Omnino - Volume 12

Omnino

Research

VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY

Omnino

Undergraduate Research Journal

Copyright © 2022 by Valdosta State University

Omnino

Omnino is a peer-reviewed, scholarly research journal for the undergraduate students and academic community of Valdosta State University. Omnino publishes original research from VSU students in all disciplines, bringing student scholarship to a wider academic audience. Undergraduates from every discipline are encouraged to submit their work; papers from upper level courses are suggested.

The word “Omnino” is Latin for “altogether.” Omnino stands for the journal’s main mission to bring together all disciplines of academia to form a well-rounded and comprehensive research journal.

ISSN: 2472-3223 (Print), 2472-3231 (Online)

Managing Editors

Isabella Schneider

Carissa Zaun Student Editors

Sam Acevedo Sydney Bergquist Angel Davis

Laura Northup Kasmira Smith Graphic Designer Kwame Akuoko

Faculty Advisor Dr. Anne Greenfield

Copyright © 2022 by Valdosta State University

2021 California Recall Election: What Are the Key Predictors of the Recall Vote of Governor Gavin Newsom across the Counties of California?

By Jacob C. Ryan

Faculty Mentor: Dr. James LaPlant, Department of Political Science ........................................................................................................................7

The Seminole Wars of the 19th Century: A Look into the Causes of One of the Longest Military Conflicts in American History

By B. Cordell Moats

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Lavonna Lovern, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Giving a Voice to the Voiceless

By Kasmira K. Smith

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Pat Miller, Department of English

Native American Property Loss and the United States’ Law

By Maya Commodore

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Lavonna Lovern, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies ......................................................................................................................58

The Consequences of Education: Liminality and Othering in the Life of Zitkala-Sa

By Laura Northup

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Deborah Hall, Department of English

The Mummy: An Analysis of Egyptomania and How Ancient Egypt Is Portrayed in The Mummy Franchise

By Cassidy Weaver

Faculty Mentor: Melanie S. Byrd, Department of History

Narrative Structure: Breaking Down Patriarchal Standards in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

By Sydney Bergquist

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Marty Williams, Department of English ....................................................................................................................110

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

By Rhonda Reliford

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Cristobal Serran-Pagan, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies ....................................................................................................................124

Exploring Predictors of College Graduation Rates at Colleges and Universities Across Georgia

By Tia Brown

Faculty Mentor: Dr. James LaPlant, Department of Political Science ....................................................................................................................148

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”: Resisting and Redefining Gender in Winesburg, Ohio

By Georgia Wynn

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Adam Wood, Department of English ....................................................................................................................166

2021 California Recall Election: What Are the Key Predictors of the Recall Vote of Governor Gavin Newsom across the Counties of California?

By Jacob C. Ryan Faculty Mentor: Dr. James LaPlant, Department of Political Science Article Abstract:

The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine the key predictors of the “yes” vote to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom. This study evaluates the factors that led to the unusual event of a recall election in the middle of the Governor’s elected term by reviewing data across the 58 counties of California. The study analyzed seven independent variables: percentage of the African American population, percentage of the Latino population, county unemployment rates, percent of the population who have a college degree, percent of the vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, population density per capita, and the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people. The impact of these variables on the dependent variable, the percentage yes votes to recall Governor Newsom, is determined through correlation analysis, scatterplots, and multivariate regression analysis. Three of the seven variables proved to be highly significant. The percent of the vote for Trump in 2020 and the percent of those with a college degree per county were found to be highly significant at p<.01. Interestingly, population density and the number of COVID-19 cases were found significant at the bivariate level but washed out in the multivariate analysis. The African American population and unemployment rate variables had minimal influence on the recall election. While not significant

Jacob C. Ryan

at the bivariate level, the Latino population variable was found significant in the multivariate model. The variable was found to have a negative relationship with the dependent variable. Newsom’s recall election was a significant and unusual political event that he will carry with him into his 2022 reelection campaign. The 2021 recall election of the state of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is one that served as a bellwether for the future of United States politics. California is our most populous state and is one that has become increasingly Democratic over the past decades. The political convulsion that would have occurred if a Republican candidate had been elected to replace Governor Newsom would have been astounding. The nature in which this election was conducted in the middle of Newsom’s elected term was an attempt to unseat the Democratic governor. This occurrence would not normally occur outside of regular election cycles. The unprecedented circumstances of the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused major shifts in how the different sides of the aisle see fit for the government to be conducted. In a survey, Californians claimed COVID-19 was the top issue within their state (Baldassare et al. 2021b).

The main question being asked is “What are the key factors that would predict a vote to recall Governor Newsom across the counties of California?” The rate of unemployment was weaponized by both parties to cite reasons for or against the election. Newsom claimed in July that California had added 114,000 new jobs. However, the California GOP argued that the California unemployment rate accounted for 21.4 percent of the entire nation while only representing 11.7 percent of the entire workforce (Hoeven 2021). With California electing Joe Biden by 28 percentage points, the vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election is a key indicator of the likelihood of voters to recall Newsom.

The purpose of this quantitative study is to investigate the key predictors of the recall vote of Governor Gavin Newsom. Specific studies on a variety of predictors have been conducted. However, the overall rarity of recall elections makes the predicting factors more difficult to observe. The last recall election of a California governor occurred in 2003. Some studies evaluate the racial demographic changes that have occurred in the state. Other studies suggest the impact of other sociopolitical predictors that would cause changes in voting outcomes. These studies will be explored in the first section of this study. The second section will explain the data and methods used in this study. This will be followed by the third section including the findings and conclusions on the significance of the study based on correlation, and regression analysis as well as the use of the study for future research.

Exploring the Possible Key Predictors of the Counties’ Voting Outcome

There are a variety of predictors that could explain how counties vote in the recall election. Studies have been conducted to observe California residents’ relationship with their government. Orrin Heatlie was the first to file the recall petition. Heatlie is a resident of Folsom, which is a city in Sacramento County near the capital. He spent 25 years serving as the Sergeant with the nearby Yolo County Sherriff’s Department (MEET THE BOARD n.d.). The petition claimed that Newsom implemented laws that were detrimental to Californians. This claim went on to mention that Newsom harbored illegal immigrants and took care of them more than his citizens. California had the highest tax rates in the nation, the highest homelessness rates, and the lowest quality of life (Gavin Newsom recall, Governor of California (2019-2021)/Path to the Ballot n.d.). Additionally, proponents stated in the petition their disappointment with Newsom suspending the death penalty as it “overruled the will of the peo-

Jacob C. Ryan

ple” and their irritation against water rationing due to droughts (Gavin Newsom recall, Governor of California (2019-2021)/ Path to the Ballot n.d.).

Organizers were required to have 1,495,709 signatures to place the election on a special ballot. Signatures had to come from registered voters, and the signatures had to be filed monthly with the secretary of state conducting a signature status report (Gavin Newsom recall, Governor of California (2019-2021)/ Path to the Ballot n.d.). Funding for the campaign mostly came from large committees and groups. While support for the recall had aggregate contributions of $10,994,454, the opposition had over $31,834,189 in funding (Recall Election 2021). The largest amount of funding in support was contributed by the Rescue California Recall group at $955,053 (Recall Election 2021). Other contributors to the election funding included Prov 3:9 LLC, DGB Ranch, Chamath Palihapitiya, etc.

While COVID-19 was claimed to be the top issue in the state, partisanship deeply divided voters. The recall was not initially an effort brought on by COVID-19, but by other policy and ideological differences. However, the recall effort quickly became about COVID-19 restrictions after Newsom was seen dining at one of the most expensive restaurants in the country where the least expensive meal is $350, after advising strict social distancing to Californians (Kang 2021). This added frustration to most who supported the recall with claims that Newsom was out of touch with the restrictions he was enforcing, and this boosted other driving forces behind the election such as opposition to his other progressive policies. Studies have found that political partisanship has influenced citizens’ decisions to voluntarily engage in COVID-based preventative measures in response to communications by their governor during the pandemic (Grossman et al. 2020). Over half of Californians among all regions and demographic groups agreed the state has handled the pandemic well.

However, Democrats and Independent voters are more likely to hold that view than Republicans (Baldassare et al. 2021b).

California has had the ability to recall its governor since 1911. State-level recall attempts have been largely ineffectual with the recall of Gray Davis being the only successful recall out of 32 attempts since 1911 (C. Coleman 2011). The political landscape of California is much different today than it was when Governor Gray Davis was recalled in 2003 (Gray Davis recall, Governor of California (2003), n.d.). The effort was successful to recall Democratic Governor Davis. The recall election occurred on October 7th, 2003, which was 11 months into Davis’ second term. 55 percent of the vote was cast in favor of the recall option. The elected replacement of Davis was Austrian-American actor and public personality, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who served as governor until 2011.

There are now 22 million registered voters in California. The Republican Party only claims 25 percent of the electorate (Ronayne 2021). Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump capturing 63.5 percent of the statewide vote. This result compares well to the initial election of Governor Newsom in 2018 in which he obtained 62 percent of the vote (Blood 2021). Democratic lawmakers have vigorous support in the state. Republican voters remain somewhat in small margins in the state. However, studies have found that the approval rate of former President Trump was at least 27 points below his disapproval. Thus, Donald Trump remains widely unpopular throughout the state with his approval only representing 3 percent of the population (McGhee 2020). While there are some GOP strongholds in the state, counties that were once suburban strengths for the Republican party are also becoming increasingly Democratic. Orange County is a bellwether for the suburban mood. Traditionally voting conservative, the county was won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. This was attributed to the alignment of young voters to the Democratic party (Goldberg 2020).

The racial demographics are also far more different in California in 2021 compared to the last recall in 2003. Significant increases in minority populations could change the dynamic of the electorate. The Democratic party has added 3 million voters in California since the 2003 recall. An increase in Latino voters from 17.5 percent to 25 percent of voters has occurred (Ronayne 2021). Studies find that most minority populations are more likely to vote for the Democratic party. Overwhelming majorities of African Americans (73%) and most Latinos (58%) are registered as Democrats in California. This is far less than the percentage of registered Republicans in these populations (5% African American and 16% Latino) (Baldassare et al. 2020). Registration among white voters is more equally divided with 40 percent registered as Democrats and 34 percent registered as Republicans. Latinos’ voting power in California is not taken lightly. While studies have found this group has increased support for former Republican President Donald Trump, they are the largest minority group in the state representing 40 percent of the state’s population. Since 1994, Latinos have contributed the largest number of votes from communities of color to winning Democratic candidates. Furthermore, the Latino community tends to support Democratic candidates by a 2-to-1 margin However, Latinos only account for 21 percent of California’s likely voters (Baldassare et al. 2020).

Studies have also found that those who are college educated often have more partisan loyalties than those who are not. Since many are often politically socialized at a young age, the university is the first occurrence of freedom outside of family-introduced socialization units. Educational realignment is a prominent force in developing party affiliation. Thus, educated individuals are well-positioned politically and tend to reasonably fashion and defend their political interests (Joslyn and Haider-Markel 2014). Areas with a high concentration of college graduates such as the Bay Area are typically Democratic strongholds, made up of San Francisco and Marin counties. This

area of the state is also a major urban, metropolitan area. With almost 60 percent of residents over the age of 25 with a college degree, the area holds the highest share of college graduates in the state (Kondik and Coleman 2021). Previously conducted research also found that those with a college degree or some form of higher education represent eight out of ten likely voters (Baldassare et al. 2021a). Orange County is also a heavily populated area that once was a conservative stronghold. With its highly educated, diverse population, the county has increasingly had more partisan competition. Previous studies would suggest that there is somewhat of an urban and rural divide among partisanship in the state (Kondik and Coleman 2021).

There has been significant disagreement on the performance of California’s economy since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With studies finding almost half of Californians think the state is in an economic recession, Republicans are found more likely to hold that view (Baldassare et al. 2021b). While partisans may disagree on the state of the economy, this does impact their view of Newsom’s job performance. With unemployment claims not budging during the pandemic, 69,000 Californians filed unemployment claims the week of August 14, 2021 (Hoeven 2021). The California Democratic Party, which typically finds more support for extending unemployment benefits, noted the unemployment rate of 7.6% in July 2021 was 5.6 percentage points lower than it was in June 2020 earlier in the pandemic (Hoeven 2021). The chair of the California Republican party has provided counterarguments that the 7.6 percentage of unemployed persons is the second-highest rate in the nation.

Studies have found that unemployment voting behavior tends to fall upon a reward and punishment system (Wright 2012). If the unemployment rate is low, the incumbent party typically enjoys electoral success during times of economic prosperity. However, voters tend to turn against incumbents when unemployment rates are higher in times of economic hardship (McIver 1982). The view of the economic state of California

Jacob C. Ryan

is decidedly divided along party lines. Previous empirical findings on county-level data on unemployment and election results based on gubernatorial elections have found that unemployment and the Democratic vote are forces that move together. The study found that across 175 gubernatorial elections, higher unemployment rates in counties led to larger shares of the vote for Democrats (Wright 2012). In relation, this would seem to hold true regardless of if a Republican or Democrat were the incumbent.

While California is known for its overwhelmingly Democratic majorities, there is no denying that there are sizable numbers of conservative Republicans across the state as well. Since California is one of our largest states, it is also our most populous. The vote in counties with a large, dense population compared to those that are less populous could allow for changes in voting behavior. The state has not elected a Republican statewide since 2006 (McGhee 2020). The state was not always as Democratic as it has become today. The Bay Area, Los Angeles County, and areas along the coast have developed the most from red to blue. However, the interior areas of the state in the northern region and the eastern border tend to have more party-line votes and hold conservative county majorities.

Data and Methods

The units of analysis for this study are the 58 counties of the U.S. state of California. The dependent variable is the vote of “yes” to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. Voters in this election were given two options. Voting “yes” would lead to a second question in which voters would be asked who they would like to replace Newsom if he were to be recalled. Those who voted “no” would like Newsom to remain in office. Data for the dependent variable was found on the CNN Politics website.

There are seven independent variables in this study that have been observed to determine their effect on the voting outcome of the recall election. The data for the independent variables of population density, percent of the African American population, percent of the Latino population, and percent of the population with a college degree can be found on the U.S. Census Bureau website. The data for the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people the week before the recall election can be found on the Mayo Clinic website. The data for the percentage of the Trump vote can be found on the Politico website of 2020 election results. The data for the unemployment rate can be found in reports provided by the Employment Development Department of California’s website. All variables are included in Table 1 with their sources.

the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease.

H2- As the Latino population in a county increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease.

H3- As the unemployment rate increases in a county, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will increase.

H4- As the percent of those with a college degree in a county increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease.

H5- As the vote for Trump increases in a county, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will increase.

H6- As the county population density increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease.

H7- As the number of COVID-19 cases in a county increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will increase.

Findings

After running a correlation analysis, three of the independent variables proved to be statistically insignificant in relation to the dependent variable. The variables that were insignificant were percent African American 2020, percent Latino 2020, and unemployment rate. The independent variable of percent with a college degree was significant at p<.01 with a correlation coefficient of -.791. The percent who voted for Trump was significant at p<.01 with a correlation very close to 1 (.995). The variable has a positive correlation with the dependent variable. Population density was significant at a p-value of .002 and a correlation of -4.05. The percent with a college degree and population density variables share negative correlations with the dependent variable. The last significant independent variable was the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population at p<.01 with a correlation of .652. This variable also shares a positive correlation with the dependent variable. Correlations for each independent variable are shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Correlation Analysis of Percent that Voted Yes to Recall

Independent Variables

Percent that Voted Yes to Recall

African American Population 2020 -.250

Latino Population 2020 -.057

Unemployment Rate -.159

Percent with a College Degree -.791**

Percent Trump vote 2020 .995**

Population Density -.405**

Number of COVID Cases Per 100,000 .652**

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), N=58

Figure 1 is a bivariate regression analysis that demonstrates a positive relationship between the percentage of the Trump vote in 2020 and the vote to recall Governor Newsom. An r2 value of 0.991 indicates that the percentage of the Trump vote explains 99.1 percent of the variance in the dependent variable to vote yes to recall Governor Newsom. The y-intercept is 1.32. This would be defined as if there were no votes for Trump, the percentage of the vote to recall Newsom would be 1.32. The slope of the regression line is 1.08, meaning that for every percentage point increase in the votes for Trump, there will be an increase of 1.08 in the vote to recall Newsom.

Figure 1: Scatterplot of Trump Vote and Recall Vote

Regression Line Equation: Y= 1.32 + 1.08X, N=58

The correlation of -.791 between the percent with a college degree and the percent that voted to recall is highly significant at p<.01. Figure 2 displays the inverse relationship these two variables share. The y-intercept is 78.39, meaning that if there was 0 percent of the population with a college degree, the percentage of the vote to recall Governor Newsom would be 78.39. The slope of the regression line is 1.08, which indicates that for every percentage increase in the population with college degrees, there will be a 1.08 decrease in the yes vote to recall. The r2 coefficient reveals that the percentage of the population with a college degree explains 62.6 percent of the variance in the vote of yes to recall.

Figure 2: Scatterplot of Percentage with College Degree and Recall Vote

Regression Line Equation: Y= 78.39 - 1.08X, N=58

The multivariate regression analysis in Table 3 reveals that the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population and population density is no longer statistically significant. The variable that remains highly statistically significant is the percent of the population with a college degree. Due to multicollinearity, the percent that voted for Trump in 2020 is so strongly related to the other independent variables that it made it difficult to estimate the effect of the other variables. The variance inflation factor (VIF) of the Trump vote was 4.076. This caused the VIF of the college degree variable to be 5.560. The percent Trump vote in 2020 was not included in Table 3, in order to accurately show the partial effects of the other independent variables. Additionally, the Latino population variable was found significant in Table 3 even though it was previously not significant in the bivariate analysis.

The slope coefficient for the percent with a college degree is -1.113. For every percentage point increase in the population with a college degree, the vote to recall Governor Newsom decreases by 1.113 percent. The slope coefficient for the percent Latino population is -.214. For every percentage point that the Latino population increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease by .214 percent. The r2 coefficient for the multivariate regression is .750. This reveals that the independent variables explain 75% of the variance in the vote to recall Governor Newsom. The constant coefficient found when conducting this analysis reveals what the percentage of the dependent variable would be if all the independent variables were set at 0 percent. The constant coefficient for this model is 88.015. If the six independent variables in Table 3 were set at 0 percent, the percentage of the yes vote for the recall election in the dependent variable would be 88 percent.

nor Newsom will decrease). The hypothesis of H2 (i.e., as the Latino population in a county increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease) was also accepted. The hypotheses of H6 (i.e., as the county population density increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease), and H7 (i.e., as the number of COVID-19 cases in a county increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will increase) were rejected. While both variables were found significant at the bivariate level, the multivariate regression revealed that these factors were not significant when controlling for the other independent variables. The hypotheses of H1 (i.e., as the African American population in a county increases, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will decrease), and H3 (i.e., as the unemployment rate increases in a county, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will increase) found no support in either the bivariate or multivariate regression analyses and thus were rejected. As previously stated, the percent of the Trump vote in 2020 was not included in Table 3 due to issues of multicollinearity. This study still finds support for H5 (i.e., as the vote for Trump increases in a county, the vote to recall Governor Newsom will increase) in the correlation and scatterplot analysis. This would make H5 the most significant hypothesis as the bivariate analysis was able to show an almost perfect correlation between this independent variable and the dependent variable.

Conclusion

The results of this study suggest that the counties in which the most votes to recall Governor Newsom would be received are the counties with lower levels of college-educated residents and lower percentages of Latino populations. The variables that displayed a significant negative relationship with the recall vote were the Latino population as well as the percentage of the population with a college degree. The Latino population’s negative association with the independent variable is likely due

Jacob C. Ryan

to the minority being a core part of Democratic voters in the state. The strongest independent variable was the positive correlation between the dependent variable and the Trump vote in 2020. This was expected in California, a state in which Donald Trump received no electoral votes in the 2020 election. The astonishing correlation coefficient of .991 was found in the bivariate regression model of the 2020 Trump vote. The model provides an accurate depiction of partisanship in the Democratic bastion of California. Voters who cast their ballot for the Republicans in 2020 carried the same vote to the polls for the recall election. Since Californians considered COVID-19 and the economy as the most important issues facing their state, it is striking that the unemployment rate is insignificant as well as having a negative correlation with the vote to remove the Governor. While it is proven that partisanship was the most significant independent variable, the unemployment rate was thought to result in a reward and punishment system regardless of the incumbent’s political party affiliation. COVID-19 cases were found significant at the bivariate level while insignificant in the multivariate regression. This untraditional socioeconomic variable could heavily rely on partisanship and other factors to influence its significance. In future studies, it would be interesting to observe other COVID-19 associated factors that influenced this election such as mask and vaccine mandates as well as mandatory closures that occurred at different stages of the pandemic. Nevertheless, this study was conducted using available, aggregate-level data that was averaged by the geographic units of counties. The investigation of voter attitudes concerning COVID-19 and unemployment policies would require individual-level, disaggregated data.

The six socioeconomic factors in Table 3 account for 75% of the variance in the 2021 recall vote of Governor Gavin Newsom. While Newsom is still a viable future presidential candidate, he will carry with him the legacy of his recall election through his future political career. California is an interesting

state to study since it is such a well-known, infallible Democratic stronghold in the United States. Observational research of strength, as well as the correlation of population density to the dependent variable in the bivariate analysis, reveals that this strength is centered in San Francisco and Los Angeles counties as well as surrounding areas. In future research, the study of the impact of other demographic subgroups of voters would be riveting to see. This could include the percent of the Asian population, inclusion of certain age ranges such as those who are 65 and older, etc. The ongoing political polarization in our country could lead to future recall elections. There is no viable belief California will falter from the voting pattern it has shown in the past decades. If Democratic candidates continue to be elected, the recall election process could occur again years from now due to partisan opposition. Nonetheless, others may view recall elections as unsuccessful and would rather wait until the general election. Thus, there is not as much attention placed on California since it is not known to be a swing state. However, the rare electoral event of a gubernatorial recall election places a political bellwether of attention on our 2nd largest and most populated state.

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Baldassare, Mark, Dean Bonner, Rachel Lawler, and Deja Thomas. 2021a. “California’s Likely Voters.” Public Policy Institute of California. https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-likely-voters/ (November 28, 2021).

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Blood, Michael R. 2021. “California GOP Licks Wounds after Another Lopsided Loss.” AP NEWS. https:// apnews.com/article/california-recall-elections-california-election-2020-recall-elections-4a135cc452bf758a2206d3632e597102 (November 27, 2021).

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The Seminole Wars of the 19th Century

The Seminole Wars of the 19th Century: A Look into the Causes of One of the Longest Military Conflicts in American History

By B. Cordell Moats

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Lavonna Lovern, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Article Abstract:

This research focuses on the causes of the Seminole Wars of the Nineteenth Century. Research shows that the Seminoles were often pushed into these conflicts by the United States, which maintained the belief that it was not the aggressor. The series of wars between the Seminoles and the United States have often been considered separate conflicts. However, there is a common thread that ties all three wars together and illustrates the complexity of the relationship between the U.S. propaganda and the actual events. Indeed, it is more accurate to designate these events over the century as a single war with two ceasefires. From the onset of the conflict with the Seminoles, the U.S. was preoccupied with issues that allowed the war with the Seminoles to be used as a pawn in achieving other political goals, including dealing with escaped slaves and the desire to control more land. In contrast, when the Seminoles went to war, they fought for their homes and for their basic right to maintain their traditional way of life. To establish the single war theory, this article will look at each of the traditionally labeled Seminole wars and examine the history and causes of each. The article will then examine the relation of the causes and the use of the Seminoles as means to achieve U.S. political goals. Finally, the article will argue that the continued U.S. encroachment into Seminole territory was a single unified political strategy toward larger territorial goals.

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“On a cold and wet morning in early March 1818, a sizeable contingent of U.S. regulars, militia, volunteers, and Creek warriors under the direct command of Major General Andrew Jackson departed Fort Scott in Georgia and crossed into Spanish Florida. The First Seminole War had commenced.… This seemingly brief episode in the volatile and fabled history of U.S. expansion was anything but an isolated incident.”

-William S. Belko on the outbreak of the Seminole Wars.1

In the nineteenth century, the United States went to war with the Seminole people on three separate occasions. Officially beginning in 1817, the leadup to the first war shows multiple causes that suggest that the United States felt threatened, but that the Seminoles were not necessarily making any threats. The Seminole War era of Southeastern United States history was about a forty-year period from 1817 to 1858 following the United States’ Indian policy of westward removal. In this time, the federal government of the United States actively attempted to remove many eastern Native American groups to the west of the Mississippi River and to lands that today make up large portions of the state of Oklahoma. These wars are often studied separately; however, the causes for each of the three wars share many similarities, suggesting that after the outbreak of war in 1817, the following separate Second and Third Seminole Wars were not separate conflicts but a continuation of the First war. This research shows that on closer inspection of the causation of each of the Seminole Wars, the Seminoles did not choose to go to war, but were pushed into conflict by the United States, which maintained the idea that it was not the aggressor in the wars.

1 William S. Belko, “Epilogue to the War of 1812: The Monroe Administration, American Anglophobia, and the First Seminole War,” in America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, ed. William S. Belko (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011), 54.

Initial Issues

A major issue that arose early on during these conflicts was an understanding of who the Seminole people were. Historian Joe Knetsch discusses how Western culture has combined many Southeastern Native American groups into one loose confederation under the Creeks. Knetsch also explains why this identification is not historically accurate due to how it fails to recognize the diversity of these Native peoples.2 The reason for this misunderstanding lies in the similarities between people of the Creek Confederation such as the Muscogee and those of Native groups such as the Seminoles and Miccosukees, especially regarding their clan structure. Settler culture looked at these similarities and ignored the distinctions between the cultures.

Knetsch describes clan structures among early Seminole communities as “matrilineal and membership was determined by the mother’s family. A man was always a member of his mother’s clan, but his children were members of his wife’s clan.”3 Clan membership was a major part of one’s life and defined one’s kinship to others, including, “whom to joke with, whom to marry, whom to defend or avenge, etc.”4 While clan structure was similar to other Indigenous communities in the region, the Seminole communities did not consider themselves to be Creek and were not represented by the Creek Confederation. Knetsch explains that “It may be because of these vast relationships that [W]hite society became so confused about the nature of Native American society and lumped them all together in a Creek Confederation.”5 Concepts of justice and retribution were major cultural factors that contributed to conflicts between the Seminoles and White settlers. The Seminoles handled justice differently than settlers were accustomed to, and settlers were

2 Joe Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars:1817-1858 (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 10.

3 Knetsch, 10.

4 Knetsch, 10. 5 Knetsch, 10.

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often unwilling to respect this difference in culture. Seminole culture recognized the need for a justice system, but they did not include imprisonment, a typical practice in the White justice system. Indigenous concepts of justice involve restitution, not retaliation or revenge. Because neither side understood the other’s concept of justice, these practices among settlers and Seminoles often led to conflict.6

The Garrett Killings was an event that involved the killing of white settlers Mrs. Obediah Garrett and her children following an attack on a group of Seminoles by settlers. This event was a result of the Seminoles and Whites failing to respect differing cultures.7 Around the outbreak of the First Seminole War, these killings were the only examples of the Seminole hostility toward settlers. Some White settlers were able to understand at the time that these killings were not unprovoked, unlike leaders such as General Gaines. For instance, Indian Agent David Mitchell advised that the Garrett Killings clearly reflected Native American principles of ‘retaliation,’ now understood as a form of restitution.8 And because of this misinterpretation of justice, Seminole chiefs in the region, such as Neamathla, the Chief of Fowltown,9 were not willing to turn over to the White justice system those who were accused of the Garrett Killings.10

General Gaines also reported that cattle rustling was the primary issue between White settlers and Seminoles.11 John and Mary Lou Missall explained that “Particularly troublesome was the matter of cattle theft. Florida abounded in good range land, and the Seminoles excelled at animal husbandry.”12 Lead-

6 Alfred A. Cave, Sharp Knife: Andrew Jackson and the American Indians (Santa Barbara California: Praeger, 2017), 85.

7 Cave, 84-85.

8 Cave, 85.

9 Fowltown is the name of an important Seminole village that was located in Georgia, close to the border of Spanish Florida.

10 Cave, Sharp Knife, 85.

11 Cave, 84-85.

12 John Missall and Mary Lou Missall, The Seminole Wars: America’s Longest Indian Conflict (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004), 32.

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ers among Whites such as Gaines accused Seminoles of stealing livestock. However, “Backwoods [W]hites, coveting the Indians’ herds and grazing land, seized every opportunity to steal Seminole cattle. The Indians, feeling a need for just retribution, stole [W]hite cattle.”13 General Gaines can be seen as having directly contributed to the war by failing to recognize the culture of the Seminoles and by sending fanciful stories about the events along the Florida-Georgia border, claiming that “Indian hostilities had made it impossible for settlers on the Georgia frontier to plant crops, all their livestock having been stolen and their houses occupied”14 while completely ignoring the acts of violence Whites committed towards the Native American population. These reports eventually contributed to the military leadership authorizing the First Seminole War. A misunderstanding of the Seminoles’ concept of retribution led directly to the outbreak of the First Seminole War, the Scott Massacre.15 On November 30, 1817, a group of Seminoles attacked a supply convoy that was under the command of Lieutenant Richard W. Scott. Knetsch explains that this battle became justification for the United States to increase their involvement in Spanish Florida.16 However, the motives of the Seminoles involved in this battle were not to start a war, but to gain retribution for an attack on their people that had occurred on November 23, 1817. After Neamathla refused a summons to Fort Scott, troops were sent and ordered to burn down the village of Fowltown.17 It was after this burning that the Seminoles sought retribution in the form of the Scott Massacre.

13 Missall and Missall, 32.

14 Cave, Sharp Knife, 86.

15 The Seminole attack on Lieutenant Scott’s supply convoy has been labeled as a ‘massacre’ to instill fear and to further add to the belief that Seminoles were uncivilized.

16 Joe Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars, 27.

17 Knetsch, 23-24. The military attack on Fowltown could also be characterized as a massacre, however, in many historical accounts this has not been the case. Seminole attacks on Whites have often been historically referred to as massacres. White attacks on Seminoles have often been historically referred to as “battles” or “attacks.” This word usage has intentionally slanted the discussion to the advantage of the White population.

The topic of slavery was another major issue between the United States and the Seminoles prior to the First Seminole War. Within the United States, there were fears of Seminole threats regarding the peacefulness of slaves in the South, including rumors that Seminoles had called for Blacks to go south for freedom.18 Slavery existed among the Seminoles; however, the practice worked in a different way than slavery among the White population of the United States. Joe Knetsch in Florida’s Seminole Wars: 1817-1858 explains that “slavery, as practiced by the Seminoles, Miccosukees, and others of their relations, was a very benign form.”19 This was a challenge to the authority of the White population of the Southern United States, who were losing slaves that ran away to better conditions and a safe-haven provided by the Seminoles. Knetsch also explains that “over time, a bond developed between escaped Africans and the Seminoles that only increased with time and [W]hite pressure for their return.”20 This bond was such an issue among the United States and the Seminoles that Knetsch concludes that “the relationship and existence of the combined Seminoles, Miccosukees, and escaped slaves would be the most important cause of the Seminole Wars.”21

Joshua Reed Giddings provides primary evidence explaining the importance of runaway slaves in the Seminole Wars in his 1858 publication, The Exile of Florida: Or, The Crimes Committed by Our Government against the Maroons Who Fled from South Carolina and Other Slave States, Seeking Protection under Spanish Laws. Giddings explains that prior to the First Seminole War the people of Georgia “were greatly excited at

18 Cave, Sharp Knife, 82. The terms “Black” and “Negro” are used in this paper to reference African, Caribbean, and African Americans because that is the reference term used in history and is not intended to be used in any way that implies that these terms are accurate in defining the people to which they refer. Simarily, any use of the term “Whites” is used to match the use in historical record to refer to people of European descent.

19 Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars, 12. 20 Knetsch, 12-13. 21 Knetsch, 13.

seeing those who had once been slaves, in South Carolina and in Georgia, now live quietly and happily in the enjoyment of liberty, … but they were on Spanish soil, protected by Spanish laws.”22 In this work, Giddings confirms that the United States’ main goal throughout the Seminole Wars centered around the capture and re-enslavement of people he called “the Exiles of Florida”: runaway slaves and their descendants.

A specific example of conflict involving runaway slaves is the “Negro Fort” in Spanish Florida. According to Alfred Cave in Sharp Knife: Andrew Jackson and the American Indians, a major point of tension was the presence of a “very well-armed fort the British had built at Prospect Bluff” that became occupied by Native Americans and Blacks (mostly escaped slaves).23 Cave goes on to explain that the United States had tried to get Spain to address the issue of this “Negro Fort,” but “Generals Jackson and Gaines had their own plans.... [which involved that] they first undertook a frontier fortification project.”24 The generals built Fort Scott on the Georgia side of the border, then in late July, a naval flotilla crossed into Spanish waters to travel upriver and provision the new fort. On the way, the expedition stopped and bombarded the “Negro Fort.” The attack ended almost immediately; a shot hit the powder magazine causing a massive explosion and killing 270 of the 320 people residing in the fort. Many of the survivors of this massacre fled to the nearby Seminole village of Fowltown. Shortly after these events, “concern over activities at Fowltown … soon replaced anxiety about the Negro [F]ort.”25 These actions indicate that the fears of Native Americans, such as the Seminoles, were less about the Natives themselves and more related to the Blacks who lived alongside them.

22 Joshua Reed Giddings, The Exile of Florida: Or, The Crimes Committed by our Government Against the Maroons Who Fled from South Carolina and Other Slave States, Seeking Protection under Spanish Law (Columbus: Follett, Foster, and Company, 1858), 29.

23 Cave, Sharp Knife, 82.

24 Cave, 82.

25 Cave, 83

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First Seminole War26

The Treaty of Fort Jackson was one of the main causative agents of the First Seminole War. This treaty between the United States and the Creek Confederation contributed to the start of the First Seminole War because of the land cessions that the Creeks made. The issue that arose dealt with Native Americans within the new borders that were not a part of the Creek Confederation and did not cede their lands. This included villages, such as the Seminoles, and chiefs who did not attend the signing of the Treaty of Fort Jackson. Fowltown, one of these villages, was located within the Georgia border, but did not consider themselves Creek, and therefore believed that the Creek were unable to give away lands that belonged to people not represented by the Creek Confederation.27 Knetsch explains that “To Neamathla, the treaty [of Fort Jackson] meant nothing and his people occupied the land, which gave them rights to its use.”28 However, to the commander of the new Fort Scott, General Gaines, the Treaty applied to Fowltown. When Neamathla refused to meet with him, Gaines ordered the massacre of Fowltown, which occurred on November 21, 1817.29

The Fowltown Massacre marks the start of the First Seminole War from a Seminole perspective. However, in United States history, the start of the war has been attributed to the Seminole’s counterattack: the Scott Massacre. The White narrative of the event begins when Lieutenant Richard W. Scott and forty men traveled downriver from Fort Scott to meet with Major Peter Muhlenberg’s supply convoy. Scott was warned that Seminoles were gathering along the river to make a stand against anyone traveling upstream. Instead of heeding this warn-

26 The First Seminole War was formally fought between the United States and the Seminole people from 1817-1818.

27 Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars, 36.

28 Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars, 23.

29 Knetsch, 23-24.

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ing, Muhlenberg replaced twenty of Scott’s men with some of his injured soldiers and ordered Lieutenant Scott to travel upstream.30 Accounts of who was with Lieutenant Scott vary; some unconfirmed narratives included the deaths of children, and “later reports, especially those found in the congressional debates, stressed the presence of the children, but a political motive for these is easily assumed.”31 At the time, the presence of children was the most important detail of the massacre. Knetsch also states that “the story of this battle has been clouded by reports from a variety of contemporaries and historians.”32 Knetsch is sure that “the battle of November 30, 1817, became the reason for the approval of further incursions into Spanish Florida.”33 The United States now had a way to justify going to war with the Seminoles, despite having created that justification by antagonizing their opponent, with the perpetration of their own massacres against Seminoles and Blacks.

The United States military strategy and propaganda belied the fact that the Seminole wars were not specifically about subduing a “threat” to settlers or the government. The military during the first conflict was more concerned with conquering Spanish Florida, making the Seminole issue an excuse for incursion. When given the go-ahead to deal with the “Seminole menace,” Calhoun specifically forbade General Jackson from making any hostile actions against the Spanish. Jackson then wrote directly to President Monroe, claiming that he could seize Florida in sixty days if it “would be desirable to the United States.”34 Jackson claimed that the President approved of this plan to seize East Florida; however, many historians believe that Jackson either lied about receiving authorization, took silence as consent, or interpreted Monroe’s overall confidence in him as a green

30 Knetsch, 26. 31 Knetsch, 27. 32 Knetsch, 26-27. 33 Knetsch, 27.

34 Andrew Jackson in Alfred Cave Sharp Knife: Andrew Jackson and the American Indians, (Santa Barbara California: Praeger, 2017) 86-87.

light.35 By the end of the war, General Jackson had deposed the Spanish Governor of East Florida.36 For those who initiated the war, the First Seminole War had little to do with the Seminoles and more to do with a military invasion of a Spanish colony and issues regarding slavery.

Second Seminole War37

The Second Seminole War allegedly broke out in late 1835. While this war was said to have dealt with its own issues, there were many similarities to the previous Seminole war, especially regarding the causes of the conflict, which suggest that the two events were not separate but a continuation of previous U.S. policy and related to earlier conflicts.

Unlike the start of the First Seminole War, where the outbreak of war can be attributed to the United States, Western historians attribute the official start of the Second Seminole War to events of aggression made by the Seminoles such as the Dade Massacre38 and the assassinations of important U.S. leaders at Fort King. Osceola was an important leader among the Seminoles, even leading the attack at Fort King. Prior to the December attack, “the signal that a war had actually begun came in late November 1835.”39 Charley Emathla, typically considered a well-respected Seminole chief, decided to emigrate. This decision contradicted the stance of the rest of the Seminole Tribe, and at the time, “to go against the expressed wishes of the entire tribe was considered treason.”40 Because of this choice, Osceola

35 Cave, Sharp Knife, 87.

36 Cave, 87.

37 The Second Seminole War was formally fought between the United States and the Seminole people from 1835-1842.

38 Similar to the “Scott Massacre,” the “Dade Massacre” is classified as a massacre to continue the false image of Native Americans as people of lesser value.

39 Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars, 92.

40 Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars, 92. This is similar to U.S. treatments of treasonous behavior. In the eyes of the Seminoles, Charley Emathla was not just “emigrating” to the west, he was taking information, including military information, to an enemy force.

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met Emathla on the way to Fort Brooke to kill Emathla. The execution of Emathla confirmed Osceola as a primary leader of the Seminole people.41 Then, on December 28, “a well-planned and executed attack led by Osceola” resulted in the deaths of Indian Agent Wiley Thompson, Lieutenant Constantine Smith, Erastus Rogers, and four other United States military officers.42 This attack at Fort King occurred on the same day as the Dade Massacre, the other act of aggression that allegedly started the Second Seminole War.

The military maneuver of the Dade Massacre shares some distinct similarities to the Scott Massacre that began the previous war. Major Frances Dade and a company of 108 soldiers were attacked by a group of around 180 Native Americans and Blacks. In this attack, three of Dade’s soldiers survived. The Seminoles only lost three men. Due to the Dade Massacre and the attack on Fort King, the U.S. would return to a state of war, now known as the “Second Seminole War.”

Also important is that for many Seminoles, the inter-war period between the first and second Seminole Wars was not a time of peace; they still experienced a state of war. From this viewpoint, the attacks at Fort King and on the Dade company were military maneuvers that were a part of an ongoing war, not acts of aggression meant to start a new war.

While from a Western perspective it is in the Second Seminole War that the first acts of aggression were taken by the Seminoles, the United States was not completely blameless for the return to war with the Seminoles. The United States was working to force the Seminoles to emigrate43 to the West. John

41 Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars, 92. Emathla’s death has been referred to as an execution or assassination by multiple Western scholars, but from the Seminole perspective could be considered to be a justifiable elimination of a traitorous figure.

42 Joe Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars, 71.

43 The term ‘emigrate’ is used to refer to the United States policy of removing Native people from their homeland and placing them on reservations in Indian Territory (located in present-day Oklahoma). The use of this term is not intended to disregard the horrors that were forced upon the people who had to endure this involuntary removal from their land.

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Missall and Mary Lou Missall explain that having issues with emigration can be a difficult concept because common understandings of migration involve moving to a better place, but “for the Indians, it usually meant going to a worse one.”44

The resistance to leave their homeland ensured that Seminoles would be in close proximity to White settlers, which led to issues and conflicts between the two. Prior to the return to war, “a state of ‘temporary hostilities’ again hit the frontier of Florida. The main reason that the [Indian] agent gave was the poor conditions of the Native Americans and the constant intrusion into their lands by [W]hites hunting cattle and escaped slaves.”45 Many of these Whites that intruded on Seminole lands were “of unscrupulous behavior” and were “simply taking whatever black men, women, and children they found and claiming them to be escapees.”46

Issues from the First Seminole War clearly had a contributing effect in accounting for the poor living conditions of the Seminoles prior to the Second Seminole War. The Treaty of Moultrie Creek, signed on September 18, 1823, a few years after the First Seminole War, established the Seminole’s territory. In this treaty the United States Congress agreed to appropriate five thousand dollars a year to the Seminoles. However, this money mostly went to government agents instead of assisting the Seminole people.47

There were also rising tensions regarding the Blacks living among the Seminoles. “It had constantly been maintained by the governor and others that some of the blacks living within the nation actually controlled the policy of the Seminoles and Miccosukees toward emigration and had always opposed it.”48 This was unsubstantiated propaganda and did not fit with Seminole

44 Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars, 69.

45 Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars, 58.

46 Knetsch, 58.

47 William C. Emerson, The Seminoles: Dwellers of the Everglades: The Land, History, and Culture of the Florida Indians (New York: Exposition Press, 1954), 28.

48 Emerson, The Seminoles, 59.

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culture or practices. C.S. Monaco explains why White officials had issues with Seminoles claiming slaves as their own; “Native slave ownership undermined a central tenet of settler-colonialism. Indians, given their supposedly wild and childlike natures, … were thought to be incapable of managing the land, let alone slaves; hence, colonizers had an implicit and righteous duty to appropriate these wasted resources.”49 The existence of a slave society among Native people raised into question the assumption that Natives were unable to manage such a society, which, interestingly, also belied the Euro-American hierarchy of humans that placed American Indians lower than Africans. Some historians have taken these fears and concerns among the White population regarding the Black population living with the Seminoles into account. This situation led some to find, as suggested at the time by U.S. General Thomas Jesup, that the Second Seminole War “is a negro, not an Indian war.”50 Matthew Calvin in his study of this theory found that as the war progressed, there was an increase in accusations that African Americans were responsible for the war regardless of the evidence that this was not the case.51 Monaco, on the topic of Black control over the Seminoles during the war, finds that “no tangible evidence exists that African Americans ever appropriated Native authority.”52 Historiographical interpretations of African Americans as leaders of the Second Seminole War originated during the latter half of the twentieth century and failed to recognize the power of the Seminoles, disregarding them in a con-

49 C.S. Monaco, The Second Seminole War and the Limits of American Aggression (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), 39.

50 General Thomas Sidney Jesup said, quoted in Matthew Clavin, “‘It is a negro, not an Indian war’: Southampton, St. Domingo, and the Second Seminole War,” in America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, ed. William S. Belko (Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida, 2011), 193.

51 Matthew Clavin “‘It is a negro, not an Indian war’: Southampton, St. Domingo, and the Second Seminole War,” in America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, ed. William S. Belko (Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida, 2011), 196.

52 C.S. Monaco, The Second Seminole War and American Aggression, 41.

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tinued condescension towards Native people.53 Regardless of the actual involvement of Blacks and African Americans among the Native population, the settlers and officials from the United States claimed that they were in play, which allowed them to justify the Second Seminole War.

An analysis of congressional discussions on the Second Seminole War immediately after the conflict illustrates how leaders in the United States viewed the War and what they believed was significant. Document number fifty-five from the twenty-seventh Congress’s second session is a message from the President to Congress covering the cause of the war with the Seminoles as well as the number of Slaves captured during the conflict. In this nine-page document, General Thomas Jesup estimated that “the number captured during the short period of my command amounted, I think, to more than four hundred.”54 How General Jesup determined this number is unclear, and other important information is not provided, such as any estimates of how many slaves were killed during the war. The importance of documents such as this is to show that leaders in the United States were still not primarily focused on the Seminole people despite being at war with them. Instead, United States leaders were focused on other issues, in this case, the number of slaves gained from the war.

While it can be interpreted that Seminoles began the war in 1835 in order to resist removal, historians such as Samuel Watson point out that this idea disregards the many other forms of resistance other native groups attempted to use.55 The reason

53 C.S. Monaco, “Whose War Was It?: African American Heritage Claims and the Second Seminole War,” American Indian Quarterly, no. 41 (2017) 39-40.

54 Thomas Sidney Jesup in John Tyler, “Seminole War— Slaves Captured Message From the President of the United States Transmitting the information called for by a resolution of the House of Representatives of August 9, 1841, in relation to the origin of the Seminole War, of Slaves captured,” (3 September 2020), Slavery Papers, Speeches, and Manuscripts, Box 1 Folder 28, Slavery Papers, Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections, Valdosta, GA, no. 55 (Washington: Quartermaster General’s Office, 1841), 2.

55 Samuel Watson, “Seminole Strategy, 1812-1858: A Prospectus for Further Research,” in America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, ed. William S. Belko (Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida, 2011), 159.

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that Watson gives for war being the only option the Seminoles had to resist removal was that their lack of acculturated leaders who could be readily identified in other Native American communities. In other Native communities, the leaders were often able to pursue other non-military options.56 As war was the Seminole people’s only option, they had to take a position “on the offensive in defense of their homes” which gave them “the luxury of knowing when serious fighting would commence.”57 This concept of “offense in defense” may explain the Seminole strategy as a defensive preemptive strike.

Third Seminole War58

Given the nature of the Third Seminole War, there is less documentation to establish causal factors than its predecessors. For many historians, “the Third Seminole War may appear to be nothing more than an afterthought to the much larger Second Seminole War.”59 However, it can also be understood as the conclusion to the continuing conflict beginning in the First and following through the Second Seminole wars.

For the United States, by 1853, plans to “remove the Seminole from Florida had more or less fallen apart … Large rewards [were offered] for any captured Seminoles,” and several expeditions to South Florida by militia were made to cash in on these rewards.60 During this time, the Seminoles were “trying to build good faith, hoping the [W]hites would see they intended to be friendly.”61 Despite Seminole efforts, Euro-Americans were set on the removal of Seminoles from Florida.

56 Watson, “Seminole Strategy,” 159.

57 Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars, 93.

58 The Third Seminole War was formally fought between the United States and the Seminole people from 1855-1858.

59 Joe Knetsch, John Missall, and Mary Lou Missall, History of the Third Seminole War: 1849-1858 (Havertown: Casemate Publishers, 2018), vi.

60 Knetsch, Missall, and Missall, History of the Third Seminole War, 72. 61 Knetsch, Missall, and Missall, 75.

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The United States Army used a slow attrition strategy to “persuade,” or force Seminoles to accept emigration and removal to the west. By limiting Seminole movements and trade and invading their territory, the goal was to quietly force the Seminoles out of their homes.62 Almost all military accounts from leaders in Florida acknowledge the understanding that “Native Americans wanted peace and would avoid contact with [W]hites whenever the opportunity allowed.”63 The conflict in the Third War started with White settlers, as the same reports state that settlers were hoping to lead the frontier into a state of war.64 Eventually, these attempts would be successful, and on December 20, 1855, the Third Seminole War allegedly began with a Seminole attack on the command of Lieutenant George Hartsuff. All sources point to a consensus best stated by Knetsch, “this war was forced upon the Native Americans in no uncertain terms.”65

Conclusion

The series of wars through the nineteenth century between the Seminoles and the United States continue to be categorized as separate conflicts. However, there is evidence for claiming that the events were part of a single war with two ceasefires. The largest cause of these wars was the refusal of the United States’ leaders and White settlers to recognize the authority and rights of the Seminoles. Major problems between these groups manifested in issues such as slavery among the Seminoles, which United States propaganda felt was a challenge to their authority. However, from the Seminoles’ perspective, the long war was a matter of maintaining their land and way of life. The United States led itself into these conflicts because of its

62 Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars,143. 63 Knetsch, 147. 64 Knetsch, 147. 65 Knetsch, 150.

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failure to recognize that, in the eyes of the Seminole people, the United States was not the ultimate authority. This failure would cost many lives to be lost, both Seminole and White. This dark period of United States history is often overlooked but deserves more research and analysis moving forward.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Giddings, Joshua Reed. The Exile of Florida: Or, The Crimes Committed by our Government against the Maroons Who Fled from South Carolina and Other Slave States, Seeking Protection under Spanish Law. Columbus: Follett, Foster, and Company, 1858.

Tyler, John. “Seminole War—Slaves Captured: Message from the President of the United States Transmitting the Information Called for by a Resolution of the House of Representatives of August 9, 1841, in Relation to the Origin of the Seminole War, of Slaves Captured.” Slavery Papers, Speeches, and Manuscripts. Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections, Valdosta, GA.

Secondary Sources:

Belko, William S. “Epilogue to the War of 1812: The Monroe Administration, American Anglophobia, and the First Seminole War.” In America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, edited by William S. Belko. 54-102. Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida, 2011.

Cave, Alfred A. Sharp Knife: Andrew Jackson and the American Indians. Santa Barbara California: Praeger, 2017.

Clavin, Matthew. “‘It is a negro, not an Indian war’: Southampton, St. Domingo, and the Second Seminole War.” In America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, edited by William S. Belko. 181-208. Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida, 2011.

Emerson, William C. The Seminoles: Dwellers of the Everglades: The Land, History, and Culture of the Florida Indians, New York: Exposition Press, 1954.

Knetsch, Joe. Florida’s Seminole Wars:1817-1858, Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003.

Knetsch, Joe, John Missall, and Mary Lou Missall. History of the Third Seminole War: 1849-1858. Havertown: Casemate Publishers, 2018.

Missall, John, and Mary Lou Missall. The Seminole Wars: America’s Longest Indian Conflict. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.

Monaco, C.S. The Second Seminole War and the Limits of American Aggression. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Monaco, C.S. “Whose War Was It?: African American Heritage Claims and the Second Seminole War.” American Indian Quarterly. no.41 (2017). 31-66.

Watson, Samuel. “Seminole Strategy, 1812-1858: A Prospectus for Further Research.” In America’s Hundred Years’ War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858, edited by William S. Belko. 155-180. Gainesville, Fl: University Press of Florida, 2011.

Giving a Voice to the Voiceless

By Kasmira K. Smith Faculty Mentor: Dr. Pat Miller, Department of English

Article Abstract:

As a result of the digital age, journalists must be adaptable, collaborative, and engaging. Technology is a major component of our society. Technology never stays stagnant, and it is always evolving just like journalism and journalists. This article analyzes how the impact of technology affected my experience and role as a journalist, and how it catalyzes evolution in the field of journalism collectively. Along with the constant updates with social media and software, journalists must be willing to learn these new technologies. Journalism caters to society and its community. If the community is accessing their news from a new way of communication, then journalists/journalism needs to figure out how to share news in that new way. Without all opinions and perspectives being shared, one cannot have a marketplace of ideas or have a debate to determine truth. When journalists share this information, it drives debate. It catalyzes the necessary conversations that need to occur so that we can work on our community.

In a small town in Cook County, GA, there has been only one frequent writer in our local newspaper. I saw this journalist at school events, community gatherings, and around the county. He always kept a camera and a notebook with a pen. After being interviewed and photographed for the local newspaper a few times, I wondered why he was the only person I had seen doing

Kasmira K. Smith

this. I had never seen someone that looked like me work as a writer at the newspaper. Even though I had been featured in the newspaper, I felt like my story and my minority’s perspective were not represented. There was barely any minority event coverage or perspective included in the newspaper. I was initially unsure of why it was so important for me to see a local African American female journalist; after all, there were other local African American broadcast journalists on television, yet there is much to be said about seeing someone physically doing what you aspire to do. Whenever I saw an African American newspaper journalist, it gave me hope and confidence that I could become an advocate for my community.

It was not until my senior year at Cook High School that I found my passion for photojournalism. I was enrolled in a journalism class to help with the school yearbook, and I took pictures at school events and conducted interviews for the page description. I always loved covering the clubs and organizations at my school because I learned about them and got to share them with the rest of the school. Seeing the students’ and clubs’ reactions to their pages fulfilled my goal: giving a voice to the voiceless. This was when I felt the closest to my community. Journalism is a public duty, and journalists must represent and share true news and facts with their community. As a child, I remember reading the newspaper with my grandparents and watching the news every morning and evening. I learned about local breaking news, the weather, and my community in both print and broadcast media. After watching the news, I observed my grandparents, aunt, and mother as they talked about the coverage for that night. We also gathered for elections, bad weather updates, and court verdicts. After watching the news one evening, my family gathered and told me my birth story: I was born on Election Day in 2000 because my mother’s labor was induced due to her high blood pressure.

My mom could not participate in voting, and the nurses had to stop her from watching the news when she got upset as George W. Bush won the election. The fact that people were undergoing life-changing events such as childbirth but still wanting to watch the news exemplifies how important journalism is to the community.

The Trayvon Martin murder and the trial of George Zimmerman were all over the news when I was in middle school, and I recall watching the news coverage and comprehending the fatal events intensively as a national controversy that sparked debates across the United States. My family and I sat all evening waiting for the verdict, and after they acquitted Zimmerman, I remember the debates that ricocheted across my grandma’s living room. I was shocked to see that lots of people had many different opinions. I noticed that even in national controversy, journalists didn’t participate in the debates because they can’t focus on their personal opinions. Journalists still have a job to do, and that was to share the news. No matter what their political or moral position was, journalists remained objective, collaborative, and shared all available information.

That’s when I realized journalists are public community advocates and teachers. They must do their job ethically and authentically, embodying a mission to help their community have awareness and a voice. Opinions and perspectives must be shared; without opposing ideas, you cannot have a marketplace of ideas or have a debate to determine truth. When journalists share multiple perspectives, debate occurs. Opposing viewpoints and conflict catalyzes conversations necessary to enhancing our community. Journalists do not interview sources, write stories, and publish news just for a salary. No, journalists are called to this position because they want to make an impact and change the world. The audience determines the impact and the modality of the news. Reporting can affect so many aspects of our daily lives. It amazes me when the community offers feedback to journalists or debate on the recent news. That’s exactly what I want

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to do as a journalist. I want to use my words and reporting to change the world, and I want to have an active impact on others in my community.

For me, being a journalist must highlight diversity, various opinions, and perspectives, while including the facts of the topic. Over the past few years, however, the creditability and truth within news reporting have not been present in some journalistic media. During the Trump administration, the press received major backlash when the fake news allegations spread across the media. These allegations undermined the capability of the press to produce the news ethically and truthfully, and with my acquired skills, I want to show my community that a credible and objective journalist still exists.

Due to the advent of modern technology and social media, a journalist today is different from a decade ago. Now, journalists must learn how to use new design, audio, and video software, as well as social media platforms that young people already know how to use. There is an array of social media apps, such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, and each app has its own method of communication. According to Rodrigo Zamith and Joshua Braun in “Technology and Journalism,” various “news organizations…increasingly [rely] on the Internet for distribution … [yet] the rise of search engines and social media have intensified journalists’ reliance on social distribution—the sharing of links and media by users” (1524). This has also contributed to the need for social engagement on social media. This means, in short, that anyone who has the necessary technology and training could be considered a journalist. To be a journalist means going beyond the basic requirements of reporting and writing articles. Today, a journalist must be collaborative and engage an audience. Learning different software and apps will allow them to connect with their audience. Journalists are also teachers because they share information that allows the audience to facilitate debate.

During my sophomore year at Valdosta State University, I attended an English Department interest party. At the party, I was introduced to several organizations within the department. The one that drew me in the most was the Academic Support Center, which is where I learned about the various ways English students could help other students. The following semester, I became an English tutor and Peer Alliance Learning (PAL) facilitator. I attended my designated introductory composition courses weekly, reached out to students, and held tutoring sessions. I initially had a hard time getting students to attend my sessions— until I took my Document Design course. I learned how to make effective flyers and infographics that helped my students recognize my sessions. This is when tutoring began to flourish for me. I learned that you must be collaborative and that although students love one-on-one sessions, it is better when they can learn from the tutor and from other students. I found that I gave loads of information, but the students would not understand how to apply it. It was either hard to get them engaged in the conversation or they remained silent. My Editing for Publications course helped me understand that sharing my own experiences helped build rapport with the writer. This was an eye-opening experience for me. Along with learning how to be a writer’s advocate, whether it was in my writing, editing, or student point of view, each role was important within the session.

I also learned about the impact of technology through this experience. Along with the constant updates with social media and software, journalists must be willing to learn these new technologies. Journalism caters to society and its community, and if the community is accessing their news from a new mode of communication, journalists and the field of journalism need to figure out how to share news in that new mode. Before COVID-19, all my college classes were in-person, and I did not have too many issues with meeting with sources or students unless there was a scheduling issue. But once the pandemic started, all my classes transitioned to an online format, but I still

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had to write stories which meant I needed to find a way I could interview my sources. Journalism and technology together foster debate and two-way communication, but not all methods of communication will work for certain stories, so knowing how to share news across different modalities is beneficial. For my Feature Writing class, I learned how to use videoconferencing software such as Microsoft Teams and Collaborate to conduct interviews. Although there were several technical issues with connections and video, this is a part of the job. I had to use problem-solving skills to learn how to produce stories without the apparent obstacle.

Some aspects of technology are replaceable and/or adaptable. According to Zvi Reich in “The Impact of Technology,” there are two roles or perspectives about the impact of technology: it is either transformationalist or adaptationist. Reich states that, “According to the adaptationist view, even if reporters are personally ‘techies’ or fans of ‘cutting edge gizmos’—as many journalists are—they do not simply replace older technologies with new ones in their core news reporting assignments” (41819). This means that journalists must use their judgment to select how important innovation is to replace the old technology and determine if they are willing to learn it. A transformationalist example of the impact of technology within journalism is the printing press and the mobile phone. In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger attempts to explain to his students at Oxford University how news production used to occur compared to now.

After nineteen drawings of each stage of the process, Rusbridger claims that, “Nineteen stages (in reality, dozens—if not hundreds—of stick figures) [are] needed for me to enable my act of communication with someone else” (1-3). Rusbridger also highlights how technology not only fosters two-way communication but potentially global communication. With the mobile phone, Rusbridger explains to his class, “… I can communicate not only with you but, potentially, the whole world” (3).

The internet, the mobile phone, and the telegraph catalyzed the proficiency of news gathering and distribution. Instead of taking days or even weeks to receive news, the news could be exchanged within minutes after these inventions. The telegraph transmitted electrical signals over wires between stations. Morse code was often used in telegraph messages. This later helped the development of newswire services. According to History.com, “Rather than taking weeks to be delivered by horseand-carriage mail carts, pieces of news could be exchanged between telegraph stations almost instantly. The telegraph also had a profound economic effect, allowing money to be ‘wired’ across great distances” (Onion et al.). News organizations still use newswire services such as Reuters and the Associated Press, but with the rise of the Internet, journalists began to use search engines to gather news. These technologies not only affected the newsgathering process of journalism but also the distribution of news. Mark Briggs in Journalism Next states, “Today, mobile devices are like electronic Swiss Army knives, arming anyone and potentially everyone with all-in-one media tools that can view, capture and publish or broadcast” (125). Even though mobile phones were innovative, they would not replace the need for in-depth reporting and are complementary to time-critical stories where others can arrive at the scene before professional journalists.

Distribution is a major part of the journalistic process and is how the public mainly receives the news. I can remember watching people at newsstands passing out the latest paper that came off the printing press. Currently, a subscription ad or popup on a news organization website is the closet version of a newsstand. Since the rise of the internet, audiences take in and share news and information differently, and journalists must consider the audience’s engagement and their article’s accessibility. Link sharing became important within the online publishing process because link sharing helps with curation. In Journalism Next, Briggs explains how link sharing is beneficial: “The link has

proved to be more than just an add-on feature in journalism. It is a powerful form of content that builds readership and brings readers back” (96). Journalists were not as open to this method because of industry competition. In Breaking News, Rusbridger explains how journalists adjusted to link sharing: “We were learning about the connectedness of the web—and the IT team tentatively suggested that we might use some ‘offsite links’ to other versions of the same story to save ourselves the need to write our own version of everything” (45). Linking sources helps with news organizations’ curation which helps cultivate an audience on search engines and social media platforms.

I learned about distribution in a social media class I took a few summers ago. We learned how to create a marketing campaign using different modalities of podcasts, videos, and pitch presentations. Completing this class forced me out of my comfort zone whilst simultaneously preparing me for my Essential Reporting Skills and Seminar class. I was pushed by that seminar into practicing my skills with interviewing and reformatting old stories into different modalities. From these classes, I have learned how important is to include your audience within the reporting stage of your story.

This also means journalists must make the reporting process collaborative or their story interactive. Rusbridger remarks how the audience reacted to interactive news reporting: “Newspapers encouraged letters from readers … It became fashionable to start using the term ‘a conversation’. It was not really, but there was much more two-way traffic” (66). With the new “conversations,” publishers and news organizations were able to see what their audience liked and disliked. The feedback also helped journalists gain leverage in knowing how to improve their reporting and distribution. In Journalism Next, Briggs argues, “News reporting methods such as crowdsourcing and open-source reporting are forms of engaged journalism and have become a focus for more and more news operations in the United States” (88).

Giving a Voice to the Voiceless

Briggs redefines crowdsourcing as, focusing “community power on a specific project” to demonstrate “how a group of committed individuals can outperform a small group of experienced (and paid) professionals,” while open-source reporting refers to journalists “using transparency” to build trust or benefit from the audience (88). Both methods have been adopted into modern journalists’ practices because of the advancement of digital platforms.

The creation of crowdsourcing and open-source reporting transformed journalism. It allowed for news organizations to ask for the public’s help when finding sources or identifying people in photos. According to Briggs, “Projects and stories like these, and many others, were not possible before the internet made the distribution of information and communication so cheap and so easy. It has become standard operating procedure for journalists to leverage the audience when fact-finding, reporting, and assessing the importance of particular news stories” (92). Leveraging the audience does not mean taking advantage of the public. It means using their feedback to help share the news they want to access. Not all journalists or news organizations were willing to adapt to these new methods and advancements. Hesitation to evolving is not bad. Contemplation exercises another quality all journalists need—a sense of judgment and problem-solving. Without considering the pros and cons of a situation, we never know where our choices will lead us.

Journalists should not stay stagnant throughout their journeys or careers. Journalists must use their judgment to decide what path is best for them. Each step of my college journalism career has shaped me into the person I am today. I have always had a love for learning and a motivation to be the best version I can be. I used to struggle to figure out what my passion was. During my time at VSU, I have learned a passion for journalism and representing the public. I do not aim to be the fastest or most published writer, but I will apply my journalism skills within any career I choose.

Ultimately, I want to work somewhere that has a higher moral purpose and a mission that stands for helping the greater good. My role as a journalist is not defined from my experience but from what I do with my experience. I am meant to advocate, teach, and practice the endless craft of reporting authentically and ethically. I would like to pursue my future by continuing my education and using what I have learned to improve journalism. Rebuilding the public’s trust in journalists with accurate and objective reporting while also considering the public’s perspective is how I can help improve journalism. From what I have learned in my Law and Journalism class, I know that without knowing all opinions, our society will not be able to grow and establish or reinvigorate truth. To me, journalism is not just an easy oneway path to success. Instead, it is a complex map of obstacles that leads to endless opportunities, growth, and a higher moral position.

Works Cited

Briggs, Mark. Journalism next: A Practical Guide to Digital Reporting and Publishing. 4th ed., SAGE, 2020.

Onion, Amanda et al. “Morse Code & The Telegraph.” History. com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009, https:// www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph.

Reich, Zvi. “The Impact of Technology on News Reporting: A Longitudinal Perspective.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, vol. 90, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 417–434. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1077699013493789.

Rusbridger, Alan. Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

Zamith, Rodrigo and Joshua A. Braun. “Technology and Journalism.” The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies, vol. 3, 2019, pp. 1521-1527.

Native American Property Loss and the United States’ Law

By Maya Commodore Faculty Mentor: Dr. Lavonna Lovern, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Article Abstract:

Native Americans have had land disputes with the United States government since the beginning of colonization. These disputes occur because of legislation that has been created by the U.S. Government that fails to acknowledge the impact of this legislation on Indigenous rights to self-determination and sovereignty. Additionally, this legislation is often in direct violation of treaty agreements. The way much of the legislation has been written favors the American government and American claims in ways that deny the possibility of justice within the legal system. This article will briefly examine legal history related to Native American and American land disputes. Specifically, the article will examine the Sioux and American government dispute over the Black Hills. Finally, the article will examine alternative legal strategies for overcoming the social injustice currently established by American laws. The article concludes that there is legislation outside of federal Indian law that may be used to reverse the social injustice represented by the stealing of the Black Hills from the Sioux, and this legislation will not only return the Black Hills to the Sioux but will also reestablish self-determination and sovereignty rights.

Native Americans have had land disputes with the United States Government for many years. These disputes occur because of legislation that is created by the U.S. Government, which fails to acknowledge how its policies impact Indigenous communities. The current laws fail not only to consider Indigenous peoples’ perspectives but also limit their ability to obtain justice within

Native American Property Loss and the United States’ Law

Maya Commodore

the courts. Despite these setbacks, some legal methods can be used to help Native Americans reclaim the property they have lost. This article will provide a history of interactions between Native American populations and the U.S. Federal Government, and it will explain how U.S. laws have impacted these communities across the country. Additionally, the article will provide a close examination of the land dispute between the Sioux and the U.S. over the Black Hills and a possible method for how the tribe might win the dispute.

Native American tribes and nations and the United States’ law

Before discussing the current laws in place and how they have impacted Native American Tribes and Nations, one must first understand the importance of land and the role it has played for Native Americans. For Native Americans, land is more than just a controlled area of space. It is an extension of their cultures and spiritualties (Wolfley, 2018, p. 142). The land that is used by Native Americans can be designated for multiple purposes such as to “live on, to farm and hunt, to conduct ceremonies, to bury their loved ones, and to engage in religious practices” (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 805). However, the locations of some of these designated areas are not always close to one another on the reservation. In fact, some of these sites, such as burial and religious sites (i.e., sacred sites), are located off of the reservations, which is where many conflicts between Native Americans and the Federal Government arise.

As the U.S. expanded, the Federal Government began to create laws that would place Native American lands under U.S. government control. The laws disregarded the fact that the lands were already occupied by Native Americans (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 810). The way that Native American Tribes and Nations established who occupied or hunted on specific lands was based on tradition and origin narratives (p. 809). A Tribe or Nation’s

origin narrative not only explains how the community came into existence but also establishes their connection to the land both physically and spiritually (p. 809). The way the Federal Government justified its legislation for taking land from Native Americans was by claiming that Native Americans were inferior in terms of “race, religion, biology, culture, and relationship to property rights” (p. 811). This rationale allowed colonial Americans to use methods that forced Native American communities to sign over land to avoid conflict (p. 811).

As the population of colonial Americans grew, so did the number of land disputes between colonial Americans and Native Americans. Some of the more significant cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court included Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823), Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), and Worcester v. Georgia (1832). The decisions from each case established the rights of Native American tribes and the doctrine of discovery, which gave an “occupancy title” to Native American communities; meaning that Native American communities could “occupy land that was subject to purchase or conquest, but they could not” prevent the Federal Government from obtaining or owning that land (Riley, 2013, p. 372). The doctrine of discovery was the basis of the Johnson v. M’Intosh decision, which recognized that “tribes were the rightful occupants of the soil, with rights of possession and use”; however, the Federal Government is the one that holds the ultimate title of the land (p. 372). The decisions in Cherokee v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia established the definition of Native American rights and their relationship with the Federal Government. Cherokee v. Georgia states that the relationship between Native American Nations and the Government is “that of a ward to his guardian” (p. 373). Worcester v. Georgia recognized that Native American Tribes and Nations are “to be free from state jurisdiction … and the laws of the state cannot have any force in Indian country” (p. 373). The decisions of these three cases resulted in the ability of Tribal Governments to be able to be “overridden by federal authority, but free of state control” (p. 373).

Native American Property Loss and the United States’ Law

Maya

Despite the decisions of the courts, President Jackson and Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which gave the Federal Government the ability to forcibly remove Native Americans from the Southeast to the Midwest where the Federal Government created Indian territories (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 813). Relocation resulted in many Native Americans becoming impoverished, requiring them to rely on the Federal Government to provide subsidies as they were “unable to hunt, gather, fish, and live freely” as they had always done before (p. 814).

As the Native Americans began to grow accustomed to their new lands, Americans still expanded westward in hopes of finding more land and new wealth. To obtain more land, the U.S. Government created a policy known as Allotment (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 814). This policy suggested that reservations be divided and assigned to individual Native American families. Some Native Americans agreed to this policy hoping to maintain some level of control over their way of life, but the policy was largely opposed by Indigenous communities (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 814). The policy allowed for the Federal Government to hold the allotted land in trust until the Federal Government could deem the land “fee simple absolute” (p. 815). Land that is held in fee simple absolute means that the land is “completely owned without any limitations or conditions” by an individual (Legal Information Institute). Native American populations who engaged in allotment deals with the Federal Government were given lands that were not farmable and were far apart, resulting in “economic, social, and cultural disruption” (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 816). Unable to successfully farm the land, tribes were unable to pay for the land that the Federal Government allotted to them, which meant that the Federal Government could claim the land, allowing land ownership to shift from Native Americans to non-Native Americans (p. 817).

While many claim that the original intent of allotment was to assist the Native American peoples to assimilate into

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Western culture, others note that, regardless of intent, allotment became a Federal Government land grab. When analyzing the policy, one could interpret the policy as deceptive in nature towards Native Americans. In the eyes of the Federal Government, the policy was meant to provide individual Native Americans a chance to own land and prosper as farmers. However, the land given to Native Americans proved to be not farmable, resulting in the land being lost.

The Allotment policy had a devastating impact on Native American populations. It was estimated that two-thirds of all tribal lands were lost to the Federal Government and non-Native Americans (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 817). Eventually, Congress was forced to put an end to the Allotment policy and in 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act which “extended the trust status of allotted land indefinitely, provided for the organization of Tribal Governments, and created a comprehensive plan of land acquisition and consolidation” (p. 820). Despite the Act’s claimed intentions, it allowed the Secretary of the Interior to obtain land in trust for Native American Tribes and Nations, which would eventually impact Tribal, State, and Federal Government regulations and taxation (p. 820).

Approximately fifteen years after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 was passed, there was another political shift against Native Americans. In the 1950s, Termination Policies were passed through congress as a result of Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 821). The Supreme Court decided that the aboriginal title of Native Americans was never recognized by any treaty or statute, which meant that the Native Americans’ occupancy title was merely a “license to be on the land” (p. 821). Therefore, Congress established Termination Policies to put an end to the recognition of many Native American tribes and their rights to the land (p. 821). Specifically, the policies were meant to eliminate “tribal trust holdings, liquidate tribal assets, extinguish the federally recognized status of tribes,” and no longer require the government to provide any

Maya

subsidies to Tribal Governments (p. 821). The policies also resulted in the “relocation of tribal communities from reservations or rural communities to urban centers,” the destruction of “some subsistence-based tribal economies, and decades of continuing underdevelopment” for others (Beck, 2009, pp. 115-117). Termination Policies resulted in the sale of Indian land, and poverty rates rose exponentially among Native American tribes that lost their tribal recognition status (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 822).

Additional disputes arose when Public Law 280 was established in 1953, “which turned law enforcement jurisdiction in Indian Country over to the states” (Beck, 2009, p. 117). As a whole, these policies were designed to not only weaken the role of Native American communities but were also claimed to “enhance the role both of individual Indians and of the non-Indian world surrounding tribes” (Beck, 2009, p. 117). In the 1960s, many Native American tribes who were impacted, voiced their dissatisfaction with the Termination policy and Public Law 280, while some states welcomed the two policies. Eventually, Congress chose to reject the Termination policy during the 1960s after they became aware of the consequences of the policy, but Public Law 280 is still in effect (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 823).

Native Americans and the self-determination policy

With the Termination policies being rejected, the policy known as Self-Determination was becoming more prevalent. This policy promoted Native American “self-governance and economic development” (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 823). The administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon supported this policy, and each contributed their support through various means (Strommer & Osborne, 2014-2015, p. 16). The Kennedy administration “did not seek to terminate tribes” while the Johnson administration made “unprecedented investments in Indian social programs and reservation infrastructure” (p. 16). However, it was President Nixon who displayed the most sup-

port for the Self-Determination policy. In 1970, Nixon called for Self-Determination to be the new Federal Indian Policy, and “urged for the abolition of the Termination Acts and its corrosive effects on tribal communities” (pp. 17-18). Nixon then proposed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act which was passed in 1975. The Act was a “legislative package designed to expedite the transfer of the administration of federal programs that benefitted Native Americans and their Tribal Governments” (p. 18). The enactment of this policy would later result in some small improvement in the economies of reservations specifically in the 2000s (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 824). Some Native Americans attempted to buy back their lands in the open market as more land being bought and owned by Native Americans meant that Tribal Governments would begin to have more sovereignty (p. 824). According to Lavoie (2018), tribal government “authority … is dependent on the tribe’s legal or beneficial title to land,” and that property is “a significant mechanism for conceptualizing the interaction between the authority of the” Tribal Government and the Federal Government (p. 264). Therefore, to rebuild their communities, members of Tribes and Nations were required to purchase land in the open market to strengthen their governments’ sovereignties (Carpenter & Riley, 2019, p. 824).

Native American claim: the Sioux and the Black Hills

There continues to be a dispute involving the Black Hills. According to Carlson, the Black Hills “are the center of the Sioux universe, and they sustain the Sioux people culturally, spiritually, and physically” (2013, p. 701). In 1868, the Federal Government enacted a treaty called the Fort Laramie Treaty which established the recognition status of the Sioux tribe and the parameters of the Sioux reservation (p. 699). When the treaty was signed by members representing the tribe, it was agreed upon that the Sioux would have “absolute and undisturbed use

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and occupation of” the Black Hills (p. 699). However, once gold was discovered in the Black Hills, Congress claimed the Black Hills for the U.S. and authorized mining increasing non-Indigenous incursion into American Indian territory (p. 699). The Sioux claimed that the U.S. violated the Fort Laramie Treaty, but lacking access to the courts at that time, the people had no voice in the American acquisition of the Black Hills (p. 699).

This land dispute has been ongoing for more than 150 years (Carlson, 2013, p. 700). For the Sioux, the Black Hills are essential to culture and religion. To emphasize the importance of the Black Hills, one tribal member stated that “asking a Sioux to give up the Black Hills, is like asking a Christian to reject Christ as the Son of God” (p. 705). Because of the Black Hills’ significance, the Sioux refuse to accept the U.S. Government’s money that is owed to them according to the treaty, as acceptance implies the “selling” of the Black Hills (p. 705).

There are multiple ways to resolve the Black Hills dispute, including that the U.S. return the Black Hills and uphold treaty agreements. As this is unlikely, there are possible avenues for the Sioux to gain justice. One argument that has been put forth states that the representatives were not official tribal representatives. Another argument notes that the representatives were not properly informed regarding the stipulations in the treaty. If they were misinformed, then the treaty between the two parties is null and void according to contractual standards involving Native Americans.

Birkhold’s discussion opens the door for a possible legal case using the National Stolen Property Act (NSPA) and the use of the McClain Doctrine. While these have not been employed and would take additional legal scholarship, this author suggests that using these two legal provisions may offer a way to refute the American Government’s theft of the Black Hills. According to Birkhold, the NSPA “prohibits the transportation, transmission, or transfer of goods worth $5,000 or more across borders in interstate or foreign commerce, knowing the goods to have

American Property Loss and the United States’ Law

been stolen,” and “criminalizes the knowing receipt, possession, concealment, storage, barter, sale, or disposition of such goods across a state or United States boundary” (Birkhold, 2019, p. 146). While it is clear that the Black Hills are not being “moved across borders,” there is a possibility of arguing that the American Government has “moved” American borders into Sioux territory. Furthermore, the Act states that an item can be considered “stolen” if a country declares national ownership; “stealing of such an item shall be considered theft” (p. 149). To successfully employ NSPA, there must also be a “scienter element.” This element requires that the alleged “thief” was fully aware of the other party’s ownership (p. 151). One should be able to employ the Fort Laramie Treaty to prove that the American government knew the Black Hills belonged to the Sioux. Essentially, the NSPA allows for the “patrimony laws of another foreign government to be recognized in the United States” (p. 146).

The McClain Doctrine is derived from United States v. McClain I (1977) and states that there is not a “legal distinction between property being in the physical possession of a person” or being in the “constructive possession” of a nation (Birkhold, 2019, p. 151). The premise of McClain I is understood by many to be that legislation may establish a country’s ownership of cultural objects “regardless of … actual possession” (p.151).

According to Birkhold, McClain I requires three elements: federal recognition of tribal land, the presence of cultural or sacred objects, and evidence that the taking of the land occurred after the patrimony legislation (pp. 151-152). Again, using treaties, the Sioux could argue that even if they are in a patrimonial relationship to the American government and did not “own” the land but occupied it, the taking of the Black Hills would be tantamount to theft as they occupied the land and it had cultural and spiritual significance to them and held sacred objects and places. Finally, for the Sioux to use both the NSPA and McClain I, they would need to “place a dollar amount on the Black Hills that is more than $5,000” and argue that the Black Hills were “cultural

Native

property that was owned by the tribe when the U.S. stole the land; thus, breaching the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868” (pp. 146151).

Conclusion

Since the beginning of colonization, Native American Tribes and Nations have had conflicts with the U.S. Government over land rights. As shown in this article, there has been little legislation that has benefited Native American populations and their ability to sustain land and cultural rights. Although these communities have endured many negative consequences as a result of U.S. legislation, some communities, like the Sioux, may have the opportunity to reclaim the land and reassert their sovereignty rights. Works such as Birkhold’s may establish precedence in the use of American legal decisions and legislation not directly related to federal Indian law. However, it could be argued that NSPA and McClain I offer a basis for assertions of Self-Determination and Sovereignty rights.

References

Beck, D. (2009). Chapter six: Termination proposed. In Seeking recognition: The termination and restoration of the coos, lower umpqua, and siuslaw indians, 1855-1984 (pp. 115-136). University of Nebraska Press.

Birkhold, M. H. (2019). The indigenous mcclain doctrine: A new legal tool to protect cultural patrimony and the right to self-determination. Washington University Law Review, 97(113), 113-114.

Carlson, K. M. (2013). Priceless property. Georgia State University Law Review, 29(3), 685-730.

Carpenter, K. A., & Riley, A. R. (2019, April). Privatizing the reservation. Stanford Law Review, 71, 791-878.

Kitchens, R. (2012). Insiders and outsiders: The case for alaska reclaiming its cultural property. Alaska Law Review, 29(1), 113-147.

Lavoie, M. (2018). Property law and collective self-government. McGill Law Journal, 64(2), 255-307.

Legal Information Institute. (n.d.). Fee Simple. Retrieved from Legal Information Institute: https://www.law.cornell. edu/wex/fee_simple

Riley, A. R. (2013). The history of native american lands and the supreme court. Journal of the Supreme Court History, 38(3), 369-385.

Strommer, G. D., & Osborne, S. D. (2014-2015). The history, status, and future of tribal self-governance under the indian self-determination and education assistance act. American Indian Law Review, 39(1), 1-75.

Native American Property Loss and the United States’ Law

Wolfley, J. (2018). Embracing engagement: The challenges and opportunities for the energy industry and tribal nations on projects affecting tribal rights and off-reservation lands. Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 19, 115163.

The Consequences of Education: Liminality and Othering in the Life of Zitkala-Sa

By Laura Northup Faculty Mentor: Dr. Deborah Hall, Department of English

Article Abstract:

Education for Indian students in nineteenth-century America came at the cost of losing their original cultural identity to one offered by white educators. The pursuit and reception of education in post-Civil-War America placed oppressed students into a liminal, in-between existence where they were unaccepted in any culture because their perspective was suspended between many. This liminality is especially present in the autobiography of Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) titled “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Zitkala-Sa’s deep pursuit of education alters her development of perspectives, withholding her from fitting into both her original Indian and new American culture. Zitkala-Sa’s education in the American school system places her into a state of mind where she was neither Indian nor American, leaving her physically “othered” by both communities. Zitkala-Sa’s experience raises the question of why education, something that is meant to be overwhelmingly beneficial to pursuants, seems to have ironically destroyed the bridge it built from one culture to another. Zitkala-Sa was stuck between cultures and mentally liminal, struggling with identity because physically, she was accepted nowhere.

In the post-Civil-War America of the late 1800s, the necessity of education pushed aspiring learners to advance their knowledge in order to survive and thrive. Education came, for Native students, at the cost of renouncing their Indian cultural identity for

one pushed by white educators.1 The pursuit and reception of education in industrialized, post-Civil-War America placed some students into a liminal space of in-between existence where they were no longer accepted in any culture because their perspective was suspended between many. This liminal state can be especially seen within people of marginalized groups, or groups that are belittled or dismissed “to the periphery of a dominant social group” (“Marginalize”). Zitkala-Sa was a member of the marginalized Indian community; she was in such a deep pursuit of education that the development of perspectives altered her, withholding her from fitting into both her original Indian and new American culture and society. Zitkala-Sa’s education in the American school system placed her into a state of mental uncertainty, or liminality, with her cultural identity. She was neither Indian nor American, and the ambiguity forced her to be physically “othered” by both communities.

Marginalized groups are often considered the “other” of society, a term used by Jean- François Staszak to describe “a dominated out-group, whose identity is considered lacking and who may be subject to discrimination by the in-group” (25). The “in-group” is the more powerful half of a binary, receiving said power by establishing a dominant status quo and using said power to discriminate and oppress the “out-group” (Staszak 26-27). Indians became an out-group when the English began colonizing North America. Europeans forced their ideology and culture upon the indigenous people of the country, causing them to lose some of their cultural identity—a loss that is a necessary deficit for out-groups.

Many actions taken against Indians during this period of national strife were a result of selfish desires. The English determined Indians were not groups of people that could coexist peacefully with the colonies; they were a conquerable ob-

1 The terms “Native” and “Indian” are used interchangeably in this paper to reference Native Americans because they are the reference terms used in history, Zitkala-Sa’s autobiography, and by other scholars such as Szasz, Peterson, and Evans.

stacle on the path to increasing the wealth of a young nation. The common approach to obtaining their wealth became assimilation, a process in the context of Indian culture that entailed “teaching” Indians “to look, act, talk, work, worship, and live as European-style Americans” so they would become “acculturated into the United States” (Alvarez 147). What belonged to Indians would, upon full assimilation, belong to America, and thus not be deemed stolen under assimilationist theology. Indian independence diminished even more with the pressure to assimilate creeping across reservation borders through governmental decrees like the General Allotment Act, an act that completely undermined aspects of “traditional tribalism,” like sharing and respecting reservation land as a community (Evans 35).

A method of assimilation even more crucial to the life of Zitkala-Sa is the use of education as a way to “civilize” Indians, a group deemed governmentally-and-socially uncivilized. These schools built a curriculum and employed a pedagogy that sought to “remold the Indian’s conception of life,” and upon that acceptance, “the Indian would then become like the white man” (Szasz 44). This methodology was controversial and impossible to practice for several reasons: during this time period, simply sharing an ideology was not enough to move beyond the racial barrier; the children attending these schools carried with them a generational trauma that could not be removed by assimilation; and the pedagogy failed to acknowledge the social and cultural dilemma these students would be submerged in once back on the reservation. Being educated came with the expectation of unquestioned conformity.

However, a student’s job is to question, leaving many students conflicted about their cultural and social identity. Those who attended the schools and “returned to the reservation … often became the objects of ridicule,” made worse by the education they received having “little or no application to reservation life” (Szasz 46). Margaret Connell Szasz frames the student experience as being “the first victims of the ‘either/or’ policy of

assimilation,” forcing them to “choose either the culture of the white man or the culture of the Indian: there was no compromise” (46). While it is not necessarily a compromise, there is one more state between white and Indian culture that those who failed to choose a side found themselves in: liminality.

The concept of liminality was most prominently developed by Victor Turner, who described it as the “stage of suspension” where someone is “separated from their previous condition, and not yet incorporated into their new one” (67). These people are coined by him as “liminars” who are “in passage from one sociocultural state and status to another” and “are ‘neither here nor there’ … betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial” (67-68). One cause of the passing between states described by Turner is education, a space where the student’s perspective is often broadened. However, marginalized groups of people are often stopped from being able to fully embrace the new cultures offered by their education. The door to the life possessed before education closes the moment a step is taken to pursue an education, making it impossible for marginalized people to return to their earlier lives when the new society will not accept them. This lack of acceptance from either society is what caused people like Zitkala-Sa to become a liminar, suspended between two cultures by her education.

Zitkala-Sa’s liminality began as she faced the consequences of being a member of the Indian out-group. She lived on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota with her Sioux mother. During the late nineteenth century, Zitkala-Sa was visited by a Quaker missionary (as were many other Indian families with children) and invited to attend an off-reservation school. The missionaries told her and the other children “many wonderful stories” to pique their curiosity and their desires to travel beyond the reservation. Zitkala-Sa already received small doses of eastern-U.S. influence from her brother’s “three years’ education” that sparked intrigue. Simple manipulation tactics fueled

the flame for children as curious as she, including promises that she could “have a ride on the iron horse” when she “had never seen a train, and he knew it” (Bonnin 431). Zitkala-Sa believed in the promises of the American assimilators as so many Indian children did, having no chance to understand the consequences that would come from her attending the boarding school.

Zitkala-Sa’s mother foreshadowed the eventual liminality she knew Zitkala-Sa would face when, in her discussion with the missionaries, she discouraged Zitkala-Sa from attending the school because she knew “[the paleface’s] deeds are bitter” and it would be “too hard an experience” for Zitkala-Sa at such a young age (Bonnin 430). Yet, Zitkala-Sa’s mother understood the importance of education for her daughter because, she argued, “there will be fewer real Dakotas, and many more palefaces. This tearing her away, so young, from her mother is necessary, if I would have her an educated woman” (Bonnin 431-32). Zitkala-Sa’s “parting … from [her] mother” not only created a rift between her and her family but left an implied residual conflict within her mother herself (Bonnin 432). The necessity for education and the accompanying pressure to assimilate forced Zitkala-Sa’s mother to place her daughter “in the hands of strangers” she “did not fully trust,” a decision she anticipated would further “other” Zitkala-Sa from both her family and her culture.

The first moment Zitkala-Sa experienced being “othered” was on the ride to Wabash. Zitkala-Sa recounted how “the throngs of staring palefaces disturbed and troubled” her and the other children, and how “mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity [of their children], looked closely at [her], and attracted their children’s further notice to [her] blanket” (Bonnin 433). These were Zitkala-Sa’s first interactions with white society, and rather than viewing her as an equal, she was perceived as an oddity, making her feel “embarrassed … constantly on the verge of tears” (Bonnin 433). This first-hand experience of the oppression faced as a member of an out-group on a physical lev-

el was merely a trigger for the impending mental liminality she faced as a marginalized education-seeker.

The out-group social conflict followed Zitkala-Sa during her time at the boarding school, a place where white superiority was embedded into pedagogy. While she experienced the physical “othering” from the oppression of white culture, it was the sudden pressure to embrace white society and traditions that put her in a mental liminal space. As a stipulation of attending the school, the Indian students were required to cut their hair; Zitkala-Sa emphasized that “short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards” in Indian tradition (Bonnin 437). She described the moment her braid was cut as the moment she lost her “spirit” (Bonnin 437). Spirit is at the very core of Indian religion and ideology; spirit makes up a person’s identity, the very essence of their being (Hernandez-Avila).To admit to losing one’s spirit, as Zitkala-Sa did, is to admit to losing the self, pegging the moment of first spiritual and mental disconnection from her original culture.

As Zitkala-Sa grew up within the American education system, she was permitted to travel home for the summer season. These summer trips were where Zitkala-Sa seemed to experience the most intense side effects of liminality; she expressed, “I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond the touch or voice of human aid” (Bonnin 443). At home, Zitkala-Sa was surrounded by people who now lacked the education and perspective she had, causing a painful mental disconnection for her and her society. The one person who could potentially relate to her was her brother, Dawée, but the ten-year age gap distanced the two of them as well. Zitkala-Sa noted that even nature, something so reliable, had “no place” for her because she was “neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one” (Bonnin 444). These summers were pivotal times of realization for Zitkala-Sa; she grew to the understanding that she was “othered” everywhere now, not just in American society, but her own.

These summer experiences symbolize an underlying desire within Zitkala-Sa to be a part of one society or another. However, returning to her previous (home) culture was impossible; she could not delete the knowledge that she had gained from her education, and it forever set her apart from Indian society. The only direction she could move in order to escape liminality was to pursue American assimilation. During one of her summer trips, Zitkala-Sa expressed to Dawée that she wanted to attend an American party and naively believed that because she attended an American school and was nearly fifteen, she would be able to attend. Dawée denied her the opportunity without offering a reason, but Zitkala-Sa explained it was because he found her too young (referring to her as his “baby sister”) and that she “was not properly dressed to be taken along,” having thrown out her American shoes in exchange for the traditional “soft moccasins” of her culture (Bonnin 445). Her inability to participate in American activities caused her to cry, and when her mother was unable to console her, her mother also began to wail, “grieving for [Zitkala-Sa]” (446).

Zitkala-Sa’s inability to attend the American party is an example of how the conflict of culture emotionally impacted her. Zitkala-Sa’s mourning stems deeper than simply not going to a party. She mourned the fact that sacrificing so much to get an education, allowing American culture to engulf her own, was not enough to gain acceptance in American society. The party she could not attend was a cruel teasing of the culture she would never be able to fully embrace. Meanwhile, in trying to assimilate with American culture, she lost so much of her old self that she felt out of place and could not return. She was no longer Indian, and she was not American yet; she was liminal.

Zitkala-Sa’s liminality was not simply contained within the sphere of herself. Her relationship with her brother was greatly strained when he deemed her not American enough to attend the party, leaving her in a state of cultural confusion. Zitkala-Sa’s uncertainty bled onto her mother, who longed to

aid her conflicted daughter while lacking the experience that placed Zitkala-Sa in such a state. Her mother made efforts to comfort Zitkala-Sa despite not understanding her struggle, offering an Indian Bible that her mother called “the white man’s papers” as Zitkala-Sa grieved her exclusion (Bonnin 446). She rejected reading the Indian Bible, symbolically rejecting both of the cultures before her. Her mother reaped the wrath of Zitkala-Sa’s liminal state, wanting so badly to heal Zitkala-Sa’s “unrestrained tears” only to find she was incapable of doing so (Bonnin 446). Foreshadowed earlier in the novel, Zitkala-Sa’s assimilation-forced liminality reinforced the rift between her and her family, consequently making Zitkala-Sa’s relationship with her mother more distant and irreparable as her education continued. Her “othered” state extended even onto her family, isolating her from all but herself.

Zitkala-Sa remained a definitive outsider during her pursuit of education and seemingly had no interest in fully conforming to this white-centric society after this particular summer. She returned to the Eastern school knowing “it would bring [her] back to [her] mother in a few winters, when [she] should be grown tall, and there would be congenial friends awaiting [her]” (Bonnin 446). Zitkala-Sa’s expectation of like-minded comrades being at home implies her newfound determination to embrace American society, rather than just accept the tyranny of oppression she experienced to that point. Zitkala-Sa enrolled at Earlham College to the dismay of her mother, who expected her to return home after three years like “her neighbors’ children” had done (Bonnin 447). This continual thirst for education was what pushed Zitkala-Sa, rather than returning home, to “beg[in] anew [her] life among strangers” at Earlham College (Bonnin 447). Despite wanting to gain an education, Zitkala-Sa lamented her decision to not return home to be with her family and instead chose to remain “among a cold race whose hearts were frozen hard with prejudice” (Bonnin 447).

These words alone dictate how physically “othered” Zitkala-Sa felt while trying so desperately to find a mental compromise between both cultures. She wanted to earn “the white man’s respect” and receive an education that would make her mother proud and make her successful, yet she was pursuing an education in a society that lacked access to success for Indians. Colonial education at all levels “foisted a Western Euro-centric model that was disconnected from the realities of tribal lifestyles among the indigenous peoples of the northeastern United States,” failing to allow Indian heritage to coexist with American culture within the minds of students (Saggio 332). Zitkala-Sa was consequently forced to choose educational success over her identity, leaving her mind in a liminal state that was only encouraged by the physical oppositions she faced in her educational career. Zitkala-Sa was ready to embrace American culture at that point, hoping she would find some solace and acceptance in doing so, but she was never able to fully break that barrier. The account of liminality from Zitkala-Sa raises the question of why education, something that is meant to be overwhelmingly beneficial to anyone who pursues it, seems to ironically destroy the bridge it is building from one culture to another. The destruction that leaves marginalized people stranded between two sides can be an incredibly dangerous state of being. Zitkala-Sa was left stranded between her Indian heritage and the newly learned American society. Mentally, she was liminal, struggling to identify with either one because physically, she was accepted by neither. It is true that education is bound to change people in some way; the broadening of perspectives and evolution of thought inherently does so. However, when marginalized groups of people are forced to conform to the standards of white society, the result is to sacrifice some of the most integral parts of their cultural identity.

Works Cited

Alvarez, Alex. “Education for Assimilation.” Native America and the Question of Genocide, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, pp. 141-57.

Bonnin, Gertrude. “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Classic American Autobiographies,edited by William L. Andrews, Signet Classics, 1992, pp. 413-62.

Evans, Stirling, editor. American Indians in American History, 1870-2001. Praeger Publishers, 2002.

Hernandez-Avila, Ines. “Mediations of the Spirit: Native American Religious Traditions and the Ethics of Representation.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3/4, Sum mer/Fall 1996, pp. 329–52.

“Marginalize.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2020, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/1 14048? redirectedFrom=marginalized#eid38067437. Accessed 8 March 2022.

Peterson, Robert A. “Education in Colonial America.” Foundation for Economic Education, 1 Sept. 1983, https://fee.org/articles/education-in-colonialamerica/#:~:text=Thus%2C%20the%20cornerstone%20 of%20early,but%20also%20how%20 to%20live.

Saggio, Josephj. “Native American Christian Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities for the 21st Century.” Christian Higher Education, vol. 3, no. 4, Oct.2004, pp. 329–47.

Staszak, Jean-François. Encyclopedia of Human Geography. pp.25–31.

Szasz, Margaret Connell. “American Indian Education.”American Indians in American History, 1870-2001, edited by Stirling Evans, Praeger Publishers, 2002, pp. 44-50.

Turner, Victor. “Process, System, and Symbol: A New Anthropological Synthesis.” Daedalus, vol. 106, no. 3,1977, pp. 61–80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20024494.

The Mummy: An Analysis of Egyptomania and How

Ancient Egypt Is Portrayed in The Mummy Franchise

By Cassidy Weaver Faculty Mentor: Melanie S. Byrd, Department of History

Article Abstract:

The rapid growth of Egyptomania, sparked by the discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb, led to the creation of mummy movies, including multiple versions of The Mummy, all of which take creative liberties to distort ancient Egyptian history and culture to appeal to the audience through themes of imperialism, colonialist perspective, feminism, and marketing appeal. This article consists of in-depth analyses of the most prominent movements of Egyptomania and the various ways in which ancient Egyptian mummies and motifs have been commodified, specifically focusing on the largest wave of Egyptomania that was sparked by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, which inspired the creation of The Mummy films and the trope of the pharaoh’s curse.

Following the analysis of Egyptomania is a comparative analysis of Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932), Terence Fisher’s The Mummy (1959), and Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (1999). The purpose of this analysis is to identify the historical inaccuracies of ancient Egypt depicted in the films as well as to understand how the events and beliefs in the time periods in which these three versions of The Mummy were made affect the portrayals of ancient Egypt and how the films themselves are products of Egyptomania.

From the early twentieth century to the modern films of today, ancient Egyptian history and culture has been the center of entertainment. Motifs of hieroglyphs, pyramids, tomb art and ar-

chitecture, written records in papyrus, linen raiment or clothing, and mummies are visual cues that come to mind at the mention of this ancient civilization. This is due to the reoccurring social obsession with ancient Egypt, which is known as Egyptomania. The rapid growth of Egyptomania, sparked by the discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb, led to the creation of the trope of the living mummy in films, including multiple versions of The Mummy, all of which take creative liberties to distort ancient Egyptian history and culture to appeal to the audience through themes of imperialism, nationalism, colonialist perspective, feminism, and marketing appeal. The three versions of The Mummy, that will be discussed include Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932), Terence Fisher’s The Mummy (1959), and Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (1999). These three films will be analyzed and compared to each other to identify the accuracies, inaccuracies, and decisions made by the directors to appeal to their respective audiences to further understand how Egyptomania is reflected in Western society and how ancient Egypt is used as a tool to influence the audiences of each film through the subliminal references to political and social conflicts of their time periods.

To begin, The Mummy films are the products of Egyptomania, which is a movement defined as “the extreme fascination with all aspects of ancient Egypt.”2 This fascination with ancient Egypt is not a recent occurrence and has existed even before the time in which the Greeks and the Romans first encountered the ancient Egyptians, whom they considered to be ancient in comparison to their own civilizations. One of the first accounts of Egyptomania can be found in the writings of the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, who describes Egypt in his book, The Histories, after visiting the civilization around 450 BCE.3

2 Bob Brier. Egypt-omania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs. First ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 19. 3 Ibid, 19.

Herodotus describes Egypt in the following statement, “concerning Egypt I will now speak at length, because nowhere are there so many marvellous things, nor in the whole world beside are there to be seen so many works of unspeakable greatness; therefore I shall say the more concerning Egypt. They are beyond measure religious, more than any other nation.”4 The time in which the Greeks and Romans were enthralled with Egyptian civilization is considered to be Classical Egyptomania, and while both the Greeks and the Romans are also ancient civilizations, it was the “plethora of ancient ruins” and material culture such as the pyramids, tomb complexes, monuments, and written records that convinced them that Egypt was the most ancient of all.5

The Romans took their obsession with Egypt a step further than the Greeks by encapsulating the art of Egyptian monuments into their own culture, specifically through the act of importing Egyptian obelisks into Rome and other territories of the Roman Empire.6 The first recorded importation of Egyptian obelisks into Rome came from Augustus in 10 BCE when he ordered two obelisks to be displayed in Rome, and later Roman emperors followed his lead by placing Egyptian obelisks all over Rome over the next four centuries, which totaled eighteen ancient Egyptian obelisks in Rome, leaving only nine in Egypt.7 This is arguably the first documented case in which Western civilizations and empires took ancient Egyptian artifacts and monuments as souvenirs or tokens to represent the conquering of Egypt, which is also seen in the next movement of Egyptomania.

4 A.D. Godley, Herodotus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969, 315-319.

5 Ronald H. Fritze. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2016, 82.

6 J.C. Zietsman, “Crossing the Roman Frontier: Egypt in Rome (And Beyond).” Acta Classica 52 (2009): 2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24592482

7 Ibid, 1-2.

After the discovery of the Rosetta Stone during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign in 1799, its decipherment by Thomas Young and Jean Francois Champollion in the early 1820s gave the world a written record of ancient Egyptian history and culture that was accessible unlike during the Greeks’ and Romans’ Egyptomania craze.8 This made Egypt even more desirable as a commodity and potential colony for empires such as Britain, which further increased the frenzy of Egyptomania to new heights.9 The British Empires’ interest in Egypt revolved around the desire for resources, colonization, and nationalism, all of which were achieved during their occupation of Egypt from 1882 to 1914 through the commodification of ancient Egyptian culture and the mummy.10

To further explain, from the twelfth century through the nineteenth century, Western civilizations have always fetishized and erotized ancient Egyptian culture, especially the mummy.11 Due to a combination of British imperialism and the efforts of early anthropologists, British households during the nineteenth century often displayed objects from what they considered to be “exotic cultures.”12 These objects included “weapons, tools, ritual masks, and objects that would probably have been classified as fetishes,”13 which were all imported into the British economy as commodities from colonized countries, such as Egypt. When it came to mummies, people were fascinated by the idea of a body dating back to ancient times being perfectly preserved by mysterious embalming and funerary rituals, and this fascination

8 Ronald H. Fritze. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2016, 168-71.

9 Ibid, 181.

10 Keith M. Wilson. Imperialism and Nationalism in the Middle East: The Anglo-Egyptian Experience, 1882-1982. London, England: Bronx, N.Y.: Mansell Pub.; Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by H.W. Wilson, 1983, 1.

11 Lynn Meskell, Consuming Bodies: Cultural Fantasies of Ancient Egypt. Body & Society 4, no. 1, March 1998, 63-64; Nicholas Daly. “That Obscure Object of Desire: Victorian Commodity Culture and Fictions of the Mummy.” A Forum on Fiction 28, no. 1 (1994): 24–25.

12 Nicholas Daly. “That Obscure Object of Desire: Victorian Commodity Culture and Fictions of the Mummy.” A Forum on Fiction 28, no. 1 (1994): 30.

13 Ibid, 30.

is what fueled the lucrative business of using mummies for medicinal purposes.14

It was specifically believed that both the bodies of the mummies and the embalming resins held the medicinal purposes of “healing powers,” specifically for curing internal and external bleeding, and it was also considered to have aphrodisiac properties.15 The apothecary process in which the mummies became medicine included pulverizing the bodies until they became a fine powder, which was then sold to and ingested by consumers.16 However, the use of the Egyptian mummy as a commodity transformed from literal consumption to a visual consumption through popular trends of mummy unrolling parties, using Egyptian motifs in widespread marketing, literature, and cinema, which further ingrained the idea of ancient Egyptians being mystical and further eroticized the mummy.17

A literary movement within the Victorian Era’s Egyptomania resulted in more than a dozen mummy narratives published between 1880 and 1914, and this includes the works of Arthur Conan Doyle “The Ring of Thoth” (1890) and “Lot No.249” (1892) as well as H. Rider Haggard’s “Smith and the Pharaohs” (1914).18 Gautier’s The Mummy’s Foot (1863) is the first documented instance of the supernatural mummy.19 However, it was the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1923 that inspired the largest movement of Egyptomania after the end of the Victorian Era and led to the development of the curse of the mummy showcased through literature and the development of cinema.

14 Ronald H. Fritze. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2016, 181-183.

15 Lynn Meskell, Consuming Bodies: Cultural Fantasies of Ancient Egypt. Body & Society 4, no. 1, March 1998, 63-64.

16 Salima Ikram, and Aidan Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998, 64-66.

17 Salima Ikram, and Aidan Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998,69-72.

18 Ibid, 65.

19 Richard Freeman, “The Mummy in Context.” European journal of American studies 4, no. 1 (2009), 1-2.

British archaeologist Howard Carter and his wealthy employer and sponsor, George Herbert, the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, had worked together on excavations in Thebes uncovering minor tombs starting in 1907.20 By 1914, they received the concession from the Egyptian Antiquities Service to legally excavate the Valley of the Kings, an area in which American tomb-hunter, Theodore Davis, had declared fully excavated.21 However, Carter believed that the tomb of Tutankhamun had yet to be uncovered, so he and Carnarvon set out on multiple expeditions to find the lost tomb of the Boy King.22 They planned to begin excavating the Valley of the Kings in 1914, but the first World War prevented any excavations from taking place in Egypt until 1917.23 After five years of failed excavations, Carter set out on one last expedition on behalf of Carnarvon on November 1, 1922 after convincing Lord Carnarvon to fund this final excavation.24

On November 4, 1922, Carter and his team were excavating between the tomb of Rameses VI and the discovered rubble from ancient workmen’s huts where the foreman and the digging crew later uncovered steps below the foundation of the first workmen’s hut that led to a sealed stone gate with the images of a jackal and nine prisoners, which was the seal of the city of the dead in the Valley of the Kings.25 The steps were recovered as ordered by Carter who sent a telegram to Lord Carnarvon requesting his presence, and Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, arrived in Luxor on November 23, 1922.

20 Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 3.

21 Ibid, 3.

22 Philipp Vandenberg, and Thomas Weyr. The Curse of the Pharaohs. 1st English-language ed. Philadelphia; New York: Lippincott Company, 1975, 15-16.

23 Bob Brier. Egypt-omania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs. First ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 165.

24 I. E. S. Edwards, Harry Burton, Lee. Boltin, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tutankhamun, His Tomb and Its Treasures. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Distributed by Random House, 1976, 8.

25 Philipp Vandenberg, and Thomas Weyr. The Curse of the Pharaohs. 1st English-language ed. Philadelphia; New York: Lippincott Company, 1975, 16-17.

Two days later on November 25th, the steps were uncovered again, and the seal was broken after being photographed.26

After further uncovering a passage filled with ritual objects and evidence of tomb robbers who left the room scattered with debris, the digging crew uncovered a second gate that was thirty feet past the first gate. It held the insignia of Tutankhamun, which was a jackal over nine foes.27 This discovery made global news as The Times called it “the most sensational Egyptological discovery of the century,” but the newspaper reports did not stop there.28 Newspapers like The Times and the Illustrated London News continued to report on Carter’s findings from the tomb with sensational headlines that captured the attention of millions. This, in turn, fueled the tourist industry in Egypt to the point where travel guides such as E.L Butcher’s “Things Seen in Egypt,” were released to the Westerners who wished to see Egypt beyond the articles they read.29 This increased the already existing Egyptomania to a point where Tutmania, a subset of Egyptomania in response to the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, was created, which led to the belief in the mummy’s curse.30

For further clarification, the tomb of Tutankhamun was a typical Eighteenth Dynasty T-shaped complex that consisted of an entrance corridor that led to the antechamber which had an annex attached on the other side.31 To the right side of the antechamber was the burial chamber, which had the trea-

26 Ibid, 16-17.

27 Philipp Vandenberg, and Thomas Weyr, The Curse of the Pharaohs. 1st English-language ed. Philadelphia; New York: Lippincott Company, 1975, 16-17; Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tutankhamen New York: Excalibur Books, 1972, 106.

28 Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 6-7. 29Ibid, 6-7.

30 Ronald H. Fritze. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2016, 226-227; Doris V. Sutherland, The Mummy, Liverpool University Press, Auteur Publishing, 2019, 55.

31 Lise Manniche, City of the Dead: Thebes in Egypt. Chicago: London: University of Chicago Press; British Museum Publications, 1987, 29-30; Salima Ikram, and Aidan Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998, 36.

sury attached on the right side.32 While it took years for Carter and his colleagues to document every item found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb complex, it took seven weeks to clear the antechamber, which included a clay tablet with hieroglyphics that was translated by Alan Gardiner into the following statement: “Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh.”33 None of the archeologists nor scholars on site took this ancient threat seriously, even when the clay tablet disappeared without a trace, and the excavation was closed for the summer after the clearing of the antechamber.34 Newspapers and their readers waited in anticipation for the excavation to reopen for the uncovering of the burial chamber, but once the excavation was re-open in March 1923, Lord Carnarvon fell ill after being bitten on the cheek by a mosquito which he later cut open while shaving.35 This combination led to twelve days of fever due to blood poisoning and pneumonia before Lord Carnarvon died in late April. Prior to this incident, Lord Carnarvon suffered from several health issues, including injuries sustained from an automobile accident, making him easily susceptible to illnesses, but the newspapers told a different story, which contributed to the belief in the mummy’s curse.36

The Daily Express, which was a British sensational newspaper founded in 1900, reported a story headlined as “Pharaoh guarded by poisons? Lord Carnarvon warned by Marie Corelli,” after Marie Corelli, a best-selling Christian and mystic author warned Carter and the other archeologists working on the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb with the following statement,

32 Ibid, 36.

33 Philipp Vandenberg, and Thomas Weyr, The Curse of the Pharaohs. 1st English-language ed. Philadelphia; New York: Lippincott Company, 1975, 20.

34 Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 7-14.

35 Dorothy Rompalske, “King Tut’s Tomb, Buried Treasure, and the Mummy’s Curse.” Biography 4, no. 9 (September 2000): 83; Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 8.

36 Dorothy Rompalske, “King Tut’s Tomb, Buried Treasure, and the Mummy’s Curse.” Biography 4, no. 9 (September 2000): 83.

which was first published in the New York World and later republished in the Daily Express, “According to a rare book which I possess, which is not in the British Museum, entitled ‘The Egyptian History of the Pyramids,’… the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb.… among those are named ‘divers secret poisons enclosed in boxes in such wise that they who touch them shall not know how they come to suffer.’”37 Marie Corelli’s cryptic statement spread throughout the newspapers, and while scholars like Wallis E. Budge, keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at the British Museum, tried to publicly rebuke Corelli, rumors spread as prominent figures, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, supported Corelli’s sentiment of the tomb being cursed. Doyle, who was an advocate of spiritualism, further argued that Carnarvon’s death was caused by “the ire of elementals.”38 As more prominent figures and newspapers perpetuated the rumors of supernatural forces causing the death of Carnarvon, the concept of the mummy’s curse was set in stone.39

The wave of Egyptomania sparked by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb is arguably the largest movement of Egyptomania due to it coinciding with the development of cinema. Prior to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, the newly formed film industry was already dominated by ancient Egyptian figures as the focus of their motion pictures, such as Cleopatra, which had five versions filmed between 1908 and 1918 before the most famous sound version directed by Cecile DeMille in 1934.40 However, the rumors of the mummy’s curse became the new commodity in film and further created the genre of the undead

37 Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy’s Curwse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 9.

38 Robert Morkot, Joyce Tyldesley, Campbell Price, Roger Forshaw, Andrew Chamberlain, and Paul Nicholson. Mummies, Magic and Medicine in Ancient Egypt: Multidisciplinary Essays for Rosalie David. Manchester University Press, 2016, 104; Ronald H. Fritze. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2016, 234-235.

39 Philipp Vandenberg, and Thomas Weyr, The Curse of the Pharaohs. 1st English-language ed. Philadelphia; New York: Lippincott Company, 1975, 26-28.

40Antonia Lant, “The Curse of the Pharaoh, or How Cinema Contracted Egyptomania.” October 59 (1992): 87, 102.

mummy.41 For example, directors of early films used the plot of “awakening mummies and magical amulets,” to intertwine the past with the present and to “rearrange time and space” as a way to use the ancient world, specifically ancient Egypt, to appeal to modern audiences.42 The earliest film that most demonstrates the use of the living mummy and the mummy’s curse as a way to appeal to the modern audience is Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932).

For the purpose of historical context, ancient Egypt has a far more complex history and culture than the media’s stereotypical images that preserve Egyptomania’s fantasy of ancient Egypt. Historians have determined that ancient Egypt had three kingdoms, three intermediate periods, and thirty-four dynasties, all of which exhibit differences in ruling actions, religion, and burial practices.43 The three kingdoms are classified as the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom, and a small number of dynasties are important in regard to being featured or distorted in films, especially in the various versions of The Mummy. 44The New Kingdom and the Eighteenth Dynasty are the most featured time periods in films that depict ancient Egypt, especially in the three versions of The Mummy. This is due to the fascination with Tutankhamun and the artifacts found in his tomb complex, all of which are from the Eighteenth Dynasty when he ruled as pharaoh.45

Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932) is a Universal Studios produced horror film that was heavily inspired by Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb and was released during the early age of the horror genre and one of the first films

41 Ibid, 87-90.

42 Ibid, 102-103.

43 David P. Silverman, Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 20.

44 William H. Peck, Florida International Museum, Roemer- Und Pelizaeus-Museum, and Detroit Institute of Arts. Splendors of Ancient Egypt. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997, 2-3.

45 Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 107.

to have sound.46 The plot of The Mummy (1932) follows Sir Joseph Whemple and his team of archeologists in 1921 when they discover the mummy of Imhotep, High Priest of the Temple of the Sun at Karnak, who was buried alive for sacrilegious acts of trying to resurrect his lover, Princess Anksunamun. Despite being buried with a curse, Imhotep is brought back to life by Whemple’s assistant who ignores the curse and recites the script found in the Scroll of Thoth, which was also buried with Imhotep in the stolen casket that belonged to Pharaoh Amenophis (Amenhotep III), a Pharaoh from the Eighteenth Dynasty, based on his unbroken seal.47 Imhotep escapes, and ten years later, he returns to Cairo disguised as a wealthy merchant named Ardath Bey, and he tells Sir Joseph Whemple’s son, Frank Whemple, and Professor Pearson where to find the tomb of his lost lover, Princess Anksunamun, in hopes of resurrecting her. However, Imhotep meets Helen Grosvenor, whom he believes is the reincarnation of Princess Anksunamun.

The Egypt portrayed in this film is based on the viewpoint of the European characters, which distorts the images, culture, and history of ancient Egypt through the lens of imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism. For example, the film begins with the image of the Scroll of Thoth, which is a fictional scroll based on the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and it contains the image of Anubis, the god of the dead and mummification, who is depicted as a human with the head of a jackal.48 Anubis and Thoth, the ibis-headed god of wisdom and writing, are the main gods featured on the tomb walls as well as on the walls of the Cairo Museum throughout this film. This is most likely based on the depictions of the journey through the underworld that is often on tomb walls, and the images of Anubis and Thoth often

46 Jon Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, 14; Bob Brier, The Mummy (1932), Mummies Around the World: An Encyclopedia in History, Religion, and Popular Culture (ABC-CLIO, 2015), 257-258.

47 Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 106.

48 Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tutankhamen. New York: Excalibur Books, 1972, 99-101.

depict their roles in the Hall of Maat.49 After deceased individuals successfully crossed the regions of monsters and fiends, they would enter into the Hall of Maat, the goddess of Truth, where their heart would be weighed on a scale.50 Anubis would adjust the balance of the scales while Thoth would prepare to record the results on papyrus, so this inclusion in films is an accurate use and representation of tomb art and the depiction of the journey through the underworld.This is also arguably due to a statue and golden emblems of Anubis being found in the burial chamber of Tutankhamun as a part of a burial shrine to ensure guidance of the dead through the underworld as well as Thoth being a plot device to represent the power of the scripts of ancient Egypt and the Book of the Dead as a supernatural object that reanimates the mummy.51

Moreover, themes of imperialism can be found in the scene in which Sir Joseph Whemple is talking to his assistant, Ralph Norton, while they inspect their findings in their hut during their excavation on behalf of the British Museum in 1921. Norton says to Whemple, “Well it seems to me that the box we dug up today with the very peculiar gentleman over there is the only find we’ve made in the past two months that’ll bring this expedition any medals from the British Museum.”52 This statement embodies the British imperialist perspective of the Victorian Era, which is the act of extending the political power of the British Empire through the collection of artifacts and excavation of tombs in Egypt as a form of both Egyptomania and imperialism. It is a form of Egyptomania because the British Museum is forming a collection of ancient objects from the excavation of

49 Jon Manchip White and Helen Nixon Fairfield, Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt London: Batsford; New York: Putnam, 1963, 75.

50 Ibid, 75.

51 I. E. S. Edwards, Harry Burton, Lee. Boltin, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tutankhamun, His Tomb and Its Treasures. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Distributed by Random House, 1976, 145-146; David P. Silverman, Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 91.

52The Mummy, Karl Freund, (Universal Studios, 1932), 0:02:29- 0:02:32.

archeologists that are seen as representative of the mystical and exotic ancient Egypt that Europeans were obsessed with, which commodifies the cultural objects of Egypt and acts as economic and cultural exploitation.53 It is also a form of imperialism because the collection of Egyptian artifacts is representative of the power of the British Empire through visual evidence of political and cultural exploitation of the countries in which the Empire has extended to and invaded. This is because “the self extends its own boundaries through the disposition of objects;” therefore, the collection of objects housed in the British Museum acts as a reflection of the British Empire.54

Another example of this can be found in the exchange between Sir Joseph Whemple and his son, Frank Whemple, after the mummy disguised as a living man named Ardath Bey congratulates them on uncovering the tomb of Princess Anksunamun, a fictional character loosely based on Tutankhamun’s wife, Ankhesenamen.55 After the mummy disguised as Ardath Bey leaves, Frank states, “I guess I rather wish he [Ardath Bey] hadn’t been [responsible for us finding the princess]. I think it’s a dirty trick, this Cairo Museum keeping everything we found.”56 Sir Joseph Whemple responds to his son by stating, “The British Museum works for the cause of science, not the loot.”57 This is a colonialist attitude that would appeal to the American and British audiences of the 1930s, as nationalism was on the rise as a result of a global depression in which there was no international coordination of attempting to relieve the economic crises as well as the tensions between countries that would lead to World War 2.58 To further explain, the peak of the use of ancient Egyptian

53 Nicholas Daly. “That Obscure Object of Desire: Victorian Commodity Culture and Fictions of the Mummy.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 28, no. 1 (1994): 31. 54 Ibid, 31.

55 Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tutankhamen. New York: Excalibur Books, 1972, 90.

56 The Mummy, Karl Freund (Universal Studios, 1932), 0:21:24-0:21:29. 57 Ibid, 0:21:31-0:21:36.

58Milestones: 1921–1936, Office of the Historian, History.state.gov, 2021. https://history.state.gov/ milestones/1921-1936/great-depression [Accessed 27 November 2021].

themes and plotlines in cinema occurred towards the end of the peak of archeological explorations of Egypt.59 However, by using the images of a stereotypical ancient Egypt that portrays the fantasy and obsession created by Egyptomania, it revives the nationalistic feelings and views of the Western world through reliving the glory days of colonialism and powers of the empire.

In addition to this, several instances of historical accuracies as well as distortions of historical authenticity occurred in favor of dramatic effectiveness through The Mummy (1932). For example, the use of seals as identification of the ownership of objects and tombs in scenes, such as the opening of the casket owned by Pharaoh Amenophis (Amenhotep III), was historically accurate.60 A seal can be described as “a personal seal used by the owner as modern people use such objects to seal letters, packages, and doors.”61 The shapes of the seal vary based on the time period and object in which the seal is placed because prior to the Middle Kingdom the shapes of the seals included, “1. Rectangular plate with pierced cylinder on the back. 2. Hemi-cylindrical form with the stamp on the flat side. 3. Pyramidal form with the stamp on the base.”62 The advancement of the cylinder seal design during the Middle Kingdom shifted from leaving a rectangular impression to a circular impression or, “so-called button-seals, which consisted of a circular plate with a clumsy ring- shank on the back.”63

An example of a historical inaccuracy is seen in the period placement of Imhotep. To further explain, Imhotep was King Djoser’s vizier, or “overseer of the Seers,” and he was the architect behind the Step Pyramid.64 He was also considered re-

59 Antonia Lant, “The Curse of the Pharaoh, or How Cinema Contracted Egyptomania.” October 59 (1992): 104-106.

60 The Mummy, Karl Freund (Universal Studios, 1932), 0:05:01-1:33:1.

61 G. A. R., and N. F. W. “The Art of Seal Carving in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom.” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 28, no. 167 (1930): 47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4170240

62 Ibid, 47.

63 Ibid, 47.

64 Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 103.

nowned in Egypt for this achievement as well as “using, for the first time, building blocks of limestone rather than mudbrick.”65 Imhotep is further described as “a physician and priest who wielded great power in Egypt,” and he also developed embalming as a way to elevate the Pharaoh to the status of a god as well as “the father of mathematics, medicine, and architecture.” 66 The historical discrepancy is that The Mummy (1932) claims that Imhotep lived during the Eighteenth Dynasty in the New Kingdom, which is explained during the flashback scene in which Imhotep steals the Scroll of Thoth from Amenophis (Amenhotep III, c.1417-1370 BCE) to bring Anksunamun back to life.67 In reality, he lived during the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom in which King Djoser ruled from c.2667-2648 BCE.68 The writers of The Mummy (1932) most likely chose Imhotep as the antagonist based on his work in advancing mummification and embalming methods in ancient Egypt, which helps as a plot device due to Imhotep attempting to perform funerary rituals to make Helen, the reincarnation of Anksunamun, immortal.69

In addition to historical inaccuracies, there are discrepancies with funerary rituals, beliefs in the afterlife, and use of the tomb curse. For example, the curse found on the casket at the beginning of the film includes “death, eternal punishment for anyone who opens this casket in the name of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods.”70 Much like the curse found by Carter and Carnarvon in Tutankhamun’s tomb, this curse was meant to create the narrative of the mummy coming to life and the death of

65 David P. Silverman, Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 168.

66 McGill, Sara Ann. “Ancient Egypt Timeline.” Ancient Egypt Timeline, August 2017, 3; Jon Manchip White and Helen Nixon Fairfield, Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt. London: Batsford; New York: Putnam, 1963, 41.

67 The Mummy, Karl Freund (Universal Studios, 1932), 00:1:13-1:33:1; Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 106.

68 Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 103.

69 The Mummy, Karl Freund (Universal Studios, 1932).

70 Ibid 0:05:30- 0:05:52.

all who disturb ancient Egyptian tombs. However, the cursed tablets, often found in tombs, were meant to bring misfortune to graverobbers during their afterlife rather than during the time in which they were alive, because based on evidence such as the Book of the Dead (the Papyrus of Ani), life of the ancient Egyptians revolved around the belief in eternal life through the afterlife, which is why the preservation and mummification of the body was emphasized.71

Also, at the beginning of the film when they discover the mummy of Imhotep, Dr. Muller reveals that the viscera, or organs of the mummy, had not been removed, which meant that he was buried alive.72 While it was common to have human sacrifices buried along with the Pharaoh in their tomb complex, the lack of mummification rituals for Imhotep strictly serves as a way to explain why he was able to be resurrected because even those of low status received some level of basic mummification in ancient Egypt.73 This concept of the cursed mummy lacking mummification rituals, such as removing the viscera, served as inspiration and was also used in the next version of The Mummy (1959).

Terence Fisher’s The Mummy (1959) is a Hammer Films produced British horror film that was inspired by the sequels of The Mummy (1932) saga, which includes The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), and The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) rather than the same plot as The Mummy (1932).74 The successes of Terence Fisher’s previous films of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958) ensured the success of The Mummy (1959) as it was released during the peak of monsters in the horror genre.75 This version of The Mummy

71 Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 13-15.

72 The Mummy, Karl Freund (Universal Studios, 1932), 0:03:00- 0:04:20.

73 Salima Ikram, and Aidan Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998, 14.

74 Matt Cardin, Bob Brier, Mummies Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Mummies in History, Religion, and Popular Culture. 2016, 260.

75 Ibid, 260.

(1959) distorts ancient Egyptian history and culture to appeal to the late 1950s’ audience through nationalism, white supremacy, and religious intolerance. The plot includes the discovery of Princess Ananka’s tomb during an 1895 British expedition led by archeologists John Banning, his father Stephen Banning, and his uncle Joseph Whemple. They enter the tomb despite being warned by a local Egyptian and Priest of Karnak named Mehemet Bey of the ancient curse: “He who robs the graves of Egypt dies.”76 Upon their discovery of Princess Ananka’s sarcophagus, Stephen finds the Scroll of Life and reads the script within it, which puts him in a catatonic state. Three years later in 1898, Stephen recovers from his catatonic state and explains to his son, John, that when he read from the Scroll of Life, he brought the mummified body of Kharis, the High Priest of Karnak, back to life. Kharis was buried alive after having his tongue removed and sentenced to serve as Ananka’s guardian as punishment for trying to revive her after her death. Mehemet Bey, now in England, uses the Scroll of Life to summon Kharis to use him to seek revenge against the Bannings; however, Kharis is sidetracked as he believes that John’s wife, Isobel Banning, is the reincarnation of Princess Ananka.

In the time in which this movie was released, the British and American audience had experienced multiple wars, and there were also several nationalist movements, specifically African and Asian countries rebelling against the colonial governments through Nationalist movements. An example of this was the Suez Crisis of 1956, which consisted of the Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nassar, declaring the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, which was founded by both Britain and France in a joint agreement because Nassar believed that the Europeans used the Suez Canal to perpetuate their dominance and

76 The Mummy, Terence Fisher (Hammer Films Productions, 1959), 0:04:23- 01:28:00.

exploitation of Egypt.77 This belief is not unfounded because it has been understood that “whoever controls Egypt and the Canal has taken a long step towards world domination,” and this is due to the exploitation of natural resources and the control of the commodity of oil located at the Suez Canal.78 This tension and conflict between British nationalism and Egyptian nationalism is embodied in the scene in which John Manning goes over to Mehemet Bey’s home, which was near the nursing home where John’s father was murdered, to confront him about the mummy after he was attacked by it. As they sit in the parlor and smoke, Mehemet Bey asks, “has it ever occurred to them [archeologists] that by opening sacred beings’ tombs, they commit desecration?” John responds by claiming, “If we didn’t, the history of your country and a great part of civilization would be unknown.”79 Mehemet Bey rebukes this statement by saying, “you force your way in and remove the remains of dead kings and send them to some place like the British Museum where people can stare at them.”80 This debate resembles the British nationalism exhibited in The Mummy (1932); however, the difference is Fisher’s The Mummy (1959) lacks the mysticism and eroticization of the mummy and ancient Egyptian artifacts as found in The Mummy (1932). The focus is more on the debate over Egypt’s fight for independence and control of their own history as symbolized in Mehemet’s argument against tomb desecration and Britain’s fight to further colonize Egypt for the exploitation of commodities and resources, as symbolized in John’s argument that Egypt would not have a history without the efforts of British archeologists.

77 Khalid Mahmood, “Britain and the Suez Crisis.” Pakistan Horizon 15, no. 2 (1962): 114-119. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/41392707; Keith M. Wilson. Imperialism and Nationalism in the Middle East: The Anglo-Egyptian Experience, 1882-1982. London, England: Bronx, N.Y.: Mansell Pub.; Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by H.W. Wilson, 1983, 147-148.

78 Khalid Mahmood, “Britain and the Suez Crisis.” Pakistan Horizon 15, no. 2 (1962):111. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/41392707.

79 The Mummy, Terence Fisher, (Hammer Films Productions, 1959), 01:09:22- 01:28:00. 80 Ibid, 01:09:39- 01:28:00.

The display of nationalism shifts into the topics of white supremacy and religious intolerance as demonstrated in The Mummy (1959). For example, when John tells Mehemet Bey about his father being murdered, Mehemet responds with the following statement: “Please forgive my apathy. In my country, violence is quite commonplace. It doesn’t leave the impressions like it does in this peaceful well-ordered community.”81 John then states, “the history of your country is steeped in violence,” and he goes on to say that he believes the religion of ancient Egyptians is primitive and practiced by people of low intelligence based on how Princess Ananka was a high priestess of the god Karnak, who John calls “a third-rate god of no importance.”82 This description of ancient Egyptian religion and culture reveals John’s colonialist and nationalistic mindset in which he views the British Empire as superior and all foreign colonized countries as inferior for exhibiting “artificial creeds and ludicrous beliefs” that he deems primitive.83 European and American audiences would relate to these colonialist and nationalist ideals after living through wars such as World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War as well as the widespread fear of communism, which exhibits the division between the East and the West. In the case of The Mummy (1959), it is a division between Egyptians and Westerners.

As for historical inaccuracies and authenticities in The Mummy (1959), there are few inaccurate portrayals of ancient Egyptian religion and the deities that were worshipped during the period of the New Kingdom, which is the time period of ancient Egypt that the movie focuses on. This is based on a scene in which Mehemet Bey tells John Manning that a badge of Karnak’s guards found at Ananka’s tomb is from the Nineteenth Dynasty.84 The badge itself is an inaccuracy, because it is not

81 Ibid, 01:10:49- 01:28:00. 82 Ibid, 01:11:24- 01:28:00. 83 Ibid, 01:11:47- 01:28:00. 84 Ibid, 01:14:06- 01:28:00.

a badge, but rather a seal used for identification. It was carved from lapis lazuli with the image of a scarab, which is one of the most common animals depicted on seals along images of hawks, crocodiles, turtles, beetles, fish, frogs, lions, and other beings and objects that have divine power according to the beliefs of ancient Egyptians.85

Another inaccuracy or historical distortion found in The Mummy (1959) is the fact that Princess Ananka is a fictional character who is the high priestess for the god, Karnak, who is also fictional.86 After the team of archeologists enter the tomb of Ananka at the beginning of the film, Mehemet Bey prays to Karnak to promise his vengeance, and he addresses Karnak as “Great Karnak, father of all living things.”87 The issue with this is that Karnak is not a god, but rather a temple complex located near Luxor, and it consists of several temples and monuments dedicated to various deities such as the Theban Triad—Amon, Mut, and Khonsu.88 In addition to this, there is a scene in which Mehemet Bey prays to Karnak in front of a sarcophagus or statue of Karnak, but it is actually a statue of Sekhmet, who is often depicted as a woman with the head of a lion.89 Sekhmet is described as “the powerful one,” and most feared goddess of the Egyptian pantheon, protector of Egypt, and avenger of Re, the sun god.90 Perhaps Fisher and the writers chose the image of Sekhmet to embody the powers of the fictional Karnak. It can also be argued the writers also based Karnak on the real Egyptian deity Amon, the chief god of Thebes and “father of the

85 G. A. R., and N. F. W. “The Art of Seal Carving in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom.” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 28, no. 167 (1930): 47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4170240

86 Matt Cardin, Bob Brier, Mummies Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Mummies in History, Religion, and Popular Culture. 2016, 261.

87 The Mummy, Terence Fisher (Hammer Films Productions, 1959), 0:012:03- 01:28:00.

88 Harold H. Nelson, “The Egyptian Temple: The Theban Temples of the Empire Period.” The Biblical Archaeologist 7, no. 3 (1944): 44. https://doi.org/10.2307/3209295; James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001, 36-37.

89 The Mummy, Terence Fisher, (Hammer Films Productions, 1959), 0:46:25- 01:28:00; William H. Peck, Florida International Museum, Roemer- Und Pelizaeus-Museum, and Detroit Institute of Arts. Splendors of Ancient Egypt. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997, 70-71.

90 Ibid, 71.

gods,” which was a title he gained during the Eighteenth Dynasty when he was reinstated as a royal deity.91

The Scroll of Life is a plot device heavily featured in The Mummy (1959), and like the Scroll of Thoth as seen in Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932), this scroll is based on the Book of the Dead, also known as the Papyrus of Ani. To further explain, the funerary Papyrus dates to the Pyramid Texts, which first appears at the end of the Fifth Dynasty during the Age of the Pyramids c. 2400 BCE.92 To pharaohs and ancient Egyptians, the Book of the Dead is as important as the tomb complex and their contents because it is an instructional guide for how to navigate through the underworld and through the judgment of Osiris.93Rather than having the ability to resurrect someone back to the world of the living as suggested in The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy (1959), the Book of the Dead explains how to survive in the afterlife and how to live with moral contentment in order to achieve a desirable afterlife, which is eternal life in the eyes of the ancient Egyptians.94

The inaccurate use of the Book of the Dead as a way of reviving mummies was also used in Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (1999), which is a Universal Pictures produced action and adventure film that was inspired by the two previous The Mummy films as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).95 While this version of The Mummy is a remake of the first movie from 1932, Sommers’ The Mummy (1999) transforms the plotline and portrays ancient Egypt through biblical references, feminist elements, and CGI special effects to appeal to the audience of the 1990s, which was during the peak of action and adventure films.

91 Rosalie A. David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003, 153.

92 Raymond O. Faulkner, and Ogden Goelet, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day: Being the Papyrus of Ani. 2015, 30. 93 Ibid, 29-31. 94 Ibid, 29-34.

95 Matt Cardin, Mummies Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Mummies in History, Religion, and Popular Culture. 2016, 262.

The plot of this film follows Librarian and Egyptologist, Evelyn Carnahan, her brother Jonathan, and American adventurer Rick O’Connell who travel to the city of the Dead, Hamunaptra, on a quest to find the artifact connected to an ancient key. Once there, Evelyn accidentally resurrects Imhotep by reading from the Book of the Dead, and the mummy brings about ten plagues as proclaimed in the Hom-Dai, which is the mummy’s curse.

Sommers’ The Mummy (1999) includes several historical accuracies, including portrayals of certain funerary rituals. For example, in the scene where Imhotep attempts to resurrect Anksunamun with the help of his servants, he describes the funerary process by stating, “her vital organs were removed and placed in five canopic jars,” which is demonstrated through the five canopic jars being placed on the altar.96 The canopic jars in the film includes carved tops that depict animals such as a baboon, a jackal, a human, a ram, and a lion.97 Based on archeological evidence, canopic jars were often designed to depict the four sons of Horus, which includes “the human-headed Imsety who guarded the liver; the baboon-headed Happy, the lungs; the jackal-headed Duamutef, the stomach; and the falcon-headed Qebehsenuef, the intestines.”97 While the film did have a fifth inaccurate canopic jar with the image of a lion, the four others were historically accurate depictions.

Building on this, the City of the Dead or Hamunaptra is the main location of this film that is only revealed during the sunrise and with the help of CGI special effects. It is described as “the ancient burial site of the sons of pharaohs.”98 However, this is a fictional location based on the Valley of the Kings. To further explain, the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings is located in the ancient city of Thebes where the city is split into two

96 The Mummy, Stephen Sommers, (Universal Pictures, 1999), 0:04:24-02:04:44.

97 Ibid, 0:04:30- 02:04:44.

98 The Mummy, Stephen Sommers, (Universal Pictures, 1999), 0:04:00- 02:04:44.

halves by the Nile River.99 The town of Luxor is located on the eastern bank of Thebes, and it is this specific area where the tombs of more than thirty pharaohs have been discovered, including Tutankhamun, which prompted the names of both the Valley of the Kings and the City of the Dead.100

In addition to this, the iteration of the mummy’s curse in the previous two films includes the resurrection of the mummy by reading from the films’ versions of the Book of the Dead. This is also the case in this version of The Mummy. However, Sommers goes a step further by creating the Hom-Dai, which is the curse that proclaims the resurrection of the mummy followed by ten plagues.101 These plagues of locusts, blood water, pestilence, and so on were used as a direct biblical reference because they replicate the ten plagues of Egypt as described in the book of Exodus.102 This biblical reference can be viewed in scenes such as when Evelyn Carnahan reads from the Book of the Dead and a swarm of locusts immediately attacks everyone, including the team of Americans who found the Book of the Dead.103 There was also the water in the Cairo hotel’s fountains, which turns to blood as Rick O’Connell and Jonathan Carnahan discuss plans of escaping while drinking in the hotel lobby.104 Lastly, as Imhotep completed his transformation into a full body after stealing the organs from the members of the American expedition team, he creates a mob of people sick with pestilence to use them as a tool to capture Evelyn Carnahan with the plan of using her to resurrect the Princess Anksunamun.105 Not only do these scenes demonstrate the use of biblical references as a way

99 Lise Manniche, City of the Dead: Thebes in Egypt Chicago: London: University of Chicago Press; British Museum Publications, 1987, 1.

100 Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tutankhamen. New York: Excalibur Books, 1972, 13.

101

The Mummy, Stephen Sommers, (Universal Pictures, 1999), 0:59:00- 02:04:44.

102 The Book of Exodus. Champaign, Ill: Project Gutenberg,1989, chapter 7-9. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=nlebk&AN=1063500&site=ehost-live&scope=site

103

The Mummy, Stephen Sommers, (Universal Pictures, 1999), 01:01:02- 02:04:44.

104 Ibid, 01:12:15- 02:04:44.

105 Ibid, 01:23:35- 02:04:44.

to increase the use of theatrics, but they also act as a conduit to reach a broader audience through depictions of religious text. Another major appeal to this specific film is the element of feminism and the challenge of gender roles. For example, unlike the prior two mummy films where the main female characters are exclusively the love interest and the damsel in distress who gets kidnapped, the character of Evelyn Carnahan is written as an intelligent adventurous librarian and Egyptologist who does not abide by the designated gender roles of the 1920s much like several feminist and equal rights movements of the same decade, such as The Women’s Movement for suffrage and the National Committee on the Cause and Cure for War, which was the largest women’s peace and political movement during the 1920s.106 Evelyn is a librarian who bartered for the freedom of Rick O’Connell in exchange for his assistance in reaching Hamunaptra, but it is clear that Evelyn is the lead of the expedition based on her knowledge of Egyptology.107 However, it is apparent her expertise and drive to lead the expedition exhibits equalities that were generally frowned upon during this time period because once both Evelyn’s team and the team of Americans arrive at Hamunaptra, one American states, “do they know something that we don’t know?” Their lead Egyptologist responds by stating, “they are led by a woman. What does a woman know?”108 These feminist elements are designed to reach a broader audience, marketing The Mummy (1999) as a successful adventure film for broad appeal to audiences during the late 1990s.

In short, Egyptomania is not a singular continuous movement but rather a widespread obsession with ancient Egypt that has occurred in intervals throughout time leaving various forms of material culture as evidence. The first documented movement of Egyptomania occurred with the Greeks and Romans, which

106 Susan Zeiger, “Finding a Cure for War: Women’s Politics and the Peace Movement in the 1920s.” Journal of Social History 24, no. 1 (1990): 69–72.

107 The Mummy, Stephen Sommers, (Universal Pictures, 1999,) 0:024:02- 02:04:44. 108 Ibid, 0:04:24- 02:04:44.

has been classified as the era of Classical Egyptomania. This movement is followed by the Victorian era of Egyptomania, which was the movement that arguably left the most material culture due to Egyptian motifs and images used for widespread marketing. However, the largest movement of Egyptomania was sparked by the discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb, which led to the creation of mummy movies, including multiple versions of The Mummy, all of which took creative liberties to distort ancient Egyptian history and culture to appeal to audiences through themes of imperialism, colonialist perspective, feminism, and marketing appeal. This leads to the question of when will the next movement of Egyptomania occur, and what event will spark this movement? The Western society of today revolves around marketing, advertising, and entertainment, so the next large-scale movement of Egyptomania would most likely be through films and TV shows, much like the material culture featured during the Victorian Era Egyptomania and the Egyptomania that led to the making of The Mummy Films.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Breasted, James Henry. Ancient Records of Egypt. Urbana: Uni versity of Illinois Press, 2001.

Carter, Howard. The Tomb of Tutankhamen. New York: Excali bur Books, 1972.

Faulkner, Raymond O., and Ogden Goelet. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day: Being the Papyrus of Ani. 2015.

Godley, A. D. Herodotus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969.

The Book of Exodus. Champaign, Ill: Project Gutenberg,1989, chapter 7-9. https://search.ebscohost.com/login. aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=nlebk&AN=1063500&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Books:

Brier, Bob. Egypt-omania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs. First ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Cardin, Matt. Mummies Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Mummies in History, Religion, and Popular Culture. 2016.

David, A. Rosalie. Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File, 2003.

Fritze, Ronald H. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2016.

G. A. R., and N. F. W. “The Art of Seal Carving in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom.” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 28, no. 167 (1930): 47-55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4170240.

I. E. S. Edwards, Harry Burton, Lee. Boltin, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tutankhamun, His Tomb and Its Treasures. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Distributed by Random House, 1976.

Ikram, Salima, and Aidan Dodson. The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998. <https://archive.org/details/ mummyinancienteg00ikra>.

Luckhurst, Roger. The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Manniche, Lise. City of the Dead: Thebes in Egypt. Chicago: London: University of Chicago Press; British Museum Publications, 1987.

Peck, William H., Florida International Museum, RoemerUnd Pelizaeus-Museum, and Detroit Institute of Arts. Splendors of Ancient Egypt. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997.

Silverman, David P. Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Solomon, Jon. The Ancient World in the Cinema. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

Sutherland, Doris V. The Mummy. Liverpool University Press, Auteur Publishing, 2019.

Vandenberg, Philipp, and Thomas Weyr. The Curse of the Pharaohs. 1st English-language ed. Philadelphia; New York, Lippincott Company, 1975.

White, Jon Manchip, and Helen Nixon Fairfield. Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt. London: Batsford; New York: Putnam, 1963.

Wilson, Keith A. Imperialism and Nationalism in the Middle East: The Anglo-Egyptian Experience, 1882-1982. London, England: Bronx, N.Y.: Mansell Pub.; Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by H.W. Wilson, 1983.

Journal Articles:

Daly, Nicholas. “That Obscure Object of Desire: Victorian Commodity Culture and Fictions of the Mummy.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 28, no. 1 (1994): 24–51. https://doi. org/10.2307/1345912.

Freeman, Richard. “The Mummy in Context.” European journal of American studies 4, no. 1 (2009).

Lant, Antonia. “The Curse of the Pharaoh, or How Cinema Contracted Egyptomania.” October 59 (1992): 87–112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/778832.

Lynn Meskell, Consuming Bodies: Cultural Fantasies of Ancient Egypt. Body & Society 4, no. 1, March 1998.

Mahmood, Khalid. “Britain and the Suez Crisis.” Pakistan Horizon 15, no. 2 (1962): 111–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41392707.

McGill, Sara Ann. “Ancient Egypt Timeline.” Ancient Egypt Timeline, August 2017, 1–2. https://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=khh&AN=17955952&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Milestones: The Great Depression and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1921–1936, Office of the Historian, History.state.gov, 2021. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/ great-depression [Accessed 27 November 2021].

Nelson, Harold H. “The Egyptian Temple: The Theban Temples of the Empire Period.” The Biblical Archaeologist 7, no. 3 (1944): 44–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/3209295.

Rompalske, Dorothy. “King Tut’s Tomb, Buried Treasure, and the Mummy’s Curse.” Biography 4, no. 9 (September 2000): 80-85. https://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=fth&AN=3502471&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Zeiger, Susan. “Finding a Cure for War: Women’s Politics and the Peace Movement in the 1920s.” Journal of Social History 24, no. 1 (1990): 69–86. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3787631.

Zietsman, J.C. “Crossing the Roman Frontier: Egypt in Rome (And Beyond).” Acta Classica 52 (2009): 1–21. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/24592482.

Movies: Fisher, Terence, director. The Mummy. Hammer Films Production, 1959. 1 hr., 28 min.

Freund, Karl, director. The Mummy. Universal Studios, 1932. 1 hr., 13 min. https://archive.org/details/the-mummy_202105.

Sommers, Stephen, director. The Mummy. Universal Pictures, 1999. 2 hr., 4 min.

Narrative Structure: Breaking Down Patriarchal

in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Standards

By Sydney Bergquist Faculty Mentor: Dr. Marty Williams, Department of English

Article Abstract:

Victorian-era England held strong patriarchal beliefs that Anne Bronte shatters in her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Simply by writing under a male alias, Bronte defies the expectations set for her as a woman. Many scholars argue that The Tenant was a groundbreaking piece of feminist literature in Bronte’s time. This article details how she exposes the truth of an unjust gender hierarchy through a framed narrative, detailing both a male and female perspective on religion, marriage, and children. Although Bronte received a lot of criticism for what some call a peculiar narrative structure, I argue that Bronte’s narrative structure displays the unequal society that women were subjected to during this time. Bronte’s protagonist breaks the stereotype of a 19th-century wife through her unrelenting strength, love, and bravery shown throughout her story. The Tenant is relevant to the societal pressure that women still endure in the 21st century, and can compel women to stand up against gender injustice.

Victorian-era England saw many advances in technology, engineering, and medicine. One thing that did not advance, however, was the society’s patriarchal standards. These standards were prevalent in society in many ways: parliament was run by men, the bourgeoisie consisted of wealthy men, and in marriage, men held the power and control. Married women did

Sydney Bergquist

not have rights to property or estate, instead, they were caretakers of the house and family. Many novelists during this time tried to highlight the injustice of these patriarchal expectations, but one novel that does it with a unique structure is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. Anne, the youngest sister of Charlotte and Emily Bronte, was an author of the Victorian Era. While her sisters wrote groundbreaking classics including Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Anne’s novels did not gain the same amount of attention. Known as the mild Christian of the family, Anne’s novels were written with a theological basis, intended to spread her Christian beliefs to her readers. Producing only two novels in her life: Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne died at the young age of 29, never achieving the recognition that her sisters had. Both of Anne Bronte’s novels contain female protagonists that portray “Christ-like” behavior, including selflessness, love, and compassion. Bronte uses a framed narrative—a story within a story—expressing both a male and female voice, to highlight the injustices of the patriarchy during her time. The dual narrative shows readers that relationships in that time prioritize men’s needs and desires, and leave little for women.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a nineteenth-century epistolary novel, with a framed narrative. The two narratives contain the voice of a man, Gilbert Markham, and a woman, Helen Graham or Helen Huntington. The narrative is intended to represent the contrast in male and female voices during the time. Jan B. Gordon writes that the meaning of the novel comes from “the relative dispensation of alternative narratives competing for our attention and hence for a textual priority” (719). The male narrative is given priority by putting Markham’s voice first, then Helen’s. The two narratives contradict each other in beliefs, which creates a moral battle. The novel, unsurprisingly, received mass criticism for its “unpleasant excess of truth” (Jacobs 206). Sharpe’s London Magazine writes that the novel is “unfit for the perusal of the very class of persons to whom it would be

most useful . . . owing to the profane expressions, inconceivable coarse language, and revolting scenes and descriptions by which its pages are disfigured.” This kind of criticism stems from the unpleasant reality of an abusive relationship that Helen discloses in her diary. Society dismisses the criticism of male behavior because men are in charge. Readers do not want to believe the kind of behavior Arthur and his friends display as possible, but Bronte notes that “it is better to depict them as they are than as they would wish to appear” (4). She intends to tell the truth of a patriarchal society and portrays her characters as realistically as possible. Bronte enclosed Helen’s narrative within a man’s to “[reaffirm] the patriarchal status quo of masculine priority and privilege, of women’s subordination and dependence” (Langland 111). This is a device Bronte used to highlight the injustice of the patriarchy. The novel is not written as a piece of gender-biased literature but as a display of gender injustice. She intends to share the truth with her readers, despite what others would think.

Anne Bronte uses narrative in several ways to highlight the injustice of the patriarchy during her time. The first way Bronte does this is through marriage. Bronte’s narrative structure shows the different perspectives and biases of marriage based on gender. The beginning of Markham’s narrative shows that the perfect marriage is unrealistic and unattainable. Markham does not take relationships seriously because his mother raises him not to think highly of women. She often criticizes the women Markham takes interest in because they are not good enough for him. Her expectations, and therefore his own, of a wife, are impractical. Mrs. Markham tells him: “You’ll do your business and she, if she’s worthy of you, will do hers; but it’s your business to please yourself, and hers to please you” (Bronte 58). This conditioning tells Markham that no woman can adequately fill the role of his wife. Everyone is telling Markham what the perfect wife will be like, but the demands are impossible to meet.

Sydney Bergquist

The expectations make the reader “wonder whether any two individuals could achieve the kind of equal partnership that Gilbert seems to desire in a society that encourages inequality” (Senf 449). The reader may believe Markham does not have a chance of marrying because of his attitude towards women. From Markham’s perspective, we see the patriarchal male expectations of marriage and courting.

In Helen’s framed narrative, however, the opposite perspective is encouraged. Men are encouraged to set their sights high on a wife and to not settle for anything less than what they deserve. Women are not given the privilege of picking a husband based on their standards. In a conversation with her aunt, Mrs. Maxwell, Helen says, “I imagine there must only be a very, very few men in the world, that I should like to marry” (Bronte 131), to which her aunt responds: “It is apt to surrender sooner than the owner is aware of, and often against her better judgment, and in opposition to all her preconceived ideas of what she could have loved” (131). Helen wants to marry for love, not for survival. Her aunt discourages this, saying that for their own good women should surrender their fantasies of true love and marry a man of reasonable wealth and trade. This side of the narrative shows the female perspective of marital expectations and highlights the double standards of finding a spouse. While Gilbert is encouraged to choose a wife carefully, Helen is told to accept whichever man asks first, because he might be the last. Helen is lucky enough to turn down her first proposal, but women often are not allowed to find love for themselves. This is shown with Helen’s close friend, Millicent, who is encouraged to marry Ralph Hattersly by her family. Millicent “dreads the thought of marrying him” but “cannot bear to disappoint her [mother]” (221). Millicent only agrees to this marriage because he will support her financially, and it will make her parents proud. Bronte’s framed narrative shows her readers the reality of a patriarchal marriage from a woman’s perspective. Women are supposed to marry as soon as they are able and to fulfill certain expectations

of being a wife. When she marries Arthur, Helen “embraces the nineteenth-century ideal wherein the wife takes on the responsibilities for running a household and nurturing others . . . rather than herself” (Diederich 27). Women are raised to be wives. A wife is taught to “wait upon her husband, and amuse him and minister to his comfort in every way possible” (Bronte 224). Women are the support systems for their husbands. They are expected to meet the requirements of being a wife and to uphold the duties assigned to them. The double standard is evident when Markham is told to wait until he finds the right woman, while Helen is encouraged to marry a man she does not love. Another friend of Helen’s in an unhappy relationship is Lord Lowborough. During a party with friends, Lowborough discovers his wife, Annabelle, cheating with Helen’s husband, Arthur. Lowborough is devastated and seeks Helen for comfort. Having already experienced heartbreak from Arthur, Helen tells him “Two years hence you will be as calm as I am now—and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man, and free to act as you please” (Bronte 343). Helen has long since faced the reality of her marriage. She is unhappy with Arthur and prefers when he’s on an escapade with his unruly friends in London. She cherishes being alone or with her son and has accepted that she is married to a cheater. She comforts her friend with the fact that he is a man, and would be within his rights to divorce his wife and start over. Helen, however, cannot divorce Arthur because she has no property, no money, and very few rights. If she left her husband, she would also have to leave her son, and that was not an option. Lowborough’s marriage is another example of Bronte using narrative structure to highlight patriarchal injustices. Carol Senf writes: “Bronte’s decision to enclose Helen’s story of several unhappy marriages—her own, Lord Lowborough’s, and Millicent Hattersly’s—within Gilbert’s story of his own happy marriage to Helen encourages readers to look beyond Helen and Gilbert” (448). Bronte surrounds Helen with friends also in unhappy marriages, perhaps to give her a connection where she has

very few. However, by putting Helen’s story within Markham’s, she shows that a happy marriage is not always what it seems. Markham has never seen the pain of an abusive marriage. He is oblivious to the idea and believes the perfect wife means the perfect marriage, but he is not likely to find one in a patriarchal society.

While there are bad marriages throughout the story, nothing compares to the evil that Arthur Huntington embodies. As a good, moral, and religious woman, Helen believes she was called to help Arthur find his true path and to “fix him.” Bronte knows the dangers of this naivety within her character, but she constructs Helen as a warning to girls who read her story. Bronte writes in her republishing of Tenant that “if I have warned one rash youth from following in their steps, or prevented one thoughtless girl from falling into the very natural error of my heroine, the book has not been written in vain” (4). Helen selflessly puts everyone before herself and considers only how she can help others. This character flaw sends Helen into a manipulative relationship with a man she thinks she can change. Helen is “anxious to direct her husband’s spiritual reformation” and has “married for this specific purpose” (Lamonica 134). The warning signs appear before they are even married when Arthur mocks Christian traditions and discourse in Helen’s presence. He does not take Sunday service seriously, “. . . holding his prayer-book upside down or open at any place but the right, he did nothing but stare about him,” but he still puts on a show for the benefit of his image, talking to Helen’s aunt “with a degree of modest, serious discrimination that tempted me to believe he had really attended and profited by the discourse” (Bronte 179). This is the first red flag in their relationship. Faith is the most important thing to Helen, but even after expressing her distaste for Arthur’s behavior, she still believes she can make him learn to love God and church the way she does. Every bone in Helen’s body wants to make Arthur the best man he can be, but Arthur cares only about himself, his desires, and his needs. This is the

archetype for a patriarchal Victorian marriage. Bronte’s narrative challenges this archetype and creates a heroine who escapes the misery of a patriarchal marriage during her time. Helen takes steps to make things better for herself for the rest of her life. Ian Ward writes: “In its stark portrayal of a dysfunctional, abusive marriage, The Tenant shattered the pretenses of marital harmony so beloved of many Victorian’s” (151). Helen’s bravery to put herself before her husband is what makes Tenant such a controversial novel of its time. Without the raw voice of Helen’s diary enclosed in Markham’s letter, this novel would not have shown the power of her independence.

Bronte’s narrative structure foregrounds a hierarchy of gender in the reader’s mind, then breaks the patriarchal expectations in the framed narrative. This hierarchy is evident because “the woman’s story must . . . be subsumed within the man’s account, which is prior and originary” (Langland 111). Markham’s narrative tells us how women should act, how children should be raised, and how a society should function in this patriarchal society. Markham is a wealthy first-born son, which puts him at the top of the pyramid in Victorian-era England. He is arrogant to a fault, believing he “was burying [his] talent in the earth, and hiding [his] light under a bushel” (11). To Bronte’s readers, Markham is a typical, Victorian man. He owns property, runs a farm, and has big aspirations for his life. Putting his narrative first reinforces that hierarchal structure in readers. However, by adding Helen’s narrative voice, Bronte changes the direction of beliefs for this time. Terry Eagleton says Bronte’s structural device “[converts] the novel’s most substantial, emotionally engaging section . . . into a mere mechanism to further Gilbert’s courtship” (135). Helen’s narrative is the heart of this novel; it contains the heart-wrenching reality of an abusive marriage. By putting Markham’s narrative before Helen’s, the readers subconsciously believe that Markham’s narrative is more important Helen’s story is merely a part of his own. This is how it was in her time, a man’s word meant more than a woman’s no matter the circumstances.

Sydney Bergquist

Bronte’s male characters also assert power and dominance over women throughout both narratives. As a first-born son, Markham is possessive and entitled. These defining characteristics “[show] that one effect that women may have on men is to provoke their jealousy, rather than encouraging their humanism” (Carnell 15). Markham has a short temper and jealous tendencies. When he is building a relationship with Helen, rumors begin to spread that Frederick Lawrence, Helen’s landlord, is the real father of her child. This rumor infuriates Markham, and he acts out in a vindictive rage. On his way to Wildfell Hall, Markham comes across Lawrence on the road to her house. They stop to chat, and Markham pulls out his whip and attacks Lawrence, leaving him half-dead on the side of the road. Markham is furious with both for betraying him. When he confronts Helen, she becomes emotional. He thinks: “though I saw she was miserable, I felt glad to have it in my power to torment her” (Bronte 123). This shows Markham’s nonchalant abuse of power, knowing he holds physical dominance over Helen as a woman. Nothing in Markham’s narrative leads to Helen being anything other than caring and compassionate. Markham acts out in a jealous rage to feel in control. This side of the narrative shows the male perspective of asserting dominance. Markham offers a book to Helen that she has been searching for. He believes that this gift entitles him to her. He feels entitled to Helen’s interactions and behavior. Markham’s “intrusiveness, more or less sublimated violence, and attempts of domination are explicitly associated with the male gaze” (Poole 561). Markham’s attraction to Helen incites violence and aggression.

Helen’s narrative shows the female perspective of having dominance asserted over her. When Helen is planning her first escape from her husband, she confides only in her diary. One night, when Arthur is bored, he reads her diary and discovers her plan: “‘. . . take those things away,’ said he, pointing to the easel, canvas, and stretcher; ‘and tell the housemaid she may kindle the fire with them: your mistress won’t want

them anymore’” (Bronte 265). Arthur discovers Helen’s plan to sell her paintings, so he asserts his right to her property by confiscating all of her personal belongings. Arthur leaves Helen empty-handed and hopeless, her dreams of independence burning up in the fire. Both sides of these narratives show that male dominance is harmful in relationships. By reading Helen’s story of her abusive marriage, “the reader experiences . . . narrative claustrophobia,” producing “an effect on the reader that mimics the entrapment Helen experiences in her marriage” (O’Toole 715). Bronte’s narrative structure is an allegorical representation of a woman’s second-class position. No matter what women go through—abuse, manipulation, heartbreak—they always come second to men. Their opinions, needs, and desires are not as important. The Tenant’s narrative structure lets the reader feel the desperation that Helen feels.

Bronte’s narrative structure shows the ways the patriarchy forces men and women to express themselves and their desires. In Markham’s perspective, she shows the unhealthy way men often expressed themselves. When Markham hears the rumors about Frederick Lawrence and Helen, he lashes out at Lawrence with no explanation or confrontation. Markham is raised with entitlement and believes that he can do or take whatever he wants. Markham is hurt and upset by the rumor, but the only way he knows to express himself is through rage. Men are encouraged to suppress their feelings during this time. Because of this outburst of anger, a man is seriously injured. Helen’s narrative shows a healthier way of self-expression. She is in a miserable, abusive marriage for years, but cannot talk about it. It is the duty of a wife to smile and behave, no matter what her husband does. Even when she suffers, Helen has an optimistic outlook: “every faculty, both good and bad, strengthen by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil, till they become your masters, and neglect good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame” (205-6). Helen wants to feed the good things in her life so they will grow;

she uses creative outlets including journaling and painting to express herself. Making Helen a professional artist is a unique plot device for Bronte because women do not have vocations during this time. Being an artist, however, gives Helen an autonomy that most women do not have during this time: “Anne Bronte has portrayed Helen as a woman artist whose art not only empowers her to earn a living but also provides her the opportunity to run away from her abusive husband” (Pourgiv 130-31). With healthy self-expression, Helen can free herself mentally and physically from the chains of her marriage. The contrast in narratives displays the way men and women expressed themselves during this time. Men let their anger build up, then irrationally explode with rage. Women, however, use creative outlets to express themselves and their desires.

Bronte’s narrative structure shows readers the patriarchy’s expectations for raising children and the unorthodox way Helen raises her child. One of the main reasons Helen leaves Arthur is his treatment of their son, Arthur Jr. Arthur does not take raising their son seriously and childishly teaches him to cuss, drink, and adopt all of the undesirable habits of Arthur and his friends. Helen’s son is the most important thing to her. Her biggest concern is loving him and raising him to be an upstanding citizen. From Helen’s narrative, we see Arthur’s poor parenting and how it directly affects his family. When she leaves her husband, Helen works to “undo” the work her husband and his friends have done on their son. She vows to raise her son in a Christ-like way and protect him from harm. This is highly criticized by Markham and his family in his narrative. Several people voice their opinions about the way Helen raises her son, Markham himself saying she’ll “spoil his spirits, and make a mere Miss Nancy out of him” (Bronte 33). Markham and his family believe boys should be given freedom without consequences to grow and become men. Arthur Sr.’s behavior shows, however, why too much of a good thing can be dangerous. N.M. Jacobs writes: “[Arthur’s] understanding of manhood is essen-

tially that . . . to be a man is equated with an imperious will, ‘spirit,’ and disdain for those qualities associated with women: piety, abstinence, selflessness, and dependence” (210). Boys are raised to view femininity as bad, and to suppress any feminine attributes they have. This is what society expects, but Helen denies those expectations and raises her son to have compassion and generosity. She takes the time to care for him and raise him as a Christian so that he will be a positive influence on society.

Helen injects herself into the public voice by leaving her husband and working to support her family. She is a single mother contributing to society, which is rare during this time. When Helen meets and marries Markham, she loses that autonomy. Helen’s narrative ends as she steps back from society to once again be a wife; the novel then returns to Markham’s narrative. Bronte used the narrative in this way to enforce the idea that a woman’s role in society is to nurture and teach their sons and husbands to participate positively in society. Rachel K. Carnell writes: “Bronte ultimately sought wholeness and integration between the sexes through an eighteenth-century idea of the public good in which most women might participate indirectly as instructors and nurturers of their husbands and sons” (20). She intends to show that while women can contribute to society and have a public voice, they can contribute more by guiding boys and men to reflect their image onto society. Helen succeeds both at being a single, working mother and being a supportive, nurturing wife. With Helen’s framed narrative, Bronte shows that women are capable of both, and are free to make those decisions for themselves.

Bronte wants her writing to be a message to readers, but to be taken seriously she has to have a man’s voice. The Tenant is published under a male alias because there is an obsession “with the sex of the authors [and] with the appropriateness of the subject matter for female readers” which “underscores the Victorian obsession with judging all behavior through a rigid lens of gender” (Carnell 8). The Tenant is heavily criticized for

its crude language and its portrayal of an abusive marriage. The novel is deemed unfit for female readers, but Bronte wants her story to have moral implications for young women like Helen and young men like Arthur. Jacobs says that Bronte “seemed to find it necessary first to become that constructed creature, a man, to appropriate and delegitimize his power, before telling [her] patriarchal truths” (205). By putting Markham’s voice first, Bronte plants the idea in her readers’ minds that the patriarchal standards of society are correct. Readers of the time hold these beliefs strongly, and would not take lightly a novel that discredits all of their beliefs. Bronte then breaks the expectations with the introduction of Helen’s framed narrative. She highlights all of the patriarchal expectations that are set up in Markham’s narrative and then shows her readers why those expectations are detrimental to relationships. With this creative narrative structure, Bronte addresses the patriarchal standards of marriage, self-expression, and parenting, among so many others. She shows her readers why these standards are wrong, and calls for a change of behavior in society.

Works Cited

Bronte, Anne. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Penguin Books, 1996.

Carnell, Rachel K. “Feminism and the Public Sphere in Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 53, no. 1, University of California Press, 1998, pp. 1-24.

Diederich, Nicole A. “The Art of Comparison: Remarriage in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, vol. 57, no. 2, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, 2003, pp. 25–41.

Eagleton, Terry. Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontë’s. 1989.

Gordon, Jan B. “Gossip, Diary, Letter, Text: Anne Bronte’s Narrative Tenant of the Problematic of the Gothic Sequel.” ELH, vol. 51, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, pp. 719-45.

Jacobs, N.M. “Gender and Layered Narrative in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 16, no. 3, Department of English Language and Literature, Eastern Michigan University, 1986, pp. 204-19.

Lamonica, Drew. We Are Three Sisters: Self and Family in the Writing of the Brontë’s, University of Missouri Press, 2003.

Langland, Elizabeth. “The Voicing of Feminine Desire in Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Gender and Discourse in Victorian Literature, edited by Anthony H Harrison, Northern Illinois University Press, 1992, pp. 111-123.

O’Toole, Tess. “Siblings and Suitors in the Narrative Architecture of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900, vol. 39, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, pp. 715-31.

Poole, Russell. “Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 33, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, pp. 859–73.

Pourgiv, Farideh, and Sara E. Rahmati. “The Female Artist within the Framing Narrative in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” K@ta, vol. 12, no. 2, 2010, pp. 127-39.

Review of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Sharpe’s London Maga zine, 1848, pp. 181–84.

Senf, Carol A. “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender.” College English, vol. 52, no. 4, National Council of Teachers of English, 1990, pp. 446-56.

Ward, Ian. “The Case of Helen Huntingdon.” Criticism, vol. 49, no. 2, Wayne State University Press, 2007, pp. 151–82.

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

By Rhonda Reliford

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Cristobal Serran-Pagan, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Article Abstract: This article examines the divine feminine presence in the Zohar, a mystical commentary of the Torah that is widely considered one of the most important works of Jewish kabbalah mysticism. I begin by establishing Rabbi Moses de León as the author of the Zohar. I then describe how the Zohar takes the reader on a mystical journey of the sefirot, the ten emanations of the Godhead (Ein Sof), who is described as the universal consciousness of all beings. I will show how the ten emanations take on their own unique identities, each as masculine and feminine energies that originate in Ein Sof. I believe this dynamic of the sefirot offers a glimpse into the notion of God as pure consciousness. In addition, the romanticized mystical connection of divine masculine and feminine energies gives insight into the creation of human consciousness. I believe Zohar’s interpretation of the divine masculine and feminine encounter challenges the reader to understand God in his cosmic role as pure consciousness and demonstrates how vital Shekinah’s divine feminine presence is for humanity.In understanding the significance of meditations on the sefirot, the reader of the Zohar comes to understand that human consciousness can overcome the anguish of worldly experiences and accelerate the evolution of human consciousness by striving for spiritual growth and divine encounter with Ein Sof.

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

Introduction

As one of the most important works of Jewish kabbalah mysticism, the mystical language of the Zohar takes the reader on an eschatological journey of the soul, using allegorical anecdotes to describe the ten sefirot that emanate from the infinite Godhead who is referred to as Ein Sof. The mystical language of the Zohar uses symbols and metaphors to romanticize the sacred connection of the divine masculine and feminine energies and their relationships to the human soul. While the Zohar is regarded by many as a revered collection of mystical commentary, the authorship of the Zohar has remained a central focus of debate among scholars for some time. I begin by addressing the early circulation of the content, which would come to be known as the Zohar, evaluating both sides of the debate for authorship.

The Zohar takes the reader on a mystical journey of the sefirot, the ten emanations of the Godhead (Ein Sof), who is described as the universal consciousness of all beings. I believe this dynamic of the sefirot offers a glimpse into the notion of God as pure consciousness. In addition, the romanticized mystical connection of divine masculine and feminine energies gives insight into the creation of human consciousness. I believe Zohar’s interpretation of the divine masculine and feminine encounter challenges the reader to understand God in his cosmic role as pure consciousness and demonstrates how vital Shekinah’s divine feminine presence is for humanity. In understanding the significance of meditations on the sefirot, the reader of the Zohar comes to understand that human consciousness can overcome the anguish of worldly experiences and that one can accelerate the evolution of human consciousness by striving for spiritual growth and divine encounters with Ein Sof.

Authorship of the Zohar

According to tradition, Rabbi Moses de León, known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Shem-Tov, was a Spanish rabbi and kabbalist. He began circulating booklets to his friends and fellow kabbalists under the pretense that the book contained ancient teachings and midrashs that were copied from an ancient book of wisdom written by Rabbi Shim’on ben Yohai, a famous teacher of the second century who lived in the land of Israel. Rabbi Shim’on, who spent twelve years secluded in a cave where he studied the Torah, was believed to be one of the holiest sages of his day. Rabbi Moses alleged that the ancient sage had produced the book he was copying from while he was in the cave and that it had been handed down secretly from master to disciple after the rabbis’ death.

The manuscript quickly gained distinguished notoriety and it likely wasn’t the subject of debate; however, in 1291 C.E., when the Mamluks conquered the city of Acre in Israel and massacred most of the Jewish and Christian inhabitants, a man named Isaac ben Samuel managed to escape and made his way to Spain. Being from Israel, Isaac was suspicious because he had never heard of this ancient book, and he sought to find the individual responsible for the booklets. His journey led him to Rabbi Moses, whom he found in Valladolid. Rabbi Moses swore to Isaac that he possessed the ancient book, saying, “may God do so to me, and more also, if there is not at this moment in my house, where I live in Ávila, the ancient book written by Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai, and when you come to see me there, I shall show it to you” (Tishby 45).

Isaac later learned that Rabbi Moses had passed away while he was on his way home to Ávila. When Isaac heard the news, he described himself as being “furious” and he went directly to Ávila to see if anyone knew about the ancient book. Once there, Isaac befriended “a great and venerable scholar named Rabbi David de Pancorbo,” who confided to Isaac that

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

it was “clear to him without a doubt that the Zohar was never in Rabbi Moses’ possession and in-fact has never existed” (Tishby 45). Rabbi David expressed that “Rabbi Moses was a master of the Holy Name, and whatever he wrote he wrote through its power” (Tishby 45). Rabbi David suggested that Rabbi Moses provided for his family by selling these booklets; however, as a result of Rabbi Moses’s alleged poor spending habits, his family had been left in ruins. In what appears to have been an act of good intentions, he shared that he was responsible for arranging a marriage proposal to his widow after Rabbi Moses’s untimely death.

According to Rabbi David, he had Joseph de Ávila arrange for his wife to meet with the widow of Rabbi Moses to offer their son in marriage to the daughter of Rabbi Moses’s widow in exchange for the ancient manuscript (Tishby 45). Allegedly, Rabbi Moses’s wife confessed to the wife of Joseph de Ávila that her husband never had any such manuscript, explaining that she had once asked him, “Why do you say that you are copying from a book when there is no book? You are writing from your head” (Matt 4). Rabbi Moses’s wife believed he would have more honor by sharing with others that these were his thoughts. But he believed that his ideas would only gain traction and be taken seriously if others believed the words belonged to an ancient scribe, someone of significance. So, he attributed his writings to the late Rabbi Shim’on ben Yohai. According to Rabbi David, the wife of Joseph de Ávila then spoke separately to the daughter of Rabbi Moses, offering the same thing, the marriage of her son and a promise that she would never want for anything. His daughter reiterated the same response that her mother had. For this reason, Rabbi David was convinced that the ancient book never existed but that Rabbi Moses had “written pieces for other people through the power of the Holy Name” (Tishby 46).

Isaac of Acre did not allow this one account to influence his final decision on authorship. After leaving Ávila, he met Rabbi Joseph Halevi in Talavera. When questioning him about

de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

the authorship of this alleged ancient book, Rabbi Joseph insisted that Isaac of Acre should trust that this book existed, was the work of Rabbi Shim’on ben Yohai, and that it had been in the possession of Rabbi Moses. Rabbi Joseph confided that he had reached this conclusion after testing Rabbi Moses (Tishby 15). To test him, he told Rabbi Moses that he had lost a middle section of the manuscript and asked him to replace it. Rabbi Moses asked him to provide the last line of the text preceding what he lost and the first line of the next page so that he could recopy the section that was lost. Once Rabbi Joseph received the recopied text, he compared the two and found no difference (Tishby 15). Thus, he concluded that Rabbi Moses must have the original ancient book and was not writing from his mind.

Isaac of Acre further describes departing from Talavera and entering Toledo, where he made further inquiries regarding the authorship of the alleged ancient book among the scholars and their pupils. He once again found that the people were divided in their opinions regarding the text’s authorship. However, there was an agreeance that Rabbi Joseph Halevi’s test proved nothing as Rabbi Moses may have had a copy of his original work that he had written from his mind (Tishby 15). He would have obviously used such a copy to make the other copies. After all, if he were willing to go to such lengths, it would only make sense that he would ensure there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the work he was putting out by the copies not remaining consistent.

The Current Debate

For the last seven hundred years, the debate of authorship has remained a central focus among scholars and kabbalists. In my research, I have focused on the scholarly works of Gershom Scholem, Isaiah Tishby, and Elliot R Wolfson. According to Wolfson, “Scholem has been the only scholar to make a serious attempt to trace the text’s provenance to determine

Moses

Rhonda Reliford

authorship” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 374). Scholem dedicated fifteen years of his life to studying the philology of the Zohar. Initially, Scholem expressed doubt that the authors of all the works were one and the same. During the fifteen years that followed his initial observation, he studied “one detail after another, analyzing the language and grammatical constructions, comparing symbols, terms, and ideas of the Zohar to those of earlier Jewish mystics” (Dan 204). After a thorough analysis of the Zohar, he determined that the Hebrew language used in the Zohar was consistent with “the spirit of medieval Hebrew, specifically the Hebrew of the thirteenth century” (Scholem 163). Scholem concluded that Rabbi Moses was, in fact, the sole author of the Zohar. In the current debate of Zohar’s authorship, there is consensus among the scholarly community in accepting Scholem’s conclusion.

While Wolfson acknowledges Scholem’s attempts, he maintains that “despite the scholarly consensus about this forgery, no one to date has adequately explained its authorship” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 375). However, he further acknowledges that “to date, no critical scholar has shown conclusively that de León was not one of the authors of the Zohar” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 375). Wolfson and Tishby have argued that evidence suggests that the Zohar or at least sections of it only begin to surface in the latter half of the thirteenth century. However, some insist that this is because the ancient book was hidden away and resurfaced during the thirteenth century. Whatever the truth may be, one thing is clear: at the end of the thirteenth century Rabbi Moses had access to sections of what would come to be known as the Zohar.

Rabbi Moses’s career can be divided into three distinct periods: philosophy, linguistic mysticism, and theosophy. Scholem suggests that between 1275 and 1280, before developing his theosophical writings, Rabbi Moses composed “the Midrash ha-Ne’elam, the earliest parts of Zoharic literature, in Guadalajara” (Wolfson, Pomegranate 6). From 1280 until 1286,

Scholem suggested that Rabbi Moses composed, in a “pseudo-Aramaic, the various parts of the Zohar that are unified by style, language, and a common theosophic conception of God” (Pomegranate 6). And finally, Scholem believes that after 1286, Rabbi Moses composed several Hebrew theosophic writings under his own name.

The works of Rabbi Moses, which we know by name, are the Shushan ‘Edut composed in 1286. The Sefer ha-Rimmon followed in 1287, Sefer ha-Mishqal or Sefer ha-Nefesh ha-Hakhamah in 1290, Sheqel ha-Qodesh in 1292, Mishkan ha‘Edut and Maskiyyot Kesef in 1293. In Scholem’s view, Rabbi Moses’s creative literary career came to a halt in 1293, and from this time until his death in 1305, he dedicated his time and energy to making copies of the Zohar (Pomegranate 7) Following Scholem’s chronology, it becomes conceivable that the sequence of compositions may be summarized in the following order: the writing of the Zohar, the writing of the Hebrew works that complement the Zohar, and the distribution of the Zohar.

An interesting alternative to Scholem’s position is that of Isaiah Tishby. While Tishby accepts Scholem’s claim that “de León was the author of the Zohar, he criticizes Scholem’s chronology” (Wolfson, The Book of the Pomegranate 8). The following are the main objections raised by Tishby (qtd. in Wolfson, Pomegranate 7):

1. Most of the Zoharic passages in Rabbi Moses’s Hebrew theosophic writings are presented as the author’s creation rather than citations from an ancient source.

2. Generally speaking, the Zoharic passages cited are sentences or small fragments of larger passages that are to be found in the Zohar itself.

3. The cited Zoharic passages are often not epitomized as they appear in the Zohar but consist of significant variations.

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

Rhonda Reliford

4. The Zoharic passages are sometimes attributed to “the commentators,” an expression inappropriate for the Talmudic period.

5. In several places, Rabbi Moses expresses a view that is at odds with that established in the Zohar.

Tishby points out that scholars have found that in early Kabbalistic literature, there are no quotations from or references to the Zohar, which would lead one to believe that the material had not yet been written. The earliest citations appear at the end of the thirteenth century in 1281, in the Sefer Meshal ha-Kadmoni by Rabbi Isaac ibn Avi Sahulah. Here scholars discovered “two passages that are found in their present form in a manuscript of the Zohar” (Tishby 20).

In his three-volume anthology of text, The Wisdom of the Zohar, Isaiah Tishby provides extensive examples of references, questions, and quotations that align perfectly with the wording found in the Zohar. In addition, Tishby notes that while “the renowned kabbalist, Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla did not directly quote the Zohar, his work from the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century indicates a heavy influence of the Zohar” (Tishby 20). Tishby points out that all of the authors from his examples lived in Spain and were contemporaries of Rabbi Moses. It is reasonable to conclude that he likely had personal connections with each of them. Tishby notes that there is no actual reference to the book being called the Zohar in the referenced sources. Tishby suggests that the Zohar was not a known source, nor entirely put together during the thirteenth century and even during the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, which he says can be concluded from the following quote:

And I, Judah, the son of the pious and perfect sage, Rabbi Jacob Hayyat, peace be upon him, tasted a little honey when I was in Spain, and my eyes were enlightened. And I

determined to seek out and search for wisdom, and I went from strength to strength in order to collect whatever could be found of the aforementioned book, and I gathered a little here and a little there until I had most of what there was. And I believe with complete certainty that this was a reward for all the hardships that I suffered during the expulsion from Spain. (21)

Tishby concludes that Rabbi Moses was working on his Hebrew writings as he was simultaneously writing pseudepigraphic Zoharic passages, which he then inserted into his texts in the name of “the commentators,” “the midrash,” or “the ancients” (24). Rabbi Moses’s Hebrew writings indicate that he “extensively used the Zohar, often quoting from it in a fictitious manner or by simply employing its terminology and symbolism” (Tishby 25). Wolfson supports Tishby’s theory that Rabbi Moses had “the bulk of the Zohar before him when composing his other theosophic writings” and believes that “he was intent on popularizing the mystical system contained therein” (Wolfson, Pomegranate 7).

Wolfson compared Rabbi Moses’s theosophic works to the Commentary on Aleynu in accordance with standard sefirotic symbolism. He found a “similarity in technical terms and expressions, identical use of biblical verses to derive a certain theosophical significance and parallel ideas and motifs” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 386). Wolfson concludes that Rabbi Moses’s obvious Zoharic parallels provide further evidence that, as either an “author or editor,” at some point, he “wove his works” into the “Zohar passages,” “themes,” and “exegetical comments,” sometimes in entirely different contexts (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 386).

In conclusion, while it remains unclear whether Rabbi Moses was an author or editor of the Zoharic works, the evidence from Tishby indicates that the first of the Zoharic works were developed in the latter half of the thirteenth century. If the

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

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work had existed in the second century, scholars would have been able to find some connection in other sources. However, since the earliest use of citation for the Zohar was not until the end of the thirteenth century, I am of the opinion that Rabbi Moses plays a significant role in developing the content that came to be known as the Zohar. I agree with Scholem that Rabbi Moses is the author of the Zohar; however, I also agree with Tishby regarding the chronology of the works. As it relates to the sefirotic works, which is explored more below, Wolfson’s comparison of Rabbi Moses’s Sefer ha-Rimmon to Hai Gaon’s Letter and Commentary on Aleynu, it is evident that Rabbi Moses’s employment of the sefirotic system and the divine masculine and feminine union is unique to him as an author and the Zoharic works appear to be heavily influenced by the concepts of Rabbi Moses’s sefirotic system.

The Ten Divine Emanations in Kabbalah

The Zohar follows the ancient Talmudic concept of the world governed by two divine attributes, Mercy, and Justice. It is centered on the contemplation of the ten divine emanations known as the sefirot. 1 In Sefer ha-Rimmon, one passage states that “all (the emanations) are alluded to in the mystery of Wisdom and are joined (to it) with a firm bond” (Wolfson, Pomegranate 227). The sefirot comprise the divine masculine and feminine union that balances the cosmos. The ten emanations of the sefirotic system can be understood as aspects or manifestations of the divine personality and their function in the divine world and on earth.

1 Please see the sefirotic diagram in fig. 1 below for visual reference.

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

Figure 1: The Ten Emanations of the Sefirotic System. This diagram is an original production by Rhonda Reliford.

There are three pillars in the sefirotic system, the masculine is represented on the right and the feminine on the left, with the balanced energies in the middle pillar. The crown of this union, Keter, is considered the ultimate reality of the infinite God. We find the Keter is also referred to as Ein Sof, meaning nothingness, because the Godhead is inaccessible to human thoughts and understanding. It is within the Godhead that Ein Sof experiences and responds to humankind. Ein Sof is rarely mentioned in the Zohar; instead, the focus is on the manifestation of the nine sefirot that emanate from the Godhead.

Rhonda Reliford

“First, the primordial point of Hokhmah (Wisdom) shines forth” (Matt 34). While this is considered the second sefirot, it is actually considered the beginning because Keter, the Ein Sof, is eternal; therefore, Keter has no beginning. Thus, wisdom is the first emanation of the divine masculine. The point of Keter is the beginning of all things in the scheme of our cosmos. On the upper left, we find Binah, the first of the divine feminine, which is understanding. The Zohar describes Binah as “the place which is called life and from which life emerges” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 386). And in Rabbi Moses’s theosophical works, he often refers to Binah as “the vow and the place out of which the life-force emanates” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 386).

Binah is the divine mother; this is the point of the divine womb. Rabbi Moses says in Sefer ha Rimmon, “the vow (Binah) is above every place and from there is the source of life” (Wolfson, Pomegranate 222). She receives the seed from Hokhmah and “conceives the lower seven sefirot” (Matt 34). The divine Binah first gives birth to Hesed and Din. Hesed (Love), also called Gedullah (Greatness), is on the right divine masculine pillar of energy. And Din (Judgement), called Gevurah (Power), is on the left divine feminine pillar of energy. “They are God’s right and left arms, two sides of divine personality: free-flowing love and strict judgment, grace, and limitation” (Matt 34). Both Hesed and Din, Love and Judgement, are necessary for the world to function.

In the balance of Hesed and Din, we find the conception of Tif’eret (Beauty). Tif’eret is the trunk of the sefirotic body and is also considered the Blessed Holy One, which is a common rabbinic name for God. The Tif’eret is also called Rahamim (Compassion), which is God’s emanated compassion for the world. Tif’eret remains balanced as long as he receives an equal and healthy influx of Hesed and Din, Love and Judgement. However, “if Judgement is not softened by Love, Din lashes out and threatens to destroy life. This is the origin of evil called Sitra Abra, the other side” (Matt 35-36).

The presence of evil or demonic forces is birthed in the unbalanced divine cosmological system. To understand this dynamic better, one must understand the significant role of Tif’eret within the cosmos and humanity, which is revealed in Shekhinah, the tenth and final divine emanation.

Following the birth of Tif’eret, Binah next gives birth to Nezah (Endurance), the right side of the divine masculine pillar of energy, and Hod (Majesty), the left side of the divine feminine pillar of energy. These are considered the right and left leg of the sefirotic body and are the source of prophecy. The ninth emanation and middle pillar that balances the sefirot is Yesod (Foundation), representing the phallus, the procreative life force of the universe. Yesod is masculine and is referred to as Zaddiq (Righteous One). According to the Zohar, this can be seen when Proverbs 10:25 is applied to him, saying, “The righteous one is the foundation of the world.” The Zohar continues to say that “Yesod is the axis Mundi, the cosmic pillar. The light and power of the preceding sefirot are channeled through Him to the last sefirah, Malkhut” (Matt 36).

Malkhut is known as Shekhinah, the feminine divine of the sefirot. She is an independent being that “reflects all nine of the sefirot just as the moon, which has no light of its own, reflects the rays of the sun” (Dan 211). “In at least one passage in his Shushan Edut, Rabbi Moses equates the term אור הבהיר (resplendent light) with the light of the sun, in that context a symbol for Tif’eret, which illuminates the moon, i.e., Shekhinah” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 387). Shekhinah is both nothing and everything, depicted as mother, daughter, and lover; she is Tif’eret’s presence on earth. The Zohar emphasizes the divine union, which encompasses the romantic and sexual relationship between Tif’eret and Shekinah.

The union between Tif’eret and Shekhinah births the human soul. Shekhinah is called “the totality of all individuations” (qtd. in Matt 34). The Zohar often associates the divine energy with the idea of cosmic consciousness. Ein Sof is the infinite

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

Rhonda Reliford

Godhead, the universal, unknowable consciousness of all creation. All consciousness below Ein Sof emanates from the Godhead, including Shekhinah. She is the opposite end of the Godhead, the closest divine consciousness to the created world and human beings. The human soul or consciousness birthed from Shekhinah makes her the divine mother of all creation. I believe Rabbi Moses’s depiction of Shekhinah as the mother of all creation is the strength of the Zohar. It allows the human mind a glimpse into a theory of creation that suggests that human consciousness extends beyond the physical manifestations of this world. Unfortunately, he also employs the concept of division among humanity in Mishkan ha-Edut, which parallels sections of the Zohar when he alludes to the ontological difference between Israel and the nations. As an example, from Mishkan ha-Edut:

According to their secret and classification, all the families of the earth are divided below. Israel is the unique nation among them, existing in (a state of) holiness and in the secret of the substance of the Holy One, blessed be he (i.e., the sefirot), which is extended to them in the secret of their holy form given to them from the river that goes forth incessantly (Yesod). As there is a separation of the branches and leaves to which are attached the foxes so that the souls of the nations come forth from the place which is separate from that place which is the secret of holiness. (qtd. in Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 392-93)

The Problem of Polarities in the Zohar

The most problematic aspect in the Zohar begins to unravel in the dynamic relationship between humanity and our impact on the union between Tif’eret and Malkhut. In the themes of the Zohar, it quickly becomes evident that the cosmic balance and essentially God, the Divine Consciousness, is dependent on humankind. “The union of the divine couple is effected by

de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

righteous actions and destroyed by sin” (Matt 24). Tif’eret and Malkhut find themselves trapped in a continuous clash between glorious unification, followed by hopeless separation. The balance of Hesed (Love) and Din (Judgment) in Tif’eret (the Blessed Holy One) determines the fate of creation at every moment. When humans sin and invoke the need for divine judgment and punishment, it causes the entirety of the divine world to shift from Mercy to Justice, resulting in a separation of the divine male and female. Simultaneously, acts of sin and injustice strengthen the demonic energy in the lower regions of the cosmos, resulting in dire consequences. “When the powerful serpent up above is aroused by the sins of the world, it joins with the feminine Shekhinah and injects venom into Her. The Male Tif’eret separates from Her because She has been defiled” (Matt 36). The demonic sexual encounter results in souls being released from her that “are different than those issued when the sun, Zeir Anpin, was united with the moon, the Nukva” (Yohai, De León, and Berg 849).

From the position of Rabbi Moses, we find he associates the demonic souls created in this imbalance with the sinful nations. The demonic forces are “compared to the branches of the uncircumcised tree” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 392). The Zohar implies this further when it says, “The time of pruning has come: the time to uproot the dominion of the princes of the nations so that they will not rule over Israel when the Tabernacle is established (Yohai, De León and Berg 3:4b). And in the Commentary on Aleynu, “the nations are also compared to the branches of the tree whereas Israel is the trunk of the tree or its fruit” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 388). The Zohar and Rabbi Moses’s other writings seem to suggest that the first humans were Isrealites and the following generation of humans were the souls of the nations birthed in a cosmic imbalance.

According to the sages of the Talmud, Shekhinah was present from the beginning in the Garden of Eden. We understand from the Zohar this is where Tif’eret and Shekhinah birthed

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souls in their image. In the Commentary on Aleynu, “the souls of the nations derive from the realm of impure forces” in contrast, “the souls of Israel derive from the Tree of Life, which in the Zohar and Rabbi Moses’ Hebrew writings corresponds to either the sixth gradation, Tif’eret or to the ninth, Yesod” (Wolfson, Hai Gaon’s Letter 389). In Hebrew, the word Adam אדם means humankind and the word Eve חַוָּה means to breathe, to live, or to give life. Therefore, when God created Adam and Eve, it was not one man and woman alone, but rather the first generation of humankind birthed in the image of Tif’eret and Shekhinah. This is seen in Genesis 5:2 where it is written, “Male and Female he created them, and he blessed them and named them ‘Humankind’ when they were created” (qtd. in Coogan 18).

Historically, scholars have established that the first reference to the Israelite people dates back to the time of Merneptah 1213-1203 B.C.E (Mazar 234). Therefore, it is only logical in interpreting this text to deduce that these first humans did not identify as Israelites; they were just human—humans whose consciousness was birthed from Tif’eret and Shekhinah and perhaps derived from the Tree of Life. And the souls that would come after this generation of people would also emerge from Shekhinah, the divine feminine, the mother of all human consciousness. Therefore, I believe the presence of division among nations in the Zohar is birthed in human ignorance, holds no merit, and should not be incorporated with the concept of divine consciousness. I believe the concept of divine consciousness should embody the universal inclusion of all conscious beings, not division.

From, a logical deduction of the text, the first souls of the first generation of humans would have been birthed in perfect harmony. According to tradition, with the first and slightest act of sin, humankind disrupted the balance, creating separation and strengthening the demonic energies, which resulted in Shekhinah birthing new souls or human consciousness, whose cosmological genetics were intertwined with traces of the divine

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

and the demonic, a new kind of soul which was capable of the greatest good and the greatest evil. It is written, “The man has now become like one of us knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:22 qtd. in Coogan). With the eschatological interplay between human nature and the disruption of the divine balance in the cosmological structure, Rabbi Moses offers an additional theory for the problem of evil within our world.

The Garden of Eden became the first scene of exile, and Adam, the first generation of humans, was the first to be exiled in divine punishment. The second generation of human consciousness was birthed with a genetic predisposition toward divine demonic duality, which I argue is evident in the story of Cain and Abel. Biblical tradition shows God exercising extreme judgment on the future generations of humankind, indicating the imbalance of the divine system. The severe judgment and harsh punishment continue throughout ten generations from Adam to Noah, becoming more extreme, finally resulting in the intended extinction of all living things in the allegorical tale of the great flood.

Restoring the Balance

According to the Zohar, human beings are responsible for reuniting the divine couple and rebalancing the sefirot. The supreme aim of the divine masculine and feminine energies is to overcome separation and achieve complete unity. Repairing the damage “depends on humanity’s participation in the creative process” (Schmidt 108). Considering the traditional view of God’s wrath, one could reason that God was in search of a generation of people to whom he could entrust the responsibility of restoring the balance, and it could be further concluded that the generations which followed the first generation of souls were incapable of participating in the creative process to restore balance. However, in God’s search of human beings worthy of reuniting Tif’eret with Shekhinah, He found a nation of souls to

whom He entrusted this creative process. Rabbi El’azar says: Israel is the heart of the whole world. Israel lives among the other nations as the heart among the limbs of the body. Just as the limbs cannot exist even for a moment without the heart, so all the nations cannot exist without Israel. The heart is tender and weak, yet it is the life of all the limbs. Only the heart perceives pain, trouble, and grief, for it contains life and intelligence. The other limbs are not close to the King; They have no life, they perceive nothing. (Matt 16)

God extends a pledge to Israel in the Zohar, saying, “I will place My Mishkan in your midst” (Matt 154). The word Mishkan in Hebrew is written משכן meaning the dwelling place of the Creator. He says, “My Mishkan is My Shekhinah” (Matt 154). Therefore, Shekhinah is God’s dwelling place. According to the theme of the Zohar, Shekhinah would essentially be the soulmate, twin soul, and the other half of Tif’eret. Without Her, He is incomplete, off-balance, and the world is thrown into chaos. And yet God has entrusted Shekhinah to Israel, saying, “My Mishkan is My Mashkon” (Matt 154). Mashkon in Hebrew is written משקון, with a slight change in spelling, producing a cholam (an o sound), the resulting word, mashkon משקון, means something that is given as a guarantee. According to the Zohar, God loves humankind so much that He gives His most precious possession, Shekhinah, as His pledge to the Israelite people, with whom He has also entrusted the secrets of the sefirot. However, God’s pledge does not come without warning; if Israel breaks His covenant through sin, He will set His face against them.

Conclusion

Shekinah symbolizes the people’s intimate connection with God. “Shekinah has often been described as the Keneset Yisra’el, the mystical Community of Israel. She prevents the masculine aspect of God from punishing Her children” (Matt

36). The souls from Shekinah are emanations of pure consciousness derived from the Godhead. Created in the image of God, our conscious experience is infinite, whereas our human experience is finite. We could reason that to be driven by desire is human nature, yet we cannot ignore the divine/demonic duality of consciousness. One could argue that every soul from the second generation forward would have been birthed in separation from Tif’eret.

It is through this dynamic that free will takes plight. When consciousness is attached to the physical form, one must choose between good and evil, the dual aspects of its fundamental nature. Therefore, it is no surprise that the covenant was broken by Israel, resulting in God turning from them as they were cast into exile, and as a result, Shekinah follows “Israel into exile” where she “hovers over Israel like a mother over her children” (Heschel 172). While Heschel describes Shekinah following her children into exile, God’s pledge to Israel and Shekinah’s love for her creation essentially acts as an exile for Shekinah, by God turning from Israel and sending them away, she has no choice but to follow to stay close and keep them safe. “In kabbalistic thinking, the exile of the Shekhinah becomes the metaphor for understanding all forms of disharmony that affect human beings” (Novick 80).

The Talmud records a teaching from the real Shim’on ben Yohai: “Wherever Israel went in exile, Shekhinah (God’s presence) was with them” (qtd. in Novick 17). Rabbi Moses takes this concept of Shekhinah in exile and offers a renewed sense of hope for the Israelite people and their purpose as God’s chosen people. While Israel’s steadfast determination and dedication to God appears to be humanity’s saving grace, we must be mindful that the overall divine cosmological goal is to bring that which is above and below into perfect harmony. I cannot see how this could ever be possible considering the very nature of the souls released from Shekinah while apart from Tif’eret. Humanity severely lacks compassion, altruism, patience, forgive-

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

Rhonda Reliford

ness, charity, wisdom, and harmony, compared to the breeding ground for moral corruption, lying, cheating, hate, greed, envy, pride, indifference, and melancholy. According to Rabbi Moses, “The human being was created in the image of God so that he would strive through the way of proper knowledge to straighten the paths of his soul, for without the true knowledge the soul is lacking” (Fishbane 10).

When separated from the divine consciousness, human consciousness, in the physical state, is ignorant of the nature of divine reality and unable to comprehend the greatness of Keter. The Zohar challenges “the normal workings of consciousness,” provoking you to “examine your assumptions about traditions, God, and the self” (Matt 38). If we are created in God’s image, our creation goes beyond the physical reality, penetrating to the depths of our souls, we are part human and part divine; therefore, the key is to fight against the desires of the flesh and to enter intentionally and purposefully into the presence of the divine. In Judaism, one such practice would be Kavanah קבאנה, the Hebrew word for direction, intention, or purpose. Kavanah is a prayer for individual advancement “on the sefirotic ladder towards devekut, the state of closest proximity to God” (Schmidt 105).

While contemplation on the divine through Kavanah appears to be the answer for mending the divine union, the Zohar quickly stops its readers dead in their tracks; it places great significance on the supreme religious value of devekut in the center of its ethical system while also making it clear that such a path is reserved for those individuals who are initiated into the secrets of the sefirot, namely chosen kabbalist and mystics. However, in the modern debate, Scholem asserts, “Devekut is a starting point and not the end and is possible for everybody because God is everywhere” (qtd. in Schmidt 108). Scholem corrects Rabbi Moses’s vital flaw by reassuring humanity that “God is all in all and there is nothing but him” (Scholem 341).

de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

The Zohar says that the Torah comes from God, her words and letters are permeated with God, and the study of the Torah springs forth revelation. It is through such revelation that the awakening of humanity ignites. Joseph Gikatilla defined devekut as “the process by which man binds his soul to God by way of intellectual thought” (Hundert 290). In Judaism, the “Jewish soul first encounters the Divine through the study of Torah and Talmud. The traditional Jew knows God intellectually before he holds him emotionally” (Schmidt 105). As long as humanity remains ignorant of the divine Being, they will continue to strive in vain for spiritual growth and the evolution of human consciousness. By setting the mind on the emanations of God through sefirot, man can transform and elevate the human mind to its highest potential and state of being. This must be achieved by meditating on the emanations of the sefirot from the bottom up.

Gikatilla suggests that humankind can cleave to Shekinah. “If one arrives at Synagogue, Shekinah joins herself to him. Every day lived in accordance with Torah is woven into the souls” (Matt 24). When human beings observe the commandments of the Torah, Shekinah walks with them and never departs. Cleaving to God is an intimate and intentional act that begins to heal the cosmological split. “There is a task, a law, and a way: the task is redemption, the law, to do justice, to love mercy, and the way is the secret of being human and holy” (Heschel, I Asked For Wonder 108). Through embracing this knowledge, Israel and the entirety of humanity may derive strength and hope from the Torah, which provides them with a noble way of life that brings them closer to the presence of God. “The wife is the essence of the house, and when the house is corrected, the masculine and feminine are also corrected, and then the masculine comes to the Nukva, and they join together” (Laitman 216).

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Being that Shekinah is the lowest sefirot and the opening to the divine, once the individual is within the divine presence, cleaving to Shekinah, “the sefirot are no longer an abstract theological system; they become a map of consciousness” (Matt 37). Entering into this dimension, a state of awareness that may be compared to a lower level of awakening, allows the individual to meditate on the characteristics of each sefirah as they ascend through levels of being in the divine presence. It is said that this path is not easy, the Divine Will can be harsh, and from the other side, the side of evil, demonic forces “threaten and seduce” (Matt 37). When the meditator reaches Binah, true awakening, she is called Teshuvah, Return. “The ego returns to the womb of being” (Matt 37). Once ascending to this level of the Divine sefirot, it is said that this state of experience cannot be known consciously, only absorbed. The individual is nourished from the sphere of Hokhmah, wisdom, and “beyond Hokhmah is the Nothingness of Keter, the Annihilation of thought” (Matt 37). In this ultimate sefirah, human consciousness expands and dissolves into infinity.

Works Cited

Coogan, Michael D. “The New Oxford Annotated Bible.” Genesis. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Dan, Joseph. Gershom Scholem and the Mystical Dimension of Jewish History. NYU Press, 1987.

Fishbane, Eitan P. “Mystical Contemplation and the Limits of the Mind: The Case of Sheqel Ha-Qodesh.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 93.1/2 (2002): 1-27. 14 September 2021. <https://doi.org/10.2307/1455483>.

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. I Asked For Wonder. The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2021.

—. Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1996.

Hundert, Gershon David. “Devekut, or communion with God.” Hundert, Gershon David. Essential Papers on Hasidism: Orgins to Present. New York Press, 1991. 275-98.

Laitman, Michel. Abriendo el Zohar . Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2015.

Matt, Daniel Chanan. Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. Paulist Press, 1983.

Mazar, Amihai. Archaeology of the Land of the BIble 10,000586 B.C.E. Yale University Press, 1990.

Novick, Lèah. On the Wings of Shekhinah. Theosophical Publishing House, 2008.

Schmidt, Gilya G. “Cleaving to God through the Ages: An Historical Analysis of the Jewish Concept of Devekut.” Mystics Quarterly 21.4 (1995): 103-20. 14 September 2021. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/20717258>.

Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends In Jewish Mysticism. Schocken Books Inc, 1946.

Moses de León’s Contemplation on the Divine Feminine Presence in the Zohar

Tishby, Isaiah. The Wisdom Of The Zohar An Anthology of Texts. The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1949.

Wolfson, Elliot R. “Hai Gaon’s Letter and Commentary on ‘Aleynu’: Further Evidence of Moses de León’s Pseudepigraphic Activity.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1991): 365-409. 05 September 2021. <https://www. jstor.org/stable/1455325>.

—. The Book of the Pomegranate. Brown Judaic Studies, 2020.

Yohai, Shimon Bar, Moses De León and Michael Berg. The Zohar. Vols. 1-23. n.d. pdf. <z-lib.org>.

Exploring Predictors of College Graduation Rates at Colleges and Universities Across Georgia

By Tia Brown

Faculty Mentor: Dr. James LaPlant, Department of Political Science Article Abstract:

The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine the factors affecting graduation rates at colleges and universities across Georgia. The study will look at six factors believed to affect graduation rates at 50 institutions across the state. The six independent variables examined are in-state tuition cost, percentage of female students, percentage of white students, percentage of student body on Pell grants, percentage of applications admitted, and school type. The impact of these independent variables on the dependent variable, graduation rate, are examined through a correlation analysis, box plot, scatterplot, and multivariate analysis. The study finds percentage of student body on Pell grants, percentage of applications admitted, and in-state tuition are highly significant predicators of graduation rates. The remaining independent variables, type of school, percentage of white students, and percentage of female students, were not statistically significant. Private institutions had slightly higher graduation rates than public institutions, but the difference was not statistically significant.

Introduction

College education is highly regarded in many Western societies and more specifically the United States of America. Although the importance of college education is widely accepted, in 2019 only 22.6 percent of U.S. citizens over the age of 25 had a bachelor’s degree (U.S. Census Bureau 2019). Considering the U.S.

is a world power and education is so highly regarded in modern society, this astonishingly low number is cause for concern, and it is imperative for more U.S. citizens to earn college degrees. There are a multitude of reasons for the low number of college-educated American adults, from high school dropout rates to post-secondary education prices. Lack of college education is plaguing the U.S. From university-to-university, state-to-state, and region-to-region the country sees drastically different graduation rates, but this study is focused upon comparing colleges and universities within Georgia. In this study, the goal is to understand what factors predict graduation rates at colleges and universities across the state of Georgia.

In this article, college graduation rates serve as the dependent variable, and six different independent variables will be explored. The six independent variables are racial demographics, gender demographics, percent getting financial aid, admission rates, tuition costs, and institution type, which will be explained in further detail in the data and methods section. Researchers have analyzed college graduation rates for decades. It is no surprise within the research community that socioeconomic factors are often attributed to or correlated with college graduation rates. Because of this, many of the independent variables in this study, at least in part, are related to socioeconomic factors. The purpose of this quantitative study is to discover statistically significant relationships between these independent variables and the dependent variable. In the findings section, the statistical significance of each independent variable is compared to the dependent variable, and the independent variables, when compared to each other, will be discussed through a correlation analysis and regression analysis. In addition, statistically significant variables will be further examined using scatterplots and box plots.

Literature review

Given that education is so highly valued in Western societies, and more specifically the United States, college graduation rates and retention rates have been explored by social scientists for decades. Throughout many studies and pieces of literature, race is a recurring predictor that researchers explore. Of the literature reviewed, there seems to be a consensus of race affecting graduation rates. Creighton (2007) shares similar sentiments to much of the research community in his finding that minority students tend to have higher dropout rates, but this fact cannot solely be attributed to race. In America, being a minority student comes with a plethora of factors besides race. Factors such as economic disadvantages to lack of representation and available mentors could be contributing to lower graduation rates in minority students. Along with focusing on minority versus white student graduation rates, there has been insightful research done on specific races that are categorized as minorities in the United States. Hernandez (2000, pp. 579-581) researched factors leading to Latino students having lower graduation rates than their white counterparts, and he finds that the inhibiting factor goes far beyond race. He attributes these lower graduation rates of Latino students to factors in the campus’ communities, such as faculty demographics. Hernandez (2000) and Creighton (2004) are among many researchers that circle to the idea of “complexity” when discussing race as a factor. Although researchers may define “complexity” or the factors leading to said complexity differently, it is clear that other factors must be explored when examining predictors of college graduation rates, which leads to the next issue explored in this study, gender.

In trying to explain factors leading to college dropout rates, researchers frequently explore university gender demographics as an influence affecting college dropout rates. Scott (2006) is one of many researchers who has theorized that a university’s gender demographics are an indicative factor of its

graduation rate. His research is unique and helpful to this study because it examines public and private institutions separately. In his study, Scott (2006, 266-267) finds that universities’ “percent female students” is a highly significant factor in graduation rates in both public and private universities, but gender demographic was not the most significant in closing that gap of public and private institution graduation rates. Alternatively, Crisp, Doran, and Reyes (2018, 148) argue that while the percentage of female students is a factor for graduation rates, this statistic should be further broken down to look at factors such as finances and social characteristics to explain dropout rates. The discrepancies in the community over what factors best predict college graduation rates are prevalent, but there seems to be a consensus that a university’s gender demographics contribute to graduation rates; the lack of consensus is whether gender is the most accurate predictor or whether social disadvantages that may come along with gender are the best predictors.

Ganem and Manasse (2011) conducted one of many studies that looks at college graduation rates through social or economic variables rather than biological or demographic variables. They explore factors such as entrance requirements, high school grade point average, and most notably, students on institutional or need-based aid. Ganem and Manasse (2011, 6-7) find that whether a student receives financial aid is a significant factor in graduation rates in both public and private institutions, but Ganem and Manasse’s study can be most helpful to this study because it finds that public and private institutions have seemingly different predictors of graduation rates. Perry (2015) studies the significance of financial aid on graduation rates in a slightly different manner; he compares graduation rates of students based solely on if and what type of financial aid they receive. The study finds that students on Pell grants or other need-based aids had the lowest graduation rate among all students (Perry 2015, 68-69). Perry’s finding greatly shaped this study’s hypotheses regarding students on Pell grants and graduation rates.

Of this study’s independent factors, literature on admission requirements affecting graduation rates seems to be the sparsest. However, Goenner (2004, 13) finds that college admissions have a positive effect on graduation rates. In his study, he views stricter admissions to some colleges as a benefit because it helps students find the school where they are most likely to succeed (Goenner, 2004, 13). The importance or usefulness of standardized testing has been debated for years, but the lack of literature on the relationship between admission requirements and college graduation rates gives great reason for this study to dive into and attempt to explain the relationship.

It is to no surprise that when discussing graduation rates, the university’s tuition cost is often deemed a factor. There has been an abundance of literature explaining the relationship between university tuition prices and graduation rates. Zhang (2009, 723-724) is one of many researchers who studies the relationship, and he finds that, “schools with higher tuition prices normally have higher graduation rates.” Lang et al. (2009, 2628) explore how tuition prices affect graduation rates, and they find that tuition itself does not have a big effect on graduation rates. Like research pertaining to all the independent variables, Lang et al. (2009, 28) circle back to the complexity of graduation rates and suggest that tuition is not necessarily the factor raising graduation rates but that the ability to pay for student support services is. Regarding the relationship between tuition prices and graduation rates, the inconsistency in findings signals a need for more research to be done on the relationship between the two.

Many of the factors discussed in literature on college graduation rates attribute at least one kind of economic factor to a school’s graduation rate. Because public and private schools generally have student bodies composed of different socioeconomic backgrounds, it is important to explore school type, public or private, as an independent variable when explaining college graduation rates. Letkiewicz et al. (2014, 367) find school

type to be a significant factor in increasing college graduation rates. Although they provide little explanation or theory on why school type so strongly affects graduation rate, this study serves as a good basis for future studies to be able to explore the relationship. Dwyer, McCloud, and Hodson (2012, 1149) explain the importance of studying private and public universities separately because the factors affecting college graduation rates are different between the two. This large difference found by researchers makes it imperative to look at the graduation rates of public and private universities to fully grasp factors of graduation rates and to what influence they hold. Because college graduation rates have been a prevalent research topic for many decades, there are many useful literatures on factors affecting graduation rates that are not measured in this study. One of the most rememberable factors is mother’s education (Ishitani and DesJardins, 2002, 187). As aforementioned, factors leading to college dropout rates are a complex thing to explore and examine, and a mother’s education is one of those complicating factors that can lead to changes in 1) the type of school one can afford to attend, 2) whether one receives a Pell grant, or 3) the six independent variables explored in this study. On the social front, a mother with less education can place a given student at risk of having a lower chance of graduating within six years. Another important factor mentioned in different literatures but not explored in this article is faculty diversity. Ogundu (2020, 116-117) finds that faculty diversity has a significant effect on degree completion in public two-year universities, which could lead to an increase in role models, a factor aforementioned by another author. The literature on college graduation rates is robust, and there are many studies that explore various independent variables. Based on the literature reviewed, this study will focus on race, percent female students, percent of students on Pell grants, admission requirements, tuition, and institution type as the independent variables explaining college dropout rates.

Data and methods

In researching college dropout rates at Georgia colleges and universities, the unit of analysis will be colleges and universities in the state of Georgia, and the data collected comes from the 2014 entering class. There are numerous ways to define successful college graduation rates, but for the purpose of this study, a college graduation rate will be defined as the percentage of the incoming cohort that completes their degree within six years of beginning college. As aforementioned, there are six independent variables, and it is imperative to define these terms. The race demographic will be measured by the percent of the university’s student body that is white. Similar to race, gender demographics will be measured by the percent of the university’s student body that is female. Financial aid will be researched through the variable: percent on Pell grants, and it denotes the percentage of undergraduate students on Pell grants. It is important to note that Pell grants are need-based grants. The next variable, in-state tuition cost, is the university’s in-state tuition and fees price before any scholarships or grants are awarded. Institution type signifies whether the university is a private or public university. The statistics used in the study come from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reported by the National Center for Education Statistics. The variables, descriptive characteristics, and their source are listed in Table 1.

The dependent variable is the first row of table one, and the data shows a huge range in college graduation rates across the state, with the Georgia Institute for Technology having the highest graduation rate at 91 percent and Beulah Heights University with the lowest graduation rate at 7 percent. The mean graduation rate across the state is 42.2 percent, meaning that for universities and colleges in Georgia, there is an average of 42.2 percent of a freshman cohort who will confer their degree within six years. With a fairly high standard deviation of 20.938, it is clear that the data is widely dispersed from its mean. The percent of white students also spans a large range in the data set. Similar to the dependent variable, the percent of white student statistics has a high standard deviation and is not clustered close to the mean, which is 42.46 percent. The percent female students sees the largest range of all the data with a 100 percent difference in the minimum and maximum cases. The statistic, however, sees a smaller standard deviation than the previous variables, so

the data falls more closely around its mean of 62.3 percent. The percent of students receiving Pell grants has a mean of 50.08 percent, and the percent of applications admitted has a mean of 71.50 percent. These variables also return to the trend of extremely high standard deviations. The tuition cost of universities in the state has a pretty large range of $46,282. In the dataset, institution type is a nominal level statistic coded with a “dummy variable”. In the data, public institutions are assigned a score of one, and private institutions are assigned a score of two. As a whole, the data set has a large range which leads to interesting findings.

The hypotheses tested in the study are as follows:

H1: As the percentage of white students increases, the graduation rate will increase.

H2: As the percentage of female students increases, the graduation rate will increase.

H3: As the percentage of students on Pell Grants increases, the graduation rate decreases.

H4: As admission rates increase, graduation rates will decrease. H5: As in-state tuition increases, graduation rates will increase. H6: Private Institutions will have higher graduation rates than public universities.

Findings

Based on the findings, percent of white students has a positive correlation with the dependent variable. Although there is a positive relation, with the correlation coefficient being so close to 0 at .131, the findings indicate there is a very weak correlation. In addition, the variable is not statistically significant at the 0.01 nor 0.05 levels. The findings for percent female students follow a similar pattern to the previous variable. The statistic denotes a positive correlation, but it is a very weak correlation. There is also no statistical significance.

The percentages of students receiving Pell grants and college graduation rates have negative correlations. The correlation coefficient for Pell grants shows that this correlation is strong; in fact, it is the strongest correlation found in the study at –.625. The next variable, percent of applications admitted, also reveals a negative correlation. The more applications admitted, the lower the institution’s graduation rate is. Like percentage of students receiving Pell grants, the relationship is negative and highly significant at p<.05 for percentage of applications admitted.

The last variable analyzed in Table 2 is in-state tuition cost. The variable has a Pearson’s r of .547, giving it a positive correlation, and it is also the only variable that has a strong positive correlation. In addition, the variable is highly statistically significant.

Figure 1: Institution Type and Graduation Rates

Figure 1 shows the difference in institution type and graduation rates. The mean graduation rate for public institutions is 39.3 percent, and the mean graduation rate for private institutions is 45.61 percent. Through a difference of means test, it is established that institution type does not have a statistically significant effect on graduation rates. The difference of means test reveals the relationship has a significance of .344, which is

Exploring Predictors of College Graduation Rates

well above the level of statistical significance. The t-score shows the relationship is not statistically significant with the t-score being -1.064. Because of these findings, we can fail to reject the null that private institutions will have higher graduation rates than public institutions.

For the statistically significant variables, regression lines and scatterplots were generated for the percentage of students receiving Pell grants, admission rates, and in-state tuition as each one relates to graduation rates.

Figure 2:

Scatter Plot of Percent of Students Receiving Pell Grants

Figure 2 shows a plotted regression line of graduation rates and percentage of students on Pell grants. The intercept is 74.23, meaning if 0 percent of the student body receives Pell grants, then the graduation rate will be 74.23%. The slope of the plotted regression is -0.64 meaning with every 1 percent increase in students receiving Pell grants the graduation rate will

decrease by 0.64 percent. The relationship between the percentage of students receiving Pell grants and graduation rate is a negative correlation.

Figure 3: Scatter Plot of Percent of Applications Admitted

y=73.88-0.44x

Figure 3 plots a regression line for percent of applications admitted and graduation rates. In this variable, the y-intercept is not notable because a school would not deny 100 percent of the applications. On the flip side, the data points for schools with application acceptance rates at or near 100 are interesting, and the graduation rates of these schools have a wide range. The R2 value is 0.192, which means that this variable explains almost 20% of the variance in graduation rates. The slope of the regression is -0.44, meaning as the percentage of applications admitted increases 1 percent the graduation rate decreases 0.44 percent.

Figure 4: Scatter Plot of In-State Tuition Cost

y = 27.47 + 9.6E-4x

Figure 4 plots a regression line for in-state tuition costs and graduation rates. The variables share a strong positive correlation. Like the former independent variable, the y-intercept of this graph is not noteworthy because a school will not have an in-state tuition cost of $0. One can see from the slope, that as in-state tuition cost increases, the graduation rate also increases. With the variables significant at the p<.01 level being discussed, discussion of a multiple regression analysis is necessary. A multiple regression analysis analyzes the dependent variable with multiple independent variables. The R2 statistic for the regression analysis indicates that the 5 interval independent variables explain 59.3 percent of the variance graduation rates.

Table 2: Regression Analysis

Independent Variable

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standard Error T-Score

Percent of White Students .119 .130 .916

Percent Female Students .117 .192 .606

Percent of Students Receiving Pell Grant -.640 .115 -5.553**

Percent of Applications Admitted -.443 .131 -3.377*

In-State Tuition Cost .001 000 4.525

R2=.593, N=50, p<.01**, p<.05*

In the multiple regression analysis, the percentage of white students and the percentage of female students still fail to be statistically significant based on their t-scores. Interestingly, the variables have similar unstandardized coefficients. The unstandardized coefficients denote that for every percent increase in white students, the graduation rate increases by .119 percent, and for every increase in the percentage of female students, the graduation rate increases by .117 percent.

The percentage of students receiving Pell grants has the largest unstandardized coefficient, and with each percent increase in students receiving Pell grants, the graduation rate drops by .64 percent. The variable also has a significant t-score showing statistical significance at p<.01. Both percent of applications admitted, and in-state tuition cost indicates a statistically significant relationship at p<.05. The variable has an unstandardized coefficient of -.443, meaning as the percentage of applications admitted increases by one percent, the graduation rate will decrease by .443 percent.Based on the findings, this study fails to reject the null hypothesis that as percentage of white students increases, the graduation rate increase.

Additionally, the study fails to reject the null hypothesis that as percentage of female students increases, graduation rates increase. The study also fails to reject the null hypothesis that private institutions will have higher graduation rates than public institutions. At this point, the study rejects the null hypothesis that as the percentage of students on Pell grants increases, the graduation rate will decrease, and the study rejects the null hypothesis that as admission rates increase, the graduation rate will decrease. Finally, the study rejects the null hypothesis that as instate tuition increases, graduation rates will increase.

Conclusion

Based on the findings, the study supports the hypotheses H3, H4, and H5. It is clear that as the percentage of students on Pell grants increases, the graduation rate decreases. This variable is the only variable in the study that remained highly significant, and further research should be done as to why this relationship exists. The study also supports the hypothesis that as admission rates increase, graduation rates decrease. Lastly, the study supports the hypothesis that as in-state tuition increases, graduation rates increase. Although private institutions have slightly higher graduation rates than public institutions, the relationship is not statistically significant, so this study fails to reject the null hypothesis for H6. Further studies should be done exploring the factors causing the difference in graduation rates in public and private institutions because of the complexity referred to in much of the literature. Regarding the remaining hypotheses, the study failed to reject the null hypothesis for H1 and H2. The findings of this study are similar to the findings of similar studies on the topic.

Colleges working to increase accessibility, or those with already high admission rates in general, could implement college readiness classes to raise their graduation rates. The classes could involve skills needed to help students be successful in an academic setting, assuming the colleges have less academically rigorous admission requirements than those with lower admission rates. Of the supported hypotheses, two hypotheses, H3 and H5, are related to economic factors and further studies should analyze college graduation rates in those contexts. Additionally, education and public policy must work to narrow these gaps in college graduation rates. Mandatory college success programs for students on Pell grants could play a key role in increasing graduation rates colleges and universities in Georgia. Since many are first-generation college students, more intensive academic advising and peer mentoring programs might help to improve the graduation rate of students on Pell grants. In conclusion, to raise graduation rates across Georgia, public policy should be focused on helping and matriculating students with socioeconomic struggles.

References

Creighton, Linda M. 2007. “Factors Affecting the Graduation Rates of University Students from Underrepresented Populations.” International electronic journal for leadership in learning 11: 7. Galileo (November 4, 2021).

Crisp, Gloria, Erin Doran, and Nicole A. Salis Reyes. 2018. “Predicting Graduation Rates at 4-Year Broad Access Institutions Using a Bayesian Modeling Approach.” Research in Higher Education 59: 133-155. Galileo (November 4, 2021).

Dwyer, Rachel E., Laura McCloud, and Randy Hodson. 2012. “Debt and Graduation from American Universities.” Social Forces. 1133-1155. Galileo (November 4, 2021).

Ganem, Natasha M., and Michelle Manasse. 2011. “The Relationship Between Scholarships and Student Success: An Art and Design Case Study.” Education Research International Galileo (November 4, 2021).

Goenner, Cullen F., and Sean Michael Snaith. 2004. “Assessing The Effects of Increased Admission Standards.” College and University 80: 29-34.

Hernandez, John C. 2000. “Understanding The Retention of Latino College Students.” Journal of College Student Development 578-582.

Ishitani, Terry T., and Stephen L. DesJardins. 2002.”A Longitudinal Investigation of Dropout from College in the United States.” Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice 4.2: 173-201.

Lang, Daniel, et al. 2009. “Does The Level of Tuition Fees Affect Student Retention and Graduation.” Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education Annual Conference. 26-28.

Letkiewicz, Jodi, et al. 2014. “The path to graduation: Factors predicting on-time graduation rates.” Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice 16.3: 351-371.

Ogundu, Temple Nnanta. 2000. Correlations between faculty and student diversity and student retention rates in twoyear public colleges. Diss. Grand Canyon University. 116-117.

Perry, John L. 2015. “Analysis of Financial Assistance on Graduation Rates and Grade Point Averages.” 68-69.

Scott, Marc, Thomas Bailey, and Greg Kienzl. 2006. “Relative success? Determinants of College Graduation Rates in Public and Private Colleges in the US.” Research in higher education 47.3: 249-279.

U.S. Census Bureau 2019. Educational Attainment in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2019/demo/educational-attainment/cps-detailed-tables.html.

Zhang, Liang. 2009. “Does State Funding Affect Graduation Rates at Public Four-Year Colleges And Universities?” Educational Policy 23.5: 714-731.

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”

By Georgia Wynn Faculty Mentor: Dr. Adam Wood, Department of English

Article Abstract: Gender is a prevalent topic of discussion in current literary and cultural scholarship, and the short story cycle “Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson challenges the constraints society places on gender and sexuality. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to 1) theoretical discussions of gender normativity and fluidity, 2) historical research highlighting gender stereotypes of the time, and 3) sociological examinations, this article explores the impact of traditional gender standards on characters who deviate from predominantly upheld expectations toward gender and sexuality. Many characters living in the patriarchal town of Winesburg, Ohio such as Wing Biddlebaum, Elizabeth Willard, and “Tandy” face backlash due to their unorthodox gender presentations; this study investigates gender expectations and their negative influence on nonconformist characters’ lives while also highlighting these characters’ strengths in their opposition to the binary system of gender.

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy” (Anderson, “Tandy”). In Winesburg, Ohio, many of Sherwood Anderson’s central characters redefine traditional gender norms by resisting conformity. Some male characters are traditionally feminine in their mannerisms, some women hold economic power, and some characters do not want to be confined by gender at all. Despite the unorthodox gender presentations of these characters, the primary setting of the short-story cycle is in a patriarchal town

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”: Resisting and Redefining Gender in Winesburg, Ohio

that reinforces orthodox gender roles, sexual orientations, and gender presentations. The reinforcement of dominant gender standards in Winesburg, Ohio leads characters with unorthodox gender presentations to societal face backlash, and their opposition serves as a form of self-empowerment. Deconstructing strict ideas of gender in our society will allow individuals who deviate from the traditional binary system to experience even greater freedom than the characters in Winesburg, Ohio.

Societies desire uniformity in sexuality, which is apparent in Winesburg, Ohio. According to Patrick Hogan, “Sexuality is not spontaneously uniform. Insofar as society desires uniformity in sexuality, it must devise means to create it” (10). Many characters in the town of Winesburg uphold and reinforce traditional expectations of gender and sexuality, creating challenges for characters who do not fit in with dominant standards. In the short stories, characters promoting gender conformity police other characters who defy gender norms in order to maintain uniformity. David Mayer defines gender-policing as “imposing normative gender expressions in terms of behavior or appearance” (Mayer). Individuals who deviate from dominant ideas of gender and sexuality, such as Wing Biddlebaum in “Hands,” Elizabeth and George Willard in “Mother,” and the stranger and Tandy Hard in “Tandy,” face isolation from others. Through their isolation, they demonstrate that the only way to survive as an individual who is unorthodox in their gender presentation is to leave the society restricting them.

In “Hands,” Wing Biddlebaum acts as a gender nonconformist by defying hegemonic masculinity standards. In his youth, he served as a boys’ school teacher, and according to Elizabeth Boyle, the teaching profession became linked to femininity by 1850 (Boyle). The narrator says Wing Biddlebaum “. . . was meant by nature to be a teacher of youth. He was one of those rare, little-understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as a lovable weakness” (Anderson, “Hands” 765). Along with his profession, his mannerisms also reflect more tra-

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”

ditionally feminine characteristics. At one point, Wing Biddlebaum’s voice shifts from a low tone to a shrill, loud voice, and the transition of Biddlebaum’s voice contradicts the dominant expectation that a man’s voice has a low register (Anderson, “Hands” 764). In doing traditionally more feminine things like teaching, having a higher voice, and showing gentle care for students, Biddlebaum redefines gender roles, showing that he can be a man despite having feminine characteristics.

Henry Bradford and other townspeople exile Biddlebaum because of his unorthodox characteristics. He ends up living outside Winesburg, Ohio, where he eventually embraces some of his more feminine qualities. Biddlebaum’s escape also results in his meeting George Willard, with whom he shares his non-conformist ideas; Biddlebaum tells him, “‘You are destroying yourself. . . You have the inclination to be alone and to dream and you are afraid of dreams. You want to be like others in town here. You hear them talk and you try to imitate them’” (Anderson, “Hands” 765). His conversation with George Willard exemplifies his disapproval of the predominantly aggressive masculine town. Biddlebaum’s acceptance of his femininity and his defiance of aggressive masculinity are ways he redefines gender roles. Unfortunately, due to the dominant ideas of gender and sexuality in the town, he does face backlash from townspeople like Henry Bradford. While teaching in Pennsylvania, one of Biddlebaum’s students develops romantic feelings for him. The boy dreams he has sexual encounters with Biddlebaum, and he spreads rumors around town as though they happened. After the rumors spread, the townspeople do not ask Biddlebaum to explain; instead, they question the schoolboys. One boy says that Biddlebaum put his arms around him, and another says that Biddlebaum played with his hair. After the accusations spread, Henry Bradford, a saloon keeper and one of the schoolboy’s fathers, beats and kicks Biddlebaum. Bradford says, “I’ll teach you to put your hands on my boy, you beast” (Anderson, “Hands” 766).

Georgia Wynn

The Pennsylvania townspeople drive Biddlebaum out of town, and that is how he ends up in Winesburg, Ohio. Henry Bradford’s behavior towards Biddlebaum highlights a common trait in Anderson’s male characters: aggressive masculinity. Rick Stevenson explains that in Anderson’s stories, “Many of the men. . . accept this aggressive form of masculinity as the only way to be a man,” leaving characters like Wing Biddlebaum, who deviate from traditional gender roles, to experience negative reactions from the dominating groups (Stevenson 8). In “Hands,” the town’s gender policing and Henry Bradford’s aggression toward Wing Biddlebaum likely cause his perpetual nervousness, along with other psychological damages. Following the Pennsylvania incident, Biddlebaum suffers from an illness, and he also develops a bizarre obsession with his hands (Anderson, “Hands” 768). George Willard says, “There’s something wrong, but I don’t want to know what it is. His hands have something to do with his fear of me and everyone” (Anderson, “Hands” 765). George’s comment highlights the effects of aggressive masculinity and gender policing on Wing Biddlebaum. A study by José Bauermeister concludes that “Gender policing during childhood and adolescence” is “associated with recent substance use behaviors and psychological distress,” which Biddlebaum and many other characters who are unorthodox in their gender presentation and sexuality exhibit symptoms of (Bauermeister). Along with Biddlebaum, Elizabeth and George Willard in “Mother,” and the drunk stranger and little girl in “Tandy,” face isolation and other issues because of other characters’ gender policing and enforcement of conventional gender norms. Despite their hardships, these characters are revolutionary in their defiance of standardized heteronormativity and orthodox gender roles.

In “Mother,” Elizabeth redefines gender roles by defying her town’s gender expectations, but similar to Biddlebaum, she experiences opposition from the characters who reinforce dominant gender standards. In the story, Elizabeth upholds some

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”

traditionally feminine roles like being a wife and mother, but she also demonstrates many traditionally masculine qualities. For instance, she once shocked the town by wearing “men’s clothes and riding a bicycle down Main Street” (Anderson, “Mother” 770). Her defiance of gender norms in her youth led her to have a shaky reputation in Winesburg. The town considered her “stage-struck’” as she dreamt of “. . . joining some company and wandering over the world, seeing always new faces and giving something out of herself to all people” (Anderson, “Mother” 771). Not even the theater companies that stopped at her father’s hotel understood her passion; instead, they laughed and told her that her aspirations were dull (Anderson, “Mother” 771). After facing rejection from the town and the theater company, Elizabeth meets Tom Willard, who she believes understands and sympathizes with her, but he disappoints her, too. Rasha Erjan explains that “Tom…represents misogyny and patriarchy in the story” (Erjan 54). These misogynistic and patriarchal beliefs negatively influence the conventionally defiant George Willard. Elizabeth and Tom, George’s parents, present vastly different responses to their son’s nonconformity. Elizabeth says regarding George, “He is not a dull clod, all words and smartness. Within him there is a secret something that is striving to grow. It is the thing I let be killed in myself” (Anderson, “Mother” 769). Unlike many aggressively masculine men in the story, George Willard does not strive for great success. Instead, he longs to escape the restrictive town. Tom Willard contrasts with Elizabeth. He does not want his son to excessively dream, and he gender polices George. Tom tells George, “‘Will Henderson has spoken to me three times concerning the matter. He says you go along for hours not hearing when you are spoken to and acting like a gawky girl. . . . You’re not a fool and you’re not a woman. You’re Tom Willard’s son and you’ll wake up’” (Anderson, “Mother” 770). George Willard’s behavior is traditionally feminine, so aggressively masculine characters like Will Henderson and Tom Wil-

Georgia Wynn

lard ridicule him. Elizabeth, unlike Tom, supports George. She wants him to do the things she never had the chance to do because of the town’s limitations. When George says to Elizabeth, “I’m going to get out of here,” she wants to “cry out with joy” (Anderson, “Mother” 771-72). His unorthodox behavior, desire for change, and longing for adventure parallel his mother’s childhood dreams. Unlike Elizabeth, George gets the chance to escape his father and the patriarchal town of Winesburg, Ohio.

Tom’s aggressive masculinity leads Elizabeth and George Willard to experience major hardship, resulting in a mutual hope and understanding. The narrator describes Elizabeth as “. . . the defeated wife of the Winesburg hotel keeper,” which highlights her pain and suffering as a result of her marriage (Anderson, “Mother” 770). Her husband fails to show her care in the story, and he gets angry when thinking about her (Anderson, “Mother” 767). According to Rasha Erjan, Tom’s neglect of his wife’s emotions and physical well-being makes her life dark and isolating. She explains that Elizabeth’s isolation creates a detachment between her and George, leading them to have an awkward formal relationship (Erjan 54-55). Despite the awkwardness, Elizabeth greatly cares for her son. The pair exudes power by opposing Tom and Winesburg’s dominant gender norms.

After Tom Willard tells George to wake up and stop acting like a woman, Elizabeth experiences “a definite determination” (Anderson, “Mother” 770). She undergoes a shift in feeling toward Tom. The narrator explains, “Although for years she had hated her husband, her hatred had always before been a quite impersonal thing. He had been merely a part of something else that she hated. Now, and by the few words at the door, he had become the thing personified” (Anderson, “Mother” 770). Tom’s reinforcement of misogyny and patriarchy on George angers Elizabeth because the dominant gender ideals in the town cause her suffering. Elizabeth decides that the only way George can express himself and experience life freely is if she gets rid of Tom. However, Elizabeth does not possess the physical strength

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”

to murder Tom due to his neglect. Tom’s aggressively patriarchal behavior leads Elizabeth to suffer from illness and isolation, similar to the way Biddlebaum suffers from illness and isolation after being driven out of Pennsylvania. Despite the detrimental effects the society has on Elizabeth and George, Elizabeth’s defiance of gender norms and George Willard’s escape reflect hope and empowerment. In comparison to George and Elizabeth Willard, another character in “Tandy” exemplifies this, a drunk man who deviates from traditional gender norms and heteronormativity and who inspires a young girl to defy the patriarchal teachings of Winesburg.

In the story “Tandy,” an unnamed girl faces isolation due to her patriarchal father, but a stranger from out of town encourages her to be strong in her defiance of traditional gender presentations. In the story, a stranger from Cleveland with a drinking problem comes to Winesburg, attempting to rid himself of his drinking. Unfortunately, his efforts prove unsuccessful, and the dull town does not relieve his addiction at all. Despite not curing his alcoholism, his coming to Winesburg, Ohio is successful in another way; he encourages a little girl to be more than what the patriarchal society expects her to be. Upon the stranger’s arrival in the town, he becomes friends with Tom Hard, an agnostic man who does not show his daughter much care. Rasha Erjan explains that the little girl in “Tandy” suffers from her father’s lack of attention, and Tom is another masculine character who does not show love or passion (Erjan 55). The narrator explains, Tom “was so absorbed in destroying the ideas of God . . . that he never saw God manifesting himself in the little child that, half forgotten, lived here and there on the bounty of her dead mother’s relatives” (Anderson, “Tandy”). As a result of her father and the town’s hegemonic ideas, the little girl seems voiceless and remains unnamed until the stranger with the drinking problem has a conversation with her.

Georgia Wynn

One night when the drunk man comes over to Tom Hard’s house, he looks at Tom’s daughter and begins speaking to her. He says that he has a drinking problem because he is a lover with no one to love. He says, “There is a woman coming . . . I have missed her, you see. She did not come in my time. You may be the woman. It would be like fate to let me stand in her presence once, on such an evening as this, when I have destroyed myself with drink and she is as yet only a child” (Anderson, “Tandy”). According to Rasha Erjan, the stranger desires for the little girl to be the woman that he loves, but as a result of the reinforcement of conventional sexuality standards, that relationship cannot be (Erjan 55). Considering what the stranger says about the little girl, he possibly had an experience in Cleveland similar to Biddlebaum’s Pennsylvania incident. The town in Cleveland may have exiled him because of his unorthodox desires. His drinking problem may also be a result of dominant characters’ gender policing and reinforcement of other dominant ideas of sexuality.

Despite the stranger’s desires, he sympathizes with the child, saying that he understands a woman’s struggles (Anderson, “Tandy”). In doing so, he highlights the defeat many women in patriarchal societies experience. He tells her, “Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy” (Anderson, “Tandy”). The stranger shows the alienated girl care and makes her feel understood. He encourages her to be greater than a woman or a man and to adopt a more androgynous gender presentation. The stranger soon leaves after telling the little girl to be “Tandy,” but his impact on her remains far past his departure. After the stranger leaves, Tom Hard calls his daughter by her name, and she sobs. She tells him, “‘I don’t want to be called that . . . I want to be called Tandy—Tandy Hard’” (Anderson, “Tandy”). The stranger’s impact on Tandy Hard is monumental. Her name represents change and the defiance of dominant ideas of sexuality and gender.

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”

The short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio features many characters who defy dominant standards of gender and sexuality. These nontraditional characters often face opposition from the characters reinforcing traditional ideas of sexuality and gender, which leads them to experience isolation among other ailments. Despite the challenges that these unorthodox characters face, their deviation from the dominant ideas of the town reflects strength and power. Characters like Wing Biddlebaum, George and Elizabeth Willard, Tandy Hard, and the stranger from Cleveland are only a few of Sherwood Anderson’s characters who redefine gender roles in Winesburg, Ohio. Their refusals to conform to dominant ideology serve as inspiration to others who live in restrictive societies to be true to themselves.

Works Cited

Anderson, Sherwood. “Hands.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Ninth Shorter Edition, vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 2017, pp. 763-67.

Anderson, Sherwood. “Mother.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Ninth Shorter Edition, vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 2017, pp. 767-72.

Anderson, Sherwood. “Tandy.” The Project Gutenberg EBook of Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life, by Sherwood Anderson, 1 Dec. 2021, https://www. gutenberg.org/cache/epub/416/pg416.html.

Bauermeister, José A, et al. “Gender Policing during Childhood and the Psychological Well-Being of Young Adult Sexual Minority Men in the United States.” American Journal of Men’s Health, SAGE Publications, May 2017, https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5393921/.

Boyle, Elizabeth. “The Feminization of Teaching in America.” MIT Program in Women’s & Gender Studies, 2004, https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/org/w/wgs/prize/ eb04.html.

Erjan, Rasha. “Women and Alienation in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio; a Feminist Reading.” International Journal of English and Literature, Vol. 8, Issue 2, Transtellar Publications, April 2018, pp. 51-56, https:// issuu.com/tjprc/docs/8.ijelapr20188.

Hogan, Patrick Colm. Sexual Identities: A Cognitive Literary Study. Oxford University Press, 2018.

“Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy”

Mayer, David. “How Men Get Penalized for Straying from Masculine Norms.” Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Publishing, 9 Oct. 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/10/ how-men-get-penalized-for-straying-from-masculinenorms.

Stevenson, Rick. “Thoughtful Books and Thoughtful Lives: Androgyny and Gender Dynamics in the Works of Sherwood Anderson.” Undergraduate Honors Theses, W&M ScholarWorks, May 2019, https://scholarworks.wm.edu/ honorstheses/1372.

Call for Research Paper Submissions

Omnino is a peer-reviewed, scholarly research journal for the undergraduate students and academic community of Valdosta State University. Omnino publishes original research from VSU students in all disciplines, bringing student scholarship to a wider academic audience. Undergraduates from every discipline are encouraged to submit their work; papers from upper level courses are suggested.

Submission Guidelines:

In order to submit your work, please email the following items to omnino@valdosta.edu. The email must be sent from your student (@valdosta.edu) email account.

1. An electronic copy of the full paper, in .doc or .rtf format.

2. A 150 – 200 word abstract of the paper.

3. A completed, signed, and scanned “Faculty Checklist” (available online). Alternatively, the checklist may be delivered in print to the Omnino mailbox in West Hall 2109.

In order to submit, you must be an undergraduate student with original research which contributes knowledge and critical argument to your given field. Undergraduates who recently graduated from VSU have up to 1 year from graduation to submit their work. There are no disciplinary restrictions.

Deadline:

All materials must be submitted by January 16th, 2023 for consideration in volume 13. (Submissions received after this date will be considered for the next year’s volume.)

https://www.valdosta.edu/colleges/arts-sciences/english/student-resources/student-publications/omnino/

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