We arrived safely in the Atlanta airport yesterday and are now safely ensconced in Buford, Georgia, where Toby, Candice, and their four children live. When I think of flying, I am often put in mind of the protagonist’s sad discovery at an early age in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon:
When the little boy discovered, at four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier, that only birds and airplanes could fly, he lost all interest in himself. To have to live without that single gift saddened him”
Flight, as I’ve noted in a previous post, is an important theme in Morrison’s novel, and by the end of the book Milkman has indeed found a way to fly. I share today, however, a more positive take on airplanes:
High Flight (An Airman’s Ecstasy) By John Gillespie Magee
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Ronald Reagan quoted the final line after the Challenger disaster, and Magee suffered a similar fate, dying from a mid-air collision. While my flight over didn’t evoke quite the same ecstasy in me that it does in Magee—I didn’t, for instance, feel as though I touched the face of God—nevertheless flying continues to thrill me every time I’m in the air.
Now, following our encounter with the delirious burning blue, we just have to recover from jet lag.
German School, A Teacher and His Pupils (late 18th century)
Wednesday
We fly back to the United States today after a wonderfully fulfilling month in Slovenia. While you may not find my list particularly edifying, I record it here for future reference. Suffice it to say that I loved every minute.
–Shakespeare – Classes on Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The Tempest
–Post-colonial or Anglophone Literature – Classes on (1) the colonialist mindset (Ryder Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mine and She, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; (2) the resistance (Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth); (3&4) Nigeria (Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus); 5&6) India (Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things); (7) South Africa (Nadine Gordimer’s“Once upon a Time”); and (8)Jamaica (Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf).
—Literary Theory – Class on my book Better Living through Literature: The Power of Books to Change Your Life
—Canadian Literature – Class on “Nasty Girls in Margaret Atwood” (with mentions of “Circe/Mud Poems,” Edible Woman, Lady Oracle, Cat’s Eye, Robber Bride, and Alias Grace)
Medieval Literature – Class on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
—Philosophy Seminar – Sessions on (1) Literature and Life and (2) Michel Foucault’s ideas on parrhasia
—General English Language courses – Two classes on American film, film genre, and films recently viewed at the Ljubljana film festival
—English pedagogy – A class on teaching literature
—American Literature – Class on Emily Dickinson’s gothic poems
Speaking truth to power is the subject of a series of classroom lectures by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It’s also the focus of a two-person panel I’ll be joining later today with Eva Bahovec, a member of the University of Ljubljana’s philosophy department and a long-time friend. Fearless speech (“parrhesia” as the Greeks called it) is of particular interest to Eva, who focuses on it in her own work on feminism. Today you get some of my initial thoughts.
I appreciate how Foucault, famous for exploring the workings of power in criminality, abnormality, sexuality, and other charged topics, leans heavily on literature in his parrhesia lectures. The subject of fearless speech also shows up in a number of the Greek playwright Euripides’s plays.
Parrhesia is what I strive for in my own communications, I should note, and it is also the ideal that Socrates and Plato aspire to. As Foucault describes it, in parrhesia the speaker
uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.
Foucault also describes parrhesia as
a form of criticism, either towards another or towards oneself, but always in a situation where the speaker or confessor is in a position of inferiority with respect to the interlocutor. The parrhesiastes is always less powerful than the One with whom he speaks. The parrhesia comes from “below,” as it were, and is directed towards “above.” This is why an ancient Greek would not say that a teacher or father who criticizes a child uses parrhesia. But when a philosopher criticizes a tyrant., when a citizen criticizes the majority, when a pupil criticizes his teacher, then such speakers may be using parrhesia.
Parrhesia is particularly important in a democracy because, as Foucault notes, it is “an ethical and personal attitude characteristic of the good citizen.” Think of how we rely on frank and open speech to insure the smooth running of an organization or a community. How else can we hope to assess our challenges and arrive at solutions? We’re aware, of course, that sometimes our leaders will shade the truth—or perhaps flatter us rather than confront us with unpleasant facts—but in those cases it is up to us to invoke the ideals of parrhesia in order to arrive at a solid basis for action.
The same applies to being truthful about ourselves. Indeed, in his lectures Foucault quotes at length from the Roman philosopher Serenus about the importance of counteracting our own prejudices, which often stem from self-interest. He recommends that we seek out people who will function as tough-love parrhesiastes so that we can grow into our full potential.
Authoritarian figures like Donald Trump are dangerous because they seek to jettison the parrhesiastic ideal altogether. Experts on authoritarianism such as Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben Ghiat point out that fascists seek to undermine truth so as to leave us vulnerable to their emotion-laden fabrications.
An instance of parrhesia as central to democracy gets voiced in the Euripides play The Phoenician Women. Jocasta is welcoming back one of her sons, who has been exiled by the other:
Jocasta: This above all I long to know: What is an exile’s life? Is it great misery? Polyneices: The greatest; worse in reality than in report. Jocasta: Worse in what way? What chiefly galls an exile’s heart? Polyneices: The worst is this: right of free speech (parrhesia) does not exist. Jocasta: That’s a slave’s life–to be forbidden to speak one’s mind. Polyneices: One has to endure the idiocy of those who rule. Jocasta: To join fools in their foolishness–that makes one sick. Polyneices: One finds it pays to deny nature and be a slave.
The Greeks spoke also of the importance of parrhesia in authoritarian situations. Distinguishing “monarchic parrhesia” from “democratic parrhesia,” Foucault says the situation involves people telling the sovereign what he or she needs to know, regardless of the consequences. A good king or tyrant, Foucault observes,
accepts everything that a genuine parrhesiastes tells him, even if it turns out to be unpleasant for him to hear criticisms of his decisions. A sovereign shows himself to be a tyrant if he disregards his honest advisors, or punishes them for what they have said. The portrayal of a sovereign by most Greek historians takes into account the way he behaves towards his advisors—as if such behavior were an index of his ability to hear the parrhesiastes.
I think of how President George Walker Bush had an advisor who, living in New York, would fly in to tell him unpleasant truths. Bush recognized that he needed someone not part of his inner circle if he was to face up to certain realities. Donald Trump, by contrast, surrounds himself with sycophants.
While King Pentheus in The Bacchae is a bad king in other respects, at least we see him using parrhesia properly in Euripides’s play. The episode involves a herdsman who is bringing him bad news about the rampaging women:
Herdsman: I have seen the holy Bacchae, who like a flight of spears went streaming bare-limbed, frantic, out of the city gate. I have come with the intention of telling you, my lord, and the city, of their strange and terrible doings–things beyond all wonder. But first I would learn whether I may speak freely of what is going on there, or if I should trim my words. I fear your hastiness, my lord, your anger, your too potent royalty. Pentheus: From me fear nothing. Say all that you have to say; anger should not grow hot against the innocent. The more dreadful your story of these Bacchic rites, the heavier punishment I will inflict upon this man who enticed our women to their evil ways.
As Euripides’s plays progress, instances of parrhesia, which have seemed straightforward, become more complicated. In Electra, for instance, the daughter—planning to kill her mother for having killed Agamemnon—subverts the “parrhesiastic contract” between monarch and subject (she herself being at that moment in the latter position). Clytemnestra has just told her, “Use your parrhesia to prove that I was wrong to kill your father,” at which point Electra, after confirming that in fact she won’t pay a price for her fearless speech, proceeds to unload:
Electra: Do you mean you’ll listen first, and get your own back afterwards? Clytemnestra: No, no; you’re free to say what your heart wants to say. Electra: I’ll say it, then. This is where I’ll begin …
After her accusation, however, comes the killing.
Issues surrounding parrhesia become even more complex in Euripides’s Ion, for reasons that I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that the playwright is picking up on various themes regarding fearless speech, both for democratic and authoritarian societies. As Foucault sums up the issues raised,
Who is able to tell the truth? What are the moral, the ethical, and the spiritual conditions which entitle someone to present himself as, and to be considered as, a truth-teller? About what topics is it important to tell the truth? (About the world? About nature? About the city? About behavior? About man?) What are the consequences of telling the truth? What are its anticipated positive effects for the city, for the city’s rulers, for the individual?, etc. And finally: What is the relation between the activity of truth-telling and the exercise of power?
If truth-telling can lead to positive political outcomes, then we in the United States have reasons to feel pessimistic given how falsehood has become so prevalent in certain quarters. To find our bearings, however, there is one resource we can turn to: literature.
In a 2018 New Yorker essay, Indian author Salman Rushdie, responding to the torrent of lies emanating from the Trump White House, pointed out that the classics will always remain relevant because of their commitment to truth. At a time where political con artists face few constraints to manufacturing their own realities, we find in good literature a “no bullshit” zone, a friend that will have our deepest interests at heart.
Poetry as parrhesia. Now that has a nice ring to it.
Further thought: Because, in our cynical times, we long for authentic speech, one should add to Foucault’s exploration the danger of faking parrhesia. To quote the saying ascribed to comedians Groucho Marx, George Burns, and others, “Sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
As I was walking through the Ljubljana city center late Friday afternoon, the Christmas lights–which are always turned on the Friday before Advent–suddenly lit up, creating a sense of magic. This is the season that captures our belief that divinity can enter our lives. As Isaiah puts it, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom.”
To mark the moment, here’s a lovely C.S. Lewis poem. Although it is set in the spring, it captures the Advent longing:
What the Bird Sang Early in the Year By C.S. Lewis
I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear: This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.
Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.
This year time’s nature will no more defeat you, Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
This time they will not lead you round and back To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.
This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell, We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
Often deceived, yet open once again your heart, Quick, quick, quick, quick! – the gates are drawn apart.
J. D. Roybal, “San Ildefonso Pueblo Corn Dance” (1961)
Friday
Julia and I have just a few days left in Slovenia, and while we missed having Thanksgiving at home with family and friends, former students made up for it by treating us to a feast in the Slovenian town of Kamnik.
Milan Mandeljc, now an inspired English teacher as well as author, told us the challenge of finding a turkey for the occasion. It’s not that there aren’t turkeys in Slovenia, but normally they are sold in parts. Milan said people looked bewildered when he told them he wanted the whole bird, and eventually he found one.
In any event, Milan and two other former participants in the St. Mary’s exchange program gathered around and told stories about their time in America. Some we had never heard before. Meanwhile, I shared why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
Part of the joy is that it is so much quieter than Christmas, sneaking into our lives before commercialization goes full blast. I talked about the intensity of Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, and that leads me to repurpose a blog post I wrote eight years ago. It shows Leslie Marmon Silko warning about how Native Americans are being corrupted by American materialism.
First, given all the downsides of commercialization, it’s good to remind ourselves that exchanging gifts is not in itself a bad thing. We give gifts at the darkest time of year to affirm our belief that life is bountiful, even though the dark, cold days indicate otherwise. Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity all have their festivals of light, another way of affirming this belief.
In her novel Ceremony, however, the Laguna Pueblo author demonstrates what happens when people become distracted by flash and glitter and neglect their spiritual roots. Throughout her work, Silko reframes old Pueblo tales to address current problems. One of them is about a conman who comes into town and impresses everyone with his magic.
The people become so mesmerized by this figure that they neglect Mother Corn, who angrily packs up and leaves. The wasteland drought that follows is Silko’s metaphor for both the spiritual and the environmental devastation that results when a culture forgets what is most important.
Throughout Ceremony, Silko applies the old tales to current developments. In this case, the conman’s magic is white people’s technology, which so dazzles the Indians that they forget about the deep wisdom to be found in their age-old customs. As the wise old Josiah says to the book’s protagonist before telling him the story,
“[T]here are some things worth more than money.” He pointed his chin at the springs and around the narrow canyon. “This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines, all the wildflowers. This earth keeps us going.” He took off his hat and wiped his forehead on his shirt. “These dry years you hear some people complaining, you know, about the dust and the wind, and how dry it is. But the wind and the dust, they are part of life too, like the sun and the sky. You don’t swear at them. It’s people, see. They’re the ones. The old people used to say that droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave.”
In the upcoming holy-day season, we too must remain mindful of our mother corn altar. We must not forget the god or spirit or belief system that grounds our lives. Telling our age-old stories, including the one about a god who was born in humble circumstances two thousand years ago, is a way of doing this.
Here’s Silko’s story:
One time Old Woman K’yo’s son came in from Reedleaf town up north. His name was Pa’caya’nyi and he didn’t know who his ather was.
He asked the people “You people want to learn some magic?” and the people said “Yes, we can always use some.”
Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi the twin brothers were caring for the mother corn altar, but they got interested in this magic too.
“What kind of medicine man are you, anyway?” they asked him “A Ck’o’yo medicine man,” he said.
“Tonight we’ll see if you really have magical power,” they told him.
So that night Pa’caya’nyi came with his mountain lion. He undressed he painted his body the whorls of flesh the soles of his feet the palm of his hands the top of his head. He wore feathers on each side of his head.
He made an altar with cactus spines and purple locoweed flowers. He lighted four cactus torches at each corner. He made the mountain lion lie down in front and then he was ready for his magic.
He struck the middle of the north wall He took a piece of flint and he struck the middle of the north wall. Water poured out of the wall and flowed down toward the south.
He said “What does that look like? Is that magic power?”
He struck the middle of the west wall and from the east wall a bear came out.
“What do you call this?” he said again. “Yes, it looks like magic all right,” Ma’see’wi said. So it was finished and Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi and all the people were fooled by that Ck’oo’yol medicine man, Pa’caya’nyi.
From that time on they were so busy playing around with that Ck’o’yo magic they neglected the mother corn altar.
They thought they didn’t have to worry about anything They thought this magic could give life to plants and animals. They didn’t know it was all just a trick.
Our mother Nau’ts’ity’i was very angry over this over the way all of them even Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi fooled around with this magic.
“I’ve had enough of that,” she said, If they like that magic so much let them live off it.”
So she took the plants and grass from them. No baby animals were born. She took the rainclouds with her
While the images are all in keeping with the old stories, we can imagine the Ck’o’yo medicine man as modern technology. Maybe the water pouring out of the wall is indoor plumbing. While not bad in itself (obviously!), it can prompt us to take water for granted. We forget where it comes from and what a gift it is.
Since arriving in Slovenia, I’ve been hearing about water shortages in parts of its coastal regions. Certain municipalities in southern California have also been running out of water. Climate change promises to make the situation worse.
Keep in mind that, to keep the Mother happy, we need to change our relationship with her. We can’t survive if she marches off with her rainclouds.
Kirt and Westall, The Angel Raphael Relates the Story of Creation to Adam and Eve
Thursday – Thanksgiving
Reprinted from Nov. 28, 2010, slightly revised
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I share here some of Milton’s insights into gratitude, starting with the prayer that Adam and Eve offer up to God in Book IV. They have been working in the garden and now are walking hand in hand to their “blissful bower.” Before an evening of lovemaking (Milton somewhat controversially believed that there was sex before the fall), they turn and in unison offer thanks to God. Milton describes their thanksgiving as “adoration pure”:
Thus, at their shady lodge arrived, both stood, Both turned, and under open sky adored The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe, And starry pole: “Thou also madest the night, Maker Omnipotent, and thou the day, Which we, in our appointed work employed, Have finished, happy in our mutual help And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss Ordained by thee; and this delicious place For us too large, where thy abundance wants Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. But thou hast promised from us two a race To fill the earth, who shall with us extol Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake, And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.”
In contrast to Adam and Eve, Satan thinks that gratitude is all about puffing up the ego of God. God has given the world infinite gifts, which in Satan’s eyes puts everyone in eternal debt. To quote him directly, we incur “the debt immense of endless gratitude,/So burthensome still paying, still to owe.” Satan focuses on owing because he himself is a supreme egotist. As he sees it, the powerful give gifts in order to display their power. He cannot realize that God has given us gifts, not because he wants or needs our praises, but because the ability to praise him is itself a gift. When we express gratitude, we ourselves experience joy.
Actually, Satan is not dumb (after all, he has been the archangel) and understands to a point. In the soliloquy I am referring to (in Book IV), he acknowledges that our gratitude to God is not a burden. In a moment of honesty that makes him interesting as a character, he acknowledges that expressing gratitude is not a burden at all—that we want to give thanks. In the very act of giving thanks, we are discharged of the debt–or as Satan puts it, we are “at once indebted and discharged.” Here’s the passage in its entirety:
I ‘sdained subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still received And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but til pays, at once Indebted and discharged; what burden then?
Once he acknowledges that he has been in the wrong, does Satan turn from his evil and repent? Obviously not, and the remainder of the soliloquy is a series of rationalizations about why he will continue doing evil.
I conclude with one other expression of gratitude in the poem, this one coming from God’s angels. Through them one sees that praising God fills one up. Theirs is the joy of musicians who have found a subject that inspires them and propels them to great heights. To repeat the point from earlier, God doesn’t need musicians singing praises to him. Rather, he has given them a gift—the chance to be filled with God’s joy—that will allow them to find fulfillment:
…their golden harps they took, Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet Of charming symphony they introduce Their sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part, such concord is in Heav’n. . .
Thus they in Heav’n, above the starry sphere Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.
Even if you don’t believe in God, trying thinking of the matter this way: Ask yourself what it is that provides you with deepest joy. What inspires and fills you up, giving you a sense that you are filling your highest purpose? Whatever it is, label it God.
My University of Ljubljana colleague Igor Maver took Julia and me on the perfect outing the other day: a visit to the Slovenian Alps. In the distance, we could see Slovenia’s pride and joy—Triglav, the mountain featured on the Slovenian flag—and when we arrived in the town of Kranj we got an even closer view of other peaks. We also visited the source of the Sava River, which joins the Danube after flowing through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. The experience prompted me to revisit Wordsworth’s mountain experience in The Prelude.
In his case, he “borrows” a boat to witness his mountain. And while the excursion starts peacefully enough, in the end he finds himself overwhelmed by its grim shape, which “towered up between me and the stars.” Nature being vaster and more awe-inspiring than he realized, he turns around and heads for home. While we normally associate Wordsworth more with daffodils than with Lord Byron’s “dark sublime,” he could go in that other directions as well.
We weren’t overwhelmed quite so much. In fact, the snow-capped mountains were more like the “elfin pinnace” that Wordsworth initially describes. Had we been approaching them in the dark, as Wordsworth does, perhaps the experience would have been different.
One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cove, its usual home. Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, I fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. She was an elfin pinnace; lustily I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan; When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow tree;
Wordsworth’s return to the safety of the willow tree reminds me of James Stephens’s “The Shell,” which I remember admiring when I was 14:
AND then I pressed the shell Close to my ear And listened well, And straightway like a bell Came low and clear The slow, sad murmur of the distant seas, Whipped by an icy breeze Upon a shore Wind-swept and desolate. It was a sunless strand that never bore The footprint of a man, Nor felt the weight Since time began Of any human quality or stir Save what the dreary winds and waves incur. And in the hush of waters was the sound Of pebbles rolling round, For ever rolling with a hollow sound. And bubbling sea-weeds as the waters go Swish to and fro Their long, cold tentacles of slimy grey. There was no day, Nor ever came a night Setting the stars alight To wonder at the moon: Was twilight only and the frightened croon, Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind And waves that journeyed blind- And then I loosed my ear … O, it was sweet To hear a cart go jolting down the street.
Julia and I attended Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale the past week with our University of Ljubljana colleagues and long-time friends Cvetka Sokolov and Mirjana Zelezic, which means that we four English teachers got to watch a cinematic English teacher eat himself to death. Images from the film still haunt my imagination, but I want to focus today’s post on his performance as a writing and literature instructor.
The story is about a man who has lost his gay lover to a combination of religious guilt (he was raised by an apocalyptic Christian cult), anorexia, and, in the end, suicide. Tormented by his inability to save his lover, Charlies eats himself to death, although not before becoming a virtual whale of a man. Between bites, we watch him totter around his apartment and interact with various people, including his angry teenage daughter, whom along with his wife he abandoned eight years previously. We also see him teaching a writing class via zoom, although his students can’t see him because he informs them his camera isn’t working.
Early on, when he thinks he is dying, he asks a door-to-door missionary (from this same Christian cult) to read him a short student essay about Moby Dick. As much as I love my students, this would not be my dying request, and it seems on par with Charlie’s later insistence that he has to finish grading his students’ essays before he dies (!). And then there’s the scene where, towards the end, he uses profanity in order to get authentic writing out of the students. The outburst gets him fired but, in his last meeting with them, he turns his camera on, revealing his grotesque self to them. If he is demands honesty from them, it is only right that he be honest in return.
A word on authenticity. As I told my Slovenian colleagues, whom I have known since coming to Ljubljana on a Fulbright fellowship in 1987, that I spent that year exploring how to get authentic literature essays from my students. It’s more difficult that simply throwing expletives around. Or, as Langston Hughes reveals in “Theme for English B,” telling students just to
Go home and write
a page tonight. And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
Hughes, remembering when he was a student, wonders, “I wonder if it’s that simple?” And goes on to reveal a very different self than the teacher is expecting.
If great literature is writing that achieves the highest level of truth-telling, then it has potential to provide students with meaningful insight into issues they care about. On the other hand, if they regard reflecting on literature as no more than a process of hoop jumping (“reification” is the fancy word for this), then it is no more (to quote St. Paul) than noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. In my seventh year of teaching, such essays were sucking the lifeblood right out of me, which is why I was so determined to find a more successful approach. If I hadn’t, I would have gotten out of the profession.
I finally learned, after that year of introspection in Slovenia, that I needed to listen carefully to whatever my students were saying about literature—and to take their insights, which were sometimes no more than glimmers—and help them develop them. It’s labor-intensive work, involving paying close attention to their brainstorming, their proposals, their rough drafts, their final drafts, and their revisions. Throughout I would tell them that there had to be something at stake in their essays, and when I saw what I called an “energy point” in their writing, I would point it out to them and encourage them to develop it.
Ultimately I was able to break through. In the years since, I have received hundreds of essays from students using literature to grapple with issues that were central to their lives. Many of these I have documented in this blog and some will be appearing in my recently finished book. While this approach devoured much of my time, it saved me as a teacher.
In The Whale, an essay that reveals such a glimmer is the one Charlies asks to be read to him. It has been written years before by his daughter. I wish I could quote it but here’s the gist as I recall it from the fil.
Basically, his daughter sees Moby Dick as a novel about loneliness. She focuses on how Captain Ahab thinks he will find happiness if he ever kills the whale that has deprived him of his leg. But the whale, she notes, is not malevolent—after all, it’s just an animal—and Ahab is wrong in thinking that he will achieve satisfaction in killing it. In fact, the novel’s irritating whale chapters, she says, are just diversions that protect him from him confronting the fact that he is lonely.
Charlie is enamored with the essay because he recognizes it for what it is—which is to say, a reader using a work of literature to process the deepest issues in her life. In this instance, his daughter, through Ahab, feels angry at the whale (Charlie) for (in her case) abandoning her as a little girl. But at the deep level that literature can take us to, she realizes that getting revenge on her father will not bring her happiness—that, in fact, her father is no more malevolent than the whale. Indeed, all her acting out in school is a way of evading her deep sadness about feeling alone. The novel has provided her with a way to frame her hurt feelings and find a positive way forward. Rather than continuing to blame Charlie and remaining trapped in victimhood, she can acknowledge her loneliness and search for positive ways to move forward.
This is the authentic communication that is possible through literary interpretation, and Charlie can die happy knowing that his daughter—who at his request reads it to him right before he dies—has recognized this possibility. She has shown that she is smart, sensitive, and empathetic, and someone with these qualities has the potential for great things. He can leave his daughter knowing that she will be all right.
