Semicolon Spring 2022

SEmicolon Semicolon AN Arts and Humanities Students’ Council Publication Volume 9 Issue 2 Spring 2022

Arts and Humanities Students’ Council Publication

SEMICOLON Semicolon

Volume 9 Issue 2 Spring 2022 Copyrights remain with the artists and authors. The responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the artist and authors. The content does not reflect the opinions of the Art 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.

letter from the editor To our valued readers and contributors, For my final term as Editor-in-Chief, I have chosen the theme Identity.

I believe that Identity is fragile, uncertain and something that is unbelievably personal and unique to every individual. Our Identity should be respected by all. Our Identity is ours to choose, and express.

The most challenging assignment we are tasked with as University students is to find an Identity that we can be proud of and that will reflect our feelings, and our passions. This assignment has no due date, it comes with no rubric, and has no Professor or TA to assist us; it is daunting and challenging, and will be a lifelong work in progress.

My goal for all the students in the Arts & Humanities Faculty is to find an Identity that they feel best expresses them and find a creative or academic way to publish that for the members of the Western University community to read.

Enjoy.

Erin Paschos Editor-in-Chief

what we’re about Semicolon is the academic journal for the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council at Western University and is published biannually. Semicolon accepts submissions of A-level essays from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities undergraduate courses at Western University. Composed of students’ superior academic works, it covers a diverse range of topics— from Philosophy to English.

Artwork from submissions to Symposium, the AHSC’s creative journal, have also been included. We thank those artists for their contributions.

Essay writing comprises a substantial component of the university experience — especially in the Arts and Humanities faculty. These accomplished authors have dedicated a significant amount of time and effort to these papers and are commended on their diligence. Being published during one’s undergraduate degree is a noteworthy achievement.

VP Communications: Bridget Koza Editor-in-Chief: Erin Paschos Copy Editor: Sydney Force Copy Editor: Demitra Marsillo Layout Designer: Stephanie Fattori Creative Managing Editor: Kaitlyn Lonnee Academic Managing Editor: Samar El Masri Cover Photo by Stephanie Fattori

Table of contents 1

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Escaping Reality: The Subverting of Gender Roles in Elanor Arnason’s “The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons”

By Gray Brogden Decorum and Desire: the Gendered Perspective of Honour and Reputation in the 18th Century British Libertine Theatre

By Matthew Dawkins

In Your Silence, Every Tone I Seek, is

27 Heard: Silent Acquiescenes in Indigenous History

By Margaret Gleed

31 Watching Over

By Eryn Lonnee

and Surveillance: 32 Isolation Examining the Confinement of Queer Identity in Carol

By Mahnoor Mir

Today’s Taste: In Defense of Black voices in the Art Arena

By Matthew Dawkins

36 Now Our Minds are One:

The Impact of Consequences on an Action’s Moral Worth

By Margaret Gleed

of the “others”: Roman de39 Subjugation pictions of the “other” in sexual contexts

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is that you, or is that someone else?

By Meg Smith

44 Fritz

By Rain Bloodworth

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Wishing on a Star: Making WhiteDreams Come True in Disney’s Black World

By Sydney Force

45 The Missing Mother; Debilitating

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Retreats into the Unreal: Dissociation as a Defense Mechanism in Midnight’s Children and Life is a Dream

By Parsa Albeheshti

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Galaxy Girl

By Gray Brogden

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Empiricism, Social Darwinism, and the Death of Tonga

By Liam McGarry

Environments for Philosophical Thought

By Nadia Miller

By Rachel Fawcett

Family Drama in the Shakespeare’s King Lear

By Abby Robitaille

48 Oh Honey: The Mainstream

Popularization of Drag Culture by Young Women as a Reimagined Embodiment of Femininity

By Eva Alie

51 The Subjectivity of History in Midnight’s Children

By Asha Sah

and Metaphor: Finding 55 Monstrosity Meaning in Beowulf ’s Grendel

By Faith Caswell

Escaping Reality: The Subverting of Gender Roles in Elanor Arnason’s “The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons”

By Gray Brogden Despite science fiction being generally thought to have started with a novel by a female author with a notorious example being Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, it is impossible not to notice the utter male dominance of this genre. Works

by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Phillip K. Dick, Gene Rodenberry, George Lucas, and Andy Weir show that male writers creating male protagonists have traditionally dominated the genre of science fiction. Therefore, when a story written by a woman which features a female protagonist comes along, it is worth taking the time to examine the story and see if and how it subverts patriarchal power structures. “The Warlord of Saturn’s Moon’s” by Eleanor Arnason provides a commentary on how fiction, specifically science fiction, can be used to create an escape from everyday horrors and systemic issues of oppression while critiquing traditional gender portrayals. The commentary and critique are accomplished by creating a metafictive tale in which the narrator of the work is juxtaposed by the heroine she creates and the objectification of a male love interest.

The narrator of the story is self-described as “a silver-haired maiden lady of thirty-five, a feeder of stray cats, a window-ledge gardener, well on my way to the African violet and antimacassar stage” (Arnason 335). Relatively 35 is not old, yet she describes herself well into the aging process with silver hair and well on her way to the “antimacassar stage,” suggesting her life is becoming antique. The narrator is also disillusioned with the world she lives in, finding it bleak and hopeless. She is drawn several times throughout the story to newspapers and bulletins about the dire state of the world. A war in Thailand, strikes in Britain, rising air pollution, and a growing death toll (Arnason 336) are all issues she feels powerless to stop. This powerlessness is evident in several of the narrator’s statements, including when she laments, “Maybe I should call the Air Control number (dial AIR-CARE) and complain. But it takes a peculiar kind of person to keep on being public-spirited after it becomes obvious it’s futile” (Arnason 340). Her unwillingness to call the air pollution hotline comments on her feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness regarding the crumbling world around her. This disillusionment with her world is the main reason the story gives for why she writes her narrative of the Warlord of Saturn’s Moons and the fierce heroine who tries to stop him. The creation of her story illustrates the narrator’s need to escape into her own private world, where she has the ability to control the narrative which opposes her everyday powerlessness against a decaying public world. The narrator attempts to create a sense of control in her story the same control she sorely lacks in her real life through the inversion of gender roles. Far away from her childhood ambitions of “joining the space control,” and “climbing mount Everest in [her] bathing suit” (Arnason 335); she now lives vicariously through her heroine who is everything she used to dream of becoming.

The narrator’s “redheaded heroine deathraying down the warlord’s minions” (Arnason 335) is the exact opposite of herself. This heroine is free, aggressive, powerful, and is able to take action against the injustices she sees around her. “I’m far better off on Titan with my heroine, who is better able to deal with her problems than I am to deal with mine” (Arnason 336), shows how helpless the narrator of the story feels against the problems her world is experiencing, such as the rising murder count, a war in Thailand, and overbearing air pollution (Arnason 1-2). While both the narrator and her heroine’s world may be descending into chaos, the redheaded heroine possesses the agency and freedom to do something about it. By juxtaposing the narrator’s strife in a public world dominated by war and death, and her private fictional world where her female protagonist possesses the agency to deal with her world’s problems, the story suggests science fiction as an escapist’s tool, and offers it as an alternative to dealing with one’s own reality.

The narrator describes her heroine as strong, aggressive, and violent, relishing in “the smell of burning flesh,” and “the spectacle of blackened bodies collapsing” (Arnason 335). By attributing to her these typically masculine characteristics, the story critiques the traditional gender stereotypes that have dominated the genre. To strengthen this inversion, the narrator also paints a portrait of 409, her heroine’s partner and lover. Described as distant, isolated, and

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cold, 409 is the inversion of typically female science fiction roles, where passive female characters exist as appendages to male heroes. The inversion of these gender norms continues throughout the story, illustrated when the redheaded heroine sacrifices her partner and lover 409 for a greater good, stating “a man [the warlord] this evil must be stopped, no matter what the cost” (Arnason 341). Her willingness to sacrifice her male partner for the greater good subverts traditional female characters who exist to elevate the status of their male counterparts.

409’s final scene, where he is forcibly addicted to Sophamine, a highly dangerous and addictive drug that destroys his ability to process his emotions, adds to the subversion of typical gender roles. Due to his newfound reliance on the medication, it now becomes the heroine’s, and by extension the female narrator’s, task to save him.

The narrator states, “Tomorrow, I’ll figure out a way to get 409 off Sophamine,” (Arnason 343) taking responsibility for 409’s safety, essentially flipping the maiden in distress trope by putting a male character’s fate into the hands of a female author and her heroine. The inversion of this well-known and often clichéd trope helps undermine patriarchal power structures often seen in science fiction. Furthermore, throughout the story, the narrator’s attitude toward 409 is one of romantic and sexual objectification. The narrator finds herself more than once slipping into fantasies revolving around 409, which she justifies by saying, “I enjoy thinking about 409 as much as my heroine does” (Arnason 342). This overt romanticization and sexualization of the male protagonist relegate him to the status of typical female characters written to appeal to the male gaze, such as Captain Kirk’s many female companions or Frankenstein’s passive future bride Elizabeth.

“The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons” by Eleanor Arnason offers a poignant commentary on the usage of science fiction as a personal escape from a difficult public reality while critiquing traditional gender roles both inside and outside of fictional prose. The multiple allusions to the narrator’s tumultuous reality and her feelings of helplessness to fix it provides the context for her decision to descend into her private fictional world, where she can control the environment and outcomes of the story. Her inversion of gender roles by creating a strong, violent, powerful female protagonist subverts patriarchal authority and helps give back the power and control the narrator so desperately craves. Her creation of and her attitude towards 409 critiques traditional gender portrayals in science fiction, ultimately highlighting the common occurrence of female objectification and sexualization.

Works Cited Arnason, Eleanor. “The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons.” Women of Wonder: The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s, edited by Pamela Sargent, Mariner Books, 1995, pp. 335–343.

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Decorum and Desire: the Gendered Perspective of Honour and Reputation in the 18th Century British Libertine Theatre

By Matthew Dawkins Whereas the stage is a playground dedicated to unfolding narratives informed by and oftentimes representative of real-life ideas and scenarios, the literal and narrative space that exists between the stage and its audience forces defamiliarization and urges the audience to objectively critique, come to terms with, and challenge the representations of a normalized social. In this way, the gendered concepts of reputation and honour that are correctly portrayed in the theatre, as well as other genres of English literature, as social law that dictate sexuality and stand in opposition to 18h century libertinism is done to bring into question the misogynistic ideals that lie at the crux of 18th century British society.

In 18th century Britain, reputation and honour are critical in understanding how individuals interact with each other and the wider British society: however, these concepts function differently for both genders and libertinism is not exempt from this gendered reality. Male reputation and honour often vary given a man’s social status, lineage, wealth, and occupation, which means men could earn and lose respect and be treated accordingly. The dynamic nature of male honour and reputation meant that their sexual pitfalls (mainly cuckoldry) could be outweighed and compensated for by the other factors that determined their respect, like their wealth or their occupation (Dabhoiwala 204). Conversely, female reputation was far less forgiving. The social indicators afforded to men were not offered to women; their wealth was often not their own but rather belonged to the man closest to them, they did not, nor oftentimes could, work, and to marry up was a feat. Instead, the only aspect of female honour and reputation that women could control was their sexual and social conduct which was informed by religious standards at the time. This is to say that a woman’s respect lied within her ability to appear more as a Madonna as opposed to a whore1, and if she appeared as the latter there was little to nothing she could do to redeem her honour and reputation as the first instance of explicit female sexuality socially connotated the forthcoming of a multitude of others that would occur soon thereafter:2 “The rhetoric of reputation paralleled that of sin, for example, in the notion that a single act of unchastity would lead inevitably to others, and into a downward spiral of general moral depravity; and in the related assumption that unchastity always betrayed itself in every aspect of a woman’s behaviour […] repentance and reformation were possible in the eyes of God, but they could not redeem a lost reputation” (Dabhoiwala 207).

Libertinism sought to end the influence of reputation and honour in how people interacted with each other, urging people to act in their own self-interest (usually sexually) rather than take into consideration how they might be perceived. However, for female Libertines the ideas of reputation and honour were a lot more complex and difficult to escape. Although men could easily engage in whichever sexual acts they liked and play with the idea that libertinism may effectively emancipate them from their social perception, their sexuality only composed a small portion of their reputation. This meant they had little to lose within social circles and certainly nothing that could not be regained. Women’s reputation, on the other hand, was almost entirely linked to their behaviour, or lack thereof, as sexual beings. More so, female reputation was a far more challenging objective to maintain as once it was gone it was nearly impossible to be reclaimed. Therefore, libertinism failed to prove itself as an effective antithesis for honour and reputation insofar it remained as gendered as its counterpart, not offering any safe spaces for women or plausible ways for them to exercise the sexual freedoms that the philosophy promised. In this essay, I will argue the (im)possibility of female libertinism and explain the complex ways female libertine characters in drama, prose, and poetry have 1. The phrasing here is indicative of the binary within the Madonna-whore complex.

2.Beauplasir, in Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, suggests this ideas about the protagonist of the novel when she first confesses her true identity to him.

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had to uniquely create and recreate themselves in order to effectively practice libertinism, yet still inevitably result in failure.

Primarily, Fantomina by Eliza Haywood exemplifies the lengths to which women must go in order to practice libertine freedoms, whereas libertine men are able to remain, not only blissfully unaware but also blissfully unaffected by the gendered disadvantages of libertinism. In the novel, Fantomina is interested in Beauplaisir, a male libertine, but is unable to speak to him, much less engage with him romantically, due to her lower social class. Throughout the narrative, Fantomina dawns new personae and sleeps with Beauplasir each time in hopes of him eventually falling in love with her. Haywood completely rejects the eighteenth-century idea that the way a woman speaks and dresses is indicative of her reputation and therefore tied to her sexuality by making the protagonist wear multiple identities but exist within the same sexually freed body. Constantly remaking herself into a different social class with a newly perceived social reputation each time, Fantomina’s pursuit of Beauplaisir demonstrates the fickle nature of female reputation, and more acutely, underscores how women must deceive and manipulate in order to enjoy libertinism as well their male counterparts: Masquerading permits the heroine to access the kind of sexual freedom Beauplaisir enjoys by allowing her to divorce her social status from sexual behaviour, albeit for a limited time. Like her male counterpart, the heroine can secretly conduct her affair and then go out into society (Garcia, 345).

Beauplaisir’s similar treatment of all of Fantomina’s personae also points to the way in which men are hardly troubled at all by libertinism in the same way that women are. Even though Beauplaisir observes the uncanny physical resemblance between the protagonist’s two initial personae, he concludes that “the vast Disparity there appear’d between their Characters, prevented him from entertaining even the most distant thought that they cou’d be the same,” (Haywood 42-43). In addition, when she confesses who she truly is to him, his response is lackadaisical. Beauplasir does not stop to consider what it means that a woman needs to deceive and manipulate him through an assortment of dress and upheaval of social regulation in order to sleep with him; meanwhile, he is allowed that sexual freedom at little to no cost. It never crosses his mind because at the end of the day he still satisfies his sexual appetite and is able to do so without consequence. Beauplaisir treats all the protagonist’s personae the same no matter their social status and after he has sex with them, in male Libertine fashion, he discards them and moves on to the next, unaffected by the clear downsides of libertinism for his partner and uncaring for whatever havoc his actions perpetuate for women, which in the case of the protagonist, consists of a spiral of actions to get his attention.

Even as Beauplaisir seduces the protagonist’s various personae, the audience sees that “his blind faith in clothes as signifiers of a woman’s class identity is misplaced and makes him vulnerable to being deceived” yet his deception does not completely reverse the gendered power dynamic embedded within libertinism (Garcia 341). The suggestion is made that Beauplasir doesn’t care to pay enough attention so as to not be fooled because he still wins in the end, earning sex without strings. This is to say that the protagonist’s disruption of female reputation through the subversion of the very dress whose purpose is to limit her sexual code, is effective insofar as it keeps Beauplaisir from recognizing the heroine, which in turn lets her have her way with him. Her dress becomes masquerade and costume which grants her the power to challenge the orthodox social female role and give access to sexual freedoms granted by society only to men at that time. Her disguises provide libertine freedom by way of creating a protective layering for her to successfully redefine her reputation and discuss sexual possibilities for herself and women at large (Garcia 342). Although this agency is admirable and efficacious for the protagonist, it does not completely upheave the gendered power dynamic of libertinism. As

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a libertine man, Beauplaisir is insulated from the protagonist’s deception and, despite being deceived over and over again, is short of nothing. Meanwhile, it is the protagonist who needs to consistently remake herself in order to appease the sexual appetite of the man. Even worse, by the end of the play, the protagonist is punished while Beauplaisir faces no repercussions which underscore the unavoidable tragedy that is female libertinism.

Women may be given the opportunity to destabilize their social roles within the space that libertine ideas afford them, but their agency comes at their own expense and can only be achieved through a slew of well-calculated actions performed with precise thought and an unyielding effort that men do not have to exert much less notice; and even then, the gendered power dynamic which subjugates women is still not overturned.

Aphra Behn’s “The Disappointment” similarly discusses the gendered libertine dynamic, exemplifying the way in which women must manipulate in order to have sex and the doom that inevitably awaits them thereafter. In the poem, to maintain her honour and reputation, Cloris must resist Lisander’s sexual pursuits with the knowledge that her refusal will only make her more desirable for him. Cloris, much like the protagonist in Fantomina, must use deception to gain access to the libertine promise of sexual freedom. Despite her success and Lisander’s advances toward her, Cloris still cannot help but have second thoughts about the impact this might have on her honour. Lisander is able to engage with her sexually without a second thought because his honour is redeemable, but for Cloris, she knows that if Lisander believes he has taken advantage of her without her consent, her honour will decrease and that is not something she can re-earn. Yet the paradox here is that she must make him believe exactly that in order to fulfill her sexual desire.

Notwithstanding Cloris being the mastermind of their sexual encounter, she is only the mastermind so long as she allows the man to believe he is the mastermind and that requirement of exchanging power is not real power at all, especially if the moment the sex is done Lisander can walk away and face no consequences while Cloris must worry about how her actions might affect her in a society that suggests that a sexually assaulted woman has been decreased in value.

The poem further explores gender inequality in libertinism by describing the sex as it is about to happen and demonstrates the paradoxical way women must engage with their own sexual pleasure. “The Disappointment” sees Cloris enter a “trance” and her body goes limp as she is about to have sex, making her an inactive participant in her own sexual activity and again giving up her power to the man, Lisander: Her balmy Lips encountring his, Their Bodies as their Souls are joyn’d, Where both in Transports were confin’d, Extend themselves upon the Moss.

Cloris half dead and breathless lay, Her Eyes appear’d like humid Light, Such as divides the Day and Night; Or falling Stars, whose Fires decay ; And now no signs of Life she shows, But what in short-breath-sighs returns and goes. (Behn 60-70) This reveals that the only way Cloris can experience or articulate female desire is by not being there when it happens. She must be absent from her own sexual encounter because if she is present, she risks shame from the man since honourable women in her society are not expected to want, be agents of, or enjoy sex in the same way men do. Even in the middle of sex and practicing what libertinism encourages, Cloris still cannot exist

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outside of the social constraints her society has set for her; libertinism does not shield her from social implications. She knows her reputation is at risk and so wanting to have sex means performing as if she does not.

She must appear as a passive object to the man, ready for him to use as he pleases to the exclusion of her own desires and sexual satisfaction. For her to successfully have sex with Lisander, she must be barely there, half breathing. Not only is there no real agency in her scenario, but there’s no ‘her’ at all. In this way, Behn argues that women can only experience sexual pleasure by suspending self.

By the end of the poem despite her performance, suspension of self, and extensive strategy to fulfill sexual desire, Cloris still does not emerge successful. Her efforts to execute libertine philosophy and act in her own self-interest backfires when Lisander is unable to have an erection and blames her for this. Similar to the destiny of the protagonist in Fantomina, Cloris’ efforts are revealed to be in vain, and worse, result in shame and punishment. Female sexual agency is concluded to be unsuccessful as Cloris is left voiceless by the end of the poem and the final word is given to Lisander whose rhetoric of her as a succubus whore lingers. In the final analysis, after attempting to exchange her sexual agency back and forth with Lisander (the only way she can momentarily seize it), Cloris’ plan proves futile and demonstrates that in sexual arenas, despite libertinism, men still triumph: He Curst his Birth, his Fate, his Stars, But more the Shepherdesses Charms ; Whose soft bewitching influence, Had Damn’d him to the Hell of Impotence (Behn 147-150).

In The Lucky Chance, Aphra Behn deliberately inverts gender expectations to explore the artificiality of those conventions and also how they’re available to women. At the climax of the play, Julia Fulbank’s husband gambles with her sexuality and loses to her lover, Gayman. Although Julia and Gayman desire each other, their reputation as separately married people keeps them apart. Yet, Behn discusses how men may bypass the social rules of honour and reputation as it relates to extra-marital affairs in so little as a playful game or bet. Gayman and Sir Cautious Fulbank are placing bets on Julia as if she is a material object, but by doing so, they are also placing bets on their own honour and reputation. If Sir Cautious Fulbank loses, he is cuckolded and if Gayman loses, he will be outed as a betrothed man wanting to have sex with a married woman. Yet both men are comfortable participating in this game because on some level, that is what their honour and reputation are: a game.

In essence, the men in the play risk nothing that cannot be compensated for in other respects.

On top of that, the men are presented as owners and negotiators of women. This is exemplary of a motif throughout the play, wherein the absence of a woman’s voice is characteristic of scenarios wherein her autonomy, gender roles, and destiny are defined and spoken about. Behn’s didacticism for women in this play does not seem to argue for women to manipulate full control of their sexuality and deceive men like in “The Disappointment,” nor that women may secretly recreate self for sexual liberties like in Fantomina, but rather that women should confront the female sexual reality of eighteenth-century Britain as being ruthless and filled with disappointment. By the end of the play, both women indeed are able to be with the men they prefer but are still forced to remain married to the men they have no feelings for in order to maintain their reputation and honour. Successful female sexual libertinism, as Behn represents it, is never full and can only be achieved through a string of compromises, such as marriage, betrayal, lies, negotiation, and surrender of independence and agency. Unlike their male counterparts, there is no route to complete sexual freedom for women. Therefore, Behn’s The Lucky Chance is a play about the practical impossibility of a woman to obtain her agency in this social context. Women may be able to increase their social market value, sway bargaining, and bend social rules, but they are incapable of fully breaking social law and experiencing sexually freed victory.

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In conclusion, Fantomina by Eliza Haywood as well as “The Disappointment” and The Lucky Chance by Aphra Behn begs the libertine audience to reconsider the possibility of sexual agency that is afforded to women who attempt to practice libertinism. This is to say that these works prove that female sexual desire is not as simple to act upon without harm inflicted by society as libertinism might proport for men. Rather the reality for women in 18th century Britain is that honour and reputation are misogynistic and unequal ideas that will continue to treat them unfairly unless there is complete destruction of these concepts altogether, and libertinism does not attempt to do that all. Where libertinism tries to shrug off honour and reputation (an act men can afford to participate in) women require a much more radical approach to the social reality if they are to be sexually freed.

Works Cited Behn, Aphra, and Jane. Spencer. The Rove ; The Feigned Courtesans ; The Lucky Chance ; The Emperor of the Moon. Clarendon Press, 1995.

Behn, Aphra. “The Disappointment.” The Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43639/the-disappointment. Accessed 6 December 2021.

Clark, Anna. “The Sexual Crisis and Popular Religion in London, 1770–1820.” International Labor and Working Class History, vol. 34, no. 34, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 56–69.

Dabhoiwala, Faramerz. “The Construction of Honour, Reputation and Status in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 6, no. 4, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 201–13.

Garcia, Ruth G. “Sartorial Subversion: Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina and the Literary Tradition of Women’s Community.” Women’s Writing: the Elizabethan to Victorian Period, vol. 28, no. 3, Routledge, 2021, pp. 336–51.

Haywood, Eliza, et al. Fantomina and Other Works. Broadview Press, 2004.

Hobby, Elaine. “‘THE WORLD WAS NEVER WITHOUT SOME MAD MEN’: APHRA BEHN, JANE SHARP AND THE BODY.” Women’s Writing: the Elizabethan to Victorian Period, vol. 19, no. 2, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012, pp. 177–91.

Rahman, Arifa Ghani. “Negotiating Masculine Circles: Female Agency in Aphra Behn’s Work.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, vol. 12, no. 4, 2020.

Wilputte, Earla A. “Wife pandering in three eighteenth-century plays.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 38, no. 3, summer 1998, pp. 447.

Zeitz, Lisa M., and Peter Thoms. “Power, Gender, and Identity in Aphra Behn’s ‘The Disappointment.’” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 37, no. 3, Rice University, 1997, pp.

501–16.

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Today’s Taste: In Defense of Black voices in the Art Arena

By Matthew Dawkins In “Of the Standard of Taste” by David Hume, Hume spends a great deal of time creating a theoretical framework explaining humans’ inclination towards art that is widely considered to be ‘good’ in an effort to better understand the nature of art, humans, and the relationship between the two. Today, his essay has become one of the foundational texts in the modern Western definition of ‘good’ art and as a result, largely shapes and reshapes the type of art and artists which are glorified in institutions. Unsurprisingly, however, his work lacks necessary nuance and perspective, largely due to omissions of gender, culture, and race. With respect to race and culture, Ta-Nehisi Coates and W. E. B. Du Bois both underscore how the Black lived experience is distinct from its White counterpart and when this reality is presented in art, White supremacy distorts its truth, marginalizing authentic Black voices in art arenas. The aggrandized work of Hume assumes ‘good’ art for only a small portion of the population—namely those who are White and male—and presents it as universal. In this essay, I will present Hume’s theory before treating the racial and cultural gaps that are apparent with reference to Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Criteria of N**** Art by W. E. B. Du Bois.

In “Of the Standard of Taste”, the cornerstone of Hume’s argument is the distinction between “Judgement” and “Sentiment” in which the former describes our ability to examine art objectively and arrive at a universal conclusion.

However, this outlook on art is reductive and presupposes a separation of art and self which is not only impossible for some peoples, but which should generally be considered impossible for art itself. According to Hume, “Judgement” describes the inherent disinterested1 qualities in art, while “Sentiment” describes one’s feelings toward a piece of art. Divorcing personal feeling from art is a fundamental severance that allows Hume to validate the way art might make one feel while still suggesting that ‘good’ art, at its core, should ultimately have nothing to do with personal connection or feelings. In other words, Hume claims there is something inherent in art, beyond emotion, that permits one to arrive at a universal ‘good’. According to Hume, so long as we leave bias and emotion aside, put ourselves in the shoes of the target audience, and judge art for simply what it is and not how it makes us feel, ‘good’ art will reveal itself. However, Hume fails to recognize that personal connection is the very nature of all art: this is to say that art is inherently personal.

In Criteria of N**** Art, Du Bois speaks to the personal nature of art and further demonstrates the futility in assuming ‘good’ art will reveal itself outside of “Sentiment.” By stating, “[…] all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purist,” Du Bois explores the idea that all art has a personal agenda, even if does not immediately appear to function that way (Du Bois 853). For his art, its agenda is Black liberation, for White art, its traditional purpose is to exclude non-White folk. Du Bois takes issue with the way popularly awarded art predominantly centers white folk and distorts persons of colour, omitting them from narratives or subjecting them to a single story.2 Although we might not readily be able to locate politics or agenda in art, art still carries subtext and it is in this inherent messaging that we are able to understand the effects any particular art has on a political conversation. For example, Black art that explores Black issues by a Black artist in a predominantly Black community might speak to real-life politicized discussions about Black bodies. Even for White folk who might claim that they can easily divorce their art and their politics, their attitude is assuming this relates to politics. Their work is politicized by way of exemplifying a privilege that has only been offered to White folk, where their superfluity to overtly demonstrate politics is due to historically maintaining the most prominent voices in political arenas. To a certain degree even Hume’s work functions in this way because despite not explicitly making claim to any particular politics, his work presumes an audience that is able to separate self and art, overlooking others who have only art to explore, discuss, refute, and fight on behalf of self—in other words, marginalized people who have not been given the tools to advocate for self in other institutional plains.

Du Bois also illustrates how the separation of art and self is not a feasible claim in general due to implicit bias.

1. Disinterest in this context refers to Kant’s definition in The Critique of Judgement as, not pleasure found in an object because of usefulness, but rather pleasure found in an object because it is inherently so.

2.See “The Dangers of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche for an insightful take on this particular phrasing.

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Du Bois points to an allegory of a Black man who submitted a work that was not accepted by a magazine until he had altered the race and geographic background of the characters and himself (Du Bois 851). If “the men of delicate taste” who are distinguishable by “the soundness of their understanding and the superiorities of their faculties above the rest of mankind” can change their opinion on a piece of work based solely on the racial identity of the characters and the writer, then Hume is right in assuming there is something inherent in art that gives us the ability to discern a ‘good’ work but is incorrect in assuming that thing has nothing do with the self (Hume 421).

Western institutions and the individuals that perpetuate them who we herald as ‘men of good taste’ have legacies of bias that indicate a preference for Whiteness. This problem evidences the uselessness in assuming ‘good’ art will reveal itself outside of “Sentiment” since the way we perceive a work is constantly, on some level, altering the way we judge it as ‘good.’

To further this point, Hume is convinced that it is a simple act to consider the target audience of a piece, which is to say, put oneself in the shoes of the population for whom a piece of art is intended for in order to properly judge it. Coates illustrates just how powerfully White supremacy has disjointed the reality of Black and White peoples, making this option impossible. In Between the World and Me, a distinction is made between the way White people navigate modern America and how Black people do so, and more than that, White America exists at the expense of Black people, this is to say it exists because Black America is sequestered from White America: I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts.

The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have wants to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my heard like a blanket. But this has never been an option because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies (Coates 11).

This is to say that, given Du Bois’ allegory and Coates’ clarification on the inability to reconcile Black and White America, Hume’s assumption is impractical. Not only does his method of judging art continue to alienate and marginalize work by people of colour, but also the assumption that a simple reframing of one’s mindset is an equitable substitute for lived experiences is a farce that invalidates the severity of a number of societal ills and underestimates the impact art can have on a person.

In the final analysis, Hume’s theory in “Of the Standard of Taste” is a reflection of his reality. What W. E. B. Du Bois and Ta-Nehisi Coates make arguments for how his theory and others like it that influence modern thought on what distinguishes ‘good’ art do not consider their reality. Coates and Du Bois not only rethink the universal Hume presents but also points to how his universal works to directly disenfranchise work created by people of colour, especially in their political and social dimensions.

Works Cited Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. New York, Spiegel and Grau, 2015.

Du Bois, W. E. B. “The Criteria of Negro Art.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, edited by Vincent B. Leitch, W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2018, 847-853.

Kant, Emmanuel. “Critique of Judgement.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, edited by Vincent B. Leitch, W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2018, 847-853.

Ngozi Adiche, Chimamanda. “The Dangers of a Single Story.” YouTube, uploaded by TED, 25 November 2015, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj75cuj0evzAhXDlGoFHT_IDG8QwqsBegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fchimamanda_ ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story%3Flanguage%3Den&usg=AOvVaw1HD-Ijy_32KpoteIV9lUOk.

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The Impact of Consequences on an Action’s Moral Worth

By Margaret Gleed In this essay, I argue against Kant’s assertion that the consequences of actions do not influence the moral worth of the initial action. People are equally as responsible for the consequences of their actions as they are for the action itself.

To explain my objection, I will outline Kant’s argument from his text and specify Kant’s opinion on consequences and how they relate to initial actions in their moral worth. Then, I will describe how my opinion on secondary actions contradicts his. Finally, I will explain how Kant’s opinion fails to account for prolonged responsibility for a person’s actions.

Kant believes that the moral worth of an action is determined by the motive which induced the action. If the motive is in good will, then the action has moral worth. If the motive is not in good will, the action is morally worthless.

He phrases the connection as “like a jewel, [moral worth] would shine by its light, as a thing which has its whole value in [the action]. Its usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add to nor take away anything from [the moral worth of the motive and action]” (Kant 190). However, determining what motivates good will is ambiguous until Kant connects duty to good will. Therefore, if an action is completed according to duty and the motive is in good will, the action has moral worth. If an action is completed according to inclination, then the action is morally worthless.

Kant continues by clarifying the difference between duty and purpose to derive the moral worth of an action.

The purpose or consequences obtained by the action come after and cannot be determined until after the initial action is finished. The duty, or maxim, is already determined before the action is initiated. Therefore, the duty dictates the moral worth of the initial action. Kant bases his assertion in the question, “in what, then, can their worth lie if it is not to consist in the will and in reference to its expected effect?” (Kant 192). The moral worth of an action can only be determined before the action is completed. The motive behind the action must be based on good will for the action to have moral worth. Therefore, the motive must be to follow a duty, as that is the only absolute, and we must judge an action by its adherence to that duty. Inclinations are individual to people and cannot be universally determined or judged for their good will. In addition, for an action to have moral worth, the motive must be entirely void of inclination. Otherwise, it can be questioned objectively by the law or subjectively by pure respect for the law. The law is what we have a duty to follow and determines if our actions are completed in good will and have moral worth.

Kant believes that such consequences cannot influence the initial action’s moral worth since consequences occur after the action is made, the motive is set, and the adherence to duty is determined. The consequences of the initial action have no impact on its moral worth since moral worth is decided before the initial action takes place. Therefore, it is chronologically impossible for consequences to influence the moral worth of an action. In addition, since Kant believes that moral worth relies on motive, and motive is directed towards the initial action, then motive cannot be directed towards the consequences of the initial action.

The concept that we are not accountable or will not be judged for the consequences or outcomes of our actions is naive. Suppose the initial action is made in good will and has moral worth. However, the outcome of that action ignores duty and serves a person’s inclinations. Why should that not impact the overall moral worth of the action? Just because an outcome is not intended or expected does not mean that it is not the person’s responsibility to own that outcome.

As such, societal rules and regulations are created to judge the consequences of our actions. Kant’s belief that the consequences of our actions are not indicative of one action’s moral worth fails to consider two things: first, an individual’s ability to plan actions and consequences to achieve a certain goal, and also the capacity of society to create duties to lower the impact of our actions.

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In this first consideration, an individual’s true intentions cannot be known unless they choose to express them. So, the moral worth of an action is determined according to its outward adherence to duty. However, outward appearance does not always indicate internal motivation. The initial action could be completed according to duty and is therefore morally worthy. However, the action could account for the consequences of the action to act in their self-interest and against duty. That intent, which does not come from duty or inclination, should erode the moral worth assigned to the initial action to account for personal interest. The second consideration, the capacity of society to create duties to lower the impact of our actions, changes how actions are evaluated for their moral worth. We now make rules and regulations to mitigate the negative consequences of actions that would otherwise adhere to duty. For example, environmental controls, checks, and balances are in place to limit our use of harmful materials or non-renewable resources. Suppose an action is completed according to our duty to limit our waste of non-renewable materials. However, the consequences of the action contribute to the use of harmful materials. In that case, the moral worth of the action should be net-zero. The moral worth of acting according to duty is negated by the morally worthless act of harming the environment and ignoring other duties to the environment.

Consequences indicate internal motivation not specific to duty, as indicated in consideration one. Consequences also either follow secondary duties to social rules and regulations or violate secondary duties, according to consideration two. Kant is focused on the purity of actions to determine their moral worth. However, there cannot be an absolute way to determine the purity of someone’s adherence to duty. In his writings, Kant accounts for the ambiguity of motive, relating it to adherence to duty. However, he does not account for the interpretation of the motive. He briefly discusses distinguishing between an action from pure duty and an action that appears to be from duty but is also influenced by inclination. However, he does not provide a clear distinction, referring to the individual’s duty to others and themselves. Therefore, I claim that if the motive is anything but pure duty, then the consequences impact the action’s moral worth. Suppose the initial action’s motive was not clear from duty but also not clear from inclination. In this scenario, the initial action would have no moral worth until the consequences occurred and were determined to adhere to duty or inclination.

Kant’s concept of moral worth according to motive, good will, and duty excludes the influence of consequences on the initial action’s moral worth. However, his analysis and development do not account for pre-planning for the outcome of an action, nor does he account for changing societal standards or mixed intentions behind actions. As such, there are instances where consequences assist in determining the moral worth of the initial action when the motive behind it is too ambiguous.

Works Cited Kant, Immanuel. “Immanuel Kant, Selection from The Foundations of Metaphysics of Morals.” Ethical Theory: A Concise Anthology, edited by Heimir Geirsson and Margaret R Holmgren, 3rd ed., Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ontario, 2018, pp. 190–192.

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is that you, or is that someone else?

By Meg Smith

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Wishing on a Star: Making White Dreams Come True in Disney’s Black World

By Sydney Force The Disney franchise is a well-known company worldwide that is responsible for creating hundreds of children’s stories with relatable characters that children can idolize and learn from. But what happens when the only idol that represents a minority group has been marginalized through stereotypes that better suit the ideal, Eurocentric perspective?

In this essay, I will be performing a theoretical and intersectional analysis of Disney’s only film that represents a Black woman protagonist, The Princess and The Frog. The Disney film The Princess and The Frog allows for the internalization of white stereotypes towards Black people, which consequentially silences the oppressive history in America’s pre-civil rights period. The portrayal of Princess Tiana is the white person’s image of what a strong Black woman should look like, which inevitably mass produces the racialized perspective of black history. I will begin by analyzing the process in which individuals are given an internalized identity through Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation. From his theory, I will discuss the importance of Black representation in the media and the consequences of Disney’s historical misrepresentation of Black culture. Using W.E.B. DuBois’ criticism as a framework, I will then perform an extensive intersectional analysis on the way in which Princess Tiana was characterised to the public by two white producers. Finally, I will argue how the inaccurate portrayal of New Orleans during the 1920s essentially silences and erases a significant amount of oppression and suffering that Black people endured.

To begin, I will discuss how the stereotypical representation of Black people in the media, and particularly in film, can consequentially lead to an internalization of the white image of Black people. Drawing from Louis Althusser’s On Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus, Althusser’s theory suggests the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) can be used to interpellate individuals to transmit values held by those who are in power organizations that generate systems of ideas and values, which we as individuals believe. Althusser explains how “ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way as to … ‘transform’ individuals into subjects … through interpellation” (Althusser 142). By definition, interpellation means “to give an identity to” (Oxford Dictionary), where the ISA, or mass media through film, in this case, is essentially presenting an identity for individuals to internalize.

The connection of representation with interpellation becomes crucial in an analysis with Disney’s The Princess and The Frog. In order to internalize an identity, the identity needs to be representative of the subject or person. Historically, Disney has been criticized for having Eurocentric bias when choosing their Disney princesses or protagonists in their movies. It was not until 2009, when The Princess and The Frog was released, that Black girls could look up to a Black princess, or Black woman protagonist in general. Considering Princess Tiana spent over half the screen time as a frog herself, the representation of a Black woman manoeuvring through social obstacles has already been pushed to the side. Her identity as both a Black person and a woman is taken away from her and made completely irrelevant for over half of the movie; most of her heroic gestures were done while she was a frog, including when she saved Prince Naveen’s life. Thus, the Black girls who were meant to be targeted through interpellation and who finally have a representational ‘idol’ on their screen are spending over half the movie resonating with a slimy amphibian, while white girls get to watch Cinderella have the ball of her life and watch Merida save her entire country in another modern film.

Representation and the process of internalization becomes all the more important given Disney’s history of dealing with racism against Black people. When it comes to race, Disney’s track record of representation has not been squeaky clean. The folk story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby is a historically racist tale which was supposed to portray the power dynamics between Black and white people. The text itself was made to be read by Black people but was written with such unintelligibility that it would purposely force the reader to seem illiterate, and thus uneducated and inferior.

It was written in 1880 after slavery was already abolished in America. Disney did a recreation of the exact story in 1946 in their film called Songs of the South, 66 years later. Even though Songs of the South would later be banned, for 63 years the tar baby about to be beaten by the “stronger and smarter animals” was the last image from Disney that was made to

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represent and be internalized by Black people.

As a result of internalizing the white stereotypes of Black culture, Black people and their voices are effectively silenced by the media’s mass recognition of what it means to be Black from a white perspective. Though the Princess and the Frog was released in 2009, W.E.B. DuBois’ Criteria of N**** Art (1926) remains relevant towards the white portrayal of Black people in art, where he explains, “the white public demands from its artists, literary and pictorial, racial pre-judgement which deliberately distorts Truth and Justice” (DuBois 853). In the context of this essay, it is crucial to mention that The Princess and the Frog was created and directed by two white men.

Thus, it can be reflective of DuBois’ criticism; the white public is recreating a white “Truth” of what it means to be living as a Black woman and the “[j]ustices” that Princess Tiana must face as a Black female in her journey.

Continuing from DuBois’ critiques, I will now discuss multiple stereotypes that can be seen in The Princess and the Frog. The Disney film embodies many of the stereotypes that white people have on black culture and individuals in general. The first example that may be easily overlooked by white men is the relationship of Princess Tiana with her hair. Throughout the whole movie, there is never a point where Tiana’s hair is shown completely natural. Sociohistorical standards of seeing a Black woman’s hair as beautiful often depended on whether or not their hair was ‘done’ (Rowe). Whether this means their hair is straight, put back, or styled, Tiana’s hair is never seen in its natural form and only ever put up in a high bun or a low ponytail, which is neat with a few stray loose curls. By doing this, the producers are dissecting Tiana’s identity and only truly focusing on her status as a woman: she must look proper, and have her hair done. By extension, the producers are silencing Tiana’s identity as a Black woman by ignoring the “ritual‐like nature of Black women getting their hair ‘fixed’ or ‘done’ by another person” (Rowe). A study completed on children’s picture books written by Black authors demonstrates how “[e]arly on, Black girls must scrutinize the contrasting hair textures and styles found in the overlapping social spheres in which they live” (Brooks). Without exposure to natural hairstyles, individuals are unable to question the white standards of beauty, which can lead to the reification of Eurocentric beauty standards on Black women.

It also ignores what Black scholars have explained to be an important aspect of bonding and cultural identity through the “ritual-like nature” of a styling Black girl’s hair.

Another identity that is projected on Tiana is the pejorative stereotype of the “angry Black woman.” The angry Black woman stereotype derived from the typecast of the “Sassy Mammies,” who were “characterize[d]… as aggressive, ill tempered, illogical, overbearing, hostile, and ignorant without provocation” (Ashley). In fiction, they were typically allowed to defy racial social norms and their sassiness towards white people indicated their acceptance within the white family (Pilgrim). For Tiana, the identity of the “angry Black woman” is also combined with her projected identity of a fragile woman. The women in the movie are illustrated as emotional and guided by feelings, especially rich white women like Tiana’s childhood friend; her entire purpose in life was defined by love and marriage. There is a moment where the prince remarks on Tiana’s emotional state, explaining his frustrations with her “constant whining and complaining” to him about their situation. However, even though she is seen as a fragile woman who cannot handle being a frog as the prince can, her identity as a Black woman often overpowers the submissive view that simply a woman would hold. Especially in this movie, given the time period was before the civil rights movement, the Black community is seen as a much more hard-working and tough-skinned community, compared to the rich white people that have everything handed to them.

However, given the idea that Tiana is Black and a woman, in order to make her stand out as a strong individual, the Disney producers have characterized her as a hard-working individual with an attitude and as somebody who is willing to stand up for herself. Just as the “Sassy Mammie” character entails, Tiana’s attitude allows her to create the accepting and understanding relationship which she develops with the prince. The prince mocks and remarks on her attitude several times in the film, including where he states to Tiana, “I made my promise to a beautiful

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princess, not a cranky waitress.” Overall, in order to make Tiana relatable to the white characters in the film and to force her to be accepted as an individual in her community, the producers projected Tiana under the same light that allowed the “Sassy Mammie” to be accepted into a slave owner’s family. By doing this, Disney is continuing to reiterate racist stereotypical projections on their only representation of a Black female protagonist.

Furthermore, the time period in which The Princess and the Frog takes place shows an incorrect portrayal of Black history, specifically in New Orleans where the movie is set. The social interactions within the film do not accurately reflect the racial violence of New Orleans in the 1920s which essentially silences the history of Black oppression and replaces it with a white perspective of the period. First, the Civil Rights Act was not passed in America until 1964 (Hersch). That means that the segregation of Black people was very much prominent during the 1920s.

People were separated by race in institutions from entertainment buildings like movie theatres, to government buildings including schools. It was not illegal to discriminate against an individual on the basis of race. The 1920s were not as peaceful of a time as the film depicts either; in New Orleans alone, the city had four times the homicide rate of Canada. In 1925, the homicide rate in New Orleans was 30.3 for every 100 000 people (Alder 81). The Princess and The Frog depicts anything other than one of the most violent places in America during the ‘20s. Whites and Blacks are seen eating together in restaurants, hanging out on the streets together, and becoming employed under each other regardless of race. Even though the movie does allude towards heavy power dynamics between whites and Blacks as the whites always seem to be in a wealthier position where they have access to anything on demand, it does not accurately portray the struggle that the Black community endured during one of the most violent periods in New Orleans’s history. By depicting Blacks as the same as whites, but just having to “work harder,” the producers are giving a fictional representation of the hardships that the Black community was actually experiencing. To overlook such a major period of violence and struggle is to silence the stories of those who were oppressed, and to replace it with a happily-ever-after fantasy of the white American dream.

Even though Disney’s The Princess and The Frog can be celebrated for finally including a Black princess, the way in which Princess Tiana is portrayed to the public is concerning. Due to the inclusion of white stereotypes on Tiana, including her hair and attitude, the recreation of racialized white ideals can be embodied through the process of interpellation. Nevertheless, it can also be admired that Disney chose a setting well known for its Black community and culture; however, considering they represented New Orleans as a place of fun and equal opportunity, the intense violent oppressive period which they chose does not accurately reflect the social struggles faced by the black community. Taking place over 30 years before segregation was banned, when Blacks were being derived their right to vote, and New Orleans was one of the top cities for racial violence across America, the lines from the movie’s opening song simply reflects the white ignorance towards Black history and oppression; “Rich people, poor people all have dreams—and they become true in New Orleans”.

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Works Cited Adler, Jeffrey S. Murder in New Orleans: The Creation of Jim Crow Policing. University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Althusser, Louis. “The Ideological State Apparatuses.” On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, trans. G. M. Goshgarian (London and New York: Verso, 2014), pp. 181-206.

Ashley, Wendy. “The Angry Black Woman: The Impact of Pejorative Stereotypes on Psychotherapy with Black Women.” Social Work in Public Health, vol. 29, no. 1, Informa UK Limited, Nov. 2013, pp. 27–34.

Brooks, McNair. “‘Combing’ Through Representations of Black Girls’ Hair in African American Children’s Literature.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 46, no. 3, Springer Science and Business Media LLC, Oct. 2014, pp. 296–307.

DuBois, W.E.B. “Criteria of Negro Art.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 3rd ed., W.W. Norton &Company, 2018, pp. 847-53.

Hersch, Shinall. “FIFTY YEARS LATER: THE LEGACY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol. 34, no. 2, 2015, pp. 424–56.

Hill Collins, P., & Bilge, S. Intersectionality / Patricia Hill Collins, Sirma Bilge. Cambridge, UK;: Polity Press, 2017. “interpellation, n.2.” Oxford Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, September 2020, Accessed 25 November 2020.

Pilgrim, David. The Sapphire Caricature. Ferris State University, August 2008, https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/antiblack/sapphire.htm. Accessed November 24, 2020.

Rowe, Kristin. “‘Nothing Else Mattered After That Wig Came Off ’: Black Women, Unstyled Hair, and Scenes of Interiority.” Journal of American Culture (Malden, Mass.), vol. 42, no. 1, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc, Mar. 2019, pp. 21–36.

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Retreats into the Unreal: Dissociation as a Defense Mechanism in Midnight’s Children and Life is a Dream

By Parsa Albeheshti Both Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s play Life is a Dream and Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children cross the boundary between the real and the unreal in playful ways. In this essay, I will venture a psychoanalytic interpretation of this detachment or escape from reality. Using the concepts of derealization, depersonalization, and dissociation as a framework, I will argue that the theme of unreality in these works should be read as a maladaptive defense mechanism within the story to keep out unbearable elements of the self that are created by subjugation and conflict—in the case of the latter, as a direct consequence of colonial practices and attitudes which have left the colonized subjects, in the words of Frantz Fanon, “alien” to themselves and their world.

“Depersonalization” and “derealization” tend to go hand-in-hand and are psychological experiences characterized by detachment from one’s sense of reality. Whereas the former denotes an alienation from one’s own sense of self, the latter is an experience of estrangement from the external world or environment. These subjective experiences of unreality have nothing to do with philosophical modes of skepticism. The individual experiencing derealization can not help but feel “as if ” they are experiencing a dream, or that the world around them is unreal, despite having an objective recognition of the facts of their being. Thus, they suffer from a disruption of their subjective reality that contradicts their objective understanding of life.

Psychoanalytic theory categorizes and understands these experiences under the notion of “dissociation,” a concept first devised by Pierre Janet and later developed by Freud which denotes a “split of integral mental activity into separate processes: partially conscious and partially unconscious” (Bezzubova). Describing his own famous encounter with derealization, Freud claimed that such experiences arise when we are “anxious to keep something outside of us” (Freud).

In line with this view, modern psychoanalysis understands depersonalization and derealization as defense mechanisms, partially subconscious ways of dealing with the unbearable by literally keeping it outside of ourselves (Bezzubova). According to this understanding, there are two means by which we can keep unbearable feelings and experiences out: repression and dissociation. Repression involves a complete erasure of the experience or feeling from conscious thought— an exile into the unconscious. Dissociation involves a much more complex and disturbing process, in which the mind’s subconscious attempt to distance itself from an unbearable feeling disrupts the individual’s sense of reality, invoking an obsession with the nature of reality itself.

The story of Life is a Dream can be seen as an allegory of repression and dissociation. Segismund, with his apparently supernatural predisposition to evil as revealed by the prophecy, represents an unbearable urge that needs to be repressed in order to protect the nation against his threat. The threat, of course, is that he would cause the kingdom to become “torn up and divided” (236)—that is, in psychoanalytic terms, he would go on to cause a breakdown of integral mental processes. His depiction as a “man of the wild animals, a beast” (225) further underscores how he stands for a primitive, unfettered urge. Initially, this urge is dealt with through repression. Early on in Act I, Clotaldo tells Segismund, of the reason for his imprisonment: “these walls and binding chains Are but brakes and curbs to your proudest frenzies” (227).

This passage perfectly captures the repressive role of Segismund’s imprisonment. The Kingdom could not bear to confront his “proud frenzies,” (227) and as a means of keeping them out, it exiled him away from everyone’s perception, denying his very existence. Thus seen, Segismund’s initial imprisonment in Act I represents the mind’s repression of the unbearable. However, the story gets much more complicated when the unbearable once again emerges at the surface of consciousness.

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The events following Seigismund’s release from prison represent dissociation, as a more complex mechanism for keeping his unbearable urges at bay. Especially in Act II, the line between reality and dreams gets blurred for Segismund, as he is brought into the palace and told that he is a prince, and then once again made to believe he was dreaming and taken back to jail. On a surface level, the enmeshment of reality and dreams that is described by Segismund resembles the phenomenology of derealization. In many passages, for example at the end of Act II, he proclaims life as illusory: “What is this life? A frenzy, an illusion, A shadow, a delirium, a fiction.

The greatest good’s but little, and this life Is but a dream, and dreams are only dreams” (268).

This passage and others like it exemplify a clear detachment from reality. However, the psychoanalytic significance lies not in the mere presence of such a detachment, but in the role and purpose that it plays. The “unreality” with which Segismund is confronted is much more than passive philosophical speculation about the possibility of life being a dream. Rather, it is a defense mechanism that is actively invoked by the King in order to keep out the unbearable tendencies of Segismund’s personality by denying his subjective experience despite his objective knowledge that he is a prince. Basilio describes his strategy thus: “[I]f he proves a tyrant and is cruel Back to his chains he’ll go… … So I Contrive to leave an exit for such grief, By making him believe it was a dream” (244).

This shows that Siegesmund does not merely think that life is a dream, but is made by the deliberate actions of his father to experience it “as if ” it were a dream, in order to keep his beastly tendencies from infecting the Kingdom. In this sense, his experience fits in perfectly with the concepts of derealization and depersonalization as mechanisms by which one’s subjective sense of reality is denied as a means of defending the mind against unbearable feelings. The connection between Segismundo’s dream-like reality and the subjugation of his “bestial side” is further highlighted in the following quote by himself, indicating some level of awareness on his part: “That’s true, and therefore let us subjugate The bestial side, this fury and ambition, Against the time when we dream once more, As certainly we shall, for this strange world Is such that but to live here is to dream” (267).

Thus, with repression exhausted as a process of dealing with Segismund as an unbearable urge, the story turns to dissociation—sustaining the unbearable in a state of ambiguity between reality and dream. On another level, Segismund explicitly drawing this conclusion shows him becoming aware of the dissociative mechanisms at play. This awareness of unconscious conflicts marks the beginning of the psychoanalytic treatment of his dissociation, which is achieved as he integrates his ego and takes control of his own fate in Act III. Some of the categories and concepts that are devised by traditional psychoanalysts to describe internal

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mental processes were appropriated by later thinkers (i.e. Frantz Fanon) and applied in societal contexts, specifically to explain the psychological impacts of colonization on post-colonial peoples. In Black Skin, White Masks, which is essentially a psychoanalysis of the colonial condition, Fanon writes of Algerian Arabs under French colonial rule: “the Arab, permanently an alien in his own country, lives in a state of absolute depersonalization” (Fanon 10). He refers to the alienation and estrangement of colonized peoples from their own selves and environments as a result of the denial and erasure of their culture and identity by colonizers, which has forced them to exist only in relation to others and to seek to identify with Whiteness. He goes so far as to claim that “a Black is not a man” and lives in a “zone of non-being” (13). Recognizing the dissociative nature of this colonial relation, Fanon suggests using psychoanalytic concepts like depersonalization and derealization to understand it: “both the Black man, slave to his inferiority, and the White man, slave to his superiority, behave along neurotic lines.

As a consequence, we have been led to consider their alienation with reference to psychoanalytic descriptions…

There is an attempt by the colored man to escape his individuality” (42).

The same psychological patterns which, in Life is a Dream, play out as internal processes of repression and dissociation, can also be identified in Midnight’s Children, and can be understood as collective experiences of dissociation induced by the presence and subsequent departure of British colonialism in India. Just as King Basilio, who ended his direct physical repression of Segismund, turns to deny his subjective experience and forces him to become estranged from his own reality, British colonizers who had outwardly repressed Indian cultures, sustain their destructive impact. They do so by creating a sense of historical ambiguity which compels Saleem to create a narrative that is lost between reality and fiction in an attempt to find himself.

To begin with, the story of the Sinais, which coincides with the process of India’s Independence, shows the British losing their ability to repress and erase Indian culture and identity completely, ultimately forcing them to transition to other means of control. As one of the first free citizens of India, Saleem was born after two hundred years of British presence, including a century of direct colonial control. The outwardly violent repression that characterizes this period culminates in his description of the Amritsar massacre, where his grandfather was present (Rushdie 34). In the years leading up to Saleem’s birth, the British lost the ability to exercise such direct control which left behind a lasting residue. The perfect example of this transition is Methwold’s conditional sale of his estate to Ahmed and other Indian tenants. The departing colonist agrees to sell his property for very little, but only under the condition that they buy the house along with all of Methwold’s belongings (which represent European culture) and that they observe European cultural practices, such as “cocktail hour at six,” even in his absence. When Ahmed and Amina complain about the irrational terms of purchase, Methwold responds: “[those] are my terms. A whim, Mr. Sinai… you’ll permit a departing colonial his little game? We don’t have much left to do, we British, except to play our games” (105). The obsessive involvement with the private lives of the Sinais reflects a new form of cultural control—a “game”, that is, the imposition of a fictional cultural reality onto Indians. With physical repression having been exhausted as a means of keeping India under control, the colonizers desperately try to maintain their perceived power by alienating the Indians from their own cultural reality.

In addition to this, Midnight’s Children is filled with references to fragmentation and disintegration, both of India as a national community and of Saleem’s own individual identity. The story reflects the partition of India after Independence. Saleem, whose life mirrors that of his nation, is also in a rush to tell his story because he believes his body is literally cracking and disintegrating (35). Aadam Aziz falls in love with fragments of Naseem’s body, only to find his love also broken into pieces after years of marriage. Thus, the novel as the whole is haunted by a fear of disintegration which, on a psychoanalytic reading, characterizes the process of dissociation by which integral mental activities break up and separate. There are also clear connections to be found between

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such symbolic fragmentation and the disruption of reality. For instance, speaking about how partition would result in different time zones for India and Pakistan, Ahmed says: “S. P. Butt said, ‘If they can change the time just like that, what’s real any more?’ I ask you? What’s true?” (87). This demonstrates how, for Rushdie’s Indian characters, the partitioning of their homeland directly results in a disintegration of their very sense of reality: a derealization.

Finally, Saleem’s task in writing the story of his life can be read as a dissociative response. With magical elements and chronological inconsistencies sprinkled throughout the novel, it is difficult to trust his narrative as “real.” In multiple instances, Saleem emerges as an unreliable storyteller. He recalls first discovering his magical powers around the time of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and goes into great detail about this story, only to realize later that his recollection placed Gandhi’s assassination on the wrong date (162-163). On another occasion, he realizes that, despite his memory, his tenth birthday did not coincide with the 1957 election (241).

These inconsistencies mean much more than mere faults of memory: they reveal a message in Rushdie’s work that reality and truth are subject-dependent. The subjective experience of Saleem, a post-colonial Indian who desperately seeks to “[mean] something” (4) through his narration, is thus detached from the objective facts of history. It is real only insofar as it serves a defensive purpose against the degradation of identity caused by colonization.

As this essay has shown, both of these works, when read through a psychoanalytic lens, reveal a process of dissociation playing out as an alternative to outright repression, which is no longer viable. Both stories begin with representations of repression (Segismund’s imprisonment and India’s colonial occupation) and follow the trajectory of this repression as it slowly breaks down and transforms into dissociation. Through this new form of psychological defense, the characters become estranged from their own reality as a way to keep unbearable feelings and experiences at bay. While Life is a Dream reveals a purely psychological process and lacks a societal dimension, Midnight’s Children has an even more complex task: it narrates the depersonalization of a whole nation. Rushdie achieves this by drawing an explicit parallel between the life of an individual character, Saleem Sinai, and that of India, which allows him to explore the psychology of post-colonial societies in simple, ostensibly individual terms.

Works Cited Bezzubova, Elena. “Depersonalization and Psychoanalysis.” Psychology Today, 29 Nov. 2020, psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-search-self/202011/depersonalization-and-psychoanalysis.

Accessed 16 Dec. 2021.

De la Barca, Calderon. “Life is a Dream.” Life is a Dream and Other Spanish Classics, edited by Eric Bentley, Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 1985, pp. 219-292.

“Depersonalization.” A Dictionary of Psychology. 3rd ed. 2015.

“Derealization.” A Dictionary of Psychology. 3rd ed. 2015.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox, New York, Grove Press, 2008.

Freud, Sigmund. “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Translated by J. Strachey, Vol. 2, Hogarth, London, pp. 239-248.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. Vintage Canada, 2006.

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Galaxy Girl

By Gray Brogden

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Empiricism, Social Darwinism, and the Death of Tonga

By Liam McGarry Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sign of the Four is the only story in which Sherlock Holmes kills someone: Tonga, the Andamanese islander. This act of violence is also complimented by Holmes’ acts of racism, and how they link with his empiricist philosophy, leading his opposition with Tonga to become entrenched with imperialism and Holmes’ empiricism. In The Sign of Four, empiricist1 thinking directly facilitates the imperialist project. This essay demonstrates through highlighting Holmes’ dual nature as an empiricist and racist, how empiricism was used to justify racism in the Victorian age, and how Darwinism itself rose out of that context to support racist ideology. The essay then points to how racial subalterns in the text are silenced through how they are framed to render them mute, how that silencing fits into imperial justification, and the likening of this framing to death through Holmes’ murder of Tonga.

In Sign of the Four, Social Darwinism is shown to be a natural product of empiricist ideology through the similarity between Sherlock Holmes’ empirical detection and racial classification. Both activities are heavily reliant on drawing meaning from observable physical details. In detection, this focus on detail is demonstrated with his look at the stopwatch; he refers to the visible marks on the watch as “data”, and uses these physical details to pull the meaning of the watch’s owner from the artifact (Doyle 54). This implies an empirical outlook of detection: Holmes’ modus operandi is to understand the knowledge hidden in what can be physically observed and sensed, rather than through theory. This empirical breakdown of objects, however, also extends to Holmes’ racial classification of other peoples, as seen when Holmes’ is trying to discover Tonga’s race by his footprint: “Some of the inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such marks as that. The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The sandal-wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the others because the thong is commonly passed between” (108).

Holmes’ use of objective voice here recalls his look at the watch: he speaks about the Indians, not only as if they are defined by their physical details, but also as if he has the ability to see them objectively. His “empirical gaze” focused on the Indians solely based on appearance, which objectifies them. Their potential status as people is removed through Holmes’ focus on their appearance at the expense of their personhood. They are not described as people, but as objects like the watch, where Holmes dispassionately breaks down their empirical data. There is no ‘subject’ inside the person.

This objectification is combined, however, with a simultaneous subjectification of Holmes through that same objective narration. Holmes’ utilization of the empirical gaze implies that he has the subjectivity to see these people as they are and describe them, whereas the Indians are reduced to things that are seen and talked about. The dichotomous objectification and subjectification of the empirical gaze are reinforced with the description Holmes reads about the aborigines of the Andaman Islands: “naturally hideous, having large misshapen heads, small fierce eyes, and distorted features”, as well as being cannibals (109). The “objective” description of the Andamanese, said by Holmes to have been documented and classified by White anthropologists, implies that these anthropologists are able to see the Andamanese as they are, and importantly, are better judges of the Andamanese than they themselves are, and so the anthropologists can speak for them, as subjects. The presumption that the Andamanese can be spoken for allows for an objectification that silences the Andamanese and dehumanizes them. To Sherlock Holmes and the anthropologists, empiricism provides the philosophy and means to classify objects and people through its focus on observable details. Without this justification, it is harder to reduce someone to their physical qualities if you believe that there is meaning within them you cannot solely gain from your senses.

The use of the empirical gaze by Europeans to objectify racial subalterns is very common historically. In “Essence, Accident and Race”, H. M Bracken argues that empiricism as a philosophy has always been thoroughly interwoven with racist ideology. In fact, it was very common in the Victorian era to empirically classify different types of people through physical traits. Bracken describes that “…empiricism has provided the methodology within which theories of political control were successfully advanced, and by the means of which colour/brain-weight, IQ, etc., correlation studies 1. The doctrine that all knowledge is derived from sense experience

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have been pursued…” (89). As Bracken later cites from a scholar arguing that the Irish shouldn’t have a say in what happens to them, “‘How can the tricks of reading and writing alter the features of the N****’s face with the character that belongs to the features?’” (90). This linking between the physical details of the subaltern and their inferiority is very comparable with Holmes’ description of the Andamanese mentioned above in Sign of Four; the hideous physical characteristics of the Andamanese correspond with their opposition to the British, their evil disposition, and their cannibalism (Doyle 109). Both narrators solely define the racial subaltern by their physical details, removing any possibility of their objects having something inside them beyond their physicality.

The racial subalterns become sculptures with no souls. Empiricism’s need for physical, external evidence to draw meaning essentially leads to the attribution of meaning to inherently neutral signifiers, and the attachment of false signifiers to that piece of evidence to create essential meaning from physical details. This means to Victorian racial scientists, the essence of Black skin is not only stupidity but is coupled with facial features that create the ‘Black person’ as its own unique collection of features that prescribe some inner meaning of inferiority. Here, empiricism is shown to facilitate racism through its way of looking at and objectifying the world. The idea that everything can be judged through sensory experience allows for the objectification of people into solely what others can sense.

The inherent focus on observable data within empiricism, and this application to people with racial science is ultimately what births the idea of Social Darwinism.2 This link between Social Darwinism, empiricism, and racism is actively highlighted by the text through Holmes’ recommendation of the book Martyrdom of Man, which Towheed’s notes explain was “…a secular history of western civilisation utilising the theory of evolution” (61). With Holmes himself embodying the relationship between empirical philosophy and the objectification of other races, this book serves to highlight how Social Darwinism uses the empirical framework of Darwinism to facilitate and justify racial science and imperial ideology. This implies that the colonized peoples serve as natural inferiors to the British—not only would they not have been dominated by them if they were naturally superior, it also means that the British’s superiority makes them more human and ‘subject’ than these people. This justification is highlighted by The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century Thought, clarifying this through looking at how historically, Darwinism was birthed in support of ideas that justified and supported the status quo of the British. This is seen in Darwin’s own inspiration by the writings of Thomas Malthus, someone who fit a justworld theory on population growth, describing a ‘struggle for existence’ where only the strongest in society (or those who could create a lot of wealth) could survive (165). Considering how evolutionary theory relies heavily on empirical data, deriving meaning from the differences between animals’ physical traits, we can see how empiricism, through Darwinism, has essentially risen to provide a justification for racism. Evolutionary theory functions by looking at an animal’s physical traits and deriving meaning from it, both in terms of their relation to other animals and also through the principles defining life itself. Through this application of empirical science to racial hierarchy, racism is turned from mere prejudice to empirically verifiable truth. While Malthus himself did not apply his ideology to different races, its justification of the status quo economically meant that it only needed to look through the status quo of imperialism to come to Social Darwinism. This can be seen through Darwin himself connecting his theory to the struggle for survival between ‘races,’ describing how “‘civilised races’ ‘encroach on and replace’ the savage, with the ‘lower races’ being displaced through the accumulation of capital and growth of the arts” (171). Evolutionary theory and empiricism themselves rose out of beliefs that defended the status quo, before being used to strengthen the very ideas that birthed it. When Holmes highlights his belief in 2. The ideas that “(1) biological laws govern all organic nature, including humans; (2) the pressure of population growth on resources generates a struggle for existence among organisms; (3) physical and mental traits confer an advantage on their possessors in this struggle, or in sexual competition, which advantages can, through inheritance, spread through the population; (4) the cumulative effects of selection and inheritance over time account for the emergence of new species and the elimination of others” (Claeys 164). The idea of species has tended to be coupled with races as well (164).

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Social Darwinism, it refers to how his empirical philosophy is essentially facilitating his racist beliefs: it provides the tools for Holmes to justify racism. It also supports Britain’s imperial conquest as when facilitated by Social Darwinism, the racial subalterns now become inferior to the British, and so deserve to die out through their “natural” loss. It takes the subject out of the racial subalterns who are murdered and oppressed through fitting it within the narrative of nature; the British aren’t oppressing and murdering people, they are obeying the principles of evolution and getting rid of the “weaker races.” The murdered people become defined simply as a race rather than people, allowing for imperial justification.

Within The Sign of Four, Social Darwinism is used by the British to silence the racial subalterns in the text. This is seen through the prevalence of Small’s framing of the subaltern Indian rebels as inhuman. While the Indian servant who shows Sherlock into Thaddeus Sholto’s house is portrayed as innocuous, Small’s account of the mutiny paints the rebelling Indians while they sack Abel White’s house as “Black fiends… dancing and howling around the burning house” (66, 136). Small speaks for the Indians here and reduces their speech himself to dancing and howling. The objectification in classification is present here not only through the support of racial science but through the destruction of their speech as subjects. Because they cannot speak, the reader cannot be told why the Indians rebelled; they cannot highlight the British’s rule over them without their consent, nor can they expose Small as a slave-driver. But when Small leans into racial framing, these people become devils—their speech justifying their position is rent mute. The racial subalterns who submit to the English are benign and good, whereas the racial subalterns who stand up to the English are framed as fiends. Social Darwinism provides the means by which Small is able to do this by means of framing who is worth listening to. It is not only Small who reduces the speech of the Indians to gibberish, it is the culture that frames his speech as stronger than theirs and ultimately frames Small as a subject and the Indians as objects. What Small does is essentially what Social Darwinism does; it reduces the speech of the racial subalterns to gibberish, literally objectifying them into animals (non-subjects) so their viewpoint does not matter. If the Indians are ‘Black fiends’, their revolt automatically becomes unjustifiable because it goes against the British subjects, who are smarter and know better. It does not matter that they are slave drivers, their mere privilege at the top of the hierarchy means they have the capacity to judge what is ‘good’. As mentioned above, Bracken cites a particular passage about the Irish: “‘The cause of Western Irish turbulence and lawlessness is lowness of racial character. All the government reconciliation in the world will not alter the moral character of a race of men. It is folly to talk of a governing race conciliating a lower one’” (90). The superiority of the British ‘race’ in the Social Darwinist hierarchy is taken for granted. If the Indian speech mattered then Small and the Empire could not frame them as wrong for their mutiny, because the Indians could point out the injustice of the Empire.

The silencing of the Indian rebels by Small and Britain is reflected in Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Spivak. Spivak points out how subalterns are ultimately denied speech by their governments. This is seen in her example of how the British justified their abolition of widow sacrifice in 1829 in Hindu India: “Imperialism’s image as the establisher of the good society is marked by the espousal of the woman as object of protection from her own kind” (Spivak 94). Note the use of ‘object’ here instead of ‘subject’: the women of this society are not allowed to speak up for themselves as to their thoughts on this patriarchal practice but are being spoken for by the British. The British ultimately used this abolition as a means of framing their rule as moral to justify their imperialism. Spivak again points out the dynamic with this sentence: “‘White men are saving Brown women from Brown men’” (92). Here, the Brown women become the justification for British imperial rule, seemingly out of good morals, but only because they truly cannot speak for themselves within this framework. They become an object for the White men to save from their own people, rather than subjects who can speak back against patriarchal culture themselves. This expresses why the subaltern cannot speak, as their speech would deny society their justification for oppressing the subaltern. If Hindu women could speak, their speech would likely not praise the

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British for invading and imposing their government onto them; the British could no longer frame “the protection of woman (today the ‘third-world woman’) [as] a signifier for the establishment of a good society which must, at such inaugurative moments, transgress mere legality, or equity of legal policy” (94). They lose the idea that their rule is justified, that they have created a better society and educated ‘the savages’ if the Hindu women can speak. This is why Spivak implies, the subaltern cannot speak—their speech actively disrupts imperial justification and ruling ideology, as with Small’s framing of the rebelling Indians. In either case, the subaltern’s speech threatens the legitimacy of the British, so they are forced to frame the speech so that it is not heard as such.

This framing is demonstrated by the text through the scene of Tonga’s death at the end of the novel, an event metonymic for the way empiricist thought powers the imperialism of the British. Like the Indian rebels, Tonga is racially framed by Watson in his description of Tonga: “[The little black bundle] straightened itself into a little black man – the smallest I have ever seen – with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I had whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature” (125). Here, Tonga is framed in a similar way to earlier in the novel, as inhuman by means of his appearance, and this framing is enough to make Watson draw his pistol. Not only does Watson objectify him here, as he first sees Tonga as a literal object through the ‘Black bundle’, he justifies his readiness of force through Tonga’s “features… marked with all bestiality and cruelty… and his thick lips… grinned and chattered at us with animal fury” (125). Tonga’s framing by Watson importantly extends to the “chatter[ing]” sound he makes (125). The empiricist framing of the racial subalterns as inferior objectifies him, and reduces his speech to mere noise, devoid of content. When Holmes, the figure of empiricism and Social Darwinism, finally does shoot Tonga, the last noise Tonga makes is a “choking cough”: a final blocking of speech (125). Tonga’s death here is heavily associated with his framing, speech, and empiricism. Holmes and Watson, as British empiricists, see Tonga’s Blackness as an objectifying marker and frame him as a savage before stopping his speech permanently. Tonga’s death is essentially both the death of the racial subalterns through their objectification and the literal death through this objectification’s consequences.

Throughout the text when the racial subalterns are spoken for and framed as inferior by the British, their speech becomes animalistic and devoid of content. When Holmes reads the description of the Andamanese as a savage and agrees, his perception of Tonga as ‘object’ rather than ‘subject’ is solidified. Tonga’s subjectivity is destroyed, and his speech with it. This scene likens that objectification with death; by the time Watson sees Tonga, what he describes is not a person, but a caricature of one, passed through his empirical ideology. Tonga as a person does not make it into the text, only Tonga as ‘object’; as “Black cannibal” (111).

When Holmes, Watson, and England believe that Tonga’s blackness and his physical appearance mark them as inferior through the context of Social Darwinism, they do not see Tonga as a person, they see him as an object, and hear his speech accordingly. Social Darwinism as a framework and the empirical thinking that allows for it, does not create Tonga the person, but Tonga the savage, the silent subaltern, that cannot speak against British imperialism. As well, this objectification ultimately provides Britain and Holmes with the literal means of force, as seen when Tonga’s appearance is enough to make Holmes and Watson draw his pistol. When Tonga and all racial subalterns are seen as objects, imperialism becomes acceptable because of the removal of humanity. Like with India, when England invades and forces people into slavery, it becomes justified because of England’s comparative subject nature and the objectivity of the Indians. It becomes a mere law of nature rather than genocide. When Tonga is denied speech, as the Introduction by Towheed mentions, he is denied the speech to point out how the Andamanese were basically victims of the British coming to their island, setting up a penal colony without consent, and spreading diseases that wiped out his people (37). Like with the slaves at Small’s hands, Tonga is denied the right to point out how the British have been unjust, how they are not bringers of

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civilization, but destroyers of them. The death of Tonga, therefore, becomes both his framing as ‘object’, and the removal of the real Tonga from how he is perceived, and the literal death allowed because of this objectification.

In conclusion, The Sign of Four demonstrates how empiricism directly facilitates England’s imperialism as demonstrated through its associations with racism, its facilitation of Social Darwinism, and how Social Darwinism ultimately leads to the silencing of racial subalterns. While this text’s portrayal of racism and how it is justified is very dated, there is no question that the idea of silencing remains prevalent today. The idea that the people in foreign countries need saving by Empires is very popular, but it is worth remembering who is saying who needs help, and who’s opinion is allowed to be heard. Imperialism’s justification comes from the idea that it is “the establisher of the good society,” to quote Spivak, but this idea that oppression and force can create a just society only holds when those oppressed by that society are spoken for by the Empire itself.

Works Cited Doyle, A. C. The Sign of Four, edited by Shafquat Towheed, Broadview Press, 2010.

Claeys, Gregory, “Social Darwinism”. The Cambridge Guide to Nineteenth Century Thought, edited by Gregory Claeys, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 163-183.

Spivak, Gayatri, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, Colombia University Press, 1994, pp. 66 – 111.

“Empiricism”, Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/empiricism

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In Your Silence, Every Tone I Seek, is Heard: Silent Acquiescenes in Indigenous History

By Margaret Gleed In this essay, I argue that in Sufferance, by Thomas King, the protagonist’s silence reflects the silent acquiescence of Indigenous communities through the translation of Indigenous languages by European colonists. First, I will explain the concept of consent as connected with the colonization of Indigenous people. Next, I will outline evidence of Indigenous silent acquiescence and sufferance as a response to European colonization. For this section of the paper, I will rely on sources specific to Indigenous history as well as sources from Black literature that reflect the treatment of Indigenous people as recorded in Black history. Then, I will demonstrate how the assimilation and translation of Indigenous languages, in an attempt to conform to European standards and reduce the need for silent acquiescence, dramatically changes the meaning behind the Indigenous language. Finally, I will compare the treatment of Jeremiah in Sufferance, specific to his silent acquiescence and sufferance, to decisions made on his behalf and the historical treatment of Indigenous people.

Consent, as taught in the 2020s, is explicit. There must be verbal confirmation before action can be taken. Consent can be revoked at any time, and it does not carry over from one instance to another. Historically, consent has been an honorary concept. Some community members deserved to be asked for their consent. Others, such as women or ethnic minorities, had actions forced upon them. Indigenous communities are notoriously subjected to European colonization. Originally, the barrier to consent was language, as European settlers did not understand non-European dialects.

However, Europeans learned to leverage the language barrier between the Indigenous and the Europeans to control Indigenous consent. For example, Europeans had Indigenous leaders sign land treaties on behalf of their communities.

Since the Indigenous leaders did not have a formal knowledge of English, European representatives used the disconnect to their advantage, making the Indigenous sign treaties that favoured Europeans. The Indigenous people were deprived of their voice in land dispute matters. Their lack of objection was taken as approval for the treaties to be signed.

Roger Williams, an early 1600s political and religious leader (Timmons), recorded his observations of European treatment of Indigenous people during his time in the colonies. Williams was an Indigenous sympathizer who attempted to create a “key into the language of America” (Williams), an English to Indigenous language dictionary, to help Europeans communicate with Indigenous communities during trading. While writing, Williams realized that European officials were selling portions of Indigenous land without the Indigenous’ consent. He described the practice as “a sinfull opinion amongst many that Christians [had] the right to Heathens Land” (Williams). Since the Indigenous could not convey their practices and rules to the European settlers through oral communication, they were the antagonists of the civilized Europeans. They were treated as lesser beings the Europeans could use like any other natural resource. The Indigenous voice became weaker the more the Europeans spoke for them, making assumptions about Indigenous wants based on European views. The Indigenous communities acquiesced to the Europeans’ will until their silence turned into sufferance. Rather than reverse the cultural damage done by the Europeans, the Indigenous communities continued to live in a diminished capacity. Their silent approval of European decisions transformed into the absence of objection entirely, assuming that Indigenous objection would not change the outcome of events.

Indigenous communities and Black communities faced similar treatment from European colonizers. Since neither community resembled or followed European society, they were deemed inferior, uncivilized, and unfit to make individual decisions. As such, their difference from European culture silenced them until they could communicate according to Western culture’s written word. Henry Louis Gates Jr. used his “trope of the talking book” to describe Black slaves’ disconnection from Western writing. His trope dictates that the written text “speaks” to the White men but remains silent for the Black slaves (Gleed 1). To hear the English word, Black slaves needed to learn the English language since without it, they had no words to use in their defence. Like the Indigenous communities, Black slaves were forced to agree with Europeans and acquiesce to their will. Eventually, their acquiescence became sufferance as their prolonged silence diminished the value of their voices. Langston Hughes was a Black poet who attempted to “capture the dominant

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oral and improvisatory traditions of Black culture in written form” (Baym 1715). However, Hughes struggled to capture the nuances of Black culture in his written work since the written word fails to capture the cultural narrative within the simplicity of the English language (Baym 1716). Specifically, his poem “Silence” has multiple interpretations, leading the reader to different conclusions. The poem reads, I catch the pattern Of your silence Before you speak I do not need To hear a word.

In your silence Every tone I seek Is heard (Hughes) The first interpretation understands that the speaker is taking another person’s silence to confirm what they want to hear. Another interpretation understands the poem’s subject to be deprived of their voice, so an interpreter communicates for them. The difference between reading as the speaker versus the subject appears in the first and last stanza. The first stanza can indicate either (1) an interpreter who understands the intricacies of the subject’s being and can predict what they wish to say, or (2) the first stanza indicates a speaker who assumes what the subject should say based on the speaker’s predispositions. The last stanza lends itself to the second indication that the speaker uses the subject’s silence to confirm their ideas. In phrasing the line as “every tone I SEEK/ Is heard,” (Hughes) the writer is indicating that the speaker is looking for a specific answer. The subject gives them what they seek through their silent acquiesce to the conversation. The subject, then, has not given their consent to be interpreted in such a way that is not true to their being. Therefore, the subject’s silence dissolves their individuality and future autonomy since they rely on the speaker to respond on their behalf.

Due to their silence or lack of response because of the language barrier between Indigenous and European people, the Indigenous were forced to assimilate and adapt to European culture and language norms.

Even though the Indigenous did regain some ability to express their individuality, it was on European terms. As Hughes’ poem “Silence” projects, by using the English written language to communicate, the Indigenous people lost nuances to their language and culture. The English language is non-narrative and blunt compared to Indigenous dialects like Mohawk. For example, in As Grandma Said, Mildred Honess outlines the difference between the English and Mohawk interpretations of a set phrase: For instance, I will say, Onekénhtara niwahsohkò:ten ki:ken akwakià:tawi. In English that is generally translated, That shirt I am wearing is coloured red. Okay? But what I really said was, The shirt I am wearing is the colour of the blood that flows in my body. That is what I am wearing. Not just ‘red.’ (Honess 92) Translating Indigenous texts to English strips away the intricacies of meaning behind certain words. Like the example above, a beautiful description of a relative concept becomes categorized within a single word or phrase, prioritizing efficiency over beauty. By muting the meaning and intricacies of the language, which make it unique, the translation effectively silences the Indigenous communication traditions. Over generations, this forced a separation between those who spoke Indigenous languages and English, which also created a divide between community members with different levels of fluency in their native language.

Jeremiah Camp, Thomas King’s protagonist in Sufferance, experiences a similar hardship caused by his acquiescence to the whims of his community. In his silence, those around him speak to him and for him, com-

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pleting both sides of the conversation. They assume Jeremiah’s response to their comments and questions and act according to their inferences. Knowing he does not speak or physically react to any wrong assumptions, his silence leads to his sufferance through decisions made for him rather than by him. This pattern surfaces three separate times throughout the novel. The first occurrence relates to Mayor Bob’s redevelopment of the reserve.

The second relates to Ash Locken’s re-employment of Jeremiah to continue her father’s work before abandoning the project. The third occurrence relates to how Jeremiah’s community fills in his silence with their agendas, occasionally at the expense of Jeremiah.

Mayor Bob uses Jeremiah’s silence as acquiescence to redevelop the reserve into an extension of the city.

He strategically relies on Jeremiah to act as the spokesperson for the Cradle River First Nations land under treaty. Since Jeremiah does not speak, Mayor Bob assumes consent in his silence to continue with the redevelopment project. The process involves pushing out the Indigenous community to create a more desirable area. The relationship between the Mayor and Jeremiah relies on Jeremiah’s silence and Mayor Bob’s ability to assume consent and approval from Jeremiah’s silence. Much like the historic Indigenous communities and European colonizers, once the relationship establishes a user and the used, those categorizations are difficult to break.

Groups are especially vulnerable when the group or person cannot advocate on their behalf.

The second occurrence models a similar relation to Mayor Bob and Jeremiah between Ash Locken and Jeremiah. Where Mayor Bob does not attempt to understand Jeremiah before making assumptions based on his silence, Ash attempts to have conversations with Jeremiah before using his silent acquiescence to put him to work. Their relationship builds on the purpose behind their connection. Ash needs to use Jeremiah to finish her father’s work, which she cannot do without Jeremiah. Ash uses Jeremiah’s silence to push him into the position she needs. It begins with Ash summoning Jeremiah to her offices to ask him for help. Then, she gathers him and ushers him to secluded locations where he can do nothing but the jobs she needs. Once the work is completed, she manipulates Jeremiah’s silent relationship with Mayor Bob to bribe Jeremiah into staying silent.

Her behaviour perpetuates the behaviour of colonial Europeans who develop relationships with Indigenous communities to use them like any other resource. Jeremiah’s silence allowed Ash to disassociate him with other’s, who may have objected to such forceful treatment rather than silently allow it to happen. It becomes easy for Ash to assume Jeremiah’s consent from his silence with this relationship element. He suffers through the events he is subjected to, silently waiting for it to be over.

The third occurrence draws on Jeremiah’s relationship with his community. The community has the closest understanding of his silence and the allowance he gives them in interpreting his response from his silence. This intimate understanding allots them the greatest capacity to take advantage of Jeremiah’s silent acquiescence. His patterns and idiosyncrasies give the community context to his priorities and preference for being alone. However, their knowledge of his patterns allows them to take advantage of his silence, knowing he will not object to intrusions or inconveniences. For example, Jeremiah spends the beginning of the novel as an idle, quiet community member. He listens to other people’s problems and acts as a sounding board for the community’s ideas. In his plot with Ash, Jeremiah leaves Cradle River for four days. When he returns, Emma and Lala, Roman’s ex-partner and daughter, live in his house. Rather than being upset or asking questions, he does not react to the new living development. Jeremiah receives a justification from Florence. She states that a “mouldy single-wide’s no place for a child” (King 125). The community’s decision to move Emma and Lala into Jeremiah’s home forgoes the element of consent from Jeremiah to approve the decision. However, after his first non-reaction, the community learns that Jeremiah will silently acquiesce to others offering “[his] home. [His] quiet place. [His] refuge” (King 226) for multi-purpose public use. After the initial acquiescence, the same process occurs again with the Neighbors, who need a permanent address and with Ada and Nutty after Nutty’s release from the hospital. In each additional scenario, Jeremiah receives a notice after the new housemates are moved in. Gradually, Jeremiah loses possession of his house. It continuously evolves to become a melting

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pot for the community. After his initial silent acquiescence, the community assumes his consent to move more people into his home. They forgo the formal asking of permission since they know Jeremiah will not react to the change. However, Jeremiah’s narration informs the reader of his discomfort and feeling of otherness in his own home. His silence gradually edged him out of his own space, simply by not reacting or allowing others to infer his action based on his patterns. His silent acquiescence develops into sufferance as he realizes that he does not want these changes but must silently live with them.

In contrast, Emma Stillday uses language to stop silent acquiescence. Jeremiah faces a confrontation about the graveyard located on his property. When questioned about his actions, Emma steps in and uses formal legal language to diffuse the situation. As a result, rather than the interaction carrying on one-sided, since Jeremiah does not speak, the confrontation lasts ten minutes before it concludes, and the interlopers leave. In this scene, the reader sees the potential for silent acquiescence. Jeremiah’s silence would be an omission of guilt for defacing the graveyard. However, when Emma interjects, she prevents the interlopers from assuming anything from Jeremiah and uses explicit language to defend him. This act resembles current Indigenous issues. Individuals and small groups try to defend their culture and history while being overlooked and ignored by government officials and non-Indigenous community members.

Silence speaks volumes. From silence, people can perpetuate their agendas and leverage the silence as consent or agreement for something they would otherwise object. However, silent acquiescence is not consent. Acquiescence gradually transitions into sufferance as the victim or subject of sufferance no longer has control over their consent. The impact of suffering through the decisions made by others on a person’s behalf disconnects the individual. It separates them from their life, making them a side character in their own story.

Works Cited “Acquiescence Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster. com/dictionary/acquiescence.

Baym, Nina, and Laurence B Holland, editors. “Langston Hughes.” The Norton Anthology, 4th ed., vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company , Inc, New York, New York, 1994, pp. 1715–1725. American Literature.

Gleed, Margaret. “Adichie and Walker: Alienation Through Education and its Weaponizing Effect”, Spotlight: Semicolon, vol 8, issue 2, 2021, pp 4-7 Honess, Mildred. “Language in 3-D.” As Grandma Said ... Iroquois Teachings , pp. 91–96.

King, Thomas. Sufferance. HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Louis, Gates Jr. Henry. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Murphy, Fransis, editor. “Roger Williams.” The Norton Anthology, 4th ed., vol. 1, W. W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, New York, pp. 188–199. American Literature.

“Silence by Langston Hughes - Silence Poem.” PoemHunter.com, 27 Mar. 2010, https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silence-348/.

“Sufferance Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sufferance.

Timmons, Greg. “Roger Williams.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 6 Apr. 2021, https://www.biography.com/scholar/roger-williams.

Williams, Roger. “Project Gutenberg.” A Key into the Language of America, or an Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New-England, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/63701/63701-h/63701-h.htm.

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Watching Over

By Eryn Lonnee

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Isolation and Surveillance: Examining the Confinement of Queer Identity in Carol

By Mahnoor Mir Post-war America in the 1950s is characterized by social exclusion, surveillance, and a heightened notion of heteronormativity that was largely brought about by McCarthyism. If the personal is political, a queer analysis of Todd Haynes’ 2015 film Carol is incomplete without consideration of the political climate and its effects on the formation, expression of identity, and love for queer individuals. The relationship between the queer past and present is thus addressed through the revisions constructed by Haynes in his film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s original novel The Price of Salt, initially published and set in 1952. As Heather Love notes in her book Feeling Backwards, feelings of “backwardness” such as shame, regret, and confusion, are present in even the most seemingly modernist queer literature (6).

Through the examination of the intertwinement of the public and the private, Carol pays homage to queer nostalgia during a time when same-sex desire was an unutterable offense. She does so by utilizing an undertone of backwardness that continues to strike a chord with modern-day queer audiences.

Heather Love notes how queer desire and relationships have often been correlated with melancholy, tragedy, loneliness, doom, and interruption as identifying factors, emotions that Carol was able to exploit as its release came a short six months after the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States (22). This timeline is powerful and unifying because as Love argues, “The experience of queer historical subjects is not at a safe distance from contemporary experience; rather, their social marginality and abjection mirror our own” (32). The legal custody battle scene in the film plays on the loss same-sex marriage sought to redress, as Carol’s loss of queer motherhood is highlighted and used to trigger empathy within viewers. In this scene, dialogue and delivery are important, as Carol says, “There was a time when I would have locked myself away—done most anything just to keep Rindy with me. But what use am I to her. . .to us. . . living against my own grain?” Her declaration of her sexuality and the importance of living her authentic self in front of her lawyers and husband may be read as her formally coming out while shedding light on the political and personal restraints her sexuality places her under. This leads to her ending her romance with Therese in order to maintain visiting rights to Rindy, initiating an obstacle that the narrative attempts to overcome by replacing the plot of motherhood with one of lesbian romance (James 305). The importance of Rindy is underplayed in comparison to Therese because as Jonathon Goldberg notes, the perception of the child in American culture is tied to values of saving and preserving heteronormative culture (90). The heteronormative ideal of children is thus seemingly separated from a queer future.

The dichotomy of motherhood and lesbianism is a central theme in Carol and is representative of the postwar American ideology of queer individuals as unfit parents. Parental loss as a result of queer relations was common in the 1940s and 50s as Daniel Winunwe notes, “denial of parental rights to anyone who openly loved someone of the same sex was part of the legal and social policing of same-sex relationships and the enforcing of heterosexuality, though this danger was often extrajudicial” (James 294). Interestingly, although Haynes chose to include Carol’s pain of maternal loss as a key plot point in the film, the original 1952 published novel eradicated any such feeling, instead of using Therese as a replacement for Rindy (James 308). This revision cleverly made by Haynes signifies a shift in ideology between the queer past and present, allowing for a modern-day audience to empathize more greatly with Carol, while simultaneously mourning for Therese. However, while Carol’s decision to acknowledge the importance of living her true self in the face of a legal battle determined to push a heteronormative, the patriarchal standard of living may be considered progressive– it may also be read as the opposite. James Brunton argues that while Carol attempts to establish herself as an autonomous figure in this scene, her autonomy can paradoxically only be granted by the law that constrains her in the first place (Brunton). By seeking acceptance from the same patriarchal institution that attempts to rid her of her freedom, a backward notion of queer history is laid out: a common feature of contemporary queer subjects that Heather Love sheds light on. She argues that instead of progression, these characters instead choose to turn their backs on the future and choose a life of isolation, “content with living in the present disconnected from any larger historical continuum” (8). Carol and

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Therese are arguably content with living in a disconnected present, where they spend most of their time together in cities away from home in an attempt to escape the social issues that plague them.

Another significant scene in the film that holds powerful political undertones is when a private detective, hired by Carol’s husband, places a sound recording device to gather evidence of Carol’s lesbianism during her night at a motel with Therese. This further introduces notions of the distinction between the private and public, as the two components cross over and become one. Location and temporality are important factors in the analysis of Carol and Therese’s relationship, as they can only ‘openly’ indulge in their relationship behind the closed doors of seedy motels in distant cities, across a holiday period in which time feels elusive. As Eve Sedgewick notes, the homosexual closet is itself an “open secret,” one that encompasses the paradigm of visibility (Gerstner 14). The limited colour palette consisting of red and green in this scene and overall film can be analogized to the limited social choices available for the two women (Smith 46). Surveillance is a key theme in this scene and works to establish the sociocultural climate of the era, as the binding walls and closed doors of the rooms Carol and Therese express their love in are reminiscent of the restrictive, conservative environment that McCarthyism was responsible for. Watchfulness is thus ever-present, as the women are entrapped by their environment no matter how far they try to run (O’Brien 123).

Haynes carefully constructed feelings of confinement, the patriarchal gaze, and surveillance in consideration of the rampant McCarthyism at the time. David K. Johnson writes of the homosexual purges that took place in the 1950s as a moral panic spread concerning queer behaviour, deeming homosexuals to be more dangerous to the state than communists (2). Queer people were often referred to as “moral weaklings,” “moral risks,” or persons with “unusual morals” (7). The association between homosexuality and immorality is accurately mirrored in the film, as Carol’s lawyer informs her of a “morality clause” concerning her “conduct.” This provides the audience with insight regarding the past and arguably present linkage between morality and queer identity in American culture (Brunton). A prior scene in which Therese’s friend Phil makes a joke regarding the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) also sheds light on and foreshadows the private investigation of Carol and Therese’s relationship (Brunton). While notions of heteronormativity clearly affect Carol and Therese’s freedom to express their sexuality, the patriarchy plays a significant role as well. Leisa Meyer suggests that policies regarding lesbians in the 1940s were not always aimed at rooting out homosexuality, but rather were aimed to control and define female sexuality in general (Johnson 13). This adamant, persistent attempt to control women and their sexualities is ever-present today and stands in line with Love’s perception that the past and present are not as separate as we may hope.

Gender is thus significant in the 50s and in the film’s present-day production as well, as backwardness lingers even in a modern-day context. Patricia White notes the risk in releasing a film in which two female actresses headline the show, highlighting the gender inequality and discrimination women continue to face in Hollywood today; both in front of and behind the camera (8). It is the very importance of gender and sexuality that would render a universal analysis of the film backward, as the central love story is markedly female and lesbian–an erasure of this acknowledgment would be an erasure of the uniqueness of queer history and loss. Turning to Love’s conception of the presence of backwardness in even the most contemporary context, it is possible to see certain analyses of Carol as visibly backward but disguised under a blanket of what Love calls a “deep commitment to the notion of progress” (3). For example, actress Cate Blanchett argues that her character of Carol would find labels such as lesbian futile, and hence any such labels applied to the film would be similarly unnecessary (White 11).

This backwards ploy was initially exposed by Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet in reference to comments made by filmmakers regarding the film The Children’s Hour, attempting to shift its narrative from lesbianism to a more universal, socially acceptable one: “The Children’s Hour is not about lesbianism, it’s about the power of lies to destroy people’s lives” (White 11). Clearly, queer desire and relationships, unfortunately, remain largely unutter-

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able; backward feelings of shame, social exclusion, and invisibility persist, continuously needing to be masked by heteronormative narratives for the public to be comfortable.

In compliance with Love’s conception of loneliness as a key backward emotion that plagues queer individuals, Carol exemplifies this heartbreak and isolation by positioning Therese and Carol as lone, alienated figures that are unable to publicly express their romance together. It is not until the very last closing seconds of the film that a potential reunion is implied, and even so, ambiguity is at the core of this resolution. While Carol and Therese are often together, they are still recluses within wider society due to the reality of their personal lives that fails to permit a true integration of their relationship. Wim Staat highlights how the various restaurant scenes throughout the film are glimpses of intimate interactions in spaces with publicly acknowledged consequences (535). These publicly acknowledged consequences take the form of both interruptions and an alternate, socially acceptable form of intimacy the pair must adopt. These interruptions manifest themselves when Therese’s friend breaks into her conversation with Carol just as Carol tells Therese she loves her. Therese’s male friend may be read as a metaphor for a wider patriarchal society adamant on putting an end to their nonnormative lesbian relationship, as he whisks Therese away before she gets a chance to respond. While Carol verbally expresses her love in this scene, the vast majority of her time spent in public with Therese is dependent on their nonverbal, connotative expressions of intimacy. Richard Lawson draws attention to this alternative love language, stating that Carol “speaks in a vernacular that only queer people are fluent in” (Benson 253). This is reminiscent of the Production Code era and what Benshoff and Griffin deem connotative homosexuality, in which queer characters are only able to express themselves through covert measures such as subtle mannerisms (9).

As Carol incorporates aesthetic, narrative, and political elements that are tied to the past and Love’s conception of backwardness, the function of nostalgia may be questioned in accordance with contemporary queer films. Both sides of the spectrum may be argued, as Gilad Padva asserts, that nostalgia cultivates an environment that romanticizes and cherishes past experiences (Daigle). On the other hand, Tamara de Szegheo Lang argues that nostalgic queer films idolize the past as separate from the present, and hence erase current discrimination (Daigle). Framing the past as morbidly dim consequently paints the present as progressive, drawing a stark line between past injustice and a distorted, present eutopia. Carol likely falls somewhere between this spectrum – although it can hardly be classified as a film that carries its own strong political agenda, it does address and incorporates a plethora of issues that were rampant during the 50s. However, it does incite a certain longing for the past through its rosy, romanticized colour palette and largely elitist mise en scene. Considering that Carol and later on, Therese, are socioeconomically privileged white women may overwrite the enormous tragedies and the more dire consequences lower class lesbian women of colour faced. As Patricia White acknowledges, the character of Carol is indeed attractive and provocative, but her life was starkly different from the majority of queer women that lived in working-class and racially diverse communities (294). For example, postwar queer mothers such as Vera Martin faced multiple challenges at once: being African American, working-class, and queer (294). This historical information echoes Heather Love’s concern regarding the interpretation of all contemporary queer literature as progressive simply because it dares to address what once was unutterable.

Carol addresses issues of visibility, the closet, lesbianism, surveillance, and queer love through the lens of postwar America and McCarthyism. As a contemporary film that addresses historical issues, the film begs for a plethora of analyses that consider the present-day sociopolitical climate. Heather Love’s scholarly discussions on “backwardness” aid in the understanding and perception of how the past and present are intertwined, as this essay has aimed to demonstrate. Through Haynes’ revision of a 1950s literary artifact, viewers are able to draw connections and converse with the queer past in a medium that continues to cultivate relationships between queer history and modern-day.

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Works Cited Benshoff, Harry, and Sean Griffin. Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2006.

Benson, Chloe. “Unutterable Passion: Carol (2015).” Journal of Bisexuality, vol. 18, no.2, 2018, pp. 253-256.

Brunton, James. “Representing Queer Identity After Same-Sex Marriage: Biopolitical Revisionism in Todd Haynes’ Carol.” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3, 2020, web n.p.

Daigle, Allain. “Of love and longing: Queer nostalgia in Carol.” Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, vol. 2, no. 2, 2017.

Gerstner, David. “The Production and Display of the Closet: Making Minelli’s Tea and Sympathy.” Film Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 3, 1994, pp. 13-26.

Goldberg, Jonathon. Strangers on a Train: A Queer Film Classic. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012.

James, Jenny M. “Maternal Failures, Queer Futures: Reading The Price of Salt (1952) and Carol (2015) against Their Grain.” Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol 24, no. 2-3, 2018, pp. 291-314.

Johnson, David K. The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. Chicago, University of Chicago, 2004.

Love, Heather. Feeling Backwards: Loss and Politics of Queer History. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2007.

O’Brien, Gabrielle. “Looking for a Way Out: Reimagining the Gaze in ‘Carol.’” Screen Education, vol. 9, no. 86, 2017, pp. 122–28.

Smith, Victoria L. “The Heterotopias of Todd Haynes: Creating Space for Same Sex Desire in Carol.” Film Criticism, vol. 42, no. 1, 2018, p. 46.

Staat, Wim. “Todd Haynes’ Melodramas of the Unknown Woman: Far From Heaven, Mildred Pierce, and Carol, and Stanley Cavell’s Film Ethics.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 3, no.6, 2019, pp.

520-538.

White, Patricia. “Sketchy Lesbians: Carol as History and Fantasy.” Film Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 2, 2015, pp. 8–18.

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Now Our Minds are One: Environments for Philosophical Thought

By Nadia Miller As I sit isolated in a library carrel somewhere on Weldon’s fourth floor, I feel comfortable saying that this is the ideal setting for my philosophical thought. It is warm and quiet, it is free from distraction, and my laptop, pen, and paper are sufficient for my purposes here. I look out of my window at the natural environment and recall my experience at Dan and Mary Lou Smoke’s Sunrise Ceremony, realizing that the optimal setting for the philosophical thought they engaged me with that morning certainly was not a library. It was out there, at Mushkeeki Gitigan, surrounded by forests and water and birds flying overhead. My aim in this paper is to consider the sorts of environments conducive to philosophical thought, and drawing on Robin Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, to compare how Indigenous and Western conceptions of mind provide different perspectives on how a thinker connects to their environment. Lastly, I will touch on how these views emphasize the impact of colonization on Indigenous philosophical thought.

I.“Doing” Thinking My teachers in the Philosophy Department here at Western sometimes like to say that we are “doing” philosophy. Their point is that we are not just studying philosophical thought as a subject matter, but that we are actively doing philosophical thinking. What actually counts as “doing” Western philosophy varies widely across sub-fields, but for my purposes as an undergraduate student, it is an academic exercise of reading, analysing, and writing about large bodies of philosophical literature. For the most part, the appropriate setting for “doing” this sort of thinking is in a classroom, a library, perhaps a coffee shop or a crammed student dorm–all the tools required for “doing” philosophy in this sense can be accessed at these locations. I think that Western thought is very much at home in this sort of setting.

The extent to which I, a non-Indigenous North American person, can “do” Indigenous philosophy is obviously limited, for I am not qualified to create or evaluate ideas within Indigenous frameworks. I can only learn about them and a classroom remains appropriate for this activity, however, the conceptual resources essential to Indigenous thought are not always accessible in a classroom or a library. They are outside in the natural environment, they are in the earth, they are one with the land..

II. Mind and Land It was still dark when we arrived at Mushkeeki Gitigan for the Sunrise Ceremony. The forecast prophesied another warm and sunny day, but that October morning was freezing. This was our classroom today: the medicine garden in a small forest clearing, and there was warmth everywhere. Several people tended to a fire in the middle of the garden, where the scent of tobacco settled in a way quite different to the Belmont or Camel I was familiar with. A tiny girl toddled around giggling as Mary Lou Smoke sang about water and gave the Thanksgiving Address.

Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one.

We are thankful to our Mother the Earth, for she gives us everything that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us, just as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect.

Now our minds are one (Kimmerer, 107).

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Robin Kimmerer recounts several verses of the Thanksgiving Address; “As it goes forward, each element of the ecosystem is named in its turn, along with its function. It is a lesson in Native science” (Kimmerer, 108). Each verse ends with “now our minds are one.”

Kimmerer points out that in Apache, “the root word for land is the same as the word for mind” (Kimmerer, 235). Moreover, in Indigenous philosophies, “personhood” is not an anthropomorphic concept: plants, rocks and all of Creation are minded people without qualification. When an elder recites the Thanksgiving Address, she does not mean by “the faces around us” the human faces, she means the faces of every natural entity in her surroundings.

When she proposes, “now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People,” she does not propose that human people thank each other, but that they should thank the trees, the water, and the wildlife who will reciprocate the gratitude. When “our minds are one,” they extend to include the minds of all natural entities in our environment.

The interconnectedness of Indigenous conceptions of mind and land emphasizes the idea that the natural environment is essential to thought. When Dan Smoke held up the eagle feather and told the story of how its spine represents life and each ruffle life’s mistakes, I felt that both eagle and storyteller were by equal measures part of the act of “doing” philosophy. The same was true of the tobacco being dropped into the fire and of its smoke wafting over us, of the sweetgrass whose scent inspired the building of the medicine garden, and of the garden itself which welcomed us that morning. As students and visitors to the garden, even we became a part of the activity as we learned and sang with the group. All elements of the land and environment were converged in thought; our minds were one.

III. The Extended Mind Thus far, I have sketched the idea that mind and thought intertwine with a person’s environment. It also seems that, in doing so, I have alluded to an apparent distinction between Western and Indigenous thought where the former is comparatively disconnected from its environment. I will now show that the idea is in fact not entirely foreign to Western thought, however, the context of a Western worldview presents it with some unique challenges.

Embodied Cognition and Extended Mind (EC-EM) is a theory in cognitive psychology which challenges the notion that cognition is limited to mechanisms located in the brain. The EC-EM mind transcends the skull, extending throughout the agent’s entire body and encompassing everything in its salient environment (Adams, 208).

For example, when you calculate a large sum using pen and paper, you delegate your cognitive workload externally to yourself. You do not need to store the numbers in your memory anymore and you do not need to worry about adding ones to ones, tens to tens and hundreds to hundreds because they are aligned right there on your page. The sensorimotor action, as well as the pen and paper themselves, become an essential part of your cognition. EC-EM is presented as novel and fairly radical compared to other popular theories of mind, which is likely due to its theoretical origins in robotics and artificial intelligence, and its divergence from conventional characterizations of the mind as isolated from the external world.

I think that the core idea behind EC-EM is that our minds are inherently intertwined with our actions and environment. However, the solipsism and anthropomorphism implicit in how Western folk perceive minds and consciousness poses some issues for EC-EM. What does EC-EM make of others as they enter your salient environment and interact with you? When a friend enters my environment, is she now part of my extended mind, or am I part of hers? What happens when extended minds converge, and who owns the cognitive space where minds overlap? Additionally, how will EC-EM accommodate the fact that it seems to permit some form of nonhuman cognitive life, since pens, pets, phones, and everything else in an agent’s salient environment are all granted cognitive status?

I am not sure what potential answers might look like, but I think there is something interesting to be noted about how the context of an Indigenous worldview avoids such questions entirely.

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I want to finish by touching on an implication of this idea. Someone asked me recently if we could study Indigenous philosophy without needing to discuss colonization. That thought is intertwined with a thinker’s environment frames this question in an important way as it makes the sheer magnitude of colonial destruction all the more evident. Colonization is the act of uprooting the Indigenous person from their land, meaning her mind is uprooted from the environment essential to its thought. The land still exists, they can see it and touch it, but it is colonized. Non-Indigenous folk live on it, and the person who asked the question benefits from it; they have been free to tread on it and exploit it to their desire. At the same time, the Indigenous person has been uprooted and withheld from it. This means that, among other things, they do not have access to the land in the way needed for them to practice their thought, their philosophy. Thus, studying Indigenous philosophy without discussing colonization is dangerously close to being an act of colonization in itself since, although only as an academic exercise, it involves separating Indigenous thought from Indigenous land.

Works Cited Adams, Fred, and Ken Aizawa. “Embodied cognition and the extended mind.” The Routledge companion to philosophy of psychology. Routledge, 2019. 193-213.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Penguin UK, 2020.

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Subjugation of the “others”: Roman depictions of the “other” in sexual contexts

By Rachel Fawcett When discussing the ‘other’ in erotic Roman art, much of the conversation focuses on the Roman purposes behind the images and their uses of them. From what I have seen, this conversation typically leans towards apotropaic practices. While I agree with this discussion, I believe this practice leaves out an important discussion focusing on the, perhaps, unintentional understanding the ‘others’ gain from seeing themselves depicted in such manners. Thus, I will argue that Roman depictions of the ‘other’ in sexual contexts play layered roles, both intended and unintended. These unintentional roles help the Romans continue to suppress the ‘others’ by reminding both the Romans and the ‘others’ of their place as lower and less than Roman and Italian citizens within moral and social connotations. I will begin by looking at barbarians in the Western Empire before moving east to discuss the Pygmies and Aethiops (Ethiopians), and the stereotypes which befall each group of ‘others’.

Before looking deeper into the Roman depictions of the ‘other’ in sexual contexts, it is worth defining who the ‘other’ is. In general terms, the ‘other’ is someone who is not Roman by cultural practice (Ferris 1). Ferris further notes that the ‘other’ is often depicted “through reference to generalized physical characteristics or to strange habits and customs,” (1) for example, stereotypes. As the Romans expanded and spread throughout the Mediterranean world, the types of people they encountered grew, and, coincidentally, led to new ‘others’ being added to the artistic canon. These groups of ‘others’ include the Barbarians, Pygmies, and Aethiops. Clarke specifies: “[i]n Roman visual representation, the colonial Other emerges in several guises, all marked by physical difference from the ideal Roman body type, including the tall, shaggy northern barbarian, the normally-proportioned but black-skinned Aethiops, and pygmies afflicted with dwarfism” (“Three Uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii” 155-6). believe this type of artistic depiction of these people would have maintained and reinforced their losses and ‘otherness,’ which would have been gained when the Romans looted the cities of those they defeated. This looting involved sexual violence which “denotes revenge and triumph for the winning side and conversely, humiliation and defeat for the conquered” (Vikman 29-30).

For the sake of this study, I will not be looking at slaves and females through the lens of their societal roles, but rather, I will be considering their depictions as they pertain to their ‘otherness.’ In addition, Barbarians are considered as the people of the north-western parts of the empire (Gaul and Britannia) while Pygmies and Aethiops hail from the eastern and south-eastern parts of the empire in Africa (Egypt).

1.0 The Barbarians As noted above, the Barbarians considered in this paper are from the north-western provinces of the empire. As Ferris describes it, the word “barbarian” (barbaros) is an onomatopoeic term denoting what the ancient Greeks heard when listening to non-Greek speakers talk (“bar, bar, bar”) (3; Hansen and Quinn 777). Over time, culturally significant connotations were attached to the word and turned a strict black-and-white Greek idea of Greek vs. non-Greek speakers into a cultural condition that could be overcome by conquest and incorporation into the Roman Empire (Ferris 4).

Gruen further defines the Roman barbarian. He states that they were considered “inveterate adversaries of Rome,” and “men of size and beauty who displayed boldness and daring on the battlefield” (142). How then did the depiction of Barbarians as uncivilized arise? In discussing Caesar’s description of the Gauls, Gruen states that “[t]he seductions of Roman prosperity have caused Gallic valor to crumble. Association with the more “civilized” people made Gauls inferior to their enemies and vulnerable to decay” (149). This degradation of the Gauls leads to the imperial view and treatment of them.

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It is difficult to find artistic representations of Barbarians in a sexual context. This may be because they were not considered “alien creatures” unlike some of the other groups of ‘others’ who will be discussed later (Gruen 158). However, when taking into consideration the ways in which Romans would turn defeated Barbarians into objects representing victory in theTriumph1 and on victory monuments, a parallel can be drawn between the ways in which Romans viewe infames2 and how they used the Barbarians in representations of victory. By putting their bodies on display, often seen sitting beneath trophies3 with bound hands, the Romans turned these barbarians into objects to be admired for the purpose of representing the general’s and Rome’s military strength (Ferris 32-60). In this way, the Romans turned the barbarians into unwilling infames. I use the term “unwilling” because the Romans identified infames as people who put their bodies on display as part of their professions (Edwards 67). This group of people includes prostitutes, actors, and gladiators, among others (67). The main difference between these people and the barbarians is that the “willing” infames, in this context, choose to put their bodies on display while the barbarians used in triumphs and in the iconography of trophies have no choice (67). They are made into objects which serve to celebrate their defeat. What I am particularly interested in is the intentions behind the image and the potential interpretations of them.

The overarching intention of the triumph and depictions of trophies was to celebrate Rome’s victories.

The undercurrent of this main intention plays similar roles for the Roman and the conquered viewer. Both groups are reminded of the Barbarians’ place in Roman society and Rome’s views of them. In terms of the depictions turning the Barbarians into a type of infamia, these images of the Barbarians act as a constant reminder of their defeat and subsequent humiliation as they were paraded around on ferculum4 (Ferris 35). Ferris makes a similar point when discussing private types of artworks produced for the Augustan court, stating that this style of imagery “carried messages that helped create a coherent rhetoric of imperial power and mythology” (36).

Part of the imperial mythology is seen in the personification of the Barbarian nations which take female forms. In the scenes where a Barbarian nation is depicted as subservient to and/or defeated by a general or emperor, their condition as a woman comes into play. In reliefs such as Claudius and Britannia found on the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias, the figure of Britannia who is partially laying on her left side and having her hair pulled up by a naked Claudius who is standing behind her, has her right breast on display (Ferris 56). The imagery of Britannia being held in place on the ground by the Roman emperor reveals her defeat and subservience to the empire while her sex and the depiction of her bare breast highlight her female sexuality and the Romans’ understanding of women and their place in Roman society (56-60). Their gender emphasizes their subservience because women are considered the property of men; the bared breast both “suggests her lack of constraint, … unfettered wildness, and … otherness” (57). The reference to the lack of self-control in the woman depicted here refers back to and highlights the general dislike of women who lack self-control seen in our ancient literary sources. Such lines as “that whore-empress – who dared to prefer the / mattress,” (Juv. 6 v.3-4) and “Friends, there has to be a limit: / Either slice away my member, / which the local sex-starved females, / hornier than springtime sparrows, / spend the whole night devastating…” (Priapea 26 v.1-5) reveal this distaste not only in the words used but in the tone of the poetry as well. The ‘otherness’ of the personified nations Ferris refers to heightens this distaste for the lack of self-control.

1. A Triumph was a spectacle in honour of the victorious Roman general. See Lamp for more information about the practice.

2. See Edwards for an explanation of the Roman understanding of infamia and the treatment of infames.

3. See Ferris, especially Chapter Two, for an in-depth discussion about what trophies are and their connection to barbarians.

4.A type of bier a trophy and two barbarians were carried on, see Ferris for more.

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2.0 The pygmies and Aethiops (Ethiopians) In contrast to the subservient depictions of Barbarians used to celebrate Rome’s conquests over them, scholars have noted the depictions of Pygmies and Aethiops seem to have a more apotropaic use. While I agree with this interpretation, I also believe scholars have overlooked an important role these images may have played for the people such images depict. This act of overlooking may have been intentional or a natural result of the desire to understand the Romans overpowering the consideration of others. I can attempt to remedy it, in part, by looking at these modern interpretations and offering a focused study into how these depictions may have had the added benefit, for the Romans, of reminding those who the subjects of these artworks represent of their place in Roman society through the debasement and humiliation caused by the behaviours of the artworks’ subject(s).

For example, in his paper “Three uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii,” Clarke argues that the depictions of Pygmies and Aethiops have “three principal functions. They could simply be an amusing part of a decorative scheme in the house, garden, or bath. They could also represent the Colonial Other. Or, they could avert demons” (155). While he goes as far as including the demons as a viewer, he does not consider the view of the ‘other.’ In fact, the entire paper focuses only on the Roman uses and audience of the pieces of artwork. He also notes that because the Pygmies and parodied Aethiops are “inventions” rather than depictions of real people, the Romans found it acceptable to depict them partaking in debasing acts (156). By doing this, the Romans accentuated the ‘otherness’ of the Pygmies and Aethiops, turning them into curiosities to be looked at, discussed, and laughed at (Looking at Lovemaking 46).

2.1 The pygmies Pygmies are a non-ideal body type that was used in scenes depicting things a Roman citizen should not do or as a parody of a serious matter (Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking 42-3). Like many other Roman artistic genres, the depictions of Pygmies are Hellenistic in origin (42). As is the case for many Greek artworks, what remains of this genre are found in southern Italy, mainly in Herculaneum and Pompeii (42). The genre is believed to have originated in Alexandria due to the locations in the scenes (43). The constant in the depictions of Pygmies “is their short stature and non-ideal proportions” (43). They were quintessentially the opposite of the Roman ideal. They were short with overly large heads, the males were macrophallic, and the females were macromastic5 as well as steatopygic6 (43). Their usage replaced that of mythical creatures such as satyrs and maenads and in doing so, they were made into a representation of a human who could be manipulated into executing “wild sexual scenarios” (45) which Roman citizens would not be depicted participating in. Overall, the Pygmy acted as a comic foil for aristocratic behavior, specifically lovemaking (43).

2.1.2 The apotropaic pygmy By turning the image of Ptolemaic Egyptians into pygmies, which are essentially caricatures of these people, the Romans further accentuated the ‘otherness’ of Ptolemaic Egyptians and exploited this form of representation to be used as apotropaic symbols, or the cause of laughter (Clarke Looking at Lovemaking 45). Typically, when used as an apotropaic symbol the male pygmy has a large phallus, and if combined with performing acts the Romans found humorous, their apotropaic nature increased because they would cause laughter (“Three Uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii” 161). In Rome and other ancient societies, the phallus has been a symbol of power and protection. In Rome, the phallus played an important role as an apotropaic symbol warding off the gaze of the evil eye (Collins 274; Whitmore 324). As Collins describes it, a phallus “often invoked and performed a magical, apotropaic function” (274). More than that, “the phallus was the apotropaion par excellence” (Levin-Richardson 353). Keeping this in mind, when considering the rendering of Pygmies with large phalluses, the likelihood of these images being intended to be apotropaic seems high.

5. Large breasted (Clarke, Looking at lovemaking 43) 6. Protruding buttocks/hips (Clarke, Looking at lovemaking 43)

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While these types of depictions of the Pygmies played multiple intended roles for the Romans, their use came at the expense of the Ptolemaic Egyptian ‘other’. Making the Pygmies do humorous things as well as turning them into curiosities for the Romans could, for the Ptolemaic Egyptian viewer, stand as a reminder of their place in the Romans’ eyes and instill a sense of shame or humiliation upon seeing a character based on their people performing heinous acts that were meant to be laughed at. They, as a people, are reduced to a mechanism of comic relief.

2.2 The Aethiops (Ethiopians) While Pygmies belong to their own artistic genre, the Aethiops are more difficult to distinguish from a Black-figure White man (Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking 125). During the first century BCE, the Aethiops and regular Egyptian populations of the Nile were parodied in Roman artwork, by the end of this century they had been turned into “clowns” (Clarke, “Three Uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii” 156).

Unlike the Pygmies whose bodies could vary in size and colour, the Aethiops were generally depicted as a tall, Black person who is “rarely subject to caricature, and they are not singled out as a separate species” (Gruen 211). Aethiops (“sunburned/darkened face”) were always depicted Black because their skin was their most defining feature (167-8; Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking 127). Gruen goes on to discuss some of the activities the Aethiops are doing in these images: one genre of activity he focuses on is public performance (211-12). In the simple inclusion of these types of activities, Gruen has highlighted the contradictory nature of the Roman depictions of these people. They may not be subject to the same humiliation brought on by the manipulation of their physicality as seen with the Pygmies, but they are depicted as people who are displaying their bodies for the pleasure of someone else, which the Roman’s looked down upon. As Petronius comments on when discussing women who lust after lowly people: “an actor [is] disgraced by exhibiting himself on / the stage” (Sat. v.7-8).

2.2.1 Reverence and debasement Aethiops appear frequently in Roman art doing things ranging from domestic work to heinous humorous acts (Gruen 211-13). When discussing the prevalence of Egyptian styles in Roman pendants, Whitmore states that the “Greeks and Romans believed that Egypt was strongly tied to magic, and Egyptian materials, deities, and symbols were often used in Roman amulets” (324). Gruen further emphasizes this point by referring to classical literature which speaks to their connections with the divine power(198-9)7. Taking into consideration the magical ties Romans believed Aethiops had, the reason for them being used as an apotropaic symbol is made clearer. Not only are the images apotropaic in their figural scenes, but the people depicted in the scenes were magical in themselves.

Even though the Romans revered the Aethiops in some ways, it did not stop them from using depictions of them for their amusement and protection. Clarke notes that the Romans were concerned with accurately depicting the Aethiops (123-5). Generally, the Aethiops were adult males with well proportioned Black bodies and curly hair8 (122-25). Clarke, in both Looking at Lovemaking and “Three Uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii,” focuses on the frescoes and mosaics of the Aethiops in both private and public baths in order to discuss their apotropaic nature. Clarke notes that the mosaics from the baths were located in or near the caldarium and stood as warnings for the heat of the room, ultimately to protect those entering from tripping through the doorway, and to ward off evil from the room (Looking at Lovemaking 127-139). How the 7. ee Gruen for more detail about the reverence the Greeks and Romans held for the Aethiops due to their divine relationships, “Chapter 8: People of colour.” .

8. The curls of the hair were shown using spikes, waves, or triangular peaks and valleys so that it was clear their hair was not straight. See Clarke, “Chapter 5: Sex and the body of the Other” in Looking at lovemaking.

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Aethiops would view these is difficult to say, especially for those found in private homes, since only those living and working in the house would see it. Regardless of this, these depictions show the juxtaposition of the Romans revering the Egyptians at the same time as degrading them due to the activities they are performing in the images. I can only imagine it would have been confusing for Aethiops to see and hear both sides of the juxtaposition when coming across these artworks because the images are ambiguous causing them to question whether or not they were in fact respected by the Romans.

3.0 Conclusion In this paper, I have discussed the main focus of past research concerned with Roman depictions of ‘others’ in a sexual context. When dealing with the depictions of Barbarians, I noted that the Romans displayed them in ways which turned them into figural representations of infames. Their humiliation was paraded through Rome during Triumphs and permanently attached to victory monuments standing as a reminder of who they are to the Romans and of what they lost. Rather than being placed in a physical space of humiliation and subjugation, the Pygmies were caricatures of the Ptolemaic Egyptians. Due to the amount of deformation in the rendering of pygmy bodies, the Romans found it acceptable to use their image as human replacements for Hellenistic Roman deities and mythical creatures acting as protection or as images of unacceptable acts for citizens to partake in.

Like the Barbarians, the Aethiops were not as altered physically as the Pygmies; however, due to their magical abilities and the curiosity of their skin colour, public depictions of these people became popular. Although these public depictions of the ‘others’ had different purposes in the eyes of the Romans, the images would have stood as a continuous reminder to the ‘others’ of their subjugation.

Works Cited Catharine Edwards. “Unspeakable Professions: Public performance and prostitution in ancient Rome.” Roman Sexualities, Princeton University Press, 2020, pp. 66-95, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15r57dd.7.

Clarke, John R. “Chapter Two: Greek and Hellenistic Constructions of Lacemaking.” Looking at Lovemaking Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B, University of California Press, 2014, pp. 42–46.

---. “Chapter Five: Sex and the body of the other.” Looking at Lovemaking Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B, University of California Press, 2014, pp. 119-142.

---. “Three Uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii: Decorating, ‘Othering’, and Warding off Demons.” Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World, vol. 159, 2007, pp.155-169, https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004154209.i-562.43.

Collins, Rob. “The Phallus and the Frontier: The Form and Function of Phallic Imagery along Hadrian’s Wall.”

Un-Roman Sex: Gender, Sexuality, and Lovemaking in the Roman Provinces and Frontiers, edited by Tatiana Ivleva and Rob Collins, Routledge, 2020, pp. 274–309.

Ferris, I. M. Enemies of Rome: Barbarians through Roman Eyes. Sutton, 2000, pp. 1-25.

Gruen, Erich S. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton University Press, 2012.

Hansen, Hardy, and Gerald M. Quinn. “Greek-English Vocabulary.” Greek, an Intensive Course, Fordham University Press, New York, 1992.

Lamp, Kathleen S. “Citizens and Captives: Depictions of the “Conquered” in the Roman Empire.”

Advances in the History of Rhetoric, Vol 18, Issue 2, pp. 147-161, 2015. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, DOI: 10.1080/15362426.2015.1081526.

Levin-Richardson, Sarah. “Chapter 11: Roman and Un-Roman Sex.” Un-Roman Sex: Gender, Sexuality, and Lovemaking in the Roman Provinces and Frontiers, edited by Tatiana Ivleva and Rob Collins, Routledge, 2020, pp. 346–359.

Whitmore, Alissa M. “Chapter 10: Egyptian Faience Flaccid Phallus Pendants in the Mediterranean, Near East, and Black Sea Regions.” Un-Roman Sex: Gender, Sexuality, and Lovemaking in the Roman Provinces and Frontiers, edited by Tatiana Ivleva and Rob Collins, Routledge, 2020, pp. 310–345.

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Fritz

By Rain Bloodworth

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The Missing Mother; Debilitating Family Drama in the Shakespeare’s King Lear

By Abby Robitaille For a play so heavily centered around family drama, there is an incredibly dislocated picture of the family depicted in Shakespeare’s King Lear. King Lear’s three daughters are pitted against one another from the beginning of the play, and Lear does not take long to dismember his family by disowning his daughter Cordelia, though the family was already noticeably missing the girls’ mother. This ever-growing fracture within Lear’s family structure manifests as an abundance of poor role-fulfillment, from those both present and absent from the page. In this essay, I will argue that the dynamics of family structure, and the lack of a mother figure in particular, significantly contribute towards the tragic ending of the play.

The missing mother figure in King Lear could at first seem coincidental was it just the mother of Cordelia and her sisters absent from the play. It is the fact, however, that all mothers are abjected from the page that makes this absence more jarring; the mothers of Edmund and Edgar are strangely absent from the play as well. This absence of mothers could prompt readers to ask what mothers might accomplish in the play: calming Lear’s wrath against Cordelia when Kent could not, validating Edmund (or at least preventing Gloucester from referring to him as ‘whoreson’), and even soothing sibling rivalries. Far more concrete than this hypothesizing, however, are the ways that the abjected mother figure resurfaces and manifests itself in different characters. It is Lear who first reintroduces the repressed maternal figure into the play when he speaks of Cordelia and admits that he “lov’d her most, and thought to set [his] rest/ On her kind nursery” (Shakespeare 1.1.123-24). The implication set forward by this quote is that as Lear is preparing to move on from his role as King, he is really preparing for a return to “nursery” and an infant-like state. Not only that, but he is seeking this maternal nursing from his daughters, originally Cordelia. Goneril summarizes Lear’s condition, capitalizing on its weaker position rather than choosing to nurture when she says, “Old fools are babes again” (1.3.20).

As the events of the play progress, both Goneril and Regan fail to offer Lear any maternal comfort, and he is forced to learn the emptiness of their initial flattery the hard way. In Coppelia Kahn’s essay “The Absent Mother in King Lear,” she explains that “Thus the mother, revealed in Lear’s response to his daughters’ brutality toward him, makes her re-entry into the patriarchal world from which she had seemingly been excluded” (248). Kahn essentially suggests that as Lear has banished Cordelia and failed to find a maternal figure in his two older daughters, he conjures the maternal in himself—this is how strongly the repressed maternal figure needs to reemerge. Sure enough, Lear does begin to show clear signs of the maternal within him. He exclaims “O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! / Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,” (Shakespeare 2.4.55-6). Kahn explains the historical significance of this phrase, as “From ancient times through the nineteenth century, women suffering variously from choking, feelings of suffocation, partial paralysis, convulsions similar to those of epilepsy, aphasia, numbness, and lethargy were said to be ill of hysteria, caused by a wandering womb” (Kahn 239). The fact that Lear has referred to himself, not only as a mother but particularly in possession of a womb, shows his determination to not be reliant on any woman, for he has ascribed himself equally as physically capable of procreation as a female. He has given himself the anatomy of a mother and in doing so, appropriated the female maternal body. Lear’s desire to seek out the maternal also offers an explanation to why his reunion with Cordelia is so satisfying. It is clear to the reader that Lear was wrong to shun the loving and virtuous Cordelia—but why?

Aside from the fact that Cordelia is a generally likable character, she is also the solution to Lear’s problem and proves herself to be the best manifestation of a mother figure after all. Upon their reunion, Lear is shown the soothing balm of Cordelia’s care as she implores the doctor to help him. She says, “Cure this great breach in his abused nature,/ th’ untun’d and jarring senses,/ O, wind up of this child-changed father!” (Shakespeare 4.7.15-7). Here she subscribes seamlessly to the notion that Lear has taken on the role of the child, and rather than see it as an opportunity to wield power over him as both of her sisters did, she chooses to nurture and support him. Overall, from the catalyst of Lear’s decision to step back as King, comes Lear’s search for a mother figure in the play. His dismissal of Cordelia and his attempts to find the maternal figure in his other daughters and himself all propel the actions of the play and drag it slowly towards its tragic ending and is made all the more horrific after the short bliss provided by Cordelia’s fulfilling care.

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The second reason why the missing mother is so significant in King Lear is because of how it centers Lear as the family’s head and further exaggerates his role as patriarch. From the beginning of the play, Lear demonstrates a conflation of his role as a father to his role as a king. In the same way that a king demands the love of his people, all while knowing that this love is somewhat conditional on his ability to fulfill his role, Lear demands love from his daughters while treating this love as conditional and finite. This can be seen in Lear’s demands at the beginning of the play for each of his daughters to profess their love to him, and his adjudication of their love based on how much they flatter him. Regan even says, “I profess/ myself an enemy to all other joys” (Shakespeare 1.1.79-80). The exaggeration of love and promise of exclusivity lines up with Lear’s views on finite love, hence why he cherishes this style of response. This is also why later, when Cordelia has disappointed Lear in her ability to flatter him, Lear very specifically says, “Into her womb convey sterility, dry up in her the organs of increase” (Shakespeare 1.4.285-86). Lear is cursing her, not with general misfortune, but with infertility. If he cannot possess Cordelia as his nursing mother figure, no one can. Lear’s conflation of political and transactional love is even further emphasized by the juxtaposition between his view and the view of the king of France surrounding Cordelia’s marriage. Lear believes that once his daughter’s dowry has been taken away, she will no longer be appealing for someone to marry. This action is another display of his patriarchal power and possessiveness over Cordelia.

The king of France, however, still marries her, for he believes “She is herself a dowry” (Shakespeare 1.1.278). Lear fails to do what he has been doing since before the beginning of the play, which is to manipulate his daughters to have love exclusively directed towards him. After all, the division of the kingdom is not the instigator of animosity between the sisters. Goneril refers to Lear’s favouritism of Cordelia, saying “He always loved our sister most” (Shakespeare 1.1.292). The implication that Lear played an active role in stirring discord and competition between the sisters once again places him at the center of the family, for the sisters are not using their supposedly finite love on each other, but rather directing more towards winning his favour. From the opening scene of the play it is Cordelia who threatens the power dynamic, and by default Lear’s role as patriarch in the family. She refuses to participate in his demand for flattery and adoration. Lear’s response is the response of a king, as he exerts his power in order to banish her. Lear’s confusion between the role of father and king makes sense in the historical context of the play. Kahn explains “As the Tudor-Stuart state consolidated, it tried to undercut ancient baronial loyalty to the family line in order to replace it with loyalty to the crown” (Khan 245). Essentially, members of all families were meant to feel a higher loyalty to the king. When this is applied to the king’s family, it could easily make him a king before a father, for this role is meant to take societal precedence. Not only does Cordelia threaten the patriarchy represented by Lear, but even the language used to describe her implies this. The first gentleman speaks about Cordelia and says, “It seem’d she was a queen over her passion, who, most rebel-like, sought to be king o’er her.” (4.3.8-10). Cordelia is depicted as being triumphant as a queen over her emotions, which are personified to be a source of kingly patriarchal power. The significance of this tension between Cordelia and the patriarchy, represented by Lear, is that Shakespeare manages to point out the flawed nature of a patriarchal society. Essentially, the missing mother created a family dynamic fostered and encouraged by Lear in which paternal love directs only towards the father. This already ultimate patriarchal family is exaggerated further by Lear treating his role as a father more as his role as king, and Shakespeare shows readers how this structure fails with the play’s descent into tragedy, where this family is shown to slowly tear itself apart before the reader’s eyes.

To conclude, King Lear is rife with miscommunication and misplaced trust, and it is no surprise that family cohesion suffers under such conditions. The repression of maternal figures in the play and the way that a mother figure tries to reenter the narrative through other characters in many ways only tantalizes the reader.

With such a cruelly descending plotline, could an actual mother have prevented some of the foolish judgements made by the fathers in this book? And once Cordelia proved herself capable of fulfilling Lear’s needs for the role of a mother figure, had she not died so soon, could she have helped restore some order in the play? Equally, Lear’s conflation of his role as father to his role as king marks him the patriarch that he is. Perhaps this confusion of

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roles can also offer some explanation for why Lear’s family’s and country’s situation follow parallel courses towards disaster, requiring this restore to order in the first place. Shakespeare dismantles Lear’s control over both family and kingdom, and offers Cordelia as the one character seemingly capable of outdoing Lear’s patriarchal power. With everything leading back to Cordelia as the solution to family problems, from the missing mother figure to the greater force over even the longstanding patriarchal order, it is no wonder the king of France says, “She is herself a dowry” (Shakespeare 1.1.278). Cordelia’s value cannot be overstated, and thus her death at the end of the play can be nothing short of devastating.

Works Cited Kahn, Coppélia. “The Absent Mother in King Lear.” Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, 1986, pp. 239–262. https://langlitatgroby.weebly.com/uploads/4/1/1/8/41184047/the_absent_mother_in_king_lear.pdf.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Signet Classic.

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Oh Honey: The Mainstream Popularization of Drag Culture by Young Women as a Reimagined Embodiment of Femininity

By Eva Alie Drag queens exist as near-mythical creatures, presenting beauty and entertainment through the lens of a tangible, albeit temporally specific, space wherein gender and appearance are self-determined forces to be celebrated, challenged, and explored. It is important to note that while the stereotypical connotation of drag queens is one of a homosexual, cisgender man using traditional markers of femininity such as makeup and corsetry to achieve the illusion of appearing as a woman, any gender identity is capable of performing drag. The art form originated in Ancient Greek theater as a response to the regulated absence of women from thespian troupes, requiring that men undertake the unfilled roles.1 Drag has evolved throughout the eras, from wartime performances in the Navy to the underground Ball scene that permeated queer culture in major cities in the United States throughout the twentieth century; although these various arenas are well-documented, drag remained a relatively contextual art form that widely avoided acknowledgement by and assimilation into the broader cultural zeitgeist.2 Shifting societal attitudes towards queer communities in conjunction with the rise of social media resulted in greater exposure for the craft, but the most significant contribution to the popularization of drag was the launch of the reality television competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race wherein a selection of queens vie for the title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar” through a series of sewing, acting, and lipsyncing challenges.3 The unexpected result of this integration into mainstream culture, however, is the domination of the fanbase by young, predominantly heterosexual women. Drag queens serve as tantalizing figures for this demographic as the art form traditionally elicits a depiction of femininity that adheres to patriarchal standards of beauty while subverting the rigid expectations of how this cohesion can be created, effectively presenting gender as a source of challenge and celebration. Young women are allowed the freedom to enjoy patriarchal conceptions and tangibles of femininity without shame while reimagining the form that this must take—as exemplified through the work and fame of drag queen Trixie Mattel.

Drag is an inherently subversive act of gender, through its “...ability to manipulate and reimagine gendered stereotypes through the intentional embodiment of norms, standards different from the ones associated with their ‘natural’ form.” It disrupts the hegemonic narrative of heteronormativity as the social standard and instead creates a satire of this expectation that serves to free both the performer and audience from the constraints of gender.4 The art also illustrates the fluid and easily challenged nature of gender that exists in contradiction to its rigid cultural regulation, suggesting that these performers “... help us see that gender is situational…[and] spills over socially constructed demarcated binaries that separate man from woman”.5 This is not to say that standards of appearance do not exist within a drag context— drag queens are subjected to similar conceptions of attractiveness as the women they seek to emulate, those ideals being “...“a slender body with the appearance of large breasts and wide hips, a youthful face with ‘good’ bone structure, skin that seems soft but is heavily and dramatically made-up…”.6 The tension created by the inverted embodiment of drag mitigates the potentially adverse impact that the aforementioned standards could create, however, returning the emphasis to the malleability of gender rather than an assessment of appearance.7 Young female audiences experience this discomfort as freedom, as the illusion allows distance from the negative connotations of the image of femininity forced upon them, facilitating an analysis of these standards through an adjusted lens.

The devotion to drag and Drag Race that has been cultivated by young women may have been difficult to predict 1. Raven, Walker “Culture is a Drag.” PhD diss., Appalachian State University, 2018: 16.

2.Ibid.

3. Ibid., 17.

4. Eir-Anne Edgar, “‘Xtravaganza!’: Drag Representation and Articulation in ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’” Studies in Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (2011): 134.

5.Ibid., 140.

6. Esther Newton, “ Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America ,” American Anthropologist 75, no. 6 (1972): 49.

7. Ibid., 44.

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but is unsurprising when considering the nature of these products. The art form inherently deals with questions of identity that are central to the female experience and first viscerally understood in young womanhood, these being concerns around physical appearance and modification, the conflicting benefits of both adherence and rejection of patriarchal beauty standards, and the overarching pursuit of self-acceptance.8 Drag queens lend young women the ability to watch an application of makeup and fashion in a relatively non-capitalistic context that allows the wearer to index the persona of their own creation, which serves as education of how autonomy may be preserved throughout the process of public perception.9 A fundamental component of the popularity of drag with young women is the unabashed appreciation of the female form and traditional conceptions of femininity. Second-wave feminism was dominated by the totalitarian rejection of quintessentially feminine practices, with activists and scholars of the time denoting an adherence to or enjoyment of these products as unequivocally unfeminist; this attitude persists contemporarily in parallel with the persistent, capitalist marketing of an appearance that contradicts widespread notions of feminist thought.10 This raises conflicting questions of correct iterations of womanhood, especially as prominent figures in the feminist movement have “...encouraged women to eschew makeup, high heels, skirts, and dresses” in the name of refuting the patriarchy.11 The prevailing, albeit stereotypical, intention of drag queens is to emulate the very form of femininity that young women are paradoxically discouraged from embodying while being exposed almost solely to this ideal. Artists in this medium do so without the guilt or shame that plagues women, thus modeling an alternative where the sources of their inspiration can exist similarly.12

The subversive adherence to traditional realizations of femininity that drag can facilitate is seen throughout the artistry of Trixie Mattel. She was initially inspired by the Barbie dolls she played with as a child, noting that their trademark white-blonde wigs and overwhelmingly pink aesthetic were a source of pleasure, rather than the indicator of inferior intelligence or limited independence that certain socio-feminist objections and misogynistic stereotypes surrounding the toys have suggested.13 This influence is evident in her signature look of a pronounced hourglass figure, voluminous blonde hair, and defined facial features, as seen in Figure One. Her wardrobe is dominated by fitted jumpsuits, miniskirts, sequins, and bright patterns which are all contradictory to the visible demarcations of feminist conduct that young women are socialized to recognize, and in turn, embody.14 Trixie is undeniably hyperbolic in her depiction of femininity, overemphasizing her features, body, and fashion to the point of near-satire while remaining celebratory of the population who is targeted by the societal standards that inspire this look: in this way, she presents an exaggerated iteration of femininity that young women would be labeled as vain or indulgent for emulating, but does so in a way that indexes that this socialized messaging can not only be ignored, but corrupted on the basis of personal pleasure and desire.

Trixie Mattel has amassed a tremendous social media following since her time on RuPaul’s Drag Race, a community of supporters overwhelmingly composed of young women. Her ability to economically and socially capitalize on a feminine persona that would elicit judgment outside of a drag context provides her audience a 8.Priscilla Frank, “What ‘Drag Race’ Means to the Teen Girls Who Love It.” HuffPost, HuffPost, April 11, 2018. https:// www.huffpost.com/entry/rupauls-drag-race-teen-girls_n_5ab3f788e4b0decad0480126.

9. Ibid.

10. Betty Luther Hillman, “‘The Clothes I Wear Help Me to Know My Own Power’: The Politics of Gender in the Era of Women’s Liberation,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 34, no. 2 (2013): 155.

11. Betty Luther Hillman, “‘The Clothes I Wear Help Me to Know My Own Power’: The Politics of Gender in the Era of Women’s Liberation,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 34, no. 2 (2013): 168.

12.Ibid.

13. Raven, Walker “Culture is a Drag.” PhD diss., Appalachian State University, 2018: 16 14. Ibid.: 18.

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template through which to reclaim certain conventions of patriarchal femininity, even if her depiction of this possibility is intentionally stylized to an extreme capacity.

Drag can elicit challenging questions of gender regulation and self-surveillance regardless of audience, but has gained substantial cultural attention specifically from young women due to the physical manipulation and reinterpretation of the beauty standards that this community is asked to navigate; drag queens do so joyfully and with a level of reverence that suggests femininity itself is an art and one for women to determine themselves.

Fig. One- Trixie Mattel, Promotional Shot for RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 3 Work Cited Edgar, Eir-Anne. “‘Xtravaganza!’: Drag Representation and Articulation in ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race.’” Studies in Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (2011): 133–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23416354.

Frank, Priscilla. “What ‘Drag Race’ Means to the Teen Girls Who Love It.” HuffPost. HuffPost, April 11, 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rupauls-drag-race-teen-girls_n_5ab3f788e4b0decad0480126.

Hillman, Betty Luther. “‘The Clothes I Wear Help Me to Know My Own Power’: The Politics of Gender in the Era of Women’s Liberation.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 34, no. 2 (2013): 155–85. https://doi.org/10.5250/fronjwomestud.34.2.0155.

Newton , Esther. “ Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America .” American Anthropologist 75, no. 6 (1972): 41–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1973.75.6.02a01340.

Walker, Raven. “Culture is a Drag.” PhD diss., Appalachian State University, 2018.

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The Subjectivity of History in Midnight’s Children

By Asha Saha Postmodernist fiction, as Linda Hutcheon explains in A Poetics of Postmodernism, demonstrates “that there can be no single, essentialized, transcendent concept of ‘genuine historicity’” and that “the meaning and shape are not in the events, but in the systems which makes those past ‘events’ into present historical ‘facts’” (Hutcheon 89). These ideas are highly applicable to Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children. In the novel, history is treated as subjective and relative.

Though the narrator, Saleem, relates a historical account of India’s experiences after independence, his account is just that: his. His perceptions of what happened, like any individual’s, will always be incomplete and flawed, experienced through the lens of his personal bias, and influenced by his desperate desire to find meaning in his life. Viewing Midnight’s Children through a postmodernist lens illuminates its message that individuals are incapable of seeing anything in its wholeness, demonstrating the necessity of questioning widely accepted histories and applying a critical lens to our perceptions of both past and current events.

The recurring theme of fragmentation in the novel explores the postmodernist view that there is no one single true version of history. Both Saleem’s grandfather, Aadam, and his mother, Amina, struggle with only being capable of forming fragmented views of their partners. In Aadam’s case, his first introductions to his wife occur from behind a perforated sheet, through which her father only permits him to view a singular part of her body at a time. Aadam “[comes] to have a picture of [his wife] in his mind, a badly-fitting collage of her severally-inspected parts” (Rushdie 22). Unable to see her in her entirety, he creates a fractured perception of who she is from the parts he can see, which is not entirely accurate, demonstrating that his incomplete viewpoint prevents him from forming clear and correct perceptions. In Amina’s version of this struggle, upon entering her marriage, she is unable to fall in love with her husband, Ahmed, as a coherent whole. She “[divides] him, mentally, into every single one of his component parts… [and falls] under the spell of the perforated sheet of her own parents, because she [resolves] to fall in love with her husband bit by bit” (Rushdie 73).

Amina deliberately compartmentalizes her view of her husband, because smaller parts of him are easier to conceptualize and fall in love with. Her inability to perceive his coherent identity is a further commentary on the general inability of individuals to fully comprehend anything in its complexity. When Saleem, the descendant of these two characters, attempts to write a complete account of his history, the same impediment is reflected in his efforts.

Saleem, reflecting on his family’s experiences, claims that “the ghostly essence of that perforated sheet, which doomed my mother to learn to love a man in segments… condemned me to see my own life—its meanings, its structures—in fragments also” (Rushdie 119). He makes the connection that, in the same way his mother and grandfather could only form and understand incomplete versions of their partners’ identities, he cannot fully perceive his own life.

His use of the word “condemned” is especially revealing as it suggests he believes the fragmentation of his viewpoint is inevitable. As T. N. Dhar argues in his article “Problematizing History with Rushdie in Midnight’s Children,” Saleem’s connection between himself and his lineage also suggests that “in spite of Saleem’s intention to write a total and complete account of his family, and by extension of his country, his lineage [makes] him incapable of doing so” (Dhar 100). His purpose in writing his account is to recount his family’s history, as well as the larger history of India, but this fragmented frame that he admits to having raises the question of if he will genuinely be able to do so.

The physical fragmentation of Saleem’s body serves a similar purpose in questioning his ability as an individual to fully encapsulate the vastness of history. Saleem informs his readers he is “falling apart,” and that “[his] body…buffeted by too much history…has started coming apart at the seams” (Rushdie 36). Saleem, in aiming to encapsulate his country’s whole history, has tasked himself with viewing the nation in its entirety. In taking this on, Saleem becomes “a world in himself—history encapsulated into a human frame…[and] every passing moment makes him full and heavy” (Dhar 97). The task is physically overwhelming—he claims his body is breaking because of it. However, his doctor “pronounce[s] him whole…[and] see[s] no cracks” (Rushdie 70), which lends itself to a metaphorical interpretation of Sal-

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eem’s breaking body. While his body might not be literally splitting apart, his difficult task is likely overwhelming his mental state. Saleem’s bodily incapability to encompass all of history metaphorically represents his mental inability to do so.

The theme of fragmentation also exists in Saleem’s descriptions of the nation around him. He recounts how the people want to divide it into fragmented parts, each with one singular language, religion, and culture.

The people’s desire to divide their country is indicative of the limited nature of their viewpoints. They are incapable of conceptualizing the nation in its entirety and understanding the benefits of its diversity. As Saleem reflects, “[t]here are as many versions of India as Indians” (Rushdie 308). The literal fragmentation of India into separate states represents the metaphorical fragmentation of the people of India’s conception of what their history is and what the nation means to them. The people’s inability to fully conceptualize their diverse nation implies that each person’s account of their country’s history will be different, and none of these accounts will be entirely true.

This representation further demonstrates the impossibility of a single true account of history due to individuals’ inevitably limited perspectives.

The theme of fragmentation in Saleem’s family’s past, his present state of being, and the country around him, exemplifies postmodern ideas about the subjectivity of personal truth and the impossibility of a universal one. The restricted perceptions of the characters are presented as inescapable. When viewing the theme of fragmentation through this lens, the novel’s message about the human inability to see anything in its wholeness is illuminated, since the characters, try as they might, find themselves physically and mentally incapable of doing so. Understanding this idea places readers in a position to extrapolate from it. If the characters are only capable of having incomplete views of the world, what does this mean for the histories we generally accept? When reading a historical account of an event, we must consider that the limitations on these characters’ perceptions apply to the perceptions of all humans, and thus, the historical accounts we accept as generally true might, too, be fragmented. Since our notions of the past affect our present mindsets and worldviews, recognizing the incomplete nature of these notions leads us to understand that our own opinions and views also require critical examination.

Saleem’s nature as a self-conscious and unreliable narrator exemplifies the postmodernist “[challenge to] the implied assumptions of historical statements: objectivity, neutrality, impersonality, and transparency” (Hutcheon 92), and the idea that the systems used to make events into historical facts have more relevance than the truth of those events. Saleem’s desperation to find meaning in his life by connecting himself to Indian history puts the objectivity of his narrative into question. Saleem tells readers, “[b]ecause I am rushing ahead at breakneck speed…errors have already been made, and…[as] my decay accelerates…the risk of unreliability grows” (Rushdie 310). He identifies that his desperation and urgency are affecting the story. Though at first his errors seem unintentional, he nevertheless tells us they exist, which leads readers to understand that his account is not one of objective truth.

The questionable objectivity of Saleem’s narrative becomes particularly significant when his errors begin to lead to the creation of artificial links between himself and Indian history. For instance, when he tells the story of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, upon reflection, he realizes he has misremembered and conflated the date of Gandhi’s death with the date of his uncle’s movie premiere. Saleem reports, “rereading my work, I have discovered an error in chronology…but I cannot say, now, what the actual sequence of events might have been; in my India, Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong time” (Rushdie 189-90). While he admits the error, he also dismisses it. He reveals to us though this error was accidental, he will allow it to exist in his account of history because it fits his narrative, meaning he is willing to manipulate facts and exact details to tell his story the way he wishes it happened. From this moment, we as readers understand that to Saleem, “what actually happened is less

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important than what [he] is able to persuade [us] to believe…[which] implies that cohesiveness in history is more a function of how you put things than the truth of the things themselves” (Dhar 102). Saleem is weaving a specific narrative which tells the story of a man connected in every way to his country, and because he so deeply wants this narrative to be true, in his version of history he makes it so by altering details that would be outliers.

The novel reveals the full extent of Saleem’s liberties with history near the end of the story when he admits he purposefully lied about Shiva’s death to create a better ending for his story. He tells us: “for the first time, I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer…since the past exists only in one’s memories… it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred” (Rushdie 510). Though he has manipulated facts before this moment, his lie about Shiva’s death is the first time Saleem makes a deliberately and outrightly false claim. In his admittance of this, he exposes a universal problem among writers who set out to tell their own history. He identifies that when creating an account of the past, one relies entirely on their own memories, and “implicit in this is the danger that reclamations of the past might verge on fiction” (Dhar 102), since one’s memories of events, as Saleem’s narration proves, are inevitably biased by one’s aim in sharing their story.

Drawing the connection between himself and all other autobiographers, Saleem leads readers directly to the conclusion they must extrapolate from his self-conscious, unreliable narration. Saleem’s alterations, when viewed through a postmodern lens, speak to his nature as a human. His story, because it is rooted in his memory, can be presented any way he wants and will inevitably reflect his biases and goals in writing it. The novel prompts readers to realize Saleem makes these alterations because he is incapable of seeing the situation in its wholeness since his biases and goals are so ingrained in his nature. Since Saleem is inevitably blurring the line between historical fact and fiction because of the limitations that all individual viewpoints have, readers can infer other historians possess the same limitations. A postmodernist analysis of Saleem’s narration reveals that when reading any account of a past event, it is necessary to evaluate that account through a critical lens, being especially conscious of the natural biases and overarching goals of the writer. Furthermore, it demonstrates that when basing our views of the world on the past, it is necessary to acknowledge and critically view the subjectivity of those past truths.

When viewing Midnight’s Children through a postmodernist lens, the theme of fragmentation and the unreliable narration in Saleem’s account of Indian history reveals the novel’s essential message that, as humans, our comprehension of what we experience is inherently limited. As Rushdie himself once said, “human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions” (Dhar 100). Recognizing this quality in ourselves and in the writers behind the historical accounts that have informed our worldviews will help us to apply more critical lenses to the information we may overwise accept, and face the possibility that our perspectives do not encapsulate the entirety of an idea or event.

In an increasingly complex and diverse world, this is especially necessary because if we fail to acknowledge the limits of our own perceptions, we fail to acknowledge the nuances of our state of shared existence with the people around us, who come from different backgrounds, have had different experiences, and as a result, have entirely different perceptions. If we merely exist within our own minds and refuse to accept that our viewpoints do not provide the entire picture, we will be forever stuck in our present state and never gain the opportunity to grow. When we acknowledge the barriers of our own perceptions, which begin with questioning the objectivity of the versions of the past we have been taught, we open ourselves to an infinite world of possibilities and learning experiences that will ultimately enhance our lives.

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Works Cited Dhar, T. N. “Problematizing History with Rushdie in Midnight’s Children.” Journal of South Asian Literature, vol. 28, no. 1/2, 1993, pp. 93-111. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40873307 Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Taylor & Francis Group, 1988.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. Penguin Random House Canada, 2021.

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Monstrosity and Metaphor: Finding Meaning in Beowulf ’s Grendel

By Faith Caswell The ambiguity of Beowulf ’s metaphor of monstrosity is evident through the difficulty of locating heinousness in “the monster[s]” (738) who are Grendel and Grendel’s mother. The term “monster” derives from the Latin word, “monstrare,” translating to “demonstrate” (Online Etymology Dictionary), meaning that the role of the monster is to teach and reveal truth. Grendel and his mother take on this instructive role in bringing clarity and meaning to the monstrous. Metaphors are also demonstrative by nature, as they displace meaning from something indefinable to something accessible and comprehensible. The way Grendel and his mother are described—or not described—reflects the poet’s implications with defining monstrosity. The absence of physical descriptions demonstrates a resistance to a singular interpretation of the metaphor, and the humanization of Grendel and his mother suggests an implicit humanness in monstrosity. Monsters are inherently difficult to understand, but the poet’s displacement of the monstrous onto Grendel and Grendel’s mother is a means of which the poet and readers alike can come to terms with figures of the monstrous.

The absence of physical descriptors is significant to this metaphor because it resists singular interpretation and definition, reinforcing the ambiguity of the monster. The lack of corporeal depiction allows for infinite interpretations of what the monster looks like, which enforces the poet’s assertion that the metaphor of the monstrous denies human boundaries or limitations. Metaphors also resist singular interpretation because it is always a removal from the truth.

The relationship between the essential multiplicity of metaphor and the ambiguity of the monster is clear in the physical deficit in the poet’s depiction of Grendel. Conceptualizing the monster is inherently complex, and it would be self-defeating to tell readers how to imagine Grendel. Without physical boundaries, the monster becomes defined by the reader’s personal memories of fear and perceptions of the monstrous. Appearance plays a significant role in identification, so the absence of physical appearances in the text consequently prevents readers from being able to identify Grendel and his mother singularly and clearly. The poet intentionally emphasizes the frightening nature of the unknown through the ambiguity of Grendel’s appearance, which roots the terror he inflicts through his “Otherness,” which is represented through the isolation from human autonomy.This is important when considering the metaphor of monstrosity because in the poem, the monsters are said to “dwell apart” (157). The tangible and acknowledged separation from humanity in conjunction with a lack of physicality perpetuates Grendel’s dehumanization and Otherness.

The body is an essential part of the being and cannot be separated from the internal self. By not ascribing a depiction of Grendel’s body, the poet denies readers the chance to fully understand what, or who, Grendel is. The body is vulnerable, and even Grendel, protected by a charm against metals, is injured and consequently killed by Beowulf.

If the body can be destroyed, hope ensues that the monster is not an impenetrable force, but can be overtaken with strength and courage. Giving Grendel a breakable body enables the social role of the monster: to become scapegoats by embodying society’s undesirable characteristics and then to be killed is society’s way of excising itself of immorality.

Prior to Grendel’s death, Beowulf fatally wounds him by cutting off his arm and shoulder. Significantly, this is the only explicit description of Grendel’s body the poet provides, and it involves two anatomical parts shared by humans. Killing monsters is one way society exercises the limitations of morality; one can take the life of creatures as long as they do not possess human attributes. This act of violence against parts of a human body is a way in which the poet forces readers to question who in the text is truly monstrous.

Throughout Beowulf, the author perpetuates Grendel and his mother’s monstrosity, but also humanizes them, suggesting an intrinsic connection between the identities of monster and human. The poet states that Grendel is descended from Cain, consequently identifying the former as partially human. Cain, being the first-born son of Adam and Eve, is the most immediate relation to human innocence before the fall, while simultaneously sinning as a direct result of the fall. His close proximity to purity enhances the severity of his murder. Grendel’s anger towards human civilization

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is also attributed to Cain’s transgression, as his moral failing caused Grendel to be separated from the joys of society.

The poet describes Grendel’s awareness of his detachment from civilization: “It harrowed him / to hear the din of the loud banquet / every day in the hall.” (87-93). The Latin etymology of the word “harrowed” translates to pillage, meaning to steal using violence (Merriam-Webster), suggesting that Grendel himself feels like a victim. In being “harrowed,” Grendel feels that his right to happiness, community, and celebration is unfairly denied to him, making his attacks on Heorot motivated by revenge.

Grendel’s attacks are also a product of jealousy and resentment, the same impulses that caused Cain to kill Abel. Rather than addressing the monstrous capacity of humankind, since society shares their humanness with Cain, society instead makes Grendel the scapegoat of human immorality and violence. Identifying Grendel as the personification of evil because of his direct descendants from Cain is a simpler objective than addressing the evil that pervades hidden within human society. Casting out Grendel as an embodiment of human failure and sin is the way in which society attempts to free itself of monstrosity. However, this act of displacing undesirable characteristics onto figures of the monstrous only causes those qualities to inevitably come back stronger and more persistent than before. Exiling Cain for his resentment and murder of Abel led to the same resentment felt by Grendel, causing him to murder many rather than one. Cain’s act of fratricide mobilized the human fear of what powerful emotions such as jealousy and resentment can do to tarnish morality—a fear that leads to the social banishment of Grendel, which in turn “harrow[s]” him and prompts his attacks. After comparing Grendel’s experience to the actions of Cain,the poet of Beowulf asserts that monstrosity works as a cycle.

Grendel’s mother also plays a significant role in the essential ambiguity of the metaphor of the monstrous.

This is evident as the poet intentionally blurs the line between mother and monster. The moral obligation to avenge the death of a kinsmen by either receiving payment of wergild or committing revenge murder was a social custom of the period (“Beowulf ” 39). In seeking revenge for the death of her son, Grendel’s mother continues this blood feud tradition, her actions synonymous with human custom. Hrothgar describes Grendel’s mother as a being “from some other world . . . / as far as anyone ever can discern, / looks like a woman” (1349-1351). While she is said to appear somewhat feminine, there is a clear hesitancy to identify Grendel’s mother as entirely woman and consequently as fully human. However, the poet continues to humanize her through an emphasis on the loss she suffers as a mother: “So she pounced upon [Beowulf] and pulled out a broad, whetted knife: now she would avenge her only child” (1545-1547). Still, her act of revenge does not fit the traditional, domestic role of a woman in this period. Throughout Beowulf, Grendel’s mother is depicted as better fitting the role of an Anglo-Saxon warrior than a mother, clearly resisting boundaries of gender constructs. This detachment from gender roles makes her a threat to society—and to return to the etymology of “monster,” Grendel’s mother is demonstrative of the perceptions of the monstrous, because her monstrosity is located in her act of challenging social norms. After seeking revenge in Heorot, Hrothgar explicitly identifies her as “this powerful / other one” (1338-1339). As a metaphor for the monster, Grendel’s mother asserts that the monstrous is the force that challenges socially constructed boundaries and limitations.

The ambiguity of the monster is further questioned by Grendel’s mother’s lack of a name. The denial of one’s name has the effect of dehumanizing and Othering, which the poet does intentionally. However, while dehumanization is intended to make creatures an easier target to kill, the poet makes her an even stronger warrior than Grendel.

As she and Beowulf fight, the poet asserts that Beowulf ’s survival is attributed solely to the strength of his armour: “[He] would have surely perished … / had the strong links and locks of his war-gear / not helped to save him” (15501553). Beowulf ’s reliance on salvation outside of his own strength is a testament to the power of Grendel’s mother.

Even his sword, Hrunting, who had never failed before, could not defeat her. She resists death by the weapon most trusted by Beowulf, defying his expectations of their fight. Her prowess in combat with Beowulf is enhanced by her being gendered as a female, because there is a strong dichotomy between her supposed gender roles and the skill at which she performs in battle. Her immunity to Hrunting and her resistance to Beowulf ’s strength affirms her Otherness and demonstrates another way in which she challenges the limitations set by the male figures in the poem.

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Her lack of a name further emphasizes Grendel’s mother’s identity as a social outcast. Grendel has a name and is considered a monster, and she is also considered a monster, but is identified only in relation to his name. The effect of this creates an inseparability of her and Grendel’s identity; one cannot refer to her without first referring to her son. As a sort of ironic punishment for refusing to adhere to traditional gender roles, she is labelled only by her gender role and in relation to a man (or one at least “in the shape of a man” (1352)). As a result, her ambiguity is rooted in two key opposing binaries. She is humanized through her role as a mother, and simultaneously dehumanized through denial of a name; also, the gendered role of a mother defines her, yet she is also able to obtain agency by resisting other gendered behaviors. These binaries suggest that her namelessness also symbolizes resistance to identification or singular definition. Her parallel identities as both mother and monster make it difficult for readers to locate absolute monstrosity within her character.

On line 137, the poet identifies Grendel as “malignant by nature.” The term “malignant” comes from the Latin male meaning “badly,” and gnus meaning “born” (Online Etymology Dictionary). The etymology thus translates to malignant referring to one “badly born” or “born to be bad.” By describing Grendel in these terms, the poet denies him agency over the way in which he acts. His violence is consequently inherent to his nature as a descendent of Cain, the first attacker. If Grendel has no control over his actions, it makes it more difficult to entirely blame him.

The implication of this almost suggests that the poet is asking readers to empathize with Grendel because his violent tendencies are not his fault. The metaphor of the monstrous in Beowulf suggests that monsters are not self-evident but are subject to Othering that is beyond their control.

Establishing the relationship between Grendel and Beowulf, the poet states that “As long as either lived, / he was hateful to the other” (813-814). This loathing perpetuates and fuels Beowulf ’s pursuance of personal glory, as well as Grendel’s attacks of resentment and jealousy. For Beowulf to remain the hero, Grendel must remain the villain, or the monster. If the relationship between Grendel and Beowulf is one of hatred, it is also one of necessity, because central to the figure of the monster is its relationship to the non-monster, as monsters are identified by their Otherness. However, this separation between monstrosity and humanness is artificial, created by a social rejection of the monster. Monsters and non-monsters persist in a mutually reinforcing relationship that requires the existence of each other to act as supporting binaries.

In Beowulf, Grendel and Grendel’s mother are exiled from human civilization. However, if we consider the humanness of the monstrosity which we cast out, there may be room for empathy and even acceptance of this monstrosity. If fear rests in the Otherness of the monster, the metaphor of monstrosity in Beowulf may be understood as this: We are not afraid of the demon under the bed, but of the dark liminal space in-between that exposes the parts of ourselves that we do not want seen.

Works Cited “Harrow.” Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harrow.

“Malignant (adj.).” Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/malignant.

“Monster.” Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/monster.

Unknown. “Beowulf.” The Norton Anthology of Major Authors Tenth Edition, Volume One, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, pp. 37—109.

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