plainsong
plainsong Volume 31
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Š 2017, plainsong, Vol. 31 Department of English, University of Jamestown, Jamestown, North Dakota; copyright reverts to authors, artists, and photographers on publication, and any reprinting or reproduction may be exercised only with their permission.
Plainsong, a non-profit journal funded by the University of Jamestown, published by the University Department of English, includes the work of students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the University of Jamestown, besides occasional interviews with professional writers.
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Editorial Board Department of English David Godfrey, Ph.D, Chair Mark Brown, Ph.D. Sean Flory, Ph.D. Brittany Kelley, Ph.D. Larry Woiwode, Writer in Residence, Editor
Student Editor Emma Preble
Layout & Interior Design Donna Schmitz
Cover Photo Sapphire Perception Jessica Best Plainsong Prizewinning Photograph
Printing & Binding Two Rivers Press, Jamestown
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Table of Contents Dual Nomad, Alicia Hubbard………………………………………………………………………………...6 Photograph, Blue Angels, Cherish Bauer-Reich……….…………………………………………….…7 Misfortune in Camus’ The Stranger and Greene’s The End Of The Affair, Ty Daly………8 Photograph, Amber Waves, Anna Larson……..………………………………………………..……...10 I Cry to You, O Lord, Savannah Schafer……………………………………………..…………………..11 Sterotypes in Suburbia, Jewel Williams, Louise Erdrich Nonfiction Prize………….12 Photograph, Apple Blossoms, Liza Ostmo……………………………………………………………….18 Domestic, Meaghan Cronin.…………………………………………………….…………………………….19 Indian Identity, Austin Mack………………………………………………………………………………..20 Photograph, Color Wheel of Leaves, Letitia Thomas..………………………………………………22 Halfway, Shade, Girl Beast, Meaghan Cronin, Thomas McGrath Poetry Prize…..23 Photograph, Pink Skies, Jewel Williams….……………………………………………………………..24 Self-Medication, Emma Preble, Larry Woiwode Fiction Prize…………………………..26 Photograph, Raindrops, Jewel Williams………………………………………………..……………...27 Something About Autumn & Words, Jewel Williams………………………………………………28 Plowing With Words & Woman in the Train Station, Matthew Nies………………………..29 Photograph, Quiet December, Jewel Williams……………….……………………………………….30 The God of Worms, Aurora Bear……....………………………………………………..…………………31 Photograph, Street Portrait, Logan Newman…………………….……………………………………35 Individual Development in Emma and Frankenstein, Grant Fodness……………………....36 Irreconciliation & Great Expectations, Jim Stone.………………………………………………….40 The Constrast and Fuction of Belief, Kevin Sexton…..……………………………………………..41 Erotic of Admiration, Linda Hess………………………………………………………………………….44 Photograph, Perfect Stillness, Josh Knutson…..………………………………………………………44 Vulnerability Destroys Maurice, Cole Musland.……………………………………………..………45 Photograph, Nature’s Bounty, Anna Larson…………………………………………………..………47 Tiger Mom or Dictator, Megan Telehey.………………………………………………………..………48 Photograph, The Eye of the Buffalo, Letitia Thomas……………………………………….……….51 The Time Appointed, Mark Brown………………………………………….……………………………..51 Religion As Connection, Meaghan Cronin………….…………………………………………………..52 Photograph, Voorhees Chapel—Frozen Autumn, Letitia Thomas.…..………………………..54 Unenlightened, Jim Stone…………………………………………..….………………….……………..….54 Waiting for It, Grant Fodness………….…………………………………………………………………..55 Photograph, Defrosting, Liza Ostmo…………………………………………………………..…………56 The Long Lonely Walk Home, Grant Fodness………………………………………………………..57 The End of the Line, Jim Stone…………………………………………………………………..…….…..58 Photograph, Sunrise Meditation, Cherish Bauer-Reich……………………………………………59
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DUAL NOMAD Some say home is where the heart is But at that my nomadic heart gets hot, Finding comfort in whirlwind adventures And less stability in any typical, sensible spot; Lost in a maze of mirrors, a tale of dead ends, Circling, I chase a dream, fueled by hope alone That there, in the middle of chaos, Is where I’ll find myself at home; Like waltzing through a maze of mirrors, My twofold reflection dances vicariously. By flesh and blood, I feel it, too— This beautiful life of picturesque insanity. Born into a bicultural family, I blink my Yoko Ono almond eyes And comb my Shirley Temple curlicues, Genetically designed by parental gifts. No surprise. Like a hardboiled egg or a golden Twinkie, Racial holds evade my convoluted conscience, For two nations complement and created this— Me! A dual identity! A double dose of common sense Both sarcastic and submissive in spirit— My Taiko drum following an off-beat paradiddle; Struggling to find balance, my American feet stumble But somehow find my center, right SMACK in the middle. This nomadic heart—so delicate, so fierce, full Of curiosity, compelled to wander free of ties Following the wind’s way, undaunted by storms ahead; And with dual confidence, it’s easy to improvise. By Nippon’s hand of humility and discipline, My mental game—sharp as a blade—like the Katana And blessed by American ignorance toward the dream, I move with passion, secured by peace—a modern day Nirvana,
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My nomadic heart shaped by sweet and sour esteem, By each timely triumph, each successful struggle, And each experience, each colorful consequence— This dual identity has grown strong but passively subtle. Along this journey full of grace and abounding faith, I walk as a witness to a life worth suffering. I embrace My nomadic heart. Drifting down the road, I wander Aimless and alone, toward some unknown place, Knowing on this path no missed turns exist, No regrets. Beckoned past boundaries, past all that’s wrong Except relief in liberty, this genetic backbone is my compass; Home is in all that I carry, my nomad’s heartfelt song. --Alicia Hubbard
Cherish Bauer-Reich 7
MISFORTUNE IN ALBERT CAMUS’ THE STRANGER AND GRAHAM GREENE’S THE END OF THE AFFAIR Misfortune litters everyday life. It varies in severity but always hangs above. Whether it’s a death sentence, a loved one’s death, or the end of an affair--misfortune is present. Everything can be perfect, then suddenly all is ruined, happiness vanishes. Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair are, like life, littered with equal amounts of misfortune, if not more. In these two novels, a vicious cycle forms where misfortune leads to more misfortune. The characters endure consistent misfortune across each story and that shapes their outlook on life. The Stranger opens with Monsieur Meursault, the main character, receiving a telegram informing him that Maman, his mother, has passed away. Almost nothing surpasses the amount of sorrow someone feels when a parent dies, but Meursault is different. Meursault views traveling to and attending his mother’s funeral as his misfortune. He doesn't know it yet, but the story resolves itself because of his nonchalant reaction to his mother’s death. This unfortunate event leads to the most unfortunate event. Meursault’s life returns to normal and he has a lady friend, Marie, whom he enjoys being around. They both travel, with Meursault’s new pal, Raymond, to the beach, which is one of Meursault’s favorite places. Things take a downturn when a confrontation occurs with a group of young Arab men. Meursault, disoriented by the sun, fires a killing shot, and then four more bullets into one of the men. Lawyers and law enforcement question Meursault about why he fired so many bullets into the man. He has no answer. They also note Meursault’s aloof temperament while attending Maman’s funeral and that helps persuade the jury to sentence him to death. The lack of emotion at Maman’s funeral is initially a minute detail. There is no way Meursault could have known it would come back to haunt him as it does. Without the strange reaction, Meursault most likely would have avoided punishment, let alone the death sentence. Even though Maman’s death does not directly cause Meursault grief, it starts a chain of resulting misfortune for him. He can no longer bask in the joys of the beach or spend time with Marie, because the law first takes his freedoms away and then takes his life. It is the tragic end of a misfortune-filled life of an unusual man. In The End of the Affair, the three central characters, Maurice Bendrix, Sarah Miles, and Henry Miles, experience heaps of misfortune and in the end none of them are happy. Henry and Sarah
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are married but she isn't faithful to him. Most of the novel’s misfortune stems from her affair with Maurice Bendrix. All three experience misfortune, but Maurice causes most of it. The original affair inflicts a great deal of misfortune on Maurice and Sarah. They bring each other joy, but Maurice’s jealousy constantly plagues them and causes them to bicker. The affair ends after a German bombing raid of their town, when a V1 rocket explodes nearby. A door smashes into Maurice, and Sarah is sure he is dead. She improbably turns to God. Although she doesn't believe in Him, she makes a deal with Him. If He saves Maurice, she will stay away from Maurice forever, and will turn to the church. Maurice survives, but this one positive event forces the two lovers to permanently separate. This causes a great deal of sorrow for both, because they are sincerely in love with each other and they know they can never be together. Henry also suffers, because his relationship with Sarah is strained by the ordeal. The story begins with Maurice seeing Henry, and the unlikely scenario leads to Henry stating he was worried Sarah was having an affair. The ensuing mess could have been avoided if Maurice hadn’t stopped to talk to Henry. Maurice proceeds to make it worse by suggesting they hire a private eye. Maurice’s affair with Sarah has ended by this time, so he is curious about whom she may be seeing. The private eye discovers Sarah is visiting a man, but they are unaware she visits him because she wants to affirm her belief in God. Maurice and Henry both struggle with the thought of Sarah being with another man and they beat themselves up over it. Sarah’s diary ends up with the private eye, and Maurice finds a passage where she states she loves him in a way she loves no one else. An ecstatic Maurice contacts Sarah but she is sick and will not see him. He has received great news, but is immediately gripped by the awful idea of never seeing her again. No matter what, awful things continue to happen to these three. When the tiniest ray of light shines on the characters, a rain cloud replaces it. Sarah’s sickness kills her and forces Maurice to live without the love of his life, which is more misfortune than could be wished upon anyone. Misfortune plays a role in everyone’s life. Unfortunately for Maurice Bendrix in The End of the Affair and Monsieur Meursault in The Stranger its role is inflated. In both novels, unfortunate events consistently lead to more unfortunate events, causing a slew of problems for all characters. The characters endure the misfortune but are shaped by each event. --Ty Daly
Works Cited Camus, Albert, and Matthew Ward. The Stranger. First Vintage International Edition Ed. New York: Random House, 1989. Print. Greene, Graham, and Michael Gorra. The End of the Affair. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
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Anna Larson
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I CRY TO YOU, O LORD Dear God, “Samantha, kiss me,” he says. “Tell Daddy you love him.” He strokes her skin. Please, protect me. She says, “I love you.” She turns her face toward the pillow, away from his eyes. I know what sin is. I know the bad things. He moves over her. The wood floor creaks. He grasps her face, pulls it toward him to bring her closer. His lips are dry. She looks up at the ceiling. I promise to never sin again! He moves again. The wood floor creaks. She looks at him. His eyes are dark. Where are her daddy’s eyes? She cannot see them. Please, send an angel! Everything is dark. His hands are wet. Her skin is wet. An angel that can help me, protect me? “You’re so beautiful, Samantha.” I promise to never sin again! “My pretty little girl.” I’ll be a good girl. Not a bad girl. Not a bad girl. “Show me you love me.” I don’t want to hurt anymore. He moves. The wood floor creaks. Could you make the pain go away? “Okay, Daddy.” Please, save me. He moves. The wood floor creaks. Please, make it stop! She looks up at the ceiling. Everything is dark. Please--I hate him. “I love you, Samantha.” “I love you, Daddy.” God, please, make him hate me! “This is our secret, Samantha, just for you and me.” I don’t want to hurt anymore... “No one would understand.” Please… He moves. The wood floor creaks. …hate me. --Savannah Schafer
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STEREOTYPES IN SUBURBIA Life within the confines of the 1950’s suburban culture could imaginably be suffocating. In Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, Frank and April Wheeler play the roles of the stereotypical family of that time, but the story is largely based on the differences between their personalities and their abilities to understand themselves. Frank denies that he fits the role of the suburban husband, but his need for control, his unawareness, and his inclination to idealize convey that he is actually made for the role and quite enjoys it. April is the opposite of her husband; she seems created to resist the conformity of suburbia, and is unhappily aware of the role she plays. She uses this advantage to manipulate her husband. Both Frank and April Wheeler play roles stereotypical of the 1950’s suburban couple and attempt to deny such roles, but Frank unknowingly fits the stereotype while April diverges from it through her awareness. Frank is the hackneyed, controlling husband, and contrary to his insistence that suburban life is dreadful, he is perfectly content to continue his role. He is also inauthentic and out of touch with his real self and his wife, and perhaps that is partly because he is unaware of the role he actually plays while also idealizing his life. One reason that he fits the stereotypical role of the husband is he repeatedly displays a dislike for unleashing control, and one major example of this is the first time that April wants to have an abortion. Frank is practically disgusted by the idea of her doing something without his approval: “Even as he filled his lungs for shouting he knew it wasn’t the idea itself that repelled him—the idea itself, God knew, was more than a little attractive—it was that she had done all this on her own, in secret” (Yates 51). After their fight, he says that “no single moment of his life had ever contained a better proof of manhood than that, if any proof were needed: holding that tamed, submissive girl” (52). Not only is he controlling, but he also seems to have a fragile masculinity that can be seen in other instances in the novel as well. He is the kind of stereotypical husband he says he is not. Especially toward the beginning of the novel, Frank reiterates that suburban life is boring and he and his wife do not belong in its suffocating sentimentality: “‘I mean it’s bad enough having to live among all these damn little suburban types’” (25). The reality is that he fits right into the conformity of suburbia, and part of the reason he is controlling is that he does not want to change his life, despite what he says. When April introduces her plan for them to move to Europe, Frank says that “the plan had instantly frightened him” (114). Of course it frightens him, 12
because he would be unleashing control to April by letting her earn the money for the family. Moreover, he would be completely moving away from his comfortable life in the suburbs that allows him to be the inauthentic man that he is. There are many signs that he quite enjoys his current role, but the most obvious is that he is the one who convinces April to stay in Connecticut. John Givings confirms this later in the novel: “‘What happened? You get cold feet or what? You decide you like it here after all? You figure it’s more comfy here in Hopeless Emptiness after all, or—Wow, that did it! Look at his face! What’s the matter, Wheeler? Am I getting warm?’” (301). Frank continues to deny this, which further emphasizes his hypocrisy as well as his unawareness of his role. He denies the life he is living, but he does not realize that his current life is fitting for him. He enjoys his life as well as the inauthenticity that he often uses to maintain it and his constant idealizing of himself. To ensure that April does not leave him or abort their baby, in effect destroying his role, he knowingly puts on an act to seduce her: Walking toward or away from her across the restaurant floor, for example, he remembered always to do it in the old ‘terrifically sexy’ way, and when they walked together he fell into another old habit of holding his head unnaturally erect and carrying his inside shoulder an inch or two higher than the other, to give himself more loftiness from where she clung at his arm. … And so he freed himself to concentrate on the refinements of his role. (231-32) This is quite a lot of acting and effort for someone who claims to be more in tune with reality than his suburban counterparts. It is clear, especially by the end of the novel, that Frank and April’s relationship has fallen apart, but he continues to hold on to the idea that they love each other. In a letter she throws away, April reveals Frank’s true disposition: “Your cowardly self-delusions about ‘love’ when you know as well as I do that there’s never been anything between us but contempt and distrust” (319). Over most of the course of the book, Frank desperately tries to convince himself and April that they still love each other because if he admits that they do not, that means his treasured role as the suburban husband is over. It seems that he is unaware of how ignorant he is being. He doesn’t consider that perhaps he is being selfish; he assumes the two are meant to be playing these suburban roles. He loves his role so much that he is often found idealizing it even more. He envisions himself in situations where he is more of the stereotypical, suburban husband than he is now. One example is how he envisions the night after April’s play:
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He had drawn strength from a mental projection of scenes to unfold tonight: himself rushing home to swing his children laughing in the air, to gulp a cocktail and chatter through an early dinner with his wife; himself driving her to the high school, with her thigh tense and warm under his reassuring hand … himself sitting spellbound in pride and then rising to join a thunderous ovation as the curtain fell; himself glowing and disheveled, pushing his way through jubilant backstage crowds to claim her first tearful kiss … and then the two of them, stopping for a drink in the admiring company of Shep and Milly Campbell, holding hands under the table while they talked it all out. (13)
This story is very much a happily-ever-after ideal, and Frank is quickly shocked by the reality of the night going completely opposite of how he had planned. Another example of his attempting to fulfill his ideal takes place after the play: “He looked at himself in the mirror, tightening his jaw and turning his head a little to one side to give it a leaner, more commanding look” (16). He apparently wants to come off as even more in control than he already is. Frank does not understand that he is being completely delusional and lacks self-awareness, despite being full of himself. He simply does not realize that he is the epitome of the suburban husband, and that he experiences joy in that role. April points out his hypocrisy after telling him her plan to go to Europe: “‘Everything you said was based on this great premise of ours that we’re somehow very special and superior to the whole thing, and I wanted to say “But we’re not! Look at us! We’re just like the people you’re talking about!” … ‘You couldn’t see the terrific fallacy of the thing’” (116). April is clearly aware of their situation and his ignorance of their situation. She is so aware she becomes increasingly depressed, while Frank does not pay much attention to her feelings. He once considers that she may be unhappy, but then concludes “that was unfortunate, but it was, after all, her problem” (263). What ultimately reveals Frank’s oblivion is when April successfully convinces him that she is as happy as ever after their last fight. He has absolutely no clue what April is secretly planning and has no problem going along with her act, which is pathetic considering the state of their relationship and her depression. Even after she dies, he struggles to comprehend what was really going on with April: “‘And she was so damn nice this morning. Isn’t that the damnedest thing? She was so damn nice this morning …’” (337). The reality is that April was putting on an act, while Frank was caught up in his own. His ignorance of himself and his wife is embodied in his statement during the couple’s first fight in the novel: “‘I don’t happen to fit the role of dumb, 14
insensitive suburban husband; you’ve been trying to hang that one on me ever since we moved out here’” (26). That is exactly the role he fits, and April is right in assigning him to it. April is simply more in tune with reality than Frank, and this leads her to diverge from conformity by taking advantage of his ignorance and ultimately becoming severely affected by the mundane quality of their life. Toward the beginning of the novel, when Frank tries to sugarcoat the disaster that was her play, April seems not to buy it because she is aware of how bad it was. When Frank attempts to touch her, “an almost imperceptible recoil of her shoulders told him that she didn’t want to be touched” (15). Then after Frank refines his stature in the mirror, he finds April watching him. Both of these incidents suggest that April knows how Frank works. The dynamics of this scene are also striking: April is looking in the mirror to take her makeup off and come out of character, while Frank is looking in the mirror to get into character. This is applicable to the entire novel, as April becomes more aware of reality and Frank becomes more delusional. One of Frank’s statements emphasizes this: “‘You see it everywhere: all this television crap where every joke is built on the premise that daddy’s an idiot and mother’s always on to him’” (136). That is exactly what is going on between the two. One example occurs during their first fight, when Frank goes on about how he is not the typical suburban husband. This drives April so mad that she has to get out of the car merely to get away from him. Although she is aware of Frank’s games from the beginning of the novel, she goes from trying to mend their relationship to finally realizing that she has never loved him, something that Frank never accepts, even though neither of them has ever truly loved the other. April can accept not loving him because she does not fit into the conformity of suburbia, unlike Frank. He thinks they are both special and not meant for this kind of life, but April is really the only one who may be special. One example of this is how Frank says that “most of her memories were crisply told and hard to sentimentalize” (19). This contrasts with Frank, who is actually more prone to sentimentality than he would like to admit, since he says sentimentality is for suburbia. April also resists conformity through her repeated inclinations for abortions. The reasoning behind her inclinations is that she simply does not want to have children, a shocking concept for the 1950’s. She sarcastically asks Frank why he thinks she wants an abortion:
“Sort of a denial of womanhood,” she said. “Is that how you’d put it?” … She looked faintly annoyed… “You know. The psychological thing behind this abortion business. Is that what women are supposed to be expressing when they don’t want to have children? That they’re not really women, or don’t want to be women, or something?” (244)
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This really is not the case; she is simply resisting the traditional role of women. These two examples convey that April is not one to conform, and therefore is not meant for suburbia. That being said, she does conform to a certain extent. She acts out her role as a housewife, but only because she knows that she is acting. The scenes where she is seen acting out typical housewife duties suggest that she knows the inauthenticity of the role and is consequently miserable. For example, when Frank finds her cutting the grass, he says: Everything about her seemed determined to prove … that a sensible middle-class housewife was all she had ever wanted to be and that all she had ever wanted of love was a husband who would get out and cut the grass once in a while, instead of sleeping all day. (45)
Another example comes after she reveals that she never loved Frank: “She picked up a dust cloth and went into the living room, a tired, competent housewife with chores to do” (293). These scenes are ironic because she is not a sensible or competent housewife, but she plays the part because she has to. She ultimately becomes fed up with her life in suburbia with Frank. Once when Frank catches April looking at him, “he had never seen such a stare of pitying boredom in her eyes” (71). She first tries to escape suburbia by convincing Frank to move to Europe, and she does that by taking advantage of his ignorance. She wants to move primarily so she doesn’t have to conform, and specifically so she can be the breadwinner of the household. She knows that this will scare Frank, so she first profusely apologizes to him for their fight and then assures him that moving would allow him to find the self that he has always idealized. He plays right into her hands. He does sense a quality of “play-acting” in her voice, but “her plan, the idea born of her sorrow and her missing him all day and her loving him” (113) is too good for him to pass up. When her plan is destroyed by the pregnancy, but actually by Frank, she becomes more depressed and ultimately concludes that she is going to defiantly perform an abortion on herself, regardless of whether she dies or not. In steering Frank off-track by convincing him that she is going to continue with the pregnancy, she deceives him by playing off of his predictability. The morning of her death, she plays the role of the perfect housewife, just as Frank probably idealizes her. Meanwhile, Frank is gullible and oblivious to her true feelings and intentions. April’s awareness of her own role in suburbia leads her not only to the manipulation of her husband, but ultimately to find freedom from conformity in her misery.
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In the novel of 1950’s suburbia, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, April is aware of the stereotype she is playing and is unhappy with it, while Frank is unaware of his role and is content with it. Frank talks about how he and his wife are different from everyone else in their suburban neighborhood but he hypocritically seems perfectly fine to continue with this life. He does everything he can to establish control and ensure that his comfortable role is not put in danger and is out of touch with reality, suggesting that not only does he like his role, but is made for it. Unlike Frank, April is aware of his delusion as well as the reality of their situation. Her awareness, and thus her misery and manipulation of Frank, ultimately lead her to obtain freedom from conformity. Therein lies the difference between the two: Frank is made for suburbia because he is blinded by his idealized role, while April is made for resisting conformity because she can perceive reality.
Works Cited Yates, Richard. Revolutionary Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2008. Print.
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Liza Ostmo
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DOMESTIC There's a scratch on the record. Her shaking hand raises a drink to her mouth, her gaudy rings clacking against crystal. She takes in the soft light from the fireplace on the Persian rug, the tenor's voice crooning over tinny trumpets, the darkness of the night through tall windows, the French doors. The damned drink is spilled on the rug, she thinks, her nice white rug, the one they bought together, the one he’s told her too often he never liked. Glass shards mix with the whiskey mingling with the blood mixed-up with doubt, and here she is. And there he is and all she can do is replay the scene--the scratch on the record, the slurred shouting, the misplaced blame and insults and hands, the bottle conveniently placed. His head, conveniently placed. She has to look away before she gags, stumbling to the French doors, toward the garden and the moonlight and all she thinks she enjoyed before tonight, before the scratched record and the shouting and hands and the bottle. Her free hand reaches for the door, grips its handle, and holds it like a breath. She couldn’t possibly leave the house, not even to walk in the garden. Her fenced-in garden, with its marble statues and brick walls and the fountains he put in years ago, for her, the fountains she didn’t get around to telling him she never liked. How could she leave her rug in a state like this? That beautiful Persian rug, the best child he could have given her, how could she abandon it after such abuse? But how could it keep its place in the house now, after all this, the glass shards and the whiskey and the blood and the doubt. Stains like that can’t be removed. She turns to look back to the garden, to the statues and the fountains and the bricks and the dirt. A restful place, she thinks. Later, she’ll think that was the best part of the evening. Brushing the dirt off her hands and knees and her now-stained dress, the beautiful dress of Chinese silk he bought her, which neither of them ever liked, ruined now like the rug and the marriage and the garden behind the French doors. The record has stopped. She pours another drink with steady hands, plucks the needle up and sets it gingerly back on the record. She hums along with the singer and his catchy voice and tinny trumpets, dancing with her whiskey in the space the rug had occupied. She dances till the record stops again, but now allows it to lie silent. She hums her own music, and dances until the fire dies down and her feet ache, but keeps on dancing. --Meaghan Cronin
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INDIAN IDENTITY The most important person to know is oneself. To have a positive relationship with others, we must first recognize who we are ourselves. I believe that if one wants to have a positive impact on others, and on him- or herself, too, one must have a sense of identity. Identity is more than what one does; it is who one is within. It is a combination of what we love with purpose, those whom we love, and the way we distribute our love for others that makes us who we are in relation to the world around us. Identity is a theme that is present in Flight, Black Elk Speaks, and Tracks, although I believe each book touches on a distinct aspect of identity. In Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk finds his identity through his vision, but he also deals with the pain of the American Indians losing significant pieces of their identity. A part of knowing one’s identity is heritage, and in Tracks, Nanapush tells his granddaughter stories of her mother and her upbringing, so that she may grow up with a sense of identity and feel connected to her past. In Flight, Zits struggles with selfworth and knowing his Indian heritage. I will focus on how Michael, in the novel Flight, discovers his identity through reflection, as well as how I was provoked by the novel. “I’m not really Irish or Indian. I’m a blank sky, a human solar eclipse” (Alexie 5). Everything Zits knows about his heritage comes from what he has seen on television. He soaks up all the Indian information he can gather, because it makes him feel more like a “real” Indian himself. Perhaps if Zits knew more about his family’s heritage, he would in turn know himself better and would not be as troubled as he feels. Unfortunately, Zits does not have constructive relationships or direction in his life--constantly bouncing from one foster home to the next. So of course he cannot be troubled to have a relationship with himself. For me, Zits’ Indian identity trouble is especially relatable. He is Indian, but he is unattached to his roots, and therefore feels he’s a fraud. I am twenty-five percent Indian, and I am white in appearance. On my mother’s side I am Cheyenne River Sioux. I grew up briefly on an Apache reservation in San Carlos, Arizona, and identified as Austin-Mack-Apache-Boy, introducing myself as such, as fast as I could say it aloud. Since I do not resemble the stereotypical Indian in appearance, I sometimes feel as though I too am detached from my Indian identity. I understand through my mother that we are what is in our blood, not the shade of our skin. If I tell a friend that I am part Indian it is usually met with surprise, and I fear that I’ll be seen as one of those white people who refers to themselves as part Cherokee. I am a white Indian ghost among a society that is blind to my presence. People do not recognize me for who I
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am, otherwise I doubt they would say the hateful things they do about American Indians with so little reserve around me. There is a prejudice against American Indians by those who do not understand our culture. They reduce the culture to stereotypes they can understand. They let their ignorance flow through their words. Words carry more strength than a punch and have the ability to travel faster than Billy Mills on a track. Words have the power to cripple us, inspire us, and unite us. Words unify us, but when used incorrectly, can divide us. It is vital to be wary of the words you choose in public because you do not always know who is listening or how they will interpret your words, but more importantly we should seek to understand one another. It is when I hear words of prejudice that I experience my Indian identity the strongest. Identity is intrinsically important. We are connected to ourselves and therefore most of our value must come from within in order for us to be whole. Identity gives us the opportunity to establish ourselves as individuals, which in turn allows us to develop a sense of well-being. One of the first steps to having a healthy identity is having a sense of value. Zits asserts that his real name is not important at the beginning of Flight, giving the impression he has little self-worth. I think we all struggle at times, wonder who we are, or what we have become--it is only human. It is at these times that I benefit from a pause for reflection. For me, this means taking time to reflect on my actions and thoughts--how they affect others, affect me, and my perception of my circumstances. For Zits, reflection comes in the form of time travel. Zits takes on his real identity as Michael at the novel’s end because of his vision. One can gain a sense of identity by reflection and by experiencing visions. Reflections and visions can seem different from each other at eye level--one is looking to the past, while the other is an experience of seeing into the beyond. Both look inward, however, and can have a transformative effect on one’s being. Part of knowing one’s identity is having a grasp of one’s heritage. Through Michael’s visions, he lives with the Indians and lives against them, briefly, as the Indian tracker, Gus. He gains new perceptions while gaining an identity. As a result, he becomes more whole and takes the first step toward attributing value to others, by deciding not to commit a heinous act of shooting people in a bank, and value to himself, by realizing he is more than his pain. Reflections can take us on journeys toward identifying ourselves, and that is exactly what happened to Michael. Let us imagine for a moment Michael had not had his vision or reflected on it. I anticipate he would have done what he went to the bank to do. I believe that in order to accomplish our goals and discover our purposes we must be in tune with our identity. We are happier people when we know ourselves and we are less likely to act out in violence, as Michael demonstrates at the conclusion of Flight. One aspect of our 21
identity is tied to our past, which we learn from our heritage. Through thoughtful reflection we may gain control of our identity and be the person we wish to be. When we have confidence in who we are, we are better able to fly over the hurdles in our lives. --Austin Mack
Works Cited Alexie, Sherman. Flight: A Novel. New York: Black Cat, 2007. Print. Erdrich, Louise. Tracks. New York: Harper Perennial, 2004. Print. Neihardt, John Gneisenau, and Black Elk. Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition. U of Nebraska, 2014. Print.
Letitia Thomas
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MEAGHAN CRONIN HALFWAY I am still half in love with you And I know this because laundry still reminds me of you Because I often look at your childhood home and think that I could live there, if you were with me And it would be you and me and all the wind chimes You and me and the wooden swing I once broke You and grey skies You, and the strange doors that lead to nowhere You are a strange door that leads to nowhere, or Perhaps you are simply nowhere, And I always mistook you for The Door. We would live in a witch's garden, The world green around us, this magic, this gentle living--quiet, Nowhere. We would always live in that space of beginnings, where you kissed me and I floundered. Our love letters hidden in plain sight, conversations that would never have to end, even when interrupted by church bells and train whistles. We would live in those sounds, hide under the covers, turn the movie down to hear the rain. We would take 4:00 a.m. runs together and be happy in our perpetual September. That goal you always hoped you could reach: Happy. The problem is that new people live in your house now, that we are only ever in this town separately, as strangers, that I will never know if you think of me as a day, as a muse, as a home, as I still hope you do. The problem is that I am as in love with you as I have ever been, which is to say halfway and only in retrospect, because you will never be anything but that house to me, now. You are one family home on a fall day: the early morning jog in the rain, the pink fog of a sky, the slow day, the loads of laundry, the movies with the sound turned down; You are large and warm, wooden and gentle and full of ghosts. We dance around those halls, I know we do. The ghost of me and the myth of you and the new tenant and her children. We all dance together 23
For one day, in September, Nowhere. We're happy.
SHADE How, in the dead of winter, are my heart and skin thinning? My eyelids the only parts of me that grow, and grow heavy, The shade of my brow envelops me, Telling the heart to stay thin, Telling the beats to slow, Telling myself I'll stay warmer this way. How Sylvia do I dare be before I pull myself out of the mirrors and lakes, away from the edge, and stop being fish? Stop being old woman. Stop being woman who never grows old. How do I live without the sadness? If it goes, do I go too?
GIRL BEAST Girl, sit still, Stop your squirming. The bonds of friendship are not kidnapper's ropes, This is not a zip tie love. Girl, why are you fighting? Girl, put it down. Stop your searching. Do not swallow fire. Do not forget how you got here, Wildling, I know your restless spirit, I know your destruction too well But I will never understand it. You and I are different beasts In the same woods 24
but I am no longer your prey I run alongside you (she-wolf) and you scatter, punch-drunk, I edge around you, Keep the fur from flying Keep you from grinding the soft pads of your feet into bone dust Until I forget why I am running at all Until I notice my bleeding feet Until I forget what water is Until sleep is a long-forgotten god Until I notice your changed face, Your morphing hide, This creature I no longer recognize And I stop and tumble and creak my weary head up only to see your blur in the distance run, Run, keep running
Jewel Williams 25
SELF-MEDICATION “What are you thinking about?” he asks, sweeping a strand of hair from my forehead-such a tender gesture, and I don’t even know his first name. “Nothing,” I reply. My stomach is starting to feel hollow. “You should go.” “Right,” he says with a nod, clearing his throat, and I see relief wash over his face. He isn’t offended, of course he’s not offended. I’ve saved him the small talk, the empty promise of calling me the next day. I’ve given him the reassurance that we both know exactly what this is. I watch from the bed as he dresses, wishing he wouldn’t take so long to pull on his shirt. I roll on my side while he continues with his pants, socks, coat. I don’t want to see him anymore. When I hear the click of the front door I free myself from the tangle of mingled sweat and sheets. I lock the door, turn on every light in the apartment, and go into the bathroom. Whoever he was, he no longer exists. I look in the bathroom mirror at a woman with smeared mascara and fading lipstick. She is no more familiar than the man who lay in bed only minutes before. I turn on the shower and see the reflection disappear behind steam. I furiously scrub, shampoo, and shave until the entire evening goes down the drain in a swirl of soap and regrets. When I pull back the shower curtain and wipe away the steam, a different woman—a woman I know—stares back at me. I wrap a towel around my dripping body and throw the wrinkled mess of clothing I tossed carelessly on the bedroom floor into a hamper. I rip off the wrinkled sheets and throw them on top of the clothes. I pull on a T-shirt that smells like fresh laundry to remove the stench of alcohol, cigarettes, and cheap perfume from my veins. I dump the hamper filled with mistakes into the top of the washing machine, measure out detergent and dump it on top as if it’s gasoline, close the lid, press a button, and light the evidence on fire. “Hello, precious boy,” I coo, stooping down to pet the cat that’s been swooping between my legs. I haven’t heard my own voice since I left for my apartment at 10:00 p.m. My chest tightens with discomfort as I grow used to myself again. “Where have you been hiding?” The cat mews in response and resumes his task as my shadow now that the threat of a stranger is gone. I turn on the TV to replace the image of his body and drown out the sound of his voice still echoing in my head. The cat leaps in my lap and affectionately nudges my chin. As soon as the load of laundry whirling in the wash is done, so is the night. Nothing happened. 26
In my medicine cabinet I’m aware of the bottle of pills with my name written on them. It isn’t the only bottle I use to dull the pain. On my fridge, behind a flower shaped magnet, a note reads Thursday @ 2 p.m. It’s written on a piece of paper embossed with Templeton Wellness Clinic in frigid blue ink at the top. Five feet away, on the couch where I sit, I keep count on my upper thighs of the bad days with a razor-sharp pen. I know a desperate night will come again and I will reopen the tally marks on my leg. Next weekend it will be another set of sheets in the washing machine, another face to forget, another attempt to feel something stronger than indifference. And so I spend the rest of the night imagining what relief might feel like. --Emma Preble
Jewel Williams
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SOMETHING ABOUT AUTUMN Something about autumn makes me homesick when I am away. And something about autumn makes me homesick when I am at home. I’m nostalgic for things I have not yet experienced. It seems that is the way I am.
WORDS The wind in my hair And words in my head React in similar ways, The fleeting nature of Both difficult to grasp, Swirling and teasing, The wind unhampered, Unrestrained, free to leave Words confined and Caught between my head And the pen I hold, A sequence lost, confused.
--Jewel Williams
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PLOWING WITH WORDS Hitching burly oxen to plows Focuses their errant plodding into work— Only then will they furrow straight. Usefulness stems from their gait— Four legs blackened from new-tilled earth Find their purpose in the plow. Harnessed to a computer, I write emails And letters and focus errant words Into smooth, print-worthy work. In cacophony’s midst, I think how it would be to shirk My plow for rural fields where black dirt Churns when plowed and muddies your fingernails.
WOMAN IN A TRAIN STATION In a recess of a station’s vaulting Main hall, a frail woman coughed. Her small noise lost Resonance amid booming trains halting To or stirring from a stasis; Echoed footfalls and collective conversations Drowned her out. Steaming libations Warmed red swollen faces Of unconcerned passers-by, None of whom could have guessed— If they could have heard her pressed, Percussive, heaving sighs— That her funerary heaves would fall in that heaving Hall. It was a busy station, where collected Lives crossed but never intersected. From there her soul did its leaving, But not on train or physical transportation. Police encircled while guffaw ensued— None could rouse her whose face was now imbued With peace as she lay in the midst of the train station. --Matthew Nies 29
Jewel Williams
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THE GOD OF WORMS The final shovelful of dirt for the day hit the ground, a few worms squirming free of dirt clods and clumps of grass. At their taste of freedom, the worms turned and went straight back into the ground, their little pink bodies flicking out of sight. The gravedigger rested on his shovel and stared down at the square of dirt he’d unearthed and, after a pause, spat on it. It was what he usually did. The people he buried were never given the comfort of a cemetery, or even a coffin, and so he figured they were the sort of people he could spit on. He had been burying people at the crossroads for four years, following a brief fast-food stint and an even briefer job behind the counter at a gas station, after he found he much preferred the dead to the living. He didn’t have to speak when it came to the dead; he didn’t have to talk to them, to reassure them, or anything. He only had to bury them. One of the worms returned, with what the gravedigger figured was his head poking up through the spit he’d left. He glanced down at it and almost tenderly worked his shovel between it and the ground, flicking up a small indent of dirt and the worm, which landed a few feet away with a thud. He headed over to it, good-tempered in his Doc Martins, and very cheerfully stabbed the worm straight through. The two halves wriggled, as he knew they would. He’d been cutting worms in half from a young age, when he was still young enough to be squatting outside with an ass covered in a ratty old pair of swim trunks and feet bare on the rutted concrete, carefully taking a thin rock and splitting a worm in half. It was always best right after a rain, when they came up onto the concrete. That was what his older brother taught him. The two halves of the worm wriggled in different directions, and he found that a bit sad, so he pushed both of them back together. They twisted and turned, and in a few seconds, they were one again, squirming back into the dirt. The job didn’t pay well, but he had his own house, more like a hut, furnished from items he’d found on the curb during clean-up weeks of various towns--without plumbing, of course, but he had an old well that spat out rusty-orange water for a few minutes before giving him anything resembling clear, and an outhouse out back. He didn’t know what happened to an outhouse if you used it for too long; if it filled up or if it would just sort of, you know, soak back into the ground, but either way, he didn’t have to worry about that yet, so he didn’t. No electricity, but he did have a wood-burning stove in the corner that helped out during the winter 31
months--he always kept an eye out for wood on the curbs or old pallets during the summer so that he would be able to, you know, survive in the coming winter--and a bunch of candles if he wanted to stay up and read westerns he found at garage sales. He had a few raspberry bushes behind his hut, and an icebox outside, and he had an old Chevy pickup he could use whenever he got an envelope of cash with a body from one of the various towns. He was happy. He didn’t have to bury that many bodies; he didn’t know all the details of who the people he buried were, the job description had left the description of the dead at ‘undesirables’, and the gravedigger figured he didn’t need to know more than that. His personal guess was suicides, or small-time criminals that nobody would miss. His secret prediction, the one he barely let himself think, was white trash, the kind of people who lived in trailer houses that maybe doubled as meth houses and kept acne at thirty and forty and let their kids run free and to get tetanus and terrorize the town. People like his parents had been, he thought. But there were normally no more than two or three bodies a day, and he could spend the rest of his time cutting up worms and reading and exploring and, sometimes, if he was feeling intellectual that day, pulling out an old typewriter that he’d found at a garage sale and pounding out some pages. He didn’t write anything in particular; the process itself was soothing. He heard the roar of a truck approaching and hoisted himself out of the grave. He’d become friends with the old man who delivered the bodies. He was maybe in his fifties or sixties but seemed older, had the look of well-worm leather, and the gravedigger raised a hand in greeting as the man dragged another body, this one almost impossibly small in a nest of garbage bags. “How many is that this week, boy?” the old man asked. The gravedigger had to think about it. “It’s Monday. Five.” “That means it’s payday,” the old man said. He pulled an envelope from the municipality out of his pocket and handed it over. “Fifty, same as usual.” The gravedigger nodded his head. A worm, twice the size of a normal one, squirmed over his boot and he shook it off impatiently. The old man looked down at it and shook his head. “You know what you need for those?” the old man said. “Vinegar.” “I like them,” the gravedigger said. He brought his shovel down on the worm, splitting it apart, and then pushed the two halves together, as was rote for him. The worm squirmed away, happy as it had been before it encountered him. “Thanks,” he said, shaking the envelope. “’s not me who pays you,” the old man said. “See you later. Tomorrow. Later today, maybe.”
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“Maybe,” the gravedigger said, and the old man got back in his pickup and drove away. His pickup, like the gravedigger’s, was perpetually dirty. No amount of car washings helped if you drove in muddy fields and on gravel roads, places where these kinds of bodies were normally left. The body sure was small. He’d never buried one as small as this was. He normally didn’t look at the bodies—well, he had the first time, out of morbid curiosity, and had been so grossed out that he’d had to save the body and the rest he’d gotten that day for the next day, after a good night’s sleep and several split-and-put-back-together worms. So he didn’t look at the bodies. But it was so small. He picked it up—it was as light as it was small, so it couldn’t just be cut up in a bunch of pieces—and carried it to the plot where he would bury it. He liked to spread them out. He set it down. He stuck his shovel in the ground. He untied the rope holding the garbage bags to the body and pulled the body free, feeling sick curiosity bubble up behind his eyes. He was looking at a little girl cut in two. It wasn’t a clean cut. It was like someone had taken shears to her, or a paper-cutter—the skin at her stomach, right across the belly-button where she’d been hacked in half, was jagged, and her spine had been snapped away to match. He swallowed hard. Another worm slid over his boot and he kicked it off and repeated his ritual. His mind made a connection, and he used the shovel to push the two halves of the little girl together. It took a few seconds, but soon there wasn’t a seam between her top half and her bottom half, and a few seconds later, she blinked her eyes open. “Hi,” he said. She gaped up at him. He put her at six or seven. A worm the size of a garter snake squirmed past them. He cut it in half and pushed it back together without a second thought. It was a strange color, almost white rather than pink, but he figured that was what happened when worms got too big. “I’m Mark,” the gravedigger said. The girl didn’t say anything, but she did sit up and put a handful of dirt in her mouth, which he counted as progress. He reached down and pulled her up by the hand. She followed without hesitation as they walked back to his cabin, and on the way he cut apart and put back together three more worms. The last one was so big that he really had to hack away at it before it split in two. 33
He led her to his couch, which had only one cushion left, and had to push her into a sitting position. He sat in front of her and saw she was still eating dirt. She had grown at least half a foot and, as she sat chewing, her hair began to drift down off of her head so that she was shedding on his couch like a long-haired cat. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked, though he was sure she wouldn’t say anything. He got her a cup of water, even though he knew that she wouldn’t take it. He got a bottle of root beer for himself. He liked to splurge on glass bottles because it wasn’t as if he had many expenses, anyway. He sat at the card table where he usually ate and watched her. Once her dirt was gone she merely sat, her hair falling out in clumps, and once his root beer was gone he tossed the bottle into his trash can and pulled her up by the hand. He led her to the fresh grave he’d dug and pushed her gently to the ground. She used her hands, still, and dug her way into the ground, leaving a huge hole behind her. He filled it mutely and then leaned on his shovel. It was times like this when he considered getting more out of life. Doing the same to the man who brought him the bodies, but that would require him to kill someone first, and he was no killer. He was merely a gravedigger. He liked worms. And as one of the worms he’d recently cut and put back together, one of the really big ones, slid past him and the cloudy skies opened up in rain, the gravedigger thought that a gravedigger was all he would ever really like to be. --Aurora Bear
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Logan Newman 35
INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT IN EMMA AND FRANKENSTEIN Before Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published and the nature versus nurture debate began, the commonly held idea of the development of an individual was John Locke’s belief that each human being was a tabula rasa, or blank slate, at birth. After birth, the individual is shaped by the environment. Locke’s idea was influential in the English and American literature that followed its introduction, and two English works in particular work to illustrate his idea. In Jane Austen’s Emma and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the authors dramatize society’s effect on an individual’s development. More specifically, both Austen and Shelly argue that the opinions of others have a negative effect in shaping an individual, as seen in Emma and Frankenstein’s creature. Both Emma and Frankenstein’s creature are unhappy and their unhappiness is caused by the opinions of others, illustrating how the opinions of others have a negative effect on an individual’s development. Austen dramatizes the effect in Emma in a much less direct way than in Frankenstein, as is seen in Emma’s gradual decision to join the marriage market. Early in the novel, Emma states that she has “none of the inducements of women to marry” unless she were to fall in love, and she is sure to “be a fool to change such a situation as [hers]” (Austen 68). Emma is “handsome, clever, and rich with a comfortable home and happy disposition,” everyone in Hartfield “looks up to [her and her father],” and her father can never “speak of her but with compassion” (5, 7). She is at the top of Highbury’s social hierarchy and receives “the strongest of admiration” (168) from everyone, but her situation seems happy only because it is reinforced by the way people speak to and treat her. If Emma abstains from marriage and keeps her situation, she is “in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude” because her father cannot “meet her in conversation,” which would lead to a life of depression and boredom for Emma (6). Similarly, when shopping with Harriet, Emma goes “to the door for amusement,” but it “could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury” (183). Highbury is not intellectually stimulating enough for Emma and it lacks an intellectual match for her, so although Emma’s situation is presented as a happy one through the opinions of others, she ultimately resolves to join the same marriage market that she thinks she is above. By Emma’s resolving to join the marriage market, Austen reveals how the opinions of others have a negative effect on the shaping of the individual in a less direct way.
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Through Frankenstein’s creature, on the other hand, Shelley reveals how the opinions of others have a negative effect on the shaping of the individual in a more direct way. This effect is shown in how unhappy and lonely the opinions of others make Frankenstein’s creature. When the creature tells Frankenstein his story, he says that he must “be hated, [he] who [is] miserable beyond all living things” (99). The creature furthers his lament by saying that he is “miserably alone” and cannot gather any home from Frankenstein’s “fellow-creatures” because “they spurn and hate [him]” (100). Clearly, Frankenstein’s creature is miserable, but early in his existence, the creature was happy, having received “a sensation of pleasure” from the moon and being “delighted when [he] first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted [his] ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals” (103). The creature starts to feel miserable when he encounters people, when he enters a man’s cottage and the man immediately shrieks and runs away, and he “hardly place[s] [his] foot within the door, before the children [shriek], and one of the women [faints]” (106). Later, however, the creature learns to read, which allows him to understand others’ opinions of him, and that increases his depression by showing him “more clearly what a wretched outcast” he is (131). He reads Frankenstein’s notes and learns of the “series of disgusting circumstances” which led to his creation, the creation of an “odious and loathsome person . . . in language that paint[s] [Frankenstein’s] own horrors” (130). The creature’s true feelings of “pain and anguish” come after he becomes aware of the opinions of his creator and of others (135). Then the creature shapes his whole self-image around the perceptions of others, which makes him more miserable and supports the claim that the opinions of others have a negative effect on an individual’s development. Both Emma and Frankenstein’s creature react negatively in some way to the perceptions of others, which supports the claim that the opinions of others have a negative effect on the shaping of an individual. In Emma, the opinions of others cause Emma to dislike Jane Fairfax and treat her poorly. Emma’s rationale for disliking Jane is not extensive; from when they were young, it has “always [been] imagined that they were to be so intimate--because their ages were the same, every body had supposed they must be so fond of each other,” which is Emma’s primary reason for disliking Jane (Austen 131). When Jane comes to stay in Highbury, Emma determines “that she would dislike her no longer,” but these “charming feelings” do not last (131, 132). After spending just one night with Jane at Hartfield, “former provocations re-[appear],” and Emma despises Jane’s “cloak of politeness,” which prevents one from “getting at her real opinion” (132). Finally, Austen states that “Emma [can]not forgive her,” and Emma goes back to disliking Jane (133). The basis of Emma’s dislike of Jane is the opinions of others. Emma spurns 37
the idea of being Jane’s friend simply because everyone thinks they should be friends and because she is unable to uncover Jane’s opinions on various subjects. Emma’s dislike of Jane, based on the opinions of others, causes her to treat Jane poorly, revealing that the opinions of others have a negative effect on individual development. During Jane’s stay in Highbury, Emma makes Jane’s life miserable by talking behind her back and repeatedly suggesting that she is having an affair with Mr. Dixon. In one conversation with Frank Churchill, for example, Emma says that “if [Jane] continued to play whenever she was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses”--hinting at an affair with Mr. Dixon (159). At parties, Emma comments on how “Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a way,” and passes “smiles of intelligence” with Frank, which are certainly intercepted by Jane (174, 173). Even if these remarks are an aside, in the highly-connected Highbury society, Jane is certain to hear what Emma says about her, and this invariably leads Jane to make herself “very ill” to avoid confrontations with Emma (156). Emma’s treatment of Jane is nothing new, however; from the time they were young Emma could not see Jane “without feeling that she had injured her,” and she says that she “was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was” when she was younger (131). The opinions of others cause Emma to dislike Jane and treat her this way. Emma has exhibited this treatment of Jane throughout her life, so it is that the opinions of others have a negative effect on an individual’s development. Likewise, the opinions of others have a negative effect on the individual development of Frankenstein’s creature by causing him to feel like “an abortion” and thus seek revenge on his creator (Shelley 222). When Frankenstein and his creature first meet, the creature says that Frankenstein “detest[s] and spurn[s] [him],” and he “will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of [Frankenstein’s] remaining friends” (99). He continues by saying that he “was benevolent” and his “soul glowed with love and humanity,” but now he is “miserable, and [those who abhor him] shall share [his] wretchedness” (100). It is clear that Frankenstein’s creature is despondent and seeks revenge on his creator, but the root of it all stems from the creator’s awareness of the opinions of others. As the creature tells Frankenstein his story, he talks at length about Milton’s Paradise Lost. The creature is “sickened” as he reads the epic poem, and curses the “hateful day when [he] received life” (130). He detests his creator, but his desire to “claim [the] protection and kindness” of the cottagers whose home he frequents allows him to look past this detestation and hope for a life in which he can be “serviceable to a human creature” in any way (132, 134). When he approaches De Lacey to actualize this hope, however, he is unable to “describe their horror and consternation on beholding [him],” and his heart sinks “with bitterness” (135). After this, 38
Frankenstein’s creature becomes “like the arch-fiend,” Milton’s Satan, and “[bears] a hell within [him]” (136). He continues, “finding [him]self unsympathised with, wish[ing] to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around [him], and then . . . [sit] down and [enjoy] the ruin” (136). Notice that although the creature hates Frankenstein after reading Paradise Lost, he compares himself to Satan only after he learns of the opinions of the cottagers. Only then does he become like Satan and initiate his plot for revenge against Frankenstein, strengthening the argument that the opinions of others have a negative effect on the development of the individual. Using John Locke’s tabula rasa, Austen and Shelley state the argument that the opinions of others have a negative effect on the development of the individual in Emma and Frankenstein. Both Emma and Frankenstein’s creature are made unhappy by the opinions of others. Emma’s gradual decision to join the marriage market and avoid a life of solitude and boredom, and Frankenstein’s creature being made unhappy by what other people think and say about him support this claim. Similarly, both characters lash out in some way because of the opinions of others. Emma dislikes Jane Fairfax and treats her poorly in an almost vengeful way only because everyone praises Jane and expects them to be friends. Frankenstein’s creature, on the other hand, becomes like Milton’s Satan and vows for destructive revenge on Frankenstein after learning the opinions of his creator and the cottagers with whom he hoped to reside. One can also look at the similarities between the characters’ foils for further support of the authors’ claims. Jane, Emma’s foil, reinforces the idea that Emma’s position is presented as happy because of the opinions of others, and the creature’s foil, Frankenstein, moves from the uncivilized to the civilized world to show how the opinions of others are detrimental. Nevertheless, Austen and Shelley use Emma and Frankenstein’s creature to show how the opinions of others can have a negative effect on the individual. --Grant Fodness
Works Cited Austen, Jane. Emma. Edited by James Kinsley, Oxford University Press, 2008. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Edited by M. K. Joseph, Oxford University Press, 2008.
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IRRECONCILIATION I loved her long before I ever knew What love was meant to mean, what lovers do; To whom I might protest my ignorance (Unable to profess my innocence) Of what time, a wife, and life might find in me, Much less of her desire and mystery. I wonder if I’d have known to love her then, If knowing might have held my anger when The insecurity of fragile youth Exposed a heavy-handed tragic truth That kept me from the solace when she left Of feeling justifiably bereft.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS It’s not that I cannot imagine the day of my own annihilation, but that I may believe that death is more than dreamless sleep, whose coming promises (as lovers leap in faith into each other’s gentleness) a fitful prelude to an emptiness that cannot be. I have imagined more than that for me, beyond a distant door. --Jim Stone
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THE CONTRAST AND FUNCTION OF BELIEF When comparing the role of belief in The Stranger to Night one observes great contrast in how people’s beliefs can manipulate their perception of reality. In The Stranger the main character, Meursault, holds to a philosophy of life that nothing has any meaning. In Night, Elie Wiesel’s primary belief in the meaning of life changes, but his beliefs are quite different from Meursault’s nihilistic viewpoint. Wiesel holds strong Jewish beliefs and values when he is young. His religious beliefs waver when he experiences great tragedy during the holocaust, and his main purpose develops into surviving for his father. Lastly he reaches the conclusion that his religion still has meaning and that he owes it to the world to share his experiences. Wiesel and Meursault’s contrasting beliefs about the meaning of life are responsible for their respective outcomes. Night illustrates how belief in a purpose or meaning life can empower a person in overcoming adversity. The Stranger demonstrates how the lack of meaning renders a person a product of his or her circumstances or environment. To begin, there is considerable contrast on the topic of religion between Wiesel and Meursault. Wiesel defines himself through his Jewish roots. Before he enters the concentration camp, for example, Wiesel is asked what his purpose is for praying, and he replies, “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 4). For Wiesel, his religious beliefs not only define who he is but religion is as much a part of life as breathing. He gained this understanding of the world through Judaism. Meursault, on the other hand, is an atheist. When confronted before his execution by the chaplain, Meursault says he “didn’t believe in God” (Camus 116). The priest pleads, “‘Have you no hope at all? And do you really live with the thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?’ ‘Yes’ Meursault said” (117). Meursault does not find any meaning in religion. It simply does not interest him and he sees no value in it because to him nothing he does will make a difference. Meursault’s religious beliefs or lack thereof are the opposite of the spectrum to Wiesel’s. One can see how these separate approaches to religion, or even values held in general, affect the two characters. While the very belief in Judaism lands Wiesel in concentration camps, the values he gained through his religion help him survive the Holocaust. There were times when Wiesel denied his religious duties while in the camp, but he never totally renounced his belief in God. This is evident when he chooses not to fast on Yom Kippur. While others fast to show God their devotion, Wiesel decides not to because he “no longer accepted God’s silence” (Wiesel 69). Wiesel was still a believer in God but could not accept what was happening to him and his people, so refusing to fast was his act of rebellion. 41
However, his values ultimately kept him alive; he refused to die because he felt that he owed his father his life. Wiesel was contemplating how easy it would be to allow himself to die when he thought, “I have no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support” (87). He valued his relationship with his father over his suffering. He believed his duty to live for his father kept him alive and allowed him to overcome unimaginable adversity. Meursault might allow himself to die under the circumstances that Wiesel faced because he saw no meaning in relationships. For example, Meursault was talking about his mother to his lawyer, and he said, ‘‘‘I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead’” (Camus 65). His lack of compassion for his own mother makes it clear that he would not endure suffering in the name of another, even if that person were his own blood. For this reason, Meursault would see no reason to live through the suffering that Wiesel and millions of Jews endured. He would have given up because he could choose either route, and it wouldn’t matter which. As Meursault sees it, “people never change their lives, and that in any case one life was as good as another” (41). This belief removes the pressure and responsibility to make difficult decisions; the rationalization is that it will not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. So why go through inconceivable pain if there is no meaning in the suffering? Meursault’s thought process suggests that if he were in Wiesel’s shoes he would have fallen victim to his circumstances and would not have been able to overcome the adversity. This is similar to his inability to overcome the adversity he faces in court. On the contrary, Wiesel’s beliefs were strong enough to empower him to overcome the hardships he faces. Lastly, there is a significant difference between Wiesel and Meursault on the merits of ambition. This is partly the reason for the way each of their lives turns out. As mentioned earlier, Meursault believed that people could not change their lives, so he gave up trying. The only thing it would seem he cared about was that he was right about life. He was one of the few people in the world who understood that nothing really mattered. This is evident when he is in conflict with the priest and explains, “I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn’t done that…Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why” (121). Meursault believed he was better than others because he understood more than they did. He believed that whatever anyone does it makes no difference; everyone else can waste their time searching for meaning, but not him. This was his way of rebelling against the socially constructed norms of society. However, the very belief that he was right about the pointlessness of life is why he fell victim to his environment. Meursault blurted out in court that the sun made him murder the 42
Arab (103). Everyone laughed, because how could an inanimate object cause someone to murder another. It’s nonsensical. That is indeed what happened, though. He fell victim to the heat, and to his emotions. Meursault did not seem to have emotions or at the very least he suppressed them, but I believe he panicked in the heat of the moment and shot the Arab because, well, what was to keep him from doing it? Nothing had meaning to him, so what was to prevent his shooting another human being? If nothing in your life has meaning, then why fear death at all? Wiesel on the other hand was filled with ambition. He was motivated to live in order to tell his story to others. He found purpose in his suffering. He tells his story to honor those who died and to prevent future events, similar to the Holocaust, from occurring. As he puts it in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices…wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must at that moment become the center of the universe” (Wiesel 118-119). Wiesel’s reasoning is significantly different from Meursault’s for why things happen and how one should approach life. He believes it is the responsibility of able people to stand up to injustices and to end the suffering of others. If one were to ask Meursault what he thought on the very same topic, he would probably question the point of going through the hassle, because as Meursault says, “what did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love matter to me” (Camus 121). In summary, Meursault and Wiesel have immensely contrasting belief systems. Meursault is a nihilist. Wiesel has strong values and morals that are reaffirmed by his religion. Meursault’s lack of belief in any meaning serves as a means of feeling superior to others and provides him with a sense of power. However, the very belief in meaninglessness causes him to lose control and fall victim to his environment and suppressed emotions. Wiesel, on the contrary, has strong values and morals that are reaffirmed by his religion. Wiesel uses religion and values to find meaning in his suffering. He was able to overcome horrific events that took place in his life and became someone who later influenced millions. Meursault’s viewpoint may indeed be correct but it seems imprudent to act on those beliefs. It seems obvious that one would be better off living with values and a belief in something greater than oneself, because it produces resiliency in a person. As proven in the book Night, having purpose in life that exceeds one’s own misery and that is the key to overcoming adversity. --Kevin Sexton Works Cited Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. N.p.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Print. Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print. 43
EROTIC OF ADMIRATION The experience of seeing smart women who speak with passion-admittedly the more “masculine” ones attract me most, cheekbones, angles, poise, maybe a vest or a tie, curly hair, close-shaved in the neck, though, a firm and reflective voice, a smile that breaks on her lips as the audience responds to her joke. This-–is a new erotic pleasure, tingling, the tapping into a mind, the sharing, freely, the sexiness of this generosity runs deep. --Linda Hess
Josh Knutson 44
VULNERABILITY DESTROYS MAURICE Maurice is an all-star nonbeliever through most of Greene’s novel The End of the Affair. I purred like a cat when I read his view on the improbability of God (Greene 47). But I growled like a dog when I read that Maurice, going against his nature, was starting to think about the credibility of miracles. The sequence of “miracles” occurs when Maurice is vulnerable, the perfect time to contemplate miracles. Vulnerability harbors a perceptual cesspool where miracles and God might appease even the strongest of nonbelievers. Sarah’s death is monumental to Maurice (109). The reader can safely assume that he will never again be the same, but I am disinclined to say it destroys him. What does destroy Maurice is the damn miracle showdown allegedly put on by the Angel Sarah after her death. Maurice went from being an all-star nonbeliever on one side of the spectrum to practically a fence sitter. While it is beneficial for a person to look at both sides of the spectrum, I have a healthy disdain for uncertainty. Maurice appealed to me tremendously because he initially dealt in absolutes, or at least close to absolutes, as illustrated by the agreement with Sarah that the two were not going to have the manmade idea of a personal God interfere in their lives (54). The end of the affair happens with Sarah’s death. The new affair happens with vulnerable Maurice being taken advantage of by the nonsensical notion, not only of miracles but miracles coming from a Divine Sarah (160). This final affair will only end with the death of Maurice. He will be haunted by Sarah’s miracles and the probability of a God for the rest of his life. In my mind (and his) he loses because he was struck with coincidences at his most vulnerable. Before Sarah’s death, Maurice wouldn’t have questioned his position on the absolute improbability of a personal god if a miracle slapped him across the face. After Sarah’s death, Maurice still wouldn’t have faltered if Sarah hadn’t been connected to the miracle. What if it was Sarah’s mother who died and left the little note in the Andrew Lang fairy book and the son of the P.I. Parkis dreamed that Sarah’s mother talked to him in his sleep (147)? Would Maurice seriously contemplate the existence of a personal God if Sarah came running to him to tell about the miracle? No, because Sarah is all Maurice cares about. When Sarah is alive Maurice is, too, and is invulnerable to the idea of manifestations of the supernatural realm. Would Maurice contemplate the existence of a personal God if Mr. Smythe’s disgusting face had been cured before Sarah’s death? No. One might argue that the miracles could not have 45
happened before Sarah’s death because Sarah was the one performing the miracles. In response, the last few pages of The End of the Affair turn this realistic fiction into a magic realism novel. I’ll be dumbfounded and proselytized the day three miracles from the same deceased person smack me in the face, but until then I’m with previous, Old Maurice. The brain is powerful. Coincidences are beautifully fascinating. I’m not a neuropsychologist but the brain must connect events with past memories, somehow creating a coincidence. Maurice thinks about Sarah all the time after her death, just as Mr. Smythe and Henry do (110, 118). It does not surprise me that their brains are making all of these connections with Sarah especially at this vulnerable stage. The eyes are deceitful. A miracle that you saw with your own two eyes may not be a miracle from what I saw across the room. It is possible for our perception to be skewed. Eyes with no hope are even more deceitful. Some people who have hit rock bottom with no hope to spare yearn for hope. The hopeless, including Maurice, are vulnerable to a point where believing in miracles wouldn’t be as hard as it usually is. The utmost reason I am upset with Maurice’s change of heart regarding the existence of a personal God is his emphasis on miracles to confirm that. A miracle, although supernatural, does not prove the existence of a personal God. I view a personal God as a supernatural man--from the start it must be wrong--who has the ability and willingness to listen to millions of prayers every second of every day without answering any of them. That personal God cares about the decisions I make and the decisions I contemplate. If anyone objects to my view of a personal God, then I have easily illustrated how people shape their idea of a God, or religion, to fit the mould of their life. Maurice is vulnerable and I understand that much. He is angry with the idea of a personal God, but I would like to ask him to come back over a little closer to my spectrum, where he belongs, because miracles do not prove that somebody can hear my prayers. --Cole Musland
Work Cited Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
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Anna Larson
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TIGER MOM OR DICTATOR “Saddam Hussein has the dubious distinction of being the best-known Middle Eastern dictator” in history (“Saddam Hussein” par. 2). While investigating his priorities to create palaces for himself, jails for his people, and weapons to destroy those in the surrounding areas, I couldn’t help but compare his “demented drive” (Rosin 266) to that of Amy Chua, the “Tiger Mother.” By compiling her radical parenting “memoirs” into a best-selling book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua gained national attention. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal included one of the book’s chapters in its op-ed section, labeling it “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” which sparked a fiery controversy concerning parenting styles in America. After researching Chua’s parenting style—characterized by the castigation of her two daughters, fierce competition with others, and her daughters’ obligation to exceed her expectations—I believe that Chua’s methods cannot simply be labeled as strict discipline, but rather, as ruthless dictatorship. Though Chua’s argument invokes necessary discussion concerning America’s education and parenting systems, her self-exaltation, condescending tone, and assumption that children are programmable steer the focus from possible change in those systems to Chua’s pride in her parenting abilities, which I believe will negatively affect her children whether she admits it or not. In “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” Chua labels Western mothers as “insecure,” claiming that they “tip-toe” around their child’s self-esteem issues, feel like they “owe” their children something, and allow children to give up when they are frustrated (Chua 262). In contrast, she praises the confident Chinese mothers who parent with a harsh focus on failure, sovereignty over their children’s decisions, and cruel persistence until their version of success has been achieved. Chua’s purpose in parenting is clear when she says, “…nothing is fun until you are good at it. To get good at anything, you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences” (262). “Overriding” seems like a calculated term—one that would be used when programming a computer, not when raising a child. This makes it clear that Chua is not viewing her children as individuals who need nurturing but as robots she is programming to follow her orders. However, I fear one of Chua’s assumptions about parenting is exactly that—raising a child is like programming a computer. She assumes that the right combination of instructions will enable parents to produce the perfect child. This assumption is made clear by Chua’s strict rules: “no sleepovers, no playdates, no television, no grade besides an A is acceptable, and no extracurricular activities besides violin or piano” (261). Chua has assumed complete control over every aspect of her daughters’ lives. Dictatorship is defined as “rule…by one person with total power” (“Dictatorship”). Looking at Chua’s list of rules and the non-negotiable way she raises her daughters, I feel it is more than acceptable to label her parenting style as a dictatorship. From what I have observed about Amy Chua, being labeled a dictator would not offend her in any way. Based on Chua’s comparison of her parenting and Western parenting, we must 48
ask, are Western parents afraid of being viewed as dictators over their children? I agree with Chua’s claim that Western parents’ decisions are oftentimes hindered by their personal selfesteem issues or by worry of damaging their child’s self-esteem. In our democratic society, it is not surprising that so many parents allow children to make decisions on their own. Hanna Rosin, a critic of Chua’s, seems to speak for the majority of Western parents when she says, “[Children] need to lighten up and roam free, to express themselves in ways not dictated by their upright, over-invested parents” (Rosin 266). I agree with this statement, but only to a certain degree. Children need the freedom make their own decisions and learn from mistakes along the way; however, an underinvested parent who chooses to ignore laziness and inappropriate selfexpression just so his or her child can “gain independence” is failing as a parent. Chua’s dictatorship style of parenting is a polar opposite to the hands-off technique of Western parenting—so whose way is best? I do not believe that any culture has parenting down to a science. While Western parents seem consumed with making their children happy by allowing them to express themselves, Chua argues that “happiness comes from mastery” (Chua 267). However, in Chua’s home, we have to wonder who is gaining more happiness—the child who mastered a song after being restrained to a piano bench for hours, or the mother who can now brag about her great achievement as a parent? According to Dr. Peter Gray, a professor at Boston College, “the purpose of life, if we go by Chua’s example, is not enjoyment but winning and showing off” (par. 10). When her daughters participate in activities, competition is central in Chua’s mind, but it seems as if her success is directly hinged upon the success of her daughters. And while her daughters may experience satisfaction after being pushed to succeed, one has to wonder how much they could possibly enjoy the seriousness of every activity. They may have adapted outwardly, allowing themselves to be motivated by the criticism and the cruelty, but who can say how well they are doing emotionally? This leads into the weaknesses and strengths of Chua’s writing, because she seems to have the same struggle in her writing as in her parenting— harshness and haughtiness. The main weakness in Chua’s writing is her egotistical, condescending tone. While her opinions may be valid, statements such as “western parents come in all varieties” or “Western parents have to tip-toe around . . . the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image,” raise a defensive wall in readers’ minds (Chua 261, 262). Many people are thinking the same thing as Peter Gray about Chua’s parenting style, “She herself had to get straight A's and win all the competitions . . . and what kind of an adult did she become?” (par. 9). I believe many readers would answer with the following: a haughty, controlling one. Directly attacking Westerners in a condescending manner, while placing herself on a “parenting pedestal,” detracts from any possible effectiveness in Chua’s argument. One of the strengths in Chua’s writing, however, is the way she sparks discussion. A majority of those discussions may be based on disgust toward her parenting style, but her book 49
has certainly called our national education standards into question. David Brooks, another critic, wrote, “Chua plays into America’s fear of national decline. Here’s a Chinese parent working really hard…and her kids are going to crush ours” (Brooks 269). I believe Brooks is true. After A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, our standards began to change in an attempt to compete with other nations. Some techniques worked, however, Terry Salinger, a literary research scientist, said, “conditions haven’t changed, and many of the observations about poor student attainment voiced in A Nation at Risk are now as accurate and as disturbing as ever” (par. 4). Some of the anger from readers could certainly be attributed to fear of America’s national decline that Chua so graciously points out. Chua seems to lack the feelings that many Western parents so easily experience. She does not worry about her children’s success—she guarantees it. She does not hold back her opinions for fear of offending someone—she bluntly states her beliefs. She is not a timid, coddling parent—she is a “Tiger Mom.” This dictating mother, like Saddam Hussein, wants to build a reputation for herself, confinement for her daughters, and an empire of Chinese moms who will prove the ineffectiveness of Western parents. Though Chua makes some good points about the lackadaisical tendencies of Western parents, her tone and harsh treatment of her daughters leaves a bad taste in the readers’ mouths. For many, Chua’s disciplinary parenting does not seem like discipline at all: the “Tiger Mom” is literally a ruler in her home—one dictating mother with total power. --Megan Telehey Works Cited Brooks, David. “Amy Chua is a Wimp.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. 12th ed. Boston: Pearson Education Inc., 2013. 268-270. Print. Chua, Amy. “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. 12th ed. Boston: Pearson Education Inc., 2013. 261-265. Print. “Dictatorship.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2015. Web. September 25, 2015. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dictatorship Gray, Peter. “Amy Chua is a Circus Trainer, Not a Tiger Mother.” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, February 16, 2011. Web. September 25, 2015. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201102/amy-chua-is-circustrainer-not-tiger-mother Rosin, Hanna. “Mother Inferior?” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. 12th ed. Boston: Pearson Education Inc., 2013. 265-268. Print. “Saddam Hussein.” History UK. History, 2013. Web. September 25, 2015. http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/saddam-hussein Salinger, Terry. “A Nation of Readers at Risk.” Air.org. American Institutes for Research, October 30, 2013. Web. September 25, 2015. http://www.air.org/resource/three-decades-education-reform-are-we-still-nation-atrisk#Hannaway
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Letitia Thomas
THE TIME APPOINTED In mild air shiver cottonwood, willow; box elder and elm yellow in pale light. And golden green ash fades also, lets fall earthward, into swale, leaflet, samara. --Mark Brown
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RELIGION AS CONNECTION The way Native Religion is presented in Tracks and Black Elk Speaks relates to the way I understand religion. My own experience with Catholicism and spirituality draws me more toward other religions and drives me from the Catholicism I grew up in. This theme of religious comparison is also demonstrated in Tracks. But it leaves me wondering—is it okay to pick and choose what you believe? Is there something wrong in wanting to take on certain beliefs? This summer, my brother and I hiked up Harney Peak, now appropriately renamed Black Elk Peak. In Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk said this of his vision encounter with Harney Peak: “Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world” (Neihardt 26). Standing at the top, I, too, felt like I was looking at the whole world. I felt connected with the landscape, the other hikers around me, and all the interconnecting worlds that seemed to meet at the top of that mountain. Now, my threemile hike didn’t involve any elders or prophecies, but there was still a touching kind of presence about being up there. That was the highest and farthest climb I’ve made in my life so far, and my brother and I were both grateful to be in the hills. We were making our way back down the ridge, planning to stop about a mile before the trailhead at a bench with a beautiful view of the peak, and right before we got there, we passed a rocky outlook with a large tree branch hanging over the side, and perched at its end were two eagles. My brother gaped and rushed over with his film camera. They flew away almost as soon as we approached them, but after they disappeared below the ledge, they rose back into our vison—and then at least eight more eagles joined them, a whole flock swooping and soaring in circles around us for a good minute before flying back toward the peak and out of sight. My brother was floored, his camera snapping up all his film, and I stood back, utterly awed. What a gift, I thought. What a serendipitous thing to be the only two people on Earth who experienced that moment. Once we could close our mouths again, we stumbled on toward the lookout. We stopped and sat and looked. As I looked back at the peak and considered all the space between present me and past me, I felt both small and powerful. Tears came to my eyes, but I didn’t hide them. Of all the things to cry about, being moved by beauty is one of the best. When I think about these two experiences—the serendipitous eagles and the beautyinduced tears—I think the best way I can describe these experiences is with reverence. I acutely felt the power of natural elements, like mountains and eagles. I am not the first or only person to observe this power, but the question is—in what way am I allowed to observe this? Is it okay for me, a white person of Catholic upbringing, to observe a natural connection with religious reverence? Is finding a religious connection in nature, particularly in a spot with so much Native 52
history and energy, an attempt to appropriate Native beliefs? Where is the line between appreciation and appropriation? In Tracks, religious bias turns a suspicious eye on the harshest practices of the Catholic Church while presenting a Native view of a more connected and neutral kind of spirituality as a norm. Pauline converts to Catholicism and attempts to abandon her culture, and in a way she does succeed in leaving her old life behind. In another way, she fails, because she becomes an evil, distorted person after that change. Similarly, one couldn’t try to assimilate and take on another culture and successfully get rid of the things they don’t like about themselves or their own culture. Native Religion is intrinsically based in the culture, and it’s not something one could claim on a whim. This kind of religious bias is one I recognize in my own judgement. Having been raised Catholic, but no longer considering myself closely connected to that religion, I find myself always searching for a spirituality that makes more sense to me. I still have a complicated and bitter relationship with the church, and this tends to make most alternative religions more appealing in comparison, even though this is a viewpoint that discredits the value of all religion. I believe it’s a good thing to want to understand that which is unfamiliar. It only becomes a problem when the desire to understand becomes the desire to possess. It’s not wrong to find connectedness and balance in nature enticing, or to believe in them at your core. It is wrong, however, to claim something for yourself that cannot belong to you. The best thing people can do when they find they care about something is to learn more about it. Especially when it comes to religion, it’s important to note that knowledge isn’t necessarily agreement. In any case, I don't think having an understanding of nature and believing that all things are connected is appropriating. I think that looking to other cultures with respect and humbleness and agreement is something to be celebrated. The point of connectivity is that it extends to all kinds of people. Perhaps that’s the best part of any discovery—finding something in an experience that you recognize. A group of eagles can be many things to many people—an omen, a miracle, a prophecy, a moment of serendipity. The importance doesn’t necessarily lie in the interpretation. Maybe the point is making that connection at all.
Works Cited Erdrich, Louise. Tracks. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Print. Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Print. 53
Letitia Thomas
UNENLIGHTENED Inexplicable lightning like neon letters look ghostly yellow against a sky aglow. Aghast, the unrepentant soul repairs to rest or resist with desperate integrity, daring Doomsday’s book— unluckily unconvinced, reluctant up to the last, a twice-tormented soul tempted to turn and twist and dream of angels undaunted by demons, ah! And so justifies his sins, if only to himself. --Jim Stone 54
WAITING FOR IT Every time I went to church, which was not as often as I would like to admit, he was present. He sat in the same spot in the same pew in the same corner of our old church. The sun shone through the same stained glass windows with the same array of colors lying on the heads of the same worshippers filling the same pews in front of him. He always had a pleasant expression on his face as if patiently waiting for a loved one to catch up. He never sat with anyone and no one ever sat with him. When the pastor told everyone to stand and greet their neighbors, he stood and greeted his neighbors—saying no more than good morning to those around him. When it was time to sing, he stood but never moved his lips—when we prayed, he maintained the same expression, slightly bowed his head, and kept his eyes open. When the service ended and everyone went downstairs for coffee and treats or Sunday School, he slipped out one of the back doors only to appear again the next Sunday. I saw him on every Sunday my parents dragged me to church and I found the situation— his situation—odd, but I didn’t know why. One Sunday I asked my mom who he was and why he always sat in the same spot and was always alone and why he never sang. She said, “That’s Les. I can’t think of his last name, and I don’t know why he always sits there or why he’s always alone—he’s done that as long as I can remember. Maybe you should go sit by him.” I don’t know what compelled me to stand up and walk to the other side of the sanctuary. I sat down beside Les as the clunky sounds of the organ filled the air. I glanced at the clock over my shoulder and saw that church wasn’t supposed to start for another five minutes, which meant it would start in ten, and then I blurted out everything on my mind. “How come you don’t sit with anybody else? You could come down and drink coffee with the others in the basement, but you don’t. How come you don’t you sing any hymns or even pretend to, like my brother? My mom says you’ve been doing the same thing as long as she can remember. How come you do the same stuff every Sunday?” He smiled and I sat embarrassed, hardly believing what I’d said or how he’d take it. “I’m waiting,” he said, “just waiting for it to hit, for it to click.” “What’s it?” “I don’t really know, but I ask myself that every day—what is it? I’ve heard other people say it will come all at once—it will rush over you, and you’ll know what it is. I guess you don’t really know if it will hit, you just have to hope and wait and see.”
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I spent the entire service trying to understand what he meant as we sat in silence, and when church was over I went to Sunday school. He wasn’t there the next Sunday, or the one after that, or the one after that, either. He never returned.
--Grant Fodness
Liza Ostmo
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THE LONG, LONELY WALK HOME The clock reads 11:30 P.M. You just clocked out of work. It is time to start your walk home. You always like this walk. It is so peaceful, so quiet. You step out of your office, making sure to lock the door behind you. The brisk autumn air hits your face. You notice that the sky seems darker than normal—everything is darker than normal. The chilling breeze causes the hair on your neck to stand up. You feel goosebumps on your arms. You walk down the street and begin to feel someone is watching you. You glance over your shoulder but don’t see anything. You think you see movement out of the corner of your eye and stop to look, but nothing is there. You decide to take the long way home, so you turn to walk through a park overlooking the rest of the city below. You hear something—a rustling of the leaves maybe—and stop. You look, but nothing is there. You start walking again, but at a slightly slower pace. You keep looking around, searching for something, but nothing is there--not a single person or animal passes by. You don’t hear a sound but a chill runs down your spine. You look at the rest of the city below. You see the lights and the silent motions of the people and the cars, but they seem far away. You leave the park and turn down your street. You walk up the creaky stairs of your apartment building. You make it up to your apartment. You unlock the door and turn the knob and, once again, no one is there. --Grant Fodness
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THE END OF THE LINE When wagonloads of saints with plural wives, displaced against the wrath of citizens intolerant of First Amendment rights, took refuge in the hills as denizens of Colonia Juarez, faith intact, twice dislocated, twice removed in fact— from Denmark, then from Utah—sought relief, the patriarchs of latter-day belief then spread the word of their polygamy and seeds of satisfaction to the south, prodigiously extending family with insufficient will to feed the mouths once weaned and independent of the breast upon which pious hands had come to rest when undistracted by the daily rounds of breaking daily bread or breaking ground. Long live the long line of the lord of the land; promises and unions broken, bodies buried in deserted canyons, secrets carried, never spoken until the reunion of the raised and abandoned generations later, when the lonely survivor of the branch of the tree who came back across the river to die finally found a way to break free. Desertion’s long, long legacy is done— I have no son. --Jim Stone
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Cherish Bauer-Reich
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CONTRIBUTORS Cherish Bauer-Reich Auroa Bear Jessica Best Mark Brown Meaghan Cronin Ty Daly Grant Fodness Linda Hess Alicia Hubbard Josh Knutson Anna Larson Austin Mack Cole Musland Logan Newman Matthew Nies Liza Ostmo Emma Preble Savannah Schafer Kevin Sexton Jim Stone Megan Telehey Letitia Thomas Jewel Williams
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