Milestones 2013 - Pulaski Technical College

Milestones
Volume 9
2013
Milestones is a publication of:
Pulaski Technical College
3000 West Scenic Drive
North Little Rock, Arkansas 72118
501-812-2200
www.pulaskitech.edu
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Adviser
Joey Cole
Editorial Board
Matt Chase
Lea Clyburn
Joan Dudley
Kate Evans
Laura Govia
Jason Hancock
Leslie Lovenstein
Jonathan Purkiss
Managing Editors
Sandy Longhorn
Leslie Lovenstein
Founding Editors
Wade Derden and Angie Macri
Design/Cover Art
Amy Green
Our Thanks To:
Dr. Margaret Ellibee; Dr. Michael DeLong; Patricia Palmer; Mary
Ann Shope; Cindy Harkey; David Glover; Cindy Nesmith; Lilly
Dixon; BJ Marcotte; Tim Jones; Amy Green; Tracy Courage; Tom
Melson; Lennon Parker; Tim Walbert; Melinda Gaston; Billie Egli;
Tena Carrigan; Michelle Anderson; Kelly Owens; Wendy Davis and
the staff of the Pulaski Technical College Libraries; members of the
Pulaski Technical College Library Committee; the staff of the Pulaski
Technical College Physical Plant; and the faculty, staff, and students
who have continued to show interest and enthusiasm in this publication.
©2014 Pulaski Technical College
Works appearing in Milestones are printed with the permission of the
authors. Copyright reverts to authors immediately following publication.
Milestones is published annually by Pulaski Technical College
through the Division of Fine Arts and Humanities.
Submissions to Milestones are accepted year-round via e-mail at
milestones@pulaskitech.edu. The publication accepts academic essays,
personal narratives, and creative nonfiction. Anyone associated with
Pulaski Technical College is encouraged to submit to Milestones.
The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of
Pulaski Technical College or those of any of the college personnel or
people responsible for publishing this journal.
Please note: The language and content contained in this journal may
not be suitable for all readers.
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MILESTONES
2013
Volume 9
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Editor’s Note
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Arachnophobia and First Impressions of The Hobbit
8th Annual National Library Week Essay Contest Winner
Vashti Hanline
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An Imperfect Dollhouse
Zachary Griffin
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Four-Letter Words
Robert McCarville
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The Instruments of Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues”
Kimberly Ogden
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The Gym Rat’s Secret
Jeannine Smith
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Inside the Tormented Mind of Edgar Allan Poe
Barbara Riveira
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The Honesty of a Nag
Treell M. Gorden
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Generation TeXt
Jeremy D. Hardison
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Manipulation, Murder and Mayhem:
The Psychopathology of Iago
Vicki McDonald
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3
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
4
The Brilliant but Doomed Design of the
Wankel Rotary Engine
Ryan Abbey
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Unity in Diversity amongst Non-Conformists:
A Message from Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”
Jonathan Whitehead
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Equating Equals
Shara Richards
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Visitation
Elizabeth L. Sullivan
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May He Rest in Peace
Thomas Goss
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Contributors
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Editor’s Note
The labor of many individuals has made the publication of Milestones
Volume 9 possible. This journal came to life in 2004 through the vision
and perseverance of Angie Macri and Wade Derden. Together they
established Milestones as both a showcase of student excellence and
a source of pride for Pulaski Technical College. In 2011, Sandy Longhorn
became Managing Editor and built upon this solid foundation, and with
the help of the editorial board, she oversaw the transition of Milestones
to a model for students and a tool for instructors.
Since serving as the Managing Editor of Milestones beginning in 2014,
I have a heightened sense of appreciation for the work the previous
editors have put into the journal. It is only because of the foundation,
organization, and standard of excellence they have set that I feel confident
in my ability to continue their tradition of excellence. I would like to
thank Angie, Wade, and Sandy for their service and support.
In addition to the previous editors, numerous students and instructors
have poured their energy into this publication. Instructors have created
and facilitated writing assignments, students have completed those
assignments with feedback from their peers and instructors and
bravely submitted their work to Milestones, and the members of the
editorial board have selected the best of those contributions and edited
them. Volume 9 is proof that the collaborative writing process works
and is a reminder of not only the determination of our students, but
also of their thoughtfulness and talent.
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As you read through the varied essays in this publication, I urge you
to think about the significance of writing in your life. I sincerely hope
you will consider contributing your writing to Milestones and become
a part of this process.
Leslie Lovenstein
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8th Annual National Library Week Essay Contest Winner
VA S H T I H A N L I N E
Arachnophobia and
First Impressions of The Hobbit
Life seems determined to give me arachnophobia (the fear of
spiders) and it has quite nearly succeeded. The most recent episode
involved me, my bathtub, and a spider three inches in diameter. Suffice
it to say that the resulting freak-out was both noisy and hilarious. My
most notable episode of arachnophobia had nothing to do with literal
spiders, though. It occurred when I was ten years old while attempting
to read a book called The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. From that rocky
start, though, I have grown to fall in love with Tolkien's writing.
Tolkien's books have since influenced my life for the better, despite
originally terrifying me.
To say I disliked The Hobbit the first time I cracked it open
would be an understatement. At age ten I read voraciously, and the
more books I could get my hands on the better for all concerned. I'd
heard of The Lord of the Rings a couple of times. The older siblings
of my friends and the parents of said friends raved about the series
loudly and vigorously. When a family I knew watched the movies
while babysitting me, though, I caught a few glimpses of orcs that
utterly terrified me. They made enough of an impression that I refused
to rush in blindly. I knew that The Hobbit preceded The Lord of the
Rings, so I decided to borrow an illustrated version from the library.
I tentatively cracked open the book to a random page. It happened to
have a beautifully-drawn, full-page illustration, which immediately
drew my attention.
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The picture I landed on, despite the artistic quality, couldn't
have been worse. It depicted a number of suspicious cobweb-covered
bundles against a forest-like background. When I read the opposite
page, I discovered to my absolute horror that the bundles were
dwarves and the webs were made by giant spiders. There had to be
some mistake, I thought, so I proceeded to read a few pages. My
revulsion did not abate with the pages I turned, though. Instead, the
book subjected me to a series of unpleasant images in which poor
innocent-sounding people fought for their lives against those ghastly
monsters. Tolkien described the spiders in all-too-loving detail,
capturing me in a world with them even better than the illustration. I
panicked, shut the book and put it in the library returns pile with a
dull, sick feeling that I would never sleep again.
Six years later, I still had not read anything by Tolkien or
fully watched a movie based on his books. I could still remember that
horrid picture filled with webs and the poor dwarves about to be
devoured by nightmare-sized spiders. Still, all sorts of people, whether
random strangers or friends whose opinions I respected, recommended
that I read The Lord of the Rings. I finally decided to gather my tattered
courage and brave The Hobbit. This time, I vowed, I would not get
an illustrated version.
To my surprise, almost nothing in The Hobbit scared me even
slightly. Ironically, the terrifying part with the spiders was the only
part that could possibly terrify me. Instead, I loved the simple themes
and the fairy-tale-like plot I found in the story. I finished the book in
two days and went back to the library to borrow The Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings took me about a week to finish. By the
time I did, I had developed an obsession. The twisting plot combined
with the incredibly detailed world the story was based in (called MiddleEarth) left me in awe. Tolkien's use of invented languages in particular
intrigued me, and I looked them up online. In the process of my
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research I stumbled across a nerdy, family-friendly little forum called
“The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza” centered around Tolkien's
works. I had never been interested in forums before, but something
attracted me to this one. I had a bit of extra time on my hands, so I
signed up.
That forum began a series of new discoveries. The people
themselves were friendly, and they wrote better than the majority of
people on the internet. Like me, they loved books. Moreover, a section
of the forum was dedicated to “role-playing,” where they would write
as though characters made by them inhabited Middle-Earth, and where
they interacted with other members of the forum. I'd never run across
role-playing before, but I liked the idea. Despite my previous inability
to finish stories I started, I decided to try role-playing myself. Gradually
I became more involved in the forum.
The forum changed my life. As I had hoped, role-playing
developed my writing abilities and my motivation to finish the stories
I started. Studying Tolkien's fictional languages with the help of the
people on the forum brought me to realize my intense love of
linguistics. The introduction to simple code I had with forum codes
helped me discover my even more intense love for computers and
working with them, which led me to major in computer science.
Eventually my forum friends persuaded me to try National Novel
Writing Month, in which the participants attempt to write a 50,000
word novel in a month. To my surprise, I succeeded.
Most importantly, my shared love of Tolkien's books led me
to meet amazing people whom I would not have met otherwise, and
helped my relationships on and off the internet. I've had many an
instant connection with a stranger because we both recognized a
reference to The Lord of the Rings. When my stepfather divorced my
mother, I mostly secluded myself, but thanks to my forum friends I
was never entirely alone during my worst moments. Recently, I flew
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to North Carolina to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of a girl I met on
that forum. The Hobbit even helped my relationship with my mother.
We read the book together, and then she bought tickets for me to see
the midnight premier of the movie An Unexpected Journey, both of
which inspired some great shared moments.
My arachnophobia hasn't disappeared, but my fear of The
Hobbit died long ago, unmourned and unmissed. In its place remains
gratitude. If I'd not given Tolkien's books a second try, if I had let a
first impression of a book sway me, I would have never met some
dear friends or discovered some of my greatest passions. I would
not have had those friends during some of my toughest moments. A
book, I discovered, sometimes holds an unexpected power: the power
to change a life.
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Z A C H A RY G R I F F I N
An Imperfect Dollhouse
Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, wrote A Dollhouse in
1879. This play was one of the first steps taken during the Victorian
Age to urge and defend the progress of modern society. Ibsen desired
to address the theme of freedom in the eyebrow raising, unorthodox
view of women’s potential for personal freedom. By having Nora,
the protagonist, decide to leave her family at the end of the play, Ibsen
attacks the way society typically expects women to live their lives.
With his modernistic views, Ibsen attacked society’s views by
supporting individual freedom, feminism, and a revolution against
Victorian social norms.
Ibsen was a man on the brink of social revolution who heralded
the idea that true freedom comes only from the truth. Proposing
societal change would demand a shift in paradigm. Critic Bjorn Hemmer
explains this shift when he states, “‘Truth’ alone – that truth of the
new age such as Brandes and as Ibsen saw it – could achieve liberation.
Without truth there could be no change, no genuine ‘freedom’” (68).
Ibsen’s play presents a dramatic conflict between what society has
made truth be, according to its traditions, and the truth that Nora finds
- contradicting all of society’s expectations of her. The playwright’s
commitment to the idea that true freedom comes only from truth is
the driving force behind Nora walking out on her husband as she
realizes that her “duties” no longer hold her captive. Ibsen changes the
tone he has used to characterize Nora when truth unfolds before her
eyes as she watches her husband’s display of outrage when he finds
out that she has forged a signature for a large loan:
HELMER. Miserable creature—what have you done?
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NORA. Let me go. You shall not suffer for my sake. You
shall not take it upon yourself.
HELMER. No tragedy airs, please. … Here you shall stay
and give me an explanation. Do you understand what you
have done? Answer me? Do you understand what you have
done?
NORA. … Yes, now I am beginning to understand thoroughly.
(1797)
With this “understanding” of what she has done, Nora has
embarked upon and discovered a new truth – that she has sacrificed
everything for a man who cares more about the morals and views of
society than her. This revelation symbolizes Ibsen’s theme of freedom
coming only from truth, because Nora sees through the walls that have
held her captive for so long, setting her free.
Ibsen’s idea of social reform embraced feminism. He was
very aware of women’s inferior place in society and realized this must
change before progress could be made in society. Although for political
reasons Ibsen would not proclaim himself a feminist, he thoroughly
supported their cause as indicated by part of a speech made at the
Banquet of the Norwegian League for Women’s Rights:
The task always before my mind has been to advance our
country and to give our people a higher standard. To achieve
this, two factors are important. It is for the mothers, by
strenuous and sustained labor, to awaken a conscious feeling
of culture and discipline. This feeling must be awakened
before it will be possible to lift the people to a higher plane.
It is the women who shall solve the human problem. As
mothers they shall solve it. And only in that capacity can
they solve it. Here lies a great task for woman. (Ibsen 338)
Because of Ibsen’s understanding of the expected roles of women
within the family and society, he could see the potential impact that they
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could have in regards to changing society’s view of themselves. The
Victorian standards for women could be described as “duties.” These
duties included being interested or involved in the affairs of her household and children only – never in public interests or the law, these
were assigned to men only. Ibsen illustrates this in the scene between
Nora and Helmer as Helmer is insulted by her betrayal to her “duties”:
HELMER. It’s shocking. This is how you would neglect
your most sacred duties.
NORA: What do you consider my most sacred duties?
HELMER: Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties
to your husband and your children?
NORA: I have other duties just as sacred.
HELMER: That you have not. What duties could those be?
NORA: Duties to myself.
HELMER: Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.
NORA: I don’t believe that any longer. I believe that before
all else I am A reasonable human being, just as you are—
or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know
quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you
right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books;
but I can no longer content myself with what most people
say, or with what is found in books. I must think over
things for myself and get to understand them. (1802)
Within this scene, the authorial intent is to demonstrate how Nora has
risen above society’s inferior view of women and their tasks. Nora has
risen to equality with men, becoming an individual instead of a
“woman.” She can no longer define herself in the confines of “wife”
or “mother.” Ibsen claims that to effectively be either of these, Nora
must first discover her true individual self.
The Victorian social norms dictated that women were essentially
property owned by the men of society. Ibsen displays great irony
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when Nora leaves her family, undermining her husband’s ownership
of her and embodying true freedom. Since women did not work and
stayed inside the home, not bringing any financial support into it, men
were perpetually encouraged to carry this idea of ownership. At the
beginning of the play, Ibsen portrays Nora as a housewife who crochets,
does needlework and embroidery. Her identity at that time comes
from what she does for her children and husband, most importantly in
pleasing them. This idealism is what Ibsen wanted dismantled so that
a woman could become her true self and be set free from traditional
expectations. According to Tori Moi, “Ibsen’s critique of idealism is
the condition of possibility for his revolutionary analysis of gender in
modernity…. Nora’s struggle for recognition as a human being is
rightly considered an exemplary case of women’s struggle for political
and social rights” (257). Nora does not want to be only a housewife
owned by her husband, living to please only him and his whims, but she
wants her own autonomy, her own voice. Ibsen uses Nora’s character to
defy what was commonly considered appropriate for women. The
following scene demonstrates the height of a husband’s idealistic
thinking in the Victorian Age:
HELMER: You have no idea what a true man’s heart is like,
Nora. There is something so indescribably sweet and
satisfying, to a man, in the knowledge That he has forgiven
his wife—forgiven her freely, and with all his heart. It
seems as if that had made her, as it were, doubly his own;
he has given her a new life, so to speak; and she has in a
way become both wife and child to him. (1799)
There is very little more to say upon the subject of ownership after
reading Helmer’s narcissistic interpretation of it. The audience sees
inside Helmer’s heart, a person who truly believes that forgiveness
equals dominance, power, and ultimately ownership. The irony Ibsen
uses to paint a dramatic picture is when the totally unexpected happens
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to Helmer: A woman, his wife, who was once owned, after realizing
the truth, gains her freedom and leaves her husband and children.
Ibsen’s attack on society’s expectations of how women
should live their lives directly relates to his own personal feelings that
individual freedom is the highest calling. Ibsen challenges the audience
to look inside their own lives and to identify if this problem of typifying
women’s roles exists in their own homes or minds. Ibsen concludes
his play with the weakest character actually becoming the strongest,
declaring that although women have been undermined and excused,
given no real thought as to being someone with their own opinions
and ideas, they are actually undeniably the carriers of society into
modernization. As Ibsen stated in his speech, women must be active
in their roles as wives, home makers, mothers, and individuals to push
through into society this idea of individual freedom.
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Works Cited
Hemmer, Bjorn. “Ibsen and the Realistic Problem Drama.” The
Cambridge Companion to Ibsen. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1994.
68-88. Print.
Ibsen, Henrik. “Speech at the Banquet of the Norwegian League for
Women’s Rights.” Ibsen Letters and Speeches. Ed. Evert
Sprinchorn. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964. 337-38.
Print. Rpt. in Ibsen’s Selected Plays: A Norton Critical Edition.
Ed. Brian Johnston. New York: Norton, 2004. 437. Print.
---. A Dollhouse. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing.
Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. 10th ed. Boston:
Longman, 2012. 1758-804. Print.
Moi, Tori. “‘First and Foremost a Human Being’: Idealism, Theatre,
and Gender in A Doll’s House.” Modern Drama 49.3 (Fall
2006): 256-84. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15
July 2011.
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R O B E RT M c C A RV I L L E
Four-Letter Words
"My son got 'kilt' yesterday," he slurred as he walked up to
me. His outstretched arms surrounded me in an embrace. My mind
began to race for an appropriate response. Just how, exactly, are you
supposed to respond when a random stranger hugs you and tells you
that his son wore a Scottish outfit the previous day? My subconscious
double-clutched a thought and backfired a response to my mind. Be
careful of the words you use as they may return one day to haunt you.
The stranger looked at me through puffy, bloodshot eyes. His
tear-stained face looked slightly up at me. He was about five foot six
to my five eleven. He had a gold cap on one of his front teeth and several
layers of gold circling his neck. He was dressed all in black except
for his white shoes. I had a drunken stranger with his arms around me,
looking into my eyes. Already reeling, his next words, "I love you,
you know that," overloaded my brain.
"Thank you. I love you too," I quipped, unthinking to whiteshoe guy for lack of anything intelligent to say. He began to cry and
tell me about how his son got “kilt.” I interjected random bits of condolence as societal custom dictates. Realization dawned slowly that
his son was not Scottish. I didn’t even know this guy's name. I
walked my dog by his house in the evening. I walked by a lot of
houses.
"I will come back soon," I also said without thinking, "and
check on you."
"Okay," he sniffled and tottered back to a house filled with
people also wearing black.
I continued the walk, thinking about the strange encounter.
As the night deepened, a shadowy ghost of a past encounter sent a
chill of memory up my spine.
Many years ago, I worked for a delivery service. On a courier
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run one warm summer day, the van had a tire go flat. I exited the
highway at the Dixon Road exit and looked for a place to change to
the spare tire. I located a neglected driveway not far from the exit
and pulled in. The pitted drive led up to a matching house that time
had almost finished consuming. Loose shingles and broken shutters
lay on the ground mixed with fallen branches from the large oaks dotting the yard. Layers of dust held the chipped and faded paint to the
rickety wooden structure.
"Who's that?" an old man called out from a shadowy corner
of the front porch. "Is someone there?"
"Hello," I said loudly, approaching the porch, "the tire on the
van is flat. Do you mind if I change the tire in your drive?" He
agreed, provided I do him a favor first. Looking in my direction with
milky, vacant eyes, he asked me into his house. He said that on a table
next to the sofa was a Bible. He asked if I would get it and read to him
from it. “I’m going blind and can’t read anymore,” he said. I looked
at him with a sense of caution mixed with curiosity. The only threat
posed by his shrunken frame in his vintage Sunday best seemed to be
of crumbling to dust if touched.
I cautiously climbed onto the porch and looked through the
mesh screen door and saw the sofa and the book next to it. Ten seconds
later, I had the Book and asked where he'd like me to read.
“Anywhere,” he responded quietly, his milky eyes glistening
in anticipation. I opened his Bible and let the fates decide the page.
I began to read. Time seemed to slow as I stood over him reading
passage after passage. The words issued forth from me, flowing in a
voice not entirely my own. After a few pages, his eyes closed. After
a few more, his breathing settled to a slow, rhythmic pattern.
I closed the book and set it on the small table next to him.
As I turned to go, he said quietly, "Son, will you come back and read
to me again sometime?"
I absently responded, "Sure, I will come back soon." I retraced
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my steps across the creaking porch, down the faded wooden steps, and
along the drive to the waiting van. I changed the tire and got back on
my route. The dash clock reminded me that I was now an hour behind
schedule. I had ten hours of driving ahead of me that I needed to
squeeze down into nine. I got back on the highway and began mental
recalculations, promptly forgetting all about the man, the Book, and
my words.
One day, what felt like only a couple of years later, I began
to think of the old man on Dixon Road. Dixon Road was about a
twenty minute drive from my house. I began the drive back in time.
I took the ominously familiar exit and turned for the pitted driveway...
and into a gas station parking lot. No house, no driveway, no blind old
man sitting alone on his porch.
I waited too long, I thought to myself. But then, what kind
of psychopath would have actually wandered back up to a random
stranger to read from his Bible to him? The same kind of psychopath
that would do it in the first place, it would seem. I went into to the old
gas station and bought a soda and began chatting with the owner. He
remembered moving into the area about ten years ago when the station
was new. He thanked me for the purchase and invited me to return
soon. I smiled at him and waved goodbye, without another word.
I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, reflecting on the
past with regret and allowed feelings of melancholy to wash over me.
There were so many times that I had thought about the old man, but I
never seemed to have had the time to stop for him. The speed of life
seemed to always get in the way of the living. About half way home,
the math kicked in. What had felt like a couple of years had been almost
fifteen of them.
The next evening, I saw white-shoe guy’s house as I walked
the dog. Ghostlike, the tree branches beckoned me in as a breeze
sighed overhead. I turned up the drive as haunting visions of the past
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overlaid the present. I “came back,” I tell myself as the weight of an
old ghost faded silently from my soul. Over fifteen years of regret
had burdened me over some four-letter words that I said that day so
long ago. Tonight, I fulfilled those words, both past and present. My
head was lifted slightly higher by the time I reached the other end of
the drive. I knocked as I reached the door and waited for freedom to
answer.
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K I M B E R LY O G D E N
The Instruments of Darkness in
“Sonny’s Blues”
James Baldwin’s symbolic use of darkness takes on many
different representations throughout the short story “Sonny’s Blues.”
Detailing Brother’s and Sonny’s constant inner struggles, this story
takes its readers through the closed off world Brother pretends to live
in, Mama’s account of familial tragedy, little Grace’s death, Sonny’s
addictions, and Sonny’s performance in the jazz club, which eventually
brings the two brothers together. Baldwin’s use of dark and light plays
on the circumstances in which people are conditioned to survive not
only in their familial roles, but also in their community roles, and how
they view the world at large and deal with it on a personal level.
In the beginning of the story, Brother attempts to use the coping
mechanism of denial so that he does not have to see or hear what is
truly going on around him or what he calls, “the light.” After reading
about Sonny’s arrest for possession of heroin, Brother states, “I couldn’t
believe it” (Baldwin 63). Later, while in the classroom, Brother also
says, “I had suspicions,” and “I had kept it outside me for a long time”
(Baldwin 64; emphasis added). Thus Brother personally acknowledges
that he has known but hasn’t allowed himself to process the reality. In
“‘Sonny’s Blues’: James Baldwin’s Image of Black Community,”
John M. Reilly states, “the storyteller reveals … a conventional way
of thinking … [and] attitude … as a defense.” This is further established
by Charles Duncan in “Learning to Listen to ‘Sonny’s Blues,’” as
Duncan states, “[Brother’s] social assimilation has distilled in him a
distrust of anything unconventional.”
When talking about his students, Brother references that “all
they really knew were two darknesses … their lives … and the
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movies” (Baldwin 64), suggesting to the reader that their circumstances are bleak and perhaps there is no escape other than fantasizing
through the movies what their lives could be like. Robert Reid reinforces
this in his short story criticism “The Powers of Darkness in ‘Sonny’s
Blues’” by stating, “Illusions must replace an unacceptable reality.”
On many occasions throughout the story, Brother alters reality with
more glamorized memories. For example, when reminiscing about
the last time he saw his mother alive, Brother states that the memory
is “all mixed up in [his] mind” with past memories of Mama, younger
in “pale blue … sitting on the sofa,” but during the actual conversation
she was “in black, by the window” (Baldwin 70). This once again exhibits
Brother selectively covering up darker occurrences with brighter
memories of the past.
Although Brother believes that he has made it out of the
darkness and has conformed to mainstream society, many excerpts
from “Sonny’s Blues” suggest otherwise. The first glimpse of this is
when Brother states, “It might be said, perhaps, that I had escaped …
I was a school teacher” (Baldwin 69). Although Brother is now a
school teacher, he is teaching at a school around the same type of people
and situations he grew up with on a daily basis. Brother also personally
acknowledges right before he arrives at his home with Sonny, “We
live in a housing project,” which is “rundown.” Brother states, “I had
the feeling that I was simply bringing him back into the danger he had
almost died trying to escape” (Baldwin 69), thus showing the reader
Brother is not nearly as removed as he thinks he is.
Brother looks at the world around him at large without listening
to the causes or circumstances of the conditions he is judging. While
he is talking to “a boy from around [the] block” in the school courtyard, Brother admits to himself “I felt guilty … for never having
supposed that the poor bastard had a story of his own, much less a
sad one,” showing Brother’s judgment of the way others deal with
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their circumstances if it is not the same way he has dealt with his
(Baldwin 65). By doing so, Brother uses both denial and a sense of
being above or outside of his community in order to cope with the
“darkness” of violence, poverty, and drug-use that surrounds them.
Yet, in doing so, he blinds himself to his own isolation and pain.
Baldwin’s next use of light and dark appears when Mama
tells Brother of his uncle’s death, which Brother’s father witnessed.
The use of light and dark to “illuminate” this experience helps Mama
as she tries to explain to Brother that things are not always as they
may seem. Mama starts by telling Brother “there was a moon that
night, it was bright as day” (Baldwin 71). As she continues to describe
the incident and Father’s brother getting hit, she elaborates, “your
Daddy … never … seen anything as dark as that road after the lights
of the car had gone away” (Baldwin 72), thus describing how the
evening started very bright but what was to follow would darken
things so deeply that it altered Brother’s father forever.
Mama attempts to awaken Brother to the harsh realities
surrounding him and encourages him to create a better relationship
between himself and Sonny by speaking of familial tragedy that
nobody “ever talked about” (Baldwin 71). Mama tells Brother “there’s
a lot that you don’t know.” She goes on to say, “You got to hold on
to your brother” and “you got to let him know you’s there” (Baldwin
72). Although Mama has tried to bring the two brothers closer
together, it is apparent that she has not been successful as the story
opens with Brother not having any contact with Sonny and “read[ing]
about [his arrest] in the paper” (Baldwin 63).
Baldwin uses the “darkness” of death and suffering of
Brother’s daughter, Grace, to catch his attention and open his eyes.
Brother’s guilt over his misjudgment of Grace’s condition provokes
his thought of Sonny after no contact between the two for so long.
Brother exclaims, “I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble made his
23
real” (Baldwin 77). Brother’s mistakes give way to a new sensitivity
to Sonny’s mistakes. The brothers’ last confrontation before this
realization had escalated to them both being so “mad” that Sonny
says, “[I am] dead as far as [you are] concerned,” and Brother leaves
“whistling” the tune “you going to need me, baby” (Baldwin 77).
According to James Tackach in his critical essay “The Biblical
Foundation of James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues,’” this story centers on
the “troubles … intolerances of … pain, … awakening … reconciliation
… and… redemption” of the two brothers. Ironically, after Grace’s
death, the reader is left believing that Brother is now in a position to
need Sonny and think about possible mistakes he could have made
with him as well.
It is important that the character of Sonny first comes into
the story in the form of Brother’s thoughts. Brother first describes
Sonny with a memory from “when he was about as old as the boys in
my classes,” when “his face had been bright and open … [with]
wonderfully direct brown eyes” (Baldwin 64). After reminiscing about
Sonny, Brother “wondered what he looked like now” and encounters
a “high and raggy” character from their youth (Baldwin 64). It seems
no mistake that Baldwin uses this unnamed character to show Brother
and the reader a vision of what Sonny might look like since the character
himself appears to be strung out: “his eyes looked strange … yellow,”
and “the sun deadened his damp dark brown skin” (Baldwin 65). This
example seems to be how Baldwin uses a “dark character” to contrast
the character prior to sin suggesting the forces of “dark” and “light”
in another meaning. Duncan describes Baldwin’s symbolic use of the
character of “a boyhood friend” as “destined to share Sonny’s …
plight … [of] drug-induced self-destruction.” Baldwin uses several
descriptions of Sonny in the play on light and darkness to suggest that
Sonny is fighting the darkness within himself. When Brother meets
Sonny in New York shortly after his release, Brother explains, “when
24
we shook hands, [he] looked out from the depths of his private life,
like an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light” (Baldwin 68).
Although Baldwin casts a dark shadow over Sonny’s character,
he also uses Sonny to “shine” the most light on Brother’s life with
truth and healing. During their reunification in New York, Brother
recollects when Sonny was born:
I was remembering … that I had been there when he
was born; and I had heard [his] first words …When
he started to walk, he walked from our mother
straight to me. I caught him just before he fell when
he took the first steps he ever took in this world.
(Baldwin 68)
This fond memory of Brother’s would indeed be the "bridge … [that]
would operate between [them]” (Baldwin 68) and symbolically gives
readers a glimpse of the role-reversal between the brothers that is yet
to come.
The reader is finally able to experience the most “light” or
insight along with the character of Brother when he enters the darkest
environment he could go to with Sonny, down a “dark street” into a
“night club” where “the lights were very dim” and entering into
“Sonny’s world … his kingdom.” Once inside, Brother witnesses
Sonny’s celebrity amongst the crowd and is seated “at a table in a dark
corner” and next describes the lighting on the stage as “the circle of
light” as he awaits Sonny and the other band members to begin (Baldwin
82). Sonny is then “illuminated” in more ways than one in the
“indigo light” bringing a new view as well as ears that finally can hear
through the music. Brother states, “the atmosphere … in the room
began to change” and “they all looked different” (Baldwin 83).
Readers feel Brother’s change in perspective as Sonny takes
center stage in the spotlight, allowing Sonny’s redemption to occur
and his true identity to be established as Brother “heard… understood…
25
and felt, for the first time” (Baldwin 83). Richard Albert states, “the
narrator’s reb[orn] through his experience of hearing Sonny play the
blues” in “The Jazz-Blues Motif in James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues,’”
During Sonny’s performance, Brother is flooded with memories of
loved ones, both past and present. Through processing these painful
experiences he states, “it brought something else back to me, and carried
me past it,” leaving the reader feeling the “freedom” and deliverance
from Brother’s bondage of denial (Baldwin 83). With this rebirth of
characters, Baldwin not only challenges the characters coming into
their own, gaining understanding and accomplishments of both
Brother and Sonny, but also the readers to reassess their own perceptions
of life.
Baldwin’s use of dark and light is his instrument throughout
this story illustrating good and bad in the characters’ lives, community,
and circumstances. The illumination of high points in a character’s
life as well as the dimness of low points plays on the situations in
which people in general are conditioned to survive. “Sonny’s Blues”
challenges growth and leaves readers to assess the character’s
thoughts, actions, and viewpoints on a more personal level. Through
the division and reunification of Brother and Sonny, Baldwin shows
that the only true instrument for redemption is reality.
26
Works Cited
Albert, Richard N. “The Jazz-Blues Motif in ‘Sonny’s Blues.’” College
Literature 11.2 (1984):178-185. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary
Criticism. Ed. Christopher Giroux. Vol. 90. Detroit: Gale
Research, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Nov.
2012.
Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” The Norton Introduction to Literature.
Ed. Allison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 10th ed. New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2010. 63-85. Print.
Duncan, Charles. “Learning to Listen to ‘Sonny’s Blues.’” Obsidian
II 9.2 (1994): 1+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct.
2012.
Reid, Robert. “The Powers of Darkness in ‘Sonny’s Blues.’” CLA
Journal 43.4 (June 2000): 443-453. Rpt. in Short Story
Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 98. Detroit: Gale,
2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.
Reilly, John M. “‘Sonny’s Blues’: James Baldwin’s Image of Black
Community.” Negro American Literature Forum 4.2 (July
1970): 56-60. JSTOR. Web. 2 Dec. 2012.
Tackach, James. “The Biblical Foundation of James Baldwin’s
‘Sonny’s Blues.’” Renascence: Essays on Value in Literature
59.2 (2007): 109+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7
Nov. 2012.
27
JEANNINE SMITH
The Gym Rat’s Secret
There it is in all of its intimidating glory, appearing architecturally inviting, misleadingly unthreatening, and complete with
two feverishly swinging double-doors which tempt passers-by to
enter. The doors were custom designed to serve as a protective barrier
to the community—one too terrifying to cross…one that separates us
from them. This is the entrance to a mystical land known as “the
gym”—a place where mere peasants are transformed into indestructible
beings. If one brave soul could muster up enough courage to enter,
he would gain a rare opportunity to observe the unimaginable—the
mythological…the rarest-of-the-rare species that researchers now
respectfully refer to as “gym rats” (a.k.a. “meat heads” or “beefcakes”).
Mass herds of the smelly beasts run wild in these parts, easily
recognizable by their trade-mark galloping, panting, grunting, and
glistening, all distinguishable characteristics of their breed. Yes, they
travel in packs of neon-colored, spandex-laden enticement eager to
flex their stacked pectorals into the tell-all reflective walls of their
natural habitat (or as an impressive courtship display directed towards
the female “gym rat” species). The powerful “gym rat” has
evolutionarily adapted to its treacherous environment of steel and iron.
They thrive here. And that makes all others who impose on the “gym
rat’s” territory the illegal aliens… the “prey.” For example, a
member of a less threatening species, the “couch potato” (a.k.a.
“muffin top” or “beer belly”) realizes that there has to be some sort of
secret regimen that the “gym rats” protect. He longs to discover just
how the chiseled, barbell-toting rodents achieve their physical
perfection. So what is the “gym rat’s” secret? How does the docile
“couch potato” join this elite race of rats and become adopted into the
28
pride as one of its own? The "gym rat’s" immaculate physique is
maintained through combining both strength training and cardio
exercise. Strength training and cardio exercise each have their own
specific benefits, but they are most effective when practiced together.
When the couch potato is ready to infiltrate the gym rat’s
secret society, he must first adopt a habitual routine which includes
regular cardio exercise. Cardio exercise offers many benefits which
cannot be achieved by using strength training alone. Some examples
of cardio exercise include walking, running, cycling, Zumba, or an
elliptical machine workout. Excess weight is most quickly and
effectively burned off through cardio exercise, which then allows the
appearance of underlying muscle to show through. It is a common
misconception that one should radically cut calories during this
process. However, it is important to eat six to seven small meals a day
including a diet rich in protein, fiber, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats,
and most importantly, at least sixty-four ounces of water. This will
increase the efficiency of the body’s metabolism, restore hydration,
and add valuable nutrients for extended energy. Another important
aspect to consider when addressing cardio exercise is to incorporate
adequate rest. One should abstain from cardio exercise at least two
days per week and especially when feeling lethargic or extremely low
in energy. With the new and improved working efficiency of his heart,
the couch potato will begin to feel more energized, less winded, and
ultimately leaner. He has now gained the endurance necessary to
incorporate the second key to the gym rat’s success—strength training.
Strength training, the most overlooked weapon in the gym
rat’s arsenal, is the key to obtaining a powerfully sculpted physique.
Strength training is most commonly defined as the lifting of heavy
objects in a series of repetitive sets. Some of the most popular strength
training equipment includes barbells, dumbbells, kettle bells, and freeweight machinery. It is necessary to tighten and tone the physique
29
after a significant weight loss due to cardio exercise, where excess,
flabby skin can be present. A protein and carbohydrate packed diet is
essential when strength training because extra energy is extended and
burned by the body. If ample amounts of carbohydrates and protein
are not digested, one can feel shaky, low in energy, and even nauseous
during a workout. It is common to experience muscle soreness the
day after an intense strength training session. This can be remedied by
allowing the body to rest one to two days between major muscle
groups; it is imperative to allow torn muscle fibers time to rebuild. If
the couch potato maintains a frequent strength training routine, he will
see areas of major improvement including skin elasticity, bone density,
joint mobility, muscle strength, increased energy level, improved sleep
quality, and a heightened self-esteem.
Results are measurable, noticeable, and successful when the
couch potato incorporates both cardio exercise and strength training
into his daily lifestyle. No longer will he shy away from the intimidating
terrain of the gym, for he now seamlessly blends in, unnoticeable to
his pack of predators. Finally, once and for all, he stands enlightened
to the coveted secret in its entirety—gym rats are nothing more than
former couch potatoes in disguise.
30
BARBARA RIVEIRA
Inside the Tormented Mind of
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is well known for his gothic influence in
both poetry and short fiction. Just mentioning the name "Poe" in a
crowded room seems to warrant negativities from all directions. Most
people describe his work as scary, haunting, dark, or depressing.
Some even react with a noticeable shudder. Little do they know, this
is just the reaction Poe wanted from his audience. It is difficult for
people to grasp how one's mind could be so preoccupied with chilling
topics such as death, mourning, desperation, and madness. Jeffrey
Scraba sums this up by saying, "[Poe] wants his readers to understand
the thought processes of the fictional characters who speak the words
of his poems," as well as his short stories (35). Perhaps this would be
better understood if Poe’s personal life were examined before readers
delve into his literary works, as there are obvious connections between
the two. His personal tragedies surrounding death and abandonment
heavily influenced some of his best known works, including the
poems "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" along with his short story
"The Fall of the House of Usher."
As a young child, Poe lost both of his parents. Poe was
abandoned by his alcoholic father shortly following his birth. Soon
after this his mother, Elizabeth, became ill with tuberculosis and died
in December 1811 when Poe was barely three years old. This affected
the young boy deeply and changed his outlook on life indefinitely.
According to Bonaparte, "Poe's...[childhood] dreams were nightmares—
nightmares of a mother who died of consumption with her three-yearold son by her side, her cold, lifeless hand resting on his cheek. It
was this moment that was never to fade from his memory" (qtd. in
Donschikowski).
31
The emotional scars left by this tragic event proved to be so
psychologically damaging that Poe would never heal from them.
Though he was adopted by a wealthy couple, Frances and John Allan,
the bond between the young boy and his foster parents never flourished.
Poe longed for a parental connection that he would unfortunately
never find. Sanna Dhahir notes that "biological records stress that
although the couple took good care of Poe's financial needs and provided
him with excellent schooling, they somehow failed to understand or
minister to his emotional needs." Sadly, all the money in the world
would not remedy the emotional trauma of one scarred so deeply.
After dropping out of the University of Virginia and severing
ties with his adoptive parents, Poe went to live in Boston with his
Aunt Clemm. It was during this time that he fell in love with his
young cousin Virginia, whom he married when she was just 13 years
old. She was later to die at a young age from tuberculosis, the same
disease that killed Poe's mother. Bonaparte suggests that, "by choosing
an obviously consumptive girl for his wife...Poe found means to stage
the sadistic drama, for himself, of an agonizing death like that he had
watched so breathlessly as a child" (qtd. in Donschikowski). If this
is the case, one has to wonder if Poe's personal goal in life was one of
self-inflicted torture, or if he was just simply so preoccupied with
death that he could not see past it. However, it is also possible that he
may have used his writing as a means of attempting to relive the
trauma in order to eventually overcome it.
His emotional trauma and loneliness as a child eventually led
to alcoholism in his adult life. Carlson explains the influence of alcohol
on Poe by stating, "Poe was an alcoholic, which produces depression
and during his alcoholic state of mind he reveled in the quagmire of
his tormented life, wallowed in the pain and suffering and expressed
that suffering in his prose and poetry" (qtd. in Donschikowski). This
is certainly a fair statement when the characters and situations created
by Poe in his poetry and short stories are evaluated. One can see
32
traces of Poe's emotions surrounding his mother's death embodied in
the student in "The Raven." Later, after the death of his young bride,
Virginia, he wrote "Annabel Lee" which deals with the death of a child
bride and the emotions felt by her ever-grieving husband. Finally, in
"The Fall of the House of Usher," one meets Roderick Usher, a character
who has let his life be taken over completely by the tragedies
surrounding him, much in the same way that Poe could never let go
of the tragic events that shaped his life.
A common theme shared by many of Poe's works, including
"The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "The Fall of the House of Usher,"
is one of melancholic oppression, brought about by the death of a
loved one, which ultimately leads to insanity. The speaker in the "The
Raven" is a college student who is unable to eradicate himself from
"sorrow for the lost Lenore" (Poe line 10). This sorrow places him on a
frightful trip from which he will never mentally return. He is ultimately
left to dwell within the memories of the past forevermore. There is a
similar situation presented in "Annabel Lee"; however, it is written in
the form of a grotesque fairytale that ends with shocking imagery. In
the final stanza of the poem, it is revealed that though the death of the
child-bride took place many years ago, the speaker has spent every
night of his life by her side. He sates:
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea. (Poe 38-41)
This shows that the speaker has chosen to stay frozen in time and has
never mentally progressed past the point when Annabel Lee died.
Kelly advances this idea by saying, "that the speaker of 'Annabel Lee'
cannot grow out of his grief, which some might consider an embarrassing personality weakness, can actually be a source of pride in the
experience-obsessed world of a Poe poem." This is certainly a valid
33
claim due to Poe's personal history with tragedy. Similarly, "The Fall
of the House of Usher" shares a parallel theme with "The Raven" and
"Annabel Lee," but Poe provides an interesting twist in this wellknown short story. Not only is the main character, Roderick Usher, on
the brink of mental collapse due to the impending death of his twin
sister who is his only living relative, but also he has been strangely
afflicted by the disintegration of the family mansion they both occupy.
Poe relies heavily on the use of literal and figurative imagery
to set the gothic tone for these three works. In "The Raven" the student
relays that his story takes place on a "dreary," dark night in the "bleak
December" (Poe 1,7). He also remembers that on that night "each
separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor" (Poe 8). Just
these lines alone create the eerie atmosphere Poe desires for this piece.
Add to that the fact that the student is up late studying all alone in an
attempt to keep his mind off his deceased girlfriend, and things get
pretty spooky. The slightest noise becomes all sorts of frightful things
in the mind of this fragile mourner.
He is then approached by a large raven outside his window.
The image of the raven is also painted for the reader in great detail so
they will literally know what the speaker is seeing when he encounters
the bird. This is accomplished through the use of words such as
"ebony," "grave," "grim," and "ancient" (Poe 43, 44, 45, 46). From
this description one can safely assume that the raven is deep black in
color and carries itself in a foreboding manner. After the physical
characteristics of the bird are engraved in the reader's mind, the raven
is personified through its ability to speak. The student finds this odd,
but it soon becomes clear that the bird can only utter one word—
"Nevermore" (Poe 48).
Where most people would flee from the room screaming if a
large, black bird entered the window and talked to them, the emotionally
troubled student places his chair directly in front of the bird so that he
34
may analyze it closer. He begins to envision the raven as a "...fowl
whose fiery eyes...[burn] into [his] bosom's core" (Poe 74). He
commences to refer to the raven as a "thing of evil" (Poe 85) and questions
whether it is truly "bird or devil" (Poe 85). Then in a twisted sense of
logic that points towards insanity, fully knowing beforehand what the
answer will be, he asks the bird if "within the distant Aidenn, / [his
soul] shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore"
(Poe 93-94). The raven croaks the only possible answer - "Nevermore"
(Poe 96). The student's irrational response makes clear the extent of
his damaged psyche:
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend," [he
shrieks],
upstarting"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's
Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul
hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above
my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form
from off my door!" (Poe 97-100)
However, the raven makes clear that he plans to leave the student
"Nevermore" (Poe 102).
The image displayed by this conversation is one of pure torture
being imposed upon the student. By the raven becoming a permanent
fixture in the student's chamber, this insures that he will never forget
the woman he loves. Dhahir observes that, "the raven clearly comes
across as the speaker's double or alter ego, a projection of the horrorladen contents of his psyche." This is almost undeniable as the
declining mental stability of the speaker becomes more and more evident
as the poem progresses. The final stanza of the poem expresses the
35
sorrowful state in which the student shall spend the rest of his life:
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is
sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber
door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that
is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his
shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating
on the floor
Shall be lifted- nevermore! (Poe 103-108)
Where the imagery in "The Raven" is horrific throughout the
poem, Poe approaches "Annabel Lee" from a different perspective.
The opening image he provides for the reader of this poem is one of
a child's fairytale complete with a "kingdom by the sea" (Poe line 2).
However, what begins as a beautiful story reminiscent of childhood
love, soon becomes filled with the horrific images that Poe is famous
for. The speaker is really a grieving husband who is looking for someone
or something to blame for the loss of his wife.
The speaker first accuses vengeful "winged seraphs in
heaven" (Poe 11). Julienne Empric explains this by stating, "To justify
the loss, to find some cause proportionate to the effect he has experienced, the narrator must temper his idea of the seraphic with the
demonic." It is the speaker's claim that he and his young wife were so
happy together that even the angels in heaven could not help but envy
them. Therefore, it must have been the jealous angels who sent a
"wind...out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing [his] Annabel
Lee" (Poe 25-26). The speaker then shifts the blame from the angels
who made her sick to "her highborn kinsmen [who] came / And bore
her away...to shut her up in a sepulchre / In this kingdom by the sea"
36
(Poe 17-20). It is obvious that his warped mind cannot grasp the idea
that burial is a normal occurrence following death.
He goes on to paint a very vivid picture of the fact that he
will never voluntarily be separated from the love of his life. In the
next to last stanza of the poem, the speaker states:
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than weOf many far wiser than weAnd neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. (Poe lines 27-33)
To complete this claim, the speaker reveals in the final stanza that he
physically sleeps every night by the side of his beloved dead wife,
"[i]n her tomb by the sounding sea" (Poe 41). The reader must keep
in mind that the speaker has stated in the first line of the poem that his
child bride died "many and many a year ago" (Poe 1). Thus, the morbidity
that has been lurking behind the scenes all along is shifted into full focus.
The same sense of emotional unraveling appears in "The Fall
of the House of Usher." Poe also relies heavily on imagery and
symbolism to convey the emotional state of his characters, especially
Roderick Usher. The story is chock-full of literal and figurative imagery
that absolutely bring it to life. The story is told through the eyes of a
narrator who is not part of the Usher family, but is simply a boyhood
friend of the main character, Roderick Usher. The narrator has not
seen his friend in many years and is surprised by a sudden desperate
letter summoning him the House of Usher due to Roderick's being
very ill. The narrator states that "it was the apparent heart that went
with [the] request...that allowed [him] no room for hesitation" (Poe 263).
Upon arriving at the House of Usher, the narrator describes
the scene in great detail. He says that although he cannot explain why,
37
"with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom
pervade[s] [his] spirit" (Poe 263). In attempting to figure out the reason
for the sudden oppression, the narrator gets the ominous feeling that
the entire mansion is covered with "a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued" (Poe 264). He goes
on to describe the mansion in great detail stating:
Its principle feature seemed to be that of excessive
antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great.
Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging
in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves...No
portion of the masonry had fallen; and there
appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still
perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling
condition of the individual stones. (Poe 264)
This presentation of the house, along with the mention of a barely
noticeable fissure which zigzags down the front wall of the house,
make it evident to the reader that the mansion is in a state of disrepair.
The narrator also comments on the "vacant eye-like windows" (Poe
263) of the house, making it appear to be a living entity, but soulless
and haunting. Although the narrator is greatly disturbed by the
appearance of the house and its surroundings, he bravely enters what
he refers to as the "melancholy House of Usher" (Poe 263).
Once he is shown to the chamber of his friend, he cannot
believe how greatly altered Roderick's appearance is compared to how
he remembers him. He gives the following grave depiction of his
friend:
The now ghostly pallor of the skin, and the now
miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled
and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been
suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild
gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the
38
face, I could not, even with effort, connect its
Arabesque expression with any idea of simple
humanity. (Poe 266)
He goes on to explain that Roderick's overall manner and actions suggest
a severe nervous condition. However, when Roderick outlines the
unusual symptoms he experiences on a daily basis, it evokes the question
of a serious mental illness. He claims to have "suffered much from a
morbid acuteness of the senses" (Poe 266). In other words, his sense
of taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound are in overdrive. Therefore, he
cannot tolerate venturing outside his home and has ultimately become
a prisoner there.
The only family member who shares the home with Roderick
is his twin sister, Madeline. The brother and sister are the last surviving
heirs of the Usher line. Unfortunately, Madeline is also very ill, and
Roderick fears that she will die before him. The narrator only actually
sees Madeline once while she is still alive. This occurs on the night
of his arrival and his ghostly perception of her is intermingled with an
overwhelming feeling of dread that he cannot explain.
The disease that Madeline suffers from has long been a mystery
to her physicians. They can only characterize her condition as "a settled
apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although
transient affections of a partially cataleptical character" (Poe 476). A
cataleptic state is defined as one where the person affected is completely
comatose in appearance, thus seeming to be dead. It is during one of
Madeline's cataleptic spells that her brother mistakes her for dead and
places her, along with the help of the narrator, inside a tomb deep
within the house that was once used for a dungeon. Jeffery Folks
notes that "consciously or not, Roderick imposes a death sentence of
a sort on the individual who is closest to him and who therefore shares
in his secrets and his history, indeed in his conception.”
Following this hasty act, Roderick becomes more agitated
39
than ever and appears to be keeping a secret from the narrator. The
house also becomes more life-like and agitated. Stableford surmises
that this is supernatural in nature, saying "The hypertensive Roderick
hears the miscellaneous knocks, creaks, and rumbles even more
keenly, and the transformation imposed upon them by his vivid imagination are fed back into the fabric of the house." This is certainly the
image that Poe is trying to produce, that Roderick and the house are
simply two parts of one whole. Therefore, whatever affects one will
also affect the other. This is most effectively reflected in a song that
Roderick composes and performs for the narrator which is entitled
"The Haunted Palace." The lyrics of the song evidence the drastic
decline that has taken place over the years for both the Usher mansion
as well as the family.
The first four stanzas of the melody describe the Usher estate
in its early years as a "fair and stately palace” (Poe 3) with “Spirits
moving musically” …“Round about a throne, where sitting” … “The
ruler of the realm was seen” (Poe 19, 21, 24). Usher’s song continues
to describe “A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty / Was but to sing, /
… / The wit and wisdom of their king" (Poe 29-32). However, in the
fifth stanza the fact that the palace has fallen further into ruin with
each passing descendant comes to light. Roderick expresses this by
mournfully singing that "evil things, in robes of sorrow, / Assailed the
monarch's high estate” (Poe 33-34), and the beauty of the house “Is
but a dim-remembered story / Of the old time entombed" (Poe 3940). After his performance of the song, Roderick confesses to the
narrator that it is his belief that the physical structure of the house has
always had a direct psychic connection with the Usher descendants.
Poe writes, "The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent yet
importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded
the destinies of his family, and which made him—what he was" (271).
The most dramatic scene in the story takes place on the final
40
night of the narrator's visit and involves the greatest use of imagery
by the author. Gone completely mad by now, Roderick enters the
chamber of his boyhood friend in an obvious panic. He flings open
the window shutters and emits access to a terrible storm which is
brewing outside. The narrator describes the storm saying:
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted
us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet
sternly beautiful night, and one widely singular in
its terror and beauty. A whirlwind had apparently
collected its force in our vicinity; for there were
frequent and violent alterations in the direction of
the wind...the clouds...with life-like velocity flew
careering from all points against each other, without
passing away into the distance...under the surfaces
of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all
terrestrial objects immediately around us, were
glowing in the unnatural light of the faintly luminous
and distinctly gaseous exhalation which hung about
and enshrouded the mansion. (Poe 273-274)
With Poe's brilliant description he places the reader in view of a storm
seemingly straight from the pits of hell.
It is during this storm that Madeline finally breaks free from
the dungeon in which she is entombed. Roderick, sensing the presence
of his twin sister, meets her emaciated body in a final embrace before
both siblings surrender to death. The narrator is so overwhelmed by
the events of the evening that he flees as quickly as he can from the
chamber and exits the mansion. As he is crossing the causeway that
connects the house to the land surrounding it, he turns around just in
time to witness the final demise of the House of Usher. He relays the
following sight:
41
Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and
I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could
have issued: for the vast house and its shadows were
alone behind me. The radiance was that of a full,
setting, and blood-red moon which now shone
vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure
of which I have before spoken as extending from the
roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the
base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened-there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind--the entire
orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight--my brain
reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder--there
was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice
of a thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at
my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments
of the "House of Usher." (Poe 276-277)
Since Roderick and the house are supernaturally connected, with his
death, the mansion must also cease to exist. On this horrific evening
the narrator not only sees the physical structure collapse, he also
witnesses the complete and total demise of the Usher family line
through the death of his boyhood friend.
Another element that seems to wind its way through Poe's
masterpieces is that of symbolism. Two obvious symbols presented
in "The Raven" are that of the raven itself and also the month of
December. Both of these things have similar connotations attached to
them. The raven is widely perceived to be a symbol of death or
ill-omen and December is an archetypal symbol for the end of life.
Dhahir pays particular attention to these two symbols and surmises, "it
is on a stormy December night that the raven, a symbol of death, enters
the speaker's life, never to leave it again." Looking at the symbolism
in the poem from this perspective, a direct connection can easily be
42
made between the circumstances surrounding the student and the
circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Poe's mother. Just like
the speaker in the poem, death entered Poe's life on a December night,
never to leave his memory again.
There are also two archetypal symbols used by Poe in
"Annabel Lee." The sea has always been used to represent life and the
night has always been used to signify death. It is arguable from Poe's
usage of these symbols that he sees life and death as one-in-the-same.
It is interesting that he places the child-bride's tomb of death beside the
sounding sea of life. Another parallel is formed when the speaker
reveals that he dreams about Annabel Lee nightly as he sleeps beside
her in the tomb. In his warped mind he is able to relive his time with
her through his dreams in the nightly hours of death.
The symbolism in "The Fall of the House of Usher" is seen
most effectively in the house itself. According to Stableford, "the
symptoms of moral and psychological decline exhibited in the character of Roderick Usher are faithfully reflected in the fabric of the
building, to the extent that the house becomes a model of his mind."
This is a very accurate description of the relationship Poe designs
between Roderick and the mansion that bears his family name.
Edgar Allan Poe had a writing style like no other poet or author
of his time. Because of this, his works were not widely accepted or
appreciated until after his death. His unique writing style was partially
accomplished through his artistic use of theme, imagery, and symbolism.
However, the real driving force behind his ability came from living
through personal tragedies that were ever present in his tortured mind,
effectively sculpting every character he created.
43
Works Cited
Dhahir, Sanna. "Literary Contexts in Poetry: Edgar Allan Poe's ‘The
Raven.’” Literary Contexts in Poetry: Edgar Allan Poe's “The
Raven” (2007): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web. 20 April
2013.
Donschikowski. “Edgar Allan Poe: Behind the Madness.” Sample
Research Project. Thetalon.org. n.d. Web. 1 May 2013.
Empric, Julienne H. “A Note on ‘Annabel Lee.’” Poetry for Students.
Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 May 2013.
Folks, Jeffery J. "Edgar Allan Poe and Elias Canetti: Illuminating
the Sources of Terror." Short Story Criticism. Vol. 111. Detroit:
Gale. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 May 2013.
Kelly, David. "Overview of ‘Annabel Lee.’" Poetry for Students.
Ed. Ira Milne. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature
Resource Center. Web. 9 May 2013.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Annabel Lee." The Complete Tales and Poems of
Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Arthur Hobson Quinn. New York:
Dorset Press, 1989. 86-87. Print.
---. "The Fall of the House of Usher." The Complete Tales and Poems
of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Arthur Hobson Quinn. New York:
Dorset Press, 1989. 262-277. Print.
---. "The Raven." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Alison
Booth and Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 10th Edition. New York:
W.W. Norton and Co., 2010. 785-788. Print.
Scraba, Jeffrey. "Repetition and Remembrance in Poe's Poetry."
Critical Insights: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe Oct.
2010, 34-35. Literary Resource Center. Web. 25 Apr.
2013.
Stableford, Brian. "The Fall of the House of Usher." Cyclopedia of
Literary Places. Feb. 2003: 1. Literary Reference Center.
Web. 9 May 2013.
44
TREELL M. GORDEN
The Honesty of a Nag
Liz Rosenberg’s “The Silence of Women” is a poem that can
speak to the masses. Rosenberg’s poem speaks of a brutal truth that
comes with age for a lot of women and the punishment their husbands
must endure. As time has passed, most societies still remain greatly
poised in the masculine. For centuries it has been the duty of women
to hold together families and keep up appearances by standing by their
men, even when the men are undeserving of such a loyalty. There is
also a certain taboo that accompanies divorce today and in days of the
past. In Rosenberg’s poem, the speaker talks about the softening of
men as if after all of their years they have finally realized the error of
their ways or perhaps they have outgrown the gusto of past behaviors.
The speaker compares the changes that take place within the hearts of
men and women. The speaker believes that the hearts of men grow
fonder as the hearts of women grow bitter. The setting of the poem
takes place over a lifetime of marriage, and the situation revolves
around the marriage becoming unbearable. Accompanying the setting
is the speaker’s language formed in the defense of women, which
works well to create a tone of vile honesty.
The speaker introduces the situation of the poem by saying,
“Old men, as time goes on, grow softer, sweeter / while their wives get
angrier” (lines 1-2). The speaker makes it clear to the reader that the
anger of women is, in fact, developed over the course of a lifetime
when she says, “A lifetime of yes has left them / hissing bent as
snakes” (6-7). The speaker tells of oppressed women who have had
obligations and responsibilities their entire lives that are not necessarily
their own. The wants and needs of a husband along with the wants
and needs of children can be overwhelming for any housewife. Without
45
doubt, every housewife and mother has experienced feelings of being
overwhelmed. The duties of Cinderella chores can often lead a woman
to wonder about what else she could have done in life besides raising
a family that demanded every ounce of her energy and time. The
speaker also mentions the outright spitefulness of older married
women when she says, “You see them hauling men across the mall /
or pushing them down in chairs” (3-4). The speaker even mimics the
women as she repeats their words, “Sit there! and don’t you move!”
(5). The women the speaker defends have lived lives full of mixed
emotions, lives that these women probably wouldn’t trade, but at
times lives they resent all the same.
Secondly, Rosenberg uses the speaker’s language to defend
the angry women of her poem. The diction of the poem is simplistic
yet strong. The speaker explains that after a lifetime of oppression the
women can no longer hold back their urge to fight back. These women
are angry for what seems to be no reason, when in reality, they are
unleashing a lifetime of pent up rage and aggression. In their own
minds, they are gaining revenge by sentencing their husbands to live
the remainder of their lives in grief and walking on eggshells. The
speaker believes that these women have lost all faith in everything;
even their own bodies will betray them. The speaker demonstrates
this when she claims, “It seems even their bones will turn / against
them, once the fruitful years are gone” (8-9). The speaker describes
the turn in character by stating, “Something snaps off the houselights
/ and the cells go dim” (10-11). She speaks as if in an instant these
women are thrown into a world of bitter disgust. After their transformation, the speaker describes the angry howl of the scorned women
when she says, “whose shrilling is a soulful wind” (16). The speaker’s
description of the women’s shrilling lets the reader know that it is not
without purpose but with pain. The women are holding onto their very
last limbs in life. The speaker clarifies the desperation of these
46
oppressed women when she reveals, “but must make music / any way it
can” (19-20). The women must be heard even if it is as an unreasonable
old nag. To rant in such a fashion coincides with the poem’s theme of
wicked candor.
The speaker, situation and setting combine to create Rosenberg’s theme of brutal honesty. Rosenberg sets the tone for this poem
by describing the women with verbs containing strong meaning when
in reference to women such as “bent” (7), “snaps” (10), “pushing”(4),
“scattered” (14), and “shrilling” (16). Through specific language,
Rosenberg lets the reader know that it is too late for the women of the
poem by writing, “blown through an instrument / that cannot beat
time” (17-18). The saddening aspect of the poem is that these women
have yet to realize in some ways that it is too late. The speaker lets us
know that these women are trying to regain what they have lost when
she says, “the chicken hatching back into the egg” (12). The years of
their lives spent toiling for their families can never be regained. While
people say that hard times are temporary, the years they steal are very
permanent. This poem offers no solution, only a warning to evade
what the speaker calls, “Oh lifetime of silence!” (13).
“The Silence of Women” is a poem composed of simple diction
and at first glance may appear to be the comical ongoing life of an
elderly married couple. Further investigation of the poetic elements
show that the poem is full of anger and regret conveyed as harsh honesty.
Rosenberg enlightens the reader to what it is like to look back on a life
of regret. There is no cure for the ailment unfortunately, only a fair
warning for women to be careful of what they become a part of and
what they are willing to claim responsibility for.
47
Works Cited
Rosenberg, Liz. “The Silence of Women.” The Norton Introductory to
Poetry. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. 9th ed. New York: W.W. Norton,
2007. 335. Print.
48
JEREMY D. HARDISON
Generation TeXt
The thought of leaving home today without a phone is
absolutely terrifying. Communication technology has effectively
handcuffed society to these small electronic devices. However, this
has little to do with the ability to make and receive calls. Instant
messaging, texting, and social networks have become the standard
way of conversing. The taps on a smartphone and clicks of the
keyboard have become the depressingly silent sound of communication.
These mediums of social exchange are creating a narcissistic culture
emphasizing less accountability, self-control, and patience. As a result,
social skills, as society defines them, are declining at a rapid pace.
Looking someone in the eye during a conversation meant a
great deal in the past. This act has conveyed confidence and truthfulness
in many cultures since the beginning of time. What happens when
we take away the need to stand in front of someone and speak to them?
A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that
97% of young adults (ages 18-29) that own a cell phone use texting
as a means of communication (Rainie 6). The same institute found
that 63% of teens and young adults text daily while only 39% talk on
the phone daily (Purcell 23). These numbers indicate a growing trend
toward non-verbal communication. In short, the ability to discern the
meaning behind someone’s tone of voice or the physical cues in faceto-face conversations is being negated.
The ability to lie is certainly not a recently discovered skill,
but lying through electronic communication nullifies the need to be
skilled at it. In fact, conversations require less tact, and subsequently
are taken less seriously. For example, that football player that was
just insulted through a text message can’t physically hurt anyone
49
through a phone. No one is around to see the girl’s tears or hear her
sobs because the football player casually commented on how fat she
looks in her latest series of Facebook photos. These interactions are
commonplace. The consequences are rarely felt or dealt with by the
offender because there are no visual or auditory signs of trauma. The
girl cries alone in her room and contemplates suicide. The football
player has no idea the extent of the damage he has caused, and there
is no accountability. These avenues of communication provide no
feedback of emotional cues to trigger an emotional response of guilt
in the initiator. Responsibility to treat members of the community
with respect and dignity are no longer required.
To expand on another example, the captain of the football
team was just belittled in a mass text conversation by someone
resembling Harry Potter, and there is nothing he can do about it. Mr.
Potter is now on top of the world emotionally. He posts what happened
on Facebook and is proud to see that half of his friends have liked his
status. They have just rewarded him for insulting an individual
capable of delivering serious bodily harm. His confidence soars, and
a sense of invincibility sets in. The social awkwardness that has
plagued him begins to ease. Taking away the threat of social and
physical repercussions effectively reinforces a dwindling boundary in
self-control. The lack of response leads to more daring and outlandish
opinions being thrown out without remorse. Oddly, this becomes a
game of attempting to actually invoke a response that we equate with
emotion. This game is considered by some to be an art form, lovingly
called “trolling.” This is most often seen on internet forums and
social networking sites. These bastions of humanity, creatively nicknamed “trolls,” are a prime example of the lack of self-control running
rampantly through the information super-highway.
Social networking sites provide an ideal opportunity to share
photos, thoughts and convictions, and general updates on life with
50
friends and family. However, this idea itself is narcissistic in nature.
Often the person portrayed online is the most idealistic version of himself
or herself. When portraying one’s best, one often feels the need to be
rewarded for how amazing he or she is. There is a certain level of
expectation that each picture, post, and share will be met with grand
approval in the form of likes and comments. Failure to do so can lead
to complications between friends and a culling that leads to a group
of more like-minded individuals. These thoughts and reactions are
happening instantly with the capability of smart phones, tablets, and
laptops to instantly access these sites. Walk around any college campus
and most students have their heads buried no longer in books, but in
these electronic devices. Often, they are greedily posting and waiting
on reactions to comments. Text messaging is likewise subject to this
need for instant gratification. A lack of immediate response to a text
is considered unacceptable given the accessibility of texting. The
decline of patience spirals down to the formal use of the English
language. Words, and even whole phrases, become shorter in an
effort to maximize the speed with which we communicate. It is now
bleeding over into situations requiring proper use of the English
language. A teacher recently said, “I see the letter u instead of the
word you in students’ essays all the time” (Lovenstein).
On the whole, most young adults find no reason for a face-toface discussion in today’s world. Laughter is being replaced by silent
letters. Smiles are no longer a visual masterpiece of genuine happiness.
These are now just digital icons, emotes, and abbreviations on a blank
background. The sound of a friend’s voice is becoming alien. This lack
of material, social interaction deprives us of emotional happiness and
causes us to become more withdrawn and introverted. Monumental
information, capable of changing lives, is now commonly delivered
from machine to machine, with complete disregard for the emotional
element. In addition, communicating through electronics robs us of
51
the physical senses that allow our minds to create beautiful and everlasting memories. Few people in this world can remember the sight,
sound, and smell around them at the precise moment they received a
text message. These new issues represent a disturbingly subtle, and
unconscious, shift away from instinctive human behavior. Maybe it’s
time to leave the handcuffs at home.
52
Works Cited
Lovenstein, Leslie J. Pulaski Technical College. North Little Rock,
AR. 03 Apr. 2013. Lecture.
Purcell, Kristin. “Teens 2012: Truth, Trends, and Myths about Teen
Online Behavior.” Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Pew Research Center. 11 July 2012. Slideshow. Web. 07
Apr. 2013.
Rainie, Lee. “Cell Phone Activities 2012.” Pew Internet and American
Life Project. Pew Research Center. 25 Nov. 2012. Web.
01 Apr. 2013.
53
VICKI McDONALD
Manipulation, Murder and Mayhem:
The Psychopathology of Iago
The wicked Iago’s adeptness at deceiving the other characters
in the play is crucial to the tragic plot of Shakespeare’s Othello.
Throughout the play, Iago manipulates the people around him and
persuades them to see precisely what he wants them to see in order to
gain his desired outcome. The very people Iago manipulates view him
as a trusted friend. In fact, throughout the play, he is often referred to
as “Honest Iago.” How is our villain able to accomplish this feat, and
what are the motives for his actions? Many would reply that his
motivations are jealousy and greed. I disagree. I propose that Iago has
no motive for his deeds. Rather than being driven by envy or greed,
this character is compelled by the primal urges of his antisocial
personality. In other words, Iago is a psychopath.
Psychopathy is a mental disorder in which an individual
manifests amoral and antisocial behavior, exhibits a lack of ability to
love or establish meaningful relationships, suffers from extreme
egocentricity, and fails to learn from experience. I believe this paints
an accurate portrait of Iago. He is unable to have genuine friendships
and does not even have a meaningful relationship with his own wife.
He lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. Iago is
loyal to no one, but operates in his own best interest, ruthlessly
exploiting people with no regard for their feelings. Like most
psychopaths, Iago is aggressive and exceedingly impulsive. No matter
how unpredictable or antisocial he may be, Iago does not see anything
wrong with his impetuous behavior. He is a very dispassionate character.
As author Fred West points out in his article, “Iago the Psychopath,”
Iago is “by no means a man of strong feelings and passions…but
54
decidedly cold by temperament" (West 29). Even though he may shout
and proclaim his indignation, it is only an act to reinforce his lies. He
is capable of committing violent acts without feeling guilt. Thus, Iago
exhibits the characteristics of a true psychopath.
Why do his fellow characters believe he is trustworthy? In his
book The Mask of Sanity, in which he describes his clinical interviews
with incarcerated psychopaths, clinical professor of psychiatry Hervey
Cleckley, M.D. states, "More often than not such a person will seem
particularly agreeable and make a distinctly positive impression when
one first meets him. Alert and friendly in his attitude, he is easy to talk
with and seems to have a good many genuine interests…He looks like
the real thing" (Cleckley 382).
Since the other characters trust him implicitly, one could
assume that Iago has not previously committed any horrendous acts.
But how is this possible, given his psychopathic nature? As a soldier,
Iago was able to channel his asocial tendencies into the savagery of
war, where he was able to perpetrate vicious acts without fear of
retribution. Rather than being regarded as a criminal, he was considered
a war hero.
As we enter the play, Iago has discovered that Othello chose
Cassio as his lieutenant, even though Iago had seniority and more
experience in battle. We also find Iago defending himself against
Roderigo’s charge that he is a coward for serving the person he claims
to hate. Iago sees the accusation as an insult to his honor. He professes
his hatred of the Moor to Roderigo and claims to serve Othello only
to fulfill his own needs, saying, “O sir, content you. / I follow him to
serve my turn upon him” (1.1.38-39). Furthermore, Iago claims, “In
following him, I follow but myself, / Heaven is my judge, not I for
love and duty, / But seeming so, for my peculiar end” (1.1. 55-57).
He later professes, “I am not what I am” (1.1.65). In explaining himself
to Roderigo, Iago has set himself up. In his vanity, he perceives himself
55
as more intelligent than those around him. To prove his superiority, he
now has to devise a plan to steer circumstances in his favor and lure
his supposed enemies into his trap.
Since there is no war at the very beginning of the play to keep
Iago occupied, he feels a childish need for excitement. Perhaps from
sheer boredom, he takes what is closest at hand, the recent marriage
of Othello and Desdemona, and concocts some mischief to entertain
himself. He urges Roderigo to inform Brabantio of Desdemona’s
elopement with Othello: “Call up her father, / rouse him. Make after
him, poison his delight” (1.1.64-65). Iago gleefully shouts insults at
the senator from his position of concealment. He then proceeds to
inform Othello of Roderigo’s actions and the imminent arrival of his
new father-in-law, who will seek an end to the marriage. He uses the
other characters as pawns in this game that he has created and that he
plans to win. They are simply tools he uses when devising schemes for
his own amusement. He executes his hateful and underhanded
schemes without sufficient motivation in the normal sense. He has no
true motive. His only real motivation seems to be a need for his own
indulgence. Causing others pain seems to afford him a disinterested
pleasure.
When Roderigo voices his intent to commit suicide, Iago
cynically lists all the reasons why he should not go through with it
and convinces him to change his mind with the promise that Roderigo
will be able to seduce Desdemona. Roderigo is to liquidate his assets
and join Iago in Cyprus, where they will carry out the plan. This is not
done out of any love, friendship, or concern, but for Iago’s own selfish
reasons. Roderigo has been useful to Iago by providing money: “Thus
do I ever make my fool my purse. / For I mine own gained knowledge
should profane / if I would time expend with such a snipe but for my
sport and profit”
(1.3.352-354).
56
Iago is also planning to use Roderigo in his schemes against
both Cassio and Othello. Iago seeks to discredit Cassio and take his
place as lieutenant while exacting revenge upon Othello for overlooking him for the position. He also suspects that Othello has had an
affair with his wife Emilia:
I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets
He has done my office. I know not if’t be true;
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio’s a proper man. Let me see now,
To get his place and to plume up my will
In double knavery…Let’s see.
After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear
That he is too familiar with his wife. (1.3.354-364)
It does not matter to Iago whether Othello has actually committed
adultery with Emilia. He intends to proceed as though he is certain the
affair occurred. Rather than provocations for the horrible acts he performs,
Iago’s reasons and excuses come to him more as afterthoughts. His socalled motives are merely justifications that have little to do with proven
fact. It is a typical trait of the psychopath to find reasonable excuses for
his actions and then begin to believe them himself.
Once in Cyprus, Iago begins to enact his deceitful plan. After
instructing Roderigo to anger Cassio to the point of violence, he begins
to circulate a rumor that Cassio is an alcoholic. Iago lies consistently
and flawlessly. He acknowledges that Cassio is more refined, but this
does not damage his narcissistic self-confidence. He can make Cassio the
victim of his superiority by using his own coarseness to his advantage.
After successfully causing Cassio to be dismissed as Othello’s
lieutenant, Iago commences the next phase of his plan by advising
him to seek Desdemona’s assistance. Though his advice seems
57
reasonable, Iago remains true to his duplicitous nature:
How am I then a villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows
as I do now. (2.2.308-313)
Once again, it would seem that Iago is not what he appears to be. He
masterfully presents his affected mask to the world.
Now that he has gained the trust of Roderigo and Cassio, it
is time for Iago to turn his attention to Othello. He begins planting in
Othello’s mind seeds of doubt about Desdemona’s love and fidelity by
making him suspicious of her relationship with Cassio:
Look to your wife, observe her well with Cassio.
Wear your eyes thus, not jealous nor secure.
I would not have your free and noble nature
Out of self-bounty be abused. Look to’t. (3.3.197-200)
Iago’s lies are made all the more plausible by his seeming reluctance
to voice them aloud to Othello. While stating common wisdom about
the errors of jealousy, he manages to slyly reinforce them in Othello’s
mind. He then plants Desdemona’s stolen handkerchief on Cassio and
arranges for Othello to “overhear” Cassio boasting about his alleged
affair with Desdemona. But everything Othello heard was a misrepresentation of facts, a sly twisting of the truth. Later, as Iago vows to
kill Cassio, he employs reverse psychology by asking Othello to let
Desdemona live, thereby assuring her death at Othello’s hands. Iago
is an exceptionally skilled manipulator, another psychopathic trait.
Roderigo tires of being used by Iago and confronts him. As
his last act of deception, Iago persuades him to kill Cassio. Though
Roderigo is unsure, Iago somehow manages to convince him. It is
58
Iago’s hope that the two will actually kill each other, but he is prepared
to step in if necessary to ensure that both die:
Now, whether he kill Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo,
He calls me to a restitution large
Of gold and jewels that I bobbed from him
As gifts to Desdemona.
It must not be. If Cassio do remain
He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly. And besides, the Moor
May unfold me to him—there stand I in much peril.
No, he must die. (5.1.12-22)
From his place of concealment, Iago manages to wound Cassio. He
later pursues Roderigo and murders him, unaware of the damning letters
in Roderigo’s coat pocket. Meanwhile, Othello has killed Desdemona.
When Iago is apprehended, he slays his own wife in an attempt to escape.
So it would seem that our villain is capable of homicide.
Yet no one, aside from Roderigo, suspects Iago of lying until
the final scene of the play, when everyone, including his wife Emilia,
is shocked at the discovery of his deception. Othello, unable to endure
these tragic events, ends his own life. Iago does not show any remorse
for his deeds. He merely retreats behind a wall of rebellious
unresponsiveness now that he has lost the power to manipulate the
others saying, “Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. /
From this time forth I never will speak word” (4.2.299-300). Since he
is no longer free to act, he can at least choose not to act. He remains
silent and indifferent to their threats. This is his final act of power over
the other characters. They are all left wondering what really happened
and why it happened. Only Iago knows the whole story, but he remains
steadfastly silent.
59
Though his successful manipulations were certainly aided by
Roderigo’s desperate love for Desdemona, Othello’s and Cassio’s
trusting natures, Emilia’s desire to please her husband and Desdemona’s innocence, it is Iago’s complete lack of conscience that
enables him to lie so easily and so well. He shows no regret for his
actions or the misfortune they have caused. Iago is precisely the same
from the beginning of the play to the end: completely devoid of
conscience. This inability to feel guilt is a major characteristic of the
true psychopath. Despite his admonitions to the contrary, Iago is what
he is. He does not so much choose to act as he expresses the nature of
his being. "The individual cannot escape the nature he is born with,
but must act as this nature requires him to act” (West 27).
60
Works Cited
Abernathy, Julian. "Honest Iago." Sewanee Review. 30.3 (1992): 336344. Web. 8 Mar. 2013.
Cleckley, Hervey. The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some
Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality. 5th ed.
Augusta: C.V. Mosby Co., 1988. The Cassiopaean Experiment.
Web. 16 Mar. 2013.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry
and Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. 6th ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2007. 1455-1543. Print.
Stempel, Daniel. "The Silence of Iago." PMLA. 84.2 (1969): 252-263.
Web. 16 Mar. 2013.
West, Fred. "Iago the Psychopath." South Atlantic Bulletin. 43.2
(1978): 27-35. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.
61
R YA N A B B E Y
The Brilliant but Doomed Design
of the Wankel Rotary Engine
Imagine a car with twice the power and half the parts. Imagine
a car which has no need for a cam shaft, a valve spring, or a timing
belt. Imagine a car that has only two spark plugs which can produce
the power of a six cylinder conventional engine even if one of the two
should fail. This futuristic technology is here and has been for the last
half century. This design is called the Wankel rotary engine; it is a
work of art as much as science but that has not been enough to make
it the industry standard of the United States. This design is superior
but is not likely to ever outpace the conventional internal combustion
engine because of the inherent resistance to change in an industry
reinforced by unfortunate world events during the designs consideration
by those powerful enough to use it.
The rotary engine is beautiful in its design. Its inherent simplicity
of design and symmetry of motion make it superior in many ways to
the conventional piston internal combustion engine. In order to
appreciate the value of such an engineering feat, a person must first
have a basic understanding of how the engine operates as compared
to what is considered a normal car’s engine. In a conventional fourstroke engine, the piston will first move down in its cylinder with the
intake valve open to pull in a mixture of air and fuel. This is called the
intake stroke. Then the piston will change direction and the intake
valve will close, causing the fuel and air to be compressed in a now
sealed chamber. This is the compression stroke. The power stroke follows
as the fuel and air, heated by the compression, are ignited (usually by
a spark plug), which forces the piston back down as the gas burns and
expands. Finally, the piston will again change direction after reaching
62
the bottom of the cylinder and move up with the exhaust valve open,
forcing the spent exhaust out the tail pipe. Although this is the
established norm of how a car is powered, a closer analysis shows
inherent inefficiencies in the way it operates. Consider first that of the
four strokes explained only one produces any power. The other three
require energy to perform, which is provided by the inertia of the flywheel and/or other pistons in the engine. The second thing to be considered is the inherent stop-start nature of how the engine parts move.
The piston must stop its direction of travel and accelerate in the opposite direction four times in the completion of only one cycle. Similarly the valves must briefly rocket open and closed for the engine to
operate. Compare this now to the operation of a rotary design engine
as explained and illustrated by Energy Conversion written by Kenneth
Weston. In a rotary engine (See Figure 7.4), an almost triangular rotor
moves within an oval-shaped housing with the corners of the triangle
in constant contact with the inner surface creating three chambers at
all times. Observe how the movement of the triangle around the drive
shaft traps the fuel air mixture and carries it through the compression,
power, and exhaust phases without ever stopping its motion or using
any valves. Once a basic understanding of the inner workings of the
engine is achieved, it is easy to see why such a design can be called
superior.
63
(Weston 264)
A rotary engine exhibits several advantages over conventional
engines. Weston goes on to explain:
Higher operating speeds, ease of balancing, and
absence of vibration are a few of the benefits. The
high operating speeds allow the engine to produce
twice as much power as a reciprocating engine of
the same weight. It has significantly fewer parts and
occupies less volume than a reciprocating engine of
comparable power. (261)
64
Because a rotary engine lacks the need for any valves, the design does
not require linkages to move those valves or any timing equipment
associated with synchronizing the piston with individual valve operations.
This reduces the overall size and weight of the engine but not its
power output. With less machinery needed, the engine can be made
larger and more powerful for the same weight. In short, the rotary
engine has a much greater thrust-to-weight ratio brought on by its
simplicity. The lack of moving parts is another benefit in the sense
that there is simply less to break and less to manufacture. The
simplicity of the design also lends itself to other applications which
would be nearly impossible for a conventional engine. Berkeley
University research which used the design is an excellent example,
having manufactured a miniature rotary engine approximately the size
of a nine volt battery (Zandonella). Finally, the lack of vibration due
to the unidirectional movement of the engine should be taken into
consideration. Outside of the energy wasted in reversing the motion of
internal masses within the engine, the constant rotation of the moving
parts of a rotary engine make this design vibration free compared to
conventional motors. These benefits make the design stand out, yet it
is relatively unknown to the general public and uncommon on the
roads of America. Its implementation has been far from thorough since
its conception in 1954 (Weston 261).
Several factors in the history of the automotive rotary engine
have led to it being an alternate and unique rather than standard design.
Arguably the most significant of these is an inherent resistance to
change in the automotive industry, as John Hege explains in The
Wankel Rotary Engine. In the early 1970s, General Motors was the
only American manufacturer to have purchased the manufacturing
rights to the Wankel rotary design. Implementation of such a radically
different design in automotive engineering could only be brought to
the masses through an industry giant such as GM. Yet even with such
65
a unique and powerful opportunity, GM was still hesitant to build any
car that did not operate on conventional pistons. Hege explains one
major negative influence in the manufacture of a rotary car for GM
had to do with another revolutionary production car made just before
the Wankel became of interest. The Corvair is described as “the most
innovative (and ill-fated) car ever to come out of General Motors”
(Hege 108). This car featured a unibody design, air-cooled engine and
most uniquely an engine mounted behind the rear axle. The design
sold well but became known for unusual handling characteristics
brought on by its engine placement combined with independent swing
arm suspension. These design elements resulted in a tendency for the
rear wheels to tuck under the car in a turn when heavily loaded. This
characteristic, according to Hege, would be exploited by a selfproclaimed consumer advocate named Ralph Nader who launched his
career with his book which described the Corvair as a demonstration
of all that was wrong with the automotive industry. Such events
caused the end of Corvair production in 1969 and reluctance on the
part of GM executives to attempt any new radical design.
The design would continue to be plagued with unfortunate
events which prevented GM from making the full investment needed
to begin manufacture of the unique components that go into the
construction of the device. Just as GM was building prototypes of a
Corvette run by a mid-mounted rotary, war in the Middle East would
force a rise in fuel prices in the United States making the design a
poor choice for American consumers at the time. While the design offers
considerably greater power for a given weight and volume, the design
is not as fuel efficient as conventional engines simply because of the
nature of its operation. The Japanese company of Mazda began struggling
to sell the RX-2 rotary powered cars, which were beginning to flourish
in the US, but interest in the project was lost due to a dismal 17.3
miles per gallon (Hege 121). The timing of industry and world events
66
have resulted in a lack of interest in risking a change to the tried and
true method of propulsion used in the automotive industry of America
today.
While the ingenious design of the Wankel rotary engine makes
it a more elegant and powerful machine compared to our conventional
piston engines, that alone is not enough to make it an industry standard.
The challenge of manufacturing a radically different design to rival a
technology which has been perfected for over a hundred years leads
to an overall resistance to change in the industry. What interest has
occurred in our history has waned as a result of circumstance.
Although the design could easily outpace the conventional motor in
time, the investment needed to develop the technology beyond that of our
industry standard will likely deter the automotive industry indefinitely.
67
Works Cited
Hege, John. The Wankel Rotary Engine: A History. Jefferson:
McFarland & Company Inc., 2001. eBook. Nook.
Weston, Kenneth. Energy Conversion. Tulsa U, 2000. Web. 16 June
2013.
Zandollena, Catherine. Press Release. Berekley.edu, 2001. Web. 16
June 2013.
68
J O N AT H A N W H I T E H E A D
Unity in Diversity amongst
Non-Conformists: A Message from
Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”
Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, penned
his poem “The War Prayer” during the Philippine-American war.
“The War Prayer” is a bitter satire piece of literature that was rejected
by Twain’s publishing company on March 22 of 1905 as having been
unsuitable for a women’s magazine. Consequently, “The War Prayer”
remained unpublished for the remainder of Twain’s life, but shortly
afterwards, following his death in 1910, it was finally published. “The
War Prayer” is Mark Twain’s subtle critique of organized religion and
nationalism. The flags, nation, and religion of the community remain
unnamed, but their ambiguity helps to intensify and expand the boundaries of its message to every nation and religion around the world.
Mark Twain’s critique of organized religion and nationalism
is a product of his fluid and yet fragmented philosophy. Concerning
Twain’s ideology, John Bird quoted Bruce Michelson in the book
Constructing Mark Twain as having said, “To try to define or confine
Mark Twain ideologically is therefore a risky business, for the range
and reflexivity of his own work can easily outrun - or overthrow discourse about economic and political configurations of the self”
(qtd. in Skandera-Trombley 214). This is because Twain struggled
with harmonizing his religion with his philosophy, and this struggle
consequently led to the fragmentation of his ideology. For example,
the antagonistic tone of “The War Prayer” strongly suggests that
Twain harbored a skeptic attitude towards religion, but the imagery
given to the heroic stranger seems to suggest that Twain was far from
an atheist. Thus, the hybridization of atheism and progressive theism
69
in “The War Prayer” gives the poem a voice that transcends political
ideology, time, and religion. It is important to understand Twain’s
fragmented and fluid philosophy in “The War Prayer” because in seeing
it, we are able to connect with his sentiments and the human struggle
of reformation and the pursuit of knowledge. It is evident in “The War
Prayer” that Twain is not a polished philosopher or politician, but his
willingness to share his ideology provides the reader with the opportunity
to engage in the continuous reformation of politics and religion.
Twain’s epistemology provides a strong link between the
progressive theists and atheists. It resembles that of the famous skeptic
David Hume. Twain’s confession of this is quoted by Alexander E.
Jones in “Mark Twain and the Determinism of What Is Man?” Twain
states, “Incidentally, I observed that the human machine gets all its
inspirations from the outside and is not capable of originating an idea
of any kind in its own head...” This is significant because Hume’s
epistemology provided Twain with the ideas needed to unite spiritual
and non-spiritual persons against the bigotry of the state and church.
Twain implies that moral virtues are discovered through one’s reflection
upon life’s empirical experiences and that these virtues are not
contingent upon one’s religious or emotional inspirations. For Twain,
the impressions we experience through our human faculty should be
the foundation upon which we build society since our humanity is
what links us together in solidarity. When we submit to the authority
of superstition, we are likely to find ourselves in the same predicament
of the church in “The War Prayer,” where their allegiance to authoritarian
figures and religion prevented them from seeing the apparent
immorality of their “silent” prayer. The lone, aged stranger was the
only one willing to abandon the mysticism of religion and challenge
the authority of the church and state to establish doctrine and ethics.
The imagery of a depraved and incompetent congregation
being guided by an eloquent preacher is the speaker’s way of identifying
70
the church’s ability to corrupt a nation and the moral stature of its people.
The moral depravity of the congregation can be seen when the aged
stranger noiselessly makes his way down the main aisle. The speaker in
“The War Prayer” states, “With all eyes following him and wondering,
he made his silent way.” Prayer is a time when the religious are expected
to hang their heads and close their eyelids, but here, the only person
with closed eyelids is the preacher. Nothing is more evident of a weak
and superficial faith than the congregation’s apparent lack of devotion
to their service. Their thoughtless devotion is also accompanied by
their incompetence. The speaker states in the closing line that the
congregation “believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because
there was no sense in what he said.” The superficial devotion and
religion of the majority prevented them listening to the aged stranger.
This imagery reflects Mark Twain’s pessimistic and hopeless
perspective on organized religion shared by both progressive theists
and atheists.
In “The War Prayer,” the aged stranger is symbolic of Twain’s
life. The aged stranger represents a minority of people, including
Twain, who were rejected or dismissed as fanatics by the belligerent
multitudes. The oppressive behavior of the majority is captured when
the speaker identifies the non-conformists. The speaker says:
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half
dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the
war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness
straightway got such a stern and angry warning that
for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank
out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Twain felt as though he was one of the “half dozen rash spirits.” Mark
Twain had experienced the same persecution in his own life. Mark
Twain is quoted by Jones as having said that, “I laid one chapter of my
gospel before the Monday Evening Club in Hartford, a quarter of a
71
century ago, and there was not a man there who didn’t scoff at it, jeer
at it, revile it, and call it a lie, a thousand times a lie!” (qtd. in Jones
2). Twain also stated in 1907 concerning his gospel, “I have talked my
gospel rather freely in conversation for twenty-five or thirty years and
have never much minded whether my listeners liked it or not...” (Jones
2). Revolutionaries, like Twain, who are marginalized or mocked
resemble the aged stranger. It usually takes a great amount of time and
experience, as it did Twain, to formulate revolutionary ideas, thus the
aged stranger is a man who represents Mark Twain’s matured philosophy.
The stranger is any man or woman whose ideology has alienated them
from their community. Although Twain’s perspective on organized
religion and nationalism may seem extreme, Tom Quirk stated in the
book Constructing Mark Twain, “We may well turn to his late fictions
with a more vital and practical attention than we have in the past. In a
word, when and if methods of critical inquiry catch up to what is known
about the physical universe, we may find that Twain is cordially
waiting for us at the end of our difficult intellectual trek” (qtd. in
Skandera-Trombley 198).
Mark Twain’s struggle to find justification in the PhilippineAmerican war can be seen in “The War Prayer.” After the aged
stranger puts into words the unspoken prayer of the congregation he
says:
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the
Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful
refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek
His aid with humble and contrite hearts.
There is a strong sense of irony in “The War Prayer,” irony so strong
that Twain must have seen it in the Moro Massacre. The Americans,
who supposedly stood for life, liberty, and Christianity, ended up
stripping away the Moro people’s rights and “slaughtering” every last
man, woman, and child. General Wood gave the Americans an order
to “Kill or capture” the “savage” Moro peoples (Twain, “Comments”).
72
Mark Twain commented on the Moro Massacre in 1906 saying,
“Apparently our little army considered that the ‘or’ left them authorized
to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained
what it has been for eight years, in our army out there - the taste of
Christian butchers” (Twain, “Comments”). Twain describes them as
both Christians and “butchers.” Christians, who are supposed to be
imitating the life of Christ, decided to disregard the teachings of
Jesus’s non-violent revolution and slaughter the Moro peoples. Likewise,
in “The War Prayer,” the religious butchers are making a petition to
the most merciful God. They are lifting up their voices and asking
for invincibility, comfort, strength, and confidence so that they can
“smite the foe.” The ironic part is that their God is the one who aids
those who seek him with “humble and contrite hearts.” That is to say
that the God “Who is the Source of Love” will be aiding the enemy.
Mark Twain’s subtle critique of nationalism and organized
religion in “The War Prayer” is the product of his life and philosophy.
Many years of experience and meditation led Twain to reject the
mysticism of religion and the “holy fire of patriotism.” Twain knew
that such a message was too powerful for the day and time in which
he lived. This is why he told his friend, Dan Beard, that he would not
be publishing “The War Prayer” in his lifetime. In Paine’s biography
of Mark Twain, he is quoted as having said, “I have told the whole
truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can
be published after I am dead.” Twain’s anticipated rejection can be
summed up in the congregation’s reaction in the final line of “The
War Prayer”: “It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic,
/because there was no sense in what he said.” Twain’s message is a
hopeless and pessimistic one. Even though Twain believed that humans
have “the unique ability to distinguish right from wrong...” he also believed
that we tend “to choose the wrong” (Jones 3). There is a message in
“The War Prayer” for the non-conformists. It is that the way of justice
is difficult and the depravity of the majority can be a hostile force.
73
Works Cited
Jones, Alexander E. "Mark Twain and the Determinism of What Is
Man?" American Literature 29.1 (1957): 1-3. Literary
Reference Center. Web. 25 July 2013.
Paine, Albert Bigelow. "Chapter Cxli: Literature and Philosophy."
Mark Twain, a Biography. Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, 2006. Literary Reference Center. Web.
25 July 2013.
Paine, Albert Bigelow. "Chapter CCXXXIV: Life at 21 Fifth Avenue."
Mark Twain, a Biography. Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, 2006. Literary Reference Center.
Web. 25 July 2013.
Skandera-Trombley, Laura E., and Michael J. Kiskis. Constructing
Mark Twain : New Directions In Scholarship. Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 2001. eBook Collection (EB
SCOhost). Web. 26 July 2013.
Twain, Mark. “Comments on the Moro Massacre.” Is.wayne.edu.
Wayne State University. N.d. Web. 26 July 2013.
---. “The War Prayer.” United Holdings Group, 2011. Web. 26 July
2013.
74
SHARA RICHARDS
Equating Equals
The compelling poets Langston Hughes and Phillis Wheatley,
in their poems “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “On Being Brought
from Africa to America” respectively, both create an intelligently
persuasive plea for equality among all people. They both use different
techniques to help others heed their call to equality for each and every
person. While Hughes implies that equality is a human right, Wheatley
insists on equality being a Christian right. To help us understand their
message, they use imagery, tone, and rhythm.
Both poets focus on the equality of the individual. Hughes
uses natural allusion in his poem to bring to mind individual humanity,
that these “rivers” (line 8) he speaks of, we could all be a part of them.
In fact, we have always been a part of the “ancient, dusky rivers” (9).
The element of water has a crucial role in the functioning involvement
and development of all people. In reviewing the poem, author Dean
Rader informs us, “This notion of growing, of thriving is important for
Hughes, because he wants his poem to carry the same invigorating
power as rivers themselves.” Hughes imparts an idea that a river flows
in unity, with all the waters flowing fluidly through all the rivers, that
all the water is equal. Humans should flow like the rivers. In
comparison, Wheatley uses the tone of her human joy at being present in this
life and place to make herself more personable. When Wheatley writes,
“Taught my benighted soul to understand” (line 2), this
comprehension of humanity helps us empathize with her plight. Wheatley
presents herself as a happy Christian sister speaking the truth to her
fellow Christians. “Remember, Christians,” (9) she says. This Christian familiarity turns her into a Christian reader’s equal. “In fact, the
whole thrust of the poem is to prove the paradox that in being en-
75
slaved, she was set free in a spiritual sense,” states the article
“Overview: ‘On Being Brought from Africa to America.’” Yet while
reading the poem, we don’t think of her as a slave but as a member of
our extended family. By doing this, she puts herself on equal footing
with everyone, as Hughes does with his river allusion.
Hughes and Wheatley use different techniques, but both have the goal
of persuading the reader. Hughes uses imagery of different rivers to
walk us through time to show that he has always been a man of equality.
He says, “human blood in human veins” (3) so that there is no difference
from one human to another. Naming the rivers that have flowed in
Africa such as the “Euphrates,” “Congo,” and “Nile” (5, 6, 7) brings
to mind pride that these are places that all humans can go. The river
turning “all golden in the sunset” (9-10) is an assessment in the happy
ending that equality would give to all humans. In contrast, Wheatley
uses rhythm to lull the reader into her train of thought. The happy tune
of her iambic pentameter pulls us into her idea, to examine the words
with clarity and gain understanding for her demand for equality. Her
rhyme scheme helps the rhythm of her poem to flow. The rhyme follows the heartbeat; this heart beat that we all have helps us recognize
each other through the identifying beat. Through imagery and sound,
both authors remain persuasive.
Both Hughes and Wheatley call on God as a reason for their
bid for equality. Hughes’ call for God is subtle. The wording in The
New International Version of The Holy Bible is as follows: “Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but
whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again. Indeed,
the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up
to eternal life’” (John 4.13-14). Hughes’ use of the word “rivers,” when
translated to the biblical imagery that God is the living water, transforms his whole poem. “I’ve known rivers” (1) would mean he has
known God. How could anyone who knows God not be an equal to
76
anyone else who knows God? That “My soul has grown deep” (4, 13)
like God’s soul is a powerful thought. To be like God is to have love
for every person no matter what. Hughes is showing that each person
is made in God’s image and we can all be mirrors of goodness to each
other. More dramatically, Wheatley calls out for Christian decency directly. The line “That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior too,” (4) lets
us know that she has been saved just like the Christians reading her
poem. She reminds us of our “redemption” (4), directing us to recall
that God loves us all as His children and that God sees each one of us
as equal, and we should be able to see one another as equals. That we
can all ride the “angelic train” (8) is an appeal to Christians that as we
will all be on even footing when we get to Heaven, we should be on
even footing on earth as well. In this way, Hughes and Wheatley overlap.
Phillis Wheatley in 1773 and Langston Hughes in 1926 both
wanted the same thing: the chance to be equal. Throughout time people
have always wanted to be treated with love, kindness, and understanding. It is human nature to want to be included and accepted. In
different ways both Hughes and Wheatley help us fathom the human
condition. The poets let us know that to be equal gives us the opportunity
at individual freedoms and happiness that we would not have otherwise.
Their wonderfully timeless poetry weaves thoughts and feelings of
what we can achieve, that we can all comprehend each other on a deep
and profoundly meaningful level. The poets let each and every person
know that each counts as a whole, and that each adds to the immense
capacity of the indomitable human spirit.
77
Works Cited
Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” The Norton
Introduction to Literature. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J.
Mays. Shorter 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 960-961.
Print.
The New International Version of The Holy Bible. Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2001. Print.
“Overview: ‘On Being Brought from Africa to America.’” Poetry
for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 29. Detroit: Gale,
2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.
Rader, Dean. “Overview of 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers.’” Poetry
for Students. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol. 10. Detroit:
Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr.
2013.
Wheatley, Phillis. “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” The
Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Alison Booth and
Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010.
725. Print.
78
E L I Z A B E T H L . S U L L I VA N
Visitation
Visiting with a loved one is an experience most people take
for granted. What if you had to visit your loved one in a maximum
security prison? Most people do not think about such a visit. I know
I never had. The only glimpse into prison I had was from “reality”
shows that depict the worst our society has to offer. The odds of anyone
close to me being in a place like that was a ridiculous thought, but in
2009, when my oldest brother was sentenced to life in prison, I found
myself preparing for my first visit to a maximum security prison.
I was twenty-seven the first time I went to visit my brother.
It was a visit I had decided to make alone. The last time I had seen him
was the year before, the day we buried our younger brother. My oldest
brother went to jail for his crime the day after. I spent the eight hour
drive to the prison thinking about how I had lost both of my brothers
within days of each other. But, I was lucky that I would still be able
to see one of them.
The prison was not what I had imagined. It was a dark grey
building with a hunter green roof. It was off by itself but not totally secluded from the rest of the town. Once I looked past the front of the
massive structure, I could see the tall fences with the swirled silver
barbwire that caged the less than appealing courtyard. It was empty
and bare and surrounded by housing units. There was not much for
anyone who was inside the courtyard to look at except for the sky. I
could see why my brother was always hopeful for a cloudy day. At
least that would give the inmates something to gaze upon.
As I made my way through the first of many doors, I could
see instantly why my brother had mentioned to be early. There was
already a long line full of family members and friends anxious to see
79
their loved ones. I was surprised at the amount of young children that were
there. I watched as they played with one another and ran around giggling.
They appeared too young and innocent to be in such a dark place.
I made it through the double-glass doors and eventually made
my way to what could only be described as a ticket purchase box like
they have at the theaters, but this one did not hand out tickets. Instead,
it handed out keys to the red lockers that were lined up against the
wall. This was where visitors had to leave all personal belongings. I
reached my next stage at the metal detector. The guard directing me
did not seem very pleasant. I assumed that the job demanded a bit of
seriousness, so I tried to not let it bother me. After passing through the
detector and showing my identification, the guard motioned for his
peers to buzz me in.
The family waiting room had a small television in the corner of
the red brick room. To the left was a long line of windows that previewed
the cubby-like phone booths like they show in movies with prison visit
scenes. I later learned those phone booths were reserved for prisoners
who receive visits while they are in solitary confinement, more commonly
known as “the hole.” I could see the inmates entering the outside doors
from the window. This made me so anxious that I almost felt sick to
my stomach. It had been two hours since I had arrived, and I was finally
going to see my brother!
My brother was wearing a brown zip-up jacket, and despite
the cliché, the only thing neon orange was the beanie on his head. He
was taller then I remembered, and his once naturally dark skin that
would take me weeks in a tanning bed to achieve had turned pale
white. His build was massive. He had always been a muscular guy, but
his physique had reached an extreme new level. His eyes were dark,
as if he had not slept much, and his hair, once thick and brown, now
had an overcast of grey. I did not remember the jaggedness of his bottom teeth, but the top were still perfectly aligned just as they had al-
80
ways been. It was nice to see something that looked familiar. We
hugged briefly and then sat down. It was awkward at first because I
was unsure of what to talk about. I did not want to upset him by talking about things in the outside world that he was missing out on, but
he seemed happy to hear all the updates, especially updates on my
daughter, who I had been pregnant with at the time of his conviction.
I found myself curious to know what crimes the other inmates
had committed, so I discreetly asked about those that sat around us.
After all, it was a maximum security prison, so there must be serious
offenders here. I thought I would be scared of having inmates around
me, but to my surprise, I was relaxed and unafraid. The only thing I
was thinking was how normal these men looked, now dressed in white
T-shirts and grey sweat pants that they had changed into before coming
into the visiting room. No one had tattoos on their face or crazy hairdos.
They ranged in age and ethnicity. Everyone seemed to have the same
smile on their faces, happy to see their loved ones. I wondered how
such average looking men could end up in a place like that.
I was unaware of just how strict the rules would be during
visitation. Visitors were not supposed to look around or make gestures
on a regular basis. Apparently, it is considered suspicious behavior. I
was constantly aware of my mannerisms and tried not to look around
for that reason. We were not allowed to touch, except for a hug when
we greeted each other and said goodbye, but we could hold hands
while at the table. That would have felt awkward holding my brother’s
hand, and we laughed when my brother mentioned it.
After four hours of visiting, it was time for lockdown. I
dreaded this moment. I did not want to leave him. I had not seen him in
a year, and four hours was not enough time. I could sense his sadness
to leave as he gave me several big hugs. He was breaking the rules, but
he did not seem to care. I could see that he was putting on a brave
face for me as he was trying to hold back his tears. I was doing the
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same. As he lined up with the rest of the inmates, he kept looking back
at me, continuing to say he loved me. I tried to continue my brave
face, but my emotions got the best of me and I wept. Walking out of
that prison and not being able to take him with me was heart-rending.
Visiting my brother in prison made me realize how important
it is to be responsible and make good choices for my life. I know that it
is not anyone’s intention to end up in a place like that, but the decisions
people make for themselves can lead to being confined for several
years, or even a lifetime. Knowing the reality of his situation has made
me value and appreciate my time with my family and friends. I wish
he had taken a different path for his life, but regardless of what he has
done, he will always have my support and unconditional love.
82
THOMAS GOSS
May He Rest in Peace
When is revenge not only a desire, but a necessity? Edgar
Allan Poe's short story “The Cask of Amontillado” grimly trudges
through the macabre theme of revenge while presenting the reader with
a meticulously written series of events that fully utilizes the literary
concepts of irony, symbolism, and character interaction. Montresor,
Poe's protagonist who may rightfully be deemed to display sociopathic
habits, encounters his victim, Fortunato, during the peak of the carnival
season. Upon leading Fortunato through a labyrinthine catacomb,
Montresor elects to use live entombment as his mechanism of choice, a
concept that coincidentally haunted society during the time this piece
was written. Yet these events are only discovered fifty years later when
Montresor admits his concealed crime to an unknown confessor.
Made out in the form of a written letter, Montresor's retelling
of Fortunato's death begins with what appears to be an introduction to
an old friend. The wording the narrator uses even suggests this when
he addresses, “You, who so well know the nature of my soul” (Poe 101).
Whoever the unnamed recipient of this letter is, the person has known
Montresor for quite some time. Montresor then goes on to explain his
philosophy and intent for writing, asserting that the injuries he bore
from Fortunato are unredressed if vengeance is not taken, equally so
should he not make Fortunato aware that he is the one enacting said
revenge (Poe 101). Not only does Montresor scheme to murder his
nemesis, he desires to make it somewhat of a spectacle for Fortunato, a
maniacal one man show to demonstrate who it is that brings him to death.
With only two speaking characters throughout this sinister
tale, Poe laces a complex and intriguing interaction. Appearing to be
sides of the same coin, both characters represent a diametrically
83
opposed persona. Within several of Poe's works, especially “The Cask
of Amontillado,” Poe creates a duplicate of the protagonist before
allowing one to kill the other (Bily 58). Fortunato is arrogant, quick
to act, and plays the role of the gullible and perpetually inebriated
fool. In contrast, Montresor holds a precise and calm demeanor that
wields deceit, his smiling visage, and a silver tongue as key instruments
for revenge. Yet, in regards to similarity, upon further observation
these personae illustrate an internal dilemma, two mindsets of the
same individual where one is a mirror image of the other's flaws. This
conflicting paradigm, displayed in excruciating detail, sets the stage
for Fortunato's ominous demise.
By focusing upon Fortunato's dialogue and action, it becomes
clear quite quickly that his self-important mentality rivals only his
ignorance. One such profound example occurs when Fortunato
impertinently asserts that “Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from
Sherry” (Poe 101) and makes an almost identical comment again just
moments later. Elena Baraban provides keen insight to this scene,
declaring that this shows how Fortunato is not entitled to his arrogant
reputation as an authority on wine. She goes on to explain how Poe
even capitalizes “sherry” to demonstrate that his character is not using
it correctly, a category of wine, but instead as a proper noun (Baraban
53). This heightened confidence and self-aggrandizement are what
ultimately lead to Fortunato's downfall. He has assumed that Montresor is a friend. This false pretense, paired with his drunken stupor, keep
him from realizing his friend's suspicious duplicity until it's far too
late.
The protagonist and narrator, Montresor, provides the reader
with a great deal of information, though key points of his dialogue
raise more questions than answers. For example, he states in narration
that his “poor friend” had great difficulty replying due to the nitre
around them (Poe 102). As Bill Delaney puts forth, Montresor uses the
84
phrase “my friend” or “my poor friend” six different times and seemingly
gives Fortunato multiple chances to flee and live (34). Most notable
of this is that Fortunato avoids these opportunities for freedom. More
rests in here than the shallow explanation that Montresor has begun to
feel pity or doubt. Poe's character instead knows quite well the magnitude of Fortunato's stubborn arrogance, a characteristic of his “poor
friend” that would take years of injury to understand. Montresor manipulates this arrogance carefully, giving Fortunato the illusion that it
is by his choice alone that he continues to venture deep into that dreadful grave.
To greater emphasize the grievous differences between Montresor and Fortunato, Poe constructs this piece carefully, presenting a
great deal of irony within his descriptions of the characters that
continues until the climax. As the narrator states, Fortunato is wearing a “tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and ... conical cap and bells”
(Poe 101). Montresor, on the other hand, wears a short cloak and mask
(Poe 102), not unlike an executioner or a funeral mourner. With this
attire Poe has decisively defined the characters with Fortunato playing the
unaware fool, and Montresor his killer. Little has occurred in the story
so far, yet already the reader has been given a looming sense of dismay.
Later within the catacombs, the irony builds with detailed
actions. It is not uncommon for catacombs to double as wine cellars
in this time period, hence why Montresor is able to keep Fortunato
well inebriated. The names of the wines Montresor offers have deeper
significance, such as when he offers his victim a bottle of De Grave,
a play on words for the fate that awaits Fortunato (Baraban 55). Further
still, while Fortunato makes gestures for the masonic brotherhood,
Montresor upon realizing this, retrieves a trowel from underneath his
roquelaire (Poe 103). This action foreshadows the means in which
Montresor plans to murder Fortunato, going so far as to show the comically dressed fool the instrument that will be his downfall.
85
Montresor's deception, and the clashing personalities of these
two men, continues until close to the end, once Fortunato has been
initially trapped. While setting the last several layers of brick and mortar,
Montresor raises the torch above the partial-wall and in response came
“a succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the
throat of the chained form” (Poe 105). In return to this abrupt yelling,
Montresor staggers, gathers his wits, and acts in a most peculiar manner.
Instead of simply finishing his work, fleeing, or speaking some form
of an apology, he surpasses Fortunato's cries with his own. The vulgar
noises within that damp, underground necropolis of dire enemies
screaming to the extent of their lungs would yield one obscenely
dissonant noise, instead of two discernible voices (Bily 57).
The unfeeling voice of Montresor in his last discussion with
Fortunato significantly adds to the horror instilled within the reader.
Baraban argues that “Montresor is perfectly calm and rational in his
account. He never expresses pity for his enemy or feels remorse for
what he did” (49). One significant question arises in response to Baraban's
claim. Surely half a decade after these events transpired, Montresor
has aged quite a bit, likely on his death bed. Therefore, why has he,
fifty years later, brought this dark segment of his past to his confessor instead of simply allowing these secrets to die alongside him? If
not for guilt, he has become obsessed with his past deeds, seeing himself as a rightful punisher for Fortunato's insult, and he wishes others
to know what he has done.
Furthermore, the last line, in pace requiescat, that occurs in
the final narration of this piece translates to “May he rest in peace,” a
phrase used in the Last Rites when a Catholic priest has listened to the
confessions of a dying man during Requiem Mass. Montresor spitefully betrays his role as repenting sinner when he uses this phrase for
Fortunato, pardoning him for the wrongs that justified revenge (Baraban 57). With this sense of finality, and the realization that these
events occurred fifty years ago, Poe offers the reader a final sense of
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closure in the events that have occurred, but the same may not necessarily
be said of Montresor. His keen memories, from half a century past, are
vivid recollections of the events that led to Fortunato's death, either
hinting that he has set these events on a metaphorical pedestal in his
mind, considering them his moment of glory, or that Fortunato's death
has put great strain on his conscious so that this exposé is a form of
relief. Either way, the admission of this information allows Montresor
to feel that his story no longer resides in memory alone, but is now out
in the open.
The writing style in “The Cask of Amontillado” mimics the
idea of cosmological unity in structure such that each line is
purposefully placed, with no detail chosen arbitrarily (Mooney 433).
With this in mind, interpretation of the story, and its symbols, takes a
much more in-depth and enthralling turn. For example, Montresor's
crest, a large foot crushing a snake that has bitten the heel, is a sign of
a dignified and prideful family. The Montresors are not simply previously powerful and quite numerous, as Poe alludes to several times,
but they repay their transgressors. Furthermore, the family motto of
“Nemo me impune lacessit” translates to “No one provokes me with
impunity” (Poe 108). For Montresor, his revenge upon
Fortunato
is no simple affair, but a matter of his and his ancestors’ honor (Baraban 52). This motto presents the resolve of Montresor while simultaneously referencing back to the “thousand injuries” that have drawn
him to the point of homicide.
Just before Montresor finishes erecting the wall before his
victim, he sticks his torch through the remaining hole and lets it fall.
In response comes only the jingling of bells from Fortunato's hat (Poe
105). The sound of bells in this short lived scene is an ironic symbol
requiring knowledge about the time in which this was written to
understand. When Poe created “The Cask of Amontillado,” a social
phobia of premature burial was commonplace. A stigma of this
period, several inventions were created in hopes of preventing live
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entombments. One such device required attaching bells or alarms to
the newly deceased where the slightest of movements, that could
certainly indicate life, would cause said bells to deploy (Platizky). Yet
in contrast to this, the bells upon Fortunato's hat do nothing more than
fall upon deaf ears. No rescue comes, and the sound of his alarm heralds
little more than the placement of the final stone to seal his tomb.
One very powerful illustration, which may surprisingly be
overlooked upon interpretation, is the connection between Fortunato
and his tomb. The trap Montresor has created is no simple cage; it is a
place where he has locked away his victim alongside his own neurosis.
As pointed out by Leonard Engel, “Fortunato, as a character... becomes
significant as the object of Montresor's self-hatred, of the projection
of his guilt for his aristocratic family's decline” (59). Through the act
of walling off Fortunato, Montresor has found closure with not only
revenge, but contentment in feeling he has made amends with his family's
fall from grace. Montresor later mentions in his last few lines of
narration that not a single person has disturbed the remains for fifty
years (Poe 105). In consideration, it is not a difficult feat to assume
these events offered only partial closure, weighing so heavily on his
mind that he can vividly recall them many years later.
Poe's writing of “The Cask of Amontillado” comes at a time
when fear of premature burial was common in society. This cultural
phobia undoubtedly affected his writing, allowing one to speculate an
initial inspiration for Montresor's heinous crime. Though this fear is now
uncommon, the over-arching theme of revenge creates a horrifying, yet
strangely romanticized, sense of doom within the reader that follows
them throughout Poe's carefully crafted short story. His fixation to every
detail weaves a complex tapestry of symbolic irony that has sparked
much debate on the “single effect” for which Poe strives, ensuring that
nothing is placed for mere convenience. Yet, one thing remains certain:
“The Cask of Amontillado” demonstrates well the author's fascination,
creative wit, and control of literary art. In pace requiescat.
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Works Cited
Baraban, V. Elena. “The Motive for Murder in ‘The Cask of
Amontillado’ by Edgar Allan Poe.” Rocky Mountain Review
of Language and Literature 58.2 (2004): 47-62. JSTOR.Web.
10 Mar. 2013.
Bily, Cynthia. “‘The Cask of Amontillado’ Criticism.” Short Stories
for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol 7. Detroit: Gale Group,
2000. 55-58. Print. Vol 35.
Delaney, Bill. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” The Explicator 64.1
(Fall 2005): 33. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Apr. 2013
Engel, Leonard W. “Victim and Victimizer: Poe’s ‘The Cask of
Amontillado.’” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark
Milne. Vol 7. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. 58-61. Print. Vol 35.
Mooney, Stephen L. “Comic Intent in Poe’s Tales: Five Criteria.”
Modern Language Notes 76.5 (May 1961): 432-434. JSTOR.
Web. 15 Apr. 2013
Platizky, Roger. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” The Explicator
57.4 (Summer 1999): 206. Literature Resource Center. Web.
9 Apr. 2013
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Amontillado.” The Norton Introduction
to Literature. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. 10th ed.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 101-105. Print.
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Contributors
Ryan Abbey is a part-time student with Pulaski Tech where he is
working toward his commercial pilot’s license. He is currently serving
in the active duty Air Force at Little Rock Air Base where he maintains
C-130 cargo planes. In his spare time, he greatly enjoys flying his own
small plane, which he keeps hangered at home.
Treell M. Gorden is a student at Pulaski Technical College who plans
to work as an occupational therapy assistant. She enjoys spending
time with her children more than anything in the world and exposing
them to the literary arts by reading stories to them and encouraging
them to tell stories of their own. Her favorite pastimes are writing
short stories, reading, writing free verse poetry, drawing, and cooking.
Thomas Goss is a student at Pulaski Technical College who plans to
transfer to UALR to pursue a degree in computer science. His future
goals include earning a PhD and making advancements in the fields
of artificial intelligence and cryptography. In his spare time he enjoys
programming, studying philosophy, and playing games.
Zach Griffin is a student at Pulaski Technical College who plans on
transferring to UALR to pursue a master’s in social work. Some of
Zach's accomplishments include making history in his hometown by
organizing Sherwood's first ever Veterans Day Parade, founding a
non-profit organization "openvesselmissions," and serving in the
United States Marines. Zach enjoys flying single engine airplanes
and sailing the seas during long breaks from school. His goal is to finish
school to continue traveling while counseling veterans online.
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Vashti Hanline is a species characterized by its tendency to lurk in the
blue light of a computer screen and incessantly poke at the keyboard.
Online, it may most often be found skulking around lotrplaza.com,
where it proceeds to closely imitate a related species, the Nerd.
Jeremy D. Hardison is a student at Pulaski Technical College who
plans to transfer to UALR and pursue a degree in writing. He enjoys
golf and anything related to the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Robert McCarville is finishing up his studies at Pulaski Technical
College and plans to transfer to UALR to pursue a degree in human
resources. He is president of PTC’s chapter of Sigma Kappa Delta
English Honor Society and a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor
Society. He loves to travel and will read most anything put before him.
Vicki McDonald is a non-traditional student at Pulaski Technical College
and a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She plans to
transfer to UALR and pursue a degree in middle education with an
emphasis on English/social studies. She is an avid reader and enjoys
cooking and photography. After college, this mother of six and grandmother of three plans to share her love of reading, writing and history
with children.
Kimberly Ogden is a single mother attending Pulaski Technical College
after thirty-five years away from school. Kimberly's writing journey
began with Mr. Loibner-Waitkus asking her if she was Yoda while
grading her papers. The adventure continued with Ms. Govia making
her fall in love with every author she covered and never kicking Kimberly
out of her office and with Mrs. Dudley keeping the notes Kimberly
made on paper plates—either as mementoes or for their comic value!
Kimberly would like to thank these instructors, and she would like to
dedicate this essay to her children and thank them for giving her the
courage to pursue her education.
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Shara Richards is a mother of three wonderful little boys. She aspires
to be a published author of children's stories. When she graduates from
Pulaski Technical College, she will have an associate degree in business
and in arts. She will transfer to UALR to get her bachelor of arts and
then her master’s degree. She plans a future of doing charity work,
writing, taking care of her children, and enjoying her life. She wants
you to have a great day.
Barbara Riveira is a student at Pulaski Technical College who plans
to transfer to UALR and pursue a bachelor's degree in business. Her
goal after graduation is to become a human resources director. She
enjoys spending time with her husband and their three teenagers. She
has always had a deep-seated love for reading and has just recently
discovered a great passion for writing which she hopes to explore further
in the future.
Jeannine Smith, a native of central Arkansas, has recently left her
profession as a licensed massage therapist to pursue a degree in
psychology. She is currently a freshman at Pulaski Technical College
and is still undecided as to where she will transfer after obtaining an
associate of arts degree. In her spare time, Jeannine enjoys the fine
arts, physical fitness, and above all, the Word of God.
Elizabeth L. Sullivan is a student at Pulaski Technical College who
is currently working on her two year degree in business/accounting.
She enjoys spending time with her daughter and finding creative
activities for the two of them to do. She also has a passion for food and
loves trying new recipes.
Jonathan Whitehead is a student ambassador at Pulaski Tech pursuing
a double major in mathematics and philosophy. He believes in pacifism,
equality and the power of solidarity in social activism.
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