Semicolon Fall 2015

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t he s emicolon

arts & humanities students’ council volume X issue I

;;; essay journal

The S e m i c ol on Essay Journal Fall 2015 Arts & Humanities Students’ Council at Western University The Semicolon accepts A-grade essays written by undergraduate students for courses within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Western University. For more information and copies, please contact the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council in AHB ON2OD.

Editor-In-Chief

Sarah Botelho

Academic Managing Editor

Lauren Sayers

Creative Managing Editor Copy Editor Layout Editor

Katrina Fowler Emma Lammers Julia Vance

A special thanks to Hina Afzaal, Alicia Johnson, Alero Ogbeide, Massimo Peruzza & Alexis Pronovost Copyrights remain with the artists and authors. The sole responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the authors and artists. The content does not reflect the opinions of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council (AHSC) or the University Students’ Council (USC).

The AHSC and USC assume no liability for any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions contained in this publication.

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Tabl e of C ontents

English 1. Sam Boer’s “This Dog Has No Manners”: The Subversion of Christianity and the

Reassertion of Native Culture in Green Grass Running Water and Tales of the Tikongs

11. Sarah Gilpin’s The Timeless Struggle of Maintaining Aura: Implementing Walter Benjamin’s Artistic Theory to the Digital Revolution of Social Media

17. Maryam Golafshani’s Inviting the Reader’s Resistance: How Virginia Woolf and

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Rhetoric Opposes the Theories Articulated in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense and A Room of One’s Own, Respectively

24. Matt Prout’s The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You: Comparing Characters, Cultures, and Relationships That Span Four-hundred Years of Progress

27. Julian Saddy’s Sins of the Father: Deceptions of the Polluter, God, with Humanity as Waste in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

31. Julia Vance’s “In a World Ruled by Bloodlines and Bank Accounts”: Pierre Bour-

dieu’s Theories on Class, Capital, and Taste as Lenses Through Which to Understand the Use of Fashion as Social Class Currency on The CW’s Gossip Girl

;;; Nursing 39. Allison Aspinall’s Substance Abuse in Canadian Aboriginals and the Effect on Families and Communities: A Nursing Perspective

Philosophy 46. Rashad Rehman’s A Telelogical Argument: Cosmological Fine-Tuning, Facts and Explanations

Women’s Studies 52. Brie Berry’s Fragmenting Language: Silence and the Abject in M. Nourbese Phillip’s Zong! Narratives are informed by histories, presented, and then perpetuated

56. Olivia Neukamm’s The Mindy Project and Female Desire 60. Emily Todd’s Sexual Assault on North American University Campuses

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“This Dog Has No Manners”: The Subversion of Christianity and the Reassertion of Native Culture in Green Grass Running Water and Tales of the Tikongs

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Sam Boer English 2301E

Towards the beginning of his 2003 novel Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King addresses the chronological fact that Native stories preceded Christian myths.

When one of the four ‘Indians’ in the novel, Lone Ranger, recites, “In the beginning,” he is cut off, allowing Ishmael (another ‘Indian’) to assert “that’s the wrong story…that story comes later” (King 14). In this way, the validity of the Christian story is immediately called into question. Similarly, Epeli Hau’ofa begins his collection of short stories, Tales of the Tikongs, with a solemn, verbatim recounting of the Christian creation story: “When Jehovah created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh, He said it was good and that man must so regulate his periods of work and rest.” (Hau’ofa 1). However, the people of the fictional island of Tiko do just the opposite. Instead of blindly following “Christians everywhere,” the nation of Tiko “goes in the opposite direction, all on its own” (1). One of the central purposes of these texts, asserted immediately, is the confrontation of Christianity and the consequent reassertion of native culture. These ambitious texts use an ensemble cast of characters, poignant allusions, and disorienting humour and satire in order to confront the most destructive tool of colonization: religion. In order to do so, King and Hau’ofa examine the implementation tactics of Christianity and the historically oppressive nature that it continues to have on native peoples. The two authors also mock, satirize, and elucidate prejudices both universal and unique to their cultures. The central device of these two texts is the distortion of Christian creation story and the symbols associated with it; the authors are able to subvert Christianity using its own tools. In both Tales of the Tikongs and Green Grass Running Water, Christianity and its colonial proponents are subordinated, while the complexities of native conflicts, customs, and culture are able to take center stage.

Though King and Hau’ofa share a similar agenda in these works, the locales the present are vastly different. Green Grass Running Water takes place across Canada and into the United States (not to mention the imaginary world that Coyote helps fabricate) from cities, such as Toronto and Calgary, to rural areas, such as the Blackfoot reserve in Blossom where the novels’ protagonists all eventually reunite. Tales of the Tikongs takes place on the other side of the globe, on an imaginary island in Oceania known as Tiko – also exploring both the urban and the rural, from the city to the countryside. Though the settings of these novels are vastly different, they are both expansive in scope – a narrative difficulty that both authors confront by introducing a character as an intermediary between settings, scenes, and stories. Coyote and the personified narrator (“I”), as well as the conversations between the four ‘Indians’, allow the story to seamless move from one character’s world to another, until the worlds eventually collide. Hau’ofa achieves this connectivity through the character of Manu, who’s bicy-

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cling route around the island guides the narrative, and provides a unity throughout all twelve short stories.

However, these characters are not merely passive figures that seam their respective works together. All of the intermediaries provide illuminating commentary on the action. When Ole Pasifikiwei is prepared to sacrifice his self-respect and beg for money from Mr. Minte’s funding committee, he (rather conveniently) runs into Manu.

“You’re deceiving yourself,” Manu warns, adding that if Ole sells his soul in this way, “you’ll never get it back because you will not want to” (88). This advice proves to be prophetic; Ole ignores Manu’s advice, and soon he is portrayed as having permanently “shelved his original sense of self-respect” (93). Manu’s more eccentric moments provide direct commentary on the characters of the story, such when he yells, “TIKO HATES YOU!” at a Doctor of Philosophy whose research for development seems thoroughly unhelpful, as he “never discovered what he is an expert of ” (18). In this case, Manu exemplifies both meaning of his name in the Tongan language: the term ‘manu’ refers to “a pain, like a toothache,” and Manuki also means to mock or deride (Rigby 52). In King’s novel, this direct influence over the narrative occurs most evidently with the intermediary character of Coyote. As the playful and humourous trickster figure, Coyote is almost always the one who pauses the flow of the story in order to seek clarification or provide insight. When the Ahab character explains to Changing Woman that in a Christian world, “we only kill things that are useful or things we don’t like,” Coyote interjects, “He doesn’t mean Coyotes?” (198). This comment provides comedic relief while simultaneously reinforcing the severity of Christian dogma. Similarly, when Young Man Walking On Water notices that Old Woman doesn’t seem to know “the rules (349), it is Coyote who cuts in to elaborate, “Young Man Walking On Water is talking about Christian Rules” (350). In celebrating the fact that he knew the answer, Coyote proclaims, “I love Christian rules,” (350) detracting from the authority of these directives that the Jesus figure is trying to impose. Coyote also provokes a pivotal occurrence in the novel when his dancing causes the dam to break – a degree of involvement that surpasses Manu’s poignant commentary. Regardless, both of these intermediaries serve to clarify the ideas that the other characters explore.

One of the central themes addressed in these works is the impact of religious conversion on native societies. As James Axtell explains, “conversion was tantamount to a complete transformation of cultural identity,” (42) a process present in the colonization of both Canada and Oceania that replaced, “native characters with European personae, to transmogrify their behaviour by substituting predictable European modes of thinking and feeling for unpredictable native modes” (43). Partially motivated by the worldview that their journeys were a “fulfillment of the prophesies of Isaiah,” (Stannard 63) these voyageurs, set in their Christian convictions, felt no apprehension towards demanding immediate adaptability of the Natives. Spanish scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda wrote that Natives were intended by God, “to be placed under the authority of civilized and virtuous princes or nations, so that they may learn, from the might, wisdom, and law of their conquerors, to practice better morals, worthier customs, and a more civilized way of life” (Stannard 64). These were heavy-handed impositions upon a previously isolated group. King mocks this self-righteousness through the character of Ahab, who insists that Changing Woman be called Queequeg, regardless of her

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fondness for the name Ishmael. He justifies himself in explaining, “this book has a Queequeg in it, and this story is supposed to have a Queequeg in it, but I’ve looked all over the ship and there aren’t any Queequegs” (195). The allusion to Moby Dick, a seminal novel in the Western canon with overt Christian themes (such as man taming beast) speaks to the overarching, problematic nature of Christianity while remaining comically intimate. In Tales of the Tikongs, the imposition of Christian conformity is evident through Hiti George VI. After abandoning his promising success in youth for a life of sin and debauchery, he takes a look at his ashamed, “withering” parents and his scholarly degrees, and decides the only solution is to fall back on the saving grace of Christianity. Hiti proceeds to “become an evangelical, [discarding] his sinful ways along with any sign of individuality” (13). Hau’ofa subtly alerts the reader to the profound impact that conversion has on a Native.

However, the fact is, conversions enforced by colonizers are always failures, though these failures vary in their lasting effect upon the Native populations. No matter how hard a native tries to become a civilized, Christian man, the two will never be equal. As Bhabha explains in his description of the ‘ambivalence’ of mimicry, even a completely converted native would come up short, condemned to be “almost the same, but not quite” (Bhabha 127). This sentiment is reflected by English clergyman Nathanial Rogers, who laments, “the feroce manner of a native Indian can never be effaced, nor can the most finished politeness totally eradicate the wild lines of his education” (Axtell 269). The effect of Christian molding is put on display through Hau’ofa’s character Puku, who grows up in a family that “adhered faithfully to the Old Testament dictum that one regularly beats the object of one’s affections” (69). Because of his “loving wrathful family”, which can be interpreted as a stand-in for either Christian colonizers or God himself, Puku becomes “so accustomed to bowing, bending, and crawling that he could not sit, stand, or walk straight” (70).

The physical ramifications of colonial conversion, humourously explored by Hau’ofa, carry with them serious undertones. Though seemingly superficial, the imposition of European dress and style enforced colonizers’ values visually, forcing the native peoples to change their physical selves in order to deprive them of their culture and heritage. This act “of greatest symbolic importance” visually solidified the repression of natives by whites; as Axtell describes, “when Indian men subjected their long, carefully groomed black hair to the barber’s shears, the last vestige of their ‘pagan’ pride was submerged in the will of the Englishmen’s God” (267). Tales of the Tikongs plays with this idea of hair cutting when Tevita Poto is chastising his nephew’s lifestyle. After reiterating the importance of Christian faith, ordering that Tevita must “shed [his] former ways in order to lead the proper life here, in order to be of service to God”, the uncle bids farewell, adding as an afterthought: “don’t forget to cut your hair” (45). This post-script about physical appearance, which follows Tevita’s uncle’s lengthy sermon on the importance of salvation, seems a humourously insignificant trifle following a hyperbolic speech. However, rather then downplaying the advice, Hau’ofa’s placement of this comment inflates its importance: a short stab that brings back the symbolic significance of natives cutting their hair.

The diverse impacts of colonial conversion make the reclaiming of native culture all the more dire, as shown in these texts. In Green Grass Running Water, Eli is so

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set on saving his family’s log cabin, a metonymy for his peoples’ culture, that he moves back into it in order to delay the construction of a dam. Clifford Sifton, a fictional reincarnation of the Canadian politician, ignores Eli’s nostalgic explanation that his mother “built it herself, log by log” (114). Though this situation is comedic in its casual nature, what with Sifton vising for coffee every day and Eli politely reiterating the fact that he is staying, Sifton’s looming presence over Eli is a microcosm for contemporary governmental-native relations in Canada. As King states, “the Canadian government has no interest in native rights,” adding that, “treaty rights in Canada, native tax status, and who decides how Native communities are organized and run,” (King 6) are all still pertinent political questions. In the words of his lawyer character Charlie Looing Bear, “the dam is there. The lake is there. You can’t just make them go away” (117).

Hau’ofa also addresses frustrations concerning the reassertion of native individuality. Ole Pasifikiwei, in the story The Glorious Pacific Way, is similar to Eli in his ambition to preservation Tikong culture. Ole began recording oral traditions and studying family genealogy as a hobby that soon became an obsession – “in seven years he had covered a fifth of his island country” (83). This diligent anthropological exercise earns him the passive congratulations of the Ministor of Environment, Religion, Culture, and Youth, Mr. Minte, who acknowledges, “it’s about time someone started recording and preserving them before they’re lost forever” (83). Dangling the possibility of funding in front of Ole’s nose, Mr. Minte gradually dissolves Ole’s integrity, forcing him to question his societal role. If Mr. Minte has the money, “why should he, Ole, be required to beg for it? (84). The imposed hierarchy is evident – just as Christians imposed their religion upon aboriginal peoples in the sixteenth century, Mr. Minte is imposing his Western bureaucracy over Ole, a Tiko Native. Ole simultaneously questions the Christian rules he has been brought up to believe; specifically, the contradiction in the bible that pride is stated to be a sin alongside the advice, “Ask and it shall be given unto you” (85). Ole is unable to oppose these colonizing forces, and he soon finds himself in the position of a “first rate, expert beggar” (93) whose sole purpose is to acquire useless development grants. His preservation of culture, unlike that of Eli, is ultimately fruitless.

The hopelessness of this book’s final phrase is understandable, given the magnanimity of the continuing conflict between natives and colonizers. This conflict is characterized by a uniquely destructive genocide which has brought Native peoples to “near extermination,” with an estimated 100 000 000 fatalities caused by the presence and actions of colonizers in North America alone (Stannard 151). When King’s Clifford Sifton character exclaims, “who’d of guessed there would still be Indians kicking around in the twentieth century?” (141), he is not being facetious. This sentence is reflected by Hau’ofa when he says, “I have written very little in fact, and the little that I have written has had no impact on anyone or anything” (248). However, he immediately follows this defeated utterance with a touch of hopefulness, humbly stating, “I am one of the small but growing number of Pacific islanders whose publications have attracted some notice within and without the region” (248).

The mission of these texts – to reassert the individuality of Native cultures – is accomplished primarily through subversion of one specific, imperative element of Colonialism: Christianity. The first method in which this is accomplished is the twist-

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ing of prejudices, stereotypes, and expectations. Joseph Hovaugh, whose name asserts his presence as a stand-in for God, personifies the Western apprehensions towards Indians’ natural, barbaric way of living. Steeped in Western ideology, Dr. Hovaugh valorizes dominance over nature and disregards the value of the natural world. He is pleased that his “stripped, repaired, stained blond” desk reminds him, “of a tree cut down to the stump” (King, 16). He becomes even more of a colonizer caricature when he later dreams of the desk he truly wants – one that is “black slate and brass, thin and sleek…with drawers that opened and closed regardless of the weather” (77). Additionally, Hovaugh comedically embodies the cold, mechanical appreciation of the natural world, as he admires the “perfect symmetry of man and animal,” (222) while watching a Western. Dr. Hovaugh’s ignorance towards the value of the environment is even more blunt in the inner monologue of Bill Bursum, the owner of the television store. Bursum is appalled by Eli’s delaying of development around the lake, believing that “a perfectly good piece of lakefront property is going to waste” (187).

This sentiment is also present in Hau’ofa’s story A Pilgrim’s Progress, in which Noeli ma’a’s nanny ponders the “visible manifestations of purity,” (27) a concept fundamental to Christian theology. The Sunday school teachers find the image of the lamb to be most fitting as a symbol of purity, but the irony is that there are no actual lambs in Tiko. Hau’ofa comments that the closest animals to lambs on their island are sheep – animals that “would not keep their whiteness long, on account of too much rain and mud” (27). Christian authorities impose a symbolic animal that has no real presence in the lives of Tikongs, and even if it did, its natural inclination towards filth would eliminate its symbolic value. The economic side to this issue is also illuminated in Tales of the Tikongs. Alvin Lowe, a “great expert with lifelong experience handling natives,” (21) imposes a development loan upon Ika Levu, a Native fisherman. However, the expense of this unwanted loan, as well as the constant absence of Lowe, forces Levu to abandon all of his equipment at sea, returning to the more practical, natural ways of fishing that have worked for generations of Native fisherman before him. Some time after his arrival in Australia and his interactions with its aboriginals, explorer James Cook observed that, “they live in a tranquility which is not disturbed by the inequality of condition: the earth and the sea of their own accord furnish them with all things necessary for life (Bryson 189). The fact that these characters in the works of King and Hau’ofa continue to be ignorant of the value in the natural world shows an ignorance that is simultaneously hilarious, heartbreaking, and all too real.

Another element of the ‘natural’ lifestyle of natives, one that has always been faced with apprehension in the Christian tradition, is sexuality. Colonial prejudice has always portrayed Natives as uncivilized in their unrestrained penchant for sex, whereas the Christians are civilized and pure in their chastity. In their quest for conversion, Studdard explains the colonizers’ insistence that, “the wilderness and the carnal wild man within the wilderness – like the irrepressibly sensual wild man within the self – were there to be confronted by the Christian, confronted and converted, domesticated, or destroyed” (174). In the words of sixteenth century preacher Ioan P. Couliano, “woman is the blind instrument for seduction of nature, the symbol of temptation, sin, and evil. Besides her face, the principal baits of her allure are the signs of her fertility, hips and breasts” (Stannard 162). This description seems to carry more fascination

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with the female body than repulsion of its sinfulness; the tone speaks one story, but the words speak another. Hips and breasts are the focal point of the sentence. The more Christians tried to lead celibate lives and condemn the seductive form of women (a trend that was especially present during the era of colonial exploration), the more obvious these natural sexual urges became. King plays with this idea through the character of Noah, who is portrayed as a sex-crazed maniac, who shouts with glee, “time for procreating” (146). Immediately after asserting that Changing Woman must be his wife, Noah commands, “lemme see you breasts…I like women with big breasts. I hope God remembered that” (145). Instead of being repressed into avoiding sex, Noah is at the mercy of his Christian God to ensure his sexual satisfaction. King’s novel also touches upon the fetishization of the Native man, when Karen, while having sex with Eli, refers to him as her “mystic warrior” (164) – allowing Karen to indulge a sexual fantasy that relies on a long-standing stereotype of Native prowess and masculinity.

The Christian repression of sexuality is also mocked in Tales of the Tikongs when foreign developers in Tiko implement the “Fish Cannery Project” (19). The failure of this project, as Manu exclaims, is caused by sex. The fishing vessel was originally staffed with older men no longer influenced by their sex drives. When the vessel arrives in Tiko and is suddenly staffed with young men, the crew cannot stand to be out at seas long enough to turn a profit – instead, “the much deprived youths wanted desperately to set for home and a bit of sex” (20). However, the Christian authorities refuse to acknowledge this, preferring escalating debt to embarrassing truth. As Hau’ofa explains, “no one says anything, no one does anything, for no one dares lose face” (20). This theme is also explored through the character of Noeli, who notices some “strange inner and outer stirrings” (29) which lead to his abandoning of the Sabbatarian church for one with more “oomph” (30) – specifically, one with young, attractive girls. Noeli’s conflation of the spiritual and the physical – as he continually attributes his hormonal urges as divine intervention – mocks the Christian apprehension towards sexuality, as well as the developmental confusion that arises when God is taught while biology is not. As these texts illustrate, sex is swept under the rug in Christianity, but explicitly admonished when it is seen in Native cultures.

The act of flaunting stereotypes for personal gain is another conflict addressed in these works. Latisha uses the racist image of Natives as dog-eating savages for her personal benefit, making money through indulging the freak-show fascinations that the white customers have with Indian stereotypes. Customers are able to openly mock Native culture with incredulous remarks, such as, “Jesus! You’re kidding. It’s not really dog?” (131) while simultaneously reaffirming their prejudice against Native peoples.

The reader laughs when the customers all order the canine burgers, but are forced to confront the dark edge to the manipulation of the Dead Dog Café. As Lionel reminisces, “in the old days, dogs guarded the camp. They made sure we were safe” (57). Similarly, Emi Bagarap explains that in order for Ole to get funding from the authorities, he must, “never appear too smart. It’s better that you look humble and half primitive” (Hau’ofa 87). This advice is effective, but ultimately leads to Ole’s complete loss of his Native identity. Even the most blatant, stereotype-driven trickery will ultimately reinforce harmful prejudices, and detract from the complexity of Native identity.

The most effective device through which both of these stories subvert Christianity in

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order to reassert native tradition is the distortion of the Christian creation story and its symbols – a distortion based primarily on both authors’ central narrative talent: humour. Hau’ofa praises the power of humour in an autobiographical article, stating, “I, like most Pacific islanders, have maintained intact my sense of humour, and with it much of my remaining sanity” (Hau’ofa 251). King also acknowledges the power of comedy, especially in times of sociological unrest, claiming, “one of the things that I think keeps us going is that sense of humour” (King, 1993). For these writers, humour is not only a pick-me-up and a source for prolonged sanity – it is also a powerful device. Hau’ofa describes himself as have a disposition that allows him to see “most serious things [as] ludicrous,” and to “dismiss them with a laugh” (Hau’ofa 246). However, he specifies that, “The laughter is not always light; it often is very seriously mocking” (246). It is the profound weight of the satire in Green Grass Running Water and Tales of the Tikongs that make the distortion of Christian stories and symbols not only hilarious, but also affecting and meaningful.

Thomas King expressed in his 2003 Massey Lecture at Massey Hall how, “contained within creation stories are relationships that help to define the nature of the universe and how cultures understand the world in which they exist” (King 2003). This concept therefore makes the Christian creation story the perfect thing to dissect and re-appropriate, as it contains so many fundamental elements of Christian, Western, colonial worldview. In Green Grass Running Water, God is introduced as a disturbance to Coyote’s peaceful slumber, a force that “thinks it is in charge of the world” (1). Compared to the docile, playful nature of coyote and the wise benevolence of the ‘I’ figure, God is a temper-tantrum throwing, backwards-thinking child, whose shouts of, “I want to be a big God!” (2) are deafening to Coyote. Upon entrance to King’s spin on the garden of Eden, the food that First Woman and Ahdamn find includes not only fruit, but also much more alluring items, such as fried chicken. This unexpected twist not only belittles the sacred fruit of the garden in the original telling of Genesis, but it also reminds the reader of the power a storyteller has in reiterating a myth. Just as John Milton decided that the sole fruit would be an apple, King decides to place the apple immediately alongside fried chicken, humourously pushing the reader to confront the arbitrary nature of the symbols in the bible. King also explores the absurdity of naming the natural world, a command from God to Adam in the book of Genesis. In King’s novel, the character Ahdamn states to the elk, “You are a microwave oven,” to which the elk patiently replies, “Nope. Try again” (41). First woman’s independence as a Native woman free from the shackles of Christian conversion is most evident when she invites Ahdamn to leave the garden with her, explaining that there are, “lots of nice places to live. No point in having a grouchy God for a neighbor” (69). The absurdity of God abandoning his children is touched on in King’s lecture, when he speculates that God could have simply said, “’I love you…but I’m not happy with your behaviour (King 2003). The fact that these characters choose to leave the garden for the larger world not only detracts the authority of a God, but it also reclaims the co-existence with the environment that was fundamental to Native societies in both North America and Oceania.

The reiterating of “Christian rules” throughout the novel is the icing on the satirical cake. Young Man Walking On Water, for example, bluntly states the rules that “no one can help me,” “no one can tell me anything,” and, “no one is allowed to be in two places

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at one. Except me.” (350). Biblical self-contradiction is not a secret, but overtly stating its inconsistencies further takes away from the validity of the Christian narrative. A. A. Gabriel, the bureaucratic representation of the biblical angel Gabriel, completely disregards Thought Woman’s identity, recognizing her as the “Mary” figure of this story. He questions her native roots in the same manner that the American government questioned potential communists during the red scare: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the American Indian Movement?” (270). King’s treatment of this angel at the gateway to heaven as a witch-hunting government official shows the active condemnation of Natives by Christians through an unexpected, allusive juxtaposition.

The customs of these Christian characters are further mocked when Robinson Crusoe insists on dictating lists of the positive and negative aspects of his predicaments. With cold logic, he evaluates the positives and negatives of his current situation, pontificating under the bad points, that, “as a civilized white man, it has been difficult not having someone of colour around whom I could educate and protect” (294). Through Robinson Crusoe’s businesslike manner, King mocks his hegemonic expectations. The character Coyote also mocks the listing system used by Crusoe later in the novel. As soldiers are ambushing him and Thought Woman, Coyote says that one good point is “that the soldiers have flowers in their hair” (324). The absurd optimism of Coyote’s words emphasizes the hopelessness of Natives in the face of violent, colonial oppression.

In Tales of the Tikongs, Hau’ofa takes a similar approach to religious distortion, as he, “narrows his focus to the Bible as the one artefact of European civilization most emblematic of the West’s presence in the south Pacific” (Watts 370). In twisting biblical intensions to illuminate their fallacies, Hau’ofa seems to be following his character Emi’s advice: “they set the rules and we play along trying to bend them for our benefit” (86). The dichotomy between the religious titles given to each story and each story’s actual content distorts these Christian sayings and beliefs. In The Winding Road to Heaven, Hau’ofa alters the concept of the “straight narrow path” from a spiritual concept to a literal one, explaining that the straight roads in Tiko, “are much too wide, and that is why they are used mainly by thieves helping themselves to their neighbours’ gardens” (8-9). A Pilgrim’s Progress, rather than exploring one subservient man’s journey towards God, showcases pubescent Noeli’s conversion from religion to religion, on the search not for spiritual enlightenment but rather physical gratification.

Only when he succeeds in marrying a member of the Gatherings for God do the two of them actually settle on a calm, predictable religion. The story Blessed are the Meek is the most blatantly bitter, as it presents Puku’s suffering in the name of Christianity (he is “permanently bent”), inflicted through fault of his own. His needless abuse is appreciated by the other Tikongs, and he is a seen as a “noble example” other people – simply due to the fact that “he is patient, long suffering, and devoid of personal ambition” (74).

Hau’ofa’s critique through his use of titles is complimented with more blunt criticism of members of the church within the stories themselves. Though nuance and unpredictability characterizes Hau’ofa’s humour, he has no qualms about blatancy. In the story The Second Coming, there is ample criticism towards “the sin-sick, senile Sabbatarian church,” primarily due to its colonial process of “replacing [pastors and teachers] with holy tools from abroad” (53). In a single paragraph, Hau’ofa is able to criticize the

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church itself, the “dirty old men” (53) it affiliates itself with, and the colonizing nature of Christianity in general.

Underneath the restless, bitter critique of religion, these two texts present fascinating, vivacious, and immensely complicated worlds, in which frequently exaggerated - but always deeply human – Native characters and non-Native characters are shown in a variety of conflicts and configurations. The ultimate victory in these texts is the realistic light they shed on Native life, whether it takes place in small-town Alberta or a tiny Oceanic island. The history of colonial destruction upon the people and culture of Native groups in these regions is appalling, and its roots are so deep that the path towards cultural equality is both arduous and seemingly endless. The courage of Native peoples “to change and to endure in the face of overwhelming odds against their survival” (Axtell 271) is a monumental feat, and the literature of King and Hau’ofa continues this tradition of perseverance through their stories. These authors use humour and storytelling, rooted in the oral tradition, as social commentary, and their works become a means for both cultural preservation and social change. These texts are not optimistic, but they are rife with determination. When Coyote asks the “I” character, “how many more times do we have to do this?” he replies, “until we get it right.” (232).

Green Grass Running Water and Tales of the Tikongs are both celebrations of Native culture that subvert a religious hegemony that has been in place for too long. These texts encourage a shift towards cultural equality, but it is impossible to fathom if or when this dream will become a reality.

Bibliography Axtell, J. (1981). The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bhabha, H. (1984). Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.

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Bryson, Bill. In a Sunburned Country. New York: Random House, 2000. Print.

Edmond, Rod. “”Kiss My Arse! “ Epeli Hau’ of a and the Politics of Laughter.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (1990): 142-55. Print.

Gruber, E. (2012). Thomas King: Works and Impact. Rochester, New York: Camden House.

Hau’ofa, Epeli. Tales of the Tikongs. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1994. Print.

Hau’ofa, Epeli. “The Writer as an Outsider.” World Englishes 9.2 (1990): 245-53. Print.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Boston: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.

King, Thomas. “The Truth About Stories: ‘You’ll Never Believe What Happened’ is

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Always a Great Way to Start.” Massey Lectures. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

McGill University, Montreal. 1 Nov. 1993. Lecture.

King, Thomas, and Tina Srebotnjak. “Green Grass, Running Water Author Thomas King on Using Comedy.” CBC News. CBC/Radio Canada, 7 Apr. 1993. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

Price, A. (1963). Sojourner Colonization. In The Western Invasions of the Pacific and its Continents. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Rigby, Nigel. “Tall Tales, Short Stories: The Fiction of Epeli Hau’ofa.” World Literature Today 68.1 (Winter 1994). Jstor. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.

Watts, Edward. “The Only Teller Of Big Truths: Epeli Hau’ofa’s And The Biblical Contexts Of Post-Colonialism.” Literature and Theology 6.4 (1992): 369-82. Print.

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The Timeless Struggle of Maintaining Aura: Implementing Walter Benjamin’s Artistic Theory to the Digital Revolution of Social Media

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Sarah Gilpin English 2250G

In 2007, pop artist Rihanna released her third studio album Good Girl Gone Bad that featured the hit single “Don’t Stop the Music.” A lyric from the song declares, “Baby, I must say your aura is incredible/ if you don’t have to go, don’t.” Back track to 1936, when Walter Benjamin coined the term ‘aura’ in his essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Benjamin states aura is tied to an individual’s “presence; there can be no replica of it” (41). For Benjamin, a film actor records a performance that is separate from the production’s intended audience. By adding technology to a performance, “the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays” (Benjamin 41). Rihanna’s lyrics apply Benjamin’s definition by explaining how a man’s aura is “incredible” when she is in his presence. However, during the year the song was released, a new medium was launched that transformed society into a digital revolution: the iPhone.

Various reviews on the iPhone praised Apple’s “ground break[ing] style [as an] easy-to-use […] mobile media device that makes showing and marketing your work fun and interesting” (Smiler 50). Many reviewers failed to consider how interactions between individuals would change based on the accessibility of having social media applications right at your fingertips. Walter Benjamin argues in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” that aura is depleting in art because of the use of mechanical reproduction.

However, aura continues to deplete in the 21st Century as the digital revolution defines a society that focuses on pixels instead of flesh.

The theory Benjamin creates in “Work of Art” focuses on the rise of mechanical reproduction and its affect on art. At the time Benjamin wrote his essay, “mechanical reproduction of a work of art […] represent[ed] something new” (34). Aura of an artwork is its “presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (Benjamin 35). The presence of aura invokes a sense of authority since it is the original work. Benjamin notes the drastic shift towards mechanical reproduction of art places “the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself ” (35) and must be “branded as a forgery” (35). Mechanical reproduction is changing the mentality of individuals to concentrate on the exhibition value of a work. The exhibition value goes against the beliefs of aura by allowing artwork to be portable. Art is then democratized as a result of being easily accessible and fulfills “the desire of contemporary masses to bring things ‘closer’” (37). Through the use of mechanical reproduction, the aura of a work of art depletes as technology creates replicas of a work that society becomes fixated on instead of the original.

Jae-Ho Kang criticizes Benjamin in his essay “The Phantasmagoria of the Spectacle: A Critique of Media Culture.” Kang believes “some key ideas in the ‘Work of Art’ seem obsolete when applied to the substantial transformations in contemporary media culture known as the digital revolution and the information society” (252). Nevertheless, similar to other theorists who study Benjamin’s aura, there is immense struggle in freeing aura from the confines of art. What happens when aura escapes the restrains of art to discover a

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new frame of analysis? In the 2007 example of Rihanna’s use of aura and the rise of Apple, aura appears to be decaying in a social context. Since both Rihanna and Apple remain relevant topics in current society, aura in a social context of the digital revolution in relation to social media raises more questions about current society than aura in relation to art.

Therefore, when applying aura in a social context of the digital revolution to Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, Walter Benjamin’s theory remains relevant by expressing the negative consequences of social media.

There are, however, problematic aspects when applying aura to social media. Due to the nature of aura representing both distance and authenticity, there must be a clear distinction between the two types of aura. Since social media destroys the authenticity of aura, and provides distance, another definition of aura, there must be a separate term for each case. In another work by Benjamin entitled, The Arcades Project, the term ‘phantasmagoria’ is defined. Benjamin’s definition expresses “a decline in the communication involving co-presence to communication with an absent other” (Kang 259). Benjamin describes how “a person enters [phantasmagoria] in order to be distracted” (7). As a result, when an individual experiences phantasmagoria they are disengaged from reality. There is an absent other in the sense of an absent physical other. When posting a picture or status on social media, the information being posted is generally not for a specific person since one is making the content accessible for all their ‘friends.’ For the remainder of this paper, ‘phantasmagoria’ will replace the distancing factor of aura.

Similarly, a new term for aura in relation to authenticity must be discovered. In “Work of Art,” Benjamin explains the increase of exhibition value of artwork; there is a decrease to the authenticity of the original. When an image is published on Facebook or Instagram, there is a high possibility that the original picture published onto the application will be saved by another person (via screenshot) without the agreement of the artist.

Thus, the original uploaded image is lost among the countless replicas of the image. Exhibition value will now relate to aura in terms of its decrease of authenticity. A review of the changes to aura are as follows, social aura is now broken down into two main parts: the first part, ‘phantasmagoria,’ refers to the increase in distance from the physical presence of an individual and the second part, ‘exhibition value’, explains the decrease in authenticity of an image that is posted onto social media. However, ‘social aura’ will describe the entire concept in terms of traditional person-to-person conversation.

In order to prove the decay of social aura, popular social media applications such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat will be explored. Beginning with the relation of social aura and Facebook. Facebook, is a social media application and website “born in the dorms of Harvard as a way for college students to keep in touch” (Hermida 5). Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has a total of over one billion users worldwide (Inside Science TV). The mentality of sharing photos, statuses, videos and links has drastically changed from Facebook’s original launch. There is an entire psychology surrounding one’s profile along with an obsession to “find enough content to share” (Kawasak and Fitzpatrick 16) in order to stay relevant for followers and ‘friends.’ However, a recent report done by psychologists states a correlation to a Facebook user’s self-esteem and their profile. The study suggests, “spending time with your online self by viewing and editing your personal profile can boost your self-esteem” (Inside Science TV). “In the study, participants who looked at themselves in the mirror tended to have lower self esteem, compared to a group who viewed and edited their own Facebook profile” (Inside Science TV). Phantasmagoria is a direct issue in this study. Individuals of the digital revolution tend to create distance

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with themselves by looking at a pixilated image instead of their physical self. Social media allows us to display “optimized versions of ourselves that may be different from a mirror to remind us how really great we actually are” (Inside Science TV). While this ‘idealized version’ of ourselves may sound rewarding, there is a lack in understanding one’s physical self. Phantasmagoria must be considered as we are humans first and pixels second. We cannot simply refer to pictures on Facebook for a self-esteem boost since those pictures capture a moment in time from the past. An individual will become obsessed with who they once were instead of focusing on how they can strive to be greater. One must consider the workings of exhibition value. Remember to look in the mirror and ask your present self, ‘who am I?’ instead of staring at a screen to focus on who you once were.

Facebook is examined further in exhibition value in relation to the amount of ‘friends’ users consider as ‘actual friends.’ Aura thrives off of “the traditional ways of perceiving reality” (Vassiliou 159). For this reason, social aura is also depleting in current society since tradition tells us that person-to-person relationships are natural, yet individuals would rather have ‘friends’ on Facebook who are not their ‘actual’ friends. Social media requires members to turn away from tradition in order to gain online popularity.

Through this newly formed online popularity, information that is considered private is difficult to control when it is published on a ‘timeline’ for all ‘friends’ to view. There is in fact, an absent other: the unknown of who will view personal content published on Facebook since users can show other friends their screens without the original user’s approval.

Facebook demands for “the self is constantly updated” (Lambert 2), for this reason, users feel inclined to accept friend request from other users who are not ‘actual friends.’

In 2011, “Ellison and colleagues f[oun]d that American university students possessed a mean of three hundred Facebook ‘friends,’ but only twenty-five percent were considered ‘actual friends’” (Lambert 9-10). This statistic brings into question the exhibition value of ‘friendship’ in current society. Social aura is being challenged to include ‘friendships’ that are traditionally considered ‘acquaintances’ in order to keep a large network of connections for the future, instead of having an intimate and personal relationship in ‘real life.’ Phantasmagorical friendships are preferred in social media and challenge traditional notions of friendships. Facebook users “spend over ten billion minutes on the site” (Inside Science TV) with their ‘friends’ and online identity, which removes them from reality causing social aura to deplete.

The exhibition value that Instagram provides for its users allows anyone to identify as a photographer. Instagram is a “social photography application [that] reached two million users in only four months since its late 2010 launch” (Keen 32). Unlike Facebook, any user can follow another user’s profile, unless the profile is set to private, but any profile is able to be searched regardless if it is set to private or not. There is a distinct focus for users to gain an abundant amount of followers. In many cases, “there are only two kinds of people on social media: those who want more followers and those who are lying” (Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick 99). Since “people do not study profiles, [and tend to] spend a few seconds looking [on a profile to] make a snap decision” (2), there is pressure to appear fun and exciting so that more users will follow your account. In Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick’s guide, “Power Tips of Power Users,” the authors give advice for “your profile [to] give the impression that you are reliable, trustworthy, and competent” (3), regardless if you relate to any of these traits. Many users will do anything for a large number of followers, including following spam accounts to add to a grand total of followers. Phantasmagoria is once again put into question as users become distant from themselves to appear in a certain way in

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order to gain followers and as always, become distant from reality as followers become the focus instead of a physical person.

‘Instagramable’ pictures are considered to be artistic when the image is captured at an interesting angle with sharp colours. Nevertheless, Instagram has become so popular that other applications are available to edit and size photos to fit within the frame Instagram provides. These free applications allow the average person easy access to what photographers would pay hundreds of dollars for from Photoshop. Exhibition value is expressed while social aura depletes. Instead of having a conversation with a friend to show them pictures of an event, a person can now simply follow your account without any need of a social interaction. Another issue of the exhibition value of Instagram is the ability to screenshot. Similar to other forms of social media, the feature of the screenshot is accessible on many mobile devices. I have seen cases were photos are screenshot from another account to then be published on Instagram with no recognition to the owner. This aspect of decreasing authenticity, of exhibition value, draws questions on the moral stance of individuals in current society. Social media is so focused on a virtual world that no one is able to know what content is taken or shared due to the inability of monitoring a vast pixelated world. Social aura decays as individuals are focused in being active users, not active people.

Above all other social media applications, Snapchat is designed to resemble a ‘snap shot of reality’ with the purpose of becoming a virtual conversation. The appeal of Snapchat stems from the ability to view a photo that “vanish[es] after ten seconds or less” (Snapchat: Vanishing Act). Snapchat is “less than four-years-old [with] one hundred and seventy million users, [who] […] between the ages of fourteen and seventeen spend thirty minutes per session on [the application]” (Snapchat: Vanishing Act). These ‘snap shots of reality’ create an illusion to the viewer that they are with the person who took or recorded the image.

However, the only reason why snapchats feels real is because of the conditioning that the digital revolution has created on society. Snapchats are viewed on a screen and we feel a connection to the event on the screen because we are accustomed to viewing an experience on a screen, not in person. There is a paradox occurring in society when a forgery of reality viewed on a screen begins to feel like reality. Snapchat creates phantasmagorical encounter, yet disguises itself through the perspective of a lens to make viewers believe they are experiencing the event with the person who is recording.

Performance studies theorist, Diane Taylor, focuses on the tension between the performance of daily life and documented knowledge in her work The Archive and the Repertoire. The repertoire, “enacts embodied memory: performances, gestures, orality, movement, dancing, singing – in short, all those acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge” (Taylor 20). The repertoire embodies social aura, it is in the now and physically present but only for a limited moment in time. On the other hand, “archival memory works across distance, over time and space [and can be] […] selected, classified, and presented for analysis” (19). The archive is documented knowledge from the event of the repertoire. The archive and the repertoire function as examples for a scenario when Snapchat is used. For example, in a concert setting, the repertoire event is occurring but I know I want to remember this moment. Thus, a clash of both the archive and repertoire occur as I look at my phone while the recording is occurring instead of the physical event. As a result, when I view the recordings (which on Snapchat, can be saved and posted as a ‘Story’ that can be viewed by the user multiple times) I relive the exact experience since I was viewing the screen instead of the repertoire. Likewise, if I had horrible seats for the concert, the zoom feature on my camera will allow me to take better pictures of the con-

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cert to post on any social media application than what my actual perception of the concert was. The forgery of reality becomes mistaken for the actual experience and allows a greater exhibition value for the event than explaining my proximity to the stage.

Archiving events has become an obsession for many social media users. Facebook’s new “ ‘timeline’ feature ‘makes a user’s entire history of photos, links and other things accessible with a single click’” (Keen 60). There is a new ‘user mentality’ that urges individuals to share content to fill their timeline with photos and personal content. A timeline is a personal archive, waiting to be filled by the user. This feature is then always subconsciously present on individual’s minds when they go to events. Whenever an event is held there is always the assumption that images will be posted on either Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, sometimes even multiple social media accounts. The focus becomes the archive. There are cases were friends will get together for the single purpose of archiving their experience together to publish on social media accounts and change their profile picture. In these instances, social aura is diminishing. There is no mixture of archive and repertoire occurring, only archiving. Facebook and Instagram continue to create phantasmagoria as users ‘like’ images instead of discussing to each other the content they enjoy.

Social aura is essentially an extension of the aura Walter Benjamin defines in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” The aura Benjamin describes was a pressing issue at his time with the rise of mechanical reproduction. Social media is derived from a time period that follows mechanical reproduction and therefore is not created to have social aura. Social aura must be represented in one’s daily life through face-toface conversations, friendships that are beyond the digital while also considering enjoying an event instead of consistently recording or taking pictures to remember later. Social aura is focusing on the present without the urge to archive a moment to refer to later. Social aura relies on individuals to flourish. The “human urge to share” (Hermida 1) is capable to occur in the physical world through conversation, not just online. This paper has outlined the relevance of Benjamin’s argument during the age of mechanical reproduction to now focus on the age of digital reproduction through social media and its implications on social aura. Social aura is now a term to define the traditional presence of another individual, which as Rihanna states is “incredible.” Nevertheless, individuals continue to focus on the digital instead of the personal. Through this focus, social aura is depleting similar to how art’s aura was depleting at Benjamin’s time. After all, Benjamin did predict the depletion of social aura in his work when he states, “if changes to the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is possible to show its social causes” (37). Therefore, contrary to Kang, Benjamin is not obsolete, but in fact relevant and ahead of his time as he predicted the rise of the social revolution.

Works Cited Benjamin, Walter. The Arcade Project. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Print.

---. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Introduction to Cultural Studies: January 2015 Course Pack. Ed. Professor Michael Sloane. London: Western Graphic Services, 2015. 33-55. Print Hermida, Alfred. #TellEveryone: Why We Share & Why it Matters. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2014. Print.

Inside Science TV. “Facebook and Self Esteem.” Online video clip. Films on Demand: Dig-

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ital Educational Video. Films Media Group, 24 Apr. 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.

Kang, Jae-Ho. “The Phantasmagoria of the Spectacle: A Critique of Media Culture.” Actualities of Aura: Twelve Studies of Walter Benjamin. Ed. Dag Petersson and Erik Steinskog.

Svanesund: Nordic Summer University Press, 2005. 252-274. Print.

Kawasaki, Guy, and Peg Fitzpatrick. The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users.

London: Portfolio Penguin, 2014. Print.

Keen, Andrew. Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Online Social Revolution is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012. Print.

Lambert, Alexander. Intimacy and Friendship on Facebook. New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2013. MyiLibrary. Web. 4 April 2015 Rihanna. “Don’t Stop the Music.” Good Girl Gone Bad. Mercury Records, 2007. CD. Smiler, Marc. “Apple iPhone.” EventDV 20.10 (2007): 50-52. ProQuest. Web. 3 April 2015.

“Snapchat: Vanishing Act.” The Financial Times Limited (2015) ProQuest. Web. 3 April 2015.

Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Print.

Vassiliou, Konstantinos. “The Aura of Art After the Advent of the Digital.” Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Change. Ed. Anca M. Pusca. New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2010. 158-170. Print.

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Inviting the Reader’s Resistance: How Virginia Woolf and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Rhetoric Opposes the Theories Articulated in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense and A Room of One’s Own, Respectively

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Maryam Golafshani

English 2210F

Friedrich Nietzsche and Virginia Woolf condemn metaphorical and sex-conscious language in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense and A Room of One’s Own, respectively, yet both authors use such language, which ultimately contradicts the theories they articulate. Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense founds a theory upon the recognition that truth attained through language is an illusion, while Virginia Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own expresses a theory that emphasizes unconsciously adopting an androgynous mind while writing. Rather than supporting the claims of their theories, the way in which Nietzsche and Woolf formulate their theories and use figurative language illustrates a mode of thinking that actually opposes, and hence resists, their claims. Nietzsche’s articulation succumbs to the deception of metaphorical language by using the language he condemns, and invites the reader to make the mistakes he cautions against. Woolf similarly resists her theory of androgyny by developing a feminine rhetoric and using figures that clearly depict a consciousness of her sex. If even the authors appear to reject their own theories, then the reader will, undoubtedly, be hesitant to accept them as well.

Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense describes language as a long- established tradition of creating arbitrary signs and metaphors, which reveals how human knowledge is ultimately founded upon lies and illusions, and that truths are simply “illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions” (768). In his exploration of language and knowledge as illusions, Nietzsche notes how “humans have an unconquerable urge to let themselves be deceived” (772). Ironically, however, Nietzsche’s rhetoric reveals how even he cannot conquer this urge to be deceived. Robert Young explains that literary theory must “use the very language that it seeks to analyze, and thus must necessarily produce and be affected by the very effects that it wants to study” (171). As a result, Nietzsche cannot articulate his exact theory —he may only refer to it, like the metaphorical way in which language functions, according to his theory. As J. Hillis Miller notes, “Nietzsche cannot avoid being caught in the impasse he is trying to avoid,” and therefore, his theory resists itself by using same language it condemns (43).

Wolf similarly articulates her theory of androgyny in A Room of One’s Own through rhetoric that resist the theory. This androgynous state of mind is characterized by cooperation of the “male and female powers” in one’s mind, such that the writer is unconscious of his/her sex, and resulting in a mind that is “fully fertilized and uses all its faculties” (901). Despite asserting that it is “fatal for any one who writes to think of their sex,” Woolf exhibits consciousness of her own sex through her use of figurative language and feminine rhetoric (904). This active opposition to the androgynous theo-

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ry she strives to articulate aligns with Emily Rosenman’s remark that, “Woolf ’s thought is in conflict with itself ” throughout the text, and thus, inevitably incites the reader to resist her theory (103).

Figurative language in A Room of One’s Own consistently highlights differences between the sexes, and therefore, indicates a failure to remain unconscious of sex, in opposition to the unconsciously androgynous mindset Woolf ’s theory claims to support. Frances Restuccia similarly notes that “evidence of the difference between the sexes in the middle of an argument for androgyny can only serve to attenuate such a stance” (259). Woolf both starts and ends her passage on androgyny with the metaphor of a man and woman entering a taxi cab in order to represent the ideal fusion of both sexes in the mind. Rosenman explains how “the joining of man and woman in a taxicab is a metaphor for a psychic state, an approximation that uses embodiment to suggest the psychic union of masculine and feminine qualities” (637). Woolf begins developing her theory by observing “the sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave [her] made [her] also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body,” and concludes her theory with the “taxi [taking] the man and the woman” (900, 905). This image clearly acknowledges the disparate male and female presences, and exhibits Woolf ’s awareness of sex while writing.

Therefore, her own writing, specifically her use of extended metaphor, contradicts, and hence resists, her theory of writing with an unconsciously androgynous mind.

Sexual imagery also litters the text and reminds the reader of the most fundamental distinction between the sexes: biology. When describing how to attain an androgynous mind, Woolf states, “a woman must also have intercourse with the man in her” (901). Evoking this image of sex between man and woman makes one acutely aware of the disparate sexes, thus hindering one’s ability to attain a state of mind in which one is unconscious of sex. Woolf continues to make the reader conscious of the sexes in a much subtler way when stating that, “when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the ind it cannot penetrate within” (903). Her use of “hard” and “penetration” suggest sexual undertones that emphasize the entirely male mind of the authors she is discussing. By once again exhibiting an awareness of the sexes, Woolf ’s use of figures resists her theory of achieving an unconscious, androgynous mind. Woolf, paradoxically, describes this androgynous mind as “fully fertilized” (901). If a mind is androgynous, it is neither male or female, yet the notion of fertility traditionally refers to the female body exclusively. This resistance to her theory of androgyny emerges again when Woolf states that, “when one takes a sentence of Coleridge into the mind, it explode and gives birth to all kinds of ideas” (903). Only women posses the ability to give birth; therefore, the androgynous mind is, once again, depicted paradoxically as only the female body, and disrupts Woolf ’s theory.

Nietzsche similarly uses figurative language, especially the metaphorical language he condemns, in such a way that disrupts the theory he presents in On Truth and Lying in a Non- Moral Sense. J. Hillis Miller explains that Nietzsche must use what he condemns “since language, as Nietzsche sees it, is either made of overt metaphors or of those frozen and effaced tropes he calls concepts,” and thus, by using language to articulate his theory, he will inevitably succumb to metaphors (46). As a result, Nietzsche’s

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own theory can only refer to truth and relies upon illusions, which incites the reader to doubt his claims, and hence, resist his theory.

Nietzsche’s theory attempts to understand how humans are deceived by language, observing hat “the arrogance inherent in cognition and feeling casts a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of human beings” (765). Yet the image of a “blinding fog” means that Nietzsche can only refer to the way in which humans are deceived through metaphors, rather than truly understanding the problem at its core. When describing the impossibility of knowing the “‘thing- in-itself ’ (which would be, precisely, pure truth...)” due to the chain of metaphors that ensue the moment one perceives something, Nietzsche creates the metaphor of “leap[ing] into the heart of another” (767).

Using a metaphor to describe how metaphors distance one from truth, ironically, distances Nietzsche’s own explanation from truth. Nietzsche’s theory further asserts that language’s metaphorical nature prevents humans from reaching an actual truth, yet even Nietzsche succumbs to this problem of language by even defining truth with a metaphor of coins loosing their stamp (768). From here, Nietzsche continues to develop his theory by describing the knowledge humans posses as “constructed from cobwebs, so delicate that it can be carried off on the waves and yet so firm as not to be blown apart by the wind” (769). His theory strives to understand how humans knowledge continues to persist within the illusions of metaphorical language, yet even Nietzsche can only understand this within the limits of a metaphor, thus further contributing to the construction of the cobweb he describes. The reader is told to doubt knowledge constructed from language and its metaphorical nature; therefore, by constructing his own theory through metaphors, the reader will inevitably doubt, and hence, resist Nietzsche’s theory.

Considering Nietzsche defines truth as a metaphor in his theory, his reference to anything as “true” throughout the text should be read as merely an illusion. Robert Young notes how “the notion of truth itself implies that there can be such a thing as a literal or proper meaning. But the nature of language is such that we can only name on thing by another” (170). Nietzsche succumbs to this deceiving idea of truth when making truth statements that suggest he has forgotten that language may only refer to truth. At times, Nietzsche recognizes truth’s deceptive nature, as indicated by his use of quotation marks around the term, like when he describes finding “‘truth’ within the territory of reason” (769). In contrast, when Nietzsche drops the quotation marks, it suggests his claim is referring to an actual truth, like when he states that, “it is true that human beings forget that this is how things are” (768). Yet, in moments like this, Nietzsche is actually succumbing to what his theory cautions against—the deceptive nature of attaining truth through language. Miller notes how “Nietzsche’s formulation promises a confrontation with the “truth” in some of its traditional senses. What is missing, in this stammering play of substitutions, is anything which corresponds to the unknown X underlying all the play” (49). The referential nature of the metaphorical language Nietzsche uses to articulate his theory actually prevents his theory from directly attaining a true understanding of what it seeks to explain, and therefore, creates the text’s inherent resistance.

A Room of One’s Own similarly possesses this inherent resistance due to Woolf ’s gendered writing. Woolf formulates her theory in such a way that aligns with

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a woman’s mode of thinking, and hence, rejects masculine traditions. Rosenman remarks that, “surely no one would imagine that A Room of One’s Own was written by someone who had forgotten she was a woman” (104). As such, Woolf ’s own writing does not adopt her claim that a great mind must embrace both its masculine and feminine side, and as such, resists to her theory. “According to Woolf ’s theory of gendered writing, [pretentious, grandiloquent speech or harangue] would be a distinctively male rhetoric,” something she entirely rejects, instead developing a distinctively female rhetoric (Rosenman 94). However, by doing so, Woolf opposes her own theory of attaining a balance between the two sexes while writing. Woolf “promise[s] to give [the reader] the train of [her] thoughts,” rather than simply presenting a final, polished argument (904).

Exposing her train of thought allows Woolf to dismantle the hierarchy between reader and author. She invites the reader into her mind, as though speaking to a peer, and thus, rejects the pretentious nature of masculine writing. Woolf also exposes her vulnerability and emotions while writing, like when she states, “I consoled myself with the reflection that it is perhaps a passing phase” (904). This expression of vulnerability further subverts the pretentious authorial voice that characterizes masculine writing, and thus, further develops a feminine rhetoric that disrupts her theory of androgyny. Rachel DuPlessis praises A Room of One’s Own for Woolf ’s ability to undermine the traditional masculine rhetoric by never being “smug, preening or superior,” and as a result, establishing a “model [tone] of female authority” (DuPlessis 12).

In contrast to the firm assertions that characterize the pretentious authority of masculine rhetoric, Woolf ’s language encourages the reader to doubt or invalidate her claims, which further develops her uniquely female authority and rhetoric. Rosenman describes Woolf as “deliberately revising her comments to avoid punishment and denigrating herself ” as clear markers of a traditional female voice that has been effected by a history of oppression (98). For example, Woolf discredits her own authority when stating, “I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in each of us two powers preside” (901). Referring to herself as an amateur suggests a lack of knowledge and expertise regarding the subject on which she is theorizing, thus inviting the reader to doubt her claims. Instead of firmly asserting her theory of androgynous minds, Woolf introduces it by stating, “if it be true that [an androgynous mind] is one of the tokens of a fully developed mind” (901). Woolf ’s use of “if ” suggests a lack of confidence regarding the validity of her own claim, in contrast to the assertive tone of masculine writing. The uncertainty towards her own theory is further illustrated when Woolf states, “what then, it amounts to, if this theory of the two sides of the mind holds good, is that virility has now become self- conscious” (903). Her use of “if ” once again evokes a lack of confidence regarding her theory of androgyny, and invites the reader’s doubts. Moreover, Woolf often asks the reader’s permission to make a claim, like when she states, “thus all their qualities seem to a woman, if one may generalize, crude and immature” (903). Woolf undermines her authorial authority by asking the reader to make decisions, and thus, further rejects a masculine mode of writing assertively. This hesitation to make assertive claims characterizes Woolf ’s writing as thoroughly feminine, and therefore, resists her theory of writing androgynously.

Woolf ’s non-assertive and uncertain language may be distilled to a single

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word—“but,” as it indicates doubts regarding her claims and a desire to revise them.

Her continuous use of this key term opposes the masculine model of writing in which there exists no doubt, and thereby, Woolf further develops her female writing style.

Rosenman notes how “in a sense the entire female tradition Woolf uncovers, or constructs, grows out of this word ‘but,’” and the “nodes of revision” it signifies (94). Statements like, “but it would be good to test what one meant,” depict Woolf ’s hesitation to make a firm assertion regarding her theory of the male and female fusing in one’s mind (901). This desire to continuously test or revise her claims before firmly asserting their validity reflects an especially feminine approach to argumentation and writing.

Woolf acknowledges her regular use of “but” and recognizes that, “one cannot go on saying ‘but.’ One must finish the sentence somehow” (902). Yet, she ignores own advice by continuing to say, “‘but I am bored!’ But why was I bored?,” thus demonstrating an inability to not only escape the word “but,” but the feminine mode of hesitant writing it embodies (902).

In contrast, Nietzsche articulates his theory using firm and specific statements which suggest to the reader that the theory he outlines can be understood in-itself.

This, however, contradicts his theory which describes how the thing-in-itself can never be attained since language functions like a metaphor, and can only refer to the thing.

The diction Nietzsche uses is often specific as it “attempts the impossible task of defining in unambiguous signs the functioning of signs” (Miller 47). Like Miller reveals, Nietzsche’s assertive and confident language is especially misleading since it appears to suggest that things can be known through language, and thus, resists his theory of language being founded in lies. For example, Nietzsche states that human knowledge is “certainly not from the essence of things,” and finding something where you hid it “is exactly how things are as far as the seeking and finding of ‘truth,’” (767, 769). The words “certainly” and “exactly” indicate Nietzsche’s confidence that he can make correct assertions that reveal a truth, as though he has forgotten his own theory. The most problematic example of this assertive language appears when Nietzsche firmly states what truth is, as though he can attain a precise understanding of truth itself, forgetting his theory of how language denies this (768). Therefore, by using language that misleads the reader, Nietzsche’s theory incites the reader’s resistance.

Nietzsche further misleads the reader by prompting her/him to search for a truth with questions that litter the start of On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense.

He opens the text by asking questions like “Given this constellation, where on earth can the drive to truth possibly have come from?” and “Is language the full and adequate expression of all realities?” (765-6). Posing questions suggests the reader may posses a correct answer that reveals a truth about the subject in question, despite his theory suggesting that such a truth cannot be attained through language. By attempting to answer these questions in their minds, the readers are succumbing to the trap of thinking they can understand the thing-in-itself through language, when, in fact, they can only refer to it. As such, Nietzsche’s writing incites the reader to actively resist his theory. Moreover, as explored in Paul de Man’s essay Semiology and Rhetoric, one cannot know if Nietzsche posed these questions literally or rhetorically, and thus, language prevents the reader from even understanding the nature of questions themselves.

Eventually, Nietzsche does pose a question to which he provides the answer:

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“What, then, is truth?” (768). Through posing this question, Nietzsche commits “the error the passage warns against...[and] invites the reader to make it by taking the form of a truth statement” (Miller 49). Nietzsche encourages the reader to believe truth can be attained through language, which opposes his theory that language is composed of illusions. After this point, Nietzsche, interestingly, stops posing questions, which suggests that everything has been resolved and understood. This assurance of achieving thorough and true knowledge, however, is exactly what Nietzsche’s theory warns against. For Nietzsche, “the human world is a labyrinth of figurative displacements around an unknown center,” yet his use of questions suggests otherwise to the reader, and hence, causes him/her to resist Nietzsche’s theory (Miller 45).

Nietzsche notes how humans only desire the “pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth; they are indifferent to pure knowledge if it has no consequences” (766). Perhaps even Nietzsche recognizes the inconsequential nature of attaining truth about any thing-in-itself, and intentionally writes using the language he condemns in order to suggests to the reader the impossibility of striving for such a truth about the ever elusive “X”. By using language that resists his theory, Nietzsche does not reveal a truth about what things are, but how we understand them. Nietzsche’s rhetoric demonstrates that the only truth that may be attained is one of the metaphorical way in which we attempt to reach truth. Even if this method ultimately leads to lies instead of truth, it is still the truth about how humans attempt to acquire knowledge. Therefore, the way in which Nietzsche’s writing resist his theory does not simply weaken his it, but rather, leads to a more profound theory that reveals a truth regarding how humans function.

Woolf ’s construction of a feminine rhetoric and use of figurative language creates resistance to her theory of striving for an unconsciously androgyny mind while writing. This inherent resistance, like that in On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense, initially appears to weaken the theory she aims to articulate, however, Frances Restuccia insightfully remarks that perhaps Woolf took up “androgyny to protect as well as to mask her more basic allegiance to female difference” (263). By considering her theory of androgyny as merely a concealment of her true beliefs in order to avoid alienating a male readership, the contradiction between how she writes and what she writes can be resolved. Restuccia further argues that Woolf ’s theory for adopting an androgynous mind only “serves in A Room of One’s Own as a curtain draper over the more subversive defines of female difference” (262). Rather than abrasively rejecting the male writer and his masculine rhetoric, Woolf ’s subtle articulation of her true preference for feminine rhetoric effectively eases her radically feminist ideal into the patriarchal society of her time.

Works Cited De Man, Paul. “Semiology and Rhetoric.” Diacritics 3.3 (1973): 27-33. Web. DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. “On Virginia Woolf ’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’.” Women: A Cultural Review 21.1 (2010): 10-15. Web. Miller, J. Hillis. “Dismembering and Disremembering in Nietzsche’s ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’.” Boundary 2 9.3 (1981): 41-54. Web.

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Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. 764-774. Print.

Restuccia, Frances L.. “Untying the Mother Tong: Female Difference in Virginia Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 4.2 (1985): 253-264. Web. Rosenman, Ellen Bayuk. “The Essay as Novel: Technique in A Room of One’s Own.” A Room of One’s Own: Women Writers and the Politics of Creativity. Ed. Robert Lecker.

New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. 91-103. Print.

Rosenman, Ellen Bayuk. “Difficulties and Contradictions: The Blind Spots of a A Room of One’s Own.” A Room of One’s Own: Women Writers and the Politics of Creativity.

Ed. Robert Lecker. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. 103-117. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. 901-905.

Print.

Young, Robert. “Contemporary Literary Theory: Its Necessity and Impossibility.” College Literature 9.3 (1982): 165-173. Web.

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The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You: Comparing Characters, Cultures, and Relationships That Span Four-hundred Years of Progress

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Matt Prout English 3227E

10 Things I Hate About You adapts Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew—a play that highlights how men treated women like property in late sixteenth century Italy—into a movie set in late twentieth century America where men seem to treat women more equally. In The Taming of the Shrew, Baptista demonstrates the high degree of control he has over his daughter Bianca by forbidding her from marrying before her older sister Kate. Petruchio enforces the power he has over his new wife Kate by mildly torturing her and humiliating her in order to make Kate behave how he wants. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Walter attempts to prevent his daughter Bianca from dating by stipulating that she cannot date until her older (and happily single) sister Kat does.

Patrick manipulates Kat into dating him by falsely claiming that he shares the same interests as her, by withholding information about himself that she would dislike, and by silencing her concerns with kisses. On the surface it appears that men treat Bianca and Kate more poorly than Bianca and Kat, but a close analysis of the dialogues and settings in their respective stories reveals that Bianca and Kat are treated just as poorly—or worse.

While Baptista hinders Bianca from marrying when he says that he will not “bestow [his] youngest daughter / Before [he has] a husband for [Kate]” (1.1.50-51), Walter hinders Bianca from dating when he says that she “can date when [her elder sister Kat] does” (10 Things I Hate About You). It seems that Baptista is more inhibiting because he prevents Bianca from committing to a man she will likely spend the rest of her life with, and Walter merely prevents Bianca from going on one date. However, Kat makes it clear that she is not likely to start dating anytime soon when she says, “I don’t intend to [date]. . . . Have you seen the unwashed miscreants that go to [my] school?”

(10 Things I Hate About You). Since women in late twentieth century America normally dated for months or years before marrying, Walter delays Bianca from marrying more so than Baptista delays Bianca because women in late sixteenth century Italy often married immediately after being courted.

Comparatively, Petruchio says that if Kate’s mood resembled “the swelling Adriatic seas: / [he] c[a]me to wive it wealthily in Padua; / If wealthily, then happily in Padua” (1.2.74-76) and indicates that he only desires Kate’s dowry, whereas Patrick says that he will only date Kat if he is paid to do so: “[Give me] 50 bucks and we’ve got a deal” (10 Things I Hate About You). It seems that Petruchio is more cruel because he plans to spend the rest of his life with Kate just to profit heavily, and that Patrick only agrees to go on a date with Kat for a small fee. However, Petruchio promises that Kate will benefit from their marriage because she will be financially secure forever: “And for that dowry, I’ll assure [Kate] of / Her widowhood, be it that she survive me, / In all my lands and leases whatsoever” (2.1.123-125). Initially, Patrick does not intend for Kat to

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benefit from dating him at all.

Moreover, Kate compliments Petruchio by asking him where he learned “[his] goodly speech” (2.1.262), while Kat only half-compliments Patrick by saying that he “never give[s] up” (10 Things I Hate About You). Though Kate goes on to say that she would rather “see [Petruchio] hang’d” than marry him (2.1.299), she demonstrates how she has warmed to Petruchio by not objecting to their marriage moving forward. Kat answers “no” when Patrick asks if her semi-compliment means she will accompany him to a party, but she also answers “no” when he asks if it means she will not accompany him (10 Things I Hate About You). Petruchio correctly assumes that Kate expects to marry him, but Patrick incorrectly assumes that Kat expects to go on a date with him: Kat is surprised to see Patrick outside of her house on the night of the party (10 Things I Hate About You). Originally, it seems as though Petruchio is being more presumptuous with Kate than Patrick is being with Kat. However, Kate is silent when Petruchio declares that he will marry her even after she insults him (and she exits the scene with him), which implies that she is agreeable. At the most, Kat indicates to Patrick that she might go to the party with him and they do not speak to each other further (or leave together). Patrick actually puts forth less effort to understand Kat than Petruchio puts forth to understand Kate.

Furthermore, Kate is initially aware of—and indifferent to—the dowry Petruchio will be paid, whereas Kat is unaware of the fee Patrick charges to date her and is devastated when she finds out (10 Things I Hate About You). Patrick’s treatment of Kat is more vindictive than Petruchio’s treatment of Kate when their respective eras and regions are considered. In late sixteenth century Italy it was normal for a husband to bend his wife to his will, which is what Petruchio does by depriving Kate of food and sleep (4.3.9). In late twentieth century America it was not common for a man to receive money to go on a date with a woman, which is the original reason that Patrick pursues Kat (10 Things I Hate About You).

Correspondingly, it seems that Petruchio and Kate end up in a dysfunctional relationship while Patrick and Kat end up in a happy relationship, although the dialogues and settings in their stories suggest otherwise. At the end of The Taming of the Shrew Kate comes to Petruchio when he calls for her (5.2.99-100), she lectures the other wives for not acting similarly (5.2.155-156), and she is quick to kiss Petruchio (5.2.179-180) and go to bed with him (5.2.184). Petruchio’s “taming” techniques were acceptable in late sixteenth century Italy, and Kate seems satisfied with being tamed if it means she can live comfortably. At the end of 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick and Kat are not in a harmonious relationship. First, Patrick kisses Kat and she quickly breaks the kiss off to tell Patrick that he “can’t just buy [her] a guitar every time [he] screw[s] up” (10 Things I Hate About You). Patrick answers Kat’s concerns by joking around and kissing her again, but Kat responds by breaking off the kiss again and saying, “[D]on’t just think you can” (10 Things I Hate About You)—at which point Patrick kisses her again and will not allow her pull away or speak (10 Things I Hate About You).

At the end of their stories, Kate and Petruchio are living in harmony while Patrick is still attempting to alter Kat’s behaviour.

Indeed, if The Taming of the Shrew took place in late twentieth century America, Baptista requiring Kate to marry before Bianca would be considered unjust

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and ridiculous. Petruchio mildly torturing and humiliating Kate so that she would act as he desired would be illegal and immoral. However, in late sixteenth century Italy, Baptista’s and Petruchio’s respective words and actions were matters of widely accepted custom. 10 Things I Hate About You did take place in late twentieth century America, and although it seems like Walter is only protecting Bianca from an unwanted pregnancy by not allowing her to date, he prevents her from finding love and beginning her own life even more than Baptista prevents Bianca from doing so. It seems as though Patrick is manipulated into dating Kat and that he makes up for using her, but Patrick knows from the outset that he will obtain financial gain while Kat will suffer emotional loss. At the end of their story, Patrick responds to Kat’s verbal concerns by physically overpowering her—Petruchio provides Kate with lifelong financial stability and harmony at the end of their story. There is a tendency to notice unfair circumstances in foreign regions and eras, but to overlook similar injustices in more familiar environments. With this bias removed, basing judgment solely on the dialogues, actions, and settings presented, Kat and Bianca were treated even more poorly than Kate and Bianca were—even though the latter two characters were set in a time that was supposed to have progressed four hundred years.

Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. 106-139. Print.

10 Things I Hate About You. Dir. Gil Junger. Perf. Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Larisa Oleynik, Larry Miller. Touchstone, 1999. DVD.

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Sins of the Father: Deceptions of the Polluter, God, with Humanity as Waste in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

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Julian Saddy English 2210F

As reported by Pullela, in 2008, the Vatican introduced ‘polluting the environment’ as one of the seven new deadly sins. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, the pristine, natural paradise of Earth is corrupted and transformed into a dry hell-like world; this desecration of nature can be directly linked to the presence of man. However, though the consumption of the forbidden fruit in Paradise Lost and the creation of the waste land in The Waste Land are physically performed by man, an anti-imperial environmentalist reading of these texts reveals a deceptive and apathetic God who, despite having created both man and nature, does not attempt to redeem either when they become corrupted. Like a colonialist, God views His subjects as beneath Him, and is willing to pollute their physical environment or send them to a more dangerous location as long as His own paradise is kept safe. In a postcolonial environmentalist reading of Paradise Lost and The Waste Land, Milton and Eliot take pessimistic views on the role of God in the fall of man and creation of the waste land; though humanity is physically culpable for its polluted environment, God is the orchestrator of their mortal suffering and, rather than solving the problems of humankind, uses them as a buffer of sinful waste between His heavenly paradise and Satan’s hell.

In Paradise Lost, God uses the degradation of nature as a punishment for sinners, using it to separate His angels in Heaven from those who have rebelled or fallen. At the beginning of the poem, Satan, the leader of the rebellion against God, is excommunicated from Heaven for his blasphemous actions. Milton describes God’s banishment of Satan:

Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky With hideous ruin and combustion down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms. (Milton I, 45-9)

This passage introduces the relationship between physical altitude and environmental degradation. In Book 3, Heaven is depicted as a bright, flourishing paradise where God “sits / High throned above all height” (Milton III, 57-8). However, when He casts Satan down to hell, Satan is sent “flaming…with hideous ruin and combustion down” (Milton I, 45-6). Milton’s use of fire imagery emphasizes the desecration of the pristine natural environment of heaven, as Satan’s fall from grace has literally resulted in the combustion of organic matter (Satan himself) and the creation of waste. God is not

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destroying the ‘waste’ that He encounters in Heaven; He is simply sending it to an environment that He views as beneath Him, where it will not affect Him or His angels directly. Furthermore, God’s ‘adamantine chaining’ of Satan is a reflection of the imperial authority that He exerts over his subjects. Though Satan initiated the holy war with God and His angels, God is arrogant to presume that all of His subjects will bow down and worship him as he expects. When he asks “who durst defy th’ Omnipotent,” he reveals his petty arrogance and desire to be rid of his opponents (Milton I, 49). God may have created the world and its inhabitants, but His expectations of universal gratitude and respect are both greedy and prideful, which invoke two of the traditional seven deadly sins. Though God is responsible for much of the good in Paradise Lost, His lack of concern for the environment is, as per the Vatican, sinful while His reign over His domain verges on tyrannical.

While culpability for the original sin is traditionally ascribed to the seductive, charismatic Satan, God plays a vital role in the fall of man. When Eve is discussing Satan’s temptation with Adam, she says:

Let us not then suspect our happy state

Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,

As not secure to single or combined.

Frail is our happiness, if this be so… (Milton IX, 337-40) Here, Eve not only acknowledges that God has ‘left their happy state imperfect,’ but also that her (and Adam’s) emotional happiness and natural paradise are frail and fleeting.

Even before they submit to Satan’s temptation, they understand that God has created a flaw in their idyllic world and, potentially, a flaw (or seven) in their morals. According to Richardson Walum, “persons perceive greater freedom following a prestige leader because they believe they are acting voluntarily” (576). Though Adam and Eve may believe that they are acting independently and are ultimately culpable for the original sin (with help from Satan), God is responsible for creating the tempting quandary that Adam and Eve face, which directly feeds into His greedy need for singular power and knowledge. If Adam and Eve are not tempted by the forbidden fruit, God knows that he has two more subjects who will submit to his direction and repopulate Eden and Earth with an entire race of followers. If Adam and Eve are tempted by the forbidden fruit, God has the capacity to punish the human race, which He now sees as waste, by sending them to a lower realm and debasing its natural environment by “[turning] askance / The poles of earth” and “[bringing] in change / Of seasons to each clime” (Milton X 668-9, 677-8). God has designed the temptation of the forbidden fruit to not only allow Him to judge the loyalty of humankind, but to blame Satan and the fallen angels for the trial and temptation of man. God’s participation in the fall of man not only shows his willingness to pollute the once-unspoiled Earth, but the deceptive and manipulative strategies He uses to buttress his position as the Father of the universe.

In The Waste Land, the titular waste land can be viewed as an extension of God’s environmental manipulation in Paradise Lost; by controlling the climate conditions on Earth, God is stunting the growth of the post-fall illuminated human race and maintaining the gap between God and His subjects. Eliot asks, “What are the roots

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that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man…” (29-30).

This depicts the human race emerging from the desecrated ‘stony rubbish’ to which God banished Adam and Eve. Now that humanity is beginning to ‘grow’ from this barren, ancient environment, God is threatened by the progress of humankind. This is reminiscent of the biblical Tower of Babel; in order to punish man for trying to build a tower that would “reach unto heaven,” God created language barriers to confound the builders (King James Online, Genesis 11.4). In The Waste Land, Eliot invokes God’s retributive threats and actions in the Old Testament when he says:

And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. (Eliot 27-30)

God is speaking to humanity and forcing them to think outside the confines of day-today life and confront the curse of the original sin: mortality. He recalls an earlier line from the Book of Genesis, when God tells Adam, “…dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (King James Online, Genesis 3.19). In showing them death in a handful of dust, he is not enticing the ‘sons and daughters of man’ with promises of Heaven and paradise, but threatening them with eternal damnation and Hell for noncompliance. Death is later revisited by Eliot with the vignette of Madame Sosostris. In her tarot deck, she fails to find the Hanged Man, a card that represents the sacrifice of the fertility god in order to make the land more arable. This shows that the regeneration of humanity and the environment is being actively suppressed by God. Without a renewed natural Earth that can subvert the tilted axis and seasonal climate imposed by God, humanity will never be able to, like with the Tower of Babel, reach Heaven and truly share in God’s glory. By using His power to control the environment on Earth, God further secures His dominance of the human and heavenly realms.

Part V of The Waste Land can be seen as an allegorical representation of God’s power; that is to say, it is a depiction of a scorched Earth which, under God’s command, is capable of revitalization. It begins with Eliot presenting an environment with “no water but only rock” (331). This barren image of Earth as the ‘unreal’ planet is the result of human production and consumption, which are both products of colonial policy (Boyce). God, being capable of manipulating nature, has temporarily taken up residence in these dry lands and, in order to improve the conditions for Himself, brings forth “a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust / Bringing rain” (394-5). Though man, here personified as a “hooded horde,” is forced to live in “endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth” and in “falling towers,” God’s selfish nature and lack of empathy for humankind is shown when he only regenerates the waste land in order to benefit himself (369, 370, 374). The sinking of the Ganges, or ‘Ganga’ as it is called in the text, is symbolic of God’s prosperity; he has provided this sacred, highly spiritual river with an overabundance of water, yet onshore, “the limp leaves / Waited for rain” (396-7).

Like the limp leaves, humanity is in desperate need of the vital, natural rain, but God selfishly hoards it all for himself. In this section of the poem, water, the fundamental natural resource, is treated like colonizers treat goods in their colonies. God, who has

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an infinite and overflowing supply of water, is able to command and manipulate humanity by controlling their access to their most essential commodity. Symbolized by the impotent Fisher King, described by Krappe as a “mortally wounded king who yet cannot find redemption from his sufferings by welcome death,” humanity is forced to sit “upon the shore / Fishing with the arid plain behind me,” unable to ultimately revitalize the waste land unless the questing knight, in this case, God, heals him and the whole human race (Eliot 424-5).

In a postcolonial environmentalist reading, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Eliot’s The Waste Land depict God as acting selfishly, desperate to hold onto his role as an omnipotent deity and punishing humanity and the environment accordingly. God’s deceptive side is revealed in Paradise Lost, when he uses Satan as a scapegoat in order to evaluate humanity as an ally and subject. Even after Adam and Eve fall from grace, God does nothing to reform or revitalize the human race in The Waste Land, despite being shown to have the capacity to do so. Because he views his subjects as being fundamentally ‘below’ Him, God pollutes the lower realms of the universe with sinful humans and fallen angels, whom He perceives to be waste, in order to move them away from Heaven. Despite its sins, however, humanity is not waste; in order to reverse the environmental damage that God does in both Paradise Lost and The Waste Land, humanity must reclaim its independence by creating a sustainable way of life outside of the natural environment. By establishing a self-sufficient, secular society apart from the command of God, humanity can escape His colonial influence and distance themselves from the environmental hierarchy implemented by God. Bibliography “The Bible.” Online Bible - King James Version. King James Online Bible, n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

Boyce, Rubert. “The Colonization of Africa.” Journal of the Royal African Society. Vol 10, July (1911): 392-397. Web. Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2013. 2714-2727. Print.

Krappe, Alexander H. “The Fisher King.” The Modern Language Review. 39.1 (Jan. 1944): 18-23. Web. Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2013. 799-929. Print.

Pullela, Philip. “Vatican lists ‘new sins,’ including pollution.” Reuters. Reuters, 10 Mar. 2008. Web. 21 March 2015.

Richardson Walum, Laurel. “The Art of Domination: An Analysis of Power in Paradise Lost.” Social Forces 53.4 (June 1975): 573-580. Web.

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“In a World Ruled by Bloodlines and Bank Accounts”: Pierre Bourdieu’s Theories on Class, Capital, and Taste as Lenses Through Which to Understand the Use of Fashion as Social Class Currency on The CW’s Gossip Girl

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Julia Vance

English 2250G

The CW’s television show Gossip Girl is a teen drama that “revels in the scandals and personal dramas of wealthy teenagers” (Thompson and Mittell 338) who attend a “prestigious prep school on…[the] Upper East Side” (Kendall 60) of New York City. Narrating the “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” (“The Wild Brunch”), Gossip Girl not only entertains but also “foreground[s] class struggles” (77) between the middle-class and the “upper-crust characters” (Thompson and Mittell 151). Treating “fashion…like a character in the show” (“Gossip Girl Couture”), Gossip Girl differentiates between middle-class outsiders and Upper East Side insiders using clothing. Where the clothing a character wears represents the class to which they belong, Pierre Bourdieu’s Forms and Capital and his theory of aesthetic taste from Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste act as theoretical lenses through which viewers can understand the world of the Upper East Side. Using Bourdieu’s theoretical perspectives, I will be juxtaposing two different characters in terms of their clothing and their class position, ultimately arguing that Gossip Girl uses fashion as a way to illustrate the class distinctions of characters who embody the difference between the 1% and the 99% that summarizes class warfare ongoing in today’s society.

In Pierre Bourdieu’s Forms of Capital, he identifies capital as something that can “present itself in three fundamental guises: as economic capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into money…as cultural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized…and as social capital, made up of social obligations” (Bourdieu 16). Where economic capital is the foundation for social and cultural capital (23), Bourdieu goes on to emphasize the inherited or acquired state of capital, whose transmission is ultimately determined by familial inheritance and personal effort. Where “continuous transmission [of capital] within the family” (24), implying an organic inheritance, acquiring one’s capital takes “time to accumulate” (15), where more effort is needed in order to obtain desired capital. Building on the appearance of social and cultural capital in individuals, Bourdieu illustrates how the education system is an “instrument of reproduction” (24) that holds a monopoly over the transmission of power and privilege (24), where it is responsible for maintaining class distinctions in the minds of its students, “instigating social inequality further rather than eradicating it…cementing it more into society” (essex. ac.uk).

In his Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Pierre Bourdieu defines ‘taste’ and its importance to a person’s habitus and social class. Where “taste is revealed through an (acquired) appreciation for everything that is nonmaterial” (Sloane), it “functions to make social distinctions” (Sloane). A contributing factor

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to one’s habitus, “the lifestyle…values…dispositions, and…expectations of particular social groups” (historylearningsite.co.uk), taste relates to taking the appreciation for everything immaterial and seeing it in physical manifestations of culture, be it art, film, food, or fashion. The claims that Bourdieu makes in Form of Capital and Distinction synthesize, where “different tastes are associated with different classes and class factions have different levels of prestige” (historylearningsite.co.uk), thus indicating that one’s social class determines their forms of capital and in reverse, one’s forms of capital determine their social class.

Applying the theories outlined by Bourdieu in Forms of Capital and Distinctions: A Social Critique of Judgment of Taste, I will be using the overarching connection between the three forms of capital, taste, habitus, and education’s socialization of class to analyze how Blair Waldorf and Jenny Humphrey in The CW’s Gossip Girl use fashion to mark their already inherited, or desired acquiring of social status and class within the society of New York’s Upper East Side. I chose to use fashion and clothing to illustrate Bourdieu’s theories in Forms of Capital and Distinction due to the importance it plays in the world of Gossip Girl. Stating that “it’s hard to imagine…these characters…without thinking of how they express themselves through their clothing” (“Gossip Girl Turns 100!”), Gossip Girl’s world uses fashion to portray the Upper East Side, as “[one’s] clothing represents [one’s] status” (“Gossip Girl Couture”).

Where fashion is a clear mode of expression, it “ ‘carr[ies] enough information about the characters so that the audience [can] tell something about them if the sound went off ’ “(Warner 85). Using a currency that is so valued on the Upper East Side of Gossip Girl, examining the characters’ clothing is a clear way to analyze the larger class warfare (“The Wild Brunch”) that goes on in the world of Gossip Girl.

Although I introduced the main premise of The CW’s Gossip Girl in the introductory paragraph, in order to contextualize the world of the Upper East Side in which Gossip Girl is set, I would like to direct you to the YouTube link included in my works cited. This video offers a short introduction to the world of the Upper East Side, providing a look at the dichotomy between those born into it and those who have to force their way in. With Dan Humphrey’s narration, this video introduces the world of the Upper East Side, describing it of one full of luxury and wealth, where membership is a birthright (“New York I Love You, XOXO).

Blair Waldorf, a member of the Upper East Side elite whose mother is a fashion designer and whose father comes from old familial money, dresses with “a very high-end sense of style” (“Gossip Girl Couture”), where “the best way to describe her is appropriate” (“Gossip Girl Couture”). Described as “label-whoring” (“Bad News Blair”), Blair Waldorf dons haute-couture fashion night and day, where her school uniform, weekend attire, gala dresses, and pyjama sets are the best of the best, made by the most lucrative designers out of the most luxurious textiles. Where her style is described as classic, elegant, and immaculately planned, Blair Waldorf ’s personal fashion identifies her as a member of the Upper East Side who can afford the clothing necessary to embody the physical appearance expected from someone of her class.

Although Constance Billard School for Girls, the prestigious private school Blair attends, requires uniforms to be worn during school hours, Blair’s use of accessories label her as the ruler she is while she is forced to wear a uniform similar to those of

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all other students. While in Constance uniform, Blair’s status as monarch is symbolized by “her signature headband…her crown…she puts on every morning” (“Gossip Girl Couture”). Her elitist power and position as “Queen B” (“The Blair Bitch Project”) is demonstrated not only by the headband that she wears alongside her school uniform, but also by “her followers [who]…don…headbands as a way to show allegiance to her” (“Gossip Girl Couture”), representing the control she has as a member of the elite upper-class society.

Blair “rules Constance Billard” (Oppliger 21), the private New York City prep school characters attend in Gossip Girl. Known as Queen B, she enforces the social hierarchy of the private school through her upper-class status as an Upper East Sider and her team of minions. Where Pierre Bourdieu claims that “economic capital is at the root of all other types of capital” (Bourdieu 23), Waldorf ’s inheritance of her familial wealth led to her inheritance of strong cultural and social capital that allows her to hold this ruling position at Constance. Caring “more about fashion than most people care about anything” (“The Kids Are Not All Right”), Waldorf rules the characters of the Upper East Side as a “dictator of taste” (“The Kids Are Not All Right”), choosing her minions based on their fashion choices, sending “girls home…from Constance for wearing tights as pants” (“The Kids Are Not All Right”), and conducting disciplinary hearings and enforcing expulsions from group membership when fashion codes are violated.

Believing that “the initial accumulation of…capital…starts at the outset” (Bourdieu 18), Bourdieu states that for individuals whose family have a significant amount of economic capital, the individual’s social and cultural capital is inherited over childhood socialization, transmitted organically and without the individual’s active energy and effort of acquiring it themselves. Already having the economic foundation provided by her familial wealth, Blair organically is provided with the social capital that her family name provides her. Defined by Bourdieu as one “made up of social obligations (connections)”, social capital “is linked to…membership in a group” (20), further defining that group membership also involves one who is known (22) to come to represent the group to which they belong, where they “speak and act in its name and…exercise a power” (22). Thus, intrinsic in the notion of group membership that accompanies one’s social capital is the fact that membership to such a group will include designating the position of a noble, who speaks for and is “the group personified” (22).

Taking on this position as leader, Blair Waldorf ’s social capital of connections and the influence of her last name on the Upper East Side, both brought on by the economic capital of her family, allow her to rule the society in which she is a part.

Where “fashion can be seen as a set of signifiers that signals cognitively desirable qualities such as prestige, cultural capital, and status” (Tarrant and Jolles 72), Blair’s use of fashion as a criteria for membership in her group of minions represents Bourdieu’s theory of aesthetic taste, which “is the principal through which individuals occupy a certain social space…generat[ing] the set of choices constituting life-styles’ “(Fowler 50). Through comments such as “are those last season’s Tory Burch flats?” (“The ExFiles”) and “tights are not pants” (“Chuck in Real Life”), Waldorf indicates her superior ‘highbrow’ taste of fashion, ‘highbrow’ referring to a form of culture thought to be

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superior (merriam-webster.com). The aesthetic taste Blair projects onto her opinion of fashion determines the culture that Blair values and embodies herself and thus the culture that membership into her group and society requires. Where her social capital gives her the power of “being known” (Bourdieu 20), Blair’s objectified cultural capital, in “the form of cultural goods” (17), is transmitted through Bourdieu’s Arrow effect, where “all cultural goods…exert an educative effect by their mere existence” (25n7), thus being transmitted by her mother’s role as a fashion designer in New York City’s realm as a fashion capital of the world.

With the foundation that her family’s economic capital allows her, Blair Waldorf is able to build her reputation as Constance Billard’s Queen B through the social capital her last name gives her and the cultural capital that her mother’s profession injects in her. Her taste for highbrow fashion allows her to have power over all other Constance Billard girls, where their fashion choices are at the mercy of her immensely critical “dictator[ship] of taste” (“The Kids Are Not All Right”).

Although not numerous at Constance, Jenny Humphrey represents the middle-class population of the prestigious private school. As a Brooklyn-native, Jenny’s parents’ savings are entirely devoted to the tuition required to send their children to school with Manhattan’s elite. Where Blair has the wealth necessary to afford the clothes deemed by herself as socially acceptable, Jenny “doesn’t have the money she needs to keep up with these [Constance Billard] girls” (“Gossip Girl Couture”). Her style begins as “very eclectic, downtown, not moneyed” (“Gossip Girl Couture”), but as she creates an identity for herself as an Upper East Sider, Jenny’s personal style evolves, where she begins to “take little pieces of what she learns from the older [Constance Billard] girls and puts them into her own style” (“Gossip Girl Couture”). As Jenny forces her way into the Upper East Side, her clothing develops along with her identity, changing as she attempts to move from outsider to insider. Where her clothing once represented her identity as a Brooklyn-native whose fashion did not match Blair Waldorf ’s criteria, it develops into personifying the transformation Jenny undergoes in order to fit in and insert herself into upper-class society. Under Blair’s dictatorship of style and the fashion of the ruling class, Jenny adapts her clothing by adding things to her organic identity that she learns through the socialization of her artificial identity at Constance Billard, under the reign and fashion control of Blair Waldorf.

Being “desperate to overcome the shame that comes from living in Brooklyn” (Oppliger 21), Jenny expresses her need to fit in with the Upper East Sid through the clothes that she puts on her body. Expressing that “the kids [she] go[es] to school with shop at Sak’s and Bendel’s” (“Hi, Society”), Jenny’s social insecurity arises from the fact that she has to make things for herself in order to fit in. Coming from a middle-class family, Jenny’s socialization in the Constance Billard realm and the society of the Upper East Side is driven by the dictatorship of taste that Blair Waldorf creates. An accomplished seamstress, Jenny initially “attempts to join Blair’s minions and climb the social ladder” (Oppliger 21) by trying on expensive designer clothes that are “more than [her] rent” (“Pilot”) and going home to sew a cheaper version. Due to the fact that she cannot afford the designer labels that Blair Waldorf deems acceptable, Jenny Humphrey represents an individual who attempts to acquire cultural and social capital through “the work of acquisition…work on oneself (self-improvement)” (Bourdieu 17). Where Blair

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Waldorf inherits her social and cultural capital from birth due to her family’s economic status, Jenny’s family’s economic capital is one that cannot afford the fashion the Upper East Side prescribes. Exhibiting an individual who puts energy into acquiring the social and cultural capital that she desires, Jenny, Bourdieu’s “agent” (18), uses her sewing skills as the “resources available” (18) to her, to physically fabricate herself as an Upper East Sider.

Due to her attendance at Constance Billard and the strict ruling that Blair Waldorf holds over its students, their fashion, and thus the entire social order, Bourdieu’s opinion of education being a key agent in “the valorization of…capital” (Brown and Szeman 113) explains Jenny’s desire to become a member of the Upper East Side.

Where the educational institution is responsible for the socialization of its students, Bourdieu believes that it reproduces the social structure (Bourdieu 17), an idea clearly exemplified by Blair’s Position as Queen B. As a student at Constance Billard, Jenny Humphrey is socialized to believe that her fashion choices and her clothing will make or break her entrance into the world of the Upper East Side. Beginning by making copies of clothing she sees in designer stores, Jenny continuously attempts to move up the social ladder by fabricating her own clothing, identifying her own style, and continuously making “ongoing modifications…[to] her stylistic choices” (Ryalls 99).

Due to the values of fashion that Blair instils in the class distinctions of Constance Billard, Jenny uses clothing as a means to achieve her desired social status. Although not changing her economic status, she effectively increases social connections in the Upper East Side as she works her way into Blair’s group of minions, thus forming relationships and social connections with elite members. Furthermore, as her clothing conforms to the Upper East Side’s standards, Jenny comes to embody personality traits and behaviours that are culturally valued by Manhattan’s elite, such as the underage consumption of drugs and alcohol, sexual acts, and secret keeping. With clothing, Jenny Humphrey uses fashion as a currency to overcome her poor economic capital and build a social and cultural capital more acceptable of the society she wishes to be a part of.

As Emily Ryalls summarizes in her dissertation “The Culture of Mean: Gender, Race, and Class in Mediated Images of Girls’ Bullying”, a scene in which “Jenny empties her closet, tossing the clothes on the floor in a heap, even throwing out the sewing machine she used to make her own clothes” (101) foregrounds the importance of clothing to Jenny’s identity as either an Upper East Sider or a Brooklyn-native. Jenny’s ransacking of her closet depicts transformation where she discards her old, Brooklyn clothes to make room for her new, Manhattan clothes that she owns due to increasing social and cultural connections on the Upper East Side. In this scene of metamorphosis, Jenny’s discarding of old clothes and prioritization of new clothing emphasizes her identity as one that has successfully shifted classes, where she discards her middle-class identity in order to take on the upper-class identity she was able to achieve through her manipulation of the clothing she puts on her body.

In a world that is described as being “glamorous in the way that Old Hollywood was glamorous” (“Gossip Girl Series Retrospective”), The CW’s Gossip Girl presents viewers access into a world of which we are all ultimately outsiders. Narrating the lives of the 1%, the characters of Gossip Girl are the wealthiest of the wealthy, as they

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epitomize Pierre Bourdieu’s differentiation between inherited or acquired economic, cultural, and social capital. The opulent wealth of the characters is illustrated through the clothing they wear, as the fashion of the show “is a big element used to communicate the world that [they are] in” (“5 Years of Iconic Style”). Through the juxtaposition between Blair Waldorf and Jenny Humphrey, Gossip Girl’s use of clothing to indicate social status is made clear by the two characters most involved in the taste of fashion and the two characters the furthest apart from each other in terms of the class into which they were born. Seen through the lens of Bourdieu’s Forms of Capital and Distinctions: A Social Critique of Judgment of Taste, the clothing characters of Gossip Girl wear functions to indicate characters’ social status within a show that presents itself as an appealing, addictive, and luxurious critique of class distinctions in the 21st century.

Works Cited Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Print.

Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital”. English 2250G: Introduction to Cultural Studies. Ed. Professor Michael Sloane. London: Western University, 2015. 15-31.

Print.

Brown, Nicholas, and Imre Szeman. Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. Print.

Fowler, Bridget. Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory: Critical Investigations.

California: Sage Publications UK, 1997. Print.

Jolles, Marjorie, and Shira Tarrant. Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style.

Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012. Print.

Kendall, Diana. Framing Class: Media Representations of Wealth and Poverty in America. 2nd Ed. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. Print.

Mittell, Jason, and Ethan Thompson. How to Watch Television. New York: New York University Press, 2013. Print.

Oppliger, Patrice A. Bullies and Mean Girls on Screen and In Print: A Critical Survey of Fictional Adolescent Aggression. United States: McFarland & Company, 2013.

Print.

Ryalls, Emily D. The Culture of Mean: Gender, Race, and Class in Mediated Images of Girls’ Bullying. Diss. University of South Florida, 2011. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2011.

Print.

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Sloane, Michael. “Re: Question About Taste”. Message to the author. 4 April 2015.

Email.

Tabb, Emily. “Outline and Assess Bourdieu’s Explanation of Social Inequality”. U. of Essex, Unknown. Web. 1 April 2015.

Trueman, Chris, ed. “Pierre Bourdieu”. History Learning Site, 2014. Web. 1 April 2015.

Warner, Helen. Fashion on Television: Identity and Celebrity Culture. United Kingdom: Berg Publishers, 2014. Print.

“5 Years of Iconic Style”. Gossip Girl: The Complete Fifth Season, Special Feature.

Warner Brothers, 2012. DVD. “Bad News Blair”. Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season, Episode 4. Warner Brothers, 2008. DVD. “The Blair Bitch Project”. Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season, Episode 14. Warner Brothers, 2008. DVD. “Chuck in Real Life”. Gossip Girl: The Complete Second Season, Episode 7. Warner Brothers, 2009. DVD. “The Ex-Files”. Gossip Girl: The Complete Second Season, Episode 4. Warner Brothers, 2009. DVD. “Gossip Girl Couture”. Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season, Special Feature. Warner Brothers, 2008. DVD. “Gossip Girl Series Retrospective”. Gossip Girl: The Complete Sixth and Final Season, Special Feature. Warner Brothers, 2013. DVD. “Gossip Girl Turns 100!” Gossip Girl: The Complete Fifth Season, Special Feature.

Warner Brothers, 2012. DVD. “highbrow”. Merriam Webster. Web. 6 April 2015.

“Hi, Society”. Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season, Episode 10. Warner Brothers, 2008. DVD. “The Kids Are Not All Right”. Gossip Girl: The Complete Fourth Season, Episode 12.

Warner Brothers, 2011. DVD. “New York I Love You, XOXO”. Gossip Girl: The Complete Sixth and Final Season, Episode 10. Warner Brothers, 2013. DVD.

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“Pilot”. Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season, Episode 1. Warner Brothers, 2008.

“The Wild Brunch”. Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season, Episode 2. Warner Brothers, 2008. DVD. ChairStelenaDelena. “Gossip Girl 6x10 New York I Love You, XOXO-Gossip Girl Revealed, Dan Is Gossip Girl”. Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 17 December 2012. Web. 6 April 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef93SVnjjDY

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Substance Abuse in Canadian Aboriginals and the Effect on Families and Communities: A Nursing Perspective Allison Aspinall Nursing 2220

In October 2012, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran an article with the title “Substance Abuse is ‘Problem No. 1’ in Aboriginal North”. The article credits historical trauma, and the subsequent deterioration of determinants of health in the Aboriginal community to be the primary reason for the misuse (Clibbon). Substance abuse within the Canadian Aboriginal population has had a profound effect on both Aboriginal families and communities. This paper aims to explore these effects within the Aboriginal population and expand on the idea of historical trauma, with a specific focus on the community values. Both Substance abuse and Canadian Aboriginals are broad topics that are hard to define. For the purposes of this paper, the research gathered will be used to speculate on general findings. Historical and current factors will be examined, in an effort to explain why substance abuse was and continues to be a problem. Aboriginal community and family health will be defined, and the impact substance abuse has on these systems will be analyzed from a strengths based perspective. Finally, potential solutions will be suggested, along with recommendations for nurses planning on involving themselves in this area of health.

Historically, Canadian Aboriginals have been targeted as their culture differs greatly from the majority of the country. Canadian settlers forced many beliefs onto the native people, stripping them of a sense of cultural freedom. Until 1982, children were sent to residential schools, where westernized culture was forced upon them in an effort to minimalize their indigenous values (Elias, Hall, Hart, Hong, Mignone and Sareen 1561). There has been some suggestion that residual effects of this cultural trauma bleed into the habits of today’s population of Aboriginals. Ghelani states that “Although the last residential school in Canada has been closed, historical traumas from these adverse educational experiences have passed down through generations to seriously affect the way Aboriginal children and youths respond to schools and learning” (7). Substance abuse (among many other mental problems), may be a way to cope with a feeling of a loss of community culture as Western society has both historically and presently stripped away freedoms and determinants of health from Aboriginal communities (Mccormick 27).

Acute and chronic usage, addiction, and overdose of any controlled substance are all examples of substance abuse that can cause many harmful side effects (DiSantostefano 618-619). Substance abuse has been a problem that has threatened the health of Aboriginals, as drug usage of young Canadian Aboriginals is higher than their non-Aboriginal counterparts (Duff, Puri, and Chow 17). Aboriginal reservations have been subjected to negative social determinants of health, such as a lack of living space, from many Canadian government implementations (Gone 757). The lack of socioeconomic resources and education (other social determinants of health) available for Aboriginals living on reservations may be a reason for an increase use of substance abuse, as Aboriginals living off the reservations have a lower substance abuse rate than

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Aboriginals residing on the reservation (Rawana and Ames 230-231). Substance abuse among the Aboriginal population has also been linked to higher cases of sexual abuse and or misconduct (Devries, Free, Morison, and Saewyc 855), which could impair the mental and physical health of the individuals in question. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse advocates for issues of substance abuse to be treated with a family and community based approach, as they believe this will lead to the best results (Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse). The Aboriginal community is well known for spiritual and community values, and because their relationships between others are so imperative to their being, The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse’s approach gives a valuable insight into possible implications and solutions regarding Aboriginal family and community.

A community is typically defined as “a group of people of live, learn, work, and play in an environment at a given time” (Yiu, 213). To many aboriginal populations, a definition of community does not simply encompass those that they live with and interact. McCormick states that the term “all my relations” is a common Aboriginal saying that aims to encompass many parts of life that interact together.

Spirit people, family, community, and many other groupings intersect to form the basis of an Aboriginal community (qtd. In Canadian Institute for Health Information 3).

Knowing what an Aboriginal population defines as community, one can infer that to the Aboriginal population, “all my relations” need to be healthy in order for a community to be healthy. Community Health Nursing: A Canadian Perspective describes the term family with Hunt’s definition, “a social group whose members share common values and interact with each other over time” (qtd. In Sealy and Smith 268). Using this definition, it is easy to see similarities between what an Aboriginal individual would define as family verses what would be defined as community. Because there is overlap between what an Aboriginal family is and what is an Aboriginal community, implications for both systems when subjected to members participating in substance abuse may be similar. It is also important to note the traditional viewpoint Aboriginal populations may take on health. Gaalen, Wiebe, Langlois, and Costen state that health is directly related to holism and wellness within all areas of one’s life (qtd. in Canadian Institue for Health Information, 10). Knowing that definition, nurses cannot assess the health and wellness of an Aboriginal community or family without taking into account the balance felt by the client(s) in all areas of life, even if those areas are not typically in one’s definition of health.

Substance abuse can add social and emotional stress onto the family of the individual. Not only can substance abuse create stressful living environments, but also those stressful living environments can then in turn catalyze more substance abuse, and it becomes a trap for the individual and the family members (Ghelani, 6). Maar, Erskine, McGregor, Larose, Sutherland, Graham, Shawande, and Gordon add that addictions and other mental health problems eat away at the family relationship (2). Because the Aboriginal community is one that relies heavily on support of its members, the burden of substance abuse on the individual could translate to be a burden on the family and also the community. Earlier, it was mentioned that substance abuse could be a response to cultural trauma inflicted upon Aboriginals. As the attention and energy of individuals is focused on different substances and mental health issues, the

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community and its members could be feeling a lack of value on traditional and spiritual elements (which were once considered strengths). The Aboriginal community relates spiritual focus to health (Mccormick 27), so a lack of value on tradition means that the community could be feeling a general sense of un-wellness amongst its culture. As mentioned above, the Aboriginal population has been historically targeted as their values differ from Western culture. Even today, as we strive for multiculturalism, Aboriginal communities are still subjected to intrusive media coverage that displays many Aboriginal substance abuse problems in a negative light (the CBC article earlier in this paper, for example). The integrity of Aboriginal traditions and culture has been cracked due to this media coverage, and Aboriginal communities and families may be feeling like their religion and values lack respect among the rest of the country.

However, because the sense of community is a strength for many Aboriginal populations, social supports may be more readily available to help individuals rather than an individual who does not have a strong sense of community. The impact and influence of families and communities can help an Aboriginal individual who is dealing with a substance abuse problem, as after spirituality, community influence is the biggest predictor for behaviour change (Jiwa, Kelly and St Pierre-Hansen). Individuals were more likely to cease negative substance activity if asked by either an immediate family member, or an extended family member (McCormick 25–32). McCormick states that belonging and connectedness to the community and culture is an outcome of health (qtd. In Canadian Institute for Health Information 5). Therefore, if an Aboriginal individual suffering from substance abuse seeks help from the community, the community may also feel healthier, as balance of culture and traditional purpose may be restored. This speaks to the importance and value placed on family by many members of the Aboriginal population.

Now that is has been identified why Aboriginals may engage in substance abuse, and what potential impacts are for the family and community, potential solutions must be examined. Traditionally, Aboriginals view connection with community and culture to be a healing principle, and necessary for wellness (Mccormick 27). Scientifically, it has been suggested that youth are less likely to engage in substance abuse when religious and cultural factors are evident in their lives (Jiwa et al., 1000). As mentioned earlier, substance abuse and sexual misconduct share common behaviours, and there for possible common solutions. It has been noted that Aboriginal youth are less likely to participate in dangerous sexual behaviour when involved in a positive aspect of the community (Devries et al., 858). Youth are also more likely to stop substance abuse when direct family members voice their opinions about the matter (Rawana and Ames 231). This similarity between traditional views and reviewed research suggests that when finding a solution for substance abuse within the Aboriginal population, members of the Aboriginal community should be directly involved in the process, so they are able to voice opinions and suggestions grounded in Aboriginal culture.

Many traditional Aboriginal health practices have been found to have a positive impact on the health of both individuals and communities at large, and should therefore be considered as a strength of the Aboriginal community. Talking circles have been introduced as an effective approach to forming a dialogue about consequences, facts, and feelings regarding substance abuse. Traditionally, an Aboriginal

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talking circle involves a community of people gathered in a circular formation to share stories, spirituality, ideas, and struggles (Kirmayer, Simpson, and Cargo 20). The use of a talking circle also has the potential to encourage openness, as the setting is culturally relevant (an Aboriginal tradition) and familiar to the participants. (Ghelani 13). The talking circle can not only provide a place to share for the substance abusers, but also a place for family members and other people affected by the abuse to share, listen, and offer support. Vickers adds that other traditional Aboriginal implementations such as worships services and personal storytelling could also help guide the individuals in a manner that is culturally relevant (qtd. In Canadian Institute for Health Information 19). By using techniques and practices that are traditional and rooted in Aboriginal culture and values, not only may the individual have the chance to be re-acquainted with old values, but the community and the rest of the population may feel more cohesive, as they move towards more common goals (such as sharing faith). For example, if it was noted that more education was needed in order to inform and educate community members about substance abuse, a nurse or other health care professional could work with community elders, in order to implement a program that would be beneficial to the participants, and would be relevant to the Aboriginal traditions that are helpful to learning.

A holistic, culturally sensitive, and strengths-based implementation to approach this issue is needed. Additionally, the approach must be collaborative order to find a solution that will work with the traditions of the Aboriginal population. However, scientific data and information may need to be explored and delivered as well.

Also, the topic of sustainability and funding may provide a challenge, as it may not be economically feasible for Aboriginal communities to fund programs that involve both medical and traditional therapy. In the case that such medical intervention is unavailable to a community, it is fortunate that the traditional Aboriginal treatment methods provide such an impact on participants that it can be helpful to individuals on its own.

Overall, potential solutions for substance abuse in the Aboriginal population could be beneficial if embedded in both traditional cultural values, and with the input of family and or community.

It is imperative that nurses evaluate all areas of their interventions when entering a new area of practice. The aboriginal population presents many unique strengths and challenges for the nurse, and he or she must be both self-aware, and aware of current literature.

The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) practice standard, Culturally Sensitive Care, mandates that nurses are to deliver care that is culturally sensitive to the particular client he or she is with. In order to do this, a nurse must first confront any personal bias he or she may have involving the Canadian Aboriginal population and or substance abuse (4). As mentioned earlier, culture and tradition play a big part in Aboriginal health and wellness, and the nurse must be willing to understand the importance of this, as well as work to include the client’s values into care. The nurse must also take care to insure that no assumptions are made about what is encompassed in a client’s culture. Although this paper has explored cultural and community values present within many Aboriginal populations, every client is autonomous and unique, and must be treated as an individual. The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario

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(RNAO) outlines the importance of client centered care in their best practice guideline.

It is important to remember that the client is in charge of what action is taken against their health. Despite what the nurse may believe through acquiring nursing knowledge, the patient is allowed to choose whatever course of action they believe to be best.

The nurse must respect the choices made, listen to concerns, and help the client explore his or her options (RNAO). Finally, the nurse has the responsibility to advocate for his or her client. Advocating may come in many different forms, depending on the situation. It can range for advocating for local funding for services within the Aboriginal community to nationwide initiatives regarding Aboriginal stereotyping in the media.

In conclusion, the Canadian Aboriginal community has been subjected to marginalization, un-equitable distribution of resources, and stereotyping. It has been suggested that the rampant substance abuse found in many Aboriginal communities is due to these un-equities. Traditionally, Aboriginals believe family and community to be closely linked, and much more than simply the people who surround them. The Aboriginal community may be feeling as if focus on values and tradition is lacking, due to the substance abuse. Fortunately, community and family provided a curative factor to an individual suffering from substance abuse, as both enrichment in tradition and values and involving self with family are strong treatments for many mental health issues. By using traditional methods to help aid with substance abuse, the community may also again find cultural relevance and importance.

Works Cited Canadian Center on Substance Abuse. “Strengthening Our Skills: Canadian Guidelines for Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Family Skills Program”. Drug Prevention Strategy for Canada’s Youth. 2011: Web. 7 Feb 2014.

Canadian Institute for Health Information. “Mentally Healthy Communities: Aboriginal Perspectives”. Canadian Population Health. 2009. Web. 12 Feb 2014.

Clibbon, Jennifer. “Substance Abuse is “Problem No. 1” in Aboriginal North”. CBC News. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2012. Web. 12 Feb 2014.

College of Nurses of Ontario. “Culturally Sensitive Care” Practice Standards. 2009.

Web. 14 Feb, 2014.

Devries, Karen, Caroline Free, Linda Morison and Elizabeth Saewyc. “Factors Associated with The Sexual Behaviour of Canadian Aboriginal Young People and Their Implications for Health Promotion.” American Journal of Public Health 99.5 (2009): 855-862. Web. 10 Feb 2014.

DiSantostefano, J. “Substance Abuse” Journal for Nurse Practitioner 5.8 (2009):

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618-619. Scholars Portal. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.

Duff, Cameron., Ajay, Puri., and Clifton, Chow. “Ethno-cultural Differences in the Use of Alcohol and Other Drugs: Evidence from the Vancouver Youth Drug Report.” Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 10:1 (2011). PubMed. Web. 12 Feb 2014.

Elias, Brenda, Madelyn Hall, Lyna Hart, Say Hong, Javier Mignone, and Jitender Sareen.“Trauma and Suicide Behaviour Histories Among a Canadian Indigenous Population: An Empirical Exploration of the Potential Role of Canada’s Residential School System.” Social Science and Medicine 74.10 (2012): 1564. Scholars Portal. Web. 13 Feb 2014.

Ghelani, Amar. “Evaluating Canada’s Drug Prevention Strategy and Creating a Meaningful Dialogue with Urban Aboriginal Youth.” Social Work with Groups 31.1 (2010): 4-20. Scholars Portal. Web. 10 Feb 2014.

Gone, Joseph. “A Community-based Treatment for Native American Historical Trauma: Prospects For Evidence-Based Practice.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 77.4 (2009): 751-762. Scholars Portal. Web. 10 Feb 2014.

Jiwa, Ashifa, Len Kelly, and Natalie St. Pierre-Hansen, N. “Healing the Community to Heal the Individual: Literature Review of Aboriginal Community-Based Alcohol and Substance Abuse Programs.” Canadian Family Physician, 54.7 (2008): 1000-1007. Web. 12 Feb 2014.

Kirmayer, Laurence, Cori Simpson, and Margaret Cargo. “Healing Traditions: Culture, Community, and Mental Health Promotion with Canadian Aboriginal Peoples.” Australasian Psychiatry 11.1 (2003): 15-23. Scholars Portal. Web. 12 Feb 2014.

Maar, Marion, Barbara Erskine, Lorrilee McGregor, Tricia Larose, Mariette Sutherland, Douglas Graham, Tammy Gordon, and Marjory Shawande. “Innovations on a Shoestring: a Study of a Collaborative Community-based Aboriginal Mental Health Service Model in Rural Canada.” International Journal of Mental Health Systems. 3.27 (2009): 1-12. Web. 10 Feb 2014.

McCormick, Rod. “Aboriginal Traditions in the Treatment of Substance Abuse.” Canadian Journal of Counselling. 34.1 (2000): 25-32. Web. 13 Feb 2014.

Rawana, J, and M Ames. “Protective Predictors of Alcohol Use Trajectories Among Canadian Aboriginal Youth” Journal of Youth and Adolescents. 41.2 (2011): 230-231.

Web. 12 Feb 2014.

Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. “Client Centered Care ” Best Practice Guideline, 2006. Web. 10 Feb 2014.

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Sealy, P, and J Smith. “Family Health” Community Health Nursing: A Canadian Perspective. Ed. LL. Stamler and L. Yiu. Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2012. 268.

Yiu, L. “Community Care” Community Health Nursing: A Canadian Perspective. Ed. LL Stamler and L Yiu. Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2012. 213.

Norton, 2001. 559-79. Print.

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A Teleological Argument: Cosmological Fine-Tuning, Facts and Explanations Rashad Rehman Philosophy

In this paper, I want to defend the teleological argument for God’s existence formulated by William Lane Craig. Usually, when ‘the teleological argument’ is mentioned, one thinks of William Paley’s design argument in his Natural Theology (1803) usually termed “The Watch Argument.” But, in recent decades, cosmologists have discovered that there is a deeper, underlying problem which lurks beneath the improbabilities mentioned in the design arguments of biological organisms. The teleological argument, cast in light of recent cosmological data, begins with the fact that the universe is fine-tuned for life, and concludes that God exists. The premises of the argument, that is, the statements leading to the conclusion, are what need to be evaluated. If the premises are true and the logic is valid, the conclusion necessarily follows (this just is the definition of a good deductive argument). Here is the argument as William Lane Craig (WLC) has presented it1: 1.

The fine-tuning of the universe is either do to chance, physical necessity or design.

2.

The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to either chance or physical necessity.

3.

Therefore, it is due to design.

Here is the argument in symbolic logic to prove validity: 1.

PvQvR 2.

Not-P v Not-Q 3.

Therefore, R (1)-(2). 2 Logically, this argument is valid; it is now time to turn to soundness (the truth of the premises). However, one typical intuition regarding this argument is the following: Why assume that the universe is actually finely tuned? It is to this end that in this paper, I want to delineate instances of fine-tuning of the universe to make explicit the extraordinary improbabilities associated with fine-tuning and show how the best explanation is theism. So, I shall present examples of fine-tuning to help the argument get off the ground, show how physical necessity and chance are not plausible explanations of fine-tuning, and show how from the inadequacy of these premises theism logically follows. I will then go on to present a strong objection to this conclusion and respond to it. I will conclude that theism is the best explanation of the data and take the stronger position that it is only on Christian theism that the teleological argument works.

In their Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, J.P Moreland and WLC give examples of cosmological fine-tuning: “For example, according to British physicist Paul Davies, changes in either αG or elec1 This formulation has other benefits: avoiding Bayesian problems, inference to the best explanation problems and so on.

2 One is more than welcome to add another alternative; however, it is highly improbable that there is another alternative than these.

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tromagnetism by only one part in 1040would have spelled disaster for stars like the sun, thereby precluding the existence of planets…Observations indicate that at 10-43 seconds after the big bang the universe was expanding at a fantastically special rate of speed with a total density close to the critical value on the borderline between recollapse and everlasting expansion. Stephen Hawking estimates that even a decrease of one part in a million million when the temperature of the universe was 1010 degrees would have resulted in the universe’s recollapse long ago; a similar increase would have precluded the galaxies from condensing out of the expanding matter. At the Plank time, 10-43 seconds after the big bang, the density of the universe must have been apparently been within about one part in 1060 of the critical density at which space is flat…Oxford physicist Roger Penrose calculates that the odds of the special low-entropy condition having arisen sheerly by chance in the absence any constraining princilpes is at least as small as about one part in 10 10 (123) in order for our universe to exist.”

(Moreland and Craig 483).

To get an idea of the improbabilities of this situation, consider what Walter Alan Ray, in his Is God Unnecessary?, says (as he explicitly lays out the improbability Penrose describes): “The probability of a universe such as ours existing by random chance, according to Penrose, is one in: (B) 10100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 …If M-theory is correct, and there are about 10500 universes, that is nowhere near enough to ensure that the mathematical odds will be met for allowing life to exist on one of those 10500 universes.” (Ray 49-50).

Alvin Plantinga, in his “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments”, has mentioned many examples of fine-tuning; I shall present four he mentions here: “If the force of gravity were even slightly stronger, all stars would be blue giants; if even slightly weaker, all would be red dwarfs. (Brandon Carter, “Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology”, in M. S. Longair, ed, Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data l979 p. 72 According to Carter, under these conditions there would probably be no life. So probably if the strength of gravity were even slightly different, habitable planets would not exist. The existence of life also depends delicately upon the rate at which the universe is expanding. S. W. Hawking “The Anisotropy of the Universe at Large Times” in Longair p., 285: “...reduction of the rate of expansion by one part in 1012 at the time when the temperature of the Universe was 1010 K would have resulted in the Universe’s starting to recollapse when its radius was only 1/3000 of the present value and the temperature was still 10,000 K”--much too warm for comfort. He concludes that life is only possible because the Universe is expanding at just the rate required to avoid recollapse”. If the strong nuclear forces were different by about 5% life would not have been able to evolve.” (Plantinga, “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments”).

Robin Collins, a proponent of the teleological argument, gives many examples of fine-tuning as well:

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“To illustrate this fine-tuning, consider gravity. Using a standard measure of force strengths--which turns out to be roughly the relative strength of the various forces between two protons in a nucleus--gravity is the weakest of the forces, and the strong nuclear force is the strongest, being a factor of 1040--or ten thousand billion, billion, billion, billion--times stronger than gravity. If we increased the strength of gravity a billion-fold, for instance, the force of gravity on a planet with the mass and size of the earth would be so great that organisms anywhere near the size of human beings, whether land-based or aquatic, would be crushed. (The strength of materials depends on the electromagnetic force via the fine-structure constant, which would not be affected by a change in gravity.) Even a much smaller planet of only 40 feet in diameter--which is not large enough to sustain organisms of our size--would have a gravitational pull of one thousand times that of earth, still too strong for organisms of our brain size, and hence level of intelligence, to exist. As astrophysicist Martin Rees notes, “In an imaginary strong gravity world, even insects would need thick legs to support them, and no animals could get much larger” (2000, p. 30). Of course, a billion-fold increase in the strength of gravity is a lot, but compared to the total range of the strengths of the forces in nature (which span a range of 1040 as we saw above), it is very small, being one part in ten thousand, billion, billion, billion. Indeed, other calculations show that stars with lifetimes of more than a billion years, as compared to our sun’s lifetime of ten billion years, could not exist if gravity were increased by more than a factor of 3000.

This would have significant intelligent-life-inhibiting consequences (see Collins, 2003).

(Collins, “The Case for Cosmic Design”).

The evidence for fine-tuning is astonishing. Cases such as these present the following question: What is the best explanation for the data of fine-tuning—since it is actually descriptive of the actual world? Well, there are three alternative hypotheses: Physical necessity, chance and design. Let us begin with physical necessity.

Physical necessity is the thesis that the constants and quantities that the initial conditions have are necessary values, that is, the values could not have been otherwise.

This modal claim is fallacious, however. Just because something is actually the case, does not imply that it is metaphysically impossible for it to be otherwise. Collin’s pointed out that “the fine-tuning for life of the cosmological constant is estimated to be at least one part in 10^53, that is, one part in a one hundred million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion” which means that the following counterfactual is minimally possible: If it were the case that one part was changed, then it would be the case that there would be no life. Even if you accept CCP (Causal Closure of the Physical), one could still argue that in a finite set of possible worlds {p1…pn} at least one possible world has different values, that is, its not contradictory that in one possible world P there is no life and in another P* there is. If it is not a contradiction, then life existing in the cosmos is a contingent proposition—not a necessary one—which implies that physical necessity is false. So, chance and design are left. Let us continue to consider chance.

The chance hypothesis can ultimately be formulated in two ways. First, it can either mean that the universe that came into being—implying causal finitism, the idea that the universe has a finite number of causes (and thus a beginning)—out of sheer luck (and so the values the initial conditions have are absolutely random). Secondly, it can mean that there are so many universes that at least one in the ensemble, so to

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speak, will be life-permitting. I will dismiss the first interpretation since it is metaphysically impossible (as WLC points out)—it involves causation ex nihilo in a state of pure nothingness, that is, the absence of anything—including absence of properties i.e., the property of having ‘causal powers.’ My attention is thus on the second formulation. To this, I concur with WLC as he argues that the Many Worlds Hypothesis, that is, the hypothesis that there truly exists a collection of universes with different operative laws does not account adequately for fine-tuning: “In the first place, as a metaphysical hypothesis, the Many Worlds Hypothesis is arguably inferior to the Design Hypothesis because the latter is simpler. According to Ockham’s Razor, we should not multiply causes beyond what is necessary to explain the effect. But it is simpler to postulate one Cosmic Designer to explain our universe than to postulate the infinitely bloated and contrived ontology of the Many Worlds Hypothesis. Only if the Many Worlds theorist could show that there exists a single, comparably simple mechanism for generating a World Ensemble of randomly varied universes would he be able to elude this difficulty.” (Craig, “Theistic Critiques of Atheism”).

WLC’s argument relies on Ockham’s Razor, a pertinent epistemic virtue to any good philosophical thesis. Indeed, while it might be argued that in quantum physics all you have is indeterminacy—after the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle—it does not follow that a unified and complete physics is not preferable to a non-unified and messy physics. For instance, even Stephen Hawking, the great atheistic quantum cosmologist, notes that ‘elegance’ is a criterion for a good scientific theory. (Hawking 51).

To deny that a theory which is simple over a theory that is not-simple because of its implications is ad hoc. Since independent justification for a position cannot rest on mere ad hoc grounds, the chance hypothesis does not work since the design hypothesis is inherently simpler (God might have complex thoughts, but is Himself simple).3

The question of whether or not design is the best hypothesis now arises (since chance and physical necessity do not work). Kevin Scharp has raised the following objection, namely, that if you argue that chance and physical necessity do not work, you have to show why God would want to create the universe. (Scharp and Craig, “Is there evidence for God?”). In other words, if the theist does not give a good reason to suppose that God would create the universe, he or she is not justified in saying that God actually created it. This objection just misunderstands the nature of a disjunctive syllogism (that if P v Q v R, if not-P and not-Q, R logically follows), since it is irrelevant what motives God has. Nonetheless, giving Scharp the benefit of the doubt, the (Christian) theist does have an explanation as to why God would (and did) create the physical universe. Tyler Journeaux, who is an MA student of philosophical theology at Oxford university, says the following in response: “…the Christian (at least) can give an account of God’s motive. In the doctrine of the Trinity one finds the idea of God whose love is shared between the persons of the Godhead; each person loves the others with a sort of outpouring of love, a self-giving love. The kind of love which is the precondition of, and makes sense of, Kenosis (κένωσις). Why would such a God want to create a world?

Well, He has an internal source of motivation: to love (with all that entails).

3

In the same place, WLC gives three other reasons why the chance hypothesis does not work.

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Why did he create a world of rational free agents who can choose to enter into relationships with him? So that he could love, could pour Himself out (Kenosis) in love, et cetera…His nature, exemplified by the outpouring and self-giving love of the three persons, gives God a plausible motive for creating other persons with whom He might enter into a love-relationship. He creates out of, and as an expression of, that love which characterizes his Nature as a community.”4 Since God exists as a relational (or communal) being in and of Himself, the love which God outpours to human beings is an incommensurable good which properly describes the reason for His creation: He willed that we might have the chance of entering into a loving relationship with Himself. It is here that the theistic explanation—more specifically the Christian theistic explanation—is the preferable one. The failure of physical necessity and chance leave one with the hypothesis that God created the universe. 5

The improbability associated with fine-tuning examples make clear how difficult it is for the chance and physical necessity hypothesis to succeed as explanations.

While Christian theism is the best explanation, skepticism might be preferred to avoid Christian theism. This attitude reminds me of C.S Lewis’ response to the objection that “if so stupendous a thing [the Supernatural] exists, ought it not be obvious as the sun in the sky?” to which Lewis replied “When you are reading a book it is obvious (since you attend to it) that you are using your eyes; but unless your eyes begin to hurt you, or the book is a text book on optics, you may read all evening without once thinking of eyes…the fact which is in one respect the most obvious and primary fact, and through which you alone you have access to all the other facts, may precisely be the one that is most easily forgotten—forgotten not because it is so remote or abstruse but because it is so near and so obvious. And that is exactly how the Super-natural has been forgotten. (Lewis 337).

4 This was retrieved from email correspondence.

5 Why not many ‘gods’? Here an appeal to Ockham’s Razor is typically thought to be the most appropriate reason why one God will do (and it is the route WLC takes). Why not the God of Islam, for instance? I leave this aside; but, it should be noted that the God of Islam is not the Greatest Possible Being since Allah’s nature does not exemplify the totality of love (whereas in Christianity God does (John 4:8)). The arguments (and Qu’ran verses) can be found here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/concept-of-god-in-islam-and-christianity: Accessed September 16th, 2016.

It is easy to see here how poorly constructed many arguments are against the existence of God and how many socio-politically accepted propositions are inconsistent with the truth of theism. For instance, essentialism with respect to human persons is something like this on theism. (Deductive Closure Principle: If S knows P and P->Q, S knows that Q). Some person P knows that God exists and God’s existence implies essentialism about human persons; therefore, P knows that essentialism about human persons is true. (This conclusion is widely rejected, and yet is the one which follows from the conclusion). It is incredible that people do not recognize this fact—but many philosophers, I think, are often widely unaware of the work being done in analytic philosophy of religion i.e., William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Robert M. Adams, Peter van Inwagen, Richard Swinburne, J.P Moreland, et cetera.

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Works Cited Craig, William Lane. “Concept of God in Islam and Christianity.” http://www.reasonablefaith.org/concept-of-god-in-islam-and-christianity: Accessed September 16th, 2016.

Craig, William Lane. “Theistic Critiques of Atheism.” Abridged version in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, pp. 69-85. Ed. M. Martin. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Accessed September 16th 2016. http://www. reasonablefaith.org/theistic-critiques-of-atheism#ixzz4KOKXpgDW Collins, Robin. “The Case for Cosmic Design.”. Accessed May 17th, 2016: http://infidels.org/library/modern/robin_collins/design.html#laws.

Hawking, Stephen and Leonard Mlodinow. The Grand Design. New York: Bantam Books. 2010. Print.

Lewis, C.S. “Miracles” in The Complete C.S Lewis Signature Classics. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. 2002. Print.

Moreland, J.P and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press. 2003. Print.

Plantinga, Alvin. “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments,” Lecture presented at the 33rd Annual Philosophy Conference, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, October 23-25, 1986.

Ray, Alan Walter. Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking is Wrong according to the Laws of Physics. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Books. Print.

Scharp, Kevin and William Lane Craig, “Is there evidence for God?”. Debate Transcript. Ohio State University, USA. February 2016, The Veritas Forum. Accessed September 16th, 2016. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/debate-is-there-evidence-for-god#ixzz4KOa6JVvF

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Fragmenting Language: Silence and the Abject in M. Nourbese Phillip’s Zong!

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Brie Berry Women’s Studies 4406G

Narratives are informed by histories, presented, and then perpetuated through discursive language that has been learned through and “contaminated” by politics of power, oppression, and subjugation (Phillip 199). M. NourbeSe Phillip’s Zong! is a collection of poetry, comprised of words adapted and retold from the archive of Gregson v. Gilbert, the sole public documentation of the legal decisions made around the Zong massacre—the murder of 150 Africans aboard the slave ship “Zong” in 1783 (189).

Phillip asserts that Zong! is an “antinarrative”, a disruption, an intervention in histories of perceived white supremacy and imperialist sanctioned law. In so doing, Philips establishes Zong! as a queer text, deconstructing the language of oppression and challenging prescribed “ways of knowing...where the racialized and sexualized body...is the site of trauma” (Moore 257). Zong! works to illuminate the discursive limits of ideological and legal process by reclaiming language that had been used in dynamics of silencing the accounts of the African slaves who had been murdered in order to “defend the dead” (198). Zong! reconfigures narrative structures in order to designate language to the suffering of bodies not made visible. As Phillip explains, “Zong! is chant! Shout! And ululation! Zong! is moan! Mutter! Howl! And Shriek! Zong! is ‘pure utterance.’...Zong! is the Song of the untold story” (Philip 207). Phillip explores how language shapes perception, meaning, and experience by using Gregson v. Gilbert, a text that excludes, silences, and refuses to recognize Africans as being existent subjects.

This dichotomy allows Phillip to explore the historical incidence of Zong!, language, silencing, the abject, water as a symbol, and the agency disruption performs in her poems.

As a text, Zong! must be analyzed through and outside of the historical, social, and political context and constraints in which the Zong massacre took place. In her explicatory essay following the poems, Philip explicitly reminds the reader that Zong! is a “story that cannot be told, but which, through not telling, will tell itself ” (199).

The initial site of trauma—the murder of the 150 African slaves—becomes an unintegrated memory in a culture that refuses to process the violence it proliferated. This trauma is systemically silenced through histories, politics, laws, and the language of Phillip’s source document: Gregson v. Gilbert. The Zong was an English slave ship, en route to Jamaica, under Captain Luke Collingwood (Chen & Simon 349). The ship was struck by a disease outbreak that affected the African slaves aboard (349). In an attempt to avoid paying insurance for the “natural deaths” of African slaves who had fallen ill, Collingwood ordered that 150 African slaves be thrown overboard into the water to their deaths (349). “Zong! # 26” recounts these events: “was the captain was the seas...the voyage was destroyed was thrown...was the negroes” (Philip 45). She explains the massacre through densely arranged language, spiked with utterances of “was”, organized in a compressed paragraph without punctuation, symbolizing the frenzy of greed, the rush of water, the exhalation of breath. This poem is impenetrably posi-

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tioned, contrasting the more spaced out structure of the poems it follows and precedes.

Further, “Zong # 26” ends the chapter as to inform the reader of this event has not only on the narrative of the text, but the antinarrative of Phillip’s renegotiations of histories, language, and silence.

The Zong case affirmed slaves as the embodiment of “colonization of human subjectivity by finance capital”, that as their bodies were awarded monetary value through insurance, their humanity, their identities as individuals were thus negated (Brundage 779). Philip reflects on the relationship between the trauma of the Zong massacre, the commodification of life, and the legitimization of this notion through property insurance laws and language in “Zong # 9”: “slaves/to the order in/destroyed/...the property in/subject/the subject in/creature/...the loss” (Phillip 17). By comparing property to subject to creature, Philip comments on how the language of Gregson v. Gilbert and the ideologies it represents construct the identity category for the murdered African slaves as property. The subject is “narrativized by the law, political economy, and ideology of the West” (Spivak 66). She juxtaposes this notion with the unpacking of “loss”—how this concept relates to monetary loss, the loss of life, and the stylized blank spaces in her renegotiation of the Gregson v. Gilbert document—the absence of words, the loss of language that reproduces silence in order to de-familiarize and re-orient the reader. Silence, in Zong!, serves to emphasize the difference between reading history and revising, rethinking, retelling, and untelling those narratives. The imposition of silence by a colonial or neocolonial subject is mechanized through processes of domination, greed, and discursive power. Philip challenges the act of silencing by designating space through the spreading apart and rearranging of words and letters in Gregson v. Gilbert for the African slaves, the Subalterns, to be heard. The subaltern is a postcolonial term used to describe peoples who exist politically, geographically, and socially outside of hegemonic power and are marginalized due to this (69). In Gayarti Spivak’s essay, “Can The Subaltern Speak”, she questions whether these “oppressed subjects [can] speak, act, and know themselves” outside of the colonialized identity they are assigned (71). Phillip acknowledges the tension that using the language of the “white, male, European voice” that oppresses in a text that seeks to undo this (204). By using silence and space, Philip compels the reader to read the text differently, to understand language through this sort of chaos. The language of the Subaltern cannot be understood or interpreted without losing meaning—through the trajectory of silence in Zong!’s blank spaces, the Subaltern can “make an absence into presence, of peopling a vacant space with figures [and] missing narratives” (Williams 64). Phillip, by affording silence significance, casts it as autonomous and defiant, “dissembling order [and] creating disorder” (Phillip 199).

Zong! approaches the tension between the abject and the subject through the stylization of “fragmentation and mutilation” in the poetry, and through the prevalence of water as a symbolic theme throughout the poems (200). Phillip presents the abject as an act of disruption through subjective language told, retold, and through “not-telling” (198). The abject is something rejected or excluded, “repudiated and expelled by the subject” (Larson 551). Through anxieties that surround the unknown abject, the subject defines itself. The culture of the subject is built around the borders and boundaries that confine the abject. The African slaves are positioned as “social ab-

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jects: invisible, subversive, libidinal, and violent...branded objects to be bartered, sold, and literally worked to death” (Garza 28). The abject confronts the reader through the “violent...breaking away...of language” in NourbeSe Phillip’s Zong!

(Dever 191). Moreover, the significance of water and the sea as a symbol in Zong! speaks to the anxiety between the abject and the subject. Philips notes that “Zong! bears witness to the resurfacing of the drowned and the oppressed” (Philip 203).

Water, interpreted literally, caused the deaths of the 150 African slaves who were murdered by being cast off the Zong ship. As a symbol, water represents the hegemonic subjective forces that positioned the African slaves as abject. Water serves as a “memory” of “transatlantic slavery” and of its “lost souls” (202). In “Zong # 1”, the word “water” is spread across the page with large spaces dividing the word, dissecting its significance (3). “Water” becomes a gasp, a memoriam—recognition of water as a “liquid grave” (201). Yet, Philip subverts this notion through imagery of the sea. The sea exists separately from water, although it is understood through it. This parallels the relationship between Zong! and the Gregson v. Gilbert source document, as well as between the abject and the subject—something that is informed through discourse, but disrupts its boundaries through its retelling. The sea is the constant movement of water, the shifting in understanding that creates “a negative space...of anti-meaning...where the spectres of the undead make themselves present” (201). Philip acknowledges the sea as boundless, a dissembling of water as a symbol and a challenging of a dominant discourse, through the Wallace Stevens epigraph that begins the book: “the sea is not a mask” (2). Philip understands Zong! and the sea as a “negative space...of non-meaning as anti-meaning” (Philip 201). Philip’s work serves as an “umbilical cord” between the abject and the subject vis-à-vis the acknowledgment of and renegotiation of the language in Gregson v. Gilbert, and through the unpacking of water as a theme (552). Zong! is an intervention, a resistance of the silencing of the abject African slaves, and the trauma and loss of them.

Zong! explores how language and the renegotiation of colonially determined cultural concepts can challenge histories and through fragmentation, silence, and the symbolic recurrence of water as a theme throughout the text. By reworking the Gregson v. Gilbert into a poetic text, Philip plays with language to influence the reader to reconsider how narratives inform and are informed. The suspension between what is said, what can be said, and what cannot be is experienced through the language of the text and the absence of words that iterate a condolence, an attempt at reimaging a eulogy for the 150 African slaves who were massacred.

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Works Cited Chen, Cheryl Rhan-Hsin and Simon, Gary. “Actuarial Issues in Insurance on Slaves in the American South”, The Journal of African American History, vol. 89, 2004. 348-357 Dever, Carolyn. “Studies in the Novel”, Death in the Novel, vol. 32, 2000. 185-206.

Garza, Maria Alicia C. “High Crimes Against the Flesh: The Embodiment of Violent Otherization in Cherrie Moraga’s ‘Heroes and Saints’”, Letras Femeninas, vol.

30.

Larson, Susan. “New Avenues for the Politics of the Abject”, American Literary History, vol. 17, 2005. pp 550-552 Moore, Darnell L. “Structurelessness, Structure, and Queer Movements”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 41, 2013. pp 257-260 Philip, M. Nourbese, and Setaey Adamu Boateng. Zong! Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2011. Print.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, “Can The Subaltern Speak?” Reflections on the History of an Idea, Columbia University Press: 2010. 21-78.

Williams, John R. “Doing History”: Nuruddin Farah’s ‘Sweet and Sour Milk’, Subaltern Studies, and the Postcolonial Trajectory of Silence”, Research in African Literatures, vol. 37, 2006.

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The Mindy Project and Female Desire

Olivia Neukamm Women’s Studies 2283

“Just shut up and do me!” (“We’re a Couple” 2014) Mindy exclaims, interrupting her boyfriend Danny’s romantic monologue and pulling him towards her. Mindy Lahiri, a gynecologist in New York, knows what she desires and she is not afraid to tell people. In the third season premiere of The Mindy Project, titled “We’re a Couple Now Haters,” Mindy cannot help but tell everyone she knows that Danny is “good with his mouth” (“We’re a Couple” 2014). The recounting of Danny’s talents causes him to tell Mindy that she can no longer tell their coworkers about all of their sexual exploits—a difficult task for big mouthed Mindy. The main location of the show is the obstetrics and gynecology office that Mindy and Danny own along with two other gynecologists; as a result the show often explores female sexuality. The episode attempts to disprove common myths surrounding female sexuality; that the male’s pleasure is more important than that of the female, that clitoral stimulation is shameful and that the female gaze is de-eroticised.

In the nineteenth century, “women performed sexual and reproductive duties for financial support… [women were], biologically speaking, specialized for one function and one alone—sex” (Ehrenreich and English 1990: 272). The woman’s pleasure was not important, she simply had sex to fill her duty to her husband and earn her keep. As of 2009, 58.3 percent of women hold paid jobs outside of the home according to the Statistics Canada Labour Force survey. Today, women can do the same jobs as men, and although women are not always paid a wage equal to that of men, women are far from having to resort to sex in order to receive financial support. “[H]aving sex was [once] understood as a women’s duty rather than something she should enjoy. But now women expect to be pleasured” (Reilly 2013). However, do men agree with this statement? Simone de Beauvoir believes that “many men do not trouble themselves to find out whether the women who bed with them desire coition or merely submit to it…[coition] can occur without any pleasure being felt by the woman” (de Beauvoir 1989: 374). Sex is often perceived as something that is done to a woman by a man; man is in control because sex cannot occur if the man’s penis is not erect however, female pleasure is not required for sex to work mechanically. On The Mindy Project, Dr. Peter Prentice does care about the pleasure of his girlfriend Lauren, a brain surgeon. After Peter learns that Danny is “good with his mouth,” Peter goes to Danny to seek his expertise. He says to Danny, “I need someone of your expertise…I heard you’re good with your mouth…and as you know I have never given a woman an orgasm” (“We’re a Couple” 2014). Peter openly admits his inadequacies because he wants to be able to satisfy his partner and he is willing to learn. He does not believe that the only pleasure that matters is his own. Danny also cares about the satisfaction of his partner Mindy, perhaps more than he cares about his own pleasure. He orally stimulates Mindy so well that “[he] made her pass out… [and she felt like

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she was] going to melt into [her] duvet cover” (“We’re a Couple” 2014). Danny shrugs and dismissively says that Mindy is not as talented with her mouth, but from his body language and tone it is apparent that he does not mind. Perhaps in 1989, de Beauvoir was correct in her belief that men cared little about their partner’s pleasure, however that is no longer true. Dr. Morgentaler in an interview for Salon said “[t]here are a lot of men now who are in relationships or may enter into relationships where it’s the woman who has the better-paying job or more prestige. The challenge for men is how to feel good about themselves as a man while still embracing the strength and capability of today’s woman” (qtd. in Clark-Flory 2013). Since men are no longer the sole provider—both Lauren and Mindy have prestigious jobs—they want to be able to provide for their partner in the bedroom. “[O]nce a man is in a relationship, men seem to care more about their partner than themselves.” (Dr. Morgentaler qtd. in Clark-Flory 2013). The men in The Mindy Project care about their partner’s pleasure much like many men in the present.

Freud believed that in order for women to develop sexually they must “[renounce the] genital zone which was originally the principle one, namely, the clitoris, in favour of a new zone—the vagina” (Freud 1931: 184). “Freud’s somewhat skewed theory claim[s] that the clitoral orgasm [is] a childish prelude to the “mature” vaginal sexual response” (Gummow 2014). By renouncing their clitoris, women must submit to sexual pleasure “obtained through contractions of the vaginal wall; [but] do these contractions bring about a precise and definite orgasm?” (de Beauvoir 1989: 372). Vaginal pleasure does exist, it is just more complicated than clitoral pleasure. Vaginal pleasure is psychophysical, meaning it “involves the whole nervous system [and] also depends upon the whole experience and situation of the individual” (de Beauvoir 1989: 373)—the pleasure is both mental and physical. Clitoral pleasure is “like that of a male, [it] is a kind of detumescence, which is accomplished in a quasi-mechanical manner” (de Beauvoir 1989: 372).

Current studies show that “[O]nly a third of women are actually able to have an orgasm through sexual intercourse” (Gummow 2014). However, “[m]any find it repugnant to be excited manually because the hand [or mouth] is an instrument that does not participate in the pleasure it gives” (de Beauvoir 1989: 392). Mindy Lahiri is not ashamed that she experiences clitoral orgasms through oral sex, she celebrates them. She tells all her coworkers in vivid detail that Danny is skilled orally. For example, Peter says to Danny, “[Mindy] says you’re like a thirsty camel at a desert oasis” (“We’re a Couple” 2014). Every time that someone in the office mentions Danny’s skills, Mindy vigorously nods her head in agreement and smiles wistfully as if she is imagining the moment all over again. Also, as mentioned previously, Mindy brags that Danny is so good at oral sex that she passed out. She feels no shame when it comes to how she achieved her orgasm, even if it is more juvenile by Freud’s standards.

The Mindy Project attracts 3.1 million viewers weekly and is a top five comedy among women aged 18-34 (Maglio 2014). The show is made for the fe-

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male gaze; this is illustrated by almost all of the male characters conforming to hegemonic beauty standards. The only male character that is not objectively attractive is Morgan, a nurse practitioner. His traditionally female job renders him feminine, and he is used as comedic relief; he is not intended to be viewed in a sexual way. The three main females in the show also do not conform to beauty norms.

Mindy, the main character, is a woman of colour and she has a curvy body, Tamra, a nurse, is also a woman of colour, and Beverly, the receptionist, is elderly. On The Mindy Project, “male stars have… been made the object of the ‘female’ gaze” (Kaplan 1983: 28). The episode “We’re a Couple Now Haters,” begins with Mindy and Danny in the bedroom. Mindy, in a voice over says “I’ve learned that Danny gets turned on by some pretty unusual music” (“We’re a Couple” 2014) as she sits back against the headboard in a pink nightgown watching Danny shake his butt, wearing only his underwear, to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.” At first she looks embarrassed but then she supresses a smile indicating that she too is turned on, not from the music, but from watching him. Later in the episode, Mindy discovers that Danny worked as a male stripper to pay for his medical schooling. At first he is embarrassed that she learned his secret, but by the end of the episode he chooses to embrace his past and perform a stripper routine for Mindy. Often in “the woman’s film, the [female] gaze must be de-eroticized” (Kaplan 1983: 27); the gaze is not about sexual pleasure but rather pleasure through romance. In this episode of The Mindy Project, the female gaze is erotic. Danny saunters into the doorway as “American Woman” plays and he stares lustily at Mindy while running his hands down his body to his genitals. Mindy jams her glasses onto her face so that she can have a better view as he rips his shirt off—a clear indication that her gaze is fueled by desire. He undoes his belt as she stares at him at a loss for words. They start kissing passionately as he takes off her glasses symbolizing that even though he is a sexual object “he [is not] step[ping] out of his traditional role as the one who controls… the action” (Kaplan 1983: 28). Although men are an object of the female gaze, the women in the show also fall under the male gaze. Typically there are three male looks in cinema, the look of the camera as it films, “the look of the men within the narrative…[who] make women objects of their gaze…, and the look of the male spectator” (Kaplan 1983: 30). Mindy becomes an object under the gaze of the male characters. Lou, the IT man, tells Mindy that he moved her electrical cords because “a pretty girl like you shouldn’t trip on a cord and bust that face open” (“We’re a Couple” 2014). Meanwhile, Morgan says that Mindy “ha[s] the body for [stripping]” (“We’re a Couple” 2014). The men are constantly looking at Mindy in a sexualized manner. Additionally, Mindy performs for the male gaze when she says “[why don’t we have] a charity that helps women look bang-able at work?” (“We’re a Couple” 2014)—she wants her male coworkers to look at her and think that she is attractive. The episode displays that for women, there is pleasure in both looking and being looked at.

Mindy Lahiri understands her sexual desires and is comfortable voicing

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them. Mindy’s openness concerning her sexuality provides a good role model that many women can learn from. Although The Mindy Project may not perfectly depict female desire, the show does a fairly good job. The Mindy Project emphasizes the importance of female pleasure, it presents clitoral stimulation as an acceptable form of pleasure and it allows the female gaze to be erotic.

Works Cited Clark-Flory, Tracy. “Wait, Men Fake Orgasms?” Salon. Salon Media Group, 13 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

De Beauvoir, Simone. “Sexual Initiation.” The Second Sex. New York: Vintage, 1989. 371-403. Print.

Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. “The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives Third Edition.” Ed. Donald W. Olmsted, Peter Conrad, and Rochelle Kern. The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives.

(1990): 270-84. Print.

Ferrao, Vincent. “Women in the Labour Market.” Statistics Canada. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Freud, Sigmund. “Female Sexuality.” Sexuality and the Psychology of Love. New York:Touchstone, 1997. 184-201. Print.

Gummow, Jodie. “How Many Types of Orgasm Can Women Really Have?” Salon.

Salon Media Group, 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Kaling, Mindy. “We’re a Couple Now Haters.” The Mindy Project. Dir. Michael Spiller. Fox. 16 Sept. 2014. Television.

Kaplan, E. Ann. “Is the Gaze Male?” Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera.

New York: Methuen, 1983. 23-35. Print.

Maglio, Tony. “Fox Orders Additional ‘Mindy Project’ Episodes.” The Wrap. The Wrap News Inc., 14 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Reilly, Rachel. “Men DO Fake Orgasms - Because They Care More about Their Partner’s Feelings than Their Own.” Daily Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Ltd., 15 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Valenti, Jessica. “Feminists Do It Better (and Other Sex Tips).” Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2007. 19-24. Print.

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Sexual Assault on North American University Campuses Emily Todd Women’s Studies 1020E

“One in four women in Canada will experience sexual violence in their lifetime and university-aged women are five times more likely to experience sexual violence than others,” (“Sexual Violence”). Sexual assault has become an epidemic, as it occurs on every university campus, often without students recognizing it as a serious crime. It is defined as non-consensual sexual touching, and persistence after the individual has said ‘no.’ Men often feel entitled to women’s bodies as a way to prove their masculinity, specifically through asserting their dominance over women. Sexual assault is a pervasive issue on North American university campuses, and the ways in which men are socialized enable them to sexually assault females when they reach university age. The perpetrators of sexual assault are socialized through the need to conform to the Western standard of masculinity, the media, and university campus culture.

Sexual assault has become accepted on university campuses due to the “larger cultural attitude that overvalues male sexuality and expects female sexuality to exist for male pleasure,” (Uwujaren, Jarune). Women are often expected to be sexually available for men, and some view the purpose of their entire existence to please men. It has become a norm that consent is not needed in a bar scene, so if a man wants to dance with a woman, he feels entitled to her body, despite her level of intoxication or her negative reaction to his behaviour. “There’s this sense that if a woman is drinking, it’s open season,” (Kingston, Anne). The common occurrence of sexual assault often denies women from enjoying a night out with her friends, as there are many precautions female students have to take to avoid unwanted attention from male students. Women have to monitor their alcohol intake, stay in close proximity to their friends, avoid dressing in a provocative manner, and even lie to men by saying they have a boyfriend, to put an end to the male’s persistence.

Despite their efforts, sexual assault continues to occur in university environments.

Some men react maturely and accept when the woman says ‘no,’ but too many men see this as an opportunity to further assert their dominance over women, as they feel entitled to them. In the case of Elliot Rodger in 2014, some men behave in extreme measures when a woman tells them ‘no.’ Rodger, a 22- year old male, sought retribution of women who had sexually rejected him, went on a killing spree in Isla Vista and killed as many women as he could, (PressTV News Videos).

He too felt entitled to women’s bodies and believed women should be sexually available to him, because he is a man. It is not hard to understand why “women’s most common reaction is to keep quiet,” (PressTV News Videos), as they fear the repercussions of opening up about their experiences. The patriarchal structure of society often blames females for sexual assault cases.

“The focus remains on the victim, says psychologist Gail Hutchinson, director of the student development centre at the University of Western Ontario

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in London, Ont. “People still ask, ‘Where was she?’ ‘What was she wearing?’ ‘How much was she drinking?” (Kingston, Anne).

It is unfair to blame sexual assault cases on the woman, as they are the victims of a crime. The victim blaming needs to come to an end, and sexual assault can no longer be the fault of the woman. Universities and their students need to explore the root causes of sexual assault, and realize that sexual assault begins with the perpetrators.

The Western standard of masculinity has a strong impact on how men are raised, and can lead to them being perpetrators of sexual assault. Men are expected to embody the traits of a “real man: strong, tough, physical, powerful, [and] in control,” (ChallengingMedia). They are taught from a young age to conform to this ideal standard of masculinity, and to hide any sign of weakness. Men are also encouraged to solve conflicts with violence, and “boys are taught to accept violence as a manly response to real or imagined threats, but they get little training in negotiating intimate relationships,” (Allen, Robert L). This leads to men proving their masculinity by asserting dominance over individuals who are perceived to be weaker, especially women. Because women are perceived as sexual objects and possessions for men to control, men believe they have the right to expect certain behaviours from women, (Allen, Robert L). When women defend themselves by saying ‘no,’ men can exert hyper-masculine behaviours in an attempt to prove their masculinity, and to prove that they are in control. In these situations, men “put on the Tough Guise and show parts of [themselves] that the dominant culture defines as ‘manly’,” (ChallengingMedia). Because men are raised in a culture where aggression is used to solve conflicts, and asserting manliness is an important part of being a man, “men come to college with the ideologies and behaviours necessary to abuse women,” (Carr, Joetta L). They are taught to express these attitudes at a young age, making it their natural instinct to react forcibly when someone challenges their masculinity. The standard of masculinity needs to change, as it should not be acceptable to sexually assault women or treat them as lesser because of their gender. Men need to be taught that violence is not an acceptable solution to a conflict, and nor is asserting their dominance or masculinity over ‘weaker’ individuals.

People often use movies and television to understand and align their behaviours to adhere to social norms portrayed in the media. Movies are used to “create and normalize gender stereotypes,” (Smith, Jeff) and women are consistently portrayed as the love interest of a man. Even women in leading roles are dependent on men in some way. This suggests that women are available to please men, and they need to be ‘rescued.’ Hyper-sexualized scenes in movies consistently portray the female body, never the man’s, which aids in normalizing female objectification, (Smith, Jeff). It becomes a problem when these behaviours transfer from the screen into reality. Men feel entitled to women’s bodies at a bar or on a university campus, because they are misinformed by the media, and believe women expect that behaviour from men. “Media connects manhood with dominance,

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power and control, and constructs violent masculinity as a norm,” (ChallengingMedia). When men are aggressive in movies and they are still adored by females, men assume this is how they are supposed to act. They perform this behaviour to gain the attention of women, often by being aggressive in a bar and forcing their body onto a woman’s, without her consent.

The culture of North American university campuses plays the largest role in the socialization of men, leading them to sexually assault women. Asserting dominance and feeling entitled to women’s bodies are behaviours that are expressed in the university setting, most often in bars and clubs surrounding the campus. Incidents of sexual assault become more common when men are in a competitive environment, such as a university. Sports teams and fraternities are especially competitive, as males associated with these groups often compete for women. These groups can negatively impact male behaviour as they “emphasize pressures to fit in by sexual conquests of women,” (Carr, Joetta L). In addition to the pressures to have multiple sexual relationships, “all- male culture leads to sexual aggression, alcohol abuse and sexist attitudes,” (Wantland, Ross). Ultimately, these groups approve of and encourage male students to take advantage of intoxicated women. This is why men feel intimidated by other men in a university bar and see them as a threat when trying to seek attention from a woman.

There is already a “hook-up and sexual connotation to the bar environment, and it is expected that people go to bars to find someone to take home,” (Goodman, Brenda). Men often see women dressing provocatively and intoxicated, and they feel entitled to their bodies. They assume that women who go out to bars and clubs want to have sex, which is why men no longer ask a woman to dance, they pull the woman towards them and start dancing. The dominating and controlling behaviours male students have been taught throughout their lives become a factor when they go to a bar, especially when trying to find a ‘hook-up’ or proving their masculinity to other men. Once men see a woman they find attractive, they assert their dominance by touching her without her consent, which includes forcibly taking hold of her to dance, continuing to touch her in an inappropriate way, and not letting her go when she says ‘no.’ Men also “reject committed relationships,” (Olmstead, Spencer B), so they go to the bars looking for a sexual relationship.

They do not think they need to treat women with respect, as sexually touching women has become a normal approach in the bar scene.

The male sex drive plays an active role in university campus life, as men and women are able to interact in an un-censored, non-parental setting for the first time. Men continue to think about sex more than women and “men are more likely to have sex with a non-romantic partner,” (Olmstead, Spencer B). Pornography and alcohol also become more easily available to students when they enter university, and they are both factors of sexual assault. “Men who consume more porn, attend more parties and bars are more likely to have friends who approve of getting a woman drunk for sex,” (Carr, Joetta L). This leads to men assuming that a woman who dresses provocatively and is intoxicated wants to have sex, despite

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whether or not she has given consent. If women are dressed provocatively, the instinctual male sex drive and dominating behaviours activate, and they feel entitled to that woman because of how she is dressed and the cultural norms of the bar environment.

In addition to the sexual connotation of the bar scene, and the instinctual behaviours of male students, universities create an environment that is tolerable of sexual assault. “55 United States colleges are out of compliance with the Title IX policy,” (PressTV News Videos), meaning that they are not following equal treatment laws put in place to protect women. Facts like these make it more evident why men on campus feel entitled to women and why they feel like the dominant gender. When women are not given equal treatment to men in the university setting, men view this as their opportunity to dominate women outside of the campus as well. Campus administration often has a “look the other way attitude,” (PressTV News Videos), when dealing with sexual assault cases. Women who are sexually assaulted on campus often do not share their experiences because they fear backlash against them, or the lack of sympathy and action taken by the university.

Men are indirectly socialized throughout their lives to believe that they are the more powerful gender, which grants them entitlement to women’s bodies.

Because it is expected in Western culture that men do not show weakness and use violence to solve problems, it is clear to see why sexual assault has become prevalent on university campuses. Men are in the prime situation to assault women when they are in university, whether it be to fit into an all-male peer group, or feel accepted into the ‘hook up culture’ of a bar. The media also has a negative effect on male behaviour, as women are consistently portrayed as needing men and are sexualized in movies and television. As for preventing sexual assault, several universities have policies that students are expected to adhere to.

“However, this institutional response is inadequate, short-sighted, and ineffective as it fails to address the more fundamental issue underlying sexual harassment: the sexist, hostile, and misogynist environment women inhabit in universities,” (Osborne, Rachel L).

The few cases of sexual assault that are reported result in punishment of the perpetrator, but this does not stop other men from sexually assaulting women.

A change has to be made on a larger scale, and the normalized thinking that men are in control needs to end. The longer society postpones dealing with this pressing issue, the more women are going to become victims of sexual assault and the more men are going to feel entitled to women’s bodies.

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Works Cited Allen, Robert L, and Paul Kivel. “Men Changing Men.” Reading Women’s Lives.

Ed. Miranda Green- Barteet, Jennifer Chisholm. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2014. 29-34. Print.

Carr, Joetta L, and Karen M. VanDeusen. “Risk Factors for Male Sexual Aggression on College Campuses.” Journal of Family Violence 19.5 (2004): 279-289. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

ChallengingMedia. “Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 4 Oct. 2006. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Goodman, Brenda. “Sexual Harassment Really is Rampant in Bars, Study Finds.”

HealthDay. n.p. 4 Mar. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Kingston, Anne. “The Real Danger For Women on Campus.” Maclean’s. Rogers Media, 27 Nov 2013. Web. 7 Feb 2015.

Olmstead, Spencer B, and Patricia N. E. Roberson, and Kay Pasley, and Frank D. Fincham. “Hooking Up and Risk Behaviors Among First Semester College Men: What is the Role of Precollege Experience?” Journal of Sex Research 52.2 (2015): 186- 199. 10 Mar. 2015.

Osborne, Rachel L. “Sexual harassment in universities: A critical view of the institutional response.” Canadian Woman Studies 12.3 (1992). 7 Feb. 2015.

PressTV News Videos. “Documentary- Sexual Assault on US Campuses.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 22 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

“Sexual Violence.” WesternU.ca. n.p. 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Smith, Jeff. “Normalizing Male Dominance: Gender Representation in 2012 Films.” Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy. n.p. 12 Feb. 2013.

Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Uwujaren, Jarune. “How Male Sexual Entitlement Hurts Everyone.” Everyday Feminism. n.p. 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Wantland, Ross. “Feminist Frat Boys?: Fraternity Men in the (Women’s Studies) House.” Reading Women’s Lives. Ed. Miranda Green- Barteet, Jennifer Chisholm.

Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2014. 35-43. Print.