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April 19, 2006
The Color of Water - Loyalty is a funny thing.
McBride, The Color of Water (1996) -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
"I was always worried that Tateh's gun would go off and accidentally kill him while he was cleaning it. Although I was afraid of him, I didn't want anything to happen to him."
I think this can be best explicated by Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind: "How closely women cluth the very chains that bind them."
By every measurable standard Mommy's life would probably be better of Tateh WERE to accidentally kill himself. Depsite the success of the store she doesn't have any too much in the way of material comfort. Meanwhile, all the misery in her life - the spiritual poverty of being oppressed and friendless - can be traced back to her father. So why doesn't she want to lose him? My first thought was, perhaps, a primitive form of Stockholm Syndrome. However, my understanding of Stockholm Syndrome is that those afflicted with it are blind to the faults of their captors.
For tose unfamiliar with the term, Stockholm Syndrome is the term applied to the irrational loyalty that a hostage may feel for a captor. I researched it on Wikipedia, and in all the cases cited, the victim was unable to mentally resist the camptor. Such famous cases cited include that of millionaire Patty Hearst, kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, who ended up aiding and abetting the group in their illegal activities without trying to resist, and Elizabeth Smart, the 14-year-old girl who made headlines several years ago for being kidnapped, and despite physical and sexual abuse from her captors lived with them for many months without needing to be restrained. Mommy's situation, however, is different. Unlike those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, Mommy is clearly afraid of her captor - er, father. She clearly resists him mentally even if she is trapped in her home. So why does she feel this loyalty to him? it is so utterly illogical. Why does she feel loyalty to someone who has done nothing to inspire it?
Posted by MeganRitter at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2006
What a waste of ink....Frost's "Fire and Ice"
Hughes and Frost -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice,
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
I admire Frost's work for the elegant spareness of his language. He says a great deal in very few words. This poem, however? I have read it a number of times in the past. It shows up everywhere. I think it appeals to the more sordid side of our natures. (People like to read about desire.) And every time I have ever read it I have thought to myself that Frost took at least twice as many words as he needed to say what he wanted to say.
So at the start of the poem, we are wondering about the comparative destructive forces of hate and desire. At the end of the poem, we are still wondering. What does this poem actually accomplish? A big fat nothing. In the first half of the poem it seems like Frost is going somewhere with this - taking a stand for the destructive power of desire, as symbolized by ice. But then...wait for it, wait for it...He decides to not actually take a stand. It's not a BAD poem, especially in comparison to most of the drivel pouring out of today's writers. But nowhere else does Frost use so many words to say so very, very little.
Posted by MeganRitter at 04:37 PM | Comments (5)