Speaker for the Deads

Despite wishes to the contrary, first opinions matter a lot. They color the relations between people greatly, and take a lot of work to overcome. But, first opinions unfortunately don't even have to be formed by meeting a person. Sometimes, you can hear word of them before you even see their face.

In real life, this has happened somewhat humorously to myself. Between the high school soccer teams in the cities of Champaign-Urbana, there is some sense of rivalry. While nothing matches the intensity of Judah-Uni or the tri-cornered rivalry between Urbana, Central, and Centennial, the match-up between Urbana and Uni at least has the feel of a little brother trying desperately to hit an older sibling (see figure 1).

figure 1: all attempts of the younger brother to get close to his elder are futile

So, imagine their surprise when some punk junior goalkeeper from Uni gets the News-Gazette Player of the Week honor ahead of them. Despite the fact that in all honesty I hadn't at that point done much to earn it and one of the seniors would have probably been a better choice, I still won it. The Urbana team was jealous though: I can relay from multiple sources that that began in them the tendency to refer to me solely as "Justin." Where the jest in slightly modifying my name lies, I do not know, and I certainly had never met any but three or four of them. Still though, from then on, I was "Justin, 0 fights, 1 KO" to them (I'm not proud of the admittedly stellar KO/fight ratio, just pointing out that they chose to lump that in).

In Song of Solomon, we see the exact same situation play out. Dr. Foster, who earned the adoration of the community and a street to be named after him, did not return the favor to his patients in private company. As Macon Dead II saw it, he was not a kind man at all:

He was just about the biggest Negro in this city. Not the richest, but the most respected. But a bigger hypocrite never lived. Kept all his money in four different banks. Always calm and dignified. I thought he was naturally that way until I found out he sniffed ether. Negroes in this town worshipped him. He didn't give a damn about them, though. Called them cannibals. He delivered both your sisters himself and each time all he was interested in was the color of their skin. (71)

It is true that Macon could very well be embellishing the story for his own purposes, or that he is severely exaggerating the truth, but even looking at Ruth we see some of this reflected in her. For her son, she wants for him to be a doctor, unlike the more pedestrian real-estate business Macon has set up for him to inherit. For her daughters, she wants them to marry doctors, somebody important. When that seems impossible, she wants people of high stature still. Eventually, it becomes apparent they will not marry anybody at all unless they are from the Southside, a low blow to Ruth. Nowhere as extreme as the Doctor's alleged feelings on the matter, but still reminiscent of them.

Despite all this, the community gave him so much respect. The woman who invited Ruth to the funeral claims the Doctor saved her son, when really they were just lucky that the people at the sanatorium wouldn't let him send any patients their way. Ruth herself associates with well-to-do ladies of the community and doesn't degrade her station in any way.

On the other hand, Macon is disliked, hated, or mistrusted by nearly everybody in the community, and it's extended to his family. Feather kicks Milkman and Guitar out of the pool hall exclusively because of who Milkman's father is. Guitar himself notes that he had to get over Macon to be okay with Milkman, considering that his first meeting with Macon was to be kicked out of his house with his family. Milkman's actions and attempts to be different from his father seem to stem heavily from the hatred he receives in place of his father.

The girls too are overshadowed by their father's reputation. For their whole lives, they were paraded around those their father wanted to impress, then locked away from life among the other kids of the community. Corinthians can't admit what she actually does for the Poet Laureate, considering how high she should have been able to reach according to her family's reputation. In her shenanigans with Porter, she fears and awakens the retribution of her father for being among the "common folk." Porter too fears being discovered with her, again for her family's known qualities.

Wherever the Deads go, they are overshadowed by the past they have no option but to carry with them. Their reputations serve as a speaker for them, informing others around them of what they should think of them. Toni Morrison here captured a fascinating and very real element of life surrounding the Deads.

Milkman's Parents

In Song of Solomon, Milkman is very interested in those who inspire fear in him. In a sense, those he respects as people he also respects for their power, whether it be physical or financial or something else. This is, of course in stark contrast to the others of the community, whose respect for power does not necessarily nor even probably involve a respect of the person. This seems to reflect on Milkman's inability to set his own course in life, in contrast to the way others set him along some path.

When we look at Macon Dead II, mostly what we see is how others feel about him. "He's a kicker," we're told by Guitar. "First time I laid eyes on him, he was kicking us out of our house" (102). In fact, we see this theme repeated throughout the novel, of Macon's power through real estate. He calls Porter's bluff in the attic, he goes around collecting rent and threatening to kick people to the street, all in the name of his property. And while he has every right to do so, he doesn't win any respect from the people who rent from him. As one lady walking out of Sonny's Shop puts it, "A n* in business is a terrible thing to see. A terrible, terrible thing to see" (22). While everybody around him fears him enough to know to take him seriously, nobody respects him as a person. Nobody will explain the name "Milkman" to him, nobody will explain to him the joke about his "hearse," because they are too afraid of the repercussions and don't care much for him anyways. In contrast, Milkman, for as much as he doesn't like his father nor want to follow in his footsteps, does give him a lot of respect. He shows typical "for-your-elders" respect and doesn't mouth off to him or anything, he works for him, and he tries to comprehend Macon's story about his mother. Certainly after the scene with the radiator, when Milkman sees he has less to fear from Macon than he thought, his respect for Macon grows. It has to, really, or else nothing would keep Milkman bound to him and working. Before that scene, it could be argued that he only fears Macon. It isn't true afterwards, however.

Pilate also commands Milkman's respect. Among the community, she is known to be powerful. She is the one they get liquor from, sure, but the scene where the man is trying to get money from Reba shows her crazy strength, as well as its fame. The neighbors come to watch the spectacle: "They knew right away that the man was a newcomer to the city. [...] [H]e would have known not to fool with anything that belonged to Pilate" (94). Apparently, her power and lack of a navel is known all over the city, or at least the Southside. In Milkman, their relationship can best be defined as subversion of his expectations. Before they met, Milkman had expected her to be dirty, poor, unkempt, unintelligent, and everything that his father found disgusting. In contrast, while poor, she was not dirty nor unkempt and was anything but unintelligent. Her first words to him are insults to him, his school, and his teachers. This show of power is what wins Milkman over. He likes to have somebody to tell him what to do and how things are. It gives him the direction he lacks in himself.

When we see Milkman alone, contemplating his life, he recognizes that Guitar is right. He has no drive in life. All he wants to do is find the next party, but he can't keep that up forever. But instead of finding his own way, he lets other people push him where they think he should be. That works for him, for a while. Ultimately, to get away from that is his intention with his year-long trip that he tries to broker from his father. But, even then, he has no clue what he'll do once he can leave, or where he'll go. Besides, to even get there, he has to follow his "assignment" from Macon to steal Pilate's inheritance. He needs direction.

Off to Oleanna

Discussing Rochester and Antoinette today gave me a nagging feeling in the back of my head I couldn't get rid of. I knew I'd heard something like this before. There was some story that I had heard about that felt very familiar to this one, the way Rochester and Antoinette feel towards each other. Luckily, my memory prevailed; I was thinking of the two-character play Oleanna by David Mamet.

Roger Ebert describes his experience seeing Oleanna as such:

Experiencing David Mamet's play "Oleanna" on the stage was one of the most stimulating experiences I've had in a theater. In two acts, he succeeded in enraging all of the audience - the women with the first act, the men with the second. I recall loud arguments breaking out during the intermission and after the play, as the audience spilled out of an off-Broadway theater all worked up over its portrait of...sexual harassment? Or was it self-righteous Political Correctness? 

The play, later adapted to a film that Ebert didn't care for at all (read more here if you're interested), was modified to become a response to the Anita Hill - Clarence Thomas hearings (it was originally written and shown before these with a very similar storyline; a third scene was written after the hearings). In it, Carol, a female college student, has come to the office of her professor, John. She does not understand the material in his class and is seeking his help to understand a book he himself wrote in which he questions the modern insistence that everybody participate in higher education. John and Carol talk but are interrupted by frequent phone calls from John's wife, who is trying to get him to come home. John is about to be granted tenure, along with a raise, and he and his wife are about to close on a new house anticipating this; her phone calls all relate to last minute issues over this. John decides to help Carol after initially appearing insensitive, taking the blame for her lack of comprehension. He agrees to give her an A if she continues to meet with him in his office to discuss the material. At one point in the conversation, he attempts to put his arm on her shoulder to comfort her, but is violently shaken off. Finally, Carol has warmed to John and is about to divulge to him a secret when they are again interrupted by John's wife, who admits that her calls were a scheme to get him to come home for a surprise reception in his honor. He leaves.

Carol and John meet again. In the time between their meetings, John's tenure has been threatened because Carol has filed an official complaint against him of sexism, citing daily occurrences of sexist remarks towards students, his offer to give her an A for meeting with him privately in his office, and his touching her shoulder, now considered sexual harassment. John intends to resolve the matter privately with Carol, which will cause the complaint to be withdrawn from the tenure committee. They are unable to reach an agreement, and Carol gets up to leave. John physically restrains her, Carol screams for help, and the second act is finished.

After these events, John has been denied tenure and has been suspended with threat of dismissal. He is again in his office packing his things. He has not been home to see his wife or family, trying to work out what happened in a hotel room. He has asked to speak with Carol one last time. Carol informs him that she feels he has abused his position of power and privilege. She accuses him of mocking and exploiting the system that pays his rent (through his book). John learns via phone call that the charges against him now amount to attempted rape, which Carol offers to drop if he agrees to sign on to a list of books a group Carol is working with (for advice and support over the charges) has drafted to be removed from the university, his own included. John refuses, arguing that he'd prefer to be dismissed. In light of all this, John angrily asks Carol to leave his office. The phone rings and his wife wants to speak to him; he calls her "baby," allegedly dismissively, which Carol objects to, saying he should not refer to her that way.  John, now fully enraged, beats Carol, verbally abuses her, and holds a chair above her head as she cowers on the floor. The play ends with Carol saying, "Yes... that's right."

Through all this, you should be able to see what Frank Rich meant when he called the play "incendiary." He says that "during the pause for breath that separates the two scenes of Mr. Mamet's no-holds-barred second act, the audience seemed to be squirming and hyperventilating en masse, so nervous was the laughter and the low rumble of chatter that wafted through the house." It's an uncomfortable, difficult topic to talk about, and leaves everyone outraged. Nobody's right; John acts unwisely in the first act, Carol in the second, and both in the last. But what's most prevalent is the dynamic, between a man with power dealing with a situation regarding a woman.

Although nothing in Wide Sargasso Sea so extreme as accusations of attempted rape over touching somebody's shoulder or physical and verbal abuse goes down, I think what we have seen so far is very similar to, at least, the first act of Oleanna. Antoinette has a problem: she and Rochester do not relate nearly as well as she would like. Rochester has to appropriately deal with the situation before him; he is married to this woman, but there are reasons to believe that he has been misled about her and has been pushed into an unfavorable relationship. To his credit, he investigates the claims without prejudice. He describes Daniel as annoying him; even though he makes scary claims, Rochester's default is still to side with his wife until he can figure things out. He talks to Daniel, who he realizes may just be trying to blackmail him. He talks to Amelie, who describes Daniel as a bad man, uppity and ready to stir trouble. Once he has context, he goes to talk to Antoinette directly. They talk, somewhat successfully, much unlike they have before that point. Rochester asks her questions prompted by Daniel's allegations. Before she answers, Rochester decides that she is not ready to talk to him about it and offers to talk another time, but Antoinette insists upon giving her answer. Instead, though, she tells him the story of her childhood, and maneuvers around his question. He at one point calls her Bertha, which she objects to. Finally, they go in to bed, and Antoinette assumably casts Christophine's spell on him, causing them to be close and do things that he does not remember.

Comparing this to Oleanna yields two obvious similarities. John's behavior toward Carol (touching her shoulder, offering to meet with her in private for a better grade) echoes that of Rochester (calling Antoinette "Bertha" and other actions that appear innocent on the surface but carry potentially problematic overtones). Further, Carol's escalation of the events of the first act echo Antoinette's response to Rochester's lack of closeness (getting Christophine to help her with an obeah spell). I think our discussions in class about the dynamic here, frightfully similar to that of Oleanna, are reminiscent of Ebert's and Rich's descriptions of the audience of that play, though severely toned down. Some side with Rochester; according to them, his behavior has been nothing but reasonable given the situation he's been put in. Others side with Antoinette, noting that she has a very poor lot in all this with all of her money gone to Rochester, and that his behavior towards her has been lacking. Honestly, just like Mamet portrays in the play, I don't think either are perfectly in the right. Neither are working towards being together or getting to know each other and have a healthy relationship. Rochester seeks the input of everybody but Antoinette after receiving Daniel's letter, while her first response to their growing gap is to put a spell on him and force him to be with her. What they could use is a good relationship counselor, and not a series of escalating and increasingly enraging actions, like in Oleanna. That's definitely no example to follow.

To Love and To Be Loved

Meursault is a puzzling figure in The Stranger. We don't get much in the way of his feelings, assuming he even has them. The sense we get from him is that mostly he's just concerned with physical needs and desires. If he's tired, he wants to rest or take a nap. If he's hungry, he wants to eat. This could be in the middle of the day or the middle of a funeral. All that matters is how he feels, more or less. But, I think that's ignoring a very important desire Meursault has outside of physicality.

Meursault is a surprising social fellow, for being so weird and abnormal. He and Celeste hang out; there's Emmanuel who he jumps on the truck with; Raymond and he become "pals" quickly; Salamano regards him well after they talk about his dog; and Marie and he get along famously. Meursault hits it off with people surprisingly well, with the exception of Maman's funeral.

Really, Meursault cares a lot about being liked by people. In the courtroom, he realizes to himself that he is guilty only when he can feel the hatred of the people watching the trial. After Raymond gets injured on the beach, he doesn't go back to the house partially because of the stairs, but also because he doesn't want to face the woman inside. When they find out about what he's done, he's probably going to lose likability points, which he doesn't want. At other times, he puts on a neutral air so as to offend as few people as possible; there's no reason to make Salamano hate him just so others like him a little more, and so he disagrees when others call Salamano's relationship with his dog despicable. To him, it's interesting; not positive, but not negative either. Occasionally he will say something he doesn't mean to achieve something, like when he agrees with the magistrate to shut him up on page 69: "As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed." Although here again we see more of his activity towards his physical needs and desires, it also shows his willingness to manipulate others towards a certain result.

The interesting thing about this is that, in a way, this ability is what is on trial in the courtroom. Nobody questions that he killed the Arab. He doesn't deny it in any way. Instead, he's on trial for being so different, for not playing by the rules of the game. His ability to make people like him will either save him or break him. But, there's only so much Meursault is allowed to do to achieve this. He hardly gets to defend himself; his lawyer does all the talking and tries to convince him to say as little as possible. Meursault can't make any new friends; instead, it's up to his old ones to persuade the court that he is normal, or that they as a group do like him. The problem comes out where Meursault didn't do enough; fuss is made over his behavior at Maman's funeral and his irreverence. He didn't even cry or see her body! Whatever happened to "A man's business is his business and none of yours"?

Taking this all into account, the end of the book comes as a great shock. Completely opposite to his earlier attempts to not have people dislike him, he now wishes "that there be large crowd of spectators the day of [his] execution and that they greet [him] with cries of hate" (123). Is it enough that he flips out at the chaplain that he completely changes his world view? This total reversal seems out of place, or uncalled for. But, perhaps, his blind rage that "washed [him] clean" allowed him to see something. Perhaps, just like loving someone "doesn't really mean anything," it doesn't mean too much to hate someone too. And in this similarity, it doesn't make too much a difference which one people do to him.

The Beasts Beyond the Door

The Brothers Grimm were, for a long time, the trusted fairy tale source. From tales like "Rumpelstiltskin" to "The Wolf and the Fox," their stories have graced the imaginations of children for generations. But, there was one tale they did not get to write: Metamorphosis.

In this tale, we follow the harrowing story of a man, transformed by who-knows-what into some sort of insect. His own family banishes him to his room, while all he wants is to get back to work and continue to support them. His only human contact comes twice a day in the form of his sister, who cares for him despite her revulsion. Our man takes to hiding away beneath a couch to spare her even the sight of his body. What a compelling story!

But, let's look at this objectively. Before we frame this as some sort of reverse monster movie, where humans terrorize this innocent man-sect, think about it from Gregor's family's perspective. When they first look into his room, all they see is this thing. Where's Gregor? They heard him earlier. He had been in there just last night. What did this thing do to him? Did it eat him? Or otherwise kill him, and hide the body? Why in the world would they assume this giant bug is Gregor? Even once they decide it must be him, with little to go by (and they don't really even question it, they pretty much just throw up their hands and say, "Now what are we going to do?"), is it that odd that they don't want to be faced with his fairly freaky body? He is a monstrous vermin, after all.

No, this story isn't about our poor, pitiable man-sect struggling for recognition and fighting his oppressive family. Rather, stories about transformation or anthropomorphism take this fresh opportunity away from humans to investigate them closely. Trickster tales like Reynard the Fox allowed people to look at how those in power performed, with the excuse that they were only reading of funny animals. "Little Red Riding Hood" and other such stories allowed people to contemplate horrific acts of murder and the like, without being confronted with grisly details. Transformations show what people look like as they lose humanity; and what humanity looks like around them.

The problem is, Gregor isn't becoming more and more buglike. Instead, he's just getting more and more adolescent. He stays in his room away from people. He spends his spare time scuttling around on the walls and ceilings for his amusement. He loses his furniture, but it allows him more space to do as he pleases. He isn't losing his humanity, but his sense of adulthood. In some sense, Kafka depicts the cruel life before of working and whittling away on his private projects against this sense of lighthearted fun he has as a bug. Would it be wrong to interpret that as saying the weird adult world is in some way a travesty?

The Gang Goes to Bedlam

1926: The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, is published
1923: Das Ich und das Es (The Ego and the Id), by Sigmund Freud, elaborates on ideas proposed in a 1920 work, Jenseits des Lustprinzips (Beyond the Pleasure Principle), about the original three amigos: the id, ego, and super-ego

In The Sun Also Rises, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that the people in the story have problems. They give themselves all sorts of nonsense to squabble over. They give themselves a detachment from real feelings with irony. Jake specifically masks feelings of inadequacy over his injury with hyper-masculinity, becoming ill at the very sight of the gay men that Brett enters the dance hall with in Chapter III (p. 28, to be precise). In fact, the problems the characters face seem almost to riff on the ideas put forth by Freud in that time frame about the way the human psyche works.

With his theory of the id, ego, and super-ego, Freud supposes that humans have three forces at work within their mind. The id brings forth instinctual and unconscious desires and tendencies; it seeks to make us do whatever will make us happy, more or less. The super-ego acts in opposition; it internally criticizes and moralizes what we do, like a conscience. The ego stands between, mediating between the two and giving us whatever action it deems best to perform.

In fact, these descriptions sound eerily similar to specific characters. Mike, when he gets drunk, spouts out whatever comes to his head. He rants off at Cohn (in a manner his friends decide was too far, though right-minded) for following Brett around like a lost puppy and for never getting drunk (146-7). He yells for someone to tell Romero that "bulls have no balls" (180). Whenever he gets drunk, he goes too far, does something ridiculous, doesn't keep himself in check properly, behaves badly. In him, the id dominates, at least when there's enough alcohol in the system.

Cohn, on the other hand, does more or less the opposite. He takes everything too seriously. He takes Brett's supposed morality too seriously: "I don't believe she would marry anybody she didn't love" (46). In fact, Jake retorts she's done it twice; it doesn't make sense to talk virtuously about how she doesn't live virtuously. He gets offended when Jake jokingly tells him to "go to hell" (47). The phrase is tossed around casually the entire conversation by Jake, and elsewhere too, but in this one instance Cohn breaks and snaps at Jake over seemingly nothing. Cohn doesn't mesh with the group, because he doesn't riff with them; he doesn't get drunk like they do, he doesn't joke like they do, he keeps himself too far in check. In him, the super-ego dominates.

With these two extremes set, it's very difficult to find someone between them to contrast them both to. Brett seems just a little too eager to get drunk, to party, to sleep around; her super-ego doesn't have quite enough power, though she is clearly not as far gone as Mike. Jake seems better, especially in the Basque country with Bill, where he can properly indulge his id and riff with him. But, introduce Brett to the occasion, and he falls silent. He doesn't really participate in group conversations. In fact, he is too reserved; just like he says he'd "be as big an ass as Cohn" if given the proper chance with Brett, his super-ego overpowers around Brett (185). Bill is better; everybody likes him, a good indication he behaves himself well and interestingly. Of course, he too leans towards his id; he'll have unprovoked outbursts like Mike, and the id is the source of what makes him funny in the first place, but he generally has control over himself (as evidenced by the "bromance" scene fishing with Jake).

What repulses Cohn even more than his super-ego from the gang, though is when his id pokes out. This is what causes him to come after Jake for "pimping" Brett out to Romero, and to punch everybody out. His id isn't like that of Mike or Bill; he doesn't joke around or try to have a good time when his base desires come out. He goes straight for what he wants. In a way, it's almost narcissistic, that he focuses on what will fulfill his needs over helping out everyone else in the process. No matter what he does, he doesn't fit in with the group; they probably weren't meant to be.

Whether or not Hemingway was influenced by Freud's work any, his characters prove to be a very natural case-study for what Freud was proposing. Whether or not Freud's ideas have merit, they produced interesting and compelling characters in The Sun Also Rises. Perhaps some enterprising author should follow suit, and base a story around nihilism, or existentialism.

Canadian Psycho

Although moving pictures had been around since the 19th Century, sound did not accompany them until the late 1920s. Today, we expect a movie to be a full audio-visual experience. The soundtrack can decide the effectiveness of a scene; good choices can amplify the emotions of the moment, whereas bad ones just seem silly. It was in keeping this in mind that, in The Hours, I was seriously surprised by the soundtrack as Laura's story carries out. It felt like at any moment, the film was going to turn psycho. Was she going to stab somebody trying to make the cake? Was she going to crash the car? The music keeps the tension high with all of her scenes.

In fact, all of her scenes' music reminded me of this scene in Kill Bill:

Here, we have a lady with an eye patch whistling as she walks into a hospital. As she enters the restroom, the music starts to pick up behind her. As she gets dressed, the music becomes more intense. As she fills a syringe with a strange red substance, the horns blast. She walks out of the restroom, now donning a stereotypical nurses' outfit, no longer whistling, but the music plays on. A storm is brewing outdoors, as she looks in on some patient's room. Thanks to the music, we know she is no ordinary nurse. Despite the facade (and eerie red cross eye patch) she wears, she is actually there to do something very sinister. Of course, it is revealed she is there to assassinate the patient who she used to work with, but that is irrelevant. The music sets up the scene perfectly; something is amiss with eye patch lady.

As we watch through The Hours, we can see what the dramatic music is building towards. Instead of some freaky moment where Laura murders her husband or harms Richard or anything, she is progressing towards the point where she tries to kill herself. But, the intense music follows her even after she doesn't go through with it. When she returns to talk with Clarissa about Richard's death, the music returns as she gives her monologue about why she left. Even though she had acted out the craziness all that time ago, she had never fully escaped it, signified by the way everything seemed just... off about her, in both her first and last scenes. Behind her facade of an ordinary housewife lives a deeply unhappy woman, and our main clue is the music behind it. Sound raises powerful emotions, and the music in The Hours suitably piqued mine in severely bizarre ways.

The Center of the Universe (Is Not in London)

In Mrs. Dalloway, we constantly see characters make assumptions about each other. Clarissa says she can judge the character of a person just by looking at them; Peter frequently claims to know by feel Clarissa's intentions; and the first time we even see Septimus he is freaking out because he thinks everybody is looking at him. This isn't inherently a bad thing; it can sometimes be used for good. Clarissa's gut feelings about people are usually confirmed by her friends (Peter says something to the extent that she was always a good judge of character). Peter has known Clarissa for a long time, and even if he is not right he can still push Clarissa to do better in a situation. But it's troublesome when these assumptions directly drive people's feelings and actions.

Let's take a look at the scene between Clarissa and Miss Kilman when Elizabeth and Miss K are getting ready to go to the Army and Navy Stores. We already know Clarissa has built up a whole backlog of feeling against Miss Kilman, that she more or less hated the very idea of her. I can't find the passage now, but I think Clarissa even said at one point that she thought Miss Kilman wore her mackintosh to flaunt her poorness and make Clarissa feel bad (at another point Miss Kilman defends it, saying, "First, it was cheap; second, she was over forty, and did not, after all, dress to please" (120)). That's pretty ridiculous, though; how can you assume something so simple as clothing is meant as an attack on you?

But, Clarissa is able to dispel her assumptions. We see as Miss Kilman is starting to leave that Clarissa can see through them: "Odd it was, as Miss Kilman stood there ..., how, second by second, the idea of her diminished, how hatred .. crumbled, how she lost her malignity, became second by second merely Miss Kilman, in a mackintosh, whom Heaven knows Clarissa would have liked to help" (123). In fact, the dichotomy between the idea of Miss Kilman and the woman herself was so great that Clarissa laughed. However, we have a problem here. Miss Kilman could not see what was happening in Clarissa's head, and assumed the worst. She thought Clarissa was insulting her: "Ugly, clumsy, Clarissa Dalloway had laughed at her for being that" (125). Now, why would she go and assume something like that? Why is it that whenever somebody does something, people assume it's intended to make a point to them? That just seems narcissistic to me.

What's worse is that several characters do it. Besides Clarissa and Miss Kilman, Septimus thinks everybody is watching him and closing in in the car scene. On the other hand, Lucrezia is afraid those people "closing in" will hear when he talks about killing himself or other dreadful things. Elizabeth does it too, and not even in a negative way. Waiting for the bus, she just assumes people would compare her to other things, saying, "And already, even as she stood there, in her very well cut clothes, it was beginning.... People were beginning to compare her to poplar trees, early dawn, hyacinths, fawns, running water, and garden lilies, and it made her life a burden to her" (131). Can't people be left to ignore her in peace? There's absolutely no reason that everybody must be thinking about her.

Don't get me wrong, I do this too. I have no idea why, but in public I'm always afraid of what people are thinking about me, or judging me for. I know that in all likelihood they're just thinking about the weather, or their day, or how everybody is thinking about them, but I can't get over myself and let it go. I wish I could though...

More than Human

Food for thought: is Mrs. Dalloway about the manifestation of ideas?

We all know that an object and the idea it represents are intrinsically separate. A word is just a bunch of symbols and sounds that come together to form the idea of an apple, or a chair, or whatever. Multiple languages couldn't exist if there wasn't some abstraction between saying a word and thinking about an idea. As it stands, we never see ideas in real life. Besides the obvious point that ideas are something you have in your head, we never look at an apple and say, "Clearly, this is the perfect apple. It represents all apples. All other apples are just derived from this one." The idea of the apple cannot transcend its earthly vessel.

(so what is it then?)

Yet, in Mrs. Dalloway, we see this all the time. Take Clarissa. Her very job is to be the idea of Mrs. Richard Dalloway; whatever she thinks, whoever she is, doesn't matter. What matters is what others think about her, how they see her and what she does. We looked at the ways several different people thought about Clarissa; it's important to realize that that legitimately comprised Clarissa, at least in her role as Mrs. Dalloway.

Further, with the whole episode surrounding the car, nobody knows for sure who is inside. Nobody could tell you with undeniable proof it was the Queen, or the Prime Minister, or anybody; it was unknown. But, really, it didn't matter. More important than the specific figure inside the car was the idea of importance that surrounded it. The people that saw it together formed its importance, by thinking it was important. Pretty circuitous, right? But if they had just ignored the car, regardless of who was inside, it wouldn't have mattered. Similarly, it could have been nobody of importance inside, but if they had still gone gaga it would've still been seen as important. What really was important was how everybody thought about it; the idea that it was important made it important.

Clarissa points out the way her ideas about Miss Kilman manifested into something beyond the person on page 12: "For it was not her one hated but the idea of her, which undoubtedly had gathered in to itself a great deal that was not Miss Kilman." What Miss Kilman stood for, what she symbolized beyond just a person, ended up dominating Clarissa's interpretation of Miss Kilman and what she did. When she finally gets herself to look at Miss Kilman simply, as another person, she laughs at how differently she had built her up to be (and Miss Kilman's idea of Clarissa was laughing at her for being ugly...). When the idea was broken, the absurdity of the situation made Clarissa burst out laughing. Ideas hold sway over everything.

Perhaps Mrs. Dalloway is representative of the way we interact with ideas instead of objects, or ideas instead of people. But, what's important is that ideas are fighting to be able to show themselves, and when we let them possess something, we lose its actual meaning.

Head Safari

In The Mezzanine, our intrepid explorer Howie engages in a cerebral safari; though his body is slowly trundled towards the eponymous intermediate floor, his mind blazes from place to place, seeing the sights of the Sahara of his brain. Ideas are the captivator of Howie's attention. Some ideas are like the gazelles, gathering in herds to go about their business, a cluster of related thoughts roving about as one. Though one is ultimately the idea most pertinent to the story, it has hangers-on, footnotes to add to its presence. Others, like lions in the wilds of Howie's brain, winnow down the herd; as a whole, the gazelles leave stronger, but sacrifices are made along the way. His constant refinement of "shoelace theory," for one, shows us this principal. So, now knowing the subject of our adventure, it is this humble guide's intention to help you get the most for your enterprise.

In truth, there are many ways one could choose to view the safari. Some come along and take pictures constantly; the park has no rules against this, but I would advise against it. Those who take a snapshot of the moment, then stop all else to examine it, only to take another, end up missing some of the most beautiful sites here. Devotion to documenting your experiences is admirable, if not a little foolhardy. Trying to process a piece of Howie's mind apart from the rest only leads to confusion in the end. Rather, the other guides and I find that the best method of observation is to watch everything. Wander about the grounds with wide eyes, absorb everything. Then, when the opportunity presents itself to you, be ready to capture the moment. A quick reaction won't always produce the best individual pictures, but it won't spoil your experience either.

Learn from my experience. This past summer, my mother and I went to visit Portland. In our exploration, we traveled by a beautiful section of waterfalls beneath Mt. Hood. My mother, smartphone camera at her side, dragged me up the trails, maneuvered about the walkways, and positioned me just so in order to perfectly capture the falls. But this was not the greatest memory of the trip. Though it produced something we could take back, a trophy of our conquerings, our most memorable vision of the area came long after her iPhone had sputtered to a halt. When I convinced her to take a side road up the mountain, to explore a hidden trail, we discovered someplace much greater than the falls below: a promontory from which we could spy vast peaks hundreds of miles away. We did not come back with pictures of this great vista, but we came back with memories even greater.

When reading this book, as with exploring the falls, the best course of action is to absorb it all and process it afterwards. Once you can see the connections, pick out the best sites, you will best know how to understand the book. Attempting to surmount it piecewise, like exploring a mountain by pictures, will not suffice. Reading one part and crunching down on it will assuredly leave some other place neglected, and you will not have a full picture of the whole. Capturing the moment will obscure, but serving it will tease out the glory inside.