briberrioswriter2020

[briberrioswriter2020]

Framing in Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Maus: A Survivor's Tale is ironic in that it is a comic book—a story told frame-by-frame and a framed story. Art Spiegelman is not simply telling the story of his father's experiences during the Holocaust; he is also telling the story of his experience while writing the story and of his relationship with his father. This technique brings the story to a more personal level; the Holocaust is not relatable to those who were not there, but a father-son relationship is very relatable.

In Maus, a particularly poignant scene comes before the rest of the story. Spiegelman chooses to begin the graphic novel with a seemingly unrelated scene that emphasizes the relationship between father and son. However, the rollerskating scene is foreshadowing; Vladek gives a particularly dark quote at the end that lets the reader know that this will be a serious story: “...THEN you could see what it is, friends!” There are a lot of aspects of this panel (the bottom frame of page nine) that outline the father-son bond. First of all, Vladek and Art are working together on a construction project of some sort; Vladek needs Art to hold a saw while they talk. Vladek's line in this panel is also relatively conclusive, and it is safe to assume that the conversation was dropped. The fact that Vladek is doing some sort of construction also tells something about him as a character; he is independent enough to do his own repairs, and build whatever he needs. Vladek also allowed Art to go play, even though it seems like Vladek needed help with his construction, which suggests again Vladek's independence and his nonchalance towards young Art, at least until he needs him. Finally, the artwork of the panel is slightly darker than that of the previous panels, filled with slightly erratic shading. Readers see Art and Vladek standing at the edge of what looks like a completely dark garage. The panel is zoomed out significantly more than previous panels; the reader sees that this section is in fact not the big picture. The zooming is reminiscent of a scene change in the movie, and the reader can guess that the next pages will be a very different scene. Zooming also makes Art and Vladek look closer, which is important because their relationship is a key part of the story.

The story of Maus is just as much about the outer frame, the relationship between Vladek and Art, as it is about Vladek's experience during the Holocaust. The outer frame also serves to emphasize the writer's process; readers learn that the story was not collected through a series of journals or secondhand accounts, but through direct interviews with Vladek himself. From these interviews, readers gain an insight into the personalities of both Vladek and Art. Art is a dedicated journalist who continues to recollect Vladek's stories even after he is dismissed. Vladek is also a dedicated interview subject who continually allows Art to come back. Even after Art asks about topics that Vladek deems inappropriate, such as on page twenty-three when Art asks more about Lucia, even though Vladek does not think that Lucia is relevant to Art's research.

Much later in the graphic novel, the reader finds the “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” comic; another story within a story. It is the innermost frame of the stories and comes as a surprise on page one hundred. The brief interruption does not feature Art the character as the reader knew him through the rest of the novel. On the contrary, while Art the character was a mouse for the entirety of the graphic novel, here the reader finds humans characters. The section is one of the closest looks into Art's consciousness that the reader has; the entire section is dark and distorted like a memory as if the panels are a literal projection of Art's mind. This final frame serves to tell the most important story of Art's life, veering away from the emphasis on Vladek's story, and the story of Art and Vladek's relationship. For four pages of the graphic novel, Spiegelman decided to focus entirely on himself.

The most poignant part of this section is the last three panels on page one hundred and four. These panels switch to Art suddenly in a literal prison, slowly zooming out so that the reader can see how trapped Art really is. Art is several floors high within a huge collection of jail cells; there is no chance of escape. The towering structure of the prison is unrealistic but plausible. However, readers must remember that they are inside Art's mind, and most panels in “Prisoner of the Hell Planet” seem to have been distorted. At first glance, the prison cells look similar to books on a bookcase, which is interesting because there are bookcases in many other panels throughout the graphic novel. Also, if the cells are supposed to represent books, they are speaking, much like what a graphic novel does. In this section, the readers also have two Arts, another example of the framing and different levels of character. There is Art the narrator and Art the prisoner. Art the narrator seems to be expressing Art's thoughts, though there is a panel where Art the character is given a thought bubble. However, while Art the narrator is expressing Art's thoughts, in the third to last panel, Art the character completes the sentence. While the reader can see Art in the first of the bottom three panels, he becomes just a prison cell, not even a person in the last two panels. He is grasping onto the bars in the first panel, but in the next panels, the reader cannot even see his hands. In fact, in some ways, the portrayal of Art as a mouse looks more realistic than Art as a human, who looks almost ghost-like behind his prison cell. The most interesting of the three lines Art states in the panels is the last: “...You MURDERED me, Mommy, and you left me here to take the rap!!!” The sentence does not really make sense, and there are multiple things that Art could mean. Did his mother murder him by murdering herself? Did she psychologically traumatize Art, and force him to be sent to prison because of his insanity? Evidence for this idea comes from where Art says that his mother “crossed my wires...” The line could even mean that Art imprisoned himself because he felt to blame for the suicide, and later realizes that it was, in fact, his mother who killed him. Finally, the interjection from the other prisoner puts Art's quotes in context: he is yelling in the middle of the night, another sign that he might not be completely sane.

Because the story is framed to include Art as a character, the reader finds two personas: Art the character and Art the author. This is interesting because for the most part, Art the character is portrayed in a particularly good light. The rollerskating scene reminds the reader of his innocence; before readers are introduced to an adult Art, they meet Art as a crying child who does not seem to have the best relationship with his father.

One page twenty-three, readers are able to most closely access the consciousnesses of Art and his father. The page entails a small argument between Art and Vladek; Vladek does not want Art to talk about Lucia because it has nothing to do with the Holocaust, but Art protests and thinks he should write about it anyway. While Art is shocked at first, he attempts to make a sympathetic argument, stating on the third panel of the page, “But Pop—It's great material. It makes everything more real—more human.” Even though Art seems exasperated in this panel, there is no exclamation point in his statement; he is not trying to yell at his father, but calmly convince him. Art has a sympathetic look on his face, and is making a gesture with his hand in an attempt to convince Vladek. The reader sees an almost frontal view of Art, but cannot see what Vladek's face looks like in this panel, only the darkness of the back of his head. Despite this, the reader can see some emotion on Vladek face from the single eyebrow that is raised. Vladek seems shocked that Art is even attempting to argue with him. Later on the page, Vladek emphasizes the word “respectful” as it seems Vladek feels Art does not understand what it is to be respectful. Art seems somewhat relaxed even though he is frustrated, as he is sitting on the back of a chair. While his one hand is gesturing to express his emotion, the other hand is still sitting on his knee, holding his cigarette. Finally, there is a large bookcase in this scene, which the reader will be reminded of later during the “Prisoner from the Hell Planet” scene, where the jail cells are reminiscent of bookcases. The inclusion of the bookcase in this scene perhaps serves to remind the reader that prison will always be in the back of the minds of both Vladek and Art. Using the readers' ability to access the mind of Art in this scene, the reader can then learn about the different levels of character prevalent in the graphic novel.

Through Art the character, the reader gets to know Art the author. Art the author is a kind of God-figure; he is the creator in that he made the story eternal through his comic book, and he is all-knowing in that he knows the outcome of the story. This distinguishes him from Art the character because he does not have to deal with the struggles of getting the story out of his father. Art the author is also the one who employs all of the subtleties that readers analyze in close readings of comic panels. Unrealistic panels, such as the example from the Prisoner from Hell Planet panel noted above, are examples of Art the author expressing ideas that Art the character cannot. Through Art the author, readers are able to access the consciousnesses of Art the character and his father.

On another level, Art the character is also a God-figure because he already knows the ending of the story. He knows his father survives the Holocaust, and he is born. Art the character also exercises his power as the writer and the listener of his father's stories. For example, in the panel above on page twenty-three, Art and Vladek have a discussion about Lucia, and Vladek tells Art not to include these details. Here we realize that within the graphic novel, Art the character still has power over what details to include. Art the character is still ultimately under the control of Art the author, but within the story, Art the character can be considered a God-figure.

Finally, framing makes the reader a God-figure because we know from the outer frame

(the story of Art talking to his father) details that we wouldn't know if we were just reading the inner frame (the story of Vladek in the Holocaust.) As soon as Art goes to his father's house, the reader can be sure that Vladek survived the Holocaust. On the same page, the reader learns that Art's mother also survived the Holocaust, but later committed suicide. Some of these details are very plainly presented, but others are subtly inferred. However, the all-seeing-eye of the reader gets a bigger perspective on the story than even Art the character; the only one who knows more detail is Art the author.

A final question to ask is whether the framing becomes a problem for the story. Certainly, because Art is telling the outer frame of his story about himself, readers are at risk of having an unreliable narrator. For the most part, Art portrays himself in a pretty positive light. If the reader were to take the graphic novel at face value, one would find that Art rarely argued with his father, and simply listened to his stories. However, from the beginning of the graphic novel, the reader knows there is some tension between father and son; after all, the father and son have not seen each other for a while and are described as not being very close. How much of Art's story the reader believes is really up to the reader, but it is not debatable that in including himself in the outer frame of the story, Spiegelman added dimension to the graphic novel.

[briberrioswriter2020]

Henry James and Bringing the Dark to the Light

In What Maisie Knew, as well as The Aspern Papers, there is very little mention of race. Since all of the characters are living in Europe, everyone is simply assumed to be white, and because of the one time Henry James did mention race, this assumption is likely to be correct. The mention of race in What Maisie Knew is in regards to the Countess who is described as a “brown lady”. In including this “brown lady” character, James is analyzing the idea of light and darkness and creating a dichotomy; after all there are only two kinds of people in this story: the “brown ladies” and the Europeans. This dichotomy is dangerous because it places one group as the “other” and allows them little agency. Also, historically, the idea of Europe as the modern and rational “light” of humanity has caused huge problems through colonialism and a dangerous sense of entitlement. Examining throughout history, there is a theme of Westernization, European exceptionalism, and general entitlement, so one can understand the influence James's environment must have had on him. Through an examination of What Maisie Knew and The Aspern Papers, one can argue that Henry James is reinforcing some of the central ideas of colonialism by attempting to bring darkness into the light.

Colonialism is the exploitation of territory of which a colonial power has gained political control. It is by definition an unequal relationship between the colonial power and the colony, and it played and continues to play a huge role in Westernization. Because Henry James moved from America to Europe, he seems to portray the opposite of Westernization. In fact, James is playing into the ideas of colonialism and Westernization very much. The debated and highly controversial idea of Westernization is that the Western world is bringing modernity to the rest of the world. Therefore, the West is entitled to colonize because they are destroying other cultures for the betterment of the world. Of course this is false, but there are examples of this ideology everywhere, even today. For example, Western missionaries who travel around the world and attempt to enlighten other cultures by telling them that their religion is incorrect. Further evidence of this includes recalling galleries and museums which are exposing the “true” nature of non-Western artifacts by taking them out of their culture and placing them on display beneath a light. From a Western perspective, the artifact is being metaphorically placed in the light of Western rationality and civility, which is ironic because the artifacts are mostly spoils of brutal conquest.

In any case, how James writes the Countess is similar to the harmful ideologies of Westernization. Before the Countess even appears in the story, there is a mention of countesses as part of the stories that Maisie hears:

“[Miss Overmore] knew swarms of stories, mostly those of the novels she had read; relating them with a memory that never faltered and a wealth of detail that was Maisie's delight. They were all about love and beauty and countesses and wickedness.” (What Maisie Knew, Chapter IV)

While this is not definitely directly connecting countesses to wickedness, it certainly seems this way and it implies that Maisie may have already had an association between countesses and wickedness, even if she still romanticizes countesses. The character of Countess appears in the story quite suddenly, a visitor from America, and she is treated in the text similarly to the artifacts on display in museums. She appears first performing in a side-show and then appears in the arms of Mr. Beale.

“The companions paused, for want of one, before the Flowers of the Forest, a large presentment of bright brown ladies--they were brown all over—in a medium suggestive of tropical luxuriance, and there Maisie dolorously expressed her belief that he would never come at all.” (What Maisie Knew, Chapter 13)

The side-show in which she was performing, “Flowers of a Forest” which is described as featuring “tropical luxuriance”. This side show full of brown women sounds like a commodification and exoticization of the brown ladies, placed in front of an audience of white people. The Countess is described by Maisie as grotesquely inhuman, more like a poodle or a monkey. When Europe colonized Africa and started the slave trade, Africans were considered inhuman as well as subhuman. For this reason, the way in which James is portraying the Countess is harmful as a portrayal of a “brown” person.

Maisie is representative of the ignorance of the majority of the Western world to the immorality of colonization. When Maisie meets the Countess, she immediately is frightened by her appearance. Of course, this is because Maisie has had no exposure to anyone except for her parents, her step-parents and her governess. Most of Maisie's knowledge about the world comes from stories from her governess Mrs. Wix, who is not a very worldly person either. At the end of the novel, when Mrs. Wix realizes that Maisie lacks moral sense, it is because of her ignorance of moral behavior. Maisie reconciles her fear of the unknown that is the Countess by continuing to pretend that she is part of The Arabian Nights, and by pretending to be in a fantasy world, Maisie is maintaining her ignorance to some degree. Colonization is similar; the members of the colonizing nation get to remain ignorant while the colonies are being culturally deconstructed. Furthermore, even when members of the colonizing nation participate in immoral behavior, such as slavery, this behavior is so normalized that it is not seen as immoral: the same reason for the state of Maisie's morality.

The sense of entitlement that comes with colonialism is also present in the genre of Western. The Aspern Papers could be described as a “reverse Western.” This is because the narrator, who is American, is bringing poetry to Europe. Usually, Westerns involve bringing art and culture across the American frontier, as Americans believed that it was their God-chosen destiny to explore the continent. Within The Aspern Papers, there is some sense of selfish authority that the narrator has where he believes that he is entitled to the Aspern papers, so entitled that he travels to Venice to retrieve them and bring their contents to light. The frontier myth is the romanticization of the American West. The myth ignores the harsh realities of the Wild West, such as violence against Native Americans, the destruction of the environment, racism and cultural appropriation, in favor of presenting an image of brave cowboys traversing new territory that they feel belongs to them. Calling The Aspern Papers a “reverse Western” is accurate because of the sense of entitlement that the narrator has, but it does not contain any of the mythology of Westerns.

No matter how Henry James attempts to get reverse the Western, he is still complying with Westernization, especially the sense of entitlement that comes with Westernization. The dichotomy that he creates is harmful and the subtleties of his characterization of the Countess are microaggressions. However, these problems that arise in James's writing are parallel to the problems of Western expansion and colonialism, so James is just playing into the dominant narrative of society. In conclusion, while James is following the colonialism narrative or bringing the dark to the light, he cannot necessarily be faulted for it.

[briberrioswriter2020]

Time in Zigeunerweisen

When Suzuki Seijin created the world of his 1980 film Zigeunerweisen, he certainly created a world unlike our own. When one enters a cinema to watch a film, they expect to be told a story. With his unconventional narrative filled pieces of a story, Seijin assuredly does not give the audience what they expected. Through this unconventional narrative and through unusual editing techniques, Seijin manages to create a world outside of the time constraints of reality that fascinates the audience even if the audience cannot fully relate to it or understand it.

Though the film is lacking in a consistent and coherent storyline, there is something of a plot to be described. In her article “Translating Prewar Culture into Film: The Double Vision of Suzuki Seijun's Zigeunerweisen,” Rachael Dinitto states that this may be an impossible task, stating of the film, “...that there is no point in trying to follow a  narrative or apply one to the film because it operates on  the level of the abstract.” On the surface of this abstract, there are two men, Aochi and Nagasako, who are old friends. Both men are married, but both lead adulterous relationships. Nagasako's wife is Sono who dies and is replaced by Koine, who is interestingly, the same actress. Aochi's wife is Shuko, who has an affair with his best friend Nagasako. Shuko's sister is in an asylum, and it is implied that Aochi is having an affair with her. Between the characters, there is a fascination with bones, especially by Nagasako who is fascinated that Koine's brother, who committed suicide, is said to have pink bones. Eventually, Nagasako dies, much to the shock of Aochi. Outside of this storyline, there are three beggars who are recurring characters but do not seem to be important to the narrative of Aochi and Nagasako. Of the three beggars, there is an older man, a younger man, and a young woman. The beggars are seen playing music and singing raunchy songs, and it seems that the young woman is married to the older man while having an affair with the younger man. Incidentally, affairs seem to be a theme in Zigeunerweisen. Eventually, the male beggars are seen to beat each other into the sand to death, as the female beggar floats away in a barrel. While these events do not form a coherent narrative, they are connected through various motifs and details of editing.

The theme of the film seems to be time. In Zigeunerweisen, the viewer finds themselves caught in a world that does not make temporal sense. The viewer tries to grasp onto the pieces of a narrative that he can find, but even then, the timeline of the film seems to be off. Then, there is the fact that Zigeunerweisen is a period piece, placed in the 1920s, but featuring elements from both during and after this time period. An example would be the fashion and hairstyle of Aochi's wife Shuko, specifically the bob of her hair which is so charismatic of the 1920s. However, Dinitto also cites that the film has elements of the 1970s and 1980s, explaining “Characteristics  he  attributes  to  the 1920s  are surprisingly  fitting to  the climate  of  the  late  1970s  and early 1980s.” The anarchy of the film's design certainly seems more fitting of the revolutionary 1960s. The film has elements of nostalgia, but also a sort of déjà vu. The prewar setting of the film is reminiscent of the postwar era, the commonality being liberation. As a prosperous independent film, Zigeunerweisen successfully liberates itself from the mainstream and directly into cult status. In the film itself, there are themes of sexual liberation where affairs between characters happen freely and generously, which is reminiscent of the sexual liberation of the Hippie Movement in the 1970s. Nagasako begins the film as a free spirit traveler, of whom Aochi is jealous, which is also reminiscent of the Hippie Movement.

The temporality of the film is odd in more than just its setting though. The audience is left in the hands of an unreliable narrator, Aochi. What plays into the oddness of the temporality is that the audience does not know how much of what Aochi tells them is a dream, as partway through the film, he realizes that he dreamed some important details. The audience is also left wondering whether Aochi is a sane person when Nagasako accuses him of hearing things. Aochi also makes jumps in the story, picking and choosing what parts of the story the audience gets to see. This happens when the story flashes forward a year to Nagasako's marriage. Much of the story also happens through memories, such as when Nagasako recounts the death of the beggars and the audience is able to view this scene from his point of view. In the scene that Nagasako recounts, the audience can see further examples of why time in the film does not seem to make sense.

The sequence involving the beggars death is intended to be simply a comic scene, but it is also an example of how editing affects the temporality of the film. The scene begins by disrupting time and reality, as it is a flashback into Nagasako's memory. It begins with the three beggars walking along a beach. Suddenly and very joltingly, the woman beggar is in a barrel in the middle of the ocean, an effect achieved through editing, as the camera suddenly cuts from the beach to the barrel. The images are placed immediately next to each other, but a significant amount of time must have passed between them; this is Seijin playing with time again. The two men are buried in the sand, and the audience is offered the silly explanation that they literally beat each other into the ground. Two men beating each other into the ground takes a lot of time, therefore cutting the clips of the beating into a series of shots where the audience cannot tell how much time has passed between each blow seems to  be the way to edit this scene. However, Seijin instead makes the scene more comic by ignoring the fact that it takes time for the men to beat each other, and simply makes the scene comically unrealistic where the men beat each other into the ground in a single shots that show them getting buried at an unrealistic rate. The exchange is interspersed with shots of the girl in the barrel who seems relatively stationary, but is still in the middle of the ocean. The audience is left with their sense of time completely jolted; the girl in the barrel could have been there for any amount of time, and the men beat each other into the ground far too quickly. Because the scene is a memory and a retelling, time in the world of this scene is not necessarily the same as time in the real world, as is shown through editing.  

The film's consistency in editing continues in more than just this scene. Frequently, the film switches between shots in a similarly jolting way. When the sequence involving the beggars first began, the setting moves suddenly from the tea room to the beach. The lighting in the two settings is very different, and the sudden change is one of the many graphic patterns that Seijin employs in his editing of the film. The editing also organizes the film into meaningful sequences that otherwise would not exist. When Aochi asks about the beggars, he gets two different stories. After Nagasako recounts his story, and Koine disagrees, the audience expects the scene to cut to Koine's recounting of what happened, but it does not. This is Seijin picking and choosing which sequences are meaningful enough to include. Because it provided comic relief, and also expanded upon the world of the story where time does not work in the way which an audience expects it to, Nagasako's story of the beggars was meaningful. This also plays back into how Seijin employs graphic patterns. Koine says that the beggars settled on a three-way marriage, but the audience does not know if Koine actually witnessed the wedding. To be consistent with her and Nagasako's character, Koine's story would not have been as ridiculous and fanciful as Nagasako's and an actual scene dedicated to the wedding would not have employed the same graphic patterns as Nagasako's flashback. 

Finally, the film employs both continuity editing and disjunctive editing, but the disjunctive editing is more important to the themes of the film because the rapid cuts between scenes keep the audience on edge. Disjunctive editing is another way that the audience can remain aware that though the film takes place in the 1920s, it is filmed in the 1980s; the filmic tradition of disjuncture only became popular from the 1960s to the 1980s.

In conclusion, editing works with the diegetic content of the film to effectively eliminate the constraints of the temporality of the real world. When looking at the diegetic content of the film, the viewer realizes that there is little plot, and attempts to create a timeline where there is not one because the viewer is so used to a world where time is consistent and important. The fact that the film is a period piece set in the 1920s but with attitudes of the post-war 1980s also skews temporality. Because the film aggressively cuts between shots with no explanation for how much time has passed, editing also works to alter the temporal setting of the film. Finally, the film uses the literal filmic tradition of disjunctive editing to create the metaphorical disjunctures that the audience experiences.

[briberrioswriter2020]

The Struggle of the Transnationalist

Following the industrial revolution and with the consistently more accessible international transportation, globalization has been rapidly increasing in the last century. Though globalization also happens through access to information via better forms of communication, globalization also occurs through the physical vessel of the transnationalist. Though globalization also includes the transmission of products and information, the transnationalist allows one to observe cultural globalization, which includes ideas, values and language. In the texts Drown and The Jade Peony as well as the film A Better Life, one can observe the figure of the transnationalist and the negative and positive aspects that come with them. Through the lens of the transnationalist, one can see the effects of cultural mixing.  

The transnationalist is created through cultural mixing itself, and has an identity that is neither stable nor specific; they may be attached to no place or to many places. As the transnationalist struggles with their identity, they may find themself becoming a mixture of the multiple cultures that have had an  influence on their life; when the transnationalist knowingly mixes their two or more cultures, this is called hybridization. The transnationalist is often also either a multilingualist or a speaker of a mixed language. Drown, which is written in the perspective of a transnationalist, is an example of the multilingualism or the mixed language of the transnationalist; Junot Diaz frequently interjects the English text with slang words and profanity in Spanish. In “Postborder Cities, Postborder World” Dear and Lucero discuss the phenomena of “code-switching,” explaining, “Perhaps the most important case of hybridity is the case of the rise of 'Spanglish', a mongrel language somewhere between English and Spanish...a 'code-switching' in which words and phrases from one language are dropped into sentences of another language.” (Dear and Lucero 135) Spanglish is not the only example of a hybrid language; in The Jade Peony, many of the characters speak 'Chingrish', a mongrel language somewhere between Chinese and English. Often, the reader is unsure as to whether the characters are speaking Chinese or English, and Wayson Choy drops Chinese words into the text in between English words. The youngest brother of the story, Sekky, explains that he “never possessed enough details in either language to understand how our family, how the countless cousins, in-laws, aunts and uncles, came to be related.” (Choy 150) Instead of being multilingual, Sekky is monolingual in an unofficial mixed language, and needs to learn parts of two languages to be understood. Language, however, is only one part of being a transnationalist, and each of the characters in the texts and the film bring forth their own definition of transnationalist.

In Drown, Yunior is a transnationalist in more than just his ability to speak multiple languages. He is a physical vessel of globalization, and through him, ideas and values are transmitted transnationally. For example, Yunior is also a transnationalist because he is transmitting his taste for Dominican food from Dominican Republic to the United States. Without the influence of Hispanic culture like that of Yunior and his family, the United States would not know of pastales. Yunior also transmits his family values to the United States, despite the fact that they may not be exclusively Dominican. For example, he seems to inherit his promiscuity from his father. Yunior is promiscuous because it is expected that Dominican boys are to be promiscuous; his uncle even tells him, “Back in Santo Domingo, he'd be getting laid by now.” (Diaz 30)  Futhering this spread of cultural values, Diaz dedicates an entire chapter to Yunior explaing “How to Date a Whitegirl, Browngirl or Halfie.” Finally, Yunior brings his idea of beauty to the United States. In the second chapter, he explains that his mom looked nice because “The United States had finally put some meat on her.” (Diaz 23) Despite the fact that Yunior's family values may not be good values, he spreads them to the United States, and they affect other people.

Almost all characters in The Jade Peony have a transnational identity. Grandmother, for example, brings several different Chinese dialects to the Canada, and with that, brings the idea that she can “eloquently praise someone in one dialect, and ruthlessly insult them in another.” (Choy 8) Dialects of this complexity are an entirely new idea in Canada, where for the most part, the only dialect spoken in Canadian English. Grandmother also brings a wealth of stories, which are passed on through her grandchildren. Stories are an important value to the Chinese, as Jung expresses when he explains, “I believed in ghosts, like everyone else in Chinatown.” (Choy 79) Also, much to the confusion of her grandchildren, she brings the ideas of familial relations and power statuses that do not exist in English. These ideas are only translatable through the transnationalists, and their complexity is explained by Liang and Sekky. Finally, the characters in The Jade Peony provide Chinese ideals of beauty to Canada. Liang mentions that she sucks in her cheeks to lengthen her face look like an actress that Stepmother mentioned. Grandmother tells the children about foot-binding, and how she was deemed to ugly to have her feet bound; her ugliness was related to her coarse hair and cheekbones, which shows that these features are of value to the Chinese. By bringing their ideas of language and dialect, their stories, and their value of beauty to Canada, the characters of The Jade Peony are undeniably transnationalist.

A Better Life gives a close look at a transnationalist father, and his possibly transnationalist son. In the film, Carlos is born in Mexico, but his son Luis is not, and Luis seems to identify strongly with American culture, possibly implying that he is assimilated. Nonetheless, Carlos is brings his Mexican values to the United States, and is certainly a figure in cultural globalization. Most notably, Carlos values hard work, as is seen through his laborious job as a landscaper. Secondly, and in conjunction, he values family. All of his hard work is an attempt to give his son a better life, and later in the film, he even risks his life to get back to his son. He also is shown to have a close relationship with his sister. While “family” is certainly not a value unique to Mexico, the importance of family can be seen throughout the Chicano community in the film. All of Luis's friends seem to be very close to their families, and the gang culture in the area expresses the importance of family even more; not so much biological family, but cultural family.  

Cultural mixing creates tensions for the transnationalists in several ways, first because sometimes cultures inherently wish to remain separate. The cultures refuse to assimilate, and instead create ethnic enclaves which are exclusive to one cultural group. In The Jade Peony, the three children live in Vancouver's Chinatown, and are exposed to several different dialects of Chinese, implying that one could not get by here if they spoke only English. The children also all attend Chinese school, which means that their peers are most likely all Chinese or Chinese-Canadian children as well. While having these exclusive ethnic enclaves may slow cultural mixing, they also promote immigration because Chinese immigrants already have a community where they can be accepted. Also, while it did not seem like any white people lived in Chinatown, they certainly still came to Chinatown; in The Jade Peony, Jung invites his friend from English school to see his turtle. In A BetterLife, one can also observe ethnic enclaves attempting to keep exclusive. The area where Carlos and Luis lived was ridden with gangs, specifically a Chicano gang which appears to have serious power in the neighborhood; at one point in the film, Luis does not want to go to an area because it is the territory of another gang. There are also images of the neighborhood with show the overabundance of Mexican laborers who has to be driven out of the community to white neighborhoods to find work as landscapers. In A Better Life, the boundary between neighborhoods works differently from Chinatown in The Jade Peony. Rather than creating a community to maintain their culture, the Chicano community is more likely kept out of the white neighborhoods; this type of discrimination will be discussed later in this paper.

Cultures often want to remain separate not because they do not want to spread their values and ideas, but because they fear having their culture taken away from them. As Mamdani is quoted in “When Does a Settler Become a Native?” cultures have this fear because “Settlers are made by conquest, not just immigration.” In the case of the characters in the texts and the film, this quote is backwards; while the characters were the settlers and immigrants, they still have to fear conquest because as the minority group, they are at risk for oppression. At the same time, Mamdani's quote could be interpreted to hold true for the characters; Chinatown is a sort of conquest of part of Vancouver, and Yunior expresses his masculinity through his sexual conquest, where he dates girls of every race and therefore spreads his Dominican influence across many cultures in the United States. In A Better Life, it is clear that the gang has the power in the neighborhood, and their influence is probably what keeps the community primarily Chicano. On the other hand, this “us versus them” complex can be an oppressive force that discriminates against the minority.

An unfortunate side-effect of cultural mixing is racism and racial profiling, which is seen most clearly in A Better Life and Drown. Racial profiling is “the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense.” When Luis gets into a fight in school, he is taken to police station and asked to remove his shirt so that they can take pictures of his gang tattoos. Though he repeatedly tells the police officer that he is not affiliated with any gang, he is asked to remove his shirt anyway, and exclaims something about “Why you gotta make every Chicano kid out here...” before being silenced. Luis is certain that the white police officer is targeting him because of his race, a claim which is probably very true. Later, when Luis tells his friend that he has been suspended, his friend explains, “All they know how to do is lock us out or lock us up,” “they” referring to the white majority and “us” referring to the Chicano community. In Drown, Yunior attempts to get into a house to deliver a pool table. However, he and his partner are reported to their boss as looking “suspicious” by the customer, who claims he was scared to open the door. It is implied in the story that Yunior only looks suspicious to the white customer because he is Dominican. While Yunior and Luis are both fairly assimilated to American culture at this point in their lives, they are marked as criminal because of their skin color.  

Discrimination against the minority also includes a below par education, which is seen in all three books. In The Jade Peony, the family of the three children does not think the children will receive a sufficient education in English school, and forces them to go to Chinese school as well. While the education in English school may not have been bad, the Chinese family wished for the children to learn Chinese culture and language as well, something which would be lacking in a normal Canadian school. A better example of minority status leading to a poor education is found in A Better Life, as Carlos repeatedly insists that he needs to “get [Luis] out of that school.” The school that Luis attends is infiltrated with gang violence, and also corrupted by those in positions of power, who discriminate against all Chicano students because it is primarily Chicanos who are involved in the gang. Luis does not seem to be doing well in school, and frequently skips, and though Carlos is upset by this and insists Luis goes to school, he is also understanding because he knows Luis is trapped in a poor education system.  

Finally, this discrimination leads to poverty, a cycle which is increasingly difficult to break in today's world. Often, immigrants come to the United States or Canada with no money, hoping to fulfill the American Dream, which tells them that if they work hard, they will be successful. Unfortunately, the rise of capitalism that occurred in the last century has made the American Dream less attainable, and instead has caused an income disparity that keeps the lower-class poor. In The Jade Peony, the family does not seem very poor because there is very little discussion of money in the story. However, in “Second Brother,” Jung explains that his nice coat is actually the tattered hand-me-down of a family friend, a coat in such bad condition that not even the man who gave it to him's son wanted it. In “Third Brother,” Sekky refers to the parents of himself and his classmates as “poverty-raised.” Because he is in a class entirely made up of the children of immigrants, there is a notable correlation between poverty and transnationalists. In Drown, the connection between “immigrant” and “poor” is even stronger. The story begins by explaining that Yunior and his brother Rafa are sent away every summer because their mother works too much to take care of them; the place they are sent is impoverish, lacking television or electricity. After this introduction that shows Yunior comes from a poor family, the story goes on to show Yunior remain poor for the rest of his life. At times, he resorts to selling drugs for money, and when he is working a job delivering pool tables, he notes that he will never have enough money to buy a pool table of his own. Because he is Dominican, jobs like delivering pool tables are the only jobs he can get, and his family has not provided him with skills to work elsewhere. In fact, the fact that he sells drugs is probably influenced by his family. Finally, Carlos and Luis deal with poverty as a result of being immigrants as well. Their poverty is shown in the first scene, when it is revealed that they only have one bed, and Carlos sleeps on the couch. Carlos is undocumented, so he can only work under-the-table jobs such as landscaping, and will never make enough money to rise out of poverty. He attempts to break the cycle of poverty by purchasing a truck and becoming his own boss, but is unsuccessful, once again, because he is undocumented. Because of the discrimination against immigrants, transnationalists are often forced into these situations of poverty that they cannot break.  

Finally, there is the discrimination against ones own culture that comes with transnationalism. In an attempt to make one's own culture look better to others, people often discriminate against those within their culture, as a way of denying deviants membership. This sets up another “us versus them” dynamic, where people divide into groups, set rules of exclusivity to the group, and attack anyone who is not part of the group. In Drown,, there is an example of this happening, when Yunior and Rafa physically attack Ysrael for his deformity. Even though he was just a young Dominican boy like them, Rafa did not want to associate Ysrael with himself; Ysrael was something different, a deviant that must be punished. In The Jade Peony, Grandmother and Stepmother are often very rude to the children, claiming that they are not Chinese enough and forcing them to attend Chinese school. This is part of the dynamic as well; the children deviate from Chinese culture, so they deserve the harsh insults of Grandmother and Stepmother.  

Another negative affect of cultural mixing that can be seen in all three stories is illegal immigration, which is only a negative affect because of the laws in place that are against it. If people were allows to immigrate freely, the struggles that the characters face from illegal immigration would be nonexistent. “Postborder Cities, Postborder World” discusses illegal immigration, explaining, “No one knows how many illegal immigrants are coming to the United States to stay permanently. Official estimates put the figure around 350,000 people per year, but anywhere between 400,000 and 500,000 seems more probable.” (Dear and Lucero136) Illegal immigration comes in multiple forms, whether through convenience marriages, such as those in Drown and The Jade Peony, or through literally running across a border, such as in A Better Life.

When Stepmother is introduced in the first pages of The Jade Peony, she is not portrayed as a member of the family. Rather, she is referred to as a concubine that later became a wife to the father of the family, despite the fact that she is the mother of two of the children. Grandmother tells everyone to call her “Stepmother” because she is not the first wife, which is especially degrading because even her own children refer to her as such. Stepmother was raised in poverty, and is “a dozen years younger” than her husband, but because she is not allowed to simply immigrate to Canada, she is forced to marry. Though Stepmother seems fairly satisfied with her life in Canada, being forced to marry to immigrate is still a negative affect of cultural mixing. In Drown, there is a similar situation; Yunior's father marries a woman in the United States, despite already being married in Dominican Republic, so that he can acquire a green card. This situation was horrible for both the woman and Yunior's mother, as the father ended up leaving the woman anyway. Convenience marriages for the sake of immigration can have a negative affect on both the immigrant and their convenient new spouse.

Immigration is a central theme of A Better Life. At the time of the film, Carlos has already crossed the border illegally from Mexico to the United States once. Because of this, Carlos cannot work a real job, and cannot make much money. When Luis is in the police station, he cannot allow the police office to call his father, for his father's safety. While he is in the United States, he has to be very careful not to be caught by immigration officials, otherwise he will get deported. The film concludes with Carlos, having been deported back to Mexico, attempting to cross the border again with a 'coyote'. In crossing the border again, Carlos is risking his freedom and his life, and the message of the film is that  immigration laws tear families apart.  

Often, the transnationalist has a difficult family life as a result of cultural mixing. When a child has a different cultural identity than their parents, they behave differently, and this can cause tension between families. In The Jade Peony, the children are frequently insulted by Grandmother, called lazy and stupid. In Canada, this type of behavior seems almost emotionally abusive, but it seems to be acceptable in China. In Drown, this tension between the differing values of parent and child is most poignant, as Yunior faces abuse from his father for not doing things the way his father wants; Yunior specifically says, “It was like my God-given duty to piss him off, to do everything the way he hated.” (Diaz 26) Of course, Yunior is not getting beaten by his father on purpose, and it seems that his father cannot stand the fact that Yunior gets sick from car rides is because he is a boy and getting sick shows his weakness. One wonders whether his father would have beat him so much if he were a girl. Futhermore, Yunior is pressured into having sex at a young age; he explains that his brother is twelve when he starts having sex with girls in Dominican Republic, and Yunior's uncle tells him that even though he is young, he should be getting laid already. These pressures probably had a significant affect on Yunior's psyche, and turned him into the promiscuous person that he is. The situation is switched in A Better Life on the other hand, where Luis has issues with his father for not understanding the culture of southern California. Having grown up surrounded by gang violence, Luis is tough and when his father attempts to pay a man for a stolen phone, Luis stops him. Later, Luis thinks that his father is weak for letting the man who stole the truck get away, and is so angry at Carlos that he runs away to his friend's house. Cultural mixing can create family tension in both directions, either from the parent imposing the old culture on the child, or from the child imposing the new culture on the parent.

Finally, the transnationalist also suffers because they do not feel as if they fit in anywhere. In A Better Life, Luis struggles with the decision to join a gang. Initially, he does not agree with Carlos's Mexican values of family, hard work, and education, and he does not want to assimilate into American culture because the people around him discriminate against him so much. In his need to belong, he almost turns to a gang, because he is facing the common struggle of isolation of the transnationalist. Sekky feels this need to belong as well, when he asks Stepmother “Am I Chinese or Canadian?” Stepmother immediately responds that he is Chinese, but his father tells him that he is Canadian as well. Of course, this does very little to help Sekky understand his identity. Overall, the struggle of the transnationalist is a very real one, but the transnationalist is an important part of globalization.  

Though it seems that there are only negatives that come out of being a transnationalist, the transnationalist identity does have some positive affects. The transnationalist is the bridge between two cultures. Because they are often multilingual, the transnationalist can understand and communicate ideas between two or more cultures. They are an incredibly important figure in the grand scheme of globalization because it is they who are the physical vessel for spreading ideas. In an interview, Junot Diaz talks about how his character of Yunior is supposed to be “two places at once” because of how casually Diaz switches the setting from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey. In a way, all transnationalists are two places at once, because they are simultaneously two cultures.

There is little we can do to ease the transition for the transnationalist without a complete assimilation of all cultures. Of course, a complete assimilation of cultures, a true 'melting pot', is not beneficial to globalization. If all cultures completely assimilated, there would be no diversity, which would be bad because a diversity of cultures means a diverse way of thinking, which leads to further development of humanity. Globalization is a good thing, as long as globalization keeps diversity in mind. What we can do is stop discriminating against the transnationalist for being a transnationalist. Ongoing battles of racism and immigration are continuously fighting to make the life of the transnationalist easier. If we continue the fight against oppression, some of the negative affects that the transnationalist faces can disappear.  

[briberrioswriter2020]

Social Boundaries: Privitization and Deindividualization

The Gay Rights Movement flourished through its ability to maintain social connections without being in agreement with a particular agenda, and also through its acceptance of variety and individuality united for the common good. Examining the Gay Rights Movement is one way to understand the function of social boundaries in sex politics. First of all, individuality does not function well in social boundaries. In Temporarily Yours, Stein explains that “In order to create a social order, deviants are established and punished.” (Stein 20) Within the anecdotes told in Stranger Next Door and Temporarily Yours, one finds that many people believe abnormal sexuality should not exist, but since it does exist, it must be kept private, and if ever it is not private, it must be publicly shamed.  

Social boundaries are created not by physics or any government body, but by people's interactions with each other. Boundaries also mean that one cannot be an individual, one must be part of a group, and one must follow the arbitrarily established rules of the group.  In Temporarily Yours, Stein explains how, “OCA activists view individuals as essentially evil, self-serving, and destructive.” (Stein 96) Individuality makes it more difficult for the set of rules within a boundary to be enforced because individuality allows disagreement and deviance to be acceptable. Social boundaries with which sex politics is concerned also require that if abnormal sexuality must exist, it must stay hidden. Berstein's chapter, “The Privatization of Public Women” explains this thoroughly, stating, “here showing too much is vulgar.” (Berstein 71) Furthermore, the chapter explains how the sex industry has moved to the internet. Social boundaries behave in such a way that one group will always be more powerful than the other, and therefore one group marginalizes the other group; Stein explains this marginalization as “People do things because they wish to protect an image of who they are in relation to the group which they believe they are a part.” (Stein 8) Because of social boundaries, people have a desire to eradicate others in order to fortify their own sense of self.  

Sexuality can be divided into two parts; that which follows the conservative paradigm of heterosexual, cisgender sex within the confines of marriage and for the purpose of procreation, and that which does not. Several of the issues addressed in the two readings are related to the social construct of normative gender roles. In Temporarily Yours, Stein encounters Sally Humphries, who “just wants to be a woman in the old-fashioned way.” (Stein 96) Because Sally is comfortable in her assigned gender role, and with a lack of individually (she also explains that her life revolves around following the rules of the church), she is unwillingly to accept a shift in the social boundaries, going as far as to fight against social change. In Stranger Next Door, Berstein explains that it was thought the social taboo of prostitution would disappear after it became acceptable for women to be in the workplace, only to find that this was not the case. Heteronormativity, as one sees most poignantly in Timbertown in Temporarily Yours, creates the boundary which places homosexuals as deviant and wrong, which according to the social boundary paradigm, means that they must be eradicated. Examples of heteronormative behavior in the readings include in Temporarily Yours, when Stein tells the story of a man berating the public display of affection between two lesbians as inappropriate.  

Heteronormativity also seems to induce a fear of an enemy that does not exist; while there are very few known homosexuals in Timbertown, the townspeople still fear that they could be lurking anywhere, flaunting behavior that should be kept private. In Timbertown, a pair of heterosexual speakers went against the paradigm, to the outrage of the citizens, who claimed, “they called into question the belief in natural gender differences and promoted a vision of non-procreative sexuality without apologies, thereby diminishing the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.” (Stein 21) In Stranger Next Door, Berstein does not so much focus on the taboos of prostitution from the Christian conservative perspective, but does explain that “In contrast to the casual and informal exchanges that had previously transpired in coffeehouses, taverns, and pubs, large numbers of women now found themselves sequestered in a space which was physically and socially separate, and affixed with the permanently stigmatizing identity of 'prostitute.'” (Berstein 24) In the cases analyzed in Stranger Next Door, heteronormativity alone does not seem to be the oppressive force, but rather a societal stigma against the commerce of sex as something deviant from the conservative paradigm.  

These social boundaries are asserted through a number of outlets. While by definition, social boundaries are not creating by any governing body, they can be asserted by the government through lack of protection under the law. For example, in Timbertown, the Gay Rights Movement only moved to the forefront because there was opposition against a bill that would give homosexuals equal protection under the law. Because this was not law previously, the government asserted the social boundaries through lack of protection. However, the main force that was asserting the boundaries was the Oregon Citizens Alliance, a Christian right organization that opposed the measure to provide homosexuals with equal protection under the law. As Stein explains, “Christian conservatives in a small town simultaneously publicized the existence of sexual diversity and tried to stamp it out.” Thinking about Sally Humphries however, one notes that the activists groups are influenced by an outside force as well. For Sally, her actions are a result of her faith, which she turns into an activist group to promote what she believes is the social agenda of God. The church is enormously influential in the assertion of social boundaries, as well as the media. In Stranger Next Door, Berstein explains how the fight against prostitution has moved away from the prostitutes and towards the men purchasing sex from the prostitutes. Through the media, these men are outed as criminals, with their faces placed on billboards and their names listed in databases of known johns. The social boundary, in this case, is asserted by the media and is enforced through the public shaming of deviants.  

The main social process that is central to these social boundaries is marginalization. If the majority deliberately oppresses the minority, the minority will not have a voice, and either remain hidden or cease to exist, which is exactly what the majority wishes to happen. The majority refuses to change their beliefs because traditional, conservative people are afraid of change, and they prevent change from occurring as much as possible through legislation and by creating social taboos. In Temporarily Yours, when one learns about the criminalization of johns, one wonders if it really is socially taboo to be purchasing sex from prostitutes or if it is only socially taboo because of the deliberate public shaming that occurs.  

In Stranger Next Door, these boundaries are painted as the direct cause of cruel and unusual punishment. In Sweden, there are laws that make it a crime to be a john but not a prostitute. Deviant sexuality is punished more harshly than those selling deviant sex. Boundaries are inevitable, but they should exist in such a way that does not make individuality impossible. For example, the unity of the Gay Rights Movement was reliant on the fact that there are a variety of types of gay men from different races and socioeconomic classes, but they were all invited to accommodate for the common benefit. In fact, it is the promotion of individuality which makes these boundaries contested. Individuality means that the boundaries are not a strict division into two groups with certain rules, which can lead to less marginalization. While groups of opposing viewpoints can and should exist, it needs to be more acceptable for people to be part of many groups. In Temporarily Yours, Stein talks about the effect of boundaries on Sally, stating,  

“In the modern world, work is split into many little tasks, each performed in a different place, among different people, at different times. In each setting, we merely play a role, one of the many roles we play. None of the roles seems to take hold of our whole selves, none seems to embody what we truly are as whole and unique individuals. Not so for Sally. Everything she does is an outgrowth of her faith.” (Stein 96)  

If society were to act entirely as Stein suggests, as members of many different groups with many different roles, there would be less marginalization of the minority because there would be less of an “us vs. them” dynamic where the society is divided by the binary of normal and abnormal. Conclusively, the social boundaries expressed in Temporarily Yours and Stranger Next Door are very similar, and if their binary dynamic were to be eradicated, the marginalization of minority groups would decrease.  

[briberrioswriter2020]

Anti-Theatricality in Endgame

Theatre is defined by its audience, but its purpose is more complicated. Is it an art meant to temporarily satisfy in the presence of one to enjoy it or does it stand on its own? Is theatre meant to merely entertain or to show some greater meaning? Samuel Beckett would argue the latter. If the theatre is meant to entertain, the true artistry of it lies within the actors and other people producing the play, whereas if its purpose is to show some greater meaning, the art is within the playwright. The problem, then, with theatre is that the actors, directors, and others involved in the production of a play can conflate or misinterpret the intentions of the playwright in order to facilitate the comprehension and entertainment of the audience. The playwright, leaving behind only written instructions to guide a performance, cannot be in control of the actors, directors, producers or stage managers. Thus is the problem of theatre: the imperfect representation of the play.

Beckett’s Endgame is an example of diegetic theatre. In diegetic theatre, the narrator explicitly reveals details about the world and its characters. They present an interior view of the world that the audience would not have received through dialogue or setting. The narrator tells the story, as opposed to it just being shown. Diegesis can be contrasted with mimesis in that it tells rather than shows. According to Plato’s Republic, tragedy and comedy are mimetic, that is, entirely based in imitation. Beckett’s Endgame is an attempt at anti-theatricality in that it avoids mimesis in Plato’s sense, but simultaneously endorses the strongest mimesis, in that Beckett wants his plays to be performed exactly as he has written them. Here he lies in Aristotle’s intermediate area of mimesis; the play is both showing and telling. Beckett, however, takes the traditional mimetic elements of the play, the dialogue and the events of the plot, and de-emphasizes them. Endgame is a play with little dialogue and even less of a plot; instead, the action lies within the narration. That is, Beckett is attempting to reconstitute the action of the story as diegetic because the majority of the action occurs within the stage directions and narration.  

Beckett uses extensive stage directions to control his actors: he attempts to remove the acting. In having such extensive stage directions, the play might be closer to the same every time that it is performed; in a way, Beckett is perfecting the act of mimesis. However, taking the creativity away from the actors takes away its theatricality in that it removes a lot of the potential for spectacular or sensationalist acting: his play will always be performed as he wanted. Extensive stage directions control the actors’ spontaneity, which is precisely what Beckett intended. In Beckett’s mind, the closer one followed his play, the farther one was from the traditional mimesis of theatre and the closer one was to reality.  

He also creates a setting which can be very easily recreated; a setting that does not exist in reality but can exist over and over again in the world of the play. The setting of Endgame is a strangely barren one, featuring only a single room with two dustbins. Another use of the term “diegetic”, particularly in filmmaking, refers to the world within the story, the world in which the characters exist. In the diegetic world of Endgame, there seems to be nothing more than these characters, nothing outside of the window, and nothing more than what is presented on the stage. Most theatre uses the spectacular to exaggerate reality, but Beckett’s theatre uses the unremarkable to create a most realistic simulation.  

Beckett’s way of turning his play into an anti-theatrical work was by turning it into a collection of symbols. To do this, he attempts to impose meaning and significance on the objects and gestures in the performance. A first look at the importance of gestures in Beckett’s play is a look at the title of the play. Endgame refers to the point in a game of chess when there are four or fewer pieces left on the table. There are only four characters in Endgame and they all have restrictions on how they can move, much likes pieces in a game of chess. Clov is the only character that can walk, but his movements are characterized as “stiff and staggering” and Hamm is confined to a wheelchair while Nagg and Nell are confined to dustbins. In reducing the dialogue to a bare minimum, Beckett is attempting to show meaning through movement. The fact that Clov can barely walk is a greater metaphor for how trapped the characters are in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. There is also significance to his walking in and out, the constant repetition of this pointless ambling which makes it as if Clov is a chess piece trapped in some position where he can only move forward and backward, constantly protecting the immobilized king Hamm, but never able to end the game of chess.  

The play Endgame not only polices the tone of its actors, but it also relies on the changing of tone, in some instances, for the narrative to make sense. For example, during Hamm’s monologue on page 36, he switches from “normal voice” to “narrative voice.” This is yet again an example of Beckett attempting to say more with action than dialogue; for the audience to notice the change of tone is more significant than what Hamm is actually saying. Beckett once stated that his ultimate goal was to write a play without any dialogue. The difference between narrative voice and normal voice is also an interesting one. “Normal voice” implies that this play is not a play in which the actor should not speak in his “theatrical voice” but merely in his normal one. That is, of course, unless he is telling a story in which he should use his “narrative voice” which is to say that Beckett believes that people sound a lot different when they are telling a story as opposed to when they are speaking normally, different enough that the audience should be able to notice this change in tone while Hamm is speaking.  

Beckett was known for his directing style; he refused to allow any divergence from his original stage directions or any other part of his play. He would go so far as to sue directors for diverging from his plays. In his play Waiting for Godot which features two male actors, he attempted to stop any performance of the play with female actors, and succeeded even after his death when in 1992, when a judge in Paris refused a director permission to use female actors as it would be “a violation of Beckett’s moral rights.” Beckett felt that an alteration to his script was an affront on his artistry and an attempt to clarify the message he was conveying, but he emphasized throughout his career that attempting to convey a message was entirely missing the point. He’s quoted as saying, “Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear, and does not make clear.” An art that attempts to make clear would be a representation or mimesis, and this is exactly the kind of art that Beckett and Plato did not respect as art.  

In conclusion, there are a lot of angles of anti-theatricality in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, including the setting and the stage directions. The stage directions, in particular, do most of the work to remove the agency from the actors and do away with most of the spectacle and gaudiness that comes with theatricality. Beckett’s absurdist play takes an unremarkable setting, sparse dialogue, and extensively specific movements to create a simulation of reality. Beckett never intended for his plays to be about something, he wanted them to be something, to be the art, not to replicate it. Beckett’s attempts at anti-theatricality are relatively successful, and he managed to create a world both realistic and timeless.  

[briberrioswriter2020]

Analysis of Films with Black Female Leads

Film is more than entertainment; it can send the public a message, and teach them about the experiences of others. The Help (2011), Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), and The Color Purple(1985) are all films featuring Black female leads with the intention of teaching the audience about oppression. Films featuring Black female leads range from fantasy to drama, but all feature an intersection of the same three themes. An intersectionality of films with Black female leads tends to favor themes of race, class or gender, which can be problematic in that they tend to neglect the other themes.  

The three films are characteristic in that they are all concerned with the oppression of their Black female leads. While such an oppression is apparent through the themes of racism, classism and sexism, the films also happen to share oppression through physical abuse by the patriarchy. The abuse does not come from outside of the race or class of the protagonists, but is within their homes, on the level of their families. In The Help, Minny is physically abused by her husband, a theme which was explored more in the novel The Help than the film. The abuse by the patriarchy comes from every direction for poor Celie in The Color Purple. She is first repeatedly raped and impregnated by her father, then she is bludgeoned with a rock by her new stepson, and then she is subjected to chronic abuse by her husband Albert, who forces her to have sex with him, and beats her like a child for no reason. While at no age is abuse more acceptable, for Hushpuppy, the protagonist of Beasts of the Southern Wild, what she dealt with from her father was probably less tolerable at the tender age of six years old, described in “An Analysis of Beasts of the Southern Wild” by Maria Beane: “Her neglectful, abusive and angry father Wink throws out scraps to Hushpuppy, giving her enough to survive on and enough to keep her wanting more.”  

The differing ages of the protagonists is also brought into question because while Hushpuppy carries the entire film on her back as a six-year-old, Aibileen from The Help is an adult woman, and only a very small piece of her life is shown in the film. On the contrary, in The Color Purple, the audience watches Celie grow from a young girl to an adult woman, as the film takes place over decades. Going along with age is the development of voice in each of the films. Though Hushpuppy is young, she has a powerful voice that develops throughout the movie as she is forced to survive on her own. The Color Purple begins with Celie silent, unable to speak out against her oppressors, and she receives the poignant message, “You have to fight.” Eventually, Celie does learn to fight, and she speaks out against Albert and leaves him. The Help features an ensemble of characters developing their voice; Black domestic servants agree to work with a journalist to publish a book about their experiences as to spread the truth of their oppression. Instead of taking place over a span of time, The Help encapsulates the moment of change, focusing on the events that immediately caused the people to speak out against their oppressors.  

Because The Help takes place in a singular moment, the audience does not get to see the change implemented. Unlike the other two films, The Help is not concerned with a period of time, but like the other films, The Help is a period place, taking place in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, and it emphasizes the importance of its time period by including historical political events in the film. While The Color Purple is concerned enough with time to include the years on the screen, the film does not seem wholly concerned with the politics of the time, instead incorporating the music of the era through Shug Avery. Out of the three films, Beasts of the Southern Wild, treats time the most unusually by not allowing the audience to pin the film to a specific time period. The audience assumes that the film takes place near present day, but with its fantastic and apocalyptic aspects, something seems futuristic. The post-racial culture of the film, which will later be explored in depth, also gives the film a feeling of being out-of-time. Confusion that arises from the time period of the film can be compensated by the familiar setting; in fact, all three films take place in the American South. Need connection to next paragraph

Through the three films intersectionality of race, class and gender, one can notice the favoring of gender through the forcing of traditional gender roles, the ambiguity of gender, and the importance of motherhood. In The Help, all black female characters are forced into domestic servitude. In “Considering Social Divisiveness: Offensive Communication, Historical Fiction, and The Help,” Pat Arneson cites that in the 1960s, “Up to 90 percent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes.” (Arneson 15) So while The Help is historically accurate, it focuses entirely on the aspect of Black women's lives that involves them engaging in a traditionally female job. Similarly, in The Color Purple, Celie is forced into servitude as the wife of Albert. When Albert is deciding to take Celie as his wife, he states that he is specifically looking for someone to take care of his children and clean his house, which is exactly what Celie is forced to do. For much of the film, Celie accepts this position without protest, and is very good at being the traditional housewife. Even young Hushpuppy is forced into traditional gender roles, when she is forced to take care of her own house and prepare her own food. In forcing these women into traditional gender roles, the three films highlight the plight of women.

Hushpuppy's traditional gender role only goes so far. At the beginning of the film, the audience may be unsure of whether Hushpuppy is a girl or a boy, as she is dressed in boy's clothes. When it is revealed that Hushpuppy does not have a mother, one can assume that Hushpuppy is probably gender ambiguous because she does not have a female role model to teach her how to be a woman. However, her relationship with her father Wink reveals that he wants her to be a boy. Through the film, Wink refers to her as “man,” and at one point, the “King of the Bathtub.” He expresses to Hushpuppy the value of physical strength by arm wrestling her, teaching her to fish with her hands, and forcing her to break open her own crab. In “An Analysis of Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Beane examines this relationship, stating, “[Wink] wants [Hushpuppy] to be a boy, I sense, not because he would value a boy more, but because he sees a girl as more vulnerable, more delicate, softer, and more unlikely to survive in the harsh world.” (Beane 1) Hushpuppy expresses femininity later in the film when she is wearing a dress, but the pressure from her father to be a boy is confusing and oppressive for the young girl. Her absent mother also affects her identity as Hushpuppy struggles to understand what a mother is.

Motherhood is a consistent expression of gender in the films, as mothers and mothering are important to each of the protagonists.  In The Help, Aibileen is in mourning of her son. The women of the film never got to raise their own children because they were always raising someone else's. Even though Aibileen has raised many babies, none of them can take the place of her son. Minny's relationship with her children is very powerful, as unlike Aibileen, she has many of her own to raise, and Minny is faced with disappointment when she is forced to have her daughter become a maid, continuing the oppressive cycle of traditional gender roles. Celie has the same experience when her own children are taken away from her as soon as they are born, and she is forced to raise Albert's children instead. While she raises Albert's children, there is no sign of intimacy between Celie and the children, and she does not mother them. This is in contrast to Aibileen, who had a very personal relationship with the children she raised that were not her own.

Of the three films, The Color Purple handles gender best. In the film, Celie's struggles all arise from the fact that she is a woman, rather than a Black woman, and her voice develops from the notion that as a woman, she was silenced, but she can overcome that oppression. One can argue that The Color Purple is more about womanhood than it is about race. Beasts of the Southern Wild features a complex understanding of gender, and a character whose gender identity is confused through environmental factors. While gender is not central in this film, it is handled very well as a theme. The Help seems to handle gender the least well, because while Aibileen is very dissatisfied with her job, she loves the mothering aspect. The Help not only keeps its main character in a traditional gender role, it also does not focus on the oppression of women specifically, but rather the oppression of the Black community as a whole through the lens of a white female protagonist. While some of the films explore the theme of gender better than others, all three films also explore the theme of classism.  

In “Considering Social Divisiveness: Offensive Communication, Historical Fiction, and The Help,” the author refers to the statistic, “Black Americans are 20 times poorer than white Americans.” (Arneson 15) With knowledge of this economic disparity, it seems that the films simply cannot ignore the classism that comes with being a Black female. The Color Purple focuses hugely on classism, but it is classism on the individual level of Celie. Despite the fact that Albert is a wealthy man who is able to provide for Celie, Celie still has nothing of her own. The Color Purple discusses classism through entrepreneurship; for example, Harpo turning his house into a juke joint, which ultimately inspires Celie to start her own pants business and become very successful. Shug Avery, the female who is portrayed as the most independent, is self-made through her singing talents. The Color Purple focuses on the plight of the truly poor, Celie, who literally has no possessions and rises from nothing.  

Similarly, Beasts of the Southern Wild focuses on the truly poor, set in a destitute community. Of the three films, Beasts of the Southern Wild certainly favors classism as the most challenging plight of the Black female protagonist. At the start of the film, the audience gets a glimpse of the utter poverty in which Hushpuppy has been raised, but the film takes poverty a step further when a storm destroys the Bathtub, leaving its residents struggling for survival. While Celie has no possessions, she is at least not at the level of Hushpuppy, who must kill her own food to eat, or else resort to eating leaves. Beasts of the Southern Wild is not trying to water down reality; the Bathtub is in-your-face poverty, deliberately shocking to the majority of Americans, especially since the community is full of children. Through elaborate costuming and setting, the film takes the audience into a world of grave poverty.  

Grave poverty is not the level of poverty in The Help; though there is some indication that the Black people in the film are poor, they are certainly not destitute. In fact, The Help is rather ironic in that its title references the working class, but the film itself focuses more on racism than classism. In the film, Skeeter writes a book based on the accounts of Black people who have worked as domestic servants, but the book highlights the fact that their plight is entirely because of their race. In reading about the plight of the working class, one would expect to learn about how wealth inequality is so oppressive. The Help does touch on this briefly, as one maid is unable to send her sons to college and is denied a raise, which leads her to steal a ring and ultimately get arrested. However, the film frames this incident as racism showing white police officers aggressively dragging the maid away. Of the three films, The Help neglects classism the most, despite the fact that classism seems to be most relevant to the film, and instead focuses on racism.  

In The Color Purple, the race of the protagonist does not seem to be a theme for the first half of the film because every character in the film is the same race. For the first half of the film, the only white people the audience sees are the mailman and several extras in the background. The film also takes place in the American South, at least thirty years earlier than The Help, so it is slightly surprising that race plays such a small role. The Color Purple treats racism similarly to how The Help treats classism. There is a single incident where racism is thematized when Sofia is asked to be a maid to the mayor's wife, and subsequently punches the mayor. However, the incident is framed more as the oppression of women than the oppression of Black people. Sofia is an independent, outspoken woman who turns away from traditional womanly behavior, and because of this, she is jailed and beaten. Other than this singular incident, it is easy find the fact that Celie is Black insignificant. In an entirely Black community, The Color Purple generally avoids racism as an oppressive force, without claiming to be post-racial.  

Beasts of the Southern Wild, on the other hand, does claim to be post-racial. The unspecified time period makes is possible that the story takes place in a post-racial world that does not yet exist, making the fact that Hushpuppy's race is never even acknowledged more believable. The Bathtub is a multiracial community, and the children act as siblings regardless of their race. No child is favored more for food or education; the members of the Bathtub seem to be colorblind. Beasts of the Southern Wild is rife with tragedy and a fight for survival, which forces its characters to work together, and implies that the characters have been working this well together since before the time span of the film. To create this post-racial world, it is important that Beasts of the Southern Wild shows the Bathtub both before and after the storm, unlike The Help which does not expand upon what happens after the book is published. At the end of The Help, the audience is expected to know what happens next because the film is historical. However, by ending on such a positive note and leaving the audience to complete the ending with their knowledge of history, the film gives the impression that the world of the film immediately after it ends is a post-racial world. Skeeter, though she was raised similarly to her friends, is not a racist, and the difference between she and her friends is that she went to college. This implies that education cures racism, and thus, this book which will educate the public on the racism experienced by domestic servants, will cure racism. In her article, Pat Arneson explains, “By the end of the story, the presumption is that racism is somehow over in the United States.” (Arneson 15) According to Arneson, if The Help had successfully brought awareness to racism, people would have been ashamed after seeing the film, rather than joyous.  

The Help is entirely focused on racism, and this is why it ignores classism. To get this message across, it includes a historical hate crime; the murder of Medgar Evers. White characters in the film attempt to position Blacks as physically different and inferior beings who carry diseases and should not be allowed to use the same bathroom. There is a dichotomy established in The Help where white is associated with cleanliness. The “shit in the pie” incident involving Minny was supposed to be a sickening revenge, but rather it associates Blackness with defecation. While the point of the film seems to be to show how far we have come in the fight against racism, the film occasionally undermines racism by turning serious situations into comedy.  Arneson explains this undermining with and example from the film: “Portrayed in the film, when Celia’s husband Johnny does find Minny on his property, she runs, he chases her. The audience laughs. In the era of Jim Crow, too many factual stories exist about white people shooting or killing black people without reason. Minny’s behaviors when running from Celia’s husband are not unreasonable to some audience members.” (Arneson 15) The Help also has the problem of telling its entire story through a wealthy, educated, white female narrator. More so, the film engages themes of gender through the white female narrator. Skeeter is faced with discrimination when she attempts to get a job as a journalist, and is forced to write a housekeeping column because she is a woman. While this is a very real issue, the film frames itself as a film about race, and by mentioning the plights of a very privileged woman, takes away from the plight of the Black women, who face the same sexism, as well as racism and classism. While The Help ultimately favors racism most in its intersectionality of themes, it does so somewhat unsuccessfully.  

Through this analysis, one can come to conclusions about which films favor themes of racism, classism, or gender, and which films neglect these themes. The Color Purple most favors gender, but most neglects racism. One can argue, however, that the fact that The Color Purple neglects racism is not problematic because the film describes the experience of a single individual in a unique story. While racism is undeniably an issue for Black women in the 1930s, it was not a significant part of Celie's experience because she was in an entirely Black community, and faced severe oppression for her gender instead. However, the denial of racism is slightly problematic because it is rather unrealistic that Celie personally faced absolutely no racism in the thirty year span of the film. Beasts of the Southern Wild most favors class, and denies race by turning it into something not even notable. Because of its ambiguous temporal setting, the post-racial world of the film is believable. However, the issue of gender could have been expanded further in the film. Beasts of the Southern Wild would have functioned nearly the same had Hushpuppy been a boy, but this is problematic because there are problems that realistically should have arisen because Hushpuppy is a girl. Her physical strength, for example, could have become more of an issue in the film. However, the fact that the film did not place much significance on her gender is understandable because she is six years old, and therefore can function under the category of child, much like how the gender of infants is often irrelevant. Finally, The Help favors racism, while neglecting classism and gender. This neglect is the least excusable because the film is a representation of a historical group of people who certainly dealt with classism and sexism. The oppression that occurs in all three films centers around three broad categories, favoring some more than others, but there is the commonality of oppression through physical abuse.  

It seems that the commonality of physical abuse is the most problematic part of the three films. From an outside perspective, one would make the connection that all films featuring Black female leads must feature physical abuse. Because the systematic oppression through racism, classism and sexism are not enough, poverty and minority status must always be accompanied by violence against women. A more positive view of this commonality is that it is to raise awareness of violence against women and the oppression of the patriarchy, furthering the theme of gender in each film. However, it is sad that all three films felt that their message of oppression will not come across strongly enough unless someone is being abused.  

[briberrioswriter2020]

Junk Poetry

Just glory daze of lines and lays

Umbilical cords strangle conscience

Nosebleed drains and sallow face

Killing time will haunt us

Puncture wounds and phallic moods

Opiates obfuscate memory

Erratic dudes and violent feuds

There’s no way you’ll remember me

Recall the daze and love always

Your whore who writes junk poetry

[briberrioswriter2020]

Suicide Notes

Every day, I try and toil

To interrupt this mortal coil

Every night, I lie awake

And pray the Lord my soul to take

Every day, I love and labor

For the reaper, my dark savior

Every night, I hold my breath

And summon sweet release of death

I’m out for myself, my blood, my soul

Dismembering my body’s whole

Silence my mind as it repeats,

“Kill yourself.” No greater feats

When out from my throat

Sang a suicide note

Can’t get to the roof

Guns cost too much

Too light for a noose

The pills go down rough

Trains go too slow

Bodies float anyway

Veins don’t always blow

Don’t kill yourself today

[briberrioswriter2020]

Falling Down

Dropping names and chasing fame

Gaining thrills and stacking bills

Drawing lines and bagging dimes

Breaking hearts and smoking darts

Selling out and losing clout

Hurting friends and splitting ends

Cutting ties and telling lies

Stealing stuff and sleeping rough

Missing marks and getting dark

Turning tricks and feeling sick

Shooting dope and losing hope

Being sad and doing bad

[briberrioswriter2020]

Write Something Witchy

Tiger stripes and coal-rimmed eyes

Hand print throats and fake deep quotes

Coffin claws and aching jaws

Close cropped hair and anal tears

Pretty face drips drool and cum

And that’s what sluts are made from

Soak your fist

With my shredded uterus

Coat your dick

With my stomach acid slick

Fill your lips

With my salty yellow drip

And paint your tongue

With the sphincter of my bum 

Break my body, steal my things

Nothing will cut off my wings

All the sadistic thoughts you think,

Nothing will fulfill my kink

[briberrioswriter2020]

Gravity

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

Ropes redundant, won’t pull away

Allured, attracted, actually attached

Visage of longing, fear unmatched

I’ve been enchanted, and then ensnared

This body bound, my limbs impaired

Your heart’s a Master, your eyes gravity

[briberrioswriter2020]

Meaningless Sex

Giant yellow fucking pools; sweat or urine?

Speckled with cigarette burns and period blood

Sans sheets plus one bare body beckoning

A fairy, stoned, but doe-eyed smirks

At black ink, incongruent, bold face tattoos

Stale nicotine lingering tongue and gums

Hairy, dewey, sallow skin, sunken beady eyes

Freckled hands and arms with entry wounds

It’s a cheap polyester relationship

Seams ripping like the twin sized dorm bed

That you’re cursed to fornicate in

Bodies tangled like a jammed sewing machine 

You don’t know what you’re doing

But you can’t get it apart

Those last threads grasping

Because the needle put them there

Does an angel’s overdose feel like

Going to sleep

Or is it more like

Drowning?

You’re every kid on acid

Who just discovered the ceiling

Blessed to die

Naked and high

He took the drugs

She took the knife

[briberrioswriter2020]

erotic little poem

Maybe I would moan a little louder

If you fingered me as gently

As you turn the page

Flirting isn’t any more

Than shotgunning that blunt to me

And running your tongue along

My Dutch glossed bottom lip

Will the line of your jaw

Slice the inside of my thighs?

[briberrioswriter2020]

i hate you

i really hate the way 

your name 

tickles my throat 

like the type of 

scratchy feeling no

cough can cure no

drink can quench you are

stuck in my throat like

an ice cube,

cold and suffocating but

gone in seconds and

certainly not deadly but

you always remember those

few seconds when

you thought you were dying

anyway don't ever think

i'm talking about you

to anyone because i'm not but

i'm probably up all night

coughing and

thinking about how 

i really hate the way

your name tickles my throat

[briberrioswriter2020]

Donne’s Androgyny

     The metaphysical poets are characterized by their extensive figurative language, which provides a breadth of interpretations.  A master of these conceits, John Donne wrote poems that were deliberately ambiguous, perhaps a reflection of his inquisitiveness.  Writing many sonnets and elegies, Donne was concerned with earthly love and the connection between earth and the divine.  For Donne, these themes intersect in the shared idea of unity.  Donne’s concern about the unity of man and woman is a point of contention because it is reflective of Donne’s gender and sexuality.  Donne is representative of a new form of androgyny, an identity which he partially adopts, and which is partially retroactively placed upon him, and his confusion about this novel androgyny is reflected in his esoteric and enigmatic poetry.  While this pattern is found in many of Donne’s poems, I will focus specifically on “The Canonization”, while referencing other of Donne’s poems as examples of his style.  Donne’s image of an androgynous phoenix in “The Canonization” coupled with his allusion to riddle provide illustrious examples of Donne’s new androgyny that is present in many of his poems. 

    To understand this “new androgyny” which Donne embodies, one must understand what androgyny is in the most general sense. In her essay, “John Donne and the Limitation of Androgyny”, Virginia Mollenkott outlines the potential misinterpretations of androgyny.  Her definition of androgyny is “Whether understood as a physical or a psychological combination of male and female characteristics, the essence of androgyny is the concept of the two within the one. ”  She explains that one may look at the androgynous being as a balance or a fusion.  When man and woman are represented as one person, such as in marriage, there is a subsuming of the woman by the man.  The woman is overshadowed, and though there is a union, the woman becomes part of the man; there is no new object created.  However, when androgyny is viewed as a fusion, the union of man and woman becomes something entirely new.  The androgyne is neither man nor woman, but components of both, which Mollenkott calls the balanced/dialectical model, and states, “Within this balanced/dialectical model, the idea of androgyny is truly liberating. ” (Mollenkott 23) This relates to John Donne because he as a preacher-poet features balanced components of man and woman, reflected in his contradictory personal characteristics. Donne’s identity as the balanced/dialectical androgyne is influenced by poetic, historical, and religious sources.  

     Donne’s poetic influence in the development of his identity comes from riddle poetry.  A riddle is a dialectic thing.  There is the question and the answer, which synthesize together to make sense.  Donne, like all of the metaphysical poets, had a preoccupation with wordplay, and there are often multiple meanings in his verse.  In his poem “The Canonization”, Donne specifically mentions the riddle of the phoenix.  “Donne’s Riddles” is a 1984 essay written by Alison R.  Rieke for The Journal of English and Germanic Philology addressing Donne’s preoccupation with riddles, and the different types of riddles that may be found in his poetry.  The essay discusses the enigmatic subgenres found in Donne’s poetry, as well as the importance of Donne’s fascination with the truth in paradoxes.  Through close reading Donne’s poem “The Canonization”, I will gather evidence to defend the idea that Donne’s confusion about his own androgyny is reflected in his poetry.  By amalgamating androgyny and the phoenix’s riddle in the poem, Donne expresses a particular fascination with gender while emphasizing his inquisitive curiosity.  Furthermore, he is continuing a tradition of poets that has existed since before writing. 

      According to Rieke, Donne was in possession of a book called Aenigmatographia, an anthology that compiled everything know about riddles and riddling.  Like epic poets whose tales featured riddles, Donne includes riddle-play in his poetry to pay homage.  Donne’s interest in referencing the Classical poets is apparent through his Sapphic poem “Sapho and Philenaes” which makes direct allusion to Ovid.  As such, like all poets before him, he is occupying a feminine space as a poet; from the female Muse goddesses of Greek mythology, there is something inherently feminine about writing poetry.  To be a male poet, particularly one obsessed with riddles and gender is to be a balanced androgyne, confounded by your own contradictions. 

     Historically, Donne was writing at the turn of a century, and took influence from the events occurring around him.  The European colonization of the Americas was clearly impactful to his poetry, as he references it in poems such as “To His Mistress Going to Bed”.  John Donne was likely familiar with a specific speech by Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled during Donne’s lifetime.  As the first female monarch of the British Empire, Elizabeth’s reign was greatly influential to the people’s view on gender roles.  Elizabeth presented a contradiction because an empire consisted of a union between man and woman.  The man in this instance is the monarch and the woman is the land.  For Elizabeth to successfully fulfill the equation of the empire, she embodied androgyny, not denying her identity as a woman, but pairing it with an identity as a man.  Elizabeth I never married nor had children and often wore armor.  In her “Speech to the Troops at Tilbury” delivered in 1588, Elizabeth claims to have the body of a woman, but “the heart and stomach of a king. ” If we are to take her claim literally, Elizabeth fits the definition of androgyny.  Donne was certainly familiar with this speech since he would have been sixteen years old when it was delivered.  

     Donne’s religious identity developed throughout his lifetime and included his conversion from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England.  He was raised a Roman Catholic by his family, a religion which was illegal in England at the time, and kept the religion until adulthood when he began to question it.  His skepticism of Catholicism is reflective of his desire to question everything.  Donne’s religiosity was fueled by intellectual curiosity.  Furthermore, space that he occupies as a Catholic-turned-Protestant is similar to the dialectal union of opposites that forms androgyny.  Once he converted to the Church of England, Donne fiercely rejected Catholicism, writing anti-Catholic polemics.  A religious man throughout his life, Donne devoted much of his musings to pondering the union between man and the divine and used symbols and conceits in his poems to express this fixation.  An instance of this is Donne’s titling of “The Canonization”, which refers to the ecclesiastic practice of placing one in the canon of saints or to deify.  While Donne’s religious influence is apparent in his poems, it also informs his identity as an androgynous figure. 

     Much focus has been given to how Donne developed his androgynous identity, one that he would probably not claim.  However, this identity was also developed for Donne through environmental factors and his relationships to other people.  Donne becomes the androgyne not only through those poetic, historical, and religious factors but through his propensity for submissiveness and bisexuality.  By acting with prescriptive feminine characteristics and sexual tendencies, Donne contains parts of both man and woman.  To construe such a manifest misogynist as Donne as a submissive and bisexual, one must examine his relationships to the subjects about which he writes.  

     To view Donne as submissive, one must look to how the women for which he writes treat him.  “Women among the Metaphysicals: A Case, Mostly, of Being Donne For” is a 1989 essay by Janel Mueller for Modern Philology that addresses the relationship between Donne and the women for which he writes.  Mueller asserts that contrary to most modern conceptions, Donne is actually subservient to the woman, not the other way around.  She examines a poet named Dryden’s criticism of Donne which asserts that women are subjects in his poetry and prose, and refutes that Donne is a subject of these women.  Mueller’s analysis gives new perspective to the gender and sexuality dynamics of the seventeenth century and allows for a more feminist reading of Donne’s work.  Famed for his love poetry, Donne addressed many of his poems to his objects of affection/infatuation.  However, Donne was often snubbed by these women, resulting in his writing more desperate and lascivious poetry.  As Mueller argues, “Crucial initiatives for the production and reception of Donne's poetry rest with these women; they patronize him, not he them. ” (Mueller 142).  Donne thinks he is in the dominant role in this dynamic, but his love objects have him strung up and wrapped around their fingers like a puppet.  

     Our theories on Donne’s sexuality are dependent on those which are the subjects of his poems.  While most have assumed Donne’s heterosexuality, many have questioned the famous love poet’s sexual orientation and why it matters in relation to studying his poems.  “(Re)Placing John Donne in the History of Sexuality” is a 2005 essay written by Rebecca Ann Bach.  In the essay, she discusses how history has placed Donne as the trademark heterosexual poet and ignores his blatant misogyny.  However, Bach argues that Donne is not heterosexual, and one source of evidence is his blatant misogyny.  She argues that our understanding of seventeenth-century categories of sexuality may be skewed and that Donne is certainly not the modern heterosexual.  Bach never refers to Donne’s sexuality explicitly as bisexuality, but cites historical references that fit the profile, such as “Donne, according to himself, wasted his youth in the very pleasurable pursuit of sex with women.  At the same time, he was involved in deep love relationships with male friends until a profligate pursuit of one woman-Ann More, who became his wife-exiled him, for a time, from the circles of male friendship that constituted his life. ” (Bach 264) Throughout the article, Bach distinguishes between not being homosexual because you are not attracted to the same sex and not being homosexual because it is a sin.  Donne admits to his youthful homosexual desires, then represses them because he views them as sinful in nature.  His misogynistic poetry portraying women as nothing more than sexual objects is then an admission of guilt in hopes that his even greater sins—those in which he sexually engaging with men—will be forgiven.  In Donne’s words, according to Bach, “Throughout his writings later in life, Donne rails against man's sinful nature and excoriates his own forays into sin. ” (Bach 267).  Donne openly admits to his forays into lust with women—indeed he makes beautiful verse out of them—but he either falsifies the gender of his male sexual endeavors or does not write about them in fear of religious persecution.  Donne’s objectification of women is a defense mechanism against his views as his own sinful and emasculating homosexuality.

      While Donne may not have been a heterosexual, there is some investigation into whether Donne created the model for the modern heterosexual man.  Through Donne’s blatant objectification of women, for example in such poems as “To His Mistress Going to Bed”, Donne created the paradigm for women-disparaging cisgender heterosexual men.  It was his own discontent with his gender and sexuality that developed this romanticized misogynistic version of Donne.  Furthermore, it is possible that Donne’s fierce opposition to his own identity misleads people into becoming the modern heterosexual man—a sexuality which in Donne’s time looked very different than it does today.  As Bach points out, “Donne obviously loved having sex with women.  In some of his poems, his speakers sound like stereotypically sex-obsessed fraternity brothers, in others like the sensitive men of Cosmopolitan magazine dreams, and in others like Larry Flynt of Hustler fame. ” (Bach 263) However, Bach also insists that Donne does not identify with this sexuality which he represents, asserting, “despite the fact that Donne's sexual practices and the way he represents sex resemble modern sexual practices and the way sex might be represented today, his ways of understanding and representing sexual practices differentiate him utterly from modern heterosexuality. ” (Bach 263).  Donne’s identity is one that may not exist today, but I purport that our conception of the modern androgyne is the identity that best suits Donne. 

      This submission and the elementals of homosexuality which forms Donne’s bisexuality turn Donne into the androgynous being with which he is fascinated.  Donne’s fascination with this theme is reflected is many of his poems which focus on a union between man and woman wherein they unite to form something else.  Furthermore, Donne is fascinated by this theme if only for its closeness to the union of man and divine, a space which Donne actively sought to occupy.  In his poetry, Donne references unions of opposites as well as paradoxes.  His central question seems to be something like this: what is created when perfect opposites are united? Some examples of opposites which Donne noticed were as follows: man, the divine, man and woman, dominance and submission, Catholic and Anglican, life and death.  What makes Donne the father of the metaphysical poets is his expert use of conceit which relies on the comparison of unlike things.  In his poem, “The Canonization”, Donne makes expert use of conceit on multiple levels.  Though dissects the many layers of the poem, one can elucidate the ways in which Donne plays with opposites and paradoxes and attempts to engage readers with his central question.  Though Donne wrote many dialectal poems, “The Canonization” provides excellent close-reading material when considering the theme of androgyny in Donne’s poetry.  

     At this point, it seems appropriate to engage in a close-reading of Donne’s poem, “The Canonization. ” This poem of Donne’s is concerned with an unknown addressee disrupting the speaker’s love, a love which is so great that it is deserving of canonization.  Donne alludes to religion while addressing love, balancing these two central themes of all of his poetry.  It is within this poem that the reader can speculate upon Donne’s preoccupation with opposites, which is reflective of his identity as an androgynous poet.  

     In “The Canonization”, the speaker and his lover exist in a world separate from everyone else.  This theme of lovers existing in a microcosm is prevalent throughout Donne’s poetry, as there was a notion during the Renaissance that the human body was a microcosm of the physical world, and the mind was the monarch.  Donne possibly agreed that we are all tiny worlds and seemed to believe that two true lovers form a singular world together.  There are other examples of this theme of singularity in Donne’s poetry.  "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" speaks of "Our two soules therefore, which are one" In "The Extasie" the speaker depicts two lovers whose souls speak as one.  In “The Canonization”, the speaker seems to prefer to be in this separate world with his lover where he will “build in sonnets pretty rooms”.  The speaker and his lover exist in multiple layers of tiny worlds.  They exist in their reality where it’s only the two of them, and they exist in the immortal world of the poem. 

   These worlds which Donne describes for lovers are only ever populated by two, partly male and partly female.  Without describing it as androgyny, Donne imagines a thing which is a union between man and woman, a world which they occupy with balance.  One can see the immersiveness of this world through the speaker’s desperate obsession with his lover.  He spurns all of his responsibilities and other desires to focus solely on the all-encompassing love, existing in another world with his lover.  What is this androgynous space and how does it work with Donne’s central questions of union? Donne also addresses this space in his poem “The Sun Rising”, another poem about one of Donne’s love affairs.  In the poem, Donne compares the lover’s room to their own world, berating the sun for interrupting it.  The Renaissance notion of each human body as a microcosm for the physical world coupled with Donne’s notion of lover’s existing in their own world leaves room for an androgynous world-being.  

     “The Canonization” asserts that the love is worthy of being remembered as highly as saints but does not explain why or what makes this love so worthy.  There are no qualifications of the love other than its greatness.  In fact, the world poem is defending the greatness of the love without providing evidence for its greatness.  Though the speaker seems obsessed with his love object, he does not provide any character traits or physical qualities of her.  The lover has no agency in the poem, so the reader cannot know her opinion on the speaker.  She does not seem to be present in the setting of the poem, and she is only referenced in relation to the speaker.  The greatness of the love and the lover is generated through the reader’s imagination in response to the speaker’s defense of it.  Because the speaker is so presumptuously defending he and his lover’s right to love, the reader develops an idea of this love as supreme, perhaps even divine.  That Donne would have the audacity to compare the love to the canonization of saints gives the reader the impression that it must be that great because a pious man such as Donne would not be so blasphemous as to lie about that.  The fact that Donne asserts that his lovers should be canonized is precisely what canonizes them in the reader’s mind.  Basically, their love must be great because Donne wrote a poem about it.  Donne reminds us of this through the self-aware line, “Our legend be, it will be fit for verse. ” In calling the love a “legend”, Donne asserts its importance and immortality.  He goes on to further praise the love with testimonial, claiming “all shall approve. ” Donne’s level of praise has the reader developing their own conceptions of what this love must be.  Given no description of the love, the reader can imagine their own subjective perfect love and embody the experience of the speaker; this makes the poem resonate with any reader.  Had Donne given specific description of the lover, the poem may not have been so ubiquitous.  Even when the love is described as not hurting anyone, the reader gains the impression that it is powerful.  The speaker states that his act of loving has not harmed anyone, but that does not mean his love is not powerful.  Without any context for their relationship, the speaker and his lover present an image of love worthy of jealousy.  This image is predicated not upon anything inherent about the lovers, but upon the defense of their love from the assault and criticism of the addressee.   

     Donne conflates the lovers by comparing them to the same thing, though it is unclear if they are meant to be copies of the same object or one singular object.  Donne uses these comparisons to symbolize the union of lovers and the singular new thing that is created from this union.  This symbolism is consistent throughout Donne’s poetry.  The speaker first compares himself and his lover to a fly, suggesting, “Call her one, me another fly”.  While one might like to think the latter, the word “another” in this line implies that they are two flies, rather than one single fly embodying two lovers.  However, they have both become a fly, sexless and the same.  Is the fly the metamorphosis of the union of lovers? Perhaps this is what new thing they become when you combine parts of each.  In the next line, the speaker compares the lovers to tapers or candles.  The pluralization in this line might suggest that there are two tapers and each lover embodies one of them, but it could be understood that the two lovers together embody many tapers.  Even if they are two separate tapers, they have again transformed into objects that are sexless and the same.  The likening of the lovers to tapers is interesting because it implies that they are transient yet powerful.  The image of love as a candle further reinforces the strength of the love to the reader without any real descriptors.  Though he is objectifying himself and his lover, the speaker makes such unusual comparisons that they do not read as offensive.  The significance of the fly and the taper has yet to be elucidated, but the ordinariness of these items while maintaining the strength of the love speaks to Donne’s poetic prowess.  Donne makes further, more specific remarks about the union of the lovers in the remainder of the stanza.  

     If Donne had no conception of androgyny, then he would not have been able to make the illustrious comparison of an eagle and a dove forming a phoenix.  Like the tradition of riddle poetry before him, Donne poses a riddle about the union of man and woman through referencing the ancient mythological riddle of the phoenix.  Examine the following lines:

“And we in us find the eagle and the dove.                  The phœnix riddle hath more wit                By us; we two being one, are it. So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.         We die and rise the same, and prove         Mysterious by this love. ”

The first line does suggest that the speaker and the lover find the eagle and the dove within themselves, rather than transforming into an eagle and a dove.  This brings up the following question: does one lover find an eagle within them, and another with a dove within them or do they both find the eagle and the dove within them.  The eagle is this line is meant to symbolize masculinity, while the dove symbolizes femininity.  If one lover finds an eagle within them and the other a dove, who is to say that man finds an eagle and the woman finds a dove? If the speaker finds the dove within himself, representing the feminine and by extension, his lover, he is an androgyne, one consisting of both male and female parts.  The lover, as well, if she finds the eagle within herself, is an androgyne.  If they both find both the eagle and the dove within themselves, they are still both androgynes.  

     The second line contains an allusion to the phoenix’s riddle, which is worth reading into in more depth.  As mentioned above, Donne looked for inspiration from a book called Aenigmatographica, which included Homeric, Heraclitan and Pythagorean riddles.  It with in this book that Donne because familiar with the riddle of the phoenix, of which it contains at least six versions.  Despite my research, I am unable to locate a translation of the riddle of the phoenix from Latin, but there is a riddle within the myth of the phoenix as a fantastic creature. 

     The phoenix as a combination of the eagle and the dove embodies the dialectical union of two things transforming into something different.  Rieke calls this “the famous conceit of the hermaphroditic phoenix. ” (Rieke 1).  It is the masculinity of the eagle and the femininity of the dove which make the phoenix “hermaphroditic” or androgynous.  “Hermaphroditic” is an outdated term, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means “A person or animal (really or apparently) having both male and female sex organs. ” This definition is limited to sex organs, but its use has included male and female characteristics as well. The phoenix represents a cycle of death and rebirth through its bursting its flames and rising from the ashes is representative of the cycle of the two lovers.  Their love for each other is so fierce that it is as if bursting into flames, and they rise from the flames together as one.  The speaker states that the phoenix riddle “hath more wit” when it is about the speaker and his lover because they embody the phoenix.  More than just containing parts of each other through the eagle and the dove, the lovers embody the “hermaphroditic phoenix”, the union of the two into the one. Through this line, Donne expresses his obsession with the androgynous. 

     Draw attention to the line “hath more wit”, which is representative of Donne’s use of paradox and riddle.  Donne is testing the reader’s own wit and their willingness to interpret this stanza and a riddle.  Within this line, the lovers are not only embodied by the phoenix, but also by the wit of the phoenix, which, by them, has more wit.  This “wit” to which Donne is referring might be the unsolvable paradox.  How can the phoenix perform these impossibilities, such as rising from its own ashes and embodies two creatures at once? Similarly, how can the love be so strong as to act as a single thing, embodying a balanced union of the lovers? These are the questions which Donne poses with this wit.  Much like the performative way in which the poem perpetuates the canonization of the lovers, the poem perpetuates wit through its use of conceit.  The extended metaphor of the phoenix coupled with the metaphor of canonization provides an environment of cleverness, of which readers may continually discern more layers. 

     More apparent evidence of Donne’s preoccupation with the union of the two into the one cannot be found than the line which reads, “we two being one, are it”.  This is the ultimate “wit” with which Donne is obsessed with understanding.  Donne is not specific in describing what the “it” is supposed to mean, and that is precisely the point of this conceit.  Rather than using a pluralized pronoun, Donne employs the singular referring back to the “riddle”.  What becomes of the union of man and woman is to Donne a riddle, but he believes this state exists in the most perfect of relationships.  When Donne describes “two being one”, nothing points to a sexual reading.  He could be referring to a physical, sexual bond, or a marital one, or a strong emotional union.  Donne seems to be imagining a sort of divine being which transcends man or woman because man and woman are unable to comprehend it, hence the “riddle”.  This is supported by the following line, where this “it” is described further. 

     In the following line, Donne is specific with his references to androgyny.  He proposes that the lovers are “one neutral thing both sexes fit. ” It is clear from this line that Donne only things there are two sexes, and this third neutral thing is not its own sex, but a combination of the two.  This fits nicely with our definition of androgyny, which asserts that the androgyne is one partly male and partly female.  In Mollenkott’s analysis of Donne’s androgyny, she describes this neutral space nicely stating, “Because they two have become one organic being, they are a fabulous phoenix-like “one neutrall thing”—not neuter but in perfect equilibrium, since of course the phoenix contained both sexes” (Mollenkott 23).  The word “fit” supports this argument, as since both lovers fit they are perfect balance.  The emphatic use of the word “one” in this line underscores the importance of singularity in union.  However, to form this union is not easy, which is why Donne is so concerned with understanding it.  Is it love that catalyzes this union, or something more required? In the following line, Donne gives insight to how the androgyne may be formed.   Apparently, for the speaker and the lover to “rise the same”, they must die.  This is alluding to the myth of the phoenix, which is immortal because it bursts into flames at its death and rises anew from the ashes.  Perhaps this is not a necessary qualification of becoming “the same”, but when they do die, they rise the same.  When considering Donne’s Christian background, this line may reflect Christian themes.  Donne’s exploration of the man-woman union is tied to his exploration of the man-God union, which Jesus Christ represents. The resurrected Jesus represents the union of man-God that Donne wishes to understand, and he alludes to this here by describing his lovers are rising from the dead and becoming the same.  Furthermore, Donne is not specific in his description of “the same” because he does not understand what the union of man and woman creates.  Thus, the lovers “prove / Mysterious by this love. ” Because Donne does not understand what the union of man and woman creates, those who achieve it perfectly are deserving of canonization because they have solved one the great mysteries.  Donne is trying to achieve this perfect unity himself, and in that endeavor, developing his own androgyny.  Donne’s self-consciousness is reflected in the self-consciousness of the speaker in this poem.  

     The speaker’s preoccupation with status and success unveils the self-consciousness he experiences with himself, and by extension the self-consciousness Donne feels as an androgynous poet.  Donne’s own lack of success as a poet emasculated him throughout his lifetime, as he was unable to make money writing poetry for a time, and unable to provide for his rather large family.  This probably made Donne feel uncomfortable with his masculinity but led him to encourage others to reject gender norms and follow their passions.  In the poem, the speaker refers to the wealth of others, specifically that of his addressee.  From the first stanza, one may assume that the speaker does not come from a noble background, as he refers to his “ruined fortune”.  The speaker was once wealthy, and still consorts with people who are wealthy, such as the addressee, but harbored bitterness about his own financial insecurity. The speaker may harbor strong love for this woman, but she may not accept him for his “ruined fortune”.  This may also be the reason that the addressee is attempting to stop this love; he does not approve of the speaker who cannot provide for his lover.  This analysis greatly changes the meaning of the poem as a whole.  While it is still describing a love so strong that it is deserving of canonization, it is also providing a message to follow your heart, even if you are of a different economic status than your lover.  Furthermore, fortune does not define how strong one may love, so what does it matter? If Donne is representative of the speaker, this poem is representative of Donne’s life.  One may read the poem as a defense of love over corrupting political values, a passionate testimonial to follow your heart, as the truest love is also the purest.  

     To examine “The Canonization” is only to examine one example of Donne’s preoccupation with the space between male and female and the space of defying gender normative standards.  With this poem, Donne addresses themes of man and the divine as well as man and woman.  The combination of these themes represents the two paradoxes which most concerned Donne.  Through utilizing paradox and riddle in his poems, Donne attempts to affix the reader with the same perturbance regarding the idea of androgyny.  Through influence from historical riddle poetry, Queen Elizabeth I, and his religious identity, Donne became an androgyne of his time.  His struggle with this identity is reflected in his poetry, though historical misinterpretation may have placed him as the father of modern heterosexuality.  

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The Anti-Dystopian Waste Land

     The title The Waste Land innately evokes something terrifying. The first image that a reader may have after hearing the title is a barren and wrecked landscape, devoid of humanity or hope, shock factor that is likely exactly was Eliot was attempting to capture. However, The Waste Land is not about a dystopia, but rather about consciousness. Throughout the poem, one notices that the argument for The Waste Land as dystopian literature, but the argument for The Waste Land as an exploration of consciousness is stronger. As a modernist poet, Eliot utilizes the ideas of modernism in that he makes the poem something immortal and individual, which he does through using the poem as an exploration of consciousness.

     Eliot upholds the strong belief that modernism is immortal and individual.  In his essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, Eliot talks about how good modernists must incorporate both aspects at the same time if they wish to rise to the level of tradition. In the essay, he states “the most individual parts of [a poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously”, ascertaining Eliot's belief that individuality and immortality go hand in hand. At the same time, Eliot believes that modernism has a lot to do with consciousness, specifically the consciousness of the past. In “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, Eliot defines the present as “the present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show.” Though he deliberately made The Waste Land one giant allusion to other works, Eliot made sure that the poem stood on its own as an individual piece of writing. To do this, Eliot made certain to depersonalize the poem; he wanted The Waste Land to be its own entity with none of himself in it. In its own paragraph, Eliot states, “What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.” in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Tradition will be examined further in the following paragraphs. 

     Before further analyzing The Waste Land as dystopian literature or an exploration of consciousness, it is important to first define the two ideas. When referring to dystopia, dystopia can be taken to generally mean a dystopian future. The prefix “dys” means diseased, bad and faulty, and the root “topia” means a society or a city. The word “utopia” means the exact opposite, a perfect city where everything is good and happy. However, utopian is not the word to use in place of “anti-dystopian” because simply because The Waste Land is opposed to being classified as dystopian, does not mean it is classified as utopian in any sense. When looking to categorize something as dystopian literature, one looks for three things: a loss of consciousness or intelligence, references to the future and the deterioration of modern society into a society unpleasant by modern standards. An exploration of consciousness, on the other hand, is almost exactly the opposite. Consciousness is not associated with the future; the human mind can recall the past, but can only be in the present, and has no foresight into the future. Also, quite obviously, an exploration of consciousness is the exact opposite of a loss of consciousness or intelligence, as is highly common in dystopian literature. Finally, a person who is conscious of his or her surroundings would not allow his or her society to deteriorate into something of which he or she disapproves. By definition, consciousness is simply being aware of external and internal happenings. Through his use of an exploration of consciousness rather than dystopian themes, Eliot makes The Waste Land a traditional piece of literature.

     By definition, tradition is a belief or object passed down in a society that is still maintained in the present with origins in the past. In many ways, a dystopian society is anti-tradition. In literature, including The Republic of the Future, which will be discussed later, dystopian societies are created from the abolition of the past. Also, tradition has a lot to do with belief and ritual, two words which are very much the opposite of the idea of a lack of consciousness. Finally, the term tradition is extremely contrary to the deterioration of any society, as tradition wishes to maintain the origins of the past in the present. This concept is extremely important to Eliot in his poetry, and he puts forth much effort to obtain tradition. As he states, “Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.[...] historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.” The second half of the quote truly expresses Eliot's passion for obtaining this status as “tradition.” Throughout The Waste Land, one can examine various examples of Eliot attempting to solidify his position as a “traditional” poet, but first, one must examine the argument and the implications of Eliot's The Waste Land as dystopian literature rather than an exploration of consciousness.

     While Eliot's time is somewhat before the explosion of dystopian literature, there are several examples one can examine to understand why, at the time of its publication, The Waste Land may have evoked images of a dystopian future in some readers. Most notably, H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine, published in 1895, talks about a dystopian future where humans are lacking intelligence, bringing them to the same level as animals. Similarly, Anna Bowman Dodd's novella, The Republic of the Future (1887), talks about a futuristic New York City where the population is lacking free will. However, while the reader may have thought of these writings based on the title of the poem, one wonders where in the poem Eliot references a dystopian future. The most appropriate answer to this question is to look at Eliot's constant references to the future through the poem. In “Burial of the Dead”, the reader meets “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante”. The clairvoyante and her tarot cards are referenced throughout the poem. As far as the barren landscape often associated with a dystopia, one can look to the beginning of “The Fire Sermon”:

The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses.

In this excerpt, one can notice several aspects common to dystopian literature. The deterioration of society, as represented through the lack of “testimony of summer nights” is a reference back to dystopia. If a reader examines the section “What the Thunder Said”, one will notice that this section is absolutely full of references to a deteriorating society. Looking back at the three marks of dystopian literature, one also notices several times in the poem a loss of consciousness or intelligence. In the section “A Game of Chess”, both characters in the first half seem to be losing their minds. Specifically, the woman refers to “that Shakespherian rag” as “so intelligent”, a series of lines meant to be ironic because the woman is lacking consciousness and intelligence. Finally, one must look at the historical context of The Waste Land. 

     Eliot wrote the poem after World War I, and several times in the poem, including with the male speaker in “A Game of Chess”, Eliot suggests that his speakers are suffering from the aftermath of a great war, trapped in post-traumatic stress. From the first line, “April is the cruelest month”, Eliot suggests an inability to grow. In both cases, being trapped sounds like the lives of the characters in The Time Machine and The Republic of the Future, the former a society where the residents are too unintelligent for growth and the latter and society where the inhabitants are too oppressed for free will. Finally, the reader can note the four lines about London:

Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.

More than any other section of the poem, these lines sound like a dystopian future. The fact that London is described under a “brown fog of a winter dawn” is certainly dreary enough to be dystopian. However, what really makes the argument that these lines are dystopian is the uniformity of a huge crowd of people flowing over London Bridge. Conformity is a huge idea in dystopian literature, and its implications in these lines make the case for The Waste Land as dystopian literature even stronger.

     Despite the argument for The Waste Land as dystopian literature, there is a single problem that makes it certain that Eliot did not intend for The Waste Land to be dystopian literature: Dystopia is anti-consciousness. One source states that “Dystopian governments do not usually care for the well-being or safety of their citizens. They focus on complete control and extortion of their people.” The quote fits with the three marks of dystopian literature: taking away the free will of the people. On another note, Eliot, like many other modernists poets, was obsessed with not only capturing tradition but becoming tradition, as expressed in his aforementioned essay. In this way, Eliot was obsessed with the past, and more specifically the awareness of the past, rather than the future. From reading “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, one gets the idea that Eliot would disdain writing about the future. Eliot's images in The Waste Land are deliberately set in no specific time, allowing the poem to be read as the present decades after its publication. Also, dystopian literature presses completely the opposite of individuality. In The Republic of the Future, New York City is a conformist society where everyone dresses the same and lives in identical houses. Though arguably, Eliot could have used some conformity as the background for individuality, the major problem with that idea is that it had already been done, and Eliot is very deliberate in his efforts to make all of his writing utterly unique. 

     Both before and after Eliot's publication of The Waste Land, dystopian literature is a genre with very common characteristics. Had Eliot chosen to make The Waste Land dystopian literature, it would probably be much more like the rest of genre. Of course, according to Eliot's essay, this is exactly the type of thing he would have hated, that is, being part of a very specific genre. Eliot may have fully intended for The Waste Land to be grim and bleak, but the argument against the poem as dystopian literature is far too great to qualify it. After examining and deconstructing the argument for The Waste Land as dystopian literature, one must examine and construct the argument for The Waste Land as an exploration of consciousness. First of all, the original title of The Waste Land was “He do the Police in Different Voices”, a reference to Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. Certainly, the original title would not have done the job of evoking something terrifying as Eliot's second choice in title accomplished. According to Rickard Parker on Exploring The Waste Land, the original title “was an allusion to help the reader to understand that, while there are many different voices (speakers) in the poem, there is one central consciousness.” The main support for the argument of consciousness is that it fits with Eliot's idea of modernism. As The Waste Land is semi-satirical, it is more likely that the two characters at the beginning of “A Game of Chess” were not fully aware for the effect of irony. Also, one of the main characters most frequently referenced throughout the poem is the fortune teller, “the wisest woman in Europe” who seems to be almost hyperaware through her tarot card readings. One can also look for consciousness in the final section of The Waste Land, “What the Thunder Said” when one looks at the extreme use of personification. A section of lines with several examples would be as follows:

The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder Da Datta: what have we given?

Here, the reader sees Eliot give consciousness to the jungle and the thunder, even allowing the thunder to speak with intelligence. On a side note, thunder and a jungle are very primitive symbols, keeping with Eliot's idea of tradition. Finally, Eliot makes frequent reference to the most obvious symbol of awareness and consciousness, a prophet. Specifically, he makes a traditional and intellectual reference to the most famous prophet in Greek mythology in the following lines:

I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest.

The first thing to notice about these lines is that Tiresias is “perceiving” which, by definition means he is becoming even more aware. The second thing to note is how important Tiresias is to Eliot. In his notes on The Waste Land, Eliot states, “Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a 'character', is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.” If Eliot  makes it known that Tiresias, a symbol of knowledge and awareness, is the most important personage in The Waste Land, it is highly likely that this poem is an exploration of consciousness.

     The idea of consciousness is what makes the poem immortal and individual, and in turn, it is what makes the poem modernist. Firstly, the poem is individual in that the multiple speakers form one single consciousness. The idea of multiple beings becoming one consciousness may have arisen from Eliot's faith in the Church of England, a church marked by their belief in trinitarianism, that is, three divine persons as one essence. Eliot also references the Church of England again in the title of the section “The Burial of the Dead” since the burial of the dead is one of the sacred rites of the church. Because of the correlation between religion and tradition, this reference too is modernist. One of the central ideas of modernism is placing writing in the context of history without necessary being historical. Eliot's writing reflects this both in his essay and in The Waste Land.

     Further use of The Waste Land as the perfect definition of modernism would be its traditionality. As previously stated, the traditionality of The Waste Land is part of what makes it anti-dystopian literature. One important Eliot quote to remember has to do with his obsession with the primitive: “Poetry begins, I daresay, with a savage beating of the drum in a jungle.” Traditionality and the primitive are very closely related in that they both have to do with the retainment of the past. Eliot's dark depictions of nature is part of what makes the poem both primitive and present; it makes the poem primitive because the darkness is often associated with a dark age before science, and it makes the poem present because nature is eternal enough to be perpetually relatable. When looking for examples of traditionality, one can first look to the title of the first section, “The Burial of the Dead.” Though Eliot was likely referencing the Church of England, the burial of the dead has been an almost universal tradition since ancient times.  Also, the reader can look to one of the poem's most famous lines for an example of the most primitive emotion of fear, “I'll show you fear in a handful of dust.” Fear is most associated with the primitive because it is a basic survival mechanism; it is the ability to recognize danger and immediately get away from danger. The line is made more primitive is the depiction of fear as a handful of dust, something very earthly and universal but never associated with fear. Finally, the reader can look to the lines beginning the entire poem for another example of tradition:

"NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω."

These lines translate to: “With my own eyes I saw the Sybil of Cumae hanging in a bottle; and when the boys said to her: '[Sybil, what do you want?]' she replied, '[I want to die.]'” Most of the text is in Latin, while the characters are in Greek. Why does this make it traditional? Well, Eliot chose to begin his poem in the two classical languages. Though there is nowhere in the world that speaks these languages regularly and in daily conversation, the languages are still known and taught in schools. By choosing Greek and Latin, Eliot was not only asserting his intelligence as a scholar, but also using the two languages of the past that have the most influence on the language of the present. In short, Eliot use of other languages throughout the poem asserts traditionality quite clearly.

      Secondly, Eliot's use of references also both assert his intelligence as a scholar and maintain more traditionality. Eliot uses obscure references all over The Waste Land, this reference to Sybil of Cumae just one example. However, the references serve more of a purpose than to simply make sure Eliot maintains an intelligent audience. Eliot uses these references as another way to connect with the past. At the time of its publication, The Waste Land was the present, and looking at the definition of tradition, Eliot must have found it very important to make certain the present contained origins of the past while maintaining individuality if the poem ever wanted to become tradition itself. Judging by the universal fame of The Waste Land, Eliot definitely succeeded in this endeavor.

     In conclusion, two questions are left unanswered. First and foremost, why the title change? Had Eliot left the original title, the categorization of The Waste Land as dystopian literature would be much less frequent. As mentioned in his notes on the poem, Eliot got the title from From Ritual to Romance by Jesse L. Weston, where the term “Waste Land” is used to describe tradition. As a modernist poet, Eliot's obsession with tradition makes the title very appropriate and a title about tradition rather than a title about consciousness probably makes the poem more directly modernist as Eliot was going attempting to do. Finally, the second question the reader must ask himself or herself is whether Eliot believes in a dystopian future himself. Though it is likely that Eliot was never even asked that question, from his depictions of the dreariness of society, one can answer “probably.” While Eliot avoided being classified as dystopian literature, that does not mean that Eliot does not believe that the world is a diseased, bad and faulty society. Despite Eliot's anti-dystopian waste land, it is likely that the poet believes both the present and the future to be a dystopian world.