The readings this week cover a wide historical swath, and show a wide variety of personalities. Two women figure prominently this week. One is Georgiana in Hawthorne's The Birthmark. The second is Virginia in Rita Dove's Second Hand Man.
Each time I read The Birthmark I am gripped anew by the desperation of Georgiana and the arrogance and hubris of Aylmer. I get exceedingly angry with Aylmer, and frustrated with Georgiana, yet I know Georgiana was a woman of her time and had been taught to "obey" her husband. Georgiana represents what happened to many women then, but sadly she also represents what still happens to women today. Why do women feel it is imperative to have botox treatments and plastic surgery to "perfect" themselves for a man? Why can they not accept themselves as they are and be proud? Why do they accept derogation from males? What is it in our society, or in our DNA that makes women behave this way, and makes men take advantage of women so meanly? Georgiana was as near perfect as possible for a person from the hand of the creator, as Aylmer said, but not perfect, so he felt it necessary to change her, and of course in the process killed her. He did this physically, but I have seen women killed emotionally because of the same lack of respect and love.
On the other hand is Virginia, a woman who valued herself as she should and would not sell herself cheap for just any man. Interestingly, there is no explanation for why Virginia could hold herself proudly, but she did. James intuitively knew how to win Virginia, and he did. Their humanity and depth of relationship is seen only after she learns he is a "second hand man" having been married before in another state and having fathered a child. Her solution was startling, but it worked. Virginia showed herself to be a bigger person than people would have thought when she asked to have his child brought to Ohio. I admired her before this, but I liked her when she did that. I wish Georgiana could have had one quarter the confidence in herself that Virginia did. Then, she would have lived.
What is to be said about Oedipus Rex? This is one of those works that people have heard so much about that they think they know it, but few have ever read. The play grabs the reader and doesn't let go. Horror builds on horror, especially awful, since the reader does know the outcome. Greek plays were taken from Greek history and legend. The people watching knew the story, but it was the playwright's job to build it so memorably that it would stay with the audience. It has stayed with audiences for 2,500 years. Each time I read it, I watch Oedipus work his way boldly to knowledge which everyone, even his wife, tries to shield him from. He is the last to know the terrible truth. This sometimes happens to us in our lives...and we say "Why didn't someone tell me!"
The poem that gets to me the most of today's selections is Lot's Wife. The poet, Kristine Batey, shows a truly human woman caught in a web not of her own making. Through this poem we see the humanity of biblical characters who don't even rate a name in the scripture. As we know from the succeeding scripture, her daughters were not exemplary. Maybe she knew that, so she didn't regret her decision. The most poignant part, to me, is when she goes to bid her little herd of goats farewell. The goats provided the family with milk and wool for clothing. They probably gave her more affection than Lot did!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
When bad things happen to good people...apologies to Rabbi Kushner
The Week 2 readings for Literature in Life seemed to coalesce around a theme after I read them: The Sorrowful Woman, The Things They Carried, Slipping, Do Not Go Gentle, A Worn Path, The Book of Job ...the one that did not seem to fit was The Road Not Taken.
I'll begin with Job. Each time I read it for this class, about twice a year, it's as if I've never read it before. I have to start all over again. Somehow, it just doesn't stay with me. Other people read it and re-read it, and can remember it well, I can't. I've heard about it all my life, how patient Job was......I'm not sure about that. How his suffering was redeemed, yes he was given back several fold what he lost, but for some reason, though I have been through some horrendous losses and experiences in my life, I just cannot identify with him. So, now that he's out of the way, let's get on to the others.
When I read The Sorrowful Woman I see the total disintegration of a human personality and mind. This is written in the third person objective voice, so we never know what the woman is feeling, we just see what she is doing. Being modern Americans we immediately want to make a psychological diagnosis, to sum her up in a few words or a catch phrase. That is too facile. She cannot be summarized. She is going through something destructive, not only to herself but to those around her, but cannot stop it. I wonder when this started...we come in to her story after it's been ongoing for a while......what was the genesis, were the seeds of this behavior in her from birth? We don't know, and the author doesn't even explore that. Instead, Gail Godwin paints a detailed picture for us to inhabit, and when I read this, I do.
As happens with almost every war, some very good writing came out of the Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien has become what could be called the "Poet Laureate" of the Vietnam era. This story The Things They Carried gets to me every time I read it. The people are real, I smell the jungle, I hurt, I get claustrophobia when the soldier goes in the tunnel, I REMEMBER daily headlines from that time.....I'm old enough to do so. His use of the concrete is particularly memorable.....he doesn't just say they carried a lot, they carried letters, a New Testament, a hatchet, good dope.....very specific. Every war story is ultimately an anti-war story, starting with The Iliad.
Slipping and Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night are two poems about adults' parents dying, two very different approaches. One is a howl against the death of his father, begging him to fight death; the other is a depiction of a father's falling into Alzheimer's and the author learning to know him at the end of his life and the regret she has for not knowing him earlier. I lost both my parents too young, 56 and 69, both from heart attacks, so I did not have to see them suffer the indignities described by Joan Aleshire, but I can identify totally with Dylan Thomas' cry against death.
Phoenix in A Worn Path is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. Eudora Welty presents her with grace and dignity, so we see the grace and dignity of this bent, tiny little old lady walking to help her grandson. She is walking as Welty says "Out of the ingrained habit of love" and in that has much in common with the father in Those Winter Sundays , though she is a much more obviously sympathetic character to the reader. I love it when she fools the hunter and gets the nickel. I love it when the attendant offers her some pennies, and she says "Five pennies make a nickel" and therefore has two nickels.....which she spends on her grandson, not herself.
I love Robert Frost's poetry, but The Road Not Taken is so overused and made trite in high school, I think I am going to change the Frost selection for the next session.
So, bad things do happen to good people, and we don't know why, but we carry on. If we let the bad things destroy us, then bad comes out of the event. It is up to us to redeem these bad events for our good, and the good of those around us.
I'll begin with Job. Each time I read it for this class, about twice a year, it's as if I've never read it before. I have to start all over again. Somehow, it just doesn't stay with me. Other people read it and re-read it, and can remember it well, I can't. I've heard about it all my life, how patient Job was......I'm not sure about that. How his suffering was redeemed, yes he was given back several fold what he lost, but for some reason, though I have been through some horrendous losses and experiences in my life, I just cannot identify with him. So, now that he's out of the way, let's get on to the others.
When I read The Sorrowful Woman I see the total disintegration of a human personality and mind. This is written in the third person objective voice, so we never know what the woman is feeling, we just see what she is doing. Being modern Americans we immediately want to make a psychological diagnosis, to sum her up in a few words or a catch phrase. That is too facile. She cannot be summarized. She is going through something destructive, not only to herself but to those around her, but cannot stop it. I wonder when this started...we come in to her story after it's been ongoing for a while......what was the genesis, were the seeds of this behavior in her from birth? We don't know, and the author doesn't even explore that. Instead, Gail Godwin paints a detailed picture for us to inhabit, and when I read this, I do.
As happens with almost every war, some very good writing came out of the Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien has become what could be called the "Poet Laureate" of the Vietnam era. This story The Things They Carried gets to me every time I read it. The people are real, I smell the jungle, I hurt, I get claustrophobia when the soldier goes in the tunnel, I REMEMBER daily headlines from that time.....I'm old enough to do so. His use of the concrete is particularly memorable.....he doesn't just say they carried a lot, they carried letters, a New Testament, a hatchet, good dope.....very specific. Every war story is ultimately an anti-war story, starting with The Iliad.
Slipping and Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night are two poems about adults' parents dying, two very different approaches. One is a howl against the death of his father, begging him to fight death; the other is a depiction of a father's falling into Alzheimer's and the author learning to know him at the end of his life and the regret she has for not knowing him earlier. I lost both my parents too young, 56 and 69, both from heart attacks, so I did not have to see them suffer the indignities described by Joan Aleshire, but I can identify totally with Dylan Thomas' cry against death.
Phoenix in A Worn Path is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. Eudora Welty presents her with grace and dignity, so we see the grace and dignity of this bent, tiny little old lady walking to help her grandson. She is walking as Welty says "Out of the ingrained habit of love" and in that has much in common with the father in Those Winter Sundays , though she is a much more obviously sympathetic character to the reader. I love it when she fools the hunter and gets the nickel. I love it when the attendant offers her some pennies, and she says "Five pennies make a nickel" and therefore has two nickels.....which she spends on her grandson, not herself.
I love Robert Frost's poetry, but The Road Not Taken is so overused and made trite in high school, I think I am going to change the Frost selection for the next session.
So, bad things do happen to good people, and we don't know why, but we carry on. If we let the bad things destroy us, then bad comes out of the event. It is up to us to redeem these bad events for our good, and the good of those around us.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Fathers, sons, young romance, life, etc in poetry
I just finished reading the poetry for tonight's class. I like them all, but my favorite begins "Sundays, too, my father got up early......" Perhaps I like this poem the best because I grew up in the north where dads did get up early and warm the house for the family. I remember the coal being delivered in the fall in Chicago, and the dust in the house for a week, and my father going down in the morning, or when the fire went out, shaking up the coals, shoveling in more, and warming the house. The biggest thrill for northern fathers was when oil heat became a reality, and they no more had to start a fire.....I remember that too! My father smiled that entire winter. The last two lines, "What did I know! What did I know of love's austere and lonely offices" are perhaps two of the most poignant lines I've ever read.
Another son looking back on his childhood unfolds in "My Papa's Waltz" That boy loved his father! I think it gives a good portrayal of the connection and love children feel for their parents. One of the most telling words in the poem refers to the mother "My mother's countenance could not unfrown itself" I think that means her habitual expression was unhappiness. He did not say my mother's countenance did not "smile."
Oranges is a sweet poem of a first romance. The bright colors played against the fog bring it to life. I lived in California and have experienced the fog the poet describes.
I love all the images of life Billy Collins gives in his poem. At this age, I have experienced all of them. Emily Dickinson speaks for many people in her poem "I'm Nobody, Who are You." She declares she'd rather be "nobody" than "somebody telling his/her name the livelong June to admiring bog" but I wonder..... Is this how Nora felt?
Another son looking back on his childhood unfolds in "My Papa's Waltz" That boy loved his father! I think it gives a good portrayal of the connection and love children feel for their parents. One of the most telling words in the poem refers to the mother "My mother's countenance could not unfrown itself" I think that means her habitual expression was unhappiness. He did not say my mother's countenance did not "smile."
Oranges is a sweet poem of a first romance. The bright colors played against the fog bring it to life. I lived in California and have experienced the fog the poet describes.
I love all the images of life Billy Collins gives in his poem. At this age, I have experienced all of them. Emily Dickinson speaks for many people in her poem "I'm Nobody, Who are You." She declares she'd rather be "nobody" than "somebody telling his/her name the livelong June to admiring bog" but I wonder..... Is this how Nora felt?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Esther and Nora
I just finished reading the Book of Esther in the the Old Testament of the Bible, and A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen. These two books were written about 2,300 years apart, and show more clearly than history books, the status of women in these two cultures.
Esther became queen of the Persian empire when Ahaserus was king, at the time of the Jewish captivity in Babylon. The capital was in the city of Susa in present day Iran. ( I understand the ruins are a popular tourist attraction today.) Ahaserus ruled over lands from India to Ethiopia, the largest known empire up to that time. He was an absolute monarch with power of life or death over whole states and individuals.
Esther herself has been intriguing to me since I was a young girl. She was so brave! And the older I become, the more I realize how BRAVE she was. Women had NO rights in her time, and she dared to appear and plead her people's cause. I aways have pictured her tall, dark haired and beautiful.
Just after I graduated from college, I worked for a senator in Washington, D.C. One day a few months after I began work, the Shah of Iran came for a state visit (this is in 1962 when there was a Shah) and gave a speech before a Joint Session of Congress. Our office had one or two tickets for the event. No one else of the staff wanted to go.....I couldn't belive that! So, even though I was lowest seniority, I got to attend the speech. The Shah was short, but impressive in his uniform with a chest full of medals. The empress was tall, graceful and beautiful and more impressive to me. She was dressed in light turquoise silk, from her hat to her shoes. She is my image of Esther.
Fast forward to 1879 in Norway and Nora and Torvald Helmer. Women's lot had not improved appreciably since 480 B.C. Women were totally subject first to their fathers, then to their husbands. Women's children "belonged" to the husband; they had no rights over them. I think Torvald Helmer and King Ahaserus could switch places and be very comfortable in their marriage relationship. Each had a total sense of superiority and knew he ruled over his wife. Yes, Torvald, could have kept Nora from "his" children, even if she had stayed with him.
Queen Esther has been an inspiration to millions of women through the ages, as an example of a courageous woman. The Hebrew word for Esther is Hadassah, and in synagogues all over the world, the women's group is called The Hadassah Society, after Queen Esther. In African American churches traditionally, there are many women's groups called The Queen Esther Society. These names show, I believe, a longing in women to be empowered and recognized for their worth.
Esther became queen of the Persian empire when Ahaserus was king, at the time of the Jewish captivity in Babylon. The capital was in the city of Susa in present day Iran. ( I understand the ruins are a popular tourist attraction today.) Ahaserus ruled over lands from India to Ethiopia, the largest known empire up to that time. He was an absolute monarch with power of life or death over whole states and individuals.
Esther herself has been intriguing to me since I was a young girl. She was so brave! And the older I become, the more I realize how BRAVE she was. Women had NO rights in her time, and she dared to appear and plead her people's cause. I aways have pictured her tall, dark haired and beautiful.
Just after I graduated from college, I worked for a senator in Washington, D.C. One day a few months after I began work, the Shah of Iran came for a state visit (this is in 1962 when there was a Shah) and gave a speech before a Joint Session of Congress. Our office had one or two tickets for the event. No one else of the staff wanted to go.....I couldn't belive that! So, even though I was lowest seniority, I got to attend the speech. The Shah was short, but impressive in his uniform with a chest full of medals. The empress was tall, graceful and beautiful and more impressive to me. She was dressed in light turquoise silk, from her hat to her shoes. She is my image of Esther.
Fast forward to 1879 in Norway and Nora and Torvald Helmer. Women's lot had not improved appreciably since 480 B.C. Women were totally subject first to their fathers, then to their husbands. Women's children "belonged" to the husband; they had no rights over them. I think Torvald Helmer and King Ahaserus could switch places and be very comfortable in their marriage relationship. Each had a total sense of superiority and knew he ruled over his wife. Yes, Torvald, could have kept Nora from "his" children, even if she had stayed with him.
Queen Esther has been an inspiration to millions of women through the ages, as an example of a courageous woman. The Hebrew word for Esther is Hadassah, and in synagogues all over the world, the women's group is called The Hadassah Society, after Queen Esther. In African American churches traditionally, there are many women's groups called The Queen Esther Society. These names show, I believe, a longing in women to be empowered and recognized for their worth.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Journaling
It's been a while since I've posted. I've spent the first part of January cleaning up, clearing out, donating....all the housekeeping details that need to be done sometimes. I enjoy doing these because I feel so virtuous afterwards! However, the only reading I've done is light by-the-bed-read-before-going-to-sleep books. A good break for me.
This Wednesday evening I start teaching a five week course called Literature in Life for the Adult Studies program at Southern Nazarene University. I've taught this course numerous times, and really enjoy it each time. I find new insights and hear new ideas with each reading and each class. This time I will have seventeen students. Last summer I had six. I never know how many I'll have, but it's always rewarding and fun.
One weekly assignment they have is to journal about each reading....there are five to seven individual readings each week, a combination of poetry, drama and short fiction. I ask them to write a two paragraph immediate, off-the-top-of-the head, straight-from-the-heart unedited response in a journal. Then, after doing so, and digesting the reading, they are to write a formal two page response paper, synthesizing and choosing from what they have already written in raw form.
I have not journaled with the classes before. This time I am going to do so. So, for the next five weeks, I will be posting my journals in this place as I read through the course again. I re-read each reading every time....even though I think I remember from the previous class, I always find new aspects and new insights with each fresh re-reading. So.....I'll begin that this Wednesday. If you're interested, read along with me.
The first week's reading list is:
Poetry:
My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
Oranges by Gary Soto
My Life by Billy Collins
I'm Nobody, Who Are You? by Emily Dickinson
Drama:
A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
Bible:
The Book of Esther in the Old Testament
These readings cover a historical span from about 800 B.C. to today, a good variety.
This Wednesday evening I start teaching a five week course called Literature in Life for the Adult Studies program at Southern Nazarene University. I've taught this course numerous times, and really enjoy it each time. I find new insights and hear new ideas with each reading and each class. This time I will have seventeen students. Last summer I had six. I never know how many I'll have, but it's always rewarding and fun.
One weekly assignment they have is to journal about each reading....there are five to seven individual readings each week, a combination of poetry, drama and short fiction. I ask them to write a two paragraph immediate, off-the-top-of-the head, straight-from-the-heart unedited response in a journal. Then, after doing so, and digesting the reading, they are to write a formal two page response paper, synthesizing and choosing from what they have already written in raw form.
I have not journaled with the classes before. This time I am going to do so. So, for the next five weeks, I will be posting my journals in this place as I read through the course again. I re-read each reading every time....even though I think I remember from the previous class, I always find new aspects and new insights with each fresh re-reading. So.....I'll begin that this Wednesday. If you're interested, read along with me.
The first week's reading list is:
Poetry:
My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
Oranges by Gary Soto
My Life by Billy Collins
I'm Nobody, Who Are You? by Emily Dickinson
Drama:
A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
Bible:
The Book of Esther in the Old Testament
These readings cover a historical span from about 800 B.C. to today, a good variety.
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