Darwinism, Superstition, Rockem Sockem Robots, and Masochism

No matter what we say our life goals are one of the unsaid missions of almost every human being is survival.  Sitting in a classroom or working in an office cubical, that doesn’t seem too difficult – but its stories like In the Heart of the Sea that show us real survival situations and what it can take to get through them.  For example, in a Criminal Minds episode called ‘North Mammon’, three high school girl soccer players are kidnapped and thrown into an unknown location together where they’re told only two of them will be allowed to live.  The three girls say they won’t choose, that since they’re friends they’ll hold out and refuse to kill each other, hoping someone will find them.  After a few days though, they realized there’s no way they’ll be found.  One of the girls is already ill, so the bossiest of the three tells the nicest they have to kill her for her own good so she’ll stop suffering and they can get home to their families.  In the end, the sick girl bashes her bossy ‘friend’ in the back of the head before she can kill her.  The weakest of the group somehow finds the strength to save her own life at any cost.  In my opinion, survival of the fittest just got its ass kicked.

When it comes to survival, I think the only thing standing in your way is yourself.  Morals are a concept of human creation.  We cling to them because they make us feel superior to animals and other ‘less civilized’ humans across the globe.  In class we discussed whether morals should be absolute and worth dying for.  Personally, I feel that I don’t have a single belief or moral in my body that would stop me from trying to stay alive in any way I could.  Morals are supposed to show us a way to live, not a way to keep us from surviving.  I’ve always seen morals as a way to guide our actions, like a compass meant to keep us from doing bad things like murdering people or cheating on our significant others.

Does this mean I think I would give in and be a cannibal if I was in a situation like the men on the Essex?  Hell no I would not.  I know we all say we wouldn’t know what we would or wouldn’t do until we were in that situation, but I know myself well enough to say I wouldn’t be able to eat another human being.  I would let myself starve to death before eating someone else, no matter how desperate I was.  When I asked my roommate, she said the exact same thing – so either we’re both deluding ourselves, or we’re actually really anti-cannibalism.  Scientifically, I’ve heard that eating the flesh of another human being will cause you to go mad.  I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing I would need if I was stranded and about to die.  Historically though, there are lots of instances of cannibalism for a variety of reasons.  For example, "some south American cannibals believed you could cure a limp by eating someone else's good leg" (Shaw 214)*.  "Aborigines in western Australia" used cannibalism as population control "by eating every tenth baby born" (Shaw 214).  To suvive after being captured by Allies, one German soldier who they "locked in an abandoned railroad truck" only "survived by eating portions of his left leg and drinking his own blood" (Shaw 216).  During a famine in 1201, Egyptians "survived by slaughtering and eating children" (Shaw 216).

One of the small things about In the Heart of the Sea that I latched onto was the importance in their society of omens and superstitions.  Several times in the book things were taken to be a “sign that something unusual was about to happen” such as comets, “an extraordinary sea animal” on the coast that was unknown to all, and “swarms of grasshoppers” (Philbrick 4, 27).  To us, I’m sure this seems crazy since we understand that science can back up and place all of these things in a realm that can be explained.  And yet, our society can be just as superstitious as the people living in Nantucket.  For example, how many people have been cautious on Friday the 13^th?  How many of us throw salt over our left shoulder if we spill it, refuse to walk under ladders, are careful not to break mirrors or don’t cross the path of a black cat?  Even thought they seem really little to us, they’re still superstitions, just like the ones the people of Nantucket feared shouted the ruin of the Essex.

The differences between Pollard and Chase in the novel were akin to me as the differences we drew a few classes ago about Boyer and Sanford, except they were fighting over a ship and not a lady.  For a start, Pollard starts off seeming unsure and a bit unorganized on the ship whereas Chase is experienced and quick to supersede the Captain to get things done.  For me, one of the most telling things about how the two characters operate was the telling of their histories.  Pollack’s father was a captain that “would make it difficult for Pollard, a first-time captain just emerging from the long shadow of a respected predecessor” find a way to do things, especially given his “first mate’s cocksure attitude” (Philbrick 31).  Chase’s reason for “his impatience to become a captain” wasn’t because he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, but because “his father was a farmer on an island where seagoing men got all the glory” and thus was “fired with more than the usual amount of ambition” (Philbrick 30).  Chase for me was like Hercules in the Disney version – he wanted to go the distance and find where he belonged. 

This rift between the Captain and his first mate’s baser natures spells doom for the crew.  The first time this happens is when Pollard wanted to “return to Nantucket for repairs” but his first mate “disagreed” and “urged that they continue on” even though “the captain’s will was normally the law of the ship” (Philbrick 43).  Look at it like a video game:  Round one, Pollard vs. Chase.  Chase uses cocky and experienced attack combo – Pollard uses Indecision.  Chase totally kicked his ass – round, set, match.  If this was Rockem Sockem Robots, Pollard’s head would have popped off. 

One of the most interesting things I think we talked about in class about this book was about humanizing the whale, and why that could have terrified Chase so much that it haunted him.  One of the things that humans seem to think makes us superior to animals is that we can express emotions and think critically.  In the novel, the whale hits the ship in the place where it would do the most damage almost like it decided to attack and calculated how to do so.  As a whaler, that would be a terrifying thought – as a hunter if your prey starts hunting you you’ve got a major problem, especially if the prey is that much bigger and stronger than you.  As a whaler the last thing you want is a mafia whale with a hit list coming after you to avenge his brother whales.  I think Hannah said it best when she said it would be like “West Side Story for whales”.  For me, a humanistic whale would be like someone trying to kill Babar the Elephant.  One of things that I think makes it so much more socially acceptable to kill animals than it is to kill another person is because we don’t see animals on the same plain as us.  If suddenly we see whales on the same plain as us, then it would be just as morally wrong to kill a whale as a human being.  It wouldn’t be killing for profit or oil, it would be murder.  For someone like Chase, morals intact at this point, that must have been a horrible thought to have.

In a way, all of humanity is haunted by something or another.  That’s where I think insomnia comes from.  Whether or not you’re haunted by past mistakes, trauma, or just what you’re going to have to do tomorrow, everyone has things that weight on their mind or keeps them from sleeping.  Personally, I have insomnia because I can’t shut my mind down long enough to rest and fall asleep.  Sometimes I stress over decisions I’ve made that might affect my future, past mistakes I can’t change, my workload, being so far from my family, etc.

In ‘Fight Club’ Jack is being haunted, in my opinion, by the lack of things in his life worthy of haunting him.  His life is empty, so he tries to fill it with stuff and material possessions until he meets Tyler, who in a very Emersonian way believes possessions end up owning us.  In this way he tries to steer Jack away from the kind of consumer culture Jack has been buying into to fill his empty apartment and his life.  In this way, they remind me of Mark and Roger from RENT.  Jack is like Mark, void of the destructive identity people like Tyler and Roger possess, floundering around in his life while watching other people live theirs, Jack from an office cubical and self help groups, Mark from behind the camera lens.  I think the consumer point is driven home most in the song “What You Own.”  Along with hitting the consumer aspect of the two characters and how what you own owns you, there is also a line that says "I don't own emotionl/I rent" which I feel speaks to Jack and Tyler's emotional capabilities or lack there of:

In a way, Tyler is just as empty as Jack is (I prefer to think of them as separate people, even though I know they aren’t, in case you haven’t already noticed that).  In the scene in the parking lot, Tyler has Jack punch him so that he can FEEL something, to fill the void of numbness, and then hits Jack back.  Both of them see violence as a way to feel in a very masochistic way, enjoying and even reveling in this self-inflicted affliction or pain in their lives.  In a way, I can understand how they feel.  Sometimes in the midst of all the numb and the nothing, I need a little sharp pain to remind me I’m still breathing and going about my life, that I’m living it and not just a spectator in it.  For me, I’ve always thought about it as being like the song “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls:

Wasn’t that pretty?  Now let’s get down to business interpreting those lyrics!  I think the most poignant verse for this point is the second one: “And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming/Or the moment of truth in your lies/When everything feels like the movies/Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive”:   This really reminds me of Jack and Tyler in the way that they seem to be null and void of most emotions unless they’re beating into each other or other people.  They need to bleed to know that they’re really living, to feel pain to feel anything else in their lives.  On the other end, they also seem to me to parallel the chorus: “And I don't want the world to see me/'Cause I don't think that they'd understand/When everything's made to be broken/I just want you to know who I am”.  Fight Club is hidden away from the majority of society that wouldn’t understand what people like Jack and Tyler need pain in their lives to really feel like they’re living.  Jack clings to Tyler to know what he really is and wants Tyler to know him for who he really is – that in the end he’s both himself and the fictious Tyler.  In this way, violence is self-help for these men and other like them.

*Quote from The Giant Bathroom Reader by Karl Shaw

Self Reliance and Obsession, They're Healthy Right?



How many of us have done everything we’ve been told to do by teachers, parents, or bosses?  I know I certainly haven’t done everything I’ve been told, and the abysmal state of my room at home is proof of all the times I’ve ignored my Mother telling me to clean it.  Still, there are doubtlessly many things we as part of a society conform to.  For example, how many of us live without things electricity, the internet, or cell phones?  It’s possible, and yet we’d all rather not.  In this way, we’re tied to what society sees as being normal.  I’ll admit, if I meet someone who doesn’t have texting or a cell phone, I’m really shocked, sort of like I used to shock people back when I didn’t have a Facebook.  When you’re that one person who doesn’t quite fit with the other puzzle pieces, it can be alienating, but at the same time it can be empowering.  I remember when I finally got a Facebook, I felt like I was giving in and just following peer pressure, even though I made it during a camp I was attending so I’d be able to keep in touch with the friends I made there.  For me, it was like becoming one of the girls in Stepford Wives, except without the sundress and the perfect hair.  I’d followed the crowd and conformed to what everyone else said was cool, no matter how hard I tried to justify it.

Emerson wanted what many people still want today, to break from society in their own way and live their life.  One of my favorite quotes from Self Reliance illustrates this: “My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle” (Emerson 81).  I feel like this was the main point of the entirety of Self Reliance for me and certainly what I took away from it.  Living your life apart from society entailed a certain amount of loneliness, a place where there was no one to show off for or hold you back.  In this way, relying on oneself was both a necessity and a luxury.  If you have no one watching you, then you can really do what you want to without worrying about being judged.  In a time when there are time that “the world whips you with its displeasure,” trying to “insist on yourself” and “never imitate” anyone else isn’t something that can be easily achieved (Emerson 82, 87, 87).  I feel that it must have been easier in Emerson’s time to rely wholly on oneself without ties to society he felt would hamper you.

The truth is, whether we want and strive to be self reliant or not, a lot of the world needs a hierarchy in order to function.  For a minute, try and think of people throughout history that lived outside society and relied on their wits or resources to survive as a subculture.  Did you think of pirates?  Because I certainly did. 

When I think of pirates, I think of men striving to be free without rules on the open ocean.  And yet the clip above shows that even some of the supposedly freest lawless characters I can think of had a code they lived by, and a hierarchy that goes along with it.  In the Court of the Brethren in Pirates of the Caribbean III At World’s End, in order to declare war on anyone, the pirate lords need to vote for someone to become the Pirate King.  In this way, the lawless pirates have to sacrifice their independence and power to a leader for the group as a whole to make a move to attack, following the rules and guidelines set down in the pirate code.

When Emerson was pursuing a life of independence from society, Captain Ahab was chasing a whale.  Moby Dick for me serves as a warning to humanity to be cautious of what we cling to, lest they become out entire purpose and identity.  Captain Ahab was, point blank, obsessed with a giant white whale.  If Dr. Freud were still alive, I’m sure he’d have a field day with what the symbolism of that meant, but since he isn’t, you’ll have to be content with my theories.  In class we discussed how the symbolism of the color of the whale being white had ties to white in animals being unnatural, and thus mystical.  The quest of Ahab to kill the whale was likened to conquistadors seeking treasure and to the Puritans hunting the witches they didn’t understand among other things.  I saw the whale as any and every addicting or obsession-worthy object or ideal on the planet, and Ahab and his crew as a warning against what our addictions and obsessions can do to us.  As an example, trying thinking of it like Lord of the Rings where the whale is the Ring and Ahab is Frodo.  Frodo becomes so involved in trying to destroy the Ring that it becomes his entire identity.  At the end of The Return of the King, lying on the edge of Mt. Doom with Sam, Frodo (this is paraphrased, since at this moment I can’t find a read online version and my copy is at home) tells Sam that he can’t remember his life before the ring or what his home even looks like.  In this way, the Ring became overpowering, his position as the ring bearer becoming his entire identity. 

Obsession has a way of overtaking us and taking control, like a heroin addiction.  No matter how dangerous or bad for us it is, we can’t break free, even if it’s wrong.  For example, Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame comes to mind.  His sick attraction and obsession with the gypsy Esmeralda leads him to do horrible things including burn down half of Paris, throws loads of innocent gypsies in jail, and orders a family to be burnt alive.  The clip below illustrates his inner moral battle and obsession right before the breaking point when he starts to do real damaged to the town, and his decision to go to the ends of his resources to have her or see her burned.

Its one thing for Ahab to be obsessed with chasing a whale, but the fact that he got entire shipload of people to follow him in his obsession and to even feel it as their own is a whole other kettle of worms.  In the same way that people need a hierarchy to follow, they need leaders to give them ideas.  The sailors that worked for Ahab bought into his obsession, somewhat claiming it as their own.  In The Prestige, Cutter tells The Great Danton that obsession is a young man’s game.  I think the sailors in Moby Dick are a prime example of this.  Needing something to hold onto, something to strive for, they seek to bring down the whale along with Ahab, as much for glory as for the very need of having something to chase.

One of the ways Self Reliance and Moby Dick seemed to overlap for me was the idea of sheer loneliness.  When thinking of characters in books or movies, a lot of the villains seem to have two common attributes: they’re independence and able to support themselves without other people, they’re obsessed rather unhealthily with something or someone, and because of two they’re usually crazy lonely.  Take Jareth the Goblin King from The Labyrinth for example.  Even though he runs a kingdom and is a perfectly self sustaining ruler, he becomes obsessed with a young girl named Sarah because of he’s so lonely (even though he’s surrounded by a thousand or so goblins, whatever, apparently none of them count next to wanting a girlfriend).  Because of it, he loses everything, proving that obsessions can be horribly detrimental to continuing forward with one’s life, or you know, the ruling of one’s kingdom and continued magical life.

A Humorous Take on Stereotypes, Why I LOVE 'Bad Guys', Masculinity, Peacocks, Men, and Heavily Needed Sassy Gay Friends

Stereotypes, we all know, are horrible labels to give to someone. 

And yet, we’ve all know people in our lives who fit them.  For example, to paraphrase something Brittany said in class, “all girls at some point date that one guy who treats her like total shit.”  We all know someone likes this, a modern day conquistador looking for victory in the beds and broken hearts of our peers.

The beginning of our culture was a precursor for the small and varied continued violences that still happen today, like WWE wrestling.  In class we talked at length about a masculinity that can’t rest as part of its gender identity and that it always needs to be out there proving itself over and over again.  Like in the documentary on wrestling, I’ve knew people in my high school years that over compensated to look like a ‘tough guy’ by bullying other more effeminate males.  I could tell looking around the class that everyone was in some degree horrified by the documentary, and yet the more I’ve reflected on it since that class, the more I’ve realized we seem dulled down cases of the wrongs wrestling showcases in my real waking life.  Domestic violence, possessive men who treat their women like garbage, people hounding after someone simply because they want their body, bullies beating and taunting other school children, homophobia, the list goes on and on.  In a world like this, how can parents teach their kids that there’s strength in walking away from a fight?  How do we teach young men that just because you’re effeminate, you don’t have to turn to violence?



The world of today is all about domination and conquests in the form of self gratification and a warped perspective of what it means to be masculine.  And yet, the world didn’t always used to be this way about its conquests – it used to be much, much worse.  Along with the hopes for personal gain, men ‘settled’ all over the world for government and God, ripping apart the native populations that came into their line of fire in the process in a show of violence that can only be called overpowering and unapologetic.  In Diaz’s writings he blatantly says “Our Lord Jesus Christ was indeed sending us help and assistance” (Diaz 72).  Seriously?!  Let me battle this quote with my own, courtesy of Zoë from Firefly: “Don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?”  And yet, I’m sure all cultures have their stories of religious killings.  More and more I can’t help but wonder how many of the people who use the bible for justification of horrible and violent deeds have actually read it.  Personally, I think Cortes must have used his as a paperweight.

Honestly, conquistadors remind me of peacocks, and not because they were brightly colored to attract mates.  They loved to be seen, and much like the birds I’ve compared them to, show off.  When entering the enemy city, Diaz writes “Wide though it was, it was so crowded with people that there was hardly room for them all.  Some were going to Mexico and others coming away, besides those who had come to see us, and we could hardly get through the crowds that were there.  For towers and the cues were, full and they came in canoes from all parts of the lake” (Diaz 69).  Can you say vanity?  I feel like the Spanish at this point were so drunk with power and superiority they couldn’t help but to shout ‘Look at me, look at me’ to all the Native people, who were apparently happy to oblige.  “Who could now count the multitude of men, women, and boys in the streets, on the roof-tops and in canoes on the waterways, who had come out to see us?  It was a wonderful sight” (Diaz 70).

You know what else would have been a wonderful sight?  If Eliza Wharton had had a Sassy Gay Friend, who fixed everything and stopped her before she (with everyone’s help) ruined her life:

I can see it now:  "What are you doing?  What, what, what are you doing?  Eliza, honey, stop window shopping and pick a man already!  This isn't like choosing between Prada and Gucci.  Stop running around with Sanford before you end up ruined worse than Hester Prynne!"

One of the things that most tied The Coquette to The True History of the Conquest of New Spain wasn’t the very nature of conquest, sexual and other, in both pieces.  It was the blatantly unapologetic nature which both writings assume at times.  Eliza Wharton can’t be blamed for everything that befell her, but neither can Boyer and Sanford – her ruin was a group effort.  I think Lucy Freeman (who undoubtedly of everyone in the novel seemed to have the most sense if you ask me) said it best when she told Eliza “But to the disgrace of humanity and virtue, the assassin if honor; the wretch, who breaks the peace of families, who robs virgin innocence of its charms, who triumphs over the ill placed confidence of the inexperienced, unsuspecting, and too credulous fair, is received, and caressed, not only by his own sex, to which he is a reproach, but even by ours, who have every conceivable reason to despise and avoid him” (Foster 63).  What kind of friends, knowing that Eliza was weak to the temptations Peter Sanford put before her of all the joys she most wanted in life, would continue to allow him chances to get nearer to her?  For example, though Mrs. Richman says that she has a low opinion of him because he is “a professional libertine, by having but too successfully practiced the arts of seduction; by triumphing in the destruction of innocence and the peace of families” and yet she still allows him to be a guest in her home when he comes to call (Foster 20).

On the subject of the men in this novel, I find it hard to cast them opposite each other.  While I agreed with Brigitte and Hannah when they described Peter Sanford as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother respectively, I can’t put him in just one role, or put Boyer as Dr. Horrible to Sanford’s Captain Hammer (from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog in case anyone is confused about this reference).  For me, Sanford represents my ideal description of passion: pure, unadulterated, and utterly wild.  Passion is, I think, important in a relationship.  What would life be without passionate love, without something that consumes us in a fire we gladly welcome?  Is this enough to redeem Peter Sanford for his appalling treatment of women as trophies?  I don’t think so.  But do I think that he’s a prime example of all the best things about passion?  Hell to the yes.  Even though I knew it was horrible, part of me loved when Sanford said “I love her too much to see her connected with another for life” (Foster 56).  Yes, it’s horrible that he plans to ruin her potential relationship with Boyer, but at the same time I felt my heart leap. 

Maybe it’s because I’m slightly addicted to fiction characters who are obviously ‘bad’ but passionate, like Erik from The Phantom of the Opera or Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh!, I’m drawn to characters that are passionate – let’s face it, Raoul was kind of a weak character.   Much like John Willoughby from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, I feel like Sanford would have done well on today’s reality television show ‘The Bachelor’.  He’d probably think he died and gone to heaven having a dozen women who all want his attention in one house ripe for the taking.  Still, there’s no doubt in my mind that Sanford is a deplorable match if you’re looking for a husband of any kind, reformed rake or no.  My blood literally boiled when he said “Though I cannot possess her wholly myself, I will not tamely see her the property of another” when referring to Eliza (Foster 35).  Honestly, I wished I could jump into the pages and tell him to get over himself.

And then there was Boyer, perfect and appealing to all the ladies of the time in which this book is set – except, you know, Eliza.  The entire time I was reading The Coquette my mental picture of Boyer was Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice, which I can’t believe anyone would find appealing.  And yet, if I was in that time period, I undoubtedly would follow my family and friend’s advice and marry Boyer if they told me to, because it would be a good match.  Would I be happy?  Hell no, I wouldn’t.  But would it be better than ending up how Eliza does at the end of the book?  I’m pretty sure misery isn’t as bad as being pregnant and then dying.  Yet, at the same time, a life full of reason and without passion?  Can you say stale crackers?  For me, I feel Eliza feels the same way about marrying Boyer that Sanford does about marriage and the idea that she has to “conform to the sober rules of wedded life, and renounces those dear enjoyments of dissipation” (Foster 35).  For Eliza, I feel marriage to Boyer would be a fate worse than death.  What do you think?

And now, I’ve reached the greatest contributor to Eliza’s grim fate – herself.  Frankly, if people (Eliza included) describe you as “young, gay, and volatile” you’ve got a serious attitude problem (Foster 13).  Much like the protagonist in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, I feel like Eliza wanted too much and couldn’t be contented with anything less than the most extreme version of what she considered freedom and liberation.  Like Gigi in He’s Just Not That Into You, Eliza thinks she can be the Exception instead of the Rule when it comes to Sanford, evident when she says “is it not an adage generally received, that ‘a reformed rake makes the best husband’” (Foster 53).  Whether its naiveté or sheer stupidity, she obviously feels she can be the one to rein Sanford in and make him heel. 

As for her own personality, she’s reads as being such a whiny little bitchy baby.  Pathetic and clinging to everyone for advice she never heeds, she needs to be the center of attention in every conversation and social gathering.  Is there anything worse than a girl that doesn’t know when enough is enough?  Her sumptuous view of her delusional little world seeps into her opinion of Boyer and Sanford when she says “Why were not the virtues of the one, and the graces and affluence of the other combines” (Foster 53).  If I was Lucy Freeman, I would have gotten into a carriage, ridden to where Eliza was, and smacked her in the back of the head.  For me, Eliza is a womanly interpretation of gluttony and greed.  She wants everything to be perfect, and doesn’t understand that part of being in a relationship is accepting someone flaws and all.  Instead, she wanted to combine her favorite parts of her two greatest suitors, and instead ended up alone.

Schadenfreude, Faith, and the Human Pysche

When reading or discussing books and various other texts for classes, in my experience there’s always at least one person who makes a comment or mutters about how things like this would never happen in today’s world.  But is that really true?

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, for example, Hester Prynne is made to stand on the pillory in town with her baby and the red ‘A’ stitched into her dress for all to see for three hours.  In this way she’s made to be a living sermon against sin, a living and breathing example parents can point to and say to their children “She’s a sinner, and that’s bad”.  Just like Cotton Mather’s explanation of the Salem Witch madness, in this tale one woman is persecuted for the good of the whole congregation.  She’s used as an educational display for the congregation, her shame used to dissuade others from making the same mistake.  In this way people like Hester became part of human stigmata, which we discussed in class, by being incorporate into the ritual of public shame.  Historically, this has happened before "during the fourteen century Holy Inquisition" (Shaw 286)*.  The church began "digging up the bodies of non-believers it wished to disgrace" by "pubically mutilating their corpses" (Shaw 286).  This practice only furthers the theory that public humiliation is a ritual in which different sects of human kind choose to incorportate into their teachings for the sake of using it as a teaching method.

However, if you take a look at Puritan culture, what happened to the fictitious Hester  Prynne would have been – in the eyes of the ministers and congregation – seen as an attempt to offer her salvation.  Part of weeding out sin was to have the offenders admit that they’d done wrong and thus seek salvation.  In The Scarlet Letter, there is a passage I think illustrates this brilliantly, when Dimmesdale calls on Hester to reveal the name of her baby’s father:  “If thou feelest it to be for they soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow sufferer!  Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide his guilty heart through life”  (Hawthorne 31).  In this society, admitting to sin was part of the ‘healing’ process, like how in the witch trials one surefire way to survive was to admit to witchery and thus be allowed to live and pray for salvation. 

But were all acts of pillory simply meant to educate and bring salvation?  Based on pure human psychology, that answer would be a resounding NO.  For the pillory to be effective as a punishment, there had to be a crowd to come and jeer at you – and I’m pretty sure the last thing on the crowd’s mind would be anyone’s salvation.  It’s inbred in human beings to laugh at someone else’s pain in various forms, and always has been.  Sure, today we don’t have pillories so we can go point and laugh at criminals or sinners, but for a minute think about what we do have.  Most of reality television is centered on people that can easily be mocked.  Shows like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” contain quite a bit of ‘hilarious’ videos of people injuring themselves or other people.  And, just for a second, think about the song Schadenfreude from the musical Avenue Q.  The lyrics state it quite plainly: Human nature/Nothing I can do/It's Schadenfreude/Making me feel glad that I'm not you! 

Another interesting point that people haven’t changed over the years is in how differently men and women are treated in regards to sex and sexual matters.  For a moment let’s pretend that Dimmesdale had come forward with Hester in The Scarlet Letter.  If our understanding of history serves us right in his instance, we can infer his punishment would have been less severe than Hester’s for the same crime.  On the handout we got in class, it even said “Still, mothers of bastard children were punished more severely by both the church and the courts than their male counterparts.  Unwed mothers would not be reinitiated into the Puritan community with a simple penitent statement and a fine” (handout 19).  Seriously?!  They let the men off with a fine and a penitent statement, but girls wouldn’t even be let back into the community?  I wish I could say that this kind of treatment ended with the Puritans, but that would be a lie.  As we saw from the clip of “Easy A” we watched in class, Olive was being picketed for supposedly having sex.  And, just for a minute, think about your own high school experiences.  In my high school, I remember girls who had reportedly had sex or performed sexual favors getting called any number of names, from the seemingly less offense – slut – to the highly offensive – whore.  You’d think they would have treated the guys just as badly, but they didn’t.  For the most part, a guy who was reported to have ‘got some’ from any number of girls was treated like a king in the popular circles.  Since I was not a part of any of these popular circles, I felt no qualms in muttering to myself about how certain guys were man-whores or sleazebags, but for the majority of my high school population, the bad reputations came down mostly on female heads.

Still, is there power in being othered by a culture?  According to human stigmata, several of the other options of what happens to social dirt is to other it, segregate or isolate it, or label it as dangerous/evil. But could there be power buried inside being set aside?  For Hester, continuing her life as best she can under the circumstances thrust upon her shows how strong she really is.  In being able to survive what was before thought to be unlivable, Hester gains power over her life and actions.  For Olive in “Easy A”, for a while she finds power in the fact that where she used to be invisible, she’s now (overly) visible to her peers.  In this way, finding a way to self-author your own identity can be empowering, even if the identity you’re working under can be wrought with bad connotations.  After all, once you’ve hit rock bottom, you have two choices:  wallow, or try and find a way to fix things.

Thus I come to Mary Rowlandson, and A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration.  Honestly, I think Mary Rowlandson chose to wallow.  Without the sudden lucky appearance of a Bible into her existence among the Indians, I feel she would have gone and wallowed herself to death in self-pity.  For me, it rings true with the question of ‘When you have nothing else left, what do you cling to?’  For Mary Rowlandson, religion became her sole rock in a sea of uncertainty, both for the hope her faith gave her and the fact that it was a tangible piece of her old life she could cling fast to, much like it has been said that the Jews in concentration camps clung to their religion to see them through the Holocaust.  Throughout the text there were points where Mary would find a section of text she could attribute to her own misfortune, such as “I opened my Bible to read, and the Lord brought that precious scripture to me.  ‘Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy’ (Jeremiah 31.13) This was a sweet cordial to me when I was ready to faint; many and many a time I have sat down and wept sweetly over this Scripture” (Rowlandson 316).  In her captivity, the Bible became her source of hope that she would be saved. 

However in her predicament, I can’t blame her for scrambling for something to cling to.  Having something to hope for, and something to put your faith in, must have been an amazing tonic for the pain and fear of her captivity.  If ever there comes a time that I or someone I know would be in any kind of situation that can compare, I only hope they too can find some kind of solace.

*Quote taken from The Giant Bathroom Reader by Karl Shaw

Hysteria, Thy Catalyst is Witchery

Everyone has skeletons in their closet they’d rather not talk about, things they would rather forget.  In essence, everyone in their own way has a tortured past. 

For Puritans settled in New England around the same time as Cotton Mather, after a torturous past of religious persecution, the stigma of ill fate continued to plague their people with the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials.  As I was reading through various parts of On Witchcraft by Cotton Mather, I couldn’t help but feel that he was trying to justify that innocent lives were taken by, essentially, a massive mob.  Blinded by religious fervor and a feeling that their mission was to root out the unholy witches among them, the Puritans sought to destroy the witches in their midst to protect their colony, the witches having been sent by the Devil because “The New-Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil’s territories” (Mather 14). 

In this way, it seemed to me that you could equate the Devil to a jealous ex-boyfriend.  Try to image:  a new boyfriend, here played by the Puritans of New England, moves in on your ex-girlfriend you’re not completely over yet, or that you still have some manner of feelings for.  As the ex-boyfriend, the Devil, would you be upset?  In my experience, that answer should be a resounding yes.  So, what would you do?  As Cotton Mather put it, the Devil then “immediately try’d all sorts of methods to overturn this poor Plantation” to, following the metaphor I’ve created, get the new beau away from his ex-flame (Mather 14).  In one view, the taking of land that had once according to Mather belonged to Satan could be seen as an act of war.

As was touched upon in On Witchcraft, the Stephen Asma readings, in the movie shown in class and in our class discussions, the idea of the Devil and the ways in which evil manifests itself in various forms is, to me, both fascinating and disturbing.  The basis of my reasoning for this is as follows:  If the Devil can take any form, even the form of an innocent person, how then would we as humans be able to tell the different between Satan, God, an Angel, or a Demon if confronted by one?  Given this, how could anyone know the difference between what is holy and true, as opposed to what is evil and a lie?

Does my posing of these questions mean then that I think the girls in Salem who started all the ruckus of accusing people of witchery were not to blame for being faced with something we can’t fully explain or understand?  No.  Whether or not my image of these girls is tainted from my outside knowledge having seen the movie and read the script of The Crucible by Arthur Miller every year of my high school career for some class or another, my view is not that the girls are innocent babes thrust into an adult world wide eyed and scared.  In our modern world, no matter how much we pick and prod and probe at the past trying to figure out just way these young girls slandered and caused the deaths and imprisonment of so many innocent people, I feel we must also take into context the time and place in which these things happened.  While it is true that we can’t understand how things got so out of hand, it is also true that the world and its views used to be a lot different.  We can’t see through the eyes of the accusers or the accused in this instance and in such can only piece together our own theories without ever actually putting all the pieces together.

So what is my theory?  To paraphrase what someone said in class, “After seeing a scary movie, I see things in the shadows from the movie for days”.  For me, I think the girls of Salem were under the same captivating spell, at least at first.  Seeing magic performed by Tituba, something the girls knew even at their young ages was against the rules, the physical symptoms of the girls could have manifested themselves out of fear and thus could not be explained by a doctor.  Do I think the entire operation was mere fear and a bunch of girls thinking it was true?  Not in the least.  After getting so much attention and learning just what it was Tituba was showing them, and also why it was wrong, it is my belief that the girls became power-hungry.  Given so much attention by people of high rank in their society, when they were usually overlooked as unimportant for both being children and being female, the new idea that they might have something important to say or contribute must have been a powerful drug to them. 

For me, I imagine these girls the same way I picture one of my younger cousins, who I shall refer to from here on out as Kat.  As a young child, Kat liked to be the center of attention.  As a four year old, when she wasn’t the center of attention, she would do whatever she could to get attention, even if it meant telling lies.  I picture it being the same way with the girls of Salem who started the whole hysteria and witch hunts.  Anyone who’s told a lie can tell you; once you’ve started it’s as addictive as nicotine to a smoker.  Things keep going and snowball until they’re out of control.  And thus we have hysteria.

History repeats itself.  Sure, we’d love as Americans to say that the Witch Trials was a onetime deal, that we learned our lesson and moved on, but did we really?   No, we didn’t – just ask anyone persecuted during the Red Scare by McCarthyism.  During the Cold War, Rebublican Senator John McCarthy was that "a red scare of epic proportions was sweeping the United States" (Judge 95)*.  People left and right were being called communists, much like people were called witches back in the Puritan witch affair.  And yet, thinking about both black marks on our nation’s history, I can’t say that I can honestly blame anyone completely.  If I were a Puritan accused of being a witch, my options would be to say I was innocent and get hanged, accuse someone else, or admit to being a witch to get thrown in jail.  What would you do in that situation?  Follow the crowd for fear of being trampled by them?  Or, as John Proctor and a few other characters do in The Crucible, stand strong and speak out against the madness around you?

What, exactly, is evil anyways?  Is it like fate, or something that can be shaped and, in such, be avoided?  Is it in fact inherent inside all of us, lying in wait for the right moment to break free?  Or are we innocent as a people of the world until such a time that we choose to do evil unto another?  In today’s world words don’t hold as much weight as they used to.  People can throw around the words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ like they were feathers, and yet they can mean so much.  As per the quote Suzanne regaled us with in class from Hannibal Lector, “Can you stand to call me evil?” had been weighing heavily on my mind.  Could I call someone evil, even someone depraved or demented?  Is anyone really evil?  Or just misguided?  And, once fallen from the path, can someone get back on it again?  Can we really repent and make up for old wrongs, for sins we’ve committed?  Or in the end are we all doomed from our first breath?  Needless to say, this class has given my brain quite a workout already.

The entire time I was reading On Witchcraft, the point of Puritans being good as a collective and doing what they felt that had to in order to preserve the community as a whole rang very much for me like the finally Harry Potter book.  A young Albus Dumbledore and Grindelwald talked of Muggle casualties if the magical community tried to assume their place as the superior race as a necessary evil for the greater good.  In this way, the Puritans and Harry Potter seem to have a similar message, if only for a moment.  The people that were innocent yet murdered anyways in the Salem Witch Trials were the Muggles in this situation; their deaths were regrettable but necessary to the preservation of the whole. 

Is this a horrible and pathetic justification on Mather’s part?  In my opinion – YES, it very much is.  Whatever happened to the whole ‘Thou shall not kill’ part of the commandments?  Does killing in the name of God suddenly make murder okay?  This was not a matter of survival.  It was a matter of hysteria and panic causing people in a position of power to abuse said power and end innocent lives.  And yet, do I feel this part of history could have been avoided?  No, I don’t.  People as a whole tend to overreact in situations where they feel threatened.  As a Puritan, if I thought the Devil was sending witches to posses my neighbors and possible hurt myself, my family, or my children, I’m sure I would probably overreact too – especially if everyone around me was also overreacting and making it into a huge fuss.  What would any normal human being do in a situation of panic except be prone to overreact?

In a time of predestination and a religious education where Satan could be anywhere and everything, who wouldn’t be scared?  As Asma explains it in Biblical Monsters, God had to have created the frightening or ‘evil’ creatures that plagued the world, or at least allowed them to keep existing in it.  To quote Timothy K. Beal as Asma does, “Who is more monstrous, the creatures who must live through his vale of tears, or the creature who put them here” (Amsa, 63).  Try to image God as a parent with several children.  Now image the Devil as the school bully who is opening attacking and harming said children, or even as another adult abusing these children.  What kind of parent would allow their child to be treated so horrible?  Image being a Puritan with the view of God as a vengeful, uncaring parent, then try to tell me you wouldn’t be afraid of everything.  Who wouldn’t be scared in a situation where no matter what you did, your fate was already decided for you, and God didn’t care if you were a saint during your life time if it hadn’t already been decided that you were predestined to get into heaven?  In short, predestination is a scary mistress.  No wonder the Puritans panicked about the idea that the Devil might be in their midst with witches to aid him in corrupting their souls.

Whether you’re talking about Puritans and the Salem Witch Trials, the Red Scare and McCarthyism, or any other such case of panic snowballing into illogical hysteria, one fact remains true: a tortured past can follow us all.

* Quote taken from A Hard and Bitter Peace: A Global History of the Cold War by Edward H. Judge & John W. Langdon