WATCH Words - Spring 2020

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The WatchWords Literary Issue is an imprint of watch magazine Student Publisher - Pleasant Ballenger Faculty Advisors - Mr. Childs Smith & Mr. Jonathan Chang Front Cover Art by Victoria Johnson Back Cover Art by Jake Macdonald Featuring Artwork by Jessica Perry (above), Victoria Johnson, Lily Hambric, Peter Lorris, Jake Macdonald and Ethan Lehrman With special thanks to Ms. Janet Preslar, Mr. Brian Principe, and Mr. Brink Norton 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS Each spring we are proud to feature student works of art and winning entries from the Upper School Literary Contest for Poetry, Short Fiction and Expository Writing.

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The Designs of A Writer, The Beauty of A Book, by Sophie Levenson

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1st Place, Narrative: “Beige” by Anna Lehman

10 1st Place, Poetry: “Blank Pages” by Parker Murphy 12 1st Place, Essay: “The College Interview: The Good, The Bad, a And The Ugly” by Courtenay White 16 2nd Place, Narrative: “A Father’s Daughter” by Mattie Hood 18 2nd Place, Poetry: “A Pretty Rainbow” by Jake Macdonald 20 2nd Place, Essay: “Working Smarter” by Robert Russell 22 3rd Place, Narrative: “The Teddy Bear” by Bryce Marion 26 3rd Place, Poetry: “In the Wind” by George Walton 28 3rd Place, Essay: “We ‘Drown’ Together: A Rhetorical Analysis of E T.S. Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’” by Owen Seldon 30 Honorable Mention, Narrative: “Enlightenment of the Soul” b

by Turner Long 32 Porter-Gaud Out Loud: Poetry Recitation Finalists 34 Honorable Mention, Essay: “Reviving the Mind’s Enigmatic Qualities” b

by Lily Hambric 36 Guest Contributor - Senior Ballard Morton 38 Guest Contributor - Senior Lily Hambric 3

The Designs of A Writer, The Beauty of A Book

By Sophie Levenson “One must be careful of books, for words have the power to change us.”

–Cassandra Clare

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In a world full of headlines larger than columns, science more studied than art, cell phones more abundant than books, and test scores more prevalent than anything, it is remarkably easy to find ourselves looking more for answers than for thought. We want to know who said what and when, instead of what it means and how it was phrased.

For so many, reading has become a punishment, an assignment, or a box to check on a to-do list. It thus becomes harder each day to remind ourselves that books are how we first told stories and learned about other people. Letters written on parchment paper were how we reached each other, and their length meant something more than a rubric-based word count. People did not start writing books to force mystifying ideas upon overwhelmed students; they did so rather because they wanted to entertain and enthrall, or to immortalize a beautiful phrase or idea. Reading is not a science; it is an art, and we do it purely to satisfy our innate appreciation of beauty.

As soon as human hand put pen to paper—or, more accurately, stylus to clay—writing became a keystone of our kind. It was a form of communication that would not fade away with sound waves and voices, but would stay as it was put, holding onto its message until it crackled with flame or drowned in the sea. Of course, writing was invented first to keep records, and for other pragmatic reasons, but it was not confined to such for long. Even in the very first written language, cuneiform, stories were told. Among them was The Epic of Gilgamesh, the first known written epic, now immortalized by the modern world’s appreciation of its impact on literature.

With the realization that a written language could be used for storytelling, works were hatched in languages all over the globe. Every culture had their stories to tell, and not one of them has ever stopped doing so.

Artwork by Lily Hambric

Of course, some stories are so great by nature of their tale that they do not need to be written anymore to be remembered. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” a fable originally written by a Greek storyteller, has been adapted and retold so many times that anybody could relate the story, or perhaps more importantly, the moral, at any given moment.

These are mostly stories that teach lessons, or perhaps have significant cultural importance, and can be passed on from word of mouth.

But the stories that are studied, scrutinized, loved and renowned are the ones that dazzle with their language, their rhetoric and poetry. They did not acquire any such adjectives by simply stating a series of events; they introduced us to characters that jump off of pages, phrases that hang in the air like the sun on a summer day. We read so that we can stop in the middle of a page, re-read a line, and take a minute to absorb it. We read so that we can laugh at witty humor, so that we can cry at the beauty of an ending. A book is like a person, in that the way it speaks says so much about its character. The only way we can judge the character of a person is to listen to what it has to say and how it goes about doing so. A book is much the same.

So often, with our new-age, druglike addiction to instant satisfaction, the question of “what happens?” is all that we can muster. It is all that people want to know, and it is why websites like SparkNotes are so successful. But in my opinion, it is better to not read a book at all than to ignore the actual pages and simply let the internet tell you what went on in each chapter. Because writers do not write merely to make up a plot; no, they write to craft a work of art. If there was nothing more to literature than a storyline, Gone With the Wind would be four pages long, and The Count of Monte Cristo would be six. Poetry would not exist at all.

Of course, it would be silly to proclaim that a plotline has no importance. After all, it is what fundamentally makes up a story. But it remains a baseline, on top of which a writer pours his or her soul. For some, it is even less than that. If Virginia Woolf wrote only for the simple story that she tells, she would have no career. But she is an artist and a mistress of words, channeling an immense amount of power into her every letter by the force of her rhetoric. The same can be said for the aestheticism movement, though its intent differs quite a bit from Woolf’s. The movement pushes for a style of writing that is purely decorative and exists only to explore the eloquence of language. An aesthetic writer’s five-page description of a door handle can prove nothing to any reader, save for the beauty and intricacy of diction.

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It might be considered a disservice to literature if I did not reference the man whose turns of phrase somewhat set the standard for linguistic delicacies: William Shakespeare. Playwright and a poet, not a novelist, he earned his career for his words, not his stories. He has kept his audiences amused and enthralled, in love and full of enmity, and absolutely captivated for five-hundred years. And his play with, arguably, the most success, was not his own story. Romeo and Juliet is based on an age-old story, told and retold in various forms, but made famous by Shakespeare’s adaptation.

Understandably so, for he commandeered the language almost as if he had invented it. Similarly, one could assert that his Julius Caesar is nothing more than a retelling of history. Oh, but it is much more. A history book has not the power over people that literature does, and while Julius Caesar, the man and dictator, makes an enthralling tale in and of himself, his story never captivated the masses like Shakespeare’s emulation of him did and still does. And so the somewhat fictionalized play triumphs over the bare fact, just as the pen rules over the sword.

While we dwell on those who spoke Latin, I may as well diverge into the subject of Tacitus, a Roman historian known for his strikingly unique style of writing.

Tacitus, frankly, is a pain to translate into English, as his writing is incredibly unique, even for a Roman. Oftentimes, by translating one language into another, we lose the intricacy, and the prettiness that accompanies a writer’s turn of phrase—Tacitus being a perfect example. He, almost like Shakespeare, did not say outright what he wanted to convey to his readers. He wrote mostly in metaphors and odd phrases, and at a level of complexity that does not really exist sensically in the modern English language.

And yet, as Latin students, we study him—not to learn his history, though that is an added bonus, but to realize the difference between a translation and a comprehension.

To digest the idea that we do not learn Latin so that we can throw it into our own language, but rather so that we can appreciate the exquisite minds of the Roman people by reading their words as they wrote them. It is the same concept as summarizing the plot of a great novel—to do so would rob the reader of the butter from the bread.

Sometimes, translation is simplification, and simplification is an extremely dangerous weapon to use on a writer.

In a recent conversation, I asked a friend of mine if he had read any books by George Orwell. His reply, to my chagrin: “no, I don’t need to, because I know what they’re about.” No doubt, I was greatly disappointed, and set out to alter his mindset.

For there is no way that this friend of mine can quite understand the power of Animal Farm or 1984 without having read them in full. They are books full of symbolism, imagery, metaphor, and a certain kind of intelligence that has to be read to be known.

I have read both and have yet to reach a thorough and complete comprehension of Orwell’s messages, as is the case with every book: there is always something more to be known. To presume that all there is to know about a book is apparent from the general idea of it is to presume that describing a color to a blind person would sufficiently satisfy their mind. It cannot be done.

It is ironic, though, that our conversation happened to be about Orwell, for his very own 1984 details an intellectual rebellion against a government that wants to limit language. The confinement of “Oldspeak” into “Newspeak” would accomplish the same as a plot summary, by taking the beauty out of language and allowing very

few words, only when necessary. The “Party” in 1984 believes that by restricting vocabulary, they can restrict thought, or at least the manifestation of it. In the latter part, they prove somewhat correct. A book written only in Newspeak would be about as concise and refined as a book could be. It would also have the potential to be the least enjoyable piece of literature in human history. Books, as ridiculous as it may seem to write out, require words. Language is not just a messenger; it is also a gift.

The power of language is thrust to brilliance in classics in such a striking way that it would be difficult not to notice it. J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield is a character so distinct because of the way he manifests himself through The Catcher in the Rye’s cynical, misanthropistic rhetoric. Catherine Earnshaw is uniquely crazy, wild, and golden because Emily Brontë gave her a soul made out of ink. Jane Austen had a wicked sense of humor. Poe made us cry for Annabel Lee, and shudder at the sound of the gentle rapping at his chamber door. Doyle had us on the edge of our seats, potential suspects taking up space in the attics of our minds. Homer and Virgil have been studied and translated again and again and again so that a student can learn about how they wrote and what they meant when they did. We read because we find that words are an art, and an incredibly powerful one too. And yet, we too often forget this, as we are so wrapped up in the concrete aspects of literature, searching incessantly for the answers to our tests and essays. But there is no one right answer to a question about a book; for if books are people, they must as well be remarkable and ambiguous. You may fall desperately in love with them, or you may think them putridly dull and untouchable, but neither you nor I will ever understand every part of them in full.

A character in a Shakespeare play never merely states a thought; he or she alludes to some greater idea and dances around their point in a style of rhetoric so ornate that one cannot help feeling as if they are listening to, or reading, a painting.

That is why it is so renowned, so adored. It is why all great literature is so valuable.

Nothing has power over people like language does; it is how we have learned to understand each other, as well as the world. As you read, whether it be a poem or a novel or a play, I advise you to consider the words before your eyes, as well as their intent. Appreciate the writer for the rhetoric, the style, the diction, and the beauty.

Write down your favorite quotes and do not forget them, even if their meaning seems illusive. Remember that there is more to writing than getting an idea across; there must be something in it that compels a person to turn every page that they do. It is no coincidence that a pen can both draw and write, or that a piece of paper can be both read and colored.

With this last thought, I sincerely hope that you have found my words to be something more than informative; and I wish you a pleasant journey into the gallery that awaits among the forthcoming pages.

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Anna Lehman

1st PLACE, NARRATIVE

Beige

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The air was moving. Warm sunlight shone through the halfway-closed blinds, and Felicity Smith lay on her floor, staring up with fascination at the popcorn ceiling. The glittering particles flew about the apartment, sticking to the Cloroxed granite countertops and to the padded lining adorning its corners.

The essential oil diffuser whirred to a stop, and so did the dancing air. The vague smell of lavender and chamomile hurried to escape as chaos quickly suffocated the room.

Noise.

In the distance, the baby cried. It wailed, each heaving sob confusing the tired air.

Felicity’s eyes fogged over. Nothing felt on the floor of manufactured carpet. Beige walls and soiled sippy-cups crushed her numb body, yet she stayed on the ground. A mangled halo-crown of Felicity’s lifeless hair fanned her wrinkled face. Her breathing slowed. The bug-bite on her left elbow didn’t itch.

The baby kept crying fitfully, kicking the rails of the crib that Felicity herself had once occupied. Where she was lulled to sleep and kissed goodnight.

She made no attempt to comfort the child behind the locked door.

The phone rang, and the doorbell rang, and the fan whirred and the floor creaked and the wind blew. And the screaming grew louder. Yet Felicity watched the patchy ceiling with attentive care.

The baby in the other room wasn’t Felicity’s baby. Felicity had no baby. It couldn’t be.

She hated that baby. She wished it wasn’t hers.

Felicity tried to get up. She imagined running from the floor, from her beige walls, from her life, but she stayed. Locked in her apartment with the crying baby. Felicity knew there was no escaping; her last option to bolt was eleven months past, when she found out that she was pregnant with a baby the size of a kidney bean.

Felicity knew she should just get up and coddle the crying baby, but instead she let her head fill with spirals of song lyrics from her high-school glory days. “Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture” looped. Felicity reminisced on her morning car-rides with Maura, her best friend, and on the crude rap they’d play before junior-varsity basketball games.

The air grew thick, stagnant.

Other people found joy in Felicity’s child; people giggled at the onesies they had designed for it, guffawed at the multitude of “goo-goo-ga-ga” noises that it made, and took pictures of its beaming face. Yet she felt no connections to the child; Felicity never felt.

Her icy brown eyes fixated upon the patterns of the popcorn ceiling. All she could look at was herself. Alone. No child. She thought of abandoning the child in a quiet alley or sending it off to a dreary orphanage in the woods. But Felicity knew it was too late for that. The nursery was decorated with cartoon deer and sheep and flowers, the “thank yous” already sent to those who came to her baby shower.

Felicity couldn’t help but wonder how mothers fall in love with their children so fast.

Babies cry. Every waking hour, it meant less to Felicity. The clock on the bookshelf ticked.

Felicity repositioned her tired body on the carpet and caught a glimpse of the purple-red stretch marks, usually hidden behind a half-bleached Duke Blue Devils pullover. Every square inch of her tired stomach featured this unique pattern of sorrow.

Her body was streaked by a deep purple lightning storm that clouded her longforgotten abs.

Unaccustomed to the glow of the sun through the blinds, the lightning storm upon her stomach smiled.

Yet Felicity couldn’t bear even a fake grin; the glaring reminder on her stomach depressed her.

The deafening cacophony of the clashing doorbell and the crying baby finally overwhelmed her. She pushed the palms of her hands firmly against the beige carpet and began to feel every tuft of the artificial polyester nylon blend.

Felicity released the tufts of carpet from her palms and stood up, shuddering, and weakly made her way across the apartment towards the door.

The peephole provided a glance into the future—a phenomenon Felicity didn’t often experience—and revealed a friendly-looking UPS delivery man, clad in conventional brown, cradling a small, fragile package tightly to his chest.

Carefully, Felicity unlocked the door. She greeted the man. His name was Darius.

She signed the clipboard after Darius indicated where with a yellow “X” in highlighter.

She thanked Darius and took the package. She gave him a five dollar tip.

“Aw--a cryin’ baby. You’ll miss these moments one day, ma’am,” Darius said as he turned to leave. He waved, expecting Felicity to shut the door behind him.

Felicity stood behind the threshold of her apartment, staring into the vacant hallway.

The baby cried, and the trapped air of her apartment rushed to escape. Felicity gazed into the quiet hallway with watchful intensity, her back turned from the crying baby.

She couldn’t leave.

Artwork by Victoria Johnson 9

1st PLACE, POETRY

Parker Murphy

Blank Pages Once upon a time, And upon a thousand times there was, A flurry of blank leaves dancing in the breeze, And upon thousand happenings, Remain turning, Beginnings without ends, ends without beginnings, Run-ons drifting upon a ceaseless sea of fragments, But if only once could we be upon a time, Ever free from this accursed rhyme, An after ever happily in symmetry, Yet we remain turning, Turning, turning, A story to be told, A fantasy never to outlast, But alas, we sway blankly in the breeze, An unfair maiden without salvage, We remain turning, Turning to a thousand beginnings without end, And for every end a thousand more, Turning to the rhythm of revision, A happily ever after without ever an after.

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COURTENAY WHITE

1st PLACE, Essay

The College Interview: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

He wanted to know if I ever exercised; I wanted to know why it mattered.

Perhaps the university had instated fitness requirements for its undergrad students of which I was unaware? If that were the case, my already slim chance at being accepted probably would have evaporated. (I get winded just walking to the third floor of the Upper School building.)

“Truthfully, sir, I don’t get much opportunity to exercise. However, I did get a rigorous mental workout at Quiz Bowl practice this morning!”

My interviewer scoffed.

“I can’t stand Quiz Bowl,” he said. “I mean, there’s nothing impressive about being able to regurgitate meaningless trivia. Most people I’ve interviewed who have done Quiz Bowl were incapable of free thinking. In reality, it’s just Jeopardy for high schoolers.”

What had Alex Trebek ever done to him?

This conversation took place during one of my college interviews this year.

For over an hour, my alumni interviewer—who had graduated from the university in question nearly half a century ago, when the school was still all-male—asked increasingly outlandish questions, the answers to which he interrupted repeatedly in favor of long-winded diatribes and unrelated personal anecdotes. He asked me about details of my parents’ divorce, whether or not my father was still “in the picture,” and if I had the school’s notoriously low acceptance-rate memorized. By the end of the session, I felt certain that my interviewer had failed to achieve any understanding of who I was as an applicant. As a result, I left feeling utterly deflated and notably lessenthusiastic about the university.

The college interview process is a notoriously flawed one. I would know; I’ve attended over ten interviews in the past few months. At times, I felt like my sole mission in life was to dazzle as many accomplished, college-educated strangers as possible. Odds are, you probably even saw me on more than one occasion dashing from campus to one coffee shop or another wearing my “fear is not an option” sweater. It might seem painfully obvious to some, but trying to show people what a shiny star you are without seeming self-congratulatory or disingenuous can be an exhausting undertaking, one for which I wish I’d better prepared myself.

When the interviewers are good, as they often are, the sessions can be instructive and even enjoyable. I’ve made genuine connections with several of my college interviewers, all of whom made it clear from the beginning that they felt obliged to serve the applicant’s interests first. In one interview, my phone beeped with its custom R2-D2 alert-tone early in the conversation. I was mortified, but my 12

Artwork by Victoria Johnson

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alumnus just laughed, and we ended up having a relaxed conversation about how Star Wars shaped our childhoods. That was a great interview; chatting with this graduate made me feel like an actual human being instead of another number in the college system.

That being said, the bad interviews were some of the single most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had in my life. The power imbalance is inescapable. When one interviewer asked me strange, probing questions about my racial background, I did not feel comfortable refusing that person for fear of retribution in the form of a bad recommendation letter. When another interviewer began discussing his personal politics, I did not feel that I was in a position to speak my disagreement freely without repercussions. An alumni interviewer can go wildly off-script—as many of mine have done—and there is very little a student, no matter how self-assured, can do to diffuse the situation. I think most applicants would be loath to risk compromising that kind of apparently transactional relationship over a few off-color comments. You as an applicant often believe that you need something from your interviewer, and getting into his or her good graces can feel imperative to the ultimate success of your application—even though it isn’t.

For the amount of effort necessary on the student’s part, the actual returns from an interview are extremely limited. In most cases, a quality interview cannot significantly improve an applicant’s chances at being accepted. And why should it, when there is no feasible way for colleges to streamline the process or to ensure that every student has a comparable experience? At its best, the interview serves as an additional informational session for the student. At its worst, the interview becomes an hour of unmitigated interrogation.

Unfortunately, despite the myriad problems currently entrenched within the process, I don’t see the college interview going anywhere anytime soon. If these institutions could guarantee the same level of professionalism from their alumni interviewers across the board, I wouldn’t advocate for it to disappear at all. But, until such a time that the interviews can be standardized, it has no business being included in the application process.

Nevertheless, I have resigned myself to the fact that new generations of seniors will continue to march onto the interview-No-Man’s-Land of the application battlefield for some years to come. So, I’ve taken the liberty of recording the lessons that have served me well in my struggle with the College Empire.

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May the Force be with you.

1.) Always direct the conversation back to yourself

It can be difficult for Charlestonians to flout social etiquette, but know that the regular rules do not apply here. Don’t be afraid to brag on yourself.

Remember that the hardest part—that is, doing all the stuff on your resume— is already over. You can just think of the interview as a victory lap.

2.) Internet-Stalk Your Interviewer Beforehand

I was hesitant to include this point on my list because my mom conducts interviews for her alma mater, and the idea of random teenagers Googling her every year is slightly unsettling. Nevertheless, I found a bit of light research on each of my interviewers to be invaluable. If nothing else, doing this helped me recognize my interviewers when they arrived. Knowing what they look like in advance is a total power move. Make it.

3.) Don’t be afraid to report

If you feel that an interviewer’s conduct has been so egregious as to warrant a report to the school, I strongly encourage you to write that report— and send it before you receive final decisions from the university or college.

I know that this last caveat is probably the hardest to execute, but if a school attempts to penalize you for trying to improve its admissions process, then that’s probably not the right school for you. Even considering all the wacky interview experiences I’ve had, I only ever felt called to send one report to a school voicing my concerns about an interviewer, but I sent that report as soon as it was completed. If I had sent it after hearing back from the school, the admissions office could have used the timing as an excuse to write-off my negative experience as the petty protest of a rejected student. I wanted to give the university every reason to take my word as legitimate.

4.) Humanize yourself… to yourself

Every time I submitted an application or finished an interview, I forced my mom to sing “Eye of the Tiger” with me and pump her fists in the air like Rocky. Find some little ritual that reminds you of who you are outside of the college process.

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Mattie Hood

2nd PLACE, NARRATIVE

A Father’s Daughter

A careful creak interrupted a still silence as the wide, wooden trapdoor rose from the floorboards. Two eyes peeped through the crevice and scanned the surrounding area: a small room without much to decorate its stained wooden walls or oak-paneled floor, but it was enough for her. A tangle of curly blonde hair offset by a pair of bright blue eyes arose from the ladder as the girl gingerly maneuvered her way into the treehouse. Her nose crinkled. The distinct smell of must and mildew filled her nose and overtook her senses like a tidal wave. Her heart began to flutter as her mind swarmed with the endless ideas of what to play, imagine, or explore, the excitement of possibility filling her head.

A quiet buzz echoed in her little ears as a dragonfly’s wings fluttered against her cheek. She watched silently as the insect glided its way through the hazy air, its wings sparkling gently in the beam of sunlight that shone through the window. As the dragonfly departed, the young girl wandered across the space to the wall where all of her drawings were taped. Marks of pastel crayons and eraser smudges blended carefully to create delicate renditions of the surrounding landscape. She would often take her sketchbook to the treehouse and mimic the scenery, strategically copying the fields around her, adding hints of light with each stroke of the crayon. Grand mountains overtook the pages, and the bright hues of sunlight glistened through the soft leaves that adorned the forest full of oak trees.

These were her drawings, one after another. The vibrant landscapes echoing their colors throughout the treehouse. The girl gingerly felt for her notebook under a loose floorboard and quietly pulled it up along with her favorite set of pastel-colored crayons.

As her eyes closed, she felt the images flicker before her mind: fading sunsets over the mountains, lush green grass that covered the valley, and the deep forests that encircled it all. Her little piece of paradise slowly made its way onto the page.

A gentle breeze crept across the east, blowing softly, almost silently; brisk wisps of air kissed her cheek, and strands of hair lightly tickled her face. She rose gracefully, taping her newest creation to the bordering wall. The sun had begun to set: it lowered over the meadow past the grand mountains and past the quiet beyond. Beautiful colors splayed over the horizon, painting delicate shadows on the ground below. Rays of the setting sun reached across the sky like flames consuming the final remnants of daylight.

It was in that moment that her eyes wandered across the singular painting hung carefully on the back wall. Memories flooded her mind. A series of scenes flickered behind her eyes; nostalgia and longing slowly rippled throughout her body: her father, the man that she had depended upon, had been the creator. Various hues of bright blues, deep violets, and emerald greens harmoniously blended to produce the perfect image of the nearby creek. Her father had often taken her to that stream, hidden by the forest as if it was a secret kept solely for them. She missed the feeling of weightlessness as she would sit on her dad’s steady shoulders, the feeling of pure excitement when they would make a new discovery, and above all the overwhelming sense of purpose that she felt with him.

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Day after day, they would wend their way to the secret stream, and together he would teach her how to paint, sketch, and create miniature masterpieces. Each stroke of her father’s paintbrush elicited magic and beauty. Her father had been the only artist she had ever known who was able to fully encompass the exact emotions of a landscape and then precisely mimic them on paper. Her heart felt torn at that moment like it was silently splitting in half. She was lightly guided back into reality by the gentle tear that slowly fell from her cheek and disappeared into the floorboard.

She forced herself to look away from the painting and focused on the fading colors of the evening horizon. Stars had begun to appear in the darkening sky like little specks of hope in a dark nothing. The final fiery colors slowly sunk past the tips of the distant mountains; the flames of color reaching out to her. In the soft breeze that crept through the treehouse, she heard her father’s voice echoing in the walls; she could see her father’s eyes in the setting sun, calling out to her. The word was never spoken, only felt: goodbye.

The young girl let her eyelids fall, and all went still.

Artwork by Lily Hambric

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2nd PLACE, POETRY

Jake Macdonald

A Pretty Rainbow

We are alone together.

Imprisoned by our “neighbor”.

Confusion constructs our confines.

Cursed by our human nature.

Only one song exists, Echoes off the wall.

What do we really have?

Obviously not a neighbor.

We reach for the rainbow, But we only grasp the air.

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Artwork by Victoria Johnson

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Robert Russell

2nd Place, ESSAY

Working Smarter

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The American blue-collar worker: robust, attentive, yet falsely presumed unintelligent. Society presents children with the images of brilliant doctors or scholarly lawyers as the embodiments of intellectuality but fails to view laborers as anything more than cogs in a machine. To combat this societal pretense of the robotic and vacuous worker, Mike Rose’s essay, “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” analyzes the demands of working-class employment and reveres the common employee’s solutions to the challenges they face both in their everyday lives and societally. The innovation of a kitchen staffer’s lingo, or the spatial calculations a mover must perform both exemplify forms of intelligence that Rose asserts have been commonly overshadowed by “the type of schooling a person has” (Rose 228). Through stimulating pathos and affirming ethos, Rose’s essay ultimately compels the reader to expand his or her definition of “intellect” and to reassess the common societal degradation of the laboring class.

Throughout his essay, Rose’s use of enlightening anecdotes and vivid diction inundate the reader with pathos, allowing him or her to empathize with Rose’s plea for the reassessment of blue-collar intelligence. To begin, Rose reminisces on his upbringing, fondly and admiringly observing his mother, Rosie, at work —he remembers his waitress mother “[w]eaving in and out around the room” (Rose 226), actively calculating the number of customers, registering the number of empty drinks, and evaluating the complex emotional needs of both coworkers and strangers. By implementing active verbs—“walked,” “cradled,” and “stood” (Rose 226)— alongside vivid imagery, the reader feels the intensity of Rosie’s job and must acknowledge the intricacies of a server’s profession and humbly realize that a waiter wields powerful social understanding. The difficulty of serving both a customer’s physical pangs of hunger as well as his or her “complicated desire for human contact” (Rose 226) enables Rosie to “stud[y] human behavior” (Rose 226) without a formal setting. Her firsthand assessment of average yet profound psychological needs provides her with an understanding of situational psychology that many psychologists spend vast amounts of time studying to comprehend.

Through another anecdote, Rose praises his uncle, Joe Meragilo, a high school dropout, for his innovative techniques that “preserve energy” and allow him to “[survive] on the line” (Rose 228) of a General Motors factory. Joe details his experience on the hazardous assembly line to Rose, explaining that it “was like school, […] where you’re constantly learning” (Rose 228). By italicizing these words, Rose highlights the division between erudite intellect and blue-collar intelligence, thereby affirming the necessity of society’s ability to understand the disparate yet equal nature of these two forms of “comprehension.”

Rose’s ascent from a “bumpy” academic foundation to scholarship in the field of cognitive psychology generates a profound ethos that allows him to effectively communicate the rationale of his argument. Recounting his early life, Rose acknowledges his “spotty academic record” (Rose 227) which limits his plans for higher education. Then, through the influence of a senior-year English teacher, Rose recalibrates his aspirations and goes to college on probation, later entering to graduate school to receive a degree in cognitive psychology.

By relating this anecdote, Rose undermines the elitist connotation of society’s “Cartesian fashion” (Rose, 229) of intellect, highlighting the validity of his argument by affirming his

ethos and thus his authority on the subject, as he has observed and studied both forms of intelligence himself. Rose solidifies the reader’s belief in his expertise and quickly manipulates this confidence by implementing logos to reaffirm his positon of “cognitive variability” (Rose 232). He informs the reader of the resourcefulness workers must utilize within their own specializations, highlighting the familiarity and knowledge laborers express with the tools and materials of their professions. The “creative use of a tool” (Rose 230) or a worker’s knowledge “of the material [he is] engaging” (Rose 230) confirm the abstract thinking a laborer utilizes, a logical contrast to the misconception of the robotic assembly lineman.

The inclusion of both the counterargument and a subsequent refutation allows Rose’s critical message to debunk any undissolved ties the reader may still hold with respect to outdated classifications of intelligence. Accepting that some readers may have clung to their biased social mores, Rose acknowledges a counterargument to his essay, one which claims that blue-collar jobs are “routine and repetitive” (Rose 232), thus marginalizing them in comparison to “cognitively superior” work achieved by white-collar citizens. To refute this argument, Rose emphasizes that this line of thought will “reinforce social separations” (Rose 232), leading to an insurmountable divide in American society. Furthermore, the elevated diction of the conclusion underscores both Rose’s sincerity as well as his resolve for the magnitude of this situation. By implementing verbiage such as “cognition,” “disparate,” and “cripple,” (Rose 232) Rose shifts the reader’s attention to the dire necessity for a unified community as characterized by the metonymy of “Rosies and Joes” (Rose 232) representing the overlooked mental capabilities of all blue-collar workers.

In this modern era, American citizens are brutishly shunned by their distant “superiors” as well as their fellow citizens for having formed a rigid “caste society” (Krugman 63), yet these claims are irrational. A vibrant economy, a magnificent education system, and an ability to “[o]ffer the best life to the most people” (Dalmia 67) all combine to rise the international standing of the United States above all others. However, even though the vigorous “Rosies and Joes” are the enabling force that permits America to uphold its paramount position in global politics, this same supporting class continues to be depicted with “no brightness behind the eye” (Rose 228). Yet, through Rose’s compelling social panegyric of the blue-collar class, the reader has a culminating epiphany—intelligence has no static form.

Artwork by Ethan Lehrman

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Bryce Marion

3rd Place, Narrative

The Teddy Bear “Not right now,” she whispered as her husband kissed her neck seductively.

He ignored her request and began to caress her arm with his fingertips.

“Cooper, stop,” she muttered, this time with a hint of angst.

Again, he ignored her and began to trace his hand along her backbone.

“No!” she pleaded. “Please stop,” she whispered again.

His stroking ceased. Without a word, he abruptly stood up, leaving the mattress with an imprint of his sturdy frame. He slowly walked around the bed until he was standing over his wife.

“What did you say to me?” he asked with a sickening edge to his voice.

“I said ‘no’,” she stammered quietly.

He lifted the book out of her hands, forcing his wife to look him in the eyes.

“Get up!” he yelled. “GET UP!” She stood but her posture was weak.

He raised his hand.

As the morning light crept through the curtains, she opened her eyes and felt the sharp sting of a bruise on her neck. She turned and looked at her husband as he lay sleeping.

His breathing was methodical and he seemed peaceful. The darkness of the night before had abated both from the room and the man.

“Mommy?” a young child called softly from the doorway of her room. The lady sat up and extended her arms out to her son.

“Can we watch cartoons?” he asked.

She scooted over to let her son slide into bed. Her husband awoke and stretched his arms.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he mumbled.

She fabricated a small grin.

“Good morning, daddy,” the little boy whispered, distracted by the shapes dancing along the television screen. The man rustled his hand through the boys’ thick blonde hair.

“Little man, I think we should go get ready for school,” he said, pulling the covers off his legs. The little boy slid out of bed gracefully.

“Don’t call me ‘little!’” he shouted back at his father.

“Ok Superman, what do you want for breakfast?” the man questioned as they walked down the hallway.

The little boy giggled.

The lady got out of bed. As she was lifting a thin, silk robe onto her shoulders, she saw the bruise just above her collarbone. She tied the robe tightly, careful to conceal the blemish.

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“You want eggs, honey?” her husband asked as she walked into the kitchen.

“No thanks. I’m okay,” she answered.

“Well, I’ve got to take him to school,” he paused, “I’ll be home around 7.” He bent down and lay a gentle kiss upon her lips and then walked out the door.

She waited patiently for the click of the front door closing. Finally, it was safe to get dressed. Carefully selecting a blouse that would cover the marks of her abuse, she wondered

Artwork by Victoria Johnson

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what excuse she would use this time. “I bumped into the wall.” “Silly Jimmy left his toys out again, and I tripped.” “Isn’t it the worst when you bang into the kitchen cabinet?”

How many times would she have to avoid what was now becoming both inquiring and knowing glances of those she worked with? As she started to apply her lipstick, she paused, looking into the mirror and saw a person she did not recognize. What had happened? How had this become her reality? Her eyes were sad and heavy. Where was the young woman who once had dreams of love and accomplishment? Where was the mother who wanted to raise her young boy in a safe and loving home? Where was she?

She reached for a scarf, knowing her outfit would not disguise the damage. It was just another day.

The lady lay a small white washcloth on top of her nightstand. She retrieved a bottle of nail lacquer from her bathroom drawer and retreated to the bed. She opened a magazine.

As she flipped the page, she delicately painted her pointer finger. She flipped the page.

Then painted her ring finger.

The door creaked open, revealing her husband in the frame. An empty beer bottle dangled from his right hand.

“Where is my dinner!”

She answered clearly. “You said you would be home at seven. Jimmy and I have eaten.

It’s almost midnight. I kept your plate in the oven so it would stay warm.”

“Not good enough, woman. This is my house. You are my wife and I want my G-d d--dinner! Get Up!” He mistakenly dropped the beer bottle and it fell crashing to the floor.

“Get up, I said! Make me my dinner and clean this s--- up too. Someone is going to get hurt from the broken glass.”

He stepped over the shards of the broken bottle, trying to avoid the glass but cut his toe on his way to the bathroom. “You B-----!” he hissed. He passed the bed and went into the bathroom and started the shower.

The lady carefully capped the nail lacquer and set it on the bedside table. A stream of tears began to fall down her cheeks. She took a deep breath. She was done with his excuses. His filthy insults. His eventual and remorseful apologies. He promises it would never happen again. And it happened again, and again and again. She knew this was not the man she married twelve years ago. And she knew she was done.

She quickly rose from her bed and hurried to the closet. She pulled a suitcase down from the top shelf. She grabbed an assortment of clothes, pausing at a turtleneck. She wouldn’t need those anymore. She truly hated turtlenecks.

She zipped the suitcase and hurried to her son’s room. As she entered his doorway, she could still hear the shower running. She grabbed some of his clothes, toys, and books and stuffed them in a blue duffel bag. Toting the luggage, she scampered down the hall and out the front door, loading the items into her car. Then she returned for her son.

The hint of light that illuminated the room revealed her sleeping boy as he clutched onto his favorite stuffed bear. “Honey,” she whispered. The little boy yawned.

“Mommy?” the boy asked as the lady gently picked him up and carried him out to the car.

“Where are we going?”

The lady looked down lovingly and smiled.

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“On a trip,” she replied.

“Is daddy coming?” the little boy questioned.

His mother ignored his inquiry and started the car.

“Is Teddy coming?” Jimmy questioned.

His mother froze. Had she not grabbed Teddy as they were leaving?

“Don’t you have him, Jimmy?”

As she looked over her shoulder, she could see her son’s arms were empty as he sat in his car seat. Through the dim light of the streetlamp, she could see his eyes begin to fill with tears. She flung open the car door and hurried back inside. She retrieved the worn teddy bear that had fallen to the floor. This precious plush companion had gotten Jimmy through many nights of constant arguing and protected him from the spitting of vulgar profanities.

As she held the bear close to her, she felt a heavy weight lift from her shoulders. This weight that had held her down for so many years was suddenly gone. Gone in an instant.

And when she turned the corner to leave his room, she smiled. Something that she hadn’t done in years.

But as quickly as the smile appeared, the transition to fear moved even faster. Her face went white as sheer terror took over. The hint of hope was killed in an instant.

In the hallway, her husband stood clenching a 9 mm caliber shotgun between his fingertips.

Artwork by Jessica Perry 25

3rd PLACE, POETRY

George Walton

In the Wind a prose poem

A plastic bag floats across the road and is content, it’s all it’s ever known, floating. But when a leaf falls something is different. It used to be anchored but not any more. Stained a dark brown by the world it drifts to the ground. A wind gust sweeps the street, picking the leaf from its descent. The leaf finds a new place in the world, it flows past the houses. The houses full of lights with thick green house plants in the interior. Still the small brown leaf floats, the plastic bag has made a home here surely it can find one too. Slowly though the wind gets tired of its newest toy, like a child growing up it sets the leaf down on the pavement. The leaf flows down the streets with the rain, it finds a resting spot in between the grates of the sewer until it sinks even lower.

Artwork by Peter Lorris

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Owen Seldon

3rd PLACE, ESSAY

Rhetorical Analysis of T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock”

T.S. Eliot’s modernist text “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” communicates through an anguished tone Prufrock’s psychological plea of angst and oppressive loneliness. As a modernist, Eliot crafts a dramatic monologue through the use of a first-person pronoun that links readers to a stream of consciousness text that emanates the paralyzing anxiety of a member of the Lost Generation. Ellipses underscore the fragmentation that results from Prufrock’s debilitating self-questioning, a doubt that entraps him in a prison of his own creation. Eliot illustrates Prufrock’s desperate desire to seek self-definition through antithetical statements that accentuate his absence rather than his presence. Eliot weaves powerful metonymy into Prufrock’s hypercritical contemplations to illustrate Prufrock’s ruminations on the “overwhelming question,” (1) a rhetorical repetition that emphasizes the rejection that has caused Prufrock to become a shell of himself.

Eliot mirrors Prufrock’s psychological state through fragmented punctuation that shows a blurred focus, in conjunction with powerful figurative language that highlights vulnerability. Eliot’s ellipses parallel Prufrock’s shattered psyche, one that besieges him with incoherent thoughts. As Prufrock ponders his mortality, ellipses pervade as Prufrock remarks “I grow old…I grow old” (4) as seemingly the thought agitates him so monumentally that his self-doubt prohibits Prufrock from action. Prufrock’s ineffectual responses become ritualistic as his fear of existential questions about “time” (2) causes vacillating confusion—and as his thoughts meander, question marks impart doubt. The unremitting doubt creates inner turmoil in Prufrock, confining him to a life of indecisiveness as he lusts for a love that he’s unwilling to pursue. Dashes in Eliot’s text illuminate the prison of Prufrock’s insecurity; as Prufrock’s crippling critiques on his deteriorating physical appearance destroy his confidence, the “bald spot in the middle of [his] hair— ” (2) constantly agitates him, and the dash stresses the finite nature of “time” (2) as it causes an existential crisis. Eliot’s strategic use of dashes profoundly highlights Prufrock’s defining thoughts, as he exclaims that “I’m no prophet—” (3); the dash draws attention to the ineffectuality of Prufrock’s antithetical self-definition. Eliot’s purposeful punctuation, then, parallel — while figurative language illustrates— Prufrock’s psyche. A simile magnifies the futility that

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Prufrock feels as his mental peregrinations leave him “etherized upon a table” (1) and as the inability to articulate reduces him to inaction.

Repetition evokes Prufrock’s feelings of insurmountable loneliness, as simultaneously Eliot’s precise diction dramatically stresses Prufrock’s intense ruminations on his solitary life. The refrain “women who come and go talking of Michelangelo” (1,2) magnifies Prufrock’s tenuous status as a member of the upper class; the refrain reinforces Prufrock’s bleak reality with women’s lack of interest in him. Eliot’s precise description of Prufrock’s self-doubt as “indecisions” (2) and “revisions” (2) provides a fuller impact through rhyme, while simultaneously encapsulating the vacillating thoughts that haunt and thwart Prufrock.

Eliot describes Prufrock as “wriggling” (2) and “scuttling” (3) to illustrate Prufrock’s attempt to fade into anonymity instead of facing the women whom he perceives to judge him. Eliot’s provides climactic moments of Prufrock’s introspection to impart power onto Prufrock’s monologue.

Eliot’s exploration of Prufrock’s perception of external judgment employs metonymy to illuminate powerful images of Prufrock’s negative self-image. Prufrock discovers himself haunted by metonymical body parts that remind him of his status as a bottomfeeder; the many “arms” (2) Prufrock has seen remind him that he has “known them all,” (3) — known all the women whom he feels will reject him. The women have dissected Prufrock’s entire being with their “eyes,” (2) that kept him “pinned and wriggling on the wall” (2) as they subject him to a paralyzing scrutiny of every fiber of his living being; the “eyes” (2) represent that dreaded judgment. In an attempt to hide, Prufrock has become reclusive, only courting prostitutes in “one-night cheap hotels” (1); Eliot depicts Prufrock’s fear of women that has metaphorically reduced him to a timid crab “scuttling across the floors of silent seas,” (3) a silence that represents Prufrock’s eternal bachelorhood.

Furthermore, the crab’s role as a bottom-feeder in the ocean parallels Prufrock in his life of alienation and of romantic deprivation.

Eliot ends Prufrock’s psychological excursion with a surreal vision of mermaids who represent the elusive women whom Prufrock paradoxically fears and reveres. Eliot immerses us in a trance-like state as “we” (4) are transported into Prufrock’s dream: he envisions himself with the lovely ladies of the sea. Unfortunately, dreams inevitably end, and as the sobering reality of life confronts us, we all face the “eternal footman” (3) who mocks our desperate attempts to find connection in our finite lives. The mermaids lure us into a bliss of Eliot’s creation, as he subtly shifts pronouns from “I” (4) to “we” (4) and as he proclaims the universal paradox that as we suffer in solidarity —we “drown” (4) together.

Artwork by Ethan Lehrman

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Turner Long

Honorable Mention, Narrative

Enlightenment of the Soul As she strolls toward the entrance of the cave, she can’t help but smile at the sign that hangs only two feet from her head. Despite the words becoming faded from fifteen years of neglect, she can still discern the miniature black letters in her childishly scribbled handwriting, Lilly’s Castle, Do Not Enter. The wooden sign now has a large crack through the center, with the once smooth edges now splintering. The cave itself, however, is in a relatively functional state. She runs her hand along the immense, rigid rocks that form the narrow arc she used to crawl through, their purple, blacks, and blues sending waves of memories soaring through her head like tiny bats emerging from the cave’s depths. Perfect.

It is all just like she remembered.

She takes a step into the cave, ducking so as not to hit her head on the entrance now much too cramped for her. Whoosh! The chilly, damp air of the cave lashes out at her skin as she enters the frozen belly of the beast. Lilly takes a deep breath, the air penetrating her soul with its icy hands, reaching through her nose, down her throat, and grabbing her racing heart, urging her to turn back, to leave the forsaken place. She pushes on.

She continues through the dimly lit entry hall, a single lightbulb suspended from the cave ceiling flickering on and off. To her right, a circular table made of wood still stands with four wooden chairs along its circumference. She bends over and smells its smooth surface. As she exhales, the layers of dust accumulated on the table’s rotting frame swirl into the air, surrounding her in a storm of memories that had been long forgotten, with each speck of dust whispering its own message to her before landing gently on the tip of her nose. Pine, she thinks. Her father made this one out of pine.

Atop the table sits a small wooden tea set consisting of one pitcher and three cups. The cups, also made of the sweet smelling pine, remind Lilly of clouds, with each having its own tiny picture hand painted by her father. She can still smell her father’s office, filled with the multitudes of acrylic paints and freshly cut wood, his tools beating together in an endless rhythm.

Tap! Clank! Tap! Clank!

The cup she always used to sip from when they played catches her eye. A rose-colored princess grins on the front, her once shimmering dress now left without a sparkle. Lilly can still smell the warm, delicious tea her father used to make, each drop tasting like a ray of sunshine. Using her thumb, she traces the tiny initials in black cursive PK on the side of the cup before gently setting it down, careful not to wear its ever aging edges.

She continues down the dingy passage, drops of water plopping onto her pink blouse, turning it into a soggy cape of nostalgia. At the end, a small ladder pinned to the craggy wall eagerly waits to take her to the next floor. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Six rungs, each of which is as flawlessly crafted as the next. As she climbs down, Lilly takes a moment to rub her hands along the cylinder rungs, finding the initials PK in the left-hand corner of each. Finally, she reaches the bottom.

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As her feet make contact with the ground, a booming crunch from the gravel echoes through the empty tunnels, sending chills down her spine. Again, she ignores the taunts of the painful memories.

Lilly walks down the dark pathway, the only source of light coming from the malfunctioning lightbulb on the previous floor.

The hazy light-show casts intricate shadows on the cave wall now formed by compact layers of rocks and sand. One shadow appears to show the complexion of her father.

She reaches out to touch it. For a moment, she thinks she can feel a warmth rising from the wall, reaching out to meet her hand.

Thud. Her palm meets the stone cold wall, the warmth she felt now drained from her.

At last, she reaches the final room. There, in the center of all the decay, sits a miniature wooden urn, untouched by the forces of nature, miraculously preserved, with the initials PK carved in the center. As Artwork by Jessica Perry she picks it up, a single tear rolls down her cheek like a wet piece of her soul pouring out from her. A single tear, weighing less than a feather, leaves her body, but it is enough to feel as though the whole world has been lifted off her shoulders. Her father, Patrick King Jr., was the most talented carpenter she had ever known, his work incomparable to any other in the world. She was relieved to have saved such an important piece of his work, the urn containing his very ashes, before he was forgotten forever. At this moment, the warmth finally enters her heart, like a glistening sunrise shining light on a life that had been stuck in darkness for too long.

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Porter-Gaud Out Loud Poetry Recitation Contest Spring 2020 Finalists Each year, all Upper School students memorize a poem and recite it in their English classes. The best performers in each class proceed to grade-level contests, with two finalists from each grade moving onto a school-wide competition in front of the student assembly, where first, second, and third place winners are decided.

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1st Place: Victoria Johnson

2nd Place: Anna Lehman

3rd Place: Parker Murphy

“Three a.m.”

by Jill McDonough

“Having a Coke with You”

by Frank O’Hara

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

by T. S. Eliot

Finalists

(clockwise from bottom left):

Collin Richardson “Beautiful to be Black”

by Chara NyAshia Sanjo Piper Brown “My Grandmother’s Love Letters”

by Hart Crane Walker Pitts “Love Blossomed”

by Anonymous Oliver Boyd “A Poem for Pulse”

by Jameson Fitzpatrick Veruka Salomone “Caged Bird”

by Maya Angelou

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Lily Hambric

Honorable Mention, ESSAY

Reviving the Mind’s Enigmatic Qualities

Each individual houses an unheard voice within his or her head—a voice that echoes these words. The host may ponder the mind’s fascinating aspects: its ability to recognize and to fluently process letters as words and sentences while the voice trails like a shadow. When approaching horror-inducing works of literature, a reader’s imagination transforms the narrative into amorphous forms that reflect the surreal scenes and characters. As the mind delves into the somber, dust-covered recesses, the hosts’ latent insanity awakens, uncovering ghastly secrets fueled by the macabre writings of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s texts revel in opium-induced compositions that cause readers to question the reliability of his narrators as they immerse themselves in the nebulous haze of labyrinthine plots replete with death and decay. As Poe ponders the abstract aspects of death, his mind meanders through morbid doorways that illuminate the gravity of the loss of life.

Edgar Allan Poe expounds upon tempestuous mindsets through the use of Gothic ambiances and of deranged characters, all conveyed through the instability of an unreliable narrator. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe establishes a “melancholy” house that reflects the mysterious air of Roderick Usher, the narrator’s boyhood companion (191). Throughout his sojourn, the narrator learns of Roderick’s “morbid acuteness of the senses” that illuminate his friend’s mental deterioration and the incestuous overtones between Roderick and his sister, lady Madeline (195). During the narrator’s visitation, he glimpses into the regression of Roderick’s sanity through eerie verses within “The Haunted Palace”; this “discordant melody” fabricates a rhapsody of “evil things, in robes of sorrow” assaulting the mind’s domain (198). The volatility of his psyche engenders the burial of lady Madeline whose body still possesses “a faint blush” Artwork by Victoria Johnson

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(200). In “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” Stephen King argues that Roderick’s degree of insanity would induce society to “clap [him] away in the funny farm” (King 461). Though King believes that “we’re all mentally ill,” he acknowledges that people can exorcise their fears through voyeuristic activities (King 460). Within safe confines, King asserts that “morbidity unchained” enables the general population to experience a cathartic relief (King 463). Both Poe and King explore the suppressed psychopathic passenger within each individual.

Frightened by the idea of losing a loved one to death’s inescapable clasp, Poe encompasses this fear through an untrustworthy character who fixates upon the allure of life in death. In “Ligeia,” Poe weaves “an opium-dream” that enthralls his dubious narrator in the remembrance of lady Ligeia (210). The narrator’s contemplation shrouds the mysterious lady in effulgent perfection, causing readers to question her existence. As his imagination struggles to preserve her ethereal qualities, the narrator believes that where his “will therein lieth” Ligeia’s memory will “dieth not” (212); this intense desire revives lady Ligeia’s corpse into a hallucination that confounds the narrator’s fragile mind. The svelte nature of Ligeia parallels Virginia Woolf ’s observations in “The Death of the Moth.”

In her essay, Woolf creates an autumn ambiance—the season of decay—that instills readers with a foreboding sensation. As Woolf ruminates over the moth’s tenuous lifespan, she begins to revere his “bead of pure life,” even as his dance becomes more futile and moribund (Woolf 57). With the moth’s inevitable end, Woolf concludes that his lifeless body succumbed to death’s unrelenting tenacity. Both Poe and Woolf articulate the beauty of a living entity and the vitality of a phantasmagoria.

Although Poe’s works revel in a narrator’s convoluted fantasies, his premeditated approach to “The Raven” sheds light upon his clarity of mind. In “Philosophy of Composition,” Poe contemplates his “vacillating crudities of thought” as he determined various desiderata: brevity, melancholy, and piquancy (222). Aligning with his pensive tone, Poe decides to incorporate both a Raven – “the bird of ill omen” – and a “bereaved lover” to convey his sonorous ideas (225); although Poe’s writing process resembles a “mathematical problem,” Samuel Johnson would consider “The Raven” to be an obfuscation (222). In “Against Wicked Characters,” Johnson contends that literature must be moral and didactic in nature, thereby negating the entirety of Poe’s canon. He dogmatically insists that without “greater care” to represent life realistically, depraved people who possess redemptive qualities will “lose the abhorrence of their faults” (Johnson 275). While Johnson would approve of Poe’s attention to detail in “Philosophy of Composition,” he would certainly object to Poe’s psychiatric characters.

Once the leaves turn a seemingly blood-tinged red, the autumnal festivities of Halloween invite people to partake in taboo behaviors. Originating from an ancient Celtic celebration known as Samhain, Halloween initially constituted of people lighting fires and dressing in costumes to ward off spirits; the Celts believed that the boundaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead intertwined, allowing ghosts to return to earth. The revival of the deceased, then, mirrors Poe’s fascination with the revitalization of haunting memories and of decaying corpses. As his ominous literature seeps into the minds of his readers, Poe’s ghastly stories reveal our worst nightmares and arouse our subconscious murderers.

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In his response to a challenging—and quirky—college prompt, Senior Ballard Morton goes deep. Into condiments.

A hot dog might be a sandwich, and cereal might be a soup, but is ketchup a jam?

Identity has been a long-standing subject of Western philosophy, dating back to pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus, who famously stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” Is ketchup a jam? is yet another consideration of identity. Perhaps the question seems somewhat purposeless, as it concerns nominal classification, a process generally entangled with semantics and subjective, definitional association. It may, however, be examined with a logical, empirical, a posteriori framework, such as the philosophy of Aristotle. Indeed, although ketchup is as contemporary as the very fast-food joints in which it exists, few methodologies are better equipped to address such a question than one of history’s most ancient schools of thought. Pointless as it may very well seem prima facie, the classification of ketchup provides a lens through which one can examine and explore the most compelling ideas of Western philosophy.

In Physics, Aristotle suggests that objects exist according to four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. Such causes parameterize an object’s identity, providing the fundamental criteria with which one may effectively categorize and differentiate objects according to their physical or conceptual properties. In the following examination, each cause will be used to evaluate the connection between ketchup and jam, determining whether their respective identities may in fact be considered one and the same.

The first Aristotelian cause, the material cause, focuses on the physical constitution of each object. The two primary ingredients of ketchup are pureed tomatoes and sugar. Because tomatoes—due to their botanical structure—are fruits, ketchup comprises fruits and sugar. Nearly every variety of jam—be it strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry—contains the same primary ingredients: fruits and sugar. The material causes of both ketchup and jam are thus virtually identical to one another.

The second Aristotelian cause, the formal cause, calls into question the design, arrangement, and shape of each object. Ketchup is uniformly soft, pasty, and homogenous while jam is gelatinous and lumpy, indicating a significant disparity between the objects’ respective consistencies. It may thus be said that their formal causes differ substantially.

The third Aristotelian cause, the efficient cause, examines the origin of each object, the process by which it initially comes into being. Both ketchup and jam originate from a similar set of actions. Ketchup is made by combining sugar and other ingredients with pureed tomatoes. Similarly, jam is made by combining sugar and other ingredients with mashed fruits. Pureeing and mashing, however, are not only conceptually different, but they also yield physical differences in the objects’ formal compositions as previously addressed. Nevertheless, when considered generally, the processes by which one produces both ketchup and jam are in fact quite similar.

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The fourth Aristotelian cause, the final cause, addresses the ultimate purpose, the teleological imperative, of each object. Though ketchup and jam are both destined to be eaten, such a categorization is far too broad. The question then follows: with what are ketchup and jam to be eaten? Ketchup is most commonly eaten with hot dogs and hamburgers; jam, however, is generally eaten with toast, crackers, and bagels—breadier, simpler food items. Thus, although ketchup and jam both serve to complement other foods, the specific foods they accompany—their final causes—are altogether different.

So, according to the sum of the material, formal, efficient, and final causes, how does Aristotelian philosophy ultimately answer the question is ketchup a jam? Because objectively quantifying such similarities and differences is infeasible, the mechanism of comparison rests purely in a subjective, intuitive calculus. By my estimation, ketchup and jam are not the same. Their formal and final causes are so different that they—in and of themselves—merit a separation of terms. Ketchup and jam differ substantially in their consistencies and textures, and unless we are prepared to live in a society that prizes “peanut butter and ketchup” sandwiches, equating the two is a strike against both reason and the human palate. My analysis does not, however, ensure a “final answer” or preclude further examination by any means. Numerous philosophers throughout history have espoused various theories of identity. It is a subject that will never be fully exhausted. Indeed, who could have predicted that beneath the surface of ketchup lies a compelling philosophical exploration?

Artwork by Victoria Johnson

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For her college application essay, Senior Lily Hambric reflects on the truth of identity Describe a situation in which you moved outside your comfort zone, interacting with people whose experiences and/or beliefs are different from your own. What was your initial response and how did you adapt? Walk us through the situation and explain what impact it had on you.

For as long as I can remember, I knew that I was adopted; my parents never hid this from me, and, in fact, they celebrated the journey they took to bring me into their lives.

Throughout most of my life, my pride in being adopted slowly turned from an interesting fact that I was willing to share with others to something I wanted to be a secret.

I miss the innocence of being a child. When you’re young, you don’t view the world so cynically, sorting people into confining labels such as Democrat, Republican, black, white, fat, rich, and more. As a kid, you just see human, and I believe that should be the essence of how we perceive one another. We shouldn’t assume things about other people or reflect our prejudices on them; we should only make opinions after getting to know that person.

When I was five, I saw the world in this innocent light. I didn’t care if the other kids in my class looked different because I solely judged them on how they treated me. I also didn’t think I looked different from my parents or the rest of my family, who happen to all be Caucasian. I knew that I was Chinese, but, to a child, racial descriptions hold no impact. I was my parents’ child, and, therefore, I fit in with my family. It wasn’t until first grade that I began to think negatively about being adopted.

When I was only six years old, one of the boys in my class told me that “your birthparents must have hated you and left you out on the street.” While I don’t remember if I responded to him—I hope I said something sassy—I have remembered his words for the past eleven years. This comment lifted my veil of innocence and caused me to start noticing other hurtful comments that people have thrown at me throughout the years.

Afterward, I noticed that people thought it was necessary to tell me that I had sideburns, a mustache and that my arms and legs were hairy. As a child, I was perplexed; I didn’t know how to fix these “problems.” As a teenager, however, I would have told my younger self that light skin and dark hair means that these features are more noticeable. I would have also said to myself that all of these physical appearances are genetic and that I should embrace these differences. At that time, however, I don’t think I connected these comments to race; I just knew that these features were a part of me and that, for some reason, others didn’t approve.

It wasn’t until middle school when I started to put two and two together. I began to learn that there were different races – African American, white, Asian, Latino – and I began to realize that I did not look like my parents. While I still shared the fact that I was adopted, I became more selective with the people I decided to tell. Throughout my life, I’ve learned that friends don’t see race or any label: they just see you. So, I told many of my friends, and they didn’t think twice about this information. That’s the beauty of friendships; you can be exactly who you want to be, and your friends will see past all of your supposed flaws.

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Artwork by Lily Hambric

By the time I got to high school, I had built many walls to deflect people’s rude comments. I also learned that I don’t owe anyone who disrespects me for uncultured reasons. Though people still say hurtful things to me, I believe that time and perspective have been my greatest healers. Even in the past two years, I have grown stronger, fully embracing my past and my appearance. Not many people can say that their parents flew halfway across the world to have them in their lives, and I am beyond grateful that my parents were brave enough to do this. As a teenager, I’ve learned that everyone cares about what others think, and, though some words will always be upsetting, I will no longer let other people control how I perceive myself. No one has the right to make me feel ashamed of who I am. I am adopted. I am Chinese. But, most importantly, I am Lily Hambric.

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Shelter in Place

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Watch Literary Issue Porter-Gaud School PORTER-GAUD SCHOOL 300 Albemarle Road Charleston, SC, 29407 40