Movement of Movements

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Final Paper 1 of 3

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Melissa said...: What’s Happening Here
…When They Were Over There?
A New Historicist Approach to the Vietnam War

“The war is…beginning all over again for the children of the Vietnam War generation, who now seek to know just what happened to our nation.” - Walter Capps, 1982

In popular American opinion, the Vietnam War is believed to be the direct cause of the current historical moment that we can locate being clichéd within the statement ‘everything was different after Vietnam.’ However, it is possible that the Vietnam War itself does not rise to the category of what the philosopher Alain Badiou has called an “event” which in this case would have to be responsible for the current cultural moment and that perhaps perceiving the war as the Event is perhaps asking the wrong question of its significance. If we can grasp that new historicist critics can use eventology to gain a better understanding of how the current historical moment was produced, then we can more clearly recognize how the Vietnam War shaped the present cultural moment. Also, if we can see that the Vietnam War is not Event, but simulacrum of terror, then we can examine the social factors that may have more directly created that moment in order to better identify that moment. If the cultural production of the period such as television and literature are elements of cultural repercussions of the Vietnam War, then we can further explore these repercussions in terms of social factors in the homeland during and following the war which would allow for a deeper understanding of the cultural moment in terms outside of the war. If the exportation of free markets and parliamentary democracy that led to the war can be explained in terms of causal relationships, then we can view the fidelity in terms of these relationships: that this exportation was a cause of the Vietnam War, the war being a cause of cultural repercussions and turmoil - therefore the literature and cultural productions are manufactured as reverberations.
When I observe the textual and cultural production of the Vietnam War and post-Vietnam War periods, I use a new historicist critical approach to understanding the American cultural phenomenon that evolved between 1961 (Eisenhower’s farewell address naming the military industrial complex, MIC) and 1991 (the full dismantling of the USSR) which facilitated the creation of the current Western historical moment. First, I situate Badiou’s philosophy in order to discuss the Vietnam War in terms of the event and The Things They Carried and the untitled letter from Theresa Davis to her son within Badiou’s philosophy; second, literatures and cultural production that surrounds this period figure fidelity to the always un-nameable event. Certain postmodern literature, 1970’s television like “Mary Tyler Moore”, and the literature surrounding the self improvement movements of the 1970’s are lenses through which the development of the current cultural moment be seen. Lastly, I discuss alternate interpretations that might claim that the complexity of the fidelity imply that the Vietnam War itself may not be the event but rather, several other related forces may have created our historical moment. We can imagine a fidelity that would surpass the original literature and cultural production that appeared after the Vietnam War. The consequences of America’s imperialistic exportation of free markets (capitalism) and parliamentary democracy had created what Badiou would call a terror. As this terror then, the Vietnam War might not in fact be an event, but exists as a Badiouian Evil.
Badiou for the New Historicist & Textual Analysis
Alain Badiou’s philosophy concerning being, event, and truth can be used as a device for new-historicists to view American literatures that emerged from the Vietnam War and post-Vietnam War era. These provide a way to more fully understand the cultural phenomenon that occurred following the Vietnam War in America. In his book Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil Badiou asks that a redefinition of terms occur, and understanding and knowing these terms is essential to comprehension of his philosophy as well as how new-historicism can use his ideas to enhance their readings. Terms that Badiou commonly uses are: void, event, fidelity, truth and subject; and they compose what can overall be known hereto forth as representatives of Eventology.
Void: The set of perceived knowledge; in this study, the historical moment in which the innocence still existed. Civilian innocence existed when they trusted their government’s judgment (and pre-scandals such as Watergate), before the assassinations of national leaders in 1963, 1965, 1968 (both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King), and before escalation of the war through implementing selective service in 1969. This generation, those that are of age for the selective service, have no memories of the Korean War. This causes the Vietnam War to be ontologically different to the youthful energy and idealism that it interrupts. Also, the assassinations were the first of this generation that was born in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and occurred on a multiple scale.
Event: A rupture in the void causing a change such that the void can no longer be fully accepted as it were; un-nameable, not unknown. This un-nameable event manifests through the spectacle and illusion of the democratization of power that existed from the government to its people that existed from the beginning of this generation (at least) until the civilian majority opposed the war and the war continued, revealing this illusion. Differentiation of struggle such as that of the Black Panthers, war protestors, and civil rights activists exposed inner divisions as well as divisions between the people and centralized power, as well as the abandon of hierarchy through mass protests were signs of the ontologically newer things through which the un-nameable event also manifests.
Fidelity: The subject that follows the logic of the event also perpetuates the event; The Things They Carried, Theresa Davis’ Letter and television, specifically the trend that “Mary Tyler Moore” manifests, all of which reflect the new logic.
Truth: The pattern that is created by the fidelity; characterizations of these literatures and social awareness ideas that they perpetuate, patterns are highly varied. They are ontologically productive, yet reactive. The truth here is the recognition of evil by Americans, but not with Badiou’s language of terror. It is the legacy of the lifestyle that is forcibly adopted. The belief that perhaps the government made a mistake concerning the war through escalation and the selective service is the recognition of evil.
Subject: A part of fidelity production in which the logic of the event is perpetuated through entry into the logic of the fidelity; a collective legacy of questioning, change in how individuals collect and resist their government, skepticism, cynicism, riots, race tensions and critical mistrust of the government all constitute this critical, ontologically new subject. It is that which the era has acted upon and therefore perpetuates the fidelity in some way, for example, the production of texts, critical scholarship, memoirs and fiction.
In order to produce fidelity (that in turn produces truth) the subject must experience the event. The subject is the support for the fidelity upon which truth is based. Badiou explains briefly that someone can immortally contribute to history by perpetuating fidelity by experiencing an event, the Event or a personal event that perpetuates the larger. He explains that in order to act according to the logic of the event through entering the fidelity one must experience the event. Here, Badiou discusses that entering the subject is to genuinely experience the rupturing of the void on an individual level.
The Immortal that I am capable of being cannot be spurred in me by the effects
of communicative sociality, it must be directly seized by fidelity. That is to say:
broken, in its multiple-being, by the course of an immanent break, and convoked,
finally, with or without knowing it, by the evental supplement. To enter into the
composition of a subject of truth can only be something that happens to you.
(Badiou, 51)
The fidelity must directly act upon the individual, not that individual’s collective identity or social affiliations. The Vietnam War is viewed as a cultural phenomenon; however, the event that is associated it had to be a rupture in the void realized on an individual basis, not a cultural universality. Truths are the patterns that can be found by examining American literatures and theoretical text concerning the Vietnam War and post-Vietnam War America that serve as the fidelity to an event. By observing the truths contained in the literatures of this era the event that caused the cultural phenomenon can perhaps be identified.
Walter Benjamin, a German Marxist philosopher (also literary critic, translator and essayist) composed the Arcades Project, an unfinished posthumously published work of cultural criticism. Within the project, he makes several observations that are inspired by the French arcades and they are catalogued them by subject. He mentions the dialectical image, which is in direct relationship to what this paper addresses, because it examines the past and inevitably superimposes the present upon that perception. Here, Benjamin is stating that the image that we see when observing an object is the combination of how the object was originally contextualized and how it is perceived because present moment. In the Arcades Project he mentions the conflict of the dialectical:
It’s not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present
its light on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes
together in a flash with the now to form a constellation…image is dialectics
at a standstill…only dialectical images are genuine images.(N2a3 Benjamin,
462)
New historicist critics can use Benjamin’s dialectic when approaching a historical study so that the present is not imposed upon their interpretations of the past. A historical approach that allows for seeing multiple images in a single concept is one that allows for a genuine interpretation of the past. A multiple image analysis of history is important for new historicists because the alternate angles of perception can offer other perspectives of history that they are looking for in their studies.
Later he mentions that the purpose of the dialectic is “to dissipate the semblance of eternal sameness, and even of repetition in history.” (N9,5; 473) Juxtaposition of images upon image so we can allow each image to represent its own ideas and contexts is what the historicist observes when using the dialectic. With Benjamin’s dialectics, the composition of the Badiouian fidelity is an interaction of the dialectical. In the Badiouian event, sameness and repetition are avoided similarly to Benjamin’s dialectic; however phantasmagoria (the forcing of the dialectical away from an object and perceiving the object in a single context) acts closely to the fidelity imposed by Badiouian terror as simulacrum. Benjamin also states that “history decays into images” (N10a3, 476), applied can be the images that compose the historical element of the Vietnam War. Within the Vietnam War era one can locate a dialectical image. The fidelity then conveys the dialectical image that is examined when the Vietnam War is resisted, and then for historians when it is studied as separate from their moment.
In order to examine the event and understand the void, subject and truths this imaged fidelity must be studied to derive its implications in respect to Badiou for the new historicist approach. In a letter from Theresa Davis to her deceased son that she left at the Vietnam War Memorial, she describes her feelings about her son, and those she encountered during coping with his loss. This letter memoir of mother to son offers many of the sentiments that characterize the Vietnam fidelity: heartbreak, resignation and sacrifice. These three are implicit embodiments of other characteristics in the fidelity that include the feeling of loss on a personal level, and eventually on the national military level. The letter is an important component of Vietnam War era literature because it is a unique display of the bond between mother and first-born son, a direct lens into loss and as universal a note as possible without Badiouian terror.
Davis’ letter is also an example of how a fidelity can instead of providing clarity and closure can instead impose a continual exacerbation of the truths behind it. The gravity of her tone is contrasted by the resignation to her reality and her reluctant acceptance. Davis’ letter is direct expression of her feelings that are specific to her experience as an individual who lived during the Vietnam War era, which makes it a unique piece of literature in this genre through its explicit communicative style. “I pretended to be brave. But inside, the empty space just grew larger. It’s been a long time my son. I still miss you. I will always miss you.” (Davis, 440) Here, Davis is describing having to maintain a strong front to her other children while losing emotional structural supports and permanent loss of loved ones due to the death of her husband, and now her first born son.
Davis also discusses her interactions with Vietnam War Veterans in her role as a Gold Star mother, a term that is patronizing but suffices because there is nothing more to be offered. In her letter, she addresses the inadequacy of these surrogate relationships while simultaneously maintaining the fidelity production and subject as exclusive to those whom experienced the event. A fictitious example of a veteran’s life following return from the war is Norman Bowker. Bowker is a socially disoriented Vietnam veteran in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried who is struggling to find normalcy, purpose and intimacy after his return to the states from fighting in Vietnam. O’Brien’s fictitious example of Norman Bowker poses as the embodiment of the displaced Vietnam veteran who often had no one to listen, or were reluctant to discuss their experiences when someone was interested. For example, when Norman was driving in circles around the lake in his hometown for an entire evening he stops at a drive-up A&W he begins an awkward conversation with the employee who takes his order over the speaker. When the employee is ready to listen after Bowker announces that he has finished his meal Norman begins but stops himself.
The exchange that occurs when the employee is taking his order, as well as this one when he has difficulty talking about his experiences is an interesting play upon the military style communication of radios and radio slang. The employee talks as if he is a radio operator using military slang terms, and similar to veteran fighters when new soldiers shipped over to Vietnam, he becomes exasperated when Bowker does not understand what he means by a certain term. It is an adoption by mainstream American culture of the military design, which is a display of how quickly the concept of war becomes stylized and institutionalized.
Bowker also shows how the transition from life fighting in Vietnam to resuming normalcy in the states was often difficult, and in his case impossible. Norman Bowker committed suicide by hanging himself in his local YMCA with a jump rope three years after the fall of Saigon (1975), making his case that of extreme displacement and post-war melancholy from which there was no recovery. In Bowker’s letter to the narrator in the dialectical 1975, Bowker states that “The thing is, there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam…Hard to describe.” (O’Brien, 156) Although a veteran may have literally survived the war, several were not mentally equipped for the task of a soldier. As a result of incoming disadvantages or experiences, several veterans returned home and behaved differently than before, or sought a career in the military because they could no longer see themselves doing anything other than fighting. Upon his return, Norman Bowker was unable to reassume a normal life and spent his days in the YMCA and driving around with no destination until his suicide in 1978. In O’Brien’s example of Norman Bowker he demonstrates two important components of the Vietnam War fidelity: displacement of Veterans and the overall reluctant tone surrounding discussion of the war.
Vietnam War as Terror or Simulacrum

Another progressive fidelity, what I will call a second-generation fidelity, manifests as a result of the unresolved fidelity of the first. This first generation consists of: Vietnam veterans, family of Vietnam veterans, college students, hippies, civil rights activists, draft dodgers, 2nd wave feminists . A new generation of subjects have been produced that manifest from the cultural production but not from Vietnam . The Things They Carried and Theresa Davis’s letter seem to reflect the cultural repercussions to the Vietnam War. Studying the fidelity that is associated with the Vietnam War era leads to further understanding of the environment of the Event, and further characterization of the un-nameable event. An examination of the cultural production of this period in conjunction with production preceding the era as well as following can provide insight to the cultural setting of the period (1961-1991).
Such a diverse reaction to the Vietnam War, culturally and critically, raises questions regarding its status as an event. It is a possibility that the Vietnam War is not an event, rather it is simulacrum and terror, that is to say, a false event in the Badiouian sense. A basic understanding of Evil is that it is non-event; it is not itself a rupture in perceived knowledge, although it can be the source of true event, fidelity and truths. Badiou states that “(o)ur first definition of Evil is this: Evil is the process of a simulacrum of truth. And in its essence, under a name of its invention, it is terror directed at everyone.” (77) Here, Badiou is stating that Evil can produce its own fidelity and truths that appear very similar in form to that of those to an Event. Although it has not yet been determined as either Event or Evil, through exploration of this possibility the Vietnam War does fit the classification of simulacrum, most aptly as Evil in the form of terror.
Examining terror takes into consideration that looking into the Vietnam War as an event is asking the wrong question of the situation. Perhaps the Vietnam War is terror because it possesses the qualities of truth event such as fidelity and an abstract set of those who simultaneously enter the subject as it is created. The example used by Badiou to describe terror is Nazi Germany and the Third Reich, however the terms that he uses can be easily substituted to accommodate the American situation. As racial slurs that pastiche a legitimate term (‘Gook’ a derivative of the native migook and ‘Jew’ from Judiasm, Jewish, etc.) simulacrum creates its own terminology. In this study instead of ‘Jew’, ‘Gook’ serves as the word to characterize the enemy (although its origins are in the Korean War). In supplement to Nazism, American Imperialism will do more than suffice. On these terms Badiou’s ideology can be explained to fit the situation concerning the Vietnam War quite well under its hypothetical existence as terror. Gook being the name that is given to the enemy under the presumption of simulacrum, it characterizes all aspects of the void which need be eliminated: xenophobia and communism. This is American Imperialist simplification and grouping of diverse terminology into one enemy to condense to situation from its true breadth. This void of ‘Gook’ (in its slang rather than native lingual tense), similarly to that of ‘Jew’, only existed to those who created it and are subjects under simulacrum. ‘Gook’ is the production of American Imperialism to reduce the abstraction of causes into a human enemy that can theoretically be eliminated.
Another sense in which the Vietnam War is suspiciously similar to simulacrum is that its fidelity is seemingly created from the “closed particularity” of the abstract set that is its subject. As seen in Sam Brown’s short essay “Legacy of Choices”, he discusses that the Vietnam War is a “generational talisman that only we can touch.” Although this is a weaker example of how the Vietnam War is simulacrum, the fidelity possesses a universal nominalization of the event as well, which is dichotomous as the induction of power as a radical break and in semblance of terror.
In tradition to the first-generation fidelity, the second-generation fidelity contains a multiplicity of opinions and viewpoints. The second generation, those that are once removed from the event or are in the current education system, implies the role of silence in the fidelity. Silence convolutes discovery and compounds the dialectical image that is seen when students look at the Vietnam War era. The first generation example of the student body in America of the 1960s and 1970s may lead closer toward knowing that the event that changed America was likely not the war.
By discussing the factors that united college students during the Vietnam War, Sam Brown expresses in his article “Legacy of Choices” that although the 60s generation is a part of history, it will not simply fade away and its impact is yet to be felt. Brown discusses some of the cultural contexts of college life during the Vietnam conflict, and through these he demonstrates how the bond between the young adults who experienced these contexts was formed. “I have found that people of my generation show such a tolerance for each other, an empathy that does not reach beyond generational lines when talking about the war. ‘Nam is a generational talisman that only we can touch.” (Brown, 192) In his statement, Badiouian ethics can be applied concerning the concept surrounding the exclusivity of those who enter into the subject of an event through experiencing it. A sense of community is formed between the individuals who have entered the subject; and, by this exchange of discourses produced by this bond, the fidelity that surrounds Vietnam War has been fashioned. He also mentions that there were factions of ideology within his generation, primarily the differing conceptualizations of soldiers. A question emerged asking whether the soldiers were criminal, foolish, stupid or used. These factions are important in understanding that the situation under which students of that era were not subjected to terror within their movement by being forced to uphold identical ideologies.
Brown also describes that the youth did not necessarily feel deceived, rather they felt that they had been used. An understanding military authority by the students in terms of ‘using’ American soldiers is an indicator of a ruptured void, and leads closer towards understanding when the rupture has occurred within the possibility that it is not the war itself. Brown expresses that the legacy, or fidelity, of the Vietnam War is far from ended on two levels: the capacity for self-criticism and the generation’s longevity, not acting solely as an inactive component of history, rather as yet to complete the generational impact of which it is capable.
In spite of some scholarly claims that the impact of the Vietnam era fidelity is yet to be or still being felt, some scholars believe that the Vietnam War fidelity is dying. As a result of lack of education due to the politically charged nature of the content, many children of middle and high school age learn relatively little of the conflict in Vietnam. McCloud, a Vietnam Veteran and junior high teacher explains in the prologue/epilogue to his compilation of letters entitled What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam? that he had begun exploring what to teach his students concerning the war. In his prologue he describes his pursuits and handwritten requests to government officials (during the war and present), journalists, authors of books on the topic (including Tim O’Brien), leading opposition voices and public figures to describe the lessons of the Vietnam War. In the letters that he received in reply to his request, McCloud created his compilation and outlines the points he describes as most important. His observations are components that follow the logic of the fidelity associated with the war. These oscillate from being rediscovery of the griminess of war yet its alleged nobility, the ‘outstanding’ military performance in contrast to the war’s unpopularity. In the fidelity to the Vietnam War can be found lessons as well as unresolved sentiments, as seen in the various opinions of what has been gathered from the experience. McCloud states that these lessons are what he intended to gather from various sources and opinions.
In his preface and epilogue to his compilation, McCloud discusses the importance of not ‘losing’ the legacy of the war through lack of education as well as the essential nature of defining to descendants of the Vietnam War Generation factors that shaped America during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The problem of communication that characterized the government interactions with American citizenry has manifested itself in the fidelity that was produced and is perpetuated on the personal level of instruction. “Students have made it clear to me that they see this as the war no one wants to talk about. They seem to be saying that they know the war is the skeleton in American’s family closet.” (McCloud, xvi) Although many questions and irresolute sentiments characterize the fidelity, it is as if the silence is as much of the fidelity as is the expressed element. America’s silence regarding the war is continually adding an implicit value of shame concerning the subject.
The fidelity being tainted by shame is problematic to understanding and interpretation. Silence, although a part, is not a contributor to the fidelity: it is a detriment and thievery from the troves of knowledge. The conflicting fidelity implies that nothing is resolved and the logic is also contradictory due to the divisive nature of the war itself. The fidelity to the Vietnam War is true to the logic that created it, being faithful in form of reflection. Therefore, the very nature of the war has disallowed it from becoming something that can sink peacefully into the past; rather it is in fact an ongoing irresolute conflict that Americans cannot overcome. The only foreseeable elimination of this divergence would be the cessation of education regarding the war and a figurative erasure, or Badiouian betrayal.
Following this logic of multiplicity, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a contributor to the fidelity that also stimulates varying response. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial consists of the wall, a flagpole and statue of three American soldiers. As one of the more evident components of the Vietnam War fidelity, the memorial (officially designed and construction began in 1982) is a source of strong, variant rhetoric to those who visit, and its multiple readings as a postmodern text demonstrate a conglomerate of meanings. The multiple readings of the memorial are similar in terms of chaos to the fidelity that produced it. Mutability is the main categorization of the fidelity that is left by the memorial. It is constantly changing in the artifacts that are left by it daily that alters the text of the wall with each individual’s addition to it and the mirrored finish to the wall constantly reflects a changing scenery. This is significant of two factors: the multiplicity of consequence and the different attitudes that characterize the war.
The understated simplicity of the memorial, its low profile setting that is obscured from the North and tapered to the landscape, in addition to its black color that can be adversely read as the guilt that is associated with the Vietnam War, in spite of the action of commemoration and honor to those who died in combat. It is a self-contained irony, created in order to memorialize and remember while simultaneously camouflaging itself and maintaining an unassuming low profile.
In addition to the modest landscaping, the reactions to the memorial are not like that to other patriotic or war memorials. It is not a sense of pride or patriotism, but rather a sense of shame, and being aghast to the atrocity with which the individual is being presented. Rather than triumph, the memorial echoes reverence, humility in its structure, massiveness of death and scarcity of life. Mixed feelings regarding the meaning, design and origin of the memorial are fidelity to the fidelity of the Vietnam War. These implicit discourses of the wall are also components of a “shifting symbolic ground” (Blair, 362) Outside of the implications of the memorial itself are those of the other American monuments regarding war or nationalism. For example within the same locale of Washington DC the Washington Monument and the USMC War Memorial stand in contrast to the Vietnam War Memorial. The Washington Monument that was built to honor the United States’ first president stands at 555 feet and can been seen from afar. It is a proud and phallic structure that reflects the nationalist attitude and phallio-centric culture in which it was produced.
Similarly, the Marine Corps War Memorial depicts the image from a famous posed photograph that was taken as four US soldiers raised a second flag atop Mt. Suribachi during the battle at Iwo Jima during WWII. It is a proud commemoration of the action, sacrifice and contribution of the soldiers who participated. When compared to its antecedents’ displays of grandeur, the Vietnam War Memorial is somewhat hidden and low profile. In context of design, an implicit level of shame lies in the construction of the Vietnam War Memorial, especially in comparison to its majestic predecessors.

1970’s Postmodern Literature, Television and Self Improvement

The era of literature that reflects the cultural repercussions of the Vietnam War is the postmodern period. The trends of postmodern literature in this era tend towards chaotic as a reflection of their period. 1970’s television figures fidelity because war-reporting on television in the domestic space contributed to cultural shifts in this area of image production. The literature of self improvement figures this fidelity a focus on individual in lieu of focus on totality as an escapist gesture. This fidelity is composed of music, literature, advertising, and television and more. However, only literature, television and minor cultural movements are analyzed within this section. Examining generalized trends during this era provides a greater understanding of the environment in which the Event occurred, and also clarity regarding the creation of the current historical moment. By working backwards from fidelity towards event, or the practice of examining the whole to find the common, helps in identifying potential Evil. The Badiouian subject that existed during the Vietnam War was exposed to the complex fidelity produced by the erratic period.
As demonstrated by the works of this period such as: The Things They Carried, and War Letters, the specific texts that this paper references, the American novel from this era of postmodernism reflects the pressure of fears, hatreds and passions that were interacting during the Vietnam War. Postmodern authors would produce nostalgic reflections upon modernist writings, but through the postmodern period a more chaotic style was adopted. A trend of postmodernism was the focus upon existentialist and crisis theology, which seemed more fitting in their era. This began the shift from the idealism that earlier authors of modernism possessed. Although they disagreed with many modernist works, the postmodernists found sympathetic identity in the more tragic modernist authorship.
Also, writers during the pre-war and war eras did not disappear from the career; they edgily shifted from one style to another, their works spanning many genres. Works like Invisible Man show the apocalyptic mood that settled over 1960’s fiction. (Dickstein, 145) Postmodern fiction is an excellent lens through which cultural beliefs and movements can be seen as a result of analysis of authorial intent. “Bellow turned from distanced, ironic, carefully structured fictions toward mercurial self-portraits, using himself as a prism through which the cultural moment can be refracted.” (171) The postmodern novel serves more to reflect the pressures, discontent, anxiety and insecurities of the cultural setting in which it was written.
The disoriented designs of literatures and culture during, and produced by, this era present a confusing element that is confronted in the process of this study. Many literatures and expressions of the fidelity are combined with the personal entanglement of all these who had entered the subject of, and act upon the logic of the fidelity. “Divesting the critical process of my own personal engagement…I realized that…my personal history was tangled up in the history of the Vietnam conflict. I was four years old when the first American was killed in Vietnam and twenty when the last was killed” (348) Blair’s statement is characteristic of the involvement with which many those subject to, and who were which producers of the Vietnam War fidelity. Blair also addresses the totality of the war in terms of years-of-age that are easily understood. This is once more an example of Brown’s “talisman” from his article “Legacy of Choices”, or the exclusivity of the subject under which those that experienced the Vietnam War have entered.
American television programming continually rose in popularity since its 1940’s introduction was a form of importing image production to the domestic space. This created a larger market for advertising, a localized form of entertainment outside the cinema, and during the war, the television was a means of importing violence into the domestic space through war-reporting of the 1960s. It experienced a change beginning in 1972 originating from sociocultural shifts that occurred during the 1960s and a desire for more tasteful programming. In this new era of television from 1972-1974, women were preyed upon by advertisements, that marketed towards them as empowered consumers. Women’s transformation into an “empowered” being during the 1960s made targeted advertising easier. A domestic approach to self awareness was also developed from the surge in feminist literature in the 1960s, stemming from Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Rapid expanse of feminist movement in the 1970s was the desire of women to inwardly and outwardly express their identity using gender concepts. Also in style was a more empowered female role such as seen in ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ that was first aired in September of 1970.
Inferred effects of the Vietnam War can be said to be seen in the change in television programming in the 1970’s. The early 1970’s kept pace with the changing woman, instead of the 1960’s programming tendency to keep with the times, which commonly included field reports and war footage of the action in Vietnam. Rather than the depressing and debased point of television in the 1960’s, television writers began to strive for a more wholesome programming. Hence, the “goofy good will” of ‘Mary Tyler Moore’s’ characters was cherished. This paired with wit, class and charm characterized the aims of early 1970’s programming. The light hearted comedy of the show also provided a form of escapist comedy that created a contrast from the harsh news programming, one of the two being what Americans chose to fill their living rooms with each evening.
In addition to light hearted comedies, elements of modesty, self-reflexiveness and thoughtful comedy were valued in the production of television shows during this period. Josh Ozersky in Archie Bunker’s America discusses the television industry during the 1960s and 1970s and examines the trends of industry history. When he is examining the contrast between 1960s and 1970s television programming, he attributes the change in trends to a desire for classier productions, stating that “In TV, too, prestige means something and perhaps all the more so for the mediums low status in the culture. To achieve commercial success in the process became every producer’s dream.” (Ozersky, 87) He explains that producers avoided debased and dark features and strived to emerge with great popularity through creating more wholesome programming in a nation seeking a change in pace. 1960s war-reporting was a reflection of the environment outside of television industry. However, beginning in the 1970s as an attempt to either reclaim the industry’s status or as an escapist gesture the programming shifted towards more tasteful shows.
Arthur Stein, author of Seeds of the Seventies: Values, Work, and Commitment in Post-Vietnam America, examines the 1970’s by categorizing the movements that grew during the period and the trends that the American public flocked towards. Many Americans had decided to migrate from urban to rural areas of the country in order to isolate themselves from the plagues of modern societal living. Similarly, support for ecological based movements grew, striving to preserve the natural environment. Americans were seeking activities that would not only divert their attention from the growing disaster in Vietnam, but the positive activist groups would also serve as self-affirmation.
Another popular trend was self-exploration and self-improvement techniques, which were usually the practice of health maintenance, preventative medicine, and workouts such as yoga and tai-chi Approaches to self-awareness became popular through the Americanization of Asian traditions, primarily made possible from globalization that provided commercial contact between Eastern and Western worlds. This presents an interesting cultural irony, the things that Americans used desiring to improve themselves, was provided through that which brought them into what they may have been attempting to escape. Globalization introduced the American market and political spectrum to communism and an increased sense of xenophobia that were simplified and mass produced in form of McCarthyism, Eisenhower’s militaristic administration and military industrial complex, which are exported as the Vietnam War.
In spite of the self-improvement trend and positive images from television pop-culture, scholar Philip Beidler notes in his essay “Situation Report” that America will never get over Vietnam. However the important choice lies in what America chooses to do with this fact. In Badiou’s terms, the fidelity exists and those that have entered the subject determine the course of the fidelity and the truths it perpetuates. Understanding the current trend of not heeding to literary wisdoms, the retribution of the ‘amnesiac’ characteristic of how America is addressing the truths associated with the Vietnam War will eventually find its way back to Americans; and as McCloud notes, lack of education is likely the vehicle.
A similar educational concern is felt in regard to literature expressed by Philip Beidler with other scholars’ frustration, cultural consciousness and impotence. In "Situation Report”, Beidler is concerned with the massive amounts of Vietnam War related literatures that are produced each year, yet contradicted by America’s ever thriving myth of exceptionalism. With emphasis on the power of words being lost when writing about Vietnam, the literatures that surround the era are regarded flippantly as entertainment at best although they are far from being as empty as they are regarded. Beidler points out the expanse and multiplicity of titles that continually emerge is problematic, but argues that in the “…example of Vietnam writing: its claim, within the life of culture, that attempts to make some sense of the war can make a difference-words, in fact, can and do change the world.” (Beidler, 157) With the domestic surge of neoconservative attitudes the expectation for Americans gathering lessons and wisdom from Vietnam War era literatures is growing less optimistic, if not simply regressive. (163)
1970s America can be viewed as a period of recovery from the events of the 1960’s: assassinations of charismatic leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Kennedy brothers; the death of several pop culture icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Brian Jones; continuing, escalating involvement in Vietnam; and the end of idealism with the introduction of hard drugs and hard times. The self improvement movements of this period can be attributed to a narrowed focus to the individual level rather than the global as a form of escapist gesture. The need for these movements and the exhaustion which settled over many Americans is explained by Stein when he states that “Some of those whose lives had been profoundly affected by the events of the 1960s felt the need to develop a new orientation, to bring their lives back into balance. They felt that a time for reflection and reassessment was necessary.” (8) The “reservoir of untapped youthful idealism” that sprung forth during the 1960s no longer held its grip over Americans as a result of the tiresome events of the decade. A new, exhausted spirit settled over cultural America. Attached to the exhaustion however, was the desire to reexamine the experiences of the 60’s and a renewed desire to balance the chaos that defined them for over a decade.

New historicists can use Badiouian philosophy as a method of examining how the current cultural moment was produced. Within the fidelity to simulacrum of terror, the texts reflect the resistance in which they were created, and therefore serve as a lens into the society that produced them. Through examining these forms of cultural production, I have found that the Vietnam War exists as a Badiouian Evil, and that the present cultural moment can rather be attributed to interacting related social forces. If we can recognize how the Vietnam War shaped the present historical moment as well as social factors, then we can begin to understand how acting under the resistance to simulacrum is as powerful as acting under the fidelity of an Event, and how easily the two are confused in context of reality. Since the fidelity is not that of the Vietnam War because the war is terror, and other social aspects have created the historical moment, then these can be examined in order to obtain a better understanding of the cultural moment that they produced. This current historical moment is characterized by terror, with global ‘terrorists’, the war on terror, and the constant state of war to which the world has been exposed. With this approach we can begin to study these facets to discover the significance of the cultural phenomenon separately from the Vietnam War as well. Also, through the study of these separate social and cultural factors a set of causal relationships is established, showing that the exportation of free markets and parliamentary democracy contributed to the eruption of the Vietnam War, and the Vietnam War caused cultural turmoil to produce the fidelity. Examining these relationships may lead to other causes which would provide deeper understanding of the fidelity (and, subsequently, those who have entered it as well). Nevertheless, some level of unknown will always be associated with the Vietnam War due to its highly entangled nature with culture. Certain aspects will never be understood, perhaps because the event will always be un-nameable. If the areas we can explore are not studied, and the cultural production that created our current moment is not understood, we risk the cost of this ignorance. By exploring what we can know, it is possible to eliminate existence in the constant state of war and terror that characterizes the present historical moment and the associated consequences. Although I have shown that the Vietnam War is not the Badiouian event, I hope that new historicist critics will begin to research music, drug culture, sub-cultural movements and political aspects. New historicist critics need to examine other areas of cultural production because this paper merely serves to introduce a new historicist approach and to display the war as Badiouian Evil. In other work, new historicists and cultural anthropologists can examine areas of the fidelity that I have not included, such as economic factors and cultural production that influenced the creation of the current historical moment.
“As memory is central to the creation and maintenance of community, ‘when members of a community…lose their common objects of memory, they have difficulty maintaining a common ground…common memories allow a political culture to...imagine its future’ Since Vietnam it has become much more difficult to imagine a common future.”
Ray Pratt “There Must Be Some Way Outta Here!”; May 02, 2007 2:49 PM
maria said...: Maria Fernanda Castro
AML 4242
Professor Michael Rowley
19th February 2007

Women with great gifts; A reading of The Mixquiahuala Letters

"...any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed,...” Virginia Woolf.
Commonly, many readers of The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo, who are perhaps ‘liberal’ women themselves, might assume that their ‘liberal’ actions will carry no consequences today. However, it is not entirely certain which consequences ‘liberal’ women will face, specially in the text. If the reader can not grasp the fact that the characters in the text are deliberately staying away from men, then the reader will not be able to understand that their purpose for this is to defy the patriarchal order and to embrace liberalism. Teresa gives a proper definition of what being a ‘liberal’ woman means. “What you perceive as ‘liberal’ is my independence to choose what I do, with whom, and when. Moreover, it also means that I may choose not to do it, with anyone, ever.” (Castillo 79). Therefore, men are responsible for the punishment of the ‘liberal’ woman and they marry the ‘virginal’ one instead to form a family. Women are punished within the rules of patriarchy and through the cultural standards of respectability for women within the diagetic world of the text. Accordingly, evil is represented though men in the text.
Using the symbolism of the snake the novel represents men as evil; maternity is also depicted as evil through various images throughout the novel. “We were obsessed with visions of snakes that threatened to wind themselves around our yearning hearts... and we formed a society of women a sacred triangle an unbreakable guard from a world of treason deceit and weakness.” (Castillo 44). The evils of maternity are clearly depicted in the novel through the story “Un cuento sin ritmo/Time is Fluid”. In the story, three women (one of them is pregnant
and has a watermelon belly) protected by an invisible amulet choose a road that leads to the sea. When they reach the beach, one of them picks up a dead branch and drew a snake, then another one. She seemed to be obsessed with the Goddess of fire and fertility, known to the Aztecs as Coatlicue (Castillo 72). Alicia and Teresa most remain celibate not only to stay away from men, but away from maternity and the idea of being slaved by the patriarchal norms of society.
Fortunately, Alicia and Teresa use their strength to leave men behind, releasing evil, and also binding them closer together. Both women met as they were enrolled at the same North American institution in Mexico City. There, they found a friend, a sister, and a soul mate on each other. Teresa was escaping a failed marriage. She married Libra, a men’s man, who had not graduated high school but had street smarts. He did some business with other local men. One day, Teresa was fed-up with his preference to listen to his fellow business partners and decided to pack her “bag with jeans, books, and poems and moved out on [her] own.” (Castillo 41). However, Teresa found yet another man who made fake promises and managed to break her heart once again. After her escape from Libra, she arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula with Alicia were they staid “at the hacienda of the entrepreneur”. The entrepreneur, Sergio Samora, was the person in charge of his family’s wealth. He proposed marriage to Teresa. “I had landed on a strange planet where cares and worries did not existed,” (Castillo 67) or so, she thought. Even thought he was not pleased with the idea of her previous marriage (she was still legally married to Libra), nor with the fact that she was not a virgin, he did offer to take care of the divorce and to marry her anyways. Teresa thought this was her final redemption, she could not be more wrong.
Men also disgrace the women in the text in front of their families while displaying cowardice. This disgrace accumulates with the disgrace that Teresa had experienced in the past and shattered her dreams of redemption in front of her mother’s eyes. Sadly, evil caught up with Teresa and her happiness was shortly fed. Sergio Samora is also represented as an evil- and coward- figure in the novel who manages to break off his engagement and his promises to Teresa disgracing her in front of her family. She reacted with hopelessness: “Coward! I spat with venom on delicate sheets of onion skin paper meant to be mailed to that paradise home in the peninsula, but were balled and thrown in the trash instead.” (Castillo 100). To make matters worse, her mother argued: “you were married, divorced, been around, a veteran of various wars... How could you have expect him to take you seriously?” (Castillo 100). Her mother also told her that she was being used as a “plaything”, depleting her spirit. Then, she left her mother’s house without saying good-bye. Destiny did not planned to give Teresa a man.
Accordingly, the second evil (maternity) made a way inside the novel to haunt Teresa and the only way of releasing this evil, untying her forever from the man who caused such an evil, is by having an abortion. She was exempted from a patriarchal life tied to a man because she had his son or daughter. The one who inflicted this evil is Alexis Valladolid. “My first night with Alexis taught me I was a virgin. I was a virgin and I had never given myself to a man before, nor had any man had given himself to me.” (Castillo 105). She compared her own persona as she was around him as clay; she could be molded and defined. When she had the abortion she described it as following: “I erupted, a volcano of hot wine, soft membrane, tissue, undefined nerves, sightless eyes, a minuscule, pounding heart...” (Castillo 114). After the abortion, Alexis asked her for forgiveness and told her that he wanted to be a father after all. She kicked him out of her house. It was Teresa who wanted the abortion. She knew that if she had his baby he will never be away from her life, “ I wanted to be rid of him like a cancerous tumor” (Castillo 116). This once again demonstrates the concept of the second evil, she chose independence over maternity and a family.
Similarly to her friend, Alicia found nothing but deception from the hands of men. This deception was even materialized through Teresa’s dreams before it happened. While she staid in Mexico, she had hopes of returning to New York to find Rodney-her lover from the age of sixteen- who was living at her apartment. Alicia had a prophetic dream while she was away, she dreamt that as she returned from her trip another woman was staying with him in her apartment. The dream was very detailed: “The patch your Spanish grandmother had brought on the ship tossed carelessly on the floor. It was the same foto of Rodney on the nightstand inscribed “To Alicia, Forever Yours, Rodney,” but it lay face down.” (Castillo 47). As she actually returned to New York, ignoring the premonition, she hoped to “change the dream before it became an actual nightmare” (Castillo 48). It became a nightmare, he was with someone else at her apartment. Rodney became to Alicia: “an obscene giant insect.” (Castillo 48).
Sterilization works two roles in the text in relation to the characters. First, it releases the evil maternity forever cutting everlasting ties to men. And second, it works as a punishment for having an abortion. Maternity came to haunt Alicia. First, she discovered that Rodney was going to have a baby with the woman in the apartment. Just like he did with Alicia, he was not planning on taking responsibility over the baby. Alicia was also forced to have an abortion when she was seventeen, for that Rodney also refused to respond for her baby. At the abortion clinic, she was sterilized. This way Alicia was forever saved from the evil of motherhood or any other binding ties to men who might prevent her from being free and ‘liberal’. The experience was also haunting, since she was punished for her lack of restraint as a ‘liberal’ woman and was denied forever the potential joys of motherhood. Later in the novel, Alicia does craves a family.
Nevertheless, in the novel Alicia does not restrains herself from taking yet another lover. Accordingly he leaves her for his virginal wife. This demonstrates that men only viewed her as a
sexual conquest and could not find her suitable for long-time companionship. When she got accepted to a prestigious school to pursue a degree as an artist, she joined a women’s group that kept a policy of celibacy in order to achieve total self-sufficiency. However, after a while she ironically “craved a family, to share life with a steady man, and children to sit around the table together...” (Castillo 112). Then, she found Abdel. He was going through a difficult divorce and hoped only for visitation privileges to see his children. Abdel found it that it was time to start over, so he moved in with Alicia. After they second night, they were lovers. In this case, the flesh was more powerful than the will and Alicia could not remain celibate. He also left after a while without even so much as to thank her for her hospitality.
In the novel, the two women are somehow victims of the situation because they are viewed as outsiders to the Mexicans. They are ‘gringas’ and for this reason, they are easy prey for the hungry Mexican machos. However, they do not receive equal attention in Mexico. Teresa gets more attention than Alicia. To which Alicia “pointed out the obvious, the big breasts, full hips and thighs, the kewpie doll mouth.” (Castillo 119). In Mexico, Teresa’s curves are viewed as more desirable and she is more attractive to Mexican men. Even thought this fact creates some tension between the women, it does not ruins their friendship. They only have each other, after all both of them have been deserted by the men they once loved and need companionship. Also, in the case of Teresa, not even her own mother wanted to know about her ever again.
In the end, evil is still represented through men in the text. Also, they are responsible for the punishment of the ‘liberal’ woman and they marry the ‘virginal’ one instead to form a family.
If the reader can not understand that their purpose to do this is to defy the patriarchal order and to embrace liberalism, then the reader should also understand that the characters met a better future
than those 'virginal' women who got married. However, the reader may never know if the women in the text released their evils in a positive manner, or if by doing so they were left completely lonely because their friendship may not have been enough. Other literary critics or feminists may also approach the text with a different angle. For instance, the relationship between the two main characters may be studied as a lesbian relationship and may be read as a piece of Queer literature. Also, other critics may want to analyze the difference in judgement to the ‘liberal’ woman based on the two cultures in the text, the Mexican and the American.

“...shot herself or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard and mocked at," Virginia Woolf.

Works Cited

Castillo, Ana. The Mixquiahuala Letters. Anchor Books: New York, 1992.; May 03, 2007 1:03 PM
msgriffian said...: Paper1- James Baldwin
Many people believe that intelligencia, like sophisticated theorists, philosophers, and authors live a wonderful life, but in Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin allows everyone to enter his reality. Through Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin changed the views of African American literature by addressing the things that were happening to less privileged and socially unaccepted people. If self expression can be understood and appreciated in African American literature, it will liberate the minds of others and change what this culture denies as traditional norms. Whether it has been done intentionally or mistakenly, traditional norms and rules have had a major impact on African American literature, from the socially accepted norms to the diction and sexuality that has been used, and still is used in novels. It can also help each person realize that individuality is a part of human nature and without it our minds would be biased to various types of thinking. Many authors experienced the adversities of life, but failed to write about them. He wrote about their feelings and allowed them to have a voice through his writing. He also made it clear to others that how you treat someone and allow him to be socially defined has significant authority in determining how he will develop and receive personal happiness. Most of all, David, the main character in Giovanni’s Room, was a direct reflection of Baldwin. Therefore, it permitted him to express and understand the views, opinions, and beliefs of those who were deemed as culturally insufficient.
James Baldwin was one of the few authors who based his novels on the more critical issues of life. African American literature from the 1940s to the 1970s appears to be motivated by the politics of revolution or reform, while some of the literature from other groups appears in the same period to be motivated by the status quo. Giovanni’s Room is inspired by a social environment of political reform. Baldwin brought to the minds and eyes of others, the reality of sexuality and homosexuality, and sexism and racism. He wrote about the ways a person’s sense of self and his identity can be extremely altered because of the structure of society. He empathized with those who were not seen as normal by the standards of American culture, and he let them be heard. Giovanni’s Room discussed critical issues to help others realize the world is not a utopia in the following ways: first, he addressed sexism and the degrading way men thought of women, racism in the way African Americans were perceived and treated by Caucasians, and sexuality in order to repress the struggle for sense of self. Also, Giovanni’s Room creates the impression that it grasps the struggle with normativity and speaks for the readers who are outside of normativized social relations and who lack a voice. It is now clearer how society immensely influences the writing of African American literature.
An individual’s own definition of feminism can result in the ignorance to the fact that it can be directed to and from a man or a woman. For example, some people believe that feminism is the fight for equality by women, for women. Some others feel that feminism is the fight for equality among all subordinate sexes, races, and sexualities. According to Bell Hooks in Feminism is for Everybody, “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”(Hooks viii) Feminism is not only about fighting for the equality of women, but also for the rights of any person who is oppressed by society. Some may feel that in order to be a feminist, it is required to be a woman; however the only requirement is oppression. This includes oppression within the home, community, and in the workplace. Oppression can be applied to anyone, man or woman, who is not socially accepted or who is not seen as culturally “normal”. The limits of oppression have varied throughout time. In the early 1950s, in Giovanni’s Room, the limitations were mainly focused on African American people and women; and as generations have passed they have become more open.
In Giovanni’s Room, the social issues that are addressed in the novel are often ignored in other novels and forms of literature because they are seen as irregular. The mass media has had a major influence on gender norms and traditions. Giovanni’s Room focuses on these traditions and at the same time, breaks them down. The purpose of existence may not have been to use sexism, but to express its existence in culture throughout the world. Feminism is focused on the, but not limited to the liberation of women, so that women may not be dominated and subject to “gender norms” that are inflicted by a patriarchal society. These norms state that women should remain domestic and passive, while men should work and be proactive. These customs influence the daily activities and attitudes of many, in return corrupting the thinking process, from writing and speech, to our thoughts.
Giovanni’s Room was influenced by sexism. For example, the way women were perceived, including their actions and the roles they should play. In Giovanni’s Room, Giovanni says, “… these absurd women running around today, full of ideas and nonsense, and thinking themselves equal to men […] they need to be beaten half to death so that they can find out who rules the world.” (Baldwin 86) Here, Giovanni is boldly saying that men are superior to women; and he further implies that women should know their places in the world and that is where they should remain. If they (women) should step out of their boundaries, they should be beaten by a man to show who controls the universe. It is obvious that sexist thinking had such an impact on literature and the thinking pattern of men, that it would cause Giovanni to say such a thing, and furthermore cause Baldwin to write such a thing. It could be said that because African American men felt oppressed by Caucasian men, they needed to have someone to degrade. During the 1950s, women, especially African American women were seen as lower in status than a man. In order to mitigate their feelings of subjugation, African American men would release their frustrations on and belittle their women.
The battering of women was a result of incomplete feelings by men. Some battering was a direct result of rejection, which many men took personally. One of the factors that determined a man’s masculinity was his number of female conquests. For any reason, if he were to fail at a task, he would be ridiculed by his peers; resulting in his feelings of embarrassment. Then, to relieve himself of such emotions, he would return home and thrash his wife. This is an example of how the influence of peers can have a severe effect on the lives of men and women domestically. When a man feels unaccepted in one place, he must compensate for it and be made to feel dominant in another.
It is an important factor in a person’s life for him to and others to be satisfied with himself. In James Baldwin’s Vision of Otherness and Community, Emmanuel Nelson states, “Community plays a central role in Baldwin’s novels […] his characters’ quest for identity reveal their need for identification within the community.” (Nelson 29) Self-identity not only completes an individual, but it allows a person to be socially involved. Habitually, cultural normalities are defined and structured by humanity. These norms are then imposed within the community. If someone does not correspond to a traditional category, he consequently initiates a battle within himself to search for his true sense of identity. In actuality, he already knows who he is, he just feels mislead because of what the community implies is normal. When he determines his sexuality, he is considered to have found a part of himself. This rule also applies when he has discovered a new dimension about himself. However, these characteristics are not questioned by him. A man may see himself as normal until the cultural influences enter the picture. When he is viewed as unfit in the community, he begins to question his own individuality, being made to feel as though it is wrong to think, feel, and act the way he does.
Behaviors by a person can be altered when he is aware that his actions and lifestyles do not compliment those of the majority. A rejection by the community can result in him putting on a façade to hide his true self. In the 1950s, there were many homosexuals and lesbians in the population. However, it was not simple to detect them and separate them from others, because they lived the lives of heterosexual people. This may be, in part, because they wanted to be accepted by their peers. Also, because they knew that if their true identities were revealed they would suffer discrimination, and become a part of the oppressed group of women.
Some may think that hiding their true selves would prevent the feeling of rejection by others. In actuality, it would only hinder relationships with others because of the falseness. In Giovanni’s Room, David states, “They [women at the bar] treated me as a son who had been initiated into manhood; but at the same time, with great distance, for I did not really belong to any of them; and they also sensed (or I felt they did) something else about me, something which was no longer worth their while to pursue.” (Baldwin 71) These were women at the bar who would sometimes befriend the other males simply for their own personal enjoyment. But with David, they noticed something about him, which caused them to refrain from inviting him to join them a second time. They realized that he was a homosexual man c pretending to be heterosexual. David rarely allowed others to see the “real” side of him, which was the homosexual side, but truthfully, he pretended, daily, to be a heterosexual male. When the women at the bar realized that he was not in fact, sincere with them, they detached themselves from him. He knew in the innermost part of him that this was the reason why, and for it he felt a shameless guilt.
David was guilty because he did not feel like he could be himself in public. Because of gender and sexual norms that has been imparted into minds by the community, many feel that if they are not what others say they should be, they are a failure. That feeling of being unsuitable impacts the lives of different people everyday. For example, David, who was a native of America, moved to Paris. Not because he liked it or he wanted to, but because he knew that his father and his peers in America would never accept his homosexuality. So he went away to a country where he could be more comfortable and less criticized. David believed that there was something wrong with him, so he detested himself for being irrelative to those around him.
Because people do not like who they have become, they are subject to develop self hatred and hatred towards people of their own kind. In an article in the Literary Encyclopedia, Maggie Zabrowska notes, “David ultimately rejects [Giovanni] in a fit of self hating homophobic rage.”(Zabrowska 1) Here, she clarifies the despise that David has for himself. This is in part because David knew that if his father saw him and knew about his “real” sexuality, he would disown him. Because of this, David feels like he is under pressure to act like a heterosexual man, when in fact, he is not. This demonstrates how a person can practice a particular sexuality, religion, or even a lifestyle, but hate who he is and others who behave like so. This is a result of feeling unwanted, ashamed, and as if he has failed someone who is important to him. In this case, the reference is to his father.
Feminism and homosexuality were among many of the popular topics unacknowledged by main stream media. When it was recognized, it was in a negative light. Issue of single parent homes, racial inequality, and gender inequality were amongst many problems that were rarely, if ever, addressed in literary readings. Like David, Baldwin was a homosexual African American male who dwelled in the stories that he wrote. He was not simply getting information from a source; it was his own. He took a chance to write about his life experiences. He talked about things that other writers, like William Faulkner were not concentrating on.
Giovanni’s Room addressed the feminism and gay issues that were often occurring, but not being discussed. Andrew Shin recognizes Baldwin’s attempts, and replies, “Baldwin’s is a voice ahead of its time […] attempting to articulate gay ethic well before “gay” entered common parlance…” (Shin 1) It can be said that Baldwin was a voice for the homosexuals of the earlier years. He spoke on topics that were real to him, but blind to the community. This was most likely easy for him because he was a homosexual. Giovanni’s Room was written in 1956, and it was Baldwin’s second novel. This was also the time when feminism was beginning to be publicly recognized. However, gay rights and issues were not often seen in popular writings. He took a risk by making his writings reflect such controversial topics, and today, where feminism and homosexuality are common in the media, his work is being recognized.
James Baldwin and other African American writers addressed the more important issues that surrounded the lives of people who were not accepted and who were underprivileged. In effect, it changed the way authors wrote and what they wrote about. If diversity and the social influence on writing can be understood, then it would be less difficult to make a person feel like he is shunned from the rest of the world. It would allow others to feel accepted and realize that someone understands them and they can be themselves. Although Giovanni’s Room helped people realize that there is more to life than what they see, there are still many people who refuse to accept those who are not like them. In that they are reluctant to come to terms with those who are socially different. As a result of this, racism, sexism, and discrimination based on sexuality, still exists. I have yet to analyze the way Giovanni’s Room has influenced others. In another work, someone could study the way African American literature changes and conforms to society.

Paper 2- Zora Neale Hurston

People who have read Their Eyes were Watching God since the 1970s commonly recognize that the text is a canonical work, but do not realize the role of feminism in African-American literature. It is not clear the resistant role, internally in Their Eyes were Watching God, externally in its perception, that feminism played. The text demonstrates tension between iconoclastic protagonist and the perceived knowledge of diagetic setting. On the other hand, the novels reception shows tension in the real world from the 1940s to the present in the following ways: racial hierarchy, peer leveling, sexual repression, intellectual fear, and anachronistic critique.
In the 1930’s many women, especially African-American women had much to say, but with no power to say it. They had feelings, thoughts, and suggestions of their own, but due to of antifeminist and Jim Crow laws, their voices and attitudes were disregarded. Because of their sex and race, African-American women suffered in their daily lives. As a result of their race, they were viewed as lower than white men and women, and other African-American men. For example, if an African-American woman was being abused by her husband, no attention would be paid to the matter. Whites felt like she was where she needed to be, and that if she was being assaulted, then she did something to deserve it. In effect of these circumstances, women were forced to search for self happiness because no one else was concerned about it. In the common mind, it is not thought of that feminism would play such a large role in literature. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God, she addressed issues that affected African-American women in the 1930s. She, like James Baldwin, gave a voice to those who did not have one. When the Jim Crow laws were in effect in the South, the right for African-American women to be heard was removed. As women were always seen to be of a lower status than men, African-American women and their opinions were ignored. Although the role of African-American women was strictly domestic, Their Eyes were Watching God broke that norm. If the influence of feminism can be understood in this novel, it would result in the greater knowledge of feminism and its affects. Also, the recognition of feminism can inspire a change in the way our patriarchal society is structured. Many African-American women had an influential role, but it was often hidden. At community meetings, women would make suggestions, but be ignored because the men at the meeting did not feel like their arguments and opinions were necessary. African-American women suffered from discrimination, sexism, and unsuccessful love. Because no one else was sincere about their happiness, women were forced to search for it on their own. African-American women had no strong expression in the 1930s and their judgment went unacknowledged, as they were constantly treated unjustly. With research and reading, it is clear how feminism and its components have played a role in African-American literature.
Lack of Racial Hierarchy
Janie was so comfortable around her Caucasian friends, that she did not notice she was different until she saw a photo. In order for someone to be comfortable with herself, she must see herself as equal to her peers. Janie, the main character in Their Eyes were Watching God, said “Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old." (Hurston 21) For six years, Janie grew up around white people. Her grandmother was a maid, and she played with the other white children whose parents worked. It was not until she saw a picture of herself that she realized that she was African-American. Adaptation does not only consist of a change of environment, but it also means being a part of it. Janie, who was raised around whites, had become accustomed to her peers. She, and they, saw her as equivalent because of this. However, this was only temporary. Janie would soon become an adult and realize how cruel and racist the world really was.
For someone to become fully adapted, it means she has to have security within herself and from her peers. When Janie was younger, her friends, who were white children, did not understand the concept of racism. Their innocence was still existent, and they only understood happiness. When a person is treated equally, she views herself as, racially, ethnically, and culturally equal. But in time, the lines of hate and parity and equality slowly diminish. In reality, whites did not feel that African-Americans were equal to themselves and they saw African-Americans as less than them in every way, no matter how financially stable or highly intelligent they may have been. African-Americans who were wealthy often could not integrate with their own kind because they were perceived as a different class and social status. Other African-Americans who were of a lower class were not fond of them, because they had something that they so much desired: wealth and power. This envy sparked an internal feud with those who wanted riches, and those who had it.
Peer Leveling
Class differences between African-Americans caused resentment and feelings of jealousy from lower class to the higher class. In the early 1930s, it was not rare for African-Americans and whites to dislike one another. And it certainly was not uncommon for those of the same race to despise one of their own. Referring to one African-American man who doubted another, a member of the town said, “Us colored folks is too envious of one nother. Us talks about de white man keepin us down! [...] Us keeps ourselves down." (Hurston 63) When Janie left town to marry Joe Starks, they moved to a smaller town called Eatonville. There, Starks planned to open a post office. When he told the other men in town about his plan to buy the land, they ridiculed him. While Jim Crow laws in the South existed, it would have been thought that there was not any adversary between members of the same race. However, that was not the case. Not only did it make it hard for African-Americans because whites were demeaning them, but it was more difficult because African-Americans did it to each other. The feelings of remorse caused African-Americans to lash out in rages of jealousy.
Jim Crow laws were intended to oppress African-Americans and keep them in a position of pessimism, but when they were eradicated, African-American women found their own sense of individuality. The laws’ main intention was to discriminate against any race that was not white. When the Jim Crow laws were broken and discontinued a new way of life was created. When African-Americans freed themselves of oppression, it gave a new light to African-American men and women. Women saw it unfair and absurd to remain in a group who still demeaned them. There were many African-American women who were treated with inequality not only by society, but domestically as well. Women were not appreciated in the home. They were taken for granted, and their views and opinions were dismissed when making decision about their selves.

Sexual Oppression
Their Eyes were Watching God helped to better the perception of African-American women from sexual objects to actualized human beings. Because of the disapproving conception of African-American women, they were only, if ever, seen as sexual entities. They had no rights in the home, or in sexual expeditions. Cheryl Wall, in Their Eyes were Watching God: A Casebook said “The novel was written in a cultural context of multiple sanctions against any representation of black female sexuality.” (Wall 137) During the time that the novel was written, African-American women were seen as housewives, maids, labor workers, and caretakers. Their sole purpose was to provide a service for others, who usually consisted of wealthy white people. African-American women were not expected to have sexuality or sexual needs. Culture and society has had a substantial influence on American writing. From the speech, and the language that is used, to the thought process. But it can be said that African-American writing has made a bigger impact on society. Where it was once tolerable to be, think, and act a certain way, it is now accepted. African-American writing has liberated the minds of the oblivious to understand that there is more to life than what meets the eye.
If oppression is the domination of one over another, then a cause of this domination can be a result of fear of a takeover by the other. It is possible that one remains oppressed because of fear of leaving what they know, or fear of criticism from others for defying traditional norms. For some, liberation is the only escape from oppression. In effect, they gain knowledge about a subject or a valuable article and use that knowledge to gain power, wealth, intelligence, and ultimate success. Along with those tools of life, comes fear. Not fear from a person, but fear of a person. When a certain level of power and knowledge are obtained, respect is given to the one who holds it, for if ever disrespected, they would be condemned for such an act.

Intellectual Fear
If a man had intelligence and wealth, he would be more feared than a man with physical strength. A main element of fear is the anxiety about something great and unknown. Some fear the physical aspects of others, while many fear the mental aspects. “There was something about Joe Starks that cowed the town. It was not because of his physical feat. [...] It was because he was more literate than the rest." (Hurston 75) Joe Starks was the second husband of Janie in Their Eyes were Watching God. Although he was not a man of a much built stature, he was intelligent; and that in itself was a great threat to others. Back in the 1930s when African-Americans were seen as ignorant, it was sporadic to cross and educated African-American man. Many African-American men in the society were muscular, with ample height and weight, so that was their only way of intimidation. But when an African-American man, an educated, intelligent, wealthy African-American man came along, he posed to be a bigger threat to others because of his brain power. He was such a major threat because while the other men may have had physical strength, they knew it could never get them further than mental strength would. Being smart was the key to acquiring wealth. Joe Starks represents an anti-intellectual strain in the Jim Crow South.
Knowledge can be a threat to others, but it can also be a threat to the person who possesses it. Hurston was exposed to the cruel world of being an African-American woman in the South. There were many writers who had seen and experienced the same, if not worse, trials of life, but it was she who took the stand and wrote about it in her books. Their Eyes were Watching God furthered its expectations. It addressed some of the most controversial issues of its time that no one else had the courage to address. The most significant topics included racism, feminism, discrimination, and Jim Crow laws of the South. What other writers and authors lacked in literature, the novel compensated for. For example, many novels talked about fantasy life, and girls dreaming of becoming royalty. The setting was in the suburbs and parents were employed, and the children were healthy. Their Eyes were Watching God spoke about reality. It showed the life of a woman who lived in poverty, was never internally happy, and who had multiple marriages, all of which ended. Hurston did not care about the criticism from others, because she was writing about the realities and what was really occurring in her life.
Anachronistic Criticism
The stylistics that Hurston used was criticized for the misrepresentation of African-Americans. She wrote a literal transcription of how language was actually spoken in that period. Too often, writers from the 1930s concealed the reality of what was happening in everyday life. In New Essays on Their Eyes were Watching God, Michael Awkward notes “This is a confrontation of class [dialect] that signifies the division that the writer as an intellectual has to recognize and bridge in the process of representing the people.” (Awkward 78) Their Eyes were Watching God was criticized for the African-American dialect that was used. Some said that the language was humiliating to other African-Americans and females everywhere. The actions and behaviors that people perform reflect on the greater species of their kind. So when the Hurston used a particular parlance in the novel, she was heavily disparaged for it. Many said that the novel contributed to the ignorant views of African-Americans by the language that the characters spoke in. In actuality, the book made no contribution to the ignorance of African-Americans. If anything, it helped others understand how life was really lived by the lower class, and the novel sparked a fuse to change it. If African-Americans spoke in proper English, then the dialect would have been written that way. But the truth is that African-Americans did, and still do speak in broken down English. The novel just opened up the minds and ears of the rest of society to see it.
Hurston still receives criticism from her literary works, not only in Their Eyes were Watching God, but in other books and novels that she has done. Some of the criticism is constructive, while others may have bee loutish. The problem lies in the lives of authors who have not experienced a hard life. If someone writes a novel about living in poverty, and a wealthy woman reads the work, she will not completely understand what is being read due to the lack of comparability.
Misogynistic
Richard Wright harshly criticized Their Eyes were Watching God because his views on writing were not ideologically similar to hers. And he seems to have not realized her feminist project. There have been many critiques about Their Eyes were Watching God. However, some writers criticize harder than others because they do not understand the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of a struggling African-American woman. In a critique of the novel, Wright states "The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, and no thought." (Wright 52) Wright commented on the novel when speaking of the nonexistent African-American female experience that it lacked. He claims it has no “depth”. Fr Wright, it may have been unseen to his mind, the being of a message, a thought, and a theme. Janie is a poor African-American woman who has lived three lives. She was forced into her first marriage, ran away with her second husband, and married a young gambler after becoming a widow, only to be forced to kill him in order to save her life. Then, she had to relocate to her previous town, and listen to others gossip about her and her life decision. With marrying different men, she was never really happy until she married her last husband. The point is that this woman had spent her life trying to find self happiness, and when she did, she had to destroy it. But no matter what, she always manages to recuperate. Strength is a very eminent trait that African-American women are known for.
In the 1930s in the South, African-American women had no strong sense of expression. There were many talented women who could not express themselves due to the restrictions if Jim Crow laws and antifeminism. Hurston was a part of group of subordinate women, yet she did not succumb to norms and standards, and she expressed how other African-American women in the South felt. If it can be understood how and to what extent feminism played a role in this novel, it would cause the higher intelligence of the feminism and its effects. It would also impel a change to be made in the structure of our patriarchal society. Although it is known how social events from the 1930s have affected African-American literature, it can never be understood how woman of all races contributed to the change in the system. A reader might research how feminism has changed from the 1930s to the present, and how it has affected not only women, but men. They could study the difference in power and liberation from the 1930’s to the resent in another text.; May 03, 2007 8:53 PM
Courtney R. said...: Identity: A Black Woman’s Struggle To Find Her Own

Courtney Richardson
May 3, 2007
AML 4242
Rowley

“Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.”
Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”

Gayl Jones’, Corregidora, is a widely read novel that addresses Black sexuality, identity, and power in 1940s America. It uses different forms of oppression to highlight how the Black female protagonist, Ursa Corregidora, finds and claims both her sexual and personal identity. The old notion that African-Americans are not able to produce quality literature no longer exists. African-American literature is more accepted and accessible than it was two or three decades ago. It is both highly read and highly recommended by existing and upcoming intellectuals or by the educated. However, the struggle for this acceptance was long and hard. Blacks were denied recognition in this area and/or genre for many years. Many Black critics and theorists were outcasted before their work and ideologies were accepted in this country i.e. Angela Davis. It is still not entirely certain if the readers of this literature actually understand the underlying meanings of the reading.
African-American literature is tied very closely to both African-American history and black stereotypes in many different ways. If we can understand that the history of the slavery of African-American families, we will understand better how different imagery, symbols, and phrases correlate with the greater theme and purpose of the work. If we can understand and recognize the stereotypes of African-Americans, especially those concerning African-American women, then we will understand that many of these stereotypes are false and that they have created obstacles in the journey of identity for African-Americans. As I worked on the topic of the sexual and emotional identity of Ursa Corregidora the most important thing that I found out
was that Ursa’s lack of identity was not a result of a conscious refusal, but an unconscious refusal that stemmed from the women in her family and their past: First, Ursa refused to lose or take on another identity because she thought she knew who she was and she did not want Corregidora’s legacy to die; Second, Ursa’s preoccupation with her family’s desires caused traumatic thoughts about sexuality and sexual intercourse; Third, Ursa had to move past the actions of Corregidora in order to become her own person and claim her own identity.
Ursa’s lack of submission in the of society men
Cornel West, a prominent African-American theorist, discusses the issues behind power in the African-American race. He says that in America, Blacks are seen as problems to the white race. West continues on to say that the politics of America leave African-Americans “intellectually debilitated, morally disempowered, and personally depressed” (p.2). He says that America thinks Blacks, especially poor Black men should “stay married, support their children, and stop committing so much crime” (p.2). West’s theory is very pertinent to Jones’ novel. Neither the men or the women in this novel are educated, in fact their educational status is never mentioned. However, the fact that they are all working class or poor gives the idea that they are not educated. West says that America’s views leave Blacks, “personally depressed” which accounts for the state of Ursa, Mutt, and Tadpole at least once in the novel. Ursa’s depression comes from her struggle within her marriages that both end in divorce and also with her identity. Both Mutt’s and Tadpole’s depression comes from their inability to sexually please their wife. According to the desires of the nation the two are trying to be “good black men” by staying married and taking care of their family. This is why they want Ursa to be submissive and act like a “good” wife - their marriage is the only place where they actually contain power. Black men were basically powerless in the 1940s with the exception of the power they possessed in their households, thus Ursa was furthering their powerless status.
From the beginning of Jones’ novel, Corregidora, the patriarchal ideologies of its men were apparent. Just like Ursa, these men, to an extent, could not help the way they thought. They grew up in a patriarchal society. Their thoughts were the norm. In an essay by a woman named Deborah Goldberg she proves this notion of early patriarchy in the novel. She uses the opening scene in the novel that resulted in Ursa’s sterility, where Mutt is watching Ursa’s last show, to disclose this society. He wants Ursa to come down off the stage and stop singing. He blames Ursa because men are watching her, as if she is not singing in a bar full of both men and women. He does not want these men to watch her. After all, she is his wife. (Mutt does not like Ursa getting all this sexual attention. He tells her that he does not like men “messing” with her. He says that they are using their eyes to “mess” with her) (p.247). It is not the singing that bothers Mutt. It is the fact that his wife is the one who is doing the singing. Good wives, traditional wives do not embarrass their husbands by singing at night clubs in front of dozens of men. Good wives do not work. They let their husband take care of them. Mutt wants Ursa to be a good wife and get down off of the stage. He thinks that what Ursa is doing is disrespectful to him because only “loose” women sing in nightclubs, even though he met her while she was singing in that same club, “Happy’s”. Ursa’s independence intimidates him making him feel less of a man because if he was a real man his wife would not be singing in a bar. Mutt is determine to show her that “good” wives obey their husbands which in his drunken state leads to an act of domestic violence that will, ultimately terminate his marriage. Mutt did not want to lose the little bit of power he thought he was entitled to.
In the novel, Gayl Jones’ protagonist, Ursa Corregidora, struggles with her first husband, Mutt Thomas, during their short marriage which only lasted a year. In the novel, Corregidora, Gayl Jones uses one of Ursa’s many doctor’s visits to display her conflict with the patriarchal system forced upon her. In the following quotation Ursa’s doctor imposes his patriarchal way of thinking on her. “He had finished examining me, and I was sitting in the chair near his desk...Is Mr.Corregidora with you? That’s my name, not my husband’s. (Jones p.19)” The doctor just assumed because Ursa was married that she had taken her husband’s name. In those lines Jones displays Ursa’s defiance to the patriarchal world that she lives in. Although Ursa’s decision to keep her maiden name comes from her family’s painful past that has been engraved into her memory, her name is still a stand against patriarchy. The idea that the wife should take on the name of her husband and drop the name of her family is suppose to symbolize the couple’s oneness with each other. This is a oneness that could not occur between Ursa and Mutt because of his secret displeasure in her name.
Despite, Mutt’s intentions he held a deep resentment about Ursa’s name. The fact that she had not taken on his last name, Thomas, caused him to feel inadequate. Due to the patriarchal influences in his life he felt as though he was suppose to be the “traditional” husband and she should be the “traditional” wife in return. Even though Ursa and Mutt are already separated, this visit shows her fight against this system because they are not yet divorced either. She feels if she takes on the name of Thomas, she will lose the identity of her family. An identity that she was taught to never let die-an identity that dominates her for most of her life.
Throughout the novel, Ursa’s narration of Mutt shows his insecurities as a man and as a husband which together illustrate the patriarchal ideologies he attempted to enforce on Ursa. According to Ursa, Mutt was a good husband, but he did not realize it. Mutt could not understand why Ursa would not be a normal or traditional wife. He felt that she should need a husband to take care of her. After their separation, Mutt was banned from the club, Happy’s, that Ursa sang at on a nightly basis, so he would send his brother, Jim, inside to watch and talk to Ursa. During the night that Mutt signed the divorce papers that Ursa sent, he sent Jim to ask Ursa, “What’s a husband for? (Jones p.53).” This is a question that Mutt asked Ursa repeatedly. Every time that the two of them had an argument about roles in their marriage he would ask this question. Mutt could not understand why Ursa needed him which is a concept that is problematic in itself. A woman does not need a husband. A husband should not be a necessity. He should be a desire. Mutt felt like Ursa did not allow him to be a real man. He wanted to take care of her. He did not want her to be independent. He did not want a divorce but he did not see how he could please Ursa. He wanted Ursa to tell him that she needed him, that she loved him, that she would be the woman he wanted and needed her to be. Mutt’s ideologies about marriage derived from his upbringing as did Ursa’s. However, Ursa’s family torment served as an obstacle in her marriage with Mutt Thomas.
In this novel both of Ursa’s husbands, Mutt Thomas and Tadpole McCormick, are stuck on the role that they think a man is suppose to play or hold in a marriage. He should be dominate and strong. Both Mutt Thomas and Tadpole McCormick, subconsciously enforced their patriarchal ideologies onto Ursa. In the essay, “Living The Legacy: Pain, Desire, and Narrative Time in Gayl Jones’ Corregidora , by Elizabeth Goldberg, she discusses many of these unrealized moments. Her essay focuses on the “parallel between black female...subjectivity under a dominant patriarchal system and the pain of torture, as well as the problems of representation accruing to both (p.446). She talks about how some sexual encounters in the novel display the patriarchal attitude of these men. Both Tadpole and Mutt would refer to Ursa’s sexual organs as derogatory terms or possessions. Both would also dominate every sexual encounter. The two also referred to Ursa’s sex as a “hole”. A place where they could stick their penis in (p.452). Even though neither man called Ursa’s sex a “hole” until they were angry and arguing about her lack of climax, they had always thought of her sex in that way. A place for their pleasure– a place where only they could go.
On numerous occasions, Mutt would ask Ursa “who’s is it?” A question referring to her body and sex– a question that had only one answer, “yours”. Mutt wanted to know that Ursa was only having sex with him - that she was his. He wanted to own her– she was his property. In fact, the only reason why either of the two men were concerned with Ursa having an orgasm was because of their manhood. In the contemporary patriarchal society that they and we live in a man must be able to make a woman come. If he does not, he is not a man. If he does not he his not good at making love or he has a small penis, etc. They wanted Ursa to have an orgasm, so that they could feel like real men. So, they could prove that she needed them. It had nothing to do with her. They saw her as a sexual object, not a person with desires and feelings. They did not actually care about her pleasure during these acts. Along with Mutt and Tadpole, Ursa was also concerned with her lack of sexual pleasure. The fact that she could not climax displeased her. It made her feel like less of a woman because she could not sexually satisfy her husband, thus indicating her unconscious acceptance of the hierarchy of patriarchy.
The refusal of sexual ownership and intimacy
In the novel, Ursa could not identify with her sexuality because of her refusal to be a sexual being. She knew her sexual orientation, but she let the men she was with claim both her and her body. Ursa felt inadequate because she could not fulfill neither her two husband’s or her own sexual desires. She could not show that she was receiving pleasure from their sexual encounters. She was like a machine. “He was inside, and I felt nothing, I wanted to feel, but I couldn’t....Is it good, baby? Yes, yes (Jones p.82).” Ursa’s inadequacy came from her desire to feel pleasure. She felt like a woman should feel pleasure while having sexual intercourse, but she could not. Therefore she was less of a woman. She caused both Mutt and Tadpole to feel that they were not men because they could not make Ursa climax. They, as did she, felt that she should have orgasms. Ursa did not realize that it was not her body that would not allow her to enjoy sex, it was her mind. The fact that she was barren was not stopping her from climaxing - she had never climaxed and she had not always been barren. It was her family’s past. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had engraved the past of Corregidora, their slave master, in her mind to point that it had blocked her connection with intimacy. She could not let herself get emotionally close enough to a man to allow herself to fully relax or “let go” with a man, even if she proclaims to love him. The women in her family went through so much turmoil with men that Ursa cannot trust the men in her life. This history has affected Ursa so much that she cannot even claim her own sexual desire.
Corregidora’s complete sexual control over Great-Gram and Gram have made Ursa so timid that she is ashamed to show public affection to her husband. Ursa was so afraid of being sexual or even appearing sexual that she did not want to “two-step” with her own husband at a concert. She did not want to be thought of as a sexual being. She did not want people to think she was even having sexual intercourse with her own husband. Ursa’s narration of the concert that she attended with Mutt clearly displays this fear. They were at a concert watching one of the biggest bands from Chicago when Mutt decides he wants to dance. “I didn’t like what he was doing now. He was getting up really close to me, more like you see people doing in back alleys than on the dance floor, even though there were other people dancing pretty close....what he was doing...people did in the bedroom (Jones 162).” Ursa’s discomfort with Mutt was not necessarily about the PDA, public display of affection, as it was about appearing sexual. Her entire life she has heard about the way Corregidora forced her great-grandmother (Great-Gram) and grandmother into prostitution. They were not allowed to claim or identify with their sexuality. Instead, it was forced upon them. They were forced to sleep with whomever Corregidora brought to them which gives the idea that they are highly sexual. They were never allowed to choose love or be intimate. Their sexual being was not their own.
This lack of sexuality was a concept that was both indirectly and directly forced upon Ursa. They told her about the past because they did not want the past to die. This past controlled Ursa most of her life. She did not even feel comfortable being close to her husband in public. This incident had nothing to with patriarchy because there are no rules against what husbands and wives can do with each other. This was personal. Mutt was not dancing any different than the other couples on the dance floor, Ursa simply did not want to be seen as a sexual being. She did not want to be one of Corregidora’s women. She could not repeat the past. She was not Gram or Great-Gram. She refused to be Corregidora’s little “gold piece.”
Ursa could not own her own sexuality because she could get past her family’s deprivation of their sexuality. Some critics, such as Elizabeth Yukins who wrote “Bastard Daughters and the Possession of History in Corregidora and Paradise,” argues that Ursa’s perception of her sex exclude her from being able to accept herself as a sexual being. Yukins’ essay on Corregidora addresses the fact that Ursa views her genitalia as a piece a property that her family history keeps her from owning. Yukins argues that until Ursa takes possession of her sex she cannot find her true identity. Ursa is so focused on producing generations that she cannot think of sex as a tool of pleasure. Ursa even voices this opinion to her partners, however, neither the man or herself understand the totality of what she means. An example being “when Ursa recollects telling Mutt, ‘I have a birthmark between my legs’(45), she depicts her genitalia as a liminal site of both creative pleasure and traumatic repetition. This birthmark signifies...self and family converge[d]” (Yukins, p.228). This example shows that Ursa cannot separate sex from Corregidora. She thinks that the only reason for her to have sex is to have babies which is why she resents Mutt so much after her fall. She views this birthmark as a form of property. Property that she does not own – property that neither of the men in her life own. Property that she does not realize that she has let Corregidora own. As long as Ursa views her love making as only a tool for procreation, she will never enjoy sex. She cannot become a sexual being because she is afraid to let her genitalia define who she is. She does not want to become Corregidora’s whores like Great Gram and Gram. Ursa cannot fathom being sexually pleased because she refuses to own her “birthmark” which is why anytime she is feeling pleasure during an encounter, it quickly converts into pain. It is a mind game and she is losing. She does not understand how to make this birthmark her own.
Jones uses Ursa’s comments to show how her identity depended upon her family’s past for most of her life. Ursa does not realize how much influence the Corregidora past has on her present. It shapes the way she has lived and continues to live her life, not limited to but including her opinions on life’s concepts. “What do you want, Ursa? What all us Corregidora women want. Have been taught to want. To make generations. ‘I stopped smiling’” (Jones p.22). Ursa does not know what she wants. She knows what her family wants and wanted. However, she cannot fulfill this request. She cannot have babies which is why she has ceased to smile. She cannot carry on the “Corregidora way”. Ursa is suppose to have babies and tell them about Corregidora to ensure that her family’s past is never forgotten. A past that she cannot separate from. It is never clear whether she actually wanted to have children or if she just wanted to please the women of her family. Either way this a task that she could not complete. It is not until Tadpole asks Ursa this question that she fully realizes that she must have her own desires because she cannot fulfill the Corregidora women’s desire. She did not know what she wanted. She did not know if she wanted Tadpole which was the real question that he was asking her. She only knew that she could not make generations which was what was taught to her whole life – Her purpose had been to procreate. She was a Corregidora woman, but why? Corregidora had not raped and sold her. He was not her father as he was her grandmother’s and mother’s but it did not matter because he still controlled both her sexual identity and personal identity.
The death of the Corregidora name
The issues of both, Ursa’s sexual identity and personal identity were not only problematic to the reader, but also to Ursa, herself. Jones presents many instances in the novel where Ursa is talking and/or thinking to herself. These instances are written in italics to distinguish them from actual conversations throughout the novel. These incidents clearly display Ursa’s personal thoughts and feelings which are two things she refuses to disclose to the people around her. She uses her singing to release the feelings that she has inside. In one of Ursa’s personal moments she says, “What do blues do for you? It helps me to explain what I can’t explain” (Jones p.56). Ursa pours her heart out while singing. In fact most of the songs she sings, she writes herself and if they are not her own she makes them her own. She is very personal with the songs she sings.
In the beginning of the novel she says that before Mutt and her started dating she would sing to him every night. She used her voice to disclose her attraction to this man who at that time was her future husband. She basically lured this man into her heart through song, specifically through the blues. Ursa like many other African-Americans during this time, used the blues to release her emotions. She used this music to display her true feelings to both the reader and the people she encountered. The blues were her outlet. They were something no one could take from her, not Corregidora, her mother, Gram, or Great-Gram. They were her own. The only thing that Ursa knew how to identify with was the blues. They were her way of finding out who she really was. She could reveal and hide all her desires at the same time. She could be sexual and non-sexual all at once. They showed that she was a real person, who could hurt and who could love. A person with emotions, not a statue or some man’s property.
The protagonist’s use of blues very closely correlates with the opinions of Angela Davis and the blues genre. Angela Davis, a very prominent Black social and political activist, discusses the significance of blues in her novel, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Raine, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Davis says that blues lyrics are different because of “their intellectual independence and representational freedom” (p.3). Davis states that the blues “both reflected and helped to construct a new black consciousness” (p.6). The blues was a way for Blacks to personally express their freedom. Therefore, Ursa’s songs are her way of freeing herself – they are the way that she will eventually rid the oppression of Corregidora. The blues are very significant in Ursa’s life, both before and after she finds her own identity. Davis says that the blues are a way for Blacks, especially Black females to release their feelings concerning sexuality which was something they could not do during slavery. In slavery Blacks were not allowed to be sexual – they were not allowed to own or identify with their sexuality. The previous concept makes Ursa’s struggle instantly understandable – she refuses to be a sexual being because the women of her family were not allowed to be sexual beings.
Ursa’s use of the blues in this novel is the way she reveals her inner voice which is essential in her path in finding her own identity. Voice meaning her inner being, her true self, not her actual singing voice. According to a critique, “Gayl Jones’ Corregidora,” written by Janice Harris, an English professor in Wyoming, Ursa’s songs are the way she moves past her family’s history– a way she comes into her own. Harris focuses on Ursa’s use of the blues to come to terms with both her and her family’s past and to move forward in her own life. Harris uses a quote from the book, “I wanted a song that would touch me, touch my life and theirs...A Portuguese song, but not a Portuguese song. A new world song” to exemplify the progress that Ursa will and does make. This new world song is a song of her own (Jones, p.65). A song that holds her own history instead of Corregidora’s – a song about her life. As Harris says, the blues is Ursa’s way to bear fruit or “make generations”. These songs she sings are how she tells her family’s story. They reveal the way she feels inside. The Portuguese song she speaks of is about Corregidora. Hence, he was Portuguese and not white, in fact the way Jones describes him, he was darker than some of his slaves which is one of the reasons why he had to make it known who was the “master”. The fact that Ursa wants to sing a song that is both Portuguese and not Portuguese at the same time proves that she has overcome the past that has entrapped her, her entire life. She is ready to accept the past as the past and move on into her future. She is ready to sing a new song– a song that allows her to live and not be trapped by the hatred of Corregidora. Ursa is ready to claim her own identity instead of living in her family’s.
Ursa’s family’s past and their hatred for Corregidora has entrapped Ursa making it impossible for her to truly connect with a man or to enjoy love making. According to Janice Harris, Ursa’s Great Gram, Gram, and mother have forced the Corregidora hate into Ursa to the point where she cannot distinguish their past from her own. This intertwining has crippled Ursa emotionally. She cannot obtain sexual fulfillment because she does not know who she is. Her family has told her all her life that she must have babies to ensure that the evil of Corregidora will not be forgotten, but this is an evil that is not her own.
“But making generations is making love; and there is the...contradiction in the
message Ursa has been nursed upon. Ursa is taught to make love in order to
keep alive a historical tale of rape. She is bred up to make generations to carry
on the saga of the brutality of man to woman, owner to property, master to slave.
The goal of love making subverts the act; the end denies the means” (p.2).
Harris’ words proves that Ursa’s family history is hindering her. The history of Corregidora has programmed Ursa to not be a sexual being. It has subconsciously made her think that being a sexual being is wrong. She equates being sexual to being a slave. It allows a man to have power over a woman. It is not an act of pleasure or a form of intimacy. She does not want to be defined by sex like her Gram and Great-Gram were.
The fact that the women in Ursa life could not let Corregidora die furthers his imprisonment over their family and perpetuates his control over their lack of sexual identity. Instead of embarking on their freedom, this family has allowed Corregidora to continually control them, despite his death. Ursa cannot enjoy making love because she is taught that it is just a tool for “making generations.” An outcome that deep down she does and does not want at the same time. This is why it takes Ursa over twenty years to forgive Mutt for his act that forced her, not only to abort the unknown fetus that she was carrying, but also to have a hysterectomy. She blamed him for taking away her chance to “make generations” despite the fact that these were not the type of generations she wanted to make. Ursa’s hatred for Mutt is not tied to his act of domestic violence instead it is connected to the results of this act. The idea that love making is the way to keep Corregidora alive is what prevents Ursa from having sexual fulfillment. It gives the notion that she is not making love because she wants to. Instead she is doing it because she has to.
It is not until the end of the novel that Ursa is finally ready to forgive Mutt, move past the hatred of Corregidora and claim her own sexuality. According to literary critics, Stephanie Li and Deborah Horvitz, who both wrote essays, “Love and the Trauma of Resistance in Gayl Jones’ Corregidora” and “Sadism Demands A Story”, on how Ursa’s actions at the close of the novel exemplify her “coming into her own.” They talk about how empowering Ursa’s act was for both her and Mutt. Both agree that Ursa’s ownership of her sexuality is apparent in the last pages of the novel. During this scene, Ursa and Mutt have reconciled at the Drake Hotel which is the same hotel the two referred to as their home during their short marriage. However, this trip proved to be extremely different from any other previous stay in the hotel because Ursa was performing fellatio on Mutt for the first time. Some readers do not realize the significance of this act. Although it seems that she is giving Mutt all the pleasure, she is finally the one in control. Mutt is in the most vulnerable position and/or state he could ever be in. Ursa is the one dominating. She is no longer afraid of being sexual. She is no longer afraid to receive pleasure from sexual acts. Li and Hortvitz argue that “not only does she...recognize her wish for violent revenge, but by uncovering this insight during sex, she links erotic pleasure with the violence in herself which enables her, finally, to reclaim her own desire” (p.146). Ursa has finally claimed her sexuality. She has moved past the ownership of the past of Corregidora and the other men in her life. Mutt will not own her because she is no longer afraid of her own desires. Therefore, owning her would be impossible. She has learned how to remember her family’s history without letting it control and dictate her life. Ursa no longer has to live in the shadow of the Corregidora women.
Ursa’s initial lack of identity was not a result of a conscious refusal, instead it was an unconscious refusal that stemmed from her ties to her family’s slave master which had succeeded in oppressing Ursa her entire life. Ursa had allowed Corregidora’s control over her Great-Gram’s and Gram’s life to control not only her life, but her attitudes about her sexual and personal desires. The past of Corregidora kept her from being her own person. If we understand how different imagery, symbols, and phrases correlate with the greater theme and purpose of the work, then we can also begin to grasp how the slavery affects today’s African-Americans’ identities. If we understand that many of the stereotypes tied to African-Americans are false and that they have created obstacles in the journey of identity for African-Americans then we will begin to grasp that African-Americans cannot be put into one box or category - their race does not instantly cause them to behave or react in a certain manner. Yet, one can never fully know how much slavery and black vernacular affect individual identities and literature, therefore readers may never fully understand African-American literature. Although I have shown that African-American literature is closely tied to the history of slavery and disproving stereotypes, few have researched the origins of these stereotypes and the effects of slavery on today’s African-American generation. In other work, theorists could explore different economical classes of young African-American adults to explain how negative stereotypes and slavery have affected their lives, including their accomplishments, opinions on life, and moral/religious values/beliefs.
“Out of huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”; May 03, 2007 10:51 PM
Billy said...: Life as it Should Be:
An Exploration of T.H. White's The Once and Future King as a Commentary on the Negative Effects of European Empire
"Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!" Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
Many people perceive The Once and Future King as children’s literature; in the last twenty years, however, critics in the field of children’s literature have begun to study edification and ideology as it reproduces some contemporary Western societies. Readers of the novel commonly hold it as being vehemently anti-war in an anachronistic context. However, some readers may not readily perceive how World Wars One and Two influenced the production of T.H. White’s work, nor how the text has critiqued European Imperialist states via these events, let alone the text’s implications as to the roles of the European aristocracy and 20th century ideas of racism.
While it is not entirely certain in what ways the text represents the author’s own feelings towards the Second World War and its effect on his country, the text can be read as a treatise on the folly of Europe’s long history of war. If one understands how the text critiques Western Imperialism, and how Empire affected the two World wars, one will not only enjoy a greater understanding of the circumstances and effects of said wars, but will grasp how these events have produced much of the political reality of our present.
In these ways, The Once and Future King attacks totalitarianism, nationalistic warmongering and the idea that war is acceptable for any purpose other than defense, while simultaneously critiquing the ability of European Imperialist states to coexist peacefully within the context of colonialism and the race for empire. The text revises the role of the European nobility and the traditional role of the sovereign in both pre and post Magna Carta England, attacking the aristocratic idea that might makes right. The text represents the Arthurian cycle as a critique of racism and nationalism, claiming the traditional ideas of race and racial superiority as farce.
Revision of the text
In 1941, as England felt the pressure of the Second World War bearing down on it, White retreated to Ireland to finish his Arthurian saga. As Debbie Sly observes in her essay Natural Histories: Learning from Animals In T.H. White's Arthurian Sequence, while there, White struggled to make up his mind whether his duty was to fight for his country or to complete a work that he saw as devoted to finding an antidote to War (150). He ultimately revised his original version of The Sword in the Stone with a very different bent on the lessons that The Wart is taught by his animal transformations (149). White’s altered views of the world during World War II are reflected in the two altered passages - the episode with the ants, and the episode with the geese. White’s novel becomes less of a children’s story, and more of a scathing critique of European nationalism, Imperialism, and the Nazi regime in particular.
Arthurian Legend as a Critique of European Imperialism
White agrees with Hannah Arendt’s claim in The Origins of Totalitarianism that when the “mass man” comes to power, he will “have more in common with the meticulous, calculated correctness of Himmler than with the hysterical fanaticism of Hitler,” as is evident in his exaggerative scenario where he critiques totalitarian and authoritarian rule (Ch. 10, Section 2). White uses different animals as examples of the various schools of thought on human government. During the lesson where The Wart is transformed into an ant of the species Messor barbarus, he discovers the ant nest to be a nightmare of total authoritarianism, mechanically regimented far more than Arendt’s Himmler could even imagine.
Each ant is constantly receiving “wireless” broadcasts through it’s antennae from the Queen, and must tramp about the nest performing its duties. The ant language is devoid of adjectives, the only two qualifiers being “done” and “not done.” Arthur discovers that their language is limited only to concepts involving production and war:
It was not only that their language had not got the words in which humans are interested - so that it would have been impossible to ask them whether they believed in Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness - but also that it was dangerous to ask questions at all. A question was a sign of insanity to them. Their life was not questionable, it was dictated. (126-127)
The text shows the warmongering Messor barbarus as a hyperbole of human conduct toward one another, and a warning against blindly following orders, particularly those of the state, or the Queen ant in this case. There are two ant farms adjacent to one another, the type held between glass plates, and Merlyn bridges the gap between them with a reed. Later, an ant from nest B is killed by an ant from nest A, and the stream of orders from the Queen is replaced with “lectures about war, patriotism and the economic situation” as nest A prepares to redress this injury by going to war (127). The voice explains that it was ordained by Ant the Father that “Othernest pismires should always be the slaves of Thisnest ones,” that their colony had only one feeding tray, which was a disgrace, their boundaries were being violated, their domestic animals were going to be kidnapped, and “their communal stomach would be starved” (127). These lectures are very clearly a pastiche of stereotypical propaganda used by European nations to justify their warmongering, and more specifically, imperialism.
White describes the lectures as lists of logical qualifications:
A - We are so numerous that we are starving.
B - Therefore, we must encourage still larger families so as to become yet more numerous and starving
C - When we are so numerous and starving as all that, obviously we shall have a right to take other people’s stores of seed. Besides, we shall by then have a numerous and starving army. (127-128)

This list, and the one following, uses the major premise, minor premise and conclusion model of argument as represented in Stephen Toulmin's Uses of Argument. Toulmin finds this argumentative method lacking in depth (96). Toulmin says that once one makes an assertion, one is committed to “establish it. . . make it good, and show that it was justifiable” (97). In Toulmin’s ‘Claim, Data and Warrant’ model of argumentation, facts, or data, form the foundation of a claim, and then lead logically to the next step, or warrant (97-98). The ants, rather than building a logical thought train, simply parody it as a guise for logical fallacy and appeal to emotion. The ant colony is so brainwashed that it cannot even discern the obvious contradictions in the message:
A - We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their mash.
B - They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our mash.
C - We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one.
D - They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one.
E - We must attack them in self-defence.
F - They are attacking us by defending themselves.
G - If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow.
H - In any case we are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits. (127-128)

Toulmin is speaking from a posture of rejecting modernist thought, while White writes from an empiricist perspective. The justifications made by the ants are real, but where they begin to fall apart is where the warrants they make lack evidence. While Toulmin would claim that the lack of explicit statements as to the missing warrants, using Toulmin's model of argument here would remove the joke: White's cleverness is in his ambiguity here, many of the warrants that would be implicit are made explicit, and what hasn't been made explicit has been left unsaid so as to preserve the irony. Modernist thinking here, rather than White's system, would remove the pastiche intended by the author.
The narrator observes that during these speeches, the output of both nests triples, while in the meantime both nests are getting ample amounts of food from Merlyn, “for it has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else” (128). It is fairly obvious that this is a reference to the hyperinflation plaguing Germany after World War I. The Allied nations assessed the cost of the war on Germany, which responded by printing bank notes until the debt was paid. This massively devalued the mark, which was backed neither by gold nor reserves, in relation to global economics. By 1924, the German treasury was printing one quadrillion mark bank notes (1,000,000,000,000,000) which were valued at approximately twenty-four American dollars at the time. This unprecedented inflation nearly destroyed the German economy, in which people had to take whole sacks of currency with them in order to buy the most basic items. The text satirizes the fact that, while Germany was in the throes of economic upheaval, it was not so bankrupt as to be unable to afford one of the most advanced armies the world had ever seen, a scant ten years later. While the text's main purpose is to attack the tactics of the Nazis, point D in particular reminds one of Hitler’s use of false accusations of racial violence against Germans in the territories he was attacking to convince Neville Chamberlain that Germany was in the right, White is critiquing the inability of all European Imperialist states to coexist peacefully. Points A through C, and then A through G satirize European war specifically, especially in the context of the First World War.
As John Hobson posited in his 1902 essay, Imperialism: A Study, Imperialism, which supported militarism, oligarchy, bureaucracy, protection, concentration of capital and violent trade fluctuations, was the supreme danger to modern nation states (II.VII.9). The result of continued expansion and competition for global markets was World Wars One and Two.
Point H is a critique of France, Belgium, Portugal, Britain and Spain and the Imperial system in the hundreds of years between 1492 and the end of World War Two. Specifically, the “scramble for Africa” beginning in the late 1880s. By 1900, Britain alone boasted 11,605,238 square miles of colonies and 345,222,239 colonial subjects (I.I.5). All Imperialist states claimed 22,273,858 square miles of land area, or 42.6% of the earth’s total land less Antarctica (I.I.18). During the mid nineteenth century, Hobson claims that “the struggle towards nationalism. . . was a. . . unifying or a centralising force, enlarging the area of nationality, as in the case of Italy and the Pan-Slavist movement in Russia. . . as in United Germany” (Int.2). Germany and Italy, who became fledgling nation states in 1871 and 1861 respectively, were several hundred years behind in the race for empire compared to the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the Caribbean, the British in India, and the French in Indonesia and Asia. According to Hobson, the race for empire in an ever shrinking world market eventually led to Europe’s competition with itself for the few markets left to tap. The “offering” of “incalculable benefits” reflects the European attitude of racial and ethnic superiority that justified their subjugation of countless native peoples.
The text's attitude toward empire as an extension of racism and the 19th century ideas of phrenology and superiority of the 'Caucasoid' race are mirrored by the thoughts of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, authors of Empire. They claim that not only was the late 19th and early 20th century European nation-state dependent on the economic foundations provided by the colonies of the "dark continents", but the racial conflict inherent in having a mother-country and a colony defined the crisis of early European modernity (115). This racism of superiority is reflected in the novel as King Lot's war against Arthur, and Mordred's formation of the Thrashers.
The Once and Future King's critique of empire extends beyond a general disapproval of traditional European ideas of supremacy. In light of the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, it is easy to see White’s ire toward Hitler and the Nazis. This is blatant in The Queen of Air and Darkness, as King Arthur, Sir Kay, Sir Ector, and Merlyn prepare for the battle of Bedegraine. Merlyn, who has knowledge of future events, lectures the knights about war, claiming that the only good reason to have a war is to defend against an aggressor. Kay, however, claims that one might fight a war to save people from themselves, by forcing them to accept a system of living that is better than the one they have (273-274). Kay’s thoughts, while they appear to be sound superficially, reflect the self-aggrandizement that White attributes to the aristocracy. In fact, Kay’s monologue directly contradicts the lessons Merlyn had tried to imprint upon the fledgling knights from childhood. He responds with furious indignation:
There was just such a man when I was young - an Austrian. . . He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. . . But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. (274)
Merlyn, who lives backwards through time, was a young man during Hitler’s rampage across the West. The text makes an obvious reference to Hitler’s involvement in the Reichstag Fire of 1933, and fixing the blame on Marinus van der Lubbe. The text is vehemently anti-Nazi. However, it is attacking any attempt to force ideas on other people, “by the sword” or otherwise. White acknowledges his own contradiction within the Arthurian narrative, though, when Kay then tells Merlyn that “Arthur is fighting the present war... to impose his ideas on King Lot” (274). Here, the text qualifies that in condemning the belligerent Nazis of Germany, it is not justifying the myriad wars fought by his own nation in order to acquire and protect its colonial interests, as well as to subdue any uprising natives.
Thus, in The Queen of Air and Darkness, White hints at the downfall of Camelot and the inevitable death of Arthur. According to White’s version, Arthur’s Camelot was built using the very thing which he wanted to rectify: might. One cannot fight injustice with injustice, as Arthur eventually discovers, and, unfortunately, a paradise founded on the bones of one’s enemies, and peace christened with incest, was bound to end in tragedy. As White reflects, “it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough” (323).
Arthurian Legend as a Revision of European Nobility
At the time of Kay’s speech, however, Arthur and his cohorts are mostly concerned with suppressing the revolt of King Lot of Orkney and the other ten Gaelic Kings in the Arthurian First and Second Gaelic Wars. Arthur’s other goal is to defeat the knights of the “old order”, who wish to continue raping, exploiting and pillaging as they had been under the rule of Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon. For White, the reign of Uther Pendragon is characterized by injustice, bloodshed, rape and lawlessness.
The text, within the context of mythical England, attacks the traditional idea of knighthood. While Arthur attempts to unite England through military might, Merlyn continues to aid him in his education, helping Arthur to envision a means of harnessing the destructive power of Might for the purpose of doing Right: the Round Table. In Chapter Six, Arthur gives a speech about Might and Right, in which he criticizes the current system, because barons and nobles are able to stalk the countryside dressed in steel armor, which makes them all but impervious to damage, "doing exactly what they please, for sport" (253).
The text attacks the traditional idea of the European aristocracy being somehow more important than the average peasant that they are supposed to be governing. His ideas mirror those of Michel Foucault in his treatise Discipline and Punish, where he claims that “in monarchical law, punishment is a ceremonial of sovereignty. . . it deploys before the eyes of the spectators an effect of terror as intense as it is discontinuous, irregular and always above its own laws, the physical presence of the sovereign and of his power” (130). Foucault's analysis suggests that in a society of discipline the spectacle of terror, with its discontinuities, irregularities and its physical presence, marked the difference between the commoner and the noble. The noble carried his power on his body, and the commoner carried his subjugation to terror on his body. The irregularity of discipline and the arbitrariness of law shows that the state did not yet in the middle ages entirely police its citizens. Rather, the sportingness that the text suggests, and the arbitrariness (what they please) highlights the raw physical power that a noble could threaten over his serfs. The state could not then entirely police its people, but the holes in the system could be filled with fear of arbitrary power. On the contrary, the text's Arthur is attempting to revise this system, where the nobles and sovereign are always above their own laws, into one where the government fulfills the needs of the people and the common good, rather than spending time and resources on frivolous military action.
White clearly states that Might, or military force more specifically, is only properly used when preventing a greater war or evil from taking place. Arthur continues, asking why one could not:
harness Might so that it works for Right? I know it sounds nonsense, but... the Might is there in the bad half of people, and you can’t neglect it. You can’t cut it out, but you might be able to direct it, if you see what I mean, so that it was useful instead of bad. (254)
This is Arthur’s first attempt at curbing the power of “Might” in the series. His plan is to create the laws of chivalry and the Round Table as a way to channel Might into good deeds to improve the world. Arthur invents the idea of Chivalry in order to put the murdering and fighting instincts of the English aristocracy to good use - saving maidens and destroying evil.
Previous to Arthur’s crusade, the countryside was ruled by the idea that, as the Pike claims, “there is only power. Power is of the individual mind, but the mind’s power is not enough. Power of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is Right” (47-48). Merlyn, in particular, is sensitive to how awful it is, as he critiques Pendragon’s idea of chivalry and gentlemanly conduct:
What is all this chivalry, anyway? It simply means being rich enough to have a castle and a suit of armour, and then, when you have them, you make the Saxon people do what you like. . . Might is Right, that’s the motto. . . [The Irish Kings’] turbulence does not cost them anything themselves because they are dressed in armour - and you seem to enjoy it too. But look at the country. Look at the barns burnt, and dead men’s legs sticking out of ponds, and horses with swelled bellies by the roadside, and mills falling down. . . That is chivalry nowadays. That is the Uther Pendragon touch. (259)
Merlyn’s scathing monologue underscores White’s feelings toward the European aristocracy, from feudal times up through the First World War - attacking the turbulent times of pre-Magna Carta England. This is especially obvious, as White places the reign of Uther the Conquerer as being from 1066 to 1216 - the time of the unification of England under William the Conquerer, up through the issuing of Magna Carta and ascension of Henry III to the throne of England. As such, White’s message takes on a more specific character - attacking the rule of what he calls “Might makes Right” and using pre-Magna Carta England as a hyperbole. Before Magna Carta, the King of England had limitless power over every facet of life - or death. Magna Carta required the King to relinquish some of his power, and admit to the rule of law over his own decrees. White, like many Englishmen, sees Magna Carta as “a symbol and a battle cry against oppression”, using the idyllic reign of King Arthur as a symbol of the beginning of the end for Might makes Right in historical England (Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Magna Carta).
During the reigns of the Conquerers, both William and Uther, White asserts that the English aristocrats - the knights in armor - are free to subject the nation to their whims, having wars for sport with no regard for their serfs and vassals. The Norman knights in their steel plate are impervious to damage, and so declare war on one another as a pastime. They follow “gentlemanly” ideas of warfare, not attacking their fellow knights, and simply murdering serfs and vassals until the other side is willing to pay a ransom, and then merrily retreating to their keeps with a good day’s sporting under their belts. Merlyn, again, is critical of what he calls the foxhunting spirit. White compares Victorian sportsmen with the nobility of medieval England:
The link between Norman warfare and Victorian foxhunting is perfect. . . Look at the Norman myths about legendary figures like the Angevin kings. From William the Conquerer to Henry the Third, they indulged in warfare seasonally. . . Look at the decisive battle of Brenneville in which a field of nine hundred knights took part, and only three were killed. Look at Henry the Second borrowing money from Stephen, to pay his own troops in fighting Stephen. . . That is the inheritance to which you have succeeded, Arthur. (240-241)
Merlyn’s tirade here serves to espouse the text's assertions about the European nobility. He not only thinks poorly of the medieval knights, but of the Victorian era nobility for their “foxhunting spirit” which has been perpetuated through the centuries - preying on foxes, granted, rather than humans. The notion of war-making as pastime and a seasonal occupation is an extension of the pre-Magna Carta notion of the divine right of kings, and the sovereign's right to do whatever he pleased.
Arthur is attempting to revise the role of the English aristocracy into a more modern sort of ideal, where the Knights of the Round Table are interested in justice and serving people rather than gallivanting around doing as they please. He attempts to channel Might into a useful endeavor with his Round Table, then into the quest for the Holy Grail, and finally abolishes Might altogether with the invention of Civil Law.
Racial Tensions in the Arthurian Setting
White also uses his Arthurian cycle as a critique of racism, nationality and the idea of racial superiority. The Arthurian cycle is rife with racial tensions: the Orkney clan versus Lancelot, Pellinore and eventually Arthur; the Saxons versus the Normans; the Old Ones versus the New World. As Agravaine states in his Gaelic proverb, there are “four things that a Lothian cannot trust - a cow’s horn, a horse’s hoof, a dog’s snarl, and an Englishman’s laugh” (White 220). The seeds of a coup were sown far before the four Orkney brothers ever became Knights of the Round Table. Years of subjugation by the English had done this.
White seems to be in agreement with John Locke’s assertion in Two Treatises on Government that an “aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man’s right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered” (176). Here, Locke posits natural law as a justification for his claims. The government and its actions, being derived by the consent of its people, divides war into two categories - just and unjust - which suggests that there is such a thing as a just war. This is in agreement with the text, which claims that the only good reason to make war is for defense. Invasion, therefore, is an unjust exercise of power, as the invading country does not have the consent of the people being invaded, or the justification of natural law. Locke equates invading another man's country with invading another man's "right", substituting the rights of the country as a whole for the rights of the individual. This explains Merlin's abhorrence toward war, as the compromised rights of a country are interchangeable with those of its people.
White and Locke are both notably anti-imperial in their outlook. White even goes so far as to sympathize with the Out-Islanders. When Arthur asks Merlyn why King Lot and the Gaelic Confederation are revolting, Merlyn gives part of the convoluted answer:
About three thousand years ago, the counter you are riding through belonged to a Gaelic race who fought with copper hatchets. Two thousand years ago they were hunted west by another Gaelic race with bronze swords. A thousand years ago there was a Teuton invasion by people who had iron weapons, but it didn’t reach the whole of the Pictish Isles because the Romans arrived in the middle and got mixed up with it. The Romans went away about eight hundred years ago, and then another Teuton invasion - of people mainly called Saxons - drove the whole ragbag west as usual. The Saxons were just beginning to settle down when your father the Conquerer arrived with his pack of Normans, and that is where we are today. (233)
White’s scathing, yet tongue-in-cheek, summation of the history of the British Isles lays out his ideas about racial warfare and blood feuds. The migrants and empire-builders of yesteryear are routinely displaced by the newcomers of history, who are in turn displaced themselves. This is an example of Locke's idea of an "unjust war", one that is repeated throughout history and violates the natural rights of the displaced. The text uses Locke's natural right law as a basis for its pseudo-utopian Camelot. White is writing about a fictional segment of the High Hiddle Ages using Renaissance philosophy, specifically that of Restoration England.
Each race holds bitter enmity toward the race which came after it, while the reigning race subjugates and attempts to stamp out the displaced. Alain Badiou, in his book Ethics agrees with the text that the distinction between races is not only incorrect, but harmful:
since differences are what there is, and since every truth is the coming-to-be of that which is not yet, so differences are then precisely what truths depose, or render insignificant. No light is shed on any concrete situation by the notion of ‘recognition of the other’. Every modern collective configuration involves people from everywhere, who have their different ways of eating and speaking, who wear different sorts of headgear, follow different religions, have complex and varied relations to sexuality, prefer authority or disorder, and such is the way of the world. (27)
Badiou is reacting to 20th century fascism, and describing race as a series of truth events. Non-truths which eliminate difference, such as the Nazi purges or even the illusion of sameness, bring about terror when they are universalized, as Hitler attempted to do, and as the attacking armies of the novel attempt to do. The Jews, poor, and political enemies of Nazi Germany are substituted here for the Saxons, Gaels and Normans of Uther Pendragon's time. These differences and non-truths eventually lead to the inevitable civil war in Arthurian Britain.
White identifies with the marginalized Saxons, who were made into criminals by Uther Pendragon, and who are represented by the iconic ‘Robin Wood’. Part of Arthur’s education by Merlyn is to go on a quest to the stronghold of Morgan Le Fay, the fairy sorceress, with Robin Hood (whom White changes to Robin Wood) and Maid Marian. Robin Wood and his gang are the merry band of stereotype, masters of woodcraft and loyal to the end. The narrator explains:
They were not outlaws because they were murderers, or for any reason like that. They were Saxons who had revolted against Uther Pendragon’s conquest, and who refused to accept a foreign king. The fens and wild woods of England were alive with them. They were like soldiers of the resistance in later occupations.
White’s characterization of the outlaws as resistance fighters within their own nation creates a sympathetic view toward the classic other: the race displaced by a conquering race. White is clearly critical of the figurative Uther Pendragon, a representation of conquest and the head of the Might vs Right conflict central to the novel. White clearly accepts the idea of a foreign king ruling a people as an affront against the natural order - again, agreeing with Locke. What at first appears to be simply sympathy for the Saxons is in fact vehement disapproval of British Imperialism, from the Conquerer to date.
Michael - This is where more stuff will go once I get those six months, ten interns, $200,000 and seventy-two virgins you keep talking about.
By parodying traditional Arthurian legend, The Once and Future King serves as a reminder to the reader of the evils of totalitarianism, warmongering and conquest. In its critique of European Imperialism, the text totally revises the traditional ideas of nobility and the landed aristocracy of historical Europe, and the idea that might and wealth translate into political power. The text represents Arthur’s conquest of England as a critique of excessive nationalism as well as Victorian and 20th century ideas of racism and racial superiority.
By understanding the text’s critique of Western Imperialism and the effect of Empire on World Wars One and Two, the political landscape of the modern world will become more clear. Additionally, one will greater understand the mounting economic pressures that contributed to the wars in Europe.
While we may never understand the specific causes and intent of White’s novels, further research may lend insight into the implications of other important events in the history of England, namely the Act of Union in 1707. One might also find how psychoanalysis lends itself to explaining the actions and conflicts among the various characters of the Arthurian cycle, particularly Mordred’s relation to Arthur, and the relationships between Arthur and Lancelot, Arthur and Guenevere, Lancelot and Guenevere, and Arthur and his sister.
"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
Bibliography
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White, Terence Hanbury. The Once and Future King. New York: Putnam, 1958.; May 04, 2007 12:02 AM

Movement of Movements

Contributors

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Final Paper 1 of 3

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