Author: sabowdenwrites

Fall of the VEmpire

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A big part of postcolonial criticism is colonialist ideology.  It emphasizes the superiority of European colonizers while othering the colonized (Tyson 400-401).  It’s a way to justify the colonization, and the subsequent cruelty, enacted by the colonizers.  To keep this myth alive, they taught colonialist ideology to the conquered people. This leads to a desire to assimilate from the colonized, who practice mimicry (Tyson 403), imitating the ways and culture of their conquerors out of shame and a desire for acceptance.  By othering the colonized, the colonizers also refuse to address their own vulnerability to conquest. Only “others” are weak enough to be conquered by a great nation like ours, they say. We are too strong and powerful. We’re immune because we’re superior, and we’re superior because we’re immune.  

But what happens when the colonizers are doing the mimicry to insert themselves among their victims?  And what happens when the colonized and the colonizer are on the same continent? Most literature about colonialism (encouraging or condemning) doesn’t explore these sticky spots.  

Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been called an allegory for colonization, but it pushes the traditional colonization narrative.  The titular vampire emigrates from Transylvania to England in an attempt to start a vampire empire there, like a colonizer.  When he travels, he brings coffins of soil from his home country because as a vampire, he’s unable to sleep on any other dirt than his own.  This calls to mind immigrants (or colonists) bringing aspects of their culture to the places they settle in to establish a cultural foothold.  On the flip side, Dracula works hard to pass as British. He asks protagonist Jonathan Harker to stay with him so Dracula can study and imitate the Englishman’s pronunciation, syntax, accent, diction, and speech patterns.  This is much more insidious than overt colonization, where the colonizers make no effort to assimilate. Dracula pretends to be a fully English human while secretly planting the seeds for a Transylvanian vampire colony to conquer the English humans.  It throws a wrench in traditional colonialism narratives because we have one European country attempting to colonize another European country, instead of a European country attempting to colonize a nonEuropean country. Also, the colonizer is thwarted.  I see the novel as both a colonialist narrative, suggesting the superiority of England since it resists being colonized (the immunity-superiority loop I mentioned above), and an anti-colonialist narrative, showing the limits of European colonizing power.  It’s also anti-colonialist by making the colonizer the other: the would-be-colonized English are members of the “superior” race while the colonizers are blood-sucking, inhuman villains. It’s a fitting, and condemning, metaphor for colonization, which drains labor, life, and resources from the colonized.  

Works Cited

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015.

Until Proven Guilty: The Lack of Justice in And Then There Were None

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I want to question the idea of justice in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.  There are arguments aplenty on if U. N. Owen is justified or even interested in justice when they (singular) murder ten people, each of whom is accused of getting away with killing someone.  A closer look at how Owen accomplishes their idea of justice, and the people who are punished under it, reveals much more ambiguity. First, we must consider the “criminals” killed. One character, Emily Brent, is accused of causing a teenage girl’s suicide—even though Brent didn’t cause the suicide or tell the girl to kill herself.  Two other characters are never even confirmed guilty. They also happen to be, some say, the most minor: Thomas and Ethel Rogers, the butler and cook. But a New Critical lens reveals the Rogerses’ so-called underdevelopment makes them ripe for a range of interpretations, and their opaqueness is not classist ignorance on Christie’s part, but an unsolved mystery within a mystery.  Because we know so little about them and we never hear their thoughts, we never know if they’re guilty or innocent. In fact, there’s no conclusive evidence they committed murder. This ambiguity severely disrupts U. N. Owen’s master plan.  

Second, we must ask if Owen can enforce justice alone.  Under the English system, justice was jointly administered by the police, jury, judge, and executioner.  While Owen finds this unable to bring every killer to justice, Marti’s and Saks’s meta-analysis shows the importance of having many people involved in court proceedings.  When only one person is police, judge, jury, and executioner, it inherently contaminates the system’s integrity.  

Considering the potential innocence of the “guilty,” and the limitations of the one-person judgment, it becomes apparent that U. N. Owen’s plan for “justice” is poorly thought out at best.  At worst, it’s not justice at all.  

Potential Sources

Saks, Michael J., and Mollie Weighner Marti. “A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Jury Size.” Law and Human Behavior, vol. 21, no. 5, 1997, pp. 451–467. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1394327.

Vurmay, M. Ayça.  “Detection or Endless Deferral/Absence in Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.”  DCTF Dergisi, 57.2, 2017, pp. 1127-1150.  

Shots in the Dark: New Historicism in History

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When I took American history in eighth grade, my teacher split us into groups to teach us about the Boston Massacre.  She gave us each an eyewitness account, which she told us to read and discuss as a group. (Oh, the censorship of 18th century writing: “g-d damn it!”)  We went on our merry way for a few minutes, then she called on each group and asked the members to describe what happened on March 5, 1770. Each group had a different explanation for who started it, who reacted, and what exactly happened.  We students wondered how this could be, but not my teacher. She explained, “I gave each group a different account: some of you got the Patriots’ perspective, and some of you got the British soldiers’ perspective.” It was especially thought-provoking for me, who learned the colonists were the poor unfortunate victims and the Redcoats were the perpetrators, to read a report from one of the wicked Redcoats himself.  He described angry colonists yelling at him and cursing the soldiers out, not exactly the innocent and helpless victims of a massacre. Clever, Miss Fleming.  

I never forgot that lesson, and I wonder how history class would be different if everything was taught that way.  It would make a more cumbersome history class, but perhaps more enlightening and engaging.  Can we ever factor in and represent every possible perspective? I think not, though my perspective as a writer in the ongoing diversity push comes into play here.  With intersectionality, there are so many groups and perspectives that I don’t think it’s possible or at least practical to include every one. Further, not every historical event involves every group, and not every group is accessible to us now.  For instance, the Chinese weren’t very involved in the Boston Massacre, and we know of the existence of Amazon tribes who are still uncontacted. We won’t be hearing their perspective on World War II or the Watergate scandal.  

Miss Fleming’s method follows the New Historical ideas of interpretation and subjectivity.  If a class were to go by this system, some may ask, “Well, if it’s all subjective, how can students ever learn facts about history?”  Really, it’s not all subjective: dates, most locations, and names, for instance, are generally undisputable. But as Miss Fleming showed us, subjectivity isn’t just limited to who was right or wrong.  Psychology class shows us the unreliability and variability of eyewitness accounts, which is how most history is learned at the root. It’s very deconstructive, looking at it that way: a fractal of interpretations and meanings.  And like deconstruction, a more varied perspective can help remake our identity as Americans and people.  

DID the Butler Do It? A New Critical Look at Two Underrated Servants

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[There is a spoiler for And Then There Were None in this pitch.  No, I don’t reveal the killer’s identity.  If you haven’t read it, you should!]

A person doesn’t need an English degree to see the exploration of the universal themes of justice and punishment in Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel And Then There Were None.  Interestingly, few scholarly articles exist on the novel.  There are arguments aplenty on if U. N. Owen is justified or even interested in justice when s/he murders ten people, each of whom is accused of getting away with murder.  But nearly all these readers’ opinions are based on the assumption that all ten people are guilty of murder, which drains the book of some ambiguity. In fact, only eight characters are confirmed guilty through thoughts, flashbacks, or confessions.  The two that aren’t also happen to be, some say, the most minor, whose thoughts are never revealed: Thomas and Ethel Rogers, the butler and cook. Christie has been criticized for her underdeveloped domestic worker characters such as these two. But a New Critical lens reveals the paradox that the most “minor” characters are actually the most important.  The Rogerses’ so-called underdevelopment makes them ripe for a range of interpretations, and their opaqueness is not classist ignorance on Christie’s part, but an unsolved mystery within a (solved) mystery. Because we know so little about them and we never hear their thoughts, we never know if they’re guilty or innocent. In fact, unlike every other character, there’s no conclusive evidence they committed the murder they’re accused of.  This adds a dose of ambiguity that severely disrupts, if not completely overthrows, U. N. Owen’s master plan for “justice.”  

Potential Source: 

Vurmay, M. Ayça.  “Detection or Endless Deferral/Absence in Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.”  DCTF Dergisi, 57.2, 2017, pp. 1127-1150.  

I Imagine, Therefore I Am…

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In The Uncommercial Traveller, Charles Dickens uses his writing to create his public, yet intimate, persona.  I can think of only one other situation in which a writer uses their work to develop their persona, and that’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Under the pen name Lemony Snicket, the author creates an elaborate backstory for himself-as-Snicket, who narrates and “researches” the lives of the Baudelaire orphans.  He references, in vague terms, his personal tragedy surrounding Beatrice, who is connected to the characters in the series. He claims to visit the settings of the books, where he writes letters to his editor included as epilogues.  He even writes an autobiography, which only adds to the mystery because it doesn’t really explain who he is. As a fifth grader reading the books, this vexed me greatly, but now that I’m a college student and a more professional writer, I find it clever and engaging.  

Snicket’s literary persona is a mask, a character in itself that hides the author’s true identity, and his probably far less extraordinary life, from his audience.  When I compare Snicket to the grown-up Dickens in The Uncommercial Traveller, I wonder if they both serve this hiding purpose.  A public persona is, after all, not a complete image of the person in question.  It inevitably includes, or more often leaves out, facets of the person.  

I’m no Dickens expert, so I don’t know how much of the young Dickens in the story is true.  The child is earnest and hopeful, longing to live in the house that Dickens owns as an adult, but believing it’s an impossible dream.  Dickens works hard to evoke an endearing child we readers want the best for. Knowing the adult Dickens lives in Gadshill, I can practically hear him telling small, aspirational children, “You too can make your dreams come true if you persevere, just as my father told me!”  It feels a little too classic rags-to-riches, which takes away the authenticity Dickens strives for in creating such a “queer, small boy” and such an unpompous manhood self. It also suggests that Dickens views himself as a rags-to-riches story, considering he makes little to no effort to draw any distinction between himself and his story-adult-self.  If that is so, then this persona also masks Dickens’s true face, to himself as well as to his fans, by only showing a part of his history, an a nice part at that.  This could be his coping mechanism for his difficult childhood: focusing only on the pretty, inspirational parts and leaving the rougher parts unsaid.

His you-too-can-make-your-dreams-come-true message comes across clearly through these two personas—like Lemony Snicket, another character and another story being told.  

Wrestling with Suffrage

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In “The World of Wrestling,” Roland Barthes argues that wrestlers are very much like characters in a play, and each wrestler has a designated role or “type,” such as “the bastard” or “the underdog.”  It reminded me of an Elizabeth Robins short story I read in my modernist women writers class called “Under His Roof” about the strained relationship between two former friends. Esther is a well-off housewife who takes pride in her house and doesn’t like change.  Miranda intends to join the suffrage movement and break into Parliament, against Esther’s advice.  

It becomes apparent that the characters embody the opposing views of women during the suffrage movement.  On the one hand, there’s Esther, who’s comfortable in her decaying and unsafe house (representing patriarchy) and who fears the suffrage movement (and change).  She marries out of desperation, believing this is the best and safest option. In Miranda’s words, she lives in the past. Miranda, on the other hand, is willing to risk life and limb for the right to vote.  She doesn’t admire the old house, and she points out its flaws. She is unmarried, independent, and determined. By reducing her characters to archetypes, Robins has a clear medium to convey the viewpoints and make an argument about suffrage.  Barthes touches on this idea when he praises wrestling for its clarity and lack of ambiguity.  

This level of simplicity can draw criticism from people who think it’s too heavy-handed.  So how clear is too clear? Robins manages this balance by giving her two archetypal characters a backstory unrelated to suffrage that also connects them.  She also doesn’t bypass the range of emotions both women show. Esther is proud and condescending, but worried for Miranda. Miranda, in turn, struggled with heartbreak in the past, finds a purpose and dignity in the movement, and feels a degree of tenderness toward Esther.  

And if a character type is meant to be unpredictable (as Barthes describes the “bastard”), how can one be unpredictable and yet clear?  I suspect by “unpredictable,” Barthes means “appearing unpredictable,” as the entire wrestling match is an appearance or show. We can have a general idea of what the character will do, even if how he goes about it, and the result, is familiar.  For example, Wile E. Coyote tries all sorts of bizarre methods to catch Road Runner, but someone who’s seen enough episodes knows he’ll always fail.   

Further, at one point, Barthes says at least some of the audience members aren’t within the roles of society.  This suggests that a person who watches a flamboyant display like wrestling becomes a type or role, the same as the wrestlers.  It seems strange that people who normally don’t encourage fighting may egg on fighting and violence in a staged setting—until we consider how humans behave differently in different environments, a deconstructionist outlook on human identity.  The person I am in my dorm, the person I am in band class, and the person I am when I’m at church are not identical. Role playing and archetypes aren’t limited to wrestlers or fictional characters; it’s a life skill for everyday people.  

Originality and the Historical Sense

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Eliot describes a poet’s originality as the places where “the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.”  In other words, everything in art has been done, no matter how original it seems, and this isn’t something to be ashamed of. (I get this a lot as a writer.)  He emphasizes the “historical sense,” an understanding of how the past is present today (clever pun). But a historical sense cannot be passively absorbed. It must be obtained by “great labor.”  

I agree with much of what Eliot said.  His argument on dead poets asserting their immortality in living poets’ work reminded me of a surprising discovery I made while revising a YA mystery.  I considered my protagonist Silas pretty original—he’s a seventeen-year-old butler—but I realized he has things in common with a much older protagonist: Jesus.  Silas is conceived out of wedlock to a low-class couple. He lives a life of service and obedience. He walks on (frozen) water and serves at the story’s last supper.  He puts the lives of others before his own to confront great evil (the killer), who drags him to a graveyard. There, he’s wounded in the hand and side but (miraculously?) walks out of the graveyard alive.  

Contrary to Eliot’s argument, I wasn’t aware of all this when I wrote the story.  Not all echoes of past literature are consciously inserted by the writer through great labor.  First, we’re born into cultures that carry assumptions, stories, and ideals, which influence our thinking.  Second, the story (or other art) always has connections, references, and ideas the writer isn’t immediately aware of.  However, I doubt it’s a coincidence that I, a Roman Catholic author who read various stories with Christ figures and Biblical allusions, wrote a story about a boy with Christ figure characteristics.  

At the same time, becoming aware of our culture’s assumptions, stories, and ideals that we absorb is important not just for writers but also for thinkers.  This is the “great labor” to acquire a “historical sense.” It helps us understand why we believe what we believe and gives us room to consider other cultures’ assumptions, stories, and ideals.  

The historical sense and the “immortality” of dead writers puts a wrinkle in new criticism, though.  New criticism cuts out any context a writer is born into and the influence of previous writers, but Eliot claims both of these must be considered by a writer with the historical sense.  A new critic could get around this by pointing out that historical sense is directed at writers, not readers, and new criticism is a way of reading, not writing. Arguably, a writer doesn’t have to think about new criticism and can consider all the context they want when writing.  A new critical reader just won’t factor any of that in. But ignoring the historical sense means ignoring influences that guide the work. Those influences may give a new way to see the work as a whole. For example, if I think of Silas as a Christ figure, that suggests the killer embodies Satan and human wickedness, or Silas’s friends represent disciples, which opens a new line of analysis into their roles in the story.  

Reference

Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.”  The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, 1920.