The Lattice 2022-2023

STUDENT WRITING FROM THE MONTCLAIR KIMBERLEY ACADEMY UPPER SCHOOL 2022-2023

Student Editors Ciara Branigan Katie Chung Tyna Davis Sebastian Gonzalez Clay Hudson Deanna Martinez Olga Shandarivska Scarlett Smithen Logan Snyder Iliana Weisberg

Faculty Editors Paige Boncher Liam Campbell Paul Cunningham Kyle Salkin Kerry Verrone Ron Wolfson

Contributing Writers Clay Hudson, ‘23 Logan Snyder, ‘26 Maggie Horn, ’24 Logan Furlonge, ‘23 Kaavya Krishnan, ‘24 Nick Baum, ‘23 Cy Rosenberg, ‘24 Sebastian Young, ‘23 Caitlyn Jeffrey, ‘23 Iliana Weisberg, ‘23 Eunice Fernandez, ‘24 Devin Ramsay, ‘24 Ellis Fertig, ‘24 Stephen Hatfield, ’24 Editors-in-chief: Maggie Horn ’24, Stephen Hatfield ‘24 Junior Editors: Carolina Lucas ’23, Kitty Williams ‘24 Faculty Advisor: Caroline Toman 1

Note from the Editors With a one-of-a-kind commitment to tradition and evolving vibrancy, Montclair Kimberley’s long-standing excellency in the humanities manifests itself best in its literary and historical explorations. In the last few decades, though, cultural revolutions, world crises, and the ongoing social transformations wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic offered the MKA community new avenues to examine notions of identity and society. Students wasted no time immersing themselves in new intellectual environments and demonstrating their dedication to self-discovery through thought-provoking, creative, and skillful pieces as assigned by their teachers. With our 2022-2023 issue, The Lattice exhibits the courage, curiosity, and beauty behind the remarkable writing of our student body. It is our pleasure to present the critical analyses, powerful prose, and literary genius of the 2022-2023 MKA community.

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Table of Contents Beautiful Things Journal………………………………………………………6 Anonymous my mother fed me blackberries……………….………………………..……11 Clay Hudson Animal Farm Chapter IX.V………………………………………………..…25 Logan Snyder Personal Log on Beauty……………………………………………….………32 Maggie Horn ANI: A Dialogue……………………………………………………………..…40 Logan Furlonge Minor Feelings Journal……………………………………………….………48 Kaavya Krishnan Purgatory, Bunker, Sunken Place…………………………………..………58 Logan Furlonge Wright and the Reconciliation of Visions in Bright and the Morning Star………………………………………………………………………….……70 Nick Baum The People Against Industry…………………………………………………76 Cy Rosenberg Alternative Ending to Wuthering Heights – The Return of Isabella Linton……………………………………………………………………………84 Sebastian Young The Truth Behind the Creative Process: A Close Reading of Ted Hughes’ The Thought-Fox……………………………………………….……92 Caitlyn Jeffrey The Gravity of the Duchess’s Death in Webster’s Duchess of Malfi…………………………………………………………………………..…97 Iliana Weisberg 3

Shot Across the Block: A Diatribe of the Defiant and Deviant..………104 Clay Hudson AP Lang’s “Open Letter”…………………………………………….………109 Eunice Fernandez........110 Devin Ramsay.........115 Ellis Fertig.........121 Stephen Hatfield.........126

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Beautiful Things Journal Anonymous

After reading Dinaw Mengestu’s novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, about the experiences of an Ethiopian immigrant in America, 10th graders in English 2 Honors were asked to reflect on their own story, focusing on one or more ancestor or family member who embarked on a journey to find their sense of place and identity in America. Students were encouraged to look for connections between their family’s experiences and those of the characters in the novel. This 10th grader shares the story of his grandfather’s journey to America and the complicated relationship he held with his homeland.

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Before I was even a thought, and my parents maybe just seen in brief glimpses, my grandfather traveled from northern Ireland to the mouth of the Hudson River. His motivations for his journey were the same as many others: he lacked religious freedoms, and the economic pitfalls of his prior nation were too much to handle. My grandfather’s ideas of America were ones of prosperity and freedom, things that simply could not be found in his homeland. He went alone to America, and, from what I’ve been told, this was not difficult for my Grandpa.

Sure, the actual journey was difficult, but the decision to leave was one of instinct and common sense. He knew nothing would come of his life if he stayed stagnant.

Although his nation continued to rot, his youth did not need to die with it. I’ve heard very little about his literal journey to America. Still, I could assume that being cramped on a ship with hundreds of other immigrants in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was not very comfortable. Once he arrived, much like any immigrant, it was a slow start. My grandfather spent the beginning nights of his new-found life on cold New York sidewalks. The only warmth he felt was in the brief minutes he’d go into a convenience store or a run-down restaurant to hand in a resume. These documents would usually get thrown onto a grease-stained floor or gently placed on a pile along with the many other resumes of immigrants. Each sheet of paper seemed to tip the pile over a bit more until those, too, would just end up falling on the floor. It felt hopeless, but the dream was still alive and well.

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After a week of searching, he became employed and was paid well. Maybe he was a waiter or a salesman; I’m not sure. Soon enough, he rented an apartment in Brooklyn. He slowly started to feel more stable, and his dream began falling into place and, ultimately, became a reality. My father didn’t tell me much after this point, but he said one last thing when speaking about his father's story: he said that my grandpa missed home. I didn’t say anything, but it made me feel something peculiar. My grandfather felt homesick for a nation that didn’t even treat him as family, a nation that wronged him and broke him down to a thousand pieces. I think that it is difficult to understand why we miss the things that hurt us. That's what I felt: I felt confused. What makes a home? I still ponder this question – years after being told my grandfather's story. It’s hard to feel at home in this world if you don’t feel at home with yourself.

Although my story slightly differs from The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, I found similarities between the main character Sepha Stephanos and my grandpa. Even when reading the novel, I found myself comparing them at points.

Sepha is built upon insecurities of failure and self-doubt. He does not understand his place in America after crossing the border. Sepha makes the decision to run a convenience store upon his arrival in America, with the intention of ultimately turning it into a deli. But this dream slowly collapses. He makes the decision to abandon his store and leave it wide open, publicly allowing anyone to take any goods or money from within. As Sepha sits on the corner of his street and stares at 8

the store he once owned completely run down, ironically, he finally sees the beauty in it. Later, as Sepha looks at the future optimistically, he no longer approaches his life with dread and self-doubt. Despite the fact that the business failed, placing him in a bad financial situation, Sepha has now conquered his fear of failure, learning that errors are what drive personal progress. He is now ready to abandon his tendency to overthink and just do the best he can. Both my grandfather and Sepha had dreams about America and the things they wanted to accomplish.

Sepha ultimately realizes this dream to be unrealistic, and instead embraces the pain and errors which he once feared. He no longer looks upon America to be his home; more so, he hopes to be comfortable and safe with himself rather than looking to anyone else to try and resolve his own conflicts. Although I don’t know how my Grandfather's journey played out entirely, I hope he found peace in this country, and with himself.

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“my mother fed me blackberries” for willie wright, david thomas Clay Hudson

Building on some of the literary and theoretical concepts investigated in the Utopia course, Clay Hudson ‘23 produces a symphony of words, echoing the vibrancy of ancestral stories and the duality of identity in his own utopian story. Hudson's narrative, akin to Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, journeys with Isaiah Carpenter, bridging the pastoral tranquility of Still Village to the enigmatic allure of Graves Hall. With fluid prose, Hudson paints a vivid tapestry, threading the hues of heritage and the aspirations of generations. Through Isaiah's reflections, “my mother fed me blackberries” traverses the chasm between innocence and experience, a poignant interplay of time, color, and the yearning for home. Hudson's prose resonates with authenticity, crafting an indelible opus that echoes and lingers.

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When I was little, my momma used to tell me and my cousin stories. “peachtree patrimony… everything is golden-orange. the babies and the mommas get to run under the God-sun, waiting with big grins for the big cousins, fathers, and uncles to fly home. the grandpoppas and grandmommas set the tables and toss sugar into teas (without measuring of course). they’ve become in their old age the crafters of ambience, the secondline groove for our daily independence day parade and pride. all the friends and neighbors had their own, lookout-cookout. the oconee colors all of us golden, our downhome unity. and come nighttime we be blue, naked under the lunar beam and accompanying midnight zephyr. except for the babies who know they’re really an earthen, fulani brown, all hours of the night and day. big brother left home four summers ago, on his way to the big city. poppa sent him to a big red building called mo’house. he stayed, enamored by the dulcet pattern of chins high and heads bowed. when great-grandfather died, it was tearless. we knew death was graceful, and looked like life here. our hands went through him when we gave dap, and he couldn’t eat. when big brother left, there were tears that stained the orange for a few hours, because we had never seen a white man before, none have ever made it through our portal. we cried for big brother because we never prepared him to bow. but we pushed on, growing strong, strong enough to join poppa and the uncles and the big cousins working in the fields. there was solace in the chorus and crunch of feet on the dewy grass, and how our shades of yellow and orange and golden changed across the day. the birds joined

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in, sopranino and never-somber. the trees swayed and leaves sizzled like the shekeres of ole great-grandmother’s home. she would come out and watch us, warn us that our backs were getting too red, and pour honey inside our cracks. as we got older, we learned to swim. we couldn’t duck our bodies under the green-blue expanse, so as to not get lost in the tassels of the underworld, and turn our whole bodies brown. poppa’s only fear was his boys coming out of the water with lashes, from a shimmering green whip.”

I always wanted to know what it felt like to be touched by a Spirit.

☥ as I got older, I could see out from over the Trees, and make out skyscrapers in the distance. I knew better than to leave ‘cause we had everything here. Rivers took the place of Black Children who ran for their lives in the big city. i bet them city kids climb telephone poles like we climb Trees, bof’us thinking we’d reach God at the top, but only one of us with Scriptures between our Teeth once we’d come down. Poppa told me that my Name was Isaiah. Isaiah Carpenter. according to Grandmomma’s Bible, Isaiah foretold the coming of Jesus. he told the people in his great, big, black book that a Sun was coming in the form of a Son, to save the people from the looming doom of sin. every “Isaiah!!” that rang across the meadows called power to this great, big, Black book man. i prayed every night that i would find a

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way to live up to this big-ole Name I got. in still village, you had to be pious; ‘else nothing would move in your life. last thursday, Momma got a letter from my big brother, in the big city. apparently, he wasn’t one of them pole-climbing troublemaker-shaker kids, but a broad-shouldered businessman in the big-ole city. he really was a preacher, who we hadn’t seen in a full year of sundays. he left “Ole Stilly” to go to a school called mo’house. Grandpoppa knew a man that went there, mr. Bouey. Grandpoppa said he came out there thankin’ and praisin’ God, with a Straight Back. apparently, one day he got up and left ole georgia for a funny-soundin’ place called africa.

Grandpoppa had stories too, and a house fulla glass boxes, Orange and Brown quilts he said were from a funny-soundin places like oh-high-yo and pencil-vain-ya. funny-lookin metal things he said went in your mouth, they didn’t look like food. “hold on nie, lemee see this-ha… cor-nee-lee-yus cahh-pintuhh.” Grandpoppa read slowly, but sturdily.

Hello family. I’ve finished my studies at Morehouse College, and upon my graduation I spoke on the behalf of little Isaiah, and the deans said they want to talk to him about attending Morehouse next autumn. I know, mother, about how you don’t want to lose two sons to the hustle-bustle rhythms of hooves on cobblestone. I know, father, about how you’re not done with him yet. I know, grandpoppa and grandmomma, he didn’t finish his story. However, Morehouse told me personally

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that they are willing to allow him to pay half price to come here and study. Ain’t that something?

Now, send Isaiah to Atlanta. How about sunday? I’ll take him to church!

Follow the river, Mr. Cornelius Carpenter i couldn't leave Home, not this way. not on my own volition. only on God’s Golden Ark could they take me away, scintillating, with animals playing ancient Drums and unseen Saxophones. nothing, even my own brother, or an opportunity to learn at the finest school for Black boys could make me. i didn’t care about how dark their jesus was on the cross, i didn’t care about their gates, or their wondrous palaces. I knew that every hour I spent on them gray roads, and under a greening Sun would drain me of my Lilt. every tap of a typewriter, I would forget how to Write, how to Speak, how to Be. they would put me to work, like they put Grandpoppa, set forth to another co’nuh of jo’juh to build another portal. the terrible thing is that my big brother didn’t sell himself. that's easy. but out there beyond ole stilly, it don’t matter what you think like, just what you look like. we all food out there, the swanging tails of an Ox, the Chicken’s legs that gave baby Jesse a run for his money, waiting to be named “Product”, or “Behind-glass”, or “Look-At-me-Now”. just like Grandpoppa’s trinket, just like learning what jamaica means to the Twi-Folk.1

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surely, Sunday morning came, with its trademark hums. the night before, my mother gave me a box of Blackberries, Peaches and Plums. she reminded me that she meant every word of every Story. she told me look both ways. Poppa came into the room and stood me up. he gave me a set of ties, a rag, a pair of his shoes, and a notebook. Grandpoppa gave me one of his orange squares. today, the ole house was bittersweet. as I turned to walk, with the Sun above and in front of me, my family wished me a mellow goodbye, no fanfare, no prayers stuffed into my bag. just a kiss that looked like mauve, but felt blue. it was still Sunday. people streamed out their houses like water through a ravine, on their way to the little church building. everyone, from grandbabies to great-grandmommas had on their Sunday best. it was almost as elegant as momma's Freedom Day story from when she was just a little girl.

Miss Hattie caught me with my bag over my shoulder just as I was leaving town. I always believed Momma when she told me that Black Women know everything.

1 The name "Jamaica” had been discovered to be of Twi origin from

“Gyamayaka” to mean “we are stuck here” “Baby, take this in your book too. and don’t tell your momma I got this.” she handed me a portrait of the family. all of them. on the steps of the church. above us, the ole wooden Cross pointed deep into the sky, our skyscraper, our town hall. on

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the back of the photograph, it read in black letters, ‘scarab circa 1838, Still Village’.

I fidgeted with the photograph until Miss Hattie grabbed my hands.

“One last thing, baby… when Jee-zus was on earth, He was a carpenter.

Remember your name, Isaiah Carpenter. Remember the lilt. Remember the right way to speak.”

“Okay Miss Hattie,” I offered.

“Walk forward, Isaiah.” i followed the River, Northward. (kgositsile, origins, lines 3-4) i stopped at the parts where it got real shallow, and dipped my Hands in to see if i would feel anyone. as i walked, i saw funny-lookin’ animals. the air was occupied by less birds, and more strange smells. but Miss Hattie had told me to walk forward, away from my sweet, sweet home. away from my world, free from crazy stories and tall brick buildings. i didn’t want to believe that Animals carried people around the city. but Miss Hattie had told me walk forward, into the red bricks, scantily decorated peachtrees, upside-down mythology. so i followed the river until the dirt and arid grass became stones and the people became white, and then further until the stones became emeralds, and the people became giants, with straight backs, just like Grandpoppa’s story. i followed the gradient of purples becoming teals. i followed the pellets of obsidian, shimmering li’l babies, like nostalgia. i came around bends, down so low in the boneless valleys, up so high that snow got in my hair. that’s how I knew i was at the portal. alfred, georgia. sonic booms, out here the Nok metals

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weigh down un-battered alabaster-ed heads. a little boy offered me his. endearment, like fifteen year old black boys tell their mommas when they start cuss’in. i leaned my head down, for just enough time for the boy to smile, call me brother, and push me through. his chains felt like nickels on my neck, dancing. i felt like Money. just enough for skittles and an iced-tea. but Miss Hattie had told me keep walking, i lifted my head up and gave the boy back his dead precedents. i walked and scoffed, it didn’t sound like akwaaba to me. dusting my self off, i turned around to look backwards. the decrescendo of the winds was my warm welcome, and i was wet, and my back hurt.

☥ i stumbled, still forwards until i found a patch of Grass. i laid there, but not like comfort, not tired after running around the ole home, not tired and still baby enough to do it all over again in a heartbeat. tired in an unknown bed. head still up, feet still down, like blue mitchell2. out of the corner of my eye i saw a cream and crimson sign, eight hundred and thirty, westview. and there was cornelius. standing with his hands out, singing sumthin’bout huddled masses and breaths that you didn’t have to pay for. he had funny glass circles around his eyes, a black jacket with an orange square that matched mine from grandpoppa, black pants, and brown shoes. it looked like funeral attire, and nothing like Sunday. behind him was a big-ole building that looked like our church but if it was built by giants. i was 56

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years old when I learned about Egypt, Khufu, and other things that Black hands could do. i shook his hand vigorously. ours weren’t the same color. even after doing all that work in the dirt building this big-ole church, his hands were still lighter and smoother than mine. “welcome to atlanta, isaiah!”, he yelled. it sounded flat, not like a kingdom. like he’d lost his lilt, like 13 pieces of okra fell out of his teeth each time he came through the portal. at-lan-tuh. no Peaks or Valleys in his voice, no Rills or open Meadows. just dust, subdued, not rising. alabaster in the sun’s face. “church is about to start, so we’d better get a move on. i’m always late in the lord’s house, but oh well. i guess we’ll have to stand.” so this was ole ‘neely’, in a church without enough space for everybody to sit and be humble. Back home, the Church doors swing open on Sunday mornings, and the Babies sit on the Steps and in the Grass, without missing a single Word, going Home just as blessed and mystified as the Elderberry Statesmen and big-ole Hat Ladies in the Front Row. “i thought you lived in AHT-lannuh. i thought you was Black like me,” I said annoyed. he unfolded a smile that looked like pity. he ain’t ever felt bliss in this bigole city of knowledge. he placed his hands on my shoulders, like a backwards encouragement.

2 Heads Up! Feet Down! is a record by jazz trumpeter Blue Mitchell

“Little Isaiah… your time in the wilderness has limited you. I left still village for a reason. I can move now. I can actually cross my rivers instead of writing

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stories about what lies across their petulant waves. Yes, every now and again I look inside them and the ripples turn my black into blue, my stand into a kneel, but then I remember… if that which I don’t know doesn’t impact me, that’s not safety, that’s containment, worse than any of grandfather’s bits, more bitter than any of mother’s blackberries. So before you come here with an image of a raccoon, ask yourself if you are in control or under control.” then i Remembered the Verse. every little Black boy in church used to cover their ears when the Preacher mentioned ham, the Black man with the Curse. are we ham’s sons? is ham all of Us, from still village or Great-Great-Grandmomma’s Igboland? or both? then i knew. ham is the sword, cutting me and my brother in half, cutting the Countryside and naming half of it blessed and highly favored and the other half subjected to Split Verbs, Plucking more cotton than yesterday and calling it Progress, so much trauma that we believe the metal in Grandpoppa’s mouth was better than Igbokwenu. we heard applause coming out from the big-ole building. once the crowd came out of the building, i could see letters engraved into the bricks. G-R-A-V-E-S- H-AL-L. the folks looked lifeless, like still photographs set forth into the world. the perfect shot. no wonder they were deemed so, absolved. they gathered in front of me and cornelius, they all looked like him, with their funeral-service sunday-bests, like they were churned out like swabs out of my great-grandmother’s gin. sent forth from brick jungles, eschewing split verbs, idioms of necessity, called Black boys

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from all corners to sit under their sycamore (or other POP-u-lar tree) umbrage, not feisty, just a bush, for damn sure not burning. they wore dark suits to splash against alabaster skin, and feel like art, feel like culture. just below saltless foreheads laid their eyes, the same backward-encouraging eyes as cornelius, who bowed to them, hands clasped. “isaiah, right? tell us your story,” one of them said to me. i neither nodded or refused, but i had already let my back slope, so I guess I was one of them now. when I tried to smile, my mouth was full of blackberries, so i asked for a pencil and a sheet of paper.

☥ my Name be Isaiah Carpenter, of Still village. i be fluent in Languages i’ve never heard. my Mother taught me how to measure my days without a clock. i be Black! soooooo black! i can look into the Sun with no fear. i can drag it out of the Sky, and into my most morose days as a Flashlight, or into my most shining moments as a intermittent reminder i be Black! soooo Black that I know what my babies gone be soooo Black like me! Messiah Black! roducts of the Manger! if Jesus was a carpenter on Earth, who he be in the Sky? just another Black Boy! i was dragged from my flowerbed this morning, through the green and pink fields, through the footsteps of a hundred Black folks. i seen Heirlooms floating down the river, and knew where they once belonged to. i be removed from the feeling of cyan

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waters rushing past my ankles, but only to realize my purpose. my children gone be born in the Lapping Waves, Homecoming and Baby Blue Summer clasping around their wrists, lips, and knees. and when i die, they ain’t gone bury me, but Lift me. just like Obatala. who was walking with a tare, a never broken Sonnet, raised me up in Childhood you might-gon’ be another nameless cocoa-target, so terrific-soporific, stretched me from the moat to mystic, something like the Moss-Lined path from Olorisa on the boats to christian, something like the difference ‘tween the motioned and the mission folk? you some SUNday morning Kitchen soul? who was walking with that “eye and I smile”, smirking in cumming3, “they ain’t getting me”, took years from triple k, it’s Andre and me?

Nyame decreed! i threw my Dreams and made an Arc of Faith! who keep my Matriarch deflated? i been missing folk whose still image elicit hope! they bigger than ghosts! we so black we face killas at the dinner table, demons in the dining room, sinners and vanilla fables!! who was walking this life and convincing the people that they are running? who was running across the oceans speaking patois? “mi cyaan go nuh-furda unna dis Earth, but mi gwaan fly inna di sky, head pon Fadda hand, feet pon fadda land.”

3 previously all white town in all-white Forsyth County, Georgia

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mommuh! how long it’s been since we went picking Peaches we don’t need to leave to defy defy defy tell me another story where all the Characters got funny names half-a-sternum… annulus… di-and-meet-her… where they drink Potlikker like it’s water mmmm–mm!! and eat the Sun like a big-ole Cantaloupe no more white-american dolly shot4 holding a disco ball only to find out it’s got spikes on it lee-lee-leeaave us be i don’t want no green eyes and curly ha-uh black berries not black bodies my portal comes with trumpets, upward, thumpin’ gumption, suffin’5 enough space to run around the fields and feel no ways ti’ed Neely! when was the last time you felt no ways ti’ed enough words to know that Eye is bigger than i Grandma said you can be as far as you can see i used to play hide-and-seek with anubis. who YOU gone be when your portal closes?

4 Spike Lee’s technique used to accentuate introspection in films 5 soughing

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Animal Farm Chapter IX.V Logan Snyder

After reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm, part of the culminating final project for 9th graders in English 1 Honors was to write an additional chapter of the novel, imitating Orwell’s style and incorporating some thematic elements the class explored. Logan Snyder ‘26 gives voice to a tertiary character who returns to the farm to see for herself what has become of the animals there, unaware of how dangerous her return will be.

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Months passed after Boxer’s death. The animals were working harder than ever as winter approached under the guise of Squealer’s positive foodstuff reports. On a particularly cold day in October, Clover caught sight of the cat slinking along the fence surrounding the corn pasture. The cat had not been seen in months, and Clover almost forgot about her existence. The cat locked eyes with Clover and stopped in her tracks. Her dark, dusty coat almost blended in with the surrounding trees, but an excess of movement could lead to her getting caught.

She had grown bored and hungry when staying at Animal Farm after the rebellion and decided to pawn some food from neighboring farms. She then grew bored of her adventurous lifestyle and returned to the farm in search of something new.

“What are you doing here?” Clover exclaimed, immediately searching for dogs that may have seen her stop working. She looked down to gather more corn and continued, “Where have you been all this time?”

“I’ve heard many rumors regarding this farm while I was gone.” After wandering away from the farm in search of food, she crossed paths with many animals gossiping about the newest thing Napoleon had done. The cat darted under Clover’s large stomach, startling Clover slightly but hiding the cat from sight. “Has he really become as cruel as they say?”

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“Napoleon is always right,” Clover said without hesitation but wondered how she could truly describe how the experience of Animal Farm has changed.

“You might want to speak to the other animals to understand.”

The cat ran back to the fence, hopped on top of it, and walked towards the barn. She passed some sheep who exclaimed “Four legs good, two legs bad!” when they saw her. This caught the attention of a few pigs and dogs surrounding the barn. The dogs growled in a low voice at the unfamiliar face and the pigs appeared confused and protective. The cat was very aware of their power over her and the rest of the animals on the farm. The pigs, along with the dogs, appeared to be the only animals not working on the fields or the construction of a windmill. She hopped down from the fence and the pigs approached her with the dogs close behind. She recognized the leading pig as Squealer who called out:

“Welcome back! Now, what is your reason for returning?” The cat held back the urge to lick her lips, eyeing Squealer’s plump body. She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by the dogs barking viciously. “Quiet! She is, or was, a friend,” Squealer scolded the dogs.

“I was merely hoping to catch up with some of the animals,” The cat explained nonchalantly.

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“I need to speak to Napoleon about her,” Squealer murmured to the surrounding pigs. “Stay where you are, comrade,” Squealer demanded and the pigs and dogs walked to the farmhouse. The cat, not intimidated in the slightest, turned and scurried back towards the fields and saw many of the animals had stopped working to watch her. Muriel was the first to walk towards her and ask what she wanted. The animals were happy to see her but knew she was likely there for a reason.

“I had just grown bored in my travels and decided to visit you all again.”

The cat replied, and the animals started questioning her about the experiences she faced outside of the farm.

“It is surely much worse out there?” A hen questioned.

“It is quite nice outside! Possibly better than in here. I have an inquiry to answer your question though: How much food do you receive each day?” The cat baited, in hopes of finding out what she really wanted to know.

The hen's response was so surprisingly low that the cat couldn’t help but drop her jaw despite her aloof manner. She had heard many rumors of the oppression the animals faced at the farm but did not expect the rations to reach a quarter of what Mr. Jones had supplied them with. The animals stared at her, puzzled by her expression. She realized that they had no idea how much they were 28

being denied. She knew they were all more simple-minded than she was, but not so much as to fall into a pig like Napoleon’s trap.

“That’s laughable! And all of you are allowing this? This seems crueler to me than Mr. Jones! If I were any of you, I’d give up all this hard work and escape to somewhere more appreciative of my importance.” The cat announced proudly.

The animals stayed confused. They could not fathom Napoleon not doing something with their best interest in mind.

“But Napoleon is always right.” Clover counteracted, but the cat could see in her eyes that she felt differently.

“Four legs good, two legs bad!” The sheep bleated three times through and the cat rolled her eyes.

“You haven’t a clue in the world.” The cat replied. “My life doesn’t change if all of you decide to stay here and wither away! I’ll be going now, seeing that Animal Farm is nothing but a-” She was interrupted by the sound of dogs barking and turned to see them barreling towards her. The animals around her scattered in fear and she attempted to escape but her speed was no match for theirs. All the animals saw was a mess of dirt and dark fur. All they could hear was violent barking and loud shrieks from the cat. Suddenly, the shrieking stopped and the dogs stepped back. The animals stared at the lifeless, mangled body of the cat in 29

horror. The dogs’ white teeth were on full display as they walked back to the group of pigs that had approached. No one was quite close to the cat, but she had never done anything wrong to them. None of the animals understood why she had been killed, but Squealer quickly stepped in front of them to assure them that everything was fine.

“Comrades!” He began. “What you have witnessed may seem like a heinous crime, but it is, in fact, more than justifiable! We heard her telling you wicked lies about the outside of Animal Farm and what you don’t know is that that wicked cat was a spy. For Snowball! She wanted you to fall into her trap and think that you should leave this amazing farm. It is all part of Snowball’s plan to destroy the society we have built. Do not believe a word she has said, because she can not be trusted! You don’t want Snowball to gain intel and ruin all of our hard work, do you?”

The crowd of animals rang out with shouts of disdain and support for Squealer’s marvelous oration. They now understood and realized that the cat’s death was not in vain at all. It was noticed that she had seemed quite genuine in her words but Squealer’s explanation made much more sense to them. The pigs ordered them back to work and the dogs dragged her limp body back towards the farmhouse.

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Personal Log on Beauty Maggie Horn

As the students of AP Language and Composition close off their year, their study of Chloé Cooper Jones’ Easy Beauty forced them to address their own complicated perspectives on identity, self-image, and life itself. In her Personal Log on the differences between “easy” and “difficult” beauty, Maggie Horn ‘24 brings the reader along in her self-reckoning with the observed beauty of her everyday life. Exploring nuanced experiences of identity, Horn calls into question the true meaning of life’s ups and downs.

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I define beauty as anything that touches the individual’s soul. And by soul, I mean a composite of our identity and our own mortality—our childhood, our tears, our loved ones, our memories, and our moments of true peace. Beauty is all of that. It is whatever forces us to look past superficial desires and fears and face the bare “truth” of our living being. Above all else, therefore, our souls and thus our own beauty are intangibly tied to our own mortality. Places, people, and moments that remind us of our own bodies, such as the feeling of our feet grounded in the dirt, a smile upon seeing one’s person, our eyes closing for rest— including for eternal rest—all remind us of the indisputable beauty and honesty of our own mortality.

Our ideas about what is beautiful matters because they signify how willing we are to be honest to ourselves and our needs—our emotional needs, our physical needs, and our spiritual ones, too. If we choose to escape our fears for too long, we miss out on every opportunity full of beauty of the highest kind.

Oftentimes, though, seeing the beauty of mortality, experiencing this difficult beauty, scares us. It means confronting our own powerlessness, acknowledging the insignificance and vulnerability of our lives. In turn, notions of “easy beauty” serve as temporary comforts, momentarily satisfying the thirst of our insecurities and the doubts of our status without facing the much more profound “difficult beauty” that is life.

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April 23rd, 2023

I found easy beauty sitting on the patio in my backyard. I’ve decided to catch up on assignments while enjoying the warmer weather, and as I look around me, I realize how lucky I am to be here. I notice the roundness of the trees we planted five years ago, the little saplings that have turned into full and green, towering bushes. I notice how the stones of my back steps contrast elegantly with the dark green of the plants they support. I look at my house. I remember how I used to wish we lived in other houses—and I feel a tinge of shame at my own foolishness. I absolutely love my house. I love the way the tall oak tree casts a deep shadow over my backyard and laundry room. I love how, at night, you can see the glow of my kitchen from the backyard and watch conversations, dance parties, arguments. I love my neighbor’s house. I love the sharp, geometric outline of their gray and decaying Victorian roof, the once bustling household now empty, but still standing.

The next day, I encountered what I assumed would be easy beauty, but instead I found myself immersed in a difficult recognition of the fleetingness of my happiness. My friend and I had spent months looking forward to this concert, a solo performance from BTS’s rapper, “Suga.” When we got inside, my hair still dripped from the rain that we had been waiting outside in for hours. I found my seat and smiled as wide as my mouth could possibly open. When Suga took the 34

stage, he wore all white, and the purple glow of thousands of army bombs reflected in his sad smile. He rapped furiously, he sang beautifully, reminding us with lyrics that the “future is gonna be okay” and that with my new self “I feel no pain.” As my throat grew sore from screaming and my arms grew tired from dancing, I somehow wasn’t surprised to notice tears falling down my face. I was so thankful to be here, to realize how much I loved myself—I loved myself all the more because I knew I wouldn’t be here forever.

May 9th, 2023

The next week, my brother came home from college. We hadn’t eaten together as a family in a while, and it was nice to hear the sound of my dad’s defensive confusion, my brother’s explosive laugh, my mom’s quiet smirk. We sat down to dinner at our kitchen table, and as I looked at our walls and the contrast between the professional paintings, the family photos, and the doodles my brother and I had made at elementary-school art camp years ago—all adorning our kitchen’s interior—I realized maybe this was a good kind of chaos. None of us had really chosen to be here, it just kind of happened. The green specks in my brother’s eyes, the gray hair on my father’s head, the dimple on my mother’s cheek, the calm dysfunctionality of this moment—it was all one big, beautiful accident. And I loved it.

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But the next night, right after another long day at school and family dinner, I looked at myself in the mirror as the tears fell down my face, and I thought to myself that this beauty was much harder. I had thought I knew what I could say — how my feelings of fear, pain, claustrophobia had all happened because of something they wouldn’t choose to understand. How the words of those around me pierced my self-esteem and made me want to be somewhere far, far away. As I shut the door to my room and looked in the dim reflection of my mirror, I realized I had nowhere to go except to myself. I took a deep breath, I turned on my favorite song, and I screamed quietly into my pillow. I felt trapped, but I also felt free—a beautiful, hard truth to discover: realizing that my peace could only really come from inside myself.

May 13th, 2023

Yesterday, I threw on my biggest sweatshirt, I rubbed in my sunscreen and combed out my hair, and I skipped from my back porch to the car of an old friend.

We had only recently met up after months of limited contact, when the pace of life and the distance between us had made me forget how I felt less lonely around friends like her. We parked a long way away from Bloomfield Avenue, and I felt the stress physically leave my body as I told her about the last few weeks and how hard they had felt. We walked into the small Boba cafe and waited in our seats for our orders. Sitting across from my friend, slowly sipping drinks of almost-pure 36

sugar, I loved noticing the pink on her cheeks and the hiccup in her laugh as we exchanged stories and flipped through websites on our phones for prom dresses.

Resting the crooks of my hands in my face, I knew even in the moment just how beautiful it was.

The day before yesterday, I waited until it was almost sundown before I started my run. The temperature had cooled down, and I loved the feeling of slipping into my purple shorts and tying on my white laces—I felt like a superhero embarking on a mission. As the miles on the road piled on top of each other and the songs on my queue followed one another, my heart rate monitor reached a constant and I fell into a rhythm, and I realized I was almost as far from a superhero as one could get. As I watched the sun slowly inch closer and closer to the ground, I looked at the trees, sidewalks, and people around me, and I realized how fleeting it all was, how random. I had found something that I could put almost all of my energy and time into and rely on only myself for the results. I thought about how I almost missed these opportunities— of traveling to my favorite places, of going to MKA, meeting my favorite people—and how many memories wouldn’t have been made, how much pain and joy I would have escaped.

As my legs grew tired, I wondered quietly to myself how something can make you feel so alone, so at peace, so sad, and so comforted at once. And with each stride, my past grew further and further away from me as I ran toward my undetermined future.

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As I observed these easy and difficult beauties, I observed how much tension left my body through this simple process of reflection. I realized that my pursuit of self-worth, inner peace, and passion wasn’t some ambiguous goal of the future but a constant, slow, ongoing experience. While I witnessed these moments of easy and difficult beauty, I started to think more deeply about what it means to “touch one’s soul.” These sorts of experiences do not, contrary to my former belief, have to be clear and profound. They come in waves, in moments of joy and suffering, and although they might seem fleeting, reflecting on their importance can make their lasting impact become the most eternal part of our short lives.

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ANI: A Dialogue Inspired by “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus” from New York Sun printed on 21 September, 1897 Logan Furlonge

Exploring the differences and similarities between the ideas of Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine for Political Theory, Logan Furlonge ‘23 thoughtfully uses the medium of an open letter from a child to address issues over the war in Ukraine.

Furlonge draws on inspiration from the New York Sun’s 1897 publication of “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” to powerfully capture an unfiltered dialogue between adult and child.

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D EAR EDITOR: My name is ANI. I am 8 years old.

I live in Zagreb.

In school we were talking about remembrance because of what the bad man is doing in Ukraine.

Papa doesn’t like to talk about it. Fighting and stuff makes his head hurt.

I don’t want to make my Papa’s head hurt.

My teacher says that sometimes war is necessary. Is my teacher right?

ANI KNEŽEVIĆ.

—

ZAGREB.

ANI. Thank you for writing. My name is Augustov, and I have been getting many notes from little girls and boys recently, particularly about what, as you say, the

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bad man is doing to Ukraine. I first want to apologize to you. Not very long ago, but before you were born, we had a war here. I’m sure you’re learning about it in school. And if you haven’t, you’ll learn about it soon.

You’re going to learn as you get older, ANI, that adults don’t always learn from their mistakes, or others’ mistakes, or any mistakes at all. We’re working on being better, all of us. But it’s going to take time. We need kids like you to remind us sometimes.

None of us like war. I don’t think anyone particularly likes war. It is not something that one can like in good consciousness. But war has been with us for a very long time, ANI. Even before modern times, even before there was war in our country, battles have filled our history. Think of all the myths, all the stories.

Every polytheistic religion has a god of war. Consider the Ancient Greeks! They had a god for war and a god for strategic war, and gods for the aspects of war, like strife, or panic, or pain. War has always been a part of our world. But it is imperative to understand that the only viable reason for war is peace. “Peace is the end sought for by war” (191). But there is a point there that I must emphasize, which is: “every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace” (191). In times of peace, no one should actively seek out war.

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War is a miserable concept for us to grasp. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a “more miserable plight still” because that means they “lost human feeling” (191).

Our search for peace is what it means for us to be human.

I have never served, and I don’t anticipate that I will serve. I can’t imagine how much these things hurt your dad’s head. He did a great thing, fighting for his country. A great, great thing. It’s hard for some people to talk about things like this. But what he fought for was peace. So what he did was necessary.

—

Hello, ANI. My name is Tomas. I must admit, I do not entirely agree with what Augustov has written to you. But we work together to create dialogues for difficult conversations, and this is a very difficult conversation to have, especially with someone as young as you.

Augustov wrote to you that wars fought for the sake of peace are just. I would like to expand on that. There are three things necessary for a just war: legitimate authority, just cause, and the right intentions. I believe that peace is far too broad a thing to require in order for a war to be just. And many of the wars that are fought today are not for just reasons. I don’t consider what is happening in Ukraine to be a war. I consider it an invasion. Many people around where you live think it’s dangerous for me to say that. That’s why we changed your name and the 43

place where you live. Don’t worry: All your words are still the same. Your words and your age. There’s a language to these sorts of things, ANI. An invasion is different from a siege; is different from a war.

A just war and a necessary war are two different things. The Haitian Revolution was a just affair since it was fought for the good of the people living in Haiti. The Ukrainians fighting against, as you call him, the bad man turned the invasion into a necessary war. The Ukrainian people did not want to go to battle. They still do not want to be in a situation that is tearing their homeland apart. But their response is necessary to keep their sense of national identity intact.

You talked about remembrance, ANI, in your letter to us. You live in a very special place. I visited Zagreb once, and I noticed there were gold tiles embedded in the cobblestone streets. There were names and dates on them, and some information that I couldn’t read since I didn’t know enough of the language yet.

But I’ve learned that they’re called stumbling stones. They have them in Germany, too. They’re meant for you to literally stumble over them when you’re walking. They’re gold, so that you can see them clearly, and that you think about where you put your feet. There’s something similar not too far from you. In Sarajevo. They’re called the Sarajevo Roses. Where shells hit the ground, there’s still marks, so people painted them red. I believe remembrance is a necessary

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aspect of the end of a war; any war. There is remembrance in everything we do, ANI.

Stay safe. Write to us whenever you want to.

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Works Cited All in-text citations are from Ebenstein, William and Alan, Great Political Thinkers: Plato to the Present.

Information about “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus” from https:// www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia-there-is-a-santa-claus/ All information about the stumbling stones and Sarajevo roses comes directly from my trip to the Balkans.

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Minor Feelings Journal Kaavya Krishnan

After reading Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, students in AP Language and Composition were given the opportunity to internalize and apply Cathy Park Hong’s style in their own modular essays. They endeavored to become what Hong calls “an unreliable narrator,” with the goal of discovering the true and complex and messy. In four thematically-related entries, Kaavya Krishnan ‘24 thoughtfully guides her audience on an intimate journey through the development of her identity.

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I.

I have gotten very good at lying. Not lying to steal or cheat, but lying to cover up. Lying to create a “new me,” separate from my attributes that I am ashamed of. Lying to portray an image to the public that I have sculpted to perfection. Lying to friends mostly, but more so, lying to myself. From a young age, I have always found it much easier to construct a new life for myself rather than be at ease with the one I currently have. The one I have is not bad at all. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I am privileged enough to always have food on the table and a roof over my head, but beyond that, my parents have provided me with opportunities to experience travel, a good education, and comfort. So why am I still trying to compensate for a life that seems ideal on paper?

The culture and people that I have been surrounded by from a young age have not always been encouraging in the sense that embracing my “true self” often meant embracing the parts that were popular or desirable. Since I started attending school at around two years old, I have always been aware of my darker skin, hair, and eyes, my parents’ amusing accents, my smelly food, and my funny clothes. When imagining a flawless life as a little girl, I used to wish my name was “Jessica” or “Sabrina." Anything my friends could spell. Anything my teachers could read without stuttering. Anything that was considered normal. In a world where culture and diversity were supposed to be celebrated, I always wondered 49

why I constantly felt like an outsider looking into an image that I desperately wanted to be part of but did not fit the criteria for. I was not “foreign” like a beautiful blue-eyed European immigrant with freckles and pretty hair but I was “foreign” like a bug-eyed Asian girl who was technically American in every sense of the word despite constantly feeling like a stranger. In elementary school, I would often hide the tags of my clothing if they did not display the correct name brand. I would always have my nails painted a light color because dark would remind people of the fact that I was not white; maybe it would match my skin tone too well. I would always reject my parents telling me anything about my Indian heritage or about aspects of my family I did not want to hear. I attempted to trade my culture and my roots for a life I actually knew nothing about apart from the fact that it just fit. Stereotypically, in a way, I felt sorry for myself and how much I believed the world hated me. I was the villain in my own story and in turn, felt that I deserved all of the self-pity and wallowing I often participated in.

But what was I so cursed with that warranted these feelings? Was there anyone who I was surrounding by who would not accept me if I embraced and publicly presented as “Indian”? To this day, I do not know if I created “an evil” out of being Indian because of how I perceived the world or because of how the world perceived me. I cannot wholeheartedly say that I have since discovered the meaning of diversity and cultural acceptance because I would again be lying to myself. I have still not fully understood my lineage and what it means to be 50

Indian, whether that is celebrating every religious festival, cooking with a variety of spices that create a heavy aroma around the entire house, or simply loving, appreciating, and caring for my family just as much as every other culture does.

Does being Indian truly make me so different from every other human being living in this cluttered and unpredictable world or did I simply create an unwarranted issue in order to feel sorry for myself? I will never know if anyone would have truly cared about my discrepancies or if I was the only observer.

II.

When most people think about aspects of identity, they think about the classic tropes such as race, gender expression, and sexual orientation. When I think about my identity, I think about the aspects of myself that are nonnegotiable. Yes, race, gender, and sexual orientation make up pivotal parts of me as a person, but the more nuanced factors such as my identity as a young person or as a dancer increase my individual identity as a human. Often, when people think of ballet dancers, they think of tall, thin, European ladies with perfect grace, excellent posture, and impeccable elegance. They think of beautifully refined women who can leap as high as the sky and can turn for days on end. In my family, the accepted image of ballet is quite different. My parents see ballet as a hobby. They see the art form as an after school activity to stay occupied and to fill in free time, perhaps as a nice extracurricular activity to add to a college resumé.

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Ballet and a career path are two ideas that do not line up in my family. In my mind, ballet is a facet of me that is not only consequential to who I am as a young 16-year-old girl, but also to how I articulate and express emotions everyday, by using movement rather than words or feelings. Ballet is an outlet for me to leave the terror and fear of judgment, pain, and ridicule of the outside world and simply dance because I love to. By contrast, ballet for my parents is an outlet to get me out of the house for a couple of hours, only to come home and study for the math exam I have the next day. In the house that I have been raised in, viable career options include engineering, medicine, or finance. There is no concept of creativity, only of productivity.

My parents have created a perfect life for my sister and me, providing the two of us with any creative outlets we desire and giving us as many opportunities as they can afford. The only fine print in this agreement is that whatever our escapes may be, they must be reigned in and disposed of once we get into the “real world." As college approaches, time and energy for ingenuity vanish while the emphasis we must concentrate on studies to achieve a degree to get a job to make a salary materializes. Family, although supposed to be the one cohort of people where one's identity can be accepted and appreciated, often gives off the opposite impression. The criticisms and the powerful relationship cause the family to have an immense influence on someone as an almost despotic figure. Parents wield their authority to make major life decisions for their children who are not 52

yet sure of what they want to do. “Ballet will not provide you with any money to live a comfortable life." Why do you get to decide what is and what is not comfortable? Why can I not decide for myself if I want to spend my life doing something I love to do, or if I want to sit behind a desk for the next fifty years like you all do so I can have an extra zero at the end of my annual salary? I cannot negotiate with my mother and father because they are the leaders. They are the man and woman of the house. Dare I say anything that goes against their wishes?

Yes, their wishes, yet their wishes are for me. So why do I not get a say in whether or not that wish is granted? I wonder what would happen if I decided for myself.

III.

. . .In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. . .

. . .It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

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Do people truly have the ability to decide their own fate? Or is everything left up to chance? William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus” speaks to the question of just how much we can control the mess of destiny. Human beings are very complex creatures. In many ways, each individual person decides and has control over their choices and decisions. In other ways, every action, every consequence, and every reason is left up to chance. The mere idea of an “accident” means that something that was not supposed to happen, by chance ended up occurring anyway through no fault of any individual person. So how big of a role does fate play compared to choice?

Henley writes, “In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeoning of chance, My head is bloody, but unbowed.” He speaks to the idea that whatever providence is chosen for a person should not be the ultimate deciding factor, but instead, people have the ability to control their own fates. In large part, Henley debates the question of “who decides what”. This extensive question is often discussed in the society that we experience today. Does society decide the standards for beauty? Do parents decide the path that their children take in the “real” world? Does a culture decide the villains and heroes of stories? Or does some unknown force of destiny determine every decision without any volition from the people themselves? In any case, the world we live in often provides us with choices whether or not they are ours to make. Choices similar to marriage, occupation, and education are all decisions that most people 54

make in their lifetime which evidently means that we are the “masters of our own fate”. Right? The question now is whether or not one can control their lives as they please, being the “captain of their own souls” or whether fate decides for them.

IV.

Who decides what? Does hiding aspects of your identity make them go away? Does not admitting various parts of oneself conceal them forever? If I ignore it, will it disappear? Why do I have no control over my future? Who decides what “authority” is? Who decides what this “authority” has jurisdiction over? Why am I not the “authority” for myself? Why is money so important? Why is comfort so important? Why can I not do what I love and love what I do? How can I be the villain in my own story? What causes someone to feel sorry for themselves? Is society the one to set standards? Isn’t a society made up of a collective of people?

In that case, are the people themselves the ones to set standards? If so, why would people set impossible standards only for them to circle back on the citizens themselves? When should I hide parts of myself? When is it ok to not admit that I am not living up to the expectations I have set for myself? When is it ok to admit that I am not white? Can I admit that I am not white? Do I want to admit that I am not white? When, if ever, will I accept the reality that I am in fact, not white?

Why do I feel the world is against me? Why do I feel everyone is set on oppressing

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me because I am different? Am I really all that different? If everyone is different, how can anyone be different?

What is the most beautiful part of someone? Who decides what is considered beautiful? Why do people have an incessant desire to be considered beautiful? Who decides someone’s future? Are we indeed masters of our own fate?

Are we indeed at the mercy of destiny? Am I deciding anything for myself or are all decisions pre-destined? Will my future self like who my past self was? Who my current self is? Do I decide what is part of my identity? Does someone else decide?

Is everyone’s identity decided? Is mine?

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Purgatory, Bunker, Sunken Place Logan Furlonge

Examining the films Get Out and Parasite and the novel Interior Chinatown for her Satire class, Logan Furlonge ‘23 answers the question: how have these creators/ satirists, Jordan Peele, Bong Joon-ho, and Charles Yu, respectively, found effective, bold, and timely ways to speak truth to power? She breaks down the ways these works address society’s issues through cinematic technique and vivid imagery, while also including her own compelling and powerful commentary.

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I‘m tired of watching the suffering of Black bodies on screen in movies served to draw attention to the suffering of Black bodies.

As a culture, a nation, a country, whatever, we've begun romanticizing the look of police lights dancing over Black skin. The first time I watched Get Out and saw Chris Washington (played by Daniel Kaluuya) look up at the cop car, there was a distinct lack of sinking feeling in my chest. I wasn’t surprised; I had almost expected for Chris to be taken by the police. The original ending, in which Chris is convicted of murder and resigns himself to living the rest of his life in prison, is what I think of as the “real ending.” As in, the ending that I have become accustomed to.

(In fact, I expected Chris to be shot on sight.)

I saw the police lights and I thought, Danger. I expected there to be danger.

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The use of light in films is a powerful tool that, when used well, draws attention to the nuances of satire. Bong Joon-ho, director of Parasite—a commentary of class divides and greed set in Seoul—uses lighting in a powerful way. Parasite is not a movie meant to watch only once. It is designed to be watched once for the storyline, and three times for specific cinematographic choices: the lighting, the stairs, and the windows. “[The film] alternately entertains and devastates, like a candy bar with a razor blade inside,” writes E. Alex Jung for Vulture.

The lighting in Parasite shows the stark divide between the Kim and Park families. The Parks live in a house on top of a hill surrounded by greenery, and the light in their home, both artificial and natural, is all intentional. In the shot above, Geun se—the husband of the Parks’ former housekeeper, who lived in the bunker beneath the Park home—leaves the darkness of the bunker for the first time in years. The eye is drawn to the warm orange glow of the shelves. The 60

viewer is not meant to see Geun se’s almost ghoulish eyes until it’s too late. (The first time he leaves the bunker, Da-song, the Parks’ youngest child, sees him and has a seizure. The second time, Geun se completes his escape by injuring Kim Kiwoo and killing Ki-jung, Ki-woo’s sister at Da-song’s birthday party.)

After Geun Se leaves the bunker, he is literally blinded by the outside light. In this scene, the light from the sun is glaring to the point of unnatural. While light can act as an illuminator, there are cases when looking directly into the sun blinds you.

The Kim family has the perfect plan. First the son, Ki-woo, becomes a tutor for the Parks’ daughter, then gets his sister a position as an art therapist for the Parks’ son. Then the father, Ki-taek, gets a position as the family’s driver when his children get the previous driver fired. Finally, the family makes sure the housekeeper is fired and their mother, Chung-sook, takes up the position.

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The Kim family have the perfect plan, but they look at the sun for too long. In the end, the family is fractured. Ki-jung is killed. Ki-woo and Chung-sook go right back to their banjiha—the Korean word for a semi-basement apartment. Ki-woo recovers from his head injury and he and his mother keep folding pizza boxes, the same as they did before they became parasites of the Park family. Ki-taek hides in the bunker, now on a lower level than he was when living in the semi-basement apartment. He lives in the dark and communicates to his son through lights, using morse code the same way Geun se did.

As written in Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown: “Black and White always look good. A lot of it has to do with the light. They’re the heroes. They get hero lighting,

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designed to hit their faces just right. Designed to hit White’s face just right, anyway” (Yu 11).

I’ve been thinking alot about neon recently. Signs with glowing lettering and street lights spreading orange over rough pavement. I find neon beautiful. It reminds me of cities that don’t exist yet, cities that will run on a burning kind of power that looks like electricity. I like writing about neon lights when I can.

In New York City, when twenty-four hour signs on stores glow red the light trickles into sewer grates. I looked in one once. My eyesight stopped where the shadows overtook the red.

At the beginning of Jordan’s Peele’s Us, the film opens with statements, “There are thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the continental U.S. Many have no known purpose at all.” While Us deals with the literal, physical levels of tunnels 63

beneath the earth, Get Out discusses the levels of race through what is called the Sunken Place.

When Chris Washington visits his girlfriend’s family for the weekend, he learns that Rose’s mom, Missy, is a hypnotist. Missy offers to hypnotize Chris to help him quit smoking. He declines. However, she hypnotizes him regardless and sends him into the Sunken Place, where the victim is immobilized. They can not move their body, but their mind is intact. They can see and hear everything happening around them.

Jordan Peele tweeted out, “The Sunken Place means we’re marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.”

The Sunken Place is the place in which we are trapped. In Parasite, the Kim family have their own Sunken Place. For a moment, they are in the house on the top of the hill; at the top of the staircase. In the end, they are back at the bottom, or, in Kim-taek’s case, lower. The main character of Interior Chinatown, Willis Wu, reaches the top of the ladder, being cast as ‘Kung-Fu Guy.’ But then he becomes ‘Generic Asian Man’ again. In a never-ending loop, up and down the ladder, never able to get out of the SRO, where space is thought of in threedimensions: “A room isn’t a layout, a footprint, it’s a space, a volume” (Yu 52). And when everything is forced to be three-dimensional, you learn to maximize that three-dimensional space, and that three-dimensional space only. You learn that 64

there is no space for you to spread out so make the most of what you’ve got, kid.

Don’t walk with your hood up. Don’t put your hands in your pockets. Don’t hold a candy bar; they might think it’s a gun. Don’t trust neon dancing in red, white, blue, and purple.

It makes sense, doesn’t it. Colors of our country are the colors dancing over Black skin when the squad comes around the corner. Red blood, white eyes, blue veins.

“He’s probably seen [Interior Golden Palace] reconfigured, repurposed, same flimsy walls, a hundred different stories, five hundred. Same small space. This place preserved as if in amber…A holding cell, purgatory, a vestibule, the anteroom, the waiting room” (Yu 265).

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People of color exist in a state of purgatory in movies, in books, in life. I expected Chris to be shot because my experience told me that that was what was going to happen. The Kim family escapes the confines of their class for a brief moment, but are forced back into their banjiha, their own personal purgatory, their threedimensional space. People of color have filled tropes all throughout movies and television. Only recently have those molds been cracked. And that is cracked, not yet broken. The Sunken Place hasn’t been dismantled yet.

So when I say, I’m tired of watching the suffering of Black bodies on screen in movies served to draw attention to the suffering of Black bodies, what I mean is, I’m tired that we need to see the suffering of Black bodies to draw attention to the suffering of Black bodies.

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Police officers now have cameras on them at all times. It means that we can see every time a police officer kills someone. It means we have the evidence we shouldn’t have needed.

Somehow, it hasn’t been enough.

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Works Cited Photograph A [“Chris and Police Lights”]: Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele; 1:38:16 Photograph B [“Geun Se Leaves the Bunker”]: Parasite, directed Bong Joon-ho; 1:22:15 Photograph C [“The Birthday Party”]: Parasite; 1:52:08 Photograph D [“The Matriarch Sees the Housekeeper”]: Parasite; 43:29 Photograph E [“The Sunken Place”]: Get Out; 35:24 Photograph F [“Neon Rainstorm”]: Parasite; 2:11:48 Photograph G: [“Chris”]: Get Out; Alternate Ending https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/bong-joon-ho-parasite.html https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/parasite-cinematographer-hong-kyungpyo-1202189824/ https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/feb/15/parasite-shines-light-southkorean-basement-dwelle/ Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele (2017) Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho (2019) Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (2020) 68

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Wright and the Reconciliation of Visions in Bright and the Morning Star Nick Baum

In AP Literature and Composition, students read Bright and the Morning Star by Richard White. In response to White’s short story, Nick Baum ‘23 analyzes the author’s uses of divine and physical metaphors to convey and justify the characters’ differing beliefs. To support his claims, Baum references a series of rhetorical devices that Richard White employs to tell his characters’ tales.

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In his 1938 short story “Bright and Morning Star,” author Richard Wright strives to depict a contrast in generational belief sets in a time of rampant oppression, discrimination, and white supremacy. Particularly, the distinction between divine discipline and real-world demands, and their ultimate resolution, is illustrated by Wright through competing visions blanketing the eyes of black female protagonist Reva and her sons Johnny-Boy and Sug. Whereas Wright encapsulates the abstract nature of Reva’s religiosity through gripping details of Christian hardship, the activism of Johnny-Boy and Sug’s is depicted through the more relatable imagery of vying to overcome a “cold white mountain,” with Reva’s reconciliation of the two competing beliefs only arriving through the filter-like combination of the two visions.

Firstly, Wright illustrates the respective beliefs of Reva and Johnny-Boy and Sug through the use of Christian backstories and the metaphorical use of a “white mountain,” and each side’s relationship to such a destination. On the one hand, Reva views the “cold white mountain, the white folks and their laws,” as “temptation, something to lure her from her Lord, a part of the world God had made in order that she might endure it and come through all the stronger, just as Christ had risen with greater glory from the tomb.” By justifying Reva’s aversion to confronting existing institutions of white supremacy and discrimination along religious grounds, Wright develops the protagonist of Reva as a disciplined

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adherent of higher ideals, a conservative stoic who opts to change their mindset rather than the world around them. Such a literary decision is confirmed previously, when Reva is explained to have “had poured the yearning of her life into the songs, feeling buoyed with a faith beyond this world.” Given that a cold white mountain is a destination and sight pertaining to the real world, not heaven or any habitat of God, Wright sets up Reva’s aforementioned commitment to adhering to ideals, not activism. Religion is the justification for Reva’s unwillingness to engage, debate, and confront, with this being illustrated through constant references to Biblical episodes, including the fact that “The figure of the Man nailed in agony to the cross, His burial in a cold grave, His transfigured Resurrection, His being breath and clay, God and Man – all had focused her feelings upon an imagery which had swept her life into a wondrous vision.” Wright essentially explains her use of diction to the reader, writing almost as if Reva physically sees these historical episodes of Christ rather than the cold white mountain that is to be overcome.

On the other hand, Wright once more invokes the notion of “vision” to illustrate a competing set of morals adopted by Reva’s children Johnny-Boy and Sug, again incorporating religious imagery for rhetorical purposes albeit to service a conclusion initially opposite of that of Reva’s. Immediately, Wright takes efforts to establish competition between the parent and sons’ respective beliefs, elaborating that Reva “had sought to fill their eyes with her vision, but they would 72

have none of it.” Immediately upon the introduction of Johnny-Boy and Sug’s higher belief sets, Wright intentionally juxtaposes them from that of Reva’s, deploying that same religious yet physical notion of “vision” to distinguish these ideas. Just as the cold white mountain was a physical concept that threatened Reva’s abstract, divine beliefs, the fact that “day by day her sons had ripped from her startled eyes her old vision” because of their walking “forth demanding their lives” likens Reva’s slow de-escalation of religious orthodoxy to the physical image of that of her eyes forcefully and almost violently dragged away from the sky, where heaven resides, to the cold white mountain in front of her as a black woman in oppressive times. Whereas abstract imagery is utilized by Wright to justify Reva’s beliefs, physical actions and pains are taken by Johnny-Boy and Sug to confront the real and fleshly. In spite of their efforts, however, Wright ultimately connects the two worlds, physical and abstract, in order to finalize Reva’s conversion to Johnny-Boy and Sug’s cause, with the “wrongs and sufferings of black men” taking the place “of Him nailed to the cross.” Once more, Wright resorts to real imagery to convey differing beliefs, and it’s only when such imagery seemingly overlaps in the real world that these beliefs can be reconciled. In the case of Reva, Christ’s persecution is manifested in the current persecution of black individuals that her children are combating. Ultimately, however, it takes Wright’s differentiation between the abstract, religious and the physical, bodily,

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and how real, unsettling images of the two can blend together like a filter on a photograph, to develop Reva’s venture in a new direction on the moral compass.

The protagonist’s conversion from the metaphysical to physical obviously serves to be a critical juncture in “Bright and the Morning Star,” illuminating both the justifications for competing beliefs and how such beliefs can change over time.

In order to service this illumination of Reva’s journey, Wright commits to using clear images that define the metaphorical “visions” of the respective characters.

On the one hand, Reva’s actions and beliefs are compelled by her visualization of Christ’s struggles and commitment to bear the burden of others’ sins. His pains and sufferings seem to Reva as more real than the cold white mountain that her sons Johnny-Boy and Sug strive to overcome, yet it’s only through the protagonist’s likening of her race’s struggles to the gloomy images of Christ’s misery that the reader can learn of Reva’s conversion to a different set of ideals.

Although at first symbolic, pictures, images, and visions may be the force behind our own beliefs, biases, and backlashes, rather than a mere representation of the abstract notions behind them.

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The People Against Industry Cy Rosenberg

Following the unit on the Progressive era in United States history class, students were asked to reflect on the extent of the movement’s success. In his essay “The People Against Industry,” Cy Rosenberg ‘24 analyzes the effects of Progressivism on the conditions of Americans, delving specifically into those of laborers and farmers, women and children, and Black Americans.

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So often, politicians, celebrities, and influencers ‘talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.’ Movements live and die on the fire of short-fused motivation.

Similarly, the Progressive movement of the 1920s had grand illusions for the American working man, yet failed to see much progress during its time. Perhaps the movement was doomed to do so, following the loss of presidential candidate Bryan in the 1896 election. He rallied the progressives to a level that so deeply scared the establishment that the elite poured ten million dollars behind President McKinley, setting records and outmatching Bryan’s $300,000. Either way, the movement elicited little change despite the anger, strikes, and lack of rights for many Americans. At the turn of the 20th century, the Progressive movement failed to see success in elections or legislation resulting in minimal change for the American laborer or consumer.

The state of workers’ and farmers’ conditions summarizes the civil and economic stagnation of the common citizen during this time. Upton Sinclair mentions the reduction of wages of one man – Jurgis – for whom “there was no longer anything to spare” (Sinclair 1906). The government’s and industries’ widespread prevention of minimum wages or unions led to companies and factories taking advantage of individuals and forcing them into a wage-slavery system where you would starve without work – and because the only work available paid so little, you could never escape. And the lack of change in this

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sector truly encapsulates the overall progress of the Progressive movement, which is to say – negligent. Furthermore, despite perhaps the largest and most vocal quadrant of the Progressive platform, American farmers saw no representation in government during the 1890s and thus their goals of increasing tariffs, reinstituting the silver standard, building government crop silos, and providing low-interest loans were never achieved. The lack of industrial regulation extended beyond merely the treatment of the workers – accountability was non-existent, companies took excess without bound, and worker rebellions were violently put down. A large portion of the Progressive platform stood on workers’ rights, so when they failed to raise change, the movement demonstrated no progress on its chief concern.

Similarly to men, women and children saw little civil progress during this time due to a continued lack of federal interest or care. In “Twenty years at HullHouse,” Jane Addams reflects on the conditions of children in labor in 1910. She anecdotally mentions the injury of three boys and the death of one “injured at one machine in a neighboring factory for lack of a guard which would have cost but a few dollars” (Addams 1910). This example illuminates the horrible conditions at factories, specifically those for children. She also mentions a 4-year-old girl who was resigned to picking up basting threads under her mother for hours on end.

Further, the lack of statistical information on industrial conditions – despite plenty of anecdotal evidence of abuse and unsafe conditions – suggests the bad 78

conditions are purposefully hidden by the factories. And, nothing is done to compensate the family due to zero forced accountability. Despite this story sprouting from the tail-end of the progressive period, the problem had begun five decades prior. Nothing had changed or was going to without drastic changes at the federal level. And as known, the Democrats and the Populist platform – that which was originally for more progressive ideas – did not see the oval office from 1896 through 1932, so they were able to effect little change from executive pathways. Furthermore, any child labor reforms (and adult labor acts like the Bakeshop Act) were shut down repeatedly by the Supreme Court because it was believed to infringe on individuals' rights. Also, women’s suffrage, despite gaining in size from previous periods, did not accomplish much during this period. The Declaration of Sentiments – written as a parody of the Declaration of Independence to highlight its hypocrisy – shows the “repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman” (Dec. of Sentiments). She was allowed “no voice,” taken from her “the wages she earns,” and “if married[,] civilly dead” (Dec. of Sentiments). This shows no improvement or change for America.

These were the same problems voiced one hundred and thirty years prior at the Continental Congress – except merely this time, the other half of the populace was voicing them. So, without widespread public support, a voice in the White House, legislation from Congress, or support from the Supreme Court, women’s suffrage and children’s rights were doomed to see no improvement. As with the civil rights

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movement, legislature alone will not change the populace’s opinion or accountability. Yet worse, the children’s and women’s movements had none of these, so conditions continued – disheartening and unmotivating at best; abusive and mortal at worst.

Black Americans suffered worsening racial discrimination and were subjected to worse legal and societal conditions than prior to this era. Legislation and Jim Crow laws marked a prominent shift backward in the Civil Rights movement. Even in 1913, the movement suffered backward movement. The NAACP’s letter to President Wilson cites how the government recently “discriminated against its civilian employees on the ground of color” (NAACP 1913). Once again, even the federal government solicited discrimination and promoted the mistreatment of Black Americans. This was no cosmic shift from decades previous – this was the same racial hatred perpetuated in Birmingham, fought against in the Civil War, and started back in 1619. Where is the change in this? Clearly, Black Americans suffered many of the same struggles and fought the same battles that they did 50 years prior. Black Americans had no facility to improve their condition and time; again they were enslaved and sold, beaten and lynched, denoting no remarked change from previous periods.

As outlined above, the conditions of children, women, Black Americans, laborers, and farmers had not improved from 1890 to 1920. How could 80

Americans as a whole have prospered if so many groups did not? The answer is, they did not. Instead of focusing on the real American struggles, the American government concerned itself with its defense and economy; in the process, it was forgetting to listen to those left behind in this “Mad Max” world. In a dog-eat-dog environment, one must strive to support and care for their neighbor, for they may one day be in the same position. Alas, the Supreme Court adjusted its interpretation over time, the White House listened to the people, and Congress passed bills like the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The state of workers has drastically improved due to allowances for unions and federal oversight. Yet, the question arises – will monopolies once again run amuck?

His motivations for his journey were the same as many others: he lacked religious freedoms, and the economic pitfalls of his prior nation were too much to handle. My grandfather’s ideas of America were ones of prosperity and freedom, things that simply could not be found in his homeland. He went alone to America, and, from what I’ve been told, this was not difficult for my Grandpa. Sure, the actual journey was difficult, but the decision to leave was one of instinct and common sense. He knew nothing would come of his life if he stayed stagnant.

Although his nation continued to rot, his youth did not need to die with it. I’ve heard very little about his literal journey to America. Still, I could assume that being cramped on a ship with hundreds of other immigrants in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was not very comfortable. Once he arrived, much like any 81

immigrant, it was a slow start. My grandfather spent the beginning nights of his new-found life on cold New York sidewalks. The only warmth he felt was in the brief minutes he’d go into a convenience store or a run-down restaurant to hand in a resume. These documents would usually get thrown onto a grease-stained floor or gently placed on a pile along with the many other resumes of immigrants. Each sheet of paper seemed to tip the pile over a bit more until those, too, would just end up falling on the floor. It felt hopeless, but the dream was still alive and well.

After a week of searching, he became employed and was paid well. Maybe he was a waiter or a salesman; I’m not sure. Soon enough, he rented an apartment in Brooklyn. He slowly started to feel more stable, and his dream began falling into place and, ultimately, became a reality. My father didn’t tell me much after this point, but he said one last thing when speaking about his father's story: he said that my grandpa missed home. I didn’t say anything, but it made me feel something peculiar. My grandfather felt homesick for a nation that didn’t even treat him as family, a nation that wronged him and broke him down to a thousand pieces. I think that it is difficult to understand why we miss the things that hurt us. That's what I felt: I felt confused. What makes a home? I still ponder this question – years after being told my grandfather's story. It’s hard to feel at home in this world if you don’t feel at home with yourself.

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The Return of Isabella Linton Alternative Ending to Wuthering Heights Sebastian Young

In 19th Century British Literature, students read Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and had the opportunity to write an alternate ending to the classic novel.

Sebastian Young ‘23 channels Brontë’s voice to imagine the mysterious return of a character, presumed long deceased, and adds a surprising twist to the novel’s conclusion.

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One day, a decade after Heathcliff died, word arrives that the grand estate of Duncombe Park, south of the moor on which stands Wuthering Heights, has been sold to a recently-widowed young woman, Marchioness Howard. The news is vague about where she hails from, some saying that she only just returned from America, but others say the Far East. Word is that the Marchioness intends to take her summers in Duncombe Park, away from her London home, a rather curious thing, because it is fashionable for rich Londoners to summer in the lush greeneries and sunny dispositions of the Lake District. Little is known about the Marchioness. Nevertheless, hushed glee and eager anticipation abound when the locals speak of her famous annual balls at her London house in Belgrave Squares, known to be the most lavish, and the invitations to which, the most sought after by everyone of note. Even the neighborhood of Wuthering Heights this side of the moor, usually quite austere and practical, has been abuzz with gossip about the fashionable parties she will bring to her new residence this summer.

And as if out of magic, one day Duncombe Park stands empty, the next day it is filled with hurrying staff in tails and white gloves, and a parade of carriages standing at the front door, with coachmen wearing dark blue and gold trimmed liveries, which can be seen on the moors from outside of the Carrmere Gate. The curtains in the Fitzroy Wing are open, and the Fountain of Atlas happily dances with the clucking of the hooves.

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A fortnight later, an embossed letter comes to Wuthering Heights, addressed to, in a neat script, Master Heathcliff. The letter invites the master and lady of the house, as well as their children to a summer ball at the Duncombe Park. Nelly, who stayed on after Cathy and Hareton married, receives the letter first. She stands rooted to the spot, finding no way to tear her eyes away from the writing on the envelope, as the script reminded her of Mrs. Heathcliff’s. Brushing aside a sudden sense of unease, Nelly feigns excitement, rushing to the dining room with the letter as Cathy and Hareton silently partake in their supper.

Hareton has been so vexed by the finances of the household of late, since the income of the house has been steadily declining since the year Catherine Linton had died, and Heathcliff started his decline soon after, doing more walking or looking out of the window at the foreboding moors than caring for his estate.

Recently the local market has become even less hospitable to the goods from his estate, as there is a new entrant selling the harvests and products made on the Dunsmore Park, at much lower prices. Cathy has, for some years, been losing patience with him, now nearly thoroughly grown tired of his constant moping. The letter thus generates very different reactions, with as much vehemence Hareton says he will not go to the ball, Cathy insists on a night of diversion. Cathy reasons that, as the master of one of the most respectable local houses, they must attend such a great event, and for that, she must send for a new dress to be made for the occasion.

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The evening of the ball finally is upon them. In their best carriage, Cathy and Hareton arrive at Duncombe Park, which seems aglow from thousands of candles, cheerful music and trills of laughter flowing through the windows. The Marchioness is surely beautiful, even in her black dress (as she is said to be still in mourning) and stern countenance, she shows off her exquisite figure, long neck and sparkling blue eyes. Her hair is styled in the latest fashion, upswept with nary a single strand out of place. Though she remains serious, she appears particularly enthusiastic when the Earnshaws step into the hall, taking Cathy’s hands and looking at her up and down, as if they have long known each other.

Cathy fixes her eyes on the Marchioness’s necklace, one intricately laced with pearls, gemstones and one large blue diamond at the center, which matches the Marchioness’ pale blue eyes, especially as the candle light flickers and casts gold speckles in those eyes and the diamond, as if dancing in unison. In one moment when the Marchioness bent to speak to a shorter companion, near to the fire place, and she lifts her hand to push an imaginary strand of her hair from her face, Cathy finds herself breathless, as before her, she sees a portrait of her dead aunt Isabella Heathcliff, nee Linton, that has always been hanging in the hall next to the foyer in the Linton house, where she was born. “Could it be? But Isabella is dead, Young Linton said so …”

A week later, Marchioness Howard calls at Wuthering Heights. Cathy, who has not slept well since returning from the ball, finds herself unusually tongue87

tied. Summoned for tea, Nelly walks into the drawing room, and as her eyes scan the full figure of the Marchioness in broad daylight, Nelly pales immediately and shatters the cups upon the floor. Apologizing for feeling under the weather, she quickly excuses herself and sends instead a young footman to bring in a new tea service. That night, Cathy confesses to Nelly that in the past many nights, she has gone to the other side of the moor to keep watch at the Duncombe Park, where she has seen the Marchioness Howard always walking in the moonlight. One night, the Marchioness walks onto the moor, where the ghosts of Heathcliff and Cathy come and wander every night. Cathy sees the ghosts scatter as the Marchioness walks toward them. She finally asks Nelly what that all means. Nelly shivers and shrinks into her chair, silent for a long moment. Then she speaks, her voice like ice, saying the unthinkable, that perhaps Isabella Linton never died, and that she is Marchioness Howard, coming back to exact revenge on all of them for her sufferings. Lost in their own thoughts of astonishment and fear, they do not hear the ruckus made by Hareton’s drunken steps on the stairs, returning from a thunder stormy night at the pub.

The next morning, Nelly finds a large puddle at the foot of the winding staircase to the small room above the study. Not knowing what to expect, she sends a young footman up to check, but the young boy returns saying that the room has its window open but no one there, and the night’s pounding rain has come through the open windows, wetting the floor. Puzzled, Nelly is just about to 88

knock on the door of Cathy’s sitting room when the silence of the house is pierced by a loud shriek from the yard. Nelly runs out, finding Cathy already there, looking in horror at the fallen body of Hareton in a putrid pond of rainwater. He must have climbed out the window in a drunken stupor and fell to his death.

For the next few days, not having anyone to turn to for help, Cathy forces herself to study the books Hareton was supposedly keeping for the household, tallying harvests and products for sale, and income. To her horror, Hareton was clearly afflicted with the same disease as his father as he had been drinking heavily and gambling ever more as the household finances deteriorated. Cathy asks Nelly to contact a solicitor to arrange for a sale of the Thrushcross Grange, hoping that the income would help sustain the expenditures of Wuthering Heights, allowing her to keep on Nelly and one of the more senior footmen. At night, Cathy finds herself sleepless, so she goes out to the moors, like her mother used to, and there she would often see the Marchioness walking in the moonlight.

In the distance then, there will always be the anguished wailing of Heathcliff like it was when Catherine first died. Cathy finds it impossible to tear herself away from following the Marchioness, despite Nelly’s pleas to stay clear.

One day the solicitor sends news that he has found a buyer, but the buyer has lain down a condition that the sale must also include Wuthering Heights and the Earnshaw household as the buyer is looking for a lady’s maid and thought 89

Cathy would be particularly suitable. After much begging, the solicitor confirms that the buyer is the Marchioness Howard and that after the intended purchase, she plans to shutter both estates so they can decay and rot away with age. At those words, Cathy suddenly feels ice cold, running upstairs to the room where Hareton jumped to his death, and locks herself in. For two nights, Nelly sits and cries outside the door, begging Cathy to come out to no avail. On the third day, Cathy instructs Nelly from inside the room to dismiss all of the staff and to go travel to Nelly’s sister in Bedfordshire and ask if she can take in both women as lodgers. That night, only Cathy remains in Wuthering Heights, a fire can be seen first through the windows of a small room in the turret, then in the wee hours of the morning, after a loud scream that pierced the stillness of the night, the entire building suddenly is engulfed in fire.

Duncombe Park stirs and lights come on, as people pour out of the front door to watch the sky glowing on the other side of the moor. It is later said that the Marchioness stands in her bedroom window, her face lit by the color of the sky in the distance, showing the very first, albeit enigmatic, smirk that anyone has seen upon her face.

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The Truth Behind the Creative Process A Close Reading of Ted Hughes’ The Thought-Fox Caitlyn Jeffrey

In Art of Poetry, Caitlyn Jeffrey ‘23 analyzes renowned Poet Ted Hughes’ uses of literary devices, namely alliteration and visual imagery, in The Thought-Fox to highlight the importance of trusting the long, creative writing process of poetry.

Jeffrey’s profoundly analytical approach to Hughes’ piece gives the reader a greater understanding of the literary devices poets employ to craft a piece of writing.

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The act of writing a poem is such a simple yet complex task—one that takes patience, trust, and time. In his pastoral poem, The Thought-Fox, the author, Ted Hughes, elaborates on the creative process of writing a poem. The pastoral is through the voice of an unknown speaker, which allows the reader to subconsciously emerge themself in the intricate process. Through alliteration and visual imagery, Hughes praises the importance of remaining patient while crafting a piece of poetry, as well as trusting the creative process of beginning a piece without necessarily knowing its ending.

Hughes begins his poem, The Thought-Fox, with the line “I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:” Already, he introduces the poem with alliteration on the m in “midnight” and “moment’s.” His use of alliteration, here, alludes to how time works mysteriously as midnight is a time of day that is often associated with darkness, fear, and mystery. Furthermore, in the third line of the second stanza, Hughes writes, “Through deeper within darkness.” The alliteration of the d in “deeper” and “darkness” provide a lyrical effect to emphasize the speaker’s journey through the crafting process of poetry and how it takes time. Furthermore, the alliteration of the letter “d” continues in the first line of the fourth stanza, “delicately as the dark snow.” Hughes continues to add a lyrical effect to his poem through this alliteration of “delicately” and “dark," as fresh tracks of snow are fragile, precious, and above all, exquisite— just like the process of crafting a poem.

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In the last three lines of the fifth stanza, Hughes writes, “...and warily a lame / Shadow lags by stump and in a hollow / of a body that is bold to come.” On the l of “lame” and “lags” and the b of “body” and “bold," the speaker contrasts the fox’s body and shadow. This effect reinforces the idea that the poet’s idea will soon come, and patience is critical in the writing process as it takes time to develop one’s piece. Hughes ends his poem with the line, “ . . . the page is printed.” Just like he began the poem with alliteration on the m, he wraps up his piece with alliteration on the p of “page” and “printed." Hughes decidedly concludes his pastoral with a lyrical effect and a sigh of relief. The piece is completed, but that is because the speaker was patient and trusted the writing process.

Not only does Hughes use alliteration in his poem, The Thought-Fox, but he also addresses how valuable it is to slow down the writing process through the visual imagery of the speaker’s setting and the fox. In the first line of the second stanza, the speaker claims, “Through the window I see no star.” The visualization of the speaker staring out the window at a blank and empty sky alludes to the idea that the speaker does not have any sort of epiphany of inspiration for their poem. The blank dark night sky emphasizes that there will not always be one answer or idea to writing a piece of poetry. The description of the dark void above also reinforces that there is not always going to be a sky full of stars to pick from, but it is up to the speaker to create those stars out of their experiences and imagination for themself. Additionally, in the first two lines of the fourth stanza, 94

Hughes writes, “Sets neat prints into the snow / Between trees, and warily a lame.” The speaker illustrates the movement of the fox and how it is approaching slowly, similar to how ideas and the writing process are mysterious and require time. A fox cannot force its prey, just like how a writer can’t force an idea, but both the fox and the writer will be patient and ready for when it arrives.

In his poem, The Thought-Fox, Hughes powerfully highlights the importance of trusting the writing and creative process through the use of both the environment’s and the fox’s alliteration and visual imagery.

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The Gravity of the Duchess’s Death in Webster’s Duchess of Malfi Iliana Weisberg

In a close reading of Act Four, scene 2 of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, Iliana Weisberg ‘23 analyzes the pivotal role this scene plays in reinforcing the theme of the consequences of female social deviance. Weisberg writes of the Duchess conforming to a more traditionally male gender role that leads to her demise, exposing her brother Ferdinand’s selfishness.

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John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi begins with a dark setup and only gets bleaker as the play progresses. It centers around the attempts by the Duchess’s brothers to control her, specifically her marriage and her sex life. In Act Four, Scene Two, the Duchess is executed on her brother Ferdinand’s orders, marking a point of no return for the corrupt characters left around her. This scene is the most pivotal of the play because it slowly builds tension until the key event of the Duchess's death, which exposes Ferdinand's selfishness and reinforces the theme of the consequences of female social deviance.

Act Four, Scene Two slowly builds the tension until the Duchess’s death by contrasting her consistent apathy toward her own life with the continually escalating stakes. From the beginning of the scene, the Duchess senses that her death is near. She says, “The robin redbreast and the nightingale / Never live long in cages” (4.2.13-14) in direct response to her maid’s assertion that she will survive to see the end of her house arrest. The Duchess’s use of this metaphor shows that she understands her exact predicament: she has been sentenced to imprisonment by her brothers, who see her as deserving of the same autonomy as a bird, an animal, and it will not end well for her. However, this prospect does not frighten her; she accepts it willingly. Later in the scene, when the executioners arrive, the Duchess is unfazed and even welcomes death. She tells her maid, “Peace, [death] affrights not me” (4.2.151). The Duchess’s acceptance of her death

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has not changed from the beginning of the scene to this moment, but the circumstances have. With the arrival of the executioners, the Duchess’s death evolves from an abstraction she is thinking about to a reality she must confront, but the escalation in the stakes does not change her calm attitude.

The Duchess’s execution also portrays the deadly consequences of female deviance from the social norms present in the world of the play. The Duchess deviates from a traditional female gender role—she is active rather than passive in the pursuit of power and love. She repeatedly refers to herself as a “prince” (3.2.69) and woos a man herself as opposed to being wooed by him. In Act Four, Scene Two, however, she takes full ownership of her womanhood. Rather than referring to herself as a prince, she asks her brother Ferdinand’s spy, “Am not I thy duchess?” (4.2.119) and responds to his subsequent assessment of her with “I am Duchess of Malfi still” (4.2.125). As she is powerful, so she is a male prince; as she is punished with death for the way she uses her power, for choosing to disobey her brothers by marrying a man below her station, so she is a female duchess.

Webster also places emphasis on her role as a mother. One of her last requests is, “I pray thee, look thou giv’st my little boy / Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl / Say her prayers ere she sleep. Now what you please” (4.2.182-184). By drawing attention to the Duchess’s womanhood through her self-referential language in conjunction with her motherly concern for her children, Webster emphasizes that

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the Duchess’s lethal punishment for her disobedience occurs because Ferdinand has the power to punish her due to his privilege in a patriarchal society.

Finally, when Ferdinand sees the Duchess's body, he employs guilt-ridden language that exposes his selfishness. He asks his spy, “Why didst not thou pity her?” (4.2.250). By contrast, in the previous scene, he specifically tells his spy, “Thy pity [for the Duchess] is nothing of kin to thee” (4.1.136) when he orders him to drive the Duchess mad and then call her executioners. Ferdinand views pity for the Duchess as a weakness when it obstructs his goals; he views it as a moral imperative when it is his own emotional reaction. The echoed word “pity” strengthens the impact of Ferdinand’s desperate question in Act Four, Scene Two. There cannot be any doubt that he is discussing a pitiful reaction to the Duchess’s plight in both Scene Two and the earlier Scene One, because he uses the exact same language twice, once to condemn the reaction and again to say it is the right one. Another moment that exposes his selfishness is when he tells his spy, “Thou’st forfeited thy life [by facilitating the Duchess’s execution], and thou shalt die for ‘t” (4.2.282). Unable to accept that his own authority is the reason for the Duchess's execution, Ferdinand attempts to deny his hand in her death by blaming his spy instead. His guilt is unbearable, and he tries to hide from it by implicating anyone except himself. This selfish guilt marks a turning point in his character; it will later drive him mad.

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The Duchess’s death in Act Four, Scene Two is a key event in the play because it progresses the plot, reinforces the theme of repercussions for female noncompliance with gender norms, and develops Ferdinand’s character by exposing his guilt- ridden selfishness. The Duchess’s execution is payoff for all the setup that has occurred up to that point—all the secrets she has kept so she can keep her power, all the threats Ferdinand has made because of her social deviance. When it finally comes to pass, it irrevocably changes the course of the plot; it escalates the violence in an already dark play and drives Ferdinand mad.

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Works Cited Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century/The Early Seventeenth Century. 9th ed., vol. B, New York City, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.

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Shot Across the Block A Diatribe of the Defiant and Deviant Clay Hudson

In 'Shot Across the Block: A Diatribe of the Defiant and Deviant,' Clay Hudson ‘23 pens a striking exploration of the gap between societal ideals and harsh realities.

The essay, written for his Political Theory class, adeptly dissects Rousseau's concept of individualism within suburban life's context. Through vivid prose, Hudson contrasts the idealized nuclear family with the broken landscapes beyond suburbia's fence, highlighting societal disparities. By deftly blending personal experiences with philosophical musings, he critiques the notion of the 'general will,' providing a compelling reflection on modern existence. Hudson's impactful essay sparks reflection on governance, resilience, and the urgent need for change.

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Every man (ideally) has a small, comfortable piece of government given to him, one small collage of red, white, and blue power. In Rousseau’s words, I see the thunderbird, the image of the nuclear family, with one hand gripping the picket fence and the other hand nurturing their own piece of politics. However, if you leave suburbia, take two rights and a left, you’ll stumble upon families as broken as the asphalt, the asphalt we were told was our playground. You’ll see picket signs and smiles as survival tactics, and numbered streets where the general will is to transcend home, to sleep soundly, and stop making new dances to the pahp-pahp-pahps of slugs, to smile and love and run down streets without tripping over homeless red water.

From the stifled eyes of a black boy, there is no shot across the bow — because my will, and my brother’s will and my auntie’s will are all the same: $4500 dollars, a snippet on the news, a grainy photo, and a pocket square to remember us by when we depart. Dearly. Our black body, agreed upon by assemblies of free people whose interest is only to serve the welfare of themselves.

Each of us put person and power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and in our corporate capacity fill my rap sheet up with bars I don’t recognize. For some reason, orange is always complimented by midnight blackblue hue. My father always told us that if they gave George Bush a gun and a pedestal, he’d be Robespierre, the protege turned proclamation: “get right or get

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left”. My security and my liberty isn’t even in my room. I came home from school one day and my Outkast poster was crying because it had a hole in it.

My father said desperation engendered our hell. I think it was the progressives. The Five-Percenters always said a white man has no black agenda, only his lessons with his father behind the barn, while wife and baby cover their ears. They philosophize that there is no “i”, no “eye”. We ain-ever stole no candles, no flints, knives and paper. They sit in the tunnel for three hours each night and study us. Us, with our inherently deviant blood, still getting penalized, our blood still flowing and renewing school to prison pipelines. Our little neighborhood stays littered with necessary-force murals, heads that don’t look like heads ‘no more, babies wearing suits, eyes that don’t look like eyes ‘no more.

Our contract, every morning… inshaAllah and Lord willing, I will serve you and serve rocks disguised as gems, and He will order my steps. When black bodies get engraved, and our peaceful enjoyment of liberty is surrounded by clouds, trumpets and too many people with my same face, we read Rousseau in our homes, practicing our kufi-cap-defiance, clandestine. Let them find out about us, whose family tree of stymied sopranos, assaulted altos, and tainted tenors still sings. I never appreciated that my grandfather’s accounts of the past would grow into prophecies about what would happen to his offspring. Granddad and Rousseau said we would surely die. This is barely an exposition.

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Gordon Parks, The Invisible Man, Harlem, 1952

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AP Lang’s “Open Letter” In the following order: Eunice Fernandez ‘24, Devin Ramsay ‘24, Ellis Fertig ’24, Stephen Hatfield ’24

As a part of their semester-long curriculum, AP Language and Composition students studied the works of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Baldwin. Diving deep into the emotions behind rhetorical strategy, juniors Eunice Fernandez, Devin Ramsay, Ellis Fertig, and Stephen Hatfield explore the issues of race, socioeconomics, and gender as they affect their complex relationships to themselves and their loved ones.

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Dear Little Sis, Often you ask me how my day at school was. You ask me about what I did and whether anything cool happened. You ask me about what I ate because “private school food is so much better than public school food.” And often I tell you about the good parts: how I only had two classes and the food was really good that day.

But, there are times when that bubble of perfection, of privilege, is broken. Times that remind me that my experiences are not always similar to the kids I am surrounded by. I think it’s time to tell you about them, about the times that haven’t been so great. I don’t know if you’ll follow the same path as me. Maybe you won’t choose a private school, but I think there are some things you can learn from my time here because, although I didn’t realize it at the time, we are sheltered in our town full of people who look like us and share the same opinions.

My first piece of advice is this: don’t assimilate. Don’t let anyone wipe away parts of your identity just because those parts are foreign to them. A few months ago, a classmate said something that has stuck with me. We were reading a book about a young girl from what is known today as Zimbabwe, a country with a long history of exploitation at the hands of the British, and her experience leaving home to attend a missionary school. Her name was Tambu, a name packed with cultural significance. In response to the other characters’ names, one of my classmates said, “Why couldn’t they just be named John or something?” I was stunned. There 110

were names charged with culture and meaning, and my classmates wanted to take those away, just to make it easier for them to pronounce. We know this struggle too, little sis. We are owners of names often mispronounced. We frequently hear, “Can I just call you ___ instead?” Why should they have to change their name for someone else’s sake? Why should we? The answer is we shouldn’t and I urge you to not let it happen.

On a different day, one group of students was talking about ice trays. “Why would people even use those? Don’t you just get ice from your fridge?” I thought of all the ice trays that used to sit in our freezer when we were younger. The different colors and shapes. I thought of all the times you asked to fill them up, excited for the end result: a clear star that would chill your morir soñando juice or a smooth rectangle to put in your water. I don’t think they realized that there are people who can’t afford to spend $4,000 on a smart fridge that lets you draw on the screen. But that doesn’t make us any less than them. Baldwin said it best when he urged his nephew to “try to remember that what they believe. . . does not testify to your inferiority.” I advise you to do the same. Don’t let them make you feel like you need to swap out your curly hair products for a flat iron. Don’t let them make you feel like you need to give up our sancocho for a Caesar salad. Because none of these things make you an outsider. After all, “anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider” (King). So when they say something so indicative of the privilege they have had their whole lives, don’t let it make you 111

feel inferior. When someone mispronounces your name, correct them. And never ever lose who you are or where you come from.

Next, I’m going to caution you against a trap that I too have fallen into and that is perpetuating the notion of America’s innocence. You have heard our parents tell us the same thing: when they remind us that for all of America’s talk about equality and freedom, this country has been built on inequality and restriction. I should have thought more about this every time they said it. Often I simply accepted that though it was unfair, some people had to start at the bottom and work their way up. I mean, that was the Dream, wasn’t it? That was what our parents did. That was what our neighbors did. That was what the bodega owner down the street did. That is what they all encourage us to do. But, the part of the Dream that should stick with you is the desire to work hard and achieve success.

You can get your degree at a prestigious university. You can get that house in the suburbs. You can get the golden retriever you have always wanted and launch your bakery. But what you can’t do is forget. You can’t forget the years' worth of oppression that the Black Americans who built this country endured. You can’t forget the attempted silencing of the Mexican and Asian American farm workers that fed this country. If you do end up coming to a private school, think about why over 66% of the student population is white. Think about the generational wealth they each have and consider the means through which this wealth might have been accrued. Once you achieve the Dream, you can not blindly invoke it as praise.

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You must not perpetuate the notion that the foundation of the Dream is free of discrimination against marginalized groups in the U.S. Because if you do, you are saying America is innocent of all the crimes it has committed.

With these two pieces of advice, I hope to destroy the bubble in which society often places youth. I know you are already far more aware of these issues than I was at your age. You have always been outspoken and an upstander. But, I think it is important to remind you that you are still sheltered and have much more to learn.

There are entire cultures apart from ours, and there is history behind every street we walk on. You must seek knowledge about these cultures and seek knowledge about that history. Use this knowledge to further appreciate our own culture and our own history. This way, you will never allow the bubble to consume you. I always tell you how much I love reading because other people are so much better at putting my thoughts into words. Therefore, I will leave you with Coates’ words: “You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.”

Always your number-one supporter,

Your older sister

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Dear Friend, When I was 13 my mom got pulled over by the police while I was in the passenger seat. I don’t remember why it happened, what the officer looked like, or his badge number. But I remember the fear. The all-consuming fear dominated my mind as I looked straight ahead with my hands in my lap, not even wanting to move in the slightest. I don’t know if you have ever experienced such fear, but it's disarming nature made me naked in front of the officer, my mind spinning with “What Ifs” and images of Maurice Gordon. That was the first time. The second time was a little easier. The third time was even easier. The problem is that I am still consumed with fear even as I become desensitized to the events surrounding it.

Does normalizing an issue make it disappear? I write to you because I have seen your attempts to dismiss the fear and treat it as second-hand and unimportant. I have also seen your attempts to disprove events and feelings that I live through every day. It’s been difficult for me to speak up, as I’ve always had trouble communicating my opinions. But rather than speak my opinion, I want to share with you a couple of facts.

Fact one.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote Letter From Birmingham Jail in 1963, protesting segregation and people who prefer the “absence of tension” to the “presence of

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justice”. America is still segregated through red lines, housing, and income barriers, only the policies are no longer in place. History always trumps policy, meaning that governmental change is only the first step. For example, the black experience at a PWI can be examined as a microcosm of being black in America.

We are outnumbered in the ratio of black to white students, forcing us to form closer bonds with one another so that we don’t drown ourselves in the sea of complacency. We experience microaggressions consistently, but we shrug them off because it’s easier to stay silent than to fight back. The recognition of our ancestors’ talents is only examined through special circumstances and not integrated into the curriculum smoothly. In America, we are becoming more desensitized every day. When the roots of the black experience today aren’t discussed through an impartial historical lens, it is impossible to see the disproportionate impact of policing and appraisals. Tension is the missing link; the hard conversations and education must pave the way to freedom.

Fact two.

In the epistolary memoir Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates commonly references the American Dream, reframing it as the perpetuation of the system and the unwillingness to change it. However, the Dream is one of the reasons the feeling of community is so strong amongst black people. It’s strong because the hatred and the fear give us reason to unify. Red lines separate me and you but 116

bring me closer to people like me. Being black in America is something that ties all of us together, and that experience allows us to bond in much deeper ways than are present on the surface. How can you say that my fear doesn’t exist when it connects me to people I’ve never even met? There is an unmentioned feeling of safety when in a community of people because we know we are surrounded by people who understand us and don’t judge us for who we are. I’m sure you can relate to something like that.

It must be 6 or 7 years since I first got The Talk. I remember both of my parents sitting me down and telling me how to act if I ever get stopped by the police. They told me to be twice as good because for every step forward they take I must take two. They told me that because of the color of my skin, the content of my character would be determined before I opened my mouth. They didn’t do this to scare me. It was to protect me from a mindset like yours. I can’t blame you for your unwillingness to change because you haven’t been exposed to enough from the other side. Before writing this letter, I asked some of my black friends when they got The Talk. Without my elaboration, they all told me somewhere between 9 and 10 years old. One person even told me they got it at 6. Imagine the effects of such a tragic concept being levied onto such a young mind. We are forced to live with these realities at young ages, which shapes our minds and contributes to our need for the feeling of community. You have the privilege of safety; your body isn’t sought after the way mine is. The more I reflect the more I wish that I hadn’t 117

gotten The Talk, for I would be able to go through life without the knowledge of my predicament. But it’s necessary. It’s necessary because ignorance and complacency are not the solutions to centuries' worth of discrimination. It’s necessary because the system will tear us down if we don’t tear ourselves down first. It’s necessary because 6-year-old lives are threatened by history still brimming under the surface. It’s necessary because of people like you that skate on the pristine frozen lake without a fear of falling in. You can afford to shut your eyes but I know millions of people who have to keep them open. How can the veil be lifted if it’s nailed down? How can the system be reworked to include my people in the Dream? The answer is consciousness and adaptability. We must, we must, we must stand in the shoes of our peers and look forward as easily and as often as we stand in our own shoes and look backward. We have to have those hard conversations, but we also have to listen just as loud as we speak. As James Baldwin says, we are ”celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.” Only through a conscious effort of understanding and belief in the existence of the system can we begin to rework it one step at a time.

I tell you all this because I want to continue being your friend. It’s easy to be bitter. It would be easy for me to tell stories of your ignorance for a laugh. But while my grandma was still on this Earth, she told me to love twice as hard and forgive them, for they know not what they do. I honor her impact on me through this letter and carry her advice with me every day because I believe that 118

constructive criticism in the place of violent action is better than no action at all.

So no, I don’t think a person should have to “get used” to their fear. Every human deserves a still and clear mind while navigating through life, you and me included.

If you get anything from this, understand that once the barriers are broken down and the red lines are seen with purely non-judgmental eyes then the goals of MLK will be realized and the Dream will be remolded into an idea that includes all people in this country and redefines America as a whole.

With love,

Anonymous

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Dear Grandma, Over the course of our conversation last July, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about your life before you became bitter. In my head, your existence consisted of raising your five children on Hamburger Helper and casserole in Nowhere, West Virginia. You were the woman with the Dorothy Hamill haircut and too-bigglasses in a yellow-tinted image, torn at the edges and faded in the corners. But I also suppose you must have been my age once long ago. During our conversation, we discussed your past life in West Caldwell, where you climbed trees and ate wild blueberries and also learned how to duck and cover under your desk for when the US was nuked. Because at ten years old, you needed to prepare for your destruction at the hands of adults on a power trip. You spent a childhood learning that we are defenseless against the people who don’t care. You told me about the rage you felt in the hospital where you were a nurse before you had kids, where you were one of the last people to see the little kids whose parents made the fatal decision not to vaccinate. The last to see the little kids dying of gruesome, tragic, and painful deaths—preventable deaths from preventable diseases.

In your life as a nurse, you saw countless suffer from preventable disease. Except the illness wasn’t just measles or mumps or rubella. It was ignorance. Not just ignorant ignorance, but voluntary ignorance. Purposeful ignorance, preventable ignorance, not blind but eyes-squeezed-tight, stick your head in the sand 121

ignorance. Not quite apathy, surely the world won’t admit apathy for the bombed 10-year-olds with pockets full of blueberries, but it can bury the fact of their bodies deep enough in the ground to be forgotten. You told me about your boiling hot anger watching children die on hospital beds because of their parents’ ignorance. I wanted you to stop. Because you can’t pretend that you’re immune from this disease. Because you omit the part about your vote for Reagan and the fuel economy. Because you believe in your God-Given-Right to drive gas cars. Because you shout out that the government can’t take away your red meat. Stop pretending that you are different from the parent with the right not to vaccinate, when ten-year-olds ten miles east are suffering from asthma and learning disabilities and parents with cancer and ten other preventable diseases. Ten miles east, our packages are shipped and the trashed remnants are injected into their air, into their lungs. How can you pity the kids who died of measles but put your blindfold on when you see the children next door who have lost their right to breathe?

Your answer has always referred to activists. The activists are “extremists.” The activists are “getting the wrong type of attention.” The activists are taking our rights. Like everyone else, you bury the real victims. With you, the story is no longer about access to air; it’s about your distaste for solar panels. But if we think about the children in the Ironbound, who are breathing metals and incinerated trash because corporations and the government claim that they are expendable, 122

and we look from their point of view, how can you really convince yourself that activists are causing the damage? That activists kill equally as many as the incinerators? How can I forgive that you are purposely ignorant of the fact that chemicals are pumped into the air people breathe? You must realize that you are vulnerable to the same disease suffered by parents who choose not to vaccinate and the governments who choose to bomb.

Just because you have chosen to put your head in the sand does not mean it is an option for the rest of us. When we last spoke, you were lying on the fine-sand beach. Your ten (soon to be eleven) grandchildren were there too. You’ve lived in Florida for decades, surviving hurricanes and python invasions. But when your eleventh grandchild is your age, your home will be gone. In 80 years, the Island I was named after will be gone. The beaches where we both spent our childhood summers. The homes of our neighbors and their children and the women at the library who help you send emails and the waitresses you yell at will all be destroyed. Maybe you and I can escape, but we must be angry for the ones who can’t.

Rising tides and dirty air and heat waves and hurricanes. The waves creep up, quicksand ready to bury a town without a trace. You look away because you would rather get Florida sand in your eyes than admit that maybe you weren’t the good guy here. When I am your age, talking to my grandchildren, I will complain about 123

the same preventable disease as you. No one will see you as the hero who spoke out against violent climate activists. In the end, you are just another grain of sand, drifting underwater, powerless against the forces of ignorance.

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Dear Brother, “I am one of the richest and most influential men on the face of planet earth.

While the forces of evil attack me, everyone who defends me by speaking the truth will be monumentally rewarded.” Merely eight hours before writing this letter, these two sentences were shared from the Twitter account of Emory Andrew Tate III, one of your current icons. Do you believe these words?

As you know, Andrew Tate gained tremendous popularity in the past year. During this period, I have noticed that his emphasis on living as an “alpha male” truly resonates with you. His words invoke strength, power. They encourage you. They motivate you. And yet, they lead you down the wrong path. Although a passionate speaker, the logic behind the language that Tate clamors is flawed. He may captivate you, but please, allow me to stop him from convincing you. I identified with you for some time, with the Hustler’s University students. I knew that some of Tate’s claims were immoral. But even more I knew that I hated cancel culture.

And I felt angry that society could come to a conclusion about the depth of a person’s character so quickly and unanimously. Perhaps I too aspired to be like Tate. Perhaps I too wanted to be “Top G,” but I have escaped from the shackles of TikTok. I have escaped from the rabbit hole of Tate fans. And I now know the harm that can occur from such relentless support of a false idol. In “My Dungeon Shook,” James Baldwin writes to his nephew about the struggle to accept white 126

people for their behavior toward African Americans accepting white people. He states, “Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.” I believe that while many individuals know of the harm that Tate can cause, few stand up for those who he puts down.

Nevertheless, a simple Google search will tell you what the media thinks about Andrew Tate. The terms are rather striking: violent, coercive, toxic, heinous. But I am not concerned with the journalists. John, you mustn’t lose yourself in the words of an entertainer. You must know that Tate’s outlandish comments have little truth or substance. When you consume his content, memorize his prose, and apply his ideas, you minimize your aperture on society. You blind yourself to reality, subjecting women to certain roles and elevating men to the rest. I recognize the good you see in him, the hope. The notions of brotherhood, purity, and fortitude are among the few that I can support. However, Tate’s mindset is restrictive. To believe that a man’s wife should not drive his car is plainly irrational. To celebrate male promiscuity, but condemn a woman who sleeps around, is clearly hypocritical.

I know you love his confidence. I have noticed you emulate his intonation. And yes, there are situations where I don’t mind your recitations. If I recall correctly, one of Andrew’s teachings is to live with the mentality, not that you “have to” do 127

something, but that you “get to” do something. He proclaims that everyone should be thankful for their access to opportunities. However, these very opportunities are the same ones that Tate attempts to limit for women. A woman would neither “have to” drive to the grocery store nor “get to” drive to the grocery store if she was prohibited from operating the vehicle in the first place. In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. articulates, "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” I will take this one step further. In order for freedom to properly be enjoyed by all members of society, it must be endorsed by allies of the oppressed. Be an ally, John. Do not be an enemy.

Let me address the “cancel culture.” You see, Tate could have thousands of “good takes,” but all it takes is a dozen “bad takes” to see him canceled. Almost every social media platform has banned his content at some point over the past several months. Yes, these platform restrictions could be considered as limitations on free speech. However, Tate’s ideas are hateful and possibly dangerous. For a man to assert complete dominance over the women in his life directly eradicates their individuality and, therefore, security. His words could be jokes merely exaggerated for a larger audience, but I doubt many of his followers make such distinctions. He declares that a woman’s job is to procreate, to look after the family, and to tend to the needs of their husbands, while the men go out and “build the modern world.”

He insists that women are failing in their role. But John, don’t you see that his 128

utterances are completely correlated with gender inequality? He intends to reduce women to their status prior to “Me Too,” prior to the Civil Rights Act, prior to the 19th Amendment. Andrew Tate does not comprehend the irrevocable rights and abilities of women. But, John, I know that you do. I know that you express equal respect for all people. I know that you did not treat your girlfriends like him. I know that you are a decent person. You think Tate is on a level that you must aspire to reach. No, you reside several levels above him.

Stepping away from his statements, Tate’s actions as of late have given you all the more reason to abandon your obsession. For the past two months, Andrew and his younger brother, Tristian, have been living out their days in a Romanian prison.

Charged with being part of an organized crime group, human trafficking, and rape, Tate’s actions make clear that he falls extremely short of the ideal role model. In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates informs his son, “My work is to give you what I know of my own particular path while allowing you to walk your own” (Coates 39). Even as your younger brother, I feel obligated to share with you the wisdom that I have gained in my past seventeen years of life. Trust me when I tell you that Andrew Tate is not a man you should support.

Returning to his most recent Tweet, you see his unwavering confidence. You read his excuses—his attempts to make himself feel better about the situation that he is in. Do you believe him? Do you agree with him? Do you expect to be rewarded 129

for your fortification of Tate’s ideas? I pray that your answers have changed after reading this letter.

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