s, the important point is neither Harry nor
Christ attempt to defend themselves. Instead they willingly sacrifice themselves to save their respective
worlds. Interestingly blood and love play important roles in the defeat of death in both Rowling‟s series
and the Bible. Harry is not truly killed when Voldemort casts the killing curse at the end of Deathly Hallows
because Voldemort‟s satanic use of Harry‟s blood in Goblet of Fire made it possible to destroy the bit of his
soul in Harry while “[tethering Harry] to life while he lives” (DH 709). Since Lily‟s sacrifice lives on in her
blood and her blood runs in Harry‟s veins, Harry survives Voldemort‟s curse because his mother‟s love is
alive in his would-be murderer. Blood as a form of protection “echoes in story form Christ‟s promise to his
apostles that „whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life‟” (How Harry 71). Harry‟s
blood saves him from death in the same way that Christians look for salvation and victory over death in
Christ‟s blood at communion. This strengthens the bond between Harry and Christ, while also illustrating
the vast difference between Harry and Voldemort. Voldemort inverts the use of Harry‟s blood during his
Black Mass to create life for himself, while Harry illustrates the true power of love, blood, and sacrifice in
his attempt to secure life for others.
Along with his mother‟s sacrifice, Harry can defeat death because he is the true master of the
Deathly Hallows. Harry does not search out the Hallows for his own protection, but rather unites them
without intention. He inherits the Cloak from his father, the Stone is hidden in the snitch bequeathed to
him by Dumbledore, and Harry becomes the master of the Wand when he disarms its former master (DH
743). Harry is unwittingly the possessor of all three Hallows when he walks into the forest to sacrifice his
life. He wears the Cloak to shield him from onlookers, uses the Stone “to enable [his] self-sacrifice,” and
the Elder Wand casts his death curse and recognizes him as its master (720). By possessing the Hallows
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selflessly, Harry becomes the “true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from
Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far worse things in the living world than
dying” (720-1). Harry survives because the Elder Wand will not kill its own master and because, as Master
of Death, he “trusts, obeys, and believes in greater realities than himself – sufficiently enough to die
sacrificially for them” (DH 744; Granger 78).
While in between life and death, Harry also receives answers about Dumbledore’s past, specifically
the meaning behind the biblical quote on his mother’s grave: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart
be also” (DH 325). In his quest to master the Hallows, Dumbledore “allowed his heart to stray away from
his family to a quest for world domination” (Neal 223). Although his desire for the Hallows was all “for the
greater good,” Dumbledore longed to master death just as Voldemort did which led to the death of his
helpless sister (DH 716). The verse gracing his mother’s and sister’s tombstone was Dumbledore’s way of
“[commemorating] that his mother’s [heart] had been in the right place” as well as his “first act of contrition
for violating this verse’s command” (Neal 223). Though he does discover all three Hallows, Dumbledore is
“fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary… the Elder Wand,” while the Stone leads
to the death of his hand when he selfishly attempts to bring back his family (DH 720). His selfish desire for
power keeps Dumbledore from becoming the true Master of Death. Harry, on the other hand, handles
power better than most because he has never sought it and has had “leadership thrust upon [him], and [took]
up the mantle because [he] must” (718). Through Dumbledore’s back story and the biblical quote he
chooses for his family’s grave, Rowling sets up a comparison between Dumbledore’s struggle with power
and Harry’s humble acceptance of it, which illustrates another reason why Harry is the worthy Master of
Death.
During their discussion, Dumbledore asks Harry where he believes they are. Fittingly, Harry
believes his time in limbo takes place at King’s Cross station, the same station from which he travels to
Hogwarts. Rowling explains her location choice simply: “The name works rather well, it has been
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established in the books as a gateway between two words, and Harry would associate it with moving on
between two words” (Granger 117). When she refers to “King’s Cross” working well, Rowling means it
reflects back Christ’s biblical story well. During his crucifixion, onlookers mocked Christ and “set up over
his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS” (Matt. 27.37). Therefore,
Christ’s Cross equates to King’s Cross. Through their King’s Cross, Christians can defeat death by living
after it. In the same way, Harry wavers between life and death in King’s Cross and is given the choice to
“board a train” if he chooses not to go back (DH 722). However, Harry understands that by going back he
can make the world a better place, so he chooses to return to his life. This choice allows him to fully
become the Christ figure Rowling characterizes him as throughout the series.
In case her readers have missed the previous biblical allusions comparing Harry’s death to Christ’s,
Rowling finalizes the idea when Harry returns from King’s Cross. Narcissa Malfoy’s “nails [pierce] him” as
she checks Harry for signs of life and Voldemort celebrates his supposed victory over the Boy Who Lived by
preforming the Cruciatus Curse on him (DH 726). Essentially “the Dark Lord [crucifies] Harry Potter,” but
Harry’s crucifixion, like Christ’s, fails (Killinger 85). Christ’s crucifixion does not hold because “he was
crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13.4). His resurrection proves his
crucifixion failed because it shows he lives beyond it. Similarly, Harry is protected by his sacrifice, so
Voldemort’s malicious curse causes him no pain and the crucifixion of the Christ-like Harry fails. This
scene, when combined with Harry’s death and time in limbo, creates “an ending featuring a loving sacrifice,
King’s Cross, nails…and a resurrection from the dead that defeats an incarnation of death” (How Harry 76).
With the obvious ties to Christ’s journey in these scenes, Rowling masterfully finalizes her characterization
of Harry as a Christ figure.
Harry’s transformation into Christ figure complete, all that remains is the defeat of the Satan
figure. Harry feigns death as Hagrid carries him from the forest in his arms, an image much like
Michelangelo’s Pietà (Granger 124). Voldemort announces Harry’s death to the awaiting crowd and
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attempts to curse them, but none of his spells hold because Harry’s selfless sacrifice protects them from
harm. This references the way “Christ’s sacrifice [broke] the Devil’s power over humanity” as both Harry
and Christ protect their respective worlds from their respective Satan figures through their willingness to
die (124). Harry disappears from sight under the Cloak during the ensuing fight in an allusion to Christ’s
disappearance from the tomb, but, like Christ, he is not truly gone.
When Harry finally reveals himself, he explains how he came to be the true master of the Elder
Wand and begs Voldemort to “try for some remorse” (DH 741). Voldemort refuses and the final
showdown between Rowling’s Christ and Satan takes place as “a red-gold glow burst suddenly across the
enchanted sky above them [and] an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window”
(743). Harry’s final confrontation with Voldemort fittingly takes place at dawn as dawn is “the traditional
and natural symbol for Christ’s resurrection” (Bell 59). It brings light to the darkness as John explains in his
Gospel: “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1.5). Just as Christ
brings light into the world through his resurrection, Harry’s defeat of Voldemort rids the Wizarding World
of its darkness. Harry lives up to his title of Master of Death by overcoming Voldemort and his desired
“flight from death.” Voldemort dies, taking his negative views on death with him, while Harry lives on as an
embodiment of both Christ and Christian views of death. Rowling concludes her use of biblical allusion
through dawn symbolism which shows that “the sun rises, as Christ rises, bringing life to all” (Bell 60). She
leaves her hero to celebrate as Hogwarts “[blazes] with life and light,” confident in her characterization of
Harry as the series’ Christ figure (DH 744).
Despite claims to the contrary, it becomes obvious through close reading of Rowling’s Harry Potter
series that biblical allusions are employed both to reinforce the theme of mastering death and to characterize
the hero and villain. Her references to Matthew 6:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:26 may be the only two biblical
quotes in the seven novels, but they embody Rowling’s main theme perfectly. “Where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also” stands as warning against putting one’s earthly self before one’s heavenly self
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as Voldemort does, while “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” depicts Harry’s and Voldemort’s
conflicting ideas about defeating death. The use of biblical allusion depicts Voldemort as the Satan figure
who wishes to master death through immortality. His fear of death leads him to invert Christian ideas and
practices in his fruitless attempts to achieve his ultimate goal, conquering death. Harry, conversely, never
wishes for immortality despite the similarities between himself and Voldemort and the abundance of death
in his life. He accepts death and willingly faces it for the betterment of all. This healthy attitude makes
Harry a worthy Master of Death, as proven by his defeat of death through his Christ-like passion.
Rowling’s depiction of Harry as a Christ figure illustrates how he successfully defeats “the last enemy,”
gaining life for his fellow witches and wizards and cementing his place the hearts of millions of readers
worldwide.
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Angela Pusateri
Saint Xavier University
Cowboys, Cold War Values and the Death of the American Individual
Introduction
Westerns were one of the most popular genres of film in mid 20th century America. These popular
film narratives functioned not only as entertainment, but also reflected major events and helped audiences
assimilate ideological shifts in the era. Westerns helped to mediate such shifts by grafting history onto myth
to examine changing definitions of national identity. At their best, these films effectively define history and
contemporary trends to appeal to mass audiences while they impart a critique of the society in which they
were made. In these narratives one can clearly see the common beliefs and values of the time in which they
were written and filmed. Not only are these films about the history of America’s West, they function, in an
allegorical sense, as a history of the creators and audiences that viewed them.
John Ford was the definitive Western director of mid 20 th century America, and John Wayne the
embodiment of the Western individual. Both of these men’s names are synonymous with this genre, and for
good reason. Some of the most significant work in the genre came from collaborations between the two.
Neither man was out to create puff pieces when working together. Ford filmed every shot and Wayne
delivered every line with intentionality and purpose. The Westerns they created were not only sensitive to
the currents of historical change, but also expressive of shifts in national mood and circumstance. This paper
examines how John Ford’s Westerns in particular, exemplify the cultural shifts in America, particularly in
examining America’s view of the individual in society.
Examining John Ford’s films reveals an evolving critique of social and political mores of mid 20th
century America. From Stagecoach (1939) through The Searchers (1954) to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
(1962), Ford’s message transitions from the celebration of the individual in society, to the individual
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endangering society and being exiled, and finally towards writing the individual out of society entirely. In
twenty-three short years the world had become a dramatically different place; no longer were old world
heroes necessary. American society had shifted away from glorifying the individual who builds societies, and
had begun to fear those who might question the authority of the community.
With the rise of communism grew a fear in Americans of anything that was different. Ironically, the
desire for security from communism led Americans to question those who questioned popular opinion, or
sought their own, individual path. Americans had “become increasingly concerned with security, the safe
and the sure, the certain and the known… it was unwise to voice an unpopular opinion… for it could cost a
man his job and his good name.” (Playboy January 1963) Individuals came increasingly to be viewed as
outsiders posing a threat to the peacetime hegemony and were demonized. This pressure for conformity
was governed in a variety of ways such as loyalty oaths, or conformity investigations of the house
Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and Joseph McCarthy’s senate hearings. In these instances,
any challenge to the accepted norms might lead to sanction. This could also be seen in attempts to stop
juvenile delinquency by banning rock and roll music or regulating comic books. Any “other” in Cold War
America was considered dangerous, whereas a few decades before the individual had been prized as an
innovative leader necessary for our county’s expansion and success.
Reisman writes that in this era men wanted to be loved rather than esteemed. Americans became
“other directed”, placing their values and ideals with the collective mindset of the time to fit into
mainstream society. People wanted to “keep up with the Joneses” rather than stand above them. As the
policy of containing communism grew abroad so to did the idea of containment on the home front.
Americans came to see containing domestic “deviance” as important as containing communism abroad; it
was the “only key to security” (May 29). This clearly expresses a shift in American society from the idealized
version of the rugged individual to an idealized group mentality. Any distinctive individual would detract
from the group mindset endangering culture at large.
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Westerns are a crucial venue for this analysis. Ford’s Westerns portray the journey of a rugged
individualistic hero. This individual is a central character in many of the films, and was a figure to be
admired. This individual was symbolic of the way America viewed itself. When Westerns themselves
started to question the individual’s place in society the implications to American culture are profound.
Through thoroughly examining the setting, particularly Monument Valley, women, and the use of
the domicile one can clearly see how Ford is using these films to relay a shift about the way Americans value
individualism. Setting is the context and environment of the story. Monument Valley symbolizes
individualism in the context of these films, while the towns are representative of civilization. In Cold War
America the home was the symbol of civilization. While the Cold War was the great public fear, the real
dangers to America during the era were internal ones. “The home seemed to offer a secure private nest
removed from the dangers of the outside world, yet also seemed particularly vulnerable” (May X). To
alleviate these fears Americans turned to the family as a bastion of safety in an insecure world. (May xvii)
The home became the symbol of safety, security, and civilization. Women were the linchpin of that home.
They were the embodiment of all that civilization represented. Wayne’s character’s relationship with the
women in these films is directly related to his place in civilization.
Literature Review
John Ford’s Western films clearly demonstrate the shift between 1939 and 1962 in the way
Americans perceived the value of the individual. His films reflect the time of their production and indirectly
engage audiences with narratives that resonate on an allegorical level. Many film scholars have covered
Western films, and countless more have examined national identity in America during the Cold War;
however, these two topics have not been grafted together while specifically focusing on John Ford’s
Westerns. Most scholars look at Ford’s Westerns from an ideological approach, examining New Deal
Liberalism and American foreign policy during the Cold War.
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Stanley Corkin examines the popularity of the Western genre from the 1940’s into the 1970’s. Aiming to
define how Western films connect to the Cold War, particularly in America, he grafts Western myth on to
modern reality. He studies many films, but specifically focuses on John Ford’s The Searchers and The Man who
Shot Liberty Valance. In his study of The Searcher’s Corkin mainly focused on containment and nationalism. He
considered this the golden era of the Western and explains how the film can be explained in terms of
liberalism. Corkin believes that liberalism had been “shifting during the late forties a period which recodified
in ways that accommodated the persistence of militarism and the limiting of civic discourse,
developments fostered to support the goals of hegemony and the security state.” (10) He places heavy focus
on John Ford’s grafting of Cold War liberal values and beliefs associated with containment onto ideological
symbols that once were symbols of McCarthyist nationalism. In this way Corkin stresses how John Wayne’s
character has turned the idea of the old western hero into a villain.
Corkin’s study of The Man who Shot Liberty Valance examines a cultural prevalence of anxiety in the
nation. His focus on this film is explaining how the Vietnam War affected the way America viewed itself
and also to articulate the cultural nostalgia of the 1960’s. Corkin focuses on the flashback aspect of Liberty
Valance as an expression of how Ford viewed the past as being better than the present.
In his anaylsis of The Searchers, Corkin fails to address the subtleties in Ethan. He proclaims him to
be a hero and a model of Cold War hegemony. Yet, Ethan and The Searchers should be read from a domestic
perspective. The domicile is the ultimate representation of the American home front. It is a bastion of
civilization, and through examine it one can see the way American’s viewed themselves in the era. Corkin is
firmly entrenched in the idea that the film is commenting on international politics, particularly drawing
connections between MacArthur and Ethan Edwards. He misses Ford’s social implications completely. The
Searchers and Liberty Valance need to be examined to analyze the role of the American individual rather than
America’s role in the outside world.
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In his discussion of The Searchers Brian Henderson’s article (1980) in particular does an excellent
job of laying out the plot of The Searchers and explaining key shots and dialogue. He places special
significance on the shots of the characters entering and exiting the house, the house is modern society and
the characters left outside are relics of an older era not allowed to enter. In his introduction to a collection
of essays on Western films Ecstein (2004) recounts psychological implications of the films and Ford’s shot
by shot intentions. Eckstein also places great importance in the changes Ford made from the original novel,
upon which The Seachers was adapted to the shooting script, to what actually made it into the film. These
articles focus on the details of the films. They examine shots, and lighting, yet they do not draw any
connections to the role of the individual. The idea of the films being representative of domestic containment
is never broached.
Engel (2004) does an excellent job analyzing the setting in Stagecoach, particularly in examining the
importance of Monument Valley to the film. He sets up the dichotomy between wilderness and civilization
and enclosure and openness. The theme of the essay is to discuss the ills of civilization and the goodness that
Ford tried to impart on the Valley. His text lays a strong groundwork for examining the symbolism in
Stagecoach, yet it does not yet make sold historical and social connections to the era in which the film was
created.
This work, however, has not addressed the issue beyond the ideological level. Previous scholars
have not examined the films as social commentaries. These films need to be viewed in conjunction with the
social mores of their time. Elaine Tyler May (1999) attempts to explain sociological phenomena by linking
them to international politics in her study of the social history of America during the Cold War. She focuses
heavily on “domestic containment” mirroring political international containment. The shift to homogenized
culture rewarded its adherents and marginalized its detractors. According to May, "the freedom of modern
life seemed to undermine security." (18) She asserts that as a result, from the late 1940s and well into the
1960s, Americans "wanted secure jobs, secure homes, and secure marriages in a secure country." (18) In
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oth its international and domestic manifestations, according to May: "Containment was the key to
security." (22) This ideal clearly expresses a shift in American society from the idealized version of the
rugged individual to an idealized group mentality.
Reisman (1961) identifies and analyzes three main cultural types: tradition-directed, innerdirected,
and other-directed. He traces American society from being tradition-directed originally to shifting
into inner-directed in the era before the Cold War, then shifting into being other-directed. Reisman
explains that the shift toward other-directedness occurred because large corporations preferred it that way.
Other-directed people are geared toward pleasing others and so fit best into the political ideal of social
containment during the era. Reisman writes “The other directed man wants to be loved rather than
esteemed.” (12) The middle class no longer had to cling to old individualistic standards; rather they were
encouraged to form cohesive group societies. Since other directed people can only define themselves by
reference to others in their community and to things they consume, own, earn, and believe, they were
inherently hindered in knowing themselves as individuals. Reisman does not look kindly on the new “other
directed” men. His book argues that while “other directed” individuals are crucial to the smooth running of
a modern society, they compromise autonomy. A society dominated by “other directedness” faces profound
deficiencies in leadership and human potential. It is in this context that Reisman expresses a clear shift from
society glorifying to demonizing the individual. Maintaining the status quo, and thinking with the majority
had become the ideal of modern society.
This paper looks at political sociology and social critique through Ford’s Western films. While The
Searchers and Liberty Valance have been covered extensively not many place the two in conjunction with
Stagecoach in an effort to see how national identity of the individual has shifted. Going back to the pre-
World War II era ensures a firm placement of the ideal of the individual that Ford is talking losing about in
his later films. Rather than just pointing at the shift, this paper will examine the era of the individual that
Searchers and Liberty Valance are deviating from.
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Stagecoach
Stagecoach took Westerns out of the realm of B movies and made them the most popular genre of
film in the country. Released in 1939 Stagecoach is the embodiment of pre World War II America, marking
the first of many collaborations between John Ford and John Wayne. Ford had previously made some
popular films, but had not yet made his name in sound Westerns, while Wayne had primarily been a “B”
actor up to this point. But this film started making Ford synonymous with, and Wayne the very
embodiment, of the genre. Stagecoach, which quickly became the template for all Westerns to follow, set
the stage for the rest of Ford’s work as well. It is, in its most basic form, the story of a group of people
traveling together in a stagecoach across the American West. Passengers include a prostitute, a military
man’s wife, a banker, a gambler, and a variety of other characters that set out together from the town of
Tonto. John Wayne plays the role of the Ringo Kid, a young man recently escaped from jail, who is
arrested along the way and joins the travelers on the journey. The passengers come from various
backgrounds and will face internal class struggles along the way, but are all united by a common external
threat of Geronimo on their voyage to the town of Lordsburg.
John Wayne as the Ringo Kid represents the rugged individual. He is the ultimate template for the
American cowboy, and therefore the ultimate portrayal of the way America viewed itself during the prewar
years. Wayne was the definition of the heroic individual, necessary and integral to the success of society.
During this time America remembered Westward expansion as its defining national moment, drawing the
link between the earliest pilgrims, then colonists, and finally the Western settlers. This idea of the
individual exploring unknown territory and making it safe for civilization to grow is the way Americans
defined themselves. Americans went out and “made the world safe for democracy”, and stood as a united
front to “civilize” the unknown. Through Stagecoach Wayne created the myth of the individual that he
portrays in nearly all his roles from this point on, but, the reception that his rugged individualism invokes
shifts drastically over time.
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The setting of Stagecoach plays as much of a role in the film as the characters. Engel states that “Ford
often fashions his plot and characters around a series of contrasts, effectively dramatized through imagery of
space and openness on the one hand, and confinement and enclosure on the other” (175). Stagecoach
perfectly emphasizes this dichotomy of space. The cities and the stagecoach itself in the film are
representative of society and civilization, while Monument Valley is the epitome of wide open space,
beautiful and free as it is wild. By contrasting both the wide open shots of the valley and the enclosed spaces
in the town, Ford establishes the contrasts and oppositions he will follow throughout the narrative.
Most people would assume the wilderness in all its openness would be the more dangerous and
frightening, while the town would represent all that is civilized and good. This is not the case in Stagecoach.
Ford is not presenting civilization as perfect, or even admirable. This film is in favor of the “natural man”
hearkening back to the individual Adam in Eden, free from the constraints of society. He purposely filmed
the interiors of the town with ceilings. This was a new development in films which deviated from
conventional practice, making the scenes claustrophobic and tight. (Engel 177) This was exactly the
impression that Ford sought. He wanted the rooms to look oppressive as if they were closing in on the
characters. This claustrophobia of the interiors suggests the stifling nature of society. Meanwhile, the coach
is an extension of civilization making its way out into the unknown. As the coach leaves Tonto and heads for
the town of Lordsburg “we see the vehicle from a long angle shot, and it is tiny- virtually swallowed up by
space and the monoliths.” (Engel 177) This is representative of the early Western frontier. Society and
civilization was just a small speck on the overall landscape of America. Americans were still creating and
forging a society out West, just as in 1939 Americans were still struggling with creating a national identity.
The next shot is of the enclosed stage “focusing on the characters, and they are not tiny at all but
have a largeness and individuality and reveal a human community inside the stage, balanced against the force
of nature outside, which we are constantly reminded of through the windows.” (Engel 177) The inside of
the coach is warm and cramped. The passengers are tightly packed, and there isn’t even enough room on
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the benches for Ringo. He is made to sit on the floor of the coach, the bottom rung of civilization. He is an
escaped criminal, and while Ford alludes that he may have been innocent, the film is clear that he has been
in jail the past five years. Ringo has been cast out of society. He is cognizant of his outsider status, stating, “I
guess you can’t break out of prison and into society in the same week.” Wayne lives on a different plane
from the people in the coach. When exiting the coach, Ringo seems to flow out. Still seated on the
cramped floor he reaches up, grabs the roof of the coach, pulls himself up and swings his legs out. This is all
done in a fluid motion which contrasts greatly with the stiff movements of the “civilized” passengers. Ringo
belongs in the wide open; it is his natural state, dividing him from the rest of his companions.
The other characters’ interactions with him are key in examining society of the time. The key
characters in the films are an alcoholic doctor, a liquor salesman, a gentleman gambler, a snooty military
wife, a corrupt banker, and a prostitute. The team is being led by the driver and the marshal, who
eventually apprehends Ringo, absorbing him into the civilization of the stagecoach. The inhabitants of the
coach are members of civilization, while Ringo, who is picked up outside in the Valley, is clearly set apart
from them.
Monument Valley is impressive and expansive, and a clear representation of free space. The scene
introducing Wayne shows him standing as a lone figure with all of Monument Valley as a backdrop. The
camera begins showing Wayne at his full height, holding a saddle and rifle in hand. A tight close up of his
face introduces him as important to the audience and the backdrop shows that he is synonymous with the
Valley. He is the personification of the freedom that comes from living outside of civilization. Wayne, as
The Ringo Kid, appears brash, young, and hopeful. He is intimidating without being menacing, and friendly
without seeming weak. Marshall Curley, the sheriff, is there to arrest Ringo, yet it is clear to the audience
that Ringo is only taken into custody under his own choice. Ringo is “pretty handy” with his Winchester and
willingly gets into the coach. The Marshall doesn’t restrain Ringo in any way. Handcuffs or rope would not
bind Ringo. The gambler Hatfield, Mrs. Mallory and the salesman are framed in the windows of the coach,
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cowering behind the window frames. Ford is clearly marking them as inside civilization, physically and
intentionally separated from Ringo. This shot created the iconic myth of Wayne as representative of
America.
People such as bankers and doctors are commonly believed to be respectable and the upper
echelons of civilization. Inside the stagecoach, however, these people are clearly corrupt products of the
twisted hypocritical society from which they come. Dallas, a prostitute, is a genuine, good natured person,
literally, a “hooker with a heart of gold”. Yet she is scorned for her profession. Meanwhile Mrs. Mallory is
treated with a respect she doesn’t deserve. She is catty and perceives herself to be better than Dallas. The
“whore” is normally a threat to the family, tempting the man, but here is virtuous. The mother is normally
the center of virtue, but Mrs. Mallory is cruel. These two characters do not fit into normal social
definitions. Dallas represents of the goodness of those living outside constraints while Mallory is the
personification of the evils of the town. Similarly, Hatfield, (John Carradine) views himself above the felon
Ringo, while he himself is an unlawful gambler who takes advantage of others. As Wills notes, when getting
out at the Apache Wells stop, Ringo offers to help the gambler climb down from the stagecoach, but
Hatfield haughtily brushes him aside, then helps Mrs. Mallory out of the coach. Hatfield consciously ignores
helping Dallas however, whom he views as beneath him. People who perceive themselves to be civilized
actually lack all manner of social graces.
These social rules that were put in place in civilization seem to fade slightly the longer the
characters are out in the open. Ironically, the longer the characters are away from standard civilization the
more civil they become. As time passes their internal defenses break down, and they come together and for
the most part communicate more freely. Ford portrays the wilderness as breaking the “civilized” characters
down, prompting regeneration in their personalities if they have the strength and fortitude to persevere.
Mrs. Mallory’s baby is the catalyst for seeing the change in the characters. Doc Boone puts aside his bottle
and sobers himself to practice sound medicine again, literally vomiting up his past. (Engel 178) All the
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people of the stage have to put aside their judgments of Dallas and trust that she can deliver the baby, just as
Mrs. Mallory herself has to admit that she would need someone as low as Dallas to aide her. In this moment
and in the following Indian battle, most of the people of the stagecoach band together and accept each other
for their differences. This bond will not last once they reach Lordsburg.
The very name “Lordsburg” implies a place of salvation, and safety. It suggests itself as a safe haven,
representing civilization opposed to the dangerous wilderness full of violent savage Indians through which
the coach has just passed. The town is intentionally named to juxtapose what the characters would actually
find once they entered the town. Ford reveals the town itself to be decadent and evil. The streets are
narrow and twisted, closed in by shadows and distorted buildings, and figures are distinct and ambiguous
and appear untrustworthy. The inhabitants of Lordsburg are easily viewed in the background of the scenes.
There are officious and haughty townswomen that perceive themselves to be at the highest level of society
and form a literal wall with their bodies that Dallas cannot cross. This blockage shows that no matter how
useful Dallas was to the stagecoach party, she will never be accepted by mainstream society. She is
permanently relegated to the other part of town. The town of Lordsburg is filled with an oppressive
darkness and populated by criminals like Luke Plummer and his gang, as well as a plethora of prostitutes
and saloons.
As Dallas and Ringo walk through the town the evening silence is pierced by raucous laughter and
the strains of a honky tonk piano, which sharply contrasts with the classical music played during the scenes
in the Valley. The lightness and openness of the Valley is meant to stand in stark contrast to this dark and
oppressive place. The music is crass and symbolic of the type of people inhabiting it, while the music of the
Valley was noble. Lordsburg is a dramatic inversion of Monument Valley. For Ringo it is clearly more
treacherous than the desert. When the saloon is first glimpsed it is shown as an unfriendly smoky, stifling
atmosphere. Its inhabitants are tense, and shifty. Through this saloon Ford has created a “wilderness
landscape” within the “civilized” town. (Engel 179) Even when Plummer and his gang go outside the saloon
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to confront Ringo, Ford still shoots them as if they are inside. Unlike the wide shots of the Valley even the
outside streets of Lordsburg are filmed tight and dark. A constricting enclosure is formed, representative of
how society itself is enclosing in on Ringo. It is civilization itself that cages these people in and instigates the
wildness it attempts to repress.
Ringo’s relationship with Dallas plays a central role in the development of Stagecoach. Dallas is a
prostitute who is being driven out of the town of Tonto by a moral brigade of townswomen. She has been
cast out of society just as has Ringo. She and the alcoholic doctor are being thrown out of town are “victims
of a foul disease called social prejudice” declare Doc Boone. Mrs. Mallory speaks for all society when she
calls Dallas “a creature”. In the beginning of the journey Dallas is not accepted by society, but she is still
very much a part of it.In the stagecoach she is on the very bottom of society, yet unlike Ringo, she is not
free of the constraints of civilization. She sits just as cramped and crowded on the coach as the other
passengers. Dallas accepts her place on the bottom rung.
When Ringo joins the group and the coach travels longer through the desert, Dallas realizes what
life could be like outside the constraints of civilization. Ringo considers Dallas to be a lady; he offers her
water when the rest of the group chooses to ignore her and sits with her at the table during a meal. When
Ringo seats Dallas at the table near Mrs. Mallory, he is consciously telling her she has value and is worthy of
a place in society. The group, however, rejects both of them. Mrs. Mallory and Hatfield choose to move
and sit on the other side of the room, effectively created a barrier between their civilization and where they
perceive Dallas and Ringo should be. The seating is a confinement here just as it is in the coach. These two
outsiders are paired together in that moment and create their own society.
Even when Dallas attempts to find a place in the society of the coach she is rejected. She plays an
integral part in the birth of Mrs. Mallory’s baby. She cares for the woman through the night, barely sleeping
herself and cares for the child as well. Yet, the next morning when Doc comes in to examine Mrs. Mallory,
she cannot even bear to look at Dallas. She previously considered the prostitute to be a creature, and while
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she will allow Dallas to serve her, she will not acknowledge her or offer her any validation. During the
Indian attack Dallas shields the infant from arrows with her own body, while Mrs. Mallory does nothing to
protect her own child. Yet again, instead of being grateful and accepting Dallas, she offers an ineffectual
offer of “If you ever need anything…” trailing off acknowledging the insincerity of the statement. Ford
makes it extremely clear that Dallas is beyond redeeming in society’s eyes. No matter how compassionate
or useful, she will never be accepted or redeemed in the eyes of “civil” women.
Ringo is clear in his intentions to have Dallas as his wife. While she will never be able to find a place
in proper society she can have a home in Ringo. They are similar-- society’s rejects. Both were orphaned at
a young age, deprived of, (or liberated from) the ties that bind “normal” types to the town; and both were
driven to extreme measures do to this, Dallas to prostitution and Ringo to vengeance. This pair has nothing
tying them to society. Ringo is free of civilization and he is offering Dallas a way to be free of it. To even
begin to talk about a possible relationship, the two characters have to go outside. They must escape the
constraints of the building in order to speak of the possibility of freedom. The opening shot of this
discussion shows Dallas walking out of Mrs. Mallory’s room down a long dark hallway ending in a doorway
to the outside. The hallway is the epitome of all that is narrow and constricting, showing just how
suffocating society is to Ringo and Dallas. The outside is framed as the only source of light. Dallas tries to
get Ringo to stay out of the town of Lordsburg. She earnestly does not want him to find out about her
profession. She assumes that he is unaware of her social status and that he will stop valuing her once he
discovers it. In Lordsburg she tries to keep Ringo from walking her to the brothel where she is staying. It is
in the town that she realizes that Ringo knew all along what she was. Ringo is clearly not a part of the
society that has cast her out. He sees value in Dallas and through her he sees the hope of building a new
civilization in the open wilderness. The two of them will live free together outside of society’s constraints.
In Stagecoach this idea is a valid one. Ringo is the “outsider”, portrayed as noble and free, an integral
part in securing the safety of civilization, while also being the only character possessing true morals.
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Through Dallas, Ringo is rewarded in a way for his heroic action in Lordsburg. Ford leads the viewer to
believe that he and Dallas will live out their lives together at Ringo’s stead in Mexico. When Ringo is
describing the home that he and Dallas could make together he describes it as “a real nice place with trees,
grass and water, and a cabin half built. A man could live there, and a woman.” His notion of what makes a
good place for him and Dallas does not include a lively town or an affluent home. Instead he offers her an
open wilderness where they can be free to live together outside suffocating society. Ringo’s idealized home
is still being built. Ford shows the dream of the free individual succeeding in life, and finding a successful
place outside civilization, one where he can find love and independence at the same time. As Ringo and
Dallas ride away to their new lives together Doc states that he believes he and the Marshall are “saving them
from the blessings of civilization”. Ultimately the town is evil and suffocating and the wilderness is free and
moral. Individuals are considered heroes to be revered and while they do not have a place in regular
civilization, it is because they have trancended common society. The half built house they are traveling to
will not become a flourishing new civilization. It is impossible for them to live in a society. They cannot be
the base of a new moral society because in the context of the film a moral society is impossible. Wayne as
Ringo is something to be admired in Stagecoach, his incessant individuality is his greatest strength and what
ultimately keeps society safe from itself.
The Searchers
Film historians and critics consider The Searchers to be John Ford’s masterpiece, and is seen as one of
the best western films of all time. Filmed in 1956 it is the high point of the career for both Ford and Wayne.
It was Ford’s first western film in five years; a return to the genre he loved most. (Eckstein 1) At the center
of this film is Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). The story follows Ethan’s seven year search for his niece
Debbie, captured at the age of nine by Comanches who killed the rest of her family. Rather than searching
to save her, Ethan intends to kill his niece because she has been “tainted” by living with the Indians.
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This film was made during a period of rapid change in the United States. The Cold War was in full
swing, the Red Scare was at its peak, and the country was only beginning to emerge from the aftermath of
the McCarthy hearings. American society seemed increasingly homogenous, with conformity to social
norms an imperative. All deviations from these norms were considered threatening. The Red Scare bred
ideological conformity, but it was coupled with campaigns against juvenile delinquency, sexual deviance,
and non-traditional roles for women. Social behaviors and political views were either acceptable and
“good”, or else they were deviant and “bad”.
The Searchers is a direct product of its time. This is not the traditional western nor is Wayne the
traditional western hero in it. Through the movie it becomes apparent that all the virtues associated with
Wayne as the traditional individualistic American icon have become warped. Stoicism and individualistic
endurance have turned into a lack of human emotion, skill with a gun previously used to protect becomes
manic out of control violence, and the former protector of civilization becomes the destroyer of families.
Ford used The Searchers to criticize 1950’s America, and what he viewed as an attack on the idea of the
individual.
Ford again uses Monument Valley as his main setting. Just as in Stagecoach the frontier appears
triumphant, beautiful, and free. It functions as the symbol for autonomy and independence. The opening
shot of the film show a woman in silhouette opening a dark door to the outside. The doorway frames
Monument Valley in full, bright, color in contrast to the dark interior. This scene establishes a contrast for
the rest of the film, with the dark doorway framing the outside of the household in opposition to the
frontier. They are stark opposites just as Ethan Edwards stand starkly opposite those who choose to make
their lives inside that house. The shot expands to fill the screen with the valley, and a solitary figure emerges
from the frontier approaching the Edwards’ household. Church (2009) states that this famous first shot
portrays Ethan as almost a natural part of the landscape. Just as in Stagecoach, he slowly emerges from the
frontier viewed in sharp contrast with the sphere of family and civilization the Edwards’ home represents.
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Ethan is synonymous with the Valley yet again. He stands as the physical manifestation of the freedom and
individualism Monument Valley represents.
While Wayne and the Valley represent the individual, the house represents civilization and society.
Ford depicts the early view of the Edwards’ home as warm and comfortable. It is a place filled with happy
children, seemingly content with their lives. A family lives there, in a way their own complete society.
Though there is initial excitement for his arrival, Ethan’s relationship with his family begins to fissure almost
as soon as he arrives. While the house appears happy and safe for those living in it, that is not the case for
Ethan. He is very clearly an outsider imposing on his hosts. While the family enthusiastically welcomes
Ethan into the fold, immediately after dinner Aaron questions Ethan on how long he plans to stay. The
mood is tense as Aaron ushers Martha into their bedroom and literally shuts the door on Ethan, relegating
him to the front porch, figuratively shutting him outside of the society. The next morning when Clayton
arrives, the household is cluttered and claustrophobic, revealing Ethan’s discomfort in the enclosed space of
the family. (Church 51) While they, as a society, function one their own, Ethan disrupts their order.
In Stagecoach society was depicted as a threat to Ringo’s freedom and happiness; in The Searchers
Ethan stands as the threat to society. While never explicitly stated in the film, Ford makes it clear that an
unspoken love exists between Ethan and his sister in law Martha. There is not one word of dialog relaying
this information rather it is expressed visually. Throughout the opening scenes Ethan and Martha look
longingly at each other. Martha, in particular, is seemingly incapable of taking her eyes off of Ethan, who
has been gone for so long. When Ethan first arrives Martha walks backward so as to keep him in sight.
When the ranch house is burning the first name Ethan calls out is Martha. While no words are ever spoken
it is clear that there is something more than familial love between these two. Martha represents a time
before Ethan was an outsider, when he had a place in society. Whatever the cause Martha married Aaron
instead of Ethan.
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Aaron is not unaware of the feelings between his wife and brother. It is that tension that first shows
the fissures Ethan’s presence causes in the family. When Martha takes Ethan’s coat from him to put away,
he stares after her, lost in thought, completely ignoring his brother speaking to him until prompted to
reply. He brings further discontent to the household during his first dinner with the family. When Martha
and Aaron’s adopted son, Martin, enters the house Ethan is quick to point out that the boy is part Indian,
implying that this clearly separates Martin from his adoptive family. Where there was once complete
acceptance for Martin in the Edwards family, there is now discord. Ethan’s presence makes for a tense meal
that Martha struggles to keep peaceful. Even when Martin, the outsider, is relegated to the porch and Ethan
makes a full effort to fit into the family by bonding with his nieces and nephews, Ethan is incapable of
belonging. Angered by the looks between Martha and Ethan, Aaron asks how long Ethan intends to stay.
Martha goes to her room while Ethan looks on after her. He cannot enter the bedroom. Since there is
nowhere for him in the Edwards house, he spends the night outside on the porch. The society of the home
is rejecting him. Ethan is a renegade guerilla fighter, working against the United States government and still
fighting the Civil War, by definition dangerous and un-American. He is an intruder, and not welcome
there.
The Edwards home represents civilization in the film, standing firmly against nature, settlers
cutting out a place for themselves in the wilderness. Martha embodies that civilization. She is something
that Ethan desires but cannot have. Ethan cannot find peace inside the constraints of society, and through his
desire for Martha and a home he destroys both.
Ethan is the threat that can bring about the society’s destruction. He is not around to protect the
women he loves when Indians attack. Instead he is out in the Valley. He returns to find the Edwards home
burning, and Martha raped and killed. While the physical destruction of the home was Scar’s doing,
Ethan’s failure to protect the society Aaron and Martha created in their home makes him culpable in his
own mind.
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Ford created Ethan and Scar as mirrors of each other. Both men are convinced of the justice of their
own ideals and the utter barbarity of the other’s, both having lost family members to the other’s violence.
Along with common past trauma, Scar and Ethan are also presented as having the same stature and presence
as well as intelligence of the other’s customs. Scar returns Ethan’s sarcastic “You speak pretty good
American for a Comanche,” with “You speak pretty good Comanche. Someone teach you?” Scar and Ethan
are both wanderers driven by a thirst for vengeance and an inability to settle down in peace. While both
perceive themselves to be on opposite ends of a battle, neither of them has a place in the new growing
civilization. Scar and his tribe are an impediment to the very possibility of growth, while Ethan’s presence is
too wild to exist in an established society.
The close up of John Wayne the audience sees in The Searchers is drastically different from the
introduction of Ringo in Stagecoach. Rather than seeing a brash young symbol of hope, we see a bitter, scary
man. Ethan Edwards isn’t a hero. He isn’t the kind of character the audience wishes to emulate. He is a
terrifying, menacing figure, willing to kill his own niece. Years into the search Ethan and Martin fall upon a
group of calvary men who have women formerly held captive by a band of Comanches. Ethan and Martin
scan the women in hopes that one of them is the girl for whom they have spent so many years searching.
The former captives have been driven mad by their time in captivity. Ethan stares at them with contempt
and disgust declaring that they “Ain’t white no more”. He lacks all compassion for the captives and views
them as sub-human. As he’s walking out he quickly turns around to give one last contemptuous look at the
women. The camera pans quickly to his face, grizzled, dark and unshaven, full of disappointment and
revulsion. This image illustrates the individual as a potential threat. While his sense of right mirrors
society’s, he is not working within the culture. He chooses to lead, outside society, and this makes him
crazy. Ethan makes the audience uneasy; he is a dangerous hazard.
The final shot mirrors the opening shot in many ways. Ethan returns home successful, saving
Debbie and returning her to the Jorgeson’s home. The camera seems to stand in the doorway of the home,
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all of Monument Valley visible in the background engulfing the characters. Debbie walks in with her new
surrogate parents, and Marty walks in arm and arm with his bride to be. As they walk into the home, the
camera retreats further into the house. Now rather than the valley taking up the shot, it is framed very
tightly by the doorway of the Jorgenson home, by civilization. Ethan takes a step to enter the house, but
holds back. He looks in longingly on the family that he helped bring together. No one makes a move to
welcome Ethan into the house, or even thank him for returning Debbie and Martin. Ethan is forgotten,
alone outside. He turns and walks away, back out into the Valley from which he emerged all those years
ago, as the door of the home shuts on him. Ethan is not welcome in the house. He has restored the order of
the family by bringing back Debbie, he is still necessary for the security of that society but he has no place in
it. As this is all taking place the final theme music is playing, with the lyrics “A man will search his heart and
soul, go searching way out there. His peace of mind, he’s knows he’ll find. But where oh lord oh where.
Ride away, ride away”. Ethan will not, and cannot find peace and thus has to ride away. He is left to
wander forever between the winds, an exile from civilization.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was released in 1962 amid a period of cultural anxiety in the
United States. The Cold War was still raging on in the background, while a new war in Vietnam was on the
rise. The post war economy was finally taking a dip, and John F. Kennedy stood as President of the United
States. No longer were the idols of the nation war aging heroes. Instead Americans were fascinated with a
young fresh president who wanted to lead them into the future through technology and renewed civic
cooperation. The 1960s were a time of change, and while people respected the past and were nostalgic
about it, they were pushing for an end of the old ways. While being an “other” was still a negative thing, it
was the old guard that came to be seen as outsiders, relics of a past that would hold back the progress of
modernity.
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Corkin summarizes the film as telling the story of an aging western figure, now a U.S. senator,
Ransom Stoddard, returning to the town of Shinbone with his wife Hallie, for the funeral of an old friend
Tom Doniphon. When asked by a reporter why he would attend a pauper’s funeral Stoddard narrates a tale
about how he knew Doniphon. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is told in a flashback. Stoddard explains that
while he has gained fame for civilizing Shinbone, it was Doniphon that performed the act that earned
Stoddard his reputation. Throughout the film Tom Doniphon’s obscurity becomes a symbol of the passing
frontier, and Stoddard’s eminence illustrates the way modernity has taken root in formerly unsettled places.
It is important to note that Liberty Valance is filmed in black and white. Nearly all films made by this
time were in color. This anomaly exists for two reasons. The most obvious cause of the black and white
filming is the nostalgia inherent in the flashback. It is explaining an older time, and therefore uses an older
film technique. There is more to this choice than to serve as a simple flashback. Ford’s use of black and
white reflects implies Stagecoach, which was from a black and white era. This film is a mirror image of
Stagecoach. While Stagecoach was about constructing the myth of the individual embodied in the Ringo Kid,
Valance is about constructing the myth of the civilizing force of the lawyer, Ransom Stoddard. The culture
of rugged individualism that Ringo represented must be torn down in this film to relay the values of the
1960s. No longer is the law of the gun integral to society’s function. Civilization has been built; it is no
longer a fledgling institution in need of protection from the outside. Civilization now was structured around
obedience to law, the triumph of the other-directed man, and needed a man of law to keep it together. The
individuals, such as Tom Doniphon, who created the society no longer had a place in it. Lawmen such as
Ransom Stoddard were what civilization needed to flourish, and by constructing this film in black and white
Ford offers an elegiac vision of the transformation from an individualistic ethic to one of law and
community.
The film opens with a shot of a train coming through the wilderness. This will be the only scene
throughout the film that displays open area. Monument Valley, a key factor in the first two films, is notably
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absent from this one. Liberty Valance will take place entirely with the constructs of modern civilization, the
town of Shinbone. The freedom and individualism that the valley represented has been eliminated by this
point. Rather than portraying civilization as struggling to make a place for itself in this film, it is already
established. Even the one shot the audience sees of openness is impeded by society. A train –the hackneyed
symbol of progress in the Western- runs through the very heart of the wilderness. There is no place that
civilization has not reached by this point, and there is no place left for the individual to retreat. The only
sense Ford gives of a place for the individual within the town is through the outside. Many of the scenes shot
in the film’s “present” are interior, representative of the settled nature of the “present”. Meanwhile the
scenes in the flashback are primarily exterior or in Hallie’s family restaurant, both locations that will be
“tamed” with the presence of Stoddard.
When Link takes Hallie for a ride to the remains of Doniphon’s ranch, outside the town limits, the
place appears ghostlike, deserted and reduced to ashes. Nature could only flourish before the days of
civilization. Doniphon’s dream of settling down in that house would never be achieved. Throughout all the
films, Wayne’s character has never been able to exist in a domestic setting. Any home he is trying to make
is incomplete or destroyed. The home as representative of civilization can never be a haven to Doniphon.
He does not fit in that frame of society. While he can participate in the building of such a structure, of
civilization, he will never be able to exist inside such an institution.
The flashback tells of Stoddard’s willfully bringing civilization to Shinbone. He brings law books,
teaches people how to read and write, and represents the town in the territorial legislature and then on
national and international levels. He is the new hero of the people. In the “present” era of the film,
Shinbone is portrayed as very modern with a large newspaper and established schools, a far cry from the
town Ranse first encountered. The growth of Shinbone is attributed to Ranse. His arrival in Shinbone
brought in a flush of new ideas that lead to growth and reform. Had he not come the civilization would not
have stagnated.
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There is an aura of inevitability to the narrative. Ranse may have been the agent of the progress of
civilization, but had he not appeared it would have happened regardless. Stoddard’s actions to change the
town are most visible in the change in Hallie. Hallie is the woman in the romantic triangle connecting her to
Doniphon and Ranse. In the film’s “present” she misses Doniphon emotionally, as well as the world he
represented.
It is Hallie whose life has changed the most as a result of the incorporation of Shinbone. She has
been raised up from an illiterate waitress to a senator’s wife. Yet, she is dissatisfied with her life with Ranse.
Hallie chose Ransom Stoddard over Tom Doniphon, symbolizing larger social shifts. Had Ransom not come
to Shinbone, she would have stayed illiterate, moved into Tom’s house, and lived her life cooking and
cleaning, just as she always had. The town would have gone on the same, never changing. Ranse’s arrival,
however, sparks development in the town. When she chooses Ransom romantically, she is really choosing
him socially. He is the facilitator to change; he is representative of the future. Ransom gives her, and society
a step forward, whereas Tom would keep them just as they are. Hallie’s lingering affections for the idea of
Doniphon after his death represent the way society feels about the era of the rugged individual.
Doniphon signifies pre-modern Shinbone. He is a living antique, no longer necessary to the
development of society. He has realized that Hallie has chosen Ranse, and so has the town. He refused to be
nominated to represent the area in the push for statehood, and has been replaced in nearly every way by
Stoddard. He has no place in the town. There is just one last thing for him to take care of, Liberty Valance.
By ensuring Valance’s death Doniphon goes the final step in forging the society of Shinbone. He was there
for its creation, and protected it during its genesis, but now that it has reached a plateau, he is holding it
back. Doniphon and Valance are twined. Both follow the law of the gun, and are agents of an older era. If it
were not for the civilizing presence of Hallie Doniphon, may have chosen Valance’s side. The death of
Liberty Valance ushers in civilization to Shinbone, and while Ransom didn’t actually kill him, as the man
who seemed to shoot an outlaw, he became more important than the man who actually shot him. In
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There is an aura of inevitability to the narrative. Ranse may have been the agent of the progress of
civilization, but had he not appeared it would have happened regardless. Stoddard’s actions to change the
town are most visible in the change in Hallie. Hallie is the woman in the romantic triangle connecting her to
Doniphon and Ranse. In the film’s “present” she misses Doniphon emotionally, as well as the world he
represented.
It is Hallie whose life has changed the most as a result of the incorporation of Shinbone. She has
been raised up from an illiterate waitress to a senator’s wife. Yet, she is dissatisfied with her life with Ranse.
Hallie chose Ransom Stoddard over Tom Doniphon, symbolizing larger social shifts. Had Ransom not come
to Shinbone, she would have stayed illiterate, moved into Tom’s house, and lived her life cooking and
cleaning, just as she always had. The town would have gone on the same, never changing. Ranse’s arrival,
however, sparks development in the town. When she chooses Ransom romantically, she is really choosing
him socially. He is the facilitator to change; he is representative of the future. Ransom gives her, and society
a step forward, whereas Tom would keep them just as they are. Hallie’s lingering affections for the idea of
Doniphon after his death represent the way society feels about the era of the rugged individual.
Doniphon signifies pre-modern Shinbone. He is a living antique, no longer necessary to the
development of society. He has realized that Hallie has chosen Ranse, and so has the town. He refused to be
nominated to represent the area in the push for statehood, and has been replaced in nearly every way by
Stoddard. He has no place in the town. There is just one last thing for him to take care of, Liberty Valance.
By ensuring Valance’s death Doniphon goes the final step in forging the society of Shinbone. He was there
for its creation, and protected it during its genesis, but now that it has reached a plateau, he is holding it
back. Doniphon and Valance are twined. Both follow the law of the gun, and are agents of an older era. If it
were not for the civilizing presence of Hallie Doniphon, may have chosen Valance’s side. The death of
Liberty Valance ushers in civilization to Shinbone, and while Ransom didn’t actually kill him, as the man
who seemed to shoot an outlaw, he became more important than the man who actually shot him. In
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shooting Liberty Valance, Doniphon allows politics to come to Shinbone, forcing himself into oblivion. He
is an example of a hero who creates a society, but is too contradictory to exist inside of it. Tom’s killing of
Liberty Valance is a suicide. Tom kills his own liberty.
The final scene of the film ends the flashback and brings us back to the “present”. He has finished
telling the truth of Tom Doniphon, as a final elegy. The train whistle blows signaling that it is time for him
to leave this place, the story is over and it is time to return to civilization. Ransom collects Hallie and takes
one last look into the room that holds Doniphon’s coffin. The camera is positioned in the room, looking at
Stoddard as he firmly shuts the door. In this action he is shutting out everything Doniphon was. The truth
was out, if only to a small few, but even the memory of Doniphin was dangerous to the collective society. If
anyone found out who really shot Liberty Valance, Stoddard would be discredited and the very foundation
that the modern civilization was founded on would crumble. Heroes such as Tom Doniphon can’t exist if
the society is going to flourish. The newspaper man interviewing Stoddard rips up his notes, and declares
the story unprintable. He says “This is the West sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Ransom Stoddard is the new legend. With him a new myth is created.
Conclusion
These Western films clearly functioned as more than entertainment; they exemplify the cultural
shifts in America, particularly in examining America’s view of the individual in society. During the Cold
War American culture underwent a major shift from glorifying the individual to fearing it. Any “other”
became dangerous to society as a whole. The cultural climate of America during the Cold War led
Americans to fear things that are different. Social containment became the key to security. Ford’s films
examine this shift away from the rugged individual of the past that protected the town from the outside to
the austere lawman who functions within the community.
By the time Ford shot Liberty Valance the Western genre was dying, and so were its heroes. The
Western rested on the principle of the value of the admirable individual who was key to the protection of
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society. Yet, as that individual became less valued, so too did the genre. Westerns rested on the idea that
the individual was the protector of society, and what Americans should aspire to be. Overtime, America
stopped aspiring to be individuals. Ford thrust the Western into mainstream popularity with Stagecoach and
tolled the death of the traditional Western with Tom Doniphon’s death in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Works Cited
Church, Jeffrey. "Recognition and Restlessness in John Ford's The Searchers." Perspectives on Political
Science 38, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 47-57.
Corkin, Stanley. Cowboys as Cold Warriors. Phildelphia: University Press, 2004
Cuordileone, K.A. “Politics in an Age of Anxiety: Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in American
Masculinity, 1949-1960.” The Journal Of American History (September 2000): 515.
Eckstein, Arthur. The Searchers: Essays and Reflections on John Ford’s Classic Western. Wayne State
University Press, 2004.
Engel, Leonard. "Mythic space and monument valley: Another look at John Ford's Stagecoach."Literature
Film Quarterly 22, no. 3 (July 1994): 174.
Ford, John, Director. Stagecoach. 1939
Ford, John, Director. The Searchers. 1956.
Ford, John, Director. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. 1962.
May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. Basic Books, 1988.
Hefner, Hugh. “The Playboy Philosophy” Playboy, January 1963, p. 41
Reisman, David. The Lonely Crowd. Yale University Press, 1961.
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Stephanie Rentschler
Calvin College
U.S.-Russian Relations: Toward a Renewed Partnership
Since Vice President Biden’s speech in which he said that “it’s time to press the rest button” for
relations between the United States and Russia, it has been clear that the United States is pursuing a policy
of engagement, attempting to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia. Steps have been
taken toward engaging Russia not only in areas of primary strategic concern for the United States, but also
areas involving culture, science, and technology through long term initiatives to foster understanding and
greater involvement between the two states have also been taken. Determining exactly how to interact
with Russia, however, is much more complex than simply deciding whether or not it would be best to
deepen relations between the two states. When determining how to approach Russia, the United States
must take a number of things into account, including strategic interests, long term sustainability, human
rights, and democratization, as well as U.S. domestic political will to cooperate with a former enemy as
well as Russian perceptions of U.S. intentions.
Since the Cold War, Russia has struggled to determine its role within the international system and
its relation to the West, particularly the United States. Though Russia continues to have some concerning
international policies, engaging Russia is a better option than excluding Russia, feeding its sense of isolation.
Cooperation between the United States and Russia is essential in achieving significant progress on a variety
of critical international issues from nuclear security and energy security to establishing stability in
Afghanistan to the peace and stability in the former Soviet states. Together, the United States and Russia
have 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, making Russia an essential partner in maintaining the
security of nuclear weapons as well as an essential partner in the international nuclear nonproliferation
regime. Russia also holds 30 percent of the world’s gas reserves and controls much of the region’s energy
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transport grid. It is becoming increasingly evident that the United States needs to include Russia in helping
to achieve stability in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan (Legvold 78-79). Yet, political resistance within the
U.S. Congress, as well as nationalistic skepticism on the part of Russia limit the amount of cooperation
possible to a point, but should not prevent efforts to improve relations and advance understanding and trust
between the two states, hopefully eventually enabling greater collaboration.
The United States must also take into account its relations with European allies, particularly Easter
European states, some of which are not fully consolidated democracies and are additionally very concerned
about Russian power. Greater trust between Russia and the United States would increase U.S. legitimacy
with Russia and negotiating power and may allow the United States and NATO to strengthen ties with
states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, particularly Ukraine, without provoking and
alienating Russia. Ukraine’s strategic importance as a buffer between Russia and NATO and as an essential
transit country for Russia’s natural gas supply to Europe, providing approximately two-thirds of Europe’s
needs, make it both a source of contention and a possible mediator. Western support for democratization
and Ukrainian security are important in maintaining the balance, so that Ukraine does not get drawn back
into the Russian sphere of influence but is able to effectively pursue its own foreign policy (Lazarevic 48).
In the last decade, the relations between the United States and Russia have been rather uncertain,
with periods of hope for improved relations often followed by tension between the two, culminating with
the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. Even so, both Russia and the United States appear to be
interested in increased cooperation as was demonstrated by Vice President Biden’s comments calling for
“pressing the reset button” on U.S.-Russian relations, and the positive response from Russia shortly after
President Obama’s inauguration (Biden). Additionally, many issues of greatest disagreement have passed
the acute stage (Alcaro 3). President Obama has taken many important steps toward building a sustainable
cooperative relationship with Russia. The passing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START),
the U.S.-Russian 123 agreement allowing for civilian exchange of nuclear material and technology, and the
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eestablishment of communications between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russia,
and the creation of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission (B.P.C.) are all positive steps that
signal a strengthening of ties between Moscow and Washington (Rojansky; “U.S.-Russia Bilateral…”).
While these are important steps towards rapprochement, there is still much uncertainty and distrust that
must be overcome in order to establish a sustainable relationship based upon more than specific strategic
interests.
In addressing the future of U.S.-Russian relations, it is important to recognize the history of the
Cold War and the remaining distrust and the resulting problems this presents to building positive relations.
Additionally, the history of relations between the U.S. and Russia following the Cold War are important for
understanding where they may lead in the future. If U.S.-Russian relations are to be normalized, it will
ultimately require substantial effort on the part of the United States as well as Russia to overcome past
perceptions and prejudices against one another. The United States administration and Congress should
make consistency and reliability a priority when dealing with Russia, so that treaties agreed upon by the two
states are not revoked and promises are not broken, as has been the case in the past. A policy of “realistic
engagement” with Russia addressing areas of agreement, as well as issues of contention, rather than isolating
Russia would be a good step toward long term, positive relations (Åslund 5). This should involve increased
cooperation between NATO and Russia, assisting Russia in its application for joining the World Trade
Organization (WTO), and greater focus upon issues of mutual concern such as the nuclear proliferation,
achieving stability within Afghanistan, commercial interests, and energy policy.
U.S.-Russian Relations following the Cold War: Uncertainty and Mistrust
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia was greatly weakened as it lost
substantial territory, suffered an economic collapse, and struggled to reformulate its political system. At
the end of the 1990s, Russia began to rapidly recover economically, which was further boosted by the high
natural gas and oil prices after 2003. With its increased economic strength, Russia began to be more
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assertive in its foreign policy (Åslund 7). After 9/11, Russia supported the United States in its fight against
Al Qaeda, hoping to gain more leverage and take on a greater role within international relations. The
United States, however, continued to consider Russia as a relatively weak player and not as the great power
that Russia envisions itself to be (Alcaro 3).
In the 2000s, numerous events led to the further break down of trust between Russia and the
United States. Cold war perceptions and mistrust persist, furthering perceptions of actions on both sides as
threatening and aggressive. Perceptions that the United States took advantage of Russia during the 1990s
are common within Russia, and rhetoric blaming the United States for troubles within Russia is relatively
common. Many actions of the United States, NATO, and the European Union (EU) have been seen as
attempts to further isolate or ‘encircle’ Russia, such as NATO’s eastern enlargement, the Orange
Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia, US plans for a missile defense system in the
Czech Republic and Poland, and U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s independence (Alcaro 3).
President Bush’s support for Ukraine and Georgia’s bid for NATO membership further angered
Russia. In March 2007, the United States Congress passed the NATO Freedom Consolidation Act,
supporting NATO enlargement to include Ukraine and Georgia, as well as states in the Western Balkans
(Lazarevic 47). Relations with Russia reached a new low for the post-Cold War period with the Georgian
war in August of 2008, leading many to fear that a new cold war was unavoidable (Alcaro 3). Even so,
Russia, the United States, and the EU expressed their discontent with the trend toward a breakdown of
diplomacy, hinting at the possibility of improved relations.
NATO Expansion: Threat to Russia?
In order to develop a new approach to Russia, the United States must attempt to understand the
ways in which Russia views the United States and interprets its actions. NATO expansion has been an issue
of growing contention for Russia with each of the three waves of NATO enlargement since the end of the
Cold War. Western Europe and the United States have generally seen European integration through the
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EU and NATO as a method for stabilizing Central and Eastern Europe. NATO, a remnant of the Cold
War, has transformed itself to deal with new threats to European security, but Russia continues to view it
as a hostile force directed against Russia (“Where Does Europe End?” 178). In 2004, a massive increase in
NATO membership to include Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia greatly
upset Russia, particularly the admission of the three Baltic States which had been Soviet states, and not just
part of the former Soviet sphere of influence (Åslund 2).
In 2008, when Ukraine and Georgia requested NATO membership action plans (MAP), which
would have laid out a series of steps to be taken in order to become NATO members, Russia’s response
became even more volatile. A speech given by Putin suggested that he was questioning the legitimacy of the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the sovereignty of the resulting states. He said, “If the NATO issue is
added there, along with other problems, this may bring into question Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign
state.” While this response is quite reactionary, the motivation behind it and the perceived threat to
Russian security as NATO and the EU move closer to Russia’s borders need to be taken into account.
Russia also clearly questioned the sovereignty of Georgia, as it intervened and then recognized South
Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states (Åslund 7). At the NATO Summit in Bucharest, the allies
decided not to give Ukraine and Georgia a MAP, but indicated that they would contemplate the future
membership of the two states. This rather ambiguous message was given due to the disagreement between
NATO members as to whether or not Ukraine and Georgia should be given a MAP, supported by the
United States, but much more cautiously by many European NATO member states who were concerned
with Russia’s possible response and the ability of Georgia and Ukraine to meet the requirements for joining
NATO (Lazarevic 45-46). While some of Russia’s security concerns may be understandable, Russia’s
apparent disregard for the sovereignty of many former Soviet states is very concerning for European
security.
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It is relatively clear that neither Ukraine nor Georgia will become a member of NATO anytime
soon, which eases some of the tension with Russia, without NATO appearing to give in to Russia’s demands
and may provide time to convince Russia that NATO expansion is not threatening. In the 2010 Ukrainian
election, Viktor Yanukovych became president and he is pursuing a relatively pro-Russian foreign policy
and has said that Ukraine will pursue a non-aligned position in terms of NATO membership (Vahabov 299).
Additionally, there is little support for NATO membership within Ukraine. In a poll conducted in the
summer of 2008 by the Fund for Public Opinion, “55 percent of Ukrainian respondents were against
NATO membership, and only 22 percent in favor” (Lazarevic 48). Georgia’s prospects of joining NATO
soon are also tenuous due to a relatively unstable political situation and a lack of territorial integrity which is
required in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (Lazarevic 55). While it should be made clear that Russia
does not have veto power against NATO enlargement, technical and political limitations that will prevent
Ukraine and Georgia from becoming NATO member states in the short term alleviates some of the tension
with Russia for now, making this an opportune time for reengagement.
President Obama’s Policy toward Russia
Since coming into office in 2009, President Obama has made a substantial effort toward revitalizing
and deepening U.S. relations with Russia. Upon the creation of the U.S.-Russian Bilateral Presidential
Commission (B.P.C.), President Obama said, “Too often, the United States and Russia only communicate
on a narrow range of issues, or let old habits within our bureaucracy state in the way of progress” (“U.S. -
Russian Bilateral…”). Obama and Medvedev established the B.P.C. in July of 2009. The B.P.C. has 13
working groups that focuses on “identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that
strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties
between the Russian and American people” ("U.S. - Russian Bilateral…”). In addition, the work conducted
by this commission is to be “based on the core principles of friendship, cooperation, openness, and
predictability, and we are resolved to address disagreements openly and honestly in a spirit of mutual
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espect and acknowledgement of each other’s perspective” ("U.S. - Russian Bilateral…”). The B.P.C. is a
promising sign for the future of U.S.-Russian cooperation and a useful mechanism for deepening relations.
Much progress has also been made on issues of mutual concern. On April 8, 2010, Obama and
Medvedev signed the New START agreement to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both states. Both leaders
expressed their desire and the need for future cooperation (Bilefsky). In December the Senate approved the
treaty, followed by the Duma in January (“After 17 Years…”). In May 2010, President Obama resubmitted
the U.S.-Russian 123 agreement for Congressional review, which would allow U.S. companies to share
nuclear technology, conduct research and development, and bid for civil nuclear projects with Russian firms
(“Obama Plans Revival...”). President Bush had originally submitted the agreement, but withdrew it in
August of 2008 following Russia’s intervention in Georgia. Following the end of a 90-day review period,
the U.S.-Russia 123 Agreement went into effect at the end of last year (Rejansky).
Reciprocation
Since the U.S. has begun focusing on improving relations with Russia, Russia seems to be
reciprocating. Russia has strengthened its efforts to support and implement sanctions against Iran. The
United States and many of its allies had been concerned about Russian arms deals with Iran, but Russia has
said that it interprets the latest sanctions to include advanced air defense systems as part of the ban on
exports of major weapons systems to Iran, meaning that Russia will not be completing its planned sales to
Iran ("Russia Ends Talk…”). The United States and Russia have also had success in bilateral negotiations
concerning Russia’s possible admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Russia has been
attempting to join the WTO since the early 1990s, and support from the United States is crucial for
accession into the organization. Russia will however have to solve issues with other trade partners such as
Georgia, which will likely be a long process in itself ("After 17 Years…”). In late November, at the NATO
meeting in Lisbon, several key agreements were reached with Russia. A missile defense shield that will
likely link to a Russian missile defense system was tentatively agreed upon, as was a restructuring of the
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NATO-Russia Council. Additionally, Russia agreed to allow more NATO supplies to be transported across
Russian territory to Afghanistan (Dempsey).
While much progress has been made in building a stronger, more positive relationship between
Moscow and Washington, there are still many serious issues that could lead to an untimely break before the
reset of relations can be fully implemented. In August, Russia deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile
system to Abkhazia, showing Russia’s continued support for the breakaway province (Schwirtz). While
relations between the United States and Russia look quite promising after almost two years of intentional
engagement, lack of domestic support among other challenges could limit the possibility for long term
cooperation.
Broad Policy Options
There are three general policy options for approaching Russia: a hard line approach, a partial
engagement based on common interest approach, and a full engagement approach. The first approach, in
which the United States “calls things by their name…an authoritarian, bullying, and aggressive power and
admit that a new Cold War is on and act accordingly” would further isolate Russia and increase mistrust
(Legvold 81). Following Russia’s involvement in Georgia in August 2008, this seemed to be the way in
which U.S. Russian relations were going, but neither Moscow nor Washington were ultimately content
with this option. Henry Kissinger and George Shultz observed that “isolating Russia is not a sustainable
long-range policy. It is neither feasible nor desirable to isolate a country adjoin Europe, Asia and the
Middle East and possessing a stockpile of nuclear arms comparable to that of the United States” (Åslund 4).
Ultimately, some level of cooperation is mutually beneficial to the extent that a return to the cold war is
not a viable option.
Another option is a policy of partial engagement or an issue based engagement approach to U.S.-
Russian relations, holding that differences between the United States and Russia are large enough that full
engagement is not possible or is not desirable. The United States and Russia would work together on areas
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of agreement and common interest and would acknowledge their disagreements in other areas and seek to
at least manage them. This seems to have been the trend for the last few years prior to the Obama
administration. Partial engagement continues to be an acceptable option if more extended engagement
becomes impossible due to U.S. domestic issues or if Russia does not show interest in greater levels of
engagement.
The third policy option is full engagement with Russia. This option would seek to form broader
levels of cooperation at a number of levels and seems to most closely match the policies of President
Obama’s administration. The creation of the B.P.C., in which a desire for cooperation and understanding
among American and Russian people as well as the numerous working groups to address issues in which the
two states can cooperate, seems to be the basis for a policy of long term engagement. Full engagement
provides greater opportunity for the building of mutual trust and greater cooperation, making ties stronger
and more enduring. This policy has been relatively successful so far, but there is the potential for U.S.
domestic politics as well as Russian involvement in the former Soviet republics, especially Georgia, to limit
the feasibility of full engagement.
Policy Recommendations
Both Russia and the United States have many incentives for pursuing a policy of strengthening the
U.S.-Russian relationship. While both Russia and the United States have concerns about the other’s
approach to foreign policy, much can be gained through close cooperation. Many steps toward a healthier
relationship have been made in the last two years, but the long term direction for relations between
Moscow and Washington are not clear. Engagement should be further emphasized through NATO-Russian
cooperation while reassuring Eastern European allies and Georgia, building stronger economic ties, and
strengthening dialogue through the B.P.C.
Improved relations between NATO and Russia are a significant step toward restoring trust between
Russia and the United States, as well as with Western Europe. This fall, Russian President Medvedev
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attended the Russia-NATO summit, his first meeting with NATO since before the war with Georgia, after
recalling Russian troops from Perevia, Georgia. Plans to include Russia in missile defense talks are also a
chance to reformulate a contentious issue into an opportunity for further cooperation. The opening of
relations between Russia and NATO is essential for bringing greater stability to Europe and dealing with the
continued situation in Georgia (Bennhold).
At the same time, the United States must continue to reassure Eastern European countries,
including Ukraine, and also Georgia that their relations with the United States are not weakened due to
closer relations between the United States and Russia. Part of a policy of renewed cooperation is the
recognition that “the United States has the right to hope that Russia will gradually understand that it is in its
national interest to deal with its neighbors by adopting a strategy of reassurance rather than a crude one of
wielding carrots and sticks, particularly sticks” (Legvold 83). Closer relations with Russia do not have to
mean reduced involvement with Eastern Europe. While the future of Ukraine, in particular, worries much
of Europe as its relations with Russia have grown dramatically closer, Yanukovich seems to want to
continue to maintain close ties with Europe, but to remain neutral in military associations (Castle).
Increased emphasis upon economic ties could further ensure sustained engagement. Russia wants
to diversify its economy away from oil dependence, which means it will need foreign investment. Greater
economic ties would further communication and increase the number of connections, and therefore the
cost of confrontation (“Russia Steps…"). In addition, the implementation of the 123 agreement between
Russia and the United States could provide numerous economic benefits to both states. Since the Clinton
administration, the executive branch has periodically said that it would push for the repeal of the Jackson-
Vanik amendment, which was part of Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 and prohibited the granting of mostfavored
nation status with the United States to any state with a non-market economy that restricts the
emigration of its people. This amendment was passed following the high emigration fees imposed by the
USSR on those who had studies in the USSR who wanted to leave in order to combat the “brain drain” of
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Jews emigrating to Israel and the West (Legvold 86). The amendment serves little purpose other than to
aggravate Russia, and it is also an obstacle to Russia’s WTO accession.
Repealing this amendment would
cost the United States little, but be a major token of good will toward Russia.
Increased emphasis upon the B.P.C. should be applied in an attempt to boost the visibility of the
discussions and to provide increased incentives to cooperate at multiple different levels. Due to its
relatively new creation, the B.P.C. has had little time to make substantive progress and very little has been
written about it. If it proves to be an effective tool of U.S.-Russian cooperation, it could have broad
implications for the overall stability of the bilateral relationship.
Toward a Sustainable Relationship
While U.S.-Russian relations have experienced many challenges and uncertainties since the end of
the Cold War, there is currently great potential for the establishment of a more sustainable relationship
founded in cooperation. Emphases on reliability and open communication as well as determination to deal
with issues of mutual concern are important steps in this process. Long term continuation of this policy,
breaking through decades of mistrust and skepticism would benefit both the United States and Russia.
Whether or not domestic politics will allow for continued engagement, however, is still uncertain.
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Works Cited
Alcaro, Riccardo, and Emiliano Alessandri. "Re-Setting US-EU-Russia Relations: Moving Beyond the
Rhetoric." Transatlantic Security Symposium 2009. US-Europe Russia Security Relations: Toward a New
Compact? Rome, (June 22, 2009): 1-11. Columbia International Affairs Online. Web. 3 Nov. 2010.
Åslund, Anders, and Andrew Kuchins. "Pressing the "Reset Button" on US-Russia Relations." Peterson
Institute for International Economics (2009): 1-14. Web. 27 Nov. 2010.
Baker, Peter, and Dan Bilefsky. "Russia and U.S. Sign Nuclear Arms Reduction Pact." The New York Times 8
Apr. 2010. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Baker, Peter. "Obama Rallying Support for Pact with Russia." The New York Time 1 Dec. 2010. Web. 3
Dec. 2010.
Baker, Peter. "Obama Plans Revival of Russian Nuclear Deal." The New York Times 6 May 2010. Web. 5
Dec. 2010.
Bennhold, Katrin. "Russia Accepts Invitation to Attend NATO Summit Meeting." The New York Times 19
Oct. 2010. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Biden, Joseph. "Remarks by Vice President Biden at 45 th Munich Conference on Security Policy." 45th
Conference on Security Policy. Munich, Germany. 7 Feb. 2009. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
Castle, Stephen. "E.U., Kiev and Moscow Search for Friendly Ties." The New York Times 21 Nov. 2010.
Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Dempsey, Judy. "NATO Leaders Agree to New Start with Russia." The New York Times 21 Nov. 2010.
Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Kramer, Andrew E. "After 17 Years, Russia Resolves U.S. Objections for Entry into W.T.O." The New
York Times 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Kramer, Andrew E. "Arms Treaty Takes Crucial Step Forward in Russia." The New York Times 25 Jan. 2011:
A9. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
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Kramer, Andrew E. "Russia Ends Talk of Missile Sale to Iran." The New York Times 22 Sept. 2010. Web. 5
Dec. 2010.
Lazarevic, Dusica. "NATO Enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia: Old Wine in New Bottles?" The Quarterly
Journal IX.1 (2009): 29-66. Web. 25 Nov. 2010.
Legvold, Robert. "The Russia File: How to Move Toward a Strategic Partnership." Foreign Affairs 88.4
(2009): 78-93. Print.
Pifer, Steven. "Reversing the Decline: An Agenda for U.S.-Russian Relations in 2009." Foreign Policy at
Brookings Policy Paper 10 (2009): 1-38. Web. 3 Dec. 2010.
Rojansky, Matthew, and Peter Topychkanov. "The 123 Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Energizing the
U.S.-Russia Reset." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 1 Dec.
2010.
Schwirtz, Michael. "Russia Moves Missiles Into Breakaway Region." The New York Times 11 Aug. 2010.
Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
"U.S. - Russian Bilateral Presidential Commission: Mission Statement." U.S. Russia Bilateral Presidential
Commission. U.S. Department of State, n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Vahabov, Tamerlan. "Ukraine: A Challenge for U.S., EU & NATO Regional Policy." Caucasian Review of
International Affairs 4.3 (2010): 297-305. Web. 25 Nov. 2010.
"Where Does Europe End? The Politics of NATO and the EU Enlargement." World Affairs 164.4 (2002):
178-97. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov. 2010.
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Regan Schaeffer
Central Michigan University
If You Walk Away, I’ll Walk Away:
Alternatives to Our Demonization of the Other
If You Walk Away, I’ll Walk Away
I don’t know how many of you recognize the title of my paper as a quotation from the lyrics of a
song called Landlocked Blues, by my favorite band, Bright Eyes. Conor Oberst, the singer-songwriter, sings:
There's kids playing guns in the street,
And one’s pointing his tree branch at me.
So I put my hands up; I say "Enough is enough,
If you walk away, I'll walk away."
And he shot me dead.
My presentation is based on a longer paper examining the national emotional controversy over the
proposed construction of a Muslim mosque and community center near the site of the 9/11 attacks on the
World Trade Center.
In the lead-up to the mid-term election season, last summer of 2010, the very idea of this
construction became a catalyst for the expression of the anxiety, fear and anger that New Yorkers and the
rest of America feel about the Muslim world, emotions which, immediately after the events of 9/11 were
appropriately directed at radicalized expressions of Islam.
It seems to me, that we Americans often don’t attempt much critical understanding of either
international Islamic issues or the real beliefs and real experience of our Muslim-American neighbors. We
rely instead on information from and opinions of peer groups with whom we are comfortable: family,
friends, school and church community, familiar, but biased news media, and popular culture figures.
These opinions can be inflammatory.
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The most vicious current anti-Muslim diatribes express a belief in an organized world-wide Islamic
social and political agenda of infiltration and violent overthrow of Western democracy in favor of an Islamic
state. A recently aired CNN documentary called “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door,” tells of two
hundred and fifty local Muslim families, long term residents of Murfreesboro, TN, who pooled resources
and raised money to purchase fifteen acres of land to build a mosque and community center on the outskirts
their town. They had lived as friends with their Christian neighbors for over thirty years and those friends,
immediately after 9/11 had shown support, understanding, and reassurance that they were not conflating
their Muslim neighbors and all Muslims with radical terrorists. But, in the frenzy of anti-Islamic political
rhetoric that reached a crescendo last summer over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, many of these
Christian neighbors became opponents of the mosque, saying they “were outraged that something of this
nature was being shoved down our throats” (O’Brien). Opponents of the mosque filed suit, asking for a
restraining order, and during the proceedings, the plaintiff’s lawyer attempted to question the validity of
Islam as a religion.
Why are we drawn to this sort of rhetoric?
In his Pulitzer prize winning book, The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker says that we fight for life
against the threat of death, but, among all animals, we alone have self-consciousness and awareness of the
inevitability of our impending death. Becker says that we transcend death by finding meaning for our lives
in the symbolic constructs of our culture. Because we fear extinction with insignificance, because we cannot
bear the knowledge that we will die without leaving a trace behind, we work to have an effect on eternity.
Our culture embodies our attempted transcendence of death. (Becker 5)
But, in reality, any symbolic denial of mortality is a figment of the imagination. Whatever our
belief in an afterlife, we each know that we will die, one day. Self-transcendence via culture does not give
us the solution to problem of death. We have shifted our fear of death onto the higher level of cultural
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perpetuity. Now, we must not only fear death, but also fear the loss of our self-transcendent meanings of
the society in which we live.
As we operate within the cultural institutions into which we have poured so much meaning, we
compete to stand out, to achieve the status of heroes within our immortality systems. In this effort to
sustain our symbolic immortality, we construct a conscious symbolic self-esteem for ourselves, and a
supporting cultural hero-system to feed our competitive self worth.
We compete to carve out the immortality of our individual success in our families, our schools, and
our work, and we compete, as well, for the long-term growth and success and dominance of our abiding
institutions: our sports teams, our universities, our political parties, economies, nations, and yes, our
religions.
Becker says that the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, but he also says
that that this truth is the root of human evil, and that in our struggle for individual and collective
immortality, we construct institutions requiring our protection against the demonized “other,” leading us,
in the extreme, to participate in genocide and holy wars.
Religion provides comfort, certainty, and the promise of immortality in the face of our inescapable
fear. This is good. Religious institutions provide family, community, and symbolic immortality over time,
while charismatic leaders give us a hero, and our emulation of that leader offers us each the chance for
individual heroism. This is good.
But, in Becker’s analysis, all culture operates to bestow symbolic immortality. This means that all
culture operates as religion does, and in this analysis, the firefighters and civilian dead in 9/11 became
immediate martyrs, ground zero is sanctified space, which must be defended from demonized “others,” i.e.
all Muslims, and from those who speak for tolerance.
If, as Becker believed, our use of symbolic social and cultural structures to deal with death anxiety is
an inevitable outgrowth of inherent human psychology, then each of us, consciously and unconsciously,
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participates in our own self-identification into exclusionary groups. Social and cultural groups that indulge
in extreme rhetoric, whether internally and or publicly, incite defensive emotional reactions from those
who have been “otherized.”
As I asked earlier, why are we drawn to this sort of rhetoric?
Becker says we are this way out of our fear, and our human nature. If we can recognize this, why do
we continue to participate? The philosopher and ethicist Lloyd Steffen believes that we face and on-going
choice in our religious behavior. The destructive option in religion is the alternate choice to life-affirming
religion. He explains that the destructive choice our actions within religion is appealing because it is natural
and easy to drift into equating ultimacy, which is our natural belief in something transcendent beyond
ourselves, with absolutism, and absolutism makes little demands on our reason and intellect. Steffen says,
“Absolutism is so powerful that it can authorize evil acts, suppress moral critique, and then motivate people
lured to act by goodness to conceive their evil act as good” (Steffen 34). Operating within absolutism, we
can feel comfortable in the certainty of having religious decisions made by others, or other’s interpretation
of our traditional religion.
Steffen identifies our passions as a potential entry into making destructive choices in religion,
explaining that passions concentrate value and give depth of meaning to life, and we humans have a need for
meaning and value. We unfortunately also have a tendency toward overvaluation: of objects, people, or
our ideas of ultimacy. Some overvaluation is acceptable, but passion unchecked by reason leads us into
fanaticism. If morality is the object of our overvaluation, this leads us into moral absolutism, the pursuit of
which can be all-consuming, but is emotionally satisfying since it provides us the security of conceptual
rigidity, that is, we no longer need to think for ourselves, and our actions are automatically pre-justified.
This pursuit of an absolute duty is not duty called for by reason, as moral duty should be, but
absolute unthinking duty. Thus, our will and ability to reason and take responsibility for ourselves is
eroded, and our reason is eventually destroyed. Steffen defines fanaticism as “aiming at perfection in
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disregard for the interests of others,” as absolutism destroys our sense of necessity of protection of life, not
even our own.
Clearly, the most effective way to avoid the lure of destructive choices in our religious behavior is
to commit ourselves to our own reasoning and intellect and to the affirmation of the diversity and
complexity of life. We need to work to expand our knowledge and understanding of ourselves and the
world, and to resist simplistic and, I think, dualistic thinking. In this spirit, and in a belief that serious ideas
can be expressed with humor, I invite you to view the following video:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/377121/march-10-2011/reza-aslan
Works Cited
Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Print.
O’Brien, Solidad. “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door.” CNN News. 28 Mar. 2011. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlqz3e9OrA
Reza Aslan Interview. “The Colbert Report.” Comedy Central Network, 10 Mar. 2011.
Retrieved from http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/377121/march-10-
2011/reza-aslan
Steffen, Lloyd. Holy War, Just War. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Print.
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Caitlin Schmitt
Carroll University
“Marian was the good angel of our lives”: Feminine Power, Queen Victoria,
and the New Feminine Ideal In The Woman In White
In 1861 Wilkie Collins' friend, John Leech published a comic in Punch entitled, "Awful
Apparition!" (Peters Illustration 15). Leech depicts Mr. Tomkins as weak and effeminate. His shocked and
highly emotional face along with the activity of novel reading contrasts sharply with the powerful and
dominant masculine ideal. His back is turned away from his wife, and he hunches protectively over his copy
of The Woman in White. This comic is an allusion to the gender-bending that Fosco, Mr. Fairlie, and Marian
exhibit throughout the novel, for Collins constructs effeminate men and masculine women. The immense
popularity of The Woman in White demonstrates the Victorian readership’s fascination with breaches in
traditional gender roles. Breaking the role of the traditional angel in the house ideal, Mrs. Tomkins
dominates her husband, and he appears to be the fool while she is logical and intelligent. Mrs. Tomkins’
assertive masculinity along with her role as the lady of the house suggests the paradox of Victorian
femininity. I argue that both Queen Victoria and Wilkie Collins suggest the feminine paradox: Victoria was
an angel in the house in public and a feminist in private and Collins represents the paradox through the
angelic but progressive Marian Halcombe. I further argue that Victoria’s contradictory roles and Collins'
characterization of Marian as a masculine but domestic woman demonstrate that feminine power is
represented as a paradox.
My connection between Victoria, the seemingly ideal Victorian woman, and Marian, the openly
paradoxical female, brings to light the issue that the angel in the house ideal was a public persona and that
the supposed ideal Victorian woman was powerful and assertive at home. Elizabeth Langland argues that
Queen Victoria’s contradictory roles as a middle-class wife and mother and an independent monarch greatly
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changed the way that Victorian women thought of themselves and their roles in society. Langland further
argues that Victoria was a source of the Angel in the House‟s idealism and contradictions. I agree with
Langland that Victoria was a source of contradiction, but I argue that the Victorian public did not know of
this contradiction. They viewed her as the epitome of the ideal domestic woman. I further argue that
Victoria's role as a female monarch did not change the way Victorian women thought of themselves. Since
Victoria consciously portrayed herself as a traditional angel in the house who happened to be the queen of
England, Victorian women did not question the angel in the house ideal. Victoria's private letters, however,
indicate that she was not the ideal domestic woman. The contradiction between Victoria's public and
private selves demonstrate the paradox of Victorian femininity.
In “Cage Aux Folles: Sensation and Gender in Wilkie Collins‟s The Woman in White,” D.A.
Miller contends that the sensationalism in The Woman in White evokes feelings of “nervous excitability” (111)
within the reader, and thus forces the male reader to develop feminine emotional responses. Collins‟ novel,
according to Miller, is “profoundly about enclosing and secluding the woman in male „bodies,‟ among them
institutions like marriage and madhouses” (112). While Collins characterizes Marian with masculine
features, I do not agree that he “secluded” Marian in a male body. The masculine personality traits that
Marian exhibits actually suggest that the traits are not in fact, masculine; women can be intelligent,
powerful, and independent without losing sight of their femininity. On the other hand, Brooke Allen argues
that Collins condemns Marian to permanent spinsterhood and rewards Laura, the novel‟s heroine, with a
loving husband (130). I argue against Allen‟s claims that Laura is the heroine of The Woman in White and that
Marian is condemned to spinsterhood: Marian is actually the heroine of the novel and Laura is condemned.
The paradoxical masculinity and domesticity that Marian exemplifies renders her as one of the most beloved
characters in the novel while Laura's insipid weakness and innocence demonstrate her inferiority to Marian.
Coventry Patmore‟s poem, “The Angel in the House” and John Ruskin‟s Sesame and Lilies demonstrate the
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oles and behavior of the traditional Victorian woman. Not even Victoria, the epitome of the domestic
ideal, conformed completely to the role of the angel in the house.
Victoria’s ascension to the throne in 1837 drew public attention to the paradox that she
represented. Langland argues that Victoria as “head of the most powerful country in the world bespeaks her
own signal role in the construction of a new feminine ideal” (63). Through this new feminine ideal Victoria
demonstrates that Victorian women can perform paradoxical roles: they can be both middle-class domestic
angels and powerful, independent matriarchs. I begin my essay by defining Victorian society’s construction
of the ideal woman. In the next section I present the paradox of Victoria’s public and private life. The final
focus of the essay consists of Collins’ support of the feminine paradox that Marian demonstrates and his
critique of the traditional Victorian woman, which he represents in the character of Laura Fairlie.
While Victoria demonstrates that women can succeed and prosper in powerful roles, Patmore and
Ruskin celebrate the submissive, weak, and devoted middle-class woman. Patmore’s 1854 poem, “The
Angel in the House” demonstrates the quintessential characteristics of the ideal Victorian woman: passivity,
chastity, domesticity, and innocence. Patmore claims that women live for their husbands, for “[m]an must
be pleased; but him to please / Is woman’s pleasure” (33). Victoria and Marian both exhibit several
characteristics of the angel in the house; however, their strength and independence demonstrate that
women can be more than mere domestic angels. On the other hand, the angel in the house's main duty is to
make her husband’s life as comfortable and pleasurable as possible. She lives for her husband instead of for
herself, and she enjoys sacrificing her own interests to better serve her husband. If her husband feels
displeased or impatient with her “[s]he leans and weeps against his breast, / And seems to think the sin was
hers” (33). The perfect angel in the house willingly accepts her husband’s complaints and immediately
assumes that she is at fault when he is angry. Believing that her husband is always right, she willingly submits
to him.
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The second main characteristic that the angel in the house displays is chastity. As a domestic
creature she limits her love to her husband and children. Therefore,
Her beauty
[. . .]
Which made an altar of her face,
Was not of the flesh, though that was fair,
But a most pure and living light. (39)
The angel in the house does not give in to carnal temptations or have illicit love affairs; she is pure and
virtuous. Her beauty is not fleshly or voluptuous, for it actually emphasizes her piety and goodness. Since
the angel of the house rarely leaves the home her husband is her only source of sexual pleasure. By having a
pure and domestic wife, the husband never needs to question his children’s paternity.
In addition to chastity, the angel in the house also demonstrates the characteristic of domesticity.
Her roles as a wife and mother require that she remain in the home while her husband works and travels.
When the angel in the house is home
Her sons pursue the butterflies,
Her baby daughter mocks the doves
With throbbing coo; in his fond eyes
She’s Venus with her little Loves;
[. . .]
Ten years to-day has she been his. (45)
This passage demonstrates that when the angel in the house accomplishes her motherly and wifely duties her
children and husband are able to thrive and flourish. Her children can have carefree, happy childhoods and
her husband can feel proud of his family. While her husband is the head of the family, the angel of the house
is the head of the domestic sphere. If she does not perform her duties well the family will erupt into chaos
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and despair. She does not wander from the home, for it is her duty as a wife and mother to never leave. The
allusion to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, demonstrates that the angel in the house is a domestic
goddess; consequently, she has the beauty and charm of Venus, but she is confined to the home.
Similarly, John Ruskin’s, Sesame and Lilies demonstrates the Victorian domestic goddess and her
connection to the home. Unlike Patmore, Ruskin emphasizes men and women’s separate spheres and the
duties and behaviors that Victorian society expected them to perform. Ruskin says,
[t] he man’s power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator,
the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for
adventure, for war, and for conquest . . . the woman’s power is for rule, not for battle,
— and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement,
and decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and their places. . . . [H]ome is
yet wherever she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far round her . . . (30)
Ruskin demonstrates the difference between men and women’s power: men actively create, discover, and
defend while women maintain and mange the home. Men must leave the home in order to fulfill their roles
in society, but women create home wherever they go. They provide comfort and support, and they create a
comfortable environment for their husbands to return to. Ruskin praises the traditional domestic goddess
because she is the main figure that men can trust and depend on. In addition to defining women’s roles in
society, Patmore and Ruskin argue that the angel in the house must be innocent, virtuous, and wise.
In addition to domesticity the angel in the house is also innocent. She is virginal and angelically
good; therefore, she does not suffer from mysterious guilt. Patmore says
[h] ow amiable and innocent
Her pleasure in her power to charm;
How humbly careful to attract,
Though crown’d with all the soul desires,
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Connubial aptitude exact,
Diversity that never tires. (16)
While the angel in the house possesses the beauty and charm to attract men, she is cautious and careful
about whom she attracts. She is intensely loyal and faithful to her husband, and she stays true to their
marriage and their conjugal love even though she has the ability to attract other men.
The two characteristics that Ruskin praises in the middle-class woman are her virtuous goodness
and wisdom. He argues that she
must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not for selfdevelopment,
but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her
husband, but that she may never fail from his side: wise, not with the narrowness of
insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness, of an infinitely variable,
because infinitely applicable, modesty of service—the true changefulness of woman. (31)
In this passage, Ruskin, like Patmore, demonstrates that a noble middle-class woman must be devoid of sin
and corruption. Wisdom, the other characteristic that Ruskin deems necessary for the Victorian woman,
emphasizes his belief that women are men’s companions and not their superiors. He argues that women are
not to use their wisdom to overcome male superiority, but to faithfully and modestly serve men. He also
believes that women should possess wisdom, but they should not be so wise as to be independent of men:
they use their wisdom to accommodate men and their needs. Besides goodness and wisdom, Ruskin also
values women’s beauty.
Another quality that Ruskin seeks in the ideal Victorian woman is beauty. Her role “is to secure for
her such physical training and exercise as may confirm her health, and perfect her beauty, the highest
refinement of that beauty being unattainable without splendour of activity and of delicate strength” (31).
Victorian women must strive for perfection even though they will never achieve it. Their attempt to perfect
their beauty is just as important as managing the household and taking care of the family. Ideal beauty not
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only secures her husband‟s social status; it demonstrates her health, and therefore, the health of the family.
While Patmore and Ruskin demonstrate the traditional views and roles of Victorian women, Victoria
herself challenged this traditional view and encouraged society to see women as powerful and independent
beings.
When Victoria succeeded William IV in 1837 at the age of eighteen she was unaware that she
would be one of the most beloved monarchs in English history. Throughout her long and successful reign,
the British people referred to her as “the mother of the nation” (Cagna 378) and “England‟s Good Angel”
(Cagna 383). As a wife and mother she emulated the Victorian feminine ideal and she represented the
model of domesticity. The public was able to love and respect Victoria for her adherence to the domestic
ideal, and therefore, accepted her as their matriarch. Victoria, in a letter to her Uncle Leopold, said that
“„[the British press] say[s] no Sovereign was more loved than I am . . . and that from our happy domestic home—
which gives such a good example‟” (Arnstein 57). This suggests that the British public loved Victoria
because she upheld the domestic ideal and, she continued to portray herself as the traditional angel in the
house throughout her reign.
As an angel in the house, Victoria portrayed her family as the epitome of the domestic ideal. The
lithograph, "The Royal Family at Home (1843)" depicts Victoria and Albert playing and frolicking with
their children, and they appear to be carefree and blissfully happy. Through photographs, lithographs, and
other forms of propaganda, Victoria consciously portrayed herself as exemplifying the Victorian feminine
ideal. Therefore, the British public, and certainly Wilkie Collins, thought of Victoria as a traditional, and
not a progressive woman. Therefore, while Victoria occupied the most powerful position in England, her
views concerning women‟s rights were highly traditional and conservative. She doubted women‟s
leadership capabilities, for she said, “„I am every day more convinced that we women, if we are to be good
women, feminine and amiable and domestic, are not fitted to reign; at least it is contre gr that they drive
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themselves to the work which it entails‟” (Houston 176). This demonstrates that as a woman Victoria
thought that she may not be fit for such a masculine position; however, she never abdicated her throne, and
Parliament and Victoria never gave Albert the power of a king (Houston 172). Therefore, Victoria must
have had faith in her abilities to rule England, but like all human beings, she occasionally doubted herself. It
is significant that Parliament assigned Albert the title of Prince Consort instead of king, for it suggests that
they were confident enough in Victoria to allow her to have more power than her husband. To solve
Victoria‟s paradoxical role and to justify her superiority over Albert, she asserted that “„this cannot now be
helped, and it is the duty of every one to fulfill all that they are called upon to do, in whatever situation they
may be!‟” (Houston 176). Victoria suggests that her role as England‟s queen is her assigned role in life, and
she believes that it is her duty and her destiny to fulfill it. She recognizes the hardships that come with filling
a stereotypically male role, but she confidently overcomes these obstacles in order to do what she needs to
do. Her public image, however, contrasts sharply with her private image.
Victoria‟s public image exemplified the role of the ideal middle-class wife and mother, but in
private she never allowed her traditional role to interfere with her royal power. Victoria‟s marriage to
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha demonstrates this contradiction, for she was subordinate as well as
superior to him. Before her marriage to Albert she wrote a letter to her uncle Leopold describing their
relationship. She said, “„the English are very jealous at the idea of Albert‟s having any political power, or
meddling with affairs here—which I know from himself he will not do‟” (Arnstein 67). This suggests that
Victoria and Albert have an understanding that Albert‟s role is to support and assist her, not to rise above
her. This untraditional marriage demonstrates Victoria‟s role as a progressive and independent woman. The
marriage between Victoria and Albert is a role reversal of Ruskin‟s traditional views of Victorian marriage.
For the first two years of their marriage, Victoria denied Albert any political power, and she also did not
allow him to control their home. In a letter to a friend, Albert lamented that “[i]n my home life I am very
happy and contented; but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is, that I am only the
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husband and not the master of the house‟” (Arnstein 54). This reveals that Victoria was a powerful
matriarch both inside and outside the domestic sphere: Victoria and Albert were partners in marriage but
Victoria was the master of the house as well as Britain. Additionally, while Victoria enjoyed a blissfully
happy marriage, she was aware that most marriages were not as happy as hers had been. She said that “„[a] ll
marriage is such a lottery—the happiness is always an exchange—though it may be a very happy one—
still—the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband‟s slave‟”(Helsinger 74). Consequently, Victoria
felt worried about women‟s roles in marriage and the abuse of patriarchal power that husbands inflicted on
their wives. Victoria's private views about marriage and her superiority over Albert contrast with her
traditional image, and thus, represent the paradox of Victorian femininity. Victoria confesses her true
opinion on men and women‟s roles in Victorian society in a private letter to her eldest daughter, the
Princess Royal. Victoria warns her daughter that “men are very selfish and the woman‟s devotion is always
one of submission which makes our poor sex so very unenviable” (Fulford 44). A true angel in the house
would never call men selfish or complain about women‟s submission to men. Far from a progressive
feminist, Victoria did not voice these beliefs publically, but she did voice them strongly in private letters to
her daughter. Victoria‟s public persona clashes with her private opinions, and Marian Halcombe, the
heroine of The Woman in White also exemplifies this paradox.
Marian Halcombe is a conventional “good angel” at the end of the novel; she is Walter Hartright‟s
loyal confidant, Laura‟s dutiful sister, and a maternal aunt. Marian, however, represents the novel‟s
ultimate paradox: she is feminine and masculine, beautiful and ugly, powerful and powerless. Walter
Hartright describes Marian as “ugly,” (31) “swarthy,” (32) and lacking “in those feminine attractions” (32).
Through the character of Marian, Wilkie Collins demonstrates the juxtaposition of feminine subordination
and feminine power. Marian, therefore, represents Collins‟ conflict with the Victorian feminine ideal and
the excessively powerful, independent woman. Even though Marian often challenges the role of the
Victorian middle-class woman Victorian readers loved and admired her. Despite Marian‟s masculine
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ehavior, Victorian patriarchal society did not find her threatening. John Sutherland claims that “[m]idleaged
men by the score fell in love with Marian Halcombe” (7). Men, therefore, did not view Marian as a
deviant and evil woman who threatened natural patriarchy. The Victorian public loved and idolized Marian,
and consequently, Victoria, for they were powerful, intelligent and independent women who did not
challenge Victorian patriarchal society.
Wilkie Collins was an influential feminist, and in his novel, The Woman In White, which was
published in 1859-1860, he criticized the Victorian ideal of womanhood and celebrated the new feminine
ideal that Marian exemplifies. In Brooke Allen’s book, Artistic License: Three Centuries of Good Writing and Bad
Behavior, she argues that “[t] he feminist heroine, Marian Halcombe, is something quite new in English
literature” (137). Through Marian, Collins demonstrates his critique of the angel in the house, for in
response to Laura’s upcoming marriage to Sir Percival Marian states,
No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the
enemies of our innocence and our peace—they drag us away from our parents’ love and
our sisters’ friendship—they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless
lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. (183)
Marian’s strong language against marriage is the opposite reaction that Patmore’s domestic angel or
Ruskin’s ideal wife exhibit. Believing that women should live for themselves and not their husbands,
Marian, like Victoria, argues that marriage is a form of slavery for women. Collins himself disliked the
institution of marriage, and what sets him apart from other Victorian novelists is that he wrote about his
criticism of marriage and social conventions in his writing (Allen 126). Therefore, it is understandable that
he incorporated his critique of Victorian femininity into Marian’s character. Unlike traditional Victorian
women, Marian is strong and cantankerous, and when she argues with Sir Percival she thinks that “[n] o
sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman” (147) This
demonstrates that Marian is not afraid to engage in a verbal fight with a man; she boldly thinks that as a
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woman she has an advantage over a man. Despite Marian’s deviation from the angel in the house ideal, she
also demonstrates characteristics that are typical of a traditional Victorian woman.
Marian, like Victoria, is also a paradox: in some ways she is extremely unconventional, but in
others she is a traditional angel in the house. Walter’s first meeting with Marian juxtaposes Marian’s
beautiful body with her unconventional style of dress, for
Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, . . . her waist, perfection
in the eyes of man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its natural circle, it was
visibly and delightfully undeformed by stays. (Collins 31)
Walter surprisingly says that the absence of a corset renders Marian’s body “delightfully undeformed” (31).
He praises her for not conforming to conventional Victorian dress, and this demonstrates that while Marian
is unconventional, she does not threaten patriarchy. Walter actually finds her more beautiful than the
traditional corseted woman, but his reaction to Marian’s face demonstrates that she is a paradox because as
Marian turns towards Walter, he thinks to himself, “[t]he lady is ugly!” (31). The unexpectedness of this
statement is horrifyingly sensational: Walter nor the reader expects that a grotesquely masculine face sits
atop a beautifully feminine body. Victoria never would have neglected to wear a corset, but her private
views about motherhood and marriage are just as shocking as Marian's unconventional dress. After seeing
her face, Walter places masculine qualities on Marian’s body, and he says,
Never was the old conventional maxim that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted—
never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startingly belied by the
face and head that crowned it. . . . She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; . . . her
expression—bright, frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be
altogether wanting in those feminine attractions. (Collins 32)
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Marian’s masculine and feminine characteristics suggest that she is the ultimate paradox: she possesses the
delicate body of a woman, but the intelligence and facial features of a man. This foreshadows that Marian
will occupy contradictory roles throughout the novel.
Collins’ characterization of Marian moves beyond stereotypes, and this makes Marian one of the
most realistic characters in the novel. She is not a stereotypically good woman or a stereotypically bad
woman; she exhibits a complex array of behaviors and characteristics. Marian’s transcendence of
stereotypes allows her to act both masculine and feminine; thus, Walter and Fosco treat her as their equal.
Richard Barickman, Susan MacDonald, and Myra Stark argue that Collins “refract[ed] the changing
conceptions of women’s roles that characterized Victorian England” (3). Barickman, MacDonald, and Stark
further argue that Collins represents stereotypical women in order to criticize Victorian society for using
stereotypes to categorize women (3). Marian’s superior intelligence suggests that women are men’s equals
and not their inferiors. Since the Victorians typically attributed intelligence to masculinity, Marian’s display
of intelligence demonstrates Collins’ progressive attitude concerning women’s capabilities. As the novel
progresses Walter relies on Marian’s advice and companionship, and he even confesses that he trusts her as
he trusts himself (533). When Walter receives Marian’s ambiguous note while awaiting trial in London he
quenches his anxiety and panic, and he decides to trust Marian’s judgment. He says,
I hardly knew to what forgetfulness of my obligations anxiety and alarm might not have
tempted me, but for the quieting influence of my faith in Marian. My absolute reliance on
her was the one earthly consideration which helped me to restrain myself, and gave me
courage to wait. (555)
Marian is much more than an insipid angel in the house; she is a strong and autonomous woman. Her
feminine power earns Walter’s respect and trust, and Marian, therefore, successfully navigates within the
masculine sphere and can talk to men as an equal. In addition to succeeding within the masculine sphere,
Marian also succeeds within the feminine sphere.
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Marian’s strong relationship with Walter demonstrates her paradoxical state, for she also has a close
relationship with Laura. Carolyn Dever argues that Marian provides a masculine companion for Walter and
a feminine companion for Laura (114). The juxtaposition of Marian’s male and female relationships suggests
that she is a paradox just like Victoria. Marian reveals her strong feelings for Laura when she tells Walter
that “I won’t live without [Laura], and she can’t live without me; and that is how I come to be at
Limmeridge House. My sister and I are honestly fond of each other” (34). Marian’s fondness for Laura
never ceases, and she even lives with the newly married Walter and Laura at the end of the novel (642).
Marian’s ability to fulfill two contradictory roles simultaneously demonstrates her connection to Victoria.
However, since Victoria did not exhibit her progressive views to the British public, Collins was unaware of
Victoria's paradoxical femininity, and he did not consciously model Marian after Victoria. Collins'
representation of Marian as a masculine angel in the house, however, suggests a new understanding of
Victorian femininity.
Victoria and Marian are powerful, independent, and masculine, but they still exhibit traditional
Victorian femininity. Marian, therefore, represents a new type of femininity, for the characters admire and
respect her in spite of, or maybe because of her masculinity. At the end of the novel, Walter says, “Marian
was the good angel of our lives—let Marian end our Story (643). Marian’s intelligence and good judgment
allow Walter to see her as a partner and an equal, and he is then able to respect her femininity. Fosco also
admires Marian, but he admires her for deviating from the role that Laura occupies: a spineless, foolish and
weak woman. Fosco asks,
Can you look at Miss Halcombe, and not see that she has the foresight and the resolution of
a man? . . . this grand creature, who stands in the strength of her love and her courage,
firm as a rock between us two, and that poor flimsy pretty blonde wife of yours—this
magnificent woman . . . you drive to extremities, as if she was no sharper and no bolder
than the rest of her sex. (331)
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Fosco tells Sir Percival that Marian is unlike other women: she is as strong and intelligent as a man. He says
that Sir Percival cannot treat Marian as he treats Laura and other traditional Victorian women because she
surpasses them in intelligence and courage. Instead of despising Marian for not conforming to traditional
Victorian femininity, Fosco argues that she is superior to Laura and that he and Sir Percival should treat her
as their equal. The contradiction of Walter‟s comment that Marian is a “good angel” (643) and Fosco‟s
assertion that Marian is comparable to a man demonstrates a new type of woman. Marian‟s masculine
qualities, however, do not threaten the men in the novel, and this explains why Fosco and Walter adore
her.
Marian is intelligent, independent and powerful, but she does not threaten patriarchal authority.
Thus, British Victorian society and the other characters in the novel view her deviation from the feminine
ideal as non-threatening, and they love her for her unusual masculinity. Fosco confesses his love for Marian
when he says that she is,
the magnificent creature who is inscribed on my heart as „Marian‟—who is known in the
colder atmosphere of Society, as „Miss Halcombe.‟ . . . Just Heaven! with what
inconceivable rapidity I learnt to adore that woman. At sixty, I worshipped her with the
volcanic ardour of eighteen. (614-615)
Since Fosco is the villain of the novel, his attraction to Marian is suspicious and alarming. His love for her,
however, redeems him and emphasizes his effervescent charm. In Margaret Oliphant's review, "Sensation
Novels" she argues that
[Fosco] is more real, more genuine, more Italian even, in his fatness and size, in his love of
pets and pastry, than the whole array of conventional Italian villains, elegant and subtle,
whom we are accustomed to meet in literature. (567)
Oliphant, as well as most readers of The Woman in White, cannot help but love Fosco, and his love for
Marian emphasizes the charm of her own unusual qualities. In addition to Fosco, Walter also harbors a deep
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affection for Marian. Similarly, the British public adored her, and the male readers fell in love with her.
This demonstrates that Victorian men unconsciously desired intelligent and strong women instead of the
traditional angel in the house.
Marian possesses the main ideal qualities that men celebrate in the good Victorian women, but she
also possesses the ideal qualities that men celebrate in themselves, such as intelligence and judiciousness.
Marian exhibits these masculine and feminine qualities when she anxiously waits for Laura’s arrival to
Blackwater Park. She confesses that,
If I only had the privileges of a man, I would order out Sir Percival’s best horse instantly,
and tear away on a night-gallop, eastward, to meet the rising sun—Being however, nothing
but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and petticoats, for life, I must respect the
housekeeper’s opinions, and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way. (200)
A meek domestic angel such as Laura would not even have the passion or the strength to think about
charging out of the house in the middle of the night, but Marian’s masculine senses desperately want to have
the freedom to do this. Marian’s conflict is that she is a woman, and she does not have the same freedom
that a man has. Considering that Marian has free will, she has the option to challenge patriarchal authority,
but she chooses to conform to society’s expectations of women in this instance. Collins does not criticize
Marian’s adherence to or her deviation from traditional femininity; however, he does criticize Laura, and he
utilizes her to exemplify the consequences of adhering too closely to the role of the perfect angel in the
house.
Collins’ characterization of Laura Fairlie suggests that he wanted women to use Marian as their role
model and to deviate from traditional Victorian femininity. Walter’s description of Laura demonstrates
Collins’ criticism of British society’s feminine ideal, for when Walter first sees Laura she is
clothed in simple muslin dress, the pattern of it formed by broad alternate stripes of
delicate blue and white. A scarf of the same material sits crisply and closely round her
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shoulders, and a little straw hat of the natural colour, plainly and sparingly trimmed with
ribbon to match the gown, covers her head, and throws its soft pearly shadow over the
upper part of her face. (48-49)
Walter’s physical description of Laura is much more flattering than his description of Marian, but Marian’s
strangeness intrigues the reader and Laura is dull and colorless in comparison. Laura is not at all masculine,
but there nothing bold or vivacious about her; her transparent and lackluster character suggests that a
woman’s role as an angel of the house deprives her of life and a personality. Not even the description of
Laura’s eyes is able to compel the reader to feel interested or sympathetic for her. Walter describes Laura’s
eyes as “soft, limpid, turquoise blue, so often sung by the poets, so seldom seen in real life” (49).Walter
suggests that Laura’s ideal beauty is almost too perfect to be real, and this perfection is not as invigorating
or exciting as Marian’s ugliness. When comparing her own appearance to Laura’s, Marian says, “I am dark
and ugly, and she is fair and pretty. Everybody thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more justice
still). In short, she is an angel” (34). While Marian intends to compliment Laura in this statement, the
reader eventually realizes that Marian’s role as an angel is preferable to Laura’s role. Laura’s compliance to
traditional femininity renders her a lifeless and spineless being.
As a traditional Victorian woman, Laura is lifeless and childishly dependent. After Marian rescues
her from the Asylum, Laura is “[a] live in poverty and in hiding. Alive, with the poor drawing-master to
fight her battle, and to win the way back for her to her place in the world of living beings.” (421) Laura’s
apparent helplessness makes her unable to fight for herself or demand her former position in society.
Instead, she lazily submits to life and has Walter fight for her. Ann Cvetkovich argues that Walter is a
“commodity fetishist” because Laura’s social class is the only explanation for loving her over Anne Catherick
(90). This suggests that Laura’s traditional innocence and beauty are not enough to win a man’s interest or
affection: her wealth and social position are the only qualities that are valuable to Walter. Marian’s
intelligence and strength interest Walter more than Laura’s weakness and innocence, and this suggests that
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men feel more interested in masculine women. Laura succumbs to melancholy and allows her negative
experience to deprive her of the few positive qualities she previously possessed. She becomes“[f]orlorn and
disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed; her beauty faded, her mind clouded; robbed of her station in the
world, of her place among the living creatures.” (422) Since Laura has lost her coveted social position and
her beauty, it is possible that Walter will become less attracted to her and more attracted to Marian. This
suggests Collins’ belief that the new feminine ideal that Marian exemplifies is superior to the insipid angel in
the house. Laura’s helplessness and lack of purpose in life is another negative characteristic of the traditional
Victorian woman.
To demonstrate the ridiculous helplessness of the angel in the house, Collins characterizes Laura as
pathetically useless. She complains that, “[y] ou work and get money, Walter; and Marian helps you. Why is
there nothing I can do? You will end in liking Marian better than you like me—you will, because I am so
helpless!” (489) Laura realizes that her ineptitude is unattractive, and she fears that Walter will prefer
Marian to her. Walter’s response to Laura’s childish complaint further emphasizes her helplessness, for
Her drawings, as she finished them, or tried to finish them, were placed in my hands;
Marian took them from me and hid them carefully; and I set aside a little weekly tribute
from my earnings, to be offered to her as the price paid by strangers for the poor, fain,
valueless sketches, of which I was the only purchaser. (490)
Laura fails to complete the drawings she starts, and the drawings she does finish are completely worthless.
Walter and Marian’s reinforcement of Laura’s worthlessness and ineptitude suggests that people who
encourage women to comply with the traditional feminine ideal create foolish and incompetent women.
Consequently, after the Inquest near the end of the novel Walter tells Marian the important details instead
of Laura. When he receives a letter from Marian and Laura asking about the results of the Inquest, Walter
says, “[t] he necessity of sparing Laura any sudden knowledge of the truth was the first consideration which
the letter suggested to me” (533). Walter’s main concern is to protect Laura from negative events that
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occur in the outside world, but by this point in the novel Laura has already suffered a great deal from Fosco
and Sir Percival’s evil plan. Thus, Collins demonstrates that it is ridiculous and futile to shield women from
the world, and they should develop the strength to cope with the tragedies of life as Marian has done. Her
masculinity and practicality ensure that they will survive in society, but Laura's innocence leads to childlike
dependence.
To further emphasize the negative consequences of traditional Victorian femininity, Laura’s
helplessness as an ideal angel of the house leads to the loss of her identity and her near death. Fosco
audaciously emphasizes his power over Laura, for “I might have taken Lady Glyde’s life. At immense
personal sacrifice, I followed the dictates of my own ingenuity, my own humanity, my own caution—and
took her identity, instead” (628). Laura’s passivity and naïve trust in Fosco and Sir Percival blind her to
their evil plot. She willingly submits to Sir Percival merely because he is her husband, and she does not
question his motives or the motives of his friend. Fosco easily outwits her, and he carelessly takes advantage
of her obliviousness and mindless trust. When Marian rescues Laura from the Asylum and the two of them
live together with Walter, their neighbors assume that Laura is the seemingly insane Anne Catherick.
Walter confesses, that “[w]e two, [Walter and Marian] in the estimation of others, are at once the dupes and
the agents of a daring imposture. We are supposed to be the accomplices of mad Anne Catherick, who
claims the name, the place, and the living personality of dead Lady Glyde” (421). This demonstrates that
Laura does not only lose her identity, she loses her sanity as well. After her neighbors and acquaintances
mistake her for a mad woman, some of them refuse to believe that there was a case of mistaken identity.
Thus, even though Walter tries to clear her name and restore her social position, the rumor of madness still
surrounds her. Barickman, MacDonald, and Stark argue that “Laura is certainly fair and passive, but she is
so passive, so acquiescent to the various men who rule her life, and so incapable of assisting in her own
rescue that she seems a parody” (114). Collins’ harsh criticism of Victorian femininity suggests that women
who are as helpless, naïve, and weak as Laura risk their social position, their sanity, and even their lives.
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Barickman, MacDonald, and Stark further argue that her relationships with men threaten Laura’s identity.
They argue that,
In each relationship, her role, her sense of self, and her sense of failure or accomplishment
is determined by the men who control her. In this regard there is no real distinction
between the cruel husband who tries to commit her to an asylum and the kind husband
provided by the novel’s traditional conclusion, or between either husband and her father.
(115)
Since Marian and Victoria are strong and independent women, their relationships with men do not
define them. On the other hand, Laura’s male relationships completely overpower her and her weak
character.
Victoria’s contradictory roles as a domestic wife and a powerful queen and Collins’ representation
of Marian as a masculine and domestic angel suggest that Victorian women represented their power in the
form of a paradox. Similarly, Victoria’s private opinions on marriage and women’s role in society were
shockingly untraditional, but her public image as a devoted wife, mother, and maternal queen demonstrates
the paradox of her situation. Marian also exemplifies this paradox because Collins balances Marian’s
progressive power and independence with her connection to Walter, Laura, and the home. Victorian
society was not ready for a fully progressive and powerful woman; therefore, women should adopt a new
form of femininity, and they should look to Victoria and Marian as examples of the new ideal woman.
Neither Victoria nor Marian completely embraces feminine power or accepts the role of the angel in the
house: they are dissatisfied with traditional Victorian femininity, but they are not willing to reject it. This
knowledge creates new insight about Victorian femininity, for Victoria and Marian demonstrate that
women were beginning to take small but decisive steps to claim their place in the world.
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The Husband, the wife, and The Woman In White. (Peters Illustration 15)
"The Royal Family at Home (1843)" (Arnstein 48)
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Works Cited
Allen, Brooke. Artistic License: Three Centuries of Good Writing and Bad Behavior. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
Print.
Arnstein, Walter L. Queen Victoria. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.
Barickman, Richard, Susan MacDonald, and Myra Stark. Corrupt Relations: Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope,
Collins, and the Victorian Sexual System. New York: Columbia UP, 1982. Print.
Cagna, Lea Della. “„God Save Our Gracious Queen‟. Elizabeth I and Victoria: The Virgin Queen and the
Mother Queen.” Textus: English Studies in Italy. 19 (2) (2006): 371-386. EBSCO. Web. 21 Nov.
2010.
Cvetkovich, Ann. Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism. New Brunswick:
Rutgers UP, 1992. Print.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.
Dever, Carolyn. “The Marriage Plot and its Alternatives.” The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins. Ed.
Jenny Bourne Taylor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.
Fulford, Roger. Ed. Dearest Child: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, 1858-1861. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Print.
Helsinger, Elizabeth K., Robin Lauterbach Sheets, and William R. Veeder. The Woman Question: Society and
Literature in Britain and America, 1837-1883, Volume 1. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1983. Print.
Houston, Gail Turley. “Reading and Writing Victoria: The Conduct Book and the Legal Constitution of
Female Sovereignty.” Remaking Queen Victoria. Ed. Margaret Homans and Adrienne Munich.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. 159-181. Print.
Langland, Elizabeth. Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture. Ithaca:
Cornell UP, 1995. Print.
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Miller, D.A. “Cage Aux Folles: Sensation and Gender in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White.”
Representations, No. 14, The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century.
Spring (1986): 107-136. JSTOR. Web. 14 Oct. 2010.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Sensation Novels.” Blackwood, Edinburgh Magazine Vol 91: 564-575.
Patmore, Coventry. “The Angel in the House.” Project Gutenberg. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.
Peters, Catherine. The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991. Print.
Ruskin, John. Sesame and Lilies. Project Gutenberg. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.
Stafford, William. “John Stuart Mill: Critic of Victorian Values?” In Search of Victorian Values: Aspects of
Nineteenth-Century Thought and Society. Ed. Eric M. Sigsworth. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1988.
Print.
Sutherland, John. “Introduction.” Collins 7-23.
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Ryan Clifford Smith
Purdue University Calumet
The Green Envy of Twain
One would be perhaps foolish, actually downright incorrect, in entering into a discussion about
literary realism without noting the heavy thumb that Mark Twain, or Samuel Clements depending on your
literary politics, has on the tail of the larger movement. Where it would be difficult to defend that Twain,
in all his loaming glory, had definitively begun the realism tradition, if there was a beginning to be clearly
accentuated, it would be equally difficult to support any idea that posited that Twain didn’t provide the
wind that fed the fire which eventually burned the romantic tradition the preceded him. Hemingway once
said, in his essay Green Hills of Africa, that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” and if we contend that is true then we are only being responsible in
discussing Twain from such a perspective. Therefore, this essay begins there, with Twain taking step one
for American literature as a whole, step two being that which left his contemporaries existing in their own
way, but forever surrounded by the wide breadth of Twains arms, and step three being where he left
literature after he was gone and how American literature moved, not necessarily beyond Twain, but just as
one might try to earn a fathers trust with a legacy already gone.
Using Hemingway’s famous quote as our guide, we will start with his claim that “there was nothing
before” Mark Twain. To make such a claim is to be as brash as only Hemingway famously could be,
rejecting Nathanial Hawthorne and even Herman Melville almost completely by comparison. Where it does
seem to be fairly well supported that Hawthorne was, by no means, a realist in his prose, it is less cut and
dry with Melville. While if we could all agree that Moby Dick was almost completely and undeniably a
piece of romantic literature, Bartleby the Scrivener, published in 1853, is decidedly less easily
compartmentalized. Admittedly, concession is required in relation to how the prose is handled with
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Melville. He is clearly writing from a romantic perspective, yet the subject matter and the character arc
Melville chooses complicates things. If we are to agree with Hemingway’s claim of what literary history
there was prior to Twain was, by definition, non-existent then we must deal with these problems. It is
difficult to defend Hemingway here. He largely is writing about Twain as a huge fan would, which would be
fine except that this statement was published as an essay and therefore, by nature, supposed to be supported
and finally factual, whereas, in reality, this smacks of biased musings from one of our best. One of the
claims made about the significance of Twain is that of his subject matter and treatment of reality. In both
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain spends much of his time trying to accurately depict aspect of not
only a child life, but also of the environments in which the narrative takes place. But, to this writer, much
of what is depicted in Twain’s work is told from an “as remembered by” position and difficult to pin to this
realist tradition that his has be credited as being the impetus of. In fact, Twain begins Huckleberry Finn with
the title character suggesting that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was “mostly…true,” but leaving it open
to the reader to discern how much of Tom Sawyer they wish to believe. Both books, one might suggest,
require a suspension of reality in order to embrace a much more pleasant reimagining of what it is like to be
a youth in St. Petersburg, Missouri.
In addition to the murky claim that Twain started the realist era because of his handling of material,
there is the way his prose was written that must be addressed as well. There are ways that Twain was a
downright trailblazer, but one must at least acknowledge that there are many ways that he was operating
with the same tools as Melville was. The biggest difference between Train and the rest of the pack was his
famous use of colloquialism. Guy A. Cardwell, in his review of Richard Bridgman’s book, The Colloquial
Style in America, states that Bridgman places Twain “among the…writers he treats as the most important in
the development of American colloquial prose.” There is little room for argument here, besides maybe
small quibbles about some minor examples of writers about the globe. In America, it can largely be said
with a certain amount of assurance that indeed it was Twain that took that first step toward a literature akin
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to a colloquialism that we, as citizens of towns just like his fictional St. Petersburg all over the country, used
daily and were almost certainly happy to see represented in literature. His success as a writer likely had as
much to do with a readership that had grown weary of the genteel literature that had preceded him as it did
Twain noticing the need for such a literature at all. For that reason alone, Twain deserves has earned his
place in literature.
However, Twain was more traditional in terms of his use of devices. Besides his use of a child
narrator, Twain uses direct address with regularity, employs frame story and moralizes just like so many
that came before him, albeit with decidedly different intentions. In Huckleberry Finn, as we noted before,
Twain directly addresses the reader through Huck himself by discussing Tom Sawyer as a book and not just
Huck's friend. In Bartleby, Melville does the same thing at the very end of the story. He insists that his story
be understood when he goes into detail by saying, “Dead letters! Doesn’t it sound like dead men?” Melville
and Twain are alike here, both in the direct address and the need to be understood.
What about Twain’s contemporaries? If “all American writing comes from” Huckleberry Finn, then
how do other writers measure up to what Twain did? Did they just rehash what he had already done? Should
they have even bothered? In 1904, the American Academy of Arts and Letters held a secret ballot and
honored a total of seven of very their first honorees, among them were - William Dean Howells, Edmund
Clarence Stedman, John Hay, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Charles Eliot Norton, and Mark Twain. In 1901,
Yale University bestowed Twain with an honorary degree and, in 1902, so did University of Missouri,
followed by Oxford five years later. But, besides Howells, who seems to have his own private cheering
section, most of the other writers of his day are now, a hundred years later, all but completely ignored with
few exceptions. One exception of a writer that has managed some of the heft and esteem that Twain has
enjoyed throughout the last century is Henry James. The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University’s
newspaper of some weight with past editors John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, has published on
their website that “Henry James rightfully inaugurated the awards for fiction given by Harvard,” that award
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eing their own honorary degree, while Mark Twain was never given this same honor there. So, Yale has
their man and Harvard has theirs. In an effort to not put too much emphasis on the importance of honorary
degrees, it should be pointed out that Harvard has given out thousands of honorary degrees over the years,
however, it does help to level the playing field somehow. With all that being said, it can’t be said
definitively that James was of the same relevance as Twain or that he, or anyone else from his era did or
even could measure up to what Twain did. There just are simply some parties that feel Twain is a literary
god and, like all gods, that kind of idea is largely illogical and unable to be proven.
But, did James just rehash Twain’s style or techniques? This, again, is probably not something that
can be proven. However, if you take a look at their work alone and compare them, it can be suggested that
they are ideological, if anything, twins only. James, from a prose point of view employs a completely
different style, with his tendency to write in a more buttoned up or mannered tone. The boxing world has a
similar comparison in its contemporary history. Two middleweight champions, both of equal importance,
Jake LaMotta and Sugar Ray Leonard were completely different fighter. Leonard was a precise, measured,
and perfectly trained fighter who fought with machine like accuracy, taking out his opponents by striking
pin-point, weighted blows by the dozens until his opponent was defeated due to just not being nearly as
skilled as he was. While, LaMotta, who possessed a great amount of skill, would go about boxing in a
different manner, he would stand in front of his opponent, calling him out, provoking him with harsh New
Yorker lingo and would fight like a Roman in the trenches, exchanging blows endlessly until he outlasted
his opponent, never afraid to get bloodied up. This is Twain, both with the skill and power of LaMotta, in
his use of rough and ready colloquialism, and inexhaustible prose that drives and drives on, until it ends
suddenly, almost leaving a reader exhausted by the end. Meanwhile, there is James, the psychological
writer, using many of the same techniques that Twain would employ, but with the skill of a tacticianer. Just
like in boxing, it is impossible to say which fighter would be more important, both James and Twain
deserve their own place in history for what they had done. No matter where loyalties lie, among the
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contemporaries of Twain, one must realize that all who wrote after him, did so while being compared to
him in some way. Whether it be James, William Dean Howells, or any of the other in the long line of
writers before Hemingway came along, they have all been measured against Twain, and if nothing else, that
might be enough to cement him as the one writer, rising amongst the rest.
So, has their really “been nothing as good since” Huckleberry Finn? Well, most would cite, along
with Twain, Ernest Hemingway as perhaps the most important and most recognizable American writer that
ever lived. With a long line of extremely popular and a whole host of awards, prizes, and honorary degrees
of his own, Hemingway, some might say may have surpassed Twain in his importance. But, don’t forget
how we got here. It is Hemingway that this essay has been quoting all the while and however we decide to
aggrandize him; we must first admit that he himself would probably reject it.
So what is it, that which separates these writers from the rest of the pack? What allows them to gain
in popularity and esteem? Hemingway might suggest that it is those writers who avoid the pitfalls of being a
success, which comes in the form of more responsibilities, like a family and a lifestyle, or as Hemingway
himself put it in The Green Hills of Africa, “We destroy them in many ways. They make money…writers
when they have made some money increase their standard of living and they are caught. They have to write
to keep up their establishment, their wives, and so on.” He goes on to suggest that this is in many ways
something that gets everyone and the only thing that saved Stephen Crane from being a poor writer is that
“he died.” It is in this same book that Hemingway suggests that there may only be a few good writers, based
on his earlier statements about Twain. He cited Henry James, Stephen Crane and Mark Twain, but refuses
to classify them in any order, which suggests that, according to Hemingway, they are all equally important
in terms of literary worth. But since? Perhaps the only conclusion that can be made of that statement by
Hemingway is that his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn’t any good, since The Great Gatsby was published in
1925 and The Green Hills of Africa was published in 1935 and written about a trip he took in 1933 with his
wife at the time. Ultimately, there may be little hope for a concise definition of worth in the literary world.
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It all comes down to some kind of subjective aesthetic in the end. If you go with popularity, then recent
books such as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series have to be considered among the best in history.
One the other hand, if you go with what critics think then you are entering into an oligarchal world where a
reader doesn’t have any real power to choose what is best. They decide who is reading what, so maybe they
should decide and Hemingway is right in saying that once you gain popularity it is all over for a writer. In
the end, like many things it comes down to a mixture of things. Just do the impossible, which is read
everything. That might be the only true way to avoid the trappings.
Finally, where does this leave Mark Twain? It must be up to us as readers, and not Hemingway, to
decide if he is the best of all time. Were Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald just fooling around,
repurposing, and unable to really do anything to advance literature at all? That certainly is a possibility, but
if believing that Mark Twain is the best American novelist ever, never to be surpassed gets us another
Hemingway, then so be it, Twain is god.
Work Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Green Hills of Africa. New York: Scribner, 1935. Print.
Cardwell, Guy A. “The Colloquial Style in America.” American Literature Mar. 1967: 124-125. Print.
Robinson, Forrest G. “An “Unconscious and Profitable Cerebration”: Mark Twain and Literary
Intentionality.” Nineteenth Century Literature Dec. 1995: 357-380. Print.
Twain, Mark. Mississippi Writings. New York: Penguin, 1982. Print.
“University Has Broadened the Idea of Honorary Degrees.” TheCrimson.com. The Harvard Crimson, n.d.
Web. 6 Mar. 2010.
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Veronica Smith
Augustana College
Western Eyes and African Art
A Question of Perception
Figure 1, unidentified African mask in the Augustana
College permanent collection.
Abstract
Originally, this research began as an inquiry into the origins of an unidentified African mask housed in the
Augustana College Art Collection. After many hours of fruitless labor, I came to the realization that my
own perceptions might be inhibiting my research. As a result, the focus of my research shifted to the issue
of cultural perception. This paper explores Western conceptions of African material culture through a
mostly qualitative study of syntax – the words that people use to describe an unknown African object and
the connotations of those words. Data was gathered through a series of surveys administered to students at
Augustana College. The survey asked students a variety of questions about images of the unidentified
African mask . The data gathered indicated that on the whole, Americans tended to describe an unknown
object with industrial terms, whereas if the object was known to be of African origin, much more organic
and anthropomorphic language was utilized. Furthermore, through a study abroad program, I was able to
travel to West Africa, where I was able to trace the origins of the mask. My experiences abroad enabled me
to push the limits of me perceptions even further, and I ultimately returned to the United States with a
stronger sense of my own culture as well as West African culture.
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The Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection, housed by the Augustana College Art Museum, consists
of some two dozen African art objects. Among these objects is a mask (see fig. 1) of unknown cultural
origin and of an unknown age. From the moment I first saw this mask, I was captivated. Carved from some
sort of wood and constructed of bold geometric forms, the mask can be visually segmented in into two
distinct parts: a section that is roughly rectangular and a section that is comprised of two hollow cylindrical
protrusions. The mask is about two feet long from the uppermost edge of the rectangular portion to the
lowermost edge of the cylinders, ten inches across, and approximately nine inches deep. The rectangular
portion of the mask is divided into two parts: a convex portion and a concave portion (to which the
cylindrical protrusions are attached). The concave portion of the mask is punctured in two places, resulting
in triangular holes that might have possibly served as eye holes. Between these triangulated openings is a
semicircular disk that juts perpendicularly from the relatively smooth and flattened concave surface. This
disk- shape is repeated at either side of the concave portion of the rectangular segment, dividing the concave
plane into two smaller rectangular shapes. Each of these two smaller rectangles houses one of the triangular
holes and another convex pyramidal shape.
The pyramidal shapes each possess two narrow, deep slits on their undersides, which resemble
nostrils. Reaffirming the nostril attribution, either side of each of the pyramidal “noses” has a delicately
formed curved line that is just barely visible in figure 1. The other section of the rectangular portion of the
mask is delineated from the convex plane by an obtruding, slightly rounded rectangular shelf that is
furrowed down the center. This furrow forms a straight line that is continued by the middle disk shape, and
again by the negative space between the two cylindrical protrusions. On either side of the furrow, a set of
three raised triangular shapes create one trapezoidal figure, and each triangular shape has three horizontal
lines carved at the widest part of the triangle. These two trapezoids are centered vertically in relation to the
“noses.”
While the aforementioned furrow/disk/negative space between cylindrical protrusions splits the
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visual plane into two roughly symmetrical halves, there are small differences. On the right facing side of the
mask, there are two vertical incisions. On the upper portion of the rectangular segment, one incision is to
be seen above the top right corner of the left triangle. Almost directly below this incision is a second
incision on the edge of the right facing cylindrical protrusion.
Another feature that contributes to the asymmetry of this mask is a small semicircular indentation
on the lower edge of the rectangular shelf, just below and between the middle and right triangles. On the
right cylindrical protrusion, there is a second semicircular depression that is nestled in a larger, more
irregular depression. While these features could potentially be attributed to damage sustained through
transport, I would argue that these features were intentionally rendered, as there is a certain degree of
precision evident. The incisions are of uniform depth and length as are the two semicircular depressions. An
additional indication of intention is the uniformity of the surrounding surface – there is no abhorrent
discoloration or textural change that would indicate a significant lapse in time from when the rest of the
mask had been formed. The outer surface of the mask bears signs of sacrificial build up, while the inside of
the mask in generally smoother. The cylindrical protrusions show extreme amounts of encrustation on the
inner part.
Along the edge of the face cavity are diamond shaped punctures that might have once been used to
help fix the mask to the head. My instinctual analysis of this mask concerned ideas of elephants (the
protrusions resemble trunks to me) and twinhood because of the shared set of triangular “eyes” and the two
“noses.”
I had certainly never seen anything like it before, and almost no one, including experts in the field
of art history, had either. I knew that it would be challenging to research, but the challenge was part of the
allure. What I did not account for was the biases this research would unearth in my own perceptions of art.
I started with the internet, wondrous digitized warehouse of information that it is, and summarily
exhausted the reputable image database ArtStor. Nothing on ArtStor was remotely similar to this mask. The
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infamous Google search engine did little better. After about five hours of probing the depths of the internet,
it dawned on me that a contributing factor to my inability to make any headway, aside from the fact that this
mask is incredibly unique, was that I was limiting myself to images that were explicitly of African elephant
or twin masks. Not one to give up easily, I then spent a good amount of time probing academic journals for
articles about the meaning of elephants and twins to various African cultures. While this textual method
yielded significantly more information, when I compared the images of the art of cultures that place great
importance on elephants and twins to the image of the mask I was researching, there was very little
correlation. Despite the great difficulty in procuring information, I refused to let go of my original idea of
elephants and twins. Of course, I did not know if either of those assumptions was correct – I was operating
on instinct, aided by an unconscious sense of aesthetics.
I wanted to understand where my aesthetic sense of art objects came from and thus better prepare
myself to overcome my biases when viewing the art of non-Western cultures. The first step on this path to
understanding particular biases entailed working out a cursory definition of “Western.” A
The term “Western” is applied broadly to all aspects of culture. Art is no exception. However, the
broad application of this moniker leaves much to be desired – what is the Western world? How is the
Western world defined geographically, governmentally, and economically?
Geographically, the Western world does not conform to any particular landscape. Continental
landmasses cannot contain the regions known to be Western, just as the Western Hemisphere is woefully
inadequate even as a rough estimation of the extent of the Western world. Most of Europe is considered
Westernized, yet some areas of Europe are excluded. North America is included, sans Mexico. Australia
and New Zealand are generally considered Western. What unifying factor could these seemingly disparate
physical regions share?
Ties to colonial imperialism are a common denominator, specifically British colonial imperialism.
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Over the breadth of three centuries, Britain established a globe-spanning
system of colonies, dependencies, and territories that answered to the
English Crown. 1 Tentative maritime expansion in the 16 th Century
accelerated rapidly in the 17 th Century due to commercial competition
from France as well as other European nations and manifested in
settlements on North America and the West Indies. As Britain’s
commercial influence grew, the amount of territory considered under
British rule increased in tandem. Though some colonized regions
Figure 2, Calvin Klein advertisement
severed ties with the British, specifically the American colonies, many other regions remained under British
control. The African interior as well as Australia, New Zealand, and India were eventually acquired and
assimilated into the commercial fabric of the Empire. At the end of the 19 th Century, Britain comprised
roughly one fourth of the globe and counted at least one fourth of the world’s population as its own. 2 While
these extremely varied locales retained a fair bit of their cultural identities, especially in the African colonies
where governmental control was not nearly as tight fisted, certain principles of beauty and art were
espoused by colonization. As trade was the main impetus for British involvement in the broader world, the
British Western aesthetic infiltrated the indigenous populations, if only because British taste decreed what
goods were considered important. Some aesthetic principles, however, predate the British Empire and
hearken back to an earlier time, in ancient Greece. Many Greek ideals were adopted by Rome and were
spread (or enforced) through the rise of the Roman Empire, linking uniformity of aesthetic theory to the
wide-spread dominance of one ruling body.
While current Western aesthetic theory has been repeatedly redefined by the natural progression of
history, many modern concepts of aesthetics can be traced back to ancient times. One needs only to look to
current men’s underwear catalogs (see fig. 2) to see the influence of such ancient works as Polykleitos’
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Spear Bearer (see fig. 3).
The basis of modern Western aesthetic theory coincides with the roots of Western philosophy. The
philosopher Plato, who lived between the years of 384 and 322 BC, discussed art in terms of the beautiful. 3
To Plato, the arts were produced in an attempt to portray an ultimately intangible idea. Beauty, while able
to be captured in an ephemeral creation of man, is essentially infinite in its scope and application. In some
ways, beauty is beyond human tampering – nothing man creates can add to
or detract from the eternal nature of beauty, yet the quest for beauty is an
intrinsic part of being human. 4
Beauty is described by Diotima in Plato’s Symposium as a
progression from the appreciation of the physical to an appreciation of the
metaphysical, suggesting that all tangible beauty is the direct result of some
knowledge that is beyond the immediately apparent. Beauty exists in levels,
and the arts can be appreciated from all of these levels, but not necessarily
understood. 5
Aristotle, a student of Plato, agreed with Diotima to some extent,
but placed the idea of levels of beauty within the sphere of the physical
body, claiming that the pinnacle of beauty, and thus the thing that art
Figure 3, Polykleitos, Spear Bearer,
Roman copy after the original bronze,
Greek High Classical, c. 450-440
should attempt to portray, is the fitness of the human body to do age-appropriate work. A young man is
beautiful because his body is perfectly suited to the athletic activities expected of him, whereas a man in the
prime of his life is beautiful because his body is perfectly suited to the activities of warfare. 6
This conception of art as a manifestation of beauty is somewhat disparate from the governing ideals of
African art. While Aristotle only describes the beauty of a man, only women are venerated as possessing
beauty in many African cultures. However, the beauty of an African woman oftentimes is determined by
her body’s fitness for the appropriate activities expected of her, namely childbearing, just as Aristotle
357

ascribes male beauty to physical aptitude. Distended breasts, a signifier of having nursed a child or many
children, are a common signifier of beauty across many African cultures (see figures 6-8). Peoples of Mali,
such as the Bamana, peoples of Nigeria and Benin such as the Yoruba, and peoples that live in more central
Africa, such as the Kongo, all have produced female figures with elongated breasts that represent fertility,
child bearing, and subsequently, beauty. This beauty is also indicative of a woman’s power in society, as
only the woman is able to bear children and insure the continuance of the community and culture.
Figure 6: Gwandusu,
Bamana. 13 th -15 th
century.
Figure 7: Pfemba.
Kongo, Late 19 th early
20 th century.
For African men, the ability to strike fear into the heart of the enemy at war is certainly something
to venerated and respected, but not in the same way that feminine beauty is to be venerated and respected.
The exclusion of the gender dialectic from the works of Aristotle suggests a much more stringently
patriarchal society than do the inclusion of womanly ideals in many African art pieces.
The largest difference between the traditional African art aesthetic and the Western art aesthetic is
in regards to the purpose of art. Art, in the Western world, is something abstracted from purpose. Art
objects are set apart from the objects of day to day existence. While the written works of Aristotle allude to
beauty as being contingent on physical functionality, the representation of this beauty in itself has no
purpose other than to represent beauty. In contrast, many African art forms are not recognized as art forms
358
Figure 8: Shango
figure, Yoruba.

ut as functional objects. For example, Ghanaian gold weights, while intricately and delicately zoomorphic
or rendered in purely abstract forms, are subject to mutilation if they are too heavy or their form somehow
inhibits their use. 7
Another difference between the African aesthetic and the Western aesthetic directly concerns the
conveyance of ideas visually. While there are many examples of symbolic use of color or form in Western
art, African art objects communicate on a multiplicity of levels. Different combinations of color, pattern,
and form create almost an entirely new language –using the example of the Ghanaian gold weights again, a
weight shaped in the form of two crocodiles that share a belly explicitly indicate an entire proverb: “Those
who share a stomach and still fight over food are foolish.” 8 Similarly, each individual symbol on Ghanaian
adinkra cloth can be “read” as a complete thought unto itself.
These differences in viewing art objects (and even the use of the word “art”) are indications that a
lack of cultural understanding and, ultimately, a bias towards Western aesthetic theory.
To test this hypothesis, I constructed a survey that revolved around the image of the mysterious
African mask in the Augustana Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection (see figure 1) to determine whether or
not Western perception of an object is altered by the qualifier “African.”
Part of the rationale for using this mask as the subject of the survey is that its ambiguity offers a
degree of control that might not be as possible with a more well-known, stereotypically “African” mask, as
my survey was administered in two different formats. The control format explicitly informed the
participants of this mask’s African origin and that it is indeed a mask, whereas the experimental format
referred to the mask as an object only and made no reference to origin. Had I been using a more wellknown
mask, I might not have been guaranteed that the experimental survey group had no indication of
origin.
I determined that I would be surveying Augustana students, which greatly narrowed my
demographic and thus my variables. The Augustana student body is comprised of predominantly white 18-
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22 year olds whose parents fall into the upper-middle class tax brackets, and the vast majority of these
students are from Illinois 9 .
The survey consisted of seven questions that were each timed so as to try to inspire the participants
to write their instinctive responses. Quantification methodology consisted of carefully reading every answer
and creating generalized groups into which data could be sorted. All synonymous words were merged into a
Instrument(mus
ical)
6%
Shoes
9%
Writing
9%
1 Person
8%
2 People
3%
Pipes
11%
Jug
3%
Old/Ancie
nt
20%
Sculpture
14%
Spoons
17%
single group, as indicated by backslashes between exact
words used. For example, the words “ancient” and “old”
were synthesized into a single group. However, words that
carried similar connotations were also grouped, such as
“wise” with “ancient” and “old.”
Percentages were derived from total answers given
per question and not from total number of participants.
This is an important distinction to make, as the questions
were so open-ended that many people gave multiple
Figure 9: Experimental Group answers: "Describe this object in as
much detail as possible."
answers, some quite contrasting, as they worked through
Elephant Lip Plates
Trunks
Ham 3%
2%
3%
Branches
2%
Antenna
5%
Shoes
8%
Person
8%
Instrume
nt
(musical)
13%
2
people/t
wins
3%
Face
15%
Spoons/U
tensils
23%
Antlers/H
orns
15%
360
their thoughts on paper. Student t-testing was not
applicable to this data set.
Question one concerned the description of the
object. Participants were asked to describe the image
of the mask in as much detail as possible. The majority
of answers in the experimental group (see figure 9)
stated that the mask appeared old. The second most
prevalent term used to describe this mask amongst the
Figure 10: Control Group Answers: "Describe this object in as much
detail as possible

experimental group was a comparison to spoons, which mirrored the control group’s majority (see figure
10.)
What does the abundant use of the word spoon imply? It could be an indication of time of day these
surveys were administered at either 10:00 in the morning or 11:30 in the morning times that are potentially
meal times. Meal times for the non-collegiate set, that is. Upon coming to college, normative eating
patterns are severely disrupted. Irregular class and work schedules coupled with added amounts of stress
and the absence of home-cooked, well balanced, regularly served meals might well effect cognitive
processes, including recognition and analysis of non-food objects 10 . It is possible that the merest suggestion
of an eating utensil, such as the rounded concave forms of the end of the cylinders on the mask, could incite
Figure 11, Control Group answers: “Which way should
this object be oriented?”
food-related thoughts in the hungry and thus appear more
Cylinders
Inferior
59%
Cylinders
Superio
r
41%
spoon-like.
On the whole, the control group expressed their
descriptions in more zoomorphic/anthropomorphic language.
15 % of control group answers specify that the mask resembles
a face or facial features, and 15% of control group answers
indicate the presence of horns or antlers. Conversely, the
experimental group described this mask in more inorganic,
structurally oriented terms. 16% of experimental answers
given referred to the mask as a sculpture and 13% of answers
given made reference to the cylindrical protrusions as pipes.
The delineation between organic and non-organic descriptors could correlate with the fact that
America is a highly industrialized country, as demonstrated by Fortune 500’s top ten corporations of 2009,
a list that includes energy providers, car manufacturers, communications corporations, and large box goods
stores exclusively 11 . In the Midwest, the accoutrements of industry are impossible to ignore as factories and
361

manufacturing plants shape the landscape of many communities. Africa, on the other hand, is mainly
associated with the export of raw materials, such as diamonds 12 , and not with large industrial infrastructure.
This dichotomy of organic versus inorganic terms might be an indication of this economic pretense.
The presence in nearly concurrent percentages of the descriptor “shoes” could be partially due to
the fact that the image of the mask appeared in duplicate inversely oriented images. Though I took pains to
explain that the images were of the same object, it is
possible that this was not communicated effectively. If
viewed as a pair of two separate objects instead of two
images of the same object, the boxy rectangular features of
the images could lend a certain visual similarity to shoes,
which are also somewhat blocky and occur in pairs.
This demarcation between organic and inorganic
Cylinders
Inferior
33%
Cylinders
Superio
r
67%
descriptors is consistent with the data gathered from the
second question on the survey, which seeks to determine the
proper orientation of the mask. Should the cylindrical protrusions be on top or on bottom? According to
the majority of control group answers (see figure 11), the cylindrical protrusions should be oriented in such
a way that they are inferior to the rectangular portion of the mask. This is consistent with the data gathered
from the first question in that when viewed this way, the mask is much more face-like, and thus more
anthropomorphic or zoomorphic. Alternately, the experimental group predominantly thought that the
cylindrical protrusions should be oriented so as to be superior to the rectangular portion of the mask (see
figure 12). This orientation makes facial structure association more difficult, thus enforcing the inorganic
descriptors.
The third question of the survey concerned function: the control group was asked to describe the
ceremony this mask was likely used in and the experimental group was asked to define the object. The
362
Figure 12, Experimental Group answers: “Which way
should this object be oriented?”

majority of control group answers (see figure 13) indicated some sort of celebration or some initiation
ceremony. However, these answers were not consistently associated with physical characteristics of the
mask. The participants of the control group declined from pointing to specific features that suggested
initiation or celebration. Interestingly, the third largest percentage of answers from the control group
related that this mask could have been used in a wedding ceremony, as the facial features of the mask seem
to be merged just as a married couples’ lives merge. The majority of the experimental group’s answers (see
figure 14) determined that the object in question was some sort of musical instrument or cooking
accoutrement. These answers were based entirely on form. Many participants indicated that this
qualification was directly dependent on the hollowness of the object. The holes on the concave portion of
the rectangular part of the mask could possibly have been restricted as one blew through the cylinders to
produce a variance in tonality. Similarly, the cylindrical protrusions could have been used as a sort of funnel
to add liquid ingredients to the main mixing
363

Fertility/Bi
rth Religious
7% 6%
Funerary
6%
Elders
3%
Foot
Binding
3%
Celebration
26%
2 People
4%
Mask
8%
Sculpture
4%
Agricultural
tool
4%
Musical
Instrument
31%
Religious
11%
Wedding
23%
Initiation
26%
Vase/Jug
/Contain
er
15%
Cooking
23%
Fi
Figure 14, Experimental Goup Answers, "What is this object?"
Figure 13, Control Group answers, "What kind of ceremony do you think this
mask was used in?"
portion of the object. After determining the type of ceremony the mask was intended for, the
control group was then asked to describe how the mask was used ceremonially. The overwhelming majority
Movements
in
direction
of protrusions
9%
Worn as
shoes
9%
Musical/v
oice
projection
13%
Animal
Movements
4%
Head
Rolls
4%
Flowing/s
low
13%
Danecs
(unspecified)
48%
F
Vase
12%
Decorative
Art
15%
Incense
6%
Cooking
18%
Love
Symbol
3%
Instrumen
t
25%
Religious
21%
Figure 15, Control Group answers, "What movements, if any,, are
associated with this mask?"
Figure 16, Experimental Group answers, "What do you think this object
was used for?"
F
(see figure 15) of answers given indicated a vague dance of some type, again neglecting to mention
correlation with any physical characteristic of the mask. Correspondingly, the experimental group was
364

asked to describe the use of this object (see figure 16).
While this question is strikingly similar to the third question the
Yes
60%
experimental group was asked, it yielded a surprising shift in results. The majority (25%) of
No
40%
answers still indicated that the object was used to musical ends, but religiosity came in a
close second at 21%.
Figure 17, Experimental Group
answers: "Have you ever seen
anything like this before?"
The fifth question of the survey was designed to determine whether or not the participants had ever
seen an object similar to the mask depicted. The majority of experimental answers indicated that objects
similar to this one had been seen before (see figure 17), while the control group determined that the
majority had not seen an object similar to this before (see figure 18). The experimental No
67%
group was also asked in question 5 to determine the culture of origin of the
Yes
mask, and the
majority of answers designated the culture of origin as being African (see figure
33%
19).
Emotional state was touched on briefly by question six, which asked participants to
describe how
Latin America
6%
Australia
3%
Indian
6%
Europe
3%
Figure 18, Control Group answers, "Have
you ever seen anything like this before?"
they felt when viewing this
object. Results of the
experimental group
Asia
6%
South
American
9%
Africa
49%
showed that a majority of
the answers provided
indicated interest or
Native
American
18%
Figure 19, Experimental Group answers, "Where do you think this object is from?"
curiosity, words that bear
a positive connotation, and
a sense of neutrality (see
figure 20.) The control
group data reflected these feelings in similar proportions (see figure 21.) However, the experimental group
365

data set also indicated less frequently occurring but definite feelings of anger, weirdness, and general
discomfort.
Message
being
conveyed
5%
Happy
5%
Hunger
3%
Anger
3%
Relaxed/Ca
lm
5%
Confused
10%
Advanced
(the object)
3%
Unfamiliar
3%
The final question of the
survey was meant to gauge unfiltered
Ignorant
16%
Curious/Int
erested reactions
26%
to the image of
Neutral
21%
Calm/Peac
eful
6%
Joyful/Hap
py
9%
Frustrated
/Ignorant
8%
Wanderlust
3%
Confused
14%
Worshipfu
l
3%
Neutral
17%
Curious/In
terested
40%
Figure 20, Esperimental Group answers, "How does looking at this object make
you feel?"
Figure 21, Control Group answers, "How does looking at this object make
you feel?"
Stone
3%
Conjoined
Spoonalien
3%
Simple
3%
Spoon
6%
Culture-
Specific/F
oreign
6%
3% Bunny
3%
Interesting
9%
Live
3%
Earth
3%
Useful
12%
Weird/obs
cure/stran
ge
28%
Traditional
/Classic/O
ld/Ancient
18%
Figure 22, Experimental Group answers,"Describe this object in one
word."
366
Serene
3%
Ritual
3% Rustic
3%
Maturity
Horny 3%
3% Funky
3%
Enlongated
3%
Earth
Cultural
3%
3% Complicated
3%
Spoons
5%
Animal
8%
Twin
3%
Ugly
3%
Mysterious/
Cryptic
11%
Ancient/Old
/Wise
18%
Interesting
16%
Different
/Unusual/U
nique
11%
Figure 23, Control Group answers, "Describe this object in as much detail as
possible."

the mask through asking for a one word description (see figures 22 and 23).
Were I to ever re-administer this survey, I would place this question at the very beginning so as to
minimize the amount of time participants have to rationalize what they are seeing. However, the results
yielded from this question are still of value. Both survey groups indicated very similar summations in very
similar proportions. The general consensus was that this mask was old, strange, and interesting.
This body of research paints a complex portrait of modern American conceptions of both American
culture and African culture. The most compelling correlation to me was the link between
“Ancient/Old/Wise” in the final survey question for the control group. It seems that there is a perception
of Africa as an old and ancient place, focused on people, wise. Compared to the experimental group’s
industrial answers to the same question, this establishes an interesting dichotomy between perceptions of
developing and developed nations, perhaps even suggesting that in a country and culture where
extraordinary technologies exist to connect people, the technologies actually take precedence over the
human connections they were intended to propagate. That Americans might tend to view African culture,
people-centric as it is, as something wise could be indicative of the growing sense of isolation in a postmodern
world – people lost among the machines of industrialized life.
Were I to embark on this kind of research again, I would change several aspects of my
methodology. To begin with, I would try to bring the actual mask into the classroom with me. As some
participants pointed out, the images I provided on the survey form were not adequate in expressing
dimension, color, or texture, all integral aspects for analysis.
Secondly, I would eliminate two part open-ended questions from the survey, perhaps splitting
these questions in half, as they made the assignment of connotation-based groupings all the more complex.
Lastly, while I would maintain the timed aspect of the survey, I would tweak the time allotted. I found that
many participants finished answering well before time was up.
This paper will conclude with a purely visually based assertion as to the cultural origin of the
367

unknown African mask. There are several definite visual correlations between this mask and some of the
Bamana attributed masks in the Kathy Bulucous collection (see figures 24-26). All Banana attributed masks
in this collection have been carved from wood that has been rendered in clean geometric forms. There is a
distinctive triangular pattern repeated on the forehead regions of figure 24 and figure 26 that closely
resembles the triangles on the unknown mask. The facial plane is rendered smoothly. The eyes are small,
geometric, and closely set.
Both figure 25 and figure 26 have recessed ledges that define the facial plane, just as the unknown
mask has. While these masks are admittedly more self-contained – there are no dangling cylindrical
protrusions to be found – there are enough stylistic parallels to indicate more than a coincidental
connection between these masks.
Figure 24, Bamana Mask
Figure 25, Bamana Mask
Figure 26, Bamana Mask
After completing this body of research in the Winter of 2009-2010, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend
a term abroad in West Africa. While in Accra, Ghana, I encountered a mask (see figure 27) that I was told was made by
the Dogon, a people that live in Mali. My original Bamana attrbution is actually strengthened by this information, as
the masks both bear the striking cylindrical protrusions that are so unusual, and as the Bamana were also a people of the
region that is now Mali. The Bamana kingdom dissipated near the end of the 19 th century and was assimilated into a
broader Mende-speaking cultural group, of which the Dogon are also part of. Then, in Senegal, I encountered another
368

mask (see figure 28) that was even more similar to the unknown mask in the Augustana College Collection. Minor
details, such as the orientation of the triangular eye holes and the curvature of the top portion of the rectangular section,
are the only differences between these masks. Finding this particular mask in Senegal further strengthens the claim to
Bamana origin, as the Bamana kingdom would have been directly centralized between what is now Ghana and Senegal.
Figure 27, Dogon mask encountered in Accra, Ghana
Figure 28, mask encountered in St. Louis, Senegal
369

NOTES
1. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. “British Empire.” 2010. http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9016519.
2. Ibid.
3. Plato, Symposium, trans. Stanley Rosen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
“The Beautiful will not manifest itself to this man as a face or a pair of hands, or any other bodily thing; nor
in any proposition, or science, nor as existing anywhere in something else, such as an animal, or the earth or
the heavens, or any other thing whatever. It exists by itself in itself, eternally, and in one form only, and all
other beautiful things participate in it in such a way that, while they come into being and perish, it does not,
nor does it become greater or less nor is it affected by anything.” p.92-93.
4. Ibid.
5. Plato, Symposium, trans. Stanley Rosen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
“This is what is means to progress correctly to an understanding of matters of love , or to be brought to it
by another: in the beginning from these sorts of beauties, to move up constantly for the sake of that beauty
(as if he were using the steps of a stair) , from one to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies, from
beautiful bodies to beautiful acts, from beautiful acts to the beauties of learning, from learning finally to that
knowledge which is none other than knowledge of the Beautiful itself, so that he comes to know in the end,
what beauty is.” P. 93
6. Albert Hofstadter, ed. and Richard Kuhns, ed. Philosophies of Art and Beauty. New York: Random House,
1964.
Aristotle :“Beauty varies with the time of life. In a young man beauty is the possession of a body fit to
endure the exertion of the running and of contests of strength; which means that he is pleasant to look at;
and therefore all-round athletes are the most beautiful being naturally adapted both for contests of strength.
For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare together with a pleasant but at the same
time formidable appearance. For an old man, it is to be strong enough for such exertion as is necessary and
370

to be free from all those deformities of old age which cause pain to others.” P.96
7. Kwame Anthony Appiah. “Why Art? Why Africa?” in Africa: The Art of a Continent. New York: Prestel ,
1995. p.22
8. Ibid.
9. Augustana College Website, “Open Book,” Augustana Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
(IPEDS) Report. http://www.augustana.edu/Documents/openbook%20IPEDS%202007.pdf. P.75
10. Judith C. Rodriguez “Diets of College Students,” Nutrition and Well-Being.
http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Ca-De/College-Students-Diets-of.html .
11. Fortune 500 Online. “Annual Ranking of America’s Largest Corporations.” Rankings.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/full_list/.
12. Roy Laishley. “Emerging Economies Hold Promise for Africa.” Africa Renewal, Vol.23#2, July 2009,
page 16.
Bibliography
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Why Art? Why Africa?” in Africa: The Art of a Continent. New York: Prestel ,
1995.
Augustana College Website, “Open Book,” Augustana Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
(IPEDS)
Report. http://www.augustana.edu/Documents/openbook%20IPEDS%202007.pdf.
Encyclopedia Britannica Online. “British Empire.” 2010. http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9016519.
Fortune 500 Online. “Annual Ranking of America’s Largest Corporations.” Rankings.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/full_list/.
Hofstadter, Albert, ed. and Kuhns, Richard, ed. Philosophies of Art and Beauty. New York: Random House,
1964.
Laishley, Roy. “Emerging Economies Hold Promise for Africa.” Africa Renewal, Vol.23#2, July 2009, page
16.
371

Plato, Symposium, trans. Stanley Rosen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
Rodriguez, Judith C, “Diets of College Students,” Nutrition and Well-Being.
http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Ca-De/College-Students-Diets-of.html .
Image Bibliography
Fig. 1: Photograph of Unknown African Mask. Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection, Augustana College.
(Moodle, accessed 3 February 2010); available http://moodle.augustana.edu/course/view.php?id=1644.
Fig. 2: Calvin Klein advertisement, Fall/Winter line 2008. (i.model, accessed 4 February 2010); available
http://i.models.com/model_culture/50topmalemodels/images/garrett1.jpg
Fig. 3: Polykleitos, Spear Bearer, Roman copy after the original bronze, Greek High Classical, c. 450-440
BCE. Marble. (SUNY College at Oneonta, accessed 4 February 2010); available
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/images/109images/greek_archaic_classical/sculpture/dory
phoros.jpg
Fig. 24: Photograph of Bamana Mask. Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection, Augustana College. (Moodle,
accessed 3 February 2010); available http://moodle.augustana.edu/course/view.php?id=1644.
Fig. 25: Photograph of Bamana Mask. Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection, Augustana College. (Moodle,
accessed 3 February 2010); available http://moodle.augustana.edu/course/view.php?id=1644.
Fig. 26: Photograph of Bamana Mask. Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection, Augustana College. (Moodle,
accessed 3 February 2010); available http://moodle.augustana.edu/course/view.php?id=1644.
372

Courtland Stokes
Purdue University Calumet
Human Intervention in the Absence of God
In Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure uncontrolled emotional desire is disrupting the social
norm. In specific sexual immorality is an “unregulated desire”. Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna leaves the
city, or so it is thought, in the hands of his deputy Angelo. Angelo, many literary critics regard is a
hypocrite. He enforces laws that he himself does not even purpose to keep. The Duke, in fact has not left at
all, but has went into disguise and watches with an almost “omnipotent” perspective, his real intentions are
undisclosed. The Duke wants to solve the city’s vices and to test the virtue of Vienna’s inhabitants. It is this
exercise, which reveals human emotion unchecked, but governed by authoritarian repression is not
impartial. Our human intervention and the methods we use to reinforce the laws that govern us—in the
absence of God, produce that authoritarian figure.
Many critics don’t seem to agree in their assessment of Measure for Measure. There are many
extreme viewpoints. Some perspectives express that Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s greatest
works. Critics believe Shakespeare tackles “head on” social concerns of his time by masterfully dealing with
real issues of virtue, truth, justice and mercy. On the other spectrum Measure for Measure is highly
scrutinized for its inconsistency, and an abrupt “tacked on” ending which doesn’t really bring the play to a
natural and polished close. Many critics and scholars don’t seem to agree on much at all. Measure for Measure
centers around themes with biblical proportions like: mercy, justice, law, and order. It raises questions
that bring light to lingering issues in our “contemporary society” as to how far the laws of our society should
intrude into our personal lives; or how much should our human sympathies, compassion, our leniency, and
benevolence control the desire to exact justice? Tina Krontiris, in her work titled, “The omniscient ‘Auctor’:
373

Ideology and Point of View in Measure For Measure ” says, “One of the striking features of Measure for Measure is the
over powering presence of its leading character, the old Duke of Vienna”(Krontiris 293).
At the plays beginning the Duke has informed his deputy Angelo that he will be assigning him the
authority to govern and rule in his absence. The Duke is in charge of the city and he desires to bring more
law and order to it, yet Shakespeare indicates to the reader in the Dukes conversation with the friar, that
the laws of Vienna have been grossly disregarded. “We have strict statues and most biting laws, The needful bits
and curbs to headstrong weeds, which for this fourteen years we have let slip” (Measure for Measure 14). Here is the
paradox. The Duke has been in charge for the fourteen years of unregulated desire, and now he has selected
Angelo, his deputy, who we learn is much more strict and exacting in his governing than Duke Vincentio.
Critics suggest that the Duke believes the law—or what I would suppose the authority behind the
law is losing its “delegated power”. Yet, for all the Duke’s observation and private laments he does not want
to punish the people because he feels the present condition and moral state of the city can be attributed as a
fault of his own making, “Sith „twas my fault to give the people scope, T‟would be my tyranny to strike and gall them.
For what I bid them do, for this we bid this done When evil deeds have their permissive pass” (Measure for Measure
14). So, as a result the Duke puts the burden on Angelo, knowing his character and zealousness to do the
“dirty work”, which he believes he is qualified to do, and not discharge his duties hypocritically. Krontiris
believes, that the “Duke’s own self portrait of himself is the point of view critics have often automatically
and problematically identified with the text” (297). She questions, does the text endorse the Duke’s selfrepresentation
of a benevolent and gracious ruler who rules mercifully. Krontris maintains, “I will be
suggesting far from endorsing the Duke‟s representation, the text reveals him not to be only a man of theater (actor and
stage manager) but one who stages a spectacle for his own benefit—to reaffirm his absolute authority through a display
of God-like power” (Krontiris 297).
For Kontiris, the Duke of Vienna, “Vincentio is empowered with knowledge about the private lives of the
other characters , a knowledge that he possesses as the head of state or acquires under disguise and that enables him to
374

ing the events in the dramatic narrative to a conclusion that is presented as his desired aim” (Krontiris 294).
Kontiris maintains that the Duke is the authoritarian figure in “Measure for Measure”. The Duke freely admits
that that the city is out of control. In Kontiris’s criticism of the Duke, she rejects his claims of having a
genuine purpose and authenticity behind his alleged motive which he states is “to rid the city of its vices and
restore order and decency”. I believe that the Duke genuinely wants Vienna to have a higher moral
standard. This is evidenced in the Duke’s response, in my opinion enacting a plan to address the problem.
We learn as the play progresses that the Duke has set out to bring attention—albeit “indirectly”, to Vienna’s
social ills by the plays end. While Kontiris may be correct in asserting the Duke may have another agenda in
seeing the city resorted to some type of decency, I do sense an authenticity in his concern. The Duke’s
internal and simple acknowledgment that he has prepared to take a plan of action to address his private
inhibitions settles Krontiris’ protest for me.
The Duke has already articulated that he really has not actively tried to enforce the law, but in
contrast to what he says, we see the play opening with the Duke masterfully creating the nucleus for this
theatrical, melodramatic situation to unfold. It does not seem to Kontiris, that the Duke is really alarmed
with the immorality in Vienna, but rather “the language he uses suggest that what is alarming to him is the
disruption of the hierarchical order, upon whose existence his very position depends” (Krontiris 297). I disagree with
Krontiris, in her argument of the disruption of “hierarchal order”. In the plays first act when Pompey,
Mistress Overdone’s servant, informs her that an edict has been issued to close down all brothels, Pompey
has reason to believe and express it will not affect her. Pompey jokes, that she will always have business.
Examine Pompey’s words to Mistress Overdone as he informs her that her business venture will be
untouched as he responds to her inquiry about what will happen to all the brothels in the city where her
business is found: “They shall stand for seed. They had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them”
(Measure for Measure 10). Apparently, Pompey conveys to Mistress Overdone that political influence will
relieve her worries since upper-class business men have used influence on her behalf. This example does not
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support Kontiris alleged claim that the Duke is alarmed by a disruption of hierarchical order as a result of
Vienna’s social ills. Certainly, the Duke would be above upper-middle class as ruler of the city. Duke
Vincentio arguably, believes that if he can somehow show Vienna’s inhabitants he has been a benevolent
authoritative ruler, who has had their best interest in mind; by compassionately tempering mercy with
justice he could reinforce his position of authority. But Duke Vincentio is no authoritarian ruler, who should
be afraid of his position and influence.
The Duke, in my opinion contrasts the authoritarian leadership qualities Angelo his deputy will
assume, as the play progresses. We learn that after Angelo has received the imputed authority from the
Duke to govern in his absence, he believes as a result of that authority the people should blindly submit to
him as he up holds the “rule of law”, in his own domineering, tyrannical and hypocritical fashion. This is
certainly a stark contrast to the way the Duke’s indulgent and tolerant self-portrayal and apparent governing
nature has been. Professor Colin Fewer observes that, Deputy Angelo, “embodies the concept of “law and desire”
in a single character” (Fewer).
Although initially Angelo is portrayed as a character of high moral integrity, in contrast –Angelo is
the villain of the play who rules without mercy and who has weaknesses that he does not even account for.
Angelo upholds his one-sidedness with hypocrisy. As the plays’ plot progresses Angelo will victimize the
lower class characters, namely Claudio, for his infraction on the moral laws of the city. The city of Vienna
in Shakespeare’s, play has laws on its ledger to eliminate sexual activity outside of the bonds of legal
marriage. Angelo knows that these laws are presently in the legislative guidelines, but unlike the Duke,
Angelo has decided to enforce them without laxity. Claudio, as a result becomes a victim of Angelo’s strict
observance of the law, because he has gotten Juliet pregnant –although they are not legally married
(common-law).
According to the rule of law or by de'facto “Angelo’s method of law observance” is “Do as I say not
as I do”. As a result, Claudio is sentenced to death as the example in which to show to the city’s inhabitants
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living immorally, an example. Isabella is Claudio’s sister, and as Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure progress,
he hints to Isabella that there is a way to save her brother, and it includes Isabella having sexual intercourse
with him.
The Duke in disguise, as another character architects a string of events to produce “his desired”
outcome. Dollimore believes, “the play discloses corruption to be an effect less of desire than authority itself. It also
shows how corruption is downwardly identified—that is, focused and placed with reference to the low-life „licence‟; in
effect, and especially in the figure of Angelo, corruption is displaced from authority to desire and by implication from the
rulers to the ruled” (Dollimore 176). Dollimore sees a disparity to the widely accepted view of Measure for
Measure‟s themes of love and desire and law versus oppression; but rather he views Angelo’s harsh
prosecution a way that authoritarian personalities like Angelo can oppress and control subordinates without
human intervention such as the type displayed in the character of the Duke.
Why did Angelo not temper his authoritarian judgment in light of the “human condition”? Claudio
and Juliet in essence were married yet they had not participated in a formal ceremony. In spite of that we
observe Angelo was eager to break the same law Claudio was imprisoned for violating, with Claudio’s own
sister Isabella. Had Isabella decided to give her virginity in order to save her brother, which she did agree to
“in term” at the posturing of the Duke who was in disguise, Angelo would have taken advantage of her.
Consider the law against fornication; although Angelo did not have sex with Isabella, he still violated the
law that he was adamant in enforcing and had condemned Claudio to die for. The Duke’s intervention
created the scene for the “infamous bed trick”, that would be the basis of Angelo’s harsh rebuke at the plays
end. Angelo believed he had slept with Isabella but in fact he had not. Nonetheless, even when the
arrangement is made and Angelo, unwittingly, does the “deed” or so he thinks with Isabella, yet he does not
pardon Claudio as it was agreed.
Angelo believed that even though he had not upheld the law he was in a sense above the law
because it was his duty to enforce it. Angelo’s soliloquy in Act II of Measure for Measure gives us insight in to
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Angelo’s thoughts when he realizes that he desires Isabella sexually. Here Angelo realizes that in comparison
he is not any better than Claudio, whom he has condemned to die. Angelo realizes that unless he carries out
what he has decreed by Claudio’s death sentence, he will appear weak and yet he struggles over the
thought. "Which had you rather: the most just law now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him, give up your body to
such sweet uncleanness as she that he hath stained?" (Measure for Measure 37). If Isabella agrees, to give her
virginity to Angelo, he suggests or at least implies, that Claudio could hypothetically be set free. Isabella
gets angered and suggests that now she will blackmail him if he doesn’t set Claudio free. Angelo replies, in
essence, “that nobody will believe her”. While all this is transpiring we, know that the Duke is playing a
“pseudo omniscient role” in the affairs and lives of almost every single character, and influencing an
outcome to preserve Claudio’s life.
Dollimore asserts, the Duke’s “subjects public recognition of his own integrity is important in the Duke’s
attempt to reposition them in obedience. Yet the play can be read to disclose integrity as a strategy of authority rather
than the disinterested virtue of the leader” (Dollimore 186). Dollinore’s view slightly differs from Krontiris’
spin on the Duke’s role. She submits that the Duke’s “real purpose from the beginning was to create an
opportunity for himself to act out the role of the all-powerful, omniscient, sovereign, who is ultimate judge”(Krontiris
300). I would have to disagree with both critics in these respective positions. I do not believe that the Duke
has intended from the plays beginning to reinforce in the absence of a “God-less” society the presence and
authority of “God” personified by his position as ruler of the city. I believe the Duke has grown fond of his
new found liberties to address the problems of some of Vienna inhabitants, without out losing public favor.
But there is no evidence to me to suggest this is what he set out to do initially. Dollimore insists that the
Duke’s main intention, as Vienna has sunken to moral depravation, has been “to reposition them into
obedience”. Dollimore articulates that the Duke does this while also using the characters experiences and his
unknown interactions with them to create the role he desires — to be “God-like” in the presence of
authoritarian repression.
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Essentially in the Duke’s absence or in the absence of the “God-like” character it is very evident that
authoritarian oppression is personified in Angelo, not Duke Vincentio. It is Angelo who is out of control.
Dollimore asserts that it is the Duke who in some way represents the authoritarian presence. Dollimore
suggest, “By means of the Duke’s personal intervention and integrity, authoritarian reaction is put into abeyance but
not discredited” (Dollimore187). I agree with Dollimore partly. He emphasizes, Angelo’s activity was only
put into suspension at the Duke’s return. However I also believe that in addition to Angelo being
“unmasked” the Duke also in some sense represents an authoritative and authoritarian nature in some
instances. It is evidenced in the facts, by Dollimore’s own admission “No law is repealed and the mercy that exist
remains the prerogative of the same ruler who initiated the reaction” (Dollimore 187).
The Duke seems very comfortable to be able to “absolve sinners as a friar” and, “his desire to operate
power from the inside, investigating the various characters in his disguise and determining from the evidence they provide
what the best course of action will be. The Duke is the only character who appears in almost every location in the play;
his hand is active everywhere, and he is pulling most of the strings” (SparkNotes Editors).
The Duke reinforces his desire to create a coveting for his style of leadership. Yet this is not to be
misinterpreted as authoritarian repression personified in the character of Duke Vincentio. I believe the
Duke as the play progresses should no longer be viewed as an idealist, but a character with clarity as to the
situation of his city’s plight and a genuine desire and anxiousness to see a city that reflects the moral
standard, temperance, and balance that he believes himself to have. The Duke arguably may secretly covet a
desire for the people to respect his governing style. This may be most evident in final scenes of measure for
measure. “Indeed, the whole final scene produces and effect whereby the public humiliation of Angelo seems only a
means to an end or a side effect of the Duke’s staged display of authority and power” (Kontiris 299). The Duke
discriminately, illustrates through the errors of Angelo his deputy that an authoritarian repression is not
impartial, and that in the presence of that repression he is the fair and understanding alternative to be
desired as the just almost, divine ruler.
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Works Cited
Dollimore, Jonathan. “Transgression and Surveillance in Measure for Measure (Criticism). Shakespeare,
William, and Grace Ioppolo Editor. Measure for Measure. W W Norton & Co Inc, 2009.pp.175-189 Print
Krontiris, Tina. “The Omniscient „Auctor‟: Ideology and Point of View In Measure For Measure” .English Studies
Volume 80.Issue 4 (1999): pp.293-306. Print
Fewer, Colin. English 442 Shakespeare Class Lecture Fall 2010. Purdue University Calumet. Class Room
Office Building Room 180. Hammond, IN
2 December 2010 Class Lecture
Shakespeare, William, and Grace Ioppolo Editor. Measure for Measure. W W Norton & Co Inc, 2009. Print
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Measure for Measure.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web.
1 Dec. 2010.
380

Jessica M. Tabor
Purdue University Calumet
Bullying: The Characteristics and Consequences
Susan has decided she does not want to attend school today. Her parents ask her why and Susan is hesitant to say. Susan
is 12 years old and in 7 th grade. She has friends, but she also has a bully. Susan encounters her bully every morning in
homeroom and every afternoon in the cafeteria. Susan is afraid to be at school because she doesn’t want to keep being
picked on and pushed around by her bully. Her self-esteem has dropped and her love of school is fading. Her bully is
taking her joy away from her.
Bullying is no longer confined to the playground or the break room at work. Bullying has expanded
to cyber space. Some think that bullying should be handled by the parents when some argue that bullying
needs to be something school should try and eliminate. However, bullying laws have now been put into
place because the government believes this issue is becoming more of a problem. There are pre-determined
characteristics of what a bully should look like or how a bully should act. Bullying has taken on a whole new
definition. The focus of this paper will discuss the history of bullying, current laws of bullying in the state of
Indiana, if any, forms of bullying, the typical profile of bullies and then the profiles of a usual victim of a
bully and conclude with how to help those that bully and the victims of bullying and also the future of
bullying.
Foundations of Bullying
Bullying is not a new problem, just a more recognized one. Researchers say that bullying
has been around for decades; in literature, on television and now more prominently, on the computer. Any
type of bullying which can consist of but is not limited to cyber bullying, physical bullying, verbal and
workplace bullying is a form of abuse. Bullying is an act of repeated aggressive behavior in order to
intentionally hurt another person, physically or mentally. Bullying is characterized by an individual behaving
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in a certain way to gain power over another person (Besag, 1989). The person initiating the bullying is the
one searching for the power and control over the individuals that may seem less than or weaker than the
bully themselves. Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus defines bullying as when a person is: "exposed,
repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons." He defines
negative action as "when a person intentionally inflicts injury or discomfort upon another person, through
physical contact, through words or in other ways (www.Olweus.org). This definition includes three
important components:
1. Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.
2. Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time.
3. Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength.
Characteristics of bullies and their victims
There are characteristics that a bully maintains to be considered a bully. Also, the victims of a bully
take on characteristics that are unique to them. Children who bully:
* May witness physical and verbal violence or aggression at home. They have a positive view of this
behavior, and they act aggressively toward other people, including adults.
* May hit or push other children.
* Are often physically strong.
* May or may not be popular with other children around their same age.
* Have trouble following rules.
* Show little concern for the feelings of others.
The bully can take on all or some of these characteristics. Not all have to be present to be
considered a bully. Bullying behavior is a "red flag" that a child has not learned to control his or her
aggression (Nickel, 2005. 247-254). There are also characteristics of a victim who is being bullied.
Children who are bullied tend to be:
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* Sensitive.
* Socially withdrawn. They may think poorly of themselves, or they may have a quiet temperament.
* Anxious.
* Passive. They often let other people be in control and do not stand up for themselves.
* More likely to get depressed.
In extreme situations, children who are bullied may commit suicide or lash out violently against those who
have bullied them (Beaty, 2008. 1-11). Having the defined characteristics of both a bully and a victim can
lend a helping hand to teachers and parents who are trying to eliminate the problem.
Laws in the state of Indiana on bullying
Most states have laws to address bullying, harassment, and hazing. In the state of Indiana the laws
are defined as follows according to (http://www.olweus.org/public/laws_indiana.page):
Bullying/Harassment -
Code 20-33-8-0.2 (2005) defines bullying as overt, repeated acts or gestures, including: verbal or
written communications, physical acts committed and any other behaviors committed by a student or group
of students with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate, intimidate or harm the other student.
Code 20-33-8-13.5 (2005) requires schools to adopt policies prohibiting bullying on school
grounds immediately before or during school hours, immediately after school hours, or at any other time
when the school is being used by a school group, off school grounds at a school activity, function, or event,
traveling to or from school or a school activity, function, or event, or using property or equipment
provided by the school. Policies must also include provisions concerning education, parental involvement,
reporting, investigation, and intervention.
Cyber Bullying
No state policy.
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Dating Violence
Code 20-19-3-10 (2010) requires the Department of Education to develop a model policy for
dating violence response and reporting.
Hazing
No state policy addressing elementary or secondary schools.
Source: National Association of State Boards of Education
Last Updated: 4/16/2010
With these laws in practice the amount of physical bullying has been limited, but not eliminated. However,
in the state of Indiana there is no law against cyber bullying which means the victims and victims’ families
cannot seek punishment after an event has occurred. However, as stated in the Indiana bullying laws, cyber
bullying still has no statute and therefore a victim of cyber bullying cannot seek punishment on their bully.
Forms of bullying
There are various forms that bullying can take:
1. Verbal bullying including derogatory comments and bad names
2. Bullying through social exclusion or isolation
3. Physical bullying such as hitting, kicking, shoving, and spitting
4. Bullying through lies and false rumors
5. Having money or other things taken or damaged by students who bully
6. Being threatened or being forced to do things by students who bully
7. Racial bullying
8. Sexual bullying
9. Cyber bullying (via cell phone or Internet)
These forms of bullying are recognized and happening daily. The first eight in the sequence are typical and
more familiar. Cyber bulling however, has been a more recent discovery and has made it to the spotlight in
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various media coverage and has gained a spot as multiple talk show topics. Cyber bullying is still a new
topic.
Olweus Circle of Bullying
Being the pioneer of bullying, Olweus developed a circle of bullying. Dr. Olweus has placed a
name on all participants of bullying. Even though we have the main characters, the bully and the victim,
there are also other supporting roles that contribute to form this circle of bullying.
Nearly one in five students in an average classroom is experiencing bullying in some way. The rest of the
students, called bystanders, are also affected by the bullying.
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program describes students involved or witnessing a bullying situation as
having roles in the Bullying Circle.
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Salmivalli, K. Lagerspetz, K. Björkqvist, K. Osterman, and A. Kaukiainen, "Bullying as a Group
Process: Participant Roles and Their Relations to Social Status within the Group," Aggressive Behavior 22
(1996): 1-15.
Dan Olweus, "Peer Harassment: A Critical Analysis and Some Important Issues," in Peer
Harassment in School, ed. J. Juvonen and S. Graham (New York: Guilford Publications, 2001): 3-20.
This circle of bullying has provided educators and parents the material to construct and try to
eliminate bullying in the home and also in the school. With the development this circle, it is easier to
determine who exactly the bully is, the victim of that bully and the surrounding indirect participants.
Olweus Bullying Questionnaire
The Olweus Bullying Questionnaire is an important planning tool before and after program
implementation.
• Includes a narrative report to help you interpret results
• Compares your school's results to national data
• Presents results in graphs already formatted on PowerPoint slides
• A District Report and Trends Report is also available.
(http://www.olweus.org/public/questionnaire.page).
The questionnaire that has been developed by Dr. Olweus has questions that include : How often
have you been bullied at the school in the last couple months ; with the answers consisting of I have not
been bullied at school, it has happened once or twice, 2 to 3 times a month, about once a week or several
times a week. The questionnaire also defines exactly what bullying is and how to distinguish bullying from
something different. The questions are worded as such so it will not confuse the students and the answers
are grouped together so the students can calculate their answer accordingly.
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Although the questionnaire of Dr. Olweus is affective and the bullying circle is accurate in
face to face bullying, we now have to come to the understanding that bullying has taken a whole new form.
With the ever progressing technological age, we see cyber bullying becoming a problem.
Megan Meier was a 13 year old from Missouri who struck up an online friendship on the popular social
networking site MySpace with a person she believed was a new boy in her hometown. In actuality, the “friend” was a
group of individuals, including adults, who were intent on humiliating the poor girl because of a friendship with another
child that had gone awry. Megan was very upset when she found out the truth, then later committed suicide once the
friendship had terminated. The horrifying case stunned the community and caused state government officials to pass some
of the harshest cyber bullying laws in the country. (http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/2008/10/stories-ofcyber-bullying/).
Kylie Kenney, an eighth grade student from Vermont lost two years of her life as a result of cyber bullying from
classmates. From junior high through her sophomore year of high school, Kylie was forced to deal with websites created by
her classmates that featured names like “Kill Kylie Incorporated” that were filled with threatening, homophobic remarks
about the young girl. These hurtful kids obtained screen names with handles close to Kylie’s name and used them to make
suggestive remarks and sexual advances on Kylie’s teammates on the field hockey team. As a result police filed charges of
harassments against the individuals responsible. (http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/2008/10/stories-ofcyber-bullying/.)
The above stories of the two girls that lost their lives due to an antagonistic cyber bully are only a peek at
the mass amounts of suicides that can be linked to cyber bullying. It is difficult to prosecute criminally a
cyber-bully attack. There are terms that parents and educators should be aware of in an event that cyber
bullying is occurring or has occurred.
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Terms of Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying contains many terms that teachers, academia, parents and teens alike should know.
Some of the terms are listed below. This is not an exhausted list and there are various other terms that can
be affiliated with cyber bullying.
Anonymizer - An intermediary which hides or disguises the IP address associated with the Internet
user. Generally, this allows a person to engage in various Internet activities without leaving a digital
footprint that can be tracked.
Bash Board - An online bulletin board on which individuals can post anything they want. Generally,
posts are malicious and hateful statements directed against another person.
Blocking - The denial of access to particular parts of the Internet. Usually a message will be shown
on screen to say that access has been denied.
Blog - Interactive web journal or diary, the contents of which are posted online and then viewable
by some or all individuals. The act of updating a blog is called "blogging". A person who keeps a blog is
called a "blogger".
Cyber Bullycide - Suicide stemming directly or indirectly from cyber bullying victimization.
Cyber Bullying - Willful or repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text.
Generally, the offender has perceived or actual power over the victim(s).
Cyberspace - A term used to describe the electronic universe created by computer networks in
which individuals interact.
Cyberstalking - Harassment that includes threats of harm or is highly intimidating and intruding
upon one’s personal privacy.
Cyber Threats - Electronic material that either generally or specifically raises concerns that the
creator may intend to inflict harm or violence to other or self.
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Digital Footprint - Evidence of a person’s use of the Internet. This includes anything that can be
linked to his or her existence, presence, or identity.
Filtering - The applying of a set of criteria against which Internet content is judged acceptable or
not. For example, a filter might check the text on a web page with a list of forbidden words. If a match is
found, that web page may be blocked or reported through a monitoring process. Generally speaking, it lets
data pass or not pass based on previously specified rules.
Flaming - Sending angry, rude, or obscene messages directed at a person or persons privately or an
online group. A "flame war" erupts when "flames" are sent back and forth.
Happy Slapping - An extreme form of bullying where physical assaults are recorded on mobile
phones and distributed to others.
Harassment - Unsolicited words or actions intended to annoy, alarm, or abuse another individual.
Offender - The person who instigates online social cruelty. Also known as the "aggressor."
SMS - Short Message Service - a communications protocol that allows short (160 characters or less)
text messages over cellular phone.
Trolling - Deliberately but disingenuously posting information to entice genuinely helpful people to
respond (often emotionally). Often done to inflame or provoke others.
Victim - The one who is on the receiving end of online social cruelty. Also known as the "target."
(http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/terms-you-should-know-about-cyber-bullying). Cyber
bulling is the newest form of bullying and has become prominent in homes and schools around the country.
With the ever growing advances in technology, the risk of being cyber bullied is great. With cell phones,
text messages and the internet, a bully can track their victim without even seeing them.
There is a call of action that needs to be established. The phrase “kids will be kids” no longer can
justify the physical acts of violence that is inflicted upon each other. There are guidelines that need to be
met and a form of behavior that needs to be followed. Having the education of terms and the training of
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how to properly assess a bullying situation need the situations arise can be beneficial to both the students,
parents and teachers alike. Bullying is still a new research opportunity. Steps have already been made in the
process of trying to eliminate the bullying that occurs around the world. Dr. Olweus started the
investigation into bullying and paved the way for many more to follow.
Besag, V. E. (1989) Bullies and Victims in Schools. Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press
Dan Olweus, "Peer Harassment: A Critical Analysis and Some Important Issues," in Peer Harassment in
School, ed. J. Juvonen and S. Graham (New York: Guilford Publications, 2001): 3-20.
http://www.olweus.org/public/laws_indiana.page
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/tc/bullying-characteristics-of-children-who-bully
Nickel M, et al. (2005). Anger, interpersonal relationships, and health-related quality of life in bullying
boys who are treated with outpatient family therapy: A randomized, prospective, controlled
trial with 1-year follow-up. Pediatrics, 116(2): 247-254.
Beaty LA, Alexeyev EB (2008). The problem of school bullies: What the research tells us. Adolescence,
43(169): 1-11.
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/terms-you-should-know-about-cyber-bullying
Salmivalli, K. Lagerspetz, K. Björkqvist, K. Osterman, and A. Kaukiainen, "Bullying as a Group Process:
Participant Roles and Their Relations to Social Status within the Group," Aggressive Behavior 22 (1996): 1-
15.
Dan Olweus, "Peer Harassment: A Critical Analysis and Some Important Issues," in Peer Harassment in
School, ed. J. Juvonen and S. Graham (New York: Guilford Publications, 2001): 3-20.
http://www.olweus.org/public/questionnaire.page
http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/2008/10/stories-of-cyber-bullying/
390

Erika Trigg
University of Michigan-Flint
A Transformation through a Journey of Self-Discovery:
Rosalind in Des McAnuff’s Production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It
In his portrayal of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the Stratford Festival Theater, director
Des McAnuff makes his vision of the play come alive. While it is often thought that Rosalind is a strong
character throughout the play in Shakespeare’s text, Rosalind goes through a noticeable transformation in
McAnuff’s production. The change in the clothes that she wears coincides with the change that Rosalind
goes through from a repressed young woman to a freer being. As she is exposed to different people, her
mannerisms change, for she begins to move and speak with more openness and freedom. Utilizing
costuming, stage business, and blocking, the director shows the audience Rosalind’s journey of selfdiscovery
as she transforms from quiet and subdued to a character with a bold presence throughout the
play.
McAnuff’s vision of Rosalind is demonstrated through her change in costume. Just as she is quiet
and subdued and then freer and more expressive, so too are her costumes as she travels from the court to
the Forest of Arden. McAnuff’s choice of costuming for the production is reminiscent of the 1920s. When
Rosalind first enters the stage, she is dressed rather conservatively, wearing Mary Jane-style heeled shoes, a
white coat, a long grey dress, and jewelry. It can be of note that she is wearing quite a lot of clothing. The
amount of clothing that she is wearing is a way for the director to indicate how the women of her time are
repressed and under stricter laws than men; women possess less freedom in both their speech and decisions,
both of which we see Rosalind break free from as the play progresses. It can also be of note that the
clothing she is wearing is different than her cousin Celia’s in terms of quality. The clothes that Celia wears
are more lavish, which is a way for the director to note Rosalind’s position in the society as opposed to
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Celia’s. Rosalind’s father has been banished and this clothing choice denotes that she possesses less wealth
than she had before her father’s expulsion from the court. After devising and following through with their
plan to escape, Rosalind, accompanied by Celia and Touchstone, enters the forest with her costume quite
changed. Rosalind now sports a man’s attire, donning a shirt and vest, long pants, trench coat, hat, and tie.
Her hair is also cut low. While her demeanor is still effeminate upon arrival in Arden, it is noticeable that
she is becoming more confident. The male clothing affords her more freedom that she had seen in the
court, and she is thus able to do whatever she feels like rather than worry about suffering the consequences
of her actions at the hands of her uncle. Rosalind acts outside of herself; because she has no serious rules to
observe as a man in the forest, she pushes boundaries that one would not expect of a woman.
Another method that McAnuff employs to demonstrate the change Rosalind goes through is stage
business. This change can be noted concurrently with her first meeting with Orlando de Boys and it is
thought that this meeting is what prompts Rosalind’s shift in character. Before she meets Orlando,
Rosalind is portrayed as a quiet, submissive woman as opposed to her cousin. However, when Rosalind
meets Orlando, everything about her seems to come alive. In the beginning of the play, Rosalind does not
yet have a very distinctive personality; she is a regular girl who is not very talkative and does not express
great interest in anything. For example, when Le Beau tells the girls about the upcoming wrestling match,
Rosalind does not meet the idea with interest. She looks quite disgusted when the topic of rib breaking
comes up. “But is there any else longs to see this broken / music in his sides? Is there yet another dotes
upon / rib-breaking?” (Shakespeare 1.2.141-3). The next emotion that she takes on is that of fear when her
uncle, Duke Frederick, comes in. This fear is clearly noted in the way that she flees to her cousin and clings
to her side. It is not until she meets Orlando that Rosalind begins her transformation from a timid young
girl to a more confident person. As Rosalind and Celia congratulate Orlando for defeating Charles the
wrestler, Orlando and Rosalind share a look of love. Rosalind presents Orlando with a necklace to
congratulate him on the win, and in this moment, they stare into each other’s eyes. McAnuff dramatizes
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this moment with soft music playing in the background and in the way that he has Celia notice their
exchange, for she suggests a joint future for them in the way that she says “Oooh” as the two stare into each
other’s eyes. Celia and Rosalind abruptly depart after the eye lock and a stunned Orlando silently beckons
them back. The director seems to have given Rosalind great expression in this moment, for Rosalind and
Celia reappear out of nowhere and Rosalind is overly excited that her new lover is calling her back. The
audience can see that she is not shy around him, for they are again staring at each other and smiling as
Rosalind holds a one-sided conversation with him. She even goes as far to snip at her cousin when Celia
tries to interrupt her “chat” with her new lover. It is believed that this encounter opened Rosalind up to
love and, later, to a life of freedom. Her attitude follows her as we see the scene of her banishment.
Rosalind’s newfound boldness is very obvious when she goes as far as to question her uncle about her
banishment. Rather than appearing as a meek, defeated woman, McAnuff portrays Rosalind as a strong and
defiant character who dares to speak out against her uncle. The audience can tell that this was shocking and
forbidden because one of Duke Frederick’s guards stepped forward as she raised her voice. Because she is
so open and expressive, it is clear to the audience that her transformation has begun.
While Rosalind continues to become more open, it is not until she is dressed as a man that she feels
free to do as she pleases, which is quite clearly demonstrated in the various interactions she has around the
forest. Rosalind is more confident when they are in the woods, particularly when she comes across
Orlando speaking to Jaques in the forest. It is as if she is suddenly struck with an ingenious plan to fool him,
which demonstrates the boost in her confidence since she first laid eyes on him. However, McAnuff still
assigns Rosalind the characteristics of a love-struck woman, for when Rosalind boldly approaches Orlando,
asking him if he can hear her, she falters at the sound of his voice because she is taken aback to be talking to
her love. Once she regains her composure, Rosalind appears to possess great wit and knowledge about
matters of the heart, as she tells Orlando all of the signs of a lover and how she can cure him of his “love
sickness.” The audience can see how carefree Rosalind is because she is not afraid to speak harshly with
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Orlando and she even goes as far as walking off hand-in-hand with him when he agrees that he will call her
his lover. McAnuff has created a very clever Rosalind, for the impression that is given by her intonation is
that she is coming up with so many brilliant ideas so that she can secretly seduce him into loving her. The
director’s depiction of Rosalind’s new attitude is also clearly seen in the vehemence with which Rosalind
meets Phebe chastising Silvius in the woods. Rosalind was infuriated that a woman like Phebe, who in
Rosalind’s opinion was very ugly, would speak down to a man of such worth and love as Silvius. “’Tis not
your inky brows, your black silk hair, / Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream / That can entame
my spirits to your worship” (3.5.46-48). The way that Rosalind acts demonstrates to the audience that she
is no longer under anyone else’s control and that she feels free to do as she pleases.
Beyond the cues taken from Rosalind’s change in costume and mannerisms on stage, McAnuff’s
blocking of Rosalind demonstrates to the audience the transformation that she undergoes from timid to
courageous. In the beginning of the play, Rosalind appears to be very needy; she is never alone, for she is
always with Celia because of their inseparable bond. Rosalind expresses great fear when her uncle enters,
which is seen in the way that she moves clear across the stage to her cousin’s side to get away from him. In
these scenes, she is very dependent on her cousin and is never far from Celia. However, after she meets
Orlando, her blocking begins to change. She is more apt to sighing over her love, like the scene in the
sauna, because she has fallen head over heels for him. This love continues to have an effect on her as they
enter the forest in their new personas. Rosalind still comes across as very feminine and she has the
disposition of a weak woman. However, when she comes across Orlando and decides to trick him, she
surges with a newfound confidence. Her movements are much grander and animated, and the closeness to
her cousin is no longer noticed as physically. Rosalind gets closer to Orlando in the forest, physically and
emotionally. The audience can note how close she feels to Orlando when she tells him the signs of a lover,
for she touches his face as she describes his appearance. She is very confident and it seems as though she
feels more able to be in an intimate situation with him. Rosalind’s new attitude is noted in McAnuff’s
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locking, as she stands across the stage from Orlando when she is upset. Her anger is seen in the distance
that she maintains from Orlando. When he steps forward to be near her, she moves across the stage to get
away from him. After telling him that he would not die from being in love, they are close and they touch,
but she snatches her hands away from him and stuffs them in her pockets and walks about like she is trying
to return to her masculine ways. She again moves clear across the stage because Orlando tells her that he
must leave. These things indicate that love transformed her, that she is freed from any restrictions of the
court, and that she is not afraid to express herself.
McAnuff’s production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It gives rise to the development of Rosalind’s
character. Although she begins as a fearful, dependent woman, she blossoms through the experiences that
she has in the forest, particularly those with Orlando. This growth is noted in the changes that occur with
Rosalind’s costume and mannerisms on stage. The love that she finds in Orlando is believed to have opened
her up to a world where she is free to think for herself, for after her meetings with him she is full of
confidence. The audience is able to see that she will not let others control who she is and that she is quite
capable of making decisions for herself and even others in the forest. The Rosalind that McAnuff creates is
one of a women finding strength in love after living under a repressive regime.
Works Cited
As You Like It. By William Shakespeare. Dir. Des McAnuff. Stratford Festival Theater,
Stratford, Canada, 12 Oct 2010.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Barron’s Educational Series: Hauppauge, NY, 2009.
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Elizabeth Wayne
Alma College
Voluntourism: A Discourse Analysis through Zambian Case Study
The development of the voluntourism industry has flourished, but there has been little theoretical
analysis of the implications of such an industry. This paper analyzes whether voluntourism is benefitting the
volunteer or the host communities through the lens of discourse analysis, as well as Allport’s Contact
Hypothesis and post-structuralism. It will discuss how the language of the volunteers and host community
members indicate the power relations voluntourism subtly endorses, what these power relations mean in
practice, and whether these relationships are to be promoted or discouraged. This will be done through
analyzing the operations of African Impact, a non-governmental organization in Livingstone, Zambia.
Findings were obtained through interviews with Zambian and foreign employees of African Impact,
community members, and volunteers. Six months after the trip, volunteers completed a questionnaire,
providing brief summaries of their perceptions and reactions since their time in Zambia. While participants
provide some valuable service to the host communities, it is evident in participant’s language that they are
not truly cognizant of the unequal power relation between themselves and the local residents. Such an
exposure is a key step in critical theory’s proposed path to human emancipation, and without it the
inequality between those with and those without power increases.
Voluntourism
The rapid growth of volunteer tourism, or “voluntourism,” signifies a new direction in the
evolution of tourism, as well as a change in the desires of the public. The new industry provides
volunteering opportunities for tourists, with a globally-minded clientele from developed-countries.
According to a study conducted by GeckoGo, Bradt Travel Guides, and Lasso Communications, the
voluntourism industry gained its momentum after the 2001 September 11 attacks on the US and the 2004
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Indian Ocean Tsunami. These tragedies served as a spark for citizens around the world to look at ways to
make their vacations more meaningful by contributing to the solution of a global tragedy: of the 2,481
respondents to GeckoGo‟s volunteer tourism study, 38% listed their top motivation for volunteering was
“to be useful” and 21% said their highest motivation was to have a personal learning experience.
The development of the voluntourism industry has been met with an array of critiques. The new
travel option provides much room for positive impacts on the participant and host community.
Voluntourism experiences provide unique opportunities for cross-cultural interactions and experiences, and
can also be mechanisms for providing skills and fiscal support to communities in need. At the other end of
the continuum, voluntourism has already had some ominous implications. Reports have surfaced of
volunteer projects which draw in tourists, their sympathy, and especially their money--but in reality are
disturbing exploitations of the locals. One such story is of the fake orphanage, Phnom Penh‟s Cambodian
Light Children Association, whose „orphans‟ were children who had been abandoned, sold, or employed to
dance and interact with tourists. The children were beaten for refusing to play the part of tragicimpoverished-orphan,
and tourist donations went to the corrupt organizers of the scam rather than to the
care of the children.
Along with alarming tales of scamming and misuse of volunteer funds, voluntourism may not be
beneficial in other ways. Firstly, if the goal is to provide a service to the community through the financial
and technical resources of citizens from developed countries, then a participant spending $2,000 on airfare
to be the one delivering the service on the ground is a contradiction. Using part of the available funds to
bring under-qualified, privileged individuals to these sites is arguably a very inefficient donation. The
problem of qualification is another major concern with the development of the voluntourism sector. Many
participants are students with little training or education for tasks like teaching, delivering medical care, or
building. Additionally, regardless of training, there is the concern that bringing in outsiders to do work
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takes employment opportunities away from highly-unemployed and impoverished communities. If the
international community claims to be focused on sustainable development, then relying on foreign
voluntourists to teach, build, and heal is counter-productive.
Supporters of vountourism argue that the goal is to stimulate local economy and provide financial
support for host community needs. Traditional tourism injects money and jobs into a local community:
tourists come with an appetite for local trinkets, sight-seeing, and cuisine. Voluntourism does the same,
with an added condition that the voluntourists are provided volunteer opportunities. Industry supporters
hail this volunteer work as a method to increase cross-cultural interaction, teaching both the voluntourist
and the host community about people from completely foreign societies. For voluntourism’s critics, the
effectiveness this intercultural education is still to be determined.
Integrating volunteer work with traditional tourism provides much room for ethical debate. While
many recognize tourism’s objective to be fulfilling the needs of the consumer-tourist, volunteer work also
receives critique concerning its’ goals: is volunteering truly altruistic, or is it driven by more selfish factors?
Some argue that volunteer work cannot truly be considered altruistic when the volunteer gains selffulfillment,
self-esteem, and happiness, as discussed by Haidt (2006). The implications of categorizing
volunteering as self-serving can pose several questions. If volunteering is not conducted with completely
altruistic motives, is the value of the volunteer work lessened? And, the less obvious, is it wrong to
volunteer to satisfy one’s own needs? Alexander, Bakir, and Wickens (2010) pointed out that a volunteer’s
draw to these self-oriented benefits can be explained by human effort to satisfy Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs. In the developed world, the majority of individuals easily meet their physiological needs and safety.
These two basic levels are followed by four psychological levels: love and belonging, esteem, selfactualization,
and self-transcendence. Volunteers are often looking to satisfy these latter levels of needs.
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This debate is much the same concerning voluntourism. According to VolunTourism.org,
voluntourism is “Voluntary service experiences that include travel to a destination in order to realize one's
service intentions.” It expands, “The integrated combination of voluntary service to a destination with the
traditional elements of travel and tourism - arts, culture, geography, history, and recreation - while in the
destination.” These definitions show that the purpose of the work clearly focuses on the volunteer: neither
mentions the recipients of the volunteer service.
The Study of Linguistics
Taking a closer look at the definitions of voluntourism, the emphasis on the volunteer is even
clearer. In “voluntary service” there are two parties, the servers and the served, each with needs and
objectives. The evaluation of the statement thus critiques how each party is addressed. The server’s
objective is to gain the self-benefits of volunteering. The served’s objective is to have a service provided
proficiently. In the first definition, the server is mentioned and his objective is being fulfilled. The served,
on the other hand, is completely omitted--both as a subject, and in addressing needs. The neglect of one
party’s needs--the omitted served--is evidence that the server is in a position of empowerment, dominance,
and control, according to the definition’s author. The author’s objective was to create an accurate and
appealing definition for the industry, thus this placement of power with the server shows the writer and,
indirectly, the industry’s attitude and values.
As displayed in the example above, the study of linguistics can be a useful vehicle for analyzing the
power relations and attitudes of verbal and written communications. Since the development of study of
linguistics in the 18th century, many theories have arisen to explain language. Linguistics can either focus on
individual words or grouping of words, and can analyze a wide array of perspectives, from the construction
of speech to evolutionary origins to psychological influences. As was used to dissect the above excerpt, this
paper will utilize discourse analysis.
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Discourse Analysis
Utilizing discourse analysis provides a much more effective means of determining the relations,
effects, and perspectives of participants and host communities than linguistic analysis of single words.
Discourse analysis relies on the actions, values, and language of the subjects--integrating thoughts and
experiences with verbal language. Discourse analysis draws connections between the speaker’s attitudes,
thoughts, feelings, and words, as described by Hample.
In analyzing phrases used by travel industries, Santos (2006) theorized that travel writing attempts
to fulfill a reader’s need for a distinct otherness. This draw to the otherness is based on human desire for the
mysterious and exotic, which the tourism industry capitalizes off of. The otherness is also founded in the
hypothesis that humans naturally posses a drive to conquer or dominate new frontiers, a label which
developed citizens may subconsciously apply to the developed world. The otherness draws in travelers,
who inject their culture into the “other,” and thus dilute the otherness: tourism often injects foreign culture
into host communities--usually meaning the cultural ideals of the developed world are introduced and begin
to penetrate local communities.
Contact Hypothesis
Allport’s Contact Hypothesis is often referenced in cross-cultural studies. It began as a hypothesis
that the continuation of racism in the US was due to white ignorance about blacks, predicting that
interaction between blacks and whites would decrease that ignorance and reduce racism. Today’s
interpretation of the Contact Hypothesis has expanded to apply to any cross-cultural interaction, relying on
the prediction that as interaction between two groups increases, prejudice decreases. Allport based his
theory on the idea that prejudice was based on antipathy and ignorance: it is a perspective socially ingrained
in individuals and based on false preconceptions, not an active, malicious belief. Thus contact between two
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individuals of different groups would provide a way for them to learn about each other and realize the
baselessness of their prejudices.
In order for the contact to be effective it must meet all of Allport’s conditions. The context of the
contact cannot be competitive. It must be sustained contact, as sporadic interaction is not sufficient for
enlightenment. To effectively decrease prejudice through contact, the contact must be personal and
informal, contact must have approval and support from the authorities, and most importantly, the contact
must be in a context which provides equal status to both groups.
The hypothesis has received both supporting and refuting empirical research. Tropp and
Pettigrew’s research analyzed a wide array of studies, compiling results from various contact hypothesis
experiments. They found little success of contact improving the prejudiced relations, finding that there was
less prejudice when there was high inter-group contact--but contact did not necessarily lead to a change in
the level of prejudice. Sigelman and Welch found that prejudice only decreases when the inter-group
contact meets all of Allport’s conditions completely and parties are particularly open to learning about one
another. Their findings, overall, were skeptical of placing confidence in the theory.
Post-Structuralism
A wide range of ideas comprise post-structuralism, creating a large framework through which to
interpret our world. It focuses on the self, history, meaning, and philosophy, paying special attention to
power relationships and domination. According to May (1995) post-structuralism views power relations as
a vast network that cannot and should not be destroyed, but rather critically assessed to determine “which
relations of power are acceptable and which unacceptable” (p. 8). Sarup (1993) explained that poststructuralists
believe these power relations are revealed through the creation of language. Words are
comprised of a signifier and the signified. The signifier is the sound made by the word, whereas the signified
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is the meaning attached to that word. According to post-structuralism, the signified is developed through
language’s evolution within a society, and grows to reflect that society’s attitudes.
African Impact, Zambia: Case Study
Africa Impact is a non-governmental organization (NGO) working throughout Africa. Their site in
Zambia opened in 2005, and employs 15 Zambians in addition to international staff. The site offered several
teaching volunteer opportunities, and a medical program, conducted in the six neighborhoods of
Livingstone. The perspective of Zambians on the volunteers varied, but the majority of those interviewed
supported African Impact’s work in the community, and had positive feelings about the volunteers that
came. Christine, a Zambian 54-year-old who volunteered her time as a community health worker, thought
highly of the volunteers. “They are not stigmatizing; they are just very kind. They just feel the same level as
we are.” Christine’s description of the volunteers clearly shows her belief that the foreign voluntourists
held a position of equality with members of the host community. She mentioned her pleasure in the
voluntourist’s willingness to sit on the ground during home-based care visits, and the meaningful non-verbal
communications: “When person touched me, they feel very good, yes, they do not feel stigmatized or
discriminated.” Christine was describing behavior between foreign volunteers and the patient, many of
whom suffered discrimination from their peers due to a positive HIV status. When volunteers visited a
patient as part of the home-based care project, he or she would shake the hand of the patient, clasping both
hands and slightly bowing at the knees in the traditional Zambian practice. This small gesture was
appreciated by Christine, who took it as an indication of the foreigner’s willingness to place himself on an
equal level with the host community, as well as a sign of humility.
This perception of humility was noted by another Zambian, Andrew Zulu, who said: “They are
humble. They humble themselves among the people.” He continued to describe the affect that having
volunteers working next time him in the health clinic had on him: “They motivate me, they challenge you
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to work as a volunteer. So if they can manage and give of themselves, then I can really commend them to
say that they do a good job and a great one.” For Andrew, seeing people from a wealthier class willingly
devote time to working side-by-side with him meant that they cared enough about him and his culture to
want to contribute to the improvement of his community‟s hardships. He gave them a position of power,
but not dominance, in his language: “They motivate me.” The volunteers had the power to motivate him,
but their power was not one of fulfilling their own objectives or needs. Rather, the power of the volunteers
was one which worked to empower Andrew. The word “motivate” implies activity from both the motivater
and the motivatee, and thus it indicates power-sharing and transfer.
Not all of the Zambians interviewed had such high opinions of the volunteers. Alex Chimuka, a
Zambian volunteer in one of the local health clinics, was frustrated by the behavior of volunteers. He felt
that the volunteers brought valuable experience and education to the community, but did not try to share
or teach any of this to Zambians. He illustrated this through the example of blood pressure cuffs: “We
didn‟t have one for the past years. We didn‟t have those things, but you brought those. Instead of you using
them, just tell them „Well, you can use this BP machine like this, like this, like this.‟ Then, you see, I know.
But, instead of me doing that project, then I step down, I say, „No, she will do it.‟” Alex was explaining that
volunteers brought blood-pressure cuffs, but did not teach the reast of the clinic workers how to use them--
an action they should have taken.
Alex‟s theme was repeated in other interviews: most of the Zambians interviewed made at least
one reference to how the influx of volunteers had effected local work. Several commented on their desire
for African Impact to employ more Zambians, a desire not surprising for citizens of a country with a 50%
unemployment rate according to the CIA World Factbook. The volunteers also referenced the effects their
presence had on the local community‟s employment and volunteer work, especially in Nakatindi.
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When African Impact opened its’ Zambian site, they sent the manager to the Nakatindi community
to observe and learn about the successful home-based care program there. However, once African Impact
started regularly sending volunteers, the Nakatinidi community health workers expected to be paid a salary
by African Impact. When African Impact refused, citing their lack of budget, the Nakatindi community
volunteers began to stop participating in the program. Today, only one single Zambian regularly guides
African Impact volunteer, meaning the home-based care in Nakatind is completely dependent on these
African Impact volunteers. Allie, a 19-year old American volunteer, gave a very clear opinion on the
matter: “I think we should stop doing home-based care in Nakatindi, that would make the community do it.
I think that would set an example, too, for the other areas, that that’s what happens. The only way to get
these people to do the work is to not do it.” Allie’s phrasing placed the people in the host-community in a
position of submission--she implied that African Impact had control over the community. An action by
African Impact would make the community act in a certain way. The obligation signified by “make” creates
the domination. Additionally, the phrase “set an example” is only used by those in authoritative positions,
and thus its’ use here by Allie reinforced the under-lying implication of control over the local population.
Equality perception varied within the interviews. Volunteers typically noted a situation of
inequality, while the Zambians interviewed perceived a more symbiotic relationship. Andrew Zulu said:
“Where they don’t know, we help. Where we don’t know, they help. We help one another, and therefore
we look forward to be all work as one.” Here, both parties are equally represented, and the needs of both
parties are being met. One volunteer said, “One of the things I’ve realized is just kinda how no matter
where you are, kids are kids and adults are adults and it doesn’t matter is you’re in China or if you’re in
Ecuador of the States or Zambia--if you give a kid a soccer ball they’re gonna play soccer. If you put a kid in
a classroom their gonna be fussy unless their doing something fun. Like, you know there’s crazy differences
across the world, but everyone’s gonna end and we’re all human and we’re all similar.” The description
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places clear equality on all parties. This contrasted with most of the descriptions of volunteers, who often
used phrases which placed the host community in a position of submission or dependence. Jessica, another
19-year old American volunteer, was asked whether she thought African Impact was assisting the
community and responded: “We are helping them. It’s not great strides, by our means, but I mean for
them.” What is implicit here is that the standards which we evaluate improvement are different for
developed and developing communities, which indicates inequality between the two.
Volunteer perspectives on the local culture varied. Judy, a 32-year old nurse from the United
Kingdom, said, “Respect the fact that it is different from home, that people hold different views, but to
allow people to hold those views. It’s about freedom, isn’t it?” Judy described the local culturea as having a
strong sense of community, and emphasis on the family. Her phrasing had a tone of admiration, saying
Zambian community “shows very much how, if they really come together, it can really benefit themselves
and each other.”
However, not all of the volunteers gained an understanding of the culture. When asked to describe
the local culture, one volunteer described the economic conditions of two classes she encountered during
her volunteer work with the community schools. Her description detailed how one group had televisions
and plaster houses, and the other group bathed in puddles and lived in mud homes. It did not include any
reference to social practices, value-systems, art, mannerisms, or traditions.
Conclusion
In the Zambian case study of voluntourism, the language showed that the majority of volunteers
viewed themselves, at least subconsciously, in a position of power or dominance over members of the host
community. And, while the experience had long term effects on the volunteers and was deeply moving for
many, the interaction with local culture did not effectively alter these power relations to be more
reciprocal. As May argued, these power relationships cannot and should not be destroyed--but they must
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certainly be shifted to become more equal. Additionally, in some cases, the experience did not imbue a
deeper understanding of the local culture.
Voluntourism has had some major benefits for local economies and in creating inspiring and
awareness raising experiences for volunteers. However, these experiences still fall short of improving
Western perspectives on the developing world. As this becomes more evident, voluntourism providers
should strive to provide opportunities for volunteers to think deeper and examine their experiences during
their time at the location. Through self and group analysis, volunteers can adjust their attitudes to give the
host communities a higher position of power. Through probing their thoughts and feelings on the
community, culture, and events volunteers see when partaking in voluntourism, the volunteer can glean a
more accurate perception of the culture and the issues being faced by those living in the developing world.
Creating power relationships with more equality and deeper understanding of foreign cultures must
be an objective of the voluntourism industry. If voluntourism can ensure that participants truly engage in
their volunteer projects, then it can achieve much more than “voluntary service experiences that include
travel to a destination in order to realize one's service intentions.” Voluntourism could be a means to
positively develop the under-lying power relations between developed and developing countries, first at the
micro-level, and one day at the macro-level.
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Whites‟ Racial Attitudes. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 50(4), 459-486.
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Yvonne P. Wood
Purdue University Calumet
The Narrative Effect: Omniscient Narrative in Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss
When reading Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, one may be struck by the endless disruption and
exchange of narratives. Throughout the book, Desai jumps from present, to past, to near future, to near
past. She also moves through time using flashbacks and flash-forwards, and leaps across oceans to different
continents and settings without warning. The effect of this type of narration may seem haphazard and can
confuse a reader who is not careful. However, these narrative shifts have a very important function in the
text. Desai’s omniscient and shifting narration emphasizes the importance of all her characters, the
connections between their lives, and the post-colonial effects they have experienced.
In Inheritance, Desai’s narrator is omniscient, which means that this narrator can see the motives and
read the thoughts of every character. At first, it may seem that she is limited in that ability; however, when
the perspective of one character is related, the point of view easily transfers to the thoughts and perspective
of another. This omniscience not only bridges characters, but also extends over time. In a series of shifts,
Desai covers a time period of nearly 65 years (from the judge’s birth in 1919 to the Ghorkha protests that
occurred in the mid-1980’s). This recounting allows for the narrative to uncover the separate and intimate
stories and thoughts of all the main characters, and it also allows for a deeper evaluation of the conflict
experienced by each of them. She does all of this in a span of only 357 pages.
Desai’s telling of the story with this complicated narrative causes readers to respond in two ways:
thematically and mimetically. James Phelan, in his book Experiencing Fiction, defines the thematic response
as involving “an interest in the ideational function of the characters and in the cultural, ideological,
philosophical, or ethical issues being addressed by the narrative” (5-6). This response is evident in the way
that readers react to the post-colonial allusions and references throughout the story. Readers judge not only
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the practice of colonization but the ethics and responses of the characters. The intricate narrative also
allows readers to respond mimetically. This response involves a very personal reaction to the characters as
people and involve our “evolving judgments and emotions, our desires, hopes, expectations, satisfactions,
and disappointments” (5). In allowing for an uncensored look into the hearts and minds of many of the
characters, Desai permits readers to experience her characters with a greater degree of intensity that makes
this story, at times, more felt than read. This narrative technique emphasizes that no one person is more
important than any other. No single character is central to the meaning of this story, and the narrator
illustrates this by spending time exploring other characters and narrating their personal stories separate
from the accounts of the rest.
There are five main individuals explored in depth throughout this story. Jemubhai Popatlal Patel, a
lonely and retired Indian judge trained in England, lives in a crumbling estate with his orphaned
granddaughter Sai, his cook, and his dog Mutt. His granddaughter, Sai, is a teenager who is dissatisfied with
the life that she is living with her grandfather and longs for more. Gyan, Sai’s second tutor and her first
love, is a young man facing the hard reality of being unable to find a job despite his education. The judge’s
cook, Panna Lal, is not named until the end of the book and is a man preoccupied with the lowly perception
of his station in life. The cook’s son, Biju, is a young man who is trying to make his way in the United
States but finding it more difficult than he had anticipated.
Desai moves easily between the United States and India as she tells the story of Biju and his father.
The narrator spends ample time looking at life through Biju’s perspective exploring his ideas and his
problems and then brings readers back to India showing them the differing ideas and problems of his father,
the cook. When Biju is in America, readers see the complex view that he has of himself and of what he is
doing in his new country. He at first believes that he will be able to go to the United States and become
someone, but he quickly learns that things are not the way he expects and hopes. He spends time working
in mostly seedy restaurants that care nothing for him or any of their other workers. Eventually, Biju finds
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work at an “...all-Hindu establishment” (Desai 155). Even though he expects the work conditions to be
better than the other restaurants, he soon finds out that America changes even the most “authentic Hindu.”
The employers decide to room their employees in the basement so that they could “cut the pay to a quarter
of the minimum wage, reclaim the tips for the establishment, keep an eye on the workers, and drive them
to work fifteen-, sixteen-, seventeen-hour donkey days” (162).
The life Biju is living is a far cry from the life that his father imagines his son is experiencing. The
father believes that in America his son is swiftly moving up in society, and this makes him feel more
important than other people and his own living conditions tell him that he is. He is constantly telling others
about his son in America and beaming with pride. By delving into Biju’s and his father’s lives
independently, the narrator opens up the reader to the emotional and perceptual divide between the
characters.
The same is true with Sai and the judge. Desai explores each of them separately, moving rapidly
from story to story in a way that is omniscient but again seems limited. As the narrator spends time with
Sai’s character, readers realize that she can see the actions of the judge but cannot know his thoughts and
motivations. Because of this, Sai cannot see the judge’s inability to relate to her as well as his extreme
loneliness. Instead of being able to sympathize or relate to him, she sees only the coarse side of the judge
and assesses him as a crass old man instead of one who has suffered immensely from his time spent in
England.
As the narrator spends time with the judge’s perspective, the narrator seems unable to see the
thoughts and desires of his wife, Nimi. After having been alone in England for so long and shunning the
company of others, the judge is no longer able to truly relate to another human being as he was able to
relate to his wife before he left India for his schooling. In fact, he is barely able to relate to his fellow
Indians and even felt that “An Indian girl could never be as beautiful as an English one” (185). By the time
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he returns to India, he has begun to wash himself repeatedly and powder his face in an effort to be more like
the British – becoming only a shell of the man he was before.
However, as only an omniscient narrator can, the perspective jumps to his wife, and readers are
then able to learn about her intense loneliness and despair through her thoughts and reactions. Through the
omniscience of the narrator, readers are fortunate to be able to know Nimi more intimately than her
husband ever would. It is only as Desai is telling the individual story of these characters that it is understood
who they are and their importance to the story. In the end, there is not one character that is left only to
interpretation through objective comments by the narrator; each has been laid bare before and judged by
the reader.
Post-Colonial Literature exposes the iniquities of the colonial powers and tells the story of the
natives of lands destroyed by the practice of colonialism. Desai uses this narrative to depict the effects of
colonialism on her native India. A predominant effect of the colonial experience explored throughout the
book is the resulting Diaspora of countries that have been colonized. Diaspora, the displacement of people
from countries colonized by the British and the other Imperial powers, was experienced on a large scale by
Indians. According to Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Post-Colonial scholars, “Indian populations formed
(and form) substantial minorities or majorities in colonies as diverse as the West Indies, Malaya, Fiji,
Mauritius and the colonies of Eastern and Southern Africa” (69). The people of once-colonized countries
were left in extreme poverty with hardly anything left for them to do but leave their homeland and try to
find education and/or work somewhere else.
Nearly all characters in this book have been affected by this Diaspora; and as she narrates her story,
Desai makes obvious this fact through the travels of her main characters. As a part of an older generation,
the judge was the first to study in England and was able to return to an English-ruled India and find a good
job. Sai’s parents, offspring of the older generation, meet in India while going to the university, but leave
for Russia for better opportunities. Sai’s first tutor, Lola, has a daughter in England who is working for the
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BBC, and a neighbor’s daughter is in the United States working for CNN. But Biju, the disillusioned
product of a different class, struggles to make a living when he leaves India and arrives in the United States.
However, he quickly learns that without money, education, and class to begin with, an Indian may never
find his fortune in the States; or in any other part of the world for that matter.
Of course, Desai could just tell readers about the travels of her characters, but she chooses to take
her readers to most of these places as they are being visited and explored by her characters. This gives life to
the misery and confusion that they experience in other lands so different from India. By bringing these
situations to life using flashbacks, flash-forwards and changes in setting, she makes readers care and feel the
troubling problem of displacement in a real way. Not only does she show readers the transcontinental
spread of a people displaced by colonialism, but she also delves into the dilemma of place, homeland, and
belonging.
Through her narrative, readers become aware of the reality of each character and of the fact that
each of them has felt the effects of post-colonialism; some more than others. By bringing readers into the
homes and lives of the characters separately, Desai shows how these effects are felt differently but intensely.
Gyan’s situation is such that we notice the differences between his upbringing and Sai’s immediately, yet we
also notice the similarity of despair and unhappiness in their current circumstances. Both are poor, but they
suffer differing levels of poverty. Gyan lives in a miserable home that seems on the edge of falling apart in a
poor section of the city of Kalimpong near Cho Oyu. Sai and the judge wear their poverty in a different
way by living on an estate that seems brilliant to Gyan’s eyes but in reality is falling apart. Gyan’s misery
resides in his inability to find a job like so many other Indians. Sai’s unhappiness lies in the absence of a real
parent and the reality of a failed relationship with a young man who leaves her because of his feelings of
inferiority and desire to join the Ghorkha protests. The judge’s wretchedness is rooted in his loneliness; in
his inability to build a relationship with anyone besides his dog, Mutt.
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The confusion of culture, another major consequence of British colonialism in India, is a striking
commonality raised in this book. The British arrive in India and force their cultural rules of education and
business on the inhabitants. What results is a mixture of British and Indian culture that is confusing and
incompatible with Indian values. A paradoxical hate and desire for English things and culture can be seen
through Sai and Gyan’s relationship. Sai introduces Gyan to British ways at the dinner table, and what
disgusts Gyan most is not that he has eaten British food, but that he enjoys it.
Other characters, like Biju, hold on to their Hindu values zealously. Desai’s narrative consistently
brings readers back to America where, sickened by the practice of Indians eating beef, Biju turns to a purity
of Hinduism that he had not previously practiced. As he works at a restaurant in America, he watches as
many Indians reject their religion in efforts to be more American. Biju reflects: “Holy cow unholy cow.
Job no job. One should not give up one’s religion, the principles of one’s parents and their parents before
them. No, no matter what” (Desai 151). He decides that, in order for an uneducated and poor Indian to
get ahead in America, the rejection of traditional Hindu values is required. This is something he is
unwilling to do, and when he returns to India, he is more Hindu than when he left it. Readers could not
have seen this dilemma of culture, faced by so many of the characters, without these shifts in narrative.
Through showing and not telling the story through the eyes of each character, Desai creates a threedimensional
view of an Indian life heavily influenced and complicated by the vestiges of British colonialism.
The quality of life and love in a post-colonial country is seen through Desai’s artful omniscient
narrative. Her technique allows her to fully develop each of the main characters in such a way that readers
feel for them and hope for them. Desai makes readers realize that human beings are all connected and are
part of a human narrative. In realizing that her sadness was for herself only, Sai understands that she is not
alone in her despair. At the end of the book, Sai grasps the idea that despair and loss are everywhere and
that they affect everyone: “Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative
belonged only to herself, that she might create her own tiny happiness and live safely within it” (355). She
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ecognizes not only that everyone has been affected by this same colonial experience and heartbreaking loss,
but that she will never be able to regain what has been taken from her. Sai has lost Gyan, the judge has lost
Mutt, and the cook has lost the pride of having a son in America. What results is a book that, like life, lacks
closure. Nothing has ended completely, and this ending portrays the idea that the effects of postcolonialism
are still alive and affecting Indians. Readers are left reeling with the rediscovery that loss is
irreversible. Nothing will ever be the same for the characters in this book, just as nothing is the same for
every country affected by colonialism.
Works Cited
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. New York:
Routledge, 2005. Print.
Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss. New York: Groove Press, 2006. Print.
Phelan, James. Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative. Columbus:
The Ohio State University Press, 2007. Print.
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Heather Workman
University of Michigan-Flint
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”: Bottom’s Both Foolish and Noble Role in
Grindley’s Production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
In David Grindley’s production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Bottom is a
complex character that is both silly and intelligent. In order to bring director Grindley’s vision to life, Actor
Geraint Wyn Davies, who plays Bottom, transforms Bottom into a character that not only can be laughed at,
but sympathized with and listened to. Bottom is implied to be foolish with his sloppy style and animated
behavior, and is made completely ridiculous when he performs as Pyramus in the artisan’s play with the
other laughable actors. But the production also offers that Bottom is not only silly and childlike, but
charismatic and intelligent. Bottom holds the attention of his group, assuming a natural leader position, and
offers insight about love. Grindley’s portrayal of Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream varies from
the idiotic Bottom to the more intelligent and noble Bottom. Bottom can be seen as foolish
throughout the play and in his performance of Pyramus and Thisbe, which is only complimented by
the other artisans, but also as a nobler version of himself in different stages of the play.
Grindley first introduces his audience to Bottom, who is foolish in both his dress and
behavior. When Bottom enters the stage for the first time late in the first act his appearance gives the
impression that he is a silly man. His belt fails to hold his pants up and instead sits below his round stomach,
while his face is covered by bushy sideburns and a wide smile. The lack of structure in his clothing, as while
his lighthearted attitude that he carries himself with, implies that Bottom is incapable of being serious and
ignorant of his image. Bottom is also seen as childlike in his expressions. Wyn Davies portrays a Bottom
that is very animated in his face
and hands; his face lights up when he smiles and he is quick to use hand motions when acting as the various
roles he wants to play. His gestures combined with his voice variations, which allow him to “roar you as
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gently as any suckling dove” with his hands flying as such, support the humorous image of Bottom that
Grindley has provided (1.2.79-80). This laughable image is further created when Bottom is refused the
parts of the play; he reacts by gently sobbing and digging his head into his friend Peter Quince’s chest.
Because Grindley directs Bottom to have no restraint for his emotions he is seen as the opposite of
structured, rational society. Instead of being stiff and proper like the Duke or other Athenians, his motions
are fluid, and he shows his emotions without thinking.
Later in the play, the portrayal of the Pyramus and Thisbe makes Bottom and his fellow
artisans appear as complete fools in Grindley’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Here,
any respect for the artisans the other Athenians had held is lost. While Peter Quince, the director of the
production, introduces the actors he also introduces his friends as fools; the actors dive out from behind the
curtain and quickly run back for cover. This stage business, directed by Grindley, shows their pure
excitement and their inability to control it. Even their costumes suggest their sloppy nature; Snug the joiner
is a lion dressed in long underwear, and Flute, who plays Thisbe, wears a makeshift dress that is held up by a
belt. Once the artisans begin to act, they only appear more foolish as the men are anxious, with the
exception of Bottom, and they stutter their lines wrong. Their appearance is only made worse when their
props prove they use do not always think things through; Snout the tinker was made to be a wall in the play
with a hole through costume in which Bottom and Flute were suppose to kiss. The actors had not previously
noticed the hole was placed between Snout’s legs. Grindley’s vision of the silly men materializes as actors
remain true to their roles and awkwardly approached the hole to make the kiss. Just as Quince had
suggested in his prologue, the artisans came “to show (their) simple skill” but the “delight” the experienced
was fueled by mockery (5.1.116).
Bottom, as the most outspoken and confident of the actors, is showcased by Grindley as the
leading fool in the performance. In the beginning of their performance of Pyramus and Thisbe Bottom is
seen without his pants as he exits the cover of curtain proudly. His heroic role has now diminished into a
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laughable character and continues to throughout their performance. When dying Bottom shouts “Die!” and
crawls around the floor, making sure to look into the faces of the Athenian audience, until he returns to the
middle of the stage to finally die. The Athenian audience critiques, saying “with the help of a surgeon he
might yet recover and yet prove an ass” as what is supposed to be a lamentable death scene has transformed
into a “lamentable comedy” like the rest of their performance (5.1.327-328). The seriousness of the tragedy
Pyramus and Thisbe is also lost when Bottom breaks from character, such as when he flings himself upright
to address the Duke after his death. As directed by Grindley, Wyn Davies answers the audience with
sincerity, as if Bottom cannot understand the commentary was really sarcastic and cruel.
Although Bottom often falls into the foolish ass-like creature he has been turned into by the
fairy world, Bottom can also be seen as noble and intelligent in Grindley’s production of A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. From the very beginning of the play, Grindley’s blocking of the character
features Bottom in the middle. Whether his fellow actors are sitting and looking up to him, or surrounding
him, they see Bottom as their leader. Even as the characters are walking away from Bottom, when he speaks
they turn and gravitate back towards him. In the third act, when Bottom is transformed into an ass, his
appearance does not alter to the extent that he literally takes the form of a donkey. Instead of giving Bottom
a fake head and snout, Grindley allows the audience to see his expressions as the costume change only gave
Bottom shoe-made ears, buck teeth, and hooves. Because his face is still visible, Bottom remains on a human
level that permits the audience to connect with him, and implies that his character is worth connecting to.
While still an ass, Bottom next shows his intelligence when he speaks with the Fairy Queen about love. As
Bottom says “reason and love keep little company together” Wyn Davie smiles and seems to blush, nodding
his head coyly (3.1.145-146). The actor’s presence suggests that Bottom understands the effects love has on
the heart.
After the Fairy Queen’s love has disappeared for Bottom, he returns to his crew while
Grindley suggests that he is enlightened by the change in costume, behavior, and his position.
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Towards the end of the fourth act Queen Titania no longer has love for Bottom and his ass-head is removed.
Bottom wakes to his normal state, unaware he had been transformed at all. Bottom is no longer dressed like
an ass; his shoe-ears have been removed, and his hands are visible. Now released from Titania’s doting,
Grindley shows that Bottom has safely ventured in and out of the fairy world and is now able to return to
human company. Bottom thinks he had dreamed the past events, and he ponders this, smiling nostalgically.
As Wyn Davies says his lines he acts in awe, and shows the audience that Bottom has been uplifted. His
fellow actors enter below him, as he is still on the balcony, and they call out searching for him. He sits
dangling his legs, watching over them, as Grindley alludes to the fact that Bottom has glimpsed inside
another world and is therefore more experienced than his fellow actors and himself at the beginning of the
play. He makes his descent down the stairs to rejoin his friends on the lower level of the stage, symbolizing
Bottom making his return to Athenian company. The artisans rejoice “O most courageous day!”, embracing
their previously absent leader and welcoming him back to a world that is ignorant to the secret lives that
exist in the wood (4.2.27).
Although Bottom is often seen as a simple, foolish character he is presented in Grindley’s
production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a more complex person. Bottom is childlike, foolish and
emotional when the audience is introduced to him with his expressive face and animated nature. His
laughable character conforms to the company he keeps with the artisans who display their foolish behavior
before the Duke of Athens as they use their poorly thought of prop. Bottom is the lead of the play though,
and confidently controls the stage despite the fact his audience is not taking him seriously. Not only does
Grindley suggest Bottom’s childlike qualities, but also Bottom’s nobler traits. Actor Wyn Davies often shows
a composed, thoughtful Bottom with his actions. Later in the play, blocking and a change of costume bring
Bottom back from the fairy world and allude to the fact that he has been enlightened. Grindley’s vision of
Bottom is not one-sided, and suggests a complex Bottom who is both childlike and silly, and noble and
insightful.
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Works Citied
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By William Shakespeare. Dir. David Grindley. Stratford Festival Theater,
Canada. 13 October, 2009.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. New York: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1993. N. pag.
Print.
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